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This high up, Steve's not a part of the city. He's floating over it. Observing it.
It's not the same city he left behind.
He folds his arms over on the balcony ledge and leans forward. The night breeze is chill but it's a comfortable contrast to the heated press of the party he's drifted away from. Below, the city lights are static and brightly colored - pink and aqua and white. They rise up the stems of skyscrapers, until they're hanging just below the stars themselves.
It's not the city Steve remembers.
"Am I intruding?"
Steve looks back over his shoulder.
Thor is unmistakable in the doorway, even though the backlight paints him black and featureless. Only Dr Banner could be as tall and as big, and only if he were in a really bad mood. Hulk probably wouldn't ask so nicely either.
Steve straightens up. "Party too much for you too?" he says.
Thor closes the door behind himself, shutting out the light and the music, the sound of voices.
"It's not what I'm used to."
Steve laughs ruefully and looks back out over the city. "I hear you."
He's aware of Thor beside him, the sheer amount of space Thor occupies, even beyond his own physical mass. There's gravity to his presence, ancient like the bones of the earth, and even if Steve knows Thor's alien instead of godly, he can understand why earlier folk might have worshipped him. He half expects the air to crackle like hot, living ice around Thor, and he looks down at his own arms to see if his hair's standing on end. But the night's as restful as ever, and if Steve's got goosebumps, it's only from the cold.
"I am unfamiliar with your dances and your drinking songs," says Thor.
"Hey, they're not my songs or dances either," says Steve.
He pauses, recognizes a wistful note in Thor's deep voice and turns to look at him. It's there on Thor's face too: a bewildered, faintly lost expression that hits Steve in the softest part of his heart.
If he feels out of place, then he can't imagine what it's like for someone so far from home.
"Agent Romanoff-" he starts, then corrects himself. "Natasha asked me to dance," he says. He grins, and Thor instinctively mirrors him. "I tell you, I've never been much good at dancing anyway, but what that lady was doing was like no dancing I've ever seen. I felt like kind of a fool, I can tell you."
Thor laughs, and the last of Steve's embarrassment over the incident melts in the rich warmth of the sound.
"Aye, the lady is as formidable on the floor as she is on the battlefield. She reminds me a great deal of the Lady Sif, both extremely fair of face, and more than a match for any man I know. It was the Lady Sif who first taught me to dance. She trained me as if we were going to war! And then when my brother-"
The night drops into silence, suddenly hollow and huge, as Thor runs into the deadest of dead-ends.
In profile, he looks awfully young to Steve in that moment. He expects Thor to be angrier at the thought of his brother, and seeing him only so quietly desperate feels an unexpected intimacy between them.
Steve's cheeks flush with low heat, and he looks back out at the stars.
"When your brother…" he prompts. He recognizes a soldier needing to talk.
Thor clears his throat. He is unsmiling, and he handles his words awkwardly. "When my brother learned to dance, it was I who taught him. Except, I would not take the lady's part. And so when it came time for him to dance before the court, he was… confused." Thor makes a rough, unhappy noise. "Many laughed. I thought he was laughing too."
It doesn't feel at all odd to think of Bucky then. Bucky's been dead so many years while Steve remembers him so freshly, and it feels a lot like having an imaginary friend, someone who's only real to him.
Although Steve's not going to mourn Loki, and certainly can't picture him as someone's little brother instead of a deranged tyrant, Thor's pain is surprisingly familiar. The instinct to touch Thor's shoulder in mute commiseration is immediate, and Steve acts on it before he can remember that this isn't a fellow soldier, is a stranger in ways far beyond being French or British.
In the end, it's not like any great gesture being made. Patting an Asgardian prince is a lot like patting anyone else. Thor seems heartened by the contact. He regards Steve a moment longer, before giving him a sudden, sunny smile.
"Teach me one of your dances," he says.
Steve laughs and shakes his head. "Oh no, buddy, I'm a lousy dancer."
"Then you need have no fear of the pupil outshining the teacher." Thor gazes at him steadily. "I will take the woman's part." He's smiling, teasing, but his jaw is clenched tight.
And how is Steve supposed to say 'no' to that? Whether it's penance or sheer loneliness Thor's acting on, Steve can't turn him down.
He wipes his palms on his pants and stands before Thor, even as his stomach's fluttering nervously. Dancing with a beautiful assassin who moved like she was making love was daunting enough, and now he's supposed to dance with a beautiful god who might well break one of Steve's little mortal feet with a single misstep.
"I mean it, I'm pretty terrible," says Steve. "And we don't have music."
A slow, dreamy piece of music starts up. It's a song Steve remembers, and never danced to. The recording crackles with age, and the male singer's voice croons undecipherable velvet words, a thread of sweetness in the darkness over the city.
"Jarvis. He lives in the Internets," Thor says knowledgeably.
Steve doesn't think that's exactly right, but right now there doesn't seem to be any point in arguing. He can't feel uncomfortable with the romantic mood set by the music and setting either. He's about to slow-dance with an alien prince to music provided by a computer that was apparently listening in on their conversation. The world's finally gone as crazy as Steve's been expecting it to.
"Okay," he says. "Okay, like this."
He takes Thor's hand, even bigger than his own, and lays it on his shoulder. Thor allows him to, pliant and curious, and only frowns slightly when Steve puts his hand on Thor's waist. Steve grins at him awkwardly, and laces the fingers of their free hands together.
He's only just got used to existing on a larger scale than the rest of the world, and now he's met Thor, whose body is big and whose smiles are bigger still. He's holding a summer storm in his arms, thunder and sunshine, and it feels it. He can't close his eyes and pretend this is a woman - Peggy, his pining heart whispers. Thor is undeniably masculine, made of hard, muscled heat, no softness to him except the gold-silk fall of his hair.
Thor seems in no hurry to move, and yet when Steve begins to move, brushing his hips against Thor's, Thor goes with it easily. They sway together gracelessly, carried by the rhythm of the music: two lost pieces of flotsam rocking together on the surface of the sea.
Steve presses forwards too fast, bumps his chest to Thor's, who is broad, flat planes where Peggy would be soft curves. Thor forgets himself and tries to lead, their feet tangle together clumsily, and Steve looks down and sees leather boots instead of satin shoes. The sight is so unexpected and out of place he can't help laughing.
"Man, we really kinda suck at this," says Steve. But he's laughing even harder, and the ache in his chest is loosening up and he's hanging onto something like true north. And he's wondering how Thor might react to being dipped and he's thinking he's brave enough to find out.
Turns out, Thor takes it just fine.
~end