Bruce already knew how long Kirk had been here, just as Kirk could know how long most others on the ship had been present. Despite concealing his own numbers, he suspected he could only propose that he had arrived a month earlier, and even that was pushing it--why would he have stayed quiet so long? Yet anything that he could do to separate himself from his own identity would be preferable. It was too narrow a list, too small a pool of people; what a coincidence that only one seemed to come from Gotham.

Perhaps it would be simpler to make Bruce Wayne disappear for a little longer, or perhaps not to have come at all.

The wording of Kirk's second explanation caught his attention. It was very different to the first, laid out deliberately without any kind of evasiveness. The third time they'd been through this process, but not the feedings. No, they'd happened before.

For a moment he simply held eye contact, let Kirk know that he wasn't buying it wordlessly, and moved on.

"Have you made up the numbers every time?" Self sacrifice was something they had in common, and frankly he wouldn't be surprised if the answer was yes, despite that there were clear inherent risks. "Tell me--in the long term, what kind of effect do you think it will have on you?