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Playground

Chapter 5: Plane

"Loki? What's wrong? What happened? Is everything okay?"

"All is well, my sweet. How are you?"

"Oh, thank God. You scared me for a minute there. I—"

Loki turned to Ollie, no longer able to make out Jane's voice over Ollie's Let me talk to Mama, let me talk to Mama, let me talk to Mama a few inches from his face. "Ollie, be patient. Let me talk to her first, then you can, all right?" Ollie was not very good at talking on the phone yet; his enthusiasm for the idea of it did not line up with his instant shyness when the phone was put in his hand, especially for audio-only calls like this one.

"Hi, Ollie! Be good for your papa and I'll talk to you in a minute, okay, Bugbear? I'm so excited to talk to you."

"I can hear you again, Jane."

"Okay, what's up? You're sure everything's okay?"

"Yes. You see, we went to the playground as you suggested, and it turned out we ran into someone you and I both know."

"Oh, no. Who? What happened?"

"No, no, nothing bad," Loki hurried to say, simultaneously thinking that her reaction to running into someone they knew – normally a good thing – was exactly why moving to Midgard was a bad idea. "It could have…." It didn't matter. There was no need to tell her about the initial encounter, and if he did, he would be passive-aggressively picking an argument, as Jane sometimes said he was. "No, nothing bad. It was Tony Stark."

Jane swore. Loki slapped a palm over the phone's speaker; Ollie was still hovering nearby, a ball of energy that probably needed a nap and was climbing on, over, and around him.

"It was fine, Love. He was there with his daughter, Morgan. She's the same age as Ollie. We wound up having lunch together, and she and Ollie have been getting on quite well. They would like to watch a movie and play together at Tony's house. It's somewhere north of here, still in the state of New York. But it would take too long by car, so we would have to journey there on Tony's airplane. I…wanted to see if you approve."

Loki closed his eyes. This idea sounded about as ridiculous coming from his lips as it had from Morgan's a few minutes earlier, although Ollie was now whispering Say yes say yes say yes while squeezing arms around Loki's neck. He started weighing whether Jane was more likely to laugh or to yell.

"I just heard Tony had a little girl. I didn't know she was Ollie's age. I'm glad she and Ollie are getting along, but…what about you and Tony?"

"We had a…an awkward start, you might say. Fine since then."

"Well, okay, then. Sure. It sounds like a great idea. It'll be good for Ollie. For both of you, if you and Tony can keep a lid on it."

"We can."

"What about tonight, though? Is Tony flying you back or will you spend the night?"

"Staying the night in his home might be pushing it a little too much. If they're having fun, we thought we might stay there through dinner, and then Ollie and I would fly back and Ollie could sleep on the plane. Tony assured me that Morgan has slept well on it many times. It would still mean a late-night taxi ride back to the hotel."

"That's okay. He can sleep in tomorrow if he needs to. Let me know when you're on your way back. I'll probably still be up but if not I want to get up to put him to bed."

"Of course. Would you like to speak to this Curious Oliver now? He's climbing all over me like a monkey." Oliver started making monkey noises and oh yes, someone was ready for a nap.

He passed the phone to Ollie in time to hear Tony say Love you, Babe, and give a big smacking kiss to the phone. Why had he failed to say the same? He'd been focused on Ollie, of course, but he needed to do better in that regard. He looked back at his own phone in time to hear Ollie say I had a giant hole in my arm! He cringed. A fine time to get over being phone-shy, but he could hardly blame Ollie. He should have warned Jane. He'd been just as happy to skip over that part of the tale for now, but he should have known Ollie wouldn't feel the same.

-/-


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"Why don't you just invite them over to the apartment here? You don't have to go upstate to watch movies."

"Morgan wants to show him the cars. Ollie's excited about it. Come on, Babe, you don't know the kind of pressure I'm under. She found out Loki's an ince-pray," he said, turning away from Morgan and whispering the last. Morgan hadn't yet figured out Pig Latin – or that it meant they were saying something they didn't want her to understand, as she had with the spelling trick.

"Oh God."

"Exactly."

"It's just I've hardly seen her the last three days. Now I don't even get to see her when I get back from the dinner? And I deliberately didn't schedule my first meeting tomorrow until 10 so I could spend at least a little time with her."

"Okay, what if we fly back with Loki and Ollie? Morgan gets her time with son of ince-pray, who by the way also becomes an ince-pray when he's ten, and you get to—"

"Did you just say prince? Is that a funny way to say prince, Daddy? Inspray?"

Well crap.

