Hidden on Titan (Infinity War x Fem!Reader)

Chapter Sixteen

"Do you think she really wants to go all of this alone, Strange?" Tony asked, bruised knuckles evident in what little light lay left on Titan, "We could help her." 

"She found an alternate ending," Strange murmured, eyes closed. He was seated by the rubble of  building (Y/N) had thrown the Guardians at. His body did not touch the ground, levitation was a common exercise for him and with many things that lay untouched and all the history that lay bare on Titan's soil, he felt it would be better to exist in the air. 

"So?" Peter chimed in, hands fiddling with one another as he began to get worried for a girl he didn't know very well at all, "We could still help her. Maybe helping her would be an easier alternate ending." 

Strange popped his right eye open, cocking his eyebrows simultaneously, "If that were the case, Peter, I'm sure she would've invited us."

Tony scoffed, "Please, Strange. You make it sound like it's supposed to be a party we weren't invited to." 

Strange sighed and closed his eye again, "If your idea of a party is the death of a galaxy, you should probably talk to someone." 

Peter eyed the older gentlemen who sat meditating without explanation. How could he be so nonchalant? The entire universe was at stake--or half of it, anyway--and he was just there... Sitting. Being one with the planet with no reason to justify it. Maybe he didn't need justification, but with Peter's young mind, nothing made sense. How could he just sit? How could he just believe that some woman they'd never even heard of before suddenly had all the answers and all the abilities to save an entire species and more?

"What's with the look on your face?" 

Peter looked away from Strange and back up at Tony who expressed confusion.

"Spacin' out or what? This is kind of a super huge deal right now. I can't have you spacing out for no reason." 

The young boy sighed and crossed his arms, "I just don't get how Strange can trust a woman he's only ever come into contact with once or twice. That makes no sense to me." 

Tony nodded, "I understand that, but..." Sighing, Tony placed his hand gently on Peter's shoulder. A small gesture of please-listen-to-me-because-I'm-probably-going-to-say-something-super-important, "When the Avengers first began, we didn't ask the common people to accept us. We didn't ask them to know us. We didn't ask them to listen to us. Instead, we just protected them. And we kept protecting them without hesitation."

"Why?"

"I always knew I was apart of something bigger," Tony said, eyes wandering off into the distance beside Peter's head, "I knew I had to be apart of something bigger than just existing. Billionaire, playboy philanthropist?" He shrugged, "More. There always had to be more for me."

"You had everything, though," Peter commented, "How could you have wanted more?" 

"I needed parents."

"Is that why the Avengers came-to?" 

"Not that specifically, but, on my end, yeah it had something to do with that." 

A silence lifted and fell firm between the two. 

Peter already knew all of that. Mr. Stark wasn't just "Mr. Stark" without his billionaire status or his philanthropy, but he was always something more than that. He had a heart. He had a brain. He had feelings, and despite whether or not he decided to showcase these tender things all the time was up to him. Tony didn't owe anyone anything except for his parents. And that was always the common problem behind a hero, right? Take away their parents, they're going to turn into superheroes, save the day. Make wrongs into rights. 

Tony just wanted to help.

And since he'd helped for so long, it was in his best interest to take the vitality of the universe into consideration regardless as to whether or not the woman they were entrusting with everything was right or wrong. 

He needed to believe that she could do it. 

Within the next few minutes, Tony never really thought that he would be on his knees, watching a light vividly make its way throughout the skies of Titan. 

He never thought he'd close his eyes in gratitude at the sound of someone screaming toward the end of their existence.

He never thought he'd play that same sound over and over and over again in his head like a song on repeat.