AN: Sorry for the slow update! This was a bit of a tricky chapter to write, especially as relates to adapting the adoption storyline. There were certain story beats I wanted to hit, to follow the movies, but doing so involves various characters handling various things kind of badly—things that I've never thought twice about in the movies but that come across very differently when put into a real-life setting—and the last thing I wanted to do was be insensitive to people who are adopted themselves, or who have people close to them who are. So if it does come off as insensitive, please know I'm sorry.
Also, yes, I totally borrowed a story beat from A Walk To Remember. But not any of the parts from that movie that would make you cry.
. . . . . .
The Homecoming dance marks the beginning of a period of change for Sif and the Odinson boys. For a few weeks, Loki goes out of his way to say hello to her in the halls. He sticks around after Sunday dinners instead of disappearing up to his room. He comes to their big game against Svartalfheim High and sits with Hildegund and goes to the diner with them for their usual post-victory meal. He accepts Thor's invitation to hang out with him and Sif on two separate occasions, and he actually goes to a movie with the whole gang, even though it's an action flick and he doesn't really like those. (He does firmly refuse Fandral's invitation to a party he's throwing; Sif just smiles and thinks, Baby steps.)
All in all, it's the closest Loki's been to them in years, and Sif is surprised at how much she's missed his company. He's clever, he's funny, he's pleasant to be around (as long as he remembers to use his razor-sharp wit for good, not evil), and he's level-headed enough that she can count on him as an ally when she needs to talk Thor and Fandral out of doing something stupid.
So the first three weeks of October are a very happy time for Sif. And later, looking back, she'll wish she had treasured that time more. But then, how could she have known that things were about to go so catastrophically wrong?
. . . . . .
The day before everything goes wrong, Thor and Sif convince Loki to come and watch a soccer game with them at Hogun's. It's not as hard a sell as she'd been expecting; Loki tolerates soccer better than any other sport, and he tolerates Hogun better than Volstagg or Fandral.
And anyway, soccer games at Hogun's are legendary. The host family he's staying with, the Pages, are Canadian transplants who support Toronto FC with undying fervor, and they open their home to friends and neighbors for each game. But they've pulled out all the stops for Toronto's first game in the playoffs: red banners and pennants all over the house, new TV in the living room, and a truly heroic amount of food on the table.
Volstagg and Hildegund are there, with Hildegund wearing red in support of Toronto. Fandral is there with Ingrid, but Thor is dateless, having gotten tired of Amora the week after Homecoming. Sif isn't too worried about her, though; she saw her making eyes at Haldor in English class. (As predicted, Lorelei grew tired of Haldor after only two weeks, and Sif's ex is now single again. But she's not even tempted to try to rekindle things with him; after a month apart from him, she now can't even figure out what she saw in the guy.)
"Welcome!" Hogun's host father Mr. Page beams as they walk in. "And Sif, that field goal against Svartalfheim last week—amazing! What was that, forty-five yards?"
"Forty-eight," she can't help but correct him, and Fandral claps her proudly on the shoulder.
Mr. Page turns to Loki. "And . . . you're Thor's brother Loki, right?"
Loki nods. "Thank you for opening your home," he says dutifully.
"Anything for a guy who's wearing Toronto red!" Mr. Page says cheerfully.
Loki looks down in surprise at his flannel shirt, and Sif bites back a smile as he tries to look as though he wore the color for Toronto's sake.
The first half of the game is a nail biter, with a Toronto goal at the end of the extra time tying it up 1 to 1. Sif, who lists soccer as her fourth-favorite sport, watches the whole thing on the edge of her seat—although she's not so distracted as to not notice that Loki, sitting on the couch next to her, keeps messing around on his phone when he thinks no one is looking.
When the first half ends, everyone troops into the dining room to grab more food. The Pages and their friends stay there to chat, and the high schoolers return to the living room to sprawl across the couches. They talk about the game for a while, and then the conversation turns to school—specifically, to the upcoming AP history test.
"Why did I let my dad talk me into taking AP history?" Volstagg groans.
"I'm telling you, you should stay after class some time and ask Mr. Fjorgynn for help," Hildegund says. "I've had to do that in the past and he's really nice about it."
Fandral snorts. "Or just ask Thor. Since apparently he's an expert in history."
Thor chuckles cheerfully. "Sure, as long as it's 7th grade history you need help with," he says, and the rest of the group laughs as well.
It had turned out that everyone was wrong when they predicted that Thor wouldn't get in trouble for spiking the punch at Homecoming, although the punishment is fairly mild: he has to spend the rest of the semester helping out with the after-school tutoring program at the middle school, one afternoon a week. And since history is the subject that Thor is best at, that's what he has to help with.
"How's that going, by the way?" Hogun asks.
"It's not so bad," Thor says. "It's nice to have kids staring adoringly at me."
"That sucks to have to waste a whole afternoon each week hanging out with middle schoolers and nerds," Fandral says in a commiserating tone.
"No, it's cool," Thor insists, but Fandral clearly doesn't believe him.
"I can't believe there are people who volunteer to do that. Like, for fun."
"I think it might be more to look good on college applications than for fun," Sif points out.
"Or because they think it's important to help other people out, instead of always focusing on themselves," Loki says mildly. "But I can see you might find that a confusing concept, Fandral." Fandral throws a tortilla chip at him.
"Doesn't Mr. Selvig usually have a senior help him run the program?" Ingrid asks. "Who is it this year?"
Thor hesitates for the briefest moment before answering, an expression that Sif can't quite read flickering across his face. "Jane Foster."
"Should have guessed," Fandral says, who doesn't seem to have allowed Loki's setdown to lessen his disdain for the tutoring program. "Of course the nerdiest girl in school would want to do something like that. It's not like she has anything better to do with her time."
"Don't talk about her like that," Thor says hotly, and the rest of the group exchanges surprised looks for a moment.
"Something you want to tell us?" Volstagg asks.
"Yeah," says Thor firmly. "I want to tell you to leave Jane alone. She's . . . cool."
There's clearly more going on here than "she's . . . cool," but the rest of the soccer fans are filing back into the living room and they lose their chance to talk about it. But Sif catches Hildegund throwing her a concerned look; she's the only person besides Tyr who knows that Sif still might carry a torch for Thor. So Sif gives her a quick smile to reassure her. Thor can like whoever he wants.
Even if Jane Foster is one of his more eccentric choices.
Loki, too, seems to glance at her a little more than is normal as they settle back in for the second half of the game. But that might be because a few more people have showed up so they all have to scoot closer together to fit more people on the couch, and she's now pressed up so close to his side that if she moves any closer, she'll be in his lap.
"Good thing we're friends," she chuckles as the game starts, and he glances at her a moment, something strange in his expression, before smiling at the joke. There's not room enough for both of them to have their arms down by their sides, so she puts hers along the back of the couch, which earns her another glance.
After a few minutes of play, Sif feels something brush against her thigh, and she glances down to see that Loki has relaxed his arm enough that his hand his now resting gently right where her leg is pressed up against his. She finds it strangely sweet, actually; it reminds her of when they used to pile on the couch as kids, no sense of personal space, to watch the Spiderman cartoon together.
