It felt surreal, standing on her doorstep with a bouquet of flowers like a lovestruck teenager asking his sweetheart to prom. He knew who was going to open the door, and he was right. The man wasn’t particularly handsome in a traditional sense, with a short stature and a round figure, but above a slightly lopsided smile were kind eyes. The kind of eyes Steve recognized as a warrior who has been through hell and come out the other side determined not to let the weight of the world break him down. Maybe not a perfect soldier… but a good man.
“Christ almighty,” the man whispered through heavy breath. “It’s you. It’s really you. But, but, that’s not possible.”
“Can I come in?” Steve asked, trying to keep up his smile through the awkwardness.
“Of-of course,” the other man stuttered.
He stood aside and ushered Steve through the door, though when he looked down he noticed his hands were shaking. He wanted to reassure him that everything was alright and nothing was going to change, but that would be too much for him. Too much for them both. The inside of the house was almost exactly the way he pictured it would be. Peggy kept a clean home the way she kept a clean office and a clean team. The floors were immaculate, the window sills were free of dust, and the smell of a burning candle softly wafted through the living room.
“Darling, who’s at the door?”
Steve nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice calling from up the stairs. Her voice. There was the slightest hint of a rasp to it, probably from a long day of yelling orders, but still as melodious and beautiful as he remembered. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another and squeezed the flower stems in his hands until he felt a soft crunch. All these years of planning for this moment and he still wasn’t ready.
“It’s… It’s Captain America,” her husband replied without taking his eyes off Steve.
The ring of shattering glass was suddenly echoing through the house, followed swiftly by the fast clicking of high heels on wood flooring. In barely the time it took him to blink twice, she was standing in front of him with her face as pale as if she had seen a ghost. Well, he suppose she did. The slightly girlish touch of her youth as he had known her during the war was gone, but the powerful woman he loved remained, and that was what mattered most. He had seen her in her beginning and at her end; now they were meeting in the middle. Finally where they should have been a long time ago.
“Hi, Peg,” he said as strongly as he could through the wavering in his voice. “Sorry I’m late.”
He had played the hypotheticals in his mind a thousand different ways. Would she scream at him? Would she be glad? Would she break down sobbing? Would she throw him out? The few seconds it took her to process felt like years, but finally a wide smile came over her lips and tears began to stream down her face.
“You’re alive,” she managed to choke out through the sobbing and the laughter. “Steve, you’re alive!”
He wanted to run forward and pull her into his arms and hold her for hours on end, but he was acutely aware of how her feet were planted in place, and that her husband was staring at them slack-jawed.
“I can’t stay for long, but I owe you a dance.”
He thought of Peggy as he trudged across the empty sands. He’d been walking for miles and hours now. On Earth, night would have come and gone by this time, but the landscape was still cloaked in the same pale darkness with a slight gloss of purple from the eclipsed sun. His boots were soaked through in some liquid that looked like water, but smelled like sulfur and made his skin itch and tingle. The air felt humid and warm, and yet chilled his throat the same way a winter night would on a night mission back home. There was not a doubt in his mind that this was the kind of place capable of driving a man mad. But that wasn’t an option. He thought of Peggy, thought of everything he had missed on ice and everything he had gained after waking up. He thought of his mission.
Finally, the two spires he had been searching for appeared on the horizon, just as menacing as Clint and Nebula had warned him. He took as deep a breath as the atmosphere would allow and looked at the timepieces on his wrist. Bruce, Janet, and Hank had designed two watches designed specifically for his mission: one that aligned to where ever (whenever) he was, and one that timed his days away as a whole, as a way of knowing how much of his life had been devoted to this task to keep him from losing all sense of time and direction. 482 days and counting away from Earth… away from home. All the other Infinity Stones had been returned. This was his final task, and there was no way of knowing how it would end. He couldn’t take it anymore, and took off into a sprint. He ran until it felt like his knees were going to give out and his lungs were going to fail, but he at last reached the foot of the mountain. Steve touched the pouch on his pocket and felt the ebbing warmth from within, and all the dread and hatred that came with it. Still, a knot of hope rose in his throat at well. A familiar conversation came to mind.
“This is gonna work, Steve.”
“I know it will. Because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.”
This was going to work.
As he ascended the winding path up to the gateway, the warm dampness swiftly disappeared as he rose, being instead replaced with thin air and what could have been mistaken for falling snow. It smelled and felt more like ash. A faint vibration began bristling against his ears, so he removed the shield from its magnetic holster and strapped it onto his arm. He wasn’t sure what would meet him at the top, but he was very glad that he came prepared when he saw the cloaked figure hovering above the ground. However, he never in 10,000 could have prepared for what he saw then the phantom lifted his hood.
“Are you enjoying your future without flags, Captain?” Schmidt’s voice echoed hauntingly around the entire cliff face.
Steve threw his shield only to have it pass right through Red Skull and ricochet off the rocks behind him. Rage boiled in his stomach and under his skin. He thought of Peggy. What cruel trick was it that after all these years, he’d come face to face with the spectre of the man who stole his life. Stole his future. Stole his best friend. Stole his chance to be with the woman he loved so dearly. And to not be able to bash in that horrible scarlet face.
“I’m not here for you, Schmidt,” Steve growled. “There’s a deal you owe me.”
An eerie chuckle seemed to come from behind him, but Steve knew better than to turn and look.
“I don’t have the stone anymore.”
Steve took the opportunity to smirk as he pulled the Soul Stone from his belt.
“I do.”
