From The Ashes - 012 (Patreon)

Chapter 012 – Answer

[2012]

"Before I become who I am now, at a time when I was just a normal human, I lost someone.", Noah recounted, his grey eyes looking like rain-soaked pieces of granite, dark and deeply lonely, "It wasn't an accident either. She was killed."

Steve hadn't expected such an answer but when those words reached his ears, he couldn't help but reevaluate the man before him.

He knew what it meant to lose someone, and he understood that grief could be a poison as much as it could be a motivator, sometimes even both.

“If I had been as strong as I am now back then, I could have done something to save her. But I wasn't.”, Noah continued, not a single sound besides his voice echoing in the room, “I know what regret feels like, what despair and anguish feel like.”

"Having been powerless to protect the one person that I cared for, one time was enough. There can't be a second time. I would much rather die than experience this again.", he ended quietly.

…

Looking at the dark-haired stranger while listening to his words, Natasha could see it clearly.

The sorrow and anguish in his eyes as he spoke of what he had lost, she knew that his regret was eating away at his will to live, he was broken in a way that made him dangerous beyond compare.

After all, there was nothing more fearful than someone with his strength that had nothing to lose.

She wasn't sure how the Director planned to deal with him but Natasha knew that her advice would be to be very careful. Noah was definitely a slumbering beast, and woe those that dared to awaken him.

“Now, I have answered enough of your questions.”, he stated and rose from his seat after a few quiet moments in which no one spoke before turning to Stark and asking, “Is there a room for me to rest for the night, Mr. Stark?”

…

Through the enhancement of spiritual energy, my perception was simply inhumanly sharp, and even while I was asleep there was no one that could approach me without my knowledge.

Well, there certainly existed beings that could have approached me in my sleep but I couldn't hope to escape those immensely powerful existences' grasp even while awake, so there was no need to worry about them.

Still, I only slept for a few hours before waking up again in the middle of the night.

My body felt rested and my spiritual energy had also completely recovered, though I couldn't help but feel tired in a different way, the events of the day catching up with me.

My life had changed so drastically in just a few short hours that I hardly had the time to come to terms with my new reality.

I knew that I had taken this second chance to try my best at living a fulfilling life like she would have wanted me to, but I wasn't even sure anymore what this entailed nor where to begin.

From a practical standpoint, I understood that I would have to start training my abilities.

Improving the various techniques of spiritual energy manipulation, gaining a deeper understanding of my phoenix transformation, and figuring out all the abilities that came with the Space Stone, there was a long list of things that I 'had' to do.

Not to forget that I had to check if the 'Curse of the Sea' had been carried over along with Marco's other abilities.

Aside from all that though, I wasn't sure about my path. I hadn't been sure about it since the day she died.

Looking over the illuminated streets below as I sat at the roof edge of the Stark Tower, I spread my perception over the whole city, trying to use the overwhelming 'noise' to distract myself from my current dilemma.

But it didn't work.

No amount of agitation, fear, or sorrow that I could sense from the normal that had suffered on this day, could drown out the empty feeling in my chest.

"You know, you could have left me with a clue.", I whispered quietly as I looked at the woven bracelet that was wrapped around my right wrist, "Even here, I feel lost without you."

A light breeze brushed past me, making my hair flutter and carrying my words into the night, while I closed my eyes and imagined that it was her that caressed my cheeks and not the wind.

Opening my eyes a few moments later, I addressed the man that I had sensed approaching without turning around: “You do know that it is bad manners to eavesdrop on someone, don't you?”

“My apologies, I didn't mean to listen in. Though you have my sympathies for the loss that you suffered.”, the Son of Odin replied.

Not responding to his expression of condolence, I asked: “For what reason did you come to disturb me?”

“I came to ask for your help.”, Thor stated directly, “I hope that you can use the Tesseract's power to bring Loki and me back to Asgard and accompany us to help reignite the Bifrost.”

I wasn't that surprised by how upfront Thor was with his request as he wasn't the type to beat around the bush.

Even after the lesson he had learned after being banished to Earth by his father and losing much of his brashness and arrogance, he was just not the type to scheme and plot.

For him, most problems in the world were separated into two categories: Those that could be solved with his hammer, and those that could not. And yet, even when faced with problems of the second type, which was clearly the case now, his direct approach wasn't all that different compared to facing the first type.

Not that I disliked his direct style.

It was just a bit strange to see a man, who was over a thousand years old, so lacking when it came to social interactions and negotiating tactics. After all, he had basically revealed all his cards with a single sentence.

Truly, Asgard's magic-based technology might be incredibly advanced but their cultural education and social etiquette seemed to be quite poor. Or maybe that was just Odin being a bad parent.

Or perhaps, their inborn strength and longevity, as well as the way that Asgard was governed, made them neglect certain aspects of their cultural development, or simply made such developments unnecessary.

Humanity was different in this aspect as direct violent conflicts were often followed by serious consequences, which meant that the way language was used on Earth was vastly different than on Asgard.

Here, speech was as much a weapon as a gun, sometimes even a more lethal one.

Naturally, inferring from Thor's behavior to the behavior of the average Asgardian wasn't an accurate depiction of reality but I didn't think that my assessment was too far off either.

Setting aside those musings, I brought my focus back to the present and the Asgardian Prince next to me.

“I will help you.”, I stated calmly, “For a price.”