"Daddy's friend is a prince, Mommy!" Morgan shouted toward the phone. "And Ollie is, too," she continued, words now muffled and distorted by giggles and by Tony's hand dancing playfully over her mouth—because actually gagging your child was probably illegal—as he glanced around and luckily found no one paying much attention. Loki was shifting around in his chair trying to talk to Jane while Ollie used him as a living jungle gym.

"He is! Wow, you don't meet a prince every day, do you? Have you been having fun?" Pepper asked, smiling big for Morgan. Tony angled the phone so they could see each other.

Morgan nodded, then climbed up onto Tony's lap and this was now officially a three-person phone call.

"Forewarned is forearmed, Pep, Pig Latin's about to become an end-of-life product. But what do you think? You could still have your Munchkin time in the morning."

"Please, Mommy? Ollie didn't see Sesame Street. And he has horses!"

"Horses?"

"Don't worry, Babe, tell you later."

"Okay. And yes, all right, that's fine. It's just so wasteful. You'll get raked over the coals again for your carbon emissions. I'm sorry t—"

"Nope. No apologies. You have nothing to apologize for. Tell you what. While you have your Munchkin Time, I'll figure out how to make air travel carbon neutral, how's that?"

"Okay, Tony," Pepper said over laughter.

"Done deal?"

"Done deal."

"Done deal, yay!"

"Cool beans. And I mean it, Pep. Nothing to apologize for."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks. Thanks, Tony."

"Might take me a little longer than one morning for the carbon neutral thing. If it's going to be economically viable, too. And more than some kind of feel-good environmental theater, planting a bunch of trees in Bolivia or something. Real carbon neutral air travel."

"I know. And it doesn't hurt to plant trees, too."

"Hey! I just had a fantastic idea. You, me, la Munchkin, Bolivia. We'll plant some trees, drink some piña coladas. Okay? Don't answer me now. Just think about it. Love ya, Babe," Tony said, then gave the phone a big kiss and let Morgan do the same.

-/-


-/-

A sleek black car drove them right up to the airplane, not like the ones Loki had seen on TV though its shape was similar, or the one Tony had once hauled him onto as a prisoner, though its size was similar. Ollie was taking it all in – the big paved field with its myriad airplanes and the line of short buildings; Loki put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in close.

"Private jet, just smaller than what you're used to. You'll both be fine. It's safe."

Loki turned Tony's way and regarded him for a moment. "That's a matter of perspective."

"No, not really. We collect data on things like this. Only one in—. Oh. That's uhhh, that's not the last time you were on a plane, is it?"

"It is."

"You said you were in London and—"

"We used the bifrost and went back and forth from Asgard. I hid our travel to avoid unwanted attention."

"The bifrost. Huh. Is that carbon neutral? That's gotta be carbon neutral."

Loki ignored him, reluctantly letting go of Ollie, who Morgan was tugging toward the plane. He didn't understand the question, and thus assumed it was not worth his effort to respond. Tony's unfocused gaze made him suspect the man wasn't really asking him in the first place.

"Daddy, come on. Come on, Mr….."

With a deep breath Loki started forward, but almost immediately stopped when Tony's hand touched his chest.

"Sorry, yeah, 'no touching' is probably a good rule. Just wanted to ask if you're going to be okay with this. You know."

"I don't know. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"I just thought you seemed a little rattled. Close quarters, bad memories? Thor dragging you off the Quinjet mid-air?"

"You realize I allowed myself to be captured," Loki said, glaring down at the shorter man.

"Yeah, we figured that one out pretty quick. But I saw the way you reacted to that storm, and to Big Bro's dramatic entrance when you were all shackled up. You weren't expecting that."

"No, I wasn't. But I still fail to see what you're asking. You think I'm going to…burst into tears or erupt in rage over something as trivial as a reminder of an unpleasant moment?"

Tony's bluster fell away and his features seemed to harden, jaw clenching. Then he swallowed, and that, too, fell away. "Just checking." He extended toward the plane the hand he'd previously held out to Loki's chest. "After you."

-/-


-/-

Loki watched fondly as Ollie sat twisted around with his face plastered to the window.

"They look like toys, Papa," he said, turning back around.

"They do, don't they? We're up here in the sky and they're far, far below us."

Ollie looked out again, then started playing with the buttons on his seat's armrest.

