Chapter Text
Deadpool and Thor, God of Thunder, were sitting in a greasy diner at 3am. The pallid fluorescent lights reflected oddly against the waitress’ pale pink uniform, her nametag read “Carol”. She glared at Deadpool who had his boots up on the table and smiled at Thor. She patted him on the head as he sat at the bar with Deadpool as if the god was an oversized puppy that wandered into her diner.
The waitress’ hair was pinned to her head in auburn curls, eyes topped with heavy eyeliner and a thick coating of electric blue eyeshadow, eyes sharp as she looked over the two men.
Wade was humming to himself as he wolfed down a stack of pancakes, long gashes cut through his suit and his flesh slowly stitching together before their eyes. Thor’s cape was ripped and his chainmail was marred with oddly-colored blood but he seemed chipper as he sipped his coffee and consumed his own large portion of biscuits and gravy as if it were an enemy to be defeated.
“Long day eh?” Carol raised her penciled-in eyebrows at the pair.
“Aye.” Thor swallowed an oversized biscuit whole in a move that would have possibly killed a human “There were creatures in the subway.”
“Fuckton of eyes.” Deadpool waved a hand as he rolled a pancake into a syrupy tube and shoved it down his throat in an unintentionally (intentionally?) lewd gesture. “Weird tentacle shit.”
She sighed and leaned over to pour Thor another cup of coffee. “Puh.” she shook her head “Guess I ain’t taking the train home.”
“If thou requirest an escort.” Thor gave her a short half-bow as he sat at the counter. “I am always at your service Carol.”
Carol smiled at him “Well you’re sweet big-guy but I’ve lived in this town forevah I can take care of myself.”
Deadpool swallowed around a huge mouthful of food. “Say Thor I’ve been meaning to ask, how do you know about this place? I thought I was the only one who went to this restaurant.”
Carol rolled her eyes and flipped him off. “Ey fuck you bud.”
Deadpool snickered and did an elaborate jack-in-the-box style raising of his middle finger.
Carol gave him a flat look but one could tell she was trying not to snicker. “Don’t test me boy I swear I will have Miguel piss in the pancake batter.”
A greasy looking fry cook popped over the divide from behind the counter to the kitchen. He waved his spatula like a general preparing for war, his mustache bristling with righteous fury and his eyes sparkling with humor “Don’t think I won’t do it!”
Wade snickered and Thor looked nervously between the two, not quite understanding what was going on.
“Ah...ha?” Thor laughed nervously.
Carol chuckled and patted Thor’s cheek. “Don’t worry hun we’re just teasing.” she pinched Wade’s cheek. “This son of a gun has been going to this joint since it opened.”
Wade smiled and gently batted her hand away. “Yeah and it’s a big surprise to know that another Avenger has been going to the same diner all along, what gives?”
Carol put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “Came in looking for a cup of coffee after a big battle. He tried to get coffee at the “Kinko’s” first and they sent him over here.”
Wade choked on a piece of pancake. “You tried to get coffee at the KINKO’S?”
A tinge of color came to Thor’s cheeks. “Well how am I supposed to know what each store does? They all have brightly colored signs and non-descriptive names like “MC-DON-ALDS” and “RADIO SHACK” and “T-MOBILE” and “DUNKIN’ DONUTS” and they all do different things!”
Wade was still snickering into a pancake. “He tried to get coffee at Kinko’s!”
Deadpool chortled and took out his Spiderman novelty wallet. “Alright Carol, what do I owe you for the grub?”
Thor looked alarmed “Those were worms?”
Carol shrugged “Hell I lost count of how many pancakes you ate. Lets call it 25 bucks for the pancakes and the coffee”
Wade grinned at her. “Oh come on Carol we both know I ate more than 25 bucks worth of pancakes.”
She shrugged and tugged the money out of his hand “You’re a good customer hun!”
Thor watched the money change hands with fascination.
