They arrived on the far end of the Bifrost, standing on the tip of rainbow crystal jutting out over the abyss. Half the bridge was still strung up in the scaffolding's wood and rope; to Thor's eye it made the Bifrost look unkempt, like cobwebs over a jeweled crown.

His human friends nevertheless were impressed, gazing about Asgard with widened eyes. "Wow," Steve Rogers murmured, and Tony Stark muttered back, "I'll see your wow and raise you a 'holy guacamole."

"With a side-order of beans," Clint Barton put in, leaning out over the bridge's edge to peer down into the bottomless mists below. "So, uh, where does it go? If you fell off?"

"Into the void between the worlds," Thor said, "eventually."

Barton whistled, the void failing to echo back the piercing sound. "Learn to fly later," Natasha Romanoff said, grabbing Barton's arm and none too gently hauling him back from the brink.

"Do not worry," Thor assured her. "I would catch him, if he fell; there would be plenty of time before he was in danger of being lost."

Bruce Banner was frowning. "How can you fall—what's the source of the gravitational pull?"

"Better question," Stark said, "given that there's obviously some sort of gravity keeping us from floating away—what the heck is keeping that up?" and he pointed toward the peaks of Asgard rising up at the other end of the Bifrost. "Does rock here come filled with helium or what? How is the land levitating?"

The last seemed addressed to Thor, so he made an effort to answer. "It is not floating; rather it's supported by Yggdrasil's branches."

"Igg-whatsit?"

"Oh, yes, Erik Selvig told me something about this," Banner said. "That's the world tree, right?" He smiled when Thor nodded, went on, "So what is Yggdrasil exactly, a poetic representation of one of the higher dimensions, or is it a physical manifestation of quantum—"

"Hark, our ride approaches," Thor said, relieved to hear the drumming of hoofbeats on the Bifrost.

Sif and two Einherjar guards rode up, leading six other horses, reined and saddled. Sif dismounted to greet them with a quick bow. "Well met, noble allies of Thor."

"Um, well met, gorgeous—uh, beautiful warrior maiden," Stark said, imitating her bow a little stiffly in his armor.

"This is the Lady Sif," Thor said, "shield maiden and my trusted companion in countless battles. Sif, these are the Avengers of Earth."

Stark murmured an aside to Banner, "Remind me to come back here sometime when we're not busy saving the world?"

"As my friends, you would always be welcome," Thor said.

"But now we better get to that world-saving," Rogers said, stepping forward and making his own bow, a little clumsily for all his strength. "Very glad to meet you, Miss—uh, Lady Sif. These horses are for us?"

"You guys can teleport across the universe, but you ride around on horses?" Barton asked. "Not even flying horses?"

"The pegasus cavalry was battling the Chitauri on Asgard's border," Sif said. "They return now, but not in time to face Thanos."

For some reason this simple explanation made Barton gawp. "Uh...right. Sure."

"On horseback it's but a few minutes to the palace gates; Asgard's horses are fleet of foot," Thor explained, mounting his stallion. "The guards can transport the crates there while we make our introductions."

"Okay, enough dilly-dallying," Roger said, taking the reins of the largest gelding and swinging himself up. "Avengers, saddle up."

o o o

Frigga met them in the courtyard inside the palace gates. The queen graciously stepped back to give Stark room to land—he had opted to fly with his rockets rather than ride, and had carried one of his crates with him, along with Banner; Thor assumed the Other Guy did not care for animals. Once the Iron Man had set himself and Banner down and flipped up his helmet's visor, Frigga granted them all a mannered nod and said to the Avengers, "Welcome to Asgard, humans of Earth. I am Frigga, wife of Odin All-Father and queen of the golden city."

Rogers stepped forward. "Thank you, ma'am, and greetings from Earth. I'm Captain Steve Rogers of the Avengers—"

"—Bow!" Stark hissed behind him. "She's the queen!"

