Chapter Text
One year. It had only been one year, Loki thought when he was holding Runa in his arms in the room where the Avengers and all the other friends were singing “Happy Birthday”. 13th February, one day before Valentine’s Day, one day after Pepper’s own birthday, five years after the kidnapping of Tony Stark. Five years ago, to the day, Loki had made a choice. It hadn’t been hard, the choice to decide to save Tony, but it had still led him down this path. If he hadn’t, he’d possibly become just another person that Tony had once known.
“What are you thinking about?”, Tony whispered, as he took Runa from his slightly shaking arms and Sleipnir rushed to take her.
Loki smiled at Sleipnir and pressed a kiss to his brow, before the proud boy walked off, to show his sister around.
“It’s always the same days”, Loki hushed and blushed, when Tony took his hand softly and kissed it. “New Year’s Eve, we meet and Sleipnir gets captured. February 13, you get kidnapped and Runa is born. May 1, you’re safe, I leave and get back to Earth, and we bond. May 30, we get married and I get attacked on Asgard.”
“Are those the… the Norns playing with our fates?”
Loki chuckled as he pressed their foreheads together. “I hope not, dearest.”
Tony flushed with warmth at the endearment. “But it does seem oddly calculated.”
Loki hummed in acknowledgement and pressed a kiss to Tony’s cheek. “Do you know what I found, when I checked my phone yesterday?”
Tony’s eyes flashed with fear for a second, before relaxing and smiling. “What?”, he asked, as if nothing was wrong. Loki thought to ask for a second but dropped it instead.
“You’ve been sharing stories on twitter.”
“Well, I kinda had to let them think we were all good and safe and happy little Avengers.”
“Darcy’s advice?”
“Yep.”
“You’ve mostly been sharing stories of me.”
“Well, I kinda am focused on you? Are you mad?”
“What were you going to do, if Hill and Pepper said it wasn’t okay for us to come out of the shadow?”
“Well, you’re my bonded and we’re obviously best friends. Aside from Rhodey, Pepper and Happy on my side…”
“And May, Sam and James on mine”, Loki chuckled with a snort.
“Yep. Could be put on, ‘Loki can’t leave the tower, so he and Tony spend a lot of time together’. I’m just really glad, that I don’t have to, sweetheart.”
“So am I.”
Loki softly tugged at Tony’s arm and pulled him towards a sofa and into his lap, where the somehow exhausted genius sagged into his chest.
“Everything alright?”, Loki asked, slightly worried.
“It’s nothing”, Tony breathed.
“I know that’s a lie, darling.” Tony hummed and Loki softly rubbed at his temples. “When have you last slept?”
“Let’s just say, I’m not allowed in the workshop or lab at the moment…”
“Tony”, Loki said, not angry or upset, but rather worried. He tugged his lover even closer, wrapping his arms around him.
“It’s just… I don’t know how to make it better.”
“What? Make what better?”
“This, us, I’m trying, but I’m not a romantic and sometimes I think of stuff and then…”
“Let’s go out tomorrow.”
“On Valentine’s Day?”
“Exactly. Lunch, dinner, something, flowers, chocolate cake as dessert…”
“Okay. I’ll pay.”
“Obviously”, Loki said, with a snicker.
“We can’t go out alone.” Tony paled at the realisation, before explaining with sadness in his voice: “Two Avengers have to be around you at all times.”
Loki rolled his eyes and took out his phone.
[To Avengers] Snowflake: ‘Tony and I want to go on a date tomorrow, but can’t go alone, because #Rules, anybody wanna play third wheel?’
He showed Tony and Tony nodded sleepily. “You know you’ll be paying for their food as well”, Loki stated and sent the text, chuckling at the chime of the message-tones around the room.
“Anything to get to spend Valentine’s Day with the person most important to me.”
Tony and Loki looked at their phones, when the phones chimed again.
[To Avengers] CaptainAmerica: ‘We could just go as a team. Steve’
A second later, they could hear a yelp from Steve across the room. When they looked up, they could see Natasha and Sam next to Steve and Steve scowling at Nat.
“What?”, was heard loud enough.
“It’s a date”, hissed Nat, which Loki could only hear because of his better hearing, “They don’t want a family dinner, they want a romantic atmosphere.” Nat looked over to find Loki’s gaze. Then her eyes moved across the room and she shouted: “Barton?”
“Yep?”, Clint shouted back.
“Do you want to be my Valentine?”
“Yeah, cool.”
Loki chuckled and Nat looked at him again, before walking over and telling them: “Two private tables and the food better be good.”
“I’ll send you the details”, Tony answered, and Nat nodded curtly, before walking back to Steve and Sam. Tony took his phone in his hands, before laying his head on Loki’s chest again and tapping around on his phone, obviously getting started on making plans.
“So tomorrow the world will know”, Loki breathed and smiled over to where Sleipnir and May were playing with Runa.
“You can always say no”, Tony quickly said.
“No, I want them to know. I want it to come out on our own account.”
“Can do that, sweetheart.”
“Okay, but you need to sleep.”
Tony groaned and Loki rolled his eyes at him.
“Please, dearest.”
“Fine”, Tony told him, and Loki softly ran his fingers over Tony’s face, before kissing his cheek with a worried look. “I will”, Tony assured him. “I just haven’t been able to sleep more than a couple hours while you were gone. And only if Kurt was there as well and promised to look after Runa.”
