SHIELD Headquarters
"It started with Thor," Fury began, the champagne sloshing dangerously in his glass as he gestured vaguely.
"Thor?" Tony interrupted, his eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. "As in the Norse god? The guy with the hammer and the questionable taste in helmets?"
"Yes," Fury said, taking a long sip. "Though our resident expert here claims he's less of a god and more of an alien with a very impressive PR team."
"Aliens," Tony said flatly. "So now aliens are real."
"Magic is real, Tony," Arthur pointed out from his chair, swirling his own drink and looking entirely too comfortable. "Why can't other things be real too? Thor's people, the Asgardians, are just a civilization far older and more advanced than Earth. They visited centuries ago, fought some Frost Giants, and left footprints that became myths."
"So, Mythology is now a documentary," Tony muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. "Great. Just great."
"You really don't know anything, do you?" Arthur teased. "Even Fury has known about aliens for over a decade now."
"Forgive me if I didn't spend my weekends hacking SHIELD's archives," Tony shot back. "I was busy building flying suits and revolutionizing clean energy."
"You should correct that," Arthur advised. "Read the files on me and the Wizarding World while you're at it. I don't want to waste time explaining my powers to you."
"Of course," Tony said, ticking off fingers. "Aliens. Wizarding World. What else am I missing? Vampires? Mermaids?"
"Actually..." Arthur started, a gleam in his eye.
"Don't," Tony held up a hand. "Just don't. I think my brain is full for today. Let's save the fish-people for another crisis."
Fury cleared his throat, drawing the attention back to him. "Speaking of Asgard, I am still waiting for the promised intel, Arthur."
"Sure," Arthur said easily. "I'll send it over in a couple of days. Just don't get paranoid, Nick. There is no danger out there that I or Carol can't handle."
Fury visibly relaxed at the mention of the name, his shoulders dropping an inch.
"Carol?" Tony asked.
"Carol Danvers," Arthur explained. "Captain Marvel. The first name on the Avengers Initiative list, if you recall. A word of advice: do not anger her. She punches harder than the Hulk."
"Noted," Tony said, looking a little paler.
Fury continued his debrief. He explained how the Thor incident in New Mexico, a literal god dropping from the sky and fighting a giant robot, had terrified the World Security Council enough to give him the green light for a massive internal audit.
Using that panic as leverage, combined with Arthur's intel, Fury had systematically purged Hydra from SHIELD over the last forty-eight hours.
Arthur leaned back, impressed. "I'll be honest, Nick. I thought this would be harder. The level of Hydra infiltration in SHIELD was deep. I half expected the cleanup to destroy the organization entirely. Kill the parasite, kill the host."
"It was a risk," Fury admitted. "But I've been... proactive. I started quietly removing the most senior Hydra operatives months ago. One by one. And I replaced them."
"With Skrulls," Arthur said casually.
Tony's head snapped up. "With what?"
Fury ignored him. His single eye fixed on Arthur, calculating. He wondered, not for the first time, just how much Arthur knew.
"So when you pulled the trigger—"
"The highest-ranking Hydra agents were already gone," Fury finished. "The ones that remained were mid-level operatives without the leadership or coordination to mount an effective resistance. It was a cleanup, not a war."
"Efficient," Arthur admitted.
Tony was staring at both of them like they were speaking binary. "Can someone please tell me what a Skrull is?"
"Shape-shifting aliens," Arthur supplied.
"Of course they are." Tony rubbed his face again. "Shape-shifting aliens infiltrating a spy agency to root out Nazis. This is my life now. I miss the days when my biggest problem was terrorists."
"Welcome aboard," Arthur grinned.
—
"So is Hydra done?" Arthur asked.
"Inside SHIELD? Yes. Completely." Fury paused. "Outside SHIELD? No. The remote bases, the research outposts, the scattered cells across a dozen countries. All remain. I cleaned my house. The neighborhood is still a mess."
"That'll take time."
"It will," Fury admitted. "I have work to do. The Council will back further operations, but not immediately. They need to digest the fact that their security apparatus was compromised for fifty years."
"Speaking of work," Arthur said, leaning forward. "What's next for SHIELD? Now that you aren't fighting a civil war in your own base."
"Rebuild. Get stronger. Prepare for the next threat." Fury's voice hardened. "Because after Thor, after everything, the next threat isn't a question of if. It's when."
"Ever thought about recruiting wizards?" Arthur asked casually.
Fury stiffened. "No."
