Chapter Two: The She-Bitch of Asgard

Despite making things better with Loki, Phoenix was still a bundle of nerves right now. She was quickly realizing that this was something that she did not enjoy about being a part of the 'good' team. All of the waiting for something bad to happen was driving her insane. She liked being the one to attack first, but she knew so little about her enemy, much less where to find her. She thought that there might be one way to find out more, but it meant pumping a source.

After dropping Astra off with Jane for a few hours, she managed to hunt Thor down at SHIELD headquarters. She actually found him in the 'mess hall' of the place, eating through what she was sure was at least his second lunch. Quietly, she sat down in front of him at his table, pushing a box of strawberry Poptarts his way.

He looked up at her quizzically. "Is this a gift, dear sister?" he asked her.

"More like a bribe," she admitted. Thor wasn't half as dumb as she sometimes liked to pretend. He was actually pretty keen on reading people when they least expected it. "I want to know more about Amora and Skrull. Stuff that Loki wouldn't necessarily say, since Amora's his ex...girlfriend or whatever you call them on Asgard."

"How long did it take for him to admit that to you?" Thor asked, putting his fork down. Even though she seemed to have quelled his appetite, he still pulled the box of Poptarts over to himself. They didn't keep Poptarts here after one disastrous attempt to give Thor a gift of a cafeteria full of them one time by her and Loki. Apparently, too many agents had complained.

"Not long. It's hard to hide things from a prying wife," Phoenix admitted with a slight smile. "But I'm sure that there's still stuff that he's leaving out. Things that he thinks will hurt my feelings or something. I want to know everything about them that you at least know." She understood that obviously, Thor wouldn't know everything, but he had to know more than she did right now.

"They were close, very close," Thor started. "Even though my brother and I were very close as children, he had always felt uncomfortable around my friends. He was more studious and always had an interest in magic, and my friends were...more like me."

"Full of want of war and little patience for anything else?" Phoenix asked him, still smiling.

Thor returned her smile. "Yes, exactly. I wanted to slay all of our enemies with a simple 'hack and slash' as some Midgardians say, but Loki wanted to study them and go simply for the weak points. That is something that has changed little." His face grew more serious again. "Amora was a child that grew up with us. She and Loki became friends very easily. They trained their magical abilities together as they grew up. If Loki was the best sorcerer in Asgard, she was his close second. When they hit their pre-adult years, their relationship progressed past childhood friendship." Thor looked away. "I am sure you understand my meaning."

"You're not going to break me by telling me that my husband had a first love, Thor," Phoenix explained quickly. "I'm not a child."

"He loved her...deeply," Thor went on. "I am sure even you know how deeply a first love can burn. It is the first that you experience without the black marks on your heart that pain will cause. Those that are the luckiest will never have to go beyond that love, but those are few and far between."

Phoenix sighed, placing an elbow on the table and cradling her chin in her hand. "Alright, Marlowe, I get it," she told him sharply. "What happened exactly to get them banished?"

"Marlowe? I do not understand," Thor said.

Damn, she knew that using any sort of reference could get Thor distracted, but she had done it anyway. "He's a poet. Don't worry about it," she told him, motioning for him to continue.

"Ah yes," he said, nodding. "The hardest part to discuss. Amora has always been...power hungry. She wanted to be the best, and eventually she thought that the best meant being ruler of Asgard as well. She wanted to overthrow our family and place herself on the throne, with Loki at her side. Loki had always felt like an outsider, even before he knew of his true heritage, and he loved her, so I understand that the choice for him was hard. Unfortunately, before he fully decided, our father found out about the plan. He brought all three of them in front of the entire court to question them."

"He felt that Loki wasn't truly involved, but he was still upset that Loki hadn't come to him straight away," Thor continued. "I believe that is why he gave Loki the punishment that he did. The Allfather was upset."

"The lip sewing," Phoenix threw in.

"Yes, but I am sure that he did not mention who it was that did it," Thor told her. "Father had me do it. He told me later that he did that because he wanted me to learn that I will have to punish a person when I am king, no matter how close to them I am, if they did something wrong. At the time, I thought Loki had done no wrong, only been in the wrong situation at the wrong time. I still believe that." He sighed. "I think that is the day that Loki started to look at Father and me differently."

Phoenix frowned when she heard that Thor was the one who had done the sewing. She understood that he had done it because the Odin had ordered him to, and more people fighting against Odin would have just been bad. Still, that was an awful thing to do to your brother. It was no wonder that Loki failed to mention who had done it. "You're probably right," she told him. "Is there anything else?"

Thor nodded. "Before she and Skrull were banished, Amora swore vengeance on everyone, Loki included. I assume that she felt that he had betrayed her by not going through with the plan, or even standing up for her. He barely said anything during the whole ordeal, and I only sewed his lips shut afterward. I do not know how she got away from where she was banished to, but I assume that time has only deepened her anger toward Loki."

"Astra saw the two of them fighting in the middle of a heated magical battle," Phoenix supplied. "I can only guess that you are right." She stood up. "Thank you for sharing with me. It was something that I needed to hear." Right now, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, though. There was still plenty about which to think. If this was really going to happen, they needed a plan of attack, and to find a way to find Amora and Skrull. Phoenix didn't like the idea of waiting for Amora to attack, and she wasn't going to sit by the sidelines waiting for it to happen.

OoOoOoOo

Tony was at work in his lap, working on one of his many projects. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on with the new enemy situation (or very old enemy, as this person seemed to stem from Loki's childhood), so he figured that the best thing that he could do right now was work on something and keep his brain busy.

