Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Terry starts awake with a jolt as something heavy slams down beside his head, adrenaline shoots through his body as his mind categorizes the noise as a threat and urges him to act. As his eyes fly open, dry with lack of sleep, and quickly sits up preparing himself for a fight, Terry feels a hand on his arm and turns. Dana? At the pressure on his arm and the sight of Dana calmly sitting next to him, Terry’s heart rate slows, no longer pounding in his ears, allowing him to notice a stern voice talking. Shifting to face the voice and preparing to push Dana behind him to protect her, Terry’s brain finally began to process the voice before him.

“-innis, how many times must I remind you that class is for learning, not sleeping.”

Slag it! Terry was at school, and he had once again fallen asleep in class. Once again aware of his surroundings and the lack of an immediate threat, he relaxes in his seat and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before responding to his teacher. “Sorry, Mr. Morton, I had a rough night last night, it was an accident,” Terry says in a groggy voice, hoping that Mr. Morton would let it go with just an apology. 

“This is the fifth time this week, Mr. McGinnis. I’m sorry, but I can’t let it go this time. I am going to notify your parents. Hopefully, they will force you to sleep at night instead of in my class.” Mr. Morton says sternly as he hands Terry the file for his mother to scan. A groan of defeat tumbles out of Terry’s mouth as he slips the file into his backpack. At that, Mr. Morton turns back to the class and continues teaching.

 A tired hand reaches up to rub at his gritty eyes before falling to rest in his lap. Now that the adrenaline has faded, all of the pain it had been disguising brings itself to Terry’s attention as his body protests from his nap at his desk. His knee is throbbing from a sprain, and his cracked ribs, already on fire from his previously slumped position, scream in protest with every inhale. Exhaustion already settled over his body feels almost heavier after the minuscule amount of sleep he just got from his nap, as if his body is now aware of how little sleep he’s been getting and begging him for more.

At that moment, the comforting hand on his arm, which he had been unknowingly leaning into in an attempt to leach every bit of comfort out of it he could, rubs slowly over his bicep before sliding down to grasp his hand.

“It’ll be ok.” Dana whispers to him reassuringly, “Your mom will understand.” 

While correct, Terry is unsure when he will even see his mom next to give her the file. With his dad gone and Terry moving in giving her an extra mouth to feed, money has been extra tight forcing his mom to get a second job in order to keep up, even then they were barely scraping by at the moment, and though Terry had his ‘job’ with Mr. Wayne, as a guise for his activities as Batman, he was being paid very little and had been resorting to other means to earn more money for his family. Dana though had no idea of how tight money had been recently as Terry had purposely kept it from her.

“You’re right,” Terry whispered with a sigh, turning back to the front, effectively cutting off the conversation.

As night falls over Gotham, Terry trudges up the steps of Wayne Manor. His body is protesting every movement, still sore from non-stop patrol. He’s not exactly sure why his head hurts at this point. It could be from dehydration, lack of sleep, the hits from patrol, or the constantly growing pile of responsibilities and stress. Where will dinner come from tomorrow? Will Matt be able to stay in school? Will Terry be able to stay in school? When will he see his mom next? Where is he going to get the money to bridge the gap between what’s needed and what they have at home?

He sluggishly descends the stairs of the Batcave, intending to check on his injuries before patrol. As he reaches the bottom and turns towards the cabinet full of bandages, a deep, angry voice calls out. “McGinnis! Where have you been!”

Terry sighs, mentally preparing himself for the verbal tornado about to come his way. He turns towards the old man slowly, so as not to aggravate his ribs. The old man is hobbling towards him, using his cane to wave viciously at him rather than using it to help him walk. 

“Busy, Mr. Wayne.” Terry replies, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.”Had to watch Matt again. Mom had to pick up an extra shift, Max was busy and couldn’t watch him, and I had homework, so I thought-” Wayne cuts him off. 

“Both of whom are counting on you to protect them, and you can’t do that if you’re ‘busy’ focusing on the wrong things!” Wayne snaps, narrowly missing Terry’s head with his cane. “Batman has a mission: protect Gotham and its people. Gotham needs Batman.” Terry bites his lip. 

“But my mom needs me.” He mutters. Wayne continues waving his cane around, and Terry sits himself gingerly on the medical table, out of smacking range. 

“Your mother will have no needs at all if she’s dead!” Wayne growls. “And neither will you, baby brother, or your little friends.” Terry sighs, his gaze falling. His chest tightens, regret squeezing tighter; his mind spinning with the endless list of people in his life he keeps letting down, which has just grown infinitely longer at the inclusion of all of Gotham simply because he can’t stop making all the wrong decisions.

“I know…” He trails off. Wayne stalks closer. 

“Chin up and eyes front. You’re not a Robin. You’re Batman. You can’t afford to make mistakes and curl up in defeat when you do. You move on and don’t make the mistake again . Learn. Adapt!” Terry glances up, swallowing hard as his eyes begin to burn.

“The…robins?” He asks, knowing fully well that he’s pushing his luck, but every second of luck-pushing done in the cave is a second he’s not out on patrol and stressing his poor ribs. “What were, uh, what did they do again? Like, how was Robin different from Batman?” 

Immediately, Terry can see the change in Wayne’s stature. His shoulders shrink and his neck turtles inward just enough to be noticeable. He lowers his cane and places both hands on the head, looking Terry right in the eyes with a gaze so crushing Terry’s ribs start to ache all over again. 

“Robin was Batman’s partner.” Terry blinks at the change in Wayne’s gruff, angry voice. It’s so faint, so subtle, that Terry wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been specifically looking. “He was young. Innocent. They all were. Robin was the light to Batman’s darkness. He brought hope to Gotham. He was a bright light that Batman could never be, but it was always exactly what Gotham needed. He comforted victims and laughed in the face of danger. Never was there a Robin without a joke.” A smile Terry had never seen before makes its way onto Wayne’s face. He looks almost… fond? A small but sharp thought enters Terry’s mind. 

Why can’t he look at me like that?

Wow. Since when did Terry care what Mr. Wayne thought of him? They’re business partners, that was all. It didn’t matter if Wayne never smiled at him. It was inconsequential if Wayne never looked at him with anything more than disdain. Wayne needed him to be Batman, and that was it. As soon as he was no longer useful, Terry would be kicked to the curb. He doesn’t need Wayne’s approval, and he certainly doesn’t need any fondness. 

Suddenly, Wayne’s back goes ramrod straight, and he returns his gaze to Terry, his eyes once again harsh, and Terry knew the moment had ended. Lecture time. Hooray. 

“Robin could afford to bend. Batman can’t. You can’t. You are not a Robin, you’re Batman. Either start acting like it or go home.” With that, Wayne turns sharply and hobbles over to the computer. All he throws over his shoulder is an order to suit up and get out.

“Gah!” Terry couldn’t keep the gasp off his lips as the goon manages to slam a wooden plank into his side before he could block it. The goon goes to swing again when Batman’s hand comes up to catch the makeshift weapon, stopping the blow, but a bat swings into his back by another goon Batman had missed while focusing on the first. Instinctively, his arm comes down around his midriff to cover it when he stumbles away.

“Hey, old man,” Terry grunts. “I really don’t think patrol tonight was a good idea-“ Bruce’s angry voice cuts him off.

“Unless you are bleeding out or actively dying, you don’t miss patrol!” Terry fights the urge to roll his eyes. Batman doesn’t roll his eyes, but Terry does. But he’s not Terry right now. He’s Batman. Batman, not Robin. 

Off-handedly, Terry wonders what kinds of things Bruce used to let his Robins get away with; were they allowed to turn in early? Oooh, did Bruce let them bring snacks on patrol? 

He’s snapped out of his musings of a traffic light munching on peanuts by another violent smack to the face with that damned wooden plank. In a burst of rage, Batman rips the wooden plank out of the goon’s grasp and breaks it over his knee. Batman growls and launches himself at the goon, punching him hard in the chest. The goon bends over as the air is knocked out of him, wheezing. Batman grasps him by the head and slams him into his knee, knocking the goon out just as the other one swings again, this time aiming for his head. Dodging the swing, Batman grabs the goon by the arm and launches him into the wall behind him.  

Panting slightly, Terry straightens, his ribs screaming at him as the movement causes his muscles to pull on them. Looking at the scene in front of him and the ten or so goons that are lying scattered across the alley, Terry reaches into his utility belt with a sigh and starts to bind up the goons. He leaves a note for the commissioner and calls the police. Then he slowly makes his way back up to the Batmobile to continue his patrol. As he arrives at the car, his vision wavers for a second as a feeling of lightheadedness sweeps over him, urging him to eat and sleep and provide for his very much human body , but Terry ignores it with a shake of his head and hops in. Glancing at the clock, Terry realizes that it is now 2:30 am and is about to ask the old man if he can call it a night when he hears a scream and, with a sigh, Terry follows the noise.

Terry is in a rush. It is now 3:45 and he has to get to the corner of 16th and 7th. Mom and Matt need the money, but if he’s too late, no one will be there. He skids around the corner and continues to sprint, his breath scraping and burning his throat. 3:50! Shit! He’s not gonna be able to make much tonight before he’s gotta get back home to get Matt ready for school. 

At 3:55, he finally arrives, out of breath and shaky, and leans up against the lamp post on the corner, taking deep breaths, he readies himself for a client. The only other girl on the corner, a small girl about a decade older than him named Tessa, shoots him a pitying glance. All Terry can do is offer a thumbs-up. Just then, a man strolls around the corner. When he notices Terry, his stride lengthens, and he walks directly to him. Tessa ducks into the alley just at the sight of him. Doesn’t take a second glance to see why. Even Tessa has pride. But not a family to provide for. 

“Ya hear fer some money?” The man croons at him right in Terry’s face. A little bit of spittle spews across Terry’s face, and he fights back a wince. The man is dirty and has a foul odor about him that makes Terry want to gag. His clothes are dirty, and chunks of food are still stuck in the man's beard from whenever he last ate. 

Terry’s heart sinks. This one’s gonna suck.

You need the money. His brain replies unhelpfully. Terry bites back all his pride and nods. “What do you want?” He replies. The man leans closer.

A disgusting smile spreads across the man's face, revealing his yellow teeth. “Just the full experience from a lovely fellow like you.” He responds, drawing a shudder as one of his fingers traces the edge of Terry’s jacket. “How much would that cost?”

Vomit spews from Terry’s mouth into the toilet. He had done it and had gotten a ton of credits out of it, but the man was horrible. He was the worst that Terry’s had in the two years he has been doing this since his dad died. Just thinking about it forces him to gag again, causing even more vomit to splatter into the toilet. He doesn’t have much in his stomach though as it has been upwards of 12 hours since he ate last so mostly water and bile come up but as he glances in the toilet he can see the thick white fluid he has also brought up triggering another series of gagging even though nothing is coming up.

As he finishes, he stands up and uses some toilet paper to wipe his mouth before throwing it into the toilet and flushing. He exits the stall and walks up to the sink, avoiding looking in the mirror as he hears the voice of the man in his head telling him how pretty he is and what lovely lips he has. Terry gags a little, then harshly turns on the sink and splashes some of the cold water onto his face. Cupping his hands together, Terry brings some water to his mouth to rinse it out, then shuts off the water. Terry leans his hands against the sink and sighs before straightening up and heading out of the bathroom. As he exits the gas station, he pauses to check that he still has all the credits he just earned, musing to himself about how the older clients always pay more, even if it is definitely disgusting. 

Terry checks his watch and sees that it is 4:45. He still has time for one more client tonight.

