Terry stands before the front entrance of his apartment building and looks upward. The sky was clear an hour ago, but now clouds are gathering, and the wind that comes with them – the kind that blows for a few seconds, dies down again, then starts up again – warns that there will soon be rain. I should go inside, he thinks to himself. But he can't seem to make his feet move, force himself to enter the building, go upstairs to the apartment, and face his mother. The passing of time, as he feared, has changed resolve into indecision.
Part of him understands that if he keeps hiding Batman from his mother, she won't understand his refusal to do what she thinks is best for him. She'll be hurt, and it will drive a wedge between them. He lost his father a year ago, and he lost Dana because he couldn't tell her why he had to keep running out on her for his job. He doesn't want to lose his mother. Even if he still lives in the same apartment with her, sees her every day, she'll be lost to him. If she isn't already.
The other part of him says that he can't tell her. He can't do what she says and take a different job, but he can't tell her why either. She may hate him for it – as much as a mother can hate her son, anyway – but as long as she doesn't know, she'll be safe. She won't have to bear the burden of the secret. Whatever pain it might cause her, and Terry, if he keeps it from her, it's better than what might happen if she knows, if she lets it slip.
Maybe I shouldn't go at all. Just stay out until I have to suit up. Even though he knows it's going to make things worse, not better, in the long run, he's seriously considering the idea.
A rumble of thunder from the clouds above, and a few raindrops falling shortly afterward, decide him at last. He goes up to the door, opens it with his keycard, and starts heading up the stairs. Inside he wants to pause and collect himself, try to figure out how he's going to say what he has to say, but he's afraid that if he stops moving he'll freeze again. He has to keep up the momentum, let it carry him through.
When he opens the door, his heart starts pounding and he begins to feel light-headed. It's like his physical sensations are picking up where they left off this morning. This is ridiculous. I can face dangerous criminals and homicidal mutants, but not my own mother. It's almost funny. Almost. Outside he hears a boom of thunder.
His mom's sitting on the couch, reading a novel. She's facing away from him, and since he came in quietly she doesn't know he's there. Terry can't see or hear any sign of his little brother – which means he's out of the house. If he were in here, it wouldn't be this quiet. At least this means he won't have to worry about Matt overhearing him.
He walks up to the couch. "Hi, Mom."
She jumps a little – he must have surprised her – and turns around to look at him. "Oh! You're home early," she says. It's painfully obvious to him that she's trying to act like this morning never happened. A new sound starts, the sound of driving rain on the windowpanes. There's a flash of lighting outside, and then a loud noise from the clouds above, one that sounds like a house falling down.
"Well, Mr. Wayne had to go to Japan over the whole embezzlement thing – did you see that on the news?" His mother nods. "So I won't have much to do for the next few days." He looks around. "Is Matt home?" It seems he isn't, but better safe than sorry.
His mother shakes her head. "No, he's sleeping over at a friend's house tonight."
"Okay..um…" Terry tries to think of a good way to break the news to her. But, he realizes, there is no good way to announce something like this. He goes around the couch and sits down next to his mother. "Mom…about this morning…"
She puts her book on the coffee table and looks at him attentively, but doesn't say anything.
Terry takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry I ran off, it's just that…well, I kind of panicked when you said you wanted me to quit working for Mr. Wayne. I know why you're worried about me, but…it's not that simple." Maybe, instead of just saying it, he should tell her the whole story from the beginning – from the fight with the Jokerz that led him to Wayne Manor, and the truth about why Warren McGinnis was killed. Then she might understand why it meant so much to him.
He's just worked this out when his mother swings a wrecking ball into it. "I know," she says quietly, looking down at her feet. "Because you're not Mr. Wayne's assistant. You're Batman."
If Terry hadn't been sitting down, he would have fallen over. He tries desperately to recapture his scattered thoughts, which are racing all over like frightened rabbits. A bright flash of lighting, with an almost simultaneous crack of thunder, strikes a blow on his already shattered nerves. "How…when did…why…" That's all he manages to choke out before the capacity for speech deserts him completely.
His mother looks up again. "I figured it out a while ago. Honestly, Terry, did you think you could keep it from me forever?" For some reason the idea seems amusing to her, in a sad kind of way. "I'm your mother, for God's sake." She's right. He should have known that she'd eventually put two and two together. "You even told me before.* I thought you were just joking – but later on, it started to make sense. More sense than anything else I could come up with." She looks carefully at him. He must look absolutely terrified, because she smiles reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone. About you or Mr. Wayne."
Terry finally pulls himself together enough to say something coherent. "But…if you know about that, why didn't you say so?"
She lowers her eyes again. "I didn't say anything because I knew you were keeping it from me for my own safety. And I thought that maybe I could convince you to give it up without letting you know that I'd figured out what you were doing." Then she sighs. "I should have known it wouldn't work."
Now Terry's starting to calm down. He's still panicked, but at least now he's not overcome by shock. "Mom, I can't quit. I just can't." There's another flash-and-boom, but he hardly notices it.
She looks up at him. The sight of tears in her eyes feels to Terry like a punch in the gut. "You can, now that there's someone else here. There's no need for you to be Batman anymore."
