✧ Flirting 101 for the Mad Titan ✧

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The dusty orange sky of Titan hung heavy above them, thick with the smell of ozone and crushed iron. Ruins of ancient spires littered the desolate landscape like broken bones, and in the center of the debris field stood Thanos—a monolithic wall of purple skin and golden armor, clutching the Infinity Gauntlet.

Tony Stark’s breathing was ragged inside the battered shell of his Mark 50 armor. Beside him, Doctor Strange held two crackling, crimson eldritch shields, his brow slick with sweat. Quill was hovering nearby, guns raised, while Drax shifted his grip on his knives and Nebula glared with a hatred so dense it seemed to warp the heat haze around them.

They were fighting a titan. A god-like conqueror who had just beaten them to an absolute standstill. The atmosphere was taut, suffocating, primed for a final, violent clash.

And then, Peter Parker unlatched his suit's web-shooters, dusted off his knees, and raised his hand like he was trying to catch a high school chemistry teacher's attention before the bell.

"Hey, hold on! Quick question before we go back to the punching!" Peter called out, his voice cracking slightly on the high notes.

Tony nearly choked on his own tongue. "Kid, shut up! Get behind the rock!"

"No, seriously, Mr. Stark, I’m genuinely confused!" Peter insisted, walking right past a bewildered Quill toward the giant madman who held the power to wipe out star systems. "I’ve been trying to follow the logic here, but my head is spinning. You’re doing all of this—the planetary invasions, the glowing gems, the giant golden glove—just to erase fifty percent of all living things, right?"

Thanos lowered his massive arm slightly. His stern, weathered brow furrowed as he stared down at the scrawny creature in the red-and-blue suit. "It is a mercy, child. A necessary sacrifice to bring balance to a universe overflowing with suffering."

"Right, right, balance, yeah," Peter rambled, pacing in a small circle, gesturing wildly with both hands. "That’s the official PR pitch! But Nebula over there—" he pointed back at the blue cyborg, who flinched in shock—"was mentioning earlier something about you doing this whole grand, terrifying cosmic performance for someone. Like... Lady Death? Is that a literal person? Like, an actual cosmic entity?"

Thanos’s jaw tightened. A dark, solemn reverence crossed his face. "She is the ultimate quietude. The sweet release at the end of all suffering. My devotion to her is absolute. This universe will be my grand offering to win her favor."

Silence stretched across the ruined plateau of Titan.

Tony blinked behind his helmet. Strange’s glowing shields flickered and dimmed slightly as he stared at Thanos, completely derailed. Quill slowly lowered his blasters, looking between Peter and the Titan as if trying to figure out if he had accidentally inhaled alien spores.

"Wait..." Peter stopped pacing, tilting his mask. "You’re doing all of this... to court her?"

"It is an act of ultimate romance," Thanos declared, his voice echoing with thunderous gravity. "A divine tribute."

"Dude. That is so dumb."

Tony’s heart leaped into his throat. "Peter! No!"

"No, Mr. Stark, hear me out!" Peter turned back to Thanos, totally ignoring the fact that the giant could snap his neck like a twig. "Look, I’m just sixteen, okay? I don’t have a lot of experience. I mean, I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask MJ out back home, and it’s horrifying. But even I know basic human—or, well, cosmic—etiquette!"

Thanos towered over the teenager, his yellow eyes narrowing into slit-like glares. "You dare question my design, insect?"

"I’m not questioning your design, I’m questioning your flirting skills!" Peter shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "Think about it! She’s Lady Death, right? What is her job?"

Thanos hesitated, thrown off balance by the sheer confidence of the teenager’s audacity. "She... collects the souls of the fallen. She guides them into the dark."

"EXACTLY!" Peter clapped his hands together with an audible smack. "She works! That’s her job! Processing souls, doing cosmic paperwork, keeping the afterlife organized! And what are you about to do? You’re about to dump trillions upon trillions of unexpected, sudden, chaotic deaths onto her desk all at once!"

Thanos opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"Do you know what that’s called?" Peter continued, stepping even closer, practically wagging a gloved finger at the ruler of the cosmos. "That’s called a midnight shift with no notice! That’s overtime! That’s ruining her weekend! If someone dumped half the universe’s workload on me out of nowhere, I wouldn't marry them! I’d hate them! She’s gonna be stuck filing soul-receipts for the next three billion years because of your little snap! You’re not courting her, you’re giving her a severe case of burnout!"

Over by the wreckage of a spaceship, Quill slowly turned his head to look at Doctor Strange. "Is... is the kid making sense, or am I losing my mind?"

Strange opened his mouth to reply, but realized he had no counterargument. He slowly let his eldritch magic fade away, staring at the Titan in utter bewilderment.

Thanos stood frozen. The golden gauntlet hung limply at his side. The four Infinity Stones embedded in the knuckles pulsed with cosmic power, but the mind wielding them was suddenly trapped in a profound, existential crisis.

"Burnout..." Thanos whispered, the word sounding bizarrely heavy coming from his deep, rumble of a voice. "She would... be overwhelmed?"

"YES!" Peter threw his head back, exasperated. "She’s going to despise you! She’ll look at the pile of four trillion screaming souls sitting on her desk and say, 'Who did this?!' And then she’ll see your face and ban you from the afterlife forever! You’re ruining your chances, man!"

"I... I sought to impress her," Thanos murmured, looking down at his giant purple hand. The warlord who had brought down empires, who had laid waste to Xandar, who had slaughtered half of Asgard, looked genuinely crestfallen. "I wished to show her the scale of my devotion."

"Okay, look, I get the enthusiasm," Peter said softly, lowering his voice into a tone usually reserved for comforting a stressed-out classmate. "Standard teenage guy mistake—you try way too hard and do something crazy like light a sign on fire or destroy half the galaxy. But romance isn't about massive, destructive, high-stress cataclysms. Have you tried... basic stuff?"

Thanos blinked. "Basic... stuff?"

"Yeah! Like..." Peter scratched the back of his neck. "Buying her flowers? Or those cute little stuffed animals? Or, like, a nice box of chocolates? Does she like dark chocolate? She seems like a dark chocolate person. Or maybe a handwritten card! Just saying, 'Hey, I know your job is really stressful, so I brought you a nice cup of coffee and a lily.' That’s sweet! That shows you care about her, not just about making a big messy scene!"

Thanos stared at the sixteen-year-old human boy in absolute, stunned silence.

The silence stretched over the ruined battlefield. Dust swirled through the air. A piece of metal groaned as it settled in the wreckage nearby.

Tony Stark slowly raised the visor of his helmet. His mouth was hanging wide open. He looked at Strange. Strange looked back at Tony, his eyes wide, completely devoid of any supreme-wizardly composure.

Nebula was trembling, her jaw slack, her artificial eye whirring furiously as it attempted to re-calibrate and process the reality of the scene unfolding before her.

"Flowers..." Thanos rumbled quietly, looking up at the sky. His massive hand slowly cupped his chin. "A token of grace... rather than a mountain of corpses."

"Right!" Peter agreed enthusiastically. "Who wants a mountain of corpses? It smells bad! It’s messy! Flowers smell nice! Orchids! Roses! Maybe a nice arrangement of cosmic star-lilies! You have a golden glove that controls reality, man! You could make a bouquet of flowers that bloom with actual starlight! That’s romantic!"

Thanos closed his eyes. For a long, terrifying moment, nobody breathed.

Then, the Mad Titan let out a long, heavy sigh that rattled the loose gravel on the ground.

"I have been a fool," Thanos admitted softly.

He looked down at the Infinity Gauntlet. With a subtle flick of his mind, the Reality Stone glowed a brilliant, shimmering red.

Where the grand, terrifying weapon of cosmic destruction had been charging up for an annihilative strike, a sudden burst of soft light illuminated the dusty air. When the light faded, Thanos was no longer holding a fist full of terrifying energy.

In his massive, calloused, scarred hand was a delicate, perfectly arranged bouquet of midnight-black roses, their petals shimmering with glowing, silvery dust that looked suspiciously like miniature galaxies.

"She... prefers darker tones," Thanos murmured, a rare, almost shy softness touching the corners of his brutal mouth. "Black roses. Grown in the soil of a dying star."

"Dude," Peter gasped, clapping his hands together. "That is so classy! She is gonna love that! That is ten out of ten!"

"I must go to her," Thanos said, turning his colossal body away from the battle-worn heroes. "I must offer her these... and apologize for the prospective clutter."

He raised his left hand. The Space Stone flared a bright, brilliant blue. A swirling, shimmering portal torn through the fabric of the universe tore open right in front of him, revealing a dark, silent void.

Thanos took a single step toward the portal, then paused. He looked back over his shoulder at Peter Parker.

"Thank you, child of Earth," Thanos said solemnly. "Your wisdom far exceeds your years. You have saved me from a terrible, embarrassing blunder."

"Anytime, Mr. Thanos!" Peter gave him a cheerful wave. "Good luck! Just remember to listen to her and don't talk about yourself too much!"

Thanos nodded once, with deep, profound respect. He stepped through the blue light, the portal snapping shut behind him with a sharp pop, leaving only the quiet whistle of the Titan wind blowing across the dusty plains.

The Infinity Stones were gone. The threat to the universe was over.

Silence descended upon the planet.

Peter turned around, brushing off his shoulders with a satisfied grin. "See? I told you guys! Communication is key. If you just talk through your feelings—"

He stopped.

Every single person on Titan was staring at him.

Quill’s mouth was open so wide a bug could have flown in and nested. Drax was blinking slowly, his daggers hanging loosely in his hands. Nebula looked like her brain had suffered a fatal system crash. Doctor Strange was simply standing there, staring at the empty space where the most dangerous tyrant in the universe had just vanished to go court Death with a bouquet of galactic roses.

Tony Stark slowly walked forward. His armor retracted from his face, revealing a expression of sheer, unadulterated, boundary-pushing disbelief.

He stared at Peter for five full seconds.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter asked nervously, shifting his weight. "Are you okay? You’re staring at me kind of weirdly."

Tony took a deep breath, rubbed his temples with two armor-clad fingers, and let out a sound that was half-laughter, half-sob.

"Kid," Tony rasped, his voice trembling slightly. "I am going to buy you a college. I’m going to buy you MIT. I’m going to buy you the entire state of Massachusetts."

"Wait, really?" Peter’s eyes lit up.

"Shut up," Tony said, wrapping a heavy metallic arm around the teenager's shoulders and pulling him in close, leaning heavily on him. "Just... shut up and let’s go home."

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✧ THE END ✧