Work Text:
The inside of the car was hot, and it did not help that the air was humid outside. The signs all around said they were just exiting Lincoln, Nebraska. The steering wheel was sticky and slick from the sweat coming from Thor’s hands, and his leg ached from driving for so long. Loki was looking out the window quietly, playing with some kind of silver chain that had been a gift for the lady love neither of them dared mention.
“Do you think we’re close?” Loki asked, not bothering to turn his head from the window.
“You’re the witch,” Thor mumbled. “I wish to rest for the night.”
“So much for being a god.” Loki smirked.
“It’s been two days since we slept, brother. We’ve been along this highway for two days.” Thor briefly turned his head to glare. “How do you know where we’re going?”
“She knows.” He set the chain down and pulled the Tesseract out from thin air. “She’ll tell us when to stop.”
“I hate it when you call it Her,” Thor grouched. “It’s not a She.”
“You’re just jealous She likes me better.” Loki held the Tesseract on his lap. “Besides, She’d know where her kin is. It would be just like you and I.”
“She’d better. We need to know where the Power Stone is.” Thor’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The bright little gauge in the car’s dashboard was flickering. The needle was touching E. “Whoever has it better be willing to give it up.”
“She said we’d find it here,” he sighed.
“How can you even talk to that thing?”
“I was once Her Champion once. I knew Her, Thor.” Loki’s jaw tightened. “They don’t choose lightly.”
Thor didn’t understand it. He never understood anything Loki meant when it came to talking about the Infinity Stones and what they supposedly did with sentient beings. His brother had argued at one point that all the Stones were sentient themselves, but he never grasped how that could work. One needed a brain (whether it was filled or not) to be sentient. A little Stone could hardly fit a brain. Instead of picking another exhausted, stress-filled fight, the thunder god simply grouched, “Well, could you ask Her when I should turn?”
In his brother’s hands, the Tesseract glowed brighter for a moment. “Now.”
The car swerved hard. Thor went on for another three minutes, but eventually, the road became nothing but a tall field and the tires started to slow. “Damn this vehicle,” Thor muttered.
“Wait. Wait, Thor, She didn’t say to stop.”
The engine sputtered out. “We have to, Loki, whether She likes it or not!”
And so the car did. The Tesseract glowed brighter and brighter. Loki gaped at the Cube before tentatively reaching for the handle on the car door. “We need to get out, it seems.”
“I’ve gathered that. Where do we go now?” Thor scoffed. “Is there somewhere we can go on foot? Or will She just tell us to disappear into another dimension?” He unbuckled and got out of the car, and Loki followed at a slower pace than either brother really preferred.
“She says we should walk another fifty feet,” his brother said. He tried peering through the corn stalks, but there was nothing but nighttime around them. What time was it? What could it possibly be?
“I am ready to throw Her to the farthest ends of the cosmos.” He growled lowly. “Does She even have a name?”
“Her name is Nwt.” Loki started walking, once again playing with the silver chain. He put the Tesseract back in whatever pocket of space it had been occupying, then began walking without Thor.
“Wait! Loki!”
Thor jogged to catch up with his brother.
He slammed into his back and cursed under his breath.
“By the Allfather,” Loki breathed. “What in the Nine…?”
“Is that…?”
In the middle of the field, in the dead of night, sat a tiny 1995 Winnebago 300 with every light imaginable illuminated. On the outside, a pink garden flag hung from one of the sidings that read Bless This Home in swirling cursive with a poorly-placed ladybug and butterfly. Christmas lights were strung along the outside, and it left you wondering if it was possible that the lights had never really come down in a number of years.
Thor and Loki didn’t know what it was exactly, but they knew that was where they were headed.
“You go first,” Loki said under his breath. “Brawn before beauty.”
Thor grit his teeth and marched onward.
When he reached the front step, he smelled something akin to tobacco and animal urine as well as rusting metals. He had only been without his powers a short while, but he knew he would rather not get hurt by knocking on the peeling door, so he pounded it with his fist.
“Hello?” he called.
There was shuffling and the sound of glass clinking from the inside.
“So he or she is home,” Loki mused. He frowned. “In a place like this, you’d never assume anyone nearby would have even heard of the Power Stone. It should be easy to take it.”
“Would you shut up?”
“Brother, if you’d let me speak for a moment —”
“Lokiiii!”
The door flew open, nearly smacking Thor in the face. Loki barely caught him.
“Hello!” a loud, deep voice greeted them as they scrambled to stand up. It was a voice they had known since they were children. “My boys, I’ve been looking forward to this day!”
The man in front of them was identical to Odin. Of course, there were things that didn’t make any sense: the eye patch was on the other eye, there was a clear smile on this man’s face, and he was willingly wearing clothing with burns, grease stains, and holes riddled through them.
“…Father?” Loki asked warily.
“No! No, no, my boy! Uncle Wodin!” the lookalike corrected. “I suppose your mother finally told you about your dear uncle, hmm? Oh! Where are my manners! Come in, come in!”
Uncle Wodin scurried inside of his mobile home and left the door wide open, so the two brothers carefully stepped inside. The smell of kitty litter and beer filled the air. On the counter, there was a glass ashtray filled with Skittles, M&M’s, and Jelly Belly jelly beans, a half-empty bottle of Diet Coke, and a pitcher with dirt inside of it. It must have been a failed planter, but there wasn’t enough time to study the rotting contents of the mobile home.
Shying away from such a clearly disgusting sight, Thor moved deeper into the tiny home. “What do you mean our mother finally told us? We came here because —”
“Because you were looking for the Power Stone, yes?” Wodin asked, throwing on a zip-up Corn Huskers hoodie and yanking a Woodstsock ball cap over his thinning hair. “I warned my brother that dispersing the Stones would have consequences. He should have just destroyed them if he wasn’t going to distribute them to their proper Champions.”
