Spider-Man looked at the familiar smile and asked a little uncertainly. At the same time, he also became vigilant, because it seemed that the body used by the clown was much stronger than him, and judging from the clothes, it looked more like a child's gang.
Members, they are not easy to mess with.
"Of course, I am." The smiling boy nodded and said, "How could I miss the Batman game invitation? It seems like you are not having a good time, boy."
Spider-Man rubbed his stomach and sat on the ground. He hadn't eaten anything today. The emptiness in his stomach was gradually turning into a burning pain. The weakness in his limbs made it impossible for him to stand properly.
"I don't know what's wrong with this damn city. It's worse than the streets full of homeless people I saw in the Bronx." Spider-Man rubbed his face with his hands and said, "The order brought by gangs
It's really terrible, no one cares about the weak, everything will fend for itself..."
"But if I told you that this is actually the best era of Gotham, what would you think?" The Joker asked, leaning on the telephone pole.
"What do you mean?" Spider-Man was a little confused.
"This is an era when gang order still exists." The clown lowered his head and played with his fingers and said: "There are often fights on the streets, but there are no large-scale bombings and robberies. Adults are dying all the time, but soon
Someone will take his place, and many children will starve to death because they don't have enough to eat, but there will always be strong ones who survive and become a member of the gang."
"Isn't that bad enough?" Spider-Man asked.
"Not enough." The clown shook his head and said, "The worst thing is that the gangsters have disappeared, and then there is the era of madmen. Everything at that time was ten thousand times worse than you imagined."
"What will happen?" Spider-Man said after swallowing.
“Crazy people create bombings without restraint because no one can punish them. Adults can kill another adult because they are in a bad mood because they know that the police are useless and children will be bought and sold at will. There is no freedom and freedom at all.
Self-will is just the raw material for something, and there will be no chance of forming a small group without the power to fight back."
"It's so crazy." Spider-Man clenched his fists and stared at the clown and said, "And you are one of these crazy people."
"No, I'm just a product of madness." The Joker looked into Spider-Man's eyes and said, "It was Batman who created madness."
"You are always slandering him." Spider-Man took a deep breath and said: "I know the world is very bad, but if you say that he is worse than you if he doesn't save the world, then this is complete nonsense. You can't
Nothing Batman does will absolve you of any crime you have committed."
"I'm just stating a fact to you." The Joker came over, placed the bag of bread in front of Spider-Man and said, "You know what? It was Batman who ended Falcone's gang order.
"
"Is he here?" Spider-Man asked without looking at the bag of bread, just raising his head and staring at the clown.
"Of course, maybe we can witness history again." The clown smiled again and said the longest sentence of the day.
"Just now, the dilemma presented to you by reality showed its dangers for the first time, and Batman experienced the consequences twenty years ago."
"If the gangster era is not ended, children like you will always live under the oppression of violence and terror. Similar tragedies will happen one after another. But if the gangster era is ended, the final order will be completely destroyed.
This city will fall completely into the abyss."
"The Batman I know chose the latter."
Spider-Man stared at the Joker blankly, waiting for his answer at the end of his sentence, and it was just as he expected, the Joker said.
"For you, for the people he met on a dark street corner when he first dreamed of becoming a superhero."
Spider-Man unclenched his fists and sat on the ground staring at the bread that the Joker threw to him. The Joker squatted on the ground, held up one cheek with his hand and said, "You think Batman can't deal with me and this guy?"
There are criminals like me in this city because he is not determined enough or he has found the wrong method."
"But the ridiculous thing about reality is that there is no right path at all. Heroes just have the courage to face the consequences of their own mistakes after making the wrong choice. And the crazy thing about Batman is that he is just a man who has been the same for decades.
An ordinary person who is as powerless as you are now thinks that he has a choice in the face of reality, but he does not."
"So I said he is a madman. Why should he bear the consequences of a choice that has no right answer? Why is he so arrogant that he thinks he can atone for the darkness that this reality has brought to everyone? Why just refuses to admit what I said?
Everything is true. If you give up vigilance and repentance, what about the real smile?"
The Joker stood up, walked in front of Spider-Man, held his face with both hands, pressed the corners of Spider-Man's mouth and pushed it up, making Spider-Man show a fake smile.
"Do you feel you are responsible for the death of your companion?"
