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Doctor Stephen Strange was not the kind of man who enjoyed martial arts. He much preferred studying and learning and, when forced to move, he would gravitate towards the more meditative arts of tai chi and qigong. He’d learned to fight of course, just as everyone who studied at Kamar-Taj had learned. He simply didn’t seek out fights. 

There is an exception to every rule, however, and Strange’s exception was the man in white robes. 

When Strange had first arrived at Kamar-Taj, he’d noticed the man immediately. It was hard to miss him really, with the crowd of students encircling the training circle he fought in. It was clear he was unlike the sorcerers around him, for he used no spells and moved gracefully in robes that were much looser than Strange’s own uniform. Even using only his hands, he was able to make short work of every challenger that approached him. People seemed to expect this, and not a single one looked put out when they were defeated, rather looking contemplative as though they’d just realized a weakness of theirs. It was this reaction that prompted Strange to ask if the man was a teacher. The Ancient One had simply inclined her head, seeming to admire the man’s footwork as she passed by.

“Xie Lian is an honored guest here. He visits on occasion to spar and admire the mystic arts, but he is no teacher. You are, of course, welcome to ask him for a duel.”

Her words were proven true as over the next few months he came across Xie Lian training with any number of his peers. He had already been introduced to Karl Mordo’s grueling training and so the first few times he’d spotted the man he had been content to watch from a distance. He asked his fellow spectators about the man as they watched their classmates be beaten down over and over again.

“I think he’s an heir or prince of some sort, he just comes here to blow off steam,” said one.

“Wouldn’t we have heard of him before if he was a prince? I heard he’s a nomad, he wanders around collecting garbage and selling it. A shame, really. He could make good money performing with skills like those,” said another.

“What would he need more money for?” said yet another, “Have you seen what he wears when he changes out of those training robes? I bet his shoes alone cost more than the average person’s house!”

And on it went, each theory about the man and his origins contradicting the last. Strange eventually decided to simply ask the man himself, but the response he gave was just as bad.

“Oh, all of those are true I suppose!” Xie Lian had said with a bright smile. He had then asked Strange if he wanted to spar, and Strange had made the mistake of saying yes.

If he’d thought sparring with Karl Mordo was bad, Xie Lian was infinitely worse. He lasted no more than one minute against the man, and the worst of it was that Strange got the feeling Xie Lian was going easy on him. He offered suggestions as he knocked Strange to the ground time and time again, and Strange frowned as he realized they were good suggestions . After Xie Lian had finished humiliating students and gone off to whatever place he called home, Strange used the man’s tips to improve his own skills. Within only a few weeks, he was able to hold his own against Karl Mordo. A few weeks after that, he went up against Kaecilius and Dormammu and held his own. He moved to New York and took on the task of protecting Earth from magical threats, and forgot about Xie Lian. He didn’t think of the man when the Time Stone was taken from him, he didn’t think of the man when he looked through fourteen million possible realities for a way to defeat Thanos, and he certainly didn’t think of the man when he dissolved into dust on Titan.

______

Feng Xin and Mu Qing weren’t responding to Xie Lian. It wasn’t too unusual; thousands of years of being the only gods left meant that even his junior officials could get tired of him sometimes. While they had never had any falling out as bad as the one that preceded his second ascension, as the centuries passed they sometimes argued and parted ways for a few months or years at a time. After all, loyal as his friends were, they still had hot tempers and lacked the single-minded devotion of Hua Cheng.

No, the problem wasn’t that they weren’t responding to Xie Lian. The problem was that Xie Lian couldn’t remember any argument that might have pushed them away. He had thought they were all doing quite well, and even Hua Cheng’s attitude toward them had simmered from hatred to simple dislike. However, when he’d used what remained of the communication array to invite them for dinner, neither one had responded.

When he expressed his concern to Hua Cheng over dinner that night, he’d seen a wickedly satisfied grin flash across his husband’s face before it was schooled into something softer.

“Those useless idiots always get skittish when mealtime is mentioned,” he reminded gently, “Gege, don’t mind them. I’ll gladly eat enough to make up for their absence, you know how much I cherish my husband’s cooking.” As if to prove his point, he leaned over the table to dish out another enormous spoonful of the blackened mush Xie Lian had named ‘Warming Curry of the Heart’.

