Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

POV symbol key:

♤♤♤ - Loki

♧♧♧ - Yelena

♤♤♤

"It'll be alright, you know."

If she could have done anything but tense up even further, Loki would have laughed. Her brother was clever enough when he chose to be, but completely oblivious to human nature. How could going back into the public education system after being away for almost five years turn out, in any conceivable way, alright?

"I'm not lying. It's different. Everyone was concerned, you know. They all wanted to know what happened to you," Thor continued, not bothering to indicate his turn. He wouldn't have needed to. Being the mayor's favoured (only at times) son came with more than a few perks, one of which was that the town's traffic laws did not seem to apply.

"I'm sure they were," Loki mumbled in reply, resisting the urge to shrink in on herself as they passed a group of students who had opted to walk. She didn't remember any of them, but that didn't mean they didn't remember her. Thor was still insisting people had cared when she had dropped out all those years ago at he pulled up to the gates. "You can go in," he told her. "I'm only going to be just around the corner, and parking never usually takes that long."

That wasn't a suggestion, it was a statement. Managing the impressive feat of not rolling her eyes at her brother's naivety, Loki got out and started walking towards the gates, trying not to let her stride wobble. She stopped just outside, looking at the red-and-white sign on the wall beside the gates. Marvel High School. The name of the wretched place. It wasn't the same school she'd been pulled out of, but she had no doubt there would be some familiar faces. Familiar in a way that wasn't good. She could hope that being femme-presenting now would shield her for a little longer, but she couldn't stay like that forever. Gender dysphoria was a bitch and sooner or later someone would recognise her, femme or not.

Several groups of teenagers, older, younger and the same age as her, passed by, and Loki held her breath in trepidation each time. But nobody was looking at her, too wrapped up in their own worlds of classes, crushes, what happened over the holidays and sport. It was fine, nobody recognised her, acknowledged her existence or cared. But there was still that part of her, the scared, sad, unwanted and eager to please child she'd once been, that couldn't quite accept it.

♧♧♧

"So are you going to try out this season?" Yelena queried. Beside her, Sig shrugged. "Yes, but they probably won't accept me," she replied.

"They'd be crazy not to. I spent all summer helping you perfect your routine. Besides, Amora graduated last year so that, along with Hilde quitting, leaves two spots on the squad open that'd be incredibly hard to fill. And you'll definitely get one of those places."

"There are plenty of girls better than me-" Sig began self-depricatingly, but Yelena interrupted with "Nonsense. You are going to wipe the gym floor with the competition. Besides, red and white suits you so well."

That earned a smile from Sig, so Yelena returned it. Sig would be better than everyone else, that was for certain. And Yelena would fight for her to be on the team, something she had a say in as squad captain. A small say, but a say nonetheless.

"You have to be serious about cheerleading though," Yelena began, tone serious. "Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't just about shaking pom-poms in short skirts as much as ballet isn't just about hopping around in a tutu. It's gruelling, hard, horrible and un-glamorous work behind the scenes. Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Yes," Sig replied, her eyes lighting up. "Yes, I've wanted to be a cheerleader since... I can't even remember how far back it goes. I finally feel confident enough to try out, and I'll do it, I will. If I make the squad, I'll push through it. I want this, and I've finally got a chance. And I'll seize that chance."

Yelena admired her friend's determination, but had to wonder how long it would last. Her own childlike enthusiasm when she'd made the squad had been snuffed out after a month to be replaced with cold, hard stubbornness that had kept her going for the best part of three years.

"You'll be fine," Yelena told her friend. "Because of you, I only have to worry about one empty spot on the squad."

Sig smiled and it was like the sun had come out. Yelena was reminded of their time together over the holidays, the periods when they weren't practising Sig's tryout routine.

Shoving the memories to the back of her mind, Yelena returned her friend's smile as Sig went up to the nearest squad sign-up poster and confidently wrote her name.

♤♤♤

Thor will be insufferable if he knows he was right, Loki thought as she walked down the hallways in search of her locker, head down. Nobody had recognised her so far, and a girl who'd introduced herself as Shuri had been nice enough to point her in the direction of the lockers. It wasn't much and hadn't given her the confidence to walk without a bowed head and hunched shoulders, but it was something and Loki was pathetically grateful.

She did eventually find locker 1215, but wasn't sure what to leave in there and what to keep hauling around in her bag, the straps of which were beginning to create what she suspected would be an impressive red abrasion in her shoulder. From sneaking looks at the other teenagers occupying the hallway, it seemed that gum, notebooks and makeup were common enough items, but Loki only had one out of those three things and, knowing her luck, if she left her notebook in the locker she'd end up needing it.

