I'm crying, my cupcakes. I'm crying.

Leave me reviews!

You're all awesoe.

~Christianne

Omniscient POV

As the city rose higher into the sky, Anna searched through the rubble more frantically. She had a plan, of sorts, but it would only work if she found something to put an eight-pointed star on the back of her tactical jacket.

James was, of course, close by. He kept within earshot of Anna so he could hear if she needed him. Anna was always on James' mind, but she wasn't currently at the forefront; the forefront of his mind as currently designated to the young family; a husband, wife and young baby. They had been trying to flee the city in their car, only to have another car thrown on top of it. The wife was crying silently, the baby was screaming, and the husband looked prepared to die to save his family. Since James engaged the robots that were approaching the car with the intent to kill, the family struggled to escape the mangled car.

With a roar of frustration and rage, James threw his left arm forward in a powerful punch aimed at the robot's perspective torso. He was standing on a pile of rubble, so he was level with the thing's chest. When he yanked his arm back, James locked his fingers around everything he could, and pulled it out with his fist. Once the strips of metal, cabling and wires were out of the robot's chest, it sparked before lifeless let falling to the ground. James looked at the fist of cording and robotic skeleton in his palm, and couldn't help it when his cheeks twitched up into a small smile.

Once James was sure the young family was out of the car and on their way to safety, he turned back to the battle. He hadn't been too thrilled when Anna told him she cranked his arm up as high as it could go, but now, ripping Ultron apart with his bare hands, James' didn't mind all that much.

"James! Jimmy! Baby—I need a little help here!"

Anna's yells were met with a growl that grew in James' chest. He grabbed the hood of a mangled car in his left hand, and hurled it like a massive metal frisbee. It hit the robot pursuing Anna square in the chest, and sent him flying back into the building, which crumbled completely around the robot.

James looked to his left and saw Anna, thankfully safe, laughing. He frowned a little as he watched her grab her stomach laughing.

"Sweetie, you now I love hangin' around you," Anna started out, putting a hand on her hip as she breathed rapidly under her blue bandana. "But God I missed a good old fashioned fight!"

"Fighting robots on a floating chunk of Earth is old fashioned?" James asked, jumping down to the ground so he was level with Anna.

She laughed again, her eyes sparkling. "I dunno. Probably not. The idea of fighting is pure, good ol' science fiction, though!"

James rapidly looked around when there was another loud crash. Anna turned to face it, allowing her partner to see the back of her jacket. His right hand slowly reached up and touched one of the hastily made lines on the jacket that made up the eight pointed star.

Anna felt his touch and smiled. She looked over her shoulder, and gave him a coy little look. "Can't have Ultron thinkin' I'm a civilian, now, can we?"

It was only after the helicarrier rose into the sky that the other Avengers found out Anna and James were on the floating city too. Anna somehow coordinated with Natasha, and they managed to bring down a building on top of 15 or more robots. They high-fived when it was down.

James was close by, but chose to take on robots by himself; Anna knew he'd do that. Literally ripping through the bad guys and letting out as many primal sounds as he wanted as he threw a punch would do him good. He needed to be able to lose control now and then, and really use the power behind the metallic monstrosity HYDRA gave him.

He'd just thrown the head of an Ultron-bot at another, when the ground he was standing on (well, the large pile of rubble he was standing on) shifted. James was very vocal as he fought, but he didn't utter a single word as he fell thirty-plus feet, landed on uneven cement littered with metal shavings and glass, and had several pieces fall on himself.

The robot he'd been fighting had lost an arm to him (someone else took care of his legs), and was coming towards James. He pulled and fought at the rubble over himself. Part of his mind said he should call for help, but he didn't. James was the Winter Soldier; the Winter Soldier didn't call for help. The robot was closer now, and wound a fist back to throw a fatal punch. James managed to get his left arm free, and shot it out to grab the metal fist heading towards his head. Metal clacked, slid and mechanisms groaned on both arms as they pressed harder against each other.

