(22 Days Later)

The universe is in disarray, Thanos had won, half of life gone by the snap of his fingers. It is truly a chaotic conclusion to a battle, and currently, Nebula, Tony Stark, and Y/N L/N are all in the Benatar, slowly drifting in space after the fuel has run dry about a few days before. Currently, both Nebula and Tony are playing table-top football while Y/N tallies their points on a whiteboard by using his mouth to hold the marker, watching their game unfold. As Tony lines up the folded triangle on the table and readies for the flick, Nebula makes a goal post with her pointer fingers touching one another and her thumbs pointing upwards. Then, Tony flicks the triangle, but on instinct, Nebula growls, trying to grab the triangle, eliciting a reaction from Tony and Y/N.

"Oh! You don't need to do that." Tony points out to Nebula, while Y/N tries his best not to laugh out loud seeing as Nebula has been trained to be a weapon for her ex-father, so she doesn't know much about games in general. "Because, uh, you're just holding the position." He continues to explain, holding up the same hand position as Nebula did, allowing her to have her turn to flick the triangle, which she does with some growls, but she does manage to score one, allowing Y/N to mark one on the whiteboard, making the score 1:1. A few minutes pass by as they continue playing before Nebula manages to score one more goal, ending the game in her favor.

"And the game goes to, Nebula." Y/N announces, tallying up the score to 10:7 in her favor before spitting out the marker in his mouth.

"Good sport. Have fun?" Tony asks, holding up his hand to her for a shake, which causes Nebula to study his hand confusingly before grasping it, reciprocating the shake.

"It was fun." She points out before the slightly happiness in the Benatar reverts back to grief and silence as Y/N puts the whiteboard clean and heads towards the bridge, looking out at the colorful view that is outer space, hoping to whatever deity is out there that someone, anyone can come save them from this predicament. Tony follows shortly, holding up his broken Iron Man helmet and sets it down on the floor as he sits in front of it, pressing a button on the inside of it. A light blinks shortly after, his helmet is recording like a video camera.

"This thing on? Hey, Ms. Potts.Pep. If you find this recording,don't post it on social media.It's going to be a real tearjerker." Tony starts off as he speaks to the helmet, leaning back to reveal his skinny and haggard self. "I don't know if you're ever goingto see these. I don't even know ifyou're still...God, I hope so.Today's day twenty-one, no..." He explains before pausing, trying to double check how many days it's been since they've been adrift in space.

"Twenty-two, Tony." Y/N pipes up off screen.

"Yup, twenty-two, thanks kid." He says, pointing to the armless man, who goes back to looking back out at space.

"You know, if it wasn't for theexistential terror of staring intothe literal void of space, I'd sayI'm feeling a little better today.Infection's run its course, thanksto the Blue Meanie back there.You'd like her. She's verypractical. And only a tiny bitsadistic." Tony recalls during their first few days in the Benatar where Nebula is seen sealing his stab wound shut with a high powered laser as Y/N is seen walking back and forth in worry.

"The fuel cells were cracked duringbattle, but we figured out a way toreverse the ion charge. Boughtourselves about 48 hours of flighttime. Problem is that wasabout...49 hours ago." He continues before the scene changes to where Tony and Nebula are trying their best to fix the fuel cells as Y/N wobbles towards them, numerous tools on his back like a delivery mule, but unfortunately, he falls to the ground, the tools scattered all over the place.

"Which means, we're dead in thewater. A thousand light years fromthe nearest 7-11. Most of the quote-unquote 'food'and potable water ran out two weeksago. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning, and...that'll be it." The scene then cuts to Tony opening up a bag of "rations" and offering some food to Nebula, who silently pushes the bag towards him, seeing as he is human and needs it more than she or Y/N does, and speaking of him, he is seen sitting down on one of the chairs in the bridge as Nebula and Tony are seated together and eat.