Xie Lian had laughed at Hua Cheng’s eagerness and put his worry out of mind.

Months later, Xie Lian went looking through a rarely used closet in an attempt to find some old photographs and instead found a familiar bow, covered in dust. He put two fingers to his temple and tried to reach out to Feng Xin to let him know he’d left his bow at their home. After all, even though they had little use for their old weapons anymore, they were still spiritual devices that should be given better care than collecting dust in an old closet like some useless relic.

When Feng Xin failed to respond, Xie Lian suddenly remembered the shunned dinner invitation from months before. He carried the bow through the hall to the living room where Hua Cheng sat lounging in little more than sweatpants. Even after all the years that had passed between them, the sight still brought a blush to Xie Lian’s face.

“San Lang, has Feng Xin been over here recently? His bow was in our closet.”

His husband looked at the dusty bow and glee spread over his features. “No,” he replied, barely-restrained happiness gracing the words, “I haven’t seen Feng Xin for a long while.”

Xie Lian regarded Hua Cheng, taking in the joy that shone in his eyes and made its home in his smile. He thought, for just a moment, that his two junior officials had finally crossed one too many lines and Hua Cheng had taken their fates into his own hands. He dismissed the thought just as quickly as it came to him. After all, back when heaven was fading and he had decided to take his friends back as junior officials to spare them the same fate he had made Hua Cheng promise not to kill or maim his only two friends. While Hua Cheng had been reluctant to agree, he had surrendered in the end. In the thousands of years they had known each other, Hua Cheng had kept every promise he’d made to Xie Lian, and he surely wasn’t going to let Feng Xin and Mu Qing be the reason he finally broke one.

If Hua Cheng had nothing to do with it, then what would have caused both of Xie Lian’s friends to stop responding to him? He tried to think back to the last argument they’d had, searching his memory for anything that may have upset the gods. Eventually he recalled a few weeks before his dinner invitation, when Mu Qing had insulted Feng Xin in some way (was it the color he was wearing? And they’d argued for hours about modern fashion until Xie Lian had made them go outside and train idioms to spare himself the headache.

Was it, perhaps, that they’d long since grown tired of training idioms? After all, it was something meant for children, not millenia old gods. Did Xie Lian treat his charges too much like children, not enough like friends? He could certainly understand the upset if after so many years they thought he still saw them as nothing more than unruly teens.

He set the bow aside and sat down beside Hua Cheng, curling up against his husband’s chest. If the issue was truly that, he would make sure that the next time he saw Feng Xin and Mu Qing, he would ensure they knew he saw them as equals and not beneath him. Until then, he would give them as much time to themselves as they wanted. 

______

When Dr. Strange opened his eyes, it was to an empty planet and lingering dust. He had to fight back the shiver that ran down his spine at the feeling of being whole again. He spared barely a moment to reorient himself after having spent so long outside of existence. There was one possible path that lead to victory, and he had to get moving if he wanted to stick to that path. He got to his feet and brushed himself off, as though that would make the memory of dust retreat. His eyes fell on Peter, lying on the ground a few feet away, and he felt a lurch of sympathy. There may have been no other way, but that didn’t mean he had to like what half the universe had gone through. 

He walked to the boy and pulled him to his feet, giving him a sturdy pat on the shoulder in as good a show of comfort as he could muster. Without a moment more of hesitation, he opened a portal to Kamar-Taj.

He hadn’t planned to step through, and seeing the chaos on the other side he was glad for that decision. All around the courtyard were students and masters alike, embracing with tears or running to and fro shouting the names of their friends and loved ones. As he watched, a young man in white robes wandered in front of the portal and turned sharply as he realized there was someone on the other side.

“Ah, hello! Can I help you?” Xie Lian said politely.

Strange cut to the chase. “I need Wong.”

Xie Lian scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. “I can try to find him, but I’m afraid I may not have much luck. All these people just showed up, you see, and it’s really quite hard to find anyone in the mess. I’ll admit it’s been some time since I’ve been here as well, I don’t know the way as well as I used to.”

Strange bit back a sharp response. He’d known there would be chaos, so it wouldn’t do to yell at some passerby for getting caught up in it. “Try the library. Down the main hall and to the right. Tell him I need as many portals as possible to send fighters to the Avengers Compound.”