Grunting, and gritting his teeth in concentration and pain, James' fractured mind got out a small mental plea; Please help me.

Before James could scold himself for the plea, which the other side of him saw as weak, the robot was yanked away by swirls of red mist. The mist seeped into the robot, then plodded inside it, tearing it apart. Once the metal, armless, legless man as taken care of, the red mist went after the rubble on top of James. He scrambled to his feet quickly, and looked around to see what rescued him.

To his left, there was a young woman in red, with dark hair. Her eyes glowed red, and the mist swirled around her daintily held hands and fingers. James recognized her as one of the enhanced twins Anna showed him pictures of. She was the one who could get inside your head and make you see things. When James realized this, he immediately began to backpedal a few steps, stumbling a few steps back in the rubble in an attempt to get away from her. His expression became guarded and his nostrils flared in aggression. Wanda got the message, mostly because she saw into his mind; his mind was an animalistic wall of survival instinct that told Wanda he wouldn't even think of coming after her if she stayed away from him. She nodded once, and after a moment, James did the same.

They parted after that, running in two different directions.

Anna leaned heavily on an alley wall, a hand grabbing over her thigh, where blood was seeping through her ripped tactical pants. She'd jumped off a, somehow still standing, two story building with the intent of landing on the backs of one of the robots. Instead, she jumped off the two story building and was batted out of the air like a bug and went through a window. It was already shattered, so she was spared the many cuts and bruises on her back of going through a window, but a shard dragged its way down her leg as she went through. Anna took off her bandana and tied it around her upper thigh as tight as she could.

"My thigh...Why the hell do I keep getting deep wounds in my goddamn thigh!" Anna hissed under her breath as she wedged a wadded up strip of shirt under the bandana and over the wound, putting added pressure to the wound.

A group of about twelve children ran past the entrance to the alley. Anna couldn't help but smile as James jogged behind them, telling them to go to the helicarrier.

When he saw Anna leaning heavily on the wall, blood dripping from her leg, he went to her quickly. As James assessed Anna, Anna assessed James. His flesh arm looked torn up, bloody, and half dislocated, but that didn't stop him from reaching for the bandana around Anna's thigh, untying it and trying it twice as tight. She let out a half-grunt, half-hiss in pain, and grabbed onto James' shoulder to steady herself.

"Warn a girl next time, ok?" Anna half-laughed through her panting. James didn't say anything, he just put his bloodied hand on Anna's upper arm, looking at her intensely.

"Hey," she said, getting James back to Earth, as she took off her jacket. "I know you don't want to, but we need to get on one of those life boats to the helicarrier.

Anna tied to arms of her jacket together, making a loop, and tossed it over James' head. He hissed through clenched teeth as she lifted his flesh arm up and put it in the makeshift sling over his chest. Once she was done, Anna put a hand over his cheek, still covered with the bandana.

"But there are still people-"

"Hey, Jimmy, baby, James, you need to listen to me," Anna said, her voice shaking slightly. "Both of us are hurt, we're outgunned, I'm out of practice-" Anna cut herself off when James' brows furrowed. "We'll help people on the way, but I need to get on that ship. We need to get on that ship, ok? Will you help me do that? P-Please? Jimmy, honey, help me do that?"

James could see the pleading look in her eye, and the pinched expression on Anna's face. While the pleading look was new, the pinched expression of pain James knew well. Anna had that expression a lot during the ten months she was laid up from her gunshot wound.

He desperately wanted to stay. James couldn't care less of he was hurt; he wanted to get as many people to safety as he could. James wanted to save people. That being said, the most important person for him to save was Anna.

Anna was Bucky's whole world. After James read the letter Sergeant Barnes wrote to his darlin' girl, James saw that Anna was his whole world too. He couldn't even begin to comprehend a world where he was free from HYDRA and Anna wasn't with him.

