Thor needed a drink. Of water, preferably - or even Midgardian soda - but he wouldn't complain if he got something alcoholic.
It had been a couple of hours since they'd last heard from Clint's pilot - or from Clint himself - but nobody was willing to leave. Other than the Dora Milaje and Shuri, there were only six of them in the room, huddled around one end of the conference table and doing their best not to fall asleep.
Unless your name was Bruce. He had pillowed his head on his arms and promptly passed out. Even now, he was snoring softly, his breath huffing gently against his arm. Thor watched his friend out of the corner of his eye, doing his best not to stare; it had been ages since he'd seen Bruce truly relax. He was always tense, always alert. Thor tightly laced his hands together under the table to keep himself from smoothing the wrinkle between Bruce's eyebrows.
" Somebody looks constipated," Rocket drawled.
Thor shot a glare at the creature in the seat next to him. Rocket either didn't notice or didn't care. Under the curious (and slightly terrified) gazes of the others, he disassembled his giant gun and meticulously cleaned each of the parts, carefully arranging them on the conference table. " Somebody looks… busy," Thor muttered, unable to come up with a proper retort.
Rocket huffed, polishing a small gear. "Ain't cleaned this in a while," he said quietly. "Figured I could go without, until I fell in the river earlier. Water ain't good for guns."
"I… suppose," Thor said.
"Yeah."
Rocket's tiny fingers skimmed over the pieces. Across the table, Steve looked vaguely nauseous, watching the rabbit work. Cybernetically-enhanced animals, Thor remembered, were not common on Earth. Or elsewhere. He'd never learned where Rocket was from, or what powers had made him who he was - but he could see scars ridging the skin beneath Rocket's patchy fur, and the uneven humps on his spinal cord where the cybernetics were jammed in.
Rocket's fingers began reassembling the gun. Steve swallowed and tore his eyes away.
There was a soft click from Shuri's end of the table. " Your majesty," said the voice of their pilot.
Everyone jumped, staring at Shuri and her array of holograms. "Yes, Xoliswa?" Shuri said calmly.
" We're safe. The hole in the hull was patched successfully, and everyone is okay. "
" Second that."
Clint's voice came over the intercom. Thor breathed out - he'd been holding his breath without realizing it. "Sorry about the wait, guys, I got a little banged up in the back," he said. It sounded as if he was smiling. " Might have passed out when we - ooh, is that coffee? "
Natasha and Steve looked at each other, barely managing to stifle their laughs. Shuri, a teenager through and through, rolled her eyes. "Yes, it is," Xoliswa said slowly. " I suggest that you take a break, though. You've had a long journey -"
"Nah, I don't think I'll be able to sleep until we get to Wakanda," Clint said. "One hour-long powernap is enough for me. "
A dog barked in the background. Thor raised his eyebrows. "One sec, Lucky!" Clint called, presumably away from the microphone. " Seriously, can I have some?"
"If you insist, Mr. Barton. Help yourself."
"Xoliswa," Shuri softly interjected. "All is well? Did you manage to get a glimpse of what hit you?"
"Unfortunately not," Xoliswa replied. In the background, Thor heard Clint ask in an incredulous whisper if the travel cup was made of vibranium. The pilot whispered to him, "It is, yes. Presumably," she said, returning to the microphone, "the projectile fell out when we rolled. I'll check the cabin security footage when I can, to see what it was."
Shuri nodded slowly. "Great. Have a safe flight," she said.
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
The pilot ended their transmission. "Thank God, he's alive," Bruce murmured into his elbow.
"Yeah," Natasha said. Her shoulders slumped a bit, and she leaned back in her chair. Through the windows, the Wakandan sun began to set, golden light slashing through her pale blonde hair. "Five for six. We're looking good."
Steve cringed, folding over into his chair. "Five for… what?" Thor said. "What do you -"
Then he realized. It had taken him hours to notice, but he finally did.
Tony Stark wasn't there. If he had been, all the original Avengers would be present.
Rhodes twisted his head until his neck popped softly. "Tony went off-planet," he said, answering Thor's unfinished question. "Went after Strange and the Spider-kid. Haven't heard from him since."
