The first night Tony stayed in his own room Loki expected the sound of little feet padding across his drawing room. He knew better than most how dark and all too quiet the castle could be at night; how disconcerting it could be. Tony, who didn't even have a sibling in whom to find comfort and had grown up in a large city in his old life, could not be expected to enjoy the total silence. No, Loki was not surprised.

He waited until he heard the feet stop before simply opening his eyes lazily to meet the soft brown stare of his littlest one. Tony opened and closed his mouth once then stood silent, shifting his weight and staring at his bare feet. After a moment of watching the once mortal shift from foot to foot uneasily he yawned and casually drew back his comforter. Tony was by his side in an instant and Loki wrapped an arm about him, pulled him into bed, rolled the child to the middle and settled again. Tony shifted slightly, pressing against his father's side and lay still.

He had thought the little one asleep when a little voice drifted up from the thick covers.

"Night, Daddy. I love you."

His voice was soft, like his eyes and Loki found himself returning the sentiment in kind as he snaked his arm over the small form and pressed his own face into the pillows.

It was a simple comfort.

Loki knew he should not have let the boy sleep with him. He should have taken the child back to his own room and perhaps lay with him there until he slept. He had been told by not only his own mother, but by his nursemaids and the nursemaids of his previous children that it was bad practice to allow a child to sleep with their parents. He was warned against this particular practice because it was said to develop security issues or some such nonsense, but surely one night would not be their undoing.

Loki had been made aware of an uncountable number of things to do with the raising a single child. What they should eat and how they should eat it. What they should wear and when and why and how to assist them in dressing themselves without hindering their independence. Then there was of course the education of the child in a fun and engaging yet informative way. That is not to speak of how stringently a parent needed to watch over their play, looking for destructive behavior and unsociable tendencies as well as what they were doing and if it was something dangerous or mentally damaging. It seemed a wonder any children lived through their younger years for all the things he was told he needed to worry about.

After an artful escape which involved liberal use of distractionary tactics and more than a touch of mishcheif, he had managed to slip away to the peace of a small and seldom used garden. He sighed heavily as he sat finally free of the mother hens that had been plucking at him for the last hour and a half. Of course there was one thing he was never truly free of.

"Daddy!"

Tony came running up to him like a wild thing with his hair total chaos as to match what he had done to his trousers. How he had managed to cover himself in dirt, loose his shoes, and fill his hair with leaves and twigs in but a few short minutes was a mystery to Loki. The child smiled hugely and held his little hands up in the air making a grabbing motion which was apparently the universal child hand sign for 'oh please daddy, please pick me up'. He lifted the boy into his arms and immediately little arms wrapped around his neck. He felt a smile tug at his lips.

"What in the Nine have you been doing to have so dirty?" He asked, pulling a twig from the child's hair.

"I went 'sploring!" He said with great enthusiasm. "I found all kindsa things. Life frogs and bugs and and and even a lake!" His eyes went wide as he got to the part about the water. Well, at least Loki knew where the mud covering his son's backside came from.

Yet another thing they insisted Loki work with Tony on was his language. They wished for him to teach Tony to speak properly. Properly meaning without the use of Midgardian slang and contractions. Loki was reluctant to do so though. While he had no reservations about teaching the boy correct pronunciation he found the leftovers of his mortal life endearing and the words were not truly improper, they simply weren't then neither was Tony. Should he let the boy be, or work him out of it? Why were things so difficult?

"Exploring, Tony. And a lake you say? In the garden? We will have to take a look at that wont we?" He decided to worry about proper vs. improper speech later. He smiled and set the boy back on the ground and took his hand. "Lead the way."

He and Tony wandered the garden for quite some time, making a game of being lost and being attacked by bugs, frogs, flying lookout birds and all manner of dangerous creatures before finally reaching the 'lake' safely. Loki couldn't help but grin as he sat on a bench along a path that lead straight to the little pond on its trail around the garden. It had been quite a long while since he had played make believe and discovered this very pond with Thor. Only back then it was the edge of a great sea and if one stood on the rock farthest from the path they could look out over the ocean and see any sea bound threats. Tony's own story about the lake was just as exciting, though.

"There is a monster in there." He whispered to Loki. "And it's gots long arms that reach out and grab you if yous get too close."

"Got and you, not gots and yous. And besides, you cannot be serious! Such a monster living in these very waters? I don't believe it." Loki feigned shock and mentally chuckled as Tony's eyes sparkled with the fun of it all.

"Yes! It has lots and lots of arms that grab you and pull you down and if you don' get away then then then… it eats you!" He cried theatrically

Loki raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Oh? How do you know?"

"I saw it! It grabbed me and tried to pull me down into the water, but I got away. See the mud?" He turned and showed Loki his trousers and the great muddy smear on the seat of them.

