By Saturday morning, Stephen Strange had come to a single, undeniable conclusion:
Anthony Stark was going to suffer.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a world-ending way.
Nothing that would make headlines or summon gods.
Just enough.
Something deeply inconvenient. Petty in the way only true exhaustion could inspire. A precise, elegant act of retaliation crafted by a man who had spent the last twenty-four hours preventing four brilliant teenagers from accidentally weaponizing his library.
Because the problem, Stephen had learned, was not that the children were malicious.
The problem was that they were curious.
There was no defense against curiosity when it wore Peter Parker's earnest focus, Ned Leeds's excited brilliance, Harley Kenner's reckless confidence, and Princess Shuri's terrifying competence.
And the Sanctum, unfortunately, was a building made almost entirely of things they should not touch.
So when duty called that morning, Stephen made the only decision available to a man whose life had become a magical hostage negotiation.
He took the children with him.
The main hall of the Sanctum was already alive when Stephen descended the staircase.
Sorcerers moved between doorways and relic rooms in flashes of red and blue robes, the air humming with contained magic and early-morning ritual. Apprentices carried scrolls. One master argued softly with a glowing, floating astrolabe that seemed personally offended by geometry. A minor portal blinked open near the far wall, depositing a stack of letters onto a table before snapping shut again.
It was, by Sanctum standards, a normal morning.
Until Stephen entered the room followed by Peter, Ned, Harley, and Shuri.
The shift in the air was immediate.
Subtle.
But there.
A few heads turned.
A few conversations paused for half a breath too long.
One apprentice walking with a tray of crystal vials nearly missed a step.
Stephen felt it instantly.
He did not slow.
Did not acknowledge it.
Did not dignify the collective, silent realization settling across the room like aggressive incense.
Peter, oblivious for three full seconds, looked around.
"Why is everybody staring?"
"Because," Harley said under his breath, "we look like a field trip."
Ned adjusted the strap on his bag. "No, this is worse. This is definitely the vibe of people assuming things."
Shuri's mouth twitched.
Stephen kept walking.
The sorcerers, of course, said nothing.
No one asked.
No one would ever ask.
They simply stepped aside with the grave politeness of people who had already reached an extremely incorrect conclusion and intended to honor it forever.
One older master inclined his head toward Stephen, then looked at the children, then back at Stephen with an expression of such respectful neutrality that it looped all the way around to deeply suspicious.
"Doctor Strange," he said.
"Master Elbron."
"A busy morning?"
Stephen did not even blink.
"Yes."
The older man's gaze flicked to Peter, who smiled awkwardly and waved.
To Ned, who was already staring at a floating map of ley lines like he wanted to taste it intellectually.
To Harley, who looked one badly timed question away from getting banned from three dimensions.
To Shuri, who somehow managed to radiate royal patience and academic threat at the same time.
Master Elbron nodded once.
"Of course."
Then he walked away.
Harley leaned closer.
"He definitely thinks we're yours."
Stephen kept moving.
"He definitely values his continued existence."
"That's not a no," Peter muttered.
Stephen's first meeting of the day was with a delegation from the Veskar Fold, a species of long-lived astral entities who existed in two planes at once and found linear conversation emotionally vulgar.
Under normal circumstances, Stephen would have preferred to handle them alone.
Under current circumstances, that was impossible.
Because he was not leaving four teenagers unsupervised in a building where at least seven objects in the west wing could either steal your memories or turn your hands inside out if touched incorrectly.
So the children came with him.
The negotiation chamber was circular, dimly lit, and lined with old protective sigils carved into the stone floor. At its center hovered three Veskar envoys, beautiful and unsettling, their forms shifting between translucent humanoid outlines and star-field abstractions that made direct eye contact feel like falling through a dream.
Stephen took his place.
The children stood behind him in a line that might have looked disciplined if Harley had not immediately whispered,
"Why do they look like sentient constellations with opinions?"
One of the envoys turned its faceless glow toward him.
"We do have opinions."
Harley blinked.
"…Cool."
Stephen closed his eyes briefly.
"Please," he said without turning, "for the love of every mystical order in existence, remain silent unless spoken to."
Peter raised a hand halfway.
"Technically, he was spoken to."
