Upstate New York, Winter 1997

The air around Loki was so wonderfully warm. When was the last time he felt warmth? He snuggled further into the furs and felt the nudge of something in the—Loki’s eyes welled with tears. It was too much. He couldn’t… he couldn’t… A wretched, keening wail broke the silence of the room. It pulled at his lungs and scorched his throat, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe as he curled around his little one, grown cold and ridged.

“What the hell?!”

“Is it awake?”

“You think!?”

“Sir, your guest appears in distress.”

“I hadn’t noticed, Jarv, thanks.”

Vaguely, Loki heard voices around him but, no longer blessed by the AllSpeak, he did not understand them, at least not fully. Some words sounded familiar, unchanged by the centuries of time, but he did not care. All he could see was his little one, pale and tiny, with eyes never to open, never to see this world or any other.

The furs were pulled from him, allowing the soft glow of light to rest upon his firstborn, his son, his little Møði. He had failed him. He had failed to give his baby what he needed. He had killed the one he had been meant to protect and nurture. Fresh tears sprung from his eyes.

“Awe hell.”

“Shit.”

“Sir-”

“Shut up!”

“Tony-”

“OUT!”

Warmth washed over Loki. Strong arms. A heavy heartbeat pressed against his ear. He took a shuttering breath, a familiar scent filled him. Nostalgic and soothing. A scent that spoke of quietly whispered wit and laughter filled with snark. It spoke of the heat of Svartalfheimr, hours spent tangled in silks and furs, and a wholeness that Loki couldn’t bare right now, but couldn’t exist without either.

Thick fingers ran through his unwashed hair, nails gently scrapping across his skelp. He instinctively pressed into that touch, needing it to ground him as his tears were ripped from his very soul. He cried for his little Møði, killed by his failure to provide. He cried for Áki, murdered by his failure to protect. He cried for Laufey. For Váli. For all those that he had failed. For all those who had died because of him. Because he wasn’t good enough, strong enough.

Loki clung to Møði and to the arms wrapped around him. He cried loudly and wretchedly. He cried until his voice was lost to anguish and his lungs felt raw with the ache of desolation. When the silence won over, Loki could hear naught but the ringing in his ears. He saw nothing, though his eyes were open, and took comfort in that scent and the vibrations from that firm chest when the individual holding him spoke.

Eventually, the arms around him laid him down to rest and exhaustion took him. He wasn’t sure how long he slept. He dreamed of nothing. When he woke it was to unfamiliar hands trying to pry his claws from Møði. He snarled and swung out, curling protectively around his baby. He bared his fangs and glared at the blurred figure before him.

“What the fuck?” A deep voice. Someone moved between him and the baby-snatcher, and that scent came back, protective and warm.

“Tony, I-”

“I don’t fucking care! I told you not to touch him.”

“Sir, Mr. Banner was merely trying to remove the corpse before-”

“Enough! Get out!”

“What the hell, Tony? Why are you acting like this?”

“Out!”

There was a heavy sigh and then that warm scent and strong body was covering him, wrapping around him, and Loki broke down again. The cycle of consciousness, tears, and unconsciousness repeated for Loki knows not how long. It seemed endless. Yet, that warmth and that scent was a constant. The deep voice murmured words he didn’t know, but he found comfort in them and in the feel of that firm chest pressed against his cheek and in the sound of that steady, continuous heartbeat.

Tony slipped out of his bed sometime in the middle of the night. He had no idea why he had demanded they put the creature in his room when they found it over a week ago, but considering recent events, he was grateful for the decision—his bed was by far the most comfortable in the entire cabin. He looked back at Blue—the name he had given the creature—from the doorway. The skin around Blue’s eyes was puffy from crying, but at least this latest spell had been softer than the previous ones.

Slipping from the room, Tony took a quick pitstop in the bathroom and then made his way to the kitchen. Bruce was nursing a cup of tea at the island counter. His friend looked up at him briefly before going back to his crossword puzzle. Wordlessly, Tony went about making himself a cup of coffee. He knew he owed Bruce an apology, but he couldn’t make the words come out. Logic told him he was being an ass, but something deeper told him he was justified.

