Bruce Wayne's pupils immediately brightened, but there was no expression on his face, and the faint smile still hung on his face.
"You know, this is Gotham."
Bruce Wayne opened his arms and faced the morning wind and said confidently: "Everyone hates Bruce Wayne.
But, everyone wants to be Bruce Wayne. "
"Ah hahahaha, you are right, you are so right."
The man in the car seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. He clapped his hands happily and cried tears of laughter.
But Bruce Wayne noticed that when his tears flowed, they seemed to be unable to come down.
"So, do we know each other, sir."
Being able to say something like this at least proves that the other party must have known him before, and they should have met or even talked with him.
However, Bruce did not retrieve this face from his memory.
"You are so noble and forgetful, Bruce. You forgot your best friend. This is really a sad thing."
The man wiped the tears accumulated in the corners of his eyes, shook his head helplessly, put on a wide-brimmed brown hat, opened the car door from the driver's seat and walked out, came to the other side of the driveway, and stood opposite Bruce, the same. He opened his hands, turned his back to the direction of the sun, and showed a bright smile: "Thomas Elliot. Bruce, don't tell me you forgot my name."
"Thomas...Tommy! god! You're back Tommy!"
First he showed a thoughtful and doubtful expression, and then an expression of ecstasy immediately appeared on Bruce's face. He opened his hands again excitedly, rushed over with a big smile, and hugged his friend whom he had not seen for many years.
"Wow! Bruce, why are you like a truck? I mean, how did you practice? Your shoulder hurt me, man."
Thomas Elliot, Bruce prefers to call him Tommy.
During the only beautiful time in his life when he was young, Bruce had his parents and friends like other children.
Tommy was his best friend.
The prosperous life actually did not make young Bruce lose all his worries. If he was a bully and a bad boy, his situation might be much better, but Bruce is a pure and kind boy by nature.
The surname Wayne made it difficult for him to be approached by other children of the same age. Some children even brought the same emotions to Bruce Wayne, who had no idea what the situation was, after hearing their parents curse the Wayne family.
He was isolated, ostracized, and bullied by everyone.
Bruce Wayne is a strong man, and this was already evident in him even when he was less than ten years old.
Although all this did not cause Bruce Wayne's psychological distortion or other problems, emotions such as depression are always inevitable.
Fortunately, at this time, Bruce Wayne met Thomas Elliot, who had transferred from school.
This is Bruce's first and only friend in his life.
Thomas, who was born into the Eliot family, also lived a prosperous life, and his family circumstances were not much worse than Bruce's.
The two of them had almost the same problems, and because of this, the two of them, who were friends for the first time, had a great time, which also made both parents very happy.
Thomas is very smart, and Bruce has almost never beaten Thomas in strategic games such as chess that he has been good at since he was a child. Bruce is very happy, and Thomas is also very happy.
They have some of the same family background, the same hobbies, the same age and the same ambitions.
Originally, they should have always been friends, taking care of each other, from childhood to adulthood and into old age.
However, something tragic happened later.
First, Thomas's father died unexpectedly, and then Bruce's parents both fell in a pool of blood in an alley due to a robbery. A few years later, Thomas' mother also passed away.
Bruce began to take over the family's business and secrets under the care of butler Alfred, while Thomas left Gotham sadly and never came back. The two were separated like this for more than ten years.
The two who were young at the time are now grown men with beards.
…
"Thomas, where have you been for so many years? Don't you miss Gotham? At least you should miss me too."
Sitting on the bed of the pickup truck, the two happily chatted about familiar things in the past, laughing heartily from time to time, teasing each other, and blaming each other...
After chatting for a while, Bruce looked at his almost unrecognizable friend and asked curiously.
"Me? Of course I'm not like you. You have a career in Gotham and things to do with the Wayne family. You can't get away even if you want to.
I'm different. Over the years, I have traveled almost all over the world. "
Thomas spoke happily and freely, but Bruce felt that he might have accidentally said the wrong thing.
