My Crazy Fake (I Wish It Were Real) Life

We Have a Family Council

Loki walked around the castle with no more than a blank stare for weeks on end. He mumbled to himself and whenever he saw me he would glance directly at my rounding belly. The excitement I saw from him when I first told him I was pregnant seemed to vanish completely.
I was trying to fall asleep without rolling onto my side when he finally spoke up.
"I'm not ready."
My first thought was that this was the classic country song, and I was ready to burst into song: 'There goes my life, there goes my future!' But that would probably make him feel worse.
I turned my head to look at him staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. "Hey," I said. He looked at me. "I think I get it. You're a kid yourself, so how are you gonna raise one?"
"I am not a kid..." Loki sighed, "But yeah, something like that."
"I think," I said sitting up. "That you will be a wonderful father."
Loki turned away from me, closing his eyes. Oh boy.
"Loki..." I tried to get him to look at me, but he just plunged into the pillow. "You're acting like a two-year-old! Would you just-"
He glanced up and I saw tears in his eyes. "How did I get to deserve you?! Or any of this?! Look at me and everything I've done, and yet you are the one next to me! And a baby! I'm going to have a child!"
I was surprised at his sudden outburst. "I..." I gulped. "I love you. I love you with all my heart, and here you doubt that? If I say you'll be a wonderful father, than you better believe it."
"Even if I have a death sentence on Midgard?"
"Even of you had a death sentence on all nine realms. And this little baby will need a father, no matter how super villainy he may be."
Loki clenched his eyes shut and grabbed hold of a blanket's edge. I snuggled in closer to him. "I'm supposed to be the emotional one; you are supposed to tell me that everything will be okay."
Loki laugh cried at that and pulled me closer. "Everything will be okay," he chuckled.
"I think we should pick some baby names."
"Now?"
"Why not? I think it will be a boy," I said and looked down at the lump under the blankets that was my child. "I like Axel. It has Norse origins-"
"I should know."
"And I do wanna stay traditional."
"You do know what the name Axel means, right?"
I shook my head.
Loki kissed my forehead and said, "It means 'the father is at peace.'"
"Well, that's a fitting name, then."