st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

"Not the first time I've been interviewed by a hot date." Iron Man quipped as he lowered himself to the rocky sands.

"I'm not sure if this is going to be much of a date," Thor says, lips quirking upwards. "Do I get a kiss?"

There was that reserved manner to Thor that suggested incoming sobriety, but Tony boosted himself back up by his repulsors for a kiss to keep them both grounded.

“Let’s go sit.” Tony hovered backwards towards a drone dropping their well-traveled tent.

Thor grins as he leans into the kiss, then follows after Tony. Despite his reserved manner, he still walks with an easy gait and settles back down into a sit before Tony can.

"We spending the night?" he asks, nodding a head towards the drone.

“I am. You’re free to join.” Tony gestured at another drone making a fire starter drop, setting the firewood into a pile along with secured bundles of kindling and matches while the other stretched out it’s long limbs and constructed the tent. Just the right mix of rustic and tech.

"Happy to," Thor says. "It's been ages." Thor is hard-pressed to remember precisely when they last went camping together.

"I wanted to ask you a few things about Earth," he says. "I've been reading a lot and I've been talking with Loki and Val and I'm just trying to figure out things about the future."

Taking a seat across the designated firepit area from Thor, Tony brushed his long bangs back into a newly-formed beanie. The drone meticulously crafted a circle of stone and built the heart of the pit out of kindling, it’s disc-shaped body emitting soft light from its edges in the meantime.

“Alright.”

Thor looks down at the fire. Why do these kinds of conversations always seem to happen around fires lately?

"The people of Earth aren't likely to welcome Loki with open arms." That probably was understatement of the year. Thor looks up and over at Tony. "Back on the Statesman, before Thanos showed up, Loki didn't voice an objection to our destination, so I thought we could figure something out. Apparently not."

A prickle of anxiety poked the back of the engineer’s neck, and he motioned at yet a third drone making its descent to drop at his side. A delivery of weaponry revealed itself when Tony broke into the dark, stiff pack.

“Understandable.” He pulled out a long, vaguely spiral-shaped piece of an unknown weapon and turned it over in his hands. The spotlight of the third drone was fading but his glasses easily made up for the dimming sunlight.

After the third drone completes its delivery, Thor puts a pause on the conversation.

"What's that?" he asks, gesturing to the weapon in his hands.

“Playing with directed-energy weaponry.” The challenge wasn’t in the theory as much as the development with limited resources. “This is gonna rig a pulsed energy projectile.”

"Just doing that for fun?"

“Might be useful for the non-combatants in a pinch. Still in development.” Shrugging, Tony nodded for Thor to continue as he inspected the wiring.

Thor watches as Tony tinkers for a moment longer before he opens his mouth to speak again.

"I'm trying to figure out what can be done about that. If anything can be done about that." Thor lets out a soundless laugh. "I don't know if there is any way I can protect my people and protect my brother if we settle permanently on Earth."

Well. There it was. The impulse to argue was suffocated and what little fight made it out went into his busy hands wrangling the wire. This didn’t match that. Had they ever? He propped up his knee to bring the internal bit closer.

“I see.”

Tony's uncharacteristic quiet doesn't go unnoticed, but Thor isn't entirely sure what to do about it. Instead, he proceeds with his first question:

"Do you think there's anything that can be done?"

Gnawing the inside of his lip, Tony kept a stoic portrait as he doggedly faced the tech in his hands. “Nothing easy.”

"But you do know of something hard?"

“Convincing the powers that be to grant amnesty to an extraterrestrial species and New York’s most memorable mass murderer? Their view. Not mine.” Yes, Loki had evolved labels considerably, but selling his new image to the people of his hometown would prove nigh impossible. Not unless Loki performed some miracle feat of goodwill, and even then...

"Yes, that," Thor says, without missing a beat.

“Let’s not beg the question, please, Mr. Odinson. I won’t argue it’s not worth doing but there’s no easy out.” The prickling anxiety heated beneath his skin. “I’ll be blunt. A sustainable solution for all your asks may not exist. Not while I’m alive.”

"Why not while you're alive?"

“The only way I could convince the world not to lock up the Avengers was to collar us. The Avengers. They made fugitives out of half of us in the end. Anyone pleading Loki’s case would be eaten alive by those in living memory of New York.” Just the facts. Breathe in, breathe out.

Thor sighs and rubs at the side of his neck, thinking. The more he thinks about it, the more his head hurts at the thought of it.

"I have no idea what I'm going to do."

Tony sealed his lips. He didn’t have a place making asks of the man—you think when you’d married someone you would, but his needs were far lesser than anyone else’s.