shallowness

Title: I Like The Way You Move
Fandom: MCU (Thor)
Rating: Universal
Characters/Pairing: Thor Odinson/Jane Foster
Summary: you suck at dancing but you’re doing it in the middle of a bookstore to the crappy music on the radio and I think it’s pretty damn cute au

Disclaimer: Not mine, don’t profit.
Author's Note: Written for the prompt ‘any, any, you suck at dancing but you’re doing it in the middle of a bookstore to the crappy music on the radio and I think it’s pretty damn cute au’ at comment-fic. Title from the BodyRockers song. 886 words.

I Like The Way You Move: shallowness

Thor Odinson has no idea how the bookstore makes enough to employ so many people, but he’s relieved that he’s one of them. At first, he thought it was Erik’s shop, but soon realised Jane Foster was both the owner and real brains of the operation. If Thor got the job because of a chain of events that all started when Jane nearly ran him down, he doesn’t mind. For now, he’s making enough to scrape by, the work isn’t demanding – giving him time to get his head together, like his father not-so-politely suggested he needed to do. And his colleagues are good people, fun people, nothing like the people he grew up among and yet they make him feel like he belongs, even when Darcy is giving him the side-eye at missing one of her references. He has more in common with Erik, but Jane is the easiest to talk to. She has always made him feel welcome, after enough happened for her to stop thinking of she nearly killed him, a slight furrow in her brow because of it. As the shop is hers, Thor always feels that sense of welcoming when he walks in for a shift, or drops in occasionally even though he’s not rostered for it.

Every day he does have a shift, Thor is happy enough to put on the t-shirt emblazoned with the store name ‘Rainbow Bridge Bookstore’. Jane handed it to him on his first day and Darcy explained it was a way of making sure Erik turned up clothed. At first, Thor wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, and then he went drinking with Erik. He’s learned to roll with a lot of things at the store.

Today is a quiet one, and just Jane and he are there. Literally no-one has turned in since the mailman, a mild-mannered man named Phil that Darcy has a one-sided feud with. Thor asked Jane for the background on that and there was a convoluted story involving Darcy’s iPod. It still makes no sense to him, but he’d enjoyed listening to Jane and watching her gesticulate as she told the story. It’s clear that she thinks of Darcy as a sister and likewise. Thor envies them the uncomplicated nature of their relationship, even though Jane is technically Darcy’s boss.

Jane is so smart and driven, and sometimes a little dorky, that he’d found it easy to forgive her for the incident with the car the second she came into his vision. It took her longer to believe he’d let it go. He really wants the bookstore to succeed for her, even if he can see that her excellent science department isn’t bringing in the footfall. Darcy is tasked with trying to harness the internet, instead of letting it be just the thing people turn to after browsing their shelves, and arranges events like author talks.

So, here Thor is, putting up the handwritten notes for the staff picks – he’d been given the fantasy brief. The music that’s playing on the radio is getting worse and worse, but there are no customers to be put off by it.

Done, and having taken a step back and admired his work, Thor turns around, looking for Jane to see if she wants anything else done. She’s hard to miss, flailing around, making moves that might be called dancing if you’re suffering from blurred vision to that song that’s on the radio all the time, with the repeated lyric about how it’s just a crush. Which is a little too on the nose from the universe, Thor thinks, even as he grins helplessly at Jane, lost in her dancing.

It’s bad that he’s fallen for the boss, right? Bad that he can’t help smiling at her every day and especially now, as she weaves her way through one of the aisles, her hair rippling over her shoulders. Bad that he wants to step in and rescue her from the terrible dancing by taking her hand and twirling her around, before pulling her into hold and doing a dip. But Jane Foster is cute, irresistibly so, and there are no customers about...

“What?” she exclaims as his hand takes hers. He grins at her and lifts their joined hands in a way that makes it clear he wants her to twirl. Making an adorable face, she goes for it, and the dancing improves. So does Thor’s already good mood.

Thor makes sure she doesn’t get dizzy, but he couldn’t speak for his own state of mind, watching her, fighting the urge to pull her closer until the music gives him an opportunity. Jane doesn’t seem to mind when he does so, and for all that he towers over her, they fit together in a way that he will never unknow.

When the song comes to an end, he finds he hasn’t dipped her, just guided her around the aisles, enjoying the feel of her within his arms. Instead, Thor brings the hand he’s holding to his lips, which surprises Jane, and pleases her, he thinks.

“You are pretty damn cute, Thor Odinson,” she says breathlessly.

“I am?” he asks. “No, I would say—“ But he says nothing, as she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses his breath and all thought away.

Fin