#punctured

Strange surrendered the stone. The Titan added it to his gauntlet. “One to go.”

 Steve summoned the last of his strength. He got up and started to walk – started to jog – started to run – but Quill flew out in front of him, towards Thanos. The Titan disappeared through a portal. Steve changed directions and sprinted to Tony’s side. He knelt beside his friend and clasped the back of his head with his right hand, and Tony’s hand with his left. “TONY!”

 Tony’s blood-soaked lips formed words, but didn’t speak them. He looked into Steve’s eyes, his own bouncing back and forth between dazed and distant, and narrowed and focused. “C-Cap,” he finally slurred, “get it out of me.”

 “We – we don’t have any bandages. You’ll bleed to death.”

 “Trust me,” Tony insisted. “Steve – get it out, now!”

 The sword was larger than Steve’s arm. He gently wrapped his left hand around it, then looked at Tony’s whitening face. “Hold on to me,” he instructed. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pushed his nose against his blue uniform. Steve counted to three, and pulled.

 Tony screamed, nearly deafening his friend. His arms went limp, followed by the rest of his body, and he collapsed against Cap.

 “Tony!”

 “Is a’righ…” Tony said. He regained a bit of strength and sat up, his left arm against Steve’s right arm. “Is a’righ, C-Cap…” Tony aimed what was left of the suit that covered his right hand, and sprayed what looked like a thick mist of chemicals against his wound. The bleeding instantly stopped. Steve touched the sealant, mesmerized. It was warm. Tony took the device off his hand, then, and handed it to Steve. “Press your middle and forefinger down and to the left,” he instructed. Steve, realizing what Tony wanted him to do, put the device around his hand, gently leaned Tony forward so that he could get to his back, and applied the sealant to the exit wound. Tony grunted and coughed. He put his face in his hands and groaned, then leaned, once again, against Steve’s chest.

 Then, Tony reached past the pain and returned to reality. He sat up with a start and stared back at a wide-eyed Quill. “Did we just lose?”

 Tony rotated his body so that he could see past Steve to Strange. “Why would you do that?” he whispered.

 Strange didn’t even look sorry. “We’re in the endgame, now,” he said.

 The other Guardians ran over. Peter rushed to Tony’s left side and, after looking back and forth between him and Steve, decided that it was a moment to shut up.

 Steve was grasping at straws, and he knew it, but he still tried to put on a brave face, for Tony’s sake. “The others – Wanda, Bruce, Nat… Maybe Thor returned… They’ll stop him. They’ll protect Vision.”

 Tony looked at him, emotionless.

 “We’ll… We’ll get home – back to Earth. We’ll get home, and we’ll help.”

 Tony blinked. He pursed his lips together once in a deep flex, then allowed his mouth to open part way. “I…” he started to say. Then he shook his head and lowered his chin to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

 “For what?” Steve asked. “Tony?”

 “I should’ve done more…”

 Steve looked at Peter, who shrugged slightly. “Tony…”

 Tony looked at him. There were tears in his eyes. “I… I had a vision, once. You and the others – earth – invasion… You told me I could’ve saved you… You asked me why I didn’t do more…” A tear dropped onto Tony’s bloody face. “I should’ve done more… I – I lost.”

 Steve cupped his cheek. “WE lost…” The two teammates nodded at each other. Tony sat up straighter and pressed a series of buttons on the chamber on his chest. The nanotech – what was left of it - slowly floated across his skin into their home. Steve and Peter helped Tony stand up.

 Just then, the mantis girl suddenly said, “Something’s happening.” Seconds later she – she just dissolved. Her body morphed into ash, and she just floated away…

 Every mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, god,” Steve whispered.

 The muscled man disappeared next. Quill looked at Tony with wide, scared eyes. “Steady, Quill!” Tony said.

 “Oh, man…” Quill was gone.

 “Tony.” Steve and Tony turned around. Strange still sat on the ground, looking at them, blood on his cheek. He shook his head and said, with a confidence neither man understood, “There was no other way.” And then he was gone, too.

