halfpennytumbles: I'm a wretched cliche so I'd love to see Loki or Jane being jealous and possessive because they're both ridiculous entities deeply committed to Being The Best/Only Focus of the Other's Attention.

Xidaer: Isn't paper a precious resource in Asgard? Also learning how to write with something other than a ballpoint pen and no computers! What's a research scientist to do?

Wherein Thor provides unwanted but much needed advice. (Humor/Family. PG.)

"Damn it!"

It is pure luck that Thor overhears a messenger relaying a request (though the messenger conveys it as a demand) for additional scrolls to be brought to the highest palace tower. The fact that he, a Prince of Asgard, intervened with an offer to make the delivery himself, clearly shocked every passerby within hearing.

(Was he truly so arrogant before he fell to Midgard, that the people are stunned by a display of common courtesy? It is a humbling thought. Itshould be one.)

And thus it is also pure luck that Thor overhears Jane Foster's grumbles and lamentations. He finds her wrapped tightly in an embroidered coverlet, small hands poking out from beneath in an effort to hold scroll and quill against the tower's balcony ledge. Each gust of wind pulls firmly at the paper. "This ridiculous thing!"

She jumps when Thor chuckles — and the quill goes flying into the night.

"This is not the most effective location for note-taking," he points out over her stream of expletives.

"I'm not taking notes," she grumbles. "I'm charting the constellations. Which is impossible on… what is this, even? Papyrus? All these technological advances, and you guys don't have laptops?"

"I'll ask Father to direct the research at once." Thor passes the new scrolls; they nearly fall from her hands as she fights to keep the blanket about her shoulders. "May I recommend the observatory? Tables, chairs, fewer breezes, better view — and certainly warmer."

"I would if I could find it."

Thor frowns. "Has Loki not taken you there?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Nope. And he's got about a million excuses to put me off. He's being really cagey about the whole thing."

"Cagey?" Must Midgardians always overcomplicate their speech?

"Um… secretive, kind of. It's really starting to get on my nerves."

Ah.

That fool.

"I will speak to him," he says, resting a hand on Jane Foster's shoulder.

"If it does any good. I don't know why he's being so— it's not like him."

It is exactly like him — with everyone else. And the fact that Jane Foster is not accustomed to such treatment shows how vital it is that Loki not, as Darcy Lewis would say, 'screw this up like a dipshit'. "I will speak to him," Thor repeats. "And I will see to it he listens."

Jane Foster makes a small scoffing noise, as though to continue her protest…

…then she looks up. She studies Thor's face. "You sure?"

"It is the least I can do." And it is. Perhaps he and Darcy Lewis are closer, but Thor has never been ignorant of Jane Foster's many virtues. She is clever, caring, and loyal. He is lucky to know her. "We are friends, are we not?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course we are."

"Then accept my assistance." He winks at her. "It cannot always be Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis who solve the problems."

She laughs. "Yeah, I guess not." Then — to Thor's surprise — she sets aside the scrolls (half blow away immediately) and, after a moment of awkward hesitation, hugs him around the waist. "You're a really great guy," she tells him. "I know I'm not like Darcy — I mean, I don't remember to say things like that very often. But I think it. Just so you know."

"I would never wish for you to be like Darcy Lewis," Thor says honestly, returning the embrace. "Not when you make such an excellent Jane Foster."

It is a good feeling to have a friend who is so different from his many others. As Darcy Lewis says, their Hogwarts is balanced. (Thor attempted to explain this metaphor to Sif, but suspects he only worsened her understanding. Also she seems angry to have been called a badger.)

These pleasant musings do not last for long.

"My apologies," says a mild — and dangerous, to those who know it — voice from the doorway. "Am I interrupting?"

"Not at all." Thor releases Jane Foster and steps back. A single step. He will not be cowed by his brother's irrationality. "We were just speaking of you."

"Were you."

Jane Foster bends to pick up the fallen scrolls, then straightens. When her chin is raised she seems every bit as tall as them. "Yeah, we were. About how I don't know where the observatory is."

Loki tilts his head to the side and smiles. "Oh, is that it?" he answers smoothly. "If I'd but known you planned to star chart tonight… alas, the rooms are not—"

"Loki." Thor fixes his brother with a look — the one he long ago learned from their father. Dismiss my words at your peril. "Tell her how to find the observatory, or I will escort her there myself."

