The grief coming off both Odin and Frigga was palpable. It made Loki feel alienated from them—but no, grief wasn't to blame for that, was it? He simply was alien. He tore his gaze away from Odin's and tried to pull his hand from Frigga's, but she held fast. Would she still if he transformed? Would she keep clutching him even as her skin blackened with frostbite?

"It was not to be," said Odin. His voice was rather hoarse. "Heimdall told me who the Jotun child was and why he was in that temple, but he had scarcely finished his account before he turned his eyes to the palace. I knew something was wrong. When I arrived in the royal apartments, Frigga was in labor."

"It was so different from Thor's birth," said Frigga. Her voice was surprisingly steady, though tears continued to fall. "I could hardly feel the baby moving, and the pain was far greater. After hours and hours, it was finally over. Eir did all she could, but though the child was born alive, he was still slipping away from us. He wouldn't cry or eat or open his eyes. We held him and named him, and he was gone within the hour. Then I heard a sound that tore my heart. A baby crying in the room."

"I dispelled the illusion and explained my plan," said Odin, "though by then I had little hope that Frigga would accept it. I was preparing myself to part with a second child in a single day, and I did not know how I would bear it. That was foolish of me. I should have learned better than to underestimate my queen."

There was a long pause. Loki thought he might be sick. His insides roiled—but they weren't truly his insides. This wasn't his true form. He'd put on a mask when he was an infant and didn't know better. His whole life had been that mask. Little wonder he had failed to guess the secret. How could he have imagined that they would allow a Frost Giant to parade about, thinking he was a prince of Asgard? It was so ludicrous that he felt a mad desire to laugh.

"Then I am the changeling child who slept in your true son's crib and stole his life and name," he said.

"You stole nothing," said Odin.

"Should we have preferred an empty crib to one with you in it, just because it was meant for another?" said Frigga. "Should I not have nursed you at my breast?"

Loki had no answer to that, but it still made no sense.

"We wanted both of you," said Odin. "When I watched you and Thor playing or training together, I often imagined the third boy who could have been there. I did not picture him in your place, nor resent you for being the survivor."

"Baldur," said Frigga. "That was the name of the child we lost. Your name has always been your own."

"Why does Asgard not know of him?" said Loki.

"To be a monarch is to have one's life constantly on display," she said. "I could not bear the thought of thousands of people coming to see me to give their condolences. Because of you, we had a chance to keep Baldur and our grief private, and so we did."

"And you didn't tell Thor?"

"How does one explain to a toddler that the younger sibling he was so eager to meet is gone, and that his new brother is someone else altogether?" said Odin. "He had no concept of death or that not all children are raised by those who bore them. When we introduced you to him, he was delighted. We chose not to jeopardize the bond the two of you formed."

"A wonder that you trusted me to be near him at all," said Loki.

"Oh? Should we have feared that you might murder him in his sleep?" Odin's tone had grown very dry. "Is this an ambition you have secretly harbored all your life?"

"We were born enemies!" said Loki, incensed. "Why would you take that risk?"

"If birth was enough to determine that much, then Hela would long have been queen of nine miserable realms, and likely many more besides."

"And as the man who taught her how to conquer worlds," said Loki, "do you really expect me to believe that naught but compassion and generosity motivated you when you saw an infant Frost Giant with powerful seidr and decided to bring him here and name him Odinson?"

"Did I say those were my only motives?" said Odin. "Of course I thought about the implications of bringing you here, particularly once I knew who you were. Of course I considered the political benefits of keeping you. Of course I considered the uses to which I could put you. You were never going to be just a son, any more than Thor, or Baldur if he had lived. You have always known this."

"But why?" cried Loki. He was suddenly on his feet, facing them. "You speak as though my being Jotun made no difference to you, but you had just fought a war against them!"

"We did not fight them for being Jotnar," said Odin.

"There are many on Asgard who would," Loki countered. "Thor most of all, before his time travel adventure."

"And that is a fault of Asgard and myself, not a condemnation of the Jotnar. I am glad that Thor is wiser now."

He was so calm. He had shouted at Thor, had wilted under the weight of the past he had kept hidden. He had wept for Baldur and snarled over Laufey, but now he was as stoic as when he sat on the throne. Loki wanted to scream at Odin and make him scream back. Instead, he forced himself to be just as calm. "Why would you take the unwanted wretch of your enemy into your own home?" He rounded on Frigga. "Why would you agree to such a mad scheme? Your kindness is lauded across Yggdrasil, but surely there is a limit."

