Some time had passed since they kicked Thanos' follower off the ship, and the ship had maintained its course to Titan. Spencer was growing more anxious by the minute, watching as the planet grew ever closer to them. She stood there with Tony and Doctor Strange near the front of the ship, watching everything carefully while Peter hung back a bit. The ship was moving and turning about space erratically as Titan's gravitational pull dragged the vessel ever closer to the planet's battered surface.
"Hey, what's going on?" Peter asked Tony, his voice dripping with concern.
But it was Doctor Strange who answered him. "I think we're here."
"I don't think this rig has a self-park function," Tony replied. He turned away from the giant window and looked to Peter, his voice more urgent when he spoke next as he showed Peter what to do. "Get your hand into this steering gimbal. Close those around it. You understand?"
Peter shoved his hands into the places Tony demonstrated as Tony went to go man the other station. "Yup. Got it." He sounded nervous, and Spencer couldn't say she blamed him.
"This was meant for one big guy, so we gotta move at the same time," Tony continued.
"Okay, okay. Ready," Peter answered.
Spencer looked away from them and back out the window. The ringship was heading right towards the center of what appeared to be a colossal game of jacks. The young woman immediately threw her helmet back up, mentally preparing herself for what looked like was going to be a rough landing.
"We might wanna turn," Peter cautioned. "Turn! Turn! Turn!"
Tony armored up himself, just in time for the ship to clip one of the "jacks" obliquely, causing it to lose roughly a third of its hull in the collision. Peter's suit threw his helmet back on him as well, just as Doctor Strange stepped in front of the three of them, creating some magical orange shield around all of them. The ship continued to lose chunks of metal at an alarming rate as they careened towards the ground.
Just a few seconds later, the ringship- or rather what was left to it- plowed into the dirt, sliding for a distance before coming to a stop, leaning slightly to one side. The collision had knocked her and Tony both to the ground. Spencer sat up slowly, just in time to see Strange helping Tony up. Tony's helmet was off again, and both men were panting.
"You alright?" Tony asked Strange between some pants. When Strange merely nodded in response, he continued. "That was close; I owe you one." Tony brough his attention to Spencer, reaching his arm over to her to pull her to her feet too. "What about you? You good?"
Spencer nodded. "I think I'm okay. At least for now."
Tony nodded, just as Peter descended from above in a very classically spider-like fashion, upside and all. "Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something, and I eat one of you, I'm sorry."
Tony pointed at the boy. "I don't wanna hear another single pop culture out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?"
Peter gestured behind him. "I'm trying to say that... something is coming."
Spencer watched as a grenade rolled into view, coming to a stop between them. She didn't have any time to react before it exploded, sending all four of them flying backwards when its energy pulse fired. Spencer landed hard against a nearby wall, feeling her back crack in seemingly unnatural fashions. If she survived this ordeal, she was certainly going to need to see a chiropractor. Her head was still reeling from the collision but the voice she heard next sounded oh so familiar.
"Thanos!"
She opened her eyes just in time to see a blade flying towards Strange, who neatly deflected it with a mystical shield before sending the Cloak of Levitation at his assailant's face, smothering him and throwing him to the floor.
As she started to stand, still feeling a bit delirious, Tony and some other guy started flying around and shooting at each other. Tony knocked the guy back briefly with an explosion, but he quickly rebounded and fired a magnetic disc at Tony, pinning him face-first to a metal structure.
Spencer then put her attention to Peter, who was frantically crawling backwards away from some insect-like person, who from this angle looked weirdly familiar to her.
"Ah! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Please don't put your eggs in me!" Peter exclaimed as he shot webs at them in a panic, pinning their arms to their body.
The man who was just firing at Tony flew towards Peter feet-first, kicking him away. "Stay down, clown!"
Luckily for Peter, this guy couldn't quite keep up with his spider-like reflexes. Peter dodged his shots with ease using his extended spider legs, using them to leap away. But when Peter extended those six extra legs as he leapt forward to attack, the man shot him with an electric-like cord, wrapping Peter up in it and sending him rolling across the deck.
This was not going well, so Spencer moved quickly over to Tony, helping to pull him free from the magnet holding him to the wall of the ship. He nodded at her in appreciation, and then they put their attention on the man struggling with the Cloak on the ground.
"Die, blanket of death!" he shouted at it.
