Supervision

"I cannot believe he's six-months-old already!" Natasha exclaims, careful not to spill her coffee. It's been a long time since she had last seen Peter, her mission with Clint taking a lot longer than expected. This is the first time she has been able to get away from SHIELD to have some time to do what she wants.

"He has certainly grown a lot since the last time you saw him." Loki smiles proudly into his own green-tea, a thing he picked up from Bruce.

"Look, he's even crawling now!" He can't help but laugh at her enthusiasm. As Loki watches Natasha's fascinated eyes on Peter, he can't help but think that one day he'll be looking after a mini-Clint/Natasha-hybrid running around causing havoc with his own son. What a force of nature that would be!

After a few minutes more of chatter, the two friends catching up on Peter's development, as much as she can divulge on her mission, and their respective partners, Natasha's phone rings in her pocket. She sighs tiredly upon seeing the caller I.D. — "It's Coulson." — and she excuses herself to the balcony.

Knowing that the conversation would most likely be confidential — Tony can hack S.H.I.E.L.D later for his curiosity — Loki continues to watch Peter as he plays with favourite child-proofed Avengers toys. Iron Man is currently attacking Thor with Captain America's shield. The God grins wildly and full of mischief at the amusing thought of his lover fighting his brother in such a way. No longer than ten seconds later, a loud explosion ricochets through the living room and alarms start shrieking. Jumping up from the sofa, into a crouched, attack stance with his magic tingling at his fingertips, Loki stares around the room ready for an attack. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha re-enter the building, gun drawn. The lack of Jarvis' commentary has the trickster thinking that this might notactually be an attack. He would have alerted them to the intruder's location.

"Jarvis, open Tower communications: Tony!" He calls from his still crouched position. His eyes dart back to Peter, who remains smashing his Iron Man toy against Thor happily, seemingly not affected by the sound. Remarkable child. With no reply from his lover, he calls again, "…Tony?"

Silence remains.

"I'm okay!" Tony's muffled voice echoes through the air through the overhead speakers as he begins laughing, "I'm alive!"

Loki and Natasha look to each other, sighing in relief. Tony is such a liability, more trouble than their child most of the time. If things couldn't get any more stressed, their attention is caught by Mischief sharp, panicked meow. They turn sharply, only able to watch — their reflexes not that quick — as Mischief jumps in front of Peter to divert him away from crawling head first into the sharp edge of the coffee table leg. Loki jumps elegantly, but with power, over the back of the sofa and sweeps Peter up into his arms holding him tightly against his chest.

"Don't ever do that to me again," Loki cries, as if Peter could fully understand him. His breath is ragged, his eyes brimming with unshed tears as he clings to his fragile son. "You really are your father's son."

Behind him he hears Natasha chuckle at his last comment, both knowing how true that really is. Peter is still none the wiser, babbling happy in his mother's arms. Everybody has their theories on what a pain Peter will be when he gets older, especially if he picks up any of Tony's bad habits. Tony is convinced things will be "awesome", and its comments like that that make it harder for Loki to come to terms with.

Pulling his attention back to reality, Mischief sits at his foot and purrs loudly, rubbing his face on the God's shin. Loki crouches down and pets the black tuft of fur on the feline's head with one hand, as he shifts Peter to his opposite hip. He smiles, truly grateful that Mischief returned home. "You really are a blessing, aren't you? His Guardian Angel…"

For the remainder of Natasha's visit, Loki doesn't let go of Peter, despite the protests of the young one. He settles down when Mischief sits beside him, his tiny, unexperienced hands enjoy playing with the soft fur. She takes her leave when Tony returns to the living area, his hair sticking out at awkward angles and his face covered in soot and oil. If it wasn't for his son in the room and the fact he was still slightly annoyed at the engineer for the earlier explosion, Loki would have thrown Tony on the sofa and ravished him, always semi-aroused by his lover's dirtied state. If he was being honest, it was purely Peter's presence stopping him, Loki would more than love to dish out some of his own punishment, and this is something Tony was
painfully aware of.

"Later," Loki mouths with a coy, seductive bite of his lip. He grins as his lover visible shivers in anticipation.

Perhaps Auntie Natasha can be persuaded into another visit, one where she takes Peter with her for the night, so Loki and Tony can really have some alone time. It's not like they can leave Peter with Mischief as supervision. It just wouldn't be proper, despite what Tony says. And Loki has had to remind him of this fact on more than one occasion, usually when the billionaire is particularly in the mood for sex. They look to each other, both on the same wavelength. Loki passes Peter to Tony, and grabs his Starkphone from the coffee table, which is lucky to still be in one piece. Sharing one last impish smirk with Tony, he dials a familiar number.

"Good afternoon, Natasha, I have a proposal for you…"

Notes