Snap Decisions - for asgardhero

[starkingenuity]

Fun fact.  Turns out that you can't actually find a crazed super genius overnight.  As hard as Tony tries, bruises and a dented suit and all, he just can't.  It's a sticking point and he snaps at Bruce for no good reason at all before apologizing with a hit of scotch...and three doubles after he leaves

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[starkingenuity]

He doesn't want to be taken care of. It's a little bit humiliating and it feels too good to like. Tony is pushing forty years old. He's his own man and has been since long before his parents died. He's not trying to angst here, he's trying not to get angry. The desire to push Thor away ebbs and flows but never breaks through the barricade between the teammates.

If Thor is chasing a substitute brother -- let's leave out the sex and the consequences of that -- then what could Tony be after? He watches Thor scrub the pen marks from his skin, listens to his strong, proud voice wax philosophical and draws back to present his hands for Thor to continue with his work.

Towards the end, when Tony looks like a drowned rat criss crossed with raised, bruised lines that will disappear after a good night's rest, he figures it out.

He wants a counterpart. He wants a constant. And he wants one that is warm and not just a programmed voice.

Tony beads water down the lengths of his forearms as they leave the bath and his eyes close as he learns to get use to the feel of wet beard against the smooth skin not covered by his own facial hair. The reactor presses to Thor's chest and that happy euphoria edges off the ache.

[asgardhero]

Thor is pushing nine-thousand. He knows how very hard it is to break a habit.

Ink is finally sloughed from skin to Thor's satisfaction and he stands Stark only to catch him as he stumbles out of the bath. Thor's own shirt had been soaked and stripped; while his jeans are not much better off, they've stayed on. When the reactor sings to him his chin drops to a bare shoulder and he lets his nose trace the soft skin behind Tony's ear before he steps back. Addiction is nothing to be indulged. "You are unsettling when you are quiet," he says, a lopsided sort of smile on his face.

"In Asgard we would make you fight, or drink, until you passed out." But there's a quick gleam in those blue eyes and Thor shakes his head. "But I have a feeling you are too stubborn to pass out, so I will go by Darcy's advice."

There should be pants in Tony's bedroom somewhere. "Pancakes and coffee." The wisdom is imparted as he digs thought Iron Man's drawers.

[starkingenuity]

Addiction is meant to be indulged. Tony might be offended to think himself an addiction, but it is incredibly fitting when he's lived his life going from one fixation to the next. That's not to say that he's not exceptionally glad when Thor's stopped touching him because he has vague recollections of tenderness and affection from the bath... And not so vague recollections of that single, somewhat stunted kiss that likely left Thor with a bad taste in his mouth. Literally. Four days worth of morning breath is not something you share a first kiss on.

First and only kiss, Tony reprimands himself. The sex was bad enough. He doesn't need to get sentimental here.

Even with Thor playing Mother Hen and setting out clothing for him and mentioning breakfast and--

"You are not cooking." He snatches the soft sweat pants from Thor's grasp and covers himself, hand moving protectively over his reactor. That's what's started all of this trouble. Damn thing. "And as much as I like explaining to waitresses why you need ten helpings-- Yeah not today."

[asgardhero]

Being over-affectionate with Stark now would be a disservice to the man as he is. Vulnerabilities are only something Thor takes advantage of when he has Mjolnir in his hand.

And yes, his breath is quite intolerable.

"You flatter yourself, Stark. I would not take you out in this state--I think you would draw far more attention than my appetite." Thor crosses his arms over his chest. "I am sure that I should be able to make food, but if you are against the idea then are there not places that we could call to make them bring food to us? Your city is founded on convenience, after all." He makes a motion to hurry the man along, into his pants.

Then he'll find the wonderful little tube of disinfectant that Jane employs so well. Humans are fragile, after all, and while Tony is clean, he has wounds.

[starkingenuity]

Within the hour, Tony has been mended, though he fought the entire time with ham-hock hands and growled and was as insufferable as possible to save face, food has been delivered from an over priced coffee shop whose answering counter-minion had seemed amused at the order of two dozen egg and cheese sandwiches, and is dressed and quite full.  One socked foot rests on the coffee table and Thor, a good distance away, amuses him by licking the paper that had wrapped each and every sandwich. Even Tony's.  It's probably an achievement that Thor hadn't eaten the paper...

Tony is on his second cup of black coffee and it balances on his knee in a paper cup provided by the cafe along with the large boxed coffee dispenser that had been sent over. Content and back to feeling human again, Tony invariable shifts the conversation to something they both have interest in:

Doctor von Doom.

