"No! No, no, no-"

You were shouting, screaming as you hurtled through space, knowing all the while that it was utterly pointless. The only person who could hear you was Bruce, and even he seemed to be unconscious. There was no one to hear your cries. Relief that you had escaped, anger at Heimdall and fear for Loki and Thor crushed your chest, and all the while you were still reeling from being tortured with the Power stone.

You'd never felt so helpless in your life.

Suddenly you reached wherever it was Heimdall had sent you; it wasn't a graceful landing. You and Bruce smashed through a large window set into a roof and crashed to the ground; fresh pain lanced through your body again and almost sent you back into blissful unconsciousness.

Almost.

You rolled over, your whole body convulsing as new waves of agony swept over you.

"Y/N?" a familiar American accent invaded your consciousness. Bruce was staggering to his feet; you heard him stumble and crash into something.

"Thanos." he said stupidly.

"Whoa, hold on. Y/N, can you hear me?" Strange asked you; you opened your eyes and sent your gaze upwards to the hole in the ceiling which you and Bruce had presumably just created, and to the sky above. Loki was up there, with Thanos. Fear and desperation gripped you so tightly that you could barely breathe.

"I have to go back." you croaked, struggling to your feet, pushing through the pain. There was another man now, helping you tentatively to your feet. Your entire body was glowing purple.

"Thanos, he's coming." Bruce stressed, grabbing Strange by the shoulders.

"I need to go back!" you said loudly, pointing at the sky. You were aware that you probably sounded mental, but it was the only thing you knew. Loki... and Thor... you actually doubled over from the awful, burning dread that had settled heavily on your chest, squeezing your eyes shut. Surely this was some awful nightmare that you were about to wake up from.

"She's in shock."

"I'm not in shock!" you shouted, tears running down your face. You'd been unaware that you were crying, "I need to go back, I have to-"

"Wong, find Stark. We need him."

It took you a few seconds to realise what Strange had said to the man who had helped you to your feet.

"Y/N, you need to calm down. Is Thanos really coming?" Strange said, now speaking to you.

"He's after the Infinity stones." you told him, "Is there one on Midgard?"

As you spoke, his hand moved to a circular pendant hanging on the chain around his neck.

"Is that...?"

"The Time stone. Where are Loki and Thor?"

Your breath caught in your throat.

"Loki had the Space stone." you whispered. Bruce was watching you sadly. Strange nodded but said nothing.

"Can you get me back?" you asked Strange desperately.

"Back to where?" he replied pityingly.

You opened your mouth, unable to rid your mind of Loki's panicked, tear stained face. A pained groan escaped you as you turned away and buried your face in your hands.

"Found him." Wong said suddenly, opening a portal in the air ahead of him.

"Follow me." Strange told you and Bruce, and walked through the portal. You allowed Bruce to take your arm and lead you to follow him to emerge in a park. Before you were a bewildered looking Tony and Pepper.

Bruce let go of you and went straight to Tony, hugging him tightly. Tony hugged him back, confusion written all over his face, staring at you over Bruce's shoulder.

"Kid?"

He looked so worried; your eyes filled with fresh tears which you tried to furiously blink away as he broke away from Bruce and moved towards you. You heard his loud, messy thoughts as he reached for you, the primary one being she looks awful.

You felt awful.

"Where have you been? And you! Where have you both been? It's been two years!" he asked, addressing Bruce too.

"There'll be time for a lovely catch up later, for now we have a more pressing issue on our hands." Strange said, gesturing towards the portal you'd come through. Tony turned to Pepper; she looked scared.

"I'll be home soon, okay?" he told her, kissing her forehead. She nodded reluctantly.

"Be safe." she called, as he, you, Bruce followed Strange back through the portal. You recognized now that the building was the Sanctum Sanctorium, AKA 177A Bleecker Street. This was where you'd met Strange before, with Thor.

"Kid, seriously, are you okay? You look rough, where's Reindeer Games?" Tony asked you as you followed Strange down a series of corridors.

"Thanos..." you managed, before your throat closed over again.

"He's not..?" he didn't need to finish his sentence, his thoughts doing the work for him. Dead.

"I don't know." you whispered.

"Over here, quickly." Strange said, ushering the three of you over to the man he had called Wong, who used magic to conjure up a projection of the Universe and five of the six Infinity stones.

