Written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr: "Modern Sifki pregnancy/in labour." I haven't written anything in months and months so please forgive this bit of a mess.

It's time.

The text message nearly sent him running from the courtroom, read under the table during a brief recess. He felt the adrenaline running through his veins. It was happening. He had to go, he had to be there. Now. But he slid his phone under the documents laid upon the table with a shaking hand and took a breath. He had to finish this, he couldn't really afford to lose his job, not now, now that it was time.

48 minutes and 17 agonizing seconds later, the case was finally adjourned and Loki was sprinting from the courthouse, hardly sparing his victorious client a glance as he ran towards his car. He drove like a bat out of hell, swerving between cars and liberally holding up his middle finger and cursing those he deemed to be in his way with wishes of unspeakable misfortune and doom. His phone buzzed incessantly, pictures of his brother and his mother flashing across the screen from where his phone had been thrown onto the passengers seat, but Loki kept to his task, accelerating to speeds that would land him in more trouble than many of the clients he defended if he were to get caught.

12 minutes and 33 near lethal seconds later, he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, taking up two and a half spaces with an uncaring parking job. His long legs moved rapidly to take him past the sliding doors of the hospital's eastern wing.

An elderly woman, smiled unhurriedly up at him as he approached her desk, shouting Sif's name along with "Labor and delivery unit, now!"

"Oh are you the father? You must be so excited." She clacked at her keyboard before rising slowly from her chair. Loki breathed hard through his nose, the irony of this woman who moved as though death was upon her doorstep being the greeter for the maternity center, honestly.

"Ecstatic. Now if you'd be so kind to tell me where I can find her?"

The woman walked around the counter and waved him after her. "Follow me, dear."

"Just tell me the number, I can find it myself," he breathed through gritted teeth but she continued slowly to lead him down a long hallway, chattering on about heaven knows what.

1 minute and 59 crawling seconds later the pair rounded a corner and Loki spotted Thor down the hallway, pacing in front of a closed door. He barely resisted the urge to shove the old woman out of his way as he sped past her, towards his brother.

"Where is she? What's wrong?" he demanded, grabbing Thor by the front of his shirt, failing to beat down the panic that had been rising in him for the past 62 minutes and 49 terrifying seconds. Things were going wrong, this was all his fault, he was a bastard, what had he done to her?

He knew this would happen, had told her his fears repeatedly. His family knew nearly nothing about his birth parents except some vague details of violence and squalor. What terrors had he passed on, what risk had he placed upon her shoulders?

"What?" Thor looked startled and then relieved, placing a large hand on Loki's shoulder. "Nothing. Things are just moving fast, I guess they said she was already at seven centimeters. Where were you? This baby isn't waiting for-"

Loki did shove Thor as he moved past him to wrench open the door, Sif's scream greeting him into the room.

The specifics of how he got across the room, draped in some sanitary gown over his clothes, standing next to Sif's bedside, one hand in hers and the other pushing sweat soaked hair out of her face were inconsequential.

Sif's grip on his hand was painful, but he dared not complain knowing he couldn't compete with her own discomfort. He was also left somewhat wordless at the vitriol that poured from the woman's mouth between screaming pushes, panted out in stinging run-on sentences.

"I swear to god, Loki, I'm going to kill you. This is all your fault, you bastard. How could you do this to me. Where the hell were you I was starting to think-"

The doctor's instructions for Sif to push broke her tirade, but her grip almost certainly broke Loki's hand. He looked helplessly across the room meeting the eyes of his mother from where she had moved quietly from Sif's bedside towards the wall on his arrival. She shot him a small smile.

"I'm here," he whispered. "I'm- I'm sorry. I'm here."

She had smiled sadly at him once, at the beginning of this whole ordeal. "You don't even have to be here, you know. You don't owe me anything."

Loki had been down on one knee, a black box presented to her just days after she had presented him with the tiny plastic stick with the two pink "pregnant" bars. "I know this isn't what you want, so I'd rather you didn't pretend."

She thought the decision had been made in haste, following some code of honor. She had honor enough, she'd told him. She didn't need him to save her from any sort of disgrace. She didn't need his pity. He could see it in her eyes, she expected him to run, thought that was what he wanted.

In truth, he had asked his mother for the heirloom ring months before, keeping the velvet box wrapped in a pair of holey socks in his drawer awaiting the perfect time. The rejection had stung, more than he'd let on, but he tried his best not let the hurt at her misinterpretation taint the following months, doing his utmost to prove himself to her. Massaging swollen feet and aching backs, running baths and tying shoelaces, painting the spare room and assembling that jumble of pieces into a crib. Even when it meant 4 am food runs to retrieve disgusting combinations of craved foods such as mashed potatoes topped with caramel sauce.

"I just wanted you," she panted with her chin tucked, back curled as she bore down. "I wanted you here. And I'm going to fucking kill you." She was utterly lovely and terrifying. Loki nodded and gripped her hand tighter.

17 minutes and 21 laborious seconds later, the strong, healthy, beautiful sound of a wailing baby boy cut through the room. Loki nearly collapsed in relief, leaning down to press his forehead against Sif's. "You did it. You're amazing, Sif." She lifted one tired hand to his face and Loki was kissing her brow and kissing her eyelids and kissing her.

As the nurse handed the clean and swaddled but still whimpering child into Sif's waiting arms, Loki felt all of his fear and guilt and unpreparedness melt away. The months of prepping, of panic, all the parenting books he'd stashed around his office and their home, read cover to cover in secret, determined to do better than those before him disappeared from his mind.

Nothing else mattered. Not the family who had abandoned him, the one who so often misunderstood him. Just his new family, Sif and this beautiful child. Warmth and relief bloomed from his chest as he counted ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes over and again, one long finger stroking the plumpness of a tiny flushed cheek.

"Perfect," Sif whispered, looking exhausted but elated, pressing her lips against the infant's shock of dark hair.

This new family was of the greatest importance now, and forever.

"Marry me," he spoke into her hair. She turned her head, face shiny and hair matted wildly and looked at him drowsily. Yes, this was the perfect time, what that box in his drawer was waiting for. "I'm here, you're wonderful. Marry me," he repeated.

Sif laughed, but not unkindly in the least, pressing her forehead to his. "If you're still here after all of that, then yes. Yes, Loki."

3 joyous second later Loki kissed her, Frigga clapped her hands together in the corner, and the baby cooed.