23 days have passed since Thanos saved the universe.

The Mad Titan has since retired to a verdant garden planet. But not unnoticed. Following an energy signature identical to the one one that marked the death knell of half of the universe, the Avengers have come for him. Natasha Romanoff, a spy known as the Black Widow. Bruce Banner, a genius physicist with a huge, rage-fueled alter ego - the Hulk. Thor Odinson, a warrior from the faraway world of Asgard, and the God of Thunder. James Rhodes, an Air Force Colonel inside a suit of armor with devastating firepower called the War Machine. Rocket, a strange creature who looked like a raccoon but talks a big talk and carries an even larger gun. Carol Danvers, a human charged with the incredible energies of an Infinity Stone. Nebula, Thanos' long-suffering cyborg daughter. And Steve Rogers. Captain America.

Steve woke up seven years ago to find that he had been frozen for seven decades. The world had changed a great deal since World War II, but in some ways it hadn't. It still needed heroes. And this was all that was left. The remnants of the Guardians of the Galaxy, what Steve understood to be some sort of space-faring group of mercenaries. And the surviving members of his own family - the Avengers. All except for one. Tony Stark held a grudge against Captain America that even the end of the world wouldn't heal. He was also in no shape to fight after returning from his first bout against Thanos. So he had remained behind. And no one had heard from Clint Barton, the adept archer Hawkeye, since the incident occurred. The eight of them would have to do.

Everything goes according to plan. Carol and Thor subdue the Mad Titan, while Rhodey and Rocket retrieve the Infinity Stones that gave Thanos his power over life and death. Only they aren't there. Rogers and Romanoff interrogate Thanos, who tells them they are gone.

"The Stones served no further purpose. They could only tempt me. So I cast them into the past, beyond anyone's reach. The effort destroyed the Time Stone, and very nearly killed me. But it was worth it."

A silence fell over the Avengers.

"The work is done," Thanos said. "And it will always be done."

Thor, having heard enough, strode forward and buried Stormbreaker into Thanos' neck. But the head never hit the ground.

Thanos chuckled as he watched Thor look at his axe in bewilderment. The God of Thunder swung again and again, but each time the axe passed through the murderous Titan's body it stitched itself back together. His forearm, severed by Thor's axe and laying on the floor, also vanished and reappeared in its proper place.

"Did you think I would be content to die before I could see the fruit of my labor?" Thanos said, attempting to stand but still caught in Carol's hold.

"I must bear witness - to the paradise I have created. Even if it took a thousand years, the universe would return its gratitude. And so before I banished the Stones from reality, I used them to protect me. As long as I remain here, no harm can come to me."

"I see," Thor said, suddenly quite calm. He stepped into the doorway.

"You're delusional," Rhodey said, full of anger. "You think all this death is going to amount to something positive?"

"He does," Nebula said softly.

"And it will," Thanos beamed with pride. "That you should suffer so for your lack of vision is unfortunate, and you have my sympathy-"

"Screw this," Rocket shook. "I can't take it anymore."

"Friends," Thor's voice boomed from the doorway.

"I suppose we should leave Thanos to his solitude. He no doubt would like to get back to his vegetables."

"I would," Thanos smiled. "It's a simple pastime, but a fulfilling one. I'm glad you understand."

"I do," Thor said simply. Then a storm brewed in his eyes. He held Stormbreaker aloft.

With a clap of thunder and the deafening crash of the sound barrier breaking, a stream of colored lights pierced the pastoral clouds over the Garden and slammed into the fields a few hundred yards from Thanos' hut. The Bifrost sent mounds of deep black soil hurtling up from the ground as it burrowed deeper into the planet.

"What are you doing?" Thanos bucked against Carol's grip but the ex-Kree warrior tightened her hold on his neck.

"My brother nearly destroyed an entire planet with the rainbow bridge once," Thor said, his tone not changing.

Tremors shook the surface of the Garden, the wooden hut quivering on its foundations.

"Thor," Steve said cautiously. After all, they were still on the planet.

