Summary: Stark Industries has developed a very specific type of security.
Word Count:4753
Chapter 2: The Second Level
Perspective: Tony Stark
Tony woke up with a groan and a pounding headache. This was the sort of headache you got after a night of heavy drinking or from being punched in the face. Considering the tall, angry Goober standing over him with a clenched fist, Tony was going to assume the latter. Unfortunate. If he had been drunk he might have managed to barf on Goober's shoes. Tony liked to rebel where he could.
"Your primary directive was to not engage with the target," Goober reprimanded sharply.
"This is how you treat the guy who distracted your target long enough for you to catch up to him and not fail in your mission?" Tony replied in a groggy, pained haze. He wasn't sure quite how many of the syllables where making it out of his mouth at this point. "What would you have rather me done? Tell him to shoo, so you could find him yourself?"
As Tony started to struggle to sit up, Goober stomped his boot heavily on Tony's chest sending the man flying back to ground. His head knocked painfully against the concrete beneath him and he barely contained a moan of pain.
"What did you tell him?" the soldier demanded.
The boot pushed down dangerously on his arc reactor, and all of a sudden Tony was electrifyingly wide awake. Dangerous tingles skittered across his torso.
"Nothing important," Tony assured quickly. "We just chatted about the weather and the pitfalls of not keeping in touch. Boring, mundane small talk. You know the drill, sergeant."
"I have half a mind to jettison you off the mission," Goober threatened, increasing his pressure.
Oh yes, that's right. Goober was under the impression that if you killed someone in the dream, they just woke up. Admittedly, that's how it had gone during training sessions, but in those sessions they had only entered the first level of dream-space. For this mission, there were three – a dream within a dream within a dream.
It was expensive to produce the serum that created multiple levels of dream-space, and the amount required to bring seven people down three levels had been quite a task to finish. Ross had been informed of this and the team had been assured that this other serum was being thoroughly tested and appeared to cause no considerably different side effects than those accrued from their limited training experience.
Technically, this was true, as far as preliminary testing was concerned, excepting the circumstance of death within the dream. His researchers had tested the theory with mice, and each time a mouse had gone under into multiple-level dream spaces and had been killed within the dream, it remained very much dead after the experiment.
Not that Tony was leaping towards any conclusions, but it probably wasn't really a good idea to get killed during this mission. Tony wasn't going to mention that to the team for obvious reasons – even with Goober's boot having its sadistic little way with his arc reactor. Tony guessed the man might be even more likely to crush his life support system here if he were informed of the inevitable post-dream implications.
"Trying to get rid of the one guy that actual got Banner to sit down and talk with him? Smart move," Tony wheezed out.
That got him. The pressure on his chest receded, and Tony sucked in an eager breath of air. However, the boot still pressed into his chest. It wasn't painful, but firm nevertheless.
"He does seem to trust you," the soldier acknowledged shortly. "Why don't you tell me how you got that to happen?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm incredibly trustworthy and likeable. Really, there is no substitute for being me," Tony explained, deadpan. The pressure on his chest began to increase again, which caused him to quickly add, "And I don't treat him like a gullible idiot. You guys really don't give him enough credit."
Finally, Goober deemed it time to remove his boot from Tony's reactor, giving him a swift kick in the holyfu-OUCH, before dragging the man to his feet. Tony swayed unsteadily, but managed to keep a confident smirk on his face – like this was nothing. If Goober wanted a pissing contest, Tony was happy to provide. The two men sneered poisonously at each other for a few tense moments.
"Follow me," Goober finally spoke and pivoted on his heel, walking swiftly down a corridor.
"What, not even a please?" Tony objected pettily, as he trailed along behind the man.
However, Tony's thoughts and concerns strayed far from Goober while he walked the plain, grey hallways and studied the walls, searching for surreal or inconsistent aspects and finding none. The architect had done his job flawlessly on this one. It was most certainly the military base that had been planned for construction on the second level of dreamscape, where the benched players could sit back, strategize, and observe. Tony wasn't very good at being benched. The difference between him and the five other men he was holding a sleepfest here with was that they played the game to accomplish their mission, while Tony played to win. Always had; always will.
Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass led Tony to a control room where Coulson and Reynolds looked busy and alert, typing away at their stations. The world must be such a drag when you don't have a J.A.R.V.I.S. to do your dirty work for you.
"Gentleman," Goober barked.
"Colonel Smith," the two replied in stuffy, humble unison.
"Agent Coulson, I would like you to make use of Mr. Stark's psychological expertise on Dr. Banner when advising Privates Jameson and Sanford in the field. Private Reynolds, you're coming with me."
