MCU Holiday Challenge

"Daddy, can we go ice skating?"

Tony looked up from the schematics he was studying to see his daughter giving him the patented 'I will take over the world faster than mommy attacked New York' puppy eyes.

"I don't know how to skate, Maguna, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. What do you think, Stephen?"

Stephen stared at his husband with a raised brow.

"Do you honestly expect me to be civil with that many people in close proximity?"

"No, but the entertainment value is way too good to pass up."

"What entertainment?"

Loki and Peter had just gotten back from shopping to find the rest of the family chatting excitedly about something.

"The entertainment of watching our husband try not to blow up at the lowly peons when we take the kids ice skating."

Morgan and Peter both let out an excited whoop, but Loki was frozen in place.

"Mama?"

"You okay Bambi?"

"I'm fine, really, I just need to..."

He teleported out of the living room, leaving the bags he was holding to fall into the floor.

"What just happened?"

"I think I have an idea," Stephen said as he rose from the sofa," I'll go talk to him."

"Alright, kids you come help me put the groceries away while Papa tries to figure out what's wrong with your mom."

                 **

Stephen found Loki hiding in the back of the Sanctum's library. He tried to cover his face with a book, but the fact that it was upside down made the distraction less than convincing.

"Loki, why did you run away from the living room?"

"Who said I was running?"

"Loki....."

"Oh fine, you got me!" Loki shouted as he threw the book he was holding past Stephen's head," I ran away from the conversation, so what?"

Stephen sighed and sat down in the floor next to him, wrapping his arms around the Góð.

"Is this about your Jötnar heritage? Cause you know neither me nor Tony mind when you pull a 'code blueberry' as he likes to call it."

"It's not just that, although it's certainly part of it. When I let go of the Bifröst all those years ago, I spent a long time floating through space before Thanos found me. Ice crystals built up all over my body and inside my lungs. You'd think being a frost giant, that wouldn't bother me....but I was so cold, and my lungs were burning and....and.....