Stephen did not look back.
"Peter."
"Sorry."
The negotiation proceeded.
Slowly.
Painfully.
With the measured precision of magical diplomacy and the increasingly difficult task of keeping Ned from visibly vibrating every time one of the envoys referenced folded spatial harmonics.
At one point, Shuri leaned slightly toward Peter and whispered,
"Their phase-state coherence is remarkable."
Peter whispered back,
"I know, right?"
Stephen, still speaking to the envoys, snapped one hand backward blindly in the universal gesture for absolutely not.
The children subsided.
For almost three full minutes.
Then Ned spotted a floating glyph array etched into the ceiling and whispered, much too eagerly,
"Wait, is that a six-dimensional containment lattice?"
One of the envoys rotated toward him in sudden interest.
Stephen saw Peter and Harley both turn toward Ned with identical oh no expressions.
The envoy drifted lower.
"The small one sees well."
Ned straightened.
"I'm not that small."
Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose.
The envoy ignored this.
"Would you care," it asked Ned, "to explain the flaw in our binding matrix?"
Stephen turned his head very slowly.
Ned's eyes went wide.
Peter mouthed, do not.
Harley mouthed, absolutely do.
Shuri watched with the serene focus of a scientist observing a lab rat approach a button labeled catastrophe.
Ned swallowed.
Then, because the universe hated Stephen personally, said,
"…The tension anchors are beautiful, but you're bleeding efficiency at the fourth rotational point. If you inverted the lower ring and stabilized the outer rhythm, you could cut energy loss by thirteen percent."
Silence.
Then the envoys brightened.
Stephen stared at the ceiling.
One of the Veskar said, almost reverently,
"Your offspring is gifted."
And that was that.
Stephen's soul attempted to leave his body.
Behind him, Peter made a strangled noise.
Harley bit his fist to stop laughing.
Shuri, traitor that she was, looked pleased.
Stephen clasped his hands behind his back with great control and said, in a voice so level it should have won awards,
"He is not my—"
The envoy continued over him.
"We accept the revised terms. Also, the child may correspond with us."
Stephen stopped talking.
Because somehow that was worse.
Ned looked like Christmas had arrived, exploded, and built him a scholarship.
When the meeting ended and the envoys vanished in a sigh of starlight, Harley lost the battle completely and laughed loud enough to echo.
"Oh my God," he wheezed. "Your offspring?"
Stephen turned and fixed him with a look that had once made a demon apologize.
Harley tried very hard to recover.
Failed.
Peter was bent over, face in his hands.
Ned looked guilty for approximately half a second before remembering he had just impressed a cosmic delegation.
Shuri folded her hands neatly in front of her.
"That went well."
Stephen stared at all of them.
Then at Ned.
"…You are not to correspond with astral entities without supervision."
Ned's face fell.
"Aw."
By midday, the gossip had metastasized.
Stephen knew it because sorcerers who had known him for years were now giving him the kind of respectful berth usually reserved for men carrying volatile relics or sleeping infants.
No one said anything directly.
That was the maddening part.
The apprentices were worse.
Stephen caught snippets as he passed through hallways.
"…all three boys have his eyes when they're concentrating."
"That is biologically impossible."
"So is half the stuff in this building."
"I heard one of them corrected a Veskar envoy."
"Well, that tracks."
"Do you think the princess is adopted or just visiting?"
Stephen walked faster.
Peter, unfortunately, heard one of them.
He turned, scandalized.
"Did they just say we have your eyes?"
Harley immediately squinted at Stephen.
"I do not have your eyes. That'd be horrifying."
Ned looked deeply offended.
"I think I have nice eyes."
Shuri, with absolutely no mercy, said,
"The resemblance is behavioral."
Stephen stopped walking.
Turned slowly.
Looked at all four of them.
And discovered, to his profound irritation, that they were trying not to smile.
"Oh, that's low," Peter said softly.
Harley pointed at him.
"She got you."
Stephen resumed walking with the rigid dignity of a man choosing not to cast anyone into another plane in front of witnesses.
By early afternoon, they reached Kamar-Taj's training grounds for the Saturday instruction sessions.
This, Stephen had naively hoped, might improve his day.
