Loki woke up feeling not quite right.

He listened to the faint sounds of Stephen's electric shaver and imagined it whirring at more or less the same frequency his stomach was churning right now.

When Stephen stepped out of the bathroom all clean-shaven and fragrant, the slicing and dicing in his belly subsided somewhat at the sight of his husband and he smiled.

"Good morning."

"Good morning, Loki." Stephen dropped the obligatory minty kiss on his lips.

When Loki did not rise straight away as he usually did, Stephen teased. "Should have told me you fancied a lie-in. Would have stayed in bed longer and kept you company."

"Can't let you be late for your meeting," Loki murmured.

"Sure you don't want to come with?"

"Kamar-Taj has lost all appeal to me now that she has passed on," he said softly.

Stephen decided it was as good a time as any to change the subject. "Any exciting plans for today?"

"I promised to take Stian out riding." Loki was not quite sure how he was going to manage. Not when he felt like he had swallowed a coffee grinder, the industrial kind too.

Stephen tsk-ed. "How come you always do these fun things without me?"

"Uh, because you're hopeless on a horse?" Loki pressed a thumb into the dip below his sternum and winced.

"Surely there's a spell that can make a learned rider out of me?"

"This isn't The Matrix, Strange. You can't just download a set of instructions into your brain and instantly know how to fly a helicopter."

Stephen studied their reflection in the mirror and caught sight of something unpleasant. He surreptitiously watched Loki for a few more seconds.

Yep. Something was going on.

"You feeling alright?"

"Hmm?"

"You look kinda peaky."

It was just the thing to say to get Loki up and out of bed.

"I'm perfectly fine, Strange." He swung his long legs down the side of the bed and sat up slowly. The deep breaths Loki took looked too valiant an effort to muster some sort of courage or energy to face the morning that it brought a frown to Stephen's face, which naturally Loki saw.

He waved the unnecessary concern away.

"Probably just had too much to drink last night." Thor had come home from another successful trade negotiation. Loki was not much of a wine drinker but seeing Thor so jubilant, he had decided to partake.

Drunken sex was fun once in a while, so that was an added plus.

Stephen smiled at himself in the mirror.

"What?"

"The second time I've seen you this hungover."

"Yeah?" Loki sauntered over to the dresser in all his glorious nakedness. He wrapped an arm around Stephen's neck, mussing up the perfectly coiffed hair on purpose. "When was the first?"

"When I first fell in love with you and didn't know it."

"You sweet-talker." Loki nuzzled his nose into the greying hair at Stephen's temple. Stephen watched transfixed at the sinewy yet graceful outline of Loki's long neck. "You knew enough to put a baby in me."

"Loki…"

Loki's green eyes glinted in mischief as their gaze met. "Five minutes?"

Stephen did not need telling twice.

"You okay?" Stephen watched him over the rim of his glass of orange juice.

"What?" Loki looked up from where he was sitting on a high stool at the kitchen island. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just an upset stomach, I think."

"You don't get sick."

"Well, I do now, seems like." Loki's hand went back to holding his stomach gingerly, not quite rubbing, not quite clutching. He had thought a quick morning romp would rid him of whatever ill the previous night had brought forth but he was wrong.

"Did you take anything for it?"

"It's not that bad, Strange."

"I have learnt by now to never take your 'not that bad' at face value."

Loki glared daggers at him and would have said something equally scathing when a wave of nausea rolled over him and he gagged, a balled-up fist fast pressed to his mouth.

"I didn't – you're not…" Stephen slammed his glass down on the counter, sending droplets of juice spattering the pristine granite countertop.

"What?"

"Loki, are you pregnant?" Stephen's heart began to pound.

"Uh, I think if I were, I'd be doubled up on the floor right now screaming bloody murder in horrific agony."

Stephen stared at him over the course of the next few heartbeats. "Yeah. Yeah guess you're right."

Loki sighed, clearly in misery.

A hand found its way to his forehead. "You feel kinda warm."

"Must have caught something."

"I'll get someone to take care of the kids today." The hand went away and a quick kiss soon replaced it. "Take it easy today why don't you."

"Stian won't like it." Loki swallowed and rested his forehead on the counter.

"I'm sure Thor won't mind going in your stead."

Loki only nodded and wished whatever bug he seemed to have caught to just run its course as quickly as possible. Aífe was still so small, barely six-months-old. He would not want to pass anything to her.

