[Spoilers for Infinity War... go figure.]

-

Once upon a time, there was an Infinity Stone.

Then there came more movies, and one Infinity Stone was no longer good enough. This is called villain escalation -- that's also how Loki went from "the worst evil ever" to "a minor inconvenience".

In the light of the whole universe, who cares about New York?

Anyhow, first there was one Infinity Stone - the Tesseract. Then There were two: Tesseract and Mind Stone. And one by one more stones were added - Reality, Time, Power, and eventually the Soul Stone.

Of course this buildup took Marvel several movies to establish, because they like having a history behind each stone.

They couldn't possibly start a movie with Loki saying;

"Um, guys, guess what? I gave Thanos the Space stone so he wouldn't kill Thor. It didn't help much. Please tell me that your android is the only other Infinity Stone on Midgard."

And then Tony answers:

"Great news! We also have the Time stone!"

"Ok just for the record that's not great news, you just made yourself a target."

"Uh, doesn't this Thanos guy want all the stones? So it doesn't really matter how many we have, he's coming for us anyway. So our best bet is to stack them all on one place and then defend it from there."

"Yeah, but then you have all the Infinity Stones in one place, so if you lose, you lose everything."

"Yeah, but if Thanos has even one stone he's practically unstoppable, and if we keep them all on one place we can use them to defend ourselves."

"Good point, let's do that instead of scattering them across the universe."

"Who would do that anyway? That's like leaving them with this random character you've met once who collects stuff and is intensely creepy. Not like the stones are any safer there than they are with the AVENGERS."

Anyway, that's what Marvel didn't do.

Instead, they decided that killing off a few characters before the snap was a better way to go.

"Whoa, hold up. They have the Time Stone, right? So can't they reverse time on Thanos or something?"

No, of course not. If that was possible, they'd be able to bring Pietro back, reverse time on Bucky so he doesn't remember being the Winter Soldier, and all that kinda stuff.

"Yeah... I never really understood why they couldn't do that."

Um, TIME PARADOXES, duh!

"What's a time paradox anyway?"

Who cares? It's an excuse to stop Dr Strange from conveniently being able to resurrect anyone he wants to. But we're getting off track. This was about Infinity War, right?

*clears throat*

Right then, let's get down to the main storyline.

-

Once upon a time, there was an archer.

His name was Clint Barton, and he...

*pauses*

*pages through notes*

...wasn't in the movie.

*clears thoat*

Okay, take two.

Once upon a time, there was a caring father who really just wanted to live a normal life.

No it's not Clint, it's Scott Lang. He was lived a double life as Ant-Man, and in Infinity War he...

Wait a second...

He wasn't in the movie either.

Riiiiight... excuse me for a moment.

*pages through notes*

Pietro? Wasn't in it.

*pages faster*

Loki? Dies in the first ten minutes.

*pages even faster*

Brunnhilde? Not in it.

*throws notebook against wall*

*picks up notebook and tries to straighten out the folds*

Okay, I think I got it.

Once upon a time, there was a highschooler.

His name was Peter Parker, and he's relevant because Marvel needed to kill someone in the snap that people actually cared about, and after Marvel cruelly murdered Loki and Pietro, and didn't include Scott or Clint in the movie, they decided Peter was the next best option.

Anyway, this highschooler was just a regular kid, and was just going through another normal day... well quite frankly, we don't know that, because they sort of threw him into the middle of the whole Thanos's henchmen trying to steal the Time Stone thing.

Because Thanos's henchmen decided that going after an Infinity Stone protected by wizards was smarter than going after the one attached to a synthezoid wandering around randomly.

(I mean seriously, those guys could've wrung Cap's shield to shreds, but did they? No. Why? Convenience. (*cough* and also Steve might not have had his shield with him but heyyy minor details))

So basically, long story short, the highschooler really wanted to be an Avenger, so he jumped onto a spaceship with the wizard that was carrying the aforementioned Time Stone and his mentor, his royal highness Tony Stark, to go save the universe or something.

Meanwhile, all the Avengers went to the magical mythical country of Wakanda, where they defended the wandering synthezoid with the Mind Stone.

And ultimately failed when Thanos showed up, stole all the stones, snapped his fingers and destroyed half the universe.

And they lived happily ever after.

Not.

But I mean, the highschooler wasn't feeling so good, so Marvel decided they should probably give him a break and finish the story in another movie.

So yeah.

That was it.

The End.

Although obviously, we're not Satisfied with this ending. (Here I go with the Hamilton references again... XD)

So we're gonna have to write an alternate ending.

DuHn dUhN dUHN!!!

---

Agent Stephen Ford was just a regular guy. He really wasn't that special. To be honest, the only reason anyone even knew him was because of the "Galaga incident'.

Being called out on slacking by the slacker above all slackers does things to your reputation.

