Author's note:
Elements of Marvel-616 universe ahead. Just roll with it.
"Swear to me that you won't hurt him."
The man in front of him stared him down. The arrow aimed at his throat didn't seem to faze him at all. "I would never," he said softly.
Kraglin canted his head to one side, examining him from one eye. His voice steely cold, he said, "That ain't true, and we both know it. I know what you did."
He saw the other man wince, and that was all the confirmation he needed. "I know what you did," he repeated softly. "I know all about it. He told me more 'bout himself than he'd ever told you jackasses, I reckon. And I know he don't deserve more shit to be piled on him."
He whistled softly, and the arrow lifted to point directly between the man's eyes. "Swear to me," he said again, "that you won't lay a hand on him. That you won't fight him. And you won't leave him for dead, ever again. If you don't, I ain't gonna hesitate to turn right around and take him away from here."
Steve Rogers swallowed. "I swear," he said, his voice just louder than a breath.
Kraglin glared him down for a few more moments. "I'll hold you to that," he said at last, snatching his arrow out of the air. Behind Rogers, the assembled crowd of Terrans - and an Asgardian - relaxed slightly, but not by much. Without turning around, he shouted, "Nebula, bring 'im out!"
The cyborg woman appeared in the gloom of the hatch, carrying Tony Stark's limp body in her arms. Kraglin saw Rogers go white and grinned. It was not a nice grin. Judging from the look in Rogers' eyes, he could tell.
Good.
The world is bathed in blue.
He stands at what may have been a holographic console, or a desk, or something in between, because that sounds like something he would make. Life feels shattered beneath his feet. It feels off.
He turns on his heel to take it all in.
That, there, is the entrance to his old lab from the Avengers' Tower. The cars lining the walls are from his mansion's garage in Malibu. He'd know that Aston Martin anywhere. There is junk everywhere, a study in decades of innovations and experiments. Tony continues turning, and the room changes around him as he goes, fading like a half-glimpsed dream from one laboratory to another.
There is a hole in the wall behind him.
Tony walks into it and immediately stops. On his left, glowering from its crude rusty faceplate, is the Mark I. His first suit. He glares right back, and gives it a knock on the forehead. "Stop that," he says disapprovingly, and his voice echoes. Echoes.
He turns. One hand brushes, unconsciously, over his left side. It itches.
The hole stretches on and on - not a hole, a hallway, and the walls are lined with his suits, stretching off into hazy infinity. Each arc reactor is lit. Each faceplate is down. He plods down the hallway, each step echoing ponderously.
One footfall echoes suspiciously loud. He pauses, and hears the echo reflecting, muddling, growing louder and louder to a muffled hum inside his skull -
"Peter Quill wants to apologize," says a deep, smooth voice. Now he can see a shape at the end of the hall, past the dozens of Iron Man suits beyond. He feels his pace pick up.
"He says, and I quote, that he is sorry for fucking up so bad. He thinks that you would understand."
"What?" says Tony. "Why would I - how would he -"
"Say goodbye to Rocket for him," Stephen Strange - for that is him, cloak and all, at the end of the hall - continues tonelessly, "because he's not here and he doesn't know where Rocket is. The other Guardians don't have much to say to you."
There's a pause. "T'Challa wants to say that you're a good man. Better than a great one. He believes in you."
Tony flinches.
"And Happy Hogan wants you to apologize to Pepper when he gets the chance." It's a full-body cringe, now, that burns in Tony's gut like drain cleaner. Not Happy. God, not Happy. "Pepper isn't here. They can't find everyone, but the ones that they've found seem alright. Give them hell, he says. We're all fine."
Fine, fine, fine…
The word echoes down, into silence. Tony keeps walking down the hallway - and now, now he can see Stephen himself at the end of the hallway. No matter how far he walks, Stephen seems so far away…
A flash of blue makes him glance to his right. Then he recoils.
"We're here."
There is no suit in the next alcove: it's Peter Parker.
"We're here."
Peter's standing there in the same pose as all his suits. Staring ahead, eyes closed, back straight and shoulders back. Arms bent slightly at his sides. Shut down, powered off. He backs away from Peter's clammy skin and unmoving waxen face, and looks in the alcove next door.
