I'll Snap My Fingers This Time!

Tony finally let out a long breath. Thank God. For a moment, he had thought they were all going to die together.

"Lin, are you okay? What is that..."

Tony caught his breath and flew toward Lin Yi. At this point, they probably wouldn't need to make the Snap. With Variant Thanos gone, his remaining army would still be a nuisance, but it was no longer a serious threat.

Only when Tony reached Lin Yi did he realize Lin Yi was staring at a lump of something.

"Is that... Thanos?"

On the ground lay a purple mass of flesh that looked half-melted. It kept twisting and sprouting tentacles.

The mass waved its tentacles like a slime. Black-purple veins glowed across it, as though it were rebuilding itself.

One glance sent Tony's sanity plummeting. Looking directly at the thing even made his head ache, though he couldn't tell whether the pain was real.

A bad feeling rose in him, and Tony immediately fired a Repulsor blast.

Voom!

The Repulsor blast sank into the flesh without so much as a ripple.

No. After "swallowing" the Repulsor blast, the mass writhed even more vigorously. Wisps of mist began to spread from it.

Was it feeding on energy?

"Tony!" Strange flew over, and the core Avengers arrived with him.

"What the hell is that thing?" Steve took off his shield. Only half of it remained, its jagged edge looking as though enormous teeth had gnawed through it.

"Is that something Thanos left behind? What the hell?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Rocket crouched down but didn't dare go near the flesh.

"You're the magic guy. You don't know what it is either?" Tony asked grimly. "Wasn't this in the future you saw?"

Strange shook his head, his expression dark. The thing resembled a monster from the Dark Dimension he had once read about, and he could even sense a trace of the Dark Dimension within it.

But apart from that trace, it was entirely different.

"Make the Snap. Use the Infinity Stones to erase Thanos and those purple markings together," Strange suggested after a moment's hesitation. "Maybe... The Snap can't be avoided."

Tony's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean, it can't be avoided?"

"Magic guy, was making the Snap the only way you saw us succeed? Does someone have to do it?"

Strange opened his mouth, then closed it. Tony's eyes darkened as anger surged through him.

"Now, of all times, you're still keeping secrets? Here, keep this hidden too." Tony erupted, pointing at the writhing mass of flesh growing on the ground, then at Thanos' Army as its troops recovered and attacked again.

"Hide all of it. This and this. Are you going to wait until it's too late, then crawl into some dark corner with that precious future you can't talk about and cry over what you could've done?"

"Oh, Mommy, I'm so scared! Fuck!" Tony grew more worked up with every word. It had been years since he'd felt so unable to control his emotions.

Five years. He had lived five peaceful years. No one knew what it had taken for him to decide to risk everything again, or how precious Morgan was to him.

He looked at the ugly monsters tearing everything apart, at the fighters who kept dying. He thought of how close he had come to never seeing Morgan again. And here stood Strange, convinced he had the future under control even as everything fell apart, still keeping secrets. The anger inside Tony only grew.

"Tony!" Steve grabbed him, struggling to contain his own agitation. Tony had gone too far.

Strange felt an unnatural emotion stir within him. He glanced thoughtfully at the mass of flesh.

Could it influence minds like the Mind Stone?

The future had already veered beyond anything he could foresee. That one outcome... perhaps keeping it secret no longer mattered.

"In the one future where we succeeded, I saw you..." Strange sighed as though giving up and pointed at Tony.

Tony's furious expression froze.

"I saw you sacrifice yourself to make the Snap."

"That's why I thought someone might have to make it for everything to get back on track."

"But now... we've gone beyond the future I saw. I don't know whether making the Snap will even work."

Everyone's gaze turned to Tony.

Tony? Sacrifice himself?

Given Stark's character... it was unexpected, yet somehow it made sense.

Tony was silent for a long moment before pointing at himself. "Me? Make the Snap?"

Strange said nothing, confirming it. Tony fell silent again. No one knew how thoroughly those words had thrown his thoughts into chaos.

"I could do it... if it's the only way..."

Steve jolted and grabbed Tony. "No, no, no. Hold on. Sacrificing someone was never part of our plan."

"If someone has to do it, let me. I can take it!" Thor stepped forward, his voice booming.

"I've still got one arm!" Banner stepped forward too.

No one wanted Tony to make the Snap. Without his armor, he had an ordinary human body. For him, it would be suicide.

"Hey! I never said I'd use this suit. I could build a suit specifically for the Infinity Stones. Assuming we still have time..." Tony's voice trailed off.

"That's enough. I'll do it. We've already gone far beyond what Strange saw. It won't matter who makes the Snap." Lin Yi, silent until now, came back to himself. He picked up the last stone, the Power Stone, and set it into the Infinity Nano Gauntlet.

Events had deviated so far from what Strange had seen that he knew Tony making the Snap could no longer be the only path. Otherwise, he wouldn't have revealed that one successful future.

No one spoke. Even Strange didn't object to Lin Yi.

Only a handful of people on the battlefield could withstand the Six Infinity Stones. Carol might have managed it, but she was spent.

And given the strength Lin Yi had shown, he was the best choice to make the Snap.

With all Six Infinity Stones gathered, multicolored energy carrying the force to destroy heaven and earth began spreading through the gauntlet.

Violent energy surged through his armor and washed over Lin Yi's body. Pain stabbed across his skin, making him suck in a sharp breath.

It hurt far more than he had imagined. He had no idea how Tony, with an ordinary human body, had endured it in the movie.

"Report on his condition!"

"You okay, Lin Yi?" Tony asked, his expression grave as Lin Yi's condition appeared inside his helmet.

Lin Yi's body temperature and heart rate kept climbing. An ∞ symbol had long since replaced the energy reading.

After a few seconds of adjusting to the sensation, Lin Yi came back to himself and found everyone watching him anxiously.

"I'm fine." Lin Yi nodded. The energy hurt, but it also filled him with a power several times over—tens, perhaps even hundreds of times greater than what he felt when basking in the sun.

"Remember, when you make the Snap, you have to erase Thanos' Army and those unknown Black-purple veins."

"I suspect those Black-purple veins caused Thanos to take that form, but I can't tell what they are," Strange warned. He had no interest in studying them. He only hoped the Snap would make them disappear for good.

Lin Yi took another deep breath. Watching "Thanos" writhe, he slowly raised his right hand. No mental preparation, no ceremony. Before everyone's eyes, he snapped his fingers.