A/N: I've said it before and I'll warn you again. I ain't great at writing action. Don't spam me for it. I've tried my best. Otherwise, ENJOY!


CHAPTER FORTY—June 2017

The crisp fresh smell accompanied a forceful breeze. Sam could feel the catch of air across her collarbone, tucking itself beneath the silky fabric of her button-down. She shivered, prone against the grass her body crimped to the ground.

Her armor was gone, and her arms weren't searing. Missy had taken the stones, wherever she was.

Exhausted, Sam's eyelids fought to stay closed. She rolled onto her back.

"You're alive, I see."

Sam's breath caught. She'd heard that voice before, heard it say her name before: Stark.

Her eyes flicked open in shock.

Sam saw a field of tall, yellow grasses with sharp blades, stems topped with hearty, prickled fruits. The bizarre shapes looked too heavy for their stalks.

She was on an alien planet.

With the Mad Titan.

Alone.

The shiver ran deeper to her bones. Her throat became sandpaper.

Thanos squatted down to her side, resting a blackened elbow on one knee, the massive, gold gauntlet a foot from her face, his other hand set upon Sam's shoulder. "What are you doing here, little one?"

Sam went limp and bug-eyed, heart revving like a car at the start of a race.

"I…" she gulped, blood rushing to her pinned limb, "I don't know."

Thanos removed his hand from her warming, red arm. Grunting, he noted, "not human."

"I'm sorry," Sam blurted.

With a greying burn stretched across his neck and cheek, the titan cocked his head. "For what?"

She froze, small and breakable in the presence of the hulking form, a hulk she did not trust.

"Do you have a name?"

"Uh—" his pet name stuck in her head "—Little…Lil'Sam. Are you going to kill me?"

Thanos chuckled in a most unsettling way.

"I've had my fill of death," he replied, tucking his huge fingers beneath Sam's arm to lift her. When he removed his hand, Thanos gestured to a fruit near her hip. "Pick that one. It's ripe."

She did as she was told, gulping down a fear that wouldn't settle. The skin of the fruit felt like leather. Its spikes felt fuzzy, somewhere between felt and velvet. Sam could think of no equivalent on Earth. She could think of almost nothing, groggy from sleep and shocked with terror.

Attempting to look useful, Sam reached for another, fingers almost closed around the round top. This skin felt silky and soft.

"Not that one," Thanos said over his shoulder. He swiveled this way and that in the field before Sam realized he favored one arm. He tucked his damaged left hand against his side, kicking the sack across the ground instead of lifting it.

Sam plopped her single offering into the bag.

"You know who I am." The titan did not look up from his foraging. "Were you sent to kill me?"

Sam shook her head vigorously, unable to answer yet certain no one actually knew they were sending her in particular. Why would they? I can't even fight? She stood anxiously awaiting instruction, too scared to move.

Amused by her pathetic cowering, Thanos smiled. "Take heart, Little Sam. Destiny has touched you. The universe has offered you to me, as a daughter. Bring the bag."

Just like that, the strongest being in the universe claimed her. Fourteen years struggling to get Tony's attention and another six months to get him used to the idea that she was now enhanced…

Versus ten minutes on this stupid planet with a psychopath

Sam stood stunned for a long moment then quietly retrieved the fruit and followed.

His strides were huge. Sam was sure that on her own she could do no damage to Thanos, weakened as he was. Not without Missy. Not without those Stones.

Sam would have to play along and wait.

With the sack tossed over her shoulder, hiking up the slope, Sam felt like a runaway on an adventure to discover herself. She did not like what she found so far.

A pang struck her heart. Sam's decade-long struggle to earn Tony's acceptance was wiped away in three minutes. Thanos, the Mad Titan who murdered trillions with excitement, the being Sam saw stab Tony through the gut, he wanted her as a daughter.

She thought of Tony's festering wound on the Benatar.

Her stomach churned. Her head spun while trying to figure out what part of any of this was under her control.

All of this has already happened. Anything she could think to do, had she already done it? Were there actions she could take to change the future? Do I die here? Did Strange know but not want to tell me?