But she can't catch his eye and smile at him; he's staring so determinedly at the game that she's not even sure he realizes what he's done. So she leans back against the couch and smiles to herself instead.
. . . . . .
On the day that everything goes wrong, the football team has an away game against Muspelheim, which is a such a long distance away that Sif picks Thor up at 11 in the morning and doesn't drop him off again until nearly 8 that evening.
She's gotten all the way to her garage and parked the car before she notices that Thor left his wallet on the passenger side floor. Part of her considers just holding onto it and returning it tomorrow when they go over for their usual Sunday dinner, but it's such a nice night—unseasonably warm for late October—that she thinks she'd rather like a walk. Besides, she hasn't seen or talked to Loki all day; it'd be nice to pop in and say hello.
So she runs her bag up to her room, takes a moment to fix her hair, and starts the walk over to the Governor's Mansion. It's late and dark enough that she goes the long way around to the front door; she doesn't know if anyone would see her to let her in if she took her usual shortcut through the backyard.
The security guards buzz her through without question, and she's gotten nearly to the front door when she hears voices floating out through a nearby open window—the family is clearly taking advantage of the warm weather as well. She hears Thor's voice and, very unthinkingly and as a simple force of habit, sharpens her attention to hear what he's saying. And that's when she overhears something she's fairly sure the family hadn't intended her to hear.
"How could you have not told me?" Thor is demanding in a strangled tone. And then: "And don't you think Loki deserved to know that he's adopted?"
And Sif stops dead in her tracks. Frigga chooses that moment to glance out the window and see her there, which Sif's actually thankful for; she doesn't want to go interrupt them, but she also doesn't want to walk away and have to pretend she didn't hear what she heard.
"Sif, dear," she says, crossing to the window, and examines the girl standing on the front walkway outside. It must be pretty clear from her face exactly how much she heard, because a small, weary smile touches Frigga's face. "You'd better come inside."
"This is not a good time to have guests," Odin says gruffly. "This is a family affair."
"Sif is family," Frigga retorts as she crosses to the front door. "Besides, maybe she's heard from him."
Still dumb with surprise, Sif moves woodenly up the front steps toward Frigga's welcoming smile. In the front sitting room she sees Odin looking angry and Thor looking absolutely shocked.
"I suppose you overheard," Frigga says, her kind smile spread thin over an expression of bone-deep worry.
"Loki's adopted?" Sif repeats. When Frigga nods, she can't help herself; she speaks without thinking. "I knew it."
"How?" Thor demands, bewildered. "I never even suspected."
Frigga wrings her hands a moment. "You haven't heard from him today by any chance, have you?"
Sif shakes her head no.
Frigga gives a resigned nod. "Well, if you do . . ."
Her worry is infecting Sif, and Thor seems to be feeling the same. "Is something wrong?" he demands. "Where is he?"
Frigga sinks down on the chaise longue with a sigh. "We don't know," she says, and glances at Odin. He frowns, and somehow that exchange seems to make her decide to continue. "This morning, apparently he went to the county records office to get a copy of his birth certificate."
Sif remembers him saying at the dance that he was getting all of his documents in order for college.
"But they told him they had no birth certificate for a Loki Odinson. So he came home and demanded to know what was going on. We told him the truth. He . . . became very upset and drove off, and we haven't heard from him since. I'm getting worried; it's been eight hours, and he won't answer his phone or his texts . . ." Her eyes are suddenly suspiciously bright, which hits Sif like a blow; she can't remember the last time she saw Frigga cry. "I just keep worrying— his head was not clear when he left. What if that affected his driving? What if he's been in an accident?"
"You would have heard," Sif assures her when no one else speaks up. "His face is pretty well known in this city. Even if he didn't have ID on him, someone would have figured out who he is."
It's weird, really, how quiet Odin's being about all this. Sif wonders if he's less upset than his wife, and then finds herself remembering the way Loki had spoken of him at the dance. Maybe things had gotten so bad between the governor and his son that . . . but that's absurd. Odin loves Loki, Sif knows he does. He just . . . doesn't always show it.
"I still don't understand," Thor says lowly. "Why did you keep this a secret?" He turns his gaze to his father, who simply watches him, more inscrutable than usual. "Why didn't you tell him?"
"We worried it would upset him," Frigga says.
But that answer seems to anger Thor more. "And you really thought he'd never find out?" he demands, still looking at his father, his voice growing louder and more agitated. "And anyway, didn't he deserve to know?"
"We were protecting him," Odin snaps, the first thing he's said in some time, and Sif sees that he is indeed upset, he's just keeping it bottled up.
"From what?" Thor demands.
"From the truth!" Odin nearly yells, then deflates a little. "From the truth about his parents. If he'd known he was adopted, we knew he'd want to learn about his birth parents, and we didn't want him to have to carry that weight with him."
"Who were his parents?" Thor demands.
They seem to have completely forgotten Sif's there—or maybe they meant what they said about her being family and they don't mind her hearing. But she worries that Loki would mind her hearing.
She's casting her mind about for a way to extract herself from the conversation when Odin answers heavily. "His father was a career criminal. He was in prison when Loki was born, for a botched bank robbery in which he'd killed two hostages. The mother died in childbirth and when the father heard, he tried to escape from jail to get to his son; he didn't want him to grow up in foster care. He was killed in the attempt."
Well, it's too late now; Sif's heard a lot more than she thinks Loki would have wanted her to.
Thor stares at him a long moment, then makes an uncharacteristically insightful connection. "You were the prosecutor on his father's case, weren't you?"
Odin sighs. "Yes. And I felt sorry that in getting Laufey Ymirson put away, I'd unintentionally set his unborn child on the path to becoming orphaned."
Frigga speaks up at that, a quiet smile in her eyes. "He was born on the same day as you; we were truthful about that. And in the same maternity ward. I didn't hear about all this until two days later, while I was still recovering in the hospital, and I couldn't stop thinking about that poor woman—how she must be feeling, if she was looking down on her son. I kept looking at my perfect little baby boy, and I couldn't even imagine what it would feel like to be ripped away from you, and to know you had no one to look after you. I wanted Loki for her sake. And the fact that you two were born on the same day, in the same hospital—it felt like a sign. Like it was meant to be. So we adopted him, and the timing worked out so well—everyone has always assumed I'd had twins."
Thor stares at her a long time before sighing. "You should have told him earlier. Feeling like you'd been lied to for eighteen years . . . I'd be freaking out too."
Odin looks suddenly very old and very weary. "We thought we were doing the right thing," he says quietly. "We thought we were protecting him. We didn't want him to ever feel like anything less than our son. We didn't want him to have to live with the truth about his parents hanging over him." And silence falls over the room.
"I should go," Sif says eventually, standing up. "My father will be worried." Suddenly she frowns. "My father! What should I—"
Frigga gives her a tired smile. "Tyr knows. He figured it out ages ago."