Reynolds stood and, as he passed, saluted Tony, who flicked him in the forehead. The guy looked like a puppy who had been hit with a newspaper for a few ungainly seconds, before flushing lightly and rushing after Goober out of the room.
Wearing a self-satisfied smirk, Tony strolled towards Reynolds' vacated seat, plopped down, propped his feet on the control panel, and glanced over the information on the screen. He quickly scanned through the documentation on the proceedings thus far. In this level, Bruce was supposed to be playing golf with Sanford aka Ross, and Betty, whose character Bruce's subconscious had subsumed into this level from the portrayal Jameson had done of her on the previous dream-scape. Jameson was now in hiding nearby, regendered male, and ready to chase down Bruce if the guy made a break for it.
Tony considered it plain idiocy for Ross to insist his character ally with Bruce in the dream-scape. The Stark method of dream infiltration had proven to be able to change a victim's mindset to a degree, but Ross' demands would inevitably involve too much of a sudden 180 in Bruce's perspective to ever possibly work. Tony had read the guy's file. He knew what Ross had done in his attempts to capture the Hulk – what he had done to Bruce. Tony knew all too well, as his company had cashed in the checks.
Ross had less shame than Tony if he expected a game of golf and the fake words of his daughter to erase his committed indiscretions against a tortured scientist. What an ego on that guy. Not that Tony was complaining. Ross fucking up his own mission made it easier for Tony to accomplish his.
Tensions already seemed to be rising on the green, from what he could see on the video monitors. While the conversation Bruce, Ross, and Betty were having about Bruce's research flowed along steadily, Tony could see Bruce gripping his golf club with white knuckles like he was about to whack Ross in the head with it. He silently cheered the guy on.
"So, what do you think?" Coulson asked.
"I love what you did with the place," Tony replied, before adding generously: "Almost as good as what I could have come up with."
Coulson smiled blandly as he replied, "This level was not necessarily under my jurisdiction, Mr. Stark."
According to an earlier briefing, it had been decided that either Coulson or Reynolds would have sole responsibility over the construction of each level. However, Tony was purposefully kept out of the loop when it came to who would be responsible for each dream-space, because Ross was a paranoid quack – not that it wasn't obvious to Tony whodunit after a quick little study of the handiwork.
"And it is quite possible that I could not be considered universally good looking, but those are the sort of astronomically low probabilities that sane men don't concern themselves with."
"Have it your way," Coulson acceded lightly, before amending, "But that wasn't what I was asking. What is your opinion on the current mental state of Dr. Banner?"
"Oh, well," Tony began, searching for the right word. "Shitty."
Sighing, Coulson turned on the intercom, and spoke, "Private Sanford, this is Agent Coulson. Dr. Banner still appears agitated at your presence. Try and…"
Coulson trailed off and looked at Tony expectantly. Tony didn't know what the guy was thinking – asking for cooperation from him, of all people.
"Strip," Tony suggested. "And shimmy a little."
Coulson only paused for a moment, before adding, "I think Mr. Stark's on the right track."
Tony stared skeptically at a man he'd never claimed to properly understand. That was more up Pepper's alley, apparently.
"You need to let loose a little more," Coulson continued. "I'm sure Dr. Banner can perceive most of the tension and fear that you think you're hiding. He knows what he does to people, and he's not going to let you close if he thinks he's doing it to you."
After only a moment's pause, the General Ross on the video monitor let out a short but light laugh.
"What are we doing here?" the man asked gruffly, as he took off his decorated military jacket and draped it on the golf cart beside him.
He strode up to Bruce who looked about ready to turn into smoke at a moment's notice. Ross put a hand on each of the pale scientist's shoulders with a warm, friendly insistency.
"We're acting like strangers when I should be treating you like a son," Sanford said with an exquisite mixture of roughness and gentleness.
Tony had to hand it to the guy. He was trying. He had stripped and he was trying, but Tony would happily bet his tower that Sanford was going to fail. Looking at Bruce's face, he saw nothing but suspicion, fear, and anger.
"You're pushing him into a corner he doesn't want to be in," Tony spoke up casually. "Not a good idea, fellas."
Coulson eyed him with a short nod, before speaking again into the intercom, "You're being too aggressive, Private Sanford."
Quickly heeding Coulson's advice, Sanford removed his hands and stepped back. However, he soon paused in his retreat as his heel met with a raised bump on the green. He turned around to witness a mound of grass shudder, grow, and elongate. The strange pile stretched upwards to the sky, forming the shape of a monstrous, muscular, green arm. Grassy fingers curled into a fist that slammed mercilessly into the torso of General Ross, smashing him into the ground. Without a moment's pause, the fist scooped up the broken, limp body and sunk back down into the grass, leaving behind only the fresh pool of blood, scraps of organs, and shards of bone that blanketed the green. A low, furious roar rippled through the very fabric of the dream-space, smothering Betty's scream.
