"Mistress Death will appreciate the culmination of my courtship of her."
"Wait, wait, waitwaitwait!" Tony Stark stared at the big purple grape that was currently sporting the gaudiest piece of jewellery ever created, even if it did hold the power to erase reality as they knew it.
Said big purple grape – otherwise known as Thanos – paused to stare incredulously back at him. "It is too late to stop me now," he said, ponderously. "But your lives will make a fine gift; you should be proud."
Tony waved his hands in front of him in a negative fashion and flipped his faceplate up just so that Thanos could get the full effect of his unimpressed look. "This whole—" He waved a hand in a vague circle. "—courtship… thing," he said. "I get you're old-fashioned, and I'm sure you're doing a swell job with it, really, but… I think you forgot one tiny, little thing." He held up the same hand with his finger and thumb all but pressed together. "Just a little thing, probably not important, really, but—" He stared even more intently at Thanos. "You did remember to get the blessing… right?"
Thanos blinked at him. "Blessing?" he repeated. There was an equally confused murmur from his remaining Children behind him, and from the crowd behind Tony, too.
"Blessing," Tony agreed. "You didn't get it? You… did remember that you need to get it first, didn't you?"
"Oh God," someone behind him whispered, and then choked. Tony thought it might have been Steve; he was likely the only one old enough to think about old-fashioned courtship rituals.
Thanos scowled at them all. "What nonsense are you spouting?" he asked. "It merely delays your gifting to Mistress Death."
"Ooh." Tony winced theatrically. "Yeah, see, I hate to break it to you, buddy, but before you start courting a—" Was Death a woman? A being? Tony didn't know what pronouns Death was using these days. "—anybody, you generally have to ask their parent or guardian's permission first."
There was a loud indrawn breath, yet again from behind Tony, and he thought that might have been Thor. He would see very well just where Tony was going with this whole spiel, and why it might – just possibly – have a slim chance of actually working.
Thanos was frowning now in confusion. "But—" he began, and then stopped. He glanced from the gauntlet he was wearing to Tony. "What happens if I did not?" he asked.
"Then you're likely to get turned down flat, especially if the… courtee is, ah, fond of their parent. Or guardian, whichever one."
"Hmm." Thanos' gaze turned considering. Then he thrust the gauntlet-encased hand into the air. "Mistress Death, I would converse with thee!" he bellowed.
Whether or not Mistress Death would have answered him of their own accord, Thanos was wielding the Reality Stone – what he wanted right now, he got. A faint mist began trickling out of the ground, growing denser and thicker as it rose until it resembled the shape of a person. Then it gradually went darker and darker, until it finally disappeared altogether and left Mistress Death standing there clear as day. They glanced around, curiously.
"Hi, Hela!" Tony chirped, and waved at her.
"Tony," Hela cooed back, and moved to meet him, embracing him as soon as she got within reach. "It's been too long," she scolded, fondly.
Thanos – and everyone else – was gaping at them both. "What…" Thanos said, slowly. "Mistress Death? What are you…? You know this mortal?"
Hela slowly straightened from Tony, chuckling, and turned to face Thanos. A strand of her long black hair rose up and draped itself over his shoulder. "I'd hope so," she replied. "He is my stepfather, after all."
Complete silence, all around them. Tony dearly hoped that FRIDAY was getting images of everyone's reactions.
"Stepfather?" several people finally asked, in strangled unison. Thanos looked, perhaps, the most disbelieving, but no doubt most of the others weren't far behind.
Hela merely raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what it's called when another man marries your parent?" she asked.
"But—" Thanos was reduced to mouthing, soundlessly.
Tony wiggled his fingers at Thanos. "As I'm standing in loco parentis," he said, "I do hereby declare that I do not accept your courtship of Hela. Sorry, too bad, no courting for you, bub-bye now!"
