"Norman Osborn's hair shows the flattening you get when it's been compressed, but in every public image of him he's never been a hat guy."
Following Harry Osborn into the Osborn estate, Batman took in the grand first-floor salon at a glance.
"Before he opened the front door, he was in a work white shirt, not pajamas—so he went out this morning or last night. From the creases, he came back and curled up on the sofa under a blanket."
"That posture can't flatten hair the way a hat or helmet does."
Batman often operates in a suit; for a proper fit the cowl hugs the skull, so after he doffs it he has to fix his hair. He cannot let anyone notice "Bruce is Batman," so he's obsessive about such tells.
Norman clearly wasn't. His hair was pressed tight to the scalp—something a layman might chalk up to stress and sloppiness.
To Batman, it might as well be Norman shouting naked on a table: "Something's wrong with me."
Still, it only adds a chip to suspicion—nowhere near proof that Norman Osborn killed the B3 researchers.
As he and Harry walked the corridors, Batman palmed sticky bugs into corners one by one.
The calming gas wouldn't last long, but even after it wore off Harry was relatively steady—helped by "Peter Parker's" presence.
Batman didn't brush him off; he listened as Harry rambled—things Harry himself might not realize he was saying—and offered comfort now and then.
"Thanks, Peter." At the door, Harry saw him out. "I feel much better. You should get to school, or Aunt May will worry."
"I will."
Batman declined the offer of a ride and turned away.
"The bugs are in—net's up across the estate… Harry's in his study now."
A short distance off, Batman slipped in a micro earpiece and began monitoring. He didn't leave right away; he looped back to retrieve the batarang that had dispersed the calming gas, then truly departed.
"No need to go to class unless there's an exam or assessment—then I have to show, to avoid…" He paused inwardly. "To avoid worrying Aunt May."
"She's crucial to maintaining the Peter Parker identity. I can't let her suspect a thing."
He flagged a cab and closed his eyes. "Brooklyn—Stark Tower."
Tony Stark had paid $100 million for Batman's half-finished AI model—much of it for the ideas and knowledge a generation ahead of their time.
On top of the payment, Tony honored their verbal wager: he retained Batman and his newly minted shell company as technical consultants.
Until Batman's own business empire exists, Peter Parker needs a credible income stream. "Stark Industries technical consultant" will do for now.
"Peter!"
He'd barely stepped out of the elevator when Tony called.
"Thanks to your AI, JARVIS's learning curve is insane… I'll admit you're more of a genius than me—by a hair."
"Tony." Batman eyed the perpetual drink in Tony's hand.
"Have one?" Tony lifted the glass.
"I don't drink," Batman said.
Tony tossed it back and poured another. "Then you're missing out… Maybe staying clear-headed is how you got to an epochal AI first.
"War is the cradle of technology, but with no war on, how did you go 'boom' and leapfrog the world?"
Batman glanced at Tony's deepening dark circles. "I've studied WWII-era tech. Plenty there sparked ideas.
"That includes some of your father Howard Stark's inventions.
"From a pure engineering standpoint, some of his design thinking was… unbelievably ahead of its time. Especially his foundational work in energy."
Tony shrugged off any father talk—but the word "energy" hooked him.
"Interested in the energy space?"
Batman didn't answer—answer enough.
Tony brightened. Eager to regain ground after being outdone in AI, he led Batman down to B1.
A massive horizontal ring dominated the floor—huge electromagnet coils around a complex core, glowing white-blue.
"This cold fusion reactor—'the Arc'—is my rebuild of Dad's schematics. It can power the whole tower, essentially endlessly, with zero pollution."
There was an edge of pride.
"Stable—but vulnerable," Batman said. "I'd rather see something small and portable… like that square object the papers once mentioned—what Howard dredged up from the Arctic."
"Sadly there's only that one record. I've found almost nothing else on that blue cube."
With that, the dagger left his cloak. From the moment he'd walked in, Batman had been angling Tony toward the subject.
He guided the conversation to the "Tesseract"—a piece of his plan to get back to Gotham.
In the short term he wouldn't re-hack the CIA; better to see what Tony knew.
"You mean the Tesseract? My father's notes mention it… It was studied by the organization he helped found—what was it called…?"
Tony pinched his brow, thinking. "Something like the Strategic Homeland… Intervention whatever… An independent outfit with multinational oversight."
"I'm Agent Phil Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
At NYPD Manhattan, a man in a gray suit stood at the cell door facing Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius. "Doctor Octavius—may we talk?"
~~~
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