"He did it," the blue meanie said, stating the obvious. Nebula was her name, he remembered. She and Tony were the only ones left on the desolated planet. Everyone else was gone. Those morons who called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy, the stupid wizard who had handed Thanos the Time Stone, claiming there was no other way, and the kid… God, the kid. Peter.

"When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive." The way Thanos had said that, it had sounded more like a promise, a reassurance than a threat. Tony wondered how many of the "survivors" would actually survive. Since the massacre was random, there was no way to estimate how big the real apocalypse would be.

It had started out a good day. He and his fianceé were jogging in Central Park, he had even convinced Ana to tag along. Pepper had finally asked her to be the maid of honor, and much to everyone's relief, she had said yes. Things were starting to get better at last. And then, they had seen a spaceship hovering above the city, and everything had gone to hell once again.

He picked up his smashed helmet, and examined the tracker inside. Of course, it had been broken. It wasn't beyond repair, though. He just needed some wires, and scrap metal. There was plenty of both lying around…

"What are you looking for?" Nebula asked.

He took him some time to find his voice again. "I… I need to fix my tracking device."

"No one's coming for us. We should fix that ship instead and get out of here as soon as possible."

"My daughter has the coordinates of this planet. She'll come. In the meantime, I'll make sure we're easier to find."

Nebula made no comment, and he continued his search for the materials. His fingers occasionally went to the sealed wound in his torso, to make sure he wasn't bleeding. He had been so scared when Thanos had stabbed him. Not of death itself, but the idea that Ana might come here, only to find his lifeless, impaled body…

"How do you know your daughter is alive?"

Tony froze on the spot. He could see that she wasn't trying to taunt him or anything, but he gritted his teeth angrily nevertheless. "I just do."

"You love her," she observed, as if she was witnessing a rare phenomenon.

Right, someone had said she was the adopted daughter of Thanos. This girl probably had no idea what an actual father-daughter relationship was supposed to be like. "I do."

"What about that spider boy?"

"Spider-man," he corrected her firmly.

"Was he your son?"

"No. We weren't… related."

Nebula sprang to her feet. "You fix your tracker, I'll fix the ship."

"Deal."

She had taken maybe five steps away from where she had been sitting when a portal opened and Thanos appeared again.

"You," Nebula snarled, and charged at him.

With a lazy, effortless slap, Thanos parried her attack and sent her flying off. He wasn't here for her. He had all the six stones now, and Tony was completely defenseless. Too proud to surrender, he stood as tall as possible, and looked him in the eye. But when Thanos came closer, he realized something was very wrong with the gauntlet. It had been charred, along with his arm. It had to be still functional to some degree, though, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to teleport here. "If you want me to fix that, don't bother."

"I want to show you something. Come." His free hand grabbed Tony's arm, and then, they were no longer on Titan. Thanos had brought them onto a spaceship.

"Look," he said softly, gesturing at the window.

Tony looked out and saw the remains of another dead planet. Its condition was much worse than Titan, though. At least Titan was still intact. This one, on the other hand, wasn't. Most of it was gone; only a fragment of crust and some hot magma beneath it had remained. Millions of pieces of tiny rocks were floating around them. If he had to guess, he would say it had been cracked open like an egg by some unnatural force. Hopefully, it was uninhibited when that had happened.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Oh, Stark… Don't you recognize your own home?"

The cruel question hung in the air for what felt like an eternity. What? Was this… Earth? "No," he said, shaking his head wildly. "No, this is one of your tricks… You're using the Reality Stone on me."

He's lying, he reminded himself. Thanos was just playing a sick game to convince him that he wasn't as evil as everyone thought. To prove that he could be much more merciless if he wanted to be. The Earth itself couldn't be gone. That was something beyond even his nightmares.

"This is real. You know it is." He took off the Gauntlet to prove his point, and set it aside.

Thanos was right. Deep down, he knew this wasn't an illusion or anything. He knew what an illusion felt like, thanks to the Maximoff girl. He collapsed on his knees. Everyone he had tried so hard to protect had died a horrible death. Tony had traveled to another freaking planet, in another freaking galaxy, ready to sacrifice his own life, and yet somehow managed to become the only survivor, just as he had feared. Still, he was almost glad that at least Peter wasn't around to see this shit. Almost.

"Why? You said half of humanity would still be alive… You promised!"

"I did. This wasn't me. Your world was already destroyed by the time I came for the Mind Stone. Now we're truly alike. In fact, your story is even more tragic than mine, for this is your own daughter's doing."

At the mention of Ana, Tony found the strength to get back on his feet. "Leave her out of this, or I swear I'll find a way to kill you this time."

"Oh, but it was you who brought her into this. She was coming to Titan with you, wasn't she? But you sent her back, told her to warn the others against me. Of course, she knew that wasn't going to be enough. You both did. So, she did something no one else was brave enough to do. She turned that Inhuman friend of hers into a weapon that could stop me. It would've worked, if they hadn't accidentally destroyed the planet first. Ana tried again and again, until she realized she had to give up to break the loop. That's when I came."

"What loop?" he forced himself to ask. He had always feared that the world would tear Ana apart, not the other way around. But it was what had happened. Literally. He had to know. He had to know what exactly had gone wrong.

"It doesn't matter anymore. Do you know what the Kree call her, the Inhuman?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"The Destroyer of Worlds," Thanos answered his own question.

Tony remembered the famous words of J. Robert Oppenheimer, spoken after witnessing an atomic bomb test. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In fact, Tony knew his dad had been there with Oppenheimer during the Trinity test. He must have heard those words first-hand. No doubt there was some tragic irony here.

