From morning until now I've been to more than thirty law firms—none of them will take a case against Kingpin.
Even the few who were interested backed out after their colleagues talked them down.
For the first time, Batman felt stumped by something.
Whether it was the Justice League infected by Joker's virus or having his spine broken by Bane and tossed into the Pit, none of it had felt as tricky as "simply" finding a lawyer.
Because lawyers deal with all kinds of powers, they understand better than most who Kingpin is—the underworld emperor who began expanding in New York a year ago and now practically controls all of Hell's Kitchen.
And because they understand, not one of them wants the job.
"You could try rookies," a burly, bald attorney at the twenty-fourth firm suggested. "Maybe they don't know how scary Kingpin is and will dare to team up with you.
"Of course, it's more likely you and that rookie will be found one morning in a trash can—cut into a thousand pieces."
Batman answered by planting a heavy punch in the man's face. The giant—two heads taller than Batman—went meek, clutching his cheek without a word or a single threat.
The lawyer hunt was a bust.
"Maybe it's time to try Plan B…?"
His mind kept cycling through the board: Dr. Octavius, Kingpin, the Stark deal, the Tesseract, the Oscorp murders…
Meanwhile his feet didn't stop, crisscrossing New York to buy a mountain of parts:
night-vision optics, thermal imagers, sonar units, gas masks, micro radio receivers, skate blades, bugs…
basically anything with off-the-shelf components.
Short of a cape, Batmobile, Batwing, and their associated systems like EM launchers and missiles, Batman armed himself to the teeth.
It was too much to haul; he rented a pickup to move everything. And each time he met a different seller, he changed clothes, hairstyle, and accent. Sometimes he lifted his shoes or hunched his back on purpose to make his appearance endlessly variable.
Overcautious? Maybe. But to get back to Gotham, he'd sweat every detail.
Creak!
Driving the rented pickup, he parked in a deserted alley twenty miles from the shipyard, sealed every part in waterproof bags, and dumped them into the sewers.
He'd already mapped the system; from here he could follow the tunnels to within two kilometers of the shipyard.
He spent hours on this until he was sure nothing was missing or waterlogged. Once night fell, he could ferry the parts to his makeshift command center.
"I wonder how Dr. Octavius is… If he really killed those researchers on B3 at Oscorp, I can't keep working with him."
New York's sewers weren't the tidy network people imagined; the stench was the main theme. Even Batman wasn't about to wallow in it. Done with the job, he returned the pickup, went back to Peter Parker's apartment, and took a long shower.
"Tonight I need to hit Oscorp and find out whether it was Octavius," he told himself.
"Target identified as Dr. Octavius… He's got four metal tentacles on his back—like… like an octopus. Sir, give the order."
In Brooklyn's sewers, tension ran high.
More than fifty heavily armed Major Crimes SWAT officers from Manhattan and Brooklyn crept into a loose ring, rifles and SMGs up, surrounding a "lab" cobbled together underground.
Close enough now, they could see clearly: among the jumbled equipment, a rumpled, heavyset Dr. Octavius was hard at work.
Behind him, four mechanical tentacles—about three meters each—worked in concert, letting him operate four or five instruments at once. The machines were wired into power yanked from the tunnel walls, spitting sparks now and then.
The officers hugged a bend in the tunnels, still unnoticed by the scientist lost in his work.
"Send one man forward unarmed to talk to Dr. Octavius. Keep him calm—no provocations."
"We don't know the full capabilities of those tentacles. We do know they have tremendous strength; assume there are other functions…"
"Octavius is a world-class nuclear physicist. Don't shoot unless absolutely necessary. Prefer tasers to incapacitate."
Topside in a patrol car, Chief George Stacy gave the orders.
"Yes, sir," came the reply from below.
Brooklyn's special-operations captain, Fick, stripped off everything but a pistol tucked at the small of his back, raised his hands, took a few steps, rounded the corner, and stepped into view.
"Dr. Octavius—my daughter has loved physics since she was little. You're her idol. I never thought I'd meet you here."
"Who?!" Octavius snapped around, locking eyes on Fick with hands up.
At the same instant, the four tentacles peeled off their instruments and leveled their splayed tips at Fick. Like the claw marks left in the emptied surface lab, each tip opened and closed in a three-pronged grip.
Gulp.
Even a veteran like Fick felt his nerves fray, facing a possibly unhinged scientist and four serpentlike arms.
"I'm Fick, Doctor," he said, forcing calm. "It must be hard, working down here. We've prepared a new lab for you topside. Come see it with me?"
Octavius shook his head and glanced at his fusion rig. "No—no. My experiment is almost done. I've found the problem. I'm close… Moving will waste too much time."
"Trust me, Doctor. The new lab won't slow you down. It'll give you a better environment and shorten your timeline…" Fick coaxed.
"No, Fick—trust me. Give me a little time and fusion will change the world!"
He still refused. He'd waited too long to stop now.
"Fusion is dangerous, you—" The word "fusion" made Fick latch onto the point. He gestured at the bare wires sparking openly.
Octavius cut him off, angry. The tentacles flared, one telescoping out until it nearly touched Fick. "You don't understand! No energy is safer than fusion! I'm not going to blow up Brooklyn like in the movies—I'm going to usher in a new era where energy—"
Shk-shk-shk!
As he spoke, whether it was his tone or those arms, the officers took him as a threat. A dozen black muzzles swung into view, all trained on Octavius.
"Don't shoot. The arms aren't a threat," Octavius said, raising his hands. "I have a chip protecting my brain—I'm not some runaway Terminator. I'm a scientist who wants the world to change for me."
Words weren't moving him. Fick switched tactics, lips barely moving as he whispered over comms:
"The tentacles are probably insulating—they're powering devices from live lines. We need to stun Octavius and destroy the chip on his back. Shooters One through Four—ready. Tasers—fire."