The bag was not heavy, but Sam remained weighed down. She became highly aware of the scuffing noise her dragging feet made while trudging behind the massive man. Does the noise annoy him? She picked up her feet.

Grass carpeted plateaus led to his gothic, arched cabin. The whole structure was smaller than her third-floor apartment at Harvard, but the cut wood still let off a fresh, sweet sap fragrance. It had not been here long. When they reached the porch, Sam dropped the bag and let her shoulders sink from the weight of her questions.

Thanos called for Sam to wash and chop the fruit, pointing her towards the windows and table off to her right while he stoked a hearth in the center of the building. Aligned with the edge of the open windows were descending troughs of freshwater, rolling from a mountain stream high in the hills. The icy fluid took her mind back to the cold of space, and Sam shut her eyes to the memories.

Questions raced to all corners of her mind as she methodically rubbed her hands over the leathery skins. Sam imagined she was prepping a meal with Bucky. She could almost hear his concern that she might cut off a finger. The half dozen bulbs of fruit she sliced and diced looked like pink cantaloupe inside but had little smell.

Laying the cauldron by her side to slide in the pieces, Thanos placed his hand on Sam's shoulder, but it was Tony's voice that rang out in her head

Come on, kid, you want to be one of us? What's the situation? What's the plan? How about that knife?

Sam didn't want to fight, but the scrape of the knife over wood cut through the air, taunting. She bit her lip, hoping for sweet whisky again, but tasted only dirt.

"Hungry?" Thanos dropped his hand and moved back to the fire.

Sam let out a slow breath, gently letting go of the knife. Using the Stones had leached a lot of her energy, even though the only energy she could not amplify was mental energy. "Actually, very," she replied, turning around without a weapon.

The Titan gave her a charming look, sheepishly pointing to the pot. "Let's see."

It took Sam a moment to realize that he wanted her to use her power, and she smiled before catching herself.

Hesitantly, she knelt before the fresh fire, the skin of the wood not yet cracked. The heat dried her eyes. Sam started to reach out both hands to clasp the belly of iron but thought better. Instead, she poked out a single, white-hot finger and pressed it to the side.

The piece of fruit closest to that edge popped and exploded in the broth, and by the time the ripples subsided, all around the rim was boiling.

Thanos showed a toothy grin. "Fantastic," he praised.

Sam told herself it was creepy, that this was all wrong, that she should be worried, but as she lowered her finger, a swell of pride settled her nervous stomach. She tried not to enjoy his excitement.

While plating their food, he talked about training her properly.

Sam forgot for a moment that everything around her was different and alien until she gagged on the food, sputtering the chunks back into her raised bowl before a coughing fit.

It tasted like soggy peanut soup.

"Didn't expect that," she muttered, wiping her chin.

Thanos burst into tears of laughter.

He actually likes this. He thinks I'm his company, his family. The longer she sat with him as the sun went down in the rosy sky, the more Sam wondered whether this was changing the timeline.

He dies on this planet, doesn't he? What if I was never supposed to talk to him?

Well then, you better make the most of it, her counter-voice added in Tony's tone.

"Who," Sam started when Thanos's breath returned and he wiped his eyes, "who is Annihilus?"

"You are smart, Little Sam. You remind me of…my other daughter…" He shifted and brought the bowl to his lips. "Likely, he is no more, but Annihilus was a part of my army."

Sam dipped her utensil in the broth but scooped nothing. The texture of the cooling food was gelatinous and foul.

Why would a part of Thanos's army still be around in twenty years? The Snap took them all, Sam thought. "Did he believe in your…mission? Your theory to…you know?"

"Bring balance? No. He did not." Thanos spooned out the last of his bowl and reached a hand out for Sam's. "Annihilus was greedy for his own people, his own resources, so I explained the space made by my success could be filled with his people."

"You didn't mean it." Sam's question turned into a statement as she studied his face.

"Balance, little one, is no longer balance when tipped back."

So Annihilus thought he'd be given free rein of some huge section of our universe, and instead got nothing while half of his own force got dusted. I'd be pissed, too.

