Chapter 1
Steve sat on the Quinjet watching the men, Stark and Thor, across from him argue about Loki’s fate. They’d just recovered Loki from the bluff above the forest that he hadn’t even tried to escape from, oddly enough. He put a stop to the petty fighting when Thor mentioned taking Loki to Asgard to stand trial.
“Not Asgard, and especially not Odin,” Steve rumbled.
“Nice of you to join the conversation,” Stark quipped immediately. “Do you have a reason for this, or are you just against Odin and Asgard in general?”
Thor clenched his fists in anger at the mention of such a possibility.
“I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, Thor, what color are your brother’s eyes?” Steve asked.
“Green, of course,” Thor responded easily.
“Hate to break it to you, but your brother’s eyes are definitely blue,” Stark said.
Thor examined his brother again suspiciously, then turned to Stark. “You mentioned mind-controlled agents before. What color were their eyes?”
“Blue … Wait, you’re saying Loki is under mind control?” Stark asked.
Thor just looked grim, possibly beating himself up for not even noticing that his brother was not himself.
“How do we snap him out of it?” Stark asked Thor.
“I … do not know. Do you have any suggestions Captain? You are the one who noticed.”
“I should be able to pull him out of it. We will need to go someplace very cold or can be made very cold,” Steve responded.
“Why can you not heal him this instant?!” Thor demanded.
“The internal temperature of the plane would likely drop to a fatal temperature, not to mention the possibility of freezing the mechanics and causing the plane to crash.”
“And how were you planning on surviving?” Stark asked. “I could probably modify my suit, but you would be left exposed to the cold.”
Steve snorted. “I might be quoting a movie here, but the cold doesn’t bother me.”
A small snort was heard from the cockpit.
“That doesn’t even deserve a pity snort,” Stark declared before seriously asking, “How were you planning to survive?”
“I do plan on surviving with all my fingers and toes, don’t worry,” Steve said, dodging the question.
“Fine then. The temperature at my tower can be made ‘very cold’, so we can go there,” Stark offered.
Thor, who’d just been watching the back-and-forth amusedly, asked, “Are you sure you can cure him? And what was your grudge with my father and Asgard?”
“Other than the fact that they never accepted Loki and always belittled his talents, I have nothing against Asgard,” Steve replied.
“They did no such thing!” Thor blustered.
Steve merely quirked an eyebrow at him. Thor opened his mouth to argue, but the eyebrow was too high on the Captain’s forehead. Thor thought about it and sighed in defeat, acknowledging the fact that magic and dagger fighting, his brother’s primary talents, were not accepted in Asgard as manly practices. It did not sit well with him now, but the way Thor thought had changed drastically from his time on Earth. Thor hadn’t stopped the belittling of his brother’s talents, participating in it himself from time to time.
“Besides the fact that I did not know you could raise only one eyebrow, you left out the answer to the other half of the question. What about your grudge against Odin?” Stark asked.
“That information is best shared when Loki can participate and fully understand the conversation.”
“We’re nearly to the tower. Get ready to land,” Natasha interrupted from the pilot’s seat.
While they prepared to land, Steve looked at Thor and asked, “Do you have the seal of the Heir to the Throne of Asgard?”
Thor nodded.
“Do you know how to use it to remove curses?” Steve questioned intently.
“Yes, of course. It is a simple procedure; you just put the seal on the cursed area and revoke it. Why?” Thor answered.
“Because I have a curse placed on me that I need removed in order to save your brother.”
After arriving on the landing deck, Steve, taking a bag with him, and Stark disembarked while Thor followed them, keeping Loki under guard. Stark led the way to a large room with a lot of windows. When Steve objected on the account of people being able to potentially spy on them, Stark huffed and led them to a different room close by with no windows other than a large window in the door. Steve nodded his acceptance of the space and put his shield down in the hallway, leaning it against the wall.
“How fast can you get the temperature in here below freezing?” Steve asked.
“A few minutes. Why?” Stark asked back.
