"So. You and Loki, huh."

Within minutes of walking toward the settlement, so caught up was he with the unfamiliar surroundings Stephen found that they had fallen into formation so naturally that he did not realise he was no longer walking next to Loki, and only noticing when Bruce started speaking.

"I can see this still weighs heavily on your mind. Any particular reason why?" Stephen asked testily, his eyes looking at the three figures walking ahead of them about a hundred feet away, appearing deep in conversation; Thor in the middle, flanked by his brother and the Valkyrie.

"Oh no, no. I'm just, looking out for the guy, for lack of a better word - I do that, you know, look out for people." Bruce looked sheepish, but his eyes turned serious at his next sentence. "He's…fragile."

"He's not bone china." In fact, Loki looked anything but, tall and strapping in his Asgardian ceremonial armour, loosened around his middle to accommodate his growing abdomen.

"He might look it, but no, not in that sense. That's not what I meant."

Stephen decided to ask a question that had been bugging him since they left the Sanctum. "No offense but why are you here?"

"Oh, none taken," Bruce said magnanimously. "There's a lot of reasons why I might be needed, like, really, a lot."

"Okay?"

"I have seven PhDs, you know."

"So I've heard," Stephen said dryly.

"Thor wanted to return to Asgard so I thought I might just tag along for the ride. We have history together, the three of us. Me, Thor, the Angry Girl-"

"Angry Girl?"

"That's what the Hulk calls her, the Valkyrie." Bruce pushed his spectacles higher up his nose. "We fought Hela together, escaped annihilation in the Grandmaster's orgy ship, and watched Asgard burn from afar. So I figured, rebuilding her needs all the help Thor can get."

"And getting Loki to come by force, was that part of the contingency plan if he had not come willingly? Was that why Thor needed you?" Strange knew the Hulk was the one creature that could still give Loki the occasional nightmare.

"No, man," Bruce protested. "I'm not evil."

"But now that I know Loki's, you know, in a delicate condition…I am largely here for him."

Stephen frowned, not understanding. "I'm not following."

Bruce pursed his lips. "Hmm. Maybe I've said too much. Forget it, it's nothing-"

"Dr Banner." Stephen sighed, that clearly meant how many bloody times do I have to play this card before people just do as I say? "Shall I remind you of the obscene amount of money you still owe me for the repairs of the damage you caused to the Sanctum when you fell out of the sky not so long ago?"

Bruce studied him in silent contemplation, before giving him a brisk nod.

"As you know, Loki is not of this world." Bruce paused. "He isn't of Thor's world either."

"Are you trying to be dramatic?" Stephen asked in exasperation. "I know he's not truly Asgardian. He's a Jötunn." Of course, he was not going to give the physicist the pleasure of knowing that he had only learnt of it just this morning. Academicians were a competitive lot of people.

"Oh good, you already know. That makes my job easier."

"And what is your job exac-"

"So you also know when the time comes for him to have the baby, we are going in blind as we know next to nothing about his biology and physiology, save for what little I learnt during his brief imprisonment when he led the Chitauri army into New York? And that Jotunnheim might as well be a billion light years away now that the Bifrost is gone and that Loki is literally the only Jötunn around for miles and he knows next to nothing about his ancestry and God help us if there are complications because that guy?" Bruce pointed discreetly at the God of Thunder's back, "Will incinerate us and raze everything to the ground."

"So…Congratulations, old chap!" Bruce clapped him on his back with more enthusiasm than Stephen would have liked, "Quite a catch, if I may say so myself. You must be thrilled. Loki's an endangered species after all."

Bruce stalked off to join his fellow Revengers and Stephen had a suspicious feeling he had just been royally chastised.

"I'm never eating again, this is absolutely horrible." Loki let out a soft moan as he stretched out on the bed, before contorting again into a ball. When that made the pain worse, he straightened out once more, seeking desperately for a position that would offer the most reprieve from the inferno of acid bubbling from his stomach and into his gullet like lava.