Xie Lian brightened. “Fighters? Oh, I’ll call my husband then!” With that, he put two fingers to his temple and ran off towards the main hall. Strange was taken slightly aback. Xie Lian looked very young to have a husband, and he hadn’t heard any rumors of such a thing. He supposed it made sense for someone like Xie Lian to join in on this battle, however, so calling his loved ones seemed reasonable. He thought about Christine at that moment, but brushed the thought aside in favor of preparing for the upcoming battle.

The Guardians had gathered around the portal at this point, peering through curiously and seeming as though they’d like nothing more than to jump through it. Strange closed it abruptly and turned to face them.

“Thanos is at the Avengers Compound. If he doesn’t have the Infinity Stones yet it’s a good bet he’ll get them soon. We need to keep them out of his reach for as long as it takes to put him down. Understood?”

Quill got a sour look on his face when Thanos was mentioned, but nodded. The other two Guardians followed suit, as did Peter. Strange took a deep breath and opened a portal to the battlefield, everything else leaving his mind as he focused on the fight ahead.

______

Hundreds of people pouring out of magical portals was not a sight anyone might expect to see, and in the chaos it created any number of bizarre sights could pass by without so much as a second glance. Magical spells flying around? No problem. Flying horses? Giant men? Par for the course. 

What did catch Steve Rogers’ eye, however, was the teenage boy walking through the battlefield with his hands clasped behind him, looking for all the world like he was doing nothing more than taking a leisurely stroll. He didn’t even have armor, dressed instead in expensive looking street clothes of red and black, his long hair tied up in a lopsided ponytail. Rogers had seen his fair share of civilians getting caught in the middle of a war, and so it was with genuine concern that he called out to the boy when a Chitauri soldier came up behind him. 

“Kid, watch out!” The words were barely out of his mouth before the soldier crashed to the ground next to the boy. The boy sidestepped the corpse like it was a bit of trash left in the road and continued his stroll, taking in the carnage around him with mild interest. Rogers breathed a sigh of relief that the kid hadn’t been hit, but it was a short lived relief. It was lucky for the kid that he hadn’t been killed, but nobody had infinite luck.

“Hey kid!” He called out to the boy again. The boy looked around him and, seeing nobody else around him, gave Rogers a look that very clearly said why are you talking to me .

“You need to get out of here!” Rogers soldiered on, blocking a blast with his shield as he yelled, “It’s dangerous out here, if you can’t protect yourself you need to get out of dodge!”

The boy scoffed. “Why should I take advice from you? You don’t seem very capable of protecting yourself, and yet here you are subjecting us all to that ugly broken shield as if it’s something special.” 

Rogers felt a pang of irritation, but it was quickly erased as he dodged yet another soldier came up to him swinging what looked like a high-tech mace. He dispatched the soldier quickly and turned back to the boy, but he had disappeared.

______

Clint Barton was glad to have this strange white-robed man at his side for this fight. He didn’t banter with the man as he shot arrow after arrow into a sea of enemies. No, his mind was too preoccupied. He had his wife back, and his kids, but his best friend…

He didn’t hear the soldier swinging its axe at his head. He felt it though, when the killing blow was blocked by a black blade that looked far too slender to have blocked such strength. He spared the man in white a glance and a nod of thanks, and the man beamed at him cheerily. Yes, he was glad to have someone by his side right now, stranger or no.

The man matched Barton’s silence easily, unbothered by the lack of conversation and choosing instead to focus on those enemies that made it through Barton’s cover of arrows. It was because of this easy silence that Barton was alarmed to hear the man cry out. He turned sharply, prepared to see any number of horrible injuries. What he wasn’t prepared for was the pile of corpses where only a minute before a dozen enemy soldiers had been standing. The man in white stood beside him without so much as a scratch, his face lit by a smile that was somehow even brighter than before. 

“San Lang!” The man called.

And there, walking towards them, was a teenage boy. He couldn’t have been older than 17, and yet he strolled through a field of corpses with his hands in his pockets. Bones crunched under his feet like twigs, but he didn’t seem to notice. He only had eyes for the white-robed man. One soldier came up the hill behind the boy-too stupid, it seemed, to notice the graveyard of his comrades, and Barton loosed an arrow at it without a second thought. The movement drew the boy’s eyes to Barton and locked on the bow in his hands. His expression morphed into a scowl of distaste that had Barton itching to pull another arrow from his quiver. But before he could so much as move a muscle the boy turned his back on Barton, putting himself between the two fighters, and greeted the white-robed man with a chaste kiss.

