pirateangelbaby | The Calm Before The Storm [for juststeverogers]

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steve rogers

The Calm Before The Storm [for juststeverogers]

[Trigger warnings: implied suicidal thoughts]

It's been months since Thor spent any significant amount of time away from home, and he's surprised to realize how much he misses it already. Surprised he's even thinking about Norway as being home, or that he would want to be there more than here, among his shieldbrothers and sisters, the Avengers. What's left of them.

It'd be one thing if this was a social call, like Steven's birthday. But this... this is something else entirely, and just the thought of what they're planning to do makes Thor's skin crawl.

The Infinity Stones no longer exist.

So they're going to go back to when they did.

They haven't even begun to tackle the problem of keeping the loops stable, of how to ensure that nothing they do in the past will affect the timeline and implode the entire universe in on itself. Today was just for determining where the Stones even were, and only Thor had known the location of the Aether.

Of course.

He honestly doesn't entirely remember what he said during his turn to speak, as if he'd left his own body and someone else did the talking for him. Disassociation, Eir has told him it's called. He's pretty sure he stuck to the facts, about how no one knew where Bor had hid the Reality Stone until Jane stumbled across it during the Convergence, and that the only time they might have a chance at getting it from her would be when she was on Asgard. And then he'd pretty much checked out at the realization that no one else here has been to Asgard but him, and that if this insane nonsense of a plan actually works, they're probably going to send him there.

To Asgard.

Of course, chances are still pretty high that this isn't going to work and this is all just chasing wildfowl, but either way as soon as today's planning session was over, Thor made a beeline for his room to retrieve one of the last bottles of mead he'd brought along, and has found himself a quiet spot elsewhere in the complex to get as drunk as he can on what supplies he has left. The roof is as isolated a spot as he can find, under the open sky, which is streaked here and there with clouds that blot out some of the stars. Thor sits on the edge, unconcerned by the meager drop of a few stories, and turns his eye skyward to watch the slow shift of the weather above, and takes a long pull from the bottle.

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In the quiet of the night (too quiet, these days), it's not too hard to hear the sound of approaching footsteps. Even so, Thor nearly misses Steve's approach until he's nearly there already, and he guiltily tucks the bottle against his chest as he turns to see who's intruding on his solitude.

His shoulders sag slightly when he sees that it's Steve. Probably one of the better options, if he had to get caught by somebody up here. Not all of the others would understand, whether or not they approve of how he's coping with all this. If that's even what he's doing. The potion Eir made for him is helping, little by little, but even its magic isn't enough to keep this particular demon at bay tonight. Not after the day he's had, and the looming threat of hope that's instilling itself in the others.

Not Thor. Not yet. He doesn't dare let himself believe that this will work, not until he knows for sure.

He clears his throat and shuffles a little, though he doesn't truly need to make room for Steve with so much roof to go around. The concrete still radiates heat soaked up from the sun, even as cooling breezes begin to sweep in from the waters that border the property. "I know the feeling," he rumbles, taking a swig on reflex.

Steve plops down next to the god, letting his legs dangle off the edge while he takes a moment to stare out across the still-mostly-empty complex. His head aches for all the information he's been trying to cram into it in the last couple of days.

"I still can't believe Tony came back. He's going to be a father soon. This all feels like a fever dream, yet." Can't believe they're even considering this. Can't believe they're going to do it. Though out of everyone, Steve's been the most readily willing to accept this as a viable option. He's done the being out of time thing before thanks to the Nexus. Thanks to dropping a plane into the Arctic. And now...

"He brought me the shield. It's never felt so heavy before."

Thor can't quite believe it either. Not Stark's return, specifically, but the whole thing. This. What they're trying to do, one last push to right things long after he'd lost hope it was even possible. The first six Avengers, together again.

He makes a wordless noise of agreement, a sort of hum in his throat. Tries not to think bitter thoughts about how their mutual friend has seemed to move forward with life when both Thor and Steven seem stuck in their regrets. He should be grateful that Stark's small family survived the decimation, and he is. Too many families have been torn apart for Thor not to be glad that someone was spared the heartbreak. "I admit, I did not expect him to join us either."

He turns towards Steve a little, focusing on him more fully with his one good eye, at the mention of the shield. "Not because he upgraded it, I take it."

"I used to get those a lot, you know. Fever dreams. When I had my body it never could keep up with what I was asking of it. I got sick so often. There wasn't the treatments available like there are now. I couldn't have afforded it anyway. I'd be sicker than a dog trying to convince Bucky...of whatever I was.."

It still aches. Dust underneath his fingernails. Steve swallows his hitched breath. Sighs instead into his own lap.

"Never mind. He didn't alter it, no. It's been so long. I don't know if I can be that man, anymore."

