Chapter Eight:

Odin and Frigga wanted to bring Loki and Asta, their newly named daughter, back to Asgard with them.

It had taken a few minutes but Frigga had managed to get a hold of the memory of The Avenger's mansion well enough in her mind from the three men thinking about it to bring everyone back. None had been up to walking and Tony hadn't wanted to think about how long they might be waiting for a car to pass them by. His own car had been left on the side of the road and he idly wondered if he should call a pick up truck to get it.

His head was spinning from the events of the rest of the night. He was no longer mortal. Still human but apparently not going to die. Frigga had explained that she had taken it upon herself to send a servant down to Earth to deliver something called Idunn's apples to his house. Thor and Loki and even Odin had been shocked by that for apparently it was rare to get a hold of these apples. The day that Loki had made him pie and brought it to him was apparently the day he had unknowingly made Tony immortal.

But hey not such a bad fate really. Frigga had probably given the world a gift, not to mention himself. He wouldn't die and be forgotten like every other great inventor in history but he could see the future come to pass. He could watch advances in technology and medicine. Who wouldn't wish to live forever? But what gift was this if he couldn't go with them?

He didn't want to live without Asta. Or, he admitted almost reluctantly to himself, Loki. And no human had apparently ever stepped foot on Asgard, Thor admitted that he wasn't even allowed to bring Jane there.

And they wanted to bring Loki back to their home. Asta, despite her almost completely human appearance was the child of a god. She wasn't human and S.H.I.E.L.D, enemies that he'd made in life, Loki's enemies, all of them on earth would want to use her, or control her. His stunt with the public media would not hold S.H.I.E.L.D back forever, Tony knew that. Nor would Doom or any other villain particularly care. And while Loki's magic would soon be back, as Asta got older they would not be near her every minute of every day. Human children went to school, hung out with friends, wandered off. A number of things could go wrong. He knew that. It would be for the best. Tony just had a hard time letting his heart agree with his head.

"I am told that you are quite a rich man, here on Midgard." Loki's mother had wandered out on the balcony it seemed. She seemed a bit bewildered by a lot of the stuff in Tony's house, like the television. Tony remembered that Asgard didn't have tvs, and Thor had spent some time trying to explain the little he knew about the television to his father. Loki had taken Asta upstairs and was probably passed out next to her crib.

"Yes. For all that's worth," he said, studying her. Though there was no physical resemblance between her and Loki, her trick with the apples showed that some traits went beyond genetics. He had to admire her. He just didn't understand why.

"You are wondering why I gave you the gift of immortality, but did not gift it to Jane Foster," she said, smiling serenely.

"A bit yeah."

"Jane Foster is a lovely girl, but she is not what the fates hold for my son. Not in anything that I have seen. And I have seen many things. This was one small, obscure timeline that I have seen. I have seen my youngest happy. It is so rare that I could not, in good conscience, let that slip away from him when he has been in so much turmoil in his own head. That is why."

"Asta makes him happy?" She spoke in as much riddles as Loki did and Tony was a little tired of the gods and their mind games. Made him want to be a father and then the possibility of that ripped away to go off to some distant planet while he lived out his life here? Didn't sit to well.

"Yes. And so will you. Whatever choice the two of you make."

He tried to get her to talk more but she didn't seem any more inclined to answer him so after a few minutes he went back inside, sparing a second glance at the two blonde gods enraptured by the television and wandering past his own room to go to Loki's.

He was sitting on the bed, holding a sleeping Asta. She'd been cleaned up and dressed properly in baby clothes and Loki hadn't once put her down. Even with Odin telling Loki that he had no intention of taking her, Loki didn't seem inclined to let away from him. Tony thought it should be weird, the sudden change from woman to man, but it wasn't. Tony bent to pull off his shoes before sitting next to him, careful not to jostle the bed to much so that he didn't wake her up, though he wanted to see her open her eyes and look at him.

"Should I ask how you managed to get that gun in my car?" He didn't want to talk about the elephant in the room, the fact that Loki might pack up tomorrow and be gone with their daughter.

Loki let out a small laugh, smirking at him, "I hid them in all your cars. Also almost every drawer in this house. Your friend has quite a lot of guns. I also made him teach me how to work them properly."

"Rhodey? But...he's never met you," Tony said, mind reeling at the fact that there were probably hundreds of guns hidden around the place. Not that Clint didn't have his own share of them but he kept them in his room.

"So he thinks. Too him I was just a pregnant woman in need of protection from her abusive boyfriend."

"And all the villains? I haven't missed that it was quiet for months. No one did." Tony had never asked it, he hadn't wanted to jinx anything.

"I manipulated them into pursuing their other hobbies for the time being. Bird watching, golf, those kinds of things. It won't last forever of course, the mind is only suspectiable to so much, but it has lasted a surprisingly long while so far, given the decrease of magic."

Tony nodded. He knew it couldn't last forever, this quiet. The Avengers were even getting restless with no foe to beat up. Clint had taken to playing video games, blowing up imaginary villains. Steve had been talking about opening up an art gallery to give himself something to do. Who knew how Natasha was occupying herself.

He smiled down at his sleeping daughter. Thought about her first words, her first steps, the first time she managed to surpass all her other classmates. Though about graduations and teenager temper tantrums and bail money. Thought about first dates and reporters following her into Starbucks. Thought about Fury. Thought about his daughter looked up in some cell in a government building somewhere, experimented on. Thought about her being used, becoming a soldier, put into a line of fire. Thought about long nights spent worrying, desperate to find traces of someone gone.

He thought about spending every day with her and with Loki and raising her with the rebellious, crafty god. He wanted it. He could picture it so easily in his head, easier then he could picture anything before. He could picture everyday, the bad ones and the good ones. And he pictured a desperate Loki tearing apart cities to find her, going mad. Was this how he was to make Frigga's son happy? This decision that was tearing at every cell in Tony's body?

"You should take her home."

It had been four days. It had taken four days for Loki to get back to his full magical strength and he had watched Asta like a hawk the whole time. And hadn't spoken a word to Tony since the night Tony told him they should go. Tony knew it was for the best but the cold shoulder from the mother of his child felt like a knife in the gut. Even when they were in the same room with their daughter it felt like a void was between them that even when they were enemies hadn't been there. Tony would be fooling himself if he said it didn't crush him.

Thor had made his unhappiness very clear. He couldn't be in the same room as Tony without holding up his hammer threateningly. Tony knew what was going through his mind. That Tony was done with them now that he didn't have to take care of them and was going to go back to living his billionaire, playboy lifestyle. It couldn't be farther then the truth but he didn't feel like explaining himself to Thor when Loki hadn't even let him explain himself before shutting him out.

The four days that Odin and Frigga had been waiting for Loki and Asta to come home with them had been fraught with tension. It should have been days of sleepless nights and fond staring, watching every new thing their baby did as if it held all the secrets of the universe but Tony was keenly aware that every moment he spent with her was well on it's way to being the last.

The rest of the Avengers were torn between being in awe of the little baby, walking on tiptoes around the gods, and wondering when and if S.H.I.E.L.D was going to descend down on them. Tony had Jarvis rip the camera's systems that Fury had installed the night they got back but he didn't know if they knew the baby had been born yet. So far he'd managed to keep that news away from the media. It was for the best. He would have to have Pepper help him come up with a story after they left.