.-.

Playground

Chapter 3: Dads

Loki held out his left arm as a barrier to keep his son away from the lunatic before him. "You thought I wanted to harm children?" He was both disgusted and incredulous. What had he ever done to make this man think he would target a children's park for any kind of attack?

"Um…," Tony got out before Loki – apparently the father of the kid he was trying in vain to push behind him – dropped to the bottom of his short list of priorities. "Morgan, talk to me, Pumpkin, are you hurt?" He didn't see any obvious injury, but she wouldn't stop crying, and he was worried. He glanced up at the tree they were under – perfectly climbable for his intrepid little Munchkin, though she knew she wasn't supposed to climb things if he or Pepper wasn't right there to help if needed.

And that was when Loki gained his second inkling of what had happened. This wasn't some random child that Stark thought was in danger from Loki and his "evil plans," this was Stark's child. Stark's child who had been playing with his child. The Man of Iron had no idea Loki was here with his son, was watching his son play and not Stark's daughter. No wonder the man had been so grandiosely belligerent and insistent upon him leaving.

"Were you climbing the tree? Did you fall?"

Morgan's tear-filled blue eyes blinked open and the crying died down to a few sniffles, and Tony smiled his best reassuring everything's-totally-fine-I'm-not-panicking-at-all smile. But Morgan looked past him, to the little boy who'd made his way past Loki's arm…and her eyes went wide and her hand reached out to point.

At the other kid.

Loki's kid.

Tony's eyes slid right past the kid, and upward to Loki. "Your kid pushed my kid?" he asked, seeing not red but green and gold and an ostentatious horned helmet. "Is that really even a kid? Or some kind of real-life Mini-Me. I swear to-"

"Are you threatening my child now? Oliver, stay behind me!"

Morgan let out a shriek that sent Tony's head whipping around again. She was still sprawled on the ground exactly as she had been, and she was still pointing at the boy, who was now hiding behind Loki, one little arm wrapped around Loki's thigh.

Loki stared, perplexed and frankly angry at this little girl. Yes, his son sometimes played roughly. But he couldn't imagine him pushing another child out of a tree. "Ollie," he said, tentatively, twisting to look over his shoulder, only for Ollie to shift to his other leg and hide his face against him. "Ollie, did you push the girl?"

"He didn't push me!" Morgan yelled, now that the crying had stopped. "Something's wrong with his arm!"

"Ollie? Let go," Loki said, disentangling himself and turning to get a better look. And oh… Oh. His face blanched and he dropped down to his knees. "What happened?" His son's left arm was dripping blood, from above the elbow, on the underside. Loki gently grasped his lower arm to pull it away from his body. There was a hole in his arm. Loki stared at it for a moment, aghast, feeling as though a spear had just put a hole in his heart.

But at the same time, his son looked down at his own arm, apparently seeing it for the first time, realizing for the first time that he was hurt. He gave a loud gasp, then burst into tears.

Unable to tear his eyes away from Loki and his son – yeah, that still hadn't sunk in and felt all kinds of wrong – Tony remained crouched next to Morgan. Loki made a motion as though picking an apple, and something was in his hand that wasn't there before. He turned Oliver's arm so that the wound faced upward, then made a fist over it, crushing the thing in his hand and sending dust and debris down onto the wound, which was crazy levels of unsanitary. That wound looked bad – if it had been on his kid the nanotech would be out in a heartbeat and they'd be at the nearest emergency room in the next heartbeat. The wound needed a thorough cleaning, and disinfecting, and stitches, and probably some antibiotics for good measure, and wait, what, where was that wound again?

"There we go," Loki said gently, leaning in close now to try to get Ollie to focus on him instead of the now-healed injury. "See? It's all better. Good as new." Ollie was still crying, though, so Loki kissed his head then pulled him into a hug. He closed his eyes as his head came around behind Ollie's, conscious of Stark's presence there and not wanting to be distracted by it. Only when he felt the stutters in his son's chest cease did he start to pull back again, pressing his lips to the side of his head along the way.

"Papa," Ollie said plaintively, staring down at his arm. The wound was gone, but healing stones didn't take away blood, which was smeared all over Ollie's arm and, Loki was sure, his own shirt now, too. Before he could start crying again, Loki twisted his hand and this time pulled out a moist wipe, which he used to quickly but thoroughly clean his son's arm.

"Did you feel it?" Loki asked, brushing his fingers lightly over the clean skin. With the dreaded blood gone, it shouldn't be too hard to get a smile back on his face.

Ollie nodded.

"What did it feel like? Tell me."

"Like…like a tickle."

"Like a tickle, hm? You mean…like this?"

