A/N: As someone who has already spent over a year in semi-isolation due to severe mental illness, I can assure you that you won't want to draw on the walls until the third month.

I hope you enjoy this story, originally written on ArchiveOfOurOwn by MoonSilverSprite.

Be safe, be careful, remember to wash your hands if you leave the house, support local businesses when everywhere opens up again and spare a thought for people like me.

This editorial of a post-Snap world (as the Avengers have taken to calling it) is a curious array of interviews and articles from across the country and beyond. A world plunged into mourning once half of our population was turned into dust – including the girlfriend of yours truly – caused a sudden disinterest in this magazine. However, as time passed, we became the first such publication to find the Avengers (the Sokavia Accords having been suspended during this time) and interview them.

Five years later and once the other half of the world returned in the blink of an eye – including half of our staff during a sales meeting and causing me to knock over my coffee – we found out that the Avengers themselves had brought this about.

Unfortunately, Tony 'Iron Man' Stark was killed in the conflict. Natasha Romanov, also known as the Black Widow, was declared dead, our only piece of information being that she was killed off-world. Steve 'Captain America' Rogers has also been declared dead. As a tribute, we have republished their original interviews - all by our top four reporters - in the year after the Snap in this issue.

We have also looked at the perspectives of the heroes after the incident. Those who gave us permission, at any rate.

Here at Humanity Helper, we salute the brave souls who gave up their lives so that we could live.

(Editor of Humanity Helper)

Guilt, Woe and Endless Wandering: Tony Stark stays mum about what happened in space
'We Still Have Duties': Natasha Romanov on helping those left behind
75 years ago he was the face of America's struggle for freedom. Now, he is the face of humanity's hope for a brighter future. Steve Rogers tells all.
From Feared Monster to Children's Friend: Between Bruce and Hulk
Back From the Dead: Family man Scott Lang's first interview
Alien Visitors: Was Peter Quill in SPACE for 30 Years?
A Second Chance: Pepper Potts on what her husband sacrificed himself for

Guilt, Woe and Endless Wandering: Tony Stark stays mum about what happened in space
Originally published November 27th 2018

This Thanksgiving, there seems to be nothing to be thankful for. Tables are half-empty, families sliced in half and fewer friends have come over. There even seem to be half as many turkeys, cultivating in stockpiles of tofu – although the vegans who would have eaten tofu anyway don't seem to mind too much.

But there is one silver lining to the half-empty Thanksgivings meals and it's not just the tofu turkeys. People are beginning to see more of their neighbors, whom they otherwise would have walked by without a second glance in the streets.

This Thanksgiving, this intrepid reporter (who, to be honest, only got the job because the original reporter was Dusted and the next-in-line is now comatose from being run over by a horsebox) has found Tony Stark, hiding somewhere in New England. We were paid to not reveal the exact address, but I can assure my public that it seems to be a rather peaceful environment. And so it should be, as Tony Stark, when he finally stands on the porch with his pregnant wife Pepper Potts soothing his shoulder, appears to have the face of a war-torn veteran.

I introduce myself to them. Pepper smiles and nods, whereas Stark only mumbles a hello. I find myself looking at Pepper's huge belly. I remember all of the young couples that I have seen in the past six months, deciding that time is short and they won't lose this one as well. I ask, 'How far along?'

Pepper shrugs. 'Maybe six months,' she replies, 'I'm hoping for a girl. Well, Tony said he hopes for a girl.' Mr Stark's eyes flicker towards her. I wonder why he would have preferred a girl to a boy? Maybe it's best not to ask. Everyone knows how Tony Stark's father Howard isolated him before both Howard and Maria were assassinated in 1991. Perhaps he doesn't want history repeating itself.

I, for one, would not blame Mr Stark.

I ask the question that is on everyone's minds; what exactly happened on that day?

Stark looks up for a brief moment. Pepper, holding his hand, her face pale. I wonder for a second if they are about to ask me to leave. Pepper certainly seems as if she is about to.

