Prelude - Titan

His breaths came in short gasps, anything else would set his entire left side off in pain, so it was only due to muscle memory that his hand sprayed the wound that went through his side with the med Nanos from what was left of his suit.

"Mr. Stark!"

There was someone… He fought against the pain clouding his vision, trying to focus on the familiar voice…

"Oh man… K-Karen? Ch-change the setup to patch web and - uh - r-run a diagnosis too ok?"

"On it Peter."

Now there were hands on his face, making him look up to-

"Mr. - Mr. Stark? How do- H-how do you feel?"

"Hey Kid," he said recognizing Peter, his voice weak and delirious "Wha- where are we?"

Peter furrowed his eyebrows, and a glint of panic settled in them. Why was he panicking?

"Karen?"

"I can't get a clear reading of Mr. Stark's injury, the nanotech he applied to himself is not compatible with my scanner, but it is working on fixing the damage. I think that the pain caused by the injury is high enough to make him delirious."

There was a whispered curse before Peter's voice filtered back through the haze he hadn't noticed was clouding his mind again.

"Mr. Stark, I'm going to apply a variation of web that helps with injuries ok?"

Tony just nodded dumbly and smiled, there was something important going on just before…

Thwip-thwip

The effect was almost instantaneous, first something cold pressed to his side, and then the pain dulled until it was something he could actually deal with and not the overwhelming sensation from a moment ago, and then he was being laid to the ground by-

"Peter?"

"Mr. Stark!" he said, brightening at the clarity of his voice "Are you feeling better?"

Tony nodded, and moved his hand to his side, where he felt-

"Don't touch it!" Peter scolded softly, stopping the motion with his hand. "It's barely holding over your nanotech, all it's doing is work as an anesthetic so…"

Silence fell between them as he took in his surroundings, everything coming back to him. The flying donut, rescuing Strange, the fight with Thanos…

The attempt to stop Thanos…

"Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"Did we really lose?"

God, how much it pained him to hear that fearful tone coming out of his upbeat and nerdy intern…

"Well," he said, wincing as he tried to sit up, and giving Peter a look when he tried to force him back to the ground, "the giant raisin wiped the floor with all of us and got what he wanted, so…"

Another second of silence went by, while he saw the ragtag team that tried to make a stand against Thanos group back around him and Peter, sans-

"It's all as it must be," Strange spoke for the first time from his spot, leaning against a rock while looking about to fall again at any moment.

"So we were meant to lose?" the purple mean-looking girl hissed, ready to tear Strange a new one, and actually he felt like joining too "Then why go through the effort to fight him?"

Strange said nothing at first, he just turned in his direction, then he opened his mouth.

"If you make God bleed, then the people will stop fearing him, and the sharks will come."

Ivan Vanko… But what did that-

The ground started to rumble making everyone fall again.

"What now!?" He heard Quill yell over the noise.

"I'm sorry Tony!" Strange shouted back "But we're in the endgame now!"

"Mr. Stark!" Peter's voice reached him "Look!"

Tony turned his head in the direction the finger pointed to, where he could see a crack in the sky.

"What the-"

The sky shattered, and everything went red.

A/N: The first note will go on the next chapter, double upload after all :D