It did not.
The novice apprentices assembled in one courtyard.
The advanced class assembled in another.
Stephen was scheduled to teach combat applications to the advanced students.
The children, however, had never attended formal mystic training.
Which meant they had to join the beginner class.
Peter looked personally offended by this.
"We're in beginner class?"
"Yes."
"But we know things."
Stephen raised a brow.
"You know enough to be dangerous and not enough to survive your own confidence. Beginner class."
Ned nodded thoughtfully.
"That's fair."
Harley folded his arms.
"This feels targeted."
"It is," Stephen said.
Shuri glanced toward the advanced courtyard where Stephen's class was already gathering.
"So you will be teaching them while we are taught by someone else."
"Yes."
Peter pointed accusingly.
"You're abandoning us."
Stephen stared at him.
Then, awkwardly, because apparently he had become someone who had to explain instructional placement like a school parent on curriculum night, said,
"No. I am placing you in the class appropriate to your level so that you build fundamentals safely."
There was a pause.
Peter blinked.
Ned blinked.
Harley blinked.
Shuri's expression shifted by a fraction.
Stephen immediately regretted how sincere that had sounded.
So he added, more stiffly:
"And because if I allow any of you into advanced combat casting right now, you will accidentally summon something with legal standing."
Harley grinned.
"There he is."
The beginner instructor, Master Rune, was approximately six years old.
Or at least, that was how Harley described her in a whisper that almost got him smacked by Shuri.
In truth, Master Rune was a compact, fierce woman of indeterminate age whose severe braid and expression of permanent disappointment made her seem capable of defeating armies through posture alone.
She looked over the four new additions, then at Stephen.
Then back at them.
"Yours?" she asked.
Stephen froze.
Peter's face went crimson.
Ned choked.
Harley made a sound like he'd been punched by joy.
Shuri, Judas in human form, simply said,
"Temporarily."
Stephen closed his eyes.
Master Rune nodded as though that answered everything.
"Very well."
It did not answer anything.
Stephen opened his mouth to object.
Then stopped.
Because the advanced students were waiting, and if he tried to unravel this now, he would lose the next two hours of his life and possibly his composure.
So he turned on his heel and walked toward his own class with the heavy grace of a man refusing to acknowledge a burning carriage behind him.
From the beginner yard, Harley called after him in a stage whisper,
"Bye, Dad!"
Stephen did not turn around.
That was the only reason Harley survived.
Teaching advanced combat magic to highly trained sorcerers was normally one of Stephen's favorite duties.
There was discipline in it.
Precision.
A satisfaction in technique done correctly.
Today, however, he had the deeply unique experience of instructing one class while, from across the courtyard, being forced to watch Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Harley Kenner, and Princess Shuri get absolutely annihilated by beginner rune work.
Master Rune did not believe in mercy.
She believed in repetition, structural accuracy, and public educational humiliation.
"Again," she barked.
Peter redrew the containment rune.
It collapsed in on itself immediately.
Harley's shield rune appeared sideways, buzzed once, and vanished.
Ned's almost worked, then overcomplicated itself into decorative brilliance and technical uselessness.
Shuri's was the only one that held for longer than three seconds, which clearly offended Master Rune on principle.
Stephen, standing in the center of the advanced yard while demonstrating an offensive sigil sequence, had to stop himself from visibly reacting every time one of the children failed.
He pointed sharply at one of his own students.
"Your elbow is too high."
Across the way, Peter's rune detonated in a burst of harmless sparks and humiliation.
Stephen's eye twitched.
One of his advanced students followed his gaze and made the fatal mistake of smiling.
"Master Strange," the student said carefully, "should we be concerned that you seem… distracted?"
Stephen turned back so fast the student nearly stepped backward.
"No."
A beat.
Then, because honesty was already dead:
"Continue."
He resumed the demonstration.
Behind him, from the beginner yard:
"Mr. Parker," Master Rune snapped, "that shape is an insult to language."
Stephen very nearly laughed.
He disguised it as a cough.
It did not fool anyone.
Another ten minutes passed.
He demonstrated an advanced shield break.
Corrected a stance.
Redirected a casting angle.
And watched, with something dangerously close to parental distress, as Ned got smacked in the forehead by a rebounding practice sigil.
