Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The toe of the twenty year old's laced-up boot fell against the ground in a regular pattern every other second.
Tap.
Tap.
"If you even think about it, Lynch, I can and will throw you out of the window."
The girl rolled her eyes before turning to glower at the man who sat on the seat beside where she was stood, "oh, I do apologise, Coulson, how can I ever make it up to you?"
"By keeping your feet planted firmly on the ground. You're giving me a headache."
Opting not to reply, the girl simply gave him a slight smirk as she pulled her jacket tighter around herself, shivering slightly. The end of a six month long undercover mission had finally come and Maya Lynch was definitely looking forward to her own bed. The only problem was, the pilot seemed to have decided that returning to the ground as soon as possible wasn't his greatest concern.
"Sit down, Maya, I'm going stir crazy just looking at you," Jared Gardner, her partner, grinned up at her.
The faint sound of static in her ear let the girl know that the man on the other side of her comm was connecting and waiting to be debriefed on everything that had happened in the past 4,371 hours.
"The target has been eliminated, Fury. I—" she rolled her eyes as the thunder roared in the background, drowning out the rest of her sentence.
"What I was trying to say was that I managed to —" Crash!
The girl was cut off once more as the jet shook and lurched to the side, tossing the girl to the ground. Maya was flung across the small area, hitting the divider between themselves and the pilot with a painful crack. She groaned faintly at the pain in her ribs, at least one was definitely broken.
"We're going down!" The yell from the pilot set her heart racing as she tried to force her way back to her seat - her biggest chance at survival at that moment.
Hands grabbed her forearms roughly, dragging her into a seat. She buckled the belt, a tiny voice in the back of her mind wondering whether it would actually have any effect on her.
"What the hell's going on?!"
The same five words echoed in the earphones of all three agents but none of the three could find it within themselves to answer him through the lumps in their throats, although it could also be blamed on the erratic tossing and turning of the jet - that would be their excuse if any of them survived the outcome.
Maya looked between the two men, one on each side of her, through half closed eyes, her mind and face dangerously blank. What seemed like hours passed with the three of them holding tightly onto the straps securing them to their seats, knuckles turning white and teeth biting harshly into their lips without caring for the blood that would be drawn. She slowly released the belt around her from the death grip she had it in and reached out to take a hand of each of the men beside her, wanting to at least know there was someone with her when she reached the ground.
Jared Gardner closed his eyes tightly, his lips moving silently as he mouthed a prayer, hoping for the safety of his only remaining family member - the girl sitting beside him, one of her hands clasped tightly in his own. He wasn't religious, you couldn't be when you did what he did for a living, but for the safety of his little sister, he would do anything.
Phil Coulson glanced at the two young adults beside him, feeling a strong surge of regret for his inability to do anything to help either of them. He had watched Maya grow up and she had become almost a daughter to him. His lips twitched into a tiny sad smile as a shaking hand slid into his own, seeking a type of comfort that didn't need to be verbal.
The jet sunk down even lower and the three wondered how much longer they would be in this terrible free fall. The thick black smoke obscuring the windows made it impossible to see how close they were to the ground and the mystery only made the waiting even worse.
With a loud crack that echoed like a gunshot, the glass on the window opposite the group smashed, shards shooting in all directions as the pressure around them changed suddenly.
They didn't have much more than a few seconds to try to catch their breath, though, because with an ear piercing boom, the jet hurtled towards the ground which was mere seconds away from collision.
The metal, glass and steel that surrounded them seemed to fall apart, debris was hurled towards them, sharp edges breaking through skin.
A final crash and lurch signalled the agonising impact, then almost silence, a clangour echoing in Maya's ears as she tried to fight against the darkness that was beginning to creep in. The world spun around her, colours fading into one another until she could barely recognise her own hands as they rubbed at her eyes, trying in vain to suppress the hot tears of both pain and terror.
Her lips moved as she tried to yell but nothing reached her ears.
She carefully blinked, trying to get adjusted to her surroundings. It appeared that with the jet colliding with the damp grass around her, she had been flung from her seat, the belt having snapped, and had landed around a hundred metres from the wreckage.
Looking down at herself, the girl almost gagged at the sight of a pole around the size of her wrist impaling her left leg just below her knee. It seemed that upon seeing the severity of her wounds, Maya was able to feel the pain of them, and she was forced to turn on her side to throw up as her stomach lurched - nothing was left in her stomach, so a mixture of bile and blood soaked the ground beside her as she slumped backwards, a wave of paralysing weakness leaving her unable to so much as keep her eyes open for any longer.