clutter | rogers

TEN

"Well, Steve, it's been quite nice to see you. However, I must be going." Loki turned to leave the way he'd been going. "Come along, Vee."

"What?" She looked at Steve, panic stitched into her face. He looked the same.

Loki turned back to her, stopping. His friendly smile dropped and his brow knit together. "I said, come along."

Something unearthly picked up her left foot, then her right, then her left. She was walking, against her will, to Loki.

"Steve," she breathed, "Steve, help me. I-I can't stop." Her ribs tightened, as if her chest was being constrained by a boa constrictor.

"You do not want to stop, Vee. If you did, you would have." Loki wrapped a hand around her waist. She, within not of her body, withered from it.

"Steve," she sobbed, "I can't—"

Steve ran, closing the distance between him and them. He leaped and aimed to tackle Loki. However, Loki let go of Vee (physically and magically), turned to Steve, extended a hand and suspended him in the air — all in one fluid motion.

Loki said, formally, "Have you met Aris?"

"Not yet. Did he send for you?"

"I'll do the talking, Steve." Loki held him four feet above the road and with one hand. Vee watched in fear. "Aris is a very powerful man, and a very well-paying man. See, he's put my life in risk. Mine!"

He laughed, then stopped laughing.

"Aris is in the City. He wants me to get this girl, here. Everyone else has failed, but I don't fail. I take her to him and I get a bride price and my life. However..."

"Yes?" Steve asked impatiently.

Loki dropped his hand and Steve fell to the ground. Vee went to him, and Loki let her.

"I will do the talking!" Loki hissed. He took a breath as Vee made sure Steve was in one piece. "Get me to Asgard, and you can have her. If you don't in the next twenty four hours, I will teleport her to him and we will both be out of your life."

"Loki, I have one question," Vee said softly. "If you're so great and powerful, how come Aris has his thumb on you?"

"You're so idiotic." Loki laughed, and approached her. She stood, unafraid. "I destroyed this City. I tore the Avengers apart. I am a god! You question me? Me?"

He stopped, inches from her face. She peered deep into his green eyes. They looked like Maine's foliage.

"He has his thumb on me because he is more powerful than I. He is the one man I have ever met to be more powerful than I."

"How? How is he more powerful?"

Loki smiled sadly. He backed away from her and the poor neighborhood shifted into the familiar woods outside of Aris's home. Trees lay, rotting on the wet leaves. A drizzle came from the grey sky above. Loki walked away from the cabin she knew too well.

Vee followed and Steve came after her. Loki's tattered clothes mended and formed into heavy black and green armor. A crown with horns sat atop his head, and a great staff appeared in-hand.