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“It’s not the kid’s fault.”
Sif pauses her pacing for a moment, staring up at her husband incredulously. The hall of the Lodge is eerily quiet, giving them ample space to discuss what happened in Niflheim. Not that either of them really want to. “What?”
Thor takes a breath and looks to the side. He wonders if Thrúd can hear them from her bedroom. By now the girl must know something had happened, but has yet to speak with either of her parents. (Sif said she hasn’t left her room since she found Thor at the bar. It stings.) “Loki. It’s— it’s not his fault.”
The tattooed woman scoffs and crosses her arms, pinning her husband down with her critical stare. Thor can’t help but note in the back of his mind how utterly gorgeous she looks, even when irate. He’s known from the day they first met she was the most beautiful woman a being could ever lay eyes on. All these years later, that hasn’t changed a bit.
“Three years. You were sober for three years. You—” she sucks a sharp breath, her voice growing a little wobbly. She blinks rapidly and swallows to ward off any possible tears. Thor wants to tell her it’s okay for her to cry, but the words die in his throat.
(It’s not okay to cry. Daddy hurts you when you cry.)
“You made a promise. To Magni. To Modi.” She enunciates Modi’s name and Thor feels it hit him like a gut punch. “You made a promise to be better. For them.”
Thor remembers that day. He remembers well what was undoubtedly the worst day of his life. He remembers when word reached them of Modi’s death. How Sif and Thor fought for hours over it, throwing glass and spouting cruel words, both of their breaths reeking of mead. How they only stopped when a young Thrúd cried and screamed so loud she nearly electrocuted herself with her newly-manifested powers.
He remembers holding his daughter’s lithe body, remembers his wife begging her to be okay, cursing herself for being a terrible mother. Remembers his father pulling him away from his grieving, suffering family to speak to him “in private.”
He remembers how his father told him this was for the best. Magni and Modi were pawns, nothing more. Soldiers, not sons. How his father tried to tame him when all he wanted was to pay back that monster’s blood a thousand times over.
He remembers, worse than the bullshit his father spouted, was how he believed those lies. How he let Odin tame him.
“Do better,” Odin had spat at him behind closed doors, “you fucking piece of shit. Your sons are dead because they were weak, and if you don’t man the fuck up you’ll follow them right to Hel.”
“They were my sons. My wife’s boys.” Thor rasped. “They were family.”
“Like that means a damn thing. You certainly had no problem beating them to fucking pulps.” Thor had never heard Odin swear so much. Not since he was very young. (Wondered briefly if it was because his father was afraid.)
The rest of the argument, Thor’s blocked out. He knows it gets worse. He doesn’t want to remember the details, the new scars he acquired that night. He only remembers leaving his father’s study and finding his wife collapsed on the floor, ripping her hair from her scalp as she begged for her sons back. She’d do it better this time. She just needed one more chance to make things right.
“Ástin,” Thor whispered as he gently pulled her hands from her head, kissing her palms, “there is no making this right. They’re gone.” He shushed her softly as her body jerked, screaming out in protest. “They’re gone. All we can do now is be better.”
He remembers the way Sif slowly calmed down, wheezing out rough, shallow breaths. “You promise me.” She sobbed. Her voice trembled with barely-concealed emotion. “You promise me to be better. For Magni and Modi. No more drinking, no more neglect, no more hurt. You promise me to be better.”
Thor remembers wondering in that moment if Sif blamed him for Modi’s death. She’d nearly killed him when he’d beaten Modi in a drunken rage after Magni’s death, and if she did kill him, he wouldn’t have blamed her. Hell, he would have welcomed it. Did she blame him for driving Modi away, indirectly marching him right to his death? Did she blame him for weakening Modi to the point he couldn’t fight back? Did she blame him like he blamed himself? Did she hate him, too?
“You promise too.” Thor had whispered after a moment, because they both knew Sif wasn’t entirely innocent either. “I’ll promise if you promise.”
Sif sniffed and slowly leaned into him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Thor remembers her warmth, her tears staining his skin, her fingers curling into his shoulders. “I promise.”
Thor nodded, and he remembers feeling as if the world had just shifted – for the better. “I promise too.”
(Odin had entered, then, gently putting a hand on Sif’s shoulder and smiling. “They fought valiantly,” he told her, “they’ll be welcomed into Valhalla with open arms.”
Thor didn’t say anything at the time, because Sif genuinely looked comforted by his words, but he remembers feeling angry.)
For three years, Thor stuck to his promise. He stopped drinking entirely, never touched a bottle, even when Odin goaded and taunted him. He was a good father to Thrúd, hell, a great father. He did everything his own father never did – trusted her, appreciated her, listened to her. She never quite forgave him, but Thor understood. He hasn’t forgiven himself either. And they were in a good place. Thrúd learned to smile and laugh again (but, really, how much of that was Thor’s improvement, and how much was it Odin manipulating her not to mourn her brothers at all?), and Thor could finally begin to look at himself in the mirror again and feel something other than loathing.
He would always hate himself for what he did to his sons. If he could go back in time, he would’ve never done everything he did to them. He would’ve never made them into warriors. He would have held them, cared for them, shown his love for them.
