Huff... huff...
At one in the morning, Ant-Man sat alone on the rooftop of the Pym Technologies building, gasping for breath. He stared into the vast darkness of the night, his eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and rage.
A flying ant flew out from inside the building—it was Anthony VIII.
Ant-Man irritably scratched his ear before reaching out and precisely plucking the ant from the air. With a slight squeeze of his fingers, he crushed the flying ant that had fought by his side for two nights, leaving nothing but a wet splat.
Buzz, buzz, buzz... Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, flew out from the building's interior. She had just finished relocating the remaining Pym Particles and cleaning up the residue from the smoke grenades and the shattered glass from the skylight.
As she reached the roof, she witnessed Ant-Man crushing the ant. The Wasp frowned slightly, then sat down beside him.
"Are you angry?" she asked. "Everything is proceeding according to plan. Although some parts exceeded our expectations—like the loss of a vial of Pym Particles..."
The Wasp's attempt at comfort backfired. The moment she mentioned the stolen Pym Particles, the resentment boiling in Ant-Man's chest finally erupted. He turned and roared at her:
"So you call this 'proceeding according to plan'?!"
"Hank?" Janet said softly. She had never seen Ant-Man this furious before.
Ant-Man shook his head. He wiped his fingers—stained with the fluids of Anthony VIII—against the ground to clean them. He stood up and began walking back toward the interior of the Pym Tech building.
"I'm sorry, Janet."
"Originally, I only intended to follow Nick Fury's plan step by step. But now that my own interests are at stake, I've decided to join the hunt for Batman myself."
The Wasp turned her head, watching as Ant-Man jumped back down through the skylight. She pursed her lips but said nothing.
A few minutes later, the Wasp connected to an encrypted channel with S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury.
"Director Fury, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent codenamed Black Widow has been successfully taken by Batman. We can proceed to the next phase of the plan."
"Sounds like good news, Little Wasp," Nick Fury's steady, powerful voice crackled over the encrypted line. "The subsequent 'Project Owl' no longer requires the involvement of the Ant-Man pair."
The Wasp shook her head, lowering her voice.
"With all due respect, Director Fury, regarding this 'Project Owl' you mentioned... I have yet to see a single agent contact us. And more importantly... a vial of Pym Particles was stolen. Ant-Man has now decided to join the team hunting Batman."
"What!" Fury's voice jumped an octave. "What do you mean 'no one has contacted you' for Project Owl?"
"The facts are the facts." The Wasp rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on from Fury's sudden shouting.
"..."
On the other side of the encrypted line, aboard the Helicarrier, Nick Fury fell silent for several seconds.
"I understand, Little Wasp," Fury said finally before cutting the connection.
The Wasp blinked in confusion, wondering exactly what it was that Fury understood.
Meanwhile, on the Helicarrier located in an undisclosed sector of the ocean.
"Agent Hill," Nick Fury called out toward the area outside the Command Center.
Agent Hill, whose tall stature nearly matched Fury's own six-foot-one frame, pushed open the door to the Command Center.
"To prevent any equipment carried by Hawkeye from being compromised by Batman, we haven't initiated any contact with him since we dropped him in New York."
Fury stared at Hill with his one good eye.
"According to our plan, Hawkeye was supposed to search for Black Widow while simultaneously investigating Batman, thereby 'accidentally' exposing Ant-Man's existence."
"Regardless of whether Batman is Hydra or not, the plan dictated he would attempt to rescue Black Widow, which would smoothly transition us into the next phase of Project Owl."
Hill frowned slightly. "Director, what exactly are you trying to say?"
Fury's face remained an unreadable mask.
"What I'm saying is that Black Widow has successfully infiltrated Batman's side, but our 'Owl' has gone missing."
Hill looked at Fury in stunned silence.
"?"
It was Hill's turn to be speechless for several seconds. She opened her mouth several times, but no words came out.
However, Fury didn't seem to have any emotional reaction to Hawkeye's failure to follow the plan.
"A day ago, the 'Daywalker' secretly provided me with some intel."
Hill nodded. "According to the schedule, he should be heading to New York in the next few days. What was his intel?"
Fury replied, "There is a ronin dressed in samurai attire and wielding a katana who has been carrying out a massacre against the Dark Wind Group in Yokohama, Japan. The Daywalker plans to meet him, even delaying his trip to New York by a few days."
"As far as I know, everyone that ronin killed was a member of the Dark Wind Group secretly involved in human trafficking." Hill nodded; she was aware of this report. "You suspect the ronin is Hawkeye?"
"Correct," Fury said.
"How do we verify this?" Hill asked.
"There's no need to verify," Fury stated. "We initially targeted Batman because we considered his existence a major threat and because there's a high probability he's a member of Hydra."
"Now that Black Widow has successfully made contact with Batman, we only need to leak a single piece of false information."
Hill stared into the Director's eye for a few seconds, then nodded and turned to walk out of the Command Center.
Late night in New York, at a triangular block where Broadway and Fifth Avenue intersect.
Standing there is a twenty-two-story triangular building, a landmark favored by many foreign tourists: the Flatiron Building.
On the rooftop of the Flatiron Building, a massive, pitch-black spiderweb was spread out. Black Widow was currently positioned at the very center of this web. Her limbs were tightly bound by silk, leaving her lying flat on her back in a spread-eagle position.
"What did you do to me?"
As a cold breeze blew past, Black Widow struggled to turn her head, trying to find Batman's silhouette. However, her head was also stuck to the webbing, allowing only the slightest movement. There was no sign of Batman in her field of vision.
Not only were her limbs bound, but her entire body felt limp and devoid of strength. Even her tongue felt heavy, causing her to speak with a slight slur.
"I ask, you answer."
Batman's voice drifted from her side like a phantom. Black Widow looked toward the source of the sound, but she saw nothing but darkness.
"What do you want to ask?" Black Widow took a few deep breaths, subtly causing her chest to rise and fall in an alluring curve.
"Is the Hydra agent locked in cell D-4 still alive?" Batman asked in a low, gravelly voice.
Black Widow's pupils dilated instantly. She could hardly believe what she had just heard.
D-4! Only a tiny fraction of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents knew that the code for The Cube prison was D-4.
And among that tiny group, the number of people who knew that Black Widow had once used a real Hydra agent to transmit data regarding the Tesseract—and subsequently locked him away in The Cube—could be counted on one hand!
"Are you a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?" Black Widow asked urgently.
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