Thor carried you back into the compound and sat with you until you'd calmed down, shooing Bruce away who kept trying to come near you with medical equipment. It took the best part of half an hour for you to stop sobbing, and when you finally did you felt as though your head was going to split in two.

Finally, Thor allowed Bruce to come near you and put a needle in your arm to give you blood. You trusted him to do whatever; he'd saved you countless times before.

Thor was holding your hands tightly.

"I get the feeling you know something I don't about him." he said to you, referring to Loki. You nodded, taking deep, shuddering breaths to calm yourself enough to speak.

"Thanos didn't kill him." you told him, and Thor smiled, shaking his head.

"I knew it." he said quietly, actually smiling.

"He took one of the escape pods and found me on Titan- that's where the ship took us after Heimdall sent Bruce and I to Midgard..."

"Whoa, whoa. Slow down. Start from when you left Loki and I with Thanos." Thor told you. And so you told him everything.

"He was worried about you. He was so relieved when he heard that you'd made it out alive." you kept saying. It seemed important to let him know. Thor was crying too by the time you'd finished.

"Hey, you wanna come in? We'll get you up to speed." Nat said, poking her head into the room you and Thor were sat in together. Thor swiftly wiped his eyes.

"Yeah... hey." you said, standing up gingerly and making your way towards her. She hugged you tightly, but not too tightly.

"I like your hair."

Nat laughed.

"I'm so glad you're okay. You know, this is the first good news we've had in weeks." she told you, as she and Thor helped you back into the room whilst still being hooked up to a bag of blood.

In the room already were Steve, Bruce, Tony, Pepper, Nebula, a raccoon which apparently had the ability to talk, and the man who had been on the lawn who you hadn't recognised earlier. Stood in the corner with her arms crossed was the woman who'd saved you from space; you'd forgotten all about her.

All eyes turned to you as you entered.

"You doing alright kid?" Tony asked you, also hooked up to a bag of blood.

"I'm okay. Nebula, you okay?" you asked across the room, and Nebula nodded, giving you a grateful look. You saw the raccoon next to her look up at you, and heard him think that he liked you.

At the front of the room a was a holographic casualty report listing the names and faces of people who had been lost. There were hundreds of them, thousands, and you knew that it wasn't just the people on this list.

Bucky's face appeared briefly on the holograph. It felt like someone had hit you in the stomach with something very large and solid.

"Buck-" you whispered, your eyes filling with fresh tears. You hadn't thought you'd had any left.

"Sit down Y/N." Thor said gently, helping you into a chair.

"Who else? Is Clint...?"

"Clint is fine... he lost his whole family though. Wanda is gone. Vision obviously... well, he was dead before it happened. A few others who you don't know..." Nat filled you in, talking softly as though it would be any less awful to hear.

"Who's this?" you asked Nat quietly, nodding to the man you didn't recognise, who was talking to Tony.

"That's Rhodey, we told you about him before, right?"

You nodded, "And... the raccoon?"

"He's called Rocket. Keeps calling himself one of the 'Guardians'." Nat explained.

"He went with me to get my new hammer." Thor explained.

"A new hammer?" you asked, but then the man called Rhodey was talking.

"So, it's been twenty three days since Thanos came to Earth."

"World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures." Nat said grimly.

"Where is he now? Where?" Tony asked. He was angry.

"We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through. We've been hunting him for three weeks now. Deep space scans, satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him." Steve replied.

"Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the stone. That's what happened. There was no fight." Tony shot back.

"That's not true Tony." you clarified, your voice hoarse from crying; all eyes turned to you.

"Okay." Steve said, clearly wishing to avoid an argument.

"He's unbeatable." Tony asserted.

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?" Steve asked.

Tony blew air sharply out of his mouth in annoyance. You felt his anger building steadily; Pepper sensed it too, placing a hand on his arm.

"I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

"Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus." Steve told him calmly. You saw Bruce shift uncomfortably in his chair, wanting to tell Tony to calm down but not wanting to annoy him.

