Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond it belongs to its writers, producers, and so forth. This is simply for fun and not for profit.

Summary: Terry just wanted to get home to his Gotham, not some past one, not some weird alternate dimension one, just home. Who knew time travel and the journey home could be so...troublesome.

A/N: Here's the next one. I am debating which one to write after this...hmm...

Chapter 2: Different Origins

Finally! Terry could have whooped for joy when he saw that familiar and loved sky-line. He jetted off into the air and did a celebratory loop-de-loop before landing atop one of the old man's newly reclaimed buildings. It really felt so good to be home; maybe he could even skip out on Bruce's lecture and meet up with Dana! But he'd have to be quick.

Terry dived to off of the building and let the air currents keep him afloat as he wove his way through sky-scrapers toward the old manor. Within five minutes he was at the cliff-side entrance. He pressed the button on his belt, and the cave recognized his signal coming in—another good sign. He was quickly gliding in the through the long tunnel before retracting the wings and proceeding on his way.

The computer was on and he could see arms resting on the chair. Damn it! He wasn't getting out of lecture. His confident walk stuttered to a halt and he braced himself.

"If you're trying to hide, McGinnis," that wasn't Bruce speaking, Terry realized even as the person in the chair was beginning to stand up, "you…what the hell are you doing in my suit!?" Mr. Drake…that was Mr. Drake…

Terry held his hands up defensively in front of him.

"Mr. Drake…" he could remember being electrocuted and hit by this man. His family, girlfriend, and even Wayne had been targeted by Drake—er…Joker who was actually Drake the whole time… Terri's head was starting to hurt but he couldn't stop the instinct to be on guard.

The man started to approach him with a dark look coming over him. He was outraged and Terry was so not ready for round two with him.

"Look, Mr. D, come on! Sh-should you even be down here? Should I call your doc, eh?" Terry jumped away from the approaching man who did not stop once.

"McGinsis!" Mr. Drake growled, "Get out of my suit!"

Terry jumped even farther away from the man and began to reach for the knock out gas, "Look Mr. Drake, I'm sure being down here again's upset you, but you need to rela—" Mr. Drake had charged him. "Slow-pulse this!" Terry quickly jumped to the side before rolling out of a grapple. He then accessed the jets to gain some distance.

"You want round two old man fine, but I won't feel sorry for you this time." Terry was up and more than ready to take this guy on again.

"You petty dreg," he spat out in return as he got ready. The atmosphere in the cave was tense, and Terry half expected Bruce to come down any minute to reprimand him or maybe even both of them. Speaking of which, where was the old man?!

Then it happened. Terry raced for the old man as he raced for him. One dodge here, a punch there. It was like they knew how each other fought. Terry got a kick to the ribs, and he knew he'd lose if he didn't play it dirty. He got Drake in the gut in return. He was preparing a flash bomb now, and when Drake was blinded, he'd take him down.

"What the hell is going on?!" That…wasn't Bruce either…

They both were frozen before slowly turning to look at the newcomer. The man was in…was that supposed to be Nightwing?! He had a full body suit like the Royal Flush Gang, but it had the Nightwing design and likely retractable wings too.

He knew what this meant, but he didn't want it to mean what he thought it did. He pulled his mask off and threw his hands otu, "You have to be kidding me!? This isn't my Gotham!" Like a child, he kicked his foot against the ground as he ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Slag…"

Drake straightened and looked between Terry and Nightwing as if he suspected something. "McGinis, where's my suit?" he questioned while eyeing them both.

"Go back to the insane asylum!" "On the exam table under the sheet."

Terry looked over at the Nightwing guy who spoke when he had. Drake just nodded his head slowly, as if he thought this would happen. He then began moving back to his computer. Nightwing just looked back at Terry with his head cocked and his eyes clearly narrowed to glare at him—as if trying to figure him out. Terry couldn't help but do the same to the other guy. Why the hell did he respond to McGinnis.

"Nightwing," Drake barked, and the other guy straightened right up.

"Yeah Mr. D?" he asked as he began walking toward the older man, though he never took his eyes off of Terry. Terry also looked back at Nightwing and eventually shifted his body to also face Drake in order to maintain eye-contact with this Nightwing. He really didn't like this, especially with what he thought was going on.

"What was the power surge we picked up?" Drake asked almost lightly as he began fiddling with his computer.

