st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

(no subject)

Thor idly throws Mjölnir up in the air with a spin, then catches it easily in one hand. He always tends to play with his hammer whenever he's feeling restless and for some reason, he feels restless now. Going home suddenly feels incredibly important, even though the only thing waiting for them there is the festival and accompanying feast for Walpurgis. The holiday might have felt important when he was much younger, the same way Yule was important to him when he was very small, but 1500 years of celebrating and feasting had drained his excitement for it. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy it (he did) -- at this point, it felt more ritual than anything else.

Still, there was something that felt important about it this time in ways it hadn't before. He couldn't help but think it was because Tony was accompanying him. None of the other Avengers had ever had the chance to visit his homeworld, and it was difficult for him not to feel excited and proud to show it all to someone.

"You will want to stay close," he says, before he lifts Mjölnir. "You do not want to fall off of it."

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"I wasn't there. Remember?" Tony blinked. His tone was patient--far more patient than it usually was. "I was--"

"Dread it."

Whatever Tony had said next was swallowed by the booming of a spectre in the shadows the moon and the distant festival fires cast.

"Run from it."

Destiny arrives all the same.

Thor doesn't know how he knows those words, but he does. Everything about this sounds so familiar, like it was something that had happened to him, but a very long time ago. He tenses, frantically trying to dredge up some part of that memory, but all he can pull forth was whatever he was feeling then.

And it's what he's feeling now. Anger, hatred, fear.

Then horror.

Thanos.

"No," he says, and then the words come out in a flood as he steps backwards. Once, twice, three times. "No, no, no, no, no."

He extends his hand, and Stormbreaker snaps right into his open palm, like it's always belonged there.

Thor remembers that it does.

Tony spun around to face it, his hand flying to his chest instinctively.

Only, it never made it.

A blade tore its way through his chest first, emerging from his spine in a sickly gnashing of flesh and bone.

He made some incomprehensible, vanishing, gasping noise as the enormous spectre laid its hand on his head as if in a perverted show of sympathy.

Edited 2018-08-29 06:18 (UTC)

The memories all return at once.

Fighting Surtur on Muspelheim. His father's revelations and his immediate death. Mjölnir's destruction at the hands of Hela. His imprisonment on Sakaar. The deaths of the Warriors Three. Fighting Hela in the throne room and losing his eye for his effort. The evacuation of Asgard. Looking out into the cosmos and watching as his home broke apart in one brilliant burst.

(I have a feeling things are going to turn out just fine.)

Thanos' attack on the Statesman. His desperate attempt to fight and save as many as he could only to watch helplessly as half of them were executed in front of him. The Power Stone sending a burst of pain so excruciating through his body that he remembered hoping for death. Loki's "betrayal" and the last words he ever said to him. Heimdall's death and the metal muzzle that kept him from saying anything else. The sickening crunch as Thanos cracked his brother's neck and tossed him at his feet. The few moments aboard the Statesman where the despair was so great that he felt relief that it would soon be over, then discovering when he finally woke up that it was not.

Thor is breathing heavy now, but he still manages to meet Tony's gaze. Tony's eyes are glazed over, his lids heavy, his breath labored. Blood drips down his lower lip and lands with a spatter on the ground. It takes only a second for Thor to look and to know: there's no saving him. Despite it, desperation seizes hold of him, just as it had before.

(What more could I lose?)

It was desperation that convinced him to keep living before and it's desperation that convinces him now. There had to be a reason why he had suffered so much and yet still lived through all of it. It was that belief that he had some purpose to service before he could finally be allowed to die. And that belief was all that kept him standing, both then and now.

Nidavellir submerged in utter darkness. Discovering Eitri had forged the gauntlet out of desperation to save the people the King of Asgard was sworn to protect. Learning he would die if he took on the full force of a star and discovering that he'd feel relieved as much to be die as to survive it. Discovering the pain of it eclipsed even the Power Stone, but still surviving it. Returning to Earth by the power of the Bifrost and plowing through Thanos' endless army. Lodging Stormbreaker into Thanos' chest, then pressing the full weight of himself upon it. Watching Thanos suffer as he pushed its blade past armor and flesh and finding a satisfaction that might have disturbed him if he only had the presence of mind filled him.

And then --

(You should have gone for the head.)

-- the sickening snap of his fingers.

