[AO3 Crosspost] Just like her mom

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Marvel’s MCU
SERIES: The Dots Verse
RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 1 983
PAIRING(S): FrostIron
CHARACTER(S): Sif, Loki
GENRE: Alternate Universe (Blind!Loki)
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None
SUMMARY: "So, I imagine you'll want to hold her?"

THE DOTS VERSE ON LIVEJOURNAL: [Series Masterpost]


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He used not to mind the smell of hospitals.

Back then, his nose was much less sensitive, picking up only smells that were strong enough to invade his nostrils right away. But then, after the first three weeks, it started getting harder getting used to smells, and he remembers getting home from his latest visit and plunge in the shower, eager to get rid of the stench of the hospital.

He used not to mind the smell, but he learned to hate it in those first months; when he spent a lot of his time yelling at Thor and getting frustrated at the new alphabet he had to learn, and the smell of disinfectants and sickness and death clung to his hands, his hair, his clothes. Having it wrap around him now is as unnerving now as it is every time he needs to set foot in a hospital –especially since he can’t have Hela with him now.

His grip on his cane gets stronger.

It takes effort, navigating new places by yourself when you can barely make out some kind of light, but Loki manages. He would lie if he said he was fond of the activity, though. Still, amidst the echoes of slippers-clad feet and ushered voices, he finds the desk by following the sound of computer mouse clicking away like the soundtrack of a dozen lives meeting in that spot before coming apart again. He listens to the directions he is given with great care, grateful for six years of this game honing his short-term memory skills. The elevator isn’t very hard to find either, as the hall is busy and there is a regular string of ding’s coming from his left that serves to guide him. He avoids bumping into someone by staying close to the wall, using the now-familiar sensation of a veil on his skin to tell whether he is getting too close.

The tricky part is to determine where he should stop in order to get into the right room, because there is no Braille on the doors yet, and he doesn’t feel comfortable about standing in the doors. Still, he doesn’t have a choice, and he stops at one out of two to trace the numbers with his fingers.

He tries not to think too much of the sight he must offer. After all, it’s either that or asking to be guided, and he has a dog for that.

After a bit of perseverance and realizing he missed the door twice –he’s going to blame that on tiredness, because new places have become exhausting after the accident- he reaches Sif’s room. There’s a beat when he knocks, the family inside wondering if this is, finally, cousin Barney, and then Loki is invited in.

The smell of lavender floods his nose, strong and clinging, and it reminds him of being seven and playing hide-and-seek with his cousins in the family house in Normandy, and hiding in his grandmother’s old wardrobe until Thor came to get him. Thor was rarely the one doing the seeking, but he was almost always the one who came and got him, because he was the one who remembered little, skinny Loki… being the youngest of their group of six kind of sucked for him, to be honest. Still, he welcomes the smell with fondness, and he smiles.

It gets a bit more strained when the other family notice his cane and they fall silent, but it lasts only a second before Sif calls him over with a smile in her voice.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says when Loki has found a chair to sit in.

“Well, since Thor has to go away to get the new furniture for Ginnungagap, I figured I might as well come and see you. I haven’t had my dose of adventure for the month anyway.”

“Still,” Sif insists, “You could have told me you were coming.”

“What, so you could prepare yourself? Don’t worry, I promise not to comment on you looks.”

Sif snorts rather inelegantly, and the conversations on the other side of the room finally go back to normal volume. There is a bit of shuffling around, as is usual in double-bed hospital rooms, but then everyone has a place, and Loki sets his cane up against the wall before he puts a hand on Sif’s knee.

“Joggings, Sif? I thought those were for training days only,” Loki jokes, and she shoves at his shoulder, but without heat.

“Shut up,” she says, “I’ve spent thirteen fucking hours pushing my uterus out barely four days ago, I am entitled to jogging pants!”

“Okay,” Loki chuckles as someone mutters about language, “wear whatever you want, I don’t care. It’s more agreeable to touch than jeans anyway.” He smiles again, a little more concerned now: “Really how do you feel?”

“Fine,” she says. “I mean we’d already agreed we’d stop at one, so it’s not that big an impediment I’m just… well. I’m kind of bummed that it’s not really a choice anymore.”

Loki feels the move of her knee when she shrugs, and he bends forward to rest his forehead on her shoulder. She laughs when he misses and lands on her breast instead.

“Is it comfy?” She asks, and Loki chuckles.

“As comfortable as ever,” he says, making a show out of rubbing his cheek over the worn cotton of her t-shirt.

He can smell Thor’s cologne on it, faint and washed out under a baby’s vomit, sweat and the smell of spilled milk, but present nonetheless. Loki’s cheek catches on the rough edge of cracked plastic, and he knows this is probably the AC/DC shirt, the one that proclaims Thunderstruck in large prints.

(He remembers being fifteen and allowed to accompany his older brother to the concert, and he remembers the feel of Fandral’s nose crushing under his knuckles because five years and a world of differing interests were too much for them to ever get along, or so they thought. They managed Thor’s bachelor party just fine though, mainly because Fandral picked the strippers and Loki did the rest.)

“So, I imagine you’ll want to hold her.”

“Are you sure?” Loki asks automatically, head coming up in surprise, and Sif snorts.

“Oh come on, if you can cook by yourself, you can hold a baby in your arms.”

“She’s a newborn,” he says, “It’s not the same. I don’t want to hurt her by accident.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sif insists, shifting out of her bed. “She’ll be fine. I can’t promise the same for your shirt, though.”

This time, it’s Loki who snorts, because he remembers the summer of his seventeenth birthday and being alone with Thor, their cousins, Sif, Fandral and Hogun –they had yet to meet Volstagg at that point- in the summer house. Clearly, if he’d been destined to develop some kind of allergy to vomit, he’d have done it then.

“Okay, put your arms in a circle in from of you now.”

Loki obeys.

Thrúd is smaller than he expected, what with her father, but she’s heavy and warm in his arms, and the plush fabric of her pajamas is soft under his hand. He lets Sif wipe at his fingers with a disinfecting lotion, and then slowly –very slowly- goes up from Thrúd’s belly to her chest, and then back down her arm to her hand.

The feel of a palm that is barely wide enough to welcome his forefinger makes him grin like a lunatic as he uses his thumb to trace minuscule fingers, brushing against the shadow of nails that aren’t really there yet. He traces the smallest of wrinkles over her knuckles, the hint of baby fat over her wrist.

His niece has her mother’s mouth, and the same small spot under her right eye, but Loki can feel that she has Thor’s wider nose. He skin is soft under his hand, and she smells of that odd mixture of milk and soap and poop that babies seem to have in common. She smells like a new life, and Loki breathes her in for a moment, nuzzling at the side of her neck.

“Mommy,” a boy’s voice says, “Why is he smelling the baby?”

There is the hushed sound of embarrassed people as Sif chuckles, and Loki grins in his niece’s neck.

He doesn’t need to consult with his sister in law to agree to let them boil in their awkwardness for a moment –they’ve been pretty close since she and Thor started dating at twenty, which was a surprise to everyone, given their past history. However, he makes sure not to wait too long before he answers:

“It’s because I can’t see her. So I memorize her with other things, and my nose is part of it.”

“Like a dog?” the boy asks with a voice that’s already pitched low despite his sounding around nine or ten.

“Yes,” Loki answers, grinning at the sound of Sif laughing behind her hand. “Partly. But I can also use my fingers and my ears. I’m not going to lick her though,” he concludes, and the boy giggles.

“I’m the only one who licks my daughter,” Sif confirms, and Loki smiles again.

“But if you don’t see anything,” the boy asks again, “how could you come here alone?”

“Well I have a cane, see? I left it in the corner. I use it to feel my way around and not trip. That’s how I did it.”

By the time the boy’s grandparents take him away, nearly an hour has vanished, and Loki’s arms feel numb under Thrúd’s weight, but he feels good, happy to share and help someone’s horizons expand –he has always liked kids, after all.

“I’m sorry,” the other mom tells them, “Alex is a bit excitable but he doesn’t mean harm.”

“Oh it’s quite alright,” Loki says as he traces the shape of a minuscule ear, “I like talking with children. They have refreshing views on blindness.”

“Except those whose main concern is how you deal with going to the toilet,” Sif reminds him, and they both snort.

“Some of them have a slight fascination with the most basic of our bodies’ function,” Loki agrees, and the other woman chuckles:

“That’s a lovely way to phrase it.”

“Oh he’s a writer,” Sif says. “He makes a lot of diplomatic sentences, but you shouldn’t trust his silver tongue. He’s a con-man.”

“Come on, you enjoyed that party,” Loki protests, and Sif makes it quite audible that she is poking her tongue out at him.

“So,” she says when she takes Thrúd back to feed her, “want to have one yet?”

“Sif, I’ve been dreaming of having kids since I was seven,” Loki retorts, and then turns to the other inhabitant of the room: “at the time, she and her idiotic husband were too busy fighting over who would win more boxing trophies to even acknowledge the existence of babies.”

“Blah blah blah,” Sif says, “not everybody can be a born parent like you.”

“Probably not,” Loki concedes, “but they can still be awesome parents. And you’ll be an awesome dad.”

“Dad?” Sif splutters, and Loki shrugs:

“What? Thor cooks, bakes, and the word protective was practically invented for him. He’ll be such a mother hen to her you won’t be able to be anything but her Dad.”

“The worst part in this is that you’re right,” Sif sighs, “If she wants to be a satisfying granddaughter, she’ll have to learn everything from your brother.”

Loki hears her pat at Thrúd’s back, and he can’t help but snort when his niece lets out a loud belch.

“I wasn’t quite thinking about that,” Sif comments, making the three adults in the room burst out laughing.

“Like I said: just like her mom.”

It’s the fifth of November, and Loki is the happiest of uncles.