Chapter Text
“I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark,” he whimpered desperately, clinging to Tony. “Please. I don’t want to go.” Tony set him down gently on the rocky Titan ground.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said, his voice failing as he turned to dust on the wind.
He opened his eyes and saw—nothing.
It was not darkness, but it wasn’t light either. A grey, featureless emptiness surrounded him, both stiflingly close and infinitely far away. He was floating—no, he was standing on something, he decided, and with the thought the pull of gravity returned. The emptiness oriented itself, and resolved itself ever so slightly—a desolate grey earth, a misty silver sky.
He looked in the direction that he had decided was “down” and saw that he had a body, or at least the image of one. He was still wearing the suit that Mr. Stark had given him. Was he alive, then? Surely not—he remembered what Thanos had done as vividly as if he were still standing there on Titan. Yet he could think, so some part of him had survived death. He had not exactly expected that, but it did not surprise him. If there was a Soul Stone, he supposed he had to have a soul.
He raised his hand to his face and felt—something. Not touch, but the memory of touch, as his mind tried to reproduce sensations his body could no longer feel.
At some point he became aware that he was not alone. There were others, pressed close around him—uncomfortably close. He could not see their faces, but he began to perceive their figures in the mist; there were uncountably many of them, as far as the eye could see and beyond.
Half the universe.
Slowly, the mist receded further, and he began to have an idea of actual surroundings: a dim, many-columned hall, seemingly as vast as space itself; its walls and ceiling, if it had any, were lost in the encircling grey. He had the sudden urge to find a familiar face—Aunt May, Ned, MJ, Mr. Stark—no, not him, he was alive, and Peter wasn’t sure whether that consoled him or not. He began to press through the infinite crowd, shouting after someone, anyone, who might have known him.
He did not find Aunt May, or Ned, or MJ. Perhaps they had been in the half that lived—it was something to hope for, at least. He did, however, find Dr. Stephen Strange, and with him the four others who had died on Titan. The one called Gamora, though presumably elsewhere in this underworld, had not joined them yet.
“Hey, kid,” said Strange, cavalier in death as he had been in life. “Welcome to being dead.”
“So we are dead, then.” Peter did not need confirmation of that fact, but he sought it from Strange just for the comforting feeling of thinking that there was someone here who knew what was going on.
“Us and half the universe. Though I don’t actually plan on staying this way much longer, and anyone who wants to come with me is welcome to.”
“Um,” said Quill. “Where I come from—oh wait, that’s where you come from, too—you can’t just decide to not be dead.”
“You can’t,” said Strange, “but you’re not the Sorcerer Supreme, are you? Death is just the soul leaving the body. I do it all the time. I’ve never been to this particular dimension before, but luckily I still have this.” He held up his left hand to show the strange metal ring he wore.
The doctor exhaled and rubbed his hands together, for the first time appearing slightly unsure of himself, then with his right hand drew a burning ring in the air in front of himself.
For a moment it looked like it was going to work. The familiar streets of New York appeared through the portal. Peter could even feel the warmth of the summer sun that was shining there; at the very least, he suddenly became aware of how very cold it was in the halls of the dead. But as soon as the image had appeared, it was gone; New York flickered and was replaced by a new image: a long, dim hall, hung with tapestries, and a tall figure, half hidden in shadow, sitting on a throne at the far end of it.
“Stephen Strange,” said the enthroned figure, his voice cold as iron, hard as stone, deep as the vastness of the halls of which he was clearly master, “did you really think that your arts retained their power here? Greater than you have tried to find the way out of my Halls before. I assure you there is none.”
Suddenly Peter became aware that, without ever passing through the portal, they were now standing in the room on the other side of it. It was a bit more solid than the hall where they had been before; still vast, but measurably so, with walls, floor, and ceiling all made of the same featureless grey stone. Beneath where he stood the floor was inlaid with the design of two trees, their branches intertwined: one of silver and the other golden. To his left and right, the same design was embroidered on the intricately woven tapestries that hung along the walls; together they seemed to mark some kind of dividing line, though what they divided from what Peter did not know.