"So you lied to him?"

"He inferred a different ending to the situation." Thanos chewed sloppy chunks of soup, neither pleased nor disappointed in himself. He had done what he set out to do, no more and no less. "I cannot control what the universe does with its resources, but life goes on because of me." He set down an almost empty bowl, and her stomach growled loudly.

And there's the ego, Sam nodded, pinching a lump of fruit out to try again. It went down her throat like buttery slime. Whatever happens, at least one of us is gonna die here.

He watched with amusement. "I will teach you to hunt," he chuckled, "as well as fight."

Thanos heaved himself upright and walked out to the porch. Sam took the opportunity to toss the rest of her bowl out the kitchen window and clean the dishes at the troth. The sky was nearly black by then.

"You shall sleep under the stars tonight."

Sam stepped to the porch to see a bed of enormous leaves laid upon the boards. "Thank you," she offered automatically, though her immediate hope was to get out of her awful, yet pristinely white, button-down.

Mr. Brum would be pleased if she ever got to tell him.

Thanos placed his hand on Sam's head. His fingers stretched from the crown of her skull to the nape of her neck. His palm alone probably weighed fifteen pounds, and Sam shuddered to think how easily he could crush her if he wanted.

The heft dragged through her hair and away to his own cot inside. "Sleep now." The loud clank of his gauntlet made her jump. Six bright gems stared at her from a few yards away.

There was no question; Sam could do nothing to Thanos without help, but so she took off the white shirt and settled on her pile of leaves. Since Tony put off commissioning underwear or bras out of the same materials, Sam wore the fitted flame-proof onesie of Human Torch beneath everything. She folded the top and her fancy black pants, tucking the buttons away, and used the mound as a pillow.

She looked up at the foreign night sky.

Somewhere out there, Johnny Storm was still alive, although, Sam considered, he might well have been dusted. She didn't know. Her whole life, the lesson had been "we won, we won" and very little about what, or who was lost beforehand.

Three weeks the universe held its breath, but no one talked about inside those weeks anymore, only before or after.

There was no way of knowing when this was within those dark days. How long would Sam have to play daughter to a mass murderer? Could she even survive that long?

The stars twinkled above her.

And where the hell is Missy?

If it was just her and Thanos on this planet, how would she get away to search? Was she supposed to grab the gauntlet and snap him away herself?

Fear clutched her heart, and Sam curled up on her side, peaking at the Titan's back. The more she reasoned that she should try, be brave, and fight him, the more paralyzed her body became.

Without electricity, the dying fire and the galaxy of stars above were all the light available. Sam tilted her head up to wonder at the sky without light pollution. The intricate pinpoints were brighter than what was visible from Wakanda or the farm in Iowa, and she understood the appeal to return to some bygone era of simplicity.

Except…the loss Sam already felt in her heart was too great. Thanos took an idea to heal a body and cut it in half, leaving cancerous tissue free to grow on the other end. He may have believed this a fair plan, but it was not a good one. Sam turned the logic over and over, her head slowly drifting back to neutral on her pile of clothes.

Eventually, her tensed muscles fatigued, her strained brain failed, and Sam drifted off to sleep.

She may as well have blinked.

The weight of a car struck Sam's hip, and her eyes flew open to daylight.

"Hard sleeper," Thanos accused mockingly, retracting his foot from the side of her leaf pile.

Extremis healed the bruised fleshed in seconds, but the memory of the Titan's willingness to harm her—and the ease with which he could—remained. Sam swallowed hard against a dry throat.

"You must eat before training." Thanos pointed to his 'backyard.' "Gather."

Sam, groggy and irritable, looked around at dozens of alien plant species. "What's poisonous and what's edible?"

Her host laughed and went back inside to his hearth.

The sky was more purple today, or perhaps it was simply the hour, but Sam stumbled up to her feet and started scavenging around.

There was no proper garden to speak of, no lines of plants separated from others, and yet there were certain plants that did not flourish beyond about fifty yards from the hut, squat, dark green bush-like things, somewhere between a cabbage and dense spinach, or an absolutely enormous single brussel sprout. They did not grow all the way to the tree line or far from the width of the hut's shadow.

