You stayed in bed for three days.

You barely allowed any light into your room, and when T'Challa tried to draw you out with the offer of a walk or even just to sit on the balcony outside of your room, you quickly declined him without consideration. You felt guilty about rejecting him when he was suffering too; he had felt the losses, he had witnessed his friends and family disappear just as you had. He lost the same child, and even though it wasn't purposefully happening, he felt like he was losing you too despite being right there just beyond his reach.

"(Y/N), will you be joining me today?"

On the fourth morning, you considered taking him up on at least breakfast outside of your shared quarters, but when you moved to swing your legs over the side of the bed, the thought of your feet touching the floor was practically nauseating. "Maybe tomorrow," you sighed, about to tuck back into the blankets, but T'Challa hurried forward and positioned himself in the way, keeping you in place and forcing you to sit up.

"No, maybe today."

"T'Challa, come on-"

"It's been three days," he argued, "and life is still moving beyond these walls. The sun rises and the sun sets and yet you refuse to see that. Believe me, my love, I understand that there is pain like none you have ever known because I feel it too, but you cannot give up on the life that you have left to live."

"Why shouldn't I?" you fought back with building frustration. "Why should I move forward so easily when half of the universe was wiped clean with the snap of a finger? What's the point? Why are we trying so hard when all it takes is one second to tear it all away?"

"Because that is life, (Y/N). It can end at any moment, and that isn't a new idea." T'Challa paused, staring at you expectantly and waiting for your rebuttal, but it never came. You simply dropped your gaze to the ground and held silent, hoping that he would eventually give up. Instead, he took a step back and turned, moving to the windows. With a quick pull, he forced the heavy curtains apart, allowing the bright morning sun to fill the room. "Look, (Y/N). Come to the window and look at the life that marches on."

"I'll take your word for it."

He was making himself ready to argue further, but once his eyes turned to the sights outside, his demeanor quickly shifted. "(Y/N)...come here," he insisted almost hesitantly, "now."

"Don't order me around like one of your servants-"

"No, that's not what I'm saying," he answered, but his tone had changed suddenly from one of insistence to one of questioning. When you turned to look his way, his attentions were fully aimed at whatever he was seeing through the massive window overlooking the grounds and your argument was put on pause. "Please, come and help me to understand. What is Stark doing? There?"

Just when you thought that nothing could pull you back into life, all it took was the threat of Tony doing something dangerous or foolish to get you onto your feet. "Oh seriously, what now?"

T'Challa kept his gaze locked on Tony's movements, but the sound of your soft footfall allowed him to react with an arm extended to bring you to him. His hold was still as solid as ever, but the gentle tremor of nerves in his muscles didn't escape you; it was likely that they had been there since the moment after the fateful snap, but you hadn't been close enough to him in the past few days to notice. Feeling it now left you awash in regret, but you barely had enough energy for even that much. Your own depression held you down in a blanket of darkness and a lack of desire to push it away. You weren't the same people now that you were a mere four days ago, and neither of you knew if you ever would be again. But as you both worked together to figure out what your teammate was doing, there was a glimmer of better times, when coming together for the greater good brought a deeper satisfaction beyond your own needs; when you were Avengers and when the terrors of the world were so much simpler.

"T'Challa, look," you pointed, squinting to see, "in his hand."

The King held up his wrist, tapping on one of his beads to bring up a closer view, the image of Tony lighting up the room around you. "No, that can't be," he gasped, swiping the image away, "stay here."

"Like hell I will."

"(Y/N)-"

"Don't test me," you warned, "it won't end like you think it will. I love you, T'Challa, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to yield to your orders. This is the last time that I'll remind you. Tony was in my life long before you were, and if he's about to do something that's more than likely to be a terrible idea, I'll walk over you to get to him."

