starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

Bruce tensed, waiting for an explosion, but none came. Instead of taking offense, as he expected her to, Alessa just stared up at Thor with a neutral expression.

“I’m a lot of things. I’m mean and bitter and angry. But I’m not a liar.”

It was true, after all. Lies only left behind superficial hurt. Truth was what cut the deepest. Truth was the only thing Alessa dealt with.

“He made a deal with me not to say anything if he let us pass in and out. But he cursed Tony, so I’m not going to keep to that.”

“When did you figure this out?” Bruce asked, taking long, deep breaths and struggling to remain calm.

“As soon as we got into the palace the first time.”

“And you didn’t TELL US?” Bruce punched the wall, and for a brief moment, green flashed around his pupils, before he immediately withdrew, walking to the other side of the room and turning his back to them both. He breathed. Focused on reining everything in, and not on the horrible pit of rage and self-loathing that had suddenly appeared in his stomach. For a heart-sinking moment, he had wanted to hit her. Hit her for letting them all walk into the lion’s den.

His disgust and horror at himself helped him stop focusing on how angry he was.

Alessa stared at his back, her expression completely neutral. “His lies are keeping the planet stable.” She looked up at Thor. “But they won’t for long. He’s letting grudges get ahead of the good of Asgard. People will die if he stays on the throne.”

It was rather typical of Thor to decide to up and leave because he thought he knew best, he thought he had it all figured out and he thought he could handle it on his own. Whatever was going on with Alessa, that was a scenario that had nothing at all to do with him for the moment.

Loki-as-Odin? That was a far more pressing concern of his, something he could wrap his head around at least.

While Thor was rampaging, Bruce and Alessa still had a very important member of their family ailing. What, exactly, were they to do with that? Thor couldn't help with a cure to a curse. And Tony...Tony could not live the way he was.

Well, Thor was off to possibly kill his brother. If he was successful, Alessa would have dealt with her vengeful duties and she could be content with not having to curse the shit out of Asgard.

But Tony wasn't so easy to fix.

After Thor stormed out, Alessa approached Bruce quietly, her expression still neutral. "I know what you wanted to do."

He tensed up, curling in on himself and covering his face with his hands.

"You don't need to feel so guilty about it. I understand." She began to back away again. "Tony needs us."

Bruce took a deep breath, then scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before crossing his arms and nodding.

As soon as they got back to the healer's room, Alessa leaned over Tony and Bruce shoved all his feelings into a little black box while he started talking to healers.

"We found out that this is a curse. We don't have curses like this on Earth, so what do you usually do to fix those?" he asked.

The healer looked uncomfortable as she gazed at the apprentice, who in turn was looking uncomfortable as well. "Sometimes they aren't always reversible," the young Asgardian said, hands up because he looked rather like he was waiting to be punched. Opening his mouth a moment later, however, brought a brightness to his eyes. "I-- Yes. Yes! I do believe we have a tincture that may remove the last few days worth of a person's being...that could be more than enough to remove the curse!"

And memories too, but a few days... Surely even Tony could part with that in order to be able to think again.

The youth scrambled out of the room before anyone could give him leave to do so, hoping to restore a little faith in himself to the others so that they may forget that he could well be to blame for keeping the unmanned shop open.

It would only be a few minutes before he returned, luckily, holding the swirling pink mist captured in a vial out to the healer.

"A few days? And we're sure that won't damage his brain? Humans are different from Asgardians, after all..."

"If he loses too many memories, I can try to replace them," Alessa offered. At Bruce's skeptical look, she said, "He leaves them lying everywhere. It's just a matter of helping them go back in."

Another skeptical look.

"I'll ask him before I try?"

Okay, Bruce could live with that. He wasn't sure if he trusted Alessa to have the control needed to not burn out Tony's brain, and hopefully the man will be done with magic fiddling with his brain.

"If it's the best we have, we should try it," Bruce said tentatively, taking Tony's hand tightly.

"Yrt dluohs uoy thgir nmad," Tony muttered. He couldn't possibly go on like this, he couldn't. He'd rather Bruce shoot him in the head than carry on. That wasn't the thought anyone wanted to hear but without his mind, he was nothing. Money could never make him as happy as tinkering did. He couldn't even read, he couldn't do anything like this!

