Chapter 7
Friday was horrible.
Darcy slept through her alarm and clocked in to work late and had to spend the day color coding Excel spreadsheets with a migraine. Someone ate the last of the mac and cheese she had been planning to eat for lunch and she spilled white-out on her pants. She gets several paper cuts as she files and had to restart her computer twice.
Generally a pretty shitty start to the day. Still, excited for the evening, Darcy pushed stubbornly through and was able to get almost everything she wanted to finish done before she left for the day.
And so it was with unusually good cheer for such a crappy day, and just a little jittery, that she left the labs and headed upstairs to get ready for Friday's now traditional movie night.
Darcy bounced in to the living room with just a hint of make-up on her face. She had on her nice, yet still casual, checkerboard shirt dress and pair of curly earrings.
The room was eerily empty.
Darcy flicked the lights on and stood in the center of the silent room. She sat herself awkwardly on the couch to wait- she wasn't that early she didn’t think...Darcy checked her phone. She had one missed text from Natasha that must have come in while she was in the shower. It just said 'Running late.'
Darcy felt her good mood evaporate shockingly fast.
She had known Jane was going to have to skip out on the movie this week. There was some meeting go on about an upcoming conference that was begging for Jane to give a speech or something. But not only was Natasha not able to make it, but it also seemed that for the first time since their little tradition had started, no one else had managed to show up either.
Darcy sat in the quiet for a good ten minutes….waiting….
Irritated that she'd spent so much time getting ready (panicking), Darcy huffed and trudged back to her room to mope. Letting the door close harsher than normal behind her, she kicked off her shoes and headed for the bathroom. She removed the pair of silver earrings and began scrubbing the now pointless make-up off her face when her bedroom door swung opened.
Her head jerked and her thoughts flew into a panic- where had she last left her taser?
"Tones, you can't just enter people's rooms without knocking!"
"Of course I can. I own the building." She could hear the unbothered response as she whipped desperately away at the water stinging her eyes. Tony's face popped abruptly around the bathroom door. "There you are Lewis!" The man frowned at her mascara dripping face. "What the hell are you doing? You're late for movie night."
She felt her irritation drain away like the water rushing down the still running sink.
Tony's expectant face raised an eyebrow at her. A cut just above his eyebrow was a raw but healing red. Darcy bit back a sigh. These people were superheroes. They were busy doing extremely dangerous crap and they still tried to find time to do stupid shit like a Friday movie night with people like her.
Quite acting like a brat, Darcy chastised herself.
Taking a deep breath she whipped the dripping streaks of black off her cheeks. "Give me a sec. I'm ganna change into PJs and I'll be there….yah creep."
"Well hurry up!" He told her as Rhodey pulled ineffectually at his arm.
The other man shook his head at her, "I'm sorry for him. No manners."
"Manners? What about her? She's like twenty minutes late!" Tony protested indignantly.
"He has no sense of boundaries."
Darcy laughed a little as the door clicked shut- she could hear the muffled good natured arguing continuing from behind the wood. Quickly pulling on a pair of comfortable but presentable pajamas and throwing her hair up in a messy bun, Darcy headed after the two.
They watch Iron Giant and by the end Darcy has another text from Natasha.
N: What time did you plan for tomorrow?
With a bit of a sinking feeling Darcy replied with the time she had scheduled.
Expecting that things were going to have to be cancelled Darcy avoided checking the next text she got back for a hot coco run. When she finally did cave and check her phone again it was much better news than she had expected.
N: I may not make it back beforehand but I will be there.
D: You sure? We can rearrange if that works better.
N: I will be there.
So all things considered, Friday turned out alright in the end.
-….-….-…-
The next afternoon Darcy stood awkwardly on the sidewalk under a bright sunny sky. Hand resting on her phone in her pocket, to be sure she'd feel if it vibrated. She shifted her feet. A few groups of people push past her and the cars rushed by. Darcy debated with herself whether she should wait inside or not.
Darcy pulled out her phone to check the time. She'd been standing there for awhile but she'd gotten there really early too.
Still seven minutes till their set meeting time.
Hyper vigilant as most women were to such things, Darcy kept half an eye on the older dude who was loitering just a little further down the sidewalk. He was slowly stepping ever closer to her. Deciding that meant she should probably go wait inside Darcy turned to make for the entrance behind her.
"Hey pretty lady!" the man who had to be in his late 50s called to her.
Annoyed, she intended to ignore him until he purposely stepped to block her path. Darcy put a hand on her purse- she was ganna tase the shit out of the guy if he touched her.
"You lost, pretty lady?"
"No, she's not."
Natasha's cold voice cracked like a stinging whip.
