forays into letter writing

Loki woke up the same way they always did: angered at the sunlight streaming in through their bedroom window. They blinked their eyes open and ran a hand back through their hair. An abrupt buzzing alerted their attention to their phone, sitting on their nightstand. It was 8:30.

signal samurai (now)

that was mostly a joke but I will eat your french toast Loki

signal samurai (1m ago)

your mom says I can have your breakfast

signal samurai (3m ago)

Thor says to tell you that you’re lame. I’m free to disagree, though ;)

signal samurai (5m ago)

I’m at your house, your mom says you’re still asleep. Thor’s up, Loki. THOR.

signal samurai (7m ago)

I know it doesn’t take that long to get to school, but whatever

signal samurai (10m ago)

I’m gonna leave soon, so like don’t be surprised if I’m in your living room when you wake up

Loki allowed themself a quick smile before getting dressed in a hurry. Sig had been known to make empty threats from time to time, but those were always the serious ones. When Sig threatened to beat her cousin to death with a box of pasta, she was kidding. When she threatened to steal Loki’s food, it was a promise.

Loki rushed down the stairs, shrugging into their hoodie, and found Sig, rather calmly sitting in their chair and eating their French toast. Sig’s light brown hair had been wrestled back into a ponytail with little success and she was wearing a baseball shirt that depicted some sort of 8-legged slug-like creature.

“What the hell is on your shirt?” asked Loki.

“You gave me this shirt,” said Sig.

“Doesn’t mean I know what it is. Not my fault my best friend likes ugly animals.”

Sig rolled her eyes as Loki walked over to the stove. They took the next waiting plate of French toast, then walked back.

“Loki,” called their mother, Frigga.

“Thanks, Mom,” said Loki.

Loki sat down next to Sig and ate quickly. Loki had never been one to savor their food, and they didn’t like to talk too much in the morning. It always took Loki at least 20 minutes to get their brain back in the morning, and they weren’t in the habit of feeling brainless.

“Any idea what this assignment that Heimdall’s got planned is?” asked Thor.

Sig shook her head, as did Loki.

“I’m not worried,” said Sig.

“I am,” said Loki, “he’s crafty.

“He’s your godfather,” laughed Sig.

“Exactly. So I know he’s crafty,” said Loki.

Frigga approached the group of them and ruffled Thor’s hair. Thor then began to palm through his recently cut hair self-consciously.

“You sound just like your father, Loki,” said Frigga.

“I’m adopted,” said Loki.

Loki wasn’t sour about it. At least, not anymore. They used to be, when they were younger.

“You kids should get off to school,” said Frigga.

Once Sig and Thor were out the door, Loki hung behind and kissed Frigga’s cheek. They didn’t do it often. It was how they said sorry. Frigga smiled softly.

“Go,” she laughed.

Loki nodded and ran out the door. Thor, Sig, and Loki were halfway to school when Sig spoke up.

“It’s a tardigrade,” she said.

“What?” asked Thor.

“On my shirt. It’s called a tardigrade, it’s a microscopic animal deemed a water bear based on its gait.”

Sig nudged Loki gently.

“In case you want to seem smarter than everyone else once we get to school,” she continued.

Thor laughed uproariously.

“Won’t do,” said Loki, “Thor’s heard the whole thing.”

Sig shrugged. Once they arrived at school, Loki was pulled aside by Bryn and Ridley while Sig politely laughed at something Thor said that probably wasn’t that funny.

“Hey, what the hell is on Sig’s shirt?” asked Bryn.

“It’s a tardigrade,” said Loki, “I got it for her.”

“Of course you did,” said Ridley with a sly smile.

Loki rolled their eyes. Bryn and Ridley had been suggesting that Loki had a crush on Sig for as long as they had known the two of them. It didn’t help that Loki had known Sig longer than they had known Bryn and Ridley.

“Just because you fell in love with your best friend, doesn’t mean I have as well,” said Loki.

Ridley shrugged as Bryn put an arm around her shoulders. They were right about Loki, of course. Loki was in love with Sig and had been for years, not that they would ever give those meddlesome sapphic sword-fighters the satisfaction of admitting it to them. Or anyone, for that matter.

No, that was a secret Loki would keep. If they let that secret go, there was a chance they could lose Sig. And that simply wouldn’t do.

#

“It was lovely having you for breakfast this morning,” said Thor.

