The Before [Prequel- Part 2]

Baby Shower

~~~Catherine's pov~~~

Well, it was official. We were never hosting an event ever again. At least not until Linda was a year old. It was too stressful otherwise.

Maybe it was because we had a newborn in the house or my postpartum hormones, but I was constantly hearing phantom cries and running upstairs every fifteen minutes to check on Linda. Granted that wasn't exactly easy in my baby shower sundress. The heels made it especially difficult.

I just couldn't bear to leave her alone for that long, even if she was just taking a nap. Thankfully, Loki knew this, ever the dutiful husband and father, and cleverly made an illusion of himself downstairs talking to Thor or my dad while he was really upstairs with our daughter.

So far it was working like a charm. No one suspected a thing.

And from what I could tell, pretty much everyone had arrived. My parents were first to arrive, with Fury and Maria a few minutes behind.

That's right. I had Nick Fury and Maria Hill at my baby shower. I'm not sure why they accepted the invitation, but I was glad to have them there.

About twenty minutes later, Nat showed up with Pietro, Bruce, and Rhodey in tow. Finally, Clint got there with his wife, Laura. Their kids, Cooper, Lila, and Nate, were at home with a sitter.

We were just waiting on Steve, who had to stay back at the compound for a bit to go over footage from that mission they just had.

"Did Steve tell you when he was gonna get here?" I asked Nat as we approached the half-hour mark of the baby shower.

"Ten or fifteen minutes. He just texted me." She nodded, taking a small bite of cake. "Which surprises me, because when he did, he forgot to add proper punctuation."

I gasped playfully, placing a hand over my mouth. "America's Boy Scout used grammatically incorrect language? I'm shocked."

She laughed at my antics. "So am I. I'm beginning to think he got hit too hard on the head during the last mission. But jokes on him. The longer he's not here, the less of this delicious cake he's gonna get."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you like it. The frosting kept giving me trouble and I ended up dropping it on the floor, but in the end, Loki actually got the frosting ready while I rested up." I explained, still kinda shocked at how good the frosting turned out.

"You got the God of Mischief to make dessert?" She raised a brow with a small chuckle. "I would've killed to see that. Where is he anyway?"

I gestured to the other side of the room where Loki's illusion-self was talking to Thor. "Talking to his brother, probably explaining the concept of a baby shower to him."

"And you would be correct."

I jumped slightly when I heard his voice in my head, coming out of literally nowhere. "I thought you were upstairs with Linda. How can you hear what I'm talking about down here?"