It was just a normal day for him. Undercover stuff, protecting people, secret stuff, all classified I'm afraid. SHIELD had collapsed for -- what was it, the third time? So he'd taken up a job in private security as a bodyguard. The young man he was protecting happened to be a big fan of Galaga, but that had been purely coincidental.

Anyway, the young man that Ford protected on a daily basis was a prince of someplace or other. Can't give too many details, it's all classified. But due to a rather peculiar situation [you guessed it, the exact details are classified] Agent Stephen Ford and his prince -- let's call him Sherlock --- ended up in New York City.

Sherlock wanted to go sightseeing -- he'd never been to NYC before -- and Stephen tagged along, making sure Sherlock didn't get trampled by the crowds or fall off the Empire State Building. All was going superbly until a spaceship of Brobdingnagian proportions decided to show up and ruin their plans.

Of course, Stephen figured that the spaceship meant trouble. From the top of the Statue of Liberty he could juuuuust see a flash of red -- "ya thought I wouldn't notice, but I did" -- as Tony Stark zoomed around in his flying disaster suit, followed by some random people and what seemed to be two wizards and a kid in a red and blue suit.

Everyone's trying to be a hero these days.

Sherlock was practically jumping off the statue in excitement -- "Stephen, it's a real-life alien invasion! Can we go see it? Can we? Pleasepleaseplease? I wanna see if I can deduce who their leader is! Then we can attempt to negotiate a peace treaty between our countries and I'll be faMOUUUUSSSSS!" -- and Stephen decided that the smartest course of action would be to get the prince as far away from the action as quickly as possible. The Avengers would be able to handle this, as always.

Unfortunately, in the time that he'd taken to come to this decision, Sherlock had dashed to the elevator, gone back to the ground, and started running into the direction of the ginormous donut-shaped spaceship hovering above the city.

@#^*!&#%@!!!

Language.

As quickly as he could manage, Stephen Ford followed Sherlock through the bustling streets of NYC. He tried his best to catch up, but the prince had long legs and a good condition -- as well as no regard for other people. He slid over car hoods like it was nothing, and didn't hesitate to shove people aside. Stephen was left trying to stumble through the wake of chaos behind him, fervently apologizing to all the indignant civilians.

Why didn't I just get an office job?

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder, spotting Stephen through all the chaos and -- thank Thor -- slowing down so he could catch up.

"What... *pant* in the name of... *pant* Hawkeye... *pant* do you... *pant* think you're... *deep breath* DOING?"

"Going after Iron Man, duh," Sherlock shrugged, pointing to the airborne tin can.

Stephen rolled his eyes.

"You're a prince! You should be running away from the danger, not towards it!"

Sherlock frowned.

"What kind of lousy prince runs away from danger?"

"ALL THE LIVING ONES!"

Sherlock paused, considering that thought.

"You know what, you're right," he decided.

"Of course I'm right," Stephen scoffed, "now start running the other way."

Sherlock turned around with a roll of his eyes, turning up his coat collar as he did so.

"Oh look, it's Iron Man!" he announced, pointing at the sky.

Stephen Ford look up.

"What, where?"

He lowered his gaze to ask Sherlock, but the prince had already run off.

"I... I can't believe I fell for that," he mumbled, before jogging after Sherlock.

"Hey!" Sherlock shouted, waving at a figure in a red cape, "Mr Cape Guy! Do you know where I can find the owner of this spaceship?"

The wizard paused, watching the prince with something akin to amusement.

"I believe it belongs to Thanos. Why do you ask?"

"I was hoping to negotiate with him," Sherlock began carefully, "I'm a prince you know, I'm sure we could reach a peace, and--"

"Don't listen to him," Stephen Ford grumbled, cutting off Sherlock's sentence, "he's just a little arrogant, that's all."

"Stephen!" Sherlock protested.

The wizard frowned.

"How do you know my name?"

"Excuse me?" Stephen Ford frowned.

"How did he know my name was Stephen?"

"Oh, is your name Stephen too? What a coincidence. My name's Stephen Ford."

"Strange."

"No, it's actually quite a common surname."

"That's not what I... nevermind."

Stephen's -- Strange -- gaze shot from Sherlock to other-Stephen.

"What are you two doing here anyway? Isn't the area being evacuated? I swear, if I have to go back and tell that stubborn idiot --"

"No no, the area's being evacuated," Stephen Ford reassured him quickly, "it's just... Mr I'm-A-Prince here is a bit stubborn."

"Well can you blame me for wanting to do something cool so I can finally get out of my brother's shadow?"

Stephen blinked, something in that sentence triggering a déjà vu, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Reminds me of someone else I still have to track down and imprison sometime," Strange muttered darkly, "either way, you two had better scurry off to a safe place, we'll handle this."