“Gege, your robes are dirty,” the boy stated with displeasure. 

It was true; the blood and grime of the battlefield had long since stained the white robes. It was such a trivial matter, though, compared to the battle raging around them, that Barton’s eye twitched slightly.

“Is this really the time to be worried about dirt ?” He blurted. 

San Lang didn’t seem eager to give Barton even a second of attention, and so it was the man– Gege –who replied.

“Ah,” he said lightly, “it really isn’t…”

“Gege,” San Lang interrupted, “you don’t need to cater to lowlifes. Ignore him.”

“But this lowlife has worked quite hard to keep me safe in this battle,” Gege chided, “Should I ignore a guard simply because the state of my robes is not his top priority?”

“Yes.” San Lang spoke simply, folding his arms over his chest. He fixed Barton with a flat, unimpressed gaze. “And he’s barely a guard. He still needs training wheels for his bow.”

Barton’s eyes flicked to his bow, tricked out as it was with the tools and stabilizers that made it so lethal.

“If gege is going to have a guard,” San Lang continued haughtily, “it should at least be someone competent with his own weapon.”

Gege smiled at that. “Careful, San Lang. If you say such things Feng Xin may start to think you actually like him.”

San Lang waved away the words, unconcerned. “No need for such worries, the idiot couldn’t hear me anyway, he’s…” he trailed off suddenly, eyes snapping open as though he’d just had a major revelation. His eyes darted around the battlefield as though searching, and he turned to Gege with a serious expression. “We have to go.”

Gege didn’t argue as San Lang took his hand and began to run off, but he did give the boy a questioning look as he went. Neither of them acknowledged Barton as they left. He grumbled and cursed as he notched another arrow and turned, intending to find more soldiers to vent his frustration onto.

He ran instead into two men that were clearly very irritated, and clearly chasing after something–or perhaps someone.

“You!” Said one of the men, pointing a sharp finger at Barton as he ran. “Which way did the crimson bastard run off to?”

Barton raised an apathetic arm to point in the direction San Lang had just gone. The man nodded and changed his direction justly. The second man followed closely behind, but stopped when his gaze flitted towards Barton. The man paused for a moment and pointed at Barton’s bow.

“Can I borrow that for a minute?”

______

One of the great things about being the biggest man on the battlefield was that it was very hard to get hit in a way that mattered. Guns and swords could kill a normal person with ease, but to a giant they were nothing more than tingles. Like being bitten by ants. Maybe that was why it took Scott Lang a bit longer than it really should have to notice that two of those ants were perched on his shoulder. They seemed to have no intention of fighting him–they seemed like they could care less if he noticed them or not–and there were bigger things to worry about, so Lang elected to ignore them in favor of stopping an incoming ship.

Of course, ignoring their presence didn’t mean he could ignore their voices. They were standing right next to his ear after all.

“Hm,” said the one with the soft voice, “this feels somewhat familiar.”

The other, his tone much deeper and sharper, scoffed. “This man is hardly a match for gege’s statue. Not even half as powerful and with a hideous face that cannot compare to gege’s beauty. We should have brought our own.”

Lang realized that ‘this man’ was him , and he decided that these passengers were no longer welcome. As he moved to flick the voices off, though, he heard two more voices shouting up from his feet. 

"Your Highness!" was shouted with relief by one.

“Hua Cheng!” was bellowed in annoyance by the other.

Lang glanced down just in time to see two figures leap cleanly from the ground to his other shoulder. He had enough time to wonder how the fuck four people had managed to jump the fifty plus feet up to his neck with seemingly very little effort, and then the two new voices were shouting almost directly into his ear.

“You motherfucker,” shouted one, “Do you know how many fucking alien monsters we had to plow through just now?”

“If you fought better it wouldn’t be a big deal,” said the motherfucker in question. 

Shouts of outrage followed, quieted only by the soft voice speaking up suddenly.

"Feng Xin, Mu Qing, were you...looking for me?"

Feng Xin and Mu Qing spoke over each other in their response.

"Of course we were looking for you!"

"You think we'd look for Hua Cheng ?"

