Okay, I might have fucked up here.
It's been almost a week since my run-in with the whole Magneto N' Friends mutant showcase, and things have been fairly quiet... well, as quiet as it ever gets in New York, but no supervillain attacks, atleast none that require Earth's Mightiest Heroes to deal with. I've mostly spent my time either hanging out with the Hulk, or using my powers to familiarize myself with the city, since it's looking like I'll probably be here for a while. On impulse, I decided to pick up a small journal and actually write down the things I'm hoping to accomplish with my knowledge of future events. Aside from the obvious, such as preventing the deaths of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King, I was thinking about how to help Captain America, when I had a sudden, horrible realization.
It had completely slipped my mind, but the entire reason the Avengers even found Cap was because they were searching for Namor after he teamed up with the Hulk and fought the team, otherwise I doubt they'd have a reason to take a submarine cruise through arctic waters.
And that isn't going to happen now.
Which means I've either condemned Captain America to a life as a frozen statue, or a watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean.
I bang my head against the journal page with my half-assed ideas written down on it.
Okay. Okay, don't panic. I should be able to fix this. Let's see, in the comic, they showed that Namor found Cap's frozen body being worshipped by a group of eskimos, which seems kinda racist, but whatever, and threw him into the ocean for... reasons. And this apparently happened AFTER he fought the Avengers, if I remember correctly, so he might not have done that yet. Okay, so, all I need to do is search the coast line wherever Inuits live.
So, what, Canada, Alaska, and pretty much all of Greenland? Sure, piece of cake. That doesn't sound insane at all!
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. Okay, it could be worse, I don't have to literally search the whole landmass, just the coastline, which narrows it down a little bit atleast. But there's another problem - even if I do manage to find him, against every sane odds, how am I supposed to get him back to civilization? I haven't tried using my powers while holding other people, and even if I could, I have no idea if him being frozen will have any added effects. In the comic, he just woke up when he thawed, but what if in actual life he'll need medical attention? I mean, he was in a plane explosion before he froze, what if those injuries carry over?
I think I'm going to need to ask for help with this one...
....
"I'm sorry, could you go over that again?" Tony Stark says as he leans his back against the metal table where his armor is currently lying spread out in pieces, and not the bulky golden armor he wore when we first met, but the much more familiar red and gold one from the later comics, the Mk. III or whatever he called it, the one with the pointy faceplate if the helmet lying half-finished on the table is anything to go by. Stark has stripped down to just his trousers and the chest plate covering his upper body as he works, revealing a surprisingly muscular set of arms. "You want a what?"
"A long-range communicator, something that I can use to get in contact with you, or the other Avengers, even when I'm hundreds of miles from the nearest phone" Man, I don't usually mind the lack of cellphones, but in this case, it's a real drawback.
"O-kay, can't you like, fly at light speed? The call would take longer for you than just running the whole way back here!"
I sigh. Time for my incredibly vague excuse "Look, sometimes I get these... hunches, like an idea about something that's going to happen, and lately, a lot of them have turned out to be true. I don't want to go into detail, but basically, there's a missing person I think I might be able to find, and I don't know what the side effects of using my powers to bring them back with me would be." Christ, that's bad, I have to keep myself from wincing, but it's the best excuse I could come up with.
Stark just blinks "What, you're psychic now, too? Is this just some weird mutant thing?"
I shake my head "No, and rude by the way. I can't really explain it any better, if I turn out to be wrong, it won't matter, but if I'm right, I need to be able to get in contact with someone who can help."
Stark gives me an uncertain look, but finally walks over to one of the steel cabinets lining the lab walls, and pulls out what looks like one of those old, bulky cellphones from the 80's, except instead of a keypad, there's just one large button. "You're in luck, this is something I was tinkering with back when I had the first Iron Man armor, it's a long-range transmitter that connects to the radio in my helmet. Just press the button, and you'll have a direct line to me."
"Perfect! Hey, just as an aside, are any of you guys like, regular doctors on top of being geniuses?"
.....
In retrospect, "an ice float somewhere in the North Sea" is an even worse direction description that it sounds
I find myself standing on the icy shore of what I'm pretty sure is somewhere in Newfoundland, huddled inside a thick coat I stopped to pick up on the way, because even with my powers, running around in a t-shirt near the arctic in friggin October seems like a poor idea, the hood pulled up over my head along with my bandana to keep the bitter, cold ocean winds out of my face.
