Ah, I'm so glad I managed to squeeze this chapter out today! I wanted to have it out before tomorrow because I'm going to Comic Con tomorrow and wouldn't have had time to write. I'm going dressed up as Loki again :D

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, I'm going to get to work on chapter 8 as soon as possible because I don't want any of you to have to wait long for it!

Edelweiss Say I'll Be with You Till the Day You Leave

Chapter Seven: A House Divided

The first thing Kari became aware of when awareness trickled back to him was the steady beeping sound and the hum of light murmurs that sounded distant and muffled at first, growing slowly louder and more clear.

The second thing Kari became aware of was the difficulty and pain behind his first conscious breath; his body lurched as he was suddenly wracked with what felt like a series of neverending coughs. It felt difficult to breathe, like he was doing so through a straw, and mixed with the stinging pain in the back of his throat and tight feeling in his chest, he struggled to find a moment of reprieve from it.

Just when he thought he might suffocate from the inability to take a life-affirming breath, something was placed over his nose and mouth that seemed to deliver fresh air to his lungs. His coughs lessened to wheezing, but at last he felt able to breathe and he savoured every last drop of the air he had taken for granted his entire life.

It became apparent thereafter that his mother was speaking to him in a soft and sanguine voice, her words emphatic and appreciated, "You're alright, you're okay. You're going to be okay, Kari." He assumed it was her hand stroking his head soothingly, and cracked his eyes open to confirm.

His vision was blurry and his eyes were stinging, but the vague shape of his mother leaning over him brought him comfort.

"Mom?" He whispered hoarsely. He blinked the bleariness away, the image of his mother sharpening, and he spotted the puffiness of her eyes and the worry in her furrowed brow, she must have been crying for some time before he awoke, but she was fighting any tears now, replacing them with a forced smile for Kari's sake.

"I'm here," she told him, caressing his head, "you're home, in the Tower infirmary."

Kari took slower, shallower breaths to avoid the urge to cough his lungs up, and shifted, trying to sit up, but Amelia stopped him gently.

"You need to rest, bug," she told him imploringly, and to his left, a nurse moved to adjust the head of his bed so that he could sit up a little.

"It's probably better for him to lie at an angle like this, he'll have an easier time breathing," the nurse pointed out, and Amelia nodded her head, rubbing Kari's shoulder as his position was adjusted.

There was a small amount of relief in Kari's new position, and on top of that, he could now see that his father stood across the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked a little ragged and his hair was messy, which gave Kari pause - he didn't know how long he had been unconscious, or what had happened amongst his family in that time. Loki's face bore a deep frown, but his eyes did not betray the thoughts running through his head, Kari could not tell what his father was feeling.

Looking back at his mother, Kari wanted to ask the most pressing question that was on his mind; he reached up to touch what he now realised was an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and his eyes fell to his palm which was wrapped in a bandage. The skin below the covering was tender and sharply stinging, and it recalled he had burned it badly when he'd attempted to open a door by the metal handle. It was pretty dumb in retrospect, but in the moment he'd not been thinking. It was strange too, he hadn't felt the painful sensation of that particular scorching when he'd been rushing through that apartment in search of the girl.

Must've been the adrenaline.

Kari pulled the oxygen mask back a little, "Is… is the girl okay?" He managed to ask, though it took a lot of effort not to devolve into another fit of hacking. His body shuddered between breaths as he tried to subdue the protest of his lungs.

Amelia nodded, smiling at her son, "She's okay, bug, she's in the hospital being treated and she's going to make a full recovery, thanks to you," she spoke softly, eyes shining with tears unshed. She looked to be both simultaneously full of pride and basking in relief that her son was alright.

Loki stood up straight and moved slowly towards the foot of the bed, but Kari was too busy revelling in the fact that he had successfully saved that girl from what could had been a very painful and tragic death; he felt a prominent sense of amazement at himself, he could hardly believe he'd done what he did and made it out on the other side.

Kari felt like he was over the moon, but at the same time so many questions were flooding through his mind.

"H-how long have I been asleep? What happened after Tony arrived? Where's Aster? Did Louis see me save that girl?" The questions trickled from him steadily, but with the rush of excitement came another coughing fit, and this one was more painful than the first. He gasped for breath and Amelia gently pressed him back against the propped up bed, urging him to relax and breathe through the oxygen mask.

"You need to rest, love. Rest now, okay? We can talk about everything that happened once you're feeling better."

