Disclaimer: I own nothing owned by someone else.
AN: I hope no one thought I gave up on this story or anything. It's been a while. I'm sorry this took so long! Writers block, procrastination and all that nonsense. Thank you all for reading and I hope you all enjoy and again I'm really sorry.
As soon as Natasha and Thor stepped into the dark mouth of the beast, a light flashed unexpectedly and Natasha quickly squeezed her eyes shut. As she felt the light dim a little on her eyelids, she cautiously opened one of her eyes, following the other. She had to blink a few times before being able to fully see. When her eyes finally adjusted, they grew wide with bafflement.
It might have been nighttime where they were, but from the light of the moon and stars she was able to see something amazing. This was not a regular maze. It wasn't made of bushes or even hay. It was made of doors. Literally doors. They stood up right without walls or hinges. Just a bunch of doors. Some of them were closed while others were open and all of them together formed a giant maze on top of a grassy surface. It looked so odd, so whimsical. There were different types of doors and different colors too. Some of them looked like ones from modern earth, how was that possible? How was any of this possible?
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Natasha asked Thor. Thor simply shrugged, unconcerned in the way that he didn't even acknowledge he should be amazed at all. She had no idea how he could be so indifferent to all of this. She wondered about how many amazing things he must have seen in order to be so nonchalant about this.
"Come, we mustn't waste time." Thor said as practically charged to one of the doors, opening it.
"Thor!" Natasha yelled as she caught up with him. She had just had a thought, "Thor how about I hold the box?" she said, she felt Thor might light the candle too much or break it in his bear-like hands and that wouldn't be good.
"Why?" Thor said, almost defensively.
Natasha thought a moment, "I just feel like it might be a little safer with me. I mean you're in so much of a rush that you might drop it and lose it." She said, offering him a weak smile.
He nodded, "I understand. My frequent clumsiness is no great secret." He said, sighing as he offered her the box and she grabbed it, the soft weight of the box and the contents within making Natasha's hands drop slightly.
"Okay." She said calmly as she and Thor both glanced at the big dark red door that would lead them into the peculiar maze. "Okay, before we go in, let's evaluate the situation as much as we can." Natasha said. "First off, it's a good thing the majority of the… the doors are different from each other, that'll help us not get lost. But there's an issue here. There has to be a reason for why this maze is built using doors… I expect some of the doors are going to be closed and we might be wasting our times a lot going towards them to open them when they're actually locked, so this will be a lot harder than a regular maze. I can see we'll be wasting our times—"
"And we are certainly wasting our times standing here talking about this when we could find out for ourselves what the maze has in store for us." Thor huffed as he rushed passed Natasha in impatience. Natasha sighed as she sprinted to Thor's side, both now right in front of the door, which was a lot bigger up close. How many scary doors was Natasha going to have to open this day? Alva had mentioned monsters, what if a monster jumps out at them when they open a door? She hoped this wouldn't happen, but hoping didn't deter her feelings of unease at all. She sighed as she clasped the handle of the box tight in her hands.
..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..
Steve was holding the outdated phone in his hands, ready to call Barton. Tony had given him the phone. As much as Tony loved teasing him with new technology, he didn't have the heart to buy him one of those complicated touch screens. If he got him one of those, Steve would be trying to figure the thing out all day, for crying out loud!
Steve looked as though he were having a hard time finding Barton's number so Tony, getting a little impatient with the other man, snatched the phone out of his hand and immediately pressed Clint's number. He couldn't help but smirk at Steve who looked at him as though he had just performed a magician's trick.
Steve sighed, annoyed, as he grabbed the phone out of Tony's hand and pressed it to his ear in wait.
Tony hoped it wasn't an absolutely terrible idea to tell Clint about Natasha.
..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..
Clint was still staying in the apartment, sitting on the bed, thinking. Yes, he knew he was being a coward, but somehow he just couldn't face his wife, or his children for that matter. He couldn't pinpoint why, but he just didn't want to face her. She'd probably ask questions and he couldn't blame her. He had promised his life in SHIELD was over and that promise went hand in hand with the promise that he wouldn't be going on any wild goose chases or dangerous adventures anymore and look where he was now!
