Returning the Stones: Captain America's Odyssey through Time and Space by SJS3000 is a Marvel Cinematic Universe Fan Fic that takes place right after the events of Avengers: Endgame. It describes Captain America traveling to each time period to return the Infinity Stones, and with each trip he is progressively undergoing Heroic Fatigue. His time-travel trip also revisits characters from each time and place and shows how the time heist affected these timelines as well, including the Ancient One, Alexander Pierce, Frigga, and Red Skull (now known as "the guide"). This story also provides greater details about the nature of the Soul Stone.
Returning the Stones can be found here
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Returning the Stones includes the following Tropes:
- Above Good and Evil: Red Skull feels a mild pity for those seek the Soul Stone and then Go Mad from the Revelation and for the loved ones who are sacrificed, but he does nothing to stop it either. When Cap experiences his temporary Heroic BSoD, Red Skull simply says, "My desire was not to wound, but it was admittedly my aim."
- Actor Allusion: When Drax first appears on the hologram, he is said to be "the size of a professional wrestler."
- All Just a Dream: Did Peggy's conversation with Natasha actually occur, or was it just an instantaneous mental projection from the Soul Stone?
- Alternate Self: The Guardians send holocron messages to their former selves.
- Back to the Early Installment: Just as in Avengers: Endgame, Cap returns to previous scenes depicted in the MCU.
- Bag of Holding: Along with the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir, Cap brings Loki's scepter, a change of clothes, and four Wakandan holocrons.
- Bat Deduction: Frigga figures out that Ragnarok occurred based on Thor's devastated state and a lot of deduction.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Johann Schmidt wished to become like the gods. He did.
- Those who sacrifice a loved one to get the Soul Stone get the knowledge of self they are seeking and are driven mad by what they learn about themselves.
- Beautiful Void: Vormir. Cap finds it to be "strangely beautiful" and "in its own way, as awe-inspring as Asgard."
- Behind Every Great Man: Frigga is this to Odin.
- Berserk Button: The Hydra agents mentioning Bucky does this to Cap, to the point of causing him to throw up. He is able, though, to control his anger until he leaves 2012 New York.
- Bond One-Liner: Cap leaves a note on Zola's dead body: "Another head has been cut off."
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: The Ancient One smiles, frowns, and then smiles and frowns at the same time.
- Call-Forward: Agent Sitwell kicks himself for not stopping Captain America in the elevator, because there is of course no way Cap could have taken all those HYDRA agents at once.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: When Asgardian soldiers come to Ria looking for healers, the witches volunteer Frigga in order to avert this.
- Cartwright Curse/Superheroes Stay Single: When thinking about the relationship between Quill and Gamora, Cap sadly wonders whether all heroes across all galaxies are doomed to be alone.
- Cathartic Crying: Cap has a major one when returning the Soul Stone, realizing that his Pride has turned him into a Martyr Without a Cause.
- Close-Enough Timeline: Cap's aim is to create this, but only his initial trip to 2012 New York works out that way.
- Death by Adaptation: Balder, Frigga and Odin's other son in the Marvel Comics, is Adapted Out of the MCU, but here he is said to have died soon after birth.
- Death Seeker: Peggy accuses Steve and Natasha of being this.
- Deer in the Headlights: Both Cap and Zola experience this when they meet. Zola snaps out of it first, but not soon enough to escape from Cap.
- Do Not Go Gentle: Frigga injects herself with the Aether and readies herself to defend against the Dark Elves. Cap even references the Trope Namer (see Shout-Out).
- Elvis Has Left the Planet: When Quill meets Captain America, he asks if he was taken away to space like Elvis. It takes Cap a second to get the cultural reference.
- Equivalent Exchange: This aspect of receiving the Soul Stone is explored even further.
- Exposition Intuition: Cap is able to figure out what happened to Red Skull based on their last encounter and his knowledge of the Tesseract's powers.
- Eyes Never Lie: Cap's rage at HYDRA is clear from his eyes, but luckily the Hydra members have all turned away from him.
- Fantastic Drug: Quill says he was too "grexed" to remember how he met Bereet or what happened between them. When Cap meets Bereet, she is also clearly hung over.
- Female Gaze: The Ancient One is quite impressed with how Cap looks in his tight uniform.
- Finger Poke of Doom: Cap is waylaid by the guide's Foil observation (see below), even though it didn't really appear to be that devastating. It likely had more to do with the general effect of Vormir and the Soul Stone, and how emotionally exhausted Cap was from his odyssey.
- First Guy Wins:
- For Peggy, Steve wins out over Daniel even before he travels back in time to reunite with her. Peggy admits to herself that Daniel is just as loving and heroic as Steve, but Steve is first in her heart.