Sif nods and clasps Frigga's hand briefly, then puts a comforting hand on Thor's shoulder.
"You will let us know?" Frigga says. "If you hear from him?"
"I promise," Sif says, and leaves the house.
Her mind is awhirl as she walks home, going through the entirety of her acquaintance with Odin's family, seeing a hundred different memories of Loki's interactions with his family through this new filter. And she's just put her hand on the doorknob when a thought comes to the forefront of her cluttered mind:
Rainbow Bridge Overlook.
She hesitates, wondering if she should run over and tell Frigga, but quickly dismisses that idea; she doesn't want to get the woman's hopes up over an offhand comment that Loki made at Homecoming.
The next best thing, then, would be to check it out herself; the overlook is only a twenty-minute drive away, and she's worried about her friend. If she checks it out, she'll at least sleep better, without being plagued by wondering if he was there and whether she could have found him if she'd just made the effort.
Decision made, she tells her dad she needs to run an errand, climbs into her Mustang and begins the drive to the Rainbow Bridge Overlook.
. . . . . .
There's a black Lexus parked at the overlook, with a tall skinny figure in a hoodie seated on a bench nearby, and Sif heaves a sigh of relief.
"You've got everyone worried sick," she says as she approaches from behind.
Loki jumps about a foot in the air, and she wonders how deep in thought he had to be not to notice her pulling up behind him, parking, and getting out of her car. "Did they send you?" he asks as she seats herself on the bench next to him. He doesn't ask how she found him; perhaps he remembers telling her about this spot.
"Your mom wanted to know if I'd heard from you, that's all. But then later I remembered you'd mentioned coming here, so I thought I'd check it out."
He nods jerkily. It's full dark now, but she can see his face in the light from the streetlamps, and she can see the tension pulling on it. "Have you . . . have you heard, then?"
"There was an open window," she says apologetically. "I happened to be walking by at the exact wrong moment. And then they explained." There's a pause, then: "I'm sorry—I'm sure you'd rather have told me in your own time. If at all."
His mouth pulls into a sneer. "So they won't tell me for eighteen years, but they'll tell anyone else who wanders along."
She winces, partly in apology and partly at the acidity of his tone, and immediately his expression softens. "Not that you're just anyone. And I would have wanted you to know. I just . . ." He leans forward, dropping his elbows onto his knees and his face into his hands.
Sif sits silent and uncertain. Below them, crossing the river that runs around the edge of the city, the bridge twinkles with the many-colored lights that give it its nickname. She can see why Loki would come here for escape; she's always loved this park at night, with its hilltop location providing a view over the whole valley, and the city a golden carpet of lights below them, and the bridge sparkling blue and pink and yellow; but she's never been here without a gaggle of noisy friends along. She's never heard how silent it can be, with only the the gentle whisper of the river and the hum of the cars crossing the bridge to break the stillness.
In that silence the friends sit a while, Loki still hunched over miserably. Should she put a hand on his shoulder? Rub his back consolingly? Thor would want that kind of tactile comfort, but Loki's not Thor.
But before she can decide, he breaks the stillness to say, "It finally makes sense." He's uncovered his face to speak, but he's gazing determinedly at the bridge, not her. "Why Thor's their favorite. Why wouldn't they prefer their real son?"
"You are their real son," she says firmly. "They love you. And Thor is not their favorite."
"He's Odin's favorite," he says matter-of-factly, and the thing is that she'd love to argue that point but he's not wrong, precisely; Odin has always been different with Thor than with Loki. And her quest to find the right words to say is hampered by her surprise at how wrong it sounds to hear Loki call his father by his first name. He's never done that before, and the message behind it is clear.
"You see?" he says when she doesn't respond. "You can't even deny it! Odin has always loved Thor better, and now I know why." A bitter smile twists his lips. "I guess in a way it's a comfort to know why I've always been such a disappointment to him."
"He doesn't see you as a disappointment," she insists. "And Frigga would never play favorites, but you know that if she did, she'd pick you. She adores you."
"Yes, out of pity for the poor stupid girl who got knocked up by a bank robber and died having his illegitimate child. Doesn't it feel nice being a charity case?" His lip curls. "Frigga does love her causes."
"Don't you talk about your mother that way," she growls, her pity for Loki briefly replaced with anger, then amends, "Either of them."
That takes the wind out of his sails briefly, but she can see in the tension on his face, the hand clenched into a fist at his side, that his silence is not the sort born of serenity.
"Loki," she tries again, softer this time, "I'm sorry for what you're going through; I can't even imagine what you're dealing with right now. But your family is so worried about you—"
"'Family' is a strong word."
"Loki—"
He gets up abruptly, and the suddenness of it makes her tongue falter. "Did you know I'm older than Thor?" he says, pacing a few steps away. He comes to a stop directly beneath a streetlamp, and in its bright glow she can see clearly that his hands are tightly clenched into fists.
The non-sequitur leaves her blinking in surprise as her brain tries to catch up. "Umm, no? Neither of you knew, right?" It's sort of a running family joke; Frigga and Odin always said they didn't want either of their sons to feel superior to the other, so they've always refused to tell them which twin is older—a secret that's easy to keep because Frigga has always kept their birth certificates hidden away, and dealt with anything that required any kind of personal documents herself.
That takes on a whole new meaning now, come to think of it.
"They'd never tell us," he confirms, "but I always figured it was Thor because Fath— Odin is always pressuring him to go to law school and get into politics, like he did—go into the 'family business,' basically. And also . . . when I was twelve, I asked Odin what would happen to the house after they died. He told me it would go to Thor—" there's a bitterness in his tone that makes Sif's heart constrict— "although they'd left me an equivalent amount of money. But the thing is, he knew perfectly well that . . ." He hesitates, then whirls to face her, and she's surprised to see tears sparkling in his eyes. "Thor doesn't even want the house," he says, his expression bewildered and grief-stricken. "He's never wanted it. He thinks it's too old and the rooms are too small and he'd rather get his own place. But I do—I've always wanted the house. Odin's always known how much I love it, and the history behind it. So I always figured, Thor must be older, because why else would Odin leave him the family estate that he doesn't want?"
Sif can see where he's going with this, and she finds herself grimacing in anticipation.
"But I'm older!" Loki exclaims, as a single tear escapes and trickles, unnoticed, down his cheek. "And not by a few minutes—I'm eighteen hours older than him! But that doesn't count for anything, not for the inheritance, not for who Odin clearly sees as his successor, because I'm not blood. I'm not their real son. Because how could Odin Burrson possibly see me—some nobody that they took in out of pity, the illegitimate son of a convict—as worthy of being his heir?"
He's been losing steam and volume as his speech winds on, and by the last word, he's just standing there, shoulders slumped, head bowed, looking like he's trying to curl in on himself to protect some vulnerable spot in his chest. And Sif's heart breaks. She doesn't know all the reasons for what Frigga and Odin did, but she trusts them enough to believe they did what they thought best, for what that's worth. But on the other hand, the final result is this heartbreaking sadness in her friend, and that's not right.
