Spencer knew that Thanos was coming, but she was not expecting it to be so soon. A couple days, sure, but not now. She didn't anticipate having their nice stroll interrupted by Doctor Strange, and certainly not while they were in the middle of a discussion with him. They just had to show up now. Standing on the other side of the street between piles of debris and overturned cars were two of what she assumed were Thanos' henchmen. One was tall, gray, and thin, while the other one towered over him, and definitely looked like the brute force of the operation.

    "Hear me, and rejoice. You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos," the tall, thin one said. "Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to the balance of..."

    "I'm sorry, Earth is closed today!" Tony yelled out to him, cocky as always. "You better pack it up and get out of here."

    The tall, thin alien looked at Strange, ignoring Tony entirely. "Stone Keeper, does this chattering animal speak for you?"

    "Certainly not. I speak for myself," Strange responded, doing that weird thing with his arms that made his circular orange magic activate around his arms and hands. "But you're trespassing in this city and on this planet."

    "It means get lost, Squidward!" Tony snapped.

    Spencer would've doubled over in laughter if this hadn't been a life or death situation. But the facts of the matter were that this wasn't the time for jokes, and even Squidward wasn't as ugly as the guy Tony was insulting. So Spencer bit her tongue and smiled a little. She could laugh about it later.

    The gray alien sighed. "He exhausts me. Bring me the Stone."

    As the taller, bulkier alien grunted and made his way slowly towards them, Tony glanced at Bruce. "Banner, you want a piece?"

    Bruce sighed. "No, not really, but when do I ever get what I want?"

    "That's right," Tony agreed.

    Spencer watched on as Bruce attempted to release the Hulk, his muscles and body straining with the effort he was putting into it. Despite his attempt, the most that turns green is part of Bruce's neck. Definitely not a good sign.

    "Been a while. Good to have you, buddy," Tony added, eyes still focused on the gargantuan alien walking towards them, smashing vehicles in his wake.

    "I just... I need to concentrate here for one second. Come on, come on, man," Bruce continued to mutter, straining some more.

    Strange and Spencer both looked at him briefly before back at the monstrous alien. Someone needed to be keeping an eye on it, and it wasn't Tony.

    "Where's your guy?" Tony asked incredulously, turning slightly to look at Bruce.

    "I don't know," Bruce admitted. "We've sorta been havin' a thing."

    "There's no time for a thing," Tony continued.

"I know."

Tony gestured at the alien. "That's the thing right there. Let's go."

    Spencer watched in quiet horror as Bruce grunted and strained once again, only to fail to release the Hulk again. Spencer wasn't quite a psychologist, but from her studies, she thought it was safe to assume whatever happened on Knowhere between Hulk and Thanos was probably playing a huge factor in this.

    Tony side glanced at Strange and then back at Bruce. "Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."

    "Tony, I- I'm sorry," Bruce stammered. "Either I can't or he won't-"

    "It's okay. Hey, stand down," Tony replied. He looked at Wong. "Keep an eye on him. Thank you."

    "I have him," Wong assured.

    Spencer heard Bruce mutter something, but she couldn't tell what it was. Her attention was back on the alien stalking towards them, but only for a moment. Tony put his arms to his side for a moment before reaching over and tapping her on the back before tapping the center of his chest. Within moments, both of their bodies were being protected in his newest technology. Spencer held her arms out, watching the material cover her entire frame in mere seconds. Her suit seemed to be identical to Tony's, only hers was silver with red accents instead. It reminded her a lot of Bucky's metal arm.

    Tony approached the alien, blocking a hit with a shield before delivering a punch to its jaw. He took a step back to allow some fancy beams to emerge from the back of his suit, blasting the beast back towards the gray alien, who expertly cast him aside with magic of his own, causing him to crash into some cars.

    The beams went back into Tony's suit, and Bruce shouted, "Where'd that come from?"

