St. Petersburg, Russia

2 years after the Battle of New York

"You will pledge to cancel your trade deal with the Chinese, Ambassador Janovich, or there will be consequences. Do not underestimate us, Mr. Ambassador, and do not attempt to subvert this agreement in any way. Failure to comply will result in a tragedy I believe both of us would very much like to avoid. Your dear Elana is a precious soul, so full of life. I would truly hate to rob her of that so early. You have until midnight."

Nathan Gray stared at the now-black screen that had just delivered that chilling threat to the Janovich household with a grim expression, hand tucked under the tip of his chin. Midnight. Just two hours from now. His piercing blue eyes turned to Elana's considerably frightened parents.

"When was this delivered?"

The father gulped down tears, and the mother drew back in sobs. "Just after seven."

Dammit. Just as Nathan had thought, the kidnappers made the video just after they grabbed Elana. Just after they snatched her right out of my hands. Guilt racked him at not being able to prevent her abduction, despite being at her side, at the scene of the crime. They had been separated briefly when he went to distract the mercenaries that attacked, trying to give her the chance to bolt as he held them back. He looked at the girl's parents. They can't know that. They can't know I already failed them.

To them, he was only Elana's rich American boyfriend, a young, restless soul who decided to study abroad in St. Petersburg and now found himself embroiled in a plot to undermine the economic future of Russia. The truth they didn't know, that they could never know, was that Nathan was neither restless nor studying abroad. His mind absently wandered to a glass house on the edge of a sun-kissed coastline, its surface marred by craters and scorch-marks. A pair of glowing white eyes pierced the back of his momentarily closed eyes before he pushed his thoughts away, focusing on the crisis at hand.

"Look," he said, more to the father than the girl's hysterical mother, "I know how scared you are right now, but trust me when I tell you that there's still hope."

"I know. Because I'm going to do exactly what they're asking."

Nathan shook his head with a grim expression. "I've dealt with men like this before, believe it or not. All they want is their objective. They couldn't care less about Elana, or you. As soon as they have what they want, it's a fifty-fifty toss-up whether they keep her alive or not."

"And if I don't comply, it's a one-hundred percent chance they'll kill her." The man's hopeless expression tore at Nathan.

If I were in his position, I might think the same. What he didn't know was that there was a third option, with much higher chances he would get to see his daughter again. A long, tense silence passed as Nathan clenched his jaw, then made a decision he hoped he didn't regret.

"I know a man, a friend, someone who specializes in resolving situations like this without innocent casualties."

The Russian dignitary furrowed his eyebrows and locked his eyes onto Nathan's face. "Was he there when you dealt with the...situation like this?"

Nathan cocked his head slightly, pondering how to answer for barely a moment before responding. "Yes. That's when I first met him."

For the first time in his dark visit to the panic-struck household, Elana's mother stopped sobbing and looked at him intently.

"I'm going to find him. Whatever you do, do not, do not give them what they want. Stall for as much time as you can."

The mother looked desperately at her husband, and Nathan sincerely hoped he could hold out until he could execute his plan. The look the man gave her was one that begged for her trust, and she gave it.

"All right," the ambassador said, "I'll give you as much time as I can, but come midnight, I will give my pledge."

Nathan nodded. "Of course, Mr. Ambassador. Family always comes first."

The teen left the house in a hurry, mounting into his high-speed sedan and pushing the engine to the limit trying to thin the hour-long gap and reach his home, a three-story house on the waterfront that sported a cliffside walkway and a lower level etched into the cliff wall. On that lower level was a small storage space, abandoned and deteriorated due to neglect when he'd found it, but now almost fully restored just over a month after arriving in St. Petersburg. As he drove his sedan into the house's driveway, his heart and mind raced as he ran all his options through his head.

The police were obviously out, as were any other state authorities. They wouldn't be able to get anywhere near where the mercs were holding the girl without being spotted. By the time they could reach her, the mercs would slit her throat. He wasn't a hundred percent sure any team short of the Avengers or SHIELD could resolve this without the girl's death. And now that the Avengers are splintered and SHIELD is just calming down from hunting down dissenters, they don't give a rat's ass about stuff like this. To them, in Nathan's mind, the kidnapping of a Russian ambassador's daughter was small game compared to superhuman fugitives running around with impunity after kicking SHIELD and the government in the teeth. To the teen genius, it was shameful for heroes to turn on each other over an issue where the government was clearly in the wrong, then insist on pursuing the eventual victors simply because they resisted.

