Reparations

by Dendrite Blues

Tony isn't going to fuck the God of Lies. He isn't. It would be a terrible, awful, super-bad-wrong decision. Loki is a war criminal with a weird nose. He's bony, awkward, and unrepentant. Nothing redeeming about him. But Tony is drunk at ten in the morning, so none of that stuff matters. A developing relationship kidfic with action and canon-divergent fix-it elements.

23. Christmas, 2043

Christmas in prison is just another day. The charity workers try, bless their optimistic little hearts, but it's a lost cause. Despite the dollar store tinsel and the cookies that arrive cracked in half from an obligatory drug screening, it's the same drab cinder block building with the same shady characters inside.

Most of the inner city crooks only get to see their crack babies during the holidays, so when the cute little urchins go home the guys always look a strange mix of unburdened and miserable. Worse off are the twenty-five to lifers who don't get visitors at all aside from the occasional bleeding heart liberal looking to ease their white guilt.

Tony can't say he blames the families. His own visits make him feel like pond scum and everytime he swears he won't put them through it again, but he's too selfish. He can't bear to not see the monsters, even if the guards give them nightmares and the prison staff make jokes about apples not falling far from trees.

Needless to say, he isn't fond of the holidays. He hates the fake cheer and the Santa hats and the unwelcome memories of his last day with the rugrats. The candy and cigarettes that get passed around are cold comfort in the freezing conditions of the cell block, and the one night of decent food donated by the local Catholic church only highlights how inhumane their usual meals are.

Not to mention the month long loop of sappy Christmas movies in the rec room, the morals of which are inevitably 'isn't it awesome to eat delicious home-made food in our lovely suburban homes surrounded by people who love us while you sorry bastards rot in a smelly, overcrowded, roach-infested cage?'

But this year is going to be different. He's not going to get high off his celly's marijuana like last year (terrible), or get drunk on prison hooch like the year before that (worse), or lock himself alone in his bunk mourning Pepper like the year before that (the absolute worst).

He's young, he's got people that love him, and he has a long life ahead of him when he gets out. Compared to most of the maniacs that share his block, he's got no reason to feel sorry for himself. Within the considerable limits of the prison system, he's going all out.

Step one takes about a week of monopolizing the payphone, but eventually he finds a New York City travel agent who's overeducated and underpaid enough to answer his call, even though it starts with a charming introduction from the Sokovian Department of Corrections.

From there it's not too hard to arrange a family cruise across the Mediterranean, mostly because the agent knows he's not going to pay for the $280 collect call unless she takes his business. Paying the bill without a credit card would be dicey under normal circumstances, but Tony has a photographic memory and a creeping suspicion that Loki hasn't changed his PIN in twenty-seven years.

He's right, of course, which is both a godsend and a troubling indication of Loki's failure to grasp the intricacies of digital security. He has the tickets delivered by a singing messenger on Thanksgiving, and then there's nothing to do but wait. And wait. And wait.

After a week goes by with no word, he gets concerned. After two he gets an ulcer. After three he gets the Malibu answering machine.

"You've reached the Stark household," Loki's cool recorded voice drawls, "Piss off."

Tony hangs up too hard, and sighs when the handset comes away cracked. That's coming out of his charge account, no doubt. They'll probably take twice what it's worth and pocket the rest while they're at it. Grinding his teeth he swipes his ID again and dials Loki's cell, knowing the inbox is full and deciding to try anyway. The usual minute and a half of dial tones passes, and then the long drone of a voicemail box.

"This is the Law Auspices of Loki Liesmith. Please be advised that we are not taking new cases at this time. Clients may use my private number in case of emergency, everybody else piss off."

Loki screens his calls at work, the pre-recorded message isn't necessarily a bad sign.

"Babe?" he scans the mold-stained ceiling and grimey windows of the call center. "It's me. Just wondering how you're doing. Hoping I might catch you...Guess I'll try tomorrow. Hug the brats for me."

He stays on the line a long time. Holding his breath, unable to hang up. Static buzzes in the ear piece. His stomach twists itself in knots and tells himself not to be disappointed. Another few seconds pass and the line goes dead.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he slumps forward and sets the handset in the cradle. A niggling paranoia eats at his calm, but he has to move along. There's a line of guys waiting in the hall, one or two heckling him with indistinct insults, and he knows he has to vacate the telephone if he doesn't want to start shit with the gangbangers.

When he gets to his cell it is regrettably occupied.

"Hey, brotha." his cellmate greets, picking lint out of his belly button with a pair of tweezers improvised from an apple sauce lid and a rubber band. Tony tries not to throw up in his mouth as he sheds his sweater and throws it over the top of the toilet.

Andre Jasha is what the warden calls an at risk youth. 'At risk' meaning, in his experience, an unfortunate combination of incurably stupid and childishly gullible. Despite his intimidating frame and love of death metal, Jasha is about as threatening as a rabbit in a baby stroller. Hence ttheir cohabitation. Apparently nobody else on the block could be trusted to bunk the baby-faced pacifist without murder-izing him, sodomizing him, or both. On days like this, he can see why.

Observing his celly's dubious dexterity, Tony rubs at the dry skin under his beard.

"Can you not do that in the bed?"

"Do what?"

"That, chuckle fuck." Tony waves at the tweezers and the lint. "We talked about this."`

"Well where else am I s'pposed to do it? I can't go out in the yard with this." Jasha says in his bizarrely accented English, waving the pair of tweezers in the air. He apparently did two terms at NYU, and it shows. He talks like an announcer at Eurovision that occasionally sprinkles in Harlem hood slang so he can sound more hip and metropolitan.

"These." Tony corrects on rote.

"Who shit in your soup, Princeton?"Jasha snorts a laugh through his perpetually clogged nose.

Tony has to take a deep breath to keep it together. That stupid nickname gets him every time.

He didn't even go to Princeton, but these Europeans don't know New Jersey from their assholes. They love to laugh at Tony's fuzzy European geography, but if he ever bothered to ask he's sure none of them could name a state other than Texas, California, or New York. Regardless, the geniuses of Kryonopich Federal Prison seem to have unanimously decided to stick him with that stupid moniker, and there's sadly no appeals process for prison logic.

"I dunno, Pork Chop, it's Christmas Eve. Who do you think shat in my fucking soup?" Tony holds his arms out as far as the four foot room allows and indicates the prison industrial complex at large. Maybe he's being dramatic, but fuck he was supposed to be happy today. He traded eighty ramen noodles for the phone time to arrange the trip and Loki couldn't even be bothered to write a letter.

"Trouble with the missus." Jasha nods sagely.

Tony slaps his face and groans. Trust a complete idiot to somehow cut right through his bullshit and touch the nerve.

"Wanna blunt? I got a couple left from Easter."

"Eh, I'm on a sobriety kick. Search me why." he grumbles, and feels kind of silly for throwing a fit when he knows Jasha won't take the bait. That's the nice part about celling with him. No matter how pissed off or cranky the noise and the crowds make Tony, Jasha's a doper not a fighter.

Plus he's categorically better than Tony's first cellmate Vlad the Impounder. He'd been a insurance frauder that enjoyed long walks in the yard, pulling out random people's hair, and cockroach racing. After him it was Miles the Rapist, who was actively terrifying and regularly invited the skinheads next door over for poker and white supremacy. So yeah, Jasha's not so bad.

"I got a line from my girl in the mail?"

"Just...leave me alone." Tony grunts, leaning on the wall.

"Yo, you shouldn't bottle that up, man. My counsellor says its bad to do that. She said emotions build up like a balloon inside. It gets bigger and bigger until one day–" Jasha mimes and explosion with his hands. "Pop. Jail time."

"I'll take that under consideration."

"I thought your boy was magic and shit."

"Not the right kind of magic." Tony rubs his eyes and sighs. "I'm sure it's my fault, somehow. He has a secret fear of seagulls or...fuck I don't know. Five hundred years ago somebody called him a nerd in Greece and now he hates the Mediterranean, and obviously I should have known that. Because I have to be psychic and read his mind all the time."

"He said that?"

"No! You know why? Cause he hasn't said anything in three goddamn weeks."

"Woah, he put you in the freezer?"

"Sure, let's call it that. Why the fuck not? Yes, I am in the goddamn freezer and I don't know why."

"Were you like...cool before?"

"Yes, we were–"

"Nah, nah, not cool as in cool. Cool as in cool." Jasha grabs his crotch and shakes it for emphasis.

"No comment." Tony says automatically, because it's nobody's business. But also because...maybe.

They've been on perfunctory hello-dear-how-was-your-week handjobs for a while. He was kind of hoping the trip would fix that.

Even before the three week silence Loki seemed distracted. Preoccupied by a 'challenging case' as he'd called it, a final appeal for a special client. Someone high profile enough that he couldn't give Tony a name, only the assurance that it was urgent. Months of meetings flicker through his head, memories turned inside out and examined with newly suspicious eyes.

He grips the rim of the stainless steel sink, feeling nauseous.

Jasha sits up in a rush, dim eyes wide and inspired.

"Dude, he's cheating on you."

"What the fuck, J, you can't just tell a guy that!"

"I'm just sayin' what we was both thinkin'."

"I was not thinking that."

Now he is though. Now he's thinking very vividly about it. Flopping on the bottom bunk, he pulls at his hair and pointedly avoids looking at the photos taped to the wall.

"Whatever, Princeton. Yo, did you hear? I was talking to the Armenians this morning, and they was saying that the dudes in the computer lab said–"

"I will give you my pudding cup for a week if you shut up."

"No need to get agitated…" Jasha mumbles.

"Two weeks. Two weeks of pudding if you don't say another word the rest of the day."

Beautiful, blessed silence reigns with the exception of the constant noise from outside. Bars clanking and men shouting at each other, boots thudding on concrete and the distinctive laugh of Kazimir the Uzbek all the way down in C block.

Tony soaks up the relative quiet and lays face down, fighting his own mental images of Loki doing stuff with other people. He wraps his hand around the brand on his wrist and feels like utter trash for doubting.

