I saw this wonderful gem: (windsroad DOT tumblr DOT com /post/174227314792/langernameohnebedeutung) and I couldn't help myself, so have a silly plotless short thingie.
(Yeah, and I probably needed to do something light-hearted after all the IW pain.)
Set mid-Ragnarok.
Five minutes. It took him five minutes to lose Loki in the middle of New York.
Thor cursed under his breath, looking around, fingers tightened on Mjolnir's handle, still disguised as an umbrella. Now that had taken ridiculously little time to happen. He definitely had chosen the wrong moment to try to make up his mind and untangle his conflicting emotions; he was angry with Loki for having deceived him again, but also happy that he was alive after all, but also worried about their Father, stranded somewhere in New York, but also glad that Loki had been decent enough not to kill him, which was admittedly a rather low bar, but still—
Thor forced himself to snap out of it. There was no time for more musings, he had to find Loki before anything happened. He wasn't even sure who was in greater danger now: the New Yorkers or Loki himself.
Fortunately, it took Thor even less time to find Loki—just a few seconds to look back and notice him standing in front of a store a few steps away and apparently not doing anything too malicious, at least not overtly so. And he didn't look like he was trying to run. Letting out something between a sigh of relief and a huff of annoyance, Thor walked up to him.
"Loki, let's go," he said firmly. "I told you there would be no stops or delays—" He paused, noticing Loki's face—his open mouth, raised eyebrows and eyes gleaming with outright awe.
Thor tensed a bit at that. The last time Thor had seen Loki like that was about a hundred or so years ago, when they'd stumbled upon some mysterious staff on one of their many journeys to Nornheim. Loki went on to examine it with greatest care, eager to uncover its exact purpose and origin, but, sadly, he didn't manage to uncover either before it unexpectedly exploded and they both ended up in the healing chambers for about a month.
Off the top of his head, Thor could think of a few other instances of Loki showing such wonder at things, almost each of which ultimately led to some kind of disaster. A rare book on Vanir wind magic, a scarlet-scaled dragon egg, a cursed elvish necklace… In any case, whatever made such an impression on Loki was very likely too powerful and dangerous to just sit in a Midgardian shop. Maybe a brief stop wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"Thor," Loki said, sounding almost breathless, "they are real."
"What is real?" Thor asked and finally looked at the shop's display. At first, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary; just a bunch of Midgardian household appliances, most of which he was already familiar with: a microwave, a toaster, a coffee maker, a—
Oh.
"I cannot believe it." Loki now sounded as if he was trying really hard not to laugh. "All those years I thought it was just a silly fantasy, but—it's not!" Grinning from ear to ear, he looked at Thor, then back at the display, gesturing at a small chocolate fountain.
Tension now completely gone from his body, Thor ran his hands through his hair. He was torn between laughing out loud and rolling his eyes. He could remember all too well how Loki, just a little child back then, had insisted on getting a chocolate fountain on every occasion he could get a present for, before finally having to acknowledge the sad truth that they didn't exist. Or at least weren't known to exist until Thor saw one at one of the many parties Tony Stark kept throwing just for the sake of fun.
Well, at least the world certainly didn't need to be saved from that. Which meant that the stop was completely unnecessary and Thor was starting to get annoyed by Loki's explicit lack of desire to step away from the display.
"Granted, it's not as big as those I dreamed of when I was a child… but it's still wonderful!" Loki continued.
"Alright, but we should go—"
"You know what, I am taking back everything bad I've ever said about Earth—" Loki paused, reconsidering. "Well, not everything, it's still a horrible place. But this—I'm willing to forgive the mortals quite a lot for coming up with this."
"Yes, it's great, it's fantastic, how utterly magnificent. Are you done?" Thor huffed, tapping his foot. "We have something else to do, remember?"
"Yes, yes, I do. But I am getting that." He started toward the shop's door, only to be stopped by Thor putting a hand on his shoulder.
"There's no time for that!" Thor protested.
"A minute or two will not make any difference."
"You don't even have the money!"
One flick of a hand and a subdued flash of green later, Loki was holding a wad of banknotes. "I beg to differ."
"…That's not real money, is it?"
Loki rolled his eyes. "We'll be back in Asgard before they realize it."
"That does not make it right! We're not stealing it!"
"It's not stealing, it's—"
"No, it's stealing." Thor tightened his grip on Loki's shoulder. "And we are not doing that."
"Fine, you don't have to do anything. Just wait here and I will go by myself—"
"I'm not letting you do that either." Thor pointed his Mjolnir umbrella at Loki. "We're leaving. Now."
"I'm not leaving without the fountain." Loki crossed his arms, setting his jaw.
"Yes, you are." Thor poked him in the chest with the umbrella.
Loki groaned, glancing around. "Would you please stop making a scene?" he hissed through his teeth.
