starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

The Not So Silent Hill

[Continued from: here]

Staring at the little house, Tony was noteably unimpressed. The child and other half of a god (however loosely you wanted to use the term) really ought to have not been so...small. He was expecting more, and the way he stood with his hip out and arms crossed proved it. They'd take a quinjet to the nearest open field and one of Tony's smaller cars after that, loaded into the back of the plane after he'd ripped out a few seats.

With Extremis stable enough to exist in several now fire-breathing and extra strong mice rampaging through specially designed cages to contain them, JARVIS' databases and hacking ability getting them the information they needed to arrive here, and Alessa more or less content with the nurse she and Banner picked out, this had been the next logical step. Even so, he expected it to be a little more difficult.

Wearing a black t-shirt and dark jeans that only accentuated his somewhat femininely proportioned hips and backside, Tony Stark was still Tony Stark and flashiness and he went hand in hand.

Like a brand name.

It didn't help that the yellow convertible was parked across the street, in direct contention with the overall look and feel of the neighbor around it.

"You can knock." He wasn't too keen on touching things other people did.

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It hurt. There was growling in his head. The movement just made his head swim more--the knife biting into his first knuckle as he strained against straps, waking up in a hole because a little dirt fell in your face and seeing the shovel moving to bury you above--and sweat burst on his skin.

The straps on Alessa snapped. "SHUT UP!" She immediately swung her arm for the first time in decades, sending a molten fireball to the ground, right where the little faces where pressing upwards. The voices squealed and shrieked, but the faces were forced to retreat from the flames and the heat radiating off her glowing body.

The moment Tony got Bruce to the hall, he tried shoving Tony's arms off, suddenly gasping for air in shallow panicky breaths and screaming echoing in his head.

"And you wanted me to just leave?" Tony said, shielding Bruce's body with his own when the air literally sizzled over him in Alessa's fit. He had no idea what was happening there, what was causing it, or how Bruce could be bleeding so profusely. From what he knew of Bruce, even a small injury, panic or feat could bring out the Hulk. After all, the collapse of the lab on the helicarrier had. This was so much worse.

Was Alessa causing him not to Hulk out again like he said she had in Silent Hill? Something to keep in mind, he supposed, though now was not the time to praise the girl's ability to restrain him. Tony wasn't a doctor. He couldn't even hem pants, like Bruce had teased him. How could he sew the other up?

"Work with me," he begged Bruce, shutting the door between them and Alessa's tantrum. He only let him go for a moment before he dropped to his knees again at Bruce's side, looking for telltale signs of the Hulk coming out to smash up his poor island.

Give Bruce a little credit, Tony. He could handle being hurt without Hulking out. If he couldn't, he would have never lasted away from modern medicine.

That said, the influence of Silent Hill might also have something to do with it.

Bruce's vision was cloudy. He was seeing flashes of things that weren't their, pulsing walls that were still as stone, screaming children that were long dead.

"Pressure, pressure..." He pressed his hands against his wet side, trying to apply pressure by himself because in the back of his head, he knew that he shouldn't let Tony touch him when he was bleeding. He didn't remember why at the moment, but he knew that it was important.

Credit, perhaps, but Tony did remember the Hulk rampaging while he played with the turbines. He remembered Widow's account of it from the leaked SHIELD documents. He wasn't afraid. He couldn't be afraid. Not of Bruce of all people. Not even if he had all the reason in the world to be.

Pressure. Now that he could do. He was already streaked in his blood, why not a little more?

Tony pressed his hands over Bruce's and leaned in. How long would they need to do this? Hands couldn't stop bleeding indefinitely.

"Tell me what to get!" Just not needles. Please. Super glue, however, that he could do.

"Gloves."

Tony shouldn't touch the blood. He shouldn't touch it.

And needles would do nothing now. It wouldn't stop the bleeding, just take away a passage out of his body. He would still be bleeding internally with a wound this deep.

He remembers getting it. Remembers the stalking beast with the pyramid mask.

"I don't have time to find gloves," Tony complained immediately, and it was too late. He was already bled all over. He didn't have any cuts or open wounds, he was pretty sure at least, so as long as he didn't get any blood in his eyes or mouth he'd be gold.

