Oh My Labyrinth!

Oh you really shouldn't have

Chapter Four:

                                                                           Oh, you really shouldn't have

Natasha, Bruce, and Thor sat simmering as they stared Fury down. Since the time they had told him about Iron Man, Captain America, and Hawkeye vanishing with the worms, the man had yet to do anything to try and really find them. In fact, he seemed rather fine with just waiting around. Hill on the other hand was still trying to plan out shooting a laser cannon into the ground to try and open the hole back up. While Natasha wasn't a fan of this particular plan, she was somewhat more appeased by the show of trying to help than doing absolutely nothing.

"You can stop glaring daggers at me Romanoff", Fury finally replied as he glimpsed her from the corner of his eye, "We are talking about the leader, vice leader, and master assassin of the Avengers. I doubt something like a worm would kill them anytime soon."

Natasha relented that point to him as she turned away, still unhappy but somewhat more contented that he had least told her why they were waiting. He believed in her comrades. Perhaps, it was more faith than she was willing to give them, but then again, maybe she just believed too much in their abilities. Stark, while being a genius, had a nasty way of bringing trouble. Steve, though the leader of their ragtag bunch of Avengers, was from the past and sometimes had a close-minded view of things. Then of course there was Clint. His hot temper and reckless nature, though just as bad as Tony's, needn't be spoken about, as it was obvious to anyone what type of trouble he could bring about.

"Sir, I still think a laser cannon would do it", argued Hill from where she stood, "I have calibrated trajectories and I think..."

"I think you should just wait", Stated the Director with a frown, "I already told you Hill, we aren't doing that yet."

"But..."

"Look", he interrupted, "we will give them exactly three more hours. Should, in those three hours they fail to either send a message or escape from underground, then and only then, will we try your plan. Until those three hours are up, I don't want to hear another word about it. Understand?"

Hill frowned, but saluted. "Yes Director Fury, sir."

Fury nodded and turned back to the avengers who were still staring at him with something akin to appreciation, trepidation, and irritation.

"We will continue trying to contact them", he stated, "should however someone else try that isn't one of my agents, well...best luck too them."

With those words, the director turned and walked away. The three avengers stared after him with surprise before turning to one another.

"You think he just..." started Bruce.

"Yeah, he gave us an out to try and find them on our own. Let's not waste this opportunity."

Thor and Bruce grinned.

"Shall we, friend Hulk?" asked Thor as he began swinging his hammer.

Bruce chuckled as removed his glasses and handed them over to Natasha. It took merely a moment for him to grow and color green. Luckily for them, he was always angry and didn't need anything to provoke his transformation.

"Let's smash some worms", he roared and the three raced out of the tent to begin their own search and rescue attempt.

From where Fury stood watching, he just smiled grimly and wished them success as he himself had been ordered by his superiors to do nothing that might allow an opening for the worms to return. They may have ordered him not to do anything, but he wasn't about to order the same command.