But Stark puts his hand up, murmuring, "It's okay, Pepper." Then he looks at me directly.

"Alien forces were behind my disappearance. I – I ended up on another planet. These –" he sighs, "bad guy aliens, if you want to put it bluntly, took me and a very special – doctor, I'll say."

A doctor? Like Banner, I wonder to myself.

Stark straightens up in his chair. "Then some – some good aliens (god, I sound like a narrator on a kids' show) came along. They – they weren't ones that had come to Earth before. Thor knew them. Apparently. Anyway, long story short – the alien that was behind the attack on New York in 2012 managed to get hold of this – weapon. And he snapped his fingers and turned half the universe into dust. There's – really no other way to say it."

Stark seems extremely unhappy. He sits on the porch beside Pepper, digging his nails into his clothes. He is in a complete trance, barely registering anyone is in front of him. Maybe he thinks he is somewhere else. Further away than any of us can know. In the deafening silence, his hands change position, as if holding something – or someone. His fists clench, unable to let whatever it is go. But what terrifies this reporter is that the world has never seen – and perhaps Pepper has never seen – Mr Stark so close to tears as this moment.

I begin to feel uncomfortable. I say that I should go and begin to get up from my chair. Pepper holds out an arm, telling me that 'it's fine'. But I can see the misery on Stark's face already. It feels as if I am intruding on them. I asked if there was anything else that either of them wanted to say. Pepper shakes her head and tells me again that's 'it's fine'.

This reporter doubts that, though. We may never know the whole story of what happened up in space. Stark doesn't seem ready to tell. And I wonder if he ever will.

'We Still Have Duties': Natasha Romanov on helping those left behind
Originally published March 10th 2019

Natasha Romanov could be described as a formidable woman. Raised as an assassin, working for the KGB, any chances of a normal life ruined for her, she is similar to some male counterparts in many ways. A soldier always looking for a fight; a sharp-eyed killer working for the good guys; a snarky, jovial personality to hide her inner torment.

And now a woman on a new mission. A mission to help those left behind.

"We brought a half dozen new girls to the orphanage today," she tells me as she walks around what had once been a grocery store, now converted into a home for newly-orphaned children, "From New York City."

A small girl totters up to Natasha as we talk. The girl can't be more than seven or eight. Her dark hair is in lopsided pigtails and she holds a blue moth-eaten bunny close.

"Nikki," she strokes her hair, "Why don't you go and help out with the dinners today? It'll give you something to do."

With a lack of proper entertainment, the children grow bored more often than those of other age groups. Already I can see graffiti and dart holes in a wall still caked in grocery flyers. Older children throw stones into shop windows, even if they don't loot anything. Most of the stores I saw back in Queens have cardboard plastered about.

"Sure, 'Tasha," she sucks the bunny's ear and potters off to the kitchen.

Natasha sighs, running a hand through her hair. The red roots are just coming back now. she is beginning to resemble her former self; the woman who went on the run from the governments of the world after the disaster known as the Sokavia Accords.

"We get more kids each day," she tells me, "We try to place them as best we can. It's not just grocery stores than have been turned into orphanages. We ran out of schools and the hospitals are jam-packed. We had to take chairs from a hair salon and curtains from a movie theater – I had to use a drug addicts' apartment for a family of four kids. His overdosed corpse was still there."

I am about to ask about how they receive donations when I see an older girl reading to some children in a corner. The mats and bookshelves are stolen from a nearby school. The children don't look as if they have bathed in weeks. The girl is leafing through Where The Wild Things Are, a boy of four on her hip. She has short, wavy brown hair and a ton of freckles. Her clothes are hanging off her body and even wearing a belt does not help her.

She is also pregnant.

"How old is she?" I ask Natasha discreetly.

The Black Widow folds her arms and looks back at the teenager. "Tara arrived from New York a few days ago. She lost her parents in the Dusting. She's fifteen next month."

"How far gone is she?"

"Six months. Her best estimate. She knows the father. Says that he used to be a businessman on Wall Street before the Dusting." Natasha seems firm when she tells me about Tara. Her nails dig into her arm.