"Ack, sorry, ma'am!" Rogers hastily doubled over—a deeper bow than courtesy demanded, but his awkwardness made it obviously more gallantry than insult, and Thor caught the twinkle in his mother's eyes, though her face stayed trained and polite. The other Avengers followed suit to varying degrees: Romanoff also bowing instead of curtseying, just as Sif did; and Banner ducking his head in a curt gesture appropriate to a warrior of his strength, though his expression lacked the expected pride.

Stark dared come forward to take Frigga's hand, gently in his armored one, and raise it to his lips for a kiss. The queen allowed this shockingly forward gesture with only a subtle lift of her brows. "You are the Man of Iron, Tony Stark," she said.

"Guilty as charged," Stark said, grinning cheekily as if he knew exactly what he'd done. "So you're Thor's mom? Pleased to make your acquaintance—but since we're getting short on time, can we skip the rest of the meet-and-greet and get straight to your husband and the Tesseract?"

"You aren't here to deal with the cube," Thor said, frowning. "It's Thanos we've come to fight."

"Except that to fight Thanos, we need to know where he is, and last I checked you didn't," Stark said, raising one metal finger in the air. "Bruce and I have a few theories about seeing through his magic cloaking device, but for that we need the cube. So lay on, McDuff, and take us to your leader."

o o o

The sight of the Tesseract with Odin standing over it, bathed in shining blue and sweat beading on his forehead from his motionless effort, quieted even the spirited humans. They lowered their voices in the throne room, spoke with their heads down and eyes averted; if it was not the usual deference showed Asgard's king, it was yet respectful. From the glances they shot Thor's way, Thor thought it was out of respect for him as much as his father. He was grateful either way.

That respect naturally did not stop Tony Stark from striding up the dais to the Tesseract's pedestal before Thor could stop him, reaching out for the sphere of magic surrounding the All-Father as he said, "Okay, let's get this bad boy out of the box and see how—"

White-hot power flared and a burst of energy tossed the Man of Iron aside like a locust in a windstorm. He slammed into a pillar with a crack that would have broken an ordinary mortal's bones.

Fortunately Stark was armored; as the others rushed to him he picked himself up off the floor, shaking his head. "Ow! What the hell—" He glanced up at Odin, "—heck was that?"

"You finally learning to look and not touch?" Barton suggested.

"I am sorry," Thor said, reaching down to pull Stark to his feet. "Had I the chance to warn you—the spell my father casts is to safeguard the cube from any who seek to reach it, within or without."

"You mean that forcefield's not the Tesseract—that's your dad's magic?"

"Usually it's more controlled," Thor said. "He primarily wields his power through the spear Gungnir; but now with all his focus on the cube, his direction is not so precise."

"Seemed pretty precise to me," Stark said, rubbing his armored shoulder with a mutter that might have been, "What is it about your family tossing me around?" though perhaps Thor misheard.

"Thor," Banner asked, "is there any way to get around your father's shield? We need to be able to scan the Tesseract, and the readings will be more accurate in proximity..."

"I can aid you, Lord Banner," Frigga said, gliding forward to the dais. "My husband's magic will not harm his family; he knows to trust us. He would allow you as well, if he'd the chance earlier to meet you," she added with composed apology.

"That would be great, thank you, Ms—er, Lady—er, your majesty," Banner said, ducking his head. "And it's not 'Lord'; Dr. Banner will do. Or Bruce."

"So how would you have me assist, Dr. Bruce?" Frigga asked, and Banner, with a cautious glance at the Tesseract, dared climb up the dais beside her to explain. Stark began to comment something about Banner's "way with the—" but was interrupted by Rogers kicking him in the shin. The captain's boot clanged on his armor, but Stark closed his mouth and, warily, joined Banner and Thor's mother before the Tesseract, extracting from his armor a piece of equipment which beeped as he passed it over the cube.

He and Banner then fell into rapid conversation concerning waves and shifts and triangles. While Thor was familiar with most of the words, their context rendered them opaque, and he was puzzling over their meaning when a hand fell on his arm.

"Don't even try," Barton advised. "We don't know what the heck they're talking about, either, when they get like this."

Sif had accompanied them to the throne room, but now, after a nod from Frigga, departed. Thor excused himself and followed, catching up with her outside the throne room doors.

