"So how does this, uh, Bifrost thing work?" said Banner. He looked like himself again, and he was wringing his hands together and casting glances all around. As accustomed to the Bifrost as Loki was, it was hard to imagine anyone being nervous about traveling by it. What did Banner have to fear? He wasn't the one about to have a conversation with his parents that had resulted in his attempted suicide in another timeline. Loki had done his best to keep his thoughts on Midgard these past few days, and he had largely succeeded, but the reprieve was over. He had not the faintest idea what this terrible secret could be, and dread was pooling sickeningly in his stomach. This would be so much easier if he was the sort of man who could tolerate being aware a secret existed without knowing the secret itself.

"It's quite simple. We stand in a certain spot, and then Heimdall will open the Bifrost to pull us to Asgard. The entire journey will take but moments." This time, the Bifrost site was located on a patch of grass to the side of the road, about a mile from the shabby inn where Banner had been staying.

"Huh, so it's kind of a 'Beam me up, Scotty' type thing?"

Loki frowned at him.

"Oh, sorry, I guess you don't get a lot of Earth entertainment."

"Our visits in the past were somewhat infrequent," said Loki. "Though in my adolescence, I did rather enjoy a few of your plays."

"What does it feel like?"

"What?" said Loki, who had been reminiscing about performing before a crowd of excitable mortals. Such a shame their lives were so short. Only a few decades in which to create before death claimed them. Loki doubted anyone on this planet remembered the brilliant playwright or any of his delightful works four centuries later.

"The Bifrost," said Banner.

Loki could have told him plainly that the Bifrost felt exactly as it looked: an exhilarating rush across the stars. However, his own mounting anxiety was such that he did not feel particularly inclined to relieve Banner's. In fact, he rather preferred to do the opposite. "It's not remotely painful, at least for an Aesir. I couldn't say what it's like for a mortal."

Alarm flashed over Banner's face. Loki pretended not to notice.

X

Jane, Darcy, and Erik all staggered into the Observatory with Thor. Jane had seized Thor's arm to steady herself, and he tried not to react to the thrill of electricity set off by her touch. As soon as she had regained her balance, he moved a step away from her. She appeared oblivious, as she, like her companions, was already too busy staring open-mouthed at her surroundings.

"Welcome to Asgard," said Heimdall. His smile was more sincere than when Thor had brought Jane home with him the day before Malekith's attack, which boded well. "Lady Sif and the Warriors Three are coming to greet you, and they're bringing horses enough for all of you to ride. The Queen will be coming as well."

"You ride horses?" said Darcy.

"Of course," said Thor. "Asgardian steeds are highly intelligent and superior to any mechanical land vehicle. We have our longships for when we must travel by sea or air."

Erik let out an incredulous laugh, and Thor smiled. How strange it must be to find that all the stories one grew up with as a child turned out to be true in some fashion. He turned to Heimdall. "Loki and Banner?" Erik perked up at this. In the hours since Fury unveiled his plan to send the three humans to Asgard in a formal diplomatic capacity, Thor had learned that Erik was already acquainted with Banner from before. Possibly a connection from one of those PhDs. Thor hoped it would make Asgard feel a little more familiar for both of them.

"They've reached their Bifrost site," said Heimdall. He turned Hofund very slightly in the plinth, and the gears of the Observatory shifted around them. Jane watched the movements, eyes alight with eager curiosity.

X

"This is the spot," said Loki.

Sweat glistened on Banner's forehead and he was fidgeting worse than ever. His only response was a nod.

"Would you like me to hold your hand?"

"What? No."

"I could assume the form of Dr. Ross again."

"I'm fine!"

"As long as you're certain."

"Stop trying to annoy me into forgetting that I'm about to travel to another planet inside a beam of energy powerful enough to cut me in half," Banner snapped. "It's not helping."

X

Heimdall activated the Bifrost with a downward push, and the brilliant beams of energy roared out into space. "All of you, move to the side, quickly," he said.

Thor frowned. They were hardly standing directly in the way as it was, but Heimdall was not to be gainsaid, so he ushered the three mortals as far as they could get from the Bifrost without moving towards the exit. No sooner had they done so than Loki hit the Observatory at a dead sprint as though the tails of his coat were on fire. "Help!"

The answer to Thor's question arrived before he could ask it: the Hulk barrelled out of the Bifrost, his enraged eyes fixed on Loki. Heimdall stepped deftly to the side, allowing the green beast to pass him.

"Loki, what happened?" Thor yelled as he ran after his brother and the Hulk.

"I might've deliberately stoked Banner's anxieties about the Bifrost," Loki yelled back. "Just a bit. He started transforming as soon as we were caught up in it."

"You know, Brother," said Thor, "for someone so clever, you can be kind of an idiot sometimes." He took advantage of Hulk's hesitation as he realized how foreign his surroundings were to leap up on his back and get him in a choke hold using Mjolnir.

