Chapter XX

"Welcome to my humble abode"

It was bad. Like worse than when Tony was held captive in a cave. Worse, when he thought that Steve and Bucky will kill him on Siberia. Yeah. It was totally worse. At least then his opponents were humans or superhumans, but still humans. It wasn't hard to fight against them. But now? Now his opponents were aliens. Well, one alien, but helluva strong and with weird magic thing on his side. Maw's magic was different than Loki's or Strange's for that matter. He could manipulate many things into his favor. While Tony had only his suit, that was slightly damaged and he had a kid.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Stark," Peter spoke again, crouching in his new spider-man's suit that Tony updated for him after the break-up with Steve and the band of traitors. He wanted Pete to be safe as much as he could. But still, even with the suit, he wasn't able to protect him. And now, they were stuck here, in the middle of the space with a powerful alien and a magician to save.

Fuck his life.

"It's alright, kid," Tony took off his helmet and looked at Peter. "You have to hide, while I go and try to free our Harry Potter, ok? Hide from Maw and I'll try to figure out how to get us back on Earth. You have to hide, Pete."

"But I have an idea, Mr. Stark," the kid got up from the ground and took off his mask. "Do you know this really old movie Alien?"

"Just how old do you think I am?" the kid didn't answer that.

"So, there's this scene where…"

As he began to explain his plan to Stark and Strange's weird cape, Tony realized that it could actually work. Despite being so young, Peter Parker was a good material for a future Avenger. That is why Tony couldn't do anything else. He named Peter Parker, the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man the official member of the new Avengers team. There weren't many of them now, but they were a team. Tony, Rhodey, Loki, Peter, maybe Strange on his best days and Thor if he ever comes back. God, he hoped that whatever ship was to pick the Aesirs up, showed up just like Loki assured them.

Loki… thinking about his beloved mischief maker made his heart hurt. They just barely reunited again only to be separated once more. Stark hoped and prayed to whatever deity that was listening to him for Loki to stay on Earth and be safe. Loki needed to be safe. He needed to be alive. Despite what the god may think, Tony believed it was Loki who was the key to save the universe from Thanos. However, now Stark had a zero idea how they should do it. Thanos had at least two stones maybe even three, if he had managed to find the soul stone. As far as he was concerned there was a huge possibility for that. Now he had a chance to get another stone, the time stone.

Tony, the cape, and Peter were looking down at Maw and Strange. The mortal wizard was levitating in the air with bunch of small needles pointed at his face. A light was emitting from it and seemed to burn his skin.

"Ok," Peter started. "You know what to do?"

The cape moved its collar in a nodding movement. Tony nodded as well. Parker shoot off his webs and charged at Maw, distracting him briefly. However, it was all that Tony needed. He and the cape flew towards Strange.

"Oh, did you honestly think you can outsmart me, mortal?" Maw pushed Peter on the nearby wall, cutting off his webs. "You are a child, and you," he turned to Tony. "Trying to save your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Stark replied. "Co-worker and a pain in the ass, if you want to know."

"Charming, mortal working with a child and a wizard," Maw continued, holding Peter and Strange in the air with his telekinesis power. Yeah, a bit from the X-Men thing, but who was Tony to judge aliens?

"Well, maybe I am working with a child, but this child is actually smarter than you, worm," Maw regarded him with a confused look, before Tony shot a strong beam out of his gauntlet. He didn't hit Maw and the alien laughed at him.

"Pathetic, just like Loki. You cannot even hit me."

"I wasn't aiming for you."

Tony smirked at him, even though Maw couldn't see it. It only lasted a second or two, but the door burst out, creating a hole into the ship, close to Maw. The alien wasn't expecting it and quickly flew out to the space. And so was Strange. Thankfully, Peter caught him with his web, holding as strong as he could, while Stark was closing the hole with his nanobots. Once closed, Tony observed how the atmosphere in the space burnt Maw alive.

Well, it's not like Tony liked him.

"You have my thanks, Stark," Strange opened his mouth, when the needles fell off completely from him and Peter released him from his web. "And you, child."

"Peter Parker," he introduced himself.

"I'm doctor Strange."

"Ohh, we go with our pseudo? Then I'm Spider Man," Peter raised his hand in the air for Strange to high-five him. Tony was close to face-palm himself. "So, Mr. Stark says you are a wizard. Kind of like Harry Potter?"

"How do we get back to Earth?" Strange ignored Peter and turned to Stark. Tony took off his helmet once more and looked at the console before him. He could clearly see it was on autopilot and there were some coordinates flashing on the screen. "Stark?"

"Look, this is some alien technology, I need time to figure it out."

"You've been with Loki for so long, maybe you know where this ship is going?"

"Loki told me the story about Thanos," he said. "He was born on the Titan, a planet. He comes from the race of Titans. From the books that Loki possess we read that Titan used to be a beautiful planet, full of nature. It was almost idyllic, an Eden among the planets, you know."

"Until Thanos?"

"Until he realized that there's too much people on his planet and others. This is his plan, to wipe at least a half of the universe off," Tony explained. "This is why he needs the infinity stones. He at least possess two, I assume that he figured Tivan had two stones. If he raided his place, I'm sure he got the power and reality stones. Maybe he even got his hands on the soul stone already. We couldn't figure out where it is, but he's been looking for them for so long… maybe he has it. The space and mind stones are back on Earth and you have the time stone with yourself, Strange."