Kari did as he was told, lying back against the bed and trying to breathe steadily through the mask; he admittedly felt very tired despite seemingly having slept a while beforehand, he wondered vaguely in the back of his head if his father was always this tired after coming back from missions.

Then it occurred to him that his father had yet to speak, and he peered up at him, worried by his silence.

"Dad?" Kari murmured, feeling unsettled by his father's unwavering stare.

The forced smile on Amelia's face fell and she turned to her husband, a fresh strain of concern in her expression as she observed him, and Kari got the idea that they had been having a very grave conversation prior to him waking up.

Finally, after what felt like far too long, Loki opened his mouth to speak, but instead of the praise and pride Kari was expecting, he was greeted with the exact opposite.

"What were you thinking?"

The question was sharp and loaded with anger, very much a tone of reprimand, and Kari felt his eyes widen in response to the question.

"Loki." Amelia said his name pointedly, not taking her eyes off her husband, and there was an air of warning about the way she spoke.

He ignored his wife. "You made one of the stupidest, most damaging choices that has ever crossed your mind when you decided to run into a building on fire, boy. Do you have any idea what could have happened, did you even think about what might happen if you did not survive your foolish endeavour?" Loki's teeth were grinding together, his face twitching in a way that made Kari feel uneasy.

"Loki, please-" Amelia was swiftly cut off.

"What were you thinking?" Loki repeated, this time failing to quell the rising volume of his voice. The nurse present appeared uncomfortable by what was unfolding, and she silently retreated to a room near the back of the infirmary, giving the family some space.

Kari's mouth opened and closed pitifully below the oxygen mask as he struggled to find words with which to respond to his father's admonishment; he was hoping to see the sharpness in Loki's face fade and switch to something more empathetic as the boy stammered, unable to put an actual sentence together without the hoarseness in the back of his throat causing him to cough, but he was granted no such luck.

Loki was mad. More so than he had ever been, perhaps, and Kari couldn't understand why.

"I… I had to s-save that girl," Kari managed, tears springing to his eyes due to a mix of the pain in his chest and the furious stare he was receiving from his dad.

"No," Loki argued with a pointed finger, "that's what the Avengers are for. You are just a little boy with no experience in emergency situations, and you almost went and got yourself killed."

"I saved that girl!" Kari protested, shakily pulling the mask away from his mouth to speak.

"That girl would have been saved by Stark if you'd just stayed put, all you succeeded in doing was landing yourself in a hospital bed and drawing unnecessary attention to our family!"

"N-no, she could ha-have died if I didn't go in th-there!"

The beeping of the machine that monitored Kari's pulse increased its pace, and the boy was launched unceremoniously into another fit of coughing. Amelia rose stiffly to her feet, her face torn between concern for her son and outrage as she glared at her husband.

"Enough! Loki, you need to leave. Our son needs to rest," she forced herself to speak calmly, though there was a storm behind her usually serene eyes, and it seemed as though there were a lot of things she was holding herself back from proclaiming.

"You are a naive child," Loki practically spat, ignoring his wife, "you are not a hero, you know nothing about being a hero."

Amelia had to clench her fists to control her displeasure; Loki did not have to double down on his temper, and yet he did, despite the fact that it was worsening Kari's physical state. She was incredulous at her husband's behaviour, she didn't recall ever feeling this angry at the man she loved.

"I… I thought you would be p-proud of me," Kari whimpered.

"Well you thought wrong," Loki's cold delivery was brutal, but he took his terse stare off his son and pinned Amelia with it instead, avoiding having to watch his son's tears fall down his face, "I'd like a word outside."

Loki made the turn to leave with the full expectation that Amelia would follow him out, but she did not move, vibrating from rage at the man's audacity.

"I'm not leaving Kari's bedside yet," Amelia adamantly stated, sitting back down in the chair beside Kari's bed. She reached for Kari's hand, intending to hold onto it, but remembered at the last moment that it was bandaged and sore, so she gently held onto his wrist instead, not wishing to bring any more harm to her boy.

Loki scoffed and walked out of the infirmary room, leaving Amelia alone with their tearful son whose lungs were once again protesting; the act of crying left Kari breathless, which in turn irritated the pain in his chest every time he coughed, so Amelia tried to soothe him, lightly brushing her thumb across his wrist and her fingers through his hair.

