New York, Present Time

"Stephen. Over here." Dr Christine Palmer beckoned from the end of a warmly-lit hallway. At the sight of her, Stephen quickened his pace, tightening his hold on Loki's hand as he manoeuvred their way through the throng of patients, all awaiting consultation.

"Christine." Stephen gave her a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Busy clinic day, today huh."

"You know what they say about the healthcare business. The clients never stop coming." Christine looked over Stephen's shoulder where Loki was standing a few steps away. She broke into a sunny smile. "Loki. You look well."

Christine looked genuinely pleased to see them and Loki's initial apprehension melted away like snow. It certainly helped that she had quickly whisked them away to her private office, away from the roaming eyes of strangers in the crowded waiting room outside.

Loki grasped her outstretched fingers and squeezed them warmly. "I feel well. How are you, Dr Palmer?"

"Same old, same old," she said breezily. Instead of the scrubs they were used to seeing her in, she was dressed in an exquisitely-tailored pantsuit and had her hair up in a tidy bun, looking every inch the polished yet sassy Head of the Surgical Department of one of the biggest hospitals in Manhattan. "Still alive and kicking."

"Must be doing well." Stephen looked around. "Nice office. A bit poshy for you, but I see the appeal."

"Some people join the cult and still keep their fast cars, Stephen." Christine turned to Loki. "You should have seen his Lamborghini collection. It was obscene."

"Who needs cars when you can teleport," Stephen countered coolly. "How's the little one doing?"

"Emma's fantastic. She's two." At Loki's knowingly sceptical look, she relented and confessed. "She's a nightmare."

"She's beautiful." Loki fingered the picture frame on her desk.

She rolled her eyes. "A beautiful nightmare, then."

"Stian not with you?" Hoping against hope, she craned her neck and peered around the two of them just in case her godson was hiding somewhere behind his parents, all invisible and waiting for the right moment to pop up.

With a crestfallen look on her face, "What ever happened to 'Of course I would bring him over for a visit sometime!' huh?"

"Sorry." At the wave of her hand, Stephen sank into one of the rather expensive-looking leather armchairs at the coffee table. "Thor's taken him on a trip to Geneva to attend one of those super-important world summit things. Stian wanted to see snow."

"I can make snow." Clearly Loki was still sore about the idea of being apart from their son.

"Real snow, Loki."

"I'll drop a giant snowman on your head and you can tell me again if my snow is real or no."

"I'm sure you can conjure the actual Swiss Alps out of thin air if you put your mind to it, darling." Stephen rolled his eyes and explained to Christine sheepishly, "Thor's taking Stian to Chamonix Mont-Blanc after the summit to teach him how to ski. Loki's jealous."

"I am not jealous. I'm just pregnant and my dear husband here somehow automatically translates that to 'invalid'."

"They don't even let pregnant women onto baby rollercoasters, you think they'd let you anywhere near the slopes?"

"Yeah but according to you and your friends I don't even look pregnant, do I?"

That ceased all arguments, for of course Loki always had to have the last word.

Loki lifted his chin triumphantly. "So effectively they won't know."

Still not over, apparently.

"But you will," Stephen said quietly.

Loki's face instantly fell. "That's just…dirty, Stephen."

"Yes, it is." Christine glared at her former colleague and not-boyfriend. She gently pulled on Loki's elbow. "Come on, honey, let's leave him and get you sorted."

"I have to warn you, there will be a lot of jargon flying around, Loki." Christine gently lifted Loki's shirt to expose his abdomen before covering him from the groin down with a crisp, white drape. "If at any point you feel like I'm going too fast or you need me to clarify something for you, please do stop me, alright?"

"See? Do you see the kind of doctor she is? If you were a bit more like her, there'd be no stabbing required, would there?"

"Stabbing?" Christine's hand froze around the probe, her face drained of all colour. "There's going to be stabbing?"

"No. No stabbing, Christine." In an instant, venom turned into honey. With a magic touch on her wrist, Loki smiled sweetly. "There will never be stabbing when it's you."

"Loki," Stephen gave a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head. "He's just nervous."

"Am I?" Loki said softly. "Or are you?"

Christine stared at him, turned to look at Stephen, before finally settling her gaze on her patient. "Do you not want him here, Loki? I can send him away."

Stephen started to say something in protest but he recognised the look in Loki's eyes. It was the same glazed look Loki had five years ago before he went under the knife, putting his and their unborn son's lives in Christine's hands and not knowing if he would make it - without a word, Stephen claimed his place on the other side of Loki's bed, reached down for Loki's hand and squeezed.