Just as the Cloak of Levitation pulled away from the man, Tony placed a foot on the man's chest, one palm extended downwards towards the man and the other pointed towards the other guy. Spencer did the same with her hands, unsure of what the hell was actually happening, as it was merely going from bad to worse. The other man had Peter in a headlock, a gun pointed to his head. Doctor Strange made the third point in the triangle, a mystical shield drawn as well. The insect lady had struggled back to her feet behind the man holding Peter hostage, still encased in the webs Peter slung at her.
The man holding Peter spoke first. "Alright, everybody, stay where you are... Chill the eff out," he tried to reason. After a moment, he powered off his helmet, and suddenly Spencer knew why all these people seemed so familiar. "I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where's Gamora?"
Tony, too, caught on. He removed his helmet as well. "Gamora? Quill, you absolute moron. It's us."
It was the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy. Or at least a few of them.
The man, Quill, lowered his gun, suddenly realizing who was talking to him. He glanced between Tony and Spencer for a moment before speaking again as he released Peter from his grasp. "I thought you were going back to Earth? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Well, you see, Thanos apparently had other plans for us once we got there," Tony replied, unable to hide the annoyance in his voice as he lowered his hand and removed his foot from the man on the floor's chest. Turns out that was Drax. "Didn't exactly plan on getting abducted today."
Spencer, however, was unmoved, and kept her palm pointed at Quill. "Thanks for helping my best friend fight off your father-in-law, jackass. Heard you did a real bang-up job with helping while she was getting tortured with the Power Stone," she snapped.
"Spence," Tony tried to calm her, placing a hand on her arm.
"No! He needs to hear this!" Spencer countered, shrugging his hand off her. "Some guardians you are. You talked a big game before we all separated, but I see that those words were just unwarranted boasts."
Quill snorted, offended. "If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at her stupid boyfriend who had a damn Infinity Stone."
Peter shuffled awkwardly back over to Spencer and Tony. "Um... did I miss something?"
Spencer sighed. "Long story short, we were in space to forge alliances. Anja is basically engaged to Loki. They-"
"Okay, time out... Loki? Like the guy who attacked New York? That Loki?" Peter interrupted.
"Yes, that guy," Tony answered, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
"Alright, strange choice, but good for her I guess," Peter continued. "Continue."
"Anyway, they went with these lunatics here to go try to retrieve an Infinity Stone, and she got tortured by Thanos to get Loki to give him the Stone he had before nearly killing them all," Spencer briefly summarized.
"Whoa, I missed a lot," Peter said, rubbing his head sheepishly. "She's okay now though, right?"
Tony nodded. "Physically, yeah. Mentally... debatable."
"Okay, that's... mostly good," Peter replied.
Spencer put her attention back on Quill. "Regardless, I'm not going to blame Loki. A detail you missed is that him having that stone delayed Thanos by a few months," she snapped. "But your head is so far up your ass you can't see that."
Quill huffed. "Whatever. If you aren't going to help me get Gamora back from him, get out of my way."
Peter turned to look at him. "So, you guys aren't with Thanos?"
Quill was indignant. "With Thanos? No, I'm here to kill Thanos! He took my girl."
"Well it would seem that we are all here for similar reasons," Strange finally spoke up. "We'll have to set these petty disagreements aside if we want a chance to stop Thanos here and now."
Spencer reluctantly lowered her arm. Strange was right, even if she didn't want to admit it. She'd have to do her damnedest to not strangle Quill, but if it meant stopping Thanos, then so be it.
*****
Spencer reluctantly stood on the surface of Titan between her friends and the Guardians. The planet didn't look any better close up than it did from space. Spencer had seen deserts look more habitable than Titan. Whatever happened here had to have been absolutely horrible. She couldn't help but think the only reason Thanos hasn't abandoned it yet was because it was his home planet, but surely most other planets would've been better suited for life?
She supposed that was probably why he wanted to wipe out half of all life.
Quill stood a few feet away, arm outstretched as he held some glowing yellow instrument. "The hell happened to this planet? It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place."
He couldn't see it, but some distance behind him, Mantis was jumping joyfully in what appeared to be a low gravity spot as if she was on a trampoline. Spencer stifled a laugh, but kept it together as Tony continued their serious conversation.
"Yeah, we got one advantage. He's coming to us," he said, glancing around before turning to face the others. "We'll use it." He took a few steps towards Peter, Mantis, and Drax; Spencer and Quill followed suit. "Alright, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet."
Drax yawned.
Tony was far from amused. "Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"
Drax was unmoved. "I stopped listening after you said 'we need a plan.'"
Tony looked to Quill as he gestured at Drax. "Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page."
"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they do," Quill admitted.