They were dealt a shitty hand and died for it. Thor will always regret that.
But he couldn’t spend his life in self-loathing. He picked himself up. He became a real father again for his only daughter. Loved her the way she deserved. They all deserved.
And then.
“And then that boy came. And now look at you. Look at all of us. We’re wounded, Ástin. We are wounded.”
“I know.” Thor whispers, gently pressing his palm to her cheek, feeling her melt into his touch. “I know.”
Thor gazes down at her and slowly pulls her into a hug. She immediately burrows into him, wrapping her arms tight around his middle. “That’s not the kid’s fault, though. I fucked up. It was my mistake.”
Sif says nothing for a moment, and the two simply soak up one another’s company. Thor wishes he could freeze this moment in time. No loss, no pain, no Odin. Just him and the woman who still loves him to pieces despite everything he’s done to show he doesn’t deserve it.
“...Yeah. It was.” Sif admits quietly. “But if… if it wasn’t Loki, then… why…?”
Thor rests his chin on the top of her head. “I…” he hesitates. How honest does he want to be with this? Does he really want to tell her his own childish reasons for going back to that poison?
“When Loki showed up, he… my dad, he treated him like his own kid, you know?” He huffs out a humorless laugh. “Shit, no he didn’t. He treated him better than his own kids. He treated him like a perfect goddamn angel. And watchin’ that, watchin’ that kid get everything I used to dream about. Hah.” His eyes flutter shut. “Made me wonder what I did to deserve what I got.”
Sif tightens her grip on him, sniffling. “Thor…”
“But I do deserve what I get. You know?” He continues, beginning to rock with her back and forth. “I’m no good, Sif. Never have been.”
Sif pulls away for a moment, cupping Thor’s face in both of her hands, holding him like he’s worth holding. “You didn’t deserve what Odin did to you. Not as a child. Not an an adult. You did not deserve that.”
“I—”
“You grew up thinking you were inherently an undeserving and unworthy person. Odin implanted that into you. And you never had the opportunity to think otherwise, because he never let you.” She leans up and presses their foreheads together, a tear rolling down her cheek. “My eiginmaður… you are so much more than an Odinson. You are the best man I’ve ever known. You are worth so much more than Odin will ever see.”
Thor’s fingers tremble as he wraps his hands around her wrists. He tries to speak, but the lump in his throat prevents any words from escaping. He can’t remember the last time someone had said something like this to him. Doesn’t think anyone ever has.
“That fucking Odin.” Sif whispers, her breath tickling Thor’s lips. “Sometimes I just want to get away from here. From him. Take you and Thrúd and just… go. Find somewhere better .”
Thor’s stomach twists in discomfort. Even after all these years, he still feels that innate need to defend his father. To check if he’s listening. It’s ingrained into him like instinct, fearing his father’s retaliation. “Sif…”
Sif looks into his eyes, sucking in a breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She breathes. “I know you love him.”
Does he?
No, don’t think like that. Of course he does. He’s his father. He’d be nothing without him.
“I just wish he was kinder to you. So that you could be kinder to yourself.”
Thor’s eyes sting and he pulls away before the dam can fully break. “I don’t deserve kind.”
Sif follows him, grabbing his hand tightly. “You were just a child when he molded you. You couldn’t have escaped it. No, you aren’t the perfect person. You’ve done bad things, we both know that. But it was your father that turned you into this. You were not born with this evil.”
Thor sniffs. It’s something so welcomingly foreign to him. So utterly new. To believe he was not doomed from the start to be awful. To believe he was not born wrong.
It’s a strange feeling for him, to think that maybe, his blood was not tainted from the womb.
Suddenly, just as Thor has gathered the courage to speak again, the doors to Odin’s study fly open. Odin storms out of his room with a crazed look in his eye, his tunic covered in blood.
“O— All-Father…” Sif gasps, wiping at her eyes carefully and walking towards him, stopping short as Odin immediately spins to face the couple. “W-what—?”
“Hrist. Mist. Where are they?” Odin growls and it’s so unlike him. He looks panicked, out of sorts, it’s so odd Thor doesn’t know what to do with it.
Sif is thinking the same thing, judging by her hesitation and downright confused expression. “I— they’re in the village, training the Einherjar. All-Father, what ha—?”
Huginn and Muninn whisk Odin away within seconds, leaving the two baffled Aesir gods standing in the hall of the Lodge.
“What the Hel?” Sif says after a moment, turning to Thor. Her eyes flicker around nervously, as if she’s looking for him to pop up again. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. But I have a bad feeling.” Thor whispers. “I should find him.”
Sif is quiet for a moment, then nods. “Okay. I’m going to talk to Thrúd.” She leans in and pulls him into a quick kiss. “I love you.” She whispers against his lips, then pulls back. “Think about what I said. Please.”
Thor feels his stomach twist again. He’s going to need time to grapple with those thoughts. With his twisted perceptions and how he might have been misled his entire life into believing his evil is inherent. That he was born to be a monster.
He’s going to need a lot of time to think about that. To even allow himself to think.
“I will.” He finally chokes. “I promise.”
It’s one more promise he plans on keeping.