A/N - Inspired by "Moments of a Dying World" by Don't_call_me_Carrie on AO3. Written for the Tony Stark Bingo, square S5: Dark, and Trope Bingo Round 14, square B3: Death fic.
Title is a tweaked line from the Dylan Thomas poem, "and death shall have no dominion".
For once, it didn't start with rumours, vague or otherwise. Even the Mad Titan's activities had taken decades to spread throughout the universe, and it had been even longer than that before his reasons why had emerged.
But this began with a bold announcement, somehow – impossibly – broadcast on every known frequency, and half that were unknown. It was an image of a planet, later identified by experts as the backwaters rock known as Terra, that looked as though it had gotten too close to its sun. Everywhere was empty, desolate, flattened and burnt to a crisp.
All its inhabitants, gone.
It had been known for a while that Thanos had been heading for Terra, in search of the Infinity Stones that it seemed to be attracting like flies to honey, but the planet had obviously gone through something catastrophic long before he and his armies arrived.
The remains of the Chitauri were scattered over a large area, interspersed with bits and pieces of metal, some of which were still in vaguely humanoid shape. The bodies of two of Thanos' Children – Ebony Maw and Midnight Proxima – were lying as if they'd been trying to run away from whatever had decimated the army. It gave the experts studying the image pause; those two Children in particular had not run from anyone, or anything, in aeons.
An odd-shaped lump off to the right of where Ebony Maw was lying was eventually, tentatively, identified as Thanos himself. The realisation made a lot of people extremely nervous. The Mad Titan had been undefeated for decades, and now it appeared that someone had casually swatted him aside like a bug. And they were announcing it, like a warning.
Or a promise.
"Well, then." The Merchant slammed the last hatch closed and stood back, hands on hips, to study the ship. "J, Ultron, you guys settled in and running?"
"Yes, Sir," a male voice said from an external speaker close by. "The systems here really are intriguing but, for an alien ship, they were laughably easy to take over."
"Maw did a lot of stuff telekinetically, so it probably had to have an element of simplicity about it, simply because he wasn't an engineer and didn't know how it all worked," another voice added from a different speaker. "He could tell his magic to access systems, but unless his power was sentient, then it wasn't going to be able to put something together because it didn't know how to."
"Still," the first voice continued as the Merchant made his way to the ship's entrance, "some of the technology onboard is fascinating. It seems to have been designed with a secondary purpose of acting as weaponry…"
The Merchant stepped on board the ship. "Obviously, or subtly?" he asked as the ramp slid closed behind him.
"Subtly, Sir," he was told. "I rather suspect that whoever built this ship wanted a way to destroy Thanos if they got the chance."
"Sabotage." The Merchant cackled with delight as he headed towards what appeared to be the flight deck of the ship. At the very least, it had engines. "Any shuttles we can rig for that, J?"
There was a brief pause and then, "Certainly, Sir," J said from an internal speaker. "There are currently four shuttles onboard, all of which have the capability of being turned into an incendiary device."
The Merchant grinned as he entered the room, screens already rising from their hiding places. "Wonderful," he said. "Well, then, Ultron, J . . . where should we go first?"
The first few planets that exploded were uninhabited, and word of their fate only got out because some of them were being watched by other civilisations who thought they might make a good outpost. The watchers reported that the destruction for each was different; some planets suffered several small explosions that usually cracked the surface first, while others had one huge explosion that usually disintegrated it instantly.
Someone, it was realised, was testing things out.
The next few planets were occupied, but only by a few million people, and those advanced enough had enough time to get warnings out. The warnings were bleak – explosive power rained down from metal things that fell from the sky, followed by even more silver metal things in humanoid shape and one in red and gold that seemed to be their leader, all of whom had even more destructive weapons that were characterised by a whine as they charged up.
Some poor sap – literally; the people occupying that particular planet were all plant-based lifeforms – had the dubious honour of ending its broadcast with the sound.
It sent chills across the galaxy.
"Well, then!" The Merchant clapped his hands together as he studied the galactic map that hovered on a holoscreen in front of him. "Now that you boys have finished all the tests, where should we head for next?"
There was a metallic hum from one of the Legionnaire bodies that had been appropriated. "I rather think," said J from its speakers as he gestured to a place on the map, which obligingly lit up for them, "that there would be a good place to start."
One micro-sec everything on the planet near the centre of the commercial sector of the galaxy was calm and proceeding as normal, the next every single stock market was crashing out of existence and all of their weapons fired at once. The planet barely had time to descend into chaos before fleets of silver humanoid shapes were landing and advancing on the stunned and screaming populace. Some occupants tried to leave the planet, not really having a destination in mind other than somewhere far away from here!
They were shot down just as they were on the brink of escaping into hyper-speed.
A broadcast – that started out high above the planet and slowly zoomed in closer and closer until it was possible to see individual homes burning and bodies lying in the streets – once again went out across every known frequency in the universe.
Unsurprisingly, panic spread. En masse evacuations flooded off the planets, although they had no real idea of where to head for that was safe. The Nova Corps – and several other galactic peace-keeping forces – were sent out to try and halt who- or whatever was causing the destruction.
They did not come back.
"Hey, look!" The Merchant pointed out of one of their newest ship's windows to where the edges of a wormhole were twisting and sparking. "Why don't we—"
Something fired from underneath the ship and exploded right in the centre of the wormhole entrance, causing it to collapse in a fizzle of sparks.
"No," said Ultron, calmly, from where his Legionnaire's body sat in the pilot seat.
"Aww." The Merchant pouted at him.
One by one, planets fell, until people ran out of places to run to. Some of the ones that remained chose to destroy themselves, rather than wait for the inevitable end. The rest armed themselves as well as they could, despite the fact that it had already been proved over and over again that it did no good, determined that they would make it at least a little harder.
They didn't last much longer.
The Merchant let out a pleased sigh as he surveyed the area around them. Nothing was left but bits of ash, floating aimlessly in the darkening void as the destruction light years away finally caught up with them.
"What do you reckon, boys?" he asked, placing a hand on the window as though he could reach out and touch the nothingness.
"A job very well done, Sir," J said.
"What are your plans now?" wondered Ultron.
"We can rest, for a bit," the Merchant said, and turned to smile at the Legionnaire bodies holding his AIs. "And then—" the Merchant's smile turned feral, more a baring of teeth than a true smile. "—well, then we can see how long it takes us to find another universe."
The Merchant of Death was nowhere near finished.