#i love the woman but ive spent nearly the entire year thus far seeing her Daily & it's driving me a little insane

[caffeled]

birthday in a week 🧍‍♂️

[acediian]

—𝓉𝑜𝓋𝒶𝓇𝒾𝑜𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝑔𝒾𝒻𝓉 (𝓋𝒾𝒾.)

thanos x original character fanfiction  |  pre-infinity war  |  2.5k words +

a/n: ahhh, the beautiful marital bliss that awaits these two. but at least thanos is getting what he wants out of this whole situation so one of them is kind of happy. c;

chapters  i.  ii.  iii.  iv.  v.  vi.  vii.

Aerendis’ fingers played idly with the pendant around her neck as she sat beside her husband at the long table that overlooked their grand wedding feast. More Tovari were in attendance now than had been at the ceremony itself. The great hall was overflowing with noblemen, merchants, and everyone in between.

Jolly guests bumped into one another while touting full goblets of wine and ale. Palace servants weaved among them, carrying entire platters of meat and bread and Tovari delicacies. A band of musicians accompanied all of the activity in the hall, enticing a select few of the attendees to dance.

It was a joyous event, no doubt, but not for the two who the occasion was celebrating. Aerendis had merely sipped on wine all night, with hardly an appetite to persuade her to eat a thing. She had not seen Thanos eat anything either. He had spent the reception thus far with a sullen expression, tapping his fingers impatiently against the armrest of his chair.

All evening, the two of them had been fielding short visits from well wishers and those who offered their gratitude for Tovarion’s enduring safety. Some had even come bearing gifts for the newly wed couple. Trinkets, mostly - all of them handmade from the many artists and artisans that called the planet home. Aerendis appreciated each one, even if she knew that the sentiment held little meaning in this, merely a political marriage.

“The Lord and Lady of Weyrhall, your highnesses,” the queen’s hand announced, drawing Aerendis from her thoughts and into the hall once again.

The pair bowed before them. “Princess,” the woman said with a nod.

“Lady Haela,” Aerendis replied, flashing a kindly smile at their guests. She had known the lady and her husband since her youth. They hailed from a great house with ancestry that dated back to Tovarion’s earliest days.

The Lady looked to Thanos next, eyes almost fearful as she bowed her head. “My… lord?” she considered. “No, that isn’t right, is it?” She looked to Aerendis.

“Technically, by marriage…” the princess began, turning to her husband. “You are prince of Tovarion.”

Thanos seemed unimpressed by the mere thought of it, as correct as Aerendis was. “Those who serve me refer to me as ‘sire.’ That will suffice.”

“Sire,” Lady Haela repeated, bowing once again. “My husband and I congratulate you on your marriage. We have brought gifts.” She gestured to their servant, who stepped forward with a gleaming silver bow and a quiver to match. “For you, princess, to take and use in your far away travels. May it protect you always.”

The princess’ eyes were wide as she watched the flames of the torches in the hall flicker in the smooth surface of the bow. “Thank you, my lord and lady. I look forward to drawing it for the first time.”

Another servant stepped forward with their second gift, one that Aerendis immediately recognized. She shifted in her seat, feeling an unwanted warmth flood to her cheeks. “We also present you a naming blanket, your highnesses,” Lady Haela said. “That the gods may bless you with a healthy child.”

Aerendis’ smile tightened. It was tradition for at least one wedding guest to present the new couple with a naming blanket for their future child. She knew not what the gods had planned for her, but she was certain that she would find no family aboard a warship. “Thank you again. You honor us with your gifts, my lord and lady. Please enjoy the festivities.”

With another bow, the two retreated to their table once again, leaving Aerendis and Thanos alone at their own table. The princess swiftly reached for her goblet, taking a much longer sip from it this time.