But it'll seem odd if I just close the locker after opening it if I haven't put anything in. Someone might notice and think that I'm odd for doing so, and I don't want to draw attention to myself. It wasn't a thought process that could be tempered with logic, as Loki was fairly sure that teenagers had never been introduced to such a concept. So she feigned interest in the graffiti inside, eyes seeming to skim over every slur and fight challenge, when she was really making a note of everything she would have to bring to assimilate tomorrow. Makeup and a mirror to stick to the inside of the locker door if she was still female, deodorant and wrestling posters if her gender shifted to male, gum no matter which pronouns she wanted to be used in reference to herself next morning. She was fairly sure she'd be able to get all of that, just in case, after school if she dipped into her book fund, but that could wait. She had to survive the next six hours first. Maybe seven if she joined a club that happened after school, since even the most determined of bullies probably wouldn't want to wait for an hour or more.

Shutting locker 1215, she made her way up to the first floor, which was where her first lesson should be happening.

Science was good. Science was something she liked. But maybe she shouldn't be too obvious about it. Don't attract attention, just blend in, become another faceless American teenager being bored to the point of their brain dissolving. It was what she'd told herself she'd do. Nobody needed a reminder of the old Loki, the person she'd been before she was pulled out. Obviously that meant showing intelligence and interest that was average and considered normal for such a teenager. No answering questions, no doing incredibly well on assignments, no showing of interest whatsoever. It would be hard, but it was doable. She'd refrained from things that were much harder to resist in the past, she could stop herself being a teacher's pet.

The class was taught by a man listed on the timetable Loki had been given as a 'Mr E. Selvig'. Mr E. Selvig, as it turned out, was a completely unremarkable man reaching middle age with a faint Swedish accent.

"Ah, Loki Borson, isn't it?" Mr E. Selvig greeted her with. Encouraged by Loki's tentative nod, the man continued with "Now, everyone else still has their lab partners from last year, but Shuri's previous partner transferred at the end of term to Japan, and I'm sure she'd be happy to work with a boy like you." Mr E. Selvig gave a small smile, clearly expecting Loki to go to the back of the classroom and sit with the girl she recognised from earlier. Instead, the teacher was met with an icy glare and a cutting "Actually, I'm a girl right now. I'm genderfluid, you see," from Loki, who then internally cursed herself. Yes, being misgendered was unpleasant, but so was every eye in the room being on her. To his credit, Mr E. Selvig took it in his stride, saying "Very sorry, I'm positive Shuri would be happy to work with a girl like you. The file we were shown about you had your gender as male, I'll be sure to speak to someone about it..."

Loki had stopped listening, trying to remember how to walk normally as she made her way over to Shuri, who was giving her an encouraging smile. Keeping her head down, Loki hunched her shoulders and tried not to think about the possibility of someone recognising her, both from her name being said and the revalation of her genderfluidity.

"You are very brave," Shuri whispered as Mr E. Selvig began talking, something about chemistry. "I don't think many would find the nerve to correct a teacher like that, no matter how unpleasant the mistake makes them feel."

"I'm not brave," Loki replied in a mutter, attempting to both listen to Mr E. Selvig and appear as though she was bored beyond belief.

"My mother once told me that it is those who do not think they are courageous who possess a lion-like heart," Shuri replied before allowing herself to look attentive, something Loki wished she could let herself to do.

♧♧♧

A few hours later

Almost purely because of her position as squad captain and the duty that came with it, Yelena had found herself checking every sign-up sheet for cheerleader tryouts that she passed between lessons. It was just before her Geography class, and she walked by the one she'd seen Sig write on earlier. Several other names were on the list, but Yelena was most fascinated by the terrible handwriting at the bottom. She could make out a K and what could have been an R, a B or, with a little imagination, a P, but decided to ignore it. There'd likely be someone else who could decipher that handwriting, or it would belong to some girl whose name wasn't on the tryouts list because nobody could translate her handwriting.

"How many more names are there this time?" Sig asked, joining Yelena in the hallway as they walked towards the Geography classroom and one of only two lessons they had together.

"Twenty seven in total on all the sign-up sheets around the school, including 'Sigyn Iwaldidottir', so six more people wrote their names," Yelena replied.

Sig had asked that question every time she'd seen Yelena since signing up herself. Her tone was always calm, but she seemed more and more nervous as the numbers grew. The more people there were, the slimmer her chances were of being picked. Were she anyone else, Yelena would have lost her patience by now and said that if she preformed well in tryouts she'd be in with a good chance. It was what the squad captain at the time had done with her when she first tried out. But this was Sig. And Yelena was trying to be a better captain.

"I don't know who'll get the other spot, but I promise that I will fight tooth and nail to have you on the squad, Sig," Yelena told her friend.

Honestly, she had a few ideas about who she'd like in the other spot, but one of them had moved away over the summer and another had done themself a permanent injury. It was a shame, they would have been perfect.