Since his right, flesh arm was painfully resting in a sling made from Anna's jacket, James had no choice but to wrap his metal arm around Anna's waist. He ducked down slightly to let Anna pull an arm over his shoulders. Once she fisted a good grip on his tactical jacket, James straightened as much as she could and still let Anna have a decent footing on the ground. Anna's other hand crossed her chest and turned her body slightly, grabbing the front of his jacket to help her stand straight. James wanted nothing more than to swoop an arm down and pick Anna up as if she were a princess, but he couldn't do that with only one arm.

The pair, bloody, battered and limping, made their way to the helicarrier. They would pause now and then for James to hurl something at one of the bots so trapped people could go free. Anna leaned heavily on James as she lost more and more blood from her leg, and James' well trained battle mindset was pushing back the dazed feeling, and the feeling of a blood soaked sling against his chest.

The former S.H.I.E.L.D., volunteers didn't give the two a second glance; they just ushered them into the life boat. James found a corner between the side of the boat and the bench of seats, and collapsed there, bringing Anna with him. After a moment or two of finding the least painful way to sit, James let his body go mostly slack, and he felt Anna pass out on his shoulder. James held the blonde tightly to his chest with his left arm. Normally he would be hesitant, worried and close to panicked about the idea of holding Anna close with his left arm, let alone after she tinkered with it and prevented it from self-regulating the strength it put out. Exsanguination finally succeeded in hazing his brain.

James lolled his head so it was pressed to Anna's head. He awkwardly reached up and yanked the bandana down so it hung around his neck; he like the feeling of Anna's silky hair against his skin. She was out cold, so she didn't feel the shaky breath her honey let out. James breathed her in; the weight of her body on his, the muffled thumping of her heart, the way her hair smelled like dust, smoke, sweat, and that exotic shampoo she insisted on using to keep her hair straight.

"I love you," James mumbled into her hair. "I do, Anna...And-And I know what it means now."

Emilia spun around quickly, and as she did, time seemed to slow down. All the gypsy girl could hear was her ragged breathing, her pounding heart, and the scream that ripped from her throat. She'd insisted on being with Pietro at all times. She said it was because they could take out more of Ultron's robots, and refused to really say anything else on the matter.

She wanted to stay with Pietro so she wouldn't see what she was seeing now; his bloody body falling to the ground.

The gypsy girl threw all her energy into kinetic, and was at his side before his chest hit the dirt.

Kára had stopped dead when she felt a worthy soul leave the present; that was the same second Emilia screamed. The Valkyrie dropped her spear and shield.

Emilia skidded to the ground, half on her stomach, and put a hand on Pietro's face. There wasn't any energy pulsing from his heart. His heart wasn't beating. The worst part of Emilia being so close to his face, was seeing his eyes. Even through their differences, Emilia had always admired his eyes; they were a vibrant blue-green that glittered when he smirked, which was all the time. They were open and unblinking now, looking, but not seeing, Emilia's crying face. She punched herself up, and pressed her palms to his back, her head lolling forward as she cried harder as she tried to find any lasting energy inside him.

She knew. Emilia knew Pietro Maximoff's final outcome as death, and she couldn't save him. She'd stuck by his side, something worth noting because of how irritating he could be, and she still wasn't able to save him.

There was another little sister in the world with out a big brother.

And there was a gypsy girl who could never say sorry.

Time had slowed for both Kára and Emilia as the bullets ripped through Pietro Maximoff. In an instant, it sped up again.

It had been less than two seconds since the Sokovian speedster had pushed Hawkeye and the young boy he held to safety.

Kára's weapons had hardly touched the ground when she took off into the sky. The high pitched sound, followed by an ear splitting crack, signaled that the Valkyrie was gone.

Pietro inhaled the scent of clean country air. Grass tickled his face and neck as the cool, gentle breeze ruffled his hair.

"Take a hike, Isaac. I'll help him through it."

"Why in the world would I let you assist him in understand what happened? I may as well let a rabid bear help him! I am the commanding officer, so this is hardly worth discussing."

