THE INCARNATION

Chapter 3: Month Three - House Training

Darcy and Jane watched out of the lab window where Thor now walked towards Isabella's. He had consumed three days' worth of food in one meal and still he had room for lunch out. The sink overflowed with dishes and his dirty socks were strewn from one side of the lab to the other. He didn't even seem to notice.

"Yeah, he's way more expensive than a dog," Darcy said, once he was completely out-of-sight.

"I don't know what to do. My salary can't support his nightly visits to the bar. I've given him a budget, but it's for stuff like clothes. I don't think he has figured out that he can't blow it all in one week like he's been doing. He still needs to get himself clothes and basic necessities, but I don't think he even knows how to do that. He's still wearing my ex's old clothes."

It had been three months and their household guest had lost much of his effervescence and enthusiasm with the passing days. He seemed almost depressed.

"He's getting over the 'honeymoon stage' and he's going straight into the 'shock' stage of 'culture shock," Darcy said. "Don't be surprised if he's angry or moody or demeans everything us lowly earthlings do. That's all part of it. It'll take a long time to get over it and adjust. He's bound to be depressed and lonely. Even after he adjusts, he's gonna get hit with shock all over again if something happens to make him feel homesick or out-of-place."

"Yeah, but what do I do with him? I mean, do I just keep him here forever? He seemed to think his dad was going to bring him home sooner rather than later."

"I thought you liked him."

"I do."

"Oh, I see. Thor's not the only one jumping out of the 'honeymoon' stage and into the 'shock' stage."

"It's not like that… don't look at me like that. Fine. It is. It is completely like that."

SHIELD had given her back her equipment, but none of her data. They had wiped every hard drive and file cabinet until she was quite literally left with a blank slate. She could not support her hypothesis without her evidence and without another magic rainbow bridge opening in the sky, she wasn't likely to gather anymore.

Her dreams had literally come true. She had witnessed an Einstein-Rosen Bridge open up before her with her very eyes. She now had spoken face-to-face with an individual who had travelled it and had been to other realms, other planets, and could give her firsthand information about them. It was beyond her wildest expectations.

But none of it would grant her any additional standing in the scientific community or put bread on the table. She could not lord it over her naysayers or gloat over her theories being proved right. It wasn't fair. It was the word of two astrophysicists, a political sci college student, oh, and the blonde stud who was convinced he was the incarnation of a Norse god trapped in a human body. None of that would carry over into anything she could publish or would stand up under peer-review. Her grant would not be reinstated without results and SHIELD had stolen all of her results. She had till the end of the semester, then she'd be dead in the water.

She clung onto what Darcy called her "pet alien" with both hands as the only tangible piece of evidence that it had not all been wishful thinking or her overwrought imagination. He was still here, still full of tales of realms and stars far from here and eyes that were a more beautiful shade of blue than any man had a right to possess.

She had to believe him. To disregard him would be to undermine herself. But she didn't know what to do with him, or with herself.

Time was quickly running out.

"So, Prince Charming is great," Darcy said. "Until you realize he's kinda like a white elephant whose eating you out of house and home but you can't really use him for anything productive. I mean, besides being pretty to look at and literally being the incarnation of your wildest dreams of the universe coming true. But Prince Charming wants to keep being Prince Charming and he doesn't want to settle into doing chores with Cinderella and having the stepmother breathing down his back… all while maintaining palatial living expenses."

"Yeah, pretty much," Jane said with a sigh.

"Let me talk to him," Darcy said. "I can at least try to make him more useful around here."

ooooo

"The first thing you need to learn is that Pop-Tarts are not food," Darcy Lewis told him. She held up the box in her hand in demonstration and she tossed the box behind her onto the counter. It bounced off of a bag filled with recently purchased provisions from the market and then landed onto the freshly mopped floor. That, too, had been one of the mortal's tedious lessons in "How to Survive on Earth… more specifically with Jane Foster."

Three full moons passed without anything changing. Thor was still trapped on Midgard. Thor was still mortal. Thor still dwelt under the patronage of Lady Jane Foster, Seeker of Stars. And Thor had never, in his entire life, been so humiliated.

Princes did not mop floors. Princes in Asgard could not even be seen holding brooms, or it was a great dishonor and a scandal for both servants and the royal family. Princes could tend wounds or wash off excrement in the aftermath of a battle. It was acceptable to care for horses or exert great efforts on the training grounds. Princes most certainly did not see to the sanitization of latrines and bath houses.

The Lady Darcy was adamant and would not let him escape, no matter how much he protested.

"Thor, you don't have a birth certificate, a Social Security card, a Work Authorization Permit, a Green Card, or even a high school diploma," Darcy said. "You have nothing you need to work legally here. You are the poster child for 'illegal alien.' Did your dad even send you here with any money or, I don't know, a treasure chest of gold and diamonds or something?"

