At The World's Edge

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Flying was freedom. That was one of the truths that remained in their prison.

Tony Stark was no longer forcing his limbs into the suit, nor was he weighed down with fear of its imminent failure or the pain of maintaining it through will power and little else. No, it once again became his second skin. His thrusters propelled him on high as he approached the altitude of the barrier. Its dimensions were well documented and he had no fear of crashing into it. There wasn't even the lingering anxiety of tracking Thor to the ends of the fishbowl--the man had taken his tent, and Tony had taken care to install trackers well ahead of time in anticipation of this exact scenario. He could have found him at once, had he been so inclined. But three days was three days, and the time he had been granted on his own was time he could return in kind.

After all, time spent to oneself was sometimes the only medicine. But Tony wouldn't let too much time pass without at least checking in. So was his duty as Thor's friend and, well, everything he was to the man.

His resolve, his triumph, it all equaled out to a baseline of contentment that he indulged in to watch the scenery unfold with new eyes. When had the dry, cracked earth evolved into slopes of grass backlit by a distant, gleaming shore? Cedarwoods and cypresses were laid out in a patchwork of somber greens. As the water approached, so did the faint mists, muting the scenery. The clouds had rolled in, lingering and promising rain. Tony's contentment became sobriety.

As Tony descended upon a pointed cliffside, there he was. At the crest sat the lonely figure he sought meters away. Quietly, Tony's armor re-formed into a thick jacket. He looked at the distance behind him--the silhouettes of hills utterly obscured any sign of the hotel. He turned back ahead and approached in no particular hurry. His footsteps were made soft by the grass and the sounds of winds and crashing waves. Coming up on Thor's side, he took in the sight of his meditative profile and simply lowered to sit beside him.

Comments

[st_ormbreaker]

Outside of combat, Tony's suit is remarkably quiet and the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff manages to cover any sound the suit might make as he descends. Still, Thor is not entirely caught-off by Tony's arrival. He expected it would happen eventually anyway. He glances over at Tony, gives him an appraising look from top-on-bottom, then bottom-on-top again and smiles approvingly.

"You finished it," he says.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

With a nod, Tony looked towards the distant view of the sea extending into the horizon.

"It's nice. This place."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor turns his gaze back out to the horizon.

"It is, isn't it?" he says, still smiling lightly. "Reminds me of Norway."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony took in a deep, clear breath. The scent of salt was thick and cold. If he had any drink, it would have sobered him in an instant.

"Ensam är stark." He smiled. "Did you find it...? What you were--were searching for."

[st_ormbreaker]

"I think I might have figured it out." Thor looks over at Tony. "Why'd you come out here, anyway? Feeling lonely?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"When I found time for it." Tony leaned forward onto his knees. "Just a wellness check, Big Guy. If you want me to stay, I'll stay. If you tell me to bugger off, I'll bugger off."

[st_ormbreaker]

"I won't say no to the company." Thor leans back, a single palm pressed flat against the ground. "The armor looks good. Shiny. Glad you could break her in."

Thor gives Tony a solid pat on the back with his free hand.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"She's more than just armor." Tony gestured at his jacket-jeans ensemble. "She's whatever I need her to be." As if to prove his point, his clothes morphed into a sharp black three-piece from the head-down and then back into the weather-appropriate attire.

"Could easily become the most hug-friendly pair of pajamas that'll last from the sleepy nights into the groggy rollings while withstanding your rolling about."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor surveys Thor in his sharp suit and decides that he rather likes the look of him there. Truthfully, he likes the look of Tony in anything (or nothing), but there's something extra attractive about a smartly-dressed Tony Stark.

"You trying to lure me back?" he asks, smiling.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Is it working?" Tony kept his poker face activated before his body relaxed into a sigh. "I'm happy to spend some time away from the noise. Audible and visual. If I squint, it's like a little honeymoon getaway."

A honeymoon of the decidedly more nippy kind, but that was what the tent was for.

[st_ormbreaker]

"Probably going to need one more day," he says. "Just finished a project of my own. I thought I'd send you back with it."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Quirking his head to one side, Tony held back asking what, exactly, Thor was going to send him off with.

"I'm gonna ask a blunt question." Tony at least learned to give warning prior. "This--excursion. ...It have anything to do with me?"

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor stops to think about it, lips briefly pulling into a frown. His answer comes in the form of a question:

"Not... really?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Briefly, Tony wished they were in a suitable location to produce the maximum echoing effect if he groaned as loudly as he could.

