When the brilliance faded around him, Wade forced his eyes open, only to find the sky a menacing, deep black, just as he had seen from miles away before Thanos had fallen. Only this time, he was in the middle of the fight, an unwilling participant in a war that he had successfully missed the first time. But now, he was the ringleader; the controller of this fate, and when faced with the challenge, he wanted to scream and run away without looking back. It was nothing more than the sight of you fighting for your life that held him in place.

"(Y/N)!" he called out to you, but you didn't react at all. It was as if he wasn't even there, and with each second, he began to realize that he really wasn't. He tried to talk to Tony next, only to get the same response. It was a twisted, evil dream that he was locked into, watching Avengers fall for the final time all around him. The sounds of the crumbled and burning compound were so real, and he could feel the heat emanating from it, but it wasn't true; it was a replay of past events that he was watching like a shitty horror film. He heard the sound of Anthony calling out to you, knowing that your last moment had come, and he was stupid enough to look. It was that vision, the ease with which Thanos snapped your neck, the lack of care in his eyes, that sent Wade over the edge, but maybe that was exactly what he needed to get this right.

"Wilson."

"What the fuck?" Wade spun around, panic setting in from hearing the voice that came from everywhere. "Who's there?"

"Wilson, you must focus for this to work. Now is not the time for impassioned disconnect."

"Okay? Not the answer to my question-"

"Close your eyes and focus on only the specific point in time that you wish to intervene upon," Loki's voice boomed over the grounds, "the Gauntlet needs precise direction. It is an all-powerful tool that must be controlled clearly, purposefully, or you will continue to miss your intentions."

"And how exactly do you know so much...Mr. Voice-Over? I thought that guys like you weren't added until post-production?"

"I know so much, because I once wanted the Gauntlet as Thanos did, before I realized the true nature of its hold. You must act quickly, Wade Wilson, or its power will consume you. I do not wish to destroy you when you seem of honest purpose."

Wade sighed heavily and dropped his arms to his sides, the weight of the Gauntlet pulling him off balance. He was just so tired of the fight, and the death around him at every turn was seeping into his mind like a parasite, eating away at his resolve to just stay standing. "Why the hell is everyone so bent on destroying each other? I really miss the days when you could just punch a fucker, ya know? Good 'ol fashioned smack down, not this mythical, hocus pocus bullshit that I don't have a fucking clue how to work. I don't know why I said that I'd do this in the first place. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but maybe Stark was right-"

"Focus now, or you will lose everything."

"I've already lost everything!" Wade finally snapped. "Look at her! She's dead! What the hell else is there that could be any worse? What the shit do you think that I have left to lose?!"

"A chance," Loki answered softly, "and one that you shall not have again. I suggest that you remove your anger and focus on that...or who, you wish to have returned to you, because now is the time to act. When you are considering your course, I might afford the risk of asking a favor in repayment of my guidance here, if you will."

"Sure...why the hell not," Wade shrugged, his body and soul beaten by the task greater than he had ever imagined. "What can I fuck up for ya?"

From the far side of the lawn, just beyond the debris and loss of life, Loki emerged, though it appeared to be merely an image of him, wavering and transparent. Wade reluctantly approached to meet him, not allowing himself to look down at what and who he had to step over to get there. The false Loki stopped a few feet away, a hand up to stop Wade from getting any closer. "My brother, Thor," he began, "Thanos took his life as well, and I would ask that you consider him in your plans."

"Goldilocks? No way! I thought that you god-types were unbreakable."

Loki's form turned and looked behind him, seeming to be speaking to someone who wasn't there and that Wade couldn't hear. When he turned back, his expression was far more urgent, and Wade was put back on immediate alert. "Please, we're nearly out of time. The universe in your reality is unstable with you in here. Time wasn't meant to be controlled in this manner, and the cost can be quite high. I will go, and you must focus, and you must destroy Thanos before he can bring this fate. I am truly sorry, but you must become the hero that you have worked so diligently to refute."

As Wade hurriedly agreed and lifted the Gauntlet towards the sky once again with renewed purpose, Loki faded away, his true form light-years away and with his newest, unlikely friends. "He will succeed," he announced to the group, "he must."