Not that Bruce would be.

There was just too much blood. Too much blood and no sign of the Jolly Green Giant.

"Why aren't you changing?!" Tony demanded, angry and starting to lose it. "You're going to bleed out!" And while that might seem like a relief to Bruce in some ways, to Tony, it might as well end his world.

Why isn't he changing? Why isn't he changing?

He could die. He could die right there. That was too good a thing for Silent Hill to do.

He slipped one hand out from under Tony's, squinting at his palm. The more he looked at it, the cleaner it was, the more the screams receded from his head and the air felt cold.

"Because it's not real."

The town was trying to trick them.

His hands were suddenly clean. His side was dry. There wasn't blood. There never was. There was just an old scar.

He wanted to laugh. The town was going to drive them crazy. Drive them crazy all the way in France. It already ruined his head, might as well try to ruin Tony's too.

Somehow the laughter just wasn't appropriate. Tony blinked down at Bruce as he looked over the blood that phased away in globs, dissolving towards the ceiling. As his hands cleaned themselves, he felt his anger at the situation bubble over to fear. Emotion got the better of him and tears ran down his face.

"I thought you were dead!" Tony cried out, grabbing the front of Bruce's shirt to haul him back into a seated position. He'd never been so scared in his life and it showed.

He leaned forward on his knees, Tony pressed his forehead against Bruce's chest and let out a long, low sigh.

"Don't do that to me again."

Bruce had never seen Tony cry. Even in Silent Hill, he had never cried.

He draped his arms around Tony's shoulders and pressed his nose into his hair. There was a dull ache in his scar, the one arching across his ribs, but that didn't matter for the moment. He just remembered his own panic, his own despair when he had seen Tony sink into the graveyard and thought he had died.

He could still see the outlines of children over Tony's head. Jigsaw children, torn apart and hastily put back together. His mind was leaving him. Every time he had an encounter with Silent Hill, he felt his mind crumble a little more.

But there was a reason it targeted him. His stomach fell. "Alessa. Tony, Alessa."

The visions had forced them to leave her. What if that had been the point?

The last thing Tony wanted to do right then was run back into that inferno of a room but sometimes you just had to do things you didn't particularly want to. He pulled himself out of Bruce's arms, face a splotched mess, and bolted for the doors. "J-- Open outer and inner lab doors, Stark-0415." The doors hissed for him as they split open and reacting blindly, he found himself inside hell itself.

But he'd been there before, playing chess with the Queen Demon herself. He'd survived this once, why not again?

And if not-- Well, he'd had a pretty good life. His dad might not have cared much for him and he might have always had some alcohol issues but it was Alessa's turn to get to experience something good. Alessa's turn and Bruce's turn.

The heat was sweltering but Tony threw up his arms to protect his face and could almost feel the skin start to blacken on them. "Not today!" he yelled, unsure if this was all just more Silent Hill illusion or if it was real.

What did it matter at the moment?

"You don't get to have her back today! ALESSA!"

"Leave! I told you to leave!"

"You DARE speak to me like that?!"

It wasn't a lab anymore. There was fire everywhere. A hulking thing, wreathed in swirling black cloth, so tall that it stoops, arms and legs so long that it takes up the hallway. They're in a living room, burning, chunks of the floor falling through to the fiery kitchen below. Alessa is back in her school uniform, smaller than she usually is, puffing out her chest and looking up at the beast with her hands fisted in her skirt. The tears running down her face belied her defiant pose. "You're dead. You're supposed to stay dead."

Know what Tony was starting to hate? Dead parents coming back to nightmarish life to torment their children. He was going to seriously rue the day that Howard came back for a chat and some scotch, though if that ever happened, Tony might well throw in the towel. No matter what his father might have said on film in the 70s, that didn't make decades of heartache any less real.

Growling as he pushed his way through Alessa's inferno, Tony moved between the small girl and whatever towering mass of horrible shadow had arrived to make her miserable when all she really needed to do was get better.

This might be one more instance of laying down on the line for a fellow soldier but he wasn't trying to prove himself. He had nothing to prove this time anyway. He just wasn't going to let Alessa get hurt.

"I believe the lady told you to leave!"

"This is none of your concern!"