Loki allowed his eyes to grow large. "Oh my goodness. What will we do, Tony? We have to pass along that way to get back to the palace for lunch and I am hungry, are you not?"

Tony glanced back at the pond and gasped. "Yeah, I am kinda hungry. We gotta get back!"

"However will we make it? I hope you have a plan, little one, for I am all out of ideas after that look out bird." He sighed melodramatically

He had been in charge of safely guiding them past a while nest of birds on their way here and he suspected he looked just as wild as Tony did after all the bushes they crawled under. Loki had thus decided that it was Tony's turn to come up with something and watched as bright brown eyes darted about the area narrowed in concentration.

"Okay! Daddy, do you think you can make it all the way to that rock?" He pointed to the other side of the pond. They would have to trounce through some puddles and mud to reach it from this side of the path.

"I believe so." Why not? He was already dirty. He could already hear the lecture on being a good and proper example of decorum for Tony. One more thing to worry about. Joy.

"Kay! So if we can get to that rock and then under that tree you can look and see which way home is. We might make it there in time for lunch, but we gotta hurry. Come one daddy!" He pulled at Loki's hand until he stood.

"Will you lead the way or shall I?" He asked and Tony puffed up his little chest and stood forward

"I sawed the monster before so I should go first." He declared and marched in front of Loki.

"Saw, Tony." He corrected automatically, but followed up in character. "Such a brave and fearless leader. What would our team do without you?"

"I don't know!" He laughed and then, as he took his first step, slipped and fell into the water.

Loki's eyes shot wide and he nearly jumped after him, but before he could Tony sat up and cried out half laughing half serious.

"Daddy! It's got me! Help!" He yelled waving his arms.

Loki let out a breath and made a great show of falling to his knees and grabbing at Tony's hand missing the first few times. Finally he pulled Tony to safety and they fell back taking comically large gulps of air.

"That was a close call." Loki said

"Yeah!" Tony replied and bounced up. "Come on daddy, we gotta go. I'm hungry!"

Loki got up and did his job of climbing the tree which in reality involved simply pulling himself up by one branch and looking out over the garden and pointing dramatically in the direction of the door. Soon they were back through the garden and heading inside. That is where they ran into Frigga.

"Gramma!" Tony cried and immediately held his hands up to her signaling he wished to be picked up.

Frigga, immaculate queen of Asgard in all her glowing glory, bent down and wrapped her arms about his little body and held him, dripping with mud, against her and smiled beautifully at him. He gripped her dress in his little hands and began to explain why he and Loki were so dirty and that the monster had unfortunately escaped. She reacted quite theatrically herself wondering aloud how they would manage to vanquish such a sly and dangerous monster. Loki and she lamented that it might be impossible as they made their way to clean up for lunch.

As they parted at Loki's door his mother gave him an exasperated look. "Really Loki, you are an adult."

"Indeed, mother. I had, in fact, noticed." He replied stepping through the doorway

"It is a bad example to set, Loki. He needs to know the difference between childishness and adult mature behavior."

"You have told me." He inched back, his hand creeping towards the handle or the door

"Darling, I do not mean to be a bother, but it is important that he be raised as any other prince would be raised."

"Indeed you are correct, but I must attend to getting him cleaned for midmeal. I will see you in a bit." He gave her a quick falsely apologetic smile and shut the door.

He let out a slow breath. He must be raised as any other prince? Really now? Had Sleipnir been raised as a proper prince? Of course not, and it was silly to think so. None of his four previous children had been raised as royalty with the exception of Hela who had been raised as a proper princess and ruled over the world of the dead. Where did she get off telling him that Tony must be raised just so? None of his children were normal Asgardian stock. Did they not understnad that his children would always be different and have different needs? But of course not, they had not understood with him and they would not with Tony. He was very near seething. The nerve!

"Daddy, wanna take a bath?" Tony asked. Loki looked down at him. Tony stared up at him with soft brown eyes and his arms wrapped about Loki's legs. "You wanna?"

"Yes, I do."

He was making an executive decision to not correct Tony's language.

Thor found Loki sitting watching Tony dash about the garden. His nephew seemed to be taken with flowers at the moment. He collected one of all the different kinds he could find bringing them all back to place in Loki's lap and ask what all the parts were. Thor guessed Tony liked the oddly shaped ones most of all as Loki had plies of fluted, bell shaped and curling flowers all about him. It could be worse he supposed; it could be bugs, though he doubted if that wasn't in the near future.

Thor grinned. Loki looked oddly pleased with Tony's fascination and thirst for knowledge. He took great care with every flower brought to him and explained not only what the parts were, but what the flowers symbolized and what foods and potions they would be good for. Thor came up next to Loki and gently swept a mountain of flowers aside to sit beside him. Loki spared him a glance as Tony caught sight of him and ran to threw himself into his uncle's lap.