The rest of the Guardians sat in complete silence as the stars around them began to fade away, leaving an endless, black universe around them, planets disappearing one by one as they watched helplessly. Despite the terror in every direction, Rocket laughed at the update from the god, drawing his confused attentions.

"You know, you sure just put a hell of a lot of faith in a mutant with a leather fetish, big guy."

~~~

The warm glow of the spring sun was gone, and the beautiful laughter of your children had faded away; the promise of a peaceful eternity had been stripped away, and you found yourself struggling to survive in the blink of an eye. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't move. You felt nothing. You wanted to look at what was happening around you, to find anyone alive with you, but your head was twisted and your neck broken to hold you in place, and your sight was gone. Your voice was silenced without air, and your body useless without sensation. When a voice finally came, you could barely hear it through the blood that had pooled in your ears, and you couldn't find the joy within yourself to celebrate their survival. It felt as if you weren't even in your own body, as if you were caught in a moment that kept replaying over and over.

"(Y/N), don't try to speak," Stephen said calmly. His hands were holding your neck perfectly still, though you had no power to move anyway. "It's over. Thanos is dead. But you've been severely injured-" he stopped, bolting to sit up straighter to see someone joining him. "Captain, over here! She's alive!"

Steve sprinted to your side, with Tony right behind, dropping to the ground to take your hand just to allow his mind to accept the truth and believe that Stephen wasn't lying to him. It wouldn't be beyond reason to think that he was dreaming, and he needed the tactile connection to make it true. "(Y/N), honey, I'm here. You're going to be okay, just let Stephen work. I'm here, baby. I'm not leaving, I promise. Just...j-just stay with us."

"Please tell me that you can help her," Tony whispered to the doctor, his eyes filled with horror as he watched Stephen's hands slowly move over your skin. It didn't make any sense; how everyone else was restored and for the most part uninjured, but yet here you were, left just as you were after Thanos took you down. "Why is she still hurt? Why didn't she get turned back with the rest of us?"

"I don't know."

"(Y/N)!" Wade came next, running to you just as Steve had, taking his place next to Tony. "What the hell, why are you still hurt? Tony...I swear, I turned it all back...I don't get it. I killed him and made sure that I went back far enough just like Loki said-"

"Loki?" Tony shot up, looking to each man and back. "You saw him? What about Thor? Did you see Thor? Is he alive?"

"Yeah, he's totally fine, sends his love," Wade dismissed him, "but seriously, what did I do wrong? (Y/N), I'm sorry, I thought I did everything right. I only did it for you."

"We need to get her inside," Stephen warned, "she's getting hypothermic. I'll call in the best neurosurgeon in the country and take her to him. I'll need Banner to join me."

"But I still have the Gauntlet," Wade began to argue, "can't we just zap her back to normal or something? Isn't that green rock supposed to be yours? You can turn her back to the way she was, right? Do some of that fluffy, hand-wavey crap."

"If she didn't respond to the Gauntlet with the time stone intact, there's no more that I can do with it on its own."

Steve and Tony exchanged knowing glances, the two men replaying the scenario from years before when you had suffered an eerily similar injury. Tony was wondering if that played into this somehow, but it didn't make sense and he was grasping at straws; there was something different going on here from what had happened to the others, something that was keeping you from being pulled back. As much as it tore at his heart and psyche, he allowed himself to replay the death of each of his friends one by one, trying to analyze and spot a difference in any detail. "Steve," he whispered, leaning in closer to the Captain, "is there anything you can think of that makes her...ugh...her death...different from the others?"

Steve shook his head at first, thinking that it was an easy answer, and also to avoid the pain of the replay, but one clear and obvious thing came to light within seconds, his enhanced memory serving him very well despite the meddling with it by the Gauntlet. "He touched her," he said urgently, "that's it. Thanos touched her and he had that thing on at the time. Could that be what's blocking her out?"

"Perhaps," Stephen guessed, trying to pull the information from his study of the Infinity Stones, all while keeping his professional mind intact enough to keep you stable. "Maybe, I suppose...anything is possible. The stones have power that we barely understand...maybe...she could be held in a transition, or a realm between the eternal and reality."

"So, what do we do?"

"Mr. Wilson," the sorcerer turned to Wade, "the Gauntlet. Where is it?"

"I'm not so sure that I want to tell you now if you don't know what you're doing. What are you gonna try?"

"We have no time for hesitation-"

"Wade...please," Steve begged, his grip practically crushing your hand within his. "You know that I'll do anything, and I'm pretty sure that you will too. But you also know that I will get it from you if you won't give it to us on your own."

"Hey, calm down, Sparkles, I'll give it to you. No need for the Captain voice. I just want everyone to take a second and bring it in, okay? Take a breath and focus on what we're about to do. That Loki guy was big on that, and I think he might have had a pretty decent point going." He pushed up from his spot next to you, leaving a hasty kiss on your hand before releasing it to rush across the compound lawn; he had hidden the Gauntlet before he had come to check on you, and honestly, he had no idea what he would even do with the damn thing when this had all settled down. One thing he knew for sure, as he picked it up and remembered the feeling of wearing it, was that he wasn't about to give it to Stark again. "Here," he offered, jogging back and panting, "the less I need to hold onto this the better."

Steve reached for it first, but Strange swatted his hand away and took it readily, allowing it to slide over his own hand without hesitation. He had no idea what was about to happen, even with his studies in the mystical, and now that he was beginning to feel the surging of omnipotence washing over him, he feared that he might never let this go. "Captain, if I should lose my control, you must stop me, whatever that takes."

"Understood."

The Doctor closed his eyes and concentrated on his intentions, his commitment to you as both your friend and as a physician, trying to hear what the stones were saying to him as they gripped his mind. He prided himself on his mental abilities, but this was foreign territory, and the sensation of losing himself within them was both terrifying and fascinating. Voices became clearer in his consciousness, indistinguishable at first until he began to push the intrusive noise away in search of only one. "Talk to me, (Y/N)," he whispered aloud, not realizing he had done it and that Steve was hanging on his every breath. "Tell me where you are."

