Been There, Blown That Up
Summary: After Loki's defeat and his fall from the portal, Tony starts preaching about a murderous purple titan out to get them in the depths of space.
Wait. What?
On the other side of the universe, Nebula loses her cool approximately two seconds after laying eyes on Thanos and finds herself on a wild chase through the galaxy. Now, where exactly was that pathetic piece of rock Terra again?
A/N: This is it, guys. Brace yourselves.
Chapter 20
It had been a long time since Thanos had experienced setbacks in such rapid succession.
His mission did not always yield success. There were always people too stubborn, species too courageous, planets too blind to recognize the true order of the universe. Were Thanos any less patient of a man, he would have abandoned his quest long ago, fallen into despair at the impossibility of his task.
The first major setback, the Chitauri's failure of Terra's invasion, was unfortunate but insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Sending the Jotun whelp had been a gamble from the start – one that, even in the wake of its failure, placed two of the infinity stones on the same infant planet, ripe for Thanos to take at a later date.
The second had not registered as a setback as much as a minor delay. Xandar had not housed an infinity stone at all – false information was a troublesome obstacle, but one Thanos wasn't able to prevent.
His search for the soul stone was as fruitless as it had been in years.
Lastly, his daughter's betrayal. It might have meant little on the grand scale of his quest, but it was the setback that hit Thanos the hardest. He'd begun gathering his 'children' a long time ago, but Gamora was the first for whom the word had rung true.
Her treason was painful – though perhaps not as surprising as Thanos would like to pretend. He'd raised her into a strong, loyal woman. It was his mistake to have failed to recognize that her loyalty was not aimed at him.
Thanos was not a flawless man, and this, above all else, was a mistake he had nobody to blame for but himself.
When word reached his ear that both of his renegade daughters were on Terra, there was only one thing for him to do. He wouldn't leave victory or failure up to chance a second time. He wouldn't put the success of his mission into the hands of anyone other than himself.
This time, Thanos would take care of it himself.
"Hurry up, people! If anybody has anything left to prepare, now's the time to do it."
"Hey, Stark! We're just gonna hop onto the Milano real quick. Quill left his blasters on board and Drax left... everything."
"Seriously? I told you to keep your equipment at hand!"
"Woah, no need to freak out. At the rate they're going it's gonna be another half hour at least before they breach the atmosphere."
"Excuse me for not wanting everybody to show up at the last second. Also, do me a favor and never roll your eyes at me ever again. Some things just aren't meant to be done by a raccoon."
"I hear you and I raise you: I'll do whatever I want as long as you dipshits keep calling me that."
"I just got off the phone. The military and SHIELD both agreed to cooperate."
"Nice work, Rhodey. JARVIS, talk to me. Do we have an estimated landing zone yet?"
"Calculating as we speak."
"Keep at it. Send out the Iron Legion, start the evacuation. Get us on the news while you're at it – might as well give some warning before sending in the cavalry. Strange, how do you feel about hopping down there and portaling half a city out of danger?"
"... Let me contact my order. I'll... see what I can do."
"Lovely. Has anyone seen Nebula?"
"... Um. Tony."
"Hmm? Rhodey?"
"Do you see what I'm seeing?"
"..."
"..."
" You're kidding. JARVIS, tell me you're kidding."
"If you are referring to the estimated landing zone, I am afraid I am quite certain."
"... Right. I'm gonna call the kid's aunt."
"How come they always pick New York for this sort of thing?"
Random Goon #62's first reaction upon spotting the evacuation notice on TV was to panic.
She'd only just finished the last of her mandatory rehabilitation sessions: if she was lucky (and didn't show any signs of leftover villainous tendencies), she was due to get her probational shackle removed in only a couple more weeks.
Another alien invasion stood rather at odds with her self-crafted schedule that mapped out the rest of her life.
Hadn't #62 paid her dues? Hadn't she been clubbed over the metaphorical head by fate often enough to pay off even a lifetime of crime?
If this was still payback for that time she'd barreled over her old-aged neighbor with her skateboard when she'd been younger–
#62 clenched her hands to fists in a rush of righteous indignation. No matter what she had or hadn't done in her childhood, she was pretty sure it ought to have stopped tainting her life when she'd been personally terrorized by the Black Widow for nothing other than having done office work for some random (... alright, fine – Nazi-immitating) organisation.
