The Visit

Spells

The avengers didn't think that Loki not having a soul would be too much of a problem...

They were wrong.

They found out very quickly that while Loki no longer feared the titan, that also meant a lot of his motivation for self-preservation went out the window as well.

"We can't use your head as bait!" Steve yelled at the man across from him.

"Why not?"

"We don't trade lives, Loki."

"It's not trading per se-"

"We are not using you as any sort of bait!"

Loki raised his hands in the air in surrender. "Fine."

It was at that point that they decided to lock Loki in his room so he couldn't do anything stupid without them knowing about it. Which, in of itself, freaked the Avengers out even more because Loki was a hundred percent fine with it.

After successfully locking the trickster in his room, they all sat down at the meeting table near the common area.

Steve started out the conversation. "Okay, Bucky, what exactly happened on Vormir?"

Bucky recounted what happened and how Loki had said he had given up his own soul.

"Is there a way to get it back?"

"Red Skull said nothing about what to do after we got the damn thing. He basically shoo-ed us away and we came back here. Though, in all honesty, he didn't sound like he knew much about it either."

"Maybe we should go back to that wizard guy and see if he knows anything on how to get it back?" Clint interrupted. "He seems like he knows his shit."

Bucky sighed. "Are we sure there isn't another person, I mean, I personally don't like the guy. For a doctor, he seemed pretty okay with sticking his hand through someone's chest without anesthesia."

Bruce hummed a bit in agreement. "I don't like it either, but I think he's the best we got."

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"Avengers, Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum." Stephen said as he floated down the staircase.

"Dramatic," Tony mumbled.

"When you are the sorcerer supreme, you can be dramatic. How may I help you?" Stephen retorted, getting right down to business.

"Is it possible to get Loki's soul back?"

Stephen sighed. "I don't know. The soul stone has been missing for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It's nature is unfamiliar to me."

"Of course you can get his soul back."

The Avengers turned their head to the right to see what looked like an older Asian man walking towards the group.

"We can?!" Thor asked, his voice slightly higher-pitched than normal.

"Wong, don't give them false hope," Stephen admonished the man.

"The only false hope would be that you find yourself incapable of performing the spell."

"What do you mean?" Tony interrupted the two sorcerers' argument.

Wong looked at the inventor like one would look at a student: in annoyance.

"Your friends' soul is not gone, mearly contained inside the soul stone. With the help of a spell we could transport one of you to the Soulworld, where you could find your friend's soul and release it."

"What Wong failed to mention in that apt description-"

"Is that one of their souls has the chance of being lost in the realm as well; I was about the mention it. The warnings come after the spells, Strange," Wong chuckled.

Stephen grumbled something incoherent, but seemed like he was mocking Wong in some way.

"I'll do it." Everyone turned their heads to Clint. "What? I've had a connection with one of the stones before, maybe that'll make it easier for me."

Wong nodded his head and went down to the library to get the spell for Stephen.

Stephen, while annoyed, pushed all of the Avengers to follow him to what looked like some kind of dungeon with a stone pillar in the middle. A few minutes later Wong came with the book and shoved it into Stephen's hands.

"Alright, first off, you sure you wanna do this Barton?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Stephen quirked his eyebrows a bit then held his hand out. "Sit on the pillar." He instructed as he cleared the materials away that had sat on it previously. Clint did as he asked and seated himself in the middle of the pillar. Stephen then went over to Tony and held out his hand. "The Stone."

Tony glared, but then reluctantly took the Soul Stone out of his pocket where it had been quietly humming the entire time. Stephen gave it to Clint and told him to hold it with two hands in front of him.

Stephen then poured something black and viscous in a wide radius around the pillar. He then stood just outside of its radius. "The spell will end in 2 hours. If you do not successfully make it to the temple once more before the spell runs out then you will be stuck there until another could try and come get you."

"How long would that be."

"5 years."

"Don't mess up, got it."

Stephen nodded and started drawing runes in a golden magic around the pillar. Clint closed his eyes and tried to focus on the task at hand. When the circle of runes was completed Clint felt himself slipping away from his physical body into the stone.

When he opened his eyes he saw that he had landed in some sort of pillared temple that had a staircase leading down into its depths. In all other directions he saw a vast expanse of orange. Orange ground, orange sky, only able to be identified by a thin white line that served at the horizon.

Clint shook his head as he focused on the task at hand. He took a deep breath and ventured into the depths of the Soulworld.