It is true that he was born into the Wayne family and the Wayne Group wanted to inherit it, so he was bound to Gotham. But Thomas is also a member of the Elliot family, except...
Because of Thomas' mother's humble background, Thomas' inheritance rights in the Eliot family... have never been very high.
After his parents left, Thomas chose to leave Gotham and leave this place. There must be this reason.
"Thomas, why didn't you tell me when you left Gotham?"
Bruce held a can of beer, drank half of it, and said with a slight complaint: "You know, no matter what happens, I will definitely help you, just like before."
"Huh? Haven't I been helping you in the past? Don't put yourself in the position of the big brother. I am the big brother, okay?"
"Well, you are the big brother. When I skipped school and was chased by the big dog, I was the one crying while running. It was Thomas who saved Bruce. What year was that day..."
"Hey! Your memory is too good! When did you learn to be so sinister? Now I have reason to suspect that you secretly raised that dog and you secretly put it there!"
"Thomas."
Bruce Wayne gestured with his hands and stretched his hands to the extreme of his body: "That dog is so big. It is bigger than me. How could I let it go?"
"Maybe it's the dog you pretended to be."
"Yeah... Then I will never stare at your ass and bite it. At least I won't pull your pants down."
"Hahaha, damn Bruce, can your memory not be so good?"
"Ha ha ha ha……"
"Ha ha ha ha……"
Talking about their childhood and the past stories, the two laughed for a while. There are too many stories to recall between them.
"Oh, my stomach hurts from laughing so much. I haven't laughed so happily in a long... long time."
Thomas lay on his back on the side panel of the carriage, holding a beer and staring at the clouds in the sky, faintly lost in thought.
"Thomas..."
"how."
Bruce looked at him, thought for a moment, and shook his head: "It's nothing, I just think that you have changed a lot, so I didn't recognize you just now. This is all excusable.
You seem to be ugly now. "
"You...I know I can't hear anything good from your mouth."
Thomas shook his head helplessly, drank the beer in one gulp, looked at Bruce and said, "You haven't changed much."
"Is it?"
Bruce touched his stubble and imagined his face now: "I had so many beards at that time? Did I also have black eye sockets every day?"
"Hahahaha, of course not. I mean, Bruce Wayne, Gotham's biggest rich man and playboy, you don't think that I can't see news reports about you since I'm not in Gotham.
Haha, you are so thick-skinned. I have said so, but you still look very proud.
You are really hopeless. "
Leaving Bruce behind with an inexplicably proud look on his face, Thomas jumped out of the car in a handsome and smooth motion, turned around and got into the driver's seat.
"You want to leave?"
"yes."
Thomas started the car, adjusted the angle of the mirror inside the car, and looked at Bruce with a smile: "You can't just sit in the car and chat all the time. I only have two cans of beer in total, and I have already drank them all.
I'm going home now, let's go to my house and talk. "
"Thomas..."
"What's wrong, you don't want to?"
"I have doubts about your driving skills, and since you were drunk, I was a little afraid that you would drive your car under the bridge."
"I'm really not convinced that Bruce, who is in the news every month for drag racing fines, said that."
"Hey, you do care about me!"
"So much nonsense, sit down!"
"Hey! You haven't said where you live yet!"
"Don't ask, ask under the bridge!"
"Hahahahaha!"
The car was driving neither fast nor slow. Bruce looked at the Bat helmet in his package, thought for a moment, and decided not to take it out and call Alfred to inform him.
Thomas's friend is Bruce Wayne, not Batman. It's better not to be discovered by him.
……………………
"Thomas, do you live here now?"
When Bruce got out of the car, he felt a little... panicked.
His own home is on the edge of the city in one direction, Lynn's home is on the other edge of the city, and now, he has arrived at Thomas's home, which is another edge of Gotham.
"I didn't even know the Elliott family owned a property like this."