Logically he knows Loki would never, could never want someone else. But twenty seven years is a long damn time. And the shameful truth is Tony's not sure he could make it that long either. If it were Loki in here and him on the outside with the whole world clamoring for his attention...he can't say for sure that he wouldn't slip up.

"That's a low blow man, cheating on a guy in the pen." Jasha mumbles.

"He is not cheating." Tony growls.

"Yo, I feel for ya, dude. It's like my girl used to say when she was throwin' my shit out the window," Jasha puts on a pitchy imitation that sounds alarmingly like Nicki Minaj "Get the fuck out my house Andre, you nasty piece of shit! I'm done with your lazy ass and your stinky feet and your fat fucking pig dick!'"

Tony doubts Jasha's girl complimented his endowment while dumping him, but he opts to keep that to himself.

Laying on his stomach, he ignores the ongoing second-hand tirade and tries to forget where he is. And where Loki isn't. And what Loki isn't doing there. In some five star hotel billed on Tony's rewards card. Dolled up in his skimpy black dress and his fuck-me-daddy heels under some eight-pack film star.

"Bitches, man." his cellmate sighs, and the bed shakes again with what Tony assumes is Jasha scratching his excessively fat ass. "She was right though, dudes is nasty. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm doing. Like this one time I was home alone and, like, super horny. So I went to the fridge and, like, I dunno what I was thinking man, but I totally fucked a keish. You know the egg pie things? With like, ham and spinach and stuff? And man, Google lied, man. It didn't feel like a pussy at all."

"Alright, that's it," Tony says, deciding he'll take his chances with the Turks and the Soviets, "That's all the hood wisdom I can take."

"See you at lock up, brotha."

"Merry fucking Christmas." Tony grunts. He stomps out into the common area, wishing he could slam a cell door without putting the whole ward on lockdown.

"Lemme know when you want that blunt!"

Class act, that guy.

At a loss for what to do, he heads for Little Heaven. Some alone time will do him good, even if he might have to bleach his brain to get it. Guys with seniority like him have a schedule, regular times blocked out via bribes to the right people. For everyone else it's a free-for-all.

His slot is Friday at fourteen hundred, but right now it's Thursday, sixteen hundred. Not a reserved time as far as he knows. He holds his grip on the door handle and prepares to witness something ungodly.

Eeny, meany, miney...ew.

"Stark?" Vasiliev gasps, pulling up his regulation pleat front slacks. Dvořák tries to hide his face like it's news that he's a guard-fucking snitch. It would be a precarious situation to witness, except that Loki got twenty years hacked off of Dvořák's sentence five years ago, and Vasiliev has a complaint record redder than Iron Man.

"Gee, what a nice empty room." Tony says in his accented Sokovian. He taps his fingers mildly on the door knob, and in a couple seconds it really is nice and empty. Happy fucking New Year.

A ten gallon tub is turned upside down on the floor and he sits, leaning back against the steel shelving and pulling the door shut behind him.

The darkness of the closet isn't so different from the darkness of space or the darkness of the void or the darkness of death, and it's all so pointless without Loki.

He grips the band of runes on his wrist while his resolve crumbles. He has to do something. Steal a uniform, fake an illness, maybe jump in the dumpster and slip out with the garbage. Terrible ideas, all of them, but he's weak and today was supposed to be different.

Loki was supposed to pick up the phone three weeks ago and be completely smitten. Two weeks ago they were supposed to sneak into this closet and suck face like teenagers. Last week he should have gotten a letter about all the things they'll do once he's out, all the places they'll go together and how disgustingly in love they'll be.

Tonight, tonight he was supposed to be complacent, sullen but pacified by the knowledge that he'd given his family something precious. Time together. Memories to share.

He thinks about it until his hands are white from the pressure of his grip and his legs are bouncing restlessly on the tile floor. Fragments of a plan arrange themselves in his head. The clinic is connected to the processing center, it would get him past one layer of security. Svebona in laundry owes him a favor, if he hurries he can collect before dinner.

Immortal or not, his organs are human. A couple mouthfuls of borax ought to earn him a hospital stay, and once they pump his stomach he'll probably survive. From there he can pull his best Thor impression and try his luck at the outer gates.

Processing has some big boys for guards, but he could take them. He's fought alien armies, he can handle Yovchek the chain smoking ex-bouncer. Then the dinner bell rings, and reality descends like a wet blanket.

Leaving prison means being a fugitive. It would mean uprooting the kids, and Loki abandoning his practice. His clients would be shit out of luck, and there are a lot of them. Hundreds at this point, most of them innocent or at least over charged.

None of those guys could just suplex the doorman and walk out of their unfair sentences, and there's no way in hell they'd find another lawyer as good and affordable as Loki.

Hands in his pockets, he shuffles to the cafeteria like a good little convict. He sits at his usual spot in the corner and waits for Baird to get his tray. Chained and domesticated, the phrase haunts him. A premonition.

Playing his part every hour of every day makes him feel like a trained monkey. Down boy, sit. Stay. Good boy. Now go play macho in the yard before the Slavs think you're weak. Be good Tony, bench press those picnic tables so they know they can't fuck with your boys.

His charges filter in from the lunch line and make their offerings of moldy bread and ramen noodle seasoning. He accepts them numbly, his mind wandering back to Loki like it always does.

Prison amplifies the impulse, but realistically he's been obsessed since the moment he stood at his bar with a petit four in his hand and realized he'd rather remember Loki's words in the morning.

Tuning out the shouting of the other men, he picks at his Christmas dinner and tries to think of the good times. Loki had a moment like that, didn't he? Surely he did.

Somewhere in between thinking too much and not thinking at all, surely there was a moment where Loki just wanted to be with him in that surprising and uncomplicated way. Maybe he'll write a letter and ask. Loki always did better with letters.

A commotion breaks up his reverie, and his gut sinks when a trio of guards beat a path for his table. They've got handcuffs, and the warden follows them at a clip. Cuffs mean transfers. Nobody gets transferred on holidays, it requires too much staff. Only a security risk would instigate a transfer today, and it would have to be pretty fucking serious for them to do it right here in the chow hall.

Scanning the line of grim faced men at his table, he feels the blood drain from his face. They're as confused as he is, not one guilty twitch in the lineup. Fuck, did Vasiliev report him? He really thought Dvořák's debt would cover him.

"Everybody down." the warden orders, and the room fills with the clatter of plastic spoons on trays as the inmates hurry to comply.

Mouthing off to guards is one thing, but nobody fucks with the warden. He's the definition of humorless. A dedicated servant of the bottom line, and always eager to ship problem cases off to the supermax next door.

The building in general is cold, but the floor is cold enough to frost glass. It's also covered in a layer of soap scum that would kill lesser beings. The goon squad pick their way over the now occupied floor, and for a scant second Tony convinces himself they aren't here for him, it's just his paranoia again. Then the warden taps his toe on Tony's boot.

"He's the one."

Cold hands drag him up and shove his hands in the cuffs. He can feel the eyes of four hundred inmates press at his shoulders as the guards shove him over bodies and around tables. The fluttering panic of a foregone conclusion sets his pulse climbing, but he doesn't react, doesn't crack.

"What did I allegedly do?"

The warden doesn't answer, leading them across the guard station and through the metal detectors to the rotunda were the three cell blocks meet. To his abject terror, they take the generally unacknowledged fourth option—the south hallway that leads to medical, processing, and the visitation rooms.

"Are there any possessions you want retrieved from your cell?"

"Where am I going?"

"Yes or no?"

"My pictures, I guess. The TV."

The warden nods to one guard and he splits off toward A block. The rest of them go left, into the clinic. Fuck, it must be solitary. They don't do physicals for moves within the facility. A check up means he's going down the road. Vasiliev must have dunked him, must have exaggerated his attitude or made up something crazy to get him gone.

The whole point of Little Heaven is the lack of cameras, so there won't be any records to defend himself with. It's the guards word against his. Assuming Loki isn't already mad about something, he will be now.

Having his status downgraded from maximum security to high represented years of work on Loki's part, on top of the law degree he finished in record time when he decided Tony's counsel wasn't good enough.

Going back means a return to isolation, to meals delivered through his door on metal trays, and visitors seen only from opposite sides of glass so scratched he can barely see through. All that work just so Tony could throw a tantrum and get himself sent back.

"I didn't do anything." he sighs, knowing it won't matter. These people only hear what they want to hear.

The exam is perfunctory, they don't know how his body works anyway. Just a formality. A minimal attempt at disease control. Then they are off to the commissary, where they need his signature for some reason, and then the councillor, chaplain, laundry, bathroom. Everyone gets a piece and a signature and in a blur of people and paperwork he's deposited on a bench in processing, dazed and stripped to his tighty-whities.

Maria the processing officer doesn't make him wait. She has a softer hand than most, maybe because she receives visitors and lawyers as well as sorry bastards like him. She's one of the only women in the prison and a safe bet at six feet eight inches.

The warmth and smoothness of her hand gives him tingles when she takes his fingerprints, and his neck prickles with shame. Here he is working himself into a jealous fit while his own body responds to even the most professional of touches. To her credit, she notices and lets go as soon as she reasonably can.

"ID, please?" she asks. After some rummaging through the pile of his clothes he finds it, and stares when she puts it through a shredder under the desk.

"Don't I need that?" he asks, feeling as dumb as Jasha as he watches the slivers of plastic fall into the bin.

"It's against federal regulation." she says, and misses his baffled look in favor of walking into a back room to retrieve some kind of cardboard box.

"Here's your personal property," she says, setting it on the bench beside him, "Please verify that all of your possessions are accounted for and sign here."

A clipboard with yet more paperwork clatters onto the bench and no matter how hard his pulse screams in his ears he can't get a single coherent thought to form. He stares vacantly at the dotted line and the pen dangling from a string.

She staples his latest medical report and slides it into a thick three-ring binder.

"Here's your medical history, and this is a debit chip with the balance from your charge account."

"W-where am I going?" he asks shakily, and has to blink back a violent rush of emotion he couldn't pay money to name.

Now Maria looks confused, scanning his bare skin up and down and glancing down at the binder that's still heavy in her hand.

"I was told you have a ride. I suppose you're going wherever he is."

