Loki struggled to his feet, it took a little while for him to gain conscious of where he was, and then he remembered, Stark Tower, in the middle of the battle in New York. Everything had been going according to his plan until his unworthy brother and his pathetic little mortal friends had shown up. As he made it to where the large glass window had once been, now replaced only by a gaping hole in the building, Loki realised that all hope was lost. His army was destroyed and the Tesseract was no longer in his possession. They'd be coming for him soon; Loki knew he had only one option. Run.
Using his magic Loki could vanish and reappear in a completely different location. However after the fight with that stupid green hulk creature, which Loki did agree hadn't gone too well, the young Asgardian found himself greatly weakened, most of his journey would have to be accomplished on foot.
California was his destination; it was the furthest away he could be from New York, a little obvious perhaps, but Loki was confident. California was a big and busy place, and with his own genius mind Loki believed he could smuggle in with the crowds. So long as he lay low and waited for his opportunity, it would always come to him, besides theses mortals were usually preoccupied killing each other and their own world, if he could keep time on his side no doubt he would rule this world, he was the only man who could ever accomplish such a task.
It was fairly late one night when Loki reached the city of San Francisco, California. The air was thick and humid. Struggling through the city, Loki realised his strength was deserting him, had barely slept in days, nor had he eaten anything. Most places were closed up for the night, but along one street there was a little American Diner with its lights on inside, empty of consumers but open none the less. Loki entered and dropped down into a booth without another glance.
"Oh?" The sound of a young woman's surprised voice came.
Loki opened his eyes.
The speaker was a typical California girl, all blonde curls, supermodel figure, perfect tan, and (if she had been smiling) beaming smile.
"Hey, you get going, Jessie, don't you worry about it." Another young woman suddenly appeared through one of the two doors either side of the back wall behind the counter. Loki gazed at this woman; she was unlike the first woman, apparently named Jessie. This women was also beautiful perhaps even more so, but it wasn't like the sunny, happy beauty type of Jessie, that Loki looked upon in distaste and disgust. No, this woman belonged to a kind of dark, mysterious and unnatural beauty. Her eyes were so dark that they could almost be called black; they were at least the darkest shade of brown to have ever existed, in any of the nine realms. Her skin was caramel coloured, though not deep enough to be called brown, and she had dark smooth, glossy hair. "I'll serve him." She smiled at her new costumer.
And Loki quickly pulled his gaze away from her deep eyes.
"Oh, thanks, Dira" responded Jessie pulling on a jacket and grabbing her bag.
"It's no problem" Smiled the other woman, now understood to be named Dira, as she followed Jessie down the hall to where Loki sat in the first booth. "Have a good time with Andy." Dira called as Jessie reached the door.
"Yeah, if he aren't tired of waiting for me yet" Jessie laughed.
A smile spread across Dira's face as her fellow waitress left the cafe.
Loki watched her smiling and it suddenly came to him, how much he would like to see this woman kneeling before him, crying and begging him to take her life in order to spare her from the pain and misery Loki would poor into her life.
As the door closed Dira turned to Loki, glancing at his pale face, stricken with tiredness and illness, she sat down opposite him. "Has it been a long night, huh?"
Loki looked at her in astonishment; she dared speak to him as if he were her mere equal. And that put his mind straight; this pitiful mortal did not deserve even Midgard. This woman would be dead before the sun next rose.