Hey guys! Yes, robbie - Nathans are pretty much evil, with a few exceptions. But for this story - yeah. If it's a Nathan, tis not good. and yeah, scruffy - Uncle Thor is the best goofball baby sitter of the nine realms. For sure.

Waiting For Trouble

School had been dragging as it always seemed to do before a big holiday break, and without his usual guardian, Scott was lost even more than before he'd met Logan. All of the kids were making plans for Christmas, and even the teachers were caught up in the swirl of excitement.

It was just hard for Scott to focus - and even harder for him to even do his work than usual - particularly when the English teacher decided that they were going to free write a two page essay on 'family traditions' for the upcoming holiday.

While the other kids dove in, excited for their easy 'A', Scott just stared at the paper as he remembered Christmases as a child. Warm fires, warm family - plenty of hot cocoa and homemade cookies as they watched movies and played board games after the holiday festivities.

Even in the orphanage they'd have the kids share in a meal before they 'celebrated'. But this was his first year without all that, and the way that the days were slipping by, Scott wondered if he was going to end up spending the holiday with Thor.

He frowned to himself, wondering if the Asgardian knew much about Christmas. And then he simply looked up as the question of how much eggnog Thor could down popped into his head. If it was anything like how he drank coffee - or how quickly he cleaned out Logan's liquor cabinet it might actually be an interesting question to pose.

"Do you need help getting started, Scott?" the teacher asked, jarring him from his thoughts. "You look a little lost. What are you thinking about?"

He blushed slightly and then tried to bury the smirk. "Um … eggnog," he said finally when it was clear that the teacher wasn't letting him go without an answer.

"Oh, that's a good place to start," she replied with a warm smile, clueless as to what had the boy looking so amused.

Scott realized belatedly after the start of his last hockey game before Christmas break that after flat out disappearing for a week with no explanation, it was entirely probable that Logan no longer had a job when he got back. With that hanging over his head suddenly, Scott started to wonder how long they could stay where they were if he didn't have an income.

He glanced over at Dr. Blake shortly after stealing the puck and passing it to his captain - and then getting bashed into the wall - and found himself wondering if the Avengers got paid.

He'd heard the buzz that was creeping its way into the school. Mostly from Nathan - about how his father was looking to prove himself since he never got a chance to face Logan one on one, but it wasn't just Nathan's dad that was talking that way. Plenty of other kids' dads were planning to get into the ring as soon as the next fight came up - which, incidentally was shortly after the new year. The talk was all over town. No one could have missed the buzz on it.

But his attention wasdrawn back in the game at the coach's whistle leaving Scott to get back to what he was supposed to be doing.

To Scott's amazement, Nathan did manage to keep his mouth shut - at least to Scott for the duration of the game - and the group of them were working really well when Nathan got down to business. It was the first time Scott had actually seen the guy apply himself - and he was pretty darn good, too.

With the end of the game and their clear win under their belts, and a fair amount of praise from the coach with a lot of enthusiastic 'attaboy's to Nathan, Scott was more than happy to join in with the team in a genuine appreciation of the guy's skills. But of course, that wasn't enough for Nathan and as Scott tried to be a team player - Nathan took a swing and knocked Scott flat on the ice before walking away.

It took him a moment to process it, but before Nathan could get off the ice, Scott quickly got to his feet and made a rush to slam into him at full speed. The two of them started duking it out, though Nathan was quickly irritated when he couldn't hit anything that wasn't padded.

The fight was a quick one - if nothing else, the team didn't want to see Scott get hurt - though they were surprised to see that Scott wasn't the one on the losing end - and every time that Nathan tried to get to his feet, Scott neatly knocked him off his skates and back onto the ice.

It kept going that way until the coach was involved -and both boys were promptly told to stay home for the next practice anyhow. "Until you two learn to work together, you can both just take a break - and Nathan, if you can't drop the attitude, you can just not show up at all."

The older boy was obviously put off by the coach, and with an almost vengeful glare Scott's way, he gathered up his gear and left.

Scott however … he took his time. He wasn't really too keen on the chances of meeting up with Nathan in the locker room. Not because he was worried about another fight - no. He was pretty sure that he could take the creep after everything he had learned … no. He was worried that he'd let the team down by getting both of them kicked off before the next game.

Dr. Blake was waiting for him when he got out of the locker room and he hoisted Scott's gear effortlessly over his shoulder as they headed to the jeep.

It was going to be a long week or so - and Scott found himself looking forward to seeing Logan again and getting back to normal. He thought they might have some trouble with Nathan's father, but apparently, Dr. Blake was deterrent enough, even with as cheerful as he was. However, the little wave he'd given toward the surly father and son combo on the way out of the lot might have been a tiny bit inflammatory. To some.

Another couple of days passed and Scott was not enjoying his weekend as much as he knew he would be if Logan had been there. There wasn't enough ice for him to learn how to set up a tip up … but he would have at least been hunting or something … not just … watching Thor be so … foreign when they went out to the steakhouse in town. Scott shrunk down on himself a bit as Thor seemed to be drawing a crowd. He'd never seen anyone eat like that … or … that much. It was almost mesmerizing.

As Scott tried to not stare at the God of Thunder, his attention was drawn by a few grown men at the bar - discussing the upcoming and highly illegal cage fight. It was supposed to be bigger than the last one - higher stakes … higher buy in … and there was no shortage of guys that wanted another shot at Logan.