The quiet one hesitated, and when he spoke again he sounded distantly hopeful. "Does this mean you aren't upset with me anymore?"

"What?" The question came from both sides.

"Ah," the quiet one sounded almost sheepish now. "I just...you weren’t speaking to me. Now you are. Does that mean you aren’t upset now?”

Lang just barely caught the mumbled, “We weren’t…what the fuck?”

It seemed as though everyone, Lang included, was processing the meaning of those words. Distracted as he was with the small matter of punching alien warcrafts out of the sky, Lang didn’t quite catch on until Feng Xin–or maybe it was Mu Qing–spoke up with, “Xie Lian, how long has it been since we’ve spoken?”

“Hm,” Xie Lian appeared to be thinking carefully about his answer. “Five years? Maybe six?”

"And did something important happen five years ago?"

"En," Xie Lian answered earnestly and without hesitation, "You stopped using the communication array."

"I…" Lang could hear the slap of the man's face hitting his hand in defeat. "We stopped existing !"

“Eh? But I made you my officials! You shouldn’t be able to fade as long as I’m still here?”

The group fell silent again as the sneaking suspicion was confirmed. Lang had no idea what this talk of officials and fading meant, but he felt a sudden sense of kinship with this Xie Lian. The man was quite possibly the only other person in the universe who had managed to entirely miss the disappearance of half of all life. 

While Lang had the excuse of being trapped in the Quantum Realm, though, Xie Lian had been living out his normal life. A normal life which seemed to include fairly regular interaction with the two men currently having aneurysms on Lang’s shoulder. Lang listened as Hua Cheng took that moment to speak up and explain in low tones to Xie Lian the reality of what had happened five years prior. The man sounded sincerely apologetic as he spoke, as though Xie Lian’s obliviousness was Hua Cheng’s fault, but even so he could not keep the amusement out of his voice when he relayed that Feng Xin and Mu Qing had, in fact, been erased from existence temporarily.

Lang got the feeling those three didn’t like each other very much.

When Hua Cheng’s explanation came to an end, Xie Lian seemed very embarrassed indeed. He let out a little ‘oh’ and Lang was almost certain the man’s face must be flushed.

“That does explain why you’ve been in such a good mood these past few years…” Xie Lian mumbled.

Not quietly enough, though, as it clearly reached the ears of Feng Xin and Mu Qing. Twin cries of outrage started up again.

“Do you really hate us that much!?” 

“En.” Replied Hua Cheng casually. “It’s quieter without you.” More outrage.

Xie Lian took on a placating tone, still obviously mortified. “Feng Xin, Mu Qing, I must apologize.”

“Don’t,” Hua Cheng interjected.

“I must apologize,” Xie Lian said again, more forcefully. “For me not to notice for so long, I have truly been a bad friend.”

“Stop.” Lang thought this might be Mu Qing. “You can’t be faulted for not knowing something. You are...” and it seemed now like he was struggling to make himself say the words, “a good friend.”

“Just,” Feng Xin interjected, “next time please don’t assume we ran away from you again?”

It was then that Lang realized it was getting distinctly hard to breathe. His energy was running low, which told him he couldn’t maintain this form much longer. He took a step towards a part of the field slightly less overrun with aliens and made to shrink down, trusting the men on his shoulders not to get injured on the way down. They’d made it up there on their own, after all, and he wasn’t about to spend extra energy trying to tell them to get off. In the split second before he made the switch, Xie Lian made his reply.

“I won’t! But with luck this won’t happen again, right?”

And then they were falling to the ground.

Lang blinked, adjusting for a moment to the sensation of being back to human size. He glanced around, tensed in case of an attack, and frowned as he finally got a proper view of the people who had previously been standing on him.

They were standing around him as though they hadn’t just fallen well over fifty feet, and despite standing amidst corpses and blood they looked almost bored. Xie Lian was being held bridal style in the arms of a teenage boy who must have been Hua Cheng based on the way the two other men were glaring at him. Just as before, none of them so much as glanced at Lang, which meant he had to loudly clear his throat to get their attention before he spoke.

“You guys know it can happen again don’t you?”

Four sets of eyes flew to him.

“Like, that’s what this whole fight is about?” He continued, “If the big purple guy gets the gauntlet he wipes out half of all life again. He’ll probably wipe out everyone here too just for kicks.”

