Author's Note:So because I'm scatterbrained and disorganized I uploaded this chapter as 10 at first but it's not. The old chapter 9 is now chapter 11 and the next chapter is NEW! Yay! Hope you enjoy and hehe yes Pepper we finally get to hear about Pepper! (a little) Review, Fave, throw rotten tomatoes at your monitor or something... -Ember

Chapter 9

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Bruce didn't keep much, Loki noticed, walking into the office that the doctor had reportedly kept "temporarily" for the last four years. There was still a printed, paper tag on the door instead of the fancy engraved plaque given to long time employees. Inside it looked as temporary as the title suggested. All the furniture was generic and outdated. The walls were bare and the desk was organized into a controlled chaos of files and reports. The few personal items were arranged on the small corner table by the single comfortable chair in the room, under the large window. There was a chipped, painted elephant, a round lacquer box and a picture frame with a single photo.

Loki recognized the setting of the photo immediately as the same table he had eaten breakfast at hours ago. Around it were an assortment of people, some that Loki recognized and others that he did not. Tony was featured in the middle, unsurprisingly with Bruce at his left. An African American man stood behind them with a stern expression. Steve Rogers, the famed Captain America, was casually reclining in the foreground, looking over his shoulder at the camera, the unmistakable Black Widow sandwiched between him and Hawkeye, the latter of whom was facing away from the camera. Loki wondered for a moment at what his expression might be. A few other figures were caught partially in the picture as were the decorations strewn across the large windows in the background. The most interesting part of the photo though was the woman. She was sitting beside Tony, one of his arms thrown over her shoulders. Her strawberry blond hair fell in graceful waves around her pleasing smile and she was looking at Tony sideways. What caught Loki's eye was the familiar ring adorning her finger.

The door behind Loki opened and he jumped up from where he was stooped, inspecting the picture.

"Loki," Bruce Banner said cordially, pausing in his own doorway as if he had interrupted his boss.

"Doctor, I have the results of the lab work Tony ran for you."

"Oh right," Bruce nodded and accepted a thin manila file from under Loki's arm. "Thanks for bringing that down."

"I realize it would have been easier just to email it but…"

"No, I understand. I spent my fair share of time in hiding. Better to keep as few copies as possible." Bruce said as he shuffled around his desk and started clearing a space fore the new file. "I'll get straight to work adjusting the dosage."

"Thank you," Loki said, finding it a more honest statement then he had intended.

"Of course," Bruce said, looking over the top of his glasses at his guest.

"Ill leave you to it then," Loki said awkwardly and turned toward the door with one last furtive glance at the picture.

"It was Tony's house warming party."

"Excuse me," Loki turned around at the sound of the doctor's voice.

"That picture, it was taken at Tony's house warming about six years ago."

"I see." Loki paused and considered his next question carefully. "I don't recognize everyone there. Who is the woman, the red head?"

"I assume you don't mean Natasha."

"No, the Black Widow and I are well acquainted," Loki said with a note of his old cocky attitude.

"I know. I saw the footage. Looking back it's rather entertaining."

"You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing." Loki replied, more serious and solemn.

"I wouldn't say it was one my better days either."

Loki glanced at Bruce and had to smile. Of all the places to find compassion and understanding he didn't expect it would be in the beast that had brought him down all those years ago.

"Tony hasn't told you about her?" Bruce asked, his eyes shifting to the picture across the room. "I thought he would have… given that you are…" Bruce trailed off.

"Fucking?" Loki supplied.

"I was going to say intimate," Bruce replied, cheeks tinged with red.

"Only physically," Loki explained.

"I see… well that's some kind of improvement."

"You approve?" Loki raised a dubious eyebrow.

"Approve might be a strong word. I'm just glad he's not alone in that house anymore."

Loki paused his eyes lingering on Tony's face frozen in a long gone time behind glass. There was an easy happiness to his expression that was unfamiliar. "I don't think either of us is quite whole enough for real intimacy," he said.

"Regardless you've helped him."

Loki's eyes flicked quickly to the doctor's but Bruce was studying Emily's file, one hand rubbing his forehead nervously. He didn't look up before speaking again.

"Her name is Pepper. She and Tony were married a month before that picture was taken."

"Where is she now?"

"Gone."

