There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part VI: The Storm God

You're the colour,
you're the movement and the spin.
Never
Could it stay with me the whole day long
Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence
and smile.

The Notwist - Consequence

Tony Stark was not afraid of Thor. Not in the same way that he feared Loki, not in the sense that any moment he could be squashed beneath Thor's heel and there'd be absolutely nothing he could do about it. No, Tony wasn't afraid of Thor like that.

He was more afraid of Thor when it came to Loki than anything else. It was the steely fire Thor held in himself, the resolve that preceded events that the demigod had never spoken of, events that had culminated in the scarred mess that sat in his living room.

That steely fire, that resolve, was something to be feared.

It wasn't enough that Thor didn't knock, no, he had to bring down the whole door, because gods, apparently, liked to make an entrance. Tony supposed, as halfway comment to himself in a moment of sheer panic, that it was good that he didn't come accompanied by half-naked Thor-themed dancers. Because while Thor had style, in the same way that Labradors had style, he didn't quite think it was that sort of style.

All around him, the world seemed to crack, as thunder rolled over and across dark clouds. The effect, cinematic as it seemed, was enough to make Tony stop in his tracks.

Thor filled half his front door, from shoulder-to-shoulder, and looked ready to take on a whole regalia of old, ancient knights. Compared to Thor, Tony felt a lot like an ant.

And wasn't that funny. Not Ha-Ha funny. Irony funny.

He was babbling to himself.

Tony tried to eke out a greeting, a greeting which couldn't come out because his voice died in his own throat, curling into it like his tongue had turned black. This was odd for a person who usually had a harder time shutting up than he did speaking, and even odder for someone who liked to make constant complaints about the amount of property damage his home seemed to rack up over the years.

"Thor," He managed rather half-heartedly. "I've got a doorknob, you know."

"Anthony," There was something rail-straight in the way Thor said it, stiff and rough, slightly choked. "I did not think..." He halted. Tony wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest of that sentence.

Thor, for all his supposed statements about having grown up alongside Loki, was not at all like the other god. Tony was thankful for this. It made him more personable. Open. A book with slow flipping pages, one by one.

From behind, Tony felt Loki. Thor's eyes snapped, and he strode forward, then stopped, suddenly, a choked, "Loki."

Tony wondered what he saw. If he saw what Tony saw, the same scarred appearance of a person who seemed for all the world on the outside the same, powerful being. Or maybe not, or maybe another thing all together.

"Well," Tony said, instead, in a voice that was halfway asphyxiating him. "This is awkward."

Loki, who was far less personable and far more eloquent by nature instead hissed, "Did you expect less, Thor? From monsters?"

Thor's eyes traveled, over and around and up to Loki's eyes again. Tony could tell how hard it was for him to not spring forward, to see what Tony had seen, how the scars lined every part of Loki, thin and sparse, half-deep and crooked.

Tony felt Loki bristle beside him, beneath that gaze, and Tony couldn't help but feel a pang of hatred for the god who so callously threw away his family's love like it were garbage, so blind to what was in front of him, as stark and clear as the very scars that marred his skin.

He couldn't help but hate Loki for it, a dull pain that settled in the depths of his belly, or a ragged fingernail that picked at old, half-healed scabs. It wasn't a fallible hate.

Tony, without real meaning, he just did, said, "So, Point Break. Maybe we should chat," Chat, came out awfully rough, and Tony realized how really angry he was. "You know, set some boundaries."

"Anthony," Thor said, lumbering. There was an actual crack in the room, a volt which tickled the air. "This is not... you mustn't interfere in this, friend."

"I think I should, actually," Tony returned. He felt Loki's eyes on the back of his head like a weight. "Since it's my house that's getting destroyed in the process."

Thor's eyes, wide as they were, kept flicking from Tony to Loki and back again. His whole body had a stiffness that Tony didn't think were possible, a ridged terseness around the edges that made him seem almost fuzzy.

"You've come to return me, yes?" Loki said, suddenly, though Tony had definitely not forgotten that he was there. "I've no doubt the wastes of Jötunheim will be even more welcoming a second time."

