Still Holding On

Chapter 39

It really helps that Loki can shapeshift, because if anybody had seen Tony explain the concept of LEGOs to the guy who just destroyed half the city a few weeks ago, he can imagine he would fall out of the public's favor pretty quickly.

Needless to say, the journey through Target has been an interesting one. Everything Loki's never seen before, he asks Tony to explain to him, and everything he has seen, he marvels at its similarities to Asgard. He hadn't expected to spend nearly as long in this store as they have, and at this rate, he'll be surprised if they get through even half of the mall today. But that's okay; it'll leave the rest of the adventure for another day.

At the moment, Loki is marveling at the office supplies. He finds the concept of a binder fascinating. "It stores paper so efficiently," he raves. "Like a book you can make yourself; much easier than collecting and organizing scrolls for long pieces of writing."

Tony just stands back and watches. He'll provide any explanations he needs to, but until then, he's more than willing to just soak in his excitement. He wishes he enjoyed the mundane world even half as much as Loki does.

Next, Loki picks up a notebook. He runs his fingers down the spiral binding, and a small smile plays at his lips. He opens it up, flips through the first few pages, and closes it again. He puts it back, then picks up another — a composition notebook this time; one of the small, wide-ruled notebooks with no margins and no perforated pages that Tony absolutely despises for all of those reasons.

Loki looks it over, then puts it down, exchanging it for a similar one on the same shelf. This one is college-ruled, so the lines a little bit thinner and, in Tony's opinion, much easier to write on and to read. Loki looks this one over, too.

"It's a notebook," Tony tells him. "You use them to keep your thoughts together in one place – like a binder, but smaller and the paper's already attached."

"I'd assumed as much," Loki says. "Though I can't imagine having enough thoughts to fill this entire book – not ones worth saving, at the least."

"A lot of people use them for actual notes," Tony says. "Like, you know, high schoolers – or, I mean, I've got dozens in my lab full of notes about things I'm working on. They do get filled."

"Hmm," Loki hums. "I can hardly imagine." He looks at the notebook thoughtfully for a few moments, then puts it back on the shelf.

Tony gets an idea. It is, admittedly, a slightly manipulative idea and a huge invasion of privacy, but still, an idea is an idea. It's for the greater good, right? And that makes it okay.

So he looks at Loki and says, "Some people use them for journaling." It sounds innocent enough; just another random factoid about "Midgardian" life for him to soak up. It's really not so innocent.

"Journaling?" Loki repeats, asking for an explanation just the way Tony suspected he would.

"Yeah, like writing down your thoughts and feelings," Tony explains. "Some people use them to write down their dreams."

Loki cocks his head to the side. "That's strange. Why do they do that?"

"It depends," Tony says. "If they're nice dreams or if they're funny or if they're just really fucking weird, it can help you remember them and you can look back at them one day and laugh. And if you have a bad dream, it can be kind of cathartic, you know? You write it down and get it out and then you're done with it. It doesn't have to follow you around all day."

Loki purses his lips, processing that. He turns his attention back to the shelf in front of him. His eyes scan the notebooks until he picks up the full-sized college-ruled one he'd first looked at. He opens it up, looking over the blank lined page, and says, "I think I would like to do that."