The sudden intensity in Hua Cheng’s eyes caught Lang by surprise and he took an involuntary step back. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both glanced at Xie Lian before looking at each other with unspoken agreement. Xie Lian simply looked disappointed.

“I really shouldn’t have mentioned luck,” he muttered, disheartened.

“Nonsense,” Hua Cheng said simply, arms tightening slightly around Xie Lian, “I’ll just kill him then.”

Lang was astonished at the audacity. “You think you can just…”

“Kill him and destroy the gauntlet?” Feng Xin said it like a statement, not a question. He wasn’t talking to Lang, it seemed. He was confirming the plan with Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng nodded.

Lang was open-mouthed. He wanted to argue with them, because ‘kill him and destroy the gauntlet’ was not a plan . It was the goal of everyone on this field, and not even the Avengers had managed it, so how could these men–one a teenager –succeed where so many others had failed?

He didn’t get the chance to voice his objections before Spiderman swung by overhead, and the gleam of a golden gauntlet could be seen nestled in the crook of his elbow. When Lang turned his gaze back to the ground, the four men were gone.

______

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god” Peter Parker’s heart was ready to pound out of his chest. The gauntlet rested in his arms as he swung to and fro, and he imagined this must be what it felt like to play football. Well, if the opposing team was trying to kill you and your own team could kill you by accident and the football could kill you if you so much as touched it the wrong way.

He glanced behind him, hoping that his pursuers wouldn’t be right there, reaching out to grab him , and dropped out of the sky when surprise caused his aim to falter. There were no alien soldiers or scary spaceships behind him. There were, however, thousands of silvery butterflies. Had his attackers turned into butterflies? No, that couldn’t be right. Were they being attacked by butterflies? While that sounded just as bizarre, it seemed to be the case. 

His feet hit the ground and he continued at a run. When he was sure the butterflies weren’t after him, he turned back only to see his path blocked by a stranger. He tried to stop, but he’d noticed too late and found himself careening into the man’s chest. Solid hands held his shoulders and pulled him to arms-length. Peter looked up at the man and his eyes widened at the sight.

Peter prided himself on being extremely well-versed in internet culture. He had seen every meme that had existed in the last seventeen years and then some. And there was one video in particular that he’d had memorized by heart since he was eight .

In the 80s, there had been one contestant on Wheel of Fortune that had gone down in infamy unlike no one else. It had been a teenage boy, charming, innocent, and quiet, and the audience had written him off immediately as nothing more than a studio decision to promote younger viewers. 

Then they’d started playing, and he spun a million dollars on his first try. And his second. And his third. He kept spinning, and he never lost a cent of the money. The host, Chuck Woolery, could be seen descending into a mental breakdown as the boy single handedly accumulated more money than any contestant had ever even hoped for. The kicker, and the part of the show that had gone down in internet history, was when Chuck had accused the boy of cheating and, live on television, the boy finally opened his mouth to respond.

“Have you considered your show just isn’t very good? If you want to spice it up a bit I could offer you a small loan of three million dollars to get started.”

That kid was Peter’s hero. And now that kid was standing directly in front of Peter, holding him upright in the middle of a freaking war and not looking a single day older than he had in 1981.

“Oh my god you’re the wheel of fortune guy,” Peter gushed, forgetting for a moment that this was maybe not the place to swoon over internet legends. The boy in question looked at him quizzically for a second before he seemed to realize what Peter had said and his face broke out in an amused grin.

“I suppose I am,” he replied.

“I uh,” Peter blinked, coming back to reality. And the reality was that this was a warzone and the boy in front of him was his age and dressed in nothing more than skinny jeans and a fancy shirt. “I don’t mean to be, like, rude or anything, but should you be here? Like maybe you’ve got some special powers or something because you didn’t age dude holy crap but you don’t exactly look like you can protect yourself and do you need help getting to safety?”

The boy merely fixed him with that same amused look, like Peter’s mere existence was extremely entertaining to him.

“Are you saying I should look scarier so you know I don’t need saving?”

Peter started to say no, of course not but then his mind caught up to his words and that really is what he said, isn’t it? He shrugged helplessly instead. “I don’t know, maybe?”

“Mn,” the boy nodded as though conceding to Peter’s logic, and his form suddenly shifted. Peter let out a strangled gasp of surprise at the new form.

