Michelle thinks she wants to fall over. No wonder Barton had problems standing after his test run.

Okay, so time travel is a real thing, but it's disorienting as hell.

Her vision slowly returns and the helmet from the suit retracts so she can rub her eyes. From down below the staging platform, Michelle hears the loud voice of Bruce shouting, "And we're back! Okay headcount. 1, 2, 3..."

She looks around. The platform is full of people all returning, hopefully successful. Right behind her is Peter which is a relief and a half. He seems to look panicked until he sees Stark and Rogers. Did something happen?

"4, 5, 6..."

Thor is to her left. He looks better now, somehow. A little more sure of himself perhaps. Also, is that Mjölnir? She's pretty certain he did not have that going in. He didn't bring any weapon at all to her recollection. Oh god, did he steal his past self's weapon? Why? There's no fighting left to do.

"7, 8, 9..."

Nebula and Rhodey are to her right. Rhodey is holding the containment orb seen in the debriefing so they must have been successful with getting the Power Stone. Good. Nebula is... she's always creeped Michelle out a little. To her understanding, Nebula has had trouble just being a person due to Thanos screwing her over which is pretty damn sad.

"10," Bruce pauses. "Where's 11? Who's missing?"

Instinctively, everyone starts drifting subtly towards their teams to confirm if everyone is still there. Lang, Roger, Stark, and Peter are here. Everyone who went to 2012 is fine.

His voice cuts in again, "Where's Nat?"

All eyes snap to Clint. He's alone and facing straight ahead, apparently already knowing she's not there.

"Clint, where's Nat?"

All six Infinity Stones were retrieved successfully, but that almost seems like an afterthought now.

It takes a while to get the full story. After everyone realized that Natasha was missing, Clint walked over to Bruce, gave him the Soul Stone, and stormed out of the building. From what Michelle understands, there were no defenses on the stone. It didn't need to be stolen. It was simply right there on a mountain top, but it required a simple trial.

A soul for a soul.

Clint gets more vague after that. There's some bits about the sacrifice needing to be someone you loved or something and that they fought over who was going to die. She won.

Fighting over who gets to kill themselves. Saying that's depressing might be the understatement of the century.

Most of the others go outside down by the water to talk. Michelle doesn't go. It seemed to be something more private for the people who knew her better. Instead, she finds a place in the hangar to sit down on and lean back against the wall to think while Nebula fiddles around with something on the quantum tunnel.

She was never initially very nervous about this whole mission because the actual risk didn't seem all that crazy. Sneaking into the 2012 Stark Tower and stealing the Space and Mind Stone? Not exactly a big chance of death. The risk came from only having one chance to pull it off and what you were willing to put on the line. Originally, Michelle thought she'd be able to simply talk The Ancient One into giving it to her. That's why it never seemed too daunting. After accidentally screwing it up and nearly dying against her, she's no longer surprised that someone didn't come home. Michelle almost didn't as well. She probably shouldn't tell anyone about that.

She was never very close with Natasha. Well, that's not entirely true. It's hard to explain. Perhaps you could call them friends. That might be why Michelle feels so terrible about all this, because the first thing that came to her mind was how thankful she was that Natasha had talked Peter out of going to Vormir and went instead of him. Thinking "at least it was her" is a horrific way to approach someone's death.

Conversations between the two of them never revealed too many personal details about Natasha's life. As far as Michelle could tell, the woman was throwing herself into literally any kind of problem that she might be able to help fix after the snap as a form of penance. The Avengers had effectively fallen apart with only her and Rogers holding it together in a regular basis with additional assistance from Rhodey and the pair of Rocket and Nebula occasionally. While Michelle's story is fairly similar in a sense with Kamar-Taj, the kind of work the sorcerers deal with isn't quite the same. Natasha was directly dealing with the fallout around the world. That can take a toll on a person and it showed. She frequently looked tired and almost lonely at times.

Distantly, Michelle wonders if Natasha would be happy that such a varied group of people mourn her. A regular human with no superpowers, but can still kick ass with the best of them. To think she's even had an impact on aliens. That's not an accomplishment that many could claim.

