Steve had gotten into a fairly regular routine of late. He got ready for his morning run, checked next door to see if Sharon was home, then went out for his run. What wasn't part of his routine and came as something of a surprise to him, was the appearance of Natasha waiting for him outside.

"Hey there," She nodded to him in greeting. "Up for some company?"

"Uh, sure?" Steve agreed. His confusion was written all over his face, but he shook it off and began his run beside Widow, trying to hold back so that he didn't outpace her. "Been a while since I've seen you here."

"Yeah, well, I've had some time to think," Natasha answered. She paused a moment before saying, "I want to meet Amora."

"What?" Steve questioned, looking at her with surprise. "Why?"

"I've been thinking that you might be right. She did help us during that battle with Svadilfari and we haven't heard anything from her in a while. I think maybe I should give her a chance."

"Really?" Steve looked at her with a sudden wariness. "It's not like you to change your mind."

"Everyone can be wrong sometimes, even me."

Steve gave her wry smile as he answered, "Haven't known you to admit to being wrong before."

"I'm usually not," She answered. "But that doesn't mean that I can't be."

Steve slowed his run to a stop, keeping his focus on Natasha as she slowed with him. "I'm not sure if that's really a good idea..." He said hesitantly. "You two are... very different..."

"Come on, Steve. You're the one that keeps saying we should give her chance. Well, here's her chance."

Steve looked away, contemplating. "I can call her," He began hesitantly, "But there's no guarantee she'll come."

"She hasn't been home lately?" Natasha questioned.

Steve gave her a look, but didn't answer that. "I'll see if she can meet us today... I'll call her once I get back home."

Natasha gave him a friendly, disarming smile as they returned to their run.

There was a sound in the room. It was not quiet nor did Amora find it particularly melodious. It was easy to ignore, though. She had spent centuries in Asgard, one became use to the unruly noise and learned to filter it out. She buried herself further under the covers, luxuriating in the comfort that her bed offered her.

"Pardon. Miss Amora?"

Amora popped her head up and looked around, locating the phone that Loki's mortal had presented to her. "What do you want, machine?"

"Steve Rogers is trying to contact you," The voice said. It had a name, she was sure, Loki had told her, had practically bragged about the clever creations of his mortal. Jarvis, was it? That seemed right.

"I'll hear him," Amora said.

There was a pause before Steve's voice could be heard. "Sharon? I mean... Amora?"

"I'm here Steve. What do you wish from me?"

"Well... If you're free, Natasha said that she wanted to meet you today. I thought it might be good for you two to to try and get along."

"She wants to meet with me?" Amora repeated. "What's her reasoning?"

"She thinks she could be wrong Aabout you," Steve explained.

"Hmm. Somehow, I doubt that, but I suppose it can't hurt... " Amora said with a sigh.

"Thanks, Amora," Steve hung up.

Amora rolled over in bed, finding Skurge where he sat on the other side of the room. "The castle?"

"Whole and hale," Surge answered. "The man is away seeing to kingdom. The woman works and the girl runs restless."

"I'd rather not leave while Victor is away," Amora sighed.

"He has his golems to protect his home," Skurge argued. "Though he is king, he holds no dominion over you."

"True," Amora said. "But there are enemies in his home."

"You need not concern yourself-"

"In my home!" She corrected. "And even if I am not fond of that woman, I don't want her to get away. I want her replica Bifrost complete."

"What will you do?" He asked her.

"I'll go, of course. I won't be held here I've been nigh ignored in the pursuit of Loi's scheme's." She said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You will stay, however. Protect and defend, my dear Executioner. This is our home, no one comes or goes without permission."

"As you wish, Mistress."

"And do try to get along with Victor," Amora added. "He is nigh impossible to stand when angered."

Loki decided, just for fun really, to wear one of Mystique's preferred forms when she took him to meet the other mutants. Mystique glared at him as he matched her for height, wearing the blonde disguise that she often used for herself. Loki just smiled at her. She was far too worried and he hoped that whatever minor irritation he caused her lessened that worry.

She'd dithered on telling him where he was to take them. Unlike before, he was certain that it was due to her own reluctance to face her fellows rather than mistrust of him. She was uncommonly fidgety, the nervousness written all over her face.