Ollie's eyes grew wide as Loki dove in, mercilessly dancing long fingers over Ollie's sides, sending his son into a writhing squirming giggling fit. He tried to wrench himself away but Loki managed to keep a hold of his wiggling prey. "Uncle! Uncle Thor!" Ollie shouted, eyes squeezed tight and watering from laughter now instead of tears.

"All right, all right. None of that, now," Loki said, laughing and scooping Ollie up in his arms, his boy's legs immediately wrapping around his waist. Jane had taught him this "uncle" nonsense, and Ollie's innovation had been to tack Thor's name onto it. The first time Loki had heard it, it gave him a minor panic attack. Old habits.

He looked past Ollie, still catching his breath, and saw Stark still there, still crouched down beside the little girl. It was hard to fathom the blustering Man of Iron as a father. The poor child that was stuck with that. The poor woman who had borne a child with him!

Tony, watching with a shocked expression that hadn't ever quite gone away, blinked heavily when suddenly the bizarre scene before him resolved into eye contact, specifically eye contact with one incredibly disdainful-looking Loki. With a kid in his arms. Tony shook the whole thing off with a shiver – Loki magic-healing his kid's boo-boo? hugging and kissing him? tickling him breathless until he forgot he'd been hurt? He shook the whole thing off again and this time it took, and he looked back down at Morgan. Who was still sprawled on the ground, which really wasn't like her.

He looked her over for hidden injuries of her own and didn't see any. "Ready to get up, Pumpkin?" he asked, feeling the weight of Loki's stare on him and his daughter. Ugh. He stuck out his hand, Morgan put her little one in his, and he helped her up from the awkward position that would've had him seeing a chiropractor and a physical therapist had he been in it.

"Ow," she said, her face pinching up once she got on her feet.

"What hurts?"

"My ankle."

And oh, boy, the tears were starting to come again. His little Angel was fearless, but she reacted to pain about the same as any other four-year-old.

"Is it just sore? Or does it hurt-hurt?"

"I don't know. It hurts. It hurts a lot."

"Perhaps I can be of some assistance."

"Yeah, huh?" That was Loki. Loki said that. Loki wanted to "be of some assistance."

"My papa can make it better," Oliver said, twisting around to see Morgan and holding out his unblemished arm. "See?"

"Not always. It depends on the type of injury."

Before Tony could stop her from his awkward crouched position, at least not without accidentally knocking her over, Morgan took off to Loki's side, despite having to hobble and hop to get there, ow-ow-ow-ing with every step. Not just near him, but right next to him, one hand holding onto Loki's arm for balance, the other stretching to poke at the arm Oliver held out to her. Tony got up, and knew his face was contorted into an ugly grimace. He stayed calm by reminding himself that Loki had his own kid in his arms and that kid looked pretty happy to be there. That, and watching him like a hawk for any sort of threatening or even slightly mean-looking movement toward his little girl.

"How'd you do that, mister? Are you a doctor?" she asked, tears still glistening in her eyes.

"I…yes. I suppose you could say that," Loki said, trying out a smile for the child and finding it awkward. He didn't actually like children terribly much. They were often simply insufferable, and he preferred to avoid them. He liked his child, who was immeasurably better than all the rest, the best of two worlds, the best of him, and the best of Jane, especially the best of Jane. "Stark?" he asked. He didn't particularly care for most adults, either, certainly not this one. But he didn't like to see any child in pain, and he even felt some tiny bit of sympathy for Tony Stark. The man may have been a contemptible wretch, but he clearly loved and worried for his child. Every time the poor thing's foot touched the ground she winced or made some small noise of pained protest…her father right along with her.

"Okay, c'mere, Pumpkin," Tony said, deftly scooping her up and away from Loki, careful not to touch the ankle or let it touch anything else. He started off in more or less the direction he'd come in, back over toward the benches.

"Is this really the time for such recalcitrance, Stark?"

"What's recalcitrance?" Morgan called, peering around Tony's side.

"When you won't do what somebody wants you to. Like when Mommy-"

"Ollie. We don't talk about things we-"

"Nobody's being recalcitrant, Rudolph," Tony tossed off over his shoulder. "Didn't say you couldn't come, too."

Loki stared in silence for a moment – he was not that man's servant. He didn't even speak to his actual servants like that. Not anymore. Not since Jane had put her foot down. He considered not going. Walking away. Getting Ollie that ice cream cone he'd been planning on earlier. But then Ollie was bouncing excitedly up and down on his hip.

"Can we go help her, Papa? Pleeeease?"

