There’s a cackle in my head speakers: a crisis in Hell’s Kitchen.

That’s dirty territory. Only lowlifes live in Hell’s Kitchen. Men without enough courage to pull themselves up from their holes. Daredevil’s turf. Not mine.

I’ve brought corporations to their knees. I’ve fought alien generals, madmen, gods. I’ve risen above my demons. Or have I?

I hate going there.

Cap bursts into the room. "Thor’s already in the Quinjet," he shouts, "it’s just us at HQ." The look on his face is dead serious. I’m glad I’m already in my armor. "There’s a man loose—ex-government operative—by the Hudson."

He’s not telling me the full story. Something about this is killing him.

"I’ll meet you there, Cap."

There’s a moment of hesitation between us before he speaks again. Does he know that I know? "Seventeenth street," he says. I can’t feel the pat on his shoulder through the armor, but I know it’s there, before he rushes off to join Thor in the Quinjet.

My boot jets are already humming by the time I throw open HQ’s front doors and storm out into the sunlight.

I’m at three hundred feet before I have time to think, dangling over Manhattan like a great warbird. Then the thrumming in my boots and the vibration in my armor go numb as I switch directions; I have my target, I plunge, eye and mouth slits automatically sealing shut as I burst through a dark cloud of gasoline smoke.

A chopper hovers in the sky, firing bullets at a red streak on the ground. That’s Daredevil. Slumped on the ground next to him is a hulk of a man, almost as big as Cap, with a flag painted across his face.

This must be personal to Cap. Now I understand why he didn’t tell me.

There are so many pedestrians, I can’t fly through the streets. So I don’t have enough time to reach the chopper before Daredevil fires a rocket through it.

Now the street is completely engulfed in fire.

Cap emerges from behind a burning building, shouting orders. He cradles a wounded child in his arms. A crack ripples through the sky and I look up to see the god of thunder, perched on a building, call upon his Father to shower rain upon the cataclysm below.

I’ve been temporarily distracted; I’ve lost sight of the man with the flag. My heart jumps. My heart.

He reappears again, through the mist, on his knees, sputtering. Daredevil has him by the throat, he’s shouting at him in the rain, muttering incoherent phrases about the Kingpin.

"A white," sputters the man with the flag, "give me a white."

Daredevil is trying to kill him. It’s almost comical. A wreck of a man trying to murder a drug addict in Hell’s Kitchen.

I stride forward, my iron boots pounding concrete as the street collapses around me. "Daredevil," I speak calmly, the voice amplifiers within my helmet making my voice ring with authority, "that man is ours. On Federal Authority."

He barely looks in my direction, so intent is he on murder.

Or maybe he knows I don’t have much authority. I’m as bad as him.

I’ve heard he can tell. I’ve heard his radar can tell.

I up the ante, raising the palm of my right hand toward him, my palm gauntlet throbbing with so much power it gives off steam in the cooling rain. "You have five seconds," I say. I know he hears the tiny mechanical hum of the circuits in my palm gauntlet. Even through the rain. That’s why he’s Daredevil.

This is pathetic. Matt’s not even in my league.

He backs away, and the unconscious body of his victim slides to the ground. He disappears silently into the rain. He doesn’t believe me and certainly didn’t buy my bluff. He had a sudden bout of conscience but it’s still a relief.

I look up at Thor. He has no intention of escorting the flag man to the proper authorities. This is not war. This is human pettiness. No matter how much he tries to be human, he considers this beneath him.

Cap’s busy. That makes this sweaty piece of drug addled flesh my responsibility.

I stun him quick, perhaps with more force than is needed, gesturing to the Captain that I’m headed towards the police station, soldier in tow. This is the part of the job I don’t like.

Cleaning up. Dealing with criminals and the criminal element. "Here he is," I’ll say to the officer, who will contact the MPs, who will haul him away. He’ll awake, he’ll talk about his reds and his whites. His pills.

He reminds me too much of my past; I’ve tried hard to convince myself that it is the past, tried to convince myself that this is all beneath my station. I’ve fought gods, aliens, generals. I’ve fought corporations. I fought myself and won.

I am an iron god. I’m Iron Man. I’m no better than the rest.

Like Murdock. Like this poor wretch that I cradle in my metal arms.

-Matt Demo

mpgdemo@yahoo.com