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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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.

For all his talk of not being overly fond of cats, there were moments like these when Tony settled down on his lap that reminded him a great deal of Jane Foster's cat.

Thor hums softly. "Didn't happen."

"A shame." Tony yawned, huddling in a little harder for warmth. "I was getting invested, there."

The anxiety he felt from the dream has almost completely ebbed away and Thor is sure Tony is responsible for it.

"You didn't realize I was proposing to you," Thor says, shifting arm as Tony moves in closer. "I asked you if you'd want to be a prince of Asgard and you just started talking about --"

Thor has to stop and think about it. The details are slowly starting to fade away, just leaving him with the broad strokes.

"-- how you used to pretend you were a prince when you were a kid." He knows Tony said more, but he can't remember what. Something about robots, he thinks. Those details don't matter as much as that one. Dream-Tony's obliviousness was sort of endearing.

That got a good laugh out of the man, and he peered up to see Thor.

"Seriously? I did. Not of Asgard since Norse mythos was never my thing, but I was dead set on an android kingdom. Settled for some personal assistants in the end." And considerably lower tech than 'fully synthetic humanoid' but still robotic.

That was it. The thing about the robots.

"You said that, too," he says. "Something about..."

Thor thinks hard, trying to draw back what he can remember of the good parts of the dream. Prince, robots, and...

"...a bed. I think something about flying in one? I thought it was cute."

Still, he's starting to find the truthfulness of the tale disconcerting, especially if this last detail was right. He thinks about the dreams about Ragnarok and the Nine Realms falling into chaos.

"Oh, yep, my space ship bed. Classic." Hit with a wave of nostalgia, Tony rolled carefully onto his back.

"Blame Star Trek. Captain Kirk was my everything as a wee lad. Boy with no friends but his butler, what else are you gonna do all day but retrofit your bed with rocket boosters made of modified hair dryers?"

Thor's chest clenches at that particular revelation, but he doesn't let it show.

"A nerd even when you were little," Thor says. He had a tendency to call Bruce a nerd, with great affection. He had learned it from the television.

"I wonder if we would have been friends as children," he says. "I was a bit of a brat." Another television word. "Always wanting to go out and fight something."

"Doubt it. Unless you picked up nerds instead of picking on." Squinting, Tony tapped the fingers of his injured arm to keep it awake.

"I was shy. Wasn't big on talking. Cried like a baby my fair share which for the record does not leave this room."

"You have my word," Thor says solemnly. Still, he can't imagine Tony as a quiet kid. Maybe because he himself had been loud as a child and was still loud as an adult. That and he still had a thing for combat.

"So when did you become wisecracking man I know today?"

"Adolescent moody blues hit." That, and his parents' passing when he was 17 and left with only Obadiah Stane for company.

Struck with a sudden thought on the topic of aging, Tony's body relaxed in a forced sigh. He tried to do that with tension build up.

"The age thing is...still surreal." His mind drifted to the fact that he was rapidly coming up on his 50's, followed by his 60's, and so on--and Thor would look virtually the same.

"I didn't think much of it until I came to Earth and met Jane," he says. "If you're surrounded by people who age at the same rate as you, it doesn't ever become an issue."

Thor runs a hand through Tony's hair.

"I'd still like you if you were old," he says.

"Thanks." Tony's mouth set apprehensively. "I can't help but feel like you'd get the short end on that one."

When Thor looks down at Tony, his confusion is palpable.

"Why would you say that?"

Tony shrugged--suddenly feeling rather trite about the whole sentiment at Thor's genuine confusion. "Well. I just like the idea of you getting to enjoy this," he gestured up and down at himself, "as long as possible."

The only thing Thor had really given thought to was that he was likely going to outlive his friends. That bothered him more than them aging. He wanted his friends to grow old because that was better than the alternative of them dying before their time.

Not that he would likely see Tony grow old. Not if what his suspected was true. At the thought, Thor abruptly moves his arm so it curls around Tony's body. He pulls him tight into the closest approximation he can to a hug while his partner is still recumbent.

He releases him before it can get too uncomfortable (though Thor knows his hugs often are). "If there was nothing to enjoy about you but your body, I would have slept with you and nothing more."

"Not that I'm much to look at these days." Tony settled back down with a wince, resting his good hand on his ribs, which were steadily growing more pronounced.

"I stopped trying. That's why I nearly got got. Alas, poor Tony." His pride was still smarting from the battle mere days ago. "That's gonna change."

Thor grimaces a little at Tony's little wince. It was hard, sometimes, to remember how slowly Midgardians healed up.

"You're plenty to look at," Thor says, and he wonders why Tony feels like he's inadequate. He's plenty adequate. "Do you think I have bad taste?"

Whether the question is rhetorical or not doesn't seem immediately apparent, as Thor continues on to address the rest of what Tony said:

"What can I do to help?"

"You gym, right? Do not take me with you. I'll go on my own time." Tony impatiently jostled his injured arm. Leg day every day for a week or two. "I'll get distracted and I know it."