Chapter Text
Wind whipped around the battlefield as dust obscured the vision of the mighty fighters on the foreign planet. The man in red and gold armor stood tensely as he faced the purple giant before him-- Thanos. On one hand, he wore a golden glove, filled with four infinity stones: the power stone, reality stone, space stone, and the soul stone. He stood menacingly, glaring down at the Iron-clad man before him with a constructed ease. Tony couldn’t decipher whether he was stupid or if he knew much more than he let on; he preferred the former.
Star-Lord's small army surrounded Thanos on the dust-ridden, dry wasteland whilst spider-man hid behind Doctor Strange, waiting to strike. Strange gestured around their surroundings, “Let me guess. Your Home?” he flatly spoke, aiming to squeeze every second of time he could from Thanos.
The giant smiled reminiscently, “It was; and it was beautiful.”
He moved his gloved hand upwards to manipulate the environment around them with the reality stone, showing the sorcerer what the planet looked like before destruction. “Titan was like most planets. Too many mouths, and not enough to go around. And when we faced extinction, I offered a solution.”
Strange narrowed his eyes, “Genocide.”
Thanos paid him no mind, “But at random, dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. They called me a madman. And what I predicted came to pass.” The illusion began fading away, back to the desolate and empty environment.
Strange stepped forward, “Congratulations. You’re a prophet.”
“I’m a survivor.”
“who wants to murder trillions.”
Thanos waves the gloved hand around loosely, “With all six stones, I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist. I call that...Mercy”
Meanwhile, Quill snuck around behind Thanos, waiting for the perfect opportunity to intercept him. Mantis quietly crouched in position, breathing as silently as possible. Strange begins the signal, “I think you'll find our will equal to yours.”
Thanos frowns, “Ours?” he looks up, just in time to be crushed by falling rubble.
Iron-man shoots off of the ground, flying straight towards Thanos’ right side, “Piece of cake, Quill.”
Quill scoffs, flying in from the other side, “Yeah, if your goal was to tick him off.”
The wreckage on top of Thanos erupts, the pieces glowing with purple. He shouts as he uses the Power Stone to force the pieces at Tony. Peter webs his eyes, and swings in to kick him flat in the face.
Strange summons a blade and shoves it forward, but Thanos stops it with his hand, tearing the web from his eyes. He storms toward Strange, kicking him just as Strange summons a shield, absorbing the force of his blow, but knocking him back.
Quill attempts to shoot Thanos from behind, but is thwarted as Thanos uses the Power Stone to shoot balls of energy at Star-Lord while he advances by the steps Strange formed in the air. He turns to Quill, as said man disengages his helmet, dives backward into a portal and flips him off, “Boom!” he smirks triumphantly.
Thanos attempts to pull Quill back in, using the space stone, but Strange sends the Cloak of Levitation to stop him from closing his fist. The cloak wraps around his arm and flies outward to immobilize Thanos.
Peter swings in and shoots more webs at the distracted giant, “Magic!” he kicks him in the head, “More Magic!” He leaps into a portal as Thanos begins to recover, appearing behind him once again, attempting to shoot another round, “Magic with a--”
Before he can finish, Thanos grabs him from the air and throws him to the ground, holding his other hand to his neck. “Insect!” he glowers. He goes to throw Peter again, but is interrupted by an explosion caused by Iron-man shooting a missile at him.
As the flames blind Thanos, Spiderman attaches a web to him, and strains against it. Thanos pulls Peter toward him, but looks up as a ship crashes beside him, and Nebula jumps in front of him, “You should’ve killed me” the hisses.
She runs towards him, distracting him long enough for mantis to land on his shoulders and place her fingers on his temples. Thanos lets out an aggravating scream as she tries to put him under. Mantis strains herself, “Be quick..He is very strong!”
Tony and Peter run towards his hand, trying to release the grip he has on his closed fist. Star-lord lands and joins the others as he approaches the subdued purple giant. “Where is Gamora?” he sneers, growing agitated as Thanos lets a tear fall.
