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

[starkingenuity]

"Maybe we should keep you out of the sun for a little while," Tony teased. "I wouldn't know what SPF to put on you and we already have to worry about premature aging and skin cancer."

In the other room, Clint and Natasha were already going through JARVIS' digest. Tony had said to send it to his phone and he'd left his phone on the table. It probably was a breach of privacy but given their roles and their life choices, privacy was not something to be concerned about for now.

It was Clint that decided to share it with the scowling pair bookending him. Banner and Rogers were just no fun.

"Looks like we've got our in," he said cheerfully enough. "I've always wanted to be a cultist."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

"I'm going to end up really, really pale, aren't I?" But she was smiling, and that was what mattered.

Bruce, meanwhile, was pretty sure he was being a very bad boyfriend. Good ones kept world-class assassins from rifling through their boyfriends' phones, right?

"You really should have waited for Tony to come back," he grumbled softly, privately glad that he and Tony had never spent a long enough time apart from each other to turn to sexting. He had no doubt Natasha would take this opportunity to glance over Tony's text messages, too.

"So... you're going to just email them? Are you sure you won't need back up?" Steve asked, still chafing at the thought of an entire organization abusing children with impunity under the guise of religion. He was very tolerant of different kinds of faith, but this... this was defilement of something that was supposed to be beautiful and intimate between a person and God.

[cognitive_recalibration]

"And that's the attitude that benches you," Clint said with a grin, not really reading into Bruce's body language because it didn't concern him. He was very good at keeping things he was sure were none of his business exactly the way he left it...

After taking lots of photographs and having a little smug conversation with himself as to why he was still single and should keep it that way.

"Nat and I are pretty good at playing double agents. With or without that asshole's interference." He could feel Natasha's eyes on him so he smiled through it. He didn't exactly have a whole lot of choice.

What was done was done.

"You might want to delete the pictures of you off of here," he said as an aside, already breaking his promise not to say anything.

Evidently, Tony liked it when Bruce was asleep.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

Bruce made a very strange noise and glared at Clint as hard as he could, his cheeks immediately flushing. Natasha covered her mouth to hide how the corner of her mouth quirked upwards. Steve glanced between the three of them, feeling as he usually did: something was going over his head.

"What, has Stark been taking embarrassing pictures of you?" That sounded like something Tony would do as a joke.

Bruce glanced at Steve, keeping his lips pursed. "...Yeah. That's it."

Steve had a feeling that wasn't it. But, as a man raised in the 40's, while he was well aware that gay people existed, it just didn't occur to him that any of the Avengers might be interested in someone of the same sex. Embarrassing pictures was really the best he could come up with, at least until he stopped thinking about it later and then came to a horrifying realization while making himself dinner.

Bruce glared at Clint, daring him to make Steve's confusion go away.

[starkingenuity]

If only Tony could be a fly on the wall when Steve realized that Howard's kid was bonking Bruce Banner. Well, mentally at least. One day there would be too much sexual tension and they might rip each other apart, but for now, Tony's hand was good enough for the worst of the aches.

"What did I miss?" he asked a moment later, escorting Alessa back to the conference room with a quiet truce on the hair pulling of women that were trying to help her out.

Clint shrugged and tossed him his phone. "Got a website," he said. The last image he'd scrolled through, where Bruce was tucked up against Tony's chest (and it had to be Tony's, with that scar and the angle of the photo) still on it. "Found your stash."

Tony blinked. "This isn't even the best one. Did you look back to two weeks ago?"

Steve's cheeks puffed out. "Can't you take anything seriously, Stark? We found a way to get to the Order!"

Tony just rolled his eyes and tucked his phone away, unabashed by the found footage of his new obsession. "Yeah, got that," he said with a shrug. "Bird Brain and Not From Legal, ahem, are going to do what they do best right? Good, problem solved for now."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

All Bruce had to say was that he'd better not be naked in any of those pictures. Which... really meant nothing, since everyone in the room except Alessa had seen him naked, but he drew a mental line between post-transformation naked and post-heavy petting naked.

He rolled his eyes and huffed before patting the seat next to him for Alessa to sit down. Natasha was back to all business, keeping Alessa visible in the corner of her eye. "We'll do what we do best, but that also means we'll need ways to have untraceable communication with the outside world and each other. We also should see how much background information we can find on the leadership."

She glanced expectantly at Alessa, but she only shrugged.

"The last high priestess was killed thirty-one years ago, and I don't know anything about who came into power since. I can tell you how the structure works, but I can't tell you who's in charge now."

[starkingenuity]

The naked pictures were on Tony's hard drive, but all of those were post transformation so that Tony could find Bruce before anyone else did. It was strictly business. Bruce never wanted to sleep naked and Tony didn't blame him. He knew he could be pretty handsy and when temptation struck--

At least all he did was take photos at the moment.

He leaned back in his chair as Natasha shook her head. "That's good enough, I'll find out the rest while I'm there," she said confidently.

That really just left Steve without a job to do, at least until Thor got back from finding the plant and perhaps asking Asgard for their help in making Alessa whole again. He was odd man out with seeing the little too, which had really stopped being so amusing and started to seem... Awkward.

They'd all accepted Steve to pretty much lead them while they were together, but the fish out of water was still just gasping on dry land.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

Alessa was resisting the urge to glare at Natasha and tug her hair for everyone's sake and instead rested her chin on the counter, making everyone's abandoned silverware float and begin to make sculptures in the middle of the counter. It was her idea of fidgeting.