"Pep, I know I said no moresurprises. But, I gotta say, I wasreally hoping to pull off one lastone. But it looks like...well, youknow what it looks like." Tony by this point has a hand on his face, distraught at having to accept his fate to the Benatar, dying of the lack of oxygen and/or lack of food and water. "Don't feel bad about this. I mean,actually, if you grovel for acouple weeks, and then move on withenormous guilt...I should probablylie down for a minute, rest myeyes. Please know, when I driftoff, it will be like every daylately. I'm fine, totally fine.I'm going to dream about you. It'salways you." Then, after saying what needs to be said, Tony switches off his helmet and lays down for a little nap.

Back with Y/N, tears start to stream down his eyes once more, hearing everything that Tony has said just moments ago, it pains him to think that one of his closest friends will soon die without the people he loves nearby to reassure him in anyway possible. Before long, he walks to the back of the ship and sees Nebula cleaning up the mess in the dining area from when they had just played table-top football and gives her a solemn look. And she replies with a simple nod before heading to the bridge to take care of Tony.

"Fucking hell..." Y/N mutters, thinking back to what had all gone wrong in that battle, how close they could've been to removing the gauntlet and saving the trillions of lives. But all he can do now is cry. However, before he can get some bittersweet rest, a bright light starts to seep into the ship, and the source is coming from the bridge, he and Nebula quickly head back there to see that something is approaching them.

"What is that?" Nebula asks, a little on guard for what might come, but Y/N stays completely still, tears of joy replacing the tears of sadness.

"It's not a what, it's a who. That's the love of my life." Y/N shakily says, and lo and behold, Carol Danvers stares at the three of them, a stray tear dripping down her face after seeing the condition of her beloved, no arms and all.

"Can you open the door for me? I have some oxygen cartridges and a mask for Stark, also some food." Carol asks, causing Nebula to look at Y/N, who also looks to the ex-daughter of Thanos and nods to her. She then heads to the door of the ship and allows Carol in as she rushes to her boyfriend and embraces him tightly, the dam now broken as the tears continuously fall down her face.

"When I had seen the people disappear into dust, I-I thought you were gone too." She lets out her feelings before the two of them share a quick but passionate kiss.

"I'm fine, Carol. Tony isn't. Let's get him some oxygen in his lungs and food in his stomach." Y/N says, and she nods before rushing to Tony, placing the mask on him as he gasp for a much need big breath of air.

"It's good to see you again, Danvers." Tony greets said person.

"You too, Stark. I'm taking you three back to Earth, so fasten your seatbelts " Carol informs them, and they all nod before getting into position, strapping themselves in as Carol flies back out of the ship and clings onto the bottom before she starts to fly in the direction of Earth.

(On Earth)

Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, is seen just about done finishing his shaving as he sets the razor aside and wipes his face free from the shaving cream. As he looks at himself in the mirror, reflecting on the battle in Wakanda, the mirror starts to shake and the water ripples slightly. He inspects the strange shaking before looking up, hearing a low thrumming sound, causing him to get dressed and head out to the front lawn, where Pepper, Natasha, Rhodey, Bruce, and Pietro all are, looking up at the returning Carol Danvers, carrying the Benatar.

The ramp door the ship lowers, and out come Nebula, Y/N, and Tony, with the last one looking a lot worse for wear. Steve comes running over to the three of them and helps Tony, who is a little bit shaken up but relieved to be on Earth soil once more.

"We couldn't stop him." Tony says, referring to him and Y/N specifically.

"Neither could we." Steve responds back, nodding to the armless man, who reciprocates it as well.

"I...I...I lost the kid." Tony informs him, heartbroken over the retelling that Steve couldn't say much else. "Is...?" He tries to ask when Pepper, Tony's wife, comes over, relieved to have her husband back as the two of them go for a much needed embrace. Then with Nebula, who sits on the steps of the Benatar, is then joined by Rocket Racoon who has lost his son-figure Groot in the battle of Wakanda as the tree-like entity's last words to the racoon was "Dad". The two of them silently hold hands, consoling one another over the loss of their own family members.

With Y/N, he is seen being accompanied by Pietro and Natasha, who stay by his side to make sure that he doesn't fall over or stumble on the way back into the compound.

