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Playground
Chapter 6: Playtime
Ollie was groggy, listless, and shy with Morgan on the quick drive to the house; Morgan was wide awake, cranky, and hungry. Ollie tucked himself into Loki's side in the back row of the SUV; Morgan resisted staying seated, demanded things she couldn't have at the moment, and whined no matter how patiently Tony tried to explain that it would have to wait until they got home.
Tony adored his little Angel…but she was definitely not always an angel. Of course, he'd be cranky and hungry, too, if his lunch had come back up an hour or two ago and he'd refused to eat anything for breakfast except the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms.
Tony and Loki didn't speak during the drive, Loki busy murmuring to Ollie and Tony busy trying to keep Morgan buckled into her car seat. Tony had called ahead to have another car seat installed, but Ollie looked at it like it was going to eat him alive and Loki had quietly insisted it wasn't necessary. Tony had seen firsthand that Ollie wasn't indestructible, that a puny little tree branch could take Mini Loki out, but if Loki, who was clearly protective of the boy, said it was okay, then Tony wasn't going to argue. The car seat got dumped into the otherwise empty front passenger seat. That, of course, went over really well with Morgan.
A tour of the house, led by Morgan, followed by fresh sliced strawberries with dipping cream perked everyone right up again.
Tony was just getting an episode of Sesame Street ready to play when Ollie asked if they could play with the cars, and Tony honestly wasn't sure if the kid had some kind of half-alien thing going on that let his eyes go that big and wide and pleading.
"Tell me the truth, do you just fold any time he turns those eyes on you?" he asked Loki as they made their way out to the workshop off to the side of the house.
Loki started to say something, hesitated, and seemed to change course. "Essentially."
Tony laughed, thought of a half a dozen things he could say back, and said precisely none of them.
"Okay, Munchkin, why don't you start out showing Ollie the little cars. I'll get things warmed up over here," Tony announced when they reached the workshop.
Loki hovered near the children for a little while, as Morgan opened up the cabinet where the toy cars were kept and started playing, well, lecturing. If Ollie tolerated that, this could be a friendship made in heaven, and thus far, it seemed like he was.
Before long, though, Loki was drifting over Tony's way, though still keeping his distance.
"Does he play with toy cars on Asgard? I guess not. You don't have cars there, right?"
"No, we don't, and no, he doesn't. He has other toys."
"Toy horses and buggies?"
"Something like that."
"Why don't you have cars? Cars are way faster than horses and buggies."
"Cars are polluting and ugly and noisy."
"Ugly? You're not leaving here until I give you a tour of the garage. Through that door," Tony said, looking up from the worktable to point to the big retractable metal door. "Nothing ugly in there. Art, and the beauty of exquisitely fine-tuned mechanics."
"If you say so."
"I do. And so will you. Ask nicely and I'll even let you drive one. Wait, have you ever driven before?"
"Many times."
"Cars?"
Loki pursed his lips for a moment. "No."
"What, cattle?"
Loki rolled his eyes.
"If I say pretty please, will you tell me how the bifrost works?"
"What makes you think I know how the bifrost works?"
"So you don't?" Tony asked, shoulders slumping.
"I didn't say that."
"Anybody ever told you you're infuriating?"
"Yes, in fact. Probably about as often as it's been said to you."
Tony couldn't decide between wanting to punch the smirk off of Loki's face and laughing out loud, so he did neither. "Okay, kids, come on over. Let's make a couple of new cars. Morgan, you want to show Ollie how to do it? You, too, Mr. Ince-pray," he said to Loki, who'd remained off to the side, as though he didn't want to get too close.
"That means prince," Morgan helpfully informed Ollie, who went over to Loki, took his hand, and tugged until Loki came with him with an indulgent and entirely non-maniacal smile.
-/-
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Before long, Ollie and Morgan both had new toy cars, Morgan's in pink and gold, while Ollie chose green and gold. Loki kept his pleasure at that choice to himself. Tony's computers and machines did most of the work, but Tony was impressed by how well Morgan navigated it all. Ollie sometimes got overwhelmed if he was given too many choices. Morgan acting as guide and occasional decision-maker when Ollie got too tied up over something worked out well.
"Can we make one for Papa, too?"
"Sure we can, buddy."
Loki wound up with a long truck in orange and yellow – an odd choice, but it was Ollie's and Loki wasn't complaining – and Thor wound up with a red- and silver-striped car called a Thunderbolt. For that one, Tony suggested the type of car, Loki chose the colors, and Ollie decided on the design for the stripes.
