Although Bruce hadn't yet met the so-called bff—the war correspondent from Constantinople that Selina mentioned—the word alone was enough for him to guess who it was.
In a corner of the banquet hall, Bruce saw a familiar figure, just as expected:
"Joey Joseph Kent."
Batman hadn't expected that, aside from being Superman, Joey's civilian identity would be a war correspondent. That was far more intense than Clark Kent's ordinary life.
"It's me."
Joey, who had been pacing anxiously in front of the dessert table, snapped his head around the moment he heard Bruce's voice and hurried over:
"Then you're that Bruce Wayne too?"
Their eyes met. After confirming it with a single glance, they both gave a subtle nod.
"Selina, do me a favor."
Bruce lightly tapped Catwoman's waist and whispered into her ear:
"Alfred's busy right now—could you go down to the cellar and get that bottle of Ley .925?"
It was a relatively expensive tequila. In Batman's memory, there should only be one bottle left in the cellar—enough to keep Selina occupied for quite a while.
Before leaving, Selina shot Bruce an annoyed look, pinched his side lightly, and only then reluctantly turned away.
"We're completely screwed!"
Joey immediately started patting Bruce down inside and out, his urgency making Bruce visibly uncomfortable:
"Where's the metal fragment I slipped you earlier?!"
"Stop that!"
Sensing the tension, Bruce quickly slapped Joey's hands away:
"I didn't even manage to grab it!"
It had only been moments ago—barely ten minutes since they ambushed Martha.
And yet, in that short span of time, everything had already changed.
Bruce didn't have the fragment. He clearly remembered that at the last moment, he failed to catch it. The only thing he ended up holding… was the champagne glass now in his hand.
"It has to be on you! Otherwise how are your memories not getting messed with? Because you're Batman?"
After checking multiple times and confirming the fragment wasn't on Bruce, Joey slapped his own forehead in frustration:
"Damn it! I'm totally screwed tonight!"
Bruce was still in the dark. He had no idea why Superman was panicking:
"Superman, what exactly is going on?"
"What's going on is that when I was fighting Martha for the helmet, I used too much force. The Helmet of Fate shattered—triggering a massive explosion of divine energy."
Just recalling it made Joey's head ache:
"I'm guessing that explosion is what turned things into… this!"
The Helmet of Fate had contained the power of Nabu, Lord of Order—a force powerful enough to warp reality and reverse causality.
For example, Joey suspected that the reason he had once managed to injure Barbatos—the great dragon—despite being in a mortal body, was probably because he had those fragments on him at the time.
"That explosion probably twisted our reality directly—creating a world based on someone's vision!"
Only then did Bruce notice that the Superman in front of him was slightly different from the one just minutes ago.
He looked older. Slightly taller—now a few centimeters above Bruce.
More like the Clark Kent Bruce once knew.
More strikingly, Joey now had two scars on his face. They were small and faint—but to Bruce, who knew what he was, they stood out glaringly.
Kryptonians don't keep scars.
Now Bruce understood why Superman was so anxious:
"You've lost your powers?!"
"Worse than that!"
Losing Kryptonian powers was bad enough—but what terrified Joey more was that his memories were splitting in two.
"Right now, I'm a legendary war correspondent who survived a missile strike and won a Pulitzer Prize!"
Back then, Joey had been on assignment on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean when a missile blast sent him flying—that was the moment his second life as a Kryptonian began.
But now, that memory was changing.
Fate had split into two diverging paths at that exact moment.
In this version, Joey survived the attack—and everything that happened afterward was slowly being erased from his mind.
His Kryptonian story was being separated out—turning into an entirely different narrative:
A crash-landed alien child in the center of Metropolis…
Captured and secretly detained.
"Hng—!"
Having just explained everything, Joey suddenly felt a dull pain in his head—quickly escalating into a piercing agony.
Fragments of new memories flooded in—
How he had barely clung to life after the missile strike.
How he had stayed up all night writing his Pulitzer acceptance speech.
This new world created by the explosion was stabilizing itself—rewriting Joey out of existence.
"Ahh—we need to find that fragment, Batman! Or we might be lost forever!"
Joey didn't know whether what he was experiencing was a real illusion or a distorted reality.
All he knew was that he needed that fragment—to correct both his memories and someone else's.
Power could be regained.
But once memories were gone, there would be no origin left to recover them.
Bruce still didn't understand why his own memories remained intact—but perhaps it really was because of the fragment.
Whatever that fragment was, if it could pierce the Helmet of Fate, it was no ordinary object.