♤♤♤

If there was one part of going back into school that Loki had been dreading more than the possibility of someone recognising her, it was the bell for lunch and having to enter the cafeteria. She remembered being painfully alone in Elementary and the two grades Stanley Middle School (that she'd forced herself through before being pulled out) during those times, and there were enough bad memories and associations to go with those kinds of places to give her a healthy... not fear, but intense dislike.

She'd forced herself to ask for regular-sized portions (too little of everything and she'd stand out, and her mother and the doctors at the clinic would be proud) but didn't have to contemplate where to sit for too long, as that was when Thor had made his appearance and had convinced her that she ought to sit with him and his friends, who he claimed had been especially worried when she'd dropped out.

Only one of those 'friends' was recognisable to Loki at first glance, and that was a certain Clint Barton. She remembered managing to pull off something that had been rather hurtful against him before being pulled out, but she didn't quite recall what and only remembered it and the young man himself because Clint's glare, aimed at her, could probably have melted diamonds. Then Thor introduced the other four.

Natasha Romanov and Steven Rogers were the only names Loki remembered, and neither seemed to match their owners. At 13-14, Natasha had been a scrappy tomboy with a pageboy bob and aquamarine ends that clashed horribly with the natural red of her hair, and the young woman who had that name seemed like she could have been a model, with a beautiful face that was somehow innocent-seeming but aloof and calculating and red curls that flowed past her shoulders. Steven... he was even more unrecognisable. Loki remembered him as a scrawny boy who was always picking fights. Nowadays, he had the same kind of beefy build as Thor and the two were only differentiated at first glance because Steven's hair was shorter.

She didn't know the other two, Robert Bruce, or just Bruce, Banner and Anthony Edward Stark, but she knew she disliked the way the one she believed to be Anthony was staring at her.

"Thor never told us he had a sister," Anthony stated in a manner that suggested musing when the young man in question struck up a conversation with Clint Barton.

"I wasn't out back in Elementary or Stanley," Loki replied in a way that she hoped sounded idle.

"Fair. Neither was I, to be honest," Anthony stated in return, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. "So. You taken?"

"I am certainly taken aback by such a question," Loki told him, starting to pick at the palm of her hand.

"Ah, c'mon. There has to be someone. A girl, or guy or human being in general as gorgeous as you? People must be queueing up to go out with you. I mean, unless Thor's one of those brothers who thinks nobody's good enough to date his sibling, amirite?" Seemingly encouraged by Loki's lack of a reply, smart, snappish or otherwise, Anthony continued "But even if Thor was one of those kinds of older brothers, there's got to be at least one person who isn't put off by it. Y'know, someone who thinks you, or at least your unfair attractiveness, is worth it. Unless it's like a Romeo and Juliet type of thing? I never finished it, but I got that their affair was secret, right? But I never got why."

"Their families, the Montagues and the Capulets, were deadly enemies, which is why they have to keep their love a secret in the play," Loki supplied, unable to help herself.

"Right, their in-laws hated each other," Anthony said, nodding like he'd solved some great mystery. "Not uncommon."

"The rivalry between the Montagues and Capulets is a little more than arguments at Christmas," Loki murmured, wondering just where her self-control had gone.

"Sure. But, going back to my question that you didn't answer, there's got to be someone, surely?"

"Are you attempting to tell me something, Anthony?" Loki snapped, waiting for the sting of a quick rebuff and the insistence that it was all a jest. She was surprised and a little unnerved at the movements of Anthony's eyebrows coupled with "Only if you want me to be, Rock of Ages. And call me Tony."

"Please do not ever use that tone of voice within my vicinity again," Loki replied, barely suppressing a shudder.

Anthony looked as though he had some quip he was dying to say, but before he could Natasha silenced all conversation at the table with a look before turning her attention to a blonde girl who was getting up a little way away. Most of the cafeteria was silent as she announced "This is just a reminder that cheerleading tryouts are happening after school. There is still time to write your name on the sign-up sheets pinned up around the school. That is all."

♧♧♧

Every eye was on Yelena as she sat back down. It was a very uncomfortable sensation, which was weird because more people stared at her during the routines she and the rest of the squad did at games. But maybe that was it. The rest of the squad was with her during the routines. Now it was just her everyone was looking at.

"That was good," Sig told her. Honestly, Yelena was fairly sure she could have done better, but it was a matter of opinion. She'd gotten the message across, yes, but... actually, she wasn't sure what she was complaining about to herself. The people knew what they needed to know, she ought to leave it at that.

Three hours and fifty minutes later

Darcy Lewis seemed like she'd attempted the splits to end her routine, but it just looked like her on one knee in a very painful way. She'd given a mediocore performance overall. There were just two left now. Sig and probably the girl with the awful handwriting, since her name wasn't on the list unless Yelena had crossed out something she shouldn't have at some point.