Loki looked vacantly out the window. He wasn't at the right angle to see the "toys" down below. He couldn't help remembering, though, that he'd once thought the people of this world no more significant than toys, and probably of less overall worth. Jane had taught him otherwise. Acknowledging those old thoughts wasn't easy. He physically ached to look down at his own son, who he loved with all that he was, and know how he once would have reacted to the idea of having a half-human child. It wasn't that he'd spent his entire life hating Midgard. He'd simply thought them uncivilized and unintelligent, when he'd bothered to think of them at all. But then there was that fiasco of a trip to Jotunheim and Thor's banishment and Jane. And Jane. Midgard became a means to an end, a giant toy to wrest away from his brother. The worst foolishness he'd ever given himself over to. Except that eventually, it had led him to Jane, and in turn led both him and Jane to Ollie.

In the row behind them – the plane had only eight seats total, in four rows of two all on the left with narrow tables and a long sofa to the right, all of it seemingly configurable – Loki heard Tony saying something in a quiet voice, and in the next minute Tony was striding past them, opening up a storage area, and returning with a can of soda.

"Here you go, Pumpkin. Small sips, okay?" Loki heard from behind them.

And then Tony stepped into their row.

"Hey, Ollie, how's it going there? Tummy doing okay?"

Ollie nodded.

"Morgan?" Loki asked.

"She gets carsick. Sometimes she gets airsick. Would've skipped the ice cream if I'd known we were going to take the plane. Got her some ginger ale, might help. If you need anything, drinks and snacks are up front."

"These work for Ollie," Loki said, twisting his hand as Tony spoke and grasping a small glass jar by the time Tony finished.

"Those are yummy! Can I have one?"

"You told Mr. Stark you felt fine."

"I don't feel fine," Ollie said, shaking his head with comical solemnity.

"Let's see how you're doing in a few minutes, then," Loki said. Terrible liar his son was.

"What's that? Is it from Asgard?"

"Yes. It's made from a plant that doesn't grow here, according to Jane, along with a bit of mint and honey. Nothing harmful. Jane tried it herself before we gave it to Ollie."

"Okay," Tony said, still not reaching for the bottle Loki was holding out. "Yeah, okay," he said again, then took the bottle.

"Daddy? I don't—"

"Too late," Tony said over the familiar sounds of a child vomiting, dropping the bottle right back in Loki's hand.

Ollie unfastened his seatbelt and squirmed around to stand up on his seat and look while Tony slipped back into the row behind them. Ollie's face twisted up and got that particular pained look on it that had Loki fumbling to get his own belt off and grabbing Ollie to get him up to the more open area at the front of the plane. With Ollie secured by one arm, he worked the stopper out of the jar and shook out one pale yellow capsule.

"Open wide."

Ollie threw his head back and Loki dropped the capsule in.

"I know what we should do."

"What?" Ollie asked half-heartedly.

"I think…we should sing a song."

Ollie shook his head.

"You don't want to? I do. How about this? I'll start off, and you can join me if you want to. I think I'd better put you down for this, though."

He lowered Ollie onto a bench-like seat. Tony was going to see this. He steeled himself for that. He didn't like it, but he wasn't going to be less of a parent to his child simply because Tony Stark was watching. Right now, all he really cared about was distracting Ollie until the lotimer capsule could melt and do its work.

"Ready? Listen carefully. All you gotta do is…." Loki clapped his hands. "Are you listening?"

Ollie nodded, smile reappearing.

From the center of the plane, Tony's head jerked up at the sudden noise. Ollie was up on the bench, Loki next to him and partially obstructed from view, but as far as he could tell everything was fine, so he went back to cleaning. Mid-wipe he froze up, focusing all his attention on his hearing, and yes, that was Loki singing "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book. That was Loki singing "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book.

He really shouldn't be so stupefied. Ollie had probably been turning green around the gills, and Loki had probably wanted to distract the kid while there was still time to avoid a chain reaction. And hey, if good guys could be bad parents, then bad guys could surely be good parents who loved and tickled and kissed their kids, and sang songs from The Jungle Book for them.

Tony wasn't sure what Loki's status was these days on the sliding scale of good guys and bad guys. After that first fun-filled visit, when he'd shown up announcing his decision to rule Earth and ultimately been sent packing in chains and muzzle, he'd turned up a second time, still at Thor's side but with the chains and muzzle conspicuously absent. Thor never did explain that one to anyone's satisfaction – stories of being tied up under snakes and venom aside, Asgardian sentences were apparently laughably light – and Loki exchanged no words with them beyond what was strictly necessary. The words he did speak, however, provided crucial intel on Thanos and his associates, and coordinated Loki's use of magic, especially concealment and transformations, with the unique abilities of the team. They wouldn't have defeated Thanos before the creep managed to get all of the Infinity Stones without Loki's help. Of course, Loki wouldn't have known what he did if he hadn't been working with Thanos before.