More well wishers followed with more gifts for them - all the while, the princess smiled at each individual and offered thanks from both her and her husband. As the well wishers tapered off and resumed their frivolities, Aerendis slumped back in her seat. She had never known a Tovari affair to be so tiring, and had certainly never known herself to not enjoy such a raucous feast. Still, the wine kept on flowing and the music kept on playing, so it was not all bad, she supposed.

Eventually, a pair of women that Aerendis didn’t recognize approached the long table, stopping to kneel before her husband.

“Ah,” Thanos remarked. “Daughters.”

Aerendis’ head snapped towards him, brow creased. How… unexpected. Nearly every aspect of this union seemed to be.

“Father.” The dark-haired woman rose to her feet first, followed by the one with the piercing all-black eyes. Aerendis looked them both over with interest. The one had skin a beautiful hue of green she had never set eyes on before and the other had skin of a pale blue and seemed to be made partly of machine. Neither one resembled Thanos. They did not even resemble one another. Perhaps they took after their mothers.

Thanos turned to her. “Princess, I present my daughters. Gamora and Nebula.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Aerendis replied, flashing a kindly grin towards the two women. No such smile came back her way. “I... suppose we shall be seeing quite a lot of one another.”

“Not likely,” Nebula said flatly.

Gamora noticed the slightly wounded expression on the princess’ face and turned to her sister, frowning. “What my sister means is that we are seldom on the ship, princess.”

“Your father must keep the two of you very busy.”

“Yes, we do a great deal for father’s cause.”

Aerendis’ head tilted slightly. She’d dealt in diplomacy long enough to know exactly how to read others, and there was something in Gamora’s tone that conveyed a certain displeasure with that fact.

“Well, you can both relax and enjoy yourselves tonight,” the princess continued, her warm smile returning. “At least, I hope that you are. Please do let me know if there is anything that you need. I will have someone arrange rooms for you for the night, as well.”

“You are a gracious host, princess,” Gamora said, as she and Nebula bowed their heads.

Aerendis watched the pair retreat into the hall, disappearing amongst a sea of Tovari and offworlders alike. She turned to her husband. “They are lovely.”

“They are formidable warriors,” Thanos corrected her. “Gamora more so. They have trained their entire lives.”

“I am sure they’ve flourished under your tutelage.”

“I would have accepted no less.”

Aerendis felt a knot form in her stomach. It was one thing to be a harsh leader, but to be a harsh parent was something else entirely. She could not imagine such an upbringing for a child.

“Are they your only daughters?” A reasonable question, she thought, if only for her own sake. By law, she was stepmother to any child that called him ‘father.’

“I have many children,” Thanos replied. Noting the way her eyebrows raised, he continued. “Orphans that I took under my wing.”

“Ah,” Aerendis hummed. “I look forward to meeting them.” A half truth. There was nothing to look forward to in her future, aside from a prosperous home planet and many years spent floating through the beauty of the cosmos.

Husband and wife fell back into their previous silence as the night wore on. The guests grew more boisterous and rowdy the more they drank. The music grew louder as more joined the dancers out on the floor. Aerendis watched them intently, eyes wistful as she looked upon their joyful faces and saw how they danced without a care in all the world. It gave her hope to see them.

There was a time not long ago when she would have joined in their gaiety, danced the night away in their midst. But the nerves simmering inside her left her as still as a statue beside her new husband. Her goblet of wine never left her hand, even as Illaria stepped in every now and then to fill it to the brim once again. As strong as Tovari wine was, it was not enough to give her more than a feeling of warmth and a slight flush in her cheeks. She doubted that she had drunk even half as much as those who now found themselves stumbling over benches, tables, and one another. Even so, all the casks on Tovarion would not have been enough for her on this night.

All evening, Aerendis sensed her husband’s growing displeasure at being made to wait any longer for the stone. The festivities showed no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping. She knew they would continue for long after they departed.

As some of the partygoers began to slump over the long tables, their drunken haze carrying them off into a deep sleep, Aerendis heard Thanos let out a great sigh before rising from his seat.