Slowly, inexorably, as though by gravity, they were drawn towards the end of the hall; it seemed almost as though the floor were sloping downward, although that couldn’t be quite right. At a certain point Strange, who had been leading the way, stopped and knelt before the throne of the unknown god, and each of them did the same in turn, though some visibly more reluctantly than others.
“So you call yourselves Avengers,” said the god, after a long silence.
“They do,” said Quill. “We prefer the Guardians of the Galaxy. But I guess we’re Avengers too now, I don’t know. We’re all on the same team, though, if that’s what you’re asking. Well, sort of.”
“We’re all here to kick Thanos’s ass,” Strange summarized.
“I would advise you to be more careful about the names you choose for yourselves while you are here in my domain,” said the god. “I am Námo Mandos, judge of the Earth, doomsman of the gods, and vengeance is mine.”
“I am Groot,” added Groot, helpfully.
“Well, if you’re the god of vengeance, it’s about damn time to get started, don’t you think?” said Peter Quill, irreverently as always, and for a moment the other Peter expected him to be incinerated—not that he could be, since he was already dead—but, at any rate, Námo did not move in anger.
“What makes you think that we have not already?” he said, and Quill bowed his head in a rare display of shame.
“Do not bow as though you have offended me. Rise, mighty heroes of the Earth,” he continued, and they rose. Námo had removed his hood to reveal a sharp face, corpse-pale, with jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders. He was not that much taller than a tall man, and he looked almost human but for his eyes, which were perfect mirrored silver without iris or pupil. Peter could see himself reflected in them, which he supposed was some kind of symbolism, but the effect was quite unsettling.
“I have been named cruel, and heartless, and without pity, and none of these names have been falsely given,” said Námo. “It is true that I was not made to show mercy. But no one upon whom my sentence falls may ever truthfully say that I am not fair. I have rebuked you, and may yet rebuke you further, for usurping a responsibility far above your station, but I am not so craven as to punish you for your own rebuke of me: that my kinsmen and I appear to have neglected the responsibility that was given us. That, by all accounts, is entirely true.
“I am, among many other things, the god of the inevitable. I am unaccustomed to being refused, let alone countermanded. Yet today my hand has been forced, the gates of my realm battered down, my throne and altar broken. Today the authority given me by the One who sits beyond the World has been usurped by a villain of mortal birth, wielding weapons he cannot hope to understand, let alone master. I foretold once that it was the doom even of the Powers to be once humbled before a Child of the One, and it seems that my hour has come. It is with this in mind, Avengers, that I ask you for your help.”
“Great,” said Dr. Strange. “What do you need?”
Námo paused a while before answering. “I am the master of fate,” he said, “but fortune is the purview of my spouse, whom I cannot seem to find right now, for whatever reason. I understand, sorcerer, that she shared some of her knowledge concerning the branching paths of the future with you.”
“I prefer to think of that as my own talent,” said Strange.
“You must tell all that you know concerning the uncertain future before the council of the Powers,” said Námo, ignoring the insult to his wife.
“No.”
“You speak boldly, for one who speaks to me,” said Námo. The statement did not sound like an accusation, and the doctor did his best not to treat it as one.
“If I told you what has to happen, then it wouldn’t happen anymore,” replied Strange, just as matter-of-factly; he did not wish to give the impression that he was defending himself.
Námo did not seem satisfied by Strange’s answer, still less by the way in which the mortal spoke to him, but he did not answer; no doubt he had some secret reason for his silence, but to Peter it very much seemed as though Doctor Strange had put the Judge of the Earth at a loss for words.
The silence was broken by the sound of knocking at a distant door.
“Who cometh now before the throne of Mandos, and what is thy purpose?” inquired an unseen herald.
“It is I, Míriel Therindë, servant of Vairë the Weaver, bearing ill news,” answered a female voice.
“Enter.”
A silver-haired woman entered the room at a run and bowed hastily before the throne when she reached it. “My lord,” she said respectfully, a tremor in her voice.
“Rise, Míriel,” said Námo. “What is it?”
“It’s Vairë, my lord,” she said. “She just—crumbled. To dust on the wind.”