In an apartment on the seventeenth floor of a building just over four hundred meters from the Queens precinct, in a unit with windows facing the station.
A sniper rifle fitted with a suppressor extended its barrel through the curtains, aimed directly at the Queens precinct.
"Brock" Rumlow slowly adjusted the muzzle, aligning the crosshairs of the scope with the interrogation room holding Eddie Brock.
Typical interrogation rooms were designed to heighten a suspect's psychological pressure, usually sealed tight with no windows.
But lately, Batman had flooded the precincts in Queens and Manhattan with criminals, and Black Cat had teamed up with the police to round up the remnants of Kingpin's crew in one fell swoop.
Then, two nights ago, an incident at the FEAST shelter had led to every member being hauled in as a suspect for individual questioning.
This left the Queens precinct short on rooms, forcing them to repurpose some with windows as temporary interrogation spaces.
The room where Eddie Brock was being held happened to have a bright window.
At that moment, though, Eddie Brock was seated near the door, being questioned by Officer Bulko, and was out of the crosshairs.
"Come on, come on…"
Brock Rumlow muttered impatiently under his breath.
For a world-class mercenary like him, a veteran Hydra enforcer and master combatant, silently eliminating a washed-up reporter who'd lost his job and status should have been child's play.
But five full days had passed since he'd received the order, relayed through layers from General Ross.
Eddie Brock had spent three days at the bustling FEAST shelter, and now he'd been locked up in the precinct for a day and a half.
Time was dragging on too long. Brock Rumlow had no intention of wasting any more on this reporter.
He had matters a million times more important to attend to. Black Widow was already in position at Hydra's Adirondack Mountains base in New York, yet here he was, still staking out this nobody.
Rather than wait for a safer moment—when Eddie left the precinct—to take him out, Rumlow opted for the direct approach: a single shot from four hundred meters to send him to meet his maker.
Thump, thump.
Brock Rumlow's heartbeat remained steady, unchanging even as Eddie Brock's figure finally appeared in the scope after finishing his interrogation.
He'd carried out countless similar missions for Hydra. Killing to silence someone was routine for Crossbones.
In the crosshairs, Eddie Brock's figure moved slowly. Crossbones Rumlow saw Eddie's mouth opening and closing, as if speaking to someone.
But the interrogation was over. The only person Eddie Brock could be talking to was himself.
Crossbones Rumlow didn't dwell on it. He calculated wind speed, gravity, and every variable that could affect the bullet's trajectory, then pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Four hundred meters was nothing for a sniper rifle—especially one of Stark Industries' cutting-edge models. It wouldn't even take half a second.
The bullet struck exactly as Crossbones Rumlow intended. Eddie Brock staggered back two steps, his face frozen in disbelief.
The next second, Crossbones stared through the scope and couldn't help but curse:
"Fuck! What the hell is that?"
In the crosshairs, Eddie Brock's figure vanished, replaced by a creature several times larger than the reporter. Its pearl-white body was slick and smooth, streaked with irregular black patterns, its face dominated by a black mask.
One shot missed its mark. Crossbones Rumlow swiftly retracted the rifle, no longer watching the target.
He'd seen clearly through the scope that the thing had transformed from Eddie Brock. That was no longer a threat he could handle alone.
"Is General Ross a fucking idiot? What kind of reporter is this? This is a goddamn monster! …Could the Batman everyone in New York's been buzzing about be him?"
Crossbones Rumlow's hands moved like lightning, disassembling the sniper rifle into parts and stuffing them into a guitar case. Without alerting anyone, he slipped out of the apartment and headed toward Hydra's Adirondack Mountains base.
Inside the Queens precinct, Eddie Brock had been evasive during questioning, claiming he didn't know anything. He kept feeling something noisy in his head, drowning out his ability to focus on the questions.
But after Officer Bulko, who'd been interrogating him, left, Eddie Brock gradually made out the voice in his mind:
"Accept me. Let us become one. Go kill that idiot!"
"Kill who?" Eddie asked, wincing with a headache, keeping his voice low.
"Venom! Kill Venom, kill the idiot who abandoned you!" the voice in his head snarled. "I can feel the hatred in your heart—your rage at Venom, who gave you power one moment and ditched you the next, burns hotter than anything else…"
"Let's go kill him!"
"Who are you—?" Eddie's question was cut off as he suddenly felt something wrong with his body.
He couldn't breathe. His lungs had been shredded into a spongy mess by the sniper bullet's impact.
Fragments of his organs sprayed from the fist-sized exit wound in his chest, blood sucked into the cavity by negative pressure.
In less than a second, Eddie Brock was about to collapse, never to rise again.
But in that fraction of a second, a flood of pearl-white symbiote matter surged from within him, rapidly enveloping his entire body.
The bullet-torn chest cavity healed at blinding speed. Eddie Brock's eyes, once dull and gray, sparked back to life. The symbiote fully encased him.