“Blue’s asleep,” he murmured around a sip of coffee.

Bruce merely hummed in response.

Sighing, Tony moved to the opposite side of the island from Bruce and set his cup down. “Look, I-”

“You’ve been sleeping with an alien and a corpse, Tony.”

Tony pursed his lips. It did sound gross when it was put that way—the corpse part, not the alien one.

“It’s very small,” he said instead. “I think it was a miscarriage.”

Bruce looked up at that.

Tony kept his eyes on his coffee, unable to meet his friend’s gaze. “I get the feeling that she blames herself for being unable to carry to term.”

“She?”

“Blue.”

“Blue.”

“Well, she hasn’t exactly said much, let alone given me her name,” Tony snaped, exasperated. “All she does is cry.”

“Right.” Bruce sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I get that it’s hard for her, but the corpse has to be decomposing at this point.”

“Movee,” Tony said, the pronunciation foreign to his tongue.

Bruce raised a brow.

“I think it’s the baby’s name. It’s the only thing she’s said besides ‘fearykinser.’”

“Fyrirgefðu, sir,” JARVIS chimed in from the hidden speakers. “The pronunciation is a bit different, but I believe your guest is speaking a variation of Icelandic.”

Bruce’s other brow met his first. “An alien that speaks Icelandic?”

“At least we might be able to communicate with her,” Tony said optimistically. “What does it mean, Jarv?”

“If it is indeed the same language, sir, it means ‘I’m sorry.’”

“And Movee?”

“I believe your guest is saying ‘Møði,’ sir, and that you are correct in that it is a name.”

“That’s what I said, Movee.” He looked at Bruce. “Isn’t that what I said?”

Bruce shrugged. “I’m not a linguist, but they sounded a bit different.”

Tony huffed. “Whatever. I’m going back before she wakes up.”

“Are we going to talk about that?”

He looked over his shoulder as he headed out of the kitchen. “About what?”

“This. You.” Bruce gave him a searching look, like the one he had when he was confronted with a scientific problem. “You’re not usually like this with people, especially girls you don’t know.”

He wanted to blow the accusation off, but this was Bruce. They’d known each other for years, and were closer than his friendships with either Rhodey or Happy. It was the whole reason he allowed Bruce to keep him company during the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. Out of the three, Bruce understood him like neither of the other two could.

Sighing, Tony’s shoulders fell and he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just… I can’t help it.”

“You can’t help turning into an overprotective tiger?”

Tony huffed a laugh. “I guess.”

Bruce looked down at his crossword for a long moment before asking, “Have you been like this around anyone else?”

“No,” Tony murmured. “Just Blue.”

“Think it could be something she’s doing?”

Tony’s brows shot up. “Mind control?”

Bruce shrugged and looked at him. “We really don’t know what we’re dealing with, Tony.”

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted, “your guest has left the cabin.”

“What!?” Tony screeched and bolted for the front door, snatching his coat off the hook. Bruce was on his heels.

The moon was high in the sky and everything was covered in a fresh coat of thick snow. There wasn’t much in the way of coverage, so Tony easily spotted Blue in the early morning darkness. The tracks of her bare feet lead right to her as she stood before the frozen lake, dressed only in the thread-bare clothes she had appeared in.

“Blue!” Tony rushed across the snowscape, falling flakes coating his hair. His footfalls crunching loudly in the snow and echoing in the otherwise silent landscape.

She turned at his approach and gave him the most beautifully heart wrenching smile. Her crimson eyes glistened, and her cheeks were frosted over with frozen tears. Her voice was raspy when she spoke, and Tony didn’t understand the words, but they were soothing. She held her dead infant against her chest with one arm, and with the other she reached out. Her hand was cool as it cupped his cheek, fingers long and thin.

Tony felt that clawed thumb brush along his bottom lip, and then the hand moved to the back of his neck, giving his nape a gentle squeeze. She spoke again, and Tony somehow knew that it was okay. He heard Bruce’s approach and held up his hand to halt his friend.