Also, Loki wasn't a bad singer.

It wasn't perfect when he finished, but he'd gotten up everything he could from the return appearance of the Happy Meal — double-bagged in a leak-proof container — and blotted at the stain on the carpet to the beat of Loki's accented take on Baloo. The air held an irritatingly chemical scent of lemon, but the jet's HEPA filters were top-notch and would take care of it.

He'd already sent his Angel to the back row, and when he stepped back to check on her, he found her curled up on her flattened seat. She was an old pro at this by now and knew how to work the controls to turn it into a bed by herself. He grabbed a blanket from the storage bin between the two seats and draped it over her, tucking it under her chin.

"Feeling better?"

Morgan gave a weak nod.

"Want a sip of ginger ale?"

She shook her head.

"Okay. You try to get some rest now. We'll be home before you know it."

The Munchkin was fine, just tired, so he smoothed a hand over her hair, fastened the seatbelt across her, kissed her forehead, and stood to go see what Loki and Ollie were doing. He'd barely made it into the aisle when he stopped short.

Loki wasn't just singing "The Bare Necessities." He was acting it out. He was just in the process of letting Ollie slide down off his back and onto the bench again, and oh yes, that was Loki, Prince of Bat Guano Crazy, prancing around shaking his tush, scratching his back against the storage compartments, while Ollie giggled and sang along at random places in the chorus, probably whenever he had enough air left over from all that laughing.

Nothing else he'd seen or heard today compared to this particular shock, and the temptation to imagine that it was somehow all in his head had never been stronger. A dream, a hallucination – no mushrooms on a McButtermilk chicken sandwich, the hallucinogenic kind or otherwise – or maybe aliens had invaded and were controlling his brain, making him think he was seeing and hearing all this. That last one at least had something of an actual precedent, in the form of the guy currently scooping up his kid and sprawling across the bench, doing a decent impression of floating down a river and singing bah-dum-bah-dum sounds where the song had no lyrics.

Ollie turned his face to the side then; the kid looked achingly happy. A little chunk of something, somewhere, broke off and started melting, and for the first time since running into Loki today, Tony felt guilty. He'd been kind of a jerk, slipping in little jabs, when Loki hadn't done anything to deserve it, not on this trip to Earth, and not on the last one, either. Instead, like Ollie said, Loki had helped people, including his precious little Pumpkin. Okay, so Loki had been kind of a jerk at times, too, but the guy probably wasn't dishing up any more than what Tony had already served. And now Tony was staring, jaw held up by the floor, and he should be ashamed of himself for gawking at a private father-son moment. But who was he kidding? He didn't have much in the way of shame.

The song ended, and Ollie let out a sigh that oozed contentment and went lax against Loki, chest-to-chest.

"That was fun, Papa. Do it again."

Tony couldn't make out Loki's response, but a minute later he was standing and gathering Ollie in his arms. Tony took that as his cue to look away and vaguely pretend he hadn't been watching, but Loki caught his eye and Tony knew Loki wasn't buying it.

"Need any help with the controls?"

"The buttons have pictures. I think I can figure it out."

"Okay, then," Tony said, doing his best to not respond in kind to Loki's prickly tone. "Pillow and blanket in that little bin there."

He left Loki to it and went to put away the container at the back of the plane.

-/-


-/-

Ollie slept soundly on the chair-turned-bed, while Loki sat stiffly beside him, every muscle coiled. Tony was now three rows behind him, sitting in silence that Loki knew the other man was going to break any second now. Loki was content in silence; it seemed Tony could not abide it.

Not that Loki was actually content at this particular moment. Remarks were coming. Jests, snide comments, insults that Tony thought clever. Loki had been crafting insults for centuries before Tony Stark was born. Nothing Tony said was half as clever as Tony thought it was. So he had performed a silly song from a children's movie. Loki, the evil illegal alien who had once attempted to assert his rule over Earth. Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious. He'd seen Tony watching out of the corner of his eye. He let out a heavy breath. He did hope Tony hadn't seen him sticking his rear out and swishing it around. But Ollie loved that part. They all loved that part. Dancing around to "The Bare Necessities," all three of them together, was one of those memories Loki knew he would treasure for the rest of his life. And now he was going to get to listen to Tony Stark belittling him for it.

Every time he asked himself Why did you agree to this? the answer was simple and instantaneous: For Ollie.

