A year after the end of the war, Loki sat in the library thinking. He was supposed to be researching the history of Vanaheim before they fell under the protection of Asgard, an assignment from his father, but instead his mind was wandering. It wasn't that the topic was uninteresting (though many of the books were written so dryly that it was easy to mistake it for such), but that his head was far too full of other things.

His acheivements in battle had been lauded when he was fairly young- younger than he should have been, having hidden in the supply cart to smuggle himself onto the battlefield. This latest war had been no different than any other he had been in, except that this time he had watched someone he had grown up with die, rather than someone he did not know. Realising that this was the only difference, and that all those other soldiers had grown up with someone, too, had been eye opening for him and he had been ashamed to admit to himself that, after all these years, he still saw the citizens of Asgard as almost a different kind of people. He had almost justified it by his realm of origin, but had immediately chastised himself for it- Hogun had been born of Vanaheim and he was dead and it was causing havoc in his heart, no different than were he of Asgard, and neither realm the one of Loki's birth.

His acheivements the past few centuries outside of battle had also been rather impressive. His scholarly work in the library had brought new stories of the histories of other realms to light and he had, with Odin's help, compiled some of these stories for publication and they had become immensely popular. In his private life, he had made one very close friend and kept her favour for over a thousand years, discovering the spell that brought her long life in the stories of his own race. Of course, accepting that he was not of Asgard by birth had been another great accomplishment, and most of the work to bring him to that point had been thanks to Grace. He had also reconciled himself with his family and embraced the addition of Sif to it. Watching Thor with his wife and listening to them whisper to one another about their future and children had brought Loki to another realisation- somewhere in his heart, he wanted the same thing.

This, of course, reminded him of the one thing he had promised Grace on the day she had sworn fealty to Asgard and had been celebrated as one of their own. It had been her 86th birthday and when he had asked what he could gift her, she had asked for a promise, not a present. A promise of a family, adopting orphaned children as their own. And here they were, a milennia later, he having just narrowly escaped death, and they had not yet taken any steps toward her dream.

There were obstacles to this, even as royalty. Obstacles that stemmed from his reputation. Obstacles that stemmed from her origins in Midgard. So few people knew of his origins in Jotunheim, so they would not cause any problem.

One obstacle, however, could be overcome if he dared to ask Grace one simple question. He set down his pen and rubbed his temples, knowing that the answer to this question was likely going to be a no, at least at first. He hated even the idea of asking, feeling as though it would overstep some sacred boundary that had been critical to keeping their friendship all these years. But it was the only way. As progressive as Asgard was in some things, they were fairly rigid in their definition of family and Grace simply was not part of the royal family to a great number of people and to some of the regional laws.

His notes forgotten, he went to talk to Thor.

Hours later, he left Thor's chambers and returned to his own. He found Grace dancing to one of her favourite songs by the Jackson 5 while she hung up her laundry in the closet, singing along. She had kept her Midgardian style, much to the dismay of his father, having the royal tailor reproduce her favourite jeans and t-shirts when they had started to disintegrate from so many years of wear. Seeing her dancing in wide-legged draw-string trousers and a black snug shirt with a rainbow screen printed on the front brought back memories of watching her in Stark Tower during the first week he had known her. She was a free spirit then, even a challenge for her brother, the ever-moving Tony Stark, billionaire playboy philanthropist, to keep up with. She still was a free spirit and Loki never felt like a day went by without Grace saying or doing something that somehow surprised him.

She noticed him watching her as he leaned on the door frame, smiling, and she invited him to sit on the bed while she finished laundry. He did as she asked, relaxing on his side as she turned up the music a little louder for "Bad Medicine", a favourite she told him she used to sing with Tony whenever he hosted Avengers Karaoke Night. Once done with her chore, she dragged him off the bed and tried to get him to dance with her. He, as usual, playfully resisted, but was laughing with her in mere moments.

When the song ended, he turned off the music and brought her to sit beside him, "Gracie, I have been doing quite a lot of thinking today."

"Is this the dangerous kind of thinking?"

"Quite possibly, depending on what you think of my thinking."

"Oooh, metacognitive moments! So what have you been thinking about?"

"The promise I gave you on your 86th birthday."

"...the promise?"

"Yes. And what has to happen to fulfill it."

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"I nearly lost my life, Gracie, and it brought to light that our time is not unlimited. I do not know how long the spell gives us. I do not know if I will once again be called to war. I do not wish to wait any longer. But something else must happen before we can start our family."

