Dissecting the Frost Giants' corpses to study their physiology was only part of the goal; Batman was also testing the deity's intellect.
That's right—testing his IQ. Batman was pushing the boundaries right in front of Thor, modifying the Frost Giants into weapons meant to counter him, all to see if Thor would notice. If Thor did catch on, Batman naturally had a pre-scripted explanation ready to dispel his suspicions.
Yet even as the god stood to the side with his hands on his hips, he offered no reaction whatsoever.
Perhaps his only weakness is his intellect... Batman silently concluded.
Venom Robin saw straight through Batman's intentions; he understood all too well how cautious the old Bat got whenever a being as powerful as Thor appeared.
Over these past five days, Batman had naturally subjected Thor to various tests. For instance, under the guise of giving him a tour of the Batcave, he brought Thor into a training room, where a pre-positioned anti-materiel sniper rifle fired a round directly into Thor.
Batman's acting was so refined that even Venom Robin didn't notice anything amiss until reflecting on it afterward.
Yet Thor had absolutely no reaction to it.
At first, Batman assumed Thor was simply too strong to care about such pinprick probes, but later Batman confirmed that Thor's intelligence was actually perfectly adequate, and his learning speed was exceptionally fast.
Given time to settle down and focus, even without his divine powers, Thor could easily become a scientist on par with Dr. Otto Octavius.
That was already a high evaluation of his intelligence, but to Batman, it was still enough to be exploited as a weakness.
"Logically speaking, you should be eager to return to Asgard right now. Loki is ruling over it," Batman said to Thor.
Watching Batman dissect the Frost Giant corpse, Thor shook his head like a rattle, the ends of his long golden hair swaying back and forth:
"I cannot return yet."
"Why?" Batman asked.
"I have called upon Heimdall, but he has not answered," Thor replied.
"Heimdall?" Batman asked, feigning ignorance.
Over the past few days, he had thoroughly researched Norse mythology alongside other related mythologies. He knew Heimdall was the guardian deity of Norse myth.
He dwelt in a realm called Himinbjörg, guarding the Bifröst—the Rainbow Bridge—which stretched directly from Himinbjörg to Asgard.
However, there were bound to be discrepancies between myth and reality; for example, the Enchantress was nowhere to be found in traditional mythology.
Batman wouldn't treat mythology like a bible or blindly believe every word.
"He guards the Bifröst. Only if he answers my call can I return to Asgard from Midgard," Thor said, as expected mentioning the Rainbow Bridge.
"Are there other ways to reach Asgard?" Batman asked again.
Thor pondered for a moment:
"The Odin Force, the World Tree Yggdrasil, dimensional transportation, space jumps."
"Regrettably, Earth has none of those," Batman said with a touch of feigned regret.
Thor cast a grateful glance at Batman, though it was unclear what he was grateful for:
"It matters not."
Batman nodded. He knew that most of Odin's current Odinsleep had already passed, and he would awaken within the next few days.
"Robin, show Thor to his quarters. If he needs anything, let me know immediately," Batman instructed Venom Robin.
Venom Robin nodded, turned, and led Thor toward the living area of the Batcave.
"That axe on your back... did it come from Skurge?" Thor hadn't seen Robin for the past two days until today, when he finally saw the little guy.
He remembered that the axe on Robin's back looked familiar, and he finally couldn't help but ask.
"Nope," Venom Robin blabbered wildly. "I picked it up from a river."
"Do you remember the name of the river?" Thor pressed.
"Forgot."
Their voices gradually faded into the distance.
Batman withdrew his gaze and looked at the Frost Giant corpse in front of him.
The Battle of Manhattan five days ago had not only exposed the superheroes to the public eye, but had also exposed various trump cards Batman had prepared.
Pym Particles, Hulk, and Doc Ock had all made their appearances.
Only Lizard, having been dispatched to Metropolis Hospital, had not actually shown up to join the fight from start to finish. Batman had kept a dose of Pym Particles with him, intending to use him as another hidden card if necessary.
The reason he didn't give it to Hulk was that Lizard shared more experiences with Batman than the others, meaning their level of trust was highest.
Moreover, Lizard didn't carry the risk of losing control when enraged, unlike Hulk.
Still, even if Lizard grew into a massive twenty-to-thirty-meter lizard under the effect of Pym Particles, his threat to Thor remained pitifully small.
Thus, Batman had no choice but to set other matters aside and focus entirely on the Frost Giant corpses.
Summoning Thor had been a necessary compromise; at the time, the Frost Giants were sweeping through almost all the superheroes, and only Hulk could deal with them.
Doing so would have taken considerable time and caused massive collateral damage to buildings.
Fortunately, there are plenty of Frost Giant corpses—twelve in total, Batman thought to himself.
He needed to use the twelve Frost Giant corpses to forge a suit of super-armor. Even if it couldn't defeat Thor, it would at least allow him to contend with the god for a period of time.
Another three days passed like this. Of the twelve Frost Giant corpses, only bits of hair and keratin remained; their bodies had been fused together into one with Thor's assistance.
A week had elapsed since the Battle of Manhattan. Thanks to day-and-night cleanup and restoration efforts, Times Square finally began to resemble a public square again.
The Frost Armor Batman built to guard against Thor was finished at last, placed inside the Batsuit display room.
It was also on this day that Batman finally found the time to address other pending matters one by one.
Of course, certain tasks had been carried out concurrently over the week, such as the restoration of North Brother Island and the construction of a new Batwing and Batmobile.
The first matter involved New Goblin. Ever since he was awakened by Loki a week ago, no news about him had surfaced.
Batman had contacted Norman Osborn during this period, but unfortunately, even he did not know where New Goblin had gone.
However, today Batman received intelligence regarding New Goblin's possible whereabouts—a lead provided by Hawkeye:
"A figure has appeared in New Mexico, at the ruins of the base where General Ross once researched the Gamma Bomb."
Batman needed to make a trip to New Mexico, and he was taking Thor with him.
"What manner of wondrous object is this?" When Batman found Thor, the god was sitting in a corner of the Batcave holding a TV remote.
He had no interest in the content playing on the television, but was immensely curious about the remote control that could switch channels with a single press.
"This was created by Egyptian Pharaohs over two thousand years ago..." Venom Robin was spouting nonsense to Thor, but stopped the moment he saw Batman enter.
"Thor, interested in coming with me?" Batman asked.
Upon receiving an affirmative reply from Thor, Robin stayed behind to guard the cave while Batman and Thor boarded the Batwing bound for New Mexico.
"What kind of strange creature is this?" Thor touched the interior cabin of the Batwing, his face still filled with curiosity.
Batman frowned imperceptibly. From his previous conversations with Thor, he knew that "space jumps" could reach Asgard, which was clearly a technological method.
Logically speaking, Thor shouldn't be so endlessly curious about technology. Yet the reality was completely the opposite: ever since the Asgardian god arrived on Earth, he expressed immense curiosity toward everything he saw inside the Batcave.
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