"Matt!" Foggy clambered to his feet from where he'd been sitting on the tiled floor outside the apartment. He grabbed Matt in a hug, and thumped his clenched fist against Matt's back a few times for good measure.

"Hey, Fog," Matt said wearily.

"'Hey Fog'?" Foggy repeated. "I might not have seen you in five years, and all you got is 'Hey, Fog'"

"It's not been five years," Matt said, unlocking his apartment door. "I saw you yesterday - and you saw me then too. You returned today, just like I did."

"How do you know? How do you always know these things?"

"I went by the office."

"Oh. You mean the office that is now a frickin' beauty salon?!"

"Apparently."

"Holy shit, was that wild," Foggy elaborated. "One minute I'm sitting at my desk, and the next I'm on my ass because the desk is no longer there, and I'm surrounded by a bunch of screaming Vietnamese women."

Matt huffed out a laugh, the visual momentarily raising his mood. But only momentarily.

He was glad to see his friend was okay, but he wanted - he needed - to know what had happened to Calina, and he was running out of means to do so.

He scrubbed his hands over his face, and asked Foggy about the third member of their team. "You heard about Karen?"

"Yeah," Foggy said sadly. "She stayed behind."

"What about Marci?" Matt asked, hoping Foggy wasn't going through the same hell he was.

"She disappeared with us. I went to our apartment first - she was working from home this morning, and she was still there." Foggy's voice wavered slightly as he said the last sentence, his relief palpable. "Her parents rushed over right away, so I left to give them some space to reconnect. What about Calina?"

Matt shook his head. "I- I don't know. She's not next door. She's not here. She's not in any of her usual hang-outs. The internet's down-"

"The internet's down?" Foggy checked the display on his phone. "Shit, I thought it was just me."

"No. The servers crashed apparently. So I have no idea how to look for her, Foggy. I don't know if she returned and got hurt somewhere, or if she never disappeared in the first place. If she stayed, she could be anywhere. Five years is a long time, man, and she could be-"

"Hey," Foggy interrupted. "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it. The first step is figuring out if she disappeared. The moment the internet is back up we'll start looking for her. In the meantime, sit down and take a minute, you look wrecked, man. Did you even sleep last night? In 2018, I mean?"

Matt remembered back to the night before. To the restaurant. To tailing Cross and Ranieri, and staying out until dawn. To the fight with Calina...

Jesus, had that only been last night? Less than 12 hours ago?

It felt like another lifetime. And, in a way, it was. 

Matt took Foggy's advice, suddenly feeling exhausted. He collapsed onto the couch, the movement dislodging the layer of dust coating the unused piece of furniture. Matt coughed as the particles swirled in the air, and frowned as he heard plastic crinkle beneath him. He smoothed his hand over the couch, and realised it was covered in some sort of protective wrapping.

"Weird," Foggy said, commented on the same thing. "Your stuff's all still here. It's covered in sheets and plastic...but it's still here."

Matt shrugged. "Maybe the landlord couldn't rent the place out again?"

"But why would he give a shit about your stuff? Why didn't he toss it on the street or give it to Goodwill?"

Matt stood up again and wandered around the apartment, cataloguing the contents. Foggy was right, everything was still here, just as he'd left it. His phone charger was still plugged in by the radiator. His toothbrush was still in the bathroom. His clothes were in the closet. His alarm was on the bedside table...

But there were no signs of Calina. The book she kept by the side of the bed was gone. The silky robe that hung in the bathroom - gone. The running shoes she stashed by the front door - gone.

"Matt?" Foggy called out. "I've got something."

"What is it?" Matt asked. He found Foggy standing in front of the small bureau in the living room, rifling through a pile of papers.

"Electricity bills, water bills...all for this address, all in the name of Calina Balashova. And-" Foggy sucked in a breath.

"What?"

"The deed for the apartment. Matt...she bought this place. In 2019."

2019.

"She stayed," Matt whispered. Part of him had known it all along, but the actual confirmation was a gut-punch.

She'd stayed.

He'd disappeared, and she'd stayed here. For five years. Without him.

Which meant she wouldn't be walking in the door any minute, lost and confused like he was. She could be literally anywhere. Anywhere in the fucking world. She could be completely off the grid. She could be with someone else. Married, even...

She could be-

"We'll find her, Matt," Foggy assured him, obviously sensing Matt's spiral. "As soon as we can get back online, we'll find her."

