You guys are WONDERFUL. All those comments on the last chapter literally made me so happy and I want to give each and every one of you a virtual hug because it was so so lovely to see all your kind words and ahhhhhhh thank you so much 3

I apologise for the gap between this chapter and the last, but I discovered Hamilton: The Musical on Disney+ and basically I have watched it 6 times in a week because I'm obsessed with it. I KNOW I should've been writing but you guys... it's so amazing LOL. Anyway, I'll be more focused on writing for the next few weeks because I'm off work starting next Monday because it is my BIRTHDAAAAAAAAAAAAY! July 27th, and I'll be turning 27, heck yeah!


Hydrangeas Say Our Family Will Flourish

Chapter Twenty-One: A Fresh Understanding

Since the initial day Loki and Amelia had brought the twins home to Avengers Tower, Amelia had spent a lot of time silently wondering just why Loki and Clint seemed to hate each other so much. They treated each other unkindly, speaking snappily whenever they were forced to acknowledge the other's existence, and ignoring each other the rest of the time. Amelia just didn't get it, Loki had mostly warmed to the others since living in the tower, but there was still unexplainable bad blood between Loki and Clint.

Eventually, Amelia decided: why not ask?

But when she broached the subject to Loki, he brushed it off and shrugged it off, telling her that Clint was just a fool, and that is why he hated him. She wasn't going to get a straight answer from her husband, so she went to the only other person who could give her a satisfactory response.

"Clint, can I talk to you for a minute?"

The man in question looked surprised that Amelia had something she needed to talk with him about, and even shot Natasha a look with his raised eyebrows, silently asking if she knew what it was about. Natasha looked just as confused.

"Sure," Clint said.

Amelia pointed back out of the room, "Privately?"

Another wave of fresh confusion rolled over the man, "Uh, okay."

Amelia led him out of the communal living room and down the hallway a bit so that they were out of earshot from any of the others.

"If this is about what happened the other day with Kari, I wasn't being rough with the kid, and I'm not apologising to Lo-" Clint was cut-off mid sentence.

"I'm not asking you to apologise, I'm in agreement that you did nothing wrong. Loki overreacted."

"Oh," Clint blinked and glanced around, "where is he, anyway?"

Amelia looked sheepish for a moment, "He's in the nursery with the kids… thinks I just came down to get some food."

"I see. So what did you want to talk about?"

"Well," Amelia began, pausing to think her words over - she wanted to know the truth, and she hoped Clint would be willing to explain, unlike her husband, because if not it would drive her up the wall, "I want to know the reason you and Loki hate each other."

Unexpectedly, Clint chuckled, seemingly amused by the question. "I don't hate Loki," he said simply, "I don't like him, not by a long shot, but I don't hate him."

It hadn't been what Amelia was anticipating, and she looked at him dumbly for a few moments before amending her question, "Okay… why do you dislike him?"

Clint stared at her face then for a worryingly long time, observing her closely, but before it got to an absurdly long point, he sighed, "Has he really never gone into it?"

"Huh?"

"Has he ever talked in detail about what happened? Back in 2012, with the invasion?"

"Well," Amelia shrugged her shoulders meekly, "not incredible detail." A feeling of discomfort was setting into Amelia's stomach as Clint's inquiry reminded her that there were still many things she didn't know about her own husband, who she was married to, with two children. It seemed as though she should have known what Clint was getting at, but Loki was very furtive when it came to the bad things he had done in the past.

Amelia didn't really blame him, of course. She knew Loki was a different person than he was back then, and that he was ashamed of the things he had done. She hadn't needed to know more than that back then, but her curiosity was getting the better of her; a small part of her, however, was afraid to know.

Clint looked as though he didn't want to reveal exactly what Loki had done, for fear that it might put a dent in her and Loki's relationship, but Amelia took a deep breath, knowing there was nothing he could say that would change how she felt about her husband.

"Just tell me," she said.

Clint peered back over his shoulder briefly. "He used the mind stone on me, took away my free will and forced me to kill people that opposed him." He said the words quietly and succinctly, revealing just enough information and nothing more; Amelia could discern exactly why Clint felt the way he did towards Loki. "He's never apologised, never shown me any remorse. I've had no reason to warm to him."

Amelia had known it wasn't going to be anything good, but hearing the words from Clint made her feel nauseous, and she eyed the floor at her feet for a few seconds, unable to look him in the eye. She understood at once why Clint had such an aversion to Loki, but she couldn't understand why Loki returned the sentiment just as harshly. Loki was the one who had wronged Clint, not the other way around.

"R-right. Thank you for telling me," Amelia stammered, nodding her head.

Clint hesitantly stepped back and turned away to return to the living room.

"I'm sorry," Amelia added hastily, because she was sorry. She was sorry Clint had had to go through that - it must have been a truly horrifying ordeal, and she couldn't imagine just how it had affected him.