“He…He…He Mourns!” Mantis cries, drawing Quill’s attention.
“What does this monster have to mourn!?”
Nebula quietly steps forward, “Gamora.”
“What..?”
“He took her to Vormir. He came back with the Soul Stone...but she didn't.”
Quill turns to Thanos, disbelief wracking his body. Tony grunts, rapidly glancing back and forth between the gauntlet and the distressed Star-lord, “Okay, Quill, you gotta cool it right now, understand?”
Quill doesn’t listen. He turns to Thanos, drawing alarm from the struggling Iron-man. “Don't, don't, don't engage, we've almost got this off!” he cries.
Quill whips Thanos in the face with his pistol, “No, you didn't... No, you didn't...NO, YOU DIDN'T!!!” Quill uses his gun to pound Thanos in the face twice. Iron Man goes to hold him back, as Peter is left to pull off the gauntlet himself.
“It's coming! It's coming! I got it! I got it...!!” he excitedly exclaims, but Thanos wakes, shoving Mantis from his shoulders, and grabbing the cuff of the gauntlet just as it slides off his hand, causing Peter to stumble back, and Mantis to go flying.
Peter sees her flinging figure, “Oh, God!” He jumps up and grabs her, extending his mechanical spider legs to give them a safe landing.
Strange summons a weapon to attack, but Thanos uses the Space Stone to throw him away. Then, Iron Man shoots at him, but Thanos bats him down, and uses the Space Stone to pull down the surface of Titan’s moon. Tony tries to fly away, but a large chunk pins him to the ground.
Peter swings around and shoots his webs to try and catch as many people as he can. “I got you!” he catches Drax, “I got you! I can’t remember anybody’s names!” He catches Quill.
Thanos and Strange battle while the others are down; Strange uses his powers to trick Thanos, summoning an army of his own clones, using a powered rope to restrain him from all angles, but the purple giant simply uses the stones to grab Strange’s throat. “You’re full of tricks, wizard,” he smirks, grabbing the Eye of Agamotto off of his necklace. “Yet, you never once used your greatest weapon.”
He crushes the Eye of Agamotto in his large palm, revealing no Time Stone inside it. “A fake,” he glowers, tossing Strange away, causing his head to harshly hit the stone ground. Iron man shoots a blast towards the giant and huffs irritatedly, “You throw another moon at me, and I'm gonna lose it.”
Thanos turns to Tony, “Stark.” he remarks, flatly.
Tony raises a brow, standing to full height, “You know me?”
“I do. You're not the only one cursed with knowledge.”
Tony raises an arm, “My only curse is you.” He shoots missiles at Thanos, wrapping restraints around the gauntlet. Iron-man charges at him, raising both arms to fire simultaneously. He smashes Thanos into the rocks behind him, but he jumps back almost immediately, and throws a heavy punch to the side of Tony’s suit of armor. He grips the top and rips off his mask, to which Tony promptly summoned another layer. Thanos roughly punches him to the ground and growls.
Thanos rips the restraints off with a frustrating ease as Iron-man gets up and uses a jet-powered battering ram to strike Thanos across the face, drawing blood. He touches the wound, “all that for a drop of blood.” He flicks it off of his finger.
Thanos punches Iron Man again and again before Iron Man attempts to stab him with a sword. His suit of armor is chipped and scuffed, the ground beneath him is crushed and his stamina begins to fade. Thanos breaks off the sword and stabs Iron Man straight through the stomach with it.
Thanos pushes Tony backwards by the grip on the sword impaled in his stomach. He sets him down and places a palm on his head, “You have my respect, Stark. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you.” He raises his arm to use the stones on Iron-man.
Strange strangles out a plea, “stop.” He pushes himself to rest on the rubble behind him, “Spare his life, and I will give you the stone.” Tony snaps his head over, “don't.”
Thanos simply peers at the immobilized sorcerer, “No tricks.”
Strange shakes his head and reveals the time stone, pinching his fingers to summon the glowing green gem. Tony grunts, not bringing himself to watch as the stone they fought so hard to protect was being handed so easily to the monster before him. Strange offers the stone, sending it towards Thanos’ gauntlet. He places it on his thumb’s mantle and revels in the newfound sense of power, “One to go.”
Quill shoots at Thanos, but he simply uses the space stone to teleport away from the battlefield. “Where is he!?” He pants, whipping his gaze from left to right, awaiting an ambush from the purple giant, “Did we just lose?”
Tony allows himself to relax and begin attempting to heal his wound, using his broken armor glove to freeze the bleeding cut in his torso. Blood runs down the side of his face, and the cut at the top of the bridge of his nose throbs. He cranes his neck towards strange, “Why would you do that?” he whispers, defeated.
Strange purses his lips, “We’re in the endgame now.”
He closes his eyes, holding a hand to his chest as he tries to control his rapid breathing. He begins seeing choppy visions of a girl stuck under rubble. He couldn’t tell if she was on earth or some other planet, but it was neither his concern nor his priority. He furrowed his brows, tensing his body to try and keep the visions stable. The girl was crying, trying to scream out for help, but to no avail as her throat was hoarse and dry from the abuse of the scorching hot rubble on her back.
His vision grew blurry, but soon he was taken to a scene where her fingers began to glow brightly, turning white from the sheer energy coursing through her veins. Slowly, her body began to glow the same color as the rubble around her began to melt, her body trembled and shuddered, her clothing beginning to scorch at the edges. She raised her head, and Strange felt as though he were staring directly at her.
He understood well what that meant.
He opened his eyes again, watching as his comrades began to get up and reconvene. Peter helped Tony stand up, and Mantis suddenly looked up, “Something is happening.” She quietly said before disintegrating into dust. Quill panted, staring agape and unsure as he turned his head to Drax, who soon followed into dust, “Quill?” he asked.
Tony slowly approached the lone star-lord, keeping a straight face to not panic the man, “Steady Quill” he beckoned. Quill frowned in frustration, “Oh, man…” he remarked, before too, turning into dust.
“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good,” Peter whimpered, catching Tony’s attention immediately. He shot his head towards the teen, “you’re okay, you’re alright” he reassured, though whether it were for Peter or himself, he didn’t know. He watched as the boy stumbled straight into his arms, clinging desperately to his mentor. Tony reached out and cradled his body as he watched in agony over what he couldn’t control. “I- I don’t… I don’t wanna go, sir. Please.” he weakly cried, looking at Tony with guilty eyes “I’m sorry”. He crumbled into dust and joined the terrain around them.
Strange looked solemnly at Iron-man, “Tony, there was no other way,” he said, before bringing a hand up and raising his pointer finger in a ‘one’ gesture as he nodded at him. He crumbled away quietly, leaving Tony and Nebula as the only survivors of the battle on Titan.
_________________________________________
Earth looked like a hellscape with burning buildings, multitudes of crashes all piled up, crumbled buildings, and sunken helicopters. The sidewalks were covered in piles of dust and crushed by tons upon tons of metal and cement. People were screaming and crying, some stopped dead in their tracks as they watched drivers, pedestrians, and pets all alike, crumble into the air, making no sound. Sirens wailed in the distance and explosions sounded down the streets: somehow it was both too loud and eerily quiet at the same time.
Just minutes ago it was perfectly fine: I was sitting in the car with my cousin, Mira, and driving back from middle school. I had been let out early for a doctor's appointment, to which I had been smug about as I left my classroom, grinning at my friends who watched enviously as I left third period geometry. As we were driving to the hospital, we heard blaring siren noises from both in front and behind us.
Mira looked into her rear-view mirror and grimaced as she saw an ambulance, “Oh, God, why here on a one-way?” she sighed, angling the car as best as she could to allow the vehicle to pass. She tapped her fingers on the top of the steering wheel as she watched the ambulance approach. Suddenly, said vehicle jerked and sped forward at an uncontrollable pace, headed straight for our car.
I looked back from my seat, still strapped in tightly by the seat belt. My heart began beating excruciatingly against my ribcage as I watched the chaos outside. Mira suddenly cursed and reached over to my seat, quickly releasing me from my seat, “Get out!” she screamed, moments before impact.
The ambulance slammed straight into the back of our car, forcing Mira and I forward. My head slammed into the dashboard, and I felt the skin break. Blood rushed down my face as I weakly pushed myself up, a sharp ringing in my ear. “Mira?” I called out.
To my side, Mira was knocked out, her head resting against the steering wheel. I gasped, and tried to get out of the car, pushing and slamming my side into the door to force it open. When the ambulance crashed into us, it pushed our car straight into an apartment building. Once I wedged a small opening in the door, I squeezed out and climbed on top of the car, using the brick wall of the apartment for grip.
I slid over the top and landed harshly on the broken side-walk. I turned sharply, causing my head to ache and my body to sway. I gripped onto Mira’s door handle and pulled it with all my might, but it wouldn’t budge. I grew desperate as I heard more explosions and screaming in the distance, now frantically using both of my hands and body weight to pull the door free and get Mira out.
As I wrestled with the door, I saw Mira gaining consciousness. She slowly turned her head towards me, outside of the window. Her hair was matted in the front and blood ran down her face, obscuring her left eye. “Y/n…?” she hoarsely called out, moving her hand up to try and open her door.
Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks as her body began to disintegrate into particles of dust. “Mira!” I called out, screaming as I banged on the window. I watched helplessly as she disappeared from my sight, leaving a pile of ash on the driver’s car seat. I began screaming, yelling for help as tears ran down my face, “Please! Please, anyone! Anyone! Help! I need help! My- My…!” I was cut off by a crash and a loud boom screeching from above me.
I looked up, watching in paralyzed fear as the top of a building came crumbling down in large chunks, pieces of cement being broken off as it tumbled down the side and towards me. The first chunk slammed straight onto a car on the other side of the road, snapping me straight out of my fear. I panted, desperate for air; I whipped my head from side to side, trying to find an area of cover. As another chunk fell onto the road, this time closer to me, I spotted a small covering of a toppled signal tower and car a few feet away from where I stood.
I wasted no time in running straight towards it, sliding as another chunk toppled behind me. I tumbled for cover, scraping my arm and knee in the process. I heaved and panted heavily, pushing myself upright onto the side of the car, cradling my arm as tears pricked the corner of my eyes. I watched in horror as people crumbled into dust whilst they ran away from the toppling buildings and out of control cars with seemingly no driver.
Suddenly, a helicopter crashed straight into the tower above my head, snapping the metal structure as its weight crushed it downwards, right where I was. I whimpered in pain as the structure hit my head; I desperately moved my limbs to crawl from underneath the claustrophobic trap. Just as I almost reached the light, and back onto the chaos-ridden street, the structure completely collapsed, caging me in with it and crushing my back; the only exit now completely blocked.
The air around me constricted, and whether that was because of the limited space from the rubble or my lungs being pushed against it, I didn’t know. I couldn’t even think properly: the pain from the rubble slowly crushing me and the heat from the helicopter’s metal burning me was excruciating. I cried out, screaming as best I could for anyone to help me.
I couldn’t even hear myself. The drowning ringing noise in my ear dizzied me; I felt my throat grow hoarse and dry, my screams now coming out in strangled coughs and wheezes. My eyes began growing blurry and tired, closing as I desperately used my last ounce of energy to push against the scorching metal on my back.
I could no longer raise my head, the combined pain from my throbbing, bleeding face and the scorching hot metal burning my back began to take a toll on my conscience. My fingers trembled as I tried to reach towards the small sliver of light from the outside world, but I soon found myself in the embrace of darkness. I could hear the city rumbling around me, distant and muffled screams and sounds becoming nothing as my body went slack.
