Mantis was in the garden.
There was a small garden on the grounds of Avengers Headquarters, planted by Bruce Banner.
Not because he liked gardening, but because he had discovered that being around plants lowered his heart rate.
Mantis crouched in the center of the garden, her antennae swaying gently in the breeze as her fingers touched the soil, feeling the plants' emotions.
Did plants have emotions? Most people would say no.
But Mantis knew that plants had emotions.
Not the complex emotions humans had, but something more primitive, purer, like a heartbeat.
They knew sunlight was good. They knew water was good. They knew being trampled was bad.
They could not speak or think, but they could feel.
Mantis closed her eyes and let the plants' emotions flow into her body.
She was not soothing or healing them, but synchronizing her emotions with theirs.
Synchronizing her heart rate with the plants' growth cycles, synchronizing her consciousness with the earth's breathing.
She was preparing.
She did not know what she could do once Thanos arrived.
She was not a warrior. Her body was weak, and her abilities were almost useless in battle.
But she knew that if, after the battle ended, people were still bleeding, still hurting, still afraid—
They would need all her strength to help them.
So she stayed here, crouched in the garden, touching the soil, making her power deeper, broader, closer to the essence of the earth.
Carol was in space.
She floated in Earth's orbit, about four hundred kilometers above the ground, with the blue-and-white planet slowly turning beneath her feet.
She closed her eyes, her arms hanging naturally at her sides as her body slowly rotated in the microgravity.
Her consciousness stretched into the depths of space, past the asteroid belt, past Jupiter's orbit,