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Thor is busy hitting the 30mph mark on the speedometer above his wheel when Loki waddles in looking tired.
"Brother," greets a panting Thor, his legs moving so fast they are but a blur, "have you, huff, put on weight?"
Loki moves a wooden block over and with a grunt of effort, shoves it under the wheel and jams it to a sudden stop. Thor tumbles off, rolls and crashes into a pile of bedding.
"Do not call me fat," warns Loki.
Thor shakes loose bedding off his fur and tries to follow Loki into a cereal box, earning him a kick from Loki's hind leg. Loki boards up his box and yells for Thor to go away and never come back, but Thor is as persistent with Loki as he is with his record-breaking attempts on his beloved wheel, Mjolnir.
Day in, day out, he sits by Loki's box, trying to coax him out with gifts of raisins and nuts and promises of fun wheel-racing. After three days, Thor has exhausted all ideas and avenues. He has not seen Loki leave the box to eat or drink or play, and it is worrying him.
On the fourth day, he is relieved to see the pile of food he placed right outside Loki's box gone.
The waiting game continues, and by the tenth day, Thor is at the end of his wits with Loki. He tears off the entrance to Loki's box and barges in, demanding to know what Loki is up to this time.
He stops short when he sees Loki lying on his side, nursing three newborn pups.
"Ten days," Loki raises a brow at Thor and grins. "Not bad. Not bad at all. I am impressed." He brushes off the clinging pups and they roll around blind in a nest filled with cotton and dried, fragrant grass. The nest smells of milk and grass and cereals and Loki.
For the first time in ten days, Loki steps out of the box.
Thor hurriedly nudges a squealing pup, which rolled out after Loki, back into the box. He runs after Loki. "Brother, what is going on?"
Loki stops grooming himself in the sandbox and looks up for a moment. "Why, can you not see for yourself?"
Thor fires one question after another, "Whose pups be they? Where did they come from? I do not recall seeing you bring them here!"
"Think," Loki answers sweetly, and humours Thor no more.
Thor, confused, leaves Loki be. For the next few hours, Thor runs furiously on his wheel and, taking Loki's reply to heart, thinks.
He comes to the entrance of the box the next morning and gives his belated answer. "They are yours, from your belly, are they not?"
"Shall I praise you for being right or slight you for being slow?" offers Loki from inside the cereal box whose entrance was boarded up once more sometime during the night. Thor dares a further assumption, "be they mine?"
"No," replies Loki without missing a hamster heartbeat. "They are Tony Stark's."
Thor is startled. "We have yet to see him since Treatsgiving Day two moons ago!"
"Perhaps they are Steve Rogers's," Loki suggests, "for two are gold of colouring such as he."
"It cannot be," says Thor as he paces to and fro outside the box.
Loki keeps to himself for the next few days. His pups are now covered with a light sheen of fur and have taken to wandering outside the box.
Despite his confusion, Thor watches out for the pups as they play with Mjolnir and when they are hungry, carries them back to the box.
The care Thor has shown for the pups seems to have an effect on their mother. Loki has started eating out of Thor's food bowl when Thor is not looking, and has more than once wiped his soiled paws on Mjolnir after meals.
"Thor," Loki approaches Thor one warm afternoon, after Thor has rocked the pups to sleep on Mjolnir.
"You shall name them," says Loki softly as he lightly grooms the fur of the sole black-furred sleeping pup.
Thor stares at Loki for a while and then everything comes together in his head. "So they are mine after all?"
Loki does not turn to look at him, but Loki's smile is unhidden and plain for him to see.
*
Thor wakes up and realises the sun has not yet risen. In the dim light of the moon through the windows, he looks over and smiles at Loki, who is sleeping beside him. It is rare for Loki to sleep in his presence these days, much less share a bed with him.
"Brother," says Thor, gently caressing Loki's cheek with his fingers. Loki stirs and leans into the large warm hand.
"What is it? Has some sort of epiphany come to you in your sleep?" asks Loki, his eyes half-open.
Thor gives his widest smile, "I had a most wonderful dream: you were furry and cute and had my babies."
Loki stares at Thor for the span of a leaf-fall. Then he turns away, throws a blanket over his head and goes back to sleep.