Chapter Text
A flash of light.
That’s all Thanos saw before his upper body went numb.
He looked down to see what was causing the extreme feeling, only to find half of a mighty ax buried in his chest. Unbearable pain started to bloom in his body, and he rested a hand on the invading object as he dropped to his knees.
Asgard’s king stood in front of him, now with 2 eyes and undeniable hatred in them. Thanos remembered him from the ship, where he took the Tesseract and completed his mission for the Asgardians. The ax shouldn't have been able to get past the power of the Infinity Stones. It made the king a much more formidable opponent.
But in the end, it wouldn’t matter.
Thor stepped up to Thanos, putting a hand on the side of his head.
“I told you…you’d die for that,” the hero growled, before cruelly pushing the ax further into his body. Thanos yelled out in pain. He felt the ax cut deeper into his body, tearing skin and muscle. Purple blood was streaming from the wound, but he knew he couldn’t die now.
The work wasn’t done.
The work wasn’t done.
Thanos panted, realizing the king’s grave mistake. The arrogant never learn, never suspect.. His anger would be his undoing. He pushed past the pain, using the last of his strength to mutter out, “you should have…………………..you………”
Thanos looked into Thor’s eyes. “You should have gone for the head.”
He raised his fingers, feeling the energy of the Infinity Stones, and started to snap-
Thanos opened his eyes, feeling around for the ax that had just been in his chest. It was no longer there, nor was the Infinity Gauntlet that had just been on his hand. Instead, he was greeted by an empty plane of murky orange that went on seemingly forever. The floor was watery, but his feet didn’t feel wet. It was quiet and cold, but it almost felt strangely familiar.
He swore he could hear faint whispers.
Something inside of him told Thanos to turn around. In the distance was a detailed arch, and under it, the figure of a small child facing the opposite direction. Thanos knew that arch. He stood under it 20 years ago, when he first met his daughter.
“Daughter?” he muttered softly as he walked forward, an icy pain that couldn’t be caused by any weapon creeping into his heart.
Gamora turned around, the same age as she was when she was still small and clueless about the universe. Even the same peasant outfit and messy hair. Her face was devoid of any emotion.
“Did you do it?” Gamora asked solemnly, her voice echoing in his head.
Thanos looked down and weakly answered. “Yes.”
She stared at him for a moment before quietly asking, “what did it cost?”
Thanos thought about it. “Everything,” he decided to say eventually, a heaviness in the words..
In that second, as he looked down upon the child he had rescued, a sadness swept through him. He missed her. He knew that Gamora had never loved him, but she was his favorite daughter. His little One. He missed her so much that it started to get him thinking.
There was no way to bring her back, but what if…what if..
Thanos rationalized the idea. It’s tactical, he thought. It wasn’t selfish. It wasn’t. It was making sure the future was secured. He would be saving more lives this way.
Thanos looked at his daughter for the last time, before slightly changing his wish…
Then,
He snapped his fingers.
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“Okay, hold on. Don’t shoot.”
Clint stood next to his daughter Lila as she pulled back the arrow tightly clasped in the bow. As the sun rayed down on them, the wind blowing a slight breeze, he smiled for a second. Peaceful. Quiet. Clint held extra arrows in his hand as he looked down at the target nailed to the tree. There were more holes in it than paint at this point.
He looked back to Lila, who’s dark brown hair was pulled back and to the side as the string of the bow rested next to her cheek. Her eyes were squinted in concentration.
“You see where you’re going?”
“Mhm” she said back.
“Okay,” he agreed, walking to the other side of her. Grass crunched under his feet on the hill they were practicing on. “Now let's worry about how you get there.”
He slightly moved her foot to point forward and shifted her body.
“Can you see?” Clint asked her again, before playfully asking it again and again as he moved her hair in front of her eyes. Just seeing Lila smile and laugh made his day. Not to mention the fact that she was doing something that he had loved for years.
As his wife shouted for them from down the hill about if they wanted mayo or mustard, Lila asked with a raised eyebrow, “who puts mayo on a hot dog?”
“Probably your brothers,” he snickered before yelling back, “2 mustards please! Thanks mama!”
Laura shouted back, “you got it!”
He told her to mind her elbow as Lila raised the bow one more time and released. The arrow went straight into the yellow center of the target.
“Good job, Hawkeye” he laughed proudly and high-fived Lila before she went to grab her arrow.
He heard Laura’s voice and turned to where it was coming from. “Hey guys! Enough practice, soup’s on!”
“Alright, we’re coming, we’re hungry,” Clint said, turning back around. “Lila let’s go.”
