10 || ashes to ashes

"THIS CAN'T-- THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING. I WAS SUPPOSED TO FIX IT."

-Wakanda, April 2018-

The blinding white light and silence that echoed through the forest after the snap seemed to go on forever.

Alison swore she could feel part of her shatter into pieces, something deep inside of her that she had never been acutely aware of breaking like glass, her insides crawling with the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

Everything that happened next seemed to happen within seconds, each moment rapidly following the next.

Thor, standing in front of the not dead Thanos.

The gauntlet, burned and smoldering in Thanos' hand, melted into his skin.

And the screams of "What did you do?" from Thor that would forever be stuck inside of Alison's mind as Thanos merely used the space stone to disappear from the scene, the only proof that he was ever there in the first place being the axe Thor had tried to kill him with.

Alison knew that there was a limited amount of time before she could take action, before the present became too solid and tangible enough that she couldn't reverse the actions of what had occurred (Strange had told her that around try seven). Feeling the tight restrictions of the vines that had entrapped her loosen, Alison tried to get up, hearing Steve's footsteps come right beside her.

"Hey, hey." Steve wrapped an arm around Alison, shocked that she was even down at the scene after what they had discovered when she had so unceremoniously passed out on their entrance into Wakanda. Pulling her into a standing position, he left a light hand of support against her back, trying to take inventory of all of the injuries the young woman had experienced. "What are you doing down here?"

"I have to– I have to fix this. I–" Alison gasped, trying to take deep breaths as the feeling of Thanos' hands around her throat, constricting her air, returned with a fervor, her words falling into gasps. "I need to go, now–"

"We'll worry about that in a second." Steve tried to reassure the teenager, seeing her breaths hitch as she struggled to maintain her composure. "We need to figure this out." Turning to Thor, his own breaths heavy as his side burned.

"Where'd he go?"

Looking around at the sudden silence of the battlefield, all the commotion seemingly coming to a halt, a chill ran down Alison's spine. "Something's not right." She whispered, her voice barely able to push out the words that she wanted in that moment.

"Thor." Steve asked again, staring his Asgardian teammate in the eyes, nervous for the answer that awaited him. His eyes naturally followed the path that Alison's had moments before, hearing her whisper of alarm. "Where'd he go?"

"Steve?" The crunch of leaves behind them caused Steve to turn, seeing Bucky walk towards him. But something was off as the former Winter Soldier moved towards them. His body– it seemed to be disintegrating before their eyes. It happened in the blink of an eye. Bucky was there, walking towards them, and then suddenly his body was dust, the gun he was holding dropping to the ground with a loud thunk.

"No. This can't be–" Alison squeezed her eyes shut at the scene, the sinking feeling in her stomach only growing bigger as she began to understand what was happening. She was too late. This couldn't be something that was reversed– and Ali was confident that Thanos had put up safeguards to ensure she couldn't erase what he had just done.

This was actually happening.

In his own shock, Steve stumbled over to where his best friend once stood, leaving Alison to stand unsteadily on her own. He kneeled down slowly, Steve himself understanding what was happening as he made eye contact with Thor. Reaching out his hand, terrified to accept what had happened, Steve touched the ground where his best friend had stood, silence washing over the three who stood in the clearing.

That moment of silence was broken when the cries of Okoye shouting for someone came through the forest, shouting for someone Alison assumed had also crumbled to dust before her very eyes. The teenager couldn't believe it.

This wasn't some scenario that was a what-if, something that they needed to try and stop from occurring anymore. It was reality, and the world as they knew it was shifting and changing before their very eyes.

Turning to see Wanda, her friend who had just lost her lover and the sacrifice she had made for him, Alison stumbled towards her, falling to the ground close to where Vision and the sorceress knelt. "Wanda?" It was too late. She could see the young woman dissolving into the same dust that had taken Bucky, and was sure had taken others. Making eye contact with Wanda, Alison saw a tear be shed from her eyes before she was dust too.

"Sam!" Rhodey's voice shouted through the other end of the forest, getting no response. "Sam, where you at?" Alison closed her eyes as a tear rolled down her face, knowing that this was the end of the line. There was no time travel to work out a different ending, no possible solution to get them out of the situation they were in. People were dying. Half of the universe was dying.

Oh god.

Alison's mind turned to Peter. Peter, and Tony, and Strange– who she had left to go to an alien planet. What was she thinking? They were up there, alone, with the knowledge that she was trying to make things better. To make things right. So that this scenario would never happen. So that they would win.