She'd been through enough to pay off her crime-ridden past. Even if she hadn't, she still didn't deserve this. Nobody did.
#62 pushed herself up from her desk, panic washing away with a sudden burst of self-righteousness. She'd had enough. Finally something was going right in her life, and she wasn't going to accept fate tearing it away from her again, even if– no. Especially if it came in the form of more aliens.
"Get a move on, people!" she yelled, breaking the shell-shocked silence of the office. Everybody had paused in what they were doing to watch Iron Man's evacuation notice in half-horror, half-disbelief. "So what if there's another alien invasion? In this city, that's just another Sunday. You heard the boss, so let's deal with it!"
The resulting cheers sounded through the office and steeled #62's resolve. She'd come out of this mess alive just like she had all the other times – no alien would get to try to tell her differently.
"Let's show them what New Yorkers are made of!" one of her coworkers shouted, and #62 cheered along at the top of her lungs.
Nobody except her needed to know that she was actually born and raised in Kentucky. Sue her – it felt pretty awesome to be a part of something other than a fairly unanimously hated criminal organization.
The roaring noise of repulsors announced Tony's imminent arrival, but Nebula didn't stir. She kept looking out into the sky – that vast, Terran hue of blue that was too soft and too welcoming. Just like everything else on the planet.
She stood at the exact center of the zone JARVIS had calculated. When Thanos arrived, she'd be the first to know. She'd be the one greeting him. Not one of their allies, determined to fight but with no personal vendetta. It would be her: Nebula, the disgraced daughter. Nebula, his former puppet, so pleased to do his bidding.
Tony landed next to her, but Nebula didn't turn to look. Thanos' ship would be in orbit soon.
Tony reached out to take her hand and squeezed. Nebula allowed it. She'd learned that people sought comfort from physical touch, and while she didn't know if she was one of them, she didn't dislike it so much that she'd want to pull away.
They stood in silence, watching the ship grow bigger and bigger above them.
"It'll be over soon," Tony said.
It sounded like he meant to reassure her. Against her better judgement, Nebula allowed herself to believe.
They spread out. The enemy chose the battleground, but they could make sure that they would not be cornered.
High above them on the other side of the atmosphere, a battle cruiser reached its destination.
"My Lord. We're within range to access Nebula's neural network."
"Override her control."
"I've tried. She is... resisting. She seems to have anticipated the attempt."
"Can you pinpoint her location?"
"Yes, my Lord."
Thanos hummed. His subordinates shared uneasy looks.
"My Lord? Your orders?"
"... Kill her. We don't need her to find the stones."
Camouflaged above the surface of the planet they orbited, a small ship received its orders and crashed into the building below it.
Tony's ears rang. The sound of the explosion replayed in his head, drowned out everything else and stuffed his head with cotton.
Over the coms, muffled voices toppled over each other without giving anyone the chance to be heard.
All of their planning, and still it had been Thanos who'd made the first move.
"How did they get past the sensors?!"
"What did they hit?" Tony cut past the chatter on the coms. One single, isolated target. It couldn't have been a coincidence. "What was it?"
JARVIS hacked the nearest surveillance camera he could reach. Smoke rose up from the rubble and the remains of the cruiser. The building was utterly obliterated.
"Who was inside?"
"We were," Sam said, his voice gravelly like he'd swallowed some of the rubble.
Sam, who'd been partnered with...
"Nebula," Tony whispered, his heart skipping a beat.
"Sam, are you alright?" Natasha asked.
"Fine. I got out before it collapsed." Sam paused. "... I can't see Nebula."
Tony had already powered up his suit. "JARVIS, show me the fastest route. Put everything we have in the repulsors."
"Done, Sir."
More ships entered the orbit – larger ones, ones that did not bother hiding themselves. With his first target out of the way, Thanos seemed not to care for subtlety.
How had he known where Nebula was?
"The power stone is gone."
Tony faltered and needed to regain his balance. He was halfway to his destination.
"Are you alright?" he asked, relief flushing his body at hearing Nebula's voice.
"I said that the power stone–"
"I heard you. What do you mean, it's gone?"
"The building collapsed. It got buried underneath."
"It was fused with your arm."
There was a brief pause. "It is also buried."
"Nebu– are you trapped underneath the rubble?!"
"No. Just my arm. And the power stone."
