A huge thanks to Kazulallan and YouThereintheTrunks, your support is appreciated! Thanks also to the other people who are reading this. Feel free to drop me a PM or review this story.
The next chapter I am writing might be a little longer, I'm trying to get all of the next few chapters to over 2000 words, so it might be a bit late coming out!
"So, what are you planning on doing today, Lieth?" Loki looked up from his half-eaten stack of pancakes, mouth full. Valerie couldn't believe his appetite, as if he had been half-starved for the past few days. Then again, when she had run in on him, he had looked rather slender…
"I do not know yet," he said after he had swallowed, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "I have someone that I must look for. Or, well, many people that can lead me to the person that I am looking for."
"Who are you looking for?" she asked cautiously, flipping another pancake in the frying pan; Danny was too preoccupied with cutting her current pancake into a pancake man to notice the two of them talking.
"My brother." Loki held a dark expression as he went back to eating his plate of food, as good as ending the conversation with those two words. The woman took it that his brother was a touchy subject and so she dropped it immediately.
"Do you want another pancake, Danny?" the mother asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Hm? Oh, sure!" The brunette brought her plate over and looked out the kitchen window as her mother tipped the pancake onto her plate. "Thanks, Mommy."
"I should get going," the man said quietly, picking up his plate and standing up. "Thanks for the breakfast, Valerie."
"Can I come with you? Pretty please?" Loki smiled as he looked down at the girl.
"Maybe some other time. I have some important business to attend to." He winked at her. "I'll keep my promise, I swear."
"Where are you going?" asked Valerie, looking immensely worried at the thought that only yesterday he had seemed like a dazed and confused man and now he was off gallivanting around New York by himself.
"Down to Brooklyn." He pulled a leather jacket off the back of his chair that she hadn't seen before; in fact, she hadn't seen the clothes that he had been wearing before, either. "I'll be back in a few hours. Do not worry for me; I can take care of myself." The raven-haired man pulled on the jacket and quickly strode away before she could ask any more questions.
Valerie listened to the door click and set the frying pan back down on the oven.
"What did he promise you, sweetie?"
"I'm not telling you. If I told you, he might not keep his promise."
"He is strange, isn't he?"
"I like him. He's the coolest adult that I've ever met." The kid flicked brown hair over her shoulder. "Not that I've met many."
...
Loki unsurely waved down a taxi as he exited the apartment building, watching the yellow vehicle stop in front of him. He climbed into the back seat, saying to the driver,
"Downtown Brooklyn."
"Sure thing," said the cabbie with a thick British accent. The god brushed some of his hair to the side to cover the action of him fogging the driver's mirror. He then quickly muttered some Latin and procured himself a wallet full of wads of cash and then unfogged the mirror.
The cabbie didn't notice a thing, too occupied with the music that he was listening to on the radio. Loki leant back in the seat, looking out to the streets of Manhattan.
Earlier, after he had exited his room into the hallway, he had cast a spell to track down Captain America. He was one of the gentler members of the Avengers, and was the least likely to kill him on sight. He could have some idea of how to track down Thor.
Before that spell, he had tried to track the God of Thunder, but it wasn't possible. Loki wasn't sure why, but Thor wasn't traceable with his magic. Maybe it was because he was an Asgardian, he didn't know.
All he knew was that the god was on Midgard somewhere, and he wasn't on Asgard anymore. Odin may have sent his son to investigate him, but it was strange that he was being checked on so soon after his banishment.
...
"Fifty bucks." Loki looked at the driver suspiciously before throwing a note at him.
"Keep the change," he said, stepping out of the car and onto the footpath. The cabbie didn't waste any time in making his escape.
The place that he should be looking for was somewhere on this street, though it looked almost empty of life. It was early morning though, and most mortals were still deep in slumber.
He walked leisurely down the road northwards, whistling as he did so. He had lost his sceptre to the Avengers, a loss that he could have done without. But it was a material thing, and he could quickly find a blacksmith once he was back in Asgard to smith him a new one. If any were willing to, of course.
Loki stopped outside a grey-stoned building with small windows dotted across it in rows and columns evenly. So this was Captain America's secret hide-out. How interesting. He kept a mental note to always remember the address before stepping into the lobby.
"Excuse me, but I am looking for a certain man by the name of Steve Rogers." He stopped at the desk, asking this question and expecting to be answered by the old lady who sat there.
"We don't have anyone by that name here," she said, though he could tell that she was lying, and poorly; to learn how to lie, you had to study it also.
"You're lying," he said calmly with a grin. The old woman blushed and looked over her spectacles with indignant eyes.
"Excuse me, young man, but is that any way to treat an old woman?"
"No, it isn't. But when people lie to me," he said, thumping fists down onto the desktop and making her flinch. "Things change. So why don't you tell which room he's in and we'll pretend that I never asked."
She looked at him steadily, with a gaze of stone. She didn't say anything for a long while, and when he was almost going to say something else against her, she replied,
"6th floor, room 1007."
"Thank you," Loki said, smiling as he strode towards the elevator. Sometimes, it was too easy to intimidate people, even the elderly.
...
He knocked on the door, tapping it in a rhythm and then patiently waiting while wishing that he had a cane of some sort at that moment.
"Who is it?" said a sleepy voice through the door.
"At least open the door, Rogers. That would be the first polite thing to do." The Captain sighed and opened the door by a slit. "Ah, now will you let me in?"
"What? Who are you?"
"If you don't remember me, then that would be best. At least let me in so that I may speak to you privately." Steve made no sign that he was going to open the door any wider. "It has something to do with Thor," he elaborated.
He finally opened the door to Loki, allowing him to walk inside and investigate the secret hideout.
"What do you know about Thor?" Rogers asked, running a hand through tousled blonde hair and inviting the strange man into his lounge.
"Quite a lot, actually. But as of right now, I am trying to find out where he is hiding out." This made Steve frown.
"But he should be back in Asgard, back with his brother." Loki hissed at that word.
"They are not… brothers. What I have found out is that Thor has found himself back in Midgard, for unknown reasons. I am currently looking for him, and I was wondering if you would have any idea."
Captain America seemed to finally register the man sitting opposite him; his strange manner of speaking, his long, black hair, and the emerald eyes. He leapt up from the couch and raised his fists.
"You're Loki! How the hell did you find out where my secret hide-out was?"
"You know, you don't look that imposing in America flag boxers," the god said flatly, raising an eyebrow at them. "And it was easy enough for me to find out where your hide-out was. It isn't that secretive. Can we get back to Thor?"
"Why do you care about him?" he asked, pulling his white shirt more so over the previously mentioned boxers. "You aren't related, as you said yourself."
"I just want to find out where he is. If you can't help me, then I'll leave." Loki made to stand up before Steve laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"Okay, I'll try to help you. But only if you promise not to attack anyone while you're on Earth and you promise not to hurt Thor." The Traitor sighed and nodded. What was this one promise if he could find the god and ask him all of the questions that he wanted and needed to ask?
"I swear. Now, where is the first place that I should start looking?"
