The reason Captain America was so cautious about taking action was that the situation in Atlantis was, ultimately, an internal matter: a warlord had staged a coup within Atlantis with the support of Loki. From that perspective, the Avengers had no grounds to intervene.
After all, the Captain couldn't let the situation become "the King of Atlantis suppresses a domestic rebellion with the assistance of the Avengers"—that would turn into a political nightmare. Therefore, the Captain's strategy was to prioritize prevention and investigation, sending Thor—the only party with a direct stake in the matter—to conduct close-range reconnaissance, since the Casket of Ancient Winters had been stolen from Asgard.
Once the opposition escalated the conflict, the Avengers could then deploy rapidly and respond according to their pre-established plans.
As for Tony, his mindset was entirely different. He didn't view an Avengers operation in Atlantis as a political issue; or rather, even if it were, he didn't care. What Tony needed was a justification for the Avengers to intervene directly and solid evidence proving the necessity of action, providing a rationale for their deployment.
As for whether the Avengers would be interfering in Atlantean internal affairs? "I'm not heading there for that purpose, so I don't care about your technicalities."
Peter, in principle, agreed with the Captain. However, if acting early could prevent greater casualties, he was willing to help Tony.
"Then why don't I just go and steal the Casket of Ancient Winters directly? If we steal that thing without anyone knowing, then no one in all of Atlantis will be a match for Namor. Namor could resolve the rebellion himself, and wouldn't everyone be happy?"
"You really are a genius."
Hearing this, Strange couldn't help but retort helplessly, "How exactly do you plan to steal the Casket of Ancient Winters? The moment it's opened, you'll turn into an ice sculpture instantly. Magic would only help you hold out for a few extra minutes."
"Could the X-Men's Iceman ignore the power of Fimbulwinter and close the Casket?"
After Peter posed this question to Strange, the latter froze for a moment. It made sense; if the Frost Giants could partially resist the cold of the Casket to close it, then could Iceman—who could turn himself into a solid block of ice—do the same?
However, since this was a mutant-related issue, Strange couldn't provide a definitive answer right away. After a long moment of thought, he shook his head. "I'm not entirely certain about that, but he should be able to move freely while the Casket is releasing its power. If the Avengers plan to confront an opponent wielding the Casket, it would be best to bring him along."
"Furthermore, Spider-Man, do not forget one thing: we still don't know why Loki had Amora deliver the Casket of Ancient Winters to the Atlantean rebels. There might be a much larger conspiracy behind this."
"Trust me, Doctor, bad guys always have a 'larger conspiracy.' That's exactly why we need to act as quickly as possible—because the larger a conspiracy is, the harder it is to execute."
As Peter spoke, he opened a portal and left the Sanctum Sanctorum. Strange watched Spider-Man leave and then turned around; he needed to see if he could find any methods in the library of Kamar-Taj to counter Fimbulwinter.
Meanwhile, having left, Peter pondered the task Tony had given him: to investigate what Roxxon Energy Corporation was actually doing at their oil rig currently under construction above the city of Atlantis. However, after a bit of thought, Peter felt it was unlikely the opposition would hide anything truly important on the front lines.
"On the contrary, Roxxon Energy's headquarters is right in Manhattan. Well then, let's see what I can find."
He quickly swung toward the vicinity of the Roxxon Energy headquarters. Controlling his nanobots to assemble into a high-strength drone, he sent it flying toward the building. His plan was to check Roxxon's central server room first to see if he could find any interesting data.
"Thinking back to last year, when I wanted to investigate Kingpin's dirt, I had to crawl through ventilation ducts into his server room myself and use a beat-up laptop to crack his documents. Now, I can get it done while catching a breeze on a rooftop. Found it. It was hidden quite shallowly; no hard protection at all."
Or was it like Kingpin, where the outer servers were just a front and a decoy?
As the cracking program ran rapidly, Peter soon saw a vast amount of Roxxon Energy's internal confidential information. However, most of it was useless trade secrets. In fact, Tony had specifically swept through Roxxon's databases a few months ago, trying to find traces of their collusion with Hydra, but had come up empty-handed.
Therefore, Peter was merely trying to find some clues regarding Roxxon's official records for oil extraction near Atlantis.
"A government report showing that the local area wasn't an Atlantean settlement... the date on this report is interesting. It's from just a few days ago. You could say Roxxon suddenly decided to go there for oil..."
Peter thought for a moment and immediately linked into the internal communications of Avengers Tower.
"Captain? Dr. Pym? Mr. Stark? Is anyone at the Avengers base? Did any of us ever actually ask Namor if there was anything special about that city? It seems like after Roxxon collaborated with Amora, they found this place directly. They might have come specifically for that city."
As Peter spoke, he continued browsing through the data. But after waiting several seconds without anyone replying, he asked back in confusion, "Is anyone there?"
Still, there was no answer.
He suddenly felt a sense of foreboding and immediately swung toward Avengers Tower. Looking down from above, he could see the shattered glass exterior of the tower. Peter swung inside immediately and saw Hank Pym lying unconscious on the floor. He rushed over to check on him.
The good news was that Pym was only knocked out. Peter woke him up quickly and asked what had happened. "What happened, Dr. Pym? Why were you knocked unconscious?"
Supported by Peter, Pym looked around in utter confusion, frowning as he tried to think. Then, as if a memory had resurfaced, his first words were a bombshell.
"Ah... I, I remember now. I think I was knocked out by Namor."
"???"
"What are you saying?"
"Namor planned to take back Atlantis on his own. Worried that I would notify the Avengers, he knocked me out. That's pretty much how it went."
Pym looked toward the shattered glass wall and said helplessly, "I don't know how long he's been gone. He might already be nearing Atlantis."
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