Chapter Fourteen

Thor decided very quickly that he did not like these mortal contraptions known as 'elevators'. And the only thing he liked less than elevators was the music played in them. It was driving him insane. The constant, chirping melody... Thor's hand had actually started twitching.

"Easy big guy," Friend Stark said, patting Thor on the shoulder. "This is kind of a cramped space - we'd hate for you to summon lightning right about now. Not only because that would electrocute all of us, but you'd probably short-out the circuits, the elevator would lose power, and we'd go crashing to the ground in a nice big ball of flame."

Carter, who was standing in the corner, hissed at Stark. She had her eyes squeezed shut, and she was gripping the gold railing the lined the elevator wall so hard that her knuckles were white. "Shut it," she growled.

"Oh, ho, ho!" Stark raised his eye brows and smirked. "A bit claustrophobic, are we?"

The force-field barer ground her teeth, glaring daggers at Tony. "No."

"What is it, then? Heights?" the archer, Barton, was on the very close to laughter. He nudged the girl playfully. "Is the same Carter that decided that it'd be a good idea to latch onto the back of a giant wolf scared of heights?"

Friend Rogers folded his arms. He looked at them all with an authoritative glare that even made Thor, Prince of Asgard, feel obliged to listen to whatever his command may be. "Leave her alone, guys."

Rogers was dismissed. "I'm not scared of heights," Carter replied, narrowing her eyes at both Barton and Stark. "I'm scared of falling - and shattering into a million pieces when I hit the ground."

"Well, I hate to be a know-it-all." Stark grinned. "But it's more likely that you'd splatter than shattering. Technically speaking, of course."

"Not true," Natasha said, speaking for the first time. She looked at Stark with a critical gaze. "I've pushed lots of people off of buildings. Most of the time, you can hear their bones break. I suppose it's more of a crack than a shatter, but it's the same general principle."

Stark tapped his chin as he considered that. "Yeah, that makes sense. But since we're so high up right now, when we hit the ground, the force of impact would probably make us into Avenger pancakes. That would make a squishing sound, wouldn't it?"

"Oh my freaking God," Carter moaned. In a most deranged manner, she started banging her head against the wall. "I hate you all. Someone get me the hell out - "

With a ding, the elevator doors slid apart.

"Thank you!" Carter propelled herself through the doors and into the hallway. "Thank you! Land!"

Thor frowned as he stepped out behind Logan, who immediately moved away from the rest of the group. "This is not land," Thor informed Carter. "We are still as high up as we were a moment ago."

"But we're not hanging from suspension cords right now. And that makes all the difference in the world." Carter straightened up. "I told you, I'm not afraid of heights. I'm scared of falling, and right now I'm not at risk. So it's cool."

Silence took over once again. Thor, who had never spent much time in mortal office buildings, found himself intrigued by the art hanging on the wall. But, the longer he looked at it, the deeper his scowl became. "I do not understand," he said slowly. "This is not art - this is an assortment of shapes and colors. I could have easily done this myself."

"But you didn't," Stark pointed out. "And that, my friend, is the definition of modern art."

Just then, Logan snorted. "Are we just gonna wait out here?" He looked around at them stoically. "'Cause this is getting - "

"Oh! You're here!"

The Avengers turned to face the other end of the hallway to see a man peering around the corner. He had a rather odd haircut, even by Midgardian standards; stormy gray streaked his black hair on either side of his head, just above his ears. "Sorry, I just wasn't expecting you so soon." The man turned around and called, "Hey, guys! They're here!"

His neck snapped back and out of view, making the sound of a rubber band as it did.

"Uh," Clint said as he stared at the spot where the man had been seconds ago. "Did anyone else see that that guy had a giraffe's neck?"

Thor nodded. "Aye. What manner of creature is he?"