"I see." Loki let it drop, deciding not to push further. Bruce didn't address her in the past tense but she was out of the picture. Curiosity ate at Loki and he forcefully stilled his tongue. Tony had been kind enough not to pry into his life. Loki fought to pay the same respect to his friend… lover… partner… Loki realized he suddenly didn't know what to call Tony. Stark seemed too impersonal. Tony seemed too familiar. But Anthony was too formal. Loki turned and left Bruce's office still contemplating his untitled relationship.

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"Do you think it's true?" Natasha asked as she watched the wrought iron gates of multimillion dollar homes flash by out of the passenger window. Clint only grunted ambiguously from the drivers seat.

"You still think Steve is too naive." She stated it, not needing to ask.

"There's no tolerance for it in what we do."

"Steve knows him better than we do."

"Better than I do maybe. You spent a month observing him before the Cap was even defrosted."

"Stark never trusted me."

"And he trusts Rogers?" Clint glanced fleetingly from the road to shoot Natasha a doubtful glance. "No, I think there was only one person who really knew Stark. He's lucky she was the one person who could stand to be around him."

"Maybe," Natasha said thoughtfully. She watched Clint as they wound further down the Pacific Coast toward the secluded bay where Tony and Pepper had built their family home. He was frowning again, pulling the creases of his face into harsh dark lines. The signs of a hard life were written all across his face and in the lighter streaks of his hair. Unlike Natasha the years were catching up with him quickly. She remained unchanged, still young and beautiful on the outside even if she felt as world weary inside as he looked.

The modern asymmetric gates outside the holly lined acres of front yard finally rolled up. Calafia Manor was engraved in the gates in sweeping letters.

"You think he has updated his security permissions?" Clint asked as they pulled up. The gates slid open of their own accord, folding away.

"Or he just knows we're here." Natasha said, watching the hidden camera on the gate post.

"If he doesn't, he will soon enough," Clint agreed with a note of apprehension in his voice. His hands were loose on the steering wheel as he drove up the long driveway with a snipers practiced calm. Natasha wasn't fooled for a moment. She could feel every mussel in her legs and arms strung tight. It had been more than a year since they last saw Tony.

The door to the mansion was unlocked.

The footsteps of the two agents echoed in the high ceilinged foyer. The sound of waves followed them into the house where the smell of fresh salty air was mixed with the savory smell of cooking bacon. The soft sound of sizzling came from the kitchen along with a carefree whistle that cut off abruptly.

Natasha and Clint shared looks. They made their way toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

"Is that you Tony?" A voice came around the corner. It struck a familiar cord with Natasha but she couldn't place it immediately. Instinctively she reached for her holstered pistol. Clint faltered in front of her, sending her nerves humming to a new level. He leapt forward around the corner suddenly. Natasha caught his expression of angry horror for a half second before she was rounding the corner as well.

The face across the counter took her breath away. There was only a moment to draw breath before the heavy kitchen knife was out of her enemy's hands and spinning through the air. Her arms reacted without thought.

Ba-Clang!

A bullet connected with the heavy blade with a sharp snap and the hard crack of the gun.

Bang!

A second shot from Clint's pistol spilt the heavy air of the kitchen and a spray of blood misted the counters. The enemy gave a short strangled cry before ducking, half falling behind the main island.

Clint wasted no time rounding the island, his gun still raised and his expression hard and cold.

The man who should not have been there was half propped against the counters and scurried back with clumsy legs, one hand pressed over his abdomen. Clint felt his heart pounding. Not again, was all that ran through his head, I will not be a slave again! He raised his gun.

"No, please!" That all too familiar voice cried out and the injured man threw his hand up, blood dripping in red weeping rivers over the creases of his palms and streaming down his shirt onto the white tiles. It was wrong, Clint realized in the half second before his finger depressed the trigger and it gave him a moment of pause.

Pssskuusss! Bang!

The hand repulsor of the Iron Man fired with a blinding flash. The white-hot force hit Clint just as the gun went off with a resounding crack that echoed off the hard counter tops. The wood cabinets beside Loki's head splintered as the bullet narrowly missed.

Clint rolled and tumbled toward the living room, sliding to a stop on the wood floor. The pistol was knocked from his hand and clattered a few times across the floor sliding out of his reach. The archer groaned loudly where he landed.

Natasha's boots pounded as she leapt over her fallen partner, double pistols trained on the Iron Man standing a parallel guard over the bleeding Loki.

