st_arkravinghazelnut | Iron Will, Iron Heart

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Iron Will, Iron Heart

Destiny was swiftly approaching its apex.

The final Infinity Stone was his.

Every ounce of his sacrifices, his will, and his ideals had built up to this moment. The salvation of the universe was written in stone, with him as its savior. The power surged forth, and Thanos could only behold it.

Suddenly, he was struck down. Lightning. Odinson. Defiant of destiny until the end, all for what? Thanos lifted raised his gauntlet to meet the god head on--

A sickening crunch. A burst of light following the clash of the Infinity Gauntlet against the God of Thunder's newly forged weapon--and the Mad Titan was looking down at Stormbreaker embedded within his chest. Odinson landed before him, and for the first time in his life, Thanos knelt.

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Thor looks at Tony. None of this is making sense. He tells himself it's Thanos, that it's the Reality Stone, but there was something real about Tony's response that doesn't feel manufactured.

Thor lets Stormbreaker settle at his side as he looks down at Tony.

"Stark, what is he talking about?"

Tony clenched the gauntlet--the only part of his armor left to him--with his bare hand. He didn't bring himself to face Thor.

"I had to."

"You had to?" Thor repeats. "You had to imprison our friends? You had no other way?!"

Thor reaches down to lift Tony up by the collar of his shirt, but as he does, he turns to dust.

Then, Thor bolts awake, drenched in his own sweat. His eyes turn to the empty space in the bed next to him, then looks up.

From somewhere in the bathroom, Tony Stark was humming the notes of his favorite Black Sabbath tune, going over his recently-barbered hair with a comb. The smell of soaps permeated the room.

"Rise n' shine, Doll Face." He called, tilting his head this way and that. The creaking of the bed was always a decent tip off. Tony was consistently the first to rouse and get around.

Thor tosses off the comforter, then shifts until he's sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from where Tony still stands. For a moment, he doesn't say anything; he just looks down at his feet, planted firmly on the floor.

Anything he says is going to sound insane. Sometimes, his dreams were simply dreams; there was nothing to them. Other times, the dreams served as a warning. Thor was always trying to figure out which was which, just as he was trying to discern reality from not-reality in the dream, only to find out later that none of it was real.

He can't ask Tony directly. Not yet. Not without seeming mad.

"Tony," he begins, his voice low. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"What?" Tony squinted at his own reflection. Was it going to be another one of those days? He wracked his brain to think of any little thing that could have prompted that question--coming up short. Their previous night had been normal. Tony had talked him into watching another Stephen King movie, maybe that had done it. Those tended to make Thor paranoid.

"Uh. I'm going jogging? Wasn't exactly a secret."

Thor lets out a little scoffing laugh, then pushes himself off the edge of the bed. "I'm sure."

He pulls down his shirt by the hem, then heads for the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Turning abruptly, Tony motioned at himself, already dressed in a jogging set. He gave Thor a clearly confused-but-indignant shake of his head but left it at that.

"I'm almost out of the bathroom, Big Guy," Tony made for the door, "Should be enough hot water left."

Thor doesn't answer; instead, he turns on the faucet to the sink and splashes cold water on his face. He's starting to cool down physically, but he's still bristling with irritation.

He doesn't bother turning when Tony opens the door.

"You want anything while I'm out?" Tony glanced back as he tugged his sneakers on. The energy surrounding Thor was like an oppressive storm cloud. "Poptarts? Mead? Estroven?"

Sighing, Tony rubbed his mouth and turned the knob. He didn't need to wait for a reply to know quips would go over cold. "You need me, I'll be hitting the dusty trail."

Edited 2018-09-18 22:41 (UTC)

Thor says nothing to Tony's quips; instead, he reaches for a towel and dries off his face. It's not until Tony is very nearly on the way out that Thor realizes it's pointless to hope that Tony will volunteer the information of his own volition.

Thor emerges from the bathroom and tosses the towel on top of their bed. He looks over at Tony.

"Why didn't you tell me you had our friends imprisoned?" The words come out casually, Thor's emotions failing to register fully in his voice.

In the doorway, Tony halted. He turned to look over his shoulder, saying nothing--all his mental faculties dedicated to parsing if he had even heard the man correctly.

"Why didn't I what?"

