Chapter 339: Fear Gas
"Garrett wants to plan a bombing. His purpose is to draw me out."
Looking at Black Widow in her metal mask—a featureless iron face with no openings for eyes, mouth, or nose—Batman shot Venom Robin a meaningful look.
Venom Robin knew that look all too well. It meant "Guard the Batcave. I'm going out."
His face fell. Just as he opened his mouth to express his dissatisfaction, Venom Robin saw Batman retrieve something from behind his back.
Not chocolate to appease him—but a transparent glass container holding a writhing, jumping mass of viscous material.
"Uh?"
Venom Robin's first syllable caught in his throat. The viscous substance in Batman's hand was unmistakably the offspring Venom Robin had spawned last night at Pym Technologies Tower when the Wasp had stung him, causing him agonizing pain.
Meeting Batman's iron-cold gaze, Venom Robin couldn't help feeling guilty. He instinctively turned his head away.
He could almost imagine what fury and interrogation awaited him—Batman demanding to know why he'd produced offspring, completely outside Batman's plans.
TAP. TAP.
Batman walked step by step toward Venom Robin, even setting aside the masked Black Widow he'd just brought to the Batcave.
Venom Robin pressed his fingertips together like a cartoon character, trying to convey "guilt" and hoping to get away with it.
TAP. TAP.
Batman's footsteps stopped beside Venom Robin.
Venom Robin's body trembled.
"You get one chance to lie," Batman said, looking down at the guilty Venom Robin.
Dad really does love me! Venom Robin's heart soared.
"I promise!" he agreed immediately.
So Batman's footsteps resumed, passing Venom Robin toward the Batcave wall behind him.
Venom Robin quickly turned around to see what Batman was doing.
Batman walked step by step to the wall, transferring the symbiote material from the glass container taken from Pym Technologies into another container in the Batcave.
'Old Bat doesn't even trust other people's glassware...' Venom Robin thought sarcastically.
The moment he finished that thought, he saw Batman still hadn't stopped. Batman retrieved the "Venom Ecosystem Box"—equipped with acid, pheromone blocking, sonic waves, flames, and various other protective measures that had once been used for Venom—and performed yet another transfer, moving the symbiote into the ecosystem box.
Only after completing all this did Batman stop, placing the ecosystem box alongside the white symbiote material left behind by "Anti-Venom."
The white symbiote material from Anti-Venom had long since lost its vitality, lying soft and motionless in its container. But the new symbiote material was exceptionally active, occasionally jumping inside the ecosystem box.
Venom Robin was about to speak when the masked Black Widow, standing in place at a loss, spoke first:
"Batman? Where have you brought me?"
"You don't need to know," Batman's voice was low.
"Who were you just talking to? How much time has passed since we spoke on the rooftop?" Black Widow asked again.
"You don't need to know." Batman gave the same answer.
Behind her metal mask, Black Widow's eyebrows furrowed. She realized that even though Batman had brought her to what seemed to be his base, he still maintained extreme vigilance toward her.
This wouldn't do. Black Widow's goal was to gain Batman's one hundred percent trust to complete what she'd deduced was SHIELD's mission.
So Black Widow changed tactics. She stopped asking questions. Instead, she folded her arms, subtly lifting her ample chest:
"I'm hungry."
No one spoke.
"Hey! I'm hungry! Give me food!" Black Widow's voice rose slightly.
Still no response.
"Damn it." Black Widow cursed, raising her hand to her mask.
If she could just pry open even a small gap, Black Widow might learn something about her surroundings.
As her fingers touched the mask, Black Widow's fingertips felt the cold metal again. She inserted her nails into the gap between mask and skin, prying it open bit by bit.
Slivers of light leaked through the gap. Seeing no one stopping her—as if Batman and that other mysterious figure had vanished—Black Widow steadied herself and completely removed the metal mask from her face.
Hazy mist surrounded her. Gray-brown fog spiraled up from the ground, transforming into skull faces as it rose into the air.
Black Widow immediately covered her nose and mouth, avoiding breathing the mist.
She cautiously felt her way forward through the fog, heading toward the only source of light ahead.
That light wasn't far—just a few steps forward and Black Widow found it close at hand.
She discovered it was a shadowless surgical lamp like those in operating rooms. And she was lying on a cold operating table.
The surrounding faces were all too familiar—faces Black Widow could never forget no matter how much time passed. The doctors who'd performed her ovariectomy when she was still training in the Red Room.
Terror immediately seized her mind. Her chest heaved with rapid, anxious breathing—but this time without any element of seduction.
She watched helplessly as the cold scalpel sliced through her abdominal skin, watched those damned doctors reach their hands inside her abdomen.
The pain forced a scream from Black Widow. In her delirium, she saw the doctors' faces transform into enormous bat-like shadows with pointed ears and glowing red eyes.
Her consciousness grew increasingly blurred. Just as she was about to slip into unconsciousness, Black Widow heard someone calling her:
"Natalia! Natalia!"
The voice was rough with a nasal quality. Black Widow struggled to look, seeing a middle-aged man with a full beard, slightly balding and overweight, emerge from the mist.
It was Alexei—Black Widow's father in that false "family" in Ohio when she was a child.
The "Natalia" he called was Black Widow Natasha Romanoff's real name.
Black Widow lay on the operating table, using every ounce of strength to reach for Alexei's outstretched hand.
But the instant she grasped it, she released it in terror. She clearly saw that the moment she touched him, her father Alexei's face had also transformed into a bat with glowing red eyes and exposed fangs.
Then came her sister Yelena. Hawkeye Clint Barton. Agent Phil. SHIELD Director Nick Fury...
Every familiar figure Black Widow had known ultimately transformed into a terrifying bat monster.
Just as she approached complete breakdown, she felt something cold against her face. The cold metal mask suddenly clamped over her face. Then she fell backward, passing out on the ground.
"What did she just see?" Venom Robin asked, watching Black Widow's headless-fly-like wandering in bewilderment.
"What she fears most," Batman said.
***
20+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces