Work Text:
April was hot.
Or maybe it just seemed hot to Jane. She supposed being eight and a half months pregnant with the child of someone who may or may not be a god (the tests he’d allowed SHIELD xenobiologists and physicians to do weren’t entirely conclusive on the matter) would make anyone feel uncomfortably warm in mid-spring, when temperatures were beginning to rise. She’d been lucky that it had been cooler than usual up until now, but those days seemed like a distant and very pleasant memory as she sweated in Tony Stark’s climate-controlled lab, watching one of her simulations play out. The results made her swear, and that just made her feel even hotter.
Bruce looked up from his own workstation. “No luck?”
Jane shifted her weight, gesturing at the screen. “No matter what kind of energy source I use, nothing’s enough to stimulate activation of an Einstein-Rosen bridge that can carry anyone out of the atmosphere, much less to another planet – realm – whatever.”
Bruce set down his StarkPad and came over to watch her replay the simulation, brows furrowing as it concluded. “What have you tried?”
“Anything – everything! From conventional methods to arc technology to methods that aren’t even more than theory at this point! But so far it seems more and more likely that zero-point energy is the only thing that’ll provide the sustained power we need for a Bifrost-like bridge that’s entirely Midgard-based, er, Earth-based, and the only source I know of is locked up in a vault on Asgard and under such heavy guard that nothing, short of the combined military power of the entire planet would even be able to get close!”
She put a hand to her temple suddenly, and one on her huge belly, where she’d felt a couple insistent kicks. “Sorry,” she mumbled, rubbing soothingly where her daughter had struck her. “Mommy’s a little frustrated, Lena.”
“I know you don’t like being told to take it easy,” Bruce began slowly, and Jane waved a hand.
“—but I really should,” she finished. “I know. I try – and I try to understand why Asgard wanted the Tesseract locked away – but sometimes I wonder if Loki did it just so that we would have to rely on Asgard for interplanetary transportation. And then I feel bad thinking that, because every time he talks about it, he gets this look like…”
“Like it’s still with him.”
Jane studied Bruce a moment; the man would know about being haunted, sure. “Yeah. And just from what little he’s said, I wouldn’t want that thing loose again anyway.” Jane shook her head. “Do you know, Darcy calls it the cosmic One Ring? I’m starting to think that’s pretty apt. I just wish there were some way to render it safe to use, some way we could tap into its power without… waking it up.”
Bruce put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing a little, and Jane smiled. Bruce was shy around crowds, so a lot of the public thought him standoffish and a loner for purposes of keeping his other side under control, but after working with him for almost a year she knew that wasn’t the case. He could be just as warm as anyone else.
“Maybe that’s something to explore,” he told her, finally. “Once we have a better grasp of Asgard’s idea of physics.”
“Please,” Jane groaned, putting both her hands through her hair. “I can’t even think about that right now.”
“I’m getting pretty hungry,” Bruce supplied. “And I know Steve’s here, and if he’s here he’s probably starting dinner.”
“Dinner sounds great.” Taking his hands, Jane wiggled down from her seat and pressed her hands to the small of her back, sweet, temporary relief flooding her as the action took away some of the tension for a moment. “Or at least something to drink, though I’ll just be passing it out twenty minutes later.”
“Lena’s going to be a big baby,” Bruce replied as they got in the elevator and he slid his keycard, thumbing the button for the common room floor, eight floors up. “How’s she doing?”
“The gynecologist says she’s all out of room, and the way she kicks and punches my insides, I can believe it.” Jane rubbed her stomach; for all her complaining, there was a big smile on her face. “Any day now. I can’t say I won’t be glad when she makes her appearance at last.”
“Thor’s taking it well, at least.” Bruce smiled a little. “He’s very enthusiastic.”
“He’d carry me around if I asked.” Jane couldn’t help but laugh herself. “He’s so excited. Scared out of his mind, but excited. I can’t blame him for the being scared part, though. To be honest, I am too.”
The elevator doors pinged open, and the smell of something delicious greeted them as they walked out. Clint was leaning on the kitchen island, watching the timer on the oven with great intensity, Tony and Natasha were playing Mario Kart (Tony appeared to be winning by the skin of his teeth), and out on the balcony, Steve and Thor were standing over the grill. Steve appeared to be talking animatedly, gesturing with a tin of some seasoning at Thor, who was listening with great interest. When Jane had brought up her desire to move out of the tower sometime after the baby was born, Thor had launched into a self-imposed curriculum of learning various household tasks. It was as endearing as it was amusing.