Stephen repeated insistently. "Just take it easy."

"Where is Loki?" Stephen emerged from the master bedroom, his final place of search. Upon returning from the Sanctum that evening, he had wanted to seek his husband; he had been so busy he had not been able to call in during the day. Yet Loki was nowhere to be seen.

"Prince Loki is at the infirmary, Highness." The governess appeared from the children's nursery. Stephen walked over to give his daughter a kiss on the head.

"Infirmary? Why?" Stephen scanned his eyes through the contents of the refrigerator for something edible and not necessarily fulfilling.

"He became rather unwell in the afternoon and requested to be taken to see the Healers."

Stephen looked up in alarm.

Aífe's governess appeared more than a little worried herself as she patted the princess's back gently to rock her to sleep. "We were to let you know once you're back from your trip."

"Did you get yourself checked out?" Stephen found him lying in one of the rooms in the Royal Ward. "What did the Healers say?"

"Nothing serious." Loki blinked blearily. He had drifted off; the medication was making him quite drowsy. "I just needed something to ease the cramping, that's all."

Loki's pain threshold was well-known to be very high, so having to seek out painkillers was a red flag right up Stephen's alley.

"Why didn't you call me?" he groused. He placed a hand on Loki's knee. "Come on. Straighten your legs. Let me see."

"I'm feeling much better now, Stephen."

"Let me see."

Loki's belly was soft and no particular region was any more tender than the other. More importantly, there was neither the tell-tale pull of magic, nor the pulse of new life that he could sense under his seeking palm.

Stephen heaved a sigh, though he did not dare say if it was one of disappointment or relief.

"Told you I'm fine."

"Right, because you would so willingly come to the infirmary just for the fun of it," Stephen said quietly.

"Shall we go?" He straightened up and held out a hand. "Can you walk, or should I get a wheelchair?"

Loki only gave him a bitchface reserved for the most special of occasions.

Loki slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning like a fish out of water.

If this was what the flu looked like on an Asgardian then they were in for a long, long ride.

"Loki?" After the fifth time Loki's fidgeting had woken him up, Stephen was becoming exhausted himself.

"Hot," was all Loki would mumble, before curling in on himself again.

It was near dawn when Stephen woke again, this time to the sound of someone gasping loudly as if in shock or pain.

"Loki?" He pushed himself up on one elbow, peering blearily at the figure sitting upright, his shaking form hunched and folded double unto himself.

"Something's not right, Stephen." Loki sounded scared and in a lot of pain. "Fuck."

Stephen waved his hand and the room was instantly bathed in light.

"Loki," he swallowed hard. "I don't want you to be alarmed…"

Loki unfurled from his cocoon of pain despite the heavy protests of his cramping stomach. "What? What is it?"

He let out a stream of expletives, most of which thankfully not in English, at the sight of fresh, red blood staining one half of the bed –

Like the Polish flag, Stephen thought crazily. This is no flu.

"Stephen, this is not normal, hngh!" Loki shuddered as another round of severe cramps gripped his lower abdomen.

"Ya think?" Stephen had already scrambled to his feet and put on his dressing robe hastily. Loki could barely stand, let alone walk –

"Hang on," Stephen said tightly as they teleported.

"It didn't catch."

Loki did not need a mirror to see the sudden pallor of his husband's face probably matched his own.

"I have suffered such losses before, husband." Loki patted the back of Stephen's hand, looking a little breathless himself. "Please, breathe."

"Not like this."

"Sure, I've never bled this much and never at such an early stage too, but I don't see how it's any different," Loki said tiredly. "Don't you humans suffer from failed pregnancies too?"

"This was all my fault." Stephen's voice still had that numb, shell-shocked nuance Loki was liking less and less with each passing second.

"Yeah, I'm sure it was." Loki studied him suspiciously. "The guy next door has food poisoning from eating mouldy bread so I guess that's your fault too."

The stricken look on Stephen's face was enough to ring the alarm bells in Loki's head. His heart began to pound.

"Stephen, what did you do?"

"I found a spell."

Though he had read and reread the potential adverse side effects, the spell must have required some sort of Jotunn modification he had stupidly overlooked.

"You found a spell," Loki echoed.