Please taste decent, Sam grumbled along with her stomach. She steeled her tastebuds to not react no matter how odd the flavor. Could be like ice cream for all I know…

Defeated in alien shrubbery, Sam plopped herself onto the hard dirt, legs splayed before her like a grumpy school kid.

I want coffee.

She wanted all that coffee implied as well. She wanted, for the first coherent and distinct time, to be home. That meant with Tony. That meant with Bucky. That meant an exact building that housed things she cared about. It was a novel feeling to want home.

Sam's eyes dried out before the tears came, just two, one down each cheek as her closing lids evicted them from their own homes.

"Not the yellow berries," Thanos bellowed from the porch, shielding his eyes from the sunlight to see where Sam had gone.

Her eyes burned when open again, stung by air, light, and existence, but she got up, tucked her bounty under her arm, and drudged back through the field.

She'd chosen well. Though the leafy greens did not taste like ice cream, or cereal, which Sam desperately wanted at that moment, her stomach did not object to the familiar, if disliked, taste of salad.

It was over breakfast that Sam caught herself glaring at the gems in his golden glove, thinking of all the fuss to own and control and conquer yet longing to return to her own time.

She hated those damn stones. She was glad to be rid of hers. Then she thought of Tony and Bucky, and her head sank to assess her unchanged food.

After breakfast, Sam had the awkward task of discovering where she might use the restroom before training began. Every available second she spent pondering what to do, how Bucky would handle this, what Tony would do, but Sam felt close to crumbling under the weight of decision.

She splashed her face with water at the trough and jogged out onto the steeper plane of the 'front yard.'

As she looked at the gorgeous landscape all around, Sam didn't expect a lone, crushing punch to her mandible. Her windpipe was punctured by the force. Luckily, that wasn't the first time Sam had heard her bones break, but she felt everything and struggled to breathe until Extremis fixed the damage.

Thanos charged her while she recovered on the ground. His mass was large enough to trigger her instinct, and Sam pushed her fear into a whip of energy from her palm. For a split second, she could feel Sharon's pride surge behind her, but the blast glanced right off Thanos's shoulder.

"Weak." He made it to within inches of her face.

Sam flung her glowing arm up. "Wait! Wait, how about I show you—" he hesitated for an instant "—what I can actually do?" She launched herself into flight, bare foot inches from his grasp, and hovered there. "Seriously, I'm not a fighter. No joke." Her rapid breathing nearly split her constricted lungs.

Thanos looked her up and down, doubtful. "For today, Little Sam," he grimaced, "I'll allow it."

"Okay," Sam nodded, bits of plan exploding like confetti in her mind. "How about…a lap around the planet? Fast as I can fly?"

Her teacher straightened in annoyance. "I'm not waiting for you all day." He shook his head, pointing off into the distance behind her. "Follow the mountain ridge and back."

Sam nodded to hide the huge lump she could not swallow and flew off towards the peaks. She rolled over and over in the air, searching the ground, searching the sky, hoping to find any trace of Mistress.

She set down on the last snowy peak, frantically staring at the heavens with faint stars in the daylight. The snow went up to her knees.

If she had only left well enough alone, she would be in Alaska right now. This would be her snow, her first real and free flight outside of HQ.

And her father, her real father, would be here for it.

Nothing seemed out of place in the sky until the boom behind her.

Startled, Sam turned to see a brilliant streak of fire in the sky, heading straight for the valley she'd come from.

Missy.

The impact of the incoming object tossed a huge amount of debris in the air. Sam pushed her speed, so intently focused that she clipped several trees on her descent into the cloud of dust. She hit the ground before she saw it.

Red smoke washed over the valley as if the sun of Titan had magically appeared in this sky. Sam hesitated to call out Missy's name, lest she gave her friend away to Thanos. In the vast ruby monochrome, Sam got turned around. She took three steps in the direction she thought led to the hut.

A mechanical whir zipped past her ear just as she opened her mouth to call 'hello.'

She knew that sound.

