THANOS
It had been countless years since his planet had fallen to the weakness of morality, and without someone strong enough to do the needful. Thanos walked the blasted, irradiated sands of Titan and felt an uncomfortable emotion in his chest.
He was not a being prone to such... weakness, yet it was something he did every so often. A weakness he allowed himself to ensure he did not forget his purpose. Every blasted building, every collapsed structure, every ruined piece of former priceless architecture he passed, reminded him of the cost his world had paid, a cost he refused to let any other world pay.
His weakness had caused the downfall of Titan.
He came to a slow stop, armored feet sinking into sand. Soft brown eyes picked up something partially hidden in the sand. His armour creaked as he bent to a knee, then his fingers dug into the sand and lifted up his prize. A toy, one that was vaguely familiar.
It took him too long to realize he had pried the toy out of a well-withered and desiccated arm. Thanos did not need his intellect or knowledge to guess the identity of the owner. Even still hidden beneath the sands of destruction that littered the blasted planet, the small digits and its previous tight grip on the toy told him enough.
It had been a child.
A crackle of lightning lit up the far distance, and he glanced up from his pondering only long enough to take note of the electric storm in the distance. It was moving fast, overwhelming what little standing structures remained, and fast enough to cut short this moment of systemic weakness and reminder he allowed himself all too often.
He allowed the toy to slip from his fingers. If only he had been strong enough, not just physically. As a Deviant, he had been more physically imposing than even regular Titans, and as the prince, he had enough political power, both soft and hard, to impose his will regardless of what his people had thought, but in the end, after they had turned down his suggestion, he had simply given up, allowed himself to be banished because he had lacked something vital, something that would've spared his people the extinction they had faced.
He had lacked the strength of will.
He tilted his head, allowing the scorching sun to heat up his purple skin as his brown eyes caught sight of the cracked moon. The satellite hung too close to the planet to be reasonable, but whatever was left of the seas on planet Titan were cracked and sundered seabeds. There was no body of water for the moon to affect, leaving it a partially beautiful satellite, another victim of war that had ravaged the planet.
Another crackle, and his eyes shifted to the electric storm. It was closer now, moving like something alive, something organic, another weapon unleashed upon the planet, a weapon that did not realize its job was done. He glanced back at the toy and the fingers of the dead child.
"I will be back, child."
He whispered out a promise as his feet took him once more. Taking a ship back with the electric storm ruling the clouds was a waste of time. The only thing he could do was wait it out, so he kept on walking till he found a good enough shelter.
It was a superstructure, one of the dozens of star-shaped artificial satellites his people had created. Bastions of knowledge and research, they were well insulated and protected, built with the strongest of materials and reinforced with technology lost to even him.
They had been one of the first things to have been attacked, shot down, and left to ruin.
Thanos found his way into one through a collapsed wall section. His feet took him down a familiar path till he found a good enough place to sit and wait out the storm that even now had reached him. The structure's insulation held. Even thousands of years later, Titan's engineering had been ahead of any other at its prime.
Their strength, their advancement in relation to the other races, had been their curse.
He was left once more to his thoughts. His banishment and exile had broken him. The extinction of his planet and people had almost shattered what was left of him, till he realized he had been right. He had been vindicated. If they had put his plan into action, if he had fought harder to ensure it happened, they would've lived. That was the thought, that was the reminder that brought him back from the dark, that was the building block of who he was now.
That realization had banished his weakness. The lack of will, the strength of spirit that had held him back from saving his world, saving his people, had left him that day. Now all that remained of him was a goal, a plan, to do what he could not do previously, to save the universe from the same fate his planet had suffered, and in the deepest parts of his mind, he allowed himself to admit another truth...
He wanted to share the pain of his loss. Even if it was only half of it.
The electric storm let off, and Thanos found his way to his feet once more, and he took the previous path. The electric storm had done little to change the topography of the planet. What was there to ruin other than ruins? There was no difference between a pockmark on a broken wall blasted by lightning and one created by a weapon discharge a thousand years old.
He found his way back to where the toy had been, the only real victim of the storm. He crouched low and picked it up. Part of it was charged, a stray bolt, static filling the air. It did not matter. It had not survived the storm unscathed. The same could be said of the limb revealed by his digging. He knelt once more, picked up the toy, and hung it on his belt before his fingers went to digging once more.
He pulled up the mummified corpse of a child, took off his cloak and wrapped the child in it, then he took the short walk to the mass grave he had deposited a hundred million like it already.
Hours later, he stood over the mass grave of his people. He had buried as many as he could find, but he knew there were hundreds, thousands, millions left hidden in the destroyed and ruined planet. Littered in trenches, in buildings, under the blasted sands. Planet Titan itself was a mass grave, and he was the sole gravekeeper.
