SIX
HOPE WANTED TO STAY behind to help them keep Bruce calm but Fury gave her direct orders to go find and stop Loki, unsure how effective Thor would be at that.
On her way to do so, she ran into Agent Phil Coulson, her legal guardian and the closest thing she had to a father since her own had passed away. Phil was adamant that he was going to come with her to stop Loki.
"Phil, you can't. I don't even know if I can stop him. I don't want to lose another dad" She tried to persuade him, only getting a somber smile in return.
"It's my job to not only protect this ship but also to protect you. Besides—" Phil motioned to the huge gun-like weapon he had in his hands. "Always wanted to try this out" Hope couldn't help but chuckle before going with Phil to where Loki was supposed to be.
The two stalked down the halls, ignoring the chaos surrounding them until they arrived in front of the entrance. They saw Thor trapped in the container that Loki had once been in, a crack on the glass from him trying to escape.
"The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?" Loki went over to the control panel that released the container Thor was stuck in which was when the two decided to make themselves known.
Using her werewolf strength, Hope snapped the neck of the only person in the room that was there to help Loki, an unnamed man. She felt guilty but knew he'd rather be killed than be mind-controlled.
Loki and Thor both glanced over to see the surrogate father-daughter duo standing right behind where the body had fallen. Hope's eyes were glowing yellow while Phil held the huge weapon in his hands.
"Move away please," Phil said to Loki, armed and ready to take the god out with whatever type of weapon he was holding. Loki did so, stepping a little ways away from the panel.
"You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent The Destroyer. Hope and I don't know what it does" Phil hit a button, powering the gun that glowed an orange light. "Do you wanna find out?" Hope smirked at Phil's words.
She only felt a presence behind her at the last second before Loki's scepter went through Phil's chest, the other Loki had been an illusion to trick them.
Hope barely heard Thor screams over her own scream of terror. Hope was at Phil's side, trying to stop the bleeding as Loki released the container and sent Thor flying down to earth's surface.
Hope bit her wrist and attempted to feed her vampire blood to Phil so she could heal him, only for Phil to shake his head, denying the blood.
Loki's focus went towards the human and the tribrid, no remorse shown in his facial expressions as he watched Hope try and somehow save her pseudo-father. He closed the hatch and prepared to leave the two behind, only Phil had a few last words to say to the son-of-a-bitch before he passed away.
"You're gonna lose" Phil spoke in a weak voice. Loki spun around to face them once more, almost amused that the man who was dying was going to insult him while Hope tried every spell she could think of to try and heal him.
"Am I?" Loki looked rather confident in himself. "It's in your nature" Without Loki seeing, Phil lightly nudged Hope who was mumbling a various amount of spells. The two agents made eye contact, Phil slightly gestured over to Loki. Hope knew that he was talking only to distract the god of mischief enough in which they could attack him.
"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky, the only other person in here is too distraught to attack me...where is my disadvantage?" Hope took a deep breath to collect herself and her magic.
"You lack conviction" Loki scoffed. "I don't think..." Loki was cut off when he was sent flying through the walls by a combination of Hope's magic and the weapon Phil still held in his arms.
Phil slouched, letting the weapon drop after he did what needed to be done. Hope was back at his side, about to attempt healing him again only to be stopped by Phil's hands hovering over her own.
"Magic won't work and if you feed me your blood, I'll probably just come back as a vampire" Phil struggled to speak, losing his energy with every word. Hope had to respect his decision, placing her hands over his wound to at least prevent the inevitable for a few more minutes.
"Please don't leave me, I can't lose you too" Phil smiles weakly at her, his own blood trickling out of his mouth as he got closer to death. "It's okay, kid" Fury came into the room at this time, a rare scared expression on his face when he saw the two.
"Sorry, boss. They got rabbited" Phil apologized as Fury knelt down next to Hope. "Just stay awake. Eyes on me!" Fury ordered. "No. I'm clocked out here" Hope shook her head, tears flowing down her rosy cheeks.
"No, you're not done here" Hope cried out. "I love you, kid" Phil murmured before glancing over at the director. "This was never going to work... if they didn't have something... to..." Phil never got to finish, taking his last breath before passing away.
Hope felt everything she had bottled up increasing at a fast rate until it finally popped. Hope screamed as she cried, sending everything in the room to go flying besides Coulson and Fury(who had been holding her back at this point).
"Agent Coulson is down," Fury said after turning on the mics. Everyone including Tony and Steve heard both Fury's words and Hope's cries in the background. "Paramedics are on their way" The med team, who had already arrived, ordered Fury to move and Hope out of the way and he did so, dragging the girl to the side.
"They're here" Fury watched as the medical team declared Coulson officially dead. "They called it" Fury's heart clenched as he tried to keep his emotions down all while (awkwardly) comforting Hope who was sobbing at this point.
Everyone listening on the coms was heartbroken. Coulson was one of the best agents S.H.I.E.L.D. would ever have, and now he was gone.
***
After having time to calm down, Hope was now dressed in some leggings and a giant sweater. Her eyes were still red from crying, she had been doing it on and off since everything happened. Her cheeks were stained with tears and her hair was in an extremely messy ponytail.
