This is my first multi-chapter story. It takes place during Avengers, but I had to twist the chronology and some of the facts for the story to make sense. If you look closely at the Avengers movie, there is obviously no time between one battle and the next for all the stuff that happens here. Let's just call it a slightly altered reality. There's not a lot of Loki in Chapter 1 (sorry), but from Chapter 2 onwards he will be there, breaking havoc.

Chapter 1: The Road You Didn't Take

THEOLOGY (definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary): the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially: the study of God and of God's relation to the world.

May 15. Stuttgart.

"What person can know for sure when his or her life is going to change? What wouldn't we give for the ability to manipulate our destiny, to go back to the moment of an apparent trivial choice in our lives and be able to choose the other option...?"

The woman's voice could be heard, loud and clear, by all the attendants in the meeting room. The international law firm Ulrich & Malcolm, in Stuttgart, owned a state of the art meeting room. To begin with, it was so big that the company always held the Christmas party there; if they wanted, they could have invited all the neighbours and they would still fit in comfortably. It had the acoustics of a concert hall, so no microphones were needed. Furthermore, it wasn't located on the top floor of the U&M building, like any other normal meeting room would be. Instead, it occupied a good part of the ground floor, and one of its sides was entirely composed of several huge french windows that opened towards the zen garden. Under Mr. Malcolm's orders, those windows were always open, so that anyone passing through the garden could hear and see everything in the room. The President of the firm was very proud of his open door policy, literal and figurative. What very few people realized is that, by virtue of this policy, he knew everything that was said and done by anyone on the company. He pretended to accept suggestions and ideas from his team, but he never acted on them. Everybody wasted their time exchanging ideas that would at some point be stolen by one of the senior partners, but the junior associates never complained. In time, some of them would be partners and it would be their turn to have the upper hand in the game.

There were a dozen partners and some junior lawyers and clerks in this particular meeting. The woman delivering the speech was the newest partner at U&M, and she was playing the game with considerable skill. In an short period of time she had been promoted from the Boston office to the London one, and finally to the head office in Germany. Mergers and Acquisitions, which meant swimming in a pool of sharks, but she was good at smelling blood in the water. Right now she was suggesting that the firm took an aggressive position in a merger between two banks. It was a big account and a bold movement, but, if everything went according to plan, by the end of the year she would be one the star attorneys of the firm.

"...and that is why I'm asking my fellow partners to approve my proposal and allow me to assemble a team to set the merger in motion", she finished.

"What worries me is that the press is going to call 'hostile takeover' in any moment, and that would cast a bad light upon us", argued the man sitting at the head of the table.

"That is why I have asked our press department to develop a counter strike, Mr. Malcolm. They are already working on it, and I've sent the details to all the partners less than an hour ago. As soon as we publish it, we will be regarded as heroes by the whole financial world, and the takeover... sorry, the merger will be a fact."

The President seemed happy with the answer. "You have excelled yourself this time, Miss Channing. Good work, we will submit this to a vote first thing tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned."

The atmosphere around the table relaxed a bit, as the attendants started closing their laptops and leaving towards the elevator. The woman in the navy suit stayed in the room, reviewing her notes.

"Leah, I predict than in ten years you will be President, CEO, Supreme Empress or whatever other position you want to occupy in this company."

She looked at the young man who had been sitting to her right during the meeting and flashed a quick smile at him. "Not so fast, Mark. I have to get this operation right first."

"You're all work and no fun since they made you a partner. Let's go have a few drinks... for old times' sake."

"You would be more worried about work if your name wasn't Mark Ulrich Jr., and if you weren't the heir apparent of Ulrich & Malcolm", she sneered.

"At the risk of sounding like a spoiled brat, I must say I deserve everything I have achieved. The same as you." Mark tried to slide a tentative hand around Leah's waist, but she got out of reach with a swift movement.

"Let bygones be bygones, Mark. You know second parts are always a bore", she sighed. "Also, I'm going to the opera tonight, with the wife and the two daughters of a client. Someone in PR thought it would be funny to make me play babysitter for a day. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish planning the demise of a poor investment bank... before the fat lady sings."

