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In the time since Thanos’ defeat, Thor and Carol had become close friends. It had begun with them sharing their stories of loss, Thor’s of his family (though they’d managed to get Loki back, some mystical gadget Tony had whipped up) and home planet of Asgard, Carol’s of her life on Earth and the world she thought she knew on Hala. It had slowly then evolved into the two sharing their experiences in space, and had then spilled over to them sharing any small thing that happened in their lives. They’d grown to trust each other completely, and were as close as could be, almost like siblings in the way that they’d be supportive one minute, then ruining each other’s lives the next.
Some days they’d completely overrun the Avengers Compound with their antics. Tony had stated multiple times that he was getting sick of paying for the walls they kept breaking. Thor had the decency to apologise, while Carol would simply reply with, “Stop paying for them to get fixed, then. Let the Compound fall apart.”
One day, however, was very eventful for the two friends. It had been a while since Thanos’ defeat, and no beings, earthly or not, had threatened the peace for quite some time. No doubt news of Thanos’ defeat, and death, had scared them off. The Avengers all knew it wouldn’t last, but were all willing to enjoy the peace while it lasts. At this time, Thor was peering at a laptop screen; Tony had recently taught him how to use earth’s tech (he’d tried to teach Carol, too, but she’d scoffed at how far their tech was behind that of the Kree and the Skrulls), and Thor had stumbled across a lot of what his fans wrote on the Internet. Carol chose this moment to wander into the room, the Flerken Goose at her side.
Goose had taken a liking to Fury, that was true, but she’d helped in the Thanos battle in avenging Fury, and had taken a liking to Thor, too. She tended to like roaming between the three of them now, some days spent with Fury, others with Carol and Thor. At that particular moment, Goose seemed to be favouring Carol, climbing onto her lap and curling up to sleep the moment she sat down next to Thor.
“C-53 tech,” Carol said instantly with a snort. “Slow and useless.” Then her eyes fell on what was on the screen. “What are you doing?”
“Midgardians use this odd thing called Twitter. I was interested to see what it was.” Thor’s expression brightened. “Look, there’s an entire tag dedicated to me!”
“I don’t think that’s a good-” Carol began, but it was too late. Thor clicked onto it, and his expression only brightened further as he was bombarded with fanart.
“Look at all of this!” He looked so genuinely happy that Carol couldn’t bring herself to try and stop him. She’d used the tech on earth exactly once and had stumbled across some stuff on the internet that she really wished she hadn’t. And that was without any clue of what she was doing with the tech.
“ Thor’s the most handsome man to walk the earth ,” Thor read aloud. “Midgardians think most highly of me. I am a god, but this is a lot of people dedicating time to me.”
“C-53 civilians and their obsessions over people,” Carol grumbled, stroking Goose, who purred.
“Carol, these midgardians are saying that I could punch them and they would thank me. Do you think they are in need of some help?” Thor looked visibly concerned, and Carol let out what was possibly the biggest sigh in recorded history.
“This was what I was afraid of,” she muttered, looking down at Goose. “Knock some sense into him, would you, Goose?” The Flerken simply replied with a small, cat-like meow before curling up tighter on Carol’s lap.
Thor read another tweet and smiled. “This midgardian claims I am the god of lesbians! I shall immediately become the patron god of lesbians and protect them all!”
“Oh goddamnit,” Carol muttered to Goose, then looked up at Thor. “You can’t possibly protect all the lesbians. Besides, I’m a lesbian and I’m pretty sure I can handle myself.”
Thor didn’t seem shocked to find out that Carol was gay, instead just slinging his arm over her shoulder and smiling. “We can protect the lesbians together!”
Carol muttered another goddamnit in the general direction of Goose. The Flerken promptly dug her claws into Carol’s leg slightly, who completely ignored the warning to mutter, “god fucking damnit.”
Thor turned back to the laptop, read another tweet, made a noise of pure disgust and hatred, and slammed the laptop shut. Carol gently lifted Goose off her lap, then turned so she was properly facing Thor.
“You want to be the patron god of lesbians? Then help me get with Maria.”
Thor made a confused sound. “I thought you two were already together.”
“God no! I’m too much of a pussy to ask her out, and she’s probably too busy trying to raise Monica.” Carol pushed some of her hair out of her face. “I know it sounds dumb. I’m a hero and I’ve taken on entire fleets of Kree ships and yet I can’t even ask a girl out? It’s pathetic.”
“I will help you!” Thor declared loudly, making Goose jump with a startled hiss. Thor turned his head guiltily to the Flerken. “Sorry,” he said, and Goose settled back down.
Carol smiled at him, quickly glancing at the laptop then back at Thor. Hopefully she’d get the chance to destroy the thing later. “So, what’s the game plan?”
“Plan?” Thor looked confused. “Normally I just go in, fight bad guys and come out alive.”
“We’re not fighting bad guys, Thor, we’re getting me a date.”
It was at that moment that Goose stretched, looked up at Carol, gave a very plaintive meow and then, in a matter of seconds, had opened her mouth, snatched the laptop up with a tentacle and swallowed it whole. Carol gave the Flerken a pat.
“Good girl,” she whispered, while Thor looked distraught and began babbling about the many ways Tony would kill him.
Much later that day, Thor claimed to have finally formulated a plan, so Carol allowed him to retrieve Stormbreaker and summon the Bifrost to take them to Maria’s house, who looked very startled to look up from where she and Monica were seated on the porch to see a lot of glowing light and then Carol and Thor were standing before her.
“Aunt Carol!” Monica instantly shot up to run over and give Carol a hug, which she gladly accepted.
