"You may have a theory?" Skyler repeats and she rolls her eyes. "You're copying me from when I said I may have a theory."

"I'm not copying you, I may have a theory. That's not that unique of a thing to say," Elizabeth points out.

Skyler crosses her arms. "Fine, then what is your theory of how to get inside their dreams?"

Elizabeth grins. "We have an Asgardian sorceress in our midst."

Iris looks suprised at her. "What are you up to?" she questions her and Elizabeth's grin grows bigger. Iris doesn't like it, o no, not at all.

"Do you think you'll be able to connect some minds with the sleepy heads over there?"

Iris hesitates, she doesn't know if she'll be capable to do such thing. "I don't know," she answers in all truth.

"Suppose she can," Diamond joins in. "How can we find out if they're all in the same dream?"

Iris tries to figure out if she knows a way to connect some minds while Elizabeth answers Di's question.

"If she can connect my mind with Steve's and say, Katherine's with Bucky's, then Kath and I both have to go to the same spot to meet each other. And if we have some kind of code, we know we're both in the same dream."

"That could actually work," Skyler adds.

"But," Elizabeth continues. "We really should send in people who always know that they're dreaming. I think it's as in the movie Inception : the victims don't know they're in a dream. I doubt Steve and the others know they are asleep right now."

Katherine nods. "That sounds valid. But why do we need a code?"

"Steve's and Bucky's mind probably would have made projections of us, we need to make sure we're really talking to each other not to some kind of projection."

"Yeah, just hold it there for a moment," Iris interrupts. "I don't even know if I can do what you're asking!"

Elizabeth turns even more serious, looking her best friend in the eye without any doubt showing in it. "I know you can. You just have to believe in yourself. I have seen your incredible powers a thousand times, there is not much you cannot do, and this is not one of it."

Iris calms down a bit. "Alright, I will try but no more than two persons. Otherwise I think it'll be too hard."

Skyler agrees. "While you try that out with Katherine and Elizabeth, I go see if I can make something out of this fog that can help getting us all inside the dream."

Elizabeth turns to Kathy. "Could you keep an eye out for strange things?"

"You mean for when the enormous monster comes back?" Kathy responds sarcastic. "Sure."

Skyler puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It'll be alright. We can defeat him. There's no challenge I can't win."

Kathy nods and teleports to the roof of the Avengers Tower, to look out over the misty Manhattan. The fog reaches as far as she can see. It kind of gives her the creeps, it somehow reminds her of a scary horror movie. You know, in the ones where the main characters die one by one. A shiver rolls down her spine, don't think about that. They were going to survive this. Their plan was going to work, they just need to kill a fire-breathing dragon in two worlds at the same time - at least, she thinks he can breathe fire, what kind of dragon would he otherwise be? So yeah, no problem, not at all.

~~~

Skyler is about to head off in the direction of the lab alone but Diamond joins her. "I'll help you. I may not be a genius but I'm not stupid. I know a thing or two about science."

"Very well. It's a shame Bruce is sedated as well, we could really use his brilliance. Or Tony's..."

Diamond utters a sigh. "Agreed."

"No worries, we can do this. I can do this," Skyler quickly adds when she notices her sadness.

They walk towards the stairs and descend them, but they can hardly see the steps, the mist is too thick. Luckily the lab is only a few floors down. They also could have used the elevator but with, probably, everyone asleep, they didn't dare to take the lift. What if it got stuck? Too risky in their opinion.

"Why do you think we didn't get affected by the darkness?" Diamond asks Skyler but she just makes a half-shrug.

"I suppose because of the dragon. He has chosen us."

"Which I still find odd. Why didn't he just sedated all of us? In that way everything would have been way more easier for him. No one could have stopped him, the world would have been his in a blink of an eye."

Skyler chuckles. "I suppose every villain has a death wish."

"Yes, I suppose." Diamond falls silent for a moment and they enter the lab. Skyler starts cleaning the desk to make room for whatever she was about to do.

"How are you planning on creating the 'dreaming potion'?"

"Running some test of the fog. First I need to know what exactly it is. Maybe if we just inject it in our blood, we fall asleep as well."

"And how are you going to test that?"

Skyler smirks. "You said you wanted to help."

"Yes, but not as a testing subject!" Diamond complains but she knew it was the only way of finding out more about it. "Ugh, fine. But first we have to find out what it is, yes?"

Skyler nods. "Indeed, and we need to know how the dream exactly works. So I won't test it on you before Elizabeth and Katherine have some more answers."

"Alright. Lets do this."

Skyler rubs her hands together. It seems like she's in her element. She grabs a test tube and puts a cork on top of it since it already has the substance in it. She places in some kind of machine which starts spinning very fast. Diamond thinks it has something to do with distillation, or percolation, maybe extraction? She's not sure.

Skyler activates the screen hologram with a hand movement and Diamond tries to decipher the readings.

"Well, this is interesting," Skyler mutters, completely drawn to the statistics on the screen.

"Why, what is it?" Diamond asks curiously. She can't read that fast in mirror writing.

"It's a chemical substance that shuts down serotonin and creates melatonin. I didn't know that could even combined into one chemical substance. It's remarkable."

"It does what?" Diamond repeats confused.

"It creates sleep," Skyler summarizes but then a frown appears on her forehead. "Wait, there's something else in it..."

---

A/N: You'll have to excuse me for any scientific errors I make ;)

Anyhow, next chapter Elizabeth and Katherine are going to try to enter the dream thanks to Iris' magic! And will Skyler and Diamond find a way of creating a sleeping potion with the mist? Will Phoenix be able to escape his brother's prison? Will Kathy be able to hold her creepy-crawly thoughts together?

So yeah, stay tuned :)

(This story-ine is possibly going to be longer than I expected... xD )