These days, the reason for almost everything Loki did was For Ollie. Even moving to Midgard, ostensibly for Jane, was ultimately for Ollie, for their family, even though it was also in large measure for Ollie that he was reluctant to do so.

Ah, and there it was, the sound of humiliation – attempts at it, at least – coming his way. If his muscles and tendons tightened any further, something – and possibly everything – was going to snap.

"Your kid down for the count?"

Loki answered with a curt "Yes."

Tony signaled for him to leave his seat and Loki complied. Whatever Tony had to say he'd rather it not happen right next to his son. He followed Tony over to the sofa and sat when Tony did, leaning forward in startled response when a panel opened up at the top of the sofa's back, a shelf lined with bottles and glasses and various small jars rising up from underneath.

"Can I get you a drink? Guess I kind of owe you one."

"No, thank you."

"Come on, don't be shy. The selection's not enormous, but I stock a few wines, a few brandies, whiskeys, vodka, gin…I think I can rustle up a few beers if you prefer the brewskies."

Loki shook his head. Even if he was inclined to drink with Tony – which he wasn't – he wouldn't know what to ask for. His knowledge of these drinks came mostly through Jane, who enjoyed an occasional beer, red wine, and sweet fruity mixed drinks; she had turned fruit and nut liqueurs into a fad on Asgard. Loki enjoyed those creations, too, but he shared that with Jane. Not with Tony.

"It's going to be long flight if we just stare at each other the whole time."

"And drinking will shorten it?"

"Impressionistically? Suspect so."

"Fine. Pour something. Whatever you're having."

Tony looked around in the hidden cabinet and pulled out a bottle and two glasses, setting the bottle down on the table. Remy Martin, the label read. Not one he'd heard of, but that wasn't saying much.

Tony took a small sip; Loki did likewise. It was tolerable. A little sweeter on the aftertaste than he'd expected, reminding him of mead in that one sense.

"Your kid's pretty cute."

Loki gave Tony the side-eye, waiting for whatever would follow, but nothing followed. "Thank you. I happen to agree." He paused, swallowed. He could do this. It wasn't even untrue. "Yours as well."

"Yeah. Her mom did good."

"I assume you had something to do with it as well?"

Tony shrugged. "A little something. Kinda feel like she did all the work, though, you know? She's amazing. Morgan is the best thing that ever happened to me, hands down. To both of us."

Loki took another small sip. He knew he hadn't had anywhere near enough to feel any effect of the drink, but he was growing more relaxed regardless. "When Ollie was born…nothing will ever top that. It was the best kind of magic."

Tony looked down into his glass and chuckled.

"Do not mock," Loki said, spine stiffening again. He should never have let down his guard, not even a little.

"Not mocking. Reliving, I guess? It was a little different when Morgan was born. Magic isn't the first word that comes to mind."

"Complications?" Loki asked. The empathy he felt was instantaneous. Incongruous while looking at Tony Stark's face, but undeniable, and Loki felt not one bit of embarrassment over it.

"Not really. They did have to induce two weeks early, Pepper's blood pressure was going up. It was a long and rough labor even though they induced. And the grand finale…woah, not for the squeamish."

Loki allowed himself to relax back into the sofa, chuckling as he lifted the glass to his lips. "It's a natural process."

"Hey. Do not mock."

"Fair enough," Loki said, then took a sip, swallowed, noting the hint of a smile Tony wore. He swirled the glass, gazing down into its amber contents as he thought. A jest, from Tony Stark, which was shared with him instead of at his expense? Baffling. It felt like a peace overture, a real one, not one forced on him by the children, for their safety. The children were asleep. They did share this, after all, this love of their children. Loki could respect a man who loved and took care of his child the way Tony clearly did Morgan.

Loki sipped at his drink again, a little more this time. Liquid courage, as Jane called it, even if technically it didn't have the same effect on him. "I've never been more afraid in my life," he said, gazing in Ollie's direction rather than Tony's.

"It was pretty scary, all right."

"I don't mean the birth. That part was joyful."

"Let me guess. They've got some pretty neat pain meds on Asgard. And," Tony continued, cutting Loki off, "you stayed up above."

Loki met Tony's eyes again and fixed him with his best withering look. "Your mind never strays far from the gutter, does it?"

"I wouldn't say never. But this isn't the gutter. It's a natural process."

Loki shook his head, feeling no need to comment. He knew he was smiling, though, and made no attempt to stop.

A minute or two passed in surprisingly companionable silence before Tony asked, "So what were you afraid of?"