The guy was a shape-shifter. But more importantly, he was a pirate . He had to be. Long black hair, a black eyepatch, jewels dangling from his neck and ears and even a coral pearl earring strung through his hair. How could someone like that not be a pirate?

Peter gulped audibly. “Yeah, that’ll do it.” 

Just then, another man peeked out from behind the pirate with a kindly smile.

“Hello!” And with that voice, Peter recognized this as the man Doctor Strange had spoken to through the portal. “May we take that off your hands?” He gestured to the gauntlet.

Peter hesitated. This was the infinity gauntlet , he really shouldn’t hand it over to just anyone. But this was someone who had helped Doctor Strange, and Peter really couldn’t keep ahold of the gauntlet forever. He glanced warily at the pirate. He may be an absolute legend , but he was still a stranger.

“Is this your husband?” He asked suspiciously. The man’s face lit up, and the pirate’s eyes softened.

“Yes! Isn’t he so sweet, protecting me in all this mess?” Peter got the distinct feeling that this man was one who did not need protection, and that the man knew it.

“Uh, yeah! That’s really cool! I mean, romantic?” Peter sputtered out.

The pirate still had that smug grin on his face. “The gauntlet,” he prompted, letting go of Peter’s shoulders to offer expectant hands.

Peter looked down at the gauntlet. Hoping he wasn’t making an enormous mistake, he placed it in the pirate’s hands. He jumped backwards in shock when the gauntlet began to melt in the man’s hands, molten gold falling to the ground between them. Soon enough the only thing left was the infinity stones.

The man in the white robes picked up the green stone and admired it curiously.

“These little rocks are really the cause of all this?” He questioned lightly.

Peter nodded his head, unable to form words. The pirate looked down at the stones impassively, and without so much as a word he curled his hands into fists and crushed them as though they were nothing more than chalk. All that remained of the infinity stones was powder and the green stone still held delicately in the white-robed man’s palm.

“I should return this one to its owner,” he said, gesturing to the stone before it disappeared into his sleeve, “as a thank you for inviting us.” He stops then and puts two fingers to his head before saying to his husband “Mu Qing found the purple man.”

“Thanos?” Peter blurted.

He gets a thoughtful look from the two before the pirate spoke, “That’s a stupid name.”

Peter blinked. “Uh, yeah. It sort of is.”

The white robed man laughed quietly. “Thank you for your hard work, little friend. Keep it up!” He reached a hand around his husband to ruffle Peter’s hair lightly, then turned and walked quickly away. The pirate glanced at Peter for a moment before ruffling his hair as well and following. As the two left, so too did the butterflies. Peter was left standing in the middle of a graveyard with a pile of melted gold and the remains of the universe’s most powerful tools on the ground in front of him.

______

When it was all over, nobody would be entirely sure what exactly had happened. The Avengers–the original ones, the ones who had defended New York from these very armies so many years before–were fighting in earnest against Thanos. Despite their best efforts, however, he wasn’t going down. In fact, it was the Avengers that were being beaten into the ground more often than not, and while they still managed to get back up every time it was obvious that each beating made it harder to climb off the ground.

One mistake, one missed blast, and Thanos had Tony Stark in an iron grip, held aloft by nothing more than the hand around his throat. His repulsors struggled to charge a blast, and his backup was on the ground behind him, struggling to hold their weapons under the strain of exhaustion. Thanos was saying something, and it was probably egotistical and arrogant and exactly what Stark would have been saying if he were only winning but Stark pays it no attention. His gaze focuses on a spot just behind Thanos’ shoulder, where a tiny butterfly floated in the air, glinting silver in the light. 

‘Morgan would have loved to see that,’ he thought, imagining his daughter’s smiling face as she chased a ghostly butterfly around the yard with that determined shine in her eye. Not a bad last thought.

Right after, though, he had another thought. ‘Why is there a butterfly here?’

And then in front of him came a flash of white and the hand around his throat went limp. He dropped to the ground wheezing for breath, and when he glanced up his vision was obscured by a white robe and what had to have been a million of those tiny butterflies.

Something whizzed through the air nearby, followed by a sickening squelch. Something thumped to the ground, and within the blink of an eye the butterflies were gone and the white robes moved aside to reveal the scourge of the universe. Or, at least, what used to be the scourge of the universe. 

