Beating the Squid-Man wasn't Batman's goal. Crossing his employer, Kingpin, and extracting the details of Oscorp's human experiments on the Squid-Man—that was.
"I… hah. You're Batman, right? You built all these traps just to ask me that? Come closer and I'll tell you everything…"
Inside, the Squid-Man's organs tightened, primed to spit a jet of ink the instant Batman showed himself. He was also stalling; the jolt had left him nearly paralyzed. He needed a moment for his strength to come back so he could tear free of the webbing.
Footsteps sounded behind him—then a faint, sharp "thwip."
Before he could process it, one of his tentacles was seized and held fast. Women had grabbed his tentacles before; he knew exactly how a human hand felt. This didn't. Whoever "Batman" was, he might not be human—the grip felt like the claw of some reptile.
A heartbeat later, overwhelming force flung him through the air. He actually felt a stab of hope—if he twisted fast enough he might shake the webs and bolt the moment he hit the ground.
This one isn't human. Maybe he's like me—some Oscorp experiment. A lizard…?
His thoughts raced as his eight limbs scraped at the webbing—only for despair to set in. Even mid-flight, more high-friction strands snapped at him from every angle, sticking and cross-sticking to his body.
Worse, jagged rebar jutted from a broken slab of concrete right where he was about to land, poised to spear him clean through.
He didn't fear webs; given time, he could ooze free. Rebar, though—those spikes in his flesh would be agony, if not fatal.
"Devil—you're a devil!"
He screamed, voice breaking. Batman didn't budge. Only when the Squid-Man was a handspan from the steel—eyes squeezed shut, braced for death—did a single webline flick out and catch him.
"Talk."
Batman's voice was low. He peeled off the layer of webbing he'd wrapped around his hands as a friction glove to hold the creature.
The Squid-Man looked broken, staring vacantly at the ground, lips foaming, no words coming out.
Batman: "…"
He'd meant to frighten the truth out of him; he hadn't expected to shatter him. He hadn't even needed the rest of his interrogation playbook.
"Batman… Batman…" the Squid-Man muttered, mindless. No matter how Batman prodded, he couldn't answer another question.
It was… unfamiliar terrain. In Gotham, super-criminals rarely cooperated without a full tour of violent persuasion. Even when they did, they'd swagger back later. That was Gotham: a police system rotten top to bottom, no death penalty on the books.
New York was different. Capital punishment existed. Most cops here still fought for the right side—just outnumbered by the sheer mass of gangs. One name stuck with him: a clean, fair police chief—George Stacy.
…
George Stacy had just been promoted from captain to chief for Manhattan, and he was in the thick of it. Even at 11 p.m., he was bent over case files.
Rubbing his tired eyes, he was about to call it a night when something heavy thudded beside his window, slamming into the ground below. He threw the window open and glimpsed a shadow flicker between distant rooftops.
On the pavement, a giant squid lay trussed tight in black webbing, muttering "Batman, Batman."
Stacy hurried down, weapon drawn, and approached with care. Under the creature's body was a sheet of paper. It listed charge after charge—each one enough for a death sentence.
He looked from the page to the creature and back, then pulled out his phone. "Get Major Crimes. We're working late."
The sheet's charges and evidence were ironclad, but as chief he still had to confirm them. Procedure was procedure.
From a building's shadow, Batman watched Stacy's team cage the Squid-Man, then turned away. Too much to do.
First, clear the unused gel and web traps from the yard and sewers. Then dig up the buried guns. Last night, "Stark Industries" on the crates had meant nothing to him. Today, even though he hadn't finished the CIA's file on the Tesseract, a few keywords had stuck.
One of them: Howard Stark.
Clack-clack-clack—
Deep in the shipyard, at the makeshift ops center, Batman's fingers flew over the keys. Tab after tab opened with entries on Howard Stark.
"Howard Stark, American inventor, scientist, engineer, and industrialist. Founder and CEO of Stark Industries…"
"Only son Tony Stark, current chairman and CEO of Stark Industries, the wealthiest man in the world…"
He wiped his traces as always before shutting the machine, then headed uptown.
He meant to pay Tony Stark a visit—see if the man knew anything about the Tesseract. But his immediate destination wasn't Stark Industries. It was the opposite number: Oscorp—the company owned by Harry Osborn's father and funding Dr. Octavius's fusion work.
He hadn't gotten enough from the CIA or the Squid-Man about Oscorp's human experiments. Time to go himself.
"Human experimentation. Serum. Super-soldier…"
Murmuring the words, Batman slipped into Oscorp's headquarters.