Notes: Happy Mother's Day! Don't forget to tell the mom in your life that she's loved, yeah?
I couldn't resist giving Frigga the chance to fix Odin's screw-ups for him before they happened... so this is so very AU as a result!
It was not very often that Frigga disagreed with her husband, but in this case she felt that he was making a mistake.
While it mattered very little to her whether or not the citizens of Asgard knew of her youngest son's origins, she knew that keeping it secret from the child himself was a recipe for future disaster. She personally didn't care if Loki was born from her own body (which, obviously, he wasn't) or if he was Laufey's abandoned offspring (which he was); all that mattered was that he was the child of her heart, and she wanted him to know how very much she loved him.
And yet Odin insisted that the boy would know "when the time was right."
Direct translation: "When I can't keep it a secret anymore, hopefully before something goes terribly wrong, which it won't."
Honestly, she loved that man, but he was a stone idiot sometimes.
So Frigga was very careful in telling bedtime stories. While other parents told their children about the horrible Jotun and how they were a monstrous race, the queen of Asgard told her sons that the Jotun were a race of mighty warriors who, yes, were the enemies of the realm but who were just like any of the other races belonging to the nine worlds. She told them that before the war, the Jotun had artisans and mages and priests just like Asgard's own. She was careful to tell them that those days were gone, that Jotunheim was still recovering from the war and struggling, and that they should be courteous should they ever meet a Jotun.
She could barely hide her smile any time she heard Loki or (even better) Thor argue with their friends over what type of people the Jotun were. She wasn't able to hold back a laugh on the day that young Sif expressed her agreement with the boys by punching out another youth who insisted all Jotun were nothing but monsters.
When her sons were older, Thor old enough to enter warrior training with his friends and Loki beginning to catch up to his brother in height, Frigga called her youngest to her side. They walked in the gardens, and once they'd settled by the fountain she told Loki in no uncertain terms that he would always be the child of her heart. She told him of the first time she saw him, bundled in his father's arms as they returned from Jotunheim yet not crying, looking at everything around him with all the innocent wonder of the newly born. She told him how she had taken him in her own arms and knew immediately that she would love him as much as if she had birthed him of her own body. She told him that her heart had claimed him instantly, that no matter his origins Loki was a child of Asgard and always would be Frigga's son.
And Loki, bless her wonderful intelligent boy, understood. He asked her what felt like a thousand questions, wondering if he was abandoned because his birth parents did not want him or if they had fought and died in the war or if they thought he would be safe in the temple; and Frigga answered as best as she could, that she couldn't imagine that anyone would not want the lovely boy she had raised and that perhaps his birth parents were killed in battle and that they may have believed the temple the safest place for him... and that they were right, because Loki had been safely delivered into his mother's arms.
She advised him to keep the fact that he knew secret from Odin, that his father planned to tell him in his own time, and to pretend surprise when (if) it happened. Loki had fixed her with a look clearly saying you know he doesn't plan on it anytime soon and agreed.
Truly, Loki was her child in all ways but blood!
And when the day of Thor's coronation arrived, when a few rogue Jotun broke into the armory through one of the paths Loki had inadvertently left open from one of his many walks along Yggdrasil (and really, she should remind her boy to close his gates behind him, no matter the fact that it was easier than reopening them later!), and her boys ventured to Jotunheim seeking an audience with Laufey, Frigga waited to see if Odin would actually tell the truth at last. It was only after they had returned, her husband furious with Thor's lack of decorum in threatening the Jotun with talk of war and Thor banished and Loki frustrated with Odin, that she realized nothing had changed.
Except Sif came to her and asked if Loki was adopted. Except Odin dropped into the most convenient Odin-sleep in recent history. And Loki rolled his eyes in annoyance and took the throne only long enough to declare that he would make damned certain that Thor proved himself worthy to end his exile before going to Earth to tell his brother what needed done.
Frigga smiled indulgently and stroked her husband's hand as he slumbered. Honestly, she could only imagine how badly things would have gone had Loki never known of his origins. Thankfully her little boy knew the truth, and it appeared that Sif didn't care either if the fact that she was currently sitting in the throne room awaiting Loki's return was any indication.
Perhaps there would be a coronation for Thor and a wedding for Loki in the near future. A mother could hope, anyway.