Archive of Our Own ^beta

For all that their bodies are flesh and blood, Aesir are not human. On Asgard, the people have lifespans that are longer, they heal more quickly, and their forms are generally without imperfection.

As an artist, Steve appreciates the aesthetics of Asgardians. They are Greek statue ideal for life model drawing, and there are more pages filled with charcoal smudged renderings of Thor in Steve’s sketchbook than he can count.

As a man, it’s pretty damn intimidating.

Steve’s body is supposed to be the height of what humans are capable of, especially in corporeal form. Steve trains and exercises and eats properly to maintain that, but he’s certainly not without flaws. The serum never erased the scars of childhood inoculations or burns from a cheap kettle, and while it enhanced his muscles and his downtime after an injury is short, there are things about his body Steve wishes he could change.

Number one on the list? His freckles.

An Irish boy who rarely spent time outside as a kid, his pale skin never tanned much. When he did get to play outside, in the narrow window of allergen free summer, Steve’s skin broke out in a pattern of copper spots as soon as the sun touched him.

The gamma rays smoothed his skin tone some, giving him a little more color, something about the radiation altering his melanin levels. But even with the perma tan, Steve never lost the freckles.

Thankfully, they were limited mostly to his cheeks and his back and shoulders, and he was rarely without a shirt in company, never having embraced the ease of his form like Nat and Clint and even Bruce (he doesn’t care that they’re naked, but the reminder of walking into one of Bruce’s yoga sessions still haunts Steve.).

Thor, though. Thor is the worst.

Thor is perfect. (Because, well, see above. Asgardian. Demigod. Perfect.)

And Steve is jealous.

He tries to hold it back, to keep it shoved down inside, because the guy is a hell of a warrior and a brilliant teammate. Thor would give anything for any of them (and has, more than once) and Steve can’t help but feel like a petty jerk for mooning over his damn freckles, and forever jealous over Thor’s miles of perfect golden skin.

Steve can keep his self-conscious anxiety to himself most of the time, does a decent job of forgetting they even exist until someone mentions them.

Then Lensherr unleashes some sticky pollen during a recon mission, something with a slight electromagnetic charge, and that tactic goes out the window. SHIELD claims the stuff will destroy the calibrations on the helicarrier and Tony refuses to let them in the tower, says Jarvis will go haywire with the dust in his midst (even though Steve knows Tony is ACHING to get samples in his lab).

And of course, as luck would have it, Steve and Thor are the only members of their team in radius when Magneto pulls his stunt, so they’re the ones who have to go through the rigorous decontamination process together.

They have to strip right down to the skin, and Steve is thinking less of his freckles and more of the late fall temperatures in Chicago and the breezy tent where SHIELD’s deposited them. (They might have super strength, but speaking for himself, Steve still has blood and nerves and skin that gets cold after prolonged exposure to cold. At least without Stark around, he doesn’t have to endure Capsicle jokes.)

After depositing their clothes and armor in yellow hazmat bags, Steve’s thankful he spent so much time in the company of the Commandos, one of whom or another was always naked. It’s not anyone else’s nudity that bothers him, it really doesn’t. It’s just that right now, it’s Steve and Thor, alone in the room. And there’s nothing else to distract them. Nothing else to focus on. And Thor, being as curious as he always is, of MIdgard and its denizens, and containing a natural affection for his teammates, begins to study Steve.

Steve can feel his eyes as distinctly as fingers running over his flesh, and he starts to squirm under the intensity of Thor’s gaze. Steve starts to talk about whatever pops into his head, the Helicarrier, Fury’s eyepatch, the toast they had for breakfast and Bruce’s recent requests for Earth Balance instead of butter, but Thor won’t stop looking at him and finally Steve just snaps.

"Seriously, we could get a camera in here, I know SHIELD has one."

Thor breaks his intense study of Steve’s body and looks him in the face.

"I apologize, my friend. I was merely transfixed by your markings."

Steve can feel the blush start at his hairline and creep down, until he’s sure his entire body is colored the same crimson as Thor’s cape.

"My markings?"

Thor approaches Steve and lays a single finger on his shoulder blade. Steve’s sure he shivers because the room is freezing, but Thor traces along the line of muscle to stop just at the edge of his spine. ”Here. This cluster looks like a formation off the Dvergar.” His palm sweeps down, stopping at the edge of Steve’s ribcage. “And from the BiFrost, Midgard’s galaxy greatly resembles this one.” And Steve’s not sure if the embarrassment outweighs the awkwardness of Thor’s proximity while they’re both naked and under observation, but he’s trying to be polite, nodding and twisting to try and make out where Thor’s pointing.

Thor circles around him, runs his thumb under Steve’s collarbone. “The winter skies in Jotunheim possess a similar sprinkling of stars.” He quiets for a moment, then steps back, regarding Steve with a mixture of wonder and interest. “You are a fortunate man, Steve.”

"How do you figure?" Steve swallows hard, trying hard to keep his eyes on Thor’s, because if they’re going to talk about bodies and good fortune, Steve’s got a list as long as his arm to share with Thor.

"I’ve never encountered another in all the realms who possesses the heavens on their skin."

Well. Steve had never quite heard his freckles referred to in quite that manner before. His grandma called them angel kisses as a boy and Steve remembers thinking it was sweet of her, but kind of dumb to call anything on a boy kissed by an angel, especially his freckles.

But as someone who had actually seen the heavens describing them as such, that was - it was impressive.

(Later, Thor makes an offhand comment about Steve’s shoulders reminding him of the universe, and Tony says the expanse of them leaves him breathless too, just like outer space. Steve tries to keep a straight face while remembering Thor mapping the view from Asgard with his fingers and his mouth. It doesn’t work.)