“Are you retiring for the night?” she asked, turning her gaze upward toward his face. A grin tugged at her lips, forming a single dimple in her flushed right cheek. “Or have you finally decided to have a dance?”

Evidently, her joke was not well received; the lines of his face deepened in a scowl. “I do not dance, princess.” He sounded almost offended as he turned to meet her gaze. “I upheld my end of our deal. Take me to the stone.”

He gave her no time to respond as he moved swiftly past her. She quickly rose to her feet, glancing to the nearest table where her mother and brother sat. Her fingers pressed the black amulet between them; a signal to the queen that the time had come. A nervous look passed from mother to daughter.

“Follow me,” she said, hurrying to keep in stride with her husband. “It is a bit of a descent into the vaults.”

“I don’t care.”

-

Husband and wife proceeded through the palace halls, which were eerily silent in the absence of all the noise of the wedding feast. All but the odd guard seemed to still be there; Aerendis had never known her home to feel so utterly empty. There was only the two of them, the sound of their footsteps, and the soft rustling of her gown.

Before long, they came upon the beautifully carved wall that held the staircase into the lower vault behind it. Was Thanos about to become only the fourth person alive to know of this door’s existence?

“I don’t see the stone, princess,” Thanos began, exasperation lacing each word. “Don’t think that you--”

Aerendis tsked, glancing over her shoulder at him. “This is no trick. You shall have your prize.”

Removing the necklace, she mirrored her mother’s exact movements from the night before. The pendant fit perfectly into its place at the center of the relief, in the exact spot where each of the gods’ hands connected. The same white light flickered to life from where the stone sat, following each line of the image until the entire wall cast a bright glow on them and the room behind them.

As the staircase behind revealed itself, Aerendis gestured for her husband to proceed down the stone steps. “This is where the stone has been kept hidden all these years,” she said, slowly following him down the winding stairs. “I did not even know of its presence until last night. I can’t imagine how you came to know that it was here.”

“I have been searching for the stones all my life, princess,” Thanos replied. “I find the information I seek… eventually. In this case, you have a loose-lipped Asgardian noble to thank.”

“Loose-lipped? Or subjected to torture?” Aerendis asked bitterly.

The small chuckle that left his throat caused her heart to sink. “He served his purpose.”

The weight of his words was enough to silence her as they finished their descent. The room was the same as it had been the previous night; vast and empty save for the orb that housed the power stone and the pedestal that held it. But the air in the great chamber felt heavier today. Aerendis wondered if her husband could hear her heart pounding as he stepped away from her and towards the orb.

A large hand extended, plucking the object from where it hovered with little hesitation. It seemed such an innocuous thing as it rolled into his palm. Yet the princess knew of its destructive properties; knew that many had likely sought its power over the millennia. Thanos had been the only one mad enough to take it for himself.

Aerendis moved to his side, enraptured as she looked upon the orb. “You know… in all my years, I’d always thought that the Infinity Stones were no more than a myth. Yet one was right here, beneath my very feet.”

“And now you will behold it with your own eyes. I doubt even your mother has done so,” Thanos replied, his other hand settling on the top of the orb. Fingers tightening around the object, he pulled it apart into two identical halves.

A blinding purple glow emitted from the orb’s interior, the light reflecting off of Aerendis’ colorless irises. There lay the power stone, humming, pulsating with energy. It was such a small thing, but one that she knew carried utterly dangerous properties. She and Thanos must have been the first to lay eyes on it in millennia.

“It’s different than I had imagined,” Aerendis breathed, her eyes wide and mouth agape as she stared at the stone. It was as beautiful as it was frightening. She had never beheld anything like it. Not even the rarest Tovari jewel could compare.

“And more powerful than you could know,” Thanos replied, a satisfied grin on his lips. The sullen disposition that had followed him the entire day had melted away, leaving behind an unmistakable twinkle in his eye.

“Clearly… why else would my people and the Asgardians have gone to such lengths to keep it hidden all these years?”

