44 · Chapter 44
Messiah couldn't help but widen his eyes as he watched Bruce rotate the hands of the clock and then the dark passage slowly open.
Messiah curiously stuck his head out and tried to study the structure of the clock. Why could such a large passage be opened by just turning the hands a few times?
The super vision turned on automatically, and Messiah looked at the complex mechanical structure of the clock with his eyes wide open.
Understanding the mechanism of a clock, from starting to giving up, only takes one step.
Bruce rubbed Messiah's little head in amusement and led them down the aisle.
Jason gasped as the light dimmed and brightened, revealing the full extent of the Batcave before them.
"Welcome to the Batcave."
Batman's low and hoarse voice sounded, and the person standing in front of them was no longer Bruce Wayne, but Batman.
Messiah was still looking back at the structure of the clock. Compared to Jason who was excited and excited, Messiah did not show much interest in the Batcave.
Of course, the unfamiliar clock mechanism is more interesting than the Batcave that I have seen with my super vision.
Batman frowned unconsciously as he watched Messiah's performance.
When Messiah finally came to his senses, he was met with Batman's scrutinizing gaze.
Messiah tilted his head, "Bruce?"
He hesitated, remembering his current relationship with Bruce, and whispered, "...Dad?"
Batman froze for a moment.
He had never been so aware of being the father of this child.
Dick had the Graysons, and he couldn't replace them in Dick's heart. Jason also had memories of the Todds, even if they weren't good parents.
Only Messiah had never truly lived with his parents and was a complete blank slate.
…He was the first being to give the Messiah the concept of “father.”
Batman's tightly pursed lips trembled for a moment, and the invisible bat armor was peeled off from him. Bruce hesitated and raised his hand to ruffle Messiah's hair.
“…My son.”
Jason looked at this scene with complicated eyes. Compared to Willis Todd, both Batman and Bruce Wayne were good fathers.
The Messiah is awkward...very awkward.
He called Bruce Dad simply because Bruce was his father now... but after Bruce responded to him, a very strange feeling arose.
This feeling was very familiar, like a feather gently scratching his heart, or like a warm current flowing from an unknown source, making Messiah subconsciously look at Jason.
The last time I felt this strange feeling was with my younger brother.
Jason moved the corners of his mouth and showed a bright smile to Messiah, but before he could say anything, a huge force pushed him from behind.
The next second, Jason crashed into a warm embrace with a familiar smell beside him.
Messiah and Jason were hugged by Bruce together, their hands tightly clasped together. Dick, who was screaming, shouted "You guys are hugging each other without me--" and was also hugged up.
Bruce's mouth corners unconsciously rose, and this happy mood lasted until Messiah's ability test.
In the Batcave's special training room for Kryptonians, Bruce looked at Messiah who was testing his abilities and almost showed an expression of doubt about his life.
"Wow, Kryptonian."
Dick shouted out what was in Bruce's heart.
Super vision, super hearing, heat vision, freeze breath, man of steel...
…Why do Messiah's abilities behave so much like Kryptonians?
Bruce was a little skeptical about his life. He even considered the possibility that the Messiah was a Kryptonian half-blood. But Connor, the Kryptonian half-blood, was not as much of a Kryptonian as the Messiah. Connor could not fly, but the Messiah could.
If the Messiah hadn't used the unknown golden energy more than once before, poor young reporter Clark Kent might have received a call from Batman, asking him when he leaked his genes again.
Messiah picked up a stone (Dick: Why is there a stone here?!), and then he had an idea. He molded the stone into a diamond with a bat logo and put it into Jason's palm like a treasure.
"Batman doll." Messiah stood on tiptoe and patted Jason's shoulder...elbow. "This will replace it."
When leaving the apartment in the morning, Jason looked at the Batman doll hesitantly, but finally gritted his teeth and gave up the comfort doll that had been with him since he was a child.
Anyway, there is the Messiah, and the Messiah is his real comfort doll.
Messiah noticed Jason's reluctance to leave, so when he was pinching the diamond just now, he suddenly came up with this idea.
Messiah felt that he had done a good job and his brother would definitely be very touched.
Jason's face flushed as he took Messiah's bat diamond, not daring to look at Bruce and Dick's expressions. "Thank you, Messiah."
Messiah was even happier, completely unaware of Jason's social death.
Bruce silently and happily ran back to the Messiah in the training room.
...more like a Kryptonian.
For the first time, Bruce discovered that the Messiah's smile was so similar to Superman's.
Why?!
Bruce wiped his face, shaking off the lingering image of Superman's silly grin in his mind.
