Thor- Ms. Foster and the Family P1

“Oh, my dear girl, you have no idea how happy I am to meet you!”

Even as it was happening, the whole thing was as dreamlike to Jane as if she had never gotten out of bed this morning.  One week ago, she spent her Saturday in bed with a cheesy action movie marathon and a container of sesame chicken in her lap.  Yesterday, she’d been up until two making lesson plans for the coming month, only to fall asleep on the couch with her shoes still on.  Today, she was standing outside a castle with ungodly expensive jewelry in her pocket, and the mother of the man she was unwittingly dating had her in a tight embrace, like she was one of her own. 

If there was ever a point where one had to just throw their hands up and give in to the madness, this was probably it.  Jane would fight it to her dying breath anyway.

 “Oh, you must forgive me, dear, for my forwardness,” Mrs. Odinson said upon letting her go. 

Jane applied her weight to one foot; the ground was smoother than she recalled a moment ago.  She heard a door, closed by a dark skinned man with golden eyes and a crisp suit only slightly less fancy than Loki’s typical fare.  He nodded at Jane as she gawked.

When exactly had they gotten into the house?

Had she really been so stupefied that she let Mrs. Odinson bring her inside without realizing?

‘Well, Jane, you’re in now.  Might as well press on,’ said that part of Jane that was ready to give in.  It was louder and stronger than she wanted it to be and reminded her far too much of herself as a teenager.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jane said with an awkward rub of her shoulder (there was one tic she hadn’t needed Darcy to tell her about; Don did years ago). 

“But I must,” Mrs. Odinson said.  “I may have had a few too many drinks today, and you see, you are the first woman my son has taken such a strong fancy to in almost eight years.  I didn’t expect to meet you so soon, and I’m afraid I may have forgotten myself, so please forgive me.”

Jane could indeed see an empty wine glass held between Ms. Odinson’s fingers.  She didn’t bother to wonder just how many times that glass had been refilled since the party started.  That was none of her business.

Her head snapped to one side.

“Well, actually, I don’t know if Lo- if Mr. Odinson likes me as much as you think.”  The dark skinned man—the butler if Jane was not mistaken—slid the coat off Jane’s arms and carried it to the cloak room.  “I mean, the only reason we went out was—“

“I know the whole story, dear,” said Mrs. Odinson.  “You’re grievously misjudging my grandchildren if you think I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, I should really stop doing that…”

Resigned, she allowed Mrs. Odinson to walk her to the parlor, filled with guests even richer looking than those people at the restaurant.  Jane was pretty sure she saw a couple of state politicians and a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the king of Sweden among them.  She had to work hard not to stare, and keep her eyes on Mrs. Odinson as she introduced herself as Frigga (‘I prefer my given name, if you don’t mind.’) and reiterated how thrilled she was to finally meet Jane after hearing so many good things about her.

“Well, that’s uh… that’s very nice of you to say.” Jane had been given a drink of something that appeared to be champagne, but regardless had to have come from a bottle that she’d have to sell all her belongings and her soul to afford.  “But I think the kids may have embellished the story a bit.”

“And why is that?”

There was mischief in Frigga’s expression that Jane would know anywhere.  Though she didn’t elaborate (she seemed to prefer making Jane sweat), her meaning was obvious once Jane got her thoughts back on track and had to steer them in this new direction she could not have been less prepared for.

“I-I just mean that I don’t think Mr. Odinson would be so interested in me if it wasn’t for them pushing him.  That’s not to say he hasn’t been polite or anything.”

‘It’s not to say that he has been either,’ she thought.

Frigga hummed.  She sipped from her newly refilled glass and seemed to be in a state of contemplation, one lasting long enough that Jane almost thought she could get up and walk to the door if she could just keep from making a sound.

“Tell me, Ms. Foster, do you know how many other women my grandchildren have scouted out for my son?”

Jane furrowed her brow.  Didn’t Loki say something about that once before?  He had, hadn’t he?

“Oh yeah,” Jane said.  “Lok- Mr. Odinson told me that they tried to set him up with an employee, but she was already engaged.”

