starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

"You act like I can't be trusted," Tony had said to Bruce at one point, under his breath, looking almost bored. It would have been funny if there was t a gun pointed at him. And honestly, even then it was sort of funny. He had been shot at so many times.

And had t he deserved his celebrity? He saved the world. Like. Loads of times. And once, even literally! This circular talking was getting him no where.

Right up until Cheryl admitted how little she knew. And honestly, Tony realized how little he knew of all of this too.

"Alessa is a seven year old girl whose crazy family decided to get all demon worshippy and get her possessed or impregnated or whatever you want to call it. They burned her after and yeah. It doesn't make sense. Maybe they're a Phoenix cult? Any way, the point is, they did manage to get something inside of her-- I'm going to reach for my phone, all right? It's in my back pocket. I can show you the images."

And he would, if she'd let him. JARVIS would shine them on her bare walls.

"Hey, hey--"

She flinched at the pictures, deliberately looking away, a blast of chilly air rushing through the house.

"Put it away! Put those away! Fucking crazy sicko--"

"Tony." Bruce jerked his head towards the ground. The shag carpet was beginning to stiffen and freeze.

Even the most powerful AC shouldn't be able to do that.

Louder, he said, "Have things always gotten so cold around you?"

Se was looking at him again, her teeth clenched and frost beginning to make the roots of her hair white.

"Alessa makes the room dark and hot when she's upset. Sometimes it's just a little warm, but then it can feel like you're in a furnace."

Well he got the picture. He wasn't helping. Rather than go back to the car, and get his brains subsequently splattered all over Bruce in a way that would very likely trigger the Hulk, Tony just kept silent. Sometimes it was just as effective to be seen rather than to be heard and despite all of the things he really, desperately wanted to say, he let it go.

Interesting to discover that Alessa and this woman seemed to be polar opposites. One dealt with heat, the other with cold.

Could they be mirrors of each other, not true twins at all, but imperfect copies? Duplicates?

He set JARVIS to return biometric readings from his pocket for later data analysis. He nodded at appropriate times but otherwise, this was Bruce Banner's rodeo. He would have thought the mild mannered rage beast could be so...therapeutic. And this after he told Tony it wasn't in his temperament!

"Shut up. I don't need to be psychoanalyzed," Cheryl muttered, but Bruce clearly had her attention. The gun was drifting towards him again.

"I'm not trying to analyze you. I'm trying to help you." Bruce lowered his hands, clasping them at his abdomen, like they were just having a conversation and there weren't bombs and guns in the equation. "You have powers. Maybe they started showing up early on, maybe later, but you have them and you don't know what they are or how to control them. And there have been other things that have been weird for you."

She was definitely paying attention now, the gun beginning to drift towards the floor.

"Maybe you have always felt a connection to Maine, even though your dad never went. Maybe mirrors have always unsettled you or looked wrong. Maybe you're scared of fire or women or have nightmares--but what I do know is that you've been hunted your whole life, and you don't know why. We're offering you answers, and you're turning us away?"

She stared at him, chewing the inside of her cheek, eyes narrow.

"Fine." She put the safety back on her gun. "You win this round."

Then she stood up and started casually walking down the stairs. "You can move, by the way. I was bullshitting about the bombs."

Tony shrugged. "It wouldn't be my first time blown up," he said before he took thrice by the elbow and gently pulled him closer for a moment. "You're sexy when you talk people out of shooting me," he murmured and gave Bruce a wink that more or less guaranteed that there would be another attempt to seduce Bruce that evening... Or as soon as he got the proper chance to.

Tony let the woman waltz passed them and then followed her into the kitchen. He was openly shivering now, more of a fair weather inventor than anything else. He might have been born on Long Island but he raised himself in Malibu.

He missed California more often than he let on.

"How do you feel about an all expenses paid trip to New York?" he asked. "We have someone that might like to meet you."

Or blow off your head. It was hard to tell with Alessa.

Bruce smirked at Tony, giving his arm a brief squeeze before disentangling himself. While he didn't think he was able to have sex anymore, he really didn't mind sexy talk.