"Nothing. Never mind." He hadn't intended to elaborate on his particular fears; everyone, he assumed, experienced some measure of fear or at least nervousness with an impending birth, particularly a first child. He'd simply offered it as another shared experience.

"Oh, come on. We've got this weird pseudo-bonding thing going on. Let's see how far this crazy puppy can go."

So much for subtlety, Loki thought. Bonding, though? He wouldn't have gone that far. Pseudo-bonding…perhaps. He still wouldn't have used that word. But he didn't mind answering. "Years married to a mortal now and I still don't understand you. It isn't that complicated. Jane is human, and I am not. We wanted a child…but it was a risk. We couldn't be certain it would work."

"Huh. I never really thought about that. You look human, but…I guess underneath the hood you Asgardians run a little different."

"Mmm," Loki murmured. This supposed pseudo-bonding didn't mean he was going to mention the fact that underneath his hood, underneath the magic, he wasn't Asgardian and didn't look human at all. The decision to take the risk had been easier for Jane than for him. Hardly a day went by that he didn't pause to be thankful that Jane's health was fine and Ollie was perfect.

"No complications from the whole interspecies mating thing in the end?"

Loki wrinkled his nose. How did this man's wife tolerate his constant inappropriateness? He had the sense Tony wasn't saying such things for his benefit, but was simply being himself. "We had a few scares. But Jane's condition was closely monitored, along with the baby's, and the problems were addressed. Still…at the time it was frightening." Loki smiled, politely if stiffly, and went back to his drink. It was a sanitized telling, bleached of enough reality to be palatable for pseudo-bonding with Tony Stark, who did not need to know the depths of his agony, how hard he'd wept, how the strength had so drained out from him with the tears that he would have fallen had Thor not held him up. Frightening was sufficient.

"Yeah," Tony murmured into his glass. "And now look at us," he said, back to his normal swaggering tone. "Cleaning up vomit…never would have imagined. I have this kind of germ phobia thing…not really but…it's complicated."

"Did you leave the diapers to your wife? Or did you have staff for that, too? Nursemaids?"

"Nursemaids?" Tony said with distaste. "Is that like a wet nurse?"

"What is a wet nurse?"

"Breastfeeds the baby for you."

"No," Loki said, expression now matching the one Tony had just worn. "Jane took care of that, of course. A nursemaid is something like what you call a nanny."

"Got it. You know, you should see The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. No hot lactating nannies allowed anywhere near my kid."

Loki stared, eyes starting to glaze over.

"Oh! Diapers…nah. Used to be that way, diapers left to the wife, when women usually stayed home. Nowadays I think most men get in on that action, too. Especially if they'd prefer to stay married. How about you? Princes do much diaper-changing on Asgard these days?"

"I don't currently know any other princes on Asgard, but yes, of course. There are tasks that only the women can attend to. It's appropriate that men assist in the others."

Tony nodded. "Gotta say I'm glad the diaper stage is over."

"I didn't mind it so much," Loki said with a slight shrug. Those had been times of bonding – real bonding, not pseudo-bonding. Of learning what it was to be a father, to care for someone who was utterly dependent on you, and in partnership with Jane, who was also learning what it was to be a mother. "Did you already know how to change a diaper, before you became a father?"

"No way," Tony said, leaning back with his drink, laughing. "Pepper either. Not that difficult, though. We watched a YouTube video, and then after Morgan was born one of the nurses demonstrated. You?"

"The same. I mean that neither Jane nor I already knew. I'd never even seen it done. We took lessons."

Tony laughed, heartily this time. "Lessons, seriously? Plural? Was there PowerPoint? Diagrams? I have to know…were there homework assignments?"

Loki gave a huff of annoyance, entirely for show. Yes, Tony was mocking. This particular variety of mocking held no intent to genuinely offend, however. "We wanted to be certain we had it right."

Tony shook his head over a chuckle. "Perfectionists?"

"Perhaps. Still…it turned out the lessons didn't cover everything."

"Yeah? What'd Changing a Diaper 101 leave out?"

"We practiced on a girl."

"And?" Tony asked after a few seconds.

"Have you never changed a boy's diaper?"

"Why would I have ever changed a boy's diaper? You think I just go around randomly grabbing kids and changing their diapers? I've only ever changed one person's diaper, and that's enough. Unless Pepper and I reach the Depends stage, in which case if she needs me to I'll change hers. Still a girl, by the way."

"Boys are different."

"Boys in general? Or your boy is different?"