"I'm not leaving," he said quietly. It took him a few seconds but Loki finally curled his own fingers around his, every drop of tension melting away.

"Do forgive the interruption, Dr Palmer." Visibly much more relaxed now, Loki sank his head deeper into the small pillow. "I'm all yours."

The new few minutes were spent in silence as Christine skilfully manoeuvred the probe all over Loki's abdomen with one hand, clicking and documenting her measurements on the console panel with the other.

"Would you like to see her?"

"What do you mean? I am seeing her, am I not?" Loki had not been able to tear his eyes away from the screen since the first images of his daughter came on.

"Do you want to see her face, in real-time?" Christine sounded even more excited than the expectant parents. "This is a 4D ultrasound machine."

"Do we?" Loki looked to Stephen, his excitement getting the better of him, and before Stephen could even respond – "Yes, yes, we do."

But when Christine brought up the images onto the screen,

"I can't look." Loki closed his eyes.

Christine chuckled.

"Stephen, are you seeing it?" Loki asked urgently, still refusing to open his eyes.

"What does she look like? Does she look okay?"

Stephen did not answer.

"Stephen!" Loki could not take it anymore. "Why won't you – Oh."

The sight of their unborn daughter in 3D, not only in colour (digitised of course, but no less astounding) but in real time, sent his stomach lurching. "That's –"

Mesmerised, Loki's mouth worked to form words but his throat had suddenly gone as dry as sandpaper. Despite the surrealness of it all, suddenly it was so real. All those months spent in a haze of constant pain, desperate for a cure, yet sticking to his guns that their daughter deserved to live –

And here she is.

"I've counted her fingers and toes. All twenty of them, no more no less." Christine's smile was soft and gentle. "Very cute nose too. And would you look at that high forehead, and all that hair! Sorry, Stephen, I think Loki wins the round this time too."

"My perfect little girl." Loki's eyes watered.

Suddenly someone's lips kissed him on the forehead, hard and all rough-stubbled. "Our perfect little girl."

"Oh sorry, you're still here? I thought you'd gone and fl –" And those lips smothered his, effectively shutting him up as Christine erupted in peals of laughter.

Despite his initial protests, Loki finally relented and agreed to have his bloods taken and soon Stephen and Christine found themselves standing in the hallway outside the procedure room. Christine wasted no time in breaking the bad news.

"I have looked over the scans your friend Dr Banner had sent over, and I'm afraid the baby is showing signs of growth restriction, Stephen. My husband is of the same opinion," Christine murmured, referring to her OB-GYN spouse. "I hope you don't mind my discussing the case with him? Patient confidentiality protected, of course."

"By all means." Stephen frowned. "What does he think is causing it?"

"Maternal illness may have been the initial insult but usually once the illness has passed, a healthy foetus would more or less catch up." She nodded at a passing nurse as she pushed an elderly patient in a wheelchair.

"The thing is, the femur length and the abdominal circumference measurements are consistently smaller than the measurements of the head throughout all the scans."

Stephen searched his memory for the significance behind the findings and when he found it, his face instantly fell. "Asymmetrical intrauterine growth restriction?"

Christine nodded. "The baby's not getting enough nutrition, so whatever she's getting, it's all going to the brain, being the most important organ as you well know."

She crossed her arms, looking glum. "Placental insufficiency would be my working diagnosis."

"That would explain the calcifications," Stephen recalled. The shadow over his face darkened. "Why is the placenta failing?"

Christine looked worried. "Loki is steadily gaining weight, as he should…but the baby's size does not seem to correspond to the amount of maternal weight gain at all."

"He barely eats enough for one as it is, so I don't actually know where the extra weight is coming from."

"I think it's water retention. Have you seen how swollen his legs are?"

"Yeah, he's refusing the compression stockings this time around. Says he's not wearing them if he doesn't need them." Stephen narrowed his eyes. "Wait. You don't think -?"

"Preeclampsia is the most common cause of placental insufficiency, Stephen."

"Damn it." Stephen cursed under his breath. "Are you sure?"

"His blood pressure's stable so far but you really have to keep an eye on it." Christine leaned against the wall, crossing her ankles. "The clinical picture fits. If I'm right, the third trimester will be a whole different ball game."

She hesitated, "We have to be ready for another Caesarean, Stephen."

"Please, Christine. One thing at a time." Stephen closed his eyes and thumped the back of his head against the wall.