The kitchen was just as devoid of life as the front hall. There was a singular table, one that Cheryl hopped on top and dangled her feet over the edge off. Ice started blooming from the seat of her pants, curling and cracking along the table. She flinched and then immediately hopped off again.

"I think it sounds really suspicious." She dusted off her pants like nothing happened, but she looked very unsettled. "Why should I trust you?"

"You knew we were coming, clearly," Bruce said, crossing his arms slowly. "You don't actually live here. You set things up so you could corner us with a gun. Why should we trust you?"

She scowled at him, her lips suddenly becoming thin as she shook out frost gathering in her clothes. She didn't want to talk about how she knew they were coming.

Thinking better than to sit down at a table slowly icing over, Tony took up his usual arms crossed and bored looking stance by cabinets long since empty. He appreciated just how perceptive Bruce was, more so than he could ever be, but that came with the territory of having to run the moment he tried to settle down again. Seeing what was trying to be covered was in his blood as much as his brilliance.

And Tony still had trouble with his social security number and passwords.

"You're both pretty, ladies," Tony mentioned from his position away from the action. "I'll give you an address. I'll leave cash. You come to us on your own terms. Check it out." It was a risk. She could take the money and run...but JARVIS was onto her now, he could track her down again easily enough. "But you have to do it soon. We have a sick little girl that we need to fix. She's been in pain for a long, long time."

Cheryl stared at the both of them long and hard, but some of the frost on her clothes was melting. Bruce decided to take that as a good sign.

“If it's anything like I dreamed, nothing you do will end her pain." She looked down, looking at the puddle of melting ice at her feet. "But I like that idea better.” She rubbed her hands together. Her fingers had turned bluish. “But first, tell me her last name. Alessa’s.”

She was going to do her own digging on the girl who’s been following her her whole life.

“Gillespie,” Bruce said softly. “Her name is Alessa Gillespie.”

“Gillespie?” She was still rubbing her hands together. “Huh. I thought it’d be something more… creepy. Alessa Cross. Alessa Rosebane. Or something to do with death. Alessa Muerte? I met a guy with that last name, once. Still don't know if he legally changed it to that or there's actually a family of Muertes out there.”

That made Tony laugh. Alessa's last name was rather tame, a sort of posh, New England WASP vibe to it. But she was anything but. Her family was anything but. It was too bad her mother was dead. There might have been some Avenging to do.

Pulling out his wallet, Tony grabbed all of his cash, just under twelve hundred dollars, and laid it on the table. No. He never did anything small. Yes. He was pretty sure bribery was still in fashion.

"We'll have to see about a name change at some point," Tony mentioned. Gillespie won't be safe for her. And you--" He waggled a finger at Cheryl. "You change your name too. It was entirely too easy to find you."

Of course, he could hack into most systems. That helped.

Cheryl's eyes went wide as saucers as she saw him lay out the cash. Bruce hid his smile as she picked it up, trying to be casual about counting it out.

"I did. This is supposed to be a trap for anyone who wanted to find Cheryl Mason, so I had help making a path to Cheryl Mason." She quickly stuffed the bills in her too-big pocket, looking a little like a homeless woman stashing money. "I was supposed to just wire it to blow up and let you stumble into it, but I was sick of running. All I wanted was to make a new life. I don't want anyone dead over it."

She shoved her hands in her pockets, staring at them from under her bangs. "You still need to tell me where to find you."

"We really do appreciate that you didn't blow us up. I'd be dead. Banner would be mourning me for the rest of all eternity," he joked without really realizing how right that might be. When Bruce was too old to sustain the Hulk, the Hulk would continue on. Alone. Likely forever.

Plucking a good leaf business card from his wallet, Tony flicked it towards the woman. It only said his name, Avengers' Tower and New York, NY written on it.

"You can't miss it. I promise. Big building, massive A on it. Ask for Tony at the front desk."

Yeah, Tony? A little too close to home there. Bruce has no idea if he's immortal and will keep looking like he's in his forties forever, or if he'll somehow find a way to die.

"I bet they'd let me right up," the woman says dryly, taking the card carefully before putting it in her pocket. "I'll think about it." She shrugged her jacket closer to herself, beginning to walk out the door. "Maybe I'll tell you my real name if I show up."

