Chapter 356
Black Widow thought Batman had finally succumbed to physical contact with her. The handcuffs, she assumed, were for some kind of stimulating game.
She'd already begun planning her next moves—when to escalate the stimulation, when to remove the metal mask from her face, which position would give her the best angle to subdue him.
Black Widow knew the hallucinations she saw whenever she tried removing the mask were Batman's doing. She didn't believe he would maintain those fear-inducing effects even during something like this.
Whatever was generating the hallucinations would have to be temporarily disabled at that point. And that would be the perfect moment for Black Widow to deploy her true training as an operative.
What she didn't know was that while Batman had never had intimate contact with any woman since arriving in this universe, before his crossing he'd had considerable experience—both in quality and quantity. Catwoman Selina, Gotham socialite Silver St. Cloud, even fellow superheroes like Zatanna and Wonder Woman Diana.
Combined with Batman's unshakeable willpower, there was no possibility that Black Widow's physical maneuvers alone could seduce him.
In fact, Batman was actively exploiting her attempt at seduction.
"Clint? Hawkeye?"
Black Widow froze.
Indeed, the moment she heard that name, her formerly boneless, fluid body went rigid.
If the reports about Batman and Hawkeye reaching some kind of cooperation were true, then Hawkeye must have completed his mission and returned from Japan by now.
And if Batman was taking her to the Empire State Building to meet Hawkeye, did that mean their SHIELD operation had completely failed?
Black Widow's body locked up for only an instant, but Batman caught it clearly.
"Drop the act, Natasha," Batman said, his voice low.
Before Black Widow could respond, Batman pressed a button on his Arkham suit, remotely opening the rear compartment of the Batmobile.
At the same time, he placed his palm against Black Widow's abdomen and applied precise pressure.
Even though Peter Parker's body possessed far more physical strength than Batman had wielded in Gotham, his refined control meant the strike caused Black Widow no injury. It simply propelled her backward.
Under the carefully calibrated force—intended to move rather than harm—Black Widow's body flew through the air, crossing several meters before landing unceremoniously in the Batmobile's rear compartment.
CLANG.
The instant Black Widow dropped into the seat, the compartment door slammed shut with a metallic bang. Batman vaulted into the driver's seat simultaneously.
With a massive roar from the engine, the Batmobile's blood-red taillights vanished rapidly into the darkness.
Only after the engine's rumble faded completely and the air turbulence from the Batmobile's passage finally settled did Venom Robin turn his gaze away from the tunnel.
Not counting the four sleepers on the Batcave's second level—Harry Osborn, General Ross, Abomination Blonsky, and the Leader Samuel Sterns—Venom Robin was alone again.
With Batman gone, Venom Robin's first instinct was to sprint to the workbench cabinets. His long tongue unfurled, wrapping around a massive pile of chocolate and hauling it toward his mouth.
This was one of his favorite activities. The chocolate Batman had specially designed and manufactured for him contained vastly higher concentrations of phenylethylamine than commercial varieties—Venom Robin's absolute favorite substance.
Previously, Venom Robin would devour it without thought, losing himself completely in the consumption.
But this time, he froze with chocolate still unchewed in his mouth.
A troubling thought occurred to Venom Robin: "Besides last night when I needed to summon that bird-god Khonshu, have I been becoming less and less useful to the old Bat?"
The thought made his stomach clench with anxiety. He rapidly reviewed the past several days' events.
Since returning from New Mexico, Batman's operations had proceeded identically whether Venom Robin was present or not.
Apart from being stung by Wasp at Pym Technologies and producing offspring—which hardly counted as a contribution—Venom Robin had played virtually no meaningful role in any of Batman's plans.
He chewed the chocolate a few more times. What should have been supreme delicacy tasted like dirt in his mouth.
"Do I know too little?" Venom Robin asked himself.
The answer came in half a second: absolutely yes.
Compared to Batman, even though Venom Robin had once bonded with him and retained fragments of his memories, his knowledge base remained pathetically limited.
Just two days ago, when Batman had hacked Manhattan's signal towers, cellular stations, harbor docks, and subway systems—linking them together to transform Manhattan into one massive Faraday cage—Venom Robin knew he could never have accomplished that.
Even if he could hack into the ships at the harbor docks, he had no idea how to actually operate those massive vessels, much less arrange them in a precise line along the waterfront.
And that represented just one of Batman's most basic capabilities.
"I don't want to learn all that complicated networking and technology stuff," Venom Robin rationalized. "Not that I couldn't learn it if I tried."
As a former symbiote and current avatar of the Moon God, Venom Robin instinctively preferred solving problems with his fists.
"Maybe I should clarify my direction. None of the Robins in my memories truly inherited all of Batman's abilities. Even Nightwing, when he served as Batman for a while, couldn't reach one hundred percent."
Venom Robin "recalled" the memory fragments of Batman stored in his mind.
"What if I completely abandoned those complex disciplines and focused on being Batman's assistant... or more accurately, his enforcer?"
"That way Batman could plan from the rear while I executed in the field. Wouldn't that work better?"
Venom Robin imagined the scenario—Batman issuing commands, himself attacking on cue, the two of them operating with perfect synchronization. He tilted his neck back and swallowed the barely-chewed chocolate in one gulp, nodding with self-satisfaction.
"That's what I'll do."
At the top of the Empire State Building, Black Widow successfully removed the metal mask from her face.
Besides her, two men stood on the observation deck.
One was Hawkeye Clint Barton. Black Widow knew him as well as anyone—he'd been her partner for nearly a decade.
Though his stance seemed off, as if his leg had been injured, and he reeked of disinfectant, Black Widow wasn't concerned. As long as the damage wasn't irreversible, SHIELD had sufficient medical resources to heal him.
What drew Black Widow's attention was the figure standing some distance from Clint, half his body shrouded in shadow.
His eyes glowed faintly white in the darkness. The massive cape, the pointed ears, the exposed jaw—everything proclaimed his identity.
Batman.