Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4400 - 3491: Research on Cats and Dogs (Part 2)

Bruce was furiously typing away on his phone while Pamela sat next to him, rolling her eyes so hard they practically spun. Harley, a cigarette dangling from her lips, lounged against the sofa armrest, her gaze darting around the dance floor like a hawk.

After a long pause, Bruce slapped his phone onto the table with a resounding "thud" and slumped back into the couch, looking as though he'd drunk himself into oblivion.

Harley pulled out her phone, snapped a few pictures of Bruce, and, taking the cigarette out of her mouth with one hand, exhaled a puff of smoke. "Now this, my friends, is some front-page material: Batman drunk off his ass in the middle of the night. Imagine if the folks from other universes saw this—they'd never pick their jaws up off the floor."

Pamela reached out to nudge Bruce, but he swatted her hand away in one irritated motion. Undeterred, Pamela leaned forward, stretched her arm across Harley, grabbed her pack of cigarettes, and lit one for herself, perching it delicately between her lips.

"Honestly, I have no idea how much longer he plans to act like this," Pamela sighed, blowing out a stream of smoke that felt more like an exasperated breath. "I was wrong. I thought it might be a good thing for him to stop being Batman. He should've taken more cues from Batman to begin with."

"Batman, my ass!" Bruce muttered vaguely, flipping onto his side, folding his arms across his chest, and passing out in the opposite direction.

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Pamela flagged down a waiter carrying a tray of drinks and ordered another, taking a sip only to grimace as the burn of the alcohol forced her lips to twitch.

Harley, meanwhile, propped her elbow on her knee and was scrolling through her phone. Screenshots and pictures zipped past the screen as she seemed to be engaged in a fierce meme battle in some group chat.

Under the dim lighting, Pamela caught sight of Harley's phone and asked, "Is that the new Wayne Enterprises model?"

"Oh, hell no, this is a phone from another universe," Harley said, waving her phone smugly. "Remember when we went world-hopping a while back? Everyone snagged one. It's touch-screen, super smooth to use, too."

At this, Bruce suddenly bolted upright, as if reanimated, zombie-like. He staggered over to Harley, snatched the phone out of her hand, and began inspecting it obsessively like a lunatic gadget reviewer.

"What the hell?!" Harley yelped, startled. Her hands twitched as if she debated grabbing the phone back but ultimately decided not to. "You can't seriously be so broke you can't afford a new phone anymore, can you?"

Bruce didn't respond. He started fiddling with the phone, testing its system, tweaking settings, and scrutinizing its ports as though scanning an alien artifact.

"You know, the way you're looking at that thing screams 'mad scientist,'" Harley commented dryly, then added as an afterthought, "Not you, Pamela. You're not crazy enough when you've got money to burn."

It seemed Pamela had had enough. She walked up, gripped Bruce by the shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him back into his original seat on the sofa.

Even drunk, Bruce clung to the phone as if it was his lifeline. He peered at every inch of it, up, down, and all around before finally conking out again.

But he still refused to let the phone go. Pamela spent ages trying to pry it from his hands, but her effort proved futile.

Harley waved dismissively and said, "No biggie. I've got another one anyway."

With that, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a second phone, this one even more advanced, complete with a flashy holographic display.

Luckily, this time, Bruce didn't go berserk. He stayed slumped on the couch, seemingly knocked out cold.

Pamela picked up her glass of wine again, eyeing Bruce's profile. "We really ought to do something to shake him out of this madness. This can't go on much longer."

Still glued to her phone, Harley replied nonchalantly, "Before we 'shake him out,' maybe we should figure out what exactly he's losing his mind over."

Pamela counted on her fingers. "Professor Shearer has probably given up chasing him for that thesis—ruled out. There haven't been any recent catastrophes in Gotham—ruled out. Thomas and Martha are back in their home world, so no pressure there—ruled out. Dick doesn't have any life-altering events going on—also ruled out."

"So what's left? Don't tell me it's because Talya and I had a fight?"

Harley's eyes went wide. "You and Talya fought?! Why?"

Pamela quickly diverted the topic. "That's irrelevant and definitely has nothing to do with Bruce's meltdown."

"Then it must be because he and Selina got into an argument." Harley smirked. "I'm guessing it's about Aisha's schooling or something, maybe?"

"But haven't they argued before? It never got this bad before," Pamela mused thoughtfully. "Besides, Aisha's been doing great lately. She's even stringing complete sentences together. He should be thrilled."

"Could it be Superman?"

"You think he and Clark had a fight?" Pamela sounded skeptical. "Clark would never pick a fight with him. The man's practically a saint; there's no way he'd argue with Bruce."

"You never know." Harley smirked and waved over a waiter for more drinks. "From what I've seen, our universe's dynamic between Batman and Superman is reversed."

"Reversed?"

"More or less." Harley nodded. "In most universes, Batman's the resolute one, and Superman's the soft, emotionally fragile one."

Pamela considered this and said, "When you put it that way, it does seem like Clark is the steadier one here. He knows what he wants and what he's doing. But Bruce... maybe he's just lost sometimes."