She wants nothing more than to comfort him, to reassure him that he is still a valued and loved member of his family. So she stands up and tugs on the sleeve of his hoodie; he woodenly follows her back to the bench and sits down. But he won't make eye contact, so she turns on the bench, curling her leg up beneath her so she can face him fully, and takes his hands in hers. The contact surprises him, she can see from the way his head lifts so quickly and the way he stares at her. And then, apparently sensing what she's after, he also turns as much as he can on the bench to face her.
"Loki," she says firmly. "I know this is all so messed up right now, but there is something I need you to know: no matter where you come from or what your past is, you are so loved."
Loki stares at her, that bewildered, pained expression back on his face. And then he stares down at their joined hands for a few moments, and then back up at her face.
And then he surges forward and kisses her.
The absolute unexpectedness of it dulls her reaction time, and she sits there in surprise for a couple seconds before her senses return and she pulls back from him, eyes wide. "What . . ."
In the glow from the streetlamp, she sees shame flood his face. "Sorry," he mutters, standing from the bench and moving quickly in the direction of the parking lot. "Sorry."
His exit shakes her from her stupor and she follows after him. "Where are you going to go?" she demands.
No answer.
"Your mom is so upset!" she tries again as Loki unlocks the door of his Lexus. "Will you at least let me tell her where you're going so she doesn't worry herself to death?"
Loki pauses, half in and half out of the driver's side door. He glances up, just for a moment, then back down. "I'll spend the night at Malekith's," he informs her, then slides into the car and pulls out of the parking lot without a second glance at her.
She stares after him, wide-eyed and reeling, then finally thinks to pull her cell phone out.
"Sif?" Frigga's eager voice brings tears to Sif's eyes, for some reason. "Have you heard from him?"
"Just did," she confirms. "He says he's spending the night at Malekith's."
"Should we . . . how do you think he'd feel about us going over there?"
Sif frowns a little. "I don't know—he definitely needs to talk things out with you guys, but he's still pretty upset. I don't know how it would go if you went over."
There's silence on the other end, and Sif can just imagine the face Frigga's making right now, the one she does when she's considering a difficult problem. "All right," she says, "thank you so much, dear."
The call ends, and Sif makes her way over to her Mustang. But she doesn't drive home yet. Instead she sits in the driver's seat and stares out the windshield at the twinkling lights of the Rainbow Bridge for a long, long time.
. . . . . .
The older Odinson—Laufeyson?—is still absent when Tyr and Sif go over for dinner the next night; Sif feels bad for making Frigga host them when she's got so much on her mind, but Frigga gives her a warm smile and reassurance. "It takes my mind off my worrying. So I'm glad you're here."
No one says much as they eat, and no one talks at all about Loki; mostly Odin asks Sif and Thor about their game yesterday, although Thor's clearly distracted when he answers. It seems he's reeling nearly as much at the revelation that his beloved brother is adopted as said brother is. So it's mostly Sif and Odin talking, and Sif's only responding because it seems polite and someone's got to do it. She's not completely thrilled with Odin right now, after Loki made her admit to herself that Odin does kind of play favorites with his sons, and after what he told her about the inheritance (although really, that topic is a pretty complex, prickly one). Looking back, she can see clearly now that Loki was right: Odin has always been grooming Thor to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer and politician, in a way he never has with Loki.
(It does occur to her, however, that's it's a bit unreasonable that Loki was so angry at Odin at Homecoming for pressuring him to go into business, but now he's angry at him for not pressuring him to go into politics. But then, angry people are not always reasonable.)
However, despite the careful avoidance of the subject, Sif does catch a few significant glances exchanged between her father, Odin and Frigga, and she knows that when she and Thor have left the table after dessert, the adults are going to do some serious talking.
They're halfway through dessert when they hear the door between the house and the garage open. They all glance at each other, and then over at the hallway, where they catch the briefest glimpse of Loki, still in the clothes he wore yesterday and determinedly not looking into the dining room, stride by and toward the staircase.
Frigga is out of her chair immediately, and the rest of the group waits in tense silence until she comes slowly back to the dining room, looking defeated. "He's locked himself in his room," she says. Thor immediately stands, but his mother shakes her head. "He doesn't want to talk."
That bewildered look is back on Thor's face, and he lowers himself into his chair. And they eat in silence.
. . . . . .
When Monday morning hits, it's like the last month never happened. No, it's worse than that, because at least before Homecoming, Loki would say hello if they happened to meet in the halls. Now he seems to be going out of his way to avoid their whole group, and the heartbroken look on Thor's face when Loki catches sight of them across the commons and immediately ducks into a hallway makes Sif want to punch something.
Volstagg, Hildegund, Hogun and Fandral notice, of course, but Thor doesn't seem to know how to answer their questions, so Sif says vaguely: "Family disagreement. They need time to cool off." Everyone accepts that pretty easily; they all know Thor can be pretty hot-headed and stubborn, and that it doesn't take much to earn Loki's ire.
The pattern continues all week, with Loki managing to avoid them the whole time. His task is made easier by the fact that he doesn't have a single class with anyone from Thor's group of friends; his schedule's full of AP science and math classes, and none of the rest of them are really the AP Physics type.
It's just as bad at home, according to Thor; Loki spends about half of his nights staying over at friends' houses, and when he's home, he locks himself in his room and won't speak to anyone. Frigga is apparently hoping it's a phase that he'll get past when he's cooled down, and Odin . . .
"He won't talk about it," Thor says, eyes downcast. "At least not to me."
Sif wonders again what's going on in Odin's head—is he ashamed of how he's treated Loki? Or just angry at Loki's sullenness? But she pushes it aside to comfort her friend. "Loki will get over it," she assures Thor. "I've heard that learning later in life that you're adopted can really upset some people, but they mostly, you know, come to terms with it."
Indeed, her Google search history is littered with phrases like "at what age do most people find out they're adopted," and she's found stories from a lot of people who found out when they were teens or adults who were pretty shaken at first, but eventually they come to terms with it. She's hoping Loki manages to do the same.
Her vague Internet knowledge doesn't seem to have comforted her friend. "I don't understand," he sighs. "I can see why he's upset with our parents. But why is he pushing me away too? I didn't keep this from him, and I thought . . ." Something desolate crosses his face. "He's still my brother, even if we're not blood. I still love him as much as I did before I knew. I thought he'd understand that. I thought he'd still . . ."
Sif takes a brief moment to chastise herself for misjudging her friend. She'd thought Thor's shocked and hurt behavior lately is a result of the knowledge that his brother isn't actually related to him, but in truth he's just hurt that Loki didn't come to conclusion that he immediately did: that it doesn't matter, that they're still brothers in every way that does matter. Because Thor sees the world in black and white—in simple, straight-forward shapes—which means he probably doesn't really understand the complexity of what Loki's dealing with right now. And because Thor feels everything, including love, with his whole being, with every molecule in his body. He probably doesn't know how to do anything except love his brother absolutely.