"What? I mean, you're the heir to the throne until Sif and Thor get around to having a kid- what could possibly be in the way?"

Loki tried to think of a delicate way to say what he was thinking, but nothing seemed to sound right in his head, so he said what sounded the least wrong, "The law of this realm is that a couple must be married before they can adopt a child. And because I desperately want to know you and our future children will be cared for should anything happen to me, I ask this- will you marry me, Miss Grace?"

Grace leaned against him, "I've always said I'm not the marrying type... I'm wild, Loki- an untamed fire."

"And I am not? We live in the flames every day together. Marriage would change nothing about how we go about our daily lives. It would, however, change everything by allowing us to adopt a child."

She thought for a few minutes. Loki thought he should be more nervous about her potentially saying no, but instead he felt rather peaceful as she rested her head on his shoulder. She was not angry at him for asking, and that had been his greatest fear.

"OK. Yes. Let's get married. But nothing crazy fancy. I don't want it to look anything like Thor's wedding with the huge procession and big ceremony with the feasts for so long after. And I am not changing my last name- don't know if that's a thing here, but I am, and always will be, Grace Stark."

He felt a wave of relief, "No, you do not need to change your name. If we swear our vows before the All-Father, our marriage is as sealed as surely as though it were before any member of the monastic community."

"So...when?"

"How long do we need to plan?"

"I know what I want to wear. Just you, me, Thor, Sif, and Odin. Maybe by that tree we like so much. How long will it take you to write vows?"

"A few days. I would quite like at least a night to sleep on the words so I get them right."

"A week from today- is that enough time?"

He kissed her slowly and whispered after, "Both enough and not soon enough, my love."

She laughed and draped her arms around his neck, "Perfect. We should probably go tell the others."

"Make them wait a little. I want time to revel in the delightful news that you said yes."

A week later, Grace slipped into the grey dress with the low back that she had worn when she had sworn herself to Asgard. Loki wore a sage silk tunic and black trousers, both comfortable and elegant and perfectly suited to the simple gown she wore. He presented her with a necklace- a shining opal barely the size of her little fingernail surrounded by small diamonds on a gold chain. Its simplicity suited her. They held hands as they walked the halls, meeting Sif, Thor, and Odin by the stables. A carriage waited alongside the horses for the rest of the family.

Loki helped Grace into the carriage, so plain on the outside, but draped in flowers inside. He plucked a daisy from above the door as they started moving and tucked it behind her ear. She smiled.

"Are you happy, Gracie? I know you never imagined yourself married..."

"Yeah, actually, I am. I just wish Tony was here to send me off. It's not every day a girl gets married and I'd have liked to have my brother here."

"I understand- a milennia later and you still miss him."

"Every day, Loki. Every goddamned day."

They sat quietly curled against each other until the carriage stopped. They were outside the city beside the spectacular weeping tree that they had been taking picnics under since her early visits to Asgard.

Grace had never known what to call the tree- it was a spectacular size and reminded her of a weeping willow for most of the year except when it first bloomed in the spring and it was in full bloom when they arrived. On this day, it was completely covered in small white flowers, the petals floating on the breeze, the ground around the tree bathed in their snow. Her feet bare, she felt their silk against the warm grass as she approached the tree with Loki beside her.

Thor was beaming, "You have chosen perhaps the most beautiful place in the entire kingdom to exchange your vows!"

Sif placed a small table beside the tree so they were overlooking the glittering city, "It truly is spectacular. Did you know it would be in bloom?"

Grace held her arms out and let the petals lightly tickle her skin, soft as a kiss, "No. I hoped, based on past years, but no, I didn't. I love this tree."

"And so beside this tree we will enshrine love to the eyes of Asgard," Odin added. He was leaning heavily on his staff, his age slowing him a little as he brought a few accoutrements for the ceremony over to the table. "Shall we begin?"

Loki reached for Grace's hand, "Yes."

Odin told everyone where to stand and began, "Asgard's wedding traditions are many, but today we seek to keep the ceremony simple. To begin, we acknowledge that there are those who we would like to have beside us who cannot be. Those who have passed from this world to the next. And so we light a lantern for them and name them."

Loki took one side of the paper lantern and invited Grace to take the other, "We so rarely see this tradition upheld- it is one of the older ones, but I thought you would find it particularly meaningful."

She had tears in her eyes as she held the lantern, its flame flickering in the breeze, "Thank you. For Tony. And Izzy. And my parents."

"For my mother. She would be so delighted by you, Miss Grace."

