starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

Tony wasn't a coward but the last time he had been in this particular place and heard that sound, he was playing chess with the dead girl and trying not to be killed in his cell while Banner dealt with his past all alone in the courthouse. His mouth was dry and the grating sound caused him to take a step closer to Banner. Sweat was already beading down everyone's faces but Steve, who looked... Strange.

Not wholly there, perhaps. Tony was going to have to ask about that later but right now, he didn't care.

Even the reverse world of the mirror and Alessa's personal hell wasn't enough to keep Clint's tongue inside of his mouth and he waggled it about the sauna and about how he really did prefer this decor to Tony's usual style.

"Very Apocalyptic. It suits me." And of course it did. Life in the circus with a mentor like his had not gone without pressing indelible marks in the archer.

Bruce felt like his chest was going to burst. He braced himself against the counter, his palms already slick with sweat, and tried to battle off the memories of the hospital and the house and the court. The scar along his side began to sting, like it was ready to split open all over again.

“Bruce, are you sure this is safe?” Natasha said, her face impassive except for a slight flair of her nostrils, a blaring indicator of fear for anyone who knew what she looked like afraid. It wasn’t the world around her she was scared of. It was the possibility of the Hulk.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly.

“No, you’re not,” Alessa said, not even sparing them a glance before whistling, the noise intermingling with the breathy whistle of air flowing through the walls. “Valtiel! I know you’re around here somewhere…”

The room groaned, shifting on itself, contracting like a muscle. The door leading to the living room swung open, metal grinding against metal, the fleshy walls and floor shifting wetly into a different form, one made of rusted grating and industrial fans.

“We’re not alone. Someone’s trying to track me.” Alessa’s shoes made loud tapping noises as she walked across the grate, despite the fact she shouldn’t have been able to exert any weight on it. “Keep close.”

The next room barely looked like Tony’s living room at all. The space was the same, but the walls were a complicated series of interlocking gears and wheels and fans, turning and grinding against each other despite copious amounts of rust and steam rising from the cracks. Mostly shrouded in darkness and obscured by a lattice of rusty metal, two pairs of legs dangled through the ceiling, twitching and convulsing in pain for every slow rotation of the gears, choking noises coming from above. The legs looked different to everyone. One, belonging to the mother figure of the beholder. The other, the closest thing to a female symbol of sexual frustration to them.

Bruce looked like he was going to be sick. His hands were shaking and his throat was constricted and his chest was tight and why did they come back here--

And Steve saw nothing but an empty room with Stark’s usual machinery beeping softly on the walls, like someone had peeled back the plaster and shown off all of JARVIS’s inner workings.

“That’s Valtiel’s machine. He’s probably working upstairs.” Alessa ignored the legs and cupped her hands around her mouth. “VALTIEL!”

Perhaps not the most helpful thing in the world he could do, Tony focused away from Steve's surreal sort of wide-eyed exploration of this space and kept his eyes on Bruce. Alessa could care for herself, she could deal with anything that came after them too if the whole Escape From Silent Hill thing became a double feature. She was highly capable, even if Clint stalked after her like a bodyguard. Funny, that. She was their body guard.

Barton might realize that by the end of all of this.

Lagging back, Tony put a hand on Bruce's lower back and leaned in towards him. "Eyes on me, Banner," he said, more stern than affectionate. "Just see me. We'll be through this soon enough."

Though he was sure the girl appreciated them being there (actually, she probably didn't), this whole thing was a very bad idea. Bruce had been through enough to last a life time. Silent Hill had scarred him in ways that would never be completely realized and only manifest during quiet times or in his sleep. And Tony was prepared for it, even if he wasn't good at all at soothing anyone.

Bruce dragged his eyes away from the legs--his mother and Betty--and looked at Tony, clenching his teeth and trying to remember that they were okay, that this was Alessa's hell and not his, and why was he freaking out he had to keep it together for their sake

And then something started crawling down the wall.

Bruce flinched away, bringing everyone's attention to the movement.

"Meet Valtiel." Alessa's lips formed a crooked smile, but her eyes were dark.

It was a monster. Humanoid, but sewn into a shell of leathery stitched skin, with tattooed symbols on its shoulders and faceless save for stitches along its head. Its head was constantly twitching uncontrollably, like it was having a localized seizure, obscuring any kind of features it might have.