"Wait—"

The matching red fist of Iron Man soared to connect with its target. The alloy of the suit left a sharper pain thundering across her head than the springy flesh of Thano's knuckles.

A glistening red boot expanded threefold to crush Sam's knee. Iron Man's palm opened to blast Sam in the chest, again and again.

Sam stumbled back, collapsing to her remaining knee, unable to speak until her jaw healed.

Iron Man clamped a glove over her left wrist, just as he'd done on the landing pad in Wakanda.

"You're finished," the deep voice huffed. "It's over. Now give me the stones."

Sam tried through disconnected joints. "I don't—"

The free fist jabbed, breaking a few of Sam's ribs. Sam felt a wrenching pull against her arm, once, twice, and then Iron Man kept pulling. This time the bone refused to break beneath.

The flat gold of Iron Man's face mask leaned in close, the freehand returning to push Sam's thumb backward.

Sam yelped, raising her free hand to push against his shoulder.

Electronic words punctured her ear. "It should have been you, monster."

"Dad, please," Sam choked between painful tears. "I don't wanna fight you. I didn't choose this."

A sliver of blue sky appeared above Iron Man's looming form, peeling back the red smoke like wrapping paper.

Off to Sam's side, close enough to send a shiver up her tensed spine, a chuckle sounded, amorphous, callus, familiar.

The red and gold suit dissolved, too, revealing a woman with floating golden hair and an eight-point star across her chest.

Eyes wide, Carol Danvers dropped the hostage arm and stepped back. "Who are you?"

Sam grasped her glowing arm, shaking her head. If Danvers is here now, the timeline…

"Daughter of Stark—" Thanos stepped out behind the red retracting into its undulating, fluid stone, alight above his fisted ring finger "—Destiny has truly blessed me."

"Enough with the tricks, Thanos," Carol said, squaring her body in between him and Sam crouched in the dirt.

"Silence." Thanos pointed to Captain Marvel, freezing her in a rippling bubble of time. He took slow steps towards Sam. "Your father used every tool, every weapon his little machines could come up with, and all he drew was a drop of blood. Give into destiny, child. Fight."

"I'm not—" She couldn't finish. Sam's body went numb with pins and needles. Her eyes wouldn't shift, and her lips felt cold. Life drained out of her like the air leaving her lungs.

Next to his Time Stone, the sunny, orange glow of the Soul Stone twinkled.

"Fight or die, Little Sam."

The cold deepened as her body starved for oxygen, and when it lifted, poured her soul back inside.

Sam gasped for air.

"What will it be," Thanos offered, flexing his fist as a threat.

Sam felt hot, hot with fear, hot with anger. She wanted to scream and cry, lash out and run away all at once. The buzz of heat grew while Thanos smiled.

"A fine choice, child."

A dark streak flew behind the Titan. Sam cracked a smile of her own.

Thanos seemed to understand her changed intention, and his defiance stabbed back. "You cannot defeat me."

Sam felt a stabbing at the base of her neck and embraced the pain. "No, I can't—" she let Missy's nanites flow over her body, lifting her right arm into the air, "—but she can." Sam watched the green reflect in Thanos's eyes before countering the timelock on Danvers.

The Titan scrambled with a howl of anger.

The rippling green rings around Danvers changed direction then disappeared, and the Captain immediately attacked with blasts from both fists.

"It's not possible," Thanos wailed as he flipped Danvers over his head to crash to the ground.

He stomped against her chest, and Sam heard the wind rush from Danvers's lungs. The Captain's body began to glow, her hands the scale of his toe reaching up. One photon blast hit him in the knee, the next beneath the jaw.

The third missed as he wound his burned arm back, gauntlet high for the swing.

Sam made a fist of her own, activating the Space Stone in its nestled spot on her left cuff. An electric blue cloud engulfed Thanos's raised arm and vanished. He screeched in agony while his limp, severed hand dropped in front of Sam.

Danvers spotted her window, knocking the side of his knee to release the pin and attack.

Sam struggled to pull at the metal glove over the blood-slippery skin beneath. It wouldn't budge. The damn thing slid right out of Sam's hands.

