Unknownfate
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Chapter 174
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 14:03:13 +0000 UTCThe hum of the private jet was nearly so quiet that the sound of the bubbling champagne could almost overpower it. A nice cold drink and some cheap salty snacks really did make traveling all the more pleasant.
“Ahhh, this is life, isn’t it?”
“Tony,” A tired voice sighed, “You can’t just run from your problems like a child.” Pepper Potts, Personal Secretary to Tony Stark, and de facto CEO of Stark Industries, said for what felt like the millionth time.
“I’m not running from my problems, just taking a small, well-earned vacation is all.” Tony’s carefree voice returned.
“You planned and arranged this entire so-called vacation within five minutes of me informing you of another senator requesting your cooperation.” Pott’s annoyance was undisguised as she spoke.
“That’s just how I roll, and don’t pretend you haven’t wanted to go on a vacation for a while, do you know how difficult it is to get permission to access Camelot?” Tony clearly didn’t take her words seriously.
“I know, it took you one call, and you got the VIP treatment, you spent an entire hour bragging about it.” Pepper groaned.
“What can I say? Even in Camelot, my name makes waves.” Tony sounded as smug as he felt.
Pepper couldn’t even be bothered to respond to him; instead, she ripped the glass out of his hand and downed its contents in one go.
Pepper was used to dealing with Tony being… well, Tony. He never cared about what he should care about and instead cared about the strangest of things. She didn’t understand one bit of it, even if it seemed others understood it just fine.
She figured it was just a man thing.
Working for Tony had never been easy; he was demanding in the strangest ways, yet it was also rewarding. Knowing how her effort, her work, was shaping the world, because, while she hated to admit it, Tony was shaping the world with his work.
While she didn’t fully agree with his new idea about strapping on a suit and going out fighting crime, it was still important, even if she still thought it was too dangerous.
Though she did support him, she supported his shift away from making weapons; she sat through the meetings in his stead as she pushed his new ventures.
Deep down, she didn’t blame him for running away, honestly, it was mad how everyone wanted to get his technology. People who always liked to shout about property rights, patent laws, and all that suddenly demand that someone hand over their hard work.
Everyone is claiming a moral high ground while just being greedy. It was as horrible as it was hilarious.
Still, she did admit, ever since Camelot appeared and Albion was founded, she was interested in visiting the place.
The idea was just so romantic: a city out of time, with small, tasteful streets, quaint stores, a city without pollution or crime, a place of knights and kings. A real fantasy come to life.
However, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Tony to visit Camelot; he was already in hot water for supplying them with his arc reactors.
Going there was just going to make those problems bigger.
That said, she could use a break.
As if by magic, Tony somehow seemed to pick up the fact that she was agreeing with him. “Don’t worry, Pepper, you are going to love it. Everything has been arranged.”
Pepper always did wonder how he manages to see through her at times, and be so damned dense at others. “You didn’t even arrange the plane until we were five minutes away, so excuse me from being sceptical.”
“I called ahead! So we have a place to stay, worthy of royalty, and we have money, that’s all we need.” Tony waved her concerns away.
“Right… money will solve all our problems.” Pepper hated how she couldn’t disagree with that, working for Tony for so long, well, she had seen money solve far too many problems not to believe it.
“It’s fine, Albion is still mostly like England of old, plenty of places we can go outside of Camelot, just you see, you will enjoy this so much you don’t want to go back home.” Tony said while pouring them both another glass.
“So Pepper, just relax, this vacation is as much for you as it is for me, you have been working hard.” He made her heart skip a beat as he smiled at her, raising his glass.
“Fine, I will enjoy it, and you will pay for everything.” She finally agreed to relax as their glasses clinked together.
The private luxury jet continued to fly smoothly and nearly soundlessly across the skies. Inside, both Tony and Pepper enjoyed themselves and everything the plane had to offer in terms of refreshments and entertainment.
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Far across the sky, aboard a completely different aircraft, Captain Steven Grant Rogers was having a very different experience.
