"Child, you're back."
As soon as Aunt May opened the door and saw Batman standing there, holding a bouquet of flowers, her eyes crinkled with a warm smile.
"Are you starving? Dinner's almost ready."
Aunt May took the flowers, inhaling their scent deeply before placing them carefully in the most prominent spot in the house, as if they were a cherished treasure.
"Aunt May, let me help you."
Batman started to follow her toward the kitchen, but she promptly shooed him out.
"Could you fix that hallway light for me? It flickers every time it's cloudy or rainy. Peter always says he'll get to it, but he's so busy he forgets."
Aunt May pointed to a light fixture in the middle of the hallway.
Without hesitation, Batman nodded in agreement.
In front of Aunt May, he didn't need to maintain any of his usual masks. Instead, he could be his truest self with this woman who called him "child" with such affection.
Only in Aunt May's home could Batman—who, since crossing into this world, had been relentlessly on the move without a single proper night's sleep—find a sliver of peace.
A broken light? Batman fixed it in less than three minutes.
Click.
The dim hallway instantly brightened. Aunt May, leaning against the wall with a spatula in hand, smiled kindly at Batman as he swiftly repaired the bulb.
"This light is perfect. See? Darkness isn't so unbreakable, is it?"
Aunt May refused to move from her home, her reason being that this house in the Forest Hills community held too many memories. She couldn't bear to leave it all behind.
"I won't consider moving somewhere else until the landlord decides he doesn't want to rent to an old lady like me anymore," she had said.
"This place holds everything from the decades I lived here with your Uncle Ben."
"Right here, all those years ago, Peter's father entrusted him to me. I was the one who wiped his nose, taught him to brush his teeth, do his homework, wash his underwear… I watched him grow from a little kid into a man."
"He's my child, and now you are too."
"I need you. This home needs you. You're not some extra burden—you're valued here."
Aunt May's words were firm and heartfelt.
This time, Batman didn't slip away to hide his emotions. Instead, he sat at the dining table, listening to Aunt May ramble on about this and that until late into the night.
Pretending to leave, Batman lingered in the shadows, waiting until he saw Aunt May return to her bedroom under the glow of the newly fixed hallway light. Only when the entire house was cloaked in darkness did he silently depart.
At the abandoned City Hall subway station, Batman dragged a captive Schulman out and dropped him off in Queens as the second piece of bait to lure out Mr. Negative. Then he doubled back.
The trio from the previous night had shown up on his radar at the Queens police station that morning. From the bugs he'd planted, Batman overheard that they'd spent the entire night terrified—except for the one guy snoring through it all—before turning themselves in.
They had prior theft charges, and by surrendering, they earned themselves fifteen days of detention.
"Barbara," Batman said to his Oracle AI, "pause all other tasks. Buy up all the property in Forest Hills and the surrounding communities."
Aunt May didn't want to leave, so Batman decided to protect her in another way: by purchasing the entire Forest Hills community and upgrading its safety, environment, and facilities through a trust.
The cost wasn't trivial, but to Batman, it was the most worthwhile expense since arriving in this world.
"Throne, scepter, crown…"
Even in the dead of night, Batman's resources and methods ensured he successfully acquired the entire Forest Hills community.
The surrounding neighborhoods would take more time, but Batman wasn't in a rush. His immediate focus shifted to the three shell companies mentioned by Kingpin that morning at Rikers Island.
Tracing the financial trails of those shell companies, Batman quickly pinpointed the trust fund in the Cayman Islands that Kingpin had referenced.
Layered trusts were a game Batman knew all too well, and the Cayman Islands fund was practically transparent to him.
After three relentless hours of digging, Batman uncovered a confidential client tied to Kingpin's funds: Ajax Security.
Ajax Security—a private military company with no international reputation but an astonishingly large cash flow.
Batman rubbed his stubbled chin.
"Barbara, pull all cross-border logistics and customs records related to Ajax Security," he instructed Oracle AI.
"The data is extensive, Bruce," Oracle replied. "This could take some time."
"How long?" Batman asked.
"Possibly two days."
"Too long…" Batman frowned. "Try cross-referencing with the keywords 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' and 'military.'"
Stark Industries' weapons could only come from two sources based on their order records: S.H.I.E.L.D. or the military.
Batman's dogged pursuit of these leads was to uncover the true source of Stark weapons flooding the market and, through that, to locate Norman Osborn, who had been taken by General Ross.
With the new parameters, Oracle's search sped up significantly. Ten minutes later, it reported:
"Bruce, here's what I found on Ajax Security related to S.H.I.E.L.D.:
"Ajax Security has repeatedly served as a secondary contractor for certain S.H.I.E.L.D. overseas operations, handling local security and logistical support.
"No records found for 'military' or related terms."
S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Without pausing, Batman hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system—a network that, to him, was as familiar as his own backyard.
Using Kingpin's lead, Batman no longer needed weapon serial numbers. Instead, he directly queried S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal records for anything tied to Ajax Security's weapons.
"The records show this batch of weapons was either expended in normal operations or used in training," Oracle reported.
The trail was becoming clearer, but when Batman tried to access more detailed transfer records or personnel involved, the information abruptly stopped.
The lead had gone cold again, this time within S.H.I.E.L.D. But Batman wasn't without options.
As a multinational organization, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s systems weren't a single monolithic network. Like most research companies and military organizations, they were split into an internal intranet and an external internet.
Batman could freely infiltrate the external network, accessing secrets beyond the reach of ordinary people. But the truly critical data—like detailed parameters of the Tesseract or specifics about the alien lifeforms Director Nick Fury had encountered—remained locked in the intranet, inaccessible remotely.
"If the digital path is blocked, I'll take the oldest and most effective route: physical infiltration."
Batman stood, his gaze piercing through the City Hall subway station toward the Adirondack Mountains in New York.
Hidden within those sprawling peaks was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s three major initiatives: Project Pegasus, home to the Tesseract—and possibly the clues Batman needed.
Physical infiltration—going in person—was the only way to access that information. But not yet.
Before infiltrating, Batman needed to visit Tony Stark as Peter Parker and convince him to temporarily halt Stark Industries' weapons sales, preventing more arms from hitting the market until Batman could trace their source.
New York's night sky showed no stars, obscured by car exhaust, industrial smog, and dust.
But at that moment, a single star flared to life, plummeting toward a Catholic church near the Kosciuszko Bridge in Queens.
It was a fist-sized meteor, unnoticed by anyone.
Inside the church, Eddie Brock sat on a pew, head bowed in confession. After being taken by Martin Li, he'd spent a few days at the FEAST shelter.
Martin Li hadn't helped him as promised—at least, not in Eddie's eyes.
The hatred in his heart hadn't diminished. Instead, it grew with every passing moment, doubling by the second.
If he didn't find a way to vent it soon, Eddie Brock feared he'd completely break.
So tonight, he came to this Catholic church, hoping for some relief.
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