"Norman Osborn's hair was clearly flattened—but in every public appearance, he never had a habit of wearing hats."
Batman followed Harry Osborn into Osborn Manor, his eyes calmly sweeping across the entire first-floor drawing room in a single glance.
"Before opening the front door, he was wearing a white work shirt, not pajamas. Judging from the wrinkles, he had been curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket."
Batman's thoughts moved with precision.
"That posture alone couldn't press his hair flat against his scalp. Not like that."
Batman knew this detail better than most.
When he operated in his battle suit, the helmet fit tightly against his head. Every time he removed it, he had to adjust his hair carefully. He never allowed such a detail to slip—because a single oversight could expose his identity.
Norman Osborn, however, had missed it completely.
His hair wasn't just messy.
It was compressed, as if something rigid had been pressed against it for a long time.
To an ordinary person, this would mean nothing—just stress, exhaustion, neglect.
But to Batman, it was as obvious as someone standing in the middle of the room screaming:
"I'm hiding something."
Still, suspicion alone wasn't proof.
At most, it meant one thing—
Norman Osborn had likely worn something on his head recently.
A helmet.
A mask.
Or something similar.
But that alone couldn't prove he was the one who slaughtered the researchers on the third underground floor.
As Batman walked beside Harry through the manor corridors, he casually flicked tiny adhesive listening devices into corners, behind shelves, and beneath decorative fixtures. Each one latched silently into place.
The calming gas he'd used earlier was already wearing off, but Harry Osborn's emotions remained relatively stable—helped, no doubt, by the presence of "Peter Parker."
Batman didn't rush him.
He listened patiently as Harry spoke—rambling at times, repeating thoughts he didn't even realize he was voicing. Batman offered reassurance when needed, gentle responses that fit the role perfectly.
At the manor entrance, Harry stopped.
"Thank you, Peter," he said sincerely. "I feel much better now. You should go to school—or Aunt May will worry."
"I will," Batman replied.
He declined Harry's offer to personally see him off and walked away alone.
After putting some distance between himself and the manor, Batman slipped a miniature earpiece into his ear.
"The listening devices are active," he assessed silently. "Osborn Manor is under surveillance… Harry is currently in his study."
He didn't leave immediately.
Instead, Batman circled back discreetly, retrieved the Batarang that had already dispersed all its sedative gas, and only then departed the area for good.
"There's no real need to attend school," he thought.
"But I do need to show up for exams or assessments."
He paused.
"Not for appearances… but to avoid Aunt May's suspicion."
She was a critical anchor for Peter Parker's identity.
He couldn't afford cracks there.
Batman hailed a taxi and leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes.
"Brooklyn. Stark Tower."
---
Tony Stark had purchased Batman's semi-finished AI model for one hundred million dollars.
A large part of that price wasn't just for the program itself—but for the ideas behind it.
On top of the payment, Tony Stark honored their verbal agreement and hired Batman's newly formed shell company as a technical consultant for Stark Industries.
Until Batman's own business empire was fully established, Peter Parker needed a believable source of income.
For now, "technical consultant" fit perfectly.
"Peter!"
The moment Batman stepped out of the elevator, Tony Stark's voice rang out.
"Thanks to your AI model, JARVIS's learning curve is insane. I'll admit it—you're a little more of a genius than me."
He held up two fingers.
"Just a tiny bit."
"Tony," Batman greeted calmly.
"Drink?" Tony raised his glass.
"I don't drink."
Tony downed it anyway and poured another.
"Then you're missing half of life's joy. But maybe that's why you managed to leapfrog the world in AI without a global war pushing technology forward."
Batman glanced at the dark circles under Tony's eyes—far worse than before.
"I studied several technologies from World War II," Batman said evenly. "Some of them were far ahead of their time."
"This includes work done by your father, Howard Stark."
Tony's expression tightened briefly.
But Batman continued.
"From a technical standpoint, some of his energy concepts were astonishing."
That word caught Tony's attention.
"Energy?" he echoed. "You interested in that field?"
Batman didn't answer.
Tony took it as confirmation.
Clearly eager to reclaim ground after being outdone in AI, Tony pulled Batman toward the elevator again.
They descended to the first basement level.
At the center of the room stood a massive circular structure—electromagnetic coils wrapped around a glowing core that radiated blue-white light.
"This," Tony said proudly, "is the Ark Reactor. A cold fusion design based on my father's blueprints. It can power the entire tower indefinitely—with zero pollution."
Batman studied it closely.
"Stable," he said. "But fragile."
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"I'd prefer a compact, portable energy source," Batman continued. "Something like the square object Howard Stark recovered from the Arctic."
"The newspapers mentioned it once."
"A blue cube."
"There's only one record of it," Batman added calmly. "After that—it vanished."
This was the real purpose of the visit.
From the moment he entered Stark Tower, every step of the conversation had been guided toward this point.
Batman wasn't planning to hack intelligence agencies again anytime soon.
He wanted the information voluntarily.
Tony frowned, rubbing his brow.
"You mean the Tesseract?"
"My father's notes mentioned it… briefly. It was studied by some organization he helped establish."
"What was it called again…"
He thought hard.
"Homeland Strategic Defense… Counterattack… Logistics… something like that."
Before he could finish—
"I am Agent Phil Coulson."
---
In a detention room at a Manhattan Police Station, a man in a gray suit stood calmly before Doctor Otto.
"Otto Gunther Octavius," he said evenly.
"Can we talk?"
And far beyond the walls of New York, something ancient and powerful stirred—
responding to whispers of space and magic.
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