For Asgard!

"No," Loki said, offering her a faint smile. "I find shrinking violet to be the worst possible description of you."

He looked down at their hands, his slightly paler than hers, and carefully wrapped his fingers around hers. Her palms were calloused and rough, so distinctly her. It struck him that he was touching her in a way they certainly werent used to, and even in the throes of emotion he realized how strange it was, and yet she seemed fine with it, she wasn't pulling away from him. Sif, who always seemed so strong and separate, untouchable. He was holding her hand. "Perhaps I can be thankful that your vision of the future allows you, in some stretch, to forgive me my sins," he said. "I have done badly to you in the past, and I apologise for it. I won't do it again."

Her offer of friendship was so tangible; it seemed more real to him than Thor's pleading as his brother. Perhaps because when Loki spoke he felt that Sif listened, while Thor shut him down, accused him of manipulation or anything like it. It was difficult. He knew Sif disagreed with him, but at least she heard him. Odd, how simply acknowledging him meant more than validating him.

"It may be abrupt, but not permanent," he said. "For the companionship you've shown me, I promise that at least. I will keep you in my thoughts when the path proves rough, and maybe I will be the better for it. Better for you, and my mother, and all of my companions." Because, Loki knew, that was something he had managed to create, in the Nexus - a strange network, a collection of people he may not have otherwise engaged with, who he found himself thinking about, who were climbing slowly in importance. And the way she was looking at him, now, compelled him to do right by her, at least. He found it difficult, now, when people appealed to a humanity he had hoped he had let go of, falling from the Bifrost. It let itself known, violently, and all the old ideas of honour and valour which, truly, he did hold dear, came back out of the darkness. "And maybe when I come back I will have a different future to tell you. How is that for a promise?"