"Your father doesn't know what he's talking about," Amelia stated through her own welling tears, "what you did was incredible, Kari. You saved that little girl, she's alive because of you. I'm so proud of you," she whispered encouragingly, because her son needed to hear positive words to calm him down if he was ever going to get the chance to rest.

It worked eventually, because Kari's sobs quietened until they stopped altogether. He didn't speak a word in that time, and finally his eyelids slipped closed and he once again fell asleep.

It was two o'clock in the morning, approximately nine hours after the burning building incident had unfolded, and roughly an hour after Loki had walked out of the infirmary and left his unwell son in his worried mother's company, and now that Kari had fallen back asleep and was taking time to rest and recover from the ordeal, Amelia was marching through the corridors of Avengers Tower, up the elevator and onto the floor where they resided.

She was irate. Her husband had no business tossing around cold words that did nothing to improve the situation, in fact given that his words actively increased the severity of Kari's condition, it only made it worse that Loki would be so carelessly insensitive and horrible.

She practically slapped the hand-scanner to enter her and Loki's bedroom, and briefly resented the fact that most of the doors in the tower were technologically advanced so as to slide open and closed automatically, because it did not allow for her to slam the door shut after walking in, to display her displeasure openly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Amelia asked the moment the door closed shut.

Loki sat across the room in his window reading nook, legs bent up towards his chest as he massaged his temples; the man looked stressed, and it was made more evident by the long sigh he released after Amelia voiced her question in her glacial tone.

"That boy… is going to be the death of me," Loki spoke quietly, more to himself than to Amelia. It felt more like he was ignoring her in favour of talking to himself, which just further vexed her.

"Look at me," Amelia snapped, and Loki faintly rolled his eyes before turning his head to her, an action that did not escape his wife's notice, "what makes you think you can talk to our son like that?"

"Like what?" Loki asked, a touch of sarcasm lying between his words.

"Like an asshole!"

Loki did not take kindly to Amelia's tone, jumping to his feet as he responded with just as much animosity, "Oh! Forgive me for actually giving a shit about our son's life!"

"You call that giving a shit!? Shouting in his face, calling him stupid, telling him you're not proud of him, all the while he's struggling to fucking breathe?"

"He's struggling to fucking breathe, because he ran into a burning building and is now suffering the effects of smoke inhalation, which by all accounts is a stupid thing to do."

"Regardless of whether you think it was a stupid thing to do, you were making things worse with the way you were talking to him. Is it too much to ask that you act a little less like an insensitive prick!?" Amelia hissed; she could feel her face heating up but she stood her ground, solidly within the belief that she was the one in the right here. She wasn't going to back down.

"Oh give me a break," Loki growled, "you coddle that boy like he's five years old, telling him he did an amazing thing and he's a little hero for risking his life," he spoke in a derisive, mocking way, "-without realising that your words are simply encouraging that he act this way again. What happens next time when he doesn't make it out alive?"

Amelia fell silent, the sound of her heavy breathing filling the air. The imagery Loki's words invoked were disgusting, and she wanted to scream at him for suggesting such a thing. Tears pricked at her eyes; she wasn't trying to encourage Kari to rush into dangerous situations again, she was just trying to give the boy some peace of mind until he was well enough to have a more serious talk about what had happened, and it enraged Amelia that Loki wasn't even thinking to do the same.

"Listen to me, our son is lying in a hospital bed, in pain-"

"By no fault of my own," Loki quickly interjected, almost condescending in his delivery.

Amelia had to take a deep breath to keep from exploding at him.

"I get you're angry, but if you're going to be angry at anyone, don't be angry at Kari, be angry at me."

"I am angry at you!" Loki bellowed at once, startling Amelia. She was glad the bedroom was soundproof, or his cry would've woken everybody in the damn Tower. "I'm angry at you because you let him go. You let him walk around Manhattan with his friends, he's just a KID." Loki's cutting words were accompanied by an accusatory finger pointed right at Amelia, an action that reflexively filled her with deep shame, and for a brief moment she felt wholly to blame for everything that had happened, her mind full of doubt of her parenting abilities.

Was it really her decision to let a group of fourteen year olds wander around Manhattan alone, without a chaperone, that led directly to Kari ending up in a hospital bed?

She held her breath, heart hammering in her chest as she felt herself fill with rising panic, but then her guilt-ridden train of thought screeched to a halt and was replaced by the slightly more rational notion that she wasn't a terrible mother, and that she'd had no way of knowing there would be such an accident taking place on the children's route to the arcade, much less that Kari would willingly rush headfirst into danger.

