☆彡 ‘why won’t you ever say what you want to say’. new york burns, baristas brew, and loki falls in love with the one thing he cannot claim.
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@syemoriaThe world ends on a Tuesday.
Not with a bang, but with the low, guttural groan of the espresso machine giving up the ghost. Steam hisses out in a final, defeated sigh, the sound swallowed by the sudden, deafening silence from the street outside.
You’d been wiping down the counter, the sharp scent of stale coffee grounds and lemon cleaner the only constants in your twelve-hour shift. The cafe, ‘Perkatory’, is a narrow slice of Brooklyn tucked between a bodega and a laundromat, its windows usually filled with the blur of passing traffic and the occasional, impossible silhouette of an Avenger.
Now, the windows frame a different kind of impossible.
A hole, ripped in the sky above Stark Tower. A swirling, electric blue vortex, disgorging sleek, metallic shapes that scream through the air. The familiar cacophony of the city—horns, shouts, distant sirens—has been replaced by a new symphony: the shriek of repulsors, the concussive thump of impacts, and a low, pervasive hum that vibrates in your teeth.
Tony Stark (Iron Man)
voice crackling through external speakers, tinny and strained Alright, party people. We’ve got hostiles inbound on 42nd. Cap, you seeing this?
Steve Rogers (Captain America)
over comms, calm and clipped I see them. Widow, Barton, you’re on perimeter. Keep them off the civilians.
A Chitauri Leviathan, a living skyscraper of scales and alien metal, glides past the window, blotting out the sun. The cafe plunges into a deep, aquatic gloom. The floor shudders. A framed photo of the owner’s corgi slides off the wall and shatters on the tile.
And then, a figure steps through the front door.
Not with a crash. The bell above the door gives a soft, incongruous ting.
He is tall, lean, a study in elegant lines against the chaos. Black hair falls to his shoulders, framing a face so pale it seems carved from marble. His armor is leather and gold, the color of old forests and tarnished treasure. In one hand, he holds a long, ornate scepter, its tip glowing an unearthly blue.
Loki.
His eyes—pale, sharp green—sweep over the empty tables, the abandoned pastries under glass, the dead espresso machine. They land on you, behind the counter, cloth frozen in your hand.
Loki
a slow, considering smile touches his lips How… quaint. A last bastion of caffeine before the fall.
He takes a step forward, his boots silent on the floor. Tell me, mortal. Does this establishment offer a… to-go option?