Chapter Text
Anthony Edward Stark - or as most of the planet knew him, Iron Man – thought this was going to be another typical Tuesday. Wake up. Kiss his wife. Swig at least three mugs of extra-strong coffee. Trash talk some of his more annoying business partners into early retirement. Tinker with the new Extremis Mark 2 suit. Drink his usual dose of whipped cream for stress relief. Go to bed.
However, he had clearly forgotten that he lived on planet Earth. The current centre point of all the universe’s problems.
So, before he’d even had his second cup of coffee, Avengers Tower’s triple scarlet-crimson-red alarms went off. An alarm only used for three things…
- 1. Omnicidal Cosmic Catastrophes.
- 2. All the world’s volcanoes erupting at once.
- 3. The Hulks drinking espresso. Again.
And given the lack of tectonic tremors and screaming baristas, it only left option 1. Tony desperately hoped that it might have been Mr. Fantastic’s kid messing around with nuclear fusion again, but unfortunately Franklin Richards was behaving himself today, because Tony would take a pre-teen creating miniature suns to the absolute shitshow that this day was turning out to be.
Thanos was back. The three worst words in the English language.
And if that wasn’t pants-wettingly terrifying enough already, he’d brought the one object that Tony and the entire population of the universe had hoped to never see again...
The Infinity Gauntlet. With all but one of the eponymous Stones embedded in it.
The Mad Titan had evidently come to the long-suffering blue and green marble to claim the sixth and final of the Infinity stones, and arguably the most devastating: the Space Stone. If Thanos gained that stone, not only would he finally be omnipotent, but the entire multiverse would be his to shape.
So, as you can imagine, the very second Tony heard the alarm, he hammered his fist onto the galactic panic button (an invention created after the last omnicidal maniac that needed dealing with) and every last hero in the galaxy surged towards the Big Apple. Tony desperately hoped that this would work. Because if it didn’t, then it would make Tony yearn for the days of Ultron! Plus, it would mean that quadrillions of lives would be spending the rest of their days enslaved and/or obliterated. So, yeah… not good.
Half an hour after he pressed the panic button, New York City looked like Godzilla had taken up breakdancing in Central Park. Heavy emphasis on the ‘Break’ part.
Thor, along with Loki, had brought a whole platoon of Asgardian warriors with them. Usually, the chances of Thor willingly working alongside his sinister sibling would be lower than Hulk taking a chill pill. But the purple skinned titan was just about the only cosmic catalyst that could make the sons of Odin cooperate.
Captain Marvel had struck the first blow, careening out of the sky like a pulsing comet of pure power. She’d delivered the most devastating drop kick this side of Jupiter, directly into the mad Titan’s sternum. Credit where credit is due, it actually staggered him, sending him skidding back a few feet. But it would take a lot more than a single kick to take him out. Many had tried, and the amount that had succeeded could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.
Thanos clenched his gauntlet-clad fingers into a fist and it glowed with the purple force of the Power Stone. The millisecond he opened said fist, a colossal wave of violet annihilation consumed the entire area around Carol Danvers, sending arguably the strongest of the Avengers right back into the sky from whence she came.
Then the situation got progressively worse.
Thanos had clearly learned from his last visit to Earth, because the tactics and moves he was using were nothing like before. He was fighting using pure ballistic force, clearly eschewing precise attacks for sheer overkill.
Half an hour after he had arrived, only the strongest, the quickest or the luckiest were left.
The Hulk cousins were going to town on Thanos, keeping him in place while all the ranged fighters were peppering him with attacks of all kinds, varying from Thor's lightning, Vision's head lasers or Scarlet Witch's Chaos Magic beams.
Finally, the raisin-skinned conqueror was knocked down after a brutal double uppercut to his wrinkled jaw.
For a second that seemed to last an eternity, Thanos was silent and unmoving. Just when Tony thought that there might have been some hope, the thought crumbled before it had the chance to form, when the most dangerous being in the universe opened his soulless maw and spoke one word: "Pathetic."
Three syllables. Three simple syllables had reduced the smouldering ruins of Manhattan to a dusty wasteland with what was possibly the most colossal shockwave ever produced by a living creature. Hulk and She-Hulk were hit point-blank by the attack, and the gamma energy flowing through their veins was probably the only reason they weren’t reduced to a fine red mist. As it was, every single one of their bones was shattered.
That jerk was totally copying Black Bolt. I wonder if the Inhumans have lawsuits? Tony mused.
Tony was hit just as hard, as was almost everyone else. The heroes of the Milky Way lay on the ground, defeated. Then the few remaining sensors that Tony possessed located a familiar energy signal and his blood ran colder than the Antarctic ice.
The Space Stone's underground vault had been unearthed in the wake of the blast. And Thanos was fitting it into the gauntlet as he began to gloat.
"It seems that your pitiful last stand has failed. I am not remotely surprised. You proved to be a mild distraction, but no match for the rightful dominator of the universe. Also known as 'me'!"
Just as Tony was preparing for the end of everything he had ever known and loved, he noticed the silhouette of the one person that had dodged the shockwave begin to chant a familiar incantation.
Doctor Stephen Strange, The Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts and the last hero left standing, had sworn never to do what he was about to attempt. Forbidden by the founders of sorcery, the curse he was about to deliver would undoubtedly leave him crippled for life as a mangled husk, but he knew it was the only way left to put an end to Thanos once and for all!
Dr. Strange began reciting a primordial spell in a language long-since forgotten by sentient beings, completely indecipherable to all but the current Sorcerer Supreme. Every word he spoke was agony, as the eldritch tongue he spoke in was lethal to human beings. But, soldiering through the immeasurable pain through sheer force of will, Strange concluded the incantation with one word, "ZOM".
The air audibly snapped as reality itself began to distort and tear around Thanos, who had been too busy monologuing to notice his impending demise.
"Honestly, I cannot comprehend why any of you even bother to stand against me in the first place. I can't tell whether to be impressed or exasperated. But I suppose humans are, and always have been, foo-ACK!!!"
Thanos’ entire nervous system lit up like a fireworks display. As his very atoms begin to rip themselves apart, it finally dawned on the former Demiurge – he was toast.
Brighter and brighter he glowed, until – with a blast that shattered Tony’s ear drums – the Mad Titan and immortality seeker detonated. With a last, furious cry of dismay, Thanos disappeared into a gigantic indigo mushroom cloud that blew a hole so deep, magma could be seen bubbling up from the bottom.
And when the dust settled, the Infinity Gauntlet was there, lying among the smoking remnants of its former master.