Amelia's jaw was clenched as she blinked away the emotional tears in her eyes and composed herself to the best of her ability before speaking in a low tone, "Make your mind up, Loki. Should I coddle my son or not? A moment ago you told me I shouldn't, but now you're saying he's just a kid. Which is it, huh? Because from my perspective it looks like whatever I choose to do is wrong in your eyes."

Loki rolled his eyes, an audacious gesture given the situation, and Amelia did not take kindly to it. The simple action was akin to ridiculing her and her feelings, but Amelia was not going to let it dictate how she felt about her own choices.

"Don't roll your damn eyes at me. You need to see how much of an asshole you're being, not just to me but to your son-" Amelia began, but she couldn't even get to her point before Loki was throwing his hands up in frustration and cutting her off.

"Just shut up. You're so stupid, just like him! Obviously that's where Kari gets it from," Loki snapped. "Are you being deliberately obtuse or did I really marry a moron!?"

His words held the force of a slap to the face, and Amelia stared at him, aghast. She didn't remember a time in their whole marriage where Loki had addressed her in such a cruel and appalling way. It was so unfair, the way he was acting was purely childish in the worst kind of way, he wasn't even giving Amelia the chance to explain why she felt he was in the wrong.

Loki returned Amelia's gaze, his lips pursed after his outburst, waiting for her to react with an undertone of regret in his green eyes.

Instead of riposting with a harsh tone that matched her husband's, Amelia spoke softly, "What if it was Daisy?"

The question caused Loki's brow to furrow in confusion, so she clarified.

"What if Daisy was the one in danger, trapped in a burning building, and you weren't there to save her? Would you expect Kari to risk his life then, or would you want him to stay put and wait for you to turn up?" Amelia expanded on her inquiry, her voice remaining level as she set the scene for the hypothetical setting.

When Loki answered her, his voice was again sharp with a razor edge, but with a far more controlled volume, "Daisy would never be in a situation like that, because I'm not an awful, neglectful parent who would leave their sleeping toddler to nap in an apartment building alone in order to pop out to the shops."

"You can't say for certain that there will never be a time when Daisy is in trouble and you're unable to save her, someone else might have to do the saving, and if that someone else happened to be Kari, would you expect it of him?" Amelia pressed, desperate to try and prove the point she was trying to make - the point that Loki was failing to see.

"There's no point in making up hypothetical scenarios that have no basis in reality. You're grasping at straws just to make it seem like you know what you're talking about, but you don't know what you're talking about, because you are wrong." Loki's eyes were intense and intimidating, but Amelia was not intimidated.

She bit the inside of her lip, "You can't answer, because the answer is yes, you would expect your son to risk his life to save your youngest daughter."

"No-"

"Or at the very least, that's the impression you give off. Perhaps you don't pay attention when Kari makes those little jokey remarks like 'oh Daisy, how does it feel being the favourite child?' but I do pay attention, and it might seem like he's making a joke, but do you want to know something about teenagers? They tend to laugh through their pain," Amelia pursed her lips now, ignoring the tears welling up in her eyes yet again, "and I'm willing to bet that Kari feels like your least favourite with how you treat him."

Loki's jaw dropped with incredulity, and his voice rose up an octave in disbelief, "What are you saying?"

"You're always quickest to anger when Kari misbehaves. I have issues with the way you treat Aster sometimes too, but at the very least you award her patience that is simply non-existent when it comes to Kari. You shut him down so quickly, raising your voice when it's just unnecessary. You need to be gentler with him, because if you keep on going like you are, he's just going to end up distancing himself from you." A tear trickled down her face as she spoke, but she didn't take her gaze off her husband.

She wanted an apology, some remorse, anything to show that Loki heeded and understood her words, but after a long period of staring at her with his jaw agape, he just stated, "You are delusional if you think I play favourites with my children." With that, he moved towards the door, slipping past Amelia and refusing to look at her as he did so. "I'm going to check on Daisy, then I'm going to finally have a damn shower because I'm still grimy from my mission, and then I'm going to bed."

It was Natasha who had put Daisy to bed earlier that evening, while Amelia and Loki were both preoccupied with making sure their son was in a stable condition, and Loki had practically rushed home the moment he'd heard the news, having no time to stop and tidy himself up since.

