Chapter 1: Down the Path


No! This cannot be! I can't stay silent my entire life! My beautiful cunning voice is my chaos in life, my destroyer of others pleasure and happiness... without it, what am I? No better than one of those wretched humans!

Now, let me explain first before you get lost in confusion…It started like this…

Steve Rogers, also known as the Captain America, was on his most recent assignment: Track down and capture the most infamous criminal the world has ever come to experience, Loki Laufeyson: the God of Chaos and Mischief (according to Norse mythology). Steve was really close, he could feel it in his bones that Loki was incredibly close and within his reach, all he had to do was find him and make sure to capture him, alive, and not too horribly harmed. Not that Steve Rogers was a man to want to physically harm someone on purpose. Back in the war fighting Nazi's was different. Those men would kill him, it was a dog eat dog world back then. Not to say that Loki would kill Steve even if he possibly could. From the understanding that Steve had gained, Loki liked to play with his more like victims. In Germany, sure he had killed over 80 people in a manner of days... but Rogers had strict orders. As much as Fury wanted Loki dead, Thor didn't. Apparently the God of Thunders' word ranked higher than the one and only director of the Avengers initiative.

Captain America was in hiding at the moment, as Steve Rogers, he was trying his best to avoid confrontation and being noticed too much in the busy streets of New York. Some times it was easier than others, most people only saw him in the star spangled uniform and mask. The only people Steve was aware knew his face was the Avengers team of course, agents here and there whom were sworn to secrecy, and.. that girl. The one he had saved in the battle of New York, it was that girl who worked at the cafe and was on the news in the interviews after the battle was over. Steve couldn't forget how grateful her face was. Eyes of hope and utter gratitude towards Steve for saving her life. He never even got her name.

Back to the mission at hand, Steve scanned the crowds looking for the familiar raven black hair that was always sleek and pushed back into a spiked, recognizable fashion. Steve looked back and forth trying to spot anyone that matched his description.. people who were too short were out of the question. Steve actually was looking over them and at the taller people around. Loki's height was an easy one to spot, he was six foot two inches and Steve stood at six foot one. Best case scenario, Steve would catch Loki by glancing and meeting his green evil eyes that were always mocking whomever they saw.

Steve let out a sigh and glanced at the ground before looking back just for a second and seeing.. just what he was looking for. Loki, top of the list on SHIELD's most wanted... and he was looking right this way! Steve bent his knees down and ducked into the crowd, he was trying to blend in so that Loki didn't spot him. Which would have seemed impossible for someone his size in both height and the fact that all the shirts he seemed to have were impossibly tight and made his muscles bulged ridiculously like Thor's. He was large, bulky, and probably looked silly to the people around him as he tried to hide.

Loki didn't seem to have noticed Steve as he continued to walk away from where the super soldier was hiding. Steve stood back up fully and started to follow Loki. He was walking quickly trying to keep up in the crowd as Loki himself was weaving in and out fluidly like nothing was in his way. It was like a dance, the both of them weaving in and out to an unheard beat that kept them moving forward.

This morning, before Steve had set out, Fury had been on a rampage. He was running around the tower yelling at everything that moved. The SHIELD agents, Tony, Natasha, Clint, everyone. Steve had gone up to him after his morning work out and breakfast with Mr. Stark and calmly asked what was bothering the aggressive director, Steve only got a threatening and angry reply, "YOU"RE ON DUTY ROGERS. FORGET THE SUIT AND GET THE FUCK OUT THERE." Steve was shoved out the doors of the new Avengers tower, which was formerly the Stark Industries tower, very shortly after that small exchange of words. He didn't feel very appreciated being yelled at like that, but he wasn't one to question orders. So Steve went out in his work out uniform. Just a plain, skin tight, white shirt and his grey sweat pants. Since he was rushed out so quickly, Rogers had no idea what he was even supposed to do. Luckily he had nabbed a com that was rushed into his hands by an agent before setting off and was debriefed that way. The com still in his ear, he could recall the voice of agent Maria Hill telling him about Loki being spotted by surveillance cameras in New York just a few miles out from the tower.

