there had been many moments in loki's long life where death stood waiting at the doorstep, sometimes knocking rapidly and eagerly awaiting for him to fling the door open, and sometimes with more foreboding patience, the presence a looming and heavy reminder that oh yes... death could wait.
of all of said moments, between fire and blood and wailing and begging and daring (stupidly, usually thor's fault), none were quite so painful as this.
death stood at his door and it was grinning.
well! it was always grinning, wasn't it? but this time it was different. this time it was a know-it-all sort of grin. a sort of 'ha ha ha, got ya now!' smugness.
this was because loki was certain, absolutely and completely certain, that he was going to die of embarrassment.
"why can't YOU show her around?" how many times had he asked this question of thor now? twice? thrice? fifteen million fucking times?? if he was going to lose his life to this mortifying task then at least he would be obnoxious about it until the very end. he could tell it was wearing thor down.
his brother was wearing scrubs. the mortal equivalent of a healer's set of robes, only... well, actually a little more practical if loki were to be honest. thor was also wearing a watch and he kept looking at it as if one glance from him might make the seconds decide to skip ahead on his account. thor wore impatience much better these days but it was still there, in the small motions like that.
"because i have a shift i promised i would take and- ah, here we are!"
one of strange's sparking portals began to sizzle and hiss softly as a tiny speck that grew wider and wider and wider until it was large enough for a child to step through. maybe a tad bigger, but still it wasn't nearly as large as what thor or loki would require if they were going into it, which they were not.
they were waiting for someone else to come through it toward them and loki's stupid heart was about give up the ghost on him. he hated that he remembered her and hated even more that there was a possibility she remembered him.. only the memories of her were far nicer and he knew for fact all those of him, as of late, were awful.
thor was grinning. loki swallowed hard.
"lady sigyn, welcome to the sanctum santorum of new york city. i'm afraid our resident sorcerer supreme is not here to greet you himself but i'm all too pleased to have the pleasure. and you remember loki, yes?"
loki made no gracious bow the way thor did, just lifted a palm and gave a sort of 'welp, here i am, sorry about all this' look that was about as awkward as he ever felt in his entire life.
