Actions

Work Header

Haven

Summary:

A crystalline chandelier hangs over the bed. Its pale light meets flickering flame and casts them in shades of gentle intimacy.

(prompts 16 & 17 of my fictober prompts list: "that's not how the story goes" & wolf)

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

They had ordered the bed on express.

A king-sized haven that dips beneath their weight and molds around the curves and lines of their bodies; that sits in the middle of the room and sprawls lazily in all directions.

"Just for special occasions?" Bruce had asked, running a cautious hand along it's soft edge. A note of want hitching his breath, catching in his throat.

Heimdall had hummed. "I thought you would have learned something about patience, Banner," he said, locking the heavy door shut with an echoing click.

The blanket is a layer of warmth settled over them now. It forms soft and gentle hills, underneath which the lovers lie tangled together.

A steady fire burns in the far wall. It prickles, and flushes Brunnhilde's skin. She nestles further into the downy pillow and Thor's hair tickles the round of her bare shoulder with each movement. Arm crooked around him, Brunnhilde pulls him closer.

"— They call the Fenris Wolf 'Fenrir', and say he's the son of Loki. And a Jotun," he tells them, somewhere between excited and unimpressed. His breath ghosts in warm waves over Brunnhilde's skin. "You won't believe how many children they say Loki has... Loki."

Slow fingers run through his hair, down the sun-dappled stretch of his back and again into the tangle of blond. Wrapped around her, so close that the beat of his heart is the thud against her ribs and the length of her inhale is the length of his exhale, Brunnhilde wonders what a world without Thor beside her would be like. A world where his legs do not squash hers and hers do not squeeze his; a world where they are not the vines to each other's trellises.

The thought is a cold on; a winter in Jotunheim. She makes herself listen to the rise and fall of Thor's speech.

Letting his words find home in her, Brunnhilde let's out a harsh bark of laughter, in answer to Thor. "You think they know that's not how the story goes?"

A pause. A shaking of heads.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asks, the usual scrape-and-graze of his voice is thick with how close to sleep he has fallen.

Brunnhilde stretches her neck, ever so slightly.

Bruce's chin wears a scruff of greying hair, his thick curls fall in his eyes and match. He scratches lazily at the beard— grown out simply for how much Thor loves it.

A crystalline chandelier hangs over the bed. Its pale light meets flickering flame and casts them in shades of gentle intimacy. A tranquil dimness, it kisses the angry red lines and exhausting white cracks adorning Bruce's body instead of furiously tugging at it.

"I mean," Brunn says, "That the story is wrong. That most of your stories about us are wrong."

"It's been years and years of translations. And re-translations. And re-re-translations. And—"

Thor, the side of his face pressed to Brunnhilde's chest, speaks. "But you've gotten a lot wrong. It's actually... quite surprising." He pulls his face into a short frown.

"It's not that surprising." Bruce shrugs.

A clearing of a throat. A muted cough. Drawing Brunnhilde away from Bruce and Thor's easy squabble, catching and keeping her eye.

Whatever of the thick dreadlocks not tied back falls over his left shoulder, a curtain the colour of rich wood and coffee touches its tips to the sheet. Turned to them, Heimdall balances his weight on his left hand.

His smile is gentle. There again, Brunnhilde is thankful for the low light, for the gold of Heimdall's eyes are a honey brown which melts over her and Thor. Over Bruce with a distant fondness.

She toys with the ends of his hair. Soft grey strands dance along the brown. "Getting old, Heimdall," Brunn teases, light and good-natured.

"You should know," he replies, the teasing in his tone touching a bare and embarrassing flush to Brunn's cheeks. The smile on his lips and in his voice betraying how pleased that makes him.

"At least I'm not going grey."

Thor pauses his and Bruce's mumbled conversation, one that sits more on the edge of being a playful argument. "You know... You'd look good in grey," he says, passing an appraising look over the hair framing Brunn's face.

Bruce chuckles.

"What, is this a kink we didn't know about?" Brunnhilde meets his eyes and says, cold and sultry, both enough to colour Thor red from the roots of his hair to the base of his neck.

"We should've known." Bruce gestures to himself, to Heimdall.

Groaning, Thor buries his face into the space between Brunnhilde's arm and her side. "Fuck you all," he mutters.

The words sitting lightly on the room's occupants and gathering a whirl storm of laughs, a hushed giggle.

Heimdall drags the tips of his fingers down Thor's exposed side. "Come on," he weasels, in the way he knows Thor can't resist or deny.

"Yeah," Brunn mimics, "This isn't how we want to spend our anniversary."

She draws slow circles into his back, like the ones they sometimes draw into hers when she cannot manage to sleep.

A kiss to the small of Thor's back from Bruce, to the curve of his neck from Heimdall, to the creases of his forehead from Brunnhilde. They turn him into a mess of squirms, pull him from where he had hid himself.

"Okay. Okay." Breathless, Thor says. "How are we celebrating?"

They curl up, somehow closer than they were already huddled together. Limbs entangled, legs meeting and crossing like the roots of an ancient tree.

The lights lower into a darkness broken and illuminated only by the fire.

"Jaws," Bruce says, pulling at the blanket. "It's a classic, y'all should've seen it years ago."

 

Notes:

If you want to see how I procrastinate, shoot me some asks or just hang out, you can find me on Tumblr

Series this work belongs to: