Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond or Young Justice, they belong to their respective producers, writers, animators, etc. I gain nothing but writing and editing experience, as well as a fun writing outlet.
Summary: Each decision creates a ripple of changes; new possibilities open up and others are shut down. The unthinkable may be done in the name of justice, in the name of hope, but drastic measures are taken, and three lonely lives are changed forever.
A/N: This is a side project of mine and so it won't be updated all that regularly because I have far too many projects going on right now that I really should be concentrating on but…well, in the words of Jeanette Winterson "Creativity is on the side of health—it isn't the thing that drives us mad; it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness" (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, 171). Hence I'm writing this when I really shouldn't be, but I need a creative output.
Anyways…This may be a bit different than other cross-over fanfics and because Batman Beyond is my favorite of the two, there will be much more of its continuity than Young Justice. Although this will focus around Terry, this first chapter begins with Andrea Beaumont and her choices. Please enjoy ~ with love, depressedchildren
Chapter 1: Ripples of Change
Neo-Gotham.1
Andrea Beaumont took her assignments seriously, and she would complete the assignments perfectly—except when a certain ex-lover of hers interfered. She demanded appropriate compensation for her troubles and the "moral conflicts" associated with her line of profession. There was seldom a job she would turn away from, seldom a target she could not eliminate, yet…as she stared at this happy family walking home from the cinema, she was reminded of the emptiness in her own life and the emptiness in her ex-lover's life.
This young boy before her was happy. He was walking between his parents as they went to pick up their younger son from the nanny after their movie. They were normal, but had she been normal? Had he been normal? And where were they now; both lonely and hurt by each other. Could she kill this boy's parents and leave this little boy like him, like her Bruce?
Part of her heart still ached for him, but she had blown it with him and he had blown it with her. They did not know how to love; not really… Love was loss to them, and they hurt each other as they tried to love each other. Andrea saw that now as she looked back on their lives.
Their short engagement had been the first time that Bruce had truly considered hanging up the cape, and why wouldn't he want to give up the life? He had nearly lost them all: Robin, Batgirl, Nightingale, and Nightwing. And then it was revealed she was a criminal and he continued the life instead of settling down with her, though with good reason, she had to admit.
They were traumatized by their respective parents' deaths to the point that love was seldom experienced and seldom lasted. So how could she do this to that happy, little boy and his brother? No she couldn't. Andrea lowered her arm, the orange lights on her gauntlet dimmed.
She would tell Waller this was not the way to go, and that this went against what Batman stood for; Batman did not kill. Unlike her, he found justice in putting the criminals away and not in a grave. She envied him in that way, but her heart was hardened, perhaps more than his. If Waller wanted a new Batman, she had best find another way because this could never be a possibility. That little eight-year-old deserved a proper loving life, a life where he learned to love unlike her and Bruce. That little boy deserved a life with loving, living parents.
Neo-Gotham.2
Andrea Beaumont took her assignments seriously, and she would complete the assignments perfectly—except when a certain ex-lover of hers interfered. She demanded appropriate compensation for her troubles and the "moral conflicts" associated with her line of profession. There was seldom a job she would turn away from, seldom a target she could not eliminate, yet…as she stared at the girl through the window sleeping peacefully with a teddy bear pressed to her cheek, she found herself wondering, could she do this?
Waller would give her a few more days before assigning the hit to someone else, and she knew the woman would; she was driven and single-minded in that way. If Andrea did not pull the trigger, someone else would do it.
Andrea was trembling, her stomach clenched painfully. But if she pulled the trigger, who knew what else Waller planned for this poor family, though Andrea could make a guess.
No, Andrea couldn't do this hit, she couldn't. Her gaze turned to the nursery window where a toddler slept in his crib. How could Waller do this? How? Project Batman Beyond, it was a farce!
Andrea stood up from her crouch. This was madness! She would try to persuade Waller against this course of action one last time. She would try to stress that death was not what Batman stood for; that killing would only soil what Cadmus was attempting to do. Batman could not be manufactured, just as they had seen with the Superman clones in the past.
