I wish you would write a fic where Loki and Sigyn try to one-up each other pranking Thor, Valkyrie and the Avengers while on Earth. (Thanks, and Happy New Year! xoxo)
Dear Anon, I know you probably don’t remember sending me this ask, considering you sent it on New Years Day - two years ago - but better later than never, right? (Set post-Ragnarok, minus Thanos)
Loki’s return to Earth had notexactly been celebrated, but the Avengers needed him on an upcoming mission so hispresence was tolerated. Eventually they reached the end of their patience andso he was sent to annoy Doctor Strange at the New York Sanctum. He had to begrudgingly admit that theircollection of magical knowledge and artifacts was impressive, though it paledin comparison to Asgard’s. And didn’t he feel that loss keenly? He’d managed tosquirrel away almost a hundred of his most treasured volumes into his personalpocket dimension during his all to brief reign as king but there were hundreds of thousandsmore that had been lost to the fires of Ragnarok.
The Sanctum also held another mysterioustreasure.
“Sigyn? Is that name supposed tomean something to me?” Loki replied with disinterest, not bothering to raisehis eyes from his latest book.
“It should,” Strange smirked.“She’s your wife reincarnated.”
At that Loki deigned to raise hiseyes, flitting from the irritating Strange to the mortified initiate besidehim. She was fair of face and hair, the latter pulled back in elaborate braidsthat fell down to her shoulder blades, and she wore thick gloves on her hands inaddition to the standard burgundy garb of any initiate of Kamar-Taj.
“Is this a reference to yourlurid mythologies?” Loki drawled. “Because in truth I have never taken a wife.Though if you wish me to take her off your hands I would require a substantialdowry, say the Axe of Angarrumus? I received Thor’s name in Stark’s wintersolstice gift giving game and such a weapon would mean I don’t have to lowermyself to visiting one of Midgard’s marketplaces.”
Rather than reply Strange huffedwith irritation and flounced out of the room (the sorcerer may have justturned, the Cape of Levitation did all the flouncing). The woman gave him acurt bow before disappearing into the rows of shelving, and Loki would haveforgotten all about her the moment she was gone from his sight if Strangehadn’t screamed his name as he stormed back into the library less than a minutelater.
Loki laughed. He couldn’t helpit. The Sorcerer Supreme was standing in the middle of the room, his dark bluerobes now emerald green and his famed cloak a blinding gold, as his face turnedan interesting shade of red. It was the best thing he’d seen since the Hulk hadthrown Thor around like a ragdoll in the arena.
“What? It wasn’t me,” Loki arguedas Strange continued to glare at him after he’d been able to stop laughing.
With one flick of his wrists thesorcerer changed his robes back to their original hue and with another he cutthe legs off Loki’s chair, causing the Asgardian to fall on his ass with athud.
Loki was dusting himself off whenthe woman, Sigyn, reappeared, a heavy tome in her arms and a small smileplaying on her lips.
“It was nice to meet you,” she saidin lightly accented English before leaving the room via a portal she’dconjured.
Loki stared at the space she hadoccupied for a long minute before smiling to himself, “Interesting.”
In the days leading up to theMidgard winter solstice celebrations Loki thought of the curious Sigyn often,and though he frequented the Sanctum he had not seen her again, and dared notask Strange as to her whereabouts and give away his interest. In the end she came to him, arriving via a portal on the balcony of Stark’stower along with Strange and two other sorcerers, a hour late for Stark’sChristmas party.
Since they had last crossed pathsSigyn had apparently completed her training, having exchanged her initiaterobes for more formal ones of grey overlayed with a dark purple sleeveless coatwith silver embroidery. She still wore gloves the same shade as her robes, andtoyed nervously with the bindings. Stark was being his obnoxious self as heintroduced the sorcerers to the rest of the superheroes, scientists, andobligatory celebrities gathered on the 68th floor, and just as Lokiwas sure that Strange was about to push Stark through a portal to the farreaches of the universe, the Man of Iron was distracted by his AI systemintroducing the newest arrivals to step off the elevator – in Latin. Their hostsufficiently distracted, the sorcerers began to mingle (Strange making for oneJane Foster, the next smartest person in the room, much to Thor’s thinly veiledannoyance), and Loki made his way over to Sigyn.
“I have no idea what you’retalking about,” she replied automatically as she took a glass of somethingbubbly from a passing waiter.
“Of course you don’t,” Lokismiled. “Just as I have no idea what’s going on over there,” he said, pointingto the bar where Valkyrie was trying drink after drink, growing more frustratedas each turned to water on her tongue.
Sigyn stifled a laugh beforegazing around the room in search of her next target. The slight twitching ofher fingers was the only indication that she had made her play and it was a fewminutes before Loki understood what it was. There was a small commotion acrossthe room and the man out of time stumbled away from a group of overly affectionatedebutantes, a sprig of mistletoe followed him. If he stayed in one place forlonger than five seconds the mistletoe hovered over his head and the peopleclosest to him felt compelled to kiss him. It resulted in the good captainrunning laps of the room as he cursed Stark for inventing some sort ofmistletoe drone.
As the party guests laughed Sigynraised an eyebrow in challenge but before Loki could contemplate his next movea loud slap rang out. All eyes turned to find Doctor Strange getting chewed outby Doctor Foster before the petite brunette stormed off.
Sigyn gasped. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t me. Itseems as though the Sorcerer Supreme is fully capable of making an ass out ofhimself without my assistance.”
They watched as Thor made tofollow Doctor Foster and the moment he caught up with her Loki sliced the airwith his arm, sending the former lovers flying into a storage closet at the endof the hall. He immediately sealed the room – no one would be able to heartheir cries for aid and for all Thor’s strength he would not be able to breakout of the room before dawn’s first light hit the tower.