Sif stopped and waited; before he could address her, she told him, "Loki is well, last I heard." At Thor's surprised expression she said, "That is what you would ask me, is it not? If not before the humans."

"It would be," Thor admitted.

"My lady queen was with him for most of the night," Sif said, "and he suffered no nightmares, that she mentioned. She bade me to go to him now, since you have your allies to attend."

"Tell him that we may soon have located Thanos," Thor requested. "Though assure him that I will not go to that battle without first taking my leave of him."

Sif nodded, and Thor told her sincerely, "My thanks, that you'll keep his company."

Sif gave him a measured look, then a light punch on the arm. "We've made up now, haven't we? At your behest. A shame you cannot ask the same of these mortals..."

"I cannot fairly," Thor said. "Not after Loki's assault on their world, and our battle...their antipathy is only just."

"And mine was not?" Sif said, but her smile made it teasing.

"What do you think of them, Sif?"

"The mortals? They seem very...human," Sif said, not deprecating or with forced civility, but considering. "I would see them in battle, before I judged them properly. Knowing how you trust them, I believe they must be stronger than they appear. But Captain Rogers is chivalrous. And the flying iron armor is impressive..."

"Stark forged the armor himself," Thor said.

Sif was as surprised by this as Thor had been. "So is he a smith or a warrior?"

"Some are both, my lady," remarked a voice from the vicinity of their waists; Thor looked down to see Fjalar hurrying over in haste. "My lord Thor," he panted as he reached them, "I'm sorry I missed your return, I hadn't yet awoken—we had much both to research and celebrate last night, after Heimdall told us your journey to Midgard was successful." He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, continued, "How was the voyage? And the return, did the bridge bring the mortals over properly intact?"

"Intact, and with some mass of cargo as well," Thor gladly reported. "But you can ask them yourself—one of my friends is a smith himself, as I was saying; he and another are also scholars of science, and both most interested themselves in the Bifrost's workings—"

The throne room door opened and Natasha Romanoff's distinctly red head emerged. "Thor," she said, "Stark and Bruce want to know if you have some maps of your world—or land, or universe—that they could check out?"

"There are charts of all the realms in the royal library," Thor said. "I can take you now."

Sif went to the dungeons, but Fjalar accompanied them to the library. Thor introduced him to the humans as they walked, the dwarf not minding the haste, valuing as he did expediency over courtesy—"It's fine; I'd rather you save us now so that we all might be alive to discuss other matters later."

"Ah-hah, so they do teach logic on Asgard!" Stark said.

Fjalar chuckled. "Mayhaps, but I'm from Svartalfheim myself."

"Fjalar is ambassador from the dwarves," Thor explained, "so naturally a crafter of great skill."

"You're a dwarf?" Barton said. "Wow, Disney and Peter Jackson both totally dropped the ball on that one..."

"The library has solid gold doors?" Rogers asked, staring at them in something like awe.

"Steve, if you haven't noticed, everything here has gold doors," Stark muttered, poking the captain's ribs to prod him off his path. "And gold walls, gold floors, gold pillars—you know what else I bet is gold—"

"So where are these charts?" Banner asked, raising his voice such that Thor looked to him in trepidation; but the man did not appear angry, only mildly irritated. Then fascinated, as he passed through the doors and saw all the shelves of books reaching up to the library's ceiling.

The royal librarian Kvasir hobbled over to assist them, sending his apprentices to fetch charts of Asgard's lands while he examined the humans with interest. "It's been so long since we've had any from Midgard here—we have a few texts hailing from your realm; perhaps you could help source them?"

"Maybe later," Banner said, still looking about himself. Rogers too was goggling. The look in their eyes was familiar to Thor; it was very like Loki used to get upon discovering some hidden book of magic or long-lost scroll, a sort of hunger of the mind.

There was a different kind of eagerness in Stark, as he helped Kvasir unroll several charts out upon the table. Banner and Rogers leaned over on either side of him, equally curious. Both Barton and Natasha vanished between the stacks, losing themselves in those shadows as quickly as Loki might.

