"Ah, look who's decided to show up! The good Doctor himself," Stark tipped his shot glass in a mock salute. "Making house calls now?"

"No need to act surprised, Stark. I'm sure your AI housekeeper's announced me." Stephen glided into Tony's living room. He looked pointedly at the glass filled with amber liquid in Tony's hand, looked pointedly at the clock on the wall, and shook his head in resignation. "Eight glasses of water I believe is the key to long life, Stark. Water."

"And that is what I'm drinking," Tony mumbled, before downing whatever heavy liquor he was drinking in one go. "Want one?"

"No."

"Suit yourself." Tony poured himself another one, this time from a different bottle from his whisky cabinet.

Stephen inhaled, feeling his breath fill his chest – No. He did not come here to nag. "I have come to thank you. Your ultrasound machine could not have come at a more opportune time."

"Bruce told you I was asking for you?" Tony tsk-tsked. "But seriously, man. No one knows where you are nowadays."

Stephen hesitated, unsure of how much Stark actually knew about Mordo despite the fact that the Avengers had been the first on the scene on the day of the attack on Loki in Greenwich Village. "I have been preoccupied this past month, yes."

"But I…will most likely be spending most of my time in Asgard from now on." A tiniest pause, yet there was no mistaking the subtlest hint of desperation. "Loki is in a delicate situation."

Tony's hand stilled from swirling his drink. After a beat, "Are we expecting complications?"

Strange conjured himself an armchair. Why he would need to do that when Tony had enough furniture to fill a warehouse was beyond him.

Tony watched as the sorcerer sat himself down, careful to look anywhere but him. When Strange spoke, to an untrained ear it would have sounded casual, but to Tony, it was anything but. "Come now, Stark. Why the sudden compassion for your ex-arch enemy?"

Tony Stark smiled in a way that told Stephen he knew exactly what Stephen was doing. You testing me? Two can play this game, buddy.

"Oh, not compassion per se, no. But he is Thor's brother and by extension, I kinda have to care. Just a little bit." Stark smirked. "But I can see you care a helluva lot."

Strange's countenance was one of antsy impatience that Tony recognised so well as shrouded anxiety, that he was beginning to get more than a little worried himself.

"What is going on?"

Stephen's grey eyes dropped to his lap. "We…have detected a serious problem that will not allow Loki to deliver normally. Not without endangering his life and the baby."

Tony's brown eyes were unblinking. "Are we talking medical-chopper-on-standby serious, or we-need-to-operate-now-or-we-lose-them-both serious?"

"The latter."

"Shit." Tony scratched his stubble, his eyes narrowing. He did not know what to think about this new development. He needed more information to process his thoughts and decide on what to feel.

"And I take it New Asgard does not have the expertise to handle such a difficult delivery?"

"The best of their Healers perished on Asgard and the technology died with them." A shadow veiled over Stephen's eyes. "In his condition, Loki can go into labor at any time and I am not confident in my abilities to handle premature babies, let alone when it is my own."

"And you do not trust the hospitals in Norway."

"Would you?"

"Hell no." Stark tapped his fingers restlessly on the kitchen island. "Loki might have wiped the slate clean after Thanos, but Loki pregnant? Too delicious to pass up. The scientists would have a field day, you won't even get past the front door. SHIELD has connections everywhere."

"Even yours?"

"Stark Medical has some of the best obstetricians and paediatricians in the country. But I wouldn't go so far as claiming to know with absolute certainty where their loyalty lies."

At his words, Tony could see what faint glimmer of hope Stephen had in his eyes die.

Stephen closed his eyes and leaned his head back. When he did that, the dark circles under his eyes became more prominent. "What are my options?"

Stark frowned, tapping his index finger to his lips, as if deep in thought.

"We could get Loki to come back here."

"Here, as in New York?"

"Here, as in back at the Tower, specifically. He has his own floor, you know," Tony said, making a slight face. "We can keep an eye on him, and you're practically just down the street. Easier commuting too, although with your portal thingy, Manhattan to Norway is hardly any commuting at all, but you know what I mean."

