When Batman isn't panicking,
the one who usually ends up panicking is Superman.
"I'm screwed!"
Ian had super hearing.
At least, when he bothered to prick up his ears, he really did.
So when he heard Superman choke on his overtime coffee through the phone, Ian caught it loud and clear. He was already climbing through the window, preparing to temporarily run away from home for a few hours.
Take his little savings jar with him, then go brave the world.
This time, Ian genuinely felt wronged. An evil capitalist was smearing dirt all over his name.
"Gotham really doesn't have a single good person!"
Ian's plan was to take advantage of Clark being dragged into overtime at the paper because of the whole Batman Invades Metropolis incident and rush over to hide under Grandma's bed for a while.
Unfortunately,
good ideas were one thing,
but when Ian pulled aside the curtain he had shut earlier, all he saw was a layer of iron bars.
It looked like Batman had sealed the place up while climbing in.
What a scheming Batman.
Ian could only say that Bruce Wayne's civilian disguise had lowered his guard a little.
At this point, he was convinced Master Wayne had some kind of mysterious bioelectric field too.
Even if Wayne himself denied it, Ian was determined to believe it anyway.
After taking this loss, that was the only way the boy could feel a little better.
"Let Ian speak."
That was Clark's voice on the other end of the call. Ian's super hearing was sharp enough to catch every word. He mouthed something at Bruce, and Bruce, being the lip-reading expert he was, easily understood him.
Only,
Bruce had no intention of cooperating with Ian.
"Your son wanted me to blame it on the demon. Yes, the head. So apparently this isn't the first time he's tried dumping blame on something else."
He walked over to the metal box, opened it, saw the demon head inside still chewing on tissues, and gave a very sincere assessment.
"That demon really is pitiful. Even I have to admit that."
"Human..."
The demon head spat out a bunch of tissues and prepared to give Bruce a terrifying threat. Instead, Bruce plucked one of its cow hairs out and calmly closed the box again.
His expression didn't change at all.
"I'm not exaggerating."
Bruce pocketed the hair from the demon bull head, then crouched down and kept talking to Clark while examining the box Ian used to store the head.
He seemed to have noticed that there was something peculiar about it.
"No, no, no, I'm not talking about the laser weapon... So he really does have a standard-issue laser weapon?"
Bruce once again stopped Ian from trying to bolt out the door.
"No major movement. Your son tried to make a run for it. I stopped him... No, I don't like grabbing other people's necks."
Bruce glanced at Ian, who had tripped over his invisible line.
He hadn't actually picked Ian up by the back of the neck the way Clark had suggested.
"You own a military factory?"
Bruce still stepped forward and helped Ian up.
Mostly because he had realized that once Ian hit the floor, he'd immediately started pretending to be dead.
If Bruce didn't haul him up, he was pretty sure Ian would just fall asleep there.
"I don't."
That part, at least, was true.
Ian really didn't have one.
He did kind of want to ask where he could pick one up, though.
"That's the truth."
Bruce seemed a little reassured.
Then he turned back to speaking with Clark on the phone.
"Looks like you didn't read a single word of the books Alfred mailed you."
He was criticizing Clark in a low voice while still keeping a close eye on Ian, who clearly remained a threat to public order.
"I'm not running anymore."
Ian felt helpless.
The good news was that Clark's workplace was probably crowded, so he couldn't come back yet.
The bad news was that Bruce had handcuffed himself to Ian.
There was no helping it. Bruce had discovered Ian's ridiculous strength and decided this was the only way to prevent him from fleeing in fear of his crimes.
Batman really did know his stuff.
Still, no matter how prepared he was, there were limits to what he could carry in a single night out.
"Since you read them, then tell me how he managed to build something like this right under your nose."
Bruce once again lifted the tiny reactor and examined it.
Its craftsmanship
left him amazed.
This was absolutely not a level of technology Earth should have been able to produce.
That was why Bruce had started suspecting Clark was secretly teaching his son how to assemble arc reactors in his spare time.
"You don't know either? Hah."
Bruce clearly didn't believe Clark.
"Let me check."
He was interested in the laser weapon too.
"Where did you hide the laser weapon?"
