Chapter 2518: Battle for the Cloak (37)

This gift shop, clearly a veteran by its window display, belonged to the oldest school of gift shops. So when you walked in, you would find various shelves lining the walls and a large pile of cluttered counters in the center, all heaped with gifts of all sorts.

Such chaos should have been full of a homely atmosphere, which Peter greatly enjoyed browsing in these kinds of gift shops. However, whenever he shopped in such places before, he felt like he was doing something illicit because he couldn't afford most of the items there and worried about running into classmates and being ridiculed.

But today, he was a little more at ease, even excited about the prospect of browsing because trailing behind him was a Jason, a guy even more robust than Thompson.

Spider-Man thought to himself that if he ran into any classmates this time, they definitely wouldn't dare to mock him for being poor. At least, not in front of his face.

As soon as they entered the store, what captured their attention wasn't the pile of messy goods, but a person behind the disordered goods counter.

The man, wearing a store clerk's apron, was half-kneeling on the ground, arranging the products on the middle shelf. From Spider-Man and Jason's angle, all that was visible was his head, but even just that head was impossible to ignore—he was just too handsome.

Jason recognized at a glance that this was Batman of their universe. Although all Batmen looked very similar, there were subtle differences, and each universe's Robin could distinguish them well. Jason was particularly adept at this; he thought the features of his universe's Batman were more defined than those of others.

They both shouted in unison, yet the man didn't react. He didn't even stand up immediately when the two burst in, instead continuing to fiddle with the merchandise on the shelf.

Only after hearing the noise behind him did he turn his head, slowly standing up with a puzzled look and asked, "Batman? Are you looking for some new bat-themed toys? Hmm, what do you think of that one?"

The man pointed to the rubber duck behind Jason, which was the Halloween-themed rubber duck Jason had seen before. It had a bat perched on its head and a pumpkin it was sitting on, looking somewhat comical and laughable, but the bat was cute.

Spider-Man and Jason exchanged a glance, both realizing something was off. Why would Batman pretend not to recognize them? Could it be that enemies were watching nearby?

"Do you really think that one looks good?" Spider-Man wavered slightly, to which Jason immediately glared at him. Though the bat-themed rubber duck was indeed good-looking, was that the point?

But as they hesitated, the man wiped his hands on his apron and picked up a puppet to introduce, "Then how about this one? What do you think of this? It's also Halloween-themed, look, its bow tie is a bat!"

Spider-Man saw that the man was holding a teddy bear in his hands. The teddy bear had a little wizard's hat on its head, was holding a brimful pumpkin bowl, and had a bat-shaped bow tie. The overall design was very charming.

Spider-Man took a step forward and reached out to touch the teddy bear's head, but Jason immediately stopped him, saying, "Don't touch that. It might have nano-surveillance devices, nano-viruses, nano... definitely a whole bunch of stuff."

The man holding the bear and Spider-Man both looked at Jason as if he were crazy.

"No, we don't have any giveaways," the man shook his head, explaining, "because this is a discount item, a small-sized Halloween limited-edition pumpkin teddy bear, for just 19 dollars."

Spider-Man immediately showed a torn expression. He only had 20 dollars on him, and if he bought this, he definitely wouldn't be able to afford the rubber duck, which would cost at least seven or eight dollars.

Compared to Europe, wages in America were higher and the basic cost of living was lower, but that also depended on the city. Spider-Man lived in New York after all, and even if it wasn't in the priciest area of Manhattan, non-essentials like gifts were still much more expensive than elsewhere.

The Parker family wasn't well-off financially. Even after starting high school, Peter only had 20 dollars a week for pocket money, and since he wasn't of age to work yet, his allowance often got robbed by bullies. He'd saved up these 20 dollars for almost a month.

Jason's attention was now entirely focused on Batman. He instinctively felt that something was off with Batman's gaze. If forced to describe it, he would say that Batman's eyes were too clear.

There was always an unshakable gloom and storm in Batman's beautiful blue eyes, unfathomable to anyone. Jason had thought that maybe Batman himself couldn't see through them either; his burdensome past stacked upon each iris's striations, forming a web so dense, even when he looked in the mirror, it blocked him from understanding his own thoughts.

If there were enemies watching now, Batman could play harmless all he wanted, but his eyes, his gaze, would never look like they did at this moment.

Jason could even clearly read the urgency in his eyes, as if he wanted to sell off more items before Christmas, and Peter looked like the type of rich kid with money to burn, but he certainly was not.