"Uncle! Do you see all the flowers? I have all different kinds!" Tony asked

"Indeed I dare say there is not one alike among the lot of them. Whatever do you need all these for?" He asked as the child got comfortable in his lap.

"They are all flowers, but they are all different! Isn't that cool? I like this one best, do you know what it's called?" He held up a vine of little yellow bell shaped flowers that caught the light quite oddly and Thor did know their name, but he let Tony tell me all the same.

"I would wager that you have found every flower in the garden." He laughed

"Yep!"

"I wonder though, if you noticed the ones growing up the garden wall." He pointed to the far wall of the garden where bright red and pink fluted flowers climbed their way up and over the wall.

Tony seemed all too excited about the new idea of flowers that could climb and took off to search the garden again. Thor laughed and turned to see Loki with a raised eyebrow.

"When he becomes caught up in the vines of the wall or when he climbs only to realize how high he is and becomes afraid to come down you will be the one to go and get him."

Loki's voice held less jibe than it normally did. Thor tilted his head a bit and Looked at his brother. Now that Tony was gone he looked downcast and troubled. Thor knew enough about his brother to know that if he was not meant to see Loki's mood, he would not.

"What is on your mind, brother, that weighs so heavy as to seek my attentions." He paused, nervous about how that came out. "That is to say, you never seek my attentions and thus I am um… concerned."

He held his breath, hoping he had not made a mistake in reading what Loki wanted. He could be so difficult sometimes, but since Tony had come he had mellowed greatly and Thor didn't want to take it for granted. Loki sighed and twirled a large purple flower with long flowing petals between his thumb and forefinger for a moment before looking up into the sky.

"What do you think a child needs to grow up happy and healthy, Thor?"

He stared. What did a child need to grow up happy? What kind of a question was that? He was exceedingly confused and it must have shown on his face because Loki jumped to explain. "I had not considered, and clearly neither had you. We grew up in exactly the same place doing much the same things with the very same parents and had completely different childhoods." He looked back at the flower he held in his hand, glaring. "How am I to ensure my child is happy?"

Ah, Loki was concerned about Tony happy because he did not look back on his memories with happiness. That seemed a legitimate concern, but Thor hardly knew the answer. He considered before he answered.

"I think as long as you accept who he is and allow him to be himself he will be just fine, Loki. All we can do is our best." He smiled at Loki who still looked a bit concerned about the whole thing, but nodded eventually still staring at his flower.

Thor hoped he had been helpful. There were so few things Loki asked of him especially since The Fall and he had offered to help, had he not? He looked back at his brother who was staring out into the garden. What was he thinking? Did his words help, or had they created more cause for discord? One could never tell when it came to Loki. He opened his mouth to beg Loki for his thoughts, but he was interrupted before he began.

"Daddy! I-I can't g-got down!" Tony's voice called and Loki's face split in a smile. They both looked up to see Tony gripping the vines on the south garden wall to their right no more than three feet off the ground. Loki laughed and gave Thor a look.

"Fret not, Tony. I am coming." Thor called as he went to fetch is nephew and left Loki to ponder his flower, spinning it in his fingers.

It was not surprising for night to find Tony in his father's rooms. One night had turned into two; two had turned into a three and so on. The little one craved affection, attention and physical contact as much as nourishment it seemed and Loki had quickly decided that while he could listen to advice, he could also not. He had thought to ignore the constant nagging of the nursemaids and his own mother. Reinforced by Thor's own words a fact he seemed proud of.

Loki had chosen to ignore the advice on sleeping arrangements of children. If he remembered correctly, Stark had rarely slept alone during his stay on Asgard and if rumors held true which he imagined they did, he rarely slept alone on Midgard as well. He sighted these reasons to himself for keeping Tony close. The boy had been born with a need for contact and Loki would not deny him it. And so Tony came at night to seek comfort and Loki gave it without complaint.

Yet Loki was surprised by Tony's consistent awkwardness at these times. How he stood at the door between drawing room and bed chamber, shifting his feet, afraid to ask to stay, but scared to leave. The first time, and even the second, Loki thought the child to just be unsure of Loki's feelings on the matter. When in continued Loki wondered if the child felt unwelcome. If in his old life's childhood he had been unwelcome.

That night Loki decided to try something new. He waited. He heard the soft movement of the well oiled door. He heard the pattering of Tony's bare little feet. He heard them slow as he reached the bed chamber and, as he now expected, he heard them stop when he came within sight of the God. This time Loki did not roll over. He did not toss back his covers and beckon his little one to bed. This time he feigned sleep.

He breathed deeply and smoothly, not moving. He simply listened.