Bruce first looked under the bed and found nothing, then turned and asked Ian while still staying on the phone with Clark.
"What laser weapon? My dad's just hallucinating from overwork. That's why I say people really shouldn't have jobs. Even Kryptonians can't handle the stress of employment."
Ian discovered that his teeth were, as always, useless.
Which was normal.
The handcuffs had Superman-Use Only written on them, and even if they looked old, Ian still wasn't at the level of young Superman.
"Your father says the laser weapon is hidden in the ceiling of his bedroom."
Bruce thanked Ian for the accidental assist.
Superman had sold out his son with unprecedented speed.
"..."
For the first time, Ian truly tasted betrayal.
So,
he could only drag Bruce along to "inspect the scene."
Luckily, the hallway was pitch black, and Jonathan and Jordan had probably gone to sleep. Otherwise, there would've been three boys in this house ending up in handcuffs before long.
They reached their parents' bedroom.
Bruce locked onto the weapon's location immediately. He only needed to pull out a rather intelligent-looking grappling tool, and with that he opened part of the ceiling and retrieved the hidden laser rifle.
Then, without missing a beat, he handed the manuscript in his other hand back to Ian while continuing to inspect the weapon.
"This isn't Kryptonian technology."
Bruce recognized that instantly.
"I never said it was."
Ian scratched his head with his free hand.
"Interesting. The magazine is also a miniature reactor..."
Bruce had already more or less figured out the weapon's structure after just handling it for a moment. It wasn't just a weapon.
It looked almost like a work of art.
The whole thing had a smooth, flowing design.
The body of the rifle was made from some unknown metal that was both lightweight and extremely durable.
"So this probably can't blow up America, right?"
Ian asked carefully.
He really couldn't understand it himself. In Iron Man stories, those big arc reactors could maybe blow up Manhattan at most, so why was a thumb-sized reactor apparently being treated like a planet-ending bomb?
Bruce gave him the answer directly.
"Your rifle and your miniature reactor won't explode. They're stable. But the nuclear application research facility you build around them might have a chance of blowing up. And if that happens, all of us are going to heaven together."
He gave Ian a long, confused, evaluating look.
At first, Bruce had suspected Ian was secretly running an incredibly advanced base somewhere outside Superman's notice, one with more equipment and sophistication than even some of Bruce's own hidden facilities.
But now,
Bruce had begun to notice the clear and innocent air of someone who had definitely not gone to college.
"I don't have a nuclear weapons research facility."
Ian was honestly stunned by Bruce's train of thought.
"I'm the son of a farm boy. My family's been farmers for generations. We've all grown up getting pushed around, so it should be perfectly normal for me to pick up some defensive equipment off the street, right?"
He knew Bruce wasn't like his parents, so he didn't tell the full truth. His superior intelligence told him this man needed to be handled with caution.
"Mm. Very reasonable."
Bruce nodded.
"But you still aren't telling me the truth."
Then, all at once, he changed direction again.
Those deep eyes made Ian feel a little uneasy.
"Fine. I'll tell the truth."
Ian's superior intelligence once again informed him that life was full of moments where one had to say, well, to go back a bit. So he decided to tell the truth.
Just not all of it.
At that moment, the full magnificence of his writer's talent stepped onto the stage.
After his explanation,
Bruce Wayne nodded several times while listening.
"So what you're saying is that on your way home from school, you ran into a man running a stall that only you could see. He tried to sell you a pair of glasses that could read minds and see through things."
"And because your heart was pure, you resisted the temptation such glasses would bring. You gave up the chance to spend a wild life full of romantic encounters with countless kinds of stunning women."
"And because of that, the stall owner admired you so much that he insisted on taking you as his disciple and teaching you the greatest scientific knowledge in the universe. These two little gadgets are just part of his test?"
Bruce Wayne felt as though he were listening to the outline of Ian's next manuscript.
The corner of his eye twitched a few times.
"Exactly. My teacher is Tony Stark. He is the God of All Machines in the cosmos."
Ian nodded with absolute conviction, looking like someone ready to join a revolutionary party on the spot.
"..."
Bruce rubbed his brow.
"That last sentence was the only true thing you said."
He sighed helplessly.
What could he say?