Then it crawled down the machinery like a spider, landing soundlessly on the ground, its neck craning as it crouched low to the floor and its head shuddered and thrashed.

"Valtiel." Alessa patted her thigh as if it were a dog. "Come."

It charged, limbs scurrying and bending at awkward inhuman angles, before it scooped Alessa up into its leathery, spider-like arms. She instinctively grabbed its biceps, her nails digging into its flesh, but it just pressed its twitching face into her abdomen, its fingers grasping at her clothes like no non-monster could, curling into fists that kept her locked in its embrace.

"It's okay. I'm here now." The crooked smile didn't shift. She lightly stroked its head with the tips of her fingers, apparently uncaring that it had just grabbed her.

To Steve, who was staring in confusion at the interaction, Valtiel wasn't a monster. He looked like a man, one with long tattered wings wrapped tight around him and a leather sack over his head. A fallen angel, holding and pressing its face against Alessa as if it would never let go again.

Tony's mouth opened and closed and the moment it started to charge, he almost made a beeline away from Banner to the little girl he had just been so very sure would not need his protection at all. He cursed in his mind again that he had destroyed the suit program. He was nothing without Iron Man!

With that still on his mind, Natasha side stepped in front of him and shook her head. She didn't seem phased, not really, but any of this. Her life had allowed her privy to a lot of information other people were not suppose to know.

HYDRA, the KGB... She was taking this better than everyone, save for Steve, who really just looked like a little lost Labrador retriever.

It was equal parts cute and wrong.

When Alessa started her petting, something he'd seen her do with JARVIS bear, he relaxed. His lips twisted in a grin all his own, something like the one Alessa sported. They might not be blood but they did have some similarities.

"We need to get you a dog."

"Dogs are scary. It'd have to be a really nice one." Alessa draped her arms around Valtiel's shoulders, letting him bury his face into her stomach, grasping her and bowing his head with a twisted form of worshipful devotion.

The interaction was making Bruce's stomach churn. He wanted the monster away from the girl.

"Valtiel, I need to know what happened since I left."

The loss of the goddess left a power vacuum, Valtiel told her. The town lost a major source of power and souls were being disturbed, as the town was beginning to rely more on drawing from their lesser pain and strength.

The Order was convinced that HYDRA took her. The Order was hunting HYDRA agents down. The Order was ready to cut off the heads and burn the necks of all HYDRA if it meant getting the goddess back.

The town was in a state of unrest. The clans who fled to Shepherd's Glen hadn't given one of their sacrifices. The Order's wrath had been incurred. Souls were grappling for the power Alessa left behind without understanding that only the goddess could bear such a burden.

"Wait, what was that about sacrifices?" Steve asked, stepping forward slowly. Alessa looked up and frowned at him, because he shouldn't have been able to understand anything Valtiel said. No one besides her or the sinless did.

In fact, the entire time Valtiel was talking, the only thing anyone else heard was the grinding of the gears behind him as his head twitched against Alessa's shirt.

"Wait, dogs are scar-- Okay, you have a really messed up world view," Tony said, not actually trying to joke. He was drowned out by the gears that he assumed meant that the creature was talking. Alessa kept nodding along, asking questions, frowning-- Well that was one language that Tony didn't know. He was going to have to brush up on his crazy monster evidently if his adopted daughter wanted one over a nice puppy.

Some people had no taste.

Steve's little outburst, however, was cause for alarm. "Sacrifice? Jesus, Cap, is there anything you can't do? You're heading into show-off territory," Tony chided but he found the implication to be more terrifying than Steve Rogers surmounting him in language skills.

Alessa had explained about the 21 Sacrifices but something told him that this was different. Tony kept his distance, hand out, in case that creature decided to be less than friendly.

"What's happened, Less?"

"Where do you find these people?" Alessa was still staring at Steve in bafflement, who now looked like a confused puppy. Wow, he really was too good a person to be affected.

Then she turned her head to look back at everyone else. Bruce's hands were still shaking, but his eyes were locked on her, determinedly not looking at anything else.