- Also applies to Bereet, Quill's Girl of the Week from the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) before he meets Gamora. After seeing himself so upset and brokenhearted, Quill suddenly wants a more serious romantic relationship and asks Bereet to join him on his trip to Xander. It's not said what happens next, though.
- Foil: Cap and Red Skull. The guide lampshades this when observing their fates are more similar than they seem.Red Skull: It seems that once again our lives have been parallel. Both of us frozen in time. And with fates not too dissimilar from what Dr. Erskine predicted. Mine of deserved damnation. Yours of righteous tortured heroism.
- Go Mad from the Revelation:
- The effect the Soul Stone has on those who obtain it. The stone causes them to have immense guilt for sacrificing their loved one, to the point that they return to Vormir to give back to stone in exchange for their loved one. However, they have to sacrifice themselves for their loved one to come back. Either they do this or become Empty Shells.
- Cap experiences this to a much milder extent, experiencing a temporary Heroic BSoD from the guide's verbal Finger Poke of Doom but nothing to the extent of other (temporary) stone keepers.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Frigga largely averts this, except for those few Asgardians who opposed her marriage to Odin. They experienced her more ruthless side.
- Grandfather Paradox: The Ancient One disputes this idea, which lets Steve know he can travel back to his own time to Peggy without disrupting the timeline.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Soul Stone is the only one that doesn't give its holder control over some part of reality, and yet it is considered the most dangerous and powerful.
- Heroic Fatigue: Cap battles this throughout the story but finally comes to terms with it by the end.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Cap is haunted by the fact that Tony gave his life to save of the world instead of him.
- Steve gives his life so that Natasha's soul can be redeemed.
- The High Queen: The Asgard chapter describes how Frigga became this.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Cap's Heroic BSoD includes a major ugly cry."Not just shedding tears ... This is face-soaked, snot-pouring, body-convulsing, bawled out crying. Every tear and weep that Captain Rogers had kept trapped inside for so long finally escapes."
- Infodump: Cap's conversation with the Ancient One provides an occasion for Cap to explain the order of his journey through time. Cap even lampshades this.
- Insistent Terminology: All who receive the Soul Stone are called "(temporary) keepers"note to emphasize that Vormir is the true keeper of the Stone.
- I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: When recounting what he knows about Peter Quill, Cap notes that Peter having a "planet-god-dad" is a new one for him, despite all the craziness he has experienced.
- Karmic Nod: The guide accepts that his former hubris and megalomania is what got him exiled to Vormir and made him "the slave of the cosmos."
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Done throughout:
- The narration makes reference to the fact that the characters are doing call backs and giving exposition.
- As the narration describes the reasons Red Skull is looking forward to his encounter with Captain America, it leaves out the most obvious one, and instead simply says, "well, you know."
- Martyr Without a Cause:
- That Steve is one is a major theme of the story. Frigga calls Cap out for this, but it is only clear that Cap has gotten over this once he talks with Nat in the Soul Stone netherworld.
- Natasha reveals to Peggy that this is also true of her given her Red Room upbringing.
- The Mourning After: Peggy can't get over Steve even years after his death, despite her engagement to Daniel.
- Mr. Exposition: Red Skull subverts this, to Cap's great surprise. Cap instead has to do Exposition Intuition.
- Neck Snap: Cap does this to Zola when they unexpectedly meet at Camp Lehigh.
- Newspaper Dating: Steve looks for a newspaper to check whether he has arrived back to his original timeline.
- Nostalgia Heaven: The Soul Stone netherworld is portrayed as a version of this. When Cap enters it, he returns to Peggy's funeral, which represents both his wish to be with her in death and his most intimate moment with Nat.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The Ancient One explains that wizards are not so different than regular people.The Ancient One: No matter what you may think of wizards, we are ultimately just people — mortal beings with limited insights and flawed moralities. We make compromises, and we justify those compromises, just as you will no matter what you decide. And like you, sometimes our dogma, our honor, or perhaps better said our rigidity prevents us from seeing the bigger future.
- Not So Stoic: The Ancient One is visibly shocked to learn Thanos was able to destroy all the Infinity Stones.
- Note to Self: The Guardians of Cap's timeline all create holographic messages for their past selves, so that they will know to form the Guardians despite the changes to the timeline.
- Nothing Left to Do but Die: Having lived a full life but unsure if or when he will actually die, Steve returns to Vormir and sacrifices his life, so that Natasha can live again.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Cap does this as a means of returning the scepter to the Hydra agents. He pretends Loki used the scepter against him, which conforms with the experience that 2012-Cap had when he fought himself.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Frigga can wield Mjolnir.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Both Steve and Quill rarely cry, so when they do it's serious.
- Steve's Inelegant Blubbering demonstrates just how much he has been devastated by his "Eureka!" Moment on Vormir.