He walked forward, frowning in confusion as he saw nothing but a clump of gray ash being blown away in the wind. He looked around, searching for his daughter. The arrow was still in the target.
“Lila?” he called, checking behind the tree. Nothing. “Honey?” he hesitated, starting to get worried. Where the hell did she go? He jogged back towards the bottom of the hill, hoping to see her down where the rest of his family was supposed to be. Setting up food at the picnic table. playing catch.
No Lila.
No Nate or Cooper.
No Laura.
Nothing.
What?
They’re fine, he thought desperately. They just went inside. Playing a game. Went out of sight.
But…
He started running back down the hill, calling their names, his voice getting louder and more frantic. “Babe…? Babe!?” he shouted before whistling. “Boys!”
He made it to the picnic table. Nothing.
He suddenly noticed that it was more silent than before. Fewer chirps of birds, quieter buzzes of insects. An ominous feeling overcame him. He didn’t care though. He still couldn’t find his family. Clint was panting, not from the running, but from the fear that was making his breath go short. The air suddenly felt impossibly thick as he gasped, searching in every possible direction.
Nothing.
“Laura!?”
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Peter Parker was dying.
He was 15 and he was freaking dying.
He looked up at Mr. Stark helplessly. He was laying uncomfortably on the rocky ground. Dust was swirling around, and he was suddenly sick of the thought of it being his former allies. Beyond him, the stormy sky of Titan boomed ominously. People were dying. People were dying.
Was Mr. Stark next? What about Ned? MJ?
May.
His Spider Sense was screaming at him, so much that he was in pain. He hated and was thankful that, for some reason, his death seemed to be taking longer than the others. It was painful, but…at least he got to say goodbye.
He couldn’t leave them. He couldn’t.
Come on, Spider-man. Fight it.
Mr. Stark looked down at him. He looked…scared, Peter realized. An emotion he had never seen before on his face. Snarky, angry, disappointed, proud, surprised…never scared.
Peter could feel his hand disintegrating.
God, he was dying.
I don’t wanna go, he thought desperately. At that moment, he realized, Iron Man couldn’t save him. No one could. They had one chance, once chance, and they failed.
14,000,605 alternate outcomes…1 that would be successful.
But Peter failed. He failed, and now billions of people were going to die. Why couldn’t he have been stronger, gotten than stupid glove off sooner?
This couldn’t be happening. He was a superhero. Hero’s didn’t fail! Hero’s didn’t fail…
He whispered “I’m sorry,” taking one last look at his mentor, before the rest of his body was consumed.
22 and 1/2 days later, Tony Stark sat across from his strang blue shipmate, Nebula, with a silver triangle-shaped piece of metal in his fingers. Hunger pains racked his body. He felt weak. But he put on his calmest face as he flicked the “football” towards her. Nebula grunted as she tried to punch it angrily. He leaned back, pointing at her, “you don’t need to do that,” he said with a slight smirk. “Because uh…you just hold it in this position,” he explained, making his hands into an end post.
She looked at him with a confused look, before flicking it towards him.
“That was close,” he said cautiously when it missed, before Nebula tried again. This time, the triangle made it over his fingers.
“That’s a goal, we’re now one apiece,” he nodded. She leaned back in surprise. It had been a long time since she’d won something. They kept flicking the football back and forth before Nebula finally took the winning shot.
“Annnnnd you’ve won. Congratulations,” Tony announced, holding out his hand. It took her a moment before she shook it. What was she supposed to do now? She knew what Thanos would have told her to do to the losing opponent. Of course, she had never won against Gamora, but this was different. It wasn’t for survival or honor, or even practice. What was the point?
“Fair game, good sport. You had fun?” Tony asked calmly.
Fun. Huh.
“It was fun,” she said uncertainly, but truthfully. She stood up slowly and walked away from a puzzled Tony Stark, contemplating this new experience. She couldn’t remember the last time she had played a game.
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Later that day, Tony carefully pushed the recording button as he had done every day on this ship on the battered Iron Man helmet. It felt symbolic as to what he was now. Beat down. Crushed. A useless tin can.
He sat back against the bleak metal walls of the ship, even exhausted by the small motion. A dark blue light shone from the window next to him from the millions of stars. He wondered which one of them was Earth’s sun. “This thing on?” he muttered, tapping the helmet, before deciding he was too tired to try and check.
This is pointless, his brain unhelpfully supplied, but he decided to continue with his message. It was naive to think that this ship would ever get back to Earth. But if it did… He took a deep breath.
“Hey Mrs. Potts. Pep. If you find this recording…” he sighed tiredly. “Don’t post it on social media, it’s gonna be a real tear-jerker.” The joke didn’t land the way he wanted it to. Pepper deserved a real message.