“I need the room at least that cold. Is this room on a different temperature circuit than the rest of the tower?”
“I can make it so. When you said cold, I didn’t realize you meant freezing cold,” Stark joked.
“Please do. In fact, it might be better for the room’s thermostat to shut off after I enter.”
“Noted.” Stark responded.
Steve read the question in his eyes and smiled. “I can’t have the thermostat raising the temperature from however low it gets. I’m going to go change from my uniform into more suitable attire. Will you lower the room’s temperature while I’m gone?” Steve asked.
“You hear that, Jarvis?” Steve asked.
“Of course, sir,” the AI replied.
As Steve walked down the hallway, he turned around to say, “The suit might be a good idea if you plan to stay and watch at the door.” He left promptly, ignoring Stark’s questioning gaze and indignant “Outside the room?”
A minute and a half later, Steve returned in the clothes he’d brought with him. Stark was almost thankful, because the silence between him and Thor as Thor stared morosely at his captive brother was getting really awkward.
“What temperature is the room, Jarvis?” he asked.
“48 degrees, Captain Rodgers,” came the response.
“While we wait for it to cool all the way, I really think it would be a good idea for you to put your suit on, Stark,” Steve suggested.
Stark turned around to fire back a snappy retort, but noticed something else first. “… You’re not wearing a shirt,” he commented.
“No,” came the simple reply.
“Will you not get cold?” Thor asked, still looking only at his brother.
“I’m worried about pretty much everything other than getting cold,” Steve said, feeling like he was repeating the same sentiment over and over again. Before Stark could interrogate him, Jarvis announced that the room had reached 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Will you remove the curse on me now?” Steve asked. “I have a nearly indestructible container for anything that may come out of me in response to the cancellation of the curse.”
Thor turned to look at him. His eyes immediately zeroed in on the scar on Steve’s chest. “How did you get that?” he asked suspiciously.
“I got it when I was a year and half old for the crime of having been born. Now, will you take it off?”
“You don’t understand. This curse is sickness and an agonizingly slow death to those who receive it. Why did you get it when you were a babe?” Thor questioned suspiciously.
“I already told you. If you are worried about endangering Asgard and Midgard, I mean no harm to either realm,” Steve stated. When Thor continued to look at him suspiciously, Steve impatiently asked, “Look, do you want your brother back or not? I can only bring him back without the curse on me. I will explain everything after I heal him.”
Thor waited a moment more, then retrieved the large seal disk from around his neck. He placed it directly over the old seal scar and said a few words in Asgardian, slowly twisting the seal. Stark winced for the other man because it looked like the skin was turning along with the seal. Indeed, when Thor pulled the seal off of Steve’s chest, his skin came with it.
Steve immediately grabbed his shield to catch the gushing black blood that rushed from the wound. The leather handle dissolved as the poisoned blood came into contact with it. After a few moments, Steve began coughing. He slowly fell to his knees, then to all fours, careful not to tip his shield enough to spill the liquid inside. As he coughed, black sludge oozed from his mouth into the shield. The bleeding slowly stopped, but the coughing kept intensifying. After nearly five minutes of coughing and wheezing, the last of the sickly black slime slithered out of Steve’s mouth.
He collapsed next to his nearly-full shield, trying to catch his breath. He heard Stark order Jarvis to cancel the call to his personal paramedic. Steve slowly recovered his breathing and sat up. When he attempted to stand, Stark shot him a glare.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Cap? You just bled and coughed nearly two pints of liquid into your shield. You are not ready to stand up.”
Steve just smiled wanly. “97 years of illness being expelled from the body will do that to a person. Besides, the blood lost is nearly replenished. I just need some water, and food at some point in the near future.”
“Sit there while I get you some water. When I return, be prepared to explain exactly how you’ve already replenished that much blood,” Stark ordered, asking Jarvis to send up some food on his journey to find cups. When he returned from filling as many cups as he could hold from a nearby office room with water from the bathroom sink, Steve was standing with support from the wall. Stark was not pleased. “What exactly did I tell you to do?” he demanded.
