This one should be mostly a one shot I think…
Summary: Terry is blasted to the past and meets a younger Bruce. How will things go between his and Bruce's friendship?
Warning: Contains boyXboy love!
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond, or Justice League.
Terry McGinnis was not an ordinary person. He loved to battle crime and the forces of evil. But as tastes run differently among different heroes, so did Terry and Bruce's regardless of the job position they both had to deal with. The two of them shared the same line of work but did not do well as to agree on tactics or ideas. They saw things differently and as so, Bruce was sentiment and a tad let down that a young man like Terry couldn't see what he saw. To love such a job of having to fight crime constantly was similar to saying 'one enjoys it.' And as Bruce sat at his dining table with very few lights on and with nothing but an empty plate in front of him and a thunderous sound ringing throughout the house, he wondered just what it must be like to see the crime now-a-days through Terry's eyes.
But this was the beauty of life. Not knowing where crime would start or end and Terry seemed to be taking a liking to it so Bruce thought nothing more of it. He looked at a painting on the wall, one that Terry had gotten done in remembrance of becoming the new man in charge while he worked at Bruce's mansion. The boy even paid for it after seeing that Bruce really wasn't rich like everyone was causing rumors about.
"You're going to go blind with just a few lights turned on." Bruce looked up from staring at the empty plate to Terry who had just walked in. The boy looked tired at the eyes as there had been dark circles under his eyes.
"A young man shouldn't be lecturing me. I'm well aware of the dark." Bruce replied as Terry took a seat at the other end of the dining table and rested his arms on the table.
"Can't sleep?" Terry's question brought Bruce out of his small trance as Terry looked the elder man in the eyes.
Bruce wasn't sure how to react to the question so he simply gave a shrug with his shoulders. His mind had been racing with things of the past and ideas and suggestions for how he could have avoided becoming the age he was right now. He wished for immortality but such things were not found so easily in a world full of crime. Terry saw the man was in deep thought and looked down at the table. "If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask me. I'm fine with working for you." With these few sentences, Bruce snapped out of his thoughts and glared at Terry.
As much as he liked to have a young man around the house, someone who he could talk with, Bruce was not feeling entirely safe with him. He knew Terry meant well and only wanted to be of some use to the man who had created the job of Batman but the boy was still training in learning how to control his many anger issues he had with unrelated objectives.
"Stop asking stupid questions. Young boys like you should sleep earlier for these kinds of jobs. I'll be fine here." Terry took this as an insult and slammed his fists on the table, rocking the plates laid out on the table along with the candlestick holders.
"I'm not a kid, so quit treating me like one! All you ask me to do is your dumb laundry! Why can't you rely on me just a bit?" The boy got up from the table in a hurry and left the room, stomping like a six-year-old.
Bruce was left alone again as he would have preferred to be.
Terry wasn't upset in the least but just the bit annoyed with the other man. He was really fine with doing the laundry and chores but he really hoped the old man would soften up and tell him anything that might have been troubling him. Terry gritted his teeth and walked down the hall that led to the basement where he did the laundry. When things got too much for him to handle, he usually spent his quiet times down in the basement doing laundry or reading.
He walked down the stairs and turned the lights on with the flip of a switch, examining the room. Everything had been left the way he had it and nothing had been put out of place. He smiled slightly at the corner of his mouth and sat down in a small, leather chair with arm rests. It was as old as the mansion was but it was still in good order and did not have any loose springs poking out.
'Who does he think I am, a runt?' Terry thought as he pulled out a pocket watch from his coat pocket, looking at the time tick by.
A humming sound caught his attention and it was coming from the washing machine. It made a tinkering noise as it moved about inside the machine. Terry looked in through the clear lid. He snapped the lid open with just the flick of his wrist and peered inside. 'What the hell…?' Terry picked up the item, no consideration if it to be a bomb of some sort. He checked it over.
