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Oct. 18th, 2016 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starkingenuityWhen the battle for humanity started, it was in a small castle in Scotland, well removed from Tony Stark’s usual stomping grounds. His world had been one of espionage and terrorism, of opposing government factions and super humans all jostling for control. No one, not SHIELD or HYDRA, not AIM or the Ten Rings, not the kingdom of Wakanda or the United States president had ever truly understood that their petty squabbles and races for technology meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
When Voldemort won, when the Boy Who Lived lived no more and the powerful wizards who might have faced him were slaughtered, it took some time to trick over to the other hemisphere of the globe.
But once it did, the changes happened almost overnight.
Tony was never happier to have had the arc reactor removed a year before. A silence charm that functioned like an EMP over the muggle world stopped the use of all electronics at once. Planes fell out of the sky. Cars crashed. Lights and elevators stopped working. The internet went down. Satellites burned up in the atmosphere.
High on the 98th floor of Avengers Tower, Tony sat in the dark for a long while, feeling the presence of a friend who had only just returned from wherever it was his sorrow and betrayal at Black Widow’s hands had taken him. “Uh…” Tony frowned. “So, this is cozy. FRIDAY? How’s the rebooting coming?”
All was quiet. All was dark. The city was black.
When Voldemort won, when the Boy Who Lived lived no more and the powerful wizards who might have faced him were slaughtered, it took some time to trick over to the other hemisphere of the globe.
But once it did, the changes happened almost overnight.
Tony was never happier to have had the arc reactor removed a year before. A silence charm that functioned like an EMP over the muggle world stopped the use of all electronics at once. Planes fell out of the sky. Cars crashed. Lights and elevators stopped working. The internet went down. Satellites burned up in the atmosphere.
High on the 98th floor of Avengers Tower, Tony sat in the dark for a long while, feeling the presence of a friend who had only just returned from wherever it was his sorrow and betrayal at Black Widow’s hands had taken him. “Uh…” Tony frowned. “So, this is cozy. FRIDAY? How’s the rebooting coming?”
All was quiet. All was dark. The city was black.
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Date: 2016-10-21 04:11 pm (UTC)Tony, had he been awake, might have made an argument that it was pretty standard for the Avengers, when solo or in a group, to just so happen to get their asses handed to them in the first reel to make a better come back in the second. Instead, he would wake up on the set of some vampire teen flick with Bruce’s head in his lap, head swimming and mouth dry. The room was beautiful, dark brocades in purple and black lining the wall intermixed with heavy framed mirrors and velvet drapes. He could barely make anything out save for what hovered near ornate gold candelabras.
“Branner?” He somehow mixed Bruce’s full name into that, head full of cotton, as he lifted it from the back of a decidedly comfortable but somewhat dusty couch. “Think we got roofied.”
Or shot. Or…what? Stolen by the cast of Twlight? No! He was not going to participate in the Hunger Games. He was not going to be forced to sit through any more sullen emo films-- He flopped a hand into Bruce’s face somewhat accidentally and straightened up as best he could.
“Gittup.”
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Date: 2016-10-21 04:53 pm (UTC)His eyes opened, blinking several times until he thought he saw Tony's face above him. There was light, a warm light that was nothing like the flashlight Tony had been carrying. That reminded him they had been running from something, the light- he jerked up, his head nearly crashing into Tony's face if the other hadn't straightened up a moment before, and regretted the rapid action as the world swung sideways. Closing his eyes against the candlelight, he brought a hand up to his hand and groaned quietly.
"Where are we?" he rasped, though his words sounded more slurred than anything else. Had he... imagined it all and he was drunk? Something definitely wasn't adding up.
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Date: 2016-10-21 05:30 pm (UTC)The sound of a temple hitting his nose drew a sort of wet groan from Tony as both of his hands rose to his face. It was amazing what a little bit of pain could do to clear the sinuses and make the world come back into focus. He might have to remember to thank Bruce later, but more likely, he was just going to complain about having a broken nose for the next few hours.
“I don’t know,” he said, as if someone was holding his nostrils shut or he had a cold. “Is this how you use to get by? Smack your patients around and then offer them treatment?”
He leaned forward and used his tongue to feel around for any breaks in his teeth. Damn it Banner, if his face was messed up, you better hope you have a good plastic surgeon on speed dial.