"What about Mama? I want to make Mama a purple one."
"Why don't you guys work on that, and Morgan and I will get the big cars out. You got the hang of it?"
Loki nodded and they got to work, with Loki helping Ollie narrow down his choices for the car. The choices were seemingly infinite and meant next to nothing to him, and he wished he knew what kind of car Jane actually liked.
When Morgan emerged through the door at the back of the building in a bright yellow contraption on wheels and a shapeless pink helmet, accompanied by a high-pitched ringing buzzing kind of sound, and Tony carrying an equally bright red one in one hand and a matching shapeless helmet in the other, Jane's car was forgotten. Ollie was captivated and after a second ran over toward Morgan, who zoomed right past him. Ollie didn't seem to take any offense, though, drawn to Tony's beckoning finger instead.
The thing looked like a child-sized car, some of its features exaggerated, and was manually powered via pedals, Loki saw when he joined Ollie in peering down into the red one that Tony placed on the floor.
"Go ahead, champ. Need some help?"
Tony reached down for Ollie, who instantly shied away, arms wrapped around Loki's leg.
"Woops, sorry, too quick on the draw."
A screeching sound drew Loki's attention away this time. A giggly Morgan called, "I hit the wall, Daddy!"
"I saw that, Pumpkin!" Tony called back. "She'll grow out of that by the time she's old enough for a license," he said to Loki. "See, though? Perfectly safe. The material's shock-absorbent, and the interior is padded, too. Not really necessary in here, but handy when I let her take it out."
"Would you like to try it, Ollie?"
Ollie looked inside again, staring down at the pedals.
"It works just like a bicycle. Well, a bicycle with a steering wheel and permanent training wheels."
Ollie continued to peer into the car with interest, and reached over to give the steering wheel a tentative tug. Loki examined the wheels and decided the matching smaller ones in the back had to be the training wheels, helping to maintain balance.
"No bicycles on Asgard?"
"No."
"Good chance to teach him, then. That's basically what I designed them for."
Loki looked up at Tony from where he'd crouched down to Ollie's level. Figuring out how to operate the thing took no more than a glance, and Morgan was having no trouble with it, other than the occasional collision. But how was he supposed to explain it well to Ollie when he'd never done it himself? He was about to attempt it anyway when Tony spoke up again.
"Ah. No bicycles on Asgard. Okay. New plan. Little presto-change-o on the order of things. Come with me," he said, dropping the helmet into the car
"Come on, Ollie!" Morgan called, meaning the direction opposite the one Tony was headed in.
Ollie ducked his head and crowded in closer to Loki, who recognized this particular vein of shyness – his son was intimidated, perhaps even a touch embarrassed, old enough to be aware that Morgan knew how to do something that Ollie did not and to be unhappy about it. Loki picked him up and wrapped an arm around his back to hold him tight and protect him from anything that might make him feel insecure or afraid. Asgardian bravery could wait.
Loki followed Tony through the door the man had emerged from earlier. When the light came on, Loki took in the large storage chamber and understood.
"You're serious?" Loki asked.
"Are you kidding? You think I would not have Dad-sized play cars? Mom-and-Dad-sized play cars, to be more precise."
"Mom-and-Dad-sized play cars are cars. This…"
"So your legs are on the long side. Might be a little uncomfortable on the knees. But you're not going to let that stop you, are you?"
"You do it, Papa! You drive," Ollie said.
"I don't know," Loki said, effecting a contemplative, worried look for his son. "Do you think I can?"
Ollie nodded enthusiastically.
"All right," Loki said with a nod of his own. "Since you think so, then I'm going to be brave and try it out."
"As you can see, this version's a three-wheeler, and you'll be leaning back more," Tony said as Loki lowered himself into the yellow and black car. "All to keep as much of a low profile as possible, keep us close to the kids' level. The angle of the pedaling is different, but the motion is the same."
Loki could see that immediately – his legs would straighten out more in front of him, while Ollie's would straighten out beneath him. He put his feet onto the pedals and pushed, just enough to get a sense of the tension, then turned to Ollie, standing beside the car with his little fingers wrapped over the edged.
"I think I'm ready now. Watch your toes."
Ollie looked down at his feet, then took a couple of quick steps back.
