"Max?"
She dropped the dagger she'd been admiring and whirled around, like she had been caught playing with something she shouldn't. And, frankly, that was exactly what had happened. Max bit her lip as Loki frowned at her, standing at the entrance of the armory with his arms crossed.
"Hey," she managed, head cocked to the side. "What's up?"
What was up was that her guards had probably tattled on her again. In the few weeks that had passed since she slipped and fell into the sea, her guards had been on her heels everywhere. Unless she was just sitting in the bedroom—or with Loki—those two were her constant shadows. And she wouldn't have minded so much if they actually talked to her. Max would have been open to two companions who she could explore the palace with, or maybe even go into the city with on days she was feeling especially stir-crazy. But no. They just followed her around, tight-lipped and distant, ready to place their hands on their swords and glare at anyone who got too close.
Today wasn't the first day she had managed to give them the slip, but from the look on Loki's face, it might just be the last.
"What are you doing?" he asked as his eyes darted down to the line of daggers she'd been investigating. Max shrugged.
"Just looking."
"Alone?"
She bit her lip again, knowing she had no real answer to give him beyond the truth, which he seemed to already know. Exhaling deeply, Loki seemed to take a moment to compose himself, then stretched out his arm toward her.
"Come along, my sweet."
After a slight hesitation, she sauntered across the somewhat chilly armory, placing her hand in his, and let him pull her to him. A giggle slipped out when he nipped at her neck.
"Your nose is cold," she protested, trying to squirm out of his grasp, but he held tight as she laughed, kissing and nibbling at her skin. When he finally straightened, a rather smug look on his features, Max smacked him in the chest. "Rude."
"We'll agree to disagree," he insisted, voice an attractive rumble that always made her feel better. He then wrapped an arm around her waist, hand resting over the smell bump on her belly. By her estimate, she was a little over three months pregnant, pushing three and a half, and things were going well. From the front her bump wasn't all that noticeable, but she had started wearing looser dresses because the side view was pretty telling. She always caught Loki looking at it when she got dressed in the morning—should he happen to be around that late, that is.
"Where are we going?" she asked, letting him lead, and when he responded with their bedroom, her mood lifted considerably. She had spent her day skirting her guards, only to hide herself away in the armory in an effort to find something to keep her busy with before dinner tonight. But an afternoon quickie sounded much more enticing than looking at the detail of sword and dagger handles. Loki was seldom around this time of day—it was a welcome surprise, honestly.
Guards nowhere in sight, Max took it upon herself to let him know just how much she appreciated the change, jumping up on her tiptoes every so often to steal a kiss, hands cupping his face. He even let her tug him down the familiar dark corridor, seemingly amused with her impatience.
Unfortunately, all that came to an end when she stumbled into their bedroom and found another woman waiting there by the fire. Her hands fell from Loki, tightening to fists. Clearly he had no intention of whisking her off for a little afternoon fooling around—and she would have preferred if he said something so she hadn't gotten her hopes up.
"My king," the woman greeted, hurrying away from the flames and giving a sweet little curtsey in front of them. Her eyes, blue like a mid-summer's sky at noon, flitted to Max quickly as she dipped down again. "My lady."
"Hi," was Max's somewhat confused response. She turned to Loki, brow furrowed, and then pointedly looked in the woman's direction. "What."
"Max, this is Kari." He took Max's hand in one of his, using the other on her lower back to twist her back around to face the woman. Blonde and trim, she stood at roughly Max's height and wore a simple maroon dress, sleeves pushed up to the elbows and skirt hem grazing the floor. Her hair wrapped around her head in a fat braid, a ribbon the same colour as her dress woven throughout. She was beautiful. Athletic looking, definitely. She seemed to fidget under Max's brief moment of scrutiny, her gaze shifting to the floor.
"Okay," Max said slowly, not enjoying the somewhat cautious tone Loki took with her. "Kari, hello."
