Loki decided to stop talking when curiosity overcame his natural instinct of apprehension and he allowed Stephen to remove his boots and pull up his leggings, exposing Loki's legs from the knee down.

Stephen conjured a measuring tape out of thin air and wrapped it around one of Loki's calves and then the ankle, before moving onto the other limb, taking note of the circumference of each bony landmark.

Loki caught Stephen muttering something under his breath as the wizard doctor measured the distance from the floor to the bend behind Loki's knee, and Loki could not hold the urge any longer. "What? What is it? Is something the matter?"

Stephen sighed. "This is one of the times I do not envy you Asgardians for being so bloody tall. I fear I might not have one in your size and length."

"Whatever are you talking about?"

A large duffel bag suddenly materialised by Loki's feet, already opened and filled to capacity with boxes upon boxes of something. Stephen rummaged through the pile, studying the labels and discarding them over his shoulder until he finally found what he needed. "Aha."

"The Orthopods at Mount Sinai really came through for me - I knew they would have just the right one for you," Stephen sounded much too gleeful for Loki's liking. "Well as tall as you are, you're a midget compared to some of the NBA players out there."

Loki just stared at Strange blankly. Then he hit the side of his head a couple of times with the heel of his hand. "I think my Allspeak is finally broken. None of what you just said made any sense."

Stephen blinked. Right. "Okay. Come give me your leg."

Loki dutifully did as he was told, righting his sitting position on the couch before placing his bare foot on Stephen's bended knee.

"What is this contraption?"

"Compression stockings."

"They look so...medieval."

"Says the Viking God who still wears chest plates and vambraces to dinner."

"Ah yes. I suppose we should emulate your royals with their frock uniforms and golden braids and fluffy tassels. How very comely."

"Please. They are not my royals."

"I will have you know my choice of dinner clothes has saved my life quite a few times over the centuries." Loki sniggered. "Thor's too."

"Surely you exaggerate."

" 'Tis true!" Loki bristled in mock insult. "Stopped an arrow aimed for his throat once or twice. Damn near shattered my wrist but at least Asgard's Golden Son lived yet another day to drink himself under the table and into many a handmaiden's skirts."

Stephen could not help a smile of amusement. Finally satisfied, he patted and squeezed Loki's calf lightly.

"How does that feel?"

"I am not quite sure if there is a word to describe the sensation of being both uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time." Loki's nose wrinkled. "They are very tight."

"They are supposed to be. Helps to keep the blood from pooling in your legs every time you stand or walk. You do realise you have spent more time being horizontal than upright ever since you conceived?"

"Yes. And I have grown very tired of it."

"I can imagine." Stephen nodded. After a beat. "How have you been feeling otherwise?"

"As well as can be expected. Just a bit of cramping, here and there but I've not had any serious pains, not really." Loki wriggled his toes. "If this thing does exactly what it says on the tin then I should be back on my feet and back on my game."

Despite his lingering concern, Stephen could not help but smirk. "You speak Midgardian now. Lose the clothes and I might just take you to see the Yankees."

Loki gave him a frosty look. "Careful, Strange. The last time I did that you planted a baby in me."

Then his sharp features contorted into a frown. "They can't still be alive? Does that mean the Confederates are still around? I lost my Bowie knife in a wager on Álfheimr and I wouldn't mind a replacement."

Stephen stared at him. "O-kay. Not Midgardian enough for baseball, yet you were here during the Civil War. Why am I not surprised."

Loki grinned mischievously.

Stephen studied his face. "You do look better."

"I am not wearing a glamour if that's what you're implying."

"Of course you're not. We had an agreement. I will not pursue the issue of you moving in any further, and you drop all manners of glamour every time you visit. I may be a sorcerer, but I am a clinician first." Stephen pinched the pad of Loki's big toe, watching as the blanching disappeared and the flush of pink returned after a few seconds.

"Good. Not too tight. The fit is perfect."

"Will that be all today, Doctor?" Loki's mood had sombered at the mention of the stupid agreement. The atmosphere in the Sanctum seemed to have grown heavy all of a sudden, and he felt the first stirring of restlessness.

"Actually, no, ah…" Stephen's finger tapped a staccato on his knuckles. He breathed in as if gathering the strength to say something courageous. "Would you mind giving me a lock of your hair?"

NO.

"Why?" Loki asked warily. "I haven't died yet."

