It was impossible for Batman to be unaware of the explosion in Hell's Kitchen. In fact, that legal team had been sent there by Alice, the CEO of the Parker Group, under Batman's direct instructions.
His identity was one reason he didn't show up in person, but another was that Batman keenly sensed the explosion was merely a smokescreen.
Almost at the exact moment Luke Cage was knocked unconscious by the blast, Boomerang, a criminal imprisoned by Tony Stark, escaped from the Raft.
And it wasn't just him. Over at Ryker's Island, Mac the Scorpion, Toomes the Vulture, Herman Schultz (aka Shocker), Yuri Petrovich the Crimson Dynamo, and a nine-member gang calling themselves the Serpent Society had also escaped.
Aside from Hammerhead—who had been sent to the Ravencroft Institute due to mental complications—and Obadiah Stane, the Iron Monger, who was confined to a completely different prison, almost every other high-profile criminal had been broken out.
This jailbreak was different from the Kingpin's. Back then, Batman could easily track down concrete clues, but this time, he couldn't even find where a missing wall from Ryker's Island had vanished to.
It was crude and heavy-handed, yet left absolutely no trace.
Batman had previously installed surveillance and wiretaps at Ryker's Island, and had even uploaded a virus into the prison's mainframe, but none of them had captured any footage or audio of who was aiding the escape.
However, just because one avenue was a dead end didn't mean Batman was out of options.
Batman noticed that the escaped convicts shared a common denominator: they were all, to some degree, connected to technology.
Even the Serpent Society had been a team of engineers before turning to a life of crime.
Among the tech-minded individuals Batman had encountered, Doctor Octopus and the New Goblin were secured at South Brother Island and the Batcave, respectively, and neither location had been breached.
But there was still one person active in Manhattan who frequently made public appearances and had once possessed a full arsenal of high-tech gear.
That person was Norman Osborn.
"Norman Osborn," Batman said, his tone exceptionally calm, betraying none of the panic over the missing fugitives. "Stay in your bedroom. I'm coming to see you right now."
It was late at night, and Norman Osborn was naturally sound asleep in the Osborn Mansion. The ankle monitor on his leg clearly indicated as much.
Hearing Batman's encrypted transmission, Norman Osborn didn't ask questions. He simply gave a swift, straightforward reply: "Alright."
Unlike his daytime visits, Batman didn't drive over. Instead, he leapt straight from the Batwing, landing with a heavy thud inside the grounds of the Osborn Estate.
"Someone just came to see me. In a way you wouldn't believe," Norman Osborn spoke up before Batman could even open his mouth.
"What way?" Batman asked.
"A projection. Materializing out of thin air," Norman Osborn said, sitting on the living room sofa in dark green pajamas alongside Batman.
"What was the content of the projection?" Batman asked.
Norman Osborn's ankle monitor could track his location and eavesdrop on audio, and it was even capable of remotely transmitting data from any information device he touched back to South Brother Island.
But it wasn't omnipotent; there were still many things it couldn't do—such as recording what Norman Osborn saw with his own eyes.
"I don't know how to describe it, but I know exactly what the projection meant to convey," Norman Osborn said. "They want me to provide the Super Soldier Serum."
Batman's expression remained unchanged as he waited for Norman Osborn to elaborate.
"Unless they throw me into a centrifuge and grind me down into a liquid extract, where am I supposed to get Super Soldier Serum for them?" Norman Osborn spread his hands. "More importantly, Harry is still in your hands. I can only walk the path you've laid out for me."
He was referring to Batman's instruction for him to run as an independent candidate for Governor of New York.
"You did well," Batman nodded slightly.
As early as the charity gala last month, Batman had discovered that Norman Osborn had quietly regained his lost memories.
But Batman hadn't confronted him; instead, he kept observing Norman Osborn's every move from the shadows, avoiding putting too much pressure on him.
At least for now, whatever the underlying reason, Norman Osborn had not disappointed him.
"If you can't describe the content of the projection, can you describe its position and size?" Batman asked again.
Norman Osborn nodded and rose to lead Batman back into the bedroom. After a brief moment of thought, he gestured roughly with his hands.
It wasn't a projection created by technology, Batman thought to himself. It sounds more like a scaled-down version of the illusions the Enchantress uses to pull people into her realms.
"Aside from that, did they mention anything else?" Batman didn't press Norman Osborn any further, shifting the direction of his questioning instead.
"No," Norman Osborn said. "Is something about to happen? I can provide assistance from a political standpoint."
"Not for now. When your position is high enough, just make sure you don't forget the homeless people who lost their lives by your hand," Batman said.
"I won't forget for as long as I live," Norman lowered his head with a bitter smile.
By the time he looked up again, Batman had vanished.
Back on Bat Island, Batman hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe for the first time in a while and repurposed their low-Earth orbit satellites.
The convicts from Ryker's Island and Boomerang from the Raft had vanished without a trace after their escape; even Batman couldn't find a single lead.
He wondered if magic or sorcery was involved, perhaps the Enchantress or some other entity.
According to the satellite feeds, the escapees had vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a displacement wave that was barely discernible to the satellite—as though they had boarded a physically cloaked aircraft.
Yet when the breakout occurred, no aircraft vanished from nearby LaGuardia Airport, nor were there any records of missing planes in international aviation tracking.
His eyes narrowing thoughtfully, Batman pulled out a Kimoyo Bead. "T'Challa, this is Batman."
It was still daylight in Wakanda, and T'Challa's voice came through instantly. "I'm here."
"Check if Wakanda has had an aircraft go missing since our last incident. As soon as possible," Batman said.
"Hold on. Shuri..." T'Challa said.
A few minutes later, T'Challa spoke again. "You're right. A fighter jet is indeed missing, though the pilot is unharmed."
"Ask them what they saw when the aircraft vanished. I suspect the Enchantress may have hijacked it," Batman said.
"Understood," T'Challa replied.
Another few minutes passed, and this time, his voice carried a hint of confusion. "They don't remember a thing."
"I see," Batman said, his voice dropping low. "Stay alert. I suspect what happened to Wakanda is just a prelude."
"I will," T'Challa said.
Deactivating the Kimoyo Bead, Batman fell into deep thought.
A missing Wakandan fighter jet, seemingly cloaked by methods undetectable even to Batman, had appeared at Ryker's Island to extract the escaped convicts.
Where was their destination?
Batman stared at the map provided by the S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite, shifting the coordinates across the globe until the display finally froze on a small Eastern European nation: Latveria.
"Batman." As Batman pondered, Tony Stark's voice crackled through the encrypted comms once more. "The Adirondack Mountains, coordinates... Extract me, now!"
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