"Why is this on discount?" Jason asked pointedly.

The man, who looked exactly like Batman, immediately showed a look of embarrassment as if he had been exposed, swallowed an audible gulp of air, and then said, "Well, the tag on this... got sucked into the vacuum cleaner and got damaged. So it's without a tag, and we can only sell it at a low price."

Jason, cradling his arms, said, "Actually, you paid for it when you damaged the tag, right? You just thought it was useless for you to keep it, so you wanted to find a sucker to sell it to, to recoup some of your loss."

The embarrassment on the man's face deepened, and Jason squinted his eyes and said, "I'm guessing you didn't pay more than 25 dollars for it. Are you only planning to spend 6 dollars to pay for your mistake? Oh, I misspoke..."

Just as the man began to open his mouth to speak, Jason continued, "19 is a very unique number, it's close to 20 but starts with a 1, so many stores like to start with it to give customers the impression it's just in the teens."

"But these cunning merchants wouldn't miss an opportunity to make money. They'd definitely price it at 19.99, making it virtually no different from 20 dollars, still starting with a 1. Not even the most foolish store would miss out on that extra 99 cents."

"If you say this toy was priced at an even 19 dollars, that proves it's not a store price tag. It's more like what some people would concede for their insignificant mistake. Can a single dollar really fill the gap in your conscience?"

The man's expression had now completely morphed into awkwardness. Jason carefully observed the shifts in his expressions and found that they were indeed not performative. Not even Batman, playing a part, would have so many rich micro-expressions. What was going on?

Immediately, Jason tugged at Spider Man and said, "Something's off, I think Batman might be..."

He had just reached this point when he turned around to find Spider Man's eyes stuck on the teddy bear.

And Batman's gaze was fixed on Spider Man.

Jason sighed and said, "Don't think you can fool us. Nobody's going to pay extra for your mistake. Since you've already bought it, this is second-hand goods, 10 dollars, and throw in a Christmas duckling from the display case."

"Impossible!" the man raised his voice and said, "Just that duckling is worth 8 dollars, how could this bear be worth just two?"

"Please, it's not about how much the bear is worth, it's about how much we are willing to pay to somewhat compensate for your loss. This is clearly from a humanitarian perspective, not a trade. After all, you keeping the bear is useless, isn't it?"

The man hesitated and glanced at the bear in his hand, clearly unwilling to accept this price, so he haggled, "15 dollars, the bear and the duck, how about that?"

"No, that's too high. You should know we didn't initially need this bear," Jason said as he blocked Spider Man's yearning gaze and continued, "We just came to buy the duck and would have only spent 8 dollars. It was you who got yourself in trouble and came to us for help, and we are willing to spend an extra two dollars to take care of your troubles."

In the end, the two agreed on a price of 12 dollars for the bear and the Christmas-themed bathtub duckling. During this process, Jason uncovered a shocking fact: this Batman didn't like bats.

If it were the real Batman, Jason would bet that even if the teddy bear with a Batman bow tie was of no use to Batman, he wouldn't sell it, even if he weren't the richest man in the world and in need of the money.

Jason had only recently come to understand Batman's simple obsession with bats when, nearing 30, he received a bat puppet nearly as tall as himself for his birthday. This gave him a huge mental shock.

He had been completely overwhelmed by Batman's enthusiasm for bats and finally understood what he couldn't comprehend before: why bats?

Why else? Batman just loves bats. All those theories, like bats being Batman's psychological shadow, can't explain why he'd insist on imprinting the bat symbol on every piece of equipment. Who would plaster their psychological shadow all over the world?

Batman's new dollars would have bats on them!

Right, dollars. Jason immediately reached into Spider Man's pocket. Spider Man was no match for him and had his banknotes plucked right out of his hands; it wasn't even whole money, but a pile of change.

Upon examining it, Jason saw that it wasn't bats on the dollars, but still Franklin. This meant it was from the era before Bruce Wayne became president.

No, it couldn't be this real; this was still a dream. Anything was possible here. This guy might be Batman, or he might just be a passerby in the dream.

Jason decided to test the waters. He pinched the money, ignoring the strange longing in Batman's eyes, put one hand on his hip and leaned against the counter with the other side of his body, and said, "Actually, I'm more curious about how you managed to get a toy's tag sucked into a vacuum cleaner. Isn't that thing supposed to be sticking close to the floor as it cleans?"

The man's face showed an even more embarrassed expression.