Clark has something to say

Dick took out the communicator from his body, hesitated for a long time with his fingers on the screen, and finally pressed down hard.

The other party connected to the communication immediately, without making him wait a second longer.

"Dick?"

Bruce holds the joystick with one hand, and a virtual screen is projected on the front window of the Batmobile.

On the screen, the young man with beautiful blue eyes looks erratic and reveals indescribable anxiety.

Bruce called the other party, and didn't speak again. The bat's performance was excellent, even though it was driving fast, the car was quiet, and Dick's light breathing followed the electrical signal, as if it happened right next to Bruce's ear.

He didn't push, the Batmobile slowed down a bit, and waited patiently for Dick to speak.

For nothing else, he could easily tell that Dick was worrying about his personal affairs. If it was about their vigilante status, Dick wouldn't be stuck for so long.

"—Clark knows."

Bruce's fingers tightened suddenly, and after a while, they gradually loosened.

He lowered his voice: "Report the situation."

On the screen, Dick tugged at his sideburn hair: "Because it's unfair to Clark, and we're hiding it from him, it doesn't mean he doesn't know we're hiding it."

Bruce: "Go ahead."

His voice grew graver, and Dick straightened his back without realizing it.

Strangely, Bruce's tone was not even accusatory, but it made Dick feel a deep anxiety.

His voice tightened: "You think I did something wrong."

Bruce calmly: "I'll talk to Tim, it wasn't you who leaked this, you just didn't stop him."

He paused briefly: "Is Clark okay?"

Dick: "I'm not sure."

He carefully recalled Clark's state before, and there was no doubt that Clark was impeccable, but for him, he could always detect some subtle abnormalities.

He tried to convince himself that it was just an illusion, after all...that was Clark.

But his subconscious had been sounding the alarm, and Clark was willing to act like that to reassure him - pushing him would only backfire.

When I was at a loss, a bold idea gradually emerged from the bottom of my heart.

Isn't there Bruce?

Although Tim warned him that Bruce would not have a positive effect, he thought that after getting that memory, Bruce could always change his behavior.

So after Clark left, he struggled for a long time, and finally pressed the communication button.

But just talking to Bruce puts him under considerable stress.

Finally, Dick let out a slow breath: "Someone asked Superman for help. Clark is not here now, but at least he looked good before."

Bruce nodded lightly, without saying anything.

Dick seemed to be convincing Bruce, but also himself: "These things have been suppressed, and Clark doesn't know why, but he can feel it. It's a strong feeling of being excluded. We all have the same feeling." Feeling, honestly, Bruce, that sucks."

Bruce stepped on the accelerator, leaped across the entrance of the Batcave, and landed in the clearing.

He leaned back, with no expression of joy or anger on his face: "I know your reason, now let's go back to the previous topic."

"Yes." He answered.

Dick slowly shut his mouth, staring at his shadow.

Bruce: "We all know how good he is, so we also know what that memory means to him."

He looked calm and terrifying: "Time can make all the seemingly unpassable sufferings worthless, as long as those people are given a period of time, they will naturally clean themselves up."

Dick whispered: "—so, you just pretend that memory doesn't exist?"

Bruce didn't avoid talking, he responded directly: "It doesn't make sense."

"...The clown is just a fuse. Even without him, as long as Clark still chooses to become Superman, he must bear the risk of losing everything."

He pointed out another cruel fact: "That bad future is caused by countless wrong choices, for example, if I am willing to risk making Clark and others crazy, allowing them to enter those... things that experienced Gotham. "

"Maybe now like Harvey Dente, I have lost them early, but there is also a possibility that they have survived and are no longer ignorant."

Bruce went on to state: "Or Clark didn't do that well, like the Superman I saw in other parallel worlds, they experienced things that didn't happen to Clark - and those things broke them over and over again."

Dick suddenly said, "How much do you really know?"

"A little more than you." Bruce said lightly: "That's why I said it's meaningless. We will get used to having this memory. Similarly, Clark will also get used to the changing alliance, which is normal."

Bruce has been making coping plans since he got his memory, and he has made countless plans to avoid a bad future.

But there is a constant origin inside.

He needs to get Clark to understand it all, to understand that Superman might not be able to do anything about it, to get Clark to know that there are some things he just can't change, that there's nothing he can do about it other than to be Sisyphus pushing stones almost in desperation - and not from a macro perspective, not from Clark The kind of ordinary people who look at ordinary people from the perspective of Superman cannot be changed.

