The ship has been flying itself for a while now — Tony hasn't exactly been keeping track of the time — but it finally approaches a large, red planet that looks dusty as they get closer. Peter, who had been exploring, walks up behind Tony and Strange, all three now looking through the windshield.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asks calmly.

"I think we're here," Strange replies.

Tony watches as the ground seems to get closer and closer. "I don't think this rig has a self-park function." He turns and looks at Peter as he grabs one of the two steering mechanisms, meant for one very large hand. "Get your hand into this steering gimbal." He shows Peter how to lock it in. "Close those around it."

"Okay," Peter replies, going to the other gimbal, doing as Tony says.

"You understand?"

"Yep, got it-"

Tony talks over him. "This was meant for one big guy, so we gotta to move at the same time."

"Okay, okay. Ready," Peter replies after quickly preparing himself, his mask going back up. They rapidly approach the ground, and a large, almost starfish-shaped structure threatens to hit them. "We might wanna turn," Peter says, becoming panicked when the structure gets closer. "Turn, turn, turn!"

Tony puts his suit back on with a tap on his arc reactor, needing more power to turn the gimbal. He and Peter manage it, slightly, but the bottom of the ship goes through the structure, taking damage as it does so, rattling its passengers inside. And then the top hits the structure too, shaking the whole ship. Strange casts a large shield spell around the three of them, holding it there as Peter and Tony try to steer, though it's hard to see the windshield through Strange's magic.

And then the whole ship falls apart, the donut turning into a mere half-circle. It hits the ground, running a rut deep into the dirt, all three of the passengers getting knocked over in the process, but they're unharmed thanks to Strange.

He gets up quickly and hurries to Tony, for Peter is no where in sight. He reaches a hand down. "You alright?"

"Yeah." Tony nods, letting Strange help him up. "That was close. I owe you one."

And then Peter, hanging upside down, lowers himself behind Strange and says, "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 sternly says, "I do not want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip, you understand?"

"I'm trying to say that something is coming," Peter replies, pointing behind him.

At that moment, a grenade rolls in between the three of them and explodes, knocking them all to the ground. Tony sees three people — aliens? — run on the ship. A large, bald, grey alien shouts, "Thanos!" and throws knives at Strange, who blocks them with a magic shield. His cape flies over and wraps around the alien's head, taking him to the ground.

And then another guy, one with an ugly, bug-looking mask on his face, starts flying and blasting with two guns that shoot lasers or something, and he's blasting at Tony.

Tony gets to his feet after being disoriented for a few moments (during the whole grey alien thing) and he blasts back, following the guy through the ship, even launching a small rocket at him. The guy dodges it, but it hits the part of the ship in front of him and blasts him back, right into Tony, who grabs him and throws him to the ground. He lands on his feet and laughs, pressing a button, which turns out to be a control for the magnet that he somehow attached to Tony's chest. Tony is stuck to the wall of the ship.

Meanwhile, Peter has been unconscious, having hit his head when he fell, but he wakes up to a seemingly female alien, who's light green and has antennae with glowing ends leaning over him. Peter shrieks and backs away quickly. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Please don't put your eggs in me!" She runs at him, and he shoots webs at her, causing her to stop.

And then some random dude kicks Peter, knocking him into some damaged part of the ship, saying, "Stay down, clown!" Peter flips, unfolding his spider legs and landing on them as the random, bug-masked dude blasts at him with little laser guns. Peter leaps up, flipping in midair, dodging the blasts, then lands on the other side of the dude and lunges at him.

The dude throws something at Peter out of nowhere, and it wraps around him, tying him up and shocking him to death at the same time.

The grey alien is still fighting with the cape, shouting, "Die, blanket of death!" Tony finally manages to detach himself from the ship and runs over, planting a foot on his chest and aiming his hand blaster at his head. The cape flies away, and the grey alien — who, upon a closer look, has deep red patterns covering him — grabs Tony's foot.

Tony looks up, and, across from him, the bug dude is holding Peter in one arm and aiming a blaster at his head with the other, so Tony, panicked, aims his free hand at him. Strange is about ten feet away on Tony's right, a spell in front of his right hand, ready to be used.

"Alright, everybody, stay where you are!" bug dude shouts, touching the side of his mask, causing it to retract into... somewhere. He could pass for a human. He points his blaster at Tony. "I'm only gonna ask you this one time: Where is Gamora?"

Tony retracts his own helmet. "Yeah, I'll do you one better: Who's Gamora?"

The grey alien beneath him shouts, "I'll do you one better: Why is Gamora?!"