"A sect of the Order has shirked on its end of a bargain. About a hundred and fifty years ago, a few clans tried to leave the Order and the town peacefully, but if they wanted to do that, they had to agree to sacrifice four of their children every fifty years. They only sacrificed three this time."

She went back to petting her monster, surprisingly nonchalant about the death of children.

"So now everyone in the town they founded, regardless of when they got there or if they were involved, will be punished for it. The town's getting a lot more souls." And that meant it would get more powerful. Not enough to supplement the loss of Alessa, but maybe enough to try getting her back.

"Only three?" Tony was left wondering what happened. Did a parent chicken out? Where there no more suitable children? The rules, this time, didn't matter.

Children weren't suppose to die at the hands of religious zealots. It was worse that they had to die to keep a people safe. This wasn't the fucking Dark Ages! His teeth clenched and his hands turned to fists.

"Where is the town, what's it's name, Lessa. How much time do we have before the Order descends?"

It would mean that their two assassins would have to sit this one out, or start their mission to join the Order. They couldn't show their faces there and still be able to infiltrate an organization Tony found a hundred times more repulsive than HYDRA.

"You really shouldn't get involved. They brought this on themselves."

"What, for not killing a child?" Steve burst out, already inflamed by another story of horror from the Order. "People are going to die and you don't think we should do anything?!"

"Not really. People die every day." But regardless, she shrugged her shoulders, listening to the grinding of the gears and petting Valtiel's head. "It's Shepherd's Glen. It's across the lake from Silent Hill. The other sects of the Order won't come, but the Sect of Shepherd's Glen has already started to re-form and retaliate against its own. Once it's either converted or killed everyone, it will appeal to the High Council to allow it back into the greater Order and extend protection from the town's wrath."

"Politics as usual, right?" There was something really rough about Bruce's voice. "Try to leave, kill a few children, and then when you run out, come crawling back?"

Bruce was going to melt down. Tony wasn't looking forward to picking up the pieces from that and Bruce never did well after. His guilt would one day eat him up inside and Tony wasn't sure if he'd be able to pull him back from that.

"Why don't you sit this one out?" Tony said, trying to speak low enough so that it was more of an aside. "Stay with Alessa and work on finishing up stablizing Extremis. Cap and I can handle Shepherd;s Glen."

Barton, however, didn't get the private conversation memo. "Uh, Stark? You blew up Iron Man. All of them. So what exactly are you going to do?"

Clint was right.

Tony was useless in things like this.

His lips pressed shut in annoyance.

"Steve could go alone," Alessa said, not looking at any of them now and instead staring at the machine behind Valtiel. "The monsters don't go near people like him."

"What do you mean, people like me?" Steve asked, still pretty lost and not liking it one bit.

"The people who will see what they really are," she said shortly. She started stroking Valtiel's shoulder, right above one of his emblems. To Steve, it looked like she was running her fingers through ruins wings. "They won't go near you and won't go near anyone you're with. You'd only have to worry about foot soldiers."

There was the sound of the machine grinding.

"Oh, and apparently, the sacrificed children are rising to take vengeance, too. So you'd have to worry about them. Avoid kids with lots of scars, ones who are really dirty, are really wet, or have swollen faces and messed up necks."

She patted Valtiel, indicating that he should put her down. He seemed reluctant to do so. "We should go. People are looking for me here."

"Got it," Steve said with all the solemnity due. Evidently, he was fine with putting off his search for Bucky for the time being. "I'll get Sam. We'll leave tonight."

Right. Falcon. Tony had worked on that program on the outset before he decided the idea was a little far fetched and dangerous...and you know, he was sort of kidnapped and his entire focused shifted away from government and military contracts as a whole.

Natasha and Clint led the way back to the mirror at a double step. Steve was slower, but right behind them. Tony was too busy trying to keep an eye on Bruce to realize that they had been outpaced.

And besides, he was curious. "Less...your little friend there...are you sure he won't tell them we were here? Oh, and by the way? How can anyone actually find you here? Isn't this sort of your personal playground?" He knew they were dealing with crazy psychos...but he was hoping that they weren't seriously powerful crazy psychos.

"Steve's the first one I met who can understand what he says."

There was a grinding noise as Valtiel slowly lowered Alessa to the ground again, his spin curling unnaturally as his hands went back onto the floor and he bowed his head reverently.