After a moment, they released the lantern to the sky; Odin continued, "You are two bright sparks in this universe, ever chanaging, ever wild, who have been lucky enough to find one another. It is rare to find someone who does not seek to tame the fire and you have found that in one another." He poured liquid into two bowls and lit it aflame, "As you both burn brightly, mingle your flames in one bowl and drink." They did as instructed, the fire cool and prickling against their lips, the liquid itself warm and soothingly sweet, "And now you may exchange your vows."

Loki took Grace's hands, "My love, my salvation, my darling Miss Grace. I have pondered for days on what flowery words I would use to impress you with just how dear you have been to me through the years, but all of them fell short. From those first moments in Detroit when you did not fear me, I knew you were someone remarkable. In that short week, you convinced me that despite your origins on Midgard, you were what I needed to survive. And somehow, survive I did. And you came back. You came back ten years later. You came back after you knew what I was, and you kept coming back. You came after me when I made a terrible mistake invading Jotunheim and you came back when I was dragged home, well knowing it might be the last time you could come back at all. And then, twenty years later, you came with me to stay. And I pledge to you know that I will ever seek you the same way you have shown such dedication to me. I will sing the song of your soul back to you as you sing mine. I will hold your heart with care. I will listen to your wild dreams and dance with you to the music you have held dear for so long. And I will ever strive to be the man you deserve, the man your brother would be proud to say is married to his sister. And we will play mischief together for the rest of our days."

Grace wiped tears of joy from her eyes before returning her hand to his and, with a deep breath, starting her own vows, "I spent hours trying to figure out how to say everything I want to say right now. The problem is that I don't do well with all this romantic stuff and I'll be doing well to get out half of it. But I've only ever had two other people who I could tell anything to, and that includes all the shit that went down at Brewster. Izzy and Tony. And now you. And I have no idea how we clicked, but we did. So I promise to keep coming after you when you need me to- even if you don't want me to. I promise to stick by you even if you do someting incredibly stupid like trying to committ inter-realm war crimes...again. Because if you hurt that bad, you need me to all the more. And I don't know what more I can promise because I think that's the biggest gift I can give you. I love you that much. So, as the song goes, 'Here's to us, here's to love, all the times that we fucked up.' And yeah, we'll play mischief. We're on one hell of a wild ride and I wouldn't change it."

Odin gave them a brief moment before continuing, "Then in the eyes of Asgard, as you have made your vows and shared the cup together, you are now wedded to one another. Seal your union with a kiss."

Loki took her face in his hands and kissed her slowly, passionately, trying to say everything he could not put into words. She responded in kind, her eyes closed, the sun blissfully warming her bare back. Odin, Thor, and Sif slipped off, returning the palace with the carriage as the couple disappeared into the curtain of flowers for time alone.

It was many hours before they returned, the tiny flowers from the tree woven into her hair, the sweet smell of the blossoms lingering on their clothes. They were inseperable, taking dinner together in one of the palaces small private dining rooms and retiring early in the evening, exhausted and happy.

The next day, they were still rather giddy and others in the palace noticed the fact that they were standing a little closer to one another, stealing kisses in the alcoves, and generally more cuddly than anyone but the family was used to seeing Loki. This, of course, spun the gears of the palace rumour mill quite quickly and Grace was hearing some interesting things from the girls in the laundry while she was working on tie-dying an entire bolt of fabric. She kept to herself, smiling at the more ridiculous suppositions, and generally trying to be as much of a fly on the wall as she could be. It seemed that a backfired love spell was a popular theme.

On her way back from the laundry, she heard someone call her name as she passed a hallway. She stopped, stepped back, and saw Fandral striding toward her.

Fandral had noticed the definitive change in both Grace and Loki the past day. Usually changes in Loki meant mischeif was afoot. Often mischeif one would find out about in a very spectacular manner later. Grace seemed to be perpetually changing, so the fact that she was a little different from day to day would not have been stunning alone. When odd things happened in the palace, or when Loki and Grace disappeared, as he had noticed the previous day, there generally wasn't something to worry about, unless you were caught in whatever plot they had hatched. There had been one time when they had disappeared that everyone in the palace had seen spiders moving all at once in the same direction immediately after. Of course, some of those people had seen Loki and Grace darting from room to room, nosing about in the dark corners, counting, adding, losing count, and starting over again just before their disappearance. It had been strange enough to see one room's hidden spiders lilterally crawl out of the woodwork, but to see it happening throughout the palace was weird enough that people reacted in one of three ways. The first way was to scream and run, faint, and/or climb on a chair and keep screaming as the spiders trotted by. The second way was to get a fry pan or broom and start indiscriminately smacking spiders. The third way was to follow them to try to find out just what was going on. Those who did follow them, such as Fandral (who suspected the culprits, but had to make sure there was no great security threat to thousands of spiders gathering in one place) were led to a large ballroom where they found Grace and Loki sitting on a table with spiders crawling over every inch of floor, up the walls, and even on the ceiling.