It's not that Thor forgets his friends are mortal, exactly. But having fought with and worked alongside Steven Rogers, having seen him perform feats of strength and courage that are damn near Asgardian, it's difficult for him to imagine the man so frail. It's a sobering reminder of the fragility of life - all life, not just humans anymore. And the way that Steve trails off when he speaks of his friend...

Thor tilts the bottle toward Steve in a silent offer to share, knowing all too well the burden of their survival while their loved ones are scattered on the winds.

Perhaps talk of the shield is less painful, the sentiment certainly a relatable one. He absently wrings his hands together, worrying at the grooves in the metal knuckles, a grounding habit to keep him here and focused. "I don't expect you to be." Maybe that helps, maybe it doesn't, but Thor can be nothing but honest, unfiltered though it might be. "When I... after my banishment... sometimes Mjolnir felt heavier in my hand than it did before," he admits, trying to put his thoughts into words to support his friend. "I don't know if it was because it really was, or because I was just more aware of something I'd taken for granted." Or maybe his worthiness had wavered; Thor rather doubts he'd be able to lift the hammer today, were it right in front of him. But the hammer is destroyed, and... this is not the point, and he struggles to rein in his thoughts as they try to scatter. "I'm not the man I was either. None of us are."

Steve shouldn't accept the drink, knowing how it'll affect him. But if he has some, it's that much less drunk Thor's going to drive himself tonight. That's as easy an excuse as any to accept. Steve's hand doesn't shake when he takes the bottle from Thor nor when he pulls from it with only the slightest noises. It's so strange every time to have alcohol affect him anymore. Sometimes he wishes...

But those are poisonous pointless thoughts. It's better that he can't or he'd have killed himself with it by now. Steve's sure of that.

"We're going to have to be. At least for a few minutes in each timeline. I don't know if..." Steve cuts himself off with another sip and this time he has to shudder for its potency before he passes the bottle back to Thor.

"Doesn't matter what I know or don't. We either do this or it's over. That's always been enough for me. It has to work. It Just Has To."

Thor takes the bottle back and takes another swig, then sets it down on the roof between them, where they can both reach. Steven deserves to shed his burdens too, if he can, no matter if that means Thor runs out that much sooner. He'll deal with that when he gets there.

He raises his prosthetic hand to scratch at the back of his neck and stops halfway, staring at the arm, before lowering it to sit on his lap. "Easier said than done," he murmurs, but there is no other way that he can see to move forward, and shivers a little at the thought of going back to Asgard. Of visiting a place that no longer exists, his childhood home, full of people who were slaughtered before his eyes. And there is nothing he will be able to do to save them, to alter the timeline, lest they destroy their own pasts.

He wishes he could take Steve's declaration as optimism, but Thor knows better now. Such thoughts have plagued him ever since that awful day in Wakanda, and having begun recovery once, he does not know if he could bear starting over a second time, even though he has promised Loki that he will come back from this. It may not be a choice that he makes, regardless of his own wishes. "I don't know if I can do this again," he admits quietly, still looking down at his hands.

Thor just comes right out and says the traitorous thought that lingers in the back of Steve's mind. The admission he's tried so very hard to stuff somewhere far away and pretend it's not there. Not at the core of Steve's depression and regret. They couldn't win when they were at their best. What hope do they have of righting things now, broken as they all are?

Steve doesn't know if he can be the man they need to finish the mission. He sure as hell doesn't feel worthy of it.

But someone's got to. Whatever it takes.

"Me neither." Steve agrees while he stares out at the night sky. "But I'll fight myself too if I've gotta. This is our Last Chance."

"That's what we thought last time." He shakes his head, and picks up the bottle for another drink, feeling far too cynical for the hope that has been offered to them. It should be rather straightforward in practice, but the risk of something going wrong seems so unfathomably high. Even just one mistake, one stone that does not make it to the present day, means this plan will probably fail. Doubly so if it's Time that does not return with them.

This is a different danger than Thor is used to facing. He's been in countless battles and been wounded in combat, and been left for dead. And he'd always faced them with the same courage and bravado, assured that even if he did not come home, his soul would find its place in Valhalla. But this is something else entirely. There will be no mortal danger to him on Asgard, his home for hundreds of years. The greatest threat to himself comes from within, now.

He doesn't know what will come of this. Whether they will succeed or fail, or if it will even solve anything, in the end. But he's learned how uncertain life is, how quickly things can change, even for long-lived Asgardians, and he cannot assume that this will end as they wish. "If something should happen to me," he begins, hesitant but steady, looking out over the grassy yard, "I want my boat burned in the waters off Asvera."

"Thor--"

Steve cuts himself off. He doesn't want to think about this. But they both know now just how easy it is to lose everything. Everyone. It's a sound conversation to have. Make sure last wishes are known and all that sort of thing. It still churns something in Steve's gut to think about.

Losing any of them is unacceptable. As for losing himself...

"I'll make sure to write it down when we get inside. Can ask the others what they want." Steve goes quiet then, long enough that Thor might think Steve's not going to speak up about himself. He holds out until Thor hesitantly asks but the look Steve levels the Asgardian is all Steve Rogers. Heels dug into the dirt. Hands balled into fists.

