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Batman and related characters © DC Comics
story © RenaRoo

Fathers and Sons
Chapter Ten: Tipping Point

He was just not sure why he said that out loud, why he felt the need to announce anything at all, but he immediately regretted the decision. Stared down by three of the strongest and biggest looking people he thought he had ever seen, Terry thought he could maybe be knocked over with a breath from any of them.

The stunned silence couldn't last forever, though. And it was Miss Brown who spoke up first, fingers fidgeting uncomfortably.

"Crap," she said.

The Black Bat and Batman were less reactive, but that was probably why they seemed the most scary to Terry. Even Black Bat, who Terry thought was his friend, seemed different, like he couldn't know what she would do next.

Batman, though... well, Batman had just seemed angry the entire time he'd been there. That didn't change much after Terry's revelation.

"I'm not the police officer," Batman said firmly. "You're mistaken." He stepped down from the ledge, fully entering the apartment and revealing his full height. "I'm Batman."

Terry blinked, head slightly tilting. "No you're not," he said, beginning to scowl at the trickery. "I met Batman already. He was a lot bigger than you. And he sounded like a truck engine. All aghh raggh argghhh."

Batman blinked. Miss Brown covered her mouth and snorted, a faint "that's adorable" whispered between her fingers. Black Bat crossed her arms.

"Can be more than one," Black Bat said with a sniff.

"Not now," Batman said, a warning look at the woman he had just called his sister. It didn't seem to phase her much and Batman soon returned his attention to Terry.

"You're... you're brother and sister, right?" Terry continued, hugging himself at the slight chill from the broken window. "That's what you just said? And Officer Grayson... he had lots of brothers and sisters, too. And... you sound like him."

Batman's eyes narrowed. "I assure you, I don't."

Miss Brown and Black Bat both turned to face Batman more directly at that one. But Terry didn't listen much to that, instead, recoiling at the look he was getting. His mouth popped close.

In return, Batman's shoulders dropped, his eyes widening a bit in surprise. He tightly screwed his eyes closed and took a breath. When he composed himself, he took a step forward toward Terry.

Terry took another step back. Batman lowered down, kneeling toward him.

"Terry," Batman said clearly, softly - that was certainly like Officer Grayson. The difference was far more apparent to Terry then after hearing both. "I need you to listen to me. I am Batman."

It... really didn't make that much sense to him. Terry blinked. "Then... who..."

"That was also Batman," he explained gently. "The first Batman. We both wear this costume."

Thinking of his soccer uniform, Terry tilted his head. "It probably gets really stinky."

"Yeah, it can," Batman said with a soft laugh, his face resting on a fond smile. It was a good look on him. A natural one. "But the point is we're both here to help you." He looked back to the girls. "All of us are here to help you." He looked more directly into Terry's eyes, somehow managing to make the hollow blankness of his white eyes full of warmth and understanding. "You shouldn't be scared of any of us. I'm not here to scare you, and I'm sorry if I did."

Terry frowned. "But... you're still Officer Grayson. I'm sure of it!"

Batman's smile fell, but he didn't seem angry that time.

Miss Brown stepped up, coming directly to Terry's side and lowering to the ground beside him, her arm wrapping around his shoulders to hold him close.

"Terry," the blonde said softly, giving his shoulders a soft squeeze. "We would really appreciate if you didn't say that. It's not safe to accuse people of being Batman -" she glanced meaningfully to Batman, "-not that we're at all saying you're right. But saying you think someone's Batman, well... it's dangerous. Even when it's not true, bad people can get a kooky idea in their heads about it and try to hurt people."

Terry shuddered, a gun shot still wringing loudly in his ears. "I... I don't want that." Then, quieter, "I like Officer Grayson."

"And I'm happy to say I know for a fact that he likes you, too," she promised, her smile soft. "Just remember, identities are very important to superheroes. We can't go around declaring them in mixed company."

He curled his nose at the thought before gradually looking up to the Black Bat. She was staring back at him, arms still crossed as she allowed the others to handle the conversation. After just a moment longer in the look between them, though, it was as if the Black Bat understood more than enough about what Terry meant to say.