Thor hesitated between seeking them out—not that he feared they would do any harm, but some of the wards on the library's more exotic collections might do them such—and helping the apprentices fetch more maps. Stark did not seem content with those he had—"No dice, none of these are any good! Putting aside the 3-D to 2-D problem, we need something with actual scale to triangulate, not a metaphorical representation—you guys must have working navigation systems, or do you just use magic sextants—"

"These have scale," Fjalar interrupted, climbing up on a stool to better overlook the table. "Well, not that one, that's a world-tree forking diagram. But this one here, see, it's marked clear enough; the colors indicate which order of magnitude—"

"Order of—Tony," Banner said, squinting at the map, "he's right, it's a combined cosmologic and geographic—"

"—Oh," Stark said, "Okay, in that case, this is—"

"Better get ready," Barton said, materializing beside Thor to watch as their comrades bent over the charts with renewed purpose. "They've almost got it."

"You understand what they speak of now?"

"No," Natasha said, appearing on his other side, "but once you get used to reading Stark's tones, you don't actually have to listen to a word he says."

"It's pretty convenient," Barton confirmed, grinning, but his eyes were sharp with a warrior's fierce focus, and Thor felt his own fighting blood rise in answer.

With Kvasir's reluctant permission, Stark and Banner took the chart outside to the courtyard, where the Man of Iron flew up towards the high noon sun, until he was merely a speck in the sky, conversing with Banner via the radio. Upon Stark's return to ground, he and Banner embarked on an intense discussion that put Thor in mind of Fjalar and Adalsteinn's arguments, though resolved faster, when Steve Rogers stood over them and asked, "Okay, guys, what do you have for us?"

"Good news and bad news," Stark said. "The good news is that the Tesseract's gamma radiation trail flows both ways, so with a properly calibrated spectograph—well, long story short, we're pretty sure we know where Thanos is right now."

"That is excellent news indeed!" Thor declared, taking up Mjolnir in his excitement. "Then we may confront him now—"

"Slow down there, Sparky," Stark said, stepping back out of the hammer's immediate range, as if he suspected Thor was about to start swinging. "The bad news is, I don't know how we're going to get there. You never mentioned that your hometown is half a light-minute across!"

"That's exaggerating," Banner said weakly. "Hardly more than a quarter, I don't think..."

By Rogers's and Barton's frowns, this accusation made no more sense to them. "A minute isn't that long..." Barton remarked.

"Except when you remember that from the Earth to the moon takes one light-second!" Stark said. He waved at the sky overhead. "You know why you don't see any other floating islands up there? There's lands, they're just too far away to see! Even if I'd brought my rocket booster suit it'd take me days to get to Thanos's present location, and that's if I didn't mind getting pancaked by g-force. To get here tomorrow, that ship must be moving—gotta have some serious inertial dampeners, would love to get my hands on those—"

"So what do we do?" Rogers asked. "Try to evacuate the city? We know what kind of havoc the Chitauri can wreak..."

"Especially if we end up nuking this ship as well," Natasha remarked, then returned her friends' stares unperturbed, arms crossed over her chest. "What? I assumed sending Stark in with another missile was our backup plan."

"Except wouldn't you know, I forgot to pack an ICBM," Stark said. "Figured in the name of good inter-dimension relations to go easy on the nukes. But I've got something even better for the Chitauri; we just need to get it on board that mothership."

"If we wish to board Thanos's ship," Thor said, "there may be a way, if you know exactly where it is in the realm."

"How exact is exact?" Stark asked. "General ballpark or down to the micron? We can place it within a few hundred klicks, give or take."

Thor frowned. "I do not know how precisely, but perhaps that would be enough...I would have to ask."

"Ask who?" Natasha inquired, calmly, but something in her even tone made Thor suspect she had already guessed the answer, before any of the others thought to ask it. Truly she was as clever as her namesake spider.