"If something happens to me you tell me to get back up. I've rested enough these last six months. Hell, I slept for half a century damn near when I was in the Arctic. I'm done taking it easy."

It's something they should have talked about years ago, truth be told. Back when the Avengers were still in their prime. But they had been so sure of themselves, so confident that as long as they had each other's backs, they would make it through anything.

They were naive, then. All of them.

But they know better now. Skill and training and companionship did not save the Avengers' dead from their fates. Anything can happen, anyone can die, men and gods alike. And if the worst should happen, there should be at least one last thing they can do to honor one another.

He nods, rubbing his metal thumb across the peeling label on the bottle. "There's a... prayer, too," he says, haltingly, not sure if he is even worthy of the words anymore. He hasn't recited it since the days after Ragnarok, not even after the culling that left Asgard as a mere remnant of what they once were. "Val can tell you what it is."

There's more, of course - what silks to use as his shroud, what flowers and personal effects to burn with him, who he wishes to light the pyre - but the details may be forgotten now, before they have a chance to write them down. He nods a little, accepting the wisdom of making sure there is a record, and the plan to ask the others for their own final wishes.

He doesn't know much of human mourning rites, but what Steve says is so unexpected that Thor nearly sputters on another mouthful of mead. It's not funny, not in the slightest, but maybe there is a touch of morbid humor in how closely it echoes something his friend had once said years ago, when a city had risen into the sky and threatened all life on Earth. Thor has never forgotten it, and it warms him a little to recognize that glimpse of his old friend still inside of Steve, that fighting spirit that Thor has so admired since they met. "If you get killed, walk it off?" he quotes, the corner of his mouth twitching in a faint smile.

Steve never gave much thought to a last will and testament before. Not because the idea of him dying never occurred to him, but because his idea of a funeral was the standard rites given to soldiers after World War I (and World War II as well; he wasn't there to find out). That there could or would be anything else never once crossed his mind.

It's not as though he had any family alive to honor him.

But those of his friends...that Steve should have done years ago. Not that there would have been anything to bury really after The Snap. But there'd be some sort of guidance in place from the deceased.

"You're damn right." Steve's not sure how long he can sustain this anger but a part of him feels as though its waking up for the first time in an age. The stubborn little bastard from Brooklyn isn't dead yet in there. He's still got a lot of fight left in him. "...For starters, Tony'd never let me live it down."

They're all coping in their own ways, and Thor can't help but wonder if this is Steve's. He should press for a real answer, he knows; no amount of willpower alone is enough to come back from death. But part of Thor wants to believe that it would work anyway, that Steve's stubbornness and drive to continue the fight might be enough to keep the fires within him burning, so that he might never need a pyre.

He reaches over and clasps his friend's shoulder, and though his smile is a grim one, his own spark cannot help but flare just a little brighter. "No, he wouldn't, would he? I suppose we can't let that happen."

This is probably all hypothetical anyway. But it feels good to have it spoken aloud, at least. There have been too many things left unsaid, words that the dead will never hear. Every moment left to them is precious, because it may never come again.

It absolutely is. The standards Steve has for himself are nothing like the ones he has for others. In many ways they're all like that. But Steve's unwilling to imagine a scenario in which he falls, in which any of them fall out here. But he knows, also, that preparing for this kind of thing brings some people peace of mind.

He just isn't one of them.

Planning for loss feels like giving up before he's started. Steve's not about to give up. He did enough of that moping about the complex for the last several months. With The Plan steadily coming together he has to be everything he can still be. Even if it's not what he was. Steve can't quite manage a smile, but he does lean into the hand on his shoulder ever so slightly.

"Besides, I've got that rune you gave me for Yule. If I bring that, we can't lose. That's how magic works, I'm pretty sure."

The rune... Norns, Yule seems like it was centuries ago. Thor had almost forgotten the gifts he'd given out, small tokens and trinkets that nevertheless were chosen with care for their recipients. It's on the tip of his tongue to remind Steve that the runestones were imbued with no such deliberate magic, meant more as symbols of sentiments than as talismans, but he bites back the words. If Steve finds comfort in its presence, if he believes it to be a help, who is Thor to tell him otherwise?

Maybe it's luck, or superstition, or nothing at all in the end. But human belief is a powerful thing, making gods of visitors to their world, driving Earth's people to fight stronger, harder, not from desperation but from confidence and faith.

So instead he gives Steve's shoulder a squeeze of support, and keeps his small smile on his lips. "Justice and victory," he muses out loud. "As far as runes go, it's not a bad choice to have along." He doesn't mention that tyr also stands for a willingness to sacrifice oneself for others, though perhaps Steve has not forgotten. If the fates are kind, they need not consider it at all.

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The Calm Before The Storm [for juststeverogers]

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