Return of the Fallen

Hello Again

I didn't want to come here, I did NOT want to come back here. I did not want to come back to this barren, icy planet with the almost impossible hike up the freezing mountain. I would have hated this planet anyway for being so cold and unforgiving. The suits did little to insulate against the frigid air. I'm almost glad for the cold to distract me from other thoughts, but it's not enough.

Thoughts still swim in my mind that it should have been me. I had done too many bad things to let her to die for me. I had done too many bad things to keep living. In those five years, I wanted to die, I hated myself for living when my family disappeared, and I hated everyone else for getting to keep living and keep someone from their family, when mine was gone.

I try to keep my breathing steady, but it's useless. I'm hyperventilating about a stupid rock floating in space. I think I might be having a panic attack or something.

"Hey, Hey, Clint. You'll be alright. It's okay," Steve says, noticing my harsh breaths. "I know, I know it's hard. But trust me, you can get through this. Let's climb, Okay?"

It should have been me. I nod, trying to calm myself. I don't trust myself to speak yet, I don't want to have a mental breakdown an alien planet. If I start crying I might never stop. I start to climb after Steve, up and up and up the icy mountains I trekked once before.

I will get her back, I have to. I will beg the man with the red face to bring her back, even if I have to die for her. It should have been me in the first place, maybe I can right it by jumping for her. The man with the red face said we have to sacrifice the thing we love most, and she did that for me. I want to do it for her. I don't want to tell my kids that Auntie Nat is never coming back. I don't want to accept that my best friend is really gone. No, I have to find a way to get her back. There has to be a way.

Every rock on the mountain looks exactly the same, and the only way I can tell we are making progress up the steep slope is that every step takes us closer to the top of the sheer drop where I tried and failed to fight for Natasha's life. Every step I take up the mountain makes the dread settle harder. Half of me is shouting to delay it for as long as possible, procrastinate on going to the top. The other half is screaming for me to keep going, keep going and get it over with. I listen to the part that tells me to keep going, I need to be brave for my best friend.

There are already two sets of footprints in the snow, and only one set coming back down the mountain, where I had wandered aimlessly while the grief truly sank in.

"Hey, Clint? We are almost to the top. You can't have to do this, you know. I understand if you can't or won't do it. There's no shame in backing away from something you're not ready for."

"No, no. I need to do this. Give me me Stone, I want to give it back to him. I want to tell him that I did all that for a stupid rock. I need to tell him what she really meant to me." Steve nods. He knows what I'm talking about. He takes the last Infinity Stone out of his pocket, the bright orange a stark contrast to the endless white. He wordlessly nods and puts it in my hand.

The mountain gets colder and colder the closer we get to the top, and I find that the stone gives off best of its own. It pulses in my hand, almost as if it's alive and it knows it's coming back to where it will live for many years, until someone seeks it again.

Steve and I are at the top now, in the ruins that are free of snow and ice. Almost as if on cue, the red faced man floats up from wherever he was when no one was here to greet us.

"Clint, son of Edith. Steven, son of Joseph."

"Johan Schmidt, son of a bitch! How the hell are you alive? I thought I killed you!"

I turn to face Steve. "You know this guy?" I ask. Why am I surprised? I should not be nearly as surprised as I am. Hell, I used to have a god as a roommate!

"Yeah. It's a long story, but pretty much he's a Nazi and I fought him in World War Two." I see Steve raise his left hand and give 'Johan Schmidt' a very vulgar gesture that he would have yelled at me for doing.

"Okay then. Hey, Steve. Language." I couldn't pass up the opportunity to say that to him. He just gives me a dirty look that I interpreted as, 'I'll kill you later'.

I was afraid, so, so afraid, but I didn't want to show it. The joke was my shield, and I hid my emotions behind it.

"Son of Joseph, I do not know who you are. Whatever I have been in my past life, I am not now. I am simply the Guardian of the Soul Stone, and nothing more or less."

"Well, guardian, Mister Red Face, here's the stone back. A soul for a soul, you said.

"Yes, I did. But a soul for a soul goes both ways, you know."

Could he really be saying what I think he's saying? I had hoped, I had wished, I had prayed to any god that I could think of, but I didn't dare believe what he was saying now. Could I really bring her back that easily?

"You had flight so valiantly to save her life, that is love. Bri g me the Soul Stone and I will bring back the Daughter of Ivan."

I almost trip over my own feet nearly running to give that orange stone that I hated for killing my best friend, yet cherished because it brought back my family. Now I could have both!

"Here, you can have it." I tell him.

The stone floats down, hidden from sight, waiting for someone else to find it. A small nod is the only movement to cloaked man makes, but a glow starts to rise up from the canyon.

———————————————————————————————

The voice speaks my name again.

"Natalia, it is time for you to go."

Go where? Am I going to heaven? Hell? Some place in between?

"No, Natalia."

Where am I going, then?

"Home."

What?

"But before you go, Natalia, no one leaves this place without a price. Some might call it a gift, if you will. You have walked the line between life and death, now you will walk the line between life-giver and death-bringer. Use true power for good, as I know you will, Natalia. Learn, see, watch. The threats to your world are not over heat, nor will they ever be."

My hand starts to tingle, and I look down to see that my whole body is... glowing? That can't be right, I don't have any superpowers or anything like that!

"Think again, Natalia. Now you have to go. Goodbye. We will meet again, but not soon."

The glow around me grows brighter, and I feel as if my body is being sucked through a tube. I don't dare hope that it's possible for me to go home. Really home, back to the Avengers compound with Steve and Tony and Bruce and- oh no, Clint! Clint had better not have done something stupid like jump off the cliff for me after I specifically told him not to!

The glowing stops, and I find myself not in a landscape of endless orange, instead I'm on my hands and knees, up to my elbows in freezing snow, sticky warmth on the back of my head, trickling down my neck, suck a contrast to the bitter cold of wind and ice. I take a deep breath of the cold air as if I was a drowning man rising to the surface. A red drop falls into the snow, staining it. I look up at two familiar faces. Clint and Steve. They looked shocked, but I don't know why. Why are they here? Why am I here? Why are they surprised? Why, why, why? I had so many questions that still hasn't been answered, and I wanted to know.

I try to stand up, talk to them, ask them what happened, get my questions answered, but I give in to the blackness swirling my vision and clawing me into it, and I collapse into the freezing snow before I can get a word out.