[ Said with a brief hitch of a wicked little smile. It fades as he remembers this isn't actually a game. Remembers what Thanos wanted them for. ]
His whole thing was - math, in the end. He lost his world to too many people needing too few resources. The solution he offered them was genocide, and when they didn't take him up on it and the planet perished, he decided it was time to scale up. Test ran the idea across the stars with an army, picking off half a planet's population at random then leaving the rest to it. Except there's no need for that with the stones. All six and he could do the whole universe at once. Snap of his fingers.
[ He doesn't stop here for more than a meaningful beat. The gravity off it too much to come back from easily if he doesn't just let his momentum carry him through. ]
Two of his elite came for the time stone eventually. First I'd heard of any war and we were already close to the final battles. We took out one guy, but I'd warded the amulet to protect the stone and the other one had power of his own, so he took the whole package. Figured he could get me to give it up before he got where he was going. First trip into space and I'm being skewered with tools designed for microsurgery by a guy with no nose and a seriously receding hairline.
[ Spoken like he's complaining about the printer running out of ink again, or all the office highlighters going dry. Typical. ]
Hurt like hell. Pretty sure I'd have been screwed, but Stark and another guy had stowed away. —He has this suit, for context. Tony. Full body armor, fitted with a bunch of tricks. They call him Iron Man, he'd been flying around saving the world in it for years at this point. So him and the kid fire Dr. Needles into space and we narrowly avoid dying in a fiery crash right onto Titan.
[ He's aware now that lapsing into quiet might not be helpful anymore. Aware that they're deep enough into the story that there's little else to do than just to tell it. But they're coming up on where things get hard. So he stalls, reframes it as a water break, lifting his glass for a few slow sips. ]
cw: mentions of genocide, flippant descriptions of torture
[ Said with a brief hitch of a wicked little smile. It fades as he remembers this isn't actually a game. Remembers what Thanos wanted them for. ]
His whole thing was - math, in the end. He lost his world to too many people needing too few resources. The solution he offered them was genocide, and when they didn't take him up on it and the planet perished, he decided it was time to scale up. Test ran the idea across the stars with an army, picking off half a planet's population at random then leaving the rest to it. Except there's no need for that with the stones. All six and he could do the whole universe at once. Snap of his fingers.
[ He doesn't stop here for more than a meaningful beat. The gravity off it too much to come back from easily if he doesn't just let his momentum carry him through. ]
Two of his elite came for the time stone eventually. First I'd heard of any war and we were already close to the final battles. We took out one guy, but I'd warded the amulet to protect the stone and the other one had power of his own, so he took the whole package. Figured he could get me to give it up before he got where he was going. First trip into space and I'm being skewered with tools designed for microsurgery by a guy with no nose and a seriously receding hairline.
[ Spoken like he's complaining about the printer running out of ink again, or all the office highlighters going dry. Typical. ]
Hurt like hell. Pretty sure I'd have been screwed, but Stark and another guy had stowed away. —He has this suit, for context. Tony. Full body armor, fitted with a bunch of tricks. They call him Iron Man, he'd been flying around saving the world in it for years at this point. So him and the kid fire Dr. Needles into space and we narrowly avoid dying in a fiery crash right onto Titan.
[ He's aware now that lapsing into quiet might not be helpful anymore. Aware that they're deep enough into the story that there's little else to do than just to tell it. But they're coming up on where things get hard. So he stalls, reframes it as a water break, lifting his glass for a few slow sips. ]