A/N: So this is that Silent Hill thing I've mentioned on my profile and in Surprises. I don't really have anything to say about it, except that yes, I was in fact watching The Lion King at one point while editing this.
Lemme know what you think about this monstrosity, okay?
Disclaimer: I own neither Silent Hill or The Avengers, though I will take credit for some of the monsters that show up later on.
The world was not supposed to spin like that. Simultaneously spinning and moving steadily forward as it was probably meant something, but he was drowning in an ocean of Jack Daniel's where Captain Morgan had laid his claim on the seas of his brain and liver, thus he couldn't figure out why the world was doing that. Looking at the sky wasn't doing anything to help him figure out what was happening, but given it felt like his eyeballs were afloat on the waves of alcohol, it was a struggle to get control of them and find out what was going on. With enough focus he managed to cant his head back the slightest -okay, really far back, actually, but it worked. After the world stopped being a whirl of color, he managed to focus in on the ear of his carrier.
Whoever the person was, they had a very angular face. Aristocratic, even, if the portion of cheekbone and mandible he could see were anything to go by. It was odd, since he didn't think he knew anyone who's jaw was so... prominent? That seemed like the right word, he'd go with that one. Anyway, the person -man, it had to be a man if they were hauling his sorry ass around like he wasn't water-logged with his weight in alcohol- was really pale. So pale his drunken mind thought he was glowing for a second, in fact. The guy had dark hair, as far as his limited range of vision could tell, and... well, that was about it. There was something behind his head preventing him from moving it further back in his limp-bodied state. He couldn't see anything more, but that was okay, as forcing his eyes to focus was beginning to make his head hurt.
He could still smell, though, and now that he wasn't worried about his eyes, it was hard to miss. Under the smell of alcohol was the earthy scent of leather, and the smell of metal, like his suit or Thor's armor, only stronger. The guy's cologne was pleasant, spicy and rich, and possibly some sort of Axe rather than some "designer" cologne, actually. Either way, all the smells combined almost made him miss the sickening, nose-clogging scent of a hospital. And didn't that just make him want -no, NEED- to remember what had happened.
The need for answers, to know why he was beginning to realize he felt like he'd been hit by a truck and given the good painkillers -in large enough doses to down an elephant- made his mind wake up that much more. Let him put a few of the pieces together and finally recognize who was carrying him.
"Loki." His voice wasn't even a croak, could barely be called a rasp, but Loki seemed to have heard him, given he made the softest of humming noises in response. "What happened? Why do we smell like we just got outta surgery?"
His voice cracked at points and went silent at others, but he was confident the God of Mischief understood.
"Not surgery, but we'd certainly been... detained in that wretched place for much longer than I'm comfortable with." The man's voice was quiet, not in he same way that Tony couldn't speak up, but as if he was afraid someone would hear.
Blinking fuzzily back into focus, he narrowed his eyes enough to stare passed the pale column of Loki's throat at what appeared to be old abandoned buildings and decided that answered both his questions. "Okay, next question: where the hell are we?"
A derisive snort made him look up further, finally in enough control of his body to know how to do so, and was confronted with the source of the smell of metal. The sight of half the God's face caked in dried blood, his eye closed to avoid getting any in it, was enough to make his heart skip a beat. "This would be ever so much simpler if we were in Helheim, but I'm afraid not. Nothing could ever be that easy."
Getting -slightly- over the sight of the god bleeding -or, well, having been bleeding-, he did a quick catalogue of the facts he was aware of:
1. He had no idea where he was or what he'd done the night before.
2. Loki was carrying him, and had, evidently, been "detained" in the same place he'd been.
2a. He'd apparently been trapped in some sort of hospital, and Loki had felt the need to save him.
2b. He felt like he'd been drugged up on Hulk tranquilizers, so perhaps the Asgardian had had a damn good reason for believing he needed rescuing.
3. He felt like he'd been run over by a stampede of wildebeest, and Loki looked like he'd been through hell -and not one he particularly enjoyed-, so he probably looked about the same.
4. Loki was now cursing in some foreign language -he could only tell because of his tone- and ducking quickly into a narrow alley opening and covering Tony's mouth.
He didn't protest, certain he couldn't do anything anyway, and simply did his best to make himself as small as possible in the God's arms. If the God of Mischief and third on SHIELD's list of most dangerous super-powered villains was hiding, he damn well wasn't gonna pretend he could deal with whatever was scaring him. He peaked out from behind Loki's hand just in time to watch some sort of strange, naked, shuffling crime against humanity stagger passed, pressing himself back against the solid chest behind him as best he could as he stared in horror.
When it was sufficiently far away, they were on the move again, he slightest bit faster and definitely more cautiously.
Tony didn't speak up again until they were hidden in a small shop that appeared to have sold kitchen appliances before it was abandoned. He managed to get himself moving enough to help Loki block the door before they relocated to the windowless back room to collapse against a wall, tucked into the small space made by some boxes. The god was shaking slightly -probably from carrying Tony the whole time, which really just made him feel like a total ass-, but after some fumbling managed to pull a bottle of water from somewhere. His armor was missing, but it appeared his leather duster had more than a few hidden pockets. He handed the plastic bottle off after a moment, running his hands through his hair as Tony took a measured sip. He wasn't sure he trusted the water, and not because of who had handed it to him. Which is what made him speak up when it was clear Loki wouldn't.
"An entire town doesn't get deserted for no reason, and freaky, disfigured zombie-things aren't just left to run amok everyday." With the water in his system and whatever had been pumped into him mostly out, his voice was much stronger, though he kept it low, just in case. "Chances are this is either the site of some nuclear plant melt down, a gas fire gone really fuckin' wrong, or we are seriously tripping balls and really need to wake up, because this isn't any kind of fun. Bad trips suck, and this is really fucking pushing it, but I wish I could honestly say there was any possibility of that being what we're dealing with here." He paused his drunken ramblings to look up at the still fidgeting god. "Please tell me you can magic us out of here, and just haven't because it takes time and we were exposed or something."
He knew that wasn't it even without Loki answering, having seen the man effortlessly teleport himself around a battlefield without pause on more than one occasion.
"I can't." His voice was choked and he took a moment that Tony spent feeling the blood drain from his face -not won't, or even "not yet," Loki had said he couldn't- to clear his throat. "My magic isn't... It isn't there."
The absolutely pained tone of his voice, the desperation and wild panic in the green eyes he may or may not have imagined -in the privacy of his own bedroom- a few times, made him slump further against the wall as he tried to figure out how that was possible.
Swallowing heavily and asking a question he almost didn't want an answer to, he braced himself against the fear and panic trying to choke him and dug around in the boxes surrounding them to distract himself until he found a rag, pouring water on it before handing it to Loki to clean the blood off his face. 'At least it isn't a cave, Tony. You can deal with weird nuclear abominations and deserted towns so long as no caves are involved.'
"So then, what do we do now?"