The Black Widow was suddenly coming up beside her, arms crossed and exuding an absolutely terrifying atmosphere. It was something in the in the lines of her eyes. The curve of her almost sultry smile that felt like she might just rip his throat out with her teeth... Darcy could feel the goosebumps tingle down her arms. Darcy found herself remembering suddenly just what Natasha was capable of. She'd seen the footage after all; of Natasha ripping through alien soldiers like a scalpel through paper. There was a good chance she could rip a dudes throat out with her teeth. That might be a thing Natasha had even done before.
Giving the man one last cursory glance, Natasha dismissed him in favor of Darcy. "You ready?"
Darcy nodded, grinning, and the two pushed past the stammering man to make their way inside.
"Sorry I'm late." The red head apologized as the climbed up a flight of carpeted stairs.
"Trouble with customs?" Darcy teased.
She felt giddy in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Part of her had still expected Natasha to cancel or be pulled away for some emergency…and well, she'd missed her.
Darcy really hoped her face wasn't obviously flushed.
"Something like that." The woman agreed vaguely.
Pulling open the large black door that chimed pleasantly, the two women stepped inside. The check in front desk was wide with an open laptop and a bubbly looking teenager behind it. Her black shirt had a red puzzle piece with the words 'Puzzle Room Escapes' printed on it.
Darcy stepped up to the counter. "Hey, we have a 3 o'clock room booked."
"Oh great! Welcome! Let me just get your names and I'll get you all checked in."
Verifying her booking while Natasha observed the spacious room, the woman eventually stepped out from behind the desk and led them towards a small seating arrangement. Darcy and Natasha both sat down beside each other on a pair of puff stools.
"All right! Welcome you two! So, my name is Amber and I will be your game master today. I'll be monitoring your game and giving you clues if and when you need them. Have either of you been here before?"
Natasha shook her head gracefully. Her eyes scanned the room again while maintaining polite attention on Amber.
"I've done escape rooms before but this is my first time here." Darcy told their host.
Amber smiled genially at them both, pigtail bouncing slightly as she shifted feet. "Well awesome! So glad to have you both here. So basically what you have to do is use clues hidden around the room to escape. The door you enter from will not be the door you are trying to escape from and it will remain unlocked in case of a fire or other emergency. That all make sense? Just a few other housekeeping rules- please do not break or dismantle anything in the room. You will not need to fiddle with electrical sockets or climb into the ceiling to win. You shouldn’t need any brute strength to escape. A TV screen in the room will display your time remaining. As I will be watching you play, if you get really off track I can send you clues that will appear on the screen but you only get 3. Sound good?"
At their nods of agreement Amber led them down a hall to a gold painted door. It shimmered under the office lighting with intricate black hieroglyphics painted down its sides. Beside it stood a column of box lockers that Amber indicated with a hand. "You're welcome to put your purses and phones in a locker if you'd like."
Natasha took Darcy's purse and her own small bag and placed them in the top locker.
Amber gave a little clap once she had their attention again.
"So, let me give you a little bit of backstory about your room. You two are archaeologists who have come to Egypt to see your colleague's latest amazing discovery. When you arrive however he is nowhere be found. Venturing into the tomb you find his journal abandoned. Sensing something is wrong you try to turn back only to find yourselves trapped! You will have forty five minutes to use the clues in your colleague's journal and those hidden about the room to discover what happened to your friend and escape the mummy's curse! Any questions? You guys ready?"
Natasha nodded seriously.
"Oh yeah. We got this!" Darcy grinned. Her heart was already pumping with focused excitement. It had been a long time since she had gone an escape room but she had only ever failed that first room she tried and she was anxious to keep her record. With Natasha with her it might even be possible to try scoring a time record for the room!
With that the door was opened and the two women entered curiously.
Darcy ran her experienced eye over the dimly lit room. The most eye catching thing was the large slab 'sarcophagus' that was up against the wall opposite them. To the left was a small wall-mounted TV screen and a chest with a padlock. To the right was a bookcase containing scrolls. On the floor before them was a note book and a pair of pencils.
"Good luck!" Amber called and the door snapped closed.
The TV screen flashed on and the countdown began as Darcy raced into action. She grabbed the note book and went to examine the chest while Natasha stepped over to the sarcophagus.
The note book had a few pages of drawings, some foe journal entries Darcy skipped for now, and some riddles. She crouched down to examine the lock on the chest. "Looks like we need some kind of code word. This lock uses letters. Has to be six letters." She said.
"There's a place here for something to be inserted." Natasha told her as she ran her hands over the top of the foe stone.
Both of them went to the bookcase. "These scrolls have symbols on the ends." Darcy observed. She gathered all the marked ones together. Natasha pushed aside some unmarked scrolls on a higher shelf and pulled free a puzzle box that had been hidden in the back.
She turned the box over in her hands. "I'll work on this. Check the journal to see if it has anything about the scrolls?"
Darcy flipped through the pages of the journal again, more carefully this time. Several of the riddles seemed to reference the symbols on the scroll ends. Turning back to the beginning she started at the first riddle she could find. 'Ra's rising sun is one you'll need, on top of which there should be three.'