It was a round metal object with the initials; T.B. Terry cocked an eyebrow at the object and looked at it closely to see if there was some kind of clue as to what it could be. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the metal ball except for the fact of it not being as heavy as he would have thought. He went to stick the metal ball into his pants pocket when a bright light shone about and filled the entire room with a warm glow. Feeling as though it were a bomb, Terry dropped the metal ball on the floor and tried to run up the stairs as quickly as possible. But when he got to the top of the stairs, he noticed something a bit off from the mansion.
'What was that light just now?' Terry thought as he went about to doing the rest of his chores without a second glance behind him or to the surroundings of the mansion.
A few hours passed by and as Terry walked around the mansion doing his chores; he began to notice the different wallpaper and carpets within the mansion as he walked the halls. While looking around he heard the sound of voices. Voices that one he recognized. Bruce.
"Now what's that old goat up to?" Terry asked himself as he walked into the room only to discover that Bruce was no longer an old man but rather supreme-looking with a normal suit and tie.
The man's hair was black and slicked back with some sort of grease. Terry was confused as to who this man with Bruce's voice could be. It sure as hell couldn't be Bruce himself. He was an old man!
"Bruce?" Terry walked into the room that the man was standing in, examining himself in a mirror.
The man 'Bruce' turned around with a startled expression. "Who are you and how did you get in here?" Terry was taken aback by the man's questions. "I-it's me, Terry! Don't act like you don't know me! What happened to you?" The boy asked as he took a few steps closer and inspected the other man before him. He wasn't as tall as the other Bruce nor did he have any wrinkles on his face that showed he was the old Bruce.
But there was something familiar in the man's cheek bones and Terry couldn't help but feel that this was in fact, Bruce. "If you don't tell me your name, I'll have you thrown out of this place before you have the chance to!" Terry chuckled to himself. It was the old Bruce all right.
Bruce glared at Terry and stood his ground, thinking he was under attack of some stranger. The man watched for some sort of reaction but when he didn't think the man was going to answer his question, Bruce was hoping his fists would be sufficient in getting the boy to answer him. But when he aimed a fist for Terry's face, the young man acted in self defense and stopped Bruce's fist with just one hand. Terry smiled. He knew it was the same old Bruce he knew when the man was older.
"Your attitude never changes does it? I'm not surprised you don't know me." Thinking back to the round metal ball that he dropped in the basement, Terry left Bruce to see if it was still there. He ran down the steps of the basement after running through the halls where he had traveled. Terry looked around on the concrete floor. The ball was nowhere to be seen.
Terry looked around for it while Bruce came running down the basement stairs. "Now listen here, you come into my mansion and expect me to know you? You're a robber!" Terry let out a sigh and looked up from the floor. "Then kick me out yourself! Why have security come for me if you can do it yourself." Terry smiled and took Bruce's hands, looking them over. He had never thought about seeing his hero in his younger days.
"Wh-what is it?" Bruce felt the other man's hands on his buttocks. Was this man molesting him?
"I've never thought about doing this before. Mostly because you were always such mean old grouch…now I'm beginning to see a whole new point of view, Bruce." Terry leaned closer to Bruce's face and smiled. He placed his lips onto Bruce's lips while holding the man's behind.
In Terry's head a bit of a bomb exploded and the feeling arose in his brain before he could think of what was happening. As for Bruce, the man was simply bewildered at the thought of being touched let alone kissed by a man who he had never met before. But he also couldn't help but feel a familiar presence within the man and the way the young man held him ever so gently. Bruce could feel his cheeks heat up and felt as though he were going red in the face.
In a cold sweat and a bit of chills going down his spine, Terry awoke from the dining room table, lifting his head with a rude start and stared into the face of an older Bruce. The man had fallen asleep in the chair with his head up. 'Just a dream…?' Terry thought as he looked around and realized it must have been because of the walls and carpeting of the mansion.
The younger man let out a sigh trying to catch his breath from the nightmare-like dream he had just received.
From that day on, Terry didn't question Bruce's motives or the way of how he was being talked to like a kid. He began thinking of it as a normal part of life that he rather enjoyed. Bruce had also seen quite the change in the young man and wondered just what had possessed him to be so much more considerate and space free?
A/n: I know it feels rushed but I wasn't planning on making a lemon scene!