The girl fainted, her head falling right at Loki's feet. Loki looked calmly down at the unconscious form near his boots. He chuckled dryly. This wasn't supposed to have happened. He had no idea how he'd ended up in Midgard. And he had no idea what would have possessed his gateways out of Asgard to sit him in someone's living room.
Slightly confused, he swung his icy gaze around the tiny apartment, taking in every detail. "This is…wrong." He murmured in an emotionless voice.
He glanced again at the girl, but she seemed to be of no significance; just another mortal. He stepped over her as if she were nonexistent. The door to the outside world was across the room of white shag carpet, and Loki glanced at it with a slight raise of his head.
It was a peculiar type of door, made of glass. There was no handle. Loki pressed his palms flat against it and pushed outward. The door didn't move. He tried forcing it in another direction: Up, right, down, left…nothing. His eyebrows rose slightly and he tilted his head ever so little in annoyance. His pale fingers swept over the smooth clear surface, feeling for an indention or handle of some sort.
"Oddly enough, it's not a window." He muttered, his tone hinting aggravation. "But it's not a door either."
He stepped back, contemplating the door silently. It was simple glass. Not a hard obstacle to remove. He raised one foot to kick it out in a shatter of clear jagged crystals, but a noise from behind made him turn. The mortal was waking up.
She groaned, putting a hand to her forehead. "This is the worst headache I've ever had." She complained, lifting her head off the floor. She pushed herself up on her elbows. Her eyes focused on the carpet, puzzled. "Why am I on the floor…?" She cut off, having swiveled her head around just enough to give her a full view of Loki standing by her door. Her eyes widened, but the shock hadn't fully registered before her head flopped dully back to the carpet.
Loki's lips compressed into a tight annoyed smile. "Mortals." He muttered with a shake of his head. He turned back to the glass door and raised his boot again, then kicked out at the smooth paneling. Instantly he felt something pulling hard at his boots, then his leg, and before he even knew it, had sucked him through and was gone again, leaving him…back next to the mortal.
His brow wrinkled. "Is she doing this?" he asked no one in particular, looking down at the mortal with scrutinizing eyes. Then he scoffed. "Can't be. Mortals are powerless." Loki turned back toward the door, not sure if he should try going through it again or if it would simply take him back here.
He needn't have bothered making a decision. The mortal was waking up again. "Brilliant." Loki gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes and stepped away from the girl.
She slowly, shakily stood up, her back to Loki. "What the…?" She mumbled drowsily, turning, and then her eyes widened again and she drew a sharp intake of breath.
Loki held out his hands, palms up. "Don't faint. It's getting old."
The girl paused, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Then she fairly exploded. "What are you doing here!? You're…Oh my gosh…you're…I didn't think...but here you are and…!"
Loki roughly set a finger on her lips. "Stop talking."
The girl nodded mutely. Loki stepped back over toward the glass door. He stopped, facing the door, his back to the girl, and glanced over his shoulder. She was watching him, her eyes rapt and attentive, and very scared.
He pressed his palms against the door once more, and again felt the same strange force pulling at them. Before he could stop himself, he'd been sucked through the door and deposited next to the mortal. Again. "Stop doing that." Loki demanded.
"Doing what?" The mortal's muffled words came from where her hands covered her mouth.
Loki sighed heavily through his nose in an expression of 'dumb mortals' and walked over to the door again, this time not bothering to touch it.
"I've heard of you." The mortal's soft whisper came from slightly behind.
Loki turned around and smiled sarcastically at her. "Could you please shut up?" He turned abruptly back to the puzzling door.
The girl took a step forward. "Do you not know how to work a sliding door?"
Loki clenched and unclenched his fists. "I knew mortals weren't bright but this is ridicules!"
"You're Loki." The girl looked awed. "But why are you here?"
"Oh, because I wanted to take tea with you and your mother." Loki mocked, still studying the door.
"No, you just…" The mortal cautiously took another step. "You just open it. Use the handle."
Loki ignored her, more intent on trying to figure out what had turned the door into a paradox portal. The girl took another step, less scared now.
"Here, I'll do it." She offered.
Loki sucked in air through his teeth but stepped aside. It would be amusing to see the mortal's reaction about getting sucked through the door. The girl stepped up beside Loki, eyeing him warily.
Then something strange happened. If Loki hadn't been mildly enjoying the fear crossed over her face, he would've missed it. Her eyes flashed, going completely white for a glimmer of a second. Loki cocked his head slightly, allowing a small flicker of puzzlement to show. The girl didn't seem to have noticed. She had grabbed a black piece of plastic near the edge of the door and pulled on it, to the left. With a suction-like sound, it slid over, leaving a small crack between wall and glass door.
"There." The girl stepped aside quickly.
Loki made his face remain blank, but inside he was slightly intrigued. He ignored the girl and pressed his palms flat against the glass again. This time there was no strange force pulling at his hands. The portal had disappeared. He stepped back, glancing briefly at the girl. He almost asked her to do it again, but she obviously didn't know of her own power. It might not even have been her causing it anyway.
He turned abruptly, catching her pale eyes. She startled slightly, a quiet gasp. There was something strange here; something strange and most likely powerful. And Loki wanted to find out what. So he folded his hands and looked straight at the girl. "Do you have anything to drink?"
