Elysium (Natasha Romanoff)

Three

Natasha

"I'm in heaven?" I ask again, louder this time. Elias nods and I ask, "like.. heaven heaven?"

"If that's what you want to call it, yeah," she says with a shrug. "Personally I like Elysium better. It's more Greek."

My legs feel weak at her words and I lean against the counter in an attempt to stay standing. "But.. I can't be here. I shouldn't be here. I have so much blood on my hands."

"We all do Red," Elias says softly. "But if you're here, and you are here, it's because you deserve to be."

"I don't," I whisper. "I don't deserve it. I've killed hundreds.. probably thousands. People who deserved it and people who didn't. I've killed kids," I tell her. And then a horrible thought comes to me, "I saw kids on the walk here. How did they get here? Are they dead too?" Elias takes a step towards me, her hands up like she's going to touch me and I hiss, "don't touch me."

She stops moving and says gently, "they aren't dead. They were born here. I promise you Natasha, they are all alive and well."

"How could they be born here?" I ask her, not believing her. "Dead things can't have babies." Something we have in common. The thought slips in before I can stop it and I silently curse myself. Now is not the time, get it together Natasha.

Her eyes never leave mine as she motions to the kitchen chairs, "can you sit down before you fall down, please?"

There's kindness and worry in her voice and that confuses me even more. Why would she care if I fell? She just met me and as far as I can tell she's lied to me already. This can't be Heaven. It doesn't exist and if it did I most certainly wouldn't be allowed in.

"Natasha," she says again. "Please." She goes to the table and pulls out a chair, pushing it towards me gently before pulling out her own chair and sitting down. I look between her and the chair and she says, "I am not a threat to you. I wouldn't lie to you either."

"Like I said," I tell her as I finally sit down. She had been right, it was either sit or fall and as much as I hate to admit it, my legs were about to give out. "Your word means nothing to me."

I watch the hurt flash through her eyes, "I can understand that." She leans back in her chair and puts one foot on her other thigh, "so ask me whatever you want and I'll answer it truthfully."

"How would I know it's the truth?" I ask her.

She grins slightly, "I think you'd know."

She was right again, I would know. "Fine," I tell her. "What's your name?"

She blinks in surprise but answers easily, "Elias Xaros Zelus."

"That is not a name," I scoff.

She gets an odd look in her eyes as she says, "so I've been told."

"What are you?" I ask for a third time. "A real answer this time," I say as she starts to give me the same answer.

"I am a demigod," she tells me. "A shapeshifter, a hopeless romantic, a warrior, a scholar. To name a few. Unless," she says as she raises an eyebrow, "you were referring to how I have both tits and a dick?"

My face flushes as I stutter, "that's not- I didn't mean-."

She laughs, "it's fine Natasha. I don't mind the question or the looks. After an eon I'm used to it. So, to answer the question that you didn't ask, I am intersex. While technically I identify as a woman, hence the tits, I was born with a dick. One of the weird things that happens when you have a literal god as a parent," she says somewhat bitterly.

"Couldn't you just shapeshifting into a full woman?" I ask before I can stop myself.

Her head tilts to the side, "I could. But I happen to like my dick, Red. And I've never had any complaints about it from anyone lucky enough to get a taste of it."

"Sorry," I mutter as my face heats up again. "I didn't mean to sound.. homophobic."

"It's alright," she tells me. "So, got any questions that aren't about my dick?"

"I don't think I technically asked any about your dick," I retort. "But yes, I do. I died, right?"

"Yes, you did," she answers. I swear I can sorrow in her voice but that wouldn't make any sense. Why would she be sad that I'd died?

"And now I'm.. not dead?"

"Correct," she says.

"How?"

"I don't know," she answers with a shrug. "All I know is that when you die like we have, somehow, something, chooses us and brings us to this place. To the Rebirth Center, and then we wake up and live the lives we never got to."

"What do you mean, lives we never got to live?" I ask, trying to keep any form of hope from my voice. I still didn't believe that this was heaven, but I was slowly starting to believe that Elias believes it.

"We can do anything here," she says with a smile. A true smile and not her cocky one. "We can be whoever we want. There's no war, no danger, we don't have to fight anyone or anything. We are free to love and relax and have a family and raise kids in safety. We get to have the lives we should have had if fate had been kinder to us."

I sit there and stare at her, mulling over her words. A normal life did sound tempting, but there was no way it was possible. What kind of place was just 100% peaceful? Everywhere had war and strife, that just went hand in hand with being human.

But.. this place wasn't human. We weren't on earth. Hell, we probably weren't even in the same solar system as earth. Maybe human thinking didn't apply here then.

"Are there other humans here?" I ask her softly.

She nods, "there's a few. You're the first one to come in a while though."

"Then how can there be peace? Humans aren't exactly know for being peaceful," I joke dully.

"You're human," she says. "Do you feel the urge to wage war and destroy everything?"

"No," I answer instantly.

"So what do you feel?"

"Exhausted."

She nods slightly, "I think you'll find that everyone here is also exhausted. Our past lives don't define us, Natasha. It doesn't matter who we were, who we were forced to be. You died doing something heroic, and that's why you're here. Why all of us are here. This is our reward, our second chance at life, to be who we want to be." She stands up and offers me her hand, "it's time to start living, Red."