6:00. Terry arrives home, immediately getting into the shower. Between the scalding water and the violent scrubbing, his already colorful skin takes on an angry shade of beet red. It takes several minutes of scrubbing his entire body before he even begins to feel human again, and by that point, the water starts to run colder. Terry reluctantly climbs out of the shower with a shiver and dries himself off. After quickly wrapping his ribs, Terry reaches into the cabinet drawer and pulls out the cover-up he stole from his mom back when he first became Batman, and uses it to cover the bruise on his face that he had received from the goon earlier that night, he wouldn't want anyone to notice the injury and ask questions. After he is sure that you can't see the bruise, he dresses for the day. He has an hour to do homework before school, but he resigns himself to not finishing it all before class.

7:00. Terry wakes a sleepy Matt and starts getting him ready for school. Mom is still sleeping, having gotten off around 3:00 according to her shift schedule. His mom needs to eat breakfast before she returns to work in a few hours, and Matt needs to eat before school, so when Terry picks up the barely filled container of cereal, he elects to forgo breakfast and pours Matt a bowl.

8:30. Terry hugs a grumpy Matt goodbye and drops him off. He shoves his hands in his pockets and heads to the high school. The lack of sleep last night just makes his achy body heavier and harder to move, but Terry pushes forward. Gotham is counting on him. His Family is counting on him. He’s Batman; he can’t afford to make any more mistakes. No one else is going to die because he isn’t there.

Chapter Text

How badly does Terry not want to be here? 110% does not want to be here. What he wouldn’t give to be back at home in his bed, sleeping the day away. Maybe he should have called in sick-

No, his mother needed him to get Matt out the door and to school. If he doesn’t go to school, neither does Matt. So unfortunately, Terry has no choice but hauling himself out of bed every morning and to school, even when leaving his bed felt more and more like clawing himself out of a grave by the day. And Dana… she wanted someone who could be there, who could care. But Terry barely even saw her anymore. The more he tried to hold it all together, the more she slipped through his fingers. Skipping school would’ve meant losing her for good. And then—then—there was Mr. Wayne. The cape. The mission. The city. Every night, Gotham’s survival hinged on him pulling on that suit, on being Batman, whether he was ready or not. They all relied on him—his family, his girlfriend, his city—and no one seemed to realize how close he was to breaking. But breaking wasn’t an option. Not for someone like him.

Terry had to be there despite his pounding headache and throbbing limbs, even though he hadn’t slept in over 48 hours. He had to keep going. He had to stumble into class and fall into his seat. He had to drag his eyes to the screen at the front of the classroom and force his exhausted brain to focus on what the teacher was saying, even though the very idea of thinking made his brain want to forcefully eject from his skull.

“Terry?” Terry jerks, ribs protesting the movement. Was he that sleep deprived that he couldn’t tell who was next to him?

It’s just Dana. Looking at him with her beautiful brown eyes full of concern, her brows pinched and her perfect face screwed up like she wanted to cry. Did she want to cry? Man. Terry needs more sleep.

She says his name again, and this time, Terry tries to dignify her with a response.

“Huh?”

Real smooth, Terrance.

Dana raises an eyebrow. “How much sleep did you get last night?” She asks, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Her comforting touch against his jacket let heat seep into his sore muscles, making him want to melt. When was the last time he had gotten an actual hug? Probably the last time his ribs weren’t broken. Or sprained. Or bruised. Yikes. And he couldn’t even remember the last time that was a thing. Probably before he became Batman.

Right, she asked him a question.

Terry blinks at her slowly, trying to remember how much sleep he had gotten last night.
Wasn’t it none? Shrap, he can’t say that to Dana.

“Some.” What is wrong with you?

Dana doesn’t look convinced. “How late did Mr. Wayne keep you?” She presses. Terry’s brain wants to leak out of his ears. More questions? Terry is far too tired to handle more questions. What was this? An interrogation?

“Late, Dana, leave it alone.” Terry snaps, only to immediately regret every life choice that led to this point. Dana didn’t deserve to be snapped at; she had done nothing wrong. Terry was the screw up here. He backs up, leaning back in his seat and taking her hand tightly in his. “Dana, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

Dana’s whole face changes, pinching in worry. She turns her hand in his and gives it a squeeze.

“What if you and I do something tonight?” She suggests, and Terry would have jumped for joy if he didn’t feel like keeling over. “Something fun. You and me.”

Terry’s nodding before she can finish. “Yes!” He exclaims, just a bit too loudly. The teacher turns to glare at him, and Terry shrinks in his seat as Dana giggles beside him. Terry grins at the musical sound. Any embarrassment is worth hearing her laugh.

“Then it’s a date.”

And that is what gets Terry through the day.

Buzzzz. Terry takes his phone from his pocket and presses himself against the wall of lockers. The final bell of the day means the hallways are filled with students desperate to get out of this prison.

Mom-
I’m running a bit late on my shift today, and we’re running low on a couple of things. I’m sending you the grocery list now. Please go pick it up, and then Matt, when you’re done?

Terry wants to be mad. He wants to feel frustrated that he has something else he has to do, but he can’t. He can’t bring himself to be angry at his mother for trying her best. She doesn’t know what Terry’s really doing. She doesn’t know how much is on his plate. It’s not fair for Terry to be mad at his mom when she herself has been working so hard for the family.

Terry takes a look at the list, then checks the time and realizes that if he leaves now, he will have just enough time to get the groceries and grab Matt with a little extra time for anything that could possibly go wrong along the way. He’s got this; he can make it if he hurries.

“Your total is $86.79.” Terry bites his lip and pulls out the credits. He’s already exchanged all the different credits he got last night onto a single credit to avoid suspicion. A credit that he sadly hands over to the cashier, knowing that most of the credits he earned will be going to that.

BANG!

Seriously? Terry looks out the glass doors to see an explosion go off at the bank next door. With a heavy sigh, Terry turns back to the cashier and holds out the grocery bags.

“Can you hold these behind the counter for a couple of minutes for me?” The cashier, a young woman with large glasses, reaches out to take the bags with a furrowed brow.

“Uh, yeah, I guess?” The girl shelters the bags under the register, and Terry throws her a smile before launching himself over the counter and out the door, already reaching for a batarang just in case.

Three guys. All heavily armed, all dressed in black. All of them are brandishing guns at innocent heads. The men are standing in strategic places around the bank, with two having taken a personal hostage and had guns pressed against their heads. The man on the left had a trembling young woman in his grasp. Black tinted tears stream down her face as she begs, reaching out towards the other armed man. A child shakes in the other man’s unyielding hand, crying and sobbing for his mother. Along the wall, five more civilians are shouting, begging for the man to release the child. One of the men, dressed in a ragged suit and sharing the same salt and pepper hair as the child, is being held back by the other hostages.

Terry’s blood boils as he harshly yanks his cowl out of his pocket and slams it over his face, discarding his jacket behind a trash can. Sure, it might look a little dumb, in a shirt, jeans, and full-blown cowl, but he is not getting his face plastered all over the news, thank you very much. Mr. Wayne would absolutely kill him.

All three heavily armed men look up at him when he enters the ruined bank. The bank teller is frantically transferring credits to an external drive as the third man waves a gun in his face and shouts at him to hurry up. Not for the first time, Terry wishes he had someone like Oracle like Batman did. Oracle would be able to stop the transfer in less than a minute.

Is he doing jealous research? Maybe.

Back to the task at hand, Terry! Focusing on the hostages, Terry aims the batarang and it collides with the wrist of the man on the right, causing him to drop the gun he was holding to the young boy's head. The boy scampers away to his father with a desperate cry. The father is released from the hands of the other hostages, and he drops to his knees to pull his son close. Immediately, the father turns his back to the commotion to shelter his son from any potential stray bullets.

The distraction of the child's release causes the man on the left to loosen his grasp on the woman; she takes advantage of the weakened hold and uses the extra space to bite down on the man’s arm. The man screams in pain as the sharp canines pierce his skin deep enough to draw blood. He drops the gun to yank at the woman's head in an attempt to save his arm from her unyielding jaws. In the split second it takes to drop the gun, the woman holds out her hand, and her husband tosses her a can of Mace, which she immediately turns to spray in the man’s face. The man stumbles away from her with a guttural scream, clutching his eyes as he falls to his knees. The woman dashes back over to her family and scoops up her child. The man throws an arm around her, still clutching their son, to kiss her cheek.

Terry blinks. Okay… usually, hostages require a bit more urging to get out of the line of fire. All the better for him, as the short man shouting at the teller turns and raises his arm to aim his gun at Terry’s face

“Get the kid!” One of them shouts. Terry doesn’t know who, and frankly doesn’t care; he has bigger concerns. Like the bullets actively flying his way.

Terry bends backwards and lets the bullets lodge themselves into the wall behind him, kicks his legs up, and balls his fists.

“Two on one?” He taunts, tilting his head to the third man, still on the ground. “Hardly seems fair…for you.” Like the idiots they are, they charge him with shouts of rage. The third man, the one still recovering from the nasty dose of Mace, stumbles to his feet and follows his comrades.

“Batman!” Terry turns in time to see the woman from earlier. She’s holding his batarang. Terry holds out his hand, and she throws it at him. He catches the batarang between his fingers as it flies back to him and slams the blunt side into the oncoming face of an assailant.

More come. Terry moves between them as they come, dodging and weaving as best he can with how his ribs are hurting. While dealing his own blows in return. The third one gets kicked in the Mace-covered face. The first gets punched in the gut, causing him to double over, practically begging Terry’s knee to smash into his face, which he immediately regrets as the sprain he had forgotten in the rush of adrenaline makes itself known again. The second guy who deserves no mercy for holding a child at gunpoint gets kicked so hard between the legs he drops right to the ground and won’t stop moaning.

Terry kneels down with an internal groan as it causes the pain in his already aggravated knee to spike again, and begins tying up the criminals groaning on the ground, well, the only conscious criminal is groaning, but regardless. Terry finishes quickly, stands, and motions for one of the hostages against the wall to call the police.

“Thank you!” The bank teller is flopped over the counter, sweating bullets and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Thank you so much!” Terry nods slowly. “I knew you would come! I just didn’t think it would be so fast!”

Terry blinks. How did-

Gotham had lived with a Batman for nearly forty-five years. From the moment Bruce first pulled on the cape to the day he finally hung it up, the city had come to depend on him, not just as a symbol, but as a constant. A presence in the dark. A guardian no one saw but everyone believed in. When he disappeared, Gotham didn’t just miss him—it fractured. The crime, the chaos, the desperation… it all surged back like a flood rushing in through broken levees. And now-now that Batman has returned- it’s as if the city has remembered how to breathe again. Like a reflex, it clings to him, leans on him. Gotham acts like he never left. It’s relying on him all over again, as though the years without him were just a long, bitter nightmare.

Terry can feel it pressing down on him-the weight of an entire city desperate to believe that Batman is back. They need him to be sharp, fearless, infallible. But they don’t know the truth. They don’t see the man behind the curtain-just a tired, bitter old voice barking through a commlink, too broken to wear the cape himself. And the one actually in the suit? He's just a kid. A kid. He still has homework due. He still wakes up in cold sweats from fights he barely survived.
He hasn’t even finished high school, and somehow, he’s supposed to carry the myth. To be the symbol. To save Gotham. They don’t know that his hands shake every time he pulls on the cowl. They don’t know that every time the police scanner flares to life, his stomach knots. He’s drowning in expectations, in silence, in fear-pretending he’s something more than a terrified teenager pretending not to crack under the weight of a city that doesn’t even know he exists.
“Batman!” The familiar voice rings out, and Terry snaps out of his reverie to see the young mother hurrying towards him. Terry stops, startling when she throws her arms around him, unknowingly causing his cracked ribs to scream in protest at the sudden pressure. Terry fights his wince, but the woman’s grip immediately eases. “Thank you! You saved my son! Thank you so much!”
Terry’s hands hover awkwardly. He glances over the woman’s shoulder at her husband, who’s holding their son on his hip and smiling at Terry with teary eyes. The son is slumped over on his father’s shoulder, one hand fisted in the faded blue tie.

