"A rumor's been making the rounds in New York legal circles: a group—more than thirty of them—has been going from firm to firm across half the city looking for a lawyer brave enough to sue Kingpin."
"I'm guessing you're one of them?"
Holden Bradley—bald everywhere but a tuft at his forehead, slicked back with gel to fake a thin hairline—smiled as he asked.
Leaving the abandoned subway station and still grinding on the lawyer hunt, Batman nodded, lips curling, voice a little shrill:
"Got any recommendations?"
He was dressed in a green shirt and purple suit, a green wig on his head, back slightly hunched, steps unsteady, face painted a sickly white to match the posture.
Batman wasn't foolish enough to hit every law firm in New York as Peter Parker.
Just like when he bought gear, he'd prepared thirty-plus outfits in different styles, each with matching hair, posture, habitual movements, and accents.
Since the ultrathin biomasks he used in Gotham weren't available on the open market, he used facial muscle control and colored contacts to change his face.
Put together, it looked—through lawyers' eyes—like "some gang with a grudge against Kingpin and thirty-odd members asking around for counsel."
"If you'd come yesterday, I might've said 'no.'"
Holden's thin hair glinted as he smiled.
"Bad timing for you, or maybe good—there's a firm that's had no business since it opened. They seem interested. He told me to send you to this address."
He handed over a scrap of paper with two lines: "Nelson & Murdock, Attorneys at Law" and a detailed Hell's Kitchen address.
Batman gave an exaggerated bow like a courtly knight to the sparsely haired Holden, then tottered away on his feigned wobbly steps.
"Sigh… if life didn't force your hand, who'd take a case against Kingpin? He's the mob emperor who controls all of Hell's Kitchen," Holden muttered, watching the green-haired, purple-suited man leave.
"That's exactly why we should take it. If we win, 'Nelson & Murdock' will make a name in New York."
Matt Murdock, red-tinted glasses on, sipped tea and spoke to his partner who'd been complaining all morning, Foggy Nelson.
"Easy for you to say." Foggy flailed, almost ready to drop to his knees before his partner. "We live in Hell's Kitchen. Do you not understand what the word 'Kingpin' means here?
"Blood. Cruelty. Gangs. Gunfire… which of those sounds easy to deal with?"
Compared to Foggy's panic, Matt was calm enough to brew another pot. Blindness didn't keep him from dropping the tea bag squarely in the cup.
"As long as the person dead set on indicting Kingpin has enough proof of his crimes, I believe the law will stand with us in the end."
Foggy only pursed his lips. A whole morning of warnings hadn't budged his partner. For their safety, he'd switch tactics—maybe drag Matt to a bar tonight and get him blackout drunk.
No clients was one thing; better than having gangsters show up at midnight and ending up as chunks for strays to drag around at dawn.
Leaving Holden's near-bald office, Batman stripped the disguise in a deserted alley.
Green wig, purple suit, green shirt—he burned them. With a packet of tissues he wiped off the corpse-pale makeup.
Back as Peter Parker, he headed to the shipyard, then donned the black-gray Batsuit and cut across the skyline, landing moments later at Sable International's 20th-floor office.
He hadn't forgotten: to Black Cat and to Silver Sable, he was the black-suited Batman, not Peter Parker.
Likewise, he couldn't front the prosecution of Kingpin or force him out of Oscorp himself—he needed the right face to do it.
Among those tied to both Kingpin and Oscorp, he knew few. Aside from Black Cat, the only suitable complainant was Silver Sable.
He wouldn't put Felicia out front; he needed her embedded in Kingpin's crew as the contingency if the case failed.
For all those reasons, he slipped in through Silver Sable's window again.
"…Next time, could you try knocking?"
Silver had paused her plan to hunt the Hulk after Oscorp's human experimentation was exposed. Feet up on her desk, sunk into her chair and humming, she jolted into a fighting stance at his sudden appearance, then relaxed and grumbled.
Batman glanced down at the sharp-edged armor he wore and said nothing.
Sable shrugged, palms up, and said nothing back.
After a few silent seconds, she broke the awkward air. "Last time you wanted a lawyer. What is it now?"
Last time, Batman had handed her the lead that the military backing Oscorp was General Ross—true, as she later confirmed. That eased her guard; she wasn't as cagey as before.
"I want you as my partner—in court—to indict Kingpin," Batman said, voice low.
Why me?
She didn't bother to hide the first thought and said it straight: "Why me?"
As CEO of Sable International, she knew exactly what "Kingpin" meant—his expanding domain. But what was that to her? Letting her guard down didn't mean she'd risk her neck. Even if Batman paid, her security firm didn't sell that kind of service.
"You don't take me for some bleeding-heart ingénue, do you—saw Oscorp's human experiments, said I'd find the Hulk, so now you think I'm eager to save the world?"
She leaned back again, boots thumping onto the desk.
Bang!
She fell quiet, waiting for a reason strong enough to sway her—unlikely, in her mind.
Batman acted as if he hadn't noticed the pose. His gaze held no ripple. But when he spoke, it was not what she expected:
"I have reasons you can't refuse. More than one."
~~~
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