Dust & the End.
Mazzy can't even begin to fathom what she knows is going to happen.
She tries to focus on the feeling of her dad's arm wrapped around her shoulder—the comforting warmth it brings to counteract Mazzy's now constant shivering, even though it isn't cold here—but all she can focus on is the way his chest keeps rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling with big, heavy breaths. He's breathing the same way he would sometimes breathe when he was having those freakouts he got after the Battle of New York.
Panic. Disturbed, hopeless panic.
Thanos has five out of the six Infinity Stones. Mazzy could see them as they glowed on the gauntlet just before Thanos vanished. Red, orange, green, blue, and purple. The only one left is the yellow one. The yellow one that just so happens to be fused into the center of Vision's skull, back on Earth.
They can't get back there to fight Thanos or to stop the ending of half of the universe. All Mazzy can do is hope and pray to a God she doesn't even believe in that things will be okay. That the other Avengers, and any other superpowered people, know what's going on and are doing everything they can to stop Thanos.
But she doesn't know. For all Mazzy knows, Thanos could have the final stone placed in his gauntlet right this very second. He could be moments away from killing half of all life. Mazzy doesn't know and it's killing her.
She thinks of all the people she could lose. Her dad, right there beside her, could be gone in a matter of seconds. She could watch him die. He's healing up, still, with the help of the technology he's built into his suit, but it could be worth nothing. He could slip away just the same as anyone else could.
And Peter. He's looking around, his eyes empty and his mind busy. Mazzy wonders if he's thinking the same things as she is. Maybe he's thinking about his Aunt May, or his best friends Mazzy has never met. Maybe he's thinking about how Mazzy could be gone. Peter could be gone. Thanos could take either one of them. Both of them, maybe, but hopefully neither. Hopefully is worthless, though. Nothing will ever be the same, no matter who lives and who dies.
The others—well, Mazzy barely even knows them, but she feels inconceivably connected to them, now. They fought for the sake of the universe right by Mazzy's side. And they lost together. The thought of watching them day makes Mazzy feel nauseous. But, then again, she would probably feel that way about any random person she had to watch die.
Mazzy thinks and thinks and thinks about anyone and everyone. Pepper, Natasha, Happy, Rhodey, Steve, Bucky.
What if Mazzy never sees Bucky again? She has to see him again, someday. He knows things about her that she doesn't even know about herself. Someday, she'll have to see him again. She wants to know more about who she was when she was the quote-unquote crying girl. Bucky knows more about that than anyone else. Mazzy gets the idea of who she was and what she did—her memories have been coming back to her one at a time, mostly in her dreams—but there are still important pieces of the puzzle that are missing. Only Bucky has those pieces.
Mazzy's eyes burn. "Dad," she murmurs, her voice nothing more than a weak whisper. "What are we gonna do?"
Tony swallows. His eyes are shiny and defeated. "Guess we go back," he answers stiffly.
Back to Earth. By the time they get there, it will have happened. Half of them will be gone. What will there be to go back to? Or, rather, who will there be to go back to?
Peter approaches hesitantly. He looks scared, and that isn't entirely out of character for him, but he's scared in a different way. Mazzy can tell by looking at him, if it weren't already made so blatantly obvious by the situation they're stuck in. He reaches a hand out for Mazzy, and she reluctantly takes it and lets him pull her up to her feet. She watches as he does the same for Tony, who really needs it more than anyone with his still-aching abdomen.
And just as Tony gets to his feet, Mantis pauses a few feet away.
Mazzy's heart drops into her stomach, and she instinctively gravitates closer to her dad.
"Something's happening," Mantis says. Her eyebrows are pinched together, and her big, black eyes look larger than ever. She doesn't need to say it out loud for everyone to know that something isn't a good something.
Then, there's the dust.
At first, it just seems like little, brownish particles of dirt have risen from the ground and begun surrounding Mantis. But then, Mazzy notices Matnis' hands. They're gone. Gone, gone. Not like they're hidden behind her back, or even chopped off or anything. They're just gone. And it spreads through Mantis' whole body, peacefully weaving through her like a cool gust of wind in the summertime. But this wind takes Mantis with it. She turns fully to dust, disappearing right in front of their eyes.
Mazzy's throat tightens up. She can't breathe, and soon, her chest is rising and falling just the same as her dad's after New York. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tight, and he squeezes even tighter. Maybe if they hold each other tight enough, the dust won't get them.
Soon, it's happening to Drax, too. "Quill?" he utters, his face painted in horror. His right arm goes first and it spreads through him from there. His body turns to nothingness, and then he's gone with the breeze.
Quill's breath catches in his throat. He looks around, eyes peeled wide open. He can feel it happening before it does. They all can, really.
"Steady, Quill," Tony utters. But it's really no use.
They can't control it. Only Thanos can, and he's made his choice. He's taking it all away.