Loki shoved his face in the glass and took a big swallow. He wasn't entirely certain what Tony meant by that, but he decided to ignore it. "I don't understand the phenomenon, but there's something about being freed of the diaper, perhaps feeling colder without the covering? It makes an infant boy want to relieve himself. Not just Ollie; Jane asked someone about it after we experienced it. We both took several soakings before…" – he set down the glass and held out his hands, vaguely miming how he would hold the extra cloth in place – "we worked out a method." He looked up at Tony, who was watching him with an expression Loki could not put words to but which amused him greatly. He couldn't help a laugh.

Tony shifted to more fully face Loki, and looked him up and down. "I hate to potentially break the mood here, and I know I'm going to sound glib, because glib is usually the way I deal with serious stuff. Try to see through the glib to the serious, because I need to know. I remember you showing up on Earth bragging about your army, mind-zapping people, and shooting up Manhattan. And now I sit here and listen to you talking about getting a golden shower while changing your kid's diaper and it's like the worst kind of cognitive dissonance. Seriously, the worst. These can't both be equally you – they're as far apart as east and west. You're not that guy right now, that much is obvious. But I need to know. Did you just turn over a new leaf one day? A rain forest full of new leaves? You had some…revelation? Zen moment? The most effective 'clean up your act' speech ever given? And what was that whole thing before? Thor never really explained. Kind of said you were nuts, in a roundabout ambiguous way that didn't clear anything up. Were you only recently unhinged, or was that more of a lifelong kind of thing? Congenital personality disorder defect? Oh! Did they cure you of something when they got you back to Asgard?"

Loki waited until he was certain Tony was done, at least for the moment. "Golden shower," he said with deliberate light pulses of laughter. "I like that."

"I didn't come up with it, it's…never mind. What about the rest?"

"Which of your other…I'm afraid I lost count. Which of the other questions would you like me to answer first?" Loki said with a patently false polite smile.

"Okay. Here's what it boils down to. I don't need to know your life story. What I want to know is, which is the anomaly? Then or now?"

"You know," Loki said, speaking slowly, holding the glass up and watching how the sunlight streaming in through the windows across from them caught on the etched angles, "when east and west stray far enough from each other, they eventually find each other again."

Loki watched – peripheral vision only – as Tony watched him. Loki felt a strong sense of being a piece of abstract artwork in a museum.

"Did you think that gem through before you offered it up? Because it seems to me it can be interpreted in a couple of mutually exclusive ways."

"I think I'll go check on Ollie now."

"He's right there. Direct line of sight. I can see his chest moving. If I listened carefully I bet I could hear him breathing from here."

"Nevertheless," Loki said, standing. "Thank you for the drink."

"Thank you for the image of Baby Ollie dousing you."

Loki smiled before putting Tony at his back. The man's tone was congenial, so Loki's smile was, too, more or less.

Ollie, of course, was indeed fine, sound asleep, audible puffs of air coming from his nose. Loki adjusted the blanket to cover a little foot that had wound up sticking out from under it; he didn't like to let Ollie get cold. Eir had sad there was nothing to worry about, but that didn't stop Loki from worrying.

Across from him, still on the sofa, Tony was fooling around with his phone. A moment later, he paused and broke out in silent laughter. Loki's stomach sank. Tony, amazingly, had not even once referred to Loki's play-dancing. Loki was certain he knew why now. Tony had cameras everywhere. The dance had been recorded.

He swallowed hard, knowing exactly what was coming when Tony rose and approached him. It was fine. He had no choice, it would have to be fine. He would not be goaded into any sort of reaction that would endanger Ollie.

"Here, take a look. I'm going to check on my kid."

The words and tone were business-like, perfunctory. Loki picked up the phone Tony had left on the armrest by Loki's hand, one of those expensive translucent Starkphones, of course.

The image on the phone was unexpected – an unfamiliar setting, not the plane. Loki touched the arrow in the middle that indicated it was a video. His eyes grew wide, brain lagging behind his eyes in realizing what he was looking at, when he'd been so certain it would be something else. Music, jumbled voices talking over each other. A younger-looking Morgan in a short green dress and green slippers with puffy white balls on them, hair up in a bun, something meant to look like wings on her back. Holding Morgan, Tony Stark, the "Avenger" known as Iron Man, dressed almost identically, down to the wings and puff-ball slippers, though his looked more substantial.

"Ready, Pumpkin? I mean Tinker Bell?" Tony asked in the video.

"Pixie dust!"

"Okay…here it comes! Sprinkle, sprinkle, pixie dust!"

