-Broadcast-
Tony Stark stood amid the rubble where he'd crashed, his armor's systems running damage diagnostics and reporting failures across multiple subsystems. Nanomaterial reserves were at sixty percent. Several repulsor nodes were offline. His temper, however, was at one hundred percent.
"If you throw another moon at me, we're gonna lose it," Tony said, his voice tight with barely controlled fury.
Thanos's eyes narrowed as he studied the man before him. "Stark."
The fact that this alien warlord knew his name sent a chill down Tony's spine, but he kept his expression casual. "You know my name?"
A slight smile curved Thanos's lips—not cruel, but knowing. Sad, even. "I do. You're not the only one cursed with knowledge."
Tony's brow furrowed. What the hell did that mean? "My only curse is you."
Before Thanos could respond, Tony's armor deployed micro-missiles from shoulder and leg launchers. Dozens of projectiles streaked toward the Mad Titan, their contrails painting white lines across Titan's red sky.
Thanos didn't bother using the Infinity Stones. He simply stood his ground and let the explosions wash over him, his expression unchanged.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The missiles detonated in rapid succession, each explosion powerful enough to level a building. Smoke and dust engulfed Thanos's position, obscuring him from view.
Tony watched his sensors, waiting to see if anything could have survived that barrage—
Thanos walked out of the smoke completely unharmed. He waved his hand almost casually, dispersing the dust cloud.
Tony rocketed forward, not giving Thanos time to use the stones. His legs merged together, nanomaterial flowing to create a massive piledriver configuration. He slammed into Thanos's midsection with all the force his repulsors could generate.
The impact would have killed a normal person. Thanos merely grunted and staggered back a step.
Tony flipped backward in mid-air, his hands transforming into massive hammerheads. With his thrusters at full power providing additional momentum, he brought both hammerfists down on Thanos in a devastating overhead smash.
The blow drove Thanos backward into a rock formation. Stone cracked and crumbled around the Titan's body.
But Thanos was unfazed. His hand shot out with serpent-quick speed and closed around Tony's helmet. He squeezed.
Tony felt the pressure increasing, heard metal beginning to buckle. Alarms blared in his HUD—"Hull breach imminent! Hull breach imminent!"
Tony's helmet shattered in Thanos's grip, pieces of faceplate falling away. The exposed nanomaterial immediately began flowing back to cover Tony's face, reforming the helmet even as Thanos crushed it.
Tony raised both arms in a cross-block, trying to defend against whatever came next—
Thanos's fist came like a cannonball. Even through Tony's reinforced guards, the impact was tremendous. Tony was lifted off his feet and slammed into the ground with bone-jarring force.
Thanos reached down and tore away the nanomaterial device Tony had attached to the Infinity Gauntlet. Now free to use the stones again, he raised the gauntlet and fired a concentrated beam of purple energy from the Power Stone directly at Tony.
Tony rolled to the side, his armor's nanomaterial flowing to create a large rectangular shield. He planted it in the ground like a riot shield and crouched behind it.
The Power Stone's beam struck the shield dead center. The impact was like being hit by a freight train. Even braced and anchored, Tony was driven backward, his feet carving trenches in the ground as he slid seven or eight meters.
Purple energy cascaded over the shield's surface, and Tony watched his nanomaterial reserves dropping rapidly as the shield was systematically disintegrated atom by atom. He couldn't hold this position—the shield would fail in seconds.
Tony made a split-second decision. He rotated the shield suddenly, deflecting the beam to the side, and launched himself forward with maximum thruster power.
He rocketed toward Thanos, closing the distance before the Titan could adjust his aim. Tony's left leg came down like a hammer, nanomaterial concentrated to create maximum impact force. His foot caught Thanos's gauntleted hand and drove it into the ground, pinning it.
With Thanos momentarily locked down, Tony pivoted and drove his left fist into Thanos's face with every ounce of strength the armor could generate.
The punch connected with a satisfying crack. Thanos's head snapped to the side.
For a moment, neither moved. Then Thanos slowly turned his head back to face Tony. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth—the first time anyone had made him bleed in this entire battle.
Thanos touched his fingers to the blood, looked at it, and his smile widened. "All that for a drop of blood?"
Then he flexed his pinned left hand. The strength in that single motion lifted Tony's entire body off the ground and flipped him through the air. Tony crashed down hard on his back.
Before Tony could recover, Thanos was on him. His fist came down like the hammer of the gods. Tony barely got his arms up in time, crossing them above his head—
The impact drove Tony sideways across the ground. He tried to stand, tried to defend, but Thanos's assault was relentless. Punch after punch hammered into Tony's armor. Each blow dented nanomaterial, scattered pieces, depleted his reserves. Tony's HUD was a sea of red warnings, damage reports cascading faster than he could read them.
Thanos grabbed Tony by the chest plate, lifted him off the ground, and the Power Stone pulsed once. Purple energy erupted point-blank, and Tony was blown backward, tumbling end over end before crashing to a stop.
Tony's ears were ringing. His ribs were probably broken. The armor was failing. But he wasn't done. Not yet.
He struggled to his feet, raised his right arm, and fired his palm repulsor at the approaching Titan.
Thanos raised his left hand almost lazily. The Power Stone glowed, and a shield of purple energy absorbed Tony's beam effortlessly. Thanos continued walking forward as if the attack was nothing more than an annoying breeze.
Tony kept firing, even as he knew it was useless. His right hand maintained the repulsor blast while nanomaterial from his damaged leg plating flowed up to his left arm. Within seconds, he had enough material to form a second palm repulsor.
Both hands fired now, dual beams converging on Thanos's shield. It still wasn't enough.