How will Michelle be remembered when she dies? Hopefully in a positive way. If she's lucky, it'll be when she's old and lived a full life, surrounded by family and friends. She's not so vain as to need her name written in history books, but that'd be pretty cool. The path she's taken is not one of public notability. Michelle came to terms with that after her fight with Mordo when she saw her parents being peacefully unaware of the danger they could have been in.

But is it still the case that she's destined to a life of secrecy and seclusion? Being restricted to focusing on mystical issues is a tradition she threw aside long ago when she needed to make sure that Peter would come back home alive. Her appearances in public aren't very common, but there have been a couple photos and newspaper articles about her. They're awful. Peter thinks it's hilarious.

Maybe The Ancient One was right. I have opened the door.

Michelle shakes her head. She can sort it out later.

The others return from outside, faces etched in grim determination. Tony and Bruce head off to get to work. There's not a lot left to do. Just make a device to hold the stones and have someone make the wish.

They whip up something faster than expected. In fact, it took less than a day. Tony Stark brings up a new nanotech-based gauntlet and prepares it to have the Infinity Stones inserted. "Now, this thing is a pretty barebones model. No premium features. It can't use the stones normally outside of all of them together and it's made of worse materials than the original, but we've jammed it full of enough nanites to hold it together long enough for the snap to go off."

"So you're telling me that these rocks have the power to undo the past five years of history?," Scott Lang asks as he circles around to get a better look.

Michelle can answer that one, "Theoretically, yes. The stones are the manifested power of the universe. They can do anything. They can destroy the universe if you want. It's not a question of what the stones can do, but if you survive the backlash of using them."

"Which is where I come in," Bruce steps in.

"No, I'll do it."

Heads turn to see Thor was the one who spoke. "Excuse me?" Tony asks.

Thor steps into the middle of the group in front of the gauntlet where the stones are still being prepped for insertion, "I'm sorry. What, were you just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity? Look, us sitting here staring at that thing is not going to bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty."

Tony doesn't like the idea, "Normally, yes. It's not about that."

"It's not that, it's, stop it! Just let me. Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something right."

Listening to Thor talk himself down like this is sad. Michelle figures he must have been beating himself up harder than she thought over the past few years.

"No, it's not just the fact that that glove will be channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you, you're in no condition."

"What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?"

"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey chimes in.

"Lightning."

Bruce tries to gently nudge Thor back, "Lightning won't help you, pal. It's got to be me. You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive."

"How do we know you will?"

"I don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like I was meant for this." Banner moves in front of the gauntlet.

Stark activates a lockdown mode on the Avengers compound. All windows and doors are barred completely shut. Not even air can escape. Everyone suits up and turns on any kind of defenses they have just in case something goes wrong. The Iron Man armor puts up some kind of holographic shield (which Michelle still doesn't understand) while she puts up her own barrier. Peter and a few others shift behind her just in case.

She take a look around the room. Stark and Rhodey are in suits. They'll probably be fine. Thor and Banner are durable. Lang has his suit, though she isn't sure how much protection it really gives. Peter has his newest version of the Iron Spider suit on along with his natural superpowers. Rocket and Barton are behind Stark. Rogers has his shield out which looks comical considering it's not going to cover his whole body, but he's still a super solider. Is someone missing?

Small robotic arms start to grab the Infinity Stones and put them into place. The Power Stone is first. There's a small clink when it's in.

From her side, Peter's head shoots up and starts looking around. Michelle tenses.

Something's wrong. His danger sense.

He doesn't get a chance to say anything though before her vision goes white and the world explodes.

It's hard to breathe. There's something jabbing into her chest. Michelle can't even see. There's too much dust in the air.

"Ah, god this hurts," she mumbles to herself between coughs. "Where am I?"

"Oh, you're alive. That's good. Was worried for a second there."

What. The pressure on her chest isn't a thing. It's Rocket. "Get. Off. Of. Me. Hard to breathe," she demands.