 “Mr. Stark.” Steve and Tony turned again. The kid – Peter – was staggering towards them looking, dumbfounded, at his hands.

 “Oh, no,” Steve whispered.

 “Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

 “You’re all right.”

 “I don’t know what’s happening.” The kid collapsed forward into Tony’s arms. Steve put his hand against Tony’s back to steady him. “I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please, I don’t wanna go.” Then the kid went limp, and Tony did his best to lower his body gently to the ground. Steve followed, kneeling on Tony’s left.

 Peter looked at Tony with an expression Steve couldn’t identify. “Sorry,” he whispered. And then he was gone, too.

 Tony collapsed forward, Peter’s body no longer supporting him. Steve grabbed his shoulder and turned him around before he smacked his forehead into the rocks. Tony sat flat, then looked at his own palms. Steve did the same thing. Both men waited a full ten seconds – waited to see if they would die, too.

 “He did it,” the blue woman said. Tony folded forward in frustration. Then he put his hands to his mouth – then he shut his eyes – and then a small tear exited his right eye.

 Steve sat on the ground beside Tony and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

 A minute passed, and then suddenly Tony started breathing deeper and faster, deeper and faster, deeper and faster, like he was having a panic attack. He gave Steve a flabbergasted look, and in that moment Steve knew that the blood loss had caught up to him. He immediately rotated his body so that they were chest-to-chest.

 Tony’s eyes rolled back into his skull, and he collapsed forward into Steve’s arms.

 “TONY!”

If there is such a thing as karma than perhaps Snotlout has found it because he should've listened to Hiccup. When he told him that cache of supplies was too high risk to try, he should've just listened. If he had, then maybe he wouldn't have gotten into trouble.

He's tied up. That is how he woke up. To lying on some hard floor of a mostly empty room with his wrists bound behind his back and his ankles bound together because he wouldn't listen to the guy who's made keeping them all safe his one and only reason to still live and breathe in this life.

"Hiccup is always right." They've repeated that sentence so many times, like a mantra, and not because they are made to. If Hiccup ever hears them say that, it will just stress him out more.

He'd been stupid. So, so, so stupid! Still lying on the ground, barely having moved since he woke up, Snotlout pulls at his restraints in a frustrated attempt to get free, but that it doesn't work only serves to frustrate him even more.

He should've listened.

Snotlout pulls and growls. He pulls on his bindings as hard as he can, but he can't get them to budge. The ropes are rough and the only reason they don't cause his wrists to bleed is all because of the leather bands he's decided to wear. It's purely for aesthetic purposes, he called it his "apocalypse getup", but they've actually come in handy.

Hookfang's whereabouts and well-being are a complete mystery to him, too, another reason to be angry. Usually, at the receiving end of his Rider's not-so-wise decisions, the Nightmare had come with him to raid the cache. Snotlout hopes he managed to get away safely when they got caught and that he's safe with the other Dragon Riders. If something were to happen to that dragon because of his stupid fault, he would never forgive himself.

He doesn't even know where he is. He's in a building of that he's certain, but are the Dragon Hunters using it as an outpost? Is it a camp? There's nothing here besides a table, a chair, and a shelved cabinet, which is empty. But besides that, he knows nothing.

He never should've gone.

They had knocked him out with an injection. He doesn't know what it was, just that he was out in minutes and that he feels a little sick now.

Who still uses needles in this day and age?! A good old cloth with chloroform would've sufficed! A good and hard knock to the head maybe? Or a nice chokehold, whatever happened to those?

Snotlout feels dirty on top of being angry. Who knows where that thing has been before! The Dragon Hunters can't be trusted to use clean and unused needless. They would use them dirty just for the fun of it.

He can hear voices on the other side of the door. Is it his friends? Hunters? He can't quite hear what they're saying.

And then he realizes that they're not saying anything at all. Those aren't words that he's hearing, just garbled noises and moans. He knows those sounds can only come from one kind of thing and said thing isn't even alive.

