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Uncle Thor stands at a rather large, daunting height with all his lean muscle. He is the type of man that people stare at in a mix of fear and awe. One would think that such a man would be intimidating—which he is, but nine year old Wade Wilson only looks up at the towering blonde in utter admiration.
And maybe the intimidation factor loses some of its merit when Thor scoops Peter into a gleeful hug, a large grin curving on his face. Peter, of course, is excited to see the fun uncle. The one that’ll take him on all the obscenely large roller coasters and lets him eat junk food until his stomach feels like it’ll burst.
Granted, his parents don’t always approve of Thor’s lax approach, but they know he’s safe and only sigh and scold them both. (The rest of his uncles and aunts once argued who did the kicked puppy look better: Thor or little Peter.)
“Your uncle is so cool,” Wade whispers excitedly. He’s practically bouncing, eyes bright and fixated on the large man driving them to their ‘date’. Peter nods next to him; his uncle is pretty much the coolest guy. Besides his dads.
When Tony had jokingly suggested that Thor chaperone the two kids, he hadn’t realized how well that would actually work out. Being that both he and Steve were working, and neither wanted to deal with Wade for an extended period of time, it had been better if someone else were to take them.
Thor, though working towards his father’s corporation, has an immense amount of free time to spend with his god son. And avoiding Loki who refuses to have fun with him and insists upon making him work.
The venue of choice ends up being a generic indoor playground with ticket machines and sticky seats. Which, in the eyes of children, is the best damn thing ever because Peter and Wade only see the overpriced prizes (with the currency of tickets) and a ball pit that appears to be endless.
Then again, Thor hasn’t really grown out of his inner child either.
“Can we go play in the arcade?” Peter asks, looking up at the adult of their trio once they’ve paid for entering.
“That sounds like a great idea!” Thor grins back at him, and Wade may have swooned a little. It’s almost questionable who he has the crush on, really. But Peter looks over at him with a shy but eager smile and Wade instantly beams, grabbing his hand.
One fight with the token dispenser and a credit card later, Thor divides the tarnished metal between the three of them and lets them run off towards the videogame machines.
“I want to play that,” Wade declares, pointing towards the game occupied by older kids killing zombies with plastic red and blue guns. His fingers curl tighter around Peter’s, dragging him towards the machine despite that Peter really doesn’t want to bother older kids who seem far too engrossed in the game to give it up.
For a nine year old, Wade is something of a tornado both destructive and in that everyone knows when he enters a room. Which is one of the qualities that Peter likes about him, really; he thinks Wade is brave and cool. But that doesn’t mean he’s not stupid for approaching battles that no kid should try.
It’s either sheer luck or some superhuman ability that the kid doesn’t ever back down and ends up winning.
“Wade, we can just play something else, it’s fine,” Peter mumbles, tugging on his hand.
Wade doesn’t listen. “This gives you like a billion tickets though! Which is so much better than those other baby games like rolling dumb balls into holes.”
Peter sighs and hides behind him slightly as he approaches them. There’s three of the boys who look to be about twelve or so with a good head of height on the both of them. Wade should be afraid of them judging by the natural order of the foodchain of middle schoolers, but he just firmly plants himself next to them.
“We want to play. You guys are really bad at this. I’m a lot better.”
Peter wants to sink into the floor.
“Go away, kiddo.” One of the older boys, a redhead with a lazy grin before being interrupted looks towards them, obviously annoyed by Wade’s intrusion.
“Seriously. Don’t you know what a headshot is? You’re so bad at this, I bet you’ve never even shot a real gun. I have, my dad has tons of them but he’s sort of a jerk so it’s not as cool,” The nine year old rambles on until the flashing lights of the game pause and the three boys stop and turn towards them.
“If we go away will you shut up?” One of the other boys says, a mop of blonde hair falling into his eyes. He looks like he’s going to explode, like of Wade’s energy is only going to set him off and Peter really doesn’t want to be in the crossfire should that happen.
“Nope! But I’ll be better than you!” Wade isn’t even phased by the threatening glare aimed at him by the blonde.
The tension between the two is almost palpable as far as what they would consider a fight at their age. Peter swallows dryly, about to tell him that they should really just leave when the brunette of the older boys sighs and grabs the blonde by the arm. “Alex, he’s like ten. And to his credit, you do suck at this.”
“But Hank,” Alex huffs, and if it weren’t following such an intense glare, it may have even be classified as a whine. The redhead laughs, apparently agreeing with the brunette and steps away from the machine. Hank gives him another push and an expecting glance until Alex mutters a “whatever” and storms off towards the ticket counter, his friends at his heels.