Loki started pedaling; Ollie started clapping, just as he and Jane did for Ollie's achievements. Pedaling, of course, was as easy as he'd assumed it was. Still, he took the time to "drive" the car out of the storage room for a quick loop, paying attention to how he was moving his legs and feet so he could teach Ollie.
"Look at your papa go. He's pretty good at this, huh, squirt?"
"Papa's good at everything," Ollie announced, as though it was an obvious fact.
To Ollie, it probably was. The boy's little displays of hero worship warmed Tony's heart. He knew Morgan thought the same, that he could do anything; he hadn't exactly tried to disabuse her of the notion. Someday she'd learn it wasn't true. Someday, probably, she'd be convinced she knew better and he didn't understand a thing. The way things were right now was nice, though. From Ollie's perspective, Loki too must be a hero.
"Hey, Mr….Mr. Prince! Look at me!"
"I see you, Morgan. What a fine driver you are."
Mr. Prince. That was going to have to be nipped in the bud before it stuck.
"What should she call you? I don't actually know your last name. Or is it like the British royalty, no regular last name, just 'Loki of Asgard'?"
"You don't care for 'Your Majesty'? Or 'Mr. Prince'?" Loki asked, stopping near the storage room door and climbing out.
"Mmmm, I'm going to go with no."
Loki looked around the room long enough that Tony thought he wasn't going to get an answer, but eventually Loki faced him again and said, "I suppose she can call me 'Mr. Odinson' then."
"Ohhh, a patronymic, yeah? Very Icelandic of you," Tony said, though Loki's back was already to him, making a beeline for a chair against an otherwise bare wall while Ollie scrutinized the car Loki had gotten out of. "The other Scandinavian countries don't do that anymore, but Iceland's kept up the tradition. A friend of mine in Germany, does a lot of business with Iceland, he says when they run into that rare Icelander who doesn't have a patronymic, they joke that he must be an astard…sorry. No Pig Latin on Asgard, either, I assume." He glanced over toward Morgan, who had hopped out of her car and was lining up toys to run over – she'd grow out of the urge to run things over, too – and paying no attention to them, as best he could tell. "A B-A-S-T-A-R-D."
Loki set down the chair he'd brought back to where they stood and looked up at Tony with a scowl mixed with that oh-so-familiar look of disdain from him.
"It would have been funnier if I hadn't had to stop and explain the punchline."
"I'm not sure it would ever have been funny."
"It's just a joke. No judgement on anybody's actual last name or father."
Loki's glare could insta-freeze a five-alarm fire. Tony allowed himself to shiver when Loki turned around and got Ollie to sit on the chair. The whole exchange was weird. Loki didn't seem the offended-on-behalf-of-others type. Hm. Except when it came to Jane and Ollie. Tony studied Ollie's face again – now fixed on Loki's with those giant eyes, while Loki had the kid pushing his little feet against Papa's hands – but saw the same thing he had the first time he'd taken a good look, back at the playground. Namely, that if you took Loki and Jane and tossed them in a blender, you'd pour out Oliver. No way that kid came from anyone but Loki. And Loki himself…
"Daddy! Come over here!"
"Coming, Pumpkin!" Tony called with a last glance at Loki and Ollie, little Ollie practice-pedaling, Loki murmuring words of praise and encouragement.
Loki, Tony recalled as he got his safety helmet on and climbed into the blue car, was adopted, according to Bruce, who'd heard it straight from Thor. Not at all the same concept, but maybe it made Loki sensitive to any comments related to parentage. Noted, he thought with a mental shrug. Tony didn't have patience for people made of glass, people who couldn't handle a joke. But he wasn't cruel, either. If Loki – who was definitely not made of glass – truly had a raw spot there, then Tony wasn't going to take sandpaper to it.
"Morgan Stark! You're going too fast, slow down so I can catch you!"
"Noooooooo! You can't catch me!"
Faux-chasing Morgan around the workshop, he saw Ollie sitting in the car and Loki working at the helmet strap under the kid's chin with annoyed concentration. Tony looked away and laughed. Loki wouldn't have very many expressions left in his repertoire if annoyance was excised. He wanted to stop and watch, see the look on Ollie's face the first time the kid really got the car moving, but he didn't want to be the cause of a child's discomfort, either, if Ollie didn't want an audience other than his dad.
"Very good, Ollie, that's it. You're doing it. Keep going. You have to keep pushing with your feet to keep it moving."
