Chapter 2
Chapter 2
“Welcome, Steve Rogers, son of Sarah… Captain America.”
“Schmidt!” He stumbles back a step at the sight of the hauntingly familiar disfigured face. Reaches subconsciously for the non-existent shield.
“Relax, Captain,” the other scoffs, its ghostly robes billowing around him in the bitingly cold wind of Vormir’s mountaintop. “I am doomed to stay here for all eternity – a guide to those who wish to obtain the Soul Stone. Earthly squabbles no longer hold any interest for me.”
Steve forces himself to relax then; squints up at the floating figure of his former enemy, who watches him with a look of bored amusement.
“Tell me what it is you seek here, Steve Rogers,” Red Skull addresses him again when the silence between them stretches a tad too long. “I know it isn’t the Stone itself, for you already have it in your possession.”
He looks pointedly at the right pocket of Steve’s jeans, and Steve can’t help slipping his hand inside to curl his fingers protectively around the small round shape.
He hesitates a moment, his thumb running back and forth over the smooth surface of the Stone. Pulls it out, holding it protectively in the cup of his palm.
“I came to return this,” he says finally, and is gratified to see a flicker of surprise cross the otherwise uncannily blank face.
“The Stone usually finds its way back here once its task is complete,” the being muses finally, its dark eyes watching Steve intently. “In all the time I’ve been here, nobody ever tried to return it in person.”
“First time for everything.”
The Skull tilts his head in agreement, reaches out a hand expectantly toward the Stone.
Steve hesitates again, his fingers clenching harder around the cursed gem, as an unbidden memory floats to the surface.
Tony with his arms wrapped tight around his little girl, who’s hiding her face in her father’s shoulder, his gaze intense and earnest as he looks back up at Steve:
“I got my second chance right here, Cap. Can’t roll the dice on that.”
Pepper, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow with grief, her voice breaking as she bares before them the depth of the damage they caused:
“Did you wonder when you all showed up here, demanding that he give up his family for the sake of everyone else’s here… did you wonder if that was what he…what he wanted?”
He closes his eyes briefly, takes a deep breath.
“What I want is my husband back. Can you do that?”
Yeah, he thinks. Yes, I think I can.
“I want something in return,” he states firmly, pulling the hand with the Stone closer to his body. “I want to trade a soul.”
“No.” The response is sharp and unequivocal like the slamming of a door in one’s face, and the Skull is already turning away from him, red lips twisted in a moue of displeasure.
Steve is never one to give up easily, however. Not when he’s got his mind set on a specific course.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” he exclaims, reaching to grab for the retreating figure only to curse in helpless surprise when his hand passes right through the ghostly form. “Why not?”
The Skull stops, turns back toward him, dark eyes regarding him with a glare of bored annoyance. “It simply isn’t done,” he responds, voice flat.
“Well,” Steve smirks back, echoing his earlier statement, “first time for everything, right?” When the Skull merely stares back at him, unperturbed, he ploughs on, determined now, more than ever. “Come on. It takes one soul to receive the Stone, right? So if I give the Stone back, it means I can take a soul in return. Right?”
The being stares at him for the longest time as though contemplating his words, then shakes its head. “The Stone demands a sacrifice, one way or another. You cannot simply ask for it to grant you someone’s life as a favor for returning it to its rightful place.”
It’s a moment of hesitation, a brief look behind the black-robed figure to the red-tinged swells of clouds beyond, and then he’s decided. He knows what to do. And it’s right. The realization of it feels so incredibly right, he feels giddy with it.
“Then take the sacrifice,” he says, meeting the Skull’s indifferent gaze once more. “Take me, take the Stone, and let the other go.”
“You?”
Steve’s lips twitch in a challenging smirk. “Wouldn’t you want to have me in there?” He nods at the darkness behind the Skull.
The being’s face sours. “I already told you, earthly conflicts...”
“Don’t interest you anymore, yes, I got that.” Steve takes a tantalizing step closer; allows his smirk to get wider still. “But would you really pass up on the opportunity to finally get the better of me? After all this time?”
The dark eyes narrow briefly, the Skull’s upper lip curling in a snarl. “And you’re sure you want to go through with this? Spend an eternity with the souls of the dead?”
Steve glances down at the softly glowing Stone in the cup of his palm; traces a finger over its cool smooth surface one last time before placing it resolutely in the being’s once more outstretched hand.
“I am,” he confirms, feeling lighter somehow than he has in years. Smiles fondly as another memory flits across his mind – of a fiery brown-eyed woman with a smile that could sweep a guy off his feet and a powerful right hook that could easily do the same. “I am,” he echoes, glancing out into the red-hued void once more. “B’sides there’s someone in the Soul World I believe I owe a dance to.”