“Sit and wait for you to get me some water,” Stev croaked, sounding very dehydrated. Stark sighed and handed the water to Steve. Steve drank the first cup slowly, allowing his body to adjust to the influx of liquid. While he drank his second and third cups, he heard Stark berate Thor for allowing him to stand. Thor evidently didn’t respond satisfactorily - Steve assumed he’d shrugged because he didn’t hear a response - and the rant intensified. He drank the fourth cup, feeling better, but still needing more water. Using the wall to support him, he quietly walked down the hall to the bathroom. He gulped down a lot of water, only stopping when he felt a little sloshy inside.
Steve walked over to Loki and Thor, no longer needing the wall to support him. He touched his fingers to Loki’s temples briefly. Loki slumped over, unconscious. Stark looked more than a little pissed at him for his absence before looking down at Steve’s chest. Both suppressed the urge to blush, but Stark tried to focus on the raw pink scar that had formed where an angry wound had been only a few minutes before.
“He’ll be fine. I’ve just knocked him out briefly,” Steve explained before Thor got too angry.
“How?!” Stark exclaimed.
“There will be plenty of time for answers after I cure his mind and heart,” Steve said brushing off his question.”And Thor, if you are wondering why I need to heal his heart and my anger against your father, think on how his behavior changed 96 years ago after being gone for a few years.”
Thor paled slightly and did not protest as Steve took Loki out of his and carried him into the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Stark looked at Thor curiously, sensing a story, but didn’t press for details. He was more interested in how the famed Captain America was planning to free Loki from a spell after possibly using one on him. What could Cap possibly have needed the room so cold for? Both Steve and Thor watched closely as Steve walked further into the room.
Steve placed Loki gently on the ground in the center of the room. He placed Loki’s head in his lap and put his fingers on the god’s temples once more. He slowly fell into a deep state of meditation, clearing his mind from distractions and preparing to enter a mind not in possession of itself. He tried to rid himself of the excitement of being able to use his magic for the first time in so many years by reminding himself he was using it to save the mind of his f — of Thor’s brother. He entered Loki's mind and found thick glass.
Half of Loki’s mind was cut off by glass. He could see bloody handprints and the god who’d made them, the true mind of Loki, on the other side. The other half looked to be full of windows leading to others’ minds. He could see Agent Barton in one and Dr. Selvig in another. He set about breaking each of those just enough to remove them from the frame Loki’s controlled mind had set for them. Once he removed the glass, he could see the mind of the one possessed return to its normal self. When he had freed every person held captive by the god, Steve turned to the true issue.
The pane of glass separating Loki from control of his mind was much thicker than any other pane of glass Steve had had to remove. It was also much larger. Loki’s true self looked miserably at his would-be rescuer. He looked vaguely familiar, but Loki couldn’t place him. At any rate, the man was doomed to fail. After all, he himself could not break free. What chance did an untrained mortal have? Loki watched as the man simply placed his hand on the glass. He watched it light up under his touch curiously. When cracks began spreading from his hand, Loki looked at him incredulously and backed away. The glass shattered, the shards fading away as the others had.
“I’m going to heal your heart and return again to finish healing your mind,” the stranger stated. “Please stay in a light sleep while I do so.”
Loki could only nod as the strange man dissolved.
Both Stark and Thor watched curiously and worriedly as Steve began his process of whatever he was doing. When blue slowly started to creep over Steve’s fingers and Loki’s face and Jarvis reported that the temperature was dropping, Stark’s eyebrows rose. They rose even more when he heard Thor quietly exclaim in shock next to him. Stark supposed this was another story he was going to have to ask about.