Tony pedaled in the right direction to get an unobtrusive view and saw Ollie making halting progress while Loki reminded him to keep pushing. When Tony came back from another loop around the worktable a few minutes later, the motion was smoothing out and Loki was doing the clapping.
"Yay, Ollie!" he called. "Look at you go! Morgan, I think Ollie's going to be giving us a run for our money."
"Come on, Ollie, let's race!"
Loki looked every bit the proud papa.
After another few minutes, in which Ollie really got the hang of pedaling, Tony pulled up next to Loki and climbed out. Loki had his phone out filming, and Tony waited until the phone went down. "Recording for posterity?"
"Jane will enjoy watching it."
"So will you."
"Yes, so will I."
"Ready to join in?"
Tony saw Loki change his mind, from an instinctive no – probably due to the source of the invitation – to the yes he said aloud. Tony walked with him back to the storage room, the slapping of little feet on the floor behind them announcing that Ollie was following.
"Come on, people!" Morgan shouted. That one she'd picked up from Mommy.
By the time Tony was holding out a yellow-and-black striped helmet to Loki, Morgan arrived at the door with a dramatic huff. When he looked back at Loki, the helmet was still dangling from his hand by its strap and Loki was making no move to take it. Tony stretched his arm out a little further and gave a pointed look at the helmet.
"I don't need that."
"It sets a good example."
"Ollie understands that I don't need one."
"No helmets on Asgard, either?" Tony asked, the friendliness in his voice becoming more forced. This had all the makings of a battle with a fussy toddler in the midst of an inexplicable meltdown, only the toddler was the tallest person in the room. Sure, he got that Asgardian noggins were hard – both definitions – but there was a Helmet Rule here and for Morgan's sake, Loki didn't get to be exempt, even if Loki didn't care about his own kid's head.
"Papa has a helmet," Ollie was saying while Tony grimaced over his unfair aspersions. The Helmet Rule came from Pepper, and Tony had resisted it at first, too. When he was growing up, nobody wore helmets when biking. But Pepper was insistent, so he'd looked up the statistics and read the studies, and he was all about the Helmet Rule now. He should have grabbed one even when Loki did his trial run, but he'd been too distracted by the novelty.
"You wear your helmet, Papa."
"Wait now, what?" Tony looked from Ollie to Loki to find Loki grinning at him with just a hint of malevolence at the edges of it, a creepy twinkle in the eye. Or maybe just playful. Kuleshov effect, something like that – he was primed to see at least a hint of malevolence in Loki's face in the context of the helmet Tony was thinking of. The helmet that was materializing right now in Loki's hand, like he was pulling it out of some invisible storage area by one of its shiny gold horns. Shinier than before, Tony thought as Loki tipped it onto his head with practiced ease and pulled it down into place. Maybe a touch more elegant and less menacing. Maybe it only seemed that way because Loki was picking Ollie up and Ollie was laughing and grabbing onto the horns. How scary could it be when a four-year-old thought it was funny?
Another four-year-old tugged on his hand. Tony found his little Angel looking from him to Loki and back again. She seemed confused and curious, not scared, thank God.
"Is that a safety helmet?" she asked.
"Well…not for you and me. Maybe for him it is."
"Why?" Morgan asked, then sucked in a breath. "Is it his crown?"
Tony gave Morgan a wide grin and held back on the curse that wanted to burst forth. "Mmmm, how about we just call it a pointy safety helmet?"
"It's not a crown. What's it called, Ollie?"
"Ceremonial helmet."
"That's right. And it is also good for safety."
And that was how Rock of Ages wound up pedaling around in a toy car in black pants and a dark gray wool sweater and a horned golden helmet in Tony's workshop at the garden house. And Tony had a picture to prove it.
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Loki hurried around the raised table toward the commotion, still in the miniature car but ready to spring out if something had happened.
"Ollie, come on! It's safe up here!"
"What's going on?" Loki asked, concern still there but more perplexed at this point. The children had shouted and come running, their cars abandoned on the far side of the workshop; Morgan was now standing on the chair Ollie had used earlier, and Ollie was clambering up onto it, too.
"Papa!" Ollie said, breathing hard, clinging onto Morgan and twisting around her to see him. His eyes were wide with pretend-fear. "The floor's made of lava!"
"Is it! You were wise to get up above it. Am I safe in my car?"