When he didn’t taste blood and he felt a little less dazed, Tony got to his feet with a groan that was more to do with his age than his current state of head trauma. He grabbed one of the candles nearby and, like he was Belle looking for her father, stomped around the room to find a door. He didn’t find one (or a Beast thankfully), just a lot of chair rails and more expensive furniture around a fireplace.
“What the hell? Stop laying around and help me.”
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Date: 2016-10-21 06:09 pm (UTC)His hand came up, brushing along the collar now set around his throat. It wasn't too light nor too loose, but as his fingers skimmed along it, he couldn't feel any way that it could be removed. Not a buckle or catch. That... immediately started to trigger off the feeling of panic in him, temporarily forgotting where he was and their situation. His fingers curled under the leather, trying to pull it, but the material was strong. Where had it come from?
"Tony- there's something- take a look at this." There was an immediate stress in his voice, yet he realized all at once that he didn't feel anything within. Not a stir, not even a voice.
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Date: 2016-10-21 06:54 pm (UTC)Jeez. Why was Bruce always so selfish? Why was it always all about him? Tony turned, holding what had to be the most medieval lighting device he had ever used about eye level and turned to look at... Darkness. Jeez. What useless things. He actually missed his nightlight at a time like this.
He trudged slowly back towards the couch and as Bruce faded back into view, his eyes set upon the collar. Immediately, a hand went up to his own neck. Nothing. Good.
Of course, that didn't help Bruce so he leaned in, careful not to catch anyone's hair on fire, and frowned at the collar around his neck.
Huh. Well glaring didn't help.
"When did you start getting into kink? I'm not judging I'm Just curious," Tony said.
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Date: 2016-10-21 09:20 pm (UTC)There was a bit of a design but nothing else, nothing that indicated it was magical, but how the hell did it get around his neck when it didn't have a way to remove it?
"Something's- nothing about this is right?" He squinted past the darkness, unsure. "Is this a dream?"
He reached out, brushing his thumb over Tony's cheek to wipe away blood. "Guess not. ....Sorry."
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Date: 2016-10-21 10:12 pm (UTC)Tony sat next to Bruce, carefully looking over every inch of the leather. How could there be no seam? There was give to the material and Tony could move it around Bruce's neck, but he couldn't find a buckle or stitching or anything.
"I don't think-- How the hell-- How are we stuck in a room without a door and how are you in Fido's Finest without a break?" This was worrying.
He stood on shaky legs as if he could protect Banner from whoever might suddenly appear.
"If this is a dream, you're in mine. I'm a real boy, Banner."
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Date: 2016-10-22 10:37 pm (UTC)"There must be a trap or hidden door," Bruce pointed out, given that the former seemed the more obvious solution. He looked around, but it was frustratingly dim. Who lived in this sort of place? "And I'm real, too. Still... what on earth is going on?" It was really unsettling.
In particular when suddenly the previously dark fireplace came to life with a whoosh of displaced air, burning bright and sharp which made him narrow his eyes against the sudden light, throwing up a hand briefly before he moved to stand up along side of Tony. "What the-"
As if the sudden change of the fireplace's status hadn't been enough, when suddenly two people... appeared from it?! Bruce's jaw actually dropped, and Tony might have heard a whisper, "this has to be a dream".
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Date: 2016-10-25 02:30 pm (UTC)“A figment of my imagination would insist it was real too,” Tony said because he needed to be whiny and dramatic. It was not just in his nature, it was the only way he could cope with this craziness. He didn’t like being trapped. He didn’t like being locked in someplace. Memories of Afghanistan resurfaced, memories of eing trapped in space resurfaced-- No one really asked anyone about his panic attacks and while he had them mostly under wtaps, this was a very triggering sort of situation.
As the whirling purple smoke cleared and the darkness returned, Tony found himself sitting beside Bruce like they were on the bench waiting for the dean to yell at them. Tony’s time at Grantshire School for Gifted Youth was telling in these moments, for his knees were together and he had each cupped in a hand, back straight.
He was afraid and he was trying not to show it.
“I love the customes,” he said to the two masked, robed figures. “Didn’t know it was this sort of party. We’re underdressed.”
