starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

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?

“It wasn’t city property.” But it was a computer at a local insurance office. And then a bank manager’s BMW. And then a random kid’s iPhone. “Bruce’s hair is all fluffy. Pepper’s is too red. And my nurse just dyed his hair blue. I’m the only normal one.”

Bruce let out a small puff of laughter, the corner of his mouth quirking. His eyes slid to Thor, the smile fading somewhat at the look on the Asgardian’s face.

“She’s an astral projection,” Bruce said, nodding towards Alessa. “Her body is upstairs. It… can’t function without a lot of medical equipment at the moment.”

Alessa looked over Tony’s head at Thor again, psychically taking a lock of his hair and pulling it outward to see how long it actually was. Someone needed to explain to her that that really wasn’t the proper way to greet people.

Bruce would have given her a gentle nudge with his foot, but that would have been a useless gesture. Instead, he smiled apologetically. “If you want to know more, she’d probably be able to tell you better than me, if she’s feeling up for it.”

"You can not keep her here," Thor said immediately, the color drained from his face as he turned, battle armor forming again over his broad chest. The cape swooped around his feet. It was an impressive display, but it also was telling of how spooked out he was over the little girl.

Our little girl, Tony thought to himself, putting himself between the projection and the Asgardian. "Hey, back off. She's--"

"There is a prophecy, one I have heard from the earliest of my memories," Thor breathed out slowly, bare arms rippling with muscles. "You. Can not. Keep her. Here. Stark, do not be foolish."

Bruce clenched his teeth, taking note how Thor slapped on his battle armor, and unconsciously stepped beside Tony.

"Maybe you should give us a little more information before you tell us what to do." His voice was mostly level, mostly it's reasonable, soft norm, but there was a strain of protectiveness in it. Thor hadn't been the one who discovered the decaying body. Thor hadn't been the one who had been constantly woken up early in the morning by a child who didn't want to be lonely and yet refused to admit it. Thor hadn't been the one watching her try to control her temper, try to not break things when she got frustrated with how different the world had become. Thor hadn't been the one telling her stories, making her teddy bears, being threatened with glitter when he got too used to treating her like a child.

How dare he act like he could just take her away?

Then Alessa stuck her head through Tony and Bruce. Her presence, once again, felt warm, humid, and smoky, and she was frowning at them all. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here."

If she was disturbed by this news, she didn't show it. She hadn't allowed herself to get used to Tony and Bruce yet. She had expected something like this would happen, that she would leave and still be in pain one way or another.

Pain and loss is what she's used to. She knows how to cope with it.

Thor more or less ignored the girl. To him, she wasn't there, she was a ghost, she was nothing. His own mother could project her image but that image was not hurt. It could not touch, it could not feel. It was all lies. Wicked lies. His brother had taught him that. Trusting a mirage would only lead you to thirst.

Thor's anger, righteous and unlike Bruce's, seemed to stir his cape. He was not in the most pleasant of moods but at least he had not summoned Mjolnir. Things could get pretty dicey then.

"She will bring about the destruction of all Nine Realms," Thor insisted, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Alessa is just a child!" he insisted...but how Thor knew what Alessa...what Cheryl...had told them was frustrating him. He was tired of Asgardians. Just plain tired.

"Even a child has the power to cause great harm. I am the sworn protector of this realm, my friends. I can not allow you to protect the one destined to bring it to an end."

Funny thing? Alessa wasn't upset by the news. Someone wanted her dead, other people wanted her alive. They didn't ask her say in it. This was just a day in the life.

But despite her affection for Bruce and Tony (and she did have affection, though it was kept at arm's length, so she could still let it go if she had to), she had been raised in a society where women ruled. Women made the rules. Women made the choices. If one wanted to make their own choices, they had to fight the older women to earn the right. Men, in comparison, had no rights. To even try to fight women for their rights would be blasphemy.

And here were three men, fighting over a decision that belonged to a woman. A decision that she, Alessa Gillespie, had earned, through blood, sweat, and unshed tears.

And they were being rude about it!

Bruce could feel the explosion before it happened. He could feel it in his bones, behind his eyes, the way he could feel the presence behind the mirror. He tensed and grabbed Tony's arm, his heart beginning to thunder. "Maybe we should--"

"I SAID DON'T IGNORE ME!"

The room was suddenly blisteringly hot and thick with smoke. Psychic force slammed on all three men, intending to force them all to the ground. Predicting that an Asgardian would be stronger than two men, she tried putting enough power on Thor to crush all the bones of an Earthen man.