"And he doesn't really like talking to anyone but me, anyway." She pressed a gentle kiss to the beast's twitching forehead. "Just because it's my playground doesn't mean no one else can come. We played in Bruce's playground, after all."

She backed away from the beast. It began to crawl after her, but she raised her hand dismissively in a 'stay' gesture.

"At least one of them is a priestess. They're the only ones who could navigate safely."

"Then let's go. I don't want to deal with any priestesses in their comfort zone," Bruce said, keeping his eye on Valtiel just in case the monster ran for Alessa again.

"Steve's just an amazing kinda guy," Tony said, tone absolutely dripping with sarcasm. He really did not like that man. He went against everything Tony believed in like...oh...fun? Being good at something without getting injected and electrically charged to get one's ability?

And that hair! He could write a paper about what was wrong with men that wore their hair like that.

In fact, during one of his down times, he just might! Okay, that was a little vindictive. Tony let it go. He had enough to deal with when it came to Bruce right now any way.

Ignoring Maya's and Pepper's legs as they passed under them, Tony reached out and physically took Bruce's hand before he offered the other to Alessa. She couldn't really hold it but-- "In case you get lost," he said, really very fondly, and wriggled his fingers in expectation.

Bruce squeezed Tony's hand, trying to keep himself from shaking and breathing too fast.

Alessa hesitated, then reached up and curled her fingers around Tony's hand, almost passing through his skin before she was able to gauge how his hand moved.

"Thank you for coming."

Because they came for her. She didn't feel she needed, but it was a genuine gesture, and Bruce had known how difficult it would be. Alessa could respect that.

As they walked away, Valtiel backed up against his machine, letting out a low, growling noise that sounded... sad.

Bruce finally tore his eyes from the beast. He avoided looking at Betty and his mother. He just concentrated on the hand on his.

"It's what TV tells me families are suppose to do," Tony said as jovially as possible, though he was feeling the strain of this place too. "You don't have to go it alone anymore. That goes for everyone." Even himself. He'd have to remember that when he decided to play lone hero.

If he could ever manage to be a lone hero again.

That evening, back in the proper world where everything made sense and there were no legs dangling down at them or creatures with terrible head tremors, they all went their separate ways. Natasha and Barton took the information JARVIS gleaned on the Order and went to play spy once more. Steve left to meet Sam to hopefully help out Shepherd's Glen and keep the priestesses from finding Alessa too soon. Thor was off in Asgard attempting to find a way to negate Alessa's possible world ending pregnancy.

That meant that, for now at least, the little family could sit down together and watch a movie.

Tony picked Finding Nemo.

"Why are they fish?" Alessa ended up asking very early on.

"Because they're supposed to be relatable while still being cute and fun for kids," Bruce said, his arm around Tony's shoulders and his head against his lover's chest. He reached out for affection, trying to ignore how shaken he was from the last sojourn into that hell world.

"Shouldn't it be darker that far under water?"

"They've taken artistic license."

"Huh." Alessa did not understand what movies were supposed to be like, clearly. She had never been allowed to the cinema, and she hadn't had a TV when she was growing up.

Feet on the table, a bowl of cheesy popcorn in Bruce's lap so it was just a grab away to get to, Alessa's constant and smart questions, and some mostly clean fingers on the back of the other man's neck made it the perfect evening. Sure, they had another little trip to hell and yes, it was jarring and scarred Bruce even deeper, but at least Tony knew that he could actually still count on the loners that had helped him save New York over two years ago. It felt like they'd never left. Like they could just pick back up and start working together all over again.

DUM-E came in with juice refills (and Alessa's was topped off too, though she hadn't had any to drink and they ended up pausing the movie so the spilled mess could be cleaned up) and eventually, Marlin saved his son and they all lived happily ever after.

Alessa likely had questions about that too but Tony decided it was Bruce's night to be the mom.

"So... a long awful journey to save his son made him less likely to worry?"

"Yep."

"That's not how people work."

"It wouldn't be a very happy movie if Marlin hid with Nemo in a bunker for the rest of their lives."

"No, but it'd be realistic."

"As realistic as a movie about smart fish hunting down a child fish can be."