“You are. Muggle attire is so… “ The woman addressing them was cast in shadows but Bruce could smell the crazy on her. She was so much like Loki, a mad and wild force. “Okay, all right, let’s take our collared beastie to the Master.”
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Date: 2016-10-25 05:18 pm (UTC)Muggle? That wasn't a term he'd ever heard before, and right now his mind that had felt so fuzzy before was on hyper-alert. The woman almost seemed to fill the room with her presence, a deeply unpleasant one at that, and it only added to his instant distrust when she said 'beastie'. Beside him, Tony would feel Bruce tense up even further.
"I don't know where you're planning to take me-" or how, his mind added sharply, "but I'm not going anywhere without Stark." Really, he 1) wasn't going to acknowledge her term 'beastie' beyond speaking up first and 2) he wasn't going to separate them... despite the fact he felt like he was missing out on a key negotiation point. Everything was happening so fast other than to have that lingering feeling in the back of his head that something was far more drastically wrong right now than just the unusual and damn right impossible situation.
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Date: 2016-10-25 05:30 pm (UTC)[I don’t actually remember who died when in the Battle of Hogwarts so… I’m handwaving most of it. So there.]
A husky sort of laugh that sounded more like a growl came from the second, male figure. “Don’t really know or care who or what Stark is, and you’re not much in a position to dictate nothing,” The muffled voice behind the mask was filled with disdain, as if the whole mask-and-robe thing was beneath him. He strode forward and grabbed at Bruce, right by the collar. He was terrifyingly strong.
And Tony just watched, eyes wide in the darkness, head tilting to follow the way Bruce moved from right beside him to his feet. The woman cackled and tossed something into the fireplace. It sparked to life again, this time with a greenish tinge. That made Tony get to his feet, perhaps to try to bum rush the man beside him. “Stop playing with your food, Fennie,” the woman called out. “We’re late! And you!”
She pointed a stick at Tony and after a small gray-blue whirl of dust and light erupted from it, Tony was knocked back into the couch before the piece of furniture tumbled over backwards.
“You stay! Good Muggle.”
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Date: 2016-10-25 05:54 pm (UTC)Bruce's hands came up to the man's wrist, and to his shock, he could feel how thick around it was and the man had to be a bodybuilder of some sort. Yet what was the far, far more disturbing thing was that nothing happened. In this situation, he knew himself (or maybe knew the Other Guy) well enough to know that there would have normally been no way for him to hold back the Other Guy when this was happening, the fear rushed through him and the immediate threat to his body but it didn't come. His skin stayed normal, though maybe a bit pale in realization, and he hung in that grip trying to find his place in this impossibility.
He vaguely heard that term again 'Muggle', caught that name 'Fennie', but neither really stuck in the face of the fact that one of the few times he had ever actually needed the Other Guy, and Tony needed him as well, he didn't come. How? How was that possible?!
Greyback looked over towards Bellatrix with a snort and gave Bruce a hard shake before dragging him along towards the fire. "Kill the other one. He isn't of any use."
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Date: 2016-10-25 06:13 pm (UTC)“Kill him?” Bellatrix huffed a little, lifting up her skirts around her ankles to parade herself back towards the man peeking over the couch. “No, no, he’s going to be a treat. It might be worth it to keep him here. Like a lead for our new best friend.”
“Enough with the dog humour,” the werewolf snarled and then stepped through the fireplace. The witch was right on his heels and, for Tony Stark, the room once more went dark. Even the candles had been put on by the force of the wind and he sighed and sat back on the floor.
Bruce was taken somewhere else altogether. It looked like a massive medieval dining room. There were the remains of tables and benches and chairs around the room, most of which were partially demolished or used to barricade various arched doorways. The smell of blood was prevalent in the air and some of the trashbag-like lumps on the ground were very likely bodies.
Sitting on what looked to be a throne on a dais of what Bruce could not know was the reserved seating area for professors and staff of this once-school where they had taken their meals and listened to announcements, was a pale skinned man whose features would look more monstrous the closer Bruce was forced to get to him.
“So this is the great monster of the Muggles. You’re so small.” A man standing next to the one in the throne leaned forward slightly on a snakeheaded cane, face impassive, long hair unphased and worn to his hips.
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Date: 2016-10-25 07:28 pm (UTC)He gave a look towards the blond, easier than looking at the monster that was clearly in charge, but realized anything that came to his mind was a smart answer and in this risky situation, possibly dangerous. Tony was clearly affecting him.
