Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

"One minute……"

"Two minutes..."

"three minutes……"

A silence.

Lucien sighed as expected: "I knew it, an accident."

He looked up at the surrounding scene. There was no crack and no bat-light silhouette.

Perhaps Barbatos hasn't discovered it yet, or perhaps the breakaway from this world hasn't begun yet.

Lucian reached into his pocket again to retrieve the activation button for the bomb buried under the nuclear power plant.

He personally loaded the gunpowder, buried it, and checked it, so there would be no problem.

But after turning it on, Lucian waited for a moment and looked in the direction of the nuclear power plant, but did not see the flames and mushroom cloud as he had imagined.

Lucien:?

He checked over and over again, then looked up in confusion, heard a "click" sound, turned around, and saw a large black figure.

It's Batman.

He landed beside Lucien and said in a cold, hoarse voice, "You can explain."

"……you."

He shook the signal jammer in his hand: "You should have been more cautious and launched it yourself instead of here."

Lucien: ...

"You shouldn't have stopped me," he said.

Batman followed his lead and sat on the edge of the platform, looking at the night view of Gotham. "And then wait for you to set off a firework at the ribbon-cutting ceremony that I'll never forget?"

Tonight the moon was bright, the stars were shining, and the sky was cloudless. Lucian was sure that he did not sense any dark power.

Barbatos backed out.

Things are a little tricky.

"...I have my reasons." He had no choice but to say this.

“So here I am now.”

Batman's voice wasn't rough or hoarse, but like Bruce's, deep and magnetic, with patience: "You can explain it to me."

How to explain it?

Lucian wanted to smoke a cigarette, his fingertips tapped on the cold platform, silent.

Where to begin explaining?

Batman looked at him and was the first to speak:

"I've already investigated. You're not Claw, and your immortality isn't from Ember Platinum... You suddenly appeared at the battle scene in Falcone that year. Before that, your life was completely blank."

Bravo.

Lucian sighed quietly: "That's right, what else do you know?"

"You were indeed under the control of the court for a period of time, but before you killed my parents, you had already escaped the court's control and regained your autonomy. In other words, killing my parents was entirely out of your own will."

?

Lucian was stunned: "That's not the case. Who told you this?"

"Investigation, deduction, and a clue you missed back then." Batman didn't pause, but continued:

"Not long ago, I discovered the existence of a nuclear bomb belonging to the League of Assassins on the high seas... and then, I learned your purpose of nuking Gotham."

"So today, as you expected, I became this identity... and found you now."

"Tell me, Lucien, what is your difficulty?"

……

Please tell me why you killed my parents, why you nuke Gotham.

……

There was silence in front of the huge clock.

Chapter 84 Because of love, dear, because of love

"If I'm telling the truth."

Lucian paused and said slowly:

"...I'm going to use all my strength to express my love for you...Can you handle it?"

"Will you dare to look? Or will you laugh at me, get angry? Or will you remain silent and turn your back?"

This is a passage from Qiu Miaojin's "Montmartre Testament".

After experiencing separation and betrayal from her lover Xu, Zoe developed deep doubts and despair about love.

Bruce's voice came out of Batman's mouth, and he said, "I love you too."

"What if I told you that I truly had no memory of killing your parents? What if I told you that I didn't mean to stalk you for over a decade? What if I told you that I had to nuke Gotham?"

Lucian looked at him, his green eyes shimmering with gloom.

"...Will you believe me too?"

They stared at each other through pale goggles, and Lucien heard him say, "Yes."

"If the truth is cruel, and you and I are powerless and see no hope, and everything develops in the worst direction, and the whole world is deformed and broken... won't you resent me for telling you the truth?"

"Everyone on the boat was asleep, and you were the one who discovered the leak... You were just waking me up so we could fix the leak together. How could I possibly resent you just because water had already flowed into the cabin and we couldn't escape?" Batman paused and said with a smile:

"I should go and thank you."