"I don't know why the Order hasn't attacked by now. They might think that HYRDA was the one who got me, since they attacked so soon before we left. I could go ask Valtiel."

Bruce frowned, because Alessa had mentioned Valtiel before and had yet to explain what, exactly, Valtiel was.

"But once they figure it out, they'll come for all of you. Sleep with weapons."

She wondered about Vincent and Claudia. Were they fighters too? Or were they dead?

For people like them, so closely tied to the Order from birth, there weren't many options.

[starkingenuity]

"As long as that doesn't require us moving your body, you can do what you want," Tony told Alessa as he swivelled his chair back around to face the still blatantly confused Steve. Even if he could hear Alessa thanks to JARVIS, watching silverware float was just one of those things he had trouble recitfying. And Tony didn't blame him at all.

It sucked being left out.

Bruce might not know who Valtiel was, but Tony remembered the fond patting of that horrible head and the name that came out of Alessa's lips.

He wasn't exactly pleased to think Alessa could still summon that thing.

There was a reason mirrors kept disappearing, though it was hard to remove every reflective surface in the tower.

"Who's Veal Teal?" Clint asked, finishing up Natasha's pancakes.

[godandhermother]

"Valtiel. I have two attendants: the executioner, my hands, and Valtiel, my eyes. Or at least, that's what the stories call them."

The silverware was now shifting to make strange symbols on the counter.

"It's a bad idea to invite either of them directly here, so I would need a mirror. Once they've been invited, they can come back whenever they want. And you guys are not ready to meet the Executioner again."

He was, after all, attracted to guilt and sin. Everyone has guilt or sin on their shoulders.

"Does anyone have a mirror with them?"

[starkingenuity]

"So this is like one big game of Bloody Mary?" Clint asked as Steve started to look more and more uncomfortable. He wet his lips and threw himself back into the chair. "I've got to see this. It's like a hundred horror movies rolled up into one."

There was an almost annoyed, haunted look to Tony when he answered that last statement. "You really have no idea. But speaking of Bloody Mary... We can go to the bathroom."

"Not necessary," Natasha said and handed over a compact she retrieved from some pocket dimension linked to her skin tight jeans. "Use this."

Tony still looked uncertain. "I know we haven't discussed this before, Less, but no parties, okay? Banner and I aren't that fond of your old friends. Bad crowed."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

“Don’t worry. No parties.” She plucked the compact from Natasha’s hands, letting it rest in front of her on the counter. “You guys won’t be able to see much unless you follow me, anyway. It’ll all be in the mirror.”

“You’re not going in there alone,” Bruce said, already tensed in his seat. “I’ll come with you.”

She looked up at him sharply. “They won’t hurt me. That’s not a guarantee for anyone else.”

“I don’t care. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it, you’re not going back alone.”

To be honest, Bruce still hadn’t shaken the way Silent Hill had sunk into his bones. He still found himself staring at mirrors, thinking about what lay beyond and remembering the way his mother screamed when he shot her. He still felt a pervasive sense that he should lie down and let death take him, as if the town was just waiting for him to stay still long enough so it could reach out and drag him back for good.

But the mirrors held Alessa’s hell, not his. She had dealt with her demons alone long enough.

Alessa, for her part, looked annoyed by the kindness. “Don’t be dumb. I’m used to it. You’ll just give it a chance to try getting you again.” She didn’t understand solidarity. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t a misguided belief that she couldn’t take care of herself that was guiding him; it was love and a fierce desire to not let her face it alone.

[starkingenuity]

"Banner," Tony half hissed, sharp and annoyed. "What the hell are you doing?" Tony himself hadn't been able to enter the mirrors. He'd tried to go in after Banner fell through and all he could do was watch. The portal was not for him. Alessa promised him that, one day, Silent Hill would call him too. Maybe today was that day. He liked being the hero so long as it didn't bring undo hardship on him.

But this was his family. It was too new to lose.

"I'm going too." It was said through gritted teeth even as Natasha rolled her eyes and Steve looked skeptical.

"Are we all going to go?" the blond asked. A paragon for good and moral, Steve might not last a minute there...or he could triumph over them all... Silent Hill might reject him immediately though.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

Bruce wanted to convince Tony to stay away, but what use would it be? Tony was just as stubborn as he was.

Alessa rolled her eyes to the sky, huffing in frustration. "You know what? Do what you want. Your funeral."

She pressed her thumb on Natasha's mirror. Immediately, she faded away, leaving only an ashy thumbprint.

"If you want to go, just like up your thumb with hers," was all Bruce said before touching the print and fading away himself.

"I guess we are all going," Steve said with exasperation. Sure, just barrel in, no need to strategize in case of monster attack or something. He would wait until everyone who intended to go in went before trying to go himself.

Aaaand... It looked just the same as the regular kitchen. Only now a disgruntled girl in a school uniform was visible. "So that's what you look like!"

Of course, the image for everyone else was very different. It was blazing hot. The furniture was blackened and peeling from the heat. The floors and walls were fleshy, shuddering in time to the sound of labored yet panicked breathing.

In the distance, there was the sound of metal grinding together.

[starkingenuity]

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.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

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!”

[starkingenuity]

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.

[honeyibrokeharlem]

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.

[starkingenuity]

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."

[honeyibrokeharlem]

"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.

[starkingenuity]

"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?"

[godandhermother]

"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.

[starkingenuity]

"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.

[godandhermother]

"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?"

[starkingenuity]

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.