"How else would I know I'm related to you?" Loki retorted, having now gained enough distance from the Hulk (who was roaring his displeasure and grabbing at Thor, trying to rip him off his back) to wheel around and prepare to enter the fray on his own terms. Sif, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg were only a hundred yards or so ahead of them on the bridge, and they had left the horses behind to come and help.

X

The Queen of Asgard was eager to see her sons again. She had periodically watched over them from Hlidskjalf in between attending to her many duties as regent, but such distant glimpses were not enough, intriguing as they were.

Having spent the better part of a millennium making sure her two incredibly gifted boys didn't get themselves killed doing something foolish (easily as difficult an endeavor as ruling a kingdom), it was not entirely a surprise when the first she saw of them on the Rainbow Bridge was a large green creature tossing them, Sif, and the Warriors Three about like dolls. As she watched, Hogun and Volstagg tumbled off the bridge into the sea below. Her Einherjar guard tightened their grips on their weapons, but she merely sighed and shook her head. "Send for a longship to fish our brave warriors out of the water," she said.

She continued to watch the scuffle. She knew from what she had observed from Hlidskjalf that the green creature was an ally, but she had never seen such an undisciplined fighting style. The longer she watched, the more he looked like...like a child. A rather large child who didn't know his strength, who lacked the words words to convey his distress and was left to attempt to do so through destruction instead. She dismounted lightly from Gyllir and began walking, weaving her seidr into the groundwork for a spell she hadn't used in about nine centuries. "Hold," she said when the Einherjar made to follow her.

X

"Are you quite sure this brute is your friend?" grunted Fandral as he ducked one of Hulk's fists. "He doesn't seem to like you very much."

"If we can just get him to calm down, he'll return to his mortal form and I can introduce you properly," said Thor, using Mjolnir to block a large green elbow.

"And I suppose doing battle with him is how we calm him down?" said Sif sarcastically. She was the only one Hulk had failed to strike thus far, but it was not for his lack of trying.

Thor caught sight of Darcy standing with her phone pointed at them from the threshold of the Observatory. Jane and Erik stood on either side of her, both looking horrified. In the second he had taken to look, Hulk, having swatted through simulacrum after simulacrum, finally caught the real Loki around the middle and hurled him off the bridge the same as he had done to Hogun and Volstagg.

The sight of Loki falling from the Rainbow Bridge had Thor reacting without thinking. Some part of his brain knew that he would land safely in the water like their friends, where he would be in even less danger than they thanks to his shapeshifting abilities, but that part barely registered. He abandoned the fight without a backward glance, spinning Mjolnir and leaping after his brother. He caught him before he hit the water and flew back up to the bridge.

Loki, who had been in the middle of protesting at Thor's manner of carrying him about, froze, eyes wide. When Thor saw what he was looking at, he did the same. Their mother was walking, completely unarmed, along the gleaming crystal towards the Hulk, who noticed this at roughly the same moment they did. After knocking Sif and Fandral off their feet, he let out an inarticulate roar and began lumbering her way. Frigga's only reaction was to continue walking closer, her expression utterly serene. A moment later, she began to sing. Thor's brow furrowed. It was a song he recognized dimly from his early childhood.

Far more bewildering than the sound of the familiar lullaby was Hulk's reaction. His gait faltered and slowed, his arms lowered, and his fists unclenched, leaving him standing before the Queen of Asgard, almost docile. She smiled up at him and laid a hand over his heart. "You needn't be frightened, little one," she said. "You are safe here."

Thor exchanged a disgruntled glance with Loki, who also seemed taken aback at the sight of their mother treating the one who'd been flinging her own sons about seconds before like he was a small child in need of comfort, never mind that it was actually working.

X

This time, when Bruce came to himself, it was to find a smiling middle-aged woman with golden curls cascading over one shoulder and a richly embroidered dress that fell to the tops of her shoes standing in front of him, pressing something into his hands.

"M-ma'am?" he said. He looked around and had to do a double-take at just about everything. The bridge of multicolored crystal, the golden city in the distance, the breathtaking evening sky that was already more full of stars than even the clearest night on Earth. This must be Asgard. Panic seized him. The entire purpose of coming here was so that he wouldn't have to be a danger to anyone anymore, but the Other Guy had just ruined his first impression.

"You have nothing to fear, good man," said the woman as if she had read his mind. (Had she?) "You may have wounded the pride of a few of Asgard's finest warriors just now, my sons included, but I'm sure they they will recover." She had turned her smile to something over his shoulder, and he spun around. Thor and Loki were there, looking kinda rumpled, as well as a man and a woman in armor and two more men who were sopping wet and climbing out of a flying boat onto the glittering bridge. A little ways behind them, he saw a few more people, and he had to do yet another double-take. Erik Selvig? He hadn't seen his colleague since before the botched experiment. What the hell was he doing here? Suddenly very conscious of the number of eyes on him as he stood there in nothing but another pair of tattered pants, he fumbled with the fabric he was holding. It was some kind of cream-colored tunic with golden embroidery like Celtic knots along the hems. He pulled it on.

