Tony's POV

"He did it." Nebula said. She was the only one left.

Peter had dissolved in his arms just after Loki had disintegrated, but Tony didn't realise that until he looked up and saw you crouched on the ground. He wanted to go to you, but he was in too much shock to move, to think. He felt guilty about the relief he experienced when he saw you alive.

He was glad he hadn't gone to you about five seconds later, because your entire body convulsed violently on the floor, and then a sort of shockwave emanated from you. It was your magic. Tony braced for impact as the purple wave shot through him, but it did nothing but knock him backwards slightly.

"Is she okay?" Nebula asked.

"No." Tony said. He recognised that you were experiencing the 'feeling' you had told him Loki had described.

All that was left of your magic now was a shimmering shroud of purple mist enveloping you. Trying to protect you from what you were feeling.

Tony stood up and wobbled, putting a hand out to steady himself, wincing at the pain in his stomach. His stitches wouldn't last long. He was a fool for not letting Strange heal him.

"Hey, Nebula. Is that right?"

The blue robot lady nodded.

"We need that ship, can you see if it's good to fly?" Tony asked, pointing towards the ship that Quill, Mantis and Drax had arrived in. Nebula looked over towards you, back at Tony, and nodded.

Tony made his way over to you, with absolutely no idea what he was going to say. When he reached your side, he crouched down gingerly, gritting his teeth from the pain. Then he gave up and sat heavily down on the ground.

You didn't look at him; your eyes were shut tight. You were still on all fours, hunched over as though to protect yourself from something, your hair obscuring your face.

"Kid?" Tony said hoarsely. He was trying hard not to think about Peter. You didn't reply, but he knew you'd heard him.

"Y/N." Tony said, louder. Your mist shimmered, and began to fade. He watched as your jaw clenched and unclenched several times, the muscles in your forehead and temples working overtime. He couldn't imagine how you felt, if it had been Pepper...

Oh god, Pep.

He'd been in shock from losing Peter he hadn't even comprehended that what had just happened here had happened across the entire universe. What if Pepper...

"I'm sure she's okay."

Your voice was so quiet Tony barely heard you; it sounded as though it had been painful for you to speak. He looked up at you to see that you hadn't moved, but your eyes were open. You must have heard his thoughts.

Tony tried to find the words, but couldn't. Eventually, with what looked like all the effort in the world, you pushed yourself up to a sitting position.

"Kid... I'm so sorry." he told you. Your expression was scaring him a bit, you looked... empty. You shook your head infinitesimally, your gaze drifting to a point just over Tony's left shoulder, where it stayed.

Tony was silent for a while. Eventually he remembered that he had sent Nebula off to check the ship; he didn't know her well, what if she took it and left you here?

If you'd heard that last thought you didn't show it, or you just didn't care.

"We need to get over to that ship, it's our only way out of here." Tony told you. You just shook your head slowly again, your gaze still on something far, far away.

"We can't stay here. You know that." Tony said, watching you. You blinked. Tony thought he understood; you didn't want to leave Loki.

"Kid... he's gone. They all are. There's nothing for us to do here anymore." he told you gently. You swallowed hard and looked at him, before turning to look behind you. Your eyes were the most vibrant colour of purple Tony had ever seen them go.

"Who else...?" you managed. Tony shook his head.

"Just us. And Nebula, the blue... robot."

"Peter." you said, Tony nodded. More silence. He wished he could comfort you in some way, but he had no idea of what to do.

"I need you to help me up." Tony finally said. He knew it was the only way he was going to get you to move. It took you a few minutes, but finally you got to your feet and held your hands out to him. You didn't look back as you walked away.

You walked over to the ship together, where Nebula hadn't stolen it, but was inside in the cockpit fiddling with some buttons. She turned to look at you as you walked in.

"It's not too badly damaged. Some of the fuel cells are cracked but if we can fix them, we can fly it."

"But can we get it home?" Tony muttered to himself.

...

Three weeks later

Your POV

Tony wasn't going to last much longer. You had a feeling you wouldn't be too far behind him.

You found it hard to care.

Tony and Nebula had managed to fix whatever it was that had been broken on the ship and chart a course towards Midgard, but you weren't going to make it home. You'd been useless; you didn't have the first clue about engineering or mechanics.

You'd been in space for twenty two days. This you only knew because Tony had told you, you hadn't been keeping count. There was no point.