Bruce eyed her, a suspicious turn to his mouth, but whatever is bothering him doesn't seem to be enough to interrupt.

With a nudge to Bruce's shoulder, Tony led the way out of the house. Cheryl would come. She had to. If not this time, they would find her again. And if not the next time, they would find her once more. Tony was confident that the woman would come through. She was curious and well paid. New York was a big place.

Tony had already emailed her picture to JARVIS. The moment she entered the city, they would know, ideally. And certainly the moment she entered the lobby at the very least.

Because he needed desperately to play the gentleman with Banner, Tony rounded the car to hold the door for him. He might even steal a kiss.

"I feel good about this," he murmured. Alessa would be whole again soon. Whole and happy.

Bruce smiled and rolled his eyes in amusement at his boyfriend's need to be romantic, allowing Tony a chaste kiss, before sliding into the passenger's seat.

"Someone had to have warned her we were coming and helped her with the false lead. People on the run don't have the time or resources to put together fake trails that could stand up to JARVIS within a few days."

He spoke from experience.

"She looks a lot like Alessa, doesn't she?" He can't help but be a little wistful at that. Was Cheryl what Alessa would have looked like had she been given a chance to grow up?

Tony lingered on Bruce's side of the convertible, leaning over the door even after it was shut. He never struggled with wondering if he had done the right thing with Pepper-- The truth was, he had cheated on her emotionally long before he had physically and while he had been in love with her, there was nothing to compare it to the way he felt about Bruce.

Even if they didn't rip off each other's clothing and tumble into bed, there was something wonderful about having discussions long into the night while he ran his fingers through the hair on Bruce's chest.

"She does look a lot like Alessa," Tony said, a slight crease between his eyebrows. "And you're right. I could be leading trouble to our home but... It's been almost two weeks since I've run for my like. I need to get the blood pumping."

Bruce wondered about Pepper too, sometimes. Felt insecure that he didn't have the history with Tony that she had, and that he couldn't or wouldn't give Tony the things Pepper did. He felt guilty that they had gotten together the way they had, and wondered if Tony regretted it.

But he didn't ask these questions, give voice to these thoughts. He wasn't one to reveal his self-doubt and insecurity without prompting.

"At this rate, you'll die before you turn fifty." He leaned against the window, looking out at the neighborhood. The normal neighborhood. "I don't think she's going to try to do anything to kill us. She didn't seem to be a fan of that kind of thing." Not like Alessa, who would have no qualms bombing potential threats.

Patting the door, Tony rounded the back of the car and slid behind the wheel with a sigh and leaned his head back against the rest. "Good. I don't want to turn fifty. What an ugly number," he confessed and then turned the ignition on with the press of the starter button. The car purred back to life and the top automatically went back up to combat the chill that lingered.

Tony never let JARVIS take over the driving unless he was too drunk to do it himself and peeled down the street like it was his right to drive like a maniac.

"She's Alessa's mirror," Tony said after a few long minutes of heavy silence. "You were in the mirror, though. You said it was like hell inside. But if Alessa is fire and Cheryl is ice, if their temperaments shift along temperature lines... We could get an explosion if they meet."

It was never wise to drop ice into boiling water.

"The colder the water is, the faster it boils," he muttered.

Bruce grasped the side of the door, then quickly put his seatbelt on. "Looks like I won't reach fifty either," he grumbled softly. Honestly, he wished a car accident would have the same effect on him as it would on Tony.

"Alessa told us it would be a bad idea to get them too close together," Bruce agreed. "If she's right when she says they're a part of each other... sometimes, it's really hard facing all the parts of you you want to ignore."

Honestly, Bruce still had trouble with mirrors. They always looked off to him now. He had yet to touch a single one with his bare hands.

If Tony knew that, he would very likely have teased Bruce about his shaving job or his hair. Tony couldn't help himself. Just like he couldn't help shifting the car into the next gear and briefly removing his hand from the stick shift to touch the other man's knee.

It was gentle. Tender. Brief.

"I don't like not knowing what I'm doing," he confessed. "I just want to help Alessa, but if it means hurting a lot of other people-- Nothing's ever black and white." Tony's eyes stayed on the raid as if he was staring it down. "It's not like with machines."