Strange looks at the grey alien with utter confusion and disbelief, but bug guy ignores it all completely, pointing his blaster back at Peter. "Tell me where the girl is, or I'm gonna French-fry this little freak."

Tony's heart seizes, the phrase, Not him, not him, not him, repeating over and over in his mind as he screams, "Let's do it! You shoot my guy, I blast him! Let's go!" His blaster turns into the biggest weapon he has, one that almost resembles a predatory animal, and it crackles with electricity.

"Do it, Quill!" the grey alien shouts. "I can take it."

From behind the bug dude called Quill, a light green alien with antenna, wrapped up in Peter's webs, jumps over and shouts, "No, he can't take it!"

"She's right. You can't," Strange calmly says.

Quill looks at him, then Tony. "Oh yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is? That's fine. I'll kill all three of you and beat it out of Thanos myself." He looks at Peter, pressing the blaster against his head. "Starting with you."

"Wait, what? Thanos-?" Strange asks. Quickly, he says, "Alright, let me ask you this one time: What master do you serve?"

Quill looks at him dumbly. "What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

Peter's eyes widen under the suit. "You know Star Wars?!"

Tony lowers his hand and retracts his monster weapon. "You're from Earth?"

"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri," Quill replies.

"Yeah, that's on Earth, idiot," Tony says. "What are you hassling us for?"

"So... you're not with Thanos?" Peter asks, confused.

"With Thanos?!" Quill shouts. "No, I'm here to kill Thanos! He took my girl. Wait — who are you?" He drops his blaster and releases his hold on Peter.

Peter retracts his mask. "We're the Avengers, man."

Antenna girl loudly says, "You're the ones Thor told us about."

Tony looks at her. "You know Thor?"

Quill nods, looking like he regrets his answer. "Yeah. Tall guy, not that good-looking-" Peter looks disbelieving of this statement "-needed saving."

Strange, his magic having been lowered ages ago, asks, "Where is he now?"

Quill blows out a puff of air, runs a hand through his hair. "Ni- Nidal- Nidalvor-" he sees everyone looking at him expectantly and strangely at his horrible pronunciation skills "-I can't freaking say it, okay? The point is, he went with two of my crew to get a weapon to kill Thanos."

"And when will he be here?" Peter asks, especially liking the 'kill Thanos' part.

Quill looks at him incredulously. "Well, how am I supposed to know?! He didn't really say anything else."

"He told us about Thanos attacking his ship," the grey alien says, still on the ground. "You just weren't listening."

"I was too listening!" Quill argues.

"We already know all that anyway," Strange cuts in. "What we need to do now is figure out a plan. Because Thanos is coming here, if I'm not mistaken-"

"You aren't," Quill says.

"Nebula is coming," antenna girl adds brightly, "and she said Thanos is too!"

Tony looks at her with furrowed brows. "Who?"

Quill sighs. "Thanos' kid — my girl's sister. They both hate him."

"She's a cyborg!" antenna girl says.

Tony sighs deeply. "Morons," he mutters. "They're all morons..."

~~~~

Everyone but Bucky, Sam, and Rhodey are lead inside by T'Challa, all the way up to the lab, which is run by his younger sister, Shuri. He said she and Grace were close in age, and he also mentioned that she practically built Wakanda with her tech. Grace thought she was awesome even before she met her, though they couldn't really talk for long, as Shuri had to help them with Vision's situation, which is what she's trying to do now.

Vision is laying on a table while she scans him with a device on her hand. When she's finished, she turns her hand over, and a projected replica of the stone floats over her palm.

"Woah," Bruce and Grace say, almost at the same time.

"The structure is polymorphic," Shuri observes.

Bruce nods; he's standing on the other side of Vision, across from her. "Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially."

"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Shuri asks. Vision looks at Bruce, waiting for an answer.

Bruce grimaces. "'Cause, we... didn't think of it."

Shuri smiles. "I'm sure you did your best."

"Can you do it?" Wanda suddenly asks.

Shuri looks at her, sighs. "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." She looks at T'Challa. "It will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve asks.

"As long as you can give me."

And then they here a beeping, like a quieter electronic alarm. Okoye (T'Challa introduced her as they were walking to the lab) turns her hand over and taps something on her bracelet. A ball rolls off it, projecting a gridded circle with pulsing lines emanating from one spot. Okoye looks grave. "Something's entered the atmosphere."

Sam's voice erupts from Steve's speaker-phoned comm. "Hey, Cap, we got a situation here." Everyone moves to the windows but Vision and Shuri. Outside, there's an explosion, and Grace can see from the window that a small craft from space just fell directly on top of Wakanda, but the force field surrounding the country prevented it from making contact with the ground.

"Wow, I love this place," Bucky marvels.

Then Rhodey says, "Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Similar crafts touch down, all the way across the water, but the impact is hard enough to hit the force field, causing the bottom of it to flash blue.

Vision struggles to sit up, then to stand. "It's too late. We need to destroy the stone now."

Nat turns. "Vision, get back on that table." Grace rushes over to help him.

"We will hold them off," T'Challa declares, walking off, Nat following.

"Wanda, as soon as the stone's out of his head," Steve says, "you blow it up."

Wanda nods. "I will."

"Evacuate the city," T'Challa says to his force. "Engage all defenses." He points at Steve. "And get this man a shield."