Silence fell - cold, angry, afraid. Of all people, Thor would have guessed that Tony would be here: defending Earth from his tower, helping where he could, killing where he had to. Last he knew of the man, he'd said he was going to "retire," but Thor knew that it would never happen. Warriors never retired; they always fought, though the battlefields changed. Of all people, he would have stayed fighting on Earth.
It made no sense. "Well, why wasn't he with you all?" he asked. "To begin with? He should have come to Wakanda with you all."
Rhodes shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Even Shuri was silent, staring resolutely at anything that wasn't Thor. This definitely wasn't good. "Last time I was here, you were all friends, living on the Compound -"
"They broke up," Bruce muttered. "Like the Beatles." They what, now?
Rhodes snorted suddenly. Thor looked up. The man had an uncomfortable grin on his face. "Thor - a few things changed since the last time you were here," he said curtly. "The Avengers split up over some legislative differences. That's been resolved, but it was a hell of a shitshow, and… well. We're trying to walk back from it."
"The BBC came out with a docu-series on the Civil War last year," Natasha said.
Bruce's eyes slammed open. " Civil War? " he wheezed, sitting up.
"Like I said, hell of a shitshow," Rhodes said. "We can give you the rundown later. Watch the BBC thing. We'll fill you in on what it didn't cover."
Thor stared at him. A Civil War? The Avengers just… turned on each other? They were supposed to be a family - a team, a band of shieldbrothers - not warring beasts . He slumped back in his chair. Everyone was watching him, or watching the windows for signs of a storm. Across the table, Steve barely moved, every line of his body tense.
Thor glanced around the table, trying not to look like he was scrutinizing everyone there. The others weren't as tense as the Captain was; Rhodes and Natasha were almost relaxed, in fact. But Steve…
He looked ready to run. Thor had seen that look on Loki's face hundreds of times when they were young, when he hadn't mastered the art of keeping his pranks secret and had accidentally let them slip. Just thinking of Loki made him queasy, and Thor focused on Steve, shoving every thought of his brother out of his mind.
The Captain straightened under his gaze. But he looked like a man facing down a firing squad.
Thor's fingers itched for Stormbreaker's handle.
Bruce reached for his arm. "Thor, not now," he said softly. Thor tore his eyes from Steve and looked at his friend; the wrinkle of worry had become deeper, his brows furrowed over concerned eyes. His hand made contact with Thor's arm, and sparks flew where their skin touched -
A great mass of orange sparks appeared above the table, widening into a portal. Wong strode through onto the table, looked around, and huffed, "Damn. Warm welcome. Sorry, I was aiming for the entrance hall."
"Welcome back, Mr. Wong," Steve said politely. Now that a whole person and a glowing portal of doom separated him from Thor, he seemed to have relaxed.
"Just Wong is fine," the man said. He turned to the portal and tugged on air, and a couple of stacks of books came drifting through. Curious, Thor leaned to the left and peered through it. Beyond lay a massive room humming with golden energy: sigils, wards, mandalas, ribbons, so dense that the air practically swam with them. All were centered around a central pedestal with a curved, empty holder of some sort perched on it.
"Thor," Bruce whispered. "You're kinda… crushing my ribs."
Thor realized that he was practically in Bruce's lap and sat up quickly. "Sorry," he said, clearing his throat.
Bruce waved a dismissive hand and leaned forward, making grabby hands at Wong's stacks of books. Amused, Wong nudged them closer with a spell. "These," the sorcerer announced to the room, "are exact copies of all the referenced books I could find in the Ancient One's private collection, related to the ring. Appendixes and all. Nearly threw out my back bringing them here."
"You floated 'em here," Rocket drawled. "Don't be such a drama queen." Wong gave him a stony look.
"Oh my God , annotated? " Bruce muttered, squinting at one of the books. Natasha looked over his shoulder and cringed. "You've got to be shitting me, there's no way she did this to perfect first editions of the Lord of the Rings -"
"You're saying," Steve said, raising his eyebrows, "that the Ancient One's reference materials are Tolkien's original books?"