“Lieutenant Trouble!” Carol smiled at the girl, well she was now really a woman, who had grown a lot since she’d left to help the Skrulls but not a lot since she’d last seen her, which had been about a week ago.
“Carol, who…?” Maria gestured vaguely to Thor, and Carol instantly looked up.
“Oh, right! Maria, this is Thor, Thor, this is Maria.”
“Thor… as in the Avenger Thor?” Maria’s eyes widened slightly. “You knew Thor and you never introduced me? Goddamn you Carol!”
Carol shrugged, giving Maria a small smile as she did so. “We were kind of busy saving the world, if you remember.”
Thor stepped forward, offering his hand to Maria, who took it. Thor shook her hand roughly, almost violently, as he said, “Nice to meet you, Maria. Carol never shuts up about you.”
Carol instantly shot Thor a glare, but the damage was done. Maria was blushing, which was a feat all of its own, and a small smile played across her features.
“All good things, I hope?” Maria responded after a few moments.
“The best things,” Carol assured her, shooting Thor another glare before following Maria into the house. The three of them went in and had some tea; Thor slowly got to know Maria over the time, and didn’t fail to notice how happy Carol seemed around her. Then Carol excused herself for the bathroom and shot Thor a meaningful glance as she left the room; taking his cue, Thor leaned forward.
“Do you wish to date Carol?”
Maria looked somewhat shocked by the question. “Uh, yeah, I guess?”
“I can make it happen,” Thor said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “For twenty bucks.”
Maria slapped the money down on the table. “Done.”
Thor’s eyes widened. “I was kidding about the money.”
Just then Carol walked back in, and her eyes instantly fell on the money on the table. “What’s going on?”
“Maria would like to go on a date with you,” Thor blurted.
“Were you trying to pay her to go on a date with me?” Carol asked, eyes narrowing.
“Actually I was trying to pay him for offering to get me a date with you,” Maria said, grabbing back her money. Carol glared suspiciously between the two for a moment.
“Alright. Then we’re going out tonight. Now I’ve got to go help Thor get his shit together and get with Bruce.”
Thor began to splutter and blush with embarrassment. “How did you- I never even said- I-”
“Come on ,” Carol said, grabbing Thor by the arm and dragging him from the house, an amused Maria watching on. Thor took them back to the Avengers Compund via the bifrost, still stuttering and blushing.
“God, you’re worse than Tony when I mentioned his crush on Strange,” Carol muttered. “Go look at some fanart on the computer or something while I think of a plan.”
Exactly five minutes later, Carol heard a loud, unmanly scream coming from the room Thor had disappeared into.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Carol muttered, then glanced over at Goose, who got up to follow her into the room. There she found Thor curled up in a corner on the floor, and a computer open on a desk that sat on the opposite wall to Thor, as if the god had scrambled backwards and away from it in a hurry.
“What did you find?” Carol asked, exasperated. Goose gave a small meow from near Carol’s feet, as if asking for permission to eat the computer. “Not yet, Goose.”
“Well I found this thing called ‘fan fiction’ and-”
“And you stumbled across smut,” Carol finished with a sigh. “C-53’s tech really isn’t worth the trouble.”
“Yes but it was me and Bruce!” Thor looked utterly traumatised, and Carol glanced down at Goose.
“Okay, you can eat the computer now, Goose,” she said and the Flerken let out a small meow, then opened her mouth to let the tentacles inside snare the computer and promptly swallowed it whole.
“Stark’s really going to kill me now!” Thor exclaimed, gesturing at Goose then back at where the computer had been, then at Goose, then back to the desk where the computer had been. Carol rolled her eyes.
“You’re a god, for goodness sake,” she said, exasperated. “Face your problems head on.”
“You are right!” Thor exclaimed. “I must inform Bruce of this unfortunate event.”
“Thor no I meant-” Carol began to say, but Thor was already marching out of the room. Figuring she couldn’t stop him, Carol hurried after him, ready to take the opportunity.
“Banner!” Thor yelled as he burst into the startled scientist’s lab. “I have found the most ungodly thing on the whole of the internet.”
“And you’re telling me…?” Bruce looked helplessly over at Carol, confusion written all over his face.
“Smut, Bruce. He found smut.”
“But that is not the most terrible part!” Thor yelled, and Bruce just seemed even more confused. “It was of us!”
Again, Bruce glanced to Carol for help.
“He found a smut fic of you and him.” Then Carol grasped the open door’s doorknob in her hand and waved at them with her free. “Alright, bye!”
She slipped out the room and slammed the door shut; seconds later the two inside heard a click as the door was locked. Bruce and Thor exchanged a look before Bruce threw himself at the door.
“Hey! Let us out!”
“Not until you sort out your shit,” came Carol’s voice from the other side of the door.
Bruce turned back to Thor. “What does she mean, sort out our shit?”
But Thor was huddled on the floor in a corner, rocking back and forth. He looked utterly traumatised.
“Thor? Are you… okay?”
“It was just a normal fic and then…” Thor let out a strangled cry. “This fic must be deleted from existence! Never again shall a single eye be laid upon All Yours .”
Bruce let out the smallest of laughs. “Well, it’s an inaccurate fic anyway. For one I’m ace…”
“Let me guess; the second reason is you don’t like me in that way,” Thor said dejectedly, sounding, and looking, very much like a kicked puppy.
“Oh no, that's actually the only accurate part of that fic,” Bruce said, sounding surprised.
Thor glanced up, something akin to hope sparking in his gaze. “Really?”
“Yep,” Bruce said, returning to the experiment he’d been working on before ?Thor had burst in.
“So does that make us… as you Midgardians say… dating?”
Bruce set down his tools and turned back to Thor. “If you want to, then yes.”
The door opened with a click. “Fucking finally!”