Author's note: Two chapters in less than 6 hours? Oh yes sir!
Italics=thoughts
I do not own The Avengers either...boo.
Thor physically shakes with the effort that it takes him to make it out of Stark tower without running back up the stairs and undoing what he's done. He wishes he could. He would travel back and swallow the words that have damned him to live like this. A sham, a farce, everything he's never wanted to be. He hurts the people he loves. He takes their love, perverts and twists it so that they hate him, for surely, Steve must hate him now. Thor knows that was cruel and unexpected, but there is no other way he sees that doesn't bring more harm upon the people he cares about. The warning bouncing around his skull is stronger than his guilt and heart break.
The city is relatively quiet for this time of night and Thor can barely make out the cloud cover above him as he swings his hammer and takes off over the city. Settling on a rooftop some distance away from the tower but leaving it still in sight, Thor lets out a shuddering breath. It has barely been ten minutes since Thor left, but he is aware that the density of the clouds has increased and yet knows that it was not forecast to rain. His emotions have dictated the weather in the past but if he does not care about Steve as he said he does not, then it must not rain and thunder to display his anguish. They must not know.
Seating himself upon the slightly warm blacktop of the roof, Thor concentrates on the space around him. He can feel each part of the atmosphere and his skin crackles faintly with energy. It's elating to sense the molecules slide against one another as he slowly unravels the clouds above him. A slight breeze ruffles his hair as he wills it to remove some of what he has done in the most natural way possible.
This is settling. This he knows. He can bend the elements to his will and has command of something in his life for a moment.
The subtle shaking in his hands stops after a while.
Thor takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. Yes, it has been a few hours since the encounter and he finally feels ready to venture back into the tower, but a sudden image of Steve's anguished face and the imagined accusations of the others freezes him to the spot as he tries to stand. He cannot provide them with the true answers they will seek and any other other excuse besides what he told Steve and Clint will sound false. He will have to lie again.
He will use what he has seen and what he has learned to fool them all. He has to fool himself.
Leave it until dawn.
Thor curls his leg back under him as he slides gracefully down onto his back so he can more fully observe the sky above him. He spends the remaining hours until day break creating and erasing clouds in the sky above the city and sustaining a fierce storm off the coast hundreds of miles away. They are opposing just as he is.
9am rolls around and Thor can put it off no longer. He can instinctually feel that the others are waiting for his return and what would be the point in delaying the moment more than he already has? Standing up from his prone position on the rooftop, he swings his hammer and takes off for the tower.
The confrontation he dreads approaches much too quickly as Thor arrives on the communal floor to find all but Steve seated at the table eating breakfast. Their lingering is just as false as the tales Thor knows he's about to spin.
"Needed a little fresh air?" Tony inquires casually. His tone belies the sharpness in his eyes and Thor just barely manages not flinching at the harmless words.
"Yes," Thor answers simply. Say as little as possible.
"Needed a little fresh air from Steve?"
Thor suppresses a sigh. "Say what you mean plainly Stark." If he sounds a bit short with his friend Thor doesn't care. It's certainly the nicest and most honest action he is about to take.
Thor is aware that the rest of the team is alert and paying close attention to this exchange though Clint looks especially tense in the chair he occupies at Natasha's side.
"You've called it quits with the Captain."
Thor nods, but says nothing.
Tony looks properly irritated. "Care to elaborate as to why? You two are high school sweetheart, nausea inducing, head over heels in love with one another. I'm the king of cold feet, but I can safely assure you that you two can get right back into it if you'd try."
"No Tony, it is unfair to both of us to try."
"Seriously?" Clint says in exasperation. Thor shoots Clint a look of warning.
"Fucking…it's just all very hard to believe though I believe you." Clint looks exceedingly cross for a moment before the outright display fades from his face. "You can't just give me Steve though. He's not an object you can just pass around."