"Overindulged, darling?"

"I don't understand it. I didn't even eat that much." Loki mumbled into a pillow he had covered his face with. Suffocation was looking to be a more attractive alternative by the minute.

"Do you want a lengthy medical explanation or a concise, Acid-Reflux-for-Dummies version?"

"Shove your explanation up your pompous ass, Strange."

"Oh my. The acid's gone to your prefrontal cortex and soured your sunny disposition, darling."

"Fuck you." A muffled whimper. "Dear."

"Come on. Sit up. Lying down will only make it worse."

"Thank you kindly, but no. Dying is less tiring when you do it lying down. I'm not moving."

"You're hardly dying, Loki." Stephen rolled his eyes. He dropped an effervescent tablet into a glass of water. "Here. Sit up and drink this. Don't want it to go down the wrong way and have you drown on Alka-Seltzer on dry land."

"Just one damn thing after another." Loki groused. "Whatever could be next?"

"Is that a rhetorical question? Coz if it isn't, I've got a long list- let's see, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, sciatica and would you believe, stretch marks?"

Loki moaned long, loud and pitiful.

"Fuck. This really hurts."

Stephen frowned. What Bruce said about Loki's largely unknown biology bothered him. What if it wasn't a simple case of indigestion?

"Is it the baby?" Stephen demanded, sitting down on the bed, trying to pull the pillow off Loki's face, "Let me see - Loki, let go!"

Stephen's chest tightened at the sight of Loki's eyes, shiny with tears yet unspilled, but very worrying nonetheless. He placed the glass of water on the bedside table and climbed onto the bed on all fours. "Show me where it hurts?"

Relief washed over Stephen when Loki placed his hand high up his long torso on the area directly below his sternum, well away from the baby. Yet Stephen gently palpated the bump anyway, and when he felt only soft, yielding flesh and not contractions, he let out a sigh, once again reassured.

"What the hell did you eat?"

"Some vegetation called ghost peppers? I've never had them before." Stephen rolled his eyes. Trust Loki to fall in love with one of the spiciest peppers on the planet. Loki shook his head mournfully, "They were good too."

"Ever heard of taking everything in moderation?" Stephen helped Loki sit up and placed the glass of antacid water in his slightly trembling hands. He watched Loki take sip after small sip, resisting the urge to run his fingers through the lank black hair and wipe the tears away from the sickly pale face. Loki looked miserable. "Why is it always the extreme with you? You either eat too much, or nothing at all."

"It's not like I did it on purpose, Strange. I'm not a masochist."

"Could have fooled me," he muttered under his breath. Loki finished the glass and pressed his sleeve to his mouth, hiding his grimace.

"Tastes like poison."

"Says the person who downed a bucket of ghost peppers just to prove a point."

"What point."

Stephen hefted himself closer and leaned against the headboard. He hesitantly reached out an arm around Loki's shoulders; when Loki did not resist, Stephen pulled him in. After long minutes of tense internal debate, Loki reciprocated, leaning his head into the crook of Stephen's neck. Soon after, Stephen found himself pressing his cheek down against the mop of black hair that smelled strangely of smoke and sandalwood.

"That 'Norwegian soil is too acidic to grow any kind of quality peppers.' " Stephen mimicked Loki's accent down to a tee. "Altering the soil's pH, that's child's play alchemy for me, my dear," he said haughtily.

The fingers of the arm draped around Loki's shoulder playing absently with the porcelain-cold collarbone, Stephen was not surprised when his other hand automatically reached for the offending area and dispensed the usual wave of soothing magic.

"Hmm." The creases of pain on his forehead relaxing, Loki's breaths soon became more controlled and not as tight and shallow.

"Anyone ever told you that you have magic hands, Doctor?"

"I have been told that, yes." His hands, his greatest gift, robbed in an instant on a fateful rainy night. "Once upon a time."

After a beat, "I'm sorry."