T'Challa, in the same pose. Eyes closed. Chest still.
Stephen stares at him.
Tony turns, panic roiling in his gut, and stares at all the alcoves before him.
"We're here, we're safe."
There's Mantis, across from Peter, her big eyes firmly shut. Drax, Peter Quill, Happy. Sam Wilson. Bucky Barnes. A human-shaped tree. Even what looks like Loki, face strangely unlined and peaceful, and a small green-skinned alien girl.
They stand like his suits: armed, and ready for war, in a silent tomb.
"We're all fine," says Strange.
Tony turns. "We're fine, we're fine," the sorcerer repeats, almost desperately, his cloak swirling in slow motion behind him. "You're fine."
A bead of sweat drips down Tony's temple.
"You've done so well," Stephen says softly. "I don't know what happens next, just that you're on the right path. Tony, you're on the right path."
"Why," Tony whispers. "Why call me Tony? We only knew each other for less than a day."
"In 14 million futures," says Stephen, surrounded by the thousands upon thousands of Iron Man suits, deep shadows in the pockets of his face and his eyes shining palest orange - "In 14 million futures, it's hard not to know someone."
Stephen's face twists suddenly.
"Strange?" Tony barks. Stephen? he thinks, stricken with fear, but does not say.
"I - I can't stay," Stephen gasps, and suddenly he is gone.
Tony stands there and stares down the hallway for the longest time. The suits seem to lean in, the hallway seems to get narrower, and the faces - God, the faces -
There were way too many people in Tony's hospital room.
By unspoken agreement, everyone followed Tony where the Wakandan doctors took him: from hospital room to surgery, then back again. It had been a remarkably fast surgery. The doctors gave Tony an injection to make his blood clot normally; then they removed the burned skin with nanobots, removed debris, and sutured up the stab. Kraglin and Nebula had lingered, answering the doctors' questions about what Tony had already gone through as best they could.
The doctors had given Tony a large hospital room to accommodate them all; it helped that Wakandan medical technology was mostly holograms and sensors, not big bulky hunks of junk bristling with cords and tubes. They'd hauled in chairs from other empty rooms.
Rhodes sat next to Tony's bed, clear of the IVs and other equipment, watching the hologram readout from the heart monitor. At the foot, Bruce sat with Thor, his head on the mattress. He looked like he'd been up all night. Nebula leaned in one corner, and Natasha leaned in the other, and both scrutinized each other from the corners of their eyes. Rocket was seated firmly on Thor's lap, with Thor's hand clamped on his shoulder; he'd tried to pull apart something in the walls, pleading boredom, and he'd been one second away from being dropkicked out the window by the overworked medical staff when Thor promised to keep an eye on him. He kept aiming dirty looks at Kraglin and Nebula.
Steve shifted on his chair; his clothes squeaked softly on the upholstery.
Eyes flickered to him. He winced apologetically. Some looked away, but others lingered, their eyes filled with something unreadable and strange. Kraglin sat to the left of Tony's hospital bed, sitting in a way that no man was supposed to sit in a chair. He had not looked away from Steve once; his red arrow spun between his fingers like a drumstick. Clint sat on the windowsill and watched the arrow with a death grip on his coffee mug - the same one, apparently, that he'd borrowed from the pilot on the jet.
His dog looked around the room and panted happily, tongue lolling. Steve gave Lucky a small grin. Lucky wagged his tail.
The silence between beeps grew shorter.
And Tony woke with a shuddering gasp, that sounded almost like a name. Steve held his breath and forced himself to stay in his seat. Tony stared at the ceiling, chest heaving; the arc reactor cast a waxy blue glow over his face. Steve stared at it. He hadn't known that Tony'd had it put back in.
Rhodes seized his hand. "Hey, Tones," he said softly. Slowly, Tony turned his head to look. "Welcome back."
Tony stared at Rhodes as if he was the sun, a smile playing around his lips. "Hey," he croaked. "Holy fuck, Rhodey."
"Yeah," Rhodes said.
Tony took a deep breath and looked around his room, his eyes not quite sweeping all the way to the left corner, where Steve sat. He saw Bruce and Thor at the foot of his bed, and his grin widened. Bruce smiled hesitantly back. Tony lifted his hand in a wave -
And froze.
