"Pietro." After lifting the heavy metal wall weighing over thirty tons, Wanda looked toward her younger brother.
Pietro nodded. Without needing any further instructions from his sister, his figure flashed and he vanished from the spot in a blur of silver shadows, reappearing directly beneath the suspended metal wall.
The metal wall was hovering less than a centimeter away from his head—meaning that the instant Wanda decided to drop her Chaos Magic, that heavily descending slab of metal would crush Pietro into a pancake thinner than a sheet of paper.
Yet standing right there, Pietro didn't show a shred of anxiety, instead flashing an "OK" hand gesture up toward his sister Wanda.
Under Batman's watchful gaze, Wanda flicked her finger, and the crimson magic vanished instantly.
At the exact same time, Pietro, standing beneath the metal wall, moved.
Instead of choosing to sprint out from beneath the metal wall directly, his body suddenly shifted laterally, zipped back, and repeated the motion in a continuous loop.
His range of movement remained fixed within that narrow, elongated strip directly underneath the metal wall.
In a fraction of a second, an impenetrable density of silver light directly linked the suspended metal wall to the ground, to the extent that even Batman's acute vision could no longer track his specific appearance or movements.
Though it felt as though a long time had passed, in reality, it took less than a single breath.
Boom!
The metal wall slammed down heavily, causing the entire subterranean space to shudder several times as massive echoes reverberated endlessly within the room.
Batman glanced to his side. Pietro had somehow returned to his spot, his face still carrying that faint, teenage shyness.
"Just now, you seemed to be weaving back and forth beneath the wall? How many times?" Batman asked.
"Eighty thousand times," Pietro said.
A flicker crossed Batman's eyes. While he had already formed a rough mental estimate of Pietro's speed, it was clear now that he had still underestimated him.
In less than a fraction of a second, Pietro had actually zipped back and forth eighty thousand times within such a confined space!
Had the space not been so restricted, allowing Pietro to stretch his legs and move without restraint, he could easily have circled Manhattan multiple times in an instant!
Batman didn't say much else. He pointed toward the walls of the subterranean space:
"Give it a try?"
His meaning was obvious: he wanted Pietro to run a lap around the walls.
Pietro didn't waste words; he seemed by nature to be a rather quiet and shy young man.
Following the sweep of Batman's finger, the walls of the subterranean space instantly became densely blanketed in another layer of silver radiance.
The speed was so extreme that it created a suffocating sensation, as though all the air in the underground chamber was being sucked dry.
"Impressive," Batman complimented.
He thought of someone else—the very first companion who came to mind after his crossover: The Flash, Barry Allen.
Only, Barry relied on the Speed Force for his hyper-velocity movement; it was unclear what power source Pietro depended on.
None of that mattered, however. Batman's trip here served two purposes: first, to build further familiarity with the sibling pair; second, to test the waters regarding their capabilities.
"I'm not entirely sure how well you both wield your abilities, but if needed, this place can serve as your training ground," Batman said.
He didn't explicitly mention that while his naked eyes couldn't fully capture the movement, his experience and spider-sense allowed Batman to perceive a slight rawness embedded in the way the sibling pair utilized their powers.
Simply put, if Barry Allen were in their shoes, that guy wouldn't have chosen to run eighty thousand round-trips underneath a falling metal wall the moment it dropped.
He would have sprinted directly across the surface of the suspended metal wall, relying on speed and molecular friction to grind that thirty-ton slab into a fine needle.
Clearly, Pietro didn't seem capable of reaching that extreme level.
It was just uncertain whether this was an inherent limitation or simply something he couldn't do yet.
Furthermore, Batman cast a glance at Pietro: under that blindingly fast sprint just moments ago, Pietro's clothes had been shredded to rags, and his shoes had vanished entirely.
If not for the fact that those effects were caused purely by friction against the air.
"You both need suits, and you'll likely need superhero monikers of your own as well," Batman said. "I'll handle the matter of the suits; as for the names?"
"Someone once gave me a moniker—'Scarlet Witch'," Wanda said. "I'll continue using that name."
"Quicksilver," Pietro offered a shy smile.
Only, whereas he had been a shy youth a moment ago, his shredded clothes now made him look more like a bashful vagrant.
"I will arrange for a butler to assist you. You can inform him of any needs you might have," Batman said.
"When will he arrive?" Wanda asked.
"He was already here the moment I arrived," Batman said. "His name is Alfred, and he is a remarkably reliable butler."
Given the capabilities of Batman and Alfred, dedicating a portion of their computing power to oversee this villa was no difficult task.
He escorted the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver sibling pair back up into the villa via the elevator, introducing them to Alfred—who appeared in the form of a projection—for their very first meeting.
Two hours later, inside the Batcave.
"Tony?" Batman had already received a notification from Alfred regarding the Iron Man's arrival while he was still back at the villa with the Maximoff siblings.
"Peter," Tony strode up to him as though he were the master of the Batcave itself.
"I'm curious what Alfred talked to you about, seeing as you're currently looking in remarkably high spirits?" Batman asked.
The contents of the conversation between Alfred and Tony were shielded even from Batman; the old butler had locked him out of the feed as well.
Though Batman could certainly have used technical means to extract the conversation logs had he truly wished to, there was little necessity for it.
"Apologies, Peter," Tony Stark draped an arm around Batman's shoulder. "That was a private chat between me and Al."
Batman glanced sideways at the arm slung across his shoulder, then turned his gaze back toward Tony:
"Regardless, we can only move on to the next phase of the plan once your emotional state stabilizes."
Tony nodded. At that moment, they shared a tacit understanding, referring precisely to the "Tony's idea" they had discussed two nights prior up above the Raft prison.
"As much as I hate to interrupt your buddy-buddy bonding moment, a new issue has cropped up." Alfred's projection had been wearing a smile, but his brows suddenly knitted together as he spoke directly. "Doctor Stephen Strange entered Greenwich on the outskirts of New York two minutes ago."
"Greenwich?"
Batman and Iron Man exchanged a glance. There were two Greenwichs in the world: a small town in London, England, and another small town on the outskirts of New York.
The location where Doctor Strange had just vanished was precisely the one situated on the outskirts of New York.
"Just a moment ago, Doctor Strange's trail vanished; I am no longer even able to verify the status of that tracker," Alfred said.
Batman had long since planted a tracking device on Doctor Strange, but the moment Strange stepped into Greenwich, that tracker—which had previously maintained pinpoint accuracy—suddenly failed.
--
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