Clearly, I do not own the Avengers. I have merely been reading far too much Loki whumpage and had to let it out.

It was a small house, and a very old house. At least for a house in America. It was elegantly designed and built of stone. A little shabby from age. A small, unkempt garden hugged its base, supplanting the need for a mowed lawn in this neighborhood. The Avengers, and a platoon of SHIELD agents, had it surrounded. Loki, the power-crazed Asgardian who had attacked New York City two years ago was, supposedly, inside. Steve Rogers, Captain America, leader of the Avengers, had absolutely no idea why that would be.

Silently, the Captain motioned his team to advance. He led the way. A single, short and sharp blow to the lock broke open the door, and the team rushed in. Bruce waited outside, ready if needed, but unwilling to "hulk out" just yet. The rest found themselves in a tiny foyer. Clint and Natasha immediately turned left to check the kitchen. Tony Stark turned right, checking the sitting room. Both were clear. Steve continued down the dim hallway. The door at the end was open, so he wanted to check there first, leaving the team to break down any of the other doors.

The captain ducked under the frame, into a small bedroom. The room looked even smaller than it was with the curtains drawn and an excessive collection of squat, finely carved, wooden furniture. It was too dark to see what was actually in here, so Steve fumbled for the light switch. The light came on, and Steve blinked at the soft colors. He seemed to be surrounded by cradles, each with lacy, pastel blankets draped within. The walls were a pale yellow, the curtains light green. In the corner, like the mother hen to this bizarre clutch of cradles, was a plain twin bed, and it looked like someone was on it, muffled in blankets.

Cautiously, Steve raised his shield and picked his way over to the bed. The person on the bed made no move. The Captain reached down and pulled back the edge of the blanket, revealing, indeed, Loki. The enemy. His eyes were closed, his face pale as paper, sheened with sweat. He did not move. Steve heard someone else walking in behind him, and he knew his team had cleared the rest of the little house. Slowly, the Captain pulled off a glove and felt for a pulse in Loki's neck. It was there, and very fast. Looking over his shoulder at his bemused friends, he shrugged. Turning back to the enemy, he pulled the blanket down further, then dropped it and stumbled back in surprise.

There was a newborn baby clutched to Loki's bare chest, the umbilical cord still fresh and attached, disappearing beneath the blankets. Natasha was the one to leap forward then, of course. She had lost the ability to have children herself and thus lost herself whenever confronted with an infant. She gently cupped the babe's head. It didn't move. "It's not breathing," she whispered frantically, and tried to lift it from the enemy's chest. Suddenly, Loki burst back to life, his arms tightening around the babe. His eyes flashed open, and his whole body flexed, shielding the baby for an instant before he flopped back onto the bed.

Steve rushed forward unthinking, almost shouting, "Loki, you need to let us help! Let us help the baby." Loki did not seem to understand and only held the child closer. Tears leaked from his unseeing eyes.

"Don't take him—he's mine! I can't bear to lose another one. Leave this one for me." Fruitlessly, Natasha tried to extricate the child again, and Loki whimpered. "No, papa, not this one. Not this one—you won't have him…"

"We need to resuscitate the baby, don't you understand?" Steve tried to pull Loki's arms loose, but the weakened god still had some feral strength in him. He didn't budge.

"There's no point," Natasha said in a brittle voice. "The baby is dead. He's breathless. He's not moving. There's no heartbeat. He's cold." She choked a little.

"Hush now, little one," Loki murmured, eyes abruptly lowered, oblivious to the mortals in the room. "Mama loves you. Mama will keep you safe. Mama won't let them take you, hurt you. Mama's sending you to your sister. She'll take care of you, just like she does your brothers and sisters." He bent forward, placed a kiss on his son's head, then, horribly, moved a hand to cover the child's nose and mouth.

Again Steve tried to stop him, but he wasn't strong enough. At least the baby was already dead… God what an awful thought. "Loki! Stop it! We aren't going to take him. You're safe. Your baby's safe. Everything is alright." He stopped trying to restrain the enemy and moved more to comfort him, one hand covering the mad god's would-be murdering fingers, the other over his clammy brow. It seemed to work. Loki relaxed a bit. Steve moved their hands away from the stillborn face, grimacing as he did. He had no idea what was going on, but it was definitely wretched.