"I don't think he's lost. I think he just needs more emotional support," Harley replied, casually dropping more ice cubes into her drink. "In most universes, Superman's more like a regular person, with greater emotional needs compared to the godlike Batman. But here, it's flipped. Clark is the god, and Bruce plays the role of the human."

"And humans and gods are destined to clash," Pamela said solemnly. "Either one destroys the other, or—worse yet—they become friends. And one ends up loving the other."

"Sounds like human history," Harley quipped. "Society built entirely on infinite loops like this. But it's not a neat little swirl in a sink; it's more like a raging storm or a wheel spinning at the brink of collapse—random yet crushing."

"And that's why Bruce is going crazy."

"What about you and Talya, though? Are you two like that?"

"We're definitely the first kind," Pamela said confidently. "Unluckily for her, in this game, I play the god that's supposed to die. Fortunately, I've got the upper hand."

Harley rolled her eyes. "No, that's *All Things Green* with the upper hand. I bet if he found out you were using his powers to clean up your one-night-stand messes, he'd want you dead."

"You really underestimate him. I even used his powers during the one-night stands themselves. And yet, here I am—alive and well." Pamela exhaled a puff of smoke, completely unfazed.

"As a certain doctor from another universe once said—'When you've got no shame, nobody can beat you.'"

"Honestly, if word got out in other universes that Batman's drinking himself silly because of Superman, God's hotline would be flooded with calls," Pamela added. "There has to be a reason for this. I mean, weren't the two of them just tag-teaming in Battleworld not long ago?"

"Maybe that's where the problem started," Harley guessed. "They might've lacked coordination. You think Bruce feels he was dragging Clark down?"

"Not a chance," Pamela shot down instantly. "Coordination issues aside, it was a limited-instance dungeon. Bruce should've been the stronger one."

"Then maybe Clark thought *he* was the weak link and quit the team, and Bruce got all heartbroken."

Pamela frowned in thought, clearly not convinced. She chewed on her glass using her canine teeth, making faint clicking noises. After a moment, she hypothesized: "If most universe's Batmen are like stubborn cats, and Supermen are like loyal dogs, then it'd make sense that cats might find dogs annoying. But here, Clark's the cat, and Bruce is the dog. If the cat's annoyed with the dog, then that means Clark would be irritated with Bruce. But that's ridiculous. Clark never gets annoyed at anyone, let alone Bruce."

"Exactly. Did you hear Bruce on the phone earlier? Clark even invited him out for couples' night. He didn't invite us, though!"

"We're not a couple," Pamela said matter-of-factly. "Although, I think we could be..."

Harley immediately held up a hand. "Stop. Let's solve your assassin problem before we get into *that* mess."

"That *is* solved. Didn't I 'solve' her already?"

"Physical solutions don't count, especially since you didn't even finish the job. Anyway, weren't we talking about Bruce?"

"I'm telling you, Clark's not the issue here," Pamela said firmly. "Either Bruce is crazy, or..."

"Or what?"

"Or we're the crazy ones, dragging Bruce Wayne to a bar where he drinks himself into a stupor, only for us to spend the rest of the night figuring out how to haul him home."

"What's the big deal? Just wrap him up in your vines..."

"Getting him home isn't the hard part. The hard part's dodging all those nosy paparazzi. Unless you want to be part of the next big scandal?"

"I don't mind," Harley said, downing another sip of her drink. "If we both make the headlines, I'll march into the Wayne building and demand hush money. He owes me at least a few million."

Pamela rolled her eyes again, sneaking a glance at the passed-out Bruce. There he lay, dead to the world. When he was dancing and drinking, he was insane; now that he was asleep, he looked more like a corpse.

A vine snaked out from under the couch. Pamela pretended to hoist Bruce over her shoulders, though in truth, the vine did all the heavy lifting. Harley took her spot on the other side, steadying him as the trio stumbled out of the bar together.

That's when they ran into Clark Kent.

"Well, now the gossip's gonna reach Metropolis too," Harley chuckled. "There's no way I'm keeping this under wraps for less than ten million."

Clark frowned at the sight of Bruce, who looked more like a pile of wet laundry, but he still gently took him from Pamela's grasp.

"His car's over that way," Pamela said, pointing toward the street corner on her right. "It's the flashiest ride out there. Yep, the bright purple Porsche 911—that's the one."

Clark turned to look. The car stood out like a neon sign, practically a landmark on the nightlife scene. But even more conspicuous were the long-lens cameras lying in wait. Clark could see a few familiar faces from *The Daily Planet* among them.

If he waltzed over there carrying Bruce now, tabloids worldwide would explode with the story by morning. And judging by Bruce's current state, he couldn't afford the hush money.

Seeing Clark hesitate, Harley snapped her fingers. "Tell you what, lend me Little Kryptonite for a few days, and I'll lure them away. Deal?"

"Forget it," Clark said. "You'll feed him junk, and he's already on the verge of being overweight."

"So what are you going to..." Harley trailed off, watching Clark carefully lift Bruce and shoot into the sky like a rocket, vanishing into Gotham's nighttime skyline.

"Told you, our universe's Batman and Superman aren't normal," Pamela said, shrugging nonchalantly.