Even after the Superhuman Registration Act was defeated on Capitol Hill when Tony Stark, acting Director of SHIELD while Colonel Fury was...absent, dropped his support for the bill, the U.S. government insisted that SHIELD apprehend dissenting heroes. Tony, of course, assured them that wasn't necessary, but they had to save face. Stark was, as a result of his reticence, forced to step down as temporary director, and Maria Hill reluctantly took the position, carrying out her orders despite her own reservations about the justice of the situation. Thankfully, Fury returned just in time to give the government his timeless "I-don't-care-how-stupid-they-made-you-look-stay-the-hell-away-from-the-heroes" speech and call off the manhunt.

Guess that means I can go home now, too. But Nathan wouldn't. Not for a while. He may not be a target for SHIELD or the government, but he wasn't sure he could face his father, not after he almost…

Snap out of it, moron. Focus. Nathan cursed himself for getting lost in the past while he was trying to find a way to save his kidnapped girlfriend's future. Taking a hidden elevator to his workshop in the warehouse, Nathan strode over to a particular device that he'd barely touched. An instant after his finger flicked the "on" switch, a holoprojector flashed to life, showing him a blue-tinted 3D image of his last project. He flicked his hand over it, shoving in back into its virtual folder for future reference. Might just need that later.

Instead, he used its connection to his nearby computer to pull up an approximate 3D map of the location where the mercs were holding Elana, the approximation extrapolated from visual and thermal satellite readings of the area. Gonna be a lot tougher than I thought. The former industrial complex was littered with smaller buildings, trailers, catwalks, and other structures all near or connected to the gigantic main factory. To add further headache to the situation, the entire complex was situated on an artificial island on the east side of Lake Ladoga, a gigantic body of water whose eastern end was over 180 km to the east of St. Petersburg, with only one bridge and one dock, both of which he was sure were being watched.

So essentially, the only way I get on the island without getting myself or Elana killed is…

His eyes went wide in realization, and he looked to another section of his workshop, the one with triple-encrypted security and an active AI keeping watch over his most recent and prized projects.

By air.

He stood up and walked over to the other section's entrance, pausing at the sealed door for a moment to let the scanners recognize his biometrics.

"Identity confirmed," a familiar digital voice said, "welcome back, sir."

Nathan nodded in response and strode through the now-open door past a defunct iteration of what he was going to use to rescue Elana. Well, not so much defunct as it is locked from my use. Filing that thought away, he approached the tank containing the focus of his thoughts and keyed it open. The vertical doors of the container opened sideways and revealed the tank's contents. Taking a deep breath, Nathan steeled himself for what he had to do and tried to push away the growing apprehension at beta testing his first iteration. The Mark I still has so many bugs in it, and I've been working with substandard materials at best. It could power down on me, or the servos could get stuck. or…

He growled at himself to stop the chain of excuses. None of that matters—I need to save Elana. He reached for the first piece of her salvation, holding it in front of his head, its eyes staring him in the face like a death mask.

No matter the cost.

...

Ten minutes later

"Power supply," Nathan asked his AI companion, who responded in an affirmative. "Hull integrity?"

"One-hundred percent, sir."

"Weapon systems."

"Loaded and configured."

"Targeting."

"Uploaded and synched to your HUD and weapons."

"Automatic assembly."

A pause this time. "Untested, sir."

Nathan snorted. Great. So I may not even get the chance to save her. Not if this damn thing crushes me first. "Just a risk I have to take, J. Power it up."

A second later, a glow emitted from a circular source on Nathan's project. He picked it up and mounted it on his chest, the underside of it pivoting before he pressed the overside against his torso, attaching to his back and sealing its sides with the front. He picked up the two shoulder pads and held them in their places, waiting for the motors to stop moving before picking up the boots. His legs slipped into them up to their knees without issue, as the boot expanded to accommodate his entry, then tightened to keep him in.