She dropped her arms from the cross and came to the gathered group, lowering to her haunches before him. She never broke her expression even as she reached forward and poked Terry's nose. Then she smiled. "You're part of the secret now," she said softly.

"Black Bat," Batman growled as Miss Brown sighed, finally taking her arm from Terry's shoulders.

Black Bat just smiled into Terry's face. "I can see... he already knows. I trust him. He's good."

Neither of the others had time to respond just as an alarm sounded from across the apartment, causing all to look toward the bedroom door.

Save for Miss Brown who pulled out her phone and grunted at the eggplant flashing screen. "It's Red Robin and Robin. Can no one use the door?"

The female vigilante was still looking at Terry as he stopped following the conversation from Miss Brown to Batman, her gaze oddly soft. Black Bat placed a solitary finger to her lips and then turned Terry around toward the living room he had come from. "Enough secrets for tonight," she said assuredly.

"But..." Terry muttered only to get a small shove toward the living room.

"Go. Watch TV," she suggested. "Talking business now."

He looked slightly toward Batman and Miss Brown only to be met with their expectant gazes. They were more than just a little supportive of the Black Bat's directive. It seemed Terry didn't have any choice after all.

Slowly, the boy moved toward the living room as directed, but he couldn't resist the ideas playing around in his head.

He reached the living room and, reaching for the remote on the coffee table, turned up the television volume. He then edged toward the couch, looking back just as the three adults moved toward the bedroom.

Terry made his move, sliding against the wall until he was just barely away from the door itself.

He had to know for sure if Officer Grayson was Batman, just as he had to know for sure why he was almost kidnapped, and what they knew about his parents.

His mind was still racing with Terry's revelation. He couldn't risk letting anyone outside of the family know about his identity - it wasn't safe for anyone involved and rarely did it work out well. Dick wondered, only for a moment, if the "outside of the family" part could be rectified, but only for a moment.

He was not Bruce. He had no intention of becoming Bruce.

Instead he remained grateful for Cassandra's uniquely direct way of dealing with people and hoped that Terry could keep out of trouble while they dealt with whatever news Damian and Tim had brought them.

As usual, Batman suspected it was nothing good.

The two were still bickering, even as they stood in Stephanie's room all but unannounced. Some things never changed, Cassandra and Stephanie just seemed amused.

Not even paying attention to the first word from the argument, Dick closed the door behind himself, glaring at his little brothers. "Alright, enough you two," he shushed them, crossing his arms in aggravation. "I don't even want to know what it's about."

"We can't get a hold of father," Damian alerted Dick, scowling. "He's being stubborn... and apparently discovered all of the trackers Drake placed on him because they're inactivated."

For a moment, Dick wondered if Bruce was at all aware of the irony of him refusing to let his children track him through the same methods he lovingly used on them for decades.

"Well, this wasn't entirely unexpected," Dick grunted. "Is that all?"

"Not even close," Tim responded, hands on his hips. "The kid?"

"TV," Cass announced.

"Fine," Tim said, frowning at the two women. "By the way, thanks for that. It made the press conference just that much more pleasurable. Especially when I was the one who had to break it to Bruce that the kid was missing."

Merely sniffing at the pointed words, Cass crossed her arms. "You're welcome."

"Yeah, Boyfriend Wonder, maybe we were just making it juicy and exciting for you to handle," Steph snorted.

"Back on topic," Dick redirected, eyes on his brothers. "What else do we know? With some of our ranks being busy with kidnapping and me having to handle the GCPD and autopsies, I think we all could benefit from some debriefing." He narrowed his eyes. "For example: Mary McGinnis also happened to be pregnant, making our case a triple homicide, and possibly setting up additional motives. I also found out that our assassin utilized lasers, making them rather high end, even for a rogue or assassin."

"I can do you one better," Damian chipped in, cracking his knuckles in the thick kevlar Robin gloves as really only he could. "I know the assassin's identity, as does Brown."

