NEXT CHAPTER YAY!

I didn't get as many reviews as usual, I hope you're all still enjoying this series and I'm not doing anything wrong with this one. A million thank-yous to the people who DID review, I love you will all my heart xD

Hope you all enjoy this chapter of Amelia dealing with cravings and the lengths Loki has to go to for her ;D


Hydrangeas Say Our Family Will Flourish

Chapter Five: Best Served Cold

Fifteen weeks into Amelia's pregnancy, the cravings began full force.

Everything had been going fine, it seemed. Amelia and Loki had returned to Manhattan and let their lives continue within the secure walls of Avengers Tower, Loki resumed a semi-regular schedule of working out in the training room and aiding the Avengers with small missions - particularly the ones that never really took more than a couple of hours, as he didn't want to leave Amelia for too long at any point.

He never left her completely alone, he only left her side when he was sure there would be another Avenger present in the Tower, just in case trouble came knocking.

Amelia, on the other hand, had yet to return to work, too frazzled at the thought of being by herself in the flower shop when anything had the potential to happen. It would take a while to recover from the trauma, but she endeavoured to take it one step at a time instead of forcing it to happen.

She continued her daily sessions of jogging and other easy exercises, and resumed her weekly self-defense lessons with Natasha's help, making sure not to push any limits - despite only being in her fifteenth week of pregnancy, the visible swell of her stomach definitely restricted her movements.

She didn't yet know how she was going to cope in her final couple of months, because it was going to be far from easy to do much of anything if she became as big as she expected.

Things slowly began to feel a little more ordinary, the fear of alien abduction no longer loomed in Amelia's mind, her separation anxiety began to somewhat dwindle, and then out of nowhere, the desperate desire for particular foods settled in, and if Amelia - for whatever reason - was unable to obtain the food she wanted, it put her in a mood.

Cold foods. That was what Amelia wanted.

She gobbled down frozen berries like it was nobody's business, popping them in her mouth one after the other at such a rapid pace that Loki had to remind her several times to slow down, lest she were to choke.

Amelia quickly moved from frozen berries to fresh, cold watermelon. The sound of her crunching and slurping up the juices was enough to drive Loki insane, but he did his best to hold in any complaints, because the first time he had brought it up, his wife had not taken happily to being told to quiet down.

Frozen yogurt was next, plus the intermittent glass of chilly orange juice, which she gulped down unwaveringly in front of the Avengers one day and prompted them to all cringe at the sight.

"Doesn't that hurt your teeth?" Steve questioned, lips curled in dismay.

Amelia paused in her guzzling, "Nope."

"Forget teeth, how are you not getting brainfreeze?" Tony asked, staring at Amelia like she was some sort of enigma.

Amelia finished her beverage and offered no more than a shrug, before glancing back at the kitchen, "I need ice."

"But you finished your drink," Tony pointed out, though it fell on deaf ears. Amelia approached the ice dispenser built into the fridge and pressed the button, letting it fill her glass with relatively large cubes of ice.

She picked one up between her fingers, examined it for a moment, and then popped it into her mouth, crunching down on it.

"How?" Steve was bewildered, completely perplexed at the display of someone chewing on ice without so much as a wince.

Loki was not at all taken aback like the others appeared to be, as somebody who was immune to the effects of cold temperatures, he too found cold foods to be pleasing for his tongue. The thing that concerned Loki was the sheer volume of these foods that Amelia gobbled down. Where was it all going? Amelia wasn't exactly tiny, but Loki was quite sure she had eaten almost equal to twice her bodyweight that day already.

It hadn't even turned noon yet.

"Is this normal?" Loki leaned over and enquired to Banner in a hushed tone.

Banner let out a sudden laugh, "Oh, Loki, welcome to the world of pregnancy cravings."

