Baby Steps

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/613262.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Relationship: Loki/Thor
Characters: Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Arranged Marriage, Jotun!Loki, Developing Relationship, Falling In
Love, Cultural Differences, Xeno, Bratty!Loki, Fluff
Language: English
Series: Part 5 of A Backwards Courtship
Stats: Published: 2012-12-28 Words: 3,207 Chapters: 1/1
 Baby Steps
by Kay (sincere)

Summary

The first anniversary of the royal wedding is surely cause for celebration. But Thor's
insistence on making a big deal of it is aggravating his queen. What exactly is Loki's
problem?

Notes

A holiday gift for idk my bff rainfall! Written for the prompt "asking out on a date" at
cottoncandy_bingo.

This fic takes place in an AU where Loki is rescued as a baby by a frost giant, instead of by
Odin.
"We will have been married for a year soon, you know."

Loki looked up from the raveled scroll, his lips quirking up with some small amusement. "I'm
aware of the date," he told Thor.

Thor laughed, hearty, and reached out to pull the scroll away. "But not its significance. We
will have been married for a year! It is an anniversary. Our first."

"Oh, by my breath." His lips twitched up, but he reached for the scroll again, to show Thor
that he had no time for such thoughts. "What do you want? For it to be a holiday throughout
Asgard?"

"Perhaps it will be," Thor said firmly. "Why pass up an excuse for a feast?"

He rolled his eyes. Ridiculous talk. These Asgardians would turn anything into a celebration.
Every arrival, every departure, every reunion, every successful mission or hunt or quest...
Anything that could be interpreted as fortunate, and everything they wanted to be fortunate,
and a few things that would just be too depressing if they didn't all agree to make it a
celebration.

"By the time Vali is a year old you will have made holidays for his first step, his first word,
his first night sleeping uninterrupted..."

"That will be something to celebrate," Thor agreed, and then looked around. "Where is he?"

Loki lifted an eyebrow at him. "Do you think I have so little to do other than fuss over him at
all hours of the day and night? Do I not have a treaty in my hands that I am trying to read, so
that you do not have to?"

Thor gave him a matching challenging stare, although he let his amusement show plain on his
face. He let everything show; he wore his heart on his sleeve. "Where is he?"

Loki tossed his hair over his shoulders and said mildly, "He is with your mother, as usual.
She likes to take him everywhere."

Now a fond smile turned Thor's lips up. He seemed to adore every part of being a parent,
including late-night screaming fits, and so naturally Frigga's similarly adoring coos and
cuddles of her grandson was one of his favorite parts.

For his part, Loki was pleased that he had more responsibilities. He was used to dealing with
the affairs of a realm after he had struggled to prove himself worthy of his place as Laufey's
heir, and even though he was that no longer, he knew that he could be of service to Thor --
who, after all, had never had to struggle for or to prove anything in his whole life. Loki had
the patience to read and to learn that Thor lacked; he had the head for figures and
probabilities that Thor lacked. And he had subtly, deliberately reinforced in Thor's mind for
weeks and weeks that he was willing and able to share the burden of ruling, without
productive end.
But it seemed like after Vali was born, Thor permitted him anything. When he'd asked if Thor
would read him the treaties he pored over for hours -- as if to help him drift off to sleep --
Thor obliged; when he offered opinions, Thor listened; and now Thor sought his help as a
matter of course.

"We could leave her to take care of him for a time," Thor said. Loki looked up at him, not
following the train of thought, and Thor clarified helpfully, "On the anniversary."

Loki felt his lips quirk up. Thor liked to pretend that Angrboda was not just as capable and
willing to look after Vali. "So that we could do -- what, precisely?"

Thor stammered and flushed but had no answer to that, and Loki returned to his work.

He gave it no further thought until he saw the Queen Mother later that day. Frigga brought
Vali to the rooms that had been hers only a year ago, holding him tightly swaddled in her
arms; Loki could hear her singing to him all the way down the hall, and in spite of himself he
smiled fleetingly.