"Tony, you okay?" Rhodes said softly, leaning in.
The man did not respond; instead, he lifted his hand and stared at it, turning it to look at his palm. His fingers began to shake. "What did they do," he whispered. "What did they do to my hands?"
"They didn't do anything," Rhodes said, squeezing his hand tighter. His face was taut with concern. "Tony, look at me. All they did was clean the dust off, you were filthy when you came back -"
Tony's hands truly began to shake now, so much so that Bruce stood and came over to the left side of the bed. "Tony," Bruce whispered. "Hey. Look at me, what's wrong?" Tony turned his head toward Bruce, and Steve saw tears glimmering in his eyes. The sight made him slump backwards in his chair, cold all over.
"That was all I had left," Tony choked out. Kraglin reached over and put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "Jesus Christ, that was all I had… all I had left of him…" His head lolled to one side, away from Bruce and Rhodey, and Steve saw tears streaming down his face.
Their eyes met.
Tony's mood changed abruptly, his eyes flying wide with - with fear, and the sight made Steve's chest hurt. "Tony," he whispered.
The heart monitor beeped faster, and Tony looked like he was gasping for breath. Bruce and Kraglin turned to glare at Steve, but he didn't care; he stood up, wanting to do something, to do anything, to help.
"Steve, don't," Rhodes said, eyes weary.
Natasha unfolded herself from the corner and slipped fluidly towards Steve, and he felt her hand on his shoulder. He tried to jerk out of her grasp, but Kraglin whistled sharply and his arrow darted from his hand. Steve flinched. "You heard 'im," Kraglin snarled. "That heart monitor ain't beeping that fast for no reason. Beat it."
Steve let himself be dragged from the room. He cast one last helpless look over his shoulder, in time to see Rhodes clamping a Wakandan oxygen mask over Tony's face, and to see Tony slump into the bed. His eyes were closed now. A strange two-fingered ring gleamed on his right hand.
Steve let Natasha drag him down the hall, her blond hair luminous in the light. The others seemed to have taken Tony's passing out as a signal to leave the room; only Bruce, Rhodey and Kraglin stayed behind, while the others quickly filtered out. Steve found a way to linger in the hallway, and Natasha cast him a sharp look. "Why did you do that?" she said.
"I just -" He spread his hands helplessly. "I can't just leave him there," he said in a low voice.
"You'll have to," Natasha said softly. "He needs time to heal. No offense, but he needs a stress-free environment, and you're not helping him with that."
"But -"
"Steve." Natasha's voice brooked no argument. "Let it go," she ordered. "When he feels better, when he's in a better place, then look for him. But only if he wants to be found."
Without another word, Natasha released his shoulder and swept away.
Steve watched her go. He knew that Natasha was right - she usually was - but now there was an urgency to the guilt that always festered in his chest. A desperation - a panic to say something, before it was too late. He and Tony hadn't spoken once in two years, and Steve knew that Tony would rather die than talk to him. But he just… hell. He just wanted to fucking apologize. He wishes things could go back to the way they were, before things were broken beyond repair.
Times like this, they felt especially broken. He huffed a disappointed sigh and stared at the door to Tony's room.
He had nightmares with Tony's face in them.
Nightmares streaked with snow, with blood, broken glass and static on old videos - nightmares where he aimed his shield just a foot higher, not for the reactor but for Tony's exposed neck. In each dream the whites of Tony's eyes showed in fear, and his repulsors were up to shield his face - but not firing, never firing.
Steve had seen that exact same face on Tony just now, and he never wanted to see it again.
"Where are they, Nebula?" whispered a voice.
He turned.
Nebula stood with the raccoon down the hall from Tony's room. He'd reminded Steve so much of Bucky in the conference room: tearing his gun to pieces, laying each fragment on the table and reassembling it with mechanical precision.
Now, Rocket was staring up at Nebula. Strangely vulnerable in his smallness, like a child. "Where are they?" he repeated.
Nebula looked down at him. "Gone," she said curtly. "Thanos killed Gamora himself. The others died on Titan. Turned to dust."
"Really," Rocket breathed.
Nebula nodded jerkily. "I'm sorry," she forced out.