Tony took a deep breath. Yep, he was really doing it.

"And when the time comes, we can either do it here, I can get my medical team in, and we will make sure the baby is delivered under heavy guard –" Tony pursed his lips, "I wonder how long it will take to install an operating theatre and a proper neonatal care unit, I'm gonna have to ask Pepper to find out."

"You would do that. For me?" Stephen's eyebrows furrowed.

Tony regarded him in wonder. "You don't have many friends, do you?"

Stephen resisted the crazy urge to physically count with his fingers the number of actual friends he had, so taken aback was he by the atypically insensitive question. He decided to say nothing lest he say something stupid like, 'Yes, Stark I do have a friend, and I'm sitting here in front of him right now and I need help. I won't admit it out loud, but I do.'

"You are forgetting one thing. King Thor will not like the idea of his brother being so far away. He's…become quite protective of him."

Tony rolled his eyes. "More protective than usual? Didn't know that was even possible. Seriously Strange, couldn't you have ensnared someone else? Someone who doesn't happen to have such a crazy older brother who goes batshit the moment someone even looks at his kid brother the wrong way?"

"Then you shouldn't have sat us so close together in the first place," Stephen said coolly. "You have your-" he waved a careless hand, "pheromones. Now magic…Magic is something much more extraordinary, something you cannot fathom with your mind, no matter how brilliant you are."

"Uh-uh." Tony snorted. "Why don't we just call a spade a spade and get you to admit you wanted to screw each other silly the moment you met? Magic, my ass."

"I'm afraid the moment we met wasn't quite as romantic as you imagined." Stephen's eyes softened at the memory. "I threw him into a time loop and he pulled his daggers on me."

"Well. Love at first sight is a bullshit concept, to me anyway." Tony shrugged. "Whatever rocks your boat, man. I'm happy for you. If I may say so, of course." An exaggerated hand on the chest.

"Of course you may, Stark." Stephen finally relented and broke into a very small smile.

"But back to our predicament which I hereby dub 'The Thor Problem.' I have an idea, which may sound crazy, but hear me out." Tony raised his glass and extended his index finger. "We are all about protecting Loki's privacy, am I right? What if instead of bringing Loki to hospital, we bring the hospital to Loki? You're a surgeon, you got any doctor friends you can trust?"

As if on reflex, Stephen looked down at his hands. A sick realisation dawned on him. He would give anything to have the use of his hands one more time, for one last time, if only to perform the surgery and deliver his son himself. He did not know if he was capable of trusting anyone else to do it –

"Yes." He abruptly straightened. "Yes, I do."

Tony looked at him strangely.

"So it's settled then. You can present this to His Majesty the King and His Highness the Prince, your lover, and see which option Loki likes best."

Stephen understood the meaning behind Tony's words. It mattered not what Thor liked or disliked; the final decision was in Loki's hand, and Stephen would be behind it one hundred percent.

"But to build an operating theatre in Asgard, Stark? And it's not just that, is it, we're talking about an actual Surgical and Neonatal Unit, the logistics of it all would be mind-boggling– "

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, my dear," Tony said nonchalantly. "You just leave everything to me and don't worry about a thing."

Tony threw himself backward onto his gigantic couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. "Besides. You and Loki aren't really going to settle down after just one baby, are you?" He threw him a smirk. "I'm a man of the future, Strange. I think of everybody's future."

Stephen had to stop for a while. He was going to be a father.

He was going to have a family. An actual family.

It was a thrilling, yet terrifying thought.

"Believe me, being an only kid sucks. Trust me," Tony drawled on.

Stephen did not know what to say. He settled for the one thing that sounded absolutely right. "Thank you, Stark. I owe you."

"I don't say this often and I definitely don't say it to just anybody…but you don't owe me anything, Doctor." Tony crossed his legs, opened a newspaper and pretended to read it. "You never will."

Stephen stared at him, uncertain of the appropriate emotion to associate his supposed response with.

Tony looked up from the top of the newspapers but only for a brief moment, hardly meeting his eyes. "Ask and it is yours."