    "It's nano-tech. You like it?" Tony replied. "Spencer's suit is the same." He paused for a moment as he turned to Spencer. "I hate the colors, but thought you'd like it. Anja and Layla have suits too, but I'm sure they'll be donning Asgardian armor-"

    Tony never got to finish his sentence as the gray alien used his magic to send him shooting upwards before launching whole trees at the rest of the team. Wong summoned a shield, and Spencer could only hope this new fancy suit was as intuitive as it looked. She had played around with some of Tony's older models in the lab, but she never had a suit of her own. She put her hands forward, and sure enough, a shield formed in front of her, protecting her from the tree missiles heading towards them.

    "Dr. Banner, if the rest of your green friend won't be joining us," Strange said, moving his hands in a circle to make a portal around Bruce, causing him to fall through it. Spencer only hoped wherever Bruce had been teleported to was safer than here.

    Just then, Tony returned to the fight, stepping between the wizards- who were preparing more shields- to launch a car the alien had thrown at them right back at him. Unfortunately, the alien's magic allowed him to slice the car in half, leaving him untouched.

    "Gotta get that stone outta here, now," Tony commanded.

    "It stays with me," Strange countered.

    "Exactly. Bye," Tony said, taking off towards the two aliens, dodging debris as he went. The bad news was that Tony didn't dodge something thrown by the big alien, and he went flying to who only knew where.

    Spencer was left alone with Strange and Wong to deal with the gray alien, as the big one had seemingly chased after Tony. She took a deep breath, realizing she'd have to try her best in this newfangled suit. Even if she wasn't quite familiar with it, it was certainly better than being without one to face these guys.

    The gray alien lifted several bricks from the ground telepathically, turning them into sharp needle-like points. He sent the projectiles flying towards the three of them. Before she could react, Strange and Wong both made portals, sending the pointed stones flying right back towards the alien. The alien had moved a car to protect himself, but one stone busted through a window and grazed his head. Annoyed, the alien used his powers to turn on a fire hydrant, knocking Wong backwards. Wong hit the ground with a thud, seemingly unconscious.

    Strange retaliated by using his magic to lasso the alien, pulling him close to him but the momentum sent them both back into a building. Unfortunately, Strange hit the building first, and the alien used that to his advantage, using his telekinesis to move the building's bricks around Strange, trapping him. Spencer wanted to try to blast the alien away, but without knowing all the intricacies of her new suit, she was worried she'd misfire and hit the sorcerer too.

    "Your powers are quaint. You must be popular with children," the alien mused. He reached towards the amulet around Strange's neck, only to yank his hand back as the amulet scorched his hand.

    "It's a simple spell, but quite unbreakable," Strange explained smugly.

    "Then I'll take it off your corpse!" the alien declared angrily as he yanked Strange from the wall, throwing him to the ground. Strange went to go use the stone, but his effort was cut short. Several wires leaped around Strange's body, one cord slowly tightening around his neck.

    Spencer knew she couldn't stand idly by any longer. She extended her arm, sending a large blast of energy towards the alien, praying she didn't hit Strange too. It was a valiant effort, but unfortunately for her, the alien had launched a car at her and the blast sliced it in half. In her annoyed state, she wasn't able to dodge the half of the car that was pummeling towards her and it hit her square in the chest.

    "Okay, that hurt a bit," she mumbled as she glanced at the vitals on her helmet's screen. If she survived this battle, she promised herself she'd learn how to use this suit properly to its full potential. But for now she had to make sure she made it that far.

    As she started to push the partial car off of her, glad the suit gave her a little extra power, she heard Strange mutter, "You'll find...removing a dead man's spell... Troublesome."

    He was struggling under those wires, and the alien's retort only confirmed that. "You'll only wish you were dead."

    Spencer freed herself just as Strange fell unconscious. The alien lifted the ground around where the sorcerer had fallen, turning to take him back to the ship, but the seemingly sentient cloak Strange was wearing slipped him from the wires and flew off with him.

    "No!" the alien yelled.

    For now Strange was safe, but Spencer needed to make sure that stayed true. She silently prayed she remembered how to fly one of these suits as she took off from the ground, chasing after Strange behind the alien. After a few moments, she was joined by a teenager in a red and blue suit slinging webs.

    She blinked a few times, not sure she was seeing this correctly. "Peter?"

    The kid, Peter, looked over at her as he kept the pace with them through Manhattan. "Oh hey, Spencer! Are you trying to protect the wizard too?"