All that T'Challa could do was to step aside, his hand out to allow you to pass and lead the way. He wasn't angry at all by your challenge to his directions; he welcomed it, in fact. Had you turned around to face him again, you would've seen that it was his smile that lit the room now, as his hope that the real you would soon return to him came back to life. "I understand, my love," he whispered, "I dare not lie in your path."

~~~

"What's happening? Captain Rogers? What's going on?" Pete rushed over to Steve, eyes filled with panic and his hands out in front of him as if they were foreign to him. "My hands are tingling."

Steve had been talking to Bucky and Sam, not noticing anything unusual in particular, but now that Parker had pulled him away and shifted his attentions, he began to feel his own senses coming alive, and he began to fear what might be coming. He took a quick inventory of his own nerves and sensations, and found nothing out of the ordinary. "I don't feel anything, Pete. Come here, stay close. Anyone else have anything? Buck?"

"I'm good."

"Sam?"

"Nah, all good here, Cap."

Pete had become the center of the group's attentions now, each of them staring at him as if he could morph or dissipate or simply pop out of existence at any second; in this world that none of them understood, anything could happen and it really wouldn't be that much of a shock. He knew something was happening now, just as he did when the snap happened and his body began to fall apart on Titan. Tony couldn't hold him to reality then, and he didn't even bother to ask Steve to try to hold him here now.

Steve looked around the group, noticing several key players missing, namely the Guardians and Okoye, who still kept a firm hold on your son despite his urging to allow him a moment to hold him. The little one gave him an essence of his memory of you, and he longed for anything that would remind him of what real life was like. He longed for anything that would tell him that this wasn't really the end; but now that Parker was staring at him with that same terror that he must have shown to you in his final moments, Steve began to accept that his longing was misguided. "Pete, try to stay calm. Does anyone know where the others are?"

"The boy is right," Stephen joined in, "something is shifting. I can feel it, too. The universe is unstable."

"We knew that," Wanda added inquisitively, "how can it get any worse?"

"Hey, don't tempt it," Sam scoffed. "I mean, I agree, but let's lock that down, alright?"

Steve was about to agree too, but his words were cut short before he could even open his mouth to utter the first syllable when Peter grabbed his arm and spun him around, desperate to hold on to someone once again.

"S-steve...I don't want to-"

"Pete!" he called out, reaching for him urgently, but his hand swung through as if the boy had never even been there in the first place, leaving him to look at the rest of his team with eyes that had seen more than their share of death. They were eyes that were just so done with it all, leading to a soul that was beginning to die with them. "Oh god," he mumbled, "not again. Please...not again."

~~~

T'Challa was fast; his speed rivaled that of Steve and Bucky, but in this moment, you were faster. Once you were close enough to see what Tony was doing, and once the reality of his stupidity sunk in, your legs found motion that couldn't be stopped. The universe had seen enough death and destruction by Thanos and his manipulation of the Infinity Stones, and to think that Tony Stark was to follow in those same footsteps left you to sprint in the name of life itself.

"Tony! Drop it!"

"(Y/N), stay back!" he warned, pointing a charging repulsor your way. His breaths were ragged, and you could feel his panic emanating even through his helmet. "I'm sorry, but..t-the stones...they were scattered on the grounds...I found them all. The gauntlet was pretty mangled, but I fixed it enough to hold them again. I thought they were all burned out, but look...they came back to life."

"Where did you get a suit," T'Challa joined in, "I thought your suit was destroyed on Titan."

"Your sister is a genius. I've gotta say, once this is over, I've got some serious studying to do." Tony raised up his other hand, showing you the charred but intact gauntlet that Thanos had worn, the destruction after the snap leaving it barely able to slip over the suit covering Tony's hand. "Go back inside, (Y/N). Don't try to stop me. Thanos has been in my head for six years...it has to be me. I have to fix this."

"What are you going to do, Tony? Are you going to shoot me if I try?" you pressed forward, one very slow step at a time. "Please, just take the gauntlet off. That's power that you don't want, okay? That's power that you don't know how to control."

"I have to fix this," he repeated. You could hear the crack in his voice, and the uncertainty in his own decision, and you hoped that you could play into it to make him see his own poor judgement. Getting him to see a bad decision was hard enough on a good day, but with this much at stake, it could be impossible; now that you had heard the story of how he lost Pete on Titan, you knew that the odds were never yours.

"T'Challa," you whispered, "get Thor out here."

"Yes," he agreed, turning to run back, but he never made it more than a few steps.

"Don't bother," Tony barked out, "it's not like this can get any worse right?" He raised the gauntlet just a little higher and turned to look at you, opening his helmet for that final second. "See you on the other side, sweetheart," he smiled painfully, bringing his fingers together with a loud crack of a snap that echoed in every direction, and bled out into eternity.