Magical Marvel: The Rise of Arthur Hayes

The study was quiet. Arthur's cold tea sat untouched on the desk. The armchair where he had spent the last day staring at walls still held the faint impression of his weight.

Eileen stood at the tall window, arms crossed tightly over her chest, looking out at the sprawling New York skyline. Winky stood silently beside the desk, her long arms folded mirroring Eileen's posture.

"So, his worries are resolved," Eileen said softly. It wasn't a question. It was a confirmation.

"The Sorcerer helped Master work through what was troubling him. He made his decision and left for seclusion."

"Is everything alright?" Eileen asked quietly.

"The Sorcerer said Master was becoming something more," Winky replied, her eyes serious. "She said the process would take time, but it was a very good thing."

Eileen nodded slowly. She had known something was terribly wrong for days. Arthur had not followed his usual structured routine. He did not travel to Asgard in the dead of night to bury himself in the Archives like he usually did. He simply stood at the windows and stared at nothing. She had watched him quietly spiral and said nothing, because she had learned over the years that Arthur needed to find his own way through those dark, tangled moments. Pushing him would only make things worse. You only needed to be there with him as a silent support.

And Winky had done what Eileen could not. She had called the one person on this entire planet Arthur would actually listen to.

"Thank you, Winky," Eileen said. She turned from the window and looked at the elf. "For calling the Sorcerer Supreme. He never would have asked for help on his own."

"No," Winky agreed softly. "Master would not."

They shared a look. The look of two people who loved the same stubborn, brilliant, infuriating man and had long ago accepted that managing him was a team effort.

Eileen sighed deeply. "He didn't even say goodbye to the children."

"No."

"Elena is going to be absolutely furious. She will want a full explanation and a formal apology. Tristan will just be silently brooding in a corner somewhere, making everyone feel guilty. It is going to be a very difficult few days for us, Winky."

"Winky will make pancakes," Winky said immediately. "The ones with the funny faces. They always calm down for the pancakes with faces."

Eileen managed a tired smile. "That sounds like an excellent plan, Winky."

The study's holographic display chimed softly. Eileen glanced at it. Arthur's personal communications system was flagging an incoming call.

Tony Stark.

Eileen walked to the display and accepted the connection. Tony's voice came through mid-sentence, already talking, because Tony was always already talking.

"Look, Arthur, I need you to tell me this is some kind of elaborate magical prank. Because I currently have Phil Coulson standing in my office telling me the God of Mischief is on Earth with a glowing mind-control stick and a hostile alien army heading our way. I would really appreciate it if you could teleport over here right now and explain why this is not nearly as bad as it sounds."

"Tony."

A brief beat of silence fell over the line.

"Eileen?"

"Arthur isn't here."

Another beat followed. This one lasted much longer. "Isn't here as in he stepped out for a casual stroll, or isn't here as in..."

"He had to leave suddenly. I'm not entirely sure where he went."

Total silence on the line.

"When will he be back?" Tony asked.

"I don't know. This was incredibly sudden, Tony. He didn't even stop to say goodbye to the children before he left."

"That bad?"

"That sudden."

"Eileen." Tony's voice shifted. The playful banter was completely gone. What replaced it was the focused, rapid-processing tone of a man whose mind was already running through contingencies. "Is the alien situation true, and will Arthur be back before the army actually arrives?"

"Everything should really be true, Tony, and I honestly don't know when Arthur will return to us."

She could feel Tony recalibrating on the other end.

"Okay," Tony said. It was not okay as in fine. It was okay as in acknowledged and accepted. "Okay. I will figure it out."

"I know you will."

"Tell him to call me the exact second he gets back. First thing."

"I will."

The line went dead. Eileen stood in the quiet study for a long moment, letting the gravity of the situation settle over her.

A God of Mischief. A mind-control stick. An alien army heading straight for Earth.

She had not known about any of this. Arthur never told her about these apocalyptic, world-ending things until they were safely over. He liked to keep his family perfectly safe, comfortable, and worry-free. It was one of the things about Arthur she simultaneously loved and hated.

"Eve."

"Yes, Mrs. Hayes."

"What exactly is happening out there? Tony Stark just told me about an alien army and a god with a mind-control weapon. Arthur clearly knew about all of this and told me absolutely nothing." Her voice was perfectly steady. Her hands were not. "I need you to tell me everything."

A pause followed. It was a brief hesitation. It was the kind of pause someone made when calculating exactly how much brutal honesty was appropriate for the moment.

"Everything, Eve. Start from the very beginning."

"Understood, Mrs. Hayes. On May first, a hostile Asgardian named Loki arrived on Earth through a spatial portal at a classified SHIELD research facility in the Mojave Desert…"

Eileen listened intently. Her hands grew still. Her face remained calm.

—

In the Stark Tower, Tony lowered his phone and stared at it for three seconds. Then he looked up at Phil Coulson. The SHIELD agent stood by the office holding a tablet and the expression of a man who had heard every word.

"Arthur is offline," Tony stated flatly.

