Mischievous Games│Loki

━ 𝟎𝟗

❈

𝒊𝒌𝒕𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒐𝒌 (𝒏.) - 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈

❈

THREE DAYS LATER and Artemis was beginning to eat her words.

Before she left Stark Tower on her mission to capture the pesky little prince, the team made sure that she had everything she needed to embark on her manhunt.

Thor had given her some useful combat tips when it came to fighting against Loki and the full force of his magic.

Natasha had made sure that Artemis had proper combat clothes (something Artemis didn't really think was necessary) but Natasha insisted that heroes needed to dress as such and - since the tights were pretty comfy- Artemis had to relent.

On top of her regular set of bows and arrows, Clint threw in some high-tech options; stunning arrows, blasting arrows, and tracking arrows. He insisted that her old wooden set wouldn't do her much good.

Tony, however wary he still was,  gave Artemis some new gadgets he and Bruce had been working on. In addition to the magic restraints and the metal mouth guard, he had given her a whole bag filled to the brim with top of the line equipment- none of which she believed she'd get around to using.

Artemis was a hunter so she normally relied on her senses alone to guide her to her prey and she felt that all of the toys- yes, she called them toys to Tony's chagrin and Bruce's amusement- were all just flourishes used by people who relied too heavily on technology and not enough on their own abilities.

There was one thing, however, that she begrudgingly decided to use.

A magical tracker.

It sounded ridiculous to her when Tony had slammed it into her hand. It was still in its testing phase, apparently, but when working properly it could find hot spots for magic.

It was obviously more complicated than that, but Artemis had zoned out when he began lecturing her on the science of it all.

Even with all this help, three days had passed and she wasn't even remotely close to finding Loki. Her pride wouldn't allow her to get help but she was desperate to find at least a trace of him, fearing what it would mean for her if she didn't.

He had to still be in the greater New York area, he had to be because all reasonable signs pointed to that.

Why would he leave?

Heimdall surely wasn't going to activate the Bifrost to let him back into Asgard without Thor. Loki hadn't been to any other part of Earth. If his plan was to wreak havoc and obtain the Tesseract, there would be no reason for him to leave.

The only reason that Artemis' spirit wasn't completely shot was the fact that, if she didn't find Loki, she could go back to Stark and berate him on his failed technology.