"Not a clue, nothing was out of the ordinary when I got to the location." Nightwing was leaning against the edge of the super computer with his arms folded in front of his chest. This was giving Terry a serious case of déjà vu.

… … No! No?! No. No… Slow-pulse it! "I'm Nightwing in this world!" Terry exclaimed in disbelief. It was bad enough he didn't get back to his Gotham, but he was in some weird Gotham where he was Nightwing… not even Batman.

"Excuse me?!" Nightwing was up and already taking offense. "Do you wanna say that again, dreg?"

"McGinnis," Drake warned in an exasperated tone, which made both Terry and his Nightwing-self look over at the old man.

Drake had turned the chair to face both of them. "Nightwing, that boy wearing a version of my suit is you from another dimension."

"The hell he is!" Nightwing exclaimed as he gestured to Terry. "He looks nothing like me!"

Well, that would explain why this him wasn't freaking out about there being two of him, though why would they look different.

"You," Drake turned his head to look at Terry who just raised an eyebrow in response, "What is your name and who were you named after?"

"Terrance, and I was named after my grandfather on my mom's side." Nightwing stared at Terry with his mouth open before he pulled off his mask slowly. The first thing to greet Terry was a shock of red hair. Red…

"How the hell do you have red hair?"

"I was going to ask how you had black hair with both our parents being red-heads," Nightwing snapped back with his arms folded over his chest. "Or is that different in your dimension too?"

Terry tilted his head back and shook his head. "This is so weird…" He didn't even want to think about what the other him had said; after all, that would mean that…that… nope! He wasn't going there. There were already too many things to be thinking about tonight.

Terry turned to Drake, "So you're the Bat here? Where's Bruce? And why'd him go check out the pluse?" He pointed to his Nightwing-self as he asked the last question.

Drake shifted slightly. "I am on bedrest," he managed awkwardly, and Nightwing-Terry through the man a chastising look.

"What about Bruce?" Terry asked slowly, and Drake's expression became closed off as he looked to the side.

"He died a long time ago now…" Terry barely caught the words, but he hoped he had heard wrong.

"What?" Bruce was dead in this world… no… Terry stumbled back slightly and hit an exam table. He set his hands on it to steady himself. "No…" Terry shook his head. There was no grumpy Bruce to order him around and tell him how he should be doing his job…no Bruce at all…

Drake just nodded. "Nightwing took over the mantel and when I was old enough, I assumed the role of Nightwing." Drake walked toward the line of suits. Terry could see now there were two versions of the old Batman suit and two versions of the Nightwing suit.

Drake stopped walking at the second Batman suit and rested his hand there. "The Joker knew one of the 'bird-boys' had taken over…" Drake shook his head and Terry could hear Drake's pain in each word. Drake looked back over at Terry, "He riddled Dick with bullet-holes, but…" Drake frowned in disgust, "Dick finally rid the world of the Joker."

Nightwing-Terry was scowling too, "The crazy clown died saying how a side-kick got him in the end."

Terry gripped the metal table tightly behind him. He knew what it meant if he…if any of them killed; it was the end. But it seemed the end had already come for the first Nightwing, this Dick-guy.

"I was barely into my twenties and all of a sudden," Drake was saying while shaking his head, "I had to be Batman."

"And you ran away," Nightwing-Terry shot back, which made Dick turn to glare at him.

"Only for ten years, and by then I had secured my place as Bruce Wayne's heir, and was running my own department at Wayne Industries," Terry could tell this was a long-standing argument between Nightwing-Terry and Drake. The biggest give away of this was Nightwing-Terry's eye roll.

"More importantly," Drake pressed on, while glaring at Nightwing-Terry, "I had made the suit you have a copy of."

Terry just nodded his head slowly. This was all so much to take in. "I don't know what happened to Nightwing in my world, but you killed the Joker after…." Terry shook his head and closed his eyes. Bruce was dead, and Drake of all people was Batman; it was unreal to him.

"What happened, why would I…" Drake crossed most of the room before his words faltered. He had a wide-eyed look that said he needed to know the truth.

Terry flinched and looked away. He shouldn't have said anything, but it was so good to finally speak to someone since he was clearly not in the past.

