The phone starts ringing; I sigh and get up from reading today's news news. So much for an afternoon alone. I glance up at the clock, wow eleven pm already? Who even calls this late anyway? I pick up the phone and hear the familiar deep voice of Mr. Fury.
"Captain America?" He asks.
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" You sigh again, rubbing your eyes, already getting tired.
"Sorry Steve." He says, not sounding very sincere. "But we've got a Loki sighting and you're the closest Avenger to the area." This suddenly grabs my attention and I feel the tiredness and annoyance slip away immediately.
"Where is he?" I ask.
"Well, we don't know if he's there for sure, but he's in a bar. I think you know which one, it's about a block from you." He says, you certainly do know which bar. You go there every Saturday, its Friday today so you guess its going to be pretty crowded. Good idea for a supervillain you think, if you don't want to be noticed that is.
"I'll be right there." I say, putting the telephone down and running to put tidier clothes on, I decide not to wear the costume in case I attract too much attention, I'm really not in the mood for that. To be honest I'm never really in the mood for that. I take the shield anyway but put a small towel over it, I quickly run out the front door and put the covered shield in the back of my motorcycle. I jump on and put a helmet on, pulling my hand forward on the accelerator and pushing the brake up simultaneously. I speed towards my destination a few blocks away and get there pretty quickly. A man outside the bar looks a little nervous and a few people there nod at your presence, knowing who you are even without the elaborate getup. I walk over to the man.
"Is everything alright?" I ask him.
The man glances around quickly, as if someone was watching him, he then reverts his gaze onto me. "I'm the one who called…" He says, sounding a little slurred, oh boy. "I. I needed to tell you that. Um, oh yeah there's a super villain in there!" He shouts, gaining a few stares for a moment.
"Are you sure about that or are you just drunk?" I ask, do SHIELD answer every call they get?
"No! I know it's him! I saw him on the news! He's not wearing the weird costume though. He beat me in a drinking competition and that's why I'm unconscious now." He says surely.
"Right… Can you point him out to me?" I ask, the guy's either very drunk or very crazy. Probably both. But it's worth checking it out anyway.
"He's right over there!" He points, the finger aiming at a man in rather formal attire even though the bar is the opposite of prim. I almost don't recognize him but his hairstyle hasn't changed one bit, can gods even change that? Who knows.
He looks pretty dormant for a killing machine, I approach him slowly and the hustle-bustle of the place seems to shroud me effectively, if I could just catch him off guard…-
"Oh look who it is." He says without even looking at me, how did he know? "The first avenger." He hisses sarcastically. "Yes cuff me and throw away the keys, oh how I deserve that." He pauses for a moment to take a drink, god knows how many he's already had but it looks like the alcohol has made him a lot less wary of what he's saying.
"Yes well... SHIELD has given me orders to-"
"Oh of course, SHIELD this and SHIELD that, I'm really not surprised that a shield is your weapon of choice with all the instructions you take from them." Rude. He's not causing any harm yet though, so I decide to take a seat next to him and listen to his babbling in case anything of importance comes up. He's already finished his last drink and slams the glass on the table, causing me to jump back a little, I hold my hand near my shield just in case I need to use it but he looks more tired than anything.
"I don't care who I am, I have money and I need a drink right now!" He shouts at the bartender. The man scrambles with the glasses and bottles and ends up breaking a few in the process, probably knowing who the god was. He glances at me for a moment, he raises an eyebrow but I gesture to him for another drink. For both me and Loki. The bartender calms down and pours the drinks at a more reasonable rate and I tap Loki's shoulder. This is probably a bad idea but he can't be all bad for Thor to still love him like he does.
He faces me with viridian eyes and a livid expression but doesn't attack. Thank god. "What are you still doing here?" He asks, his voice getting more slurred by the sentence.
I pause for a moment to find the right words and stare at him as poker-faced as I can manage. "Well... I haven't called SHIELD yet, and I'm curious. Is there any reason why you're always so angry? Thor never really told us." Well here goes nothing.
He stops looking so furious and looks glad for a moment. "Well I..." He seems at a loss of words. Even in his drunken state. "Well I think it is best I start from the beginning of it all. But you probably won't stay around long enough anyway." He says, looking dismayed at what hasn't even come yet. He orders another drink, one for me too.
I did end up staying around long enough to hear it all. I'd occasionally heard fragments of it from Thor when he boasted, which was often, but to hear it from another point of view was something else. "Wow." An understatement, but all I could manage.
"Indeed." He said, looking around the bar, a lot less crowded than earlier. I could feel a few glares from people around the room on me, and turning to look a few people were glancing at Loki at a more than normal rate too. He turns to me for a moment, he's somehow a lot more sober than when I arrived and I figure it must have been distress rather than drunkenness. He stares at me for a while, now visibly filled with appreciation, before saying anything else. "Thank you." He says, stuttering slightly as if it were something difficult to say, I return his thanks with a smile and a pat on his back.
"I'm always happy to help." I say, first meaning it in general but finding myself meaning it personally, I beam at him again and he smirks wearily. He stands up and I notice a few people in the place flinch at this, especially the bartender, but Loki manages to shrug it off. His strange coat somehow appears from thin air and he fastens a few buckles, he waves at me and walks out into the streets. It's a mystery to me how he's going to blend in but I set aside the thought. I turn back around and I see the bartender staring at me.
"What?" I ask rather vaguely, I then remember exactly what I've done and the bartender raises an eyebrow.
"You ok Steve?" He asks, rather concerned.
"I think I just made a friend..." I say blankly. I take my shield and decide it's high time I went home.