"You love the thrill of the hunt, don't you, Leah?"

She lifted her gaze from the papers and looked him in the eye. "It takes a true predator to recognize another."

"Well, have fun plotting your evil schemes and watching La Bohéme for the umpteenth time. If you change your mind, you know where to find me", he winked at her. "Oh, there seems to be a visitor waiting for you in the garden, and he's been there for a while", he observed before leaving the room.

She turned around to face the french windows, a bit perplexed. No one had informed her of any visitor, but there was indeed a man standing outside in the zen garden. Tall, dark-haired, in a black suit. A very expensive, custom tailored black suit, she thought. A good lawyer could smell money from a mile away, and the stranger reeked of it. Besides, he was quite attractive. No, not attractive... beautiful. Almost too beautiful for a man, his hands a bit too delicate, his pale skin a tad too smooth. She immediately went into her 'professional, efficient and attentive but not too friendly' mode.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Your powers of speech are truly extraordinary." His voice was soft, almost husky, and the corners of his mouth were curled in a little smile.

"Thank you. But you didn't have to wait outside until the end of the meeting. If you had made your presence known, I'm sure Mr. Ulrich or Mr. Malcolm would have interrupted it to receive you."

"Ah, but I do not wish to see any of them right now." A smirk this time, and a step towards her. "On the other hand, eavesdropping can be very entertaining. And instructive."

"Do you have an interest in corporate finance?" She returned the smile, tilting her head in a flirty way and wondering how hard it would be to steal a big client like this from one of their bosses.

"I am about to... how would you say it? Launch an aggressive takeover."

"I love those. They are the quickest way to penetrate a profitable market."

The man licked his lips and stared at Leah, making her feel exposed and uncomfortable, although her dress shirt was buttoned up to her neck. "It takes a true predator to recognize another", he said, mimicking the words she had used just a minute before.

Leah frowned, took a step backwards, and pretended to arrange the chairs around the table. "Let me get the receptionist and clear this up. There must have been a misunderstanding with your appointment." She picked up the phone from the other side of the table, but when she looked outside again the man had vanished. She went out to the garden, now deserted, and crossed the hall towards the main reception.

"Bertha! Bertha! Where did that man go?"

"What man, Leah, dear?" The receptionist, a matronly middle-aged woman with thick glasses that was holding a phone in each hand, looked at her, a bit confused.

"There was a client... a visitor, just outside the meeting room. The only other door to the garden is through this reception."

"It's past five o'clock, my dear. No client gets an appointment after four, and most of your colleagues are leaving already. Are you sure of what you saw?"

Without bothering to answer, she hurried back to the huge meeting room, gathered her papers and returned to her office. There, she poured herself a glass of scotch and drank it in one fluid motion. The prospect of a boring night at the opera was dreadful... for a moment she considered telling Public Relations to fuck off, cancelling the plans and calling Mark. At least she would have a drinking (and sleeping) companion, and would stop worrying about working too many hours... and seeing ghosts.

The ice cubes tinkled in the empty glass as she placed it on her desk and walked, this time slowly, towards the garden. There was definitely nobody there, only the stones, the plants, the wood bridge and the gravel, that the gardener raked carefully in undulating patterns and circles twice a day.

The gravel that showed no other footprints than her own.

"I'm overworked. I didn't sleep well yesterday. And ghosts don't exist", Leah said to nobody in particular, a bit louder than her usual calm tone. She even managed a weak smile, right before feeling the touch of an icy finger on her cheek and exhaling a small cloud of vapor.

The handful of clerks and interns that stayed late in the U&M office to do some extra hours were surprised by the sudden banging of a door, the hurried sound of a pair of high heels clicking on the wooden floor, and the sight of the usually composed partner Leah Channing practically running out of the building, with her coat dangling over one arm and her handbag and two portfolios on the other.

"These kids... Running, always running as if the Devil was right behind them", mused Bertha, the receptionist, shaking her head in disapproval. "They should be friends with him after all, being lawyers..."