Frigga nodded.  “Yes, that was Lana, a really lovely girl if I remember correctly, but entirely incompatible with Loki.  I trust he mentioned that her fiancée turned out to also be a very lovely girl?”

Jane started to nod.  Then she did a double take.  No, she hadn’t heard that part of the story.

 “Yes, as intelligent as my grandchildren are, there is still much they have to learn about the way of the world, and of what adult relationships truly entail.”  Frigga’s eyes flicked to Jane.  They were filled with strength and warmth, and it reminded Jane of her own mother.  “Thankfully, they have chosen someone of a compatible orientation this time.”

“Yeah, good for them,” Jane said.

“In fact, I think I would have chosen you, too, were it up to me.”

“Yeah, I- wait, what?”

“There you two are!”  Frigga left the couch and Jane to throw her arms around a tall, blonde headed man and a dark haired woman in turn.  Both were attractive, slightly damp, and most likely those two swimmers Jane had spotted earlier.  “And here I thought I wouldn’t see you at all today.”

“Forgive me, Mother,” the man said.  He placed his arm around the woman’s shoulder, tilting his head slightly towards hers.  “Sif couldn’t take losing our game of pool volleyball and demanded a rematch.”

“Oh, Thor, you mean you finally beat her?” asked Frigga.

The man called Thor made a face, and Jane thought she could see one eye twitch and a few veins pop up.

“It should not be a surprise, considering our first game of volleyball ended in a tie.”

“Yes, yes, of course it did, dear,” Frigga said.  She looked away from her crestfallen son to Jane.  “Now, I’d like you both to meet someone very special.  Thor, Sif, this is Jane Foster, the one Hela and Jormungandr were telling us about.  Jane, this is my oldest son, Thor, and my daughter-in-law, Sif.”

Jane knew this was the part where she was supposed put on a good face and greet the rest of Loki’s family like a normal person who was supposed to be there.  Getting up and doing it was another story all together, and Jane didn’t think her feet were in a place to obey her even if she had wanted to move them.  She breathed a sigh of relief when the tension was pre-emptively averted by Thor.

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Foster,” he said.  Unlike Loki, he did kiss her hand.  “I’ve heard nothing but good things about you from my niece and nephews.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” Jane said with a grin, but in a fraction of a second, she turned deadly serious.  “What kind of things?”

Though Thor was taken aback, Frigga intercepted once more, having retrieved one more glass of wine that just about matched the color of her cheeks.

“Jane was hoping to speak to Loki about an urgent matter- oh, was it urgent, Jane?  I’m afraid I can’t remember what you said.”

“I hope you’re not drinking too much wine again, Mother,” said Thor.

“Oh, darling, I never drink too much.”

“Well, it really wasn’t that important,” Jane said over their small talk.  “I could just wait until Monday to talk to the kids.  In the meantime-“

“But you can’t go now, Jane!”  Frigga latched onto her arm.  She an impossibly firm grip that Jane couldn’t break, hard as she tried.  Not bad for a woman theoretically in her sixties.  “We haven’t sat down to dinner, and you still have to meet Odin.  Now, where did that man get off to?”

Frigga scanned the crowds of the rich and the famous for the man Jane could only assume gave Loki his name.  She had wondered about his parents at least a few times since that fateful parent teacher conference.  Before now, it had mainly been in the context of ‘What kind of screwed up childhood did this guy have to grow up to be like this?’  Now that she had met them, she decided that he was just born this way.   That aside, it didn’t escape her notice that Thor and Frigga bore little physical resemblance to Loki or his kids.  He had to be the spitting image of his father, or else she might think he was adopted.  Were it not a rude and intrusive thing to ask about, Jane might have said something.  She settled for scouting out every tall, dark haired older man in the room and waiting for one of them to come over.

A man did issue forth from the sea of wealth and good taste, and out of everyone Jane had seen so far (yes, even that maybe Swedish king), he was by far the classiest person in the whole party.