"Who am I?" The creature, white as its base with irregular black streaks across its surface and a pitch-black face, grinned wide. "I am Anti-Venom."
"Oh? So our philanthropist Peter Parker finally has his eye on my Jericho missile, huh? Wants a piece of the pie?"
Earlier, Tony Stark had tried to bring Peter Parker into the missile investment as a "friend," only to be coldly rejected by Batman.
Now, Batman's first words were about the missile, making Tony instinctively sneer at the guy's flip-flopping.
Tony's words were laced with barbs, showing no intention of sparing Batman's feelings.
He even had JARVIS turn on the TV and crank up the volume to ignore him.
Batman stared straight at Tony Stark, unfazed by the biting remarks or the dismissal. His voice remained calm:
"No. I was inspired by your Jericho missile."
"What?" Tony tilted his head, baffled about what kind of inspiration Peter Parker could draw from a missile.
"You said your new missile is a cluster munition, designed for saturation strikes on a target area, right?" Batman said. "Its design must be incredibly precise. No one else in the world could build it but you."
"Exactly. It's my pride and joy," Tony said with a grin.
Stark was smiling, but Batman wasn't. His expression was deadly serious, as if discussing an academic problem:
"But that got me thinking about a more fundamental issue. If a weapon this precise relies on the perfect coordination of every warhead…"
"Then the reliability of even a single component becomes critical, doesn't it?"
Tony was no longer slouched on the couch. He sat up straight.
He didn't buy that Peter Parker—a kid juggling school and running Parker Industries—had time to drop by for a philosophy debate:
"Of course. Even the strongest fortress needs top-tier gates. What's your point, Peter?"
Batman smiled, as if he'd truly come as a friend to chat with Tony Stark:
"You know how it is. Once someone learns hacking, they can't resist targeting government systems for the thrill of it."
"Same here. Long before I handed that AI model over to you, I hacked into New York's police systems. I still check them now and then for news."
"Hahaha…" Tony cracked up. If they weren't sitting on opposite couches, he'd have slapped Batman's shoulder. "Like when someone hacked the U.S. hydroelectric dam control system last year?"
Batman nodded:
"Exactly. Though that wasn't me."
Tony laughed even harder:
"Of course it wasn't you… That was me."
In just a few sentences, the tension between them melted away. Tony even felt they'd grown closer.
After a good laugh, Tony rubbed his aching cheeks and let the grin fade:
"Peter, just say what you mean. No need to beat around the bush."
"You still haven't told me why you said you came here for the Jericho missile?"
Batman relaxed his facial muscles, making his expression seem earnestly sincere, his voice tinged with a friend's concern:
"Here's the thing. Yesterday, when I hacked into New York's police systems, I found something: the police recently took down the Hell's Kitchen gang led by the infamous Kingpin and seized a cache of weapons."
"Those weapons came from a Stark Industries military factory."
"Tony, there's a problem with Stark Industries. It's no longer under your precise control. You need to halt production and root out the source."
Tony's brows knitted instantly. He could tell Peter Parker was speaking out of genuine concern, wanting to help, so Tony nodded:
"My sales contracts have strict end-user agreements. Some damn middleman or corrupt officer must've screwed it up."
"My legal team will handle it."
Batman leaned forward, locking eyes with Tony Stark, his body language radiating pressure:
"Tony, you need to shut down the factories. At least pause Stark Industries. Your weapons hitting the market isn't simple. You have to thoroughly audit every transaction in the company."
"Shut down? Do you know how much that affects stock prices, how many jobs?"
Tony rejected it outright, as decisively as Batman had turned down the Jericho investment days ago:
"You can't demand I stop doing business as a merchant just because my weapons end up in the wrong hands and hurt people."
"I'm insuring this country's safety with my weapons. I'm working for peace, Peter."
"You're not working for peace, Tony. You're just an arms dealer. Don't hijack morality," Batman said, his voice calm but firm. "The issue now is that your company has a problem…"
At that moment, the TV Tony had turned on earlier blared with breaking news:
"Breaking news: Queens precinct under attack. Eddie Brock, one of the suspects from the FEAST shelter incident two nights ago, transformed into a white monster and vanished. Police found only a sniper bullet at the scene."
"We don't yet know the cause, but there's no doubt the sniper's actions are a declaration of war on the New York Police Department."
Batman and Tony Stark both turned to the screen, which zoomed in on the recovered bullet.
Batman knew instantly it was a Stark Industries round—he'd hacked their systems and could tell.
But he couldn't say it. That would risk exposing his identity as Batman.
He glanced at Tony Stark, who threw up his hands and slumped back on the couch.
Batman said nothing more. He stood and left Stark Tower.
The path of friendly advice was closed.
Batman knew that as "Peter Parker," he was powerless.
Now, it was time for "Batman" to take the stage.
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