After the JLU
By Marns AKA Bumpkin
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing, get nothing, can only dream…
Summary: Terry and Max talk after Terry gets back from his adventures with the JLU.
"So Ter, how was the trip?" The sultry voice of Terry's best friend Max had never sounded so sweet. After the week he'd just been through, she was the perfect amount of normal.
Having a friend in the know about his double life, yet not actually a part of it was priceless at times. This being a prime example of one of those times. He really needed to talk to someone impartial about his week.
"Max, my dear girl, you have no idea how much I wanted for you to ask me that." He said as he grabbed her arm and dragged her unresisting form off to a secluded section of the quad.
"Oooh, this promises to be good! I mean you know that I was watching on the vidscreen, and I caught some of what was going on. But somehow I think that there was a lot that us peons weren't privy to. Besides, getting your gossip on you tights-wearing types that way just doesn't cut it after being hooked into a direct line, and for some reason I didn't think that Wayne would look to kindly on me dropping in on him for updates." She made a telling face and Terry smirked so Max slugged him in the arm.
"Ow! What was that for?" He asked in a wounded tone as he rubbed his arm, feigning like he was hurt.
"Because I know that Watchtower thingie that you were staying at had to have some type of telephone technology. You coulda called me ya jerk!"
"Max I wasn't on a lark y'know. Sheesh. The only one there that supposedly knew who I was under the suit was Superman. I couldn't very well keep my identity from the rest of them if I was calling you every night to give you the lowdown - nevermind how unprofessional that would've been. I was supposed to be there on a mission."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah - too bad you're not this glib with the excuses when you-know-who has to make an appearance."
Terry didn't reply - he just threw his bright-haired friend what she called the 'Bat-look'. She shut up. She wasn't top of the class and going to be the valedictorian for nothing. She knew that if she kept giving Terry such a hard time that he just might not tell her anything - leaving her with the worst thing imaginable - an unsatisfied curiosity. There was no way that she wanted that to happen, and it wouldn't, not if she handled things right from here on in.
"Soo…" she prompted her dark-haired and grumpy friend as she plastered on her best imitation of an innocent face. She even fluttered her wide, dark eyes slowly a couple of times for good measure.
Terry seeing it couldn't help himself, he laughed. Anyone who knew Maxine Gibson at all wouldn't be fooled for an instant by that look and Terry had the dubious pleasure of knowing her pretty well. Plus it just looked wrong on her face, like a tutu would on a hirsute body builder. He shuddered at the mental image he had conjured for himself. Ugh.
He could see that she was struggling with the temptation of smacking him again for laughing at her imploring look, but trying hard not to because she wanted to hear his story. He decided that he should put her out of her misery, at least somewhat, and said just as the warning bell went off letting the students know that lunchtime was over,
"Listen, unless we are going to skiv off the afternoon there's too much to get into now. How about I give you a lift home in Wayne's car after school and I'll tell you everything before I have to go out on patrol tonight?"
Max looked at him thoughtfully for a moment and then grinned. "Sounds good to me McGinnis, you wanna catch dinner with me too?"
"I was hoping that you would offer, seeing as I've already told my mom that I was having dinner at your place tonight." He said with a cocky grin. Max didn't resist the temptation this time; she smacked him again in the same place, hard.
"Ow!" Terry glared.
"Serves you right!" Max yelled as she ran towards the nearest doors. She stuck her tongue out too for good measure. "Now go on you and get to class. Hopefully you'll stay awake long enough to learn something!"
Terry couldn't help but smile - after his friend had disappeared inside - she didn't need to know how much her antics amused him.
####
Terry made his way out to the parking lot behind the school to find Max already waiting for him. She was leaning nonchalantly up against the classy coupe that Wayne regularly had Terry drive for errands, uncaring of any damage that she might do to the finish.
"What took you so long McGinnis?" she asked as he unlocked the door for her.
"Got called in to the office after school to collect my new set of extra credit assignments and hand in the old ones. Thanks to your tutoring me I'm not flunking out anymore even if I still do fall asleep in most of my classes, but if I want to go to college I really have to get some extra stuff in. Hence the extra credit assignments."
"College? Schway. You're certainly smart enough to go." Was all Max said.
Terry looked over at her, astonished. "You're not surprised that I'm going? You think I'm smart enough?"
"Well sure Ter, jeez, you were just bored to tears in school and never could see how to make things more interesting like I did. What? You didn't think you were?" Max asked, and then she smiled. "Terry, think of all the stuff that you figure out on a regular basis when you are in the suit. Now how can you tell me a guy that can think that fast on his feet is dumb - in any way?"