The entire atmosphere of the mountain changed in a heartbeat. A gust swept around them and then elevated like a vacuum, nearly sucking all the air out of his lungs. The previously still sky tore open and he looked up to see what looked like a vortex forming above their heads; a tunnel of swirling clouds that reached up into the infinite darkness.
“A soul for a soul. That’s what you told Clint,” Steve shouted over the whirring of the column. “I give you this soul, and you give me one back. That’s how it works.”
“Give it to me!” the ghost screeched, diving down toward him, but Steve quickly rolled to the side of the cliff and extended his hand over the edge that dropped into a chasm so deep he could barely see the bottom.
He nearly vomited imagining all the things that happened here. All who had died in vain… and more importantly the ones who had not.
“A soul for a soul, Schmidt,” Steve repeated. “Give her back and I’ll let it go.”
He could see the seething rage burning in the Red Skull’s eyes.
“I do not have the power to make that bargain nor the arcane knowledge to see if this foolishness with succeed,” he said venomously. “I am merely the gatekeeper, not the source.”
Steve swallowed hard. So no matter what, there was no way of knowing. No way of fighting his way through to get what he wanted. He just had to have faith, and have hope that the stone could sense that he’d put his very soul into bringing her home… Bringing their Natasha home.
He almost didn’t notice the burning against his palm and fingers until he looked away from Red Skull and over to his own hand. The Soul Stone was glowing and heating with such intensity that it had eaten its way through his leather glove and into his skin. He held on as long as he could, endured as much of the pain as his body could handle. It was sinking down, down past his skin and into the flesh, the scalding of it beginning to melt into his bones. A shot of pain ran up his arm and throughout his entire body, clawing at his nerves and muscles until he had no choice but to let go. Steve’s eyes watched as the stone descended further and further into the canyon, falling almost indefinitely like a flair. But the moment it finally struck the bottom, a wave of light surged over the peak, and then fell into complete darkness. In the last second, he thought about Peggy.
“I don’t know what to do, Peg,” he admitted, pulling her a little closer and they swayed back and forth together. “I lost Bucky, then I lost you, and now I’ve lost her too and… I loved her.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder to look up at him with those rich, wise eyes.
“You have an ability humans have only dreamed of,” she said firmly. “Use it. For both our sakes, don’t give up on her. For the past 25 years, my biggest regret has been that I’m living my life while you’ve been deprived yours. Go bring her back.”
Steve kept his eyes shut while he evaluated his body. His entire right arm ached and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with sand, but other than that everything was… fine. The agonizing pain was gone like the lost memory of a forgotten nightmare. He heard a groan that seemed to express exactly he felt, but it wasn’t his.
It wasn’t his.
In an instant, Steve’s eyes snapped opened and he shot upright to a sitting position. He was sitting in a shallow oasis amidst the endless sand, but surprisingly didn’t feel any damper than before. Nighttime still hung over the landscape, but this time he didn’t marvel at the strange horror and beauty of the planet. He heard another groan and frantically looked around until he found the source of the sound. Lying a few yards away from him was a figure curled in on itself, knees tucked to chest and body visibly trembling in the dimness. Steve held his breath and prayed as he stumbled his way over. As he got closer, his entire heart almost exploded in joy as he caught the sight he had been hoping for most… red hair.
“Natasha!” he cried out, finally reaching her side and scooping her into his arms.
Her eyes were still closed and fluttering, like a child trapped in a bad dream. Even through the thick layers of her tactical suit, caked in dirt and blood, she started shaking even harder at his touch. Steve’s joy quickly melted into fear.
“Come on, Nat, wake up,” he whispered, slowly rocking them both back and forth. “We need you… I need you.”
Natasha’s face began to contort in what looked like pain, brows furrowed and lips twisting. The panic in Steve’s chest grew stronger as she let out a longer, louder moan. The bitter taste of dread made him wonder if he had made a mistake. Was this it? Had be bargained for her soul only to bring her back into a broken body?
“Come on,” he repeated, feeling tears well in his eyes. “Please, Nat. Please, wake up.”
He didn’t know what he would do with himself if he came this far only to lose her again. Too many times in his life, Steve had lost someone once just to lose them again. Bucky. Peggy. He couldn’t do it again, not with Natasha too. He’d do anything, give anything.
But after a few moments, she stilled. Her trembling stopped, her face relaxed, and her mouth opened slightly with the escape of a small hiss.
“Sss…. Sss… Steve?”
It took every ounce of willpower in his body to keep from embracing her as tightly as he could.
“I’m here, I’ve got you,” he answered softly.
As her eyes slowly opened, he noticed a faint orange glow tinting the green of her irises that gently faded away when she began to blink into lucidity. The haze of disruption on her face gave way to realization, and the entire air around her seemed to light up when a small, exhausted, smile pulled at her lips. Steve could not remember the last time in his life he had felt so relieved.
“Hey,” she said hoarsely. “Did we bring them back?”
Steve choked on a laugh that no power of heaven or earth could have stopped.
“You brought them back. And now we have you back too.”
Natasha gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder. He had a million questions for her, but they could wait. Instead, he did his best to quiet his mind, and he thought of Peggy. He thought of everything she said to him with her wisdom and encouragement and guidance, of how she didn’t let him give up. He took a few moments to luxuriate in the warmth of having Natasha back in his arms again... Having his life, his love, his world back in his arms again. He’d have to find a way to thank her for that.
“I missed you,” Natasha murmured against his chest.
Steve gently kissed her forehead.
“I missed you too,” he replied, and scooped under her arms and legs so he could carry her as he stood. “Let’s go home.”