I sat down at a table in one of the side rooms, marked by the formal appearance of an office, with a window facing out into the courtyard and over the crowd outside the gates. Steve was flanked by Ward and another guy with and gun, my handcuffs were now chained to the table. "Is this really necessary?" I asked, holding up my handcuffed hands after we'd disabled the monitoring in the room. We were away from my Hydra bodyguards who no doubt believed that even now, my ingenious plan was working to thwart Captain America and not to grovel and sell them up a river.

"Yes," Steve said, looking at me across the table.

"I want to make an exchange," I said honestly. "You have no trust in me, but I have things I can give you immediately. I, however, do trust your word and honor." He'd taken Hale and Ward into his organization, after all. I was substantially worse than them, but it was still promising for my long term health. "So what we can do is, I can deliver for you on the condition of your word, and then you can render me the assets."

"I'm not above a deal," Steve said, his mind turning patiently. "What do you want?"

"I and my family are permitted to go into exile as opposed to being summarily executed or pulled apart by a mob and PRIDE and my other mad scientists are recognized as innocent dupes and not penalized. They really are, by the way, I'm not lying about that." At least, innocent in this scheme, and I had eliminated proof of their involvement with the Gibborim. I paused and thought about it for a moment, "I'm also going to want personal protection from Andromeda when I deliver the news that we're surrendering." She was not going to be happy about it. I still hoped I could convince her that it was for the best that we lost.

"You killed thousands of Americans, including a healthy swath of our leadership last night," Only a healthy swath? Goddamnit, the Hydra Construction Manual was really effective. "and looted something like five trillion dollars from the treasury last month," Steve pointed out, crossing his arms, his frown deep and his eyes narrow. "Not to mention my best friend. I hope you're offering something pretty substantial if you think I'm going to let you go."

Of course I did, I wasn't fucking stupid. "I'm sorry about that." Not in the sense that I wouldn't do it again if it would work, but obviously none of it had so I was sorry I had done it. "My offer is, roughly in order of importance, the locations and trajectories of the helicarriers so that you can bomb them with the Quantum Tunnelers before the rest of Hydra takes control of them in about twelve hours and murders millions of people to no real purpose. The locations and hideouts of the Hydra Heads, as well as what of their resources you need to appropriate in order to prevent them from mass-producing the Super-Soldier Serum." America had always held the technology to make them to its chest, but I was absolutely certain that Whitehall, at least, had backed up and designed a duplicate facility. "The names and ranks of all high-ranking U.S. military officers under our control. A list of members of the GDT Fireflies who are either members of Hydra or pawns of Hydra. A list of ranking members within the bureaucracy who were either members or pawns. A full confession, as well as my remaining for the duration of the transition to prove you didn't doctor the video, performing as you and your leadership see fit, unless it should exceed a year's time. The Mind Stone, embedded in a crown that makes it somewhat functional for mortals. And the location of the living Bucky Barnes."

"I thought you killed Bucky," Steve said, his spine stiffening. The rest of his promises weren't that shocking, but that was difficult to believe.

"Better to have insurance than a corpse," I said with a shrug. "I can give you the coordinates, as long as you promise my safety and my family's safety"

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"And you can do all that?" Steve asked, looking at me very cautiously. I was proud of him for not leaping at i

I turned to look at Ward, "Tell him I can do that."

"I don't take orders from you any more," Ward said, annoyed. But he looked at Steve and nodded his head, "Between the presidency and a head position, I think most of those promises are very fulfillable, even if he were lying about being chief head. Except Bucky, but he's a snake, so he could be there. We won't send you to retrieve him, obviously."

Steve nodded to Ward and looked back at me, "Where are you thinking for exile? Nidavellir? Asgard? Vanaheim?"

"I'd actually like to go to an alternate timeline of Earth," I said, without bothering to insist on it. Nidavellir or Asgard were fine by my standards, I wasn't going to murder millions of people for a mild increase in comfortableness of my retirement.

"So you can try it all again?"

"No," I said, jerking my head out the window. "I think that definitely proves I couldn't win. Maybe if I got luckier, I could hold on for a few years, but there's just no mass constituency for Hydra."

"I don't believe you," Steve said. And I realized it might truly be a deal breaker for Steve, that he might prefer to keep me here and condemn this world to millions of death than risking that I would do this again somewhere else at some later time.

Principles can be a terrifying thing. "Well, you can check and make sure that Hydra no longer exists in the timeline I choose," I said. I wasn't planning on going to a pre-Snap period anyway, and even if my alternate self had done literally nothing, my fallback period would be post snap. An ideal time for me and my tech to come through and make some basic money.

Steve thumped on the table between us and looked toward Ward. "Deal," he said after a moment. "You give us what you've promised and then we let you and your family leave, give amnesty to the PRIDE and your scientists who aren't Hydra members, and we make sure your wife doesn't kill you."

I had Captain America's word, now I just had to earn it.

Shuffling around the Fireflies assigned to me was fairly easy, I just told them to go get on a helicarrier and await the planned moment – Most of the Fireflies were Steve's problem, there was only so much I could do, but I could try to make it easier on him. I wrote out the trajectories and signatures of the helicarriers, the locations of the Hydra Heads bases, and all my promised knowledge as well as where to acquire the Micron Particles and the nanotech to deliver the ordinance. We called in the Fireflies who were clean to replace them at the White House, Jarvis ran communications interference around my household and I called Andromeda on the phone, spoofing the phone they leant me as my own personal line.

"Andromeda, I need you and the kids to come to the White House. It'll be safer here while we wait out the next part." There was no way I was risking her keeping the kids. Under absolutely no circumstances were my kids going to grow up into Hydra agents in a world where Hydra was hunted and hated by the U.S. government.

Andromeda let out a sigh of relief on the other end of the line, "Thank God," she said. "We'll get on the escape ship and be there in a few hours."

"Alright, great. Come as quickly as you can. I love you, Drama."

"I love you too," Andromeda said.

I hung up the phone and handed it back to Ward, before over the table at Steve, sitting across from me.

"Well, I owe you a confession. Where do you want me to start?"

"Why'd you do it?" Steve Rogers asked, looking me dead in the eye.