"Well, Sanford surely must be awake by now," Coulson commented, swallowing once.
Tony wasn't about to disabuse the guy of the notion; he really didn't want to think about the implications lying around there. Instead, in a mixture of muted wonderment, he kept his attention on Bruce. The guy was deathly pale and kept looking at his own arm, as if expecting it to suddenly sprout gigantic green muscle. Finally Betty's sobs seemed to reach him and he looked at her, down on her knees, crying into the pool of her father's remains.
"I'm… oh god, I'm…" Bruce stammered painfully.
"Bruce," Betty said, slowly looking up at him with swollen, red-rimmed eyes. Her mouth was squeezed into an agonized grimace, but there was strength there as she responded, "Don't you dare take the blame for this. I saw it all and this wasn't you. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't you. Just… I need you to be here for me, okay?"
Like a punch to the gut, Betty's words had Bruce sinking to his own knees, his fingers gently threading through her hair. She shuddered and leaned onto his chest. They embraced silently.
Honestly, Tony had been expecting the Hulk. As he had personally worked on perfecting the serum for the mission, he'd gotten Coulson to figure out what sort of cocktail the army was using to keep the big guy under. With that intel, Tony created a specialized serum just for Bruce that theoretically would work simultaneously to immerse him in the Stark-patented dream-space and unlock the shackles containing his inner green giant. All Tony then had to do was get Bruce to unleash the Other Guy down under and smash them all at of this nightmare. Not that his team or the general were aware of any of these shenanigans, obviously.
While Tony had most certainly been expecting the Hulk, he sure as hell hadn't expected him like this – ripping his own merry way through dream-space like it was nobody's business, and in a separate physical form than Bruce, no less. Originally, Tony had been planning on keeping his distance and playing nice with the soldiers until the third level, where Bruce would be most likely to hold and control the most distinct connection with the Other Guy, but this second level seemed rather promising at the moment, despite the Hulk's unique manifestation. Goober was distracted, the big guy was bubbling up near the surface of Bruce, and Tony could do this.
With a quick pat on the shoulder to Coulson he said, "Distract the others for me. I'm going over to Banner."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Coulson replied mildly.
"That's m'boy," Tony said, and made to leave, before his guilt made him reconsider. "Oh, yes, and I would highly suggest that you avoid death in these deeper levels, if possible. Just not a good idea."
Speeding off before he could get a response, Tony quickly strode out of the base and onto the golf course. From outside, the building looked like a normal country club restaurant. There were even waiters serving club members posh meals out on the patio. With a quick smirk and wink to the security camera, Tony flipped on a pair of shades, commandeered a golf cart, and left the army behind.
Conveniently enough, by the time he arrived at the crime scene, Bruce still hadn't moved. It was only when Tony's shadow draped impressively over the couple that Bruce looked up, momentarily afraid, until he saw just who it was that had interrupted.
"Tony?" he asked, the 'What are you doing here?' heavily implied.
"Hey there, Bruce. I heard some rumors about a Hulk sighting in the area, and, being the big fan of Jolly Green that I am, I just had to come and check it out."
"He just killed a man!"
"I noticed that you said 'He' instead of 'I' just there," Tony pointed out. "Not that I'm complaining. I've always told you to stop being such a guilt mogul when it comes to the big guy."
"That's… I…"
"Who are you to talk to him that way?" Betty cried, removing her face from Bruce's sleeve in order to glare sharply at Tony. "My father just died. Can you please leave the two of us alone?"
Ignoring her outburst completely, Tony casually asked, "So what would you say if I told you that you're dreaming right now?"
Bruce looked at Tony with a mixture of befuddled irritation. After a moment, his lips shrank into a thin line and he looked around and upward, considering. His arm slipped away from Betty's shoulders as he ran a hand through his hair.
"I'd say that, now that you mention it, it seems very likely."
Good man. Tony offered Bruce a hand, which he took, and clapped the guy fondly on the shoulder.
"Life is so much easier when I don't have to constantly explain myself. Most of the time, it's like I'm writing my autobiography while simultaneously living it," Tony complained cheerfully. He liked it when people could keep up, and Bruce still managed to do so even in an unnatural arena such as this. Tony was a big fan indeed.
"The sky has that green tinge to it that it always does in my dreams," Bruce added quietly. "I guess I forgot to look for it."