Where Thanos had stood before, menacing and unbeatable, there was only a body. A body covered in deep cuts, pierced with a well-aimed arrow to the heart, and cleanly beheaded. A white bandage was unwinding itself from where it had held the body in place, and it snaked itself around the wrist of a man whose white robes had blocked Stark’s view moments before.

Stark blinked dumbly and glanced behind him to Thor and Rogers, both of whom matched his dumbfounded expression. Standing beside them was a man with his long hair tied up neatly, wearing a hideous blue leather jacket and examining the compound bow–was that Barton’s?–in his hands with mild curiosity.

Another man, somewhat similar in appearance but with a more pronounced scowl on his face, stalked over to Thor and dropped Stormbreaker at his feet before joining the first man's side without a word.

The white-robed man looked down at Thanos impassively. “Was that it?”

It was then that Stark noticed that two men stood in front of him. At his angle from the ground, the other had been almost obscured by the white robes. Now, though, Stark could make out long hair and expensive red silk.

“Mn,” the red man agreed. “Disappointing.”

“Ah,” the other lamented, “and here I thought at least E’ming would have some entertainment.” As he spoke, his hand went to the red man’s waist, and oh that’s a sword . He stroked the sword’s hilt as though comforting a pet and that sword has an eye . At the touch, the eye squinted and the hilt itself started buzzing. Stark made a mental note to have Jarvis check him for a concussion because there was no way this was real.

The red man batted the hand away lightly, capturing it in his own. “It can deal. We’re done here.” He pulled a pair of dice from his pocket and rolled them on the ground mere inches from Stark’s feet. Two sixes appeared, and a door shimmered into existence. The door opened, and the view of the other side was very distinctly not this battlefield. Instead there was the foyer of a manor more elaborate than even Stark’s own mansions. The man and his partner walked into it, still hand in hand, and the door closed behind them.

Before the door had entirely closed, shouts sounded from behind Stark. The two men from before raced forward and tried to catch the door before it closed, but they were a second too slow. The mean-looking one threw the door back open, but the foyer was gone. In its place was a swampy marsh, with dangerous eyes peeking out from under the waters. The two looked at one another, neither looking very excited.

“I want to kill him,” said the one in blue. The other simply huffed and stomped through the door. This time when the door slammed closed behind them, it shimmered back out of existence.

Stark let his head fall back and hit the ground, staring up at the sky and breathing raggedly.

Steve Rogers, America’s golden boy, spoke up behind him, “What the fuck.”

“Language!” Stark chided on reflex. In his mind, though, he agreed. What the fuck .

______ 

There was a funeral for Natasha Romanoff, superspy extraordinaire and savior of the universe. Not many people made it, but everyone who did spoke. They told tales of betrayal, hurt, and heartbreak. How she betrayed her upbringing to do the right thing. How she became stronger than all the hurt she’d suffered so nothing could hurt her again. How she broke the hearts of everyone who knew her when she sacrificed herself to bring them all back safe and sound.

Nobody talked about the battle. Nobody knew what to say.

Stark asked Strange if this was the reality he had seen. Nowhere in fourteen million possibilities had he seen Thanos dispatched with such ease, with so little collateral. He didn’t answer the question.

After the funeral, Strange returned to Kamar-Taj. Not the Sanctum, there was too much work still to be done. People to reunite, threats to track down, things to rebuild. He worked with recruits and masters alike, and he sat patiently listening to those younger and less experienced than him as they lectured on the events of the last five years. 

It was long after dark when he finally made it to the library, eager to remind Wong of the joy that was book theft. The eerie silence as he entered told Strange the man had likely retired to bed long ago. Before he could follow suit, however, a glow caught his eye.

A green glow.

And there, on the desk in the center of the library, was the time stone. A golden array surrounded the stone, shimmering dangerously with protective magic. Strange reached out to touch it on impulse, but before he could so much as brush the array a silvery butterfly flew gently down to sit delicately on his outstretched finger. He looked curiously at the butterfly, and once it was certain it had his attention it flew over to the side of the desk as though showing him something. His gaze followed the butterfly and landed on a loose piece of paper decorated with beautiful calligraphy. While the brush strokes were an art form unto themselves, the words they created brought a sense of unease.

For Mr. Strange. Please hold on to it this time.