His first meeting with Sif and the Warriors Three went every bit as well as Loki had expected it would.

Thor had insisted all the way back to the palace that the four would welcome Loki back just as Thor had. Loki had stared at Odin's back and said nothing as they rode. He knew better. Thor was an optimist, and despite his newfound maturity, he still held onto that childlike belief that everything would be find just because he willed it to be so.

Loki, however, was a realist. He knew exactly what he was and what he'd done. And he knew that Hogun, Volstagg, Fandral and Sif were not the most forgiving of Æsir.

Thor hadn't taken no for an answer, though, and after greeting Frigga–Gods, her tears, the strain on her beautiful face, the silver that hadn't graced her hair before he'd left, and all the guilt choking Loki until he wished he could slip through the dimensions and escape the evidence of the pain he'd caused her–he'd dragged Loki out of the palace and down to the practice field they'd always favored.

True to Thor's instincts, the four warriors were there, Volstagg and Hogun sparring while Sif and Fandral sat on the wooden fence in the shade, looking on and catcalling. Volstagg would crush Hogun if he ever managed to land a blow–the warrior was enormous, the battle-ax he swung deadly by its weight alone, much less its razor edge–but Hogun remained every bit as fast as the ninja he'd once been. Throwing blunted kunai and shuriken from a distance, the smaller warrior was clearly winning the bout. Thor grinned and clapped Loki on the shoulder, but he couldn't share his brother's joy at the familiar sight.

A glittering star sliced through the air and bounced off Volstagg's red forehead. "You are dead," Hogun declared in his flat, quiet voice, and Sif and Fandral laughed at the huge Viking's chagrin.

"One of these days I'm going to get you, I vow," Volstagg growled, but his panting spoiled the threat.

"My friends!" Thor called, all but dragging Loki along with him. "I have brought a surprise for you! Guess who has agreed to rejoin us?"

The four turned, all smiling at Thor's boisterous greeting, but all their smiles froze and then died when they saw Loki at their prince's side. Loki felt the ice inside him more than ever and gave a mocking little smile and bow. Why had he ever agreed to this? There was no welcome here for him, no matter what Thor had said.

Sif, unsurprisingly, was the one who broke the silence. "Thor, your love of danger has finally made you lose your reason," she said, glaring daggers at Loki.

Thor's smile also faded. "There is no danger here, Sif."

All of them looked doubtful. Loki took a slow breath and faced his brother, knowing a cue to leave when he saw one. "I will meet you at dinner, brother," he told Thor, using the title mostly to piss off the Warriors. From the hiss Sif couldn't quite hide, Loki knew it had worked. "For now I will retire to my rooms. The journey was tiring."

But Thor didn't allow his graceful retreat. He reached out and clasped Loki's arm, squeezing with enough pressure that it was difficult not to wince. "No, Loki," he said firmly. "You will stay."

Loki raised a mild eyebrow, but the words he sent to Thor's mind were anything but mild. You do not command me, Thor.

Thor looked only a little surprised to hear Loki's voice in his head but he didn't release him or look his way. He continued to stare down the four warriors before them. "If I have forgiven my brother, you can do so as well," Thor said quietly. "There were reasons for what he did."

"And do we get to know what they are?" Sif asked, challenging, her chin jutting and eyes narrowed.

"When you have earned the right, perhaps," Thor shot back, just as cold. His blue gaze swept them once more. "For now, as your friend, as your companion, I ask you to trust my judgment in this matter. Loki has returned home. Odin and Frigga have welcomed him. Do you say you know better?"

Volstagg was the first to look away. After a moment, Fandral and Hogun exchanged a glance and then looked to Sif. Loki, however, had never taken his eyes off her. He remembered too well how close she'd come to violence when they'd found him upon Odin's throne. Always the most passionate of the Warriors, the fiercest resistance would come from her.

Finally Sif spat and turned to the weapons rack. "If he wishes to rejoin us, let him earn it," she growled, and choosing an enormous broadsword, she spun around and threw it at Loki, blade-first like a spear.

He caught it with ease. "You wish to spar with me?" he asked calmly, knowing she'd chosen his least favorite weapon on purpose. He preferred his throwing blades or a staff–something light and maneuverable which would accentuate his speed and agility. This two-handed broadsword, heavy and unwieldy, had never been a weapon he'd chosen for himself.

Sif discarded her own practice blade and instead drew her glaive–a vicious, dual-bladed weapon with which she was a master. "I wish to see what color a snake bleeds," she said, grinning with the light of battle in her eyes.