Amelia turned, taking a shaky breath as she continued to watch her husband despite his sudden aversion to holding eye contact, "Yeah, go check on Daisy. And while you're doing that, remember that there's a mother here in Manhattan who gets to put her little girl to bed tonight because of what our son did."

Loki left the room, pretending not to have heard her.

Once the door had slid shut behind him, Loki had to take a moment to cool down, restraining himself from driving his fist through the wall in aggravation. It had been a long, long while since he'd felt anger towards his wife.

Frustration radiated off his body in waves, and he dragged his palms down his face, growling out as he exhaled. How dare his wife insinuate that he loved his son any less than either of his daughters; if that were true, he wouldn't have abandoned the mission he'd been on beforehand to rush home and see if his son was okay. He couldn't believe his wife had accused him of partiality.

Until he'd seen that his son was alive and able to recover, he'd been buzzing with perturbation, afraid that Kari could still take a turn for the worst and spiral into a critical state. Smoke inhalation was a serious condition that could easily be fatal, and it wasn't till Kari woke and sat up that Loki's nerves dampened.

But then it had been replaced with pure anger. Anger that Kari had gotten himself into this very preventable situation.

Loki failed to understand how his son felt it was on him to save that little girl, especially for a boy so young and inexperienced with anything regarding the superhero business. Kari could have died. The fact he'd rushed in and endangered himself without thought meant the boy was lacking in self-preservation and survival instincts, it was wholly concerning.

Then there was Amelia, who just blindly congratulated the boy for his actions while gently petting his head and telling him he did a good job. And why? All because she didn't want to hurt the boy's feelings? Stupid. Stupid.

Loki clicked his tongue in exasperation and practically stomped down the corridor, pausing at the open door of Kari's messy, unoccupied room. Even though he was reeling with stress and fury at what had transpired, nothing could ever change the fact that he was glad his son was alive.

He quietly closed the door and crossed the hall to Aster's room, his hand hovering over the scanner for just a moment before he made contact, triggering the door to silently slide open; he expected to see Aster asleep in her bed, but she was awake, sitting up against her headboard with her ipad in her lap. Her head snapped up as he stepped in.

"Is Kari okay?" She asked hurriedly and anxiously.

"Yes, he's okay, he's resting. And you should be sleeping, Aster, it's half-two in the morning," Loki sighed. Hearing that her brother was okay gave her a visible reprieve, and she gave a long relieved sigh.

"I couldn't sleep," Aster murmured, and Loki could see the light of her ipad glinting in her eyes, "dad, I thought he was going to die."

Loki shook his head, "It's okay, he'll be fine. He's… he's too stubborn to die…"

Aster gave a mild smile, "Does he get that from you?" Her jest didn't quite have the outcome she wanted, because Loki did not smile, he was silent and staring at the floor, clearly a little lost in his thoughts, so her smile faded and was replaced with a frown. "Are you okay, dad? Is mum okay?"

Loki's gaze lifted again and he gave an absent-minded shrug, "We're fine, why wouldn't we be?" He moved to step back out of the room, "Put the ipad down and go to sleep." His tone felt a bit rigid, but Aster assumed it was just because of the exhausting events of the day prior - if seeing her brother run into a burning building had been enough to riddle Aster with anxiety, she was sure her parents were probably still feeling the effects of it.

"Okay… goodnight dad."

"Goodnight."

Loki left Aster's room with a soft sigh and approached Daisy's room; unlike his eldest daughter, he expected Daisy to be fast asleep, and was glad to see that she was when he opened the door to her room. She had her back to the door and was curled up in her canopy bed, looking small as always.

They hadn't explicitly told Daisy what had happened with Kari, not wishing to frighten her or cause her too much worry, they'd just told her that Kari was very unwell and was required to sleep in the infirmary that night so that he could recover more quickly.

As Loki crossed the room, intent on giving her a kiss goodnight, he noticed that she was snuggling with a toy that didn't belong to her. In her arms, cuddled against her chest, was Kari's kangaroo plush, a toy he'd loved since he was very young. Daisy must have asked Nat to grab it from his room so that she could cuddle it for comfort; the thought triggered a smidgeon of embarrassment in Loki when he realised Natasha must have seen his son's terrible mess of a bedroom, and he briefly pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

But it also prompted Loki to think that Daisy must have sensed there was something more going on than just her brother being ill. She was remarkably emotionally intelligent for her age, perhaps she could hear the note of anxiety in her mother's voice when Amelia told her Natasha would be taking care of her that evening.