"He? He who?"

Maria frowns. "You are Stark, right? Anthony E."

"That's me." he answers. In a daze, he throws the lid off the box, although inside it's more of a time capsule. His hands tremble a he lifts out a coat, his coat. Mold-rotten grey wool with black leather sleeves cracked dry from neglect. Below that, a moth eaten suit with a faded "I Believe in Santa" sticker still on the lapel.

"I have an eighty year sentence."

"And I have a family that expected me home an hour ago. Chop, chop."

Hastily, he pulls on the suit, blindsided by the whisper of fine linen shirting on his skin and the smooth, perfect planes of the sport coat that pinch on his bulkier shoulders. The shoes cup his feet like they were made for him, because they were. Patterned around a mold of his foot taken a lifetime ago by a master craftsman that's probably been replaced with a robot.

Something weighs on the right pocket, and he fishes out his wallet and keys. A wad of moldy tissues. Ugly hillbilly sunglasses with solid black frames. A perfect, gold ring. Brand new, only worn once.

Slipping it on his finger, he marvels at his own reflection in the bullet-proof glass. That guy isn't Princeton the convict, or Stark the guardian of the rejects, or even Dr. Stark the first inmate to teach other inmates algebra. It's Tony Stark, respectable human being.

"Well, are you going?" the officer says without a trace of humor, "Cause I can put you back in if you'd rather stand around all night."

There's a big hoss of a guard tapping his foot by the door, and Tony doesn't know when he got there. Time must be broken, because every time he looks up from his ring finger more people are there, looking annoyed at his stillness. One of the apparitions has a stack of photos in his hands, and it's the flash of Loki's printed face that jolts him back into real time.

Processing only has two doors. In one side, out the other. Peeling cyrillic letters create the Sokovian word for 'exit' on the door and they cover up his face in the reflection when he takes his first step closer.

A keyring clinks behind him. His heart lurches, his hindbrain screaming at him to put his hands on his head and hit the deck. Keys mean guards, guards mean infractions, infractions mean more time, more lock ups, more listless hours of his life passing him by.

He runs even as he imagines a TV host with a handicam on the other side, waiting to yell "PUNK'D" and slap cuffs on his wrists. His clammy fingers smudge the glass and he can't breathe, can't think.

With a laugh track in his ears he pushes through. There is indeed a man in a slim-cut suit on the other side, but the only cruel joke is the look of trepidation on his face. Loki hunches in a plastic chair, sharp nails digging into his knee and his blue-grey skin tinged green by the halogen bulbs.

A tinny carol plays from overhead speakers, dated and simpering the way kitchy songs always sound. Loki's foot freezes mid anxious tap. His eyes make desperation and relief look like twins instead of siblings.

Almost as fast as Tony steps around the line of yellow acrylic chairs, he jumps to his feet and runs the last long steps between them. He smells like a hospital, like antiseptic and lost sleep and instant coffee. Tony buries his face in the scratchy wool of his scarf and searches for the earthy scent of ash and cinders underneath.

"Don't pinch me." he chokes, plunging numb hands under Loki's coat and gripping the back of his sweater.

"You're awake. You're awake, don't fret." Loki's voice is brittle and rich, so much more alive than his brusque answering machine messages. He cups the back of Tony's head.

"How–"

"Hush," Loki sucks in a deep breath and squeezes so hard they both wobble on their feet. "You utter toss, don't act so surprised. You thought you could send me on holiday all by myself?"

"You were supposed to take the kids."

"Well I'm taking you. I'm taking you and you've no choice at all. You're my captive, see? I'm going to put you on my ship and you'll never, ever escape."

"Please," Tony says too forcefully, practically shouting from a sudden need to be gone. Instantly, immediately, before the institution decides this is all a big misunderstanding. Or before whatever spell Loki wove wears off. He's still not convinced this is legitimate.

The guards behind them startle. Loki mirrors the grip on Tony's wrists and engulfs them in a pillar of flames. He has just long enough to take in the fearful expressions of the prison staff and the next moment his feet skid on ice. Sparks fly off them and meet the frozen ground with hisses and pops.

Tall fences and a looming watchtower take a beating from the wind. He waits for alarms to sound, for the guards to charge out and drag him back. It could be moments or minutes that he stands there disbelieving. Through the haze of sleet and fog he can just make out the prison yard with its futball goals and black steel picnic tables. Past that, raw wilderness.

Deep green groves and craggy grey peaks, the pine trees dusted white like gingerbread. It's beautiful. Had it always been so? Inside it just looked grey. Grey dirt on black mountains with bleached, lifeless snow.

"Tony? Tony, darling, put your arms in. Come now, you're going to get frostbite."

A weight settles on his shoulders, and his eyes wander unseeing back to Loki. The parking lot feels immense, so much space everywhere he looks. The sky is blue and Loki's pupils are so red. Ancient and world-weary.

"How did you do it?"

"I asked nicely. You remember the petition?"

"Back in '21?"

The last resort. Failed, obviously, but a valiant effort. Apparently in Sokovia the president can pardon certain types of prisoners, if they want to.

By the devil's luck the chief of state at the time had been one of the refugees on the helicarrier. Talk about a rags to slightly-richer-rags story. Tony's case hadn't found a sympathetic ear.

"I got all your blasted Earth countries to sign."

"All the countries?" Tony asks, searching for an answer in Loki's stubble dotted jaw. In light of that revelation, his heavy eyes and chapped lips take on more significance.

"Nowhere in the nine realms is there a planet so rife with superfluous governance." Loki complains, "Have you heard of the Ulgonxin Atoll? I hadn't. It's quite prodigious. Despite being unpopulated and smaller than a New York block, it nevertheless has its own government. A monarchy, Tony. A monarchy!"

"So you got everyone to sign and, what? Gave it to the president?"

Loki pulls their hands from his face and cups them between his scorching palms, making heat with friction.

"I gave it to the United Nations. They could hardly reject a document every one of them had already signed." Loki snits, peevishly superior, and Tony melts. Butter in the microwave. Zap, schloop, puddle on the floor.

It's everything to him, that exasperated look, the pithy tone of voice. He and Loki outside together, under natural light and free to make as much noise as they want. Recklessly, he starts to believe this is real.

"You did all that in three weeks?"

"Your image of me must have inflated over the years." Loki says wryly. He lifts Tony's hand to give his knuckles a tired kiss. "I hate to shatter your good faith, but it was much longer than a few weeks."

Longer? In the reception room he made it sound like a spontaneous thing. Like he got Tony's gift and flew off the handle. What in the hell brought this on, if not the cruise?

Loki drops his hand to tame his wind-tangled hair. His heavy eyes drift sluggishly down Tony's moldy clothes.

"Listen to me, chewing fat while you shiver in rags. Forgive me, I don't know where my sense has gone."

Tony takes one last scan of the valley. He should be jubilant, eager to go, but his mind lingers on unfinished business. Trivial things that were vital this morning.

A box of food and fresh underwear is waiting for him at the commissary. He sprang an extra twenty dollars for smokes on last week's order because he owes the Bulgarians for darning his socks. Leizchek scheduled a tutoring session with him tomorrow, and Jasha's expecting him at lock up.

His crew is going to be in trouble without him, they're going to have to find a new gang or at least a new leader. Shit, and his students too. The semester was almost over, and somehow he got them all passing. Will they get their credits? Probably not.

With a jerky maneuver he puts his arms in the sleeves of Loki's coat and rubs the last of the wetness from his eyes. He angles himself toward their ride, leading the way across the black ice.

"Are they really still flying those old Quinjets, or are you just getting sentimental on me?"

Loki shakes his head, smiling wistfully.

"Your designs are dated, but they've not yet outdone your fuel efficiency."

"And you're a cheap skate."

"I am frugal." Loki sniffs, rubbing his chapped nose with a playful glare.

"Semantics."

"Relevant distinctions."

A buzzing energy takes hold of him just then, with the institution behind him and the Quinjet waiting. He balls up a fistful of snow and throws it at Loki's back. It explodes in a shower of white and his partner freezes, looks over his shoulder.

Tony ducks behind the open gangway of the jet and prepares another round. Back to the metal fuselage, he cups the snowball in a quickly numbing hand and edges to peer around the corner.

Loki's gone. A puff of warm air ghosts his neck, the telltale flash of teleportation, and then he's being pelted from behind.

"Aaack! Loki no!"

"Are you sure you want to start this with me, love? We are not called frost giants for naught."

He dodges under the nose of the ship, cackling and sliding to avoid a spray of ice.

"Come back, darling, why must you run from me?"

"You're cheating!"

"Me? Resorting to underhanded tactics? You must be mistaken."

Tony squats to make more ammunition and Loki tackles him from behind. They tussle like school kids, kicking up powder and throwing their weight around until they're both soaked and Loki has him pinned.

"Oh no, you've caught me." Tony smirks, hooking his legs around Loki's knees and resting his arms across his back.

"Then I shall have to claim my prize."

The press of lips warms him from the inside out. Loki's hungry for it, uncharacteristically demanding in the way he dives in and cradles Tony's head like he's the most precious thing.

It awakens something, reminds him who he is, of who they both were when they started this. Two idiots drunk off their own hormones and determined to binge for as long as it lasted. Good things never stayed before Loki, and they certainly never came to save him from his own dumb-fuck decisions.

Arching up, he moves his arms to Loki's waist and hugs him closer. Without warning Loki returns the embrace and stands up, picks him up like he weighs nothing and throws him over his shoulder. An undignified yelp escapes his mouth as gravity rebels and he laughs all the way up the gangway.

"Sayonara suckers, I'm going home!" he yells shamelessly. His voice echoes on the mountain peaks and Loki chuckles softly.

"You've no idea where you're going. You're my prisoner, remember?"

"I'm his problem now!" he declares to the howling wind and the nightshift workers exiting their cars.

Loki taps the control panel to seal the jet's rear door with a rumble of dark laughter, and neither of them look back.

Nyr Asgard has come a long way in a couple decades. He's seen bits and pieces in the background of pictures, but nothing compares to the real thing. Given the rough start, he expects the city of Haven to be on the ramshackle side, but from street level it looks like a pretty happenin' burg.

