Work Text:
For as long as Sif could remember, she had been beautiful. She knew she was beautiful because everyone told her so. Her hair was so lovely, she'd make an excellent queen, a perfect match for Thor, a wonderful lady... On and on it went until she could pick out her every apparent virtue in her sleep. A normal person would grow conceded from all the praise she garnered; Sif just grew resentful.
Sif didn't want to be beautiful. She didn't want to be a delicate and soft lady. She didn't want to be queen. All Sif wanted, and all everyone seemed determined not to allow her, was to be a warrior.
She tried to make Thor teach her swords when they played together after his lessons, but he was too busy trying to show off to be much good at it. She had asked Loki once, but Loki wanted bargains and deals, and she didn't want to sit through magic lessons just to help him keep secrets he didn't need. So she kept pestering Thor, and people kept praising her and telling her she would be queen and that lady's didn't belong on a training field, and making her sick with wanting more and more every day.
Then one day she woke up with black hair.
If she was honest, it was the happiest she had ever been. People told her she was beautiful because of her golden hair, and because they though she'd look good next to Thor. Now though, she wasn't 'beautiful'. She was aberrant and unnatural. Now that she wasn't beautiful, she had a much better chance of becoming a warrior.
Sif didn't bother pretending that she didn't know who could have done this. She didn't react to the gasp and staring that followed her as she went to meet her friends. She didn't answer any questions about what had happened. She didn't thank Loki for giving her a way to do what she had wanted to do for so long. She simply walked up to him, ignored the knowing gleam in his eyes, and punched him in the gut.
That was the first time Sif thought she might love Loki and the first time she decided never to tell him so.
Loki hated each and every one of Thor's friends. Sometimes. Mostly. Maybe only a little. They certainly annoyed him enough that he wanted to leave them stranded and dangling off the side of a cliff for a few hours every week.
If he could easily do so, he'd forsake their company altogether. But Thor would become sad and mopey and do that obnoxious pouting thing he did, and Loki honestly just didn't want to be bothered. His brother could be a bother and it was just easier to let him be happy than to see him despondent. If he chose to sit near Sif, it wasn't due to any accolades of hers, merely the failure of Thor's other friends. Volstagg was too loud, Fandral always wanted to chat, and Hogunn stared too much.
"Your armor is digging into my side," Sif complained roughly half an hour after he had sat down beside her to read. He was, perhaps, leaning against her side a touch. No reason to look into that.
"Too weak to endure a minor discomfort, Sif?" he questioned without looking up.
"Too lazy to sit up on your own merit, Loki?" she shot back. She was sharpening her blade and he didn't hear any sign that she'd stopped.
"Why should I suffer on your behalf?" she asked snappily.
"Why should I move to accommodate you?" he shot back.
"I was here first!"
"Do you want a prize?"
She stopped sharpening her blade to glare at him. He didn't lift his eyes from his book, but he could feel it. Sif was almost as volatile as Thor, so he was surprised when she resorted to threats.
"If you will not move, I could move you."
"Perhaps," he said nonchalantly. He tensed, prepared for some retaliation from her. To his vast surprise, she did nothing. She scoffed and returned to sharpening her blade, and they spent the rest of their time in silence.
The first time Sif took someone to her bed she was half drunk in Vanaheim. She'd spent the previous day arguing with Loki over the results of a sparing match in which he'd used magic to win and she needed to vent her frustrations. She wasn't concerned with preserving her maidenhood. Thor and Fandral had taken enough maidens to their bed over the last few years, as most warriors did, and the less she had in common with more marriageable maids, the better.
She woke up with her bed partner absent and Loki sitting in a chair beside her bed. He was staring at her with a deliberately blank expression and handed her something blue in a vial when she sat up. She drank the potion without question, feeling the mild pounding of her headache and the sensitivity in her eyes begin to recede immediately.
"I took the liberty of ridding your room of rabble," he told her.
She was used to Loki's rudeness, especially when he was upset, which she had to assume that he was. Still, she didn't intend to let him insult her by association. "Loki--"
"I'll trust you have your more base instincts under control for the moment. I'd hate to have to make a habit of cleaning up after you as I do for Fandral."
"I am not like Fandral," she spat, glaring at him. She wasn't ashamed of what she'd done, wouldn't be ashamed to do it again either, but she didn't want to lumped in with Fandral. As much as he was her friend, he also traded bedmates like children traded marbles. She was nowhere near so fickle.
Loki nodded. "See that it stays that way."