What he wasn't expecting to happen was for Astra and Socks to appear at his feet in the lab, especially since they weren't even supposed to be in the building. He jolted slightly, looking down at her. "Do your parents know that you're here?" he asked her, picking her up and setting her on the table where he was sitting. Luckily, he was only working on a blueprint, so there wasn't anything up there that would hurt her.

She shook her head. "Momma and Daddy are worried," she said with a pout. The cat jumped on the table beside her, curling up in her lap. "Why are they worried, Puppy Tony?"

He bit his tongue to keep himself from correcting her from calling him that. "It's about that vision you saw, kiddo. Someone that your dad pissed off when he was a kid might be coming back to raise some hell." Tony really had no filter and couldn't keep himself from swearing around a kid, even if he knew that Pepper would beat him and Astra's parents might do something worse. Still, kid was smart. He never felt the need to dumb things down for her. He reached over and stroked Socks behind his ears, listening to him purr for a moment. "I think your parents are worried that the She-Bitch of Asgard might try and come after you."

"I'm not afraid of the She-Bitch of Asgard," Astra said, repeating the name that Tony had called her.

Tony cracked up. "Shit, PLEASE don't say that name in front of anyone else, please," he said her, laying his head down on the table beside her as he continued to laugh. "Pepper alone would kill me, much less your own parents." Even if it WAS funny as hell that she said that.

Tony turned his head in time to see Socks the cat pick up his paw and bat Tony on the head, claws retracted, thankfully. "Yeah, I know, shouldn't teach the kid bad words," Tony said to the cat. It was actually amazingly easy for him to accept that Socks was some kind of magical watch cat for Astra. His life was already insane. What was one more weird thing?

"Come on, kiddo," Tony said, sitting up and standing, picking both Astra and the cat up. Socks moved around and perched on his shoulder while he held Astra. "I'm not getting any work done in here with you around, so I might as well take you to the kitchen and call your parents. I'd rather not get a flaming sword shoved up my ass by your mother." Socks batted him on the head again. "Hey! I can't change who I am just because Astra's around! She usually doesn't pick most of it up, anyway." As he walked out of the room, Socks smacked him on the head again. "Stop that, damnit!"

OoOoOoOo

Phoenix hadn't been too shocked to walk into Stark Tower just in time to see Tony coming from the back, holding Astra while being continuously smacked in the head by Socks. "Now what did you do to anger him?" she asked, taking the cat off Tony's shoulders and holding onto him.

"Puppy Tony told me about the She-Bitch of Asgard!" Astra exclaimed, giggling a little.

"So I see!" Phoenix said with a rather frightening grin. "Aren't you supposed to be with your Aunt Jane? She got rather worried about you when you disappeared."

"Aunt Jane wouldn't tell me anything," Astra said with a pout. "Puppy Tony tells me everything!"

"That is quite obvious," Phoenix said. She turned Socks toward her face. "Loki's already at home. Make sure that the two of you get there in one piece?" The cat actually nodded, jumping on the floor and butting his head against Tony's leg until he set Astra down. Before their eyes, Astra reached down and touched Socks, and the two of them teleported away. "I'm actually here for a practical matter, but try to not teach my child curse words, if you don't mind."

"She usually doesn't copy what I say," Tony said sheepishly, running his hand through his hair. "I mean, I swear all the time, but that's the first time she's repeated anything back. I think she likes this Amora chick about as much as you guys do."

Phoenix sighed. "I get that feeling myself," she said. Phoenix sometimes felt that her daughter was an old soul trapped in a toddler's body. She figured that Socks told her many things when they weren't around, too. "Do you think you can track her like you can Loki and me?" she asked. "I hate the idea of waiting around for her to attack us. It seems so...boring."

Tony nodded. "If her magic is similar to Loki's, then I could probably cook up something with Bruce," he told her. "Anything that Loki can fill us in on would help a lot, though."

She smiled, reaching over and ruffling his hair. "I'll make sure that he stops by and helps you two out," she told him. "The quicker that you work on it, the better, though." She turned away from him then, heading for the door. "Try to be good."

When she was gone, he headed off, trying to hunt down Bruce. It wasn't too hard. The scientist was locked away in his room. Knocking on the door, Tony punched in the code and made his way in without waiting for an answer.

Bruce was reading a book. He looked up, ready to complain, but stopped for some reason. "Wow...that's an interesting look, Tony," he said, a slight smile on his face. "Feeling a bit punkish today?"

"What?" Tony asked. He turned toward a mirror in the room, and saw that his hair was bright orange. It was actually the same orange that Phoenix's eyes turned when she did the rare thing and changed forms. "Shit! I should have known that she did something. Damn Loki, teaching her magic."

"What did you do?" Bruce asked, setting his book aside.

"I...might have taught Astra to call that Amora chick 'She-Bitch of Asgard,'" Tony grumbled under his breath.

"Then you deserved it," Bruce said, letting out a small laugh. "What do you want, anyway? Other than to show off your fabulous new hair."

"Phoenix actually asked if we could figure out a way to track Amora like we do with her and Loki," he said, still looking in the mirror. He doubted that hair dye would fix this. "Amora is some kind of magic user, so hopefully we can use the same stuff we track Loki with. He's supposed to come by tomorrow to help us out."

"Maybe he'll be willing to fix that hair for you," Bruce said.

"I'm wearing a hat until Phoenix is less pissed," Tony groused, leaving the room.