Darcy was in the room too, paperwork and parchment and neatly-folded missives from Asgard spread around her laptop on the ultramodern coffee table, but she bounded up when Jane waddled into the room. Darcy had almost matched Thor for solicitousness. As busy as her duties made her, she always found time to do things with Jane – or more recently, do things for Jane.
“Did that—“ she waved her hand at the glass doors leading out to the balcony “—summon you up here too?”
“My stomach did,” Jane replied with a shake of her head. “But now that I smell it and the – what’s in the oven?”
“Cheesy garlic bread,” Clint answered. He didn’t take his eyes off the timer.
“Yeah, that.”
Thor came inside and made a beeline for Jane, wrapping her up in warm arms and gentle touches. “We are almost finished,” he told her, taking up her hands in his and bringing them to his lips for a scratchy kiss. “Cooking these hamburgers is a more complex process than I believed.”
“Gotta walk before you can run, big fella,” Tony said from the couch, but he sounded distracted. Natasha had passed him at some point and there was a definite line between his brows.
Jane ran her hands along Thor’s arms; he was wearing what she figured the Asgardian equivalent of sweats and a ratty shirt was, meaning that his trousers were fine, soft navy leather and his shirt was made of the wool of a kind of sheep called a sauðkind, which meant it was the softest, finest available. It, too, was deep navy with red around the edges of the sleeves and the collar, far more comfortable than the best woolen cloth Earth could offer. Whatever Darcy’s station, Thor was also considered a representative of Asgard, and as its Crown Prince, he was obligated to present himself a certain way.
“I’m sure it’ll be tasty,” she told him.
“Yeah, it smells way better than the chicken that one time,” Darcy added. Jane gave her a quelling look, and Darcy crossed her arms. “What? You put the weirdest spices on it and it was still frozen in the middle. It’s like you wanted all of us to get sick.”
“I am afraid that I have little experience in cooking,” Thor rumbled, but Jane patted his arm and he stopped.
“It’ll be fine. But I’ve got to sit down again.” Jane grimaced as she lumbered over to the couch and sat heavily at the opposite end from Tony and Natasha. “I am going to be so glad when this is over with. I’m tired of being tired.”
“You’ve got another person in there,” Darcy said, sitting beside her and pushing some of her work around so that it was in a more-or-less neat pile beside her laptop as Thor wandered back outside to bring in the food and start making up plates for everyone. “I’m tired just dealing with my own business. But don’t think that means you can get away with naming anyone else godmother.”
“There’s nobody else,” Jane told her with a smile. “Nobody better.”
“I know,” Darcy replied primly.
Dinner went off without a hitch, though Darcy nearly upended her plate onto the white shag rug when Tony beat Natasha at best-three-of-five Mario Kart and let out a wild whoop of delight. Natasha played it cool, but there was something too reserved about her to make Jane think she’d let this go. If the Avengers were passionate about keeping the planet safe, they were also bizarrely passionate about their competitive hobbies, and she had known friendships that broke up over Mario Kart when she was in college.
*
The good thing about living in Stark Tower, Jane thought, was that chances were what you wanted was somewhere in the building, and if it wasn’t, what you wanted could be made to come to you. Not through Tony’s money – Jane didn’t like depending on Tony for something like money, though she knew he wouldn’t make her pay him back for any of it and she imagined he liked having people around him who could keep up with or pass his brain – but through the simple fact that Stark Tower was a central location. Chances were, you’d be seen going into it, and that tended to bump up prestige a little.
Whatever the motivations or the monetary sources, the point was she could go down to one of the medical floors (there were two; one that functioned as a miniature hospital and one for recovery) and have a gynecologist come in and examine her, then go down to the food court and get something to drink, stare longingly at the in-house Starbucks with its wonderful coffee that was barred to her until she delivered, and go back up to her work. It was terribly convenient, considering she was the size of a house.
“You’re not the size of a house,” Tony told her, rolling his eyes.
Bruce didn’t look up from where he was soldering a connection on the ESP Detector Mark III. “It could be a very small house.”
“There is nothing on any planet that lives in a house that is the size of Jane.”
“Have you been to all the planets?”
“No, because I keep getting left out of all the field trips.”
“Tony, half the time you volunteer to stay behind.”
