(no subject)

[starkingenuity]

When 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.

Comments

[starkingenuity]

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.

[aggravated]

Bruce would have given him such a look if Tony had said those first thoughts. He waited for the light to come back over, unable to see the leather around his neck, and ended up still giving Tony a look for the kink comment. His nostrils flared in the candlelight, staring at the other before deciding to just let out the breath he was holding. "I haven't; I don't know where this came from." With a tight voice, he raised his chin. "Get it off?" Almost a plea more than a request as the feeling of something around his neck like that didn't settle well at all.

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."

[starkingenuity]

"Hang onto th-- Hey--". He hadn't been ready for Bruce's hand to come out of the darkness and he didn't notice that he had had blood on him. His eyes followed Bruce's thumb and he shrugged, handing over the candelabra. "It's fine. Hold this. Steady."

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."

[aggravated]

He took the candelabra into handle and let Tony check his neck, possibly one of the other people out there he would have allowed so close to his neck without much of a thought. He kept his chin up, feeling a faint shiver go down his spine at the feeling of Tony's fingers against his only warm skin. None of this was making sense; it all seemed impossible. A room with no doors, a collar that had no way to remove it?

"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".

[starkingenuity]

“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.”

[aggravated]

Sad part was Bruce wasn't much better in how he sat, given his time in the military. Some things just didn't die easily, in particular muscle memory. The difference was he could smell it on Tony, the growing but faint scent of fear, but in the moment there was nothing he could do about it. The two people standing before them - one male, one female if he had to guess from their odd attire - both wore masks and he realized what he had seen earlier. The oddity of the faces of the people chasing them had been those masks. Featureless and not at all pleasant, they made him all that much more defensive.

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.

[starkingenuity]

[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.”

[aggravated]

[...1997? Squint. Shit I can't even remember now. It's a PSL, no one cares. You're fine. XD]

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."

[starkingenuity]

“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.

[aggravated]

Bruce could feel his heart racing up in his throat, that same blind panic he could remember after the first change that had rocked his world. Staring at this... thing sitting high and mighty, that disturbingly matched the masks everyone had curiously been wearing up until this point. A cult? Worshippers? It would make some sort of sick sense. However, the blond man was the first one (other than the monster here) he had seen without one of those masks but it was the ugly haughty expression that somehow made it worse. There was that word again - Muggles. Given the cult concept his brain had just come up with, he assumed, rapidly, with the knowledge he had right now, that 'Muggle' meant anyone not in the cult. Not entirely untrue but... that woman had somehow attacked Tony with something she had drawn, though he hadn't seen clearly what it was, so he assumed it was some sort of flare gun or firework.

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.

[starkingenuity]

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?"

[aggravated]

Lucius Malfoy. That was the sort of pretentious name that he might have expected out of someone with that sour expression on their face. ...Ministry of Magic? What the hell was that? What did they mean by the Parliament nor the Presidency (did the monster mean Democracy? It sounded almost like he wasn't actually aware of what it was called) 'no longer exists'? Of course they did.

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?

[starkingenuity]

“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.”

[aggravated]

There was still so much he needed to learn, things that he needed to understand, but the Avengers were getting more and more used to that as time went on. They didn't often understand their enemies, often fell and fell hard, but they learned. They would be able to learn and if this monster wanted Thor, something about how the Asgardian's worked would be something against them.

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.

[starkingenuity]

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?”

[aggravated]

It was terrifying somewhere inside to see that 'smile', wrong and utterly disturbing, but nothing could compete with the feeling of violation that filled Bruce the moment he had been released from whatever the monster had done to him. He didn't so much as even struggle when they threw him through, leaving him on the other side with a horrified look on his face, his mind starting to put two and two together. He didn't even lift his head at first to look at Tony, just sitting there just within the fireplace, before saying, just loud enough to be heard, "magic."

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.

[starkingenuity]

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.

[aggravated]

That was almost gentle for Tony. Hearing the word 'trauamtized' didn't help at all, and Bruce swallowed hard before he finally looked properly to Tony. He felt... wrong. Disgusted, sick, violated. A breath slowly left him before he said quietly, "their leader... wanted to know about Thor. They knew about the Avengers." His throat tightened, mind replaying the words he had spoken against his will, his own body being used to puppet out the information that monster wanted.

