The room was quiet for a while. Tony worked, his fingers flying across holographic interfaces. Fury nursed his coffee. Arthur sat comfortably, lost in his own thoughts.
It was Fury who broke the silence, and when he did, his voice had a different quality to it. Slower. More careful.
"Barnes," Fury said, staring into the black depths of his mug.
Arthur looked at him.
"Arthur," Fury said slowly, piecing the logic together. "If Barnes survived... if the serum and the cold kept him alive since 1945..."
Arthur looked at Fury with a small, hidden smile. He could see the gears turning in the spy master's head.
"Then Steve Rogers may have survived too," Fury finished, looking up.
"There is a really good chance," Arthur confirmed. "The Valkyrie crashed in the ice. If the hull remained intact... Rogers had the original serum. It was better than what Barnes got."
Fury stood up. A new energy filled him, displacing the exhaustion of the Hydra purge.
"We looked for the Valkyrie for years. Howard looked. SHIELD looked. Sonar sweeps, satellite imaging, Arctic expeditions that cost millions. The search area was too vast. We never found it."
Tony had stopped typing. He was listening now, his face unreadable.
"Arthur, can you find the plane?" Fury asked, his voice tight.
"It shouldn't be hard," Arthur said with a shrug. "Get me to the general area where the Valkyrie went off radar. Once I'm in the vicinity, I have ways to scan for things. If the plane is there, I'll find it."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Fury grabbed his coat from the rack. "I will get the approximate coordinates where the Valkyrie went down. Let's go save the Captain."
"No hurries," Arthur replied, not moving an inch from his comfortable chair. "The Captain isn't going anywhere. He's waited seventy years; he can wait another twenty-four hours. And I'm not in a state to go treasure hunting right now. I need proper rest first. Tomorrow."
Fury clearly didn't like it. His jaw worked, but he swallowed the objection. "Tomorrow. I'll prepare things on this end for when we bring him back."
"That confident?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. "What if Rogers isn't alive? What if it's just a frozen wreck with a corpse inside?"
Fury was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, the calculation was still there, but something else had crept in alongside it. Something older. More human.
"Then I finish one of Howard Stark's last wishes," Fury said softly. "And give Steve Rogers a proper burial."
Tony flinched. Just barely. But Arthur caught it.
Arthur looked between them. Fury's expression was genuinely emotional. Was it an act? You never knew with spies. But Captain America clearly meant something real to the people on this side of the Atlantic. A symbol. A promise. The man who proved that the little guy could stand up.
Tony, meanwhile, was still processing the possibility that his father's greatest obsession might be sleeping under the ice instead of rotting in it.
"I'll pick you both up at eight," Arthur said, standing.
Tony looked up sharply. "Both?"
"You're coming."
Tony opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no.
—
The Next Day
The Arctic Circle
The wind howled across the frozen wasteland, a white, blinding force that whipped snow into a frenzy. It was a cold that bit through bone.
A golden portal cut through the whiteout, and three figures stepped onto the ice.
Arthur cast a warming charm over the group instantly. The biting wind suddenly felt like a pleasant summer breeze.
"Nice spot," Tony commented, looking around at the endless expanse of nothing. "Very scenic. Nothing but white death for a thousand miles. I can see why my dad liked it here."
"The coordinates put the crash grid here," Fury said, shouting over the wind as he checked a handheld device. "But the ice shifts. He could be under a hundred feet of glacier by now."
"Give me a minute," Arthur said.
He closed his eyes, extending his senses.
He wasn't looking for a man; he was looking for the Tesseract energy signature that had powered the Valkyrie. It would be faint, buried under decades of ice and snow, but to a Space Stone wielder, it would be a beacon in the dark.
Five miles. Ten. Eighteen.
There.
Arthur opened his eyes. "Fury, you're in luck. The ship isn't underwater. We don't have to go diving."
He raised his hand and opened another portal. This one led directly to the coordinates Arthur had detected.
They stepped through and found it.
The Valkyrie.
It was jutting out of the ice like the skeletal wing of some prehistoric beast. Massive, black metal against the white snow.
"The Valkyrie," Fury murmured, staring up at it.
"It's huge," Tony said, shaking his head. "And it's sticking out of the ice. How did you not find this? Your agents are blind."
"Your father failed too," Fury shot back without looking away. "And this section of ice shifts constantly. It could have been buried a hundred feet deep until recently. The cold and the mist don't make searching easy."
"Excuses," Tony muttered.