It had a lot to do with his posture, more than it did his clothes.  While nice and expensive looking, his three piece suit didn’t set him apart from the other suit and tie wearing men the way his walk did.  He looked like the kind of man everyone else would defer to, like a king or an emperor or something along those lines.  Even though he was quite obviously missing an eye—and that eyepatch looked like the same material as his suit—the effect was the same.  She’d been wrong about him and Loki looking alike, but Jane could already tell they were going to act alike.

“And where on earth have you been all this time?” asked Frigga, hands on her hips. 

The man responded in a language Jane didn’t understand; most likely Norwegian if Loki’s comment about the Norse meant anything.  Whatever he said, Frigga was rolling her eyes. 

“Come on, don’t make a fuss.  Introduce yourself to Jane Foster.  It’s high time we met her, don’t you agree?”

She pulled Odin into the circle.  He grumbled under his breath, but didn’t argue.  Appraising Jane with his one good eye, his frown deepened into something that wasn’t quite rude, but wasn’t quite pleasant either. 

“You’re the schoolteacher,” he said.  He made it sound like teaching involved turning tricks on the corner and selling drugs. 

 “Er- yes, I am a teacher,” she said.  “It’s very nice to meet you, sir.”

He grumbled and walked by her, towards a waiter bearing a plate of cheeses and grapes.  Retrieving a few of the grapes, he joined a group of men at one of the tables near the double doors leading to the yard.  He laughed with them at whatever joke had been made about all the little people they stepped on to make themselves richer.

Frigga shook her head.

“I swear, that man sometimes…” she turned to Jane.  “I am so sorry, dear, I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“He’s suspicious of her,” said Sif.  Jane gave her a look, and received an apologetic stare right back.  “I don’t mean to imply that he should be.  He acted much the same when I started dating Thor.”

“And you would think after that he’d learn some manners,” said Frigga. Then she looked at her son.  “Will you two show Jane around while I go and have a word with him?”

Sif opened her mouth, and something told Jane that what she wanted to say was important, but Thor beat her to the punch.

“Certainly, Mother.  We’d be happy to.”

He leaned for Frigga to press a kiss onto his cheek.  She saw herself out to the yard, where Odin and those friends of his had departed mere moments ago.  The backyard boasted a greater crowd than the living room if that were possible.  She took three steps into the fray, and Jane could no longer see her.

“Tell me, Jane,” Thor said, drawing attention back to him.  He seemed oblivious to the urgent look his wife levied at him.  “Have you seen the pool or the tennis courts?  Loki keeps them immaculate, and I never thought I would enjoy the game so much“

“I’m actually not much of a tennis person,” Jane said, which was only kind of a lie.  She’d never played it before.  “I don’t have a swimsuit handy either.  Could you just tell me where I can find Loki or one of the kids?”

“The last time I saw my brother, he was downstairs at the bar with Tony Stark.  The children will be in their room down that corridor there.  I think this party might be a bit too boring and grown up for them.”  Thor gave a laugh and patted Sif’s shoulder.  “It makes me think what we’ll ever do when we have kids.  What do you think, love?”

Sif didn’t answer.  She had her lips puckered like she was sucking a particularly sour lemon.

 “Okay, well, I just wanted to talk to them really fast.  Sorry to cut this short,” said Jane.

“No problem,” said Sif, cutting off Thor’s objection.  She pulled him off in the opposite direction.  “Thor and I wanted a moment alone anyway.”

“We did?”

With a final helpless glance at Jane, he vanished with his wife as his parents had before him.  Alone in a crowd just barley thinned, Jane had an unobstructed path to the front door and sweet reality.  Had she her jacket—and were it not weighed down with priceless diamonds—she might’ve seized the opportunity.  The last thing she wanted to do was have to ask that Heimdall guy where the coats were kept.

‘You could just keep the bracelet,’ said the teenage side of her. ‘That would save you a major headache.  Plus, it looks great on you.’

‘Shut up,’ Jane told it.

“Ms. Foster!”

