Two
Thor sighs heavily as he heaves his bag out of the trunk of his rental. It’s a newer model Benz SUV. If he weren’t such a tall person, he’d probably be into sports cars...but he’s 6’3. He still likes the look of a good luxury SUV though, and he can afford the fee so why not allow himself the one thing while he’s here at home? He’s trying to get through it before it even properly starts. He hasn’t been home to visit his mother’s house…he’ll probably bite the bullet after practice today. He’s been staying with Loki and Sif, and that’s awkward for many a reason.
Today’s the day he returns home after a long stint in the states. As TMZ has reported, he continued to deliver sloppy performances while spending valuable training time trying to win Jane back. And when that didn’t work, she took half of everything and he went on to party and make bad decisions for himself.
He hasn’t set a skate to ice in a little over six months, too busy watching his life spiral down into chaos, unbothered because bottles of alcohol seemed to be permanently attached to his hands. But when he finally got that out of his system—thanks to his brother flying to NYC to give him a good smack to the back of the dome that was accompanied by unyielding nagging—he looked around and noted one thing: none of it matters because nothing feels as rewarding as attacking a program and skating the hell out of it. And all of his hard work feels like it has been blown to hell. Also he’d been wallowing in self pity and people were looking at him as if he were just a shell of his former self—past his prime and unable to return. He’s not even thirty yet, nor is he even pushing it really at a few months to 27. He’d show them, and everyone to ever turn their back on him.
He’d sat on his overpriced couch, realizing none of it meant anything. His name alone held true power once, because it had meant something. He’d been an anchor, once a threshold of greatness. He would get back on the ice, he’d be number one again.
On the return home, he convinced himself this is a part of his life he can control. Reality hit of course, upon the realization that he is banned from singles' competition and that he has done nothing that will help an appeal. No one wants him in their locker rooms, their fates left to chance of bad news. His mother is happy to have him home though, and maybe he’s using this as an excuse for some free ice time, but whatever.
The rumors ran rampant after his fateful ‘14 Olympics skate, and he’s never addressed it, against his agent’s advice. Now, he has no agent. And the rumors of his meltdown have taken on a life of their own. Most of them are generally on the nose, after the publicized gossip around his divorce. And to his own irritation, he’d come to find out that Jane thinks he cheated on her… with Brunnhilde of all people. He can laugh about it now because he’s almost certain Siegmund wouldn’t even breathe in his direction. There is some grainy pictures of them walking together, his hand on her shoulder. He remembers she nearly tripped over her own feet and he was practically holding her up when the picture was taken. She has no recollection of it, and he knows this because she walked right by him the next day, talking animatedly with friends.
He’d been ready to blame her, but he couldn’t bring himself to. And he’d had no way of contacting her. Jane granted the small mercy, never coming out publicly with the accusation, pretty severance dealings keeping her happy. She still resents the media attention more than she is angry with him.
Brunnhilde isn’t the reason his relationship fell apart and he’d quickly denied sleeping with her. And he’d been more than a little hurt that there was even room for that kind of doubt in Jane. He is a lot of things, but he’s never been that kind of selfish. In the end, the damage was done. He quickly came to see, Jane didn’t trust him and he hadn’t done enough to fight for it when it counted. He’d drowned himself in his work—when he was happy, sad, angry, even just content, all he’d done was skate. He and Jane would never have skating in common and she’d resented it. Time and time again, in her eyes, he’d chosen his figure skating over her. It didn’t matter that he was retiring for her—he never got the chance to tell her.
And in the end, that did nothing for him either. They were over, forced to see that they’d muscled by on physical attraction and ignored the more important bits. And thus, the beginning of his spiral. Because how stupid had he been to find himself here?
Pushing into the double doors, wiping his feet on the dust mat with a near reverence, his nostrils are hit with the familiar smell of the rink. He doesn’t know how to describe the bite of the ice, or the weird under current of something he doesn’t have a word for. But he knows it. And this place, it somehow feels like home. It’s practically empty at this point, but he can see that the Zamboni has been out already, the ice gleaning. And he huffs heavily when he notes that it’s been carved into already too. The lights are on and there’s a yellow glow coming from upstairs where his mom’s office is perched, getting a birds eye view of the ice. To the left are the bleachers, to the right, a concessions stand he’s sure is bustling whenever there’s a hockey game, and further down, a hall that leads to the lockers and the bathrooms available to onlookers and parents alike.
He tries to think of the last time he’s been to a hockey game. It’s been ages. He’s sure his school coach is still rambling about his build for it. Thor rolls his eyes as he tosses his bag into a bench and plops down. He probably should have played hockey. It seems less fussy.
“It’s rude to arrive and not say hi, you know?” Frigga says in Asgardian, startling him as he’s bent down to put on his black, leather skates.
“Jesus!” He says, startled. He’s wearing a loose necklace with a golden pendant modeled after his first euros medal and it hangs in his face. (When he was 22, it was a big deal, his first major competition win as a senior competitor.) “Please, don’t do that,” he replies in English. She regards him with a raised brow and he huffs. “I understood you, mother. Just… my accent’s a little funny.”
