Is Love Forever? [1]

Blame

They went racing through the quantum realm, and within seconds, they were back on the platform with the rest of the team. 

Everyone seemed pretty happy, until Bruce asked the Power stone group, "Guys, where's Nat?" "I don't know," Rhodey said. "About five minutes ago, we were trying to put something back that we took from that Quill guy, and then Nat came up to us and said that we could go back without her and she would meet up with us here. She said she had to do something. I don't know where she went, though." Clint explained. 

"Hey Scott, is everything okay?" Steve asked. Scott realized that he wasn't doing a good job of hiding his emotions. His face probably showed sadness and grief. 

"Did you guys not get the stone?" Bruce asked. To Scott's surprise, Hope is the one that spoke up. 

"No, we got it. But it came at a price." She said. She looked like she wanted to explain further, but Scott knew it would be hard for her. So he took over. 

"When we went to Vormir, we had to climb a mountain to get the stone. When we got to the top, we were met by a guy named Johann Schmidt." Scott started. 

At hearing the name, Steve flinched. 

Scott continued, "He told us that the stone required a sacrifice, a soul for a soul. There was a cliff, and I jumped off it to get the stone. But I was pulled back. By Natasha." 

"Then where is she? And how did you get the stone?" Thor asked. Deep down, they all knew but were too stubborn to accept it. And when Scott didn't say anything, they knew it was true. 

Finally, Clint said what they were all thinking. "She jumped, didn't she?" 

Scott nodded solemnly. "How could you two let that happen?" Clint asked, anger rising. "There was nothing we could do. By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late." Scott said. 

"You could have saved her," Clint said, looking at Hope. "You have wings! And you couldn't stop her?" He said walking towards her angrily. 

"This isn't her fault," Scott said. He knew this was already hard for her, and Clint was just making it worse. 

"He's right," Steve said. "Blaming each other won't change anything. This isn't what she would've wanted." He said. 

They all went silent.  

~~~An hour later~~~

Scott and Hope didn't go to Natasha's funeral. They hadn't known her as long as the others had, and they all blamed them for Natasha's death. 

"This is all my fault," Scott said. "No, it's not. She chose to save you. You couldn't have changed that." Hope said. They were in the lounge area, and they were watching the funeral from the window. "I wish I could thank her, but I can't." She said. 

"Hope, I think we need to talk about what happened." He said after a few moments of silence. She knew he was referring to her attack, but there was something else that she thought was slightly more important. 

"What are you referring to exactly? My attack, or the fact that you were ready to end your life, right then and there?" She asked. Scott was expecting that it would come up sooner or later. 

"I know you're upset, but if I remember correctly, you were set on jumping before I was." 

"Scott, upset isn't even close to what I'm feeling right now. And yes, I wanted to jump. I won't deny that. But I'd much rather die knowing that I had helped bring half the universe back than to die from a seventy-year-old Hydra experiment for nothing." 

"I didn't think of it that way, okay." 

"Well did you think of the fact that by jumping, I would be left alone again? Just like I was for the past two years! The only difference is that this time, there would be no chance of you coming back. You'd be gone forever!" She cried. 

He really hadn't thought about any of it, at all. He just knew that he couldn't live in a world where he'd let Hope die instead of him. He hadn't thought about how she would have to be alone again. This time, there would be absolutely no chance that they'd ever see each other again. 

"Look, I'm sorry. I hadn't thought of it like that." She sat next to him on the couch and said, "I know... And I know you were just trying to do the right thing. It's just the thought of going through that again. Going through the same pain all over again... It scared me." She said shakily. 

And that's when everything went downhill. Hope started coughing again, but this time it seemed more severe. 

"Sc-Scott, m-my ba-ag." She said, hands clutching her throat. Scott jumped up and went to where he thought the bag was, but it wasn't there. He ran to the only other place it could possibly be. The car. He was right and ran as fast as he could back inside. 

He didn't hear any coughing, so he thought the attack may have passed. Boy was he wrong. He went back to the lounge and saw her passed out on the floor. "Hope!" He said, running over to her.  

This attack was much more severe. Within minutes, she had already passed out. He picked her up and checked her pulse. After a couple of seconds, he found it, but it was weak. She needed serious medical help, and lucky for him, Tony had just come back inside through the back door. 

Scott didn't notice him because he was so focused on Hope. But Tony kinda couldn't miss Scott holding an unconscious Hope on the floor. "What happened?" He asked, kneeling next to Scott. "There's no time to explain. She needs help now."  

Normally, Tony would be more skeptical, but he saw that Scott was genuinely scared for her, so he helped bring her to the med-bay. 

"She needs this medicine, but we only have pills," Scott said, holding up the container for Tony to see. 

Tony took out one pill and gave it to Friday to analyze. A few seconds later, Friday said, "Sample analyzed. Gas ready." Tony put a mask over her nose and mouth, and Friday released some kind of gas into it. 

The next few minutes were absolute chaos. Tony made sure that she was getting enough oxygen along with the medicine and hooked her up to a bunch of monitors. At one point, her heart rate got so low that for a second, the monitor flat-lined. 

During that one second, Scott felt like his heart stopped. After a few more minutes, she seemed to be stable, and both Scott and Tony could relax. 

"Tony, thank you so much." He couldn't describe how grateful he was. 

"No problem. But now that she's in the clear, can you please tell me what the hell just happened?" Tony asked. 

"It's a long story..."      

                                                                       Author's Note

Congrats! You've made it to the point of the story where we finally get to see something interesting, instead of the pointless details I keep filling these chapters with.