So, over the next few days, Loki did what he could to ensure Amelia had exactly what she wanted, even if it meant getting up in the middle of the night to retrieve a large glass full of ice cubes for Amelia to chew on loudly for ten minutes before she fell back asleep. Whenever this happened, Loki would simply observe his wife as she devoured the ice as if there was any nutrition in it at all. The only thing it did was keep her hydrated and cool, but she never really woke up in the night for water before, and it had reached the end of August, so the nights had a little more chill to them than the prior weeks. So why was her body craving it?

"What exactly do you get out of eating ice?" Loki sleepily questioned at two o'clock in the morning one night after returning with that which Amelia yearned for.

Amelia bit down on the ice cube that had been melting on her tongue and swallowed, "I don't know. It just feels nice," she paused, "maybe it's because of the babies, you know? You love the cold, so they must have inherited it from you."

"I don't love the cold," Loki rolled his eyes, "I'm just immune to it. I prefer warmth."

"Well then, I don't know." She shrugged and placed her empty glass on the nightstand beside her, before letting out a sigh.

"Ready to go back to sleep?"

Amelia nibbled at her lip for a moment as if contemplating something, and then hesitantly murmured, "I don't know…"

"What?" Loki blinked, "You want more ice?"

Amelia smiled sheepishly, "Nooooo… not ice… ice cream."

Loki's eyebrows rose up, "You want ice cream? In the middle of the night?" His disbelieving enquiry was met with Amelia's semi-grave and semi-pouty expression. She gave a gentle nod of her head, batting her eyelashes.

Her manipulation tactics were put to an end when Loki snorted and delivered the bad news, "Well, I'm afraid you ate the last of the ice cream after lunch. There's no more left."

Amelia's face fell, and it quickly seemed as though a dilemma was raging behind her eyes; as Loki settled back down into bed, he tapped her leg and motioned for her to lay down beside him so they could cuddle, but Amelia stubbornly did not move from her sitting position.

"Let's sleep, love. We'll get you some ice cream in the morning."

Again, Amelia did not move, and her incredibly dramatic, forlorn sigh had Loki pause in anticipation of the inevitable plea that she was about to give.

"Babe…" Amelia only called him 'babe' when she wanted to butter him up, "Could you get me some ice cream from the store, please?"

"No." Loki shut the idea down very quickly. He wasn't going to get up at 2am and leave the Tower - and the comfort of his nice, warm bed - just to pick up some ice cream. He rolled over and snuggled below the covers, waiting for Amelia to get over her ridiculous desire for ice cream and spoon up behind him. He figured if enough time passed, Amelia would realise that she wasn't going to get her way, and she'd suck it up and go to sleep.

Ten minutes later, Loki heard her begin to shuffle, and he secretly smiled in victory, waiting for the imminent warmth of Amelia nestling against his back.

But it never came.

Instead, he felt the bed dip and rise as Amelia stood up.

"What are you doing?" Loki tiredly grumbled, peering back over his shoulder.

"I'm going to get ice cream."

Loki didn't think Amelia was serious until she started changing out of her pyjamas and into her outdoor clothes, at which point he jumped up and grabbed his wife's wrist, pinning her with a pointed stare, "You are not."

"Why?"

"Because it's the early hours of the morning and you need rest," he argued, eyes flicking down to her stomach.

"Hmm," Amelia hummed momentarily, "My body needs ice cream more than it needs rest right now, I can tell ya that." She seemed completely inflexible in her craving for ice cream.

Loki ground his teeth together, drew in a deep exhale and let it out in the form of a resigned sigh, "Can this really not wait until morning?"

Again, Amelia's face formed that profound pout, and she shook her head, looking up at him with innocent doe eyes. Loki peered out the window to gauge the weather - despite being so far up, he could tell the atmosphere was clear, it wasn't raining at least.

Another sigh.

"What flavour?"

And so, Loki begrudgingly relented and left the warm cosiness of their bed to serve his wife's whim while inwardly grousing over the fact that he was a prince - he shouldn't have been getting up in the dark of night to retrieve food. If they were still in Asgard, he could easily have ordered a servant to take on the errand for him, but unfortunately for him, they weren't in Asgard now. He was counting the days till they returned.

