st_arkravinghazelnut

Peter struggles to his feet. His right knee begins to buckle under the weight of his body, but somehow he fights against it, locking his leg in place until he can force himself to fight against it and nearly stand upright.

It hurts.

He's sure that Thor can see it, too. He's not wearing the suit like he normally would be. There wasn't enough time for that when Thanos arrived. There wasn't enough time for anything. All he has on him are the web-shooters Mr. Stark made for him, but that's still not going to stop him from fighting.

Even when there's so few people left to fight for.

"Mr. Thor, it's okay!" he chokes out. Bloody spittle flies out of his mouth when he says it. He has the look of someone who wants things to be okay, but knows that they probably aren't going to be. "It's okay, I'm going to help you!"

Peter stumbles forward, faster than it looks like he should be capable of in that moment, but not nearly as fast as he would be if he had been in full health. And as he does, he raises his arms and turns them so that his wrists are facing up and are pointed at Thanos.

The web-shooter spray goes off a few times in quick succession; thrice in the chest in an attempt to push the Titan back, then another two times in the face. It's just a distraction; he knows by now that Thanos isn't going to go down that easily. It's not defeating Thanos that he needs right now; killing Thanos was never the most important thing.

It's trying to save as many people as you can, even when there's not many people left.

Peter grabs for Thanos' massive fingers, and he has a hard time even wrapping his hand around two of them at the time. With a groan, he pulls back with all of his strength, trying to wrench his fingers back enough so that Thor can free himself from the Titan's grasp.

It's enough.

With Peter's helps Thor is able to pull himself free from Thanos' grasp; immediately sparks of lightning, weaker than they had been at the start of the battle jump in long lines around his body.

Thor lets out a few haggard breaths as he turns his gaze to Peter, his eyes a bright and brilliant blue.

"Go."

Before Peter could beat his retreat, Thanos' hand snapped to the side and hoisted the boy by his neck. The synthetic webbing dissolved pitifully to ash, dispersing as dust on the harsh winds of the surrounding flame.

"Insect."

Peter was offhandedly flicked to the side as such. Where his body hit a crumbling wall some yards away, a sickening crunch could be heard over the cacophony.

Quill's body ached like no tomorrow as he lay flat on the ground with drywall on top of him. He could taste blood and the familiar, vague dizziness meant there was a concussion too. None of these things mattered as Quill groaned while pushing half a wall off of him.

As he climbed to his feet, he caught sight of Peter being thrown.

"Pete!" He shouted.

Quill heard the sound Peter's body made and he knew the boy was dead. So many people here were dead.

His eyes narrowed as he squared off with Thanos.

"You won't win," He said.

He couldn't find his blasters, but he still had his boots. He rocketed upwards and headed straight for Thanos with the intent on kicking his ass by hand.

"Daddy!" She screamed as she saw the body of Peter arch in the air.

She was dirty from flying debris, but she hadn't taken the brunt of the attack. Moment before she saw her dad, Annie had briefly acknowledged someone had taken the blow for her and protected her with their body. On the ground in front of her was a familiar brunette teenager who Annie had spent a lot of time at the Inn trying to hate. That girl had saved Annie with her life.

Annie was too preoccupied now to think about anything else other than her dad on the ground. She heard the sound his body made, but she didn't know what it meant.

Ignoring everything else, Annie rushed in the direction of Peter Parker's body.

Encompassed by a shuddering blue light, Quill's body was crushed in on itself by some unseen force before being sharply lobbed to the side like a crumpled wrapper. From Thanos' gauntlet, the Space Stone stone through the haze. The Titan regarded the frightened, pitiful girl that entered the fray for all of a moment before turning his attention back on Thor.

"Save what little power is left to you, Odinson. Your opponent lies elsewhere."

The same cold, hard feeling that rose up inside of him the last time he encountered Thanos takes hold of him again. He can hear Annie sobbing behind him -- Annie, who gladly let him braid her hair whenever he liked.