His hands grasped the upper legs, and his eyes watched as they connected to the knee plates, expanding upwards to meld together at his lower torso, completely sealing his lower body in polyresin iron. Nathan picked up the arm plates one by one and drew them over his arms, letting them connect to the shoulder before trying his full range of motions with his armored upper and lower body. Satisfied that he was adequately flexible, he reached for the final piece and held it in both hands, turning the faceplate away from him and lowering it onto his head. When its joints contracted and attached to the upper neck of the armor, he looked down at the table and saw it was empty.

That's it. I'm in, and nothing's broken. His eyes scanned to his left, and he approached the mirror on the nearby wall. Always takes my breath away. In the mirror was a reflection not of a man, but a six-foot two metal warrior sealed in 180 lbs of silver-sapphire colored polyresin iron armor. He took a moment to regain his breath and steel himself with a firm nod. I'm ready.

"Jarvis, bring all systems online." One by one, his HUD targeting, power monitors, and other virtual systems came to life, flooding his viewscreen with a sea of colors and data. He inspected the display for a few seconds before smiling at the results of his handiwork. You taught me well, Dad. "All right. Let's do this."

"Yes sir," the digital voice in his ear said.

Nathan turned toward the cliff-side wall of the warehouse and started walking toward it. "Jarvis, open the bomb bay doors."

A sharp hiss was heard from the direction of Nate's destination as the AI obeyed. The armor's legs started moving faster, his slow walk turning into a fast one, then a jog, then an all-out sprint as he ran toward the ten-foot-long opening in the ground, a 200-foot drop awaiting him on the other end. As he neared it, he leapt forward in an armored swan dive, dropping through the hole like a missile and free-falling 100 feet before flexing his fingers and telling the neural net to kick into gear.

A slight jolt was felt in his palms and heels as his propulsion systems jumped online, propelling him further toward the sea until he shifted the direction of his palms, turning him upward and skirting the brim of the water. He stayed at that altitude for a few more seconds, getting a feel for the flight controls, then shifted further upward, jetting into the sky at an angle and adjusting his course for Lake Ladoga.

Hang on, girl. I'm coming.

As he reached an altitude of 6000 feet, he brought his hands closer to his sides and flexed them more, causing the armor's afterburner to kick in and accelerate him past the speed of sound.

...

8 minutes later

The mercenary captain fingered the tip of his ten-inch blade as Elana watched him from her chair. The man had an aura of cool menace about him, like a tiger standing watchfully on all fours, not sprung for action, but so elementally dangerous that it doesn't matter. Fear was very prevalent in her mind as the midnight deadline drew ever nearer. The captain had received no calls, seen no public announcements, not even an acknowledgement that her family had heard the message.

Daddy'll sort this out, she thought. He has to. The college sophomore girl wasn't ready to die.

Suddenly, the captain hissed in impatience and stood up straight, his right hand still holding the hilt of his knife. "Your father's stalling." He looked at her. "I think it's time I give him more incentive. He strode over to her and crouched down, his left hand tracing its way over her right arm as he looked into her eyes menacingly. "So, princess." He raised the knife. "What should I cut off first?"

Her eyes and mouth widened in horror, but before she could respond, half the windows behind the captain were shattered. The mercs had kept her in the factory's control room, a virtually-integrated office that once held the hardware and software to keep the industrial plant running smoothly, for two reasons. One: it was a vantage point from which the captain could watch the entire island and surrounding activities—essentially see any would-be rescuers before they even got close. Two: it was twelve stories up, well out of the reach of any team that did manage to get through the perimeter defenses. They would never have penetrated the factory itself.

So, when half the windows behind the captain burst with a sheer concussive force that also knocked him forward, he was very surprised. That is, up to the moment when his considerably hard head hit the steel arm of the girl's chair, instantly knocking him unconscious. Elana gaped at his limp body, then looked toward the blown-out windows, her ears just beginning to hear the sound of automatic gunfire from below. Her mind raced with so many questions, but one seemed to rise to the top of the list: how?

...

1 minute earlier

There's the island, Nathan thought as he took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves. "Jarvis, switch to infrared."

His HUD suddenly turned from his normal vision to a black-and-white picture that seemed to be perpetually out of focus. Of course, that was because what he was seeing was not light, but heat. He scanned the factory and surrounding buildings for any sign of Elana, finding only the husky white blobs of mercenaries and their weapons. Damn it, girl, where are they keeping you? Nathan recalled his years-long training, cycling through various instructors before he came to the lesson he needed.