Spider-Man froze, then trembled all over.
Only then did he realize that everything the clown said was just to take off his guard, and the final words were a sharp sword that pierced his heart.
The clown left, sheathing his sword gracefully like a swordsman, but Spider-Man followed his heartbeat and heard the words in the hole in his heart from the aerial beat of his heartbeat - "Why should I be responsible?
"
He is no longer the powerful Spider-Man, but an injured, hungry child who cannot even guarantee his own life, and what he faces is something that countless adults in this city cannot solve.
This is a problem that a hero can only regret due to defeat. If he says he is irresponsible, who can blame him harshly?
His weakness will be his best reason to retreat. It is a retreat that Spider-Man, a superhero, has never had. He has tried his best, but fate has played a trick and reality is cruel. This will be his best excuse to let himself go.
What can I do if I don’t let myself go?
Spider-Man thought of the Batman mentioned by the Joker. He made his own choice in a real dilemma, and then faced the consequences of this choice in the next twenty years and tried his best to redeem it.
But he actually has no need to embarrass himself in this way, because no matter what choice he makes, it is wrong. He is not even a hero with super powers. Why not accept his weakness with peace of mind and give up the absurd imposition of reality as a matter of course?
What about giving him meaningless responsibilities to make myself smile with relief?
The touch of the clown's fingers is still on Spider-Man's face. As long as he raises the corners of his mouth with this force, smiles and sighs as if he feels sorry for that girl, he can leave the sadness and heaviness behind and start a new life.
Lived.
Why not? Spider-Man thought with his eyes closed. He stood up, took the bag of bread, and staggered back to the house.
"Why did you kill Falcone in the first place?"
In the corner of the abandoned factory, a little boy chewed a mouthful of bread and asked vaguely to another older child, while the black-haired boy just sat there silently, with no expression on his face, as serious as a statue.
.
"I didn't kill Falcone."
"But you didn't save him." The little boy wiped the crumbs from his mouth and said, "Dick told me that you actually knew that Maroni was going to take action at that time, and you also had the ability to stop him."
"I don't have to stop him. These are two evil gang members fighting among themselves. I don't have to save either of them." The black-haired boy's tone was straight and emotionless. It didn't sound like he was chatting, but more like he was talking.
Under interrogation.
"Right? This is a good thing you did." The little boy holding the bread shrugged and said, "When the gang is gone, the worse will come. You are completely responsible for it."
The little boy picked up the water bottle next to him and drank some water. He stood up and sat across from the black-haired boy and said, "If you didn't kill Falcone, well, well, if you had saved him,
The situation of the gang can still be maintained, and everything won't be so bad, so why were you so impulsive in the first place?"
"Do you think I was acting impulsively?"
The little boy looked aside and said, "That's not what I meant, but you may not have considered the consequences. Seriously, Batman, do you regret it?"
"I will never regret the death of a gang leader, Damian, never."
"You're changing the subject again." Damian looked at the boy opposite and said, "What I'm asking is whether you regret destroying the gang's order and bringing Gotham into a worse era."
“How do you judge whether an era is bad?”
Damian rubbed his face and said: "Anyway, the Gotham I saw in another universe is much better than yours. You often say that seeing is believing. I have seen it. In comparison, it is naturally your Gotham."
worse."
"Did you really see it?" Batman's tone remained unchanged, but he stood up, turned around and walked outside the building.
"Hey, wait, where are you going?"
"You don't have to follow me." Batman turned to look at Damian and said, "Because the city outside is exactly what you said was a better era, and you also want to turn your hometown into this. In this case,
You can live here alone."
"Of course I can!" Damian said with a somewhat angry tone: "Are you angry because your mistake was exposed? Batman, you are always like this, you can't listen to other people's correct advice!"
Batman said nothing and disappeared silently at the top of the stairs. Damian took a deep breath, clenched his fists, stood up from the ground and ran to the window, shouting to Batman who was walking alone into the sunset:
"I will correct your mistake!!!"
Batman never looked back.
At the same time, Bruce, the back cook of a certain restaurant, quickly opened the door of the cupboard under the stove and groped in the dark cupboard with his hands that were full of foam after washing the dishes.
Suddenly his eyes lit up, he took out what he was holding, and a proud smile appeared on his face.
What shone under the light was an exquisite small silver spoon engraved with a vine pattern.