Thor has always liked tactile forms of comfort, so she puts a hand on his shoulder, wishing she could do more to help. This is the sort of thing he needs to discuss with Loki, but Loki won't talk to him. So after a moment of failing to find the right thing to say, she changes the subject. "How's Jane?" she asks—to distract Thor, not because she's really keen to hear about the latest in his list of loves.
The diversion works. "She's . . . amazing," he says with a smile.
"You asked her out yet?"
But here the diversion breaks down and his face falls. "I had been planning to after my tutoring session this week. But now, with everything . . ."
She examines him, and then sighs. "It might suck, trying to go on a date when you have so much on your mind. But on the other hand, maybe it'll help distract you."
Thor smiles and claps her on the shoulder. "Wise advice. You're a good friend, Sif."
And apparently that's all she'll ever be. "That's what I'm here for."
"It's nice to be able to talk to someone besides my parents about all this," he confesses. "They're just . . . they're too close to everything, you know? They get kind of upset when the topic comes up. But you're removed enough from the situation . . ."
She hums in agreement, but in her mind's eye she sees the Rainbow Bridge sparkling in the darkness, feels Loki's lips against hers. She hasn't told anyone about that kiss and she doesn't plan to, largely because she's still processing it herself—trying to decide what he meant by it and how she feels about that. Although it doesn't seem to matter, as Loki is making it quite clear that he wants nothing to do with her right now.
"Maybe I'll invite Jane to our birthday party," Thor muses eventually, and Sif frowns.
"Is that still on? With . . . everything?"
He shrugs and sighs. "Depends on if Loki ever talks to me long enough to discuss it." A sorrowful silence follows, but then he smiles at Sif. "Thanks for being here, Sif. And letting me talk through all this."
"Any time," she says sincerely.
. . . . . . .
The twins' birthday—or rather, the day that Loki and Thor both happen to have been born on—is November 1, a day that Frigga and Odin have always celebrated with a family dinner at home. When they were young, the boys would have their birthday party that afternoon, but as soon as they got old enough to stop trick-or-treating, they started having parties the night before. And with Thor's immense popularity, the Odinson birthday bash quickly became Asgard High's best-attended Halloween party.
Loki always attended very dutifully, although most such events found Thor partying on the dance floor with the jocks and the cheerleaders and Loki watching movies in the rec room with the music and theater kids. But when Frigga would appear with the biggest cake she could find—it had to feed half the school, after all—the brothers would join forces once again to blow out their candles.
The party is always one of Sif's favorite nights of the year, and she finds herself very anxious to learn what's going to happen. So her heart sinks when Thor shows up at her house a few evenings before Halloween, looking thoroughly deflated and defeated.
"Loki doesn't want to do the party?" she guesses quietly.
"He finally answered my texts. He says we always celebrated together because we thought we were twins. And since it turns out we're not . . ."
He looks both heartbroken and resigned, like deep down he'd suspected he'd get that answer, and Sif tends to be on Loki's side where this whole adoption business is concerned but right now she'd really like to chew him out for making Thor look like that.
"You know what?" she says defiantly. "You don't need him in order to have a party. It's still your birthday, and it's still Halloween, and your mom already ordered the cake and all the food. Tell Loki he's still invited and you'd love to have him come if he changes his mind, but you're still allowed to celebrate your birthday, even when he's mad at you. We're seniors, right? That means this is our last chance to throw the biggest Halloween party Asgard has ever seen. We have to do this. Plus you've already told everyone about it, and everyone's expecting it. You couldn't put the brakes on it now even if you wanted to."
There's been a light dawning in Thor's expression as she speaks, and when she finishes her speech he grins. "The biggest Halloween party ever!" he agrees.
And so they have the biggest Halloween party ever, without Loki, although it's not for lack of trying on their part. Thor tries to convince him through his locked door every night between then and Halloween, Frigga does the same, and even Sif texts him a few times and tries knocking on his door once. He ignores them and, on Halloween day, goes from school straight to Helblindi's house. And so Thor celebrates their birthdays without him.
And it is indeed the biggest Halloween party Asgard High School has ever seen. The Governor's mansion is packed to the rafters, with people spilling into the backyard as well. They even get a higher-than-usual turnout from the honors students and the academic nerds, because Thor has befriended so many of them during his after-school tutoring punishment.
And Jane Foster is there, mostly hanging with a small posse of her fellow science geek friends, though Thor makes a point of talking to them for a while and dancing with Jane several times. She's wearing an old-fashioned high-necked dark blue dress with her hair piled on top of her head, and carrying a glass beaker. She's got a nice face, and could probably be considered quite pretty if she dressed and wore her hair differently, but her usual getup makes her look a bit mousy, and today's costume pulls her so far into mousy territory that she practically blends in with the walls.
But maybe there's something to the notion that love is blind, because Thor, dressed as a Greek god, looks so admiringly at her that it leaves the rest of their group blinking in surprise and wondering if they missed something.
"So who are you dressed up as?" Hildegund asks kindly.
"Madame Curie, obviously!" Thor says, leaving everyone else behind and baffled as he leads Jane onto the dance floor.
"Okay, he's smitten," laughs Fandral. "I'm pretty sure that two months ago he didn't even know who Madame Curie is."
"I'm pretty sure that you don't know who Madame Curie is," Volstagg jokes.
Fandral gives him a very affronted look. "Obviously, she . . . did something related to science. And wore a lot of blue."
It's a great night, really. The music is good, the food is better, and Sif has the pleasure of ignoring Haldor when he tries to catch her eye across the dance floor. (His string of bad luck since dumping Sif has continued; Amora has already lost interest and moved on from him.) As long as she ignores that niggling feeling somewhere behind her sternum that tells her that something is deeply wrong with an Odinson twin birthday party featuring only one Odinson twin, Sif has a wonderful time.
(And it's easy to do, ignoring that feeling, because all their friends accept the explanation that Loki's just mad at his family without question, and no one else seems to notice that he's missing, and everyone believes Thor when he says they aren't blowing out candles on the giant cake this year because it's so juvenile, and they don't realize it's because Loki's not there and Thor can't bear to do it without his brother.)
But all good things must come to an end, and some time after eleven, Sif hears Odin's voice coming from the front entryway. She decides to go say hello; he normally locks himself in his study during Thor's parties, and she's curious about why he's broken from routine. But when she gets there, she quickly wishes she'd left well enough alone.
"We won't be pressing charges," is the first thing she hears when she comes around the corner, the voice coming from someone she can't see, blocked from view by Odin's broad shoulders. But she can see the third member of the group well enough: Loki, wearing even darker clothes than usual, looking sullen and shamefaced, with his eyes darting up to meet hers and then glancing away. "We caught them before they'd actually started painting. And anyway, if we pressed charges for every stupid Halloween prank . . ."
"Thank you, Soren," Odin says heavily. "I'll have a talk with him."
When this Soren turns to go, Sif finally sees that he's a uniformed cop, giving Odin the kind of casual smile and goodbye that suggests he's an old friend.