“Because that should be someone’s cue to say ’Oh, no Tony, we couldn’t possibly get by without you on this ultra-important trip to Asgard, please come because without your insight and expertise this outing will surely be fraught with danger!’ and everyone drops it.”
Jane let her hair fall around her head so she could hide a smile under the pretense of rubbing her stomach soothingly. Truth be told, Lena didn’t need soothing; she’d been more still than usual, settling down in both activity and position. At least it made it easier for Jane to breathe when she felt Braxton Hicks contractions coming on, but it was curious. She wondered whether she ought to get in touch with her gynecologist even though they’d talked about labor – assuming everything was normal in the birth of an Asgardian-human child, anyway. And despite that she’d feel reassured with Frigga nearby, for all that the former queen had offered, Jane didn’t want to ask her all the way to Midgard just to soothe ruffled nerves.
You’ve faced down grant committees and SHIELD and giants that were on fire, Jane told herself. You can face down going into labor without everyone around to hold your hand. Though even she had to admit that this was new and unexplored territory for her. Nerves were expected and normal.
“…not going to work if you do that,” Bruce was saying warningly, and Jane snapped out of her thoughts. Part of their function in the lab, she and Bruce had agreed, was to stop Tony from doing things like, say, building miniature particle accelerators in order to synthesize elements.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Tony said. “The energy’s all out there, Banner.”
“You’re talking about harnessing energy on the level of a catastrophic cosmic event, a black hole or a supernova,” Bruce argued. “Which there is no feasible way to do without being torn apart on the atomic level.”
“Only if the black hole existed in this universe.”
“So now you’re going to get into the idea of multiple universes?”
“We already have aliens, why not parallel universes?”
They kept on arguing, but Jane tuned them out again. Something had caught in her mind, latching on with little hooks, and she rested her elbow on the lab bench in thought. Only half her attention was on the equations she was playing with. Something about black holes, parallel universes… only part of that was really her area of expertise. She wasn’t a theoretical physicist, though only a little over a year ago most of her work had been only theory. Astrophysics overlapped, of course, but…
She couldn’t think of anything, and when she slid – well, sat heavily, swung her legs under the blankets, and then wiggled around until she was comfortable enough for Thor to turn off the lights and settle himself against the curve of her back, one hand resting warmly on the bare skin of her stomach.
“You are thoughtful tonight,” he said. Thor was used to her habit of losing herself in some problem presented by her work, though that didn’t stop him from trying to distract her by brushing hair off her neck and pressing his lips along the curve. “Is your work not going well?”
Jane smiled, resting her hand on top of Thor’s and squeezing. “It’s going fine,” she said. “Just… you ever had those moments where an idea is right there and almost within reach, and you know you can work it out if you just get a grasp on it?”
“Many times.” Thor shifted, and one of his legs fell over both of hers, starting the process that made them wake up in a mess of limbs and sheets every morning. “Betimes I found it better to set the problem aside and occupy myself with something else, for often the solution presented itself when I was in the middle of another question.”
“Seems like the best option right now. Hmm…” With Thor’s furnace-like heat at her back it was beginning to get warm, but Jane didn’t protest, just let it lull her toward sleep. “Maybe it’ll come to me in a dream.”
Thor was talking, saying something about dreams and fate, but it was just noise to her. Comforting, warm background noise, and the rumble of his voice against her back, pushing her over the edge to sleep.
*
The next day she found herself back in the lab, staring at lines of runes and equations scrolling across the holographic display before her. Irritated by the random contractions she’d been having all morning, and further annoyed by the fact that Tony, as a man, couldn’t understand that contractions were incredibly painful, the two of them had gotten into an argument earlier about the Bridge project. As much as some of Tony’s own projects relied on the amalgam of Asgardian science-magic and Earth’s own physics, he hadn’t completely accepted it, and was convinced a stable Einstein-Rosen bridge could be accomplished with what Earth had come up with.
Jane had never been sure of that – even before Thor, before she’d gotten mixed up with SHIELD and the Avengers and an alien royal family, there had always seemed to be pieces missing in her theory, slots for things to fit. When she’d really started to understand what Asgard had to offer her in this, it had begun to come together. But as great as the theory was, she couldn’t make it practical, not without…
“A power source,” she murmured, and reached for the keys. It was still hypothetical, all of it was, but—
Her train of thought and feverish typing was interrupted by pain lancing across her stomach, and with a whimper Jane put her hand to her stomach. “Did I get too excited?” she murmured. No response, not even a kick; Lena had only stirred a little since this morning, and Jane wondered if everything was okay.