"I don't know about aliens, but human women still do die from eclampsia from time to time, you know," she went on. "Just last month, Jack had a lady go into a fit in his office in the middle of antenatal clinic. Sent her to the OT, saved her baby, but she stroked on the operating table and died."

"There was a massive internal inquiry, but good thing he did everything by the book or he would have lost his license." She shuddered at the memory. "Maternal mortality is such a rarity but when it happens, it's just devastating."

Stephen slowly dropped his head to his chest, his shoulders seeming to sag under the weight of his Cloak. "This isn't bloody happening."

Christine studied his dejected profile. "You will not let him see you like this, Stephen."

He shook his head. "Just one damn thing after another."

"If it isn't worth fighting for, it isn't worth having." Christine walked over and gripped his biceps hard. "Loki is fighting. Now are you gonna fight, or you gonna moan and groan like a yob with kidney stones? Get it together, Dr Strange."

"Now smile because here he comes," Christine murmured through gritted teeth.

Stephen took a deep breath, and as Loki strode out of the procedure room, he was smiling. "That wasn't so bad, was it, darling?" he asked breezily.

Loki rolled down the sleeves of his white shirt and fastened his cuff links. "No, but you might want to check on your phlebotomist," he said coolly. "I think he might require some sort of emergency resuscitation."

"No…" Christine's high heels click-clacked across the linoleum floor as she hurried past them. Loki closed the door behind her and waved a hand over the knob.

"Loki…"

"He called me a little prick."

"That was a warning shot, Loki, not an insult! What the hell did you d –"

"Relax." Loki crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. "So. Anything you'd like to share with me?"

New Asgard

It was a silent midnight in Asgard and not a sound to be heard, except for the faint ticking of the antique clock on the wall and the occasional crashing of exceptionally big waves hitting the cliffs in the distant.

"It really is quiet without Stian around."

"You won't be saying that once the new baby comes." Stephen murmured, smiling wistfully in the dark.

Loki said nothing further.

Stephen closed his eyes and let himself drift; he was quite tired after the long day they had. Instead of coming straight home from the hospital, Loki had insisted they walk around the city; he seemed to have worked up an appetite after seeing Christine, buying from every food truck they walked past and devouring almost everything in sight.

Stephen had no idea how Thor could keep up with Loki's food trail frenzy for weeks on end when he was pregnant with Stian. Stephen had only been on it for one day and he was knackered.

But something at the back of his half-asleep mind was keeping him in limbo somewhere between deep sleep and semi-awake.

The bed was shuddering.

An earthquake?

His eyes flew open.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he waited to see if it would happen again.

There it was again, a subtle ripple across the featherbed.

"Loki?"

A muffled sound. Like the sound of a pillow stifling someone's face –

"Loki, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"There are two types of 'it's nothing', Loki, and I need to know which one it is so I can decide whether I should go back to sleep, or to hold you and kiss you and apologise even when I have no clue what it is I might have done wrong."

Stephen scooted closer, not quite touching but close enough for the warmth of his body to remind Loki that he was there, and ever present. "Which is it?"

After a painfully long moment of silence, Loki removed the pillow from his face, answered quietly. "The latter."

Stephen snaked an arm around Loki's upper torso to oblige, and frowned in alarm. "Why are you shaking?"

"Are you feeling alright?" He pushed himself onto an elbow, the hand on Loki's chest now sliding downward to cup the swell of Loki's belly. "Is something wrong with the baby?"

A single tear brokered an escape as Loki squeezed his eyes shut. "There's something wrong with me."

"Loki, you're worrying me." Stephen sat up and reached over Loki's shaking body to turn on the bedside lamp.

"I worry me, too," Loki said quietly. "I worry for our daughter."

"I knew a smooth-sailing pregnancy would be too much to ask, but this is becoming very frustrating, Strange." The tears were free-falling now, tracking across the bridge of his nose and seeping into the pillow. "I am just sick and tired of my body betraying me at every turn."

"What do you mean?" Stephen tried to maintain a calm voice. He reached to grab Loki's shoulder and pulled him despite his initial resistance until Loki finally turned onto his other side to face him,

"I cannot even provide the sustenance that our baby needs to grow."

Loki curled into a foetal position and his forehead thumped against Stephen's collarbone.

"No matter what I eat...she is starving." Loki was sobbing openly now. "I am starving her, Stephen."

He could feel Loki's hot tears seep into his T-shirt and felt the words as Loki breathed them into his chest, "When did I become so damaged inside?"

Stephen felt his stomach lurch, and something turned his blood into ice. No. "Let me ask you a question, Odinson."

