I just want to tell you all how thankful I am for all of my great readers and reviewers. Thank you for sticking with me and keeping up all of the great feeback! Please enjoy this chapter I baked fresh for you!

Loki had never been so cold in his whole life. Being a frost giant most cold felt normal to him, and when he was using his ice powers it just felt a little tingly, not at all cold. Well, whatever sickness he had gotten was stealing all of his heat, and he was miserable. It had helped a good amount when Stark had tried to warm him up with body heat and he had fallen asleep comfortably.

The soup had also helped a little bit, and it did make him feel a little less weak and helpless, but then without any other source of heat he had gotten extremely cold and fell into an unconscious state. His dreams were feverish and filled with the odd sensation of being afloat on a river of magic that was taking him somewhere fast and he had no way of helping himself. He felt trapped in his own consciousness with no way to get out of the tundra that was his body. It was like Hell had frozen over.

He had stayed like that for quite some time, freezing to what felt like death, but then it had gradually eased up. He fell into a more comfortable, lighter sleep until something had woken him up.

He opened his eyes and found himself to be very confused. Somebody was wrapped around him and it was not Stark like he thought it would be. It was a strange woman. It was that Pepper woman.

Loki went from confusion to surprise in under a second and let out a strangled cry, backpedaling away from Pepper as fast as he could. She was also very surprised and jumped out of the bed at full speed. Why in the world was she in bed with him? Many possible reasons for her being there flitted through his head, each one making less sense than the last.

Stark had come to the side of the bed, holding out his hands and trying to calm the whole situation down. "Loki! It's alright; she was just trying to warm you up!" Stark said. His voice sounded as if it was coming through a pane of glass, and everything was a little fuzzy around the edges. Curse this blasted sickness.

Loki looked at the both of them in suspicion. "Why weren't you the one doing it? You were warming me up before," Loki said, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.

"I'll show you," Stark said, and then he reached out to Loki and touched him on the arm. Loki felt an odd spark of magic flow up at the contact, and Stark jerked back from him, cringing. "Your magic is attacking my arc reactor every time I try to touch you, so I had to get Pepper to warm you up. You might have died otherwise."

"Alright, well," Loki responded, leaning back against the headboard in exhaustion from just that little movement across the bed. This sickness really had come out of nowhere very quickly, and Loki had gone from just a little dizzy one minute to completely bedridden. He had to admit that her body heat had helped him. He had indeed felt like he was almost dying before he had started warming up. But at least now that he was awake and moving slightly he was not as cold. In fact, he felt better in the temperature department.

"Do you want some more soup or something?" Stark asked him, picking up the empty bowl from a few hours ago. The mere thought of food had Loki's stomach turning painfully, and a few seconds later he was staggering to the bathroom and emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

He felt Stark pull his hair off of his neck and out of the way and hand him a wet towel to wipe his face. He took it gratefully. "Ugh, I hate this," Loki murmured after he had rinsed out his mouth with water.

"Well, we all get sick sometimes," Stark said, shrugging. "And it does suck."

"Those of us on Asgard don't usually get sick," Loki responded, trying to remember a time when any of them had actually gotten sick. The only thing he could think of was Odin falling into Odinsleep, and that couldn't have been as painful as what Loki was going through now.

"You guys never get sick?" Pepper asked from the bedroom, now sitting in the chair that Stark had gotten up from.

"We are gods, therefore we do not get sick," Loki said simply, and then threw up in the toilet for the second time in so many minutes.

XxX

Tony and Pepper left the room once Loki had fallen asleep again. He seemed to be past the 'feverish' faze and just felt terrible now.

"Tony, I'm really sorry you have to deal with this," Pepper said to Tony, sitting down on the couch.

Tony put his head in his hands. "I'm just worried that it's something really bad; that he's going to lose his magic or something like that," Tony said softly.

Pepper sat on the couch next to him. "You know, Tony, I can tell that you really care for him, and if that is really the case, then I have no right to tell you not to feel the way you feel," she said slowly.

Tony looked up at her, surprise written on his face. "That really means a lot to me, Pepp," he responded. "I am sorry that things had to work out between us the way they did. I'm sorry that I am such a jerk."