“It is no longer their burden to bear.” His smile remained as he turned away from her, long strides carrying him toward the exit of the chamber.

“Where are you going?” Aerendis asked as she rushed after him.

“Bringing the stone to my ship.” Thanos stopped, barely looking over his shoulder at her. “Enjoy your feast, princess. Get some sleep. We depart in the morning.”

Brow furrowed, Aerendis drew in a breath to reply, but he moved quickly and deliberately up the staircase that would lead him out of the vault once again. He was far enough ahead that she did not catch even a glimpse of him as she, too, exited the vaults, and found herself in the palace halls again. This time, there was not a soul around aside from her.

The feast felt like no place for her on this night, so she soon retired to her chambers, where she slumped into her favorite seat on the balcony that overlooked the sprawling city below and the vast night’s sky above. She could think of no better place to spend her last night on her home planet than the spot where she could take in all of its beauty.

Tagging: @kurochan3 (let me know if you’d also like to be tagged in future chapters!)

[galeadair-blog]

PERSONALITY:

Equal parts logical and emotional, pragmatic and wild, cold but incredibly soft beneath the ice – Gale is a walking study in contradictions. Her head and her heart are constantly at war. From a distance, she’ll approach any problem she’s given with cool, clear logic. But catch her on the spot, in the heat of a moment? She’s prone to acting before her head can fully catch up to her, all fire and adrenaline. Gale calls it trusting her gut when it works out, and letting her emotions get the best of her when it doesn’t. Whip-smart and determined, she lacks the silvery veneer of the other Adairs and prefers blunt, straightforward communication that’s as efficient as the computers she spends so many hours with. She knows she’s the smartest person in almost any given room, even among the highbrow politicians her parents keep company with, and she enjoys watching other people squirm, scrutinizing and picking them apart because she’s never felt it was her job to make other people feel comfortable. Suffocated in a giant house where she was ignored no matter how large she made herself, Gale holds herself to an even higher standard than her brother because it’s the only way to prove she’s better, even though that still falls on deaf ears. Part of her thinks she owes much of her success to her family, as much as she begrudges them for it: it’s spite, after all, that has driven her all these years. Spite and the knowledge that she must look out for herself above all else, because no one else is going to do that for her. At least, that’s what she tells herself. At her core, however, is nothing more than the overwhelming desire to be accepted and loved, but she’s learned to bury her softness under sharp edges, used to being disregarded now matter how much she does to prove herself. She just isn’t sure who she’s even trying to prove something to, anymore.

HEADCANONS:

i. As if she wasn’t already suffocated enough in a home where her sole function was to be a glaring reminder of Sophie’s only mistake – homeschooling kept Gale even further confined, separated from other kids her age. Her parents told her it was because she was so advanced; she’d be miserable sitting in a classroom with kids years above her, girls in training bras and boy sprouting facial hair while she stood feet shorter. They were probably right. Gale always preferred the solitude of her room and speaking to people through a computer screen as opposed to face-to-face interactions. But it didn’t matter that they were right. What mattered that their reasoning was a lie. Gale was something to hide as her mom’s political career was taking off, a mistake swept under the rug for as long as possible until they knew she and Charles could both be trusted not to spill the family’s secret. Until they couldn’t keep them under their roof any longer, more like. With a high school diploma and a slew of AP scores under her belt at 16, Gale left for college only two years after her half-brother (and determined to graduate at the same time). Stanford was the obvious choice; one of the nation’s top schools in both computer science and mathematics, it was also the farthest Gale could get from D.C. without leaving the country.