Which was where Steve was at the moment, he tried to follow Loki as fast as he could, but the God of Mischief was far skinnier than he and could weave in and out of the mass of people faster than Steve could. He muttered "sorry" for about the tenth time as he once again bumped into some fancy dressed citizen in his pursuit. Keeping his eyes on Loki he tried to get closer, that is until a man that was the same size as Steve, if not bigger, got in his was for a split second and he lost Loki from his sight. It was a cleverly planned maneuver, and Steve had almost missed it. It was Loki's intention all along to get in front of this guy then slip away into the nearby alley. Steve wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't caught sight of the familiar green and beige scarf flowing in the slight breeze into the dark alley between the tall buildings.

'He must know I'm following him… ' Steve thought to himself as he also rounded the corner very cautiously just in case Loki had used his magic to set up some diabolical trap. Nothing happened when he turned the corner. Steve went to the end of the alley that he had followed Loki into and looked around, Steve didn't seem him anywhere around. He turned around a few times and made sure that Loki hadn't slipped back behind him, and he hadn't. Steve looked back to the way he was originally facing, there were three pathways that met his sight, right, left, and straight.

'Loki couldn't have gone straight, I would have see him if he had…Right?' Steve questioned himself searching for an answer, this was a God he was dealing with. Loki could have very well slipped past Rogers like the serpent he was. 'Or did he go left…? Maybe right…? Damn, I don't know…' Steve looked down all three paths starting to get rather frustrated; he didn't know which one to go down. He didn't know which path Loki took.

Though Steve could not see it, Loki held in a silent laughter as he smirked in amusement at the sight of Steve Rogers, the star spangled hero, standing stumped like a lost puppy without a home. Rogers clearly had no idea that Loki stood right next to Steve, a few feet away, invisible to the human eye. He had used his magic to bend the light around him so that the things behind himself were visible but not him. A simple trick that he learned in his younger days of sneaking around Asgard. Of course people like Heimdall, the all seeing guard and Odin, the all seeing father, weren't a fool of his invisible tricks... but everyone else was.

'Silly, silly, poor little super soldier.' Loki thought to himself, he always fell for this simple little tricks in life, it was easy and fun for Loki. Just like with the other mortals on Midgard, he'd usually mess with them and listen to them scream out at "ghosts" making it all more enjoyable. However, there was something about playing with Steve that was dissatisfying. Steve didn't believe in supernatural things like ghosts. He sure believe in superheroes and any trick Loki played to make noise and try and scare Steve wouldn't work, it would only give away his location. Loki sighed to himself with his amused feeling all of a sudden gone. Today was not the day he needed some SHIELD dog to trail him around all day in another hopeless attempt to get him to surrender, especially the american hero Steve Rogers. He was going to finally put an end to the dear Captain America.

Steve was spinning in circles in the time that Loki took to think to himself. He felt something. Something strange, like he was being watched; Steve couldn't shake the thought of him, on a mission, being watched by an invisible set of eyes. Who's were they though? He looked around and around, more than three times and couldn't shake the feeling when he told himself: 'No one's there Steve, it's just your imagination…no one is there…'

But someone was there, why couldn't Steve see them?

He let out a frustrated "Rrrg!" and chose the left path, going down it quickly with his long stride and quick pace. 'I'm wasting my time! He told himself angrily, I lost Loki now! What is the matter with me? I'm not usually like this!' He yelled at himself mentally trying to get back into his usual calm and collected groove of things. Why was this such an off day for him? Was it because Fury had opened their day with yelling and negative vibes?

Either way... the tables had turned, Loki was now following Steve, growing amused again at Steve's frustration as he reached another street and looked around frantically with a scowl on his face. Eventually Steve gave up and used his newly acquired cellular device to call in and get in touch with the agent waiting on standby. 'This button right…?' Steve told himself as he held down the '1' button to speed dial. He still wasn't used to modern technology. Heck, he didn't even know how these damn things worked. Same with the coms, all Steve knew was that some how through some signal voices could be transported between devices. It wasn't magic, that was for sure.

Steve was expecting an agent, like Maria or Natasha, to answer but instead it was Tony.

"I'm sorry but I don't buy Boy Scout cookies." His voice rang out as a pissed off Fury could be heard in the background cussing out a storm still.

"Stark, I'm not in the mood…" Steve muttered into the phone

"Oh, what happened Sweetheart? Run into some scary big ol'kiddies that you couldn't handle?" Tony joked and couldn't contain a small fit of laughter, "Or did no one else want to buy your cookies Stevie~?"

