Chapter Four: I'm A Thing

Beyond sleeping fitfully for a few hours, Phoenix couldn't rest. She had woken up as soon as sunlight filtered from her window and into the house, and she ended up throwing on some jeans and a black tank top before heading into the living room, putting down food for Socks and then sitting on the sofa, grabbing the book that Loki had sent to her before. It was the one about myths and legends, the one that, at the back of her mind, had been bothering her since she first read it.

It was one thing that she couldn't help but focus on. Even if certain things about it didn't make sense, other parts did. It made sense why she was always warm. Why, now that the magic was released in her, that things burned when she got angry. There was one big problem with the theory of her being...of this particular myth pertaining to her.

For one, she didn't own a sword that could bring fire, although she supposed she could find a way to put that together.

Secondly, she wasn't male. That she was DAMN sure of, but myths that are old enough could get details wrong?

"How long have you been awake?" Loki's voice filtered in from behind her, but, for once, she didn't acknowledge him. She was sitting cross legged on the floor, book in her lap.

"I don't like the idea of being sweated out of someone's arm pits," she grumbled. It was something stupid to focus on. "I'm actually glad I seem to have blocked that out." She didn't remember being sweated out of an armpit.

She felt him walk closer, still not turning to him. He squatted down behind her, looking over her shoulder and looking at the entry she had the book open to Surtur. "I really did think that was a myth," she heard him say.

"I'm not a man," she said, still not looking up at him.

"Translations don't always get gender right," he told her.

"I wasn't wrong about wanting to burn the world down," she said, not realizing that, as her fingers dug harder into the pages, her fingers were actually starting to burn into the paper. No flames as of yet, though.

"My...Odin," she heard him correct himself, but barely realized it, "he talked to me while I was locked away. He told me I was meddling with a force that I couldn't possibly understand by being with you." She felt his hands on hers, forcing her to drop the book, likely before she lit the damn thing on fire. "He had you removed long ago, to try and prevent Ragnarok from happening."

Odin likely could have even changed the translations to make it harder to find her, or for her to find out about herself. She wouldn't put it past him at this point. She wasn't sure she would put anything past anyone at this point.

"I'm a...a thing," she said with a snarl. "I'm a monster." She had once said that she wouldn't mind watching the world burn, but it was one thing to say that and another to realize that you were going to be the one who was going to burn it.

Before she realized what was happening, she felt Loki's strong hands on her arms and felt herself being pulled up. Hard green eyes met her own. "You are anything but a monster," he told her. "You're the first person who made me feel like *I* wasn't a monster, and I'm not going to let you think that about yourself."

She's almost dazed as she looks at him. Having him confirm what she suspected sent her into a little bit of a shock. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm not really a child of Odin, not biologically. He found me in the temple of Jotunheim, after defeating Laufey in battle. He adopted me with some thought that I may bring peace between the realms someday." He looked away and shuddered when he said that. "I found out that I am a member of a race that Thor used to tell me were hiding under my bed at night, ready to come and get me if I fell asleep!"

She felt him shake her, as if trying to snap her out of her stupor. "I am a Frost Giant. I am the thing that the Aesir children are taught to be afraid of. You were the first to make me feel like I am simply Loki, not some horrid thing, and I won't have you thinking the same."

She knew that he could be eloquent, but damn that was good, even for him. She gave him a slight smile before laying her head on his chest, simply relishing in his presence and feeling slightly less monstrous than when all of this had finally sunk in.

She stayed silent for a long moment before asking, "Why am I so short?"

"What?" He reached and tilted her head up towards his.

"I'm short." She was only about five feet, four inches tall. Loki towered over her. "If Surtur...if I'm supposed to be a fire giant, why am I so short?" She was a little short even by human standards, much less anything resembling a giant.

"Maybe you're a runt like me," Loki remarked with a smirk.

Despite everything she had been fully informed of today, she started to laugh. "How fucking tall are they that YOU'RE considered a runt?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "It does not matter," he told her. "Now come on. I think it's time that we pay our friends in New York a little visit, don't you?"

So, they were finally going to do something? She beamed up at him. "I admit I'm curious to see what exactly you mean by pranks. I assume that you don't mean anything like putting sneezing powder in someone's food."