"I gathered that much."

"Duration completely unknown. Eileen has no idea where he went or when he will be back."

Coulson absorbed this grim news without blinking. "Director Fury needs to know immediately."

"Yeah." Tony set the phone down heavily on his desk. He looked at the glowing portable arc reactor pendant resting on the table. Then he looked at the tablet in Coulson's hands showing grainy security footage of Loki's face. "Yeah, he really does."

Coulson stepped away toward the far window and spoke quietly into his earpiece. Tony didn't listen to the agent's words. He was too busy thinking.

Arthur was always there. That was the constant. No matter how bad things got, no matter how impossible the odds stacked against them, Arthur Hayes was always somewhere in the background, quietly holding the fraying threads of the world together. He had been there in the dark Afghan cave. He had been there for the monsters in Harlem. He was always there to save the day if things went completely south.

And now he wasn't.

Tony pulled up the classified Loki file on his own holographic systems and started reading. He wasn't skimming for entertainment this time. He was processing. Preparing. If Arthur wasn't going to be there, then Tony needed to carry more weight than he'd ever carried before.

"JARVIS. Prep the Mark X. Full, heavy combat loadout."

"Right away, Sir."

—

Fury called the Hayes household twelve minutes later.

Eileen and Winky were in the spacious kitchen making pancakes with the utmost care when Eileen's phone began to ring.

"Eileen. It's Fury."

"Nick. I fully expected your call."

"Coulson just briefed me. Where is Arthur? I need to know absolutely everything you can tell me."

"I don't know much first-hand, Nick. You know Arthur perfectly well. He never tells me about these things until they are over and there is nothing left to worry about." There was no bitterness in her soft voice, only quiet acceptance. "But I started going through his secure digital logs the moment Tony called me. I found some things."

"Tell me."

"He went to space recently to track Loki's army. The fleet had gone missing and from what I can find from his notes, he confirmed it is currently making its way to Earth through physical space. They had to change tactics now that the portal plan with the Tesseract failed."

There was total silence on the other line as Fury rapidly processed the terrifying developments.

"Why did he leave so suddenly?" Fury finally asked, his voice tight.

"There is nothing in detail. From what I can piece together, he battled someone in space and gained something unexpected from the fight. He had to leave to deal with it. Urgently. I don't know where he went or when he will be back to help."

"Did he leave anything behind? Instructions? Contingency plans?"

"Nothing. It wasn't planned at all, Nick. He was gone before any of us even knew he was leaving."

Fury was quiet for a heavy moment. "So we are up against an invading alien army and our single strongest defender has just taken himself entirely off the board."

"Arthur trusted you and the Avengers to handle this, Nick. And Carol is currently making her way back to Earth at maximum speed. She should be here in a few days."

"A few days might be too late."

"Then make sure it isn't."

Fury was silent for a long moment.

"Thank you, Eileen."

"Take care of yourself, Nick. Everything is going to be alright."

She hung up the phone. The kitchen was completely quiet except for the sizzling sound of Winky carefully flipping pancakes on the stove.

"Winky, is everything actually going to be alright?"

"Yes," the elf said firmly, not looking away from the pan. "Winky promised Master to keep everyone safe. Winky does not break promises."

—

Fury set the phone down in the mobile command post.

He had officially activated the Avengers Initiative days ago, the moment Loki had stepped through that portal in the Mojave facility. Romanoff was already at A.I.M. headquarters working closely with Banner to help find Loki using the Scepter's unique, traceable gamma signature. Rogers was aboard the Helicarrier, getting briefed. Stark would come on his own arrogant terms, but he would come. The pieces were finally in motion.

But the situation had just changed drastically. Arthur being offline didn't just remove one asset from the board. It removed the asset. The one person Fury had been quietly relying on as the failsafe behind every other failsafe. The man who could teleport into any crisis, match any threat, and tip any battle from impossible to manageable with a wave of his hand.

Without Arthur, the margin for error had gone from thin to nonexistent.

Fury tapped his earpiece and called Natasha.

She picked up immediately. "Director."

"Status."

"Dr. Banner has been working on tracking the scepter's gamma signature. He's made progress but it's slow. The Scepter's emission pattern keeps shifting frequencies."

"New development. Hayes is offline. Duration unknown. He may not be available for the entirety of this crisis."

Silence fell on Natasha's end of the line. It was brief but incredibly telling.

"Understood," she said coolly, her professionalism flawless. "Does this change my current assignment?"

"Yes. Stop trying to track Loki remotely from New York. Bring Banner directly to the Helicarrier. I want him working directly here in our main lab. We will need his brilliant analysis in real time, not from a remote desk in Manhattan. We might even need the other guy."

"Banner may need convincing. He's comfortable here at A.I.M. with Dr. Ross. He doesn't want to leave."

"Then convince him. That is exactly why I sent you."

Natasha hung up. Fury stared at the glowing tactical screens for another full minute, the weight of the world settling squarely onto his shoulders. Then he made a call he had been desperately hoping to avoid making.