All Previous Disclaimers Apply

A/N: This is it. This is the end. I wasn't sure I'd ever get there. I hope you like it.

"Seriously?" Logan couldn't help the groan that came out as he was jerked rudely out of his light sleep by the perimeter alarms going off throughout the mansion. He'd only just come to bed, having one of his now rare bad nights, and he'd finally been relaxing into sleep, curled around his husband's warm body. And then, the alarms? The alarms that hadn't actually gone off for months? All of the sudden they just had to go off? He growled from deep in his throat as Steve came awake all at once and pulled away so that he could look out of the window. What he saw had a smile come across his face, and Logan felt like pouting to see the brilliant look across his husband's face that he hadn't put there, especially when he was sleep deprived. Steve looked back at him as he pulled on a pair of sweats that hung low on his hips and had the audacity to laugh at the look on his face. He leaned over the bed and pressed a hard, happy kiss to Logan's lips before cupping his face in his hands.

"Don't pout," Steve said brightly, making Logan want to shut him up, "It's Thor. Let's go see what he needs, hmm?"

"Fine."

He forced himself out of the bed and into a pair of sweats of his own before he took Steve's hand and they made their way out of their room and through the mansion. He was happy to see that the mansion safety and evacuation protocols that he and Steve had put into place just the last couple of months were being followed to the letter. The kids were in single file, heading down to the Danger Room, older ones helping younger ones, everyone with a partner so that no one was forgotten. They kept to one side in case an X-Man or two had to get out of the mansion quickly to protect them. Kurt was standing at the stairs that led to the lower levels, Eowyn and Arwen huddled behind him, as he marked every child safe as they passed him. He spotted Jubilee, in her protective gear, heading to the front door.

"Three minutes," Steve murmured when they made it to the front door themselves and heard the door to the lower levels shut finally, meaning that all of the kids, all of the protectors, were in the lower levels, prepared to evacuate if need be, "Not bad."

"Should be half that long," Logan grumped at him. Sue him, he wanted sleep. Knowing that it was Steve's friend who had set off the alarms and awoken him from it for no apparent reason was pissing him off. Just as he was about to growl at Steve again, because no one should be so excited to be woken up in the middle of the night, the alarm was turned off and Charles' voice was a gentle, sleepy sound in all of their heads.

It appears we have a visitor from Asgard. Good on all of you for following the correct procedures for safety, but if everyone would like to make their way back to their beds, it is certainly safe. Steven, if you would like to see what we owe the honor to? I'll put on the kettle.

Logan was satisfied to feel the same annoyance in Chuck's words that he was feeling, though perhaps not as sharp. Steve smiled at him and took his hand before pushing the front door open and dragging him behind him. The air was pleasantly cool and fresh considering how hot the day had been, and the dew on the grass actually felt good against his bare feet, though he wouldn't tell Steve that, as they made their way to Thor where he stood in the middle of the Bifrost scar on the grass, not moving. The moonlight accented the scars on Steve's body, corded skin where the broken metal had nearly taken his husband from him just a few short months before. His recovery had been long and hard, especially considering how easily he had always healed before, and Logan had been grateful for every single minute of it. Because, even when it was hard, if his husband was doing physical therapy, if he was cursing up a blue streak because he was hurting, even if he was throwing something across the room because he was so frustrated with how slow things were moving, it all meant that he was still there, still with them. The minutes that Logan had held him in his arms, all of his senses telling him that Steve was dead, had been the worst of his very long life. He'd felt like his very soul had been rend open. He'd never known a pain so sharp and deep.

When they'd gotten on the Quinjet heading to Avenger's Tower and Wanda Maximoff, bless her very name, had told him that Steve was still just barely alive, he'd almost kissed her. It had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do to let the doctors, Helen Cho among them, do their work. All he'd wanted was to hold some part of Steve, assure himself that he was still with him. Instead he'd just stood outside the room, looking in through the observation window as they worked, not moving. He didn't realize it until hours later, but Bucky Barnes had stood the vigil with him the entire time. When Helen had finally come out of the room, an exhausted and satisfied smile on her face, Bucky had clapped him on the shoulder companionably and left to take a shower. It had woken him up and he'd nearly collapsed himself, letting Helen lead him like a puppy to a chair beside Steve's bed.