Pepper just shook her head. "You just say what is on your mind, and that is not always a bad thing." They sat there in silence for some time. "You know, once he has gotten better I would like to get to know Loki a little more and see what the fuss is about," Pepper said, smiling.

Tony smiled back at her. "It will be interesting to see which one of you kills the other one first," he said lightly, running a hand through his tousled hair making it stick up even more.

Pepper narrowed her eyes. "I thought you were insistent that he wouldn't kill me? Now you're telling me that we are going to have a battle to the death?"

Tony looked up, his trademark grin on his face. "I said he wouldn't kill you if you weren't doing anything wrong to him. I never said he wouldn't kill you when provoked. He is the god of chaos and mischief."

"Tony, what is it with you and seeking out danger and trouble?"

Tony smiled even wider. "I like danger and trouble, and he is currently sleeping in that bed in there," he said, pointing to Loki's bedroom.

"You know Tony, you are the last person I would've expected to be gay," she said, getting a little bit more serious.

Tony appeared to ponder this. "Well, I don't think I am gay," he said finally.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "And falling in love with men makes you completely straight?"

Tony shook his head. "I never said I was completely straight. I just like women too much to be gay. I think I play for both teams, personally. Or I am just on my own team. You know, 'Team Tony'," he blabbered a bit, using his fingers to make a 't' and holding it up to his forehead.

Pepper rolled her eyes and stood up off of the couch, walking into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. She leaned against the bar and took a large swig. "Good to know that you finally found your true spot, though," she finally responded.

"Yeah, and I really do like this spot," Tony said, glancing at the door to Loki's bedroom. "I just hope that this spot is going to be okay."

XxX

Over the next few days Loki's condition did not get any better, and Tony began to worry, constantly pacing and not getting a lick of sleep. Pepper stayed with him, helping out with Loki and giving Tony the moral support that he needed, because no matter how many times he denied that the amazing Tony Stark didn't need moral support, he really did.

Pepper could see that Tony really cared for the god that was currently sick, the way he looked at him when they were in the room, the way that they talked to each other when Loki was awake, and the way that Tony spoke of him. If you were someone that didn't know Tony you wouldn't think that he cared at all, but Pepper had known Tony for a very long time and she could tell that Tony was infatuated with this god of mischief.

Pepper also kept hearing Tony talking to himself in low tones, and she could tell it was all ideas about how to help Loki. She kept hearing 'magic' and 'Asgard' and 'Thor might know'. The brilliant Tony Stark was looking for help from an outside source. Unfortunately this outside source was so far away that it was impossible to get to it without using magic, and the only source of magic that Tony had available to him was currently very sick because of said magic.

Pepper really wished she knew how to help, but magic and sicknesses were way out of her expertise. "Hey, Tony, is there a way to open a sort of communication with As-god-thingy?" she asked Tony.

Tony shook his head forlornly, and then paused. He stood up off the barstool that he was currently sitting on and walked towards Loki's bedroom. Pepper followed him into the room and saw that Loki was sitting up in the bed with his head back on the headboard and his eyes closed.

"Loki?" Tony said. Loki opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Tony. His face was extremely pale and his hair hung lankly around his face, not even close to the armored god that had come out of the portal those long months ago.

"Come to tell me that I only have a few more days to live?" he asked dryly.

Tony shook his head. "No, I came to ask you a question. It really was Pepper's idea," he responded.

"Alright, go ahead."

"Is there any source of communication that you Asgardians use to talk to one another when you are not on the same realm?" Tony asked Loki, who sat there in silence for a few seconds, thinking.

"Well, there is one way that I know of. We don't use it very often because you can only get a few words in to each other before the connection breaks, and you need magic on both ends to do it, but it is possible."

Tony nodded, deep in thought. "Do you know if I could use the magic that is currently in my arc reactor to establish a connection with Thor? You know, to see if he can get you back home and heal you?"

Loki looked up at him with an expression of hope. "Yes, it is possible, but you need to know the proper procedures and everything. And you need to know exactly what you are going to say to Thor once you get the connection, because it does not last long, and that is assuming that the casting of the spell doesn't kill your mortal body before then."

Tony just stood there for a few seconds. "Alright, let's do this thing."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Okay, just stand over here and I will tell you what you need to do."

Please review, or I shall make you coffee without caffeine in it...Loki'd!