You didn't sleep, didn't eat (not that there was any food left to eat even if you had been hungry) and spent all of your time sat on the floor staring out into space, twisting the ring Loki had given you round and round on your finger.

In the first week Tony had tried to keep you animated, coming up with stupid games and playing Quill's mixtapes loudly, getting you and Nebula to dance with him. This had been nice until he spun you around and you were forcibly reminded of the nights you and Loki used to sneak around the palace on Asgard and dance in the ballroom together. That ballroom was nothing now. As was Loki.

You hadn't cried yet. You didn't know why. The emptiness inside you hadn't ceased in three weeks, but you thought you might be getting used to it.

This wasn't a cause of relief. You missed feeling... anything. Even the sickening, crushing feeling you'd felt as Loki had disappeared in front of your eyes.

The few songs on Quill's mixtape soon got tiring, and after a week and a half Tony stopped putting them on. Instead he taught you and Nebula a game which involved flicking bits of paper at each other's hands. It was fun. It took your mind off of... things.

Two days ago Nebula had called you and Tony over and told you that you had three days of oxygen left. Tony had sat down on the floor against the wall, closed his eyes and cried silently. You'd only ever seen him cry once, when he'd brought you back to life next to the Hudson river. You had sat down next to him and leant against his shoulder, closing your eyes too.

You wanted to get back to Midgard for him, and you wanted Pepper to be alive. More than anything.

Almost anything.

You thought about Thor. If you did get back to Midgard and he was gone, who did you have left? Tony, if he survived, and maybe the rest of the team. That was it.

Today had been a bad one. You all knew that you only had one more day. You doubted that Tony would have lasted a day longer anyway. As for Nebula, you weren't sure. You'd talked to her enough to know that she was Thanos' daughter, and that he had made her look... how she looked, but you didn't know whether she needed oxygen to survive or not.

Nebula was the only one of the three of you who's appearance had stayed relatively the same. Tony looked like a corpse; his eyes were sunken and dull and he was painfully thin. You'd been using your magic to keep his stab wound clean and healing, but in the last few days you'd barely been able to summon your magic and he'd told you to leave it.

When you'd looked at yourself in the reflection of the mirror in the ship's bathroom earlier today, you'd hardly recognised yourself. You had lost almost half of your body weight, your face was gaunt and you had dark shadows under your eyes. Your hair hung limply around your face.

Your eyes were still burning a vibrant, shocking purple. You wondered if they would ever return to their normal colour.

Currently, you were sat on the floor, looking out of the window. You were thinking about the Avengers tower, and how comfortable the sofas had been there.

"Hey, kid." Tony said, tapping you on the shoulder so lightly that you barely felt it. You looked up at him.

"Come with me."

You got slowly to your feet and walked with him slowly to the big window at the back of the ship, helping him lower himself to the floor.

"Oof, thanks. I feel like an old man."

"Hm." you said.

"Okay. We're probably gonna die tomorrow. I've just recorded a message on here for Pep... I wondered if you wanted to do one."

You exhaled heavily, half laugh, half sigh.

"I know. It's crazy. But it's happening." Tony said, reaching towards his busted helmet tenderly.

"I don't know what I would say." you told him after a pause.

"If you could see Thor right now, what would you tell him?" Tony asked.

"That Loki didn't die when he thought he did. It was an illusion." you replied, looking at the helmet. Tony nodded.

"You just press this here; it'll record you. I'll go..."

"No. Stay, please." you said, not wanting him to overexert or hurt himself getting up. He nodded and pushed the helmet towards you. You leaned forward and pressed the button, and the helmet scanned you with a blue light.

You talked and talked, more than you had in the past three weeks, praying all the while that Thor was alive to hear the message, and that the message would somehow eventually make it back to Midgard.

Then you recorded one for Loki. Tony said nothing.

When you were done, Tony pressed the button on his helmet again and the light went out. You sat together in silence for a long, long time.

"I think I'm done, kid."

You closed your eyes in pain; you knew it had been coming, but you weren't ready. Tony was looking out into space. You scooted carefully across the floor towards him and took his hands in yours, leaning against his shoulder gently.

"Hey. Don't get all soppy on me now."

You closed your eyes again and smiled. It hurt your face.

"I have a lot of stuff to say to you Tony." you whispered.

"You'd better say it now then." he told you quietly. He was terrified, but so, so tired.

"I don't want to. I'm not ready."

Tony squeezed your hands but said nothing. You sat together for the longest time, looking out into space.

