"So you left our three-month-old son in the care of strangers just so you could whisk me away to…" Loki looked around, and up at the lofty ceiling. "Where are we?"
"Take a guess."
Loki sniffed and walked around. "This is your apartment."
"Elementary, my dear Watson."
"We were in the middle of a wedding, Strange. Did you leave your manners behind as well back in Asgard?" Loki teased.
"Stark wouldn't mind. He's probably too busy swallowing his own sick with nerves. So, we've got…" Stephen calculated silently in his head…5 minutes per Avenger, excluding Tony of course, since he would be too preoccupied with getting married – "Twenty-five minutes?"
Loki laughed silently. "Well, I'm not sure how Romanov feels about babies but I'm sure Bruce or Thor would be all too glad to take Stian off her hands."
"Do you still own this place?"
"Nope." The resounding 'P' at the end echoed off the walls.
"Ooh. We're trespassing. I like that even better."
Loki sounded light-hearted but there was something in his eyes that made Stephen hesitate.
"What is it, Loki?"
"The walls, they speak to me." Loki's fingers danced against the side of his leg, restless. The tap-dancing stilled as he listened. "Anger. Hate."
His green eyes bored into Stephen's and for a spine-chilling second he felt as raw as an exposed nerve. "Hopelessness."
"You were not happy here," Loki murmured.
"The old me must have liked it somehow."
Loki tutted, grimacing in distaste.
"Sorry. It is not to my taste."
Stephen lifted an eyebrow quizzically.
"Too…what is the word…" His fingers now danced in the air, as if he could grasp the word right out of nothingness, "Flashy?"
Stephen looked pointedly at his suit. "Says the guy wearing a suit tailored within an inch of his life."
"Yep. And I look damn good in it too."
"It looks like the suit you wore the first day we met."
"I know."
"It's the exact same suit."
"I know."
"I simply have to wonder, can you even breathe in that?"
Loki turned around and preened, smiling prettily.
"Now, now, Strange, it is beginning to sound like you're jealous…"
Stephen sulked. "I hate it when people eat you with their eyes right in front of me."
Loki studied him. "And yet you are thinking of undressing me and making love to me right here on the floor with the entire city watching."
Stephen glided over and pressed his body against his Ice Prince, pinning him to the floor-length window – "I am an enigma."
Long moments of silence ensued.
Stephen felt Loki's hands wrap around his wrists and gently prise them off his slim hips.
He twisted around gracefully despite Stephen's encumbering physical presence to face the window, his back unnaturally stiff. "Come, love. Let us away from here."
"I take it you do not like it." Stephen murmured into the back of his head.
"L'appel du vide," Loki murmured, placing a very white hand flat against the window. His forehead thumped softly against the glass. "I cannot stay here, Stephen. The urge to throw myself out the window would be too much to bear and I do not trust myself to resist it."
"That's what I'm here for, Loki. I will ground you." Stephen wrapped an arm around Loki's shoulders, albeit possessively, but he cared not one damn bit. "I will always ground you."
New Asgard, present time
The pain lingered. There would be moments when he would be perfectly fine one minute and doubled over in agony the next, and nothing seemed to be helping. Healers came and went. Stephen's healing spells no longer helped, nor did Wong's.
"The sudden expenditure of that much energy had drained his seiðr considerably, and with the demand of a growing baby in his womb, he is not able to replenish it as quickly as he is losing it." Wong was reluctant in his deduction, but the implication was clear. "He is now running solely on reserves."
Thor was inconsolable in his anger with himself. "Were old Asgard still standing, Loki would need only to bask in the light of its two suns and breathe its untainted air for not a day for the magic of Yggdrasil to course through his veins threefold and rid him of all ills and pains."
Weeks went by and Loki grew weaker each day.
"Thor has gotten in touch with Wakanda. King T'Challa and his sister are expecting us, they can help."
"That is completely unnecessary," Loki muttered. "It's just cramps, Stephen."
Stephen watched as Loki brought his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around the front of his shins as he breathed through what must be another bout of painful spasms.
Stephen tried not to look at how the thin layer of his tunic delineated every step of Loki's spine; he needed only to feel the bony shoulder in his grasp to realise just how much weight Loki had lost.
"You are not getting any better, Loki."
Loki's eyes were open but they stared ahead unseeing.
The icy pit in Stephen's stomach grew, and he recognised it as terror.
"Please. For me."
"Okay, Stephen. I'll go." The fire had long gone out in his eyes, but now it seemed to have entirely left his voice as well.
Stephen carded his fingers through limp black hair, tucking it behind Loki's ear, letting the back of his fingers linger on Loki's dry, hot temple.
"Take a walk with me."
When Loki spoke, his voice was quiet. "I don't think I can."
That in itself struck a chord of fear so deep Stephen felt an almost physical pain in his chest.
No.
Silently Loki encircled his upper limbs around Stephen's neck before slowly curling his body inward so Stephen could gather him in his arms; the ease with which Stephen lifted him curdled his blood with dread, and Stephen breathed a prayer as his lips brushed against Loki's temple –
A heartbeat later, Loki found himself sitting on the balcony, ensconced in Stephen's lap, head tucked against the crook of his husband's neck with the Cloak heavy and warm around his shoulders.
When Stephen held him like this, it somehow made the stomach pains bearable.
The minarets of the Healing Halls glowed an iridescent red, green and gold against the pitch blackness of the starless night. "Your colleagues and all those under your tutelage are all praying for you. See?"
"It is way past their bedtime," he groused.
"It is because of you that they still have a bedtime, Loki."
Loki closed his eyes and listened to the steady beatings of Stephen's heart.
"You are angry," he murmured. His fingers curled around The Cloak's lapel; he could feel the bunched up muscles of Stephen's neck tensing against his skin. "Why?"
"I should have been here." When at last Stephen spoke, it did not sound like him for the tinge of fury lacing his words. "I should have protected you. Should have protected you both."
Loki cringed as a ripple of pain wracked his abdomen as if on cue. "No," he gasped out. "No, Stephen. You can't."
"Loki."
"Don't you lose yourself. Not now." Loki looked up with eyes bright with pain and smouldering indignation. "Remember what you once said to me."
Stephen gazed down at him, his own eyes glistening, his eyebrows wrinkled in wonder.
"That you will always ground me," Loki said fiercely. "Always."
His face, as pale as moonlight, crumbled. "And I need you to ground me now."
Stephen's eyes smarted; he wrapped his arms tighter around Loki and hugged the thin frame to him fiercely as it shuddered against another onslaught of painful cramps. "Oh, Loki. My dear, sweet Loki."
Stephen buried his face in Loki's hair, kissing the top of his head over and over. "I love you so, so much."
"I have to make a choice, don't I."
"We can always try again, Loki." Stephen sounded as if he was weeping.
Loki closed his eyes against the pain in his heart and a silent tear escaped, leaving a glistening trail down the hollow of his cheek.