Tony closed his eyes. He urged his suit to go faster. "Next time, open with that."
"The next time a building collapses and severs an appendage from my body?"
"Don't lose any more limbs!"
"Where exactly are you?" Strange interrupted.
"Where did you get–"
"Miss Romanoff gave me a communicator. Give me your location and I will portal over."
"Whoever piloted the cruiser is dead," Nebula said.
"Not to fight. I'm a doctor."
"I'm fine."
Strange paused. "You said you lost an arm."
"It's fine."
"It was metal," Tony offered.
"... Right."
Tony was significantly calmer, knowing that Nebula had not been seriously injured. The thought of sending her into battle handicapped made his stomach turn.
"Maybe you could use an arm of a spare Iron Man armor." At least until the worst was over and Tony could work on a proper replacement.
"I'm fine," Nebula snapped. "Stop wasting time and focus on the battle."
"But you–"
"I've fought with worse."
"... Okay. Be careful."
Thanos' troops beamed down into the city, and Tony had no time to worry about Nebula for longer.
Nebula grit her teeth. Blood trickled sluggishly from her torn shoulder – those parts of it that were flesh instead of metal. Her pain receptors wailed. She'd shut off the com so nobody would hear her cauterize the wound.
Nebula swallowed bile and hoped Tony would leave her be. She hadn't lied. She'd fought in worse conditions. (And lost.)
She imagined a heavy piece of machinery that wasn't hers chafing against the torn remains of her shoulder and grimaced at the phantom sensation of agony. It wouldn't work. She'd slow herself down even further.
Teleport beams and the clash of weapons began to sound through the unnatural silence of the city. Soon it would be sprawling with enemies. Nebula heaved herself to her feet and stumbled, unbalanced by the missing weight at her side.
She supposed it was only right. The only conclusion to this battle she would accept other than cutting Thanos down herself was to be slain due to her own inadequacy. Dying in battle was preferable to living with the reminder of her failure.
Pepper steered the Rescue armor to the right, flew another lap around the city district and scanned the edges of the parameter they'd established. She dove down when she spotted an elderly couple in an alleyway, and – after convincing the two to come with her and out of their hiding place – dropped them off at the nearest shelter.
Aliens kept trying to breach the safety zone they were trying to preserve, but so far their defenses were holding.
"It's alright," Pepper muttered to herself, trying not to freak out over the fact that she was taking part in this. "Remember last time. This is better than watching. It is."
Her armor finished scanning the building complex ahead of her and she kept going, heading towards the next one. One of the armors of the Iron Legion crossed her path, and Pepper pressed her lips together. They'd never finish the evacuation without their help, but she still found the thought of an unpiloted suit unnerving.
"Just stay out of the fight. Get people out, stay away from the fighting. Just–" Pepper cut off in a yelp, dodged an alien leaping at her from a rooftop and fired off a repulsor. Her armor adjusted the aim smoothly and the attack hit the mark.
Pepper only marginally kept her voice from trembling. She wasn't a fighter. She'd only begun training with the suit a couple weeks ago. "Thanks, FRIDAY."
"You're welcome, boss lady."
"Black Widow to Rescue."
Pepper winced as her com unit sprang to life. She looked ahead and spotted Natasha in the streets, a stray group of enemies lying beaten around her.
Natasha waved. "Mind giving me a ride?"
Pepper breathed out, willing her nerves to calm down. "You got this," she whispered to herself. "You got it."
She switched on her com and said, "I'm on my way."
Natasha held onto Pepper's armor, tilting her head to protect her face from the wind battering against it. They kept wobbling in the air, Pepper's flight not as stable as Tony's, and Natasha took care not to break Pepper's concentration by talking.
Pepper let go of her when the black SUV came within sight, and Natasha cushioned her landing with a roll. Pepper had dropped her a couple inches too high. "Thanks," Natasha said just before she took off. "You're doing great."
More cars followed in the SUV's wake, and its doors opened before it had come to a halt completely.
Natasha's lips curved into a smile. "So nice of you to join the party."
"We came as soon as we heard about the hostiles," Maria Hill said, her weapon drawn and scanning the area around them.
"Looks like the invasion all over again," Fury muttered, stepping out of the car as though he already regretted coming here. His gaze fell behind Natasha and he tensed, his arm twitching towards his gun.