A throaty laugh preceded the shout of her name, as a heavyset man and woman charged through the crowd.  They were ignorant of the glares they received as the husband made one man drop his plate, and the wife pushed another into his female companion.  She was in the lead, her eyes dulled from alcohol intake and caked with so much blue eye shadow that it would make a drag queen look modest.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hayer!” Jane said.  She glanced again at that front door, but crowd had shifted and she could no longer see it.  “Wow, I… didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I could say the same for you,” said Mrs. Hayer.  Then she hiccupped.  “You’re a little dressed down for the evening, dear.”

“Now, Henrietta, be nice,” said Mr. Hayer, not looking anyway near his stumbling wife.  From the smell of his breath as he stood a little too close to Jane, he wasn’t much more sober than she was.  “Don’t forget she lives on a teacher’s salary.  She’s doing the best she can with what she has.”

He winked at her, and though she hadn’t had a single drink tonight, she was the one feeling nauseous.

“Actually, I left my evening dress at home with my diamond necklace,” she said.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I needed to go and speak to Mr. Odinson.”

“Oh, when you see him, could you ask him to inform the chef that Harvey isn’t fond of green beans or red sauces?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“And his soup must be at exactly seventy three degrees Fahrenheit.  And he only likes cream of mushroom!”

“Uh-huh…”

“It’s so nice that our son has become friends with Loki Odinson’s children, isn’t it, Harvey?”

“Yes, that boy is a chip off the old block.  Look at him, getting connections before he’s even out of grade school.”

The proud parents’ gushing was soon drowned out by the general flow of conversation.  It came at Jane from all directions, making it impossible to distinguish any one person from another.  This was why Jane hated parties—or at least it made her list of reasons.  She continued on away from the noise, through a wide archway that fed into a hall with high ceilings and family pictures lining both walls.  They alternated with paintings and sculptures, some of which she recognized from a catalog Jormungandr read in class.  Eventually, all those photos and decorations became all that surrounded her from every end.  All sound beyond her footsteps she was no longer sensitive to, save for one big explosion that shook the ground under her feet.

“YOU’RE WHAT?!”

**

Harvey Hayer Jr. was buried in a sloppy mess of bed sheets and pillow cases. Jane only knew it was him from the feet sticking out of the pile.  Harvey’s black and green sneakers where untied and scuffed with dirt.  He used the laundry as a shield, a meager barrier against the rage of another child.  Such should be all but impotent, even to other small children who lacked the defenses of an adult, but that was Fenrir for you.  Like his siblings, he defied all conventions.

“I said fold my shirts long ways first, not fat ways!  Are you getting stupider, Hayer?  It sure seems like it.”

“I-I’m sorry, Lord Fenrir.”  The pile shivered and shook as Harvey poked his head out.  A sock sat unnoticed over one of his eyes.  “I promise I’ll fold them right next time.”

A short, tense pause followed, until Fenrir snatched Harvey up by the collar.  He pulled the much heavier boy to his feet. 

“You bet you are,” Fenrir snarled.  “You’re going to fold each and every shirt, sheet, and sock again, and you’re going to do it exactly the way I tell you to.  You hear me, Hayer?  You are not leaving this room until every scrap of cloth is off this floor and in those drawers.  Do you comprehend that, you blubber faced little-”

At the sight of Jane standing in the doorway, Fenrir paused.  They stared at each other for several seconds marked by the ticking of the cartoonish blue and orange wall clock.  Then Fenrir pulled Harvey into a hug and patted him roughly on the head.

“Wonderful, wonderful boy,” he said.  “You’re just so helpful and I am so happy that we’re friends now.  Isn’t it great being friends, Hayer?”

Harvey whimpered a yes, flinching every time Fenrir’s hand came up to rest on top of his head. 

Jane watched the display, one eyebrow arched high over her forehead, close to invisible.  She crossed her arms over her chest.  In her experience, that one silent gesture could make her point better than words ever could, and Fenrir was no exception.  Reluctantly, he released Harvey, who scooted away in a rush, tripping over his shoes to land on his butt.  He gazed up at her with wide, wobbling eyes.  She’d seen that look before, when he was trying to appear innocent and get out of trouble.  This was the first time it ever looked real.

“Harvey, go find your parents,” Jane said.

“Th-thank you, M-Ms. Foster.”

