Chapter Text
The only reason Tony was in his old mansion, going through his parents’ belongings at all, was because he’d wanted to find some of the letters he had sent to his mother when he had been in boarding school.
“FRI, did Howard have some kind of heirloom I didn’t know of?” Tony asked his girl, staring at the enigma that sat on top of the very dusty table.
“If it is in fact a heirloom, then no legal imprints or mentions of it exist, Boss,” she replied through his phone speaker.
Tony made an unsure noise.
The teapot, or rather, the lamp, as FRIDAY had so helpfully corrected him, was supposedly 24 karat gold and was thoroughly covered in beautiful, polished, real diamonds and gemstones. It looked very much like Aladdin’s lamp brought to real life.
And it looked very, very expensive.
Easily in the millions, with the number of stones he could see on the thing.
Tony sighed tiredly, reaching to take the lamp. “Wouldn’t be the first time Howard hid something from me,” he muttered under his breath, inspecting the lamp in his hands. Did it have something inside?
He tried to pry the lid open, but found it jammed from years of disuse. He decided not to brute force. The thing was 24K gold and could easily scratch from mishandling.
“Actually, how is this still in tip-top condition?” He wondered out loud, holding the lamp up towards brighter light to see if there were any dents or missing stones, but couldn’t find any. It was as good as new.
There was a very solid (or rather, soft) reason why most trinkets were never made of 24K gold, so he was quite surprised to find that the thing wasn’t even scratched.
“It’s not even dusty,” Tony said as he rubbed his fingers over the metal to see if any dust would come off. “It must’ve been sitting here for at least— holy—”
Golden sparks suddenly flared to life around the lamp, and Tony dropped it like hot potato. It landed with a couple of clanks on the table, somehow still upright.
The small golden sparks grew into a whirlwind of golden light and dust that steadily streamed out of the lamp’s spout, gathering into a clearing in the room. Tony scrambled out of his chair, instinctively activating his watch gauntlet as he pressed his back against the wall, staring wide-eyed at the scene, repulsor ready to blast whatever it was to kingdom come.
When the golden winds settled, there stood, dead in the middle of the room, a stranger man wearing odd blue-colored robes, a bright red cape flaring behind him. The man’s blue eyes settled on Tony, and he spoke in the most obscure, unrecognizable accent ever,
“O wondrous one who calleth me forth, mighty one who dost command, I abide by mine troth, sworn in fealty to thy thrice-spoken will.” He bowed dramatically.
Tony’s jaw was on the floor. “What. The. Fuck.”
“O.” The man — the genie!? — blinked, and the next moment, his blue eyes went distant, glowing an unnatural green that completely drowned out the blue.
“Boss, the new entity in the room just said in Shakespearean that he will grant you three wishes,” FRIDAY chimed in.
Tony shook himself out of his stupor as FRIDAY’s words registered in his mind. “Okay. Okay. So I’m not hallucinating.” He sucked in a shaky breath, the wall behind him being the only reason he hadn’t yet collapsed to the floor. “He had a genie,” Tony whispered. “My dad had a freaking real genie!”
“Your father, Howard Stark,” The genie spoke in that deep voice of his, drawing Tony’s attention. His eyes were back to normal and now his accent actually sounded like English rather than some dead, obscure language. “Not quite, since the last time I was out was on the 16th century. Even if your father did own my lamp, he didn’t know of me, or didn’t know how to call me. And your AI seems to have oversimplified what I said, but yes, in essence. I am now sworn loyalty to you, and shall fulfill your three wishes—”
“Okay now, hold up, back up a little.” Tony ran his gauntleted hand through his hair, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “So I haven’t just gone crazy imagining things, and you are in fact an actual, living, breathing genie. Like in the movies.” The Genie wouldn’t really know about the movies, Tony supposed, but that was all Tony could think of, as it was the sole available point of reference for him.
The Genie made a face at that, apparently indicating that he did, in fact, know about the movies. How, Tony had no idea. “Your movies seem to have grossly misrepresented me. And I’ve never had a master named ‘Aladdin’, nor have I ever been freed by the said master, as you can tell, I’m sure.” His voice grew drier than the Sahara near the end.