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!"

[starkingenuity]

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.

[aggravated]

That look of violation was certainly there, in the depths of his eyes, somewhere tight in his chest. They all knew how he felt about bringing out the Other Guy, and while he had more willingly for a time when they were hitting HYDRA hard to try and find that damned staff, there was an old wound ripped open and still healing when Natasha had chosen to force him out. Violation was a good word for it. Now, with some power like he'd never known before, that pale faced almost-a-man had done it again, forced him against his will. Like his father had as a child, Ross while he was in the military, the Other Guy had back in the day... repeating scenarios that never seemed to get better.

"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.

[starkingenuity]

"It's got to be that collar." Why else would Bruce be wearing one? If they were markers, or a denotion of social status, or even a sort of handcuff or restraint, he would have one too. But he didnt. He wasn't a threat. Bruce was. And not just s threat. He could be manipulated to the fullest extent.

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.

[aggravated]

His fingers brushed over the collar, sliding the tips under the edge and feeling his throat constrict at the sensation so he pulled his hand away. He felt trapped, sick, dirty, but even as he listened to Tony, he knew the other had to feel somewhat similar. Tony tended to get worse the more afraid he was, as Bruce had learned, but still reliable. The man didn't give up for anything.

So he forced himself up to his feet, ignoring to the best of his ability that faint shake in his knees, and crouched by the fireplace. How were they doing it? "...are the walls hollow? Solid? This could be an interior room on a house." It felt almost like someone else was speaking, slightly removed from himself. Yet even as his mind tried to think logically, another part of him spoke up. "Magic."

A single word, almost like saying it would make it more truth than he already knew it was. Somehow, these people had magic. "They knew about Thor, but not about him. They want him. That... that monster of a leader does. Is it because of his abilities?" Which one could very easily classify as some sort of magic, given Mjolnir.

[starkingenuity]

"Everything is magic until you find a way to explain it." Tony was sure that whatever crazy they had dealt with when it came to Loki or with Wanda, it wasn't magic. There was always a technology there, always an underlying reason or mechanism. There was an explanation.

And that was never really magic. Sorry. He just couldn't believe in that. Like he didn't believe that Thor was really a god. At all.

Tony came to stand over Bruce, carefully balancing the light on the mantle. He worked at feeling along each brick, checking every crack. Nothing really jumped out at him.

"Solid. Probably. Do you think they have a transporter? Did it tingle at all, like your matter was being disassembled and reconstituted...?"

[aggravated]

Bruce, however, was beginning to believe. Something wasn't right, not with any of this, in little ways that couldn't be properly explained. Even Tony had seen the strength of Mjolnir's attachment to Thor, who flipped the hammer around like it was nothing, but it was more these last unknown amount of hours that was starting to drive it home for him. It wasn't easy for a man of logic and science, even one who turned into a massive green hate machine.

"How would it work? They're not even using electic lights - the place they took me to looked even more ancient than this room, candles everywhere. That EMP they set off took out anything technological... how far could they have taken us before we woke if they didn't have the ability to use anything electronic?" His eyes narrowed faintly, glad to be able to focus on this mystery instead of his own feelings right now.

"...it did, however, tingle, and it was less than pleasant. Sort of like gravity decided to invert several times with me in the center of it before we appeared wherever I was taken."

[starkingenuity]

[Okay I should be better off tagging. My crazy travel for the week is over.]

"Another portal device, like Loki used? There's got to be a tremendous amount of energy output," Tony frowned, joining Banner at the fire place. He had already checked here, looking for anything off about the brick of the mortar. It was all perfect, as perfect as old stone could be, and Tony had even crawled up into the chimney itself, at least as far as he could go, and that wasn't very. He hadn't been able to stand up from a crouch.

Bruce's description bothered him, though. He frowned as he looked at the other in the low cast glow of light from the flickering candles on the mantle above them.

"That sounds a whole lot like sonic energy," he muttered. "But sonic waves can't disrupt molecular bonds like that-- that we know of. How are your ears? Cover them up for me and let me know if you have echoes?" Yes. Bruce was the physicist here, but Tony dabbled enough for his degree anyway.