"Sigyn Iwaldidottir?" Yelena called out, noting how odd it was to pronounce her friend's full name like this. She was so used to calling Sig 'Sig' that it was easy to forget it was just her nickname, not a full name.

Sig moved down from her spot in a way that seemed like an impossible combination of skipping and shuffling, likely due to her nerves and excitement battling. However, all traces of that vanished as soon as she stepped onto the mat the other girls had been using. Yelena could only think to describe it as like a dance routine from a music video that was meant to be in sync with others, but with no music. Her phone had died half an hour ago, so that explained that.

As she watched Sig, Yelena was reminded again of their time together over the holidays, in Sig's room or hers, spent perfecting that routine. It was a fairly simple one that managed to look very impressive, but that wasn't what Yelena remembered the most vividly. She remembered the twisting of Sig's body as she practiced over and over, the sway of her hair before she thought to tie it back, how close they'd been when Yelena had corrected her position or posture...

"Yelena?" It was Sig's voice, and it was what snapped Yelena back to the present. Sig's routine was finished, she'd been staring...

"Good. Very, very good. Expect confirmation," Yelena said, trying to get her head back in the game. At least it was only one more girl.

After Sig left, not without a lingering glance filled with worry sent to her friend, the last girl came onto the mat. Yelena held up her hand. "I don't know your name, it isn't on my piece of paper. Just tell me your name, please."

"Kate Bishop," the girl replied with a smile. Huh. So those letters had been KB. Right. After adding the girl's name to the bottom of the list and taking a second to remember that she was on the school's archery team, Yelena motioned with her hand for Kate to start. She hadn't intended to watch with her whole attention span. She'd intended to look at it with a critical eye, as she was already pretty sure a girl called Kitty something would have been perfect in the spot that didn't have Sig's name on it. But there was something about Kate that made Yelena unable to drag her eyes away.

She wasn't even sure what it was. Her routine didn't speak of long hours of practice or the natural grace and fluidity required. Quite honestly, it seemed like bad pop-and-lock. She wasn't even a raw diamond. But Yelena liked that. While she wouldn't forget about Sig, there was definitely someone else she might fight tooth and nail for...

This is ridiculous! her mind screamed. She'll ruin the team! She should stick to archery, she has no talent for cheerleading! But something else, possibly Yelena's heart, was begging to give Kate a chance. It truly was ridiculous, she didn't even know why she was leaning more towards her heart's opinion. But still, she said Kate's name when handing her list back over to the coach and giving out the names of people she thought should make the team. Honestly, that list really just consisted of Sig and Kate Bishop, but who else besides the coach would know?

"How'd tryouts go?" Natasha asked as Yelena shut the door.

"Well," Yelena replied, not bothering to make sure her bag stayed on the rack. That was tomorrow's problem.

"There's something bothering you," Natasha observed, following Yelena upstairs. "Did someone say something?"

"Nobody said anything," Yelena growled, going into her room and flopping dramatically onto her bed. Natasha followed her, settling on the end of the bed.

"You can talk to me," Natasha told her sister in a low, gentle voice. "Just give me a name, and nobody will ever find the body."

"Get out," Yelena grumbled, picking up a magazine from the floor. Natasha did as her sister said, closing the door on her way out. As soon as she was gone, Yelena let the magazine fall onto her chest and groaned. She was still thinking about Kate Bishop. Why?

♤♤♤

"Was I right?" Thor asked as quietly as he was capable of doing while pulling into the driveway.

"I don't know yet," Loki murmured in reply.

"Why don't you know?" Thor inquired.

"Because this was just the first day. I'm fairly sure nobody recognised me only because I am presenting as female. The second everyone sees me when presenting as male... I am sure that will jog their memories. Besides, I don't fit in. I didn't have what I needed to look normal, and I am fairly sure I was embarrassingly over-eager during Science. Oh, and speaking of Science, I snapped at Mr Selvig."

Yes, she was missing out a few other things that had been horrible today, such as being forced to endure the presence of Thor's friends during lunch and someone shoving her out of the way in-between Science and Algebra, but there were some things her brother did not need to know about.

"I overheard about the incident with Mr Selvig," Thor told her. He'd turned the ignition off, but he hadn't made a move to get out of the car yet. "Is it true that he misgendered you? Because you would have been within your rights to correct him."

"Yes," Loki confessed. "He said that he was certain someone called Shuri would be delighted to work with a boy like me. I told him, rather sharply, that I was a girl right at that second and genderfluid. I... I know I overrreacted, I'll apologise tomorrow, I-" she was cut off by one of Thor's large, warm and firm hands being laid on her shoulder.

"Sister, you were right to tell him what you told him. He was in the wrong that time."

