4 | BYE!

'We're in New York, aren't we?'

Amelia kept on asking the same damn question over and over and over again. Catalina, being quite an impatient person, rolled her eyes to the back of her head and huffed. "Yes. Does it look like we're in Kansas?" Catalina sarcastically pointed to the skyscrapers encasing the street they were on.

Amelia gulped. "Why am I here? Why am I alive? I died— wait, I died!" Amelia desperately reached for the hem of her shirt and lifted it up as she recalled how she had died. A nasty incision ran along the bottom of her torso. Her skin was bloodied and dirty, leaving the semi-healed scar in a similar state. Flashes of her past flickered through her mind. The horrors. The screams. The anguish. The fear. The helplessness. It all came back to her. Last she knew, she was kidnapped and forced into labor. Greedy HYDRA scientists had plunged their dirty hands into her womb to steal her babies from her. Her two daughters. Her two powerful daughters. Once the scientists had snatched their treasure, the children, they left Amelia open on the table to bleed out and die. Steve, her husband, found her hours after her demise— leaving him heartbroken and traumatized for the rest of his life.

Catalina led quite the opposite life. Her life was filled with glamour and riches. She was married to a wealthy king. She had powers of her own, she could control water at its molecular form. Catalina planned to have children of her own. She studied alongside two of the world's most intelligent beings: Shuri Udaku and Tony Stark. She sailed the oceans and experienced the world constantly. She was feared in her environment: over the ocean. She was proclaimed to be the 'Serpent of the Sea.' No one dared to sail their ship near her, or else they'd risk feeling her wrath.

"A storm is coming. And it's going to be big. I can feel it." Catalina answered Amelia.

"How'dya know?" Amelia's thick New York accent took over her voice for a moment as she gulped in fear.

"My spidey senses are tingling," Catalina joked, nudging Amelia's arm with her elbow. However, to no avail, Amelia didn't laugh— she simply stared up at the sky with a frightened look. Amelia wasn't one to fear anything. She was known as the courageous, kick-ass superhero. But, after experiencing death, she didn't want to go back there. She didn't want to die again. Hell, she just wanted to see the love of her life and her children. "Ahem.. kidding, totally kidding. It's just a sailor's sense." Catalina attempted to recover from her failed joke. But Amelia didn't listen. She kept on staring at the sky. Something about that damn sky was killing her. She also felt some of Cata's sailor's sense. She felt that the beginning of the storm was brewing. And it was coming from space.

* * *

Sluuuuuuurp. Amelia licked her lips. She ravenously ate her spaghetti. Catalina grew impatient. Her prestige showing greatly as people gawked at her from across the restaurant. "Could you not eat like that?" Catalina hissed quietly at Amelia.

Amelia moaned in satisfaction. "I'm sorry, being dead for a few years made me a bit hungry." Amelia seethed at the woman.

"Just... hurry up. Before the people stop looking at me and realize who you are." Catalina snapped her fingers, forcing Amelia's cup of water to splash upward and onto her face, cleaning off some of the dirt.

Amelia hurried up and gobbled down her food, then the duo hurried outside— readying themselves to head toward upstate New York to meet with the other Avengers. However, their plans were abruptly stopped when a piercing shriek erupted from down the street. Amelia and Catalina instinctively shot their head to the source, and noticed a petite woman cowering in fear as she looked up at the sky. Amelia's eyes trailed upward and found what the woman was screaming at within moments. "Holy shit." Amelia muttered under her breath. It was some sort of donut-shaped space ship. It was perfectly round and floated through the sky effortlessly. It certainly wasn't like the Chitauri Amelia had encountered years ago.

Catalina smirked a bit. "Tony said you said that a lot."

Amelia waved Cata off. "I don't know how much time I have here. So, let's make the best of it." Amelia grunted then began running toward the space ship. Catalina followed pursuit. Amelia kept running, despite the utter soreness in her legs, toward the ship right under it.

There, she encounter a familiar face. "Tony?" Amelia cocked her head in confusion as to why he and a couple others were there too.

Tony's jaw dropped. It was as if he had seen a ghost— well... too soon? The woman who practically raised him seemed to be well alive and was standing before him, right underneath the mysterious space ship that he was about to confront. Shocked tears welled up in Tony's eyes and he ran to her. He engulfed her in a tight hug, squeezing her to make sure that she was certainly real. "H—h—how?" Tony stumbled over his words, trying to find the right words to speak to her.

"I don't know," Amelia answered, taking in Tony's particular scent, "but we'll talk later, I think we've got bigger problems." She hinted at the space ship.

Tony, mouth still agape, nodded solemnly. He eyes travelled to Catalina, his own protégée, and greeted her with a quick nod— unsure as to how he'd process why Amelia was suddenly risen from the dead and was accompanied by his colleague.

"Amelia." Amelia nodded curtly as a greet to the other two men who accompanied Tony.

