It wasn't hard to figure out what Terry had been hit with. Angel's Trumpet was a very distinct poison, and when breathed in or ingested caused everything Terry was exhibiting. The fever, the hallucinations (blabbering everything to people Carter couldn't see was both helpful and annoying), euphoria (his singing was actually pretty good but switching between hearing screaming and singing was [i]not[/i] how Terminal wanted to spend his week helping the masked hero) and intense pain for the young man.

So it wasn't hard figuring out what the poison was, treating it was another matter entirely. He had to get help, much as he hated to admit it. So, he went to the only person that could help;the one who'd caused this mess in the first place.

"Ivy, darling, you crazy woman. Have you been infiltrating my Jokerz again?"

Soft laughter and the woman came out of the backroom of her greenhouse/mansion. Terminal grinned though he knew Terry was on a ticking clock. The poisoning usually shut down the kidneys at 24 hours, and it had been fifteen. Batman's life was on the line.

"Carter darling, it's been too long my dear" she walked up to him and hot damn despite being in her seventies she looked not a day over forty. In other words, she looked like some hot soccer mom that moonlighted as a model. It always made Terminal a little dizzy when he had to deal with her, as he was a bi-sexual man and her pheromones still affected him. Today was no different. He put a hand over his nose as the pheromones she put out as a safety net to keep unwanted males away filled his nostrils. She laughed and ran a pale green hand down his cheek. His stomach turned in a dizzy flip-flop of butterflies. "Have some tea lovely. Sit and talk"

It took some willpower, but he brushed her hand away. "No, thanks. One of my own got poisoned by one of your creatures, Ivy. I need you to give me your antidote and I'll just be on my way" Her face crinkled into a knowing smile.

"What's the matter? Is this one of your non-expendables? Don't tell me-Ghoul ran into one and accidentally got poisoned again!" okay, so that had happened once as far as Terminal knew, but the woman never let it go.

"No, but someone just as important" Yes, Terry was important. He was motherfucking Batman and that demanded respect. Terminal mimicked the tilt of Ivy's head and smiled grimly at her.

"Unless you want to have my people burn your home down, you get me it now" he was losing patience. Terry was alone and suffering and needed Terminal there, right there now. She smirked and a hand played with his long black hair, twirling it around her finger.

"And besides not burning my house down, what will you do for me?"

"Dear lady, anything you desire within reason" he noted the way she looked at him with some disgust. He was not having sex with her, he was obligated to his own personal tastes and she was not one of them. She sniffed in disdain and backed away from him.

"Fine then. Traffic my drugs for a few months. I think the immortal members of the League are on to me"

"Deal, but not in Batgirl's domain. Bitch kicks the shit out of my guys and the police back her"

"Fair enough"

"The drug is Angel's Trumpet, by the way" Terminal commented and Ivy smiled and nodded once before disappearing into her back room. She came back a few minutes later with a syringe filled with liquid and some pills. "Give the shot to your afflicted first, it'll kill whatever's in the blood. Pills are for nausea, and are not addictive, I promise" He'd see about that. It was like her to double cross him.

He took the items offered and inclined his head before backing towards the door. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd tried to drag him with her vines into having tea or worse. "What's the matter Terminal, don't trust me?" she crooned teasingly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Would you trust you?" at her silence he smiled slightly. "Thought not"

Terry was spasming on the mattress and Terminal crouched beside him. "Bats, this is probably going to hurt" he warned before holding Terry bodily down and sticking the needle into his neck where the veins were protruding like rope. Terry screamed and Carter got the needle out as soon as the liquid had been put in and moved so Terry was curled up in his arms, Terry's head in his chest as Terry continued to scream. Terminal held him tightly and wished for this to stop. For it all to stop.

Eventually Terry quieted and fell asleep and Carter put him down and covered him in blankets before retreating to a corner with an old laptop and machines he'd repurposed, or was still working on repurposing. He had bugs that Batman had put on him over the years, repurposed and working as transmitters for his Jokerz. Beacons if you will, when crushed they'd send a distress signal to himself or Ghoul. Depending on who it was, they got there as fast as they could. He slipped a few into his pockets on his jeans and sighed as he picked up a screwdriver and began working on a cleaning bot. Whenever he did he remembered repurposing similar bots to kill Maxine. She was now the leading technologies developer in Wayne-Powers Industries. As it should be, honestly.

He was dozing by his projects when Terry stirred and woke him all the way up. "Where am I? Why-why the FUCK am I naked?"

So, Terry didn't normally forego anything underneath? Good to note. "Fuck if I know man, you were naked under the suit already" Terry's head whipped to where Terminal was and then he curled up, groaning.

"Oh for fuck's sake, I feel like I got hit by a train" he moaned and Terminal chuckled.

"Terry"

"Oh god no" the anguished moan made Terminal laugh a little more and he inclined his head.

"I didn't look, by the way. But with the poisoning you were screaming for Dana, and your mom and fuck knows who else. It wasn't hard to piece together who you were" there was intense silence and Terminal got up to walk over to Terry, kneeling down beside the kid with the mask still on.

"I'm not even dating Dana though, why would I…?" Carter shrugged at him. Hell if he knew, the human brain was far beyond his capabilities of understanding.