Loki sighed. He hadn't been seriously considering leaving, anyway. "Yes," he said, trudging off and forcing himself to look less conflicted about the whole thing than he felt, "let's go help. I'm proud of you that you want to. Being kind to others is important, especially here on Midgard."

"Especially here on Midgard?" Tony repeated to himself, wondering what that was supposed to mean. Best not to ask, he figured. Loki had pretty clearly had some "issues" when he landed on Terra Firma, and it wasn't like making a donation over a magazine – or however Loki had managed to wind up with an honest-to-goodness kid, one that was kind of cute, even – had a side effect of curing psychosis. He glanced over his shoulder again and saw Morgan's arm out, waving to the kid. He hoped it was to the kid, and not Loki. He didn't look to see if either of them was waving back.

"How come you don't like him, Daddy? He seems nice."

Tony's eyes blew up for a second before a goofy grin settled. A real one seemed too far a stretch, so goofy it was. "I like him just fine, Pumpkin. Just haven't seen him in a while. Bit of a surprise, you know. Running into…old friends at the playground. What about the kid, what's he like? Was he nice to you?"

"Yeah, he's nice."

The next thing he knew Morgan was squirming in his arms and making it a lot harder to make sure nothing hit or even brushed her ankle.

"Daddy," she whispered into his ear.

"Yeah, Pumpkin? Everything okay? If anything bad happened, you tell me, okay?" Tony whispered back.

"He said his daddy has real horses. Do you think he's telling the truth or a lie?"

Tony laughed; he really couldn't help it. "I don't know, Angel. Your guess is as good as mine."

Loki, meanwhile, was trying to shush Ollie, but his boy was having none of it, and Loki couldn't blame him. "I'm not lying!" he called out. "My daddy does have real horses. Lots and lots of them."

"Oliver," Loki hissed.

"But you do," Ollie said back, quietly, looking hurt.

Loki's irritation, right along with his heart and his will, collapsed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be cross. You're right, I do. We do. You weren't lying. Morgan? Morgan Stark?" he called to the child peering over her father's shoulder. "Oliver was telling you the truth. We do have horses."

"Real ones?" Morgan asked skeptically.

"Yes, real ones," he said evenly. On Asgard the question would have sounded ridiculous, but he knew that they weren't nearly as common these days on Midgard; Morgan had probably seen them more on television than in the flesh. "Maybe not lots and lots," he added, giving Ollie a little tickle to his side, "but we do have them, and we enjoy taking them out for rides."

"I like to feed them!" Oliver called, laughing from the tickling.

"I never fed a horse," Morgan said, and Tony knew a request to feed a real live horse and probably ride one, too, was Coming Soon from a Little Girl Near Him. Which was fine – not like Tony couldn't make that happen within the hour – except that it was prompted by Loki. And how had Loki's kid heard that, anyway? Sure, Morgan wasn't the most silent pre-school-aged whisperer ever, but she'd been pretty quiet.

"Okay, here we go," he said, settling Morgan on the bench, which was high enough that her feet dangled over the ground, her injured ankle not touching anything. Until she reached down and grabbed it.

She let go like it burned her and started to cry a little again.

"Oh, Pumpkin, what did you do that for?"

"I had to find out if it hurts," she said plaintively.

"But you already knew it hurts."

"I had to find out if it still hurts. You don't know until you test it."

"Well, you've got me there," he said, sitting back on his heels, smiling a bit despite the situation. How many times he'd said that to her! "But now you know, so don't do it again, okay, kiddo?"

"Okay," she agreed, rubbing a balled-up fist into her eye.

"And Loki," he continued, pushing up to stand again, "what do you say you and I have a quick word. A little catch-up, a little…chat, hm?"

"All right." Loki got his hands under Ollie's arms and lowered him down. "Be careful of her foot. I'll be right back."

"Can I sit here, too?" he heard his son ask, and watched just long enough to see Morgan nod before turning to follow Stark.

"So, uh…I guess you aren't with that woman that was with the toddler over there by the slide, huh? I thought she was the boy's mom," Tony said as they ambled away, back out toward the playground equipment.

Loki looked over toward the slides; whoever had been there before wasn't there now. "I thought it was well-known among your little troop that I was with Jane Foster."

"Yeah, but that was five or six…years ago…" Huh, Tony thought, not getting much past that. That she was Thor's ex sprang to mind, too, but that had come to an end even longer ago.

"You mean you thought it wouldn't last," Loki said dryly.

"Well, yeah, obviously. I thought she'd wise up and dump your sorry a- posterior," Tony said, glancing behind them and continuing several more steps further away, given the apparent Superhearing of Loki's kid.