A good chunk of the decking beneath their feet, most of the windows and part of the stairs leading back inside the penthouse shattered, tossing Tony and Bruce aside in Alessa's efforts to get at Thor. The Asgardian, however, simply raised his gauntlets to stave off the destructive blow. There was no one else in this world, save for perhaps the Hulk, though that was yet to be seen, that could combat such a blast.

And yet, Thor stood there still, hair falling back into place and bright blue eyes hard as he looked down at Alessa.

"Your anger will not help your cause," the Thunderer intoned, hand outstretched as he called for his hammer. It was in his palm before he even finished speaking his next words. "You must learn to control yourself before you destroy us all!"

Tony only heard ringing, however, and in a daze, he tried to see over the blurriness and the brain fog and the dust of crushed construction material to figure out where he had landed. Something along his left leg ached but all of his fingers and his toes still wiggled. It only occurred to him a moment later that they were all still in danger.

"Banner--!"

"I'm okay, I'm okay." Bruce had managed to brace himself for some kind of impact, and his irradiated body was good at withstanding punishment. Even so, he was going to be sore for a while.

He got on his hands and knees, blinking through the smoke. "Tony?" Was Tony okay? Alessa and Thor probably were, since one was a god and the other was... a god's astral projection. When did their lives become this?

"My cause? What do you know of my cause?" The projection was losing its shape, becoming bigger, amorphous, horrible, angry. Bruce wondered if that was what he looked like when he was the Hulk. "You arrogant man! You think that just because you see this power in me, you know my cause?!" She was deliberately trying to burn him now. Little burns, like the nips of fire ants up his arms and legs. "You assume that I will try to live no matter what? That I will try to destroy the world? It hasn't been you fighting this for thirty-eight years! It hasn't been you who have suffered mutilation of the soul and body to save this WRETCHED SCUM OF A UNIVERSE!"

She was blinded by her fury, by her pain, by her sorrow. Bruce pressed his forehead against the floor, covering his ears as her voice thundered, genuinely frightened that the girl he cared so much for would consume herself and everyone else in her rage. "Alessa!"

Being thrown around tended not to end well for the people around Bruce. Tony half crawled towards him, gripping the scientist by the shoulders and then pressing his fingers to his throat to feel for a pulse while he looked for a green tinge to his eyes. Tony wasn't sure if he could stop the Hulk from coming out, but he had to try.

And not for his own sake either. Bruce's guilt at each transformation was etched on his face. Tony hated that. He gave Bruce a quick kiss when he found him to be unhurt or too overly startled and then helped him to his feet.

Thor seemed to be fairing so much better. His cape billowed out behind him as he took his few steps forward. It would do nothing, he knew, to throw the hammer at the girl. Projections able to wield such magic would be unable to be touched.

He wished, and not for the first time, to have his wayward brother by his side.

That silvertongue of his might get them out of this trouble. And his perceived slight-- Oh, Loki would have had a wondrous time with the girl.

"I have been alive far longer," Thor bellowed back. "I know what you are and why you are. I am the Prince of Asgard. End your rage and see beyond, so that you may know the truth! You are of the blood of Surt, your heat and fire know no other way to be. Your kind gave light to all of the stars and it is that light you might hold dear before you consume Midgard and those that only wish to help you!"

"Who's Surt?!"

Loki would have, perhaps, had more success with her. Despite being a terrible person, he had a way with words, and Alessa could be swayed with the right words.

They'd have to settle for Bruce instead.

"I'm okay." He returned Tony's quick kiss after making sure his lover was okay as well. "I'm going to see what I can do."

Because he could feel her wrath vibrating in his bones. It felt like the moments before a Hulk transformation, except it didn't belong to him. He wanted to tell Thor to try talking to her like an equal instead of an enemy, because he could feel the swell of indignation, but instead, he let Tony go and squinted through the smoke before stumbling in between the god and the projection.

Who better to communicate with such an angry child than such an angry adult?

"We're all adults here!" Sort of. "This has gotten way out of hand." He gestures for Thor to lower the hammer, pleading with his eyes for the Asgardian to play along, before turning to Alessa.

"Lessy--" deliberately using one of Tony's names for her, because he knew she secretly liked them in a weird way "--this isn't how we have a discussion."

"Who's discussing anything?"

"We are now. We're going to sit down and talk about what's going on, but we can't do that when you're choking Tony and me with smoke." He held up his arms, as if he were about to catch her. "Come on."