“Excuse us, but who exactly are you?” Loki asked. He stayed huddled behind Thor, who tried to bat him off as he spoke. “I’ve never heard of you in my life.”
Wodin’s expression never wavered. “Oh, well. I saw that one coming. Poor Bodin never did get over how I gave him the throne rather than let him fight me for it. You know, he was always jealous. I see a lot of him in you, Loki.”
Loki only scrunched up his nose. Neither brother was certain they had heard this supposed uncle correctly. “You mean Odin,” he protested, “don’t you?”
“Of course not! He was named so after our father, Bor, but after he had declared me as the heir to the throne, he dropped the B in shame.” Wodin chuckled happily. “Shall I get you two something to drink before we talk business?”
“We had something before we arrived,” Thor lied. “Where is the Power Stone?”
“Always right to the point, you are.” Wodin smiled. He reached into his minifridge and pulled out a prepackaged bottle without a label. “You want lemonade, yes? You’re fond of Midgardian drinks.” He shoved them into the men’s hands.
“No,” Thor lied once more. “We’re running out of time. We must get to the Power Stone, and our Stone has told us —”
“He’s not Her Champion,” Wodin said, interrupting him again. “Loki, I mean. Look at the young man: he’s no more her Champion than you could possibly be Jane Foster’s husband. It’s feasible, but totally impossible.”
“Now listen here, you —!”
“She tells me she has a Champion waiting,” Loki said, darting Thor a nasty look as if to say Be NICE. “But what of the Power Stone? What of its Champion?”
“Come speak with me, son,” Wodin said. “Neither of you understand true power, do you?”
“True power comes from the heart,” Thor said automatically. “Of course I understand what it is. We’re here to deliver the Stone to its Champion.”
“You’re on the right track.” Wodin eased himself into the booth-slash-nook beside the fridge. “I’d say Heru likes you.”
“Heru?”
“Yes. He’s the reason your father and I disagreed so much, you know. Blasted Bodin couldn’t grasp why an Aesir ‘god’ needed the help of one of the Guardians.” Wodin grunted as he shifted in his seat. “You really haven’t heard of me? Your good, old uncle?”
“No,” Thor and Loki chorused.
“Look in the cabinet, boys, above your head,” he said. “There’s a photo album. Surely you remember the sweaters I’ve knit for you every Yuletide?”
Loki and Thor’s eyes met for a fraction of a second. Another “no.” They had sweaters every Yuletide, but they’d assumed they were from their mother…
Wodin sighed. “My boys,” he hummed. “Your father’s desperately tried to erase me from the family tree. It’s a good thing your mother sent me good pictures of you every now and again.” He curled his index finger. “Quick, quick. Come with the album.”
Thor grabbed it. “Here,” he said, sitting down in the tiny booth. Loki squished in beside him.
Wodin opened it. “I’ve heard you’ve gone this route before?” He meant the timeline repeating.
“Yes,” Thor told him. “How did you know that?”
“Heru has a special relationship with the Guardian of the Time Stone, my boy. She is like His aunt, in a way. You’ll get along with Him well enough, I suppose.” Wodin flipped through the pages. Countless pictures of Loki and Thor as children littered the thick, worn pages. “I never had any children of my own. I hope, during your quest, I can be of some service to you.”
Thor blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Be polite,” Loki scolded. “It’s not his fault we didn’t know he existed.”
“No, no, it’s not that,” Thor snapped softly. “What do you mean I will ‘get along with Him well enough’?”
Wodin pulled off the eye patch to reveal a purple, glowing false eye. “In the other timeline, I assume you do not end up with this,” he said with a knowing smile. “I suspect my yearly trip to Morag goes south there.”
“Morag?”
“A lovely, oceanic planet. You should vacation there. I prefer Midgard, myself, but it’s all a matter of taste.” Wodin shifted some. “I’m growing old, boys. I know your mission is vitally important. Now, shall I give it to you now? Or will you come back for it later?”
“Now.” Thor set his jaw. “Perhaps you could come with us? Or give us more gasoline for our vehicle?”
“I can’t come with you. Not yet.” Wodin smiled. “There are mysterious things in the works. Even I, as a witch, cannot help you with it. When you’ve found all your little friends, come back and find me, hmm? I can tell you every story you wish to hear about your father. Odin, the laughless.”
“I’m sorry,” Loki said. “You’re a witch?”
“Yes. I taught your mother some more advantageous spells.”
“She’s not my mother. I was adopted.”
Wodin’s eye twinkled. “Ah. I see. Well, before you find the Reality Stone, you must confront her about that particular story, my boy, because I believe you have much to learn. But that is for another day.” Wodin took out the Power Stone from his eye socket and held it out to Thor. “Take it, son. You’ll need it.”
“…Now?”
“Oh, certainly. The faster, the better. He’s been impatient.”
“What about our transportation?” Loki asked.
“What is in your possession, young man?”
Loki blushed gently. “Right.” He pulled the Tesseract back out. “Shall we…?”
“I’ll be waiting here for you to return.”
Thor took the Power Stone and stuffed it into his pocket and stood up, which Loki followed suit. “Umm… Yes! Right! Erm, we will see you, Uncle Wodin, and, errr, we’re thankful for the lemonade —”
Wodin shoved the bottles into their hands. “Good!”
“—And we’ll see you soon!”
“That you will! Good luck, boys! Happy hunting!” The older man shuffled off to turn on his radio, which started playing “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. “And be safe!”
“Thank you!”
Loki held the Tesseract tightly to his chest. “Now, Thor,” he murmured. “Before he gives us anything else.”
“Right,” Thor whispered back.
And in a flash, they disappeared from the 1995 Winnebago 300.