"Here you go," she sang, sweeping over to him with her attention wholly on the infant.

Loki held out his arms, asking, "Did he pose you any trouble, Your Highness?"

"None at all, Your Highness!" she returned, winking at him. She was obviously in high
spirits, and Loki barely kept from smirking. He was learning that babies had that effect on
Asgardians. "He has been perfectly well-behaved!"

"I should not be surprised. You know you are his favorite," he said warmly. He had gone out
of his way to make sure that Frigga thought well of him: in fact, he went out of his way to
ensure that all of Thor's closest companions and trusted allies thought well of him. "He is
never so quiet for me as he is for you."

Vali looked up at him and burbled, reaching for his face; Loki suspected that when so many
of the people Vali saw from day to day were pink-toned, he liked seeing the blue, and perhaps
seeing his own blue fingers against blue skin. The boy was not so different from the Aesir: he
was small, and his eyes were blue, and his little round belly was pale. But his father's blood
showed around the edges. The soft hair growing in thickly over his skull was a deep black,
and that soft pink skin turned to blue around the edges -- fingers and toes, elbows and knees,
and shoulders, with so-slightly raised skin at his temples and over his arms.

The Aesir whispered among themselves that the blue would fade in time, and then he would
look much like any other halfling; but Loki looked at him and thought, Some things are more
than skin deep, and he was satisfied.

Frigga admitted freely, "Tis because I spend all my waking time with him." She sighed, soft.
"Sometimes I take him in to see Odin, to tell him about his grandson... But it is not the same
for Vali, when he cannot interact with him."

Loki flickered a glance up at her. "So Odin will know him better than he knows me, even
having slept through the entire year in which he was conceived," he teased.
She smiled at him, certain. "He will love you."

Not one of Loki's most pressing concerns, not yet. He turned, crossing to the cradle, and
gently set Vali down, offering him a rattle to entertain him. Vali grasped it tightly and shook
it, laughing brightly at the sound it made. When Loki straightened up again, he could see that
Frigga was still watching the baby, an utterly guileless look on her face. She was the one in
love.

But she shook her head, clearing it, when she noticed Loki's attention. Frigga cleared her
throat and said, "Thor is planning something, you know."

"--For the anniversary of our union?" Loki felt amusement and exasperation war within him.
These Asgardians, and their obsession over dates, and celebrations... "I thought we had
already established that that was a silly idea."

"He is very attached to that silly idea." Frigga chuckled. "Thor has a big heart, and he wants
to make grand gestures. Make no mistake, he will do something, one way or another. You are
his queen, after all."

Loki shook his head. "You can surely say something to him? Tell him I have no need for any
grand gifts or parties, and we both have better things to do with our time."

Frigga's lips were curved up in a wide smile, and she reached up to take him by the arms.
Loki looked down at her, thrown. He still had not grown used to the possessive way the Aesir
touched everyone they knew.

She said, "He has already asked everyone for their thoughts on what he might do. You are
much too late for that, my dear. Besides, even a queen and mother needs to take time for
himself." She chuckled, amused at herself.

Loki's lips quirked up, sharing in her amusement at the strange wording. But he took his
complaints to Angrboda later that evening.

"The Aesir are so insistent that if you bear a child, you must be its mother," he muttered.

Angrboda looked up at him from where he was dangling fingers above the baby, letting him
grab for them. "We have discussed this before, or something similar," he pointed out. "Do
you remember? Asgardian men cannot carry their own children. They must have a word for
those who do."

"I grow tired of the Asgardians and their traditions," Loki proclaimed. He dropped his pen to
the desk and folded his arms.

The frost giant husked out a laugh. "You are becoming more like them every day," he said.
"Listen to you pout because there are those different than you, little mouse."

Loki glanced at him, scowling. "I could teach them better. I could explain to him that I am the
boy's father, and Thor is his sire. The sire is the one who provides the seed. The term is
familiar to them; even they would know that much. It isn't that difficult."
"Is it worth the aggravation of explaining it to every soul in Asgard?" Angrboda asked him
mildly.

