The sound of glass breaking somewhere down the hallway interrupted Stephen Strange from his reading. The man's eyes froze over the passage he was on, eyebrow twitching and lips pulling taunt.

"Cloak!" Stephen hollered angrily as he jammed an old, faded grocery receipt into his book to mark his place and then slammed the pages shut with a resounding thump.

The Cloak of Levitation zoomed around the corner, from the opposite direction of the way the crash had come from, its collar erected in indignation.

"I thought you were watching Tilly," Stephen accused between clenched teeth.

The cloak shrugged its bulk, collar twirling sideways dramatically before drifting off the way they came. Stephen got the message they were trying to send: "Fuck you." Before he could yell after them another crash echoed throughout the building accompanied by a reptilian cry.

Counting back from ten Stephen stood, leaving his book on the coffee table with a kindness that took effort. As much as he wanted to be upset with the cloak, he understood its frustration. He was feeling it too. They were both at their wits' end.

Neither Wong, himself, nor any of the other masters had been able to recreate the spell that had summoned the little dragon creature in Portland. The extremists who had performed it had obviously made many outlandish errors and had not documented any of their methods. Without the ability to know exactly what spell had summoned the creature, it was impossible to create the reverse to send it back where it came from. Forcing Stephen, as penance for his arrogance and as the one the creature had bonded with, to take the thing home.

To say it's been a long two weeks was a gross understatement.

Tillamook, who Stephen had named after an ice cream brand the tired sorcerer had discovered in Portland, was a handful. She (they were pretty sure it was a she) had no clue what the word 'coordinated' meant or how to conduct herself in a home filled with ancient, delicate treasures. Nor did she seem to understand how powerful she was; and she had a nasty habit of throwing herself off the grand staircase and then throwing a temper tantrum when either Stephen or the cloak saved her…

Tillamook was getting better, making an honest effort to learn how to conduct herself properly, which Stephen wholeheartedly appreciated (especially the fact that she hadn't mauled anyone since the incident in the forest). He could even admit that he was starting to grow fond of her. Starting to care. The problem was Tillamook still couldn't tame the urge to throw herself from large heights, meaning she still needed to be supervised at all times. Something Stephen had been under the impression the cloak had been doing so he could take a well-earned break.

The sorcerer found Tillamook just where he thought he would, dashing back up the grand staircase to throw herself off the ledge once more. A shattered mirror and the dented floorboards below confirmed she'd already done so several times.

"Tillamook!" Stephen snapped.

The tiny blue creature froze from where she was standing between the guardrails. She took several steps back from the edge, her stiff posture betraying that the action took a large amount of mental effort on her part, before facing Stephen. The doctor felt a bit of guilt at the watery sheen in Tillamook's eyes and the tremble of her non-existent lips. Once again, he took a deep breath and counted back from ten in an effort to bring his frayed temper back under control.

Whatever was causing this need for Tillamook to jump from great heights was clearly not her fault. She'd made great efforts and had huge successes in learning how to behave around the house otherwise. Plus, it was clear that she wanted to please Stephen, the way she hung off his every word and often followed him around was proof of that. No, there was something more physiological or evolutionary going on here. Something, that for no lack of trying, Stephen didn't understand.

The first project he and Wong had taken on after it was clear that there was no way to send Tillamook home was to find out as much as they could about her species. They'd spent hours scouring the libraries of the New York Sanctum and Karma Taj looking for answers, yet not finding any.

There was no way they could go through the vast amounts of resources they had available to them in just a few short weeks, but considering how skilled both sorcerers were at research, it wasn't often that they went this long without answers. After a few days, Wong had admitted defeat and forced them both to resume their daily lives with the caveat that they assigned a library assistant the sole job to continue looking. Nothing had turned up yet leaving Stephen with no clue about how to help poor Tillamook.

"We've talked about this Tilly," Stephen sighed wearily as he knelt beside the creature. Tillamook shuffled forward to rest her large head against Stephen's knee, looking utterly rejected and peeved at the same time. The doctor ran a comforting hand over her helmet. "Not only are you damaging valuable artifacts, but you risk injuring yourself also. If you were to get hurt I'd have no idea how to help you. We still don't know anything about your physiology."

"Ba," Tillamook agreed mournfully, further hiding her head in Stephen's robes. The anguish in her voice pulled at the doctor's heart. He needed to fix this. Now.

The sounds of "Gorgeous" by Taylor Swift blaring throughout the Sanctum had Stephen shooting up onto his feet like a rocket, head swiveled eagerly towards the front door. In a blink of an eye, his lounge clothes were traded in for his sorcerer wear and the Cloak zipped onto his shoulders, bad mood completely forgotten. Stephen didn't even feel annoyed at the Sanctum's way of letting him know they had a visitor.

Tony was here.

