The Grandmaster's brow knitted in worry as he observed his mate's pained state. The joy and excitement that had been filling him to the brim over the course of the past nine months was now replaced with anxiety and concern. He hadn't bothered to question anything, even when Loki had told him; how it happened, how such a thing could even be possible when the person lying in the bed before him was a man, or at least predominantly so. The only thought that had consumed him up until he found out his mate was in labor was the fact that he was going to be a father, and now he feared that he would pay for his ignorance.

The Grandmaster snapped out of his thoughts as a low moan filled the uneasy silence of the room, and the hand that had been gripping his for what felt like days now squeezed it with enough force to crack his knuckles. Sweat began to bead along the laboring god's forehead, causing any stray locks of his wavy black hair to stick to his pale skin. The man's free hand glided up and down his sharply curved belly as he tried to breathe through the contraction, trying to relieve the pain however he could, even though he knew from experience that it would only get worse as time progressed.

"Where is the midwife?" the Grandmaster asked, tearing his gaze away from his mate to Topaz, who stood nearby, "I don't think Loki's going to be able to wait much longer."

"She said that she was way too sober for this," she replied irritably, sensing the underlying hint of urgency in her leader's voice.

"Of course she did..."

The Grandmaster's eyes veered back down to Loki as the god's grip on his hand loosened and a relieved sigh passed his lips.

"You're doing fine," the Sakaarian leader tried to say encouragingly, even though he really had no idea if what his mate was going through could be considered normal for his kind or not, and the only other Asgardian on the planet was most likely in a bar somewhere, downing her sixth bottle of booze.

Green eyes flicked up at him as Loki let out a slight chuckle, "Better than the first time, I suppose."

"First time?" the Grandmaster echoed in confusion, "What do you mean 'first time'? You've done this before?"

"In a sense. Pushing out an eight-legged foal is no easy feat, even for the average mare."

"Eight-legged foal?! Just what kind of beastiality are you Asgardians into over there?"

"Long story... no time."

Loki let out a strained grunt as his gut tightened with another contraction. He shuddered as he felt something within him burst and a torrent of fluid cascaded from between his legs, soaking the bed beneath him. The grip he'd had on the Grandmaster's hand strengthened, forcing out more pops from his knuckles and a slight wince as the god's contractions intensified.

"His water just broke," Topaz announced, sitting herself down behind the laboring god and rubbing at the straining muscles in his back as Loki panted his way through the contraction.

"Topaz, I owe you a drink when this is all over," Loki moaned in relief, "Don't stop doing that."

"Well, I know it helped me when I had my children."

Loki tossed a glance over his shoulder to her, "You have children?"

"Two sons, and a daughter."

"I didn't think a woman like you had the capacity to breed."

Topaz's face dropped with a scowl, "And I owe you a slap across the face when this is all over."

Before Loki could let out a witty retort, the doors too the room flew open as the "midwife" staggered in, supplies she would need for the birth in one hand, and a half-empty bottle of alcohol dangling from her fingers in the other.

"It's about time you decided to join us, 142!" Topaz snapped as she continued to massage Loki's back.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes in response and stumbled to the foot of the bed, "How is he?"

"Um, his water just broke. Just before you walked in, actually," the Grandmaster responded, "And it would seem he's on a mission to break my hand."

The scrapper waited until Loki had come out of the contraction before addressing him, "I need you to lie on your back so I can check you."

Loki let out a groan of complaint as he forced himself to switch from lying on his side to his back. Valkyrie's hand had just reached his entrance before he let out a slight gasp, "Wait..."

"What?"

The God of Mischief winced as he felt another contraction start, a few seconds off the heels of the last one, "Tell me you haven't used those hands to kill anything yet today."

Any consideration about being gentle was immediately thrown out the window as the scrapper roughly pushed her fingers through his entrance, earning a pained cry from the trickster that was only amplified by the intensity of the contraction. His foul mouth had been the cause of more than just a few squabbles with her, and as much as he told himself it'd be easier on him if he just kept his mouth shut, just like he did Thor, he enjoyed egging her on.

"Three centimeters," Valkyrie stated with a huff as she pulled her hand away, wiping her fingers clean across her hip.

"What?!" Loki growled, throwing his head up from the pillows, "Surely, you must be joking!"

Valkyrie only answered him with a smug look, causing Loki to drop his head back down into the pillows, whimpering through the last few ripples of pain from his contraction, and the idea that this was just the beginning. He'd been in labor for at least ten hours, now, and it made him despair to think that it was nowhere near over.

"If I may," Grandmaster piped up, "how is it gonna, you know... come out? I'm having a hard time understanding Asgardian anatomy here."

"Well, for one thing, Lackey over here isn't Asgardian. He's a Jötun," Valkyrie stated, "Not very much is known about them other than they're big, ugly, and monstrous killers that even Odin didn't wanna touch with a ten foot pole, so I'd imagine there's plenty of anatomical things that we don't understand, but I'd imagine the baby will be birthed as any other would."

