Plans Never Keep Up with Changes

"How long is this taking?" Natasha asked Wong, who was trying to open a portal. They were hiding in the mountains, while Asgardian soldiers searched every corner of the realm.

"Something's wrong," Wong replied. "Space has been locked down."

"What?"

"Someone has sealed off Asgard's space. That means even ordinary teleportation spells are difficult to cast," Wong explained.

"Can't you think of something?" Natasha asked, glancing at the unconscious Hulk and Sam. If they were trapped on another planet or in another realm and couldn't return to their timeline, their mission couldn't be considered a success.

"I'm afraid it won't help," Tony replied. "It seems Odin has conquered the Nine Realms and linked them together with Asgard at the center."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that opening a portal to Earth or even another timeline is like fighting against the power of nine dimensions," Wong explained.

"We had no trouble teleporting on Earth, right? What changed?" Natasha asked.

"I don't know, but the most likely explanation is that the power involved needed to be activated. When we broke into this realm, someone wanted to stop us from escaping," Tony added.

Natasha grunted. "I'm used to missions not going according to plan, but this is something else entirely." There was no such thing as a perfect plan—that was the first lesson Natasha had learned as a spy. Her training with Ian had only reinforced that belief, since anything involving magic was a thousand times more complicated.

"So what do we do now?" Wong asked. "Do you think we should ask Clint for more support?"

"There's no need," Natasha rejected the idea. Clint surely had his own work to deal with, and it would be unwise to dump our mission on him. "Whatever Dimensional Lockdown system they have, the Asgardians must