“How funny?” She asks, a small teasing smile threatening him.
“I may as well be speaking Finnish,” he mumbles, rolling his eyes.
Frigga laughs, an explosion that echoes through the rink. It makes him smile and he feels stupid for avoiding her. He pulls her into a hug, kissing her temple. “Hi, Mamma.”
“Hi,” she looks up at him, tsking as she takes his face in her hands. “How you got so tall, I’ll never know.”
He shrugs, looking to the ice, “Were you skating?”
“Nope,” she says, making her way back towards the hall that leads to her office. “Brunnhilde is here.”
The woman of the hour scoffs as she exits the locker room, “Ugh, please, it’s Rue . My mother called me Brunnhilde—who are you talking—“ and she sees him there, by the door; and he’s gargantuan as ever. “ Oh , hi. I didn’t know you were coming today.” She looks at the owner of the rink, her coach, teeth gritted.
After their brief talk a few days before, they hadn’t broached it again and she hadn’t been made aware Thor was returning before she gave an answer.
She looks back at him, noting that he’s staring at her and she has the sudden urge to tame her hair and pull at the sleeves of her rash guard. Fiddling with her gloves, she slides them on as they watch each other. She doesn’t pull at her sleeves, which feels like an accomplishment, and she's otherwise frozen—unable to move to at least shake the man’s hand. For some reason she hasn’t been remembering him, but his awful skate two years ago. Not the incredibly fit man standing before her. He’s cut his hair—thank god—and there’s some slashes of a design that add to his already rugged appearance aided by the full beard he’s rocking. Where others are tall and lean, willowy and maybe even lanky in comparison he’s thick, muscled and sturdy but also with a waist that is unfairly narrow for a man. He certainly appears to have the upper body strength for pairs skating.
Thor approaches rather tentatively, but with a back that’s rod straight so he’s standing at his full height. He easily balances on his skates, even taller in them. “It’s good to see you too. How long’s it been?” His voice is deep and warm. A lesser woman would shiver at the sound of it. It seems to echo in the otherwise dead silence of the rink.
For his part, he seems just as enthralled by her face as she is with his, staring just as attentively. Blue meet soft brown, and he’ll deny that his heart is hammering in his chest.
Rue shrugs, feeling herself swallowing thickly. “Couple years.”
When did he get so attractive and why was her cursed body taking note of it? She looks over at his mother, the older woman smiling knowingly between them. She’d felt the jolt of whatever just washed over the two of them.
“I told her you’re looking for a partner,” Frigga finally says, putting them both out of their misery.
“What?” He actually has the gall to sound shocked at this. “Why? I’m not—“
“You’re not?” Rue asks, confused.
“Well, I am but—“
“But what?” Frigga asks, “You want to skate, you can’t compete in singles and this—“
“But we haven’t exhausted all other—“
“Your career is currently in shambles,” Frigga cuts him off, staring at him with gesturing hands, waiting for a good response. She’s won and he sighs. “Rue here, is thinking about making a singles return or… a pairs debut. She hasn’t decided.”
Apart from his initial embarrassment to have had this discussion in front of Rue to begin with, he’s shocked she’s considering the offer. It’s not much. And he knows how good she is on her own. She’s one of nine women that have completed a triple axel, only the third to do so at the Olympics. The three and a half rotations is notoriously tricky to pull off, and she lands it consistently, with a bright smile and victorious celebration afterwards. Two of them won her a singles gold medal in 2014. The woman is talented. And apart from her unfortunate knee injury last year, there’s been no indication that she can’t make it to 2018’s event, in the next year and a half. She’s nearly four years older than him, but there will be older women competing. It’s not unheard of, moving on to pairs and even back to singles.
“That’s right, I haven’t decided,” Rue shrugs again when he looks at her. “Not sure I should tie myself to you, pretty boy.”
He hums, “That’s fair,” he turns abruptly, pressing on out onto the ice. He’s not one for starting slow with… swizzles or something, no he breaks out into a speed as he rounds the ice. He missed it.
Rue is used to watching the Borsens skate. Frigga is all grace, easy lines and beautiful spins that she tries to instill in all of her pupils. Loki is all for the drama—with dramatic outfits to boot—but Thor… He’s power with unadulterated athletics that are both heartstopping and jaw dropping. He also deals attacks, strokes of his bladed feet that cut into the ice authoritatively and with the purpose of leaving his mark in it. He makes every rink his and barely ever breathes hard after a program. That’s normal. But now, he’s just speeding around with backward crossovers like a child after they first get a feel for it. And of course he has to throw a double Salchow just to show that he can. He’ll call it a warmup.
She of course, has been skating since 4:30 in the morning trying to convince herself to just go for a jump, the knee can take it. He just throws himself in, head first right off the bat.
“Get out there,” Frigga encourages her. “You know…before everyone else starts hogging the ice…”
“I know what you’re doing,” Rue narrows her eyes at the woman, her second mom. “It’s not going to work. I’m thinking about it. Just ‘cause he’s here doesn’t mean—”
Frigga laughs, “I’m not doing anything. You missed skating, remember?”