She didn't even want to fathom the idea of who would make it back. No, not just who would make it back– if they would make it back at all. And what they would say to her, what they would do– knowing that she had failed at the one thing she had a chance to fix.

Alison was supposed to do this. Supposed to allow them to win, to be able to come home from space, reunite with the people she cared about– to reunite with Peter. Peter, the boy she loved. The love she could never express to his face until it was too late. Until death's door had knocked for her and he had decided that it was better to be apart than it was to have her suffer beside him.

She knew the odds weren't in her favor. How could all three get back? Fate was never on her side, was never on Peter's side. And what with Thanos' insistence that it be truly random, the scales balanced in a way that had no consideration for those Alison cared about. There was no right, no wrong. There was simply a balance.

She just had to hope that fate was kind enough to bring them home. To bring Peter  home.

Hearing a commotion of people stirring around her, the screams and confusion of others seemed to distract Alison for a moment. But then she felt the unmistakable buzz against her wrist. One that was a warning that the other was in danger. That they needed the other to be there, just in case shit went sideways and not in their favor.

She felt the buzzing of her charm again, this time unmistakable. Alison didn't want to believe it, didn't want to accept that her worst nightmares were coming true. And yet they were, in unmistakable clarity as a consequence of her failure. She looked down, tears already filling her eyes as her heart dropped to her stomach.

Alison was wrong.

Her hopes and prayers to fate were futile.

"No. No no no no no no–" The light inside of the small bracelet she wore with Peter's little spider insignia began to flash sporadically, before the light faded out entirely. She knew what that light meant. She knew what had transpired up in space, millions of miles from where she stood.

Peter was gone.

Tapping the charm, hoping to everything that she was wrong, that it was simply a glitch because they were so far apart, Alison hoped that what she was thinking wasn't true. It couldn't be true. Peter couldn't be gone. He just couldn't. They had planned a trip to Boston to see schools, to try and see if some of Alison's old family was still around, to visit places that Ali had for her childhood. He had promised to come home to her, no matter how far or when.

He had promised.

The steady thump of Peter's heartbeat that she would normally feel when she tapped the charm was gone. There was a ringing in her ears as her world crashed down around her. They had lost. But she had lost everything. Alison was the reason that this had happened, that Peter was– that Peter was dead.

She didn't want to think about what happened next. Why would she? With the hand that fate had dealt her, Alison was sure that she would find Skylar in a pile of dust in the Wakandan lab and her cousin and brother nothing but a memory back in New York.

How was she supposed to–

Her ears were ringing, mind completely blank as she disassociated from the moment. Alison didn't care what came next, didn't care to notice Natasha run over to where she kneeled, Steve joining the two as they rolled over Vision's body. It was lifeless, and part of her truly wished that she wasn't here, Alison squeezing her eyes shut to hide the tears on her face. That she was wherever Peter had disintegrated into dust. That she was anywhere but there, next to people who truly had no idea what she had just done. What she had lost.

"What is this?" Rhodey questioned, feeling like one of the only people who truly didn't understand what was going on anymore. That caused Alison to open her eyes, to stare directly at the man who was best friends with Tony. God. Tony. How was she going to tell Rhodey she wasn't sure if they were ever coming back from space? That Peter, the other pain in the ass kid that would ambush him with Tony while Rhodey was at work, was dead, and she had no idea if Tony was ever going to come back. "What the hell is happening?"

Steve stumbled down next to Alison, placing a tentative hand of support on her shoulder as he grappled with the reality of what had just happened himself. As he took a shuddering breath, all he could muster was a whisper– "Oh god."

"They're gone, aren't they?" Natasha asked, seeing Alison's face frozen in grief and loss, understanding that she had some connection to the crew up in space in some unfathomable way. The teenager looked at Natasha with a sense of fear and failure that was unmistakable, confirming her own worst nightmares had come to life. "They're gone."

"We lost." Alison murmured, shaking her head as her mind raced with a million thoughts per second. There was no undoing this, no fix to what had just happened. Her enemy lay dead in the forest somewhere, her boyfriend a pile of dust on another planet. Everything was lost. Her world had shattered, and she felt like she was underwater, trying to breathe while her lungs were filled with water, choking her, squeezing her tightly until she couldn't go on.

"I failed." 

<~*~> 

sorry for the shorter chapter, wanted to keep it more concise as to not drag or take away from the situation. I am sorry but also not sorry! 

next chapter is a bitch of one (like 9000+ words) 

hang onto your hats