Natasha whirled around and fried the alien with her widow bites. She delivered the finishing blow to what looked like its jugular while it was still twitching from the electricity.
The footsoldiers were weak but numerous, and slowly but steadily spreading across the city.
"Come on." Natasha flashed Hill and Fury a grin and charged her widow bites. "It'll be just like old times."
"I don't recall us fighting aliens together in the old times." Fury tossed her a blaster that looked like it had just left the table of SHIELD's science division. "That was long before I met any of you."
"Guess who decided to make an appearance."
"Oh?" Clint shot half a dozen more arrows in the time it took one of the aliens to notice that it had a projectile sticking out of its back. It tried to take a step and dropped – evidently whatever species it was did have something like a spinal cord. "Is it Fury? Please tell me the boss decided to show up."
An alien had the audacity to land on Clint's rooftop with its glider. Clint had no choice but to fire off his grappling hook, leap off the building and shoot the alien while falling.
"Patch them into the coms, will you?" he said, landing in a crouch at the base of the building.
"Way ahead of you," Hill said, speaking through the coms like they hadn't encrypted a secure line for the sole purpose of keeping their privacy.
"Next time you decide to get us involved in another alien invasion," Fury chimed in, "do us a favor and give a small warning."
"We didn't exactly get much of a warning ourselves." Clint's lips pulled into a smirk even as he broke out into a sprint, aliens closing in on him from all directions. "Look, as much as I'd love to catch up, I'm kind of in a situation here. We'll talk at the after party."
There were too many at once. Clint couldn't pick them off one at a time while he was in the middle of them – he needed to get to higher ground. He needed–
A green flash pierced his eyes and he was surrounded by a dozen more Clint Bartons, all aiming at the aliens surrounding... them?
Clint rolled his eyes and suppressed a spark of annoyance. "Perfect," he muttered. He wasn't so stupid to turn his nose up at such a graciously (hah) offered distraction.
He killed two aliens, left the rest to figure out which illusion was the real him, and made a break for it. One of them was quicker than the others; Clint hissed when a claw tore open his shoulder, barely managing to fend off his opponent before it sliced open more of him.
"Would it kill you to make more of an effort?"
Another green glow and Loki appeared, leaning against the nearest building and eyes stuck to his phone. "You're welcome," he said, refusing to look up as though he was doing something important rather than just trying to be as annoying as humanly possible.
(As Jotun-ly possibly? As Asgardian-ly possible? Eh, whatever. He was being a prick – period.)
"You might want to look out for the Jachuu," Loki said. "They are quite a violent species."
"What in the world is a Jach–"
Loki disappeared, Clint let out a curse and he whirled around in time to fend off a four-armed something with more teeth than even that unsettling deep-sea fish he'd seen in a nature documentary one time.
"You really are the worst," Clint called after Loki, not even knowing whether he was still around to hear.
He was so going to hack Loki's phone and replace all the sound settings with thunder and lightning after all this was over.
Electricity crackled through the air and made Hope's skin tingle, and she widened the arc she flew around Thor so she didn't get caught up in it. The giant space whale ("They're Leviathans, people! I swear, if I hear anyone calling them space whales one more time–") took the hit, its metal shell bursting with a loud, ear-piercing crunch.
War Machine took the opening and shot at the weak point, making sure it wouldn't get up again.
"Well done," War Machine said, making Thor look up at him with a cheerful grin.
Two more whales took the dead one's place.
"Let me try something," Hope said. She shrunk down, squeezed in through one of the creaks in the whale's armor and navigated through its body until she reached what looked like its control center.
She fired off her blasters and fried the circuits from within, swallowing down a yelp when it dropped out of flight immediately.
"Alright," she muttered, pushing her wings to their limit to get out of the deadweight robot before it fell out of the sky. "That worked."
"Bug girl," came War Machine's voice through the coms. "You okay?"
"It's either Wasp or Miss Van Dyne," she said, gaining in size. She paused, considering that she was currently fighting for the survival of all of humanity with these people. "Or Hope. If you like."
"Call me Rhodey then," War Machine – Rhodey – said. Hope heard the grin in his voice. "Nice job."
"Let us bring down the next one!" Thor boomed, making them wince when his voice carried over the coms unfiltered.
Hope looked up to the sky. It was swarming with dozens, if not hundreds of the things.
"Yeah," she said, ignoring the ache in her muscles that told her to lay down and not get up for the rest of the day. "Let's."
