Tony Stark found it in a Cave! In a box of scraps!

AN: This totally wasn't written in a single burst of inspiration triggered by me giggling at the title idea.

Absolutely not.

(I have no plans. This is entirely by the seat of my non-existent pants.)

Tony Stark gasped for breath, blinking sweat out of his eyes and lamenting his shortsightedness. He'd completely skipped any kind of climate controls in his suit! All the bullets and explosives in this ant's nest of a terrorist base, and it would be heat stroke that would get him!

"It's downright lazy of me..." He muttered to himself, heart pounding as the hydraulics hissed with the raising of his arm, cracks and pings joining his heartbeat in a symphony of frantic percussion. He stomped forward the second there was a pause in the gunfire.

"Ahhhh!!"

"Monster!"

"Kill it! Kill it— ahh!"

Wet cracks and screams replaced the gunshots as he punched and kicked and rammed his way through what felt like a small army of men. He did his best to ignore the pain and terror in their eyes. Tried to pretend they were all grown adults who chose this, monsters who preyed upon the weak. Not scared and **** young men sometimes less than half his age trapped in a situation that they couldn't even see a way to escape. A situation he'd spent decades profiting from.

"OSHA would fine the shit out of me if they saw this..." Three more men down. He didn't look back to see if they got back up.

"Dad would be so disappointed I didn't include a GPS and cupholders in the design..." The walls of the tunnel shook as he ducked under a RPG. "The noise cancelling barely works."

He didn't think about Dr. Yensin, dead in a forgotten tunnel. Or the months of **** he'd been subjected to.

He just had to keep moving. He could deal with the trauma later. With a stiff drink or twenty and half a dozen women fawning over him in a giant bed. Maybe a good cheeseburger. A cheap and greasy one. An American specialty.

There was a glint of gold he thought was daylight, but when he turned the corner, he only found another dead end, hopefully not literal. Sitting on a box of dusty metal scrap, was a lamp. Classic Arabian style. Funny to find it in the cold mountains of Afghanistan. Like finding Excalibur in Italy.

Tony almost turned around and left it behind. What use would he have for a lamp like that? He was already rich, and he'd never considered himself a treasure hunter. Not since he was nine, anyway.

Still, something about it called to him. Drew him in until his mechanical gauntlet plucked it from the pile with all the gentleness he could muster.

Feeling exasperated with himself, he tucked the bit of decoration in a small compartment at the side of his armor. It was meant to hold some improvised grenades he'd never managed to make. The Lamp fit in like it was meant to be there.

Several minutes later, Tony found the exit, burned the munitions with his fucking name proudly emblazoned across them, and flew to freedom.

For about seven minutes, then the thrusters fizzled out.

"YAHHHHH— argh. Ow."

Battered and bruised from the landing,Tony laughed in a pile of sand and the scattered remains of his cobbled together armor. Half-delirious from the physical and mental exhaustion, he noticed the Lamp perched on the sand beside him, shining in the sunlight.

"What the hell... Not like it could make things worse. Better than any monkey's paw I'm likely to find out here."

Tony Stark grabbed the Lamp and rubbed it, expecting nothing but a souvenir with a humorous anecdote he'd tell Rhodey later— when he met up with him. He was totally gonna see his best buddy again. Pepper and Obie too. He'd see all of them. What would they do without all his wisdom and guidance?

Glittering smoke billowed out of the spout and filled the air.

"Well. That's unexpected..."