A/N: I'm so, so sorry for this. There will be angst. There will be feels. There will be references to many types of abuse and horrendous supression procedures. I'm not entirely sure where this came from. Please, if you decide to read, do so with caution. I'm sorry – I'll try to make it up to you...somehow.

Strolling down the corridor, Tony searched in his pocket for his cell phone, fingers brushing instead a slip of paper. An envelope. Plain and white. Inside, a hand-written letter in florid and decorative script, smelling faintly of Omega hormones.

Dearest Anthony,

If you are reading this it means I have succeeded in my aim to place this message secretly in your trouser pocket, and that you wisely took my advice to seek a refreshing beverage after our last coupling.

Do forgive my abruptness, but I will cut to the quick. No doubt, you have noticed my... difficulties... in knotting. You could hardly fail to do so, particularly after you brought me painkillers this morning to dull the agony caused by the awkward climax of our joining. In not yet using this to your advantage, or abusing my weakness, and actually attempting to ease my discomfort, you have earnt the right to an explanation.

Forgive me for distancing myself from the following narrative through the use of the third person, and for choosing the form of a letter instead of speaking with you. I have never told this tale to another soul, and find it difficult to relate, even to you:

As the younger prince of Asgard, Loki Odinson thought he would grow to be a Beta – he thought he was of the blood of the Asgardian royals, who had never in their history spawned an Omega. Asgardian society prizes Alphas above all; Betas are acceptable; Omegas are rarely more than brothel-workers or war prizes. Loki had just reached maturity when my - his - first heat hit. He was Jotun, though he did not know this then. He did not know anything of Omega heats – had learnt what little he knew of Omegas from his brother Thor, who frequented the taverns and bawdy-houses, and rarely had a good word for Asgard's Omega whores. All the young Loki Odinson knew when his heat descended upon him late one night was that he was in the worst pain he had ever felt – and he was... wet, and in a state of arousal, and... frightened. He did not know what was happening to me - him.

Things only became more overwhelming when the young man's heat called out to the royal Alphas – his supposed father, Odin, and his brother, Thor. Loki had never seen father - Odin - so angry, so filled with rage. Loki didn't understand – couldn't understand. Thor was yelling something...I still can't remember what it was...and Odin was screaming back at him about filth and shame and dishonour and Omegas, and Loki's body was aching shamefully, and making him think awful, unspeakable, things about the Alphas. About his family.

The young Loki, to shelter him from the shame of his true nature, was hidden in the dungeon. His heat was sated by Odin, roughly, violently. In the dungeon – locked away from the other prisoners and even the jailers for fear they should identify the fragrant Omega in their charge – he was subjected to Odin's anger – something he could not possibly understand – and Odin's lust, something which he was ill-equipped to deal with.

Thor later informed me - him - that his heat had lasted a full fourteen days, but Loki did not know when day turned to night or night to day. There were only endless stretching hours of the dark and the damp, broken only by the ache of readiness and Odin entering his body again and again, despite my - his - pleas for mercy. Loki's body readily accepted the knot and all of the substances he needed – there was no discomfort then, only the release that knotting brought, and the shame of being left, naked and dirty, afterwards.

Finally, there came a time when Loki's mind was a little clearer, his body a little stronger and no longer yearning to be filled. When Odin arrived once more, he threw Loki's clothes at him and told him to dress quickly. Loki thought he was being freed when Odin beckoned for him to follow the Alpha down the narrow corridors beneath the palace. Loki did not realise he was simply changing one kind of imprisonment for another.

You cannot know, my dearest Anthony, what it is like to have part of who you are removed like scar tissue – to be forever trying to think with a part of your soul that simply is not there. I think perhaps I went a little mad; slowly, like falling into a dream.

Three sorcerers who had been sworn to secrecy on pain of death did the deed. The supressing had two parts – the first was to bind my nature magically, to lock part of myself - himself - away, inaccessible, and to dampen his hormones.

The second part was physical – the sorcerers drugged the young prince and... stitched... The sorcerers drugged the prince so that he was aware but sedated – paralysed, would be a better word. And then they stitched his entrance partially closed. They took... After stitching him, they took a hot iron from the fire and fused the parts that they had sewn, using magic to aid the procedure.

Eventually the stitches were removed...but what had been done by the iron remained. This was done to make knotting intentionally painful, in case the hormone suppression should slip without one of the sorcerers available to re-bind me - him. Then he would purposefully seek them out to re-bind him, and to trick his body into thinking that it had been given the chemicals it needed, when in reality they could only give him a tiny portion of the Alpha hormones required via synthetic means – usually a potion delivered every month or so to his lodgings. It shows how little they understood what they had done – that they would think he would ever purposefully re-bind that part of his soul.

My Dearest Anthony, this was when I began to change. Dropped back into the life I had before, I was expected to be quiet and not tell anyone of my ordeals. Every so often, the supression would begin to slip, and I would feel a little more...lucid, a little more like myself, though never as I had been before: how could I be? Part of me had been stolen, locked away by men who cared more for their bigotted pride than for my health or happiness. But when the supression began to slip, somehow Odin always found out eventually, and then, no matter how greatly I fought – and the number of sorcerers required increased with every repetition of the ritual – I was overpowered, and re-bound.

I do not expect forgiveness Anthony – for then I would have to forgive myself. Though I try not to blame Thor – ignorance with regards to Odin has ever been one of his most dominant traits – part of me does. And it is this, more than anything, that I cannot forgive myself for.

I pray that you do not pity or detest me. Even more, I hope that you believe me.

Yours, my Alpha,

Loki

When Steve stopped in the hallway and asked Tony what was wrong, the Alpha simply handed him a tear-stained piece of paper.

A/N: I'm sorrrrryyyyyyyy!