Rocket takes her anger in stride, "I don't know how much room you think there is, but we're kind of stuck in here. Trust me, I get no pleasure from being jammed into your breasts. You're not that cute."

Indignant fury rages through her for a moment, "I am going. To kill you."

"Do it after we get out. Just do your thing and move us out of here."

Her left arm is stuck. Michelle taps her left hand on the debris they're trapped in. The sling ring isn't on. "I can't. I need you to get the ring from my sash. I can't reach it. Put it on my left hand."

There's a shuffling noise and the feeling of Rocket crawling along her body. It's bizarre and mortifying. This is a situation she's taking to her grave. A minute later of dealing with a raccoon digging through her clothes, she feels the familiar ring on her hands.

"Done. Now get us out of here."

This is going to hurt. There's no room to actually move around so Michelle awkwardly tries to do the motions required to make a portal underneath of them. It works and they fall through. Gravity wrenches her stuck arm from its spot and it makes Michelle scream in pain as they fall and land on flat ground. Additionally, falling through the portal and landing in her lap is the same gauntlet they were about to use. The Power Stone is still in it. She snatches it and shoves it into her pouch that she previous carried the relic she used to imprison The Ancient One.

Badly scraped and bleeding in a few places, Michelle stands to see where they are now. They're in the hangar of the Avengers compound. Or well, it used to be. The entire compound is now effectively a massive hole in the ground. But that's not even the most alarming part.

There is a gigantic alien mothership in the sky above her. Its presence completely blocks out the sun. The blue skies that were there just minutes ago are nowhere to be seen.

"Oh my god," Michelle whispers to herself.

A feeling of deep terror strikes her. She's tried to move past her fear for years because she had promised herself that she wasn't going to run away anymore, but this is a lot. She's brought back to the memory of being a teenager again, walking towards the spaceship with Stark, Strange, Wong, and Bruce. So out of her depth and unprepared.

"That's Thanos' ship," Rocket says from beside her, clearly just as bewildered as she is.

What? How? What in the hell is going on?

The ruins of the hangar is mostly clear, but the loud roar of thunder comes from nearby. Both Rocket and Michelle know there's only one likely explanation for who caused it. Stepping around more debris, they find Thor, Stark, and Rogers together, staring down into the center of the crater. They're geared up and ready to go. Even Thor is in some armor and is carrying both Stormbreaker and Mjölnir.

"Do you guys know what's going on?" Michelle asks as she jogs up.

Thor points his large axe off into the distance, "Thanos has returned. He has sent his children in search of the stones."

If she squints, she can see someone large with gold armor and purple skin down there. Michelle has never seen Thanos in person before. Only descriptions from Peter and Tony.

Rocket doesn't get it, "How? I saw you chop his head off."

"You mess with time, time messes back," Stark explains simply.

So he thinks it's a different Thanos from the past? How in the hell did he get here? What the fuck is going on? They were literally about to do the snap that would fix everything. Wait. Michelle pulls the gauntlet out of her pouch. It still has the Power Stone in it. This draws everyone's attention.

A plan starts to form in Michelle's head, "We can still fix this with the stones right? We find the stones, get this to Banner, and do the snap. Everything will be undone and Thanos will be gone."

Rogers nods, "They'll be inside somewhere buried under all this. The rest of the team is in there too. Find them and they can help."

"You may be able to defeat his children, but Thanos will send his armies in eventually," Thor warns. He's right. She can't even begin to imagine how many Thanos brought with him in a spaceship that practically looks like it's the size of New York City.

"So you're going to have to hurry. We'll hold him off," Tony says. He pats Thor and Rogers on the shoulder, "Come on guys. Let's go greet our new guest." The three of them begin walking down towards the center of the crater.

"Remind me again why we never called Danvers?" Rocket shouts after them as they go.

"There's a non-zero chance she could punch a moon in half. We wanted to steal the stones, not blow up everything in sight."

"Great," he grumbles.

The sound of rubble being shifted around gets Michelle's attention. Assuming that it's someone else trapped and needing help, she runs around a few piles of collapsed rooftops to get a better look and Rocket follows. The source of the noise is not what she expects. It's not a person. It's the same large alien creature with the hammer claw multitool that she ran away from 5 years ago.