"Hey," Loki said, imitating her as he took her hands. "Calm down. Everything will be fine."

"Not likely," She muttered. "I abandoned Charles! Twice!"

"I stabbed Thor," Loki replied. "And tried to kill him. Twice. Actually, I did kill him once."

Mystique looked at him with wide surprised eyes, mouth hanging open.

"I can assure you that this will go much better than that," Loki told her.

After opening and closing her mouth a few times, Mystique pulled herself together enough to speak. "I have so many questions right now, Lunatic."

"Yes, I imagine so."

"Your nickname has never seemed more appropriate."

Loki grinned at her widely, which did not look less alarming for being on a different face. "Would you feel better if I was Amora?" Loki asked, shifting forms as he did so. "Or Victor?"

"No!" Mystique said firmly. "Doom would... no. Just... go back to being me," She sighed.

Loki obliged her with a smile. "Now then-"

"Wait," Mystique said. Taking a deep breath, she shifted her own looks into her blonde disguise. "I want you to look like the real me. They'll assume it's me if I'm in true form and I don't really want to deal with that."

Loki shifted into Mystique, feeling only a small amount of unease when he looked at his blue skin. He made certain not to let it show. He had told her that he did not think her a monster and he meant it, but the blue nevertheless reminded him of his own true skin. He remembered Amora's words, 'We are all different monsters in different skins.' There were worse things to be than what he was, of that Loki was certain.

"Now then, ready to proceed?" Loki asked her.

"Yeah." Mystique squared her shoulders and they approached the large house together.

Darcy was pouting. She was sitting sulkily in one of the many rooms around Doom's castle, staring disdainfully at the furnishings. She had no idea what the purpose of this room was suppose to be. It could have been a sitting room or a small study, it could have been a breakfast nook for all she knew. It was as generically furnished as possible. She was still upset at the conversation with Jane and she didn't know what to do about it.

That was when the big guy walked in. Darcy had rarely seen him alone. He usually trailed after Amora, barely speaking and waiting on her hand and foot.

"You look to be in poor spirits," He said to her.

"You could say that," Darcy replied. "You could also say that everything sucks. You could say that I'm sick of this place. You could say that Jane is out of her mind! You could say a lot of things..."

He watched her for a moment, tilting his head. "At moments such as this, my mistress would usually enjoy some stress relief. For you... a drink?"

"Yeah, dude. That sounds great," Darcy sighed.

Skurge moved around the room, opening drawers and cabinets that she hadn't even seen and returning to her side with a glass of wine. She took it gratefully, taking a long sip.

"Would you like to unburden your mind, Lady Darcy?"

Darcy looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you only talk with Amora?"

"Does not stop me from listening."

"It doesn't help me much to talk," Darcy said. "It isn't like you'll let me go if I asked you to."

"You know not what I will do before you ask." Skurge told her.

Darcy looked at him with a glare, thinking him to be teasing her and ready to call his bluff. "I want to leave," She said.

"Then you may. Once he returns for his castle, I shall escort you to where ever you wish. I cannot leave the castle undefended, however, on order of my mistress. Nor would I want to the lady mage to be alone if she desired something the golems could not provide."

"Really? I can just... go?" Darcy repeated incredulously.

"There is no reason to keep you here," Skurge answered. "As I recall, it was only the mage that had work to complete here. There is no reason you must stay."

At that, Darcy slumped down in her chair. "Yeah... Guess you're right."

Skurge looked at her in confusion over her renewed melancholy, but decided not to press. If the mortal had more to say, he was certain that she would.

From the outside looking in, Sharon Carter -or Amora, the Enchantress, as she was also called- seemed to be a fairly nice person. Bobbi Morse had read all the files compiled on her by Black Widow, the opinions that were compiled from Tony Stark and Steve Rogers before the revelation of her identity, and the security footage from her visit to Shield. In fact, if she wasn't designated as an enemy, Bobbi thought that she might actually like her.

That wasn't how this worked though.

