A/N: HAHA. I should really finish something other than a oneshot someday. Really. Well, hope this is a semi-interesting opening to the story. The plot... is really long and somewhat convoluted, so there's a fairly good chance this will never be completed. It's another nostalgia-trippy fic; loved BB.
Also because I wanted to put a spin on the ol' "Bruce gets young again" thing. That kind of thing HAS to have consequences, which I haven't seen dealt with all that much.
They sat wordlessly on the ledge of Hamilton Hill High School in the warm afternoon, the slight breeze carrying the cool fragrance of fall. The graduation banner had long been removed; only the frame upon which it had hung remained like a skeleton. Terry would've chosen less morose imagery at the cusp of a change so dramatic and exciting, but parting with a second close friend in just a few days left him in a less than upbeat mood.
It was Max who finally broke the silence as the wind fell still.
"Hey, if you need me – "
"Don't worry about me. You've got your dreams to pursue." The words slipped out softly, but stood firmly in the stagnant summer air. Max lifted her gaze to smile at Terry, the sadness mirrored in his expression.
"I didn't think I'd get in. MIT. My god."
"Everyone else knew – even I knew, and you know how dense I can be," Terry said, a quiet laugh escaping through a sigh.
"I guess." As the fall zephyrs wafted through, the stifling warm air was replaced again by a stifling silence.
"Dana left yesterday. The Peace Corps changed her assignment to a small city in Bangladesh," Terry murmured at last, absently kicking a small shadow on the ground cast by an overhead bird.
"At least you guys are still on good terms." Terry recalled the conversation, strangely calm and devoid of dramatics. Dana wanted to volunteer and travel the world, and far from asking her to stay with him, he encouraged her to do so; high school had passed, and in the time of change, both agreed that there should be nothing to hold either back, no ties to bind as they ventured into adulthood. And so, with a kiss, they parted, promising that if nothing changed, they would reunite eventually.
"Yeah, it is." In some ways, he reflected, Max leaving was more painful than Dana, at least partially because he'd spent more time with the former in his nightjob, a thought which rang up guilt which he quickly discarded – this wasn't the right time to angst over Dana, not while he was spending his last afternoon with his best friend.
"Gotham State University, eh? Old man's keeping you on a short leash," Max chuckled.
"Nah, it was my choice, though I'd be lying if I wasn't a bit scared of what he'd do if I actually left," Terry replied with a smirk, "Probably give me one of those death glares he does. Only more literally, heh."
"I wouldn't be surprised," she replied with a fading smile. The final rays of daylight faded into the Gotham skyline. "I'll miss you, Ter. Terribly."
"You did not just pun." Terry stared.
"I just punned. And you really do need to take a break – you're picking up the old man's serious expression of seriousness," Max laughed.
"You are NOT leaving with THAT as the last thing you say to me in person," the young man huffed in mock irritation, "Or else the last thing you see of me in person will be the patented Wayne stare."
"Okay, okay! I take it back!" Max threw an arm over Terry's shoulder, spreading her laugh to him. It didn't last long enough for either, however, and as the laughs faded away, Max threw her other arm over Terry, a hug returned with equal sadness from missing someone still at his side.
"I'll miss you, Terry. A lot." The whispers spoken into his ear lingered, drifting in the air upon the gentle chill wind of a night of seasonal change.
"I'll miss you too, Max," he mumbled back, feeling as though his heart was sinking in his chest as her tears seeped through the fabric of his shirt. After breaking apart and a moment of staring everywhere but at each other, he sighed. Time couldn't stand still. "It's getting late. You probably need to finish getting ready."
"Y-yeah," she breathed, the last lingerings of tears shaking her voice as she walked towards her car, a present from Bruce Wayne to congratulate her being accepted to her dream school. Through it, she managed a smile. "I'll see you in a few months, 'kay?"
"'Kay." He forced a smile. "Good luck."
"You okay?" The deep voice seemed to have a softer quality to it for once, strained as it sounded. The former Batman had given Terry the week off, it having been uneventful for weeks since the apprehension of Shriek.
"Yeah."
"You've still got your family here." A curt statement, but it was Bruce – expected, and true.
"Ah, I know. It'll just take some getting used to," the young man replied. Not wanting to talk about the people now gone from his life, he quickly asked, "Anything interesting tonight?"