***
There’s a flash of skin-searing, blinding light and the orange-hued peacefully desolate landscape around him disappears, and he finds himself kneeling in the dew-soaked ankle-high grass at the edge of a lake. It feels familiar somehow, this place. Like he should know it. Like he… like he’s been here before.
Only his brain is too sluggish, his thoughts and memories clawing their way to the forefront of his consciousness, heavy and viscous like molasses, not quite managing to reach the surface. He feels like his entire body is being glued back together sloppily and painfully slow, like a jigsaw puzzle at the hands of an inexperienced child, after having been ripped apart piece by piece.
“Holy cheeseburger…”
He looks up at the odd, softly gasped out exclamation. Frowns in concentration at the heavyset round-faced man who stares back at him from the steps of a wooden house a few yards away, his eyes wide with disbelief. I know him, he thinks, and flinches as the man turns his head slightly to the side and booms over his shoulder, never breaking eye contact, “PEPPEEER!!!”
The name jolts something deep within him – a memory, a face, a touch….
“You’re all I have, too, you know.”
“Pepper,” he breathes out, staggering up to his feet even as she walks out onto the porch.
“Happy, what did you-?” And then she freezes, hand going to her mouth. Grabs convulsively for the support of the nearby railing as if her legs began to fail her all of a sudden. “Oh my god…,” he hears her murmur, “oh my god…”
She’s beautiful, he thinks. Like an illusion, a dream he’s had for as long as he can remember. But there are tears in her eyes, bright drops glistening on the edges of the long eyelashes, and that is wrong – she shouldn’t cry. He should never make her cry. He had promised that. He thinks he had.
“Pep,” he calls out again, his voice too hoarse, too quiet even to his own ears. He tries to go to her then, stumbles forward as much as he’s able to. But his body still doesn’t feel like his own, and his legs wobble and fold underneath him, dropping him back down to his knees with a groan of frustrated defeat.
“Tony…” And she’s suddenly right there, kneeling before him in the wet grass. And he wants to tell her to get up – the ground is too cold for her to be kneeling like that on her bare legs. But then she’s reaching for him – reverent and fearful, as if she can’t believe he’s here, can’t believe he’s real. As if he, too, is an illusion that will disappear the moment her hand makes contact with his skin.
And maybe he will. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe…
He sucks in a surprised breath when her fingertips – warm and solid – brush the skin of his cheek; feels the near-dizzying enormity of relief at the undeniable tangibility of it.
“Oh, Tony…”
“Real enough?” he croaks out, trying for cheeky but falling pathetically short somewhere in the fearfully hopeful instead, the smile he gives her feeling a tad too shaky, a tad too forced.
It still startles a laugh out of her – wet and broken like a sob. And then she lurches forward, her arms wrapping around his shoulders with an urgent, desperate need. He lets her pull him in, lets her warmth, her scent, her solid, real presence envelop and soothe him.
“I died,” he murmurs dazedly into her shoulder. He remembers that moment, all too well. Remembers the seemingly never-ending, unbearable pain of it; the tears in Rhodey’s eyes; Peter’s broken, desperate voice that sounded so, so far away; and Pepper, Pepper, Pepper… his anchor, his soulmate, his life. He didn’t want to leave her. God, he didn’t want to leave her! And Morgan… and…
Pepper’s arms tighten around him as if she somehow glimpsed the terrifying spiral of his thoughts, as if she’s trying to ward those memories off by the simple strength of her embrace.
Tony honestly believes she can.
“You’re here now,” she whispers, like nothing else matters – the how’s, the why’s, the before’s.
And maybe it doesn’t. Maybe all that matters is that he’s back. Someway, somehow.
He glances up at the sound of small feet pounding along a wooden surface. Smiles, teary-eyed, at the sight of his baby girl rushing headlong toward him, Peter, Rhodey and Happy following behind her with the same expressions of disbelieving joy he knows he’s wearing himself. Dares to pull one hand away from where he has it clenched around the back of Pepper’s shirt to wave at all of them to come closer.
They do not hesitate, and he soon finds himself engulfed on all sides by familiar loving arms, their added warmth seeming to finish what Pepper’s embrace has started. He feels complete now, solid, whole.
“We’re gonna be okay now.” Pepper’s breath ghosts over his skin, her words – a sure, solid promise. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
He closes his eyes, his head resting against Pepper’s neck, his free arm curled around Morgan who wrapped herself around his middle like a four-limbed 40-pound octopus. Lets himself soak up the warmth and the love of his family and friends – as tangible as the arms that enfold him.
And he believes it.