A door creaked.

"Emily," Loki's voice was little more than a ragged whisper and his eyes wild.

Natasha turned and one pistol followed her line of sight. Clint moved with her raising from the ground to protect her back, his hold out raised, pointing down the hall toward the front of the house and the bathroom door swinging open.

"NO!" Loki scrambled to rise, his legs shaking and failing.

Bang!

Emily's piercing scream filled the house, cutting off into breathless gasping. The Iron Man suit rocketed off the floor, diving over the bar counter top, imposing itself between the frozen agents and the child.

Natasha's chest heaved with panicked breaths. Clint dropped his weapon as if it were burning him and reeled backward onto the floor again. His mouth worked soundlessly for a long moment as the child's rasping breaths got softer and shorter with each passing second.

"Emily, it's ok," Tony's voice through the suit's speakers filled the room. "It's ok, just breath, just take deep breaths, slow deep breaths. It's all ok, just breath. Please kid just breath, breath!"

"Emily," Loki's voice was breathless with pain and his steps were uneven, limping and unsteady as he rounded the island, hand over his oozing wound, the blood seeping from between his fingers and rolling down his pants, making pitter patter drops that seemed to reverberate in the stillness. He didn't even glance at the two agents as he stumbled past.

Falling to his knees at Iron Man's side he reached out with red stained hands for the little girl's hand.

"Shhh, shhh," he whispered, "I'm here. I promised, remember?" His voice wavered with pain but his gaze was steady on his daughter's wide darting eyes. "Shhh, breath like the waves, in and out, in and out, in and out…" with every repetition his words were slower and softer. The red droplets counted out a steady beat as they hit the floor. Drip, drip, drip.

And her breathing slowed with his, still shallow but slower and her eyes were steady on him, her lids growing heavy and her arms limp in Iron Man's firm metal grip.

Clint, staring wide-eyed at the father and daughter, made a noise suddenly as if he'd been stabbed. He gagged and turned away before heaving on the carpet. Natasha stood over him, her gaze darting between her partner and the strange family, wanting to help her partner even though she was unsure how but unable to give up her defensive post even though she wasn't sure where the danger was coming from.

The front door slammed open.

Tony Stark swept in, livid. Behind him with subdued rush came Bruce Banner with a large medical bag.

"Don't move," He growled at Natasha before kneeling beside his metal alter ego and former enemy.

"Shit," He hissed, eyes raking over the blood trail and wet stain spreading across Loki's abdomen, "You holding together Lokster?"

"Emily," was the only word that the former god could push past his lips.

"Get her tank," Tony told his suit and the hollow metal figure jumped to his command. Natasha hurried to step out of its way.

Bruce knelt down beside Loki and immediately started pulling out supplies.

"Emily," the father said again, pleading this time to Bruce.

"You first," the doctor said firmly. He hurriedly applied gauze and pressure to the wound. It took very little to push Loki onto his back even though he resisted. "Damn that's a lot of blood. Stay with me, ok Loki. Hey!" Bruce snapped at his patient and Loki's eyes snapped back open. "Shit!" Bruce hissed the curse. "Tell me you have a stash of blood somewhere?"

"I don't even know his blood type! Hell I don't know if banished Gods have blood types." Tony shot back, his face panicked. His hands flitted over Emily in his helplessness. The suit returned, it's loud steps nearly deafening, carrying the portable oxygen tank. Tony quickly unwound the cord to hitch it under Emily's nose, cradling the child in his arms. Bruce worked calmly with a deep frown. Over his shoulder Natasha was inching closer. She didn't need more than a cursory glance to see the extent of the damage.

Tony saw Bruce swallow thickly and he held Emily closer to his chest instinctively, hugging her thin shivering shoulders.

"D-daddy?" her voice rasped and her questioning eyes begged Tony for answers.

"Give me the IV," Clint said, suddenly right behind Bruce, his hand stretched out demandingly.

"What?" Bruce scowled.

"He's going to die without a transfusion."

"We don't—" Bruce glanced at Emily's wide intelligent blue eyes filling with water, "we don't have any blood to…"

"Mine, you have mine!" Clint snapped.

"He's O negative," Natasha supplied, "universal donor." Bruce snapped his head between the two of them caught in his own indecisions.

"That's not all there is to it," he stammered.