“I don’t know if you’re ever gonna see these. I don’t even know if you’re still…” he trailed off, not wanting to think about it. The idea was too painful. “Oh, god, I hope so…”
He blabbered about the ship, Nebula, anything he could think of. He tried to make it sound calm and light-hearted, even when he was talking about their inevitable death.
“Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning…and that’ll be it,” he said with a sort of finality.
He looked longingly toward the mask, “Pep, I know I said no more surprises…but I gotta say I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like…” he squeezed his eyes shut.
Tony failed. He really did. And he didn’t even know who was left to fail. What if…
The Avengers?
The people of Earth?
Pepper?
The kid.
I don’t wanna go.
Damn it.
“Well, you know what it looks like. Don’t feel bad about this.” His head fell into his hand. “I mean, actually, if you grovel for a couple weeks…and then move on with enormous guilt…” He couldn’t stop with the stupid quips. It was all that was keeping him from breaking down.
“I should probably lie down for a minute. Go rest my eyes.”
He knew what was coming. Tony looked back to the mask, feeling like he was staring right into her eyes.
“Please know…when I drift off, it’ll be like every night lately. I’m fine, totally fine,” he assured her, knowing how sarcastic he sounded. “I dream about you,” Tony whispered, tapping the screen. “Because it’s always you.”
For a moment, he stared at the mask. He didn’t know what else to say, so he finally shut it off, slowly pulling his jacket over his shoulder like a blanket. He laid down right there on the floor. He couldn’t even make it across the ship. What would people think of Iron Man now?
Tony closed his eyes, the blue light still slightly shining under his eyelid, saying a silent goodbye to-
A shadow.
He opened his bloodshot eyes to look up. A huge gray mass was blocking the light of the stars. He tried not to get hopeful, but it looked like a ship coming towards them. He really hoped he wasn’t hallucinating.
“Ne-Nebula,” he coughed in the loudest voice he could muster.
He heard metal stomping as she came to join him in the cockpit, before staring in surprise out the window.
“You…you see that too, I’m not crazy right?” he muttered, glancing between her and the ship. She nodded as they both squinted at the person in the front window of the ship.
Nebula doesn’t know how, she doesn’t know why, but she did recognize that ship- well, atleast ¼ of the ship. But even more- the lanky figure with Yondu’s arrow controller fastened securely on his head.
“Kraglin” she murmured.
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Steve Rogers looked into the mirror as he carefully finished shaving his beard. There was no point in having it anymore, as the Accords had been basically forgotten. Who cared about a few fugitive superheroes when the world was in a crisis like this?
He dabbed a towel at his face, before setting it down and bracing himself against the sink of the bathroom. He looked into the mirror for a second. Just staring at himself.
Sometimes, it still felt surreal. It all happened so fast….
He felt his hands starting to shake. He glanced at one of the small side-mirrors in the bright room, which was doing the same thing. Steve looked up hopefully, but cautiously at the ceiling. Maybe, just maybe….
He quickly ran outside of the Avengers compound to its grassy lawn. Natasha, Bruce, and Rhodey were quick to join him. They found Pepper Potts in a tan cardigan who was already standing there looking up. Above them, descending from the night sky, were 2 huge ships seemingly connected together. One was a musty gray with hundreds of exposed parts and systems. It looked like it had broken off, or half of it was missing. The other was attached to the bottom, a dark orange and housing impressively-sized wings. Both of them looked relatively old and beaten up.
A part of Steve had already accepted that Tony was gone. So he couldn’t bring his hopes up until he saw who was onboard.
“Careful,” Steve warned, “We still don’t know who this is.” Natasha drew her guns, and Rhodey pulled up the commands to call him suit.
“Calm down Stars and Stripes, that’s my ship,” a snarky voice called as Rocket stepped in front of them. Steve blinked like he always did at the talking racoon. All the things he had seen, and a talking, walking racoon was still one of the strangest.
The ship finally landed with a shaky THUD. It was a few moments before the gang plank of the orange ship started slowly lowering down.
Tony.
God, that son of a bitch was alive.
Tony was being supported by another person. They were…blue. Metal. An alien, Steve decided. But if she was with Tony, he deemed her trust-worthy….for now.
Steve ran up to them, taking Tony from her hands. He looked back at her for a second, before letting Steve help him walk away towards the compound.
Tony looked worse for the wear, emaciated and weak, even though he tried to hide it with a big, black leather jacket. His hair was messy and his skin was dirty and smudged. He was panting and stumbling, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in decades.
Tony cleared his throat before he muttered in defeat, “I couldn’t stop him.”
