#marvelfanfic

Whilst most of the others stood within their homes, reconnecting and rejoicing, deserved of course Steve knew that. Tony's funeral was as good as it could have been really, he noticed the guardians came, as well as some kid from Tony's old iron man days, Steve didn't really take too much notice of what happened afterwards he had one more job left to do. 

The job fell on him due to Mjölnir, Thor had taken the first ship out of new asgard to explore space with the rabbit, he didn't stay too long. I assume he's had his fill of funerals within his time. It fell to Steve to return the stone as other than thor he was the only one capable of lifting Mjölnir and with the stones he also needed to return Mjölnir from when his thor had taken him form asgard 2012, otherwise that thor would have no hammer causing a whole heap of mess the TVA would need to fix. 

Steve had grabbed Mjölnir and suited up, the ruble still felt still against the ground of the old avengers compound, some dust still floated within the cold bitter air, whilst Tony's original arc reactor drifted along the river bend for the avengers to see, his real body still needed to be, deconstructed. Happy wanted his suit taken apart to display in pepper and Morgan's home whilst Nick Fury got word that some government officials wanted it for their museum, Steve was disgusted by the thought of one of their possessions that bought them to victory being displayed in a museum, steve offered to take his suit apart whilst collecting the stones. 

Steve's scuffed up boots hit the ground approaching where Tony laid still, against one of the walls from the compound that had collapsed. Steve's feet against the shattered rubble on the ground sent a shocking amount of noise through the air, it was about dawn however all the dust continued to fill the sky creating the grey effect that covered the aftermath of the battle. Steve managed to make it to Tony's body without cracking, it wasn't until Steve kneeled down, he fought in his head whether to distance himself from the billionaire, shut his eyes, rip the glove of and peel the stones, but when Steve looked into his friends eyes, cracked almost popping out of his skull with dried blood stuck to his beard Steve placed his hand against the arc reactor, looked upwards towards the rubble and choked out…

‘We won’ 

He tried not to look at Tony too much, every nickname he ever flung at Steve stuck in the back of his mind. Steve silently prayed for some quippy remark from the man such as “please tell me nobody kissed me” but Tony laid still. Steve managed to take the glove off of Tony's hands; it had connected itself with his nanotech within the suit before it shut down, so Steve had to basically tear it apart from Tony's corpse. Steve managed to open the briefcase beside him and tear out each of the stones placing them one by one carefully in the case, all whilst waiting for Tony's voice to awaken, but his arc rector much like him was powered off.

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‘And remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment in time they were taken or else you're gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities' Bruce said handing Steve the case.

‘Don't worry Bruce, clip all the branches’ Bruce went on to describe his attempt at bringing Natasha back. Clint had tried describing to the others that anything done for the soul stone was irreversible, Steve doesn't blame Bruce for trying, he wouldn't kid himself by pretending he wasn't thinking about grabbing natasha from before Vormir and dragging her back through the portal with him, or for that matter grabbing Tony.

‘Don't do anything stupid until I get back’ Steve said whilst looking at the man he once thought he had lost to the snow.

‘How can I ? you're taking all the stupid with you’ Bucky returned the phrase before pulling Steve into a hug.

‘How long is this gonna take?’ Sam asked, ‘for him as long as he needs, for us five seconds’

As long as he needs felt like a peaceful response for steve, he didn't know how these stones worked, if it wasn't for the hammer this job could have gone to so many other people, steve had encountered the tesseract early on in his super serum era however the task of returning them without opening up other realities was somewhat out of this perceived realm of possibilities, he owed fury a lot more than 10$ at this point for what he's seen as his time as an avenger. 

Steve stepped on the teleporter or time heist bubble, Steve was intelligent for his time but he doesn't fully grasp the names of all these things. He picked up Mjölnir and the briefcase as the portal began buzzing, a similar experience to the first time he did this with Tony and Scott, the buzzing in his ear, the slight feeling of his body's cells being compressed, however this time as he looked around he could only see slight reflections in the particles of his own body. 

Steve clutched the briefcase tighter as well as Mjölnir as he landed into his first mission. The teleport was set up by Bruce so he would be able to return the stones one by one in the correct timelines, being able to jump to the next one he needed, shouldn't take him too long six stones six missions. 

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This post was Beta'd by @mariekoukie6661. Thanks a million!

A/N: Thought I'd throw my hand at a prompted fic! Hope you guys like it, I'll add a chapter directory and update as needed as the next parts are posted. So stay tuned 👀 Text dividers made by @firefly-graphics <3

Every morning is always the same when you're paid to kill. He'd been trying to be better about the whole actual killing part lately, but that didn't change his morning routine very much. He woke up to the sound of his alarm clock going off—yes, he still used one. If you asked for his reasoning, he'd tell you it's because it's less complicated and you can always count on it to work because it simply stayed plugged into the wall; in the event that the power went out? It had batteries for backup power, and you can't find that kind of peace of mind with just the alarms on your phone. He's still an old soul, sue him. He woke up at 6:45 am, on the dot, every morning without fail that way so it was rather effective.

After the blaring sound of his trusty alarm clock came the process of forcing himself out of bed and cleaning up for the day; shaving if necessary, freshening up, getting dressed, the works. This was generally when he'd change his appearance should the need arise, as well. But he didn't need to do that this morning and so he flicked the light to the bathroom off as he left the room when he was finished, heading out to his kitchen thereafter. The next step? Food. It was always 7 am sharp by the time he got done with his wakeup process, the only time that changed being when he added any extra steps in the bathroom. And breakfast was always simple: a cup of hot black coffee, sliced avocado, and bread toasted to perfection with an egg over medium to be dipped in. And it never failed to be a pleasant way to start his morning, usually followed closely after by a session of watching the morning news. He found it a good way to see what was going on in the area and across the country so he could plan accordingly.

