He sat sprawled in a chair on his balcony, the view of almighty Asgard looming in front of him. The familiarity of his room that should be comforting instead sickened him and made bile swirl in his stomach. It was a constant reminder of his failure, seeing as he promised himself he would never again set foot in this realm. He had been so close. Too close, really. That was his downfall. He was so close to the power, so close to victory that he slacked, the taste of achievement, ever out of his reach, had hindered his reasoning and made him careless. His words resounded bitterly in his mind.
To have the Tesseract...
And now look where his secret weapon- the trick up his sleeve- lay. In his 'father's' arsenal. So close and yet pathetically out of his reach. It spurred him that something that contained so much untapped power sat idle in an old man's trophy room, completely wasted. In his hands it would have reached its true potential. With the Tesseract, Loki could level entire cities, move mountains, keep the pathetic race of humans forever under the toe of his boot.
To have power...
And what power he would have had. Millions of people, an entire race, there to marvel at him. To give him the appreciation that he so deeply deserved. He was born a king, he was born to rule. Total power was meant for powerful beings like himself. He still savored the taste of it, how his fingertips were a hair's breadth out of reach of it. It truly sickened him.
He stood jerkily and kicked the chair in anger, sending it into the wall of his lavish prison and causing it to shatter against the golden wall. He took a couple of strides, peering over his balcony. If his presence was irksome to the Asgardians before his fall from grace, it was downright loathsome now. During the endless amount of time he spend on his balcony gazing at the galaxies before him, he would catch the occasional citizen look up at him from his high perch, scowling at him with a disgust unparalleled. When this happened, he would send a gaze just as nasty back at them and they would quickly scurry away. At least they still feared him, this thought alone comforted him in his solitude.
"I was your king!" he longed to bellow at them, yet when he tried to speak, forgetting his bonds, he would only be met with a pain that surged from the still-tender punctures. How he longed to smite them all. He had lingering dreams of bringing a chaos onto the magical land, the thought of spilling the blood of its inhabitants filled him with an intense pleasure that made him giddy. He longed for them all to suffer by his hand, but none more than his father. He longed to bring the omnipotent Allfather to his knees, to make him beg for mercy, mercy that Loki would never allow.
The shame and the hate of it all once again filled him, making him feel it would burst forth from his body, spending him into tiny pieces hurtling through space. He turned from the balcony's railing and trudged back into his room. He had planned to dive into yet another set of ancient scrolls when a presence apart from his own caught his attention. He looked up to see a soldier standing in the threshold of his quarters.
A visitor, for me? he thought, eying the lackey dubiously.
The man kept his eyes averted from Loki as he walked towards him. He grabbed his arm roughly and tugged him out of the room. Loki followed without argue, curious as to what was so important as to draw Asgard's shame from the shadows.
The guard led him down the winding and immaculate hallways of the palace until they reached the throne room of the castle. Loki balked at the door in spite of himself; he had not laid eyes on his 'father' since his return. What could the Allfather possibly want of him now?
The grand doors fell open and the soldier jerked him into the room roughly. His grip stayed firm on Loki's shoulder until they reached the front of the alter. Odin sat on the golden throne in all his dignified glory. The soldier immediately fell to his knee and placed his fist over his heart. Loki stayed firmly erect.
"Your son, my lord, as you asked."
Loki looked up at the king, catching his eye with a withering look. Miss me, father?
Odin bestowed a look of pity onto him that made Loki want to howl with rage. The cord winding through his lips grew taunt as he gritted his teeth.
"I have not seen you since your return," Odin began, "I trust you are doing well?"
It was a question that could easily be answered with a shake of his head, but Loki refused to give the old man the satisfaction. Odin carried on speaking unfettered.
"My son, I am still lost as to why you have committed these terrible actions against unwitting Midgard. I also feel that my punishment is just, however..." he paused, his brows knitting in frustration.
Loki's mind was spinning at his father's words. Did he mean to free him? Surely not. Yet Loki couldn't help but hypothesize as to the many possibilities that lay beyond that 'however'.
"However," the god began again. "Asgard, as of late, has not seemed to have a moment of peace. Today we learned of a... girl. A girl of extraordinary gifts. And it has been decided that she is to be brought to Asgard so as to further educate her here. We alone can begin to instruct her as to how to control her capabilities."
Loki's brow furrowed in confusion. What has this to do with me?
Odin's reply was curt, but seemed to be answering the exact question on Loki's mind. Loki wondering slightly if Odin had mastered the art of mind-reading, yet waved the thought off. Odin never focused on improving his mind, only his battle techniques.
"I want you to tutor her, my son."
The term of endearment only gave Loki a stomach full of knots. It seemed to mock him now, knowing that he was indeed not this man's son but more so his political tactic. Knowing that his whole life was a lie. This was not to say, however; that the other fraction of the sentence did not peak Loki's interest.
He motioned to his bound lips and merely shrugged.
Odin nodded and, with only a moment's hesitation, simply snapped his fingers. The cord disappeared in a silvery mist. Loki instantly gasped for air, savoring the feel of a deep breath's worth of oxygen seeping into his lungs.
