"You?!" Bruce blurted out, completely stunned.
"I don't even have armor that can survive a nuclear blast," he snarled, eyes wide with disbelief. Then, anger building, he swung and punched Axel hard.
Axel didn't even flinch. Bruce's wrist, on the other hand, twisted painfully from the impact, and he hissed through clenched teeth.
"Do you know what kind of armor I can get you? Before today I only had time to work on a prototype infantry suit I picked up from a military reject bin," Bruce snapped. "I slapped some black paint on it and called it a combat suit. And you come at me wanting freakin' nanotechnology? What are you planning, Axel? You want me to steal Durex and make you a nano‑tech condom next, you bastard?"
Bruce's eyes rolled so far back it looked like he might pass out.
Axel, unfazed and shameless as ever, stepped closer and threw his arm over Bruce's shoulder.
"Bruce, Buddy, come on," Axel grinned, voice loud and overly cheerful. "We're friends, right? You've seen me fight. I end up half‑naked more times than I can count. That's just humiliating. You don't want to see me running around Tacoma Park swinging a big bird at you during training, do you?"
"You? Me?! Huh?!" Bruce groaned, already overwhelmed by Axel's ridiculous energy.
He covered his face with one hand as if dying inside.
"I swear, Man, I don't want to fight you anymore. Saving Gotham? I can't even handle me right now. I'm beat. Let it burn, man. I'm exhausted."
"What are you talking about, Bruce?" Axel said, not even backing off. "Gotham is your home, hell yeah. Even if you don't save Gotham, at least save Alfred. But forget all that for a second — I just want a damn suit! I don't expect armor tougher than me. But I really don't want to fight naked all the time!"
Axel leaned further on Bruce as he talked, unashamed and grinning.
"You know my fight videos are going viral across America, right? People who get it call me the new king of Gotham. People who don't know me just see me fighting in Saint Valley and think I'm some new action star or something. Damn it!"
Bruce winced as Axel clung on.
"Help me out here. Why don't you shift some of your focus to making mechanical armor next? You build yourself a stronger set of combat armor, and give me something — a basic defensive suit at least! In exchange, I'll help you with performance stuff. Like, when I get my ass kicked, you step in and look like a hero. Or when I'm hitting peak popularity, you lock me up for public spectacle. That's compensation, right?"
"Reasonable, my foot, Axel!" Bruce growled. He'd had it. Teeth gritted, he shoved Axel toward the elevator.
Axel just laughed as he was pushed, still talking nonstop on the way.
"If that doesn't work for you, here's another idea — how about you get me a battle robe that matches my vibe? If the armor makes me fancy enough, I'll compromise with you a few times. Like if I ever want to bomb the White House — boom! Bruce comes in and talks me out of it! That's sacrifice, Bruce! You gotta seize the moment!"
"Bullshit!!!" Bruce shouted, finally pushing Axel into the elevator before it closed.
"Your ideas are endless. Promises like that are just empty words! Maybe one second you want to bomb the White House, but as soon as I convince you, you go bomb Wayne Tower instead! Don't tell me you wouldn't do that. Do you think I'm stupid, Axel?!"
Just as the elevator doors were sealing shut, Axel squished half his body out and yelled, "What happened to Geralt? Who got him?"
"Damn it, do you think I haven't played The Witcher 3?! I had a childhood once, you bastard!!!" Bruce snapped, slamming the elevator door on Axel's half body so it finally closed.
Axel disappeared from the lab, leaving Bruce shaking his head in disbelief.
Lucius approached from behind, silent and thoughtful, watching the elevator doors shut.
"I've never met anyone like him," Lucius said, finally breaking the silence. "And for the first time… I genuinely envy a bastard."
"Yeah," Bruce replied, not turning his head. "Who wouldn't envy his carefree nature and joy? He's a walking mess, but he's not just trouble. Even with all his tendencies toward chaos, there's still something innocent in him. He walks into darkness but isn't swallowed by it. He takes pieces of that darkness and colors them his own."
Bruce took a breath and walked toward the experiment table.
"We shouldn't waste time. Lucius, because of the material Axel gave us, we can test any known element on Earth against his biology to see if anything can truly stop him."
He placed Axel's pinky finger into a petri dish and turned to the computer, pulling up data.
Lucius, analyzing muscle, nerve, and bone samples, glanced at the screen and coughed a bit before quietly asking,
"Bruce, isn't our main goal to stop Axel, or even destroy him? Why are you running a mechanical power analysis?"
Silence filled the lab. Bruce slowly lifted his head, eyes cold and locked on Lucius.
Lucius swallowed hard.
"Buddy, don't look at me like that," he said awkwardly. "Your gaze almost takes me back to after World War II. You know I'm Black. Back then people looked at me like I was nothing. Except your parents. They were real good people. Without their support, a Black man like me would've never had the chance to excel in physics and math. Even my Nobel Prize was managed by Thomas for me. Thinking on it… I really miss those days," Lucius added with a sigh.
He smiled softly, then focused back on the data.
"Here," he said, transferring a bulk of research files to Bruce's computer. "These are the reference materials I used when developing that infantry armor back then, basic armor schematics and possible upgrade paths."
Bruce stared at the flood of information, a hint of surprise crossing his face.
"This is…?"
"Yeah," Lucius continued, nostalgia in his eyes. "Back then it was weirdly exciting. At a time when many Americans wouldn't give me the time of day, Thomas stood by me. I was grateful to him — seeing him as more than a boss, as a friend. Not a master. Just a friend. When he said that, my heart damn near shook."
He tapped Bruce lightly on the chest.
"He said he cared about his true self. That's why he stood by me."
Lucius stopped sharing, returning to his work.
Bruce stayed silent for a long moment.
"I cannot be friends with a criminal," he finally said. "Everything I do around Axel is to find a way to defeat him. Until I fully can, maybe pretending friendship is the most rational path forward. It's the only hope I've got."
He stared at Lucius with a stubborn intensity.
Lucius just nodded, smiling in a tired but supportive way.
"Ah, yes, yes, yes."