"You wanna take the mask off, there?" he asked quietly. "Seriously Terry, you'll feel better if you take the mask off. You've got to be grossed out from the sweat, not to mention there might still be poison powder in your mask. I can clean-"

"No"

Terry tried to stand and Terminal let him try. He got partway up before his legs gave out and he fell in a heap to the ground. Terminal sighed and moved closer to Terry, hovering over him. "You're in no condition to play hero" he said reasonably. "And if I wanted to kill you I would have"

"So what, I'm a hostage?"

Terminal hesitated but shook his head. "No. I don't need a superhero hostage. Your people are going to be on me like flies on a dead dog if I pulled something like that. No, thank you"

"So...why the hell did you risk it?"

"Good question"

"The guy who has a dozen back-up plans for his back-up plans doesn't know?" disbelief was evident in Terry's voice and Terminal snorted.

"It was more an impulse, you were begging me for help. And then "I don't want to die!" he mimicked Terry's breathless terror-stricken voice from a day ago and Terry grit his teeth. Terminal waved a hand. "I know what it's like, you know. Being sick with nobody to comfort you. You wanna know how many times my bitch of a mom almost killed me over being sick, or showing any sort of weakness? I couldn't-when I saw you I saw me, and I couldn't do it"

"Are you giving me a line or are you telling me the truth?"

Terminal shook his head and got up. "Go to sleep Terry"

"I want my suit first"

Terminal rolled his eyes and gestured to the foot of the mattress.

"God's sake, Terry, I'm not hiding it. The last thing I want is to hurt you"

"Your history precedes you, Carter. Or have you forgotten your previous exploits with The Batman?"

Terminal shook his head again at his old name. "Older, better, faster, stronger. I'm not as green as I once was. I know better than to rattle a hornet's nest"

Terry was fading, sinking back onto the mattress. But he smirked at Terminal.

"Except you did anyway, smart guy"

And Terminal had the sinking suspicion he was right.

It took two days, most of which Terry was either antagonistic or unconscious, but finally he seemed well enough that Terminal felt it safe to take him back to the upperworld and the people waiting for him. So Terminal put him back in the suit, made sure he was sound asleep, grabbed some guns and other devices in case things went south, and started carrying Terry to a little park he knew, somewhere far from the Jokerz area and quite a ways away from Terminal's safehouse location. Halfway there he took the commlink and turned it on.

"Hey, greetings. I've got your friend Batman" he said, again pitching his voice. "I'm going to put him in a park, you can locate him from there"

He turned the link off before they could respond and quickly made his way to the park, where he intended to deposit Terry on a bench and get out of there before anyone was the wiser.

Well, it almost went that way. And that has to count for something, right?

When Terminal got to the park he put Terry on the bench just across from a swingset and straightened, one hand lightly brushing Terry's chest. Once, he'd wanted to start a relationship with the guy. But between Dana and Terminal's mother, it had always been a fantasy. Now there were even more complications.

In that moment of contemplation Terry grabbed his hand tightly.

"Karma" Terry hissed and Terminal started, hearing sounds all around them. It had to be the Dumbass League.

"Terry, let go" he hissed back and Terry held on tighter.

"You deserve what's going to happen and one halfway good deed won't change that"

Finally Terry let go and Terminal launched himself over the bench and towards his escape route, unholstering his guns and running for dear life. A red blur and suddenly there was a speedster in his way. Terminal snarled and veered away. All exits were blocked. So he started shooting.

Someone grabbed his shoulder and Terminal slammed his elbow into them and did a low sweep before clocking whoever it was on the head with the butt of his gun. A faceless woman fell in a heap at his feet. Next the current Batgirl charged at him and he just headbutted her as she leaped forward, his head catching her in the stomach. Someone blasted energy bolts and Terminal dodged them, though some singed his hair, and began firing at the figures. An african-American mixed girl with dreads and an older gent in a trenchcoat and sharing her blue eyes. The Constantine family, fuck it.

"We ain't wantin to harm ya mate" John Constantine called and Terminal barked humorless laughter.

"Then stop fucking attacking me and let me walk away!" he shouted back.

A second later he grunted as a gun slammed into the side of his head, making him stumble. He grimaced and started shooting at the dude, Red Hood it looked like. It was then something landed on his back and he was thrust down to a kneeling position, with the feeling of the wind knocked out of him. People quickly grabbed his arms and yanked the guns out of his hands as he struggled. A steel gloved hand grabbed his chin and forced him to look into the hooded face. Warhawk, Terminal's greatest rival beside Bats himself. Terminal glared daggers at the Dumbass League man and tried to get his face free.

"What did you have planned with Batman?"

"Terry? Nothing. I'd never hurt him" under the mask Warhawk's eyes widened and his hand clenched tighter on Terminal's face, causing the long haired man to grimace.

"You the reason Terry was naked?" he couldn't help asking with a smirk. Warhawk's face grew dark and he let go of Terminal to punch him in the face, knocking him out.

"We're taking him with us, finding out if he knows anything else"

Ghoul followed the distress signal of Terminal's (he knew it was Terminal because he had a distinct distress beacon; on Ghoul's equipment it looked like a jester crown) distress signal to a little snow-covered park, snow marred with heavy activity. There were blast marks along some buildings and Ghoul knew it was Terminal's gun. Ghoul sighed.

"Suppose I have to play "rescue" now, don't I? Oh, joy of joys…" Ghoul snorted. It might be fun, breaking into a superhero base.

A/N: and Rex "Warhawk" Stewart are together. is Terminal holding a flame for Terry? Yes. will that come up later? Do penguins like fish?