Steph put a hand to her chin, concentrating. "It's a rogue from before my time in the capes and cowls, but Robin and Hood recognized her - Andrea Beaumont."

"The Phantasm," Damian added. "She fits the description, has intimate knowledge of the Wayne murder for recreation, would have access to top of the line equipment and weapons with her family fortune, and has not been on the radar for nearly two decades."

Dick blinked in surprise. "The Phantasm?" he questioned. He had been just a teenager the last time he had heard that name - away to Hudson with only the most minimal of updates with what rogues were being thrown Bruce's way. Still, he knew her significance as both the Phantasm and as Bruce's former fiance. "But what motives would she have?" He looked directly to Tim. "And what about the DNA? Was Warren McGinnis the father after all?"

Damian and Tim looked to each other in that way that only meant trouble.

"We've run the test a dozen times," Tim explained. "And Alfred is currently in the lab running maintenance to make sure things are performing correctly but... according to every test we've run, Terry isn't Warren McGinnis' biological son."

Cass shifted, looking at her brothers almost abrasively. She was seeing something in them that Dick couldn't just yet, and she wasn't liking it.

Frowning, Dick tilted his head. "Well, I was expecting as much, I suppose," he said cautiously. "But I'm guessing that we have a clue as to who the biological father is?"

"Yeah," Tim said reluctantly. "According to every test we ran so far... it's... well, it's Bruce."

The silence between them became deafening.

"What?" Steph asked, blinking repeatedly, as if unsure she was even witnessing reality.

"You mean Bruce's randomized strand on the computer?" Dick asked. "Is someone trying to frame him."

"Certainly someone is trying to frame him," Damian said, completely dismissing all other possibilities. "But... it's not the fake results on the FBI's database. It's... ours. The real sample."

The silence engulfed them once more.

"That... doesn't make any sense," Dick said. "None of this is making sense - the Phantasm? The McGinnis family? Checkmate? None of these really have anything connecting them-"

"Yes," Cassandra spoke up, eyes focused, "they do. Batman."

"Bruce's Batman," Stephanie pointed out, pouting frown pronounced. "Everything is connected to him."

"Only if the DNA isn't altered or planted," Damian snapped back quickly.

"Has there been any results that are inconclusive or negative so far?" Dick asked pointedly.

Damian withdrew, a deeply troubled line drew across his brow.

Tim crossed his arms, equally as disturbed as their youngest Robin, "There hasn't been," he answered.

"Batman got the sample himself," Cass spoke up. "I watched."

"Then there's a heck of a lot more evidence that's tying Bruce to all of this than not," Steph sighed. "I don't like it, but we've all been taught to follow the facts."

Dick soured his expression. "Yes. And we were all taught that by Bruce."

The discussion hushed again, the young men and women caught between the facts and their senses.

Finally, Stephanie rubbed at her face. "Poor Terry," she muttered.

"He's been alone for a long time," Cass said, settling her gaze on Dick.

"I'll talk to him," Dick responded softly, turning for the door. "After that, Steph we're going to need you to watch him as the rest of us pan out and start looking for Bruce and this Andrea Beaumont. I had a feeling from the beginning that Bruce had more suspicions than he was letting on. I don't want him to take her on alone, especially after all this. Get the Red Hood, Batgirl - anyone who can help."

"Got it," the others echoed as Dick made it through the halls and neared the living room.

The television had fortunately been blaring the entire time.

"Terry," Dick called out, entering the room. He narrowed his eyes as he saw that the couch was all but abandoned. "Terry?"

He swept the room quickly, looked into the kitchen, almost moved back to the bathroom before he saw there was a bit of blood on a shard of glass sticking out from the window seal.

Immediately rushing to the window, Dick stuck out his head, seeing that a thin trail of blood continued on the handrail - as if the boy had gripped it himself as he climbed through to the fire escape.

"No," Dick whispered, running back to Steph's room just as everyone was beginning to break apart. "We have a problem."