He's pretty sure that Quill is dead or close to it, along with so many others. He may have not seen the bodies, but their absence said everything that need to be said. If they were alive, they'd be here and fighting now.

If Tony were alive, he'd be here and fighting now.

Thor clenches his jaw.

"There is no one to stop but you."

Thor extends his arm, his hand outstretched. Stormbreaker easily pulls itself from the earth where it had been lodged and snaps into Thor's hand. Then, with one strong, fluid motion, he slams the blade of the hammer-axe towards the space presently occupied by Thanos' head.

Stormbreaker, with its enormous strength, struck true. Thanos collapsed into dust, leaving nothing--not even the Infinity Gauntlet and the stones embedded within--behind. The hammer-axe pierced the remains and spread them to the wind.

The fires raged on, the devastation remained.

When the last molecule of dust had finally drifted away, a distinct whirring could be heard over the flames. Iron Man, wholly untouched by the assault, descended before the scene. He observed, silent. His attention was drawn to the sound of Annie's cries, and he took slow, measured steps to where Peter lied crumpled against the fragmented wall.

It takes two earnest attempts from Peter before he's able to push his torso up off the ground. Peter's face is a bloodied mess; three of his front teeth have shattered outright, and when he begins to cough to clear his throat of blood, he feels another two teeth shift effortlessly from within their sockets.

He can feel his body mending itself, but it's not mending fast enough. Thor's in trouble -- Annie's in trouble -- Quill's in trouble, and he needs to help them, but he can't unless he can get off the ground. It's as if every cell in his body is so fixated on mending the broken bones and pierced skin that they can't respond to the simple commands like focus and move and speak.

Somehow, though, Peter forces his body to respond to him, and he pushes his torso up off the ground. "Annie," he manages. "Everything -- Everything --"

But before Peter can assure her that things are going to be okay, Peter's gaze is attracted to sudden movement in the sky and down to the earth below.

"Mr...." he begins, and it takes another considerable effort for him to push through the next syllable forward. "...Stark."

Peter was sure now that everything was going to be okay.

Tony's steps slowed even further as he neared Peter and Annie. With his armored hand, he gently coaxed the small, red-headed girl away from Peter to get a good look at him. Kneeling before his protege, his helmet vanished.

His expression was hard, his jaw was set, holding back all the words that he wanted to say to the boy. Seeing him, physically broken with his eyes alight, it struck deep in the heart of him. He put a hand to the crown of his head in the most tender gesture he could express with Peter's body in such a state.

"You did well, Peter. I'm proud of you."

Relief swells within Peter's chest at Tony's words, but he doesn't allow himself to dwell on them for very long. "Mr. Star-Lord -- he's hurt, and --"

Peter stops and swallows the blood that's accumulated in his throat.

"-- he can't, he can't heal the way that I can, so we got --"

Peter attempts to push himself up and onto his knees, but his first leg buckles before he even puts any weight on it. "-- we gotta help him."

He tenses and tries again; this time, his knee finds the earth.

"I will." Tony caught Peter against himself, bringing his other hand around to support his back. Whatever strength the boy had left, every ounce of it was going to assure that others would live. His fingers tightened the barest amount over Peter's head, and he held the boy against him. Even through his suit, he could feel his warmth and how it was leaving him.

"I'm sorry, kid." His helmet reformed as the repulsors pressed against Peter's head and back began glowing to life. The next words to leave his mouth were so quiet they barely escaped the prison of his armor. "We'll be together soon."

A coldly measured jolt of electricity left his hands, stopping the heart of the body against him. Tony kept his eyes fixed forward as the body went limp in his arms. He slid it back to earth.

Annie's face was hot with tears, but when she saw Iron Man she thought they would be okay much like her father. She stepped back to let Iron Man help her dad. However, as she stood there, she felt the hair on her arms and at the back of her neck lift. Suddenly there was a flash and she saw Iron Man and Peter as Iron Man lifted Peter up and killed him.