Ollie appeared to contemplate it with a remarkable degree of somberness before nodding. "You're safe. You can turn the lava into…a bunch of worms!"
"Wiggly worms! Wiggly worms! Oh, no, look, the lava's getting higher! We have to get to the table!"
The children worked out a plan to push the chair over closer to the table and using it to help each other climb on top.
"Take it easy on that ankle, Pumpkin," Tony called. "No jumping."
Loki turned his wary eye toward Tony, also still in the pedaled car, a good distance away. No jumping indeed. No falling, either. The table was a little higher than he would like for Ollie to be playing.
"Have you ever had this great idea, pictured the whole thing in your head exactly how it would go, and then just stopped, thought about it, said to yourself, 'Self? That's a really bad idea.' That ever happened to you?"
For an instant, Loki was prepared to ignore this outburst as another of Tony's indecipherable ravings. Then he noticed their positions. If Tony pedaled hard, straight toward him – and if Loki didn't move, perhaps distracted by watching the children – the man would crash directly into Loki's side. Not that Loki would ever be distracted enough for that to happen.
"Only after the fact, I'm afraid."
"You know, it wasn't so long ago I would've said the same."
Still keeping one eye on the children, now contemplating who was going to fly them off of the table to save them from the lava – Thor got the mention there, rather than Loki, but he was past being bothered by such things, mostly – Loki pondered Tony's words. He couldn't help recalling their confrontation in Avengers Tower. It wasn't so long ago, though in some ways in felt like an eternity. Much had changed since then. "I suppose I, too, am speaking more of the past."
Ollie's idea to leap for the light fixtures hanging overhead derailed that train of thought. Instead, Loki leapt from the car – or rather jerked his cramped legs out of it as quickly as he could – and grabbed Ollie, who he had no doubt would have attempted it. Morgan seemed an intrepid child, and would probably have followed right after.
"Papa, be careful! Lava!"
"I'm impervious to it, see? I'm here to rescue you."
"What's impervious?" Morgan asked.
"It means you can't get hurt by it," Tony said, peeling himself out of his own car to join them. "And guess what? Just so happens that I'm impervious to it, too."
"I'm impervious to it!" Morgan called, and jumped.
Loki instantly shifted Ollie to his other side and plucked Morgan from the air before she could hit ground.
Tony was there a breath later; Loki smoothly transferred her over to her father.
"Morgan, what did I just tell you about jumping?"
"I'm impervious to jumping!"
"Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but no, you're not. If I tell you no jumping, you have to listen to me. I don't want you to get hurt."
The argument continued, making Ollie giggle. Morgan, Loki suspected, was a handful. So was Ollie, at times, in his own ways. Erik had told him that when children were headstrong, recalcitrant, and simply difficult, they were often testing their boundaries. Learning about the world, the people in their lives, and themselves. Loki had tried to take that to heart, and to allow Ollie that space to learn, as long as Ollie wasn't trying to learn something Loki didn't want him to.
"I bet you've never been in bumper cars."
Morgan was back on the ground and Ollie was struggling valiantly to get free and join her. Loki wondered if he'd missed anything.
"Bumper cars?" he asked, letting Ollie down.
"Carnival ride? Kind of like these, but they run on electricity. And those are ugly cars. Surrounded by rubber."
"Ah. I see."
"We should go sometime."
"I think Ollie would like that."
Tony laughed. "I was thinking more about a dads' day out."
Loki stared for a moment, then turned his attention to Ollie. He couldn't tell if Tony was serious, joking good-naturedly, or trying to demean him in some unclear way. Better to ignore it than to respond based on an incorrect interpretation and find himself in an uncomfortable position.
"Okay, fine, we can bring the kids."
Briefly, Loki looked back over at Tony and nodded. Vague enough that Tony could interpret that however he liked. But if an actual invitation was forthcoming…Loki thought he would probably say yes. It would be good for Ollie.
-/-
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The next photo on Tony's phone was a group selfie, helmets and all. Tony got Loki's number – the hesitation to give it out was brief, briefer than the hesitation over the group photo, which took Ollie's giant-eyed pleading to overcome – and immediately shared both photos with him.
-/-
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"Did you make the bicycle cars, too?" Loki asked when Tony pulled him aside once Sesame Street was underway. He had assumed they would stay with the children, but Tony – and Morgan – assured him that she knew how to control the television, via the disembodied voice called FRIDAY. They were seated in the kitchen now, Tony with a glass of bourbon in his hand, Loki with a glass of water. The children were not in view, but the indistinct murmur of the television was audible.