Tony and Bruce had stopped what they were doing at her noise, and now Tony spoke up, their earlier argument forgotten. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, getting to her feet. That usually helped a little bit. “Probably just—“ Something hot and wet welled up between her legs, the wetness seeping down her thighs. “—er, going into labor, maybe?”
Tony threw the screwdriver and the piece of electronics he was working on down onto the countertop. “Code Baby Blue!” he yelled. “JARVIS!”
“Notifying Thor, sir.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Jane said, reaching for her keyboard again. She had to get this thought down before it left. “Labor can take a while, it’ll probably be hours yet, I just had an idea—“ another lance of pain across her belly, and Jane bit her lip, saving her work and closing the program. “Or it can wait.”
Tony was busy running around and waving his hands in excitement as he rallied people and let all and sundry know what was going on, so Bruce took Jane by the arm and led her over to the elevators. His grip was strong but gentle, and the hand on her lower back was soothing and warm. Not words most people would use to describe someone who had the Hulk in him, but most people didn’t know Bruce very well. Jane was glad for the comfort, though. “Have you been feeling contractions all day?” he asked as they waited.
“A couple times,” Jane replied. Nervousness and a thread of fear mixed with a heavy dose of sudden excitement. “I thought they were Braxton Hicks.”
“That’s normal. I’m guessing you and Thor have been ready?”
“Bags are packed by the door. He knows to grab them.” Jane leaned on Bruce a little bit when they got into the elevator and began to descend to the parking level. “Did you deliver a lot of babies when you were hiding out?”
“None at all, actually. Most women knew a midwife they trusted more than some foreign doctor.”
“You’re very calm, though.”
“I think it’d be bad for all of us if either you or I freaked out.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Thor was waiting by the elevators when they opened onto the private garage level below the building. He looked slightly pale and fidgeted a lot as he handed Jane a fresh pair of leggings and took over helping her waddle around. “Are you well, Jane?”
“I’m doing fine.” The concern in his voice made her smile a little bit, rub her fingers up along his bicep soothingly. Then her brow furrowed as she paused outside the bathroom. “You’re going to be with me, right? When…you know. Things get underway?”
Thor took her hands in both of his and kissed the knuckles. “Every minute,” he said. “I will not leave your side when it is time, Jane, this I swear to you.”
Something in Jane eased. She’d never really doubted Thor, but sometimes hearing the reassurance was what was needed. “Good, because if you think you’re going to be anywhere else you’re wrong.”
By the time she’d changed, their transport to the hospital was waiting for them. Behind it were two cars, and Jane raised an eyebrow as the driver put their bags in the back of the car. “Is everyone coming?”
“We’re detecting pre-Bifrost activity in the upper atmosphere above the city,” Bruce explained. “Tony’s driving everyone up a wall inside, so he and I are going to go meet them.”
“What, is everyone going to be there?” Jane gasped at the end and put a hand on her stomach, and could almost smell the stress on the air. “No, no, I’m fine—Thor?”
“I am not sure who will be arriving,” he said. “Doubtless it will be at least one of our family. Heimdall will have told them.” He looked worried, and Jane took his hand when he held it out to her to squeeze briefly.
“I’ll be fine for a bit,” she said. “Quit worrying about me and go see who’s coming to visit.”
Thor brought her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them. “I will always worry a little about you, Jane, but only because I sometimes forget that you have the fortitude of Asgard’s mightiest warriors. Let us go, then.”
He helped her up into the seat and shut her door for her, and after the usual amount of wiggling and grunting, squirmed himself into the backseat beside her and they were off. Their car went one way, toward NYU’s Tisch Hospital; the other peeled off toward Central Park. Craning her neck to look she could see the distinct circular clouds building up overhead.
Thinking about the Bifrost made her turn to Thor. They had a bit of a drive to the hospital, and she had an idea to get out. “Did you remember to put the notebook in my bag?”
Thor handed it over. “I have it here, Jane, but should you really—“
“Thanks.” She took it from him, leaned against his shoulder, and began to scribble. “I’ve got an idea that’s going to change everything.”