He didn’t take his eyes off her when he called out, “It’s okay, Bruce.”

She gave him another tear-filled smile and a short nod, before she walked to the frozen edge of the lake. Kneeling down, she set the baby upon the ice, and her hands hovered around it, glowing faintly. She hissed and the glow flickered out. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, and that was when Tony noticed a golden band around her wrists, just hidden under the cuffs of her torn clothing. It wasn’t a metal band, but one tattooed into the skin, and it shimmered whenever her hands glowed.

Growling in frustration, fresh tears sprung from her eyes.

“Is she trying to bury it?” Bruce asked, cautiously approaching. When Tony looked at him in confusion, he continued, “Some cultures, particularly the old Scandinavian ones, would send their dead out to sea and light the boats on fire.”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think something’s wrong. Those bands on her wrists don’t look like the ridges.”

Adjusting his glasses, Bruce stepped closer to him and watched as her hands once again began to glow, followed by the shimmering on her wrists, and the light flickering away. “They seem to be stopping her.”

“And pissing her off,” Tony murmured at her obvious agitation and desperation. Walking cautiously over, he knelt next to her. Her head snapped up and she growled lowly at him, her eyes fierce and filled with fat tears. He looked at the baby, bundled in a towel she must have commandeered, laying unmoving on the ice, and then back to her. Gently, he asked, “What can we do to help?”

She looked at him, confused, and he could see her struggling to understand, but he could also she how utterly exhausted she was. Her head snapped to the other side as Bruce also knelt beside her. He immediately held his hands up in surrender.

“Cabhrú,” he said slowly. “Um, cabhrú Møði.”

“Ba mhaith leat cabhrú?” Blue said with a quick, effortless accent.

“Um…” Bruce blinked. “Tá?”

“Since when do you speak alien?” Tony whispered hurriedly from the other side of Blue.

“It’s Gaelic!” Bruce wined. “It was the closet thing I could think of to Icelandic, but I don’t know much.”

Blue looked between the two before holding out her hands. “Tabhair dom do lámha.”

“I think she wants us to take her hands,” Bruce said.

“Oh, I couldn’t have figured that out by myself,” Tony quipped and went to take her hand, but instead she grabbed the back of theirs.

Holding each of their hands on either side of the infant, Blue closed her eyes, her brow crinkling in concentration. Tony could feel the coolness of her skin against his, it wasn’t exactly cold, but it was a close thing. Then he felt warmth. It was subtle at first, like a light breeze on a spring day, but it gradually grew stronger, warmer, but never hot, it never burned. It seeped into him and through him, filling him. He had no way to describe it other than strange, like he could feel his blood coursing through his body.

Light began to shimmer in his palm, silvery and metallic. The same was happening to Bruce’s hand, but the light was an unnatural green, almost acidic in colour. The two lights grew and spread out, forming a boat of shimmering light around Møði.

Letting go of their hands, Blue opened her eyes to look upon her baby. Her brow was covered in perspiration and her eyes were filled with tears, but Tony could only see an unconditional, unmeasurable amount of love in those crimson eyes. The love of a mother.

Leaning down, Blue kissed her child’s brow and whispered sweetly to it, and Tony knew they were only words of love. Blue loved her child, even though it was dead, even though it likely never lived, she loved it. With a gentle nudge, she sent the magical boat slowly sailing across the ice. She watched it go, flanked by Tony and Bruce, who each intwined their fingers with hers.

The moon illuminated the little boat of light, and Tony couldn’t help be overwhelmed by the sadness. He didn’t know Møði, he didn’t even know Blue, but how could his heart not break? He heard Blue take a deep breath when the boat reached the center of the lake, and then murmured a single word. A blaze burst forth from the boat, consuming the remains.

Blue said not a word more. She sat between them in the snow, her eyes glued to that flame, and her impassive face now free of tears. Her hands, however, gripped each of their hands so tightly they shook.