"... no way are we lettin' him walk outta that cage."

"Little shrimp is gonna need to be carried out, if anything."

"Hey. I want to see him leave on a damn stretcher. After he cheated last time?"

The consensus was in, and it only had Scott more worried as he knew that on it's own just being gone for a week would mean no job on Logan's return, and he was sure that Logan would take a shot at what he called 'easy money'. Scott frowned deeper on hearing the chatter and went back to playing with his food. He had no idea when Logan would be done with his little side trip with Captain America and with talk the way it was - he almost hoped it would be a longer trip. So that Logan would miss the chance at these guys ganging up on him. Even if that meant he'd be alone for Christmas with Thor.

Scott shook his head, his imagination running wild on what an Asgardian Christmas must be like … particularly since he looked it up and … Thor's dad had big things to do with that earthly tradition. He smirked to himself and barely whispered out "So. Santa really is real. Just … on a different planet. Must be that h has Heimdall keep an eye out on the rotten kids." He shook his head of the thought - and focused back on his task at hand, which was much more serious than mental images of Thor being a candy cane jockey …

"Right," he said to himself, refocusing. On the off chance that Logan was back in time for that fight, he wanted to make sure he had time to scout ahead and see what the story was with that bar and the people involved. But getting an hour to himself with the holly jolly thunder God was well- that was next to impossible. If nothing else because the guy only had one thing to occupy his thoughts while he was there, and that was Scott.

But, Scott reminded himself, he was a teenager. And teenagers were known to find themselves a little trouble from time to time. Of course … he didn't want trouble. He just wanted to know where this fight was going to happen … and how long it took for him to get there from the cabin. And … probably a general idea of how many people were signing up.

So instead of listening to Dr. Blake regale him with tales of the feud with his wayward brother, Scott just began to nod when he thought Dr. Blake needed him to as he concentrated instead on listening to what the men at the bar were saying.

After a good twenty minutes, he had something to work with - the name of the bar. It wasn't one that was in town - or Scott would have seen it in passing.

Before Thor could draw much more attention - and Scott noticed that there was plenty of people watching him - they quickly made their way back to the cabin. He couldn't wait to get a few minutes alone - and as soon as they were back, he made a beeline for the kitchen to snag the phonebook and then disappeared into his room.

"Got homework, thanks for dinner," Scott called out before he closed the door and dropped onto his bed. It took him all of two minutes to look up the place once he was alone in his room - and the address was on the outskirts of town. Of course it is, he thought to himself. Can't possibly be somewhere easy for me to get to. But already, Scott was working on a plan - a way to get out there … and a way to see what kind of competition Logan was sure to find himself up against.

For the next week solid, Scott paid attention whenever he saw little groups of men gathered up. For a secret fight - it sure was something that everyone seemed to know about. And if what he was hearing was right, then this fight - unlike the other one - was pulling in fighters from a lot further out than their area and the crews of lumbermen in the woods.

"There's no way the cops don't know about this," Scott said under his breath as he watched a group of men openly discussing it in daylight. But all that did was bring up a new pack of concerns for him. Arrests would be made if the cops showed up. That much he was sure of. Couldn't have a secret fight that size and not draw police interest.

There is no way … no way he can jump into a fight like this without knowing what he's getting into, Scott thought to himself, frowning. He couldn't fight back everyone, right? It just didn't make sense. What if that monstrosity of a blonde hair ball managed to get free from SHIELD custody and got into the fight too? Scott was sure that he wouldn't bother trying to hide the fact that he was a mutant.

Scott slowed his pace as concern started to overtake the rest of his thoughts. What if Logan got arrested? What if they figured out he was a mutant? Would they charge Logan with kidnapping him? Would they send him back to the orphanage? Would SHIELD do anything to stop it if it did come down to that?

For a moment, Scott just stood there letting all his worries run wild until a blonde girl from a year ahead of him bumped into him, and he automatically apologized, not noticing the appraising look she gave him - or the flirty little smile before she continued on her way. How could he have seen that when he had so much on his mind?

He couldn't worry about police or what the fighters wanted. He tried to remind himself that there had to be RULES. Or how would they knew who had won? He let out a little sound of frustration. None of those thoughts would help him until he could find out how hard it was going to be to get to the bar - and of course, that could be a waste of time if Logan wasn't back by then. He turned to look at the calendar and the corner of his mouth tightened up. Christmas eve was tomorrow. And Captain Rogers had said the mission should only have been a week. It was well past that now.

It was still weighing heavy on his mind when he returned to the cabin after his walk. He shook his head to clear his thoughts again and raised one hand to his temple. He must have been getting hit too hard lately. Shaking his head like that had never given him any troubles, but he felt almost dizzy after that. He frowned deeper and dropped his backpack next to the front door and took off his ruby quartz glasses to press his thumb between his eyes and lean on the door. Another headache was building.

"It's not unusual for a mission to run long if it goes into somewhere like Latveria," Thor said suddenly, and Scott turned to look at the tall blonde - who seemed to be watching football and chuckling as one of the linebackers flipped entirely over his opponent's head. "They will be back soon enough."

Scott frowned at that and put the glasses back on before he pulled out the map he had taken from the library. It wasn't much, but it did have the full layout of the area and it was complete with address blocks on the streets. It would be exactly what he needed to figure out how to get to the bar without actually having to go there ahead of time.