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“Here, have one.”
The girl’s fingers close tentatively over the fruit tucked into her palm. It is almost too big for her hand, round and a bit soft to the touch. Thor watches her slowly bring it up to her face, examining the faint green stripes that run over smooth, golden skin. Its fragrant, slightly flowery scent breaks through a million other smells drifting around the bustling market. Love wrinkles her nose as she looks up at him with her big, rain-colored eyes.
“What is it?” she asks.
“It’s a moonfruit.” Thor clutches her other hand and gently pulls her close as a horned beast pushes its way along the narrow street, dragging an overloaded cart. “It grows on the Raulia system across all cycles but I hear it’s best right before the third solstice. That’s when you can eat it even with the skin on.”
The horned beast brays with effort and snorts in the humid air as it lumbers on. Love eyes it with a mixture of disgust and fascination before returning her attention to the fruit. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to eat random stuff on random planets. In case my body rejects it.”
She rattles off the last few words with the monotony of someone who is sick of hearing them. Thor snickers and steps into a wider street lined with more busy stalls, beckoning her to follow. “It’s not random stuff. You’ve had it before. It was just the dried kind.”
Love purses her lips in deep thought, staring at the fragrant object as if she’s trying to see her fortune within it. After a while, her face lights up and she aims a triumphant look at Thor. “Yes! It’s the yellow stripes in the jar above the fridge! The ones that kinda feel like leather.”
Thor nods as his thoughts drift guiltily towards his own stash under his bed. Candy is hard to come by on the road and most worlds don’t even know the meaning of the word. Asgard certainly didn’t care for it. The most decadent thing the nobles would allow to touch their lips were slabs of crushed nuts coated in a thin layer of honey. The Alfheim Elves drank a delicate, silky nectar brewed from mountain flowers that carried just a hint of sweetness. The Dwarven boiled confections made from some dark, brown syrup were the first thing he tried that were truly transcendental. That is, until he landed on Midgard and had his first bite of something called chocolate.
Love is still looking at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as if expecting praise for her cleverness. Thor ruffles her braided hair, trying not to ruin his hard work too much. “That’s the one. You like it, right?”
She nods enthusiastically, then narrows her eyes, poking the golden skin of the fruit with her finger. “This one’s weird, though. It feels squishy.”
Thor shrugs as he puts an arm around her bird-like shoulders to help her navigate the growing crowd. In a way, he’s glad Love is finally entering her picky eater phase. Four months ago, when they first settled in their ship, she would raid the pantry every night, ravenously consuming every scrap of food she could find. The very suggestion of rationing or just leaving things for later would reduce her to tears so eventually, Thor decided to forgo every second meal, just so she could have her fill. Her little frenzy lasted the better part of a month until he was finally able to convince her that their supplies were not going anywhere and though money could be tight sometimes, she would never go hungry again. Since then, she has settled on a few favorite foods, including the dried moonfruit sitting atop the refrigerator in a vacuum-sealed jar. The fact that she is sticking to the rule of only having one per day fills Thor with inexplicable pride.
He dives into a small square, where a stone fountain is spraying cold mist into the torrid air. “This one is fresh,” he says. “So you can have as many as you want. It’s high time we both had something that isn’t canned.”
He lowers himself on a wooden bench and puts down the heavy sack he’s been carrying over his shoulder. Love hovers next to him, still unsure about the moonfruit. She turns it over a few times, fiddles with its flimsy brown stem, runs her fingers along the bumps lining the green stripes. After giving it one last cautious sniff, she decides to go all in and takes a huge bite, smushing her nose against the soft, golden flesh.
For a moment, she stands very still, sticky, yellow juice running down her chin. After a few moments, she lets out a delighted squeal and begins chewing like a maniac, holding the fruit with both hands like precious, fragile treasure. She devours the rest in more large bites, tapping her feet in a happy dance and swaying enthusiastically from side to side. Soon enough, the only thing left is a large flat seed which she sucks on like a boiled sweet until she is satisfied that no more flavor can be extracted from it. When she looks up at Thor again, she is grinning from ear to ear and slightly breathless.
“It’s so good!” she cries. “Why can’t we have them all the time?”
Thor chuckles and hands her a cloth napkin, which she runs over her face, without undoing much of the damage. “Because they spoil very quickly,” he replies. “In fact, we need to go through all of these in a week if we don’t want the ship to smell like rot.”
He aims a meaningful glance at the sack on the ground, where more golden fruits are peeking from between slabs of cheese and cured meat. Love’s excited look wavers and Thor wonders if she was hoping to stretch their provisions for longer. If so, she’s making progress in leaps and bounds but before he can praise her for it, confusion tugs at the stained corners of her mouth.
“But why? Why can’t it last longer?”
“Because it’s alive. And also very delicate. The Raulia system has a very special climate and it cannot grow anywhere else. Trust me, they have tried.”
Love seems to consider it, nibbling at her lower lip, where some strands of moonfruit still sit. “We have those big roots in the lower pantry,” she grumbles. “Those suckers last forever.”
“Some things die quicker than others, kid. That’s why we preserve them. So they can last us longer.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s still tasty, right?” Thor breathes out a long sigh, resting his aching arms on his knees. “The dried version is like a memory. You eat it and you remember how good the real thing was.”