Loki wasn't quite sure how long she spent sitting there with Thor's hand on her shoulder, but she knew they got out of the car and went in the house only when she was unable to stop shivering from the cold, not a moment before.

Neither of their parents were home yet, and Thor went into the kitchen to search for something to eat, likely a packet of those chicken noodles he was so fond of. Loki left him to it with a dry remark asking that he please refrain from burning the house down.

"You managed to burn water the last time you tried to cook unsupervised!" Thor retorted.

"Yes, but did I ever forget the cheese when making macaroni cheese and manage ruin a pan so much that I had to throw it away and buy a replacement before Mother came back from her business trip during the same disastrous attempt?" Loki called back as she went upstairs, knowing Thor would have no answer to that one.

Her room was the same as she'd left it, with her ever-chaotic desk in the corner and the entire wall that was taken up by bookcases. She checked that the books were in the same place she'd left them. It was nonsensical, Loki knew that, but it was a habit she hadn't been able to move on from since coming back from the hospital and seeing that someone, either her mother or Thor (the former was most likely, but her brother could have thought he'd been 'helping'), had cleaned her desk, rearranged her books and changed her sheets. She didn't mind the last one, as she'd been in bed pretty much near-constantly in the last few weeks before being hospitalised, but the first two had unnerved her.

Judging by the smell wafting up from downstairs, Thor had managed to find his chicken noodles and had begun to cook them.

The small, green and leather-bound notebook on her desk seemed to be taunting her. At the suggestion of the person at the clinic, her mother had bought it. "You don't have to write anything down in it," the person had told her. "But it'll be there if everything becomes too much for you. If you don't want to, you don't have to share what you write with anyone. What you write down can be for your eyes only." And Loki had been tempted, multiple times, to do good on that suggestion. But whenever she'd sat down to write, something would interrupt or she just wouldn't be able to find the words, which was odd for someone like her. She was so used to knowing exactly what to say that not being able to translate that onto paper through a pen was a thoroughly humbling experience. Still, she decided she might as well give it a try.

Settling herself at her desk, she selected a pen, opened the notebook to the first creamy page and... nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hadn't really known what she would have written, but absolutely anything, even a droll description of her day, would have been better than stopping her pen just before it touched the paper because all the words that she'd wanted to say had been washed away by some... some wave of blankness!

With a small, almost inaudible sigh, Loki closed the notebook, knowing that today wouldn't be the day she would get past her literary case of being tounge-tied. She could hear Thor calling from downstairs, saying that the noodles were ready. Ah, so he wanted to share whatever culinary disaster he'd managed to make.

"I'd rather wait until Mother comes home," Loki drawled as she came downstairs to the sight of Thor laying the large dining table. "Your dabbles in cooking are usually abysmal."

"You know she'll be too tired to cook," Thor pointed out, the space between his eyebrows creasing minutely with an emotion approaching worry but not quite there yet.

"Oh alright," Loki conceded dramatically, sitting herself down and putting on an expectant facade. All to stop her brother from reaching the stage of fully worrying, definitely not because the kicked-puppy eyes he made when almost worried were, to quote Thor's fourth-grade teacher, 'weapons of mass persuasion'.

As expected, the noodles were tasteless and overcooked but hardly the worst of Thor's cooking misadventures.

Chapter Text

POV symbol key:

♤♤♤ - Loki

♧♧♧ - Yelena

♡♡♡ - Sigyn

¤¤¤ - Frigga

♡♡♡

One day, that'll be me, Sigyn thought to herself, scrolling through the Marvel High Cheerleading Squad's Instagram page, looking at all the smiling girls in red and white. She'd stopped scrolling to watch several videos of the squad's preformances, trying to imagine herself as a part of the famous pyramid. It was much easier now than it had been, say, two years ago.

Her sisters, Nanna and Idunn, had been so excited when she'd told them about finally trying out. "I'm so happy for you!" Nanna had squealed, wrapping Sigyn in a rib-crushing embrace. It was the kind of reaction to such news that Sigyn had only dared to dream of, but while she appreciated their enthusiasm more than she could ever express it did make her worry more about their reactions if she didn't make the team. That other girl, Kitty Pryde, had been so good.

Then there was her mother, Freya. She hadn't directly said anything, but she had brought out the home videos of her back when she was a cheerleader at Marvel High, with the kind of expression that said you can try, but you will never live up to my standards.

Even after she turned off her phone in the hopes of stopping the thoughts, they still found ways to slide into her mind.

It'll be fine. Yelena has enough of a say to make sure that I will get a spot. Even if I don't, I can always try out next year, she tried to tell herself. But it didn't quite work. Ever since middle school, Sigyn had wanted to be a cheerleader. She wasn't quite sure how she'd react if she didn't make it. Probably not well.

