how i met stephen strange

2x2: A Day and A Half

"Thor is a kind soul by nature and never got irritated at anybody, so it was a surprise that he was starting to get sarcastic with Bruce of all people. I didn't believe it when your aunt Val told me."

"If I'm doing it wrong then do it yourself. I'll go collect firewood," Thor says.

Bruce sits down in the dirt, half-heartedly holding up a hand to call Thor back, "No-- Don't be like that."

"Don't be like what? If you're going to be annoyed with me then either do it somewhere else or when I'm not here!" Thor says loudly. Val can sense that it was going to escalate if she didn't intervene, so she quickly walks over to them, stepping between the two men.

"Hey, let's all calm down, yeah?" Val says, placing her hands on Thor's chest to lightly guide him away from Bruce. "Thor, it's hot, right? Let's get some water in you." Bruce huffs and goes back to finishing the tent and Thor follows Val to Bruce's car; Since Jessica took Thor's to the convenience store, they moved the supplies into Bruce's car to keep them at the campsite. Good thing they did since Jessica isn't coming back for a while.

Once the two of them are out of Bruce's earshot, Val asks, "What happened?"

Thor shakes his head, taking a drink of the water she gave him, "Just a minor argument. Nothing much."

"You're my best friend, Thor," Val says, sitting down next to him. "I know when you're lying."

"Turns out, Thor and Bruce haven't been very smooth-sailing for a while. Thor told Val about how the first year actually went pretty well until one of Bruce's co-workers joked about how it's taking them forever to move in together. At first, they'd humoured the thought, until they realised they had very different ideas about how they wanted to go about it. Thor didn't want to move to Bruce's part of the city because he didn't want to live so far from the rest of us. Bruce didn't want to move to our part of the city because it was quite a ways away from Metro-General and his other workplaces. Eventually, the arguments stopped being about moving in and started being about each other."

"Thor, you have got to do something about this! You can't keep arguing forever," Val points out.

Thor struggles to find the words but ultimately settles on, "It's... I don't know what to do, because we've been great for twelve out of the thirteen months we've been together. What if this is just a rough patch that we end up getting over?" Val looks at Bruce, who had completed the tent and was writing in a notebook under its shade.

"Val thought about how different Thor and Bruce were. Bruce was a little bit uptight and tried to keep things the way he knew it to be. Thor was a little more adventurous than that. Bruce spent his free time doing science and math, Thor spent his watching Star Wars. They didn't even live in the same part of the city. She thought about how she was right thirteen months ago."

She says, "One more argument today and you're talking about it, okay? I'm not having you guys ruin Tony's birthday. You planned this camping trip, so please just make sure it doesn't get worse than Jessica getting arrested."

"Fine, I promise. One more fight," Thor mutters. "I'll help Tony finish his tent."

Val nods, saying, "I'll go get firewood. I doubt Jess and Tony will be back in time. Both of you, behave until I get back."

"Fine, yes," Thor replies, tone only slightly irritated. Val knows it's not directed at her and more at how he was going to be alone with Bruce until Val returns. She doesn't know if that makes her feel better or worse.

"I'll get to aunt Val collecting firewood in a while, but I promised you aunt Jessica's part of the story, so here we go. I reached the police station after a peaceful half hour walk. At this point, it was around about 3PM or so."