Even a stickler-for-details like him was bound to miss out on the important fine print from time to time - and here they were...in the midst of a bloody disaster. Again.

"And what does this spell do exactly?" Loki asked lightly, as casually as one would, were one to ask about the weather.

"It's an ancient Moroccan contraceptive spell that renders the seeds to not take…root."

"What the fuck does that mean." Light-headed or not, Loki was not going to do this lying down. He pushed himself upright into a sitting position. The world spun but he did not care, letting the oncoming fury ground him enough to keep from swaying.

"It caught, but it didn't develop further beyond the very primitive, anorganic embryonic stage."

"So was I pregnant or was I not?"

Stephen shook his head. Loki recoiled in sick horror.

"The closest equivalent would be a chemical pregnancy in human terms." There was no way Stephen was getting out of this unscathed, he could tell by looking at Loki's paper-white face. "It is not compatible with life."

"In other words, you extinguished it even before it was given life?" A disbelieving whisper. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

Stephen was silent.

"I thought we agreed." Loki's voice was shaking. "We agreed to make every decision together."

"We agreed to wait." Stephen attempted a last-ditch effort to make Loki see reason.

"You would rather have me push a dead baby out of me than a live one?"

"Technically it hadn't yet formed so it wasn't a baby…exactly…"

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise we were arguing semantics too. You would rather have me push a ball of non-living cells out of me than a ball of organic, biological material capable of growing and differentiating into an actual baby, our baby?"

"Whichever it was, I never intended for you to go through this."

"Well it hurts the bloody same, Strange!"

From the look in Loki's eyes, the pain went beyond the physical, his green eyes wet with tears.

The betrayal hurt far more, so much more. "We had a deal."

"Loki, I know I should have discussed it with you -"

Too late for that.

"Get out." Loki whispered. "Please."

Servants and Healers walked past hurriedly, their heads bowed, pretending they could not see him sitting on the floor outside Loki's room. He could have conjured a chair but what right had he to comfort when Loki was hurting with pains of both the physical and emotional kind because of him?

Stephen could not care less what anyone else thought of him.

Only Loki.

"I made a mistake, Loki. I'm sorry." He had repeated the same sentence over and over for God knew how long and received nothing in the form of response. "I'm sorry."

He had nearly dozed off when a sudden transmission jolted him awake.

"Do you find loving me difficult, Stephen?"

Stephen scrambled to his feet.

"There is no difficult or easy about it, Loki. I just do."

Loki was silent.

"But I do know one thing."

Still there was no answer. Stephen hoped that meant Loki was waiting to hear his.

"Not loving you is impossible." He caressed the door, the physical barrier between him and his reason for living, wishing with all his heart it was Loki instead.

"Magically castrating yourself is not the answer."

"I know." Stephen inhaled deeply. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't know what I was thinking," Stephen lied. He knew exactly what he was thinking, he just could not bring himself to say it.

"After what you had gone through with Stian, and then with Aife, I couldn't bear the thought of you having to go through any of that again."

"No one ever said this was going to be easy, Strange."

Stephen would not have thought it possible to sense it through Mindspeak before. His heart sank.

Loki was crying.

"Do you know why I am not afraid?"

Stephen waited, because honestly, he had no idea why. All Stephen knew was if Loki did not fear losing his life just to give him children, Stephen was going to do it for him.

"Because The Ancient One foresaw me with many children."

"Perhaps in your future." Stephen's heart twisted in agony at the mere thought of Loki with someone else, someone that was not him.

"Perhaps not with me."

"She foresaw me having many children. With you."

Stephen's knees felt weak as he was suddenly assaulted by pins and needles tingling down his spine, radiating down his legs –

"Loki…"

"Loki, please…can I just hold you?"

"You hurt me, Stephen."

"I know, darling, I know."

"You really hurt me."

"Loki, my love, I am so, so sorry."

"You don't have to talk to me, you don't even have to look at my face." Stephen thumped his forehead once against the door. "I just want to hold you."

After painfully long seconds that seemed to stretch into minutes,

"Okay."

And the door unlocked itself with a touch of seidr and a gentle click, and at that moment, there was no sound more beautiful –

The sound of a second chance.

A/N: This is just a random one-shot guys! I haven't abandoned The Amendment - I had to write this because the plot bunny was keeping me awake. And someone needs to remind Stephen there is such thing as condoms.