Thinking of that, he quickly asked:
"If it's not with me, then where could it be?"
"I—I'm not sure… I remember you grabbing it… aaagh—!"
Veins bulged on Joey's forehead. At this point, he couldn't even trust his own memories anymore. But there was something more urgent he had to tell Bruce:
"There's something else—Diana is here too. And she's in an even worse state than me. You have to—have to keep her away from me!"
"Joey!"
Bruce reached out to steady Superman as he nearly collapsed from the pain. Just as he was considering carrying him to a guest room for treatment—
Another familiar voice sounded from behind him.
"Good heavens, what's wrong with Joey?!"
It was Diana's voice.
Batman immediately recalled what Joey had just told him and prepared to dismiss her:
"He might've just had too much to drin—"
Before he could finish, Joey—who had just been clutching his head in agony—suddenly stood up as if nothing had happened.
"I'm fine. Just spaced out for a second—maybe jet lag."
Bruce looked into Joey's eyes and immediately noticed something was off.
Superman was offline.
"Let me help you."
Diana quickly stepped forward, gently taking Joey's arm. She leaned in, standing on her tiptoes, and whispered near his ear:
"So, where were we just now?"
The Amazonian was already tall, and standing beside Joey at nearly 1.93 meters even in heels, they looked striking together—almost like a perfect match.
Joey looked flustered, his face slightly red.
"Uh… we were talking about…"
"Cough!"
Bruce cleared his throat, interrupting the flirtation.
"Diana, if you don't mind, can I borrow Joey for a moment?"
"You know my name? Did Joey tell you?"
Diana smiled lightly and pulled a business card from her suit pocket.
"I should introduce myself properly. Diana Prince. Joey's girlfriend. If you ever need artifact appraisal—legitimate ones—feel free to call me."
Bruce took the card and, without even glancing at it, slipped it into his pocket.
Wonder Woman's civilian identity as an antiquities appraiser in Boston was no secret to Batman.
The problem now was Joey's warning: keep Diana away from him.
Bruce needed Joey. Diana clearly wasn't letting go.
She gave Bruce a polite but distant smile.
"Go on."
Bruce could clearly feel that Diana didn't like him very much—despite his current identity as the spoiled son of Gotham's richest family and Joey's closest friend.
But given what Tommy said earlier, and how everyone at the party looked at him, Bruce wasn't surprised.
No normal woman would want her partner anywhere near Gotham's most infamous playboy, Bruce Wayne.
The three of them fell into an awkward standoff.
Joey tried to speak, clearing his throat—
Diana glanced at him, and he immediately swallowed his words.
Now Bruce finally understood what Superman meant earlier when he said he was 'totally screwed tonight.'
And why he insisted—repeatedly—that Diana must be kept away from him.
In this new world, they were a couple. And a very one-sided, intense one at that.
Bruce could tell from Diana's gaze and her closeness to Joey.
If left alone, once the party is over, she would probably 'take him home' tonight.
Just to be safe, Bruce asked again:
"Do you remember the fragment, Joey?"
"What fragment? The shrapnel that hit me when I got bombed?"
Batman received exactly the irrelevant answer he expected.
"Those pieces are fine. Your father personally removed them. I really have to thank him."
"Good."
Bruce nodded as if he cared, though he knew none of that had ever happened.
This new world was disturbingly coherent: Superman was a war correspondent who had survived a missile strike, explaining the scars on his face.
At that moment, Selina walked over holding the bottle of ley .925. She angrily tossed it toward Bruce.
"This damn bottle took forever to find!"
Seeing this, Bruce felt his heart skip a beat and was briefly thrown into a flustered panic.
If not for the fact that his physical and psychological conditioning as Batman was rock-solid, he would have almost failed to catch the three-million-dollar bottle of tequila.
He quickly handed drinks to the four of them and raised his glass.
"Sorry, I need to step away for a moment. Please help yourselves. The guest rooms are upstairs if you need to rest."
As for Joey's request?
Batman felt he should focus on the urgent matters first—such as finding the fragment.
As for the other thing Joey had mentioned?
Forcibly separating those two would likely take far too much time and effort.
With that kind of time on his hands, it was better to prioritize the fragment instead.
If he could recover it, restore their memories—then everything would fall back into place.
If he couldn't find the fragment, then he would need to move on to a backup plan.
Go directly to the other party involved at the scene—Martha.
As for Superman and Wonder Woman?
Batman chose, for now, to set aside his instinct to help and respect the fate of others.