(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.

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[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.

[aggravated]

[It's no worry. I love checking out all the photos on FB! Still can't believe a proposal happened! ^^]

"They threw something into the fire each time," Bruce pointed out, and thus squatted down further to see if he could find some remnants of it laying about. Surely all of that powder couldn't have been combusted in a loose throw. He listened to Tony talk, agreeing with him silently that sonic waves couldn't have been responsible, but the order made him give a quick look towards the other before complying. After a moment or two, he shook his head. "Nothing."

He finally found what he was looking for, off to the side, but he immediately had suspicions. With a swipe of his index finger across it, he went almost cross-eyed trying to look at the faintly glittery substance mixed in with the natural soot of a fire. It was difficult to tell the color of it with so little to examine, but he did stick his finger out towards Tony for him to look at. "It looks almost like children's glitter." His remark was dry and a touch sarcastic at the edges, knowing that it couldn't be that.

"Both times the fire went green..." He frowned, then asked more to himself, "could it be... glitter and borax?"

[starkingenuity]

[Yeah. Still reeling. It's all so freaking crazy. The whole story of it is crazy.]

Borax seemed a little too much like a parlor trick to Tony, and besides, "there isn't a fire. What were they throwing it into? How can you just spontaneously create fire..?" Actually, Tony was pretty sure he knew that it could be done with gas and nozzles. That's how a lot of kitchens heated their stoves after all. He still didn't like the idea of being held captive by portalling, EMP crafting people who used borax and glitter in a fire place to simulate magic.

And it didn't make any sense why the Hulk was caged up. No. Not caged up. Bruce said he was flat out gone.

He was about to make a comment about glitter and the sorts of people he knew they were generally covered in that stuff who had professions very different from Bruce when the fireplace erupted again. It was enough to blow them both back, but Tony set an arm almost protectively around Bruce's head to protect him.

"So cute! They cuddle!"

[aggravated]

[But good, I hope!?]

Bruce laid there stunned for a second or two, vaguely hearing what was called out, but he also realized there was something around his head. For all that the Other Guy was silent in his head, he could still smell quite well and knew on the next breath in that it was Tony. He ducked his head a little to look, then his eyes narrowed towards that woman again. What did they want, now?

"Off," he muttered to Tony, but his hand found the other's wrist as he pulled away and gave it a quick squeeze. A silent thank you. Inside, even if he was doing everything he could not to show it to these strangers... he was afraid. There was a sort of sickening revelation happening in his life that at least in part he had come to rely on the safety the Other Guy gave him. Now it was gone.

(While another part of him quietly realized that the choice he had made standing on the edge of an ice cliff all those years ago was a possibility again.)

[starkingenuity]

[You think you love someone and then you get engaged and you love them even more. It's so weird. :3]

Tony didn't need to be told twice, his arm slipping away from Bruce. Once a hero, always a hero, even if he wasn't wearing armor. He couldn't stop his reflexes.

Once Bruce was sitting up, Tony sat up too. Slower. More careful. He was observing the mad woman with the heart shaped face and varying voice and accent. She strode forward in her black, riff raff skirts that looked like they had once been fine taffeta and pointed a stick at him. "Up!"

Tony arched an eyebrow.

"I'm actually pretty good here thanks."

[aggravated]

[Awwwww! That's so adorable! *melty hearts!*]

Bruce went to say something quietly to Tony, that he wouldn't have a choice, when the woman's face changed. It was deeply disturbing to him to watch her expression go from amused to this look of anger, disgust, and sniveling pride, like a mask had been taken off. The grip on her wand changed and she smirked, but it was the coldest smirk he had ever seen. LaStrange, he remembered. "I said up, little doggie. Impedimenta!"

There was a flash of light around her wand and something like a giant, unseen hand would pick Tony up, bringing him entirely off the floor and with a little flick, slam him up against the ceiling before bringing him back down as the woman cackled. "Oh, enthusiastic little pet!