"Why would you even say tha-" Stephen's grey eyes darkened to a stormy black. "It's for a SPELL, you idiot."

"What. Spell."

This was a bad idea. There was no way this was going to end well. Stephen winced. Here goes nothing. "A locator spell, Loki. In the event of unforeseen emergencies, I need to have a way to get to you."

"So not only can you call on me at random, you also wish to put a tracking spell on me?"

Stephen took a deep breath. He placed a hesitant hand on Loki's knee. "First of all, we agreed to mindspeak only when absolutely necessary. Yes?" Loki nodded furiously, still fuming in silence.

Stephen's gaze strayed from Loki's stricken face down to his midsection. Being unnaturally tall and slender, Loki was barely showing. "And second of all, if you were ever in trouble, I need to be there."

"I can take care of myself."

"Of course you can. You are Loki of Asgard." Ah hell. Screw this. Stephen reached up and took Loki's hand. "But I am not talking about you. I am talking about me."

"If anything happens to either of you and I cannot get to you – " Stephen ran his thumb over the ivory knuckles lightly. "It will destroy me."

"And what if I said no?" A challenging whisper; Loki had yet to remove his hand.

"Then I will simply steal some while you sleep. Just like I stole Thor's when I helped him locate your Father."

A moment of shocked silence.

"Odin came to you?"

"Not how I would put it." Stephen hesitated. "I keep a watchlist of beings from this realm and beyond that could potentially pose a threat to this world. Any sorcerer worth his salt could sense it the moment Odin The Norse God of Sky, War and Death came to Earth."

Loki was silent for a very long time. "Was it you who found him where I left him and sent him there?"

To that beautiful place where his mother was calling and he could not hear her, for all his sins and imagined worth and misguided attempts at atonement?

"He was no longer a threat by the time I got to him but I recognised the spell." Stephen gazed at him coolly. "And the spellcaster."

"I take it I used to be on this list of yours?"

"Do you really have to ask questions you already know the answer to?"

"Was that why you kidnapped me?" Loki asked nonchalantly.

"No, it just happened to be a lazy Sunday afternoon and I was bored."

"A lazy Sunday afternoon," Loki echoed, his face suddenly a blank pasty canvas. The day Father died.

The day you unleashed Ragnarok upon us all, an inner voice said viciously.

"Hey." Once again, Stephen's hand was back on his knee. "No need to upset yourself, Loki. I have updated the list since and if it makes you feel better, you're no longer on it."

Loki's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you sure that is wise, Strange? Do you truly think the only threat I pose right now is that of ruining your precious furniture?"

Cool as a cucumber, Stephen cupped the back of a bony ankle in one palm and used the other hand to roll Loki's pant leg down over the stocking, before doing the same on the other side. "I do hope not."

He gestured to the patch on Loki's collarbone just about visible peeking out from under the neckline of his tunic. "I assume Thor procured that for you to help with the sickness?"

The sharp glint did not leave Loki's eyes. His voice was deceptively soft. "Do you truly take me for a fool?"

Stephen did not answer.

"You and Thor." Loki shook his head in disgust. He looked away, but not before Stephen caught the hurt in his eyes.

"In my defence," Stephen drawled. "Thor was not supposed to tell you where he got it from."

Loki shook his head again in that trademark way of his that indicated his disgust at the idiocy of others.

"He needed not tell me, Strange." Loki spat. He propelled himself out of the chair and stormed across the floor. He stopped in the middle of the room, his back stiff and tense. "I recognised the spell. And the spellcaster."

"It was out of worry for you." Stephen argued. "Surely you know that."

"Of course I do!" Loki snapped, whirling around, face white with anger. "That is not the point!"

"Then do enlighten me, Loki, because I am at a loss here." Stephen rubbed a hand across his forehead. Give him blood, broken bones, severed spinal cords, brain matter, whatever - he would not break a sweat, he could fix it. But crazy princely alien mood swings? NO. "And please, calm down."

Loki breathed in deeply.

How could he make Stephen understand? How to even begin?

"Since time immemorial, Thor has always been my Sun. And I his Shadow."

His chest began to hurt at the memory. "But the sun shone brighter and brighter, and one day it shone too brightly, and the Supernova finally eclipsed me."

Pale fingers reached up to clutch blindly at his chest, as the pain grew. "And I was lost for a very, very long time."

"And at the end of a very long fall, I was found. But I remained lost to the world, to Asgard and all the realms, to him."