What else could they discuss?  The women they were both supposedly involved with and yet never got around to seeing?

"Any luck on finding him at all?  Calling cards?  Giant robot bugs...?"

If its been quiet for four days...  That really does not bode well. What's he waiting for?

[asgardhero]

"He has not left us his phone number," Thor says as he searches for any sandwiches that perhaps have been missed in the sea of wrappers before sitting back and lacing his hands over his stomach. At least there is still coffee. "The incidence of more machines has been few and random. Dr Banner has been picking apart the one that we recovered but it does not seem as if he has found anything more than what you did."

Thor closes his eyes and exhales. Fed and dried off, he feels better himself. The mess of Tony's workroom has not been forgotten, but it is out of sight for the time being, and out of mind. Stark will have to be addressed but, like Thor's brother, now is not the time for it.

Thor is still a little disappointed that Tony refused to be covered in the small, sticky bandages that help humans heal.

[starkingenuity]

The humor is enough to make Stark grin and he stands up slowly, all aches and pains, and bypasses the bar for once to fill his blood stream with pain killers of the more standard variety from the pharmacy. He clicks the lid back onto the aspirin and leans, bandage free, against the wall for a moment, back to Thor, before he seems to freeze and straighten suddenly.

This is never a good sign. When Tony is being brilliant, the sensible thing to do is run away.

"Jarvis, get my suit ready."

The AI, sounding as tired as Tony had looked moments ago answered with a near sigh: "Sir, it's still undergoing repairs. Estimated time to completetion is two hours."

Tony rolls his eyes and flicks the bodiless butler away before plunking down on the coffee table across from Thor.

"Go back to SHIELD. Get Banner. I don't want to transmit these frequencies even over secured channels, so bring him this paper..." He's already scribbling on a piece of magazine he ruthlessly tore into. Looking up again, his eyes lock purposefully onto Thor's entirely too blue gaze. "Banner only, all right? Tell him to listen for the feedback."

[asgardhero]

Thor takes the paper; of course the scrawl in the margins mean nothing to him. He nods, however, and Tony's seriousness is returned in kind. "I will tell him." He doesn't particularly enjoy feeling like a messenger but Stark needs to sit for a while longer and the trip is not a difficult one.

Mjolnir slides into Thor's hand as he stands and folds the paper into his pocket. "Clean your teeth while I am gone." It is not really a suggestion.

[starkingenuity]

Tony cups his hand over his mouth and exhales into his palm. His nose immediately wrinkles and he glances up just in time to see Thor's cape move out of view of the window. Tony sighs. He hates being out of the loop but this can't wait. He uses the time it takes for his suit to repair to enlist his robots to help with the mess. He checks in with Pepper only to get her voice mail -- harsh. And he finds a sandwich under a couch cushion he hadn't even planned on moving. It's tucked into his shirt just before Iron Man forms around him.

It's been six hours since Thor left his home when Tony drops out of the sky and strides into Avengers HQ. Steve gets a nod because the man is always polite and greeting everyone, even when he's busy, but Banner is Tony's target.

The physicist has not disappointed him. "I don't know how you thought of it, Stark," he says, adjusting his glasses over his nose, "But that series led us to a signal source. I'm just cleaning it up now."

Tony grins at Banner and pats him harshly on the back just to make his glasses tumble off. Only Tony incites the beast like that. "Good. Let's get the gang together. Thor around?"

What?  He brought his favorite thunder god a treat. 

[asgardhero]

Bruce snorts and resets his glasses against the bridge of his nose. "Check in the gym."

And Thor is there, has been there, for the last hour. He had spent some time around the laboratory but it is not quite the same without Stark. Dr Banner is a nice man but a... boring one. When he is not large and green. And no doubt Thor had annoyed Banner in his own way, though he hardly understands how a healthy curiosity can be counted against him. He truly had not realized how fragile some of the things were.

This is better, sparing with Natasha. She is nimble and clever and it evens many of the odds between them. Thor may not be breaking a sweat but he is entertained.

"Stark!"

His divided attention when Tony shows lets Natasha land a kick that might have broken another man's sternum--Thor stumbles back with a laugh and a hand to his chest.

[starkingenuity]

Who needs a pet when sometimes their heir to a celestial throne looks like a big golden retriever?  Tony's out of his suit and it's stowed and waiting for him to need it again. Maybe he should have kept it on?  Their little wrestling match looks like fun.