Terry was blushing and fumbling for words. He wasn't used to people believing in him. "Well, um… I guess that I never really thought about it that way."
Max just grinned wider. Then she said, "We're home James."
"Huh?" Terry looked up with shock. They were at Max's; he had driven them the whole way there on autopilot. "Oh, umm - okay. Shall we go in?"
Max just laughed again and got out of the car saying, "Come on McGinnis!" He was so adorable when he was clueless. Terry followed her up to her apartment at a slightly slower pace, obviously still more than a bit bemused.
When they had finally gotten inside and Max had made sure that her sister wasn't expected home, she steered Terry to the couch and sat him down so that he was facing the other end. Then she sat down beside him, facing him looking expectant, and said, "Okay, spill it!"
Terry laughed. Max raised a pillow and threatened him with it, "I'm warning you McGinnis. You already made me wait all afternoon - no all week, and I want details now!"
Terry laughed again as he raised his arms as if to fend off the vicious pillow attack "Okay, okay! I'll tell!" He lowered his arms as Max tucked the pillow that she had been threatening him with into her lap and leaned into it. Her whole body was posed in a receptive posture.
"Where do I start? Well, as I told you before I left, Superman came to Gotham and asked Wayne for me to join the Justice League. Bruce didn't seem too keen on the idea, but he left the decision to me, which was pretty schway of the old man. I, of course decided to go. I mean I was being asked to join the Justice League - like I'm gonna pass that up."
Max nodded, it was a definite no-brainer and Terry continued.
"Here's where it gets more interesting - seems that big boy blue hadn't consulted with the rest of the League before inviting me to join, and they weren't what you would call happy with his presumption. Needless to say, my reception was a tad on the arctic side. Oh, and Supes had another secret, an ulterior motive for wanting me to join that he didn't mention until we got there. He thought that Micron's accident hadn't been an accident per se. He thought that it'd been sabotage and that one of the other Justice Leaguers was behind it - a traitor in the ranks. He wanted me there to be his impartial little spy."
Max winced, "Dang, I bet that made you real popular with the others."
Terry snorted, "That's pretty much what I said, word for word, but thankfully for me he had kept that part of his plan to himself as well."
"Glad to see that there's some guile in that overgrown boy-scout." Max said sardonically. Terry just snorted again.
"Yeah well, I found out soon enough that someone was trying to take out the other League members. I hadn't even been there for a full day when I had to stop Aqua-girl from getting boiled alive in her practice tank."
Max gasped and Terry made a face.
"Too bad that when I saved her I ticked off two of the other heroes, Barda and Warhawk." Seeing Max make an indignant face, Terry explained. "No, it would have ticked me off too - I just wasn't used to working with anyone and I wasn't really up on the tech available to me at the Watchtower. I could have called for help on the intercom, but I didn't instead I just went and swiped Barda's mega-rod. Yeah, dumb move, I know. The woman can more than flatten me anytime she wanted but I was focused solely on getting Aqua-girl out of that tank before she died. I really wasn't too worried about the niceties at that point."
"Understood."
"Anyway, a couple of days later you probably caught the attack on Metropolis and the 'death' of Warhawk on the vids…" Max nodded.
"That was the turning point, when I came back here briefly to consult with Bruce - and fix the Batmobile - we went over the recording that the Batmobile had made. We found out that the missile that had supposedly killed Warhawk had been detonated by Superman."
"No Way!" Max's eyes went so wide that they nearly bugged out of her head.
"Yeah, it was pretty freaky - turns out that he was being mind controlled by this alien starfish thing and it wanted to take over the world. It had been controlling him for about four years. I went back to warn them the next day. We managed to figure out its plan, but before we could take care of business the rest of the League was attacked by more of the starfish things - offspring of the one controlling Superman. Only reason I managed to stay free was because of the electricity in the suit. I got out of the Fortress and managed to make it to the Batmobile that Bruce had kindly sent up to me, but Stuporman had followed and was chasing me and he wasn't about to let me get away. I could have ruined everything. He sliced one of my wings off with his heat vision and I crashed, but then I managed to get the drop on him. Caught him with my electric grapple, which let Superman get free of the starfish thing. It was sad Max - the man was like an amnesiac, he couldn't remember clearly any of the time that he had spent with that thing on him."
"Good lord Ter, you mixed it up with Big Blue and you're still breathing? Wow. I'm impressed."
"Well in his defense, he really wasn't himself at the time, and I really didn't fight him, I just shocked the thing on him so that he was able to get rid of it himself."
