This, I am sad to say, (or maybe I am not, after seven months (!) and ten days or so for good measure) is the last chapter: the epilogue, if you will. Thank you Marvel for tolerating that we play with your stories. We appreciate it.
This chapter features a pairing I didn't know this story contained. It caught me off guard, too.
I hope you have enjoyed this story and this series in two parts, and that I will see you again in other stories of mine.
TapTap
Time seemed to move more quickly in this mortal realm. Loki didn't notice it at first, the realisation snuck up on him when he was not noticing. Seemingly overnight, he realised that he had been in captivity for over a year, that it was now the norm for him to be helpful and even slightly trusted, helping the trio of scientists and being with Virginia.
Virginia. Maybe she was what really, truly, changed everything. Time with her was never painful or dragging, and with her in his life it just felt... better. He had never been so content. Maybe that was why the changes snuck up on them, slowly and at the same time suddenly.
It started with Skywalker having a litter of kittens. It was not her first one, but it was her first with them as owners. Since then, these swift, mortal changes seemed to come every time Loki opened his eyes.
Thor and Jane decided to marry. Once the day came, they had settled on a double wedding: Jane and Thor, Virginia and Loki. Darcy made as enthusiastic a bridesmaid as the Black Widow was terrifying beyond measure in the same capacity. As the kittens grew, unnaturally fast on all accounts, exploring the tower and generally making a nuisance of themselves (not that anyone ever minded) to a point where Loki got proud of having been referred to as a "bag of cats" with all their propensity for mischief, changes kept happening undeterred.
Jane announced her first pregnancy about when the first kitten got dubbed as the IronCat and was officially proclaimed to belong to Tony. They were all uncertain about the wisdom of this at first, but he was a surprisingly responsible father, to a kitten anyway. Virginia noted that gods help them if he ever got an actual baby to care for, and they all grimaced: Tony most of all.
By the time Natasha had taken kitten number four (two and three, dubbed Arrow and Follower and having found their homes with Barton's children) and named her the Ballerina, the Black Widow had also announced the date for her to marry Bruce Banner. Few of them, (except perhaps Virginia, of course) saw that coming, though Tony already had a material in mind for a ring which a Hulk transformation would not break, so maybe he was more astute than you'd think.
Changes continued in this way, nieces and nephews appearing, a baby Hulk being born without any hint of green to a general sigh of relief (her father being more relieved than anybody else), until Loki found himself sitting in what had long ceased to be a cell, surrounded by family all over the Tower.
There were things everywhere, these days, Loki noted absentmindedly, as the fifth and last kitten, now since long a grown cat, named after Thor's (and maybe his, too, in all ways that mattered) mother, jumped down from somewhere and landed on his shoulders, but the god of mischief did not mind. He had never minded chaos, after all, and he was not alone, not any more. Never alone.
Rising carefully in order to not dislodge the cat, the frost giant stepped over the lego which was strewn across the rug, just lying in wait for unguarded feet (always adult feet, somehow, the children never seemed to step on any of it) and went past the girl lying on the floor drawing, several cats lying on top of her or by her side, lazily watching.
This oldest girl, now eight or nine (Loki still had trouble with the swiftness with which mortal children grew) had been the only one to get Thor's hair of all of his and Jane's children, and the scientist and Virginia had spent far too many nights joking about how the now half-grown, half-asguardian boys who were this child's little brothers looked more like Loki than Thor, because they had inherited not only their mother's dark hair, but a distinct mischievousness which Loki suspected had made its way into the children not by way of his influence, but Tony Stark's.
Passning the Black Widow and her offspring (fondly nicknamed the Pink Widow, because of her taste, very like the taste of any five-year-old) practising ballet in their private studio, Loki took the stairs down as he checked on the rest of his family. His three nephews, darkhaired little darling menaces between the ages of seven and three, were playing in the gym under the watchful eyes of Captain America, who was admittedly very tolerant with them getting involved in his training regime.
Jane was found in the kitchen, sleeping baby girl (also with their mother's dark hair, like her brothers) in her arms as she was reading a cook-book, and with Virginia still at work, Loki guessed where their own daughter might be easily.
In Tony Stark's workshop everything was very much as it had been when Loki first got there, over a decade earlier. A now rather old Skywalker was sleeping on the seat of a new Aston Martin, accompanied by one of her granddaughters, still a rather young cat, and Tony Stark was fixing something over at his workbench, looking on with undisguised delight as a four-year-old version of Pepper played fetch with an even more delighted "helper" bot.
Hela was the image of her mother in every way, so much so that Jane had once questioned, after Virginia's playful jibe that Jane's boys looked more like her own husband than Jane's, exactly how a frost giant and a human would mix in genetics, and if there was any of Loki in the then toddler at all. As she grew though, more and more to the image of her mother, the child's eyes grew so vibrantly green that her parentage could not have been more clear. Loki stopped in the door and just watched her.
Bruce Banner, Loki soon realised, was in the workshop as well, having come down from his labratory for some reason or other, but the frost giant did not mind nor worry. If he ever feared the beast inside the man, it was only for himself. He held no worries for the innocent children he knew that green force of nature would defend just as fiercely as he would himself.
The original Skywalker soon abandoned deeper thoughts, as his darling girl noticed her father had come and ran into his arms with a delighted laugh. Petting the cat still resting on her father's shoulders, the young girl started telling him all about what she'd been doing in the hour or so since he saw her last, while he carried her upwards towards the kitchen.
It was in that kitchen, vaguely an hour later, that they all gathered, three pairs and a genius, billionare, playboy, philantrophist, along with all of their children, seven in total (not counting the Barton ones, as they were not only a few years older, but also didn't live with them) to have a family dinner like they always did. Oh, and Rogers was there too, but Loki usually did not count him in any way. Great as he was with his dear nephews, the god of mischief still did not like the mortal one bit.
"What have you all done today?" Virgina asked generally as she helped organise the children by moving the bowls of food in the right directions, smiling as she got three answers at the same time.
Dinner was always full of laughter, stories and childish enthusiasm these days, and after it it was (in the usual order) Tony who spoilt the children by making them all far too much desert while Bruce Banner patiently attempted to explain the home cinema system to Thor for what had to be the thousandth time just this year. Loki rolled his eyes at his brother's stupidity with technology, but they were saved from his utter unability to learn long before the children got over their distraction by Loki's very clever sister-in-law, who picked out a film and just had Jarvis play it.
Like most of the children's favourites, they had seen the film before, but none of the adults cared as they watched their charges, their lovely, beautiful children, drop off into sleep one by one during the second one. By the time the second film of the evening was over, Natasha Romanov bid them all good night and carried her sleeping daughter over to their private floor, her husband in tow with blankets and the stufffed ginger bear wich absolutely could not be left behind. Smilingly and after a short talk with Virginia, Jane did the same, her sleeping baby in her arms and Thor, Rogers and Tony carrying the sleeping boys in decending order of age (and weight, more importantly) after her.
Virginia took their own child herself, dropped a kiss on Loki's head and left him alone with the stars, a great number of cats and his oldest niece, who was allowed to stay up a bit longer. They watched "Beauty and the Beast" together, talking a few words sometimes, and by the time "Tale as Old As Time" was done playing, Loki carried the sleeping girl to bed and went to join Virginia and Skywalker in their own room, looking in on their sleeping daughter, just next door, along the way.
Once, he had stood in this very tower, and felt so alone that it had almost broken his admittedly (at the time) frost cold heart. He was not alone any more.