He shook his head. "That is just boring," he told her. "And a bored God of Mischief is quite the dangerous God of Mischief."

"Because the two of us aren't dangerous as it is?" she asked him with a giggle. "Well, I guess we should head back to New York City before you get too bored." She paused for a moment before saying, "Please tell me that pranks involve fire. Burning things seems to be the only thing I'm consistently good at."

"You still need to expand your horizons," he pointed out, almost sounding stern before grinning again, "but yes they can!"

OoOoOoOoOO

"Loki would find someone to partner up with that could possibly make things worse than he already was."

Tony rubbed his eyes as he tried not to laugh. After Thor had woke him up and told him what was really going on, he had actually made the effort to call everyone together. If Loki was missing, and Phoenix was behind it, and she was actually the harbinger of Armageddon or whatever it was that Thor called it, and things were just BAD with a capital fuck you.

"I knew that she was crazy," Clint continued, "but damn."

"Does she even know what she really is?" Natasha asked.

Thor shook his head. "Father banished her here without her memory to try and make sure that Ragnarok would never happen."

"Do you think she wants to bring the rag thing about now?" Tony asked. This really was almost too much, and, for Tony to think that, that just made it even worse.

"Ragnarok," Thor corrected softly. "I know not, Anthony."

"If you call me Anthony one more time I swear I'll steal all your pop tarts," Tony grumbled. "It's just Tony, Thor. Say it with me. To-ny," he said, sounding it out slowly like he was saying it for someone who didn't speak English.

"Tony, now would be a good time to focus," Steve reminded him. "Don't get cranky because Thor calls you by your full name." The Captain ran his fingers through his hair. "So, guess this means that we need to go out and find them."

"I'm sure that they'll show themselves soon enough," Banner said. "In non-end-of-the-world-y things, has anyone seen my jacket?"

OoOoOoOoOo
A prank war seemed to take the appearance of psychological warfare, at least in the hands of Loki and Phoenix.

It started simply when things started to disappear around the Avengers headquarters. Bruce's jacket was only the first thing. It turned up three days later, but it had been dyed what Tony called 'pretty princess pink.'

The keys to Steve's motorcycle were next. At the time, everyone just called him an old man who was going senile. When he finally gave up and replaced them, those disappeared in less than an hour.

Then Tony's favorite car disappeared for three days before reappearing in four equal sawed apart pieces in four different parts of the city. Tony nearly had a stroke.

When the steering wheel of his second favorite car was stolen, only to show up welded to the crotch of his Iron Man suit, along with 'Driving you nuts, yet?' scrawled on his wall, everyone suspected that Loki and Phoenix were up to no good, especially since none of the cameras caught anything during all of these occurrences.

Steve walked out of his bedroom with everything normal, but walked back in an hour later with all of his belongings and furniture glued to the ceiling in a perfect replica of how they were arranged normally, only upside down. Steve thought that he had lost his mind until Clint confirmed that everything was on the ceiling for him. Once again, nothing had been caught on the cameras around the headquarters.

The next stage of the 'prank war' was more extreme. Someone blew up Natasha's car while she was getting coffee, it went from suspicions to confirmation as to who was behind these 'pranks'. Only those two would think of an exploding car as a 'prank.'

What they didn't realize was that Loki had taught Phoenix to blow up the car by igniting the gasoline with her own abilities. No more homemade bombs with propane! No one could really figure out how or why the car had exploded, which just suggested all the more that the God of Mischief and his companion were behind it, along with the deaths of the three nearby civilians who had the misfortune of being nearby.

There had been a meeting and a lot of screaming from Fury after that incident, as he couldn't believe that Loki and Phoenix hadn't been seen doing any of these things when they were so obviously behind them. Plus, they had escalated from simple annoyances fairly quickly. Something had to be done.

Finding them became even more pertinent when Tony Stark disappeared from his bed one night. Not as in was snatched from it, but actually vanished in the blink of an eye on the camera without any sort of warning.

When he woke up, the only thing he could figure out immediately was that he was in a basement. He had fallen asleep in his bed and never even felt himself being removed, and, since he hadn't been drinking that night, he doubted that he had blacked out.

