So, this is Vormir. The last Stone he has to return. Clint didn't describe it any of them. He was too broken too. Steve thinks it’s like winter in that despite the coldness, its dead surface, it’s beautiful. More importantly, it’s where Natasha died.
Steve holds what he considers to be the essence of her person in his palm. It glows warm and bright against the blues and purples of this place. It’s not really her, not her soul, that belongs to someone else. But it’s what she stood for. It's what she was born to do, after years of running and thinking she was a pariah. An orphan turned into a killer against her will who didn’t deserve a second chance, who didn’t deserve a family. He recalls a verse from when he was a boy in church:
There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.
She and Tony…
But there's no time to reminisce, no time for a memorial. He catches the wisp of dark smoke in the corner of his eye, hovering some height above him at a distance of sixteen feet. No one told him this place had a resident. He’s without the shield, without Thor’s hammer.
All he’s got is himself. That should be sufficient.
He faces the eerie figure with the calm of a seasoned soldier. It's something like a forgotten Halloween ghoul left to blow in the wind on an empty porch. Someone should say something before things go bad, if that thing can speak, if things won't go bad regardless.
It alights between the large rocks, taking on a sudden weight and he knows it’s no apparition. It’s alive, at least a little.
It speaks, sending a frigid shock down his spine.
“Steven Grant Rogers. Born in Brooklyn, New York on July 4th, 1918 to Sarah and Joseph Rogers. Who would have thought the day of your birth would predict your fate, ja, Captain America?”
Steve’s hackles rise at the familiar voice. He’s not felt that evil since his service, that moment on the bridge all those decades ago, where Hell itself threatened to consume them both, Axis and Ally alike. That place where Johann Schmidt tore away his false face and revealed who he was at heart: His antithesis. The backwards step in an experiment they both shared. A cruel twist of fate.
“Red Skull.” That’s a name he thought the world could afford to forget. And it did. He has the burden of remembering it.
Immediately he takes a stance that readies him to jump up the rock, off the other, and tackle him to the ground if need be. He’s unsure if that will work, being what the monster is before him now. Simultaneously a horrible thought strikes him light lightening. He caused Nat’s death. It doesn’t matter what Clint told them about what went down.
This demon participated in it.
“Now, now, Captain. We both know you cannot fight me, not in a physical sense. I have become the mere guardian of this place. I have no motive beyond the eternal watch. You are here for a reason beyond petty revenge…” A hand, bony and carmine red like a vulture’s claw appears through the ratted cloth.
“I return this and you return Romanoff. That’s how this works.”
Red Skull, or whatever this even more hellish version of him is, laughs. It sounds like dried leaves scraping on pavement.
“It is not so simple, ubermensch. A soul for a soul. That is the rule.”
Steve knows immediately what he means. He steals a glance at Nat…
He can undo her sacrifice but he will be undoing her ultimate expression of love. Does he really will that? Would the guys who jumped on grenades have asked for a redo? Would they hesitate and consider what that meant for them, their buddies, their buddy’s families? Nat was a true soldier and more importantly a true friend. He’d do the same for her, he would have made the sacrifice play if he had known what their ill-fated trip here meant. But it’s not about that, not what he wants. It’s about her and what she did.
“Fair trade, Captain?”
Steve looks into his nemesis’ eyes. They aren’t burning like they did in ‘45. They’re perpetually dying embers, a worm's larva of vileness trying to break free from its limbo’d chrysalis. If Steve didn’t have a care for other’s wishes that alone would stop him dead. It’s the fact that he does that makes his renouncement of the scenario all the stronger.
His fist closes around Nat’s soul. Without a word he walks up to and through the phantom. He reaches what he assumes is the sacrificial shelf and in a slow stride approaches the edge. The cold air is now bitter. The presence of the Guardian looms over him like a devil on his shoulder. The opposing angel is nowhere to be seen. This is not a place that angels dare.
“Last chance, Rogers.”
Steve never looks back at the demonic figure. Don't tempt me. Don't even think you can.
He sets his features in stone. He must wear a mask like his enemy once did. All of who he is and what he was made for has to work together on this, even if he’s breaking to a thousand pieces on the inside. His hand hovers between heaven and hell, knuckles to the sky.
She made this jump once before. Somewhere down there her body was broken on the stones of an alien world that would never know what that struggle meant, what it meant to her. Steve won't disrespect that choice. She'd jump on that grenade, over and over and over. And this time she doesn't have to struggle. This time he'll let her know it's alright.
He lets Nat go.
For the briefest of moments he imagines she hovers glittering and unsure in the empty air. Gravity pulls her down, and she accepts this is the way things are. The blue of the shelf reflects only just-so against her light, fractured tears along her edges...
He thinks he hears a sigh of disappointment, or perhaps release. A guardian has no purpose if there’s nothing left to guard. Before he can comprehend it there is a flash of pure white light that goes beyond what the eyes can see. Then as soon as it fades, there is stillness for a long, dark while.
Steve opens his eyes to the stars, the eclipsed sun. He swims in the heavens. When he regains his orientation he sits up, momentarily dizzied by the experience and illusion. He raises his hand, still in a fist. He takes steadied breaths like the kind you take before rushing into the fray, before you and your comrades wish the best for each other and pray you'll see each other when it's all over. Pray that when the war is done you’re still the same people you were before it began, all those years ago.
He opens his trembling hand.
Natasha Romanoff for the first time in her existence, is free.