I can't believe I'm really here. I have my phone, a marker and my copy of The Avengers. I have been waiting here for hours.
Tom Hiddleston is coming here. He is going to walk along the ground not more than a metre from where I am standing. Even the thought of it is making me want to start screaming.
Mum thinks I am at school, but I have a class off this morning, and even if I didn't, there is no way I am ever going to miss this. I took the early bus in to 'school' but got off at the mall instead. I was one of the first few people there, some people even camped out overnight to get the best spots, but mum would never let me do that. Soon it starts to get busy. More and more people are piling in for a chance to see Tom, and I am right at the front.
Then, without warning, screams, more than three hundred people, crowded as tightly together as it is possible to be, making as much noise as they can, all at once. Then I see him. Even more perfect than all the pictures on tumblr could ever show. He makes his way down the carpet through the crowd slowly, stopping to sign everything, and taking as many selfies as he can.
There are some people across the walkway from me who are dressed up, some as Loki, some as the Avengers. He stops near them and makes fighting poses with the Avengers, smiling his perfect smile. Then he turns around and looks straight at me. I almost pass out right there, but I am held up by the people around me.
He steps across the gap between us with his incredibly long legs and takes the pen and my copy of The Avengers from my hands, he scribbles his signature and then something shorter. He turns around and takes my phone, leaning back into the crowd. I see the pictures being saved to the phone, but I barely even notice, I can barely even think. He is so close to me, he held my pen, he held my phone!
Tom hands my phone back with a smile and moves on, I pocket my phone and slip the pen and my copy of The Avengers back into my school bag. Then I remember that he wrote something else on the DVD. I pull it back out and study it closely. Then I realise what it says. He signed my DVD as Loki.
By now the yelling and cheers are a little less, nobody can keep up that level of noise for very long. He moves on down the line and I spot someone, she is wearing a dark green dress with gold highlights, It might have been a Fem!Loki cosplay, except that she has the scepter and the helmet, but she isn't wearing them. Tom walks over, probably expecting to sign them and move on, but I sense that something else is going on. I am proven right moments later when he reaches her. She passes Tom the helm and scepter and a note. Tom steps back and opens the note. Then he smiles. He puts on the helm and straightens up a little. A hush falls over the crowd, the air is heavy with expectation, nobody knows what to expect, but everyone is expecting it. The crowd where he has passed has thinned out a little, I can move again but I am as close to the barrier as I can get, waiting with everyone else. Then a deep, commanding voice rings out. One word, the word most of us have dreamed of hearing from those lips.
"Kneel."
No need for him to yell, no need for anything more than a simple spoken word and everyone there falls to their knees without a word, too stunned even to scream. Phones come out everywhere though. This is going to be on tumblr in 15 minutes.
A section of the crowd parts and I realise dimly that this was probably all organised beforehand, but I don't really process that thought as I shuffle around to see where the new pathway leads. Some security guards are scurrying around moving some temporary walls out of the way to reveal a replica of the throne of Asgard.
"Well, that is most certainly the reaction I was hoping for. I presume anything I say will reach the eyes and ears of S.H.I.E.L.D within the day?"
The girl who gave him the helm and scepter replies. Her voice is little more than a whisper and yet everyone hears her response. "Only if you wish it to, my king. We are yours to command."
"So you are those who call themselves my army. A good start certainly, and clearly willing to serve, but you lack the discipline I would expect of an army."
He stands up from his throne and paces on the dias, contemplating his next move.
"One of you, I need your camera phone. I wish to send a message to S.H.I.E.L.D."
Every phone in the room is offered. He steps down from the throne and selects a phone seemingly at random from the crowd. He calls its owner to rise and begin recording a speech for all of Midgard to hear.
"I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."
Some of the crowd have found their voices, and begin to cheer and scream. Loki simply looks at the offending individuals and they quiet down almost instantly.
"This is a message for all of Midgard, and for S.H.I.E.L.D in particular. By now I am sure you all know of my reason for being here. I wish to claim the throne that is my birthright, and if I cannot have Asgard then I will have Midgard."
He resumes pacing and the woman holding the phone turns slightly, keeping the camera trained on him.
"This time my army serves me by choice, and this time you cannot kill them without guilt. Show them my army." He directs the camerawoman and she spins around slowly to capture all of our kneeling forms before settling once more on Loki.
"Humans, mostly female and mostly young. Unless I have misjudged your culture, you will hesitate to attack an army of women and children. That will be your downfall."
"To all of my loyal followers in this pitiful realm: you will be welcomed into my ranks if you come with honest intentions, but if you seek to tell S.H.I.E.L.D my secrets I will know, and it will not end well for you. I fully intend to claim this realm as my own and opposition will not be tolerated."
He sits down once more on the throne and in the moment of silence that follows as he considers what he will say next my mind clears just enough to know that this was set up beforehand, but not enough to care or act on that knowledge.
I am unable to think of anything else and my eyes are glued to Loki, even though he is still wearing mortal clothes I can't think of him as Tom, as he gazes out over the crowd.
The rest of his speech to the camera passes in a blur, something to sceptics about how S.H.I.E.L.D is covering it all up and found actors who looked like the Avengers to make movies and hide the truth. Something else caught on three hundred phones but directed to only one.
I snap back and remember that I need to pay attention to the rightful king of Midgard if I want to have any chance at holding some form of office in his version of this realm.
"Where are your Avengers now?" He says in a low tone that is almost as menacing as the facts he is presenting.
"By the time they can be gathered I will have moved on, you will never find me unless I wish you to, and when I do wait for you, you will lose, and all of mankind will kneel."
He stands up again and this time walks down back to the main path. He removes the helm and scepter and returns then to the fan who presented them to him. Seeing that, everyone stands back up and the cheering resumes, far louder than it was before. Tom returns to his usual happy self and continues to sign anything people can get a hold of. He walks on, eventually clearing the crowds and is rushed into the waiting car by security.
As everyone turns away, about to return to their everyday lives, knowing that it was all organised beforehand, I see the briefest flash of green light as the window rolls up on his car.
It could be nothing, a camera flash, a phone unlocking. But it could be so much more.