Small shuttles and airbuses circle the jetdock platform where teams of smartly dressed Asgardians load and unload docking ships. Over the edge of the elevated walkway he can see steel arches and slate roofs, a network of round plazas extending from the Landing Memorial.

Loki jumps the gap between the Quinjet's gangway and the platform with none of his usual grace. After a ten hour flight he claimed motion sickness, and Tony didn't have time to pin him down before the jet entered it's landing sequence and they had to get strapped into something.

He's never minded turbulence before, and that strikes Tony as very off. Then again he's been travelling non-stop for two months as far as he can tell, so maybe a break in pattern is normal. Either way he's not entirely confident in Loki's teleporting.

"Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Not at all." Loki says with a strained smile. "But you need clothes, and perhaps some gifts for the children. Don't wreck the day on my account."

"If you say so." Tony huffs as the flames coil around them. He'd be okay in a bathrobe if it got Loki to lie down.

A cursory glance places them in one of the squares, a smaller one on the edge of town. In the central median is a bronze statue of a pegasus rearing up. A gaggle of teenagers crowd around it, trying to climb on its back.

Loki brushes ash from his sleeve. He pulls Tony down a narrow gap between a bakery and a shoe shop, each constructed out of what appear to be engine blocks from Thanos' ship. In the back of the building hangs a corrugated metal sign with a swan shape cut out and an oval outline of letters.

Curiously, it's in English. Valkyrie's Flight Armory and Fine Clothiers. The door is a drag flap right off a 787. Still dragging him by his suit jacket, Loki pauses with his hand poised to knock.

"Whatever you do, don't tell the owner you've given up liquor."

"Huh?" Tony asks, just in time for the door to swing open and unveil an imposing woman with mocha skin and geometric white makeup under her eyes.

She looks like she steps on testicles recreationally, and if that's really the case he can see why some guys would go for it. Hurling an empty bottle into what was probably once a compost heap but now resembles an obstacle course for rats, she hocks a loogie into the gutter.

"Oh good, you're in." Loki says.

Tony can tell by his shit-eating tone that they're friends. Which means she hates Loki's guts and he feeds on her ire.

"You better buy something this time." the woman warns to Loki's implacable grin.

"But of course. I have coupons." Loki says brightly. "Tony, darling, this is Valkyrie. Well, I suppose her given name is Brunnhilde, but you can understand why she doesn't use it."

"You're parents must have hated you." Tony says. He holds out his hand and Valkyrie shakes.

"Coupons don't apply to items already on sale."

"Oh, I'm sure we can come to an agreement." Loki says merrily. As always, its hard not to be drawn in by his playful charm. Loki doesn't stop being magnetic just because Tony's nursing uncomfortable suspicions.

The interior is a modest duplex, split down the middle between Valkyrie's store and the shoe shop in the front. An old man with a silver moustache snoozes behind the counter where Valkyrie returns to crack open a fresh bottle of spirits.

"Help yourself. Dressing room's over there, not that you'll be needing alterations."

"Her business model is to undercharge on pieces and make it back on fittings and enchantments." Loki whispers.

"You're a bad man." Tony's lip twitches up as he works out Loki's gambit.

"I thought I was a cheapskate?"

"Trickster." Tony amends. Fuck it, he's enjoying this. Can't not with Loki being all bubbly and sauntering down store isles. He pauses by a rack of undergarments in one corner. It's mostly thermal tights and loincloths, but one rack has human equivalents.

"Well If I am already in trouble..." Loki smirks, flicking his fingers through the hangers until he uncovers a few pairs of lacey lingerie hiding behind the boxers in the human section.

Checking the counter, he's relieved to see Valkyrie tipping back her bottle with her nose in a magazine. He ducks under Loki's arm and picks his favorite of the lot. Black, strappy, more of a negligee than a bra.

"This one." he says softly, his stomach flipping at the flash of interest in Loki's eyes.

"As you wish." Loki replies, and this time the flip is considerably lower.

Hearing those words in a place like this feels deviant. He grabs a few pairs of briefs for himself and scans the rest of the shop. Nobody else around except for Valkyrie, who seems more interested in her bottle then them.

"Ok then, bad boy, why don't you pick some things for me and we'll try them on together." Tony slides his hand up his partner's leg to squeeze his butt and Loki gives him those legendary bedroom eyes.

"Go on." he says with a pinch that makes Loki jump and scoot away. "And don't worry about the money. You deserve it."

Loki glances to Valkyrie and with his back to the counter he mouths yes, Mister Stark with those pretty lips. Pretty little monster.

Decisions have never been a problem for him, and there aren't a whole lot of options. Within a minute he's got a handful of scandalous things, and he figures he ought to stake out the dressing room before he embarasses Loki in front of his fri-enemy.

Then again, she's going to have to ring up their purchases anyway. And she might know what Loki's been up. Valkyrie ignores him when he leans on the counter, so he taps the service bell and gives a winning smile when she rips herself from her fashion rag.

"Problem?" she says, and Tony wonders if she's this rude to all her customers. Might explain the need for discount pricing.

"More of a curiosity." Tony shrugs, tilting his head to where Loki is picking through tunics. "You two seem friendly."

"We help each other out." Valkyrie takes a long drag of booze and stares him down. Burps nice and loud like it's an accomplishment to drink your problems. He grinds his teeth around the impulse to comment.

"So he hasn't been seeing anyone or, I don't know, doing anything unusual?"

"Seeing anyone?" Valkyrie smirks, "He's a lawyer. That's all he does, mate."

The woman's dark eyes dart to the hangers in her hand and she smirks.

"Oh I get it. You're Mister Stark."

"He did not–"

"Oh, he did." Valkyrie snickers, her eyes bright above a knowing grin. And then her expression sobers. "You doubt him?"

The harsh truth snuffs out his good humor too. He covers his mouth with his hand, and decides he's already too deep in this conversation to back out.

"I've been gone a long time." he admits, feeling stupid now he's come out and said it. Of course it's ridiculous, he already knew that.

"He's not the sort. I know his reputation and all that, but it's rubbish. Not a day goes by that he doesn't mention you." Valkyrie scoffs. Despite his best efforts to be discrete, he's pretty sure she detects his relief. She leans in and speaks in a secretive tone.

"But I will say he's been poking around the frocks lately. Not the armor, he's always into that." She points at a section by the door where several gowns and headdresses adorn slender mannequins. "But lately it's the proper lady's wear."

Huh. Loki's got a pile in his arms now, the unruly stack knocking items off shelves as he makes his way to the dressing room.

"Well in that case..." he trails off, tapping his hand on the counter and standing straight. "Appreciate your help."

"The next one will cost you."

"I'll keep that in mind." He wanders to the "proper lady" clothes and flicks through and picks colors and styles at random. Loki's the one with taste around here, he always just wore whatever showed up in the closet. Shrugging he inspects the fur and satin and figures Loki looks good in anything anyway.

In the dressing room Loki is already sorting his selections into stacks. It's a lot more than Tony got, and none of it looks like his idea of a practical outfit.

"What's first?"

"Socks." Loki says firmly, directing him to sit on a bench across from an old mirror with spotted edges.

He unwraps a wad of what looks like gauze from a net bag. Ah, the infamous Asgardian socks.

Unfurling the wad of black fabric, Loki sits at his feet and slips his toes into a pocket at one end. The light touch on his bare ankle does things to him, makes his brain flicker like an over-amped lightbulb and his skin yearn for more.

Tony watches Loki wind the fabric up his leg in a matter of seconds and clip it effortlessly to a hook at the end.

"Lot of trouble just for socks." he says just to break the silence. Loki gives him a patient look.

"We were ecstatic when the first shipment came to the front. They wick moisture, and prevent blisters as well. I knew soldiers who lost toes to boot rot."

"Which front?"

Loki mulls it over as he does up Tony's other leg.

"My memory is spotty. I can't say for sure." he hesitates, chewing his cheek. I'd just had Sleipnir and I was persuaded to entrust him to Gofriedr for raising. I wasn't myself after that, not for a long while."

"Sorry I reminded you."

Loki shakes his head and stands, pulling a pair of, ahem, culottes from the wall and pulling the laces open.

"It's been on my mind recently." he admits. "He lives just down the street."

Tony takes the pants and starts wrestling them on.

"You get along?"

"Well enough, I suppose. He's grown, self-supporting. Enjoys his work at the brewery. As a parent—not that I was any kind of parent to him but—as a parent I'm satisfied."

"Big beer drinker?"

Loki smirks, kneeling again to help Tony into his boots and tuck the ends of the culottes into the knee-high leather.

"No, he simply enjoys pulling the carts. I just glad there's still a good job for a horse in this day and age."

"Hey, it's a dog eat dog world." Tony smirks, standing up and inspecting himself in the mirror. "I look like Peter Pan's goth uncle."

Loki snorts. "You look fit to me."

"Well, if't be true the mistress approves..." he winks, and doesn't try to be subtle about flexing. The prison diet was good for one thing, at least. Loki's eyes linger on his chest as he saunters closer until they're hip to hip.

"Oh, I very much approve." Loki breathes, dancing his fingers down the V of his abdomen.

"What do you think, no shirt?"

"It would cause a scandal." Loki grins.

"That doesn't sound like a no."

Hiding his face in Tony's neck, Loki giggles like a naughty kid stealing cookies. The sound takes Tony back years, it's been so long since they could just enjoy each other like this. No time limit or risk of being caught.

"I would disembowel anyone who got within a league of you." Loki sing-songs, his hands wandering up Tony's back and holding him close. "I meant it, darling, you're mine. I've no intention of sharing."

Normal people would probably run right about now, but to his ears it's the sweetest promise. Never alone, never again, no more fear or paranoia. Valkyrie's right, Loki would sooner castrate himself than betray what they have.

"Then you better cover me up." Tony quips, pecking Loki behind his ear and scratching at his hair until he pulls away.

The upper garments are more self-evident than the pants, but Tony's not crazy about the butt skirt or the sash. He's covered neck to kneecap in silk and leather, and every item gets magically tailored until he can barely touch his own elbows.

