Pass 5 - Finchhflight
Aria had been an entirely unexpected development in Loki and Sylvie’s lives - or rather, their life together - but she was no less loved than she would be if she had been planned. Their second, however. Well, they’d been trying quite vigorously the past few months, and Loki had a suspicion they’d already achieved in conceiving. Sylvie hadn’t told him yet, but he was so aware of every nuance in her behavior after her first pregnancy, and he had vowed no such changes would go unnoticed by him again.
And they didn’t.
It began with fatigue, a telltale sign that something in Sylvie’s biology was shifting like tectonic plates, shaking the foundation of the endless energy she was typically so ingrained with. He never could wrap his head around the extent of her drive. Work, work, work, constantly keeping her mind busy, her body in motion. Loki knew the centuries she’d spent on the run were near impossible to shake, but he’d witnessed her hardened exterior chip little by little, here and there, as she warily accepted the domesticity Loki was so determined to provide her. A roof over her head, a bed to sleep in, food whenever she was hungry. A home to return to.
It was the least she deserved, and his heart was far too weak to resist fulfilling her every desire, no amount of spoiling able to express his timeless love for her.
That didn’t mean he didn’t try.
Spoiling his little family was one of Loki’s favorite things to do. He felt incomplete in the absence of their smiles, and so he made sure to dedicate his every waking hour showering them with the love they deserved. His glorious purpose, to love and be loved, finally fulfilled. He never recognized he had the capacity for such emotions before he finally let himself feel in the face of Lamentis-1’s destruction, watching the rolling waves of purple earth rush to take his life and the life of the woman he fell ridiculously fast for. Ever since then, his love had been ever-expanding like the vast multiverse he and Sylvie had unleashed, unable to be contained.
And how freeing it was.
Now, their family would soon gain another member, another little Nexus being that would likely drive them both as mad as their sibling had done, who had been able to connect with her seidr at infancy and send Loki and Sylvie into a panic at least once every other day. But surely, they would be better prepared this time, knowing what to expect.
Loki was waiting for Sylvie to tell him on her own terms. As she grew more comfortable, with his gentle encouragement, she began exploring hobbies, and she had taken to arts and crafts almost immediately, her fascination with creativity almost childlike. It was endearing as much as it was a stark reminder of the life that’d been stolen from her. She loved painting, especially, but she also enjoyed making flowers out of paper and animals-that-weren’t-quite-animals out of clay.
Like the little frog-hamster thing sitting on the TV stand in the living room. Loki had to tell Aria that he wasn’t sure the animal even existed when she’d begged so sweetly for one as a pet.
However, considering how many worlds Sylvie has seen, providing a base for an abundance of stories to tell their little one, he wouldn’t be surprised if something like that did exist.
But because of her newfound flair for the arts, Loki had an intuition that she might want to surprise him, make a little something to announce her pregnancy, and he didn’t want to steal the opportunity from her.
***
Sylvie glared down at the piece of colored paper that was refusing to fold the way she wanted it to, letting out a huff of frustration as she let it fall from her hands. Her eyes drifted over the mess of purple and pink paper on the kitchen table. She had wanted to make an explosion box, but the monstrosity in front of her was looking less and less like the instructions on her phone. It was taking so long, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get enough done to hide it by the time Loki returned from his meeting with Mobius and subsequent grocery shopping.
A little hand touched her bicep, and Sylvie looked to her left to see Aria climbing up onto the chair next to her, sitting on her knees.
“What’cha making?” Her daughter’s sweet voice immediately soothed the tension in Sylvie’s shoulders, and she shrugged.
“A gift for your dad,” Sylvie told her, and she slid the phone over. “See?”
Aria’s lips pursed, and the last of Sylvie’s frustration melted away.
“Looks hard.”
“Yeah, it is. You wanna help?” Sylvie offered, a softness to her voice reserved only for her and Loki. “I think you’d do a better job than me.”
Aria’s lips split into a toothy grin, and she picked up Sylvie’s phone to inspect the images on the screen. She then looked at all the supplies scattered about, and Sylvie could see the gears turning in her young, bright mind a moment before she began organizing them all into neat piles.
Having Aria’s help made a huge difference. The little girl had her father’s steady hand, and her presence put Sylvie at ease enough to power through the mistakes they made along the way. After a few hours, the skeleton of the box was complete, albeit with a lot more glitter than Sylvie would’ve liked, and now all it needed was the photos. Sylvie retrieved the photos she had printed, and she and Aria began sliding them into their respective pockets.
Every so often, Aria would hold one up and ask about it, and while Sylvie wasn’t as sappy as Loki (Aria often tattled on him whenever he got sentimental, which was often), she very fondly told the story behind each one. With a few jabs at Loki, of course, and survival advice whenever it was a photo from their travels, just in case their daughter ever found herself in a situation similar to Sylvie’s.