It was hardly a surprise when she found herself thrust into a boys’ club, the smallest and the youngest and the low man on the totem pole. But this wasn’t like her home. Here, Gale couldn’t be ignored, not when she so easily surpassed everyone else in her classes, when she was the first to answer questions or provide a sarcastic response whenever a classmate or a professor got something wrong. She quickly realized that she didn’t mind being resented so long as she was being acknowledged., and in no time at all she was thriving at school, all her free time spent hunkered down in her dorm room working on a code of her own development and ignoring her roommate’s requests that she please stop typing until 4 am.

ii. It was during those late nights in her room that Gale stumbled upon the thing that would make her truly Great. It started as a project for a coding class, something she might simply have abandoned after receiving perfect marks had her professor not told her he believed she was on to something. So it was that she started to pour herself into Walkie-Talkie, a messaging app that allows users to send a voice message as easily as a text. She threw in all the capabilities of other popular messaging apps and an option for highly sophisticated encryption, and suddenly she had a hit on her hands. With a bit of hard work and marketing, Talkie (as it’s commonly referred to by end users) blew up, and Gale brought on a team to help manage its success and look to the future. She didn’t want to be limited by one app, to be a one-hit wonder that faded off to the background. That wasn’t enough, at least not enough for her mother to take notice. So she kept working. She built up an entire tech company, making money off data aggregation and predictive analytics along with marketing and advertising. She created a dating app that build off of Talkie. She leads philanthropic efforts to help connect villages in third-world countries to the Internet. Three years after graduating Stanford and she’s a millionaire on her own merit, and Knot47 is a contender in the tech market right alongside Alphabet and Apple.

Gale put a lot of thought into the name of her company. It had to be something catchy but not cheesy, something with her stamp on it without just sticking her name on it and making some pun about gale force winds. Not that she necessarily hates that comparison. In fact, Gale prides herself on how much she’s lived up to her name, an unstoppable force that nearly always indicates a storm coming. She took her inspiration from that, from the fact that she and her company are going to take the world by storm. It’s a bit obvious for a metaphor, but Gale’s skill set has always been for numbers and computers, not flowery writing. Still, she wanted it to be something harder to decipher. Something people would have to think about (and hopefully not be able to understand, even then). Thus, Knot47 was born. 47 knots, the strongest gale force wind, and a name that says nothing about what her company does. Because Gale knew she’d make it big enough everyone would simply know.

And she’s done a good job of it. Two years in and she had a corporate headquarters based just outside D.C., in Silver Spring, Maryland. The campus consists of three buildings connected by indoor skywalk, complete with nap rooms, a cafeteria that provides free breakfast, lunch and dinner, game rooms, and state-of-the-art tech. Everything required to keep her employees at work as long as possible. She’s not an easy boss to work for, but Knot47 is a tough company to get a job at, pays extremely well, and looks great on a resume.

iii. As much resentment as she has toward her mother, there’s also some admiration there as well. Sophie Adair has never been one to take no for an answer, never let her gender or the color of her skin define her, and that’s a mindset Gale embraced as well. A feminist who tries her hardest to hire qualified women whenever possible – she now boasts the highest number of women in development and management positions of any tech company, though that percentage still isn’t anywhere near her liking – she prides herself on how far she’s come in her industry. That isn’t to say, however, that she always identifies as a female. It confused her for a long time; weeks or months where she identified strongly as a woman, especially when she found herself surrounded by men who tried to put her down for it. But there were also times where she felt decidedly unfemale. Not male, not female – just other.

Genderfluidity wasn’t something she knew existed until extensive googling at the age of fourteen, and there was a sense of relief at the realization that she wasn’t alone in what she felt. For the most part she prefers feminine pronouns to define herself, if only because she wants the world to see a strong woman making success for herself in a male-dominated field. But she slips easily between identifying as female and agender. She’s not giving anyone the excuse to claim her success in the industry has anything to do with her not being female at all times. Some days she’ll show up to her mother’s events in a nice dress or skirt and makeup; other days she’ll show up plain-faced in dress pants and a button-up, with no qualms over how the inconsistency gets to her parents. If anything, that just makes her enjoy herself more. For the most part, she doesn’t give her gender much thought anymore, not since she figured herself out. She does and dresses what she feels from day to day, and that’s that.