*
Once she’d arrived at the hospital and been admitted, Jane was placed in a private room to wait until her labor started in earnest. The contractions were strong and regular, but not enough of either to indicate anything happening immediately. She was glad of the lull, really. Her mind was full of things, equations and runes and pathways across the stars, and she wanted to get as much of it on paper as she could before she became, well, distracted.
“I could have known I would find you working over your theories even now.”
Jane looked up sharply, nearly fumbling her pen to the floor. Frigga stood in the doorway, her hair loosely braided over one shoulder and somehow looking impeccable in a linen shift and blue woolen hangerock. “Frigga—my lady—I, uh—“
“Peace, child.” Frigga glided into the room as Jane hurriedly rescued her pen from the blankets and set it and her notebook aside. “I asked Heimdall to inform me specifically when your time came.”
“Goddess of family and marriage,” Jane said, then bit her lip; she still wasn’t sure of the protocol of telling Asgardians about the myths that Midgard had spun up around them. Luckily, Frigga was one of the least testy about it; her smile was more than a little impish.
“Your tales were not much wrong,” she replied. “Not for my account, at least, though I rather think they embellished things with regards to my husband and sons. Now, let me have a look at you.”
Jane shifted uncomfortably as another contraction took her. “The nurses have already examined me…”
If she hadn’t known the older woman better, Jane would have sworn Frigga made a face. “To each their own,” she said. “I would see my own craft used as well, for I trust to that far more, particularly where my granddaughter is concerned.”
Jane briefly weighed being prodded gently a second time by Frigga to allay her future in-law’s concerns (for she could see that beneath the queenly manner, the older woman’s brow was creased) and help soothe her own as well against the prospect of arguing with her over this when she was already being jolted by pain every few minutes, and nodded at last. “All right. Just to confirm what the doctors said.”
As Frigga was examining her and Jane was trying not to giggle as strange magic tickled her sides and belly, Sif poked her head into the room. “Your husband-to-be is making a scene in this room outside,” she announced, sounding half amused and half exasperated. “Shall I send him in so he can at least be contained in one place and not striding around knocking things over with his hammer?”
“Knocking—what is he doing?” Jane exclaimed. Sif pressed her lips together in a way that Jane took to mean she was holding in laughter.
“Being a nuisance, as is his usual method of dealing with a tense situation. I fear he is simply too big for the room, given the number of people it currently contains.”
Jane felt the blood drain from her face. She’d hoped that she wouldn’t have everyone she knew – a group that amounted to notable physicists and the entirety of the Avengers, along with, apparently, alien royalty – waiting on her while she gave birth. “Better get him in here where he can’t do any property damage.”
“He is simply excitable,” Frigga said from where she had her fingertips pressed against Jane’s belly. “Lean forward, dear.”
Jane obliged – though that wasn’t far, and she whimpered when a contraction hit. “Nice to see you again, Sif.”
“And you as well, Jane.” Sif’s grin was wide and infectious when she ducked back out of the room, and even when the door swung closed behind her, Jane could hear her issuing orders.
“I just wanted to have this baby as quietly as possible,” she muttered to herself. “No Avengers in the waiting room, no royalty in the halls, just me and Thor and Darcy and Erik...”
Frigga’s hands were so gentle Jane had almost forgotten she was there, but looked up at her snort of laughter. “I felt much the same when I had Thor,” she said. Where her fingers were touching Jane’s spine, a warm, tingling sensation spread outward. “I could at least order all the hangers-on out into the outer room, but Eir and three of her healers were there, and Odin back from the war for the birth, and a few others… and all I could think was that I wanted privacy and quiet. You, though…” she finished whatever she was doing and sat on the bed beside Jane, facing her. “You are surrounded by people who care for you, and you are with the man you love. There is no better way to bring a child into the Realms than this.”
She put her hand on the covers and Jane took it, holding on until Thor squeezed through the door that was just wide enough to admit him. Darcy was on his heels, wearing jeans and one of her most favored band shirts. “Oh my god, are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was already pitched higher than usual, which did not bode well for her remaining calm. “Because when I got the call from JARVIS it said you were already on your way to the hospital, but then I got here and the nurses say you have a while yet, but if you’re having contractions that means it’ll be soon, right? I mean when my mom was having me she said she was in labor for a day and a half but I can’t imagine being in labor for a day and a half with Thor’s baby because it’s huge and you’ll just want it out and if it’s that long they wouldn’t admit you anyway unless there are problems—wait, are there problems? Are there? Are—“
Her voice rose higher and higher as she went on until Jane put her hands up. “Darcy—Darcy! Breathe! Thor, can you get her water?”
