"What...What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
Spider-Man, who had just retracted his arm due to a broken spider silk, looked at the small figure standing in front of him. It was a young boy with short black hair and brilliant blue eyes even in the darkness of the night. However, his face was now as pale as a sheet of paper and his lips were bloodless. His gaze was completely unfocused, and his pupils slightly dilated.
"Hey! Hey! What's the matter with you? Can you hear me? You...wait, you look like Bruce Wayne... My God, you wouldn't be his..."
Only when Spider-Man moved closer did he finally see the other's face clearly. But just as he was about to speculate further on the other's identity, the boy in front of him shook his head forcefully, swayed a little in a dizzy spell, and collapsed weakly to the ground.
Spider-Man rushed forward with a stride to catch him. He glanced back at the skyline of Gotham City. The most conspicuous building called Wayne Building had already turned off all its lights. Having stayed here for so long, Spider-Man knew that no ambulance would come at this hour.
He gently felt for the boy's pulse on the side of his neck, confirmed that the rhythm was normal, and inspected his eyes—both his eye movement and pupil condition seems normal. Following that, he checked breathing rate and heart rate. They seemed slightly weak, and so Spider-Man diagnosed his condition as episodic fainting due to excessive fatigue.
Spider-Man lifted the boy. As he raised his leg, he clearly hesitated for a moment before turning around and heading in another direction.
Spider-Man took Little Bruce to the Batcave.
Batman wasn't currently in the Batcave, but he had given Spider-Man the authority to enter the Batcave. This wasn't an unusual move; most of his Robins could enter the Batcave normally, but they weren't allowed to use most of the dangerous equipment there.
When Little Bruce woke up, he found himself lying on a lab bench. Instinctively, he tried to sit up, his muscles tensed and his face showed signs of concern. But almost immediately, the strange man with the spider-like compound eyes on his mask came over from the side and spoke.
"Don't be alarmed, I'm not some mad scientist. You passed out, so I brought you to a safe place. I originally intended to take you back to my temporary base, but there are no thorough medical examination tools there and obviously, your body has some problems."
Feeling weak, Little Bruce reclined back onto the table. He rasped: "It's not my body that's the problem, it's my brain."
"Typically, those are related." Sighed Spider-Man. He became tenderer when performing certain medical interventions. He spoke with the patience of a doctor: "The medical examination results show that you're overworked, causing your brainwaves to fluctuate abnormally."
"I am very tired, but that's unrelated…"
"Listen, kid, I'm not trying to lecture you like your parents, but I have to tell you, at your age, there's nothing worth exhausting yourself this much over. Be it studying, living, or exploring unknown fields, going against the rules of physical growth and brain development does you no good."
Little Bruce opened his mouth, his lips moving imperceptibly. Even though no sound came out, in that moment, Spider-Man's spider-sense began alerting him of danger.
Spider-Man flexed his lower back and jumped several meters backward on the spot. But when nothing happened, he turned his head suspiciously from left to right as if trying to locate the hidden danger in the air.
Struggling, Little Bruce pointed at his own head, "Forbidden knowledge...here...very dangerous...I need...but have to control..."
His utterance was too vague for Spider-Man to understand. He attributed Little Bruce's confused and vague states to mental exhaustion. After performing another brain scan, Spider-Man said: "I'm afraid you need some rest and recuperation."
"No offense, but…" Spider-Man let his voice trail off, looking at Little Bruce with some concern, "Can I ask if this condition of yours is related to your parents?"
Little Bruce responded with a dazed nod. Of course, he was always fully aware of the fact that his parents were dead. But his pursuit of forbidden knowledge was to discover what the world after death truly was, so his current situation wasn't entirely unrelated to his parents.
However, Spider-Man misunderstood. He thought, what could possibly exhaust a child to this extent? The obvious answer was parental pressure. If the boy in front of him, who bore a very strong resemblance to Bruce Wayne, was indeed related to him and came from an extremely wealthy family, then his parents could potentially have subjected him to all this pressure due to his heir status. This could have driven him to become this exhausted at an age not suited for such stress.
This was a perfectly reasonable assumption. If his original family was, to him, hellish, then Spider-Man couldn't just irresponsibly send him back. His parents' actions had far surpassed the scope of education and bordered on abuse. Therefore, regardless of his relationship to Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man didn't believe the two should meet for now.
So, he sighed and said: "You should be aware of how complex your condition is. The owner of this base won't be back for a while, so you can rest here until you regain your strength."
"I'll try to talk to Bruce Wayne. I don't know if it will work, but I believe he should be held accountable for his erroneous ways of education. Take a rest first."