He received a transmission a second later, and he brought up the pad with a frown. It was a message from Ebony Maw. His first son should know better. His time on the planet was not one to be disturbed, not one to be interrupted by inane drivel. The only reason why Ebony Maw would break that unwritten rule was if it was something important. Something that overrode his self-inflicted ritual.
He answered the message and was greeted by Ebony Maw's long face.
"Speak, my child."
The alien hesitated for a second, a second too many, and Thanos straightened, looking down his purple nose at the alien, and with a gesture Ebony Maw spoke, his voice shaking only slightly.
"They failed, my lord. Corvus and Proxima failed you, and they are dead for it."
Thanos did not freeze, but he allowed himself one final moment of weakness. He turned away from the data pad and the holograph of Ebony Maw's features and looked to his planet, to his home. Former Prince of Titan, now Prince of Ashes. He had lacked the strength of will to do what had to be done before. His eyes hardened, his features darkened, and the weakness slipped off his frame as he turned away from the mass grave of his failures.
"I'm on my way."
__
Thanos sat in his throne room, one recreated from the image of his father's. Before he had been given the unflattering title of Mad for his suggestion on how to save his people, he had been known as the Kind Prince of Titan. The throne room had been his second home, and on his home ship, Sanctuary, he recreated that image.
It was dark, an inversion of the brighter atmosphere of the throne room of his father, but he would not have had it any other way. He sat upright, fingers steepled before him. One gauntlet-covered hand over the other. His face was hidden in the darkness as he awaited what was left of his children.
The doors before him opened, and in walked two figures that could not have been any more dissimilar. Ebony Maw, his first child, his most loyal, his herald in all but name. The lanky Vhalthari was one of the most intelligent of his kind, a species already known for their prodigious intellect and psychic aptitude. They had been the first to challenge his logic after the death of Titan, in a debate of all things.
He had lost the debate, but had proven to them that in the end, power was what mattered. He decimated half the species and left the other half to rebuild, but not before adopting one of theirs. His first child, as shown by his age, his balding pate, and aged features.
The second figure walked slightly behind Ebony, a giant that towered even above Thanos himself. Obsidian Cull. The massive Khargath was a prime example of his species. Vat-grown in the depths of his volcanic planet, imprinted memories ensured that the moment every pod was decanted, every child was born, they were already terrifying killers.
Cull was a prime example of that species. Massive, brutal, and built like a siege engine. Their homeworld was the perfect representation of their kind, a death world with dense gravity, filled with feral creatures born and bred to hunt down the monstrous Khargath.
They had been the ones to hear of him and challenge him. He had won, but it had been the longest battle, and was easily noted for being the most difficult he had ever been in. Crushing the Nova Corps and their ilk was a stroll on Planet Titan in comparison. The galaxy was lucky the Khargath were a primitive people content to stay on their planet.
The closer they got, the clearer Thanos saw what his child carried. He had assumed the thing on his shoulder was his omni-weapon. He had assumed wrong. The two figures came to a stop in front of his throne, fell to a knee at the same moment, and bowed their heads in supplication.
"Greetings, my lo-"
"What happened to Corvus and Proxima?" he cut Ebony off with a simple demand.
Ebony Maw spoke immediately before Obsidian Cull could or even would. The Khargath could be trusted with any application of violence, but wordplay and diplomacy were anathema to him.
"The information technicians confirmed the death of the response trackers assigned to Corvus and Proxima some eighteen hours ago," Ebony said. His voice was dignified despite the subtle tremble beneath. He could not see Thanos's face in truth. The darkness hid it, but he could see his eyes, eyes that glowed purple from the power of the stone in his gauntlet. "They did not bring this to your attention directly, my lord. Given the nature of your ritual on Titan, they elected to inform me instead."
Thanos said nothing. Cowards. They had feared his wrath, and had instead passed on the message to Ebony, trusting he would not kill his most efficient child out of misplaced rage.
Ebony Maw continued. "The trackers confirmed the termination of both of them. The circumstances behind their death remain unclear, but the location data places the final signal in the vicinity of what the inhabitants of the planet Earth call New York."
Thanos looked at his gauntlet. The Power Stone sat alone in its housing, the purple glowing with power unimaginable. It should have been accompanied by two others, the green of the Time Stone and the yellow hue of the Mind Stone. Instead, they had slipped out of his grasp, just as two of his children had.
He did not grieve them. He had lost that ability after he was left the sole Titan and had to bury his whole planet, but he felt the pain of the loss anyway. So he turned his attention to what Obsidian Cull was carrying.
He had assumed, when they entered, that the object on Cull's shoulder was his weapon. He had assumed incorrectly. The object on Cull's other shoulder was a person. Ebony waved a hand at Cull, and the giant threw his package on the ground.
