Something was wet. No- Everything was wet. Katya sat up slowly, expecting her entire body to ache- she'd just been through battle after all, and had taken some pretty hard hits- but nothing did. She was, however, lying in about an inch or two of water, which soaked through her suit, yet she somehow didn't feel cold.

Glancing around wildly- Peter had to be around here somewhere, and Tony, they were the last people she'd seen and they seemed about as fine as anyone who'd just battled Thanos could seem- but there seemed to be nothing but endless water in all directions. The forsaken terrain of Titan was gone- No rocks, no broken spaceships- no markers of any kind. The water just faded into an empty horizon, seemingly stuck in a perpetual sunset, as everything glowed a faint orange, but neither a sun nor a moon were anywhere to be found.

She glanced down at her hands- last she'd seen them they'd been falling to ash- but they seemed fine, almost too fine, as if there was a very slight glow coming from them themselves. They were smooth, unblemished by the scars and calluses she'd built up over the years- the scar that ran through the palm of her right hand when she'd once caught a throwing star bare-handed in combat practice at the Academy, the bloody knuckles that she'd gotten somehow through the fight, the calluses on her upper palms from years of bare handed rope and obstacle climbing- all gone. She was still in her suit, so she couldn't see the rest of her body, but something told her it was similarly unblemished. She ran a hand over her upper thigh, as if searching for the scar from when she'd cut out her tracker, which she wouldn't have been able to feel through the suit anyway, but something told her it was gone.

She stood up, warily, her suited feet sloshing through the water, trying to get her bearings. "Pauchok?!" she called. Her voice echoed a bit, but there was no response. "Tony?!"

"You won't find them here." Said a small voice, and Katya whirled around.

Behind her stood a young girl, no older than six, her blonde hair in twin braids, with a white, almost ethereal dress, who seemed both so familiar yet so foreign- she'd never seen the dress before in her life. But she recognized the face.

It was her.

"Where'd they go?"

The girl shrugged, but didn't offer an answer.

Katya didn't know what to do with her face, because she didn't know how to identify what was happening in her chest. Staring down at herself, so small, she looked like any other little girl- though Katya knew that in real life, this girl had already murdered two of her classmates, and lead her class in sparring form. She'd already made a name for herself. Dreykov's voice rang in her head, loud and unwanted.

"The greatest child assassin the Academy has ever seen."

Flashes of images- receiving her first butterfly knife, cradling it in two hands like a baby bird-

-the disgustingly satisfying crack of a classmates neck snapping between her arms-

- the repeated foghorn alarm that called them all to assembly-

-being used as an example to spar with older girls-

-being wheeled into a white room, not knowing if she'd ever come out-

Ran through her brain, unprompted-

-The flashing of the pilot's switchboard going haywire as all emergency contingents were deployed-

-Tumbling through empty air-

-The sunlight peeking through the snow-

-being engulfed in red dust-

-Meeting Tony for the first time with nothing but the clothes Natasha'd gotten her and a scribbled note, in the big, empty glass compound-

-The first time she ever saw Peter's face, excited but confused, as he came in for training-

-Kissing him through the burning wreckage of a crashed plane-

-building legos on the floor of his room-

-hand squeezes-

-cheek kisses-

-His hand holding her face as she could feel herself slip away-

-"Ya tebya lyublyu"-

Katya grabbed the sides of her head, not sure if she wanted them to stop. "What's happening?!" She asked the girl- younger her- her voice cracking. "Why am I-"

"You did it." The girl said, simply.

"Did what?!" Katya stumbled back, landing with a slight splash back in the water on her backside, hard, yet no pain came to her. She still gripped the sides of her head as more flashes of Peter, of Ned, of Tony, going to school, waking up in the hospital, finally waking up Aneszka, hugging Yelena, more of Peter- so many more- wouldn't leave her alone. She wasn't sure if she was crying or not. Her chest felt wracked with sobs, but her face was dry. Where was she? Was she ever going to see any of them, ever again?

"You got what you wanted."

This wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want any of this- to be here- this water- she wanted to be back in the familiar carpeting of Peter's room, or the at the compound with her plants, or-

"No!" She cried, her voice breaking, hands still clutched to the sides of her head. "This isn't what I wanted at all! I wanted to be free, I wanted away from that place, but the life I'd built-"

"Don't be silly. You are free."

"This isn't what I meant!" Katya slapped at the water, angrily. She could feel herself openly weeping, now, though no wetness was dripping from her face. She'd worked so hard, been through so much, and had just been beginning to rebuild her own brain from years of having it rearranged for her. She'd finally gotten settled into a life she wanted, into a life that made her excited to wake up in the morning, a life where she was learning how to actually live, but now-

All there was was water.

Emotions she couldn't name boiled in her chest- she knew she was angry, so angry, with Thanos for ripping everything she'd just managed to grasp from her but there was also a hollow sadness she didn't want to recognize, because that would make it real-

"Pauchok.." She tried to wipe her tears away, but came up with nothing, her face still dry. It didn't make any sense. What happened now? Was she just going to live in this perpetual sunset swamp forever? Without Peter?

In her peripheral vision, she could see the girl's bare feet, and she shot her gaze up to meet her eyes with a glare.

The girl simply smiled. "You'll see him again. And you're going to help save the world."