The same one that effectively ruined her life.

And it sees her.

Don't run away.

But she's stronger now. They have a plan. She can't give up. Michelle takes a step forward. "Hold on. I can handle this," she tells Rocket.

The raccoon is in a relaxed state despite the situation, but remarks, "No offense lady, but I don't see what you're going to do. Do you even know who that guy is? That's Cull Obsidian."

The creature is roughly 40 meters away and begins to charge at her.

Taking a wider stance to brace herself, Michelle forms a large shield on her left hand despite the pain in that arm.

30 meters.

She shifts sideways a little and stretches her right arm behind her.

20 meters.

"You sure about this? I think I should shoot him." Rocket asks, waving up his blaster that looks suspiciously like something she would have seen in one of Peter's Star Wars movies.

10 meters.

"Yeah." This is personal.

Zero.

With force capable of powering through a wall, the thing she now knows as Cull Obsidian swings his hammer.

She blocks.

And punches him as hard she can with an open palm.

The thing about forcibly ejecting someone's spirit from their body is that it's not a battle of strength. Even if they don't know anything about it, someone very intelligent and determined or willful might be able to resist it or otherwise "find their way back" so to speak. Steve Rogers would probably be a good example. Michelle is pretty sure she could never do it to him in any serious situation. But the thing she's fighting now? It never struck her that way.

Cull Obsidian falls over unconscious as its astral form floats helplessly behind it.

Rocket takes an appraising look, "Okay, maybe I was wrong." He walks over and blasts it in the face with his gun several times for good measure.

"We probably should split up. Don't have much time. You take the larger tunnel," he says before running off.

Michelle peeks over to take a look. Her now defeated foe was apparently pulling large rocks off of some kind of underground maintenance passage. It's a good place to start.

The tunnel is partially flooded with ankle deep water or so and kept lit with red emergency lights. She had no idea the compound was so elaborate. Wishing she had kept her earpiece, Michelle runs down the tunnel while occasionally shouting, "Anyone there?" Tracking spells work, but only enough to tell her that people are down here. She can't afford to try and make portals to their location because one in the wrong place might cause a collapse of debris on them. The old fashioned way is the only way to go here.

Periodically, the crash of thunder or missile explosions can be heard shaking the ground and it spurs her on. At an intersection, Michelle vaguely hears a commotion down one path and turns that way. It turns out to be correct when she comes across another one of what she assumes to be Thanos' children. There's a dropped spear in the water, but the alien is completely encased on Peter's webs. It practically looks like a mummy. The only reason she knows it's alive is because it's eyes still move. She carefully navigates through the mess of webs and ignores it to keep going.

Soon, she comes across Peter himself trying to lift what must be several tons of concrete off of Clint Barton. "MJ! Oh god, good. You're okay. Hold on, let me get him out," he says after seeing her.

With a loud grunt and final push, he lifts it high enough for Clint to crawl out. "Thanks kid," he says as he gets up and pats Peter on the back.

"Not you too," he whines. "I'm not a teenager anymore."

Clint lets out a small laugh despite their dire situation, "You should see Steve. That guy still calls Wanda a kid."

That's not the news he wanted to hear and groans in dismay. Michelle hates to interrupt, but they don't have time. She pulls out the gauntlet and passes it to Peter to show him, "We need to go. Thanos is attacking us from the past. They're holding him off outside so that we can find the stones. Do you have any?"

Barton pulls out a yellow one, "The Mind Stone was with me." He gives it to Peter who drops it in the gauntlet.

The three of them continue running down the tunnels as they hear the fight raging on. "We get to go on all the best dates, MJ. This is probably the greatest one yet," Peter says.

Good idea. Try and keep things lighthearted so I'm not thinking about imminent death.

"I was a big fan of the dimension we went to that took the form of our worst fears."

"I thought we weren't going to speak about that one again."

"No. That was the demon who made us share dreams for a week, Parker."

He taps his finger on his chin as if he's seriously contemplating it, "You're right."

