Dark Arrow

Forty Eight

Now I've never been overly fond of following orders, but perhaps this time I should have. The fight hadn't exactly gone to plan. When Sparky had been knocked unconscious and taken to the weird flying donut in the sky; I did what was probably the worst thing I could have done. I followed him.

The room was dark, which worked to my advantage as I stuck to the shadows. The longer I was there undetected the better, although how I was going to save the wizard I wasn't quite sure. I had been in worse situations in my lifetime, I couldn't actually think of any in that moment, but I was sure there was something.

I pressed my hand to my ear activating the earpieces Tony and I had in. "Hey T, you know how you said not to follow the wizard."

"Oh for the love of..." Tony sighed. "Stay hidden."

Yeah because I was just about to announce myself to Squidward. I rolled my eyes.

I was high up, I could see more from here than I could if I was closer. It was a trait that both Clint and I shared. We saw more from further away. It was hard to sit here and see Sparky having long glass like needles pushed into him, but I needed a plan before I could do anything.

Tony landed on the side panel of the spaceship, using a concentrated beam he managed to cut a hole to walk through. Just as he was looking around to get his bearings FRIDAY alerted him to an incoming call from Steve.

"Oh this should be fun." Tony grumbled.

Not a moment later Steve's voice came through. "Where is she Tony? Her phone's off." The concern in his voice was mirrored in Tony's heart.

"Safe." Tony turned to look around him. "I think."

Steve's stomach dropped as he began to piece together Tony's apprehension and the news they'd received a while ago. An attack on the city. As Steve looked at the TV in front of him he knew the answer to his next question.

"Tell me she's not on that ship."

"I'm sorry Steve." The apology being one that covered more than just their current situation. "Get the stone out of Vision, I'll keep her safe I promise."

"I trust you Tony. Make sure you both come home."

While there was conversations to still be had between Steve and Tony, the threat that they were facing began to repair those bridges.

"Roger that Cap. Get Pepper somewhere safe."

"Already done." Steve reassured him. "Be careful."

"You too."

The call disconnected as the gravity of what they were about to face became a reality for everyone. Now all that was left was to find Thanos and destroy him before things got out of hand.

***

If there is something me and Tony do well, it's coming up with the most insane plans that tend to work out well. Forcing Squidward out of the side of the ship had been one of them. Between us we managed to distract him long enough to make our plan a reality. Now we had the wizard safe, we just had to figure out how the hell we planned on defeating an alien overlord with three people.

The ship was flying towards a planet called Titan and given none of us knew how to turn the damn thing around, we had little choice but to try and land the thing when we got there.

It turned out that landing the spaceship had been a feat in itself, both Tony and I doing the best we could with what little experience we had. The planet we were on was barren, no signs of life anywhere. Why was it coming here? There was obviously something we were missing. However it turned out that we weren't the only ones searching for this Thanos. A group who seemed hell bent on calling themselves 'The Guardians of the Galaxy' arrived not long after we did. It was a rough meeting, a lack of trust and rather large egos all round. It took a while before we were able to pull together enough to face the threat that was on its way.

Sparky sat out in the open as a diversion as the rest of us hid. From where I was crouched I couldn't hear what they were saying, but when Tony sent a bunch of small missiles at Thanos, I took that as the right time to jump out and start firing arrows as quickly as I could. Thankfully I'd grabbed a lot of trick ones before we left.

It seemed as if we were winning when Tony was attempting to get the gauntlet from Thanos' hand. A massive golden glove complete with two infinity stones, making it harder to defeat him. If we had any hope, we needed to disarm him. Just as Tony was close to finishing the task the human, Quill decided it was a good time to let his grief take over. We couldn't stop it as he began to attack, forcing Tony to let go and step backwards.

Part of me was tempted to fire an arrow at Quill just for being a complete idiot, but I held back knowing it probably wasn't the best idea in the long run.

Try as I might to get to Thanos, he kept swinging me back as if I was an annoying fly. I didn't give up, no matter how much my body ached and screamed in protest at every movement. I somehow managed to climb onto Thanos' back, an arrow in my hands around his throat as the tip sliced into my palm. I didn't register the pain or the blood coming from me as I tried to give Tony time.

I didn't get to stay there for long as he threw me off with more force this time. When I landed my vision blurred, an excruciating pain radiating from the back of my skull. I dropped in and out of consciousness, the head injury proving more of an inconvenience than I'd first thought it would be.

Unsure of how long had passed, I finally managed to open my eyes long enough to see Thanos push a nanotech blade through Tony's side. A scream emanated from deep inside me as I watched my best friend fall to the floor. Just as it looked as if I was about to watch him die, Sparky shouted out, halting Thanos' movements.

The time stone appeared in his hand as I realised what was happening. We'd lost. There was nothing else we could do, nothing except hope the battle on Earth would do what we couldn't.

I crawled over to Tony as Thanos disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke. Tony sutured his wound the best he could as we collapsed against each other. No words could describe the pain we were both feeling right now, some physical but a lot emotionally. We had failed to do the one thing we had needed to do.

Sparky looked over at us, a resigned look on his face like he knew this was going to happen.

"We're in the endgame now."