The Last Avenger [What If...? x DCAMU Crossover]

12. Relax, It's Just a Little Death Prophecy

On the day Jason Todd called me mum, we were sprawled on the roof top of Yelena's apartment complex, talking about love and stomachs and love.

"I don't believe that, though," I said, shaking my head again at Yelena Georgiyevna. "You always have a choice. I don't care if you think it's love – and by the way, NOT a word you should throw around so easily – but even if that, even if that word, you can still choose to act right."

"I said I loved the way he looked," Yelena said. "I didn't say I loved him. You're twisting my words. And that's not what I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about... how your heart fills up. Actually, no, it's not even your heart, it's your stomach. You feel it and everything else just goes."

"No, it doesn't," I said, firmly, because maybe I felt that way about Steve and now that he was gone there was just a pit where that love used to be. And it was painful. "No. It. Doesn't."

"Jane—"

"You can feel it and still do the right thing."

Yelena frowned. "Why is the question of the 'right thing'? I'm describing a normal human feeling. Batman's a hot guy."

She wasn't exactly wrong. But he was also my friend, besides, now that I was playing the devil's advocate and was ready to die on that hill.

"You said you had no choice," I pursued. "You said if you'd been able to kiss him, you would have done it right there, regardless of who saw. Or if he had a girlfriend already. And your married—"

"She's right, though," Alexander Georgiyevna said, from where he was lying back with his head on Yelena's butt. "It is in your stomach."

"On a guy, you'd think it'd be lower," I said.

"That's different," Alexander said, sitting up. For a Russian guy pushing 30 and able to drink enough vodka to kill a bear, he was surprisingly in touch with his feelings. "Your dick or whatever, that's wanting. Animal stuff. This is more."

"Yeah," Yelena agreed.

"You feel it right here." Alexander put his hand on biggish belly. "And it's like, for that moment, everything you believed is wrong. Or doesn't matter. And everything that was complicated is suddenly, yes-and-no simple, because your stomach is really the boss and it's telling you that your desire is possible and that it's not the answer to everything but it's the one thing that's going to make the questions more bearable."

I shook my head again. "Your heart isn't the boss of you either. Thinks it is. Isn't. You can always choose. Always."

"You can't choose not to feel," Yelena said.

"You can choose how to act."

"Yeah," Alexander said. "Hard, though."

A thought hit me. "Early Christians though your soul was in your stomach," I said.

There was silence as a new wind blew across the rooftop, all by it's lonesome, as if saying Don't mind me. Then thunder boomed, but everyone on that rooftop new it wouldn't turn into anything.

I chuckled lightly. Thor was still upset that Jesus didn't turn up to that fight. Thought, I'd done the maths. Jesus had been dead about 1000 year by the Thor challenged him.

The wind picked up a little more (Terribly sorry, I imagined it saying; apparently, the wind was British, wondering how it got all the way over here) and I could smell cigarette smoke on it.

I hopped up. Residents milled about stilling in deck chairs or on the ground, joking and laughing as they ate pizza and kababs. I'd shouted tonight. I was technically a billionaire; it was the least I could do. Grills was on the BBQ cooking the bluefin, beer in one hand.