Work Text:
"You really should have been a politician."
Tony chugs lukewarm Gatorade out of a crumpled plastic bottle and wipes away a sheen of sweat from his forehead. It is unusually hot for April, especially in the Catskills but the breeze tugging at his clothes is just cool enough to take the edge off. By now, every muscle in his body is starting to grumble in protest, his legs being the loudest. The trail has grown steeper over the past few miles, shrinking to a narrow ribbon of packed earth among an ocean of lush vegetation. Which, according to the map, flapping pitifully in the side pocket of his backpack, means they are nearing their destination.
He has never missed the suit more. He briefly considered bringing only the visor along but that still would have been cheating. Even if the more argumentative side of him insists that all Thor has to do is reach out and wait ten minutes for Mjolnir to whisk him off the tallest peak of Ulster County. Summoning the power armor from farther than a mile away has never gone well so he is stuck in the undignified ritual of putting one foot after the other, stepping over rotten branches and trying to ignore the river of sweat streaming down his back. His mind is stuck in a tug of war between pride for making it this far and utter confusion at how he ended up here in the first place.
Well, he knows exactly how that happened. He worries that if he doesn't keep himself in check, it might happen again.
Far above, a kestrel lets out a high-pitched cry and swoops down, hunting for something in the tall grass. Thor's eyes follow it with great interest before he returns a mild shrug. "I'm here on Earth to avoid just that."
"Right." Tony huffs a sigh as he rests his chin on his trekking pole. "Then explain to me again, how did you manage to convince me to hike up Slide Mountain without using mind control?
"How do you know I haven't?" Thor chuckles at Tony's rolling eyes and casually brushes off dust from his faded leather hat. "You said you were sick of looking at screens."
"Yeah, because I spent two weeks trying to get a liquid nitrogen engine to work with the arc reactor." Tony drags out a sigh when he thinks back to the rows of unfinished files sitting in a folder labeled with a key-smash. "Which I still haven't managed, by the way. I just thought that if I looked at those blueprints one more time I might burn the Tower down."
"And you haven't mentioned it once since we started the ascent. I'd call that a rousing success."
"It's hard to talk while you're trying to catch your breath." Tony drains the remains of his Gatorade, feeling stray drops of warm liquid soak into the collar of his shirt. "I'm not exactly out of shape but this is a whole different ballgame than the gym. I haven't been in a nature situation since sophomore year."
Thor raises his eyebrows while his mouth quirks in a teasing angle. "Did you get sick of screens then too?"
"Nah, there was a girl. She was majoring in Sports Medicine and she practically lived in the wilderness. She winked at me once and the next thing I knew, I was halfway up a mountain, getting ready to climb a vertical slope." Tony shakes his head and shoots a suffering look at Thor. "I wasn't the brightest bulb in college. Not when it came to pretty girls."
Thor's shoulders shake with sympathetic laughter. "Neither was I. I once took a delegate from Alfheim to see my mother's pet cats because they gave me the prettiest smile. I think we both still have scars on our arms from that encounter." He pauses at Tony's confused expression. "Asgardian cats grow to the size of bulls. And my mother's never took a liking to anyone but her."
Tony just returns a blank look as he pops a chocolate covered almond in his mouth. "Everything I learn about that flat rock of yours is insane," he sighs. "Still, I'd have never taken you for an outdoorsy type. You did grow up in a palace."
Thor leans against a rock and stretches his arms towards the sun sitting high in the sky among a smattering of fluffy clouds. "I used to see a mountain outside my quarters. When the second moon rose, it hovered right over the peak. It looked close enough to touch if I just stood on the top. I always wanted to test that but nobody wanted to drag a little kid all the way up to the roof of the world for a passing fancy. So when I turned fifteen I just climbed it myself." He trails off, as if lost in a memory, then nonchalantly readjusts the backpack over his shoulder. "Of course I knew better by then. But it was still fun."
"Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through for someone with a magic hammer."
"What can I say? Sometimes it's more rewarding to walk." Before Tony can argue, Thor turns away to glance up the steep path, half-hidden among the unruly vegetation. "Come on, we're almost there."
He sets off with long, fast strides, clearing away long spindly branches of young trees. Tony follows closely behind, eyes hunting for marks that would indicate they are still on the correct path. His ability to read physical maps had dropped off a cliff the moment he got access to a GPS and being without one leaves him feeling like a blind man grasping for random clues in the dark. Though he trusts his companion's sense of direction, it doesn't escape him that his companion is very much an alien on a planet he doesn't fully understand. As the reedy branches grow into thick boughs that shoot into the sky to become lush canopies, he is starting to suspect they are lost after all.
That is, until he follows Thor through a row of shivering aspens and steps into a large clearing.
The wind picks up immediately, no longer a soft breeze but a gust of chilly air that cools his flushed skin and tugs persistently at the bandana wrapped around his head. The distant rumblings of an invisible waterfall tease his ears along with the piercing cries of kestrels. A few feet before them, the mountain gently slopes into a carpet of green and brown with copses of red maples nested like rubies among oaks and elms. Far, far below, tall pines sway to their own secret rhythm over hills that cluster at the base of the mountain resembling large clumps of moss. Beyond them, the landscape fades into a gentler, softer color, like the underside of a leaf under direct sunlight. It shimmers under the bright April sun. When the wind rakes its fingers through them, they whisper in unison.
Tony has never seen so many shades of green in his life. The sight almost makes him forget his aching feet until Thor moves to stand at his side and aims a satisfied smile at him.
"See?" he says. "Isn't it magnificent? Have you ever seen a view like this?"
Tony pinches the bridge of his nose over his sunglasses to hide his expression. The part of him that never passes up a chance for a jab wants to reply that of course he has. That's the advantage that came with owning a power armor capable of flight. He wants to reply that Thor has probably seen it too but the words tie themselves into a knot under his tongue. Other thoughts betray him, pushing aside sarcasm and wit to point out how the strengthening breeze drags out wispy locks from under Thor's hat that look curly when unbraided. How the trees seem to reach out to him and the long grass weaves intricate patterns around his feet. How the bright sunlight turns most of the team's skin pink but paints Thor's the same shade of amber as the earrings his mother used to wear.
Irrelevant thoughts. Thoughts whose winding trails he cannot bring himself to follow because he knows exactly where they lead. Just like he knows that it wasn't a girl who winked at him in sophomore year and got him a crash course in climbing.
He wonders if Thor has bent the truth in the same way. Or maybe that's what he wishes he had done. Stranger things have happened in a universe that contains hive mind aliens and maybe sort of magic hammers but his personal radar for these matters is positively hopeless. That's probably why he never even got a kiss from the Sports Medicine major who laughed a bit too loud and spoke about his trips abroad with breathless abandon, like he was reliving the experience with every retelling and patiently listened to Tony yammer about his issues with stubborn code like he understood half of the words out of his mouth.
Holy hell, he really does have a type. And, if his past experiences are anything to go on, he should probably ignore it before it got out of hand.
Except, he is no longer a lanky fifteen-year-old stumbling around in a world of burgeoning adults. Maybe this time things will be different. Maybe he can try to make things different even if he crashes and burns. He has done quite a lot of that while building the armor. He is used to the sensation.
But not today. Today, he can just stand on top of the mountain, feel the wind in his face and enjoy the blanket of blissful silence draping over his mind. It will not last. But that doesn't mean enjoy the moment.
He turns his head and glances into eyes that perfectly match the color of the sky. "Yeah," he says in a breathless voice. "View's top notch."