"Well…" Wong wiggled his hand back in forth, in the universal gesture of sort of, yeah.
"They're annotated to hell and back," Bruce said, skimming the pages. His eyes widened. "Jesus Christ, what kind of -"
Wong backed away into the portal. "Best of luck with those," he said nonchalantly. "I haven't had any luck with that language - nothing I've ever seen on Earth." Rocket's ears perked up. "I have to get back to the sanctum. Give me a call if you need anything."
And without further ado, he hopped back into the portal and closed it.
Rhodes stared at the space the portal had been occupying. "Wizards have phones?" he said numbly.
"Apparently," Thor said. "Who knew - hey!"
Rocket had left his seat and crawled onto his lap to reach Bruce. One foot poked right into Thor's junk, and he winced a bit. "Put it here, on the table," the rabbit said in a low voice. Bruce complied, handling the book as if it was printed on butterfly wings. "Lemme get a look at those words - oh, hell no, that's a lost cause," he said immediately, waving a dismissive hand at the books.
"What are we looking at?" Steve asked, leaning across the table. Shuri grabbed one of the books and gently opened it, skimming the words.
"Looks like a bastard child of Nepalese, Korean, and Elvish itself," Bruce said sourly, glowering at the text. "Bits and pieces of letters, all smashed into some… thing. Doesn't help that her handwriting looks like a seismograph." Thor looked down at the book, hoping that he'd be able to decipher the text written in the margins; the Allspeak spell worked relatively well on text. All he got for his troubles was a headache, and he looked away.
Bruce added, "And there's stuff I don't recognize at all -"
"That's Krylorian," Rocket interrupted. His claw dragged over the yellowing paper, and tapped. "A Skrull accent mark. And that whole word is… well, half that word is in Galactic Basic. No. A letter. Half a letter."
"Great."
"And that's a piece of a Xandarian letter, I'd recognize it anywhere." Rocket shifted slightly on Thor's lap. Thor had the strange urge to scratch him behind his ears, but presumed that he wouldn't take kindly to that.
Bruce heaved a giant sigh and slumped in his seat, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Fuck," he muttered. "Sorry, Your Majesty."
"No offense taken," Shuri murmured, her gaze fixed on one of the books - one of the appendices, it looked like. She didn't look happy either. "This is… a nightmare."
"Some kind of code, maybe?" Steve suggested.
"Most likely," Thor said sourly. He looked at the book on the table between him and Bruce. "Seems as though the Ancient One truly didn't want my people to get their hands on the ring. A code is only fair, to hide the secret."
"There's no way we're going to be able to piece this together on our own," Shuri said darkly.
She gently closed her book and placed it on the table. "In about eighteen hours," she said to the room, "I will have to attend an emergency meeting of the United Nations. I suggest that you all rest; we can tackle this tomorrow."
Rhodey began, "How -"
"I will write a program," Shuri said. "Rocket -" The cybernetic rabbit perked up at his name, ears twitching. "You mentioned several languages that you recognized in the text."
"Bits and pieces," Rocket hedged. "Literally."
"Yeah. Tomorrow, I'd appreciate it if you give me copies of everything you know about the languages you recognize," Shuri said. "Taking that with a database of Earth languages, we might be able to decipher this."
She slid her chair back and stood up; the Dora Milaje grouped around her. Fiddling with some holograms projected from her bracelet, Shuri said, "I've given you all rooms in the west wing of the palace. Follow the captain or Romanoff if you need help."
The holograms disappeared with a twitch of her wrist. "Until tomorrow," the young queen said. "See you later." With that jaunty dismissal, she turned and strode from the room. The Dora Milage gathered the books from the conference table and carried them off.
In her absence, the room seemed swamped with shadow. Thor leaned on the table and hung his head. By the Norns, he was tired, but he was reluctant to leave and find a place to rest. It felt…
Sleep felt like giving up.
