(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

[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.

[aggravated]

The woman clearly had a great deal of mental issues. When suddenly she decided to take Tony away independently, his heart seized up in his throat and he sat there, scenarios where they would be separate in rooms like this but completely unable to get to one another coming to his mind, but when she reappeared and hauled him around much like his father would have, what started as a moment of terror from the second her fingers got his ear turned into relief when he saw Tony.

He would think about the lack of doors and the odd windows in a few minutes; the look on Tony's face, defeated and cowed, was worse. For the moment, as soon as she let go of his ear, he would move away from her, hating that it had to look like he was afraid of her (okay, maybe he was to a certain degree) and moved to sit beside Tony on the couch. For now, he would say nothing until she was gone, just watching her with hooded gaze until that damn fireplace lit up again.

Only then would he finally let out a breath, but not a moment before. Every moment with her in the room felt like it was a knot tightening around their necks.

[starkingenuity]

Tony kept his mouth shut too, trying to work through what had happened to him as quickly as possible while he was alone. He was so focused that he hadn't even noticed Bruce until the couch beneath him moved. Startled, he glanced up and sighed a little, eyes scanning the room without his head moving to make sure that they were alone.

It seemed like it. He had spent absolutely no time at all looking around (not that he had time) and he was a little too afraid to go poking, honestly. About to say something, voice low, another voice spoke over him from behind them both.

"Bruce? Tony?"

Tony turned, arm on the back of the sofa. Steve Rogers, dried blood scabbed onto his temple, blinked at the two new comers with wife blue eyes.

[aggravated]

[Wife blue eyes! /giggle]

Bruce jumped when that voice suddenly came up. He had been ready to quietly ask Tony what happened, that he wasn't going to let Tony get hurt, when someone he hadn't even known was in the room spoke up. He turned sharply and stared in utter surprise at seeing Rogers there. The blood at his temple spoke of the man going down with a fight, something Bruce wouldn't doubt for a moment, but was this cult just going around rounding them all up?

"Rogers?" Almost in disbelief that he was there, but seeing the blood urged him up to his feet. His hand briefly found Tony's shoulder, giving a squeeze unconsciously before he asked, "are you injured?" Clearly nothing was okay, but injured was something very different at this point. Strike to the head? He'd seen them lift and throw Tony around without even touching him... how had Rogers even gotten close enough to hurt them!?

[starkingenuity]

"It healed up," Steve said, the blood was just a left over reminder. He hadn't seen himself in the mirror, he had just spent a lot of his time trying to get out of this place. His knuckles had split and healed too but he didn't bring that up.

He glanced at the collar around Bruce's throat, took in the hollow look in Tony's eyes, and made a step forward.

"Is it just you two? Are you all right?"

"Yeah we're just fine," Tony said, but he sounded more monotonous than genuine or even sarcastic, sitting back down now that he knew the person behind him was just a normal pain in the ass instead of someone with a gnarled stick.

Steve arched a perfect eyebrow at Bruce. A sort of silent, 'is he okay?' before moving on. "Did you meet their leader?"

[Darn phone tags!]

[aggravated]

[It made me giggle. <3]

Steve could heal so damn fast it mystified him, but then again, the super human strength the man had did as well. No wonder they had had him focused on Gamma Rays so hard when they were trying to figure out how they had made Rogers into who he was now. Thought for later. Focus on this.

At the questioning look, Bruce glanced to Tony, bit his lip, then looked back with an 'I don't know but I'm worried' expression. "Just us," he confirmed, and his fingers crept up to his neck. That collar sat firm against his Adam's apple. "...just us." Whether or not Rogers could get the meaning of his words from just the gesture and tone of his voice he wasn't sure but he hoped. He didn't want to explain.

[starkingenuity]

Steve was a smart guy but he didn't quite get the meaning of what Bruce was saying until Tony spoke up and cleared it all up. He had turned back to the front, staring at the fire place as if there was a way to force it to give him all of its secrets.