"Not so far. Some Jokerz, but the police took care of that already."
"Mm. Well, at least no one got hurt this time," Terry responded, pulling up the article along with other related ones on the computer from the past few weeks, detailing the increasingly violent gang activity – stabbings, beatings, brutal tactics and crime scenes that left his stomach reeling the first few times he stumbled on them. Through them, he came to understand Bruce's cynicism and impassiveness; anything less could eventually result in loss of faith in humanity. Still, behind every bizarrely painted face and garish wig, Terry saw a person capable of better, and he was sure that despite his coldness, Bruce did, too, or he'd have given up long ago.
They had just settled into a normal, not uncomfortable silence when the alert indicated suspicious activity. Going through their semi-standard exchange – be on guard, yeah I know, use your brain, 'kay, got it – Terry arrived at the doors of one of Wayne Enterprise's manufacturing division's buildings. After a few minutes of noticing nothing out of the ordinary, he made to leave when a sharp pain shot up his spine from his neck. A slithery purple-black tentacle slithered around his waist, lifting him and throwing him against a wall.
"Ahhh!"
"It's been a while," a seductive voice slurred, "Did you miss me?"
"Ow... No, I can't say I did," Terry groaned, vaguely irked at himself for his inattentiveness through the haze of pain he hadn't felt in weeks.
"Inque?" Bruce asked through the comm.
"How'd you guess?" Terry asked as he dodged a flying blob.
"You're losing."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he grumbled as he jumped to avoid the fast moving inky pond, catapulting off the wall and throwing a batarang at it. The pond opened around the batarang, which embedded itself in the ground harmlessly.
"Still not learning your lesson, Batman?" Inque laughed as she reformed. "But this is taking too long, isn't it?"
"Well, I'd appreciate if you'd let me speed it up some," he retorted, throwing an electricity charged batarang at her, almost giddy at her cry of pain as it hit its mark. He racked his mind, trying to remember where the freezing batarang was before realizing that he'd removed it against Bruce's protest after four months of Inque's absence. His mental kicking of himself was abruptly interrupted by a blast of sound knocking him straight into Inque's waiting grasp.
"Shriek? Wha-?" His words were smothered as Inque enveloped him before throwing him into the air, where Shriek promptly blasted him into the ground. Unrelenting, Inque threw herself into the cracks and squeezed strongly, releasing only to allow Shriek to continue his assault.
"Terry? Terry!" Bruce yelled, met with only pained groans and screams, which gave way to nothing but the sounds of Terry's body crashing against rock, shattering glass. Monitoring his vital signs, the former Batman, nearly unflappable, broke out in a cold sweat; his young successor's breathing had slowed dramatically, his pulse weakening as his body took on more and more abuse.
"Shit." Bruce considered his options. By the time any help he called arrived, they may well be retrieving a corpse, and he could not face off both Shriek and Inque, especially not since his heart had deteriorated after a seizure. He saw only one choice – one that broke with his principles and was extremely unsafe – but he'd be damned if he let anything truly serious to happen to another protégé. He withdrew a large syringe from its place in a disguised safe and injected himself with its contents.
"This is incredibly satisfying," Shriek laughed as he propelled Batman upwards with a deafening blast, "Finally getting some revenge!"
"Oh, cap it, nerd-boy. I'm tired of this. We should just kill him and let it be over with," Inque said lazily, forming a sharp tip and preparing to impale Terry.
"I don't think so." A blur caught the limp figure and whisked it off, lowering it gently on the ground.
"Who's that?" Shriek asked, firing a burst of sound at the intruder.
"It's that other suit," Inque replied, annoyed. She launched herself at it, but it moved behind the still disoriented Shriek, using him to aim a blast of sound at Inque, who screeched as the waves tore her apart.
"Thought you'd win?"
"Ah!" was all Shriek could manage before the metallic suit slammed him into the wall. Just as Bruce was about to follow up, a crunching sound came from the direction he'd left Terry in – he turned, fearful of the worst, to find that it was nothing more than a stray slab that'd crashed into the ground near the fallen Batman. Terry's life being more important than apprehending the two at the moment – it was obvious from their inactivity prior to their assault on him that they had no other intent – Bruce picked the young man up and rushed back to the Batcave, blanking his mind to block out the worries.