"Maybe."

"Then think you that the king of Asgard will be content for his child to call him 'Thor'
because a child was never meant to call his sire by anything but his bare name?"

Loki frowned at the window. No, he didn't imagine Thor would like that. "Vali is important to
him," he admitted. It would crush Thor -- and anger him -- to learn that Loki's people would
consider him little more than a donor of material required to create the true father's child; that
the child was Loki's, in every way that mattered.

Angrboda made a quiet grunt of acknowledgment. Then he said, "As long as you teach the
pup better than to call you 'Mother', it won't matter."

That much was true, and it made him feel somewhat more comfortable with the idea. He
slanted a look at Angrboda, though, lips quirking up. "Pup?" he asked. "Because I am a
mouse, he is a pup?"

"What else would he be?" Angrboda asked, lifting Vali from his cradle. The infant fit easily
in the palm of one of his hands, and Vali raised his arms, flailing eagerly for more contact.
"Look at how small he is. Too small. How am I meant to carry him?"

"How can't you carry him, he's so small," Loki said dryly.

"He would drown if I put him in a sling on my back," Angrboda muttered.

"How did you carry me?"

Angrboda chuckled. "I didn't," he said, freely. "I left you at home. No one else had any use
for you."

Loki's lips quirked up. That was what he liked about Angrboda. He was unflinchingly honest
-- and he was not sentimental.

When the scowl came across his lips again, Angrboda observed, "You are being petty
because you are upset about something."

"Thor is insistent upon doing something for our anniversary," Loki said, crossly. "I don't
know how to talk him out of it."

Angrboda waited perhaps three seconds before asking, "And why is that a priority?"

He was accustomed to Angrboda questioning his logic and his reasons, but it irritated him
now. "Because the date is meaningless!"

"If it were meaningless, it would not matter whether or not he chose to have a celebration on
that day. It means something to you."
And that was why it irritated him: damn Angrboda and his insightful wit, those eyes that saw
right through his attempts at deception after a thousand years of living together. "Of course it
means something to me," he said, sourly. "It means, let's have the whole of Asgard rejoice the
day when we both sacrificed our futures to one another to broker a peace. A whole year has
passed and we are neither dead nor unable to bear each other's presence! Huzzah."

Angrboda chuckled, lowering his head again as he drew Vali close to his chest. He told the
infant, light, "Your father is inventing slights again. It is the curse of an overactive mind. Pray
that you are dumb as rocks, pup." And treacherous Vali laughed.

The simple fact of the matter was that they were not celebrating a wedding, or even a happy
occasion. They would celebrate a day of defeat. A day when they had both conceded that
their kingdoms were more important than their own plans and desires. They would celebrate
that, although that concession could have been disastrous, they did not yet regret it as much
as they could have.

Loki found the idea of pretending to be thrilled that they did not hate each other to be utterly
pathetic.

Did they have to make an ordeal of it? A first anniversary might be significant for a couple
who had been in love and were still in love, but for them it was only a recognition that they
had needed to make it work, and they had made it work. They didn't need to sit together and
feign excitement while they were both still haunted by the specter of the lives they could
have led. A year was nothing, and in that year they had achieved little of value other than not
strangling one another. Ten years, twenty years, fifty years down the line -- then, perhaps, it
would be time to celebrate the success of their union, if indeed it still seemed like something
to celebrate.

He slipped out of bed early on the day that it was a year since he'd been married, and he went
to the adjoining room to curve over Vali's cradle. He was old enough now that he
occasionally managed to sleep through the night, and he had not yet woken, flat on his back
and oblivious to everything around him.

"I am very lucky, you know," Loki whispered to him. "Your sire is just clever enough to be a
good king, and just dumb enough to let me help him without question. And he is not
unlikable."

He was not... unlikable.