Stephen Ford laughed at the amount of arrogance in his voice.

"I'm sorry, what? I though Tony Stark was the most arrogant person I'd ever met, but I'm having second thoughts. You don't happen to be a billionaire, do you?"

Strange's glare spoke volumes.

"Oh, this is brilliant," Ford smirked, "have you ever been in a near-death accident? Preferably one that ultimately led to your becoming a superhero?"

"Wizard," Strange corrected under his breath, and Ford's grin widened.

"Well well well, and I thought Stark was the only one. Come on Sherlock, we should get going."

"But..." Sherlock protested, "but... but then we can't negotiate with Thanos!"

"No sh*t Sherlock," Ford grumbled, and both Stephen and Sherlock raised their eyebrows in perfect sync.

"LANGUAGE!" a red and gold canned billionaire shouted overhead.

Ford shook his head.

"Let's just get out of here."

"Fine," Sherlock agreed with somewhat of a sulk, "but on our trip to Wakanda I'm going to find the most dangerous thing I come across and attack that."

"Sure," Ford agreed dismissively, "Wakanda is a perfectly safe place, nothing really dangerous ever goes there anyway."

-

"HOW DID ALL THESE DANGEROUS THINGS GET IN HERE?"

Wanda shrugged, standing ready to blast any potential intruders while Shuri continuing her work on the Mind Stone in Vision's forehead.

"Can I help?" Sherlock enquired, drawing the gun that Natasha -- Natasha freaking Romanoff -- had lent him.

"No, you'll end up shooting yourself by accident," Ford growled, shooting down another of Thanos's mindless monsters as it attempted to pass the guards in front of the lab.

"Almost done..." Shuri mumbled.

"How long do you still need?" Wanda enquired, blasting aside two more of the creatures with flurries of red energy, "they need my help outside."

"A few more seconds should do..."

Out of nowhere, an overwhelming force of attackers burst into the laboratory. Wanda got the first four down, Ford succeeded in shooting the next three. But the eighth slipped past them both, attacking Shuri.

Before anyone else could react, Sherlock had stood up, aimed his gun, and shot the creature.

"Well done," Wanda complimented him, "if you hadn't reacted so quickly, Shuri might've needed to take up arms and that would've been a disastrous downwards spiral."

"Done," Shuri announced, freeing the Mind Stone and handing it over to Wanda, who caught it with her telekinesis.

"Right, stand back and make sure nobody tries to shoot me," Wanda instructed, focusing all her energy on the Stone.

Ford kept his gun trained on the passage, while Shuri guarded the window -- "just in case, you never know" -- and Vision and Sherlock watched as Wanda shattered the Infinity Stone into millions of pieces.

A shudder ran through the ground, as if the very Earth knew that it had been saved by lucky seconds.

Wanda glanced out of the window.

"Wait a minute," she mumbled, seeing herself on the battlefield, helping Okoye and Natasha, "I'm up here, so who's down there?"

Sherlock shrugged.

"Who cares? We won, didn't we?"

[ON THE BATTLEFIELD]

"We won!" Sam announced, doing a looping in the air as Shuri broadcasted the message to them that the Mind Stone was destroyed.

At that moment Thanos appeared, stepping through a portal.

He growled.

"You think you've beaten me? The Mind Stone may be gone, but I can still wipe the planets out one by one..."

Suddenly, Wanda became slightly pale.

"Hey, remember that time on Xandar?" Rocket asked to nobody in particular, "when the guy with the Power Stone said he could wipe out the whole planet with just the one stone..."

He paused, waiting for an answer.

"Oh right, none of you were there."

"I am Groot."

"No of course that doesn't count, you twig-headed tree!"

"If you had just given me the stone, half of your measly planet would've survived..." Thanos droned on, "now I am given no choice but to decimate the human race entirely, save the few stragglers that are in space when this planet explodes into particles of dust."

At that moment, Thor sprung forwards, swinging his axe at Thanos' arm. It was stopped at the last second by a blue force.

"You should've aimed for the head," Thanos and Wanda chorused.

The next moment, there was a hissing sound and a dagger planted itself in Thanos's forehead.

"NOoOOOOOooOOOOOOoOoOOO!" Thanos cried out, sinking to his knees.

"Pathetic," Wanda muttered.

Several eyes turned to Wanda in surprise.

Said eyes widened in an increased surprise when a second Wanda landed next to the first one.

"Who are you?" the second Wanda demanded, and first let out a soft chuckle.

"I guess you'll never know."

And in a flash of green, she disappeared.

ThE eNd

-

BONUS

"Who are you?" Sherlock asked the figure that had appeared in Shuri's lab without warning.

The tall young man turned around, a look of surprise on his face.

"You don't know me?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"Can't say I do."

Loki shrugged.

"Well, your loss."