"Sure did. Me and the Munchkin make a lot of things together. Good experience for her, good exposure…but also just a lot of fun working with her."
"You want her to be a…an engineer, like you? An inventor?"
Tony shrugged. "That'd be great. But I don't want to get caught up in all that. No pressure, you know? I want to give her every opportunity I can, but what she chooses to do with it, down the line? That's her call. She should be able to follow her own dreams."
"Ideally, yes," Loki said, nodding. It was more complicated than that, but there was no harm in a little idealism when children were so young. "Ollie enjoyed the cars. Thank you for including him. I was thinking I might purchase one for him, the bicycle version, but it's probably just as well they aren't in stores. He would destroy the hotel room with it. He's been a little quiet today, new people and new places, but he's a very active child, and he's not accustomed to such small spaces."
"Small spaces are what you get in the Big Apple, unless you're ready to plunk down some serious change. But you're not necessarily staying there, are you?"
Loki shook his head. "It depends on what position Jane is able to find. Anyone should be happy to have her – she's brilliant. And she's seen things, experienced things, that no other physicist on Earth has. She's made several new discoveries about the lifecycle of stars since being on Asgard, but she hasn't been able to share them with her fellow researchers."
"You don't have researchers on Asgard?"
"Not in the same way. We…understand the nature of the universe in different terms. They don't always mesh well. That's part of what Jane's been focusing on – determining a framework for mutual comprehension to be able to integrate and capitalize on the totality of knowledge among the realms."
"In other words, just a little weekend project, huh?"
"She says it's the work of a lifetime."
"Nice to see an Earth girl make good. How's Ollie taking the idea of the big move?"
Loki gazed in the direction of the living room for a moment, even though he couldn't see Ollie. "I don't think he understands it yet. It's an adventure to him. And we've been here before. Erik has an old family home in a village outside Tønsberg, in Norway. He usually spends August there, every year since Ollie was born, and we stay with him for a few weeks. Ollie doesn't remember much of that, but he knows we came here and then we went home again."
"Ergo, you'll be going home again this time, too."
"Right. And it won't be permanent, we will go home again. When Oliver turns ten, he'll have obligations on Asgard. I technically have obligations on Asgard. But he has to begin training to be named a warrior. At twenty, unless Thor has decided to marry and to start reproducing – not likely to happen so quickly on a typical Asgardian timeline – he will be named second in line to the throne. You can see these are not obligations that can be taken lightly."
Loki slowly drew back; by the time he finished speaking he'd been leaning in over the table, toward Tony on the other side of it. As though trying to persuade Tony. As though it was Tony he needed to persuade. He hoped Tony didn't notice. He'd said far more than was necessary for making polite conversation.
Tony sat there still and silent for a long moment, then slid out of his chair, rummaged in a couple of cabinets, and returned with a couple of small crystal bowls he set in the middle of the table. Pretzels and nuts.
"Who's first then?"
"What?"
"In line to the throne."
"I am," Loki said with a deep frown and a look that informed Tony Stark of how obvious the answer was, and, he hoped, of what he would think of a sarcastic response.
"Huh," Tony said, followed by another long silence. "So Ollie's basically Prince William of Asgard."
"I don't know any William. Ollie is Oliver of Asgard. And I'll thank you to address him as such. No more of this…squirt."
"Woah woah woah woah. So much to unpack. First off, 'squirt' is a totally normal nickname for a kid. I'd call him 'munchkin' but that one's taken. Second…you want me to call him 'Oliver of Asgard'?" Tony asked, affecting an irksome tone.
"'Ollie' will do. Not 'squirt' or any of those other things you were calling him."
"What's got you in such a tizzy? Give me your phone."
"What? No."
"Come on, just give me Jane's number then. I'm going to get her to verify to you there's nothing wrong with calling a kid 'squirt.'"
"No."
"Now you're just being unreasonable. Oh, wait. I guess you're just being you."
Loki gripped the edge of the table, battling the urge to flip it into Tony's face or at least to shove it and walk away.
"Loki…chill out. I would not insult your kid. If it's that important to you…maybe you don't do nicknames at all on Asgard? Then I'll try not to use any nicknames, okay? Can't promise I won't slip up. But I can try."
