This makes story #25 here, and to celebrate, I've devised this little crack!fic, crafted out of a friend asking a rather interesting set of questions: We all know that Thor has a fondness for poptarts, so why hasn't anyone on Midgard introduced him to the wonders of the Poptart Nyan-cat yet? Or if they did, what would he do? Would he try to eat it, since it's part delicious, artificially flavoured dessert? Would he keep it as a pet? Would he think it an abomination of nature and try to smash it with his hammer or strike it with lightning? And where would the Nyan-cat even come from?
The questions were asked, and then an image of Loki's "bag of cats crazy/army of cats/He is a cat and Thor is likewise a big fluffy Golden Retriever" meme popped into my Mind Palace, and then...this happened. I don't have a clear idea of long this story will be, but it's likely to last for at least several chapters.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or places of Marvel's The Avengers or the famous internet phenomenon of Nyan-Cat, but I do own this version of the kitty in question for the purpose of this story.
Rated "T" for mass quantities of mischief, swear words, some violent fight scenes, PTSD flashbacks, and Loki trolling the universe and defying the laws of physics on a regular basis.
Agent Natasha Romanoff had, in her line of work, seen a great many strange and unusual things, including, as of recent years, a giant alien invasion of New York that seemed to have come straight out of the wet dreams of every diehard sci-fi member on the planet.
She had seen gods battle each other in a maelstrom of power strong enough to leave lightning blasting out of the sky and leave every building in the city shaking as people ran pell mell in a mad race to evacuate, screaming, tiny figures seeming like ants in danger of being crushed beneath the heel of some larger force. She had seen a billionaire in a self-made suit of armor fly a nuclear warhead to outter space, in order to protect his city from becoming Ground Zero all over again. She had seen her partner, one of the few people in the universe she might call friend, become possessed by a mad blue energy that led her to fight him, and her instinct to eliminate the threat he posed. She had watched as the organization that called itself S.H.I.E.L.D. brought together some of the world's strangest, most dangerous misfits together to protect their homeworld, even if that meant avenging its smoldering corpse in the end.
But this...this was not her division.
Up on the rooftop of the nearest brownstone several feet away, Agent Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye, was also confused by the rather bizarre sight down below.
"Nat...are you seeing this too?"
The redhead nodded silently, digging her fingernails into her palms to see if the pain would be enough to shock her out of whatever hallucination this was.
Sitting upon the topmost branches of the nearest large tree, the alien would-be-king and mischief god Loki was perched, a long, thin rod of ink-black yew wood dangling carelessly from one slender pianist hand, the runes carved into the wood glowing faintly green, like the hot, dying embers of a witch's fire on a moonlit night.
Unlike the other times that the Avengers had encountered him, Loki appeared completely unconcerned with causing any sort of havoc. He was bereft of his usual golden armor and leathers, and instead was clad in a somewhat more stealthy apparel for New York's "urban jungle sprawl" environment, this one seeming to leave him looking much less like an invading space Viking and much more like a wealthy Bohemian college student with a flair for the 1960's British Invasion punk movement.
But it was not the converse sneakers, the black ripped skinny jeans, or even the artfully-ripped Black Sabbath shirt and dozens of leather armbands and riotous rainbow plethora of mismatched beads and spikes.
It was the completely bizarre creature curled up on his lap, purring loudly. The creature that, at first glance, appeared to be only a rather chubby grey tomcat with short whiskers and pawpads like tiny strawberries.
But both Agents had seen Budapest, and even Budapest had not prepared them to see a cat whose entire torso appeared to be made up of a giant, sprinkle-studded strawberry poptart.