"Good afternoon, my lady," the woman replied hastily, head snapping up as she smiled. If she had a tail it would have been wagging a mile a minute. Max licked her lips, still not quite able to put the pieces together.
"Kari is a shieldmaiden," Loki remarked, stepping between them as if that would bridge the gap. "She is going to replace the two guards I have assigned to you for day-to-day activities." Max drew in a sharp breath, her arms crossing over her chest when she pulled her hand free from his. "She'll escort you around the palace, into the city, into the countryside. She can help you with, er, dressing in more intricate outfits, and… hair, if you need it."
Max's eyebrows shot up.
"And, as the pregnancy continues, she will be here to assist in all manner of things," Loki continued. His slight nod prompted Kari to speak.
"My mother was a midwife, my lady," she stated, starting to fiddle with her fingernails when Max's somewhat incredulous look shifted directly to her, "and I was on the waiting list to join his majesty's army."
"Okay." Max cleared her throat as she looked between the pair, who seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for her reaction. Deciding to deal with this new arrival first, she squared her shoulders and faced Kari, looking her directly in the eye. "Okay, Kari. You seem really nice, and I don't want you to take this as a personal… attack, because it isn't." She then turned to Loki, her eyes narrowing slightly. "But I don't need a babysitter to follow me around all day. I didn't need two assholes walking ten feet behind me at all times, and that doesn't change just because she's wearing a dress and can do my hair."
Loki exhaled sharply. "Max—"
"No, no, don't," she said, hearing the snippiness in her tone and ignoring it. "Let me finish." Loki's jaw clenched, the muscle flaring as they stared at one another. "I'm all for meeting new people. Nobody wants to talk to me because they don't really understand my status, and I get that. And maybe you thought you were finding me a friend, but I don't need someone with me all hours of the day." She glanced toward Kari briefly. "I would like to have some friends. I really miss my friends." Her voice cracked, but she pushed through. "But I don't need a babysitter."
"Max, you have been purposefully losing your guard, your protection," Loki argued, "and engaging in reckless behavior—"
"One time I fell in the—"
"Today you were handling blades that, one slip, could have seriously injured you." She swallowed hard, noting the flush of dull pink in his cheeks. Beside them, Kari had taken a few steps back, her eyes everywhere but the bickering couple. Loki shook his head, as if the conversation pained him. "Max, you are carrying our child. I am doing this to keep both of you safe."
"So you're assigning someone to follow me around to, what, make sure I don't hurt the baby?" The words tumbled out without her thinking, and while Max didn't initially put any stock in them, the silence that followed the accusation hit her like a freight train. Her mouth fell open slightly as she waited, and Loki looked skyward. "Loki… I would never do that."
He shook his head, the words that followed almost a whisper. "You've done it before."
If his silence had felt like being hit by a freight train, those four words sucked all the air out of her in one fell swoop. Never, ever, had he referenced her choice to abort the last pregnancy so callously—and in front of a stranger, no less. Her cheeks prickled as heat flooded them, her fingertips numb as that static, prickly feeling coursed through her, eyes glossy with unshed tears. She shifted out of reach when he went for her hand, shaking her head and stepping around him. Behind her, she could hear Loki muttering something to Kari, but she paid them no mind as she stalked over to the nearest bookshelf and grabbed as many books as she could carry at one time.
Loki held his back to her as she marched back over, though Kari seemed to notice what Max was about to do before she did it. Those blue eyes widened as Max grabbed the book on the top of the pile, reeled back, and threw it at Asgard's king with all the force she could muster. Smack. Right in the center of his back. Another at his shoulder as he whirled around. The next slammed into his arm when he brought his hands up to block the onslaught.
"What did you just say to me?" she shouted, the tears finally rolling free and she threw book after book, nailing him each time. "How dare you!"
One brief hand gesture and Kari was out of there like a shot, gently closing the door and trapping in the whirl of pent-up chaos that she and Loki had simmered in for a long time. Perhaps too long.
