He blinked once, twice, three times, and still had no clue what the Hel had happened, standing in what he understood to be the Stark tower the others had taken up inhabiting. Behind him he heard a clock being wound, and when he turned his heart jumped into his throat. The same boy who Natasha had described time and time again stood just beside an enormous, old clock, winding it meticulously. When he grinned Loki saw blackened blood that coated his gums and lips, and he couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen, yet the dark in his eyes and the snarl of a smirk on his face showed years beyond what was expected. The spirit who'd haunted Natasha, forced sleepless nights upon her and pushed her to the brink of insanity. Loki's fists tightened at his sides.

"I didn't think." The clock's clicking picked up in speed as the boy spoke. "That you'd catch my hint so quickly. Nice work."

"Where is Natasha?" Loki demanded, trying to step closer but finding his feet planted, glued, to the floor.

"Ah-ah," the boy waggled a finger at him, his glee spreading until his smile became near hysterical. "Not yet. I haven't started your time. Can't get to the bottom of this yet without your time."

"My time?"

"You'll have exactly half an hour to find Natasha. Or I get her. Forever." A laugh bubbled up past the boys lips that made Loki's skin burst into goosebumps. He barely held back a shudder. "So you'd better hope you can do stairs quickly."
Loki scowled. He was an officer, more than that he was a god, and he'd trained for shit like this. That being said-. "How many floors are there?"

"Ah, now that would be telling." The boy snarked, eyes alight. "But never forget: I gave you the chance to work with me. Remember that when I'm devouring her from the inside out, then moving on to the next, and the next. Whomever is pathetic enough to be so weak as to let me in."

Pain blossomed in Loki's hands, where his nails had gouged into his skin from clenching his fists so hard. "But if I find her in time-You will leave her alone, and everyone else. You'll go back to whatever hole of Hel you came from and never come back."

The boy's eyes flashed, and with a snap of his fingers the time started on the clock. "Your precious girlfriend isn't that important. Better find her, loverboy."

He didn't need to be told twice, but as soon as he took off and found the door to the staircase he paused. Up, or down? And would she even stay in the same place? He swallowed his questions and bolted up the stairs. Better to try as high as he could get and then make his way down, where it'd be easier, he supposed. He hoped. Unless that was what the boy wanted him to think-.

He couldn't think like that, though. It wouldn't serve he or Natasha, and he couldn't lose her. The first few flights of stairs were useless, empty rooms that only reflected his own fears back at him. His feet felt leadened as he tried to run faster, taking the stairs three at a time but finding that they only grew longer and longer the faster he tried to get up them. In the back of his mind he fancied he could hear the sound of the clock ticking, the idea playing on the back of his mind, and he had no idea whether or not he was anywhere close to finding her.

When the idea came to him to use his magic it stopped him dead, and he closed his eyes to try and pop from one floor to the next. Sirens blared in his ears, destroying his concentration and making him jump. The hell was that!?

"Oh! You are a slow one, aren't you?" The boy's voice asked, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Loki spun, snarling, and suddenly he was behind him. "I said you could take the stairs. No magic." He smirked, and the clock that had materialized with him shifted so that he had less than five minutes. "That means you get a penalty. Better find her soon, boy-o." He laughed, and disappeared before Loki could lunge out to take him down himself. Shit shit shit. His mind whirled as he kept going up the stairs. She had to be there, didn't she? He wouldn't make it easy, and so it had to be at the hardest point, and that would be at the top of the building-.

Get to the bottom of it.

The bottom of the building.

He hardly had time to think past that. It had to be that-how could he have missed that clue? He was slipping, and he all but hurtled down the stairs, flight after flight, keeping one hand in front of him as he swung around corners to keep from hitting anything else.

Three minutes. Two minutes. He still had twenty floors to. He'd started jumping the last five, though his knees complained all the while.

One minute. Half a minute. He shoved past the door and found her standing in front of him. Her eyes didn't quite register that he was there, and he rushed towards her just as the last few seconds ticked on the clock. His hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her to him just before the clock struck the end of his half an hour. He'd done it! He clutched her tight to his body, feeling her go limp in his grip, as the boy stood in front of him. Gone was the laugh and snark that Loki had been so familiar with, and in its place was a scowl that seemed to go bone deep.

"Don't like beaten by your own game?" Loki demanded, his own glee suffocating.

"You may have taken my queen but this game is far from over." The boy said, his eyes narrowing and darkening until they were nothing but black, shining in the light as he barred pointed teeth.

Stark and Thor were both staring at Natasha and Loki, who stood transfixed staring at one another on opposite ends of the glass containment cell she'd been put into, neither sure what exactly to expect. "Should we try and move them?" Tony asked, worrying at his bottom lip as he stepped around Loki, considering shifting to try and move him but not daring to at the same time.

"I don't think so. My brother knows what he is doing, and I don't dare mess with his plan." Thor murmured, though he didn't look so confident in his answer. What if he was wrong? Loki admitted to not quite knowing what was going on, so what if they never got Natasha back, or they were supposed to help out by moving them? He didn't know anything, and it was beginning to drive him insane.

Half a moment passed of the pair of them watching the others, no one else managing to get into the same room as they were. Half a moment, and then Loki and Natasha were blinking and stepping away from where they'd just stood as though they'd been burnt. Natasha choked, her eyes widening as she clutched at her throat, stumbling backwards, as Loki rushed closer, trying to get to her. His fingers pressed hard on the keypads as Stark shouted out the code, and by then Natasha had fallen to her knees, gagging and suffocating. Her hands placed themselves hard on the floor, gripping, knuckles white, as she started coughing and throwing up. Bandages, old and blackened, began to spill forth from her lips, unravelling in front of her on the floor. Loki threw open the door and knelt beside her, rubbing her back and holding her hair, his eyes wide as his mind ran through all the possibilities, anything and everything he could do to try and make it better or make it stop-.

And then she was falling backwards, body heaving with great lungfuls of air, and Loki was checking her vitals as Thor growled in the back of his throat, standing in the doorway of the glass container.

"L-Loki," Natasha stammered, pointing back behind him, her body trembling with the effort to not fall to pieces. He turned to find himself face to face with another Natasha-no, Natalia, the phantom, darker side who'd taken her image entirely. Bastard. He bared his teeth and shot a spell to freeze the phantom in its place, but Natalia simply side-stepped the attack and rushed towards Thor, who managed to shut the glass door, sealing all three of them in. Loki closed his eyes, clutched at his Natasha, and they popped out of the containment cell, leaving the doppelganger trapped. Finally.