The heavy hammer of the law
"You can't be serious," Loki said. He was perhaps a little hysterical, but he hadn't had a good night's sleep in about, oh, five years and he was currently hopped up on caffeine and overspilling with case citations, so personally, he thought that was pretty reasonable. "You can't bring Thor into the firm. Father!"
"Oh, I can't, hm?" Odin said, frowning, and Loki flinched. Bad move; uncharacteristically bad choice of words. "Who precisely do you think you're dealing with, to tell me what I can and can't do?"
Odin cut a more than imposing figure, and Loki shrank back, intimidated even though he wasn't completely sure what he expected his father to do, precisely. There was no point being ashamed; multinational corporations quailed in fear of the managing partner of Asgard Law, so it was perfectly reasonable for Loki to do the same. Sensible, even.
"Father, surely you must know what Thor is like," Loki pleaded, slightly subdued now. "He's a walking lawsuit! He spent his entire time at Harvard getting drunk with his frat buddies and barely scraping his way through law. I don't think he even knows what a tort is. Legal ethics is just that boring course everyone sleeps through to him. If you make him an associate, he'll be up before the Bar in about three weeks flat, and that's a conservative estimate!"
Odin sighed. "Loki," he said, "I know you are jealous of your brother, but..."
"I am not jealous," Loki spat, even though he was, kind of. He'd studied his ass off; he'd actually done all the reading for every single course, he had color-coded summaries that people shed blood to get their hands on, he had topped his way through his entire degree and he knew the law backwards and forwards, but did Odin care? No, because he wasn't Thor.
That wasn't the point, though. Not entirely.
"Did it never occur to you I might be worried?" Loki continued, waving his hands. "About Thor, about the firm? He's not ready for this. He doesn't know the meaning of professional conduct! He rocks in at whatever time the hangover wears off, without even bothering to put on a tie, and pawns any work he gets off onto someone else. Not to mention that he has somehow managed to sexually harass EVERY SINGLE ONE of the secretaries and paralegals, including the men! Do you know how many support staff we have in this office? Because there are a lot."
Loki stood there, panting slightly with exertion, and Odin squinted back at him with his one good eye.
"Loki," he said slowly, "you're a paralegal."
"You think I don't know that?" Loki snapped. "I said all of them, and I meant all of them!"
There was an awkward pause, and then Odin coughed.
"I'm sorry, Loki, but my word is final," he said, apparently deciding to pretend that last part of the conversation never happened. "I understand your concerns, but I think you underestimate your brother. I'm growing old, you know. If I leave it too long you boys taking over the firm will no longer be an option."
And Loki doesn't even want to be Senior Partner, not really, but he doesn't want to see his family's firm go down the drain while Thor pisses their reputation up against the wall, either. He loves his brother, as much as he resents him, and thinks that Thor could even be a good lawyer one day if he'd just grow up a bit. He's not actually stupid, even if he acts like it, and he's got a good grasp of basic principles that could be actual skill if he'd only bother to crack open a textbook for once in his overly indulgent life.
Right now, however, Thor is an overgrown frat boy. There's no way he's ready to represent the firm; Loki knows that this isn't good for anyone, not Odin, not Thor, and not Loki either.
He has got to find a way to change Odin's mind.