It's kind of ridiculous but the cloak does billow rather dramatically when he walks, and even if he looks like Legolas' goth uncle Tony has to admit it's kind of fun to look like a king on a parade float.

With a teasing tilt of his head he holds his hand out to Loki like a monarch waiting for a kiss.

"How to I look?" he asks with a mock look of regal superiority.

"Delectable." Loki hums. Smiling warmly, he steps close to oblige his highness...and bites his hand.

"Ow!" Tony laughs, shaking out his hand. "Feisty today, aren't you?"

"Yessir." Loki says with sparkling eyes, his face split in a self-satisfied grin.

"Ready for your turn?" he asks, slipping off Loki's sweater and starting on the buttons of his oxford.

"If I've earned it."

"Oh, if you've earned it? Well, let's see about that." he says, pretending to think about it. "You've gotten me out of prison fifty years early, flown me home in time for Christmas, let me feel you up in public, and buried me in the fanciest digs I think I've ever worn. Think that's worth a reward?"

"Perhaps a small one."

"Oh, it'll be small, don't worry about that."

He tosses Loki's clothes on the bench and hands him the hangers from the hook.

"Think you can squeeze into one of these?"

"I can squeeze into almost anything. It's getting out that generally proves challenging." Loki says with a dirty grin, and gives a fascinating demonstration of magical squishery. He stays blue for it even though he's not generally one for crossdressing—something about things not flattering his shape.

In Tony's rather informed opinion, he's not having that problem today. Loki turns in front of the mirror with a doubtful expression.

"Oh, the mockery." he sighs. "Can you even imagine?"

Frankly, the Asgardians can eat their own stuck-up asses, because Loki looks gorgeous. He chose an off-white gown, and the light silk flows over his midnight skin like fog on a lake. The gold neckline cuts across his chest and connects to a slender gold armband with chains dangling from it that his fingers toy with nervously. It's easily the softest he's ever looked, his chest rising and falling with anxious breaths that flutter the gossamer fabric.

Tony stands behind him and doesn't disguise his appreciation. With a kiss to his bare shoulder he lays his hands on Loki's hips and thumbs at the braided gold belt.

"You know I really can't. Anyone who thinks you're anything less than stunning needs a lobotomy."

Casting his eyes down, Loki smiles sadly.

"Well I suppose I will have to adapt." he meets Tony's eyes in the mirror, bites his lip. He opens his mouth, face taking on a serious tilt that seems out of place, and doesn't get the chance to finish whatever he intended to say.

"Call from," a robotic voice says, accompanied by a buzzing from Loki's abandoned suit jacket.

"Thor." a rich voice says after a static-filled pause.

Loki brushes him off and accepts the call.

"Brother!" Thor's crackling hologram says with a doofy grin, "I thought I saw your ship in the whirl, have you landed? Were you victorious?"

Background noise filters in while Thor waits for an answer. The sounds of a crowd, machines whirring loud and children laughing.

"I have him." Loki assures, waving for Tony to step around and shoving the device in his hands. He darts out of the field of vision as quickly as possible and magics himself into Agardian menswear. Shame.

"Stark!" Thor sets his hands on his hips, as sunny and simple as ever. Tony forces a media smile, the best he can manage around the whiplash.

"Point Break, your hair's gone."

"Ay, there was a terrible chewing gum accident. I suppose it's much easier to wash now!" Thor laughs, "I'm glad to see you've arrived. We were beginning to wonder what we'd do with all this food if you didn't show."

"Food? Damn you, oaf, what have you done?" Loki snaps.

"Well it would not be much of a revel without food!"

"I specifically requested the suspension of revels."

Thor looks offended, and the camera swings violently as he stomps out of wherever he is and into somewhere blindingly bright and at least twice as loud. Tony's ears prick when he recognises Jori's shrieking laughter.

"Young ones, come and look," the transmission flickers and the perspective abruptly drops to ground level. "Jormungand? Stop, stop right there. Fenrir put the nail gun down."

A hand with painted black fingernails picks up the camera. With a wobble the image clarifies into Hela's somber face.

"Tony's on the holophone!"

That captures everyone's attention. Moments later the cabin is crowded with holograms all fighting for real estate on the transmitter's limited field. Voices erupt out of the console speakers, a wall of sound so loud and overwhelming it could probably shatter glass.

"One at a time, geez, am I raising giants or blow horns?"

"I have a gun!" Fenrir beams. He pulls the trigger and hologram nails fly past Tony's head like he's in the Matrix.

"Hey, woah, put the weapon down." Tony sees the cliche from a mile away and watches it zoom out his mouth anyway. "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Thor grabs the nail gun and a few more rounds shoot out as Fenrir refuses to let go. Stubbornly clutching the gun grip, his eyes go wide when Thor lifts him off the ground entirely. Jori takes the transmitter from Hela, and he's treated to an up close view of his drippy kid nose and gap-toothed grin. Pitchy breathing peaks the microphone.

"Hi Tony."

"Jori, you have to hold it further away." Hela says, and the camera shakes again, traveling back until he can see the kid's whole face. His cheeks are pink, ears covered in what looks like a knit turban. "Now say hi again."

"Hi, Tony!"

"Hey Little Bit, that's a cool hat you've got. Are you outside?"

Jori looks at where Tony assumes Hela is standing off screen and nods.

"We're hanging a sign."

"A sign? What kind of sign?"

"A big sign."

Hela angles the camera toward a snowy street where a cluster of figures are hanging a banner across wooden posts. It's in rune, but it looks pretty festive, the characters red and green.

"It says 'Welcome Mortals.'" Hela explains. "I don't think it occurred to them that the visitors won't be able to read it."

"There's something to be said for feng shui." Tony shrugs. "Visitors?"

"Your welcome party. There's a lot of them. Uncle Thor insisted."

"Thanks for the heads up." Tony says, scratching at his reactor scar. "I better hang up. I'm actually in the middle of a makeover."

"The socks are wild." Hela says by way of goodbye and hangs up, all cool wit and stylish aloofness. He's unspeakably proud. A chip off the ol' block.

Chuckling to himself, he sorts through the hooks and picks out the least over-the-top options. And the creme gown, because come on.

"Go pay, I'll take care of the rest." He shoves the yes pile in Loki's arms and holds open the curtain that functions as the dressing room door.

"All of this?"

He must really be fluent in Loki, because he knows even though his back is turned that he's asking about the dress. Honestly.

"Yes, babe, all of it. Treat yourself."

He can't tell if Loki's embarrassed or thrilled, but frankly he doesn't care. That shit is as much a gift to himself as it is to Loki. By the time he leaves the dressing room Valkyrie is buried in her magazine again and Loki's sulking in the shoe store.

The old mans' shop is much richer than the clothier. Trendy white wood with slate floors and lights over the display models. He walks around a stack out to find Loki stopped in front of a shelf of kids shoes.

They're an assortment, from fuzzy baby slippers to miniature versions of adult boots and even a few sneakers. He's holding a pair with little bear faces on the toes, his eyes turned down in blank contemplation. Round fuzzy ears stick out from the velcro straps. Loki strokes one with his thumb.

"A little small for Jori, aren't they?"

"What?" Loki jumps.

"The shoes?"

"Oh! Yes, yes of course. Much too small." Loki agrees, shoving the slippers back on the shelf. "I was just thinking he might like them. If I commissioned a larger size."

Tony picks up the shoes, turning them around in his hand. He's sort of charmed by how they both fit in one palm. So tiny, do people really start out that small?

"They are pretty adorable...though we shouldn't encourage the baby thing too much."

"I know, forgive me I'm being foolish." Loki snatches the shoes and returns them to the shelf again.

"Hey, it's fine. I was kind of hoping to find gifts. If you're up to it?"

Now he's no longer distracted by his two favorite pastimes, Loki's moving slower. Eyes heavy and responses sluggish.

"I'd rather not." Loki says, leaning ever so slightly on his shoulder. "Can we go home?"

Tony takes his hand and shuffles closer until the grasp is lost under their cloaks and sleeves.

"You'll have to tell me where it is." Tony jokes, quietly into the space between their noses that he's starting to think of as their personal universe.

"You know it." Loki smiles, the real one that looks like he's apologizing for something. "It was yours before it was mine."

"Buffalo?"

Loki nods. They walk to the front door of the shop and push through the heavy oak door.

"Half this city used to be Buffalo, before the Sanctuary crash leveled it. Didn't you watch the news?"

"Never. Too depressing."

"Ah, well. Then yes, the estate is twenty minutes by aircar. We'll need a taxi."

They emerge into a busy square. A domed greenhouse protects a colorful garden in the center, and around that aircars and hoverbikes circle in mild afternoon traffic. It seems to be a fashion district, many of the shops open to the street and bursting with bolts of fabric and tanned hides. Street food vendors man the corners, exchanging skewers of grilled meat and corn for cash.

Loki leads him to the side of the road and holds out his hand. Against the backdrop of a familiar and yet profoundly changed Earth, the sight of Loki hailing a taxi with nothing more than a hand and a prayer is unspeakably comforting. One single thing that hasn't changed in all the time he's been away.

Waiting in the colorful market surrounded by noise and bartering, he feels cheated. This was all bubble when he went to jail, and now it's old news. The energy of rebuilding, of fusing wreckage and fantasy into visions of a seemingly impossible future is among his favorite experiences in life.

It would have been fun, walking dirt paths and painting bridges and skyscrapers in each other's mind. Plotting out transit systems and schools and taverns and hospitals. Filling them up with amazing works of magi-tech crafted by their combined imagination.

Like all things, it comes down to lost time. Missed moments they'll never get back. He's glad when a taxi with a dented fender pulls up to the curb and the doors swing open on automatic hinges.

The fare for a trip out of the city is a racket, but when Loki passes out on his shoulder he figures it was a good idea not to teleport. The city passes in a blur of architecture and commerce, brand new and also rather beaten in by the Upstate elements.

As soon as he grows accustomed to the purple scrap buildings and stone chimneys, they pass under a marble arch and enter thick, baren, snow-dusted wilderness.

