Suspended in the air, magnified a hundred times through a holo-projected screen, the massive masked face of the most powerful man in Gotham looked down on Terry with perceptible dislike. Out of necessity, Terry had learned not to take the older man's seemingly infinite repertoire of glares too personally. Still, there was something in this look that put Terry on the defensive. He'd only seen that look once before, and not long after, Wayne had activated a fail-safe device and disabled the batsuit. With Terry still in it. It was a cold reminder of what Wayne was capable of doing, if he perceived someone to be a threat.

That didn't mean that Terry was going to give up, of course, it only meant that he was going to have to be careful, and play nice. Unfortunately, playing nice wasn't getting him anywhere.

"What do you mean, 'no'?!" he demanded.

"It means," Wayne stated coolly, "That your request to access the Bat-cave has been denied."

"But I already know where it is!" he glared at the holo-screen. "I know who you are, I know where you live. I can be there in ten minutes to prove it to you!"

"No."

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?"

"Not my problem. When Chross makes her move, I'll contact you. Until then, I don't want to hear from you."

"But I can help!"

"You've done enough. Assuming that you're telling the truth, there's no telling what could happen if you continue to interfere with events in our time. It would be best if we avoid each other as much as possible."

"But-"

"Batman out."

The transmission ended, and Terry was left staring at a blank stone wall. Willing his heart rate back to its usual, less angry pace, he turned to face the two Justice League members standing by. As if it weren't bad enough getting snubbed, they'd watched the whole thing.

"So what now?" he asked them.

Black Canary sighed. "This is turning into a pattern," she muttered, more to herself than to anyone else in the room.

"Indeed," Martian Manhunter man looked back to Terry. "I must apologize. I had hoped that we would have more time."

"I guess you guys are all tied up with this android too?"

"Indeed."

"I'll call for Red Tornado," Black Canary told him, stooping to retrieve her jacket from the floor and pulling it on over her shoulders. "He'll help you get settled in."

"Settled in?" Terry frowned.

"You've got to sleep somewhere, don't you?" Black Canary reached her hands behind her neck, pulling her long blond hair out from under her jacket collar. There was something sensual about the way she moved, the way she smiled slightly, sympathetically, that must have been calculated to put him at ease. Terry knew smiles like those and he didn't trust them – not anymore. At least, not usually.

This time, Terry knew he was being handled and he didn't like it. Being left behind in Mount Justice – the Minor Leaguer's headquarters – felt like a demotion. Like he'd been sent to the kiddie table.

"Don't worry," Martian Manhunter reassured him. "This is only temporary. As soon as this matter is resolved, we'll do what we can to help you. One night won't make any difference."

One night makes all the difference. Terry thought, thinking of the old man. Terry had been furious the day he'd said that. Now, the thought that it might never happen made him feel scared in a way that he hadn't since he'd come home to his dad's apartment to find the place covered in neon spray paint.

What he did say was, "Fine. Do what you have to do."

Red Tornado was probably the most android-like android that Terry had ever seen. In terms of design, it was like someone had decided to cross a suit of armor with a little red sports car – fresh coat of wax included. In terms of personality, Terry felt like he was talking to one of his school computer programs. It was all, 'logic dictates this,' and 'the diagnostic indicates that.' If he didn't know his history, Terry would have figured this guy had been built on an assembly line.

Fortunately, for him, his new escort didn't seem interested in babysitting him. Once he'd shown him around the cave (as instructed) fed and watered him (as instructed) and provided him with a clean toothbrush (also as instructed) he left Terry alone to get acquainted with his new room (apparently obvious to the fact that there were no sheets on the bed. Or in the closet. Some host.)

Terry wasn't in the mood for sleep, anyways. He was alone in Mount Justice, the year was 2010, and somewhere in the world, there was another time traveler plotting to brainwash Bruce Wayne out of his fortune.

He had better things to do.

Those things mainly consisted of snooping around.

He did brush his teeth, though. His mouth was getting that day-old feeling. He'd always hated that. He would have carried a little travel-sized toothbrush around in his batsuit, if Wayne hadn't pointed out that it wouldn't be a good idea to run around spitting toothpaste and incriminating DNA all over the rooftops Gotham.

Maybe after this trip, they were going to have to revisit that discussion.

It quickly became apparent why Red Tornado was unconcerned about leaving him alone in the Cave. It was completely locked down, even the main living quarters. A quick check of the hangar confirmed that all Young Justice's vehicles were currently in use and the main entrance to the cave was sealed tight. In mission room, the cave's central holographic computer didn't acknowledge any of his voice commands, either. That meant no Zeta-tubes. He couldn't even use the system for research.

Terry activated his visor and performed a quick scan of the room. He hadn't really expected to find any technology that was compatible with his suit but, to his surprise, a funny little symbol cropped up: a sort of triangle that consisted of four bars, increasing in length from left to right.

Terry didn't recognize it. Then again, the suit had been in service for years before Terry had ever taken up the cowl. It made sense that it still had some old features that he'd never had any use for – until now, at least.

Local area connection detected, the words displayed on his HUD were foreign, but gave him hope. Terry tapped one of the small buttons on his belt,hoping the controls were compatible with the system. It worked. The computer didn't seem to recognize his credentials but his suit was pre-programmed to crack through any kind of security it encountered.

Evidently, Wayne had seen fit to leave himself a backdoor into the League's system.

The holographic floor under Terry's feet lit up, forming a small, blue circle of light around his ankles. The shape it had formed then rose into the air, passing over him in a harmless trail of light, then descended again. He realized that the system was scanning him, updating his credentials to match the ones that the suit had reassigned to it.

The letters flashed across his visor: Batman 02.

It was too easy. He waited for moment, half-expecting an alarm to go off, or for Red Tornado to come swooping down upon him. Of course, his new user credentials identified him as the original Batman. If anyone saw his activity on the system, they would assume that it was his predecessor at work.

Wayne had literally outdone himself.

Gaining access to the Justice League's computer system was one thing, actually using it was another. The interface was completely unintuitive, and it failed to recognize a good number of the most basic voice commands Terry could think of. There also didn't seem to be any real way to interface between his suit and the computer – he couldn't use any of the video data he'd collected over the course of the day to, say, search the League's records for Chross's face. So there was no way to check and see if she had some kind of fake ID already set up in this time period.

He considered his options. The first was to play nice, wait until the League was all done with their android problem and then work with them to track down Chross. But that could take ages. The second was to see what kind of intelligence he could gather using whatever research tools the League had available. Of course, if he stood around too long looking at massive glowing holographic search screens, there was a good chance that Red Tornado would walk in on him and revoke his hard-won user privileges.

That left one final course of action available to him. He would make his way back to Gotham City and do what he should have done in the first place: follow up on any leads that could help him find Chross. With any luck, he'd be able to wrap this whole thing up in one night. If not… well then, he supposed he'd have to make it back to the cave before anyone noticed he'd been creeping around.

It couldn't be too hard, right?

"Right," he said out loud. "Computer: set the Zeta-tube's coordinates for Gotham City."

RECOGNIZED, the computer intoned, just as it had before. Only this time, it got his designation right.