The vacuousness inside grasped my senses and I had to struggle with the doubts clogging my mind. They pestered me about the shade veiling the city. Darkness.

And the reason? Migration of birds! Bollocks, haven't even seen a single fella of a bird!

A chuckle resounded around. Such emission of sentiment from me? Miracles did exist.

My eyes lost their amicability and gazed into a swirling crimson pool, soothing my shaking hands. I did it. Tony Stark better return to this mansion of yours...fast.

Today NYC was jubilating, or should I say, the whole world was.

Years flew by subsequent to the Civil War, after which Iron Man paid a visit to Asgard with Thor. For clearing his mind, they called it.

Or he didn't want to process the funerals on T.V., or face weeping old families again.

Today, he was returning to Earth. Not as Iron Man, but as Tony Stark engulfed with emotional baggage. I sensed it; Stark's homecoming was the most awaited moment.

The putrid smell made me smirk as I stepped around the bodies, their faces snarling...oh, with contempt! Rest in peace, babies!

Stark's assumed earthly rest was unguaranteed now. I've made sure of it. The frontyard is so gonna enjoy this. It'll work as an aphrodisiac for me, stripping them of their beauty and invoking pleasure inside me.

***

Jammed streets never sat well with me. Another push and my recent accomplishment would dive onto the media's lolling tongues.

A whirring noise perked everyone's ears up, a circular, sparkling alien spaceship entering the welkin. Bitfrost, I was sure, wouldn't have stopped working. Which meant...uncalled guests and no Stark.

Changing into a stealth suit, I neared the downtown, where the ship presumably landed, clenching my fists.

However they did not wreck havoc, rather presenting something to a crowd. This doesn't bode well.

Loki. I choked back a sob. An Avenger mourning the loss of an ex-villain was unforseen...but there, in the middle of this blasted crowd, a pair of emerald orbs resorted to their dull form. "NO...!"

Impaling Loki with that God forsaken sceptre, Tony bowed. "Esteemed Thanos." That purple brute smiled at me; his plan to draw me out worked fine. The last Avenger on Earth.

Tony's eyes were pitch black; his arc reactor gone. Why? I murdered TeamCap-gone-bad for you!

You tricked death twice! Please, let this be a conjurer's trick! An unspoken bond between us severed.

Body enraged, I let out a groan and hit someone. Wait.

Groan?

Severe depression followed the blinding light as I accessed the reality. Loki's alive. It was a bad dream.

It didn't matter. A string internally broke. My right fist...holding the pills I was supposed to swallow last night, I felt a burning pain stretching across my whole being. No, it couldn't be...

Instead of hitting someone in my dream, I stabbed myself, hard...with a rusted knife my father threw at me. No...let this be a conjurer's trick!