Loki swallowed hard and released the table, trying to tamp down a rush of embarrassment. Had he overreacted? Yes, it seemed he had. Tony had never displayed even a hint of poor treatment of Ollie.
"I will ask Jane myself," he said, pulling his phone from his pocket. He dashed off a quick text – he liked the ease of this particular technology and had taken to it immediately, but he also understood why Asgard had long ago gotten rid of similar things. If you called, you had no need to visit in person. If you texted, you had no need to call. I love you my darling. Call me when convenient, he typed, then pressed send. Nothing is wrong, he added to forestall any panic.
"Let me guess," Tony said when the phone went back in Loki's pocket. "You and Jane are still trying to figure out how to handle the dual-culture kid thing? She'd rather be here and you'd rather be there?"
Oh, yes, he had overreacted. And Tony recognized it as such, and it drew attention to something Loki would have preferred not to draw attention to, especially with Tony. He was too tense, too on edge, and in too little control of himself. It never fully receded anymore, but that was no excuse for cracking under the weight of it. When he spoke again, he chose his words carefully.
"Jane and I want Ollie to appreciate both realms. To feel a part of both, because he is a part of both."
"Sounds wise. Also sounds like one of those 'easier said than done' gigs."
"It is," Loki said with a slow, wary nod. "The early years are fleeting. He cannot be in two places at once. For now, though, we'll make our home on Midgard."
"But you don't have the rest of the plan all worked out yet."
Loki gave a put-upon sigh that he hoped would end this line of questioning. "No."
"I'm not trying to step in the middle of anything here. My better half and I, we've got some stuff to figure out, too."
"Which foreign language you want Morgan to learn?"
"No. Well, yes. They say you've got to start young with that. I did. And— Okay. Might need to reexamine that one. But Morgan's birthday is in a few weeks. She'll start kindergarten this fall, and we haven't figured out what to do about school. It's already past most of the registration deadlines. You know, technically. But they learn the alphabet in kindergarten. Numbers. How to tie their shoes. Morgan had all that down before she turned three. Okay, sometimes she still gets knots in her shoelaces, but it's not like she gets that much practice. Most kids' shoes these days come with Velcro."
"Is this your usual exaggerated prattle, or is kindergarten really so introductory?" Ollie's birthday was in a little over two months, and he would also be starting school here. Ollie, too, already knew letters and numbers, and could read simple stories. His language skills were advanced for his age, and he often picked up on how something worked remarkably quickly. He'd once watched closely as Jane adjusted one of the telescopes on their balcony, then asked her about it. Ollie was full of questions, and Loki and Jane both tended to treat the questions seriously, even if Ollie wasn't always paying attention to the answer. That time, Ollie had next dragged a chair over to the other telescope, turned the dials, and when Loki went over to see what Ollie was doing – and to make sure he didn't accidentally topple the normally sturdy telescope onto himself – the child had perfectly focused the telescope on the brightest star in the Raven's Head nebula. Ollie had just turned three. Tying shoelaces had never come up – it was a terribly inefficient manner of securing one's footwear, not found on Asgard – but Loki couldn't imagine that Ollie needed to go to formal lessons to learn it.
"It's meant to be introductory. Some parents teach letters and numbers at home, and a lot of kids go to pre-school nowadays, and they learn their letters and numbers there. But some kids are starting from scratch. There are different kinds of schools out there, though. Some of them have an accelerated curriculum, or they don't group the kids strictly based on age or grade. There's also skipping grades."
"Beginning with first grade instead of kindergarten?"
"Or second. Or whatever level you're assessed at. I did private schools, skipped a lot of grades along the way. Went to college at 14. The typical age for that is 18."
"Yes, after high school. Jane has explained the usual path followed here."
Tony picked up a couple of nuts, popped one in his mouth. "Comes at a cost, though. I don't know if I want that for her, assuming things come to her as easily as they did to me, or even easier. And she's not exactly equipped to make an informed decision about it, not this young."
"Are you and Pepper in disagreement about the best option?"
"No. Well…not the way you mean. We keep changing our minds, like fighters dancing around each other in the ring. It's like we disagree more with ourselves than with each other, and keep changing each other's minds." He paused to shrug and chew on another nut. "Neither of us shrinks from a good argument."
Loki's other questions about these educational options – which Jane had said they would need to discuss once they had settled on a place to live – faded away as Tony's last comment captured his attention. The same used to be true of him. Of him and Jane both. And make-up sex, as Jane put it, really was the best. For months now, though, he'd been wary of arguments. Watched his tongue carefully. Given in more easily. Thinking about it unsettled him, so he focused instead on the sounds of shout-singing – Ollie and Morgan both – from the living room.