You should have gone for the head, the Titan had said, had the audacity to say. But Thor had gone for the heart . If he'd had the power, he would have clawed through Thanos's chest with his bare hands and torn out whatever shriveled lump there was beneath his ribs. He just wanted him to feel. Feel that axe through your heart? Feel the pain, the burn, the twist and ache? Feel what I felt when you slew my kinsmen and choked the life from my brother?
But Thanos had felt nothing. While the abomination still lived without feeling the pain he'd caused the entire universe…
He couldn't sleep knowing that Thanos went unpunished.
One by one, the others stood and left the conference room. After a hesitation, Bruce slowly stood up and followed them out, brushing a hand over Thor's shoulder. Even Rocket hopped off Thor's lap. Thor almost protested, not wanting to be completely alone, but the rabbit merely climbed into his own seat and began to reassemble his gun. Thor watched his fingers slot the pieces back together, as if it was second nature to him.
If Thor looked close enough, his tiny hands were shaking.
" Dad?"
Groot's last word drifted through his mind. Damn that elective course. Something twisted deep in Thor's chest, and he swiped a hand over his eyes.
Hell. He needed that ring, to set things right. It was his birthright, his birthright - his last link to whatever home he had.
What more could he lose?
Kraglin Obfonteri was a sissy.
Eleven hours had passed since they'd started the jump to Terra, and Nebula was about to crawl out of her skin from sheer boredom. She stalked the empty halls of the Hammerhand, over and over, until she'd memorized every single nasty stain or dented piece of metal. More than once, she'd bumped into members of Kraglin's skeleton crew; they were too tired or too scared to pick fights with her, which was unfortunate. She might cause some serious property damage if something didn't happen on this garbage ship.
By Kraglin's estimates, they had about 30 more hours until they reached Terra. By Nebula's estimates, if Kraglin decided to take a fucking risk for once and crank the ship up to full jump speed, they'd get there in seven. Maybe he was too scared of his junk ship falling apart. The Hammerhand looked like it'd been cobbled together from every century-old ship in the galaxy. Probably was.
They just needed to get to Terra as fast as possible. Nebula needed to unload Stark and go. She had a hunch as to where Thanos might have gone after he got the stones, and hopefully that gauntlet had taken enough energy out of him. As she strode down one of the Hammerhand'sdozens of halls, her fingers skated over the knives zipped into her pockets.
Thanos was going down.
She just needed to get Stark off her hands.
In the eleven hours that they'd been on Kraglin's ship, Tony Stark hadn't made a single appearance. Nebula suspected that he and Kraglin had gotten drunk; drinking the stuff that Ravagers liked was like chugging jet fuel. She'd expected him to be tired after the past day and a half, but not this tired.
She passed the room where Stark and Kraglin had been drinking; the clock next to the door flickered, and she gave it a suspicious glance. According to the clock - which was synced to Galactic Standard Time - they had only spent two galactic hours on Titan. But it had definitely been longer than that. Did time run differently on that planet? Maybe the cataclysm on Titan had affected more than just its gravity.
Or maybe the Terran sorcerer had done something with the Time Stone to make it so. Nebula wrinkled her nose and continued on.
The second door on her right was wide open. Nebula glanced inside and saw Stark passed out on the bunk. The room stank of booze and old feet, which might have been the fault of the last resident, but she wouldn't bet on it. Stark lay on his back, covered by a surprisingly clean blanket; his head was turned away from her.
His chest rose and fell gently. Nebula approached his bunk, not bothering to make her footsteps lighter. Still, the man didn't stir. "Stark," she said.
Nothing. She snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Get up," she snapped. "You need to eat." The muscles of his neck corded slightly, but he didn't open his eyes. Nebula squinted suspiciously and reached for a metal knick-knack on the bedside table.
Clang!
She dropped it on the ground, and Stark's eyes slammed open, gasping something that sounded almost like a name. A spastic twitch seized his body, and he tried to sit up. He couldn't seem to; his body slumped back on the mattress, limbs twitching, and he struggled to breathe. "Not again," Nebula muttered, yanking the blanket off of him.