Okay. Okay. Tony pulled his abandoned chair towards him — and away from Genie — to sit down. Because this. This was a lot to unpack.
Now that he was actually taking note of the Genie, Tony realized that the man — the creature? The being? What did he even count as? — was right, as he looked nothing like Disney’s representation of the genie in Aladdin. To start off, he had full, fleshy legs. He was also not smoky despite the misty ostentatious show he had given when emerging out of the lamp. His clothes were odd — especially that red cape that felt like a poor imitation of a stereotypical superhero rather than the getup of a genie — and they did not put any bulky pectorals and abs on display; on the contrary, they were perhaps a touch too thick to be comfortable this time of the year.
The Genie himself seemed to have a permanent ‘I am judging you’ expression plastered on his face, his stance somehow managing to be passive-aggressive and respectful at the same time. Which, wow. He had cheekbones so sharp, Tony could probably cut himself on them. His blue eyes, now that he noted carefully, seemed to have a bit of green in them.
Or not, he thought when the Genie’s eyes flickered around the room, highlighting the blue more.
Tony honestly couldn’t tell if they were slightly green or if it only looked as such because of the eerie green glow the Genie’s eyes had radiated just a while ago. Right after which he had abruptly transitioned to speaking normal English in American accent as if it was his mother tongue.
And lastly, the Genie’s magic seemed to be colored golden (and green?) instead of that typical blue.
Right; magic. Aka Tony’s arch-nemesis, apparently.
So many things didn’t make sense here, and Tony hated it.
He hated magic.
“You’re magic,” Tony stated more than asked.
“Clearly,” Genie said dryly. “Or do you want further proof? Want me to do a pretty magic show for you? Or change myself into Will Smith and sing Friend Like Me to you?”
Tony narrowed his eyes. “How do you know about Aladdin movies? You get WiFi connection inside your lamp or something?”
“No,” Genie stated with a smirk. “It’s magic.”
Oh great, now he was just trying to get under Tony’s skin. Worse, he knew he was succeeding.
Tony really, really did not like this man.
“I suppose I have no choice but to give you a bit of demonstration, do I?” Genie said with that infuriating smile in his face, and raised his hands, golden light streaming out of them and filling the air of the room.
Tony’s heart lurched and he went rigid, eyes widening as he watched the golden and orange lights rapidly surround him. “Stop!” He yelled.
Jarringly, all the golden light died in a frizzle of sparks. The Genie lowered his hands, putting them behind his back, the smile was gone from his face, and all that remained was stoic indifference.
Silence.
Tony stared slack-jawed, trying to make sense of just what the heck had just happened. He could still hear the blood rushing loudly in his ears.
“Didn’t think you’d just stop like that,” He muttered, the words mostly meant for himself.
“Well, you commanded. I stopped,” Genie informed.
Tony blinked dumbly. “..So that counted as a wish? Because if so, then this wishing system is really dumb.”
“That was not a wish. A wish always starts with the words ‘I wish’ and you need to be touching the lamp while speaking it. That was a command by you on my autonomy, so I had to follow.”
Just when Tony thought that this couldn’t get any crazier.
If he was allowed to command the Genie’s autonomy, wasn’t that basically slavery..?
Genie cleared his throat. “So as I was saying previously, Master Stark—” Tony made a choking noise at the use of the word ‘master’, “—I will fulfill your three wishes—”
“Yeah no, fuck that.”
Genie blinked. “What?”
“Don’t want any wishes,” Tony said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand, “In fact, don’t want anything to do with you. Go back to your magic teapot or whatever.”
The Genie was stunned into silence for a long moment. “You don’t have any wishes? Nothing that you desire, that you crave? I can give you almost anything.”
How about a life of peace and quiet, Tony pondered tiredly. He was sure that even the all-powerful genie wouldn’t be able to give him that. “Now you sound like you’re trying to sell me stuff. Anyway, the answer’s no. I’m a billionaire.” He spread his arms dramatically. “I’ve got everything I could need.”
“Everything?” The Genie challenged.
“.. I could have everything. If I wanted. Also, I don’t trust you,” Tony deflected, pointing a finger at the Genie.
Which was very much true. He wasn’t ever going to trust any magic.