That sound is enough to press Thor into action. With a shout, he swings back, lightning crackling over his body and over Stormbreaker itself. And when he finally slams the weapon forward, he doesn't hesitate.

He slams it straight toward his head.

The shadows surrounding Tony dispersed upon being struck--the weapon going through them like vapor.

With nothing keeping him upright, Tony collapsed to the floor soundlessly. There, on his side, he used every ounce of his strength to make contact with his arc reactor. He could activate his crowning jewel, his armor, and everything would be fine. His nanoparticles could suture any wound back up, no matter how lethal.

He massaged uselessly at the gaping void where his reactor used to be. It was in shattered fragments, mixed with the growing pool of blood escaping him by the moment. He kept his hand pressed where it was, but lost the strength to even do so much as that seconds later.

Thor drops to his knees and pulls Tony close to him; he presses his palm against the wound urgently, trying to quell the flow of blood even as it pools up between the gaps in his fingers.

There's no saving him, he knows, but he still has to try.

"It's going to be all right," he tells Tony. "It's going to be all right."

Thor doesn't know if he's saying it for Tony's benefit or his own.

"Odinson."

Tony's glassy eyes drifted to the spectre as it re-emerged just beyond Thor's form. They didn't move again.

"Knowing the truth, and so content to waste away in a gilded cage. King of nothing. Clinging like a mewling kitten to a dead man."

Thor gently Tony down, and holds out his hand so that Stormbreaker finds its way back into his grip. His fist is shaking as he rises to his feet and looks up at him in defiance.

"I'm not," he says, hoarsely. "I'm going to find you, and I'm going to kill you. I don't care how long it takes. You will pay for everything you have done."

From the darkness, the spectre merely smirked. There were no more words--there was no need for them.

Destiny had already arrived. For Thor. For him.

The flash of a brilliant, golden gauntlet eclipsed the room and Tony Stark, Asgard, and the rest of universe were snuffed out in an instant.

Thor's eyes shoot open and he bolts upright. He frantically gropes for Tony's sleeping form, but finds that it isn't there.

He tries to swallow back his panic, but much as he tries, he can't.

"Stark?" he throws the covers off the bed, as if expecting to find Tony hidden somewhere beneath, but even as his palms cover the length of the mattress, he ascertains that Tony's not there.

He stumbles out of bed and over to the wall. As one hand blindly reaches for the lightswitch, he summons Stormbreaker into his hand with the other. Normally, Stormbreaker would be enough to ground him. It's not enough right now.

Finally, Thor's hand finds the switch and he snaps it up. Light fills the room. Tony isn't there.

"Stark?" he calls out again, as if expecting that he'll suddenly answer from wherever he's hidden.

Silence.

Thor forces himself to breathe, but it does nothing to mitigate his panic. Tiny sparks of lightning crackle out from his fingertips in brilliant blue-and-white arcs up the length of Stormbreaker's handle.

Soon thereafter, the door slowly creaked back open. Tony was clad in his humble sweater-and-sweats bed combo, a bag of cherries under his arm. He squinted at the bright colors of the room, fully illuminated for some reason.

There was Thor in the midst of it, weapon in hand, and lighting up like a Christmas tree.

Tony immediately drew back into the doorway, raising a hand. He had no concept of what was happening, but it was clear that whatever it was, Thor was barely keeping a handle on it. "Easy, easy...it's just me. No ghosties, no ghoulies."

The sound of Tony's voice is all it takes to snap him out of it; his grip weakens on Stormbreaker enough that the weight of gravity allows it to fall from his grip and to the ground where it lands with a dull, heavy, metal sound. The sparks that danced around his fingers go out and Thor stands, staring at Tony uncomprehendingly.

Thor stands there for a second, still trying to take control of it of the emotions that threatened to swallow him whole. He's managed, for the most part, to keep them them at bay with a mission or by busying himself with meaningless things. He had done this with great skill and to great effect. There were rare moments where dark thoughts started to rise to the surface, but almost every time he had been able to turn away from the void before it swallowed him.

Thor takes a breath and then forces a smile. It doesn't feel right, but it seems like the right thing to do to de-escalate the situation. "Nightmare," he says in the same tone of voice someone uses when they realizes how silly they're being. Thor doesn't feel silly; he feels overwhelmed. 1500 years and nothing has come close to preparing him for this level of grief and regret.

