Fifty Eight

It became routine the next few weeks, Loki woke up sick, I made him tea and tucked him back into bed. Pepper and Jane spent the mornings with him while I went to training to keep up appearances. Thor became worried about his brother and went on the search for him.

"I need to contact him. I need to tell him I'm ok." Loki whined and tried to get out of bed. The girls pushed him back down.

"You're not leaving until we figure out why you've been sick every morning for three weeks." I scolded him.

"I wish I knew more about your physiology, even the scans I've ordered from Jarvis says there's nothing wrong with you." Jane mumbled over her stack of read outs. Loki just folded his arms over his chest in a pout.

"How was training? I think I'm gaining weight from just lying here. I need to get back to training." He poked at the pudge on his belly.

"Training's no fun without you. I don't get to watch you beat Thor into the floor." I leaned in and kissed the pudge in question. "Besides this just means these ladies are feeding you well so you can get healthy. You'll work it off the first day back." He smiled and shook his head at my affection.

He spent another week sick before it suddenly stopped and he was fine. I allowed him to seek out Thor and let him know he was well. The pair of Aesir returned the next day, Thor explaining that Loki had been called away to Alfheim, the land of the light elves to ask for assistance. I watched Jane, Pepper and Natasha share a knowing look between themselves an me.

Loki started training with us the next day, easily dancing around his opponents and thrashing a few of the Avengers into walls and the floor. Natasha smacked the back of my head for watching my lover.

Again weeks went by with the same routine. We trained in the morning, Loki read in the afternoon while Bruce and I worked on the drones, and we came together in the common room. Pepper, Jane and Lana in their own little group while I challenged Steve and Clint to some Call of Duty. Steve said it was an opportunity to work on communication, Clint and I rolled our eyes. Natasha reminded us at least once a week to think about telling the others.

One evening we were called out to help contain a bank robbery that had gotten out of control. The small band of armed robbers had taken the cleaning crew hostage and refused to speak to a negotiator. SWAT couldn't find a safe way to rescue the hostages and called the Avengers. I used Jarvis to get a layout of the building and where the robbers and hostages were. It was decided that Loki would transport Natasha and Clint into the building behind them to start removing the hostages while Thor and Steve distracted the robbers from the front. My job was back up incase something failed. I watched the monitors carefully making sure the hostages were getting moved safely. Bruce watched with me.

Loki started teleporting hostages back to us, unbeknownst to the robbers as Steve was trying to talk them down. I had no sound as I watched something go wrong. I felt my heart race as a robber shot at Steve. He deflected it with his shield. Loki stepped into the path of the bullet to protect Natasha. I wanted to go to him, to hold him.

He grabbed the last hostage and teleported back out to me. I ran to him, he waved me off and handed me the woman he had with him.

"I have to go back for Nat and Clint." He reasoned. His front was soaked in blood. His layered armor preventing me from seeing where the bullet went in. He teleported back inside. Bruce took the girl to the waiting ambulance to make sure she was okay. I returned to the monitors Steve and Thor had taken out the robbers and Natasha and Clint were handcuffing them. Loki was no where to be seen. I worried, I tried not to let it show as our four teammates brought the unconscious robbers out to SWAT. We were congratulated all around for our good work. I just wanted to leave and find Loki.

"Steve, Tony doesn't need to be here for the paperwork part, Lana's been ill. He should go home to her." Natasha interrupted him.

"Yeah sure. Go tell him for me, okay?" Steve said as he signed something for SWAT. Natasha walked over to me. She saw the panic in my eyes.

"Go find him." She said quietly to me. "Tell him thank you." She smiled softly. I took off to the air. I was hoping he'd gone home.