American comics: Damn it, I’m surrounded by those who worry about their fathers!

"Mr. Padrick?"

Wiping the rain off his face, Bruce looked at Peter in shock as he held up the umbrella for him.

"You said you were going home, Thomas, but it looks like your way home is blocked."

"I"

Bruce lowered his head, "I don't know if it still belongs to me."

He didn't know if he would ever return to Wayne Manor.

"You look like a loser now, not like a real man."

Peter patted him on the shoulder and said, "Let's go back to the hotel with me first."

His super hearing just now had already heard the content of the call between Bruce and Alfred.

Alfred, the butler, calls himself "Thomas Wayne" (Bruce's father's name), and is rich. The combination of these elements makes it easy for Peter to guess his identity - Bruce Wayne.

Looking down at the confused boy, Peter found it difficult to connect him with the Night Knight.

"hotel?"

When Bruce heard this, he looked up at Peter and was slightly stunned.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally followed Peter's footsteps and walked towards the car.

"Sir, do you really believe me?"

Bruce asked with mixed emotions as he followed Peter.

Peter nodded and replied: "Of course, I believed you at first, Thomas, but now you seem to be unsure of yourself."

Bruce said with a struggling expression: "Yes, my self-confidence has been destroyed a bit, and sir, I lied to you. My name is not Thomas, my real name is Bruce Wayne."

"Well, is there any other deception besides that?"

"No, no, everything else is true, including the twenty thousand dollars and the bar I mentioned. I mean, sir, I just didn't want to implicate you, so I used a fake name."

Bruce quickly explained to Peter.

Peter nodded, "What now? Why tell me your real name now, Bruce?"

Bruce breathed out, "Now, I think... I choose to believe you, sir."

"I'm honored."

Peter held the umbrella and continued to move forward, complaining in his heart: This guy is not afraid of hurting himself, but he doesn't trust himself.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Peter started the car and drove forward in the pouring rain.

With one hand on the steering wheel, he casually took out a "Franklin" and handed it to Bruce.

Bruce, who was confused, took the money.

"This is the banknote you just gave to a few orphans. They cannot have banknotes of this value."

Peter said he took back the entire bill and gave it to them in change.

Holding "Franklin" in his hand, Bruce thanked Peter after a moment of silence: "Thank you, sir."

He seemed to be talking to himself and confiding to Peter, "I don't understand why there is crime everywhere in the city, whether it's Gotham or Metropolis."

Peter glanced at the other party unexpectedly. This boy now had this kind of question about "sin".

“Wherever there is light there is darkness, there is no way around it.”

Peter replied casually.

Bruce nodded and looked towards a church outside the window.

The cross directly above the church stood in the heavy rain, washed away and shining brightly.

He murmured, "Why doesn't God save us and dispel the darkness?"

Peter followed Bruce's line of sight and found that the other person's eyes had been fixed on the cross on the church.

He slowed the car down a little. "God might be busy, Bruce. Do you know what some people think the cross represents?"

Bruce shook his head, "I don't know."

"The horizontal line represents human beings, it refers to the current world, a world filled with matter, flesh and dirt, mud, blood, stones, bones; the vertical line represents the sacred line of God, which is in a dominant position , it is perpendicular to the human world and is the axis between the afterlife and the unknown world.”

It happened that the car was driving to a traffic light intersection at this time, and Peter stepped on the brakes.

“Jesus stood at the crossroads and chose not the horizontal line of the human world but the vertical line of God.”

He moved his eyebrows and asked Bruce: "If it were you, Bruce, what would you choose? A horizontal line or a vertical line?"

He really wanted to know, one was to continuously save himself and others in the human world through pain, and the other was to be free once and for all through Jesus-like sacrifice.

Between the two, which heroic approach will Batman choose?

"I?"

Bruce was immediately confused when he heard Peter let him choose.

Pinching his fingers, he was caught in a dilemma.

Although the horizontal and vertical lines sounded very simple, he frowned and still didn't know what to choose.

Looking at Bruce's tangled expression, the corners of Peter's mouth curved.

"It doesn't matter, Bruce, this is not a mandatory question. The cross is a crossroads and a symbol of choice. The most difficult thing in life is choice."

The light turned green, Peter stepped on the accelerator, and the car moved forward through the intersection.

Bruce cast his doubtful and confused eyes on Peter.

He always felt that Peter's words seemed to be reminding him of something.

The next day, early morning.

When Peter got up, he saw Bruce, neatly dressed, squatting in the corridor and staring at a vase.

After hearing the sound, he turned around and saw Peter standing behind him.

"Good morning, Mr. Padraic."

"Good morning, Bruce, what are you doing?"

Bruce pointed at the vase and said, "Nothing, I just think this vase looks familiar. It should be a porcelain from the Celestial Empire, more than 500 years ago."

Peter glanced at the vase and said, "It's almost the same. A group of robbers robbed them and placed them here openly. Bruce, do you have such porcelain at home?"

Bruce said unnaturally, "There are similar ones, sir, but they should not be robbed. My ancestors bought them from other people."

"I'm glad to hear that your ancestors were businessmen, not robbers, Bruce."

Peter was talking to Bruce, and Azu heard the voice and walked to the corridor.

Seeing Bruce appear, he was a little surprised.

"Hello, I'm Bruce Wayne."

Facing Azu, who was much shorter than him, Bruce took the initiative to extend his hand to show goodwill.

"Are you the poor boy who borrowed money?"

Azu did not shake hands with him, but looked at him.

"I will pay it back."

"Pay it back? Then pay it back now."

Azu looked at him with contempt, "You may not know the concept of money. Let me tell you, I only earn seven dollars a week from lawn mowing, and you want a hundred dollars at any time. You are more greedy than me! I tell you, you can fool Dad, but you can't fool me!"

Peter frowned when he heard Azu's threat that didn't sound like a good person.

"John?"

"Sorry, Dad."

Azu originally used the "Great Wilderness Prisoner Sky Finger" to attack Bruce, but when he heard Peter's dissatisfied tone, his face changed immediately.

Azu, who changed into a harmless expression, said to Peter innocently: "Dad, I'm just afraid that you will be deceived by this poor boy."

Looking at Azu who switched expressions freely and called him "poor boy" all the time, Bruce turned his head away unhappily.

He hated this naughty child!