"From the dawn of the universe, there was nothing. Then, boom! The Big Bang sent six elemental crystals hurtling across the virgin universe. These Infinity stones each control an essential aspect of existence." Wong told you. What was this, a science lesson? You were waiting for the feeling in your chest which would tell you Loki had died at any moment. Maybe he was already dead.

"Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind. And Time." Strange said, opening up the pendant hung around his neck to reveal the Time stone.

"Tell me his name again." Tony said, staring at the projection.

"Thanos. He's a plague, Tony. He invades planets, he takes what he wants. He wipes out half the population. He sent Loki." All eyes turned to you, "The attack on New York. That's him." Bruce explained.

"This is it..." Tony muttered under his breath, then aloud, "What's our timeline?"

"No telling. He has the Power and Space stones, that already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe, if he gets his hands on all six stones Tony..." Bruce said.

"He can destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of." Strange finished for him.

Tony leaned against a nearby cauldron, stretching like he was about to go for a run.

"Did you seriously just say 'hitherto undreamt of'?"

"Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?" Strange asked, matching his sarcastic tone.

"Is that was this is?" Tony asked, before being smacked sharply by Strange's levitating cloak.

"I'm going to allow that." Tony said, looking offended, "If Thanos needs all six, why don't we just stick this one down the garbage disposal?"

"No can do." Strange said.

"We swore an oath to protect the Time stone with our lives." Wong explained.

"And I swore off dairy, but then Ben and Jerry's named a flavour after me, so..." Tony retorted.

"Stark Raving Hazelnuts." Strange nodded.

"It's not bad." Tony said.

"A bit chalky." Strange shrugged.

"A Hunka-Hulka Burning Fudge is our favourite." Wong chipped in.

"That's a thing?" Bruce asked in astonishment.

"Guys." you half yelled in exasperation. Loki and Thor could be dying or dead and they were stood here talking about ice cream. You thought you might be about to throw up.

"My point is: things change." Tony concluded.

"Our oath to protect the Time stone cannot change. This stone may be the best chance we have against Thanos." Strange told him sternly.

"And conversely, it may also be his best chance against us." Tony argued.

"Well, if we don't do our jobs." Strange shot back.

"What is your job exactly, besides making balloon animals?" Tony asked condescendingly.

"Tony." you cut in sharply.

"Protecting your reality, douchebag." Strange replied, cocking an eyebrow.

"Will you stop." you said angrily.

"Okay guys, could we table this discussion right now?" The fact is that we have the stone. We know where it is. Vision is out there somewhere with the Mind stone, and we have to find him now." Bruce asserted, and you nodded vigorously, moving to stand by the only person who seemed to feel half as much urgency as you were feeling.

"Yeah... that's the thing." Tony said, slightly shiftily.

"What do you mean?" you asked quickly.

"Two weeks ago Vision turned off his transponder. He's offline."

"What? Tony, you lost another super bot?" Bruce asked angrily.

"I didn't lose him. He's more than that. He's evolving." Tony explained.

"Who could find Vision then?" Strange asked.

"Shit." Tony muttered, "Probably Steve Rogers."

You frowned; something was off.

"Oh, great." Strange sighed, confirming your suspicions.

"Maybe, but..." Tony didn't finish his sentence, sighing.

"Call him!" Bruce said.

"Tony, what happened?" you asked nervously.

"God, we haven't caught up in a spell, have we?" he addressed the two of you. You just stared at him.

"The Avengers broke up. We're toast."

Your heart seemed to fall out of your chest. Broke up?

"Broke up? Like a band? Like... The Beatles?" Bruce asked in shock.

"Cap and I fell out, hard. We're not on speaking terms." Tony told you. You couldn't believe what you were hearing.

"Tony, listen to me. Thor's gone-"

"Don't say that. Not until we know." you said sharply, cutting across Bruce.

"Right, yeah. But Thanos is coming. It doesn't matter who you're talking to or not." Bruce finished.

Tony hesitated for a second before pulling out an old flip phone and flicking it open. Before he could take any further action, an unusual rumbling noise distracted him. You heard it too, looking up in confusion.

"Say Doc, you wouldn't happen to be moving your hair, would you?" Tony asked Strange. You looked over to Strange and sure enough the lock of his hair which fell over his forehead was fluttering.

"Not at the moment, no." Strange replied, frowning up at his forehead.

Tony moved towards the front door and you all followed him, halting as he yanked the door open. Outside, it was chaos.