While she stopped hyperventilating enough to take a long gulp of water, Jane held out a hand for Thor to take. He squeezed himself between the bed and the machines monitoring her vitals and the baby’s and stroked the back of her hand anxiously. Touching, she had found, was a soothing thing for Thor. He was a tactile person by nature and she let him stroke her skin, rubbing her thumb along his fingers to calm herself as well. “I heard you were causing a fuss out in the waiting room,” she said with enough amusement to mitigate the stern questioning tone. Thor looked away.
“It was only one plant,” he muttered. “There are many people there, Jane. All of the Avengers, and the families of others in this ward, and everyone nervous in their own way.”
“Nervousness is not good for the mother or the child.” Frigga had pulled a spindle and yarn from some pocket in her clothing and sat in her chair as regally as if she were surrounded by the golds and bronzes of Asgard rather than the sterile whites of a Midgard hospital. She fixed Thor with a look. “I have told you this every time you have come to visit and besiege me with questions. Both of you.”
Jane’s face colored, but Thor spoke. “I worry for Jane and for the child.” He had a stubborn set to his jaw, and Jane reached up to stroke his face with her fingers. The lines softened.
“We’ve got some of the best hospital care in this realm,” she told him, “And your mother is here.”
“And I have been sending women to the Springs of Awakening so they may bear children or delivering them of their babes for far longer than the ages of you and your brother combined,” Frigga added. “If there is danger, it will be dealt with, but I do not think there will be.”
“See?” Jane told him. “We’re in great hands.”
People filtered in and out after that; Clint came in and took Darcy away to wait in a quiet room after she started hyperventilating again when Jane talked about the birthing classes she’d taken, Frigga left to go sit with the others in the waiting room (she had recently been introduced to Bruce and got on very well with him), but Thor stayed. They didn’t say much, but then again, they didn’t need to. Thor didn’t complain whenever she gripped his hand tightly during a contraction. Then again, she figured he probably didn’t feel it as much as a normal human would have.
Mostly, Jane scribbled away in her notebook as the sun set and nurses came and went to check her monitors. The idea had taken shape in her mind, and the equations seemed to spiral and curl across the pages of their own accord. It was brilliant, and elegant; it incorporated her own theory and half a dozen over experimental things to come out of her work after the Tesseract was taken from Earth. It was potentially the second most important thing she had done in the last year, and so absorbed was she that it took a minute for her to realize that the contractions had started to come in earnest, and—
“Okay, take this please,” she told Thor, handing over the notebook and whimpering in pain. A minute, but there was no way she could completely block out that pain. When he turned to set it aside she called the nurse. Thor renewed his grip on her hand, leaning forward.
“Is it time?” he asked. He sounded anxious, and Jane smiled around the pain. Thor was so rarely anxious, to see him that way was endearing.
“I think so. Contractions are strong and—and—oh!” she took a deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth. “—and close together. I think it’s time, I think—“
She cried out, fingers curling around Thor’s hand tight enough to bruise as the room began to fill with nurses. Thankfully none of them made any move to push Thor out of the way. He probably would have pushed back, and she didn’t want him to go, didn’t want to let go of his hand. He was anxious (how many times had she felt any Asgardian with sweaty palms?) but the fact that he was with her made Jane stay as calm as she could. Which was good, because labor was painful and exhausting and having a strong arm to grip when the nurses told her to push helped.
In the midst of everything, though, Jane felt all her nervousness and fear turn to excitement, and when at last the nurse laid Lena in her arms, squirming and whimpering, she could not but think it was all so very worth it. She pushed sweaty hair out of her face and used the corner of the soft towel to wipe her daughter’s face clean, a huge smile splitting her face. Lena was big, sure, but so perfect, and even as she hastened to soothe her daughter’s crying she couldn’t help but think that it was the most wonderful sound. While the nurses worked around her, she touched Lena’s cheeks with her fingertips, stroking the damp wisps of light hair that covered the crown of her head.
“She is beautiful,” Thor whispered. Jane had never heard him sound so awed, and shifted so he could sit on the bed beside her, one arm sliding around her shoulders. He reached in to touch his daughter’s face too, sliding his palm over her head to cup it. She was dwarfed by it, but Jane just grinned and twisted to press a kiss to his jaw.