In the movies and in books, having one's mind cleaned out a few days back was a simple task that left the victim -- or patient in this case -- blacked out and sleeping merrily. In reality, however, it left Tony screaming until his throat was too raw, tears streaming down his face, and a confused look upon the dissipation of the pink mist from his nostrils.

"Where am I," he choked out, panicking. "Where am I?!"

"Tony, Tony, you're safe, it's okay," Bruce said quickly, standing by the medical table and doing his best to keep everything nice and compartmentalized. "You're in Asgard. You're safe."

He didn't immediately grab for Tony's hand, even though he wanted to desperately. Instead, he kept himself calm and his voice soothing. "You're going to be a little confused, but Alessa and I are right here, okay?"

Alessa leaned over his table, looking him up and down. "He's speaking okay again."

Honestly, she was relieved. More than she could really say. It was just hard to tell with how little expression she had for intense emotions.

"Asgard?!" He tried to sit up but the non-physical restraints keeping him on the table left small welts on his arms from the force in which he bucked against them in his attempt to sit up. "Why the hell are we on Asgard? Lessy, whatever you're doing--" By then the healer had come over, touching a sudden display over his body. "Oh. Uh...hi there. Tony Stark." He wasn't exactly flirting, he was still a little too put off and afraid to flirt.

His eyes drifted up and held Bruce's, especially once he caught the fear in his friend's eyes.

There would be a lot more to worry about later. Some of the things missing were extremely important. But they could deal with that after all of this was over. He tried to take a deep breath, though he felt like coughing. Something thick was in his lungs. It was...annoying.

"Can I get up now, Doc?"

"If all the scanners say you can. How do you feel?" Bruce watched the healers' hands dance over their scanners out of the corner of his eye, but for once, he didn't care about technology (okay, maybe he cared a little). He only had eyes for Tony at the moment, terrified that he'd suddenly start speaking backwards again.

Alessa, for her part, propped her head in her hands and rested her elbows on the table next to Tony's arm. "We came here because Thor said they could fix the body. It's in the other room."

"Then something happened and you were cursed."

"And I think we just fixed it." Alessa looked over Tony's head and gave the apprentice a little nod of approval. That was tantamount to her giving him a hug.

"I feel like I've been slapped," he grumbled and when he grumbled again, the healer released the hold that the bed had on it's patient. Tony was not pleased as he sat up and wrapped his hand around one of his wrist marks. "By Thor. Speaking of, where's Fabio's more thunderous brother at? No, don't tell me, playing house on Earth with that star gazer...? Playing poker with Rogers? My head is killing me. Would it be a faux pas if I throw--"

Yep, there it came. Lunch and all of it's glory was left on the floor between his legs. He wasn't proud of that. In fact, he looked pretty damned embarrassed.

"Send me the bill," he groaned, trying to get off of the table without stepping in his own sick.

Bruce looked completely unfazed by the vomit. He had seen far worse in his adventures doctoring.

Instead, he immediately took Tony's arm, giving him support as he tried to get up from the table. "Be careful. You're still recovering."

As for Thor...

He and Alessa exchanged quick glances. "We're going to talk to Thor later. What's the last thing you remember?"

He needed to gauge how much he needed to fill Tony in on. Hopefully, it was just a few days, like the apprentice said. A few days, they could handle.

What was the last thing he remembered? There was a moment of noticeable uncertainty as Tony scanned through several conflicting thoughts. "Shaving," he finally settled on, but there were a few images of him shaving. "And I think I was having eggs?" It was fuzzy. His brain was never fuzzy. That was...horribly disturbing.

A sudden closing of his throat made Tony attempt to clear it twice before he smiled, only to have that smile fall away like petals in the wind.

"Actually... I really don't remember, Banner. I was buying you a pair of stretchy pants... And shouldn't you be in India dodging my sat phone calls?" But he knew Alessa?

How was that possible.

"I need a mint."

"In... India?"

There was no way that could be good.

"No. No, I came back from India after you invited a terrorist to your house. That was a while ago."

