"Tony," Strange said from his sitting place, "there was no other way." And then, just like the others he disintegrated. Peter followed soon after and Tony was alone with only some blue lady he didn't know as company. The pain in his side was no greater than the pain in his heart as he thought of all the people that were surely doing the same as Strange and Peter had done. As those he had met during this mad rush to fight had done before them.

He could only hope that he could make his way back to Earth and that Pepper was spared. There was nothing he wanted to do now more than fall into her arms and mourn his losses. And still, Strange's words echoed through his mind. No other way for what?

The Master of Death had found that the only way to enjoy a proper funeral rite was with an endless cup of tea and one of his minions ensuring he never ran out of biscuit to dunk. He sighed with satisfaction now as another soul was sent to him through the proper channels and slurped some tea. It wasn't the most exciting life, being the Master of Death, but he thought he deserved a bit of a rest after what had happened while he had been young and alive.

Not that he wasn't alive now. He was simply more dead than he was alive and tended to call his life up until he turned twenty the time when he had been alive. That was when he had been killed for the third time and come back with all the knowledge of the universe stuffed in his head and sent back to the very beginning.

Apparently that had been the plan. His plan. For he wasn't really the Master of Death. He was instead simply Death. But then, wizards can never be trusted to get the story straight and it really didn't matter what he was called. It was merely a title. So he had lived for millennia, watching over the universe as it grew and making sure that deaths were handled properly in order to keep the balance.

A few years back there had been an utter idiot who had decided that he knew what the proper balance was, but Death had quickly sorted out his idiocy by giving the nod to his counterpart Life who ensured that more lifeforms were created for a few years. Honestly, the nerve of some people. Thinking they knew better than the being that had watched the universe since it had been born.

Harry—for that was what Death preferred to call himself, out of deference to the child he had once been—was about to take another sip of his tea and maybe dunk a biscuit in, when he suddenly spotted someone fading in when they shouldn't be. He stared at the human who had decided to visit his domain and wondered if the idiot was simply being more idiotic than usual. But as he looked around, he could see more people fading in, and not just humans.

With a sigh, Harry set aside his teacup and said aloud, "Please tell me there's not another idiot out there thinking they know what's best."

The reaper next to him shrugged and offered him another biscuit. A new hire then, still hadn't quite learned when biscuits were appropriate and when they were not. He waved the offered treat away and stalked to the first person he had noticed fade in. Doctor Stephen Strange did his best to look unimpressed as Harry revealed himself to the dead mortal. It didn't exactly work.

Harry glared at him, "Explain."

To his credit, the doctor promptly did as he was ordered. Although, when Harry caught a glimpse of the Time Stone around him, he figured he knew why. "Thanos has all of the Infinity Stones and has, I assume, removed half of the universe's population."

"That idiot again?" Harry groaned as he thought of the purple moron who had kicked up a fuss a few years back. And then his mind circled back to the green tint he could see on the man in front of him and he remembered the pact that had once been sealed. He glared at the Sorcerer Supreme, "I thought I told your people to look after that Stone! I made it so no one could take it from you without you being willing! What happened, Sorcerer?"

The man shrugged unrepentantly, "It was the only way."

Which, yeah, Harry could see where he was coming from. But still, "I hate you," he growled as he stomped back to his chair. The reaper offered him his teacup and Harry drained it twice before sighing and calling out to his counterpart.

"Life, I'm going to need your aid for a bit." He received a confirmation from her and felt the Resurrection Stone on his hand fill with her power. He sighed again. Life wasn't as free as he was in terms of wandering. She was stuck in the centre, making sure that there was always a bright spark alive somewhere, never letting it die.

"Where?" he demanded.

"Earth," Strange replied.

Harry arrived on Earth to find its population halved already and beings running to and fro in a mad panic, crying for their losses. He ignored them. Instead, he headed to the place that emanated the Infinity Stones powers and found a battlefield. Evidently, the Earth hadn't given in without a fight. Even here, there were those trying to find a lost one.

In the middle of some trees, he found a small group. Lying on the ground was what had once been a vessel for the Mind Stone. Its defenders jumped up as he appeared, weapons readied even though they had just lost a fight. He admired that. He knew what it was like to lose all hope and keep pushing on.

They weren't why he was here though. Gathering his power, he shouted out, "Oi! Purple git! Get your arse back here and apologise for making me miss the funeral!"

Those around him stared, flexing their grips on their weapons as they wondered what the strange man was doing. They all leaped back in surprise and slight fear as the Great Purple Idiot Thanos came into view. The purple nitwit was sitting down and had a small smile on his face that vanished as soon as he registered his change of scenery.

Instead of viewing the sun as it lit up the sky in brilliant colours, the titan found himself sitting in front of short man. The man had messy black hair, glowing green eyes and was garbed much like the Sorcerer had been, he even had a cloak. The man was currently glaring at him.

"The last time you did this it was on a smaller scale and me and my partner could fix it easily enough." Harry started, still glaring at the titan. "We were willing to let you off the hook then. We figured you'd learn that what you were doing wasn't helping the universe at all. But no, instead you have to go around and collect some shiny gems so you could wreak havoc on a larger scale!"

By now, Harry had started to pull his hair out and Thanos could only stare as the tiny human yelled at him. "It was for balance-" Thanos started to say, to try and convince the human that what he had done was right. Death cut him off, however.

"No, it bloody well was not! Tell me, what do you know of balance, hmm?" To hopefully make the point sink in a bit more, Harry stalked up to the tall purple deathmonger and started poking him in the chest. Thanos was unable to move and remove the man from his vicinity. "What do you know of keeping the universe happy? What do you know of keeping souls until they're ready for the next journey? What do you know of keeping the spark alive? What do you know about anything? What passed through that thick skull of yours that translated into killing people randomly is good?"