He heard Tony breathing softly, trying to be quiet as his parent slept. He heard little feet patter ever so slowly over to his bedside and stop. Nothing happened for a moment, but then he heard the sound of a sigh and the pressure of a little hand on his chest. He thought surely the hand would shake him, wake him, but nothing came. Instead the hand left and a soft rustling was heard before silence fell again.

Loki waited a moment, but his patience wore thin. His green eyes snapped open and he quickly glanced about for his child. He hadn't moved away from the bed, had he? No, Loki would have heard footsteps, so where?

Sudden comprehension dawned on him. Surely not. He told himself, but just in case…

He looked over the edge of the bed there sat Tony. On the floor curled up and shivering, but asleep.

Loki glared at the child. Was he really more content to sleep on the floor than to simply ask his father for a place in the bed? A place that had in all practicality, become his? Loki snorted and felt a grim satisfaction when the child stirred.

"You rather sleep on the floor?" He drawled, giving the little one an unimpressed look.

Tony started at the sound of his voice and little eyes shot up to meet his.

"I-I thought…" The boy trailed off and looked back to his feet. Why was he always doing that? "I thought you might n-not want to get woked up so I…"

He was nervous, Loki knew by his change in speech. Even so, he felt annoyed.

"You felt I, your father and care giver, would prefer you to sleep on the floor?"Loki tried not to growl. Judging by the look on Tony's face, he failed.

"Um… No, but you were sleeping and…" Silence.

The child just could not complete a sentence when unsure, could he? Where had all that Stark arrogance gone?

With a final huff of annoyance Loki grabbed the child and hoisted him up, rolled him to the middle of the bed, tucked his arm around his small body and settled. Tony squeaked when the arm swept round his middle, but as soon as he was settled in 'his spot' he nuzzled into Loki's side.

"'m sorry." He whispered.

"As you should be." Loki growled into his pillow, though in truth the apology had quelled much of his frustration. "You will not sleep on the floor."

"K-kay."

His voice sounded weepy to Loki's ears. He gentled his tone.

"If I am asleep, you will wake me."

"Kay."

"You are welcome to be here. Indeed, you are even expected." Loki continued, tightening his grip. "I am your father and you may rely on me. I offer this not to those whom I do not wish to give it, so take advantage. Yes?"

"Y-yes, daddy."The reply was whispered weakly into his side as Tony pressed his small face into Loki's ribs.

"Good, now sleep." His tone was mild and appeased as his grip softened, his long fingers finding short hair to gently card through.

"Kay… G'night, love you." The words of affection were as little as the voice, but it was beginning to mean more and more to the God of Mischief.

"I love you too, little one."

A simple act. A simple comfort.

Some days after his talk with Loki in the garden after which his brother had taken ideas of Tony's needs into his own hands, Thor had to physically repress the laugh that tried to come bubbling from his chest as he watched Loki literally growl at a woman. She had, in good faith he was sure, suggested that Loki trying a good whipping to keep Tony in his bed at night. His own reaction had been anger, but Loki had been so thoroughly disgusted he had growled right in their face and swept Tony behind his cape.

"You dare imply that I would take to injuring my child simply because he seeks his father's love and attention when he is lonely and no doubt frightened. Who, dear woman, do you think you are to suggest such a thing?" Tony's little face peeked out from Loki's leg looking nervous and worried, but Loki picked him up and leaned into the woman's personal space and spoke loudly enough that everyone could here. "I would caution you against speaking again in my presence."

The woman was speechless as Loki turned and stormed from the room the air about him crackling with power. As soon as his cape disappeared around the corner the room broke out into murmurs. Chatters of how ridiculous Loki was being, about how the child would surely grow to be just as maladjusted as it's father, how the Allfather should take the boy away. Thor felt his anger grow with each word uttered against his brother and nephew until he could take no more. He stood tall form his seat at the table and the rooms noise softened greatly.

"Well spoken I think." He began, glaring into the crowd and he felt rather than heard the thunder roll in the distance. "I am appalled that any of you would dare to tell my brother how to raise a child born of magic as if you had been burdened with such a task. I would be amazed if any of you made the same mistake again as to speak on such a sensitive matter without your council being sought out. And I shutter to think of what the Allfather would think had he been here to witness what I have. You be warned that such impudence will not be tolerated by my brother and certainly not by the King and the rest of the royal family."

By the time be finished thunder was crashing just outside the windows and the crowd was cowering, apologies falling from their lips. He turned and took his leave as well. Though his brother insisted he would raise Tony on his own, Thor was determined to provide protection and support through any ridicule he or Tony might face and he pitied any who were foolish enough to voice such a thing in his presence.

A/N: Yeah this chapter is a bit shorter than I would have liked, but I'm still trying to get a feel for how this is going to flow and get the overall plan sketched out. And make no mistake, there is a plan! Let me know how you like it.