Author's Note: Well, this certainly took a while to get done. I'm sorry for that. But it's just that... well... I don't want to lie to you all. We're obviously in the middle of a pandemic, among other things going on, and it hasn't been putting me in a good place. To keep from getting to big in the explanation, it's been really messing with my anxiety, and that's made me feel less like writing and more like hiding under the covers and waking up when it's all over. But, luckily, I've been slowly finding a rhythm that lets me relax, and with that, I've been able to start writing again. So this, as well as my other stories should start seeing some progress, as well as some new stories I thought up while all this was going on.

Thank you for being patient, and I hope you understand where my head's at with all this. I don't like putting these stories off any more than you all like waiting. But I need to take of myself first so I can give these stories the attention they deserve rather than just bang something out for the sake of just publishing something. I hope everyone else is doing okay throughout all this, and if not, I hope you feel better and please, please, please don't be afraid to look for help.

Please enjoy...

"Hi, this is May, I'm not able to answer, so please leave a message," May's greeting came through Natasha's phone as she'd called her yet again for… Natasha realizing she'd lost count.

"May, its Natasha, call me as soon as you're able to, to let me know you and Peter are okay," she said after the beep from May's voicemail sounded.

Almost immediately after disconnecting, she tapped the screen again in a controlled frenzy. Seconds later she was listening to the ringing of another phone. Each made her feel a sudden rush of panic as they went unanswered, until finally…

"Hey, this is Peter… Parker. Peter Parker. But you knew that because, uh, you called obviously. Um… I can't answer right now so go ahead and –"

Beep

"Peter, it's Nat, I need you to pick up. Please, pick up; or call me back. Let me know you're okay. Please, Peter, pick up, Sweetie," she pleaded to his voicemail. She tapped the phone, ending the call, and letting her hand slowly fall until it was resting limply against her leg.

"Still no answer?" Steve asked from his seat next to her on the quinjet. She shook her head. "Honestly, I'm surprised that you're still getting service," he told her.

"It's spotty," she remarked as she looked down at her phone. "I… I don't always get through so clearly. System's probably overloaded from everybody else trying to reach out to… well, everyone else." She sighed, then sat up and turned to look at Steve. "What about you? You getting through to anybody?"

Steve shook his head.

"Fury, Hill, Sharon – all of them are either out of reach, or…," he let the sentence hang, finding himself unable finish. "I'm sure he's fine," Steve told her after a beat of silence. "He's a tough kid."

Natasha nodded.

"He's also a little stubborn," she reflected, causing Steve to look at her. "They attacked New York first. He'd go swinging into action, regardless of how goddamn dangerous it was."

"Don't let your mind go there. We won't know who's alive and who isn't until we hit Avengers HQ and start taking some kind of tally," Steve attempted reassure her.

"Guys," they heard Rhodes call out from the controls at the front before Natasha could respond. "We're thirty minutes out."

Queens was in chaos. There were cars still littering the streets, left where they crashed into other cars or into telephone poles, or mail boxes, or rolled their way onto the sidewalks. The smell of burnt metal and gasoline, as well as whatever was in the buildings, still wafted through the air. Most them had been put out, but the heat spoke volumes to how they'd only been extinguished a short time ago. Probably more from the people around here that the fire department, Natasha thought as she slowly weaved through the melee on the streets and sidewalks. Yet despite the smell of smoke, and the heat, and crushed cars, it was eerily quiet. There were a few people left on the streets. She guessed that they were trickling in from other parts of the city, here to look for loved ones that lived in the area. Just like she was. She walked through the nearly deserted area, slipping around anyone that was speed walking past her. As she walked by empty stores, a few of them looking like they'd been looted, she almost gasped in amazement. It almost felt like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie, only this scene was very, very real.

After a while, she was making her way up to the seventh floor of Peter and May's building. The sound of her boots on the hallway floor sounded almost thunderous against the quiet of the building. And if she didn't know any better, she'd swear there was an echo. Reaching their door, she raised her hand, and just like she had all those months ago, found herself hesitant to knock. You can do this, Nat, she encouraged herself, trying to psych herself up. The worst that could happen is that they don't answer, she further thought. But then, she realized that, no, that wasn't the worst that could happen. She closed her eyes, and told herself to not think that. That until she saw evidence telling her otherwise, there was still every possibility that both of them were okay. That they were fine, and perfectly healthy, huddled inside this this apartment… not answering their phones, or texts, or trying to call or text her back.

