"You actually held out this long before coming to ask me?" Wolverine seemed to have guessed long ago that Batman would come to ask him about this. Puffing on a cigar, he looked at Batman through the veil of blue smoke.
Being inside a nightclub, Batman naturally couldn't wear his Gargoyle suit. Instead, he was dressed in a brown suit— sans tie—with the top two buttons of his shirt casually unbuttoned.
Right now, he looked less like the composed, reserved entrepreneur Peter Parker, and more like a playboy.
"I've been busy with other matters all week," Batman said with a faint smile. "What surprised me was that you've been hanging out in this bar for an entire week straight."
"Alright, what do you want to ask?" Wolverine asked, leaning back against his chair.
"Thank you, but if I want to dance, you'll be the first one I consider." Batman turned his head to decline an invitation from a glamorous female dancer before turning back to answer Wolverine's question. "Besides you, there are many other mutants in this world, right?"
Wolverine nodded:
"That's right. It's just that most people hide themselves, disguising themselves as ordinary humans. If they don't actively reveal their powers, it's hard for you to spot them."
"Almost all hidden abilities? Like yours?" Batman took a sip of ginger ale, set it down on the table, and declined another woman before continuing: "As far as I know, your Adamantium skeleton wasn't something you were born with."
"Of course that's not part of my mutant power." Wolverine let out a sigh. "My abilities include self-healing, claws, and enhanced senses. As for this skeleton... to be honest, I'm still searching for that part of my past."
"I will help you. In fact, I already have a faint lead on that matter," Batman said.
"Decades ago I needed your father's help, and decades later I still need yours," Wolverine said, shaking his head repeatedly. "Though I won't refuse, and don't bother saying polite pleasantries, either."
"Of course not," Batman said with a laugh.
The moment he smiled, several women drinking at the bar nearby felt their eyes light up, egging each other on to come over and flirt.
"During my first few days here, I was just like you," Wolverine couldn't help letting out a couple of chuckles. "Though once you turn them down enough times, nobody wants to embarrass themselves by flirting with a drunk... You look like a playboy, but I know you're still a virgin."
Batman cracked his knuckles, steering the topic back to business: "If there are hidden traits, there must also be overt ones?"
"Of course." Wolverine let out a dry laugh. It was only at this moment that he caught a trace of Richard Parker's shadow in the guy before him. "The ones you can see are overt, and the ones you can't are hidden."
Batman: "..."
"Logan, a moment ago it was just a guess, but now I can be certain that you might not know anything about other mutants at all."
"Oh?" Wolverine gave Batman a somewhat surprised look. He wasn't shocked that Batman could deduce this, but he hadn't expected him to do it so quickly.
"I've combed through the archives of S.H.I.E.L.D., the CIA, the FBI, and the NYPD. There isn't a single record or description regarding mutants. Just like vampires, they are hidden beneath the surface of the world."
Batman's tone bore no blame toward Wolverine. Had Wolverine not brought up mutants in the first place, even Batman himself wouldn't have known about the concept until now:
"Your memory has suffered two severe traumas in a row—once when you were fitted with this alloy skeleton, and once by Nick Fury. If you had listed a whole string of information about mutants the moment I asked, that would have been far more suspicious."
Wolverine rubbed his nose, stubbing his cigar out on the table:
"I do know a bit. For instance, a card sharp I ran into back in Canada. Chatty, annoying... Don't believe a single word that comes out of his mouth. And he never loses at cards."
"I got into a fight with him once. His mutant power is infusing playing cards with some kind of energy to make them explode. Maybe not just playing cards, but I didn't get the chance to see it. His alias is 'Gambit.'"
"Duly noted. By 'didn't get the chance to see it,' do you mean he was killed by you?" Batman asked, nodding slightly at Wolverine.
"No, we fought from one tavern to another, and decided to have a few drinks first before continuing... and then we just didn't continue," Wolverine laughed, his eyes growing slightly distant as if reminiscing about that memory.
"Anyone else?" Batman pressed further.
"There was another old man who could control metal. Hot-tempered, not much better than me," Wolverine said. "I couldn't beat him."
"His name?"
"I don't know. I don't have the habit of exchanging business cards, nor do I have one. Even my own name was told to me by someone else later on," Wolverine said.
"Who was the person who told you?"
"It was someone near me after I woke up from that freezing liquid and shattered the metal pod. He was killed by me, and I don't remember where that was, either."
Batman patted Wolverine on the shoulder, snapping him out of that bad memory and bringing him back to reality:
"From a human nature perspective, I believe that no matter how dangerous it is, as long as there is profit involved, there will always be mutants who can't resist keeping their identities hidden and high-profilely reveal themselves to the world."
"It could be for money, power, or even just to sleep with a few more women."
"Yet no intelligence of this nature has ever surfaced. I suspect there is an organization or a gathering point within the mutant community. Do you have any intel on this?"
This time, Wolverine did not answer right away. Instead, he remained silent for a full two minutes. After furiously shouting away a young woman who had come over to flirt with Batman, he sat in place with bloodshot eyes before finally speaking:
"I do. But why are you pushing so hard to know all this?"
"Rather than that, why did you suddenly get so emotional?" Batman countered.
"Some bad memories," Wolverine said after another long silence. "The white light of the pod, the syringe plunging into my spine, someone being electrocuted to death right in front of me... I thought I was going to die too. When I finally managed to escape, I realized I had no idea where to flee."
"I don't like random people casually showing up while we're discussing things. None of them know what I went through. None of them have the right to just walk up, make light conversation, and walk away."
"Buy me a cigar, and I'll tell you the last piece of info I know."
Batman said nothing. He stood up and walked toward a waitress weaving through the dance floor holding a tray with cigars on it. A few minutes later, he returned and handed one to Wolverine.
As the blue smoke from the lit cigar curled upward, concealing Wolverine's face behind it, an extremely low voice drifted out from behind the haze:
"There's a name: Xavier."
"Someone named Xavier seems to be running a school. I've never been there, but I heard Gambit and that old man mention it. Maybe those two bastards just made it up."
Batman's expression remained unchanged:
"Which Xavier?"
"Charles Xavier, I think that was the name," Wolverine said. "I remember that card-playing guy saying, 'If you ever lose your way, go find Charles.' I told him I don't lose my way, and he said, 'Everyone loses their way.'"
--
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