[starkingenuity]

That's it. He was selling off his stocks in yo-yos. As much as Tony was an adrenaline junkie, he absolutely was not thrilled with the sudden g-forces that crazy hand allowed him to 'enjoy.' He was a little too stunned, almost unsteady on his feet, to really register what had happened. One moment he was hitting his head and shoulders in the darkness and the next his legs were under him.

"Your parlor tricks are amazing," he said, though he felt more like barfing all over Banner's shoes.

He hadn't seen a hand, but he had felt fingers, large, giant fingers, scoop him up. There was no other way to describe the sensation. His whole body trembled and he reached out to steady himself on nothing as Bruce watched.

This could not be that good of a look for him.

"Tricks?" the woman's voice retorted. "Oh no my darling. You are mistaken. You shall see. You shall learn!"

Tony swallowed. "Everyone tells me that I never learn. Sorry."

[aggravated]

Bruce shifted himself slightly closer to Tony, offering the other a place to brace himself if he needed it. That had been disturbing to watch, in a way. Tony's body just... moving without anything to move it. Tricks indeed. That M-word tried to creep back into his brain again, making a part of him clench up. It shouldn't be possible, none of it should be possible, yet more and more the reality was beginning to get clear.

No, Tony didn't learn, but Bruce also didn't want the man killed by his own foolishness, so he stepped forward slightly and met the woman's eyes. "...what is this?" he asked, his fingers tightening at his side. "What are you doing? How are you doing this?" He needed more information and despite the fact that this woman seemed absolutely insane, she would at least give them something to work off of. He hoped.

[starkingenuity]

The trouble with dealing with crazy people was that they tended not to be the sort of people that dealt with anyone else. The woman gripped Tony by the collar and hauled him forward before lightly patting his hair. "Tell your big green friend to keep his mouth shut. I can't hurt him but I can hurt you."

She whispered something into Tony's ear and his felt his blood turn to glass. It was for just a moment but it took him by surprise that he let out the most heart breaking yelp, like a wounded puppy.

He jerked away from her after that and she laughed merrily.

"That was just a taste. Wasn't it delicious? Now tell him!"

Tony turned wide brown eyes at Bruce. "You.. Should probably be quiet." It took a lot to cow Tony Stark. And this was evidently it.

[aggravated]

Bruce's fingers clenched at his side as LaStrange pulled Tony forward. What did she mean she couldn't hurt him? The big guy, Greyback, hadn't had any issue in hauling him around fairly physically. Had their cult leader told them he wasn't to be hurt or something similar? But much like Tony, the statement 'I can hurt you' sent a flare of ice through his veins, realizing all too well that from their comments before, they didn't seem to believe they had a use for Tony. They would hurt him to get him to comply, and he wasn't going to let Tony get hurt.

That reaction from Tony was the most unexpected thing that had happened so far. Tony had gone through hell and back, nearly died multiple times, lost everything and come back from it again and again... what could that woman have told him to get such a reaction!? A taste?? A taste of what!? What the hell had she just done?

Hearing that tone from Tony made him sink down, the fight going out of his eyes as he looked to his friend. A nod, just a nod. He wasn't going to respond vocally if it meant she would do something more to him.

[starkingenuity]

"Good! We have such good boys here," LaStrange cooed, ruffling up Tony's hair again. She ignored the flinching. "All right, we have a nice new place for the two of you, my pets. Let's take you first."

She pointed her stick (wand, evidently) at Tony before she threw some dust into the empty fire place. They disappeared in a puff of green, spiraling smoke for several long minutes, giving Bruce peace for a moment. Or casting him into terror.

He would not be alone for long and the woman would haul him by the ear to a nicer sort of room, one with a bathroom and a place to lay down. It was well lit, had Windows thst revealed a scene of London, but no external doors. Tony was sitting quietly on the sofa, looking at his feet.