Where would I stay if I wasn't in armor and was trying to protect something from an invader? Immediately, his eyes darted upward, alighting on the twelfth floor of the factory's main building, where two heat signatures could be clearly seen. Of course. The last thing anyone expects is to be hit from the air. Probably, he mused, why no one ever bothers to look up.

Nathan adjusted his course to do a quiet fly-by of the tower and switched his infrared off, confirming his assumption. The merc captain had crouched in front of his girl and was holding something in his right hand. As his viewscreen zoomed in, a flash of panic soon overcome by rage went through him.

How dare he? Nathan jetted straight toward the tower, slowing down as he got closer to target the captain with his weapon systems, then decided against it. He's too close to her. None of my weapons can fire that precisely. His vision shifted to the windowpane just twelve feet behind him, the only thin wall of protection for the merc, and he smiled as the targeting reticle on his HUD shifted there, aiming at the lower sill. He raised his right arm in front of him as he slowed into a hovering position, his fingers splayed and palm facing outward.

"Jarvis, low intensity, maximum concussion."

He felt his armored palm adjust slightly as his right repulsor's aperture shifted according to his beam specifications. His fingers flexed, and the armor responded with a charging whine. A second later, a concentrated beam of kinetic energy discharged from his palm and blew through the three central windows on the wall between him and the captain, the leftover kinetic energy slamming into the husky merc and pummeling his head against the arm of Elana's chair. Better than you deserve, you bloodthirsty jackass.

As she stared at the shattered windows, gaping, he lowered himself almost to the window before automatic gunfire pinged off his armor from below. Damn! Must've heard my intervention. He jetted into the sky, doing a midair somersault before diving toward the ground and over two dozen armed mercenaries. He smiled maliciously. Time to show them what I can do. His palms stretched toward the ground, rapidly decelerating his descent and causing him to land on the ground feet-first, crouching on impact and letting their automatic salvo hammer his armor uselessly for a few more seconds before standing up straight and facing his palm toward the nearest merc.

A concentrated beam of force blasted him back fifteen feet, followed by another directed at his partner. Nathan's hands faced in every direction, delivering kinetic hammer blows to every merc in sight. His fists clenched as he finished the last soldier in sight, leaving a pile of broken, half-dead mercenaries lying on the ground unconscious. Nathan heard the roar of a large vehicle coming in his direction and flexed his fingers, palms pointed downward as he rose into the air to get a bird's eye view. Woah! The armor's throttle flared as he barely dodged a rocket-propelled grenade launched in his direction from the passenger seat of a Russian military jeep while a man in the back of the vehicle manned a .50 caliber mounted gun and pointed it in his direction.

Nathan jetted through the air, dodging automatic fire as he flew past the car, readjusting midair to face his opponents. With a snap of his wrist, he raised his right arm, deploying the B-50 minigun in the top of his armor's forearm and squeezing his right index, firing a steady stream of 5mm shells at 1000 rounds a minute. The mercs in the front seats scrambled out of the car as their gunner friend was cut down along with his weapon. Nathan disarmed the minigun and instead shifted his right fist slightly upward, unsheathing the high-explosive E-20 rocket launcher installed on his forearm's underside and aiming it at the center of his two fleeing opponents.

Before he could fire it, a high-velocity round struck his arm, throwing it sideways. Nathan's onboard software traced the bullet to its source: the sixth floor of the factory's main building. He jetted in that direction, zooming in to see the captain dragging Elana along by the arm, shouldering a high-powered .50 caliber sniper rifle.

I know these mercs are no ordinary soldiers of fortune, but come on. When did mercenaries start becoming better equipped than national militaries?

A dozen more mercs came out of hiding, mounting second-floor heavy machine guns and opening fire with 7.62 mm rifles. Gunfire slammed into his armor from all sides, causing him to hold up his arms in an x-block in an attempt to mitigate the damage.

"Amor integrity at seventy-five percent," Jarvis said.