iv. Raised in a household that demanded perfection in all things – from her, if not from Charles – perhaps it’s a wonder Gale didn’t go off to college and seek out the wildest parties she could find. But teenage rebellion was never her MO, and quite frankly the idea of getting within a hundred feet of a room full of drunk, sweaty, horny Ivy League students sounded like something out of a nightmare. No, Gale explored her newfound freedom in the same way she did everything; her own way. Namely, by forgetting everything her parents had ever taught her about healthy eating habits and the dangers of sugar. Where her much older peers indulged in drugs and alcohol, Gale indulged in candy, and its a habit that’s stuck with her. She’s a sugar addict, plain and simple, and it’s just one more way she sets herself apart from her family. With as much going on in her life as Gale has, she lives on coffee, mixed with sugar and cream until it’s so light in color it’s unrecognizable, and then adding a little more just for good measure. There’s an entire drawer in her office her assistant is responsible for keeping stocked with candy bars and gummies, and she always has at least one package of watermelon sour patch kids in her purse. It’s not uncommon to see her munching on them at a press conference, wiping the sugar off her fingers on Charles’s pants.

v. Gale has never dated. Being homeschooled meant few opportunities to meet other kids, and those she did all reminded her too much of Charles: spoiled, pretentious, more obsessed with their images than anything else. No, thank you. She was perfectly happy left to her own devices, focusing on her studies and the various coding and chess competitions she was involved in. Once she got to college it was much of the same. Significantly younger than the rest of her classmates, Gale was hardly in a position to be dating at Stanford and she much preferred to stay dedicated to her classwork and on track to graduate early. And nothing has changed for her. A young professional, she’s much more interested in her work than she is in going on dates. Not to mention – the thought of going on a date with anybody makes her more nervous than she’d like to admit, even to herself. She’s always been better with screens than with people, and she’s perfectly happy to remain that way.  

vi. Naturally energetic and with an affinity for sugar, Gale is nearly constantly fidgeting. Tapping her foot or fingers, clicking a pen, fiddling with the ring she wears on her right hand or picking at her nail polish, she’s always been bad at sitting still (perhaps the one area where Charles has always bested her). She’s also almost always got her cellphone in her hand – Android, not Apple – typing away as she shoots off emails and messages to her assistant and employees whenever she’s not at the office. Even when she’s in the middle of a conversation, it’s not uncommon for her to stop talking (or listening) to pull out her phone and type out a quick note for herself, be it something she’s said she wants to remember later, or a new thought she wants to look into further. Her mind is always moving and she’s learned to jot down the significant thoughts if she doesn’t want to lose them later. If it’s not recorded somewhere, it’s not real.

vii. Gale adores brain teasers and strategy games, anything that lets her work her mind and encourages her to think creatively. Chess was perhaps the one activity that bonded her to either of her parents, though she only ever got tips for improvement when she started to beat them, while Charles was praised constantly despite his losses.

viii. Gale technically still lives in her parents’ home for now, as much as she’d prefer not to. It’s not because she needs to save the money. It’s certainly not because she likes it there. But for as much freedom as she has, she knows her parents hate the idea of her living out from under their watchful eyes during the election season. She’s always been the wild card of the family, and the last thing either of her parents need is for Sophie’s dirty little secret getting out. So at home she stays, for now, only because she isn’t finished taking all she can from her last name. It’s the only thing her parents gave her, after all; Gale isn’t above using their connections to further her own success, at least until she gets to the point where she doesn’t need them anymore. But this isn’t to say she’s home frequently. More often than not, Gale can be found crashed over her desk at Knot47 HQ after a late night of work, enough so that she finally put a loft in her office and started leaving some clothes there.

ix. Years of homeschooling and private tutoring left Gale which a handful of extraneous skills. She speaks spanish and french fluently, plays the tuba and the piano, and even has a few (painful) years of ballet and tennis under her belt.