Chapter Two
The travel to Washington D.C., which was where I guessed we were going (unless Father had any other unmentioned mortal girlfriends he needed to talk to), was a much shorter journey than that to New Mexico from Asgard. And I must say, Washington D.C. is filled with a lot of stone for being the Capitol. Where's the gold? But all in all, it was a nice change of scenery.
The bïfrost landed us in front of a island-like building. It was rested in the middle of very large river. Father called it the Triskelion, or one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters. Apparently he had been there a few times. Or at least that's what I heard when we were walking through the entrance. I didn't say anything; I was still quite upset with him.
The building was large, and very open, unlike the palace. I kind of really liked it. A man in a suit and tie walked up to us, closing a file. "Thor! So good to see you!"
"Son of Coul," Father greeted with a smile.
The man nodded his head to the side, "It's actually just Coulson." His gaze turned to me, "You must be Airethena," Coulson held out his hand. I uncrossed my crossed arms and shook it. "Almost everyone else is here, I'll take you to them."
I glanced up at Father with no expression. He looked down at me, "I think I shall just take a look around the building."
"O-Kay?" Coulson put a hand on my shoulder, and started leading me away. "Daddy issues?"
I looked up to Coulson, "If you call not telling me who my mother is, than telling me she was actually there the entire time being my best friend and mentor 'Daddy Issues,' then yes."
"Ouch," He led me through a door like the one we came into, and into a small room that was glass on all sides. Coulson pressed a circle on the wall, and the whole small room started to move. I grabbed on to the railings the small room had. I looked out the glass windows to see we were moving up.
"What is this?" I asked with a large grin, I wasn't terrified anymore.
Coulson crossed his arms, looking out the window. "It's called an elevator; it's like flying up, but with gears and technology."
"It's amazing!" Coulson chuckled at me. The elevator stopped a long way from the ground. The doors opened, and Coulson led me out of the amazing elevator. He took me down a hallway from the elevator and into a fairly large room. It looked more like our lounge in the palace. Thinking about the palace made me miss Asgard... and Sif. The room and its many sofas were filled with people.
I stopped in my tracks when all their heads turned towards me. I've never been scared in front of a crowd; I'm in front of them all the time. But for some reason, these people put a little more pressure on than normal. The only boy in the room whistled, and the two girls glared at him. "Do you have to do that to every girl who walks in here?" The blonde one hissed.
The boy shrugged his shoulders, "Well I'm sorry; I didn't know I was working with a bunch of girls. Especially pretty ones, it's not my fault." With his response, the red haired woman behind him smacked across the head. The man next to the woman had a smug smirk on. The woman looked like she was about to hit him, too.
A man with dark hair and glasses next to a dark haired girl stood up and smiled at me. "Hi, I'm Dr. Bruce Banner, you must be the newest recruit; Princess Airethena, right?"
"Princess?" The boy asked.
I looked down at my boots, then looked up to Dr. Banner. "Please, just call me Airy. I hate formality."
"Well, Airy, welcome to the New Avengers Initiative," he gestured to the group of people my age. "That's Elizabeth, my daughter," he pointed at the dark haired girl. "That's Unity, Steve and Shelby's daughter," he pointed at the blonde girl. "And that's Matthew, Natasha and Clint's son," he pointed at the boy, he smirked at me.
I cleared my throat, "I'm Airethena, or Airy, and, um, I happen to be the daughter of Thor."
"Well we're very glad you're here, Airy. We kind of need you." Dr. Banner said, giving me a small smile.
"Yes, I've heard. Loki is back."
Matthew put his feet on the small table in the middle, he sighed, "Yeah, well, he's not alone. Loki's got friends."
"What do you mean?"
"Like Director Fury assembled the Avengers, and now the New Avengers, Loki's assembled his own team," Dr. Banner picked up a file from the small table, "We've all been assigned to specific members of Loki's team. And this is yours." He handed me the file.
I opened it, and on the inside was a large image of girl, roughly my age, maybe a little older. She didn't look frightening, all of the black was a bit much, but she looked rather normal. I lifted the image, and under it was a name. "Dark Sorceress. Who is she?"
"We were hoping you could tell us, apparently she's Asgardian."
"I'm sorry, I've never heard of her." I continued reading, thanks to Father I could read English. She had the control over dark magic, wonderful.
"Do you think you and Thor will be able to handle her?" Dr. Banner asked.