At the same time, he realized that he and Clark had a crisis of trust.

Before Metropolis went nuclear, he never thought it was a wrong choice not to let the Justice League set foot in Gotham.

Until Kal-El said, you love clowns.

He suddenly discovered that Clark had always felt that he was elusive and unpredictable, and that the communication between them all depended on Clark's active promotion.

He has been exploring parallel worlds for a while, and with the help of Lex, the progress has been accelerated a lot, and from the worlds he glimpsed, he realized that the relationship between Superman and Batman is completely different from them .

Those Supermen understand Batman.

This can't be blamed on Clark, it can only be said that he locked himself too tightly. Compared with those Gothams where the Justice League intervened, his Gotham was under his absolute control.

So once he is negligent and the clown makes a devastating move, no one can stop him.

Dick slowly: "Why do you wishful thinking..."

Think Clark can get used to the feeling of being excluded?

He knew this feeling well. He was kicked out of the Batcave by Bruce back then. Without Clark's support during that time, he would definitely not be like this now.

Bruce succinctly: "He always gets used to it."

As soon as the words fell, the sound of steel tearing, "click—" sounded beside Bruce.

"boom!"

Dick: "Wait, what's that sound over there? Are you on the night watch?"

Bruce glanced sideways and looked away: "We'll talk about it later."

He hung up the communication: "Why are you angry?"

The god of the world was floating some distance from the ground. Not far from him, the door of the Batmobile was pinched with a few finger prints, lying on the side miserably.

Those blue eyes, always full of warmth, are now covered with a thin layer of ice.

Bruce didn't even mess up his breathing. He operated on the podium twice, and leaned back in his chair leisurely: "This is the second time you have broken my car door."

Clark suddenly said: "——Why."

Bruce said lightly, "What do you mean?"

Clark was bored for a long time before continuing to speak: "I heard what you and Dick said, why didn't you tell me, obviously you could let me know from the beginning, and your reasons for persuading Dick, I don't accept it."

Bruce said frankly: "I want to be nice to you."

Even Clark in this state couldn't help but choked heavily.

He fell to the ground, he couldn't understand: "You want to be nice to me—so you don't tell me anything, and let me guess every day and think about what happened to you?"

Bruce stepped out of the Batmobile with one foot.

For some unknown reason, driven by an inexplicable impulse, Clark grabbed the pitch-black cloak that passed before his eyes.

He paused word by word: "I-no-accept-accept!"

Bruce stopped.

"It turns out that I was right." He looked into Clark's eyes quietly: "Now you just know a possibility in the future, and you blame yourself so much that you want to exhaust yourself to make up for it."

Clark found that he had no good reason to refute the other party.

Bruce: "Plus I'm trying to trust you."

Clark: "..."

He couldn't help sarcasm: "It's great, we've known each other for so long, you have grown from a bachelor to having four children, how do those media call us? The best partner in the world? Hands and gloves, fit each other?"

"The best partner in the world." Bruce corrected rigorously: "The following description comes from Mr. Kent, a reporter from Planet Daily."

He added before Clark tore off the other side of the Batmobile door: "It's trust in another sense."

"I used to think that these things had nothing to do with you, Clark, you don't know what you mean to me and Gotham, if the meaning of Batman is to let Gotham people know that they can still have hope for Gotham and the future."

"And you, you are hope itself."

Clark: "...!"

Although he was in a terrible mood now, he still struggled: "I didn't hear clearly."

"Don't make me say it a second time," Bruce said sternly, "Before that, I want you to give the world what only you can give, and I don't want you to touch Gotham's sewers and the twists that fill the corners —Justice League is good, it's ideal enough, and justice needs people like you, and Barry Hall and others."

In a rare candor, he said: "I don't always do what's right."

Clark didn't know what to say for a long time.

He thought of many reasons why Bruce rejected him and the alliance's involvement in Gotham, but he didn't think about this one.

"That's why you've been refusing to join the league, just as an advisor?"

Bruce smiled: "Part of it."

Clark said softly, "Then why don't you do it now."

Bruce took the cloak from Clark's hand: "Because hope is hope because no matter what happens, it always exists."

He stretched out his hand and put it lightly on Clark's shoulder: "Sorry, Clark, there are many things, you have to get used to them, just like me."

"...Okay." Clark was silent for a while: "In that memory, what happened to you?"

Bruce didn't hesitate at all.

"I'm not important."