"Max!"
"Like I did that to hurt our child," she cried, throwing the last book extra hard. He blocked it, hands in front of his face, crouching somewhat from the attack. "Fuck you! How dare you say that to me!"
Out of books, she stomped off to find something else to throw, stopping at her little table of make-up and perfume and jewelry Loki had acquired for her since becoming king. Her shaking hands reached out for the gold-tinted glass bottles of perfume, but she didn't have it in her to break a single one of his gifts. But she wanted to. She needed something—because if she tried to hit him, he'd catch her in a second. And she shouldn't strike him. Max knew that. Logically. Rationally. But what he had just said to her… It was a blow so low that she couldn't think of any way to fight back without attacking him.
And that scared her. She kicked at the table leg, letting out a frustrated cry in the process. It scared her to think that he could drive her to this so fast, push just the right button to force her to respond in a way she would never entertain in any other circumstance. As she tried and failed to swallow the lump in her throat, Max let her arms hang limply by her side, her whole body trembling, then placed a hand on the table to steady herself. Over her shoulder, she spotted Loki crouch and gather all the books she had thrown, collecting them under his arm and placing them back on their proper shelf when he was finished.
"Is that what you really think?" she asked, staring down at the baubles glittering in the firelight. Panels within the walls also emitted a gentle soft lighting, brightening the room without an overwhelming number of torches like some of the feasting halls. Across the way, Loki stood in front of the bookshelf, his stance mirroring hers, and sighed.
"Sometimes it is easy to think thusly."
She shook her head and turned away, then made a beeline for the door. If that was what he thought—that she ended the pregnancy to harm their child, a child who wasn't much of anything at that point—then there was no reasoning with him. Unfortunately, when she reached the door, Max watched the handle flatten before her eyes. Soon the frame merged with the wall, leaving the door intact with no way of opening it. She ran her hands over it, tears rolling down her face, and scratched at the wood.
"Loki!"
"No, no," he barked. "We need to discuss this. You're not walking out this time."
The words hit hard, though not as hard as before. Max crossed her arms and sought out other escape routes—surely there wasn't only one door in the king's bedchambers—only to turn up emptyhanded. There was no escaping it. For once, they would just have to talk.
When she was finished trying to run, she found Loki seated in one of the chairs by the fire, eyes alight with orange flame. Slowly, Max made her way to the chair beside his, settling in and positioning herself as far from him as possible.
"My intention with the," her voice caught, and she swallowed down the gasp, "the abortion was never to hurt you. It was never to hurt anybody." Her hand settled on her slightly swollen belly. Nothing moved beneath her palm yet, of course, but she could imagine it. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the way Loki fixed his gaze there too rather than on the fire. Max shook her head, body still humming with adrenaline. "I was scared, Loki. I thought it was the right thing to do."
"To not ask me? To not consider my thoughts?" His eyebrows twitched upward somewhat when she looked at him, though he continued to stare down at her hand. "To exclude me completely? That was what you thought was right?"
"Obviously it wasn't," she stressed. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty. At the time, I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I thought the pregnancy would kill me. My doctor at the time even suggested…" She pressed her lips together when he finally glanced up, his wounded stare meeting hers. "It doesn't matter what she thought. I made the decision."
"Without me."
"Yeah." She bit the insides of her cheeks, turning her attention to the flames. They lapped at the inside the hearth, flickering and fighting for freedom, wood crackling at the base. "I was a mess after Manhattan. Nolan d-died." She stuttered over it every time, even now over two years later. "I didn't know where most of my family was, where my friends were… If they were alive. I was the subject of relentless media scrutiny, the press fixing me up with Johnny and Tony and anyone else they could snap a picture of me with."
"Everyone but me," he muttered, which brought a slight grin to both of their lips. Loki drew in a deep breath and released it, sinking deeper into the chair as he did. "Max… I could have helped you. I thought I did, with all of it."
