"I think...we might be in a bit of trouble." Peter turned to Thor, who was next to him.
Right now they were confronting a several ruthless thugs, the kind you'd often find in an arcade, bullies who extorted young students.
The group Peter ran into was about six or seven people. They were habitual offenders who had taken advantage of the shop owner's absence, when he was restocking from the back, to corner Peter, who was closest to the door.
"Look at this, a pathetic little kid bringing his Dad to a place like this? What, did you lose so terribly at the fighting game that you cried and ran to call your parents?"
"Hahahaha!"
Although they were older than Peter, the experienced Spider Man was certainly more mature than them. He shrugged and said, "Regardless of whether I'm good or bad at the game, at least I don't pretend to extort others."
Just as the blond-haired ringleader was about to explode, his sidekick said, "Look, he's even wearing a Captain America commemorative t-shirt. It must be a knockoff. It's so dirty on him, a poor boy who crawled out from a dirt pile. Let's find someone else ..."
Peter just found them childish, but Thor could not tolerate their arrogant attitude. He shook his fist and said, "Didn't your parents teach you to be polite when you speak?!"
In Thor's mind, Peter was a child, and he was an adult. Now that these guys were obviously bullying a child, it was his responsibility to protect Peter.
"Where are you a hick from? Your accent is heavier than a country sheepdog's. Go back to ploughing your fields and stop wandering around New York!"
Thor couldn't understand what he was saying, but he knew it wasn't anything nice. The Prince of Asgard was not one without a temper – he readied his fist to fight.
The thugs on the other side were also ready to gang up on him.
Despite Thor being tall and muscular, the extortionist brats were no wimps either. Two of them were almost as tall as Thor, nearing two meters, and thus weren't afraid of him.
"Wait! Thor, don't fight here. There are..."
Before Peter could finish, they all started fighting.
The seasoned Asgardian warrior was of course stronger than the thugs. He first punched a shorter boy on his left, knocking him down. Then he immediately ducked to dodge a hook from the big guy on his right, and kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying back.
Just then, the blonde-haired ringleader, disregarding any martial ethics, grabbed a chair and swung it at Thor's head. At that moment, Peter caught his wrist and threw the chair away from his grip.
"Stop fighting! Stop..."
Then, Thor grabbed a chair and swung it at the others. Not willing to lose, they pushed over the game machines in front. Thor dodged, stumbled a bit, then threw his chair at one of them.
His aim was dead on. The man was thrown straight into the game machine behind him. It toppled over and took down several others nearby.
There was a much younger child sitting in front of one of the machines and he couldn't dodge in time. He ended up being squashed under the machine.
The kid let out a painful wail and Peter quickly ran over, lifted the game machine, and rescued him. Unfortunately, it turned out that the boy's arm had hit the edge of the machine's platform, fracturing his bone.
At this moment, a gun cracked - the arcade owner had returned, and the gang of thugs fled the scene, leaving only Peter and Thor who were helping the injured.
"Look what you have done!" the grim-faced owner approached them. Peter blocked Thor from starting another fight with him.
"Sorry, boss! We didn't mean to, they were trying to extort us and we just fought back. We will compensate you for the loss. Could you help fix the kid's arm? It seems to be fractured ..."
Peter was a regular at this place and the owner pacified a bit at the sight of him. In the end, Peter paid the damages, then took the child to a clinic in Manhattan and paid for his medical bills.
When the child's parents arrived, Peter apologized. Although they did not pursue the matter, they were clearly not pleased and viewed Peter as a troublemaker, giving him the cold shoulder.
On leaving the clinic, an infuriated Thor said, "Your Earth really has no rules! The bullies didn't get punished. Instead, you had to pay. If this was Asgard..."
"What would happen in Asgard? I suppose they would apologize profusely to you, not only the perpetrators, but also the child affected and their parents. They would probably knock on your door to apologize. But that's because you are the prince..."
Again, Thor only half-understood and responded to Peter, "That's because I was right, I stopped those people from bullying others!"
"But you also involved innocents. I warned you before you started fighting that there were many children in the arcade, and inevitably, they would get hurt..."
"I was upholding justice!"
Peter sighed, his voice filled with complexity, "I really didn't think there would be a day when I had to dissuade someone like this, when I used to think the same way."
"But then I realized, doing good things also has to be done in the right way. Blindly seeking justice and causing destruction are no different. It's hard to achieve good results and could likely invite a lot of trouble, leaving someone else to clean up my mess."
Peter looked at Thor and said, "I know you're the Prince of Asgard, and your parents can certainly handle the trouble you cause. My friends are the same, there isn't a trouble they can't handle."
"But I've realized that I can't always recklessly run around trying to uphold justice, unintentionally hurting innocent people and making a mess, then expecting others to clean it up for me. It would make me a burden to others."
