Chapter 2

Loki's grasp was slipping.

Yes, he had been able to escape his brother, Thor. It wasn't difficult, especially when he is so skilled at deception and his brother considers Loki his only blind spot.

Yes, his brother and the Avengers had been chasing after him, but his Chitauri army scattered across the galaxy in tiny pieces and any loyalties to the Frost Giants he had were decimated. He was alone and the only thing he could do was run, and though he could run rings around the Avengers which amused him, they were losing interest.

After the events of New York 2012, his somewhat embarrassing defeat by three lycra-cladded weirdos, a freak in an iron suit, a green monster and his irritating brother, he had been taken captive. While Thor was off fighting some elf or another, he had managed to wriggle free, and there had been eclectic chaos at first but after a while nobody else seemed to care.

He needed to be the centre of attention, and they were discarding him like some used toy, just because he posed no threat. Thor pursued him more emphatically than the rest, but even then his conviction wavered. His need to force his brother to justice had seemed to depreciate and there was little for him to do but just let Loki run away, though it set his teeth on edge.

So now, Loki was stuck on the planet, nobody in Asgard would bring him back and nobody on Earth could catch him, so he was just living off of the back-street whisperings of fear and how 'the god who attacked us is still in the streets'. How the mighty had fallen, when Loki would grin if a New York gangster dealing meth would refuse to meet down a back alley in case 'that pyscho god is there'. It was nowhere near enough to dull the pain of failure or make him feel as if it had all been worthwhile, but just in that split second, he wielded the power he had imagined he would.

He was bored, poking people with sticks and seeing how far they run, his favourite was to conjure up seven (often more) holograms of himself and see which one the police would think was real. He terrorised the police more than anyone else, because he knew they fueled the rumours.

There was little point in killing everyone, Loki always thought killing was in such bad taste and always so messy. He saved it only for on special occasions. The fear was more masterful, like a puppet show using the strings of human emotion. As dull as the human race were, they did fantastic things when backed into a corner and forced to dance.

His favourite pastime on Midgard was thievery. Houses, shops, banks, his mirages proved most useful then. He was legendary, though his trademark was his glinting grin directly at the CCTV which he knew made them jump, when the police were watching it back. They saw this broken shell in grey, and suddenly it would turn, the light catching a pale face like a mask, and a manic grin would break out across his features before everything was gone, the guards were killed if they were in the way. They grew to fear that face; more so because there was ambiguity surrounding if he was the one that decimated New York, would it be them next? Is he going to kill us all? That smile was all the answer they got. The smile from this master of trickery. One thing was sure, if he was a god, he didn't look much like one.

Physically, Loki was a wreck. His Asgardian armour was long gone. It was torn from him by Thor, and never allowed back. Loki had to admit he missed it; its thick and tight leather which bound him hard, leaving him virtually invulnerable; it was bulletproof, it was impenetrable; but most of all, it was beautiful. Loki liked a show, he liked appearance and dazzle. He liked his armour.

It wrapped around his sinewy muscle and opal skin, thin enough to allow him comfort in the dance he performed around his prey, the artful footwork and magnetic contours he painted with his limbs as he flung himself at his opponents in battle, leaving them blinking and bleeding, their minds a flurry of glistening in gold and green and black.

Now, he wore grey. Dark grey, he blended in with the mulch, the concrete, the buildings, the sky. When he carried out his heists, this meant he was untraceable, a shadow in amongst a forest, which at first had made him dizzy with power, but now the grey was almost as infamous as him. The god in grey. Loki didn't want that to be his epitaph. He was much more extravagant than grey. He wanted to be the golden god, the beautiful god. Earth had taken its toll on him, and now he was grey.

His eyes, once a glimmering, stunning blue, that seduced everyone with their raw energy, the potential energy to do bad things, the windows to his soul that showed just how capable he was of splattering his cruelty across creation, were now darkened around the outside, sunken, tired, drawn. He no longer acted like a god, so he no longer looked like one. He was still more perfect than any Midgardian could ever be, his skin, taut over his cheekbones; his lips, thin and kissable; his body, lean and elegant; his gaze dark and heavy with lust and anger. He was still beautiful on the outside, but it was all exhausted, monochrome, unappreciated. Loki had his moment, glittering in the sun as the fiercest, most feared being on the planet. It was short lived. Now his appearance payed the price, and his self neglect and vanity conflicted to create this worn, beautiful creature which stalked down streets in a grey hoodie.

He needed a miracle.

July 19th, 2013

London

The news reports didn't come until after the the ship was first spotted, the press were desperately subdued by the government who tried to cover it up, but with rumours of a spaceship invading Earth circulating around the web and a black smudge across the sky visible to the whole of Britain, there was little they could do.

It demanded attention, the ship kept getting larger and larger in the sky as it came closer to Earth. After a few hours, most people had gotten over the original screaming fit and running around in circles and had gone into a reclusive state. The first news report began to flood into every T.V., people began to panic again, saying the aliens were here, the typical knee-jerk response of humanity.

There was still the odd taxi still working, but most people were glued to the telly for updates. Very British. The more industrial shops were still open, and Dixon's had all twelve varying sizes of screen in the display window showing BBC News. The streets were eerily quiet.

Loki wandered around in amongst the desolation, and noticed before anything that he hadn't been bumped into or pushed around, so he raised his head and noticed the lack of Midgardians. He glanced incredulously around at the empty streets, the litter dancing around in the wind was a sad visual metaphor for tumbleweed. It was no fun being a God if there was no-one to torment.

He passed Dixon's, the 'breaking news' banner catching his attention, and he pulled down his hood and watched intently, expecting to see his latest heist at Pentonville Prison.

Loki looked up, for the first time in a while. He looked up into the sky and at about the height of the sun around 3 o'clock, there was in fact a dark smudge, slowly burning a trail across the sky. The ship wasn't of human design, not in this time period anyway. The black against the white overcast sky was hard to look away from, and as a cloud wafted over it, Loki half expected it to vanish. It did not disappoint, as it appeared again; the cloud scurried away like all the humans on the street.

He knew what it was. He knew straight away, this wasn't some badly orchestrated and underprepared alien invasion, or a nearby ship that had been lead astray. This was someone's design. Someone wanted the planet in crisis. They wanted the human race to quiver in fear.

The theatrics, the slow steady fall of the ship, enough to make the impact take at least a few days, enough for the fear to really build, until there was hysteria. This wasn't just well executed, this was the most perfect example of puppeteering that Loki had ever seen. There wasn't anything particularly terrifying about the ship, it wasn't very big. It didn't appear to have huge weapons. Whether or not this mystery pilot had heard about the attack on New York or not, it couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The human race had started to clamber back up, but it was still vulnerable; any interspace weaponry had not yet been developed and the general feeling amongst people was still paranoia and dread about aliens. Enough that, just the sight of a little black ship in the sky, was enough to force people indoors and glue themselves to the TV which streamed conspiracy theories and hoax accusations at them.

That was the first time Loki remembers really being impressed. Even he hadn't been able to clear the streets, despite Chitauri destroying buildings in New York left right and centre, people still somehow managed to filter in, like a swarm of ants.

He grinned at the thought of people running around at SHIELD, trying to band the Avengers together again.

He decided if he had the chance again, long-awaited and impending doom was the best way to do things, and as he glanced up at the ship, he felt a pang of jealousy and resentment. The Avengers were probably rallying round an equal amount to this tiny ship than they were at his colossal, unforgettable assault on New York.

A vicious grin radiated over his features when it dawned on him.

He would get on that ship.