The Shadow // Natasha Romanoff x OC

Chapter 20 - Swaggy and Swaggiest

Azara's pov

"So let me get this straight: you pulled me in here mere seconds before I died?" I ask, confused beyond belief.

"No, daughter, you were dead," the goddess states, as if it were obvious.

"So I'm still dead? Or did I do a Jesus and like," I wave my arms in front of myself like a zombie and choke out, in a straggly voice, "I am... resurrecteddddd!"

"No one can really die; you merely live in a different realm. I took you from the realm of Hades and brought you here," again, she speaks as if this is an everyday occurrence.

"It's just that easy to evade death?" I ask.

"No, no, not at all my dear. Like I have with many other gods, Hades owed me a debt and this was the return," she gestures to the same chair in which we had sat on last time we met here.

"Why do you keep saving me?" I know it sounds stupid, but by this point, I'm genuinely confused as to why she protects me so much.

"Because you are my daughter, of course," she admits, as if it is a bad thing to be so protective.

"But why keep me in the world of the, uh... living?"

"Here, as I have explained before, at the Basin of the River Styx, we are as close to Tartarus as a god can go with out permission or... well, it complicated. I, therefore, am the closest to what resides in Tartarus: the Titans. But, mainly, the Lord of Titans: Kronos, Keeper and ruler of time," she gestures to her right, further into the abyss. Despite it being as dark as the rest of it, the direction she points to seems deeper.

"We have had many... dealings, you may say," she continues, "Kronos needs information: I give it to him, in return for a favour. But, there is one time which he has not repaid me for: the day I set him free. Only a little, but nevertheless, freer than he had been for nearly a million years."

"What sort of repayment would be, umm... satisfactory?" I'm not at all sure what dealings with the Titan Lord look like.

"That is something I cannot tell you," she sees my deeply confused expression and adds, "for now."

"So, can I go back?" I approach the question carefully.

"Yes," she states.

"But..." I can sense there is something else.

"But, I have a proposal, a proposition in the form of a gift, you might say," she stands and gestures for me to follow her.

We walk in silence until I see a doorway, nearly identical to the one in which Captain Rogers had locked earlier that day.

Opening the door, we both wordlessly step through. The blinding lights that stream from all directions make me cover my squinting eyes. But - as the initial blindness fades - I am able to look around.

"This is Olympus, κόρη (daughter), in the flesh," my mother spreads her hands, smiling widely at the quite literally ethereal view.

I stand, awestruck; unaware of my rather prolonged silence.

"What is on your mind, my dear?" She glances over towards me.