"Drama queens make murder scenes," she murmured. It was something her mother had always said in response to her sisters overreacting. Freya's mother had said it as well, and it apparently stemmed from some great-great aunt, Gullveig, who didn't get the role she wanted in a ballet, so she had killed the girl who was given the role instead. Sigyn was 90% sure it was a myth, but the saying was in her family regardless.

"Hope I don't become the next great-great Aunt Gullveig." It was something she'd only just thought of, but now she was worried again. Ugh, why couldn't she just forget about it for one night? The results would be announced in two days time, why couldn't her nerves wait until then?

She'd asked Yelena for advice about the anxiousness of the wait, and had gotten a very unhelpful "indulge in other interests, it'll take your mind off it". She wasn't sure if it had worked for Yelena, but it certainly didn't work for her. Even the case of the Silver's child, something that usually fascinated her, couldn't quite draw her in as it used to. And when that didn't capture her attention, it was serious.

A sudden noise outside startled her. It sounded like a fox or something had collided with one of the bins, but there was something else.

Maybe I should stop reading all that true crime stuff, it only freaks me out when things like this happen, Sigyn thought to herself, getting up and going over to the window. Being September, it was already pretty dark, but the orange glow of the streetlight a few metres away provided enough illumination for Sigyn to see a person in black running in the direction of Asgard Place, the posh cul-de-sac.

One of their bins was rolling around on its side, so Sigyn assumed that the person in black had run into them somehow.

Maybe they were tired, or just not looking where they were going, she rationalized. No need to worry. With that, she settled back down to worry about whether or not she would become a cheerleader.

♧♧♧

Even while backflipping or being thrown in the air, even when you're in so much pain it's hard to stand up, you must smile.

Coach Karnilla's words were a constant companion to Yelena's morning routine, so much so that she practised the mega-watt grin the coach was talking about in the mirror after brushing her teeth. Her words were like a mantra, one that Yelena could recite by heart.

"Smile," she told her reflection, stretching her lips into a grin that seemed wolfish.

It was Thursday, she could manage this. She could and would. Yes, the routine of school was jarring after the utter freedom of summer, but that did not mean it was time to get lax. She could make it to Friday, which brought joy, and then to the weekend, which brought rest. She could make it.

She noticed a text from Sig as she picked up her bag, which had (inevitably) fallen to the ground.

You awake yet? :)

Yes, I am. Wish me luck with Coach Karnilla ;), Yelena replied. Sig sent her a ton of shamrock emojis just seconds later, causing Yelena's next smile to be genuine, rather than practiced.

♤♤♤

Before he even fully realised why, Loki's first thought upon waking up was oh shit. He lay face down for a few seconds, somehow managing to scream at the universe for its cruelty.

He would have stayed like that if not for the temptation his mother's cooking offered. With minimal low grumbling, he dragged himself up from his bed, keeping the duvet wrapped around his shoulders and rubbing his eyes.

¤¤¤

"Loki! Your breakfast is on the table!" Frigga called for the fourth time. She heard some slow scuffling and after nearly a minute her youngest trudged miserably down the stairs while looking as though the night had been spent being dragged backwards through a hedge rather than sleeping. Red eyes were also present.

"What's with this?" Frigga asked as her youngest sat down. Loki looked up at her, the all-too familiar hangdog expression in those big green eyes.

"I'm ill," Loki croaked, adding a tiny cough.

"Mmhm. And tell me, what pronouns would you prefer this morning?" Frigga queired, suspecting she knew what this was about.

"He and him," Loki muttered in the guilty tone of a found-out child, adjusting the duvet that was beginning to slip off his skinny shoulders.

Holding in the sigh of a long-suffering mother, Frigga took a seat next to her youngest, twisting her fingers. "You do realise it has been almost five years, yes?" she asked her son. He seemed to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

"Everyone has grown and changed, including yourself," she continued. "Even if somebody does recognise you, they'll have grown past what they did."

"They already think I'm a freak, this is just going to make it worse," Loki told her through a mouthful of bacon and pancakes.

Frigga's first instinct was to tell him not to talk with his mouth full. After restraining herself from that unwise comment, she asked "Why do you think they believe that?"

Her youngest swallowed and took a few moments to consider his answer.

"I don't know how to act like one of them," he eventually confessed.

"How so?" was Frigga's response.

"Little things. Having to fake my boredom, not being able to keep my mouth closed around teachers and Thor's moronic friends. Going into that lion's den like this will only make it worse."

Frigga stayed silent. She sensed there was more, but whether or not Loki would tell her was another matter entirely.

"I heard the conversation," Thor announced cautiously, coming out of the kitchen.

"How bad was yesterday?" Frigga asked, still twisting her fingers.

