Power

The vault energy thing was apparently still in working order. He placed the orb into the still glowing circle, and it powered right back up again. Good as new. He waltzed out of the chamber with ease.

Then he heard some guy singing. Quill. He'd known that he had cut it a little bit close, but he had expected a bit more time to leave the premises. Still, not reason to panic. He ducked into the shadows and let "Starlord" pass him by. Not even a glance at the surrounding areas. Despite having just been knocked out. He was too caught up in his music.

How the hell had this guy survived this long?

Reality

This one was going to be tricky.

From what he gathered he needed to reinject the Stone into Jane Foster, without her noticing. In a city filled to the brim with de facto gods. She would surely tell her doctors if she went without the stone for too long. So he had to get in and get out quickly and quietly. And he would have to drop the hammer somewhere. It would be a test of everything he had…

"Excuse me?" A polite voice said behind him. He whirled around and pointed the hammer at the source. It was a middle aged women dressed like a Shakespeare character. "Are you one of Thor's friends?" She looked at the hammer. "Oh yes of course you are, seems his taste has improved."

He breathed in sharply, unsure of what to say.

"Not that I disapprove of the Warriors Three, but they can be rather crass."

His opened his mouth a bit, but thought better of it.

"Oh are you from the future as well? I just sent off Thor, apparently he's friends with a rabbit now."

He winced.

"Oh, I see. You're here to return the Aether and the Hammer. Very good." She lifted the hammer out of his hands effortlessly. "I'll just take that. Now you go run and inject Ms. Foster, don't worry I'll set up some illusions to cover up your path."

Maybe I wouldn't be so bad for this stone.

Soul

Red Skull's face was still eminently punchable and so he punched it.

It didn't feel good, punching never did when you did it right. And shortly after he landed his third blow Red Skull did some soul magic nonsense and that hurt like hell.

But it had felt right. After years of pain, suffering, and moral ambiguity. Punching this guy was the right thing to do. As he nursed his arm, which was shooting orange sparks for some reason, he felt younger than he had in years.

Red Skull started on some blather about how he had found a higher purpose and how the Soul Stone choosing him as the guardian was a sign that HYRDA's victory was ordained by destiny. He ignored Red Skull and scooted over to the cliff. He peered over, dreading what he might see.

There was nothing.

"She will not be there, where the bodies go I know not." Red Skull sneered. The was classic Natasha he mused, so tidy she didn't even leave a body. He chucked the stone into the chasm like it was a baseball. Nothing happened. None of the light shows Clint had described. Then he heard a clink.

"It is done," Red Skull said. "Now do you see the weakness the love has brought you? All you have reaped from it is pain."

On the way out he punched Red Skull again, for old time's sake.

Space

He had never bothered reading up all that closely on the History of SHEILD, but he guessed that Fury had upped the security strength. Nobody had even noticed the Tesseract had been missing, despite the manhunt for the two intruders. He walked right in and plopped it back in case.

Stepping aside to let a pair pass he overheard a bit of the conservation the pair were having.

"Doctor Lawson, we appreciate your work, but I simply don't think we can justify turning over that much power to you."

"It isn't just to me, it's to Project Pegasus as a whole. I think we're close to a real breakthrough, something that can help you reach the stars."

He paused. He had heard that project name before, somewhere, and it was important…

He shrugged his shoulders and moved on. His was not to reason why.

Time

"Well, that was quick. Which I suppose is a given for time travel. Thank you very much. Now if you'll excuse me, there is a situation brewing in Singapore."

Space Mk. 2

Loki, for some unknown reason, had teleported right outside Stark Tower instead of literally anywhere else in the universe.

As the wayward god ran past him he extended his foot and Loki took a rather nasty spill. The Tesseract flew out of his hands and onto the pavement. The SHIELD/HYDRA people all dove to keep Loki down. Meanwhile Thor thundered over, grabbed the Tesseract and stared at it.

"This shall come to Asgard with me and my brother."

Mind

Turning something so powerful over to HYRDA stung a lot, he had to admit. But it needed to be as smooth as possible. He'd wiped his own memory with the stone before, which tied up that loose end. Now came the acting.

He mimed a bit of confusion about why he'd gotten the scepter. The implications were subtle at first, but got more obvious as he continued. The tale he spun was simple. He had not been in the elevator. That had been Loki. He had no idea why he had an infinity stone in his possession. HYDRA's new prized possession had nearly fallen back into Loki's hands, and was now in his own clutches. He also leaned into how much he trusted them, and how innocent he was. He was not going to have HYRDA tricked into thinking he was one of them.

Sitwell hurriedly took the stone off of his hands.

He walked out of the SHEILD office and patted his hands together. Six down, none to go.

Home

"Peggy?" Steve said.