The micro-scanner lay on the workbench, the image of Maria Stark flickering in the dim lab light. Alex didn't look at it. He was focused on the cold mug of stale coffee and the woman who had just shattered his perception of his own existence.
"My grandfather," Alex said, his voice dangerously low and steady, "didn't want a cure. He wanted to win. You're telling me he experimented on his family because he couldn't handle death?"
Romanoff took a slow sip of her own cold coffee, meeting his eyes across the metal table. "He couldn't handle losing. Especially not Maria. She was the best of them, Alex. And she was fading. Howard's work on RUNE wasn't just energy; it was a theoretical blueprint for molecular regeneration. The nanites are a microscopic implementation of that."
"So the Nano-Tech isn't just a shield," Alex concluded, running a thumb over the polished metal of his gauntlet. "It's a way to halt my own clock. Am I going to live forever, or just until the batteries run out?"
"You're going to live until something hits you with a bigger kinetic force than you can absorb," Romanoff stated matter-of-factly. "But emotionally? You're Howard's project. And that brings us to your mission."
The Weight of Guilt
Romanoff pushed the scanner across the table, forcing Alex to look at Maria's face.
"Guilt is the strongest motivator we have," Romanoff said, her voice dropping to a low, intense register. "You hate Stane because he almost killed Tony and humiliated the Stark name. But I think you hate yourself more. You think you failed to protect your brother."
Alex gripped the edge of the workbench. "Tony needed me. I was right there, and I built an electrical fence instead of a weapon."
"You built what you could with the resources you had," she countered, her gaze unwavering. "And you survived. Tony survived. That's not failure. But this is the guilt: you're trying to prove you're better than Tony, but you're afraid you're just as arrogant, just as vulnerable."
She leaned in, her eyes cutting through his defenses. "This is what separates the soldier from the child, Alex. The child runs from the guilt. The soldier uses it. Howard used his guilt over Maria to build a legacy. What are you going to use yours for?"
Alex stared at her, rage and revelation battling in his mind. He wanted to lash out, but he saw no judgment in her eyes, only a ruthless, clinical honesty. She wasn't playing a game; she was forcing him to acknowledge his own motivation.
"I'm going to stop Stane's network," Alex said, the words heavy with purpose. "Before he uses Tony's tech to kill anyone else."
"Good," Romanoff confirmed, sitting back. "Because that's the deal. Stane's residual network is active. We've tracked multiple illegal shipments of pre-Iron Monger grade alloys and volatile power regulators to old staging grounds in Eastern Europe. The same territory where Tony was taken. The same territory where you came from."
The Hidden Partition
Romanoff slid a reinforced USB drive toward him. "This drive contains the full operational blueprints for PROJECT FATHER TIME—Tony's early high-altitude prototype suit. It's bulky, but the structural integrity is excellent. Fury wants you to adapt the chassis with your Arc Core and kinetic projection. Use the nanites to make it lightweight."
"You trust me with this much data?" Alex asked, genuinely surprised.
"We trust your desperation," she corrected. "You have until dawn. Get the FATHER TIME schematics onto your PDA, but first, check the hidden partition on the drive. It was sealed with a level-ten SHIELD lock, but your grandfather's code—the same one in your nanites—cracked it."
Alex plugged the drive into his lab terminal, navigating to the concealed data partition. The contents were not schematics or power logs. They were private messages, encrypted audio files, and scanned personal documents.
One file was titled: RUNE_Protocol_Zero.
Alex opened the file. It wasn't about energy. It was a formal, heavily coded will and trust agreement written by Howard and Maria Stark thirty years ago. It stated that if Tony failed to manage the company's military contracts and if the RUNE energy was ever activated, control of a massive, hidden, independent Stark fund—and several key research facilities—would pass to a second, previously undisclosed son.
Alex read the name on the document, his breath catching in his throat.
"The ultimate betrayal," Alex whispered, looking up at Romanoff. "They never meant for Tony to inherit everything. They had a backup plan."
Romanoff stood, her expression now genuinely complicated. "You were more than just forgotten, Alex. You were the true heir to the legacy of Project RUNE. And Howard set the clock decades ago, just waiting for the right moment."
Alex clenched his kinetic gauntlet. He wasn't just building a suit for SHIELD anymore. He was building his birthright.
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