Avengers: Seven Minutes in Heaven

The CD (again)

Point of View: Thor Odinson
———•———

"We haven't heard much from you. Let's go. It's your turn, Thor," Tony yelled from across the room. Does he not know I can hear him perfectly fine when he speaks normally?

"Alright," I replied, calmly. Sure, I was afraid, though that's something a warrior never shows.

Reaching purposefully into the black sack, I felt something normal in relation to the rest of the items that resides in there. It was a bit wet, probably from the ice cube. Everything else was either sharp or weird, though this was flat and smooth... so I pulled it out.

"Pyromania... Def Leppard...?" I read aloud from the front cover of the CD.

"No. In the name of Odin I shall not be locked in a bloody closet with that blundering oaf," Loki pointed at me from his armchair. The closest thing he'll get to a throne, I presume.

"That is kind of a problem, isn't it?" Natasha pointed out. "I mean, they are related, aren't they?"

"Supposedly," Tony announced. "Though, blondie over here did mention the fact that Loki was adopted... a while ago and to us all."

"They're not even that close," Clint interjected. "Right, Thor?"

"I mean, I suppose that is correct-"

"Thor, no. This does not- we cannot. Just, please," Loki seemingly begged, sounding desperate.

"Rules are rules, O-Mischievous one," Tony mocked him. "Now, someone, please... get the Asgardians in the closet."

Banner stood and took my brother by the arm, which was seemingly a good enough threat in and of itself seeing how he had fought Loki on numerous occasions and won. But, of course, he made it a struggle.

"Okay— okay! First of all, I can walk myself to this closet, thank you very much," he said as Banner pushed him into the confines of the small closet's walls. "And secondly, I thought I made it extraordinarily clear that I am not Asgardian!" He ever-so-rudely mentioned.

"And I don't care," Tony replied, slamming the door in our faces.

"And then there were two," Loki announced. I just rolled my eyes at him.

It felt like we had been standing in the dark for ages before I finally decided to speak. "I cannot see a damned thing in here," I announced.

I watched as his hands between us lit up in a green flame that enveloped his fingers flourished out of nothing. He looked down at it, seemingly focusing on whatever the Hel kind of magic he was doing.

He looked up at me from beneath his eyelashes with a smirk on his face. "Better?" he asked slyly.

I felt something twinge within me. What was he doing... er, doing like that?

"Now, now, Thor, you have never been one to be soft spoken- this is so very unlike you. Are you, somehow, unwell?" he questioned, knowing full well that I had been fine.

He stepped closer, dragging the unnatural green flame with him through the air and ever closer to me. His one hand pulled away from the fire and approached my face; it landed on my forehead. "Maybe we should call this off and end the game early... you are burning up, you know."

I swatted his hand from my face and held him at the wrist as my face contorted while I looked at him in his complete idiocy. "Be it the flame, think you? Or, perchance, you simply do not think at all."

"I think lots of things, brother, may it be you, perhaps, who does not think?"

"And, Loki, how is that?" I asked.

"Just look at yourself. Look at what you are doing here as you are!" He allowed the flame to dwindle softly amongst his fingertips between us as I tried to see whatever it was he had been ever-so-desperately trying to describe.

Hel, I see it now. He was talking about my hand having hold of his wrist- the fact that I had yet to let go. It was a simple misstep, though, he seems to have moved his body ever closer to mine. Perhaps he had taken a step closer to throw me?

"What sort of game are you playing you-"

"Thor," he interrupted me with a whisper, bringing himself closer to my face so that I might hear him. "Let us not- this discussion... it is simply a waste of breath."

I looked at him, the flame casting such an ethereal green glow across his face. It feels as though this is the first time I am truly able to see him as he was meant to be seen. I let my eyes travel between his- he seemed lost in mine as well, his mouth opened only the slightest bit.

"How can I waste that which I have already lost?" I pondered, throwing him for a loop for once. His eyebrows crinkled before my very eyes. It was, in fact, a long shot, that which I was thinking... though, perhaps it had simply been a figment of my imagination and clearly something that I had made up in my head.

"You, brother, have lost your breath?" he continued, truly wondering what I had been on about.

"Hold your tongue," I demanded, bringing my lips immediately onto his. I felt the heat of the flame rage for a moment before it blinked out entirely, leaving his hand to meet my chest.

This felt odd to me, but upon thinking about it, I realize in my heart of hearts that it is of no matter that we call one another brother, so long as it is not, in fact, true. Surely we grew up together as brothers do, but, he has made a point of alienating himself from me and my people.

That is no true brother of mine.

I let my hands cup his face and pull him into me; it all started to feel, somehow, good. Real, even. More real than anything else I feel I have ever been able to experience so long as he, himself, had been involved.

The flame had gone out, but it was scorching in here, wasn't it? Or, perhaps I was imagining it. Perhaps this was all simply an apparition as a result of some insanely wicked trick Loki was playing on all of us.

If that was true, then I suppose I learned something about myself upon kissing the one person I never imagined I would.

His hands rested on my chest, surely showing him that my heart was roaring inside there. I placed my hands on his hips like it was natural and continued on as if there was no real way to proceed other than this.

Without even another second, the door swung open, though-

Neither of us pulled away.

Not for at least another second. It felt tender and intense, yet surreal. I could feel everyone watching us in awe, like this was something they expected out of Loki, but never truly saw me playing along.

His lips plucked away from mine  and made that succulent noise I so very much enjoyed. That devilish smile was plastered on his face, though, I did not catch a sense from him that anything was out of sorts.

"Alrighty then," Stark began. We both looked at him, still connected and very equally in awe.

I looked down at Loki so as to tell him to pull away. He did. I nodded at Tony and walked past the crowd of them all, sitting on the couch anew as if I did not just do the one thing that I, somehow, cannot seem to face.

Sure, in the dark, all cats are grey... but this one was very obviously green. What the Hel am I to do with that?

"Next?" Stark called. Ah, yes, next.

That is all I can do, isn't it? That is, move on from what was so that I might be open, then, to what is and what will be.

Hel, this is all any of us can ever truly do.