"Yeah, and I'm sure this young guy from modern times would want some uppity Brit explaining this all to him...And I'm older, so there."

"Pfft!...You are such a child!"

"Explain what?" Pietro asked into the grass. The two voices, one American and one English, stopped bickering.

The blond raised his head from the grass and pinched his eyes shut when bright sunlight attacked his face. Prepared this time, Pietro pushed himself up and looked at his surroundings. The bright sun that blinded him came from a cloudless blue sky. The cool, smooth grass that brushed his face was part of a lush field of rolling green hills that rippled like water in the breeze. Groupings of people basked in the sunlight, walked through the grass and converted quietly in the shade of sporadic trees. To his far left, there was a magnificent gold building.

"Where am I?" Pietro demanded, getting to his feet as he glared at the two men.

"Sorry to tell 'ya, but you're dead, brother," the American-voiced man said with a friendly chuckle and a sympathetic smile. He had close cropped black hair, tanned skin and dark eyes; Pietro recognized some of the man's features as being from the Pacific islands, like Hawaii (Wanda had repeatedly watched a movie set there when she was 13). He wore the fatigues and boots Pietro associated with the US Army.

"What?"

The Englishman scoffed and crossed his arms. He wore a more vintage uniform in an olive green, and had slightly longer, neatly combed, brown hair. The uniform he wore brought forth memories of half-read textbooks from history classes and pictures depicting the Second World War. "Oh, just wonderful work, lieutenant. You've succeeded in scaring him into farther into death."

"I'm not scared!" Pietro bit out. "Where am I?"

"I'm Captain Isaac Andrews of the Second Tank Division," the Englishman introduced himself. "This brash sargent is Nathan Clarke."

"Hey, who you callin' brash, crumpet-muncher?"

"Where am I?" Pietro demanded for a third time, getting more anxious than angry.

"What are you, Catholic? Lutheran?" Sgt. Clarke asked. He was much more relaxed than the captain, and grinned lazily at Pietro as he waited for an answer.

"Roman Catholic," Pietro mumbled, unsure of where this conversation was going.

"Oh, cool, my brother-in-law was Roman Catholic. He kinda sounded like you too, he was from Romania," Nathan continued. "Well, he was an Orthodox Roman Catholic."

Pietro, who was fully terrified, nodded numbly.

"Well buddy, welcome to Heaven!" Nathan announced with a grin, throwing his arms out wide.

"Not exactly, Sargent," Isaac sighed. "See, we are in a sect of Heaven designated for those who died while fighting to save others and the greater good."

"Soldiers," Pietro breathed out, looking around the field again. He realized he was rubbing the spot just under his shoulder that a bullet had ripped through, and abruptly dropped his hand to his side.

"Damn right! We're all soldiers here," Nathan chuckled. "I kicked it and ended up here during Desert Storm, mid-90s, I think. Jumped on a landmine to save my squad."

Isaac nodded along with the short story, and frowned when Nathan nudged his arm and glanced at Pietro. The captain sighed, then said "I was caught in a gas attack in 1940."

"So, how'd you end up here, brother?" Nathan asked Pietro.

"I...I was shot," the Sokovian boy responded quietly. "I-...I think I pushed a man and kid out of the way...and I was shot..."

"The memories of your death will clear with time," Isaac offered.

"How...I-I'm not-"

"Relax," the captain said in a less stern tone. "What's your name?"

"...Pietro..."

"Pietro, the quicker you come to terms with what I'm about to tell you, the faster you will assimilate," Isaac paused and put a hand on his shoulder. "You deserve to be here, you are a hero. You may grieve for your friends and family as they grieve for you, but it was your time and yours alone. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and feel the never ending life that you will have here."

The blond did just that. He took a few steps away from the oddly paired army men, closed his eyes, and began to take deep breaths. He couldn't deny that he felt better than he had in years; no aching muscles, racing heart, panting lungs or a stiff neck. In fact, he felt like he could run forever and not feel tired, at the same time, he felt relaxed enough to sit in the shade of a tree and doze to his heart's content. He snapped his eyes open when a question came up in his mind.