"If I could kill him in one dimension, then I could be capable of doing the same to others," Drake reasoned softly. "If that is the case then I am unworthy of this—"

"NO!" Nightwing-Terry shouted and Terry felt his own stomach drop. "Just tell him," Nightwing-Terry urged Terry.

Closing his eyes, Terry took a deep breath, "Harley kidnapped you when you were still Robin, and the Joker…he tortured you for-for weeks." Terry's mouth was suddenly dry, "He exposed you to some toxin that made you look like him and he implanted this chip with his DNA so that some-day…in the future…" Terry peeked over at Drake and tried to gauge how the man was doing. He was pale but he could tell the man still wanted to know the truth. "So that there would be a Joker in the future."

"Me…" Drake whispered as he stumbled back to find something to lean against. "He succeeded," Drake deduced, "and you fought me." He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"This is so weird," Nightwing-Terry murmured.

"You're telling me," Terry agreed. "I can't imagine him being in the Batcave without freaking out, or me being down here without the old man barking orders." Drake sent Terry a fond, understanding smile at the last part, but Nightwing-Terry laughed.

"We got one of those, black-haired me," Nightwing-Terry stated dryly as he cast a look over at Drake. … Wait, what did just—

"Let's not get into it again," Drake intervened as he got up and moved toward the super computer. Terry imagined the man was still processing things, but he was quickly moving on. "We need to get a Batman home to his own Gotham."

"Yeah, that would be great," Terry laughed slightly as he rubbed the back of his head. Terry headed over to the super-computer with his redhead-self—still way too weird to be true.

They both stood behind Drake with their arms crossed over their chest, and while Drake began doing calculations, Terry turned to Nightwing-Terry.

"So how did you become Nightwing?" Terry asked casually.

"How did you become Batman?" the redhead shot back. They glared at each other for a long moment. The redhead had brown eyes, but they had the same cheeks and eye shape, which Terry knew he got from his mother. There were other things that said they were the same person…somehow, but there were also a lot of differences.

Their staring match ended with huffs as they looked away; their eyes stinging too much to continue the glaring match without starting to cry. Only Bruce had ever out bat-glared Terry before, but he was evenly matched against his alternate dimension self.

Terry sighed though and caved. He was curious if the circumstances were the same or different. "My dad worked for Wayne-Powers when a coworker gave him a disc before disappearing." The redhead's eyes winded in recognition and Terry began to furrow his brow in alarm.

"I got in a fight with my dad that same night and when I came back…" he was eyeing the other him with the same wary look the redhead was giving him.

"He was dead," Nightwing-Terry finished.

"On the disc were plans for chemical warfare," Terry pressed on and the other him nodded his head.

"And you went to the only person you know might do something because you learned who was Batman the night your father died," redheaded Terry stated, and Terry nodded his head emphatically.

"Yeah, I pissed off an abnormally large gang of Jokers, and Bruce helped me take care of them before his heart problems began acting up."

Nightwing-Terry looked pointedly over at Drake who had stopped typing, likely in surprise, before hitting the keys with more force than necessary. Terry sent the other him a questioning look while tilting his head toward Drake, and the other him nodded.

Nightwing-Terry then mouthed "Years of crime-fighting" before gesturing to where his heart was. Terry just nodded his head before proceeding with the story.

"I stole this suit," and went to take care of business.

"I went and tried to take care of business myself after Powers tried to off me, and…" he looked over at Drake who just shook his head.

"He saved you from getting too in over your head?" Terry guessed, and the other him frowned before nodding his head.

"Anyways, I created my first super-villain that night," Terry stated with a shrug. The other Terry nodded his head.

"Powers was exposed to his own gas," Nightwing-Terry stated, "and became Noxious"

"Blight." Both of them paused and looked at each other in confusion. Terry tried to correct it, "He became radioactive from treatment for the nerve gas."

"No…" redheaded Terry began slowly, "He became poisonous to the touch from the treatment, like the gas he created."

Well, that was a difference in their story at least.

"Weird," they both muttered, which only made Drake groan in annoyance.

"Will you two shut up; we have work to do."

"Yes Mr. D!" they responded curtly before flashing each other a smile. Oh this was going to be fun! They were basically the same person, even if they looked almost nothing alike.

Drake just looked heavenward and shook his head.

TBC

A/n:
I know it's a bit unrealistic that they would act exactly the same, but I'm going with nurture versus nature.