Loki leaned down and kissed the forehead of the snoozing girl, whispering a soft 'goodnight, little bee' before returning to his full height once he was sure she hadn't stirred, and made his way out of the room to return to his and Amelia's bedroom. He paused at the door, taking a moment to breathe and steel himself, and then entered.

Amelia was sitting on the bed, facing away from the door, her shoulders rigid and her head down. He wondered if she was crying, but decided to leave her to her emotional state and head into the bathroom to shower like he said he would.

He stripped the clothes he'd been wearing since the start of his mission the previous day and stepped into the warmth of the shower, cleansing himself of the sweat and dirt, and proceeded to try and let go of the stress that had been building since he'd gotten the call from Stark that his son was not well.

A few stray thoughts made it past his defences as he wondered if he'd really been in the wrong with how he spoke to Kari, but he assured himself that he'd done and said the right things to avoid another incident like this in the future. Amelia didn't understand, encouraging him was not the right course of action, and Loki was sure she would realise that in time.

Something she'd said really bothered him though. The way she'd tearfully proclaimed that he came across as a parent who loved one child over another, it made him feel sick. That was his father, not him. Just because he was tough on his son when he needed to be didn't mean he was treating him badly and holding his other kids up on a pedestal comparatively. The only reason it seemed like he was treating Kari differently was because Kari had the tendency to misbehave, unlike his daughters.

Amelia was wrong. She was misinterpreting the way he chose to parent his son; the things he said and did for Kari were only out of love for him and the desire to see him become the best version of himself, that was all.

As he finished washing himself, Loki stepped out of the shower and wrapped himself in a towel, at peace with his own decisions and the knowledge that he would exit the bathroom and explain his thoughts to his wife so that she could realise her assumption was just a misunderstanding.

Upon wrapping himself in a bathrobe, he exited the bathroom and stalled.

Amelia was gone, as were her pillows and the throw blanket that usually sat atop their duvet; Loki frowned, staring at the empty room for a full minute before he moved to slump down on the bed.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y?" Loki called out to the open room, "Where is my wife?"

The subtly robotic voice of the Avengers Tower A.I responded after a moment, "Amelia is situated in a spare room on the floor above. Would you like to open a communications channel?"

Loki wiped a hand down his face exasperatedly, remaining silent for a short period, before giving a sigh, "Yes."

A calling jingle sounded not a moment later as he waited for his wife to accept the call; it went on for what was relatively a long time for the call to be ringing, given Amelia would've known she was receiving the call the moment it started, and just as the jingle reached the thirty second mark, Loki was about to call it quits and tell the A.I to drop the call.

But then she answered.

"What?"

Her voice was stiff and void of any friendliness.

"Amelia," Loki said to the empty room, "come back to bed so we can talk."

"I think we did enough talking," Amelia responded, a telling shakiness to her voice that suggested she had been or was still crying.

"Don't be like that," Loki implored.

"Like what? Upset that you called me a moron? Upset that you berated our son? How about you don't be an absolute prick?" She hissed, though her insult was lacking the bite she'd had when they'd been bellowing face to face.

"Maybe I could have chosen a better way to word what I said," Loki tried to reason with her, "you're not a moron, you're just… failing to see this from my point of view. If you come back, we can talk it through and I can explain to you how I feel-"

"No. No, you already explained how you feel. I've heard enough, I'm done talking tonight because unlike you, I actually need to sleep, and I'm fucking exhausted. So goodnight and goodbye."

True to her word, she hung up the call, leaving the silence in the room far too deafening for Loki's taste. After lying in the quietness of the room for several minutes, hearing nothing but his heartbeat in his ears, Loki rolled over and closed his eyes, having perhaps one of the worst night's sleep he'd had in a long time.

Aster knew she shouldn't have been out of bed at three o'clock in the morning, wandering the hallways of Avengers Tower, but she was still struggling to sleep and she didn't want to wait until the sun had risen to see how her brother was really doing. Her father had been too vague in describing the state of Kari's health, Aster wanted to hear exactly how well Kari was doing, not just an imprecise 'he's fine', because it didn't do anything to settle the nerves in her stomach.

She hadn't seen him since Tony had carried Kari and the little girl to safety, among the nosy and loud crowds of people who were partially concerned for this mysterious teen's safety and partially hyped at the appearance of Iron Man. Aster had stayed put behind the barrier as opposed to rushing towards Tony and Kari despite how much she'd wanted to, she'd still been in shock at the time and didn't want to draw attention to herself in front of all the people present, nor did she want to give the firefighters on the scene the wrong impression. Autumn and Louis had stayed with her, also too fearful of Kari's health to be in any way excited about Iron Man's presence.