“Uh, anytime, ma’am, really.” Terry tries to be assuring, but his voice trembles with exhaustion and pain that he can’t quite hold back. The woman pulls away, gripping his arm.

“Oh, you’re bleeding!” She exclaims, narrowing in on his neck. Terry presses his hand to his neck, only to jerk his hand away with a hiss when what is definitely a cut begins to sting. The woman starts to fret, reaching out to take her purse from her husband.

“Oh, honey, that needs a Band-Aid!” What? The woman rifles through her purse, and Terry isn’t sure what keeps him rooted to the spot as she finds a small, battered box of Band-Aids and pulls one out. Her husband takes the purse from her, and Terry remains still as she gently applies it to his neck. Terry isn’t quite sure how to react to the tenderness she treats him with; he hasn’t had someone take care of him like this since before his parents’ divorce. Every wound he’s received since becoming Batman, he’s dealt with himself. The dozens of stitched cuts and the many bullets he had pulled from his own flesh as blood poured out of him and obscured his view of the wound. The numerous broken and bruised limbs he's splinted and the ribs he's wrapped. All of this he has done alone. No one helping him and holding his hand through the pain. Yet this random woman is treating him like he is something worth taking care of, even if it was just a small cut.

“You saved my son…” The woman says quietly through tears. “You saved my baby. I-I can’t thank you enough. Thank you for saving him!” She hugs him again, so gently, and Terry…Terry wants to cry.

“Uh, of course.” Terry can smell the perfume clinging to her yellow jacket. She pulls away, and Terry gaps. “Wait-you’re bleeding!”

Immediately, the husband is at his wife’s side, gripping her red-soaked shoulder. The woman furrows her eyebrows at her and pokes at her shoulder, then removes her jacket. Her shirt is a soft blue and completely unblemished. She looks up at Terry.

“No,” She whispers. “It’s yours.” Terry blinks.

“Must be theirs.” He looks over at the crooks, all tied up. “I wasn’t shot. I-I’m fine, ma’am, really. Thank you for your kindness.” The woman’s eyes sparkle with tears, and the little boy finally raises his head.

“Batman is the coolest!” He exclaims excitedly, his voice high with joy. “I wanna be like you!” Terry pauses, then looks down at the batarang in his hand. He holds it out to the little boy, drawing a sharp pain from his ribs, which had just begun to settle, and his shoulder at the movement.

“Well then, you might want to start getting some practice in.” He suggests, and the boy’s father holds his kid tighter as his eyes go wide with awe. “I could always use the help in the field.” He tries for a smile, and it quickly becomes easier as the child reaches for the weapon. “Just don’t point it at your parents, and be safe with it. It’s sharp.”

The boy folds the batarang in his hands reverently, nodding along. “I will!” He exclaims, turning to his father. “Daddy, daddy! Look what Batman gave me!” His father is beaming, his face shining with tears.

“I love it, kiddo.” His father’s voice shakes. “It’s amazing.” He looks back up at Terry with a smile. “Thank you.” Terry nods and gives the family a small salute despite the pain it causes.

“That’s what I’m here for!” He exclaims. “Stay safe, everyone!” Then he turns and runs out of the building while the occupants burst into applause.

He stops outside the bank and ducks into the alley, slumping against the wall to breathe. He gently reaches up to touch the band-aid on his neck.

That woman…he hadn’t even asked for her name. She was so kind to him, giving him a band-aid for his cut, hugging him so gently so as not to hurt him, thanking him over and over, and talking so kindly. Terry can’t remember a time when his own mother showed so much care towards him, instead of relying on him to provide, to help, and protect.

He leaves the alley and enters the rain, moving robotically. He shrugs his jacket back on. He pulls the cowl off to tuck back into his pocket. He keeps his head down. He goes back to the grocery store. He picks up the grocery bags from a stunned cashier who didn’t see or hear anything more than gunshots and shouting. He just wants to go home and finally get some sleep.

The groceries get put away slowly, and Terry all but collapses onto the couch. His eyes are closed in seconds.

…
“-rry. Terry! Terry, get up!”

Terry hits the ground with a yelp. Immediately, his body reminds him of all the sores and aches. His poor ribs, which are sending sharp spikes of pain down his side with every movement and breath. His head is pounding and feels like it’s been stuffed with burning cotton, and his nose itches. His mother is standing over him, hands on her hips and her mouth pressed into a furious line. Terry racks his tired brain, looking for any possible reason she’d be so mad at him. He got the groceries, like she’d asked, and he even put them away! He was sleeping on the couch, but she’d never had a problem with that before…

“Where’s Matt?” She snaps. Terry blinks at her. Then he blinks again.

Horror floods his body like he’d been dumped in a bucket of ice water. Matt-He was supposed to pick up Matt!

Terry shoots to his feet, stumbling when the world tips sideways. He nearly falls back down and grabs his mother’s shoulder instead.

“I’m so sorry!” He all but shrieks, pushing off his mother and stumbling towards the kitchen to get his keys. “I was at the store, but there was a bank robbery across the street, and people were hurt, and I-”

“Terrance!” His mother snaps. Terry freezes in the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he turns back to face her. She’s got her arms crossed and her face is red with fury.

“You saw something scary, so you immediately abandoned your brother and then went to sleep?” She demands. Terry winces. When she puts it like that, he has no excuse for forgetting his own brother. But that’s not what happened!

“Mom, please,” He tries. “That’s not-” His mother snaps a hand through the air to cut him off.

“Matt walked home in the rain, and now you’re telling me that there was an active shooting going on at the bank, and you just left him alone?”

Guilt is a nasty thing, twisting in Terry’s gut and burning through his chest, making his already stabbing ribs feel like a fire. He slumps to the floor and buries his head in his hands.

“Is Matt safe?” He asks after a moment, not daring to look up. She said that Matt walked home, so he must be-

“Yes.” Sweet relief floods Terry’s body, and he allows his shoulders to drop. As he does so, pain shoots down his right arm, and it’s then that he notices the crusty feeling of dried blood against his shoulder and the pulling of the movement at his partially scabbed wound. He was shot? He doesn’t remember getting shot, but he must have been given the sharp pains lacing across his right shoulder. His shirt sticks to the skin of his shoulder. There’s no way second-hand blood would get that kind of damage.

Shrap! He can’t let his mom see, or she’ll be worried sick, and have questions about what happened, and there is no way that he is going to burden her with the responsibility of his injuries. He is Batman; it is his duty to deal with them, not his mom’s.

“Matt is in his room. Apologize to him and finish your homework. I don’t want to get another email from your teachers about missing work.” With those words, Terry’s mom turns her back on him, leaving him where he had all but collapsed on the floor. Terry bites his lip to keep the tears down, slowly struggles through his spinning head and throbbing body to get to his feet, and staggers into the hallway to get to Matt’s room.

He knocks once on the door before cracking it open. “Hey buddy-” He’s cut off when a pillow thumps against the door.

“Go away!”

Terry wants to apologize, wants to go in there and explain, tell his little brother that he didn’t mean to leave him there, but he’s too tired. He’s…he’s so tired. So he nods once, even though Matt can’t see him, and pulls away from the door.

“Y-yeah, okay.” He starts to shut the door. “...I’m sorry.”

His reflection in the bathroom mirror is almost unrecognizable. He’s pale and gaunt, his sunken, bloodshot eyes hover over bags deep enough that you could fill them with college debt and still have empty space. The makeup he had used earlier to cover the large bruise on his face was gone, likely washed away by a combination of the rain, his cowl, and the couch he was sleeping on. He looks like a zombie. How did his mom not comment on this? He looks dead on his feet! A random woman was able to pick up on this, and she couldn’t even see his face. So why didn’t Mom?

Speaking of her…the band-aid on his neck is bright and colorful, and Terry leans in closer to the mirror to get a better look. Resentment shoots through his chest like poison.

Of course…it’s a Robin band-aid. Robin, the perfect child of Batman, all of them. The one Bruce wanted back, the soldier who could follow every order, who always managed to make Bruce proud. Robin wouldn’t have gotten shot. Robin would have noticed it, even if he did!

Robin wouldn’t have left his little brother to walk home in the rain while men actively shot up a bank.

His fingers hover over the bandage corner, ready to tear it off, but he can’t quite bring himself to get his fingers under it. The shallow echo of the woman’s warmth ghosts across his skin. She had held him with such tenderness as she put the band-aid on his skin with care.
He…he should probably leave it on, just to make sure it heals right. So her good work doesn’t go to waste.

With a sigh, Terry bends over to pull his extensive first aid kit out from under the sink. His ribs express their disapproval of his decision, but it is a necessary evil. He has to treat his wound. By himself. With nobody even knowing that he was hurt, not that they would care if they did. His mom saw him and did nothing but scold him. If that doesn’t show what he’s worth to others, he's not worth more than what he can give them.

Terry tugs off his jacket and pauses to assess the damage. His shirt is sticking to the wound with dried blood. Well, this is even better. If he pulls it away, he will rip off whatever scab has formed between now and when he was shot; he just knows the bleeding will be bad. This is gonna be fun. Terry reaches to grab a wash cloth from off the counter and wets it in the sink. Reaching up, he begins to dab at the wound, hoping to dissolve some of the dried blood holding his shirt to the wound. After a couple of dabs, the scab begins to loosen, allowing him to gently begin pulling the shirt away from his skin. He pauses to dab a bit more when it begins to pull, then reaches into the first aid kit to grab a pair of shears. Terry begins cutting his shirt to make the removal process easier, and after a moment, he manages to successfully free himself from his shirt. He tosses it into the trash can by the toilet; it’s not like he can wear it again anyway.

After removing the shirt, he gets his first real look at his wound, and man, it is not pretty. With just a glance, he can see the beginning of an infection. The wound is red and inflamed with a little bit of pus around the edges. Well, that is concerning. Walking home in the rain and not cleaning it as soon as he got home likely made it easier for an infection to set in. Nothing else to do but clean it.

Terry grabs the wash cloth and rinses it in the sink, then brings it back up to his shoulder to clean up the blood so he can see his shoulder. After cleaning up the blood, he pulls out some gauze, rubbing alcohol, and a pair of gloves. Terry slides on the gloves and brings out the rubbing alcohol before removing the rest of his needed tools to clean. The bullet is still in his shoulder, given the lack of an exit wound. He needs clean tools if he doesn’t want to kill himself.

He needs a bigger opening for the bullet forceps to grab the bullet. Fortunately, he knows how to do that. Unfortunately, it means using the knife. Terry pauses right before he makes the incision, biting his lip. He picks up the other washcloth from the counter and stuffs it into his mouth to muffle any noises that he might make throughout the process, and brings the knife back up to his skin.

He makes the first cut, and pain fills all his thoughts, his already inflamed skin screaming at the agony he is causing himself. Terry pants through his nose and sets the knife down. He grips the counter and waits for the fresh waves of agony to pass before moving on. He grabs some gauze to clean up the blood. Then looks at the incision he made through the mirror to determine if it is large enough that the forceps can fit. And thanking all the gods he can think of at the moment, which with the way his head is spinning, is not many, the forceps will just fit.

