Tony spends his tenth birthday in Southern France.
He did not get to make that decision and he grumbles all the way through the seven-hour-flight and the three additional hours it takes for their car to pull up to the idyllic country house his parents had rented for the entire month. It is a small place, with painted wooden staves and walls laid with white stone that keeps the blistering summer heat out. Grapevines knit a natural shade along the eaves in the outer courtyard and apple trees sway in a small garden, branches heavy with fruit. There is a babbling brook nearby and the warm air bears the permanent imprint of the lavender fields that spread out far around them. They tint the landscape purple and green, rippling like fragrant waves under the gentle wind that combs through them every evening. His mother says they are famous worldwide.
None of that impresses Tony at first. He is too young and restless to appreciate the quiet beauty that has his mother so enthralled. He spends two days locked in his room, reading old comics until boredom drives him out to wander the dusty roads with Metallica in his earbuds, taking in a world that moves at a different pace for the first time in his life. What is initially maddening, gradually becomes a welcome respite from exams, exciting new distractions and a million home-brew projects competing for his attention at home. The place is a little pocket of peace that softens his father’s rougher edges and keeps sadness from his mother’s face long enough for her to sit down and actually play the piano in their living room. Things take a brighter turn when he makes friends with the local kids whose loud voices and faster feet present a challenge he has never faced before. His French improves in leaps and bounds that month. His knowledge of French swear words also expands to an unexpected degree as he does his best to keep up with his new friends through the narrow streets of small towns, baked in the relentless summer heat.
Strangely enough, his favorite time of day is when the weather turns.
Tony has never thought much of thunderstorms. When the sky would start to darken in New York, he would simply draw the curtains to keep the persistent knocking of rain on his window to a minimum. Outside, it was merely an annoyance, soaking his clothes and freezing his hands no matter how tightly he clasped his umbrella. The weather is only a passing visitor in a sleepless city where humanity’s hold is strong but here, in the countryside it reigns supreme, casting a spell over its domain like the all-powerful sorcerers from his comic books. The sky boils when the sun starts to dim, dark clouds rolling in from far beyond the horizon and soon enough, they unleash their burden upon their tiny house with a force that seems almost joyful in its savage abandon. The rain falls hard and fast, every drop in its rightful place, seeping into the turf and raking invisible fingers through the apple tree grove. It rumbles foreign words, cracks the vault of the sky with frightening ease and as Tony watches it from his room, his initial fear turns to awe. His breath catches at every lightning strike, every distant roar of thunder sends a chill down his spine. He takes in the sharpness of the ozone that floods the charged air, the sweet scent of lavender that drifts all around him and feels something inexplicable stir in his blood.
A strange urge takes hold of him then. He wants nothing more than to run out the door, against his parents explicit instructions and stand in their courtyard, among the battered apple trees. He wants to let the nameless storm wash over him, seep into his very bones and imbue him with a mere fraction of the power it holds. If he could hold it within his heart, if it burned its secret words across his skin, maybe he could harness it to get his endlessly spinning world under control. Maybe then, when it was time to head back to New York, he could banish the anxiety that stalked the fringes of his every conscious thought and repair the ever-shifting bond between him and his father. Such power, he thinks, cannot be found within, no matter how far and wide he searches his soul. It is something that has to be gifted from above. From some ancient, indomitable force that holds the world together and every once in a while, tugs at its strings to remind humans who was here before them.
Julien, the son of the local priest, says that the storms come from God. Tony does not believe in one. The universe is laid before him as a neat sum of atoms, governed by the laws of physics and that is how he likes it. But even so, every other evening when the sky darkens and cold air kisses the back of his neck, he sidles up to the windowsill of his room in the attic and opens the window to watch the reckless, wild exuberance of the storm. In the end, he never gathers up the courage to sneak outside.
It has been many years since then and he is a child no longer.
The morning sun streams through the loosely pulled blinds of his room in Stark Tower. It rises high in the cloudless sky, indicating that he slept for far too long. He rarely allows himself such indulgences, not by choice, but rather, by design. His inner circadian rhythm is resistant to change and despite long nights and irregular sleeping patterns, his eyes fly open at seven a.m. like a permanently broken clockwork. Today is an exception. Today, the world spins just a little slower and as he rolls over in bed, he understands two things.
He did not in fact, dream up the events of the previous night. And, if the rest of the team remains in Stark Tower, he might have to offer some kind of explanation when he joins them downstairs.
Thor lies beside him, tangled up in bedsheets, blond hair strewn over the pillow. Shadow and sunlight paint stripes over his naked back, rising and falling to the cadence of deep, even breaths. He seems in no hurry to open his eyes when Tony reaches out to pull a messy strand away from them, tracing a tentative path over Thor’s forehead. A mild electric charge tickles his skin, a faint reminder of the spark that rekindled his heart when Loki disappeared with the Tesseract, stranding his brother on Earth. If anyone had told him that those events would lead up to this day, he would have laughed in their face. Such an outcome was absurd, if only because from the moment he saw Thor, a long-forgotten feeling glittered in his memory like buried gold, uncovered by a random stirring of the sea. And when Tony saw him fight beside the Avengers for the first time, the feeling deepened, gripped him ever tighter, until he realized that there was no way back. Just like his younger self, watching the unbound power of nature in southern France, he was spellbound by the storm, drawn to it, like a moth to a brightly burning flame. This time, he would find his courage.
It had only taken him the better half of a year. And he hadn’t even taken the first step. But after all, he is only human.
He rests his head on the pillow and pulls away another strand from Thor’s sleeping face. Even in the creeping autumn chill, he radiates warmth. He smells of petrichor and wild flowers, the scent still lingers upon Tony’s skin like a memory of summer. And yet, in between drinking games, cultural misunderstandings, and many long nights of trading stories, it was not a God he found, but a fellow human. A kindred soul, with similar troubles, skeletons in closets and insecurities that far from pushing Tony away, bound them closer, day after day, month after month. And he lies beside Thor, counting the freckles upon his closed eyelids, he knows that human is better. Human is all he could ever ask for.
The freckled eyelids quiver and flicker open, revealing blue eyes. Thor smiles through the veil of sleep and flicks the last hair strand away from his face. “Morning, Stark,” he says.
A light chuckle escapes Tony as he props himself up on his elbow. “Morning,” he replies, “I believe we are officially on a first-name basis.”