What If... The Other Half Got Snapped?

A/n: this isn't a reader insert, but I hope you still like it! It's also long, so be prepared!

When Thanos snapped his fingers and fell back into the portal, it was like the entire world just stopped moving. Maybe it did, no one knew exactly what that snap had meant.

What they weren't expecting is, of course, what happened. "Steve?" Bucky asked, alarmed, pointing at the man's side. He looked down, shocked to see his own arm becoming... dust?

"Oh god," he whispered, looking up at Bucky one more time before his entire form just... disappeared.

He wasn't the only one. Off to the side, in the grass, Sam Wilson was struggling to get off the ground. "Sam?" Rhodey called, and they spotted each other. What Sam wasn't expecting was to see Rhodey disappear.

"Holy shit..." he breathed, going over to where he just was. All that was left was dust. Nothing else. "What the hell is going on?" Sam asked over the comms.

All he got was mixed replies, some being expressions of fear at the people dusting away all around them.

T'Challa was trying to get Okoye up from the ground, but he fell backwards when her arm started to disappear. "My King?" she asked, eyes wide with fear of the unknown. He reached out to grab her, but his hand just went straight through, and suddenly she was gone.

"I am Groot!" Groot panicked, seeing Rocket starting to dust before him.

"No, Groot," Rocket forced out, but he was soon gone, too.

Wanda looked up, seeing Thor, Natasha, and Bruce looking around wildly. Then, one by one, they all started to disappear.

"Nat," Bruce called, but soon enough the Hulk Buster armor was falling to the ground, since no one was in it controlling it anymore.

Natasha didn't say a word, she just let her eyes flutter closed and disappeared into a cloud of dust. Thor, on the other hand, was distraught. He wasn't saying any words, just starting and cutting himself off, before he, too, was gone.

Out in space, the Guardians and stray Avengers looked around at each other. Suddenly, Nebula made a noise. "What?" she questioned, looking down at her leg as it disappeared.

"Nebula..." Mantis said, hurrying over, but Nebula was gone before she could get there.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter Parker's eyes were wide with fear as he looked at his mentor with pure fear. "Mr. Stark, what's going on?"

Tony started to sat something and go over to the kid, but he fell forward in a cloud of dust without a single word.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter Parker cried, running over to where he had just been. "Mr. Stark? Where'd you go? What happened? Mr. Stark!"

Quill looked over at Strange, and asked, "What happened? What's going on?" If anyone would know, it would be the man who could wield magic.

He was wrong. "I- I don't know... I think... I think we lost," he said. He didn't understand the stones, or Thanos, or anything other than the Time Stone he used to hold. None of this was right.

Back on Earth, those who were left gathered around Vision's discarded body. Wanda was still holding onto him, tears seemingly never-ending, her grief never-ending.

"What the hell is going on?" Sam asked, his voice dark. They all looked around at each other, unsure of how to answer. None of them knew what just happened. "Did Thanos do this? He- he snapped, right? Is this what snapping does?"

"He wanted to erase half the universe," Wanda said, her voice dead from the screams. "He did it."

At first, no one could move. No one could speak. It wasn't until T'Challa suggested going in the palace did anyone move. They went in, T'Challa leading them to the labs where he hoped and prayed Shuri would still be.

She was, but she was a sobbing mess. "Shuri, what happened?" T'Challa asked, running over to her despite being sore and wounded from battle.

"Mama," she cried. "She- she's gone! Turned to dust right before me!" T'Challa held his sister tight. He tried to reign in his grief for now, because they had more important things to take care of.

"We need to start tracking how many people are... missing..." he started, turning to look at the others. What he saw wasn't a team, however. It was a group of exhausted, seemingly defeated heroes. Wanda wasn't even standing on her own, Sam lending a shoulder for her.

"Rest. We'll... we'll find some rooms for you. In the morning, we'll discuss."

A few days went by where the Avengers took shelter in the Wakandan palace. Everyone had injuries to tend to and shock to try and shake off. Wanda was the worst of them. She hardly came out of her room. It wasn't until Sam received a message from Fury back at the Compound that they finally got into gear. "Thank you, Your Highness, for allowing us to be here in this time. I hope... I hope everything turns out okay," Sam said.

T'Challa nodded, but couldn't get a smile. "Of course. We all needed to heal. Here, take this." He handed Sam an object. "This will keep you in touch with us. We need to start taking numbers on how bad it is around the world."

Sam nodded and gave a last thanks before turning and leaving with the other Avengers. The remaining few. Again, Wanda leaned on Sam heavily as they made it to the Quinjet to go back home.