"Loki," Odin sighs when the cop is gone, and Loki's eyes dart to Sif again, and that's when she realizes she's been standing here way too long, and she starts backing away. "Why are you doing this?" is the last thing she hears before ducking into the dining room, where all the food is set up.
But even that's not far enough, it turns out, because between the room's nearness to the front door and the fact that it's a slow, quiet song playing on the nearby dance floor, she can hear all too well when the voices in the front entryway suddenly grow louder and angrier.
"You are deliberately assuming the worst," is the first thing she hears, in Odin's booming voice, and she tries to pretend nothing is wrong but the other students in the room hear it as well, based on the way their heads all turn.
"Or I'm finally seeing things clearly," Loki retorts, loud but still controlled, and the other partygoers in the dining room quickly move to the door to eavesdrop. Through the wide door of the dining room, Sif sees a few more people step out into the hallway, to see what's going on—all close enough to hear but hidden from sight by a bend in the hall.
"You are breaking your mother's heart," Odin all but shouts, and that's what seems to set Loki off.
"Don't pretend you're worried about her!" he yells. "Don't pretend you're worried about anything but your presidential bid, and how I'm going to mess it up."
This is getting personal. "Let's leave them alone," Sif whispers to the other partygoers in the dining room with her, tugging lightly on the nearest two girls' arms. "This should be private." Everyone ignores her, too fascinated by the fight to leave.
"You are my son, Loki. That's what I care about. This has nothing to do with—"
"I'm not, though, am I?" Loki demands. "You've made it very clear for the last eighteen years that Thor's your real son, and I'm just the stray you took in off the streets!" He laughs, a low, bitter sound that makes Sif wince. "I bet you regret that now, don't you? You should have just left me with Child Services. It's obvious you've never really wanted me, and now I'm nothing but bad PR, aren't I, Odin?"
" What ?" comes a shocked voice from somewhere in the hallway, far too loud.
There's a long silence. Then heavy footsteps move toward them—Odin clearly coming to see who was listening in—and everyone scatters, including Sif, who does not want to be on the receiving end of the governor's fury. When she sneaks back to the front of the house a few moments later, Loki and Odin are gone.
So, with a sigh, she goes to warn Thor that the truth is out.
There's no better incubator and transfer medium for gossip than a high school party, and by the end of the night, every single person in the Governor's Mansion knows that Loki is adopted and in a massive fight with his father about it. Thor looks stricken when Sif finds him after midnight; according to Hildegund, he spent the last hour of the party being pestered by people who want to know all the details of the fight. Sif sighs, wondering how to comfort him, then starts in surprise when she realizes that Jane Foster is beside him, one hand gently on his arm—and from the tender way he keeps glancing down at her, apparently it's helping.
All things considered, it's been kind of a weird night.
. . . . . .
By third period on the day after Halloween, the entirety of Asgard High knows the gossip about Loki.
Public opinion on this is all pretty tame, really—people are mostly just curious about whether the so-called twins do genuinely have the same birthday, and wondering how they went so long with no one figuring it out—which is nice for Loki's sake, and for Thor's. But it's undeniably the only thing anyone talks about all day.
That night is the family's usual birthday dinner for the boys, but apparently it doesn't go well; Thor calls Sif after the meal is over, with his voice as heavy as she's ever heard it. The facts are these: Loki showed up to the dinner simply to announce that he's moving out, as he's now officially eighteen and, according to the law, can leave his parent's home at any time that he likes. He'll be living with Helblindi and his dad, who have extra space at their house, and using the money he's saved from various birthdays and Christmases for his expenses. And Frigga is a wreck about it.
When the call ends, Sif hangs up and stares blankly at her phone, wondering how everything went so wrong so quickly.
. . . . . .
The month that follows is as bad as the month after Homecoming was good. Sif hardly ever sees Loki; he's still avoiding everyone, but he seems especially reluctant to get anywhere near her and Thor. Sometimes she wonders whether this avoidance of her is a result of her closeness to his family or of that kiss by the Rainbow Bridge, and she goes over that moment again and again in her head: had she reacted with disgust? Was he mad about that? Because she certainly didn't mean to. She'd been startled, and she doesn't much like being up and kissed out of the blue by someone she's not dating; she was going to react the way she did basically no matter who it was kissing her. But it's not any kind of reflection on Loki—she's certainly never thought of him that way, but she's not—she's not saying—
She has no idea what she's saying.
Thor still texts him every so often, to no avail, and Frigga tries calling him occasionally, and even Tyr attempts to contact him once, worried about the young man who he'd always seen so much of himself in. Whether Odin has tried to contact Loki remains a mystery to Sif—he's not the type to discuss such a personal matter with anyone but his wife—but he looks like he's aged ten years since the summer. At least he doesn't have to worry too much about the media; Sif checks the news sites each day for the story of the governor's son angrily moving in with a friend to get away from his parents, but somehow they've managed to keep the story out of the press. She's not sure whether the press hasn't realized there's a story yet or if Odin has some way of keeping it quiet.
As for Sif, she's trying to respect Loki's boundaries, but still, when she one day unexpectedly finds herself washing her hands in the bathroom at the same time as Hela and Karnilla, she hesitates, then turns to them. "Hey," she says, but that's as far as she gets before Hela rolls her eyes.
"Don't even," she says and stalks out of the bathroom, and Karnilla flips Sif off as she follows close behind.
So talking to his friends isn't really a fruitful line of inquiry either.
In an unexpected turn of events, the only person any of them know who's ever in contact with Loki is Jane Foster, who TAs for his 2nd period AP Calculus class. It's through her that Thor and his parents know that Loki's math grades have been slipping dangerously and that if he skips too many more periods he's going to get an F in the class, and that he's gotten two days of detention for a stupid prank that he and Helblindi played on Coach Váli and for being caught with Malekith vandalizing a bathroom, which is literally all the information they have about him right now.
Thor has a direct line to this source now, having finally asked Jane out the day after the Halloween party, and Sif has never seen him so gone on a girl before. They are genuinely the weirdest couple she has ever seen, but they're also strangely sweet: the hulking blond hunk in the football jersey carrying textbooks for the tiny slip of a girl in the cardigan. This is the most serious Thor's ever been about a relationship; he's even been doing his math homework without complaint these last few weeks. And Jane's been an undeniably good influence on him; he's calmer with her around, and she's been able to comfort him during this trying time in a way that Sif would not have known how to do.
So when Hildegund asks privately one day whether Sif is okay with Thor dating Jane, she says yes, and means it.
. . . . . .
The Asgard High School Warriors beat Vanaheim to win state, to no one's surprise, and Fandral wants to do something big to celebrate. So on the day after Thanksgiving, he has the whole team and all the cheerleaders over for a party at his parents' massive cabin by the lake.
In true Fandral style, the party is set to be totally over the top; he's even made a ten-foot-tall cardboard cutout of the Vanaheim High School knight mascot, and he's planning on ending the evening with a massive bonfire where they burn the knight in effigy.
But also in true Fandral style, he's forgotten to take care of the basics, resulting in a phone call to Sif as she's getting ready for the party.