“Neither could I,” Steve replied grimly, thinking of how easily Thanos had tossed him aside. Pushed him away. He had fought Hydra, an army of aliens, robots, criminals, even his own teammates. And one purple bastard with a few colorful pebbles had looked at him with a faint annoyance. Like he was nothing more than a fly, before he went down.
“Hang on,” Tony said, stopping them before looking into Steve’s eyes. Tony’s were impossibly tired and sad.
“I…I lost the kid,” he breathed helplessly.
Steve?
Bucky.
He stared at Tony. “Tony we lost,” he said quietly.
“Is uh…,” Tony started hesitantly, but his question was answered as Pepper ran up to them.
“Oh my god,” Pepper cried, as she threw herself into Tony’s arms. He hugged her tightly, before kissing her, whispering “it’s okay.”
While the Avengers reunited, Rocket ran up to Nebula, and Kraglin, pushing past them. The only thing he saw was an empty ship.
“Where…” he trailed off.
Nebula shook her head.
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It’s been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth,” Rhodey stated. The Avengers were gathered around a round table projecting the confirmed deaths. Statistics. Faces of the people that had been snapped. Steve and Natasha were leaning solemnly against tables, while Tony sat in a wheelchair with an IV. Pepper had tried to get him to rest, but he refused, saying he wanted a full report.
“World governments are in pieces,” Natasha added. Her voice sounded detached, her face blank, like she wasn’t fully present. “The parts that are still working - are trying to take a census and it looks like he did…”
Peter Parker flashed on the screen in front of Tony. He looked down, his head in his hands..
“He did exactly what he said he was going to do, Thanos whipped out…50% of all living creatures.”
She glanced over at Thor, who was sitting on the side of the room, looking down at the floor. He had a gray sweatshirt on, and his hands were clasped together, face scrunched up.
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, before turning to Steve. “Where is he now? Where?” He demanded.
Steve grimaced. “We don’t know. He just opened a portal and walked right through. We’ve been hunting Thanos for 3 weeks now, but…Rocket said we don’t have the technology on Earth to track him.”
A moment of silence before Steve started up again. “Tony, you fought him-“
“Who told you that?” Tony cut him off, looking at him with a sarcastic expression. The room looked at him with confusion.
“I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet…while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the store,” he drawled.
Steve looked down. This, this is why the Avengers couldn’t stay together.
“-that’s what happened, there was no fight, ‘cause he’s not beatable.”
“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?” Steve pushed. He knew it was stupid, but he had to check.
Tony blew a raspberry, gesturing his hand. Nothing, like he thought, but the fact that he was making jokes right now…
Steve was trying very hard to keep things cooperative. Natasha rolled her eyes, exasperated.
“I saw this coming a few years back,” Tony pointed out, leaning back in his chair. “I had a vision. I didn’t want to believe it…‘thought I was dreaming…”
Steve stood up. “Tony I’m going to need you to focus-“
“And I needed you,” Tony interrupted accusingly, glaring at him. “As in past tense, that trumps what you need. It’s too late buddy. Sorry.”
Tony shakingly started to stand up, using the table to support himself as he knocked down a couple glasses. “You know what I need? I need a shave,” he said, his voice unsteady.
“And, and I believe I remember telling youse,” he started, angrily ripping the IV out of his arm as Rhodey protested, “alive and otherwise, that what we need was a suit of armor around the Earth!”
He was gesturing wildly as the rest of the Avengers watched him cautiously.
“Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not, that's what we needed.”
“Well that didn’t work out, did it?” Steve exhaled.. Did he not remember Ultron? The horrible destruction of Sokovia?”
“I’d said we’d lose. You said, ‘we’ll do that together too.’ And guess what, Cap? We lost,” Tony sneered.
“And you weren’t there.”
Steve stood there, lost for words.
“But that’s what we do right?” Tony rambled on as Rhodey tried to get him to sit down, “Were the Avengers. Were the Avengers, not the Prevegers!?”
“You made your point, just sit down, okay?” Rhodey said firmly. Tony struggled against him, pushing past Rhodey. “No, no, here’s my point-“
“Tony you’re sick, sit down!”
“I got nothing for you Cap!” Tony pointed his finger at his chest, now standing face to face. “I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero, zip, nada. No trust. Liar,” Tony ended quietly, fuming. The room was dead silent, the air so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Two years. The worst possible catastrophe they could have never seen coming. And they still couldn’t work together..
“Uhhhhh, is this a bad time?” Kraglin said from the doorway. His face was scrunched in discomfort, and he was barely peeking out from the door frame. Everyone turned their heads to him right when Tony started swaying on his feet. Rhodey came out of the stupor, grabbing his friend firmly by the arm and sitting him down in the wheelchair.
