Chapter 62: Harry Osborn's Mental Issues
Late night, Hell's Kitchen.
Unlike the quiet serenity inside Parker Industries in Brooklyn's industrial district where Batman currently resided.
Also unlike other Manhattan areas belonging to Hell's Kitchen where squad cars roared and sirens wailed continuously.
Here in a football field—trash everywhere, vegetation overgrown, sewage and excrement visible throughout—a buzzing mass of over three hundred gang members with various criminal records had gathered.
Their crimes ranged from murder, arson, robbery, theft, fraud... They came from different places—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens—even beyond New York, beyond America.
Hell's Kitchen itself was Manhattan's slum. Immigration, ethnic conflicts, poverty made crime rates extraordinarily high here. Over three hundred people with records weren't even all of Hell's Kitchen.
They'd all once obeyed Kingpin. Besides original driver Walker, intelligence specialist Scorpion Mac, chief assassin Bullseye Lester, and engineer-inventor Turk, they formed the relatively core components of Kingpin's gang.
But now Black Cat had assembled them here. This young woman who'd only recently gained Kingpin's trust stood with one foot on Bullseye Lester, watching people below discussing in low voices.
With Kingpin sent to the precinct, his gang members had planned to return to their previous small groups and gangs. But Black Cat's summons left them scratching their heads.
Black Cat looked at this group—chaotic without Kingpin. She knew she couldn't let them scatter throughout Hell's Kitchen. She had to organize them like Batman said, then have police net them all.
But not tonight. Manhattan precinct holding cells were almost completely full. Criminals were queuing to surrender in batches.
The precinct couldn't spare energy tonight to arrest these Hell's Kitchen folks. Black Cat had to stabilize them first.
"Look at your dejected appearances. Kingpin's in the precinct, but he already anticipated this situation. He'll be out eventually. Until then, I'm managing the gang in his place."
Black Cat borrowed authority, doing her utmost to deceive this group with criminal records:
"Bullseye wanted to quit the gang, so he ended up like this."
She lifted the foot on Bullseye, then heavily stomped down. Crack!
One of Bullseye's ribs broke under Black Cat's foot.
"Mmph!"
Bullseye woke from pain. He instinctively wanted to scream, but the towel Black Cat had stuffed in his mouth blocked it completely. He could only emit weak muffled sounds.
"Anyone wanting to quit can speak up now."
Crack!
Another rib broke. The broken bone pierced internal organs. Bullseye's eyes turned completely red from blood congestion. But bound by both webbing and rope, he couldn't resist—could only watch helplessly as Black Cat's third stomp descended.
This time she stomped his palm.
Each time Black Cat stomped, these assembled gang members' hearts jumped involuntarily. Their eyes flickered—not daring to look directly at Black Cat.
Black Cat showed no mercy. Bullseye Lester was the direct murderer of her father Black Fox. If she didn't need him to intimidate these gang members, Black Cat would have already killed him.
But judging from her current stomping intensity, even if Bullseye survived he'd become a vegetable, spending the rest of his life bedridden.
"If no one speaks, I'll assume no one's quitting, yes?" Black Cat kicked Bullseye aside with her final stomp. "Don't cause me any trouble recently, or Kingpin won't spare you after prison release."
Black Cat used Bullseye Lester to scare off those wanting to opportunistically leave the gang—as if that could erase their criminal pasts—while continuing to bluff using Kingpin's name.
Under her two-pronged approach, Kingpin's gang members indeed didn't quit. Each obedient like little lambs.
"What a shame."
After dispersing them, Black Cat sighed somewhat regretfully.
She'd thought someone would jump out opposing her, then she could defeat them with her skills to further suppress this group.
Black Cat felt somewhat powerless facing chief assassin Bullseye, but handling these ordinary people was more than sufficient. Unfortunately, they gave her no opportunity.
"Perhaps I should find methods to enhance my strength. At minimum, possess some medium-to-long-range attack capabilities. Otherwise facing enemies like Bullseye again will be quite passive."
"Batman can't save me every time."
Returning to Kingpin's sixteen-story building, Black Cat sat in Kingpin's chair, palm against forehead, thinking.
Bullseye Lester lay motionless on the floor nearby.
...
"Project Pegasus, a top-tier research project led by SHIELD. Participants include the U.S. Air Force and aerospace agency. Research theme: the Tesseract."
"The plan originated from Tony's father Howard Stark salvaging the Tesseract from the Arctic."
"This plan directly led to America's rapid technological development. SHIELD's sky carrier could be built thanks to this plan."
Inside Parker Industries in Brooklyn's industrial district, Batman continued planning research using paper and pen.
This was his most focused plan. SHIELD's research direction for the Cube was energy, but Batman's future research direction would be its possible "teleportation" capabilities.
Red Skull and Captain America both vanished. Batman highly suspected the Tesseract might possess such abilities.
Most critically, from materials investigated within SHIELD's interior, Project Pegasus's research base was in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
Before Parker Industries developed into Parker Corporation, Batman could even attempt infiltrating with a false identity for close contact with the Tesseract.
"The final Project S.W.O.R.D. was established based on Project Pegasus. According to data, aliens also exist in this world. Current Director Nick Fury contacted them before becoming Director."
"Last year—2005—after Nick Fury became Director, he established Project S.W.O.R.D. Research direction: interstellar threat monitoring and response, monitoring extraterrestrial threats."
"But current research progress still remains at the space flight stage."
Unlike Project Goliath which couldn't be contacted temporarily, subsequent Projects Pegasus and S.W.O.R.D. both clearly indicated aliens existed in this world.
In a sense, Batman—whose soul didn't belong here—also counted as "alien."
"I need to calculate this world's underlying physical rules and mathematical foundational structures to determine whether this world and my original world exist within the same physical framework."
"Thus judging whether I'm in the same universe on different planets, or parallel worlds in different universes."
Again igniting flames to burn all these paper sheets covered in writing to ashes, Batman gathered the ashes together, left Parker Industries, and dumped them into sewers.
Dawn had broken slightly. Batman purchased a Daily Bugle, sitting in a taxi reading while heading toward Osborn Manor.
He needed to visit Harry Osborn as Peter Parker.
Having experienced family corporation collapse plus father Norman murdering and imprisoned—two events sufficient to devastate ordinary people—Batman had to visit him, preventing Harry from developing any psychological problems.
Gotham had too many super villains born from family upheavals. Batman didn't want New York gaining another one.