"Touche."

Bruce smiled at Alessa, miming ruffling her hair, disturbing the smoky outline that made the top of her head and making it briefly indistinct. "You should rest. It's been a long day for you."

"It's been longer for you."

She stood up, yawning despite the fact she had no need to yawn. "We should watch more movies. The fish make no sense, but at least they're fun."

"When Thor comes back, we'll watch The Lion King. I think you'll both get a kick out of that," Tony grinned, watching JARVIS bear slowly lift off from his spot on the end of the sofa to follow Alessa back to bed. Tony intended on following her in a little while, not that he could tuck her in, not that she really slept, but he hoped it would prepare her for what she was going to have to expect after they fixed her up and she was back to being just a little girl with telekinetic powers all over again.

For the moment, though, he just wanted to relax with Bruce. He slung an arm over his shoulder and flattened his hand on the other man's chest.

"Do you want something to help you sleep tonight?" he asked, referencing another drug induced bedroom adventure. He wouldn't try to molest him first, however.

Tony nosed against Bruce's curls. He had no idea how the man managed to smell so good, all the time. "What about Frozen? Ever seen that one?"

"I think... yes, please. I'd like some help. But I won't tomorrow. I don't want to become dependent."

Bruce closed his eyes. He was as safe as he could be, with Tony in the walls of Stark Tower. Legal attempts at the military claiming him were being kept well in hand by an army of lawyers. Alessa was going to rest.

Why did he feel so shaken and unsafe?

"I've heard of Frozen. I don't have any idea what happens in it besides a princess having ice powers." But he heard that kids liked it, so maybe they could watch it with Alessa.

"And a lot of singing. Very girl-power," Tony grinned, sliding out from under Bruce before he pulled him off of the sofa. "How about I bake some brownies instead? Lower dosage. Plus chocolate. If we're lucky, I won't burn it."

When Tony said he'd bake the brownies, what he really meant was finding an old box of mix, throwing in some eggs and water and pot, and making Bruce do the mixing. He hated mixing. It was why he tended to stick to omelets or instant oatmeal or take out.

The smell of the baking drugs was soothing, the warm chocolate enticing and they even had some ice cream to go with it. Tony tended to eat like a child. For a man that hated mess, he really was a mess all on his own. Chocolate smeared his lips and ice cream melted in his bowl as he and Bruce resumed their snuggling in bed with the news on.

More strange sigils were found in New York, like the kind that appeared in London, New Mexico and Central Park. It was a good sign, in Tony's opinion. It meant Thor was home pleading their case.

Bruce intervened a few times to make sure Tony didn't burn the brownies. Then as they settled in and Tony ate like a toddler, Bruce gave him a little smile and wiped drugged chocolate off of Tony's lip before licking it off his thumb.

He only halfway listened to the news. He was waiting for someone to leak news about the military trying to take possession of him, for someone to mention that media darling Tony Stark had shacked up with a monster and had a near-corpse in his tower, for another news anchor to gather a bunch of commentators talking about whether or not the Avengers should be tracked like animals now that all their dirty laundry was aired. Bruce didn't go outside very often these days, not after the media plastered his face everywhere and talked about each and every American death he was responsible for. Despite the fact that Natasha and Clint easily had comparable body counts, the the focus had been put on him, because at least those two were doing it under orders.

And, they were boring. They were normal people. Bruce Banner, not so normal. He would be less frightening if he could control himself. Even when the Hulk wasn't trying to kill people, like in New York, he still caused sizable damage. Still, there were other issues facing the world these days. SHIELD's most notorious had been unleashed and SHIELD itself had been labeled a terrorist organization.

Ever since that whole mess started, Tony couldn't even get Maria Hill on the phone anymore. His employees had a worse attendance record than he did!

Luckily, at this point, he could run his company through JARVIS and emails...and Pepper. She might not be talking to him, she might consider herself dangerous, but she did love her job.

There was nothing about Bruce on the news that evening, just more about Deathlock and a little bit about Cybertech, filling the gap Hammer had left. He didn't care. They were no Stark Industries.

Tony was more of a nightowl than Bruce. He rarely slept. And despite the pot, he'd probably be up all night.

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Why didn't I click send??? :<

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