He brings the gauze back up and applies some pressure while he reaches for the forceps. Terry takes several deep breaths before removing the gauze and gently eases the forceps into the wound. Agony shoots through his system, and he has to pause to breathe before he uses the forceps to hold the wound open for the bullet forceps. His legs burn. He wants to sit down, but he can’t leave the mirror. Terry blindly reaches for the bullet forceps, unable to take his eyes off the wound. As he finally grabs them, he has to brace himself before he sticks them into the wound and digs around for the bullet. Despite bracing himself, Terry can see the darkness encroaching on his vision as he continues to search for the bullet and prays to all of the previously thanked gods that he can find it before he passes out.

Just as Terry begins to lose hope, he-There!- feels the bullet and relief shoots through his system as he manages to successfully grasp it with the bullet forceps and yanks it out.

With that single movement, his vision goes black as pain overcomes him. He drops the forceps holding his wound open, and they snag on his skin as they fall out of his wound, tumbling to the floor with a clang. The bullet forceps in his other hand begin to slip as well, but Terry has just enough presence of mind to tighten his grip; he needs to know if he got the whole bullet.

Leaning against the counter, Terry breathes through the excruciating pain coming from the wound as blood pours down his side from the wound. After a minute, his vision begins to clear, and Terry takes the opportunity to bring the bullet forceps up to his face and examine the bullet. Terry almost cries with relief once he sees that the bullet is in one piece, meaning that he doesn’t have to dig around in his wound searching for any missed fragments of the bullet. After taking another moment to regain his strength, Terry takes another deep breath and straightens, grabbing a fresh piece of gauze. He pours rubbing alcohol onto the gauze and presses it against the wound. Terry has to make an effort just to keep the gauze on the wound with the amount of burning it brings, but he has to clean his wound. The infection is already bad; he can’t let it get any worse by not cleaning it.

Pulling the gauze away after a moment, he grabs the wash cloth and cleans the blood off his chest and arm that he let fall while he was reeling in pain. After the blood is gone, well, mostly gone, Terry definitely has to change the bandages around his chest because he has gotten blood all over them in the process of removing the bullet. Terry grabs more gauze and begins to wrap his wound. He's hit his max on taking care of his injury for today; he'll worry about stapling it closed later.

Slagg it!

Terry skids to a stop in front of the hockey rink just in time to see Dana leave with the crowd. He waves his good arm.

“Dana!” She meets his eye, and Terry knows he’s in trouble. She’s mad. Her face presses into thin lines, and her hands ball at her sides, her perfect brows lowering when she catches sight of him.

They meet halfway, away from the crowds, where it’s quieter. Terry scratches the back of his neck with his good arm, shame burning his face when he looks down at her. “Dana, I’m really sorry for missing the game, I-” Dana holds up a hand to stop him.

“Terry, stop.” Terry’s blood runs cold. They’ve done this before, but it’s always the bite of the bullet, heh ironic, when she breaks up with him. There’s a certain tone she only uses when she breaks up with him.

What does it mean that he can tell from her voice that she’s going to break up with him? What does it say that he knows because it’s happened several times before?

Dana continues, lowering her arm to cup her hip. “You promised we would hang out tonight, and you blew me off without even a text. And the thing is, Terry, this isn’t even close to the first time you’ve done this. I-I love you, Terry, but I’m getting sick of it. I can’t keep putting my life on hold and waiting and waiting and waiting for you to come around. You’re not. You never do!” Terry takes her hands in his desperately, his heart pounding so hard it hurts.

“Dana, please, I’m working on it!” He exclaims. “I’m trying here, I’m just…there’s so much going on and I don’t want to let you go, because you’re the best thing about my life right now, and I love you so much that I can’t-please, Dana, we can figure something out!”

But Dana only shakes her head. “Terry, we’ve done this before. We break up, you fix yourself, we get back together, you regress all over again, we break up, pain, pain, pain. This has got to stop. We’re both suffering here, can’t you see?”

That gets Terry to stop.

Suffer…He’s hauntingly familiar with that word. He’s…Dana is suffering because of him. Yeah, those months together are great, but is it worth it if she’s suffering sporadically because of him? Those months apart, she’s fine. She’s…

Better off without him.

Terry allows Dana to pull away from him. His hands fall to his sides, and he takes a step back.

“I-” His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. “I’m sorry.” He can’t bring his voice above a whisper. “I just…Dana, I’m sorry.”

Dana crosses her arms and looks down. “I know you are.” She mutters. “And that’s what hurts the most. I know you’re giving it your all, but your all is getting flakier and less reliable. Your all isn’t enough anymore. But I know that it’s all you’ve got. That’s why I stayed. That’s why I came back. You’ve always given me everything you have, and it’s always meant the world to me. But you know there’s a phrase for that?”

Terry doesn’t respond. He can’t get his words to work anymore. Dana looks like she’s going to cry.

“Take the ten percent of a one-hundred-percent man.” She whispers, and Terry’s heart stops. “But don’t take the one hundred percent from the ten percent man. Terry…you used to be a one-hundred-percent man who gave me one hundred percent. You’re still giving me that one hundred percent, but you’ve only got ten percent to give.”

Terry sighs heavily, closing his eyes. “You’re right.” He mutters. “Dana, you’re right.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I can’t give you what you need. I-I’m sorry.”

Dana reaches over and wraps her hands around Terry’s arms. He opens his eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes are filled with tears as she tries to smile. “I know.” She whispers. “You’ll get better. You just need some time. I’ll be here when you’re ready, but you need to focus on yourself. Not just for a few days or weeks. Whatever it is that’s going on with you is going to take a long time to get yourself out of. Take the time you need. I just…I can’t be there with you while you do it.” Terry nods miserably.

“Thank you for being so perfect, Dana.” He says quietly, tears blurring his vision. Dana nods once, then she’s gone. Disappeared into the crowd like she was just another face.

Terry makes it three paces before collapsing into sobs.

Batman crouches over the city, blinking so heavily he worries he might just fall asleep right here on the gargoyle. Neo-Gotham sure does have a lot of those, given the century. It makes brooding easier, though, so he’s not complaining.

He keeps going back to the woman from earlier. Her kind touch, her gentle voice, the way she was so eager to help him, even though she didn’t know him. She didn’t have to give him a Band-Aid. She didn’t have to fuss over him or call him honey. She didn’t have to, but she did.

He saw the way she had run to her child, how she had put herself in such danger, gone out of her way to fight against the hands holding her to get to her family. As far as he’s aware, his own mother probably would have cowered in fear until someone else intervened. Unless, maybe, if it was Matt being held. Then she would beg and cry. But he doesn’t think she’d fight the way that woman did, especially not for him.

Maybe it’s a Terry thing. People don’t really fight for him the way they fight for other people. Never have. Even during his parents' divorce, Terry can remember his parents fighting over who got to keep Matt, but Terry was never fought over; neither of his parents fought to keep him. He just went to whichever parent lost the fight over Matt. In fact, his mother never once tried to see him after his father got custody of him.

But then again, it’s not like Terry is giving them a lot to work with. After the divorce, he was always in some form of trouble. He joined a gang, he went to juive for heaven's sake. No wonder neither of his parents wanted him; he was more trouble than he was ever worth. And even now, he thought he had been doing better, but looking back, he’s still more trouble than he’s worth. He’s always late to everything, has vague excuses, always misses curfew, he lets everyone down, his grades have been tanking as of late, and he’s always lethargic and exhausted. His mother needed no other evidence to accuse him of doing drugs. Matt never tried to do anything other than tease him, inadvertently making this harder. But he never deserved to be forgotten. Dana has every reason to be mad, to leave him. She never deserved to suffer at his hands.

Yeah…it’s a Terry thing. It’s not like he can tell them that he’s Batman. He’d get laughed at, and his mother would probably try to put him in Arkham. But then again, would she even truly care that much?

“It’s a slow night.” Wayne’s voice comes over the comms, and Batman jerks out of his musings. “Go home. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

Was…was Wayne giving him the night off? Was he telling Terry to get sleep? Well, Terry certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He raises his hand to the comm and tries to rid the emotion from his voice; Wayne hates it when he sounds like a human being.

“Copy that. Returning to the Cave now. ETA twelve minutes.” Batman stands from his perch, his hand on the wall to keep himself from falling. Oh wow, he must be really tired. Yeah, that’s it. He’s just exhausted. Some sleep will do him good.

He swings off, trying to ignore the way his hands slip on the grappling gun.

He strips himself of the Batsuit in the Cave, trying to ignore the way his body shakes with every step.

He falls into bed, trying to ignore the way his shoulder burns just a bit too much for a clean wound.

He sleeps.

Chapter Text

Terry wakes up with a sharp inhale, an irritating noise jolting him out of the depths of sleep. It takes him a moment to pinpoint where the jarring sound is coming from before blindly reaching out a lethargic arm to stop the alarm clock. It takes a few attempts to hit the right button before silence finally falls over the room, and Terry takes a few moments to relish in the calming stillness that fills the air once he stops the alarm. But like all good things, the peaceful morning must come to an end. Terry must wake up and get started on the day before he lets even more people down or ruins any other lives by burdening them with his problems. So with a deep breath, he opens his eyes.

Looking around, Terry finds that his eyes, blurry and still crusted over with sleep, take a moment to focus on his surroundings. The sight of his room greets him the same way it did most mornings when he actually managed to sleep in his bed, which at this point is not many. His room is very sparsely decorated, as many of his belongings were collected by the police as evidence after his dad's death, and his mom didn’t have the time between everything else to get them back. The few belongings they didn’t take could be contained in three boxes and a suitcase filled with clothes. This meant that the small office-sized room looked empty at first glance, with just a few outfits hanging in the closet, some homework on the desk, and a couple of pictures of him with his dad that he managed to snag from his old house. The dull grey walls seem to emanate the same crushing exhaustion he feels as he looks around at the barren room. His room looks more like a guest room than his own, and it barely looks lived in at all, just another way the disappointing reality of being an outsider in his own house is displayed.

With a sigh, Terry moves to sit up, only for his body to protest in new, unexpected ways. Last night was hardly a rough one, yet Terry feels as if he was hit by a truck, then pushed down a flight of stairs, and promptly beaten with a crowbar. A feeling of malaise washes over him, and suddenly, it occurs to him that he might be sick.

Huh?

He thought he had taken care of that when he cleaned his wound. Terry had done everything right, for once, so there shouldn’t be any problem. With nothing else to do now but get on with his day, Terry hauls himself onto his feet and ignores the burning feeling pulsating from his shoulder and the way his vision blurs at the change of elevation. Reaching for his shirt, Terry begins another miserable day.

Terry rubs his eyes after shrugging on his gym shirt. He’d been so busy with being Batman, trying to stay with Dana, helping Matt and Mom, and staying on top of his schoolwork, that he’d simultaneously forgotten about all of those categories.

Namely, the math test he’d had today.

And the history test he’d had today.

Both of which he’d promptly failed. Well, I guess it depends on what you consider failing, but by Terry’s standards, he’s failing and failing badly at that.

Terry wants to throttle somebody. If that somebody turns out to be Terry himself, then hallelujah for Terry!

“McGinnis!” Terry sluggishly turns his attention to Blake, the large, dumb, ugly, and probably-steroid-infused lunatic who haunts every single one of Terry’s gym classes. He’s almost as bad as Nelson Nash, if Nelson had exactly four more concussions and a terminal sense of stupidity.

“What.” Terry demands without turning around. He barely wants to move, much less get into a fight. His knee still hurts, his shoulder burns, his head is swimming, and he wants to curl up on the cool floor.

Blake stalks in front of Terry, bringing his three cronies with him. Mercifully, it meant Terry didn’t have to move. All he had to do was look up. Blake was glaring down at Terry with a rueful sneer, and his cronies all looked smug.

“It’s dodgeball today.” Spittle flies from Blake’s fat lips, and Terry scrunches his nose up.