"You were a huge support for me," she said, acknowledging it now because she realized she might not have ever done it before. "Seriously. Thank you. I… I don't think I would have survived it if you hadn't been there, but when it was over, I knew you wanted to leave." The sound of him shifting in place beside her made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "You weren't happy on Earth, and I don't blame you, but I wasn't ready to go. I wasn't ready to have a baby by myself either, and… At the time, the best option for me was to end it. And I know that doesn't make you feel better. I know it was selfish not to talk to you. It took me so long to figure it out, to finally decide, and once I knew, I wasn't in a place to argue about it. I just wanted to get it done. I'm so sorry that I excluded you."
She looked down to her little bump and exhaled a shaky breath. The words felt callous, but at the time, it had been true. She had just wanted it over.
"I know why you might feel concerned this time around," she said softly, "like I'm going to change my mind or something. I'm not. I've always wanted kids. I've always wanted a family." Finally, she reached across to him and squeezed his arm, which prompted Loki to close his eyes. "And I love you. I want a family with you. Please know I'm not trying to do something to purposefully ruin that."
"Of course you aren't." His hand covered hers, eyes still closed. "It was a cruel sentiment to suggest."
She gave him another squeeze, then moved from her chair to his, settling on his lap. As his arms snaked around her, hands knitted together over the bump—the pressure kind of making her have to pee—she said what she felt needed to be said. "There's still a lot to work out. I'm not happy, Loki. I mean, I am and I'm not, and I don't think I need to tell you why."
He responded by nuzzling her neck in silence. Max sighed.
"We have just under six months to figure our shit out, because we can't raise our son or daughter like this." She tilted her head back to rest against his. "I can't just wander around aimlessly all day while you work. I can't just… not go back to Earth. I need to know I'll be able to go back and forth. I need some purpose besides waiting for you to stop doing whatever it is you do all day so we can sit in a hall full of people until bedtime. It's not fair."
"It isn't," he said hastily, words murmured against her skin, "and I apologize. But I need to ask for your patience. I am creating an ideal world for our family. There will be a time for free movement between the realms, but you must give me a chance to get us there safely and securely."
"But—"
"Your life is at risk each day, even within the palace walls," he pressed. "There are countless men who would see me fall before I can make good on my promises, and hurting you would end me. You must understand this. I do not shackle you with protection so that you can be watched and monitored."
She pressed her lips together for a moment. "Right."
"Despite what I said earlier," Loki added. She sat up and shifted so that they could look one another in the eye. "Take that as a moment of buried emotion, nothing more."
"Maybe you shouldn't bury it. Maybe we should just talk about it more often."
His agreement rumbled deep within his chest as he pulled her closer, their foreheads resting gently against one another. "How very logical of you, Nannette Wright."
She smacked his chest gently. "Shut up."
His lips found hers, followed by her jaw, her neck, teeth nibbling at her earlobe. She squirmed away with a grin, then sat still and silent as Loki brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, collecting the nearly dried streams of tears. With a soft sniffle, she blinked away those unshed.
"So. That was a conversation, huh?"
Loki grinned, one of those smiles that almost reached his eyes, and nodded. "It was."
While she would have preferred to spend the night in that room, with the door sealed shut and the lights down low, just her and Loki in bed together after what she now saw as a cathartic moment, Max knew that was just a pipe dream. Kings don't get days off, not even when their women wanted some alone time. He had probably brought her here hoping to make a quick introduction with Kari and get out, and was instead pulled into a storm of feelings to rehash the past.
"So," she started again, pulling away and sitting sideways on his knees instead, one arm draped across his shoulders. Loki's hands settled on her thighs. "Who is this Kari?"
"I chose her for you," he told her, seeming a little less deflated with each passing moment. "Out of all who applied to be your personal attendant, I chose her."
Max's eyebrows shot up. "People… applied?"