He grabbed the sides of Loki's head and pulled it away from his chest. Stephen felt sickened at the sight of the tears streaking his face. He hated seeing Loki cry.

"Have you met my son, Stian? He is the cheekiest, most intelligent, most magical, most adorable little thing this realm has ever seen," he said fiercely. "Is he damaged?"

Loki shook his head.

"No, he's not. Because we made him, you and I." Stephen thumbed the tears away from the sunken hollows of Loki's eyes. "He is perfection."

"Name me one being on this earth who is not biologically a woman that could carry such a perfection and bring him into this world. Other than you."

"You - are not - damaged." Stephen punctuated every other word with a kiss, to his forehead, to his nose, to his lips – "You are the most amazing creature in my universe. You are perfect."

"And you will be just fine."

"Stephen, please," Loki begged. "No more sugar-coating the truth."

Loki was right. He deserved to know.

"This is just one of those things. I used to see it all the time back in the day, it can happen to anyone." One hand remained pinned underneath Loki's cheek while the other roamed downward until it came against where his daughter slept, and Stephen caressed Loki's belly comfortingly. "We just have to keep a closer eye on you two, that's all."

"So, it is true then, what you said?" Loki asked quietly. "That I might not be able to birth our baby normally this time around too?"

Stephen's hand stilled, but did not leave the comfort of having his daughter stirring just underneath his palm. "You weren't supposed to hear that. Not yet."

"I happen to have very good hearing. And a very fragile ego." Loki gave him a watery smile. "I cannot stand not knowing."

Stephen stared at him. "Yes, it is true."

He inhaled deeply. "In most cases, IUGR babies cannot withstand the stress of labour without going into distress, and to obviate disastrous complications, we often need to deliver them surgically."

Disbelief warred with horror but in the end, grief prevailed and Loki's face started to crumble again; and Stephen had not even delivered the final blow –

"And it might have to happen sooner than you think."

In stunned silence, Loki could barely enunciate his words, "Even before she is ready?"

"It may be nowhere near as dramatic as it was with Stian, but it is still a high-risk pregnancy. When the scans start to show she is in trouble and that she is safer outside than inside, we will need to deliver her." Stephen inhaled deeply. "Or risk losing her."

"When," Loki whispered, aghast. Stephen's deliberate choice of words did not escape his attention. "Not if. When."

Stephen decided to respond to it as if it was an actual question, despite not actually knowing if Loki was at all ready to hear the answer. "At as early as 28 weeks, there is more than 80 to 90% chance of survival achievable with modern medicine given the correct environment and medical facilities at our disposal."

Loki's head slowly dipped and he shifted his gaze downward. He studied his husband's hand still pressed against the curve of his abdomen. Already twenty-eight weeks and yet Stephen could still cup his hand neatly around his bump.

If he had not known the devastating truth behind it all, he would have even found it cute.

"I'm twenty-eight weeks now and she's still hanging in there. That's…good, right?"

Stephen smiled encouragingly. Loki's tears were beginning to dry. "Very good."

Loki laid his own hand atop Stephen's and laced his fingers through.

"Well. She might be a midget but I guess she's our midget."

"Midget or not, she will be perfect and we will love her all the same." Stephen brought their linked hands to his lips and imprinted his promise with a kiss onto the back of Loki's hand.

Loki smiled at him gratefully. "You're not bad, Strange."

"Aren't you glad you married me?"

"It…has its moments."

Stephen ran a thumb across Loki's knuckles thoughtfully, mulling over Loki's words in his head.

"Let's get away. I would advise against long-distance travel in your condition, so somewhere on this Earth should be fine. Somewhere flat." He remembered the twinkle of excitement in Loki's eyes just two months ago when they went to the Highlands up in the Scottish Isles. He wanted to see it again.

Preferably without any mountain climbing involved. "How does a staycation sound?"

"Not New York again." Loki sniffed.

Stephen had to chuckle. "No. I guess not. I was thinking about London."

Loki stared at him. "How is it a vacation when you have to work?"

Stephen winced. "There's no fooling you, huh." Then his eyes softened, "Just a few things that need seeing to and then I'm all yours, Loki."

"Besides you'll love the London Sanctum. It's got charm," Stephen reached out to brush a stray lock of hair our of Loki's eye, " – and character – " he could not resist so he leaned in for a quick, chaste kiss. "And fantastic tea."

Another quick kiss.

"And scones."

A longer one.

"And crumpets."

"Stephen, do skip the finkydiddling and just shag me."