The plan was quite simple:

1. Open a portal.
2. Put Thanos' arm with the gauntlet inside.
3. Close the portal.

Done! On one side you have a mad Titan minus one arm, and on the other side, you have an Infinity Gauntlet with four Stones plus an arm to spare.

Stephen Strange shook his head. That would never work.

But Tony Stark just winked and said, "Trust me, Doc."

And Stephen did because this was Iron Man, one of earth's greatest defenders. A man who saved the world countless times before. Surely he knew what he was talking about.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't. You love me." Tony patted his shoulder and smiled. "Come on, let's go over to the others and wait 'till the big guy arrives."

He was gone before Stephen could reply, so the doctor followed him with a sigh. "Yes, I love you. May the Vishanti help me, but I do."

–-)•(-–

An hour later when Thanos arrived, he was greeted by a lonely figure sitting on a rock. His red and golden armor glinted in the faint light of the far sun.

"You're much more of a Thanos," the man on the rock said calmly.

"I take it that Maw is dead?"

The man on the rock nodded slightly.

"This day extracts a heavy toll," Thanos sighed. "Still, he accomplished his mission."

"You may regret that," Tony replied, running a finger teasingly over the Eye of Agamotto that he wore around his neck. "He brought you face-to-face with a genius billionaire and his invincible armor."

Thanos chucked. "Where do you think he brought you?"

"Listen, dude, I don't care," Tony said with his arms spread wide. "There are appointments I have today, and I'd rather not be late, so can we please get to the point?"

"That's fine with me," Thanos chuckled. "Give me the stone!"

"No can do. How about you give us the gauntlet?"

"Us?"

With a grin, Tony raised a hand with Strange's sling ring and opened a portal right in front of Thanos.

On the other side, the rest of the team was already waiting. As soon as the portal opened, they acted immediately: Doctor Strange conjured the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak around Thanos' left hand, while Spider-Man caught the arm with an extra strong strand of his webbing. Together with Drax and Nebula, they managed to pull the left arm of the surprised Titan through the portal.

Iron Man had closed the portal swiftly even before Thanos fully realized what had happened.

The Titan screamed in agony, but Iron Man and Star-Lord gave him no time to come to his senses. They attacked him with everything that Peter's blaster pistol and the weapon arsenal of Tony's armor had to give.

While Thanos was distracted, Doctor Strange jumped to help them. He cast the spell of the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon, that trapped the Titan in a thick layer of ice. After that, Mantis put him to sleep with her psychic abilities.

"What now?" Spider-Man asked. He held the Gauntlet in one Hand and the detached Arm in the other one.

"First of all: Put that arm away. That's gross!" yelled Star-Lord.

"I think he is right, Peter. We have no further need for that arm. You can put it down," Strange said calmly.

Peter dropped both the arm and the gauntlet and joined the others, who had gathered around Thanos.

Tony asked Mantis, "How long can you keep him like that?"

"Not for long. He is very strong."

Stephen wanted to ask her another question, but Star-Lord interrupted him. "I want to know what happened to Gamora!" He turned to Thanos "Where's Gamora?"

The dazed Thanos moaned, "My Gamora!"

"Oh, bullshit! Where is she?" Quill yelled.

Thanos tossed and turned in the psychic grip of Mantis.

"He is in anguish," she explained.

"Good," Quill said.

"He... He mourns."

Star-Lord sneered, "What does this monster have to mourn?"

"Gamora..." Thanos groaned.

"What?" Star-Lord asked.

"He took her to Vormir," Nebula told them. "He came back with the Soul Stone. She didn't."

Star-Lord threw himself at the Titan with an outcry.

Tony tried to pull him back and shouted, "Okay, Quill? You gotta cool it right now, understand?"

But Quill just ignored him. He grabbed Thanos and shook him. "Tell me she's lying. Asshole! Tell me you didn't do it."

"I had to..." Thanos sighed.

"No, you didn't. No! No, you didn't!"

"Quill!" Iron Man had enough. He lifted Quill and threw him towards Peter and Stephen. "Can you keep him calm?" he asked Mantis with a nod in Thanos' direction.

"It is hard, but I think I can do that," answered Mantis.

Just for a moment, nobody paid attention to Quill, which was a mistake. He picked up the Infinity Gauntlet next to where Stark had thrown him and charged at Thanos. Unfortunately, he couldn't control the power of the magical artifact. It began to glow so brightly it hurt the eyes.

Strange knew within the blink of an eye that it would explode. He also knew he didn't have enough time to prevent this. All the sorcerer could do was trying to protect as many people as possible. Horrified, he realized that Tony was too close to Star-Lord. Not even his newest high tech Iron Man armor would be able to protect him from an explosion of this scale.

"Save him! Get him as far away from Quill as possible!" he yelled at the Cloak of Levitation, and the magical artifact hurried without hesitation to obey his command. Then he ran over to Nebula, Spider-Man, and Drax, cast the strongest shield spell he knew around the four of them and hoped that this would suffice as protection.

Suddenly the ground beneath them was gone, and they crashed hard on something that Strange identified as the cold marble floor in the foyer of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

"What?" Stephen mumbled and looked up.

In shock and terror, he realized that Iron Man had conjured a portal with his sling ring. The Avenger hovered on the other side. He was about to move to the magic entrance to join them when everything exploded, and the portal vanished.

"Tony, no!" Stephen yelled. "No, no, no!" He knew no one could survive a blast like this, but he didn't care. He hat to get back to Titan immediately. All he needed was another sling ring. There had to be one in the Library on the second floor. He got up and ran to the stairs, where Bruce Banner's chrash had left a deep hole. Had it really been just this morning?

He had barely reached the top of the stairs, when Peter cried out. "What the hell?! Stephen, there is something wrong..."

Stephen turned just in time to witness Nebula and Drax dissolving to dust.

"What was that?" Spider-Man asked panicked.

"I don't know. I've never seen something like that." The doctor rushed down the steps again.

For a moment fell an eerie silence over the city. But it didn't last long before the two of them could hear cars crashing and people screaming outside the Sanctum.

Stephen and Peter looked at each other and ran to the door to find out what was going on.

Chapter End Notes

Hello! Thank you for reading this. I hope you like it so far.

For me it is really challenging because it is not only the first time ever I'm writing fan fiction it is also the first time I've done that in English (which is not my native language).

This story is already finished, I'll post a chapter every week. If you want to read the whole thing, you can do it on AO3. (Sorry, I can't put a link in here, because this shitty site doesn't allow it!)