Tony immediately glanced upward at this, and found the truth in Bruce's words. The sky was calm with a few scattered clouds, but not quite peaceful. The scene was draped in a soft, yet ominous green. Huh. He was confident that that color hadn't been in the sky during the first level. This was one more piece of confirmation that the Hulk was significantly more present in this deeper plane of dream-space.
"So, what do you want from me this time, Dream Tony?" The man was watching Tony ogle his mind's influence on the Coulson-constructed troposphere with a small, amused smile.
'This time'? Tony mentally filed that phrase away for later questioning, before replying, "I'll level with you here. I'm actually Real Tony." Bruce quirked an eyebrow at this and looked about ready to speak, before Tony barreled on, "Let me finish. I had a little pet project in R&D that was going to let people do ride-alongs in each other's dreams, and Ross got a whiff of this."
Bruce's eyes darted to the pile of destruction on the grass beside him. "Was that…"
"No, not Ross. One of his soldiers. Yeah, the real people can shape shift in here. Watch out."
This statement was met with immediate suspicion of Tony's own person. He smirked at Bruce's justified response and spread his own arms out wide as he offered, "Ask or otherwise test me in any way you'd like, and I'll prove my legitimacy as the one and only Tony Stark within a confidence interval of six sigma. No disappointment; no disillusionment. Guaranteed."
After a moment of contemplation, Bruce asked, "When's my birthday?"
Dammit. "You know, I was expecting something along the lines of a marvelously complex engineering question. The likes of which only a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist could be expected to answer. Yet you ask me your birthday."
"Just answer the question."
"I want another."
"Tony."
Well, maybe he could get lucky. He had a .3% chance of success here, and he'd worked more out of lower odds – probably. "Juu-April… 9th…" he paused to study Bruce's mask of an expression. "14th? Hell if I know."
"Good to know it's really you, buddy," Bruce said with a small smirk. "Ross has a lot of power in the military. I wouldn't put it past him to get a top scientist to emulate you if he could manage it, so testing your smarts wouldn't tell me much, but I also trust Ross to get his soldiers studied up on their target, even the mundane stuff: their favorite pizza topping, allergies, all that. Things that don't seem to be high on your list of things to remember."
Well, goody. Bruce had accepted that it was actually him. This might not have happened the way he had planned it… See, he had given Bruce a clue in the previous dream-space about the personalized sound of his Iron Man bracelet. Made in reality and redesigned for dream-usage specifically by Tony, it made a sound that might as well have been patented by Stark Industries, considering how unique it was to the particularly cultured ear. Bruce could have flicked his bracelet, heard that sound, known that no mortal could have reproduced it quite like Tony could, and acknowledged his one and only Tonyness. But no.
"You play dirty," Tony acceded, peering at the man sourly over his sunglasses. "What's my birthday then?"
"How would I know?" Bruce didn't even have the decency to look abashed.
Feeling strangely comforted by this, Tony spoke airily, "It's publicized like mad every year. My birthday shindigs are always the talk of the town. Don't you read the society pages?"
"They don't have many of those where I go," Bruce replied with a shrug.
"Is that a point of annoyance for you? Your lack of newspapers? I hope it is," Tony said, quickly changing gears to business. "The thing is I need you to get angry for me. We need the big guy."
"And why do we need him exactly?" Bruce asked, taking his turn to peer inquisitively at Tony over his own glasses.
"If you hadn't already guessed, General Ross has you," Tony hesitantly admitted with a studiously calm expression. He didn't like saying it to Bruce; he didn't like saying it to himself. It left him with a bitter aftertaste. "His army goons had the Other Guy sedated, but the serum I used to hack into your dreams also has a little pick-me-up for your green, mean alter ego-machine stashed inside it. He's your ticket out of this military base they've got you holed up in."
Bruce nodded slightly, before glancing down and suddenly appeared startled. "Where'd Betty go?"
Tony wasn't quite sure when and how it happened either, but Betty was indeed gone. And he certainly had his theories.
"After your enlightening conversation with me, I'm sure your consciousness recognized her as fake and booted her out," Tony suggested cavalierly. "Though if she were still here, I'm sure she'd agree entirely with my suggestion."
"She wasn't…." Bruce struggled. "There was something off about her the whole time that I couldn't quite come to grips with. I'm…"
He paused, seeming to realize all of a sudden that he was talking to Tony, and muted himself with an awkward smile. Feeling miserably protective of the ragged man, Tony kicked him in the shin.
"Ow!" Bruce exclaimed, staring accusingly at Tony.
"The sooner you get angry, the sooner you can go to your girlfriend for real, so hop to it," he ordered dismissively. "We're sort of on a dangerously tight schedule here, so any day now would be nice."
