𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐗𝐘..
In which the Soul Stone is sentient and, in a search for a compatible vessel to help them escape their fate at the hands of the Mad Titan, they choose Joanna Parrion. Unexpectedly, though the co...
𖤐 𓈒࣪ ᭡ ˖ 000 ! prologue we are gathered here ִֶָ ࣪ ៹ ☄️
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
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"HELLO DARLING." THUNDER distantly bombarded the silence with a chill, though rain itself kept at bay. The Calvary Cemetery, much like Queens itself, was scarcely quiet, but all which was usually overwhelming, now quietened to mere suffocation, leaving many present to wonder if they preferred the unpredictable streets over the formulaic procedures most were simply there to bare witness to.
It was cold. Colder than usual. Just that day cheers filled markets and homes as General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announced the surrender of Italy to the Allies. The wind blew sharply across the hill, through the erected stones, flapping behind Howard Stark a coat that seemed to have, despite its quality fabric, failed its main purpose to bring him warmth. His hands were shaking in their paleness over a scrunched paper. In his right pocket, the envelope it has sprung out of stuck out, half crammed.
Though a young entrepreneur with money enough to make just about any American feel the sense of jealousy towards him, before that paper, before that writing, before that open grave, he quivered not as a billionaire helping his country and reaping all the benefits too, but as the man who was born just a few neighborhoods away.
"If you're reading this," he fought against the boulders on his heart before they turned to knots in his throat, choking out tears instead of words, "it means I've died doing something that I loved. It means that you're probably standing at my grave right now, about to bury an empty casket in Calvary Cemetery."
Howard's strength failed him. A puff had bowed his head. With deplorable weakness, his hands lowered and he stiffened one of those painful grimaces of a dam breaking apart and letting tears come through. "Sorry, everyone...," he muttered into his hand, coming up to brush his nose and dry the dampness under his eyes. Looking up, he stared at the people gathered and they could all see the redness of care making him bleed tears from bloodshot eyes unable to comprehend that he was hearing her voice in his mind, but she will, in fact, never return.
His gaze returned to the paper and the stiffened cries turned into a puffed laughter, deplorable in its essence. "I don't know the future," Howard read, choked out, "but I sure as Hell know you, Howard. So stop crying, you gullible fool."
From there on, his voice shivered less and less, because the more he read, the closer he felt to her, rather than to the cemetery and the people gathered. "I'm not gone forever. None of us ever are. I have returned to the origins of the universe and I have turned to stardust in my final breath, making the space between planets shine in the mystery and wonder that called me to its depth. Do not cry, because I am not gone forever and because I have not been taken against my will. Do not cry, because I was happy, because I've seen everything I've always wanted to see and my dreams have all come true. It was all thanks to you. You trusted me when no one else would. You believed my wonder when I knew my own words were spectacular insanity to most. Do not cry at my grave, my little dreamer. Don't you dare scorn at the cosmos that killed me. Don't feel cross with the universe just because I am no longer physically next to you. My soul is there, in a shooting star, in the silver light of the moon; I'm walking on starlight, Howard, but I'll always be with you."