Easy enough.
She grabbed the one with the symbol like a sun and laid it out. When unraveled the paper had a few dark discernible lines on it.
'The eye of Horus looks down upon the world of the dead but never do they touch.'
'Anubis's scales are the entry to the underworld and are the bottom as such.'
'Ammut's crocodile may appear anywhere but below the land of the dead.'
Okay. This was going to get complicated.
Darcy grabbed one if the pencils and sat down on the floor to get to work on a scrap paper. Above her she heard a click and she looked up.
Natasha was holding the two halves of the now open puzzle box. "Got it." She smirked.
"What's inside?" Darcy asked.
The red head removed something from the box, turning it over in her hands. "Looks like a tile, for the sarcophagus I think, a key….and a flashlight?" she clicked the back button and a purple light streamed from the end. "Blacklight." She confirmed.
"I'm almost done with these, just give me another minute." Darcy told her. Finishing up the last riddle on the scrap paper, she then unfurled and rearranged the scrolls. "The last riddle said 'When the gods look down together the truth shines through' so I am guessing…"Natasha crouched down on her haunches beside her to watch. Darcy pressed the layers of paper together and the black marks formed the word 'Osiris'.
"Has to be the code for the chest!"
Natasha nodded and hurried over to the gold painted chest. Quickly shifting the letters on the lock it clicked open and the lid swing open easily. Inside the chest was another gold box, a small padlock swinging from the front, another tile on a decorated cushion, and a laminated note.
Natasha grabbed the tile. "These all have different hieroglyphics." She commented, running a thumb over the symbol.
"This is locked…" Darcy said as she removed the smaller gold box from the chest. "Does that key you found fit?"
The key from the puzzle box did indeed fit the small padlock and it opened to reveal yet another hieroglyph tile. "That's how many now? Three?"
Meanwhile, Natasha had wasted no time in snatching up the note. Her eyes scanned over the words quickly. "We need to use the blacklight under the torches."
Darcy hadn't even really noticed them but a glance around the room now highlighted the foe torch lanterns that lined the walls. Natasha sprung smoothly into action; running the blacklight under each wall sconce illuminated a hidden symbol and roman number in a purple glow.
"It's the symbols on the tiles!" Darcy quickly jotted down the symbols and their corresponding numbers.
But they had three tiles and four hidden symbols.
Confused, Darcy looked around the room for something they could have missed.
Natasha seemed to know however because she walked confidently over to the back of the door they had come in through. There was a mosaic like patterned pieced on it that Darcy had dismissed as pure decoration. But the pieces of it moved, she realized, as Natasha quickly pushed the tiles up, over, down, over, down. Her hands never paused until- one popped off into her waiting hand.
"Got it." Natasha purred.
They placed the tiles in numerological order by the numbers they had found into the shallow indents on the face off the sarcophagus. Nothing happened.
"Check the journal." Natasha recommended swiftly.
Flipping through the pages again Darcy found another riddle that looked like it might fit. Supposedly solving it would allow them to spell out the mummy's true name and break the curse that had trapped them. Hopefully that meant it would be the final puzzle. She was incredibly conscious of the numbers counting ever downward on the T.V.
Natasha stood beside her and the two quickly broke down and solved the riddle.
They rearranged the tiles again.
The sarcophagus cracked open, dramatic music playing from some hidden speaker, to reveal not a mummy but a dried body of the professor they were meant to be searching for. It was covered in those fake spider webs Darcy's aunt had loved to use for Halloween. Darcy had forgotten all about that part of the story in her focus to get out of the room. There was a snorted laugh and she looked over at Natasha.
"That's not at all how a desiccated corpse looks." The Natasha said with a touch of amusement in her voice. Her mouth snapped shut and she looked quickly up at Darcy.
"Looks does sort of look like something from the Halloween Outlet." She agreed, "But I think we found our way out of here."
One of the bookcases behind them had slid to the left and revealed another door. They crossed the room quickly together, footsteps in a hurried sync.
Darcy's heart was pounding noticeably again.
Natasha slid the secret door open and there stood Amber. She greeted them with an impressed smile as they stepped out into the hall. "I think you guys might have beaten the record for fastest time solved!"
Literally doing a little jump for joy, Darcy turned and high-fived a very amused looking Natasha.
"Yes!"
Her grin only increased when Natasha actually pulled her in for a hug. Darcy rested her chin on the woman's shoulder. The Widow melt like fresh lavender and somethings faintly smoky (though for all she knew it could very well be smoke...What had she been up to on her last mission?). Darcy fought the urge to close her eyes and just...stay there. The high of their win was slowly coming down. She didn't want this night to end. Didn't really want to let go. But Darcy dropped her hands and stepped back with a cheerful smile despite the twisting in her chest. She liked Natasha but Natasha didn't like her. Not like that. And this had been fun. She would just have to learn to be satisfied with that.