"They found a way to neutralize that collar. Banner met the guy in charge. Evidently they know a way to force you into doing and saying whatever they want." And they could could hurt you. Deeply. A lasting sort of hurt that lingered in your brain if not your body, as if any moment now, you could be overcome by it again. Tony was almost afraid to breathe.

And that was not like him. He knew it. But he was having a really hard time wrapping his brain around it all. He was lost in thought. Distracted. And okay. That was normal.

It didn't help that he hadn't seen Rogers since--

And Steve was feeling a little awkward too. "Uh. So-- Did you get my note...?" Tony was silent and Steve focused his attention instead on Bruce. "Guess that doesn't really matter. There's bigger fish to fry."

[aggravated]

...Get his note? This was no time to be awkward, as far as Bruce was concerned. He'd spent so much damn time on the run and like hell he wanted any sort of government control on him, but in the end, he wouldn't have gotten involved in anything no matter the outcome. Betrayal, maybe, but there had been... circumstances to deal with.

What had that woman done to Tony in those few seconds she had been whispering to him!? It worried Bruce more by the second to hear Tony like this. "The man in charge... they act like a cult." He might have said something else but that would have just been awkward with Captain America in the room. "The man is- a monster." There. He just flat out said it. "White skinned, hairless, almost... reptilian. Absolute feeling of authority in the room. Something about a Ministry of Magic. Seen three of his followers so far - LaStrange, Greyback, and Malfoy." It was easier to concentrate on this for right now than the panic he wanted to have, but only just. In reality, he felt terrified knowing that these people could do... anything.

"Magic." Just a whisper, but it was a foul word on his tongue. "They want Thor."

[bottledblond]

"Sounds like they wanted the same information from us," Steve said, hands on his hips. He was not in his uniform. He did not have his shield. He had given both up when he left the mantle of Captain America behind in Siberia after he had nearly killed Tony Stark. It was his lowest moment in a life made up of a lot of low moments. He'd killed a lot of people. That was the nature of war and the price for keeping his country and the people he loved safe. It was the price of freedom and Steve gladly paid it.

His fright with Tony had been for none of that. He would keep his mouth shut on it for now though, but his eyes kept hovering to the back of a dark head.

"They didn't really believe that I didn't have a way of calling him. And I didn't know how to get to Asgard," Steve pointed out, moving from behind the couch to stand beside it in blue jeans and a white tee. "I've been here for almost four days now. What's happening out there? All I could see from the Windows was explosions. Or-- I don't know. Not the kind of explosions I e ever seen before."

[aggravated]

[JFC I laughed so hard at this journal name.]

Bruce had bits and pieces of the story, and all of it sounded... horrible and he didn't even know Rogers' side of things. It broke him a little inside while another part babbled about how he wasn't even surprised it happened. They were very different people, all of them. I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. His own words predicting the future.

Four days? That meant Rogers had been captured before hell had broken loose in New York. Bruce frowned at that, trying to puzzle the timeline together. "We were up in the Tower. I hadn't been there all that long, but I flew out more than four days ago." A hint that he had been on this side of the Atlantic before returning back. It went dark, and I mean completely dark. Not a light in the entire city for as far as we could see." Which given the height of the Tower was quite a span.

"...and we watched a plane fall out of the sky. Somehow these people have a way to completely stop any major electronics. The only thing that worked around us was a basic flashlight, and Tony's generators are all capable of rebooting themselves so this was something... more than an EMP." Magic. That word kept coming back up in his mind and he was starting to hate the taste of it on his tongue.

[starkingenuity]

"A plane--" All of those people. Steve had mostly just seen feet. A lot of feet. They had been scurrying at first and then less and less walked by. When they did, they were in different sorts of clothing. Long skirts. Boots. Nothing modern society tended to wear. He couldn't see much since their windows were mostly street level. But it was enough to know that a lot of bad things had happened.

Steve didn't try to sit down. Tony wasn't even looking at him. Bruce looked afraid. He had to be strong for the both of them.