"There's no other option," Clint growled. The doctor hesitated for only a second more before his hands became a blur of frenzied motion, unwinding tubes and arming needles with methodical and practiced precision. His face remained in calm focus even as the red oozing liquid began to flow down the clear tube. Tony held his breath. Clint just stared at the needle in his arm, seemingly at a loss for words. He glanced momentarily at Loki but then quickly toward Emily. His eyes shut quickly as if blocking out a horrifying sight and he looked away again at his own hands.

Natasha stood over the whole blood soaked affair a frown on her small mouth and a muscle twitching in her jaw.

.

Loki was finally moved upstairs to his own bed. His bloody clothes were cut away, his wound bandaged and stitched, and Emily placed a light kiss on his sweat soaked brow. Bruce took up a vigil by his patient's bed with solemnity. Tony reluctantly carried Emily downstairs, wheeling the tank behind him.

Clint was sitting against the wall with a glass of water looking pale. Natasha stood over him like a protective red shadow. Tony stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stood with the puddle of Loki's drying blood on the hardwood floor between the two pairs.

"You all right hawk man?" Tony asked, his voice sharp.

"I don't have a bullet in my gut," he replied even though he looked no better than his victim upstairs. The stench of vomit had filled the air and mixed with the smell of burnt bacon, gun smoke and antiseptics.

"Good," Tony snapped and marched past his unwelcome guests out the back door toward the pool. He passed it, wheeling the oxygen tank behind him over the grass and down to the sandy beach. Clint and Natasha followed, his arm over her shoulder.

Tony finally stopped when he was close enough to feel the spray off the incoming waves but out of their reach. He sat with Emily bundled in his arms.

The two agents slowly caught up and Natasha let Clint down to sit in the damp sand. For a long moment the group was quiet but for the waves crashing all around them. With each cascading roll of falling water Emily's eyes drooped lower and lower. She was nodding off when Clint finally spoke.

"You want to explain this?"

"You want to explain what you're doing shooting at people… at children in my house?" Tony shot back.

"What is Loki doing in your house?" Natasha asked.

"He lives there! He and Emily live there, with me. It's my house, I can invite over who ever I fucking want and I don't remember inviting you!"

"I seem to remember being given an open invitation," Natasha countered.

"Yeah well that was before… before a lot of things."

"Before you dropped off the face of the planet into a bottle."

"Yeah before that!" Tony shot back. "Then you show up and shoot the one good thing that's happened to me in the last four years!"

"How is Loki a good thing?"

"You wouldn't fucking know because you shoot first and ask questions later! Because people are just meat-sacks with expiration dates to you! How could you have even the slightest clue what's been going on in my—"

"It was me," Clint finally spoke, cutting Tony off.

"What?"

"Leave Tasha alone. I shot Loki and I shot at the little girl."

"Well nice going. Feel better now?" Tony growled and Emily stirred in his arms.

Clint just looked out across the water with heavy eyes and a green tinge to his skin.

"You of all people, of all people, should understand. You've been there, when the world just seems like… like shit! When you think there's nothing worth saving in it... well that's where he was and he found Emily. You have no idea, no idea what he would give—has given for her." Tony shook his head and whispered, "What he's given me…" letting the statement hang in the air.

"Steve was telling the truth," Clint said, scrutinizing Tony, "you're clean."

"Yeah," Tony said with a soft short sniff. "That's for her," Tony looked down at the little girl wrapped in his arm and the clear tubing making dimples on her face.

"She's sick… really sick. Lung cancer, she was diagnosed three years ago," He explained. "Chemo wasn't working… I thought… I had hoped that…"

"The Artemis Project," Clint supplied and Tony just nodded. "She's the first patient that Bruce told us about. He… said she doesn't have long."

Tony just nodded silently again, his eyes shimmering and focused down at the sleeping child resting against his shoulder. The oxygen tank stood sentinel over them in the sand.

"She deserved to have her father for what time she has left," Tony whispered. He didn't look up to see the effect his words had on Clint. Natasha saw. Her partner paled worse and swallowed thickly, his usually calm hands shook like she had seen only once before. She knew what he was seeing. He was watching some one else live out the worst day of his own life, and Clint had to relive it himself in the process.

.

