"I want my bird."
"Your… what?"
Justin Hammer blinked, completely thrown off. Bird? What kind of bird? Flying kind? Talking kind? Did he mean literally or metaphorically?
"My bird. A parrot," Vanko replied flatly. "I need it. Without it, I lose my inspiration."
Whether he actually needed the bird or just wanted to test Hammer's patience was anyone's guess.
"Fine," Hammer said quickly, waving it off. "A parrot's easy. You'll have your bird."
He didn't even hesitate—what was a bird compared to the billions he was spending? With enough money, you could get a flock of parrots if you wanted.
---
Meanwhile, at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters—
After rooting out the remaining Hydra infiltrators, Nick Fury had been busy rebuilding the agency from the ground up. He was recruiting new agents, training fresh operatives from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and trying to patch up the mess Hydra had left behind.
But manpower was still thin, and most of the replacements were rookies—young, green, and overconfident. Fury was so stressed that he half-joked to himself that he might actually grow hair again out of pure frustration.
His hatred for Hydra deepened by the day.
Just then, Agent Coulson burst into the office, his face practically glowing with excitement.
Fury froze. Coulson—his calm, composed right-hand man—rarely looked like this. The man was usually as steady as they came. What on earth could make him this giddy?
"What is it?" Fury asked warily. "If it's another false alarm, I swear—"
"Director, guess what intel we just got?" Coulson said, grinning like a kid with a secret.
Fury's expression darkened instantly. Great. Now Coulson was playing coy like Natasha. "Spit it out, or I'll have you reassigned to the Arctic to feed seals."
Honestly, Fury couldn't take it anymore. His team was made up of one woman who constantly went rogue, another who brooded like she'd swallowed a lemon, and now Coulson—his most reliable agent—was learning to tease him too.
Coulson only grinned wider. "Actually, Director, that might not be such a bad idea this time."
Fury blinked. "…What?"
Coulson handed over a file folder, his hands practically trembling with excitement.
"Director, we got this from a Hydra mole during interrogation. There's reason to believe that Captain America might still be alive."
Fury's single eye widened. "Alive? What do you mean, alive?"
Coulson nodded eagerly. "Hydra found traces of something in the Arctic Circle. There's evidence suggesting Captain America was frozen—not dead."
"Frozen…" Fury muttered, sinking into his chair, mind racing. It made a twisted kind of sense. Rogers had gone down in that crash with the Tesseract aboard, right into the icy seas. If he'd been preserved by the cold…
It wasn't impossible. Just improbable.
"Any word about the Tesseract?" Fury asked. He hadn't forgotten—it had been on the plane when Rogers went down.
"Yes, sir," Coulson replied. "According to the Hydra agent, they weren't even looking for Captain America—they were after the Tesseract. Finding Rogers was… an accident."
That made sense. Fury drummed his fingers on the desk, deep in thought.
"I see. In that case…" He paused, then looked up at Coulson.
Coulson's heart was pounding. His eyes practically sparkled.
"Agent Coulson," Fury said. "You'll notify Barton. He'll lead a team to the Arctic Circle to locate both Captain America and the Tesseract."
Coulson froze. His whole body slumped like someone had pulled the plug on his soul.
"Wait—what?! Director, you can't do this! Barton's a good soldier, but he's not a search-and-rescue guy! He'll just shoot at the ice! Let me go! Please, send me!"
Coulson dropped to his knees dramatically, clutching Fury's leg. "Director, I need this! You can't deny me this! I've served loyally for years! I've lost my hair for this job! Have mercy on a lonely, balding man!"
Fury just smirked, clearly enjoying this. That'll teach you to play games with me, Phil.
He held up his phone and started snapping photos. "Hold still. This is going in your personnel file."
Then, after a few seconds, he handed Coulson a folder.
"Here. This one's for you."
Instant mood swing—Coulson shot up, grinning from ear to ear. "Yes, sir! I won't let you down!"
He flipped open the folder eagerly… and immediately went pale.
"Director… you're kidding, right?"
Inside were a series of photographs—barren deserts, burned terrain, and one particularly striking shot of a massive circular scorch mark etched into the sand.
The coordinates? Somewhere between Colorado and New Mexico.
Coulson stared at it in despair, then glanced around the office for a wall sturdy enough to bash his head against.
"Director… if you want me dead, just say so…"
Fury was laughing now, thoroughly entertained. "Relax, I'm kidding. You'll get your Captain America mission. But that'll come after you check out that anomaly in Colorado."
Coulson immediately perked back up. "Yes, sir! I'll handle both!" He stood straight, saluting sharply.
"Good. Tell Barton he's going with you."
Coulson practically sprinted out of the room, his whooping echoing down the hallways. The other agents glanced around nervously, wondering if the Director had finally driven him insane.
Once Coulson was gone, Fury picked up the phone and called Natasha.
After Lucas's return to New York, Natasha had been sent to Bavaria to investigate the mountain Lucas had literally nuked flat.
"Natasha, any findings?" Fury asked once the line connected.
"Nothing, Director," Natasha replied lazily. She sat on a balcony, sipping coffee, looking out at the bare, cratered mountaintop in the distance. "The whole place was obliterated. Locals say there used to be a castle there—belonged to the Strucker family, old aristocrats."
The breeze carried her voice through the line—calm, composed, and utterly unbothered—as Fury rubbed his temples, realizing the world was only getting stranger by the day.
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