"Reed Richards," a voice said from behind. All of them jumped and turned at once, only to find themselves staring at air. For a moment, anyway. The air soon shimmered and a pretty tan, blonde woman in a navy suit much like Natasha's was standing before them. "But you all may now him better as Mr. Fantastic." She gave them a warm smile. "I'm Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman."

When Thor heard the sound of a thousand boulders crashing down behind him, his hand instinctively flew to Mjolnir, and he whirled around, ready to bash the rocks before they harmed him and his allies.

It wasn't a landslide; it was a beast. A beast made entirely of bright orange rocks. The thing glanced warily at the hammer, then held his hands up in surrender. "Whoa there."

"This is Ben Grimm," Sue explained. "He's - "

"I see Banner didn't show," Ben interrupted, a grin forming.

Carter cocked her head to the side. "You know Bruce?"

"Yeah," Ben chuckled, crossing his bulky arms. "I've had a few run-ins with 'im before. Hulk and I don't exactly get along too good. Guess he remember the last time I kicked his a - "

"Ben. Be nice," Sue chided. She glared daggers at her companion before smiling apologetically at the Avengers. "We're glad you could come. If you could just follow me, I'll show you what you came to see."

The Invisible Woman led them into the main room just off of the hall. Once again, Thor had to give mortals credit for their advance in technology; wires, rays, and all sorts of complicated looking contraptions were strewn all over the place. Papers were scattered over desks, and boards were filled with 'math' equations that were totally beyond his comprehension. It was clear to Thor that whoever lived here was both a very smart man and a man of science.

So he was a tad shocked when a younger man walked nonchalantly into the room wearing nothing but a towel.

"Hey, Sue, did I hear Reed say that our guests had arrived? Oh, hi guys." The man smirked and glanced down at his half-nakedness. He seemed comfortable, standing before them in such improper attire. "Didn't know you'd be here so soon. I'm Johnny Storm, or the Human Torch. But you all already knew that."

Johnny Storm bounded over to them, taking them in with an almost critical gaze. When he got to Natasha, he stopped and wiggled his eyebrows, much like the Son of Howard did. "Hiya. Gotta a name, beautiful?"

"Natasha Romanoff," the Black Widow replied tightly.

"Well, then, Natasha Romanoff..." Johnny leaned in and whispered something in her ear. Natasha's eyes grew wide, then narrowed very suddenly. In one swift movement, she grabbed Johnny's arm and jerked him over her shoulder.

Johnny hit the ground with a loud, hollow thud, gasping for breath. After coughing several times, he looked up pathetically at Carter, who raised an eyebrow. "If I tried flirting with you, would you karate-flip me, too?"

"No. I'd have Natasha do it."

The Human Torch nodded thoughtfully. "Duly noted." He staggered to his feet and looked around in an somewhat ashamed manner. "I'll just go put on some pants pants."

"Don't forget a shirt, hot-head," Ban growled.

"If my abs really distract you that much, Ben, I'll cover them up. For your sake."

"Why you little - "

Jonny darted back out of the room before Ben could follow through with that threat.

"He looks like me," Friend Rogers muttered, watching the other man leave with a confused expression on his face. "Doesn't he look like me?"

The other just stared at him. Stark was the first to reply. "Mmm. No. Not all. Have you been drinking or something, buddy? 'Cause you guys couldn't look more different."

"I can't get drunk. And are you sure?" the captain looked around for support. "I really think he looks like me!"

Stark patted Rogers on the shoulder. "You keep telling yourself that."

"Sorry to interrupt," Logan said in a not-very-apologetic voice, "but didn't we come here for a reason?"

"Yes. This way." Sue continued walking them through their penthouse apartment. They were ushered into a little side room, filled with computers and screens. Lights were blinking and flashing everywhere Thor looked, and the thunderer was overwhelmed. Things were so much simpler on Asgard...

