AN: Here is where comic canon will get a bit skewed. I am essentially melding the universes a bit to be original and make everything make sense. Feel free to rant if you don't like it!

Chapter Two: Onyx

Stark Tower had officially become ground zero of the healing effort after the destruction of the city. It was simple luck Stark had agreed to pick up and house Fury's overseas contact when the man had been caught up in a plethora of meetings. Fury would have been worried for the woman if he hadn't known Stark had a million gophers to do his bidding. It wasn't until after he met Higurashi that he decided he wanted Stark to terrorize her a little. The woman was unruffleable and in control of her element.

So when he brought in the Avengers to brief them on their new threat, he left Kagome out of the pow-wow. He could plant the seed in Stark's brain, and hopefully the man would find a way to annoy Kagome without infuriating his girlfriend. He laid out the evidence Kagome had brought with her, detailing the mystical gems, glove, and the picture she had obtained of the creature.

Stark looked nonplussed, and sat there touching his brow with one hand, intrigued but attempting to look hassled by being there. Rodgers was tense and restless during the entire presentation, and Thor looked positively green.

"You speak of the Infinity Gauntlet."

Fury looked to Thor and began to feel fear taking root. It made him very angry. He had hoped the woman would be proven wrong, but now they were embroiled in even more interdimensional calamity.

"The what?"

Thor looked like he may be sick.

"You speak of the creation of the Infinity Gauntlet. The human version of the myth. The true story is much darker."

Bruce looked to Thor, skeptical.

" You're telling me that this thing is real?"

Thor nodded, rubbing his jaw to hide his rising nausea. It had been years since he had spoken of the events surrounding the creation of the gauntlet. It had been a dark time in Asgard, and he had been small then.

"There is a realm we do not speak of, a destroyed and forgotten realm that exists at the end of the Bifrost. Thanos was a prince of this realm, the last of his people to survive. He was permitted mercy by my father, after the intercession of Heimdall. He was allowed to bring one thing into Asgard with him. He brought a single black petalled flower."

Thor looked so haunted that Tony didn't have the heart to tease him. The normally jovial warrior could weave a good narrative, and he had enscorcled them.

"He spoke to the flower often, and mostly remained in the rooms provided for skin was dark, sickly looking. He was a weak child, I remember. My father wouldn't permit me to speak with him, but one day Loki convinced me to spy on him on one of his rare trips outdoors. He began speaking to the flower, and it spoke back to him. In the voice of a woman. He told the voice that he was eager to meet it, and that he had done as it asked and "released the power" that killed everyone and destroyed his entire realm. But the voice said that he wasn't finished. He had to do the same on Asgard, and she had a gift for him."

Thor looked down, swallowing hard.

"We were didn't understand that he was truly evil.I convinced Loki it was our duty to follow him and figure out everything before telling kept going to a familiar well when he left his rooms. We didn't know it was off limits as children, just that our family told us it was dangerous, that we could drown. It is a well known as the Infinity Well. When one looks into it, one can see many things..usually it is used when one of us wants to sleep our final sleep. It brings death.. if you wish for it. But Thanos wished for something more sinister. He wished to.. please Death. He had seen her as a child, and it had forever warped him. He developed a perverse obsession with her. The death of his dimension was merely a tribute to her, and she had left him a flower, but he longed to see her for real."

He was tearing up. He hadn't been this emotional since returning from Asgard to help them rebuild.

"He planned on doing the same to us. The gift from Death was a gauntlet, found at the bottom of the Infinity Well. Thanos nearly drowned recovering it. After, he seemed to know what his course of action would be. He began killing. I could never prove it.. but in the end he was found out. He would kill the best, the strongest of us..and convert the souls into gems. The gems were put into empty slots on the gauntlet. With each death, his physical body gained the strength of his kills. The minds of the Asgardians he destroyed lived on in the gems, to be used for his purposes. Multiple souls occupied each gem, and it took time to build them."

Bruce couldn't believe it, but Thor had often explained that superior technology permitted things akin to magic. Still.. there was a lot of talk of souls. He didn't know what to make of that.

"So how did you defeat him?"

Steve was on the edge of his seat.

" We didn't. He was banished to a dimension of infinite darkness when he vexed Death by killing Baldur, one of her favorites. He was my elder brother, and the Lord of the Warriors. He would have been king, had he not died at the hands of Thanos. Our father, in his grief, tried to sacrifice his own eye to the Infinity Well, asking Death to retrieve Baldur and return him. But his soul was already inside one of the gems, and Death could no more bring him back than Father could. Death warned us that Thanos would return. He was too much in her favor to be banished forever, after all."

No wonder he was so shaken by the news, Steve thought. Reaching out, he patted Thor on the back gently, careful not to startle him and end up a splat on the floor.

"What about the gauntlet?"

Of course Fury just wanted to get to the bottom line.

"Death had banished Thanos, but left the Gauntlet in my Father's hands. He kept the glove itself, and distributed the gems throughout Midgard. Eventually they made their way to one continent, and were assembled once again. Without the gauntlet to focus the power, we were able to contain the creature responsible and collect all the gems witholding the one this woman claims to possess. The others were returned to Asgard and kept safe, since we have no trustworthy Midgard priests or priestesses left to safehold them. But as far as Thanos is concerned, they could all still be here."

Fury was very pale now as well. The table went silent.

God.

"So he won't stop here. He'll try and destroy Asgard as well?"

"Once he is finished here he surely will. If he possesses the gauntlet and resets the stones, he will possess all the powers of a god."

Tony wondered why Odin hadn't used the gauntlet if it was so powerful, but decided when something had been made with the soul of your dear son it might be offensive to you.

" Why didn't Loki use them when he was in power?"

"He couldn't have. My father keeps the gems in the hollow of his eye, where they can be truly safe."

Tony was sorry he had asked now.

"What do we do about this? We have a being on the way here with the powers of multiple asgardians, a man who kills to please death itself. Any ideas?"

Thor stood up then, brushing off his face with a hand.

"We fight. If we cannot win we use the gauntlet in Asgard to destroy this realm and Thanos with it."

The table burst into commotion, and Fury wished this Thanos into a dark hole for ruining his month.

Meanwhile, Kagome slept sweetly in her borrowed bedroom. Her worries could wait until morning.