"Making a—you're making a scene!" Thor tried to keep his voice down, succeeding only in part. "Because of some stupid chocolate fountain!"
"This is my childhood dream come true! Surely you have enough heart to—"
"At the moment, I don't have enough patience." He poked Loki again. "We are here to find Father and bring him home, not to cater to your fancies."
"But—"
"No—listen—" Thor took a deep breath to calm himself down; out of all the things that could delay them, that was certainly the most ridiculous, and if he didn't put an end to it soon, New York would probably soon experience the worst thunderstorm in decades. "You had three yearsto send someone here and get you a chocolate fountain. You have not done it? Your loss! Time is up. Now, if we find Father, return home, and everything ends well, then maybe, maybe we will consider getting you one, so you can have something to be occupied with in your cell. How about that?"
He noticed how Loki winced at the mention of a cell. "I highly doubt you and Father will be so merciful," he said, frowning.
"Well, we certainly won't be unless you come with me right now."
Loki looked longingly at the fountain, then back at Thor, pondering for a moment.
"Alright," he growled, raising his hands, just as Thor opened his mouth to hurry him up. "But just so you know, I will be expecting a lot of chocolate once this is over."
Night finally fell on the Statesman—or at least, what they perceived to be night, a time when exhaustion finally got the better of the people, drowning out both the anxiety of displacement and the excitement of deliverance. But some passengers still had trouble falling asleep, despite their weariness.
Thor thought that maybe talking to someone would help. At the very least, maybe they could at least pass the time.
The door to Loki's cabin was the first he knocked at. As it turned out, he didn't have to go and try knocking at more. He walked in as soon as Loki told him to enter, and was about to start off with something casual—"how are you," "can't sleep as well, I see," "mind if I join whatever you are doing right now"—but he froze in the doorway, suddenly speechless, as his eye fell upon the contraption Loki was trying to put together on his bed.
"Yes?" Loki looked up from the instruction manual he was holding. "You wanted something, brother?"
"…You didn't," Thor managed to choke out, finally stepping in and closing the door behind him.
"Does it look like I didn't?" Loki indicated the almost assembled chocolate fountain and went back to studying the manual.
"Just when did you—"
"This is not important right now. I have more pressing matters to deal with."
"Like what?"
"Like finding a socket on this ship that would match this plug." Loki picked up the relevant element for emphasis. "Or, failing that, tampering with one. Getting chocolate can be a problem too. Can you imagine that you could find plenty of everything on Sakaar, dishes from all over the universe, strongest drinks, most dangerous drugs, and for a good price too—but chocolate was still as scarce as ice on Muspelheim? Apparently there are only five worlds in the whole known cosmos, where you can find the right plants to make chocolate from—five!" Indignant, he threw his hands up in the air, as if he considered that the universe's greatest downside.
Thor chuckled, shaking his head; he sat on the other side of the bed. "As soon as we reach Earth, you're going back to that shop and either returning it or compensating the owners."
Loki eyed him, and then the fountain, considering. "I'm not returning it."
"Then it's settled. You are paying for it."
"With what, exactly? I do not exactly have much on me. I still got my unit card, but I think my account may be gone. And I doubt they honor unit cards on Earth."
Thor shrugged. "I'm… not sure? We'll see." He picked up some small loose part he didn't know the name of. "Where does this go?"
"Not here and not now." Loki took the part from him, placing it aside for the time being before getting back to work. "What, are you joining my criminal chocolate party?"
"What kind of question is that? I like chocolate too."
Loki grinned at him. "And here I thought I could have it all for myself," he said, his voice tinged with obviously fake regret.
"So, while you're handling the technical issues, should I perhaps see if there's any chocolate on the ship?"
"Already done that. There's none, unless you count what I managed to smuggle out of Sakaar."
"And how much is that?"
"Look behind you."
Thor did and almost choked on a laugh at the sight of a large pile of chocolate bars of various flavors.
"And you said chocolate was scarce in Sakaar!" he noted.
"It is. I simply hoarded as much as I could find." Loki carefully attached the last tier to the rest of the fountain; Thor could help but notice the excited flicker in Loki's eyes as he picked up the complete device, slowly turning it in his hands to look at it from all sides. "And I might have looted the Grandmaster's personal stash as well."
"That should last for a month at least."
Loki gave him a pointed look. "With you and me sharing it? It will probably all be gone tonight."
"I suppose we could be rational and divide it into portions…"
Loki hesitated for a second, but then waved his hand. "You know, no. If we are going to have a chocolate party, let's make it a proper one. Tonight we stuff ourselves and care for nothing else."
"Once we find the right socket," Thor reminded him with a smile.
Loki nodded, smiling back at him. "Right. Once we find the right socket. So let's not waste any more time!" He jumped to his feet, holding the fountain close as if it was a baby. "Let's go looking!"