Sig laughed politely, and once Bryn and Ridley had dragged Loki away, she swatted at Thor’s arm. He leaned away, but for the most part, Thor let Sig hit him. After all, he deserved it.

“What is the matter with you?” scolded Sig.

“What do you mean? I just meant that Loki remembers to drag themself out of bed on mornings when you come over,” said Thor.

Sig rolled her eyes. Not even Thor was that clueless.

“Alright. Who told you?” asked Sig.

“Told me what? Sig, I was trying to be nice. Have I somehow put my foot in my mouth?”

Evidently Thor was that clueless and Sig found herself in between a rock and a hard place.

“Look,” whispered Sig, “I thought Ty told you that I’ve got a crush on Loki and you were making a crude joke.”

Thor’s face softened and he smiled. It was an expression that Sig had seen countless times before, often directed at injured animals or sad movies. Sig had momentarily forgotten that Thor’s size and demeanor belied the fact that he was really one of the sweetest people ever born. He clapped Sig on the shoulder, the same gesture he’d repeated with his sibling a thousand times over.

“I would never,” said Thor, “you’re my friend too, Signey. I swear, I had no idea.”

Thor let go of Sig’s shoulder and put both his hands in his pockets. As if they were following some sort of strange cue, that was when Loki walked back over to Thor and Sig.

“I see you’ve returned from your kidnapping by Bryn and Ridley? Harrowing, I’m sure,” said Sig.

“You have no idea,” said Loki, “he didn’t say anything funny, did he?”

“I was just reminding Sig that the two of us are friends. She can be so forgetful,” said Thor.

Loki wiggled their nose a few times before attempting to fully retreat into their hoodie like a cloth turtle. Sig smiled, and offered their arm to Loki.

“Don’t worry, käärme, you’re still my favorite.”

Loki smiled, and linked arms with Sig.

#

As he walked a few paces behind Sig and Loki, arms linked like and old married couple, Thor thought about how he was bad at keeping secrets. He was terrible at it, it stressed him out. That was the real reason behind why Sif, Bryn, and Ridley knew all of his secrets: not because they were good friends who told each other everything, but because Thor could not keep a secret to save his life.

That being said, Thor was a good guy who kept his word, and although he hadn’t promised Sig anything, they were friends and Sig had seemed sure that she didn’t want Loki to know. Sig was a very kind and compassionate person, so her friendship with Loki had never seemed out of place to Thor, but things that he hadn’t bothered to examine started to make sense.

He didn’t have time to examine them because he knew a secret. He could not know a secret because he was bad at knowing secrets and he couldn’t tell Sif because Sif would tell Bryn and Ridley and the two of them would concoct a plot because that was what they did.

Heimdall had unknowingly (or completely knowingly, Thor had spent a large chunk of his childhood certain that his godfather had magical powers) given Thor a solution to his problem. Thor’s classmates were all assigned penpals from a class in America. No one but Heimdall and Thor’s penpal would ever see Thor’s letter, if he wished. Voila, a perfect solution. Thor could get the secret that Sig had saddled him with off of his chest without putting the secret in danger of being exposed.

Thor only hoped that Bruce Banner saw no issue with Thor’s logic.  

#

Natasha,

A foreword: my brother, Thor, has a pen pal in your class. Anything he says about me is 100% true. Not that he would talk about me, but I digress.

I suppose the first thing you should know about me is that I’m nonbinary and I use they them pronouns. I’m assuming Heimdall would’ve warned me if you lived in the sort of area or went to the sort of school where I would be frowned upon. He’s mine and Thor’s teacher, but he’s also our godfather. I swear, sometimes it seems like the man knows everything.

I don’t have a lot of friends. I suppose one could technically classify Thor as my friend, but I would only admit that to his face under dire circumstances. My best friend, Signey, is quite a lovely person. Once you know more about both of us, you’ll begin to wonder how I tricked her into being friends with me.

I don’t really have hobbies, although I am reading an interesting book on Cold War espionage at the moment. I’m assuming that you’ll have more interesting things to talk about, not that I’m passing the buck. I haven’t had to talk to someone who doesn’t already know me in a very long time, although we’re only talking in a sense.

At the very least, this should be an interesting foray into letter writing.

- Loki

Natasha wasn’t sure what to think of the first letter from her penpal. At first she thought it was a prank letter, because one, who would name their kid Loki, and two, what sixteen year old used phrases like “but I digress”, “dire circumstances”, and “foray into letter writing”? Then she thought better of her suspicions, given that such a personage was too ridiculous for any one person to concoct.