Thanos abruptly scowled and drew himself upright. Tony sighed and snapped his faceplate back down again, just in case the big purple grape rushed him. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Thanos had been jonesing for his girl for centuries; he wasn't likely to back down at the first – er, okay, thousandth – hurdle.
"No," the grape said, in a very deep, firm voice. "I do not accept this. You are not my darling's parent or guardian; only a mere mortal. If I must conclude this ritual properly, I will ask permission from no less than her father."
Now it was Tony's turn to suck in a breath. "Ooh, yeah, I don't think you want to go that route," he said, shaking his head.
Just in front of him, Hela stiffened. Tony didn't even need to see her face to know her eyes had narrowed. Her hair was beginning to lift as though in a breeze. "You dare," Hela hissed at Thanos. "You DARE to mention my father?!"
"Yes." Thanos nodded. "Bring him here to me, so that I might ask his permission."
Hela's hair stiffened and twisted until it formed an antlered helmet. The casual attire she'd been wearing was melting away, leaving her in a black leather catsuit with deep green highlights. She pointed a hand – now holding a sharp dagger that was as long as her forearm – at Thanos.
"My father," she growled, "is at this very minute seated in the throne room of Helheim. Do you know how he got there?" Thanos opened his mouth but didn't get even a syllable out before Hela was barrelling over him. "Because you sent him there! He was tortured, brutalised, brainwashed and then murdered. By YOU!" she bellowed. "And you think I'd allow you to court me after that?"
Thanos had gone a very pale lavender colour which, Tony had to say, did not suit him at all. "The princeling from Asgard," he whispered, and gently touched a finger to the bright blue stone sitting in his golden glove.
"Loki," Tony agreed, lifting his faceplate back up. "Little tip for the future – if you have one. It's not really a good idea to court someone when you don't even know who their family is. Leads you right into holes like this one. You should count yourself lucky that he couldn't come himself right now."
"I—My love, if I had known," Thanos tried, but any other words were drowned out by the extremely loud war cry Hela uttered as she dived for the Titan, dagger in each hand and aimed squarely for his throat.
Even as besotted as he was – had been – with Hela, Thanos wasn't going to stand for that, and he knocked her aside, albeit rather gently. Hela, however, didn't have the same inhibitions; she merely spun around his arm and stabbed one of the daggers directly into his armpit. Thanos bellowed and swiped at her with his other hand, but Hela was already spinning away, leaping up to slash her other dagger down the other side of his neck.
Loki, Tony reflected, had been teaching her well. She landed in a crouch and spun on the balls of her feet to slice out at Thanos' ankle. She missed, mainly because he kicked out at her, but easily rolled backwards away from the kick and rose up to her feet as if she'd levitated up. Sparks of her power were beginning to crackle around her helmet, and one ran down her arm to spread itself over the dagger's blade.
"I do not wish to harm you," said Thanos, sounding regretful. "But I will not stand idle."
Hela sneered at him, and it was a thing of beauty. Tony made a note to make a screenshot of that so he could show it to Loki whenever he was next able to visit Earth. "And I will not stand for your presence to continue any longer," she retorted. "Nor this farce of a courtship, which I neither want nor invited."
"So be it," Thanos said, solemnly. Abruptly, he lashed out at Hela with the golden gauntlet, the gems in it sparking with power. Tony was just about to fire up his unibeam when Hela caught Thanos' wrist with crossed daggers. She wasn't even straining, although Thanos definitely was.
"I don't think so," Hela informed him, and somehow – too quickly for Tony's eyes to follow the movement – she managed to grasp both dagger handles in one hand and pull off the gauntlet with the other. She held it up in front of Thanos' eyes… and squeezed.
With a horrendous squeal, the metal of the gauntlet warped and cracked until it fell to the ground in pieces. The gems, rather than falling to the ground with it, hovered in the air for a moment, and then shot off in different directions. The green one shot off sideways to somewhere behind Tony, whilst the yellow one floated over to circle Wanda's head before halting over where Vision's inert body had fallen. The others shot skywards, leaving behind coloured trails of their passage.