"W-Who did we lose on Earth...?" Y/N asks shakily, hesitant to hear about the many other people that have disappeared from the snap.

"T'Chala, his sister Shuri, Sam Wilson aka Falcon who is one of Steve's friends, Bucky-" Natasha recalls who have disappeared, but when she brings up Steve's old war buddy, Y/N's head turns to the spy.

"Steve's old buddy is alive?" He asks before she nods her head, leaving it as a story for another time.

"Vision and Wanda are gone too..." Pietro points out, seeing the former Mind Stone wielder as a brother figure since both him and Wanda were madly in love with each other.

"I could've stopped him. If only I wasn't so weak..." Y/N mutters to himself but neither Pietro, Natasha, or Carol, who has joined up with them, are having any none of those negative words as they all head inside while also reassuring the armless man that he shouldn't say such things.

(Time Skip)

"It's been twenty-three days sinceThanos came to Earth." Rhodey points out as everyone, except Nebula and Y/N but including a silent Thor, are seen around a holo-table with the planet while images of people they know are shown in twos. Some photos elicit tears, like from Pietro when he sees the face of his twin sister, or Carol when she sees the face of her close friend Nick Fury but she does her best to bite back emotion, even Tony, who looks at a picture of Peter, turns his head away before Rhodey turns off the hologram.

"World governments are in pieces, asyou can imagine. But the partsthat still work are trying to takea census. It looks like he didwhat he said he was going to do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent ofall the living creatures on Earth." Natasha states, as Y/N is seen meditating in another room adjacent to the one everyone is in as he is getting himself new arms, his body glowing white.

"Where is he now?" Tony asks.

"We don't know. He just opened aportal and walked through." Steve recalls, and the wheelchair-ridden Tony just looks on in disbelief before turning to Thor.

"What's wrong with him?" He asks.

"He's pissed." Rocket responds, causing Tony to turn to the racoon for the first time. "He thinks he failed. Which, ofcourse, he did. But there's a lotof that going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I literallythought you were a Build-a-Bear." Tony, and his undying quips, says.

"Maybe I am." Rocket says before Steve pulls the conversation back to it's main topic.

"We've been hunting Thanos for threeweeks - deep space scans,satellites - we got nothing." He informs them before turning to Tony. "Tony,you and Y/N fought him-" He goes to ask before said person interrupts him from speaking.

"Who told you that? We didn't fighthim, he wiped our faces with a planetwhile a Bleecker Street magiciangave away the store. There was nofight because he's not beatable." Tony says, before the one other person who has fought Thanos comes in, bearing new arms to replace the ones he lost and these come with pauldrons.

"Even if I had my other sword, the fight would still be in Thanos's favor because we were scattered, unprepared for the fight..." Y/N says his piece before walking over to Carol, who meets him halfway and brings him in for a hug.

"Did he give you anything to go on? Any clues, coordinates?" Steve asks them, hoping for a simple lead to go off of, but Tony just salutes and gives off a fart noise, signaling that he has nothing. Then everyone turns to Y/N, who shakes his head slowly, leaving everyone at a loss for hope.

"I-I had this vivid look into the future..." Y/N speaks up, causing everyone to turn to him with confusion. "I saw myself on a battlefield, Infinity Stones and all, and...I just didn't want to believe anything that Wanda had put in my head that day. I thought she just showed me my worst fear, but it was something much deeper than that..." 

"Y/N, easy, I need you and Tony to focus-" Steve says, but Tony interrupts him once more.

"And we needed you, as in past tense.That trumps what you need. It'stoo late, buddy. You know what Ineed?" Tony asks before abruptly shoving a bowl of soup away from him, spilling it's contents and startles Rhodey, who was standing beside him. "I need a shave and a burger, not abowl of soup." He says as he goes to stand and rip out the needle that is feeding him an IV drip while Rhodey tries to calm him down and get him back in the chair.

"And I believe I remember tellingall of you, alive and otherwise,that we NEEDED a suit of armoraround the world, whether itimpacted our precious freedoms ornot-"

"But that didn't work, did it?" Steve asks back, not doing any good in the argument.