"And I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy, sorry. You know what I need?" Tony said loudly, standing up and starting to push things off of the table, "I need a shave. And I believe I remember telling all yous-"

Tony suddenly lunged for Steve; Nat, Thor, Bruce and Pepper all stood up, but Rhodey got there first.

"Tony, Tony, Tony-" he said, holding him back firmly.

"-alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armour around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed!" Tony continued, now completely rambling. You hadn't realised how bad he'd gotten.

"He's not okay." Nat said, sitting back down next to you.

"I said goodbye to him on that ship." you told her, "He was ready to go... and that was only about an hour ago."

"I said, "we'd lose". You said, "We'll do that together too." And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers." Tony continued furiously.

"Okay, you made your point. Just sit down." Rhodey said, still holding him back.

"Okay..." Tony muttered.

"Okay?" Rhodey repeated.

"Nah, nah, here's my point, you know what?" Tony said.

"Tony, you're sick." Rhodey told him, his voice filled with a worry that Tony didn't comprehend.

"She's great, by the way." Tony said, pointing across the room to Carol.

"Sit down. Sit." Rhodey said sternly.

"We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!" Tony said to Carol. Then he walked over to Steve, Rhodey on his tail.

"I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar."

You heard what Tony was about to do before he did it, because it scared him. The thought was loud.

"Tony don't!" you yelled, standing up, but too late. Tony ripped the Arc Reactor from his chest and shoved it into Steve's hands.

"Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide." Tony spat. And then he collapsed. You tried to go to him, but Thor held you back.

"Tony!" Steve said in horror as he fell to the ground.

"I'm fine, I-." you heard Tony say weakly, before he passed out.

You tried to move towards him again, but Thor put a hand on your arm.

"Sit down." he told you. You watched as Rhodey and Bruce carried Tony out of the room, Pepper and Steve in tow.

"He'll be alright." Nat said, sounding unconvinced.

Ten minutes later, in which Thor told you all about what had happened after he'd been picked up by the Guardians, Steve and Rhodey came back into the room.

"Bruce gave him a sedative. He's probably gonna be out for a while." Rhodey said.

"You guys take care of him. I'll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back." the woman who had saved you from space said, uncrossing her arms and walking across the room. Nat stood up.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To kill Thanos." the woman replied. There was a shocked silence.

You and Thor stood up, moving over to her and Nat.

"Hey, you know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile." Nat said.

"We realise up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too." Steve told her.

"You even know where he is?" Rhodey asked the woman.

"I know people who might." she replied.

"Don't bother, I can tell you where Thanos is." Nebula spoke up, walking over to join the group.

"Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. And when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask, 'Where would we go once his plan was complete?'. His answer was always the same. 'To the garden'." she told everyone.

"That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan." Rhodey said.

"So where is he?" Steve asked.

Rocket had made his way over to the group now too, hopping up onto the table which was projecting the hologram of people who'd been lost.

"When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it... until two days ago." Rocket said, tapping some things on the table to make a hologram of a planet appear, with a shockwave visibly traversing the surface.

"On this planet."

"Thanos is there." Nebula addressed the group.

"He used the stones again." Nat said.

"Hey, hey, hey. We'd be going in short-handed, you know." Bruce reminded you; you hadn't seen him re-enter the room.

"Look, he's still got the stones, so..." Rhodey started.

"So let's get him... use them to bring everyone back." the woman from space said.

"Just like that?" Rhodey asked sceptically.

"Yeah, just like that." Steve said. You couldn't believe your ears. You had a chance to reverse it.

"Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this, I mean, we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try." Nat said.

"Yes." you said emphatically, nodding.

"If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?" Bruce asked.

"Because before, you didn't have me." the space woman told him.

"Hey, new girl, everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?" Rhodey asked, a bit heatedly. She looked back at him coolly.

"There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys." she replied.

Thor walked past you to stand right in front of the space woman, holding out his hand. Seconds later, his new hammer shot past her head, missing it by inches; Thor caught it and smiled.

"I like this one."