Thanos groaned. "No," he protested.
"Yes," Hela hissed. She shook the remaining fragments of the gauntlet from her hand and then wrapped that same hand around Thanos' throat. It didn't even stretch halfway, but it enabled her to dig her fingers in around his windpipe. She leaned into Thanos. "Enjoy your eternity of nowhere," she growled at him. "You are not welcome in Helheim. Ever. You are not worthy of any afterlife." She squeezed her fingers in tighter, and a trickle of blood seeped out past one of her nails. "I cast you out!"
And, with that declaration, Hela tore Thanos' throat out.
Tony barely managed to get his faceplate down again to avoid being sprayed in the face by the virulent purple blood that spurted out. Not to mention the… chunkier bits that came with it.
Hela, interestingly, still had her hand curled in the air as though still gripping his throat, even as Thanos slowly toppled backwards, his eyes wide and shocked. She was glaring at her hand. Or maybe at the blood coating it? Tony couldn't tell. "I am the Goddess of Death," she pronounced. "Did you forget what that means?" She shook her hand. "For the crime of harming even a hair on my father's head, I cast your soul into the Abyss!" She made a gesture as if trying to smash something on the ground, then dusted her hands off, looking up at Tony with a satisfied smirk.
"Is that it?" someone asked. "Is he gone?"
"Oh, yes," Hela purred. She really did look ridiculously pleased with herself. (Then again, she'd probably earnt it; she had just killed the big purple grape that had been threatening planets for aeons, after all.)
A huge cheer went up, along with a couple of howls of angry denial that made everyone else abruptly stop and look over. They had, somehow, managed to forget that Thanos hadn't been alone. Two of his Children – the female and the ugly magic-user that Tony had dubbed 'Squidward' – were still standing at the head of the army that Thanos had brought with him.
Hela also turned to look at them. "Oops," she said, and flicked her fingers out at them. "Forgot about the zealots." Both Children abruptly froze and then collapsed to the ground as if their strings had been cut. "Now it's over," Hela said, turning back.
The cheer rose up again.
"Well done, daughter," said an echoing voice from beside Tony. Giving up entirely, he retracted the entire helmet as he turned to look. To his delight, a transparent image of Loki was standing beside him. He hadn't expected to be able to see his husband until his soul had recovered enough from the shock of being murdered for Hela to resurrect him.
There was a commotion from behind them. "Brother!" Thor joyfully bellowed, as he threw himself at Loki. Apparently, he hadn't realised that Loki wasn't really there, and he went flying right through the opaque likeness to end up sprawling on the ground. "Brother?" he queried, spitting out a clod of mud.
Both Tony and Loki rolled their eyes in unison. "I'm not really here, Thor," Loki pointed out. "Weren't you listening when Hela said that I was in Helheim?" He turned and cast an apologetic glance at Tony. "I'm afraid it will be some time yet before I can return," he said.
Tony waved this off. He was just thankful that Loki could return at all. He was much luckier than some of the other people in this fight – or even just the populace in general – who had had friends and loved ones killed by Thanos that wouldn't be coming back.
Hela stepped closer to Tony, her helmet and outfit relaxing back into their casual state. "I'm afraid I have to get back," she said, leaning in to hug him tightly. "But when Father is able to, I'll bring him back personally."
"Square deal," Tony agreed, returning the hug. He also kissed her on the cheek. It was a measure of her appreciation for him that she actually let him. "I'll see you soon, honey," he added to Loki, who blew him a kiss as he faded out of sight again.
"Goodbye, Uncle Thor. Bye, Tony!" called Hela, as she faded back into the mist that she'd originally appeared out of, which sank back into the ground.
Tony reached down to help yank Thor upright and then turned to face the rest of the crowd, who were all watching him avidly. "So!" he said, brightly, clapping his hands together. "I guess you guys have questions?"
They did have. A lot of questions.