Loki stared down the other man. Those days of his earlier encounters with Tony Stark were in the past and he didn't look back – tried not to, at least – but right about now some small part of him couldn't help thinking it would have been nice had the Man of Iron not had the suit of iron quite so handy that day Loki had tossed him out a window. But Tony could join a long line; almost everyone had thought Jane would leave him, a few had thought he'd grow bored and leave her, and only a miniscule handful had thought that maybe it would actually last.

"Do you want me to try to heal your daughter or not?" Loki asked when he grew tired of waiting. "Astoundingly, I don't enjoy your constant insults, but I especially don't enjoy them in front of my son."

"Okay, we're physically in front of him, but can he still hear this far away?"

After taking a quick look back at Ollie, Loki said, "Not if you don't raise your voice."

"Good. Okay. Let's make this real, huh? There's a walk-in-clinic four blocks away." Not that he was taking his kid there, but still, it was there. "And with the suit I could get her to the best hospital in the Tri-State in just a few minutes more. I don't even think it's that bad, or she'd be in a lot more pain. But I can't stand to see her in any pain, and whatever you did for your kid's arm, well, that's way better and way faster than what any ER here could do.

"But here's the thing. You could snap one of my bones and it wouldn't hurt me as bad as somebody giving her a papercut. And I've heard you've changed, but you used to throw people out of skyscrapers for a living. People named Stark, to be specific. And you may say you wouldn't hurt a kid, but there were kids in New York that day, you know. So…if you can fix her ankle and make it stop hurting her instantaneously..." He paused and took a deep breath. "This isn't easy for me," he said quietly.

That smarted, but still Loki took it in stride. He knew what people thought of him here; it was one of the reasons he hadn't been keen on moving to Midgard. One of the main reasons. Setting that aside, he took a moment to imagine their positions being reversed, him trying to reconcile himself with entrusting the safety of his son, for whom he would lay down his life with no hesitation and no regrets, to Tony Stark. It was easier now than it once had been; Jane had helped. "I understand your concern," he finally said. "I was just as afraid when I saw you as you were when you saw me. And it wasn't because I have any fear of you on behalf of myself. Considering that if I put enough effort into it, I could probably literally break you in half."

"Not with the suit," Tony grumbled, glancing over his shoulder to check on Morgan, who was happily chatting away with Oliver Son-of-Loki.

"You aren't wearing the suit."

"Suit's all built around nanotechnology now. I'm basically always wearing the suit."

Loki scrutinized the man before him, and found an emblem on his shirt that was a little shinier than he might expect, and, yes, was emitting a steady low stream of energy. He filed it away for future reference. "Trust isn't easy, and in your place I would worry as well. This is why I asked your permission instead of simply acting. I would never knowingly hurt a child, Stark. And I would be pleased to help Morgan heal more quickly, if I can."

Tony looked back one final time. Morgan was miming something with her arms stretched up and her fingers wiggling; Oliver was laughing. Yeah, Loki had as much at stake in all this as he did. And he'd seen the way his old enemy had paled at the sight of Oliver's wound. How he'd distracted and comforted him. Loki loved his kid. "I'll be watching."

"I would question your competence as a parent if you didn't."

The two started back without another word; Tony was too nervous to dwell on – much less comment on – the surreal idea of Loki judging anyone's parenting skills.

"Doctor Loki at your service, Morgan."

"Yay!" Morgan shouted, bouncing on the bench and kicking her legs wildly, until one hit the other and she flinched and let out a pained "ow" in time with Tony's wince and fell still.

At Loki's instruction – Loki's instruction – Tony crouched down to hold Morgan's right leg up from the ground. As he did so, he saw his Pumpkin's hand slipping into Oliver's, and had to remind himself that she was four and not fourteen and it didn't mean anything when two four-year-olds held hands, not even when the other four-year-old was Loki's son.

"All you have to do is stay still for me, Morgan," Loki said as he got to his knees before the child. He smiled, watching as she started to nod but then clearly decided that nodded was moving and quickly stopped.

"How're you doing, Pumpkin?" Tony asked, taking her other hand and glancing up just long enough to check for any sign of fear or discomfort or God forbid pain on her face before again fixing his eyes on Loki's hands hovering around her ankle. No magic devices thus far, just hands.

"There we go. How's that? Want to stand up and give it a test?"

"No, no, no, wait right there," Tony said, hand going to Morgan's middle. "You haven't even done anything yet."

Loki stood and looked down his nose at Stark. "It was only a sprain, one simple enough for me to repair it. I would recommend no excessive jumping for the rest of the day."