"Messiah, do you have any other abilities?" Bruce squatted down, looked Messiah in the eye, and spoke as gently as possible. "Or, do you know how you did this?"
"There are many more."
Messiah listed a bunch of abilities in one breath, and at the end Bruce was a little worried that Messiah might be short of oxygen.
The sound of Dick instructing Jason on how to use the training equipment gradually stopped, and the two men stared in amazement at Messiah who listed a long list of abilities.
"...Did you know the Messiah would have so many?"
Jason shook his head dazedly at Dick.
Messiah didn't know why Bruce's expression became so strange. He couldn't help but stop reading his name and looked at Bruce worriedly: "Dad, are you okay?"
Bruce smiled, clutching his brain which was in phantom pain, "I'm fine."
No, it's just an enhanced version of Superman. I can do it.
Messiah believed Bruce's words and was about to continue to report his abilities, but was interrupted by Bruce.
"That's enough." Bruce looked inexplicably weak. "Messiah, my boy, thank you for your honesty."
Messiah braked, then raised his hand when he remembered he had a second question to answer for Bruce.
A ball of golden energy appeared in the palm of Messiah's hand, and the surface of the golden ball of light was flowing with brilliant light, like flowing molten gold.
The golden light illuminated the faces of Messiah and Bruce. Bruce stared at the golden ball of light filled with holiness in Messiah's palm. His mood unconsciously calmed down, and an inexplicable warmth flowed in his heart.
The next second, Batman's will dispelled the presence that affected his emotions.
Bruce couldn't help showing a vigilant look. Messiah lowered his eyes to look at the golden ball of light in his palm, then raised his eyes to look at Bruce.
"This is my power," Messiah whispered. "It allows me to do anything I want—almost anything."
"Except... the matter of salvation."
The golden light illuminated the Messiah’s face, adding a touch of divinity to his tender features: “I cannot heal others or resurrect the dead.”
For a moment, the Messiah looked as if he were in another dimension, but Dick's hissing sound interrupted the scene.
"Hiss—" Dick covered his back teeth and gritted his teeth, "It hurts so much, why does my tooth suddenly hurt so much?"
Messiah subconsciously turned towards Dick, and the golden ball of light moved closer to Dick.
Dick's toothache became more severe, his expression twisted for a moment, and then turned into surprise.
He opened his mouth and spat out a white tooth, on which was embedded a small coin with an owl pattern.
Messiah widened his eyes, looked at the golden ball of light, then looked at Dick who had lost a tooth, instantly extinguished his power, and put his hands behind his back.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." Messiah lowered his head to his chest, "I didn't know I would hurt you..."
For the first time, Messiah realized that making his power visible would hurt other people's teeth.
...Dick lost a tooth after so long, so how are Bruce's teeth?
Messiah suddenly looked up at Bruce, his expression turning into concern. Could it be that all of Bruce's teeth had fallen out?
After using X-ray—Messiah thought hesitantly, should that be the name?—to scan Bruce's body and confirm that his teeth were still intact, Messiah breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, Bruce no longer needs dentures.
But when Messiah saw the tooth in Dick's palm, he became dejected again.
Bruce doesn't need to pretend, but Dick does...
It's all my fault. I'm sorry, Dick.
Jason thought it was really the Messiah that affected Dick, so he skillfully blocked the Messiah and started "He's still a child."
I'm sorry, Dick, but I think the Messiah's young heart needs more protection than your teeth.
"I'm sorry, Dick." Jason looked Dick in the eye sincerely, "But you know, Messiah is still a child and can't fully master his abilities."
Before this, Jason had never imagined that one day he would be so familiar with the method of moral kidnapping.
"No, the Messiah is right."
The smile on Dick's face disappeared. He looked at the owl pattern on his teeth and remembered a nursery rhyme that had been circulating in Gotham for a long time.
He used to often hear people humming this nursery rhyme in the circus.
Dick murmured, "Beware the Court of Owls, always watching your every move. Watching Gotham from the shadows, hiding in the low walls and attics."
"He is with you in your house, and even in your bed. Never mention his name, or his claws will find your head."
Bruce recited the second half of the nursery rhyme and looked solemnly at Dick's fallen tooth.
"…the Court of Owls."
Jason realized that things were not as he imagined, and gradually moved his body away from Messiah.
Bruce studied the gold owl in his teeth and whispered, "They exist."
"I've only been to the dentist once." Dick's expression was eerily calm, but a storm was brewing in his dark blue eyes. "I was at Harry's Circus when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I passed out from the anesthesia."
Messiah looked at the serious expressions of Bruce and Dick and thought he had done something wrong.