"Sorcery may bend Yggdrasil's branches," Thor explained, "so we can travel more swiftly along them than on any ship. Such was how I returned here from the Point, and also how my father sent me to Earth without the Bifrost or the Tesseract. The energy for that journey was staggering; to travel within Asgard takes less power, but greater control, for it's easier to aim at an entire planet."

"The difference between throwing a dart to the moon or straight into a bulls-eye," Banner said.

Thor nodded. "Even so. But a learned sorcerer may make that bulls-eye, if they know its exact location."

"You got any sorcerers stashed around here?" Stark asked. "Other than your dad, since he's a little occupied at the moment."

"I know of only one sorcerer in Asgard now who has such skill," Thor admitted.

Barton growled something too low to be intelligible, silenced when Natasha took a step closer, brushing her shoulder to his. Banner grimaced and Rogers frowned.

Stark, naturally, was the first to speak. "This sorcerer—let me guess. Six-two—seven-plus with the horns—black hair, green eyes? Last seen trying to take over planet Earth?" He grinned, a wild contrast to his comrades' grimness. "All right, now things are getting interesting..."

o o o

There was room in Loki's cell for all six of them, though it was crowded, even with five of those being mortal presences. Especially when most of the humans wished to keep a distance between Loki and themselves. Not out of fear, Thor believed. Barton wanted space to draw an arrow, and Stark preferred a wider angle to study Loki in entirety. Banner was the only one who showed any overt nervousness, and Thor guessed his holding back was more apprehension of what his alternate self might do, should Loki come too close.

Rogers stood before his comrades beside Thor, stalwartly facing their one-time foe. On Thor's other side Natasha seemed almost unconcerned, arms crossed and head casually tilted as she watched Loki unblinking; but she was standing between him and Barton and Thor did not think that a coincidence.

Loki for his part looked to none of them; he stood with his arms at his side, defenseless in his simple black tunic, and kept his own gaze steady on Thor. "Yes," he said. "If you've deduced the hiveship's location with great enough precision, I could open a way to it along the world tree's branches."

Behind Thor, Stark cleared his throat. "Okay, I don't know what units of measurement you're used to—miles? Leagues? Cubits?—but we know where he's coming from, and with his ETA that gives us his speed, so..." He fiddled with his armor's vambrace, then raised his arm to project a web of light into the space before him, reaching up to the ceiling. Thor stepped back to more clearly see the glowing lines, recognizing the shapes they formed. Stark's map differed from the charts Thor was used to, with the dots marking the lands smaller and more spread out, but the general shape of the realm was familiar.

"Here's us in the palace," Stark said, and one of the centrally placed dots began blinking blue, "and this is Thanos's ship," and a red dot appeared, several handspans from the blue one, suspended in the empty sky between lands. "Precise enough for you?"

Loki stepped forward. Banner and Barton both moved back, in lockstep with him; but Loki paid them no mind, scrutinizing Stark's projected chart. "Perhaps..." he murmured, tone abstract with thought, and lifted one hand.

"Watch it," Barton warned. In that split second of motion he had an arrow drawn on his bow and aimed at Loki's head.

"Thor," Loki said, so mildly, "did you explain this cell is warded? I am unarmed, and my magics here are limited, to no more than this." He moved his fingers, and new lines of pale, pure light spread within Stark's chart, dividing into a net crossing and winding among the specks of lands. "It's easier to understand when you can see Yggdrasil's greater branches. Of course there is nearly an infinity of smaller twigs; but see, Thanos's route follows a main bough," and with his finger Loki indicated one thread of silver light, upon which the scarlet dot of the ship was strung like a single bead.

Stark was staring at the illusion of threads cast onto his map. "Wow," he said, "so that's the world tree—seriously, wow..." He glanced down at his vambrace, then frowned and tapped it with his other hand. "Damn it, why isn't this recording—"

"My apologies," Loki said, the faintest of smiles curling his lips. "Magic is not so easily captured as light or sound."

"So can you do it?" Rogers asked. "Can you get us out there, to the ship?"

"I can," Loki said. He dropped his hand so that his illusion of light vanished, turned his head to the captain, a steady slow motion, calculatedly non-threatening. "Which leaves you the question of whether or not you trust me to do so."