He tries to speak calmly. "But we don't know how long Kitsune's going to stay here. And I'm not sure I can trust her." His mother lifts a hand to her eyes to wipe the tears from them. Terry takes her other hand in his own. "Even if she isn't a problem, I can't just give it up."
"You have to!" she says forcefully. "Now that I know about it I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid that you won't come back the next morning. You're…you're going to get yourself killed." She breaks down into sobs, no longer trying to hold back her tears, and puts her arms around him protectively.
Terry hugs her back, since he doesn't know what else to do. This, he realizes, is what he was afraid of – that telling his mother the truth would mean putting her through this. Shame twists his insides as he remembers how he hurt his mother years ago when he was arrested for breaking into a house with his gang. He'd promised himself, after he got out, that he'd never hurt her that way again. But he's breaking his promise now, and the real irony is that what he's doing now is his way of making up for past sins.
More lightning and thunder outside. Terry thinks, with wry humor, that the weather outside is a perfect metaphor for his life as it is right now.
"Mom, I know why you're worried," he says softly. "It's dangerous. But I need to do it." She pulls away from him, and he puts his hands on her shoulders. "Listen, maybe it would help if I told you how the whole thing started. Then you'll know why…"
Much to Terry's relief, his mother nods. She's willing to hear him out. "All right," she agrees, "But I need to get a tissue first."
~***~
"…so I thought that was it. But then Mr. Wayne turned up here offering me a job and…well, the rest is history." He realizes that the rain outside has stopped, and the clouds are moving away. The storm must have ended some time during his story, but he can't recall when.
His mother looks down at the couch cushions between them. "I still don't know if I can agree with it," she says gravely. "At least now, I understand it." Then she looked back up at him. "Does anyone else know?"
"Max does. She figured it out on her own." He looked down at his feet. "Dana doesn't. We…broke up a couple of days ago because she wasn't happy about how much time I was taking for my job, and I didn't think I could tell her why." Terry looks at his mother, in whose eyes he sees a mix of sympathy and a little – it irks him somewhat – pity. "I had to make a choice. And when I really thought about it…" He trails off.
His mother puts her arm around his shoulders. "It really means that much to you?"
Terry nods. He and his mother just sit in silence for a few moments. Then he notices the time on the wall clock. It's eight forty-five – almost time to go.
He turns to his mother. "Mom, I know Mr. Wayne's not around, but I still…"
She nods resignedly. "I know. Just be careful out there." Terry stands up. "Hold on," she says. He looks at her. "We're going to have to talk about this later."
"Yeah," Terry agrees, "I guess we should. I'll see you tomorrow…" He realizes how stupid that sounds, when his mother is worrying that he might not live to come home.
But she smiles at him. "All right. Go ahead."
Terry grins at her. He realizes that, now that it's over with, the whole thing wasn't as much of a disaster as he'd thought it would be. After waving to his mother, he leaves the apartment and heads up the stairs to the building's roof. It's more tiring than using the elevator, but he doesn't want people living in the building to get suspicious when they see that he makes almost nightly trips to the top floor.
Once he gets to the topmost landing, he checks to make sure there's nobody around. Then he opens his backpack, which contains the Batsuit, and quickly changes into it. He puts his street clothes in the backpack and puts it on top of a large pipe that runs up near the ceiling. Then he turns on his camo, opens the door to the roof and steps into the rain-smelling air outside. The sun has already set, the lights of the city are on and the moon is rising in the sky.
At the back of his mind, Terry is relieved that the conversation with his mother turned out the way it did. But most of his awareness is filled with anticipation, as it almost always is when he puts on the suit. No matter how much being Batman may disrupt his life, or how many bad situations he's been in because of it, he can't help but look forward to it. He feels stronger, more competent, and more sure of himself as Batman than he does as Terry McGinnis. It's the ultimate power trip, the ultimate thrill. It's one of the reasons why he will never be able to give it up.
He walks up to the edge of the roof and looks out over the city for a few moments, then leaps off the roof in a dive, free-falling for a few seconds before he snaps open his wings and swoops upward. When he's far away enough from his apartment building, he switches off his camo. Then he looks around for another rooftop to land on. He tries to pick one at random every night, so that if anybody's watching they won't know that he regularly comes out of one particular building. Once he finds a good one, he lands and taps another button on his belt. Then he waits – the Batmobile, on autopilot, will be here in a few minutes. And then the real work – and the fun – will begin.
* Yes he did, in the episode Sneak Peek. For those of you who haven't seen it, an "investigative reporter" named Ian Peek attached a small camera to the Batmobile. The camera got pictures of the Batcave, Bruce Wayne, and Terry with his mask off. The reporter was going to reveal Batman's secret identity on his show, The Inside Peek. In the preview for the episode (the Inside Peek episode, not the Batman Beyond episode), he showed a picture of Terry with his face blurred out. Terry's mother and brother were watching the preview and they were about to watch the show. Since Terry decided that it would be better for his family to hear it from him before they heard it on television, he broke the news to them. They didn't believe him – in fact, they thought it was a joke and they had a good laugh over it. Fortunately, that particular episode of The Inside Peek never aired, for reasons I will not explain here. You'll have to watch it yourself.