We Band of Brothers
by TwinEnigma
Note: takes place after "A Start," refers to events of pre-nu52 Batman #700 "Time and the Batman".
Uncanny
There is something about the McGinnis kid that bothers Damian. He can't quite place his finger on it at first. It's not his attitude or the way he carries himself, per se, or even the rather galling knowledge that the brat had somehow got into the cave and stole the experimental Batsuit while Damian was passed out. It's something else entirely, something that, for the first time in years, resonates with memories of a time long since passed.
Terry McGinnis is somehow familiar to him, more than he has any sense being. According to his case files, they had only briefly crossed paths once, years ago, when the boy was little more than a toddler and the Laughing Death rendered the people of Lower Gotham into little more than a ravenous, insane mob. After that, he'd had no contact with the child. And yet, Damian knows him, better perhaps than even Terry does himself.
Perhaps, he supposes, it is the fact that they have both lost their fathers. Perhaps it is that they are both children of a divorce – albeit in Damian's case, the divorce, if he could even call it that, was far from amicable. It could even be that he sees something of himself in the boy's eyes; he knows what it's like to have a past full of mistakes and things that can never be taken back. He knows all too well how it feels to wish he could go back and try harder to be a better brother, a better son.
He knows about the anger, the guilt, the sense of loss that never goes away.
Still, it is not enough to justify the strong sense of familiarity he gets from McGinnis. No, there must be something else, something he's missing.
Damian doesn't like being stumped like this.
The Cave computer pings suddenly, alerting him that the boy has accessed the gate. Sighing, the once-Bat uses his cane to get to his feet and slowly makes his way upstairs. There's no need to rush. There's a lot to go over before he sends McGinnis out for his first official patrol – rules, protocols, etcetera.
Idly, Damian wonders when he'd turned into his father.
He emerges in the study to find that McGinnis is already there; the boy has his back to him, totally focused on a portrait of Martha and Thomas Wayne with a much younger, happier version of his father. It's a portrait that Damian has always found unsettling for the way it seemed to highlight just how much he truly does resemble his father and how very little he takes after his mother. It makes him look less like his father's son and more like his father's clone.
McGinnis pipes up: "Nice portrait – your folks?"
"My grandparents," Damian replies.
"They look nice."
"They were, supposedly. I never knew them."
The boy turns to face him and Damian is barely able to hide his surprise.
When the kid had crashed into the gates with a hornet's nest of Jokerz on his ass, he'd been far more concerned with keeping the brat alive and he hadn't bothered to get a good look at the boy. Then, he'd been more concerned with the brat who'd stolen the Batsuit and, after that, with knowing the type of person who he'd possibly be letting take up this sacred legacy.
And now he thinks he gets why the kid seems familiar.
It's in the boy's eyes.
He knows these eyes.
They are his eyes – Wayne eyes, the same ones he'd inherited from his father. And taken with the boy's face, his hair, and the way he stands in front of that portrait like a dull echo of the boy therein with that all-too-familiar bristling glare, it is patently uncanny how much McGinnis resembles him. It can't just be coincidence: the overall resemblance is just too strong for that, though he'd need a test to be sure.
And yet, it's highly improbable that it should be anything other than coincidence.
Damian knows he has only met Mary McGinnis two times in his life and both times revolved around returning her son to her. If he had met her before, he would recall it, surely, and she would have been far too young when his father was killed, so that too is impossible. Those possibilities eliminated, it leaves only ones that wouldn't be open to just anyone and that fewer still would have the audacity or patience to attempt.
He definitely senses another hand in this, one that the boy might not even be aware of, and the thought is unsettling. It brings to mind his mother's plan to mold him, genetically, physically and psychologically, into both a perfect heir of his father and a perfect heir of the al Ghul.
Could someone else have had the same idea? Could he have overlooked something in the boy's files? There has to be some evidence as to what is going on here.
"You gonna stare at me all night, old man, or are we going to do this?" the boy demands, unslinging his backpack from his shoulders.
"Old man?" Damian repeats deadpan and is somewhat amused by the brief flash of panic that flickers across the boy's face. Damian raises an eyebrow and turns around, beckoning for the boy to follow him.
It is certainly possible that whatever shenanigans are afoot, the boy is innocent of – or, at the very least, unwitting of his place in them. There is a mystery here and he will get to the bottom of it, come hell or high water.
But, for right now, there is justice to be done and he has a Batman to train.
If the brat turns out to be blood, then so much the better.
It's always been a family business, anyway.
