Steve Rogers was at the other end of the ruins, his shield still raised before him as he ran toward Thanos.
His blue eyes watched Tony turn to ashes, and his footsteps stopped in that instant.
Not because of fear, not because of shock, but because his heart had shattered in that instant as well.
The shield slipped from his hand, struck the ground, bounced twice, then lay still amid the rubble.
Steve dropped to one knee.
Not because he was injured, but because he realized his legs could no longer support him.
Not from physical weight, but from the weight of loss.
He looked at that pile of ashes, at that empty suit of armor.
At the man who had once stood beside him amid the ruins of the Battle of New York.
The man he had split from, reconciled with, and fought alongside once more had vanished.
He had vanished before his very eyes.
"Tony..." His voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping across metal.
He reached out, wanting to touch that armor, to touch those ashes.
Wanting to touch anything that could still prove Tony Stark had once existed.
His hand stopped halfway there.
Not because he had stopped it, but because his own hand had begun to turn to ashes as well.
Starting from his fingertips, his skin turned gray.
Then it dissolved into countless tiny particles that shimmered beneath the sunlight and drifted through the air.
Steve Rogers, super soldier, Captain America, the little guy from Brooklyn.
Turned to ashes.
Natasha Romanoff stood on the other side of the ruins, still gripping an electric baton, her red hair covered in dust.
She watched Steve turn to ashes, and there were no tears in her green eyes.
Only a black, hollow emptiness, as if something had