Well, for some of them, home wasn't a thing anymore.

Two Weeks Later

They had been tracking the numbers of who had disappeared and looked at the damage it all caused since they got back to New York, thanks to Fury's call. A few days after the Avengers got back, a spaceship arrived holding some space people- The Guardians, where Groot was from- as well as Peter Parker and Doctor Strange.

Tony, however, was gone.

They couldn't mourn, though. They had things to do. The people still around needed their heroes no more than ever, so those remaining had to do something for them.

Peter Parker didn't go back to school, because it was all shut down. Projections stated everything would pretty much be shut down for weeks, possibly months on end. He was happy, however, to see that his aunt and his friends had made it. He was with them every day, too scared to see what would happen if he left again.

He wasn't the only one with that kind of guilt. Wanda found it nearly impossible to leave her room. She knew she should go out and help with the heavy lifting. Several large things like helicopters and planes fell from the sky after the Snap. But she couldn't move.

Bucky didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure how his status as a wanted criminal stood, considering the state everything was in. But he also felt lost without Steve, and guilt because in his mind, he'd never get the chance to apologize to Stark.

Strange went back to the Sanctum, in hopes of making sure everything was good there. It was in pieces, so that's where he remained until Sam needed him.

Sam tried his best to hold things together. No one appointed him leader, but no one else wanted the job either. So he took it, and he was doing pretty good. He stayed in communication with T'Challa and Quill up in space.

Things were okay. But not great, not even good. Sam wondered how much time it would take for the universe to heal. He knew a couple weeks was too soon, but at this rate? Would it be months? Years? A decade?

He sighed after a call was done, his head resting on his hand. "You all right there?" Sam picked his head up to look at Bucky. "I mean, as 'all right' as someone can be."

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, I guess so... I just can't help but feel wrong about wanting us to go back to normal, when that can't exist anymore. Not with all those gone..."

Bucky was going to say something inspiring, but a beep on the screen took both men's attention. The security feed pulled up, and Sam jumped up from his chair.

"Tic Tac?"

Minutes later, Scott Lang was pacing the room, shoving a sandwich in his mouth. "So what you're saying," Sam started, his arms crossed, "is that we should time travel in order to save those we lost. Through the quantum realm?"

Scott nodded eagerly.

"Take a look around," Bucky nearly shouted out of annoyance and exhaustion. "Let's say it works, you know, time travel and all that. But who here is smart enough to build a machine? Stark isn't here, and neither is Banner. No one else has any idea how to build a machine, let alone one that time travels..."

"Buck..." Sam mumbled, taking a step closer to the other man, trying to calm him down. Bucky waved him off, however, and took a few steps away.

Scott sighed. "Look, I know it's crazy. But I... I lost my daughter. And I need her back, Mr. Falcon and Mr. Soldier. She's all that I have."

"Yeah, well, take a look around. We don't have much either," Bucky muttered.

But something in Scott's expression suddenly changed, enough that Sam noticed. "What? What is it?"

The man started to smile. "I didn't lose everything. Maybe a good chunk but... I've still got my girlfriend. And her father, Hank Pym. And I'm willing to bet he'd be a good substitute for Tony Stark."

Bucky and Sam shared a look. "How do we talk to him?"

"Leave that to me."

The next day, Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, and Hope Van Dyne were all gathered in the conference room at the compound. "We know time works differently in the quantum realm," Hank started, drawing some different graphics on a whiteboard. "When we pulled Scott out of the realm, he said it had been less than a second in there. My wife, she was in there for decades but it only felt like one."

"So what?" Bucky asked. "Time is weird in there. You got any ideas on how to use it to actually travel through time?"

Hank sighed. "If you let me finish, then yes. We can harness the quantum realm's power and use that to our advantage. If we go in at one point, today, theoretically we could pick any other point in time to come back out."

"Why?" Everyone looked over at Wanda, who had barely spoken since the battle. "It sounds wonderful and all, but why are we time traveling? How is that going to stop any of what has happened?"

No one spoke, because no one had thought about it. Doctor Strange, off in his silent corner, couldn't stop messing with the empty Eye of Agamoto around his neck.

That caused Peter Parker to perk up. "We get the stones." Now, everyone was looking at him, but his mind was racing too much for him to care. "If we can travel back to different points in time, collect all the stones ourselves... I mean, theoretically, we could snap everyone back."

