New Yorkers chose to avoid discussing Schiller's past. To them, Schiller was who he was now, and he was their friend. What his past had been like did not matter.
So even though Stark and Steve had seen things in certain dreams that seemed to be from Schiller's past, they had never brought up such topics in front of him. At most, they discussed them privately, and even then, they were only speculating. No one drew any definite conclusions.
After learning that Schiller might have come from another universe, Nick had investigated him. But his main focus had been on when Schiller arrived and what identity he had assumed, not the universe where Schiller had once lived.
They tacitly glossed over the subject, as though jointly guarding a secret. They knew, of course, that it had to be a secret. Someone like Schiller could not possibly have had an ordinary, uneventful past. But no matter how dramatic it had been, it no longer mattered.
The people of Gotham held a similar attitude, though for different reasons.
They knew Schiller's past had to be a great secret, and a secret was a secret for a reason.
Schiller had his own plans for it, so even Bruce, curious beyond measure, had not taken a hardline stance and demanded that Schiller explain everything.
Because both sides had maintained this vague, let-it-slide attitude, neither knew the details. They had guessed that it might have been some kind of accident, but they had never expected it to be death.
At that moment, Stark suddenly recalled a scene he had once seen in Schiller's Mind Tower.
"...An airplane?"
The word slipped out instinctively, drawing everyone's gaze to him. Then they all looked at Schiller, as if asking why Stark was the only one who knew.
But