Frigga stood and cupped Loki's face in her hands. He met her eyes unwillingly. "Laufey may not have wanted you, Loki, but you have never been unwanted. You were a child without a mother, and I was a mother who had lost her child. You rescued me from my despair. There was nothing I could do to save the child I bore. In all my life, I have never felt so powerless. But you were dying too, and I could save you." She smiled through her tears. "My sweet boy. How could I do anything else?"

Her image blurred, and Loki realized that he was crying as well. She wrapped her arms around him. He hadn't been aware of how rigidly he'd been carrying himself, but now he sagged against her.

"Do you think the love of a parent is something one must earn?" said Odin. The emotion in the question made Loki look around at him. He sounded afraid, and he looked like he'd been struck in the face. "Have I failed all of my children?"

These questions fell on Loki's ears like words from the nameless tongue when he was not the audience. All his life, he'd wanted nothing as badly as to make his father proud—a desire he had apparently had since infancy. If he was not Odin's son, not even Aesir, then that goal had never been within reach at all, and his efforts had been for nothing. So how could Odin be acting like he was the disappointment, not Loki?

Frigga guided him back to the sofa. He didn't really want to be in the study anymore, but he didn't fight her.

"Were you ever going to tell me if Thor hadn't forced your hand?" he asked. He felt hollowed out and numb.

"We agreed we would tell you before we began considering betrothals or you entered into a serious courtship," said Frigga. "I wanted to tell you centuries ago."

"Why did you wait so long?"

"I could name you one of my heirs," said Odin, "but I could not make my people forget thousands of years of ill feeling towards the Jotnar. You were an innocent child, not one of the soldiers who slew their fathers or brothers, but that is not what they would have seen. We wanted to shield you from their prejudice."

That might have been comforting if he hadn't already been an object of suspicion and distrust for his talents with seidrcraft and his determination to pursue them above any other subject. It had been easy enough for him to make friends among fellow students of magic on Alfheim and Vanaheim, but his friends on Asgard were Thor's friends first, and if they wanted to be near Thor, they had no choice but to be near Thor's brother.

"You were also in terrible danger," Odin continued. "Your survival is the greatest threat to Laufey's rule, because you are the proof of his crimes against his own people."

"Then why not use me to finish him? If he is such a villain, why settle for a mere truce and leave him on the throne of Jotunheim?"

Odin was staring at him with the same sadness from a moment ago. "Perhaps that would have been the prudent course to take. It may even have been just. But it would have made you the target of Laufey and all who were loyal to him, and that I could not do."

X

It was a rare thing for Thor to desire solitude, but he was only just managing to keep his emotions from spilling out into the weather, and his friends, mortal and Aesir alike, were better off without his brooding presence.

He went back to the balcony where he had stood with Loki before Hugin and Munin's arrival. More than any other place on Asgard, Thor was glad that his mother's garden had a second chance to escape Ragnarok. Most of his earliest memories involved playing there with Loki under Frigga's watchful gaze. She had showed them how she cared for each species of plant and told them stories about where they came from. As they grew up, Loki spent more time there than Thor did. Thor wondered whether Loki, while pretending to be Odin, had maintained the garden. He hadn't taken the time to look at it before going to confront him. He supposed he would never know.

"You do not laugh as often as the Thor I remember."

Thor smiled and looked around at Sif. "I wish I could."

She joined him before the balustrade. "I heard the storm earlier."

The smile faded. "I was...more upset with my father than I realized."

"With your father?" she said. She frowned. "Did the things you lived through happen because of him?" She sounded as though she was afraid to hear the answer.

"Not entirely, and not by design." He grimaced. "Perhaps it would be better if they had been. He hid things from me and from Loki. I think he was trying so hard to protect his sons that he forgot to trust us."

Something flickered in her expression that Thor doubted he would have noticed before. "You don't think Loki would deserve that trust," he said quietly.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she held his gaze with a mixture of shame and defiance. "If I don't, it is not without reason."

It was true that Sif and Loki had a long history of getting on each other's nerves. Thor hoped he had not merely imagined that there was also genuine affection there, somewhere. "Has he ever failed you or me or our friends when we needed him? I know he plays his tricks and calls us all fools, but we were never innocent victims, and he's saved our lives at least as often as any of us have saved his."

"You are probably right," she said grudgingly, "but I can never tell what he is thinking! He's always up to something. I don't know how it doesn't drive you mad."

Thor grinned. "Perhaps I simply enjoy surprises better than you. Or...have a better sense of humor?"