Thor frowned and stepped forward, but Loki held up a hand. "Do not interfere now, brother," he murmured for Thor's ears alone.

"This isn't a sparring match, Loki," Thor growled back.

Loki smiled, but it was thin, bloodless, utterly without humor. "Of course not," he said. "You were the only one who didn't expect this."

And he left Thor standing and ducked beneath the wooden beam of the fence.

Sif's first strike came at him before he'd even straightened, but Loki was ready for it. She'd always telegraphed her moves with little flickers of her gaze–something he'd never bothered to tell her and saw no benefit in sharing with her now. He blocked the strike with the hilt of the broadsword. Her glaive rang like a bell. He was also ready for the sweep of her backstroke, leaping back to prevent his legs from being slashed.

He was less prepared for the heavy blow to the back of his head from the hilt of Fandral's sword.

Thor shouted as Loki stumbled, momentarily stunned, but he was already casting a spell to even the odds as he again told Thor, "Do not interfere, brother!" Three other Lokis split from him, one for each of the Warriors Three, as Loki returned his attention to Sif. She smirked with dark pleasure at his stumble and twirled her glaive, pointedly showing her skill and grace with the weapon.

The gloating pleasure on her face bit at him. Oh, fuck this disadvantage. Loki narrowed his eyes and murmured another spell. His awkward, heavy broadsword morphed in his hands into a long, blade-tipped spear.

"Cheating again, Cowardson?" Sif taunted.

"You chose your weapon, and I choose mine," Loki shot back, and then they clashed again.

Sif hadn't been known as the Goddess of War on Midgard for nothing. She was vicious with that glaive and Loki more than had his hands full fending her off. Spinning, kicking, lashing out with spear and fist, Loki deflected her attacks and initiated a few of his own. But first blood went to Sif, as it always had when they'd sparred in less tense times.

Loki barely felt the sting of the glaive's razor edge slicing his cheek. Sif smiled gloatingly at the warm blood sliding over his skin. "And here I thought it would be black, to match your traitorous heart," she mocked.

Loki smiled back at her even though nothing in him felt like smiling at the moment. "As always, your words wound as deeply as your blades," he returned, and she came at him again.

Behind him, Fandral kicked his clone away and went for the real Loki again, only to be intercepted by another clone–Volstagg alone hadn't joined in the fight. Hogun flung a handful of shuriken at Loki, distracting him, and his duck to avoid them almost earned him another cut from Sif. The throwing stars embedded in the fence and trees, proving they were not Hogun's blunted practice ones.

He went on the offensive now, starting to get angry. Since when had the Warriors Three ganged up on one opponent like this? Striking hard at Sif's guard, Loki drew a dagger from the ether and flung it at her simultaneously.

It slipped past glaive and shield and stopped a hair's breadth from her face. "Do pay attention, Lady Tyrsdottir," Loki chided, calling the blade back without so much as scratching her skin. "I would hate to spill your own exalted blood."

She scowled and attacked with even more ferocity than before. Whenever Hogun and Fandral could do so, they added their own strikes against the real Loki, and he directed a bit more magic into his clones to keep them busy. It was hard enough fending off Sif without having to deal with those two going for his back.

Suddenly, all were blinded by a bolt of lightning striking right in the center of the practice field. The simultaneous blast of thunder knocked them to the ground and the backlash disrupted all of Loki's clones. "Enough!" Thor roared, striding out and lifting Loki to his feet. "I am ashamed of all of you–Hogun, Fandral, when have you ever interfered in a fight fairly challenged? Sif, are you so unsure of your own prowess that you seek to put your opponent at a disadvantage? Volstagg, you would stand by and watch this unfold without a protest? What has happened to you all? Have you no honor left?"

Fandral looked away first, dropping his eyes. Hogun slowly followed suit. Sif, however, pushed to her feet with her glaive still at the ready and glared right back at Thor. "He happened to us!" she shouted, pointing at Loki. "You speak to us of honor and yet defend the one who betrayed you and had you banished?"

Thor returned her furious look and didn't release Loki's arm from the grip that was growing uncomfortably tight. "My own desire for revenge had me banished," he told her flatly. "The All-father was right to do so. I would have started a needless war, Sif. Our excursion to Jötunnheim was my plan–a plan my brother spoke against, if you will but recall it. You cannot blame Loki for my own recklessness."

