Thanos panted heavily inside.
He looked up.
Threads stretched outward from the vast darkness.
"Sean, Mr. Stark?"
In the darkness, Peter came to his senses and called out.
"Stop yelling and get off me first."
Tony's irritated voice came from right beneath Peter's backside.
He hurriedly got up. "Sorry, Mr. Stark, I thought..."
"You thought I was dead?"
Tony flipped open his faceplate and frowned. "Where are we?"
"I don't know."
The group had survived being almost caught in the explosion.
A voice rang out in delighted surprise. "Gamora!"
Star-Lord could not have been happier to see Gamora appear.
Standing beside them, Nebula felt like a third wheel.
Drax, clueless as ever, said, "It's like being on cotton."
With that, he reached out and poked the darkness.
A hand stretched out of it and slapped Drax squarely on the forehead.
The darkness landed heavily opposite Thanos.
They saw the darkness around them recede like a tide, all of it drawing back into John's body.
Stephen's pupils contracted. Dormammu? No, that wasn't right.
John was becoming harder and harder for him to figure out.
Gamora smiled and pushed Star-Lord's hand away.
For them, nothing could have been better than being reunited.
John raised an eyebrow at Thanos and greeted him. "Hello there, Purple Potato."
"You?" Thanos stared at John. He sensed something about him that set him apart from the others.
"That's so unfair," Peter complained. "He can set off nuclear bombs."
"That was far more dangerous than a nuclear bomb."
John said calmly, "He isn't someone you can hypnotize that easily."
"Sorry, I couldn't do it," Mantis said ashamedly.
"That's fine." John waved a hand. "If he were that easy to deal with, Thor wouldn't have gotten beaten up."
John warmed up. "To keep him from unleashing another explosion like