Title: Candy Land Mines.
Summary: Even if he is still angry about the whole "I'm Batman's son that he didn't know about" thing, there are some reasons for Terry to stick around Bruce.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Spoilers for Epilogue and some other episodes from Batman Beyond, JLU and a crossover for Batman comics.
Dedication: Oh, this was written as a request for_Starfire201_ because of an answer to a pop quiz a fic or two back. This isn't exactly what was requested, but I did my best.

-:-
I was hoping for macadamia nut, but I guess I'll have to settle for this thing that tastes like soup and peaches.
-Thank You Notes.

The air was still perpetually ripe with discomfort and bitterness that it might almost be a tangible entity waiting for some other unsuspecting victim to grab onto and keep forever in the gloominess of the Batcave. It wasn't anyone's fault, but by heaven—or hell, if one would allow—it would be wonderful if it would just go away.

Sadly, that's not how life worked. You either worked these things out by talking or through some physical way that would either lead to something being broken or another heart attack.

So, in some effort to relieve this enormous tension, Terry had left the cave, making the excuse that he was going upstairs to poke around in the attic for something he thought might be useful for a current string of murders. It was a lie, both Bruce and Terry knew, but they needed a break from each other for a little while. It would only do good, the distance of three flights of stairs.

Once he got to the breeding ground for dust and disrepair, Terry looked about. For some reason, the place always smelled of stale sex and something else that he was unfamiliar with. At one time the old man told him that one of his wards you to stay up here when he was too stubborn to talk to him and somehow it ended up with the other luring someone up (girlfriend, emotional support, booty call, whatever) and had sex. Terry had actually found—after cleaning the place up so the dust wouldn't cause a problem with Bruce's health a few years back—a set of blankets hidden behind some portraits and fold out tables for holiday seasons. They were covered in substances that Terry did not care to dwell on and immediately tossed them in the trash.

Ignoring the smell, the brunette made for the right hand corners of the place. He had, of course, already been about, but there was always something that he found interesting to think on. The last time it had been a small family album that the old man's deceased butler had put together—all of Bruce's sons and occasionally the girls he also trained were set in the pictures; his favorite was the picture near the very end, with the youngest of the lot (Terry still had trouble now thinking of them as brothers, as it really freaked him out to call anyone that other than Matt) when he was about ten, running about the stairs of the manor with some ginger Terry saw in a few other pictures following after him. They were both laughing and being chased by who Terry guessed might be Mr. Drake when he was younger. Tim had been in a pair of women's underwear (pink with a red ribbon on the side) and pissed off. The story behind this was never explained by Bruce—Terry supposed he hadn't been there—but Barbara said to look up Dick Grayson, he knew the entire tale. The current Batman still was so afraid to look up any of the others. They would either be dead or as angry with Bruce as Terry still was (kinda) and refuse to talk to the young man.

Today, he would hope to either find that album again, or something even better.

His blue eyes looked over what stood before him, all testaments to just how long it was that the Batclan had resided in Wayne Manor. He felt, somewhere inside that was not bitter and tainted by the knowledge that Bruce was his father and not just his mentor, that it was his duty to know and remember what was inside these walls, hidden away from the rest of the world. Treasures like these were not to be forgotten—nothing so good as this. Like the tombs of the Pharaohs in Egypt, Native American burial grounds or the Titanic, it was human duty—Terry's duty—to know as much as they could about the past.

There was a portrait that stood taller than the others, all felt and line and perfection that he glanced upon first. Sort of like the one in the piano room, only Terry suspected it had resided once in the Master Bedroom as it was the same size and shape of the amount of sun bleached wallpaper that was outside the lines of a picture or Bruce and his family. This one was of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne, together and smiling, with a tiny baby—how hard was it to think that the way the artist had rendered him, that the child would grow into the greatest defender that Gotham ever had?—probably no more than a year old held in Mrs. Wayne's arms, wrapped up in blue.

Sitting next to the picture, Terry had to bend his knees to look at the names of some board games in a slightly neat, though still crooked, stack. Like a tower made of only what was available for a village of pixies. Jumanji, Clue, Man vs. Woman, Pictionary, Scrabble and at the very bottom—though one could hardly blame them for putting it there, it was so rarely used even in this day and age—a forgotten Monopoly.

Terry allowed himself to pick up the one board on top—probably the most used as it sounded like everything was in order—and his fingers traced over the word 'Risk', its royal red coloring and background set up like a French film background spoke volumes. You'd really have to have brains to play this game.

His blue eyes flicked from it and spotted something even more interesting, though he did have to do a double take to be sure it was actually there and not something that formed from his imagination of thinking about Bruce's kids—his brothers, if he could just say that out loud for once—playing these old games and being in this manor before they were bitter and everyone was content.

Setting the game back down, bits of dust flying into the air, Terry found before him a mini-fridge.

It didn't even reach up to his knees, all white and stainless steel, with three little magnets—a small black crow with its head tilted up, perhaps in a caw, a top hat with a price tag tucked into the sash on it with a half-price sign, and at last, a cane with a question mark at the top in green and black—holding little notes to the metal.

Curious and more so, Terry bent down before the lightly humming thing (how could it still be plugged in, it looked like it was made in the 1990's) and took the notes from the crow and hat, pushing the magnets back together as an after-thought.

'Jason: If you're going to have candy like this, please keep it away from Dick. He wouldn't stop hugging Damian and we had to pry him off with a crowbar—you know we hate that!—Tim'

'To Todd: You are a sick person. Whatever you did to Grayson, I am going to find out and I am going to do to you. Nobody humiliates me like that!—Damian Wayne.'

'Dear Jay Bird: Can I have one more chocolate?—Dick.

'

Eyebrows well over the back of his head at this point, Terry set the notes on top of the fridge. With some minor mental struggle on whether this would be good to do or not, he opened the door to the fridge and had to bend down rather painfully to see inside (after all, he was so tall and the fridge was so short, it made things awkward unless his sat his butt on the ground—not likely, since he was wearing black and would stand back up with a white a grey outline of dust).

Within the confines of the cooling machine, Terry found sitting alone and forgotten a red and pink heart-shaped box. It was covered in plastic wrap and duct tape, and he could just barely make out the words 'Mixed Chocolates' along the lining of the side of it.

He sure as hell wasn't going to open it and take a bite, but now he really wanted to know what could have caused his…siblings…to leave such notes.

Against his personal belief that he might do better to stay up in the attic a little longer, Terry picked up the chocolates and paper notes and went back downstairs.

At the very least, this would give something for him and the old man to talk about that didn't really come back to them and Waller and her complete lack of morals, their relationship and whatever else that would lead to yelling or speeches or the breaking of expensive equipment.

'Jason Todd,' Terry thought absently. Might as well bring up someone he supposed was the happy brother among Bruce's brood.