Stephen nodded. He turned to leave, his heart suddenly ten times lighter. He knew Tony had caught his smile because the billionaire was now wearing one too.

Who even reads newspapers anymore? Stephen shrugged inwardly. What a weirdo.

Thor had been standing in front of his room for a full five minutes.

Loki felt his eyebrows quiver in exasperation. What a distracting presence; even when Thor was not in front of him, the thrum of energy reverberated through the walls and being as sensitive as Loki was to seiðr and all manners of elemental energies, it was ruining his concentration. Loki laid his tome to the side with an irritated sigh.

Just knock, you fool.

Not only did he not knock, Thor began to pace back and forth.

Oh for Norns' sake –

Loki flung the doors open with a burst of his seiðr.

Caught off-guard, Thor stopped in his tracks and stared at him like a deer trapped in the headlights.

"You can speak now, Thor." Loki assented coolly, lifting his ultimatum.

Thor's face brightened immediately. "I, ah…"

"What do you want, Thor?" Loki asked patiently, tone not unfriendly yet not friendly either.

"Could I interest you in a stroll, Brother?"

Loki stared at the wheelchair with a look of pure disdain. He stuck out his chin and directed his gaze upward at Thor, who was looking at him with such hopeful anticipation that Loki was finding it more difficult than usual to upkeep his haughty demeanour.

Pride warred with pity but alas, the soft spot he had for the blonde buffoon, (not to mention sheer boredom) won out and Loki nodded silently.

Thor, ever the golden labrador incarnate, beamed so brightly Loki wondered if he had accidentally agreed to more than a short jaunt on the grounds. "I said yes to a walk, Thor. Not a marriage proposal."

"I am no less pleased, Brother."

Exaggeratingly Loki made to rise from the bed, but Thor was quick to wave him down. He pushed the wheelchair past the threshold and triumphantly parked it next to the bed before looking at Loki expectantly.

"Must I, Thor?"

"Doctor's orders, Loki." Thor at least had the decency to look apologetic. "It may have escaped your attention, but your Doctor Strange has established quite a formidable presence...now he may not be here at the current moment but I'm afraid his order still stands."

Then the King of Asgard went and begged pity with his eyes. "Please do not get me into trouble, Loki."

"Fine." Loki rolled his eyes. "But if this gets out in public, if I even so much as see the back of my head on your stupid Facebook -"

"Your reputation is safe, Loki."

Loki tried not to think about the sheer humiliation of being carted around like a sow, concentrating only on the warmth of the sun on his skin, the unearthly delicious smell of the earth, and the fresh scent of the morning air.

He tried not to think of Stephen who had left this morning without saying goodbye he knew not where-

Or maybe Stephen did. Perhaps Loki had just not been awake enough for it. His head still felt a little foggy.

But no matter. Loki was used to being left behind. What was one more person abandoning him in the grand scale of lost and abandoned things.

So lost Loki was in his melancholic reverie that he did not realise where Thor had pushed him until he found himself facing the very horizon he shared with Bruce Banner just the day before. His throat closed up and Loki visibly reared back at the sight with a sudden hiss.

"I will never tire of this." Thor murmured, seemingly unaware of his brother's discomfort. He could not have seen the look on Loki's face; he was still towering over from behind him. It was only when Thor locked the wheelchair and walked around the front of it that he saw –

"You look upset, Loki." Thor knelt in front of him. "Should I not have brought us here?"

Loki did not speak.

"Loki?" Thor tried again, searching his face anxiously

"Memories." Loki had a shaky palm pressed to one cheek, head turned downward as if fascinated by something on the ground, his green eyes wide and blank. "I am merely listening to memories, Brother."

Yesterday, so devastated had he been by what one night, only one night with Stephen had cost, so distraught was he with the truly exorbitant price of that one brief moment of bliss, that in his grief, he did not remember the significance of this place.

This was the very place Stephen first told him he loved him, was it not?

And this was also the place where-

"I heard her," Loki whispered, sounding almost like he was about to be sick.

"What? Who?" Thor got off his knees and sat next to him on the rocks, his hand on Loki's knee.