Rue huffs, adjusting her messy bun before getting back out on the ice.
“I forget how much you love to show off!” She calls after Thor, holding her hands on her hips as she skids to a stop, back foot anchoring her down.
He skids to a stop the same way she has, but stays a few paces away. “I’m all about showing off.” He plays right into the banter, maybe even a little tickled by the fact that she’s not at all afraid to push his buttons a little bit. “You know… you’re a bit of a show off too if I’m remembering correctly.” He doesn’t give her a moment to respond before he shakes his head. “No, couldn’t have been you I remember,” He gives her the most innocent look he can muster, turning and skating backwards. “Nearly falling asleep to your boring classical track is coming back to me.”
(He of course, had skated to Thunderstruck during his last season and she had picked some classical something he doesn't know the name of.)
She guffaws, eyes narrowing before she takes off before him, picking up speed before sweeping her leg out before hitting her own double lutz. She huffs, skating around him in a circle. He claps sarcastically, ignoring that his heart is hammering in his chest now that she’s so much closer to him, and she’d just fearlessly launched herself into the air and landed so cleanly so clearly out to prove she can.
“Your knee bent a little,” He says, nitpicking and he knows it. When he says little, it’s so minute of a bend that only a judge who is looking for something to deduct will go back and look for it. Rue scoffs.
“Thanks for the advice,” she says sardonically, rolling her eyes. He actually smiles at that.
“If you two are done posturing, maybe try some pair skating,” Frigga calls, standing out on the edge of the landing in front of her office. “Keep it simple. Hand-hip. Go on.”
Thor chuckles, offering a hand.
.
.
.
Rue doesn’t blink as his hands touch her waist now, and he finds his place skating behind her. It was rather easy to get the mechanics of skating close to him—as if she’s meant to. He seems to feel the same way, as they find themselves in a hand-hip told. His hand is huge in comparison to hers, though hers seems to fit in his, and the other doesn’t feel all that foreign at her hip.
But she finds herself holding her breath so she won’t breathe him in the way she seems to want to. They move from one end to the other, with her looking down at her feet more than where they’re going. If he decides to, he can let go and launch her directly into the edge of the rinks barrier. But that’s probably an unfair assumption, as he’s being nice to her. It feels much different from Sochi—when he hadn’t even looked at anyone for more than a few seconds. Getting him to go out the one night the team of Asgardians got together must have been like pulling teeth for Loki.
“How are we supposed to know what this should feel like?” Rue asks aloud, as they seemingly lose momentum and he releases his light hold on her—turning to stand in her line of sight, skating circles around her.
“I dunno,” He shrugs, “but I feel good about it?”
“We’ve just been bullshitting for an hour,” She argues. A few synched backward crossovers and a paired arabesque spin is hardly proof they’ll work out in the long run. “Hardly proof I can stand you for an entire practice, or that you won’t enjoy dropping me every once in a while… and who will even coach us?”
“That’ll be me…” Heimdall appears at the edge of the ice, leaning on the barrier with a smile. “And I’m kind of hurt that you didn’t call me, Thor.” He’s of course, not at all that hurt. He knows the arduous back and forth that Thor has gone through with the ISU and pretty much everyone. He's had an eye on the situation, but didn't want to force the issue of focus on his skater. Thor needed to find his way. The younger man, his pupil for all intents and purposes, leans over to give one of the manlier hugs Rue will see in her lifetime.
“You coach pairs?” Rue asks, flummoxed.
“I have in the past, yes. I've been more focused on Thor and Loki over the years but pairs work is not foreign to me,” Heimdall says, greeting her with an extended hand.
“Ah, yes,” Thor leans his hip on the wall, “Well Rue here hasn’t decided if she wants to take on the task of getting the ISU to like me again.”
“I don’t blame her,” Heimdall chuckles. “Made a real ass of yourself at your last showing.”
Rue snorts as Thor rolls his eyes good-naturedly. She can’t figure out why she ever thought Thor was unapproachable. The man hasn’t tried to defend himself at all today. He seems to think she’s his last hope. Or at least, that is the vibe. And maybe she’s decided.
“I don’t think I have much else of a choice,” She finds herself saying. Part of her knew she’d say yes all along. But it doesn’t stop her from thinking she still has unfinished business in singles competition.
“I think you look good together,” Heimdall chuckles, quietly noting that Thor is staring at her like she just said she’s the reason the sun rose this morning.
“Are you serious?” He asks, eyes wide. Rue nods.
“Olympics as a pairs skater doesn’t sound that bad…” she shrugs. “And who knows, maybe we’ll land some triple axels.” She screeches as Thor pulls her into his arms, actually laughing a moment later.
He sets her down, hands still on her hips as they slowly glide across the ice. “I really owe you one.”
“You’re definitely going to have a tweet about my return to singles competition,” she jokes.
“Oh my god, done,” he makes a face, shaking his head playfully.
Heimdall looks up where Frigga is perched in her office and gives a thumbs up. The owner smiles. Hope is not lost.
The coach looks at them. “We’ve got some work to do.”