Thor looked up the stairs, as though making sure his brother wasn't listening. Hardly likely. If Loki wasn't going to keep up the pretense of being unwell, he'd be getting dressed.

"I don't really know," he eventually replied. "I heard about the incident in Science, and Loki told me that he thought he was in the wrong yesterday. I also know he conversed with Anthony Stark over lunch."

"Remind me what your brother and Howard's son said to each other, please," Frigga requested.

"I wasn't listening... um, something about Shakespeare? And Loki's love life? They might have said more, they might have said less, I truly don't remember," Thor told her, wondering why she would need the reminder. He was fairly certain he'd told her this last night.

Frigga had several more questions she wanted to ask, but she only had five minutes left if she wanted to be ahead of the traffic on her way to work.

"I have to go. Thor, have an excellent day and tell Loki I love him."

♤♤♤

There wasn't exactly a lot that could be done, if Loki was being honest with himself. He couldn't exactly become the epitome of masculinity within the next ten minutes, no matter how much he dearly wished it were possible. That left the other extreme; dress as neutrally as one could.

Plain black shirt with long sleeves, loose dark green jeans, with one of Thor's old hoodies that almost reached his knees. It... wasn't exactly what Loki had envisioned, but it would work. Definitely no nail polish though, much as he longed to. No time and he simply couldn't. Not if he wanted to survive the week.

"Brother! Come on, we'll be late!" Thor was yelling.

Loki gave him the finger as he rushed down the stairs and headed towards the hall, but stopped halfway between his starting point and destination. Too quiet. Usually when he flipped his brother off, Thor would give a cry of outrage at the very least. He turned and saw that the expression on his brother's face was one belonging to a person who had just seen a ghost.

"What is it?" Loki asked, not sure what could have triggered such a reaction.

"It... it's nothing. Nothing," Thor replied, striding determinedly towards the hall and the front door.

Loki trailed slightly behind, only stopping to put on a pair of shoes. It was too late when he realised that the shoes he'd picked out of habit were the tall boots with dark green laces that he'd been given for his birthday last year. They were much too distinctive, but he was fairly sure it was Phys Ed a little later today, so maybe he could keep the trainers he was going to wear for that on for the rest of the day?

If it works out, I might be the only kid to have ever looked forward to a Phys Ed class, he thought to himself as he got into his brother's car and Thor started the engine.

♡♡♡

Twenty minutes later

It was Sigyn's fault, really. She'd been chatting with Yelena and not watching where she was going at all. Of course she had to collide with someone and drop her bag.

At least the guy she'd bumped into was nice enough to hand her bag back to her, even though it didn't escape her notice that he'd cringed away from her at first, like he was expecting to be hurt for something that was entirely her fault.

"Cute guy," Yelena commented after he was out of hearing range. "A nice breath of fresh air from all the jocks, really."

"Hmm?" In all honesty, the guy's looks had been the last thing on Sigyn's mind during the interaction.

"Oh come on Sig! Did you not see those cheekbones?! He's gorgeous and he's also my future boyfriend."

"We don't even know his name," Sigyn reminded her friend.

"We can find out. I can also try and find out what classes we have together," Yelena replied.

"Okay," Sigyn murmured absent-mindedly, going over her interaction with the guy in her mind. Huh. At no point had she noticed these supposed non-jock good looks. She remembered what he'd been wearing well enough, dark grey hoodie that was far too big, dark green jeans and tall black boots with green laces, but she didn't remember his face. Deciding that it was probably because of her focus on her bag and his odd behaviour (both the cringing and giving her bag back, the latter of which no other boy in the school save maybe Steve Rogers would do), Sigyn decided she'd try her hardest to memorize his features if she saw him again, and didn't dwell on it.

♤♤♤

His breathing was fast and erratic, and his heart was racing. If he was being honest with himself, Loki was expecting that girl to come after him, demanding he apologise both for colliding with her and sullying her bag with his greasy touch. But no. He couldn't see anyone with the same kind of wiry red hair, nor could he hear anything that sounded like her voice.

How pathetic, he thought to himself. Working yourself into a panic over nothing at all.

Trying to stop his hands from shaking, he reached into the large front pocket of Thor's old hoodie for what he'd broken Mother's curfew for. Gum, of all things. A pack of fifteen spearmint strips, costing the, surprisingly low in his eyes, sum of $1.50.

The noise of his chewing grated on his eardrums and the flavour was a little odd due to the faint aftertaste of toothpaste still in his mouth, but fitting in was worth paying that price.

♡♡♡

three hours and fifteen minutes later

"Did you see him?" Sigyn asked. She'd just come out of Algebra, and was headed for History, same as Yelena.

"No," Yelena replied. "But if he isn't in History, he'll probably be at lunch. Which is after History. Only forty-five minutes before I find out his name."