"You of all people should know that size... is nothing to judge on." The monster in the room spoke, clearly to the blond, and it sent the most unpleasant shudder down Bruce's spine. It was almost too cultured, too perfect, too sure of itself. Wrong, as wrong as that noseless face. There was a weird slowness to how the monster spoke, almost like he expected everyone to hang onto his every word.
Cult. Master of the cult.
Let them talk. He was trying to learn as fast as possible about what the hell was going on here. "...where am I? What do you want?" Get them to talk more. He'd long since learned that people in charge liked to hear themselves talk as much as possible.
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Date: 2016-10-26 01:46 am (UTC)A low, disturbing chuckle emanated from the deformed man's throat. He wrapped long, pale fingers around the carved lion head wood armrests of his throne before he stood. He was dressed in all black, like a priest's cassock, and he lifted one hand to smooth over the top of his ghastly head. "We want to secure you. You may yet have your uses. It isn't safe for the ignorant to be outside right now. You are safe here." He didn't sound gracious. He was not a host, but a keeper.
At the least all of the British accents around him could inform Bruce of a place he happened to be at: England. Where exactly was not something this man seemed willing to tell.
He gestured at the blond man to his right. "This is Lucius Malfoy. He is the owner of your prison and is a high ranking official with the Ministry of Magic." That seemed to make him laugh. "Or had been. I'm afraid that the Ministry no longer exists. And neither does your Parliament. Not your presidency. You have already met Bellatrix LaStrange and my dear Fenrir Greyback. They have other tasks now to complete. Other of your... Avengers...to round up. The important ones at least. The ones that might do damage. Perhaps you can help us track down the one named Thor?"
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Date: 2016-10-26 02:28 pm (UTC)Fennie. Fenrir. The snarling man who had the strength to haul him around and the other must have been that crazy woman who was still with Tony. Maybe he would be able to charm her, but Bruce knew it was far more likely Tony would get himself hurt if she was capable of throwing him around the room. None of them was right, and the more it continued, the more he felt like he was missing one very key component.
The important Avengers. Which ones did the monster discount? He would have said that all of the Avengers had their strengths and weaknesses, but the fact that Thor was the first one he brought up suggested the monster believed in raw power over anything else, as Tony had been discredited by that LaStrange woman (very strange indeed).
"...why would I help you do anything?" Bruce pointed out as much as questioned. It wasn't what he wanted to know as much as what had been done to him? Why couldn't he even so much as hear the Other Guy?
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Date: 2016-10-26 03:15 pm (UTC)“You will find that you do not have a choice,” the monster stated, unaware that he ought to clarify for Banner that he did indeed know what he was talking about as various countries use to have various governmental systems. Poor Bruce would find out much later that the entire world had, more or less by this point, fallen to the Death Eaters and to their leader. Their numbers were growing as the resistances they still held were ferreted and cut out, as people changed sides, and as humanity was decimated with one spell or another.
Tony Stark was useless in this new world where robotics no longer worked. Muggle technology was gone. It was magic from other worlds that interested Voldemort and his people. He craved their power, yes, but he also wished to expel it.
Magic existed underground all over the world, of course. They were already hunting down objects from Asgard. It would just be easier to have it’s prince at his beck and call.
“I control the beast within you. And your tongue too.” One wave of a wand, one utterance of the Imperius Curse, and Banner should tell them all they needed to know. “Now tell me about Thor.”
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Date: 2016-10-27 12:04 am (UTC)Bruce caught sight of that wand, bone white and that was in fact what he thought it was to begin with, bone, and heard those two words and the flash of light that followed. His mind would lock it away, but he didn't understand what it did. He felt something, ever so briefly, almost like a tingle down his nerves, and then there was that command. When he felt his mouth start to open against his will, his eyes went wide as could be and he tried, tried to fight it. For a few seconds, it almost seemed like he might be able to do it-
But the words came. Telling them about Thor against his own will. It was terrifying, in particular as someone who kept an array of secrets both his own and others, but it came.