~~~

It was maddening how you could hear everyone around you, their voices muffled and distant, but you couldn't get your mind to connect with your body to answer them. It felt as if you were locked into yourself, an unwilling captive to an unknown warden of your mind's prison. The last thing that you remembered was the look in Thanos' eyes as he glared down at you, and the flash of his hand coming closer, and then...this. This purgatory he had somehow dammed you to, with no sense of hope left that you would ever find your way back.

Without your sight, you felt like a sitting duck for anything or anyone who might come for you now, unaware that the battle had ended and that your team and family had been restored. For all you knew, your body was lying in wait, for someone to give the final twist that would release you from this nightmare. You never were one for patience, and the silence had always been a little maddening, and the punchline to this particular joke couldn't come soon enough.

"Here," a voice spoke softly over you, "Doctor Strange, this way. She is trapped within the soul stone, you must free her before she cannot be released. I have made an attempt but I am not powerful enough on my own."

"How do I do that?" Stephen asked the other voice, and now you were certain that you were hallucinating on the brink of your final moments.

"Take her hand, I will assist you. If we combine our energies, perhaps we can be successful."

"If we're not?"

"Then you will meet the same fate, and will spend your eternity trapped with her."

Stephen reached his mind further, taking your hand within his and waiting for direction. When another hand appeared across from him to take yours, his eyes slowly marched up the form that he knew very well, and he couldn't help but feel remorse and affection for the man who had come to save you both. "Vision...how..." he gasped, "how do I bring you with us? I can't leave you here."

"You will, Doctor. You are not strong enough to take us both, and I cannot let you leave without (Y/N). Her purpose is far greater than my own, and her family needs her."

"Wanda needs you, Vision."

"Wanda is stronger than the credit you give her," he smiled sadly, "and she will persevere. Now, you must pull your attention towards one goal, and allow me to lead you home." Vision closed his eyes to prepare himself, but he stopped at the sensation of Strange still staring at him in complete shock and disbelief at what he was hearing. "Stephen, please...when you see her, tell her...tell her that I will always love her."