Ten minutes after that he sees it. A sweeping modern home with all the hallmarks of Stark style, and not far from that a Hansel-and-Gretel cottage with a precariously tilted chimney.

Deep drifts of snow coat the sloping property undisturbed except for the riot of foot prints and snow men near a frozen pond. A gnarled willow grows near the ice, and where the rickety house marker used to be is a rather stately iron sign:

Private Property: Trespassers Will Be Cremated.

Under that, attached with a far too many nails:

ᚹᛁᛞ ᛗᛖᚾᛋᚲᚱ WELCOME MORTALS GUESTS

Tony grins. Home sweet home.

Several aircars and a hover bike are parked on the circle drive, but the curtains are drawn around the tall single pane windows. Loki must wake up when they turn down the long driveway, because somebody's kissing his neck and he doesn't believe in ghosts.

Groaning, Loki nuzzles into the space under his arm and inhales. Which is, okay, maybe not the weirdest thing he's ever done, but definitely an honorable mention.

"Alright Slugger, whatever floats your boat..." Tony laughs nervously, "Wow, you are way up in there."

"You smell good." Loki says. Shamelessly he nuzzles closer, going for another whiff of eau-de-Stark, and Tony thinks they might have finally fallen off the deep end.

"Are you okay?" he tilts his head so he can see Loki better. His partner squeezes his eyes closed and circles his torso with his arms.

"Exceptionally."

Hard to argue with that. His hair is coarse under his hand, a bit frizzy from the wind. The cabbie very pointedly hums along to the radio and doesn't check the rearview.

"Get up, you gotta pay the guy."

"There will be people in there." Loki hides his face in Tony's cloak.

"And the munchkins." Tony reminds him.

"And Christmas carols."

"And food?"

"Poor attempts at food."

Tony twists closer to Loki's ear and whispers.

"And I'll eat you out if you get through the night without insulting anyone."

Hot breath puffs through his tunic and Loki rummages in his belt for his wallet.

Through the car window he sees the front door swing open. Thor waves.

Beside him Fenrir leans over the threshold, bouncing on his toes. Although they just talked on the phone it doesn't seem possible that the biters are really here. Alive, well, and right fucking there.

Without meaning to his hand tightens in Loki's sweater and he fumbles for the door handle. Vaguely at first, and then with crippling urgency. It's not where it should be, where is it? He needs to get out, he needs to run and kick snow all over the perfectly shoveled porch.

Punching the door doesn't do anything except alarm Loki, who sits up and squeezes his arm. He puts his hand over Tony's and pries his fist open, presses it to an unmarked spot on the wall as if he should obviously know that's where the sensor is. Chuckle-fuck designers and their quarter-assed garbage products. The door clicks open and the winter's bite is sweet relief, a shock back to reality as he stumbles out of the vehicle.

Fen takes a step back and Thor steadies him with a hand on his back. Blood rushes in Tony's ears as he walks numbly across the ice, a smile forcing it's way over his tight jaw. He's not gonna cry, he's not.

The kid covers his mouth with his hands and runs into the snow barefoot. They collide with enough force to knock Tony's breath out and he picks the kid up and spins. Maybe he's too old for it, maybe he's too young not to do it, it's so hard to gage. His sense of time is so fucked up, between days that feel like eternities and entire years that escape his memory.

This moment stretches, nestling deep in his heart and making a home for itself. No one's hugged him like this since his mother died, like he's a central pillar of their world.

"Hey, buddy." he chokes.

Wrapping his legs around, Fenrir licks his face. Tentatively, like he's not sure he's allowed. Tony grabs the kid by the horn and bites his nose, thrilling at the the peel of giggles. Fen smilles. Big, wide.

"Missed you." Fen says.

"Me too." Tony pulls him in again. Can't help himself. "God, you're getting big. How tall are you?"

"Four marks."

"Four? With the horns?"

"Without them." Fen brags.

"We'll have to sign you up for basketball if you get any taller."

Distantly he hears small feet slap on concrete floors, and that of all things pulls him back. Such a mundane thing, the sound of kids being kids, but it's the best sound there is. In prison they had to stay in the lines. Wait here, keep still, hush, darling, no fussing. No, we can't touch Tony. Stay in your seat or we'll get him in trouble. Here the feet run wild and carry what can only be Jori to the door.

Whistle pitch happy shrieks blast his eardrums. Now he's the one beaming.

"I know who that is!" he yells. Fen wiggles out of his hold, and without his hair blocking Tony's vision he can finally see Jori, red faced and awe-struck with his hands over his mouth. He screams again, and flaps his arms like it's the only way to express how he's feeling. Poor kid's still pretty far behind where he should be.

Musty abandoned house smell invades his nostrils as he stumbles in through the massive double doors. Arms open, he kneels and Jori tackles him. No tears this time, just pure kiddie joy.

"Tony! Tony, Tony, Tony!" Jori squeals, beyond proper words. He feels weightless, in need of a pinch, because he can't bear for this to be a dream. Home. Home with his family on Christmas.

"I heard someone in this house needs kisses. Who is it? Do you know, Big Boy?"

"Me, it's me!"

Tony feigns surprise and smacks his forehead.

"Of course! I can see it now. Oh yes, this is very serious."

He attacks the kid's head with smooches.

"Not my face!" Jori bursts out laughing.

"Huh? Only on your face?" Tony asks. Redirecting the battery of kisses to Jori's cheeks and forehead, he has to squint and flinch away from the retaliatory bats of the kid's arms.

"Noooo!" Jori giggles.

"There we go, all topped up." Tony ruffles unruly hair. Two little bumps drag at his hand. Genuinely surprised this time, he pushes Jori's curls aside and finds the first tiny bumps of horns coming in.

"Oh my Godzilla, what are those?"

"Horns!" Jori shouts, and in the entry hall the sound rings his ears.

"Inside voices, love." Loki chides as he walks up the porch steps, shopping bag in hand. The taxi pulls away and it sinks in all over again that he's reached his final destination. This is his stop.

"He's got horns." he gushes. Loki smiles indulgently. Obviously he already knew that. He brushes the kid's hair every morning. But holy hell the brats have grown. Part of him got used to thinking they'd stay little forever.

"I'm a big boy." Jori says with his hands on his hips.

"A big little boy." Thor adds.

The brothers exchange an only slightly awkward embrace, and then it's his turn to be lovingly strangled. It lasts too long, and Thor doesn't acknowledge the okay-thank-you-I'm-done-now back pat in any way.

"It's good to see you hail." Thor says sincerely, heartbreaker that he is. Seriously, one day Tony will muster up the emotional energy to reciprocate equally, but Thor's unilateral affection for any and all brothers-in-arms is hard for him to fully comprehend.

"Back at you, Aquaman, can you lighten up? I gotta breath." Tony rasps.

"Indeed." Thor pats him on the back way too hard and stakes himself out of it. Forces a bright smile. "Come, our comrades await."

"Where is Hela?" Loki asks. Thor winces.

"Cooking."

Loki looks back at the open porch door like he's considering retreat.

"You can always put the plate down and pretend you don't know which one's yours." Tony suggests.

"Ze just makes you a new one." Fenrir groans.

The living room is enormous. Not only from the square footage but from the complete lack of any personal belongings. Slapdash attempts at decoration only somewhat cover the austerity. A live fir tree grows right out of the floor in the corner, it's roots cracking bits of the foundation.

"The hell is wrong with that Christmas tree?"

Loki blinks at him like it should be obvious.

"I saw no reason to slaughter a perfectly healthy specimen."

"You're fixing the floor."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Of course."

Mostly-familiar faces look up from a circle of folding chairs arranged around a free-standing chimney in the middle of the massive living room. A curved wall of windows looks out on the postcard-worthy lawn, an expansive kitchen on one side of the view and a span of built-in bookshelves on the other.

Swags of garland have been hung over the windows and along the kitchen cabinets. A smattering of poinsettias grace the otherwise empty shelves, but there's no real furniture. Not even a floor rug to cover the polished concrete.

"You know, all this time I assumed at least one of us had actual furniture."

Proudly, Loki shakes his head and tugs his free hand in Tony's elbow. Their eyes meet and that look of open anticipation and longing is like a note in the margins of a book or a name and date scratched on the back of a photograph. Back to the start, they can do this.

"It's been empty all this time. Waiting for you."

"All this time?"

"Since 2018. I thought it would be nice. A fresh start."

The kiss is inevitable. Couldn't be anything else. The butterflies come back like it's the first time, like they never left that bush in Staten Island and every kiss after has been an addendum to the constitution Tony drafted in his head while Loki claimed his mouth for Asgard.

He brushes Loki's hair away from his face and thumbs at the hollow of his cheek. Trying to make sense of him and his infinite complications, his seemingly limitless capacity to touch parts Tony didn't know he had.

Someone wolf-whistles.

"Get it Stark." Clint bellows, and Tony can't even pretend to be embarrassed. He sweeps Loki's leg with his foot and and holds him in a dancer's dip. Frenches him good and sloppy just in case anyone's brave enough to keep watching.

A chorus of groans is his reward, and even Loki's attempt to appear indignant falls flat beside his flushed cheeks and pleased grin.

"Enough stalling, let's party!" Barnes shouts.

"I concur." Tony calls back, pulling Loki back up and pointing authoritatively at random places on the wall. "Pour the bubbly. Drop the bass. Hoist the mainstay. You there, small child whose name escapes me, I declare you Master of Ceremonies. Speeches may be required."

Someone shoves a sparkling cider in his hand. Hugs and handshakes fly in rapid succession, and he's met with so many faces made droopy by extended exposure to gravity. Grey haired and wrinkly, they're all so old. Telling him with animated gestures how much he's been missed.

It's too much. Air feels thin in his chest as he accepts each smile, overwrites his mental image of each face. They're all here; Bruce, Rhodey, Natasha in her wheelchair, Parker with his lady and kids, even Rogers. Everybody but the one he's looking for.

"Where's Hela?"

People look around, murmuring.