“I’m glad you’re excited, Blake.” He mutters, turning and walking away. Blake doesn’t let him get far before, fortunately, grabbing Terry’s good shoulder and, unfortunately, slamming him into the wall of lockers behind him. Terry hisses in pain as his bad shoulder and his busted ribs slam into the lockers as well, his hands flying up to grab Blake’s large arm.

“What, Blake?” Terry demands, trying and failing to keep his voice from cracking. Blake’s face, once the epitome of evil, now scrunches up and loses some of its red color.

“What fight did you lose, McGinnis?” He barks. Terry steels over his expression.

“One that would make you cry to mama.” He snaps back. “Now let me go.”

Surprisingly, Blake lets him go. Immediately, Terry grips his bad shoulder, squeezing it to focus the pain. “You should go see the nurse about that shoulder, dude,” Blake calls as Terry hurries away. “Seriously, you flinched harder than a-” he tries and seemingly fails to come up with a good comparison. “You flinched real bad. Maybe tell the coach you gotta sit this one out.”

Terry looks over his shoulder at Blake, surprised. “Since when do you care?” He can’t keep the genuine shock out of his voice. Blake shrugs.

“When you know, you know.” He replies. “Sucks when someone kicks you when you're down.” Then he turns and marches away, his cronies following behind with confused whispers.
Terry watches them go, and it’s then that he notices all the people staring at him. He wraps his arms around himself quickly and scampers out to the gym.

Dodgeball…Terry had completely forgotten. He hates dodgeball. Especially since he felt like a paper sent through the shredder. Maybe Blake was right, maybe Terry should try and get out of-

THONK!

Terry hits the hard wooden ground of the gym, slamming shoulder-first, then his head. A whistle is blown, and someone is laughing. Terry can’t for the life of him tell who it is. His head is pounding, spinning, and screaming at him. His nose is throbbing from the hit, and the bright red culprit is rolling away merrily.

Terry groans, rolling slowly to his stomach and pushing himself up with one hand, cradling the arm of his bad shoulder close to his chest. Blood drips from his nose to the hardwood floor, tauntingly showing Terry his own nasty reflection.

“McGinnis! Get off the floor!” The coach shouts. Terry bites back a curse and several rude gestures as he climbs gingerly to his feet.

Another whistle, and someone else is shouting.

“Foul! That was a foul coach! Did you not see that?”

Blake. Terry glances up to see Blake inches away from the teacher, in his face and shouting. In his big hand is the collar of another boy’s shirt. The boy looks angry and annoyed, trying to pry his shirt free from Blake’s unrelenting grip.

The coach has his hands on his hips. “He entered the floor, he joined the game.” He tells Blake. “Those are the rules,” Blake growls angrily.

“So what’s stopping us from slaughtering everybody else here with the balls?” He demands. “McGinnis is already hurt! He was coming to tell you!”

Terry totally wasn’t, but the thought was nice. The coach, however, doesn’t look amused.

“On the floor, in the game.” He repeats, sounding like an angry parrot.

Suddenly, one of the girls from across the room picks up a ball. “I love that rule, coach!” She cheers, high-pitched and obnoxious. “On the floor, in the game!” Then she hurls the ball right at the coach. Blake ducks in time, and Terry gets to watch in real time as the broad-built coach is taken down by a ball thrown by a girl half Terry’s size.

Through his watery vision, Terry can see the distinctive pink hair of Max Gibson. She’s red-faced, but her expression is smug, and she’s grinning like a bobcat. Around her, other kids are stunned and laughing.

“What’s the matter, coach?” She shouts across the room. “On the floor, in the game, right? Surely the rules you force on your students should apply to you.”
Blake is doubled over laughing as the coach angrily climbs to his feet. “That’s detention, Gibson!” He howls. “And a call to your parents!” Max puts her hands on her hips and grins.

“Oh, please do!” She exclaims. “My parents are going to love to hear about how you willingly and knowingly allowed the torment and harm of another student, but as soon as you were given the same treatment, you finally did something about it!”

Then Blake picks up a dodgeball as well. He grins mercilessly and cocks his arm back, aimed right at the teacher.

“On the floor, in the game!” He throws it. And suddenly, all the students are running for the balls, grabbing them, and hurling them at the coach like the balls were weapons of war.

And that was how Maxine Gibson got dodgeball banned at Hamilton Hill.

Terry was escorted by both Max and Blake to the nurse’s office, and she patched up his nose. Gave him a big ol’ cotton pad and everything. Huzzah.

Blake and Max were pretty good about it, too. Blake stood in the corner of the office like a hulking bodyguard while Max regaled the nurse with the story of their bravery and Terry’s martyrdom. The nurse had nodded along like she was only half listening, chuckling half heartedly when they told her about how the entire class was given detention except Terry, and the whole class had taken the detention with pride and grace.

Apparently, attacking a teacher is an adrenaline rush, and Max and Blake were still riding it.

It didn’t take long for the next class to start, and Terry made sure to snack on his lunch all throughout so he could sleep during lunch. It was a habit he’d picked up on recently, and it was working for him.

Until, of course, he woke up with the bell and found his prized jacket, the one he’d worn every day for years, the one he had hung over the side of his chair when he’d slumped over the lunch table at the beginning of the period, was gone.

Gone.

Terry shoots to his feet and looks all around. Around the chair, under the table, under his backpack-nothing. It’s not here. Terry’s breathing picks up. His hands are shaking.

His jacket is gone. Stolen.

Terry groans loudly, digging his fists into his hair. That was his favorite jacket! And his freaking only jacket! The jacket his father got for him! Terry’s chest tightens and twists around his lungs, constricting all air. He turns in every direction, eyes scanning every person in the room for his jacket. Who took it? How long has it been gone? He’s going to need to find a new place to sleep during lunch period, but this is the best spot he’s been able to find. But if he loses his jacket, then he needs somewhere new!

Terry can feel his pulse in his neck as he continues to search. He can’t see his jacket. There’s nothing to ball his fists in now, no comforting brown leather wrapped around his arms, no cold zipper against his neck.

He wheels around and slams his fist into the wall behind him, startling the kids at the table next to him. They scatter quickly at the obvious anger on his face, and for once, Terry can’t blame them. Right when he catches a break -his classmates come to his defence and stand up to the coach for him, help him to the nurse’s office, and get him all bandaged up- he gets another roadblock.

And now he has no jacket.

What makes his luck worse? When school gets out, it’s raining. Pouring frigid water from
an angry gray sky. Thunder crackling, rain pouring, lightning flashing.

He has two options: take the bus that lets off two minutes from his house and go straight home, or walk from the high school to the elementary school, a fifteen-minute walk, and pick up Matt, then walk home together in the rain.

On one hand, the sooner he got home, the sooner he could check the wound on his shoulder and fall into his bed in clean, dry clothes.

On the other hand, he’s already forgotten to pick up Matt once this week, and if he forgets again, then not only will his mother yell at him all over again, but then Matt will be mad at him and restart his silent treatment all over again. And Terry…Terry doesn’t know if he can keep going like that.

Terry felt like he was on fire, but he wasn’t gonna forget Matt again, even if it meant he spent more time getting soaked by the rain. So on he plunged into the cold rain, no jacket to protect him from neither rain nor cold.

There’s no way he’s leaving Matt behind again. He’s Batman, for goodness' sake! If he can’t protect his own, then he’s not cut out to be protecting all of Gotham.

His hands are trembling. He normally sticks them in his jacket pockets, but he doesn’t have those anymore, so he has to settle for the shallow pockets of his jeans. His sneakers are immediately wet, and his hair gets plastered to his face, but on he goes, towards his brother, probably the one person in the world who hates him more than Mr. Wayne does.

Was this how the Robins felt when Mr. Wayne had a partner? Was Mr. Wayne always this cruel and hardened? Terry doesn’t think so. There’s a certain bitterness that comes with age, and Mr. Wayne has nailed every aspect of it.

Terry tries to imagine Mr. Wayne when he was younger, maybe more gentle, softer, kinder to the children in his cave. He had a few, didn’t he? No one really knew, but Terry figured that if each of Mr. Wayne’s sons held the mask, then there would have had to have been at least four Robins. Not counting the girl Robin. Terry doesn’t know much about the Wayne family, but he knows that they’ve interacted with a select few individuals who have all pretty much turned out the same.

Vigilantes.

Terry is one of those select few whom Mr. Wayne interacts with. But Terry is a Bat. Is that how Matt will end up? Will Matt be considered one of the select few to be interacted with? Those people either ended up dead or in capes and masks.

Gods, Terry hopes he himself is considered the latter. He couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing Matt, his baby brother, in a coffin. He’s already lost so much, and Matt hadn’t signed up for any of what Terry’s dealing with.

But then that brings Terry right back to his original thought. He’s Batman now, just like Mr. Wayne was, and if he’s Batman, then that means that he has the option to either end up like Wayne or keep his soul.

Terry shudders from more than just the cold. Matt would definitely leave if Terry went full Bruce Wayne.

Did Mr. Wayne give his Robins’ bedtimes? Did he let them snack on patrol? There are so many questions. How hard was Mr. Wayne on his children? Were they his children, or were they Robin's first? How different was Mr. Wayne’s treatment of them from Terry’s?

They…they have so many answers about Mr. Wayne. Those people know how to tiptoe around him when he gets angry, and they know how to talk to him when he’s apathetic. They know how to work with him; they know so much about it.

If Terry could talk to any of them, even for a minute, he’d finally be able to ask all these questions that are burning holes through his chest and mind. Maybe then he’d be able to fall into a rhythm with Mr. Wayne, maybe he’d be able to stop pissing off the old man with every little thing. He’d learn Mr. Wayne’s preferences. He’d learn how to behave, how to speak, how to walk, he’d learn how to be Batman, if only he could talk to just one of the old Robins.

But that’s never been an option, and it’ll never be an option. Because Mr. Wayne talks about them all so bittersweet. They’re not around anymore. At least, they’ve gone where Mr. Wayne either can’t or won’t reach them. They’ve moved on, moved to better things than gloomy Gotham with a giant Bat over their shoulders, repressing them, shoving them down, beating them back when they tried to speak up, belittling them-

Okay, maybe that’s just a Terry thing. He doesn’t know if it was actually that bad with the Robins, but he knows Wayne was bad enough to have chased all of his children away. And now Terry has no one to turn to, nowhere to go for guidance. Terry is alone to flounder across the blackness that is being Batman.

And he’s not even the second Batman. Not by a long shot. There were two others, according to vague conversations with Wayne. First was the eldest child, Richard Grayson-Wayne, or Nightwing, while Wayne was lost in time. He gave the cowl back to his father when Wayne was safely returned by Red Robin, or Timothy Drake-Wayne.

The second one to be Batman was the youngest child, Damian al Ghul-Wayne. He was Robin for a long time before taking up the Batman mantle for a few years. But…he didn’t stay Batman, even though everyone thought he would. He didn’t. He vanished, and his father replaced him. At the same time, Damian al Ghul-Wayne disappeared from the public eye. Terry tried asking Wayne about it, but he was shut down so violently that Terry had resolved to never ask again.

Those are two potential Batmans for Terry to ask for help, but neither are within reach. Any and all aid Terry could have gotten from them was chased away by Wayne himself, and now Terry is left to not only fend for himself, but all of Gotham.

And…Terry’s not sure how much longer he can keep going like this.

Terry opens the door and trudges inside and out of the rain, holding the door open just long enough for Matt to enter behind him before letting the heavy door slam shut. The sound of rain cuts off, leaving them alone in a tense silence. Matt stands shivering beside Terry for a moment before shooting him a glare and storming off to change into dry clothes.