Loki kissed Tony’s cheek again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I just… Bruce has always been there, and I’d been fine before, but I could feel you getting more and more weak. I was… worried.”
“Tell me, okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just hard, feeling safe sometimes. Especially with the whole HYDRA disaster, right under our noses.”
Loki nodded and moved them, so Tony was sitting on the sofa. Softly, he kissed Tony’s cheek and got up and walked over to his children, quickly seeing Bruce making a beeline for the sofa and sending him a smile. Loki stopped next to Sleipnir and ran his fingers through the younger one’s hair, who leaned into the touch.
“How long will you stay, dear?”
“Thor and I will be travelling to Asgard on Sunday, Ma.”
“And you’re safe there?”
Sleipnir looked at him with a worried look on his face. Loki sighed and knelt next to him, tugging at the sleeves of the healing tunic.
“You’re my child, Sleipnir. I have years to make up for. I wish for you to be in the place you feel safest. I did not have the best experience living on Asgard, getting disrespected being the least of the worries.”
Sleipnir smiled softly. “Eir and Frigga make me feel welcome, Ma.”
“That’s good.”
“I’d love to stay here, but… I like studying with Eir, she has so much to teach me. It makes me feel powerful.”
“Alright. But if you wish to come here at any point…”
“I will tell Thor or Eir or Frigga.”
“You are always welcome to stay at my side. Anywhere you want, all that I can give you.”
Sleipnir snickered at that and Loki pressed a kiss to his temple. “Alright, Ma.”
Loki smiled and looked over to where Clint was playing with Runa, like he would probably play with his own children. “Cake for you, Clint?”
“Sure.”
“Sleip?”
“I’d like some, yes.”
Loki looked up and looked to the side, where James caught his gaze, as he was standing with Thor and Jane. He swayed his head in a question and James nodded curtly, before interrupting Thor’s and Jane’s conversation and then holding up three fingers to him. Loki nodded back and got up, cutting up the cake and floating it to the group of three, before looking at Steve and getting a three from him as well.
He sighed, as he brought Sleipnir’s and Clint’s pieces away. “Give her a little, if you think it’s okay”, he told Clint.
“Will do.”
Loki walked back to the cake and cut the cake again, seeing out of the corner of his eye, how Pepper was already walking towards him.
“Four?”, he asked her, as he already cut. Seeing May standing with both Rhodey and Happy, the three awaiting Pepper’s return.
“Yes. How are you Loki?”
Loki glanced at her and his brow furrowed. “I’m fine.”
“Doesn’t sound convincing.”
“I have my husband, I have my children, James is okay, Steve’s alright, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s safe. What could possibly be wrong?”
“You’re not built for ‘everything’s alright, everybody’s safe’.”
“True. Chaos-God.” Loki sent three plates over to Steve, Nat and Sam, before cutting four more pieces. “Most of us aren’t built for a safe life, for no chaos. We got four soldiers in this room, of which only two have known any normalcy. Two are still in constant terror. Two gods, who grew up, killing as a pastime. Three assassins, three enhanced humans that people still want to experiment on, a fourth, that the public doesn’t know about. I don’t wish to know how many were tortured, but I am sure Tony, James and I weren’t the only ones.”
“Darcy is right”, Pepper told him, and Loki frowned at her. “You need therapists”, she explained.
“We’re not normal. We’re not sane enough”, Loki translated.
Pepper shook her head. “You all have problems and you all live for the battle, nothing else. You can barely cope. J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t tell me anymore, when Tony has spent too much time awake, but I can see his exhaustion, the super-soldiers can hide it better. I bet all Avengers sleep, but maybe just a few hours per day, maybe exempt from Rhodey and Banner. Wilson isn’t an Avenger yet, but I’d put him in the same category.”
“Thor sleeps.”
“True, but not on Earth and he seems, like he is always working, never gets some down-time. You all need a break. Romanoff and Barton leave, every now and then, get some down-time away from here. It shouldn’t have to be like that. You should be able to feel safe here. Be able to look at your children and smile with your heart instead of giving that practised smile, that shows anybody who’s really looking, just how broken you feel inside.”
Shakily, Loki cut the last piece of cake and placed it on the plate. “Every time I look at the happiness surrounding us, I wonder, when it will go up in flames, how long she has left to live, when they will come for me and rip me from all this.” He handed her one plate and floated the others over to the group, before cutting two more pieces for Tony and Bruce.
Loki put the last pieces down. “There’s a reason I still slip into my younger self. I can’t deal with… this. Living a perfectly normal life. Every day I am reminded of the normal life I was denied. And this time around I cannot make myself forget again. I’m not allowed. Forgetting would make me insane.”
He grabbed the plates and walked away from Pepper, handing the plates to Bruce and Tony. Loki’s exhausted husband didn’t even seem realise Loki’s distress. When Loki turned however, Tony grabbed his wrist.
‘We’ll figure it out’, Tony whispered through their bond and Loki frowned at him, as he’d never spoken to him that way before.
‘I’ll try harder’, Loki answered with a confused look on his face.
‘We’re in this together. You can rely on me.’
A lone tear slipped from Loki’s eyes. “Thank you”, he breathed.
“Any day”, Tony answered with a small smile.
‘We’ll be alright.’