For a moment, there was nothing but deafening silence in the Bifröst Observatory as Thor and Odin glared at each other. Loki watched them both nervously. The three of them still had snow in their hair and on their shoulders from Jotunheim. Thor was still breathing heavily, his fist clenched around Mjolnir, his battle rage contained but not spent. How dare his father whisk them away like they were children caught in some mischief?

Finally, in a low voice, Odin growled, "Have you any idea what you have done?"

Thor's temper resurged. "Father, while you were content to sit here and do nothing as those monsters plotted against us—"

"A king knows when to pick his battles!"

"Why won't you just destroy them all? Their race is nothing but a menace, and I would have saved the Realms from their villainy."

"You are acting like a child, Thor. You know nothing about real war. You think of nothing but yourself. You nearly allowed one of your friends to be killed."

Thor shook his head disbelievingly. After all he had heard growing up about his father's daring exploits, how dare the old man lecture him about caution? But Odin was apparently not finished.

"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy," he snarled.

That was the last straw. Thor burst out, "And you are an old man and a fool!"

For a moment, Odin's blazing anger dimmed, and he looked weary. "Yes. I have been a fool," he said softly.

Stepping forward, Loki ventured timidly, "Father? I—"

Without taking his gaze off of Thor, Odin snapped, "Leave us. I will deal with you later."

Thor had hoped for a moment that Loki's silver tongue would get them out of trouble as usual, but his brother looked as if he had been slapped. Loki stammered, "But—"

"Now, Loki."

His brother slunk reluctantly out of the Observatory, so that Thor and his father were alone.

"I have been a fool," Odin repeated, "to keep certain truths from you. But now you must understand the gravity of what you have done."

He started to pace across the floor. His manner had become cold and guarded. "Tell me, Thor, do you love your brother?"

Until now, Thor's pulse had been racing, his limbs restless, his mind still in a frenzy. But this question took him so aback that he finally became motionless.

"Of course," he said, nonplussed. "Why would you even ask me that?"

Ignoring his question, Odin watched him with a calculating expression as he asked, "Would you ever harm him?"

"Father," Thor exclaimed, disgusted at the thought, "you know I would die before I ever—"

"And you consider his life to be valuable?"

Thor's rage was suddenly cooling into discomfort; he was disturbed by the direction of this conversation. His father was trying to prove something, though he was not sure what.

"Father, what has this to do with Jotunheim?" he demanded. "Of course I love Loki, you know I would die for him, so why are you asking me as if you are in doubt?"

Odin smiled grimly. "There is something you must see, my son."

With Gungir, he created a circular window in the air. Images appeared inside it—a dark snowy landscape littered with bodies, not unlike the scene they had just left. Thor knew his father could scry, but had never seen it done before. Was this the future they were seeing, perhaps?

Stepping closer, however, Thor understood the scene was not of the future, but of the past. A younger version of his father appeared, his missing eye still bloody as if it had been recently carved out.

"This is the war with Laufey," Thor realized aloud. Surely his father was not about to teach him some tiresome lesson about the cost of war. He had seen enough bloodshed firsthand. He was not an imbecile.

"Yes. Watch carefully, there is something you must see."

The younger Odin was walking among the corpses, checking for survivors among his men. The Jotun fortress was silent except for the howling wind.

But then another sound made itself heard above the wind. The younger Odin's head snapped up, listening to it in disbelief: the faintest cry of an infant. His brow furrowed, but he straightened up and followed the sound. The cries grew louder, more pitiful. Odin stood before a massive set of stone doors, slightly ajar, carved in Jotun runes—the entrance to some kind of temple.

Thor looked over at his present-day father and interjected, "I don't see what is so important about—"

The present Odin silenced him with a glare and redirected Thor's attention to his younger self, who was stepping over bodies in the ransacked temple, towards a stone dais in the center, the cries becoming louder and louder.

It was a baby. A Jotun child, left alone, its tiny limbs shaking with cold and hunger, its blue face screwed into a frown. An unusually small one, Thor realized when the past-Odin slowly gathered the child in his arms.

