A/N: Thanks for the reviews!
Chapter Eight—Costume Party
The Batmobile was still sitting where it had been parked, in a back alley about a block away from Waller's home. Sliding into the passenger seat, Sarah looked at her father. It had been nearly three years since the heart attack and the family's subsequent pleading had forced him to hang up his cape and cowl, but it didn't feel strange to see him wear it.
"It's done?" he asked shortly.
Sarah nodded. "Yes," she replied. She pulled out the disc Waller had given her. "This is the last copy."
"Good." He started the engine and tore out of the alley. Within minutes they were doing at least eighty on a forty-mile-an-hour stretch of road.
"Have you radioed the Cave?" she inquired.
"Your brother managed to calm your mother down after we left," he said. "He pointed out that we would likely get more answers through questioning Waller than by having her simply show up and demolish her home." He sighed. "Then he talked her into drinking a cup of tea, only he put a mild sedative in it."
Sarah's eyebrows went up beneath her mask. "She's going to kick his ass the next time they spar," she said after a moment. For a metahuman, a mild sedative would probably be enough to take down an elephant.
Her father snorted. "No doubt."
They sat in silence for several minutes as they began to leave Gotham behind. As they grew closer to the hidden car entrance to the Batcave, Sarah spoke up again.
"Daddy, do you think... Are Mom and Nicky right? Should we tell Terry?"
He glanced at her before looking back at the road. "Why do you think we shouldn't?" he countered.
She stared at him. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "Terry's been a McGinnis his whole life. Mary McGinnis is his mother, and Warren McGinnis was and still is his father. The only way our biological relationship is important is for a note to be put in his medical records." She paused. "That, and his blood type's the same as mine, in case I get sloppy again."
He nodded, but did not speak, likely sensing that she wasn't quite finished.
"I know what Mom sees here," she continued. "A chance to touch what she missed out on, having more kids beyond me and Nicky, and I feel for her, I really do. I'm furious myself at having two more brothers hidden from me." Sarah sighed. "But the fact remains, Terry and Matthew are both McGinnises. They aren't going to give that up just because Mandy thought she had the right to play God with yours and Mom's DNA. Do we have any more right to lay this at Terry's feet?"
Bruce was silent until they'd gotten back to the Cave. He parked, but made no move to get out of the car. Sarah only waited. "So you see it as a burden," he said.
She shrugged. "It would be for Terry. There's nothing positive he could gain from knowing—we're already close, and even before she knew, Mom treated him as a son anyway. Adding that knowledge will only confuse him."
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "So your concern is that he can't handle it."
"Yes," she said reluctantly. "Why? You don't agree?"
"Yes and no," he replied. "I think in the long-term he could handle it. He would realise that we're not trying to take Warren and Mary's places, and that we told him because he deserves to know the truth."
"The short-term?"
"I share your concern," he told her. "I think it would confuse and distress him, and temporarily he would pull away from us. During that time there's always the danger that something could happen, that we'll need him or he'll need us."
"Like if I get myself stabbed again and Nicky's not around?" she muttered.
He glared, but she'd summed it up in a nutshell. They left the vehicle, they were almost immediately met by a frazzled-looking Nick.
"Has Mom woken up yet?" Sarah asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet," he replied. He looked genuinely distressed. "She is going to be so mad when she wakes up."
"And with good reason," Bruce cut in sternly. "Drugging her shows that you didn't trust her."
Nick appeared stricken for a moment, but then he shook his head. "In all honesty, I didn't. Not when she was that upset." He rubbed his abdomen. "Not when she just about broke my ribs trying to follow you guys out of the Cave. I didn't want to take the chance of her deciding to follow you the moment I turned my back on her. Given how she was behaving, I had no doubt she would have killed Waller without hesitation."
Bruce stared at him for several moments, and then nodded and moved further into the Cave. Sarah and Nick followed close behind.
"Waller's been warned off," Bruce said out loud. "She won't like the consequences if she ignores that warning." He sat down at the computer and held out his hand to Sarah. She handed him the disc wordlessly.
"I want to know exactly what we're dealing with," he said as he put the disc into the computer. "That will keep us occupied until your mother wakes up."
They knew exactly when Diana woke up. It was when dust started being shaken down from the roof of the Cave. Along with splodges of guano that were attracted to Nick but seemed to be automatically repelled from Reaper and their father. "Uh, I think she might just smash through the floor," he said nervously.
No one seemed to be particularly concerned by that.
"Seriously, I have no desire to die at the age of twenty-two!"