"He's right, Sif," Volstagg said when Sif started to protest. She whirled on him, furious, but the older warrior didn't back down. "If Thor can take responsibility for his own decisions, you can at least acknowledge the truth of what happened that day, Sif."

"And what of all that came after?" Sif persisted. "Are we to simply forget that Loki stole the throne and–"

"I stole nothing." Loki's calm, almost emotionless voice broke through her accusations. "Thor was banished and Odin incapacitated by the Odinsleep. Asgard cannot be without a leader, Sif. With Thor gone, who should have taken the throne? You?"

She flushed but still didn't lower her weapon. "Odd that he fell so deeply into the Odinsleep while he was alone with you, Spell-weaver. Odder still that you refused to bring the true heir back to Asgard and instead–"

"Enough."

That single word from Thor finally succeeded in silencing her. Thor gripped Mjolnir tightly, his knuckles audibly creaking on the leather-wrapped handle. "Loki did what was right in taking the throne while our father was in the grip of the Odinsleep," Thor said after letting the silence go on past the point of discomfort. Loki wished he would release his arm. "And he did what was right in refusing to rescind my banishment. Understand this, all of you–had he brought me home then, I would still be that same reckless boy, unfit to lead our company, much less all the Nine Realms. I do not judge him for what happened here while I was cast out, and nor should you."

Sif lowered her glaive slowly, looking from Thor to Loki and back again. "Thor, we wish only to show you what Loki–"

"No, Sif," he cut her off coldly. "You seek revenge for a wrong that was not done, and I have learned that revenge only destroys."

Revenge only destroys… Loki couldn't argue that. He still felt a hot blade of guilt in his heart for every Jötunn life he'd taken by his cruel misuse of the bifrost.

Loki finally pulled his arm away from Thor's grasp, but gently, not wanting to offend his brother. In truth, even after Thor's defense of him to Odin, he was still having trouble believing his brother really meant all of this. Were these his true feelings, or was he merely saying what he needed to say to avoid breaking his vow to Taryn?

Volstagg stepped forward and, hesitating only a little, clapped Loki on the shoulder. It was brief, but it was friendly. "Welcome home, Odinsson," he said, and even though he didn't meet Loki's eyes before he turned and walked away, Loki felt the tension inside him loosen a bit.

Hogun didn't clasp Loki's shoulder–that wasn't his way–but he did nod slightly at Loki before following Volstagg back toward the castle. Fandral, however, looked between Sif and Thor for a long time before sighing. "You never make things easy, Loki," he said wearily.

Loki shrugged with a nonchalance he certainly didn't feel and reached up to rub the back of his head pointedly. The blond warrior flushed and kicked a pebble, looking for all the world like a little boy caught in wrongdoing. "Sorry about the cheap shot," Fandral muttered.

"It is forgiven," Loki replied at once. Once he would've held a grudge, but no more. Despite the throbbing headache, he would accept that and more to have at least one of the Warriors look on him with something like the companionship they used to share, and Fandral had always been the closest he'd had to a true friend among them. "I did not return here to harm Thor or Asgard," Loki added, wanting to make it clear.

Fandral nodded, and to his credit, he only hesitated a moment before doing so. Then he looked at Sif again. "If Thor trusts him, can we do less?" he asked her.

Sif scowled. "I do not so easily welcome a sorcerous serpent back into our midst," she growled, but Fandral only shrugged and, as Volstagg had done, briefly clasped Loki's shoulder before following the other two.

Finally, only Thor, Loki, and Sif still remained at the field. Sif folded her glaive with sharp, angry movements, then slid it into its sheath at her back before facing the brothers again. "Do you truly trust him, Thor?" she asked bluntly.

"With my life," Thor replied immediately.

"I do not." Sif turned her burning eyes on Loki next and he held her gaze without flinching. "I do not welcome you home, Lie-smith," she said coldly. "But as I love Thor, nor will I act against you. I will watch you only until your true motives become clear. Consider yourself warned."

Loki let out his breath in a tired sigh as she followed her fellow warriors away from the field. "That was fun," he muttered, finally reaching up to wipe the blood from his cheek.

Thor growled and clenched his fists at his sides. "They will come around, brother," he said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Loki. "Give them time. They will remember all the centuries you fought honorably alongside us rather than those mistakes made over such a brief number of days, Loki."

Loki wanted to snort in disbelief but he didn't. Right now, Thor and Frigga had been the only ones who'd been enthusiastic about his return to Asgard. He couldn't afford to alienate either of them. "I'm sure you're right," he said instead, and knew he was lying. He wasn't sure of any such thing.