Steve ignored the blue creeping up his arms and moved his hand to Loki’s chest. He fell into his meditative state more quickly this time and entered the chambers of the god’s heart. He examined his surroundings. He was surrounded by a large, half-destroyed green tapestry with gold running through it. The threads coming off of it that controlled his emotions and connected to memories were frayed and looked rotten. After examining the weave of the tapestry, Steve slowly began repairing the destroyed sections, using his magic to provide new thread where he needed it and to ensure that the undamaged part of Loki’s heart accepted the change. He slowly wove love back into Loki’s heart and pulled out the messily grafted bits of anger, aggression, and hate. When the tapestry was whole once more and the repaired threads coming off it glimmered in the light, Steve pulled his consciousness out of Loki’s heart.
He moved back around to Loki’s head, gently picking it up and scooting himself under it. Frost shone in the air as Steve placed his hand back on Loki’s temples to re-enter his mind. Stark and Thor just watched in shock through the window on the door as the now completely blue Steve moved back to the blue Loki’s head. Jarvis’ sensors had stopped working, so they only knew the room was cold. Stark had had to step away from the door and the frigid air chilled him to the bone, mentally cursing himself for not wearing the suit. He’d retreated across the hall as far as he could while still keeping an eye on Cap and Loki.
When Steve returned to the god’s mind, he found Loki looking shaken on the floor. He put a hand on his shoulder before moving over to a large dark section of Loki’s mind. He slowly pushed it back into place, completing the puzzle of memories and lighting Loki’s mind up with color. Steve walked back over to the consciousness of Loki and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling them both out of his mind.
The first thing Loki noticed was the cold. It had formed all around him and the mysterious man who’d saved him. Loki sat up and turned around, sensing the man’s presence behind him. He gasped when he saw Jotun-blue skin and the distinctive marks on his face. His shaking hand rose to cover his mouth. The man - his son, his son - was looking back at him with hope and the slightest touch of worry and fear. Loki gave him no chance to develop those feelings any further and immediately grabbed him in a hug.
“My son,” he whispered. “My Stevie.”
Their hug only lasted a few more moments before Thor came bursting in, worried and angry that both of them were crying little crystals that plinked down to the ground. Stark looked very concerned but couldn’t come any closer without shivering violently.
“What has happened? Have you returned to us, brother?” Thor queried. Loki nodded and smiled. He went for a hug before remembering his Jotun skin would burn his brother.
Seeing the moment of self-hatred over his skin, Steve quietly reassured him. “Mom didn’t mind, and I don’t either.” He spoke a little louder to include everybody. “Let’s move to a warmer room. All four of us should be part of the coming conversation.”
He walked out of the room, closely followed by Loki and Thor. Stark was internally surprised that Cap had included him and smiled the tiniest amount while he led them to a warmer room on the floor, stopping momentarily to pick up the full shield. When he opened the door, Cap brushed past him and whispered, “Should’ve worn the suit,” so quietly Stark was not sure he’d actually heard him. By the little smirk Steve had when he sat down at the conference table, he’d definitely said it. Stark was going to get him back for that. Unfortunately, he ran out of time to contemplate payback because Thor got right down to business.
“You have some explaining to do, Rodgers. As I recall, you never explained the grudge against Odin, the curse placed on you soon after birth, or the whole Jotun thing,” Thor stated bluntly.
“Cursed after birth?” Loki asked faintly, going pale under his blue skin.
“Also, explain your 97 year change comment,” Thor demanded.
Steve looked a little overwhelmed.
Right as Thor opened his mouth to demand an answer to another question, Stark said, “Hold your hammer right there. Give him a chance to answer your questions.” Steve shot a grateful look at Stark. He felt a little tingle deep down in his chest but ignored it.
“All the questions you have asked are related,” Steve said. As Thor opened his mouth again, Steve held up a hand. “Let me speak without interrupting me and then ask your questions.” Thor closed his mouth and nodded, so Steve began again, determined to ignore any and all reactions.