Thor found him there a short while later, and stepped up beside him, slipping an arm casually
about his waist; they watched Vali together wordlessly, for a long beat.

"He is beautiful," Thor murmured. He said it often, and meant it each time.

Loki sighed, soft. "Of course he is," he said, matter-of-factly.

That made Thor laugh, and he steered them both around so that they faced each other. "I have
stated the obvious again. My apologies."
Thor was in a good mood, which blunted the edge of Loki's distaste for the whole affair. He
supposed that if -- for whatever foolish reason -- Thor was genuinely happy about this day,
then it would not be so terrible. He could easily sublimate his own loss: after all, his
prospects had been far less impressive. He had bit and clawed and fought to earn the respect
of the Jotun, and proven to them time and again that he would be a worthy heir, but he could
only ever have been king of crumbling Jotunheim that way; perhaps a solitary king, with no
mate and no heirs, because the other frost giants treated him like glass.

If Thor could look past all the women he could not be with, and all the perfectly normal Aesir
children he might have had, and all the freedom that he had lost, then Loki supposed that he
had less to mourn, and thus no place to ruin whatever Thor had planned.

But he still was not expecting it when Thor began, "I want... I think that perhaps we have
gone about this somewhat backward. Moving... too soon -- though of course we had little
choice in the matter, but -- there is also some... virtue, to some of those small steps along the
way, that we... ah, missed."

Loki lifted his eyebrows as Thor kept talking without saying anything. Slowly color was
coming into his face, reddening his cheeks, and it took Loki a long moment to realize that he
was blushing.

"What has come over you?" he asked, bemused.

Thor lifted a hand to rake impatiently through his hair, and then he turned back around and
said, seriously, "Would you like to -- do something together?"

A mysterious question. Loki paused, and then laughed a little, and then pointed through the
door to their bed. Something? How coy.

"No, no! Not that -- as lovely as that would be." Now, somehow, Thor was even more red-
faced. "I would like to take you out. As if we were going courting."

"Courting?" Loki echoed, lifting his eyebrows. Had Thor not protested a similar turn of
phrase before Vali was conceived? "We are already married. Our son is right here."

Thor huffed out a breath, a rueful chuckle escaping him. "I recall that much, yes. But I feel..."
He curled his fingers around Loki's hand, holding on to him tightly. Loki darted his gaze
downward as if to confirm the ridiculous gesture before looking back up at his mate. "I feel
like we were married so fast. And though our time together has been happy, and you have
brought great joy into my life," Thor slanted that adoring look at Vali that Loki had grown so
familiar with, "so too have I occasionally felt that haste keenly. We do not know each other as
well as we should. As well as I would like. And I..." He lifted Loki's fingers to his lips. "...I
would like to remedy that."

It was completely not what Loki had expected, and for a long beat he could not even find the
words to respond to it. Thor wanted to -- take him to scenic spots and sit with him, asking
questions about Loki and talking about himself, holding hands and stealing kisses like shy
adolescents.
"This is complete and total madness," he said, frankly.

Thor only grinned at him and laughed.

But it was not an unpleasant sort of madness. The idea had its appeal. And at least he would
know, for certain, that Thor was not spending the day thinking about what could have been,
and who he could have been with. Instead, he was thinking about... how they could be
happier, together.

Suddenly it all felt very overwhelming. "When?" he managed.

"This afternoon? We can take a lunch out together..."

Loki ducked his head, to hide his smile. "And Vali?"

"Mother will look after him."

He closed his eyes, and then lifted his head again, composed and eyebrows raised. "I expect
this lunch to contain pie."

But he had expected a great many things, a great many times, since the day that Laufey told
him that he would be of use to Jotunheim in a different way than he had planned. And a great
many times, Thor had actually managed to exceed those expectations. Somehow, he knew
that nothing would be missing that would ruin the afternoon.

Loki would just have to hold on to the reassuring knowledge that he could never have his
expectations confounded so thoroughly as Thor had. Even if the one who had surprised Thor
the most was Thor, himself.
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