"I said we'd lose, you said we'd "dothat together, too." Guess what,Cap, we lost, and you weren'tthere. But that's what we do,right? Our best work after thefact? We're the "Avengers", notthe "Pre-vengers-"" Then Tony walks towards Steve, getting up in his face. "I've got nothing for ya, Cap. Nocoordinates, no clues, nostrategies, no options. Zero, zip,nada. No trust, liar." He says before he rips out his arc reactor and places it in Steve's hand. "Here. You take this. You findhim, you put this on, and hide."

However, Tony starts to feel light-headed and falls to his knees, causing the ones closest to him, being Carol, Rhodey, Steve, and Y/N to rush over and help him up, but he shrugs it off, only to then pass out on the floor, causing Y/N to quickly catch him before his head can suffer more damage. He then carries him into a room where he lays him down in a hospital bed to get some needed rest as Pepper sits by her husband's side.

"Bruce gave him a sedative. Shouldbe out the rest of the day." Rhodey informs everyone else before Y/N quickly walks over to his Wailing Dark sword and picks it up, strapping it to his waist and proceeds to speed walk out of the compound, with everyone rushing to stop him.

"Wait, Y/N, where are you going?" Steve asks worriedly.

"To kill Thanos." Y/N bluntly responds, not stopping his stride before Carol grabs him by the arm and forces him to look at her and the rest of the team.

"Y/N, you're not in your right mind. If you go out there without a plan, who knows what might happen if you do end up finding him, but that's even more of a stretch if you do find him." Carol says to try and get her boyfriend to see sense.

"I just...I just want to find that purple fucking bastard and punch his head in so far that all there is is paste." Y/N threatens with a glare that no one has seen on him before, which slightly startles everyone. "All I need to do is just find him, and get the stones, and then come back so that you can see me snap my fingers and bring everyone back."

"Don't bother." Nebula speaks up, and everyone turns to her. "I can tell you where Thanos is."

(Time skip one day later)

"Thanos spent a long time tryingto...perfect me. When he worked,he talked. About his Great Plan.Even disassembled, I wanted toplease him. I'd ask, where wouldwe go once his plan was complete?His answer was always the same: "Tothe Garden."" Nebula retells her story as she inspects her robotic arm.

"You're saying big purple had aretirement plan." Pietro reiterates.

"How original." Rhodey sarcastically comments

"Where's this garden?" Steve asks to pull the topic back to the location of Thanos as Rocket brings up a holo-map of Earth to the specific moment when Thanos snapped his fingers, it's source being at Wakanda.

"When Thanos snapped his fingers,Earth become ground zero for apower surge of ridiculously cosmicproportions. No one's seenanything like it." Rocket begins to explain as he shifts the map to billions of lightyears away to an orange planet that also had a power surge. "Until two days ago."

"You're saying he snapped hisfingers again. Where?" Natasha asks, causing Rocket to zoom out of the planet as it's located in a cluster of stars.

"Planet is unnamed, but inhabitable.Rich atmosphere, good soil-" Nebula says.

"A garden." Steve interrupts her as he pieces everything together.

"Thanos is there. And he just usedthe stones." Bruce points out, as Thor looks up from his bowl of food. "You know, we'd be going shorthanded." He says, thinking out loud.

"Because he killed all our friends." Rhodey finishes.

"Not just friends, family as well." Pietro adds to that.

"They're not dead, Rhodey, Pietro." Y/N firmly says, not wanting to believe that everyone can just die like that, merely disappear, not die, two different words.

"But he's still got the stones." Rhodey says back.

"Then we head to the planet and rip the stones off his cold, dead body, then one of us, either Thor, Carol, or I snap our fingers and boom. Everyone is back safe and sound." Y/N says, impatiently waiting to head over to the planet and tear Thanos in two.

"Just like that?" Bruce asks his protege.

"Just like that." Steve responds, backing Y/N up on this plan. 