Alessa's face was neutral as she walked closer, but in her head, she was wondering if she would just go ahead and curse the shit out of things even if Thor killed Loki.

"That was before you met me." She looked up at Tony, her expression blank as ever. "Do you remember how we met?"

He didn't like the looks they were giving him and he didn't like having people so close to him. Tony didn't step back, that was weakness, but he did push slightly with his hand as if that might keep him from getting too close to them. He knew he cared about Alessa and Bruce, but that didn't mean he really wanted to be touched right now. That Bruce had steadied him seemed strangely horrible. Really, people had no respect for personal space.

Alessa's question didn't quite make him flinch, but it was somewhat disturbing just the same.

"We... Banner and I, we met you in Silent Hill," he said, glancing at Bruce. "But that happened-- Okay, did I get hit on the head or something? Did someone drug my drink? Not. Cool. Just so you know, it's also illegal."

Bruce backed off at the little push. Sometimes Tony needed space, but... usually, that was only when he was having a panic attack. Maybe he just needed air because he was feeling sick.

Alessa, however, was right up in his space, however. She has no sense of personal space.

"No, someone cursed you and you started touching everything like a little kid when we went into a magic store." Yes, Alessa's tone was curt, but that was how she expressed worry. She had a bad feeling she knew exactly what Loki had tried to take away. "Tell me what happened when we both talked alone for the first time. What were we talking about?"

"Chess," Tony replied immediately, happy that he'd gotten at least one question right without realizing that he had glossed over a very important chunk of that conversation. "I taught you how to play." The human mind was ridiculously complicated and worse, capable of fooling itself to filling in details that hadn't happened.

Alessa knew how to play chess already. Tony gave her pointers but he hadn't taught her anything. Even so, his mind now clearly supplied him with memories of sitting down at a table going over how pawns moved and what castling meant.

In reality, he'd been in a cage for his own protection, under the courthouse, in Alessa's domain. And yet, he remembered none of that.

"That's not what we talked about. I already knew how to play."

Bruce looked down and covered his mouth, furrowing his brow and trying not to let onto how concerned he was by this.

"You wanted something from me. You kept asking for it, then decided if you maybe did something for me, I would give it to you." Information about Bruce and if he was okay. He had asked over and over, and Alessa had been stone cold in the face of his fear and concern. "You were right. What did you keep asking me, Tony?"

Bruce knew what it was, even if he had never heard the details of what happened. Tony was very single-minded, and had probably been just as worried about him as he had been distraught.

Tony's brow furrowed and he just shook his head at Alessa. It didn't take any effort to put two and two together. He was missing more than a few days. He was missing whole chunks of something. Was it isolated? "I don't know." That was hard for a know-it-all to admit. "Like I said, things are a little spotty."

He remembered giving Alessa her companionship. He remembered befriending her and riding out of dodge with a fireball behind them. He remembered her body--

"How about you fill me in? That might jog something."

Bruce was not stupid. He could put two and two together.

He backed up a little further, shutting himself down and sincerely hoping his theory was wrong. He took off his glasses, looking to the healers around them and softly saying, “Can we have a moment, please?”

This was going to get intensely personal and he would like the three of them to talk alone.

“You wanted me to tell you that Bruce was okay.” Alessa, on the other hand, didn’t really care about company. To her, talking around the healers was closer to talking around monkeys than actual people. Actually, talking around anyone she didn’t really care about was like talking around a monkey. Usually an annoying one. “You were in the graveyard, but you were pulled underground into the jail. You wouldn’t stop asking me about him. It was really annoying, actually.”

Back then, he was also just a chattering monkey to her. A chattering monkey that was obsessed with another monkey who chattered slightly less.

“Then we played a chess game. I had to make the pieces. When you won, I said you could ask a question and I’d answer honestly. I would have answered your questions even if you didn’t play, but you were really rude about asking so I decided to make you work for it.”

Had this been any other situation, Bruce would have chuckled at her. Yeah, that sounded like Alessa. And that also sounded like Tony.

“Can you remember what you asked me?”