"I'm sorry..." Messiah whispered, "but I don't know how to heal it. I can't put Dick's tooth back in."
Dick then realized that he had scared the Messiah.
"No, you did nothing wrong, Messiah."
Dick walked to Messiah, squatted down and looked into Messiah's eyes with a bright smile. The Robin who always laughed and brought happiness to others was back.
"You helped me a lot, Messiah." Dick reached out and ruffled Messiah's hair, saying in a light tone, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have discovered that someone had hidden something in my teeth."
"Instead of hurting me, you helped me expose the conspiracy of the Court of Owls."
Dick winked at Messiah. "Is that golden light your power? It's a very warm power, and it saved me."
"Really?"
Messiah was still worried, worried that Dick was just comforting him, and also afraid that Dick would become as bad as the kitten.
He moved closer to Dick and turned on the X-ray to scan Dick's body. Dick naturally opened his mouth and said "Ah", then relaxed his body to let Messiah observe his teeth.
Dick looked at Messiah with a smile in his eyes, letting Messiah stick his head out to look at him.
"call……"
After confirming that Dick was fine, Messiah breathed a sigh of relief and his fluctuating heart calmed down.
"That's great." Messiah looked into Dick's gentle and tolerant blue eyes, "I didn't hurt you..."
Dick reached out and rubbed Messiah's head, a smile in his voice: "You saved me from the conspiracy of the Court of Owls."
"You did it, Messiah."
Dick had long noticed Messiah's dejection when he said "I can't save anyone." He looked Messiah in the eyes and said seriously, "You saved all the children in the school before, and now you save me."
"Even if you can't heal or revive others, you can still save them."
Messiah repeated Dick's words, and he was in a trance for a moment when he remembered that Bruce and Jason had said similar things to him.
Can I really be saved?
Messiah lowered his head involuntarily when he thought of the things in the previous world.
Dick noticed that Messiah was inexplicably depressed again, and he started telling him a few puns and jokes in an attempt to make him laugh.
That's too deliberate, Dick.
Jason twitched his lips. Such obvious consolation could only fool a little fool like Messiah.
Bah. Bah. Bah.
Jason thought about how he had spoken his mind a few days ago, and he cursed in his heart, reminding himself not to call Messiah a little fool again.
The Messiah is not stupid at all, yes, not stupid at all.
Bruce looked at Dick, who was sometimes high in emotional intelligence and sometimes low in emotional intelligence, and controlled the urge to hold his forehead. The heaviness in his heart was also dispelled a lot.
Is there something wrong with my education?
Bruce thought heavily, could this be the reason why Dick is often dumped by girls?
Putting aside his plan to investigate the Court of Owls and Harry's Circus for the time being, Bruce stepped forward, ready to take over from Dick and comfort the depressed Messiah.
Messiah, however, was successfully amused by Dick.
Bruce: ?
Jason shrugged, looking as if he had expected nothing.
"The Messiah is easy to appease." Jason looked at Bruce's surprised expression. The joy of finding an ally made him forget his vigilance towards Bruce. He leaned close to Bruce and whispered, "As long as you can distract him, he will forget what happened before."
Bruce looked at Jason's little head that came closer, the corners of his mouth raised involuntarily, and he nodded: "Yeah."
Will you forget as long as you can divert your attention?
As expected of brothers. Bruce suppressed the upward curve of his lips, and Jason did the same.
Dick looked at Messiah who finally smiled, breathed a sigh of relief, and his mood became cheerful.
I'm really good at comforting people.
Dick looked at Messiah's cheeks shaking as he laughed, and couldn't control his evil hands, so he took the opportunity to pinch Messiah's cheeks.
So soft and cute.
Dick couldn't help but hug Messiah and rubbed Messiah's cheek hard: "Wow, little Mi——"
Messiah stopped laughing instantly.
Dick's actions reminded him of what happened before, and the memory of Dick pressing on him and pinching his cheeks came back.
"Richard Grayson..."
Dick didn't notice the sudden change in Messiah's aura. Although he didn't understand why Messiah suddenly called his full name, he was still intoxicated and close to his brother.
The next second, a murderous aura came over him, and Dick jerked back, dodging the Messiah's hand that was viciously reaching for his face.
Dick and Messiah got into another fight.
Jason shrugged. "Like I said, it has to be a distraction."
【Author’s words】
①: Lines from the original Batman comics
This chapter has 4500 words, which is half of the extra chapter thanks to 5k nutrient solution [sunglasses]
Actually, I should have written 6k in one breath to thank the 5k nutrient solution, but I was too busy with my three-dimensional work, so I could only write 4500 at most in a day.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