“Let’s see you say that when she’s had you up half the night after you’ve been out smashing things.”
“Even then it would be a delight to be with her,” Thor replied stubbornly. “For she is our daughter, how could she be anything else?”
“Right answer.”
“Ms. Foster?” One of the nurses smiled. “Your recovery room’s ready. Feel up to moving?”
“Please.” Jane grimaced a little as she shifted Lena into Thor’s arms – he held her like she was made of glass, and the sight of him being so careful with what looked like a tiny squirming bundle of cloth was so endearing she almost laughed – and eased herself off the bed and into the waiting wheelchair. “Keep people out until I’ve cleaned up a little?”
“Of course. Just let us know when you’re ready—uh,” the nurse froze when she pushed Jane out into the hall and almost into Frigga. “Ma’am – my lady – uh—“
Frigga waved a hand. “Do not concern yourself with it, healer. Jane, how are you feeling?”
“Floaty,” Jane replied. “Sore.”
“So like a woman who has just given birth.” Frigga smiled herself. “I am glad. Where is my granddaughter?”
“Here, Mother.” Thor edged out into the hall and nudged aside the toweling as they all made their way a couple doors down the hall. “Is she not perfect?” He sounded so proud that Jane snorted as she was wheeled down to another open door. He was going to be just fine.
She cleaned up in the little bathroom off her room – it had a bath and shower, too, and she let the water run through her hair for a minute before squeezing it out and tying it back. She’d have time for a more thorough cleaning when she wasn’t exhausted and when there weren’t a dozen people waiting outside to come see her daughter.
The first people to come in were Darcy, Clint, and Bruce. The two men looked like they were ready to grab Darcy if she started panicking again, but she was already beaming when Thor shifted Lena into her arms.
“You,” she told Lena, “Are gonna be the best princess ever. Or physicist. Or superhero. Or all of them. Either way, you are so freaking cute right now I can’t even deal with you. I want a baby, Jane.”
“You can’t have that one, she’s mine.” Jane smiled as she took Lena back, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she didn’t wake up. She would soon enough, wanting to be fed, but hopefully she stayed quiet while everyone looked in.
“Nah, I’ll get one of my own.” Darcy smiled and hugged Jane one-armed, then went around and hugged Thor too for good measure. “Congrats, guys. Maybe soon I’ll hit an alien space god and get one for myself.”
When Tony and Pepper came in (with Tony carrying the biggest vase of flowers available in New York City), Jane handed him her notebook and let him go off into one of the corners to read over her work. He came back looking very serious, eyes full of excitement.
“Do you realize what this is?” he asked.
“A theory that’s never been seen before? Nobel Prize work?”
“Aren’t you up for one of those already?”
“Another Nobel Prize, then.”
“Hogging them all, I see.” But Tony wasn’t joking around. “Jane… this is incredible.”
“Take that back to the lab,” she said. “Be careful with it, but take it back and play. It’s going to change everything, Tony, it’s going to change how Earth interacts with the universe and the direction we take… everything. If it works.”
“It’ll work.” Tony took her hand and squeezed it. “We’ll make it work. You are incredible, Doctor.”
“I know.” Jane squeezed back. “Thanks for the flowers, Tony.”
“Thanks for the physics, Jane.”
The last people to come in were Frigga, again, and Sif. By then Lena was starting to squirm and wake up, and Jane’s bedside tables and the little shelves around the room were filling with flowers and gifts, and Jane was starting to feel truly exhausted. But she smiled as Frigga took Lena first, holding her and pressing her fingertips to Lena’s forehead before proclaiming her as healthy a child as any.
“She will be strong,” Frigga murmured. “In body and in mind. I can see it in her. She will do great things, and have the respect and love of so many. More than that I cannot say; it is for the Norns alone to know, having spun the skein of her life as they have.”
“And the Norns keep their own counsel,” Sif added when Frigga shifted the baby over to her. “Oh, but she is lovely, my friends. Perhaps she will be a little warrior.”
