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Jane is chatting her head off about some new theory she's surmised for her universe physics science, something about convexity and concavity and attraction, and Thor listens, but mostly he is watching how the waves in her hair crest as she flounces ahead, and he thinks about how everything new he learns about Jane, learns from her, makes his affection for her grow. What she knows about this world and this universe and its beings is limited compared to what he is aware of as a god who is claimed to be omniscient.
She turns to him midstep, excited for either proof or contradiction, with an "And what does your reality claim as truth?"
Thor pauses so he doesn't crash into her and to sort through what he does know, his break in stride garnering a dirty look from a fellow pedestrian that he doesn't register. To prevent further unwanted attention—it's a reprieve to be out in these ignorant streets where he is not recognized as a god and she is not considered as only a god's human—Jane tugs him forward by their linked hands. Her eyes stray to his two large fingers holding onto her pinky, and his arms storing inhuman strength, and his chest rising with an inhale as he steps into her space. Jane looks up to seek Thor's watching gaze as one does to reach for one's gods.
"In our universe, there are things we cannot explain," Thor says. This truth leaves him on an exhale, quietly like it is not an omnipresent knowledge but more an admission of weakness.
The truth is that the unknown leaves room for chaos, for change, for curiosity that sparks life's worthiness. And despite the frustration settling in Jane's frown, such wonder grows in her eyes.
"I want to understand it all," she declares, curling her pinky around his, as though promising that she wants to know all that he is, as if by having him by her side she will discover all her answers.
But Thor doesn't have a handle on most things. He surely doesn't know everything, much less understand. Especially difficult are the more important questions, such as those Jane poses about the way he travels—she tells him he's faster than the speed of light to which he replies, "Godspeed!" and she kisses him to interrupt his smug grinning—and his further differences being a kind that hers calls 'gods', and that one inconclusive definition of what love is. Jane is much smarter than he tries to be.
He feels her finger run across his wrist and a tap on his pulse for him to unravel his fist from around her littlest digit. Jane entwines all her fingers through his before they start walking again towards the breakfast place that is reviewed to serve the best pancakes. This is better; one should never hide one's thumb inside one's fist, and the pinky finger is all the more fragile. Thor holds Jane's hand and she straightens up beside him, strong and safe, and he reminds himself that she is not a liability.