I calculate that she became pregnant about two months after the Dusting. I ask, "If the father was working on Wall Street, why isn't she there now-"

"I rescued some kids from New York. That's all I will say on the matter." She gabbles quickly, her head turned away from me.

Three of the other girls rescued from wherever it was in New York are in the kitchens. All of them are skinny, but none of them seem to be pregnant. One is fifteen, two are seventeen. They are all cuttings leeks and peeling potatoes. One girl lifts up her vest to scratch her back and I see a bruise the size of an orange. I must have stared because Natasha grabs me by the elbow and drags me along before the girls see me.

A few very young children are in the nursery. All of them are in donated cots, with older children (although the youngest was probably thirteen) or nurses by their sides. At the end of one cot I saw a notice saying 'Billings Girl'. I ask Natasha what this means.

"It means she was recovered from a house where a family named Billings lived," she explains, "Rescue workers went door-to-door to try and find children and pets left behind. And to see if the owners were alive or turned into dust. If they found a child, they brought them here. The Billings had a girl of that age and description, but we don't know if it's her because she can't say her name."

Then she grips her fingers around the bars of the cot, glancing down at the child, now chewing on their blanket. Her hands shake slightly and I wonder, as I look at her face, if she was going to cry. It certainly seems as if she will. It would be embarrassing for her, a trained assassin and determined woman, to cry in front of a reporter.

But we are interrupted by the sound of cans clanging to the tiled floor. I look over and see three children have been using them to build a Mayan pyramid. Natasha sighs and shakes her head in that way grown-ups do; humored, but disappointed.

"Sorry, Natasha." They say in unison and scatter like birds.

"How many children live here?" I ask.

"Thirty-six," she replies, "and this is just one orphanage. There's a hostel in Boston catering to Sokovian refugees that exploded in number after the Dusting. It was so overcrowded – and there were numerous attacks from racists – that we offered to take all the children under ten here."

I remember one of the attacks. Lebron Tyson famously smashed the front window with a crowbar, barricaded the only way out and assaulted the three women living in that room, sending two into hospital. He kept shouting 'Communist b******!" at the victims. He was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Our justice system is still at work, even if half of the judges are barely pre-law.

I can see four Sokovian children sitting at a blackboard. It's a little kid's blackboard, so they keep having to get up and alter the words written on it. They are learning English, with some difficulty. I wonder how much Natasha works with the translations. She does know almost every one of Earth's languages. I quietly wonder if Thor has ever tried teaching her Asgardian.

"We have have duties," Natasha tells me as we walk over to the office, where the supplies used to be piled up, "The Earth's still here. We need to look after everyone left behind."

Some children are huddled around a television on top of a wheeled black trolley, the sort that my teachers used when I was in school. They are watching an old comedy movie. I don't know if they even understand the jokes.

When I ask Natasha why they're watching this, she looks wistfully off into the distance.

"Because in times like this, you either laugh or you cry."

I wonder how much she has cried.

Because this is just one orphanage, in one town, in one state, in one country in the world and who knows how many more across the universe.

These children have likely lost their whole families. If it wasn't for people like Natasha, I believe that a good majority of them – or at least the older females – would be in the same situation that Tara ended up in. if not, then they would be starving, homeless, killed in car accidents or drowned on beaches and by rivers as they fish for empty cans and discarded plastic.

"Sometimes it feels like the end of the world," the Black Widow quietly says to herself, looking out of the window. I wonder if she really is talking to me or not. "I – don't know if it is or not. If we're going to go downhill after today. If tomorrow is ever going to get better or if everything's going to go into disarray."

I can see it on her face; she is scared. She turns away from me.

"Like it or not, this is the beginning of a new era. What sort of era? I have no idea."

By the time I leave, I see her standing in the doorway, watching the car drive away. I ponder on what she has said. I can safely say now that there is no shame in crying. It is okay to be afraid. But we can't let that fear get in the way of surviving.

All children's names have been changed.