Finally, when she could feel her eyes starting to sting from how tightly shut they were, she opened them, and, before she could talk herself out of it, knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again, harder and louder. "Peter! May!" she called out, hoping that they were just deep inside the apartment, and couldn't hear her knocking.

Suddenly, the sound of a door opening caught her attention. Her eyes widened, and she could feel hope welling inside her. But then it started draining as fast as it had risen when she realized that the sound wasn't coming from the door in front of her. She turned to her right, and found herself coming face to face with the barrel of a shotgun. She heard the tell-tale sound of a pump action being cocked, immediately telling her that there was only thing left for the gun to do. "Freeze scumbag," came a gravely, elderly sounding voice.

She cautiously looked up and past the barrel to see an average looking elderly man. He appeared to be in his early sixties, with nearly all white hair that was looking like it hadn't been combed in the last day or two. He was thin, wearing a simple white T-shirt, and khaki pants that were a hiked up higher than they should be. As she looked at his exposed arms under his shirt, she realized that his skin looked like it was starting to hang, like all the mass and muscle had been sucked out of him. But nevertheless, he still had a firm grip on that shotgun, she thought. While she didn't doubt that she could move fast enough to take the gun from him, she told herself that there was no reason to. He wasn't a threat – not really. Just a scared old man.

"Take it easy," she said calmly as she raised her hands.

"Don't tell me to take it easy," the old man barked at her, waving the gun at her. "What? You picked the stores clean, not leaving anything for the rest of us, so you damn looters are hitting apartments now?"

"I'm not hitting anything, I'm just here checking up some friends of mine," Natasha explained. "Do you mind if I ask if you've seen them? May and Peter Parker?"

"Not since all this happened," the old man answered, still not lowering his shotgun. "Then again, I haven't exactly been looking out. The world's gone to shit in a handbasket, so looking out for my neighbors ain't in my list of priorities."

That's when you should look out for your neighbors, Natasha thought.

"Well my list of priorities doesn't involve taking a slug to the chest, so… how's about you lower that?" she told him.

"Don't let me catch you coming in here," he growled at her just before ducking back into his apartment. She heard the lock click and then the hallway was silent once again. He's scared, she thought, just like everyone else is.

Putting the incident out of her mind, Natasha knocked one more time. When she got no reply, she pulled her lock pick from her jacket and began working on the lock. God, I hope May didn't have that latch on, she thought as she felt the lock turn and disengage. She turned the knob and slowly opened the door, a second of relief when she didn't encounter the previously thought of latch.

"Peter," she called out as she closed the door for privacy's sake. "May," she called to her as she entered the apartment.

She started looking through the place, and becoming dejected as she found every room empty. May's bedroom looked perfectly neat, the bed made, and everything looking untouched. Peter's room looked normal – bed not made, cluttered and in need of some serious picking up. The kitchen was clean and showed no signs of being used recently. But the living room was where she received her gut punch.

The TV was on. It was tuned into the news, which currently had a frazzled anchor broadcasting whatever information that had been discovered since the Snap.

May's cell phone was on the floor. Natasha picked it up. Surprisingly, May didn't have a lock on it, so she was able to access May's last activity. Texting Peter to be careful. She probably saw him fighting on the initial news coverage. Then hours later, a text demanding he call her. Then almost twenty outgoing calls to him.

Fearing the worst, Natasha looked around the room, her eyes finally settling on the couch – and the ashes staining it.

She doubted that they were Peter's, after all, she'd seen him on TV fighting Thanos's goons. Also, this was May's phone. So those aren't…, she stopped herself from finishing that thought. But the evidence was clear, if she would just stop ignoring it to protect herself. No returned phone calls. Unanswered texts. No mention of Spider-man doing what he could to help in the aftermath of all this devastation. As she let herself take a seat on the coffee table and looked at the ashes, she finally admitted the ugly truth to herself. May was gone. And as terrible as that was, there was the true heartbreaking realization…

So was Peter.

Tears started running uncontrollably down her face as she finally came face to face with her biggest fear since learning of all the deaths that had happened. The one death she'd actually prayed hadn't happened. The one death she was hoping against.

"I'm sorry, May," she sobbed as she looked at her ashes on the couch in front of her. "I'm so sorry I didn't protect him."