If he didn't have a job, which by chance was the case today, he'd generally find any sort of quiet way to spend the rest of his morning; reading a book, cleaning up all his weapons, or a walk in the park if he felt like it. Today, he felt like it. And it was mostly peaceful, if you excluded the grating sound of car horns, tires squealing, and buses chuffing past. And of course, if you chose to ignore the rumbling from the subway, the people shouting either in their urgency to get to work or just simply because they were an ass, then it was really utterly plain and quiet to walk through Central Park. By this point Bucky had truly gotten used to it. He supposed in some ways it wasn't too much different from his home in the past. But that didn't mean he liked to spend too much time there anyway. So long as he got out and went back home just in time, he could skip the gradeschoolers and dog walkers that came around for the afternoon.

There had been nothing unusual about his day so far, and he liked that. He liked the rhythm of it all, and how it always went according to his carefully curated schedule. He began the process of unlocking his apartment door after making his way up to his floor, and pushed it open to take a step inside. Crunch.

What the helll...?

Bucky frowned as, seemingly, something sat under his boot and crinkled where he'd stepped, making the same sound again as he carefully pried his foot off. The poor, crisply folded, paper envelope that had earlier been slotted through his dead-drop, suffered a dirt-covered footprint but aside from that, it seemed harmless and intact as he picked it up to inspect it. A curious thing to find when you hardly get mail aside from the bills. What was even more curious was the contents within it, feeling a bit lumpy and—quite frankly—heavy for a letter-sized envelope. He closed the door behind himself with one hand, locking it once again out of habit while the other kept hold of the envelope. Moments later he flicked out a switchblade to slice it open revealing not only a handwritten letter but also $23.42.....Exactly. All in small change.

It was quite honestly the oddest thing he'd seen or received to date, and that was including the number of quite-literal backstabs he'd received, numerous other maiming injuries, and the odd encounters he’d had with a talking raccoon, tree, and robot...man…thing. To name a few. That was also including the number of odd jobs he'd been offered and peculiar payment methods he'd been given. Never had he come across such a specific payment with a letter that….upon further inspection….looked as though its penman couldn't be much older than 9 years old, at most.

'Dear mister,

My name is Rosie Jones. I am 9 yeers old. My mommy says you're vary good at helping people. Well, I need your help. Mommy also said you like to be paid for helping, so I broke my piggy bank open so you wood help us. Mommy doesn't know yet thoe, so please don't tell her.

My mommy dissuhpeered disappeered last night. She told me to hide and I did but now I can't find her and so I need your help mister becuz you're really good at finding people too, mommy said so. Please please help me find my mommy, I don't know what to do mister.

– Rosie'

"You've gotta be shitting me." He muttered to himself. The first question Bucky had, quite honestly, was how did this little girl even know who he was? Or where he lived? Not many people did, if any, truth be told. If they did? They were usually dead within minutes. It was one of many reasons that kept his renowned status intact. But here he was, sitting at his own table, with proof that some little girl knew both of those things. Frowning down at the paper and envelope of change, the assassin ran his hand back through his dark brown hair momentarily, processing what he'd just read. On one hand, it could be an elaborate trap. By all rights he had to assume it, considering the nature of the letter and the fact that a little girl of all people had written it. But on the other hand, there was a certain dedication there that he simply couldn't ignore. And some part of him couldn't help but at least look into it. So moments later, the man was pulling out his laptop and began searching for answers, anything that could give this little girl's story any sort of credit.

Much to his surprise? It checked out. Every last bit of it. There was a mother, connected to the Rosie Jones in question, who had gone missing under rather mysterious circumstances. "I'll be damned, mystery kiddo."

'Y/N Jones, aged 37, a single mother, was nowhere to be found the next morning after reports came in that a struggle and silenced gunshots were heard from the house that night.'

He probably could have gotten away with just keeping the money and letting it go. It was some little kid somewhere hoping for someone to hear her plea, he could get away with it. But it was that name…. he'd seen it before, he knew he had. In all fairness though, he really only remembered faces exceptionally well. Names didn't matter in the long run, names didn't tell him who he was shooting within a crowd of people. So why did it keep nagging at the back of his mind?...

Spoiler alert: he shouldn't have went digging. He should have just left it alone. But he had always been a curious mind and he was nothing if not thorough on top of that. Popping open the top to his bottle of whiskey, Bucky carefully poured out a favorable portion into a glass tumbler, before letting it down onto the counter as he heard an agreeable noise coming from his laptop to signal it had finished its task. Glancing over his shoulder, he sipped on his drink as he made his way back over to the table, having waited for what seemed like an hour to get the information he wanted. And the minute he looked at the screen was the very same minute he regretted it.

He knew that face.

He knew it like the back of his hand almost, he knew it the same way he knew the taste of bourbon or the sound of a .22 magnum. That was the face of Y/N Y/L/N and it was a face he had been trying to forget for years now. But most of all he knew it was a mistake to have even touched this with a ten-foot pole. Because now he had a target, he knew what the target looked like, and he had been paid in- well, maybe not-so-full, but in 9-year-old currency $23.42 was basically a million dollars considering it was all her savings.

In short?

He had to do it now.

He knew that. And it damn near made him groan at the prospect. Because this was going to be a long-ass job, and if he was going to ensure the rescue of that little girl's mother, then he needed to ensure that child's safety. The less leverage the 'enemy' had, the easier his job was. So as he sighed out, "Damnitall, this better be fuckin worth it kid," the hundred year old assassin finished off his drink and went about packing his things to take on a job that he never asked for, but knew damn well he was stuck with until it was over.

But at least if he had to go through with this, he was going to be damn sure he did it right, that was for sure.