Bruce was standing outside the gate of an ancient stone-clad castle that was no less impressive than Lynn's house.
"It's all fake. What you see is not everything you see."
Thomas's voice came from the side.
"check it out."
He pointed to a small iron nameplate nailed to an old mailbox, which read...
"Is this a prison cell?"
"It used to be a prison cell."
Thomas looked a little proud: “The first generation of our Elliot family’s ancestors was one of the residents of this cell.
Maybe there are also ancestors of your Wayne family.
However, this place was bulldozed and converted into other buildings decades ago, but no one has ever lived in it. Later, it was shoddily built into some kind of cultural landmark building, and no one cared about it at all. No one came to see it. ,later……"
Thomas spread his hands: "Later, it was painted with a layer of paint, and slightly modified, and it turned into some kind of castle, ha...
It looks gorgeous on the outside, but it still looks stupid on the inside, so of course no one buys it. "
"Oh~"
Bruce smiled and nodded: "If that's the case, then it makes sense. No wonder any idiot would buy such a house to live in."
"I'm the idiot who bought this house..."
"I know."
…………
After a familiar bickering, the two pushed open the old door and walked into the big house.
The two of them talked about the past together, happy and sad. Ideals, disputes. Intimate, fist-pumping...
Those years, those emotions, those voices, have been flowing since childhood... flowing, gradually taking on colors and pictures, being painted with new colors in a tacit smile, a toast, and a cheer, No more dust.
Bruce is excited to meet Thomas.
Moreover, Bruce is actually very curious about Thomas's experiences over the years, because when he left Gotham, he gave up his identity as heir and did not take away any money from the Elliot family, and the Elliot family also After losing a clever heir and going from bad to worse, after several years of infighting among the heirs of the various branches, the situation took a turn for the worse and was quickly carved up by Gotham's various predators.
Speaking of which, Wayne Group has also eaten the meat of the Elliott family.
And it’s still the biggest piece.
However, this was not Bruce's fault. He just followed normal business procedures and tried to retain some of the Elliott family's assets from others.
At least for now, the Elliot family's ancestral home is still there, and it's been maintained regularly, just like in the past.
However, looking at Thomas' current appearance, it seems that he has never gone back at all.
"Thomas, where have you been to these years? You couldn't be the office worker you hate the most, right?"
"Don't come here. How can a person like me be an office worker?"
After taking off his coat and putting on comfortable home clothes, Thomas looked exactly like Bruce when he lay on his back on the sofa.
"Then why did you suddenly come back to Gotham? You didn't want to come back to get married."
"Bruce."
"Um?"
"You're still as annoying as ever."
"Ha ha ha ha!"
"well……"
Holding a can of beer, Thomas looked up at the ceiling again, silent.
Bruce looked at his partner and fell silent.
"Bruce."
"Um."
"Sometimes, I really envy you."
"Heh, you envy me that I can disguise myself as a big dog?"
"Not really."
Thomas didn't laugh, just shook his head.
"Do you still remember the day we went to a medical conference together?"
"……Remember."
"Do you remember the day my parents had a car accident?"
"……Remember."
"Do you still remember the punch I gave you because of this?"
"……I remember."
"Bruce."
"Um."
"Why, your father wanted to save my mother from the operating table...
You know how difficult it is for a ten-year-old child to learn the structure of a car, to break the brakes naturally, to hide from the police investigating the case, and to kill both his parents at once...
Bruce, you know what.
The punch I gave you was not because your father failed to save my father.
But because...
He brought my mother back. "
Bruce suspected there was something wrong with his ears.
When he looked up at Thomas in shock, he saw his old friend, crying strangely.
He stared at himself blankly, and his tears flowed to the bottom of his skin, leaving two ugly scars.
The story of Thomas Eliot has three origins. The third edition, which is the current edition, I personally think is pure shit, so I use a combination of the first and second editions, which does not affect reading.