Tony had never heard of anything called Jötunheim. There was a vague familiarity in the word, but it seemed something nightmarish and awful, and he knew it almost instinctively, a feeling that weirded him out beyond reason.

Thor took a half-step forward, "Brother, I didn't-"

The words the god got in return was jagged on every edge, awfully and horribly pointed, a thousand needles disguised in a few words, "Know? Come now, Thor, do not lie to me!"

The last half of that was half-hiss, half-yell, and Tony heard it as clearly as a church bell in the shell of his ear.

Another half-step; Tony felt a burst of Loki's breath on the back of his neck, could feel - surprisingly, almost surprisingly - the terror in it.

"Brother-"

"Enough!" Loki snarled, and the word was obnoxiously loud in Tony's ears, nails on a chalkboard.

Seizing the opportunity present in Thor's halt, in the startled doe-eyed stare, Tony moved forward, a hand on an arm which seemed at the moment larger than his own head.

"Hey," Tony said, making an attempt - and it was an awful attempt indeed - to hold him there. "Don't-"

Of course, however, when Loki began to insult he didn't stop, "Look at me, brother!" Thor avoided his gaze. "Look. At. Me!"

When Thor did look, and Tony watched the slow rise of his head and heard the slight hitch in his breath, there was a small, dark bit of laughter out of Loki, drawn out like a string.

"Am I not a sight?" Loki said, slow and steady and venomous. "Am I not a spectacle of Jötunheim's depravity, their monstrosity?"

Tony couldn't even look at Loki behind him, or Thor, could only hear the lull of Loki's dramatic, breathy tones, the way his voice shook, ever so slightly, almost unnoticeably, if you weren't listening for it. Something akin to a hairball rolled in Tony's stomach, a ball made of premonitions and instincts.

"Father... I had no part in this, Loki." Thor objected, and he tried to move past Tony. Tony, for his part, did his best to keep Thor there. "If I had known-"

"Your Father only ever does things for a reason." Loki mocked, though who he was mocking, Tony couldn't be sure. "Isn't that right, Odinson?"

Thor pushed past Tony so hard and so fast that the shorter man ended up slammed into his wall, stumbling, gripping the edge of a table for purchase. The scene split away but he recovered, only to see Thor with one hand on Loki's shoulders.

Loki's eyes were wide, his whole body as taut and ridged as a drawn bowstring. Tony, who had seen terror before, recognized fully the expression that crossed Loki's face. The rough, ragged noise Loki made was bruising to the ears, but Thor didn't seem to take heed of the way Loki looked, didn't seem to know what was there in that pinched face.

"I swear to you, Loki," Thor said, quickly and rushed, holding Loki tight. "If I had known I would have stopped him, I would have, I-"

Tony was drawn to the color that seeped first from beneath Loki's battered nails. It was blue, a deep blue, that seemed to spread like a disease. Thor tried to draw back, but Loki gripped his wrist, staring wide-eyed into the taller god's eyes.

It might have been the light, but even Loki's eyes seemed to change, a strange halfway between red and green. Tony felt swamped, stuck there, a statue.

Thor growled, and Tony was drawn to Thor's wrist then, and his eyes widened when he saw the black ring beneath Loki's ashen grip, and he thought, distantly, "Frostbite."

Loki let go, limply, his face as pallid and withdrawn as it could have gotten. In fact, he seemed a million miles away, fixing Thor with eyes which at the moment didn't seem as red as they had before.

Tony wasn't sure he'd seen someone look quite so... numb.

Thor's blackened wrist hung in the space between him and Loki, and in but a few moments Loki fled, away, into the rooms of Tony's house.

Thor tried to follow after him but Tony yelled, "Stop!"

Wildly, Thor looked back at Tony, who said, again, "Hold up, Lassie."

"No, you do not understand-"

Tony snapped, angrily, "Just shut up and leave him be, alright? He's not going anywhere."

Thor's face crumpled, actually crumpled, and Tony felt a small pang of sympathy for the guy, for the not-brother of a man more inclined to murder than he was to reciprocating the unwanted love that was dumped on him. This sympathy, little as it was, did not last all that long.

"JARVIS?" Tony said. "Tell Thor that you'll alert SHIELD if Loki even so much as steps foot outside this house."