"If there's even the smallest chancewe can undo this, then we owe it toeveryone who's not sitting here totry." Natasha pipes up, helping to boost morale of the team,

"If we do this...why would it endany differently than it did before?" Bruce asks.

"Because we'd be prepared for what's to come. We'd be coordinated, full of anger, but coordinated. And, we have Carol now to back us up, seeing as she was off world when all this shit went down." Y/N responds, pushing himself off of the wall and walks towards the holo-table, leaning on it. "We're a team again, even if it's just a handful of us, we can do what's necessary to make things right. To get our second chance back. Back then we were all scattered, we had no solid plan to go off of, but now that we know what we're up against, we have a shot at killing that sonofabitch."

Y/N's words pierce everyone's hearts as they all agree with what he says, and Thor stands up from his chair, walking over to his close friend in the metal-armed man before holding out his hand, calling on Stormbreaker, which gives a low ding like the sound of a church bell before he rests his hand ontop of the hammer-axe hybrid of a weapon.

"You've matured, L/N. I like that." Thor comments, and the two of them smile at one another before they embrace in a brotherly-like hug. 

"Let's go get that son of a bitch." Steve declares to the team, and they all get ready to face the Mad Titan once more.

(Time skip to the next day at dawn.)

At this point, everyone is now strapped in inside the Benatar's flight deck as the ship begins to exit Earth's atmosphere. With that being said, Rocket and Nebula begin to press buttons to ready the ship for lightspeed travel.

"Okay, who here hasn't been to space?" Rocket asks as a precautionary measure, and Rhodey, Pietro, Steve, and Natasha are the only ones to raise their hands, not surprising as Y/N smiles softly before he feels Carol's hand interlock with his own, causing him to turn to his girlfriend, who smiles back at him with the same softness.

"We'll bring them back." Carol firmly declares before kissing him on his forehead, giving him some relief in the situation.

"You better now throw up on my ship." Rocket warns to the four newbies to space travel.

"Approaching jump in three!" Nebula starts to count down as everyone steels themselves. "Two! One!" Just after the countdown, the Benatar begins to quickly pick up speed, sending the ship zooming at lightspeeds as Steve, Natasha, and Rhodey look on in wonder of what they are seeing, how beautiful it is outside of Earth. Soon the Benatar passes through a barrier and ends up at the same planet Thanos is speculated to reside in as Carol steps out of the ship and hovers in front of it.

"I'll head down for recon." She informs the team before zipping towards the planet to check for an army or defense mechanisms while everyone gears up to get ready for a fight. With Natasha, Steve, and Y/N, the super soldier is seen looking down at his compass where an old photo of his first love, Peggy Carter, is seen. Natasha and Y/N notice this before he closes the compass and looks out to the planet.

"She was beautiful, Steve." Y/N points out after seeing the picture of Peggy, causing said person to turn to the metal-armed man. "Fury told me that you were going to save a dance for her. I...for what it's worth, she's probably smiling, admiring all that you're doing to help every single being in the universe." This makes Steve smile slightly before he pats Y/N on the shoulder.

"This is going to work, you two." Natasha tells them both.

"Let's hope that it will..." Y/N responds to her before Steve finishes the sentence for him.

"I don't know what I'm goingto do if it doesn't work at all." He comments before they fall into silence once more, where after at least fifteen minutes later, Carol comes back with confusion on her face.

"No satellites, no ships, no armies.No ground defenses of any kind.It's just him." Carol points out, to the slight confusion of everyone else.

"That's enough." Nebula says before they all decide to head down to the planet and ambush Thanos, speaking of...

The Mad Titan is seen hobbling through his garden, harvesting crops as he goes along before the scene cuts to him walking into his hut with a limp as he prepares a stew for himself. However, that peace is short lived as he hears a faint sound followed by a beam of photon energy, courtesy of Carol, causing him to hold up his damaged left hand, after using the stones, to block the beam. 