The room was dark except for the arc reactor that glowed on his chest through the wife beater that he had been wearing when he fell asleep.

It stopped being so dark when a small fire appeared out of nowhere. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Tony could see that the fire was held in the palm of a woman's hand: Phoenix. She was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

"Nice of you to join the land of the living, Tony Stark," she remarked, sounding almost bored as she rolled the small flame out of the palm of her hand, not even looking up from it as it moved over the back of her hand and then up to her fingertips.

"Since when did you turn into a sentient candle?" he asked, fascinated despite himself. It was the same problem that he had with Loki. He wanted to know how they performed magic because his scientific mind wanted to know how things worked, usually by taking them apart and seeing how they fit back together. He had the feeling that Phoenix was more than a little 'apart' already, at least mentally. She had a frightening burning look in her eyes that she didn't before.

She bent back all of her fingers but her pointer finger, the fire now small like…well, a candle now. She chuckled wickedly, actually flicking the fire in his direction, still smiling as the fire singed a bit of his hair. "Since I became more aware of my place," she said to him.

She stood up, walking over to him like a predator stalking its prey, sitting on his lap and languidly slinging an arm around his shoulders. It was then that he realized that, unlike Loki, who's skin felt like ice, hers felt like fire. Tony couldn't help but realize that she and Loki really were opposites in a lot of ways. Loki was tall and angular while she was short and curvy. He really didn't need to be thinking about how nice it was to feel a pretty, curvy woman sitting in his lap. Bad Tony!

Tony let out a slightly nervous chuckle. "I don't remember you being anywhere near this friendly," he said as he felt her fevered tips of her fingers trail slowly from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose.

"Oh she's actually quite friendly." Tony would have jumped out of the chair if he weren't currently tied to it, and if someone wasn't sitting on his lap. A light flickered on and Tony blinked as he looked toward the doorway, seeing a smiling Loki standing by a light switch. "We both can be if we're in the right mood."

"And I've officially entered the Twilight Zone," Tony remarked as Phoenix started to stroke at the hair she had singed just minutes ago. "Why am I here? For that matter, where is here?"

"Twilight Zone, remember?" Phoenix cooed to him. "And you're here because I can't blow up cars every day to have fun."

As she started to hum the tune for the old show, her bringing up exploding Natasha's car reminded him just of who he was dealing with. "They're gonna find me, you know, and they're gonna be PISSED when they do."

"It is more fun to fight people when they are angry," Loki remarked, walking over and offering his hand to Phoenix, who slid her hand into his and allowed him to help her up off Tony's lap. He then lifted her up off her feet, carrying her away like a husband carrying his bride over the threshold of their home. "Now, I hope that you don't think us as rude hosts, but we do have to plan a bit for when your friends arrive."

As Loki carried her away, Phoenix looked at Tony over his shoulder and waved. "Goodnight Tony Stark!" she called out to him.

They left the light on for him as they left the room, although he heard the audible click of a lock sliding into place from the other side of the door. This night had turned into something weird, terrifying, and just a little bit hot.

Tony shook his head as that last thought crossed his mind. Bad Tony!

OoOoOoOoOo

As Loki carried Phoenix away from the basement and up toward their bedroom, he laughed as he felt her press her warm lips against the crook of his neck. "I think our guest might like you," he remarked.

"I think our guest might like you," she told him playfully. Oh they were going to have fun playing with Tony Stark while they waited for his friends to try and rescue him! "He is the type to flirt with danger, after all."

(Author's Note: I understand that Surtur is a villain in the Marvel comics universe, but this is fiction and I'm sticking more to the original Norse mythology. Other than obviously making Surtur female and tossed onto Midgard to prevent her predicted actions in Ragnarok. Plus, to give a hint into future chapters and at least one sequel, as I have one planned to even this, this series is about telling fate to get fucked and doing what you want. Fate is what you make, to quote Terminator 2. The myth of Surtur fit too perfectly, though, so I couldn't resist interweaving and the like.

And yes, Phoenix is acting a little unhinged in this chapter. Wouldn't you if you found out if you were supposed to help bring about Armageddon? Loki can act crazy at times, after all.

…I'm actually a little worried for Tony now. *laughs* Those two might do something extra evil, like turn him into a girl or something.)