"But what if...," Matt replied, his voice shaking as he tried to articulate his deepest fear. "What if she's not even ali-"

"No! Don't even go there. Don't think the worst. Look, why don't you pack a bag and come stay with me and Marci while we sort this out."

"No. I think I need to stay here," Matt replied. Calina had bought the place for a reason. Maybe she'd come back. He'd have to be here when she did. He opened his mouth to try to explain that to his friend but paused as he heard a noise in the stairwell. He cocked his head, zeroing in on the sound.

"What is it?" Foggy asked.

Matt recognised the cadence of the steps and the sound of the person's breathing. He may not always know Karen by scent, but she was recognisable in other ways. "We have a visitor."

He walked to the front door and pulled it open just as she reached it. Her tall body collided with his as she threw herself at him. Her long, slender arms wrapped around his neck and she buried her head in his neck.

Matt stroked his hand down her back, feeling the tremors racing through her. Hot, wet tears stained his shirt as she cried against him. "Hey, it's okay. I'm here."

She pulled back, wiping her hand across her face. "I'm sorry, I tried to keep it together all the way here, but I just-" she broke off on a sob.

Matt pulled her back into the hug and held her as she continued to weep. It was still so hard to fathom that he'd lost five years, but Karen's reaction was making it feel very real.

Eventually, her tears ran dry, and she stepped out of the embrace. "Hi, Matt," she said, letting out a watery laugh.

"Hey, Karen."

"I came back too, ya know," Foggy said with mock disgruntlement.

Karen jerked at the sound of his voice. "Foggy?"

"In the flesh."

She gave Foggy the same long, crushing hug. When it was over, Foggy wiped the fresh tears from her cheeks. "Long time no see, I guess," he joked.

The look she gave him must have been withering, because Foggy held up his hands in remorse. "Too soon?"

"Yes, Foggy. Too soon. Way too soon."

"Sorry."

Karen shook her head. "It's okay. I...I just feel a little raw, you know. I bet you guys feel the same way - but for very different reasons."

"You could say that," Matt answered.

"You both must be so confused. I'm sorry I wasn't here in the city when you first came back. I wanted to come as soon as I heard, but I couldn't get a sitter at first. Then there was traffic on the Queensboro bridge and I had to go through the tunnel-"

"Wait, back up," Foggy said. "Sitter? Does that mean...?"

Karen nodded, and Matt could hear the pride in her voice. "I'm a mom, now. I have a little girl."

———

Half an hour later, when all the furniture was uncovered, the dust cleared from the surfaces, and the three of them were sitting around Matt's kitchen table eating take-out, Karen told them about her 21-month old daughter, Izzy.

"It's short for 'Isabelle'. It was David's mother's name. She died when he was young, and he wanted to honour her memory."

"So David's the father?" Foggy asked. "Are you guys married?"

"We were. Briefly. Things, um, didn't work out. He's not really a part of Izzy's life."

"I'm sorry," Matt said.

Karen shrugged. "I have Izzy. And we're happy together. She's amazing. Just so...joyful. Every day she learns something new, and I learn what kind of person she's going to be - her personality is really starting to shine through, and it's wonderful."

Foggy reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. "I'm really happy for you, Karen."

"Thank you. I'm not saying the last five years haven't been awful, but I was one of the lucky ones, you know? I found a reason to keep going. To keep hopeful about the future."

"Can you tell us about the last five years? About what happened?" Matt asked gently - he was desperate for more answers, but could sense it was a deeply traumatising subject.

Karen took a deep breath. "You don't know?"

"Just that it had something to do with someone named Thanos."

"Yeah," Foggy added. "Marci's parents started to explain, but they just kept breaking down in tears. And with the internet down, we're in the dark ages, information-wise."

"Wow," Karen said. "It- it's so hard to know where to start. Thanos has loomed so large in all of our lives for so long. It's so strange to think that you don't even know who he is." She launched into an explanation of infinity stones, and the all-powerful alien obsessed with using them to bend the universe to his will. It would have sounded fantastical and far-fetched on any other day, but not today.

Not after what Matt had experienced this morning.

And the matter-of-fact way Karen - his no-nonsense, intelligent and rational friend - recited the information convinced Matt of it's truth.

"None of us knew what had happened at first," she went on. "Everyone just started disappearing. I was on a coffee run - do you remember Foggy?"

"Yeah, you said you were sick of burnt coffee and wanted something frothy and delicious."