"You two can fight later," Arthur interrupted, stepping toward the wreck. "Let's go inside and find the Captain."
He raised his hand. He didn't use fire; he used vibration. He hummed a low note, amplifying it with magic until the ice encasing the hatch began to crack and shatter. He cleared a path in seconds.
They climbed inside.
The plane was a ghost ship, preserved perfectly by the cold. Seats bolted to the floor. Instrument panels dark but intact. Frost covered every surface in a thin crystalline layer that caught the light of Arthur's conjured orb and scattered it in tiny rainbows.
They picked their way forward through the narrow corridor. Fury moved with military precision. Tony's eyes swept every surface, cataloguing, analysing. Arthur led, melting obstructions as they went.
The cockpit door was jammed. Arthur heated the hinges until they gave way with a metallic groan.
Fury saw the shield first.
It was lying on the ground near the pilot's seat. The vibranium disc was dusted with frost but unmistakable. Red, white, and blue. Even after seventy years, it gleamed.
A rare, genuine smile crossed Fury's face.
A closer look revealed a frozen man holding the shield. A man in a torn, red, white, and blue uniform.
"My god," Fury whispered. "He's really there."
Arthur walked up to the ice. He placed his hand on the surface, feeling for the faint spark of life.
"Good news, Nick," Arthur said. "The Captain is alive."
The three of them stared at the frozen figure.
Steve Rogers. Eyes closed. Skin blue-pale. He looked exactly as he had the day he'd aimed the Valkyrie at the ice and never pulled up. Frozen in time.
Arthur got to work.
A wave of his hand and the ice cracked. Rogers's body floated up, still encased in a thin protective layer of frost, rising slowly until he hung horizontal in the cold air between them.
Arthur cast a stasis charm immediately.
A soft blue glow that settled over the frozen form. It would keep Rogers stable during transport, preventing the serum from kickstarting the revival process before they were ready.
"Let's go," Arthur said.
He opened a portal directly to the secure medical bay in the Triskelion that Fury had prepared.
"Welcome back to the world, Captain," Arthur whispered.
He floated the body through the portal.
—
SHIELD Medical Facility — New York
Three hours later.
Steve Rogers was lying in a bed in a room designed to look like a 1940s recovery ward. A radio played a Dodgers game from May 1941. A gentle breeze blew through sheer curtains.
It was a perfect illusion.
Arthur, Fury, and Tony stood behind a one-way mirror, watching the monitors.
"It won't work, Nick," Arthur said softly.
Fury raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"Steve Rogers is a tactical genius, Nick. Not a fool. The smell of the air, the feel of the sheets, the hum of the equipment behind the walls... he'll know something is wrong the moment he wakes up."
"It's just to ease him in," Fury defended. "A soft landing. We break it to him gently. If he sees through it, we drop the act and tell him the truth immediately."
"Soft landings are overrated," Tony muttered, crossing his arms. His eyes hadn't left the figure in the bed. "Rip the band-aid off. Tell him he won the war and missed the internet."
"We'll do it my way," Fury said firmly.
Arthur looked through the glass at Rogers. The stasis charm had worn off an hour ago. The serum was doing its work, pulling the man's body back from the edge of a seventy-year sleep.
The monitors showed a heartbeat that was gradually strengthening, a core temperature that was climbing toward normal.
He'd wake soon.
And when he did, the world was going to hit him like a freight train.
"Poor bastard," Arthur said quietly.
Fury glanced at him.
"Think about it," Arthur continued. "Everything he knew is gone. Everyone he loved is dead or ancient. The war he sacrificed his life to win ended seventy years ago. And that's just the normal stuff." He gestured vaguely. "Then someone's going to have to explain to him that wizards are real, aliens have visited Earth, his best friend is alive and has been a brainwashed assassin for seven decades, and the organisation he's waking up inside was infested with the same Nazis he died fighting." Arthur shook his head. "I would not like to be in his position."
Fury's expression softened a fraction.
"He's strong," Fury said. "He'll adapt."
"He will," Arthur agreed. "But it won't be fun for him. Not for a long time."
He checked his watch. There was nothing more for him here. Rogers would wake up, see through the fake hospital room in about thirty seconds, and bolt.
Arthur could watch the security recordings later and have his fun then.
Right now, he had things to do. He hadn't been back to Asgard in days. Banner needed to be properly settled. And most importantly, he hadn't spent time with his children in these two days.
"Well," Arthur said, straightening up. "He's safe. The serum will handle the rest. My job here is done."
Fury turned to him. "Not staying for the big event? The man out of time wakes up?"