"Here." Hela's gruff voice answers. He follow it to the kitchen, around the chimney and past folding chairs until he sees a tall teen hunched in the door of a walk-in pantry. Sniffing ze looks over hir shoulder at all the onlookers and shrinks as much as a giant can. Embarrassed. Fuck that.

"Come here." Tony says, smiling at hir shyness. Not often seen, but significant. Ze's really struggled these past years. They've relied on hir a lot to pick up the slack. Clean the house, watch the boys, talk Loki off the edge. His return means a lot for hir.

Hand on hir chest, ze shakes her head and nearly trips over hir feet enveloping him in a big bear hug. Ze's taller than him now. Damn it they had to be Jotun, didn't they? He couldn't have given his heart to dwarfs or pixies or anything normal sized.

Hela sobs into his collar, and like always hir joy and relief get his own waterworks going. They're hopeless, the two of them. Every damn time one of them loses their shit they pull the other one down the vortex. Ze squeezes him so tight his back pops, and they both chuckle through their soppy smiles.

"You alright?" Tony asks as the room claps and cheers. Hela nods, wipes at hir eyes, and a chorus of awwws slips out from the women and Clint.

"Y-yeah."

"You been good?"

"Yeah." ze lies. Probably. Truth is, life as a teenager hasn't brought out the best in Hela. It's hard to make friends when the other teenages grow up and go to college in the time it takes hir to get a haircut. He punches hir in the arm and traps hir in an noogie, laughing when ze squirms.

"I have to check the stew." ze pleads, tugging half-heartedly at his arm around hir shoulders.

"Oh, do you?" Tony teases, and doesn't comment when ze wiggles out and returns to the pantry to compose hirself.

There are indeed Christmas carols on the kitchen radio, which Barnes cranks to an unreasonable volume because 'the old folks don't hear so good' and not, supposedly, because it makes Clint rip out his hearing aid and sign rude looking words.

Hela returns with an armful of spices and stirs a bubbling pot. The contents look starchy and very beige.

"This must be the famous holiday boil." Tony surmises.

Hela nods cheerfully. Scooping up a bite onto hir wooden spoon, ze holds it to his mouth. Hiding his gag should qualify him for the Oscars. It tastes like raw flour and toe fungus. Somehow over spiced and bland at the same time.

"Well?" Hela asks, fishing for praise ze is so direly undeserving of.

"Yum." Tony coughs, still trying to chew the rubber chicken to a swallow-able size.

"Oh no, did I overcook the meat again?"

Apologizing to his own intestines, he forces it down. He didn't think it was possible for food to be worse than prison.

"Needs salt." he says lamely, fumbling for the nearest glass of anything liquid. "Lots more salt."

"Really?" ze furrows hir brow, picking up a bulk size carton of salt and turning it upside down over the pot. Nothing comes out. "Damn it, I knew I should have bought two."

He regrets swallowing. Loki shoots him a look from the living room that can only be translated as i told you so, and sips his champagne nice and slow.

The afternoon runs from with him with alarming expediency. After lunch that thankfully includes dishes other than Hela's he's cajoled into opening stacks and stacks of housewarming gifts. Blenders, cutlery, hand towels, a very fancy gizmo called a "garber" whose function eludes him.

A high-end espresso machine from Bruce gets him crying again. He has to put the whole party on hold to rip the box to shreds and brew his first decent cup of joe in nearly thirty years. The taste is not entirely dissimilar to an orgasm in his mouth, but nobody else needs to know that.

By comparison the you better have tacos doormat from Clint is delightfully shallow, and Natasha's gift of thick wool socks squeezes his heart to pulp. He didn't know cold until his first winter in the ruins of the Iron Curtain. Socks mean more than he could ever explain.

As the sun creeps into the western half of the sky the kids put on a cringe-worthy talent show that he watches with rapt attention and after that he gets Rogers to help him set up his shiny new holovision and watches his first 32k ultra-definition holiday special. It kind of gives him a headache. All those pixels.

Also, he has no idea what the show is about or who any of the characters are so it's mostly a miasma of laugh tracks and unfamiliar slang. He plays along because it's a pretty extravagant gift, but by the end Steve pats him on the back and he can't deny that he's the anachronism now.

In search of aspirin, he finds Loki in the bathroom instead. He's got his head in the sink, eyelashes wet from a wake-up splash and water dripping down his nose. The room smells like sick and cloying air freshener. They both freeze when he barges in, eyes wide and finding each other automatically in the mirror.

His partner must decide silence is his best defense, because he doesn't answer. Doesn't try to fuss. He wipes his face on a gifted hand towel and slips between Tony and the door. Trying to stop him only gets his touch knocked aside, his concern discarded. Stung, he grabs Loki's collar and the bastard rams him into the wall.

"Let me guess, you're motion sick."

Loki doesn't even deny lying, he just scowls and takes two skittish steps back. The weight of the day catches up with him, all the highs and lows and odd moments he tried to tell himself were all in his head. He moves to close the distance, tries to grab a fistful of Loki's tunic but he darts away.

"For fuck's sake–"

"I didn't want to burden you. You were in a state."

"That's the trouble with bad news, Lokes, it's bad no matter when you give it."

One step forward, one step back. He makes himself stop before they end up fighting in the middle of a party.

"It's not bad. At least, I don't think–" he stops himself, face pinched, "I sincerely hope it isn't."

His face must be a tragedy, because Loki's knuckles turn white where their clasped at his waist. On shaky legs he steps into Tony's space and wills his hands to hang at his sides. He doesn't look calmer, if that's what he's going for, now he's just statue-like and imperious.

"Tell me."

"I want to." Loki says, "I want to. Please believe me."

"I did. This morning. When you said it was airplane food." Tony spits.

Loki reaches out with that fucking apologetic frown on his face, and it's repellant. A fresh start, yeah right. More like deja vu.

Tony stalks toward the living room, back to the cries of laughter and bouncy pop songs. Maybe it's not too late to sneak a drink. Just one to take the edge off, nothing dangerous. Loki runs into him from behind, throws his arms around his shoulders and his stomach rolls.

He thought, for a few blissed out hours he actually thought this was real. Happily ever after. But Loki is still Loki. He can be anything he wants to be except someone else.

"Tonight. As soon as we can be alone. Tonight."

"I can't believe you." Tony croaks. Trembling lips touch the back of his head and Tony tries to break out of his arms. Loki holds tighter and he thinks he might be sick too.

"I promise." Loki repeats. He rocks on the balls of his feet and Tony gets pulled along with him. "I promise."

He isn't much fun after that, and everyone seems to notice. The party winds down over a round of Dirty Santa that probably would have been the highlight of the night if he wasn't cranky and distracted. He just wants to drag Loki to a back room and interrogate him, but as the guest of honor his participation is mandatory.

Ripping open the paper of an oddly shaped box reveals a bag of Halloween candy and a convenience store personal grooming kit with a pink leopard print case. Jokes on them, he actually needs all that shit. The guys all have a laugh about the pink and the nail files and whatnot, but he couldn't care less. It has a real pair of tweezers in it.

Now that he knows what to look for Loki's about as subtle as a freight train. The flute he's been nursing all afternoon isn't champagne, it's sparkling water for his stomach. When he needs a refill he gets someone else to run it because the food in the kitchen makes his nose wrinkle and his lip twist. Last night on the plane he claimed he'd had a big lunch and disappeared into the lavatory when Tony tucked into his TV dinner.

As the evidence piles up he finds his mood slipping darker and darker, and he realizes he hasn't actually seen Loki eat once since he picked him up twenty hours ago. The kitchen island offers no shortage of enticing options, many of them reportedly made by Parker's very gifted spouse.

Paper plate in hand, he looms over the spread far too long, contemplating each dish and scoring it on a scale of one to antacid. Bitterness still eats at him but it's tipping steadily into worry as he dishes up a plate of ones and twos. Sadly for Loki the plate is predominantly Hela's efforts, since blandness is the main criteria in his rating system.

Dragging his folding chair over to the book nook feels less like burying the hatchet and more like eating it whole. The legs squeak on the concrete when he sits down and puts the plate on top of the paperback Loki's using to ignore him.

"Ah, food which will look the same coming up as going down. You shouldn't have."

Tony holds the plastic fork for his partner to take, but Loki just works his jaw and refuses to look down.

Handling Loki feels like walking in the dark, he almost forgot how it feels. Once upon a time he'd developed a sense for it. Now he's not so sure.

"It's the smell isn't it?"

"It's the everything." Loki sighs. He puts the plate on the farthest shelf and returns to his book.

"You need to eat. No wonder you look like shit."

"I'm managing."

"Is there anything that doesn't bother you?"

The book in Loki's lap slaps shut and he scrubs his eyes, which are red and puffy from him doing just that.

"Yogurt." he sighs after a staredown, stone faced and too tired to fight. "Plain yogurt with tomato."

"Okay." Tony massages his legs and takes the plate back to the kitchen to 'misplace' it.

Sure enough there's a stack of yogurt cups in the fridge and a paper bag full of tomatoes. The knife is foreign in his hand, a real knife with a sharp edge, so the slices are un-uniform and jagged. They look like a kid's craft project piled on top of the yogurt. Yum...not.

But Loki eats it. Slowly and with ample pithy commentary, but all the way. He stays by his side with his arms crossed, thoughts whirling as Dirty Santa winds down and people start wrapping up the leftovers. Parker's girl starts layering up her youngins, and everyone else takes the hint. Thank fuck.

"I'm sorry." Loki mumbles apropos of nothing.

Suspicion and doubt are like belts around his chest, getting tighter and tighter.

"Is it life threatening?"

Loki pulls until Tony's arms uncross and holds his hand. Thumbs at his knuckles and calluses.

"Not usually."

He opens his mouth to press. Loki cuts him off.

"Soon, I promise. I feel a fool for waiting."

Think before you act. Think before you act. Think—

"Okay."

Chasing guests out of his house never felt so drawn out.

Romantic as the empty house is, and as hard as Loki tried to sell the idea of them all camping out under a pillowfort, Tony didn't come this far to sleep another night on cold concrete. Instead they take the menagerie down to the old cottage and put them down for the night in their own rooms.