He's not sure how it happens, but somehow, his feet carry him to the bed and he sits down on its edge, looking down at the gaudy comforter that still lay sprawled out on the floor. "We, you know," he says attempts, lightly. "We take dreams very seriously on Asgard."

"Yeah...?" Tony remained standing in the doorway, bag of fruit balanced on the sling that still supported his left arm. It wasn't broken like it once was, thanks to the inn's healers' efforts, but his elbow was still mending at its own pace. He finally walked back in, bumping the door closed with his foot.

"It's alright. You're alright." He slowly approached.

Thor takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"Yeah," he says, and he attempts that smile again. "I'm fine."

He wants to say something about the cherries, make some quip about how he's glad Tony's eating something, but he can't quite push the words forward.

"'Alright' being a relative term, here. You're the least 'fine' I've ever seen you." Tony had made his good-faith attempt to reassure Thor, but he couldn't lie to the man's face with niceties. He was never the type and he wasn't about to start.

Instead, he claimed his spot beside the larger man and cracked open the bag for him to partake. "...We don't have to talk about it. But we can if you need it. Or anything else." After the shock (near-literally) of walking in to see that, Tony didn't anticipate making it back to sleep.

Thor doesn't reach for the cherries. He'd rather have a drink than some cherries, but he doesn't keep anything in the room and he doesn't particularly feel like leaving, either. He's not sure he can talk about Asgard or about Thanos now, or possibly ever, but there are some things he's more comfortable talking about. He might lack Loki's cunning, but he knows well enough that if he talks about the lesser of these things, Tony might well assume that his nightmare had something to do with that.

And he'd prefer that Tony think that all of this was connected to Hela instead of all the other numerous terrible things that had piled up since shortly before his father's death. It had been a mistake to mention Thanos before, but he had no idea how else to convince Tony. Even now, he couldn't help but feel that my brother is dead had been a shitty card to play.

"When my father died, he told us that we had an older sister, who he imprisoned in Hel," he says. "He told us this minutes before he died. 1500 years he had to tell us that, and he chose to tell us seconds before she burst out of Hel and attacked us both."

Tony rolled a pit on his tongue, stripping it of the meat bit by bit as he listened. He didn't look at Thor as he spoke, not trusting himself to mask the skepticality in his groggy state. After going a few rounds with Loki, Thor made for an underwhelming match in concealment and half-truths.

"Wow. That's a...bomb to drop on your old man's part." He spat out the pit into a Dixie cup he had stashed in the same blue sling (which had begun to accrue signatures from various tenants...) "And that's...who you dreamt of? Your sister."

Thor doesn't answer the question. He's just starting to get his bearings again and Hela seems irrelevant to the question Tony wants to ask, but can't quite.

"You ever have a dream where everything is going right for you and then suddenly it's not?"

Nodding, Tony learned over to set his snack bag and disposal cup on the dresser. He had been snacking the whole way down.

"Dreaming what could have been or what could be..." His voice was strained with the effort of nagivating around his bad arm to lay down on the bed--curling up to rest his head on Thor's lap.

"Both," he says. Somehow, having Tony laying against him grounds him further and he finds he's immensely grateful for that. "Some of the good parts could still happen, I suppose. I don't know if they will, though."

"Yeah, well, you know you can't just say that and not share." Tony made a nest for his ear in the nook of the man's quad. Any ray of light he could lean into was golden.

Once Tony seems to have settled in comfortably, Thor folds an arm over him.

"You're going to laugh, Stark."

"Was one of us in a dress?" Tony closed his eyes, bringing his knees up to hug the arm over his waist. "No judgement."

"I think my dream might have been improved with that particular addition," he says. This time when he smiles, it's true -- or as true as it can be with the spectre of the past still hovering over him.

"But no. Just you and I, together for years, and then you, meeting my family --"

Which was unlikely to ever happen, unless the other members of his household started manifesting from earlier in his life here at the inn.

" -- and then me asking if you'd want to make it permanent."

"Oh."

Tony had retreated into his hood to make the cushion of Thor's muscle a more comfortable stay, and he was suddenly thankful for that choice.

Was this a test? No, Thor didn't do tests. A joke? He had better taste. So he had to take it as completely sincere, sans the "could still happen" bit. That was clearly tongue in cheek. Right?

"How was the wedding?" Levity was Tony's fallback each and every time.