"No."

"Perfect. Back to my point. Thor, if you are going to keep staying here, then you need to do something useful."

"I assist Jane around her lab."

"You gotta do more than that. Look, I have to leave and go back to school soon. Dr. Selvig can't return till Christmas, and honestly, he's not much better than Jane at the basic requirements of 'adulting.' I am going to teach you how to be useful so the pair of you aren't living in a pigsty and surviving off Pop-Tarts and canned ravioli. If you are gonna stay here, then you need to take over my job as intern and do all the stuff around here that I usually do."

Thor didn't know what a "pigsty" was or what "Christmas" was, but he caught on enough to know that the woman he had heretofore considered Jane's personal servant was going away and she expected Thor to take over her duties. Thor was aghast.

"Princes do not do that!"

"It's simple. If you do not clean, then you do not eat. Look, you may be exiled alien royalty, but you aren't royalty here. Yeah, you've been cut off from everyone and everything you've ever known and that sucks. I can't say that I really get it, because I don't, but I'm trying. However, you've had three months of moping and wallowing and hanging out on the roof and you can't keep going on like this. If you can't get back to where you were, then you gotta go forward. You can't keep living like any day you are gonna get raptured back up to the paradise you came from.

"I know, I know. We are some backwater planet you have despised all your life. Cool. I don't care if your princely pants grew up with servants, you don't have servants now and Jane and I are not your maid or your cook or your mother. You can learn to do the dishes and do your own laundry. More importantly, you have nothing better to do than to help Jane and Jane needs help and she's your meal ticket."

For the first time in his life, Thor wished he had Loki's gift of hiding himself from Heimdall's gaze. The thought of their gatekeeper seeing him elbow deep in a wash basin, gloves on his hands, and an apron around his waist while he scrubbed the porcelain tub clean was worse than the time he saw Thor and Loki masquerade as a bridal party to rescue his hammer.

When Darcy was satisfied with his introduction on how to properly clean their domestic sphere, she turned to the preparation of meals. He had tried to retain some dignity and he went hunting for meat for their table. Darcy was less than pleased.

"You skewered a freakin' armadillo. Thor, don't you ever do that again," Darcy said, much angrier than he felt the situation warranted. She refused him to so much as skin his kill and she insisted on burying it behind the storage shed at night when no one could see.

"Thor, you are going to learn to cook and everything you cook will already be dead. If its currently alive and moving, do not feed it to Jane, got it?"

"I do not understand. The meat we prepare and consume was once alive. Why is it different to purchase meat already dead rather than dressing an animal I have hunted?"

"Someday, maybe we can revisit this topic and I can give you a list of appropriate animals to hunt. Today is not that day. If it doesn't come from the grocery store, do not bring it into this house."

He didn't understand, but he reluctantly agreed.

Thus began what Darcy called their "fieldtrip to the grocery store." He did not mind her thorough instruction of how their marketplace was organized. He would have been utterly lost without her explanation of "labels" and "prices" and "checkout stands." Her following lesson in the basic requirements of mortal nutrition and meal preparations he also, begrudgingly, found enlightening.

"Why is a Pop-Tart not considered food? It is consumed and provides energy. Jane considers Pop-Tarts food," he responded. He, also, enjoyed the sweetened tarts and their flaky, sugary surfaces. Not to mention, they did not require much in the way or preparation or clean-up.

"Jane would exist on nothing but coffee and science, if left to herself all day. That's why we exist. Jane pretends she has interns to help with her research. In reality, she has interns to keep her alive. I have to go back to campus and can only visit on weekends. You need to take over as Jane's keeper or you will both starve and I will hold you personally responsible if that happens."

When she caught Thor's frown, she outstretched her hands in his direction placatingly. "Let me put it this way: for you to eat, Jane must have money. Jane gets money from grants. She can only get grants if she stays healthy and focused. She can only do that if she eats well, sleeps regularly, and goes out in the sun, on occasion. Your job, Intern, is to feed her, take her on walks, and put her to bed once every eighteen hours. Can I trust you to do that?"

"I shall do my utmost to ensure the well-being of the good Lady Jane," Thor replied. He did not take oaths lightly and this one was no exception. If such a task was entrusted to him, he would ensure it was fulfilled to the utmost of his abilities, even if it was a role which was far below the station of his birth.

"That's all I'm asking," Darcy replied. She turned to the bags behind her and she withdrew a rectangular box. "Now, back to 'Cooking with Darcy.' This is an egg. Have you seen eggs before?"

"Of course, I have seen eggs before. Most reptiles lay eggs."

"Ummm, yeah, no. No snake or lizard eggs here. This is from a bird. Have you ever seen a chicken?"

"What is a chicken?"

"Do you know the small birds that Farmer Jones keeps? They lay eggs."