The sound of his phone ringing suddenly blasted in his ear causing him to jump a little as he stumbled with the ringing machine that was on the other side of the bed, stuffed slightly in the covers.
"Yeah." He said, quickly, as he finally put the phone to his ear.
"Clint?" he heard Steve's voice say loudly. What could Steve want? Clint braced himself. Steve was probably going to berate him. Give him the stink eye through the phone. That seemed like something Steve would just love to do.
"What…?" Clint said.
"This. Is. Steve. Steve. Rogers." Steve said, very slowly.
"You don't have to talk so slow, Steve… I can hear you fine." Clint said.
"Okay…!" Steve said, a bit too loud for Clint's ears to handle, then there was a silence. Clint felt an awkwardness come over him. At least they weren't talking in person because this would be a hell of a lot more uncomfortable conversation if that were so.
"You don't have to yell either." Clint said. "You talk on walkie-talkies all the time, what's so different about a phone?"
"Sorry," Steve said, "This a very small phone. I'm just trying speak clearly so you can hear me." He said in his normal Steve voice. He didn't sound like he was about to yell at Clint for some reason. What else could he want?
"What do you want Steve?" Clint said, sighing.
..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..
Thor opened the door, and rushed into the maze as Natasha followed, a slight shiver going down her spine at the thought of this dark and dangerous place. She greatly hoped they weren't going to get lost in this place, though it was practically a labyrinth from what she had observed. She knew Thor would never give up and leave by calling Alva's name. They would have to trudge on, no matter what. Thor loved his brother far too much to ever let him go and give up on him.
There were two doors, a blue one to the left and a green one to the right. They could either go to the left or right of the maze. Natasha realized then they were going to have to rely on instinct a lot while in here and she also had a feeling that it wasn't a very good idea to stay in one place for too long.
"Which way should we go?" Natasha asked Thor, because she honestly had no idea, it was pretty much a fifty/fifty deal as there didn't seem to be any clues for them to follow. She was really hoping they didn't make a mistake first.
"It seems we have no choice but to guess our way around." Thor said, then he pointed to the right. "This way." He said, as he opened the door.
They walked on and on. She soon felt the weight of the box she held and her shoulders more strongly as they stepped through the grass. She was beginning to feel like the dinosaurs on Fantasia traveling in the hot sun until they couldn't feel their limbs, even though she knew it wasn't really that bad.
Thor's pace had gone a little too high at this point.
"Thor." Natasha whispered as she looked around her in worry.
"What?" Thor said aloud as he kept up his fast pace. Natasha caught up with him, out of breath.
"Thor we shouldn't run. We need to be careful." She said, just a little irritated with Thor's attitude.
Thor rolled his eyes, "Why should we? Do you fear I might stumble over a stray rock and perish?" he asked, smirking at Natasha as he continued to wear his quick pace and loud mouth on both his sleeves.
"The elf said there's 'monsters' out here, Thor. We need to be careful!" Natasha hissed.
Thor slowed down a little only to turn to Natasha with a look of annoyance and slight anger on his face.
"Are you attempting to insult my strength?" he asked, "I am not incompetent without my hammer." He said.
Natasha sighed in exasperation, "Yes, I know." She said, "I never said you were, all I'm saying is we shouldn't move around so fast. I know we could probably find a way to take on whatever creatures that attack us, but just to be on the safe side… Why don't we just never find out what would happen in that situation?" she asked.
"What about Loki?" Thor asked, "Should not we make haste for the sake of his survival?" he said.
"Thor…" Natasha said, before taking a deep sigh. "Thor, time runs differently here, remember? An hour is like a minute or second or something? We have time to waste. We'll probably escape this place and have the potion within one to two minutes time. That's not that much."
Thor sighed. "I'm afraid I do not like the idea of going too slow in this place," he paused, "I worry time might go by in a flash rather than how time was described to go by in here. I don't like this place, Natasha, and I want to leave here as soon as possible." He said.
"I know," Natasha said, she understood his worry, "Trust me, I want to get out of here as soon as possible." She said, as she looked around at the confining area. "We just have to suck it up and get through this." She said, determined.
Thor nodded, in understanding and then they went on again.
I really am sorry for the slow update. I don't really know what happened, time just went by really fast for some reason. But, anyhow, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)
Until next time, P.H.