Even with all his intelligence, Gotham's great master still ended up getting dragged into Ian's nonsense at least a little.
And a little was still a win.
A big win.
A massive win.
An ultimate win.
"I only tell the truth. I never lie."
Ian did enjoy telling little lies now and then.
He kept his head up and endured Bruce studying him up and down for a good while.
"I understand."
He had no idea what Bruce had supposedly figured out.
Wayne suddenly handed both the laser rifle and the tiny reactor back to Ian.
"That's it?"
Ian looked stunned.
"What else were you expecting?"
Bruce sighed.
He almost wished Ian were a completely irredeemable monster child.
Unfortunately, Ian was only the monster child part.
Not the irredeemable part.
And for a man at Bruce's age, that was exactly the most exhausting category of human.
A brat.
"I thought I'd be sent to Arkham."
Ian let out a long breath.
He was starting to feel a little surprised by how calm he was.
"You're not at that level. You haven't really done anything wrong. I just wanted to understand the situation."
For some reason, Bruce's answer left Ian disappointed.
"I remember the front door being over there."
Bruce suddenly put his cowl back on.
Batman stepped out of the bedroom.
"So I really can't get sent to Arkham?"
Ian followed after him.
"No."
Batman's voice had gone rough and hoarse again.
"Really can't?"
The boy sounded weirdly unwilling to accept it.
"Really can't."
Batman sighed in disbelief.
"Fine... Arkham beds are probably too hard anyway. I doubt I'd sleep well there..."
Ian could only comfort himself like that, his tone sour and regretful.
The truth was, he'd just realized that Arkham would've basically been paradise for him.
It would get him away from Dad,
it had endless chemical supplies,
and maybe he wouldn't even need three years east of the river or three years west of it before blasting off and becoming a full-level Patriotlandeer.
That was a complete victory.
"Gotham is forbidden to you!"
Batman suddenly became deeply alert.
He still didn't understand why Ian wanted Arkham so badly, but he knew with total certainty that he needed to guard against Ian sneaking into his city.
Gotham was already chaotic enough.
There was truly no room left in it for Superman's monster child.
"Remember this, kid. If I find out you snuck into Gotham, I will personally recommend to your father every day that he beat you at home. I'll buy the paper he works for and demand ten thousand photos a day of him beating you."
This wasn't Batman talking.
This was Bruce Wayne threatening him with pure cash power.
"Hiss..."
Ian sucked in a breath.
He had been completely pinned down.
This time, the great gambler of Metropolis didn't dare bet, so all he could do was watch Batman slam the door behind him and leave, his cape picking up a little mud in the rain outside.
A moment later,
Batman came back.
"You forgot the manuscript."
He snatched the manuscript from Ian's hand and turned to leave again.
This time Ian blocked the door, so Batman couldn't slam it properly, and the man could only flick his muddy cape and disappear into the night.
That whole move left Ian staring in total confusion.
A long while later,
"I get it now. The reason he won't let me into Arkham must be because he's afraid I'll find out he has his own reserved bed there."
Ian genuinely couldn't understand Batman's return-and-leave maneuver.
That didn't stop him from taking the chance to make fun of the Gotham freak.
His phone was upstairs.
Batman definitely couldn't hear him.
Thinking that, Ian shut the front door and turned to go back upstairs. Then he heard someone breathing heavily.
He reached into his pocket and, by accident, pulled out a phone that was still connected to the call.
"I forgot."
Ian's heart skipped a beat.
Even so,
his outward calm didn't change.
"I keep telling people dual-SIM phones are a bad idea. This kind of awkward situation is bound to happen eventually..."
Ian said that, hurriedly hung up, and pressed the power button.
The phone was a sealed model, so he couldn't yank the battery out, but it didn't matter much.
Ian had already decided that from now on, every night, he'd toss the phone under Jordan's bed.
"I'm still unbelievably smart!"
Ian couldn't help admiring himself.
He knew he couldn't cure Master Wayne of his eavesdropping habit, so the only thing he could do was make sure Bruce got enough of it all in one go.
How thoughtful.
His friendship with Master Wayne was definitely going to keep improving.
Power ring prospects: promising.
(End of Chapter)
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