Apparently that's where they've really been living this whole time, in a dimensional limbo between Jotunheim and Earth. He tries not to overthink the physics, particularly while he's chasing a bare-assed bubble-covered Jori in and out of the Iron Wood. Tucking in the kids plays out like a Greek tragedy, but eventually the cranky hellspawn surrender to nature and go the fuck to sleep.

Which leaves him and Loki alone in the big house, standing in the cooling embers of the fireplace after a dodgy teleportation. He counts his fingers and toes just to be sure. Ten and ten.

Crumpled gift wrap and folding chairs still litter the living room, and red plastic cups dot every horizontal surface. Even so the house feels dead, like a yawning absence of energy that needs to be aired out and invigorated.

Loki takes his hand and leads him down a curved hall and past the bathroom where they fought. His feet feel heavier with each step. Though he needs to know what's wrong he also wants to go back to blissful ignorance. It was a nice dream, those few hours where he thought they'd finally crawled out of the downward spiral.

The last door on the left is closed, the old style door handle clean where the others were grey with dust.

"I lied to you today." Loki says, "Not out of malice, and not the way you think."

"I just want to know we're okay. You're killing me with this cloak and dagger stuff."

Loki takes a deep measured breath. He opens the door.

"There is one piece of furniture I already brought in."

"Unless it's a guillotine I don't see why I'd have a problem." Tony says, squinting into the dark bedroom.

Taking his hand, Loki walks through the door and past a small en-suite bathroom. His skin feels like crawling ants, his stomach a tempest of knots as he's pulled past a closet, a light switch, a corner.

Loki stops at the last possible moment. Turning like a whip he pulls Tony to his chest, and with that he's truly panicking. Every sign points to some horrible revelation. An affair, a curse, an ultra-rare alien cancer.

Lips press to his temple and his cheek and his forehead and he doesn't want anything but the truth. He pushes Loki away, and his fiance whispers in an urgent voice.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't be upset."

"About what?" Tony demands. With a horrible conflicted face Loki steps aside.

There's a window. A smallish one with blue moonlight beaming through and a wood-lined sill. Below that an odd sort of table with a pale yellow mat, and next to it a cage looking thing layered with blankets.

A crib. For a baby. A baby crib.

"I got ahead of myself." Loki whispers.

An implosion not unlike the Big Bang goes off in his brain, and in the absence of thought all he can do is stare blankly.

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm." Loki nods, covering his own mouth and eyeing him with scant hope in his yes.

"You're?"

"Yes, love."

"And I'm?"

Loki smiles, nodding like he's just as stuck in a loop as Tony.

"Of course, idiot, of course."

"We're?"

"We could be." Loki sniffs, blinking fast.

"Parents?" Tony says in wonder, "Really?"

"Technically we already are." Loki laughs deliriously even as a few tears slip out.

"Oh my god...oh my god I'm a moron." Tony smacks his face, and now he can't stand still. He paces across the room—the nursery, the nursery. "Yogurt, seriously."

"Yes, thank you for that. You've implanted me with a damnable health enthusiast." Loki says with a roll of his eyes. "I've had nothing but celery and tomatoes for weeks."

"The shoes!" Tony blurts, stopping on his heel "Dresses. For the bump. You bastard, you weren't even subtle."

"I couldn't believe you didn't put it together." Loki advances, eyes bright over an uneasy smile. "I want to have it. But I would understand–"

Tony kisses him, deep. Hands in his hair and lips clashing in his rush to shut Loki up.

"No buts." he murmurs as they pull away. "Don't you dare."

"Oh thank the Norns." Loki slumps in relief. With a finger on his chin, he tips Loki's head back up. Another kiss, another moment to absorb. Fuck, a baby.

"How long? Are you sure?"

"It's been eons since my last pregnancy, but yes, I'm sure. One never forgets the feeling." Loki says, clutching Tony's neck with both hands and touching their foreheads. "As for when...I think Halloween."

"Oh...yeah. Fun night."

"That it was."

After another comforting kiss, he walks to the crib and pulls Loki with him, threads their hands over the railing.

"I should have told you, I don't know what got into me." Loki grips his hand hard. "So you see now, I had to get you out. It's hard enough with help. Without you, if I failed to get you out...I couldn't do it."

"Well you didn't fail. I'm here."

"Yes." Loki grips his hand. He works the bottom button of his doublet and brings Tony's hand to his stomach. It's smooth, toned, doesn't look or feel different.

"So the throwing up, the food. That's all normal?"

"Well, it's hardly comfortable, but it happened with Sleipnir. As far as I know I'm well."

All the factors materialize now he's thinking clearly. The concept that he and Loki are even genetically compatible is kind of revolutionary. Is it going to be blue? Will it have horns? Jotun lines? Shit, will the baby have a sex at all? He needs a lab, stat. And an expert, if there even is such a thing.

Loki coaxes him back with a touch to his cheek.

"Have you told anyone else?"

"Heavens no. I wasn't sure you would even want…"

Tony's heart beats in his throat at the implication. Years ago the notion of making a little stranger and systematically fucking them up for the next eighteen or so years would have indeed been unwelcome. He'd never describe himself as father material, but fortunately nobody asked him the first time. The godlings were just there, just a part of Loki that needed help, that he had to accept like all his other baggage.

Now he can't imagine saying no, can't fathom a situation where he wouldn't want to hold a chubby little person in his arms and see his mother's eyes, his father's cheeks, Loki's weird nose.

He kneels on the floor and spreads Loki's shirt open, kisses his flat belly and hopes like hell that their mismatched genes play nice. It's terrifying, the prospect of being evolution's guinea pig. But he's a genius in need of a hobby. When it comes to this soon-to-be spoiled brat, he can already tell he's going to be a madman.

"Hey, baby."

"They can't possibly hear you yet."

"I wasn't talking to you!" Tony glares indignantly, feeling stupid and helpless to stop himself. He kisses Loki's stomach again and whispers to probably no one, "Hey, you little freeloader, you're squatting in prime real estate, understand? You better treat mommy nice or daddy's gonna be really pissed at you."

Loki's stomach quivers under his lips, a little ticklish and a lot embarrassed. Long nails card through his hair and send warm shivers down his back. He holds Tony's ear against his stomach and rubs at his still bleary eyes.

"Say it again." Loki's voice cracks, so rough and near silent in the dark.

"Hey, baby." Tony says, and this time Loki wipes his eyes instead.

The early dawn light turns the snow and frozen pond to glitter crystals, and the crisp air burns his lungs in a way that makes him feel alive. Birdsong echoes through the bare trees as arctic refuges scavenge the pines for food. It's the most tranquil place he's ever been, and even knee deep in powder with his boots soaked through he can't believe he lives here.

Crunching footsteps alert him to a visitor, and when he twists around he's greeted by a bright eyed Hela bearing coffee. He accepts his mug with a smile most would reserve for winning the lottery.

"Got your bags packed?" he asks.

"Mostly." ze shrugs. "Dad says we'll probably go shopping in Baltimore so I don't see the point in double checking."

"Well, you know." Tony shrugs, indicating his only outfit, which is the now slightly soiled one from last night.

Hela quirks an eyebrow at the frozen lake and Tony's somewhat mussed hair.

"Aren't you cold?"

"I'm used to it." Tony sips his mug and has to reboot his brain. God, that is so good.

"Don't tell me you're getting sentimental."

"So what if I am?" he tries to fix his hair but feels it flip right back where it was. "I can't believe this is all real. The pardon, the house, the ba–"

He stops himself. Hela snorts, blowing on hir mug. Tony balks.

"I caught him in the storage room in the old house." ze shrugs, "Not much in there but baby stuff. I told him to tell you. But did he listen to me? Oh, no, nobody listens to me."

The cottage door slams open abruptly, and the valley is suddenly alive with noise and shouting. Tony puts a hand on Hela's shoulder and squeezes.

"That will be the first thing to change. From now on I'm dad. You're only job is to be you."

Hela regards him with a blank, unreadable face ze got directly from hir father.

"Jormungand, you get back here this instant and put your shoes on." Loki calls. "I mean it, I'm not playing. Three...two…one. By the Norns. Hela–"

"What do you need?" Tony yells back, stomping through the snow.

It is the bags. Lugging them up the hill to the big house is a pain in the ass, but that's where the car is parked.

Once it's all in the trunk Loki wipes his brow while Tony gets the boys in their carseats. He moves to get in the driver's seat, but Tony snags him around the waist and worms his way under Loki's arm. The space always feels like it's made for him, a perfect alcove to tuck into and steal body heat.

"Did we forget something?" Loki asks with a slight frown.

Observing the sloping property with its looming pine and swaying willows. Somewhere under the drifts he hopes there's a stone bench covered in vines, a patch of tall grass where he and Loki can lay and argue over baby names.

The big house sits up the hill, waiting to be occupied by memories and tiny shoes with bear faces on them. Kissing Loki's temple, he takes one last look and tries to memorize every detail.

"Remind me...when do we get home?"

"Fourteen days." Loki says, pursing his lips and scanning Tony's face for some clue as to what he's getting at. "If that's alright?"

"No, no, it's good. It'll be good to get away. Monaco is great this time of year."

"We ought not miss our departure." Loki says, still not quite comprehending Tony's stillness.

"I just wanted to know, that's all. When we get home, you know."

A smile breaks through Loki's quizzical expression when he gets it. His eyes soften in a look of tranquility and pride Tony hasn't seen in a long, long time.

"Oh, yes. We won't be away long. From home that is."

Tony pecks him on the lips, still chapped and a bit red from last night's romp. The way they should be, in his opinion. He grins back and boops him on the nose just to see him wrinkle it up and glare.

"Well alright, let's get outta here. What are you dragging your heels for?"

He nearly slips on ice running to the passenger side door and Loki snorts.

"I am, as always, here to sop up your ridiculous sentimental nonsense before you–"

Tony slams the door shut before Loki can finish whining. The kids are bickering in the back, smacking each other with mitten covered hands and fighting over who gets the tablet first. He calls the court to order with a raised hand as Loki seats himself at the wheel.

"Alright, brats, show of hands, who wants Burger King?"

Crickets. Not one finger lifted. Heathens.