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New York City, New York

Harry Hansen stared at his reflection in the dirty, cracked mirror and questioned his sanity. He wasn't shaking, and his palms weren't sweaty. He wasn't nervous. It was just a cold, calculated assessment of his abilities and his odds for survival. He went over the plan once more from beginning to end, and again concluded it was likely that he would be severely beaten, tortured, and possibly killed. Still, even in the face of such prospects, he couldn't bring himself to walk away, which brought him right smack dab back to the part about his mental health. What kind of man willingly chose to do this kind of thing? Harry thought about it for a long moment.

A hero.

While someone else might have been content to sit on their hands, it wasn't in Harry's nature to do so. His mother and Killian had already done too much damage. Chad Davis was dead, along with five others. If he let them continue, there would be more death, more destruction. All placed at the feet of a bumbling fool. A.I.M. gad without question already began creating the Mandarin to hide their involvement in the bombing. They would use Trevor and his false crusade against America as a smokescreen while they continued not only to ruin lives but take them as well for nothing more than a profit.

That was the savage truth, and if his mother could delude herself into thinking otherwise, it just meant there was something broken in her that couldn't be fixed. He wasn't going to kill her. However, S.H.I.E.L.D. had many facilities where she would be safe, contained. Not a danger to others or herself.

After months of working with the very people who handled situations like this, Harry decided to look for a solution on his own. The bureaucrats and secret HYDRA agents back in Washington might be content if Maya Hansen, one of A.I.M.'s top scientist, wasn't taken alive, but Harry was not. He might not have been a conventional son, but she was still his mother, and it didn't matter what she was involved in. He didn't want her to die.

Harry eyed his fractured reflection; his thick, uncombed head of brown hair and beard, his tanned skin and his eyes so dark that they were almost black. With the Photostatic Veil, he could hide his identity from his enemies; however, he could not change his height. To the men coming for him, he looked similar yet different enough to one of his favorite actors, Pinker Dinklage.

He thought of his training and everything he'd done so far. The short life he lived in the world would be over, and that meant Thanos would win. The Mad Titan would snap his fingers, and half the universe would cease to exist. But if he didn't, then Maya would die, and it would be his fault. He'd wake up each morning and got to bed each night with the nagging thought that he should have done something.-anything. And ultimately, he would emasculate himself by question the size of his balls for as long as he lived. Harry shuddered at the thought. He might be a little crazy, but he'd read enough Greek tragedies to understand that a life with that kind recrimination would eventually lead him to the psych ward where he would be no use to anyone. No, he thought, I'd rather go down trying to save someone.

He nodded to himself and took a deep breath before walking over to the window. Harry gently pulled back the curtains and looked down at the street. The two Extremis soldiers from A.I.M. were still positioned across the street, keeping an eye on his apartment building. Harry had left a trail in the net when he hacked A.I.M., and they had shown up days later. S.H.I.E.I.L.D. was no doubt on the lookout for him too, not that they knew what his new face looked like. He was playing a risky game, but there was only one avenue open to him, and there was no sense in delaying what had to be done.

Harry scribbled a note and left it on the small desk in the corner. He gathered his sunglasses and his coat and headed for the door. The elevator was broken, so he walked the two flights to the lobby. The man behind the front desk looked nervous, which Harry took as a sign that someone had talked to him. He continued out the front door and looked up and down the street. From behind his sunglasses, he pretended not to see Killian's lackeys. He turned right and started heading east.

Within half a block, Harry's nervous system began sending his brain alarms, each more frantic than the last. It took every ounce of control to override his training and millions of years of basic survival instincts that were embedded like code in the human brain.

Up ahead, the familiar black car was parked across the street. Harry ignored the man behind the wheel and turned down a narrow side street. Just thirty steps ahead was a well-dressed man was standing in front of a shop. His right leg was straight and firmly planted on the pavement, and his left bent up behind him and placed against the side of the building. He was resting against the building while he chewed on a stick of gum.

The man was Eric Savin, Killian's number one thug. The footfalls from behind Harry were echoing like heavy shoes on the stone floor of an empty parking garage. Harry could hear the pace of his pursuers quicken. A car engine revved, no doubt the black sedan he'd already spotted. With every step, Harry could feel them closing in from behind. His mind ran through scenarios with increasing rapidly, looking for any way out of the impending disaster.

They were close now. Harry could feel them. Literally, because of the heat they were generating. Savin spat his gum out and pushed himself away from the building. He smiled at Harry and produced a pistol from his jacket. Harry feigned surprise and turned to run. The two men were exactly where he expected them to be, guns drawn, one pointed at Harry's head, the other at his chest.

The sedan skidded to a stop just to his right, the trunk, and the front passenger door swinging open. Harry knew what was next. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as Savin cracked him across the back of the head with his pistol. Harry stumbled forward and willingly fell into the arms of the two men with guns. He let his legs go slack, big arms wrapped around his chest and held him upright. They dragged him the short distance to the car's trunk. Harry landed headfirst with a thump. The rest of his body was folded in on top of him, and the trunk slammed shut.

The engine roared, and the tires peeled against the pavement until they found a grip. Harry was thrown back as the car shot forward. He slowly cracked his eyes, and as expected, he found himself in total darkness. His head was throbbing a bit from the blow, but it could have been worse. There was no fear on his face or doubt in his mind, though—just a smile on his lips as he thought about his plan. The seeds of disinformation that he had spread had drawn them out just as he'd hoped. His captors had no idea of the true intent of the man they now had in their possession, and more importantly, no idea of the violence and pain he was about to visit upon them.

Inspired by the line in Iron Man 3 where Tony asks Maya if a twelve-year-old is waiting out in the car. The idea snowballed into this story.

Heavily rewritten from the original story

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