Amanda watched Bruce intently. She was far more familiar with the man than he liked to be familiar with anyone. But he would wait and he would listen. He was nothing if not concerned with knowledge and truth, great detective and all that.

It was Andrea in her periphery that the Wall was less certain about. She was wound tight, her nerves threadbare. She could very well be coming to the end of her own rope, but when were one of the operatives in their squad not?

"It began eight years ago," Waller said lowly, concentrating on the visible face beneath the Batman's cowl. "It didn't start with you, it started instead with the division of the Justice League years beforehand, and the death of Superman before that. Heroes were found to be more mortal than the world was prepared to deal with when Superman died in Metropolis, more fallible than the government could overlook when it was learned about the mindwipe of Doctor Light."

The mention of Light caused a further grimace but otherwise the man was stiff as a rod. Still Bruce after all.

"And specifically eight years ago?" he asked lowly.

"Simply enough, Gotham fell into ruin," Waller said, intertwining her fingers, "and then two heroes died - first the Martian Manhunter, who was very trusted as a leader in the League by the various government agencies... and then Batman."

He narrowed his eyes at that.

"At least, that was all anyone in our intelligence could discern," she shrugged. "Your people did a good job attempting to cover up any connections. But for any of us - anyone who knows - we saw the cracks. And while Gotham was crumbling before you disappeared, it collapsed almost entirely in the months following your disappearance." She leaned forward in her chair. "I found this unacceptable."

Slowly, Bruce's head tilted back. Realization was dawning on him with every word. "It was you."

"Of course it was," Waller responded. "CADMUS labs had concerned itself with preserving heroes in the past - attempts at creating Supermen and women in the event of the fall of our favorite adopted son's death or implicit turn against the nation were happening long before I ever acquired power over them. Metahuman Affairs and the D.E.O. had spent its time delving into the mystic and supernatural enough to know that those voids in magic and heroism have a record of balancing themselves out.

"But you and I both know that these were never my favored areas when dealing with your 'superhero community' - too uncontrolled, too cyclic," her eyes rested on the symbol on Batman's chest. She felt... almost fond. "Those things have their place, but it's not a place for us, for people. The ones who work their nine to fives, who sleep every night with no promise of tomorrow, but expect to wake up with the same results regardless. We need a hero who speaks from that voice, who lives daily with the same threat, the same humanity as the rest of us, and who was driven to progress regardless."

Bruce was already snarling. "You wanted to recreate me."

Without hesitation, Waller looked him in the eyes and said simply, "I did."

"After all that happened - after all that I fought to prevent... you brought this... this world onto someone else," he growled.

"I had planned on it for years," Waller said firmly. "I planned and did not act upon it for years for that very reason. But you were gone, and the world was in chaos, and I knew that no matter how long it would take or what ethics I would cross, I couldn't allow for there to be a world without Batman."

He stared at her. "Eight years ago... Terry McGinnis was born," he said lowly.

"And nine moths before that, just before your heir claimed your cape, I found a young Neo-Gothamite family which matched exactly the psychological profiles of Martha and Thomas Wayne," Waller responded. "Warren McGinnis was given a letter from Wayne Enterprises - something your company never bothered to verify as a discrepancy given their frantic search for Timothy Drake-Wayne in the ensuing year - prompting him to receive a flu shot."

Bruce's fists clenched. "It wasn't a flu shot. You somehow overwrote his genetic material with mine."

"Nanites which acted as a directed virus, traveling through the bloodstream until attaching to the sex cells of Warren McGinnis, forcing them to lyse, and injecting your genetic material into the cells produced to replace them," she explained. "Of course... by the time young Terry McGinnis was born, a new Batman and Robin were in Gotham, and a relative time of rest came over the city and the reconstructed Justice League... just before your return."

"But it was too late to pull the plug," Bruce growled. "You set that rock in motion and to stop it would be to put you in the line of fire for your unethical methods-"

"That is true," Waller said firmly. "But my part in the story did not last much longer. As you and I both know, my spot had been gunned for by the up and coming Spy Smasher - Miss Katarina Armstrong - for years leading up to these events. I was no longer in charge of CADMUS or Checkmate or any of these branches four years ago. I was encouraged into retirement, and Project Batman Beyond was to be decommissioned."

