Chapter Summary: A few days after his return from Asgard, Jane takes Thor grocery shopping.

A/N: A collection of ficlets about Thor interacting with things like grocery stores and markets. Set shortly after the end of Thor: The Dark World. Contemporaneous with We Have Joyed To Be Forlorn but that's not in any way required reading.

I know next to nothing about UK grocery stores, so apologies if this is nonsensical in that context.

"Do you have this sort of thing on Asgard?"

Sounding way too amused for his own good, Thor said, "Food?"

Jane flushed. The first thing she'd discovered in the wake of Thor's decision to stay on Earth was that he loved teasing her. It was never excessive or about anything which made her truly self-conscious, but he could be relied upon to rise to the opportunity any time it presented itself.

Fortunately, the second thing she'd discovered was that he didn't mind her taking him to task for it, so she poked him in the side. He accepted her censure with a grunt.

"Grocery stores," she said.

"In the capital, yes." Thor paused to take in the facade of the building looming before them. "Though they do not look like this."

"What do they have outside the capital?"

"Large markets, with stalls or smaller shops that specialize in specific things. We have those in the capital as well, but with the population so large and dense, it helps to have emporiums."

Once again Jane cursed how little time she'd spent on Asgard. So they had supermarkets—did they also have department stores, or something like them? Big retail malls? Or was that kind of retail environment not a thing? If she'd just had a day to wander with minimal supervision she could have learned so much about this alien culture in another galaxy which had actually developed and regularly used point to point interstellar travel, and then—

"Shall we go in?" Thor asked.

Jane tore herself away from musing over might-have-beens and noticed they were getting looks from people maneuvering around them—Thor, really—to go inside. "Yeah, yeah." She snagged a basket as they passed by the stack.

Jane was used to rushing around the store, because she really hated spending any more time in it than necessary, especially when it was this crowded. It became clear this wouldn't work almost immediately, because Thor wanted to examine things and ask her about them. To slow herself down she steered them to the bulk aisle first.

As he watched Jane scoop rice from the bin into a bag, he asked, "Is bargaining over the price allowed, or expected?"

"No. Not in a place like this, anyways. In a market you can try, sometimes they'll be willing to." Jane knotted the bag and tossed it into the cart, and repeated the process with the rolled oats. "Is that a thing in Asgard's markets?"

"In some parts of Asgard it is considered rude not to, but in others, it is not done."

"It's rude to not bargain?"

He nodded. "It is a cultural expectation, particularly among those Æsir who live in the Western Hills. They avoid the capital's emporiums, and only offer their goods in the markets."

"Really? That seems kind of—" Thor raised his eyebrows at her. "—unnecessary? Why not have the prices just, be what they want to receive, and sell their stuff wherever?"

"It is intrinsic in how they interact with one another and the rest of Asgard. If one does not wish to engage with them to do business, there are always other options. There is no need for them to change their ways to suit those who do not care for them."

"I guess, yeah." Jane sighed. "Maybe it just sounds intimidating to me because I'm terrible at negotiating anything." She dropped the bag of oats into the basket.

"I would be happy to negotiate on your behalf if it became necessary."

"Yeah? Are you any good?"

"I am quite skilled." He looked like he was about to continue, and his expression faltered. He cleared his throat. "If not so skilled as others. Still, I am sure I could obtain a fair price for you if haggling were required."

This wasn't the first time his mood had shifted rapidly; it had happened over dinner the other night, and after breakfast on his second day on Earth. She kept meaning to ask him about it, but the grocery store was really not the place for a heart to heart about how he was feeling.

"Be careful," she said, keeping her tone light. "I might take you up on that."

He smiled, and though it was tentative it relieved Jane no end. "I would not mind an opportunity to match wits with a Midgardian vendor," he said.

"In that case we can hit the market tomorrow, and you can help me get a good price on something for my mom to thank her for letting me crash at the house." Jane hefted the basket. "Veggies next."

They started with potatoes. In addition to the bag of King Edwards Jane wanted, they bought one of each other type present—Estima, Romano, and Marabel—so Thor could try them, as well a pair of tropical yams. Next came the onions and garlic.

Thor fingered the brown onion Jane had picked out while she tried to find three good heads of garlic. "And what are these used for?"

"A whole lot of things. They get sweet depending on how you cook them, especially the garlic. You can put them in soups, salads, on sandwiches, roast them with meat..." She shrugged. "They're a really good filler vegetable."

"So you do not eat them raw," Thor said.

"Only if you're crazy." Jane settled on a third head that probably had at least one bad clove, but it was an improvement over the rest and she was tired of sifting through them.

They continued to make their way around the produce section. Any time Jane paused to pick something out Thor would ask her how she chose the right one ("a lot of really gross trial and error") and scrutinize it thoroughly, poking and sniffing and feeling the texture. If she spent more than a few seconds choosing he took to looking at surrounding produce she wasn't buying, careful to use one of the bags when doing so.