Natasha shakes her head to rid her eyes of the hair that had flown into her face on the last roundhouse kick and gives Tony a nod. Stark returns it with a salute for her. It's Thor that gets the grin and in that single moment, he's given himself away to the clever spy.

Tony fishes in his pocket for the found sandwich and tosses it underhand to the tall blond. "Look what the vacuum cleaner neglected to catch," he says, a little too fondly, and rubs his thumb against one eyebrow.

"Didn't bring enough for the whole class?" Natasha asks, cooling down, and certainly not wanting to eat something that has been lying around in Tony's living room or been against his chest for the flight over.

"Sorry kids, Thor won the gold star.  Speaking of gold stars, Banner's almost got a lock on Doom HQ."

[asgardhero]

"He smelled when I found him," Thor tells Natasha as he takes the sandwich. "That is why I receive this gold star. You would not have wanted to put up with the stench."

She does not laugh, but to be fair, when she looks at Tony it seems like she very much wants to. Thor just settles into the sandwich, regardless of where it has been. It is Clint who steps through the doors from the locker room with a towel over his head and his suit already on who asks, "well then, what the hell are we waiting for?"

Thor agrees with a nod as the rest of the sandwich disappears. He brushes his hands off and crumples the paper. "Yes. I dislike this sky."

Clint snorts. "I dislike being made into a--"

"Flying monkey."

He remembers. And Steve has shown him the movie, which Thor very much enjoyed. He is not sure how practical ruby slippers are, but he liked the Lion. "Then let us find this Doom."

[starkingenuity]

"I don't like this." Tony's hovering in the air somewhere over the Alps in a nicely heated, environmentally acclimated suit some fifteen hours later when red tape has been cut and Fury's argued with them a few dozen times. He's doing his best to relay everything he's seeing back to the group in the plane Clint is flying some ten kilometers to the west in the shadow of the peaks.

Finding the signal had been difficult, the point of origin spread over a half kilometer through densely packed ice and snow with craggy outcroppings making visibility on the ground difficult from the air. Tony had found Doctor Doom's base, therefore, by accident after he flew straight into it and bounced off. That had been a tense moment of nearly set off ground sensors and electromagnetic interference where the Avengers were not sure if they'd been found out or not.

Doom's floating ship is huge. And familiar. Very familiar. The layout and design is reminiscent of the place Coulson had died. And maybe that's why Tony hates it most of all.

"Are you guys getting the readings? There's only two biological life signs in there--" But over three hundred electrical readings. This is going to be bad.

[asgardhero]

Thor's own feelings for the aircraft are more neutral--one large machine is much like the next, to him; it is his feelings for the man presumably inside that make him tense and angry.

"That's a lot of electric signals," Natasha said from her spot in the co-pilot seat, leaning forward to run another sort of scan. Thor stood behind her with his hand on the ceiling of the plane. He wasn't looking at the dials, just as Steve wasn't. They were both looking out the forward window as if they could see so far. Thor is bad at standing still and it is a relief when Clint gives the terse sighting of the first spill of machines into the sky. He steps back and claps Steve on the shoulder before hitting the button for the hatch.

He knows that Steve is not much better at not doing, but there is no other choice for him. Thor swings Mjolnir and jumps from the back of the plane. Stark will not have all the glory for himself.

[starkingenuity]

Stark doesn't want all of the glory!

The moment the upper shell of the hovering ship splits like cracking rawhide and dried sinew, spewing out graceful flying tentacle machines like metal squids into the sky, Tony is back on the line frantically reporting that: "The ostrich egg has cracked!  I repeat, the ostrich--  Okay guys, Hawkeye is not allowed to come up with the codes any--  Oof!"

One of the robots collides with Tony and sends him spinning out towards the mountain before he can right himself.

He really doesn't like how these things look both biological and mechanical. Or how the ship itself split like that. But he really doesn't like being out here alone.

"Any time now would be great!" he yells, scattering flares. 

[asgardhero]

The team has fitted Thor with an earpiece and transmitter, but being that he is exposed while he flies the wind is not going to help anyone hear anything the god has to say just now. He is hard to miss in person, however; a flash of red--not unlike Iron Man--and two of the machine-squids that have nimbly maneuvered through the haze of flares explode in a hail of broken parts in front of Tony. A third over his shoulder joins them as Thor throws his hammer to catch it; he drops a few feet in a calculated free-fall before the hammer comes back to him and he's moving again.