a little inevitable
It was weird for Jane, the first time it came up, but that was kind of her own fault. Thor had somewhat mentioned, before he left for New York, that someone from Asgard might be stopping by at some point. One of his friends. And that he hoped Jane and his friend got along, that they had a lot in common, and she shouldn’t worry about it. Then he’d started swinging his hammer in that way that always managed to kind of reminder her of a cowboy from an old movie swinging a lasso, and he was gone.
That was about a week ago.
Yesterday, Sif showed up.
Jane spent the first two hours wondering what Thor was talking about. If he thought them both being women was “having a lot in common,” there were going to be some serious words. She was not putting up with that.
Sif was a tall, quiet warrior woman who was surprised that Thor wasn’t home and seemed a little uncertain about staying when Jane said she could. She was also either less able or much less willing to talk to Jane about Asgardian science and magic than Thor was.
Darcy had spent the previous month first on a Parks and Rec binge and then on figuring out what kind of dog everyone was. Thor had been a St. Bernard. Jane was pretty sure Sif would’ve been a Doberman Pinscher. A concerned one. Named Xena.
After Sif was bedded down for the night on the couch, Jane sat in her bedroom, googling her and trying not to feel guilty and socially inept. After all, they’d gone to a used book store to find out more about Thor, way back when gods were impossible.
She couldn’t really wave away the guilt of clicking on the link to wikipedia. though. And yeah, she’d always known that wikipedia was completely questionable and basically untrustworthy, but it was telling her that Sif’s hair was golden, and that she was a goddess of wheat.
And matrimony.
Because she was married to Thor.
Jane had to remind herself that she was a person of science, with many degrees and much knowledge, who had traveled to other worlds, seen “magic,” and been able to make the sensible connections to Earth science. She did not believe in karma. Sif was not married to Thor because wikipedia.
After all, Sif was not married to Thor. Thor would have told her. It would definitely have come up. That was a weird thing. Like the hair thing. Did Loki really chop off Sif’s hair? If so, obviously it had grown back, that was what hair did, hair didn’t just stop growing completely because some stupid egotist in training got scissor-happy. But human mythology hadn’t been this completely off the mark about Thor. There were some iffy bits, but still.
When morning happened, Jane had slept but hadn’t really resolved any of her many questions. The more she thought about it, the more curious she was. Especially about the hair thing. If it was true, why wasn’t Sif’s hair blonde anymore? What could Loki have used to cut Sif’s hair, that could have such an effect? Were Thor and Sif married? Were they ex-spouses? Was that awkward to ask about? Would Sif let Jane run some tests on her hair? Would she let Jane braid her hair? Her hair looked soft. And scientifically potentially really intriguing in a keep Bruce on speed-dial because it was probably outside of Jane’s area of expertise kind of way.
Then the smoke detector went off, and Jane ran out of her bedroom to find Sif throwing a bowl of water at the very aflame microwave.
"Oh my god!" Jane thought Darcy had taken the batteries out of the smoke detector. Then she dove for the fire extinguisher, quickly brandishing it with the slightly embarrassing ease of practice. "Move!"
Sif glanced at her then sidestepped out of the way, hands in the air. Jane extinguished the fire. With the fire extinguisher. And decided to work on how she’d word that when she inevitably told Darcy later. Putting the extinguisher back where it belonged, Jane pushed her hair out of her face and turned to look at the warrior goddess who’d set her microwave on fire, might be married to Jane’s boyfriend, and somehow still had amazing hair, even though she’d obviously slept on it and had smudges of soot on her face.
Sif also had this weird sort of expression on her face, somewhere between sheepish and approving. Maybe admiring? Except probably not, because Jane was a mess in a giant t-shirt (Thor’s) and boxers (also Thor’s). She hadn’t had a chance to change, because fire. And Thor was gone.
"Are yo—"
"My ap—"
Jane closed her mouth and smiled politely. Took in the beautiful, lean lines of obvious warrior muscle on Sif whose romantic involvement with her boyfriend was up in the air and potentially really, really awkward. “Go ahead, sorry.”
Sif smiled back at her, maybe gratefully? Definitely not menacingly. Jane had seen that expression on Sif in Asgard. It was impressive. “I apologize. I’d hoped to eat without waking you, but I’ve never been much one for even rudimentary cooking.”
"Yeah, that microwave confused Thor a little too. And Erik. And me. It was kind of needlessly complicated." Jane pushed her hair back and tried to be cool. Then she dug under the sink for some sponges or something, telling herself that she was definitely imagining that Sif was watching her. "Hey, can I ask you something? Just? While we clean all this up?"
She hit her head on the bottom of the sink, standing up.
THAT was definitely wikipedia karma.
Sif unplugged the microwave and poked at the very dead box experimentally, apparently judging it still too hot to move. “Of course. Ask me anything that you might wish to know.”
Jane kind of got the feeling that Sif didn’t give people that kind of leeway very often, corroborated by what fragments of Thor’s stories she could remember Sif featuring in. She fidgeted with the nozzle on a bottle of cleaner she didn’t remember buying. Eco-friendly. Probably the intern, then. “Uh. Yeah. I was just— the internet seems to think you and Thor might be married.”
Sif stopped whatever she was trying to do - Jane wondered if her lack of cooking skills extended to kitchen cleanup - to look at Jane and blink. Then she laughed. “Hardly.”
"Oh." Well, that was even more awkward. Jane was less than sure what to do next.
"Do not mistake me, Jane," and now she was coming over and taking Jane’s hands and wow Jane would probably never get over the height on Asgardians. "Thor is a wonderful man whom I care about a great deal. And he is very easy to look at. But if it were not for you, and your influence, he would not be a suitable match for any sane woman."
Jane felt herself going pink. The whole warm smiling thing Sif was doing, and still with the hand-holding and the looking into eyes, that wasn’t helping. “Oh. Thank you?”
"You are a marvelous woman, I am certain, and I am very eager to know you better. But first, I must replace your… microwave? And leave you to this cleaning, lest I start a bigger fire."
And, before Jane could really recover enough to react, Sif was out the door. Apparently in search of a microwave. In that red outfit thing that she wore under her armor.
Jane felt really unprepared for the next few days. Really unprepared. In maybe a good way.
She needed to call Thor.