A woman who looked old enough to be Jane's grandmother saw him inspecting an unripe banana, and she said, "Their bananas here are terrible." The tight, disapproving set of her features made this a confidence shared for Thor's own good. She had salt and pepper hair in short ringlets, light brown, weathered skin, and faded gray eyes, and was well-armored against the dreary fall weather in heavy slacks and a waterproof jacket.

He looked askance at her, then tilted his head and considered the banana more closely. "This is not how it should look?" he asked, and she peered at him.

"You've never seen a ripe banana before?"

Thor shook his head. She narrowed her eyes. "Just where are you from that they don't have bananas?"

Jane chose to intervene before Thor could reply. She sidled up next to him and handed him the now heavy basket, which he took automatically. "He's from Arizona, in the States," she said. "They don't have bananas there. In the part where he's from."

The woman's eyes widened, and for a panicked moment Jane thought she'd somehow found an old British woman in London who'd been to Arizona at some point in her life. Then the woman frowned, and said, "They don't? How odd, I thought American stores had everything."

Jane gave Thor what she hoped he understood was a Significant Look. His eyes met hers for a moment, and he said, "Where I am from in Arizona, produce is often scarce."

Jane winced inwardly at this escalation in his newly made up past, though thankfully the woman seemed convinced. "Well," she said, and patted his arm. "At least you're in a civilized city now. We've all the bananas you could ever want. But, don't get them here." She gestured out the door. "Go to the market tomorrow—there's bound to be better ones, ones you won't need to wait a week to eat."

"We shall," Thor assured her. "Thank you, madame."

"Oh, you're welcome, dear." She moved on down the aisle to the apples, and Jane heaved a sigh of relief.

"Does Arizona suffer from famine?" Thor said in a low voice as he watched her go.

Jane blinked. "What? Oh, no—well, I mean, some parts are really remote and it's probably hard to get fresh produce in those places. I just figured she'd probably never been there, and it's a place I have been to and can supply information about."

He nodded. "And am I from Arizona now?"

She looked up at him. "Do you want to be? Or do you want to just, tell people who you are?"

"That would depend on whether or not it will make trouble for you."

She hadn't thought of that, and it was a real concern. Either he'd be believed, and so SHIELD would show up, or he wouldn't be, in which case the cops might get called.

Someone reached across Jane for a peach. Grocery store, she reminded herself. Not the place for this. "We can think about it over dinner. Time for the packaged stuff."

If Thor had been interested in the produce, the packaged goods fascinated him. He started reading the labels almost immediately, murmuring under his breath as he did so. Jane kept track of him as she picked out almond butter (a minor extravagance given her meager compensation as a visiting scholar, but it would go a long way on toast and in sandwiches), honey, and beans.

When she came to deposit a few things in the basket she found him considering the array of soups. "Is canned soup a thing in Asgard?"

He nodded. "We have something similar. Though the containers are different. The material is made to be reused, and it is covered in a layer that displays the information on a surface which can be reprogrammed."

Jane stared at him. "You—you use smart paper on your soup cans?"

"Smart paper," Thor said, like he was trying the words out. "I think that is an accurate description for it in your language." He nodded to himself, then looked at her. "There is as little waste as possible then. The empty containers are collected and cleaned, and reprogrammed for their next use." He took a can of soup and contemplated it. "This could be recycled, but it would be more work, I think, to do so."

"But not as expensive to make. I mean, those materials and that technology..." She gestured. "It sounds kind of fancy for a soup can."

Thor shrugged. "They are not so very costly or difficult for us to produce. Is it not better to create as little waste as possible?"

"But what about when you clean the containers?"

"That is a form of waste management my oldest ancestors came to terms with when they were still crossing the stars in their ships."

Jane hardly knew which part of that sentence to react to first. "Ships? Wh—" She stopped when a young woman who'd been standing on the other side of the aisle began sidling away from them with wide eyes. "We're definitely talking about this over dinner. In detail."

Thor held up the can. "Our dinner of tomato soup?"

Jane added it to the basket. "No, that's lunch. Come on, we still need bread, then the meat and dairy and we're out of here."

The next afternoon Darcy came over to help Jane write grants. During a break they ate their lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with Thor, who'd just come back from a who-knew-how-many-miles-long jog.

"By the way," Darcy said between spoonfuls of soup, "we need to come up with some kind of cover for you." She pointed at Thor with her soup spoon. "At least until we can figure out a fake passport or something."

Thor was freshly showered and smelled wonderful and was the precise definition of distracting. Jane wondered how much longer it would be before Darcy left for the day.

"We have done so," he said, and Jane mentally surfaced from her plans for the evening.

Darcy looked between them. "Yeah?"

Thor nodded. "I am to be from Arizona."

Jane was so impressed with how sincere he sounded that she didn't stop him. Darcy gave Jane a sideways glance. "Arizona?" she said.

"Yes." Thor had a bite of his sandwich. "I am fortunate to have moved here, because they are experiencing a banana famine."

Darcy stared at him. "A banana...famine."

Thor was having to work to suppress his smile now. "Yes. Produce is scarce. I assure you it is quite dire."

Darcy looked at Jane. Jane smiled as winningly as she could.

"Well," Darcy said, "that totally does not sound like something an alien made up," and went back to her soup.