Chapter Text
It shouldn’t have been any different, not that day nor any other. Sigyn was sharing the kitchen with Steve with Clint sitting at the counter and flicking popcorn at them as Steve attempted to teach her how to make something called stir-fry. It was a kind of meat, pasta, vegetable combination of food that she was confusing with spaghetti and causing a cheerful argument with Steve about sauces.
There were different vegetables and meats cut into different proportions. The remnants of the first attempt she had made had been abandoned to the sink to be run down the garbage disposal later. More pots had been dragged out for their second attempt and were still sitting empty on the stove. Clint was lining up another piece of popcorn to flick at her and claim another point when she incinerated it.
It was as close to a normal afternoon as she had experienced since she had permanently joined and moved in with the Avengers. She’d been with them for three months sharing in their fights, healing them, sharing in chores, arguing over food recipes, overseeing Wanda and Vision’s practice, dragging Tony and Bruce out of their respective holes, incinerating popcorn or arrows with Clint, becoming less guarded with Natasha, and settling into the rest of the crazy that made up the lives of the Avengers. It shouldn’t have been any different, not that day nor any other, but it was.
She had just incinerated the popcorn that Clint had flicked at her, but his hiss of victory was cut short with the lightning that split the clear sky outside and touched down onto the Avenger’s landing pad. Steve and Sigyn stopped arguing mid-sentence and shared a concerned look, because Thor shouldn’t have been back so soon.
Sigyn was the first out of the kitchen with Steve on her heels and Clint two steps behind them. She was the first to reach the sliding glass doors and the first to stop dead in her tracks as she saw Thor and who was standing with him. Steve ran into her back, but there were no apologies as Steve saw what she did. It was Clint who swore when he detoured around them to look out the windows to their left.
“How the fuck is he not dead?” Clint asked.
She could hardly breathe as she tried to reconcile the sight before her with the last memory she had of him. Black hair, green eyes, sharp features, slender build, light skin marred by scratches and bruises, green and gold ceremonial armor, bound wrists, and the half mask gag. She remembered the way it had felt to touch his cold corpse, to slide her magic through him seeking, seeking, some semblance of life and not finding it. The tears, the heartache, the pain, the grief came circling back and she took a step back into Steve. A sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh escaped her as she stared at him. Loki was dead, but here and very much alive. Thor held the chain that linked to his cuffs and...then Steve was stepping in front of her and blocking the sight of them with his height and build.
It would have been easier for her to face Amora, Doom, or any number of opponents that they had fought in the last few months than to face this. Her hands clenched into shaking fists as she bowed her head and swallowed against the tears and the grief and the pain. Thor and Steve were exchanging words, a kind of firing back and forth of questions and answers that she was completely missing out on, as she focused on her breathing for a moment and reached for the balance that she had fought for months to regain.
Whatever else happened, Tony, Clint, Natasha, Wanda, Vision, Bruce, and Steve had helped her to find her balance again, had given her something to grab hold of in her weakest moments, and been companions in ways that the warriors and healers of Asgard never had been to her. When she lifted her head to look at them again, her eyes were clear even if her heart was not.
She placed one hand on Steve’s shoulder and stepped to his side. Her eyes swept over Loki’s form before settling on Thor. “In what plot was he caught this time?” she asked wearily.
Thor glanced at the cold expression that his brother wore and then again at Sigyn. “Impersonating my father while he lay in Odin Sleep.” He knew the lines of pain in her face, knew the grief that their return had awakened in her.
“And he is no clone?”
“You cannot tell?”
She met Loki’s gaze then, green to brown, and then looked away again to Thor. “I am the one who confirmed his death, Thor, and if he is not dead, then what is it that stands here? What was that lay before me when I made that confirmation? Who was it that wore his likeness?”
Thor met his brother’s cold gaze then and remembered how it was that Loki had died in his arms. Even for him, it was something of a new low. “I do not know,” Thor admitted softly. “What I do know is that the sentence was too much. The-”
“Odin will always go too far,” she interrupted gently. “No matter the crime, no matter the innocence. He will always go too far in the name of justice, in the name of peace, and in the name of honor.” Her gaze slid to Loki again, but it was with the sight of memory that she looked at him and saw their boys, Narvi and Vali before their deaths. “You know where the cell is, Thor. I will see to him after you have secured him. Leave the wristlets, but release the chain.”
She turned away, then, heading back for the kitchen. Steve glanced back at her, but didn’t move to follow as Clint stalked after her.
“How the fuck is he not dead?” Clint asked again, his voice more a snarl than before.
Away from the sight of Thor and Loki, in the safety of the kitchen with only Clint to see her, she braced her hands on the counter and dropped her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know, Clint. I confirmed his death, felt his magic shatter from mine where it had sat for a thousand years. He was dead.” Her voice broke with the words.
The anger faded in him a little as he studied the tight clench of her fingers and the marble that had cracked beneath her grip. Whatever her faults, she hadn’t lied to them. She had nearly shattered with the grief of it. He closed the distance between them, leaning one hip on the undamaged counter and placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Ok,” he said, then, softer, “Ok.”