The arrival of Tillamook had forced Stephen to postpone his normal brunches and lab days that were most definitely not dates with the Avenger. As much as he dearly missed the genius, Stephen couldn't be separated from Tillamook. He needed to be one hundred percent assured that the creature would be on her best behavior before he introduced them. As much as Stephen thought Tony would be amused by Tillamook, he didn't think it would last if she were to accidentally ram her seemingly indestructible head into one of his bots.

No, it was best to wait, but it seemed that Tony predictably had gotten tired of waiting.

"Do you remember how you're supposed to act when we have guests?" Stephen rushed out.

"Ba," Tillamook nodded as she regarded the door with a tilted head and narrowed eyes.

"Good. That's good," Stephen breathed as his head swiveled between his charge and the shadow approaching the entrance. "Just…wait here for a moment."

The music cut off a second before the doors opened themselves to reveal Tony Stark in his pressed suit, designer sunglasses, and take-out bag in hand. Instead of giving into the urge to blush, Stephen straightened his spine and forced his shoulders back as he let the cloak glide him down the staircase in what he hoped was an impressive fashion.

"Tony," Stephen greeted with a refined nod as his feet touched down in front of his guest.

"Wizard," Tony drawled, an eyebrow lifting above his sunglasses that stubbornly stayed in place.

Yeah; Stephen had ignored him far too long.

"I can explain my absence," Stephen declared as he clasped his hands behind his back, trying not to appear cowed although he most definitely was.

"Can you?" the genius mocked.

"Yes. A foreign creature has come to reside in our world through no fault of her own. After concluding that it is not possible to send her home, I have been tasked with her care until she can adjust to our world as I am the one that made first contact. I didn't mean to let my silence go on as long as it has, but things have been…challenging given that we have been unable to locate any information about her species. I truly meant to reach out as soon as Tilly fully settled in and didn't expect things to take this long."

"And you couldn't have said any of that in a text?" Tony retorted as he crossed his arms, take-out bag dangling dangerously between his fingers. "Or even a little voice message? Anything other than 'I apologize but I'll need to reschedule.'" The last part was said in finger quotes.

Stephen wrung his hands behind his back, his ego fighting with his need to beg for forgiveness.

"I really am sorry," the doctor implored, injecting as much honest authenticity into his voice as possible. "Time had gotten aw-"

"Baaaaaagonnnnnn!"

Stephen turned just in time to catch Tillamook flapping her little dinosaur arms as she plunged to the ground. The cloak made a mad dive to catch her but just missed the little dragon. What ended up happening was Tillamook crashing headfirst into the ground, cracking the magically reinforced floorboards.

There were a few seconds of horror when Stephen was certain Tillamook had broken her neck, but the weird creature easily popped up onto her feet like a rabbit. She attempted to make her way back up the stairs, only to start screaming and flailing when the cloak wrapped around her shoulders and tried to drag her back down.

Terror subsided the only emotion left for Stephen to feel was humiliation. A full body cringe shook him from the top of his head to his toes as he slowly pivoted on his feet to face Tony.

Tony's body was tilted comically to the side to see past Stephen's much taller frame, his jaw dangling towards the floor. His glasses had slipped down to the edge of his nose exposing his wide periodically blinking eyes.

"When were you going to tell me you got a Pokémon!"

"Okay, first, Tillamook is not a Pokémon," Stephen tried to explain as Tony pushed past him into the foyer. Tilly stopped struggling against the cloak so she could evaluate the newcomer, her clawed toes scraping against the ground the only sign of her uncertainty.

"No, the first thing is that you named her Tillamook. Even I could do better than that," Tony complained as he squatted down in front of the creature. Tilly sniffed his outstretched hand suspiciously but thankfully didn't protest the petting that followed. "And second, she's a Pokémon. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."

Stephen rolled his eyes as he shut the doors with a flick of his finger.

"We don't know what she is. She was brought here by an extremist group trying to use a spell far above their capabilities to summon a dragon-"

"Yeah, cuz she's a dragon type."

"To take over Portland."

"Oregon?"

"Yep."

"That tracks," Tony nodded.

"They messed up the original spell so badly that Wong and I can't figure out how to recreate it to send her home, so I've been trying to help her adjust to living here. That would be a much easier process if we could find any kind of information that explained her need to constantly be jumpi-" Stephen was cut off by Tony thrusting his phone into Stephen's face.

There, taking up most of the screen, was an exact picture of Tillamook. The article was titled "Bagon" with the word Pokémon in parentheses right next to it.

Stephen stumbled back, sitting down hard on the stairs.

"It's true. I was high out of my mind when I played "Ruby" for the first time," Tony said as he settled down primly next to Stephen, folding one leg over the other. The inventor couldn't contain the wide, giddy, childlike smile as he observed the cloak once again attempting to keep Tillamook from ascending the staircase.