Which Sylvie hoped with all her heart Aria would never experience the shit she had. Even though Doom had been defeated and the multiverse was quiet, no amount of promises and reassurance from Loki could keep her from preparing for the worst.
“What’s this one, Mum?” the seven-year-old chirped.
Sylvie glued the previous picture down, finishing the second-to-last layer, then glanced over.
“Oh.” It was a candid shot of her and Loki sitting on the couch. A large blanket was draped over her, and a baby was cradled in her arms. That moment was the most vivid of all the happy memories she was collecting. “ That … was right after I had you.”
“That’s me?” Aria’s finger poked the photo.
“Yeah, you were tiny, weren’t you?” Sylvie said, emotion constricting her heart.
She shook it off and smiled at the disbelief in Aria’s expression, a nose scrunch identical to her mother’s.
“Look at you now,” she continued lightly, her words brimming with pride. “You’re getting so big. I’ll have to warn your daddy you’re coming for his height.”
“You think I’ll get that tall?” Aria asked, skeptical. Sylvie kissed the top of her head.
“You never know.”
They decided to add some finishing touches on the exterior once the box was complete. It already looked like a unicorn vomited on it, so really, what was a little more? Especially if it made her daughter happy to use the last of the glitter glue in the once brand new tube to line the flowers and hearts Sylvie was painting.
When Sylvie turned away to rinse her brush, a flash of green that meant trouble made her whip back around to see a black housecat in her daughter’s place. “Ari,” she exclaimed as the feline hopped onto the table and padded to the paper plate dotted with different colors of paint.
Aria sat back on her haunches and dipped her front paws in it. Sylvie could only watch in half-hearted exasperation as she filled any negative space with paw prints.
When she was finished, she turned back into a little girl with a proud, mischievous grin, sitting on the table. Her now-human hands were coated in an array of colors. If Loki were here, he’d clean it with a flick of his wrist, but Sylvie had yet to master that magic, so she had to resort to a long-suffering sigh at her husband’s behavior shining through their daughter.
“Come on, you,” Sylvie said, helping her down. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
***
“How are you feeling?” Loki asked Sylvie, who was pressed up against his side. They were lounging in bed as the first rays of morning sun filtered through the dark curtains shielding their bedroom windows.
“I’m good. Why?” came her quiet voice from the crook of his arm.
Loki hummed. “I wish you’d allow your mind some respite.”
He felt her little growl of not this again more than heard it, and he rubbed her arm.
“I don’t mean to rush you, darling,” he reassured her. “I just want to help.”
“Nuthin’ you could do,” Sylvie muttered, tilting her head up to render his brain useless with her stunning eyes.
Loki shook his head, snapping out of his momentary daze. “I beg to differ,” he protested gently. “I was thinking… the next time you meet up with B-15, Aria and I could come along too.”
He wanted Sylvie to make connections, live her life to the fullest, but he was also aware that what they’d built was a miracle in itself, almost too good to be true, and he could understand why she was skeptical. She didn’t trust the TVA, rightfully so. And neither did he, really. The organization as a whole still warranted caution, but there were individuals they could trust, maybe the only people who could understand them.
“We could make a weekend of it,” Loki continued softly, his fingers toying with the hem of her shirt sleeve. “A mini vacation, if you will.”
He could see her pondering his offer, her gaze falling to his chest, slightly distant. She had trouble making connections because she had never had to before, back when everyone she ever interacted with was fated for death.
“Alright,” she agreed under her breath.
Loki fought the smile that threatened to spread across his face at her quiet acquiescence, keeping his lips sealed. His inner celebration of his small victory was short-lived, however, as a hurricane of a child burst into their room. Sylvie’s head snapped up, nearly slamming into Loki’s chin, and the next thing he knew, Aria was clambering onto the bed.
“Good morning, my little love,” Loki greeted her warmly, sitting up a little as she crawled over their legs. All she had to offer him was an excited beam before she turned towards her mother.
“Mum, remember what today is?”
Sylvie was clearly still sleepy, her hair mussed from their cuddling, but she was smiling too. “What’s today?” she humored her, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
“We gotta give Daddy his present,” Aria replied, and Loki raised his eyebrows, amused.
“A present?” he chuckled as his daughter pulled on his arm. He obliged, sitting up and preparing to get out of bed. He had a feeling he knew what it was, and if Aria had a hand in it, he was even more curious about the delivery of the news.
There was only so much glitter you could clean up without magic. His wife and daughter’s crafty rendezvous hadn’t gone unnoticed by him.
Loki let Aria guide him to the living room, looking over his shoulder to catch Sylvie’s tender expression as she followed close behind.