"He's always good for such clever ideas. Or he was. You choked the life out of him while I watched, helpless."

The Bifrost veered to the west, the planet sputtering and groaning like an injured animal beneath it.

"Thor, you're going to cut the planet in half!" Rhodey shouted.

"I rather think he'd like it better that way," Thor growled.

"Why stop at half, anyway?" Carol muttered. "He actually seems to value this planet. More than he valued any of us."

"Not all of us can breathe in space," Natasha snapped back.

"Hey, all my friends are dead," Rocket shrugged. "Anything to spite this asshole."

Captain America finally walked up to Thor himself, and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Stand down, Thor." He said with authority. "He isn't worth it."

Thor balled his fists and bowed his head. The bridge dissipated.

"Aye… Captain."

"You are all welcome back here, when you are ready to thank me," Thanos said as Carol released him. She returned his offer with a punch to the head that sent him to the floor.

The Avengers all boarded the Guardians' vessel again, with the exception of Carol. The super-warrior had taken off on her own as the Benatar ascended back into orbit.

Steve looked down at the fresh gash in the surface of the planet that Thor had carved with his hammer.

"Am I allowed to say," Rhodey said to no one in particular, "that it didn't feel all that bad watching his stuff get wrecked?"

Steve said nothing. Neither did Thor.

"If that got you all fuzzy, wait until I finish," Carol responded over comms.

Thanos regained consciousness as the dust was settling over his farm.

Arrogant fools, he thought. Then he looked up at the sky.

His massive flagship, the Sanctuary II, was falling through the atmosphere in a ball of fire. He quickly ducked into the hut and crouched down. He felt the heat of the inferno before he saw it. The impact crater decimated Thanos' wheat crops, and the unburned fuel inside the ship seeped into the soil, blighting the land for miles around, that nothing would ever grow.

Five months pass, and little changes for the Avengers. The world is broken, and full of despair. Steve Rogers tries to help where he can, but there is little Captain America can do. He wishes that his friend Sam were still here, helping people with trauma is what he did for a living. Bruce Banner locks himself in a Gamma Lab, eventually reconciling with the Hulk in body and mind to form a new being, not quite Banner or Hulk. Thor regroups with the remnants of Asgard and falls into a malaise. Hawkeye resurfaces in Japan, going on a bloody tear of vengeance against the people he felt should have died in place of his own family. Carol and the Guardians return to space to quell the growing chaos beyond Earth.

An unlikely hero comes in the form of Scott Lang. Ant-Man has been trapped in the Quantum Realm after the rest of his team was snapped out of existence. By chance a rat runs over one of the instruments in his impounded van and opens his way home. After checking on his family, Scott drives across the country to the Avengers Compound. While five months have passed outside the Quantum Realm, Scott only experienced five hours. Time dilation - time travel - was possible. But it would not be possible without Tony Stark.

Natasha, Steve, and Hulk travel to the cabin upstate that Tony has retreated to, and attempt to win him over. He is unwilling at first, but eventually the chance at redemption changes his mind. So the Avengers hatch a daring plan. The nine of them - six original Avengers, Nebula, Rocket, and War Machine - will travel back in time, collect the five remaining Infinity Stones, and return to the present to restore the lives Thanos wiped out. The Time Stone, would require something more creative. But the Ancient One, who guards the Stone in the past, is used to creative solutions. Provided they bring it back, she allows the Avengers to take her own Time Stone back with them.

While the Avengers carry out this "Time Heist," Carol Danvers travels to Nidavelir, the once-great home of the Dwarves. She has been tasked with a special project…

"Etri?" She called out into the vast empty warehouses.

"I'm looking for Etri the Dwarf? Thor Odinson sent me."

"Aye, I'm in here," a haggard voice boomed from further within.

Carol flew around a corner and met a Dwarf for the first time.

"Woah," she breathed. The being before her had to have been two stories tall, which certainly wasn't what she had read in books growing up.

"What do ye want?" Etri lilted half drunkenly. Carol found herself wondering whether all of Thor's mythic friends weren't at least half in the bag.