She growled as she sat all the way up. The sheets fell away from her body, leaving her bare chest exposed, but she didn't care. She was a warrior and her nudity meant little to her. It seemed to mean little to Loki, as well, as he didn't look away from her eyes nor did his expression change in the least. That irritated her more than she wanted to admit. "You don't control me Loki!"
He stared her down, glare for glare. After a moment, he said a passive, "So it seems" and left her room. She had no misconception that that would be the last of it, however.
The next night, Loki took two women to his bed and made sure that she knew it. It stared with a bet between him and Fandral, not an entirely unusually thing but Loki wasn't often the one to indulge him. He was bragging about his ability to charm anyone to his bed when they all knew he was as successful as he was not. Loki bet that he could do better and in short order had two woman hanging off of his arms, laughing and drinking with him as he stared her down. Oh, there was the pretense that he was looking at Fandral beside her, but Sif knew better. This was a direct message to her. If he had no sway over her, then she could say nothing to him.
Sif wasn't even certain that Loki cared for maidens. He'd never shown interest in them, nor the men that sometimes looked his way. She'd been convinced that he wasn't interested in such matters, except perhaps when it pertained to her.
Not that she had been looking out for such things. It was only that Thor and the others talked like gossiping geese and she was sometimes near enough to hear.
Sif left the bar before she could see if he left with them, but it didn't stop her from seeing them coming from Loki's room in the morning. He had the gall to pretend surprise when he saw her. "Sif! I did not expect you to be such a late riser."
She wasn't. She had stalled leaving her room hopeful to avoid this very situation. He knew that she was an early riser and always had been. They'd often watched the sunrise together on early watch, so she knew that he knew. It was for that reason that she both couldn't properly call him out and yet knew without fail that he'd arranged this on purpose. She clenched her fist, grit her teeth, and did nothing.
"Well this is awkward," Loki said in a decidedly fake tone. "I hope this doesn't upset you in some fashion."
"Why would it upset me to see you in such cheap company?" she asked. "Like turns to like, after all."
His nostrils failed and she could see the anger and hurt clear in his gaze. "Ah, that must be why you dragged that low born fool to you the other day. What do they say about laying down with dogs."
She slammed him against the wall, hearing those girls scream and scatter as she held her blade to his throat. "Speak to me that way again and I'll cut out your tongue."
"Do you intend to cut out my eyes so that I cannot see the truth as well?" he questioned.
She pushed him harder against the wall, jerking him enough that his head banged against the stone. "I'm warning you, Loki!"
"Humorous," he said with a grin. "You seem to think you have any say over my bedmates. What would cause that, do you think? Is there some reason this would be a concern for you?"
She could say it. She tell him that she wanted him for herself and all this would end. No doubt that was exactly what he wanted. But if she said that, he won. Sif would be damned before she let him win over this. She stepped away from him, but she was slow to move her sword from his throat. "I merely thought you'd have a care for your reputation."
"I'd thought the same of you, but I am finding myself mistaken in that regard."
Had her sword still been at his throat, she thought she might have drawn blood.
"If that's all, dear Sif, I'll be on my way."
Sif let him go, if for no other reason than to keep herself from killing him.
The next time she took a man to her bed, quiet a few years later and motivated by nothing more than loneliness, she woke to find her hair half shorn off. She screamed, resulting in half the palace knowing of the incident before first meal and half a dozen rumors floating around her. The most damning of which were those of adultery. Sif wasn't known to be involved with anyone, unless one counted the few persistent rumors about her and Thor, but everyone knew that cut hair was a punishment of adultery.
She spent the morning in her room in tears, the afternoon tracking Loki down and beating him until Thor dragged her off with assurances that Loki would never do such a thing, and the rest of the day loudly swearing off men.
It didn't escape her that the next day, Loki appeared around the palace as a woman. Neither did it appease her in any way.
This could all end so easily, if only Sif were willing to let it. She knew, had always known, that Loki had claimed her by changing her hair. He'd marked her as his, stolen her beauty and granted her desire in one fell swoop. She knew that he wanted her, that this was his way of stating his intention and she had only refuse or accept him to stop this madness. But, just as she had the first time, Sif found herself unwilling to do either.
It would be a lie to reject his courtship, even though they drove each other crazy and fought at every opportunity, Sif still enjoyed him. Hell, she respected him! There was no obstacle that had been placed in her path that he had not found some way to clear, though she'd never asked him after that first time. Thor could do the same with half the effort and half the finesse if push came to shove, but she didn't want Thor to clear her path. She liked that Loki did this for her, even when he lied and tricked to get her what she wanted. Even when she refused to ask. She liked it because she refused to ask.