"Of course, I've dealt with much worse, Loki the prime example."
He chuckled. "That's great news. Well, until the Starks get here, class dismissed!"
Everyone started filling out the room, and I stood there, not knowing what to do. I'd never been here; I basically knew nothing about this whole world. I looked around the room, noticing that Matthew was still in the room. "What are you still doing here?" I asked.
"Well I thought I'd be a gentleman, and ask if you wanted a tour around."
"Around where?"
He shrugged. "Anywhere, everywhere."
A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips, "I'd like that," I looked down at the armour I was still wearing, "But maybe after I change."
"I'll go flag down Unity or Elizabeth, see if they've got something for you," he turned to walk out the door.
"Matthew, wait," he turned and looked at me, humming in response to his name, "Thank you."
"No problem, Princess. And call me Matt." He walked out the door to try and find one of the girls. I smiled.
~~oOo~~
"So you're from Asgard, and you're a princess?" Matt asked as we walked down a street surrounded by stone.
"That would be correct. Now, why is this city filled with so much stone? Where is all the gold? Asgard is filled with it!" I looked around; there was a large stone building with columns and a statue of a man in a chair. "Where are we anyways?"
Matt shrugged, "I call it 'the-place-with-a-bunch-of-stone-monuments-and-other-boring-stuff.' I've got no idea what it's actually called. And I guess everything's stone because that's a lot easier to find than gold."
"But it's not as nice looking."
"I s'pose not," he looked at me, "But some things look even better than glittering gold."
I crossed my arms, "It's shimmering, it shimmers."
"Alright, alright. Some things look even better than shimmering gold."
"Like what?"
Matt started to say something but stopped himself, "Uhmm... Like... Pizza. Pizza's better than gold, and so is Spongebob!"
"I hope you realise I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Worth a shot." He stopped, which made me stop and look at him, "We are going to get some amazing food, Princess."
Matt began to walk again, and I skipped next to him. "Where?"
"Pizza place not far from here. I think you need to try some Earth food."
~~oOo~~
"Okay, that was the best pizza I have ever had."
Matt pointed at me, "That was your first pizza ever."
I nodded my head to the side. "Yes, I suppose you're right."
"Always am," he smirked, and I rolled my eyes. We were walking back to the Triskelion, after my 'tour' and a much needed first-pizza-ever break. "Okay, so I haven't asked this yet; what's life like on Asgard?"
I tapped my chin, trying to think of how to describe it. "Well, our foods are most certainly different. So is our speech–"
"Yeah, you sound like you're from the Middle Ages," Matt cracked a smile.
I gave him a small glare. Even though it was probably true– whatever the Middle Ages were. "Asgardian science to you all is basically magic. And some of it probably is magic," I smiled, "Like I said earlier, there's a lot of gold. We also have a lot of creatures Midgard doesn't. And a lot of people know how to fight."
"Huh. Sounds like Asgardian life is absolutely wondrous."
We walked through the second set of doors of the Triskelion. We were stopped by a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents for security reasons. Matt pulled his S.H.I.E.L.D. ID out of his pocket and showed it to the agents, and all they had to do was look at my face to let me through. We walked through the lobby of building. Matt and I were going to try and find the others, to get to know each other more.
We were walking towards the amazing elevator when Father came rushing out of it. Towards me. He also had a hold of Kjorn, my sword, in his hands. He walked towards me even faster, a scowl planted on his face. He grabbed my arm, dragging me back towards the entrance of the Triskelion.
"Hey!" I yelled at him, "That hurts!" I tried getting out of Father's grip, but he just held on tighter. "What are you doing?!"
"HEIMDALL!" Father bellowed towards the sky.
I looked wide-eyed at him, are we going home? No! We can't be! That's not fair, we just got here! The bïfrost's light lit up the sky in its circular glow. It shot towards the ground, right around us.
When we landed, I didn't notice any gold. Which made me wonder, where were we?
"Where were you?" Father asked, glaring down at me.
"Where are we?" I asked, looking around, trying to ignore his asking.
"Where were you?" He asked much slower, and much lower.
I looked up at him, glaring. "I was being given a tour of Washington D.C.!"
Father looked down, staring hard at it. He looked back up at me, "Do not get involved with that Barton boy."
I raised my brow. "He's on my team. He was showing me around. And what would you do about it anyway?"
