The silence that followed the thermal explosion was heavy, broken only by the distant, panicked sounds of the fleeing tourist helicopter. Alex hovered for a final moment, the Model Zero suit stabilizing his frantic heartbeat. He was alive, intact, and victorious, but the victory felt brittle.
He executed a controlled descent, the kinetic thrusters venting steam as he landed softly near Romanoff's position. The Widow had her rifle lowered, her expression a careful mask of professional fury.
"Status report, Kinetic," she commanded, using the new designation with biting sarcasm. "You engaged a classified target in a densely monitored airspace, allowed a civilian news crew to film the battle, and created a plume visible from orbit. I want an explanation before Fury pulls the trigger on that LCP-1 virus you gave him."
Alex disabled the external speaker and spoke over the secure channel. "The explanation is that they found us, Romanoff. Their armor, Project Hydra's Hammer, wasn't here by accident. It was running a dedicated RUNE Signature Tracker tied directly to my Arc Core's unique frequency. They weren't hunting Stane; they were hunting me."
The Cost of the RUNE Host
Anya emerged from the Zola vault entrance, her expression grim as she approached the smoking wreckage of the Hammer pilot's severed arm. Romanoff immediately leveled her weapon at the civilian, but Alex stepped between them.
"She stays," Alex ordered. "Her expertise is why the suit is still functional. She's the only one who understands the instability."
Romanoff hesitated, then lowered the rifle, her focus returning to the smoking, jagged micro-fractures across Alex's armor. "You put on a show for the news, Stark. Now tell me what that suit cost you."
Alex activated the diagnostics display across the Model Zero suit's faceplate. He didn't just show them the depleted energy reserves; he highlighted the structural damage.
"The Kinetic Overload that destroyed the Hammer's cannon caused a massive, instantaneous energy spike," Alex explained, the technical details providing a detached shield for his physical toll. "The Liquid Mesh held, but the localized output exceeded the maximum tensile strength of the Model Zero alloy. The nanites are currently working overtime, filling the micro-fractures with new composite material, but every time they repair a structural fault, they divert power from my biological firewall."
Anya confirmed his assessment, her eyes tracing the lines of stress across the armor. "The nanites were designed to fight molecular decay. They require RUNE energy to constantly maintain Alex's cellular integrity. When he uses that power for combat, he is literally using his own internal healing reserve. Every fight shortens his life by a measure of cellular degradation."
Romanoff looked from Alex's scarred armor to Anya's cold analysis. The convenience of his power was gone, replaced by a devastatingly logical price tag: Every victory costs him a piece of his future. The hype of the armor was now matched by the deepening personal stakes.
The Sinister Payload
Alex ignored the internal warning, his focus shifting to the prize: the pilot, who lay unconscious but still sealed inside the crushed, thermal-damaged suit.
"We need to know what they were transporting, Romanoff," Alex stated. "That dropship wasn't just armed; it was designed to carry a heavy payload. The purpose wasn't to kill me; it was to retrieve what Zola left here."
They breached the main dropship chassis, which lay listing awkwardly a few hundred yards away. The interior was a minimalist, dark cargo bay. The mission wasn't about equipment; it was about retrieval.
Anya spotted it first. Tucked into a heavily shielded, cryogenic locker was a device that looked impossibly advanced for a dropship designed by Zola's inheritors.
It was a compact, pulsing device—a Gravimetric Oscillator.
"That's not Zola's tech," Alex breathed, tracing the schematics with his Nano-Tech scanner. "That's advanced, orbital engineering. It's a satellite component."
Romanoff moved quickly, securing the device. "It's a SHIELD Prototype, Alex. It's designed to project a localized gravity field for high-altitude stabilization. It disappeared from a classified lab in Ohio three months ago."
"No," Alex countered, looking at the complex, crystalline structure at the heart of the oscillator. "It's been reverse-engineered. They didn't steal the hardware, they stole the concept and integrated it with Zola's pre-war blueprints. They weren't here for the Infinity Key. They were here for the Model Zero alloy," Alex concluded, his voice low with sudden dread. "They knew that metal was the only thing that could stabilize the Oscillator and make it portable."
The reality of the situation solidified: Project Hydra's Hammer was a massive intelligence effort. They used his Core's signal to track him, used Stane's tech as a smokescreen, and their real goal was to combine Howard's metal with a SHIELD weapon to create something truly apocalyptic.
The Daily Planet and Tony's First Glimpse
Hours later, the Mojave facility was swarming with classified SHIELD cleanup teams. Alex, extracted by Romanoff, was back in a secure debriefing room.
While Romanoff summarized the event for Fury, the room's television, tuned to a muted news channel, caught Alex's attention.
The screen was dominated by blurry footage taken from the tourist helicopter: the sleek, black blur fighting the lumbering dropship. The chyron screamed: SHADOW MAN vs. MYSTERY BEAST—MILITARY COVERUP?
Then the image cut to an interview with a high-profile, perpetually exasperated industrialist.
Tony Stark was leaning into a microphone, surrounded by reporters, clearly amused by the chaos.
"A 'Shadow Man'? Fighting a 'Mystery Beast' in a desert? Sounds like a badly written graphic novel," Tony quipped, his eyes scanning the footage with clinical curiosity. "I can assure you, that is not Stark Industries hardware. That matte black suit lacks the vital aerodynamic properties, and the output is clearly unstable. It's crude, but effective, I'll give him that. Whoever this genius is, they're smart enough to realize that style follows function."
Alex watched his brother on the screen, a strange mix of resentment and grudging admiration stirring in his chest. Tony had dismissed him completely, yet he was the first to recognize the raw genius behind the suit.
Then, Tony paused, his smile fading slightly as the footage lingered on the distinct, powerful flash of the Kinetic Overload. His eyes narrowed, and a sudden, sharp look of recognition flashed across his face—a look that suggested he'd seen that specific energy signature before, perhaps buried deep in an old Howard Stark ledger.
The television cut away, but the damage was done. Alex had a public profile, a terrifying new enemy that used his own secrets, and his existence had just registered on Tony Stark's radar. The time for being the Forg
otten Stark was officially over.