As he is distracted, Y/N charges into the hut with Pietro in two, letting out a loud roar before sending a hard right uppercut into the stomach of Thanos while the speedster zips around the Mad Titan, landing punches all over his body. Then Carol tackles him to the ground after flying into the hut and breaking through it, and then she places Thanos in an improvised choke hold, using her leg to make Thanos hold out his arm, which then allows Bruce, who is ironically using the Hulkbuster armor, to come up from under the hut and grab onto the arm where the gauntlet is seared onto it. Rhodey comes along and grabs onto the undamaged arm and holds it back, and then Y/N walks towards Thanos menacingly, getting up into his face before delivering machine gun punches to his stomach and chest as Thor breaks through the back of the hut and with Stormbreaker, he cleaves the arm with the gauntlet, separating it from the body and causes Thanos to let out a howl of pain.

But the damage is not nearly done as Y/N unsheathes Wailing Dark and severs the other arm as well to add insult to injury and also serves as a reminder of when he left Y/N armless on Titan as well. As Thanos lays armless on the ground, Steve, Natasha, Rocket, and Nebula come walking in to the hut as the racoon goes to grab the stones from the gauntlet. But there's bad news...

There were no stones in the gauntlet at all. They were gone.

"Oh no..." Rocket lets out, causing Steve and Natasha to look down at the gauntlet as well, and they too are befuddled by this revelation. Then they look to the defeated Thanos and ask the question on everyone's minds.

"Where are they?" He asks, but Thanos stays silent, causing Y/N to drag him and sear his arm stumps closed, eliciting another howl of pain.

"ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!" Y/N shouts loudly, threating him to do much worse if he doesn't speak up in the next few seconds.

"The universe required correction.After that, the stones served nopurpose beyond temptation." Thanos cryptically says.

"You murdered trillions!" Bruce shouts, shoving Thanos to the back of the hut.

"You should be grateful." Thanos talks back, causing him to be met with a harsh fist to the face by Y/N, who is in no mood for games.

"Where are the stones?" Natasha asks the question once more.

"Gone. Reduced to atoms" Thanos responds, much to the shock of everyone in the room.

"You used them two days ago." Bruce points out to him.

"I used the stones to destroy thestones. It nearly killed me.But the work is done. It alwayswill be." Thanos explains to them. "I am...inevitable."  This leaves everyone silent and horrified at the truth, but Rhodey, Pietro, and Bruce are still in denial about it all.

"He-He has to be lying." Rhodey offers to the team.

"Tear this place apart if we have to." Pietro says, but Nebula steps in.

"My father is many things. A liaris not one of them." She says, causing Thanos to turn to his "daughter".

"Ah. Thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly." Thanos says, but he is then grabbed by throat by an enraged Y/N, whose eyes are changed into a pupiless white.

"YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! THERE WERE TRILLIONS OF LIVES ON YOUR HANDS! AND YOU JUST WANT TO SIT BACK AND WATCH THE SUN RISE AND SET EVERY FUCKING DAY!?" Y/N asks, slamming Thanos head onto the floor again and again and again before he results to punching him, left, right, left, right, left, right.

"All those innocent people, dead! All those mothers, fathers, children, gone! BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID IDEALS!" Y/N continues to berate Thanos, not stopping for a second as he continue to pummel the Mad Titan. "I may not get the satisfaction of winning against you, but at least I can still do this." He says lowly before he continues to punch Thanos once more as everyone just looks at Y/N in horror, his punches continuously start to cave his face in, little by little by little until there is not that much of a skull and not that much of a brain, it's all just paste, as Y/N had swore just days before.

After that brutal, one-side conflict, Y/N stands up, coated in the blood of Thanos before he stands up and walks out of the hut and as his skin is touched by the sun, he lets out a shout of anguish.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" Afterwards, he silently heads back to the ship with Carol in tow. Everyone else takes their time to let the inevitable feeling sink in...

They truly have lost, and Thanos is the only one laughing...in hell.

A/N: Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed this chapter because for Endgame, I'm gonna try to make these chapters about 5k words long. Seeing as this movie is long as well, might as well go all out for this. Anyways, thank you all so much for the support.