He couldn't. The blank look in his eyes was enough to prove it, though he tried his best to play it off. "Why wouldn't he be okay," Tony asked, smirking. "He's probably the strongest out of all of us."

But Banner couldn't access the Hulk there. The thought was puzzling, just as puzzling as being unable to understand what was going on with his own mind.

"Instead of playing these games and making me feel like an idiot savant, how about you just tell me?" The twenty questions were actually starting to upset him. It was all in the way he stood, despite the projected confidence. Despite the swagger. Despite the smirk. He was afraid.

Someone fucked with his head, took something important away from him. He wanted it back.

Unfortunately, Alessa had all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer. She was already working out in her head how they would fix this, how they would exact proper retribution, and she wasn’t one to consider how to delicately handle a frightened man.

“You asked me how the both of you could get out. I told you Bruce needed to open the puzzle box—you remember the box? The one you found under the Christmas tree?”

Bruce looked down at her with a frown. “How do you know about the Christmas tree? You weren’t there for that.”

“I’m aware of everything that happens in the town.”

A little bit of color crept up his neck. “Everything?”

She took a moment to look at him with the flattest expression she could manage. “Everything.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. Alessa rolled her eyes—what, did he think she just guessed what was going on in the various layers and reached of her realm?—before looking back at Tony and continuing with her thought. “But I told you that you could leave whenever if you just asked nicely. You didn’t ask even then.”

Bruce looked at her again, this time with a furrowed brow and previous embarrassment forgotten. Tony could have just left? Neither of them had ever told him about that.

Tony's eyebrows lifted and furrowed as he watched the exchange between the two. Bruce's words, the flushing-- Yeah, he really didn't understand and that was more annoying than anything else he might be faced with here. His whole lot in life was, incidentally, understanding. Languages came easily, complicated scientific subjects could be learned over night-- Without his mind, he was nothing.

Tony took two steps back, just missing the vomit, and sat on the edge of the table again before he fell over.

Everything. Just what happened to them? He remembered the box, he remembered the trials. Those memories, however, were not entirely accurate.

He couldn't begin to voice the reasons why. The mind was... The mind was a dangerous place, though it was his playground too.

"Well that sounds...right. You don't leave people in combat situations. I've been around enough military guys to know that."

“Silent Hill isn’t combat. Silent Hill is hell. You always are trying to walk out of hell.” Especially since there is never any other escape, as Alessa was intimately aware.

“Do you remember fighting HYDRA?” Time for her own personal experiment. Were the memories that didn’t involve Bruce somehow still intact? “The hospital room. The woman who died in front of us before they came.”

Bruce was conspicuously quiet, allowing Alessa to move through the memory tests on her own. After all, magic was her area of expertise, not his.

And, in a small part of himself, he could admit he didn’t want to confirm his theory: that Loki had specifically stolen memories of their relationship from Tony.

Tony recounted all of it. Some of it wasn't right exactly but people couldn't remember every detail like Alessa could. For the most part, Tony had a grip on the majority of the reality Alessa had experienced as well. He noted Bruce's role as well but it was muted. Just about everything concerning Bruce was.

The localized memories, the specific emotions tied to, and anything truly meaningful with Bruce seemed to have vanished. Their history was gone, though Tony still seemed affectionate towards the man.

But did that mean that Tony was always going to feel that way or did their going to die sex start something that never would have happened otherwise?

Bruce was good at controlling his feelings, hiding them and burying them and pretending they weren't there. He learned to do it with his father, he learned to do it with the Hulk, and he knew how to do it now. He was hurt and angry and cynically unsurprised (he had expected something to ruin them sooner rather than later).

So he stayed carefully professional and put his glasses on again, melting into his doctor persona and forgetting what feelings were for a moment.

"Well, we figured out what you're missing. You--"

"Alessa, not right now. He just woke up." Bruce's voice was stern in a detached way, eliciting a frown from Alessa. "First, let's just make sure you're okay. How are you feeling? Any more nausea, dizziness, fatigue, anything?"

He wouldn't like to have a relationship he didn't remember forced on him, especially not in Alessa's patented blunt way. That would be handled far more delicately, and after all the other pressing matters were dealt with.

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