"Yeah," Karen whispered. She was quiet for a few moments, as if reliving the time in her life where her biggest concern was a caffeinated beverage. "I was on my way back from the coffee shop when the man walking towards me just...disintegrated. Turned to dust. I stood there, frozen in the street, as more and more people vanished. And it was quiet. So eerily quiet, at first. There were no screams, no cries for help. Just dust in the air. And I waited there, on the sidewalk, heart pounding, for it to happen to me. But it never did."

"Then what happened?" Foggy asked.

Karen laughed wryly. "Then it was anything but quiet. It was pandemonium. Planes fell out of the sky. There were blackouts across the city. The rioting started soon after that. Then the mass suicides - the evangelicals thought it was the rapture, and that they'd been left behind. The vice president had to step in because the President disappeared, and she ordered martial law on the streets. When we finally got news out of Wakanda-"

"Wakanda?"

"That's where it all went down. We found out it wasn't the rapture, or some chemical weapon, or any of the hundreds of other theories that flew around those first few days. It was just some megalomaniacal asshole from another planet who'd decided that the way to solve the universe's problems was to eradicate half of it. Half of everything - every person, every animal, every insect - just gone, with one snap of his fingers."

Karen went quiet again, as if reliving the trauma. Matt tried to imagine what it must have been like at the time - the confusion, and panic and fear.

Probably not so different from this morning. And it made him wonder which scenario was worse: watching those around you disappear...or being one of the returned, suddenly thrust back into a world that had moved on without you.

"Sorry," Karen said after a few long moments of silence. "Like I said, it's so strange to talk about it. Up until this morning, every person on the planet had lived through it. And we never really discussed it much. It was always there - the grief, and the loss - but everyone tried to ignore it. Even though we knew it was probably eating us away from the inside."

Matt took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "It's okay. You don't have to talk about it anymore today. Me and Foggy have plenty of time to find out the rest by ourselves. But..."

"What is it?"

"Do you know anything about Calina?" Matt asked, figuring it was a long shot. Karen and Calina hadn't been close back in 2018. They'd gone shopping together once, and had been friendly to each other around the office, but Calina had always been closer to her Widow sisters. "Do you know where she is?"

"No. I'm sorry."

Matt frowned. Karen's words seemed truthful. And her tone was sympathetic. But there was something off about the way she said it...and the way she was shifting slightly in her seat. "What aren't you telling me? Is she okay? Is she- is she still alive?"

Karen started in surprise. It was her turn to squeeze Matt's hand. "Yes. I'm sorry, Matt. Yes, as far as I know, she's alive."

Matt frowned again. "As far as you know? What does that mean?"

"Sorry, I'm messing this up. I don't know what to say-"

"Just say the truth, Karen." Matt tried to control the anger creeping into his voice. But he didn't know why Karen was being so cagey about this.

"I just meant that I haven't spoken to her in a few weeks. And what she's doing is often dangerous-"

"Dangerous? Why? What is she doing?"

"She's a Black Widow again, Matt." Karen's voice was soft, gentle. As if she knew the news would be a blow to Matt.

And it was. Matt stood up from the table, the plates and glasses rattling with the sudden movement. He backed away, shaking his head. "She- she was out. She was out of that life. She didn't want it anymore."

The Calina of yesterday - his yesterday - didn't want to fight anymore. She didn't want a life of violence and danger. She was going to be a translator. She was going to help people with her other gifts. And she'd been happy with that choice. More than happy - she'd been excited about finally finding her purpose in her new life.

"Matt, the world needed her," Karen explained. "It needed the Widows - the ones who were left, anyway. Most of the Avengers disappeared, and it was all hands on deck to try to keep civilisation from completely collapsing. That first year...it was bad. It was really bad - all across the world. So she suited up again. The UN scrapped the Sokovia Accords, granted the Widows full immunity, and they've been out there all this time helping to keep everyone safe."

Matt stood still, head bowed, hands on his hips, as he tried to process how much Calina's life had changed these past five years.

"Can you call her?" Matt asked, not even trying to disguise the pleading in his voice. "Please? I need to know she's okay."

"I don't have a way to contact her," Karen replied. "Its safer for her that way. She checks in with me every few weeks-"

"She didn't call today? When this all happened?"

"No. But when she does, I'll tell her to come to New York. I promise, Matt."

———

Karen left shortly after, needing to get back home to her daughter. Matt cleared away the plates and stowed the leftovers in his fridge. He grabbed the last two remaining bottles of beer and passed one to Foggy. Then, in unspoken agreement, they both collapsed on to the couch, as if needing to sit with the enormity of it all for a while. Silence reigned as they sipped on the drinks, both of them feeling a little shell-shocked by the events of the day.