~~~~

They've moved out onto the surface of the planet now. It's called Titan, according to Quill, and it's Thanos' home. It's a ruin too.

"The heck happened to this planet?" Quill asks, holding out some of kind of measuring device. The ship he and his crew came here in is parked hundreds of feet away, but it's still visible. Quill looks at his device. "It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place."

Everyone is scattered, and Peter is looking around at everybody, trying to remember everything. They went around in a circle like elementary schoolers, saying their names — some of them their "made up names," if they had them. Peter struggles to remember them all, but he tries.

There's Quill, also known as Star Lord, the grey alien is Drax, the antenna girl — who's jumping up and down in a spot where the gravity is weird — is Mantis, and then, of course, Doctor Strange. All of them have weird names.

"Yeah, we got one advantage," Tony says to everyone. "He's coming to us. We'll use it.

"Alright, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one." Most drift closer to listen to him, except for Strange, who's floating off to the side, eyes closed and in a meditative position. Green light circles his hands. Tony continues. "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." He looks over and sees Drax yawning pronouncedly. Mantis is looking at him with curiosity. Incredulously, Tony asks,  "Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"

Drax glances at Mantis, then looks back at Tony, though he doesn't sound at all sarcastic when he replies, "I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan.'"

Tony looks at Quill. "Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page."

"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they... do," Quill replies.

Peter raises a brow. "Uh, what exactly is it that they do?"

Mantis looks at Peter. "Kick names, take butt."

Drax nods, taking a sort of 'tough guy' stance, his hands on his belt buckle. "Yeah, that's right."

Tony looks at them both for a long, exasperated moment. Peter looks at Tony for answers, but he doesn't receive any. Tony sighs very deeply. "Alright, just get over here, please." He looks at Quill. "Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?"

"'Mr. Lord,'" Quill quotes with amusement. "Star-Lord is fine." He waves over Drax and Mantis.

Tony continues. "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 cuts in. "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."

Peter looks between Quill and Tony, eyes wide, waiting for Tony to punch Quill into the next galaxy. Then, Drax says, "Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe."

Tony looks at Quill. "What dance-off?"

"It's not a- it's not- it's nothing," Quill says.

Peter's brows furrow. "Like in Footloose, the movie?"

Quill gasps softly in excitement. "Exactly like Footloose." Peter becomes even more confused, then Quill asks, "Is it still the greatest movie in history?"

Peter looks like he's trying to do AP Calculus work in his head. "It... It never was."

"Don't encourage this, alright?" Tony says before Quill can respond.

Peter nods. "Okay."

"We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here."

"Flash Gordon?" Quill says. "By the way, that's a compliment. And, I'm half human. So that fifty percent of me that's stupid? That's one hundred percent you."

"Your math is blowing my mind," Tony replies.

Quill goes to respond, but then Mantis interrupts, warily pointing at Strange. "Excuse me. But... does your friend often do that?"

Tony looks at Strange, who's still in a meditative position with green light around his hands, but now there's a softer green smoke surrounding his torso, and the Time Stone is glowing bright green in his necklace. The most concerning part, however, is his rapidly moving head, almost like they were watching him via a scratched up, fast-forwarding DVD. "Strange!" Tony says. "We alright?"

Strange doesn't respond, so Tony walks forward, reaching him about as soon as he drops, hitting the ground, shouting as if he's woken up from a nightmare. He falls forward, and Tony catches him, crouching.

"You're back. You're alright," he says.

"Hey, what was that?" Peter asks.

"I went forward in time-" Strange starts, though he has to stop to take a breath "-to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."

"How many did you see?" Quill asks.

"Fourteen million six hundred and five."

Tony looks at him, asking a question he's not sure he wants the answer to. "How many did we win?"

Strange pauses, looks at him gravely, knowing everything, what's about to happen, and his heart aches. For all of them.

"One."