Clint looked back at her, "You're really not the one who should be apologising."


Amelia didn't waste any time mulling around and instead went straight back to the nursery to talk to Loki about what she had learned. She spent the entire walk back to the room trying to figure out how to word her questions so that her husband didn't feel like he was being judged or interrogated, but Amelia wasn't the best at coming up with elegant sentences. Everything she thought up in her head sounded blunt, and there didn't seem to be any way to broach the subject without causing Loki some distress.

She hesitated at the door, hearing the sound of Kari squealing, and let out a quiet sigh before sliding open the door and stepping into the room. Despite the thoughts whirling in her head, she couldn't help but smile at the scene before her; both her children and her husband were lying on the floor rug on their stomachs, Loki propped up on his elbows while Kari and Aster lifted their heads just a little off the floor to look at him.

They were growing stronger every day. Amelia had been awed the first time they had used their arms to push their heads up, completely overjoyed by the development. Truly, she was becoming more and more excited every day when she noticed the babies doing something new - something learned.

Loki idly shook a rattling toy before them, urging them to reach for it, "You want the rattle? Take it from me." Kari babbled while Aster kicked her legs, but it didn't seem yet like either of them could figure out just how to move in order to grab the toy - it made sense as it was still early days, but Loki was always talking about how he wanted to teach them everything early, convinced that they inherited his brawn and brains, and thus knew they would be able to figure everything out ahead of the normal development of human children.

While Kari and Aster both seemed to be very smart babies, Amelia doubted they were miracle workers, but she supposed there was no harm in trying to teach them things like mobility and how to leverage their bodies in order to obtain toys.

The thought made Amelia chuckle. They were only fourteen weeks old, but Loki continued to talk to them and treat them as if they were older. His desire to pass on knowledge to his children simply couldn't wait.

"How are my sweetpeas doing?" Amelia greeted in a sing-song voice, kneeling on the rug beside them. Their eyes followed her as she came closer, and they visibly reacted to her presence, anticipating the cuddles their mama was going to give them. Amongst their coos, Amelia leaned down and kissed them both on the forehead, nuzzling her nose against the wisps of hair on their scalps.

"Kari almost rolled over a little while ago," Loki informed, continuing to shake the rattling toy, "almost, not quite. I tried to get him to roll all the way, but I don't think he wants to listen to his father."

Amelia snorted, "Maybe he'll listen to me. Hey, Kari, you wanna show off your strong muscles and roll onto your back for mama? If you do, I'll give you a cookie… when you're old enough to eat it, that is."

Kari babbled at the attention, blowing a small bubble from the droll accumulating at his mouth, but remained very comfortable on his belly, making no move to shimmy and shift.

"Looks like he's not listening to either of us," Amelia exclaimed with faux shock, "what a little rebel." She lightly tickled the baby's side and he gave a happy squeal in response, pulling a laugh from his mother's throat.

Her laughter died down after a few seconds as she remembered the little dilemma she had been mulling over and she sighed, sitting upright and fiddling with her hands in her lap; she felt Loki's eyes on her at once, and grew even more awkward at his insistent stare in her peripheral vision. How was she going to begin?

"Alright, what's wrong?" Loki squinted suspiciously at her, evidently taking some of the pressure off of Amelia - at least she didn't have to uncomfortably be the one to bring up that there was an issue she wanted to talk over.

"I spoke with Clint downstairs a few minutes ago."

Loki had no outward reaction to her words, but his eyes did not sway from her, and he looked almost like a statue, waiting for her to go on.

"I wanted to know why things were so bad between you guys," Amelia began, eyeing Loki for even the slightest twitch that might betray what he was feeling as she spoke on, "and he told me about what happened… back in 2012, during the… the, uh, invasion." She flushed, realising that she hated to bring up the topic just as much as Loki, but she knew it needed to be discussed.

"He told me about the sceptre, that it had the mind stone in it…" Amelia was suddenly very aware that Loki was glaring, not quite at her, but more at the space between them, and that he must have been stewing in his thoughts to have such a weirdly unresponsive expression. Amelia pressed on reluctantly, "He said that you… controlled his mind… and made him do things he didn't wanna do."

Loki's vision sharpened, eyes twitching with negative emotions, and he snapped at her for the first time in many, many months, "You've always known I had done terrible things. I've never tried to hide that fact."

Amelia was quick to clarify. "I'm not angry," she gently told him, leaning forwards to lay a hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off and diverted his gaze.

Perhaps it hadn't been a good idea to bring it up right in front of the babies; Amelia didn't want to cause them any distress and she probably should've expected that somebody might raise their voice or start speaking in harsher tones. Aster and Kari merely stared at them with their wide eyes, no smiles and no babbling.

