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Chapter Text

Thanos rested there, breathing heavily, for a minute. For a moment there, he thought-

"Hello, Thanos."

The voice gave Thanos pause. It had none of the tones of those who knew him, and tried to quell the fear in their breasts. None of the tones of one who did not know him, and would grow to know that fear.

It was soft, knowing, unafraid.

He looked up.

A woman stood there, dark-haired, humanoid, pale as milk, a cross topped with an oval about her neck. She wore a sleeveless shirt with an open neck, dark as her hair, and, he noted with disgust, jeans. Her expression was placid.

A...creature stood next to her, over a foot taller than her, dressed in robes of worn, practical black. A hand, skeletal, emerged from a sleeve to hold a scythe, practical, and, Thanos knew, sharper than any other object in the universe. There was a flicker of blue light beneath the hood it wore.

"I am dead."

YES.

The hooded figure did not speak, but the words wove themselves into Thanos' mind. Not a telepath, but one whose words were so fundamental they were etched into the fabric of reality.

"Am I to be judged?"

"It...depends what you mean by being judged," the woman replied, voice hesitant, at odds with the confidence she put forth. A spark of hope flickered in Thanos' chest. They were frightened; it was possible he could...overpower them, perhaps take the scythe, whatever other protections they wore, and be ascendant again. After all, what was Infinity in the face of oblivion?

YOU HAVE A CHOICE. YOU MAY GO WITH ME, OR YOU MAY GO WITH HER.

Thanos knew these choices, knew it was a test, a game. To present a choice in a way that you blamed yourself for the consequences. There was no point in agonizing. He glanced at the figure with the scythe. As badly as he wanted that blade, a fight with them was no way to get it.

"I choose the woman."

The robed figure shrugged, and faded into the background. The woman pursed her lips, eyebrows pulling together as she glared at him.

"I'm trying hard to be professional, here, but I am very upset," she said, her words short, clipped.

"Upset?"

There was a flicker in her expression, something unreadable. "You have no idea why I might be annoyed with you?"

"I have killed no one who would not have come to you in time."

Her expression darkened, scowl shifting into something tiresome, the look of righteous fury he had seen on so many who thought to defeat him. He had thought Lady Death, the Uncaring, would be above such emotion.

A hand clenched at her side, and she spun away from him with an inarticulate growl. "I hate having this conversation. I am sick of it! Do you know how many weird, wonderful creatures there are in the universe? Countless lives, trying to draw the most from the lifetime they're given. Death happens for so many reasons; I don't understand why people try to make more."

"I was-"

"Spare me! I have heard every excuse, every variation on every defense you might give me for your actions! A million who believed their unhappy childhoods excused any atrocity. A billion who thought others' lives were beneath them! A trillion who thought they were doing the right thing." Her voice was like venom, dripping with disdain, and still she would not look at Thanos. "In the end, they were all just men who killed others because they stood in the way of what they wanted. Like you."

Thanos felt the stirrings of fury, or an echo of it. He straightened, stalking toward this impudent creature - Lady Death or no, he would not allow anyone to speak of him such. "Such men are nothing like me!"

And she spun, before he could draw close enough to touch, and her eyes were blazing, the dark endlessness of eternity, a power coiled within her breast that Thanos had no chance of ever matching. "You are exactly like countless other men who have come before you and countless others that will come after you! I have taken the soul of every creature who has ever died, and I have seen better men than you, Thanos, but I have seen far worse, as well. And they all died, every single one."

Some of the energy, the fury, seemed to drain away, leaving a quiet woman with a gentle smile before Thanos. "Some people, standing here, finally catch on. But you…" She shook her head. "You still don't get it. So let me lay it out for you. You are exactly like everyone else. Flawed and insignificant against the vastness of existence. And just like everyone else, you wanted to make a mark on the world, some evidence that you existed."

Thanos shook his head. "I am so much more than them! And I will not tolerate this lecture a moment longer. Render your judgment, Lady Death, and I will endure it, and when it is over, I will conquer the power you wield and become greater than ever!"

Death smiled at Thanos, and the expression was...sad. "I'm not here to judge you, Thanos. I'm here to escort you...when you are ready to go. But it's clear you aren't. So call to me, when you figure it out."

Like her companion, she too faded, leaving Thanos alone.

A vast emptiness surrounded him, a world devoid of light, or life, or thought.

Over time, several things came to Thanos.

First, in the absence of a heartbeat, hunger, thirst, there was no way to sense the passage of time. A moment could feel like a thousand years, a millennium like a moment.