Rocket just looked up at her for a few more moments. "Why you," he sighed at last, shaking his head. "Why did it have to be you." You, instead of them, went unspoken, but Steve heard it loud and clear.
Then he slowly turned away from her and plodded down the hall - back stiff, shoulders straight. Nebula watched him go, before slipping back into Tony's hospital room. She didn't look at Steve once.
Steve watched Rocket turn the corner and found himself following.
Rocket had about a thirty-foot head start on him, but Steve still walked softly, not wanting to be noticed. They wound through the halls of Birnin Zana's hospital, passing soldiers on gurneys and harried doctors that didn't give Rocket a second glance. He nearly lost the raccoon when he turned a corner into the hospital's main atrium; dodging gurneys and flattening himself against walls, Steve snuck to the nearest corner and peered around.
There was a flight of stairs across the atrium; an ornamental urn filled with flowers stood in an alcove under it. Rocket shuffled towards the alcove and crawled, childlike, into it. He slowly curled into a ball behind the urn.
Moments later, his hunched shoulders began to shake with silent tears.
Steve drew away.
He plodded back the way he came, no particular destination in mind. Steve thought that he might return to Tony's hospital room, but when he reached an intersection, his feet betrayed him and froze. He gazed down the hall ahead of him; then to the left, to the right. The silence of the hospital pressed on his ears - the silence of a tomb.
It was a revolution, they said. It would be fun, they said.
Honestly, En Dwi Gast was a billion billion kajillion years old, at his last very rough estimate, and at his age, revolutions just weren't fun anymore. Sure, the people rise up against you, you pretend you lost, then - tada, a few hundred years and everything's under your thumb again, when the old guard who first fought against you are all dead. Yippe-ki-yay. Being semi-immortal had its perks.
But right now, drunk off his arse and barricaded in his penthouse while all of Sakaar was literally on fire, he decided to throw in the proverbial towel and said, "Fuck it. Topaz, I'm calling it. I, I, I'm - frankly, I'm sick of this."
"Sick of what, sir?" Topaz grunted, holding the door shut with six other guards. Revolutionaries - ugh, such a long, filthy word - were pounding furiously on the other side. The walls were shaking. Most times, shaking walls had a much more positive connotation in En's penthouse. This was not one of those times.
"Just, ya know…" Outside, a tower exploded, and he winced. "This. Keeping our prisoners-with-jobs from burning the city down every few years is exhausting. You, uh, you remember the last time this happened, Topaz, right? Right?"
"That was four hundred years ago," she pointed out, holding her half of the door shut.
"It sure was! Feels like it was yesterday, doesn't it? Look at you, you remember -"
"I'm 43."
En blinked. "Oh, well, you're looking good," he said half-heartedly. "My point is… thank you, dear," he said to the serving robot puttering past with drinks, grabbing one himself. "Point is, Topaz, I, I'm kind of annoyed. Hoo boy, I am past annoyed. I am… I am -"
Before En could decide exactly what he was, something tugged. "Oh," he said feebly. "That's new."
"What is, sir?"
He felt something pulling at him; there was a flexing in the air, in the very composition of matter, that he could feel down to his billions-year-old bones. And you know what they say about something yanking on your soul. (He didn't actually, but he was old and powerful enough that anything he said would be repeated and immortalized as a saying in a matter of days. If the revolution let up, of course.)
There's always something on the other side.
The tug suddenly became a fierce yanking, as if the thing holding the other end was getting impatient. En stared down at his body, aghast, as a faintly visible aura appeared, streaming forward like dust being pulled into a tornado. Something was literally trying to tug the Power Primordial out of him - his life force, the thing that kept him alive on this trash heap of a planet for eons.
This wasn't good.
En Dwi Gast took one last look around and decided to cut his losses. "Uh, executive decision, everyone," he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'm outta here. Toodles. Got places to see, people to do, you know how it is."
"Sir -!"
He tossed his drink back, waved his fingers at a suddenly aghast Topaz, and gave in to the pull.
What followed was a vaguely unpleasant sensation like being squeezed through a rubber tube; it was made far worse when the alcohol in his mouth started to go down the wrong pipe, and wasn't that a terrible sensation. He started coughing, and when the squeezing stopped he was too preoccupied with preventing himself from choking to see where he was.
