"Does everyone wear a cape on Asgard?"
Thor jerks from his pensive state at the sound of the female's voice. "Pardon?" he says, having entirely missed the question.
"The cape," Natasha repeats from where she sits on an ottoman. Tony had called them all over to Stark Tower, but only Natasha and Thor have arrived thus far. "Is it popular attire on your home world?"
Pausing for a moment, Thor wonders why the cape is so strange to the people of Earth. Granted, he has noticed that few other wear capes, and there was Tony's comment of "Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?", but he finds the cape to be perfectly normal. Comfortable, even. He does not make a point of stating the fact aloud, but he likes the way it billows behind him. It makes him feel powerful, and he is a god, so he has the right to feel powerful. He realizes he has not answered Natasha's question.
"Many of us do, yes."
Natasha takes a moment to ponder this. "Why?"
Thor quirks an eyebrow, but continues thinking. Part of him is curious as to why Natasha is bringing this up now, but he supposes that she has the right to ask, because he has never made a point of not answering questions. The other part genuinely wants to respond to her. The issue with that is that he does not really know the reason. Everyone around him back home wore capes, and so he wore capes. But not cape in the plural. Each Asgardian had their own cape, and each was to wear it until outgrown or damaged. He tells Natasha this.
She frowns at him, but it is not an angry frown. It is a meditative frown. Thor has come to notice the differences in her frowns. He considers her multiple frowns, and all of their meanings, and then he recalls the select few times that he has seen her smile. Genuine smiles, that is. Not her "Black Widow" smirk, which usually results in someone getting "beaten to a pulp" (which is a phrase that Steve taught him. Steve likes all of those phrases, for some odd reason. Like the "flying monkeys" comment that Steve was overjoyed to understand. Thor still questions the relationship between monkeys and Clint Barton) or shot or tasered (Thor cringes internally at the thought of being tasered).
Natasha interrupts his musings. "Do you like to wear a cape?"
Thor is struck by the strong urge to laugh. He has learned by now, though, that laughing at Natasha is not a good idea. She flipped Tony last week after he snickered at her for having her T-shirt on backwards. She also growled something to him about "not everyone has a see-through patch on the Aerosmith logo of their shirt", which made Tony laugh harder.
He tamps down the impulse and leans back in his chair. "Yes." Another thought seizes him, and it is out of his mouth before he can properly process it. "Do you like capes?"
Natasha looks startled, and for a moment Thor wants to face-palm (another Steve-ism), but then she relaxes and actually seems pleased that he asked her. She leans back on her hands, the most casual Thor has ever seen her. "I like them," she says simply, but the way she bites her lip slightly tells Thor that she isn't done speaking. "There's something self-assured about capes. Like you know what you're doing, and you're completely confident in yourself. I think it also suggests you're prepared for anything."
Thor mentally agrees with this assessment. He only removes his cape when he isn't expecting a fight, or if he is trying to appear like the rest of the New Mexico population. He does not like to be caught off-guard, though, so the cape rarely leaves his shoulders.
Natasha continues, "I always pictured superheroes in capes." Abruptly, she stops speaking.
Thor glances at her in mild concern. She looks nervous. "Are you all right?" he asks, checking around them to be sure that they aren't under attack.
"Fine," she states.
Thor tilts his head to the side. "What is the matter, then?"
"I was just going to say something a little out-there."
"What does 'out-there' mean?"
"Crazy," Natasha clarifies, waving a hand as if for emphasis. "Weird. Bizarre."
"Ah." Thor nods. "What were you about to say?"
Natasha appears as though she would have rather he forgotten the whole incident. "I was going to say that I never really thought I'd meet a superhero in a cape."
Thor cannot help himself. He laughs out loud.
Natasha looks like she wants to punch him.
"Forgive me, but I was not laughing at you. I was merely laughing at the situation. You are have not only met a superhero. You are friends with one as well, are you not?" Thor has reflected on this subject for a while. At the beginning, he never would have said that he was friends with any of the "Avenger" team. He would have called them allies, and nothing more. But after saving New York from the destruction of Loki, and after a late-night Shawarma adventure, and after many afternoons spent arguing government and movies and the best place for ice cream, Thor found that he would have never used up so many hours on common allies. And so, 'friend' became the term he used.
Natasha hesitates.
"Yes," she says finally, letting a smile show through. "I am friends with one. Several, actually. But only one with a cape."
Thor laughs again, and this time, Natasha joins in. From across the room, the elevator dings open, and Bruce, Steve, and Clint step out. Thor hears Tony's feet running up the stairs, and he's yelling something about "new, clear fishing," to which Bruce is responding to wearily, but amusedly. Steve stands slightly apart, listening to everything with a content look on his face, while Clint still looks like he was just woken up from a nap.
Rising to their feet, still getting over the last vestiges of their laughter, Thor and Natasha go to join the rest of the group.
Not quite sure about that ending, but hey, we'll go with it!
Back from quite a bad bout of writer's block, and hopefully this is satisfactory. I'm hoping to update fairly frequently, but we'll see how it goes, what with school and such.
As always, thank you for reading!
~RR