Remainder

As I said, I'm not planning to finish this story, so I'll just post what my plan was for the remainder, with the snippets I'd already written out in quotes.

Nat and Clint, naturally, would be fine-they had tapped their chests to activate the Iron-Man suits Stark had given them. They kill Aleta, Martinex, etc. Stakar gives them a rundown of how broken-up the galaxy is from the Decimation, promises to send the Marauders out to look for Thanos.

Meanwhile Tony's not happy.

"Well, this whole place is useless." Stark said, throwing up his hands. "Bunch of giant medieval fancy forgeworks. Must be great if you need to melt a cuirass or put together a set of greaves."

"Or a gauntlet." Rocket suggested. Tony glared at him.

Eitrii snorted without turning around from where he was rooting around in the store room. "Just because your mind is too feeble to understand it, Terran, does not make it useless. It only makes YOU so."

"Oh yeah? Which one of the two of us here actually has a super-suit?" Stark looked around as if genuinely puzzled. "Oh! Is it just me? Gosh, did the useless human do something that the giant genius Snow White reject didn't think to do?"

Another snort. "Ask your friend why the dwarves made no suits of armor for themselves."

Stark looked to Thor.

"Because." Said Thor. "They thought Asgard would be their shield."

Stark winced, but was too pent-up to let the gaffe stop him. "This all is just underscoring my point." He said. "I don't understand this stuff. Like, I'm pretty sure this stuff is just fundamentally in another dimension from what I do. Hey, space monkey, you following any of this?"

Rocket looked suspiciously at Stark. "What's with you and the nicknames, man?"

"Garbage-bear's gear makes more sense to me than any of this magical metallurgy." Stark continued. "And he's got a gun that creates circuitry. Here, about the only bit I DID understand was that the stuff that gets made here would burn through the mind and body of a 'lesser mortal' like myself. Right?" He looked to Thor, who nodded. "And forgive me for noticing, but our entire remaining team is made up of 'lesser mortals'."

Anyway. He comes around eventually, of course, in part because...

"Well, I sure as hell ain't the philosophic sort." Rocket sighed. "But… look. That speech you made. About how… y'know. You're alive because 'fate wills it so', or something."

"Yes." Thor nodded, a look of pain on his face.

"Well, it just… got me thinking." Rocket said. "Why Groot and not me? I mean, it was literally 50-50. Him or me. Half the universe. In a snap. So why'd the universe decide to take the bratty teenage talking plant instead of the bratty half-dead garbage bear?"

"Luck." Tony said.

"Fate wills it so." Thor said.

"Ehhh… sounds a bit cheesy when you say it like that, but yeah, basically." Rocket made a waffling motion with his hands. "I mean, you…" He gestured to Thor. "All that you said about how destiny decrees you will kill Thanos? It's still true. You ought to be dead three different ways just in the time I've known you. Pretty sure if Thanos had any say about it you'd be dead too. But someone wants you alive, and…" Rocket swallowed and looked down. "…someone wants me alive." Regaining confidence, he looked back up. "And I can't help but think it's to kick Thanos' ass."

"Head. Not the ass. The head this time." Thor gave a great smile. "But I agree."

"Hang on, what'd you say?" Tony said, looking up for the first time. "You, Ranger Rick, what was that about… someone wants us alive?"

"Well, I ain't a religious guy, like I said, I mean, I'm a flippin freak of nature." Rocket said. "But pirate-angel says 'Fate' and I'm good with that."

"Strange." Tony said.

Rocket shrugged. "Hey, these are weird times. We all get a little loopy, I guess…"

"No, no. Strange. Dr. Steven Strange." Tony said. "He wanted me alive. He made a bargain with half the universe to keep me alive." His eyes flitted back and forth. "Why didn't I think about that? Why did I just assume… I just thought he was being stupid, just got attached to me somehow…"

"You." Rocket raised an eyebrow. "Buddy, I've known you for a month and I can tell you, you're insufferable. And coming from me, that's saying something."

"Exactly." Tony lifted a finger. "It is saying something because Strange basically told me he wouldn't do the exact thing that he did do for the exact reasons I assumed he did, so that implies he did it for other reasons…" his voice trailed off.

"Point Break." He said, suddenly turning to Thor. "Anyone make a deal with Thanos for your life? Like say Thanos promised not to kill you if they gave him an Infinity Stone."

Thor blinked, pain briefly crossing his eyes. "Yes. Loki surrendered the Tesseract in exchange for my head." Thor suddenly seemed to realize something. "Oh, and the rest of me, of course, not just the head separate from the body."

"So you almost kill Thanos. That's gotta piss Thanos off." Tony said, standing up and moving toward Thor. "The moment of the snap, if Thanos' is thinking anything, even on a subconscious level, it's gotta be this guy right here, kill him and his stupid hammer right now, but the Gauntlet doesn't. Why?"

"Because Fate decrees it so."

"No." Tony held up a finger. "Because Loki decrees it so. In my case, because Strange decrees it so. Don't you see, we survived because Thanos promised on an Infinity Stone not to kill us. Literal Purple Pinky Promise."

Thor frowned. "I don't..."

"And that means…" Tony turned back to the forge, a new light in his eyes, "…Strange saved me for a reason."

"To kick Thanos' ass." Rocket grinned.

"Head." Thor corrected.

"You didn't meet this guy." Tony said. "Avenging wasn't his style. He was a guardian. If he saved me, he didn't save me to kill Thanos." Tony put his hands on the forge. "He saved me to save everyone."

