On the top floor of a sixteen-story building in Hell's Kitchen—run-down on the outside but lavishly appointed inside—Kingpin stood motionless by the window, leaning on his cane.
"Boss?"
Behind Kingpin, a short man with brown hair and unusually well-developed muscles called out.
Kingpin had been standing by the window for more than ten minutes, his gaze cutting through Hell's Kitchen and locking onto the sky over central Manhattan.
There, a searchlight beam pierced straight into the clouds, projecting a bat-shaped symbol.
"Walker, go find Maddie's father. I need him to do something for me," Kingpin said, turning his broad shoulders toward the short, muscular man.
"Maddie? That little girl you saw on the street a few days ago, the one who got separated from her father?" Walker asked, confused.
Kingpin's voice was deep and gentle, his face softening with a fatherly warmth.
"Go tell him that if he doesn't want to lose his daughter again, he needs to climb the Statue of Liberty tomorrow night, demand that Batman show himself, and reveal his true identity. I'll give him a large sum of money as compensation."
"I want to see if that guy is really the devil of legend, or just an ordinary person playing god."
"Don't let him know it's from me."
Walker bowed his head in acknowledgment and quickly turned to leave.
First, there was that guy in the skintight suit, calling himself Daredevil, stirring up trouble all over Hell's Kitchen—gathering evidence on Kingpin's gang members' crimes and trying to track down Kingpin himself.
Then, Batman would show up in Hell's Kitchen from time to time, sending Kingpin's men straight to the police station.
Walker knew full well that Kingpin had been bottling up his rage, but to secure absolute control over the Osborn Group, he couldn't afford to let anyone get any leverage on him at this crucial moment.
"Just three more days—at most three days—and I'll own most of the Osborn Group's shares. By then, both Daredevil and Batman will be nothing but clowns."
Kingpin watched his subordinate Walker depart, his hand tightening involuntarily on the cane, his gaze still fixed on the Bat-Signal over Manhattan, lost in thought.
Meanwhile, on Roosevelt Island in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens.
"Few people have ever seen Kingpin's real face. Only a handful in the entire gang have earned his trust."
"All of Kingpin's orders for expansion and black-market dealings get passed down through those few, and they in turn mimic him when relaying instructions to the lower levels. Tracking him down is incredibly difficult."
"I've earned his initial trust now, but if everyone else ends up injured this time and I'm unscathed, that trust will shatter in an instant."
Black Cat glanced at the burly man, now unconscious after Batman's brutal interrogation. She crouched down, picked up the pistol he'd drawn from his coat, and a ruthless expression crossed her face.
Bang!
She aimed the gun at her own thigh and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The bullet missed. Batman's well-timed Batarang knocked the pistol aside, sending the shot grazing past her just as she fired.
"There's no need for that," Batman said in a low voice, tossing the gun into the East River and approaching Black Cat.
"But I have to keep Kingpin from suspecting me..." Black Cat stared at Batman blankly, unable to come up with a better way to fool him.
"I anticipated this," Batman replied, turning his head toward one of the buyers in the deal—the woman with the nose ring named Ellie.
She was the first to spot Batman standing like a statue in the darkness and had even warned the others, but now she lay on the ground.
Black Cat approached Ellie suspiciously and examined her closely, finding that she was only unconscious and unharmed.
Batman had merely knocked her out; he hadn't shattered most of her bones like he had with the others.
"So you planned for this ahead of time?"
Black Cat asked in surprise. As she stood up, Batman delivered a precise chop to the back of her head, and she immediately went limp, collapsing into his arms.
"I plan for everything," Batman said, looking down at the unconscious Black Cat. Then he reached out and retrieved the recorder and camera from her sleeves and pockets.
They contained the criminal evidence Black Cat had deliberately mentioned, like "Kingpin selling cigarettes (***)".
Batman didn't fully trust Black Cat, even though Kingpin was behind her father's death.
Right now, he only trusted himself; Batman would only feel secure with the evidence in his own hands.
And that wasn't all—Batman took a miniature tracker from his utility belt and concealed it in the white fur collar of Black Cat's deep V-neck leather suit.
Gathering evidence and locating Kingpin were two tasks Batman had been pursuing simultaneously.
After finishing, Batman used black webbing to bind the entire group and dumped them near the Queens police station.
The weather in New York tonight was lousy.
The sky was thick with clouds, completely blocking out the moon, making the illuminated Bat-Signal stand out even more in the dark night.
Even with his iron will, Batman felt a brief moment of disorientation when he saw the Bat-Signal, as if he'd been transported back to Gotham.
But soon, his gaze sharpened again. He raised his hand and fired a strand of black webbing, sticking it firmly to the wall of a nearby high-rise.
Without a cape, Batman—temporarily using gliders detached from a Spider-Slayer—swiftly headed toward the Manhattan Police Department.
The Bat-Signal was shining from the Manhattan Police Department, which was exactly where Batman had planned to go tonight anyway.
He needed to review the case files on Dr. Otto and get up to speed on all the developments in his case.
So while Agent Phil waited anxiously on the police station rooftop, Batman didn't appear; instead, he infiltrated the building.
Dr. Otto's case had just happened, so the files wouldn't be in the archives yet. Batman hacked into the station's internal surveillance, disabling it, and made a beeline for Chief George Stacy's office.
Sure enough, on Chief George's desk, Batman found the relevant files for Dr. Otto's case.
Peter Parker's enhanced vision allowed Batman to easily read the documents in the pitch-black room, confirming his own suspicions:
"Dr. Otto's tentacles are controlled by a chip, and the chip was destroyed precisely because the police used electroshock tranquilizer rounds on him..."
However, one detail caught Batman off guard: besides the police files, Chief George's desk also held a document from S.H.I.E.L.D.
It stated that all the victims' families had been properly compensated, and due to Dr. Otto's lack of subjective intent in the crimes, he was exempt from punishment, with the outcomes split into two options.
One was to join and serve the organization; the other was to decline but remain under supervision, effectively losing his personal freedom.
This organization's power surpassed Batman's expectations—they could condense legal processes that normally took months or even years into a single day.
"An organization founded by multiple nations, wielding enormous authority, with the right to research the Tesseract..."
A realization dawned on Batman. He understood why the supernatural data he'd uncovered while hacking the CIA earlier had been so sparse; most of it must be held by S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Maybe I should hack into this mysterious organization to gather more unknown information about this world," Batman thought to himself.
Three floors above Batman, on the rooftop, Agent Phil was still waiting anxiously.
A clove of garlic was clutched tightly in Agent Phil's hand, its pungent, distinctive smell even staining his fingers.
Buzz... Batman didn't show, but Agent Phil's earpiece buzzed first.
"Coulson, stand down."
"Why? I'm still waiting to meet Batman in person," Agent Phil asked in a low, puzzled voice.
"While you were up on the roof, that guy already hacked into our S.H.I.E.L.D. system. We couldn't even block him," the voice in the earpiece replied.
"What?!" Agent Phil's eyes widened. "Director, are you sure it's him?"
The director's voice sounded utterly resigned.
"Yes, he browsed all our internal data right in front of a dozen senior network techs, like we were a naked hooker... He even left a blank document with a bat symbol to let us know it was him."
"The techs couldn't trace his location?" Agent Phil dropped the garlic and paced restlessly across the rooftop.
"He didn't even try to hide it... He's in the police station right under your feet, Agent Phil," the director said.