Chapter 407: Mutual Suspicion
Batman did not make threats in front of Aunt May. He did not move aggressively. He crossed the room quickly and positioned himself near her without making the gesture obvious -- his body angled to place her behind him -- then produced a handkerchief and handed it to her gently.
"Aunt May. What happened?"
His voice was quiet and entirely Peter's. Every other fraction of his attention belonged to the man across the room.
Aunt May didn't let strangers into her home casually. She would have confirmed something before opening the door -- identity, a familiar name, something that had satisfied her. That did not mean Batman was satisfied.
The man was sitting on the sofa in a posture that read as relaxed. It wasn't. His weight was shifted toward one side, the distribution of a person who could be on their feet in a fraction of a second without telegraphing the intent. His hands rested in his lap. The fingers were long, the skin deeply weathered -- but no scars. Not a mark on them, despite the calluses that should have come with the same history that produced them. His eyes were amber, the pupils slightly contracted in the indoor light, the iris catching the lamp the way a cat's does.
The spider-sense said nothing. Batman's instincts said something else entirely. This was the most dangerous person he had walked into a room with since crossing into this world.
"Sweetheart, I'm fine -- I just got to thinking about your father. And Ben." Aunt May patted Batman's arm lightly and turned to make the introduction. "This is Logan. He was a friend of your father's."
"A friend?" Batman let a thread of easy curiosity into his voice -- Peter's register, natural and unhurried. "He never mentioned you."
"Your dad and I go back a long way," Logan said. His voice was low, textured, carrying the particular flatness of someone who is accustomed to not explaining themselves. "Before you were born. Richard and I crossed paths years back. He even talked about having me as your godfather."
It sounded like someone establishing a social connection. Batman knew it wasn't that simple.
He kept his expression neutral and stood, moving toward Logan with his hand extended.
"Peter Parker. Thanks for coming to see us."
Logan extinguished the cigar against the edge of the table and rose to meet him. They shook hands.
In the same instant, both of them noticed something wrong with the other.
Logan's grip was extraordinary -- a crushing pressure behind it, the kind that didn't announce itself but simply existed. The calluses across his palm were deep, layered. But what actually registered with Batman was the moment he applied a measured counter-pressure and found that Logan's finger bones did not move. At all. Not a micron of give. It was like pressing against solid steel construction -- not the resistance of dense muscle and heavy bone, but something qualitatively different. Batman was not at full strength, not making a serious effort to demonstrate anything, but the experience was jarring enough that a reference point formed immediately in his mind: it was closest to the feeling of an arm-wrestling match with Superman Clark with no preparation and no leverage.
Logan's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
He had noticed something too. The grip strength, and the thumb positioned precisely over his pulse point.
They released simultaneously. Nothing in the exchange had been visible to Aunt May.
"You look like your mother," Logan said, letting a short pause buffer the handshake. "Martha. But your eyes are your father's."
"People say that." Batman let a small smile come and go. He sat down. "Aunt May talks about my parents. She never mentioned you, though."
"Richard didn't tell me everything either. He had his own things he kept to himself." Logan settled back onto the sofa.
"Logan." Batman let the name land naturally. "Would you tell me about him? I never got much time with him. I don't know nearly enough."
Logan began to talk.
The story he told was constructed with reasonable care. He had been working at a logging operation, gotten into trouble, and Richard and Martha Parker had been passing through and pulled him out of it. He described Martha as already pregnant at the time. He said Richard had offered him the godfather arrangement as a gesture of gratitude, and that he'd turned it down because he was young and wanted to keep moving. He said he'd found an old photograph recently and it had brought them back to him.
The account was internally consistent. When Batman asked about specific dates, specific locations, the exact shape of particular conversations, Logan had answers. He never hesitated in a way that suggested fabrication pressure.
Batman had researched the Parker family with the thoroughness he brought to any intelligence task that bore directly on his operational security. Richard and Mary Parker had been CIA field operatives who died on assignment. Their documented history did not intersect with logging operations, chance rescues, or the kind of social orbit that would produce a godfather relationship with a man like Logan.
The entire story was false from the first sentence.
Aunt May had relaxed fully by now. She found her moment and excused herself to start dinner, leaving the two men in the sitting room.
Dinner was roast chicken and mashed potatoes. Logan ate substantially and complimented the food without exaggeration. Aunt May was pleased. Batman maintained Peter's easy table manner throughout and asked several more questions about a younger Richard Parker, which Logan answered with consistent fabrications.
The atmosphere was pleasant on the surface.
Under it, both men were reading each other continuously and saying nothing about what they were finding.
After the meal, Batman cleared the dishes. Aunt May walked Logan to the front door.
"Thank you for coming to see us," she said. "Peter doesn't get many chances to hear about his father."
"Of course." Logan paused, produced a folded slip of paper from his jacket, and held it out. "My number. If there's ever anything you need -- anything at all."
Aunt May's eyes reddened slightly as she took it.
Batman arrived at the door just as Logan turned.
"Peter."
Batman looked at him.
"Take your aunt back inside. It's cold out here." A pause. "I'd like a word with you. Just the two of us."
Batman nodded, guided Aunt May back in with a few reassuring words, told her he wouldn't be back tonight, and let the door close behind him.
He and Logan walked.
Two hours in the November wind, out of Forest Hills and across the borough, neither of them speaking except in the neutral currency of men who are not yet ready to say what they mean. They ended up in an open stretch of ground fronting a decommissioned hospital -- the kind of space where a fight could develop in multiple directions without immediately involving bystanders.
The distance between them had been expanding with each block, the natural drift of two people adjusting their spacing without acknowledging why. By the time they stopped, there was enough room to move.
Logan's face had lost the social layer entirely. What was underneath it was not angry, exactly. It was something colder and more deliberate.
"You look like the Parkers," he said. "But you're not their son."
Batman held his gaze.
"There are holes in everything you told me tonight," he said. "Every answer you gave me, Logan." He shed his coat and set it aside. "What's your real objective? And how did you find this address?"
Logan pulled a cigar from his jacket, got it to his lips, and then -- hearing Batman's questions -- folded it deliberately between his fingers and dropped it. A cold smile.
"You Raven? Or are you connected to her somehow?"
"I don't know anyone called Raven."
"Then I guess we find out the other way," Logan said.
He dropped to all fours and came at Batman like something that had never needed to learn how to move.
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