"Well, then clearly Loki here is no ordinary Jötun. He's neither ugly nor big. Trust me on that."

"I am right here!" Loki snarled.

Suddenly, the god's hand gripped the Grandmaster's with enough force that an abrupt crunch echoed throughout the room, drawing out a pain yelp from the Sakaarian leader, as he let out a long groan. Everything in him was telling him to push, even through Valkyrie had just told him he was only three centimeters dilated. Trying to push would be pointless. He'd wear himself out before he made any progress. Desperate to hold himself together, Loki tried to silence his grunts and groans, and breathe through the contraction.

Topaz looked down at him with a concerned look, "Are you sure he's only three centimeters dilated?"

"Positive," Valkyrie replied snidely.

"Uh, he's breaking my hand! He's breaking my hand!" the Grandmaster said frantically, wincing as his mate's grip grew impossibly tighter.

"Then let him break your fucking hand, then! You're not the one in labor here, so shut it!"

The Grandmaster stared at the scrapper with a slack-jawed expression. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that and got away with it. He was about have Topaz give him the melting stick, but stopped himself as he remembered Loki telling him the smell that resulted from using the instrument was too much for his stomach. The last thing they needed was the laboring god vomiting in the middle of all this, along with a gooey puddle of the remains of the scrapper ruining his bedroom floor.

Topaz shooed Valkyrie aside, liking the looks of things less and less as Loki's breathing became more labored as the contraction ripped through him. The god let out a pained cry as the woman checked him, trying to be far more gentle about it than the scrapper had been.

"You're a lying little witch, you know that, boozehead?" she snapped.

"Why?" the Grandmaster asked, "What's wrong?"

"He's fully dilated! I felt the head!"

Valkyrie only responded with a shrug. She knew she had lied. She'd felt it, too, but felt Loki deserved it after hearing his snide remark from earlier.

While the Grandmaster merely reacted with a disappointed shake of the head. Loki, on the other hand, wasn't having any of it. As the scrapper moved back and positioned herself between the trickster god's legs, he thrust a leg up from the bed, kicking her upside the jaw and knocking her back.

"I think I deserved that..." Valkyrie groaned, massaging the area where the god's heel had connected with her chin before set herself back where she was.

"You deserve more than just that, quim!" Loki hissed, "You're lucky I can't get up off of this bed right now, or I'd be tossing you out the window!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just shut up and push with your next contraction for me, Lackey."

The trickster fumed, spreading his legs wide and taking a few deep breaths as he felt a contraction building and the urge to push, "It's... Loki!"

The Grandmaster sank his teeth into his bottom lip as the god effectively crushed his hand in a death grip as he put his chin to his chest and began bearing down. He could feel Topaz and his mate somewhere in the background, moving him forward to aid in the pushing as Valkyrie continued to sit at the foot of the bed, ready to catch the baby as it came.

A half hour passed with what felt like very little progress. Loki pushed almost nonstop, only stopping for the few short seconds that allowed him to breathe between contractions, before the pains would consume him again. In the time he'd spent pushing, he'd already vowed to do the most unspeakable things to the Grandmaster and Valkyrie, and had been left with nothing left he could say or do other than to loudly grunt in his pushes, which only grew louder the harder he attempted to push.

"This isn't working," Valkyrie sighed, "The head won't budge."

"What? Is it, like, too big, or something?" the Grandmaster inquired, cradling what had to be a severely fractured left hand in his right, leaving Loki to sink his fingers deep into the goose down pillows under his head.

"No. Lying down just isn't the greatest position for him to give birth in. His hips don't have the room they need to expand and make room for the baby."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

Valkyrie rested a hand on Loki's knee, pulling his attention away from the contraction violently wrapping itself around his core, "Are you able to move?"

Loki let out a weak chuckle, "Am I able to move? You try doing this for eleven hours and see if you're able to move!"

The scrapper ignored the sarcasm in the god's voice, "I need you to try squatting. Maybe that'll give you the room you need to bring this baby down."

Valkyrie and Topaz helped Loki up from the pillows into his knees. Ignoring the pain surging through his broken hand, the Grandmaster climbed onto the bed and settled himself behind his mate, slipping his arms under his shoulders as the laboring god perched precariously on his toes and lowered into a squat as he leaned back against the Sakaarian leader.

Loki immediately let out a long moan as he felt his child shifting downwards towards his entrance. His hips rocked back and forth aiding it down until another contraction struck him with a vengeance, forcing him to cry out as he pushed. His hands were quick to grasp Topaz's waiting hand and one of the Grandmaster's wrists as a tremendous amount of pressure accompanied the pain, nearly overwhelming it.

"That's it, Lackey," Valkyrie said encouragingly, "I can just see the top of it's head. Keep going!"