The room was silent. Peter, at first, thought it was because they all thought it was ridiculous. But after the Guardians, him, and Strange located Thanos on a distant planet stone-less, this has been the only thought. How do they get the stones back.

"I like your thinking, kid," Hank said, nodding. Peter smiled, excited to have contributed. "We make the tech, you find the points in history. And- the less stops, the better, okay? I can only make so many Pym Particles in such a short time."

They all got working. Hank, Hope, Janet, and Peter worked on the time travel aspect. Peter was one of the few with machine building experience, and he was pretty good, so he was an obvious pick for that team.

The others had to think back in time to try and pinpoint stone locations. They each only knew so much about the stones. Their most knowledgable, Wanda, was still broken and wouldn't speak. She did sit in on meetings, though, so Sam called that progress.

They didn't know a lot about some of the stones, so Sam got the Guardians online one day to gather intel on the Soul Stone and Power Stone. Lucky for the Avengers, they had a lot to say that gave them a lot to go off of.

"We could use your help with this if you guys can get over here fast enough," Sam said. "You guys know those stones, we'd really appreciate it if you could help get those stones."

They agreed, and would arrive by the next day. And when the Guardians got there, everything was planned. They were ready to get going.

Teams were split: Guardians would go to space to recover the Power Stone, the Soul Stone, and the Reality Stone. No one knew them well enough to ask why Peter Quill had that look on his face when Mantis and Drax volunteered for the Soul Stone.

Sam, Bucky, Strange, and Scott took New York, where they'd recover the Time Stone, the Mind Stone, and the Space Stone. Strange was easily the first pick for the Time Stone, he just had to convince the Ancient One to trust him.

Sam, Bucky, and Scott struggled to figure out the other two at first, considering one of them was a well known murder-machine among the Hydra agents inside of SHIELD, especially Pierce.

"Let's do this." Hank, Janet, and Peter Parker stood by the machine, ready to send them all back in time. When they were gone, Peter Parker couldn't stop pacing around, waiting to see what happens.

Wanda hadn't said a word in hours. She was excited to get the others back, sure. But that didn't include Vision. He was gone gone. She was just glad King T'Challa was kind enough to keep Vision's body there, until she was ready for a funeral when all this was over.

A couple seconds later, they were all arriving back on the platform. It was smiles all around, until they realized they didn't have Mantis. Drax was completely distraught, and Quill left with him to try and help, Groot following close behind.

But they had the stones, and Sam knew they had no reason to wait much longer. "Come on, we have to figure out how to house the stones and who can snap."

"Actually," Peter Parker jumped in. "We were thinking, and what if we made a gauntlet? I mean, that's what Thanos used and we're sure we can do it."

Sam nodded. "Call Shuri- uh, Princess Shuri and see if she's got any insight or materials we could use."

Peter nodded enthusiastically. He led the others to the lab and they started getting to work right away. They took the collected stones as well, putting them all in safe places while they worked and talked.

Sam called a meeting for everyone, besides those in the lab, to talk about the issue of who was snapping. Thanos didn't come out of that in the best condition, his entire arm nearly being burnt to a crisp. And he was a titan.

"Who here is strong enough for that. Physically and mentally?" Sam asked. His first thought had actually been Wanda, but she was in no place mentally for this kind of task. Then, he went to Drax, but same issue.

No one spoke for a second. Then, Groot stood and nodded. "I am Groot."

While the Avengers had absolutely no idea what the hell he just said, the Guardians started clamoring and talking all at once. No one interrupted, letting them work it all out. Plus, they didn't know what Groot was saying, so they didn't know how to contribute.

A minute later, Quill looked defeated. "All right. Groot'll try to snap. He's got a failsafe just in case things don't work like we want."

It was set. A day later, after over twenty-four hours of straight work, a gauntlet was ready for them. They had made it out of a bunch of left over materials in the lab, which meant there were bright read pieces from Iron Man suits. Almost like a reminder of what this was for.

"All right, all we want to do is bring them back. That's it. We're right here in case anything goes wrong," Sam said. Those not snapping, so everyone but Groot, were behind shields of all kinds.

Groot nodded, and slowly the gauntlet was placed on his arm, one that he had grown to be large and hopefully take enough of the power. Once it was fully on, Groot cried out and he fell to his knee.

"Groot!" Quill called, going to step forward, but getting caught by Drax, who muttered something about not losing anyone else. "Groot, stop now!"

Bucky saw the tree's arm was starting to burn under the gauntlet. "Take it off, take it off!" he called out.