And then he realized that, if someone else got their hands on this magical lamp, they could have access to this infinite power in the form of three simple wishes. Oh god, Tony thought as horror filled his stomach. What am I going to do with the lamp?
He swallowed thickly, trying to stomp down his fear, and made a shooing gesture at Genie. “Now go back to your little fancy lamp and don’t come out again.”
The Genie pursed his lips, his brows almost, almost pulling into an annoyed frown. “I have to serve you until either your three wishes are fulfilled, or you die.”
“Does that prevent you from going back in there?”
“I.. well, no,” Genie’s eyes once flickered to the lamp that sat there on the table, and then back to Tony. He looked a little fidgety, as though nervous.
Or, perhaps, helpless was a better descriptor.
Tony sighed, rubbing his eyes. He could understand the Genie’s sentiment, of not wanting to go back in. The lamp must be like a confinement to him. A dark cave of imprisonment. Always stay in there, never see or feel the daylight on your skin unless your ‘master’ was generous enough to let you out. It was cruel.
Tony had been there.
He should free him, like in the movies. It was the right thing to do. The Genie was only human — was he? Or was he something else? Either way, he was a sentient being — and therefore deserved freedom, deserved to make his own choices. Philosophically, he knew all of that.
But..
He recalled the dreaded, bloody color of Maxomiff’s magic. He recalled the horrifying vision he’d seen one too many times through closed eyes. He recalled the pit to Hell that still existed beneath the Avengers Compound, from when Maximoff had shoved Vision down.
He looked up at the Genie who had yet to move from his position since emerging out of the lamp.
Tony knew practically nothing about this creature. Was he even human? What if magic was simply a part of him? What if he kept the magic even after being freed from the lamp?
How powerful was he, truly? What would his motivations be, after being freed? Would he lash out at humans, for being forced to serve them for how-so-many years?
Wouldn’t he?
Tony had too many questions, and no answers. But one thing he knew with certainty was, he couldn’t just free this Genie. There was too much at stake.
Nor could he let the lamp fall on the wrong hands.
“Even if you send me back in.. I’ll still be bound to you,” The Genie spoke, and it sounded a lot like he was grasping at straws so as to not be sent back in. Tony tried to ignore the stab of guilt he felt for his cruelty. “No one else will be able to dictate me their wishes. I’ll be quite useless.”
That piqued Tony’s interest.
“Even if someone got their hands on the lamp?” He asked. “They won’t be able to make wishes to you?”
The Genie shook his head. “You called me first. I’m sworn to stay loyal to you first. No one else can command me until your wishes are fulfilled.”
Tony sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it, before he asked his next question.
“And what if I just never make any wishes?”
The Genie looked at him from one eye to another, his expression unreadable. “Then I keep waiting on you to make your wishes, until the day you die. Those are the rules.”
Tony bit his lip and looked down at the lamp, frantically tapping his fingers at the table.
This was madness. Tony should stop this blooming idea in his head before it was too late.
Except, every possible option he had available right now was madness too. He couldn’t free the Genie, he didn’t know how powerful the being was, and how much of a threat it might end up being for their little planet. He couldn’t send the Genie back into the lamp, that was like a cruel imprisonment. He couldn’t make wishes, because once all the three wishes were fulfilled, the Genie would no longer be loyal to Tony.
So, realistically, only one option was left.
Even if it sounded morally very ambiguous.
Tony turned to look up at the Genie. “What’s your name?”
The Genie opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes grew unfocused and brow pulled into a frown, as though trying to remember his own name.
The sight gave Tony a pang of heartache for the man.
“Do you not remember it?”
“..No one has ever asked my name,” the Genie replied.
Tony gave a half-shrug. “There’s gotta be a first time for everything. We could give you a new name if you can’t remember.”
“Stephen,” The Genie — Stephen — spoke after another long moment of thought. “It’s Stephen Strange.”
Huh. Tony wondered if that was truly his name, or if he had simply named himself on the spot after what Tony had said. Likely the latter, given that Tony could not imagine what thousands of years old creature would be named ‘Stephen’. And ‘Strange’ for his last name? Pff.
If nothing, at least the guy had a decent sense of humor.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as disastrous as Tony dreaded.
“Well, Stephen Strange,” Tony said, standing up from his seat, “Welcome to the Avengers Family.”