Morgan's leg started wriggling in Tony's hand. "It doesn't hurt when I move it." She dropped Oliver's hand and reached down, past Tony's halting efforts to stop her, and wrapped her hand around it. "It doesn't hurt when I touch it." She slid right off the bench as Tony released her leg and stepped back to allow it. "It doesn't hurt when I stand on it. All tests successful, Daddy!"

"I told you he could make it better," Ollie said, standing up too.

"Your daddy's a really good doctor."

"Yeah…Dr. Loki," Tony said with a dazed smile. He didn't understand what just happened, except that his kid wasn't in pain anymore, and that was good enough for him.

Ollie was giggling, and Loki leaned down to stretch an arm around his shoulders and pull him closer. "He's not really Dr. Loki. He's Prince Loki."

"Oh, God," Tony muttered just as Morgan's eyes popped open like saucers. Her love for playing mechanical engineering and AI-assisted 3-D modeling was topped only by her love for Disney princesses. He could almost see the cartoon-drawing red hearts pouring out of her eyes as she stared up at Loki like he was better than Santa Claus and all his elves and every last reindeer and the Easter Bunny and even the Tooth Fairy all rolled up into one with bags full of presents just for her and why didn't he take her to that carousel this morning instead of the playground, anyway?

"You're really a prince? Really really?"

"Really really," Ollie agreed.

"Not on…not in the United States. Remember, Ollie, we must take care what we say here."

Ollie gave an unhappy full-body sigh.

"Well…we don't have princes here," Morgan said, shifting into lecturing mode, something she did more and more lately, something that occasionally caused friction between her and other kids. Tony understood; he'd gone through a phase like that, too. Pepper liked to remind him he'd never completely left that phase, which was maybe not setting the best example for their Angel. "We don't have princesses, either," Morgan was continuing. "Not real ones. Disney World has them, but they aren't really real, they're regular people playing pretend. But other countries have them, right, Daddy?"

"Right, Pumpkin," Tony said weakly.

"Like England."

"Uh-huh."

"And Australia."

"Ummmm…"

"And Asgard!" Ollie piped up.

"All right," Loki said quickly, best diplomatic smile on his face. "I believe Morgan is fine now, and it's time for us to get lunch. It was a pleasure to meet you, young Morgan Stark. Ollie, say goodbye."

Morgan's eyes shot open past saucers and straight to dinner plates, with a side dish of desperation, and Tony knew what was coming before she said a word. She had a really-real prince in her grasp and no way was she letting him get away that easy.

"But you can't go!"

Loki watched with something approaching astonishment as the little girl dashed toward him and grabbed his hand, tugging with all her childish might. When he looked up, Tony Stark's gaze was also rising to his; the man looked…concerned. Before either of them could react, though, Ollie's hand found his free one.

"Do we have to? Can we keep playing? I'm not hungry."

"I'm hungry," Morgan declared, and Loki's heart ached at how crestfallen Ollie looked. He hadn't wanted to believe it, or perhaps more to the point acknowledge it, but Ollie was growing up lacking something Loki had never lacked in his childhood: a constant friend and playmate. And on Midgard he had no friends at all, not yet. Morgan was his first. Why in all the Nine Realms did it have to be Morgan Stark?

Stark was fussing over his daughter, triple-checking that her ankle was truly healed and probably that Loki hadn't secretly put a curse on the child while he was at it, when Morgan piped up again. "Can they come to lunch with us?"

Notes

Current plan is one more "integral" chapter, plus that additional one I mentioned before. Blame Loki and Tony on it going long. Okay, let's be honest, you can blame me, too. But I will still blame Loki and Tony.

Thanks to all those who've dropped in a comment, faved, followed, etc. Hope you enjoy this chapter...which I thought I'd be getting out in November! "LittleRedDot" - some portion of what you raised will indeed be covered...spoiler-free so that's all I can say. To tell you the truth this is a universe I wouldn't at all mind continuing to play in. It has an endpoint, but it's the type of thing I could imagine going back in later and dropping in another chapter kind of randomly. :-)

On the name: It was my thinking that Loki & Jane would want a name that worked on both realms, modeled on married friends of mine who are from two different countries and first languages, they wanted the child's name to "sound good" in both countries. In Old Norse texts there's a name Olver/Olvir, close to Oliver, and there is also the name Oli, which is actually the short form of Olaf, not Olver/Olvir. I think Jane and Loki would both like Oliver, as well as Ollie, which is they usually call him (just adjusted for spelling from "Oli"). I got these names from the Viking Answer Lady website, BTW, not from personal knowledge.

Oh! And can your arm get punctured without you realizing it? Yep. Happened to me. I didn't know 'til some kid pointed at my arm and started crying.