"Of course I am."

The tunnels lighten up soon and there's an exit where collapse has opened a path to the world above. In front of it stands Nebula with a rifle. In her left hand are the Reality and Space stones.

"Nebula," Barton calls out to her. "We've got the glove. Give us the stones so we can put them in."

Peter runs ahead to her, but instead Nebula turns around and shoots him in the shoulder causing Peter to fall to the ground with a shout.

"Don't. Move," she demands to all three of them as she waves the gun around.

What in the hell? "Did you do this?" Michelle presses. "You're the one who brought him here?" She even saw Nebula fiddling with the time machine before. Why wasn't she suspicious about it?

"My father needs the stones," Nebula says as she approaches the gauntlet on the ground. Before she can pick it up, a shot rings out and cuts right through her chest. After feeling the hole in her body with her hand, she falls over. Dead.

A second Nebula appears from the exit they found. Michelle runs over to check on Peter, but he waves her off. He's fine and the suit has already repaired itself.

Barton isn't so sure about this, "Okay. Are you the good Nebula or the bad Nebula?"

In response, the living one points to the dead and says, "She took my place. I'm... sorry."

"Good enough for me."

Michelle grabs the two stones and throws them over to Peter who puts in them the gauntlet. Two to go.

Climbing outside is nearly a war zone now. The fight with Thanos is still far away, but it doesn't look like it's going good. In the distance, Michelle can hear the roar of the Hulk and she immediately heads over there. Climbing over a literal mountain of concrete, she sees all of the other missing teammates encased in a prison of stone and rock. The smaller alien with telekinetic powers that had attacked New York is fleeing the scene on the same whirlwind of rocks and debris he used once before in Washington Square Park five years ago.

He also has the last two Infinity Stones in hand. Soul and Time.

"Maw," Nebula grinds out. That must be his name.

Banner's strength allows him to force apart the debris holding him and the others, but Maw is too far. He's already near the bottom of the crater where Thanos is. Nebula and Rocket begins shooting at him with their weapons, but Maw effortlessly rips a large chunk of rock out of the ground with his telekinesis and holds it behind him to absorb fire.

Now closer to the fighting, Michelle can see Thanos wielding some kind of massive two sided sword that kind of looks like a pair of helicopter blades. Captain America is currently recovering to the side. The famous vibranium shield is missing entire chunks and is that Mjölnir he's holding? How? What? Now's not the time.

On the opposite ledge of the crater, the armies of Thanos appear. Washing over the far edge must be thousands of creatures. Ten thousand. Maybe more.

We're out of time. If Thanos gets any stones, it's over.

Despite the potential danger, Michelle begins to open a portal near the fighting with Thanos to try and intercept Maw when Barton steps beside her, draws back an arrow on his bow, and fires a high arcing shot. Despite the vast distance, the shot rings true and goes clear over the debris that was acting as a shield.

And pierces right into Maw's head.

Michelle finishes the portal and Peter dives through, snatching the Time and Soul stones out of the air with webs as they falls from Maw's hands.

"Got them!" he calls out and immediately slams the stones into the gauntlet. That's all six. Following him through the portal, she allows herself to think for a brief moment that maybe they can pull this off. It's almost over. They just need to get it to-

In his excitement of being so close to the end, Peter had let down his guard. Thanos' massive sword bursts through his chest from behind. He then reaches over and takes the completed gauntlet from Peter's hands as if it was offered freely.

No.

That might be the only word in Michelle's mind. Over and over, endlessly. Before she even realizes what she's doing, she's already at Peter's side, trying to drag him away to safety.

"MJ," he chokes out.

There's blood. There's so much blood. How is there so much? He's wearing a suit made of metal! How is there so much blood?

Peter tries again, but can't finish, "MJ-"

There is a hole in my fiancé's chest.

Michelle feels the world fall apart.

What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Faintly, she registers Stark shouting something at her. She can't make out the words. Not because they're too far away or too quiet, but because they're so unimportant to her now.