"You made the Gauntlet Thanos used to harness the power of the Stones. Right?"

"Correct. He should have killed me then, spared me the shame of it. Is that what you're here for? To make me pay?"

"No, no! In fact, I very much need you alive. Because if you made one glove, you could make another. Right?"

"Why in all the Nine would I make that fell weapon again?"

"Because the Stones can work both ways. My friends are out gathering them. Once they have, we'll use them to undo this nightmare and save the universe. Save everyone."

"Eh? Are you sure it can be done?" Etri was taken aback.

"If anyone can do it, they can."

"That's… that would be… a miracle," Etri's great voice softened for the first time since she had arrived.

"But the God of Not-Listening-Very-Well left out an important part. My forge is out of commission. The aperture out on the rings is stuck closed. Thor nearly died holding it open long enough to heat my last project for him. And he's not here to bear the power of the Star again."

"So, all you need to make the glove is heat to melt the ore?"

"No ordinary campfire would do, lass," Etri grumbled. "Our forge was lit by a neutron star. The only thing hot enough to melt the strongest metals in the universe."

"Well, it just so happens that my body is one big-ass battery," she snapped her finger and a burst of blue and orange energy radiated from where her fingers touched.

"I can just take a dip in your star and we can light your forge the old fashioned way."

Etri looked at her with a mix of awe and terror.

"Who did you say you were, again?"

"Sorry, I didn't. I'm Carol. Nice to meet you."

Around a half hour later, Carol reentered the station. Her hair crackled and her eyes glowed white with the energies of the star.

"Are you alright?" Etri asked.

"I'm good. We should probably get this thing started though, I'm not sure how healthy it would be to keep this stuff in my system for very long."

They walked together through the darkened shafts of Nidavelir towards the great furnace.

"I don't get it," Carol said after a long gap of silence. "Thanos has been going from planet to planet for 20 years, committing genocide on half the populace of each one. It's all part of his sick game of "balance." So why did he kill all of the Dwarves here?

"Bah. Thanos' rules only hold true as long as his cruelty allows it. His words bring tidings of mercy even as his actions bring the most portentous woe. The Mad Titan's madness is that he himself has come to believe those tidings. It is not a unique quality in beings of power such as he. I have beheld it before."

They finally came to the forge chamber. An intricate pattern singed into the floor marked Thor's hasty exit from the station months prior.

"This ore's name was lost to time," Etri explained as he readied the mold. "Not since the age of Thor's grandfather has it been used this often."

"Why left handed?" Carol pondered at the shape of the mold. Etri was now wheeling out a crate, empty save for a few remaining ingots of a coppery substance.

"It's one of a pair. Allfather Bor had the right gauntlet commissioned for his treasure chamber long ago, as a symbol of his dominion over the Realms. He even put imitation Stones in the settings, I'm told. He destroyed the mold so that none like his Gauntlet might be forged again."

"Gee," Carol frowned.

"As I said. I have beheld ones such as Thanos before. I have thanks that Thor seems to have broken that particular family legacy."

Across space and time, another Thanos was demonstrating Etri's point. Before him, stretched into a nearly indistinguishable string of mechanical parts, was his daughter Nebula. Not his daughter Nebula, however. This one had come from somewhere else. Another time, he was learning. A time where he had succeeded in his ultimate goal of collecting the Stones. A time where he had solidified his victory by casting the Stones into the void of time. A time where, judging by Nebula's appearance here, the few remaining heroes launched a desperate mission to recover their only hope of stopping him.

The Mad Titan's lips curled into a smile.

A time where, once they had completed their mission, all six Stones would be in one place.

The timeline's true Nebula was at her father's side, as was her sister Gamora and brother Ebony Maw. Thanos inspired as much fear in his "children" as he did the rest of the universe. That fear manifested in many ways. For Maw, reverence. For Nebula and Gamora, resentment.

Gamora was mere hours from enacting a long-concealed plan to betray her father and spirit one of the Infinity Stones from his reach. The path would bring her into contact with her first friends in the universe, and lead her on a feverish search to find and bury the location of the Soul Stone. But that transgression against her father would be her last, as the Mad Titan would cast her into a pit to date his desire for universal purging.