Terry leans against the door for a moment as his strength is sapped by the malice behind the glare, and the reality of Matt’s hatred for Terry settles like a block of ice in his lungs. Wayne hating him, he could live with; he might even be able to survive his mother's loathing, but Matt, if Terry can’t get Matt to forgive him, he thinks that he might just give up.

But enough with thinking like that, Terry has things to do, and none of those include moping. The list starts with taking care of his wound and doesn’t end anytime soon. He’s got to get going. With that, Terry stands up and staggers to the bathroom, dropping off his backpack in his room and grabbing dry clothes. Once Terry enters the bathroom, he glances in the mirror with a shiver and thinks that it's no wonder Blake was worried; he looks like a corpse. His skin has an almost grey tint to it, with a deep flush to his cheeks that gives away the fever he is definitely running at the moment. Upon closer examination, he can see the remnants of blood crusted in his nostrils and the base of his nose, and uses a tired hand to clean up the bits of blood the nurse and Max missed.

After another round of shivers racks his body, Terry determines that it might be a good idea to remove his soaked clothing before he gives himself pneumonia or something. He grips his shirt with his good hand, then awkwardly tugs the shirt over his head before shimmying off his pants. Once he has finally freed himself from the soggy denim entrapping his legs, he pulls on a pair of sweatpants before straightening to get a good look at his shoulder.

Unrolling the bandages, Terry sees his wound for the first time since he cleaned and bandaged it yesterday, and it is not a pretty picture. What yesterday was a bloody mess, he haphazardly bandaged; today is a disgusting pus-covered mess of an infected wound. An infected wound that he still has to staple shut. In that moment, Terry curses his shortsightedness and considers his options, which is very difficult to do with how his head is spinning and stuffed with cotton. He has to staple his wound shut; otherwise, it won’t heal properly, and he will have a gaping scar on his shoulder that will definitely limit his mobility, and if he doesn’t staple it shut, it might start bleeding on patrol. Which sounds like it will make Bruce mad at him. But if he staples it shut, it will… there was a reason he shouldn’t staple it shut… he knows there is, but his mind is so foggy he can’t remember why. Bruce would be so disappointed with him for forgetting the first-aid knowledge he drilled into Terry’s head. Yes, that knowledge was taught to him so that he could better assist victims of crimes, but he was supposed to remember it regardless.

Decision made, Terry grabs the staple gun and anesthetics out from under the sink, where he stashed them last night after he stole them from Mr. Wayne’s medical bay. After taking a deep breath, Terry reaches for the syringe and jabs himself in the shoulder with it before injecting the anesthetics. After waiting a moment and then poking his shoulder wound a couple of times to see if it was numb enough, he grabs the staple gun and brings it up to his shoulder. With one hand, Terry awkwardly holds the wound shut before, with the other, he starts stapling the wound shut. Terry is tired and can’t quite remember how far apart the staples should be, and when he leans forward to look at it in the mirror, he notices the staples are a little crooked, and one was just on his skin; it wasn’t even on the wound, but rather off to the side of it a bit. Welp, what's done is done, and Terry can’t be bothered to fix it at the moment.

Terry clumsily reaches for a fresh pad of gauze before finishing up by wrapping the wound. He realizes that he is forgetting a couple of steps, but at this point, would anyone even notice or care if he did? Terry’s not sure about Mom or Matt, but Wayne definitely wouldn’t care. Or at least Terry is pretty sure that he wouldn’t care if anything; Wayne would be disappointed by his lackluster job of patching himself up.
Which reminds him that he was supposed to go to the Batcave to see Wayne for some reason. He was sure he was supposed to go to the Batcave, but why?
Batman!

He was supposed to go and be Batman! He hoped he wasn’t late; he didn’t want Wayne to be mad at him again. Well, he'd better hurry.

Terry yanks on his glove with a little more force than necessary. His hands are shaking, and he can’t get them to stop.

“The Diamond District is looking especially rowdy tonight,” Wayne mutters quietly from his chair at the Batcomputer. Terry shuffles over to him and glances at the computer screen while still fiddling with his glove. It’s full of red dots and orange lines that all blur together.

Terry fights back a groan; so much for hoping it would be an easy night. He doesn’t know how much more damage his body can take. His hands are shaking. His fingers are numb. Is it possible for a shoulder injury to make your fingers hurt? No, wait, his fingers are numb. So…what exactly is hurting?

Mr. Wayne barely moves from his seat as he keeps speaking, the only form of life being the small movements of his hands as he types on the computer. “I looked at your grades today.” That draws a wince. Terry is positive he’d failed both of those tests today, and there was probably a record of him getting into a fight in gym class, even though it was hardly a fight, more like a martyr-turned-rebellion. A revolution. Full on George Washington style rebellion. With Max as a general. He’s more like Lafayette, maybe. No, he would say that Blake was more like Lafayette. Maybe Terry’s Hamilton; he could live with being Hamilton. But wait, doesn’t Hamilton die… Well, he supposed that they all died in the end, so never mind. He’ll be Hamilton. Wait, was he supposed to tell Wayne all this? He might like to know.

Just as he opens his mouth to speak, Terry loses his grip on the edge of the glove. Wait, he’s supposed to be using the latches on the sides to loosen it. The black on black is making it hard to see everything clearly. But hey, that means it’s harder for the bad guys to pull off his gloves, too, so they can’t get his fingerprints. Those fingerprints might lead to Matt and Mom, cause Terry’s fingerprints are totally in the system already, given his history in juvie.

Terry pulls at the glove again. He can’t get it past his wrist enough to wriggle his fingers in.
Wayne clears his throat, and Terry looks up at him. Oh yeah! Wayne was talking about Terry’s grades! Wait, Wayne was talking about Terry’s grades. That’s not good. Terry’s Grades are bad right now, and Wayne definitely won’t like that.

“So?” Terry demands sarcastically, knowing full well what Wayne is going to say and already dreading every word. He can’t get the glove on. “Like what you see?”

Wayne scowls. Terry only knows because he can see the old Bat’s reflection on the screens. His brow is creasing, more by the second, morphing into something new every time Terry blinks. Terry really doesn’t want to deal with this oncoming lecture.

“You’ve failed every other test you’ve taken in the last three months.” Wayne grunts. “And the ones you pass are only by three or four points. Your highest score in months has been 72%.”

Terry sighs, finally pulling on and strapping his glove all the way. Now for the other one. “School is hard, Mr. Wayne. It’s been a hot minute since you were there. Curriculum’s changed.” But Mr. Wayne isn’t taking that for an answer. He pinches the bridge of his nose and leans forward to rest his elbows on the desk.

“Your education is important, Terrance.” Terry wants to punch something at the use of his full name. He hates it when Mr. Wayne uses it. He hates it when anyone uses it, but from Mr. Wayne, it sounds like Terry has done something irreparably terrible. The last person to call him by his full name had been his Mom when she yelled at him because he had done something wrong. What had he done so horribly wrong this time?

“I know,” Terry mumbles. “It’s just…it’s hard to keep up with both, Mr. Wayne. Being a vigilante at night and going to school.”

That gets Mr. Wayne to get mad. He pushes himself back away from the desk, the chair nearly rolling over Terry’s feet. Terry has to leap backwards to avoid the squeak-less wheels, but in doing so, his lethargic limbs tangle together, causing him to stumble and fall on his butt. Sitting there in confusion, wondering how he got on the ground, Terry notices Wayne's feet and looks up at him for help, before he hears Wayne’s words and remembers that he is in the middle of an argument with Wayne.

“I understand that it’s not easy, Terry.” Wayne snaps, his back still to Terry. “But you’re failing every one of your classes, and all of your teachers have put in notes about you falling asleep in class. That won’t stand. It never has, and it never will. My Robins knew their limits, and they were younger than you. They all completed their education, and between all five of them, every single class was passed. They always asked for help when they couldn’t do it, and they did the bare minimum of passing their classes. Why can’t you?”

Terry balls his fists. If the brave and bold Batman is really all that bold and brave, then why won’t he even face Terry when he scolds him? But that’s not even what stings the most.

My Robins did it. Why can’t you?

Because Terry isn’t Robin. Terry is Batman. There’s such a big difference that they shouldn’t even be grouped together. Terry shouldn’t be compared to the Robins because Terry isn’t Robin! With a rush of adrenaline, Terry climbs to his feet and lunges forward.

“I’m Batman!” Terry grabs the back of Wayne’s chair and forcibly spins it around so Wayne can see him. His shoulder screams at the sudden, vicious movement, and his ribs feel like they’re actively creaking. The old man’s eyes widen slightly, but that doesn’t stop Terry from yelling. “I’m Batman! I’m not Robin! So don’t you dare compare me to your children! They didn’t have half the responsibility at sixteen that I do! Do you have any idea how hard it is to look over an entire city while still being in high school, still being a part of a family that has no idea what you’re doing, still having to be the one to provide for your family, and having no support? Your Robins were children! So am I! I’m seventeen, Bruce! Why can’t you see that?” Terry backs up. His hand is hurting. He didn’t put the glove on right. It’s compressing against his hand like a shackle, and he has to get it off. He has to get it off now.

“You can’t get mad at me for cracking when even you didn’t deal with what I am!” Terry struggles with the glove. He can’t get it off. Why isn’t it coming off? “You weren’t in high school when you were Batman! You had Alfred to help you. You lived with Alfred! You didn’t have to make all kinds of stupid excuses to him when you came home late through the window, when you were too tired to get up for school because you were punching bank robbers all night! My own mother thinks I’m on drugs half the time, my baby brother hates me, my girlfriend broke up with me, I have no friends anymore, and all of my teachers hate me and refuse to work with me because I’m just the troubled kid!”

Mr. Wayne’s face is pale, but he doesn’t say anything. And Terry thinks that it’s a good thing the old man is shutting up for once, because Terry isn’t done.

“You had a comfortable home life where everyone there knew who you were, what you were doing, and why you were doing it!” He shouts, turning all his attention to the glove that won’t come off. “Your whole life was Batman! Unlike you, old man, mine isn’t! I have a family that I have to provide for and lie to, friends who have all left, and the most amazing girl in the world who thinks I’m nothing more than a ten percent man, and I am! I can’t give a hundred percent of anything anymore because I’m not at a hundred percent anymore! I’m always burned out, I’m juggling two completely different lives and somehow failing at both of them! None of your Robins had to deal with any of that, did they? No! They got to come home after school every day to a man who understood what they were going through and what they’re doing and won’t punish them for being tired! You gave them time off, you took care of them!”

Tears well up in his eyes. He’s given up on the glove as he looks up at Wayne. The old man is staring at him, eyes going wider with every sentence. It’s a look on his face that Terry has never seen before.

“Well, guess what, Bruce,” Terry snaps. “I don’t have anyone to take care of me! I take care of myself, like I’ve been doing all my life! I take care of myself, my little brother, my mom, you, and all of Gotham! I know I asked for this, and I know I could be handling it better, but I can’t! I can’t be like your Robins, because I don’t have half the tools they did! No one cares about me like people cared about them! You don’t care about me like you cared about them because they were your children! I’m not! I’m not your son, and you have no reason to care! I’m some random brat you found in a dark alley who demanded to be a part of the cause. You shouldn’t care about me like you cared about the Robins, but you can’t get mad at me for failing where they succeeded, because I’m doing three times as much as they did with a quarter of the resources and backup that they did! I’m sorry for not being as good as they were! But if they were so good, Wayne, where are they? Why aren’t they here? Why did they all leave you? Why is it up to me to take care of all of Gotham by myself? Why were they able to be a child with an adult to help them, but I’m not? Where are your precious Robins, Wayne?”

Wayne’s face is gray, his eyes wide. His lips are pressed thin, and his hands on the armrest of his chair are white. He moistens his lips before speaking.