"If I've told you once... I've told you a thousand times..." Loki growled as he began to shake; less with the contraction that was ripping through him, and more with annoyance, "It's Loki!"

Loki let out a scream as he pushed hard. Much like it had done with the Grandmaster's, Topaz's hand let out a few protesting cracks from her knuckles at the sheer force of the trickster god's grip. If it was hurting, she didn't let it show as she smiled encouragingly at him. She knew better than anyone else in the room what he was going through. If anything, she figured it had to be worse considering the soon-to-be mother was a man, and it had to be a lot harder for him to bring his child into the world with the nonexistent knowledge they had about his anatomy.

Loki's breath left him in an anguished cry, as the pressure in his pelvis and entrance was joined by an intense burning that seemed to light his whole body ablaze.

"Alright, I need you to stop pushing for a moment," Valkyrie instructed.

"What?" Loki gasped, taking deep, ragged breaths, desperately trying to fight the urge that had been consuming him for nearly an hour now, "Why?"

"The baby's head is beginning to crown. If you keep pushing, you'll tear, and I don't think you want that now. Just breathe. Give some small, light pushes if you must."

Loki silently agreed and leaned his head back against the Grandmaster's shoulder and tried to focus on breathing. He could feel his legs shaking and was aware of his grip on Topaz's hand tightening while his other hand buried his nails into the skin of the Grandmaster's arm, leaving white streaks against his tan skin from his wrist down to his elbow. The Sakaarian leader didn't seem to mind this nearly as much as when his mate had crushed his hand, and he ignored it as he brushed Loki's hair back soothingly, muttering words of praise as the god fought his urges, groaning and occasionally screaming as he felt more of the head emerging.

Pained cries tore from Loki's throat with each heaving breath as he birthed the widest part of the head. He whimpered helplessly as he attempted a few lighter pushes before the head popped free.

"That's a good lad!" Valkyrie stated, gently undoing the cord that was wrapped around the baby's neck.

Loki grimaced as a contraction caused the baby to turn, and and he let out another pained cry as the shoulders slipped free. The cry turned into a cry of relief as the baby left his body in a gush of bloody fluids.

Valkyrie immediately worked on cleaning it, getting the child to let out its first gurgling cries within moments of lifting it from between Loki's legs as the god lay dazed in the Grandmaster's arms, trying to recover from the initial shock of the birth.

The Sakaarian leader's eyes gazed down in wonder at the squirming infant.

"Look," he encouraged his mate, shaking him gently, "Loki, look."

Loki managed to lift his head off of the Grandmaster's shoulder slightly as his eyes settled on the tiny shape squirming in a bundle wrapped in Valkyrie's arms.

"It's a girl," she announced passing it over to him.

Tears welled up in the god's eyes as they took in the sight of his daughter. The child bore a head full of curly black hair, and her skin appeared to be pale, but only time would tell if it would remain that way, or if she would grow to have the tanned skin of her father. Frankly, Loki was only glad he was able to bear a child that didn't seem to reflect any of his Jötun heritage.

Topaz and the Grandmaster gently helped Loki lie back against the pillows of the bed. The trickster seemed to be to fixated on his newborn to notice until he was fully lying down without any pain or pressure assaulting his body. He barely even felt the few light contractions his body gave as he delivered the afterbirth. It didn't hold a candle to what he'd just been through, and even the memory of that was wiped clean from his mind as he watched his daughter's eyes blink open for the first time and look up at him as he held her against his chest.

"Hello," he greeted her softly as the baby brought a fist up to her mouth and began sucking for all it was worth, "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Hey, Loki," Valkyrie piped up, "You okay?"

Tears poured with little resistance as Loki's mind was brought back to Sleipnir's birth years and years ago. He may had gotten to spend some time with the eight-legged foal after it was born, but after he'd led him through the gates of Asgard, he was quickly led away and would be later used as Odin's own horse. After that, he seldom saw the steed unless it was during a battle or whenever Odin had to come rescue him and his idiot brother, just like he did when they had fought in Jötunheim.

For the majority of his pregnancy, he feared this child would be whisked away, just as her brother had, even though Odin was now dead, Asgard had established itself on Midgard, and Thor wouldn't dare to put Loki through that amount of pain in his wildest dreams.

"I get to keep her?" was all Loki could choke out, unable to tear his eyes away from her for fear she might vanish into thin air.

Valkyrie nodded, "She's all yours."

Loki sobbed with relief and took some time to pull himself together before speaking again, "Somebody contact my idiot brother, and let him know he just became an uncle."

Topaz nodded as she and Valkyrie stepped out of the room, allowing the child and her parents to bond.

"What are you going to name her?" the Grandmaster inquired.

"I don't know," Loki replied, "It has to be perfect."

The Sakaarian leader nodded in understanding before his mind veered back to a previous question.

"Where did she come out of?"