st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

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.

"You know, I might not need to worry about any of this if he's dead for good," he says, with remarkable lightness given the seriousness of the conversation. "Then, Earth shouldn't be as much of a problem."

“Don’t say that.” Tony peeled back another layer of the piece, letting the wires hang off their connectors.

"It's more of a possibility than him living at this point," Thor says. "I'm just trying to plan out for whatever possibilities might lie out there."

As much as he hates to admit it, without Loki truly on-board with changing things as they stood on The Statesman, he has some extreme doubts a living brother is in his future. He's not even sure that the possibility exists because he's already lived a timeline where Loki was dead.

"If he lives, we may end up going to Vanaheim," he says. "Our uncle rules there. Loki has claim to Jotunheim as sole heir to the throne, but it's no place for non-Jotuns to live. Nidavellir would be a possibility if we managed to fix what Thanos destroyed, but I'd much prefer solid ground beneath our feet if I can help it."

‘So you asked knowing there was no way.’ Still Tony bit his tongue, silently pulling bits and moving others within his creation.

Thor knits his fingers together and looks down at them.

"If given a choice, I'd rather be on Earth."

“You’re not given a choice. You’re a king. You make them.” Thor was ambivalence incarnate and the ambiguity was carving at his nerves for reasons he couldn’t articulate.

"I know that," Thor says, trying to swallow back his irritation. "If I had a choice I wouldn't be the one making them, but I accepted that responsibility when I took on the mantle of king."

Regardless of what he wanted to do, he would inevitably have to chose what was best for what remained of his people.

"There are many nations of Earth that are not welcoming to refugees," he says. "I'm not even sure how the Accords might come into place when my people arrive. I don't know how Vanaheim will react to our arrival, given that my brother spent two years on the throne neglecting any of the responsibilities that came with it."

Patching the piece back up, Tony set it to the side and produced a smaller pack from the enormous one, this one the size of a briefcase. Unlocking it, the disassembled pieces of a sniper rifle revealed themselves, and Tony picked out the scope to inspect.

“So.” He circled his fingers around the rim of the wide end. “Unknown after unknown.”

Thor watches as Tony fiddles with the pieces of the gun. He avoided trying to say it outright; he'd hoped, perhaps, that Tony would read between the lines and know exactly what questions he was asking, but Tony has been mostly non-responsive for most of the conversation, saying things to just fill the space between them.

"I need you to tell me why you think Earth would be a better choice," he says. "If there's an option that is good for my people and good for Loki, I'm going to take it. If there's something better than that for just my people, that is always going to be my choice, my feelings for Loki be damned."