Bruce got up, heading up the stairs and leaving Sarah to finish decrypting the information. She should have known Waller wouldn't let the data go that easily. Happily, though, Waller had underestimated Sarah's hacking ability. She was almost done with the last file. They'd learned how first her father's and then her mother's DNA had been collected, then how their genetic material had replaced the haploid cells in Warren and Mary McGinnis. This last file, Sarah thought, probably contained the files of possible assassins that Waller had considered using to kill Terry's parents.
Her father had gone very, very quiet when she told him that.
She hadn't yet told him about Selina, and they hadn't read the files yet, just decrypted them for later use. She herself was more interested in the files for Plan B, or 'Project Re-Genesis', as Waller had termed it. She had a feeling it was going to give her nightmares, but she wanted to know what had been planned for her and Nicky.
"You done yet?" Nick asked from over her shoulder. The string of numbers, symbols and binary onscreen meant nothing to him.
"Almost got it," she replied curtly, fingers not stopping. "Just need to crack... There!"
The numbers turned into words instantly—a lot of them. "Hera."
The twins looked at the screen for a moment—in the file for Project Batman Beyond there were more than fifty sub-folders, each succinctly and neatly titled. "What's that one?" Nicky asked, pointing to one labelled, 'Failures'.
Sarah clicked on it, and it came up with more folders—each with a surname on them. There were at least a hundred in all. "Of course," Sarah breathed.
"What? Who are all these people?"
"They're Waller's insurance," she said. "People who matched the psychological profiles of Thomas and Martha Wayne. She didn't just inject the McGinnises, it would be too risky. She must have injected dozens of couples with Mom and Dad's DNA."
"Wait, so there could be more kids like Terry and Matt out there?" Nick interjected.
"I don't think so," she said, pointing out the title of the folder. "Failures. The haploid cells must have been rejected by the host body. Warren and Mary McGuiness's bodies didn't. In fact it worked too well; Matt really was born with Mom and Dad's DNA, just like Terry."
Nick wasn't convinced. "What if Waller made a mistake?" he asked.
Sarah shared a concerned look with him. "I know, Nicky. I agree. There's no way for us to be a hundred percent sure that Mom and Dad don't have more than twenty children."
Nick didn't get a chance to say anything more when footsteps alerted them to the presence of others entering the Cave. Sarah quickly went back to the main file menu, determined to explore more of "Plan C", as Waller had so casually called it, later on. Turning in the chair, she watched her parents come down the stairs.
Her father looked much as he did when he had left the Cave, but her mother's hair was mussed, and there was a faint, red pillow print on her left cheek. That didn't even begin to cover her expression, though. Sarah could easily see that her mother was absolutely furious. She came to a halt just a few feet away and pointed at Nick.
"You," she growled, "are grounded, young man. That means no going out in the evenings, no hanging out at the Metro or Watchtowers, and no flying off to visit your grandmother and aunts on Themyscira. Got it?"
Sarah watched, inwardly a little amused, as her brother nodded rapidly. She had a feeling he was just relieved that Daddy had calmed her down to the point where she wasn't trying to punt him through a wall.
"Good," Diana snapped, then she turned to look at the computer screen. "What did the bitch give you?"
"A lot of information," Sarah replied. "It's going to take time to go through it all. We–"
The sound of the clock up in the study being opened cut her off. All four of their heads turned toward the entrance to the Cave, and within seconds, Terry appeared. He looked down at them and immediately his eyebrows went up. He slowed for a second, but then kept coming down the stairs. "Hey," he greeted as he approached them. "So, Bruce, you reliving the good old days or are you heading for a costume party?"
Sarah winced. Daddy hadn't changed out of his costume yet. And the files that pertained to Terry's very existence were still up on the screen. Slowly, she turned in the chair and began to close the windows. She then ejected the disc and slipped it back into one of the compartments on her belt.
Terry, of course, proved that he'd been learning when his sharp eyes caught her movement. "Oh, so this is one of those Wayne-family things that I'm not allowed to know about yet."
Sarah and her father exchanged a glance. They only had themselves to blame for teaching him to be so observant. "Not quite," Nick said.
Terry raised an eyebrow in question.
Sarah gave in to the urge to punch her twin. "Nice going."
"What is it?" Terry asked.
"Well it was your surprise party," she said, thanking Hera that Terry's birthday was coming up. "Of course now it's just a party, thanks to some big-mouthed idiot who can't keep his trap shut!"
"Right...and you have to write a computer programme to plan a party?" Terry asked, a little incredulously.
"Miss Anally Retentive over here does," Nick muttered.
Much to their relief, Terry's face relaxed into a grin. "Ah right. Rule 1: always have a plan."
"Exactly," Sarah said, standing up and sweeping past her newfound brother and ascending the stairs.
As she left the Cave, she heard Terry repeat his question to their father. Bruce's voice was deadpan when he replied. "Costume party."
A/N: Review please!
