A/N: Just a little story I wrote and had forgotten about before I found it again. I'm hoping it'll help me get over my writer's block with Wake-up Call. Any comments, questions, etc., are appreciated. There's mild T/M in here. Oh, and the title is a take-off of Janis' Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee," in case anyone was wondering. Review if you feel so inclined!
I'll never learn.
Couldn't help but say it when the kid stole the Batsuit and went after the men who killed his father. Can't help saying it every time I see him get the stuffing kicked out of him or when he walks into a trap I could've seen coming a mile away.
I'll. Never. Learn.
I say it every time he gets back to the cave with a new set of bruises and four hundred more miles on the Batmobile. Each and every time . . . I curse myself for the old fool I am.
Old ~sentimental~ fool, maybe.
That's how the kid - how Terry - got to me in the first place. He grabbed the suit because he didn't ~think~ trusting in the law to give him justice would be a good idea. I knew better: I ~knew~ the law wouldn't give him satisfaction . . . so I let him go. Let him take down Powers and his hired guns. I let him have his "fun."
And that was my first mistake.
But my ~second~ mistake is the one that really sealed the deal.
I let him get under my skin.
I like to think I don't make many mistakes . . . but when I do . . . they aren't small ones . . . and they don't go away. Ever.
And they aren't really mistakes, either. I knew what I was doing with each and every one of them. Another thing I've learned in my . . . advanced age.
But on Terry. I try to tell myself that I didn't know he'd go so far as to actually swipe the costume. That I wasn't so old and decrepit as to allow something so important to be stolen from ~my~ domain. But I knew. I saw it coming. Saw it that first night . . .the night he came barreling onto my property with a gang of Jokerz on his tail. He got cornered, the punks were coming in, and nobody noticed me standing among the trees just back from my evening walk. I watched them all only for about half a minute, but in those 30 seconds, I could see the difference between McGinnis and the punks who were ready to beat the hell out of him. The gang walked up on him with their chests puffed out, their panted smiles even goofier in the moonlight, confident that they had their prey dead to rights. But I saw their eyes move and shift around. They were looking for the quickest possible escape route . . . just in case ~something~ went wrong. I think Terry saw them looking around, too . . . because his eyes never strayed from them. Not once.
He was outnumbered and defenseless - trapped. He knew it, too, but he didn't look for a place to run or hide. He stood his ground, kept his eyes on them. Reckless, yes. Incredibly reckless. But the gaze was more than that.
Fearless. It was fearless . . . I could see that from where I stood in the shadows, and, I think, the Jokerz could see it, too. It confused them a little, and scared them a lot. They hesitated. And in that split second, I came out of hiding, and Terry and I . . .got acquainted.
But still . . . I believed then as I do now that even if I hadn't jumped in, he would've kicked their tails from here to Bludhaven.
I should've put the Batsuit - all of them - in storage . . . under lock, key, and anything else I could use -- that night . . . the night I saw that look in his eyes. I didn't, though, and here we have it: a new Batman in Gotham and the old one as mentor. I guess it could be worse - kid goes all right. Most of the time. I try my best to steer him away from the pitfalls of the job, but I never try to hide the dangers. "This is what I want," he's often said. Fine. Part of a mentor's job is to be supportive of the acolyte's choice, right? Well, his choice entails getting his head routinely stomped by lunatics. Hey . . . enjoy, kid.
Barbara's not too happy about it all . . . but I guess I shouldn't have expected less. He ~is~ young. Yes, Tim was younger than Terry was when he started, but Tim had me and Dick - sometimes, anyway - and Barbara out there with him. McGinnis is alone, for the most part. Sure, he can always turn to me and the Batcomputer for help, and though I don't like it much, his friend Maxine has proven pretty resourceful. So . . . he's never truly ~alone~ . . . not really. But I don't kid myself about being able to mount an effective rescue if it really hits the fan. Been there, tried that when he got into it with Inque. Took me a week to recover from that one. Terry's got to go it alone. He knows it and I know it. And we both accept it.
So I've just got to hope that I'm right about him . . . it. That he does have that indefinable "it" that'll keep him alive and carry him through the nights . . . the battles . . . because god knows there'll be many, many more to come.
But I know I am right. It's instinct. Besides, I like to think that if I weren't, if McGinnis wasn't something special, he would've been . . .gone a long time ago. But more likely, he wouldn't have ever found out my secret, he wouldn't have been able to find the entrance to the cave, and he certainty would never have been able to grab he suit from under my nose.
Yeah, the kid's got it, all right . . .you can see it in his eyes. I could - and I didn't even have to look very close . . . or very long.