"Then how did any of this happen?" he demanded.

"It was a computer error," Andrea finally burst out. She stepped forward, only falling back once more when Bruce's glare was turned on her. "You have to believe me, Bruce... I had no idea..."

"What are you talking about?" he snapped.

Waller held up her hand, silencing them both. She did not take her gaze from Bruce. "Warren and Mary McGinnis' files have remained targeted for assassination for eight years, a coded computer firewall has remained copied over to every solitary Checkmate operating system since the origin of Project Batman Beyond, counting down until this very year, and releasing a specific assignment to Task Force X. The instructions were to assassinate Mary and Warren McGinnis." She scowled. "Of course, it would be up to the director of Task Force X - now also the White Queen of Checkmate - to authorize the assignment."

He gritted his teeth. "Armstrong," he seethed. "Did she not question the validity of the assignment, of everything attached to those files-"

"You have to understand Armstrong, Bruce," Andrea said, the hollowness and soullessness of her voice never apparent. "It's not about the individual case, it's about getting things done and not questioning the real authorities in the government. It's about advancing her own career and throwing morality to the wind. She wouldn't question why we would be sent after a family the same way she wouldn't question anything we were instructed to do from her real handlers."

"Of course that mentality backfired," Waller said lowly. "She sent Phantasm on the assignment because she was familiar with Gotham. Then, when Andrea didn't report back in, she began to look into who had sent her the objective. Armstrong then realized she had made a mistake."

"A mistake!?" Batman roared. "A mistake!? A boy no longer has a family, he is orphaned, traumatized, and for what- to recreate what happened to me?" He turned his anger toward Andrea. "To recreate the most miserable moment of my life? And none of you stopped this from happening?"

Andrea didn't stand down, but she was certainly crest fallen. "I'm sorry, Bruce."

"Sorry is far from being enough, Andrea," he snapped in return. He looked back at Waller. "And you," he breathed. "You begun this - all of this."

Nodding, Waller accepted. "I did. But you won't be accepting an apology from me."

"How can you say that!?" he roared.

"Because this step should never have happened," she said firmly, "But the idea... continuing Batman... It is never something I will regret. I saw it work - just after Terry was born, Gotham was rushed into that era of peace, and it was by no singular force, but by the patchwork of heirs you gave to the city. I saw that it was an identity necessary to the city, and necessary to the people behind it." She hardened her gaze. "Terry should never have gone through this pain and loss. That is something that all involved - myself, Andrea, Armstrong - will speak for. I give you my word, for what it's worth. But... even should they have all lived, he would have been genetically your son out there, growing up to the sights and sounds of a city protected by Batmen and Women. Growing to possibly aspire to the same, with or without a guiding hand."

"You would turn yourself in to prison again, Waller?" Bruce scoffed.

"You know I would," she returned flatly.

"And now?" he asked, skepticism still apparent. "Now what about the boy? What about Terry?"

She took a deep sigh to that. "Well, as we all know, he has a tough road ahead of him. But I think as for what steps are taken next... it's up to you."

He stared at them just as his bat symbol on his belt began to glow. He looked to it before removing the alert device, examining the message written on it. His face was kept from reacting, but he quickly put the device away.

"Neither of you will leave here tonight," he warned.

"We won't," Waller agreed, watching as he turned to leave through the window he came through.

"Forget jail," Andrea whispered. "We're burning in hell for this, Waller. Jail's only a delay."

"We've got a lot to answer for," Waller agreed. "But it's curious... over forty years ago, a random series of events led to the fate of one boy... it's curious to think how a different set of events could possibly lead to the fate of another."

Andrea rubbed at her face. "That boy deserves better than to have the weight of that... that thing on him. You admire the Batman, but I see what a beast it is, how it wears down every person who wears it."

"Then you're the one not looking closely enough," Waller responded. "Where you see a beast, I see redemption in the wings."