"No, he is not and I did not. I simply asked if you would take care of him. That does not imply I was giving him to you. But if I were…it does make sense though, does it not? You did look after him while I was gone." The last sentence is hurled at Clint with biting intent and he immediately grimaces at his lack of control. If Thor did not already know, Tony's look of disapproving amazement tells Thor all he needs to know. He is allowed to be angry at himself and hurt, but it is not proper to say such scathing remarks out of spite for himself and this mess. "I am sorry Clint. That was uncalled for and unkind. You were looking after Steve's well-being which I must insist is what I am doing now." Clint looks put out, thoroughly chastened, and somehow grateful all at the same time. Thor does not understand it.
"You are lying to us. I don't like it and I don't understand why," Tony says bringing the conversation back to the original point. "You cannot actually tell me, and this is amazing that I'm doing this because who have you people turned me into? I meddle in things but I'm no fixer. In fact I tend to make things worse. I'm not-,"
"Tony," Bruce says softly and Thor is silently grateful that Bruce cut him off from the dark road he was about to traipse down. He understands Tony's wild insecurities despite his genius and demonstration of the good person that he most definitely is. He wishes to comfort the metal man and sooth some of those anxieties, but Thor is very aware he in incapable of providing comfort and being the other Thor he does not know and does not wish to understand at the same time. His words would be cheap and merely a parody of comfort at best. Tony does not deserve that.
Steve does not deserve this.
"Ah," Tony clears his throat and looks somewhat startled. "Point is, you cannot look me in the eye and tell me you don't love and never did love Steve. I'm not stupid though this isn't necessarily one of my strong points." Thor sees Natasha nod once in his periphery.
Loki help me.
Thor had never been the best liar and it was always to his chagrin and awe that Loki had such a tongue that could spin such believable tales without, it seems, even a second thought.
Thor prays watching his brother spin his web of innocuous lies over the years has taught him something, that looking his father in the eye and spinning his own yarn is enough to end this now. He is not sure how many times he can say this with conviction before he cracks.
Loki you hate me now, but help me one last time dear brother.
Thor's gaze is steady as he gives Tony what he wants. "I cared for Steve, yes." Thor resists fidgeting and pausing for too long. "Steve is my friend and I liked the companionship. I am a naturally, as you say, flirtatious person and it may have come across as love on your part, but it was nothing more than a strong bond between friends for me. It is clear to me now that Steve did not see it as such, but I did not love him and I do not love him now."
The silence after his final word is deafening to Thor and he can feel his heart thudding quickly in his chest, but he keeps his breathing even. He knows he has to sell this completely unbelievable lie.
The hush continues and if not for a brief flicker of Bruce's eyes Thor would not have even known Steve was behind him before he speaks.
"Is that true?" Steve asks. His voice sounds choked.
Thor turns around and hopes he can hold this neutrality toward the person he wishes he could take into his arms right now to banish that tightness from his voice.
"Yes." The rest of his reply gets caught in his throat before he can say any more.
"You don't love me?"
"No."
"You never did?"
"No." There is a special place in the hell Steve believes in for him if he were to go there, Thor is sure.
"I love you," Steve whispers while staring plaintively into Thor's eyes.
Thor is thankful that despair is the appropriate emotion to display at this confession. "I am sorry. I would never wish unrequited love on someone. I care, but just not in the way you wish. I…am sorry," Thor finishes lamely. He can imagine, as he clenches his fist at his side, that he is crushing Steve's heart in his palm. The blood scalds him as it seeps out between his fingers.
Thor did not know what to expect of this encounter, but Steve's perfect blankness after looking so sad not even a moment ago and the utter dead quiet behind him unhinges the control Thor needs.
"I will go. This is…unfortunate," Thor murmurs as he brushes past Steve. He's scrambling to pull the threads of his power to him and to hold his tears at bay while looking as casual as possible. Once in the stairwell he bounds down the steps at a break neck speed, the hurt and the accusation nipping at his heels as he bolts out the door and into the beautiful day beyond.
Three times in less than 48 hours he has ran toward and away from what he wants.
He's disgusted with himself.
When had he become such a coward?
Author's note: I made myself sad. haha But I hope you liked this and that it gives you some kind of comfort.
Also I have a tumblr, shadowkai45, if you want to follow me there to talk...or I don't know…to give me a nudge if I've been slacking?
Hopefully I'll have another chapter up in the next few days.