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“Do you get your power from the devil?”
Doctor Strange, who was sitting on a stool across the counter from Kurtis (one that looked suspiciously more sturdy than his own) spat out their tea. They coughed. “From the—most certainly I do not. I have no powers whatsoever, what are you even talking about?”
“Hm.” Kurtis took a long sip of his own tea. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m simply interested in this quill of yours, Mr. Bradshaw,” Strange said. “It seems very valuable.”
“No one in the history of my career has ever, ever invited me to their collector’s museum for a cup of tea to discuss the price of an antique,” Kurtis said. “And no one’s aforementioned collector’s museums have ever waved to me when I walked in.”
Strange looked somewhat guilty. They scratched the back of their neck with a severely shaking hand. Kurtis wasn’t surprised they were drinking out of a thermos instead of a mug. “Might’ve been a trick of the light.”
“Your name is Doctor Strange, for God’s sake.”
“There’s no black magic in my Sanctum,” Strange said, and it did sound like they were telling the truth this time. “At least, not a lot. I actively try to avoid the stuff, actually. But… you know how it is. Black magic is like a great steaming pile of horse shit.”
Kurtis raised his eyebrows. “In what possible way?” he asked incredulously.
Strange wrinkled their nose. “I try to avoid both, but end up stepping in it anyway. Now listen, about that pen—”
“It’s not for sale.”
Strange huffed. “I guarantee you, price is not an issue.”
Kurtis glanced down at his cheap cup and cheaper stool in this kitchen that looked like it had seen better days in the 1700s, and begged to differ. He’d only accepted this offer because Strange’s name had sounded vaguely familiar. Kurtis wasn’t particularly on top of current events; he’d had enough apocalypses with Thanos, and if another one was coming he’d prefer not to hear about it ahead of time, thank you very much.
“The quill and its inkwell are a family heirloom. I won’t part from them.”
“Mr. Bradshaw,” Strange said, sounding like Kurtis was testing their patience superbly. “You seem to believe already that I possess some sort of magic.”
Kurtis contained his snort. Yes, wherever would I have gotten that idea? It’s definitely a habit for me to have tea parties with crippled witches. He could’ve sworn the stool beneath him got even more rickety.
“Let’s follow that illogic for a moment,” Strange continued. “Say I am, by some definition, a sorcerer. You are an antique collector that has been doing rather lucratively. In most stories about magic, the antique collectors are the first to die.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Strange looked genuinely shocked. “No! Why would—oh. Yeah, that’s fair. But what I meant was that your degree of people tend to be the most exposed to Mystical threats by nature of their profession. You just have a higher probability of coming across cursed objects or relics.”
Kurtis turned his empty cup over and set it on the counter. “You’re suggesting my pen is going to start writing in ghosts.”
“Not ghosts. Far more likely would be that all script in its vicinity begins to shift into one of the Old Languages, and anyone who reads it starts to find themselves aging at a faster rate…”
Strange trailed off, seeming distracted. Kurtis had heard the door open in the foyer a moment ago, and now Strange seemed to be trying to peer out of the kitchen over Kurtis’s head.
“Is there a problem?” Kurtis said pointedly.
“Always,” Strange grumbled. “Excuse me for a moment.”
They slid off their stool and made for the door, but not before someone else stepped into view. Him, Kurtis did recognize. One didn’t not know Tony Stark, after all. Kurtis found him generally intolerable, though he did appreciate him saving the world and all that.
“Hi,” said the billionaire with an easy grin. His glass eye was green—Kurtis had heard he tended to change the colors as often as possible.
“Hello,” Kurtis replied curtly. “It’s good to meet you.”
Stark breezed into the space and picked up Strange’s thermos. He took a drink of it and settled onto the edge of the counter, kicking his legs.
“Just make yourself at home,” Strange grumbled. “Tony, this is Mr. Kurtis Branshaw. Whom I am currently in a meeting with.”
“Yes, that antique guy, I remember. Buying another cursed object, are we?”
“They will not be buying anything,” Kurtis said sharply.
Stark looked delighted, as if Kurtis had just dealt out cards and challenged him to his favorite game. Strange rolled their eyes heavenward and sat down heavily on the stool.
“Here we go again,” they sighed.
“Oh hush,” said Stark. “I’ve been starved for this ever since I retired the company.”
“Would you like some tea or are you content to just steal mine?”
Stark took a long swig out of Strange’s thermos and grinned at him. To Kurtis, he said, “what makes you so loath to part with this object of yours?”
“The set has been in my family for generations,” Kurtis told him. “It’s of great sentimental value. My father had the quill on him when he died.”
Strange coughed pointedly into a shaking hand.
Stark ignored them. “I see. You agreed to meet with Merlin here, though; surely you didn’t come all this way just to tell them ‘not a chance’.”
Kurtis wondered how to politely say that that’s what people in his circles did. They sized up other rare collectors to see what advantages they had, and Kurtis had been fully prepared to do the same to Strange before realizing they were nothing like Kurtis’s normal business partners at all.
“I was curious about a new face in the business,” Kurtis said.
“They do have quite a nice one, I agree. But my point returns to this quill of yours; Strange seeks out very specific types of items. By which I mean dangerous and/or deadly.”
“I handle dangerous artefacts often,” Kurtis told him. “I have no intention of letting them get the better of me now, and certainly not this one.”
“You seem like an intelligent kid.” Stark took another sip of tea. “When you come to your senses, you may never get such a generous offer again.”
Kurtis’s nerves were starting to fray. He hated being talked down to, and he certainly hated being presumed about. “For an old inkwell and the pen that goes with it? Unlikely. I use the thing all the time, and it’s certainly not had any adverse effects.”
“Yet,” Strange muttered.
“Use your black magic to un-curse the thing, then, if it’s so important to you!” Kurtis growled.
“Doesn’t work that way. Not for this type of curse,” Strange said matter-of-factly.
“I can’t believe this.” Kurtis pushed away from the counter, and Strange winced as the teacup dragged across it.
“He’s being exceptionally stubborn, Glinda,” Stark said to the… whatever the hell they were. “Sure it’s not better to just let fate have its way?”
“I’m very sure. Mr. Bradshaw, you can name your price—”
“Oh, stop! It’s better in my hands anyway!” Kurtis snapped, finally losing his temper. “I mean honestly; can you even write?”
Strange stiffened. Kurtis nearly spat something else, relieved that he might finally be putting the witch off enough to leave him alone, but the words dried in his mouth when he saw the look on Stark’s face. The glass of his eye had turned to ice.
“Well,” Stark said coldly. “What am I if not an advocate for free will? It’s your funeral, Kurtis. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
It took nearly all of Kurtis’s self control not to look away. Strange gave Stark an exasperated look, but man didn’t shift. With a roll of their eyes, Strange cast their shaking hand through the air.
And Kurtis found himself standing on the front doorstep, watching the cars pass by the street ahead of him.
Black magic.
The blood drained out of his face.
He stood on the steps for a long, long moment, waiting to feel his soul leave his body or his eyes start doubling in number or whatever it was that witches and their half-robotic partners did to antique collectors that insulted them. But nothing happened. The doors seemed to glower at him, and the wind was picking up, but Kurtis stood unharmed before 177A.
Shaken, Kurtis edged toward his car. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his suit and tried to decide how, exactly, he felt about magic.
He decided that when he got home, he’d put the ink and quill in storage. Somewhere… somewhere far away.
Just in case.