“She’ll be whatever she wants to be.” Jane and Thor had talked about it at length. Their children were in line for Asgard’s throne – that much had been worked out in the agreement that Thor and Loki had reached with Odin in order to maintain things as they were and not cast Asgard into upheaval, and Loki had agreed to back the claims of Thor’s sons and daughters in any case – but Jane had insisted upon and won the argument that they could choose if that would be their path. She wanted her children to be able to live their lives without feeling as though they had no choice in what to be, and while she wasn’t sure if Thor agreed completely or not, he had at least acquiesced. Soon enough she’d be besieged by Asgardian protocol herself, and she wanted to shield her children from it as long as possible, let them be children. Thor, at least, had agreed with that much.
“Of that I have no doubt—oh, no, little one, do not cry.” Lena had woken and started to whimper, and Sif bent to let Jane take her again. “Whatever her path, Jane, she will surely be as intelligent and compassionate as you, and have her father’s courage and kindness. I cannot think that you will raise her to be anything but extraordinary.”
“Thank you, Sif.” Jane shifted Lena in her arms. “I think she’s probably hungry, so…”
“I will take my leave now, then. When you are ready, my lady, I will inform the others to take us back to the Bifrost site.” She paused a half-second in the doorway, looking back at Jane and the baby with an odd expression on her face, and then she was gone.
Frigga was looking after her with what Jane would have called a calculating expression – the same one she’d had on when first meeting Jane – but then smiled and rested her hand on Jane’s arm. “Should you require advice, or the unique services of a grandparent, you have but to call for me,” she told Jane. “You have my congratulations, Jane Foster, and you, my son.” She embraced Thor tightly. “I am proud and happy for you both.”
She swept out of the room, and Jane sighed, relaxing back into her pillows and loosening the shoulder of her hospital gown. “I’m going to sleep after this,” she told Thor. “I’m sure if you ask the nurses they won’t mind you staying tonight, but if you’d rather go back to the tower and get sleep in a real bed, I don’t mind that either.”
“I do not want to leave you,” Thor rumbled. He had hovered protectively over her and Lena while everyone had passed through, and did so still. “Should you require anything—“
“I’m surrounded by nurses who’ll come at the push of a button.” Jane shifted Lena into position and grunted a little in surprise when she started nursing strongly, tiny fists curled in the air. “You can fly here if there’s anything the matter.”
Thor made a noise and made his way out to see his mother and Sif off, and Jane rolled her eyes and stroked Lena’s head. “Your father may be a demigod,” she said, “And an Avenger. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fussy before.”
*
The Bifrost machinery had stopped whirling but Sif could still feel the humming winding down, a low throb that pulsed through her body as she took up Gylfi’s reins from where he’d been waiting patiently on the end of the bridge for her. Frigga had already mounted and was arranging her skirts neatly, seated sidesaddle on her own mount.
“Lena will be a beautiful young lady when she grows,” the old queen said as Sif mounted up. She was glad she was sorting out her reins, so her face was half-hidden behind her hair and the expression she must have worn could not show.
“Jane Foster and Thor will be fine parents, whatever reservations they have,” Sif replied.
“They would not be the only ones,” Frigga replied as she rode off ahead.
Sif stared after her as Gylfi pranced a little, eager to catch up and put his nose in front where he thought it belonged. Seeing Lena, holding her, had caused the strangest thoughts to surface in her mind. She had never been opposed to the idea of children – rejecting her womanhood would have been a victory for her detractors as surely as giving up her glaive and shield – but she had never wanted one so badly, either. Loki, though… he remained noncommittal at best.
She nudged Gylfi on until they were even, but did not speak.
*
Thor ended up talking the nurses into wheeling in another bed for him, and Lena’s little crib was placed between them so Jane could simply shift her into it when she had finished her meal. It would have been funny to watch Thor tucking Lena in as tenderly as possible if it weren’t so endearing, Jane thought sleepily as she wiggled carefully down in her bed.
“Get some rest while you can,” she said. “Pretty soon, we’re not going to be getting any.” Jane reached out blind, feeling for Thor’s hand. Their fingers twined around each other’s, resting on their daughter’s stomach. “Worth it, though.”
“Very much so.” Thor sounded as tired as she was, but just as happy too. “I do love you, Jane. I love you and Lena both.”
Warm and content, sore and tired and happy, Jane smiled into her pillow. Her daughter was alive and safe; Tony was probably running her new theory through JARVIS right now, tweaking it, making it spin out beautifully. Soon she’d have to start planning the wedding in earnest – by agreement it was to be held in Asgard, but there was so much to do - yet for now, she could stay with Thor and Lena and just work and be happy. Life was very good.
“Love you too,” she murmured, and closed her eyes.