Loki smirked at his adoptive father. "With all due respect, I do not believe I understand," he spoke coolly.
"She has in her a sort of magic that is rare. Inherent magic that she has yet to control, or even fully realize. I want you help her in her path to master this magic dwelling inside of her. But be warned, Loki. This task set before you possesses another purpose. Your progress with the girl will be monitored, if somehow you fail this task or conceive another intention besides instruction, you binding will be inflicted again for a time I know not how long."
Odin's speech rang in Loki's ears. So this was another test to prove his worth. This caused a familiar rage to course through his body like poison, but Loki was intrigued by Odin's words. What power did this girl possess for his father to resort to such drastic measures?
"It would be but an honor to serve Asgard," he replied finally with a curt bow.
A simple black truck hit a snag in the rocky road that encircled the shallow mountain, the jerk caused consciousness to come rushing back mercilessly to Maggie. Thankfully, coherency followed soon after. She sat up quickly despite her heavy head and leveled her eyes on a man clad in a tight black and sleeveless shirt. "Why did you shoot me?" she yelled, the surprise of the sudden outburst became quickly apparent on her own face.
"I had no other choice," he grunted as he fiddled with the most intricate bow Maggie had ever seen.
"What about my father?" Maggie demanded, her voice rising again.
At this the man gave her an empathetic look. "Look, kid. I don't know who or what you are, but what you did back at that drugstore is gonna make your life real different."
Maggie's eyes widened as her brain replayed her most recent actions. She gaped down at her slightly reddened hands. "How did I do that?" she breathed.
At that a man, also clad in black with a patch covering his left eye, entered the makeshift medical room constructed in the truck, partitioned off from the rest of the truck's bed by thin hospital veils.
"We were hoping you could tell us that, miss."
Maggie blankly looked up at the now two men before her. "My father is dead," she started quietly, "and I just killed a man and leveled my local drugstore with a fire that emanated from my body. Do you really think I have the slightest clue as to what is going on?"
Maggie's boldness surprised her, usually she tensed up and immediately fell silent around any stranger. Yet here she was now, feeling a pride well in her- as selfish as it was, considering her father was dead. She chalked it up to the mysterious energy that was still coursing through her veins.
The man with the bow looked to his partner. "So she doesn't know either?"
"Know what! Who are you people?" Maggie yelled in frustrating, slamming her fists against the cot she occupied.
The man with the eye-patch yet again turned his attention to her. "My name is Nick Fury and you're in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D."
"S.H.I.E.L.D?" Maggie asked dubiously.
Fury nodded. "Yes. We are a government organization dedicated to the protection of the earth."
Maggie looked at Fury as if he had horned budding from his head. "So you think that I am... a danger to the earth?" she asked, disbelief dripping from her tone.
"Let me paint a picture for you," Fury began. "We just had to deal with the destruction of a major city, as you well may know. Now just today we get a visit from a long distance friend telling us he has come to collect one of his own, and then a teenage girl nearly blows up a whole block right in our backyard. Forgive us if we are a little on edge."
"Okay, somehow I set a building on fire. What does this have to do with anything you just told me?"
"I have about as much of an idea as you do," Nick Fury replied bluntly. "But maybe our said friend may have some answers."
Maggie was, much to her chagrin, escorted into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base in handcuffs. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the day as Nick Fury and the other man, who's codename she learned was Hawkeye, led her into a sizable white room, scarcely decorated with a metal conference table in the center. They deposited her in a chair, still handcuffed, and left her alone in the room. She faintly recognized that, had it not been for the fact that she had been constantly on the move and was currently in the custody of a secret government agency, she would be a miserable mess. It still had not completely dawned on her that her father was dead, leaving her completely alone. All she could muster was a vacant stare at the wall, though her body was still buzzing.
Soon enough Nick Fury and Hawkeye re-entered the room, this time in the company of yet another man. The man was a looming height and possessed the air of a bear with his shaggy blond hair and scruff and large muscles. His demeanor was surprisingly quiet.
"Maggie," Nick Fury started, bringing Maggie slightly back to reality. "This is Thor, and he may have the answers we're all looking for."
Maggie raised an eyebrow. "Thor... as in the god of thunder?"
Fury couldn't help but let a small smile slip from the lips. "Exactly."
The blond man gave Maggie a small bow. "I am indeed Thor Odinson."
This was finally too much for Maggie, and she let herself slip into a laughter that was uncomfortably drawn out. The pair of men stared at her as peels of hysteric giggles left her mouth.
"So now I get to meet a god?" she finally wheezed.
"I'm afraid this is not joking matter, Margarethe. I am to take to back to Asgard."
Maggie instantly fell serious at the mention of her full name. "How do you know my name?"
"You father told me," Thor replied simply.
She looked from the one man to another, a thick anger brewing in the pit of her stomach. "My father is dead," she seethed.
Thor shook his head. "No, I am speaking of your real father."
"My- my what?" Maggie whispered.
an: so we are creeping closer to the meeting of maggie and loki. i don't know about you, but i'm excited. oh and yeah, this story has more views than any other of my stories, and yet for over a hundred hits in only has one review. come people, feedback is not so much appreciated as adored!