She enjoyed that he was willing to give her what she wanted without forcing her to bend her pride and ask. If the sake of her pride was that she had to endure rumors and harsh words and cut hair, then so be it. Loki would be insufferable if she was made to confess to him. And maybe, just maybe, she wanted him to actually ask.
Half of Asgard thought that Loki had gone insane, when she begun to walk around as a woman, while the other half thought that this was a long time in coming. She did magic, after all, so it was only fitting that she would eventually just become one. The distaste of allowing such people to believe themselves was correct was what had prevented her from doing this sooner. Sif thought that Loki was doing this for her, but in truth, she just provided a convenient excuse.
No one else seemed to put together Sif's swearing off men with her sudden female appearance and she was fairly certain no one would. Except perhaps Thor, who had begun to look at her with an oddly canny gaze lately. Thor always was more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for and Loki appreciated seeing his brother put his not inconsiderably intelligence to use.
Truthfully, Loki had been changing into a woman in secret for years now. It was one of the first things she'd practiced with her magic and she'd spent a lot of time creating a form that felt like her. That felt... right. Well, at least half the time. Loki liked her regular body well enough most of the time, but sometimes she needed something different and she'd wanted an excuse to be that way more often. Sif had inadvertently given her that excuse and a chance to test whether or she'd be... interested in such a thing.
She stayed in female form for three months before Sif cornered her in the hall one night. She tasted strongly on mead when she kissed her, but her hands didn't shake or fumble as they found their way beneath Loki's clothes. Loki considered that to be enough.
"Is this a joke," she asked him. She was looking in Loki's eyes, even as her hands pulled franticly at him. "Or a... trick of some kind?"
"No," she told her quickly, gasping as Sif's hands brushed over her very sensitive breast. No one had touched them before except Loki herself and the sensation was better than she had imagined. "It's not a trick."
"This is you then?" Sif asked again to be sure.
"Yes."
"Good," Sif said firmly as she kissed her again.
Loki teleported them both to her rooms when Sif ripped her top open, and the rest of their progressed much the same. Passionate and urgent and everything that Loki had wanted from Sif since the first time she'd straddled her and punched Loki in the face. Less painful than a punch, too, which Loki considered to be a boon.
The next morning Sif had snuck out before Loki woke up. Loki cried and broke every mirror in her room and it took Thor forcing his way in to days later to get her to finally leave her rooms again.
Sif had made a mistake. She didn't want to admit it, wasn't used to admitting it when it came to Loki, but she most certainly had. Loki hadn't said more than two sentences to her at a time since they had slept together and she felt the weight of that silence every time they were in the same room. It had perhaps been a mistake to leave Loki the way that she did, but she honestly hadn't expected that she would get the reaction she did. It was actually Thor that came to her with the sternest expression she had ever seen directed at her and demanded that she apologize for however she had slighted Loki.
A few denials and an argument later, she learned that Loki hadn't sent Thor to scold her, he was just being observant and proactive. That made her feel twice as bad, but she still didn't apologize. At least, not with words.
Loki switched between his male a female forms at what seemed like random to her. He could go days or weeks as one or the other, and then have a day where Loki's form was different every time she saw him.
A month after their fight, she approached Loki when she was in female form.
"Can I help you with something?" Loki questioned. She wouldn't look at Sif.
Sif didn't want to apologize. Loki never had for any of what he'd put her through and they were very much the same in that way. Instead, she asked her, "Do you remember when you changed my hair?"
It was the first time either of them had spoken of it directly and Loki's head snapped up to look at Sif with wide eyes. She was cautious as she answered. "Yes..."
Sif held a out a ring. It was simple and silver, with a green gem in Loki's color in the center. No one who saw such a thing would ever mistake it's purpose. "My answer," Sif said stiffly. "If you accept."
It was uncommon for a woman to purpose. But Sif was a warrior and she and Loki had never been typical beside. Loki took the ring, immediately slipping it onto the appropriate finger. "I accept."
"Good," Sif nodded. She didn't know what more to say and the Warrior's Three were all staring at her. She turned on her heel to Leave, but Loki stopped her.
"Next time..." Loki paused, female voice changing to male between one breath and the next. "Next time, don't run."
"Next time or this time?" she questioned. She'd stay if he asked her to, but she really wanted a moment to scream into her pillow about asking Loki to marry her and him accepting.
"Next time," he said firmly. "This time, you may run."
Phrasing it that way was like rubbing salt on the wound, but she walked away from him and didn't look back. She had gotten used to their dynamic by now. It wasn't made of softness or kind words like other relationships were, but it was theirs and it was real. And Sif, even if she didn't want to tell Loki so, was fully intent on keeping him.