Batman needed a contingency plan for Tony Stark's armor.
Unlike the Hulk or Professor Lizard, Tony Stark's Mark III Iron Man suit wasn't just a suit. The real core lay in the J.A.R.V.I.S. AI he carried and the miniaturized arc reactor that powered it.
For those two critical components, a single Mark III wasn't the true target Batman had to counter. Tony Stark could build a Mark IV, Mark V, or beyond at any time…
Simply targeting the armor itself was pointless.
That was why Batman's first priority was preventing Tony Stark from losing control… or rather, not "losing control" in the usual sense. What worried him was the psychological shift that might come from Tony becoming addicted to the superhuman power his Iron Man suits granted him.
"The plan has two parts: one aimed at J.A.R.V.I.S., the other at the miniaturized arc reactor.
"For J.A.R.V.I.S., Barbara's setup alone won't cut it. Her servers probably aren't even a tenth the size of his, and the raw processing gap is enormous."
"There's one immediate question," Batman murmured. "If the reactor stops functioning, how long before the shrapnel in Tony's chest becomes life-threatening?"
He didn't waste time speculating. Batman never worked in a vacuum, holed up in the Batcave relying purely on theory.
He needed to add a new function to the Arkham suit: the next time he met Tony Stark, he would directly scan the man's body and pinpoint the exact location of that shrapnel.
The last time—when Batman, disguised as Peter Parker, had removed Tony's miniaturized reactor—it had taken him just over three minutes.
Tony had claimed that, without strenuous activity, he could last five minutes just fine.
But Batman didn't take Tony's word as gospel. Even if Tony had run X-rays and scans on himself and arrived at that five-minute estimate, Batman trusted his own calculations more.
"Once we're back from New Mexico, Alfred can start building the server cluster and cooling system for the Alfred AI. Let Alfred take on J.A.R.V.I.S."
"Right now, priority is adding the new scanning function to the Arkham suit."
The Arkham suit already possessed vital-sign detection and X-ray scanning capabilities. Batman had used them to read the Vulture, Scorpion, and the Sinister Six like open books.
This new function, however, needed to go far beyond simple penetration scans. It had to precisely analyze blood flow, temperature distribution, heart rate, respiratory rate, and cardiac contractility inside Tony's body.
For Batman, this was hardly difficult. Complicated as it sounded, it was really just copying the medical suite he'd once had access to through Brother Eye and integrating it into the suit.
Fresh off completing the Batwing upgrades and testing the dual wings for Venom-Robin, Batman immediately returned to the Manhattan Batcave and threw himself back into work.
Time blurred past. The next morning—
While Batman worked through the night upgrading the Arkham suit, he received a sudden call from Parker Industries assistant Alice, someone he hadn't spoken to in days.
"Mr. Parker, we just received a package for you."
A package?
Batman's first thought was that the lab equipment he'd ordered had finally arrived.
When he'd obtained that piece of vibranium—later taken by T'Challa—he'd lacked proper testing instruments, so his analysis had been limited to basic physics and chemistry.
To study the metal properly, he'd used Parker Industries to order a batch of equipment for the Batcave.
Even though the vibranium was gone, he'd never canceled the order. The instruments would come in handy eventually.
"Leave it at the entrance to the private warehouse I designated before," Batman replied, seamlessly switching to Peter Parker's voice.
To his surprise, Alice hesitated on the other end of the line.
"Mr. Parker… the package is only envelope-sized, and it's very light… How about I put it in your office instead? Oh, and the delivery person said you need to forward it to another business partner, but they didn't say who."
An envelope-sized package, very light, and Peter Parker was supposed to pass it along?
Batman immediately stopped working on the Arkham suit upgrade. He pulled up Parker Industries surveillance feeds on the Batcave workbench and saw Alice standing in the factory holding the package.
She wasn't lying. Whatever had arrived, it definitely wasn't the lab equipment he'd ordered.
The problem was that Batman had never bought anything small enough to fit in an envelope.
Every purchase he made was buried in batches of industrial orders for Parker Industries, and afterward he altered the records accordingly. Even the Batwing prototype had been hidden that way.
Who had mailed this to him? Did someone know Peter Parker was actually Batman and was using this to send a message?
In an instant, countless scenarios of identity exposure flashed through Batman's mind.
Yet his expression never changed. He had long ago prepared contingencies for the day his secret was revealed.
The second time he'd visited Aunt May, when she realized the "Peter Parker" in front of her wasn't actually her nephew, he had nearly activated that plan. In the end, warmed by May's unconditional love, he had chosen to tell her the truth.
But that was limited to Aunt May—and to Dr. Curt Connors, the Lizard, to whom Batman had voluntarily revealed himself in order to save a life.
"Put it in the office. I'll swing by later."
Batman hung up, then began tracing the package's delivery time and courier through the surveillance footage.
The trail led straight to Silver Sable's rescue company. Yet even she hadn't sent it herself—she was only passing it along.
The mystery deepened.
He handed part of the Arkham suit upgrade to the Oracle AI, left Venom in the ecological tank in the cave with a children's channel playing and a pile of chocolate as company, then changed into a slightly heavier suit appropriate for the current weather.
Driving the car he kept specifically for Peter Parker's civilian appearances, Batman headed toward Parker Industries.
As he passed Parker Tower—the building Alice had purchased on his behalf—he slowed down.
Construction was proceeding normally. The exterior barely needed work; they were mainly replacing the glass curtain wall with stronger material and renovating everything inside that needed updating.
Since Parker Industries wasn't a pure tech company like Oscorp, experimental explosions inside the building weren't a concern.
For Batman, Parker Tower was mostly a public facade. The real production lines were scattered across the factories Harry Osborn had gifted him and the ones he already owned.
In theory, the tower served as his third Batcave—after the one under City Hall and the one on Bat Island.
From across the street, through the flow of bustling traffic, Batman used his currently superhuman senses to confirm the interior construction was proceeding without issues, then accelerated toward Parker Industries.
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