"Oh my God." Steve glanced at Natasha, then stared. She had pulled the blanket back the rest of the way and clearly wished she hadn't. Loki was naked. He was terribly thin, with a soft roundness to his stomach. And he seemed to be a woman. More importantly, he was lying in a dark pool of his own blood, and the blood still freely flowed from between his legs. The child's umbilical cord was still anchored inside…him. Why on earth hadn't Steve noticed the blood all over the bed before now? It was staining the blanket in patches, and he even noticed streaks on the wall. And it was all over Loki.

"Get a medic," Natasha ordered, her voice cold and businesslike now. Someone, Clint or Tony, ran from the room. But Natasha didn't wait for the medic. Gingerly, she grasped the cord and tugged, gently. It didn't move. Neither did Loki. Biting her lip, she pulled a bit harder. Steve may have been imagining it, but the cord might have lengthened a bit. She kept pulling, slowly, steadily. She reached up with her free hand to push on the god's stomach. Loki stirred but did not struggle. He seemed to have fallen unconscious again. She tugged once more, and Steve was a little disgusted to see the afterbirth emerging. It was a messy and ragged tangle of red flesh, rimmed with black clots. Another gush of blood followed. Where the hell was the medic? Stone-faced, Natasha continued to massage Loki's belly with one hand. The other she carefully wound into the sheet, then pressed it into the bloody font, trying to stem the flow with pressure both outside and in. Her arm was buried almost to the elbow. Loki groaned in pain and clutched at the child, but did not wake.

"How did you know what to do in a delivery like this?" Steve asked Natasha softly.

"…I will never actually go through labor myself…" She didn't finish the thought, but Steve understood, and was sorry for asking.

By the time the medic arrived, the bleeding was but a trickle. Steve wasn't sure if that was due to Natasha's efforts or if Loki was just running out of blood and going to die in front of them. The medic, having checked Loki's none-to-reassuring vital signs, was preparing to insert an IV for a bag of fluids to get the god's blood pressure back up. Steve reached out to try to straighten Loki's arm, or at least expose a hand for a vein. He met with no resistance, and he almost dropped the arm in surprise. Where was that unnatural strength now? Loki, it seemed, was too far gone now even to hold the baby properly.

"Steve?" The Captain looked back. It was Tony. He had a very strange expression on his face and seemed to be inspecting one of the cradles. Clint, standing behind him, looked the same—bewildered, and afraid. Steve walked over, leaving Natasha to sit alone on the bloody end of the bed. Curiously, he looked into the cradle, and his stomach turned over. Tony had flipped back the powder-blue baby blanket to reveal the unwrapped mummy of an infant, small enough to be a newborn. Grimacing, Steve turned to the next cradle over, and folded back the bright yellow blanket to reveal another mummy, this one about the size of a twelve month old and dressed in what was probably once a beautiful pink onesie. Steve stared around the room, counting cradles even as he started to feel dizzy. Twenty? He noticed the one closest to the bed was empty, a new, striped blanket folded over the side.

"What was in the other rooms?" He murmured, dreading the answer.

"One was empty. And one was like this one…but with cribs instead of cradles," Iron Man answered softly.

Without a word, Steve turned and walked to the door. He crossed the hall and stuck his head in the other room. Empty. He walked to the next room and strode right in and up to the first crib. Impatiently, he ripped back the blanket inside, and discovered twins, about three years old, dry as a bone, dressed in matching faded blue jumpers. An anguished cry escaped him. What on earth, on Asgard, or in Hell could drive even Loki to do this? And apparently over and over again. What had he said in the other room? Don't take him…I can't bear to lose another one.

He looked around this room. It was painted a light blue, again with green curtains, filled with ornate wooden cribs. Steve didn't count them. The walls in here were hung with paintings. He stepped closer, and saw Tony was with him, his face stricken. Together, they studied a painting of a young child with an angelic face, dark hair, and striking green eyes. The next painting over was clearly by the same hand, but much older, with a similar child. The next painting was different. Very different. There was a cherubic, dark-haired, green-eyed toddler, but he was sitting in the lap of an older girl. That girl was unmistakably the toddler's sibling, except for the fact that one half of her body was withered to the bone with a fiery red eye contrasting the normal green opposite. Still, the girl was clearly pleased to be holding a younger sibling, hugging the child to her possessively.