An incoherent, angry snarl escaped her. The mattress beneath Tony was soaked with blood on the left side, where his stab wound had opened. Again. Damn it, she couldn't let this Terran bleed out on her. He was probably one of the only people who had a shot at killing Thanos, and Terra… hell, they needed all the help they could get.
As Tony's chest heaved, Nebula slammed her hand on the intercom button next to the bed. " Kraglin!" she screamed into it. Beyond, she could hear her voice echoing throughout the ship, a shrieking siren. "Get to Stark's room, now!"
Kraglin was closer than she thought; he skidded into the room, nearly crashing into the doorframe in his haste. "What the hell's happening?" he barked.
Nebula simply pointed at Stark, who was now shivering uncontrollably. Now that Kraglin was in the room, she could tell that Stark's skin was unnaturally grey compared to his. Kraglin's eyes bugged out. "What the hell did you drink last night?" she said coldly.
"Uh - A'askavarian moonshine," Kraglin said.
Nebula felt like bashing her head into the wall. She settled for punching Kraglin in the face. Kraglin managed to duck, eyes wide, and her punch hit his fin instead, sending it flying. " A'askavarian - you dumb son of a bitch, the spores in that are toxic to anything that doesn't have at least two livers to process it," she snarled. "Terrans only have one!"
"Oh."
" Oh? That's all you have to say for yourself?" she said, clenching her fists again. Kraglin backed away. "You've gone and killed him! Not to mention that stab wound, it's probably infected now, because you never clean your disgusting-ass ship - Now get medical supplies or something in here, and fix what you broke!"
Kraglin's arm convulsed. Nebula stared at him. "What was that?"
He scowled and turned his back, picking up the fin. "Reminded me of Yondu for a minute there," he muttered.
Oh. He'd almost given her a Ravager salute. Damn, he really was a sissy. "Don't compare me to that snaggle-toothed moron," she snarled.
"No problem, chrome-dome," Kraglin sassed back.
Nebula glared at him; he shrugged and put his fin back on. As he left the room, whistling jauntily, his arrow lingered behind him and sketched out a very clear Kiss My Ass , before zipping off.
Nebula groaned and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. She was about to lose it. At this point, she was tempted to just let the Terran die. Sure, he was smart enough to get a portal going and get them off-planet, and he was apparently smart enough to build his own robotic armor, but one more wisecrack from Kraglin and she was checking out. She was donezo. She was going to hop on an escape pod and jet straight into the nearest star.
On the bed, Stark gasped wetly and passed out.
Moments later, Kraglin raced back, his arms full of medical supplies. He elbowed Nebula out of the way and knelt next to the bunk. She crossed her arms and watched him. "What are those?" she asked suspiciously.
"Antibacterials," he said crisply. She raised an eyebrow. Now it seemed like he was taking this seriously. The Xandarian just kept surprising her. "Should work on the mold spores." He prepped the hypospray and jabbed it into some exposed muscle above Stark's collarbone. While waiting for the injection to finish, he rummaged around in the first-aid kit and plucked out a pair of tweezers. "Disinfect these," he ordered.
"With what?"
"I don't know, disinfectant, maybe?"
Nebula held back a sigh and grabbed some all-purpose antiseptic. A better idea would be disinfecting the tweezers with heat, but fire was dangerous on ships, and the blowtorch built into her left arm would probably evaporate the tweezers into slag. As she coated the tweezers in antiseptic, she said in a low voice, "You sure you know what you're doing?"
"Yep," Kraglin replied, in a tone that suggested the exact opposite. "Here. Tweezers." Nebula waited for the metal to stop glowing and handed them to the captain. He started fishing around in the wound, pulling out pieces of dried glue. The stiff layers had fractured, and pieces were worming further into Tony's gut.
"Do you think you'll be able to save him?" she said.
Kraglin pursed his mouth and pulled out a piece of dried glue the size of his finger. "Damn it, I hope so," he muttered. "He's survived this far. I'll shank myself with my own arrow if I'm the reason he dies. Get me a knife."
The non sequitur threw her off. "What?" she said.
"A knife. Heat it." Kraglin held out a hand expectantly, his other hand pulling pieces of shattered glue from Tony's wound. "The spores are keepin' his blood from clotting," he said curtly. "We have to cauterize it."