The last thing Quill whispers before disappearing is, "Oh, man." Mazzy wonders if he blames—blamed?—himself. It was he who wrecked their plan. Thanos killed Gamora, the person Quill, Drax, Mantis, and Nebula all came looking for. Quill let his anger get the best of him. Mazzy understands that. Besides, there was only a fraction of a fraction of a million fractions of chance that that was the plan that was going to save them. So Mazzy doesn't blame him. But she doesn't get the chance to tell him that, because he's gone before she can get her mouth to open.
"Tony," Strange says. Tony and Mazzy turn to him, still sitting there without a look of worry. Instead, he looks as serious as a heart attack. Mazzy can't tell if her dad hates him or wants to thank him. Either way, Strange says, "There was no other way."
No other way. In some far-off dream world, Mazzy thinks that maybe that means that this is the one way they end up winning. Maybe, just maybe, they have to lose before they can win. Maybe this loss is the one way out of the 14,000,605 possibilities that things end up okay in the end. But it really is only the truth in some far-off dream world, because they've already lost and there's still only a one out of 14,000,605 chance that they somehow, eventually, way into the future win this fight.
Just like Mantis, Drax, and Quill, Strange dissolves into dust. It starts with his face first. The bleeding gash on his cheek is chipped away, and then the outermost layers of his skin, and then his entire head is gone, and his body goes, too.
That's four of them. Four gone, four still here. Nebula's still made it, it seems. Mazzy still has her dad, and she still has Peter, too, who really is her best friend. It seems sick to be grateful for that. It makes Mazzy feel physically ill, but she's glad it got the others rather than the people she loves the most.
Is Pepper dust, or is she back home, wondering where Mazzy and Tony have run off to?
"Mr. Stark." Peter's voice is cracked.
He's just crying, he's just sad, he's just scared. A million possibilities of what could be tearing Peter's voice apart flash through Mazzy's mind all at once, but she knows. She doesn't have to turn and look at him to know what's happening, but she does, anyway. She can't stop herself.
Peter's eyes are on the ground. He's anxiously rubbing his hands over his arms, stumbling forward like he's just gotten off of the teacup ride at Disneyland. His skin is pale, and when he looks up at the two Starks, his eyes seem to have lost some of their life, too.
"I don't feel so good," he murmurs.
"You're alright," Tony tells him. It sounds more like an order, like when he sends Peter on a mission or tells him to cut it out with the pop culture references.
"I—I don't know what's happening." Peter stumbles closer, losing more and more of his balance with every step that he takes. He's panicking, and Mazzy is too, as they all stare at his hand. Dust is surrounding it. Skin is chipping itself away. Mazzy steps out of the way as Peter really gets weak, letting go of her dad's hand just so Peter can fall into his arms. "I don't know..." Peter clings to Tony's body like a lifeline as his body begins to turn to dust. "I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go, sir. Please. Please, I don't wanna go," he begs through tears as Tony lowers his body down to the ground.
And, God, if Tony could, he would save him. Peter is his second kid. Peter is what gives him hope that, maybe, someday, Mazzy will be okay as a hero. Peter is Mazzy's best friend. An older brother, in some sense of the word. A good example. A way better example than Tony himself. And he's slipping from Tony's fingers.
As Peter's body hits the ground, he seems to accept it. Mazzy and Tony kneel beside him, holding onto him like they could somehow catch him before he drifts off, but they can't.
"I'm sorry," Peter whispers.
He looks up, and then he's gone.
Tony grabs desperately at the place Peter's body had laid. He stares at the dust, but it blows away just like all the rest.
Mazzy presses her hand against her mouth, sobs tearing through her entire body. "No, no, no, no," she cries, her muscles twitching and trembling. Her bones feel like jelly and her skin like static. This isn't real. It can't be real. He won. Thanos won. Peter is dead. Half the universe is dead. Mazzy pulls her hand from her mouth and pinches her arm as hard as she can, willing herself to wake up from whatever nightmare this is, but no matter how hard she pinches, no matter how much it stings, no matter how red her skin glows, she doesn't wake up. This is reality.
Tony pulls Mazzy towards him, holding her tight and wishing more than anything in the world that she's not somehow next. That it's over. That she's here and he's lucky for that. Mazzy can barely feel his beaten-up skin touching her own she feels so numb.
"He did it," Nebula mutters.
Thanos did it. Thanos won. The Avengers lost. They've lost to the most monstrous villain of all. They can't save anyone anymore. Mantis, Drax, Quill, and Peter. They're gone, now, along with who knows how many of the people Mazzy loves back on Earth.
It's probably a disaster back home. Mazzy imagines the busy and bustling streets of New York City and what chaos must arise as people begin to vanish into thin air. Now driverless cars crashing into one another, first responders disappearing before they can help, doctors in hospitals vanishing mid-surgery. Babies, too. God. Mazzy imagines newborn babies, screaming out in their parents loving arms, and the screaming going silent as the babies turn to dust. Men and women only getting the taste of parenthood before it's pulled from their grasps.
Even if only half the population will be gone, the results are bound to be disastrous. Every person has their job and every job is necessary for a productive society. If half the workforce is gone, the other half will be mourning their losses. This is a global—no, universal catastrophe.
It's over.
Mazzy wonders if it's a blessing to have been spared or the worst curse of all.