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Date: 2016-10-28 12:03 pm (UTC)A wry and somewhat horrific, slit-like smile appeared on the man’s face and he batted the air like a cat. He was finished with Banner and Greyback and LaStrange were to take him away. He had many things to do now, many things to try to call down the power from above and neutralize it. “Bring me Snape. We have some debt to work off,” Voldemort told Malfoy as Banner was dragged back into the smoke.
The room was better lit when he was returned to Tony, but only because Tony had found and lit other candles. He had them places around the room to create glowing spheres that ate into the blackness. He was also lying flat on his back picking at the corner of the room, as if trying to find a way out between the floorboards and the walls that met in the space there.
“Hey.” The blast of lighted powder had caused Tony to look up. Banner had been deposited alone after being shoved into the fireplace on his hand. “What happened?”
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Date: 2016-10-28 12:26 pm (UTC)He brought his gaze up, looking towards Tony without really seeing what he had been doing. "Tony, they all have magic. This... this cult of theirs, whatever is going on here, they brought me before their leader." With a shake of his head, slow and disgusted, he added, "their leader isn't human, but some sort of... reptile and three times as slimy." A monster. Everyone who had ever called him as such had no idea what it was to face a true one, but then again, it felt a touch like calling a pot black.
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Date: 2016-10-28 03:25 pm (UTC)Having dealt with magic before, and aliens, and cerebrally connected computers, and unfrozen super soldiers for years now, this really wasn’t strange to him at all. “So that’s great. A cult of Lokis.” He couldn’t quite tell Banner’s face yet, but after plunking himself back down to the couch (gingerly, he wasn’t a young man and he had nearly gotten himself a snapped neck half an hour ago), he glanced at his friend and felt the sarcastic sneer drip from his lips.
Not a good look for Bruce. That was the look he tended to get after the Hulk was particularly difficult to put back away.
“Uh…so.” How do you broach this particular subject? Tony was blunt and impossible to a fault. Now he was faced with this. “So…what exactly happened up there…? Other than magic. You look a little traumatized.” To put it lightly.
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Date: 2016-10-28 03:34 pm (UTC)He still hadn't gotten up, not in the most comfortable position either, but his gaze dropped to stare down at his hands, fingers clenching into fists tightly. It was like his own mind was fighting him, that tightness in his chest that felt like bands of metal shrinking around him. He was afraid; it wasn't a feeling he had felt in a long time that didn't come from the Other Guy. His next breath shuddered hard, rattled in his throat.
"...he pointed that... stick at me-" wand. He knew the word, but it all felt too foreign. "Said just two words. And... I told him. I tried to fight it, but... those two damn words and the order for me to tell him and I told him, no matter how I fought not to!"
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Date: 2016-11-14 01:00 pm (UTC)Tony had never seen Bruce act like this before. It was true that they didn't spent a great deal of down time together but they had been in a lot of very tense situations. Ultron, the Chitauri, love potentially gained and lost, that was a lot of moments to get to know one another's worse case scenario faces. He thought he knew the sad but noble Banner's. But he didn't. Not really.
He was very quiet for a moment as he took all of it in. Every moment, every twitch of muscle, it gave him pause to pluck apart what he was being told.
"Yesterday, I would have thought you were high-- Okay, we need a game plan. I think that game plan should revolve around inviting the Big Guy back to the party." Tony didn't like how violated Bruce looked so he didn't address it. He had grown up a little over the years, but a little was not enough to really be on par with general friend-ness.
Still, it was likely the best anyone could get from him right now and Rhodey and Banner got the bulk of his compassion.
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Date: 2016-11-14 01:12 pm (UTC)"It's not that simple." Quiet, almost emotionless in the face of Tony's choice of words. "If he was able to join us," the terms sat thick on his tongue, "he would have back in front of their leader. As it is, I can't even hear him." There it was, out in the open. For the first time in so many years, there was true silence in the back of his head, and given the situation, it was more terrifying than the usual snarls and growls and sarcastic commentary that came unbidden into his thoughts.
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Date: 2016-11-14 01:36 pm (UTC)And that had to be what the show of force and the violation was. The man that orchestrated their capture and imprisonment, the possible-magician or -sorcere, he could not only control Banner, but had the Hulk on reserve.
That was the most frightening revealation of all.
"We're gonna be just fine, Banner. We are always just fine. I've gotten captured and escaped so many times now that it's old hat. You rest over there buddy and I'll get to work."
Doing what though? This place was seamless.
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