Chapter Six:

Loki was getting weak. It seemed the strain of the pregnancy and her magic keeping control and literally forcing itself not to turn back to her default male shape was beginning to leech it's energy from her. As the end of the pregnancy drew near she spent more time sleeping and Thor had taken to pacing outside her bedroom, armed with his hammer like a guard outside an ancient royal birthing chamber. Which Tony guessed in some weird way it was.

Pepper had gotten her a ton of books from the bookstore, all on Tony's credit of course because why would Loki use any money she had for anything when Tony could provide and a bunch of other things Pepper seemed to think would entertain her. A television, which as much as Thor always was, Loki seemed equal parts fascinated and disdainful of the earth device. Tony often wondered how Asgardians went living thousands of years without mindlessly blowing away hours in front of a tv.

Tony had Jarvis frequently updating him on what occurred in and around the bedroom. It seemed that she was no longer able to extend her magic to cloak herself whenever she felt like it and Tony was absolutely worried about that. He had wondered a few times how it was that a god who could literally raise the ocean to turn into tsunami sized waves had possibly had six children taken away from her. Every time he went to see her she looked more and more tired, like the magic was literally eating at her trying to stay in control of the shapeshifted form to protect it's offspring. She was almost as helpless as a human, easy enough to control for a while as she recovered from birth. Bye bye baby.

He also had Jarvis change the codes to get into the mansion, Fury and Coulson and anyone affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D no longer had the easiest access to his home. Not of course that it could stop them from eventually getting in but he'd have enough warning to put on a suit and make for the hills if need be. He hadn't wanted to let Thor and Steve in on what had occured the week before but had forced himself to spill as the magic that would have served Loki well disappeared temporarily by now rapid increments. Hence Thor's guardian stake out of the bedroom. No one would be getting past him and his hammer.

Steve and Pepper had been tasked with finding of all things a midwife. Tony didn't trust any Doctor's from local hospitals not to be paid off and figured women who commonly acted as midwives for other women would be more trustworthy. And discreet. He was known as a high profile guy, technological. No one would expect anyone giving birth to his baby to have a completely natural birth without the bonus of drugs and doctors. They had yet to find one up to Loki and Thor's high standards. Royal brats. As a precaution he himself hadn't met any of them and they were brought to Steve's apartment, just in case one went talking to a reporter.

She was also having night terrors. Normally so mysterious when awake, asleep she tossed and turned and her worry came out. Tony noticed Thor had stopped saying anything now that he had all but moved himself into the bedroom for the time being, not trusting himself to wake up immediately in light of an emergency. Loki would scowl at him but he knew that she was grateful, despite all that she didn't say.

She had her eyes closed and was singing softly when he walked into the room that night. Words that sounded ancient and practiced, in a low, lilting tone. Tony couldn't understand a word but the feel of the song was one of love and protection.

"What are you singing?"

"M...Frigga use to sing it to me, as a child. When I couldn't sleep," she replied, hitching herself up in the bed. He sat down next to her. The dark circles under her eyes looked deeper, her face and lips had been bleached of all color, which seemed to make her black hair and green eyes seem even more oddly vibrant.

"Frigga?" A nanny perhaps?

"My...adoptive mother," she said bitterly. Adoptive? Had he known that? He couldn't recall ever once hearing that Loki had been adopted, Thor had certainly never let anyone on to that fact. It must have shown on his face.

"Thor will tell you it doesn't matter. But he's not the one lied to all his life, he's not the one that was to be used as a pawn in their war games," she spat out. She wasn't looking at him, rubbing at her left arm up and down like she was trying to scratch her own skin off.

He drew a breath and cautiously spoke, "Who's war games?" He didn't expect an answer, use to not getting the truth or any answers at all from the god sitting next to him, but her tiredness and maybe loneliness prompted her to speak. It was perhaps the most he'd ever heard her say, that was every word of it true.

"For a long time the Asgardians were at war with their names, Jotunheim. The Jotun are as unlike the Aesir as night is from day, they are in a child's words the stuff of nightmares. We grew up hearing tales of how horrible they were. Our bogeymen. A thousand years I believed that I was Odin and Frigga's true son, though I did not always feel that my father loved me. All the things he'd done, holding up Thor as the golden son, taking away my children, pushing me aside. A thousand years it took me to find out why. I'm the monster from my own childhood, abandoned and left to die and then taken and raised to serve. His war trophy locked away in the gold halls of Asgard and kept on a shelf, to be used when it was needed."

Tony had her head on his shoulder by the time she was done telling him about her origins, trying to think of something to say back. Not the best at being comforting at the best of times, but as a man who'd grow up with his own parent relation troubles, he knew exactly the kind of emotions that eat at a person when they felt unloved.

In the end the only thing he ended up saying to her was, "I'm sorry." His own heart twisted when he felt her shaking, a low bitter laughing sob filled the room. He continued to embrace her until she fell back into her troubled sleep.