"Mr. Odinson, as Sir said, should Loki step outside this home, SHIELD will be alerted immediately. Though they should have been, before."

"Not now, JARVIS."

Thor's eyes darkened, "You had not alerted your shieldbrothers of my brother's presence here?"

Tony's eyes flicked from Thor to the black ring around the taller man's wrist and avoided, "Better get that looked at."

Thor shrugged, "It is nothing. A scratch is all."

"Yeah." Tony's voice lifted in sarcasm. "Sure. Whatever you say. It wasn't a question, though." He pulled away from the wall, noticed then the wild rampage of his heart, the great tug at the center of his chest. "Maybe we can talk, y'know, leave the tortured god in my house alone."

"I did not mean..." Thor's face fell, and he looked positively crestfallen. "That is, I had not meant..."

"He doesn't like being touched." Tony felt very snippy. "Most people that go through... that don't."

Thor looked straight at him, then, a gaze that felt like it went through. A gaze like Loki's, just a little bit, yet not nearly as intrusive. Tony straightened himself up.

"C'mon," He brushed past Thor, not only just to escape those eyes but to find something warm for Thor to put his wrist under. "Let's get that fixed up."

"That thing with... the blue." Tony was wrapped gauze around Thor's thick wrist. "And this. What was it?"

Thor looked very uncomfortable, put-upon, like a third-grader in a spelling bee about to misspell the dreaded word of caterpillar. Tony made note of this, in the same way he made note of everything that made everyone even mildly distressed.

"It is..." Thor seemed to struggle a bit, for the words. Outside, the storm had softened a bit to a drizzle. "My brother is adopted."

"Yeah, I know."

"He is not Asgardian, Iron Man." Thor continued, rather quickly.

Tony thought, a bit. Loki sure looked like Thor, minus the coloring. Asgardians were humans, pretty much, with just a dash of the ethereal and a sprinkle of monstrous strength and steadfast violent tendencies. The "blue thing", as he had eloquently put it, had come out of nowhere, like a spell or a-

"He's got something on him, right?" Tony asked. "Like a spell. Real life Harry Potter shit. Like a... glamour, or potion."

Thor shook his head, "My Father did not tell me the true details of what he placed upon my brother, only that it hides his real appearance from sight unless..." Here, Thor looked rather thoughtful. "Unless he is touched by a member of his own race."

"And what is his race, exactly?" Tony questioned. "Blue Man Group? Na'vi?"

"Your ancestors called them Frost Giants. We call them the Jötun, of the realm Jötunheim - a world of darkness, of ice." Thor shifted in his seat across from Tony, uneasily. "The children of Asgard know them only as... monsters."

"Monsters." Tony felt something hollow in his throat.

Thor nodded, "Mothers tell their children tales of the Jötun, of how their women steal wicked children in the night, of the vicious blood sacrifices the warriors offer to Ymir, of the way they pillaged our lands during the war..."

"You tell kids this."

"We are all warriors, sisters and brothers in arms, and we do not coddle our children with the idea that the world is... as kind a place as it could be." Thor looked away, then. "War is in our blood, Anthony."

Tony said, "That's stupid." He realized he was clutching Thor's wrist too hard, and loosened up. "And what, you bullied Loki with this? Told him he was a monster to his face-"

"My brother knew not of his heritage until recently." Thor said, quickly. "You... understand not the situation that we've made for ourselves, my brother and I. You know nothing of... of what had happened, of what happens now."

Tony said, sternly, clipping up the gauze on Thor's wrists and then settling himself into the couch, "Maybe you should tell me."

"I... it is a family matter."

"Maybe I can help." Tony knew he really couldn't, knew it in the same way that he knew the sky was blue or that he was a genius. The lie felt tasteless on the hilt of his tongue.

Thor fell for the lie, let his shoulders fall a bit, lost the powerful stance that seemed to be all around him. For a moment, Tony saw how young he really could have been, how truly naive he almost seemed, though he knew better than to really believe it.

So Thor began the story, starting slowly and haltingly until the words came to him, easily, as he got more comfortable.

The parallels were as frightening to Tony as they were upsetting.

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