After War

Hope

Loki wasn't dead but hurt. Incredibly hurt, so Valkyrie needed to take on the leader role until he was alright. His skin was still blue, so to touch him was no option. And that made it hard to heal him.

Valkyrie was in the captain's chamber drinking bad whiskey that somehow survived Thanos attack. They had a new destination, Midgard, and it would only take a few days to reach it.

She sighed and looked over at Loki's limb helpless body. He was bleeding out of his nose and had a huge purple mark on his throat, Valkyrie could only imagine what could have caused that. His eyes were closed, but she knew he's awake. No one could sleep after what just happened, not even the hurt ones.

Valkyrie looked out into the endless void of space with a deep sigh. It would take two days to get to Midgard, two days of waiting and starving, two days of hope for survival and two days of Valkyrie needing to keep their spirits alive.

A sound was heard behind her. She didn't think too much about it, it was probably just Loki, but then there was again.

Loki had been talking in his 'sleep' the whole time, but not many words where heard. Sometimes she could hear the words 'Thor' or 'Tesseract' and once even 'My Fault'. But this word, this one particular word he said made turn around drastic with her sword in her hand.

Because he said Hela. And when she turned around, and what she saw, frightened her more than anything.

Hela was sitting beside Loki with a hand on his neck and a smile on her lips.

—-

Natasha was starting to get worried. It has been four days since the snap, and still nothing from Clint. Unlike Steve, she didn't believe Clint was dead. He had been fighting two faceless armies with a bow and arrow for God's sake, he could survive a snap.

But still, the thought was always in the back of her head, screaming at her that she would just give up and accept her first and best friend was dead.

She looked down at her ring again and sighed. Nat had already lost James, the one person she could connect with, who she could talk with about her red room days who truly understood, who was her first and only love.

She laughed a little at the thought. If someone would have told her in her Red Room days that she would have ever found her soulmate, she would probably have killed them.

She wrapped her hand around her ankle on the exact place where the words where written. The four words that her Madame wanted to cut off as fast as the appeared because of the English language.

Nat picks up the phone she was given again and tries to call Clint for the hundredth time. Still nothing.

"Have you tried calling Laura?" Natasha turned around and faced Steve who stood behind her leaning against a wall.

"No" Nat mumbled and hit herself in the head. Why didn't she think of that? Clint lived together with his cousin and her children, so of course she could try calling her.

"Do that later, Shuri requests our presence in the Throne Room" He says and leaves the room.

Natasha nods and rolls up her pants a little so she can look at the words again. They're written in beautiful blue handwriting on the exact same spot as James's where. She still hasn't gotten used to the fact that it's blue and not black like it used to.

And that is when she came to a realization. The words hadn't changed to Red like they should when your soulmate dies. She hadn't felt that sting she had when James spoke the words. Does that mean that James and all the others who had died in that snap was in fact not dead?