The vision was over quickly and she heard herself screaming.

"No don't!" She shouted, voice cracking.

She hadn't been able to save her dad. Again. Fresh tears were in here eyes.

"Why? Why would you? Why did you?" She stammered.

Her fingers tightened in a ball the same stubborn way her dad's did when he was resolved. The hurt and furry in her tiny little body swelled up inside of her.

"I won't let you." She said. "I won't let you."

With her lips in a thin line, Annie propelled herself off the ground toward Iron Man to kick him in the face. She didn't have her web-shooters and she knew Iron Man's suit was hard to beat. She was going to try anyways. She was going try for her dad.

Thor turns at the sound of Tony descending and watches, half-confused, half-relieved as the man lands on a patch of Earth near Peter. Thor was so utterly convinced of Tony's death, but it did not occur him to question the immaculate sheen of his armor. He just watches as Tony lowers himself down to Peter's height, then holds him and speaks to him tenderly, the way a father might to their own child.

It feels intrusive, somehow, for him to continue watching the scene. Thor isn't entirely convinced that Thanos is gone (could he ever be as long as the man had the Reality Stone?), but he was thoroughly convinced that both Peter and Annie are safe in his care. He doesn't watch any further; instead, he walks towards Quill's form and is relieved to find it moving slightly with breath.

Thor is on the verge of crouching down just as Tony had done for Peter a few moments before when he hears the familiar sound of Tony's repulsors starting up. When he turns what he sees is not Tony directing an armored hand at a newly-returned Thanos, but Tony holding the limp body of Peter Parker.

Thor's shout comes out a few seconds after Annie's.

"No!"

Thor drops Stormbreaker. Quill is completely forgotten. Thor launches himself to his feet and at Tony, no longer certain if the man before him is truly Tony Stark or simply Thanos in disguise.

From the moment Peter became a corpse, Tony knew he had only seconds to finish the tasks remaining. Despite that, he had hesitated just long enough for Annie to process the scene in front of her. He should have spared her that much.

No matter. It was time for her to return to her true family.

He didn't allow himself to look, to hesitate even a microsecond longer. The two survivors who could still move were closing in. He raised his hand in one precise motion and the nano-machines formed into a weapon that hit the girl with a spark of lightning. Her tiny body hit his armored one on pure inertia, and he caught her before she could fall to the earth.

Edited 2018-10-01 01:49 (UTC)

Thor grabs Tony by the wrists.

"Tony," he says, looking the man dead in the face. Their faces are close enough that he can feel Tony's breath warm on his face. "What are you doing?!"

Thor's mind is trying to grasp for some explanation for this. The Reality Stone -- no, maybe the Mind Stone. Maybe he was being controlled as Barton and Selvig were being controlled by Loki.

He decides it has to be that, because what other reason could there be? Thor's grasp on the man tightens as he attempts to hold him in place.

"Tony, you must break free of its control!"

Edited 2018-10-01 02:56 (UTC)

Tony was silent. He was a void, down to his focused glare--they were nothing like the eyes of the feisty researcher that had emerged during his stay at the Madonna Inn. They were black holes that swallowed everything, not even leaving the barest traces of light. There was something beyond contempt in the way he looked at the man in front him.

"I'm gonna let you in on a secret." The arc reactor in his chest burst to life, and the air itself shuddered. "Thanos didn't kill a single one of them tonight."

A fraction of a second was the duration of the charged unibeam blast that Tony hit Thor with, but that was all he needed. The god went soaring, leaving his path to Quill open, and he took it.

Activating his foot thrusters, Iron Man was looming over Quill's vulnerable form in a heartbeat. "I'll help you. I promised the kid." Rapidly, his arm re-formed into a cluster cannon, taking aim at the man's head.