"I didn't bring this up to upset you," Amelia began, "I just wanted to get to the bottom of it - I did try asking you, but you wouldn't tell me anything."

"I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," Loki growled.

"No, you aren't, and don't swear in front of the kids!" Amelia hissed, making the move to cover their ears before glumly registering that she only had two hands while there were four innocent ears that needed to be protected. "Look, he didn't want to tell me at first, probably thought it would be bad for our relationship, but listen - me knowing the specifics of what you did doesn't change anything between us, okay? I know you've done bad things, but I also know that's in the past. You aren't that person anymore, and I love you."

"If it doesn't change anything, then why are we talking about it?" Loki asked rigidly. He had stopped shaking the rattling toy, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, as he stared down at his wriggly babies with a furrowed brow.

Amelia tilted her head and frowned. It seemed there was nothing she could say to nudge Loki out of his grumpy state, so she decided to just get to the point.

"What Clint told me explains his dislike of you, but not your dislike of him. So why do you not like him?"

Loki looked at Amelia like she was dumb, "I already told you. Because he's a moron."

"Yeah, that's not a good enough excuse to hate someone."

"Yes, it is."

"I'm pretty sure you called me a moron several times when we first met, but that didn't seem to stop you from falling in love with me," Amelia pointed out with a subtle smirk.

Loki rolled his eyes and was silent for a few moments, until eventually he spoke again, quiet and blunt, "He humiliated me once, shot me out of the sky with a damn explosive arrow, and thanks to him, I proceeded to get thrown around by the Hulk." He paused, and then added even more quietly, "It fucking hurt."

"Okay, firstly, stop swearing in front of the children, they have brains like sponges, you know. And secondly, when did that all happen?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders, "During the invasion."

"Oh." Amelia blinked, and then frowned, "Let me get this straight. You hate him because he shot you out of the sky, which led to you getting apprehended by the Avengers back in 2012?"

"More or less."

Amelia scratched her head and squinted at her husband, "Okay, but, you do realise that if he hadn't done that… these two probably wouldn't be here right now, right?" She motioned the gurgling babies laying before them on the rug.

Loki looked away, staring out the window to the blue sky above, and Amelia could tell that he knew she was right given his silence. It was so telling.

"I still hate him because he's a moron though," Loki murmured, and this time Amelia snorted.

"Right, well, I want you to say sorry for what you did to him back then."

Loki flung around, looking almost offended at the mere idea of apologising, "I'm not apologising to him."

"But why? He told me you've never apologised for what you did and you should, because whether you like it or not, Clint's gonna be present in the lives of your children as they grow up - do you have any idea how difficult things are going to be for them if you and him continue with this dumb feud you have going?" Amelia's frustration was evident, but she tried her best to keep a level voice in the presence of the babies, knowing that anything more would probably cause them distress. They were very attuned to the emotions of their parents, Amelia had noted on several different occasions.

"It's not that simple, Amelia. I'm not apologising to him."

Amelia exhaled out of her nose. Sometimes convincing her husband to have minimal decency was like trying to move mountains, he was too stubborn and clearly knew how to hold a grudge - which got Amelia thinking.

"Hey," Amelia said, drawing Loki's attention to her, "If I can forgive you for causing the death of my brother, you can forgive Clint for stopping your senseless rampage." She knew it was a low blow, and she regretted delivering it so spitefully, because she immediately saw the upset in his gaze. He practically flinched at the mention of her brother, woeful at the reminder that he had caused her that pain.

Loki wasn't even looking at the babies now. His eyes were burning into the floor with shame.

"I just…" Amelia began more gently, "I want you to try and be nicer to Clint. For the sake of Kari and Aster. Please?"

Loki didn't answer. Amelia wasn't able to add anything more to that before she heard the sound of the rattle being shaken excitedly, and both she and Loki looked to see Aster had managed to shimmy forward on her belly and snatch the toy from his hand, and was now waving it around in victory.

It broke the tension in the room immediately, and Loki was more than happy to leave his and Amelia's conversation at the door in favour of praising Aster for her achievement. "Good girl," Loki pinched Aster's cheek gently, and the little girl quickly shoved the rattle-toy in her mouth to try and chew on it. Kari looked just as happy for his sister, squealing and smiling in a way Amelia saw as adorably supportive.

The issue simmered down, replaced by a more positive feeling induced by the children being cute and lovable, and it melted the stress away. Amelia sighed, and then managed a small smile as she gently patted Kari on the back; her talk with Loki could wait till later, for now the children deserved some cuddles and attention.


I hope you enjoyed this lovelies! Would love to hear what you think in the comments, and if you have ideas, I'm still taking them! I can always use some prompts to help me out xD And I'll try and be quicker with the updates for the next few chapters cause as I said, I have time off work and I wanna get ahead with this story :D