"What about my parents? They died years ago, can I see them?"

"Give it time, brother," Nathan said, shrugging. "Once you've been here a decade or two, you'll find the little secret passages to the other parts of Heaven. You're not peaceful enough inside right now to get through one'a the doors in one piece."

Pietro nodded simply, then thought of his sister. For almost all their lives, they only had each other. Now Pietro was alone in Heaven and Wanda was along on Earth. One Maximoff twin was alone in death, the other in life.

Oddly enough, Pietro's mind conjured up an image of Emilia Dalca next. They met when the gypsy girl threatened to kill him in Wakanda, Emilia befriended his sister, and then they created as odd friendship over a pear and tarot cards in a kitchen late at night. A conversation they had on the plan stood in his mind.

Pietro eyed the bottle of water in Emilia's hands. "Mind if I have a drink of that?"

The gypsy girl shrugged, and held the plastic bottle out to him. Emilia watched as Pietro drank from the water bottle, and gave him a look that Pietro almost saw as mournful. "What?" He asked, taking the bottle down from his mouth and wiping his lips and chin with the back of his hand.

Emilia blinked once, and her expression turned from sad to coy, mischievous and oddly flirtatious. "Have you heard the myth about drinking the same water as a gypsy with the gift?"

Pitro quickly matched her flirtatious tone and expression, curious more than anything else about where Emilia was taking the conversation. "No, I haven't."

"Well, they say that if you drink from the same water as a gypsy with the gift, and that gypsy kisses you three times, you will always have good luck, so long as that gypsy is with you."

His interest was fully peaked at this point, Pietro leaned towards Emilia slightly. "Do you have the gypsy gift, draga?" He asked, making Emilia roll her eyes; the Russian term of endearment was a bit much.

"Of course I do, how could you think different?" Emilia teased back, leaning towards Pietro the same way he leaned towards her.

The pair remained close to one another for a good five seconds. Pietro saw sadness flicker in Emilia's eyes again. He frowned, and lowly murmured "What's wrong, kotik?" in Romanian.

This term of endearment made Emilia's lip twitch. She responded by slowly revising her hands up to rest on either side of Pietro's face. The chiffon cuffs of her over shirt tickled his neck, and Emilia's fingers gently pressed into Pietro's cheeks. The scratchy, darkened stubble along his jaw was rough against Emilia's fingers. The Sokovian boy was confused by the brunette's actions, and chose to remain still until she let him go.

Pietro got only more confused, but oddly excited, when Emilia leaned closer still, and pressed a kiss to his left cheek. She turned his head slightly, and pressed a second kiss to his right cheek. The second kiss was much closer to his mouth than the first; the corner of her mouth grazed his lips. Pietro sat in anticipation for the third kiss, which he boyishly hoped would be on his lips.

Instead, Emilia leaned back and released his face. Her hands fell to his lap and wrapped around one of his hands. His face clearly showed disappointment he felt, and Emilia smiled a little.

"When the battle if over, sweetheart," Emilia mumbled in Romanian, in a tone with just the slightest bit of embarrassment. "Now you really have something to fight for."

_-~oO0Oo~-_

A sharp, loud sound, followed by a bellowing, hollow Bang! pulled Pietro from his memories. He looked around, and was shocked to see Kára walking towards him and the two Army men.

Pietro was stunned. The archer had explained to both twins that Kára was a little less than human, but seeing her in full Valkyrie dress was breathtaking. She donned a short metal plated gown, which had hundreds of hammered gold plates that moved like the sea of grass around her, like the scales of a snake. Her massive wings were stretched out wide, and her blonde waves spilled from under her him and tumbled down her shoulders.

"C'mon! We don't have much time!" Kára yelled at him. Only then did Pietro realize that she was running towards him.

"What?" He sputtered out.