“Well…” Wade looked expectantly at Thor “Pay up and we can blow this popsicle stand…”
“Uhhhh…..pay?....” Thor looked at the money, completely lost.
Carol waved him off “Get outta here kids you don’t owe me nothing more.”
“Wait.” Deadpool looked at Carol. “You don’t make him pay?”
Carol shrugged. “Well he’s always here after he’s saved the world from somethin’ or another, we don’t really mind.”
Deadpool slumped his shoulders and gaped at Carol, completely betrayed. “You won’t even give me free coffee refills anymore and you give him everything for free?”
Carol rolled her eyes. “YOU. Don’t get free coffee refills no more because of that one time you drank all our stock trying to see if someone could die from caffeine.”
Deadpool sighed. “Best 300 cups in my life.”
Carol glared at him. “Well it was the WORST twelve hours of mine!”
Thor looked up at Carol, his eyes wide and puppyish. “...I have been...I have been acting dishonorably?”
Carol swatted Wade’s arm and put her hands to her hips like a put-upon mother. “Now look at what you did, you made him feel bad.”
She looked down at Thor. “Now hun don’t worry about it! We really don’t mind!”
Thor stood up quickly with an air of determination. “No Carol! I shall no longer be dishonorable towards this establishment!” he walked out of the greasy diner and held his hammer aloft. “BY ODIN’S NAME I SHALL PAY MY DEBT TO THEE!!”
A bolt of lighting came from his hammer and shattered a window by the door. Carol yelped and jumped.
Thor grimaced and raised a finger. “I WILL ALSO PAY FOR THAT WINDOW!”
And with that Thor jogged outside, raised his hammer and flew up into the sky.
Miguel the frycook leaned out of the kitchen, gave the glass on the floor and the broken window a flat look and tapped his cigarette on the counter before ducking back into the kitchen. “We really oughta stop serving these weirdos…” he muttered.
Jane was having a perfectly normal dream that Tuesday night at 3am. She was sprawled across the bed in her apartment, face mashed into the pillow, drooling as she snored when the phone rang.
Jane bolted awake with a snort, grumbling and smoothing back her hair. She groped the bed stand for her phone that was blaring the theme song for the 1980’s cartoon “He-Man” which is what Darcy put ironically as her ring tone for Thor.
“Thor.” Jane answered, voice raspy and dry with sleep. “It’s three am. Humans usually sleep around this time.”
“Jane.” Thor answered as he walked down a late night New York sidewalk. Drunks bumbled past the God of Thunder as they went about their bar crawl. “Why did you not tell me that things required CURRENCY?”
Jane laid back dumbfounded on her bed. “...what?...”
Thor waved his hands around. “I had no idea that the green pieces of paper you midgardians pass around was CURRENCY! Paper! Honestly! What value does PAPER or all things have? Or those little rectangles that you slide into things and then you are allowed to take your items?”
Jane squinted at her ceiling, her 3am brain slowly trying to parse out what he was saying. “...are you talking about credit cards?”
“I mean I thought it was simply an odd custom!” Thor continued as he walked with the drunks down the New York city streets. Some idiot tried to pickpocket him and only managed to burn their hand with a stray bolt of electricity that came from the thunder god. Thor didn’t seem to notice and continued. “Like when midgardians all ask each other ‘how are you doing’ and you are obligated to lie and say ‘I am fine’ even if you are not, or why everyone must know the gender of a dog before you speak to it, or why you say ‘what’s up?’ but do not want to know what is above you, or why everyone stops when they see a red light or-”
“Wait!” Jane stopped Thor’s rant “the red light one is actually the law.”
“Ha.” Thor stood in the middle of the crosswalk as cars swerved around him, honking angrily, pointing at the light and giving him rude hand gestures. “Mere lights are not in charge of Thor.”
Jane rubbed her eyes. “You’re doing that thing again where you just stand in the crosswalk to spite the traffic signal again aren’t you?”