Now that I'm actually out here, I find myself slowly calming down, my initial panic slowly subsiding. Now that I'm thinking clearly, I'm beginning to realize that I probably jumped the gun a bit. The only reason that Namor was out here harassing natives in the comic was because he'd just lost his fight with the Avengers, and thought the Hulk had turned on him, but since that never happened, or would have happened but now won't, there's no reason for him to have thrown Cap's frozen body into the sea, so it should still be there. I probably didn't need to rush out here all by myself after all, it could take weeks or even months of searching to find him...
.....
Or less than half a day, apparently. Yeah, I might have underestimated how useful it would be to be able to search miles of coastline in minutes at a time, even accounting for me stopping to rest every now and then.
The tiny village in front of me reminds me a little of the photos of Sami villages I'd seen in school, even though that's half a world away. Well, with the exception of actual igloo huts, which I've never seen outside cartoons, but most of the buildings are tents and cabins of various kinds. The villagers all stop and stare as I come trudging through the snow towards them. Understandable, considering I doubt they get a lot of visitors out here, especially not someone just walking up to them from the middle of nowhere without a sled or a truck or anything. I pull my sunglasses off so they can atleast see part of my face.
"Uh, hi? Do any of you guys speak English?"
Everything I know about the Inuits that isn't a stereotype I've seen on TV is about enough to fill a shot glass, other than that they got shafted by whitey like pretty much every native people, and that's from my own time, I have even less of an idea how things work here in the 60's, and I don't know how widespread English is out here. If none of them speak it, I'm pretty screwed.
Luckily, one of the men knocks on the door of a nearby cabin, and the door opens to reveal an elderly man, wrapped in furs and leaning on a cane. The two say something in a language I don't recognize, and the younger man helps him down the stairs and over to me. The old man looks me over, and says in perfect, if accented English "We don't get many visitors out here."
I smile under my bandana "Sorry to bother you, but I'm sort of looking for someone."
He nods "I suppose you're here for the man in the ice?"
...well, that went easier than expected.
.....
"We found him inside an iceberg that ran aground a few miles from here about 10 years ago. We didn't quite know what to do with him, so, well..."
The old man leads me to a stretch of shoreline just outside the village, where a block of ice stands propped up against a rocky outcropping that stretches into the water. The block has clearly been carved out of a much larger ice segment, and within, I can just about spot the dark silhouette of a man. Part of me still half-expected to have the villagers have turned him into a figure of worship, no matter how ridiculous that would have been, but according to the old man, the Man in The Ice has just been a curiosity for them. I walk closer, a little hesitantly, I'm still terrified that all I'm going to find inside the ice is a corpse rather than one of the greatest heroes to ever walk the Earth. As I get closer, I can just about make out the familiar, flag-patterned uniform. I turn back towards the old man.
"How did you know I was here for him?"
He shrugs with a patient smile "The uniform, your face covering, it hardly requires much guesswork. And like I said before, we do not get many visitors."
I touch the ice block, running my fingers across the surface "You know who he is, don't you? Why didn't you try contacting anyone when you found him?"
"Who would we contact? Who would even believe us? You're here to bring him home for burial now, aren't you?"
Oh right, they'd have no reason to think he isn't dead. I suppose one grave is as good as another, but if the comics were right about this... I begin wiping the ice with the sleeve of my coat, trying to get a clearer view of the prisoner inside.
Come on, come on, don't be dead...
Huh...
Well, the handsome, blond guy inside the ice doesn't LOOK bad for someone who's been frozen for almost 20 years.
I reach inside my coat for the transmitter.
.....
Stark Industries, New York City
"...I'm sorry, could you repeat that part? You've been gone for like an afternoon, and you found who?! Okay...okay, calm down. You're WHERE?! Okay, no, I can't deal with this over the radio, just don't run off and do anything else crazy, just stay there and try not to touch anything!"
Tony Stark turned off the reciever in the Iron Man helmet, just barely keeping himself from slamming it back onto the table, before walking over to the small bar he kept inside his personal lab for emergencies. Pouring himself a generous glass of bourbon, he quickly drank it, enjoying the pleasant burn of the alcohol, before taking a deep breath, and pressing the button of his intercom.
"Miss Potts? I think we're going to need to charter a medical evacuation helicopter.... Yes, again!"