“To begin with, Loki is my father. As I understand it, he met my mother on what was supposed to be a short trip to Midgard, or Earth, and stayed longer for her. Though they didn’t get married because of the legal issues surrounding Loki not existing on paper, they loved each other strongly. When my mother figured out she was pregnant, both of them celebrated. Though she was shamed for having a child out of wedlock, my mom didn’t care because she had Loki and her newborn baby, me.
“I was a healthy baby, strong and large for my age. My father triggered my magic young so we as a family could live without being shunned for my blue skin. When I was a year, three months, and two weeks old, our luck changed. Odin, my ‘grandfather’, was calling my father home. I will never forget his screams as he dissolved slowly and painfully back to the Asgardian courts. He promised to return as soon as he could.
“Unfortunately, he never got the chance. Three weeks later, the Bifrost activated near our home. My mom was so excited she ran to the front door to wait for Loki. You see, she wanted to tell him she was pregnant again with their second child. Instead, Odin walked up. He shoved her back into our apartment. He pulled my sister out of my mother’s womb, cast the babe aside like she was nothing, and planted a slow sickness inside my mother with a curse similar to mine. He healed her so he could have the satisfaction of knowing she died slowly and miserably instead of the relatively quick and painless death of bleeding out. He put the curse on my chest then, telling me ‘You won’t last the week’.
“Before he left, Odin gloated about what he’d done to my father. He told us he’d ripped the memory of us right from his mind. He described in great detail how he slowly destroyed his ability to feel love and most other positive emotions. But love never truly leaves, especially the deep love my father had for my mother. He had the strangest feeling of missing something extraordinarily important to him for the next 97 years, a hole in his chest that he couldn’t make leave. He didn’t know what he was missing, but he missed her. He also still loved his brother, you, Thor, and his mother the queen, though those emotions were strongly suppressed.
“I survived the curse just to spite him. I met the boy who would become like my brother, Bucky, in a hospital waiting room. My mother was getting sicker and sicker, and I could do nothing about it. Every time I tried to use magic to heal her, I got sicker. Eventually, she forbade me from trying, telling me she shouldn’t have to watch her son wither as he tried to save her. Bucky’s sister was sick too, which was why he was there. She died shortly after he turned sixteen, but we maintained contact and got into a fair amount of trouble.
“A few months after my 18th birthday and the death of my mother, he headed off to war, and I couldn’t follow. It drove me crazy, so I falsified my enrollment papers for the fourth time in an attempt to follow him. I guess Dr. Erskine just saw something inside me he liked, because he picked me to be his lab rat. His experiment worked; I was no longer nearly as sick as I was. I didn’t heal quite as quickly as I should have because I was still cursed. Now that I am no longer cursed, my cells regenerate at their full speed, which is how I got the pints of liquid I lost back so quickly.
“After Bucky died, I went a little crazy. I had just lost the last of my family. I went after the opposing general, Schmidt. The Tesseract killed him, but I had to put the plane in the water to save New York. Right after impact before I entered my coma stage, I saw my father on Asgard and felt the loss in his heart.
“That brings us right about to the present. Any questions?”
“How do you remember all that?” Stark asked after a moment. Thor and Loki were both too dumbfounded to say anything.
“The sickness was in my body, not my mind, and my memory has always been very good.” After another moment of silence, Steve spoke again, “Father, Loki - which one do you prefer to be called? - do you have any ideas on how to safely dispose of the acidic poisonous curse waste?”
“You may call me whichever you wish, Stevie. I have a spell that obliterates harmful waste from my spells. We can perform it now, if you wish,” Loki responded.
“Stevie?” Stark asked.
Steve blushed. “Now would be good, Father,” he said quickly.
Loki told him the words and hand motion required to dispose of the waste. After having him practice a few times on some of the disposable cups Stark had placed in the room, Loki told Steve to try on the curse liquid, reassuring Steve all the while that he was confident he could do it. Steve got through about half the liquid before he paused. Loki offered to do the rest, but Steve shook his head determinedly. He finished obliterating the rest, pausing every so often to take bites of the buttered toast that had arrived sometime during the magic lesson, probably courtesy of Stark.