Office Hours, Saturday

[ifwebeworthy]

Don hadn't listened to radio. Don probably should have listened to radio. But, well. It wasn't like he or Thor were expecting any visitors, so he'd had an afternoon of surgery after Thor's class yesterday, and then this morning they'd realized they'd need to hold office hours over the weekend and had to figure out how to make that work.

And now here he was, in his office, trying to catch up on some paperwork while he waited to see if anyone's parents would show up.

(Open office hours are open!

Comments

[notaqueenbutaking]

Hey, maybe she was here for them! She wasn't. She super wasn't.

Val nodded, plopping down in a chair to sprawl in it a little. "So, what's the deal here?"

[ifwebeworthy]

"Well, I teach health," Don said, "and practice medicine at a hospital on the mainland." Did he think that was what she was asking about? No, of course not. But she was going to need to be a little more specific.

[notaqueenbutaking]

Which was why she smirked and nodded along with what he said. "You sound like Loki when you do that."

[ifwebeworthy]

"Ew," Don said. You take that back, Valkyrie. You take that back right now.

[notaqueenbutaking]

Shan't!

"I said what I said."

Slippery little shit who managed to do one decent thing in the end.

NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"I'm a creation of the Odinforce that got a little away from him," Don said. "Possibly because of the involvement of Mjolnir. We can't ask Odin, because he's dead, but I definitely wasn't supposed to be as real as I am. Thor and I are bound via Mjolnir, and can only exist one at a time. Does that help any?"

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

"Sounds like the bullshit the Allfather would pull," she said after taking a long while to digest the information. "Well. I'd offer to help a fellow Asgardian, but we have sparing few who know the old ways that well."

Most of who were spared Ragnarök and then Thanos were merely people. Gods sure, but people in comparison to the royal family.

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"I appreciate the offer, but we're...all right. It's not ideal, but it beats dead."

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

She nodded at that in easy acceptance. "Well, feel free to stop by anytime you'd like. We got a fro-yo place that people are pretty excited about."

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"Fro-yo," Don repeated. "In Asgard."

Volstagg would have loved that, Thor said wistfully.

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

"Well, it can't all be roaring fires and haunches of meat," she teased dryly. "Might get a Starbucks next."

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

Don came from the era when Dr. Strange had hidden the Sanctum Sanctorum by disguising it as a Starbucks under construction across the street from another Starbucks, so he just said, "Yeah, that sounds like Starbucks."

Then he said, "Asgard is gone, in my universe. Completely destroyed, in breaking the cycle of Ragnarok. Thor is the only one left."

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

They might actually be some sort of magic. Possibly. She wasn't the expert there!

Valkyrie let out a long sigh at that, losing a little of the relaxed posture. "You broke the cycle. How?"

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"You'd have to ask Thor," Don told her, apologetic. "I was lost in Víðbláinn at the time."

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

"Huh." She tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. A sword in her hand would honestly feel more relaxing than this. "Well, you got one thing wrong. The two of you are both Asgardian. So it's not just the one."

Congrats, you were getting weirdly adopted, Don.

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"I'm human," Don reminded her. "I'm mortal. I came to exist in Long Island." Long Island, for Freyja's sake.

(And Thor had been born in Norway and was murmuring, Are you not a child of Mjolnir? in his ear right this second.)

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

"So?" Valkyrie asked. Because she was pretty much in agreement with Thor there. "Half my people aren't even from this planet, much less Æsir. But Asgard is a people. And those people are survivors."

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

Don thought about saying that he didn't think Valkyrie got to decide that for his universe, but then realized that, of course, Thor did. And he did not want to open the door to getting in an argument with, effectively, himself right now. "I will take that under consideration," he said instead, like some kind of boring middle-grade bureaucrat.

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

"Now you sound like the Allfather," she said, making a face. That was right, you sounded like Odin. (Derogatory)

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

"Ew," Don said again, with more force this time. "That's offensive. Take that back."

Aaaaand Thor was laughing at him.

Re: NFB

[notaqueenbutaking]

Look, he earned that. He earned that.

"Don't act like a know-it-all dick. Easy peasy."

Yep. The last Valkyrie and present King of Asgard was saying 'easy peasy'. Man, had things changed.

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

Thor could never. "You're something else, I hope you know that."

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[notaqueenbutaking]

Val smirked and nodded as she pushed herself up. "Offer to visit's open. Free fro-yo."

Only the finest treasures!

"But I'll be by to chat with Thor tomorrow."

Re: NFB

[ifwebeworthy]

Don did like fro-yo.

"He'll be waiting." And forewarned.