"You really know about those stuff, Mr. Stark, like a lot. Was this some part of the Avengers training? Will I have to learn those too?" Peter inquired, looking at Iron Man.

"I'm dating a god, an alien and he knows a thing or two."

"You think we're going to the Titan?" Strange ignored their exchange of words and decided they need to stick to one topic.

"It's the only way," Tony replied. "When Loki was held captive by Thanos, it was on the Titan. Despite it losing its original beauty, Thanos still chose it as his residence. Maw was supposed to bring the Tesseract, the time and maybe even the mind stone to him. I bet my ass that we're going to the Titan now."

The discussion was left with that. Tony had no idea how long their journey will take. Strange decided to meditate on the ship, when he wasn't on and off nodding in the corner. Peter was close to Tony, helping him the best he could in figuring out the engineering around the ship. It was something even more technological than the remnants of the Chitauri ships that were left in the SHIELDS's care. Tony hacked their base to learn more about it, since Fury forbade him from touching that shit. Tony never admitted to him that he had stolen a few bits from von Strucker when they raided their base in 2014. It was neatly hidden in one of his safes in the Tower, same as the Tesseract.

The road to the destination took around five earth's hours. However, Tony knew that time flies differently in each realm or even the space. For all he care, it could be days, months maybe even years. Eventually the ship stopped. Tony stepped back into his suit and led them out.

The Titan was… it was… it was something for sure. As Tony looked around, all he could see were tones of damaged area. What could be a beautiful place once upon a time, now was nothing but a large desert. The stench of death was rising from the ground, attacking his nostrils even through the helmet. The orange and red ground beneath his feet was slightly warm, according to his suit's readings. It looked like it could burn not so while ago. Perhaps Thanos decided to damage it some more, if that was even possible.

"Where's Thanos?" Someone asked, but the voice was unknown to Stark. A second later he spotted four aliens surrounding them.

There was a man with strange mask on his face, similar to a gas-mask. On his left stood a very muscular man, a Thor-look-alike with interesting markings on his naked upper body. A blue skinned woman with metal elements forged into her face. A robot? Could be. And finally someone who looked truly alien-ish. A woman with black hair and antennae. Yes, she was the most alien-ish person he met, except for Maw. The aliens were pointing their guns at Tony and his companions.

"Yeah?" Peter asked them. "We're looking for him too. Where is he?"

"We're not working with him," the Thor-like replied. "We're looking for him to take a revenge. "

"Get in the line, dude," Tony answered. "Who are you?"

"We're the guardians of the galaxy, and you?" The one with a mask took it off and revealed his face. He looked pretty human to Tony, but so were other aliens he had met. "I'm Star Lord, and these are Drax, Nebula and Mantis."

"I'm Iron Man, this is doctor Strange and Spider Man, we're the Avengers."

"Like Thor!" Mantis exclaimed.

"You know Thor?" Tony inquired.

"Yeah, we saved him and he and two of us went to Nidavelir for some weapon," Star Lord explained. Tony couldn't help but smile, so Thor was alright, and some of the Aesirs were residing in the compound already, trying to fit to a Midgardian lifestyle. "He spoke of the Avengers and his dead brother and parents."

"Well, his brother is actually alive, but it's not important now. Tell me, what did he do to you? Thanos, I mean."

"Took my girlfriend with himself, " Star Lord replied quickly. "She's his daughter, same as Nebula."

"Killed my wife and daughter, " Drax made his input. "He's a bastard that needs to be killed. And he has two infinity stones. He grabbed them on Knowhere."

"So Tivan gave the power and reality stones up…" Tony turned to Strange, who was meditating not so long ago. Peter was sitting across him and chat with Mantis. "Ok, have you seen the third stone on him? The soul stone?"

"No, there were only two stones on his gauntlet, but he was telling Gamora that his other children will bring the three stones from the Earth."

"Yeah, I wouldn't count on that," Tony informed them quickly. "The space stone is hidden by me and protected by Thor's brother. And the mind stone has a keeper too. That and Ebony Maw is dead, and I bet the big bear that came with him is dead too, knowing my boyfriend. And the wizard there holds the time stone."

"Hey, Mr. Stark!" Peter called out to him. Tony turned around and saw what Peter was pointing at. Strange was levitating above a rock and moving his head from left to right in too fast movements. It was odd. Tony quickly made a beeline towards him and cleared his throat.

"Are you alright, Strange? What's going on?"

"I've seen fourteen thousand versions of what will happen."

"Did we win in any of them?"

Strange gave him a sour look and pressed his lips in a tight line. He raised one finger slightly in the air. Well, that wasn't very optimistic. However, one chance was still better than none. Tony will grasp whatever he could.

It was that very moment when they heard a deep voice behind their backs.

"Welcome to my humble abode," they turned around and spotted Thanos with a satisfying grin on his ugly, purple face. "I've been waiting for all of you."

Hey, sorry for the awol, but I totally forgot I put this story here as well. I rarely come back to ff now, only to read some old stories. I update this regularly on AO3, like most of my new works as well. But I'll update this story till the end here as well, however, it may be longer than on AO3 if I forget again.

Thanks for reading.

Intoxic