"Alright, I didn't come out all this way to nag your ear off about anything but that ambiguity is kind of--kind of stressing me out." The nanites formed an adequately squishy stress ball in his palm, which he made immediate use of. "Alright, let me rephrase. Can I fix anything? Set anything straight?"

[st_ormbreaker]

"You didn't do anything wrong," Thor reassures him. "There's nothing you need to fix, either."

Thor reaches out and runs a hand over Tony's hair. He missed this tremendously. Once Thor's hand has traversed the curve of the top of Tony's head and down to his neck, he lets his hand fall down next to Tony's.

"I know this might seem like it's coming out of nowhere, but..." Thor presses his lips together for the briefest of moments. "Do you ever think about what you would do in order to stop Thanos?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Once more, it all came back to Thanos.

With every utterance of the man's name, Tony should have been more prepared for it. Yet, his adrenaline spiked and the pit of his stomach churned every time.

Tony physically chewed on his answer, scraping the insides of his cheeks. The immediate answer of anything knocked around in his skull insistently. Every sleepless night in his lab, every drop of blood he spilled, they all paved the road leading to Thanos. Even if Thor hadn't regaled him with each tale extensively, he felt it on an instinctive level.

"...This is a battle I can't lose." Tony sought Thor's eyes, as if asking what he expected him to say. He grasped the back of Thor's hands. "It's not over. For you or for me. Wherever you end up, wherever I end up at the end of this weird road, I'll take our future into my hands. I believe that."

[st_ormbreaker]

Tony's smaller hands are colder than his own. Thor pulls his hands away just long enough to place them atop Tony's to warm them up.

"I'm not worried about me anymore," Thor says. "There is nothing more important to me right now than making sure you and Loki live."

And that alone might have been the driven force behind this project.

"There are things I don't want you to see. There are choices I don't want either one of you to have to make."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Great. Then I guess I'll have to worry about you on top of everyone else." The irreverent smirk touched Tony's face before it faded. "There's no future without my Point Break. Flat out. That's one of Tony Stark's--Iron Man's--rules. Whatever you think could change that, it won't."

[st_ormbreaker]

"What if it took killing me to stop Thanos?"

Thor can hardly believe the question came out of his mouth. He doesn't know if Tony will think the question hypothetical, or sincerely believe that this might be a legitimate condition of saving the universe.

Still, Thor needs to know.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Taken aback, Tony's fingers lifted the barest micrometer from Thor's.

"I'm pretty sure I need to do the opposite to stop Thanos?"

[st_ormbreaker]

"It isn't like that," Thor informs him. "You and I -- we don't see one another again. Not after I leave the Avengers facility." Thor looks away from Tony, then out to horizon again before setting his eyes back on Tony again.

"I can tell you with absolute honesty that there is very little I wouldn't do right now to see Thanos dead," he says, still thinking of the dream. "But there are still some things I don't think I could do." He dampens his lips and thinks of that moment when he pulled his hands away from Stormbreaker and looked out upon a smoldering Infinity Gauntlet.

And then he thinks of himself in the dream. Of the portal in the sky. Of the dead and half-dead veterans saw there. Of Tony.

"Or maybe I could. I don't know."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Then I'd find another way." Tony insistently stated. "You or Pepper or Peter or anyone else--it may be a fight for the universe but I'm not going to toss aside the center of mine so easily."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor smiles thinly. "There won't always be a another way. When the time comes, you will know it."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Maybe so." Tony pushed on his knees to stand. "But you should know that about me, Point Break. I hit a wall, I smash through it."

There was something eerie about Thor being the enigmatic one. The weight of whatever Thor held back was palpable. While Tony was a curious creature by nature, he wasn't one to wrench out what was kept under one's lock and key as a first response. Who was it that said a man is a miserable pile of secrets, after all?

They were. But not all the time.

"Thor..." He pushed his hands into his pockets, facing the horizon. "You and I are similar. But not too similar. We get along that way. We're different people. Very, very different people."

[st_ormbreaker]

At first, Thor doesn't move from his spot. He doesn't shift his hand when Tony removes his own, doesn't look up when he stands up. It's not until Tony's finished talking that he looks up and over at the other man.

Thor doesn't disagree with Tony's assessment, but Tony's sudden declaration does leave Thor feeling curious.

"Why do you say that?"