What are you doing, Father? Thor wanted to demand, but his voice stuck in his throat.

The younger Odin smiled hesitantly. Even with the gruesome wound on his face, his expression was gentle. He looked—well—he looked like a father holding his own child for the first time. As Thor watched, the Jotun child began to transform before their eyes, its blue, engraved skin fading to a pale hue, its red eyes inverting to green. The baby, which now looked like a child of the Æsir, stopped crying and smiled up at Odin, who looked rather astonished at the change.

"Now do you understand, my son?" asked the present-day Odin. His voice sounded hoarse.

"I…"

A vague suspicion had begun to form in the back of Thor's mind, but he rebelled against it. No, it was impossible. It was nonsensical.

The present Odin sighed. "Watch, Thor."

The scene in the scrying-glass rippled and was replaced with another, a little further in time. The Odin of the past, his missing eye recently bandaged, was sitting by the hearth in the master suite of the castle. Frigga sat beside him, rocking the foundling infant, cooing softly to him.

"No," Thor breathed. No, this was all a mistake. This couldn't mean what he thought it meant.

The scene changed again. Now it showed a young Thor, barely more than a toddler, kneeling on the rug of his old nursery. Across from him sat the baby, sucking his thumb, now sporting black curly hair. The little Thor made a silly face so that the baby would laugh.

No. This couldn't be…

The scene sped further into the future. Thor and the baby were boys now, racing their horses through the woods together.

"No, no, no," Thor whispered, though it was quite clear now. "Father, you don't mean…"

"Yes," said Odin coldly. "Your brother, your dearest companion, is one of those 'creatures' whose lives you consider so expendable."

The scrying-glass showed one more image—an adolescent Thor throwing an arm around Loki, the two of them laughing—before disappearing.

Thor ran a hand through his hair. His heart was pounding, but he felt no urge to fight. For the first time in his life, he wanted to disappear. Loki—his brother—who had been a constant at his side for as long as he could remember—a Frost Giant?

"Why," he demanded, his voice shaking, "why did you take him, Father?"

Odin hesitated.

"You saw yourself that he was abandoned. Laufey left him to die because of his size." In a softer voice, he added, "And I had seen enough dead giants that day."

Laufey's son… Thor's stomach turned. He had so many questions he did not even know where to begin.

"Why did you make him look…more like us?" he asked.

"I did not," his father replied. "Loki is a shape-shifter, as many Jotuns are. He changed when I picked him up—by instinct, I suppose."

"Who else knows about this?"

"Your mother, of course. Heimdall. A small number of servants, there was no avoiding that."

The pieces clicked together in Thor's mind. "Loki does not know."

Odin's face darkened. "I forbid you to tell him, Thor."

The command seemed to echo through the Observatory—it was a king's injunction, reinforced with magic. Thor felt something constricting his throat for a moment before relaxing, and he understood that the spell would prevent him from disobeying. He was physically incapable of telling his brother the truth.

"Father!" he protested. "You have lied to us both, for all this time?"

"Loki is my son just as you are," Odin said firmly. "His origin is of no consequence, and it is not your place to reveal it. However, I hope this gives you much to contemplate in your exile."

"My exile?"

Thor's voice broke. But he felt too sick with shame to argue or resist as his father tore the insignia from his armor—he cried out, feeling his strength being ripped from him as well. Mjolnir fell from his numb hands and clattered to the floor.

"You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed," Odin declared solemnly. "In the name of my father, and his father before him, I cast you out."

With those words, the Bifröst opened, and Thor found himself being hurled out of Asgard.

**Author's Note: I must admit, I'm not 100% sure where this is going. I have some ideas, but not a really concrete plan. It will probably just be a few chapters, not as long as my other multichapter fic.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that was a little disappointed we never got to directly see Thor's reaction to finding out the truth of Loki's heritage. Because, really. In movie one, I don't think he really saw Frost Giants as people. Then he finds out the person he cares for most was one of them all along. This is going to be my attempt at addressing that.