Ned recoiled, offended.
"It attacked me!"
Master Rune looked unimpressed.
"No. You built it badly and it returned home."
The advanced students were openly losing focus now.
Not because Stephen was teaching badly.
Because every time he thought no one was watching, his eyes slid back to the beginner yard with the exact expression of a man witnessing his children get bullied by geometry.
One apprentice leaned toward another and whispered, not quietly enough,
"He really does care."
Stephen heard that.
So did half the yard.
He chose violence.
Not literal violence.
Just instructional brutality.
"Pair off," he said coldly to the advanced class. "If any of you have energy left for gossip, you clearly require harder drills."
That shut them up beautifully.
Across the courtyard, Peter finally managed to hold a simple anchoring rune for a full five seconds.
He looked up immediately, searching for Stephen without meaning to.
Stephen, who was in the middle of disarming an advanced student with one-handed spellwork, looked over just in time to see Peter's face light up.
And because he was, against his will, becoming exactly the sort of person the rumors suggested, he gave one short nod.
Peter straightened with ridiculous visible pride.
Master Rune saw it.
Of course she saw it.
She turned to Stephen across the yard and called,
"If you encourage him now, he'll become unbearable."
Stephen answered before thinking.
"He already is."
Peter gasped in betrayal.
Harley laughed so hard he had to lean on Ned.
Even Master Rune's mouth twitched.
By the end of the afternoon, all four children were sweaty, bruised in pride, ink-smudged, magically exhausted, and deeply offended by the beginner curriculum.
Peter flopped dramatically onto a low stone bench.
"I got beaten up by symbols."
Ned rubbed his forehead.
"I think one of mine judged me."
Harley pointed at a half-finished rune on his practice sheet.
"This one definitely hated me."
Shuri, who had performed best and therefore taken Rune's standards the hardest, crossed her arms.
"Her teaching method is insult-based."
Stephen approached them with the careful neutrality of a man walking toward four injured egos and at least three incoming complaints.
"How did beginner class go?"
All four of them turned to look at him.
The silence was deafening.
Then Peter said,
"I think I was personally humbled by a triangle."
Stephen nodded slowly.
"That sounds accurate."
Harley stared at him.
"You watched us get destroyed."
"I watched you learn."
"That is a deeply evil rebranding."
Ned looked up hopefully.
"Did we at least do okay?"
Stephen opened his mouth.
Paused.
Because the truth was yes, in places. Brilliantly so. But they were also sloppy, overconfident, dramatic, easily distracted, and one united brainstorm away from inventing magical OSHA violations.
So he said, awkwardly sincere once again:
"You did better than most do on their first formal day."
They all went still.
Peter sat up.
Harley blinked.
Ned lit from the inside.
Shuri's expression smoothed into something quieter.
Stephen instantly regretted having feelings in public.
So he ruined it.
"Do not let that inflate your egos," he said. "You were still terrible in several memorable ways."
Harley relaxed.
"Okay, there he is."
Peter smiled despite himself.
Ned actually looked proud.
Vision, who had appeared midway through the last half hour and was now standing nearby with a cup of tea like a spectator at the strangest school recital on Earth, said mildly,
"I observed improvement."
Peter pointed at him.
"Thank you. See? That's real support."
Vision considered this.
"It was still largely unimpressive."
Peter lowered his hand.
"I hate everyone here."
"No," Stephen said automatically.
Then froze.
Because that had come out far too fast.
Peter looked up at him.
Stephen adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves with more dignity than the moment deserved.
"What I mean," he said, in the carefully controlled tone of a man trying to stuff accidental fathering back into a locked box, "is that if you hated everyone here, you would stop trying so hard to impress us."
Silence.
Then Harley made the softest, most delighted little noise in the world.
Ned looked like he might actually melt.
Peter went pink all the way to the ears.
Shuri's expression turned positively feline.
Stephen looked at the sky and wondered if Dormammu had perhaps been easier.
The weekend, he realized, was not even half over.
And somehow he still had diplomatic correspondence, relic inventory, and four children who now absolutely knew he was emotionally compromised.
Anthony Stark, he thought with great clarity, was never hearing the end of this.