Thor looked suspiciously at his phone. A car crashed into Thor, totaling their car as the metal curved around the completely unscathed god. “...no…”
Jane groaned and leaned back on her pillow farther. “So what is this about Thor? You usually don’t care about this kind of thing.”
Thor walked out of the crosswalk, leaving confused and angry drivers in his wake. “I had learned that I had been taking dishonorable advantage of a restaurant. I do not wish to do the dishonorable thing.” Thor said as he walked past the car that had been totaled by smashing into his knees.
Jane shrugged and twirled a piece of her hair. “Well you could always try and find a job to pay them back.
Thor grinned at his phone. “EXCELLANT! WHERE DO I GET A JOB?”
Jane rubbed her temples trying to remember how she found the jobs that got her through grad school. “Uh..you can try an employment agency?”
Thor laughed heartily. “THEN I SHALL VISIT THE EMPLOYMENT AGENCY! THANK YOU JANE AND FARE THEE WELL!”
Jane raised an eyebrow at the phone as Thor abruptly hung up. “Why do I deal with this guy?” She asked herself out loud.
“Cuz’ he’s hot.” came a reply from the doorway and Jane bolted upright in bed only to see Darcy leaning against the frame of the bedroom door with a bowl of cereal in her hands. Darcy poured milk from a carton in her hands on the cereal and began to eat.
“What are you doing in my apartment?” Jane demanded. She threw her hands up in the air.
“Questions. Questions. Questions.” Darcy swung the milk carton sarcastically and walked further into the bedroom. “Why are you in my apartment?” she mimicked sarcastically “More like why do YOU only have whole grain cheerios in your pantry you NERD.”
Darcy wandered into the room and put the carton of milk on Jane’s bedside table. She opened the bedroom window and climbed onto the fire escape with her bowl of cereal. “Bye see you at work monday.” and with that Darcy was gone.
“IT’S TUESDAY!” Jane screamed and flopped back onto her pillows.
God dammit she needed less weird friends.
The employment agency worker looked nervously at the 6 foot-something god that was sitting across from her desk. He was smiling charmingly as she looked over the actual God of thunder’s resume.
God damn it this town was weird.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Um… Mr. Odinson…”
“Please!” The god smiled winningly. “Call me Thor!”
She rubbed her temple. “I’m afraid that ‘battle proficiency’ and ‘hammer weilding’ just aren’t profitable skills in this market.”
Thor’s smile dropped and he shuffled a bit in her seat.
She turned the page on his resume. “...Also you listed Odin the allfather as a reference? I’m afraid that just won’t do…”
Thor put his hands to his hips a bit indignantly. “And pray thee why not?”
She winced not knowing exactly how to word this. “Well the instructions you listed on your resume require technology that Earth just simply isn’t capable of. Also anyone reading this will assume you’re insane. I mean does Odin even have a cell phone?
“Frigga!” Odin called to his wife as he scrolled through social media on a phone that looked as if it had been tossed through a portal and lost to time and space before being found by Odin. What looked to once be a Hello Kitty phone charm before it was dipped in lava swung from the battered device. “Did you enjoy the ‘meme’ I just shared.”
Without pausing her needlework Frigga nodded. “Indeed. It was most amusing husband.”
Odin squinted his one eye at the screen and nodded satisfied. “Yes. Most amusing.”
The interviewer sighed and gave the god’s resume another once-over. ”I mean I could contract you out for private security but I think that might get in the way of your avenging…” She played with a lock of hair nervously trying to come up with a job for the near-immortal “They tend to be hired henchmen and wouldn’t that just make things awkward…”
She looked up at him and closed the resume. “I would suggest working under an assumed name as well, we wouldn’t want too many people getting wind of this.”
Thor nodded seriously. “Aye. I do believe that is wise.”
She smiled and gave him a once-over. “...Do you have any experience with children?”
Thor grinned and nodded happily. “Aye! I spent many a eve with the children of the palace workers! I have much experience.”
She shrugged, she would take what she would get. “Have you ever considered being a nanny?”