But Thor's eyes were already racing across the next passage in the diary, where Lucas mentioned that several people could lift his hammer—and one of them pretended he couldn't lift it while secretly practicing combo moves in private.
"Impossible! No one else can lift Mjolnir!" Thor shot back instinctively, his voice sharp with disbelief.
Besides himself and his father, there should be no one else. At least, he'd never heard of such a person existing.
"Wait, Fury—who the hell is talking right now? Don't tell me that's the actual Thunder God," Tony Stark's voice crackled over the line, laced with disbelief.
"Uh, yes. That would be Thor, son of Odin," Fury confirmed flatly.
The call disconnected immediately. A second later, a video call request flashed on screen. Tony's face appeared, his eyes scanning Thor up and down. The god looked exactly like the figure from the news footage—except his hair was significantly less impressive.
Tony had been planning to ask about his hair care routine. Well, scratch that.
"So you really are the Thunder God. But why does he know about the diary?" Tony asked, gesturing at Thor through the screen.
"Because he has a copy too. I'm assuming that makes us allies," Fury explained.
Thor barely registered the conversation. He was still reeling from the revelation that multiple people could lift Mjolnir. He'd always believed he was unique—that only he and Odin in all of Asgard possessed that power. Even Loki couldn't do it.
But now? His pride had been shattered in a single sentence. Apparently, he wasn't as special as he thought.
"Yeah, well, if things aren't going wrong, they're about to," Tony muttered, shrugging at the camera.
Thor ignored him entirely, staring blankly into the middle distance. The blow to his ego was profound.
Then the next diary entry appeared.
[Speaking of the guy who practiced his combo moves—I wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D. has found Cap yet? Probably not. Based on the timeline, it should be another two years or so. Man, imagine being an old-fashioned soldier ripped out of time and thrown seventy years into the future. Everyone you knew is gone. Your best friend became your mortal enemy. And the love of your life? She's on her deathbed. I couldn't handle that.]
The words hit like a freight train.
Captain America.
That name had echoed through decades of history, never fading—only growing brighter. The U.S. government had spent seventy years deifying Steve Rogers, turning him into the living embodiment of American ideals.
Everyone in the room—except Thor—had grown up hearing stories about Captain America.
Coulson, especially. He was Cap's biggest fan. Hearing those four words—Captain America—left him completely frozen.
A moment later, Tony's voice broke through the stunned silence, thick with disbelief.
"Wait. Captain America? You're telling me Steve Rogers is alive?"
Even Tony Stark, rebellious billionaire that he was, respected Captain America. Of course, that respect was reserved for the legend—the hero who sacrificed himself for his country. The real-life version? Tony wasn't so sure he'd get along with a living relic from the 1940s.
"I… believe so," Fury said slowly, still processing the bombshell himself.
"So he's the one," Thor growled, his voice thick with irritation. "The one who pretends he can't lift it but practices his moves in secret?"
He didn't share the mortals' reverence for this "Captain America." All he knew was that some human was eyeing his hammer and had apparently been scheming to wield it for who knows how long.
Anyone who coveted Mjolnir was not someone Thor felt kindly toward.
"Seems that way," Hawkeye muttered from the side. "But how the hell did Cap get strong enough to lift it? Did he mutate or something?"
Barton had tried lifting the hammer himself. No matter how much force he applied, the thing didn't budge an inch. He couldn't fathom how Steve Rogers—supposedly peak human condition—could manage what pickup trucks and helicopters couldn't.
"Could be a mutation," Coulson offered cautiously. "We searched for the Captain for over a decade after he disappeared. No trace. He could've been trapped somewhere… somewhere that changed him."
"Even if he's alive, he'd be over a hundred years old by now," Tony pointed out. "He'd struggle to lift a regular hammer, let alone Mjolnir. And you're telling me he's been practicing combo moves?"
"Not necessarily," Fury said, his mind racing. "Lucas said Cap was thrown seventy years into the future. Not that he lived through seventy years. That's time travel language. He could've been frozen, displaced, caught in some kind of temporal stasis. Maybe he absorbed energy from whatever phenomenon trapped him—something that made him worthy."
Everyone started talking at once, theories flying. They didn't know what it took to lift the hammer, so they were grasping at straws.
"But the diary says S.H.I.E.L.D. finds him," Tony interjected. "Which means he's trapped somewhere physical, not lost in a time vortex."
"Trapped somewhere…" Fury murmured.
Then it hit him like lightning.
The last known location of Steve Rogers, according to S.H.I.E.L.D. records, was the Arctic Circle. His plane had vanished from radar there during his final mission.
If Cap hadn't traveled through time… if he hadn't fallen through a rift in space…
Then there was only one possibility.