“They have been tiptoeing aroundeach other for weeks. It’s been painful to watch. One way or another it endstonight.”
“Fair enough,” she mused as hersharp gazed scanned the room. With a sly smile she ran a finger around the rimof her glass and half the room fell silent before findingthemselves singing a rather passionate rendition of “Santa Claus is Comin’ ToTown”.
Loki barely had a moment to enjoythe confusion before he felt a sharp pinch between his ribs.
“That’s enough,” the widowcommanded, pressing a blade so hard against his side it pierced through hisleather vestments.
Before Loki could proclaim hisinnocence Sigyn took a sip from her glass and the chaos fizzled out intoconfused laughter and the sounds of drinks being topped up. Loki breathed asigh of relief as the blade was removed from his side.
“If you can’t behave yourself itmight be better for your health if you retired for the evening,” the widowsuggested before rejoining her friends.
“Haha,” Sigyn chortled into herdrink. “You lose.”
“You got caught,” Sigyn repliedas though it were obvious.
“But it wasn’t my trick.”
In a fit of frustration, and inan effort to best his sparring partner, Loki threw a glamour over Sigyn,ridding her of her robes and dressing her in a glittering golden gown similarto those he had seen a few models in attendance wearing. The figure-hugginggown was quite alluring on her, as was the amount of exposed flesh, until onegot to her now glove-free hands which were misshapen with leathery scars. Sigyndropped her champagne glass with an anguished scream when she realised whatLoki had done, angry tears filling her eyes when she felt the room staring ather. She turned on her heel and summoned a portal with her sling ring,disappearing in a shower of sparks.
“What did you do?” Strange sighedirritably as he appeared at Loki’s side.
“I may have taken things a steptoo far,” Loki conceded.
“Is there any way to follow her?”
With another put upon sigh,Strange summoned a portal for him.
“If my favourite student doesn’tcome back, neither should you,” Strange warned before shoving him through.
The portal closed and Loki foundhimself face first in the snow. He righted himself and in the grey light he wasable to follow Sigyn’s footprints towards a church and the cemetery behind it.He found her seated before a headstone once again dressed in her in grey andpurple robes. Her gloves were lying on the ground beside her and her misshapenhands sat in her lap. Loki approached cautiously and when she failed to attackhim he sat down next to her, joining Sigyn in staring silently at the headstoneof one Marta Magnusson.
“Most days I can forget aboutthem,” she said without preamble, turning her scarred hands this way and that. “But thensomeone will comment on my gloves and I remember it anew. If I don’t wear them I have to put up with looks of disgust or pity. I’m notsure which is worse.”
“When I was but a child my fatherthrew me into the fireplace during one of his drunken rages, pushed me down bythe heel of his boot, my little hands pushing back against the burning logs asflames licked my face. It felt like hours of agony but my mother assured me itwas only seconds, either way the damage was done. Recovery was almost aspainful, and whenever I cried about it my mother would wipe away my tears andsay, “Women are defined by what they can endure, little Sigyn, so it is in allthe great stories, and you are far too strong to give up now.”
She fell silent then, content toignore her companion in favour of losing herself to long buried memories. Itstretched on long enough to make Loki fidget, a dozen empty platitude dying onhis silver tongue.
“I’m not showing you mine,” hemuttered, just loud enough to draw Sigyn’s attention.
“I’m not showing you my scars soyou’ll think us even,” he bit out petulantly. “Just know that I have them. Also,”he added with a belligerent sigh, “I’m sorry for bringing yours to light the wayI did. It was cruel.”
She accepted his apology with abrief nod but made no move to bury her past once more and leave the frozen cemetery. Loki sighed again, cursing his newfound sentimentality, and outstretcheda hand towards the headstone. Within minutes an ice sculpture formed behind itin the shape of a mother embracing her child. The child may have resembled Sigynbut, Loki realised too late, the mother was most definitely Frigga.
Sigyn’s eyes lit up inappreciation but as she turned to Loki her smiled faded. Loki followed her gazeto his outstretched hand, now azure blue. Chastened, he gave it frustratedshake as though his true heritage was something he could easily rid himself of.He crossed his arms to hide it from view until it returned to his prefershade and avoided meeting her eyes.
“Can you only manipulate ice?”she asked, surprising Loki.
“Is it only ice you can create?”she repeated, smiling as her eyes drifted skyward to the flurries of snowflakesthat drifted past on the wind.
Loki, sensing mischief, smiledback. “What did you have in mind?”
The karaoke portion of Stark’s Christmasparty was due to begin, but as the host took the stage a blizzard developed outof thin air, pouring in from the balcony and blanketing the room with snow.Panicked and freezing guests sought to escape it but where met with icy gales thatpushed them back from the elevators and stairwells.
It disappeared as quickly as it came but left the entire floor covered in two feet of snow. Stark was thefirst to regain his senses, but before he could call for Loki’s head his ownwas struck with an icy projectile. He turned on the spot to find the SorcererSupreme smirking back at him, his cocky cloak dusting snow off whatever its equivalentto hands were.
“Oh, it’s on now, Strange.”
Loki hoisted himself up onto thebar and helped himself to an abandoned glass of champagne, laughing at thechaos before him as dozens of enhanced individuals engaged in an all-outsnowball war. Sigyn joined him moments later after quickly forming a portal withher sling ring to divert a wayward snowball down the back of Wong’s robes.
Loki beamed at his partner inmischief and pushed a drink into her gloved hand. “To what doesn’t kill us,” hetoasted.
Sigyn laughed and clinked herglass against his. “May it always make us a riot at parties.”
