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_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?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"We both have things we have to do in life. Different things. I can accept that." Tony hunched up his shoulders against another chill, the nanites helpfully forcing a thick gray scarf around his neck. "And contrary to popular conception, I don't buck people just because they're different. Well. Not just for that. I want to get it first. People whose opinions matter, anyway."

Tony's newly-gloved hand raised in the air to make a circular, meditative gesture. He was beginning to ramble, and it took some focus to reign it back in. "I wanna know you. I wanna get you. For however long we're stuck in this little independent spacetime chunk, I'll wanna keep getting you."

When some of the sea mist clung to his eyelashes and obscured his vision, making him blink in an unsightly fashion, he chuckled at the ruination of the moment he was trying to create before wiping it away. He faced Thor, giving himself a bit of reprieve from the wind. His body language was sheepish, almost bashful, before he corrected it. "Do you get what I'm saying? I want you to know me, too."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor watches Tony as he speaks, rambling in that Stark-like way that he finds so strangely endearing. When Tony's finally finished, Thor smiles, then pushes himself up and onto his feet.

Thor places a hand to either side of Tony's face, gently taps his forehead against Tony's. "Thank you," he says.

For a second, it seems like he might say something more, but he doesn't. Thor moves his hands away from Tony's face and curls his arms around Tony's body instead.

"I want that, too. I want to know everything about you."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony's hands rested loosely above the crests of Thor's hips. His body tensed and relaxed in a sigh against the larger man's.

"So believe me when I say I'd find a way." Their noses brushed as he lifted his head, breath mingling with breath. "I have time. That's what you gave me."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor's brows briefly crinkle at Tony's last few words, but his smile doesn't waver.

"What I gave you?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Romantic wording attempt." Tony's fingers found the fleshy tip of Thor's nose, giving it a squeeze. "What I inferred and coerced out of you. But you're running with it."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor lets out a light laugh, his shoulders rising and falling with this breath.

"You did not coerce me," he insists, playfully. "I do not allow myself to be coerced. Manipulated, yes, but not coerced."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Yeah?" While his hands found his hips, Tony did his best to appear stern before he broke with a playful wiggle of his brow. "See? Just--just re-affirming what I knew. You admit fault when it's on your own damn terms. We've got so much in common." Taking Thor by the waist, Tony tugged him in for their first kiss in days.

The flirting, the idle banter--it brought Tony no closer to any information his curious mind craved but when the need for reassurance was there, he'd provide it. Tony had enough to fight without it being his comrades. Again.

"I'm staying the night. Right? Right. I'll put on dinner."

[st_ormbreaker]

"That depends - what are you making?" Thor gives Tony one last kiss on the forehead before relinquishing his hold on Tony entirely.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Now that you've confirmed my stay, I'm getting the ingredients air dropped. Something scrambly. Something meaty. Thought you could use the protein and the GABA." Tony patted Thor's head, as if indicated how often he thought of the man.

"Tired? I can put you down for a nap first."

[st_ormbreaker]

"You spoil me," Thor says. "Really, Tony, I'm fine." Thor worries that Tony thinks he isn't.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Uh. Yeah." As Tony made for the tent, he turned back and his dark eyes darted this way and that as if waiting for the follow up. "I love you. I do this stuff for people I love. Relax about it."

[st_ormbreaker]

That one single word is enough to draw a full-on grin from Thor. Tony is not nearly as generous with his use of the L-word as Thor is, so it's hard not to feel some sudden, almost child-like sense of pride and/or giddiness at having Tony call what it is what it is.

"Love, huh?" he says, as if it weren't already long completely obvious.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

With a sigh, Tony doubled back and took Thor by the hands, spinning a half-circle. A gust of wind made his hair and scarf flutter dramatically.

"'I wanna know what love is.
I want you to show me.
I wanna feel what love is.
I know you can show me.'"

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor is completely caught off-guard by all of this. While surprise briefly registers on his face, it is quickly replaced with the same broad grin as before.

He has never heard this song ever before in his entire life but Thor is absolutely certain that Tony's variation is the best of them all.

And not just because Tony is singing for him.

"You're a gifted singer," Thor insists. "Why don't you sing more often?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Mood's gotta strike." Also, Tony lived a life of constant media scrutiny and wasn't keen on the idea of being subject to an unfortunate audio grab that got meme'd into oblivion. He was certain Peter already had his hands on more than a few.

"So. 'Gotta take a little time. A little time to think things over.' Isn't that right...?" When he sang, his voice dropped an octave, rolling like soft, seductive thunder.