Thor's gaze remains steady on Tony's face.

"Why didn't you tell me you locked them up?"

"Uh. Because I didn't?" Tony squinted back, as if the answer of where the hell is this coming from would reveal itself.

And there it is. The confirmation.

"Because you didn't," Thor echoes. He lets out a noise that doesn't quite make it all the way to a laugh. "I don't know what to say. Here I was, stupidly thinking it was some disagreement that could someday be smoothed over because I stupidly took you at your word."

"Okay, can we back up?" Tony stepped in, shoving the door closed behind him. He didn't feel like getting a reputation with the neighbors. "Can I start by asking where, why, and what the hell this is?"

"No."

A scoff. "Stellar diplomacy. Top knotch."

"And that's your problem, Stark," Thor says, waving an arm. "You think that how I know is somehow more deserving of a conversation about what you did. Over and over and over again, you do it alone, without talking to anyone, without considering anyone else because your personal ideals take precedence over everyone else."

"Oh, okay, getting a lecture now." Tony tossed up his hands. "Cool, I'll play. So, tell me, was it 'personal ideals' going on with your plentiful secret-keeping? Was that you being a team player? This isn't me changing the subject, this is me not wanting to get a finger in my face from the man who kept my own goddamn death from me."

"Yes," Thor says, shaking his head, lips curled up in a barely-holding-it-in sort of smile. "Let's talk about how selfish I am for wanting everyone to have the one thing I wanted myself and pretend it compares to you hiding things from me because you're ashamed of them."

"No, you know what I want to talk about? I wanna talk about how you act like the only person here who's ever felt pain." Tony's raised voice came, matching Thor's own. To hell with the neighborly reputation.

"You think the breakup of the Avengers isn't a painful subject? The team--the thing I spent the last near decade of my life building? You think being asked to spare a mass murderer who was complicit in my ongoing mental issues because he's your brother didn't enact some kind of toll? No, I don't regret it, don't try and pull that card, but I don't know if you really digested that ask."

He was on a roll, and he wasn't about to stop. "The breakup--yeah, that's for me and Cap to hash out. He was there. It hasn't happened for him. He needs the preparation. You and me? We're facing the genocide of half the goddamn universe and you really want to pin me on something I didn't even ask for."

Tony's words sting and Thor knows it's because some of them ring true. He has been selfish -- tremendously selfish -- asking Tony to tolerate Loki, and he knows that Tony has done more than most people would have in the same situation. And maybe he's been self-absorbed, wallowing in his own pain, but there's one thing that he can't let go of --

"You want to stop Thanos?" he asks. "You start by making up with our friends. You start by not keeping secrets because we can't afford to keep any."

Thor takes a breath. He knows that he's calling Tony out on this, knowing all the while that he has his own secrets he's keeping from him. Secrets that Tony doesn't have the benefit of discovering through pre- or post-cognition.

But Thor forces himself not to think of that.

"I would go to war for you, Stark," Thor tells him. "But I can't do that if I don't have all the facts in front of me."

"Yeah. Working on it. You wanna know the first thing I did upon seeing Rogers? Start the dialogue. You wanna know the first thing I did upon seeing the man who murdered my parents? Not kill him." Tony slowly entered Thor's space, stopping just a foot short.

"You remember the first thing I did upon seeing Loki again? Told him I chose you over revenge. And you come at me like you're the damn judge, jury, and executioner without asking me for my side." His jaw ground from side to side. "I don't pity myself. I've got plenty to answer for. It's the only reason I'm still breathing. But I thought I'd get a little benefit of the doubt from the man who I trust most."

Thor does not back down, even when Tony draws closer.

"Then tell me your side."

"I will." Tony stepped back once, then twice, then thrice. "But not right now."

"Okay," Thor says. What else can he say? He sits down on the edge of the bed and runs a hand through his hair, still damp with sweat. He thinks back to that fight he had with the Hulk back on Sakaar. And then he figures his next words easily enough, though they're still hard to push forward. Thor doesn't even know why; they should be easy, but they're not.

"I'm sorry."

Tony shook his head.

"You push. And push. And push. And I let you. Because I know what's behind it all. But not this time." Tony looked at his partner like he didn't know the man. Without another word, Tony disappeared behind the door and slammed it shut.

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Iron Will, Iron Heart

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