Second, in the absence of the concerns of the living, few thoughts could hold his attention, and kept returning to the riddle the woman offered. What was he supposed to realize, before she would respond to his call?

Third…

There was a peace to solitude one chose that was not present in solitude forced upon you. To choose to be alone was to ward off loneliness. To be left alone was to be aware how much of your life was filled with observers, friends, enemies.

Alone, there were no thoughts but Thanos' own, no words but his own.

No validation, no protest.

No aid in discovering the truth the woman wished him to discover.

She had meant to help him, he realized, despite the crimes she believed him to have committed.

And now…

He was alone.

He had wanted this, in some small way, ever since he was a child.

And it was worse, far worse, than he could have ever imagined.

Chapter Text

HOW DARE YOU.

Thanos had expected more from Death than the self-righteous anger he'd seen from countless mortals. He shook his head.

"I sought to ease the suffering-"

YOU DID NO SUCH THING. YOU DESTROYED COUNTLESS LIVES SO YOU COULD DELUDE YOURSELF INTO BELIEVING THE WORLD WORKED THE WAY YOU THOUGHT IT DID.

"The universe was growing beyond its means-"

NO. ALL YOUR LIFE YOU LECTURED OTHERS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. NOW THAT YOU ARE DEAD, IT IS YOUR TURN TO LISTEN.

DID YOU EVER LOOK TO THOSE WHO HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH TO EASE THE SUFFERING OF THOSE WHO HAD NOTHING? DID YOU EVER LOOK TO BUILD A WORLD WHERE MORE WAS POSSIBLE?

WHEN YOU HELD THE POWER OF CREATION IN YOUR HAND DID YOU LOOK TO BUILD A WORLD WHERE FEWER OF THOSE WHO LIVED WOULD SUFFER, OR DID YOU SEEK ONLY TO KILL?

BUT LET NO ONE SAY I AM LESS MERCIFUL THAN THANOS THE TITAN. TELL ME WHY, THANOS, YOU DROWNED THE UNIVERSE IN DEATH, AND I WILL TROUBLE YOU NO FURTHER.

Even without the scythe, Death radiated an aura of menace, power that Thanos was not certain he could contest, even with the Gauntlet. He took a breath, finding the certainty that had driven much of his life fading in the face of Death's displeasure.

YOU SENT EVANGELISTS TO PRESENT YOUR WORDS AS GOSPEL, THAT THE DEATH YOU BROUGHT WAS A MERCY. HAVE YOU NO WORDS FOR ME, NOW THAT SUCH MERCY HAS TAKEN YOU?

Death stepped forward when Thanos didn't respond, eyes flickering blue in the depths of their hood.

PEOPLE BELIEVE MANY THINGS ABOUT DEATH, BUT RARELY I MEET MEN LIKE YOU, WHO BELIEVE IN NOTHING MORE THAN THEY DO THEIR OWN DELUDED VISION. IT IS A TRIAL, TO GUIDE SUCH MEN TO THEIR FATES.

"And what fate is decided for me, the committer of such crimes that I am lectured by Death?"

DECIDED FOR YOU? AS IF THERE IS SOME GREAT INTELLIGENCE WATCHING OVER YOU, JUDGING YOUR EVERY ACTION? SOMEONE TO DETERMINE IF THE BALANCE OF YOUR ACTIONS IS FOR GOOD OR ILL? THERE IS NO JUDGMENT FOR YOU, NO VINDICATION, NO CONDEMNATION.

NO ONE HAS WEIGHED THE SACRIFICES YOU MADE AGAINST WHATEVER GOOD YOU CREATED. NO ONE CARES WHAT NOBLE INTENTIONS MAY HAVE DRIVEN YOU TO MURDER COUNTLESS BEINGS.

"So there is nothing? For all your irritation, you offer no punishment?"

AFTER YOU DIE, ALL THAT IS LEFT IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN. AND FOR YOU...THAT IS NOTHING.

"Ha! What sort of a threat is that?"

But Death had gone, as had the vague sense of stars or...sand. There was, surrounding Thanos...nothing. Not even the beat of his now-still heart, or passage of breath into his dead lungs. Nothing but the memory of his sacrifices, of an endless life spent striving for an impossible goal, of the discovery that the universe, that life, would not stand for what Thanos brought to it.

There was no fond memory that he had not tainted with his own actions, nothing to comfort him in the infinite darkness.

Nothing but him.

A terrible time to find oneself wanting, when it was far too late to do anything about it.

He wondered if he should have gone with the girl.