“Terry.” His voice is soft. It’s gentle. Terry has never heard Mr. Wayne talk like this before. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Terry groans, throwing his hands up. “Why do you care, Wayne! I’m not your child, I’m not your Robin! You’re not Batman anymore, I am! You’ve made it so clear where we stand on that, and for some reason, you think you get to nag me about my grades? You’re not my father, Wayne! I’m not a Robin you can boss around!”

Wayne shakes his head slowly, folding his hands in his lap. “My children are my everything.” He says softly. Terry blinks. Huh? “And I did take care of them. I still do. I make sure they have everything they need, even now, when they’re all well over 40, with their own lives, their own children, some of them even have grandchildren now. And Terry,” Wayne sighs softly, not breaking eye contact. Terry feels rooted to the spot, his feet weighing too much to move. “I made them Robin and gave them the aid they needed to train, grow, and learn to be something more than the shadow and apprentice of Batman. All of my children have moved on to other things, other missions, other lives. It’s…it’s not a reflection of this city. Their lives just took them to different places.”

For a moment, it looks like Mr. Wayne wants to keep talking, but instead, his face completely drains of whatever color was left, and he sighs heavily, slumping down in his chair like he’s exhausted.

“Take the night off, and go help your mother.” There’s no gruff edge to his tone, no malice, no resentment. “Go be with your brother. Take care of your family. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Terry blinks, stunned. He had just…he yelled at Wayne, picked him apart as the grumpy old man he is, and he’s not getting lectured? Not benched or in trouble? He’s just getting sent home with a promise of a tomorrow. What punishment will await him tomorrow?

“Terry.” Wayne’s face is soft, his voice is gentle. It’s nice, like Terry’s not supposed to be in heaps of trouble for messing up their tentative rhythm. “Uh, one moment.” Then he stands, slowly and gingerly, grabbing his cane as he does so. Terry remains still as Mr. Wayne slowly approaches.

Terry watches, partly awed, partly fascinated, as Mr. Wayne reaches out and takes Terry’s hand, the one stuck in the glove, and gently unlatches each strap. He slides the glove off with ease, tucks it into his pocket, then does the same with Terry’s other hand. Mr. Wayne doesn’t say anything, and neither does Terry. Wayne’s hands are shaking more than usual.

“Go back to your brother, chum.”

And for once…Terry listens.

Terry stumbles a little as he walks down the street. The adrenaline from his fight with Wayne had faded, leaving him feeling unsteady on his feet, swaying a little with each step he took.

Terry had no idea what he was thinking, yelling at Wayne like that. He is an idiot. He’s lucky that Wayne had let him off easy after that, but maybe the Old Man was planning on dragging out his punishment, leaving him to wait in tense anticipation, spiraling over what the punishment could be until he finally struck when Terry least expected it. Back in Juvie, the particularly cruel guards would do just that, always reveling in how paranoid it would make Terry, leaving him tense and anxious for the punishment to come. But Wayne wouldn’t do that, right? He was so gentle with Terry when he helped him finally get the glove off his hand-

NO! He won’t be fooled; he had been fooled with kindness before. Terry is not going to let his guard down; he will be prepared for the punishment when it eventually comes.

Terry shakes his head to clear his thoughts of the images of what punishment Wayne might have in store. Focusing on what he has to do, Wayne sending him home was an unexpected turn in his night, but he hadn’t let him go home without giving him orders first.

‘Take the night off and go help your mother.’

Terry could do that; his mother needed money. He could get money.

‘Go be with your brother. Take care of your family.’

Those orders conflicted, but he told Terry to help his mother and take care of his family; the solution to that was to get money. So he assumes that he should do that first. Plus, earning some money might be the only way to keep his mom from yelling at him when he gets home.

A gust of wind breaks Terry from his thoughts, causing him to shiver. Terry misses his jacket as another harsh shudder sweeps across his body. His shoulder burns as the movement jostles his wound. The persistent shivering does almost nothing to warm him against the bite of the freezing wind. Despite this, Terry continues moving forward, heading to his usual spot on the corner.

When he arrives, he’s freezing, constantly wracked with harsh shivers, leaving him breathless with the pain from his shoulder and ribs. Terry leans against the lamppost, and the frigid metal seeps through his thin shirt, taking whatever heat Terry has left.

After taking a glance around the area and seeing no clients, Terry closes his eyes and leans his head back against the pole, taking a quick break. Taking a couple of breaths, it almost seems as if the lamppost is stealing his energy in addition to his body heat. His body sags against the lamppost, feeling like a marionette with its strings cut.

After standing there for several minutes, Terry hears footsteps approaching and quickly pulls himself upright, turning to face the sound. Terry finds a blurry figure walking towards him, holding a bundle. As the figure draws near, Terry’s eyes begin to focus, and the blurry figure turns into a woman. Huh? Why’s there a woman standing in front of him?

Wait, he’s on the corner. Is this a client? Terry opens his mouth to ask the woman if she’s looking for a service, but is cut off when the woman shoves her bundle into his arms with enough force to push him into the lamppost. One hand immediately reaches back to grab the lamp to prevent himself from falling over, while the other one flies up to grab the item the woman shoved at him. Terry’s ears are ringing with someone else’s words, but he can’t make them out as he peers down at the bundle of what turns out to be cloth in his hands. It’s brown, leather, and soft from use. Why is he holding this?

Terry hears the garbled voice again. That's right, the woman is speaking to him. Terry looks up and tries to tune in. “I f-nd -is…caref-l…Terry?” Her voice is deep for a girl, a little gruff too, Terry notes.

“-ey, hey Terry.” Terry’s eyes turned back to the woman's face from where they had drifted, and he realized he knew this woman. Her face is pinched with concern, and her brows are furrowed, her skin melting into the darkness surrounding them.

“-essa?” Terry slurs out

“Yeah, Terry, it’s me, Tessa.” Her voice sounds comforting. It reminds him of the voice his mother used to use when he was sick; back when he was really young, before Matt was ever born. Is this his mom? He thought it was Tessa? Terry wants to lean into the comfort the voice provides, but he doesn’t trust it. His mom is never comforting anymore.

Terry's gaze begins to wander again before it falls on the fabric bundle in his hand, his thumb unconsciously rubbing over the leather. Terry slowly unfolds the bundle. It’s a jacket. A brown leather jacket with a familiar line of poorly done stitching by the shoulder that Terry remembers sewing in after he got shot.

This is his!

Grabbing the jacket with both hands, Terry holds it out to get a good look at it. This is his jacket! He thought it was gone forever.

“is’ m’ jacket,” Terry gestures with the jacket, holding it out to show Tessa his jacket, swaying as he does. When Tessa reaches out, Terry quickly pulls it back, holding it close to his chest. Is Tessa going to take his jacket? That’s not nice!

“Yeah, it's your jacket, Terry. Don't worry, I'm not gonna take it from you.” Tessa says gently, her voice sounding warbled as she reaches out to grip his shoulders. The world straightens out when she touches him, and he can finally see straight. “I saw some teenagers tossing it around and laughing. I thought it looked like the jacket you always wear, so I took it from them.”

Terry looks down at the hand on his shoulder, feeling torn. On one hand, Terry doesn't want to lose the comfort of the stabilizing hand. But on the other hand, Terry really wants to put on his jacket. He is so cold, and the jacket would make him so warm.

As he contemplates what to do, Terry hears a gasp from Tessa, and she quickly pulls her hand back. Terry mourns the loss of contact but decides that the best course of action from here is to put on his jacket.

Terry begins to put on the jacket. He manages to get one arm in, but he can't find the second arm hole. After fumbling blindly with the jacket for a minute, Terry notices Tessa standing there and turns towards her, hoping that she understands that he wants help.

When Tessa just stands there not helping him, Terry lets out a little frustrated whine and shuffles closer to her. Mumbling out a quiet “-elp”. When Tessa doesn't immediately help, Terry wiggles his arm and begins searching for the arm hole again. Just as he is about to give up, he feels a cold hand on his arm, gently leading it into the sleeve before pulling on the jacket and straightening the front of it. Terry looks at Tessa, a little awed at how kind she was being with him, but wary and ready for the gentle hands to turn into harsh grasps. His eyes begin to drift and lose their focus as his thoughts slip from his grasp and float off.

“Hey, hey, Terry, look at me,” Tessa calls softly, the worried tone of her voice catching the attention of his foggy brain. Why was she worried? They were safe. Terry had his jacket on, that means he is safe. But if Tessa is worried, then maybe they aren’t safe. Terry looks at her, assessing whether or not she was hurt. He noted a couple of small bruises, but found nothing else indicating that Tessa was injured. Content with his conclusion, he turned his attention to their surroundings. A man was approaching. That must be it. The man must be dangerous, and making Tessa worried for her safety. Tessa doesn’t need to worry, Terry is wearing his jacket. That means he is safe and can take care of the dangerous man for her.

As the man continues to approach, Terry tenses in preparation for whatever the dangerous man will do. The man walks up to where they are standing under the lamppost before saying something that Terry can’t hear over the buzzing in his ears. As soon as the words leave the man’s mouth, Tessa tenses, then responds with something that sounds like a denial. The man turns to Terry and looks at him with dark eyes before his mouth starts moving again, but all Terry can hear is a loud buzzing. Whatever the man said makes Tessa freeze before responding in a sharp, angry voice. Terry’s confused; he doesn’t know what’s going on or what the man said that made Tessa so upset.

The dangerous man turns to Tessa, body taught with anger, before raising his arm to strike her. Recognizing the movement, Terry steps in front of Tessa, protecting her from the dangerous man. The blow lands on Terry’s injured shoulder, forcing a choked cry from his throat. Terry’s vision spins from the burning pain pulsating from his shoulder, and he feels his legs begin to give out beneath him. Terry crumbles to the ground, his ribs scream from the rough landing. Hearing a shout, Terry looks towards the altercation above him and notices Tessa holding a small rectangle in her hand aimed at the dangerous man. Before the man can respond, Tessa shoves the rectangle at his chest, causing him to jolt and cry out in pain.

Before Terry can take in anything else, Tessa grabs Terry by the good arm and pulls him to his feet. He stumbles as Tessa urges him to run, but manages to get his feet under him. Tessa yanks Terry down an alley, out of sight of the man. Terry wants to stop running now, but Tessa continues to pull him behind her.

“-essa,” Terry mumbles as he reaches his hand out to grab her wrist. Tessa ignores his hand and keeps dragging him forward as she takes him down another street, further away from the corner with the lamppost.

“-essa, t’ssa stooop,” Terry says as he once again tries to get Tessa’s attention by yanking on her sleeve. Tessa drags him down one last alley before finally coming to a stop and turning to face Terry.

“Terry! Are you ok?” Tessa sounds frantic. Why is she frantic? The dangerous man is gone. Terry halfheartedly gives her a thumbs up to show that he is fine before slumping against the wall of the alley. He is tired. Does Tessa know he is tired? He should tell her so that she doesn’t make him run anymore.

“T’ssa, -essa.” At the sound of her name, Tessa turns and looks at Terry, instead of staring at the mouth of the alley. Once he’s sure that he has her attention, he tells her the important information. “-essa ‘m t’rd. No m’re ‘unnin’,” There. Now she knows, and he won’t have to run anymore.

Tessa squeezes his arm gently. “It’s ok, Terry, we don’t have to run for a bit.” As she says that, she glances out at the street again, this time stiffening with panic.

Terry relaxes into the cement underneath him and closes his eyes to sleep. This is a good place to sleep. He has his jacket on, and the wet newspapers to his left make a decent pillow when he leans on them. Wayne said he didn't have to be Batman tonight, so he can be Terry… He can sleep… he is s a f e…

…

“Terry…” That's Tessa’s voice. Something is shaking him. Why? He's sleeping. It's rude to shake someone when they're sleeping.