Kari and the little girl had been rushed to hospital while Aster had been picked up by one of Stark's drivers, and from that point on she was resigned to waiting for any sort of update on her twin brother's condition. Some time in the evening, her mother had come to inform her that Kari had been transferred out of the hospital and brought to the infirmary in the tower where Stark's privately employed doctors and nurses could keep a close watch on him, it was better that way because the Midgardians working in the hospital couldn't have known that Kari was part Jotun, and that little piece of information was quite important when saving one's life.

Due to the hectic nature of keeping Kari in a stable condition, Aster had not been allowed to visit him in the infirmary.

Until now.

Standing outside the entrance to the infirmary, Aster paused, wondering if the handprint scanner would keep her from entering. It wouldn't do Kari all that good if her attempt to enter set off the alarm system - in fact, it wouldn't do anyone in the tower very good.

But thankfully, as she hesitantly placed her hand to it, she let out a sigh of relief when it flickered green and allowed her to enter.

It was quiet in Kari's little curtained-off area where he lay asleep in his hospital bed, save for the steady and slow beep of the heart rate monitor picking up his sleeping pulse. Aster could hear the slight rasp in his throat as he breathed behind the oxygen mask on his face, her eyes picking out all the bruises and cuts and burns on his skin.

Her lips quivered at the sight of her brother like this; she hoped he would recover quickly, though she wasn't sure of the extent of the smoke inhalation he had suffered, or any other injuries for that matter. Originally, she was hoping to speak to him, but he looked very much like he needed to sleep.

She peered curiously at the dressings around his palm, wondering what kind of wound he had sustained, before looking back to Kari's sleeping face, trying to discern whether he was in a light or deep sleep. He hadn't woken to the sound of the door to the room clicking open and shut, so she hoped he was deep enough asleep that he wouldn't wake if she were to untie the bandage.

With only a little bit of fiddling, Aster managed to unwind the gauze and very gently peeled it away from Kari's palm, wincing at the sight of the red and white blistered skin. It was badly burned and looked like it hurt badly.

Well, Aster thought, there wasn't much she could do to help the condition of his lungs, but she had the ability to help him with this.

Hovering her palm over his, Aster invoked the healing abilities she possessed, and with a soft glow appearing amidst her concentration, the blistering on Kari's palm began to recede. Her healing magic did its thing, retracting all hints of the burn until there was only a light redness remained.

Kari continued to sleep, unaware of the waking world around him, and Aster observed her handy work, giving a nod of approval for her own magic. If only she had the capacity to reverse the damage to his lungs - unfortunately, his body would have to heal that on its own.

She looked at Kari's peaceful face, and sighed sadly.

Why had he gone and done that in the first place?

It could have very easily gone so much worse, and then what would she have been left with? No brother, that's for sure.

Aster was torn. She felt like she wanted to slap his wrist and call him an idiot for running into a blaze when not even the firefighters were confident that the stability of the building would hold, but on the other hand… her brother was a hero. What he had done showed that Kari was undeniably courageous; he wasn't a 'loser' like a lot of the kids at school liked to believe he was, and Aster wondered just how school life would change after today.

This wasn't going to be something that would quickly simmer down. Word spread fast amongst young teens, especially when it came to anything that had ties to the Avengers; the fact that Kari had saved a little girl and been carried down from the balcony by Iron Man himself, it was big news, and everyone would know about it.

Louis and Autumn had been texting Aster nonstop since yesterday evening, but at the time Aster hadn't known how her brother was doing, so she didn't quite have it in her to give the detailed responses they were hoping for. At least now she knew she could let them know Kari was alright - shattered, but alright.

Regardless of what was going to happen at school next week, Aster was thankful she would still have her twin brother by her side.

Aster procured an item from her pocket that she'd brought down especially for Kari, placing it on the bedside table with a small smile.

A king-size snickers bar. Because after what he'd been through, he deserved a little pick me up to greet him when he woke in the morning.

Oof, that was a pretty rough argument there between Loki and Amelia. A few of you called it! I'm curious, whose side are you on? Let me know! I love reading each and every one of them and I am so grateful to hear all of your thoughts! Thank you to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment!