Growing up to the riches of Asgard, the golden city, with intellectual people that studied fighting and art and music and philosophy and many other high regarding topics, Loki could say he was a bit spoiled. Moving to Midgard, to New York City, with Thor was somewhat of a step down on his part. The Avengers Tower was high enough and in a part of the city where he didn't have to see the slums or lower level people, but he still knew they were there...

They were there and living a life he almost had.

So when the offer to have him and Thor stay at the Compound upstate, Loki hesitated for a moment before agreeing. The whole reason he had stayed in the city was for Peter, going out with the boy on patrols or showing up when he had gotten in over his head. Leaving upstate did not mean that their time together would end, Loki could easily get back to the city should the need arise. And Peter did make frequent trips to the Compound to have his suit upgraded by Stark; so it all worked out in the end.

When the Black Widow had first mentioned a virus outbreak in some Chinese city, Loki, like the majority of the Avengers, hadn't paid it any mind. They just wouldn't go to China for a while. But then it wasn't just China, it was almost all of Asia and people were dying from it at an alarming rate, as alarming as how fast it was spreading.

Loki was more than happy to stay in the Compound, the less interaction with the annoying humans outside the better. And when Peter visited, Loki and Stark were, for once, in agreement to order the kid to stay off the streets. Cases in the city were rising far too high for the likes of either of them, and they didn't want Peter anymore at risk than what he already was. Peter had reluctantly agreed, though Loki felt that there would be some sneaking of patrols occasionally.

But then the Black Widow had called for a meeting, which was never a good sign.

"Nat," Steve started, his eyebrows furrowed, "Are you sure? Hydra?"

The woman nodded once, clicking the hologram remote to show an image of a male Hydra operative on the streets of three Asian countries, Italy, France, and America. "There is no doubt that Hydra is the one that created this virus and has been spreading it, and there has been an unusual uptick of activity from them as well."

"It doesn't make sense though..." Clint shook his head, looking at the files in his hands before dropping them back to the table. "Hydra wants world domination, not... extinction. There would be no one left for them to rule over. They would be pointless."

"Maybe... Maybe it's like that one Bible story..." Tony tapped his pen against the table, glancing around at everyone, "A... Noah's Ark effect or something. Destroy the world, leaving behind only what they choose, then rebuild it in their own way. That fits their deranged little mindset, right?"

It was silent as they took in the information; though Tony's tone was light, there was a certain weight behind them that was unnerving.

Sam cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest, "Alright, so there's motive. But how do we stop them? They have a super virus on their side, and some of us at the table are just normal humans that are very susceptible to the virus."

"That's my part in this-" Tony raised his hand, then paused and motioned towards Bruce and Dr. Cho, "Well, our part. We're working on cures and preventives to stop the spread."

"Great, and how is that-"

A small knock of the briefing door sounded, drawing everyone's attention to it. Though they weren't very strict about interruptions, it went without saying that only emergencies were permitted. Loki watched on in mild interest at what new development could cause an interruption during an Avengers meeting.

"Come in," Steve instructed, everyone watching closely as one of the low level medical staff members slowly opened the door.

"Sorry to interrupt... But there's a, um... there's a new case..."

Tony arched an eyebrow, "A new case?"

"Dr. Watkins thought it would be best to bring him into quarantine here..."

"You brought an infected person here?" Cho stood up, eyes narrowed as she started making her way around the table. "I thought we had agreed to bring the volunteers to the Tower, and we already have enough people in the program!"

"Doctor..." The staff member started, something in her eyes making Cho pause. "The infected person is Mr. Parker..."

Everyone was silent for a long while, staring in disbelief at the staff member, moving only at the crashing of Loki's chair hitting the ground from his abrupt standing. The man was to the door and shoving past the staff member before anyone could say anything, Tony soon right behind him.

Loki marched down the hall, barely paying mind to the people he passed and earning many angry looks. He didn't care though, they could hate him all they wanted as long as they got out of his way. He was almost tempted to freeze a path down the hall and force them to move... But Peter would disapprove of such a method.

So instead he kept his fast march to the medical wing, the doors slamming open from one of his tricks.

"Where is he?" Loki demanded, eyes blazing and fists clenched with emotions that even he didn't know the name of. "Where is Peter?"

The doctors and staff all gave him looks of regret and pity, paired with their expressions it meant nothing good for Loki - or Peter.

"He's in quarantine..." A nurse whispered, nodding her head down a hall, "His name will be on the door."

Without even thanking her, Loki continued on his mission of finding Peter. Which wasn't hard at all once he got to the end of the hall and saw Peter's name on the door like the nurse had said. He went inside, quickly glancing around the room to see a large glass box in the center of the room that had a bed, desk with a laptop, bookshelf, and boxed in bathroom area. Laying on the bed was Peter, a book in his hands and mask over his mouth and nose. Hearing the door open, the boy looked up to see Loki standing there.

Peter quickly stood up, book falling to the floor as he went to the dividing glass. "Loki!"

Scanning him for any obvious signs of the sickness, Loki stepped to the glass as well, "I thought I told you not to patrol while the virus was out? I thought you agreed not to patrol? What happened? Was it a lie? Did you hack into the suit again and turn off the tracker? Have you been swinging around the city all this time even after telling me you weren't?"

The more he spoke the angrier Loki got, and it didn't help that Peter's skin was pale and clammy, a cold sweat littering his forehead, dark bags were under his eyes that drooped with fatigue, a cough interrupting now and then. It was obvious that he was sick.

"No...!" Peter shook his head, placing a hand on the glass to balance himself, "No, it was just the one time... Loki, I had to..."

"That's your excuse for everything!"

"Listen to me!" Those tired eyes hardened, a flare of red passing through them as frost collected on the glass around his hand. Loki went quiet, but his arms crossed to show he was still unpleased. "Someone pulled a gun at May's hospital."

Loki's eyes widened a fraction before drawing in a deep breath, "I see..." Glancing around again, he held a hand against the glass and frowned. "Where's the door to this box? I dislike speaking through a barrier."

"Loki..." Peter shook his head, "You know you can't come in. What if you catch it too? You'd die and spread it to the others and then all the Avengers would die. We can't let that happen."

The man fixed him with a glare, "Don't be so foolish to think that I would get it. And I will not allow you to die from this, no offspring of mine will be taken down by a germ."

Peter laughed a bit, "Whatever you say, pops."

Loki cringed as he looked away, "Please refrain from calling me by that title ever again..."

Tony came in shortly afterwards with the rest of the Avengers, promising to work harder to find a cure. They stayed for a while, joking with the boy and trying to lift his spirits as much as their own. Loki stayed once everyone had left, sitting in one of the medical chairs to read a book of his own.

With each day that passed, Peter's condition worsened. He had apparently had the virus for a little over a week, the cough and fever predominant and the fatigue just starting to hit him. Loki noticed that each day Peter would wake up later and go to sleep earlier, struggling throughout the day to stay awake. Like the fatigue, Peter's cough got worse as well, going deeper and deeper into his lungs to the point where he struggled to breath and was almost sent into a dry heave multiple times. By the end of the second week, he had a blue tint to his lips and nails and could barely sit up in bed, requiring an oxygen mask at all times.

"I don't understand..." Tony shook his head, watching Peter sleep through the glass. Even while sleeping, the boy's cough persisted. "He has enhanced healing, why isn't that helping him? He can heal from a bullet wound in a week, why not a bug?"

"His Jotun side should fight it off as well," Loki's fists clenched at his side. "He should be well by now, not worse."

"So why isn't he? What did we miss? What detail have we not considered to look closer at? What aren't we thinking of?" Tony began pacing, roughly running a hand through his hair as he thought. Loki didn't pay him any mind as he rambled his ideas, he knew it wasn't meant to be understood. Instead, all of Loki's attention went to Peter and the slow rise and fall of his chest, the various monitors beeping his vitals status and assuring that he was alive - for now. If the sickness got any worse, then Loki feared Peter would not make it...

His fist clenched as he slammed it against the glass, his eyes closing. "Stark, give me the access code, I need to be in there."

"Don't you dare... Mr. Stark..." A raspy voice sounded, the speaker from the ceiling making the voice sound slightly robotic. The two men looked to see a single brown eye of Peter's, open and watching them, a weak smile under his mask. 

"Did I wake you, child?" Loki asked, glancing towards his fist on the glass before looking back to Peter. "My apologies."

"No, I should have been awake by now anyway." Another bout of coughs started, racking through Peter's frame and bringing him almost to the brink of dry heaving. Loki slammed his hand against the glass again, glaring at the offending sickness that plagued his son.

"Stark! Get me the access code now!"

"No...!"

"Peter!"

"You don't know if this will affect you or not, you can't come in here!"  Peter looked up at him, his eyes blazing with more determination and life than anyone had seen in a while. "I'm part Frost Giant and I'm still sick, so you can't say that you won't be affected by it. It's a miracle that Dr. Cho hasn't been infected yet, she's just a normal human. I'm enhanced and part alien... I can't imagine what it's like for the humans that have it..."

Tony took in a breath from where he had stopped pacing, running a hand through his hair as he walked over to the glass wall as well. "Yeah, it's bad for them, but you need to concentrate on you right now. You just need to focus on getting better."

"Have you heard from May?" 

"Yeah, they stationed her in another part of the hospital, away from the sick people. She's going to come visit you tomorrow; who knows, she might even have come up with a cure too. No one messes with her nephew, person or virus."

Peter smiled a bit, looking up at the white ceiling. He suspected that Mr. Stark probably had something to do with his aunt's transferred department, and he was grateful. He showed up once and got sick, he hated to think what would happen to her while working there continuously.

His mind strayed from the topic as he drifted back to sleep, unable to fight his heavy eyelids any longer, leaving Loki and Tony to their own devices.

Peter's sleep was restless, fitful; try as he might, grasping the realm of unconsciousness and attempting to pull himself closer to it, he just couldn't get a good night's sleep. Whether it was the coughing, the body aches and muscle spasms, the heat from his fever, or just simply the fact that he had not had physical contact with any living being in the last two weeks. It might also have to do with the fact that each breath of air was a struggle... 

But he must have passed out at some point, because suddenly May was there and speaking to someone seriously, sounding as if they were in the middle of a conversation. But who would May be having such a serious conversation with? The only other people here was probably-

"I understand," Loki started, clearing up Peter's thoughts instantly. "You may not think so, but I do."

"You've barely known him three months, you couldn't possibly know what I am going through."

Oh dear, they were having another parental fight... Peter had grown accustom to May's dislike of Loki through the years, especially now that Peter was reunited with the man. He couldn't blame her, she only knew his bad side and didn't yet understand that there was so much more to Loki that she knew... But that would have to wait at the moment as Loki probably needed saving from the wrath of May. If only he could will his eyes to open faster...

"No, it is you that doesn't know," Loki snapped. "You have had Peter all this time, so many memories that the two of you share. I have only just gotten his company, barely any memories if something were to... go wrong. As much as you do not wish to lose him, the same could be said for myself, perhaps even more so."

Peter's body relaxed somewhat, taking in those words filled with vulnerability that didn't seem to belong with his father. Was that truly how he felt? Peter found it difficult to swallow. Loki had always had an air of indifference about him; while Peter knew that he cared and would protect him should something happen, he never knew just how deep those feelings ran...

"Loki-"

Before May could finish whatever she had started, the whooshing of a lab door sounded as Tony's voice called out, "I've got it! I cured it! We know what to do now!"

There was shuffling, and Peter really tried to open his eyes, finding it incredibly more difficult than it should have been. Why couldn't he open his eyes?

"How?" May asked, her voice frantic... but far away. "Don't just stand there, do it!"

The sound of Tony's voice and the shuffling of equipment became more muted by the second, his body growing colder. Was he shivering, or was that an earthquake? It didn't matter because suddenly the oxygen mask over his face was suffocating and he couldn't breathe. With each futile inhale, his lungs burned. A fire started inside of his body battling with the cold of his skin.

His eyes opened briefly, Tony's face hovering over him, his uncovered mouth moving as he said something Peter couldn't hear. His eyes drifted past Tony to see Loki... There were tears in his eyes. Loki was crying.

That expression was the last thing he saw before his eyes closed again and sent him into a world of nothingness.

.

.

.

A slow beeping was the first thing Peter heard, the annoying constant slowly pulling him from the comforting darkness. The more he woke up, the more he really didn't want to... His head was pounding and his body burned, the blissful numbness from before fading with each second.

What was that beeping?

Did Mr. Stark try to cook again and set off the fire alarm? That seemed the most likely... But why hasn't Friday shut it off yet? Surely the fire couldn't have been that bad? Mr. Stark's burnt food trials were bad, but just causing enough smoke to make someone's eyes water, nothing more-

A memory hit Peter like a bus... Tears in Loki's eyes. Loki was crying. Why was Loki crying? What was bad enough to make Loki cry?

Oh...

Oh.

With the beeping suddenly making sense, Peter fought to open his eyes. It was a struggle at first, but not as bad as before. His eyes opened just a crack at first, his lids tired and heavy, but enough to take in the dim light and see that it was safe to open them further.

Once he could fully see the muted white ceiling above him, Peter glanced around the room. A part of him was shocked to a red tint to everything. Why was he in his Frost Giant form? Had something happened to make him transform? He glanced to the side, seeing Loki taking residence of a bedside chair that wasn't there before.

His dad's eyes were closed, chin almost touching his chest and arms crossed. There were dark shadows under his eyes that Peter couldn't tell if they were just shadows or bags from lack of sleep. But it couldn't be the latter, Peter couldn't have been out long enough for Loki to get bags. So it was just the shadows in the room.

Staring at the man though, Peter found himself doubting that thought. Loki definitely looked tired and a few years older... 

Peter opened his mouth, ready to call out for him, but his name got stuck in his throat. His mind and heart seemed to battle each other as to who to call. 

Thankfully, he didn't have to battle himself for long. Loki shifted in his seat, his eyes opening for a brief second before closing again - then doing a double take. 

"Peter," Sitting up straighter in the chair, Loki leaned in, subtly scanning the boy over. "You're finally awake, it seems."

"Yeah... How long was I out? And why am I transformed?"

Loki went silent as he drew in a breath, his eyes averting to the side. "It's been four days."

"Four?" Peter shot up straight in bed, eyes wide and frost encasing the bed sheets. But the headache very rudely reminded Peter that it was still there by sending a few particularly strong pounds and forcing him to slowly slip back down in the bed.

"Careful," Loki chastised, leaning in more to place a frozen towel on Peter's head and instantly helping ease the pain. "You've been through a lot, your body is still recovering."

Peter watched Loki for a short while, observing the way the man's hand seemed to linger over his head or the green eyes that kept glancing to the heart monitor. "What happened...?"

Their eyes met before sighing, "The healers weren't thorough enough with your evaluations, missing the signs of organ failure. The virus had stopped the normal flow of oxygen through your body, which caused multiple organs to fail. It's a rare occurrence with the virus, but you somehow accomplished it."

Peter nodded slightly, remembering a news article he read that had said something similar. But then his eyes widened for a second time as he looked back to Loki. "Wait, the virus! Am I still sick? You shouldn't be in here! You might catch it too!"

"Relax, child," Loki chuckled softly. "You were healed. Stark came up with a cure just in time."

"Oh... I see, that's great then! When can I get out of here? I would kill for a sandwich at Delmar's and some fresh air!"

A small smile tugged at Loki's lips as he shook his head, "Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that Delmar's is currently closed - and you are going to stay in here for another week at least for observation."

Peter's eyes went wide as he began to protest loudly, though Loki just listened to him. He listened to his voice, the way it broke slightly under duress of staying in the room for any longer.  He listened to the steady beeping of the heart monitor that told him that Peter was alive. 

Because Peter was alive and well and right there.

A small sigh passed through his lips, his shoulders dropping just slightly. Everything was going to be okay now. Just fine.

A/N: I'm alive!! I didn't die! I hope everyone is doing well during this whole mess!! My town and the surrounding areas are really starting to pick up in confirmed cases... 10 in my town and 30 in the next over. I was in Walmart getting supplies last week when I saw an old man coughing very loudly in the produce section, he didn't have a mask on and he looked right at me and coughed again. To be honest... this whole ordeal scares me a lot. It was my first time going into town in a long while (my mom normally does it, but I volunteered as tribute) and it was so eerie. I've never seen anywhere so deserted before. I actually had a scare a few weeks back; I had a mild fever, a cough, body aches, and fatigue for quite a while... Turns out I just wasn't getting enough sleep because my university professor is a lazy bum that loves to overwork everyone to impossible standards. I got better once I said "screw it" and started sleeping in.

Please, everyone stay safe and responsible during this time. I know it's hard, I'm an introvert and even I'm suffering, but it's all for the best.