Loki woke up to voices murmuring just quiet enough to be unintelligible. Their words flowed together rising and falling. One deeper and the other slower, exhausted sounding. A door closed and Loki's eyes fluttered open, looking up at the burry ceiling and the warm light thrown across it. A shadow passed over the light then the clattering of the French doors to the balcony. The far off sounds of the waves floated in with the smells of chlorine and salt.

Loki swallowed, finding his mouth dry and filled with a metallic taste. Medicine, he concluded. His stomach flipped uncomfortably at the thought and he shifted finding his body stiff and aching dully. The covers tangled around his wrists and weighted down his heavy legs like restraints. Heart speeding up to a clip and his breath coming in quick gasps he fumbled to sit up and look around. His wide eyes fell on the snaking clear tube and needle imbedded in the back of his hand. Wrenching his other hand free, he grabbed for the IV.

"Whoah!" Tony's large hands quickly encased the needle and Loki's palm. "It's alright, just a little morphine."

Loki looked up at the other man in uncomprehending panic, his eyes wide and his rapid breathing shallow.

"Just for the pain, you were shot remember?" Tony spoke softly, eyes never leaving Loki's.

"Shot?" The memories came back in a trickle that quickly became a downpour. "Emily!"

"Shhhh," Tony urged him and pointed over his shoulder. There on top of the covers with Christie under one arm and her pink hat askew was the little girl. Loki laid back, staring across the blankets to his little girl, watching her lips tremble with every breath and her eyes dancing behind her eyelids.

Tony gingerly released Loki's hand, satisfied that Emily had calmed his lover down enough. He understood that the girl was Loki's lifeline to reality just as Pepper had been for Tony after Afghanistan, after New York… and worse times.

"Is she alright?" Loki asked softly, shaking Tony out of his melancholy thoughts.

"Yeah, yeah, she's stronger than she looks."

Loki laughed a little at that. "I know she is," he replied. "There are Gods and Demons with less strength in their entire being than she possesses in her little heart."

"And she loves you. She insisted on staying right there until you get better."

Loki chuckled again. "Am I alright?" He asked next.

"Bruce patched you up… and, well… "

"What?" Loki turned his unwavering stare to Tony, demanding answers.

"Umm… well, we didn't have any blood just lying around so…"

"We are not the same blood type." Loki stated.

"No. But Clint is…"

"Oh." Loki cut Tony off.

"Y-you know what blood type he is?"

"That is one of the… side effects of the Mind Gem. When I took control of his mind the connection was two way, I forced part of my mind into his and so part of his mind flowed back into me. Happy moments, tragedies, the things he loves, hates, the things he takes pride in."

"And his blood type was somewhere in that mess?" Tony questioned.

"I believe the way he sees it," Loki said thoughtfully, "His blood type is contrary to his nature. Where all his life he has hurt others, his body naturally has the ability to help and heal them."

"Huh," Tony shook his head, "I didn't think Hawkman really thought that hard about anything other than food."

Loki returned a soft smile and said half to himself, "you would be surprised."

"Why have you not told me this before?" Tony asked.

"I did not see the reason. What I saw by accident is not mine to share. I have already used that knowledge to hurt one of your comrades intentionally. I would not want to do so again," Loki said, turning back to Emily to hide his face. "They are also… friends of yours after all."

"We're friends then?" Tony asked.

"I believe we are intimate enough," Loki replied.

"Good."

"Good? There was a time when you would have been sickened by the notion."

"Things change, people change."

"I do not know if I can believe that. Some people maybe… but not all."

"And some people would put you in the latter category."

"Would they be wrong?"

"Well we're friends now."

"Again your approximations of logic baffle me," Loki replied, trailing off as his words became a yawn.

"You need to rest. Human body, human healing. It takes time."

"This is not the first time I have been shot, believe it or not," Loki grumbled as Tony pulled up the covers around him. His eyelids were already drooping and fluttering shut. Tony breathed a sigh of relief, the last of the days tension leaving him as he sat back in Bruce's chair. He had seen the bullet scar on Loki's shoulder, knife scars and the jagged puckered flesh of his wrists marred by a broken plastic pen digging for the veins underneath. He thought about his own scars from tussles and crashes over the years. And Emily's, needle marks and surgery scars on her little chest, pulled taunt as she grew into them. They made quite a family, the three of them. Tony leaned back in his chair and settled into his vigil while the IV dripped and the oxygen tank whined ever so softly, like a long low last breath.