Steve had spent weeks in Avenger's Tower recovering, but so had many of the other heroes who had put their lives on the line defending the Earth against Thanos. Doctors had come from all over the world, as had healers from Asgard, all of them with the aim to help those who had stopped the Mad Titan. It was with their help that the wounded were made as whole as possible. Clint would never be able to walk without a cane, but at least he was walking. And if Peter had occasional aphasia at least he wasn't a vegetable lying in a bed. And if Steve had scars marring what had been a nearly perfect body, at least it reminded both him and Logan that they were still mortal, despite their capabilities, and that they had to love each other hard and appreciate every minute they had together.

Even when Steve was seriously annoyingly happy to see the friend he hadn't seen since the battle.

"Thor!" Steve called out happily, raising his free hand in greeting to the Asgardian prince.

"Steven," Thor called back. Logan could see that he was trying to smile, but there were tear tracks down his face and the expression didn't quite make it to his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked right away.

"My heart is heavy tonight," Thor responded, before he took Steve in his arms in a crushing hug, "And yet, it is a joy to see you well, friend. I feared the worst at battle's end."

"It's good to see you, too," Steve returned the hug, trying to provide Thor some comfort, Logan knew, even if he didn't know what the comfort was for as of yet.

"Friend Logan," Thor nodded at Logan in acknowledgement and Logan nodded back, "I am afraid I come with a request for something I truly have no right to ask you for."

"What's going on?" Logan asked, crossing his arms, feeling defensive already. If there was some kind of war happening on Asgard or in another one of the realms Thor had better not have brought it to their door. Logan would kill him before he ever let Steve back onto the battlefield again.

"You remember, I'm certain, my brother."

"Who could forget him, bub?"

"James," Steve's voice was a warning, then gentled when he turned back to Thor, "Of course. How is he?"

"Loki is dead. He passed on to Valhalla not yet a day past."

"I'm sorry, Thor," Steve put his hand on Thor's broad shoulder, "Loki was always a hard one to pin down. He spent so much time trying to convince us all that he was irredeemable, and then turned around and saved us all. I know, despite everything, that you always loved him."

"Yes," Thor was unashamed of the tears that were rolling down his face, "Despite it all, he was my brother and I loved him fiercely. Not just in the battle, but in the time before, he had redeemed himself in my eyes and the eyes of my parents. He'd been living in the palace again. He'd even…He'd finally allowed himself to love, the same love he'd turned away as a young man before he began down the path of wickedness that you saw him on. They were betrothed to be married. And then, his betrothed was killed in the battle against Thanos. It was his death that spurred Loki himself to join the fight. He was almost lost to us that day, his magic broken as his body. But, he held on, keeping himself alive for a secret."

"A secret?" Logan asked, he'd long since uncrossed his arms, feeling more open to what Thor was trying to tell them in the face of the man's overwhelming grief.

"Loki was with child. The child of his beloved. He used the last of his strength, the last of his magic, to keep his failing body alive just long enough to birth the babe. He held him for but a moment, kissed him, named him, and then he was gone."

"Thor," Steve wrapped his arms around the bigger man and held him as he sobbed like a child, "I'm so sorry."

It took quite some time before Thor was prepared to speak again, but when he was he looked up at them with something like hope in his eyes.

"And here is what I would ask of you." He pulled away and then his voice was uncertain in a way it rarely was, "Despite the acceptance Loki found in his last days in our family, and many Aesir, there were still some, still are some, that felt he needed to be punished, and they would see punishment for Loki's misdeeds visited upon his babe."

"That's barbaric," Steve spat out, the words like venom in his mouth.

"The Aesir are a long-lived and unforgiving people," Thor admitted with a shrug, "My mother, my father, my bride, and I would not see the babe punished all his life long, by either physical punishment or the shunning that the Aesir would treat him to even if my father declared Loki's deeds forgiven and forgotten. But, he will need parents who can handle a child half Aesier and half Jotun. I…I ask nothing less of you, friends, than you take my brother's babe as your own and raise him to be as strong and good as you yourselves are."

Logan could hear the way Steve's breath caught, and took his husband's hand as Steve forced the words out, "You want us to adopt your brother's baby?"

"I do."

Steve turned back to Logan and he could see the hope in Steve's eyes, the want, and already so much love for a child that neither of them had seen. He could almost see Steve's thoughts as they flew through his mind. He wanted the baby. He wanted to help the baby that no one wanted, but he was sure that Logan was going to deny him, to want him as little as the Aesir. Not because he felt Logan was heartless, no not at all, but because Logan had a hard time forgiving, sometimes even child. He wasn't sure what Steve could see in his eyes, but he knew what was in his heart, what was rising in his chest. He turned to Thor with a hard expression.