This is really gross, she growled in frustration.

She looked up to assess the fight, but her eyes could barely follow their movements.

Missy detached her arm covering beneath Bucky's left cuff. "Use this," she offered.

Where the hell have you been, but no sooner had the thought manifested than Sam knew. Missy had flown to broadcast the Garden's location to bring Captain Marvel. She'd been orbiting the opposite side when the Captain arrived.

Sam didn't argue with the empty glove, crouching to pull off the Infinity Stones and mount them on Missy's knuckles. Each sparked their own sickly, draining surge that jolted her gut, but she got five placed before she heard him.

"Balance," Thanos yelled, his hand clenched around Danvers's throat, "requires sacrifice."

Sam grabbed the last stone, the Power Stone, and aimed, gauntlet by her side. Every cell in her body tried to push itself apart simultaneously. The pain was one-hundred fold the torture of grafting her skin with vibranium. It spread over every inch of her body. She pushed forward, intent on causing Thanos the same pain.

His skin cracked like magma breaching a cooled layer of shale. His breath exploded from his body, and he released Danvers.

Sam's knees gave out beneath her as the splitting pain in her head mirrored a split opening in the ground beneath her.

Let go, Missy told Sam through the fog of purple.

Marvel flew to her. "Give it to me."

Thanos made it to his feet again, running at them full speed. It took Sam an agonizing second to release her spasming arm and snap the Power Stone into place.

"Thanks, kid." Danvers winked and pulled on the new, silvery sheath, shutting her eyes against the smoking veins of radiation that shot up her arm.

Without hesitation, she snapped.

Thanos reached out. Sam conjured a weak Time-hold just as his huge fingers were within inches of Danvers's face.

Carol snapped again, and the Titan's face betrayed his boundless disbelief.

Sam could hold him no longer. Her arm gave out.

"You…"

With the force of only air behind his bulk, Thanos closed the gap between them. The fingers fragmented into dust. The wind drifted his ashy pieces off into the broken field.

Sam finally let her arm fall, and Danvers collapsed beside her.

Sam caught her head before it hit the ground. Dying black flesh spread across Danvers's face.

"It's okay. You're okay," Sam panted. She grabbed at the gauntlet, but as it had been fused to Thanos's arm, it was burned to Danvers. Under her breath, Sam pleaded, "Missy, help me."

You know how this ends, Missy returned, forcing Sam to reach her arm over the smoking glove to reunite their nanoparticles.

The Infinity Stones dropped to the ground one by one.

Can we do nothing? Maybe if I give her some energy to heal—

"He'd be proud of you," Carol gurgled out, blue oozing from deep rivets of broken skin.

Missy retracted, walking away to retrieve the original gauntlet.

Sam sobbed. "You don't know him."

"I don't have to." Carol croaked, weakly shaking her head. "Any parent—" she gave a small smiled "—would be lucky to…"

Her pupils relaxed, vacant.

Sam's whining cry broke free. Hot tears streaked her face.

She knew this story. She'd grown up with it. Over and over, she'd heard what Danvers sacrificed, but to witness effortless courage in the face of brutal, callus…

To watch the Savior of the Universe die in her arms was something else entirely.

This is the future Strange picked? This is what he wanted?

Sam could not bring herself to call Thanos evil. He was trying to be logical, to prevent society's collapse on countless planets.

He beat her, but he fed her. He laughed with her and made a bed for her. He demanded she fight or die.

Danvers did both. Sam shifted her body to the ground, crossing her arms across her chest.

We can't all be so pure. Thanos was flawed, like we all are, somewhere between selfish and selfless. That's where we all fall. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

"We cannot leave a trace," Missy corrected, moving Carol's arms to her side. She shimmied Carol's tiny hand into the golden glove. The Stones popped back into their slots like magnets pulled from the earth. "They can't know we were here."

"No," Sam said after scanning the destroyed valley, "they can't know yet."


A/N: Any and all feedback welcome, but mostly I hope it's been interesting and fun to follow so far. Gotta go keep writing!