He ran from the room on all fours, unable to pick himself up until he was well out of view.  His absence left Fenrir alone at the mercy of his teacher.  From the sweat caking his brow, this was probably not a scenario he was used to.

“I-In my defense,” he said weakly, “this could be really good for Harvey.”

“Fenrir.”

“No really!  He does a little work, it builds character.”

“Fenrir.”

“If you look at it that way, I’m doing him a favor.”

“Fenrir, you do not deal with bullies by enslaving them!”

Fenrir shrunk back.  It gave Jane a weird sort of satisfaction that she could make him back down just by yelling.

“W-well, you know,” Fenrir said.  He seemed to be thinking fast.  “I don’t think you’ve ever had to say anything like that to a student before, have you?  In fact, I may have just given you enough funny teacher stories to sustain your whole career.  Just think about how popular you’re going to be with your colleagues, Ms. Foster!”

Jane pressed a hand to her forehead, trying in vain to stave off the throbbing ache.  She unleashed a sigh that sucked all the air from her lungs until they hurt.  Fenrir fidgeted.

“You’re not going to make me write lines again, are you?”

Jane shot him another glare, silencing him hopefully for the rest of the day.  She heard shuffling, followed by the click of a door being opened. 

“Fenrir, would you shut up in there?  I’m trying to re- MS. FOSTER!”

Hela’s small body collided with the back of Jane’s legs.  She yelped and grabbed the nearest heavy object.  That wound up being Fenrir’s bookcase, which climbed all the way up to the ceiling and came complete with a rolling ladder specially made for a child’s stubby legs.  Jane held to it fast, keeping her balance as Hela clung to one of her legs.

“I didn’t know you were coming, Ms. Foster,” said Hela.  “I wanted to invite you properly, but then Dad said we needed to give you some breathing room first.”

“He really said that?”  If Jane went through her mental assessment of Loki Odinson as she thus far knew him, that didn’t jive at all with her perceptions.  She’d be more likely to believe he’d done some kind of far off mind manipulation to make her come here; paying to have subliminal messages inserted into her TV set or something.

“I’m glad you made it anyway, even if this party did turn out to be boring.”

“It’s because we let Grandpa Odin invite a bunch of his friends.” 

Jane glanced up, following Jormungandr’s voice to the enormous library he had just exited.  He joined them with a grin that rivaled his sister’s.  He didn’t grab Jane’s other leg, but it wouldn’t have surprised her if he had.

“Hello, Jormungandr,” she said.

He shyly waved.

“Grandpa is a rich old guy from Europe,” Fenrir shouted.  He looked much too happy to no longer be the center of attention.  “He only makes friends with other rich old guys from Europe.  Once they come around, you know the fun is over.  Actually, you could say the same thing about Grandpa himself a lot of the time.”

“Fenrir, don’t talk about Grandpa like that!” Hela cried.

“Well, it’s true,” Fenrir said, shrugging.  “He’s only ever fun when him and Dad aren’t fighting, or when it’s Christmas and he reads us The Grinch.”

“You should come by next year for that, Ms. Foster,” said Jormungandr.  “Grandpa tells The Grinch better than anyone.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane said under her breath.  If her brief encounter with the man himself told her anything, it was that he’d have an easy time relating to that kind of character.

“We should let Dad know that you’re here.  He’ll want to see you,” said Hela.  Though she’d let go of Jane, she still hovered close to her.

“I’ll get him!” said Jormungandr.  He raced out of the room like a bullet. If Jane had wanted to stop him, she’d never have a chance.

Good thing she didn’t.  She had come to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to get anywhere talking to the kids.  If one of them didn’t require a stern lecture from an authority figure about how to handle conflicts maturely, the other two were on sugar rushes that left them unreachable.  That teenaged girl within Jane alternated between cooing over what good little children they were and demanding that she stop daydreaming and let Hela take her to the couch.  Fenrir hadn’t left his bed and had buried his nose in a book.  They’d be finishing that little talk of theirs later. 

