Sif was starting to feel abandoned. This was not a good feeling, especially since she was no damsel in distress or hapless maiden in need of rescue. She was Lady Sif, an Asgardian Warrior in her own right.
And yet… months had passed since Thor's departure from Midgard. Months instead of the weeks he had promised before he would return. She had been stranded here all this time, unable to return home.
Of course, Sif knew why this was. Heimdall and Thor had been kind enough to update her on what had happened on Asgard after Thor and the Warriors Three had returned. A titanic fight between Thor and Loki, who it turned out was Jotun of all things, had resulted in Thor being forced to destroy the Bifrost so that Loki could not use it to destroy an entire world.
In the end, Sif understood. She understood why Thor had to do what he did, just as she understood why the All-Father, despite his immense power, could not just bring her back to Asgard without using quite a lot of energy. Instead, the Bifrost was currently being repaired and Sif would have to wait on Midgard until they could bring her home again. Irritating? Yes. But by all accounts, she was welcome in the house of Thor's Midgardian shield-brother, Tony Stark, so it wasn't like she didn't have anywhere to stay or resources to rely on.
Still… Sif had reached the end of her rope. Midgard was such a strange place after centuries away. The Midgardians, or ' humans ' as they call themselves, had changed dramatically in the last few hundred years. And Sif… Sif was a little fed up with it.
Reaching the living room, she finds Tony Stark and his lady wife Pepper Stark enjoying a quiet moment together. Things have not yet reached the point of hot and heavy, but if allowed to, they would probably go in that direction with a little bit more time. Sif nips that in the bud right off the bat by barging in and clearing her throat to draw their attention.
"Lord Stark. I would spar with you."
Planting her hands on her hips, Sif looks at Tony challengingly, almost daring him to try and deny that he has the strength and speed to give her a good fight. They both knew that she knew better than that by this point. Not only had she felt his true strength through the handshake they'd exchanged when they first met… but also, she'd wound up striking up an unlikely friendship with the man's wife, Pepper.
It had been Pepper who had approached Sif, in truth. At first, Sif hadn't been sure what the two of them even had in common. Pepper had helped her acclimate a little bit to Midgardian culture, taking her clothes shopping and helping her to gain a wardrobe that would allow her to walk around in public without drawing eyes for her strange attire. Of course, she was never without her sword, so she still drew plenty of attention to herself whenever she walked the roads of Midgard… but it was the thought that counted.
Pepper had also introduced her to what she called 'media'. Midgardians, it turned out, had voracious imaginations. Sif had read her fair share of epics and watched a number of plays on Asgard, but most of the time they were based around real events. The Midgardians however delighted in making up the strangest of stories that they called 'fiction'.
In fact, Midgardians were so obsessed with 'fictional stories' that they even called reality, that is stories that had actually happened 'nonfiction'. So very strange, that it was the real world that was given the negative modifier in Midgardian Tongue, rather than the fake and imagined.
In the end, Sif and Pepper had bonded over shopping, watching Midgardian media… and most importantly of all, training. Pepper Stark was a busy woman. She was a leader among leaders who shepherded hundreds, potentially thousands of other Midgardians through their day to day tasks. She was not necessarily a warrior, but she was akin to a General given the size of her workload, as opposed to a Master Craftsman with only half a dozen people below them at most.
Even still, Pepper carved out time each day to train her body and keep herself in shape. When Sif first found out about this, she had insisted on joining. At first to satisfy her own curiosity, but then later on because… well, she enjoyed it. Of course, she'd also discovered that Pepper was just as strong as her husband, and Pepper's workout equipment was designed with this fact in mind. This in turn allowed Sif to make use of it as well with little concern over damaging it.
At the end of the day, neither she nor Pepper had ever acknowledged the secrets between them. Sif had done so out of respect for Pepper Stark and their budding friendship. But as previously mentioned, she was at the end of her rope here. She needed to do something to claw back her sanity, as well as her independence. If she was going to be stuck here on Midgard for the foreseeable future, she refused to dance to the whims of others… and that meant pinning down the mystery of Tony Stark once and for all.
To his credit, after a long moment of regarding her, Tony smiles and rises from his chair, Pepper standing with him.
"Very well. Follow me."
Sif feels invigorated and vindicated as she trails after Tony, Pepper walking with them. They descend some stairs into the man's laboratory, where Sif has learned he works on his projects and his inventions, constantly creating new things. Some of which Pepper then sells to other Midgardians, and some of which never sees the light of day.
However, Sif is surprised when Tony leads them to the back of the laboratory and presses his hand into a seemingly innocuous grey wall. All of a sudden, the wall opens up revealing an elevator and Sif finds herself stepping onto the lift with Tony and Pepper Stark, a little nonplussed by the trip.
All she wanted was a spar. Where were they going, exactly?
Finally though, they reach their destination and Sif immediately understands why they have taken this journey. They've gone deep beneath the earth and entered into a strangely manufactured cavern… one that from the look of things, is made for exactly what she has in mind.
"… Can we fight at full strength here?"
Looking at her somewhat amused, Tony chuckles.
"Supposedly, yes. The room is as tough as I could make it with available materials. Would it hold off a Hulk? Probably not. Will it hold off an Asgardian? Well, I guess we'll find out."
Sif narrows her eyes at that. She knows he's baiting her, trying to get her to ask what a 'Hulk' is. But she won't fall for it. She won't let him distract her. Nodding sharply, the Asgardian Warrior removes her shield and sword and places them aside, before beginning to do the same with her armor.
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