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The thing about killing someone - well, Thanos in this case - is that the method doesn’t have to be clever, it just has to work.
Their plan on Titan the first time they came head to head with this overgrown grape was exactly what you’d call a functioning plan - except of course, when Quill totally lost his head after learning that Gamora had been flung off a cliff.
The second time around, the lot of them have the benefit of hindsight and also the rage and angst from being snapped out of existence or watching their loved ones being snapped out of existence fueling them.
Tony - billionaire, genius, philanthropist, once playboy now “Dad” - had absolutely no intention of dying. Morgan loved him 3000, and he loved his girl 3000n, where n = ∞. Howard had gone and used up all the "neglectful and absent father" cards in the Stark family, so an early death and leaving his baby girl fatherless was not optional. Pepper would probably just bring him back from the dead with sheer will and then kill him herself if he died on them.
The Avengers were going to turn this grape into grape jam and then go home to their respective families, no ‘ifs’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts’.
Plus, this time they had what they didn’t on Titan, namely: Carol, a living personification of the sun, Thor an actual Norse god with not one but two lightning-summoning weapons, and Wanda, who according to Steve had held back Thanos with one hand while destroying the Mind Stone with the other.
(Not to mention, a Scarlet Witch grieving the fresh loss of Vision was a Force to be reckoned with. As Peter - the spider, not the star lord - had said, the last 5 years was really no more than 5 mins for them, so Wanda was understandably at the height of her wrath.)
So yeah, they were pretty much set.
Given that the alien ship was effectively in pieces thanks to Carol, Strange and Wong wasted no time sending hoards of the alien army into the mirror dimension where T’Challa, Steve with his new-found “power of Thor”, and a couple of others took care of business.
Which brings us to this moment in time. With Hulk, Tony and Drax grabbing Thanos’s left arm, Carol securing the right, tendrils of Wanda’s magic binding Thano’s legs and Mantis once again on his shoulder inducing him into a sleep-like trance, Thor and his axe were ready for the killing blow.
To the head this time. No doubt about it.
And then it was done. Surprising how easy shit was when the team was together and cooperating.
Thanos’s overly large skull rolled like any other ordinary head that was lopped off its shoulders. Just for good measure, Thor chopped off the arms too. One can never be too careful.
Hands now freed to cause some havoc, Carol’s entire body began glowing like a cosmic star, and half n’ hour later, the Avengers were wiping grime from their faces as they stood over a graveyard of alien remains.
“So, uh…” Peter piped up, holding the gauntlet gingerly away from his body, “What am I suppose to with this?”
Steve handed the hammer back to Thor and replied, “We’ll have to return them to the original timelines, and the Miljnor too.”
“Hold on,” Rodney waved his hand. “If we just killed the Thanos from 2014, doesn’t that mean the first snap never happened in 2018? Can someone explain this to me?”
Tony scratched his chin pensively, “Not to mention Loki escaped arrest in New York in 2012 with the Tesseract.”
Thor whipped around, “What -”
But he was interrupted by Hope who explained, “I think the multidimensional theory must be true then, in this case.”
Bruce agreed, “That’s what the Sorcerer Supreme - not you Strange, the one in 2012 - said too. Sort of. Also something about the 6 stones protecting the universe from forces of darkness, and removing one permanently from its timeline will cause cosmic catastrophe. The stones definitely need to go back.”
“Then what about our dimension, without our stones?” T’Challa asked the group, but no one had answers for him. It was a question on everyone’s mind. Strange had a curious look in his eyes, but he remained silent on the matter.
“Wait,” Nebula stepped forward. “There’s something I need to do. ”
She reached for the gauntlet, which instantly made everyone around her tense up.
“Nebula stop -” Someone called out frantically.
But Nebula was only interested in one stone. Gingerly, she removed the Soul Stone from its socket.
