Chapter 1: A Princes Escape

Loki was tired of running.

For the last few months he had hopped from town to town, planet to planet, barely having enough time to catch his breath before his pursuers closed in on him.

It had taken weeks of planning and plotting, and patients that Loki wasn't sure he possessed, but he had managed to escape his magic-draining cell on Asgard. He made it off the planet by the skin of his teeth, closely followed by his buffoon of a brother and SHIELD's rag-tag gang of freaks they over-ambitiously called 'The Avengers'. As though they could ever avenge anything; he had simply underestimated them the first time, and given the chance Loki was confident they would prove no threat to him the second time around.

But that wretched cell had been slowly sucking the magic out of him, and after weeks of imprisonment he had been seriously weakened. Even after he'd escaped Asgard, he'd had no chance to rest and regain any of it, being forced to resort to using his limited store of the stuff to escape the Avengers on almost every planet he'd visited. The Avengers may have held little fear for Loki, but in his current state he doubted he would last very long in a head-on battle.

So he had been running. Never a moment of peace, never any time to rest. Everywhere he went he was always looking over his shoulder; he couldn't remember actually feeling safe for even a second in the last weeks.

Loki refused to go back to that cell, where he could feel his strength being painfully ripped from him while he do nothing.

But he was so sick of running.

He had one option. It was something only a very desperate person would even consider, but Loki could feel himself being slowly backed into a corner. He wouldn't go back. He wouldn't keep running. And, in a moment of near-insanity, an idea dawned on Loki: if he couldn't escape to another planet, maybe he could escape to another time.

It was pure insanity, but the more the god thought about it, the more he liked the idea. If he could manage it, he would have a the only things that mattered to him right now: his freedom and his power. He would have a life.

It just so happened that the prince knew of a certain Asgardian artifact that would help him meet his rather unique goal.

And so, after a good deal of extensive planning, Loki backtracked to Asgard and broke into the palace. He'd reached his father's vault, and for a terror-filled moment he searched for it without success. When he finally, he was overjoyed; having in there, within his reach, gave him something he had not had for a long time: hope. And it almost made the hell he'd been through worth it.

Almost.

It was about that time that Loki heard booted feet slapping the ground in the corridor adjacent to the vault.

Thor burst through the intricately carved double doors at the same moment Loki grabbed his artifact: an ancient hourglass forged by magic that allowed whoever wielded it to control time itself.

Thor froze when he saw what his brother was holding; both of them had heard the legends growing up, and they both knew exactly what it could do.

"Put that down, brother, before you do something we both regret." Thor had growled, something bordering fear sparking in his eyes.

Loki almost laughed at the command he heard in his 'brothers' voice.

"Oh, I regret nothing." Loki snarled back, and knew that Thor knew that when Loki said he regretted nothing, he meant none of it; not banishing him, not nearly killing him, not bringing an alien army down on New York.

After all, why should Loki feel bad? They had just been steps in a plan, a plan that'd failed him.

"Loki..." Thor warned.

"Good bye, brother." Loki said with a note of finality. Then he surged some of the last of his magic through the hourglass and cast his thoughts to the future.

And just like that, he was gone.

One minute he was standing in the palace on Asgard. A heartbeat later, the room was almost pitch-black and he was falling through empty air.

Gravity took over, and it took him half a second to fall ten feet. He hit something, a big cylinder of some sort, and the air was forced from his lungs as his head bounced mercilessly off something hard with a resounding 'thunk'. Pain seared into the back of his skull, spots dancing in his vision. On an impulse he sat up, causing his vision to go completely black as he fell off the container, landing on his hands and knees on the floor. Dazed, he'd reached out and grabbed the tube, jerking his hand back when it connected with a panel of buttons.

He scrambled backwards until his back hit a wall, and he'd huddled there for a minute as he tried to comprehend just what it was he was seeing.

He was in a dimly lit room, illuminated only by an eerie blue glow coming of some kind of liquid in the tubes. With a jolt, the god realized there had to be at least several dozen of them in two neat rows. The top part of all the tubes where made of glass, giving Loki a perfect view of what was inside.

People.

Midguards, from the look of it. Every single tube held one, floating peacefully in that unusual liquid. It made him uncomfortable and curious at the same time.

But curiosity quickly overcame any apprehension, and he crept to one of the tubes. Peering down, he saw a tan woman with dark hair. He'd started moving down the row, marveling at these strange people. Each one was in their physical prime, and, he had to admit, they were all beautiful. Even if they were just Midguards. On a whim he circled back around to the tube he'd fallen on.

He peered down-seeing the crack spider-webbing across the glass reminded him of his throbbing head-and examined the man seemingly asleep inside. He was quite handsome, with a lean, muscular body and neat jet-black hair that framed a angular face.

He found his gaze drifting lower, sweeping over a muscled chest and chiseled torso. Loki had to admit, this Midgard in particular was very attractive. He was so distracted that he didn't notice the pair of blue eyes staring back at him.

All at once the Midgard moved, thrusting his hands up, unhinging the glass top of his cell and sending it flying across the room, shattering where it hit the ground fifteen feet away.

In seconds the man had Loki pinned against the wall with a hand at his throat.

"Who are you?" the Midgard demanded.

"I could ask you the same thing." Loki snarled back, forgetting the hand encircling his neck. He was quickly reminded of that fact as the hand tightened violently.

"I will not ask again. Who. Are. You?" the man growled again as Loki fought for breath.

"Go to hell." Loki snapped, and before his assailant could process his words, the god poured the very last of his magic into a spell. And suddenly, the Midgard was flying through the air, hitting the opposite wall with enough force to severely dent the metal.

Loki sunk to the ground, vision fading rapidly. 'Guess I over-did it a little', he thought. He knew what was happening; all creatures that possessed magic couldn't survive without it, and Loki had little-if any-magic left. He managed to steal a glance of the Midgard man, who had fallen to lay face-down on the floor.

'At least I took the bastard with me.' he thought, but for some reason that fact was a lot less satisfying than it should have been.

A movement across the room caught his eye, and Loki could hardly believe his eyes as the man slowly climbed to his feet. The Midgard scanned the room for several seconds before his eyes finally came to rest upon Loki's. The look of cold murder in his eyes sent a chill down the god's spine.

The man crossed the space between them quickly, roughly lifting Loki by the collar of his shirt and slamming him against the wall.

"You will regret that." the Midgard said, and Loki did not doubt for a second that he would, if he somehow managed to survive without magic. Which was impossible.

"I regret nothing." Loki whispered again.

But as darkness closed in, he doubted those words.