st_ormbreaker | In Tents

In Tents

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.

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"They were." Even if it took Thor's departure and the dissolution of the Avengers to realize it. "Even if I was bad at showing it and returned the favor by going behind your back more than once."

A pause. Tony lowered his fork and gazed back.

"Which is why I'm just going to say it. Get angry if you have to, you probably will, but I've got no other way to avoid dropping the ball with your trust."

Tony's poker face activated, but there was a subtle pleading in his gaze. "I'm asking you tell him. Loki. The truth."

The stubborn part of Thor stiffens the moment that Tony says that he's likely going to get angry. Not in preparation for getting angry, but in preparation for not.

But true to Tony's word, Thor finds himself bristling with irritation at Tony's ask.

"I don't think that's something you get to decide." Thor grabs a marshmallow and stares out at the tent because he doesn't particularly feel inclined to look Tony in the face right now.

"I don't. Which is why I'm asking." It was still hard to admit when he knew he wasn't the one calling the shots. At first, he was prepared to give the man an ultimatum, but even that felt wrong, greater good or no.

'Guess I really am growing as a person. Or going soft. Maybe both.'

"I came this close to telling him myself while you were giving each other the silent treatment. Even I have some respect for family bonds, hilariously complicated ones inclusive, and I didn't."

That irritation escalates to outright anger when he tells him he nearly told him. Maybe he should focus on the fact that Tony didn't, but the fact that he even considered it was enough to draw Thor's ire.

Thor abruptly stands, his back to Tony. He doesn't want to be close to Tony right now. He doesn't even want to look at him.

"I don't get why telling him is so important to you."

A deep breath. He saw this coming a mile away. He knew the place it was coming from. Still, it hurt, and the devil in him questioned why he was ruining date night for a greasy mass murderer.

"Because we're in the same boat. And I'd choose knowing each and every time if it gave me a chance."

Maybe he felt like he owed Loki something. Maybe he hoped Loki would become a valuable ally. In the end, the truest reason was that it didn't sit right to not let the man know. It felt cruel.

Tony made no move to bridge the gap as he watched the flames. He added a few pieces of wood to keep them alive.

"I get these--these weird visions. Hallucinations, maybe. Chalk it up to stress. It doesn't interfere with my daily living, but they're there. A coffin, in the distance. I can't see it clearly, but it's there." He brought his hand back from the flames. "I can dread it or run away, but I know it's there. And I know that I'm not in it yet."

Silence.

"That's all." His head sunk forward. "Whatever you choose, I'll honor it."

Dread it or run away.

Tony's words fade out after that, replaced with the sound of Thanos' voice.

Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.

Thor inhales audibly as his hands ball into fists at his side. It's all he can do to keep his arms from shaking.

"I just told my brother the brunt of our people were annihilated by a sister neither of us knew," he says. "And now you want me to tell him that Thanos killed half of the few that remained. That he killed Heimdall. That he killed him."

He spins around to face Tony.

"I fail to see how it's important. Why if we're going to change things, I am somehow obligated to tell him that everything we have left goes to hell."

Tony rose. Now that the fire was properly tended, he felt he could move on.

"That's all." He said everything that was in him to say about the matter. No matter how much Thor wanted to argue it out, it just wasn't in him. He kept facing the fire.

"It's hard. For everyone. You, most of all. It's...far away from me." Words weren't in him either, apparently. He removed his glasses, wiping down his tired eyes with a sleeve. It came back wet. He put his glasses back on.

"It's all far away."

Thor knows that if anyone had given him the choice to remember everything or the choice not to, he'd choose the latter in an instant. He harped endlessly on Valkyrie about running toward her problems and not away from them, but in the end, he was just as guilty as she was.

Thor had truly believed that he was running towards his problems when he went on his suicide quest to kill Thanos, but now, it felt increasingly obvious to him that he had been running away from them. Thanos had won and Thor had come here and with no immediate objective to focus on, all that remained were the feelings he was avoiding. Anger, guilt, loss, regret.

Even now, he didn't want to face them. Physical pain he could abide; he'd spent centuries building up tolerance. Emotional pain was considerably newer. He didn't know what precisely to do with it. It materialized in unhealthy ways, like charging towards his ally and lifting him up by the throat or striking a man capable of wiping out the galaxy in the chest instead of the head just to see him suffer.

Or finding some reason to clash with anyone who might push him to confront them, the way he did Valkyrie.