    It had been some time since Spencer had seen Peter Parker- Tony's new protege, so to speak- so she was happy to see the boy. But under these circumstances she wished he was literally anywhere else. He didn't need to be getting mixed up in this mess. He was just a kid.

    "Yeah," she answered.

    Before Peter could reply, the alien launched a billboard at them, barely hitting Peter and knocking Spencer out of the air. She spun around, head feeling a bit dizzy from her landing on a nearby car. The monitors in her helmet were beeping angrily, but her vision was off from the impact so she wasn't sure what they were alerting her to.

    "Not cool!" Peter yelled, shaking it off before taking off again.

He caught up to Strange in moments, and immediately went to work. The teenager used some of his webs to try to anchor Strange to a lamppost. Unfortunately for him, the alien snapped the lamppost, sending Strange up into the ship's tractor beam. Peter tried to hang onto the post, but soon he found himself caught in the beam too.

"Mr. Stark? I'm being beamed up," Peter said. Spencer could barely hear it, but she knew she had to try to shake off the delirium and help him. She had no idea what Tony was saying in her ear since it seemed the intercommunications between the suits seemed to be malfunctioning thanks to the hit to the head, but she was going to push through it and help her friends.

    Spencer got up, shaking her head as she started to fly towards the donut shaped ship. She could barely make out where Peter was stuck on the outside, but she also saw that Tony was speeding towards him ahead of her. All of a sudden, Peter seemingly passed out- Spencer assumed due to a lack of oxygen, sending him into a free fall. Something whizzed past Spencer, and she realized it was a pod of some nature. It caught up to Peter, and attached itself to him. It formed some suit around him, similar to hers and Tony's, only still in his trademark Spider-Man style. Peter landed on the bottom part of the ship, standing up heroically.

    "Mr. Stark, it smells like new car in here!" Peter declared excitedly.

    "Happy trails, kid. F.R.I.D.A.Y., send him home," Tony replied.

    A large parachute extended from Peter's new suit just as Spencer caught up with Tony, and it sent Peter spiraling back towards Earth. To her relief, Peter was safe now, whether he wanted to be or not.

    "Oh, come on!" Peter called out.

    Spencer watched him float towards Earth for a moment before she looked back at Tony. He had anchored himself to the outer wall of the ship before he began to use a laser to cut a hole big enough to step through. Tony stepped into the ship first, Spencer following close behind him.

    It was quiet for a moment, until Tony spoke again. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just think we might have to push our 8:30 res."

    Spencer was confused for a moment, but realized that Pepper must've called him and he was talking to her through his helmet. She didn't need to hear the woman to know she was not going to be happy about any of this- let alone the fact that they were actually on the spaceship.

    Tony glanced around the ship. "Just 'cause I'll... probably not make it back for awhile." He was quiet for a moment before he added. "Yeah." His helmet dematerialized and Spencer could hear Pepper now.

    "Tell me you're not on that ship."

    "Honey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I don't know what to say," Tony apologized.

    "Come back here, Tony. I swear to God..."

    "Pep..."

    Pepper's voice was fading. "Come back here right now! Come back!"

    Spencer didn't need confirmation to know what was going on, but when F.R.I.D.A.Y. spoke, it told her all she needed to know. "Boss, we're losing her. I'm going, too..."

    Tony and Spencer shared a knowing glance. They were headed into space, and all they had were each other. They were going to have to try to save Strange, the Time Stone, and get back to Earth without the help of any of their friends or teammates. Spencer silently wished she had sent one more text to Bucky, or Anja, or Layla, but instead they were going to have to find out some other way. She only hoped Pepper called Bruce and the others to let them know what happened to her and Tony.

    Spencer closed her eyes, silently praying the two of them didn't die in space.

*****

Hi everyone! Sorry it took me a minute to get this posted. I had finished it two days ago, but have been editing it since. The first draft of it was just... not right, for a lack of better words. Hopefully I am able to get the next chapter done soon. It's been buzzing in my head for a while now, so I hope it translates nicely from the images there.

I hope all is well with you all, and as always, thank you for your patience. <3

~arty_writes