The girl was sitting on her couch, rigidly still. Her eyes were as wide as they had ever been. Her fingers shook, making the grape juice in her glass ripple. She gripped her drink so hard that her knuckles turned white.
Loki enjoyed being feared. Mortals should fear him. He sat across from the girl in a cushioned armchair, one foot propped up on his knee.
The girl cleared her throat, nervously glancing up at him and then back down at the tabletop. "I'm Gwyneth." She mumbled softly.
Loki honestly didn't care about her name, but she might be important to this strange new power. "I'm Loki, you might've heard of me."
"You were in New York." Gwyneth replied, still not looking up. Her voice was quite close to shaking.
Loki took a slow sip of the red juice in his glass, licking the sweet liquid from his lips. "Intriguing." He looked down at the cup with feigned curiosity.
Gwyneth slowly set down her own drink, flinching when it clinked against the glass coffee table. She was horribly confused and slightly terrified, as was painfully evident by her expression.
"Has it always done that?" Loki gestured over his shoulder at the sliding glass door.
Gwyneth peered at it, puzzled. "What? Opened?"
Loki restrained his annoyance at the mortal's ignorance. "No. Has it always-?" His sentence was cut off by an abrupt crash of thunder, so loud and sudden it made both him and Gwyneth jump.
"That's weird. It's not even raining." Gwyneth noted under her breath, glancing out of a window.
Loki tilted his head up toward the ceiling with a frustrated roll of his eyes. "Brilliant." He muttered.
Gwyneth looked back at him, a question forming in her eyes but her lips too scared to speak it. There wouldn't have been time for an answer anyway. At that moment, a crash resounded through the apartment, shaking the whole building on its foundation. Gwyneth jumped, but Loki seemed to have been expecting it. There was a brief moment of stillness, but it didn't last long. More crashing, more bumps. And then the door was thrown open.
Whatever Thor had been expecting to see when he crashed into the room, it wasn't this. Everything looked to be completely calm, save for the terrified girl sitting on the couch. They were both just sitting there, drinking what looked to be wine.
Loki forced a mocking smile. "Good evening, brother." He greeted without turning his head.
Thor pushed his astonishment aside and strode into the center of the room. "Did you think you could escape your prison by hiding on Midgard?"
Gwyneth awkwardly stumbled up from the couch. "You…it's you. You're here too." She managed to squeak out.
"No I didn't." Loki addressed Thor's question with an ironic note in his voice. Thor's face puzzled for a moment.
"He doesn't know how to work a sliding door." Gwyneth interjected awkwardly. Loki and Thor both looked at her, confused. "He…He doesn't. Him." She explained, pointing a finger hesitantly. "He couldn't open it." She bit her lip, embarrassed. "Sorry…Sorry, go on." She sat back down slowly.
Thor turned his attention back to his brother. "You are coming back to your prison." He stepped forward, snapping a pair of metal bands on Loki's wrists that immediately tightened into hand cuffs. Loki sighed heavily, but stood up from the chair. It seemed he might come along peacefully.
He looked once again at Gwyneth. "I'd stand back if I were you. Thor's a bit of a show off with these sorts of things."
Gwyneth nodded but didn't move from her spot on the couch. Thor stepped to the center of the living room, dragging Loki roughly along with him, and pointed his hammer at the roof of Gwyneth's apartment.
"This is going to ruin her ceiling, you know." Loki said dryly with an empty chuckle.
Thor took no notice of the remark. In seconds, a white beam of light cut into the room, shattering through the plaster of the roof, and enveloping the two Asgardians.
Gwyneth looked at the hole in her ceiling with disgust. She stood up and in two quick strides was beside the newly opened portal. "Hey, wait a second!" She shouted angrily above the crackling of wood. Then, in less time than it takes to blink, the flash of light disappeared, taking Thor and Loki with it. Gwyneth's eyes closed once, and in a split second, she was gone too.
"You can't-!" Gwyneth's sentence cut off abruptly when she took in her surroundings. Gold, intricate gears stretching huge and high above her head, a cold floor under her bare feet, and a black sky of stars through a glass domed ceiling.
Thor regarded Gwyneth's presence with surprise. Loki laughed mockingly. "Oh dear, it seems we have a breach in security."
"Welcome to Asgard?" A deep voice said questioningly. Gwyneth whirled around. Golden steps led up to a golden platform, on which a dark skinned man clad in golden armor and a golden horned helmet stood. He looked at Thor. "Another one?"
No one had time to explain anything. Gwyneth blinked in surprise, and all three of them disappeared again. The feeling of being teleported was nothing new to Loki and Thor, but Gwyneth felt as if she were being stretched out, flipped upside down, squished together again, and shot out of a canon. When she had regained her wits and could finally open her eyes, she found herself…back in her living room, standing under a gaping hole in the roof, next to Loki and Thor.
"And now," Loki gestured around the room with a sweep of his hand, "We come to my problem."
So how did you like the first chapter? Yeah, I know it's slow but I swear it gets faster and the angsty stuff comes in. Just bear with me for now, and try not to make rash assumptions, because it's not what it seems right now. please review!