"Thor, Loki?" said the woman. "Will you introduce me to your guests?"

X

While Hogun and Volstagg left to change into dry armor and Frigga returned to Odin's bedside, Thor, Loki, Sif, and Fandral showed the four humans to their guest chambers in the palace, a cluster of four rooms in a corridor near the library. It took approximately five seconds for Fandral to start flirting with Darcy, who plainly had no objections whatsoever. Jane was so excited to get to the library that Erik had to remind her that they needed to eat first.

The eight of them, soon joined by Hogun and Volstagg, dined together in one of the smaller banquet halls. Seeing so many of his friends together in one place lifted Thor's spirits greatly. As they ate, he regaled them all the tales of his and Loki's adventures on Earth. He was careful to give Loki plenty of room to tell his side of things as well and to give him credit for what he had done. However, he couldn't help noticing that even as Loki spoke animatedly and smiled at everyone, he barely touched his food. After their account caught back up to the present, Volstagg took over as storyteller, entertaining the humans by describing his favorite acts of heroism from centuries past. About five minutes into this, Loki slipped away from the table. Thor set down his goblet and followed.

When Thor caught up to Loki at a balcony overlooking Mother's garden, surprise flashed briefly over the latter's face before he could mask it, and Thor felt a pang of regret for all the times he had not gone after his brother when he went off alone from a social setting. "I made you a promise," he said. "I mean to keep it. As soon as Father wakes, we will speak to him."

"I never doubted you," said Loki, picking absently at his hands. "It was a good distraction, Midgard. I didn't have to think about what was coming. But now we're home, and I am at once desperately curious and terribly afraid to know the secret that, in another life, was my undoing."

"It was not only the secret," said Thor, trying to convince himself as much as Loki. "It was everything surrounding it. Father was in the Odinsleep, Mother was tending to him, and I was banished. You were left alone, unexpectedly on the throne and unjustly suspected of placing yourself there for lust of power, with the war I started against Jotunheim to deal with. This time, none of that has happened, and you will not be alone."

"But how could I seek my own destruction under any circumstances? Am I so weak that—"

"You are not weak," Thor interrupted. "Or if you are, it is a weakness I share."

"What are you talking about?" said Loki irritably, as though the very idea of Thor being weak in any way were ludicrous.

"It was not merely Thanos's destruction I sought after he murdered you in front of me, Brother," said Thor. "You were all I had left, and we had finally begun to repair what was broken between us, and then I was suddenly facing four thousand years alone, my family and most of my friends dead, king of a refugee people on the brink of extinction. Thrice in those two days, I stared death in the face and would have welcomed it. I clung to your body instead of seeking escape when Thanos blasted our ship to pieces around me. I took on all the power of Nidavellir to forge the weapon to kill him. After I cleaved his head from his shoulders with it, I held the Time Stone in my fist until it tore me apart. It is not by my own doing that I still live."

Loki stared at him, looking stricken. Thor smiled. "I cannot say for certain what went through your mind in the other timeline. We never discussed it. But I think in that moment you believed there was no other way to escape what you had learned and what you thought it meant. Perhaps it was only that you were already dangling over an abyss that allowed such an idea to take hold of you. Perhaps you would have dismissed it easily standing on firm ground. I like to think so."

A low, croaky call sounded from somewhere above them, and they looked up to see two winged silhouettes against the star-filled sky, flapping their way closer. "Father's summons," said Loki.

Thor reached up to grip the back of Loki's neck. The two ravens alighted on the balustrade and looked at the princes expectantly. "Tell him we will be right there," said Thor. Hugin bobbed his head and Munin gave another croak, and they both took flight.

The original plan was to get right to the family drama, but then I was struck by the mental image of Loki fleeing out of the Bifrost, the Hulk hot on his heels. It was too funny to pass up, especially because it provided the opportunity to have Frigga defeat the Hulk with her Mom powers, which I was already hoping to find a place for. I like to think that most of the trouble Loki got into before the events of the films happened when he was bored, because that's when his skills for reasonable, strategic planning go out the window.

Couldn't resist making Loki a Shakespeare fan in this fic too. Unfortunately, Bruce was too nervous to realize what Loki was alluding to, otherwise Loki would have explained that he was one of Shakespeare's actors (and probably the inspiration for Puck) when he was a teenager. On a related note, this might be my new favorite chapter title.

The first scene I wrote for this chapter was Thor's conversation with Loki at the end, and I don't think any other scene has been so emotional to write. It's clear enough watching Infinity War that Thor didn't care whether he lived or died, but writing about that from Thor's own perspective, and having it be what helps him understand Loki's attempted suicide, hit me really hard.