Those who listened heard Grace say, "Huh. So that's how many spiders there are in the palace."

Loki replied, "Indeed. What do we do now?"

"We could just send them all back. Or..."

"Or what, my curious darling?"

"We could see if spiders dance."

"With magic, or by playing music and seeing what happens?"

"The music one."

Those who had followed would have then seen Grace fiddling with her portable music player and heard the revving of a tractor engine as a very old country song began. If they were equally curious, they would have discovered that spiders either do not like songs about International Harvesters or they do not have an interest in dancing.

Knowing that these kinds of oddities were a part of everyday life in the palace- oddities created by pranks and tricks as well as a genuine curiosity about the stranger things in life, Fandral had no idea what to expect when he approached Grace.

She sighed, never quite trusting him after his degrading comments from one of her visits to Asgard as an older Midgardian woman and his having incited Loki to invade Jotunheim with a small mercenary army.

"You called?"

"Yes. Do you have a moment?"

"Yeah. What's up?"

He placed his fingers on his forehead, "I hope you know that I do not mean to be insulting or nosey when I bring you news such as this, but you need to know. Some of the men have been displeased with your changes made during your time as Steward. Of course, this is made more intense by their dislike of a woman in charge, and that you are of Midgard makes it far more offensive to them. But they also complain that you have no right to take such a role, being...ah...how shall I put this? Not being a royal by law. They say that your refusal to run your relationship in a way traditional to Asgard demonstrates a disregard for our traditions and contributes to you having no idea how we do things here and how we behave. They are bothered that the old soldiers believe they may want to talk about their war experiences as anything other than glorious and they say you wish to turn men into simpering women. These men are also unhappy that women are working, but they have come to terms, for the most part, with them working the City Greenhouse, as caring for things seems work women are well suited to in their eyes."

Grace leaned against the wall, "Well that's one hell of a litany of complaints. And what do you think?"

"I think some changes are far overdue."

"Is there anything about me that doesn't freak these guys out?"

"Not really, no."

"Good. OK, so here's the deal with the old men- they wanted this support system when they were younger and didn't have it. I suggested it, but I didn't order anything. What they build is because they need to. And any man who thinks talking about their feelings about war is horrible is, frankly, a coward. Only cowards hide, and that is what they are doing. Hiding because they are afraid of their own feelings and afraid of other people seeing them. And that's bullshit."

"I do not disagree that a man ought to have at least one person he can confide in about his battles- Thor, Sif, and the Three do this...I mean, the Two..."

She reached out and put a hand on his arm as he took a deep breath to maintain composure, "It's still too raw, isn't it?"

"Yes. Exactly. And exactly why we need the old men to do what they are doing. You did something powerful by granting them permission to change things, but change is resisted."

"I know. But if they hate me anyway, I might as well make it for a good reason. And when they get their knickers in a twist about my relationship with Loki...well, tell them to shove it. For real. Just shove it up where the sun doesn't shine. I know they don't like us, but for fuck's sake, it's my life, not theirs and they can shut up or ship out. Let me guess, they've lodged complaints with Thor?"

"This morning."

"Yeah. They can fuck off. The day after my wedding, they can just go to hell if they don't like my life. I'm feeling fantastic- their complaints are void."

Fandral was surprised beyond measure and his face clearly showed it before he broke into a wide grin, "Married? Congratulations, Grace. I did not think you wished such a thing, after all these years."

"I didn't either, but he asked. And I'm glad we did. I've been riding an incredible high ever since. Loki hasn't stopped smiling. It's great. And your soldiers need to mind their own business. You also aren't telling them about this yet. Everybody who knows is going to give us a few days to just enjoy this."

Fandral held up his hands in front of him, "I assure you, I will say nothing to them. You have my word."

"Good. You can tell Volstagg if Sif hasn't already, but this stays in the inner circle."

"I am honoured to be one of the first to know. May your years together be long."

"Thanks, Fandral. Life's to short to wait, you know?"

"Very well, yes."

"Hang in there," she said as she turned to leave. Fandral watched her for a moment before turning to go on his way.