Tony dropped something light and sparkling – pixie dust, he presumed – over a grinning Morgan, and Tony's "slippers" lit up and lifted him off the ground, with Morgan. They flew around the area, their living room, it looked like, Morgan shrieking in delight as Tony held the little girl out as though she was flying on her own.

"Mommy, look at me! I'm flying!"

"I see that, look at you, Tinker Bell," came an off-camera voice, probably Pepper.

Loki picked up some of the lyrics to the song, You can fly, you can fly, you can fly.

"Fun times, huh?"

Loki looked up, handed the phone back.

"Jane ever bring Peter Pan to Asgard?"

"Another movie? If she has, we haven't watched it yet."

"Peter Pan's the little boy who never grows up. I started out as Peter, not too off the mark in some ways. This was Halloween last year. Jane tell you about that one?"

"Oh yes. We've had our own little Halloween on Asgard the last two years. We've been hoping it might catch on there."

"Yeah? Not surprised, I guess. Must be your kind of holiday. Anyway, I was going to be Peter Pan, Pepper was Wendy – she was gorgeous, I'll have to show you a picture of all of us together – and Morgan was going to be Tinker Bell. But then she got it into her head that I should be Tinker Bell, since I can fly. We already had the costumes, but it turns out Peter's isn't all that different from Tinker's. Lose the leggings and you're almost there. Morgan and I made some more wings, I modified a few bits of the suit, got somebody to alter the top, and her wish was my command. She had a blast. We all did. She called me Tinker Daddy for a few days after that."

Loki propped an elbow on the armrest, dropped his forehead to his hand, laughed. Tinker Daddy. When he looked up again, Tony was watching the video, smiling fondly.

Loki waited until the sound stopped. "You have a recording of me, too, don't you?"

"Recording of you? Well, you did kind of attack the planet. We have lots of recordings of you. Oh, wait…you mean a more recent recording? Like…really recent? Just now, a few minutes ago? Now that you mention it, I guess I do. I mean, I wasn't standing here filming, that would be totally uncool. But there's a couple of cameras pointed in the area of the cockpit up there. Basic security measures, 9/11, you know. Good quality cameras, too, obviously. I have a high-res recording of you from two angles."

"I see. Any chance I could have that video?"

"Sure. I can make you a copy."

"And the original?"

"Oh, I'll have to keep that, of course. Security. You never know, might be needed for some reason."

"Security."

"Exactly. I knew you'd understand. Don't worry, though. I'll put my best encryption on it. Promise. I can send you a copy of this one, too" he said, holding out the phone for a second. "With the same encryption. A kind of…mutual security."

Loki gave a slow nod, a smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

Tony went back to his seat.

Loki looked down at Ollie, who'd shifted a little but was still asleep.

He leaned out into the aisle and twisted around to peer back at Tony, who quickly met his eye.

"That was the anomaly. Then," Loki said.

Tony didn't respond, and Loki was about to turn back around when the man finally said, "Okay." Nothing more followed.

Facing forward again, staring at the front of the airplane along with two hidden cameras, Loki could do no more than wonder what he had gotten himself into.


Notes

These chapters keep growing in length. Woops. Oh, well. It's typical for me. See my Twitter (same name) if you need a "Bare Necessity" refresher...or to see Tom Hiddleston singing "The Bare Necessities." I didn't do this based on or inspired by that, but I'd heard another clip of him singing it and finding this particular one was even better. I might have said this earlier on, but also this "Morgan" has nothing to do with Endgame Morgan, in that "my" Morgan existed before that movie came out. Of course I did take the name from the brief reference in Infinity War, and flipped the gender because that seemed the thing to do. Funny that Endgame did the same, and that they also went with brown hair...AND that the time skip makes her about the same age! The little girl in Endgame looks pretty much like I imagined "my" Morgan.

In the next chapter, Tony and Loki bare their souls and cry on each other's shoulders. OK, no, just kidding. But...well. I mean, they're already doing a little soul-baring. Surface-of-soul-baring. This chapter kind of bridges the next chapter, which is the one I'd originally expected to be a somewhat separate follow-on chapter, perhaps taking place on a different day. So, instead the time on the plane bridges us into Ch. 6. There are lots of things going on "behind the scenes" here (in the story), which you might have picked up some hints on (some very subtle hints and some screaming too loudly to be called "hints"); some of that will come out in the next chapter. Maybe even all of it. Depends what all makes it into the chapter beyond what I know will be. Hope you enjoyed this.