"They do not give birth to live young? That is a strange manner of bird."

"Remind me to ask you more about alien birds later. Right now, let me show you how to cook an egg."

She withdrew a series of pots and pans with a clamor and began to demonstrate. Only half the eggs were broken or burned and so she considered it a passing success. When she felt satisfied with his mastery of "boiled" and "scrambled" she moved on to the loaf of bread.

"Alright, let's talk about toast. From there, we can move onto more advanced levels of 'adulting' and discuss spaghetti."

Oooo

Thor did the best he could to fulfill Darcy's expectations for him. Darcy's sudden absence was felt through the broken silence that claimed every afternoon and the pile of stacked dishes that kept growing in the sink. Thor missed her companionship and the blunt patience with which she had overtly instructed him into the basics of 'being mortal.' Jane, when focused on her tasks, sometimes neglected her own basic needs and it was even rarer that she paused long enough to be concerned with his well-being. It's not that her neglect was intentional, but that the Lady Darcy had been so uniquely gifted as an intermediary translator of Midgardian life and etiquette that her loss was all the more acute to Thor. Jane tried to answer his questions and they still spent long hours on the roof top, sharing stories under the stars, but Jane did not have quite as insightful a perspective into the innerworkings of Midgard's people as she did into Midgard's heavens.

He also found the isolation nearly oppressive.

He had spent his entire life in a palace, surrounded by people. Even if his family was occupied, there were courtiers and servants and warriors and craftsmen in abundance. The only time he could remember being entirely alone was during a strengthening exercise in his warrior training when he was forced into solitary confinement as a show of his prowess. He was not like his brother. Loki craved isolation and intentionally sought the forgotten corners and quietest chambers of Asgard in order to be alone. Thor couldn't understand it.

Now, he dwelt only with Jane Foster, and she spent the greater part of her day engrossed in her labors. He genuinely enjoyed her companionship, when she was available to give it. Her mind was as quick and clever as is brother's. She was as ready to share in tales as Thor and her laughter was both warm and contagious. However, she was much occupied and could not be counted on as the sole companion for the idle prince.

Thor attempted to find companionship from other inhabitants of the town. He asked for lessons on Midgardian animal husbandry from Farmer Jones and learned how to drive a tractor. He visited Isabella's so often that she sometimes gave him a broom and told him to "sweep the floor instead of standing around and stealing hearts." He visited Mjolnir with Louis and even went so far as to travel Louis' entire truck route, just to see other roads, other towns, and other rock formations. There wasn't much else to see.

Mostly, he wandered to the local tavern. He could usually find at least a friend or two there and they could spend their time playing Midgardian games and sharing tall-tales. It passed the time and filled part of his growing ache for the home he could not return to. If he could not find companionship there, he could at least partially forget his isolation through the dulling influence of their ale. The ale which he had initially decried for its weakness had grown in strength over the months he dwelt on Midgard. He attributed this to the lack of alternatives with which to compare it and knew that if he were to have access to Asgardian mead, then the Midgardian would not taste anywhere near as strong as it now did.

That is, until the day he drank his usual amount, but had to be carried home and he woke the next day feeling like his head had been beaten with Mjolnir.

"Who has bewitched me?" Thor cried out the next day. "What sorcery is this?"

"It's called a hangover," a very unhappy Jane Foster informed him. "It's what happens when you drink too much."

He thought it was a fluke or due to some adverse reaction to a particular beverage… till the same thing happened again a week later, after ingesting even weaker drinks in even less amounts. He was convinced someone was poisoning his drinks. Jane was convinced he needed to spend less time in the tavern. She was even more adamant on this when he came home after he had started a brawl and was temporarily suspended from the tavern.

"I don't understand what happened," Thor said.

"You broke your hand punching a guy in the face and then he knocked you out," Jane said. "What's there to understand?"

"I did not hit him so very hard and he is a weakling. How could such an unimpressive, poorly formed strike render me unconscious?"

Jane sighed and rubbed at her temples. "What I want to know is why you decided to punch him."

"He insulted me in words I could not understand."

"José said he told you, 'good evening' and then you socked him."

"He is a liar and a coward. I have spoken with the Son of Garcia many a night and he has never said such unintelligible words to me before. He was obviously mocking me."

Jane sighed.

The next time Thor saw José, he could not understand a word out of the man's mouth. For months, Thor had spent hours conversing with the man and had never once struggled to understand him. Now, he could not even greet him properly or inquire into his day.

"Why is he not speaking words that I can understand? What spellwork is he using to confuse the All-Speak?" Thor asked Jane, after they stumbled into José across from the diner.

"Thor, he's speaking in Spanish and not in English. He's never known much English. He told me you've usually conversed with him in Spanish, as fluent as a native speaker, until last week. Then he couldn't understand you at all."