Andrea would try one last time to persuade the justice driven woman, but Andrea would not be a fool. She knew pushing this one more time would convince the woman to hire another assassin to do the job before her time to make a move had expired; she had to plan ahead, she had to keep the hit safe.
Perhaps Waller should have planned more when she had that young father's reproductive DNA spliced with Bruce Wayne's DNA. Waller should have accounted for the possibility that a girl could be produced, and now Waller was trying to correct her mistake by…eliminating the girl so that her younger brother became the sole focus of their project. Because Batman just could not be a woman, she thought sarcastically before shuddering in disgust.
But…if Andrea didn't do the hit, someone else would kill that little girl in that room. Then years down the road, her little brother would have his parents killed before his eyes because that was the trauma Batman had been dealt as a child, and Waller wanted to manufacture Batman…and hadn't he turned out just fine. Anger burned in her gut for her and her ex-lover; they had deserved so much more than they had received… and this mad woman was willing to subject another child to that horror, while killing the unneeded child in the process.
Andrea would try one last time and then she would take matters into her own hands; she would keep those children from living with what she and Bruce had, and she had just the plan—a plan that may just heal her bitter ex-lover in the process.
Neo-Gotham.1
Andrea watched from a distance as young Terrence McGinnis raced into his father's arms, only to be swung up into the air and perched firmly on his father's shoulders. He laughed in delight, as did his father. The little boy's mother was trying to catch a rapidly moving two-year-old. They were happy, they were unified. Andrea had done the right thing last night by speaking up against Waller's absurd, desperate plan. She had done something good for once…perhaps Bruce would be proud of her for being more than some heartless assassin…
She turned away from the sight with a smile on her face.
Neo-Gotham.2
Mary McGinnis woke up groggy after an oddly peaceful night, for once Matt hadn't screamed all night for them. Warren smiled at her from his side of the bed—he must have woke up from her moving around as she tried to stretch herself into waking up. She yawned and proceeded to her daughter Teresa's room in a slow shuffle.
"I'll start a pot of coffee," Warren murmured as he followed her out of their room.
Mary hummed in a tired but pleased way, "Good," the young couple smiled at each other before their paths diverged.
Mary opened her daughter's bedroom door and entered. She was still rubbing sleep from her eyes as she moved toward the small bed to shake her daughter awake, "Time to wake up Terri, de—" her words froze in her mouth as her hand touched a cool, sticky liquid on the bed instead of her daughter's warm body.
She stared down at the tiny bed in disbelief and rising horror. A scream tore from her throat and her legs gave out under her. She grabbed the sheets before her, the blood soaked sheets, and began to sob. She looked around frantically despite her tear-blurred vision. She blurrily saw the curtains around the window move, and she felt the cold air against her shaking body. A strangled sob came out of her as she clutched the bloody sheets tightly.
She was vaguely aware that Matt was crying now and Warren was thundering up the stairs to the room, but all Mary could do was scream and cry for her baby girl. …Her dead baby girl because what else could all this blood mean?
"Mary!" but whatever Warren wanted to say after bursting into the room died as he saw the state of the bed and the open window. Numbly he left the room and went to hush Matt, but even as he picked up his other child…now only child…he found he could not think or feel anything. He had seen the bloody sheets and the pool of blood in the center of the bed, he had seen the open window, but something in his mind still refused to connect it all.
With Matt screaming in one ear while Mary cried for their daughter in the other room, Warren moved to their phone and called the police with one hand. He was shaking and Matt was still screaming in his ear. The receptionist picked up and Warren said out loud what his wife's screams were trying to say, "M-my daughter's been…murdered," the phone slipped from his hand before he covered his face with that hand and began to sob. His legs gave way under him and he slumped to the ground crying for his child.