"That's a bad idea," Nebula said bluntly.
"It's the only option we have," Kraglin snapped. He rummaged through the kit for another hypospray and gently injected it around Stark's wound. A local anesthetic, then. "Ship doctor was dusted. Ain't got no other options, 'til we get to Terra and people who actually know how to heal Terrans can take care of him."
Kraglin took a deep breath and cursed, standing up. "Hell," he muttered. "We gotta speed this up. Keep him steady, cauterize the wound for me. I'm gonna get the ship to full speed. Just…" He strode backwards out of the room. "Good luck," he said awkwardly, sprinting away.
On the bed before her, Tony let out a faint moan. Nebula watched him, faintly disgusted. The light on his chest threw his face into gruesome shadow, like seeing his face underwater.
Overhead, the intercom crackled, Kraglin's voice signalling that they were going to speed up. Nebula twisted her left wrist and bent her hand back; the hand folded back, revealing a blowtorch. She quickly prepared the knife and moved closer to Stark's side.
As she drew closer, he seemed to tense. His eyes darted back and forth beneath his eyelids, and Nebula knew that he had heard them talking - he was still alert. Still alive. She gritted her teeth and lowered the hot knife to his wound. "Sorry, Stark, this is going to hurt like a bitch," she muttered.
The ship lurched; metal groaned, and the endless tunnel of jump space howled around them. Hoping that the local anesthetic would do its job, she lowered the smoking knife to Tony's wounds.
He made no sound. It was as if he couldn't find the energy even to scream.
The fire consumed him.
He felt his mortal body convulsing beyond him, as the fire ravaged his body - every fiber of his soul shrieked in agony, and it was as if something had seized those fibers and tugged.
And the lidless eye's pupil widened, lengthened - until a figure strode forth from it, tall and terrible in its majesty. He shivered before it, and tried to back away -
Cower not before your new lord.
With one last fierce tug, the world tore around him -
The door hissed open. Heavy footsteps approached.
He cringed, retreating further into his chair. Thanos and his Black Order had been gone for what felt like an eternity, collecting the stones. All of them. He knew that the Titan had succeeded when his guards crumbled to dust. He had spent hours waiting for himself to vanish, but that moment never came. The last freedom he would ever have was gone.
The Titan's lumbering footsteps drew closer. He desperately hoped that Thanos had no more use for him, and would simply put him out of his misery -
"Ah. Taneleer Tivan."
The way Thanos said his name made him shudder. A new vein of malevolence threaded through the Titan's voice; it echoed in his soul. Something has happened to him, Taneleer thought, hands clenching on his chair. His restraints rattled as he shifted. Using the stones must have changed him in some way.
"Yeah," he croaked anyway. "That's me."
The Titan hummed dismissively and came closer. Taneleer snuck a glance at him and wanted to hide his face again, though he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. Thanos was wreathed in shadow, a dark mantle of shadow that seemed to have its own… its own sentience.
"I have it on good authority," the Titan rumbled, "that you have experience in… collecting things, shall we say." That statement set off alarms in Taneleer's brain. Thanos knew him already - he knew all about his trade, he knew he had the Reality Stone. So why -
The Titan moved closer, and Taneleer saw the gauntlet gleaming on his hand -
Empty.
Suddenly he understood. "No," he whispered, though he knew it was futile. "No, I can't - I don't know where they might have gone, I don't know anything -"
Then Thanos's eyes opened. Taneleer's voice died in his throat.
The Titan's eyes glowed with flame.
"You're not Thanos," he breathed. Oh, hell.
The Titan - or whatever wore his face - smirked. "No," he said. "Not anymore." He raised his hand, and Taneleer's restraints fell off. He blinked. What?
He had little time to savor his freedom, as the thing in the Titan's body seized the front of his shirt, pulling him up to eye level. "Find your brothers," he commanded. "Summon them here."
The flames in the Titan's eyes grew brighter, so bright that Taneleer could almost feel their heat on his face.
"We have work to do."