A long moment of silence.

"Take the stairs down five levels." Loki's expression does not waver; his eyes do not leave Thor's. "Follow the corridor to the right. I will join you later."

"Don't bother." For someone who just got what she wanted, Jane Foster appears more irritated than ever. "You obviously don't want to help me if your brother has to twist your arm. I'll work, and you go do… whatever it is you do. Turn something invisible." And she stalks from the tower with her head held high — shedding more scrolls and quills with each step.

Loki half-reaches for her as she passes.

She does not pause.

After the door has shut, Thor says: "You injure no one but yourself by this behavior."

His brother turns on him with a snarl. (He would never have done so before their banishment. Thor suspects this may be better, showing rage rather than swallowing it, as it is better for he himself to express gratitude instead of taking luck and blessings as his due.) "And what would you understand of it?" he growls. "You, with all your strength and your idiotic— or is it something else entirely? Do you wish to know Jane Foster as I do?"

"That is madness."

"Is it? Or is it that you cannot accept I possess something you do not? If you think to take her from me—"

Once he would have reached for his hammer. Instead Thor steps forward and cups the back of Loki's head, as he has since they were children, and says: "I do not believe you think that of me, brother."

At first Loki flinches back — but then, slowly, the imbalance drains from his body. Without it he seems exposed, uncertain. "No," he murmurs. "No, I do not. Pay my words no heed. They were spoken in anger." He crosses to the window ledge, leans out, looks blankly over the city that belongs to them both.

Thor will one day be king of all the realm — and Loki will be there to advise him. But, though Loki may be the quicker of the two, Thor is still his elder. Advisement does not fall solely on his brother's shoulders. Especially on personal matters.

He will help.

When Loki realizes Thor has not departed, he sighs… though he smiles wryly. "It is unwise to be in my company right now, brother."

Thor smiles in return. "Who said I was wise?" (They exchanged these words mere heartbeats ago. Why does it feel like lifetimes?) "I cannot understand why it is you so jealously guard Jane Foster's attention. Two worlds aremore than familiar with your mutual affection. Why are you not satisfied?"

"Perhaps satisfaction isn't in my nature."

And surrender is not in Thor's. "I refuse to see you sabotage the first thing to bring you happiness in decades."

"Happiness? How can this be happiness?" Loki flexes his hands (no, just one hand, only the left) against the balcony rail until his knuckles turn white; the stumbling confession that follows is unlike any his brother has ever granted him before. "I thought the… the… necessity would lessen once we came home — instead it only heightens, and— and it seems I cannot do without her admiration. I demand that she think well of me. It is an utterly unbearable feeling."

"You have made many women think well of you." (Except when Thor also desired the woman in question. Perhaps Loki's immediate fears were notentirely without basis. But they are not callow youths anymore.) "Put your silver tongue to use, brother." A beat. "Er… in manners beyond those you have thus far."

"I assure you, Jane Foster will not respond to conventional wooing."

"Why not? She obviously cares for you."

"Caring is insufficient. I will not tolerate anything less than her requiring my attention as I require hers."

"Then strengthen her esteem by offering what she most desires: a free rein to explore our world as she will."

"Oh, yes, that's brilliant. That's a tremendous idea. And then what am I to do once she no longer needs my guidance?"

"Brother, it is a risk you must take — for if you continue to cage her in, she will certainly grow to resent you."

Loki glances sideways. "You speak with such authority," he says, half-amused, half-contemptuous. "You, who have never even attempted to keep a female happy for more than a few sequential nights. What makes Thor so certain he knows better than I?"

Thor claps his brother on the back hard enough to make him stagger. "Because," he replies, "Thor is not the one so pathetically in love."

"What?" He jerks away and raises a warning finger. "No. No, no, no. Don't begin dragging some flight of ridiculous romanticism into this— I suffer only from a very irritating affliction that has resulted from an absurd series of circumstances which have been entirely out of my— will you stop laughing, you oaf!"

Oh, if only such confessions could be viewed in anything other than strictest confidence. Darcy Lewis would adore this. "As you say, Loki." (Always so perceptive about everyone but himself.) "But if my advice fails you, you can always turn to Mother instead. We both know she would be elated to provide her assistance."

And Thor leaves his baby brother sputtering helplessly in the tower.

There truly are innumerable advantages to being the eldest.