It had been two weeks since Thanos's final attack on the Universe – the one of the 14,000,605 they'd won, and the dust had settled over a new Earth that was neither like it's dark five-year predecessor nor exactly what it had been before the initial tragedy.
The team – what was left of it anyway – had been camping out at Tony's farm house since the incursion. Pepper and Morgan had left very soon after the funeral for a long quiet holiday somewhere far away and not entangled in memory. And everyone else who didn't have a family of their own to return or a county to rule stayed exactly where they were.
It was nice at the farm. The weather had held, and Banner – Hulk – the professor had been fast at work reassembling (no pun intended) the time-travel launch pad in a nice shady spot by the river.
Steve, still feeling a little dazed from the whole encounter, though no less sharp, was biding his time with regards to the next bout of time travel. The stones, (which he and the professor pried from the melted iron man suit themselves, with heavy, silent tears streaming down each of their dissimilar faces) were locked away in an old rusting tool box awaiting their timely return to their places.
The tool box, though not the most secure vessel, was the best Steve could manage on short notice before the funeral. He had left them there, partially because he still had a shred of trust in him, but more because it was Tony's toolbox, and he thought he would have found it rather funny.
"All the power in the Universe is in my toolbox," Tony would have said wryly. "I can't say anything has really changed."
He never was one to be too modest.
Hank Pym and his wife had stuck around when Hope and Scott had left. The elder Pyms were curious about how time travel had been accomplished, especially since their prior work had played such a significant role, and Hank was all too eager to assist the professor.
It was on the second day of the pair's work that Steve happened by and got the idea – Steve knew he would be the one to return the gems, and he knew he had exactly enough Pym particles left to complete the task.
But would a few extra particles hurt? It would certainly give him the flexibility he needed in case something went wrong – and there would be ample opportunities for things to go wrong considering all he places he had to go.
He pulled Hank aside and explained this, as delicately as he could, without trying to give away the real reason he wanted more particles – a reason he wasn't fully willing to admit to himself.
Pym obliged, even when Steve asked him to keep the project quiet.
"Why? You afraid they'll think you're sloppy?"
"Sure, something like that."
And so Pym had been spending his afternoons helping the professor with the launch pad, and his evenings tucked away in Tony's garage, fiddling with discarded pieces of equipment in an attempt to construct something like the machine he had back home that could distill the particles.
It was a longer process than expected, especially with Pym's attention divided and so many prying eyes wandering around the farm.
The launch pad was completed before the spare particles, and Steve began finding ways to stall his adventure. His sometimes bizarre and poorly thought out excuses earned a few strange looks from his companions – especially from Strange himself, who had stayed on the pretense of being the guardian of the time stone, regardless of what timeline it was in.
Strange's knowing looks betrayed more than an eagerness to return to his sanctum in New York.
"Steve, don't mess with things you don't understand," Strange said once, when it happened the two of them were out of earshot of the others.
"I don't know what you mean," Steve said.
Strange pinched the nexus of his nose and squinted in frustration. "Why must you all be so stubborn?"
"I could ask you the same," Steve said.
"Look, I don't intend to stop you. Just remember to take caution if you decide to do what I know you will," Strange said.
Strange wasn't the only one who seemed to have caught onto Steve's plan – yes, it was a plan now, not just a wry thought nagging at him – Bucky too seemed suspicious of his motives for hanging around.
Steve had thought once or twice of telling Bucky what he was going to do, but he had decided sometime after the third or fourth excuse that Bucky already knew.
Steve was a terrible liar, after all.
It was a month to the day from the battle for earth when Pym handed Steve a few fresh vials of particles, and Steve announced he was, in fact, ready to go.
He bid farewell to Pym, and to Strange, who betrayed no emotion at his departure. By then, Peter Parker and May had gone back to New York, ("See you around, kid," Steve had said, though he was almost certain he wouldn't) and Rhodes was back at work for the United States government.
Wanda and Steve removed the stones from Tony's toolbox – Steve holding the time stone and the soul stone in his palm for a long moment, and Wanda carefully transplanting the more volatile gems without ever touching them.
She did, after a moment's thought, pluck the mind stone from the air and hold it between two fingers. She lifted it towards the sunlight and watched it shine, little flecks of yellow dotting her face. And then, with a sad smile, she placed it among the other five.
"Get back safe," Wanda said.
Steve just smiled.
He stepped onto the platform with confidence, just like Captain America should. Hadn't he done it all with confidence, even when he might have been wrong? Even when the team fell apart, when he was a fugitive, when they lost half of everything? Wasn't it all with a wistful confidence that he was doing his absolute best?
Maybe it was time to put that confidence to rest.
The professor's intermittent anger at Steve's many delays had abated, and he stood in good spirts at the help on the contraption he and Pym had made following Tony's design.
Bucky and Sam, ever loyal, had come to see him off.
"You sure you don't want some company?" Bucky said.
A knowing glance passed between them, and it seemed Bucky understood that where Steve was going he could not follow. In that glance were a thousand conversations, a whole childhood, repeated losses, years of mourning, years of fighting, all their lives spent together and in conflict.
It was goodbye.
He couldn't exactly say goodbye to them – not out loud, not to Sam, oblivious. Not to professor Hulk, who would try to dissuade him.
But then, he hadn't really gotten to say goodbye to the others either – except to Thor, who gave him a hearty hug before boarding the Milano with the Guardians. "You truly are worthy," he had said. "Keep the hammer."
Hawkeye had disappeared, with only a wink, hours after the funeral.
And Nat. Well.
"How long will it take?" Sam asked.
"For him, as long as he needs. For us, about five seconds," said the professor.
Steve smiled reassuringly at them all, Thor's hammer one hand and the stones in the other, and thought maybe he would come back after all, just not right away.
And with a push of a button he was gone.