Wade grins smugly, hopping up on the slight step. “Told you. I win. What a bunch of losers.”
Peter is still taken aback by the whole ordeal, but lets him hand him the blue gun and slide the tokens into the machine. It’s not a special game; the graphics are low quality and the sound effects are beyond corny. But Wade had been right about the copious amounts of tickets that it spews out at them.
“Why are the tickets so important?” Peter asks, taking the bundle of tangled tickets from him, careful not to step on the trail leading back to the machine. He had liked the prizes at the counter, but they really weren’t anything that called for picking fights and near death experiences.
Wade pauses and shrugs. “You really liked that Batman bat, so I’m getting it for you,” he says matter-of-factly, pointing towards the counter. Peter smiles a little, thinking it had actually been really sweet despite that Wade had gone and been a borderline bully to impress him.
They hand the tickets to the bored teenager at the counter, pressing their hands against the glass case as they bounce in anticipation. It’s a bit anticlimactic when the bat comes in a small plastic package unlike the already inflated one hanging against the wall on display. But Wade proudly hands it to him anyway.
“You still have 25 tickets left,” the teenager says, more obligatory than actually caring.
The older boy scans the glass case for a long moment. “There. Red.”
He points to a bucket of assorted color plastic rings, presumably for the girls judging by the flower patterns and butterflies. The red one, however, is adorned with a little plastic heart at the top.
“Here,” Wade grabs Peter’s hand, roughly shoving the red plastic onto his ring finger, “This means we’ll get married okay? You just have to promise to make me tacos.”
Peter giggles, admiring the ring like it’s a precious metal. He leans up on his tiptoes, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “Dad and Pop might have to help because I can’t even use the oven yet.”
“Meh. I’ll marry you anyways.”
“You’re stupid. Pop says you’re supposed to get down on one knee,” Peter laughs.
Wade wrinkles his nose in distaste. “I like you, but that’s weird.”
“Yea, it is,” Peter agrees, happy with his presents. Both decide that they’re hungry, though, and run off in search for Uncle Thor who is much more capable of inflating blow up bats than them.
.
.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Thor spins around on his heels at the familiar voice, grinning sheepishly like a child who has gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar before dinner. Or rather, a child playing skeet ball. “Chaperoning?”
Loki looks around before raising a skeptical brow. “Really?”
“Tony and Steve’s kid. You’ve met him,” Thor says, his argument really starting to look shaky with a lack of children to babysit around him. Especially when he had been found playing arcade games instead of actually watching the children.
In his defense, he had racked up an impressive amount of tickets.
“You can’t just ignore your job, Thor.” Loki sounds exasperated, the voice that Thor is used to enough to add the mental rant that will accompany it. The rants that are often too well worded and having him feel guilty by the end.
His hair is slicked back neatly, it’s an attractive style but Thor really wouldn’t mind messing it up and running his fingers through it. Or tearing off that nice suit of his. If anything, Loki is the one who looks out of place wearing business attire in a children’s playground.
The blonde offers the pile of paper tickets to him in a makeshift gesture of peace. “I’ll buy you something from the counter, like when we were kids? And lunch. We’re getting pizza.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Loki mutters, crossing his arms and looking away. Thor smiles to himself, knowing that he’s more affected by it than he’ll let on. “But someone has to keep you in line so you’re not playing kid’s games all day.”
Thor laughs, a booming, cheerful noise. He slings an arm around the other’s shoulders—who then squirms and complains that he’s going to mess up his suit, and honestly Thor you’re not ten.
.
.
The children finally manage to reunite with Thor and the newcomer in search of food, providing Thor with proof that he actually is babysitting. And then explains they’re on a date, to which Loki scoffs at.
“Is that your boyfriend?” Peter asks innocently, still clutching the deflated bat to his chest.
“No.”
“Yes.”
They answer at the same time, Thor grinning and Loki trying to move as far away from the blonde as possible with his arm still around his shoulder. Peter and Wade exchange a glance, thinking that grown ups are weird about who they like.
Regardless, Thor’s not-boyfriend boyfriend ends up crammed into the sticky leather seats with the rest of them, wiping grease off of his pizza. The Wade child gets on his nerves constantly with his lack of inside voice and constant talking.
“Be quiet!” Loki finally says from across the table, feeling an incoming headache.
“YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!” Wade shouts, pointing the now inflated bat towards him.
Thor has to stop him from throttling the child before he can return him home.