Chapter 319: You Used My Concern Against Me, Batman
"I've already filed a full report with S.H.I.E.L.D. A transport aircraft will be here within twenty-four hours to take custody of the primitives."
Nathan Garrett removed his helmet and smiled at Police Chief George Stacy. With the black armor still on his shoulders and the helmet tucked under his arm, he looked less like a man who had spent the last hour hunting dinosaurs from horseback and more like someone who had just stepped out of a board meeting.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.?" George Stacy let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and extended his hand. "I know one of your colleagues, actually."
"Agent Coulson?" Garrett shifted his helmet to his other arm and shook the offered hand. "He's the one who came up with the name. Before that, our official designation was long enough to make your eyes glaze over."
"Couldn't agree more," George Stacy said, and for the first time in hours he almost smiled.
The contrast wasn't lost on him. Batman operated from shadows and silence — George Stacy still wasn't certain of the man's actual appearance, let alone his name, species, or anything else. Garrett had ridden a winged horse through the canyons of midtown in full view of every NYPD helicopter in the air, put down every dinosaur he encountered, and then walked through the precinct's front door and introduced himself by name. Whatever George Stacy's reservations about S.H.I.E.L.D. in the abstract, he knew which type of ally he preferred.
"The dinosaur carcasses are another matter," Garrett continued, his tone shifting to something more businesslike. "I handled everything I encountered, but the cleanup is beyond one person. More importantly, those animals came from a world tens of thousands of years removed from the present. There's a real possibility they're carrying pathogens — viruses, bacteria — that no living immune system has ever encountered."
George Stacy straightened slightly.
"My recommendation is to get personnel on the streets as quickly as possible and collect every carcass before they start decomposing in the open air. When the transport arrives tomorrow, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s specialists can run full containment and analysis."
George Stacy gripped Garrett's hand with both of his and shook it firmly.
"We owe you for today. Without your intervention, we'd have been fighting those things street by street."
Garrett accepted this with a modest tilt of his head and placed a hand briefly on the Chief's shoulder.
"Think nothing of it." He paused, letting a beat pass. "There is one other matter I've been following, while I have you — Batman has been operating in New York for roughly two months. He's on the NYPD's wanted list. Has your department had any direct contact with him?"
George Stacy had no reason to be guarded with a man who had just spent an hour saving his city on horseback. He gave Garrett everything he knew — the encounters, the patterns, the incident at Ryker's, the night they had spoken face to face. Garrett listened without interrupting, occasionally asking a precise follow-up question, his expression attentive throughout.
When George Stacy finished, he added his own assessment.
"I met him once, directly. Whatever his identity, whatever his motives — everything he's done has stayed within limits. He's controllable. It might be worth S.H.I.E.L.D. making contact rather than treating him as a straight enforcement problem."
Garrett nodded slowly.
"That's actually why I was sent to New York. Making that contact is the assignment." He let that settle, then shifted. "One more thing — a few days ago, Batman was apparently searching for a woman. Broke bones on over a hundred criminals in the process."
"That's accurate."
"Would it be possible to speak with some of those men? The ones who were arrested?"
"Not a problem." George Stacy reached for his phone. "Most of them ended up at Ryker's. I can arrange transport."
Garrett smiled and gestured at his armor.
"I don't think I'm going to need a car."
---
On Bat Island, the Lizard Professor was still wearing his reptilian form, stretched out near the red T-Rex in the afternoon quiet.
"What do we do with this one?" he asked, nodding toward the enormous carcass of the giant horned T-Rex.
It was thoroughly dead. Had been for some time.
"You brought it back," Batman said. "What were you thinking when you did?"
It was the Lizard Professor's kill. Batman had enough respect for that to ask before deciding anything.
"I wanted to taste it," the Lizard Professor said, his forked tongue flickering. "See what it's like."
Batman was quiet for a moment.
"Tyrannosaurus meat — especially the large muscles — would have a coarse fiber structure. Something like turkey."
The Lizard Professor's expression soured immediately.
"Never mind, then."
A pause.
"Wait. How would you know what it tastes like?"
Batman gave him a single look, turned, and walked away without answering.
---
SPLASH.
When Batman reached the island's shoreline, the water broke open and the Batmobile surfaced beside him, water sheeting off its hull as it settled.
He had gone into the fight with the Hulk fully expecting to write the vehicle off. The plan had accounted for it — the Batmobile as a deployable weapon in the final stage, expended in the effort. But the infrasound frequencies that had been driving the Hulk's aggression had been neutralized by the vehicle's own sonic countermeasures before any of that became necessary. The Hulk had calmed. The Batmobile had survived intact.
Batman climbed aboard.
Antarctic vibranium.
The words surfaced again as the vehicle shifted into underwater mode and slid beneath the surface, moving through the dark water toward the East River's tributary channels beneath Manhattan. Hawkeye had passed that intelligence from Yokohama before the connection deteriorated — the Yami Kaze Group, Kenji Oyama, adamantium sourced from Antarctica. The implications were still unresolved.
Fourteen minutes later, the Batmobile surfaced inside the drainage system beneath Stark Tower, and Batman rode it up.
---
Tony Stark was horizontal on his penthouse couch, still wearing the undershirt from beneath the Mark IV, staring at the ceiling with the specific expression of someone who had been through too much to process it sequentially.
"JARVIS, get me a cheeseburger."
Then he registered the figure stepping into the room and revised.
"Two. And a coffee."
"Of course, Mr. Stark," JARVIS replied.
Batman stopped in front of the couch and looked down at him.
"For the next several days after an adrenaline injection, you should avoid caffeine."
Tony Stark's whole body flinched at the low voice. He pointed upward without sitting up.
"I ordered it for you!"
"I don't drink coffee."
"I don't drink coffee," Tony repeated, pitching his voice low and flat in an exaggerated imitation. "Come off it, Peter. I know who you are. How are you still doing the whole brooding statue routine?"
"Tony Stark." Batman's voice dropped another register. "I'm speaking with you as Batman right now. Not as Peter Parker."
Tony Stark sat up slightly and studied the exposed jaw beneath the mask with an uncertain expression.
"You fired anti-armor missiles into the Baxter Building," Batman said. "You also used a directed energy weapon to destroy an NYPD helicopter."
He held Tony's gaze.
"Both were avoidable. You made different choices."
Tony opened his mouth.
"I'm not here to argue responsibility with you. I'm here because you need to think about the next problem: how does Iron Man explain what Iron Man did today?"
Tony Stark sat all the way up. He raised two fingers in a peace sign, then folded one of them down deliberately.
"First — you absolute bastard. You broadcast on an open channel sounding like you were reciting your own last rites, told me you were Peter Parker, told me I'd be there in two minutes." He stopped. "I could have found a subtler way into the Baxter Building. I had options. But by that point I wasn't thinking about options."
He looked at Batman directly.
"You used my concern for you against me, Batman."
A beat.
"Second — at dawn, I'm holding a press conference. I'll explain everything publicly."
---
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