And only forty-five minutes before I find out if you were joking with me about his looks, Sigyn thought to herself. It wasn't that she didn't trust Yelena. It was more that she couldn't quite put it past her friend to tempt her with the idea of someone who was good-looking and not a jock. That kind of thing would be going a bit too far, but Sigyn had convinced herself she was being healthily suspicious. Mostly because such a thing was almost too good to be true.

"It's time," Yelena said, somehow managing to make it sound like a threat, even though she was obviously almost bursting from excitement.

They walked in and Sigyn was quite aware of exactly how many people were in the room. Marvel High was a large school, which meant that even though the staff usually tried to limit it to two grades at a time in the massive cafeteria, it was still packed with anywhere between 500-900 people.

"I can't see him," Yelena muttered, her words almost lost over the hum of casual chatter and conversation.

It took a while, but they did find him eventually. He was leaning against the wall, head slightly bowed.

"Hi," Yelena greeted him, putting on that smile she always wore when cheerleading.

The guy looked up, eyes switching between watching Yelena and Sigyn, like he was a cornered animal. Sigyn had to admit that he was good looking in a non-jock way, and Yelena had definitely been right about his cheekbones. But she found herself a little more focused how those pale green eyes could be somehow expressive and guarded, which sounded like a paradox.

"Hello," the guy offered tentatively. He wasn't focused on either of them as he said it, though. He was looking over them (easy for someone so tall), but at what Sigyn wasn't sure.

"So, you might have heard of me," Yelena told him, doing her best impression of someone who was coy and girlish. Sigyn was mostly impressed with how breathy her voice was. "Cheerleading captain, younger sister of Natasha Romanov, et cetera. But I do have a name of my own. And that name is Yelena Belova." This was followed by some Oscar-worthy eyelash-batting and "Would you be so kind as to share your name with me?"

Were she attempting this with one of the usual jocks, she'd wind up sharing a lot more than names by the end of the day, but this was different. The guy put his hood up and said "I need to leave," before walking swiftly away.

"Hm. I suppose name-sharing isn't his thing," Yelena remarked, staring in the direction the guy had gone in before he'd been lost in the crowd. "Ah, well. What's the saying? Plenty more fish in the sea."

"Think so," Sigyn murmured in reply, not sure if she would ever stop thinking about that guy, whether she found out his name or not.

♤♤♤

It was only in the hallway that Loki allowed himself to breathe. It was blissfully empty, no need to avoid showing his face to everyone. Then he started berating himself for his short-term thinking. He was pretty sure he'd never seen those girls in his life, and if that was true, how would they recognise him? And then there was the bigger problem. He'd shied away from queueing like a nervy stallion, too afraid of someone thinking he was familiar, which meant he hadn't eaten anything which meant that his mother and the people at the clinic would start to worry over him again. Why couldn't he have seen how stupid this all was? Maybe coming back into public education was a bad idea. It was all too much.

Just when his day didn't seem like it could get worse, he heard a confrontational "Hey!" and decided that, since he was the only other person in the hallway, the speaker must be addressing him.

The speaker was a hard-faced young woman with a red-yellow/gold sash that said Hall Monitor and a black beanie hat covering her hair. She was dressed in dark tones with a few hints of a very luminous orange colour. There was also orange on her beanie hat, which formed the shape of a number and two letters that were seemingly random; B-15. Loki decided he'd call her that to himself until he learnt her real name.

"Students aren't allowed in the hallways during lunch," she told him.

"And what are you?" Loki asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"What?" she snapped at him.

"If students are not allowed in the halls at this time, are you not a student?" Loki explained.

B-15 huffed and corrected herself with "All students who are not Hall Monitors are prohibited from being in the hallways during lunch," before glaring at him.

"Usually, the penalty for being caught is one detention, but you spoke back, so I'm giving you two." She sounded very smug about it. And looked very smug about it, at least until a third person appeared. A teenage boy maybe a little older than Loki with white-blonde hair, a crooked nose and the beginnings of a moustache.

"C'mon, cut him some slack. It's only his first day, right?" the third person said. The first part was addressing B-15, but the last, the 'right' that was phrased as a question, was directed at Loki. He was tempted to say it was his second day, but if he got out of a detention he was willing to go along with it, so he replied "Yes."

B-15 glared at both the newcomer and Loki for a second before letting out a heavy sigh and saying "Fine. But if I catch you," she pointed at Loki for emphasis. "in the hallways at lunch again, it'll be four detentions. I'm watching you." Then she stalked off, grumbling uninteligably under her breath.

"She's only prickly on the outside," the teenage boy told Loki, who was fascinated with the Southern drawl of his voice. "Quite nice deep down. Very, very deep down."

Then he seemed to remember himself, or possibly some manners, since he turned and said "I'm Mobius, by the way."