A familiar chill runs down his spine as he realizes that the dead can only be here if the Hunters have left. He isn't in a camp at all, they've just tied him up and left him in the nearest building they could find to either starve to death or be eaten! Clearly, Snotlout Jorgenson wasn't important enough to kidnap.

He bets they had a good laugh, too. They're good at that, laughing at the Dragon Riders. Anything to make their own sad little lives seem a tad less depressing.

The door to his room creaks and it's the first time Snotlout has decided to twist in his awkward position on the floor and look at it to see that it's been open this entire time. They hadn't even left him in a locked room and it explains why he can even hear what's going on outside in the hallway.

The thing making those moans comes ever closer until it shuffles aimlessly inside.

It's about as dead as every other zombie he's seen. Its skin is a greyish pale, perhaps a little bit on the sickly blue side. Its empty gaze wanders across the new space, searching for something in this barely furnitured room. It quickly settles on Snotlout.

"Oh no!" He yelps as a moan escapes the walking corpse, the kind that tells of the delicacy it spotted. It quickly lunges for him. The only times when they're fast is when they've spotted a fresh meal.

"Oh no, oh no!" Snotlout panics and all he can do with his hands and feet bound is crawl away. Like a human caterpillar, except he has no hope of ever transforming into the beautiful butterfly he's meant to be if he's killed and eaten now.

"No! Oh no!" He can hear the hurried footsteps behind him, can hear the gurgling moaning coming closer, can already imagine its decaying fingers grabbing hold of him and its teeth sinking into his flesh next.

But that doesn't happen.

There is a snarl, the kind a very specific dragon would make, and Snotlout turns onto his side just in time to see the corpse go up in flames. It is roasted within seconds and the immediate stench is unbearable.

Still on fire, it crumples to the ground, already partially cremated.

Snotlout struggles to turn towards the door and there he sees the relieving sight of his dragon, his head just barely fitting through the frame with his horns.

"Hookfang!" He shouts, pure joy and relief on his face. The Monstrous Nightmare rumbles happily and struggles to get his much too big horns in through the doorway. He can't reach his Rider like this.

"Don't, Hookfang, you're going to get yourself stuck." A nasal voice says and the Nightmare reluctantly retreats to let Hiccup inside. His face, more specifically his mouth and nose, are covered with a thick cloth and understandably so. Knowing Hookfang would be roasting anything in his path to get to Snotlout, alive or dead, he'd come prepared.

But upon seeing Hiccup, the leader he'd disobeyed and troubled, Snotlout stills and looks at the floor, now back to lying flat on his side.

He's expecting a lecture, a rant, anything as Hiccup walks over and pulls out a knife. But it doesn't come even as he kneels behind him and cuts through the ropes restraining him.

So Snotlout feels like he has to ask. The urge to do so is nagging at him.

"Hey, aren't you mad?" He reluctantly asks as sits up and rolls his shoulders.

Hiccup gazes at him for a silent moment in contemplation before eventually sighing as he puts away the knife, folding it closed and shoving it in a pocket. That sigh already isn't a good sign and Snotlout feels his stomach drop.

"No, I'm not mad. Disappointed? Definitely. But not mad." Hiccup tells him and stands.

Ouch. A disappointed Hiccup is much worse than an angry one, he can't quite explain why. Disappointing him is almost like disappointing a parent, that's the only way he can possibly explain the levels of discomfort this brings him.

Snotlout looks away again, the floor is suddenly very interesting and he flicks a tiny rock away.

"Can you get up?" Hiccup asks, already offering a hand. Quietly Snotlout accepts it and lets the other pull him to his feet. Hiccup dusts him off.

"Come on, we're going home." He tells him and walks outside ahead of him, where Toothless is surely waiting for him.

They don't have one. At least, not in the form of a house. "Going home" simply means going back to the other Dragon Riders.

Snotlout follows, meeting with his dragon and with Toothless outside of the room.