Quill's body ached all over to the point where he almost didn't feel the pain. It had been bad before, but never this bad. A part of him already knew that this 'was it', but Quill was nothing if not stubborn.

He couldn't see what was happening, but he could hear it. He heard Annie cry and and assumed Peter had died. The second blast, he assumed, was the little girl. Somehow things fell into place when Stark came into view.

It was this douchebag all along

He couldn't sit up. He was too broken. His breathing was labored and he knew he'd have one hell of a time coming back from these injuries. With this knowledge, Quill did what he had to.

He glared daggers at Stark.

"Go to hell, Stark," He managed to spit out.

A blast. A wave of heat. Dust.

The body had been so thoroughly obliterated, there wasn't even blood left. The particles that had once composed Peter Quill had been violently torn apart. They would never come back together--at least not in this universe.

Tony stood in the wake of his own attack, testing the grip of his reformed hand.

Quill.

Thor can not possibly comprehend the magnitude of his loss right now. The second he does, the second he's unable to keep standing. He can't let that happen. He has to pull Tony out of it. He has no other choice.

Thor struggles to his feet, pain coursing through his body. It's been years since he's taken one of Iron Man's blasts head-on, and even when augmented by Thor's own lightning powers, it had still not come close to the force of one of Tony's blasts. Tony had made improvements, but none that could possibly account for this sort of power.

The Power Stone, he tells himself as he staggers forward. Thanos is using the Mind Stone to control Tony and Tony is using the Power Stone. It's the only rational explanation.

He swings his hands out to catch Tony's arms again; this time, his body is braced for another blast to the chest. He has to get through to Tony. He has to. Even if he killed everyone here, it was no different than Barnes killing his parents. Tony wasn't a person now -- he was Thanos tool. He couldn't let him be that tool any longer. He could not allow Tony to escape all of this and suffer the same way Barnes suffers now.

Suffered. Thor is sure he survived to see Barnes die again.

"I know you're in there, Tony," he says, voice pleading. "I know you're in there, and you need to fight against it. Just as we did before."

Edited 2018-10-01 04:36 (UTC)

"There is no 'we.'" If Thor insisted on continually getting as close as possible, let him. He was no longer any sort of threat. His grip, strong as it was, made no dent in his armor.

"There's only me. The man who'll hunt Thanos down and finish the job you failed."

Thor blinks, uncomprehendingly at Tony; for a fraction of a second, he feels his grip on the other man loosen.

"What?"

"I told you. Thanos didn't kill a single person here." Tony looked towards the sky. The portal above, the one that ripped through the barrier, shone dimly. The sky itself was burnt, not unlike the glow of twilight.

Home. There was no doubt that's where it lead. And only one individual could pass through. Tony turned his eyes back on Thor.

"All he did was reveal the truth."

"The truth?"

Thor shakes his head, hoping against hope that what he thinks is happening isn't happening. He doesn't want this to be true. None of it. Not the annihilation of all the people here, not Thanos' return, not the portal in the sky that brought him here, not the possibility that Tony might know that he failed to kill Thanos -- and why he failed at it.

But all of this is real. Tony's armored arms are real. The earth beneath him is real. And the sense of despair that threatens to swallow him whole is perhaps realest of them all.

"What are you talking about? This isn't like you. Tony."

"I didn't kill anyone. I freed them."

Tony turned his fingers over in Thor's grip. He took his turn at grasping Thor's wrists, though far more tenderly than Thor had his own. The gesture could have been mistaken for romantic, as if the two were the only ones who existed. The type of moment they had shared so often in the recent past.

Except now, they were both truly alone.

"I put aside every ounce of myself to do what had to be done. That's what I've always done. And you...you couldn't even let go for two seconds. And they're gone. To their graves. All on your head."

Tony didn't give Thor any time. His armor receded--and he lifted Thor's hands to his bared neck.

"If you have an issue with my methods--if you really think you have what it takes to protect what's left of your world--then do it. For real, this time."

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