Arthur shook his head. "Nope. I can guess how this is going to go. And I've had enough excitement in the past few days to last me a month."
Fury nodded slowly. "Thank you, Arthur. For bringing the Captain back home."
"Put it on my tab."
Tony pushed off the wall. "I'm coming with you. I've had enough history for one week."
They walked out of the building together, stepping into the bright sunlight.
"You really not interested in meeting him?" Tony asked, glancing back at the building. "He's Captain America. The living legend. The guy on the posters."
Arthur smiled. "You forget, Tony. I'm British."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Captain America isn't my childhood hero. I didn't grow up watching his war bonds shows or collecting his trading cards. To me, he's a historical figure. Interesting. Impressive. But I don't have the emotional connection everyone in this country seems to have to him."
Privately, Arthur also found the Captain... tedious for his taste. Too clean-cut. He respected the man's courage and sacrifice, certainly, but hero worship wasn't in his nature.
Tony snorted. "Bold of you to assume I have an emotional connection."
"You don't?"
"I'm not a fan." Tony's voice flattened. "If what you said about my father is true, spending years searching the Arctic for this guy, then Captain America got more of Howard Stark's attention than I ever did." He looked away. "Hard to be a fan of the man your father loved more than you."
Arthur didn't have a quick response to that. It was an honest thing Tony had said. Painfully honest. It deserved a moment of silence, not a glib comeback.
They walked a few more steps toward the parking lot.
"I understand," Arthur said finally. Then, deliberately changing the subject: "So. How are things with you and Pepper? Married life treating you well?"
"Busy. She's running the company. I'm building suits. We communicate through Post-it notes on the fridge and the occasional argument about what to eat for dinner."
"That's not good, Tony. Take a holiday. Go somewhere warm. Spend a week doing nothing but enjoying each other's company."
"We don't care about that stuff," Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Maybe after a few years."
Arthur stopped walking. "Not planning on keeping the Stark line alive?"
"We just got married," Tony said defensively. "It's too soon. And why do you care so much anyway? You sound like my mother."
"The only reason I got you two together so fast is that I want a niece or a nephew to spoil," Arthur said shamelessly. "My kids need playmates who are somewhat close to their age. How can that be made possible if you aren't serious?"
Tony gave him a deadpan stare. "I don't care. A kid is... it's too much right now."
"Tony, you're not getting any younger. The longer you wait—"
"Then we'll adopt."
"Unfortunate." Arthur sighed with theatrical regret. "I had a very precious gift prepared for you. Was going to present it when the time came. But now it looks like it'll be gathering dust in my vault for years."
Tony's stride slowed. "What gift?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just something that might have to do with a certain shield you couldn't take your eyes off for the last three hours."
Tony stopped walking dead in his tracks.
"Vibranium?" His voice went sharp. "You have vibranium?"
Arthur kept walking, whistling tunelessly.
"Hayes." Tony jogged to catch up, grabbing his arm. "Arthur. You're telling me you have a piece of vibranium and you've been sitting on it?"
"It might be bigger than a piece," Arthur teased, pulling his arm free. "But... well, you'll find out when there's a little Tony or a little Pepper running around."
"That's blackmail."
"That's incentive."
"It's the same thing!"
"Only if you're not motivated enough."
Tony opened his mouth - no doubt for a devastating counter-argument that would have been brilliant, eloquent, and completely irrelevant.
Arthur didn't give him the chance. He twisted the air and Apparated away.
Tony Stark was left standing in the parking lot, shouting at empty space.
"HAYES! COME BACK HERE! HOW BIG IS THE PIECE? HAYES!"
—
Tony stared at the empty space for five full seconds. A pigeon landed nearby, pecking at the asphalt.
"JARVIS."
"Yes, Sir?"
"Did you get readings on that?"
"I'm afraid not, Sir. The teleportation event lasted approximately three milliseconds. My sensors captured nothing useful."
Tony closed his mouth. Opened it. Closed it again.
"I hate magic," he muttered.
He stood there a moment longer, chewing his lip. Then he pulled out his phone.
"Pepper? It's me. Quick question — how do you feel about kids?"
A pause.
"No, I haven't been drinking. Much."
Another pause.
"It involves vibranium. I'll explain when I get home. Also, cancel all meetings for next week. We're going to Fiji."
He hung up and started walking toward his car, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Vibranium," he muttered, shaking his head. "The man bribes me with vibranium."
He unlocked the car door.
"It's working," he admitted to no one. "Damn it."