He doesn’t understand why his voice cracks all of a sudden. Or rather, the understanding arrives with a slight delay, like the pain from a masterfully sharpened blade. He looks down and watches the cobblestones blur before his eyes as his throat grows tight and a stinging sensation fills his nose. Frustration twists his stomach, a voice in his head screams to get a grip but by now, it is too late to heed it. A dark gravity tugs at him, freezing his limbs, slowing every thought to a crawl. Somewhere at the edge of perception, where he has shoved every unpleasant thought, Jane’s voice echoes with a clarity he hasn’t heard in months. Maybe if he turns around, she’ll be standing there beside him, cocking her head in a winged helmet and asking him what he is moping about. If he closes his eyes, her presence is so loud it drowns out every other sound.
“Thor? Are you alright?”
The timid apprehension in Love’s voice breaks the spell but his body remains stiff and cold. “Of course,” he manages. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re making a sad face again.”
Thor buries his face in his hands, pushing away fresh tears as he chokes down a bitter chuckle. He really thought he was doing a great job holding himself together, playing the strong, dependable guardian Love needed him to be. He thought getting rid of the booze was enough. That keeping himself busy would vanquish the terrible weight in his chest that threatened to crush him every time he thought of Jane, of Asgard or Earth. He thought he could start over, like with Quill and his crew. That his lifespan allowed for a thousand different lives, running one after another, like the epic poems Loki devoured.
But the heroes of those poems usually died at the end. And, whether for good or for ill, he has to keep on living.
He looks up into the worried face of a girl he has sworn to protect and is overcome by shame. It fades almost instantly when her hot little hand closes over his arm and he knows that he has been a fool. She is smart, incredibly smart and intuitive in a way only little kids can be. There is no point in hiding things from her. He just has to phrase it in a way she’ll understand.
He straightens up and hands her another napkin to finish cleaning herself. “That’s because I miss someone very much,” he says quietly. “You know how you miss your dad?”
She nods, wiping away yellow gunk from her cheeks. “Do you miss your dad too?”
Thor rubs the bridge of his nose as longing and animosity wage war within him. “Yeah, I do,” he admits. “I miss other people too. So many other people...”
“The people from your pictures? The ones you watch at night—?”
She cuts herself off and stares at the ground with guilty eyes. Thor aims a reprobatory glance at her. “You mean when you’re supposed to be sleeping?”
“The light wakes me up sometimes.” She pauses again, shuffling her feet on the dusty cobblestones. “We.... we can watch them together if you want.”
Thor sighs and leans back on the rickety bench. The only spaceship he could afford was half the size of the Benatar and privacy was in short supply. For him, the chance at it only arrived when Love went to sleep and he was free to wander about their tight quarters to tidy up the chaos of a little girl, fix eternally broken parts and flip through radio channels, hunting for news and job opportunities. On particularly slow nights, he would dig into the stash of files he gathered during his time on Earth. Old metal albums, movies he copied from the Tower’s sprawling collection and never got around to watching, articles about New Asgard. And in a separate folder, an endless list of recordings he made with a camera Jane gifted him for their anniversary.
Most of them are of her. A lot of them are of the team, back when they were still searching for the Scepter. They look so young in those images. So hopeful, despite the constant stress. It always takes a while for Thor to remember that two of the people in those reels are dead. The knowledge just refuses to stick in his mind, like a chore he loathes to do.
Three. Three of them are dead. There he goes again.
He runs an unsteady hand through a mess of tangled hair that has been growing longer and longer. “They are just home movies,” he replies. “Not terribly exciting. You’d fall asleep halfway through.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
A smirk tugs at Love’s mouth. Her eyes glitter with mischief and somehow, against all logic, she’s the spitting image of Loki. Despite everything, Thor finds himself smiling through the veil of tears as he playfully pushes her away. “You’re a smartass, is what you are,” he mutters. “Taking advantage of an old man like this.”
“You’re not old, you just act like it. Besides, I tell you everything! You should tell me about the people in your pictures. Fair’s fair.”
Thor doesn’t reply, just stares at her at a loss for words. Eventually, she gets bored of waiting and scrambles onto the bench, drawing her skinny knees to her chest. Her body is warm against his, like a kitten curling up beside him and as she huddles closer, the endless lonely void within him begins to shrink. There is no way she could ever understand everything he went through or how much the people in his life meant to him. But perhaps, there is no point in keeping his memories of them only to himself. On Asgard, heroes were remembered in more ways than monuments and statues and taverns named after them. They became stories, told over and over across generations, until their names became engraved upon the fabric of history itself. Jane deserves that. Natasha and Tony deserve that. And when the last Avenger steps into the afterlife, they will deserve that as well.
“Fair enough, kid. Hope you understand what you just signed up for.” Love stirs from her daze, blinking sleepily at the sun and suddenly, Thor can hear his stomach rumbling in tune with hers. “Hey, you know what? I once knew a guy who could eat three boar legs in one sitting. Want to see if we can beat his record?”
“Can we get some bubblies with it?”
Thor raises an eyebrow at the breathless excitement in her voice. Bubblies was what she had enthusiastically dubbed a tart, mud-colored drink the locals made from black bread. The first time Thor took a swig of it, he thought it definitely contained some alcohol, though every kid around town was downing it with reckless abandon and none of their parents seemed to mind. Considering what some Asgardians called “mild enough for children” it was not too bad. On the other hand, they had come here for fresh supplies and Love was a growing girl who should be eating healthy.
But that growing girl is looking at him with wide, rain-colored eyes and he cannot bring himself to disappoint her. So he raises his arms over his head with a loud crack and stands up from the bench, feeling life flow back into his tired bones.
“Sure thing,” he sighs. “So long as you eat a vegetable before you go to bed.