Batman would never rashly charge into that base in Wyoming based on a mere hunch, without any prior understanding of the situation.
He didn't even directly ask Dr. Banner for information about the place. Instead, clad in his Arkham suit, he arrived at the lab on South Brother Island as usual.
"Dr. Banner, how's Professor Connors progressing with his emotional control?"
In the South Brother Island lab, Professor Connors and Dr. Octavius were designing the prosthetic limb they'd been collaborating on. Dr. Banner, with nothing much to do, was sipping coffee when Batman pulled him aside.
"It's going pretty well," Dr. Banner said with a smile. "He's like a patient who's fully cooperating with treatment. Professor Connors is getting better and better at controlling his emotions. In a little while, we might even try some exercises in managing them post-transformation."
"Peter's already been in touch with me," Batman continued, covering for his other identity. "Once the suit I designed for Dr. Octavius is ready, you can move on to the next phase of the plan."
Dr. Banner didn't object. When he'd been on the run, the moment anyone discovered he could turn into the Hulk, no matter how close they'd been, they'd bolt in terror.
Yet Dr. Octavius had stuck around all this time, even knowing that the other two in the lab besides himself were monsters. That was already remarkable.
"I'm guessing you didn't pull me aside just to talk about that?" Dr. Banner was a smart man. Even without seeing Batman's facial expression, he could still pick up on a few things.
"You're right," Batman admitted. "Doctor, I want to know what happened before you boarded that helicopter to Oscorp Tower, back when General Ross was overseeing Oscorp by force."
Dr. Banner looked at Batman in surprise.
"It's a long story. Where do you want me to start?"
"From when Black Widow and Hawkeye took you from Dharavi in Mumbai, India." Batman said.
Dr. Banner was taken aback again. He'd never mentioned this to Batman.
"How did you know?"
"Because I'm Batman."
"..."
Dr. Banner fell silent for a moment. Instead of continuing to hide it, he recounted everything—from being captured by Black Widow and Hawkeye in Dharavi, to being imprisoned in the Cube, including having his blood drawn.
"The code name Hawkeye and Black Widow received on the return flight meant the Cube?" Batman immediately connected it to the clues he'd compiled earlier while searching for Norman Osborn.
"Dr. Banner, your blood could very well be used by Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D. Have you considered that?" Batman asked.
Batman was asking knowingly. He needed to confirm that Dr. Banner had his own countermeasures.
When Batman had previously visited South Brother Island, aside from covertly collecting small samples of Professor Connors's tissue multiple times, he'd also secretly gathered Dr. Banner's.
Batman had long since discovered that Dr. Banner's cells lost their activity once separated from his body. He needed to verify whether this was something Dr. Banner had done intentionally, or if it was some other condition of his body.
Dr. Banner still wore a smile on his face. Compared to the raging Hulk, his personality was mild to an extreme.
"I thought about it a long time ago. Any cellular tissue that leaves my body rapidly loses its gamma radiation."
"That's also the key reason I'm not worried about staying on this island—that you might secretly experiment on me."
"If you tried to force research on me…"
Dr. Banner pointed to his heart, the implication clear without words: Hulk would step in.
At the same time, he didn't mention that he needed daily injections of a suppressant to maintain this effect. But on this island, nothing escaped Batman's eyes.
The day after Dr. Banner arrived, Batman had noticed him preparing the serum and injecting himself, but he'd never called it out.
"Dr. Banner, I want to know everything you saw and heard during your time in the Cube." Batman skipped past the questions about Dr. Banner himself.
"Nothing at all." Dr. Banner said regretfully. "I was unconscious when I went in and unconscious when I left. Aside from a brief conversation with a guy who called himself 'Hawkeye,' nothing happened."
Batman's mind raced. From these seemingly uninformative answers, he found the thread connecting everything:
"From what you said earlier, Hawkeye received orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. and went with Black Widow to Dharavi to arrest you, on the grounds that the Tesseract's rays were gamma rays, and you're the expert in that field."
"I hacked that quinjet. Hawkeye received a message with the code name meaning 'Cube,' which he told you alone in the cell. It didn't come from S.H.I.E.L.D.—it came from a higher level, the World Security Council."
Dr. Banner looked at Batman. His expertise was science, not detective work. He couldn't help frowning.
"So, what did you figure out?"
"A lot."
Batman said. Under Dr. Banner's curious gaze, he turned and left, vanishing from South Brother Island in the blink of an eye.
Dr. Banner stood there, scratching his head. His curiosity unsatisfied, he felt like he'd swallowed a fly.
"What the hell did he figure out??"
In the Batcave beneath Manhattan, Batman pulled together all the clues he'd compiled earlier while pursuing Mister Negative.
"Eddie Brock was fired from the Daily Bugle because the World Security Council called."
"Hawkeye and Black Widow changed course after receiving the Council's code name, transporting Hulk to the Cube."
"General Ross was fully exposed because of the Oscorp incident. As the mastermind behind the scenes, he was sent to a military tribunal, but then secretly released by a mysterious organization."
"From the audio parsed at the Ravencroft Institute, General Ross is backed by Hydra."
"Before, it wasn't clear who ordered Dr. Banner transported directly from the Cube to Oscorp Tower, but now it's confirmed: the Council—that is, Hydra."
"And now, Hydra has stolen the Tesseract data from inside S.H.I.E.L.D. and sent it to the Cube."
"It all started when I was investigating S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal channels for Stark Industries weapons leakage. I traced that batch of weapons to a veteran Level 8 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Garrett, who's also backed by the tightly structured, deeply hidden Hydra."
All the clues linked together. Batman was one step closer to finding Norman Osborn, but at the same time, a far larger organization loomed before him.
"This world is one giant Hydra."
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