After saying this, Spider-Man left the room, leaving Little Bruce—who was full of horrific whispers in his head—alone on the lab bench. Little Bruce knew how blasphemous his previous actions were in any other doctrines—they wouldn't even be absolved by being burned at the stake ten times over.
However, he was still reluctant to give up the glimpse he had of forbidden knowledge in the Outergod Illusion. There, it contained many things he wanted to know—life, death, the origin and destination of humans...
Little Bruce was quite young, so certain aspects of his character had not yet developed into a more extreme form of eccentricity due to years of solitude. But every Bruce Wayne in the multiverse was the same - seeds of obsession were deeply planted in their hearts. Once they set their minds on something, they wouldn't give up easily, clenching their teeth and working even harder when faced with difficulties.
In the multiverse, there are practically no Batmen who are religious, not even in their childhood. The current little Bruce may seem to be entranced by the gods, but in fact, he's on a path that deviates completely from that of conventional believers.
He didn't seek to trade sacrifices for knowledge or completion of goals in search of answers. He was trying to comprehend the forbidden knowledge he'd encountered through his own strength, attempting forcefully to decode it with human intelligence without paying any price. In other words, he was looting from the gods.
What I see is mine, what I can understand will be utilized by me. This attitude seemed arrogant to the point of madness, but which Batman in the universe wasn't mad? They just differed in what they were crazy about.
Little Bruce dozed off, but the things in his dreams were more terrifying. Those murmurs which only managed to distract him when he was awake, turned into palpable weirdness and horrors in his dreams.
Suddenly, Little Bruce was jolted awake. The dizzy sensation of falling from a massive black hole hadn't entirely dissipated when he saw a pair of bloodshot eyes staring at him straight on.
As Little Bruce's vision focused, he found the person with the messy green hair, who nearly slumped on the lab bench, had a slender narrow face with funnily exaggerated red lipstick, a frighteningly large mouth and eyes that looked as if they hadn't slept in forever, harboring deep dark circles and filled with bloodshot veins.
The unexpected guest who had suddenly appeared looked even more baffled than Little Bruce. After staring at him for a while, he suddenly let out a sharp, piercing laughter.
It was too shrill; that was the only thought rising from Little Bruce's messy thoughts. However, the terrifying whispering noises gradually subsided, and for a brief moment, Little Bruce felt as if his brain was functioning normally again.
So, he struggled to sit up, fixating his gaze on the strange man, and commanded urgently, "Please…please… keep going!"
"You're not him... you're not Batman." The stranger instantly changed his expression; his smile vanished, his expression becoming mysterious and strange, clearly deep in thought.
He stared at little Bruce again for a moment, then said: "No, you are him, you are Bruce Wayne, you are Batman, and yet you are not. You are derailing. What changed you?"
Suddenly, in Little Bruce's field of view, the green-haired stranger revealed a vicious expression. His hands, like the claws of a ghost, clutched Little Bruce's neck and began to tighten their grip.
"Let's see what's been changing you!"
The angry roar echoed around Little Bruce; the sensation of suffocation left him completely defenceless. His consciousness was growing weak; the whispering noise was increasingly louder. Little Bruce saw countless gates opening up to him in his hallucination, his soul ready to step through.
He should enter those gates—if that's where people go after they die, his parents must be waiting for him on the other side. This was the ending he should meet.
But suddenly, a cool wetness broke through his delirium. When he woke up, he found himself being carried over someone's shoulder, a stray lock of green hair swinging in front of his eyes.
The stranger who was carrying him was not particularly strong-looking, but seemed to possess enormous strength. He was descending step by step into the darker depths, humming a strange ballad.
When he noticed tiny Bruce was awake, he spoke with the tone of a philosopher, a stark contrast to the madness exhibited earlier.
"I never thought a bat could cocoon itself. You are undergoing a metamorphosis, and I am honored to witness it all."
"If you survive and grow wings, I will see the disqualified monster I've been yearning for. If you die in the cocoon, I will hang you on Batman's front door, so he and I can admire this delicate specimen."
"I won't... become a monster..."
"Then let's see how deep the morals you cling to really are. At least I'm glad that a certain pitiful wretch in a particular universe will no longer have the chance to change you with his insanity, because you are pursuing madness yourself and allowing it to change you."
When the jolting stopped, Little Bruce found himself being thrown to the ground. A figure turned and exited the cell. The green-haired man laid his hands on the bars, and with a fervent gaze, told Little Bruce, "Stay here. Safely complete your transformation. I will nourish you with plentiful sacrifices and nutrients. In any case, you will be a great reunion gift to Batman."
As he finished, he turned to leave but suddenly heard a weak voice calling him from behind. When he spun around, he found Little Bruce's blue eyes focused intently on him, asking:
"No sacrifices or nutrients... Give me knowledge… More… More knowledge…"