Yes. It only took a second - for both of us - to ~know.~ Call it a sixth sense, call it Bat sense, call it whatever you want. We ~knew.~
Ahhhhh, but what do I know, really? I'm just an old fool, after all. An old fool who'll never learn.
I'll never learn.
Couldn't help but say it when the kid stole the Batsuit and went after the men who killed his father. Can't help saying it every time I see him get the stuffing kicked out of him or when he walks into a trap I could've seen coming a mile away.
I'll. Never. Learn.
I say it every time he gets back to the cave with a new set of bruises and four hundred more miles on the Batmobile. Each and every time . . . I curse myself for the old fool I am.
Old ~sentimental~ fool, maybe.
That's how the kid - how Terry - got to me in the first place. He grabbed the suit because he didn't ~think~ trusting in the law to give him justice would be a good idea. I knew better: I ~knew~ the law wouldn't give him satisfaction . . . so I let him go. Let him take down Powers and his hired guns. I let him have his "fun."
And that was my first mistake.
But my ~second~ mistake is the one that really sealed the deal.
I let him get under my skin.
I like to think I don't make many mistakes . . . but when I do . . . they aren't small ones . . . and they don't go away. Ever.
And they aren't really mistakes, either. I knew what I was doing with each and every one of them. Another thing I've learned in my . . . advanced age.
But on Terry. I try to tell myself that I didn't know he'd go so far as to actually swipe the costume. That I wasn't so old and decrepit as to allow something so important to be stolen from ~my~ domain. But I knew. I saw it coming. Saw it that first night . . .the night he came barreling onto my property with a gang of Jokerz on his tail. He got cornered, the punks were coming in, and nobody noticed me standing among the trees just back from my evening walk. I watched them all only for about half a minute, but in those 30 seconds, I could see the difference between McGinnis and the punks who were ready to beat the hell out of him. The gang walked up on him with their chests puffed out, their panted smiles even goofier in the moonlight, confident that they had their prey dead to rights. But I saw their eyes move and shift around. They were looking for the quickest possible escape route . . . just in case ~something~ went wrong. I think Terry saw them looking around, too . . . because his eyes never strayed from them. Not once.
He was outnumbered and defenseless - trapped. He knew it, too, but he didn't look for a place to run or hide. He stood his ground, kept his eyes on them. Reckless, yes. Incredibly reckless. But the gaze was more than that.
Fearless. It was fearless . . . I could see that from where I stood in the shadows, and, I think, the Jokerz could see it, too. It confused them a little, and scared them a lot. They hesitated. And in that split second, I came out of hiding, and Terry and I . . .got acquainted.
But still . . . I believed then as I do now that even if I hadn't jumped in, he would've kicked their tails from here to Bludhaven.
I should've put the Batsuit - all of them - in storage . . . under lock, key, and anything else I could use -- that night . . . the night I saw that look in his eyes. I didn't, though, and here we have it: a new Batman in Gotham and the old one as mentor. I guess it could be worse - kid goes all right. Most of the time. I try my best to steer him away from the pitfalls of the job, but I never try to hide the dangers. "This is what I want," he's often said. Fine. Part of a mentor's job is to be supportive of the acolyte's choice, right? Well, his choice entails getting his head routinely stomped by lunatics. Hey . . . enjoy, kid.
Barbara's not too happy about it all . . . but I guess I shouldn't have expected less. He ~is~ young. Yes, Tim was younger than Terry was when he started, but Tim had me and Dick - sometimes, anyway - and Barbara out there with him. McGinnis is alone, for the most part. Sure, he can always turn to me and the Batcomputer for help, and though I don't like it much, his friend Maxine has proven pretty resourceful. So . . . he's never truly ~alone~ . . . not really. But I don't kid myself about being able to mount an effective rescue if it really hits the fan. Been there, tried that when he got into it with Inque. Took me a week to recover from that one. Terry's got to go it alone. He knows it and I know it. And we both accept it.
So I've just got to hope that I'm right about him . . . it. That he does have that indefinable "it" that'll keep him alive and carry him through the nights . . . the battles . . . because god knows there'll be many, many more to come.
But I know I am right. It's instinct. Besides, I like to think that if I weren't, if McGinnis wasn't something special, he would've been . . .gone a long time ago. But more likely, he wouldn't have ever found out my secret, he wouldn't have been able to find the entrance to the cave, and he certainty would never have been able to grab he suit from under my nose.
Yeah, the kid's got it, all right . . .you can see it in his eyes. I could - and I didn't even have to look very close . . . or very long.
Yes. It only took a second - for both of us - to ~know.~ Call it a sixth sense, call it Bat sense, call it whatever you want. We ~knew.~
Ahhhhh, but what do I know, really? I'm just an old fool, after all. An old fool who'll never learn.