It hasn't been a good night for Batman. Which means that it hasn't been a good night for Terry McGinnis, either.
There are times when he thinks about how these two personalities, the vigilante and the high school kid, interact with each other. When he'd first started this, he'd thought that he could control that interaction, the passage of emotions from one to the other. Now he knows better. The relationship between hero and not-so-mild-mannered alter ego turned out to be nothing like he'd expected, a lot more complicated and unequal than he'd been prepared to deal with.
For instance, when Terry McGinnis has a problem – which is often – his feelings about it usually don't do much to Batman, even if they are because of Batman. He's able to put those concerns aside, keep them at arm's length from himself, while he does what has to be done.
But when Batman has a problem, it hits Terry McGinnis just as hard, like it's doing now. Even when it's solely Batman's problem, when it doesn't have to do with Terry's friends or family or keeping his secret from them, it's still his problem. He'd known almost from the beginning that Batman comes first and Terry McGinnis second, but it had taken him longer to figure out that the arrangement applied in his own head as well as in the outside world.
As he eases the Batmobile to a gentle touchdown, he sees Mr. Wayne get up from the chair in front of the computer and start walking towards him. Ace, who as usual has been lying beside the chair, lifts his head to regard his master curiously; then he gets to his feet, shakes himself, and follows behind him at a steady trot.
This is pretty unusual. Wayne only gets up to meet Terry when there's something really serious going on. Terry's never thought badly of him for it. At first he thought that, heck, the man is old and he has trouble getting around. When he got to know Mr. Wayne better, he came up with another explanation that now seems a lot more plausible: the old man doesn't get to his feet for Terry because he is telling him, in his subtle way, that he is the boss. The fact that he's not following the usual routine now is a pretty major thing. Terry actually feels touched, because he knows that this gesture from his employer is like a dramatic outpouring of sympathy from someone else. But he feels embarrassed, too, because it means that Wayne is trying to comfort him.
Terry presses a button and the canopy of the Batmobile lifts and slides open, allowing him to unbuckle the restraints, climb out and drop to the ground as Wayne and Ace reach the landing pad. As the Batmobile's canopy slides back into place, Terry straightens up, lifts his hand to the mask and takes hold of it at his neck. The microscopic systems inside the mask, sensing his intentions, detach the mask from the rest of the suit, making them into separate pieces where once they were fused. The material of the mask, which had fitted itself to his face like a second skin when he put it on, slackens so that he can pull it off. He knows, in an abstract sort of way, that on the invisible level of the circuits and nanomachines inside the suit this is a big and complex process, but to him it feels just like pulling off a ski mask. Except for his eyes and ears, because once the equipment in the mask is no longer between his senses and the rest of the world, when it's suddenly stopped enhancing his hearing, stopped filtering the light so that he won't be blinded by brightness or darkness, it's always a little like getting hit with a bucket of cold water. It takes him a moment to adjust.
But more than that, pulling off the mask puts Batman in the back of his mind and puts Terry McGinnis in the front. His brain closes one program and starts another. Well, not really. He's constantly running both programs at once, and switches back and forth between them depending on the circumstances. Usually the mask's presence or lack of it maximizes one of them and minimizes the other, but like everything else in Terry's life it's not all that clear-cut. As often as not, or more often than not, there are exceptions.
Mr. Wayne is standing a few meters away from the Batmobile. He's got his cane, but he doesn't look like he's leaning on it. Terry's still not sure whether he's trying to look like he doesn't need it, or just using it to project the illusion of frailty. Max and Terry have an ongoing debate about this subject. Ace, standing a little behind and to the side of his master, is watching Terry with what looks like a concerned expression.
"How are you doing? Are you okay?" Wayne asks. Neither his face nor his tone of voice indicates that these are any more than casual questions, but they're questions that he rarely ever asks. Ace, sensing something amiss, perks his ears and cocks his head to one side.
Terry doesn't know how to respond. Half of him doesn't feel anything, but the other half is on the verge of breaking down in despair. So he settles for a compromise and shrugs. "I don't know." Ace slips around Mr. Wayne and comes up to Terry, making a soft whine. Terry absentmindedly reaches out a hand to scratch him behind the ears.
Mr. Wayne looks at him carefully, obviously trying to figure out what to say next. They both know that he isn't very good at this sort of thing. "It wasn't your fault, Terry. There's nothing you could have done."
"I know," Terry says softly. He looks down at Ace, then pulls his hand away from the dog's head and turns to Mr. Wayne again. "But that doesn't help."
There is a moment of tense silence between them. Wayne turns around, indicating with the slightest flick of his eyes that Terry should follow him. Terry walks a few paces behind him, back to the computer, as Ace jogs ahead of both of them and returns to his place by the chair. On the way to the computer terminal, Terry takes a short detour so that he can grab the stool that's sitting off to the side. He knows that Wayne is going to have a Discussion with him, whether he likes it or not, so he might as well sit down for it.
When they've got the seating arrangements down, with Terry perched on his stool and Bruce Wayne in his chair and Ace lying on the floor as usual (but keeping an ear perked up out of curiosity), the older man restarts the conversation by speaking first. "Did you know her?"
Terry shakes his head. "No. I don't think I'd ever seen her before. She was probably…I don't know, thirteen or fourteen years old. Not in my school." He's surprised by the flatness of the words coming out of his mouth. With a sigh, he puts his hands up to his face and drags them downward, stretching the skin. "Maybe I should have stayed at the hospital until…" He trails off as he sees Mr. Wayne shake his head.
"I know you wanted to. But that would have caused problems." His brow furrows. "If I hadn't told you to leave, would you have stayed?"
Slag it, I hate it when he asks me questions like that. "Probably not," he answers. And it's the truth. He took the kid to the hospital, but he knew when he got there and gave her over to the doctors that he couldn't stay. It wouldn't have helped, anyway. Some incredibly stupid and optimistic part of him is hoping that she'll recover, but the rest of him knows better. All that blood. If she wasn't dead by the time he got her to the hospital, she had died shortly afterwards. For some reason he resents that the suit pushes most foreign particles out of its fibers, whether they are solid or liquid, that the only trace of red on it is the bright bat design in the front. Somehow, he thinks, it would be better if it were stained with dark crimson. Even if not a single cell of it remains in the fabric, he will never forget the feeling of that girl's blood soaking the suit. The fact that it was repelled before it could dry there seems utterly wrong to him.
"Well, the man who did it has been caught. He'll get the punishment he deserves." There is an awkward pause. "It's his fault. Not yours."
Terry's feeling of cool detachment, the barrier between emotion and expression, suddenly evaporates as reality slams down on him. He puts his head in his hands, because he's not sure he can keep himself from crying. "Does it ever get any easier?" he asks, his voice shaking. But he knows what the answer will be, even before the question is all the way out.
He can't see Mr. Wayne, since he's covering his face. In his mind's eye, though, he can see Wayne looking at him, his face set but his eyes tired and sad. "No, it doesn't," he answers.
Although he hears Wayne get up from his chair and step closer to him, Terry doesn't quite process the sounds, so he's startled when he feels his mentor put a hand on his shoulder. Terry drops his own hands away from his face and looks up. The look in Wayne's eyes speaks volumes. I know how it feels. It may be inevitable, but it's impossible to accept. I'm sorry.
But he doesn't say any of these things aloud. "Go home, Terry," he says gently. "Get some rest. You've done enough for tonight."