By the time Eva got to the compound, her hair was thick with ash that made her shudder to think of. She scooped a deeply unhappy Rachel Carson out of the bike on the back of her box, went inside via the back exit she normally used and found the place eerily empty, without even a single guard to look down their nose at her. They'll be out helping, she reassured herself, as the cat wriggled in her arms. Helping to do what, exactly, she wasn't sure.

Rachel Carson squirmed out of her grip and trotted down the corridor into Vision's suite, jumping up onto an armchair and starting to wash herself. Cats never seemed fazed by anything. Eva went for a shower, to wash all the dust from the road and the… the other stuff off of her, changed into some spare clothes she kept here and sat down on the edge of the bed, only to get up again thirty seconds later and go back out into the corridor.

Alvie! Her friend would know what was happening, surely. Eva didn't want to bother the Avengers but this didn't count, right? She scrolled through her contacts list to Alvie in Wonderland and hit dial, restless feet taking her through the maze of hallways.

"This is Alvie's personal line. If you're a booty call, leave a message."

"Al? It's me. Why aren't you picking up your phone? You're still – you're okay, right? Because your phone's in your brain, you said. You wired it all in. And if you'd disso – if the line is still working then you must still be alive. What's going on? Pick up your damn phone!" Eva stopped, and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I'm just worried. I'm at the Avengers compound. Call me as soon as you can, okay? I love you."

She hung up, walked back into Vision's room, pulled on one of his cashmere jumpers and left again. Rachel Carson followed her this time, rubbing against her legs and meowing softly as they walked together. Even the cat now seemed to sense that something was wrong.

Eva found herself walking to the rec room. There was still Rhodey's jacket draped over the back of one of the chairs where he had left it last night. Without even thinking about it, she walked over to the kitchen area and started making herself a cup of tea. She kept a secret supply of English-style biscuits in Vision's cupboard space, since nobody would ever think to look in there and steal them. He had brought her back some shortbread from a few visits to Wanda ago, and there were still a couple pieces left in the tin. Once the drink had brewed she carried it and the biscuits over to the couch she usually shared with Vision, and switched on the television.

***THIS IS NOT A DRILL***
A NATIONWIDE STATE OF EMERGENCY
IS IN EFFECT. PLEASE STAND BY
AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
***THIS IS NOT A DRILL***

It was the same blank screen on all the channels. She pressed her thumb down on the plus button and let the screen flicker until it hit a twenty-four-hour news service that was still functioning.

"… Approximately fifty percent of the world's population vanished instantaneously, without any damage to the surrounding area or non-human animals. Reports suggest that the Avengers –"

She switched it off again. Rachel Carson jumped into her lap, which she almost never did, and licked Eva's fingers with her rough, sandpapery tongue. Staring at the now-blank screen, Eva scratched the cat behind the ears.

Her phone buzzed and Eva reacted so quickly that Rachel Carson nearly went flying.

From: Mom
Are you safe?

To: Mom
Yes

She sent the message with a sick feeling of disappointment. She had been hoping it was Alvie, or one of the supers. But at least she knew her mother was okay.

To: Mom
Do you know if my dad made it? x

From: Mom
I hope not.

A laugh bubbled up in Eva's throat, just about managing to escape through her lips. "I guess she's where I get my sunny personality from," she told Rachel Carson.

"Mew."

"Yeah, yeah. Time and a place, I get it."

Eva found herself unable to stomach more than a tiny bite of shortbread, but drank the tea so fast she burned the top of her mouth. There was a patchwork quilt folded neatly on the other side of the couch. Sent in by some crazed super-fan, it had all the Avengers' faces embroidered on it. Eva remembered the time she had spent Christmas here, with a tree decorated with superhero baubles and an Iron Man doll stuck lopsidedly to the top, and laughed again. She wrapped it around herself, and with that and the cashmere jumper and the ball of furry warmth that was Rachel Carson on her lap, found herself becoming very warm and sleepy.

It wasn't quite silent in the compound. There was the buzz of electronics that never turned off, the gentle snores of the cat and, in the distance, the sounds of the city carried in on the wind. But Eva was used to New York, and falling asleep to a constant humdrum of noise. It was practically a lullaby. She rested her head on the arm of the couch and looked through half-closed eyes at the feature garden she had created here many years ago to cover up the vast circular sigil Thor had burned into the turf. Asshole. Those supers never did think of the collateral damage…

She stifled a yawn and felt her eyelids droop together. Five minutes, she told herself. Just five minutes of shut-eye. I need to stay awake if anything… happens…

And then she was pulled down into a deep and dreamless sleep.

A/N lmao at how many of you responded to the last chapter with something along the lines of "if you kill Rachel Carson, I kill you." I respect that. It never even occurred to me to kill the cat off, tbh. She and Jeff Goldblum were the only two people immune to Thanos' snap. In other news, I live in the UK so I still haven't seen Ant-Man and the Wasp and it is driving me INSANE.