"I can see you're in a bit of a tight spot," Silver Sable said, looking at Batman's perpetually unchanging jawline. "I'll gather my team and head out right now."
"Remember, you owe me a—"
Before Silver Sable could even finish her sentence, the already dark room grew a fraction dimmer. Batman, who had been standing there with the child just a second ago, vanished into thin air the next.
"Tch," Silver Sable muttered, glancing at the still-swaying window. "So shy?"
She had only wanted to tease Batman because his stoic, expressionless face annoyed her a little.
Now that Batman had practically fled the scene, Silver Sable's foul mood instantly evaporated. She casually picked up the glass of water from her bedside table, took a couple of sips, and finally picked up her walkie-talkie.
"Guys, we've got a job!"
Clank!
Inside the factory's rescue team barracks, a bunch of rough-and-tumble men instantly erupted into action, grabbing their gear like madmen and rushing out.
They used to be government mercenaries, and later, security personnel for Sable International.
In the grand scheme of things in America, both professions were practically identical in terms of danger—both involved risking their necks to make a living. But after the Sable Group transitioned into a rescue company, the danger level plummeted, yet the pay didn't drop a cent.
This made these muscle-brained lugs wish for a rescue mission every single day. Hearing Silver Sable say there was work to do, each and every one of them wished they could sprout wings and fly straight to the destination.
Silver Sable walked out into the factory courtyard, shaking her head at the sight of them. Shoving the drunker ones aside with a swift kick each, she personally handpicked seven or eight of her most capable men.
Teasing aside, Batman had personally come to ask for her help, so she was going to take the job seriously.
"Tony, has a mysterious man in black approached you recently, asking about something that happened two years ago?" Batman asked over an encrypted comms channel.
"Of course, of course," Tony Stark replied. It was unclear what he was doing, but his voice over the comms sounded quite tipsy.
"Do you know who he was? What exactly did he say to you?" Batman asked.
"I know," Tony said.
Batman stopped swinging toward Hell's Kitchen and landed on a rooftop. In a low voice, he said, "Tell me."
"Not only do I know who he is, but I also know he wears a batsuit with pointy ears on his head, and his voice is so low it could practically fill the Pacific Ocean," Tony chuckled on the other end of the encrypted line.
"...Fuck you, Tony."
"Uh, I never knew you could swear—"
Batman cut the transmission before Tony could finish, resuming his advance toward Hell's Kitchen alongside Venom Robin.
"What are you suspecting, old bat?" Venom Robin asked inquisitively.
"I want to know what happened two years ago," Batman said, falling silent immediately after.
The silence lasted until the two dropped from the sky, standing before the door of a hidden basement somewhere in Hell's Kitchen.
Knock, knock.
Batman raised his hand and knocked on the door. Venom Robin's eyes widened, watching Batman's action with a look of surprise and uncertainty.
After the knocks echoed, a very faint rustling immediately came from inside the basement, which had seemed completely dark and dead silent from the outside.
The metal door cracked open swiftly but narrowly. A hand reached out from within, gripping a handgun, its dark barrel pointing dead at Batman's head.
Batman stood his ground without moving. Even with a gun pointed at him, there wasn't a flicker of emotion in his eyes.
Venom Robin let out a low grunt. His hands shot out like lightning—one hand turned into a suction cup to grip the metal door, while the other transformed into a tentacle, sliding precisely into the trigger guard to ensure the hand's owner couldn't pull the trigger no matter how hard they tried.
Slam!
With a violent tug, Venom Robin slammed the metal door shut again.
He only used a fraction of his strength; otherwise, his eighty-plus tons of force would have easily ripped the entire door off the wall along with the frame, tearing the hand right off its owner's body in the process.
But even so, the person behind the door groaned in pain. The handgun slipped from their fingers, but Venom Robin caught it with a deft flick of his toe and handed it to Batman.
Batman nodded to Venom Robin. With a few swift movements of his fingers, the handgun disassembled into a pile of parts and clattered to the floor.
At the same time, Venom Robin pushed the door open as gently as possible, stepping inside alongside Batman.
The interior wasn't dark like it appeared from the outside; instead, it was brightly lit. As Batman and Venom Robin entered, three people inside the basement were watching them with utmost wariness.
"Batman?"
One of the three was Daredevil. He spoke up in greeting, sounding puzzled, before turning his face toward Venom Robin with a look of confusion.
"Who is he?" Daredevil asked, his guard not dropping for a second.
When Daredevil had sought Batman's help the night before last, Batman had brought Venom Robin along, but Robin hadn't shown his face the entire time. Just now, Daredevil had heard Batman's footsteps through the metal door, but he couldn't distinguish Venom Robin's footsteps, making him uncertain who this short-statured individual was.
That was why Luke Cage had only cracked the door open and stuck a handgun out.
"My sidekick, Robin," Batman said.
He shifted his gaze from Daredevil to the other two.
One was a tall Black man wearing a gray hoodie, currently clutching his wrist and frowning deeply. The other was a white woman about 1.7 meters tall, dressed in a denim jacket and jeans.
"Luke Cage, Jessica Jones," Batman said, looking at them.
"So you're Batman?" Luke Cage nodded at him, still holding his wrist.
Robin's move just now had hurt, but it was just pain. His physical density and strength far exceeded those of ordinary men; though he couldn't match Venom Robin's superhuman levels, he wasn't some ordinary guy whose wrist would be shattered just by getting caught in a door.
"Daredevil told us you and Iron Man teamed up to bail us out from Kingpin," Jessica Jones added, nodding at Batman as well.
Batman didn't reply. Instead, he activated the Arkham batsuit's scanning function, looking at Luke Cage and Jessica Jones as he asked, "Were you injured while with Kingpin?"
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were caught off guard, exchanging a look. "Aside from the hit we took on the rooftop that night, no."
Batman nodded slightly, remaining silent.
The scan from his Arkham suit showed internal organ damage in both Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. However, Batman didn't know if these two possessed an accelerated healing factor like his own, which prompted the question. Since they hadn't been injured while in Kingpin's custody, it seemed they had sustained these injuries before the incident and had simply not fully recovered.
"Did you acquire your abilities after being contaminated by radioactive chemicals during the dinosaur invasion?" Batman asked.
Luke Cage shook out his wrist. He had fully recovered by now, no longer feeling even a shred of pain. "That's right."
"I came to see you and ask you a question," Batman said. "As far as I know, one of you is a street thug, and the other is a high school graduate who didn't continue her education."
Jessica Jones cracked her knuckles. For a split second, she felt an ominous vibe from him.
Batman glanced at Jessica Jones and continued, "From childhood to adulthood, your lives have been confined to Brooklyn, Queens, and Hell's Kitchen in New York."
"Wait, how do you know that?" Luke Cage cut in hurriedly.
Batman ignored him and pressed on. "But where did you go between July and October of 2004? I haven't found any trace of your activities in any records or databases during that period."
"Batman, they're my friends," Daredevil said, shaking his head slightly at Batman as he tightened his grip on his billy club.
Batman held a hand out to Daredevil, gesturing for him to calm down. "Don't worry, Daredevil. I'm just investigating a matter... Furthermore, has a man in black approached you recently, asking about what happened two years ago?"
Daredevil's heart skipped a beat. When he had heard Batman questioning Luke Cage and Jessica Jones just moments ago, it hadn't clicked. But now that the question was directed at him, Daredevil immediately remembered:
"Yes! About two weeks ago, someone did come looking for me."
"He was dressed in black, masked, tall, and he carried a round black shield!"
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