Below them, figures in robes had begun creating portals to escort civilian stragglers out of the danger zones. Hope reminded herself that every second she kept going was another she bought for people to get to safety. She took a deep breath, pushed her suit to its limits and kept going.
The evacuation was all but finished when Stephen decided to meet up with the Avengers. The Sanctum was taking care of the rest of it – luckily it hadn't taken long to convince his colleagues to help despite the threat not being of magical nature – and even though Stephen had merely promised to get people out of danger, he felt reluctant to leave behind the battle now that his task was done.
He had no clue what was going on, but he did know that his home was being threatened. He had gotten his powers for a reason: there was no way he was going to turn his back and trust in a team of lunatics to save everyone on their own.
Stephen paused, halfway to waving open a portal and looked down at his amulet.
Stark and his alien friend had said that whoever was behind the attack was here for the stones. The time stone was his ultimate trump in battle. Was it also their potential downfall, should Stephen allow it to fall into the wrong hands? Only days prior, he would have called the thought preposterous.
Stephen pinched his lips. Stark's story was too incredulous to believe entirely, but Stephen would taint his teacher's legacy if he allowed himself to gamble the Earth's survival because of his misplaced ego. Perhaps he wasn't the unfailable stonekeeper he'd striven to be – perhaps nobody should be.
He took the amulet from his neck and waved open a portal. He paused, sending a silent apology to the Ancient One for breaking his promise. The portal swallowed up the stone to a place the enemy wouldn't reach in case of Stephen's death – and, once the battle was over, he'd agree to a more permanent solution.
Sam had resigned himself to the fact that today was going to be the craziest day of his life. Flying around in his military gear ("If you call it a bird costume one more time, I swear–") and fighting aliens hellbent on razing down the planet wasn't even in the top ten considering there was a man running around at the speed of sound and a talking raccoon.
Needless to say, when a portal opened up and a bearded guy in a cape walked out, Sam didn't so much as twitch.
"The evacuation is as good as through," the guy said. "I am... not entirely certain what comes next. I was hoping I could follow your lead."
Pietro had skidded to a halt close to Sam just before portal-guy had appeared. He and Sam shared a glance.
"Wait," Sam said, "are you the guy who wanted to help Nebula?"
"I'm Doctor Strange. Yes."
"Heard anything from her?"
Portal-guy – Strange – pursed his lips. "No. She refused treatment and told us to focus on the battle."
Sam hoped that Nebula's refusal was due to the triviality of her wounds rather than her own stubbornness.
"Look man," Pietro said, "we really have no idea what we're doing. We're all just making it up as we go."
Strange's eyes drifted to the side, and before Sam could so much as raise his wings as a shield, he twisted his hands and downed roughly a dozen aliens in a shower of orange sparks.
There was a pregnant pause.
"When this is all over," Pietro said, already leaning forward to pick up his sprint, "you should have a talk with my sister."
"Okay, so this guy can move things with his mind, yeah?"
Wanda blocked an attack attempting to take hold of her body and sent back an energy blast. Their opponent dodged – tauntingly effortless, without so much as unclasping his hands from his back.
"He is one of Thanos' strongest," Wanda confirmed. She didn't see her temporary teammate – which was probably for the best. Someone too small to spot with the bare eye was too small to be a target. "Stark did not manage to replicate his powers, but he tried to prepare us."
"Naturally, it was all for naught." Thanos' subordinate rose debris with a wave of his hand and propelled it forwards like projectiles. It all shattered in a wave of her magic. "A planet of talking apes is not on par with our Lord's full battle might."
"Well, he sounds just lovely," Scott muttered, and he hit their opponent with a bicycle that shot up in size right below him.
The alien growled, glaring in distaste at the now oversized object.
Wanda's lips twitched into a smile. "Can you do more of those things?"
"I've got a couple more things up my sleeve."
If they managed to take out even a single of the main players, Wanda would consider all their struggle worth it. There were only a handful members of Thanos' order, so Stark had told them. Taking them out, so he'd said, was almost as important as taking out Thanos himself.
Wanda pressed down the strain of a drawn-out battle, allowed her hands to flow over with magic and charged.
Steve swallowed a grunt, thrown back by an armored blow. He dodged Proxima's spear – after all their training it came almost as second nature to him.
Proxima's lips curled in a snarl. Her frame was battered, her armor dented and the wound she was clutching at her side bleeding sluggishly. Steve likely didn't look better – the battle had been going on for long.
"One hit," Okoye muttered at his side. "We can make it a clean kill with one proper hit."
"You aren't the weaklings we were promised," Proxima spat out with all the venom of a grudging compliment.
"It's not the first time we went up against you," Steve said.
All the training simulations they'd completed were finally paying off.
They found their opportunity eventually – long enough into the fight that any chatter on the coms had been reduced to the bare essentials. Long enough that Thanos' army began to look like an insurmountable hurdle. Long enough that even Steve began to feel the strain despite his superhuman endurance.
"Ruins and debris will be your only prize," were Proxima's last, venomous words as Steve's shield pressed down on her rib cage.
He cast an eye around the half-ruined city and found it hard not to believe her.
"Cities can be rebuilt," Okoye said curtly even though Proxima was no longer moving. Her eyes locked onto something further down the street, and she stepped forward to pry Proxima's spear out of her hands.
"I will be taking this," she muttered, raised the spear and narrowed her eyes.
T'Challa peered around the upside-down car serving him as a cover and considered his options.
The entire street was already ravaged from the battle between the Hulk and a brutish alien rivaling him in both height and strength. Anybody foolish enough to intervene would find themselves torn apart by either of the monsters – T'Challa did not trust in the Hulk recognizing friend from foe in time to risk it.
The Hulk was strong, but he hadn't so far managed to gain an advantage. T'Challa was afraid that eventually, the alien brute would wear him down.
A glint of steel caught T'Challa's eye, and he leaped to his feet, ready to block whatever projectile was headed his way.
Instead, he met Okoye's gaze from afar, her arm raised to throw and holding a large, three pronged spear. For a single heartbeat, only the Hulk's roars were audible. T'Challa prayed to have understood Okoye's intent correctly and gestured for her to throw.
He sprinted towards the fighters, catapulted himself up on a piece of debris, grabbed the spear out of thin air and rammed it into the alien's neck just as it turned to deliver a ravaging blow to the Hulk's head.
T'Challa landed on his feet gracefully. Next to him, the alien slumped to the ground and didn't stir.
The Hulk roared, and it sounded disappointed more than it did angry. "Hulk's enemy!"
"There are many more opponents left to defeat," T'Challa assured. The sentence sounded far more resigned than he'd intended it to be.
The Hulk let out a huff and stomped his foot like a toddler – a toddler capable of shaking the ground. He turned, undeterred by the intensity of the battle and leapt away in search of his next victim.
T'Challa breathed out, allowing himself the moment of indulgence to rest.
He'd just steeled himself to keep going when an explosion rocked the horizon and set the sky ablaze.
Carol reached Terra hours after she'd warned Fury's team of the nearing catastrophe – far too long a time, even though she'd pushed her powers to their limit. Thanos was already there – that much was apparent from the battlefleet hovering in orbit of the planet.
It was ironic: all the time she spent travelling the galaxy looking for people like Thanos, and now her home might suffer for it. She shouldn't have stayed away as long as she had. She shouldn't have allowed herself to avoid the place both agonizingly rich and void of memories.
Perhaps if she'd given in to her selfish urges, she might have gotten to watch Monica grow up. Terra – Earth – wouldn't have needed to rely on otherworlders to protect it.
Carol circled the fleet in orbit and narrowed her eyes. She'd land on the planet's surface and see how Fury and the others were doing soon. For now, this was something she could do.
Carol drew back her fist, waited until it brimmed with energy and punched straight through one of the battlecruisers. The explosion illuminated Carol's face. She pressed her lips together, trying not to imagine what she would do if the battle had already spread and Maria or Monica had come to harm.
Thinking about it now was no use to anyone. Carol propelled herself forward, locked onto the next ship and got to work.
"Okay, so the fleet's gone now," Peter Quill said, craning his neck upwards. "That's lovely."
"Did she stop to get takeout on her way here?" Rocket grumbled.
"I am Groot."
"I wasn't being serious! We're not gonna– look, if you're hungry, suck it up. Do you seriously think we can stop to get food right now?!"
"Man, thank God we didn't leave the Milano parked in orbit," Peter said. "Pretty sure it'd be in pieces right now."
"Why don't we just tell Fury's little friend that it was and make her pay for the damages?"
"Are you for– Dude, we're not gonna try scamming the space girl."
"I am Groot."
"Will you stop it with the takeout already?! Look, we're gonna get something once we're done here. All of us."
While Groot seemed happy with the compromise, Rocket and Peter shared a glance. Drax was yelling and stabbing enemies not far from them, but Gamora was nowhere to be seen. Neither of them had seen her since the start of the battle.
It didn't take a genius to guess where she'd gone.
Nebula had survived the explosion. She stood amidst her assemble of mortals – crippled and disfigured, but no less rebellious – and Thanos wondered how he could have misjudged her so badly.
An army she'd put together – an army of pitiful Terrans and misguided otherworlders, Nebula at its center as though she was one of them. As though anyone who'd once been his had the right to throw it back at him and stand up against his mission.
Gamora was among them, and Thanos couldn't tell which slap to the face stung worse: her disloyalty or the fact that she'd chosen Nebula over him.
Nebula wasn't foolish. He hadn't raised her to be. She ought to know better than to assume she and her little entourage stood a chance.
"You've travelled far since your little rebellion," Thanos said, gifting nobody other than Nebula with his attention. "Where are the stones?"
It was no coincidence that Nebula had chosen Terra. The planet was insignificant in everything but its cargo – though why she'd stayed once she'd gotten her hands on the stones, Thanos didn't know.
Nebula didn't cower before him like she once did. She raised her chin and looked at Thanos as though they were equals – perhaps even as though Thanos was below her. Thanos might have been forced to give her his grudging respect, were she not missing a body part from the prior attempt at her life.
"They're gone," she growled, holding herself back by what seemed only a shred of self-control. "Every one of them, except one. It will soon follow."
For a few precious, breathless moments, Thanos heard only the sound of his own heartbeat.
He had not taught Nebula to lie.
Thanos closed his eyes. "That is regrettable."
He'd decide how to salvage his plans another time. The worthless piece of rock they were standing on had just lost its single redeeming element. Thanos would indulge himself by abandoning his code and razing the entire planet to the ground.
It took all of Gamora's willpower to fight her instincts and resist the urge to dodge Nebula's attack – aimed at Thanos, of course, not at her.
The situation would have been glorious had it not been so bizarre: the two of them, brought together by their father rather than being pitted against each other in a brutal battle to win his approval. Everything was different now. They were united. They were almost like sisters – like real ones.
Gamora wondered if this was the reason Thanos used to make them fight. Had it not been for the animosity between them, would they have realized that they were the same? Would they have realized that Thanos was the enemy?
At her side, Nebula snarled in frustration. (A snarl, because Nebula did not whimper. Frustration, because pain was no acceptable reason for her sister to be making the noises she did. Nebula wouldn't want her to waste a thought on her wellbeing, so Gamora didn't.)
They'd only managed to get in a few, non-lethal hits. So had Thanos. Gamora's shoulder was bleeding sluggishly. Nebula was favoring one leg over the other. Gamora couldn't ascertain Stark's injuries through his armor, but the metal was battered and smashed open in several places.
"How much longer do we have to wait?!" Nebula growled, having dodged into a low crouch.
Not far from her, Stark made himself fall back.
"We talked this through," he said curtly, his voice a far cry from his regular cheer. "As long as his Order is still a thing, one of them might decide to take over. As long as there are ships left in orbit, they might decide to blow up the planet if they figure out their master's gone."
Ahead of them, Thanos' chest heaved with strained breaths. With no stones to grant him strength, even he had his limits.
"We won't manage to stall him for much longer," Gamora muttered.
Stark's voice was pinched. "I know."
"You've assembled quite the fellowship." Thanos' eyes flickered towards Gamora, but settled on Nebula in the end.
Nebula's eyes narrowed to slits.
"I'm impressed." Thanos paused. "I had not expected you to admit to yourself that you wouldn't stand a chance against me on your own."
Gamora closed her eyes. Stark called out Nebula's name, but it was too late.
Just as Nebula hurled herself at Thanos with a cry of rage, someone tried speaking over the coms and an explosion rocked the skies.
Tony craned his neck upwards, Nebula and Thanos momentarily forgotten. Up in the skies, Thanos' fleet burned.
"Woah." Without turning his eyes away, Tony switched on the coms. Whoever had tried speaking had been completely drowned out by the explosion. "Iron Man here. Please repeat."
"This is Scarlet Witch. I said that we've finished." She paused, her strained breathing audible over the coms. "Thanos' subordinate, the one from the Order. He's dead."
Finally. Tony turned his head to meet Gamora's eyes, his heart hammering in his chest. "That was the last of them."
With the Order and the fleet both gone, Thanos' army would fall apart as soon as its leader was taken out of the picture. Even if they didn't surrender immediately, picking off the remnants would be child's play compared to everything else.
"Alright people, final phase. You know what to do." He paused. "Strange. It's your turn."
There was a pause, just long enough to make Tony wonder whether they'd have to improvise.
Finally, "I've got it."
Tony turned towards Gamora and furrowed his brows. "Let's finish it." Hopefully before Nebula paid for her reckless actions.
Nebula's world was zeroed in on only a few, basic elements. The whirring sound of the machinery in her body being forced to its limit. The snarl on her lips and the hate in her eyes, burning with the intensity of a sun. The agony of frayed nerve endings and bared flesh, every movement tearing at her wound and reminding her of her handicap.
Thanos dodging her blows, looking at her condescendingly. Taunting her.
Nebula cried out and made a wild swing with her sword, uncoordinated and as easy to block as though she'd just begun her training. The movement tore at her shoulder, and pain warped into nausea so strong that Nebula gagged.
"You can do better than that," Thanos said, only spurring on the fire in her veins, in her eyes, in her very soul.
Her temper had always been her biggest flaw. It was concerningly easy to imagine it as her downfall.
Nebula thought she heard her name being called but ignored it. Nothing else mattered – nothing but the battle she was fighting. Nothing but the need to kill her father or to die giving it her best attempt.
(Her skin felt feverish. Even breathing hurt.)
"Disappointing," Thanos said, tossing Nebula on the ground like the worthless little doll she was.
She'd never stood a chance. Thanos had made her – what creator would make a puppet able to pose a threat to them?
"All these allies you've made." Thanos stepped forward and loomed over her. "How did you convince them to help? How did you make them follow such a hopeless quest?"
He did not seem to want an answer. Thanos reached out with a hand bigger than Nebula's head – she turned her neck and saw Tony and Gamora sprinting towards them, too slow, too late – and he wrapped it around her throat.
"A pity," he said, pressing down just enough to make it uncomfortable. "Such a shame that you needed to drag your sister down with you."
He squeezed. Metal and bone creaked under the pressure, and Nebula tried gasping for air. Thanos' grip was unyielding.
Nebula felt like an eternity passed. Her thoughts were no longer linear. Her struggles grew weak. She let her eyes slide upwards, towards that vast, Terran blue.
She supposed that it had always come down to this: dying a pointless, meaningless death at the hands of who'd shaped her pointless, meaningless existence. She would die not having made a single difference. Even if the others managed to complete their task without her, it would mean nothing. Nebula would be nothing.
Something orange bloomed above her head like a flower. The sun – no. A sun didn't bloom. A sun didn't allow her to look at it without blinding her. A sun didn't form a spinning circle, spitting sparks into the air as a burning circle rather than a sphere–
Nebula's eyes snapped open. She didn't realize they'd been trying to close.
A portal opened above Thanos and dropped someone onto his shoulders. His grip around Nebula's throat vanished and she sucked in air, replacing the darkness at the edge of her vision with dancing spots.
Thanos faltered midway to tearing off whoever had dropped from the portal – Mantis, it had to be Mantis, Nebula could make out the antennas – and he fell to his knees, sluggish and shaking his head as though to clear it from a haze.
Nebula reached out blindly. Her hand closed around a piece of debris and she thrust it forward, tearing straight through Thanos' throat and making him slump forward in a spray of blood.
"– ebula!"
Nebula yanked out the scrap of metal and stumbled to her feet, her head swirling. She gripped her impromptu weapon more tightly and rammed it into Thanos' back – deeply, aimed so it would pierce his heart.
Mantis picked herself up from the ground, looking at Thanos' body with wide eyes.
"Nebula." Gamora's voice sounded breathless. She came to a halt at Nebula's side, Tony not far behind.
Thanos' corpse bled out at their feet. Nebula stopped resisting and let her legs give out.
A/N: Thank you so much for sticking around up to this point.
One more to go. :)