"If we do this, Thor," He could hardly get the words out around the emotion in his chest and throat, "Then, the baby is ours. You can't change your mind. You can't take him back. He'd be ours in every way and we'd go to war for him."

Logan could hear the relief from Steve in the way he let his breath out, shaky and proud of Logan. He stood up to his tallest and moved to stand by Logan, a united front.

"Yes," Thor nodded, "This I know. I would never…as much as I wish I could raise the babe as my own, I know that he will never have the happiest of lives that you can provide him, if he remains in Asgard. I agree to your terms. I swear it on my brother's soul, on my right to wield Mjolnir and on The Norns themselves."

They were all somber as they shook hands. As soon as their hands dropped, the Bifrost burned another scar into the lawn. Logan absently heard the alarms in the mansion going off again, but found that he couldn't focus on them when the Lady Sif, surrounded by Asgardian wares, things that looked like baby clothing, a cradle, and golden statuettes and closed trunks came into sight as the light faded. In her arms she held a small bundle. Logan could just hear the soft cry of a newborn as she made her way to Thor, the tears on her face as unashamed as Thor's own. Thor nodded at her, and she stepped forward to lay the baby in Steve's arms, then took a step back and to Thor's side. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her hair, not turning his face back for a few moments until his emotions were once again in check.

Logan wrapped an arm around Steve's waist so that they could look at the baby together. He'd stopped crying almost as soon as he'd been laid in Steve's arms and was lying content, not quite sleeping, but simply looking, relaxed, his eyes unfocused, like all newborns. They were red, a Jotun's eyes, but his skin was pale as Loki's Aesir form, and his hair was as blonde as Steve's. He was gorgeous. Logan leaned down and scented him, gently taking his scent into his heart, never to forget it. He smelled as most babies did, soft and sweet, but there was an undercurrent of ice, probably from the Jotun side of his heritage. He pressed a kiss to the baby's head and leaned back to allow Steve to do the same.

"What's his name?" Steve asked quietly, in awe of the baby in his arms.

"Fandral," Sif answered, her voice loving and sad, "Loki named him after his sire."

"Fandral Lokisson Rogers," Logan murmured to Steve, though he knew that Thor and Sif could hear him.

"Fandral Lokisson Rogers," Steve murmured back and his smile was as bright as the sun.

"What's…" Logan had to turn away and clear the emotion from his throat before he shamed himself, motioning to the things that had come with Sif, "What's all this?"

"Gifts from his grandparents, and other Aesir who are not so unforgiving," Sif answered.

"We shall make our farewells," Thor said suddenly, as if tearing the words right from his heart.

"Hey, no…" Steve gently handed the baby over to Logan and went to wrap an arm around his friend's shoulder, "Thor, just because we're his parents doesn't mean that we don't want you, and your parents and Fandral's parents, if they want, to be part of his life. It would be cruel to deny you rights to see him when you're all giving him up to keep him safe. Seriously. You…you're all family. Please stay a while. Meet our other kids. The twins and Jubilee and Kurt. Give yourself some time with him. Give yourself some time to grieve. Asgard must be hard right now."

Logan had never thought that he would see the god of thunder look defeated and tired, but that was exactly what he looked like as his finally let himself stop being so strong. His shoulders curled in and he allowed his face to show his grief and exhaustion fully for the first time.

"I…" He looked over at Sif, "We…would like that. Very much."

"Then, come on. Charles just put the kettle on. You can have a mug of tea, maybe a nice shower, and then have some sleep."

"Thank you, friends," Sif answered when Thor could not, "Come, my love. We will take some rest and allow our hearts to hurt so that they may heal, hmm?"

"Yes." Thor agreed and the couple began moving toward the mansion.

Steve came up beside Logan again and couldn't help but run a finger down the baby's smooth cheek. The baby had already fallen back asleep and didn't react at all.

"God, he's beautiful," Steve whispered.

"Yeah, he is," Logan agreed, "You want to grab that cradle? Let's get this little one inside, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve kissed him then, soft and gentle, the type of kiss they gave each other when there just weren't words for how much they were loving each other at that moment.

And as they walked back into the mansion, their new son with them, their other children waiting for them in the doorway, no other words were needed.