"I have never struggled to understand any number of tongues, regardless of realm. I do not understand what is happening."

Thor only grew more confused when it was not only his ability to understand languages dissipated but the very strength of his body, also, seemed to diminish. He first noticed when his muscles began to shake and quiver when carrying Jane's instruments around the lab. For months, he had helped her carry these same pieces of machinery around without difficulty, now he nearly had to strain to pick them up. He didn't understand what was happening.

"It, uh, appears that you have the strength of a regular man now instead of a superhuman one. Sorry, Thor. I don't think anything is wrong with you. I think you are just adjusting to what it means to be human," Jane said.

The next week, when his nose began leaking fluids and his entire body felt like he had swallowed hot coals, he thought it was the end.

"I'm dying! I do not think I will recover. I feel such anguish in my bones! My joints, they are disintegrating inside me! My head aches and yet I have not overindulged in strong drink. What poison have I ingested?"

"You caught the flu," Jane said. "We call get it. You'll be miserable for a few days, then you'll be fine. You don't even have a fever. Just wait till you catch the stomach flu. Then you'll know true misery."

She gave him what she called "medicine" and ended work early so she could prepare dinner for both of them. Then, they watched movies late into the night, both curled on the couch. He could not remember any of the stories they watched, but he was glad for her presence nearby.

He recovered, as she promised he would, but he came to the deeply unsettling conclusion that the longer he stayed on Midgard, the more mortal he became. Whatever lingering elements of his Aesir form he had retained upon his arrival were gradually evaporating. He realized he did not know how much of his abilities would remain or what else of his old self he would have to part with. It sent him into the greatest sense of turmoil he had yet experienced during his time on Midgard.

It was one thing to be trapped on Midgard when he knew he was the strongest and most skillful warrior around. It was quite another to have the same strength as everyone else… to be susceptible to the untold masses of Midgardian diseases and illnesses… to be bound to only one language and have to learn everything else all over again. He felt more exposed than he ever had before. Exposed and so very, very vulnerable.

It was not a comfortable feeling. He had spent so much of his life gaining his sense of worth from his near invincibility. Who was Thor Odinson without his strength? Without Mjolnir? Without his crown? What else did he have about him to give him value?

He didn't know.

When Jane found him on the roof top that night, he could not even offer her a greeting or a smile and his entire being felt burdened with the weight of his worries.

She began to prepare the fire and then pulled her blanket around her small shoulders. She handed him a cup of hot chocolate and looked at him with all the focused intensity that she typically reserved for the stars.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I am at a loss of what I am to do now," he told her, truthfully. "I miss my home. I do not understand why I am still here."

She sighed deeply and took a long, steaming sip from her cup. Then she took his hands in hers. They were so warm from holding her cup and his hands nearly engulfed all of hers, they were so very much smaller than his.

"Tell me, Thor, what is it that you want to do now? Have you thought about what you will do if you are stuck here for a long time? What if you are here for a year? A decade?"

Thor looked away from her, back out into the open expanse of sky beyond. "I do not want to believe that I will be here that long."

"But if you are?"

"Then I have no idea what I want or even what I should want. I am not even certain I know who I am anymore."

"That makes sense."

"Jane, I am glad it was you who discovered me. You took me in and gave me a home when I had none. Few would be so generous with one such as myself and all my fumblings and mistakes. I appreciate all you have done for me."

"Oh, you could be worse," she said with a laugh.

"I could also be better."

"That's true. However, I haven't always been the patron saint of patience and kindness, either. I really appreciate all you've done around here for me. Since Darcy left, I mean. I know I should thank you for it more, but I forget to say it out loud sometimes. I can spend too much time in my head and forget that the rest of the world around me can't hear my thoughts, no matter how loud I think them. In case I forget to tell you tomorrow, I am very grateful for all you've done for me."

"It is my pleasure, Lady Jane," he said. As soon as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He had found very little pleasure in the duties thrust upon him by Darcy's departure, however he did enjoy feeling useful and less of a burden. He also enjoyed knowing that he was valuable to Jane, even if he felt entirely redundant everywhere else in the Nine Realms.

"I can't imagine all you are feeling or going through," Jane answered. "But I am glad you are still here. You, well, you changed my life for the better and I am so glad you, quite literally, fell from the stars and into my life."

It was only after she spoke that he realized just how close they had encroached in on each other or how long they had failed to look away. It was not the first time he had caught her eyes lingering on him, watching him with a longing he was far too familiar with to misinterpret. He was not surprised, then, when she leaned in and kissed him.

He was a bit more surprised when he found he didn't mind so overmuch and was returning the gesture in kind. If he was to continue indefinitely on Midgard, he could think of worse ways to spend his time than in the arms of a beautiful woman who admired him… and tasted like hot chocolate.

Oooo