Frostcaptain: Defrosted

By Carine Rommes.

It all started – like so many stupid, dangerous or extremely annoying things – with one of Tony’s brilliant ideas.

“Frostcaptain.” He’d announced to the team at dinnertime, grinning like a maniac and with that certain gleam in his eyes that meant that mischief wasn’t all too far away.

It had been four months since the Avengers had taken down Loki and the Chitauri; three months and 25 days since they had taken residence at Stark Tower, accompanied by their very own God of Mischief. Odin had ruled that a harsh, physical punishment would do his adoptive son no good, claiming that he needed someone to help him back onto the path of righteousness. And he had chosen the Avengers for that task. He had bound Loki’s powers as good as he could, but since he was a Jotun and not an Aesir, the Allfather had no complete control over him as he had over Thor. Therefore the Liesmith was still able to perform small magic, namely incorporeal illusions and shape shifting. He was, however, forbidden from assuming the form of any of the Avengers, or else he would have to spend the next couple of decades in Asgard’s darkest prison cell. So Loki had grudgingly moved in with them. Despite their well-founded fears, it hadn’t been too bad so far; after all, the God was under constant supervision by Jarvis and near constant supervision by his brother and was not allowed to leave the apartment floor of Stark Tower.

Loki had taken to playing small pranks on them, the kind that made everyone apart from the victim giggle and wouldn’t lead to him being punished by the Allfather. Or the Avengers, for that matter. As of late, Steve had become his favourite victim. When he’d brought the issue up at the weekly team meeting, Tony had only shrugged and claimed that this was only natural. After all, Thor was perfectly capable of kicking Loki’s ass, Tony would retaliate and Clint and Tasha were only waiting for an excuse to make him pay for his past “transgressions”. And as for Bruce, Loki preferred not to be in the same room with him if at all possible.

“Face it, Capsicle, you’re the logical choice for our prankster. You’re just too nice to do something against him as long as he doesn’t actually hurt you.” And Steve had to concede that he would indeed not retaliate. And Loki had apparently taken it as a challenge to try and figure out at what point the Captain would carve in.

At the present dinner, Captain America, war hero and living embodiment of America, was therefore sporting a slight pinkish (formerly impeccably white) shirt and platinum blond hair. Before Tony had burst into the room with a mischievous grin that rivalled Loki’s and an outburst of “Frostcaptain”, Steve had been eyeing the jar of marmalade in front of him with mistrust since he was pretty sure that Loki had figured out that he was the only one eating this particular brand.

“Come again?” Clint asked through a mouthful of pancakes, eyebrow raised at Tony.

“Frostcaptain.” Tony repeated matter-of-factly. “I totally ship it.” – “Whereto?” Thor asked confused. The inventor rolled his eyes at him. “I know that I will regret asking this, but what the hell is Frostcaptain?” Natasha asked. “I’m glad you asked, audience participation is always appreciated.” Tony grinned. “You do realise that we’ve gained quite a couple of fans since our little...” he fixated on Loki, who rolled his eyes and then proceeded to steal Cap’s last pancake. “..adventure four months ago?” Everyone nodded, apart from Loki, who’d managed to plant the stolen pancake on Thor’s plate. “Good. Well, they seem to have taken to writing ‘fanfiction’ on the internet about us. I have selflessly taken it upon myself to read my way through some of them and damn, I thought I had a dirty mind. I mean, some of those stories…” – “Does this actually lead somewhere?” Rogers asked while trying to figure out where his food had gone to. He was pretty sure that he’d had one pancake left. “Patience, young padawan.” Tony’s grin widened even further. “Now, those fans seem to like pairing us up and giving us cute pairing names. Most of those are either ridiculous or downright disturbing – I’ll just mention Thorki..” Loki’s eyes widened comically and he froze in the middle of an attempted transfer of bacon from Clint’s plate to Steve’s. Clint snatched the bacon back without even looking at the god. Thor had apparently not gotten the reference and was munching happily on the pancake that had unexpectedly appeared on his plate. Tony continued: “But there is one pairing that I really like and that is Frostcaptain. Loki and Cap. I ship it and it needs to happen.” There was silence for a couple of seconds, before everyone at the table started to talk at the same time: “..lost your mind” – “disgusting” – “I am going to be sick” – “…joking, right?” – “death wish, Stark?”