Nathan gritted his teeth and triggered his boot repulsors, throwing him into the air in an attempt to throw off their aim. I swear these a-holes are coming out of the woodwork. Nathan's shoulders flexed as he deployed his dual rapid-fire, tri-barrelled E-10 Hydras, firing them one after the other, sending high-explosive missiles streaking death wherever their laser-guidance systems pointed. Eight mercenaries went down in a storm of shrapnel and flame, silencing both mounted guns and a half dozen more automatic rifles. Another merc took a shot at him with an RPG. Damn! He barely dodged the explosive, with mere inches to spare.

Nathan had to admit, for a bunch of ground-based fighters with no targeting systems, they were very good shots. But of course, who else would you hire to leverage a public servant than the best? His minigun unsheathed itself and spat a steady stream of fire at the enemy, taking out two more before his ammo counter read low. He flew back toward the line of fire, barreling through a barrage of 7.62 fire to kick one of the mercenaries full-force as he landed. His repulsors pointed in opposite directions and he fired at two on his left and right, then spun to his left to point one of his E-20s at a second-floor catwalk with a team of light machine gunners running to cover.

The missile collapsed the catwalk's lower supports, leaving the mercs falling eighteen feet onto hard debris. He turned around 180 degrees to face the last two soldiers standing and gave them a repulsor blast each. His eyes looked in every direction, targeting systems scanning for further threats. All clear. Now to get Elana.

"Jarvis," he said, "pinpoint Elana's position."

Before the hyper-intelligent AI could answer, another high-velocity .50 round slammed into the side of Nathan's head, knocking him onto his side. As he pressed himself off the ground, he put up his arm between him and the bullet's trajectory, blocking another round from hammering him, but disabling use of his minigun. His targeting systems readjusting, Nathan spotted the captain and his rifle a second before another round flew straight into his forearm. Enough of this. Nathan raised his blocking hand and sent a series of rapid repulsor blasts in the captain's direction, toppling the crates he was taking cover behind but leaving him unharmed. He jetted into the sky to get around the captain's cover, but his flight pattern was thrown off when a round impacted his right boot, sending him into a spin that he readjusted from a second later.

Flying straight toward him, Nathan made a 360 corkscrew midair, causing the captain's next shot to ricochet off his rapidly moving armor and landing three feet in front of him. His hand reached up and crushed the rifle's barrel before the merc could pull off another shot, ripping it from his grasp as the man pulled his sidearm, desperately trying to win a fight that was clearly lost. He uselessly emptied the mag in less than ten seconds, each shot bouncing harmlessly off the polyresin iron shell, then lowered the weapon, finally understanding that he had lost.

"You're a long way from home, Stark," the captain said. "Why should you care what happens halfway across the world?"

"Stark?" Nathan asked him.

The other man's eyes widened. "You mean...you're not…"

"Iron Man? No." Nathan took a single step toward the man. "But I am a Stark." He lunged, clenching the captain's throat and pulling his face inches from his armor's faceplate. "Now, I'm only gonna ask this once. Where. Is. She?"

Gasping for air, his hands uselessly wrapped around Nathan's armored arm to try to loosen his grip, the captain's eyes drifted to his right. The armored teen's eyes drifted in that direction, alighting on a shackled and gagged Elana behind the crates he'd scattered. She's okay. Nathan breathed a sigh of relief as he threw the half-unconscious merc backward and walked over to her.

"Are you okay," he asked as he removed the gag from her mouth and deployed the high-energy laser in his left arm to burn off her shackles.

"Yes," she said in a slight Russian accent, wrapping her freed arms around him in a fierce, terrified embrace. When she let go, she looked straight into his armor's eyeslits, the glowing white in them a comforting beacon to her frazzled mind. "Whoever you are, thank you."

Nathan's eyes widened behind his helmet. Wait...she doesn't know? That means...she didn't hear what I said. Or maybe she had. The only last name he had ever given her was Gray, an old name he had taken long before he discovered his birthright. Before he knew his real father. Before he knew his real name. He looked in the captain's direction just in time to see him reloading his pistol. Fear flashed through Nathan as he realized that the merc's gaze was directed at Elana, not him. You coward.

Unfortunately for the captain, he had to aim. All Nathan had to do was raise his hand and flex, which he did. Hard. A highly concentrated beam of force jetted out of his palm, blowing the captain back with the force of a hundred-mile-per-hour car, killing him instantly. When he turned back to Elana, he saw her exhale heavily, relief flooding her features as she laid her head against his shoulder. As he helped her to her feet, her eyes met his through the faceplate.