"You ask me to tell my brother and when I inquire as to why you suddenly find it important, you tell me that you would want to know."

Thor exhales in a sound that doesn't quite make its way to a breathy laugh.

"Is that really it, Stark?"

"No." The glasses on Tony's face darkened to obscure the sight of his eyes, as per an impulse that ran through his neurons as he turned back around to face Thor.

"He would, too."

Another silence, and Tony struck out west.

"There was that spring about quarter of a mile back. I'm gonna fill the canteen so I don't get a hangover. Would kinda--kinda suck the fun out of the morning hike. You want me to pick up anything on the way, yell."

Thor doesn't say anything to that. Instead, he just looks at the fire because it's something to look at that isn't his feet or his hands or the ground. He doesn't pull his eyes away from it until he hears Tony retreat fully.

Thor hunches over and takes a breath, then wearily presses the butt of his palms against his eyelids.

Thor knows that Tony is right.

He wishes he weren't.

By the time Tony returned a good half hour later, he was lugging a gallon and some skins back with the aid of his gauntlet. He dropped it near the tent and took a moment to regard Thor's back.

Hell with it. If he wanted to be angry, he could keep doing it skin-to-skin.

He approached the man, wrapping his arms around his neck loosely from behind.

"Hey." He said softly.

"Hey." He doesn't resist when Tony wraps his arms around him. "Did you find your water?"

"Yeah. My water. We can share." Tony nosed the top of his head.

"Thank you."

Thor doesn't say anything for a moment, just taking in the warmth of Tony's body against his own.

"I'll tell him," he says, finally.

Tony pushed his body weight against Thor's back, resting his chin on the blonde bristles.

"Not tonight, at least. Right?" He massaged the larger man's jaw to make his not-so-subtle point.

"Not tonight," he says. Probably not tomorrow night, either. He was dreading that particular conversation. He suspects that Loki will just be glib about the whole thing. He's not sure if that's worse than him being upset.

Thor reaches for Tony's hand and pulls it away from his jaw just long enough to kiss the tips of his fingers.

He sets Tony's hand back against his jaw and briefly sets his hand over it.

"We made up, by the way," he says. "I don't think I told you that."

Tony's chest warmed. Clearly, the walk had been a good strategic move on his part.

"Good." Leaving it at that, Tony cracked a small smile. His satisfaction was a simple sort--just knowing that Thor was given some peace in whatever way he could find it.

"I'm really glad you're here," he says. "There was a time where all I could do was think about the last thing I said to everyone who was gone. I don't remember the last thing I said to you and Rogers, but I remember it being flippant. I wish I had done a better job of saying goodbye."

Now, at least, he gets to say it to Tony. Even if there might be a chance that they'll change his timeline, or they'll go back and not remember anything at all. He's just glad that he got to say something.

"But... I'm not just glad because of that."

Tony brought himself around to Thor's lap for a second go--he had scooted off prematurely the last time, after all. He remained loosely clinging to Thor's neck.

"Yeah?"

"You know," he says, tracing a line from Tony's ear down to his chin. "Tell you how much you meant to me. You and our little excursions. You were one of the first Midgardian friends I made." Jane and Darcy and Selvig had been the first. "One of the only Midgardian friends I made. You and Rogers. Banner and Romanoff. Barton and Rhodey."

Some of them he was closer to than others, but still he considered all of them his friends.

"Don't feel bad. I've been Midgardian my entire life and I consider only two of the people you listed my friends." It wasn't always so, but it was now. Rhodey was the sole friend he had left out of all of them--Banner still considered among the ranks due to the sheer fact he was too MIA to disagree with him anymore.

Still, it wasn't important. Not right now. He tugged himself up and brought their mouths together in another restless showing. "Still on another little excursion, last time I checked. I'm at your whim."

And of course, he's the third.

"You know, Stark," he says, his lips tugging into the slightest of smiles. "I'd really like to know what you'd like me to do to you."

"Put a ring on it?" His lungs pushed out a little laugh, first in what felt like ages following their half-argument. "Kidding. Just...smile for me or something like that." He pushed up the sides of Thor's mouth with his two index fingers.

That isn't quite what he meant, but Thor doesn't mind. He catches Tony's fingers in his hand and holds them there.

"You are truly ridiculous."

But still, Thor smiles.

"Lord have mercy." Tony feigned a swoon in a theatrical manner, kicking his legs up. "Smiling? Severely underrated form of foreplay, so says I."

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