Debris was flying about everywhere; people were running down the street screaming and shouting, traffic lined the street as people abandoned their vehicles and chose to run instead and litter was whirling through the air so thickly that it was almost difficult to see.

The five of you spilled out on to the street into the chaos, and a woman tripped and fell at Tony's feet. He reached to help her up.

"You okay?"

The woman ignored him, either having not heard him or too hysterical to answer as she continued to run down the street. A second after a car crashed into the pole next to you, making you jump.

"Help him! Wong, Doc." Tony said, starting up the street.

"Go, I've got it." Bruce said.

Tony pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, "FRIDAY, what am I looking at?"

You couldn't hear the AI's response in the din that surrounded you as you made your way up the street behind Tony.

"Hey! You might wanna put that Time stone in your back pocket Doc!" Tony shouted to Strange. Your heart stopped, that meant that Thanos was here.

Strange strode past you, bands of magic encasing his forearms, "Might wanna use it." he replied.

The strange rumbling noise which you now recognized to be of mechanical origin grew louder as you reached the end of the street and turned the corner. A gigantic, circular ship was floating over Bleecker Street. You stopped in your tracks.

"FRIDAY, evac anyone south of 43rd Street, notify first responders." Tony said, seemingly unperturbed by the enormous spaceship descending in front of you.

Strange performed some sort of magic spell which made the dust settle as two figures appeared, presumably by transmat, from the ship. One of which you realised to be Ebony Maw. You reached for your sword as a reflex, before realising you hadn't picked it up when Thanos had attacked the refugee ship. Suddenly you felt very exposed. But not one bit less furious.

"Kid, no." Tony hissed, throwing an arm out to hold you back as you tried to advance past him.

"I'll kill him." you snarled, your magic burning at your hands; Tony looked sideways at you in shock.

"Hear me, and rejoice. You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to..."

"I'm sorry, Earth is closed today." Tony interrupted Maw's monologue defiantly.

Ebony Maw looked towards Strange, "Stonekeeper, does this chattering animal speak for you?" he asked, gesturing towards Tony.

"Certainly not. I speak for myself." Strange said, stepping forward and bumping his fists together to create a magical shield, "But you're trespassing in this city and on this planet." Behind him, Wong emulated his actions.

"It means get lost, Squidward!" Tony yelled.

"He exhausts me." Maw sighed, and the hulking figure behind him who you also recognized from the ship spoke two syllables which you didn't understand.

"Bring me the stone." Maw instructed him. That you could understand, and so, it seemed, could the massive creature. It dropped its huge malicious looking hammer and dragged it along behind him as it advanced towards you.

"Banner, you want a piece?" Tony asked Bruce, who had just rejoined you.

"No, not really, but when do I ever get what I want?" Bruce sighed.

"That's right." Tony nodded.

Bruce closed his eyes and attempted to release the Hulk. It didn't look like it was working.

You turned your attention to Ebony Maw instead, you met your gaze as he looked at you. A sickening smile, if you could call it a smile, spread across his face as he spotted you.

"Where's your guy?" Tony was asking Bruce.

"I don't know, we've sort of been havin' a thing." Bruce grunted, concentrating.

"There's no time for a thing." Tony said.

"I know."

So this is where the watchman sent you. He died so that you and your green friend could live.

Maw's voice echoed around your head. It was an entirely unpleasant sensation; different in all aspects to what Loki's voice sounded like in your mind. Heimdall was dead because of you.

Your trickster is dead.

Your chest tightened with each breath you took.

No he isn't.

You wait for a sign that he is truly gone: this is it. I watched him die.

"Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards." Tony was saying in annoyance to Bruce.

You stared at Maw with burning hatred, every muscle in your body tensed, wishing you could see into his mind like you could with everyone else.

You wish to read my mind? Very well.

You were powerless to resist as images from Maw's mind flooded your own.

Images of Loki as Thanos picked him up by the throat, choking the life out of him, killing him. Thor, incarcerated behind the Titan and helpless to do anything but watch, tears running down his face.

Images of Loki lying dead and bloody on the floor, his eyes open and glassy, staring blankly into nothingness.

Maw released you from his mind and you staggered, but managed to stay upright. You thought Tony might have said something to you, but you couldn't be sure. There was a loud ringing in your ears, and the sound of your heartbeat as you gasped for air. You turned your face slowly back to the alien.

You'd heard of the saying 'red mist descending' before. Up until this moment you'd never experienced it.

Your mist wasn't red.

It was purple.