Drax and Quill hurried forward and Drax used his sword to chop Groot's arm off. Sam swore loudly, obviously shocked, but Groot immediately calmed down, and even started the process of growing back a new arm.

"Now what?" Bucky asked, his defeatist attitude starting to rub off on Sam.

Then, a new voice spoke up. "Let me." Shocked, everyone turned to look at the woman who hadn't spoken in weeks. Wanda stepped forward, changed from her pajamas to her suit. "I can do this."

Those words she spoke directly to Sam, who couldn't help but believe her. He nodded. "But like with Groot- if things aren't working, if you're too hurt... take it off."

She smiled. "Don't worry, I can do it."

She stepped up and everyone got back into their shielded positions. Wanda kneeled down and used her powers to pick up the gauntlet and place it on her arm. When it was first placed on, she could feel the power surging through her.

"Wanda?" Bucky called out, but she shook her head.

"I... I got this..." she forced out. She lifted the gauntlet up and let out a breath. "Bring everyone back," she whispered, then snapped.

A bright light filled the room but was gone in an instant. Sam hurried forward and got the gauntlet off Wanda's arm. There was damage, but it looked like it would heal. She'd be okay.

No one moved. "How do we know it worked...?" Peter Parker asked.

There wasn't an answer. When Sam opened his mouth to answer, he suddenly heard something ringing in the other room. He turned, heading to it, and saw it was the screen he used to communicate with Wakanda.

"Hello? T'Challa, what's going on?" Sam asked once he picked up the call.

"People... they're just... reappearing out on the field," he said, shock written everywhere on his face.

Sam's eyes went wide. "Wait... they're back? Like, everyone who disappeared?" he asked.

"Not many others would suddenly materialize out here, so I think so," T'Challa answered.

He couldn't help it. Sam started laughing with pure joy, pumping his fist in the air. "Holy shit- it worked!" he yelled, running back into the other room. "It worked, T'Challa says they're showing back up in Wakanda!"

A collective sigh of relief ran through the group, happiness spreading throughout. The Guardians made the point that that meant Tony and Nebula were still on Titan, so they left immediately to go grab them, promising to return in a couple days.

The others were chatting happily, but Bucky noticed Wanda was sitting off to the side, where she went right after he finished bandaging her arm up. "Hey," he said, coming over and sitting with her.

"I'm happy everyone's back," Wanda said, nodding to him. "Really."

"But you're sad that you're the only one who didn't get everyone back..." Bucky observed. Wanda nodded. Bucky didn't need to try and make her feel better, there wasn't much he could say that wasn't a straight lie, so he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and comforted her while the others talked to Strange and T'Challa.

Slowly, they got the Avengers back to the Compound. Once Strange got everyone on Wakanda- including Rocket, who was a little pissed the others left before grabbing him- he went back to the New York Sanctum to figure out what else he needed to do, and to see if Wong made it back.

Steve and Sam embraced, but when Steve went to look for Bucky, Sam nodded his head. "He's with Wanda right now... she snapped you guys back, but she's struggling since that doesn't include Vision."

The man nodded. He thought for a second, then turned to Sam. "When Tony gets here, I'll ask and see if he can do anything. I mean, he helped create Vision in the first place."

Sam nodded, feeling a bit happier for Wanda. "But," Steve continued, "we should probably not tell Wanda until talking to Tony. Don't want to get her hopes up."

The Avengers knew they had some things to do, like go around and ensure the safe reintroduction of the Snapped back into society.

But for tonight, and honestly the next couple days after Tony was returned safely, they stayed in and just talked for hours. Steve was extremely impressed when Bucky told him about Sam stepping up to the leadership plate, and put that into his notes for whenever he retired, probably not for another couple years, but he'd be ready.

And even without Vision, Wanda was so happy to see the others back. Nat was the one to sit and grieve with her the most, and talk to her and help get her out of the slump Wanda had put herself in for weeks. (Tony may or may not have been working on plans to try and get Vision back to life, but it would take him time.)

Everyone was just happy to be home.

~Fin~

A/n: so, tell me your thoughts, but I think I'm going to make the rest of my 'What If' series non-reader inserts? Just because it's kind of hard for me to produce the storylines of how something changes with one thing being different when there's a whole new character. Let me know what you think please!! I love hearing from you guys :)

This one felt easy at first, and then I realized I would have to think about how everything would be drastically different with completely different people around after the snap. Figured if Hank Pym was there, it'd go about faster. So this is what I got!

Also... this is my 100th imagine, guys... holy shit

See you next week Lovelies!!!!!!