The monster approached, every step making a sharp clicking sound on the burning wood and the billowing cloth sweeping around it. Alessa flinched back from the cloth as it came closer, every brush against the skin leaving burning pain, as if the cloak were made of nettles.

"She always had a way with men. Twisted them around her little finger, made them suffer, then tossed them aside when she was done. Masterful. My little girl."

The beast bent, curled, lowering itself so its face was level with Tony's, and in the firelight, it was clear it was wearing a perfect porcelain mask.

"Leave before she sucks you dry."

"I SAID GO AWAY!" A floorboard ripped itself from the floor and bashed the monster in the face. It reared back with a shriek of rage and swung its arm, an arm that cracked like a whip in the air and swung like a belt.

Tony wasn't so good at dodging but for a man of his age, he was a little more spry than some. What he wouldn't have gived for a little super soldiber serum to tide him over, however. He'd have to play around with that later, even if Bruce might well kill him. As he dodged the creature, he grabbed Alessa as well and should he not just fall through her, as tended to happen with astral projections, he would likely end up sheltering her with his body.

After all, none of this was real and if that was the case, Silent Hill would do everything in it's power to make it appear so with all senses. He'd seen and smelled the blood on Bruce, he'd touched it. And if all of this gambling paid off, he could use that experience to his benefit.

It would not help him from feeling or experiencing hurt, but it shouldn't actually be there.

Pushing himself up, defiant despite all of his senses telling him that his skin was crackling and splitting, Tony Stark pressed on towards the porceline faced creature, eyes blazing with the heat of the room and his own inner fire.

"You have no business being here," he growled. "You're not real! This isn't your realm. And you're really messing up my carpeting!"

He hoped the gamble paid off.

Alessa was solid. She wrapped her arms around his neck, digging her nails into his back.

"I have every business to be here. I haunt this world. I wait in every shadow. When the new world is born, I will be there."

The porcelain mask cracked at the mouth, its lower jaw hanging open with jagged teeth.

"I am more real than you will ever be."

The beast lunged with a hiss, but then a deafening crack rattled the ground, a bolt of lightning coming down and hitting the monster, making it rear back and writhe and shriek. "ALESSA!"

Then everything was gone. Alessa wasn't in Tony's arms, and there was no fire. Instead, Alessa was sitting up on her medical table, the straps ruined, gasping for air.

And Bruce managed to force the lab door open again, his eyes wide. "What just happened?"

Tony took two steps back and sat down, legs out and knuckles hitting the floor between his legs. "I think I just shit out through my penis," he said, and while he wasn't generally crude like that, he really felt as if he'd done the impossible and lived to see through to the end. It was horrifying. And still, it gave him a real sense of accomplishment. Though with what, exactly, he couldn't be sure.

How could be that accomplished when he might not have done anything at all? It wasn't like he could call down lightning from the sky--

When he saw Alessa gasping, however, Tony half crawled on his knees towards her, pulling himself up to the table to wrap his arms around her burning hot body.

This time he might really get burned but it was worth it.

One more hurdle passed--

He was sure that they were going to be all right...for the next few minutes at least. "Shh, Ashy, calm down, breath like I do. In...and out..."

"Name's... not... Ashy... dumb boy..." It was the first thing she properly said in decades besides screaming at monsters. Her tongue was clumsy, making her speech difficult to understand, like her tongue is numb and too big for her mouth, and her voice lacked any bite to it. She flopped against his shoulder, struggling to breath even as she started to hiccup, her chest jerking painfully in such a strange way that she didn't remember anymore.

"You're both okay. We're all okay." Bruce walked to the table, a little unsteady on his feet, and wrapped his arms around both of them, ignoring how hot Alessa was on his already abnormally warm skin.

Her tattoo was glowing on her back, bleeding all over again, but it was working. Nothing was exploding. Nothing was burning anymore.

It didn't matter how long it was, that embrace, but Tony loved it for every moment that passed. He was sweating up a storm by the end of it, but there were showers and Alessa was talking and moving and despite not having a fully functioning memory, everything just seemed perfect.

Darkness was setting in by the time he and Bruce finished all of the tests on Alessa. She was given a light sheet to sleep under and JARVIS was set to monitor her, the bear he occupied looking over her from a table to her left, within reach if she needed it.

