Voices - A Collection of One Shots

"We Won." (Avengers: Endgame)

[do not read if you have not seen the movie/already spoiled things for yourself]

Neither of them fully understood death. Well, who did? It was unheard of for someone to die and then come back to life, recounting what they had been through and witnessed. The change was permanent. There was no walking back to the land of the living from here.

The first to arrive to Limbo was the fiery redhead, with a blonde ombré finish, Natasha Romanoff. She was not miffed or upset that she died. She had chosen to sacrifice herself for the greater good, to allow the people she called family to come home. She had given herself up in the hopes that the other Avengers, the main core of her family, had succeeded and brought the dusted back to life.

Limbo felt painless, Natasha realized. Well, minus the excruciating throb in the back of her skull. An echo of the reason that got her here. Her clothes were not the same she'd been in prior to her fall, they were now off-white and nothing like her normal cat suit she was used to donning. Her multicolored hair remained in the same braid when she was still alive.

Her green eyes scanned the sea of mist, unsure of where to go. There were no signs that said "this way to Heaven" or "this way to Hell". She liked to think she deserved a peaceful afterlife after what she had fought through.

On the other side of the mist was perhaps one of the greatest heroes that the Earth was graced to ever have: a man by the name of Tony Stark. He wandered through the same mist, a dull ache shooting through the right side of his body, which remained unharmed and unmarred from the aftereffects of what he had done. He was very well aware of how he got to Limbo. It had cost him everything: the life he had built, his family, but most of all, his life. He had made perhaps the greatest sacrifice of them all.

He only hoped that, in the end, he got a dramatic funeral. He wouldn't have wanted anything less. It was something he had never spoken out loud to anyone, because, nobody really liked to talk about their own funeral arrangements.

The two friends were so close, yet unaware of just how soon they were about to find each other.

Natasha spotted Tony's figure through the mist before he could register her. At first she believed it was a trick of her mind's eye. Could Limbo create hallucinations to help her be at peace? If anything, this would only hurt her more. If she thought about her friends in Limbo with her, it would mean she wished they had died to join her. That was most definitely not what she wanted. The point of her death was to help save others from demise.

The former assassin crossed carefully, Tony's features came into focus. He was dressed as she was, in off-white clothes. He did not look battle ridden, just as she did not look as though she plummeted to her death over a cliff.

If he is here, then what about the others? Steve? Bruce? Clint? Thor? While she had cared about the others who were part of the mission to retrieve the Infinity Stones via the Quantum Realm, she was more concerned about her main family. If her sacrifice had been all for nothing...

Natasha wondered if it were possible to get out of Limbo and haunt the remaining Avengers. That was under the condition they weren't in Limbo as well.

"Romanoff?" came Tony's quiet, perplexed question. As if he couldn't believe he was seeing her. She could feel the same sentiment.

"Hey, Shellhead," she said softly. It almost made him smile. Almost. "You...?" She couldn't bring herself to get the last of the question out.

Tony nodded once, rather grimly. He flexed his right arm, the arm that, back in the real world, had wielded a modified gauntlet that had ended Thanos and everyone who chose to follow the purple maniac. "So, uh, does this place have a bar, or maybe an R and R?" he asked conversationally, trying to make the best out of the rather depressing reality. "I could use all of it."