A New Beginning - Endgame Fixit

Returning The Stones

Captain America stood in the middle of the platform, ready to be sent back in time. Now that they had both sets of stones, they were ready to return the ones from the past. He took a deep breath as Bruce counted down.

First, the reality stone.

As he landed in Asgard, he couldn't help but feel awed at the splendor. It was a glorious place, and he wished it hadn't been destroyed. He stared at the beautiful city for a long moment before sighing and returning to his task.

He looked around. Thor and Rocket from the past would appear at any moment to retrieve the stone from Jane. The idea of injecting the aether back into her body had made them all queasy, so they'd decided simply to have Steve give it back to Thor. It helped to know that it wouldn't mess up the future; Dr. Strange had used his weird future-seeing ability to see how it would affect the timeline.

"Steve?" Thor's eyebrows shot up as Steve turned to face him. "What are you...wait! You're holding Mjolnir!"

Steve smiled in spite of himself. "Here's the stone. I'm returning it from the future so you don't have to take it from Jane in the first place." After a reluctant pause, he handed over Mjolnir as well.

"That makes sense..." said Thor, taking it from him. "I still don't really understand how this...Wait! Are you saying we won?"

Without answering, Steve saluted and vanished again, appearing in New York.

He returned the staff with the Mind stone to his past self, then he took the Time stone back to the ancient one. Nothing went wrong.

He returned the power stone next, putting it back into the metal ball and gently tossing it in so he wouldn't touch the purple whatever those things were.

He sighed as he looked at the last two stones- the soul stone and the space stone inside the tesseract. He wasn't sure which would be harder. He'd almost lost it last time he'd seen Peggy. After a long moment, he decided to return the soul stone first. He at least knew what his goal was; His feelings about Peggy were much more confusing.

He wasn't sure what Vormir would look like. Clint had been too heartbroken to describe much. He'd just said to give the stone to the guardian.

Purple light surrounded the planet, and he climbed a rocky mountain. His heart thumped and he wished harder than ever. Could a soul for a soul go both ways? What if Clint was right, and the trade was permanent? What if-

When he saw the guardian, his entire train of thought froze.

"You."

They said it at the same time.

"You're supposed to be dead," Steve said in disbelief, recovering first. There was no way he was giving the soul stone to him!

"You gave me a fate far worse than death," Redskull spat, with even more anger and hatred. "Because of you, I was trapped here, undying, captive of the soul stone. Every time I tried to leave, tried to die, it has pulled me back again. I had a hope of death...but you have the nerve to bring it back, keeping me here for untold ages until some other fool has the guts to kill someone they love for it? Do you have any idea how long that's going to take?" He clenched his fists, fuming.

Steve just stared. How was he supposed to bargain for Nat's life with a guy who hated his guts?

"I would have been free," the guardian hissed, black cloak swirling in the wind. Then it clicked.

"You...don't have a choice."

Redskull nodded sharply, radiating pure loathing.

Just say it.

"When my friends came here to retrieve the stone, you gave them a bargain, a soul for a soul."

Redskull gritted his teeth in anger but nodded, folding his arms. It was plain that something was preventing him from physically attacking Steve.

"A soul for a soul." Steve swallowed, unsure he was going to get the words out. "So...it should go both ways, shouldn't it?"

If looks could kill, the planet would've shriveled up in moments. As if an unseen force were physically making him move, Redskull's head jerked up and down in a nod.

Steve looked him dead in the eye and held out the stone, heart pounding.

A flash of white flooded the landscape, the same way it had during the snap. The ground vanished. Steve lost all sense of which way was up, and when he closed his fist the stone was gone.

After he stopped moving and things went silent, he opened his eyes. He was lying in shallow water. He blinked and sat up.

Natasha was lying unconscious in the water next to him, blood flowing into the water from the back of her head.