"Hear me out," Arthur continued, ignoring the glare. "You've just cleaned house. You're rebuilding from scratch. Why not build something better? Wizard operatives embedded in SHIELD would give you capabilities you can't get anywhere else. Counter-intelligence that no technology can beat. Firepower that works against things your guns can't touch. And most importantly... protection against another infiltration. A wizard with Legilimency can read minds, Nick. No more moles. No more decades-long infestations."
Fury shook his head slowly. "You know what wizards are like, Arthur. The pride. The politics. Bringing them into SHIELD could create more problems than it solves."
"You know how it is. One day, the Wizarding World will be revealed. Technology is advancing too fast; the Statute of Secrecy is on borrowed time. Better to have a framework for cooperation in place before the panic starts."
"It's complicated, Arthur," Fury grunted.
"Everything worthwhile is. I've already spoken with the British wizarding government about this. They're open to it. Amelia Bones has been pushing for integration for years. All you need to do is take the first step."
Fury was quiet for a long moment, staring into his empty cup. "I'll think about it."
"Your call. I'm just giving a suggestion," Arthur said, finishing his champagne. "Don't give me a chance to say 'I told you so' when the war starts."
"War?" Tony asked sharply. "What war?"
"The one that happens when two societies that have ignored each other for centuries suddenly collide," Arthur said gravely. "It could end the world. Or it could save it. Depends on us."
"I really need to get up to speed," Tony muttered, tapping his arc reactor nervously.
"You really should," Arthur and Fury said simultaneously, then looked at each other.
—
The room settled into a brief, almost companionable quiet.
"Arthur," Fury said, changing the subject abruptly. "Now that Hydra is gone... can you return it?"
Arthur blinked. "Return what?"
"The Tesseract."
The air in the room grew heavier.
"Why?" Arthur asked, genuinely curious. "So you can make weapons to use against wizards? Against me? That's the reason I confiscated it in the first place."
"That was HYDRA," Fury said firmly. "The SHIELD under me won't be foolish enough to cross you. And I will use the Tesseract only to study advanced tech so we can catch up to the aliens. It's our only edge."
"Fury, don't lie to me," Arthur warned, his voice dropping an octave. "You want to make weapons like the Red Skull did. Phase 2."
"Yes," Fury admitted without flinching. "But it is our best chance."
"Why don't you give the Kree tech data to Tony?" Arthur gestured at Stark. "Carol sent you terabytes of advanced alien engineering data years ago. I'm sure Tony could build you a fleet of spaceships and advanced space cannons with that."
Tony froze. "Kree data? Alien tech?" He turned on Fury, eyes blazing. "You've been sitting on advanced alien schematics for years and you didn't tell me? I thought we were partners."
"It was too dangerous," Fury defended.
"More dangerous than playing with the Tesseract?" Arthur countered.
"Yes," Fury said without hesitation.
"Debatable. But that's a separate conversation." Arthur steered them back. "The Tesseract, Nick. You really want it?"
"I really want it."
Arthur considered.
He had the Space Stone safely tucked away. The Tesseract casing was just a shell now. Arthur had already experimented with it, fitting it with a synthetic crystal charged with residual Space Stone energy. It would look real, act real, and emit the right signature.
For a while, anyway.
The crystal would burn through its charge in a few years. Long enough to power Selvig's research. Long enough to act as a beacon to anything out there that was looking for an Infinity Stone.
And that was the real reason Arthur was even thinking of handing it over.
Not to maintain some precious timeline. Arthur was done with that.
No. This was about the Mind Stone.
Somewhere out in the void, Thanos was watching. Waiting. Planning. He'd sent Loki to Earth in the original timeline because the Tesseract had drawn his attention.
Loki had carried the Scepter, and inside that Scepter was the Mind Stone.
If SHIELD didn't play with the Tesseract, Thanos might never send Loki. If Thanos didn't send Loki, the Mind Stone might never be in Arthur's easy reach.
The fake Tesseract would function long enough to attract Loki. After that, the crystal would exhaust itself. Loki would never be able to open the Chitauri portal the way he had in the original timeline. The energy simply wouldn't be there. But by then, Arthur would have what he needed.
"Fine," Arthur said.
He held out his hand. The blue cube shimmered into existence, glowing with a soft, pulsing light.
"Here," Arthur said.
Fury reached for it. Arthur didn't let go.
"Conditions. Any weapon firing blue beams seen near me or my family, and I take it back. No discussion."
"Agreed."
Arthur released the cube. Fury took it with reverence, placing it in a secure case on his desk. Tony looked at it with hungry eyes, his engineer brain already taking it apart.
Both of them looked like kids on Christmas morning who had just been handed a loaded gun.
Arthur broke the moment. "Now," he said. "During your cleanup… did you encounter any Winter Soldiers?"