- Quill cries when thinking about Gamora and cannot finish his recording. Past Quill is so taken aback that he realizes how important the Guardians will become to him and decides to invite Bereet to join him.
- Politically Correct History: Frigga is the one who enforces this in-universe for Asgard after becoming queen, ordering the murals that covered over the brutal conquests of Odin and Hela.
- Pride: During his Heroic BSoD on Vormir, Cap realizes that this is his biggest problem, particularly his view of himself as the truest hero.
- Rage Breaking Point: Alexander Pierce approaches this after finding out that the Hydra team just handed Loki's scepter over to Captain America. However, he manages to keep his cool for appearance's sake.
- Rags to Riches: Frigga went from begging on the street as a child to being The High Queen of Asgard.
- Raised by the Community: Frigga is adopted by a coven of witches, who recognize that she has a special destiny. Her mother, bitter and overwhelmed by her husband's abandonment, agrees to let them take Frigga in.
- Refuge in Audacity: Frigga stabs herself with the Aether and uses it to take on the approaching Dark Elves.
- Rousing Speech: Frigga gives Cap a brief one, encouraging him to get over his Martyr Without a Cause complex and enjoy life.
- Screw Destiny: Frigga's thoughts after injecting herself with the Aether: "She is genuinely thankful for how destiny has guided her life. But Frigga has decided, she can take it from here."
- Seen It All:
- By the time Cap enters the Soul-world and sees Nat again, he's not even surprised.
- Subverted when reflecting on Quill being the son of planet-god. That is a new one for Cap.
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: "Returning the Stones: Captain America’s Odyssey Through Time and Space".
- Shout-Out:
- The Ancient One quotes Dr. Milton Glass from Watchmen as being from another realm and having demonstrated the best understanding of how time truly works.
- Cap references Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night when thinking about Frigga's Screw Destiny mindset. He also expresses a preference for Marvin Gaye over Elvis Presley.
- Quill learned from Back to the Future that he shouldn't know too much about his own future. It's also noted that Quill likely would have made a Total Recall (1990) reference when he received the holocrons had he known about the movie.
- In reviewing the powers of the different Infinity Stones, Cap says that the Mind Stone allows you to turn people into your own flying monkeys, which is also a Continuity Nod to The Avengers (2012).
- Nat tells Peggy that in the future, Steve joins a team with "a particular set of skills."
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Cap leaves the Milano without saying goodbye to Quill and while Bereet is in mid-sentence.
- The Stoic: Red Skull has become this after all these years as the guide of Vormir.
- Stress Vomit: Cap does this once he gets to Camp Lehigh after being so angry about HYDRA controlling Bucky and making a fool out of him.
- Super-Hearing: Cap's ability to do this allows him to overhear HYDRA guys referencing "the Asset", a.k.a. Bucky. Cap nearly blows his cover when he hears it.
- That Man Is Dead: The guide's former life as "the Red Skull" means nothing to him now, except as regret for a wasted life.
- These Hands Have Killed:
- Zig-zagged. Cap has a minor Heroic BSoD after killing Zola, but then seems to come to terms with it when thinking of Nat. Still, he is haunted ever since by killing a defenseless person, despite it being Zola.
- Described in detail regarding Clint's ronin period.
"[A]ll that blood doesn't wash away easily. It's under your fingertips. It's grafted on your skin. The smell is forever looming in your nostrils. The screams echo in your ears. The hate stains your mind. ... Laura and the kids may have returned from the snap, but Clint Barton likely never will." - This Cannot Be!: Steve is truly shocked to see that Red Skull is the guide of Vormir.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Cap and Ancient One's back and forth over the word "when".
- The Time Traveller's Dilemma: Cap mulls this with the Ancient One.
- Together in Death: Cap's dream was to be with Peggy in death, and the Soul Stone takes him back to her funeral. But Cap finally realizes he doesn't want to be with her in death but in life.
- Trust Password: Quill tells his Alternate Self that their mother's last words were, "Take my hand." It works.
- Verbing Nouny: "Returning the Stones".
- Villain Respect: Upon meeting Captain America, Frigga realizes that Loki enjoyed imitating Cap most because he likely respected him so much.
- Walking Spoiler: Dr. Arnim Zola.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?:
- The guide, though largely a Above Good and Evil type, admits his role is pretty boring. One reason he is glad to see Captain America is having a nice change of pace.
- Steve sacrifices his life for Natasha, because he is over a hundred years old and still feels fit, but he has already lived a full life. Now he wants Nat to as well.
- You Have Failed Me: Cap returning the scepter likely saves Sitwell from this fate.
- You Just Told Me: Frigga tricks Cap into confirming her Bat Deduction that Ragnarok had occurred.
