No response.

"I knew letting him out was a mistake."

"He'll turn up eventually."

"That's what I'm worried about."

Meanwhile, Calo bows to Fëanor.

"Tar-Fëanáro," he says, "I realize this probably isn't the time, but there are approximately six hundred open scientific questions officially marked as awaiting your input, as cataloged in the Combined Letters of the Aulendili and Mírtani—"

"Who art thou?" he asks in a Quenya so archaic that Calanáro can barely understand it.

"Calanáro Imbírtan. One of your grandson's people, in Formenos, and a huge fan. Also, it's 'who are you', the language has changed a bit."

"Of course it hath, in mine absence—that's not even a remotely defensible change, it omitteth relevant information and increaseth the listener's dependence on context—"

"I guess the th-to-s change happened while you were still alive, so I'm not going to bother arguing that one with you."

"We speak as is right. Now, if thou wilt excuse me, I have something I need to retrieve."

He flies into orbit—this robot body is really cool—and comes back a few minutes later with another Silmaril.

"Ship was deserted. He must have been killed by Thanos. He can argue about this with me when he gets back."

Meanwhile, Tony and Nebula arrive at Thanos' Garden in the Benatar.

"Alright. You go down in the ship, make him think you're alone. Try to get his guard down. I'll hang out in the upper atmosphere and drop down and blast him on your signal."

He jumps out the airlock.

She takes the ship and lands it in front of Thanos' farmhouse.

"Father—" she says, when their eyes meet.

"I am sorry, daughter. But I know what you would do. The work must remain done."

Nebula turns to dust.

Tony loses his comm-link with Nebula, realizes something has gone horribly wrong, and drops towards Thanos at top speed, preparing to fire.

Thanos sees him and raises his hand, preparing to dust him as well—

And then Tony is no longer on the planet.

Thousands of light-years away, Varda sees what's happening. She shouldn't be happy about it. But what she gets to do next is going to be so fun.

She yanks Tony back to Taniquetil, to put him out of the way. Hopefully that's far enough.

SORRY, she says to him. BUT I THINK I CAN DO THIS A BIT MORE IMPRESSIVELY.

She snaps her fingers—it's not necessary at all, just for the irony—and at her command, the star orbited by Thanos' planet, which would ordinarily have shone for billions of years more, burns through its remaining fuel in just under three seconds. For that brief time, it outshines a million galaxies.

SADLY, HE WON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIT HIM. BUT NEXT TIME SOMEONE DECIDES TO KILL HALF THE UNIVERSE, THEY SHOULD MAKE SURE I'M IN THE DYING HALF.

Thanos has eight minutes to live, though he doesn't know it. But he does know something has gone very, very wrong. He raises his hand and prepares to use the Stones to destroy the Stones. It will probably kill him, but the work will remain done.

Oh, you don't want to do that.

"Why shouldn't I? Who are you?"

Who I am is unimportant. I am a friend of yours, and a very powerful friend, if you help me regain my power. I offer you my undying loyalty. All I require in exchange is that you use that little green rock to retrieve something I lost a long time ago.

"Others have offered me that before. Know, this time, if I accept your service, that I can still destroy you in an instant. What is it you require with the Time Stone?"

Retrieve a golden ring which was present at a place called the Cracks of Doom at 11 AM on the 25th of March, 3019 of the Third Age. You don't need to know what that means; the Stones will.

Thanos reaches across thousands of years of time and light-years of space, and pulls out a small, struggling humanoid creature, like a human child but obviously not, emaciated, covered in ash and dressed in rags, with a golden ring on a chain around his neck, and tosses him on the ground in front of Sauron.

Sauron reaches down and snatches the Ring from Frodo; the chain crumbles to ash as he touches it. As he puts it on his ghostly finger his physical form returns, and his full power, with a prickling sensation like blood flowing back into limbs where circulation has been cut off. He laughs.

Alright, let's get out of here, he says to Thanos. An obnoxiously pretty star-goddess just blew up your entire solar system. You have a little under eight minutes before your planet is so much hot plasma.