She punched him on the arm, looking amused against her will. "Perhaps."

He rubbed the spot, chuckling, until she fixed him with such a serious look that he ceased all fidgeting at once. "You trust him, though?"

"Of course I do," he said. "He's my brother."

She nodded. The skepticism from before seemed to be gone, but only time would tell whether that meant he had persuaded her to abandon it or she was simply being more guarded. Putting the Avengers together from scratch might prove far easier than what he had to do at home. "Will you need us tomorrow? We are still ready to do whatever we can to help you prevent Ragnarok."

Thor smiled his gratitude. "There is still much planning to be done, but I will send for you when we are ready to act."

She touched his arm below where she had punched him, then turned and left the balcony. Thor watched her go until the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. He raised his eyebrows and faced the gardens again. "How long have you been there, Loki?"

Loki materialized to his right. "Longer than Sif would like."

"They told you, then?"

"They told me."

"And...you are well?"

"I'm not going to hurl myself into space, at any rate." He looked sideways at Thor. "You've been trying to soften the blow all week, haven't you? With your talk of fighting alongside the Jotnar."

"I also meant it. If a Jotun can grow up on Asgard without him or anyone else ever noticing he isn't Aesir, then how different can we really be?"

"I was still never like the rest of you, as Sif so kindly illustrated."

"Are all Jotnar bookish, sarcastic types who turn people into animals when they're bored?" said Thor. Loki only glared at him. He grinned back. "I'm surprised you want to be like the rest of us. Wouldn't that have been dull?"

"You're the best of everything Asgard prizes, and it always came naturally to you. Nobody ever seems to find you dull."

"And it went straight to my head and made me an arrogant fool who would start a war over a single insult," said Thor. "I can't even imagine what a horror I would have become without you to humble me every once in a while. I probably would have been Hela all over again."

"Yes, as humble as you are now, you'll soon have no more need of me."

He said it lightly, but it cut into Thor like a dagger. "I don't know." Thor tried to match Loki's tone. "I think I have enough of an ego to last at least another four millennia easily."

The corner of Loki's mouth twitched. He stared at Thor for a long moment. "It really doesn't change anything for you, does it?"

Thor clasped the back of Loki's neck. He couldn't even remember the first time he'd done that. "It never did."

Blinking rather rapidly, Loki puffed out his cheeks and let out a breath. "I haven't just been knocked on the head and hallucinated all of this, have I?" he complained. "I mean, I'm adopted, and have four siblings I never knew about. It seems rather excessive."

Thor started to laugh, before frowning. "Wait, four? I thought Laufey only had two other sons."

Loki shot him a confused look. "He...does." His eyes went very wide. "Oh." He gave a sympathetic grimace. "They didn't tell you about Baldur."

As much as I love Thor and Loki's sibling relationship, I'm kinda sad that Baldur doesn't exist in the MCU (and I know it's spelled Balder in the comics, but I prefer the spelling that isn't also a word for more hair loss, deal with it), so I decided to inflict that sadness on this fic. Yay?

Okay I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of the dynamic between Loki and Odin. There's all kinds of metas on tumblr and fics on here about what an abusive father Odin was and how he deliberately pitted Thor and Loki against each other, and while I don't think canon disproves any of that, it has only ever seemed like one possible interpretation to me. What I see, on the other hand, is two people who have been talking at cross purposes for a thousand years. Odin rewards Loki's achievements with chuckles and nods because he views this as the secret connection he's had with Loki since he picked him up in that temple. He saved the more open praise for Thor and Loki together because he was proud of them both AND he wanted them to be a team, and he was open in praising Thor because Thor was open in his expectation of it. Everything has been going great from Odin's perspective. But baby Loki needed more than Odin's smile on Jotunheim to survive, and as a boy, an adolescent, and a young man, he's needed more than Odin's smile to feel validated. One thing I'm sure Thor and Hela had in common was being very quick to voice displeasure or unhappiness when they were children. This made them easy for Odin to understand. But Loki would pretend to be content and bottle things up until his frustration came out in seemingly unconnected ways, and Odin never quite figured it out. Odin might also have felt that it was fine to focus on Thor as long as Frigga focused on Loki.

Anyway, the initial conversation might be over, but the angst is not.

I adore Sif and would totally cosplay as her if I had black hair (it's blonde, so I cosplay as Éowyn, Luna, and Spider-Gwen instead), but of all Thor's friends, she is plainly the one with the biggest Loki issues. Let's see what we can do about that.