En bent over at the waist, wheezing for breath. "Wowza," he said, thumping his chest and burping. "Excuse me. Wow, sorry about that." He looked straight forward, into the shadows. From the echoes, it sounded like he was in a large circular room - most likely on a spaceship, if the great window filled with stars arcing around the whole room was any indication. A very tall, very bulky man-shaped thing was silhouetted; it bore a vague resemblance to his Incredible Hulk, but the head was too dome-shaped and smooth.
"Hello," he said cheerfully.
A voice wheezed, " En… "
En froze. He knew that voice. He hated that voice. "Tanny, is that you?" he called out, crossing his arms. God, if Taneleer Tivan was here too, that would be awkward. They hadn't spoken in a couple thousand years, after the incident with the smugglers and a tentacle monster they both wanted for completely different reasons.
There was no response. En swayed slightly, the world a pleasant alcohol-fuzzed blur, and stifled the urge to whistle.
A sudden explosion of rainbow light came from across the room - En cringed as it stabbed into his eyes. The light seemed physical, an amorphous glowing blob; it slowly resolved itself into a tall man, blindfolded, holding an ornate staff. His long grey hair hung in a stiff curtain down his back. En recognized him and waved cheerfully in greeting. Kamo Tharnn gave him a stiff glare - he may have been blindfolded, but he didn't need eyes to see - and purposefully looked away. His sightless gaze landed on the hulking shadow before them, and he suddenly straightened.
En squinted at the other Elder, slightly uneasy beneath his alcoholic haze. Kamo clearly knew something that En didn't. Then again, the bastard had the biggest collection of knowledge in the known universe. He knew things that nobody knew. It was practically his job.
Beings continued to flash into the room - old Seginn Gallio, cousin Maht Pacle, little brother Tryco Slatterus in all his hairy, muscly glory… even the Nameless One, the Judicator, eldest of them all, popped into the room and stood next to En himself. He gave her a cheeky grin; she waved a dismissive hand at him, her eyes staring straight ahead at the hulking shadow before them.
The six of them stood in a ring around the shadow. A ponderous rumble echoed through the room, like distant thunder rumbling, like a stone gate grinding shut.
"Welcome, Elders," said a deep, vaguely familiar voice. "Welcome to the Sanctuary II."
Another light flared before them, clenched in a gold-gauntleted fist, and En nearly screamed. Thanos the Mad Titan towered before them, holding a flickering chunk of glowing plasma; tendrils hung from it, connected to a slumped and shivering man at his feet. En couldn't tear his eyes from Taneleer Tivan's crumpled body. How was this possible? Thanos was holding the soul of an Elder in his hand - none but an Elder could hold the Power Primordial and survive. Nothing was strong enough to do so. A Titan would be burned to a crisp.
Unless what stood before them was no longer a Titan. Thanos's eyes snapped open, burning with an unnatural fire. His very veins glowed. En cursed his choice to follow the call to this place. What the hell had he been thinking?
"I had expected more of you to come," Thanos rumbled, looking over them. En shuddered when the Titan's eyes locked on his, then moved on. "Though I'm not entirely surprised. I will take what I can get.
"I am glad that some of you survived," the Titan added, almost an afterthought. "You are strange beings, I must admit, nearly as old as time itself… Last survivors of your kind, devoting your life energies -" He squeezed the Power Primordial in his hand, and Taneleer whimpered audibly. " - to singular pursuits: of the strange, the bloody, the cosmic and eternal. Living as long as your will to live allows."
Thanos cast his gaze over them again. "Name yourselves," he ordered. "The names you have given yourselves, or those your followers have given. Tell me what your specialties are."
Nobody broke the silence that followed. En glanced across the circle at Kamo, who may have looked back - he couldn't tell for sure. To his horror, Thanos followed his gaze and turned to the blindfolded man, who gripped his staff until his knuckles bled white. "I am Kamo Tharnn," he said, his soft, reedy voice echoing in the room. "The Possessor of the Runestaff. I seek to know everything there is to know in this universe."
He glanced to his right, and Seginn spoke next. "Seginn Gallio, the Astronomer," he said, voice rough from long disuse. "I study the evolution of stars and galaxies; I do not bother myself with the pursuits of mortal beings -"
"You are a mortal being," En muttered. Seginn gave him a filthy look.