'Bagon is a dragon type Pokémon introduced in generation 3," the entry read, Stephen's eyes flying over the words at record breaking speeds. "It evolves into Shelgon starting at level 30, which evolves into Salamence starting at level 50."

"But I definitely remember my Bagon," Tony continued wistfully. "Well, Salamence mostly. Nicknamed it Puff."

"Bagon lives in rough terrains with cliffs and rocks. It longs to fly and jumps off cliffs trying to be able to do so. Frustrated at its inability to fly, it leaps off cliffs and smashes its head against large rocks indiscriminately. This process of continually bashing its head causes it to become as hard as steel. Well-developed neck muscles support its hard head. This, combined with its powerful body, allows it to shatter rocks with its head. Bagon is known to be rather solitary, preferring not to form groups with others of its kind. It has been theorized that Bagon's habit of head-bashing and pure belief influences the cells needed to help it evolve."

The small part of Stephen that still believed in some kind of rational universal order died. A painfully agonizing gory death. The kind of death even HBO couldn't show. So many puzzle pieces about Tillamook were starting to slide into place. Stephen hated it. A low, anguished whine escaped his lips.

"Puff was my best friend during the 48 hours it took me to complete that game," Tony said, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "Which only took me so long because I was higher than Mt. Everest. Don't do drugs, kids."

Tillamook was screeching again as she tried to wrestle the cloak off herself, both tumbling over the other in the entryway.

The rest of the entries Stephen read as he scanned further down the page seemed to reiterate the same thing. Tillamook would one day evolve to have a true dragon-like form, wings and all. Her need to throw herself off the staircase wasn't a danger, but actually a necessary part of her development. An evolutionary, instinctual need Stephen had not only been depriving her of but scolding her for.

"Long story short," Tony finished as he pulled a fry from his bag and plopped it into his mouth. "I totally know a Bagon when I see one. Hence Pokémon."

"Tilly!" Stephen called for as he stood with a flourish, extracting his sling ring from his belt and sliding it onto his fingers. A few circular waves of his arms had a portal opening to the edge of a small cliff face. "Go jump."

"Baaa!" Tillamook cheered with excitement as she rushed the cliff face, not giving the magical portal an ounce of attention. Stephen couldn't help the warm smile that spread across his face at the sound of Tilly's joyous squealing accompanying her all the way down. Pokémon or not, she was his ward to take care of now. It was his job to care for her. To ensure her happiness, wellbeing and to help her reach her full potential. And Stephen Strange had never half-assed any task set to him in his life no matter how, well, strange.

"You mind giving her a ride back up?" Stephen asked the cloak.

The cloak was still for a moment, it's version of giving Stephen the stink-eye, before zooming after their little miscreant. They really couldn't complain that she seemed to have found a productive outlet for her energy.

Tony and Stephen found a large boulder to perch on as they supervised Tilly's playtime, a distant sea breeze ruffling their hair. They were content to just watch, munch on their burgers, and contemplate the ridiculous wonder of this new development.

"Pokémon are real." Tony declared as he bunched up his wrapper and threw it back in the bag. He'd had a good thirty minutes to let that fact sink in, but it still didn't feel real even once spoken out loud.

"It would seem so," Stephen mumbled despondently around his burger. He was trying not to think about the amount of time in his future that would be spent playing video games and watching anime.

"God, Peter's going to lose his mind. So, you're basically what? A Pokémon trainer?" Tony shook his head in disbelief. "Fuck being an Avenger or Sorcerer. You've obtained the ultimate title in life, and I've never been more jealous of anything. Ever. Are you sure you can't cook up another one?"

"Positive," Stephen stated with no room for argument, directing a scolding look the inventor's way. "And even if I could, I wouldn't attempt it. We still don't know what long-term consequences Tillamook's presence here will create for our world and her own wellbeing."

Tony pouted but nodded, conceding defeat to the younger man's logic.

"I guess if I can't be a Pokémon trainer myself, being our world's first Pokémon trainer's boyfriend will have to do."

Stephen, who had been savoring his last bite, choked.

"Come again?" Stephen asked once he'd gotten his coughing under control, waving away Tony's concerned hands.

"Pick me up for dinner at seven," Tony demanded as he stood once he was assured Stephen would be okay. He brushed his slacks off before making his way through the still open portal. "Saturday. At the tower. Doesn't need to be lavish but I still expect quality. Cozy hole in the wall type of vibe. Got it?"

Stephen could only nod eagerly. He'd kick himself later for looking like a love-struck puppy.

"Do you want me to send this to Wong?" Tony asked as he held up his phone, the article on Bagon still displayed.

"Sure," Stephen shrugged. Tillamook had finally tired of jumping and wiggled herself up the boulder beside Stephen. The sorcerer absentmindedly brushed dust and debris off her head before tucking her against his side. "It's been a while since we've gotten drunk together."

References:

. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2022, from wiki/Bagon_(Pok%C3%A9mon)