The Not So Silent Hill

[starkingenuity]

[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.

Comments

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“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.”

[starkingenuity]

"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!"

Stupid phone

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“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.”

[thunderboltsandlightning]

"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."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“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.

[starkingenuity]

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?

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“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.”

[starkingenuity]

"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."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

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.

[starkingenuity]

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."

[godandhermother]

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.

[starkingenuity]

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--!"

[honeyibrokeharlem]

"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!"

[starkingenuity]

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!"

[honeyibrokeharlem]

"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.

[starkingenuity]

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.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

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.

[starkingenuity]

"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.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“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?”

[starkingenuity]

"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.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

It was true that there really wasn't a way to punish her. They couldn't spank her, even if she was corporeal--she'd probably laugh at that feeble attempt at a punishment, if she didn't smack them for trying to do it in the first place. They couldn't take away any privileges--attempting to restrict her movement would be futile, and what had they given her that they could in good conscience take back? They couldn't tell her that they were disappointed--Bruce doubted she cared all that much about how they felt about her violence.

"But we need to try to talk to her. She's smart, maybe it'll be easier for her to figure out once she's intellectualized it." Bruce neatly parries Tony's attempts to touch him, smacking away the hand firmly before taking out a bandage and kneeling between Tony's legs. "What about when she is ready to go to school? She could easily kill other children, even just by accident."

He made a mental note to force Tony into getting a doctor to look at his leg. That bruise didn't look good.

[starkingenuity]

"Add it to the list," he said, grinning stupidly as Bruce presented himself between his legs like that. Tony couldn't help himself but reach out and lightly finger the curls that had been allowed to grow back slowly. He even gently scratched his scalp, as one might a puppy. "There's a lot to do before she's ready for attending school. And we can always try a cyber academy. I think it would be a good idea to socialize her, but slowly. Can you imagine the notes we'll get home otherwise? Dear Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner. Alessa blew up Johnny's head today. She'll be attending detention for the next week."

He winced again at the tightness of the bandage but it couldn't be helped. His favorite doctor was taking care of him, as it should be, and Tony just put up with it for now.

There would be time to beg for kisses later.

With Alessa being moody and Thor being a self righteous prick -- as was perhaps his prerogative being the stuff of legend and all -- they had their work cut out for them.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

Bruce smiled as Tony played with his hair and he wrapped the leg. He had a thing for getting his hair touched and pulled, but he didn't dare tell Tony, because the man would definitely try to take advantage.

"Can you imagine what would happen if the kids ever tried pushing her around? She'd turn them all into paraplegics." It was funny as a mental image. Some big bully types closing in during lunch, just to be tossed through a window while Alessa kept eating. He doubted it would be so funny in practice.

"Maybe we should work on making her civil with Thor before we consider letting her near children." Bruce clipped the bandage in place and rested his hands on Tony's naked thighs before craning his neck and giving him a soft kiss. "Now get cleaned up. I think we're going to have World War III to deal with downstairs."

[starkingenuity]

That particular brand of kiss made Tony want to play with Bruce's hair a little longer or, better, slip down to the floor with him but-- There would be time enough to play doctor later. For now, they had to get back up to the conference room. "I'll be right there."

Tony stared at himself for a long time in the mirror after he was allowed to be alone and he touched his lined face, brushed out his hair, and sighed.

"You've gotten old," he told himself and went to get a scotch before he joined the sulkers and the righteous and the humble. Tony was none of those things. He was just tired. And limping pretty badly.

Sitting down with a huff, he glanced at Thor and then at Alessa. "You've got to be a little more careful, Lessy. That's going to take a whole lot of cleaning up and I don't really like people I don't know trampling through my home. Our home. Okay?"

"Stark." Thor evidently wanted to be started right away. "What do you know of Ragnorok?"

Tony frowned. "End of the world scenarios aren't really in my bedtime literature, Fabio."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

Alessa, at the very least, had the grace to look chastened. That actually meant something coming from her, since she usually did not care who got hurt in in her fits.

Another hint at how she was feeling was the fact that the teddy bear Tony had made her was sitting next to her on her chair. She was seeking comfort in ways she herself deemed socially acceptable.

Bruce was sitting on the edge of the couch, sipping water and frowning at Thor. "The myths from our world say that Ragnarok is the end of the world as we know it. Midgard strays from the ways of tradition, the gods of Asgard lose sight of their responsibilities, and three winters without break, called Fimbulwinter, come. Then the giants overthrow Asgard and submerge the world in the Ginnungagap. It's supposed to rise again after that, renewed."

Bruce took another sip of his water. He might have researched Norse mythology after he found out that Asgard existed.