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Steve stood on the precipice refusing to look down.
"I knew you weren't dead," he said tiredly to the red and aged form standing off to his side, but the withered face that looked back at him was indifferent.
"My battles with you are long over," Schmidt replied as he peered back at Steve standing on the ledge. "I no longer care for the trivial battles of humankind."
"Well, you did say once that we had left humanity behind. I didn't think you meant this, but I do think it's fitting that you're alone here."
"And yet you've come without a sacrifice for a stone that is no longer here."
Steve turned toward Schmidt and held out his hand, the orange glow of the soul stone emanating from between his fingers even before he opened his palm.
"I'm told it's a soul for a soul," he stated more than questioned. "And I've brought back this one for a trade."
The Red Skull laughed. "I'm afraid the trade doesn't work that way," he replied with that arrogant voice Steve thought he had left in his past. "Your friend's soul was temporary. It was used up, obliterated. That soul-" he reached for the stone, "Is immortal. Much like myself."
Steve closed his fingers and pulled back his hand quickly.
"You may be immortal, but I assure you, I can leave you here in a worse state than I found you. You think surviving here alone in the wilderness of this desolate place is bad? There are worse things than even-" He waved his hand out around him,"Barren loneliness." Steve held the stone out again. "Now the deal was only a soul for a soul. No further rules or stipulations."
"Captain, you would trade the power of that stone for the life of one woman?"
Steve looked the Red Skull dead in the eye. "I would trade every stone for her soul."
"I suppose this is love clouding your judgement in this misguided attempt to-" Schmidt replied with an annoyed tone, but Steve cut him off with words he'd heard Natasha say more than once.
"Love is for children." He paused. "But it's worth more than you'll ever know. So, maybe I am doing this out of sentiment. But Natasha loved people with everything she had. She gave her life for them. And you've never understood the selflessness and kindness and undying love that goes into a sacrifice like that. So if anyone deserves a second chance, it's her."
He slid the stone back away and finally looked down over the edge of the cliff. He couldn't make out very much in the waters below, but he he'd been told what was down there.
"It's best you return home, Captain," Schmidt tried to press. "This is just another one of your futile missions. Like your efforts to destroy my great plans in the past."
Steve turned and walked away from the cliff, looking at the shadows in the distance.
It seemed Schmidt wasn't done berating him. "The time to save her was before she made that sacrifice. You could have taken her place, Captain. But opportunity is not a lengthy visitor and it seems you've missed your only chance."
Steve kept walking, ignoring him.
"The things you aspire to do are so far beyond you, Captain," the Skull continued. "And yet you do not have the ability to aspire to the greater things that stone could truly give you."
Steve made it a distance away from the cliff before turning on his heel and running for the ledge. He flung himself from the height, feeling the free fall of the hundreds of feet.
He had time to wonder if this is what Natasha felt like as she gave her life for them. He even had time to wonder if this was what Bucky felt like falling from the train fighting the Skull's men decades before.
Then he tumbled to the ground, rolling over rock and splashing into shallow water.
The world around him shone in an eerie purpled glow with tinges of orange and Steve used the light to glance around him.
Natasha was closer to the side of the cliff, her body sprawled out awkwardly, but she didn't look like the horrifying mess that Steve had feared. She looked clean, put together, fresh even, like the fall had happened only moments before.
Steve glanced up determined at the tops of the cliff again. He could barely make out the Red Skull, the Stonekeeper as Clint has called him, hovering over the edge. The stone didn't belong to him. He didn't make the rules so he couldn't change them, and Steve ventured to trust that no one had ever tried to return the stone before.
He walked carefully out of the shallow water and over to Natasha's body. He knelt down on the rocky ground and held out his hand with the stone again.
The stone didn't belong to Schmidt. It belonged to Vormir. And to Vormir he would return it.
He placed the soul stone down beside Natasha's body the same time he placed his hand gently onto her.
Natasha blinked up at him. She pulled her limbs into a more comfortable position and then pushed herself upward.
"Steve?"
Steve forgot the stone completely, scooping Natasha up into his strong arms and holding her to his chest.
"What did you do?" she asked as she realized where she was.
"You're going home," was all he said. "It's a soul for a soul. I returned the stone. You're going home."