"So what are the dangers if you betray us?" Banner asked, as calm.

"You mean, how badly could I screw you over?" Loki said, inflecting the final phrase in the flattened accent of their region of Midgard. "That depends," and he looked back to Thor. "How many humans could you carry through the air, along with Mjolnir?"

"At least three with relatively little trouble," Thor said. "Provided the Man of Iron were not armored."

"And if I am, I can carry two, maybe three myself," Stark put in.

"So all of us could be supported," Thor said.

Loki shrugged. "Then there's little peril of you dropping into the void. Nowhere in the realm would be that great a threat to warriors of your skills; and I have not the magic now to send so many of you outside Asgard. The danger then is minimal."

"Says you," Stark muttered. "Who's convinced? I know I'm convinced, that was so convincing..."

"That's why it's all right not to trust you," Natasha told Loki. "We haven't heard yet why we should trust you. Why would you help us?"

Loki inclined his head in her direction. "Did Thor neither explain that? I have as much cause as any of you to hate Thanos. I regret I can show you no scars as proof; flesh such as ours heals faster and more completely than that of mortals."

Barton still had an arrow strung on his bow. "So why were you trying to take over the world for him?"

"I did nothing for him!" Loki hissed. "All I did to your world, to you, was for my own ends. I made you my thrall, not his—"

He might have moved toward Barton, but before he took a step Natasha raised the Midgardian firearm concealed in her hand and leveled it between Loki's eyes. "Stay back," she said, her voice as rock-steady as her gun.

Loki's green glare snapped back to her. "And don't smile," Natasha said, "or my finger might slip on the trigger."

Loki didn't smile. He stepped back, toward the window so he was retreating from all of them, keeping his hands at his sides.

Thor shouldered forwards, setting himself between his brother and the others. Neither the gun nor the arrow was likely to do Loki much lasting harm, even in the warded cell. But nor would a fight accomplish much but waste time, when they had little. "My friends," Thor said, "your grievances against my family are justified; but I entreat you to set them aside for now."

"Yeah, guys," Stark said, "even gods probably have trouble doing magic with a hole in their head. So can the vengeance shtick be back-burnered until after we've taken down the big bad?"

"From where I'm standing, taking down a bad guy's the point," Natasha said. Her gun was still trained on Loki, now aimed past Thor's head.

But Barton lowered his bow. "'Tasha," he said quietly, "his eye's mine to take, right?"

Natasha's eyes flashed to the side to him, then back to Loki; then she brought down her arm and vanished the weapon in her hand, as neat as a magic spell. "Right."

"I am not one for honesty," Loki said, moving out from behind Thor. His head was lowered, so that Thor could not see his eyes; but his tone was cautious, not disgracefully subservient, no more so than Thor's own plea. "But in honesty, I owe you all thanks. You defeated my enemies on Earth, even as you have come to do so again now."

"They didn't so much look like your enemies when you were ordering them to invade New York," Stark said. His own tone was challenging, but his gaze was thoughtful; testing, not vindictive.

"Think you that attacking a single city, under the protection of Earth's strongest warriors, was my strategy to conquer?" Loki scoffed, lifting his chin in stung pride. "Even as I ordered the Chitauri, so did their commander command me to. As they harmed and destroyed your city and its people, so too was I harmed and destroyed. As ore and wood is destroyed to make a blade's steel, and then in turn that blade is chipped and blunted striking bone and shield, until at last it shatters—and I wanted to see the blade over me shattered."

"What are you trying to sell?" Stark asked, skepticism thick in his voice. "That you invaded hoping we'd take out the Chitauri for you?"

Loki did not reply. Thor, studying his brother's face, could see neither confirmation nor denial.

"We didn't come here now to save you," Banner said, neither kind nor cruel, balanced in his nearly perfect calm. "Any more than we fought off the Chitauri on Earth to get them off your back."

"I know," Loki said, returning that purposeful calm measure for measure. "But you will help me all the same, in helping my brother and this realm. So allow me in return to help you as I can, that you might defeat Thanos for all of us."