Thanos walked through the energy like a man walking through rain, completely unbothered. He reached Tony, still enduring both repulsor beams, and with a single gesture of the gauntlet, shattered the nanomaterial on Tony's right hand. The repulsor died instantly, pieces scattering.
Thanos threw an elbow strike. Tony raised his left arm to block, and the impact sent shockwaves through his entire body. But Thanos held back this time—Tony's armor was almost completely destroyed. There wasn't much point in using full force.
Because despite all his rage, despite all his technology, Thanos didn't want to kill Tony quickly. As someone else cursed with the burden of knowledge, of seeing futures and possibilities, Thanos felt a strange kinship with this mortal.
But Tony didn't care about philosophy or kinship. He ducked under Thanos's elbow, twisted, and threw a wild haymaker at the Titan's jaw.
Thanos caught Tony's fist effortlessly, stopping the punch mid-swing.
In that instant, Tony's remaining nanomaterial flowed from his left arm to his right, forming a long, sharp blade. He thrust it toward Thanos's chest with desperate speed—
Thanos's free hand grabbed the blade, his grip stopping it centimeters from his heart. He held it for a moment, looking into Tony's eyes, then snapped the blade in half as easily as breaking a toothpick.
Before Tony could react, Thanos reversed the broken blade and drove it into Tony's left side, just below the ribs.
"Ahhh!" Tony's scream was raw and ragged. He looked down in disbelief at the piece of his own armor protruding from his abdomen. Blood welled around the wound, hot and wet.
He stumbled backward, or tried to. Thanos still held the blade, following Tony's retreat until Tony's legs gave out and he collapsed onto a piece of rubble, sitting down hard.
Thanos stood over him, still gripping the blade embedded in Tony's side. His other hand came up, almost gentle, and touched Tony's head. The gesture was almost paternal.
"I respect you, Stark." Thanos's voice was sincere, without mockery. "When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive." He paused, his expression almost sad. "I hope they remember you."
Blood bubbled from Tony's mouth. He tried to speak, to curse, to spit defiance, but the pain was overwhelming. His vision was starting to gray at the edges.
Thanos slowly raised his left hand, pointing the Infinity Gauntlet directly at Tony's head. Four stones began to glow simultaneously—purple, blue, red, and orange. Reality itself seemed to warp around the gauntlet as cosmic power built to critical levels.
This was it. This was how Tony Stark died. Alone on an alien world, bleeding out, about to be erased by the power of gods.
"Stop!"
Doctor Strange's voice cut across the battlefield. Thanos paused, turned his head slowly to look.
Strange had pushed himself up to his hands and knees, his body shaking with effort. Blood ran from his nose and ears from the beating Thanos had given him. "Spare his life," he said, his voice hoarse but steady. "And I will give you the stone."
Thanos's eyes narrowed. He pivoted, keeping the gauntlet pointed at Tony but turning his body toward Strange. "No tricks."
Strange shook his head slowly. This was it—the moment he'd seen in fourteen million possible futures. The one and only path to victory required this sacrifice.
Tony stared at Strange, his mind racing past the pain and blood loss. "Don't..." The word came out as barely a whisper.
But Strange wasn't looking at Tony anymore. His hand moved in a complex gesture, and a tear appeared in reality itself—a window into the pocket dimension where he'd hidden the Time Stone. The green gem floated out, hovering between Strange's trembling fingers.
Thanos extended his right hand, palm up, demanding the stone.
Tony watched in horror and incomprehension. Strange had been so adamant about protecting the Time Stone above all else—even above Tony's life. He'd said it explicitly on the ship: if it came down to choosing between the stone and saving Tony or Peter, he wouldn't hesitate to let them die.
So why? Why was he giving it up now?
Strange looked at the glowing green stone one last time, then with a gesture of his hand, sent it floating toward Thanos.
The Mad Titan plucked it from the air with reverence. Immediately, he placed it on the thumb position of the Infinity Gauntlet. The stone settled into place with a resonant hum, and power surged through Thanos's body. His eyes blazed briefly with green light as he absorbed the Time Stone's capabilities.
Five stones. Five of the six most powerful objects in the universe, now united on one gauntlet.
Thanos smiled, the expression triumphant but not cruel. "One to go."
A pulse blast struck the gauntlet, followed by several more in rapid succession. Star-Lord had finally regained consciousness and was charging across the battlefield, his face twisted with rage, firing his quad blasters wildly.
"NO! NO! NO!" Peter Quill screamed, his aim terrible, his judgment worse. He was charging a cosmic entity armed with five Infinity Stones while armed with nothing but conventional weapons and all-consuming grief.
Thanos didn't even bother to respond to the attack. The Space Stone blazed blue, and a portal opened before him—a gateway to anywhere in the universe. He stepped through without looking back, the portal collapsing behind him like a closing door.
Star-Lord, still running at full speed, reached the spot where Thanos had been standing a moment too late. His momentum carried him forward into nothing, and he tripped, crashing face-first into the rubble.
"Where is he?!" Peter pushed himself up, looking around wildly. "Where did he go?!"
But the battlefield was suddenly, terribly quiet. Thanos was gone. The Time Stone was gone.
And they had just lost the war.
-Real World-
The viewers sat in stunned silence as the weight of what they'd witnessed settled over them like a shroud.
Star-Lord's face was ashen. He stared at the screen, watching his future self frantically looking around for an enemy who was already gone. The reality of his mistake—his moment of uncontrolled rage that had cost them the gauntlet—was crushing.
And now Strange had given up the Time Stone anyway. All that pain, all that sacrifice, for nothing.
"I..." Star-Lord's voice was barely audible. "I really screwed up, didn't I?"