"And I'm sure you know the story, you played an important role at the beginning." Loki gestured a careless hand at Stephen. "Just as Thor found me, I reconciled with our Father whose untimely death unleashed a devastation that destroyed everything and almost everyone we knew."

Stephen listened with growing trepidation.

"But you know Thor. You've met him. Nothing keeps him down. He's manic like that." Loki chuckled mirthlessly. "So what is the King of once-Asgard most afraid of now? I'm sure you know the answer to that, Doctor."

Stephen remained silent. He could feel his own face drain of colour.

Loki placed a hand on his stomach. "I am the heir to the throne, and now I carry within me the next-in-line. And that terrifies him."

Stephen's features hardened. "Surely he has more things to worry about than a babe who is yet to be born usurping the crown."

"No. You misunderstand me, Strange." The dark-haired prince shook his head violently, and he closed his eyes in frustration.

"Thor has lost so much. He cannot lose me." Loki gripped his stomach tighter. "If this thing kills me, it will destroy him."

"So yes. I will give you my hair. I will give you whatever else you ask of me. I will put my life in your hands if you wish it, Doctor. But hear me this."

Loki's voice rose a notch, and his crisp voice seemed to echo through the walls of the Sanctum, as they bore witness to his words.

"Thor saved me when everyone else had all but given up on me. If you had asked me a year ago, before Ragnarok, I would have denied it with all the vileness my lying heart could conjure."

Loki straightened to his full height.

"But Thor is the reason why I'm here. There is nothing he will not do for me." His voice dropped low as if awed by his own words. "And I, him."

Loki fingered the anti-nausea medicinal patch on his chest. It was the thing that finally helped curb the raging illness from devouring him into a hollow pit. "Thanks for this, by the way."

Thor had swallowed his pride and animosity and sought Stephen's help when he could no longer bear the sight of his brother withering away. But again, Stephen was just too slow, too many steps behind. When he should have been the one to initiate the search, to find a cure, the right spell, to leave no stone unturned -

"Thor is not afraid to love all of me." The still air was heavy but it carried Loki's inaudible whisper nonetheless. "Not anymore."

What about you, Doctor? The unspoken question in the steel green eyes was clear.

Stephen felt weakened in the knees. His arrogance had cost him again. The morning sickness was a given, and he took it for granted, thinking it would go away eventually – and through his indifference and negligence, Loki had suffered. Their child had suffered.

"Can it really?" Stephen asked quietly, humbled. "Kill you?"

"Yes."

Stephen's eyes smarted. "I will try harder, Loki. I promise."

He walked slowly to where Loki was standing stock still.

"I understand your hesitation, Strange." His face was serene, his words light-hearted. Loki looked hauntingly beautiful.

"There are some things only Thor can do for me that no one else can."

Only Thor.

What was this sudden rush of jealousy? Stephen felt his diaphragm constrict involuntarily as he fought to temper the waves of emotion he could not understand from escalating, this all-consuming rage-

Cool fingers wrapped around his shaking wrist and snuffed the fire out like magic.

"And there are some things only you can."

Stephen traced Loki's jawline with his thumb reverently, before extending his other fingers to sweep Loki's long hair away from the sharp angle of his neck.

"Will there come a day when you would come…only to me?"

Loki's eyes misted.

"Oh Stephen." A hand reached up to where Stephen was clasping his neck, the way Thor always did – the sensation so familiar yet so achingly different.

"You know I cannot do that to him." The coldness of Loki's fingers interlocking with Stephen's belied the raw vehemence in his voice. "I have died too many times in his arms."

The realisation hit Stephen like a physical blow to the gut. Thor and Loki had had centuries together.

Thor is not afraid to love all of me, Loki had said. The blazing madness, the bloodlust, the fantastical mind, the fathomless darkness lurking underneath his all-encompassing savage beauty.

How could Stephen possibly compete with that? He reeled.

"There is no part of you that I can call mine," he whispered, aghast. In his weakness, his hand would have fallen away from Loki's neck had it not been for Loki's vise-like grip around his fingers

"You have this." Loki balled their hands together in a fist, brought it down his front and pressed their intertwined palms to his abdomen where their son slumbered.

Stephen stopped breathing.

"Someday I am going to kiss you and when I ask you the question again you will say yes."

"The day you can say that out loud, Sorcerer," Loki whispered, "-might just be the day I let you."