“Rhod-”
“Nope,” Rhodey said, before his eyes went softer. “Tones, you’re gonna kill youself if you keep going like this.” Tony bit his lip, anger flashing in his eyes. Surprisingly, he stayed quiet.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief. At Least that argument was over.
As Bruce came in to reinsert Tony’s IV, Kraglin nervously stepped into the room. “Yeah, um, Rocket wansta’ see y’all on his ship. Said it was impor’ant’.”
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“Took you long enough,” Rocket grumbled without looking up as he tinkered with a control panel on the side of the door. The Avengers, Rhodey wheeling Tony’s wheelchair up, stepped up onto the gang plank. It flickered to life, quickly lighting up the whole ship. A flash, a spark, and it all went dark seconds later. Rocket kicked the side of the ship in anger, and it rockily started up again.
Bruce looked around with a judgemental eye on the inside. Rocket turned to the rest of the group with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.
“Well? Are you waiting for an invitation or…?.” Rocket rolled eyes before heading deeper in the ship.
The group walked warily into the halls of the ship. The place was collecting dust and oil was dripping from pipes into a puddle on the floor. The walls were steaming and hissing, with exposed panels and broken wires sparking. “Nice place,” Natasha said dryly, looking around.
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t tell my crew to prepare for guests when I left to go help the god make his magical hammer,” Rocket said through gritted teeth. There in the central room was Nebula staring at a map of space. Rocket walked over to a compartment on the side of the room. The glass door swung open, and a blue artificial light came on. It looked like a small mini fridge, only it was empty. Rocket checked one more time before turning on Tony.
“Did you eat all our food?!” He sputtered.
Tony stared at him for a second. “It was either that or starve,” Nebula said slowly, squinting at the raccoon.
“You didn’t even save the little star-shaped-”
“Rabbit,” Thor interrupted with a low and serious tone. “You said you called us here for something important. Get on with it.” Steve stared at Thor. This was the first time he’d spoken since the Snap.
Rocket glared at Tony one more time before hopping on the round table in the center of the room. And activated a hologram of Earth in the center.
“When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions,” Rocket explained as a flash of colorful light came from the hologram Earth and out into space. “No one’s ever seen anything like it. Now with…actual equipment, I was able to trace a second surge that occurred a minute later with the same energy levels.”
Rocket clicked a couple buttons, and the hologram zoomed out and into a random spot of space. Coordinates popped up in the corner. “At these coordinates.”
Natasha leaned into the table, staring at the blue-tinted screen. “He used the stones again.”
“But what for?” Bruce asked.
Natasha shrugged. “Weapons, an upgraded ship, armed forces. What would you do with unlimited power at your fingers?”
“So basically nothing good,” Rocket said sarcastically.
“It doesn’t matter what he did. We know where he is, and we have a way to get there,” Steve said, looking around the room.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Bruce waved his arms, stepping forward.. “If we do this, we’d be going in short-handed.”
Rhodey scoffed. “Yeah, you mean because he killed all our friends?”
“I mean that he’s still got the stones,” Bruce remarked.
“So let’s get them.” Steve stated, looking down at the hologram. “Use the stones to bring everyone back.
“Just like that?”
Yeah. Just like that.” Steve was determined. He wouldn’t give up just cause they were afraid. They’ve gone into missions blind before, and there was no time to sit and plan a whole lot of nothing.. Bruce and Nebula still looked unsure. Rhodey, Rocket, and Natasha were clearly ready to get going as soon as they could. And Tony…had been oddly silent the whole time.
“Even if there’s a…small chance that we can undo this…we owe this, to everyone who’s not in this room to try,” Natasha said to the room, her eyes still a stormy gray. But behind them, a fiery rage was building up.
“How do you know it’s gonna end any differently than it did before?” Bruce challenged.
“Because before, we weren’t together,” Steve said with a grimace. Tony snorted, muttering something under his breath. The room went silent.
Steve looked towards the two who hadn’t spoken. “Thor, Tony?”
Tony looked down at the ground, speaking through clenched teeth. “Even if we don’t bring them back, I’m going to kill Thanos. I don’t care if you’re coming with me or not. I said it once and I’ll say it again. If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.” Thor took a moment, nodded, and abruptly stood up. He held out his hand, and a few moments later, his ax flew into the ship.
Tony and Steve might have their differences, but there was one similar goal they both had. One they needed. And it was 11 billion miles away.
“If you give me a few days I can repair the ship enough to fly,” Rocket admitted.
Steve looked one more time at the hologram.
Steve?
Bucky.
He sighed deeply. “Let’s go get this son of a bitch.”