Kamo hissed, "Shut up!"
"What, it's true!"
"Silence," said the Nameless One, and they all reflexively fell silent. She lifted her chin and looked Thanos in his flaming eyes; he looked back with something like respect, which was not a good look on him. "I am the Judicator."
"No name?" Thanos said.
"Justice needs no name but its own," she said smoothly. Thanos's lips twitched with amusement. En stared in horror. He didn't even know that the Titan could express any emotions other than rage or… rage.
Thanos looked at him next, and his skin crawled. "En Dwi Gast," he said hastily. "Uh - Grandmaster. I, um..." Damn, this was embarrassing. "I, I do, uh, games and things. Contests of strategy and strength." He swallowed, feeling the disapproval radiating off the other Elders. Even though none of them were actually related by blood - all merely last survivors of their original races, united by that common factor - he was always seen as the stupid little brother, playing games in the dirt while the others busied themselves with more serious pursuits. Except for old Maht. He only qualified as an Elder because he'd killed off literally everyone else on his planet. Nobody liked him.
"Maht Pacle," he was saying to Thanos. His once-deep voice was now thin and shaky with long disuse. "The Obliterator. I… seek to kill."
Thanos tilted his head indulgently. "Interesting," he said.
Ignoring Tryco Slatterus completely, he looked at the body slumped near his feet. "We already know the Collector," he mused, half to himself. "Taneleer Tivan. Spending his centuries hunting down rare items to add to his collection. Did you know," he said, glancing around the room, "that your friend Taneleer was once in possession of an Infinity Stone?"
Everyone gasped. "Tivan, why didn't you tell us?" Seginn snarled.
Kamo gave Taneleer's twitching body a mildly scornful look. "Which one was it?"
"The Reality Stone, if you must know," Thanos said. "Though once he had the Power Stone in his possession as well." Thanos raised his hand and punched the light back into Taneleer's body, and he screamed in pain. En flinched away. Ooh. That had to hurt.
"How dare you," snarled Tryco. He stepped forward and lifting his fists, and everybody else cringed. Thanos glanced over his shoulder. He caught Tryco's punch with his right hand; the floor shook. He pulled the Elder off his feet and launched him into the wall. His left hand swung back to balance him, and -
The shattered gauntlet slid off. It hurtled, end over end, and slammed into En's chest.
The moment his skin made contact with the metal, the last of his intoxication fell away, and his body lit up with pain. A sudden flash of fire filled his vision; it split down the middle, revealing shadow beyond, looking like a great flaming eye.
"Grandmaster."
Thanos turned to him, teeth bared in a furious snarl. En let out a noise that may have been an eep, or perhaps an eek, as the Titan strode across the floor to him. He almost dropped the gauntlet, but judging from the literal fire burning in Thanos's eyes that would be a very, very bad idea. Wordlessly, he thrust it at Thanos.
The Titan paused, gave him an appraising look. En looked back and held out the gauntlet just a bit more, hoping Thanos would take the hint. After a few tense seconds, he did, and slid the gauntlet back onto his left arm. Up close, it was a charred, mangled mess, like burnt purple marshmallows. Disgusting.
Thanos turned and walked back to where Tryco lay, slumped against the massive viewport along one wall. "I don't believe I caught your name," he observed. He stepped over Taneleer, who curled into a shivering ball. "Tell me."
"Tryco… Slatterus," the Elder ground out.
"Your title?"
Seginn and the Judicator glanced at each other uncomfortably.
"...The Champion," Tryco whispered. He did not look up. "Of the Universe."
Thanos scoffed loudly, the sound echoing. "Of course," he said derisively. Tryco cringed and drew further away. Despite their pasts, En felt a bit of pity for the other Elder; Tryco's schtick was being the greatest unarmed warrior in the universe, but that, obviously, no longer applied. Thanos had him beat.
En locked his hands behind his back, ignoring how they were suddenly shaking. He was sober now. Extremely sober. He did not like that new development.