Kára pushed Nathan and Isaac aside, and grabbed Pietro's shoulders. "Look, I'm breaking all sorts of universal rules now, so listen to me."

"You're dead now, you know that? I'm going to bring you back down to Earth. I need you to close your eyes, and think of everything you have to live for," Kára half-yelled at him. "Wanda, some Sokovian girlfriend you had when you were sixteen, Emilia—I don't care what you think about, as long as it's powerful."

Pietro closed his eyes like the Valkyrie told him to.

"Will it hurt?" He whispered weakly. Pietro always thought death would be painful, but it really wasn't. Would being yanked back into life be painful?

"No idea," Kára admitted quickly. "Never done this before."

"Why are you giving him a second chance?" Nathan butted in. He didn't sound mad, not at all; he was curious and hopeful.

"I spent hundreds of years pulling thousands of you worthy men into Valhalla, and lots of them were way too fuckin' early. I'm sick of everything on that goddamn blue and green rock being unfair. I don't have a god looking over my shoulder anymore, so I can do something about it," Kára snapped. "Ready?" She asked Pietro in the same breath.

"Hey, good luck, brother," Nathan said, clapping Pietro on his shoulder.

"Best of luck...Don't you dare waste your time down there, or I'll be very cross with you when you get back," Isaac said in her stern tone, but it was sentimental at the same time.

"Ready," Pietro said quietly.

Kára began to fly back to Earth, dragging Pietro's soul with her.

It'd been less than five seconds since bullets ripped through Pietro's body.

Clint and the young boy he was protecting hadn't even gotten up yet.

Emilia was still on the ground next to his body, letting out scream-like sobs into his shoulder blades.

A sharp whistle signaled that Kára was making a return to Earth, and Emilia looked up and around to see where she was going to land.

There was a great big crash, and Kára ended up rolling painfully on the ground, and skidded to a stop. The Valkyrie looked like she'd lost a fight with Godzilla. She propped herself up on her elbows, and yelled in a cracked, broken voice. "Give 'im all you've got!"

Emilia didn't need to be asked twice. She put her hands on Pietro's back, over his lungs, perspectively, and breathed out everything she had. Every spark of energy Emilia purged from her body and pushed onto Pietro.

It only took a second for his blue eyes to light up again.

Emilia fell limply next to Pietro in the dirt, facing him, and her breathing was labored and shallow.

Pietro was weak, but alive. He blinked a few times, and saw Emilia next to him. His brows furrowed in confusion, and he attempted to speak to her. All that came out were some little gasps.

Emilia gave a shaky smile, and reached towards his hand, which was limp by his face. She had to drag her fingers across the cold ground, and weakly took his fingers with hers. Then, she dragged his hand towards herself.

Her prediction was wrong. Pietro's final outcome showed death, and Emilia thought it was predicting his own death. Emilia was wrong.

Pietro's final outcome was witnessing her death.

Emilia closed her eyes, and used the rest of her strength to bring Pietro's hand to her lips. They pressed to the backs of Pietro's clammy hands desperately, then fell limply to the ground again.

"Wh-Wha...?" Pietro breathed out, confused and scared by Emilia's actions.

The gypsy girl worked hard to get enough air into her wheezing lungs to speak. He could see the slow, dramatic rise and fall of her chest.

"Now...I-I'll always..." Emilia labored to get out, a sad smile on her face. She inhaled again, and got the sentence out.

"Now I'll...always...be with you."

Pietro didn't know what happened to himself, or what happened to Emilia, but he didn't like how she said that. He also didn't like how he could see the color fading from her face and the light fading from her eyes. He squeezed her hand, trying to elicit a reaction from her, but she just looked at him with blurry eyes.

"E-Emilia..." He managed to get out, his throat constricting. He didn't want to see her die. Pietro did not want to see this girl die.

"Voi fi mereu cu tine." Emilia whispered, then she closed her eyes.

Pietro recognised the Romanian, and he felt a tear leave his eye. Emilia didn't inhale again.

I'll always be with you.