Tony was animated, despite how exhausted he so obviously was. His eyes shone bright as he stood with Bruce in the kitchen, shirt off and scar visible, stirring a pot of whatever hadn't been expired. His hands moved all over the place and he walked from one end of the room to the other, constantly running his fingers through his hair.

"I just can't-- We did that. It's insane!" Yeah, he did get excited over his achievements!

Bruce was more subdued but no less excited by their success. He was smiling into the pot, barely paying attention to what he was doing. Alessa would need physical therapy, speech therapy, regular therapy... but she was able to move.

"I wasn't sure if we'd be able to do it," he admitted softly, "but we did. Tony, she can touch things now."

There hadn't been much time to revel in it, in between Silent Hill's intrusion and the exhaustion afterwards, but she'd be able to feel and touch.

Maybe they could be halfway normal now.

Two geniuses and a demon child... Half way to normal was all they'd ever be and you know what? Tony liked it. He sat on the counter just to keep from pacing and had another drink of water from one of the bottles still in the pantry. Everything was buzzing in his head, all of these ideas...his heart thumped in his chest like it always did when he'd come out of something impossible alive and on top.

It wasn't until they were actually eating that Tony managed to sober a little and he dropped his cheek into his hand as he spooned soup into his mouth as neatly as he could manage.

"Could you...just for the future you know...try not to almost die again? I'm not actually sure I want to deal with that again, okay?"

"I'll promise it if you promise the same."

It was more relevant to Tony, anyway. Tony was so much more fragile, and so much more prone to throw himself into dangerous situations. Which was darkly ironic, because it was Bruce who so wished to die.

But he didn't want to die right then. He didn't want to die when he was with Tony or Alessa.

"I don't want to deal with you almost dying any more than the other way around."

"Deal." Tony reached across the table and offered Bruce his hand to shake. Once a business man, always a business man. He went back to eating just to pause again a few moments later, gesturing with the spoon. "So anyway, what was that? Do you think they want her back? Is giving her a body she might actually use such a bad thing? And, stop me if I'm wrong here, but was all of that just a little too close for comfort? I mean, if that can happen now, here, in the middle of no where, what's it from happening again on movie night? Or if we're out at a nice restaurant?"

Ah yes, Tony and his finer things.

"I'm not saying that I'd be embarrassed for tar and ash kids popping out of the walls attacking people over their sorbet, but that a porcelain faced representation of Alessa's mother might ruin the wine, but trying to give Lessy a normal life might sort of not work if that happens."

Because yes, going out to fancy restaurants with the world's richest man and his anger-issued boyfriend was really normal.

"If she's as important as she's been telling us, then of course they want her back."

Bruce picked at his food. The whole incident had churned his stomach, but he was trying to force himself into eating. He hadn't been eating enough since Tony lost his memory.

"She can control it on some level, right? Maybe she just wasn't prepared for the spike in power and summoned it by accident before losing control. We'll talk to her about it when she wakes up."

When she wakes up. That could be awhile. Tony checked his pocket for his phone and then reached back across the table to take Bruce's spoon from his hand.

"That reminds me. Swim trunks. You have ten minutes. You wouldn't believe how the water around here holds the heat." He wanted, badly, to spend a little time on the beach with Bruce. Why? He wasn't so sure about that actually. Another gap in his memory, probably.

He'd already lost his shirt, rummaging through his bags for shorts was easy. He told JARVIS to keep the outdoor lights on. Strung in the trees, they'd look like fireflies.

Maybe he needed a little help with the romantic side of himself but he was doing pretty well for the time being.

He was just excited. Excited and pretty sure he was in love and... Who could blame him for being giddy?

Bruce considered telling Tony he was too tired, that he wanted to go to sleep, but the way Tony looked at him made him relent.

He could be a sucker, sometimes. Especially when he was in love. His lovers were able to talk him into the craziest things.

And that was what made him end up feeling very self-conscious, clad only in swim trunks, only toeing the water. "I haven't been in the ocean in years Tony." He didn't even remember the last time he went swimming. He couldn't help but feel he was going to sink like a rock. Or maybe get bitten or stung by angry wildlife.

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