A bunch of muggers, a couple in trouble, a little boy standing there as he watched his father and mother shot in front of him. Steve had gotten there seconds too late and even when he did he had been forced to do nothing as the mugger ran. All he'd been able to do was to hold the boy and comfort him.

The watcher stared down and could feel the former Colonel America's grief, not just for the boy's sake, but for all those others that he wouldn't be able to save, not without risking his own life. And his life was no longer his to risk. Tony Stark had arrived with him but unlike Rogers he'd been able to go after the thief, taking him down.

He'd looked back at the colonel, his smile unsure as he watched his friend pick up his cellphone and call 911. Stark could have done so himself, easily, but he left that part of the job to the former Avenger

And the watcher did his duty and watched them both.

"So why did it happen?"

The watcher would not say, though his species knew the answer. He knew about the cosmic forces that had stepped in and taken action as soon as the zombies had entered this universe. He knew about that other universe and how its final inhabitants were doomed to extinction.

"What happened to the zombies turned men?"

One could ask.

"They would adapt," The watcher could say with grief in his eyes for all that lost potential. "They'd try and live lives, as men and women are won't to do. But they would never forget. They would sit and wonder about the lives they'd never again be able to live. Not while the risk of infection still loomed inside of them."

Luke Cage would be found days later, sitting in a McDonalds, enjoying a burger that he didn't have the money to pay for. When asked where he'd been the past week, the answer was simple, exploring the pleasures of having a living body again.; watching a sunrise, enjoying the feel of silk on his back or splashing water in his face.

He became a fry cook, the Luke from this new world, was one of his best customers. Nobody ever asked him what the smell of burned meat reminded him of. They were better of not to.

Steve Rogers was the lucky one, the only one who didn't remember. He'd lost so much brain tissue by the end, that none of his memories passed that moment of infection. When told the truth of his world, he swore to try and find a way to make up for it.

Finding out he wasn't allowed to die, that risking his life would endanger the world, ruined even that. He ended up working in a homeless shelter, helping the needy, the lost, the desperate, while feeling as lost as any of them. In the end he and Tony Stark lived out Stark's life together. Tony Stark still missed his Steve and though this version of him was not the one he kept waiting for, they both aided one another in their grief.

Janet Van Dyne was charged on murder in the first degree. An overdrawn charge as her lawyer, Matt Murdock, was all to quick to point out. 'Her victim was already dead,' he would say. 'The man had been infected with a plague that made him a threat to anyone around him. He'd been eating innocent people, and would have tried to eat Janet had she not defended herself.' Janet had stood there and listened to him defending her. No one mentioned what she'd been, her origin being from a different dimension was barely even mentioned. Images were shown of Hank Pym's actions at the initiative. They repulsed a jury all to ready to clear her name and choose her side. . She became a symbol for abused women standing up to their abusers. She never quite understood why. She'd never been a victim.

She would eventually find a young former mutant nerd called Reynolds. He would stutter when she came up to him and started talking to him. The young man blushed whenever she showed affection to him. He would never understand what she saw in him, but he treasured her for the remainder of his life. By the time he died, she still looked just as she had on the day they met. It would be fifty years later. Janet would hold his hand and cry. She never did tell him of the other forty years they'd spent together, the wasted years as she'd never been able to tell him how she felt about him. When she closed his eyes, she shrank down and stayed small for days. She didn't want to be seen.

T'Channa would die in bed, surrounded by his father, his wife Lisa and their many children. Sometimes he talked about his missing son. He was the only one of the group that was proven clear of the infection and he lived and died a hero. By the time of his death the White Panther had become a force to be reckoned with.

But what became of Peter Parker?

After the death of Spider-Man, he was sentenced for murder. He pleaded guilty and refused to take any leniencies. Murdock tried to convince him to tell the truth, that Spider-Man had been infected, to explain about what happened in a closed court. But once he was on the stand, Peter took it a step further and told everyone about the crimes he'd committed in his own home dimension. The billions of people they'd eaten. It was only because he was declared legally insane that he was eventually transferred to Ravencroft rather than 42.

The psychiatrists had no idea what to do with him. How could they, they were used to dealing with psychopaths, with people who didn't even understood their crimes. How did any of that prepare them to deal with a man who'd lost his mind because he grasped the full scope of his crimes and had had no way to stop himself from committing any of them.

He was suicidal, yet there was no need to try and keep him from killing himself, because he understood better than anyone why that wasn't an option. They put him a few rooms away from Cletus Cassidy. Some even hoped that the former zombie could one day break out and just take out Cassidy for them. But like usual, Cassidy refused to play along. He pretty much treated his neighbor as if he were an idol, someone to admire and aspire to be, something that sickened Peter to the core of his being..

Peter didn't want admirers, especially people like Carnage. He didn't want visitors or friends. But that didn't stop him from getting them.

From Betty Brant, to even J. Jonah Jameson, they all tried to come see him. Peter refused at first, with all but Jameson. Jameson took one look at him and asked one question. When Peter answered yes, Jonah left as if he's finally gotten the answer he'd expected to get for years.

A week later he came back, Peter would never tell anyone what they talked about, but it was the last time Jameson would ever call Spider-Man a menace.

Mary Jane Watson visited once, she never came again. He wasn't her Peter.

Johnny Storm kept fighting for Peter's release, it took him a year before they let Peter go into Johnny's custody. May would look after Peter and the kids, and when the kids grew up, she'd just look after Peter. He'd work, earn his keep, and do anything he could to help the city, to help humanity. But his mind was that of a child. Lost, but found.

In the end, his story was one of mercy, of forgiveness, if not full out happiness. But who knows, what isn't yet might still come.

For men or not, when one's death could bring in the apocalypse, who could possibly let them die?"

And then the watcher turned back, looked at Wolverine who stared at him with ravenous hunger…