"Let's go get this son of a bitch." Steve said.

...

A few hours later, you were back aboard the ship that you had almost died in.

You'd had a short but furious fight with Thor about accompanying him and the others back to space; you'd won after tearing the drip Bruce had given you out of your arm and teleporting into the ship to wait there until everyone joined you.

Now you were back in the air, preparing to leave the atmosphere again. Aboard the ship were Rocket, Nebula, Steve, Nat, Bruce, Rhodey, Thor and you. The space woman (whose name you'd been incredulous to learn was Carol) was flying alongside you outside the ship.

"Okay, who here hasn't been to space." Rocket asked from the pilot's seat. Nat, Steve and Rhodey all raised their hands.

"Why?" Rhodey asked.

"You better not throw up on my ship." Rocket told him grimly.

"Approaching jump in three, two, one..." Nebula said, and the ship jumped forward. You closed your eyes as you were pressed back into your seat, reminded of your escape from Sakaar. Then the pressure lessened slightly, and you opened your eyes to see the planet Rocket had showed you on the hologram.

"I'll head down for recon." Carol's voice sounded through the monitor, and then she was shooting down towards the surface of the planet.

"You okay?" Thor asked you gently; you nodded.

"This is going to work. We'll get him back." he told you firmly.

"I know." you replied, forcing a smile. This had to work.

After a while, Carol returned.

"No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defences of any kind. It's just him." she told you all.

"And that's enough." Nebula muttered.

...

Once you were down on the ground, it was easy enough to find where Thanos had been living. Bruce assembled and got into his new Hulk armour, Rhodey suited up and then you were ready to go. You surrounded the area, and then Carol went smashing through the roof of the wooden house.

Bruce followed her in, and then Thor, followed by Rhodey. You, Steve, Rocket and Nat made a more conventional entrance, by way of the front door. Carol and Bruce had Thanos pinned to the floor; Thor had sliced straight through the arm which had previously donned the gauntlet, which now lay on the floor.

You stared at Thanos with all the hatred in the world, feeling only slightly better when you saw what using the stones had done to him. He looked as though he'd been badly burnt all up one side of his torso and face. You were so caught up in your anger that you didn't immediately realise why everyone suddenly gasped.

"Oh no." Rocket groaned, you looked over to the gauntlet and froze when you saw that the stones were missing from it.

"Where are they?" Steve asked angrily.

"Answer the question!" Carol said forcefully.

"The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation." Thanos said, his voice contorted by pain.

"You murdered trillions!" Bruce yelled.

"You should be grateful." Thanos grimaced.

Bruce punched him square in the face with his Hulk armour; Thanos' head lurched to one side. He opened his eyes and looked straight at you, looking almost pleasantly surprised.

"You Asgardians are resilient." he said, looking across to Thor, "I suppose I got the trickster though, did I?"

Your face contorted with rage, magic spilling from you painfully as you barely held yourself back.

"Where are the stones." you said quietly, your voice shaking with anger.

"Gone. Reduced to atoms." Thanos told you all. You felt nothing. Numbness spread through you. He had to be lying... yet you knew he wasn't.

"You used them two days ago!" Bruce protested.

"I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me, but the work is done. It always will be. I am... inevitable." he said, lifting his chin.

"We have to tear this place apart. He... he has to be lying." Rhodey said desperately.

"My father is many things. A liar is not one of them." Nebula said grimly.

"Ah, thank you daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly." Thanos mused. Nebula looked away uncomfortably. Your head was spinning. This couldn't be happening. You'd come all this way...

You were so distracted that you didn't even hear Thor's loud, furious thought process before he swung Stormbreaker above him with an enraged yell and, in one swift movement, sliced Thanos' head off.

Thanos' limp body fell to the floor, his head rolling a few times before coming to a stop next to the wall. Again, you felt nothing.

"What... what did you do?" Rocket asked incredulously.

"I went for the head." Thor said bluntly, turning and walking out of the door, his cape swishing behind him as he left.

You'd just lost Loki all over again.