There was a reason Tony tended to 'create' his friends.

"So what do we do, Banner? We need Cheryl to remove that growth so we don't accidentally have a seven year old give birth to a demon when we fix her. But what if it doesn't matter?"

“We have to believe it does.” Bruce wouldn’t touch Tony while he was driving, but he would look at him meaningfully. “I mean, gods, demons, cult magic… none of this is our area of expertise, Tony. We don’t know what we’re doing. But that’s never stopped us before.”

Seriously. Bruce was sure he wasn’t the only one who was basically running blind during the Chitauri invasion. Mutants, super soldier serums, giant iron suits—he knew how to deal with that, had context for it, but aliens? Norse gods? Not so much.

“We try to listen to the people who have some context. We can get a sample of Aglaophotis, examine it, figure out why it worked last time. Jane said that Thor was supposed to come to, so maybe he’ll know something. If we still can’t figure it out, maybe the Order will know. We can see if we can get our hands on any of their information.”

"I need to fire our travel agent," Tony muttered but said nothing else on the subject.

Arriving back at the tower, they were greeted by a large man with hair that seemed to grow like wildfire each time they saw him. Then again, it had been over two years since Thor had left their presence in Central Park but seeing him again, and not on grainy footage of Greenwich, made Tony smirk.

"Man of Iron!"

The bear hug he was given afterward was a little too bone crushing to allow that smirk to remain however. "Down!" he howled. "Down boy! Banner, a little help!"

“Nah, I think this is good for you.”

Bruce was being a fantastic boyfriend by completely ignoring Tony’s pain. And hoping that Thor would forget to give him a hug, too.

“It’s good to see you, Thor,” he said, sidestepping the hugging duo and giving Thor a small smile. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.” And with so little information about what he was coming for. “We could use your help.”

"I have been told," Thor said, immediately stoic as Tony limped off to the bar to wheeze pathetically against it and poke at his ribs just to make sure that they were all where they ought to be...still inside of his skin. "You are both my allies. I will help you as best that I am able."

"How's Asgard with regrowing bones?" Tony asked.

Thor looked somewhat perplexed. "That would require sorcery. I have not been trained in that particular craft but if I perhaps beseech--"

"Never mind," Tony groaned. "Not important."

"You have brought me here to jest?" Thor did not look too pleased at that. "My hammer is yours when you require it but I will not be toyed with."

“He’s joking. You know how Tony is.” Bruce ignored Tony’s melodrama, instead gesturing for Thor to pay attention to him instead because Bruce was forever going to be the level-headed one, weirdly enough. “Actually, it’s about something that happened to us a bit ago. It started when I got a letter from my mother—who’s been dead since I was a kid, by the way—and it ended up with us wandering around a haunted town that’s apparently been luring people in for years. We found a little girl who claims to be pregnant with a god.” He looked up at the door, arching an eyebrow. “Alessa, I know you’re eavesdropping. Come down and meet Thor.”

Alessa stuck her head through the door without opening it, giving one of her scowl-pouts at Bruce. “How could you tell?”

“That’s exactly what I would’ve done at your age.” Bruce turned to look at Thor, gesturing at the head sticking through the door. “Can you see her?”

She narrowed her eyes critically, phasing through the door completely. “His hair’s really long. Why do you guys have so many friends with weird hair?”

“Remind me to teach you how to be polite,” said Bruce, putting another topic of lecture on his mental list.

Thor blinking at the little girl with a note of wary caution. Yes, he could see her. And he knew that he ought to not be able to. Thor had seen many wondrous and terrible things over his life and Alessa might just be both. He stood still as he watched her, saying little more than: "Indeed I do."

"Who else has weird hair?" Tony asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was happy to see her. His plan, upon touching the quinjet down on the roof deck, had been to come and see her right away. They'd been gone for a little while and every time they had the chance to return home, Alessa was always first on his mind. "And don't say mine. I'm trying to rock the silver fox look. I'm told it looks distinguished," he complained, crouching down beside the girl. "Other than lack of manners, have you been good? Did you take apart any more city property I'll need to make a donation about?"

Best ask, right?

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Stupid phone

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