Gotham.1
Andrea cradled the little girl to her chest. The eight-year-old was bleeding profusely from her stomach and would likely be unconscious for a day if not more. Andrea raced through the old familiar streets toward the Gotham General. She had changed out of her Phantasm outfit and tried to seem as normal as possible, but in her coat pocket thumped the device that brought her here, brought her back to the old town she had loved and hated.
She burst into the ER, "Help!" she screamed, and an attendant ran to her to take the girl from her arms, "I-I found her bleeding in an alley not far from here; she didn't respond when I called her name."
"You should have called the paramedics," the attendant snapped as several other physicians rushed to the girl's side as she was set onto a gurney.
"Prep an OR," one doctor ordered to an attending nurse who raced off to relay the message.
The attendant addressing Andrea motioned her toward a seat, "We'll need you to give a statement to the police," Andrea nodded numbly and continued to tremble as if in shock.
"O-of course."
"Do you know the victim?" the attendant asked.
"No," Andrea shook her head and looked back at the little girl. "I don't know her," she focused back on the attendant, "Will she be alright? Do you think it could have been a gang?"
"That would be a question for the police." Andrea nodded and the attendant and left quickly afterwards, though not before implying she could not leave until the police had questioned her unless she wished to implicate herself.
Andrea would play along. She had a fake ID prepared for her of a woman she did happen to look like—if not a little slimmer. Unfortunately—for the police—this woman was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer's, and so when the police followed up on the report, whenever that would be, it would be reasoned away why the woman seemingly forgot about the whole incident.
Andrea worried a piece of her coat between her fingers as she waited and thought about the previous night. Waller had, surprisingly, given Andrea one last time to prove herself with this hit. Though, unsurprisingly, Andrea overheard the woman ordering someone else to follow up on the McGinnis' and finish the girl off if Andrea didn't kill her.
So Andrea had snuck into the girl's room as Phantasm, covered her mouth and sliced expertly across her stomach. If she had been left there for several hours, she would have bleed out and died, but Andrea had let the blood soak the sheets some before taking her out of the room through the window. She then headed toward the old Gotham General as quickly as she could.
Once reaching an alley close to the former hospital, Andrea pulled out a piece of technology Cadmus had invented some time ago, though for whatever reason did not use it. She knew it worked, and that it sent those within a four foot radius into the past the specified number of years one programmed it to. After that, she seeped fog into the alley and set the girl down in on the ground. Andrea had changed out of Phantasm and then proceeded to rush the girl to the hospital. When Andrea returned to Neo-Gotham, she would claim she stashed the body, but the evidence was there; a message to Cadmus that she had done her job.
Andrea was confident the little girl would live, beyond the shadow of a doubt. She had planned it carefully. Here the girl could live in safety, and perhaps… but no, that was too hopeful, though Bruce would come to know this littler girl; Andrea had made sure of it. It would be another day before the doctors noticed the slow acting poison destroying the child's kidney, but thankfully Wayne Tech had made great strides in medical cloning, and after slipping the girl's name to the top of the list, they would quickly find her the right tissue donor (Bruce).
Andrea looked up as a shadow fell over her, the police were here and it was time act confused before remembering and explaining what happened. The girl would be safe here in the past.
A suivre
A/N: Yes, this is going to be a story of parallel dimensions, time travel, genderbent Terry and Dana (because Dana and Terry are just too perfect together, and I have tired finding another match for fem Terry, and it is not easy), violence, and the occasional fluffy family scene and eventually dating scenes. Gotham.1 (neo or not) is with male Terry born to the McGinnis family, Gotham.2 is with female Terry born to the McGinnis family and male Dana born to the Tan family. Is it clear now why Cadmus doesn't use their time travel device much? Most of the story will be Gotham.1 and Neo-Gotham.2 with a few scenes later on from Neo-Gotham.1, but not much of Gotham.2 (which is like cannon backstory to Young Justice and Batman Beyond). Hope you all enjoyed the chapter ~ much loved, depressedchildren