Nebula would, in the next few days, witness the power of an Infinity Stone firsthand, the first time in her life she beheld something capable of killing her father. The sight would fill her with a grim, passionate resolve that would fuel her for the next four years. If her father was not immortal, then he could die at her hands.

But this new wrinkle in the folds of time had altered the course of events. Now both sisters stood, looking at conclusive proof that Thanos would succeed. Nebula had always been the least favored in her father's eyes. If she was destined to live in this Hell forever, then she needed to take advantage of this new Nebula's arrival…

Moments had passed since the Avengers left on their most important mission yet, but several fateful hours had transpired for the heroes when they warped back into the Compound.

It was a time of mourning. On Vormir, faced with the price of "A Soul for a Soul," Natasha had won her battle of selflessness with Clint, and fell to her sacrifice far below.

Bruce was distraught. For a long time had he harbored feelings for the Black Widow, feelings that the Battle of Sokovia and his subsequent internment on Sakaar left unspoken. But her death resonated throughout the team. Clint had been the one to see the good in Natasha all those years ago, and the two had relied on each other throughout SHIELD and the Avengers. Tony was silent. He was done losing people to this disaster, and he didn't have any grief left. Natasha and Steve became close friends while on the run from SHIELD during HYDRA's insurrection, and remained together after Tony and General Ross branded them fugitives from the law. But moreover, Natasha had been a guiding figure in the Avengers in the months since the Decimation. Even Steve found himself without a path, but she threw herself into her work, guiding efforts to help the survivors on Earth and beyond. That she wouldn't be able to see the end of their journey hit the Captain harder than he wanted to present to the team.

Their solemn atmosphere came to an end when Carol returned bearing the new Gauntlet.

"Once the job is done, I will see to it that Etri's forge is repaired permanently. It will burn for millenia," Thor turned over the glove in his hands.

"You have my thanks, Carol."

Tony, Bruce, and Rocket took the Gauntlet into the lab to begin implanting the Stones. Clint paced the upper walkways. Rhodey and Thor stepped outside. Nebula had disappeared. Steve supposed that she was feeling a lot of things, being this close to the end.

At length he and Carol were left alone in the kitchen of the compound.

"Sorry about Romanoff, Captain Rogers," Carol said softly.

"It's Steve, please. And thank you. For the words, and for getting us that Gauntlet. Did you run into any trouble?"

"Not from Thanos' end. I think we managed to pull this off without drawing his attention."

"That's good. So, after all this, are you headed back to space?"

Carol shuffled in place a moment.

"I was planning on it, but… well it's been a long time since I've come back down to Earth."

"You've got people you left behind," Steve surmised.

"I do. But this universe is bigger than me. It's bigger than any of us. So, it's kind of selfish of me to want to stay here when there are so many planets without Avengers. Right?"

"I have a friend," Steve started. "Had a friend. Soon he'll be back. He said there's always some stuff you leave there, and other stuff you bring back. Now, I think we both know you can carry anything you want, but I don't think that means you have to."

"I had a friend who wanted to stop wars, so that people like you and I don't have to keep doing this to ourselves. Her name was Mar-Vell. Fury thought that I should take her name, use it like a symbol. I've never thought I was worthy of it. She lost so much, I couldn't take one more thing.

"It sounds like it wasn't a name he was talking about. More like a legacy. And isn't that what you're already fighting for? Her legacy?"

He showed her his shield. "Now, I've got special serum running through my veins that lets me run as fast as a car. But this shield is my symbol. It's going to be my legacy. Anybody can take up this shield and be Captain America. But not everyone knew this Mar-Vell woman like you did. So if it were me, I'd think real hard about taking the name."

"Rhodey said you were good at the talking part of the job," Carol raised her eyebrow. "Boy was he not kidding."

"Do they not teach you how to give rousing speeches in the Air Force?"

"Oh is that how it is?"

"Guys," Clint appeared in the doorway. "We're all set."