Tony raised his hands in an appeasing manner “Yeah, I know what it sounds like. Hell, that was my first thought, too. But I have been reflecting on this, and I ship it now. Wanna know why?” He ignored Loki’s “Not really” and proceeded: “Apart from Frostcaptain here – Yeah, that’s a thing now, get used to it – all of us are in some kind of relationship. I have Pepper, Thor has Jane, Bruce has Betty and Clint and Tasha have each other, even though they pretend that they don’t. And I am thinking that both Capsicle and Rudolph need a significant other to give them a change of ideas. And get them away from my tech. Seriously guys, how many machines can two people destroy?” Steve had the decency to blush while Loki’s grin made it clear that his regular destruction of Star Tech was not as accidental as Steve’s. “So, you see? Two birds, one stone. Easy, right? Plus, they might be able to influence each other positively. Cap could need a bit of fun and Lokster here needs to develop a conscience.”

Thor had proceeded to declare this “a truly marvellous idea”, while Clint’s grin suggested that he considered this an opportunity for payback. Loki had just rolled his eyes and proceeded to drink Stark’s coffee. Steve, on the other hand, had turned beetroot red and quickly retired to his room to escape this conversation.

One week passed before the matter was brought up again. Cap walked into the living room to find Stark, Clint, Tasha and Loki, the former donning their coats and the latter sprawled out on the couch, a stack of paper in his hands. Stark turned to him. “Ah, there you are! Wonderful, I was just about to have Jarvis call you. We’re going out.” He pointed to Clint, Tasha and himself. “Thor’s with Jane and Bruce with Betty. You’re on Loki-sitting duty/date. We’ll be back somewhere around tomorrow and I ordered dinner for two to be brought up here, so you two lovebirds can get to know each other properly without having us around constantly.” He winked at Cap and ignored the pillow that Loki had thrown at him without looking up from his papers. Before Cap could reply, the trio walked out, with a final “Bye, do not behave!” Then the door closed behind them and he was alone. With Loki.

Cap slowly turned around and looked over to the god, who still hadn’t looked up from his papers. He was completely at a loss as to what he was supposed to do now. He knew he couldn’t just walk away from the Trickster; after all it was his duty to make sure that he would not live up to his name and cause trouble. But on the other hand, he felt terrible uncomfortable after Stark’s insinuations.

“Are you going to stare at me all evening, Captain? Because frankly, I find that rather… annoying.” Loki’s voice shook him from his stream of thoughts and he looked at the dark-haired Trickster, only to find two intense green eyes staring back at him. Cap broke the eye contact almost immediately and blushed slightly, unable to shake off Stark’s remarks. “Ts. You are blushing like a maiden on her wedding night. How queer.” Steve almost could hear him rolling his eyes. “Do sit down. And stop that ridiculous behaviour, it suits you ill.” Loki motioned to the other end of the couch. His voice was that of someone who had grown up in a royal palace as a prince and was used to command. Steve Rogers on the other hand was a soldier and used to obey. So he sat down, frowning slightly. Loki laughed “So easy to obey, Captain? This evening might be fun after all…” When Steve turned bright red again, he just shook his head and concentrated on the paper in his hand, occasionally shaking his head and writing something down.

Steve took up a newspaper and tried to read it, even though he had already read it thoroughly during breakfast. After half an hour he gave up and cautiously looked over to the god again, who was still reading the paper and annotating it. “What are you doing, exactly?” Loki scribbled another note down. “Devising a new plan to defeat your merry band of misfits, conquer Midgard and take revenge upon Asgard.” He looked over to see Cap tense and shook his head sadly. “You are ever so naïve. Do relax.” He held the paper up to him “I am merely helping Thor. His beloved Jane has asked him for his opinion on her research and I am therefore trying to conceive a Thor friendly version of a rather complex scientific research on interstellar travel. It will involve no big words and possibly a comic.” He looked over to Rogers “Hm… perhaps I could try it out on you later on…”, he muttered. Cap felt rather sheepish for the 2 seconds he had believed the tale of nefarious plans. “So.. that’s rather nice… to help your brother, I mean…” Loki sighed and put the paper down. “Do not presume that I am doing this for love of my brother. Do not take me for a fool. Thor promised me more freedom of movement in exchange for this.”