"I opened the posting a few weeks ago." He hesitated. "I knew you didn't enjoy the guards I assigned you. I'd hoped Kari would be… a surprise, actually."
"Oh." As much as she didn't want someone attached to her hip, she could see it in his eyes that he meant well. Somehow conceding now made all that had just happened, from the attitude to the fight to the conversation, seem somewhat pointless. But then again, maybe not. Maybe this was back to real life—they had just needed to press pause for a little while to sort their lingering issues out.
Not that it felt resolved. Loki hadn't said much regarding her confession, but at least it was out there now. Nor had he commented on her traveling back to Earth, but that was for another day. One relationship-challenging conversation at a time.
"Can she come back in?" Max asked after a long pause. "I'd like to meet her properly now that I actually know what's happening."
Loki nodded one of those obliging nods. "Sure."
But as he started to ease out from under her, Max found she didn't want to let him go. Sure, she had word-vomited her truth all over him just a few minutes prior, but somehow nothing felt as resolved as she would have liked. So she snagged his wrist and held him there, looking up at him with a little half-smile.
"I love you."
He returned the look with one of his own, his smile seeming a touch more genuine now as he ducked down and kissed her.
"And I you," he whispered against her lips, then brought her hand up and kissed that too. Their eyes met, brown to green, and he touched his knuckles to her cheek. "Never forget that."
Max swallowed hard, still unable to let go, and nodded. "I won't."
Eventually she had to release him, and even though he was only across the room—not in another realm—the distance spanned between them, and Max briefly wondered if they could ever actually close it.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
OMG HAAAAAAAAAAAY. So I published a book today (The King by Liz Meldon) and I was too wound up on a release day high to work on anything I had assigned myself to work on, so I went with fanfiction instead! So. Here ya go, an update two weeks early! And given its length, I really could have finished this in two weeks. I didn't need to stretch it out to four.
Anywhoodle. I felt bad for every single character in this chapter. Because. My BABIES. First, Max is turning into pregnant!Max now. We're sort of out of the miscarriage danger zone timeframe, so she's pregnant ladying it up. Expect some hormonal responses to things. Expect some "omg I'm beyond horny NOW jk please rub my feet" moments. Expect all the things amplified about her situation because, hello, she's growing a person inside of her. Have fun, Loki!
Second, Loki really was just trying to make things better for her, and then their past resurfaces and BAM. Totally ruins what was meant to be a good moment. I'm not sure how abortion is considered in Asgard. I look at the society as a whole as Viking-esque with more advanced technology. The movies seemed sort of liberal with women's rights and the choices they make (etc.), but I think because Asgardians live for so long, they have few children throughout their lifespan (like the elves in Tolkien's universe), so I don't see many giving their babies up. It'd be a whole new thing for Loki to deal with back in Ghost Town, which we talked about a lot back then. I mean, he's got a lot of other personal issues that would cloud his opinion, primarily his self-worth and his insecurities in his relationship with Max (despite her reassurance), so I for one don't think he would let the issue go… even after Max explained herself to him. I think that's one thing that's going to be around for a long time, even if it's just in his mind.
Lastly, Kari. UGH. I love this girl and we've only seen her for like 30 seconds. Some of the reviews for the last chapter asked if Hege could be Max's friend, and I wanted to be like DON'T WORRY DARLINGS I GOT YOU COVERED. Kari is awesomesauce, I promise. And maybe it'll put some people at ease, but there isn't going to be some weird love triangle or any mistaken moments just because Kari's a pretty blonde and Max is about to balloon into the size of a house. Just. No.
Mmkay. I won't be working on fanfic this Sunday since I posted this week, but keep an eye on my tumblr blog (lokisaphrodite) for details on when the next update will be. If you read my personal work, The King is available in ebook form AND paperback (it's huge and stunning in paperback), and if you're subscribed to my newsletter, you can get a chance to snag it for free this weekend.
BYE, CUTIES. I'll see you soon!
