Bite Sized Bits of Fic

This was it. The last boss was almost dead. Finally, Clint's little, yellow, alien self would be saved from the MiBs by the UFO conspiracy theorists and fly away to safety. He just had to—

"Ah, I see you are nearly victorious."

Thor's voice shocked Clint straight out of his video game fugue like a bucket of ice water. He yelped and dropped his controller, nearly levitating off the couch in the process. "Jesus Christ. We need to put a fucking bell on you, I swear to God."

Thor blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "My apologies. It was not my attention to startle you."

Clint tried to squelch his embarrassment over the fact that Thor, of all the people, had just snuck up on him. It should have been impossible, given it was three in the morning and the Tower great room was dead silent except for the low murmur of the video game on the TV. And yet there he was in a pair of plain jeans and a black t-shirt, standing where he hadn't been thirty seconds ago.

"It's fine, just, you know—walk loud, or something." He ran his hands through his hair. Luckily he hadn't up-ended his root beer and popcorn, but on screen his yellow hominid self was lying dead with Xs for eyes, surrounded by jeering MiBs. He sighed. "What are you doing up anyways? We're getting on the jet in two hours, don't you need some sleep?"

Thor shrugged. "I rest when my body requires it. On Asgard we do not have the regimented sleeping schedules you keep to here, and our days are somewhat longer." He eyed Clint. "Can the same not be said for yourself?"

"I slept pretty much the whole day, I'm good." Clint settled himself back on the sofa and took up his drink. "So your people are all on roving sleep schedules? How does that even work?"

"We are not each on our own time, but different groups may be. There are set times for things which require them--field work, meetings, and other such activities. But apart from this there is no enforced time of day in which one must sleep. Some sleep during the middle of the light cycle. Some sleep at its end."

Clint shook his head and finished off the root beer. "That must be hell on parents."

"In what manner?"

"Well, trying to get kids to go to bed. How do you tell them it's bedtime if there's not really a bedtime?"

Thor tilted his head. "There is, but it is dictated by the next activity which will require an appropriate level of rest."

Clint rolled his eyes. "And kids are great at sorting that kind of thing out," he said, and Thor just laughed.

"It is true, my parents enforced such things with—us." Clint couldn't miss the hitch in Thor's voice, nor the sideways glance that went with it, but thankfully Thor didn't dwell on it. "As most parents do, until we were old enough to be relied upon to do it ourselves, or accept the consequences of being too tired to perform our tasks adequately."

"So what you're saying is you did a lot of sneaking around after 'bedtime' and getting into trouble."

A look of fond reminiscence stole over Thor's features. "A very great deal. Though we were quite often caught, and punished accordingly."

“What kinds of punishment does a prince get?”

“My parents were fond of using punishment to educate us.”

“Yeah?” Clint grabbed his controller and resumed the game. "Well since I now have to clear an entire level again..." He gave Thor his best ‘you owe me a story’ look.

Thor smiled and sat next to him, and took a handful of popcorn.