And clearly Loki was rubbing off on her, because seriously? Concocting personages? At any rate, she found the letter amusing.

“What’s so funny, Romanoff?” asked Bruce.

Natasha shrugged. It was a fair response, after all, Loki hadn’t said anything particularly funny.

“Oh,” said Bruce, “I know this isn’t your type of project, but I really hope everyone enjoys it.”

Natasha smirked.

“Me too, Bruce. And I guess we are supposed to talk about it. You done reading?”

Bruce nodded and tucked the letter back into its envelope and into his backpack. The two of them had been paired together for the project to discuss the letters.

“His name’s Thor,” said Bruce.

Natasha snorted. That was really too good to be true.

“What?” asked Bruce.

“Bruce...our pen pals are siblings.”

“Loki?” asked Bruce.

Natasha nodded.

“Did they mention someone called...Sig?” asked Bruce.

“Signey, yeah,” said Natasha, “Loki’s best friend. Why?”

“Um...no particular reason. Something about a tardigrade t-shirt. Wonder who her pen pal is.”

“If this whole thing ends with someone drawing some sort of damn chart, I’m gonna barf,” groaned Natasha.

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” laughed Bruce.

“You don’t know my brother.”

By the time Natasha made it to lunch that day, Bucky had in fact, made a chart. He unfurled it on the lunch table, eliciting a grunt of disapproval from Natasha.

“Be nice, Tasha,” said Clint.

“It’s like you don’t even know me,” said Natasha.

“How did you gather this much information since this morning?” asked Steve.

“Because I was a man on a goddamn mission, Rogers,” said Bucky.

“Since when have you had a one track mind, Barnes?” asked Steve.

“Have you boys forgotten the rules already?” asked Clint.

He was referring to the “No Excessive Flirting in Front of Natasha Rules”, which Steve and Bucky had broken six times since they had gotten together in December. They had already paid her 15 dollars in fines.

“We didn’t do shit,” said Steve.

“Look Steve,” said Clint, “I’m just looking out for your best interests. Everybody knows that once you start using each other’s last names, you’re both going crazy trying to stick to the Romanoff Protocols.”

Bucky shrugged, then reached into his pocket. He shoved a fiver at Natasha as he leaned over and dramatically kissed Steve’s cheek. Natasha rolled her eyes as she pocketed the money.

“And I’m not even sorry,” laughed Bucky.

#

Dear Virginia,

My name is Signey, but you should call me Sig. That’s what my friends call me. Is it silly that I kind of already think of us as friends? I asked my best friend if they thought that was silly, and they said “of course it is. Don’t scare Virginia.” But I’m not really all that scary. I’m in a two-person book club and my mom calls me Sunshine.

I’m not, but a lot of my friends are really intense. My cousin, Ty, is always getting into fights. Bryn and Ridley, are both fencers so they can be a little scary sometimes, even though they’re my friends, and Thor has an...interesting conversational style.

What are your friends like? I’m interested to find out what everyone is like, especially Loki and Thor’s penpals. Their names are Natasha and Bruce. I actually got paired with Sif for discussion. She’s cool and she does fencing with Bryn and Ridley, but we don’t really hang out.

Sometimes I feel out of place with so many big personalities, but I notice things about them that they don’t notice about each other. Nobody else knows that Thor undos the prank braids that Bryn and Ridley do to Loki. They also don’t know that Al actually thinks Loki is really funny, or that Ty gets into trouble because he thinks he’s not as tough as Sif. Kinda makes me feel like I know everything.

Can’t wait to hear from you,

- Sig

Pepper’s first thought was who on Earth is Virginia, followed immediately by oh right that’s me. It had been ages since anyone actually called her Virginia, and she figured that Rhodey and Bucky’s letters were probably both addressed to James. The fact that they shared the same name was something Rhodey and Bucky resolved never to speak of. Ever.

Strangely, it warmed Pepper to read that Sig already thought of her was a friend. After all, Pepper only really had Tony and Rhodey. Talk about big personalities. Some days, Pepper wasn’t sure how the two stood to be around each other, let alone be best friends. But mostly, she just felt out of place.

Pepper knew that it would hurt their feelings to know that she felt that way, they were always open about how much they cared about her. And of course Pepper cared about them, but it was never easy for her to be so open with other people.

But maybe it was time for her to try to be better.