"I believe they're currently making a thorough review of the letter C."
Tony cast a glance toward the living room. "Oh, yeah. The Cookie Monster song. C is for Cookie. Oh, hey! Great time to put some cookies on," Tony said, hopping up from his chair. "You need anything? Cashews and pretzels not doing it? We've got some ham if you want to throw a sandwich together."
"Thank you, no. You bake?"
"Cookies are the kindergarten of baking. Especially when the dough happens to be pre-made. Pre-school baking. FRIDAY, are you preheating that oven?" Tony asked as he pulled a package from the freezer.
"As soon as you mentioned cookies, boss."
"Do you not find that annoying?"
"What, FRIDAY? Watch it, buddy. Don't hurt her feelings. She'll give you scalding water when you wash your hands. Nope, don't ask. Just a joke. FRIDAY doesn't engage in child abuse. Not even adult abuse."
Loki ignored Tony. He would have wondered, but he wouldn't have asked. And he would still supervise when Ollie washed his hands here. "I apologize, FRIDAY," he said, just in case. Asgard had also long ago abandoned this kind of autonomous artificial intelligence, for good reason.
"The oven is ready. And don't worry, Mr. Odinson. Your hands are safe with me, as are little Ollie's. Tony's sense of humor is sometimes terribly inappropriate."
"Traitor. That's what makes it funny," Tony said, slipping a tray of sliced cookie dough into the oven.
Loki pulled his vibrating phone from his pocket. A glance at the screen confirmed what he already knew, that it was Jane. Only two people had this number: Jane and Erik. And Erik wasn't likely to call him. Not during the day, anyway. The man had been doggedly calling him every evening at around 7. Loki did his best to go along with it, to engage politely out of respect – and a giant dose of guilt he still didn't quite know what to do with – but he would never fully understand it.
Loki grimaced as he swiped at the screen to answer the call. Three people knew this number now.
"Jane, hello," he said, lifting his chin toward the exterior door next to the refrigerator. He wasn't going to talk with Jane while Tony listened in.
Tony waved his hand in the door's general direction and Loki hurried toward it.
"Have your meetings gone well?"
The door closed, and Tony leaned against the counter for a moment. That had been downright amicable. No kids around forcing them to be civil, not even a flying metal tube forcing them into close quarters. Loki could have disappeared out that door any time he wanted to. Or, more likely, he suspected, had Loki wanted to avoid conversation, the guy could have insisted on staying at Ollie's side and watching TV. So, yeah. They'd chatted. Like dad bros. Except for that one moment when Loki's hackles shot up out of nowhere over innocent nicknames. Maybe Loki was just an uptight kind of guy with a giant stick up the old posterior that wasn't coming out without major surgery. Except that didn't jibe with Loki strutting around, singing and dancing for Ollie, without an ounce of visible shame. Whatever. It wasn't like Loki had ever really made sense.
"FRIDAY, get those videos rendered for me with encryption protocol Black Box. The Halloween one I pulled up a few hours ago, and the one of Loki making his Broadway debut for Ollie on the jet. Edit the camera feeds together for that one. Make maximum saccharine the top priority, with maximum embarrassment in a solid second place."
"On it, boss."
The living room had gone quiet again; Tony figured he'd see if they were still watching Sesame Street and find out who was up for milk and cookies.
"Hey, kids, I heard you singing about something that starts with…."
Tony stopped cold, far enough into the living room that he could see over the couch to the yellow playmat on the floor beyond, not quite able to process what met his eyes there. With Big Bird's face frozen in the background, Morgan was up on her knees, poking…an indigo-blue child who was wearing Ollie's clothes and looked exactly like Ollie except for the indigo blue skin and the huge red eyes and the lack of hair and the darker marks on his forehead and maybe a slight oddness in the shape of his head. And then there was the rank fear on his face.
-/-
Notes
Mmmm yah a bit of a tonal shift arrives. This chapter and what follows was originally envisioned as that kind of "addendum" stuff not so directly connected to the first part of the story, perhaps an "a week later" kind of thing. Then it got connected. And expanded. Because, well, you know. :-) The next chapter is already written BTW.
Merry Christmas! I hope this gave you some smiles.