So Tony gets on working an Asgardian Iron Man suit, one that can store the stones in the chest. Thor goes back to Earth to pick up Banner, but when he heads back, he picks up an unexpected tag-along-who manages to stay hidden for a while, but not forever.

Shuri tried to leap back into the rafters, but Stark was too quick. A pod thudded into her chest, reaching out long spider arms and trapping her arms against her sides. A sudden electric shock raced through her system and she fell to the ground with a little scream.

Stark was on top of her nearly immediately. "Enhanced reflexes my ass." He growled. "Cap could have dodged that on his worst day. You're nothing more than a teenager in a fancy suit, aren't you?"

Shuri struggled against her bonds. She knew they were too strong to break, but that wasn't the point. "Release me! I am the queen of Wakanda!"

"A bit out of your jurisdiction here, your highness, and didn't I tell you to stay home?" Stark stood, pointing a finger at her. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Oooh." Thor looked suddenly very self-conscious, tapping his Stormbreaker. "…I thought the BiFrost seemed a little slow last time…"

"Are you serious right now?" Stark rounded on the Asgardian. "Really? She hitched a ride on your rainbow bridge because… what, your back was turned?"

Shuri could not resist a grin. "I may be a teenager in a fancy suit," she said, bringing all eyes back to her, "but I'm very sneaky when I need to be."

The whine of the suit's kinetic charger was reaching a high point—pulling energy from the binder device. Shuri closed her eyes and sent a mental command.

The binder burst outward in an explosion. Shuri leapt back and away from Stark's clumsy follow-up blast, and whipped around her sonic blasters just as three more spider-catchers were flying toward her.

One single blast sent all three dissolving into pieces. A second set Stark's new vibranium suit wavering, patches of armor dissolving away as the sonic waves battered it.

Shuri raised her hands, and the sonic gauntlets retracted. "You haven't compensated for the vibrational difference." She said. "That armor won't hold up to anyone who knows anything about Vibranium. None of the suits you've made with your stolen metal will."

"The metal was a present, actually." Stark said. But he was listening, not attacking, and Shuri took that as a good sign.

She raised her hands in a smug gesture. "If you're going to make anything remotely useful with that stuff, you're going to need someone who's actually handled it before. Maybe someone who…" she considered, gave a shrug, "…made suits of armor with it before?"

There was a silence. Stark and Rocket kept their guns trained on her. Thor stood easily apart, but his hammer was in his hand.

"You so much look out a window and I will bust your ass in detention." Stark said, and his guns retracted. "You help us with the weapons tech, then it's straight back home."

Shuri considered. "I don't seem to get a lot out of that deal."

"It's the only one you're getting." Stark said.

"It better not be." Shuri scoffed. "You need me, so make me a better offer."

"You're not going against Thanos or any other space baddie." Stark said. "Non-negotiable. Us using your weapons to kill Thanos is the closest you're getting to revenge for your brother."

Shuri blinked. "I don't want revenge."

"Say what?" Rocket lowered his weapon. "Look, kid, you can tell us, it's fine. We're all about revenge here. Everyone helping us is all about revenge. Your whole planet basically told us 'eff yeah, revenge!'"

"I don't want revenge." Shuri repeated. "One lives. One dies. That is all. My brother wanted revenge for my father. My mother wanted revenge for my brother. But neither led to anything. Revenge serves nothing. My brother lived a life of danger; if he had not died in the field he should have died on the throne. He took many of Thanos' people with him. It is a fair accounting. No vengeance is necessary."

Stark tilted his head. "So… what are you after?"

Shuri shrugged. "I want to help." She said. "I want to do as my brother did. I want to show the world what Wakanda has to offer."

There was a silence.

"Help us and I'll consider adding you to the Avenger's junior roster once this is over." Stark said.

"Full roster." Shuri tilted her head.

"Full roster, depending on my and Cap's say-so." Stark said. "Assuming we're both alive after this is over. And my say-so is going to depend a lot on how well you can follow orders, specifically, 'don't leave the lab.'"

Shuri snorted and crossed her arms. "If you think you can keep me here."

Stark stepped up closer to her. "Listen to me very carefully, catgirl." He said. His voice was low and dangerous. "The last kid your age we had in the Avengers disobeyed my orders, and ended up dying on a desolate graveyard of a planet lightyears away from anyone who ever knew or cared about him." His eyes bored into her. "Understand that I will go up against Thanos in a terrycloth suit of armor if I have to be sure that I won't be watching another sixteen-year-old kid crumble away in front of me."

Shuri had been told that her talent for snark was just a little bit too strong. That she wasn't good at reading the room and had a tendency to make witty comebacks at exactly the point the person wasn't in the mood to hear them. That, in fact, emotionally tense moments made this worse for her as her nervousness turned to her caustic wit as a defense mechanism.

She tilted her head. "You do realize he would have crumbled away wherever he'd been, right?"

#

"It's really kind of impressive." Thor said to her later. "I never thought I'd meet someone more intentionally abrasive than Stark."

"Society of assholes here." Rocket said. "Well, except for pirate-angel, of course, cause he's gotta be annoying like that."

And that's as much as I had. Long-term, the idea was-find Thanos, get the gems, snap everyone back to life. Basically what they try to do in the first fifteen minutes of Endgame. Vision was going to come back in the yellow glowy form he sometimes has in the comics. I had some thoughts of implying a Peter/Shiuri pairing at the end, but that was it. Probably why my interest died away, I didn't have a really solid idea of what I wanted for the ending.