Odin sat tall, regal, and haughty on his intricate golden throne. The throne room was empty, the vast room reverberating its silence back at him, and it reminded Odin of his terrible impatience. He straightened his helmet and took a deep breath. For the occasion, he was wearing his gleaming helmet and ceremonial battle armour, and in his right hand he held a long golden staff with spiraling wings like ravens. He gazed at the throne room's grand doors with his one good eye and licked his lips. His grip on his staff tightened in impatience, and he slouched his posture slightly. His left hand tapped a rhythm on the armrest of his throne.

With a soft flourish, the grand golden doors opened.

Odin's posture corrected itself instantly.

Two guards, their armour polished to a mirror shine, held a prisoner in place with several chains, which were connected to cuffs around his neck, ankles, and both wrists. The prisoner walked with a saunter, as if he were taunting Odin without even moving his face, which was staring straight ahead in an emotionless fashion.

The prisoner was brought to a stop in front of Odin's throne, and the prisoner raised his head, a ghost of a proud smile touching the sides of his mouth.

Odin felt his rage flare. His eyes narrowed.

"Loki." Odin said, the name of his surrogate son slipping off the tip of his tongue as if he had spoken the name of something nasty. It seemed to Odin that raising the young frost giant in Asguardian ways did not change his despicable nature. It seemed that no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, Loki never acted like an Asguardian. It made him both sad and angry at times, but now it just made him angry. He felt his lip curl as he peered down at his son's frosty green eyes.

"Loki," he repeated. "Are you aware of what you have done?"

Loki's eyebrows shot up on his forehead, and he turned his head slightly to one side. "I have done something bad, father?"

A moment of silence passed while Odin seethed.

Loki laughed, the eerie, dry sound echoing in the vast room.

"Everywhere you go, you bring destruction with you," Odin bit out, his face burning with contempt. "Jotunheim is on fire because of your foolish actions."

"Ah." Loki pursed his lips and nodded. "Jotunheim. Oh dear, are they alright?"

Odin stood up from his throne and pointed his staff at Loki.

Loki's eyes followed his movement, the mock concern still lathered on his face.

"No, Loki, they are not fine. Thanks to your foolish actions, Jotunheim may never regain its stability or population."

Loki's foux concern dropped. He adopted a sneer and leaning forward, he said, "Father, I was under the impression—from a young age, mind you—that you would rather have all the frost giants killed, and now you are saying otherwise? I thought you would be proud of me."

"Proud?!" Odin roared, smashing the end of his staff onto the ground, and the thunderous sound echoed through the hall. "You have done nothing to make me proud, you imbecile."

"Imbecile?" Loki sneered. His eyes burned hellfire green.

Odin held up his hand to silence Loki, anger behind his eyes.

"Your fate has been decided. As a price of your actions, you will be banished to Earth," Odin paused for a dramatic effect. "Indefinitely."

Before Loki could open his mouth again, Odin waved at the guards to take him back to confinement, the golden doors slipping shut behind them as they left.

But just before he left, after Odin spoke, Loki's face seemed to fall into an expression of utter despair. For that single moment, his surrogate son looked dismal and almost fearful instead of his usual mask of playful cruelty and blissful confidence. Perhaps now the proud frost giant would finally change his cruel nature and come back to Asgard humbled. If not, he would stay banished. It was that easy.

Odin reveled in the simplicity of it.

Peter Parker, knockout tired from a fight a couple of hours before, was asleep on his bed, his face bruised like an apple after a terrible earthquake. His Spiderman suit was rolled up sloppily underneath his bed, a tell-tale red sleeve peeking from the shadows. He had only been sleeping for around an hour when-

BOOM.

Peter sat up in bed with a startled shout. He stayed silent for a moment, straining his ears to understand what woke him up.

From beyond his window, it seemed, someone was complaining, cursing, and just generally having a bad day. The sounds were muffled by his closed window, but he could still hear most of what the man was saying. Peter crept over to the window and craned his neck around to find the source of the noise.

His window overlooked a dark and stained alleyway, generally not visited at night. But upon looking far to the left, however, Peter realized that tonight was not a normal night.

Someone was in the dumpster.

As Peter watched, a tall man in an intricate bright green and gold suit rolled out of the bin, removing his ram-horned helmet to pick out a rather rotten orange peel from his hair. His long nose wrinkled in disgust and he threw the peel away, lifting his hand up towards it as it landed. The hand extended glowed white, then blue, and then the peel vanished as if it had never existed.

Peter gasped loudly. The man swung his head around, and Peter turned out of sight. He pursed his lips and evaluated his options. This man had crawled out of a dumpster and in a fit of rage, made an entire orange peel vanish. He had an elaborate costume, which Peter had begun to associate with what he privately called 'bad guys with style'. He paused, considering.

His eyes flickered towards the Spiderman suit balled up under the bed.

Loki turned his head away from the noise he heard. He put his hand against the stone bricks of the alleyway and retched. The sharp smell of orange peels and the damp smell of rotten processed cheese still clung to his nose. He wiped it with his sleeve and scowled. His costume was absolutely ruined. Fortunately, he had a solution to that problem.

He closed his eyes and concentrated.

Nothing of consequence seemed to have happened. Loki opened his eyes, looked back down at his smelly suit and cursed under his breath. A moment ago, he could use his powers, and then when he actually needed them, they were gone? He smiled and clapped his hands together once. This was great, just great. Now maybe he could go and die like Odin wanted.

He stomped around the alley, kicking over a couple of trash cans, muttering to himself bitterly. What was he to do now? He had no friends in Earth. It also probably didn't help that one time he tried to take over New York and killed some people.

He turned over a trash can and sat atop it to think. Maybe he could make some friends. There were plenty of people who thought like him, surely. How difficult would it be to find them? But before that he needed a place to stay before he got attacked for being alone in the dark. Do hotels take solid gold helmets? Maybe he could find some money-

WHAM.

Before he could finish his thought, something slammed into Loki and knocked him off his trash can. He looked around, surprised.

"Hey, you!" a juvenile voice came from above. Loki craned his neck up to see a figure perched on a ledge above him. "Are you having a bad day, or do you just have a really deep hatred of trash cans?" the figure asked.

Loki sighed and prepared himself to fight.