Only Fools Love Monsters

The silence that followed Pepper's departure was as dense and as tangible as any metal Tony, with his vast knowledge of basically everything, could name. It could've lasted a second or years and it would've felt the same to the group. For all they knew, Thor could've been sitting, head slumped and eyes heavy, on the carpet floor for thirty years. None of them knew what to do. None of them knew what to say. Maybe there was some word, some phrase that would make this all better. Perhaps if they sat in their silence forever, it would never have to be better. They could just remain frozen, not needing to deal with anything at all. In their silence, the world did not exist. There was no time, no outside forces; they were just there, simply being. They knew that the second Natasha or Clint or Bruce or Steve moved from the place they were standing and staring at the window, Tony stood from the couch he had sunk to and was holding his head in his hands, or the moment that Thor would work through the depressant and rise to his feet in all his rage, there would be no escaping the world. Natasha and Clint and Bruce would have to appease Thor and counsel Tony to ensure that the damage would repair. Tony would have to talk to the two people he loved most in the world and try his hardest to make them hate him less. And Thor, well Thor would decide exactly what he was going to do the second the Hulk designed drugs worked their way out of his system. No one wanted to be the one to force them all into action, they wanted to be able to sit there and simply be. But, that is not how life works. You cannot simply be. The team, being who they were, knew all too well that life sucked, each one had experienced that first hand. They were all too familiar with the fact that you cannot run from, or in this case be still and silent about, the situation set before you. For the love of the gods, this was a team of super heroes, freaks and mutants who saw the worlds at their worse, and they knew better than anyone that nothing fixes itself. But even with that steadfast truth engraved into every fiber of their complex DNA, not a single one of them wanted to break that silence.
"I…" Tony said, the single syllable sounded like a wave of sound crashing upon the team. And that was it. The silence was gone. The world began to move again and the clock began ticking.
All Avengers, even Thor with his half lidded eyes, looked at Tony like a foreign object they had forgotten was there, not quite registering the new movement of life.
"I guess I'll go talk to Loki…"
Tony was shocked when Thor's eyes shot open like a soldier's on wakeup call, "You will do no such thing, Stark!" Thor was angry again, eyes burning with new vigor and malice, "You have done enough!" Tony had not anticipated, but now questioned why he had not, that he god would be angry with him. He understood, of course he did, and he knew he was the sole source of the problem. This was all his fault and he knew it all too well.
"Look, Thor, I..." Tony started but was abruptly silenced when two overly large hands grabbed his shoulders roughly. The team jumped into action, assuming Thor was going to throw Tony out the window. But a glare from the Norse god stopped them in their tracks.
"I said, Stark, that you have done enough," Thor stated, his eyes dark. All reasoning seemed to be pushed aside whenever it came to the matter of his baby brother, and right now, Thor's reasoning had just plummeted off a very large cliff. "This is your entire fault, you are to blame. If you had managed to calm your wench, we would not be in this situation," Thor's breath was hot and labored as his blood pressure rose, "Why must my brother continue to suffer, Man of iron? Are you Midgardians simply bound and determined to quench any hopes of recovering my brother from the depths of anguish of which he has been so unceremoniously thrown in? Is it your goal to keep him from the happiness he so well deserves?"
Tony clenched his jaw at the accusations, ready and willing to argue with the god, but he stopped. He knew why Thor was angry, it was clear as day, but there was something else. Even beyond the unbreakable sense of needing to protect Loki, something much stronger resided.
Thor was tired of seeing Loki fall again and again, but not only because he loved Loki more than anything in all nine realms; Thor was tired because he had watched, for however many hundreds or thousands of years he had been brothers with the mischief-maker, Loki sink farther away from him. When Loki had let go on the bridge, he had had to watch as his brother sunk farther than his power would allow him to go. He had watched as his brother morphed and changed into the self-loathing man that he now knew. And every time it seemed that Loki was pushing himself up, back towards the light, back towards Thor, he was chopped down. Whether it was Thanos, Fury, Pepper, or even Odin who had not meant to, Thor was forced to watch as they kept the raven haired god far from the reach of his golden brother.
Thor was tired of having to reach. The thing Thor wanted, more than anything ever dreamed of, was to have the Loki he had once known, the Loki no one but himself had been given the privilege of truly knowing. Thor longed for the bright eyes and the lips that never stopped grinning, for the voice that would yell, "Come, brother, let's do mischief together!" Thor wished desperately to go back, so that every time Loki had asked Thor to play with him, every time the little raven haired boy had come to him in tears in the dead of night and curled up to his chest like he was the soft glow of brilliant light that kept anything and everything evil away, that he had relished every second of it. Tony saw and understood every emotion so forcefully hidden on the warrior's features and somehow, it felt like he had intruded upon a very ancient hurt.
This pain that was locked away in the confines of Thor's being went beyond that day, beyond that month or year. This pain was a result of a lifetime of unrequited reaching. And suddenly, Tony felt very small, because this problem was much larger than him.
Because, take away the suite and the alcohol and the money and what did he have? Nothing, Tony was a very small man in a very large world, all Tony had done was put himself in front of a microscope. But, with the crushing feeling of being very small, he also felt very powerful. He knew that, despite all statistics and odds, he could fix this, he had to. This would not be fixed in a day, a week, a month, but Tony would fix it. Tony Stark could fix anything, and Tony Stark had a team of misfit super heroes at his fingertips, which made him feel very powerful. Tony looked into the eyes of the lighter half of the Norse god brothers and saw that Thor was as desperate and as determined as he was. So Tony lifted his hands to rest on the biceps of the thunderer and gave him a grin.
"Thor, I think it's about time we tie a rope to our little trickster, it's about time he stopped falling," Tony gave Thor the biggest, most genuine grin he had given in a long time. He half expected the god to throw him out the window, but was grateful when he didn't, and, instead, Thor returned the grin.
"I believe you are correct, Man of Iron," Thor beamed with a hope he had not felt for years suddenly welling in his chest like Tony was pouring it in.
"I think you'll need some help," Bruce said with a combination of snarkyness and sheepishness in his smile.
"Nothing we can't handle," Steve smiled.
"Why not?" Clint added, as if it was an everyday task, "I've got nothing going on," Tony, despite all physical limitations, grinned wider. Natasha smiled and nodded, which was a simple and nearly endearing gesture.
"Let's go fix us a god of chaos, then!" Tony grinned as hope that the situation might not end as badly as he had thought seeping into him like happiness itself.

Notes