Two hours later, Loki finally put the paper down and started massaging his throbbing temple. Dumbing down the research paper to Thor’s level almost caused him physical pain, even though the little mortal’s research was obviously far from complete. It showed promise.

He looked over to Captain America, who was trying to solve crosswords. Judging from the frown on his brow, he was having trouble. Loki noted how the frown increased as the man became aware that he was being watched. His eyes darted over to Loki and then immediately back to the crosswords. Apparently Stark’s taunts had affected him deeply. The soldier seemed to adhere to a rigid moral code, coming from an age where homosexuality was frowned upon. Loki decided that there was fun to be had. And he desperately needed fun right now. He found Stark’s idea idiotic; while he was no stranger to love between men, he was not at all attracted to the captain. They had no common ground and he dreaded to even think what bedding the man might be like. It would probably be more rewarding to get one of those blow-up dolls he’d seen in a catalogue that Stark hid underneath his bed. But there was definitely fun to be had here, though not the fun that the Man of Iron had had in mind for them.

Steve had noticed that Loki had put his papers away and was staring at him, which made him incredibly uncomfortable. He was aware that times had changed and that a relationship between people of the same sex was no longer as frowned upon as during his time, but the very notion made him cringe slightly. Still, he was aware that the god was probably only trying to wind him up, so he forced himself to look over to his companion. He was about to ask him what he was up to, when the lean man leaned slightly towards him and purred “So… now that I have finished this rather boring task, what shall we do?” He tilted his head slightly to one side, exposing the skin on his neck. Cap felt another blush creeping up his skin. “Well… we could… you could… read, I guess…” Loki shook his head, closing his eyes slightly, a light smile on his face. “I just spend the better part of this evening reading, Captain. I crave… another form of entertainment.” He moved slightly closer, which made Steve cringe internally. However, he had been raised to always be polite and jumping up from the couch now would definitely not be polite. “Well… Eh… what… do you have something in mind? A movie maybe?” – “Ts, I have no patience for that kind of entertainment. Truly, it surprises me that you Midgardians have any brain cells left. No, I am talking of another kind of entertainment altogether.” – “Um, I’m not sure that we have any common ground when it comes to our notions of entertainment, I…I... mean, we have nothing in common, apparently, and, eh…” Loki rolled his eyes, still smiling “You sweet little fool. I was talking about bedding you, obviously.”

Steve just stared at him a moment, before realising what he had just heard. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, not knowing what to say or do. He realised that walking away might be the best option now, anything really to get away from Loki, who’d moved even closer. He was just about to jump up, when the god grabbed him by the arm and held him firmly in place. He looked at him with sad eyes. “You would run from me? Am I not to your liking? Oh… I understand. It bothers you that we are of the same sex.”

And then, before the shell-shocked Captain, Loki’s body seemed to melt away in a golden glow. Where the god had sat was now a woman with Loki’s hair and eyes and an opulent bust. She was wearing a tight (and rather short and revealing) green dress. “Better? Does this please you?” she purred with a velvety voice. Steve’s body went on automatic and he’d jumped up and ran across the living room before he’d even realised it.

As he heard the clicking on Cap’s door lock, Loki shifted back into his male form and started laughing.

When Tony returned the next morning, he was informed that Loki was sleeping peacefully in his bedroom and Cap was still locked in in his room. He found a little Captain America action figure hanging from the ceiling, a puddle of water underneath it, which indicated that the figure had previously been covered in ice. Someone (probably a certain God of Mischief) had amused himself to leave a message on the floor, written in various kinds of sauces: FROSTCAPTAIN: DEFROSTED.  P.S.: JARVIS HAS RECORDED THE EVENING. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Tony giggled slightly as he went over to his bar and poured himself a drink. No matter how many downsides it had that the Trickster was living with them, sometimes it was all totally worth it.

END 

And, just to keep the terrifying Disney lawyers away, we should be clear that the foregoing is a respectfully intended piece of fan-fiction and we make no claim of any sorts to the characters therein.