This is a sequel of sorts to another post-Infinity War fanfic of mine, The Things We Keep. While this is perfectly readable by itself, it does contain immediate major spoilers for that fic, so if you think you'd like to read them both, I highly recommend stopping here and reading that first!

Afterward, Tony could recall every second of the culling in exquisite, awful detail.

"Something's happening," the little insect-girl had said, and then she was gone, and the big guy, too, and then Quill — just ripped from the world like they'd never been there in the first place.

And Strange — oh, fuck Strange. Fuck Strange and his, "If it comes down to you or the kid or the stone, I'll pick the stone," bullshit. Liar. Liar. Better that they'd died fighting, better that they'd died to win, then lived with this.

He'd traded the stone for Tony, and now only Tony was left, and it—

It wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth this. He wasn't worth this.

Nothing was worth this.

And Peter — Tony knew it had only taken seconds, no longer than the others, but in his memory it seemed to stretch into an eternity.

And then he was gone. One moment Tony had his arms around him, and then—

It played on repeat in Tony's brain.

Mantis. Drax. Quill. Strange. Peter. Peter. Peter.

Repeat.

"Did you hear me?" the blue girl asked him. What was her name? Thanos had said it.

"Yeah," he said. He hadn't.

"The Milano's trashed, we need to find another ship," she said. Her voice was harsh. Metallic.

"We crashed the one we came on," he said. She didn't seem to listen, just trudged up a hill and looked around. The landscape was nearly unrecognizable after the impact of — God, had it been a moon? Tony remembered Thanos ripping a chunk off it and throwing it at them. All around them, structures had been reduced to rubble, crushed or buried.

"I'm getting turned around," she said. It was something spacey. Like Galaxy, but that wasn't it.

She walked down to some rubble and started sifting through it. The gravity on this planet was less than Earth's but the ease with which she tossed hunks of rock aside told Tony she was strong. Not Hulk strong, but like, Steve strong, maybe.

(And they were both dead now — Bruce and Steve — Tony knew.)

He wasn't going to ask her her name. Trying to remember was the only thing occupying his mind other than—

"Do you hear that?" she asked him. They both stopped to listen.

She crawled up a piece of rubble to get a better vantage point, then ducked her head as a shadow swept over them.

"What was that?" Tony asked her.

"A ship," she said. "Cloaked, somehow."

"One of Thanos's goons?"

"His ships don't need stealth here." She raised her head and looked over the top of the metal structure she was perched on. "They're landing."

She hopped down and made her way around toward the ship and Tony limped after her, like a dog following food. He considered leaving her alone, but when he lagged behind she waited for him.

As they crept up to where the ship had landed, she drew the swordlike weapon she'd fought Thanos with. Tony thought it probably wouldn't do much if they had guns.

Then again, considering Thor, maybe melee weapons were the universal standard.

(Thor, who was dead now. Mantis, Drax, Quill, Strange, Peter...)

Ripples of pale green light crawled through the air and a ship ghosted into existence in its wake. Four humanoid figures were making their way out of it. The one that turned to come in their direction had a buglike face. It also had a large, complex gun. So much for that.

"Sakaarans?" the blue girl wondered, like Tony was supposed to know what that meant.

(Nova? Closer, but not quite.)

Tony's eyes were drawn to a woman in shining white armor, her brilliant blue cape billowing gently behind her. She had a sword, and so did another woman (in a dress, which struck Tony as odd, for some reason) who had come out of the ship after her. Last was a man in black.

"Nebula," Tony remembered aloud.

"Allies, maybe," she said. She'd lowered the sword but hadn't put it away.

"No," Tony said, "Not allies." He gave the arc reactor a tap and let what was left of his armor spread across his body. His thoughts crystallized into a sort of warped clarity as they teetered off the edge of hopelessness and tumbled down into the dark. This, perhaps, was the reason Strange had bartered for his life. Maybe by then (by the endgame) they had already failed. Maybe by then there was no winning, there was only this.

Tony had said once that if he couldn't save the world, he was for damn sure going to avenge it.

The bug raised its weapon and hissed at him as he approached, but it didn't shoot. The others turned, but only one of them recognized the sound of a charging repulsor.

Loki said, "Stark?"

And then Tony blasted him off the gangplank of the ship. He hit the ground with a highly satisfying "oof!" and only barely managed to roll out of the way as Tony rocketed forward and brought his fist down, smashing rock. Tony felt the hit reverberate through his arm; the suit was spread too thin to really protect him.

It didn't matter. He aimed both hands to fire both repulsors at full power as Loki staggered out of the way.

"You did this!" Tony roared at him.

Loki made a placating gesture. "Stop!"

"You brought him to Earth!"

Light gleamed in Loki's raised hand and there was a clatter. Tony glanced behind him to see the woman in white swing her sword at him only to clang off the air in a flash of green.

(Behind her, the insect was on the ground, and Nebula's sword clashed with the other woman's.)

"Don't touch him," Loki said, scrambling out of the way as Tony swung at him again. "It's fine, he won't hurt me—"

"I'll kill you!" Tony snarled. His repulsors whined as he charged up another shot.

Something cracked against the back of his head and the world went briefly black.

"Stop!" Loki shouted, insistently. "He's just a mortal—"

Something was stopping Tony from getting up. Something heavy on his neck.

"I don't care what he is." Tony turned his head to look up toward the voice, to the woman whose boot was on his neck.

Loki was kneeling beside him, trying to push her off. Close enough that Tony could have reached out and touched his face. Close enough that Tony could grab his head and empty all the energy left in the arc reactor straight into his skull. He raised his hand to do it but with the adrenaline wearing off, every inch was agony. "Stop," Loki said, breathlessly, and Tony realized for the first time that he was talking to her. "He's Thor's friend."

Something in the way he said it made Tony hesitate. The weight came off his neck.

"I don't care who he is," she said. "If he hits you again, I'll kill him."

Tony struggled to his feet, gasping for air. He clutched at his side.

"You did this," he croaked at Loki.

"I know," Loki said softly.

"You," Tony said, "You brought him to Earth. You worked for him. You gave him the Tesseract."

Loki just nodded. He approached cautiously, his hands outstretched, like Tony was a feral animal.

"This is all—" Tony gasped. Because of you. He could feel the fight bleeding out of him. He was so exhausted, and he hurt so much.

"Stark," Loki said, barely more than a whisper. "It's over. Let me take you home."

Tony had the vague notion of falling forward, of being held steady, of looking down and seeing blood on the hand that was pressed against his side. The world slid across his vision as they walked him into the ship — not walked, carried. Someone carried him. When had they picked him up? And all the while Loki's voice fell like rain against his consciousness, words green as absinthe, as welcome as they were unwelcome. Enough. Home. Over. Safe.

o

Tony had so little energy that it was hard to call it waking. He couldn't have been unconscious for long but he didn't remember the journey from Titan to the dim room and soft bed where he now lay.

Loki was sitting beside him, and Tony's helmet was in his hands. The green glow of his magic was on his fingers, in the seams of the helmet, in its eyes, in Loki's eyes. It made Tony think of Wanda, and it made him feel sick, naked.

Stop, he wanted to say. Stop touching it. It isn't yours.

(Wanda. Wanda, who was dead, with the rest of them.)

And then Loki stood and put the helmet over his chest, and it — and the rest of the suit — receded into its stored position around the arc reactor. Loki touched it cautiously.

Stop, Tony wanted to cry. Or maybe he just wanted to cry. He felt trapped in this body, without the strength to move. (He was dying, he knew, couldn't bother to care.) Loki lifted the device off of Tony's chest, examined it, set it aside, pulled Tony's jacket open, rummaged in a black box nearby for a pair of scissors to cut his shirt away. (Get off, get off, get off—) Tony felt like he was being dissected, like one of those frogs in a science class. Did they even make kids do that anymore? He hoped not.

Loki's fingers groped at his torso, practiced hands feeling for broken bones and internal bleeding. Tony had seen doctors work, he knew what it looked like.

Mustering every ounce of strength left in his body, Tony gasped, "Fuck off."

Loki only briefly glanced up at him, but the very serious expression on his face lightened somewhat.

"Why," Tony managed, "Why can't I feel that?" Talking was easier now that he'd done it once.

The smile Loki leveled at him was a tad condescending for Tony's taste. "A local anesthetic," he said. "I stuck you with a syringe a moment ago. I'm surprised you don't remember, but you've been in and out since I brought you in."

"Dying," Tony said. He could feel it, the life slowly seeping out of him.

"There's been enough of that today, don't you think?"

It was hard to argue when he put it like that.

Loki pushed up the sleeve on his right arm — the left had some sort of bracer on it — and craned his head to look out the door across the room. Satisfied that nobody was going to walk in and catch him at whatever mischief he had planned, Loki leaned over him and pressed his palm to Tony's chest.

"Healing is delicate work," Loki said, "And it's not quite my area of expertise, so please be still."

If he'd had the energy to move, Tony would have just for spite.

And then he did. It came flooding into him past the edges of the anesthetic-induced numbness, like a couple shots of espresso finally doing their work after a bad all-nighter. When it was done, he didn't feel anywhere close to well but the overwhelming sense of dread that had been pervading Tony's thoughts — the feeling like he was being sucked down into a dark pit from which there was no escape — lessened to a far more manageable level.

Tony surged up off the bed and grabbed Loki by the throat. The Asgardian froze for a split second. His eyes flicked to the door.

"Don't be stupid, Stark," Tony felt Loki's Adam's apple bob against his palm. "You won't accomplish anything and the Valkyrie will kill you."

He squeezed and Loki winced, but beneath the tall neck of his shirt and the softness of nearly-human flesh were muscles that felt like steel cables.

It wasn't fair, really.

Steve had the serum and Bruce had the Hulk and Thor was Thor, but all Tony had was the suit and if someone took it away—

But they were all dead now, he thought, as Loki gently removed Tony's hand from his neck. They were dead, because they had to be, because why would Thanos spare them? Nebula and Tony and Loki — their lives had been bought or bartered for. The rest of Thanos's enemies hadn't been so lucky. He'd wiped them all from existence.

Loki touched his forehead and Tony had only a very brief moment to think of Mantis as he said softly, "Sleep," before the world went dark.