She turns to look. The armies of Thanos are getting closer. It won't be long before they're overrun. All of the remaining Avengers and teammates are piled onto Thanos. He's wearing the gauntlet and they're trying to keep him from snapping.

The green light of the Time Stone catches her eye.

I need it. I need the Time Stone. I can fix this.

Shakily, Michelle gets up and walks over to Thanos. Casting a binding spell, red strands of molten steel stretch from her hand and wrap themselves around the gauntlet to keep him from closing his fingers together. Banner and Rhodey help as well.

Give me the Time Stone. Give it to me. Give it to me.

Banner spares her a worried look. Is she talking out loud?

Thanos tries to use his other arm to break off the bindings, but it's held back by Thor and Rogers. Stark fires some kind of device that attaches itself to the ground and Thanos' arm. It forms a powerful electromagnet that ties his hand down. Stark then shifts around to help pull off the gauntlet.

Give it to me.

There's some kind of flash of recognition in Nebula's eyes as if she's seen this before. Kicking out and slicing at the back Thanos' knees, he falls to the ground. She then joins the effort to hold him down. Even Barton and Rocket help despite their meager physical strength in comparison.

Give it to me.

Lang begins to grow in size. And grow. And grow. In moments, he's possibly ten stories tall.

"Fire!" comes the voice of Thanos as he struggles against everyone.

The spaceship above rains down artillery on them all. No one has protection against it, but they also can't afford to move for fear of letting Thanos break free. Lang physically throws his body over everyone to shield them as long as he can.

Give it to me.

Thor releases his place from Thanos' left arm and moves in front of him. With the right arm exposed and nothing stopping him, He swings Stormbreaker and cleaves the arm off.

The gauntlet comes loose.

Badly hurt, Lang shrinks himself, unable to withstand the artillery anymore. The crater becomes a cacophony of explosions as everyone dives for the stones.

Off to the side, Peter Parker draws his last breath.

Someone snaps their fingers.

"I know you've been talking about this for forever. Where are you going?"

"Nope. Not telling. If I tell you, you're going to try and give me advice. You two sucked to be with for a week when you went out. I don't even want to hear you trying to tell me anything."

"Hey, I'll have you know- Hey MJ, are you alright?"

What's going on? Where am I?

Michelle opens her eyes to see that she's no longer in the ruins of the Avengers compound. The first thing she notices is how loud it is. So much chatter. So many voices. So many people. It's a veritable sea of human beings compared to what she has been used to.

It's lunchtime in Midtown School of Science and Technology. Next to her is a very alive Ned Leeds. He's so alive. Across the table is Peter Parker.

Still jacked up on adrenaline and feeling hysteria at the edges of her mind, she leaps into action immediately, grabs Peter and starts physically dragging him out of the cafeteria. Some people begin to point and stare, but she's got other priorities.

"MJ, wait, what's going on?" Peter continually protests the whole way.

Looking both ways down the hall to avoid anyone, Michelle starts searching for an empty classroom. The first two are locked, but the third one has the lights off and is unlocked.

"Get in," she demands as she practically throws him inside.

"MJ, please. What's going on?"

There's a nagging thought that something is wrong. She'll figure it out later. First, Michelle needs to make sure he's alright. Once they're inside the room alone, she starts tugging at his shirt to pull it off. He fights against her the whole way and is seemingly embarrassed. No idea why.

"Okay, while having you drag me off and start stripping me is kind of hot, you're being really weird right now," he says.

More alarm bells. The shirt comes off and she breathes a sigh in relief. No stab wound through his chest. No scar. He's alive.

Right, right. We reverted time. No stab wound because it never happened.

"Seriously, MJ. What's wrong? Are you okay?" Peter asks.

Michelle looks up. There's deep concern in his eyes. Why? "Um, you're the one I need to be worried about right now. You almost died."

"Uh, from who? Last time anything bad happened to me was 6 months ago or something. Remember-"

"Peter," Michelle sternly cuts off. "This is no time for jokes. You just had a sword through your heart from Thanos."

"Who?"

The past couple minutes play back in her mind and fill in all the clues she ignored. Immediately after, her mind goes blank in speechlessness.

Oh.