Hocus Pocus // T. Stark

IX

Falling.

Spinning.

Amelia's still sensitive body gets flung from one side to the other. A scream leaves her mouth. She sees the ground coming closer and closer. Amelia takes comfort in thinking about her friends while she drops towards her unlikely end.

She thinks about Ginny and Hermoine. How she will never be able to tell them that she met an actual god, well two, but one's a serial killer so she would keep that to herself. Amelia thinks about Harry. She tries to imagine how he would react when he hears about her death. Harry has lost so much already and Amelia wishes that she could live, just so that he doesn't lose anyone else. And what about Timothy, he will never know how much she appreciates him. She thinks about Draco, Luna, all the Weasleys, little scorpius, little James, Sirius, Remus and all the other people she will leave behind. She even thinks about her new friends on the helicarrier; Tony, Steve, Maria, Natasha, even Fury. And Coulson. If the afterlife exists, she hopes to meet him there. She feels failure, the fact that she wouldn't be able to help the others stop Loki, the fact that she wouldn't be able to warn Bonneville about the war coming.

But then she thinks about her parents, and how she will finally see them again. How she will see all those who passed away early as well. And suddenly it all didn't seems so bad anymore. She looks at the nearing land beneath her one last time before closing her eyes. Her body weak from all the hits and her head still hurting from her failed surprise attack on Loki. She was tired, so tired. This is her end. She can find peace. She can accept this, she can live with this- well, not actually live but-

Suddenly she feels arms around her waist, squishing her against a muscled chest. Amelia hears a warriors yell. Her body gets thrown forwards by an immense speed. She hears a crash and all of a sudden cold wind touches her skin. Fresh air fills her lungs. An explosion sounds behind her. The witch feels Thor moving her on top of him, protecting her body with his while his back crashes into the ground. Then she enters the darkness for what could be the last time.

______________________________________________________________________________

It's silent on the helicarrier. Everybody grieving those they have lost. Tony Stark sighs, picking up a tablet from the table, looking at the dreadful footage that shows the loss of his friends. He watches as Loki drags Amelia into the deathtrap, watches as the god of Mischief tricks his brother into joining her in there. Then he sees Phil appear, an enormous gun in his hands. He watches Loki spearing the secret agent. His heart breaks as Phil's body falls to the ground and he spots tears falling down Amelia's face. The fear on her face before she and Thor fall.

He all but throws the tablet back onto the table. He had not only lost Phil, but Amelia and Thor as well. Hell, even Bruce was nowhere to be seen. Loki had escaped, they had failed. Lazily gazing at Steve, he sees that the soldier wasn't taking the news any better. Tony doesn't even find the energy to look up as Fury clears his throat.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. I guess he never did get you to sign them." He says, as he throws the Captain America collection cards on the table. Blood splatters stain the fallen agent's collection, in some way representing the state of the team. Separate pieces collected for the bigger picture, all of them worth something on there own but meant to be better together. Only now the cards were ripped, bloodied and thrown apart on the table. Kind of like the group of unlikely heroes, they were ripped away from one another, thrown apart and bloody as well.

Steve reaches to take a card while Fury continues, "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the cube, Banner, Thor, Amelia. I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." Steve throws the card back on the table as Tony stares blankly in front of him.