The Deepest Longing

“Push darling, push!” Loki grips Lilly’s hand as she bears down. Loki is sitting behind Lilly on the birthing bed, her back to his bare chest. Lilly, like Loki, has bright blue cerulean skin, for the moment anyway. Her skin tone has been all over the place since the labor began, despite Loki never breaking contact with her.
“I can see the head.” Lady Eir says calmly. “One more push should do it.”
Lilly pants heavily before giving it everything she has. “EghAAAAAAAAAA!” She cries out as her baby girl enters the world, bright blue and screaming like a siren. “Loki AH! Your skin! Stop touching me! It burns!” Loki scuttles out of the bed very ungracefully, tumbling onto the floor in his haste to put distance between himself and his wife. He wasn’t fast enough. Lilly has some frostbite burns on her back and hand.
“Do not fret my prince. We will take care of her.” One of the healers says sweetly. Loki shifts back to his Aesir form. One group of healers circles Lilly while another circles the baby. The baby is in good health, though whaling like a banshee. One of the healers grabs a swaddling blanket to wrap the child.
“Don’t do that.” Loki instructs. “She is already unbearably uncomfortable in this heat as it is. Give her to me.” The healers look at Loki as they consider his words. It is not hot today, in fact it is gorgeous, a perfect day to be outside. Loki quickly shifts back to blue as the healers cradle the child into his arms. The baby quiets immediately as skin to skin contact is made.
None of the family is in the birthing room, for the sake of simplicity. Both Loki and Lilly’s mother had insisted on being in the birthing room, and the knock down drag out grudge match that almost ensued between the two matriarchs was enough to make the couple decide to kick everybody out. Loki walks out of the birthing room to a hallway filled with family and friends. He still doesn’t have a shirt on and the naked little peanut curled up against his chest is making cooing sounds. Loki is beaming ear to ear.
“May I present my daughter, Laura Lokisdottir.” Loki mutters a spell under his breath and as he shifts back to his Aesir form, so does his daughter for the first time. Loki is quickly surrounded as Frigga, Emily, Sarah, and many others fight to be the first to hold her.
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“Lo-ah um Jack? Where is Laura’s other ballet slipper?” Lilly always forgets to call Loki by his fake name in public.
“It should be in there. She put both of them in the bag when before we departed the dance hall.” Loki says with a minor irritation in his voice. If Loki weren’t the God of Mischief himself he would swear that there is some invisible force taking and hiding his child’s possessions. Honestly, that girl loses everything.
“Maybe it fell out in the car. We’ll have to look later.” Loki and company have to hurry to Stark Tower. Something has happened and they need Loki’s help….again. Loki still looks like Loki for the most part, in the face. Really the big change to his appearance is his hair. It is red and wavy with curls at the bottom. He isn’t quite as pale as he used to be either and he sports a goatee these days. It is a small change but he looks unrecognizable. He is an all new person.
What started out as atonement, fixing buildings, and secretly healing victim’s injuries has morphed into a kind of shadow position on the Avenger’s team. The public has no idea the depth of Loki’s involvement in some of the recent missions they have been on. The public has no idea that Loki lives among them, that some of the headlines of miraculous healing at local area hospitals is his doing. The Avengers know. They know of Loki’s favorite little hobby of going to the children’s burn unit and cancer ward and healing every child there in the middle of the night. But the public can never know it was Loki’s doing. He can never get credit for being a good man. But the Avengers know. His father, brother, and mother know too. And Loki knows it. He is happy.
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Laura looks up at the bright sunny sky, and then down at her mother’s coffin. She was 124 years old when she finally passed away. Loki had done everything he could to keep Lilly alive, long after she could no longer remember him or her own name. She looks over at her father who looks every bit the ancient haggard man that he feels. To everyone else he looks to be over a hundred years old, but Laura can see through the illusion. Her father had taught her how.
Laura feels her own mortality acutely in this moment. She doesn’t age as fast as humans but she won’t live nearly as long as her father will. He will have to bury her too one day. A pang of sadness fills Laura’s chest for her father. He loved her mother so damn much.
The service ends and they leave the funeral. Loki lets the illusion drop for the first time in decades. He’d forgotten what his own face looks like.
On Lilly’s headstone the encryption reads, “My beloved, my punishment begins. I will see you again, but I must wait.”

Notes

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