Sunday night, 11:59 PM.
Miles sat on his bed in his rented apartment, staring at the wall clock.
The second hand ticked second by second.
An orange cat curled beside his pillow, its tail resting across his leg.
Spider-Man’s abilities were still active.
He could hear his next-door neighbor rolling over, feel a hint of rain in the breeze drifting through the window.
11:59:50 PM.
Fifty-one.
Fifty-two.
He could feel the power fading—receding like a tide, those sharpened senses peeling away layer by layer.
The crack in the wall blurred, the neighbor’s breathing grew distant, and the wind outside became just wind.
Fifty-nine.
Midnight.
The system panel popped up.
[Weekly Gacha Refresh]
[Spinning for this week’s ability…]
A roulette wheel spun in his mind.
Red, blue, gold, purple—interlacing beams of light flashed.
The needle ticked a few times and landed on a slot.
[Congratulations! You have obtained: Batman (Rare)]
[Injecting ability—]
A wave of cool clarity poured down from the top of his head.
Unlike Spider-Man’s explosive warmth, this sensation was cold, sharp, like a bucket of ice water poured from head to toe.
Miles’s pupils contracted, and he felt as though something in his brain had been unlocked.
Information.
All the information.
Sitting on the bed, his gaze swept across the room.
Three cracks in the wall—the longest extending about 1.2 meters from the ceiling to above the window frame, roughly three millimeters wide.
Dust on the windowsill—about five days’ worth, since he’d wiped it down Wednesday.
Takeout receipts on the desk—three, from Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, all from the same restaurant because he was too lazy to switch.
Every piece of data was automatically categorized, correlated, and deduced.
He closed his eyes.
Nighthawk’s case laid itself out in his mind.
Death report: 2:17 AM, cardiac arrest, Compound V rejection.
Keycard: revoked at 11:40 PM.
Time discrepancy: two hours and thirty-seven minutes.
A contradiction.
The keycard had been deactivated nearly two and a half hours before the reported time of death.
Either the death report was forged, or the keycard timestamp was.
But keycard deactivations were logged automatically by the system and couldn’t be altered.
Miles opened his eyes.
He looked down at his hands.
They were the same hands, yet everything felt different.
Not in physical strength—in the workings of his mind.
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the distant silhouette of Vought Tower.
Batman wasn’t built for brawling.
He was built for solving cases.
***
Monday morning, Vought Tower morning meeting.
Homelander stood on the stage, his expression grave.
“Recently, we’ve detected several unregistered Supes operating in New York. These individuals haven’t undergone Vought’s training or received Vought’s moral education. They are… uncontrolled variables.”
Below, the room was so silent you could hear the air conditioner hum.
“Starting today, Vought will be upgrading its tracking systems for unregistered Supes. Any Vought employee who spots suspicious activity must report it immediately.”
Miles sat in a corner, head down, pretending to take notes in his pad.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Starlight.
Starlight sat in the front row, her back straight.
But Miles noticed—when Homelander mentioned “tracking systems for unregistered Supes,” her right thumb tapped twice against the table.
It was so faint that without Batman’s acute perception, he would have missed it entirely.
She was nervous.
Miles jotted down a line in his notebook: *Starlight — Tracking system — What is she afraid of?*
After the meeting adjourned, Miles didn’t return to his desk.
He headed to the HR archives.
Being an administrative intern had one distinct advantage: he had access to basic employee records.
Nighthawk’s file had been sealed, but the act of sealing it left a trail.
He searched for “Ji-ho Park” in the HR system.
Search result: *File sealed.
Date sealed: Ten years ago.
Reason: Employee deceased.
Handled by: Margaret Shaw — former Vought Head of Security, resigned.*
Miles noted the name.
Next, he pulled up the duty roster from the night of Nighthawk’s death.
*Duty Security Director: Marcus Byrne.
Night shift that evening.
Resigned the following day.
Current address: 42 West Grand Street, Elizabeth, New Jersey.*
Miles stared at the screen for five seconds.
Then he walked out of Vought Tower and boarded a bus bound for New Jersey.
The bus ride took an hour and a half.
Miles sat by the window, his mind spinning non-stop.
Batman’s analytical prowess functioned like a supercomputer, linking every piece of information together—Nighthawk’s keycard revocation, the timestamp on the death report, Marcus Byrne’s sudden resignation, Colleague Kim’s address, Butcher’s business card, and Starlight’s twitching thumb at the mention of the tracking system.
The clues slotted together like puzzle pieces.
A few were still missing, but the outline was clear: Nighthawk’s death was no accident.
Someone had wanted to stop his investigation.
Someone with the authority to alter death reports—and the power to make a security director resign and disappear overnight.
That person held a very high position at Vought.
The bus arrived in Elizabeth.
Miles stepped off and navigated to 42 West Grand Street—an auto repair shop.
It was modest, with two beat-up cars parked out front.
A middle-aged man in overalls crouched beside a Ford, tightening bolts with a wrench.
Miles walked over and crouched down beside him.
“Marcus Byrne?”
The man’s wrench paused.
He looked up, giving Miles a once-over.
In his fifties, grease smudging his face, graying hair, and a large burn scar running across the back of his right hand.
“Who are you?”
“The night Nighthawk died… you were there, weren’t you?”
The wrench dropped from Marcus’s hand.
It clattered loudly against the concrete floor, echoing through the garage.
He stared at Miles, the light in his eyes shifting—not to anger, but to sheer terror.
A decade of buried fear, ripped open by a single sentence.
He slowly stood up, taking a step back, his right hand instinctively clutching his left wrist—just below the burn mark.
“Who… who are you?”
“My name is Miles Vance. Nighthawk’s mother sent me.”
Marcus’s expression flickered.
The terror remained, but beneath it surfaced something else—guilt.
He looked down at the wrench lying on the ground.
“It’s been ten years.”
“I know.”
“How did you find me?”
“HR archives. You were on duty that night and resigned the next day.”
Marcus fell silent for a long moment.
Then he raised his right hand, staring at the severe burn scar on its back.
“Homelander did this with his heat vision.”
Miles held his breath for a split second.
“He was in the lab that night. Nighthawk caught him in the act—so Nighthawk had to die.”