“Terry, get up, we have to go.” Tessa sounds urgent. Maybe she needs Batman. He needs to get up and save her. But Wayne said he's not Batman tonight. Tessa needs Batman, though, so he can be Batman for just a minute to help her.

There is an arm pulling him to his feet, accompanied by Tessa’s frantic voice, “Get up, Terry! Get up, we gotta move!”

Following the pull of the arm, Terry stumbles to his feet. Opening his eyes, Terry squints at the light from a nearby store and moves to follow Tessa out into the street.

Batman would find out why Tessa is so scared. With that thought, Terry turns to Tessa and slurs out “‘essa, ‘essa wasss wr- wr- w’ong, why ‘r we ‘unnin’?”

Tessa doesn't respond to Terry's question. She must not have heard him. That's ok, Terry can be louder. Then she'll hear him, and he can help her as Batman.

“‘essa! w‘s wr-rong, why ‘e ‘unnin'!” Terry shouts, causing Tessa to jump and slam a hand over his mouth, shushing him and tugging him to crouch behind a dumpster.

“Not now, Terry.” Tessa says quietly, “You stay here for a moment while I distract them. I'll come back to get you when I've lost them.”

“‘ut I ‘elp.” Terry slurs back, matching her volume. “‘atm’n ‘elp.”

“ No, Terry, you stay here,” Tessa points at the ground. “Stay here. I'll be right back.” With that, Tessa turns and runs out of the alley and out of Terry's sight.

Leaning back against the dumpster, Terry takes a glance around his new alley. This alley isn't as nice as the other one. Terry misses his nice newspaper pillow. Yeah, it was wet, but at least it was comfy. Now he doesn't have anywhere to lay his head. Slagg.

Terry should go find a place to sleep. He's tired, and sleeping is what you're supposed to do when you're tired. Unless…he’s supposed to be Batman right now. Sometimes, when he's tired, he's supposed to be Batman. Either way, Terry needs to get up.

Slowly, Terry uses the dumpster to push himself to his feet, wincing as his shoulder gives a burning throb of protest. With slightly numb legs, Terry shuffles towards the entrance of the alley and sticks his head out to look for any signs of danger. Seeing none, though, Terry steps out onto the street.

A breeze sweeps over him as he leaves the cover of the alleyway. Thoughts of the bitter cold fill his head, and Terry tries to snuggle deeper into his jacket as more shivers shake his frame. Why was it so cold? He had his jacket now; he should be warm. Home is warm; he should head home. Plus, his suit is at home… Going home would be two birds with one stone! This is a great plan.

Terry didn’t think this all the way through. How is he supposed to get to his bedroom without walking through the front door? The apartment building is so tall…He could scale the wall… but his shoulder hurts, so that plan isn’t very appealing at the moment. He could call Matt and ask him to throw it out the window at him. But Matt would wonder why Terry is asking him to toss his bag out the window. It is kinda a weird request. Maybe there’s a ladder nearby or something? After a quick glance around, Terry does not find a ladder and promptly gives up.

Terry plops down on the ground and looks up at the building. He can see his window right there; it’s so close. The fire escape! He can use the fire escape to get his bag. With shaky legs, Terry stumbles over to the building. Looking up, Terry can see the fire escape above him.

Taking a deep breath, Terry jumps up and grabs the side of the ladder with his good arm, using his body weight to pull the ladder down. Huh. What do you know? There is a ladder. Terry grips the fire escape with both hands and hauls himself up one rung. There’s…there’s so many rungs.

Terry doesn’t know how he does it, but he reaches his window. His legs are shaking, and one of his arms is limp at his side. All he can feel is the pulsing pain from every cell in his body. His window opens easily, and Terry tumbles inside, flopping on the ground like a fish out of water. Looking up across the floor, Terry can see his bag lying on his bed. Score!

Now all he has to do is put it on.

The world is tilting like a top around him, bobbing and weaving as he moves. Batman tries to feel the wall of the alley to get through it, pushing through the shaking numbness of his legs to stay upright.

Where is he going? At this point, Terry isn’t sure. He’s Batman right now, and Batman is supposed to fight bad guys…so he should find some bad guys, right? That’s what Mr. Wayne would want him to do.

Speaking of the old man, he’s not making any pointed comments in Terry’s ear about all the bad things he did. Huh. Terry must be doing something right for once!

With that peppy thought, Batman looks down into the alley below, hoping to find someone committing a crime like a mugging or something. Muggings are usually easy to find in Gotham, so it shouldn’t be long now.

“Just give us the money, lady, and no one will get hurt.”

Oh. There they are. Five men are cornering a woman in the alley. Batman jumps down from the rooftop, staggering a bit as he lands between the woman and the muggers. Taking stock of the situation, Batman readies himself for the fight before silently motioning the muggers to attack. A large, stocky-looking man charges towards him, fist raised in an obvious right hook. Batman easily dodges under the punch before retaliating with his own. The blow lands, and Batman hears the satisfying crunch of a man’s nose under his fist. The first man stumbles backwards, clutching at his face and swearing. He points at Batman angrily.

“Get ‘im!”

Batman throws another punch as all the men all charge him at once. He grabs one of the punches and uses the momentum to throw the man into his buddy. His head feels like it's swimming, and the earth beneath him sways like a boat on water, but he has fought through worse before, so he can do it now. Another punch is thrown his way, and Batman just barely dodges it. Just as he gets out of the way of the first punch, a second lands against his face, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall to the ground. Looking up, Terry notices a foot headed towards his face and flips up out of the way. Doing a couple of extra flips to gain some distance between him and his opponents.

Just then, Batman notices the woman hiding in the corner of the alley. She’s shaking with fear and clutching her purse tightly to her chest. Batman has to get her out of here. Flying in, Batman swoops the woman up in his arms, hiding a grimace of pain from the movement, before settling her on the ground at the entrance to the dead-end alley and urging her to run away. Once she starts to run, Batman turns back towards the fight in the alley just in time to receive a brutal kick to his already sprained knee. His knee collapses beneath him, and Batman stumbles to catch himself against the alley wall. Unfortunately, the movement gives a goon the opening he needed to punch him in the ribs. White hot pain flashes across his whole body, and he hunches over on himself to protect the precious ribs. The fog in his brain that had been clearing with all the fighting is now back with a vengeance, and all Terry can think about is the pain in his ribs.

Terry is broken from his thoughts when he hears a voice behind him. But before he can understand what it's saying, another blow lands on his ribs. Terry can feel something snap in his chest, and a burst of panic floods through him. He can’t keep this up for much longer.

Terry doesn’t get to contemplate this long before another man punches Batman right across the face. He careens to the side, slamming into something hard. Someone grabs his shoulders and launches him backward. Batman slams into a wall, and he feels a stabbing sensation in his chest. Instantly, breathing is more difficult, and he can hardly get a full inhale before he notices a fist in his peripheral vision. Batman dodges the punch, letting the man's fist hit the wall. The man swears as his fist collides with the wall with a very sickening crunch.

The remaining men who are stupid enough to keep fighting approach him, one holding a crowbar and ominously tapping it in his hand. Terry can’t keep this up for much longer; he can feel himself choking on his own blood, but if he stops fighting, he dies. And if he dies, then Matt will be alone. Mom will be alone. He’ll never make it up to Dana, and Wayne will always think Terry was a failure.

Suddenly, Terry’s comm crackles to life.

“What are you doing?” Wayne hisses in Terry’s ear. There’s something off about Wayne’s voice. Terry can’t quite place it, because he knows it’s certainly not worry. “I sent you home hours ago!” Terry reaches up and turns on his comm.

“Old Man?” His voice is barely a whisper. He can’t find the air to be much louder, though. He hopes that Wayne can hear him, but he can’t really do anything about it.

Distracted by the voice, Terry doesn’t notice the swing of the crowbar until it’ too late. Making contact with his already broken ribs, Terry collapses to the ground with a choked sound of pain. His brain is going fuzzy, and he thinks he can hear Wayne's voice shouting his name. Terry notices a leg moving to kick him, and he moves on instinct, no longer worried about hurting any of he goons. Terry’s only concern now is staying alive. Quickly, Terry reaches out and grabs the man's leg, gripping it tight, and with a swift movement, Terry yanks until he can hear it crack, and the man screams out in pain, dropping the crowbar and falling to the ground.

As Terry tries to make it to his feet once more, a foot makes contact with his back, pushing him back down and forcing a startled bloody cough out of Terry’s mouth. The anticipated blows never come, and Terry thinks he can hear a voice through the ringing in his ears.
“Get away from him.”

Terry can hear sounds of fighting over his head, grunts of pain and outrage, and he curls up through the pain to protect his organs. With difficulty, he manages to get his hands under him and push off the ground, hoping to get some of the pressure off his ribs. Terry lets out a few more wet, bloody coughs, his vision taking on a darker tint with each heave of his chest. This might be it, but he refuses to just die without even trying. A pair of black boots enters his vision. Small ankles, muscled legs, and a stripe of bright color. And with the last of his energy, Terry lunges to attack.

Chapter Text

Click.

“Bruce? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Dick… I…I need help.”

“Is someone dying?”

“Hgnn.”

“Okay, that was a negatory grunt. Is someone hurt?”

“...Yes.”

“Okay. Who?”

…

“Front and center!” Dick Grayson-Wayne, aged 65, dressed in a suit, crisp tie, crisp black dress shoes, and a perfectly folded piece of silk in his pocket, stands tall despite his old age in a large, dark room. His hair is combed immaculately, and his face is set in a hardened determination.

Before him stands his audience, all of them standing ramrod straight and waiting for orders. Dick paced back and forth along the line.

“You kids have been training for this your whole lives.” He barks, face hard. “I have full faith in all of you. Your skills are legendary, and soon all of Gotham will know it.” He slams his fist into his open palm and gazes around.

“You all know what we’re dealing with here. A new Batman, one Bruce has inadvertently run into the ground. Now he’s asking for our help to pick him back up. You all remember your history lessons. Batman was only ever as good as the team he surrounded himself with.”

“Terrance McGinnis.” Tim pipes up, sliding next to Dick. 57 and aging like it, he grips a cane in his left hand and leans heavily on it, his left leg having long since given out from the strain of his vigilante life. He holds out a holo image of Terry, slowly rotating for the audience to see. “Your job is to aid him in the Mission. Grow as heroes where you can, pick each other up where you can’t. Remember, we’re here wherever you need us.”

Beside him, Dick is nodding resolutely. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, Timmy. Now I know that you guys aren’t used to working as a team. It’s a groove you’ll get familiar with and come to rely on. It’s Batman’s job to lead you, but while you come to adjust to him and each other, this is my granddaughter, Gracie. She’ll be your de facto leader while Terry recovers. The Nightwing to Terry’s Batman.”

Dick rubs his hands together, his grin slowly taking over his face. “Now…Who do I have here?”

He turns to face the rest of his siblings. On the opposite side of the room from his targeted audience, grinning with all his teeth and ready for action.

“Cass?”

“Granddaughter, Bella. Black Bat.”

“Perfect. Jason?”

“My grandson, Sloan. Just Hood.”

“Ooh, I like it. Tim?”

“My daughter Becca’s twins, Noah and Katie. Oracle and Red Robin.”

“Heh, Bruce is gonna hate that. Who’s next, Steph?”

“My grandson Tyler. He’s the new Spoiler.”

“Nice. Damian?”

“My only son. Jonah. He is Shrike.”

“Ah! I love it! Now, if that’s all, then there’s only one thing left to do…”