"Don't feel sorry for me, Loki. I made my choice." To serve a greater purpose, to tame his ego, he had given up his hands, and never looked back.

To not be selfish.

Loki threaded his long, thin fingers through Stephen's calloused, scarred ones resting on his belly. "I'm sure it didn't occur to you that you would be trading an illustrious career as Midgard's best brain surgeon for this."

"What, giving you tummy rubs every other day?" Stephen asked teasingly. "Seems like I've been doing that since the day I met you, Loki."

When Loki did not answer, Stephen gave his shoulder a light squeeze.

"You might not believe me, but honestly? I think I've got the better end of the deal." A soft kiss on top of his head. "There's nowhere I'd rather be."

Loki's green eyes gazed at him in wonder. "Surely you don't mean that."

Stephen rolled his eyes. Here we go again. "Stop doing that. Telling people they don't mean what they say when they actually do is a frustrating experience, in this case, on my part." He groused. "As perceptive as you are, please refrain from doubting the people who actually give a damn about you."

Loki palpably stiffened in his arms.

"What is it, Loki? Is the pain back?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Loki."

"I was just-" Loki took a deep breath. "I was thinking about my Mother."

Stephen's fingers that were playing with his collarbone stilled.

"You nag like her."

"I'm…honoured?"

"And your hands...they remind me of her. She had magic hands too." Loki remembered nights of long ago when he would be taken ill as a child, of the warmth of Frigga's hand on his forehead, on his chest when she would apply some salve to ease his coughs, on his back, rubbing circles when he would be sick from the slightest dietary indiscretion-

His eyes dewed but he quickly blinked the dust away.

"Pardon me, my mind has wandered off too far. Surely this was not your idea of a good bedtime conversation, talking about dead parents." Loki inhaled deeply. "But alas, there's just Thor and me now."

"I'm quite alright with that actually. Saw 'Meet the Parents' once." Stephen shrugged his shoulder. "Wouldn't recommend it."

Loki laughed softly. "Mother would have liked you."

"I take that as a compliment. I'll take any win, really, since I still can't get Thor to like me."

Loki smirked. "You care not if Thor likes you or no."

There was perhaps a ring of truth in that. Maybe he only cared if Loki did.

Stephen pulled back slightly to gaze at him. The lines of pain had disappeared from his face and for the first time in perhaps a long time, Loki looked relaxed and completely at-ease.

Loki felt his gaze on him and decided to call Stephen on it. "What are you thinking about?"

"That maybe you orchestrated this whole thing with the peppers to get me to spend the night here with you." Stephen smirked, Loki snorted – "And that I probably should tinker with the spell a little bit. Take the Schoville unit down by a hundred thousand or two." Loki could feel Stephen's lips curve into a smile against the skin of his temple, but there was something else Stephen wanted to say; Loki could detect the hesitation from the stillness of breath in his unmoving chest.

"What more than that?"

"Will you ever get around to telling me about this Grandmaster?"

Loki did not answer as promptly as Stephen would have liked. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, lilting. "He is just one of the many figures from my past, Stephen."

When Loki offered nothing more beyond that, a strange sensation began to arise in Stephen's chest. It only took mere moments for him to realise what it was – jealousy, with a side sprinkling of fierce protectiveness bordering on possessive. "Should I be worried?"

"Oh yes. He is an Elder of the Universe after all," Loki said casually. "One of the last remaining ones."

Stephen blinked. "I will have to look that one up."

"He gave you a ship," Stephen recalled Bruce's words. "An orgy ship."

"He didn't give it to me. I stole it." Loki grinned, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

"He was kind to me up till the moment I betrayed him – well, Valkyrie did, but long story – I was next on his execution list when I stumbled upon the biggest ship in his hangar and escaped in that."

"You stumbled."

"Yes, I stole it by accident, that's what I said. I usually do not think that far ahead." Loki stifled a yawn. "Unless there is a clear goal in sight - you know kings to dethrone, realms to decimate, cities to conquer …that sort of thing requires some sort of advanced planning."

