Black Widow is ALIVE???

Wait? What? Is there still hope?

As we all know, in Avengers: End Game, our favorite female, Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff jumped off the cliff at Vormir to acquire the soul stone for the Avengers before Thanos could get it and destroy the world like he planned. Of course, we didn't want either Black Widow or Hawkeye to die, but honestly, Nat had come so far as a character and she could have done even better things with the Avengers. I am super excited about her solo movie coming out, but I really don't think it makes sense for her to have a solo movie when she isn't alive anymore. Unless, maybe, she is alive and she didn't die on Vormir? Now, I know there is a fan theory out there that states that when the soul stone was returned, Nat returned to her time line but was simply stuck on Vormir, however I believe that she never actually died in the first place.

"How is that possible when someone has to die to get the soul stone?" Red Skull tells Nat and Clint that in order to get the soul stone, one of them must be SACRIFICED. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean they have to die. As the Merriam-Webster dictionary states, on section 3 of the definition, "something given up or lost." Simply put, this means that one of them had to surrender the thing they loved most (which was each other), not meaning that they had to die.

We know Gamora died because Thanos literally threw her off the cliff and honestly, there is no surviving that, but Nat jumped on her own, Clint caught her, then she convinced him to let go and she fell awfully close to the edge of the cliff itself. Now, Clint still got the soul stone, so we just assume Nat died, but Clint willingly let her go so he actually did sacrifice her. Now, here is what I think happens; as she was falling, Nat simply grabbed on to a rock on the cliffside, saving herself in the process and climbed back up the mountain and because it is such a steep mountain, she could not climb up fast enough to get to the final fight.

Now, when she climbs back up, Red Skull is probably really confused, but possibly really proud that someone figured out they didn't have to actually die to be a sacrifice as he is probably really sick of having dead bodies lay in a canyon at the bottom of the cliff. After climbing back up the cliffside, Nat was most likely tired (I mean, she climbed a cliff!) so she probably also rested on Vormir to regain some strength. When she realized the battle was over, she didn't make it in time and that Tony was now dead, she decided to lie low for a while to figure out what she was going to do next and how she was going to let the team know that she was actually alive, knowing that they would be happy, but also devastated because they all believed she was dead in order to get the soul stone.

This is where Black Widow comes in with the solo movie. The trailer clearly shows that one of her memories is dangling off the cliff at Vormir with Clint, and it shows her going back to where her life began without being with the Avengers. She said she wanted to wipe the red from her ledger, so instead of going back to the team right away, she went on her own, back to where it all began to take care of unfinished business and try to make up for what she had done in her past to try to wipe that red off. Will she return to the Avengers after? Maybe, or maybe she will create a new identity and live for herself for the first time in her life.

To summarize, Black Widow is a badass that caught herself on the fall off of Vormir, lived, and went to make up for her past by confronting it and possibly returning to the team that became her family.