The commercial flight to Albion wasn’t delayed — but Steve almost wished it had been.
The air was stale and recycled, the fluorescent lighting too bright, and the cramped seat didn’t accommodate his frame in the slightest. His knees were jammed up against the tray table in front of him, which wouldn’t lock properly and kept sliding down onto his thighs every time the kid behind him kicked the seat. Which was often.
Very often.
He glanced over to his left where a woman was snoring loudly, head tilted back, mouth wide open. To his right, a man had commandeered both armrests and fallen asleep with headphones leaking teen music into the cabin. The aisle cart had bumped Steve’s elbow twice now.
A flight attendant smiled politely as she passed by again, offering miniature plastic containers of something that might once have been lasagna. Steve took one. He tried it. He regretted it.
A baby in the next row started crying. Then another joined in. Then another.
Steve hadn’t really flown commercial before, only really been flying on military planes. And this first experience wasn’t living up to what he expected.
He had worked hard to catch up to everything he was behind, reading books, watching movies, and TV, trying his best to get up to date with this new age.
The advancement in technology was simply incredible. He was still struggling to understand much of it, but now, he was struggling to understand what had happened with flying.
He had some knowledge about flying across the ocean and what it looked like. It shouldn’t have been this. He had seen commercials in some of the movies, showing how it was in the seventies, and it was a far cry from this.
Back in his time, flying had been very different; it was still noisy, the planes were horrible, so loud that one couldn’t hear oneself. And cold, so very cold. Not to mention, non-military flying was expensive, something that someone like him could not afford.
So he had been impressed to learn that it was now something everyone could experience, and how good it had become. Large seats, silent planes, and kind flight attendants bringing free food and drinks.
That, however, wasn’t what he was experiencing at all. No, what he experienced was warmer than flying back then, but still just as loud, and he felt he had even less space in these seats than he had in a full military transport.
He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he felt something big had occurred in the last few decades, and he needed to catch up to that, because he had really been caught by surprise this time.
Steve sighed, adjusted his seatbelt, and thought back to the report he had been given before setting off on this trip.
After requesting it, Nick Fury had sat down for a chat with him, asking questions. Steve knew it for what it was: an interrogation.
He wasn’t shocked, wasn’t surprised, or offended. He knew who he was, what he was. He was an important military asset, and while he didn’t see himself as such, he knew the truth.
So when such an asset suddenly wanted to visit a hostile nation, questions had to be asked. He didn’t blame Fury for doing that, if anything, he respected him for asking the questions himself rather than sending someone else to do it for him.
He remembered that conversation vividly. The talk about the Avengers program, Fury’s plan. He was crazy, not something he wanted a part in, but he had to admit, it made sense.
Honestly, he was just thankful that he had been allowed to go, that Fury had helped him get a visa, and even more so for the briefing on Camelot, Albion, and Arthuria Pendragon.
It told a story far different from the media, with more detail and many different sides. It really gave him something more to think about and made him feel an even greater need to see Camelot himself, and if possible, meet this legendary person.
The woman intrigued him. Power like hers… authority like hers… it rarely came without a cost. And yet, every report painted her as noble. Just. Righteous.
Too good to be true, some said.
Maybe.
But Steve wanted to see for himself.
The seat jerked as the kid behind him delivered another solid kick. He once more was reminded of the look he was given when he turned down a private jet, first class, and other luxury; he didn’t need that, didn’t want it.
He was a normal man, someone who had worked his way up from nothing and hadn’t left his roots behind. He didn’t want to hide from the world, to sit above his fellow man, no, he understood now why he was given strange looks when he insisted the cheapest ticket was enough, but he didn’t regret it.
He didn’t need champagne. Or silence. Or first class.
Just the truth.
If this was what normal people experienced when flying, then this was what he wanted to experience.
Because he was Steve Rogers, a kid from Brooklyn, nothing more than that.
(end of chapter)
