Thanos Goes Home

"Looks like you've recovered quite a bit. Before, you were practically a walking skeleton," Steve Rogers teased with a smile.

"I guarantee that was the lowest point of my life. It won't happen again," Tony retorted gloomily.

Beside them, Natasha held a translucent pale-blue panel and manipulated the projection screen before everyone as she reported:

"Thanos has been gone from Earth for twenty-three days. With half the world's population wiped out, governments everywhere have fallen apart, national infrastructure and social institutions have been paralyzed, and the entire globe is in chaos."

"With only the strength we currently have, we can't change the situation in a short time. All we can do is slowly gather our forces and lick our wounds."

Images of familiar companions flashed across the screen before them: Falcon, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Star-Lord, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Vision, who had died after Thanos took the Mind Stone from him, and many more...

Too many of their companions had died in the Snap. From that alone, they could imagine how chaotic the outside world had become.

The projected image before Carol was of a Black man wearing an eyepatch—Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He had been one of Carol's few friends on Earth, and he too had died in the "Snap," managing only to contact her with the pager she had modified for him.

In the corner of the meeting room, Thor sat alone in casual clothes, drowning in his emotions. In less than a month, his face had grown a messy, unkempt beard, and he looked completely lost.

"Do we know where he is now?" Tony asked.

Steve Rogers shook his head. "No. He only opened a portal in front of us, then left."

"A portal? Did you see what was on the other side? Can you