A rolling chair came spinning into the middle of the room, and in it sat Reed Richards. He grinned at them all. "Hi. Sorry I didn't really have time to introduce myself earlier, but I'm Dr. Reed Richards. We, the Fantastic Four, that is, have been working with SHIELD's science department lately, and last week we found some interesting disturbances. The deeper we looked into it, the more we realized this was going to be a problem."

"What problem?" Logan growled impatiently. He, like Thor, seemed to have no tolerance for these ramblings of science. Action and fighting was far more interesting.

"Well." Richards propelled himself over to the nearest computer and pulled up a map on the screen. It was not a place that Thor recognized. After tapping in one last command, Richards turned to face them again. "Are you all familiar with the Big Bang Theory?"

"Never heard of it," Tony said matter-of-factly. When Reed stared at him with his mouth hanging open, Tony amended the previous statement by adding, "Bazinga."

Richards still looked incredulous. "I'm talking about the other Big Bang Theory. Or more importantly, the theory of expansion."

"Uh, yeah." Barton raised his hand like a school boy waiting to be called on. "I grew up in the circus, so you're gonna have to elaborate a bit."

"Alright," Richards agreed, nodding his head. "The Big Bang Theory is that our whole universe was in a hot, dense state. Then, nearly fourteen billion years ago, expansion started. Our universe went from being this - " he touched his fingertips together " - to this." His fingers elongated, making a much bigger sphere. "And the theory of expansion is that ever since then, our universe has been slowly growing larger and larger." To demonstrate, he made his fingers even longer than they were before. "It doesn't grow at a rate you would notice. Probably less than a thousandth of a centimeter a day."

Richards whirled back around and began pounding the keys of his computer. A second map joined the first on screen. "This one on the left is the eastern-European country of Latvertia in December, 2011. Here, it has a square mileage of about 100,000, as it always has." Richards zoomed in on the second map. "This was taken last week. It's still Latvertia, and it's borders haven't moved, but it's square mileage has increased to about 200,000.

"We believe that Dr. Doom, the Latvertian ruler, has some how found a way to speed up the expansion process in a certain, controlled area."

All Thor got from that was the ruler's strange name. "Dr. Doom?"

"He has a PhD in 'doom'," Carter replied in a helpful tone. Then, turning to the other team's scientist said, "Lemme get this straight. This Doom guy has somehow found a way to increase his countries landmass without effecting any countries around it?" When Richards nodded, Carter plowed on. "Now, I get why this is a problem; a seemingly psychotic dictator is messing with the laws of the universe. I get that. But why didn't you guys just go ahead and do something about it?"

A dark look crossed both of the Richards' face, and somewhere behind Thor, Ben let out a growl. "Victor von Doom is our arch-nemesis," Mr. Fantastic explained. "If we were to get within a hundred mile radius of Latvertia, he would declare war on us, and by extent, the United States."

"Technically, Victor hasn't done anything wrong yet," Sue added. "He hasn't made any aggressive actions, or violated any codes of conduct. This has been labeled a 'delicate political matter' by the government. SHIELD wants someone to negotiate, someone with experience with super-villains. As we aren't an option, Director Fury chose you."

Stark burst out laughing. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up," he gasped between giggles. "Fury chose us to go make peace? You're joking, right?"

"That's what I said." Johnny strode into the room, this time fully-clothed. "I said, 'If Tony Stark is gets to be a political ambassador, so do I."

"Yeah, right." Ben chuckled, a deep, rumbling chuckle. "You said, 'If the effing Avengers get to go to Latvertia, then we get to vacation in Vegas'."

Johnny waved him off. "Same thing."

"Anyways." Richards glared at his teammates, then looked back to the Avengers apologetically. "We need you. SHIELD needs you. America needs you."

"Oh my God, he sounds like Steve," Stark muttered under his breath. Carter held in a laugh.

Rogers, who had heard Tony's comment, shot a murderous look at the billionaire. Then he turned to the Fantastic Four. "We'd be happy to help."

"Alright!" Barton pumped his fist in the air. "Road trip! I call shot-gun!"