Thanos looked at the person with only vague surprise, hidden as it was by the darkness of his throne.
The captive stared back at him with uncaring eyes that hid their owner's fear well enough.
"Gamora."
She said nothing.
He had not expected her to. Staring at the green-skinned Zen-Whoberi, she was not the strongest of his children. That was Cull. She was not the smartest. That was Maw. She was not the most technologically advanced. That was Nebula. She was not the best hunter or the best fighter. That position had been Proxima and Corvus. But she, as a child, had possessed something, something unidentifiable that had drawn Thanos to her. This was not the reunion he had hoped for.
"Where?" he said to Ebony, but his eyes were on her.
"Knowhere, my lord," Ebony Maw stated. "She was among a group of misfits that came to stop our acquisition."
Thanos looked at Gamora again.
She was still looking at him with a calm, almost docile expression.
"The Reality Stone," he said.
Ebony produced it, a stone orb housing power unimaginable.
The red of it glowed through the stone, beating to a rhythm only Thanos could hear. The rhythm of the Power Stone. Thanos took it from Ebony's extended hand, turned it once, then squeezed. His strength, bolstered by the Power Stone, broke the containment, revealing the glowing red of the Reality Stone. Then he pressed it into the gauntlet beside the Power Stone.
The energy that moved through him when the two stones connected was a surge of power, a heady cocktail that ran through him, reinforcing his place in the known galaxy, giving him a specific metaphorical weight that opened his senses to a pair of eyes that watched him, if only briefly, before the sensation was gone. He wondered who or what possessed those eyes as he flexed his gauntleted hand. He felt the two stones respond and set his hand back on the armrest.
He was aware of Gamora watching him do it, at the undeniable fear she had shown before she had hidden it under her docile mask. Ebony Maw did not bother to hide his joy and devotion, while Obsidian Cull could not find it in himself to care.
"Congratulations, my lord. We are one step closer."
"We are," he admitted. The addition of another stone bolstered his spirits.
"There is one more thing, my lord," Ebony said.
Thanos gestured for him to speak.
"A ship trailed after us. Several jump points behind, and carefully maintaining distance as though they were aware of our scanning range before our auspex was upgraded for greater range seven months ago. Analysis of the drive signature and hull profile led me to believe it's Nebula's ship."
Thanos was quiet for a moment, then he allowed himself a laugh, a chuckle slipping past his lips.
It was a short one, genuine and affectionate. Two of his children returned to him in the same hour he was told he had lost two. He looked at Ebony. This was why he had been the one to pass on the message of Corvus and Proxima's loss. Because he had brought twice the good news to offset the bad news.
"She will come," he said with a soft smile, indicated by the visible teeth even in the darkness. "Let her."
He looked at Gamora, who had not changed her expression during any of this. Her fingers twitched in the restraints that bound her, but that was all she revealed.
"Contain her somewhere comfortable. She has traveled far to meet her father."
He said this to Cull, who dipped his head once in acknowledgment with a grunt.
Then to Ebony, "Give Nebula access to the ship when she docks. Do not intercept her."
Ebony's expression moved slightly.
"My lord, her intentions-"
"Are not particularly hidden." Thanos looked at the gauntlet. "She wants me dead. If she succeeds, then I was weak. If she does not..." He let the sentence finish itself, his smile turning into something sharper. "Either way, I will have time with her after."
He rose from the throne.
"You may leave," he said, turning his back on them.
Ebony and Cull bowed once more before picking Gamora up, this time gentler. Then they turned and left the throne room, leaving him alone once more.
Brown eyes trailed down and looked at the gauntlet again. Two stones. They could have been four. He would have been two stone shy of his desire. With four stones, he would have stormed this new, reinforced Asgard. With two... he would have to make other plans.
Things were moving in ways he had not predicted. New characters were introducing variables that his original calculations had not accounted for. He had resources and contingencies for most of them. But there were moments, increasingly, where he found himself looking at the board and seeing pieces whose origins he could not immediately trace.
Asgard had been one of those moments, and now Earth.
The same planet that had taken Corvus and Proxima. He had sent them against a sorcerer and an android. Neither of those things should have been sufficient to kill two of his favored children.
He had lost two loyal children and had gained two rebellious ones in return. The universe had a funny sense of humor, and yet even with the return of his two wayward children, it would take too long to make them see the light once more. His thoughts drifted to another. He wondered at the merits of waking him.
He would consider it, but for now, he had other things at hand. The door of the throne room opened behind him, silent. If he had not been waiting and expecting it, he never would have caught it.
"Welcome home, my daughter," he greeted Nebula, turning back only slightly to reveal his features. "It has been too long."
A/N: Guess who Thanos got a glimpse off… shouldn’t be too hard.