I couldn’t hear anything.
I couldn’t see anything.
I couldn’t feel anything.
I felt like I was floating; the pain leaving my body as I was embraced by the sensation of nothing.
Is this it?
Is this how I die?
I don’t want to die like this…
…
Something warm began crawling up my body, before settling at the tips of my fingers. My vision, which was covered by the depths of darkness, suddenly exploded in vibrant colors. Blinding white, raging red, and warm yellow flashed before my eyes. I could see them sparkling around me, lightly lifting me up and feeding energy into my body. My body grew stronger and the exhaustion I felt earlier was wiped immediately.
The pain from my head, the sharpness from my lungs, the scrapes on my body, and the throbbing burns on my back disappeared into nothing: I felt completely normal-- more than normal.
The gleaming lights began to fade away as my vision returned to me.
The suffocating heat on my back no longer felt harsh, but welcome and comforting. I gained sensation back in my hands as I gripped them testingly, before moving my legs and pushing my body up. The weight that used to crush my back was nowhere to be found as I rose up to my full height, covering my eyes with the back of my hand. I squinted, allowing the harsh light to settle before opening them to their fullness.
The view before me took the air from my lungs.
Confusion swam through my mind as I looked around my surroundings.
Everything around me was completely and unbiasedly melted.
Melted was honestly putting it lightly: everything was completely molten and burning.
I turned around, trying to see what had happened to the signal tower and the helicopter that had crushed me. To my surprise, and quickly growing fear, they were melted into pools of still-burning lava. I stumbled back, falling down to the ground and into the molten goop that surrounded me.
The absolute horror of what might have happened washed over me.
Somehow, I had melted everything in a 5-meter distance around me into a pool of lava. The metal from the helicopter was reduced into a liquid-like substance. The cover I had hidden under became a deep hole of the melted goop. I was now sitting at the bottom of said pool of lava, and somehow, I wasn’t being burned alive.
At that thought, I quickly pulled my hands from the goop around me and inspected them with fear: they were completely untouched. The tips of my fingers were glowing a bright white that spread down into a warm yellow and then into a blazing red at the center of my palm. With whatever brain power I still had from all of the shocking and trauma-inducing events, I determined that my hands were the cause of the destruction around me.
I stood up shakily, looking up from the bottom of the pool-sized crater I had melted through.
I need to get out of here.
I put my hands against the melted wall of the crater and shoved them in. They slid in with ease, now surrounded by the lava. I moved my other hand up and began trying to crawl up the side by burning my own stairs as I placed my hands on the wall. I moved my foot up to help push my body up, when I noticed that my shoes and socks were completely burned off. It was then that I noticed what state I was in.
The jeans I was wearing were scorched up to my knees, and the sweater that covered my torso had completely lost its sleeves to whatever had burned it. The bottom had begun burning and stopped right at the top of my jeans.
My heart began beating faster and uncomfortably against my rib cage.
What had happened to me?
I wasted no more time and began climbing out of the hole. My feet began melting steps into the wall alongside my hands as I broke the surface of the crater. I hoisted my body up and took in the sight before me. The streets were now completely desolate, save for the few stragglers still running around in fear.
I couldn’t care as I began running away from the scene caused by my uncontrollable heat. Tears welled up in my eyes as I ran past Mira’s abandoned and crushed car. The asphalt beneath my feet melted slightly as I ran, adding to my distress.
Stop!
Please, Stop!
Stop burning things!
The tears were streaming down my face now; I felt the heat slowly dissipating from my body as I ran further and further down the streets. My hands had returned to their normal color now, but my distress couldn’t have even begun to quell. Everything around me was completely destroyed: buildings were crumbled, cars were piled up in hot heaps of fire, and people were missing.
I need to go home
I kept running towards the only place I could possibly find solace in right now: home.