In Tents

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor hasn't gone camping in a few years.

The last time he went camping, it was with Jane Foster, Darcy, and Darcy's intern, who Thor was pretty convinced was her boyfriend. For most of the trip, Darcy and her intern were fighting loudly; Jane was constantly on her cellular phone because her calls kept dropping and there was some emergency at a conference she was guest speaking at; Thor spent much of that first evening casually eating a bag and a half of marshmallows at the fire before Darcy voiced her protest and he was barred from eating more for the rest of the trip, much to Thor's dismay.

Thor might have overpacked for the trip, but Thor was of the mind that it was better to be overprepared than under -- and that it was better to have too many marshmallows than not enough. When four hours had passed and they reached their destination, he set down their belongings and began to set up camp.

"I never pegged you for the camping type," Thor says, pulling the tent poles out of their sheath. Maybe he was, and Thor had just never known it. It just always seemed like Tony was into tech so much that he couldn't stand to be without it.

Comments

[st_ormbreaker]

"There had to be some way to fill in those long nights alone in space," he says."Thornyson? I'm not sure if that's better than one or the other."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"For as often as you skirt the protection, I have a hard time you're imagining anything else." Tony punched him in the shoulder. "No, the armor doesn't count, and you damn well know it."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor grins at Tony's sorry attempt at a punch.

"Are you saying you want to have another child with me, Stark? There are ways to make it happen."

Not here, of course, but there were other places in the universe where two or more genetic cocktails could be mixed to make new life regardless of the sexes of the child's would-be parents.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony's hand froze on Thor's skin.

"Wait...what?" Tony felt his heart stop. "This better not be you dropping some bomb about what Asgardian physiology is capable of because if I've got something baking in me Odinson I swear to Christian God--"

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor gives Tony's stomach a friendly pat.

"I'm afraid there are no beautiful, long-haired babies in your immediate future," he says, giving Tony's stomach one final pat. "Despite our remarkable genetics, Asgardians aren't particularly fertile. It probably worked out for the best, given our longevity."

Worked. It wasn't exactly going to do Asgard's survivors any favors now.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

It was incredibly concerning that Thor's reply was "we have low fertility rates" rather than "you have an XY, not an XX, settle down."

"'Immediate.'"

[st_ormbreaker]

"Immediate," Thor confirms.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony narrowed his eyes and pushed up. He needed that whiskey he stowed away something fierce.

"While you're having a giggle, I'm going to deliberate over whether you get to maintain rubber-free priveleges." A beat. "Deliberation done. No."

[st_ormbreaker]

"I'd let your tiny, adorable, big-headed babies gestate inside of me!"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Thanks."

The whiskey went down like a cleansing fire straight into his chest. Maybe it could do the same for his brain if he drank enough.

"Someone has to."

[st_ormbreaker]

"I just wanted to make sure you knew precisely how much I like you," Thor says, stretching a hand out for the bottle.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Too bad we'll never know, huh?" Tony reluctantly handed over the bottle, which he had been drinking straight from. What else was there but to lean into the utter weirdness?

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor takes a swig from the bottle, then hands it back over.

"Not without some science and/or magical intervention," Thor says. "I've seen weirder than that for sure."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Here? At the hotel?" Tony asked in between swigs. "There's a lot of things to be achieved through assistance. Didn't know kids were the first on your list."

[st_ormbreaker]

"Kids really aren't near the top of the list right now," Thor says. "But they are one of those someday things, yes."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Might be a 'now or never' thing for me." Tony passed the bottle back, maneuvering back to the pot. "I'm keeping optimistic."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor takes the bottle, but doesn't drink from it yet.

"We're going to make sure it's not a now or never thing for you," he says firmly, gesturing at Tony with a tilt of the bottle. "I'll carry all six of your children at once."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"In your arms, Big Guy. In your arms. That's what you meant." Tony snatched the bottle back, gurgling out his follow up. "And not with this."

[st_ormbreaker]

"Not with what?" Thor responds, snatching the bottle back himself. "You shouldn't be drinking anyway -- it's bad for the baby."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony reached behind him and yanked out another bottle of Highland Malt Scotch. Contingency.

"Daddy has needs and Thornyson un, dues, trois, quatre, cinq and six better start getting used to it now."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thankfully, enough time on Earth has at least given Thor a rudimentary knowledge of several human languages.

Or at least how to say hello, goodbye, apologize, and count to ten in them.

"You can't just go around calling your children by numbers," Thor insists. "You need to name them."

Thor takes a long swig from the open bottle and makes no protest when he sees the other in Tony's hands.

"You have to name one of them Thor -- definitely. So that's one off the list."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony activated his gauntlet to rip off the sealed cap with extreme prejudice. More drink, less remembered. That was one of his rules.

"Okay." A swig. "Greg. Marcia. Peter. Jan. Bobby. All of them have hair of gold like their mother. And then Thor, the youngest one with curls."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor doesn't get the reference. He does like the idea of a beautiful curly-haired Thor-child.

"You have given this a lot of thought," he says. "Peter, after the Spider-Man, but what about the rest of them?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Dunno. Had a nice cadence." Tony idly wondered if they had The Brady Bunch VHSes at the library as he set the bottle to the side to attend to his dinner. The noodles were extremely soft to the point of mushiness as he scooped them into a bowl.

The burn of the whiskey had settled well in his chest and was muddling his brain, chipping away at his emotional wall. "I'd make a good dad."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor watches Tony take care of his food. Just looking at it makes him hungry.


Thor watches for a few seconds as Tony starts attends to his food and it's enough to trigger a soft rumbling of his own stomach. He gets up and rummages through their food bag and returns back to his sitting spot with a big bag of marshmallows.

He pops one into his mouth and finishes it off with another swig of once-Tony's, now-his' drink.

"You would," Thor says, as if there were no question of it. "I'd like to see it. You'd dote on any of your kids hard. You probably wouldn't let me hold one unless I washed my hands first."