"Doctor Strange." One responded.
"Wong." The other added.

Amelia turned away to face the space ship, and soon enough a bright blue beam seemed to have transported two beings down onto the ground. The group stalked toward, asserting their dominance. "Hear me, and rejoice! You are about to die by the hands of the children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now—" One of the aliens began to speak out.

"I'm sorry. Earth is closed today. You better pack it up and get out of here." Tony shouted angrily back at the grey alien with no nose. He wanted as little amount of conflict as possible, now that Amelia was there, he wanted as much time to reminisce and make sure her visit back to life was permanent.

"Stone keepers. Does this chattering animal speak for you?" The alien looked at both Doctor Strange and Amelia.

"Stone keeper?"Amelia was completely oblivious to the fact that she held one half of the time stone, and Strange seemed to possess the other half.

"Yes. Lord Stin implanted it into you. That is, one half of the time stone. For safe keeping, of course. The other stone keeper possesses the other half." The alien elaborated that her long forgotten father, an Asgardian reject that was full of desire for power, had kept an infinity stone in her. It explained her time-manipulative powers.

"Tony certainly doesn't speak for me. I speak for myself. No trespassing in this city or on this planet." Strange pumped his fists and expelled a magical shield from his hands. The shields he created seemed to glow and sparkle with a gold and orange hue. It was definitely something Amelia never did. She began to mimic Strange's action to see if that power came with the stone, but nothing seemed to happen. Except for her looking like a complete fool.

"Man, he must've gotten the better half." Amelia grunted, jokingly— gaining a snort from Tony.

Tony regained composure and stood up straight. "Get lost squidward!" Tony joked, topping Amelia's comedy off.

"He insults me. Bring me the stone." The alien mumbled to his hefty comrade.

"Banner you want a piece?" Tony suggested to Bruce, whom had been quietly standing behind all of them.

Amelia spun on her heel and cocked her head. "I didn't even know you were here!" She exclaimed, a smile creeping onto her face. Banner nodded at her with wide, frightened eyes. "H—h—hey." He gulped, then stepped forward and began attempting to turn into the Hulk. However, all of his attempts resulted in failure as he wouldn't turn green.

"It's been a while... it's good to have you buddy..... where's your guy?!" Tony muttered here and there over at Banner, who looked constipated as he tried to push out the Hulk.

"I don't know. I've sorta been having a thing." Banner admitted as he gave up.

"There's no time for a thing. That's a thing right there," Tony pointed to the alien's large-set alien-friend that had begun waking frighteningly straight toward them with a large axe-like weapon in hand.

Amelia spun around to face the enemy at hand and cracked her neck. She lowered herself into position to attack the beast, and possibly stop time if need be. "Dude. You're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."  Tony grunted.

Catalina snickered and flicked out a few gadgets from her purse. "I— I— can't." Bruce sighed.

Tony patted Bruce's back. "It's okay. Stand back." Tony allowed Bruce to step back from fighting this go-around. Then, he proceeded to press a button on his sleeve that coated him in his Iron Man suit. He was fully suited up just as the hefty alien enemy came swinging at him. Tony blocked the alien's blow with his forearm and began blasting the alien with his ensemble.

"Where'd that come from?!" Bruce shouted over the commotion after Tony effortlessly pushed away the big alien.

"It's nanotech, you like i—" Tony began, but was instantly flung up into the air through an invisible force that squidward seemed to have control over. Dr. Strange immediately turned around and seemed to have transported Bruce to another location through a teleportation circle he seemed to have drawn in the air. It was all too difficult to describe and all too strange for someone like Amelia to understand what it was. She had only been dead for a few years, but by the way things seemed to have had played out, it felt like years since she had been gone.

Tony swooped back in on the site and quickly announced: "We've got to get the halves of the stones out of here, now."

"It stays with me." Strange growled at Tony.

"Exactly. Bye." Tony spat and turned his attention back onto the task at hand. Catalina huffed and threw down her gadgets all around the defending team to form some sort of unbreakable shield in front of them. Tony eventually went out of sight after he and the hefty alien began to battle again.

Amelia felt useless as she stood among the wizards and the high-tech Catalina. All she wanted to do was stop time and instantly snap squidward's neck, but she wasn't so sure that it'd work based on how powerful she saw that squidward was and how Strange had control of the other half of the time stone. "Cata, I think we should get out of here. Now." Amelia was weary of the situation and questioned her own ability.

Catalina knew that she was completely incapable of fighting as well, so when she heard those words leave Amelia's mouth— she was in. "Strange, get us out of here." Catalina barked.

Dr. Strange curtly nodded and opened up another portal for the two to go through. Where it led, Catalina and Amelia didn't know. But, it was good enough to allow them to slip away safely. The two turned around, abandoned their posts and jumped through the portal— landing far away somewhere else in New York.