st_arkintern | (no subject)

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Today, Peter Parker's the one behind the bar. Tony sits on the barstool opposite from him. Typically, they stand at about the same height, but when he's seated, Tony's just the tiniest bit shorter.

Peter looks down at the glass, and then down at him. "You think this is enough alcohol?" he asks, gesturing at the glass, filled with amber-colored rum. He'd asked Tony if he'd help him learn how to make drinks, but Peter was self-conscious about the entire affair, checking in for the Tony Stark seal of approval almost every step of the way.

He really wanted to make a good drink for Tony.

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If Thor wasn't sure of it when Tony nearly plowed into him and he got a whiff of the alcohol hanging off him, he was certain of it from the casual tone of Tony's voice:

Tony Stark was drunk.

He doesn't bother asking him if he's been drinking, because he absolutely knew that Tony had been.

"Things are fine, Loki is fine. Not a kitten, though." And sadly, not a snake either.

"How are you?"

Coming to a stop once he'd made a 180, he was suddenly aware of his two options. Run to the bathroom and forget the encounter, or say everything on his heart and on his mind. Peter's advice, broad as it was, hit him in his core.

Running was an effort in futility. It ended up with him metaphorically and near-literally spilling his guts in front of his son. It wasn't working.

And then, Tony Stark was filled with a resolve. It was sudden and overpowering. Maybe he couldn't make things right, but he could set the record straight.

"I--" Another stomach lurch--far stronger than the last. Tony pushed on. "I--" And another. When next he opened his mouth, he doubled over and the muffled sounds of liquid expelling against the interior of his armor became apparent.

Oh.

Oh no.

Thor winces.

"I'm going to pick you up now," Thor says. "We're going back to your room and get you cleaned up."

Thor doesn't bother waiting for Tony's approval. Instead, he picks Tony up into a princess carry and begins the trek back to his room.

"No need, no need." Tony insisted through a strained throat. "F.R.I.D.A.Y."

"Dry Cleaning protocol initiated, Boss."

Iron Man literally began steaming in Thor's arms as the liquids and the semi-solids degraded via nanite TLC and escaped through micropores in his armor. The true miracle was Tony resisting an Ironing Man joke.

"Listen to me." Tony pressed his palm against Thor's cheek, desperate for his honest attention. "I am a hot, piping, smoking mess of a human. Literally. And I go around and around with my evolved monkey brain telling my moron lizard brain how he can screw up intelligently and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Thor marvels at the way easily disposed of the waste inside with a hot cloud of steam. Was there anything that Tony's suit was not capable of?

Thor thinks about that for a moment, then decides it probably isn't capable of sobering Tony up right now.

Thor presses forward as Tony begins to speak, but stops the second his hand touches his face. Thor listens, and he feels something reverberate inside of him, like a finger plucking the string of a guitar.

"You're drunk," Thor tells him and he starts down the hall. "Is your door locked?"

Does Tony even remember if it is?

"Yes." Tony agreed easily, as if that wasn't obvious enough. "And yes. ...Wait. Did you write just me off?"

"I'm taking you back to your room so you can sleep it off," Thor tells him. "If you still want to have this conversation when you're sober, we can have it then."

Tony's foot propulsors activated and he was flipping right out of Thor's grip, managing to stick his landing.

"I am killing myself over here trying to be direct, we're not together, and you don't even believe me when I say I'm sorry!"

"It's not that I don't believe you right now --"

Tony's being extremely earnest and Thor really believes that Tony feels this way right here and right now.

"-- but are you sure you're still going to feel like this tomorrow?"

"You mean after I apologize to Peter for drinking and double down on that promise to seek therapy?" Tony had no intentions of just abandoning the boy--but he was in the moment with somehow else whom he owed a great deal. The vomiting had a halfway sobering effect.

"It's been on my mind non-stop." Enough to distract him from the five reality warping fruity pebbles. Small blessings. "I won't get on my knees and plead you back. Sober enough to spare us that much. I just want you to believe me."

Thor gestures at his own face.

"Take the -- take the mask off. I feel like I'm having a conversation with a robot."

Tony approached, apparently ignoring Thor's request as he grabbed the other man's hand and pushed it against his reactor--triggering the armor to recede into his usual Black Sabbath-jeans combo.

"...Believe me, I've got a case." He murmured, a faint melodic lilt to his voice.

Thor's open palm stays there for a moment longer than it probably should before falling down to his side.

"What are you talking about?"

“On Nancy. With the laughing face.” Tony pushed his glasses up on his nose, smiling. “She takes the winter, and she makes it summer. And summer could take a few lessons from her.”

Pity ‘Thor’ didn’t right amount of syllables.

“...I’m sorry. I’m not good with words. Lyrics are only somewhat better.”

Thor's initial surprise at the sight of Tony bursting into song quickly melts away into affection.

"You are a complete enigma, Tony," Thor says, and he reaches out to tousle Tony's hair playfully.

Tony’s head bobbed with Thor’s rough hand on it, struggling to keep his center of focus on the man’s face.

“I do love you. If I made you doubt that...”

"I know you do." Thor runs his hand along the back of Tony's head and his neck before letting it fall down to his side.

Saying You're better off without me or It's too late for me to apologize seemed too self involved--given, Tony was a master of that, but he didn't need to speak for the man. The pragmatic side of him insisted that distance was for the best, that Thor seemed decent enough without him. Neither of them needed tears for what was apparently the inevitable and least of all did Tony need the final death knell for his dignity. He sucked all of it in.

"That's all I needed you to know." His rubbed the side of his mouth, though there was nothing to clean. "There's no good way for me to end it like this, but..."

Thor presses a single finger against Tony's lips.

"Don't say anything," Thor tells him. "Just keep your mouth shut for awhile before you say something stupid."

Wonder of wonders, Thor's directive smashed through every stubborn and reckless layer of Tony's shell and he sealed his lips tight.

"I have not had anyone to cook for for a week now, so I ended up eating your portion and my own." Which granted, wasn't a significant uptake given how little Tony ate even on a good day.

"So every time I ate something, I thought about you. Even when I wasn't eating something, I thought about you. I thought about you a lot and I should probably be embarrassed by that, but I'm not."

Thor finally pulls his finger away from Tony's mouth.

"Do you want to end this?"

Thor tossed the ball into his court with such authority that Tony felt foolish all over again. He ran his hand over his lips and let it drop to his hip. He cleared his throat—only picturing one proper answer to it.

“...If I don’t see her each day, I miss her.” Maybe he was simply imagining it, but the distant rhythms playing in the bar matched his cadence. “Gee, what a thrill...each time I kiss her.”

That pulls a smile from Thor.

"Then let's not," he says. "But all that from the other day? We need to talk about it. Doesn't have to be now, but it does have to happen."

Thor reaches out to press his palm against Tony's face. "Your suit clean out your mouth when it cleaned out the rest of you? Because I really want to kiss you right now."

“Love me enough to take the chance?” Tony felt fairly confident F.R.I.D.A.Y had been thorough, sweeping his tongue across his teeth.

Thor doesn't hesitate. He leans over to kiss him, and wraps his arms around Tony's smaller frame.