And then, there was another saying, not as famous as Oppenheimer's, but no less true: "You Starks don't know the difference between saving the world and destroying it." The Maximoff girl had turned out to be right, after all.

"Fools," Thanos went on. "Daisy Johnson was nothing but a tool, and tools are… disposable. Nevertheless, she was what the Kree wanted, so I gave her to them. Let them flaunt themselves."

"Where's Ana?" Judging by the way Thanos spoke, Ana was alive. Tony focused on that thought. He had to find her and get far, far away from Thanos. Where they would go, he didn't know. They would figure something out.

"You've proven me wrong. I didn't think you'd forgive her so easily."

"She's my daughter."

"She killed your woman, too," Thanos reminded.

He tried very hard not to picture Pepper getting swallowed by a wave of magma, or her frozen dead body floating in space. And I killed JARVIS. She forgave me for that.

Thanos gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You should be proud, Stark. For you fathered Death herself, the true Destroyer of Worlds."

Screw you, Tony wanted to say, but for once, he managed to keep his big mouth shut. He had a feeling that Ana was somewhere on this ship. He had to wait until Thanos was distracted somehow, then go find her. After that… well, they were going to have to improvise.

"The trouble is," Thanos went on. "You don't deserve her. She can never realize her destiny by your side. That's why I adopted her. She reminds me of my Gamora."

Whatever self-restraint Tony had left, he lost it upon hearing this. "You did WHAT?"

The bug girl must have been right, then. Thanos was mourning, in his own twisted way. In his grief, he was somehow under the impression that Ana could replace this Gamora. Why the hell had this bastard killed his daughter in the first place if it was going to leave him so messed up? Tony didn't know. All he knew was he couldn't leave Ana with such a maniac. The blue robot lady had said Gamora was her sister, meaning… She was Thanos' daughter, too. Damn. If this son of a bitch tried to turn Ana into anything like that…

No. He had to find a way out, a way to cut the wire, one last time. His instincts were still screaming at him to protect her at any cost; under normal circumstances, he would gladly lay down on the wire for her, but with the Earth gone, that self-sacrificing attitude was no longer an option. He couldn't leave her alone. Either they were going to survive together, or not at all.

Thanos seemed to be enjoying this, but the mental torment session they were having came to an abrupt end when a bright, blinding golden light flooded the ship, and the vessel started rocking wildly. Thanos rushed to grab the gauntlet, and Tony lost no time escaping.

He was calling Ana's name, again and again, as he ran through the narrow hallways. The damn ship was huge. He occasionally came across Chitauri soldiers, but they paid him no attention. Maybe they were too busy with the enemy attacking the ship, or maybe Thanos had given them orders not to touch Tony. The Titan didn't seem like he was done with him. Either way, the Chitauri were just ignoring him for the time being.

He was in yet another hallway, banging on each door he passed by, when one of them finally swung open and he came face to face with Ana. She had gone pale, so pale that she almost looked translucent. She seemed to have recognized him, but she was just… not all there.

"Honey?" he asked, and clasped an arm around her waist, because she could barely stand, and the ship was still swaying. He could hear blasts being shot in the distance. It was good to know there was someone out there, willing to fight a Thanos who had all the six Infinity Stones. Maybe Ana had an idea who they were. "Do you know what's going on here?"

She shook her head frantically.

The housing unit wasn't on her chest. "Where's your suit?"

"Thanos took it." Her voice was barely audible.

"Okay… We gotta move. Come on."

She stayed put. "Dad!"

"Yes, baby girl?"

"I—I—I," she stuttered. "I m—ade a—a t—terrible m—mistake. E—everyone's d—dead…"

"Yeah, I know. We'll talk about it."

She still wasn't moving, so Tony just dragged her with him. This was their only chance. "Come on, baby girl. Try to keep up."

He was tired. His legs ached with each step he took. His injury sent searing waves of pain through his body with each breath. But he ignored it and kept moving.

Come on, Tony. Cut the wire one last time.

They actually made it. They found one of those ring-shaped ships Thanos' minions used. Tony had some experience with the controls, but it wasn't going to be easy without their suits, and a wizard's help. And this time, they couldn't afford to damage the ship either. They had to be careful with it. It would be all they had for a time.

"Ana, honey… I need your help with this."

"I can't. I shouldn't… If I make another mistake—"

"You won't be making any mistakes. Just put your arm here, and—" When she didn't, he placed her arm into the steering himself and locked it. "There you go. Now, we just hit the jackpot with this ship, so let's not screw it up, okay?"

"Okay," she mumbled idly.

"That's my girl. You just do as I say, I'll get us out of here."

They ignited the engines, and managed to detach from the main ship. They were leaving it, and their destroyed home planet behind, fast. It was probably for the best. Now, they had to find a safe place.

"Good job," he said to cheer her up, freeing her arm. "Now, can you think of anywhere we can go?"

"No…"

"Come on, kid. If we stay here, Thanos will find us. If we just drift across space aimlessly, we'll run out of resources. We need oxygen, food, water… God, is there even any food here? Anyway, the point is, we need a place where we can lay low, at least for a while. So, think! Please!"

"We can go to the Skrulls, I think. Sigyn once said they knew us."

"Good. How do we find these Skrulls?"

"I memorized the coordinates, in case of an emergency. First, we need to find a Jump Point."

"Let's find a Jump Point."

Ana crossed to the control panel. There were those unfamiliar symbols on the screen again, but Ana pushed a few buttons this time and they turned into Unicode. "The nearest one is six hours away."

"Perfect."

"Shall I set the coordinates?" she asked, hesitant.

"By all means."

She did. "It's done."

Now, they could talk. "Come. Let's do some stargazing. It's not every day we get a view like this."