Looking around the room, Steve could see the same half-dead girl featured in a number of the paintings, of various ages. Including a larger one on the far wall. Curiously, he and Tony stepped towards it. There was the girl, and next to her a thin boy with what looked like snake scales curling up his arms and neck. Behind them towered an older youth already boasting a warrior-like build; he had the same black hair as all the others, but his eyes were gold, like a wolf. In front of this trio were another set of twins, older than the poor souls in the crib behind them. All of the children were smiling, but something about the portrait was off. It made Steve feel strangely sad. It was almost like all the smiles were fake, masking a fear that should never be found in a child. Steve looked away, and saw that Tony felt the same.

The pair turned silently to inspect the rest of the room when they were interrupted by a cry from Loki's room. Instantly, they rushed back across the hall, but stopped still in the doorway and stared. Natasha was pressed against the wall near the foot of the bed. The medic had apparently just fallen back onto the floor from tending Loki, and Steve could perfectly understand why. Loki was glowing. A greenish-gold light was shining under his skin. Looking closer, Steve could see that it seemed to be following blood vessels and even pulsing with his arteries.

"What. The. Hell." It was Clint who said it.

It was Bruce who eventually answered, having finally come in and inspected the scene quietly for a couple minutes. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's his magic keeping him alive since he's lost so much blood." He turned to Steve, the team Captain, as it were. "What are we going to do now?"

Steve shrugged helplessly. He had no idea. "Thoughts?"

Tony spoke up immediately. "I don't think we should turn him over to anyone else just yet." The others looked at him expectantly. "I'm not at all sure what's going on here, but I've got a suspicion that I'm really not going to like the story, and I want to hear an explanation before we send even this guy off to complete whatever punishment Odin had in mind for him. I mean, this old house is filled with dead children!" Natasha flinched, but Tony continued. "And all these cradles and things, they're really old. Most of them anyways. You can tell." He trailed off for a moment, then finished, "I've got a bad feeling that whatever happened to all these kids wasn't just Loki being evil. I think they might all be his, and that he loved them…"

Steve found himself nodding along. "Anybody else? Okay, then may I suggest that we keep him, temporarily at least, in Stark Tower. We can fend off Fury from there if he puts his foot down. And we should definitely not tell Thor if and when he shows up that we have Loki until and unless we can determine that he won't just immediately haul Loki back to Asgard."

"We might have to tell Thor," Bruce said thoughtfully. "We might need his knowledge to help heal Loki."

"If it comes to that, then we probably shouldn't keep him in the tower—that's the first place Thor would think to look. He might be better off in a safe house," Clint supplied reluctantly.

"Which we don't have," Steve pointed out.

"It shouldn't be that hard to set one up," Tony said. "I can do that quick. We'll keep Loki in the tower until the house is ready, shouldn't be more than a few days, then move him and wait for Thor to show up, if he ever does. And if he shows up before then, then mum's the word, and we keep him distracted until we can move Loki to safety."

"Sounds like a plan," Steve said. He squatted down by the shaken SHIELD medic. "Hey, what would you say to taking a furlough from official SHIELD business for a couple months to take care of an alien god full time?"

"I'll pay you a lot," Tony chipped in.

"And you technically would still be working for SHIELD, since we work for them," Natasha muttered from the corner.

The medic was still staring in shock at her patient, but nodded slightly.

"What's your name?"

"Heather."

Now that they had a plan, the Avengers efficiently bundled Loki up in the blood-soaked blankets and quietly took him into custody, dismissing the SHIELD agents outside. They hurried back to Stark Tower. They needed to be in position and locked down before SHIELD or anyone else had a chance to mobilize and stop them. Loki was deposited unceremoniously in the medical bay. Heather seemed much more at ease with a number of beeping machines hooked up to her patient and a bounty of medical supplies at her disposal. Bruce stayed to help her while the others secured their defenses.

Natasha carefully took the stillborn, cord and all, over to the morgue. Why does Tony even have a morgue? She probably thought that every time she came down here. At a work table, she tied and cut the cord and placed the placenta in a plastic box on a body shelf. She cradled the baby to her chest and looked at him. He was tiny. Despite his deathly color, he was beautiful. His head wasn't molded like so many newborns, but perfect and round. His face definitely had the fine bones of his… mother? He had a lot of hair, plastered to his skull from the fluids of the womb. He was tubby, with perfectly cute little fingers and toes. If only he was alive. With a sigh, she placed the small body on the shelf, and slid it shut.