"Clearly, the elevators are out of the question," Clint pointed out almost absentmindedly as the pair rounded the corner of the long hallway, having left Tony and Bruce behind. "At least we aren't going up."

"Good point," Steve agreed, despite his physique as they reached the heavy metal door to the stairwell. "9 stories up sounds nightmare-ish." Stopping dead for a moment after the door opened, they stared into the stairwell. The only light that they could see was one small red emergency light just above their door, the stairs themselves bathed in darkness. On top of the dark, the stairwell had a cool chill wafting towards them, along with a soft, unintelligible whisper coming from somewhere below. Practically holding their breath and exchanging quick glances, Steve ventured forwards a few steps onto the floor's main landing. Eyes flicking towards the flight going up, he moved towards the ones receding downwards into the darkness. Squinting in the dark, he saw the very faint glow coming from around the corner of the wall, indicating the next main landing had a small red light, too. Wetting his lips slightly, he called out towards the whispering.

"Hello? Who's there?" He demanded before remembering other people, in fact, did inhabit this tower. "Are you alright?" The whispering stopped, and silence surrounded the boys. Stepping as lightly and quietly as he could, Clint stepped towards Steve.

THUD.

Both men jumped and spun around, Steve inhaling sharply as they realized the noise only came from the door shutting behind Clint.

"Oops," Clint whispered quietly, glancing at Steve before turning his attention to the downwards stairs. "Hello!" He called, more loudly, getting a queazy feeling in his stomach about the source of the whispering. "Is anybody there!" Only silence followed his voice, the cool air bringing goosebumps to the men's skin. Gripping his phone tightly in his hand, Clint remembered the flashlight in his other hand, realizing for the first time since entering the stairwell that it was off. Eyebrows furrowing he squinted in the dim light at the switch. Tugging it the other way with his thumb, he watched as nothing happened. He did it again, putting it in the position it had been before. Still nothing.

"That's…weird…" he observed softly, trying each position of the switch over and over again only to have nothing happen.

"Guess we're stuck with phone flashlights, then?" Steve asked, digging his out of his pocket again and turning on the flashlight. Immediately squinting at the brightness of the light, Steve searched the stairs and landing below them for anything out of the ordinary as his eyes adjusted. Clint sat the flashlight against the wall on the floor, uncaring about it anymore as he turned the flashlight on his phone as well. Shining it on the landing they were standing on, Clint suddenly found himself incredibly anxious as to what might be on the stairs going up. Hesitating, he slowly made his way around Steve, keeping his elbow firmly anchored to his side to keep his hand from shaking as he shone the light on the steps leading upwards. Exhaling slowly, Clint looked over at Steve and walked back to his left, ready to head down the stairs.

"If anyone's down there, I guess we'll find them," he whispered quietly, deciding it felt very wrong to speak normally for some reason.

"No kidding," Steve whispered back, seemingly agreeing to the feeling Clint never had to voice out loud. Both flashlights pointed downwards, the men took their first real steps towards the basement; towards Tasha.

The first five or so sets of stairs were taken very slowly and cautiously, as though they expected to find someone or be attacked at any possible moment. Once they reached the bottom of the 6th stair, however, they were in the basement. They had only gone three stories down, but now Clint was starting to not care if they ran into anyone - or anything. He had to find Natasha, and they had already wasted enough time. Picking up the pace tremendously, Clint gripped his phone tighter so as not to drop it, shining the light in front of him still. Falling behind for a moment, Steve quickly caught up, almost surprised by the faster pace down.

"Clint," Steve asked urgently, "What exactly is going to happen here? Either we find the floor that doesn't exist, or we don't-"

"We will," Clint insisted.

"Okay… So when we find this floor, what then? We aren't exactly armed. We're going into this completely blind, we should slow down and think of a plan!" Steve's pace slowed slightly and Clint only went faster down the stairs. Clint didn't even stop to notice that Steve had fallen over a flight of stairs behind, focusing only on getting down the last 5 flights of stairs as fast as possible to find her. "Clint!"

He ignored him.

"Clint!" Steve's voice seemed louder, still directly behind him. "Wait!" Still, Clint ignored him. 'Only two more flights of stairs,' Clint thought desperately, panting at this point. 'One more! Just… one… mo—'

"Stop!" A foreign female voice whispered, the sound echoing loudly, seemingly surrounding Clint as he skid to a stop in front of a downwards set of stairs. The flight of stairs: to the 7th floor, the one that didn't exist. It was then that Clint realized that he was alone. The only light around was that from his own phone's flashlight, he didn't even hear Steve's footsteps echo through the stairwell. Everything was silent, and he was alone.

The tight, queazy feeling in his stomach was back as he tried to calm his breathing to try and listen for any sign of Steve following him. Surely he wouldn't have just left, right? He may have been irritated that Clint was ignoring him and charging into a dangerous situation with no plan, but he wouldn't have just left.

Bzzzt!

Simultaneously nearly having a heart attack and almost dropping his phone at the sudden vibration, he looked at the screen with shaking fingers.

[2 Msg: Nat]

Inhaling sharper than he meant to, Clint coughed softly as he fumbled to open his phone, the world around him suddenly unimportant.

[4:18, Nat] Itp

[4:18, Nat] It went 2steps caerful

Clint immediately began typing his reply- she was alive!

[Draft 4:18, to Nat] Tash I'm coming r you still there,!

Before he could send, his phone dropped from his hands as he was suddenly whisked straight off his feet and into the air upside down. Gasping for air after the initial shock, he was spun around, coming face to face with what looked like an oversized skull with white, translucent-looking skin stretched too far over it. It was missing its eyes, dark pits where they should have been, and a large mouth stretching nearly from ear to ear. The mouth was open as if in a demented smile, its razor-sharp looking teeth long and still dripping with blood from a previous meal. Hot, sticky feeling breath hit his face reeking of blood as it just stared at him. The creature was so tall that it had to hunch over, each vertebra and rib visible through it's too-tight skin. Too terrified to even move, Clint stared wide-eyed at the creature's mouth. A sudden pain filled Clint's leg as though five large daggers had pierced through his pants and skin. Calling out in pain, he could feel the blood as it began to rush up his leg.

A dark, low, rumbling laughter seemed to emanate from the creature holding him by the leg. Its grip tightened and the pain only got worse.

"Not….good….enough, Clinton…." A low voice of the creature echoed around him without it even having to move its mouth. There was a pause just long enough for Clint to let out a soft groan of pain before the creature chucked him down the final flight of steps. Clint heard a loud thud, which he could only assume was himself as he hit the landing below, and the same dark laugher echoing around him as everything slowly faded to black.