After the intense exertion, Daisy sucked in a sharp breath. It was freezing out here.
Sure, she had resistance to harsh environments—but there were limits. A short-sleeved shirt in the Arctic was pushing it. The tears in her jeans funneled in gusts of wind, and her low-cut canvas sneakers, ankles bare against the ice, sent a bone-deep chill crawling up her legs.
All four of them were dressed for summer, really. Jean was even in a pencil skirt—but with the Phoenix riding shotgun, she didn't feel the cold at all. Johnny didn't either. Susan and Daisy, though, were absolutely miserable.
Susan had planted herself right next to Johnny and was openly using her brother as a space heater.
"Let's head back to New York," Daisy said. She was done. She reached out with her telekinesis, pulling herself and the unconscious Namor upward into the air.
Then she paused.
Something odd flickered at the very edge of her perception—an unfamiliar frequency. She focused on it, triangulating the direction. About a kilometer north of their current position, a massive section of glacier had collapsed. And in the rubble left behind, something had been exposed.
She turned toward Johnny. "Is that the area where you two were fighting earlier?"
Johnny had been watching, fascinated, trying to figure out how she was flying. He squinted into the white distance. Without any landmarks, everything looked the same. "Maybe? Hard to tell. Why?"
Daisy muttered under her breath, "I think I just spotted a distant relative of yours... We'll deal with it later. New York first."
She didn't elaborate. She just loaded everyone onto the jet and flew them home.
The Storm siblings disembarked at Xavier's School. Before Jean stepped off, she caught Daisy's arm and made her promise: "If you notice anything off—anything at all—come find me immediately. Or Professor Xavier."
After locking Namor in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s detention facility for superpowered detainees, Daisy assembled her team, requisitioned a mountain of excavation and emergency medical equipment, and boarded a transport plane.
"Coulson, you're with me." A pause on the line. "What? Where? The Arctic."
She was so blunt about it that Coulson—who had sprinted to catch the plane and arrived with sixty seconds to spare—was still in his plaid button-down and glasses.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked, voice wavering slightly. Then again: "Are you sure?"
"Trust me."
By the time the large transport touched down in the Arctic, it was early the next morning. A fierce blizzard had all but blinded the pilots, forcing them to circle overhead until the visibility improved enough to attempt a landing.
Snow swirled in every direction. Visibility was terrible. Daisy suited up in a down jacket and goggles, oriented herself more by frequency than by sight, and confirmed a heading. Three snowcats crawled northwest.
"Daisy, are you sure it's around here?" Sharon had been roped in to handle medical support—because when Daisy needed a best friend and a combat medic, she called the same person. "I'm not seeing anything."
They'd been driving for nearly an hour since leaving the plane. The agents around her were navigating blind, following her directions through a maze of ice and wind. Most of them had doubts—but none of them outranked her, and the one person who did, Coulson, had said nothing at all. Sharon was the only one close enough to her to actually ask.
Daisy couldn't really explain herself. The terrain was brutal, visibility was worse, and she was simultaneously navigating and scanning the surface ahead—hence the zigzagging route.
"Almost there. I clocked the location from the air—it's in this zone. Give me a minute to get out and check."
"No need." Coulson stopped her before she could open the door. He rolled down his window, letting the blizzard roar in without flinching, and pointed left. "I think I can see it—is that the one?"
Daisy looked where he was pointing. The storm made it nearly impossible to see—even for her. But the frequency didn't lie. They'd found it.
She grinned. "Are you sure you're actually Coulson? Hawkeye must be in disguise."
"Good to know I've still got it," Coulson said, laughing despite himself.
As the snowcats crept closer, the agents finally made out the shape half-buried in the glacier. A colossal metal wing jutted toward the sky at an angle, the rest of the aircraft still locked deep in the ice.
"It really does look like a Nazi Horten Ho 229," said Mockingbird, Daisy's subordinate, hugging herself against the cold as she studied the plane. "The Americans basically copied the design for the B-2 stealth bomber. Turns out the Nazis had working stealth tech—they just lost the war before they could put it into production."
One wing alone stretched over a hundred meters. The entire airframe was monstrous. Pure HYDRA black tech.
Daisy gathered the team and laid out an excavation plan. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were a versatile bunch—light on pure combat strength, heavy on practical skills. They came up with a rescue approach fast.
Daisy watched from a short distance as a high-speed cutting rig worked for fifteen minutes, drilling a two-meter-wide vertical shaft straight down through the ice. Coulson volunteered to go in first.
He wasn't down there long before the message came back: Found him.
When Coulson passed up Captain America's shield, a ripple of excitement ran through every agent on-site.
Then they got to work—chipping and melting and lifting, excavating the man frozen inside like archaeologists at a dig site.
Strong jaw. Set mouth. Even unconscious, Captain America's spine was straight, his posture unbowed—as if nothing in the world could ever put him down.
Daisy didn't share his convictions. But the moment she'd spotted that frequency, she'd come. Not for fame. Not for glory. Just out of respect.
You could dislike someone and still respect them.
By the time they'd finally pulled him free from the wreckage—hours of work, half the day gone—Nick Fury had arrived on-site.
"What's his status?" Fury asked, turning to the most qualified person present. "When will he wake up? Any chance of lasting damage?"
Sharon Carter, Daisy's best friend and the on-site physician, took a moment to compose herself before answering. "He should regain consciousness within six months. A month, if we're lucky."
She paused. "As for lasting conditions—I can't say for certain. Captain America's physiology far exceeds baseline human. We don't have precedent."
Fury looked at Daisy. "Your take?"
"His vitals are solid. Once his brain fully reactivates, I don't foresee any physical complications." Daisy read the real intent behind Fury's question immediately. He didn't actually care about Steve Rogers. He was sizing up an asset—someone who could satisfy the brass upstairs, hold down a group of Avengers, and still take orders from him at the end of the day.
Whether that person was called Captain America or Captain Zimbabwe didn't really matter, as long as all three boxes got checked.