"You said you have reasons to hate Thanos," Rogers spoke up suddenly from where he had been quietly watching. "So—do you hate him?"

Loki met the captain's true blue gaze, dropped his control for a moment and let all his rage and fear and madness glitter in his green eyes. "Yes."

Thor clasped Loki's shoulder, bracing him against those tides of feeling. Loki shivered once, not shrugging him off, but turning a little, as if to hide their contact from the humans.

None of Thor's allies remarked upon this. Instead Rogers said, "Okay, you've told us why you want to help, and why we can afford to trust you, and even thanked us for coming. And you've acknowledged what you did, if under duress. What I haven't heard you say is that you're sorry for any of it—for what you did to Clint, for all the people you and your army killed."

Loki frowned but barely, a single almost unnoticeable furrow in his brow. "What matter if I did?" he asked, and the coldness of his voice might have been to conceal confusion. "What apology could I make to you for the harm I did your world? You have noble hearts; but I would not strain them by begging for forgiveness beyond your capacity to give."

Rogers's own frown was obvious, as scrupulously open as every feeling in his honest heart. "What's that got to do with it? Whether you're sorry has nothing to do with whether we forgive you. Seeking vengeance or turning the other cheek, that's always your own choice; nobody else can make you do it. I don't know what kinds of gods you guys follow up here, other than yourselves; but that's how our god taught us. —My god, I mean," he added, with an inexplicably apologetic glance at the others, including Thor. "We can still forgive you even if you don't give a damn; and you can be sorry even if all of us refuse to listen to it."

"That...is so," Loki said.

Thor recognized his quiet surprise. "As I told you, brother," he said, "they have much to teach us," and he smiled thanks to his friends and their uncommon wisdom.

Loki drew himself upright, taller than any of the humans, but the curve of his shoulders under the austere black made him shadow-slender, unintimidating and almost fragile before their bold mortal strength. "Then I am sorry," he said, plain lead instead of spun silver. "For all I did to your world, to your people and your comrades, and to you yourselves—I am sorry for it."

There was silence in the cell, all the humans struck momentarily mute. Even Stark scowled dumbly, mouth opening and then closing before a word escaped.

Finally it opened again. "Show of hands, who saw that coming? Because I didn't, I'll admit it."

Rogers didn't answer him, his gaze fixed on Loki. "Okay," he said at last. "We'll do it—let you send us to Thanos." He turned to the others. "Are we all on board with this? The way I see it, either he's actually sorry, so on our side; or else he's scared enough of Thanos to say he is to get us onto his side."

"Or," Stark said, eyes narrowing at Loki, "he's got a trap so awesome that he's willing to say anything to convince us to walk into it."

"I'm in," Natasha said. "If he's that determined to trap us, might as well spring it when we've got an idea something's coming."

"Okay, count me in, too," Barton said.

"I am in as well," Thor put in, for the sake of consensus.

"Tony? Bruce?" Rogers looked at them.

"I've never been magically teleported before," Stark said. "Today's the day for new travel experiences. Sure, let's go."

"There isn't much chance I could actually get hurt," Banner said, eying Loki, "and he knows what the Other Guy can do if he tries. So all right."

Loki listened in impassive silence without attempting to sway their decision; only after Banner had spoken did he say, "I can ready the transportation spell within the hour, but I cannot cast it from within this cell's wards."

"Would my chambers suffice?" Thor asked, and Loki nodded, but without meeting Thor's eyes. "Go back up," Thor told his friends. "Sif will lead you to my chambers. I'll bring Loki there in a few moments."

The humans, with final cautious glances at Loki, filed up the steps and down the dungeon's tunnels. Thor waited until their footsteps had faded before turning to his brother. Loki's head was down, studying his hands; by the abstract expression on his face and the mute movement of his lips, he was considering his spell.

"Will it be safe?" Thor asked him. "Leaving the cell's wards will open you to Thanos—"

"I can shield myself, if I have the strength," Loki said. "As I managed before. Besides, you and your allies will be occupying him, is that not your intent?"