“I told you,” she said to Gamora. “We became sisters. You have to go back to your time. There’s so much waiting for you there. Ronan the Excuser still lives, and once the Power Stone is returned he will try to use it against Xandar. The Guardians stopped him last time, but without you, there is no Guardians. ”
Quill looked as though he wanted to argue, but Nebula was one step ahead of him. “I’d like to bring Gamora back. Our Gamora.”
“Gamora was sacrificed to the Soul Stone - that can’t be undone.” Natasha placed a hand on Gamora’s shoulder. “The Guardian of the Stone told us so.”
She glanced at Clint. He nodded back. Her partner’s thoughts and emotions were pulsing inside her head, struggling for space against her own. It was a strange almost nauseating sensation, and she could only imagine how long it would take for her and Clint to figure out this new arrangement. Still, better this than not being here at all. Falling to their mutual deaths had been less than fun, but when the sacrifice which demanded one soul was given two, the Soul Stone took half from each, effectively fusing the remnants of Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton's existence together. From now on, you are one. You will live and die together. One cannot exist without the other.
“But Gamora was never sacrificed for the use of this particular Soul Stone. And the other one was destroyed, so it should have no need for Gamora’s soul anymore.” Nebula reasoned, clutching her fist around it. “I have to try.”
And so she did. Try. Eyes squeezed shut, she made her wish, and all around her the Avengers held their breaths. True to their expectations, the stone began to glow, and from the stone came an aura of light which slowly solidified and took form until a haggard Gamora staggered forth, caught by Quill and Nebula’s waiting arms.
“Gamora?! Gamora, do you know who I am?!” Quill exclaimed, a tremble in his voice.
Gamora lifted her head, blinking several times as though in a daze. “Quill, what are you taking about? Nebula, how did you escape Father’s ship? What is this? Where am I - I was just on Vormir -” Before she could finish, she was engulfed by the arms of her boyfriend and sister, and soon after by the rest of her team.
“I am Groot!” A teary “Tree” exalted as his arms grew longer and coiled several times around his ragtag family.
Watching from afar, Nebula’s success inspired Wanda to take action. Vision could not be wished back by the Soul Stone - he was a part of the Mind Stone. Or rather, the Mind Stone was a part of him, and without the stone, there was no Vision.
“Wanda, hold on.” Shuri rushed towards her. “I meant to tell you, I managed to finish before the invasion took over.”
“Finish? You mean Viz is -”
“Inside Wakanda’s computer. He won’t have any powers, or a body for that matter. It’s just a copy, but I’m sure if you gave me time -”
Wanda pulled Shuri into a tight hug. breathlessly thanking her over and over. “Thank you. Thank you!”
Over on the other side of the battlefield, Bruce looked as if a question had been answered. “So does this mean it worked?” He mumbled to himself.
“Does what mean it worked?” Overhearing him, Tony raised his eyebrows questioningly. He began to think that perhaps Bruce’s wish was a little bit more complicated than simply un-snapping the snap. “Bruce….what exactly did you wish for?”
Bruce looked skyward. Carol had been right - Earth was just one of many civilizations in the universe. And in Thano’s quest to obtain the stones, more than one world had been completely decimated before the snap even occurred. From Nebula and Rocket’s accounts over these past five years, he’d learned that Xandar had been obliterated by Thanos when he obtained the Power Stone, and he’d personally witnessed the slaughtering of Asgardians for the Space Stone.
“I wished for all those worlds ravaged by Thanos’s tyranny in his quest for the stones to be restored. Guess we’ll find out.” Bruce cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Heimdall??!!! Are you out there? Send someone if you can hear me!!”
A tower of kaleidoscopic light came thundering down from the hemisphere, and where it burnt into the ashes stood a familiar figure that had half the Avengers gearing into battle mode.
But Thor raised a trembling hand to stop them all. “No! It’s okay. It’s just my -”
“Ah brother, I told you the sun would shine – by Valhalla, you've really gotten f- ”
Thor laughed uproariously and crushed Loki in a hug. "-at."
The Avengers joined in his laughter, and all was well.