"We have to stop by a grocery store and buy cups," she informs Thor when she picks him up for the party. "Fandral forgot to get any."
"Of course he did," snorts Thor.
Thor's riding with her because Jane has a family event that will keep her busy until 9; she's going to show up for the party after that, then give Thor a ride home. "They have a family tradition where they go out on the other side of the lake and go four-wheeling on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and she says she doesn't want to miss it," he explains.
"She cares about her family a lot," Sif observes.
"Yeah, she does. Isn't she great?" Thor sighs as they pull into the grocery store parking lot, and Sif still doesn't know what Thor sees in her, but she's so happy to see him so happy that she genuinely doesn't mind that the school's biggest nerd has somehow managed to inspire a level of devotion in Thor that Sif never managed to achieve herself.
But his happiness is shattered when they get into the grocery store and find themselves face to face with Loki.
It's Sif who sees him first in the paper goods aisle; she's examining plastic cups when suddenly Loki appears around the corner, dressed in that shade of dark green that he likes so much but that always makes him look even paler than usual. He comes to an abrupt halt and starts trying to back away, but it's too late, she's seen him.
"Loki!" she exclaims, surprised and absurdly pleased to see him. "How . . . how's it going?" Stupid, what a stupid thing to say when he finally can't avoid you after a whole month of doing just that —but she's so startled she doesn't know how else to react.
"Hi Sif," he mumbles dutifully, his eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder. "I've . . . actually got to run."
But he's only just gotten out of the aisle—Sif following automatically after him—when Thor's voice comes booming from around the corner. "Loki!" he exclaims with evident pleasure. "What are the odds of seeing you here?"
Sif sees Loki frown, and then he strides away, out of her sight. A moment later, Thor moves past the opening at the end of the aisle, clearly chasing him. And Sif stands awkwardly in front of the paper towels, uncertain of what to do. Thor has more of a need to speak to Loki than she does, but she'd still like to see him; anyway, they might need her as a mediator. So she pauses to give them a few moments together, then follows after them.
"I just don't get why you're cutting me off completely," is the first thing she can make out, followed by Loki's sharp retort: "Yeah, well, there's a lot you don't understand."
She turns a corner to see them in the deli section, Loki's body language stiff and tense, Thor looking like he's barely keeping his nervous energy in check.
"Can you please just talk to me?"
And Loki actually hesitates. He stares at Thor a long few moments, his brow furrowing, and then glances over at Sif, then back to Thor, and Sif is put in mind of a deer, hesitating at the edge of a clearing, deciding whether it's safe to go in. But perhaps the clearing is safe after all: he looks like he's maybe about to open his mouth when his phone rings.
Sif has never wanted to smash an electronic device so much in her life.
Like a gunshot echoing through the forest, the sound seems to drive him away from the conversation he was (maybe?) about to wander into. He shakes his head and pulls his phone from his pocket. "I don't know how I can make this any more clear, Thor: leave me alone." And he strides off, not sparing a single look for Sif.
Thor turns around, his shoulders slumped and his eyes on the ground. Loki hesitated, Sif wants to remind him. Just for a moment, they almost had him.
Maybe. But maybe she completely misread the situation, and that possibility keeps her quiet as they grab the cups and walk silently to the cash register. By the time they get back to her car, Thor is in a proper funk, and Sif is regretting that they saw Loki at all, because maybe there was a moment where he was almost going to relent, and maybe there wasn't, but either way Thor is uncharacteristically quiet as they drive to Fandral's.
With this hanging over him like a raincloud, it's no surprise that Thor's not much fun at the party; even Fandral notices his mood, and throws himself into cheering his friend up. He plies him with food and drink, keeps up his usual stream of funny stories and clever remarks, and promises he can light the first match to burn the knight, and in time Thor's mood improves.
There's still a tightness around his jaw and in his eyes, though, and apparently Fandral can't stand for this. Because about an hour into the party, he hands his cup to Sif with a determined-sounding "I know how to fix this" and strides to his friend's side. They talk in low voices for a few minutes, and whatever Fandral says piques Thor's interest; Sif can see it in the way his body language changes and his eyes focus sharply on Fandral. A grim sort of a smile steals across his face, and Fandral leads Thor out of the room. And that's the last anyone sees of them for a while.
While they're gone, Jane shows up. She looks thoroughly out of place in her flannel shirt and jeans, with most of the other girls in low-cut tops and dresses, but she doesn't act it; Sif's coming to learn that Jane is rather fearless, in her way, and she strikes up a conversation with Hildegund as though she's known the girl forever. Sif joins in, to be polite, and the girls talk comfortably for ages; if not for the quick way Jane glances at the door whenever someone new appears, Sif would have assumed that she was totally confident about being here without Thor.
When Thor and Fandral finally appear, their hands are splattered with red, and the look in each boy's eyes has Sif's stomach sinking. "What'd you do?" she demands as Thor leans down to greet Jane with a kiss.
"Nothing," he insists cheerfully.
"Just a little redecorating," Fandral adds.
Jane's brow furrows. "Redecorating?"
"Well, repainting, really," Thor clarifies.
Jane glances down at Thor's hands; the light in her eyes that appeared when Thor walked in has started to dim. "What did you repaint in the dark?" she demands.
"And why do you look so pleased?" Volstagg adds.
"Well," Fandral says modestly, "we just wanted to do a little community service. So you know that knight statue out in front of Vanaheim?"
"We thought it would look better in Asgard red," Thor cuts in, grinning, and everyone within earshot starts cheering.
Except Sif and Jane. "Did you even think about how much trouble you'd get in if you were caught?" Sif demands.
Jane's mind, however, is caught up on an even less agreeable thought, if the look on her face is any indication. "You painted the statue out on the front lawn?" she demands.
Thor grins. "Yeah, Vanaheim's only like a mile up the road here."
"I know," Jane says tightly. "Because as you might remember me telling you, my uncle is the vice-principal there. What I don't think I mentioned is that he's the one who commissioned that statue."
"Oops," Thor says with an embarrassed grin. "But paint'll come off, right? But seriously, if you'd seen it, you'd think it was funny too. Seeing that thing in red—"
"You know that's vandalism, right?" Jane says. "It's a crime. And it's really rude. Even if it wasn't my uncle, it'd be really rude."
"And stupid," Sif adds, and Jane nods emphatically.
"It was funny!" Thor insists again.
"You don't even see why I'm upset, do you?" Jane asks. The only answer she gets from Thor is a baffled look, and with a sigh she takes his arm to lead him from the room.
After twenty minutes, Thor comes back alone. He won't say anything, but the devastated look in his eyes says enough.
The evening's kind of a bust after that, at least for Thor and Sif; everyone else is still partying hard, but Thor's walking around with a face like a burnt-out headlight, and Sif is suddenly exhausted by . . . just everything. So after they've burned the knight, when Thor asks how long she wants to stay, she's only too glad to suggest they go home now.
They've made it halfway across town before Thor speaks. "Jane broke up with me."
