"Jemma?" Coulson said. A hundred years. If something wasn't done, everyone in the Hub was going to sleep for a hundred years? On the up side, Victoria taking an extended nap would mean that he wouldn't have to see if the Witness Protection Program had room for two scientists and a hacker, but still…. "Is that possible?"
Jemma frowned for a second as she thought before nodding. "It could be a chemical reaction to the blood that became airborne. I'm not sure why a kiss would reverse it but…."
"Endorphins maybe?" Fitz suggested.
"Endorphins. That could do it." Jemma agreed. "And…." She nodded again. "It's definitely possible that whatever caused this can do exactly what Lady Hela said, Sir."
"We should call Fury." Melinda said as she looked at the building with concern. After some of the stuff she had seen in her years with Shield, she didn't need Jemma and Fitz's attempt to explain things to know that what the Asgardian was telling them was highly possible.
"Until we know more of what's going on in there, I'm not sure what we can tell him." Coulson said before turning to Hela once more and barely resisting the urge to ask if her father might be somewhere around, because another stabbing would be preferable to having to deal with hundreds of his co-workers possibly facing a 100 year sleep. "Asgard doesn't have anything that might cut through the thorns?"
"We have numerous things that we could try." Hela said. "The issue would be what could be tried without damaging the structural integrity of the building and risking the lives of those trapped inside."
That unfortunately made sense. "So we need to figure out where people are in there, and hopefully find an area of the building that's unoccupied and non-essential for holding things together before we can even try anything, right?" Coulson said.
Hela nodded.
"Okay. Fitz, Jemma, break out the dwarves. Let's see if we can get them in there and get a better idea of what's going on."
"I'll see about finding a plan for the HUB. There should be something on the Shield servers, right?" Skye said. "If the dwarves can get in, it might give us an idea of areas to concentrate on first."
"What if we can't find a safe place to try to break through?" Ward asked. "What then?" His dad. He needed to call his dad and let him know what was going on. John would be frantic to learn that Victoria had been effected by some alien item or other dimensional item, or whatever the thing was that caused this.
"I'm really not sure." Hela said. "Hopefully Mister Gold will call back with more information. He has vastly more experience with sleeping curses than I do. Do you know where that scepter that Papa had is? It's possible it might be useful. I'm not entirely sure where in the world Papa found that thing, but it did seem to be fairly powerful."
Loki's scepter. Something he had never wanted to see again but if it might help…. After a moment's thought, Coulson shook his head. "The scientists sent the scepter to the HUB a few weeks ago to let Agent Hand's people take a look at it. I'm fairly sure it's still there and hasn't been moved back to the Sandbox yet."
"If that's not an option then…. There's Excaliber, but I'm afraid that's in another dimension as well." Hela thought for a moment. "There's the Ebon Blade, but it does have the problem of a curse as well. Leah, do you remember if that curse was insanity or immobility?"
"It might be both." Leah said. "But maybe there would be a way to work around it?"
"Let's see if we can figure out what's going on in there, first. I would prefer it if we only have to break one curse today. Are the dwarves ready?" Coulson asked as Fitz and Jemma drug the equipment over.
Fitz nodded. "I just hope there's an opening in the the thorns that they can fit through."
"I just hope those thorns are only on the outside of the building." Melinda murmured as Fitz launched the dwarves. And she hoped that if they were only outside that their sending the dwarves in wouldn't somehow cause them to spread.
"Agent Hand must be so totally proud. There's no way anyone's getting into her building without her say-so, which is kind of bad since she's taking a long nap at the moment." Skye said almost thirty minutes later when much to the frustration of the group they had learned that getting through the thorns wasn't the biggest problem for the dwarves. Getting inside the building was. There wasn't an opening anywhere that would be big enough for one of the drones to fit through.
"Is that Agent Hand's office?" Jemma asked as she looked at the footage coming back from Sneezy, who was hovering outside of a window.
Coulson nodded as the dwarf moved slightly. He could see Jasper, fast asleep on the floor, and Victoria, and….
"Look! It's the spindle!" Hildy cried as she spotted the item in question on the floor by Victoria's fingers.
The spindle. "Jemma, can you zoom in?" But Coulson had a sudden bad feeling. A spindle by Victoria's hand, and he was almost positive that was a bead of blood on one of her fingers. "What did you say about how this can be fixed?" He asked Hela. "Something about the person who pricked themselves…."
"True love's kiss. The person who pricked themselves has to be kissed by someone who truly loves them for the curse to be broken. Until that person awakens, I'm afraid that the rest of those under the spell will remain as they are."
"I was afraid that was what you said." And the person who had apparently pricked their finger was Victoria Hand. How could this possibly get any worse?