Golden Days✓ Tony Stark [Book 3]

29: Reduced to Atoms

We all took our seats in the newly fixed Benatar, everyone except dad.

"Okay, who here hasn't been to space?" Rocket asked, glancing back at us from the captain's seat.

Nat, Pietro, Steve and Rhodey raised their hands and a small chuckle leaves me.

"Why?" Rhodey asks in confusion.

"You better not throw up on my ship." Was all Rocket muttered.

"Approaching jump in 3..." Nebula counts down.
" 2..."
"1!"

Steve grabs my hand at the last second and I turned to him. I saw his eyes widen and his pupils dilate as he took everything in.

Soon, the ship slows down in front of the planet and Steve looks down at me, a little bit embarrassed.

"I'm sorry-"

"It's alright. It's so different from that quinjet in New York." I said and he smiled, reminiscing too, the first time we met.

"Yeah. We've come a long way." He says and I nodded in agreement.

"I'll head down for recon." Carol's voice reached us through the comms.

I grab my necklace, suddenly getting nervous. What if Thanos isn't here? What if he's expecting us? What if he has an army?

Pietro holds my shoulder, sending me a comforting look. I nodded as I looked down at my crystal. Just a few weeks ago it was swirling with green dust, so full of life, now, it was just there, dead.

I physically shake my head to clear the dark thoughts. We can do this, we know what Thanos is capable of now, we know his moves. We get the stones and I kill him. That's the plan.

I glanced at Steve to see him, looking down at his compass, with aunt Peggy's picture in it. I let out a soft sigh and grabbed his larger hand in mine. This has to work.

"This is gonna work, Steve." Nat says and we looked up at her.

"I know it will." Steve responds before glancing at me. "Cause I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't."

"No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defenses of any kind. It's just him." Carol informs us and I relax a little in relief.

"And that's enough."

🚀🌌🛸

For a psychopath who's hell bent on killing half the population of the whole universe, Thanos has a great taste.

The Garden is quiet and calm, few creatures roaming about, the perfect, colourful sunset, to say a little, it was very calming and beautiful.

The calm is disrupted though.

Carol, Bruce and Rhodey goes first, restraining Thanos. Thor follows suit, cutting his gaunlet covered hand off.

Pietro, Steve, Nat and I walked in after. I glanced at Pietro when I don't feel the buzz of the stones and the look on his face tells me he feels the same.

Our doubt is confirmed when Rocket turns over the severed hand to see it empty. No stones.

"Oh no." Rocket mutters.

"Where are they?" Steve asked.

"Answer the question!" Carol gritted as she tightened her hold on his neck in warning.

"The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation." Thanos responds cryptically.

"You murdered trillions!" Bruce yells as he shoved him.

"You should be grateful." Thanos retorts as Bruce punched him.

"Where are the Stones?" I asked as I stepped forward. My heart was pounding loudly in my ears and my mind was racing with possibilities.

"Gone. Reduced to atoms." Thanos responds.

"You used them two days ago!" Bruce yelled.

"I used the stones to destroy the stones." Gone. They're all gone. All of them. "It nearly killed me. But the work is done. It always will be. I am... inevitable."

"We have to tear this place apart, he-he-he has to be lying." I heard Rhodey's voice.

Reduced to atoms.

"My father is many things. A liar is not one of them."

I used the stones to destroy the stones.

"Violet-"

"Ah, thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly-"

His voice is cut short when he gets lifted by blue wisp of energy, his screams fall on deaf ears as I started to squeeze.

Can you squeeze the life out of a bad guy?

Ned's voice rings in my head, blocking out the protest of everyone. For a second, I ventured to the dark side, wondering how it would feel to let him breathe for a few seconds, before choking the life out of him, or just tearing him in half.

Suddenly, Thanos' head falls off, relieving him of the pain and agony, so fast, and it takes me a few seconds to realize it's Thor's axe that did that.

"What... What did you guys do?" Someone screams.

I'm in a daze, my head ringing as I responded alongside Thor.

"What I should have done the first time."

"I went for the head."

Everything after then is a blur, all I knew is that I felt empty and I couldn't breathe, the air was filled with the metallic smell of blood and dust, I need to get away, away from the blood, away from the dust. All I remember is walking into a portal, wanting to get away from everything.