"Airethena–"
I pulled away from his grip. "No, I don't want to hear any lectures, Father." I put a hand to my head, looking around. "Where are we?"
Father sighed. "Director Fury sent us here to find the Starks. We are in Malibu, for your asking."
I looked down at my sword in Father's hand. I put out my hand, opening my palm. He put Kjorn in my hand. I instantly felt the power surging through my veins. "I'll take the sky."
He looked at me with no emotion, nodding.
I twirled the sword in my hand, and in a blink of an eye, I was already off the ground. I 'flew' higher into the air, just above the treelines.
It was after a while of flying around, trying to find what would resemble the Starks' home or such, I heard the voices. I couldn't tell how far away they were, considering the enhancement of Asgardian ears to Midgardian ones. It sounded like two people arguing. I flew closer to the voice, trying to figure out what it was. It might have been typical for people to be arguing, but this one sound different by the choice of words.
I saw what seemed to be the image of Dark Sorceress. And if that wasn't strange enough, she was arguing with and taunting an iron girl. She was decked out in black and gold, with a metal skirt (which I thought was much too short for a girl to be wearing– even an iron one). Dark Sorceress raised her palm, her dark magic starting to form. She was aiming her hand right at the iron girl.
Not knowing the limit of Dark Sorceress' powers, I yelled out: "No!" Pushing her down to the ground, under my control of air, of course. "You're short reign of terror ends now, Dark Sorceress!"
She smirked evilly up at me. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Asgard's one and only Princess Airethena."
"Leave innocent bystanders out of this," I demanded, pressing the air forced on her a bit harder.
"Innocent?" Dark Sorceress laughed, "Do you not see who she is? She's the daughter of that blasted Tony Stark! An Avenger at that! And my job is to eliminate Avengers!" She somehow freed her hand, and shot a blast of her dark magic at me. I flew backwards, losing concentration on the air containing Dark Sorceress. "And that includes you."
I regained my balance in the air, and stared at her, griping onto the hilt of my sword. "Loki could not defeat my father, the Mighty Thor! What makes you think you can defeat his daughter?" I wielded Kjorn, and pointed it towards Dark Sorceress– who was now floating in the air by her dark magic. "Get down!" I yelled at Tony Stark's daughter. She flew down to the ground, ducking down. "Prepare to meet the might of Kjorn!" I yelled at Dark Sorceress.
I sliced the air in the direction of Dark Sorceress. She flew backwards, rocketing high into the sky, and far away from view. I watched until I couldn't see her anymore. I descended down onto the ground, and walked towards the iron girl. "Are you alright?" I asked.
Her iron mask flipped up, revealing her face. She had dark eyes, and dark hair that fell in front of her face, though she had been wearing a mask. She nodded. "Yeah, thanks. I'm Shadow," she said, holding out her metalled hand. "What did you just do?"
"I'm Airethena, but call me Airy," I smiled, "And that? Well..." I told her all about how Kjorn enhanced my air-controlling abilities, and everything else.
"Alright... I've got a few more questions though. First: before you came, she said 'Dark Sorceress' or whatever said she was Asgardian. Is that true?"
I nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, yes. She is known as Dark Sorceress on Asgard. Though she was banished for use of Dark Magic, and she joined forces with my uncle, Loki." I said slowly, trying to remember what I had read on Dark Sorceress' file from Dr. Banner.
"O-Kay... And you said you're the daughter of Thor?"
I only had the chance to nod when, as if on cue, Father dropped from the sky. He looked at me, then to Shadow. "Who is this?"
~~oOo~~
Father had found Tony Stark (and his home), while as found Shadow and Dark Sorceress. Father had to force Mr. Stark to go to Washington D.C., and Shadow was much easier to convince. Father and I travelled back to the Triskelion via bïfrost once they Starks were aboard their plane. I still had not talked much to Father, and did not really plan to. I was not exactly in a forgiving mood yet.
When Mr. Stark and Shadow arrived, Dr. Banner filled Shadow in on everything, like he had me. Two things were different than when it was me in her position: Shadow and Mr. Stark were not assigned to keep an eye on. And two: Matt had not whistled at her when she entered the room, but then again it could have been the fact that Elizabeth and Unity were glaring at him the entire time.
From what we had been told by both Director Fury (whom I had finally met) and Dr. Banner; everyone was finally together. Which meant that the New Avengers had finally assembled.
NOTE: rest of these chapters are unedited + not re-rewritten yet. my bad.