Bruce focuses on Clark's words and tries to connect with the meaning of them. It's hard. Emotion is the one thing he never sees coming; the one thing he can be blindsided by when any number of physical or psychological attacks he spots a mile away. He lets out a huff of air, pained, like a humorless laugh.

"I'm certain I was confident for a good hour," he says, his voice rough. "It's falling apart now that I'm not in the middle of a battle."

That adrenaline kept him safe for ages, the smooth impenetrable fortress of being Batman. Being here, trying to have a semblance of a normal life, and he's robbed of all his coping methods and his center of balance.