"Enough joking Stark! This is serious!" Steve glared at the ground as he walked back into the alley way from which he came.

Fury could be heard snatching the phone from Tony and bitching him out, foul language, threats and all. It was a few minutes before Fury spat into the phone at Steve, "Rogers! You better have some goddamned good news for my ears or so help me you might as well not come back to base."

Steve recoiled a bit at Fury's harshness at him, "Then I'm not coming back. I'm sorry, but Loki slipped away from me…I'm going to keep looking for him till I can-ARRG!" Then silence on Fury's end as the phone did its little disconnected mbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Fury slammed the phone on the ground and turned back to Tony who entertaining himself with Thor's lack of knowledge of the human world.

"Come on muscles, this is a hammer." Tony said and smiled as he held up just a small house hold hammer.

"No, silly Man of Iron, this, is a hammer." Thor replied as he held up Mjolnir. "You cannot hope to even come close to besting your enemies with such an igsignificant weapon."

Fury's... well, fury, boiled over and started a new cursing episode with Tony before sending him out to find Steve and make sure his prized number one soldier was alright.

Meanwhile, Loki had watched Steve recoil at the words he couldn't quite catch but sounded familiar to the always cranky director Fury. He didn't know what came over him but something made the Gods nose sniffle and he sneezed, messing up his current magic use and making him appear again.

Just in time for Steve to come crashing into Loki in his brisk walk back to the other alleyways.

"ARRG!" A surprised Steve collided Loki rather hard and tripped over his own feet ramming himself even more into Loki, knocking both him and the God over to the ground.

Loki landed below Steve with and "UNF" and started to yell "-Get off me! You dim witted, lumbering oaf of a mortal!" Loki squirmed under Steve's massive (compared to Loki) body weight, "You're crushing me!" He hissed out and glared as his arms tried to push the dead weight off of himself.

"Ah!" Steve rolled off thinking it was some random man, but wait- he said 'mortal', only one person in the whole wide world said 'mortal' besides, Thor. His little brother Loki.

Loki had gotten up and had his back to Steve for only a split second as he got some ground in between them. Steve was up and ready for Loki in the same amount of time, he braced himself for anything that Loki had to throw at him and a deep glare hardened on his face. Loki turned and was muttering? No, saying something softly..a…? 'A Spell!' Steve quickly thought and reacted by sending his hand out to Loki in an attempt to grab his clothes and cover his mouth before he could finish uttering whatever words his mind had set on tossing at Steve.

Loki was still speaking, he only had a few more words before the spell would take effect on Steve, but apparently he didn't like the fact of Loki's quick talking. Steve grabbed Loki and turned him around, shoving him back against a brick wall with a bit too much force than he had meant on the skinnier man. Loki, half way through a word hit the wall with an "oof!" and his spell was not what he meant now.

A big force of just…well a force; there was no other way of explaining it, hit Steve like a train and sent him flying back into the opposing wall, leaving a clear Steve Rogers shaped indent in the wall of the building behind him. Loki had dropped to the ground in an unusual pain, his face gasping for air as if he didn't have enough. It was probably the most disgraceful face he had ever made and allowed someone to see and it hurt ever so much. It was like Loki's lungs and throat were on fire. He couldn't breathe for a moment and was on the ground on all fours gasping for air.

Steve shook his head a bit and recovered quickly from the blow of energy and was swiftly upon Loki once more and pulled him up by the front of his clothes. Steve glared at Loki for a second and was about to toss some cliche heroic line in his face, but then his expression was replaced by one of surprise. This man who had always shown a smirk, smile or just plain evil like face was…scared? Steve couldn't believe what is eyes were seeing, was this another trick to look vulnerable so he would lose focus and Loki could get the upper hand on Steve?

Steve lifted the raven haired God off his feet even though he stood an inch taller than Steve himself. "Don't try any tricks!" He said and turned another glare at Loki, "You're coming with me." Steve added and held Loki up with one hand and with the other balled it into a fist and gave Loki a swift and overly powered punch to the face... which, surprisingly knocked him out.

This must have been an off day for Loki.


AN: Alright, I've finally been getting on editing and rewriting my stories, here's the first new chapter with more to come better, longer, more satisfying. (heh)

Till next time lovelies.