It's what she'd expected, but still, hearing it spoken aloud hits her right in the chest. Poor Thor; he liked Jane so much. But on the other hand, he's free; he's . . . available.
Not that he seems to be anything like interested in finding anyone else; his voice sounds as desolate as it did in the days after Loki leaving, and his face, when she finds a moment at a red light to glance at him, is a study in hopelessness.
"She dumped you over painting the statue?" Sif asks. She's not being skeptical, though; she's actually impressed. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for the nerdiest girl in school to dump the most popular boy in school over a prank that most people wouldn't even think was a big deal. And Sif always admires chutzpah.
Thor shrugs. "Kind of." He heaves a heavy sigh, and when he speaks again, she can tell that it's requiring a lot of effort to keep his voice calm and steady. "She was always kind of cautious about us, you know? I could always tell that she didn't really expect us to last."
Given Thor's track record with relationships, Sif thinks that shows a certain amount of sense on Jane's part.
"And I guess this just . . . proved her right. She said that me thinking what I'd done was okay, and the fact that I didn't seem sorry about it, proved that we're too different from each other to be in a relationship."
Sif suspects there's more to Jane's decision than that. If you go into a relationship assuming he's going to dump you, maybe it makes you more likely to dump him at the first sign of trouble—might as well break up with him before he has a chance to break up with you.
"Were you sorry about it?" Sif asks. "About what you did?"
He hesitates. "I'm sorry it made her so mad," he says finally, sounding uncertain, and Sif rolls her eyes. She's siding with Jane on this one, to be honest. But she doesn't think this is the moment to point that out; she doesn't want to kick her best friend while he's down. So they drive the rest of the way home in silence.
"I don't want to go home," Thor says when she turns onto their street. "Can we watch a movie or something at your place?"
Sif agrees and pulls her Mustang around the back of her house. But when she parks it, Thor makes no move to unbuckle.
"Thor?" she says softly.
He just keeps staring blankly ahead, in a way that tells her he doesn't really see anything.
"You okay?"
For a few moments longer there's silence, then he glances at her. It's a quick look, but the lights on the side of the garage are bright enough for her to see that the smile he gives her, lopsided and tight, is doing a poor job of covering up the pain in his expression.
"I've just never been dumped, you know?" he admits. "I never really . . . knew what it feels like."
Sif leans back against her seat with a bitter smile. "It sucks, doesn't it?"
He snorts at that, and then fixes his gaze on the dashboard. "Yeah, especially because . . ." She sees his hands tighten into fists. "I really liked her," he confesses, and his voice is soft and broken. His eyes are suspiciously bright, and Sif looks tactfully away to give him a chance to collect himself.
But by the time they're ensconced in Sif's home theater room, with an action movie queued up on the huge flat screen TV, he's gotten himself under control. Well, kind of; he seems to have traded in his fragile, heartbroken state for a determinedly cheerful one that seems no less fragile, and Sif's not at all certain that this is any better. At least he was being honest about how he felt in the car.
"This is good, us breaking up," he says as Sif sits down with the bowl of popcorn she just microwaved. "I mean, we tried it for a month and it didn't work out, so it's good we're not wasting any more time. Anyway, the same girl for a month? Me?" He scoffs. "It's about time I find someone new."
That would all be a lot more convincing if his eyes didn't still have a look that puts her in mind of a child whose puppy just died.
"It's okay to be upset," she says quietly. "It's not good to keep things bottled up."
"I'm not upset," he insists, but his voice isn't quite steady.
"Fine," she says. "But just know, if at some point you do feel upset about all this, that's okay. You just got dumped, and it doesn't make you, like, less manly or anything if you're sad about it."
"I'm over it," he says firmly.
"And if you're ever not," she says, "you can talk to me." And then, knowing that Thor finds comfort in being touched, she sets one hand chastely on his knee.
She doesn't mean anything flirtatious by it, she really doesn't. But that doesn't stop Thor from looking down at her hand, looking back up at her face, then surging forward and kissing her.
Okay, what is it with Odinson boys interpreting her attempts at comfort as permission to launch themselves at her face?
And Thor's seriously going for this kiss, as much as he can with no help or feedback from Sif, who isn't kissing him back. But she isn't pulling back either. Because yes, the sensible part of her knows that he's just doing it to relieve his feelings about Jane, and she never has much loved being unexpectedly kissed by someone she's not dating; but the less-sensible part of her is ignoring that because she is finally— finally —kissing Thor Odinson.
That's the thought that makes her finally break the kiss, actually; she spent a good chunk of her life imagining this moment, but she never imagined it would be tinged (tainted, really) with the knowledge that he was thinking of another girl while he did it. So she pulls away from him, far later than she should have, and with some reluctance, because wow is that guy a great kisser.
"See?" Thor says defiantly, his eyes wild. "Totally over Jane."
She manages to calm the tangle of thoughts and emotions running through her long enough to speak calmly and sympathetically. "I think that little display kind of proved the exact opposite."
Thor stares at her, and then the defiance just sort of crumbles and falls away from his face, and he looks suddenly very vulnerable. He doesn't cry, quite, but there's a bright sheen over his eyes, and she is amazed at how the hint of red around them makes his irises look an even brighter blue—almost fluorescent. "Okay, maybe I'm not totally over her," he confesses. He tips his head back and looks at the ceiling a moment, shaking his head slightly, then turns an apologetic look on her. "I'm so sorry, Sif. I shouldn't have kissed you."
"No, you shouldn't have," she agrees, then gives him a half-smile. "But I think I can forgive you this time."
They sit in silence a few moments, Thor rubbing his hand over his face in a motion that screams of fatigue. "Should we call it a night?" Sif asks quietly.
"I could really use something mindless right now," Thor confesses. "Would you be okay with still watching the movie?"
And she could really use something mindless right now too. So she agrees.
But her mind isn't on the movie, not even as they dim the lights and hit play and dig into the popcorn. It's on her friend Thor, now curled up on the other end of the couch, a respectable distance away, and on the kiss they just shared.
Because here's the thing: she wasn't as into it as she thought she'd be.
Obviously, it was a great kiss because Thor sure as heck knows what he's doing, and the part of her that never quite gave up on that childhood crush was thrilled. (Though her knowledge about Thor's emotional state interfered with her ability to enjoy it.) But really, it was fun, but it wasn't much more than that. It didn't get her pulse racing, or send any of those stupid sappy emotions rushing through her, the way kissing Haldor used to do, back when she had feelings for him.
She glances over at Thor, examining him thoughtfully in the glow from the TV screen. She's been telling herself and others that she's over Thor for years now. Maybe, after all this time, it's finally true.
. . . . . .
AN again: A note on the boys' respective ages: in the movies, Thor is meant to be older, right? That's what I always figured, but the way Loki acts is confusing: his offense at the fact Odin named Thor as his heir makes it seem as though he thought the line of succession wasn't set in stone. That could mean that Asgard does things differently, or that Loki is just being unreasonable. But I decided to interpret it in this version as the boys' ages not being as straightforward as you'd think.