"Uphold justice?" Thor looked at Peter skeptically, seemingly dubious that his small frame could stand for justice.
Peter understood what Thor was implying. He sighed, paused, and Thor mimicked his pause. Peter glanced at the corner where a large truck was parked.
The tires of the heavy-duty truck were almost taller than Peter. But Peter reached out with one hand, grabbing the recess of the large truck tire, and easily lifted it until the side of the truck was a few inches off the ground.
Thor's eyes widened. As soon as Peter let go, the truck dropped, causing the ground to shake slightly. Thor tried doing the same, but the truck did not budge one bit, which showed how heavy it was for ordinary people.
Scratching his head with confusion, he said, "How long has it been since my last visit? Since when did human cubs evolved to this extent?"
"Cub? I'm not a cub! I already have my driver's license, and I have a girlfriend too!"
Thor snorted, "You'd be considered a cub in Asgard, and only those under 300 years old."
"3 ... 300 years?" Peter gasped in surprise, "How old are you then?"
"I? Oh well, I'm not that old, just under 1600 years."
Peter swallowed uneasily and said, "Alright, you've definitely got me beat there. I'm only 16 this year."
"I know you shouldn't compare the lifespan of Asgardians with Earthlings, but even in proportional terms, you are still a kid."
"But compared to me, you are more immature," Peter explained to Thor, "I understand that those punks were annoying, and they deserved to be beaten up. If it had been before, I definitely wouldn't have hesitated to thrash them."
"But recently I've been doing a lot of thinking," Peter sighed, "That way of thinking isn't really responsible. I might feel relieved after beating them up, but the arcade owner isn't guilty of anything. He's had several machines damaged, and even if I paid him back for them, he'd still need to spend time and energy replacing and rearranging them. He might even need to close for a day to clean up the mess."
"Not to mention that kid that got caught in the crossfire. His right arm is broken, and his parents have to stay at home to take care of him, unable to go to work. They might even get scolded by their boss."
"If I put myself in that kid's shoes, my Uncle would definitely be very angry, and Auntie would be heartbroken."
"And having a broken bone is really painful. If I was caught in the crossfire for no reason, I would definitely feel wronged and angry ..."
"You sure think a lot," Thor stated bluntly, "As long as I'm doing the right thing, the Father of All Gods will always support me, after all I am ..."
As he spoke, Thor stopped himself, sighed, and then said bitterly, "I was doing the right thing. Why didn't my father understand me? He even... "
"I can tell you're a very just person. I think we're similar in this way. We both have a strong desire to do good, so I can relate to your current thoughts since I used to think that way too."
"So what are you thinking now?" Thor turned to Peter.
Conversing with someone who isn't much older and appears weaker like Peter, Thor didn't feel as much pressure and was able to temporarily break away from his rebellious feelings from arguing with his father.
His inability to communicate normally with Earthlings was mainly due to language barriers and his discontentment and grievance towards his father's act of driving him out of the house. Even if he was an Asgardian, if he were trapped in extreme emotions, he wouldn't listen to others.
But Peter has always exuded a positive and highly influential energy that suggests that nothing in the world is insurmountable. This makes it easier for others to escape from negative emotions.
"I find it a bit strenuous talking to you. Ah, of course, I'm not mocking your accent, I'm just stating a fact."
"And I don't think I would've been able to listen to all those moral lessons in the past. Let me take you to a friend of mine, Matt. His actions inspired me and I believe they will be beneficial to you as well."
With that, Peter took Thor by the arm to lead him onward. Thor resisted, proclaiming loudly, "I'm a prince of Asgard. There's nothing that I need human help to deal with, I can..."
"Alright, alright. But we did just resolve a situation together, so that should make us friends, right? Are you going to turn down a friend's invitation?"
As he was speaking, Peter took Pikachu out of his backpack. Pikachu was there for the whole thing, he said to Thor, "Big guy, I have to admit, the way you beat up those bastards was pretty cool. Especially that punch you gave the brown-haired one ..."
Pikachu was imitating a boxer's moves with his short arms, he said, "You can tell you've trained. That punk literally flew off, he'll think twice before coming back to this arcade!"
Thor's interest was piqued, he said: "People always think I'm better at wielding a hammer and a spear, but my boxing skills are actually pretty strong. I just don't get many chances to show it."
"If you ask me, apart from my father, no one in Asgard can best me in boxing!"
Peter became interested, he said to Thor, "Your moves were indeed pretty cool. They're a bit different from human boxing, more like the moves I've seen in movies. Could you teach me? I want to look cool during fights too!"
"That's easy, I'll teach you a couple of moves later. It'll guarantee that you can trample those weaklings!"