“I'm afraid I don't quite understand,” Noh-Varr says, arms bulging with ever more items as Tommy zips back and forth between him and the convenience store.
“Itoldyou,” Tommy chirps, adding another carton of eggs and bottle of baby powder. “You're still kind of new to human culture, it's October, so I'm going to teach you the time-honored tradition of Mischief Night.” He steps back and takes a quick inventory of everything Noh-Varr is holding. “You think maybe I should grab another egg carton? Some of these houses are big, and I don't want to run out before we get to Stark's.”
“We can buy more. If this Mischief Night is such an important event, why are the others not joining us?”
Tommy snorts. “Because Billy and Teddy are too goody-goody and Kate decided she'd rather show Rocky Horror to America. Which is also something we'll have to do, but another time because this takes precedence. But we're definitely going to do it.” Noh-Varr is sure there's a very interesting reason Tommy is leering at him speculatively.
“So this isn't something that they approve of?”
“Probably not, but I wasn't dumb enough to tell them. We're not causing any major damage, I'm not a complete asshole, so Kate won't give us too much shit for it.”
“Also, why are we not doing all of this shopping inside of the store?”
“Most adults don't approve of this holiday, there's no way they're going to sell to a kid who looks like me. I'd rather just leave the money on the counter and avoid the trouble, and Kate will definitely kick my ass if the cops get called.”
“Weren't you saying just last week that you're not afraid of anything a snail like her could do to you?”
“As a joke, I'm not gonna piss her off for real. Kate's fucking scary.”
Noh-Varr looks down again. “I suppose I understand, to a point.”
“Don't worry your pretty head about it, Noh,” Tommy says, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “I've been doing this since I was a kid, so I'll show you all the ropes. Speaking of ropes, I wanna stop by that hardware store two blocks over before we get started. We should see how long it takes Stark to technology his way out of a full-body bind. You know, for science.”