"I have called you here, Elders," Thanos announced to the room, "because of your power. Your wisdom, your knowledge, your strength - you stand head and shoulders above the lesser mortals of the universe." Automatically, En and the others drew themselves up proudly - but then his eyes drifted to the Champion, a disgraced heap of flesh in the far corner, and he subtly leaned away from Thanos.
He thought of the thing that he saw when he touched the gauntlet. A lidless eye, wreathed in flame.
"You would do the universe a great service if you gave me yours," Thanos said. He clenched the fist with the gauntlet on it; the torn edges of metal shrieked, and they all flinched. "I am in search of an artifact. A ring; a simple golden ring, unadorned and unblemished. It is…"
He fell silent, savoring the sentence. "It is precious to me," the Titan said softly. The way his voice lingered on that word sent nauseous shivers through En's body.
Thanos turned. "The Infinity Stones are another matter," he said sourly. He clenched his fist, lifted the gauntlet. The empty sockets in it stared forth like eyeholes in a skull. "They have vanished once more. You will find them, and bring them to me. Combine your wisdom, your knowledge, your strength and ambition."
"Or what?" said Kamo, stupidly. That had to be the stupidest thing he'd asked in eons.
Thanos whirled to face him; Kamo staggered backwards, nearly touching the wall. "Or I will destroy everything in your archives, Possessor," Thanos snarled. "Every scrap of paper, every digital archive, every recording, everything. I will take your weapons -" He fixed his flaming gaze on the Obliterator, who shrank away. "I will take your strength, your mind, your sight, your souls - "
He reached out his hand, and En felt the same tug on his spirit - though now it felt as if a shark had latched itself to his chest and was doing its best to tear him apart. Ribbons of misty light streamed from their bodies, flowing towards Thanos's own. He absorbed parts of their Power Primordial - parts of their souls; En felt something sliding along his consciousness, slimy and cold. It felt like death itself.
A flaming eye.
"You will never know life," Thanos hissed. "You will never know life, or death, or peace, so long as you stand against me."
En was shivering. This was not a game. This could never be a game. He was called the Grandmaster for a reason: he excelled at creating games, pitting life against life, victory and defeat balanced in his hands. He had focused his primordial energy on creating the most complex and gratifying games that the universe had ever seen, and that kept him alive for eons.
But this? This was not a contest that he could rig. And he knew that there was no reason for him to be here - he had no skills that could realistically help, and once Thanos found that out, he was toast. He was fucking toast.
He froze.
Unless.
In his mind, he reached out. Softly probed the barrier between himself and the other in his mind. It was surprisingly solid, in the way that a massive dirt wall holding back a dragon in a thunderstorm is solid, but it was enough. He could work with that.
He'd have to.
"This is what you will do."
Thanos turned to each of them. "Possessor, Astronomer," he said, his voice making mockeries of their names. The room plunged into icy coldness. "You will combine your knowledge to hunt for traces of the Infinity stones. Collector -" He sharply nudged Taneleer's ribs with the toe of his boot, and Taneleer wheezed. "You'll finally have to do some grunt work and go… collecting. Wherever your brothers say you must go, you will go. The Obliterator and the Champion," the Titan sneered, "will be your bodyguards.
"And you," he added, turning to the Judicator. "Well, you just have to keep them in line." He grimaced; En realized belatedly that it was supposed to be a smile. "That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?"
"No," said the Nameless One, sourly. En stifled a nervous giggle. She was always the hardass of all of them. Always playing by the book. So boring.
"And the Grandmaster…"
Thanos turned to him, and the weight of his calculating stare made En's heart stop. All too late, he summoned a pleasant smile and an affably-raised eyebrow, ignoring how every billion-year-old-instinct he had made him want to turn and run in the other direction.
"War is a game," said Thanos, "is it not?"
The Titan grinned. Abort mission, abort mission, En's brain screamed. "You," said Thanos, "will command my armies. I forsee conflict in the future." His humorless grin took on a sharp, bloody edge. "As they say… anything worth having is worth fighting for, right?"
"Right," En said, with false cheer. "Great. Absolutely. Excellent."
The flames in Thanos's eyes burned ever brighter. There were no longer any whites or pupils - just a solid mass of flame, broken only by slitted, catlike pupils. The tendril of other writhed in his mind.
En Dwi Gast crossed his fingers behind his back.
Author's note:
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