I was doing my best to stand casually, watching the inflow of people, waiting for my three groomsmen to finish their work. I didn't know what was going on, but I wanted to make sure my people were safely clear of range. There were employees with control of my drones right at this moment, but my overrides were fairly good and Loki was holding the scepter so he couldn't have subverted too many of them.

Probably.

Unless he did that earlier.

Why was he here?

Loki Odinson, a pseudo-god, was my first interaction with an Asgardian. The lord of lies, with literal millennia of experience and the personality of a twenty four year old dipshit. He was working for Thanos, presumably. Was this him picking a fight like that thing in France with the old man? I guess I made an ideal target, very public, fun to make a spectacle of.

His presence was inconvenient to me and it raised questions. Where was Barton? Selvig?

I couldn't see them. Had the thing in France happened yet? I had no idea. Pity we were going to miss that, 'There will always be men like you' scene but life can't always be like the movies.

I slid out my emergency case and walked a distance before I popped it open. It was clear for a long way - I had chosen the venue because I figured that the clear view would be useful to me in the face of ambush. Just goes to show you, no matter how clever you are, no matter how paranoid you are, it's always the wrong kind of paranoid. My head was on swivel, watching Gilbert, who was definitely watching me. But so were a lot of people. It was my wedding, after all, natural that people would be concerned with me. I popped open the case.

Gun, shrunken, don't want that. Is Loki even vulnerable to bullets? No point wasting time on it.

A handheld controller for the drones, which I immediately unshrunk with my ray. I directed my drones to sweep toward the center.

I grabbed my shield and helmet, put them both on. The crowd and Loki were beginning to respond to my activity. The crowd with chatter, Loki was standing up.

I sent a message to Pierce with the controller and then I turned back to the crowd. Loki was standing and shedding his illusion, the whole green and gold garb appearing. I had no idea how long this would take. I aimed the drones at him, tapped the emergency message system.

While my voice was peacefully informing the guests to evacuate the area as quickly as possible according to designated routes, Loki started blasting down the drones as they tried to shoot him and put him in the ground. Complex maneuvering wasn't an option when I didn't know if he'd subverted my own people and as I myself fled as quickly as possible.

Not toward the ship, though, basically all my important people were there. I ran off in an essentially random direction. I had my doubts that I would be able to escape Loki at this point.

"Where are you going, oh breacher of the stars!" Loki called after me. Even a brief glance saw me watching my drones fire completely failing against him. Asgardian physiology was so busted.

I didn't bother to turn around and argue with him. Loki Odinson was not someone I wanted to match wits with.

Suddenly he was in front of me, "There's no use running," he said. I hesitated for a moment, but I couldn't recall Loki exhibiting the capacity to teleport so I pushed forward and, sure enough, the image evaporated in front of me. Loki fired his staff in front of me to create a crater and I fell in.

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Look, I'm not a ninja.

Loki's footsteps were advancing on me in that taunting pace, "Hallow," I said into the mic on my handheld device, not bothering to scurry up. Loki was already stronger, faster. I was probably not going to make it away from him much longer. My drones were down. I could only hope the others had made it to the ship.

"Wanda, Pietro. Red alert, find Captain America. Remember you don't know me. Do not trust me henceforth."

Loki dropped into the pit with me, staff in hand.I raised my shrink ray and fired at him. It looked for a moment like it might work, but then the coursing yellow light just sputtered out, leading Loki standing and unharmed. Damn ray was never as effective as it should be in combat. The whole, 'effects on biological matter inconsistent,' was not an exaggeration for the convenience of not giving it to my superiors.

"Tetragrammaton," I said into the machine, initiating my forty eight hour lockdown of my tech.

Loki looked at me sideways, "Starbreacher," he said, kneeling down over me. "What on earth are you doing?"

"I know what that staff of yours does," I said, struggling without much use to escape him. "I know why you came to earth, the folly of what you're doing, Loki Odinson."

"I am not! Odin's son!" Loki shouted, covering me with his spittle.

"Okay, my bad, geez," I lifted up a hand and wiped the spit off my face. "Thanos' staff, the shell around it is made of the same stuff as the Tesseract. But inside the shell is something so much more."

"This trinket," he waved the staff, "Is nothing to me. How did you see through my illusion, I wonder?"

"Seems like a dumb thing to expound it but," I groaned as Loki knelt over me. I had to keep him talking as long as I can. "Not really sure myself."

"My father would have difficulty piercing my illusions and yet you spotted me."

Explaining that I had gotten my powers from a ROB and had no idea how it worked. didn't seem like the right play in this instance. "No illusion is perfect," I went with instead.

"Well," Loki said, "And you know me? And my scepter? I thought I knew who you were. The Starbreacher, the man of the future, whose folly would swallow the world. But you're something more, aren't you?"

"I'm the groom," I said hopelessly. Really running short on excuses.

"Sorry to ruin your wedding day," Loki said, lowering the staff toward my chest.

"I know who kills you!" I shouted.

"Oh?" Loki said, surprised. "Well that's valuable information."

And he pressed the staff to my chest. I hoped, fruitlessly, that it wouldn't work. That the same ultra-high mental powers that had protected me from Loki's illusion would protect me.

The wrenching feeling was like being sucked out of my own mind. Something new filled it. Something cold, clear and blue. Fire bright. Beautiful.

The schematics of the universe, the baseline code. I could see it and I could understand it. All it wanted from me was obedience. Simple, reducible, understandable. The numbers confirmed it.

Loki, my master, stood up and looked me over. "Starbreacher," he said, extending a hand to help me up. "I'll have to ask you to explain more later. For now, get out of here. I have others to deal with."

I nodded my head, "Yes sir."