Thor grinned fiercely. "It is."

Loki's gaze flicked up to him. "Though you'll let Banner's monstrous side take the brunt of his attack."

"A fair share," Thor allowed. "But the Hulk cannot have all the glory!" He hesitated, said at last, "You could claim some yourself, if you joined us..."

Loki snorted. "You'd waste the few hours we have left trying to convince the humans to fight alongside me?"

"You might persuade them," Thor said. "You've already made this much peace with them —and thank you for that, brother."

Loki shrugged, a stiffer motion than his usual grace, as if an invisible blow had bruised him. "As they said, I have all manner of reasons to help you—to want you to accept my help."

"I know," Thor said, "but still, you dealt with them fairly, for all they're humans."

"I thought you considered them to be no more or less than us, even if mortal," Loki said, throwing him a sidelong look, half taunt and half question.

"I do," Thor agreed, "but you do not. I'm glad that you might be learning otherwise."

"Don't tell me you believed all I said to them," Loki said, turning away. "I hardly can believe such soft beings can survive, let alone fight; their simple hearts are so easily swayed to sympathy."

"Not that much sympathy," Thor said. "But understanding. We share a common foe. Even on Earth, if you had allied with us in that final battle—"

"And how much did you understand? Do you believe that secretly I thought myself aligned with you and these humans? You were my foes as much as the Chitauri; whichever was defeated, I was to be the victor. If you fell, Earth could have been mine, and with it I would have raised an army to stand up to Thanos, and take the Tesseract for my own—"

"I understand: neither we nor the Chitauri were truly your enemy," Thor said. "And we're now your allies against the titan who is—and the cube as well. Whatever the case before, we're aligned now. We fight on the same side, as brothers should," and he smiled.

His brother shook his head, as if he could not believe Thor's naiveté. "Then take me from this cell, so you may go to that fight. There's scant time left, and I need to walk a little ways, get a feel for how Yggdrasil's branches sway today, before I send you down them. A detour through the orchards should suffice."

"And you might pick some fruit as we go, to aid your strength?" Thor asked, and Loki shot him a narrow-eyed look for that perception. Thor grinned more broadly at him, and started up the stairs.

He stopped, however, when Loki's hand fell on his shoulder and as quickly was removed, stood waiting on the first step as Loki behind him said, quietly, "Thor—all I did to you, with the gauntlet, and on Midgard, and on the Bifrost, when you broke it...I am sorry for all of it."

Thor wanted to see his brother's expression, whether his eyes were on Thor or averted—but he thought that Loki did not want him to see, that Loki could only speak so unwatched, unwatching. Besides, Loki's face could lie as well as his tongue; neither would prove his honesty.

Instead of turning back, Thor said only, "I am sorry, too, brother, for all I did myself that led you to such things."

"I was not led—I do not follow, neither you nor Thanos nor any other," Loki said. "If they are my acts to regret, then you cannot claim them from me. Even if you are my brother."

Thor thought of what Tony Stark had said, that Loki must choose himself which path to walk. What Steve Rogers had said, that apology and forgiveness were not predicated on one another. Nor was regret; if Loki bore his, then Thor too could have his own. "Then I am sorry such things were done," he said, not looking back but up at the metal barricade opened above, "and sorry I failed to stop them, and save those lives that were taken. And I am sorry I couldn't catch you, when you let go of Gungnir—even if you wouldn't have wanted me to, still I am sorry that my arm wasn't long enough."

Loki did not answer; Thor could not even hear him breathing when he strained to listen. "Loki," he began.

"—I know," Loki said abruptly, rapid as if he could only force it out quickly or else not at all. "I know that you reached for me as I fell, that you never would have pushed me into that abyss. It was easier sometimes to tell myself you had; but I always knew you hadn't, even when I lied to accuse you of it."

Thor felt as if Jormungand had been lifted from his shoulders, without him realizing the burden until it was gone. "I am glad to know it," he said. "Now, brother, let us join the others, so you can send us to defeat Thanos and win victory for us all!"

to be continued...