"Help me into that chair." he finally said, and you got to your feet gradually, helping him up and over to the chair. He slumped into it, looking for all the world like a tired old man. You couldn't bear to see him so weak.

Knowing that this was goodbye, you struggled to find the right thing to say, but drew a complete blank.

"Kid. You know that I know, don't you." Tony said to you weakly. He knew everything you wanted to say to him, but couldn't. Nodding mutely, you leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead; he sighed and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get us home." he whispered.

"It's okay." you replied quietly.

He raised a hand to touch your arm gently, and then it fell back to his side as he closed his eyes.

As you walked away, you wondered how much more grief you could take. After tomorrow, you wouldn't have to take anymore, you supposed.

"Is he gone?" Nebula asked you quietly, as you sat down next to her at the table.

"Almost." you whispered. Why were you not sobbing and screaming and tearing things apart?

Nebula placed a hand over yours. This was the first physical contact you'd made with her, and in this moment you were grateful for it. You closed your eyes and listened to your heartbeat; it was getting slower by the day.

You sat in silence for a long while, trying not to listen to Tony fading away. Then...

"Y/N. Y/N, look." Nebula said sharply, standing up quickly and almost falling over. From her you sensed a foreign emotion. Hope.

You opened your eyes and swung around to follow Nebula's gaze; something bright was hovering at the front of the ship, in front of the window Tony was facing in his chair. Nebula raced to the window and you followed her, slower, hardly daring to believe what you were seeing.

"You guys can see her too? I'm not dying?" Tony asked as you approached the window on either side of his chair. You grabbed his shoulder as you realised that the bright light was coming from a woman, floating in front of the ship.

"Is she here to help us?" Nebula asked, even though she knew you and Tony were just as clueless as her.

You all stared as the woman disappeared below the ship, and then it started to move. Fast, faster than you'd travelled even when the engines had been working, until the stars around you blurred and all you could see were bright, white strips of light.

"Where's she taking us?"

"Does it matter? We're saved! Tony, you hear that? Don't die on us now, alright?" Nebula said happily, actually smiling. You tried to feel relieved, but only managed a flicker of relief before you were empty again.

You simply couldn't go on like this.

After a while, the ship started to slow, and you stared ahead as Midgard came into view. She was taking you home. It was some sort of miracle. Tony pushed himself up in his chair and raised his head to look at you; you looked back at him in disbelief.

Minutes later the Avengers compound came into view, and figures were running out on to the lawn. It was dark; you couldn't make out who they were.

The ship touched down, and Nebula ran to open the entry hatch as you helped Tony to his feet. He was nervous, terrified in fact. You prayed that Pepper was one of the figures outside.

"Let's get off of this stupid ship." you said, and Tony half laughed, wincing.

The air smelt like the best, cleanest thing ever; the sound of the trees rustling in the night was the most amazing sound you'd ever heard. Something cracked inside you.

Hold it together.

Steve, Nat, Bruce and another man who you didn't recognise were stood on the lawn waiting for you as Nebula, you and Tony staggered down the ramp, all supporting one another.

"Couldn't stop him." Tony said emotionally as Steve moved forward to grip his arm.

"Neither could I." Steve said, his gaze moving to you. He put a hand on your shoulder, and then Nat and Bruce were upon you. You stared at Nat, her hair was short and blonde.

"I lost the kid." you heard Tony say plainly, as Nat grabbed you by the shoulders and Bruce searched your face, asking you questions, holding on to your arm. You could hear them both wondering where Loki was.

For this reason you didn't hear Steve telling Tony that 'we lost'. You also didn't hear Tony asking about Pepper, you only saw her sprinting across the lawn towards him. That made you feel relief, proper relief. You cracked a bit more as you turned to watch Tony embrace Pepper, his face crumpling as he held her.

You couldn't hold on for much longer.

"Banner? Is...?" Thor's voice reached your ears and Nat moved aside so that you could see him hurrying across the grass towards you. At the sight of him, you crumbled.

An awful, grief stricken noise left you as you finally broke, revelling in the feel of the escaping tears which had been locked behind your eyes for the best part of the last month. You stumbled forwards towards Thor and he caught you, holding you to him and whispering thank the gods, thank the gods, thank the gods...

You sobbed into his chest loudly, unable to hold it back now that you'd let go, hurting so badly that you thought you might pass out. But you knew that feeling this was better than feeling nothing at all.