Jane sunk into the plushy cushions and rested her head on the hard back wall, repeating to herself that she was only waiting long enough for Loki to come so she could return the bracelet.  The teenager in her could whine and stamp her foot all she wanted.  Grown up Jane would not be moved.

Hela curled up beside her, flipping through the book she’d brought in from her bedroom.  Jane cast a glance at the pages, her curiosity piqued.  Instead of college level words in tiny font, they were covered in black and white comic images.  One had a group of well-groomed boys posing together in school uniforms.  Another showed a different boy in frumpy with an effeminate face who looked about as confused as Jane felt.  The difference was that the characters in this story probably figured out what was going on eventually.  Jane just became more lost as she read on.  This book appeared to have been printed backwards.

“Do you like manga, Ms. Foster?”

Hela was watching her, something Jane had failed to notice before now.  She kept her book open to that page and her hand smoothed over the paper, covering the pictures.

“Manga?” Jane repeated the foreign word.  “I don’t know what that is, sorry.”

A flash of disappointment passed Hela’s features, but it was quickly replaced with her characteristic brightness. 

“That’s okay, Ms. Foster.  Dad didn’t know what it was either.  Manga is the word for comics in Japan.  I’ve been reading them for years, ever since Dad took us to Tokyo.”

“Now she fills her entire closet with girl comics,” Fenrir shouted from the bed.

Hela’s face turned red.  “For the last time, it’s called shojo manga!”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Hela grumbled and growled under her breath about ‘stupid annoying boys.’  She flipped the book shut revealing to Jane a front cover that should have been the back.  It featured two of the characters she saw in the pictures, one of them the frumpy boy, who looked decidedly less frumpy here.

“So what’s the story about?” Jane asked.

A sudden came over Hela.  Her muscles tensed, her eyes alight with the deepest kind of mischief.  From across the room, Fenrir let out a low whistle.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said.

Hela bolted out of the room, so fast that Jane couldn’t process that she’d gone until long after she returned.  It was to Jane’s complete and total surprise that she came armed with seventeen identical volumes to the one she’d left behind.  She arranged them in to next stacks on the floor next to the couch and jumped back up, grabbing the first book.  She turned to page one.

“Okay, so first of all, this is Haruhi.  She’s a poor kid who goes to a private school called Ouran Academy on a scholarship, and then one day, she’s looking for a place to do her homework, and then…”

**

If Loki had his way, this party never would have happened in the first place.  He didn’t care all that much for large social gathering and he liked hosting them even less.  Unless it was the triplets’ birthday, he’d much rather spend the day alone, with his children, or with a few close friends.  It all depended on his mood.  Today, he would’ve liked to get some work done and then read in his private study while Heimdall entertained the children.  Then maybe he’d arrange those interviews with the new bodyguards and call Coulson to get an update on Jane’s status (after that first paparazzi scare, he was tempted to hire a second guard for her, but for now, he’d put his trust in Coulson’s skills).  Following a light dinner, he would turn in early and be ready for a busy day at the office the next morning. 

Instead, he was down in his newly remodeled basement bar, running his finger around the rim of a lukewarm daiquiri, while Thor threw back his third of the evening.  The big oaf smashed the glass down and cracked the bar top, or he would have if Loki hadn’t made the bartender switch to plastic tankards as soon as Thor stumbled down the stairs looking like he’d run through Hell.  He had stammered his way through a story Loki knew the ending of the moment he got here.

So Sif had finally told him.  That was fast.  Loki thought she would wait until at least after dinner.

“I keep thinking,” Thor said, his words only mildly slurred after so much drink.

“That must be exhausting for you,” said Loki.

“What if I can’t do this?  I mean, I’ve seen you with your children, and you’re wonderful with them, but I don’t know if I can do so well.  What if I’m a terrible father?”

“You couldn’t possibly do worse than the man we were saddled with,” Loki said. 

At no point in the ensuing silence did Thor bristle or yell or punch Loki in the face for dishonoring Odin or have any reaction to what he said at all.  This was more serious than Loki thought

“What if I do something wrong one day and the child gets hurt?”  Thor asked no one.  The bartender returned with another glass, but Loki sent him off.  No need to let Thor relive his college days and show up to the dinner table drunk.  “What if the child is born with debilitating illnesses?  What if there are complications and Sif dies?”  Thor grabbed Loki by the arms and pulled him close, his eyes wide with urgency.  “Loki… what if the child doesn’t like me?”