"Ha ha……"

Lucian couldn't help laughing, his cheerful voice spreading in the wind:

"...Bruce, Bruce, dear Wayne, my dear Batman... then let me explain this from the beginning."

"The night is long and we have plenty of time!"

……

On the night of Batman's birth, atop the Gotham clock tower, there were only Lucien and Bruce.

……

"That's right. I was an inexperienced person at the beginning. My God, do you know how many times I was tricked by the clown because of this? The clown? Yes, clown, didn't I tell you? This is your future enemy."

"Laughing Maniac is such a classic. I can honestly say that if it weren't for the world where Batman and the Joker teamed up, I can really foresee his goal succeeding... He'd become Batman again, and damn it, let me become the Joker."

"Friend? Of course not. I told you that he's your nemesis. The Joker is your nemesis. Dear, don't have too many illusions about him... But to be honest, the Joker and Batman's collaboration is invincible."

……

"Their final response was nuclear fallout, five nuclear bombs from a presidential candidate. Never mind why a presidential candidate would nuke Gotham... Anyway, this success story impressed me, and that's why I want to nuke Gotham."

“…That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Lucian looked down at the neon-lit Gotham below him. "Trams are a perpetual problem, especially for you superheroes..."

"This is a universe where you have to pay a terrible price to gain an advantage... One person, five people, the whole car, you have to choose one..."

The young Batman is immature, kind, and has not yet understood the necessity of sacrifice. He will try his best to choose the best of both worlds.

This kind of indecision is the biggest taboo in the dark multiverse.

……

Batman followed his gaze, down into the shadows of the city, and said, "You think I'm too vulnerable... You could have just told me straight out."

"Just like you were willing to tell everything to Batman -22."

Lucian was stunned and silent for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter: "Yes! Why didn't I tell you, Bruce, why didn't I tell you!"

He seemed to suddenly wake up: "Because... I love you! Bruce! Because I love you!"

"I pity you, I can't bear to part with you. I've always treated you as you were when you were eight years old... I want to keep you under my wings. I want you to be a flower that grows in a greenhouse and amazes everyone."

"And I forgot..." His voice softened again: "You yourself are a blue rose that can bloom beautifully in the harshest environment."

"Difficulties won't crush you, neither will pain... My dear, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Lucien smiled, "... I've seen you grow up, but I don't believe in your resilience."

……

Under the bright moonlight tonight, Lucien told everything.

……

"I have the personality of the Flash within me. He sensed the approaching danger not long ago. I thought it was the moment you became Batman... but it doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. I don't know when that time will be, nor do I know which will come first, returning to the positive universe or Barbatos."

"We don't have the Tenth Metal here, and we can't defeat Barbatos head-on. Nuclear fallout is the only solution I can think of..."

Bruce listened carefully to him, was silent for a moment, and then said, "We should study parallel worlds. This is necessary both to determine the current state of my universe and to seek help... In addition, you mentioned going back in time."

"Perhaps we can try a trial and error using the Speed ​​Force or something similar... After all, we were able to backtrack at -22. It's possible that we couldn't backtrack there because the Batman Who Laughs prevented us from doing so. So, we can make a simple attempt."

"Besides, if you weren't conscious when you killed my parents... then we have another problem to think about."

Lucien turned his head to look at him and saw the cold and hard mask, but also the soft face.

"Did the Court of Owls deliberately deceive me, or..." He paused, as if feeling that the next words were a bit ambiguous, and turned his head to look at Lucian: "It's still your problem..."

Lucien listened to him with a faint smile.

"And your connection with me, which you described as the bond between the Joker and Batman...Okay, I still believe you, which means you are the Joker, but as you said."

A smile appeared from the corners of his cold mouth: "The collaboration between the Joker and Batman... is always invincible."

The wind was gentle, the moonlight was bright, and Lucian heard a smiling voice amid the loud chime of the clock behind him:

"Will you help me, Joker?"

"For Batman's sake."