Peter looked absolutely baffled and gestured at them with an outstretched arm. "Uh, what exactly is it that they do?"
"Kick names, take ass," Mantis replied without hesitation. She didn't sound intimidating at all.
Spencer held back another laugh. If nothing else, at least Mantis was hilarious, even if she wasn't trying to be.
"Yeah, that's right," Drax agreed as he settled into a stance with his hands on his belt as he turned to face the Avengers.
The look on Tony's face Spencer knew all too well. One of deep hopelessness, as he was coming to terms with the fact that these were the people who he had to rely on to stop Thanos and get them all out of there alive. They were totally going to die here. Spencer saw Peter look at Tony too, and she was sure he knew what he was thinking too.
"Alright, just get over here please," he replied, resigned. "Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?"
Quill rolled his eyes. "Mr. Lord. Starlord is fine."
He gestured to his friends with a nod, and Drax and Mantis slowly made their way to the rest of the group. Once they joined the circle, Tony continued.
"We gotta coalesce. 'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude-"
"Dude, don't call us plucky. We don't know what it means," Quill interrupted. Alright, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plan, and that way it might be really good."
If Spencer didn't want to punch him before, now she really wanted to.
"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe," Drax added.
Tony looked at Quill incredulously. "What dance-off?"
Spencer could tell he was embarrassed. "It's not a... it's not... it's nothing," Quill stuttered.
"He must've lost," she muttered.
"Like in Footloose, the movie?" Peter asked, moving his arm excitedly.
Quill's eyes lit up, and his voice was excited when he answered, "Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?"
"It never was," Peter retorted.
Quill just frowned.
"Don't encourage this, alright?" Tony scolded Peter, turning to face him and Spencer alone.
"Okay."
"We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here," Tony continued.
Quill didn't take kindly to that, and shifted over to them."Flash Gordon? By the way, that's a compliment," he started. "Don't forget, I'm half human. So that 50% of me that is stupid?" He pointed at the three of them, making a little circle with his hand. "That's 100% you."
All Spencer could do was blink a few times at the audacity of this guy.
"Your math is blowing my mind," Tony sassed back.
Before anyone could say anything snarky back, Mantis interrupted them, her voice layered with concern and urgency. "Excuse me, but... does your friend often do that?"
Everyone turned to see Doctor Strange floating slightly above the ground, sitting cross-legged. His hands were poised in a mystic gesture, the Time Stone glowing brightly inside the Eye of Agamotto, green vapor-like energy flowed from the stone, while more intricate green energy patterns circled his forearms. The Cloak of Levitation flowed behind him, as if the Stone had created a strong breeze. Strange's eyes were closed, but his head was jerking rapidly from side to side, the motions blurred although it seemed as if he was looking for something. Spencer had only just met the man today, but even she assumed this was not normal.
"Strange! We alright?" Tony called out to him.
The doctor snapped out of his trance, and fell forward, letting out a cry as the rest of the group approached him.
"You're back; you're alright," Tony continued, kneeling down in front of him.
"Hey! What was that?" Peter asked, concerned.
Spencer wasn't sure she wanted an answer to that.
Strange was panting, but between breaths he spoke. "I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."
"How many did you see?" Quill asked.
"14,000,605," Strange said matter-of-factly.
Tony asked the question everyone was thinking but too afraid to ask. "How many did we win?"
Strange stared back intently at Tony for a moment before answering. "One"
Spencer looked to the ground for a moment before shifting her gaze upwards to the sky. They had one chance. That was it. If everything didn't go perfectly, they were certainly going to lose. So many factors, so many ways things could go wrong- especially since there was another group of people on Earth who were likely going to have to be absolutely perfect in order for Thanos to lose. The Avengers had overcome ridiculous odds before, but Spencer couldn't shake the feeling that they were in way over their heads this time.
*****
Hey everyone. Sorry this took me a bit to write. What a summer it has been... Admittedly this has been the worst few months I've had in a long time now, and as such my writing has taken a hit as a result. My mindset has been... well, a bit of a mess for a while. It took me what seemed like an eternity to finish the chapter for my other story, but this one I wrote in a couple days tops. (Mostly because I could use the movie heavily as an outline in this one, but I digress.) I am hoping to get back to "normal" and get updates to be more regular again. I am growing ever closer to the snap, and I am admittedly anxious and excited about it all at the same time.
I appreciate your patience with me, as always. I hope all of you are doing well in these times. Hopefully it won't take me too long for another update. Fingers crossed.
~arty_writes