"I heard her calling me." Loki lifted his face. "Mother."

"Do you mean...you heard her when she was calling for Father?"

Loki shook his head slowly, his eyes empty, staring at nothing and everything, seeing everything but understanding nothing –

"She called for me. That night."

Thor's hand twitched, his fingers curling unconsciously around the soft woollen blanket. "That night…"

The light flickered out of his eyes like a candle snuffed in the gale of winter. "The night you nearly left me…again."

"Yes," Loki said softly. "I thought it a dream...but it was not."

His face paled at the memory, his black hair lifting slightly off his shoulders in the breeze.

"I saw you on the floor, weeping over my body. I wanted to shake you, hit you even, for daring to debase yourself in such manner." Loki gazed at him out the corner of one eye. "Crying for the likes of me."

In a sudden grip of paralysis, Thor could only stare at him, mouth slightly apart, lips working furiously to form words that never came -

"That was when I heard her. And I found myself. Here."

"Fault me if you will, brother, my selfishness dictates my stand on this matter. I am glad you did not go to Mother despite her calling you to join her in Valhalla."

"On the contrary, Thor. She did no such thing."

Thor could swear he saw Loki's eyes darken with emotions he did not dare name.

"She told me not to come. That it was not my time."

Loki barked a harsh laugh, hollow though it was, yet the depth of anguish in it was unfathomable; as unfathomable as the agony in his eyes. "So close to death and still Mother would not accept me. I would have been slighted, had I not remembered my own callous last words to her."

Thor bowed and buried his head in his hands. He squeezed his eyes against the tears that threatened to shatter his composure.

"Only you would miscontrue Mother's desire to see you remain alive as denial of her love for you."

"She took to her death thinking I had denied her, Thor. I doubt there is a cause for greater pain in a mother's heart."

"She is in Valhalla, Loki!" Thor said fiercely, finally lifting his head. His eyes glistened. "She knows now what is truly in our hearts! In your heart! And in mine!"

"You are still alive, Loki." There was no stopping the tears. "Can't you see?"

Loki sank back against his seat, stunned.

"See me," Thor could not comprehend this grief. "See us."

"Thor. Thor, Thor." Loki raised a pale hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever he was sure was burning there. He felt so hot.

His hand fell away when he found none. It was just him, and all his emotions roiling and boiling to the surface.

"Oh, sweet Thor."

Trust Thor in his simplicity to shed light on the one thing that was so blatantly obvious Loki and his fantastic mind had failed to see; his heart so blinded and blackened and burdened by the carrying of so much hate he could not remember why he had spent all those centuries hating Thor, or why he had wanted to die in the first place.

"You never cease to surprise me."

If he had only looked into Thor's face as he dangled over the Void instead of Odin's…had he only seen the pure terror and unspeakable horror – the grief - in Thor's eyes before Loki decided to release his precious hold on Gungnir –

How different their lives would have been.

Would have, could have, Loki.

Yes, Stephen. To rewrite time would mean I would have never met you.

Loki's hand unconsciously strayed to his belly. And we would never have created this, you and I.

Frigga loved him. Loki could no longer convince himself she did not.

His Mother loved him enough to show him that all the love he was seeking, all the love that was ever denied him, all the love that he deserved, was right in front of him all along.

Loki's hand felt along the uneven surface of the rock until it found Thor's.

Thor scooted closer toward him, his knee almost touching the edge of Loki's seat, the heat from his thigh and leg warming Loki's shin through the thin layer of blanket covering his legs.

Loki turned his head around slowly, to finally really look at his brother for the first time since their quarrel. Thor's blond hair gleamed in the sun, his chiselled features ever the epitome of perfection.

"Don't you die before me, Thor."

"You don't get to ask that of me, Loki." Thor's voice trembled. "Not you."

Loki pulled their balled hands toward him and gently fisted them against his chest. He allowed Thor to feel the steady beating of his heart against the back of his giant hand.

"Alright, Thor," he whispered. He smiled at his brother gently. "Together, then. One day."