"There's no way out of this place. I've been trying to fight my way out for days. You can't even damage the fire place. They bring meals three times a day. It's always this boy. He wears a mask and a full length hood but he's spoken to me a few times. He sounds young."

The smile he wore was nothing sort of tired.

"I don't have a plan here," he confessed. "But if there are three of us, we can get that stick off of him when he comes next time." He wasn't going to call it a wand either, Bruce.

[aggravated]

That was a plan, as far as Bruce was concerned. He thought about it, then sighed quietly. "Alright." He couldn't have been more grateful for Rogers not calling it a wand. His mind was having trouble with all of this as it was. Once in a while logic had to take a back seat to sanity.

"Are the times approximately the same? Could we be ready for him?" There was a sickening feeling on the idea of attacking a child, but they didn't have a great deal of choice in the matter. "The whole cult of these people wear those masks and robes. Other than their leader, I've seen Malfoy without one - might be his right hand man - and LaStrange without them. ...Sounds more and more like a damn cult, getting children involved."

His fingers clenched as the feeling of anger-panic tried to well up again, all almost alien without the pressure of the Other Guy behind them, but like him, it was something he could force down. For now. He looked back towards the fireplace, eyeballing it. "If one of us, maybe two of us, stayed beside the fireplace to either side, get him as soon as he pops out? If he has food, he wouldn't be able to grab for that stick."

Making plans to try and escape, or find out more, or anything while he wanted to make sure Tony was okay. It would have to wait, but Tony sitting over there made his stomach churn in concern.

[starkingenuity]

"Say we get the wand." Tony spoke up, voice right and eyes still dead set ahead. "Then what? We can't use it. We don't know how to. Someone notices the kid has been missing-- No."

"Tony--" Steve said, but was immediately cut off by an angry glare.

"I won't do something that's just stupid for the sake of being stupid," he snapped back, finally standing up. "Are you keeping anything else from us? You're famous for that need to know stuff."

Steve just lifted his hands. Placating. Perhaps a little defensive.

[aggravated]

Hell, he was going to end up with another war in here. Bruce actually shifted himself slightly to stand between the two, his own hands slightly raised. With a look back and forth between the two, he finally looked back to Rogers and said quietly, "if there is anything else you know, tell us now. We can't get out of this with anyone holding back information." Giving Rogers a chance to speak up. He looked back to Tony and went the other way. "We can't just sit here and do nothing, either. We need more information, and we have something we could potentially do. I don't like it, but what would you rather do? Stay here as their prisoners? Wait until they tire of us or find some other horrible thing for us to be used for?"

[starkingenuity]

"That's all I know. You're the first people, other than that kid and the man without a nose in days," Steve said, his hands slipping into his pockets. He was the good, All-AmericN boy. There wasn't a bone in his body that was capable of lying. Tony rolled his eyes at the thought and turned his attention back to his hands.

"We need more information. They want Thor. Why? They crashed the entire planet. How?" He stood up, pacing his way to the fireplace. The lining of his stomach felt like it was melting.

He paused at the mantle and leaned against it.

"We need to keep anyone from taking Banner. That's our only two priorities."

"But you said yourself," Steve interjected, "they banished the Hulk."

"They didn't," Tony insisted. "They just have him caged until they're ready to use him."

[aggravated]

"Wait- you saw him?" Bruce latched onto that first comment, surprised but then realizing immediately after, "so that was who was asking you about Thor?" Which would make sense. His brows came together though, searching his memory before making a quiet sound of disgust. Had the monster-man put Rogers through that same torture? Bruce couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy if so.

"...I think Tony's right," Bruce said quietly, "about the Hulk, I mean. I don't think just putting a collar on me is going to get rid of him, not when the ramifications I think would come with the process." His fingers crept back up to the collar again, but he forced them to drop. "If they can control me," the churning inside his stomach at saying it out loud, "then they'll be able to control him, and they have a weapon as strong as their powers."