Pepper didn't move.
She stood there with her arms wrapped around herself, as if the air had suddenly turned too cold.
Her breathing, on the other hand, came and went without rhythm.
"Tony…" she whispered.
Happy Hogan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, trying to look more solid than he felt.
"It's just a video," he said. "It doesn't mean it's happening now."
She turned her head slowly.
"But it means it will happen."
Her voice didn't shake. Pepper looked back at the dark screen.
Before Tony had left, he'd told her part of the Avengers Initiative. At the time, Pepper had thought it was just another one of his impulses, another reckless idea about joining some grand group.
She'd even thought, briefly, that someone was messing with him.
But now…
She'd seen everything.
The cave. The explosion. The armor. Tony's exhausted smile.
The confession. The I love you.
Far too intimate to be a lie.
"Do you know what the worst part is, Happy?" Pepper said without looking at him. "It's not that it's dangerous. It's that… it makes sense."
Happy pushed off the wall and took a step closer.
"Hey. Tony's always done things that 'make sense' only to Tony."
Pepper shook her head slowly.
"Not like this. This isn't a whim. This is… purpose. He saw what his weapons did to the world. He realized he has the ability to help people—and he's going to use it."
Silence settled again.
Happy rubbed a hand over his face.
Pepper closed her eyes.
"If this is the future," she said quietly, "then I'm not going to sit around waiting for someone to tell me what to do."
She grabbed her phone and looked at Happy.
"Happy, can you distract Obi for a moment? I need to hack his computer."
Happy blinked.
"You suspect Tony's uncle?"
Pepper nodded as she dialed the Malibu mansion.
"Only someone with enough administrative power—besides me and Tony—could reroute that much weaponry across multiple contracts."
The call connected.
"JARVIS," Pepper said, steady now. "Yes… I need your help with something."
---
Elsewhere, the internet was still on fire.
—"OKAY, IRON MAN IS MY FAVORITE NOW."
—"ALIENS EXIST. FINE. WE'VE GOT THOR, WE'VE GOT STARK, WE'VE GOT THE AVENGERS."
—"AGREE WITH THE PERSON ABOVE. I DON'T KNOW WHO THE GREEN GUY IS, BUT HE'S FIGHTING FOR US AND THAT'S ENOUGH."
—"WHO IS YINSEN AND WHY AM I CRYING?"
The edit had detonated.
Shared by people who never commented.
Saved. Reposted.
Captioned with lines like:
—"This hits different now that Stark is missing."
—"If this is real… we need him back."
Iron Man stopped being the world's biggest arms dealer.
He became the engineer who refused to die.
—"MY GOD, IS NO ONE GOING TO TALK ABOUT CAPTAIN AMERICA…?"
—"The one from World War II?"
—"The one from the documentaries?"
Search engines exploded.
Captain America
Steve Rogers alive
Was a soldier resurrected?
Elderly viewers froze in front of their screens.
Veterans lowered their heads.
After all, Steve Rogers was a war hero.
---
At S.H.I.E.L.D…
Maria Hill was the first to speak.
"That shield," she said, "isn't a replica."
Coulson leaned forward, far too close to the screen.
"No," he whispered, awed. "That's him."
No one laughed. No one joked.
Clint Barton tilted his head.
"So he survived?"
Natasha didn't look away from the image of the Captain.
"Apparently," she said. "He was recovered."
Fury didn't react.
He pulled out a small notebook and opened a fresh page.
He wrote:
Rogers, Steve.
Clint let out a disbelieving laugh when the green giant appeared on screen.
"Great. So now we've got Norse mythology, a misunderstood genius, and a war hero. What's next, a failed science experiment?"
Fury closed the notebook for a second—then opened it again.
He was wrestling with his own demons. Thinking about how he'd explain to the Council that this collection of misfits might be responsible for protecting the planet.
He wrote the third line.
Thor. Origin: unknown.
After a pause, Fury finally added Banner's name to the project.
Given the situation, they needed all the help they could get.
He snapped the notebook shut.
Everyone watched as he walked toward the hologram at the center of the room.
He looked at the names.
Rogers.
Banner.
Thor.
The hologram still floated there, frozen on an image that had changed too much for too many people: Tony Stark, exhausted, covered in soot.
LEGACY.
The title remained. Quiet. Brutal.
"All right," Fury said. "We're no longer talking about just Stark and Eric."
Maria Hill slid her fingers across the table and changed the projection.
A grainy image appeared.
Antarctica.
"After Legacy, the question stopped being if," Hill said. "Now it's where."
Phil Coulson stood there, barely containing himself.
Hands clasped. Eyes shining. Like a kid who'd just been told myths were real.
Hill continued.
"The video confirms he survived. That he didn't age like the rest of us."
Clint leaned back in his chair.
"So we're talking about a guy who spent seventy years frozen? And you seriously expect him to still be alive?"
Fury didn't blink.
"We're talking about Steve Rogers."
Hill zoomed in.
"I've been reviewing reports," she said. "Thermal anomalies in the North Arctic. Small. Consistent. Too stable to be natural."
Coordinates appeared.
"This location matches an abandoned Soviet search mission from the nineties," she added. "Too much interest for a resource-free zone."
Barton whistled.
"And no one thought to look inside the ice?"
"They did," Hill replied. "They just didn't know what to look for."
She glanced at Coulson.
"Until now."
Coulson took a deep breath, as if preparing to say something important—and it was.
"The video doesn't just show that he's alive," he said. "It shows who he is. Leadership. The ability to unite very different people under a single cause."
Even in a brief scene, Steve had been framed as the heart of the team.
Fury allowed himself the smallest smile.
"Exactly what the Initiative needs."
He placed both hands on the table.
"I don't want to send an armed squad to wake him up," he said. "This isn't a military extraction."
Hill looked at him.
"Then…"
Fury turned toward Natasha and Coulson.
"It's a contact mission."
Coulson's eyes went wide.
"Me?"
Natasha smiled faintly.
"You," she confirmed. "You're perfect."
"Perfect?" Barton scoffed. "Phil, you're about to meet the guy who made you collect vintage trading cards."
Coulson ignored him.
"Sir," he said seriously, "if he's there… if it's really him… we have to do this right."
"That's why you're going with Romanoff," Fury replied. "I've got another assignment for Clint and Eric."
---
HYDRA Base – Private Screening Room
Alexander Pierce stared out the window.
"There are extraterrestrials out there preparing to invade Earth," he said. "As long as that's true, the Council will back Nick even harder."
Wolfgang von Strucker smiled faintly.
"Fear has always been a reliable ally."
Pierce nodded.
Strucker activated the control.
A shield appeared on screen.
Pierce recognized it before the face followed.
"Don't tell me you're afraid," Pierce said.
The man appeared.
Worn uniform. Steady eyes.
Captain Steve Rogers.
Strucker studied Pierce's reaction with clinical interest.
Pierce closed his eyes for a brief moment.
"The public is already praising him," Strucker remarked.
Pierce let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Your people did a terrible job after Howard recovered the Cube."
"I have more important projects than chasing relics," Strucker replied coolly.
"Do you think he remembers HYDRA?" Pierce asked.
"HYDRA was the war to him," Strucker said. "Of course he remembers."
He shut the screen off with a sharp gesture.
"If Rogers is alive," Pierce said with irritation, "then Fury doesn't just have public support—he has historical legitimacy."
Strucker smiled. This time without coldness.
"Do you want to do something?" Pierce asked, fingers interlaced.
"Absolute observation," Strucker answered.
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