Hope, Steve, and Tony were the only ones present when Fury called the team down. Natasha was with Clint, one of the only good things that had happened was that she found a way to snap Clint out of the mind control he was under.
Fury walked over to the briefing room where they were gathered. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them" He pulled out Phil's Captain America trading cards and slamming them down on the table, making Hope both cringe and flinch when she saw that they were completely covered in his blood.
"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming" There was a moment of silence before Fury continued, looking between the three people that couldn't be any more different.
"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes" Hope, not being able to listen anymore, left the room with Tony trailing behind her.
***
Tony and Hope both found themselves in the room where Phil died. Although they didn't know each other that well, both had lost someone they knew. Tony also knew what it was like to lose a father figure, he lost the human Jarvis who was the closest thing he could ever have to an actual father.
Tony didn't know how to comfort her, he wasn't usually in these situations. That doesn't mean he wasn't going to try in his own, odd way.
"How you holdin' up?" Tony questioned a bit awkwardly. "I'm fine" Tony sent her a look, not amused by her fake answer. "Kid, you need to let it out. I'm not one to judge after everything I've been through" He encouraged. Hope knew she had to let it out as he told her, so she did.
"I thought I was over my parents and my uncle dying, it was three years ago. But after seeing Phil die..." Tony nudged her, getting her to keep talking. "Every time I lose someone there's a voice in my head that tells me it's your fault, that I shouldn't even technically exist, that I'm a cosmic mistake" Tony only looked at her with a somber expression.
"You're not a mistake, kid. You were born for a reason, just gotta find out what it is" Hope sent him a thankful smile, Tony put his arm around the girl and let her rest her head on his shoulder, the only one around to comfort her.
The two stood there in silence for a while, looking at the empty cell container until Steve entered the room. He had been looking for them, wanting to be kind and try and comfort them, more so Hope than Tony due to their strained relationship.
"Was he married?" Steve questioned, keeping his distance to start with. "No. There was an uh...cellist, I think" Tony turned to Hope who nodded in confirmation.
"I'm sorry, Hope. He seemed like a good man" Hope didn't look away from the empty cell container, not knowing if she was more angry or sad.
"He was an idiot" Steve was taken aback by Hope's words, Tony was a bit surprised but interested in what she was saying. "Why? For believing?" Hope scoffed. "For coming with me to take on Loki, I can't die like a normal person but he could and did" Hope rambled, only stopping when she felt Tony place his hand on her shoulder in a soothing manner.
"He was just doing his job" Tony agreed with Hope's claim. Right before Hope had shown up in the debriefing room, they were given a file about Hope's true abilities. Hope could handle her own against the god, Phil couldn't.
"He was way out of his league. He should've waited, he should've..." Tony was cut off by Steve who was making his way over to the two. Putting his disdain of Captain America aside, Tony knew Steve and his righteous words weren't what Hope needed right now and was prepared to lead her out of the room. If Pepper had a place in her heart for this girl, she had to be a good person, Supernatural or not.
"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony" He decided to lead the girl out of the room now, Hope wasn't fighting back because in a way she also knew that Steve's way of comforting wasn't one that would work with her.
"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve asked the two, making Tony stop walking and turn around angrily. "We are not soldiers" The man spat, a hurt look in his dark eyes. "I am not marching to Fury's fife! And I'm not gonna let a kid, either" Hope moved to stand next to Tony, almost daring Steve to try anything.
"Neither am I! He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source if we can put together a list..." Tony was glancing over at the bloodstain on the floor left behind by Phil.
"He made this personal" Steve only sighed. "That's not the point" Hope's eyes widened in realization of where Tony was going with this.
"No, that's the whole point. When I was sent to talk to him, all he wanted to do was talk about things that mattered to me, things that he knew would hurt me. Taking Barton, making us turn on each other, killing Phil...he's trying to break us" Hope's eyes were wide, looking over at Tony who picked up on what she was talking about.
"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, especially Bruce, Thor, and Hope. That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience" Steve was a bit lost on what the two had connected their thought on.
"Right, Hope and I caught his act at Stuttengard" Hope though about the event, how he had let them capture him ever so easily. "Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered..." Their eyes widened in realization.
He was going to go to the very place that Stark had his tower with his name on it. "Sonofabitch".
***
After suiting up in her S.H.I.E.L.D. attire, Hope made her way to medbay to see Clint and Natasha, Steve trailing behind her like a lost puppy.
Natasha was in the room designated to Clint while he was in the bathroom. "Time to go, Nat" Natasha was a bit surprised to see Hope not looking so somber, a glint in her blue eyes revealing to her that Hope was ready to fight back against Loki.
"Go where?" Natasha looked over at Steve who was slightly behind the teenager. "We'll update you on our way. Is Clint good enough to fly one of the jets?" Clint, as if waiting for the right moment, stepped out of the bathroom, a smirk on his face as he finished wiping his hands off with a towel.
"Doubting my skills, Andrea?" Hope rolled her eyes, a genuine smile contradicting the annoyed front she put up. "What skills, Barton?" Clint chuckle before hugging the girl, glad that she was okay. He heard what had happened to Phil and was concerned about the girl he saw as a little sister.
"You two got your suits?" Hope asked after pulling away. "Yeah" Steve smiles at the group. "Then suit up".