He tapped his watch with a pointed eyebrow quirk. Agent Coulson was a reliable guy, but there was only so long Goober would be deterred, Tony was sure. He didn't want that guy anywhere near his arc reactor in the near future, and Bruce was currently the solution to that.
"Fine," Bruce sighed, appearing to begin to hone his mental focus. "But just so you know, she's not my girlfriend anymore, and I'm not going to see her, so don't start getting any ideas."
Bruce didn't want Tony messing with his 'I'm an angsty lonely man who will sacrifice my chance at love and happiness for the greater good' thing he had going on. Fine. He could want all he wanted, and Tony could do whatever Tony wanted. He always did.
In the short time that Bruce had stayed at Stark Tower, the two scientists had spent some long, entertainingly productive nights in the lab. Nights too often turned into early mornings, and it was inevitable that one or both of them would start snoring in each other's presence at some point. Most of the time when Bruce was the one who conked out first, it was hard not to notice the nightmares. He twitched and moaned and muttered, begged them to stop and leave him alone. Tony wondered if he slept in a similarly haunted way, but he'd never been in the mood to ask Pepper or Bruce about it.
There was one night where Bruce woke himself up from his own dream with an agonized scream. His eyes had shot open, glowing emerald, as he locked gazes with Tony from across the room. They stayed like that for a few heavy moments, with only Bruce's heavy, shaking breaths filling the silence of the lab. Finally, Tony had strode over to Bruce's table and offered him the bag of almonds he'd been munching on over by his own work.
"I'm here," Tony had said, because that was all he could think of to say, and Bruce had simply nodded and reached a hand into the bag.
After a large, carefully chewed mouthful, Bruce had spoken up, "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm sure you know as well as I do that dreams bring you back to that place where no one can help you. It's just you. You and your mind that knows all your worst fears and weaknesses and regrets."
Tony knew all too well.
That did not mean he had left the issue alone after that, however. It was the impetus gained from that talk that had him starting his dream infiltration project over at R&D. Maybe, if he got this done right, Bruce wouldn't have to battle himself alone during slivers of night.
But then, Bruce woke up from what seemed like a particularly monstrous dream and was gone the next day. Dummy found the note he'd left on the fridge two weeks later. Why the hell he would write a hand-written goodbye note when Bruce knew an email that Tony actually checked was beyond the limits of even Tony's vast intellect to comprehend. It was as if the idiot didn't want people to notice his rushed, hush-hush disappearance. The nerve.
However, instead of stopping his work with the vanishing of his intended subject, Tony continued along like nothing had changed, and he liked to think it really hadn't. Tony could still finish this serum, track Bruce and keep the man on his radar, and then one day show up and prove to Bruce that it didn't have to be like this. Prove it to himself.
Things didn't pan out, though. Despite his best efforts, Tony couldn't locate Bruce, unlike a certain bloodthirsty general. On top of that, the very same general wanted to use the stuff Tony had created to solve Bruce's nightmares in order to propagate more of them. No, this hadn't worked out the way he'd wanted it to at all, but that could be fixed, as it currently was in the progress of being.
Tony watched silently as Bruce focused on bringing out the Other Guy. In a strange, fucked up way, he had gotten his wish. He was in Bruce's dreams, fighting for his safety. It was times like these that he got the distinct feeling that life was flicking his genius the bird. Well, screw life. Tony Stark was larger than it.
After a strangely long time, Bruce opened his clearly not-green eyes. There was worry there and uncertainty.
"I can't reach him," Bruce said hesitantly. "He's not there."
"What do you mean he's not there?" Tony asked, undeniably tense. "We just saw him smash up Ross's doppelganger. He's sure as hell here."
"Yeah, but I couldn't even feel him then, Tony," Bruce explained, voice strained. "It's like he's separate from me in this place somehow, mentally as well as physically."
"Well fuck, you've got to try harder!"
"It's not going to…" Bruce trailed off as he looked at the expression on Tony's face.
"I hate to break it to you," Tony said roughly. "But this. Right here? Right now? It's the only chance we're going to get."
Jameson, of course, knew he was here. He was on the lookout. Jameson would tell Goober. Maybe Goober already knew. If they waited until the third level to try again Tony was royally fucked.
"Okay," Bruce said, his expression drawn and tense.
The doctor settled into a lotus position on the ground, his pant leg nearly dipping into the blood beside him, as he meditated.
Tony paced and watched and paced some more. He crouched down and desperately considered punching Bruce in the family jewels. He didn't have time to act on the thought however, as a sudden gunshot came from behind. Before he even had time to process it, there was a bullet in his brain and Tony Stark was dead.
To Be Continued...