The Mojave sun had set, leaving the Zola safehouse in a deep, cool shadow. The entire facility was now secured by SHIELD, but the quiet was deceptive. Alex and Anya were sequestered in a makeshift underground bunker, analyzing the captured Gravimetric Oscillator while Romanoff managed the chaotic logistics above.
The Model Zero suit lay disassembled, its Liquid Mesh surface still showing the faint network of micro-fractures left by the Kinetic Overload. Alex was pacing, fueled by coffee and the relentless anxiety of his now-public profile.
"They're calling you the Shadow Man," Anya said, looking up from the Oscillator, a faint, worried line creasing her brow. "There are already deep-fake images of you all over the internet. Fury's team can scrub the footage, but they can't scrub the idea."
"The idea is what I care about," Alex countered, stopping to look at the glowing core of the Oscillator. "It means they're looking at the kinetic output, not the Stark name. It keeps the pressure off Tony—for now."
He knelt beside her. "Focus on the weapon. It's too complex for Stane, even with stolen blueprints. What are they trying to do?"
The Weaponized Gravity
Anya pointed to the Gravimetric Oscillator's core: a tight, crystalline lattice that shimmered faintly.
"The original SHIELD design was for high-altitude stabilization—minor, focused gravitational adjustment," Anya explained, tapping the screen of her analysis tablet. "But Zola's inheritors used the Model Zero Alloy we found to build the housing. That alloy is the perfect non-decaying capacitor. They didn't just stabilize the Oscillator; they amplified it."
She leaned in, her voice low with professional dread. "They aren't creating a stabilization field, Alex. They're creating localized singularity points—micro-gravity wells that collapse space and time in a tiny, focused area. It's a mass-casualty weapon designed to instantly crush infrastructure and life within a small radius. They were prepping a field test."
Alex felt a surge of cold fury. This wasn't about money or arms deals; this was pure, focused terror.
"The only thing that stopped them from deploying it was the structural integrity of the dropship," Alex noted, his mind working through the logic. "They needed more stable platforms for mass production. That's why they came for the Model Zero alloy."
"And that's why they needed the RUNE Host," Anya finished, looking at his Arc Core. "They needed you to reverse-engineer a way to power a stable, localized gravimetric pulse. You weren't a target; you were a stolen tool."
The weight of his responsibility—as the only defense against a cosmic legacy he didn't ask for—settled heavily on his shoulders.
Tony's Call: The Voice of Legacy
The secure line on the desk phone chirped—a high-level, classified external ring. Romanoff snatched it up, her eyes immediately hardening.
"Director Fury is busy, Mr. Stark. You can take this up with our legal department." She listened for a few tense seconds, then sighed and handed the phone to Alex. "It's your brother. He's insisting on speaking to the Shadow Man."
Alex took the handset, the unfamiliar weight of the Stark name settling around him. He activated his vocal filter, lowering his tone and stripping it of any recognizable accent.
"This is Kinetic," Alex stated, using his new SHIELD designation.
Tony Stark's voice, instantly recognizable, arrogant, and sharp as a laser, sliced through the line. "Kinetic? Cute. Sounds like a brand of energy drink. Let's cut the SHIELD BS. Who are you, and why are you playing with my family's toys?"
"I'm operating under orders of a classified national defense initiative," Alex replied evenly. "And those toys were Howard Stark's legacy. He had more than one heir."
There was a sudden, chilling silence from Tony's end. It was the silence of a man whose foundations had just cracked.
"That output," Tony finally said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "that kinetic resonance. I saw it on the news footage. It's a pure, unbuffered R&D signature. It's from the Model Zero schematics. That tech was classified and buried before I was ten."
"It seems your father was more paranoid than even you knew," Alex countered.
"The Model Zero was unstable," Tony pressed, ignoring the personal attack. "It was meant to run on a synthetic isotope that was never perfected. How are you maintaining the structural integrity without an immediate catastrophic failure? And why are you suddenly the center of a black market arms race?"
Alex knew this was the ultimate test. He had to give Tony enough truth to secure his attention but not enough to compromise the RUNE secret.
"I found a stable solution," Alex said simply. "And I'm the center of this arms race because your father had a secret, and now his enemies are trying to retrieve it. They are using your company's old blueprints to weaponize a SHIELD device—the Gravimetric Oscillator. Your name is on the target list, Tony. You just don't know it yet."
The line went dead quiet again. Tony wasn't dismissing him now; he was processing the full, chilling reality of a new player operating in the shadows of his own genius.
"Don't do anything reckless, Kinetic," Tony warned, the name now carrying a new weight of grudging respect and intense suspicion. "You're playing with fire that will burn down my city. I'll be in touch."
As Alex hung up the phone, he felt the full weight of the confrontation. He had successfully established himself as a credible threat and an indispensable partner to SHIELD, but he had just brought the entire power of Stark Industries—and his brilliant, reckless brother—down on his head. The clock to a global conflict had just started ticking.
"He's analyzing every word you said right now," Romanoff observed, walking over to secure the phone. "Tony Stark is officially a complication."
"Tony Stark is the only one who can help us understand the full scope of Zola's pre-war work," Alex corrected, his eyes fixed on the recovered Gravimetric Oscillator. "He's not a complication, Romanoff. He's the next necessary step."