"My planet was dying." If Thanos had expected any sympathy from Death about that, he was mistaken.

Harry simply nodded in agreement, "Yes. As was necessary. If you waited for another few hundred years, you would have found your planet reviving."

Thanos had had enough. He did not have to stay here and listen to this small human rant at him, he thought! He had the Infinity Stones. What was one more death in the grand scheme of things? Sneering slightly, Thanos clenched his fist and willed the human in front of him to die. The man continued glaring, raising an unimpressed eyebrow as Thanos forced even more power into the Stones and wished for his death.

"You can keep doing that for the rest of your life," the man finally said, "it's not going to do anything."

Thanos growled, "Who are you that you can resist the Stones?"

"Who am I? You do all this and you don't even know who I am?" Harry's voice rose in pitch at the last few words in incredulity. "I'm only the person that has to deal with you deciding to play me and sending people to my domain way before they're ready! I'm Death, you blockhead."

Blinking, taking in the eyes glowing with dangerous and annoyed power, Thanos thought that perhaps he had made a mistake. The thought intensified into knowledge as Death swept his left hand out and lifeforms started to reform from their remains. Through the gauntlet he wore and the Stones embedded in it, Thanos knew that all those he had killed were returning.

Death's eyes glowed brighter, his hair whipped about in an unfelt breeze and the singular ring on his finger shone with a warm light. "This is the power of Death and Life, Titan Thanos. This is what you have sought for so many years and falsely thought you had. The stones you hold are mere trinkets when compared to the two true constants.

"You have been found guilty of upsetting the balance wilfully and with full knowledge of the consequences of your actions. You are sentenced to category three death. You shall never return and you shall receive no funeral. So mote it be."

Thanos screamed as his body tore itself apart, scattering atoms everywhere in the universe, never to form into the same shape again. The six stones he had gathered returned to where they had once been and the universe started to become right again. In the small area of destroyed trees Death let his aura subside and instead focused on bringing the dead back through the veil with Life aiding him. He was distracted by someone tackling him to the ground and shoving a gun in his face.

Jolted from his concentration, Death looked up at the man currently straddling him and heard the frantic calls of, "Bucky! No, Bucky, he's a friend! He helped us!"

A blond man—Steve Rogers, the universe whispered—pulled James Barnes off of him and assured his friend that Death was safe. Which Death found rather ironic given that quite a lot of beings tried to run from him and generally considered him to be the worst thing that could ever happen to them. The shouts drew his attention from his wandering thoughts and he smacked himself for losing focus as he saw James Barnes slowly disintegrate once more. "Don't you dare, James Buchanan Barnes," he warned and the man returned to full being.

Death glared around at the group, "Don't distract me again." With that said, Death settled himself into a comfortable(ish) sitting position and once more focused on pulling back those that had died before they were allowed to. The group around him kept a careful distance between them and him as they greeted those they thought lost forever.

Eventually, the universe was back in balance and Death sighed slightly as he returned his focus to the living plane. A presence next to him had him holding out his hand expectantly and he startled when, instead of the expected teacup, he received a hand that started to haul him upwards. Following the arm attached to the hand, Death found that he was being helped up by Steve Rogers.

Though it hadn't been what he had wanted, Death nodded his thanks. And then held out his hand again and snapped impatiently. The newbie reaper stumbled through the doorway he had made and handed over his teacup. Death sighed, he really needed to train this reaper up, it didn't do to not have a constant supply of tea and biscuits on hand at all times. Speaking of biscuits, Death glanced at the reaper and was rewarded with a mortified look as the reaper realised they had forgotten to give him his biscuits.

Biscuit in one hand and teacup in the other, Death happily dunked the biscuit and bit off the now soggy part. Steve started to say something but Death glared at him. And then slurped his tea. Once the cup had been emptied and refilled itself, he gestured for Steve to continue with whatever he was going to say.

"Thank you."

Death blinked. Then he waved a hand dismissively (stopping on the way to get a new biscuit from the reaper). "No need to thank me, Steve. Dealing with that dimwit and others like him is part of my job."

Steve shrugged, "Still, thank you for helping us and for bringing back those he killed."

"War for the sake of war is always pointless, and death for the sake of death holds no purpose. What means nothing, is nothing and thus does not exist. That's all there is to it." Death turned his attention away from the soldier and focused on the King of Asgard, "You will find your people waiting for you. They too, were victims of death without purpose."

Thor Odinson nodded his thanks and Bruce Banner stepped forward hesitantly. "Uh, we have some friends out in space… Could you, maybe, tell us if they're okay?"

"Do you have their names?"

"Uh, two of them are Tony Stark and Stephen Strange. I never caught the kid's name, Tony just called him kid."

Death scowled at the reminder of Stephen Strange, "I should have kept him in the veil for what he did," he muttered to himself before seeing if Life could find the soul of one Tony Stark and who was around him. She replied that he was on the purple jerk's planet and had six other souls with him. "They're alive."

A collective sigh of relief went through those around him. Harry clapped his hands (teacup vanishing as he did so) and said, "Right, well, if that's all, I'll be off. I might be able to catch the tail end of a particularly good funeral if I'm lucky. Ta ta!"

He walked through the doorway (dragging the newbie reaper along with him when they didn't seem like they were going to move) and left the living plane behind. It turned out he was lucky, they had decided to perform the long version of the rites and it had been interrupted when several priests disintegrated, meaning they had to start again.

Death sighed with contentment as he sipped his tea and munched on soggy biscuits. There was nothing better than coming home from dealing with an annoying purple twit then relaxing with a cup of tea and some biscuits while watching a funeral done right.