"Anyone ever told you that you have a vulgar sense of humour?"

"Oh I am not trying to be funny," Loki said wrily.

"So…will we be expecting him anytime soon?" Stephen tried to keep his voice casual. Do alien death penalties even have a statute of limitation?

"I don't think it is the Grandmaster we should be worried about."

Stephen unconsciously tightened his grip around Loki. He said nothing, his gut coiling with the tell-tale curls of dread.

"I am not one to be swayed by disillusionment, Strange." Loki said calmly. "I am no more safe here than back in New York as you would have me believe."

The muscles in Stephen's jaw clenched. There was a chill in the atmosphere, yet he doubted it was the Scandinavian night air dropping in temperature.

Loki fingered the sling ring on Stephen's fingers in quiet contemplation. "Surely the mastery of the sling ring is not limited to you."

And suddenly Asgard in faraway Norway did not seem that far away at all. Not by a mile.

The glimmer of fear in Stephen's eyes reaffirmed what Loki had always suspected.

there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can not find you

"Just one damn thing after another."

Stephen startled awake.

Still in deep sleep next to him, Loki did not move, his pale chest gleaming in the moonlight as it rose and fell with every breath.

There it was again. Distant, low, barely audible. But there was no mistaking the sound of sword striking sword.

Stephen leapt to his feet, the Cloak of Levitation flying off the coat rack and landing on his shoulders as he marched outside. Noting the four Einherjar warriors standing guard outside the door, Stephen's pace quickened towards the open field in front of him as he caught the familiar sight of flickering golden energy, lighting up the air every time it hit metal just a hundred yards away.

The Valkyrie brought her sword up as the Staff swooped down in a swinging arc toward her head, and she twisted her body just in time, narrowly missing a booted kick to her exposed side. The hooded figure's foot landed on a slab of rock instead and used it as a fulcrum as he catapulted into the air, lashing out with the Staff once more.

Brunnhilde raised her vambraced arm to the level of her eye in the attempt to block the attack but the blow from the Staff never came; what came instead was a powerful whip-like projection of golden energy that wrapped around her forearm like an armlet, and it burned. With a scream she swung Dragonfang upward and slashed its fiery hold free, the tether of the magic rope dissipating into embers.

In the distance, she could hear more shouts and the sounds of Einherjar guards running across the grounds.

In the inky blackness of the night, a momentary distraction was costly and she realised her mistake when the hooded figure charged at her again; only this time she had let her guard down for a few milliseconds too long and the Staff was but inches away from striking her unprotected head.

She saw golden stars explode in front of her eyes and felt herself pushed to the ground; when she felt no pain other than the immediate stinging of having been thrown into the dirt she realised the blow never came. Valkyrie raised her head, and immediately found herself enveloped in a heavy blanket of sentient cloth as it flared around the figure who had apparently shielded her, two giant holographic Mandalas erupting from his hands.

"Need some help, Lady?"

The Sorcerer Supreme reined his magic in and prepared for the next assault, his fighting stance firm on the ground, scorched in a twenty-feet radius at the epicentre of the counterattack against the Staff of the Living Tribunal.

"What the Hel are you doing here?" She hissed, a trickle of blood fast making a trail down the side of her face.

"Saving your ass!" Stephen snapped. "This isn't something you can fight – it's magic!"

Valkyrie pushed herself off the ground and looked around wildly, trying to ignore the rising fear-

But the enemy was no longer anywhere to be seen.

"If you're here, then who's protecting the Prince, you Dumbass?!" Valkyrie screamed in rage. She started to run.

Stephen's heart jumped to his throat as he realised his dire mistake and the Cloak flew him as he had never been flown before-

Mordo don't you hurt him

The four Einherjar guards were lying sprawled in a tangle of limbs outside Loki's chamber, dead or unconscious, Stephen did not know. He flung the doors open, frantic, but knew deep in his heart of hearts the sight that would await him.

Loki was gone.