Although reluctant, he couldn't very well let Amelia venture out around the streets of Manhattan at night, not while she remained plagued by the fears of being abducted by some sort of villain-

Hold up.

Loki stalled in the middle of the street, standing completely still as he registered the fact that Amelia had played him like a damn piano. She had never intended to step foot outside alone, she was still far too anxious to do such a thing - her little show of getting out of bed and getting changed was just a few further manipulative tactics to get Loki to do her bidding.

He was more impressed than he was irritated, but more embarrassed above anything else. It wasn't easy for one to fool and deceive Loki, but here he stood, out in the cool air, searching for a twenty-four hour store that sold Amelia's preferred flavour - buttered pecan.

There were very few shops open. The first one he found, Loki was incredibly vexed to find they didn't stock it. The second shop seemed promising from the ice cream advertisement plastered over one of the shop windows, but when he stepped inside, he was informed that their freezer had broken and that they weren't selling any frozen products.

It wasn't until he reached the third store, where he was extremely close to tearing his hair out, that he actually managed to find the tub of ice cream he was after.

"Yes!" He exclaimed, clasping the tub tightly in his fingers. By the Gods, he might have just killed somebody if he hadn't found it this time around. Glancing over, Loki saw the tired-looking store clerk staring at him from across the aisle.

"You, uh, really like ice cream?" The man questioned from his slumped position at the check-out.

Loki cleared his throat, moving towards him so he could pay for the item and leave, "No. It's for my wife. She's pregnant," he explained concisely, and the clerk snorted.

"Cravings, huh? Well, consider yourself lucky that ice cream is pretty normal - when my wife was pregnant, she craved pickles dipped in peanut butter," he spoke conversationally as he scanned the product.

He must have seen the utter disgust on Loki's face, because he perked up and laughed a little, "That was my reaction the first time she asked me to make a store run," he took the money Loki handed him and began fishing out some change, "you gonna be a first time dad?"

While Loki wished the clerk would just hurry up and give him the change so he could go, he politely responded with a hum of affirmation.

"Heh. It might seem like a huge inconvenience, having to go out in the middle of the night just for a tub of ice cream," the clerk spoke, handing over Loki's change, "but you know, you realise it's pretty damn worth all the fuss when you get to hold your child for the first time."

A shot of adrenaline rushed through Loki's body at the thought, a mixture of both electrical nerves and excitement, and he numbly took his change, mumbled a 'thanks', and left the store rather quickly.

As he walked, Loki's eyes kept falling to the cold tub of ice cream as he mulled over the store clerk's words. It was scary and wonderful - in just over five months, he would be awarded the honour of holding his children for the first time, and he had to admit, such an experience would definitely be worth making a thousand trips to the store after midnight.

The next time Amelia craved food at an inconvenient time, he'd try not to complain so much about it.

When he returned to Avengers Tower, he grabbed a spoon from the kitchen and carried the tub of ice cream up to their room. He'd been away for barely an hour, but when he walked through the bedroom door, he found Amelia sprawled across the bed, snoring loudly, having chosen to forego her desperate desire for ice cream in return for a little sleep… like she should have in the first place.

Loki sighed for the thousandth time that night and gazed down at the ice cream, briefly entertaining the thought of trying some of it for himself - after what he'd gone through to get it, he deserved a taste - but then came the image of a very enraged Amelia biting his head off for daring to devour her icy treat.

He walked all the way back to the kitchen and deposited it in the freezer instead, ready for Amelia to snack upon in the morning, and then finally returned to where he wanted to be - spooning up against his wife's back with a gentle hand rubbing over her stomach in circles.


I hope you all enjoyed it! Please leave me a review if possible - it really helps me out! Even if it's a short one, it's still super duper appreciated!

Fun fact: When my mother was pregnant with me, she had a craving for chewing on ice too! Maybe I'm secretly a frost giant.

In a few chapters time I have an explicit chapter planned ;D Hope you're all excited for that~ Mwahaha!