Being an agent of Shield meant that you weren't allowed to really like people, with the exception of other Shield agents, and sometimes not even then. Bobbi used to be rather fond of Hawkeye, before he became generally regarded as compromised and so much as smiling at him put you under scrutiny. She used to look up to Agent May, before she was quarantined and treated like a particularly volatile experiment, much like the Tesseract had been treated, or Loki's scepter.

Really, the only time liking someone outside the organization had ever done Bobbi any good was on missions such as these, where she was preparing to impersonate someone. It was easier, in her opinion, to pretend to be someone you liked. Not that she couldn't do the opposite, of course. There was a reason that she was called Mocking Bird, after all. Well, two reasons... but this wasn't an instance where she was expecting to have to utilize her sharp tongue.

"How do I look?" Bobbi asked, turning away from the screens that were trained on the Widow, the Captain, and the goddess she was suppose to impersonate, to face Coulson and Viper. They were inside one of the surveillance vans that were parked near where the group was having their get together. She had already placed the face changing mask on her face which would disguise her features to look like those of 'Sharon' and Shield worked fast enough to get her an approximation of what the woman was dressed in.

"Pretty spot on," Coulson answered her. He smiled at her encouragingly, but he clearly wasn't happy about this opt. Everyone new that he idolized Captain America and all his star agents were being scrutinized. Hawkeye, Agent May, even Widow was rumored to be under scrutiny, not that Bobbi knew that for sure. She was a good agent, but she wasn't as good as either of them had been.

Viper looked her over much more closely, taking in everything from her stance to her height. "You need to be more confident."

"All I'm doing in standing here," Bobbi said.

"Stand there like you think you're a god," Viper told her, smiling wryly.

"Alright team, let's go over the plan," Coulson said. "Viper, we need you to distract the Captain. Get him away from the table, preferably out of sight."

Viper nodded. "I already know what I'm going to do."

"Good," Coulson said. "Black Widow is going to immobilize the target, Agent Ward is on standby if she needs help. Once that's taken care of, Mocking bird, you'll take the place of the target and from there end your day as naturally and as quickly possible."

"Got it," Bobbi nodded.

"Viper, you get into position first." Coulson told her.

Bobbi got into position nearby as Captain American was lured away. She watched as The Widow abruptly shot the tranquilizer dart into the goddess. The woman glared at the spy as she tore the dart from her neck and crushed it in her hand.

"Untrustworthy wench!" The woman yelled as she stood. "You are lucky you curry the favor that you do, else I would flay you alive!"

"I'm not afraid of you," The Widow said calmly.

"And I intend to remedy that in the future," She said angrily, swaying on her feet as the tranquilizer began to take effect.

The Widow didn't reply as Grant Ward caught the falling woman, taking her quickly out of sight as Bobbi moved to take her place.

"Don't screw this up," The Widow said to her.

Bobbi didn't reply, just waited to play her role and end out the day.

"You've done well, my warrior," Sigyn told Fury as she watched him place Amora in the enchanted Hulk cage. The woman was still unconscious as she was laid on the ground in the center of the room. Lorelei was watching this with alarming attentiveness, but Sigyn decided not to address that until later. "There is very little that you can do to harm her, so I fear that interrogation will prove useless."

"We now the location of Doom's castle," Fury told her. "Now that they're down one ally, we can launch an assault. If Loki's there, we'll be prepared to capture him. If not, we'll have all his known allies in one place."

Sigyn smiled. "Good. Now that we're out, why don't you show me around your fortress? Show me the results of this Ultron you've spoken so highly of."

"And her?" Fury indicated Lorelei, who had yet to stop staring at the unconscious Amora. "I don't think we should be leaving her alone."

Sigyn moved to stand in front of the woman, looking into her eyes. "Can I trust you with your autonomy?" She asked. Lorelei nodded. Sigyn stared her down a few minutes more before reaching to undo the necklace that acted as a shackle about her neck. "Do not stray from me," Sigyn told her.

"You need not hold this leash so tight," Lorelei told her. "You are the goddess of loyalty and fidelity, how am I to betray you?"

"How indeed," Sigyn replied. She moved back to Fury's side. The man was scowling at them, but he didn't speak.

"Now then, Warrior of Fury, let us be off."