"Who are you?" she asked.

She can never know the truth. No one here can. Not yet.

"Call me..." he responded in a heavily metallic voice, "...Silver Knight."

Her eyes widened slightly as she took the name in, a small smile of gratitude blossoming on her face. "Thank you, Silver Knight. Now, if it's not too much trouble, would you mind taking me to St. Petersburg? I have family there who will be...very concerned about my safety."

Nathan nodded. "I know. Your friend Nathan was the one who informed me of your situation and asked me to help."

She looked at him in disbelief. "You know Nathan Gray? How?"

He smiled ruefully from behind his helmet. "Let's just say I'm the oldest friend he has, and leave it at that. We'll go. Just give me a moment, okay?"

She nodded and left him to lean against a nearby storage container as he hovered and flew back toward the recent battlefield, the unconscious and dead bodies of dozens of mercs lining the grounds of the former industrial complex. What a waste. It wasn't the first time he'd killed, but every time, no matter the cause or number of dead, he always felt a profound sense of regret when he took a good look at the aftermath. Shaking his head slightly, he descended to where the captain had eventually ended up and crouched at the side of his body. His lower chest was caved in from the impact of the repulsor blast, his eyes squeezed shut in his final moment of instantaneous agony.

You had no choice, Nathan. Gotta remind yourself of that. The captain would have gladly killed Elana, him, and anyone else who had gotten between him and his paycheck. He demonstrated that very clearly. By sacrificing his life, and the lives of his equally deranged and corrupt men, he had saved one good, pure life from ending all too soon. Isn't that exactly why you took over the Hood in Chicago? To save good, honest people from the scum that stand on their necks? He shook his head. No, some of the men he had killed tonight may have had some semblance of sanity, of morality, but all of them had agreed to a job that should have gone against every fiber of a moral person. After all, nothing was worse than threatening a child, even if Elana was of age.

The captain knew his secret as well, or at least his real last name. If he had let him live, all the merc would have had to do to find out what he meant was do a quick Google search for "Stark, America" and a few hours of research would've revealed that Anthony Edward Stark had an illegitimate son, long lost due to a mother who never told his father, and a foster system that never tried to find him. Nathan cocked his head. Well, it might not have told him all of that. If his secret got out, it could compromise...well everything. His anonymity, his space, his freedom even. Not that I don't think SHIELD already knows where I am. Because I know they do. He stood up, looking around him at the carnage he had caused. And, if by some miracle I'm wrong, they'll definitely know after tonight. He frowned. Dad'll know.

He took off to get back to Elana, finding the girl patiently waiting exactly where he'd left her, as if waiting for a cab and not standing at the scene of a battle.

"Miss Janovich," he said suddenly, startling her slightly, "I'm ready." She strode over to him, and he wrapped his arms around her midsection. "You might want to hold on to my shoulders. Tight."

She did so, preparing her for the jolting takeoff as he carried her back to her parents. As they flew just under the speed of sound, Nathan thought about the long-term ramifications of what he'd just done.

Silver Knight. I was worried it was too...on the nose, but it actually sounds better out loud than in my head. He smiled. Guess it's something of a family tradition now. His smile faded and he shook his head slightly. I can't face him. Not now, not for a while. Not until I can prove to him that I'm more than that impulsive, angry kid he saw last. Not until I prove to myself that I'm worthy to follow in Steve's footsteps, to carry on his mission. Not until Silver Knight knows what it really means to be a hero.

Update - 1/18/2017: Wow so...two and a half years since I've touched this story, and I don't think I realized how much I missed writing for such a tech-oriented character until I came back and revisited it. That and...it just pained me to read this story after so long, knowing what I know, and seeing how well you guys have responded to some of my later works by comparison. But, as with most art, none of the initial stuff is worth half a flying crap, so...here I am, putting in some renovations. Not sure if I'm going to leap right into a continuation at this point, but given that I'm suffering a massive dry spell of writer's block with all my other stories, it's occurred to me that maybe going back to the beginning is the right move. We'll see. For now, enjoy the fixed grammar and structure, as well as some altered plot points and fixed plot holes.

Oya, vode.

- CDrake