Foggy placed his empty bottle on the coffee table, the clink of glass meeting wood the only sound heard for the past half an hour.  "It's fucking crazy, man. It's just...crazy." He shook his head. "Five years. Five YEARS."

Matt laughed, a choked-off, bitter sound. It seemed the safest response - the alternative was to scream. Or punch a hole in the wall. "Yeah."

"Five years!"

"I know."

"What do we even do now? Do we exist, like from a legal standpoint? What about our bank accounts and credit cards? If Karen hadn't bought dinner tonight, would we have starved?"

"We wouldn't have starved," Matt responded, laughing in humour this time.

"But what about our careers? Can we still practice law? I don't even know who the District attorney is. Fuck, I don't even know who the President is!"

"Foggy, relax. Those are relatively easy problems to solve in the grand scheme of things. Once we get back online we can find out all those answers. You have a roof over your head, you have Marci, you have your friends. Everything else will sort itself out."

"Yeah," Foggy said, calming down a bit. "Shit. I'm sorry, man. Here I am stressed about legalities, and you're still in the dark about Calina."

"I know she's alive. Or, at least, she was, up until a few weeks ago."

"That's something."

"Yeah."

Neither of them sounded convinced. Matt especially - because until he could 'see' her in person, and know that she was truly safe and unharmed, he wouldn't be at peace.

"Are you sure you don't want to come back to mine?" Foggy asked. "I don't feel right just leaving you here alone."

"It's fine. You need to get back to Marci. I'll be fine. I need to go out anyway."

"You're going out as Daredevil? Tonight?"

"Of course."

"There's no 'of course' about it, Matt. You've had a major, life-altering shock today, and you haven't slept in, what, 36 hours?"

"About that."

"I don't think anyone - not even the Almighty himself - would blame you for taking the night off."

Matt opened his mouth to argue...but found himself nodding instead. Saying he was going out on patrol had been more of a reflex than anything else. When the truth was, for the first time in a long time, Matt didn't want to suit up. He didn't want to fight tonight. He didn't want to wade back out into the chaos. He knew he should - that it was his duty and his responsibility - but he couldn't find the strength to do so.

And it had nothing to do with a lack of sleep.

He wanted - just for tonight - to be selfish. He wanted to stay in the familiarity of his apartment and wallow for a while in the absolute fucking unfairness of it all.

Five years.

He kept coming back to those two little words. Like Foggy, he just couldn't comprehend that timescale.

Five years.

He'd lost five years of his life.

No. Five years of his life had been stolen from him. Then he'd been dropped back into this new and foreign world to flounder and flail in confusion.

Five years of his life...gone in an instant.

And he knew he wasn't the only person dealing with this tonight - half the universe was, apparently. But that didn't bring much comfort. Because while the event was the same, the individual circumstances were unique to each and every person.

And his unique circumstances just straight-up fucking sucked.

He'd lost Calina. The woman he loved more than life itself. The woman he was planning a future with just yesterday...

A future that had been ripped away.

He felt like he couldn't breathe with missing her. With worrying about her. With wondering what her life had been like these past five years, and what she was doing right at this moment.

Was she missing him, as much as he was missing her?

Was she safe?

Was she hurt?

Was she even alive?

———

7000 miles away, in a medical facility in Wakanda.

The doctor addressed the tall red-head,  who was still wearing her blood-splattered black leather suit. "You need to decide now. The longer we wait, the less chance there is of the treatment working."

His voice was calm and measured - a stark contrast to the chaos behind him. The wounded from the fight this morning had been arriving all day, the sparking yellow circles providing a shortcut between the high tech medical facility in Africa and the scorched battlefield in upstate New York.

The shouts of the medical personnel, the cries of the injured, and the screaming alarms of the machinery made it hard for Anya to think. But she knew what was right for her friend. "Do it."

The petite Widow at her side protested. "But she'll be unconscious for weeks!"

"What's the alternative, Inessa? You heard what he said - her legs are completely crushed. Without this treatment, they'll have to be amputated."

"But she doesn't even know that we're back - that everyone came back. That Matt came back! She deserves to know that before she's put in a coma!"

"Look at her legs, Inessa! There's no amount of morphine in the world that will spare her from that pain. We wake her up now, she'll be in too much agony to think about Matt. The shock might even kill her!" Anya turned back to the doctor, patiently waiting by the side of the pod. "Do what you have to do to save her. Please."

The doctor nodded and pressed the button, sealing up the pod.

A mist of medicated air filled the device, obscuring Calina from view...