He could feel it in his bones. Her weighing her options. Considering how she could think past the rage.

Then the smoke and the majority of the heat disappeared, the projection re-forming in Bruce's arms. He wrapped his arms around her, as though he were carrying her, but there's nothing more substantive than fog. Miming the contact she couldn't have gave her comfort, though.

Bruce breathed a soft sigh of relief while Alessa gave Thor the evil eye from over his shoulder.

Getting to his feet in this heat was almost impossible and his left leg just kept refusing to play ball. Tony was pretty sure that it wasn't broken, but it absolutely was strained and putting weight on it for more than a moment was agony. He leaned against a piece of rail that was meant to keep people on the roof safe from the gusting wind this high up but the fitting was extremely lose.

He really didn't want to play chicken with the ground any more if he could help it. Especially without his suit.

Paying little attention to the goings on, he did not see Thor send Mjolnir away or his battle armor dissolve over his chest. The Asgardian had returned to blue jeans and a red checked shirt (Jane Foster had odd taste in clothing), his eyes still hard.

"Do not take this badly, friend Banner," Thor intoned, "but what lies inside of her is far more ancient than you, or even I. Adult is not the proper word for us. We are not mortal."

But he did clasp Bruce somewhat roughly on the back of the shoulder.

"We shall treaty together, as you require. I will wait in the Conferring Chamber." He strode inside the building, almost having to duck to go down the stairs.

"It's Conference Room!" Tony called, choking.

Alessa kept giving Thor the evil eye as he left. And she might have tugged on his hair.

"Alessa." Bruce would have given her a shake if he thought that would do anything. "You can't try to hurt people when they make you mad."

"You're one to talk," she huffed.

Bruce shook his head with a tight-lipped frown, then started picking his way over the debris towards Tony. "How bad is your leg?"

"He's fine," Alessa said shortly. She hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Okay, yes she did, but she hadn't meant to hurt Tony. Surruptitiously, psychic pressure started pulling Tony up from under his arms, trying to support his weight without hurti his leg. That was her form of an apology, because a verbal one would be weak and admitting she might have done something wrong by asserting her authority, which she didn't. She might have just done it a little too forcefully for present company.

"I've got it, Less," Tony said before he could stumble into anything else. The pressure under his arms wasn't exactly welcome, though he knew the girl was trying to help. He knew she hadn't meant for him to be collateral damage but that was just the problem with what she, and what Bruce, were.

No matter what their best intentions might be, people got hurt. That was the sad reality of it all. He let Bruce help him down the stairs and upon passing a mirror, frowned at his reflection.

"I need the bathroom," he muttered. He didn't want to sit in a meeting with glass and debris in his hair. He had standards. "And an ace bandage. I might have torn a ligament above my knee. Never get old, Alessa," he said, trying to make light of it, as if he'd hurt himself on accident.

“I already am,” she muttered softly. She vanished from Bruce’s arms, disappearing like smoke.

Bruce just rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “We need to talk to her about controlling herself.” He supported Tony until they got to a bathroom, sitting him down before rifling through the medicine cabinets. He had stashed first aid kits everywhere, just in case there was an emergency. “She doesn’t know how to appropriately respond to anger. Just sit still and I’ll wrap you up.”

The worst part was that Bruce couldn’t really be angry at her, even though he wanted to be. He knew what it was like to grow up in an abusive household. He knew how hard it was to understand that the things his father did weren’t acceptable, and that he couldn’t imitate him like he often wanted to. The only difference was that he didn’t have the power to carelessly kill someone when he was seven.

“Are you okay, Tony?”

"I don't think sitting her down in front of Barney or My Little Ponies is going to do the trick any more than really talking to her will. She just needs to figure it out, like every person on the planet." He winced as he undid his belt and removed his jeans so that Bruce could get at his leg. Perching on the closed toilet seat lid hurt more than he imagined it might have, enough to make him grit his teeth. "There's no way to punish her. There are no consequences for her."

Tony looked old with so much gray dust in his hair. It accentuated the lines around his mouth and his eyes.

"I'm just fine though. I'm tougher than I look." The bruise on his upper thigh, however, didn't make him look tough at all. "I should just wear padding around her." He smiled because he really was falling in love with Alessa, at the idea of having someone that might rely on him, that he could protect.

People did stupid things for the ones they loved.

His constant attempt to get his hand down Bruce's pants, for instance.

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Stupid phone

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