One of Thor’s many ex-girlfriends used to refer to him as ‘puppy dog like’.  Loki had never understood what she meant until now, and he wished he could’ve stayed ignorant to that one.

“Thor, you shouldn’t let yourself give in to fear.”  Loki took Thor’s meaty fingers in his thinner ones and lifted them as one off of his person.  “You will not harm your child, you know Sif is strong enough to handle giving birth, and as for the child not liking you, just give them a lot of expensive gifts like you do my children, and I’m sure you will be fine.”

Thor wiped the tears from his eyes, all of Loki’s sarcasm flying over his head to the moon.

“Thank you, brother.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Just be sure to leave a tip for Nikola.”

Loki nodded to the bartender, who had deftly replaced his warm drink with a cold one long before Loki thought to ask.  This man was getting a raise next month.  As people filed in and out of the bar searching for liquid sustenance, another happy couple descended the staircase and watched from the other end of the bar Loki’s backhanded pep talk to the agitated Thor.

“Boy would I not want to be in his shoes right now,” said Tony, cracking a cheeky grin.

Pepper looked down and played with her unused coaster.  She hadn’t had a drop of alcohol tonight for some reason.

“What, you mean having baby?” she asked.

“I’m talking more about the whole ‘unprepared for fatherhood holy crap somebody save me’ deal Thor has going on.  If it were me becoming a dad for the first time, I would be prepared for it and I would not freak out in the slightest.”

He spun another ice cube into his drink and thought nothing of the sigh Pepper heaved other than that she had amazing lung capacity.  “I’m really glad to hear that, Tony, because I have some very good news.”

Tony turned his head to survey his wife, and for the first time saw that she was glowing.  His face fell, as did his glass.

**

Thor had taken to leaning heavily on Loki’s left shoulder, which would have been bad enough without a puce colored Tony Stark occupying the right.

“What if I end up like my father?” he asked the same nothing Thor had taken up with.

“What if I fail to teach them the way of the world?” asked Thor.

“What if I decided one day to send them to an overseas boarding school and then never come home to see them on Christmas?”

“What if we have another child and they grow up and engage in sibling rivalry?”

“What if I die before he can get to know me and then he spends his life hating me for leaving him and Pepper alone?”

“What if it’s a girl and one day an unworthy, foolish cur comes asking for her hand?”

“What if I killed you both and hid your bodies in the floorboards?” Loki asked loudly, so that a pair of elderly partygoers in the near vicinity scurried away as if in fear that they would be next.  It still didn’t get Loki the use of his arms back.

“What if Pepper’s mom decides I’m as worthless a father as I am a son-in-law?”

“What if instead I have a boy and I still lose him to some unworthy cur?”

“What if one day they ask me where babies come from?”

“What if they wish to know how Sif and I first met, and I have to tell them all about how we-”

“Hey, Dad!”

Loki didn’t think he’d ever heard two grown men scream so loud and so shrill before in his life.  If this was how they would react every time the ‘D’ word was uttered in their presence, Sif and Pepper were in trouble.

It’s utterer, one Jormungandr Lokison, skidded to a halt the polished floor on his bare feet.  Loki bit back a groan.  No matter how many times he told him to wear shoes in the house, that boy refused to listen. 

“What is it, son?” he asked, as relaxed as if there weren’t two grown men clutching him like he was their security blanket.  “You know you’re not allowed down here.” 

“I know.  I’m sorry to bother you, but Ms. Foster is here and she said she wanted to see you right away.”

“Then we shan’t keep her waiting!  Forgive me, gentlemen, but I must depart.” 

Loki stood up, dragging Thor and Tony up where they slid off his slim body to the floor.  There they rested, eternally questioning their parental capabilities as they would for the next nine months.  Loki would leave that for their wives to deal with as he followed Jormungandr up to the ground floor.