Max nodded, conceding her friend's point, but still secretly she was impressed. She thought even if he made it out like he didn't really do anything, the fact that he stood up to someone as powerful as the legendary man of steel and came out the better - Bat-suit and gadgets notwithstanding - it was pretty awesome. Then she thought of something, "Wait, he had no memory of any of the time that he was under the mind control of that thing? You said that Superman was the only one there who supposedly knew who you were, right?"
"Right."
"Wow, schway! Okay, so what happened next? You and Superman were out in the cold, but free mentally and the rest of the League was still down in the Fortress, all warm but stuck doing the starfish bidding - and then…" Max was almost bouncing in place she was so hyped.
Terry laughed at her antics and continued, "Okay, calm your jets girlfriend! I had to fill Superman in on everything that we had learned while he flew us back to the fortress. Thankfully his hearing was good enough to hear Bruce talking through the cowl, so my being the new Batman was confirmed to the guy as well as his visit. Plus Bruce had recorded most of the conversations that I had with Superman and the other Leaguers, so he was treated to some of those as well. I really didn't care for the déjà vu feeling of listening to those, let me tell you."
Max wrinkled her nose. She hated the way her voice sounded on recordings too.
"Exactly. Anyway, the three of us made up a plan of approach, one that would let us get close enough to engage the others and hopefully free them too. It worked pretty much perfectly, oddly enough, except that Aqua-girl got away from us and started to open the tank that held all the babies."
"Oh no!"
"I followed her and managed to stop her from opening the door too far, but fighting her in the water, not schway. That is one very tough lady in her element. Plus there were all those falling rocks." At Max's enquiring look he explained. "Oh, Superman and Barda had to try and block the part of the door that was open. Those things couldn't be allowed out."
"But they could have killed you! And Aqua-girl!" Max protested aghast.
"I knew the risks Max, I face them every time I go out. This was just a bigger scale, world instead of city. Same goes for Aqua-girl, she called it an occupational hazard." He grinned wryly.
Max thwaped him with the pillow she had been curled around, gently though. She shook her head at her friend's increasingly strange sense of humour. There were times that she thought being Batman was seriously warping him.
"Alright, I guess that you survived so my worry is misplaced. Go on."
"Okay. Well, Green Lantern used his ring to make this really big tank to gather them all up and then Aqua-girl used Barda's mother-box to boom them back to their home planet, a location which she had gotten from the first one's mind. Don't ask me to explain any of that, it still confuses me too. At any rate when we got back I got a bunch of apologies, praise and another invite to join the League. This time it was a unanimous, they all wanted me." Terry's face was sourer than it should be when he was imparting such good news.
"Wow, that is so schway! So are you going to do it?" Max paused, really taking in the look on her friend's face. "No, I guess not. Not when you were talking about college earlier."
"No, I turned them down. I'll be a part timer like Bruce was, but that is about it and only if they ever really need me."
"Why?"
"For one thing, I had to nearly die to get their approval. That kinda sucked and for another - well let's just say I wasn't too keen on their attitudes."
"Their attitudes?"
Terry made a disgusted face at Max. "They were rude, beyond rude really. Bruce can hear everything over the cowl, and they were insulting him. I thought that it was very un-schway of them. They said that if I joined full time that I would have one up on the old Batman and that he had never been what you would call a joiner."
Max giggled, "Oh lord Ter, not much of a joiner - they could have been describing you!"
Terry stuck his tongue out at her. "Zip it, wouldja! Anyway, it really sucked that they asked me when we were still up north there 'cause my stalking away after refusing their offer was kinda blasted when I remembered that the Batmobile was still in pieces thanks to Supes when he was OUI. I had to ask for a lift for me and the pieces of the Batmobile back here to Gotham."
Max's giggles changed into full-scale belly laughs and she nearly fell off the couch. "Oooh, oh man - I bet you felt like such a twip!"
Terry wrestled the pillow out from behind his back and started to playfully beat her with it. "Keep laughing, or don't you want to hear the rest?" Max held up her hands in the universal surrender gesture. Terry let up and sat back again.
"So how did you get home?"
"Superman flew me, Bruce decided that he should seeing as he already knew where the cave was and that he was going to bring the two parts of the Batmobile after dropping me off. This last bit is kinda funny though - I had forgotten that Superman didn't know who I was and so when he dropped me off I told Bruce to go to bed and that I would wait for Superman to drop off the Batmobile pieces. He told me to mind my own business, but he did go and grab something to eat leaving me alone in the cave. I in the meantime got back into my civvies - the suit needed a bit of work after being lived in for nearly a week - and that is when Superman came back with the two parts of the Batmobile. To see me hunched over the suit repairing it and Bruce nowhere to be seen. He demanded to know who the hell I was. Let me see if I can recall his exact words, oh yes - 'Who in the hell are you kid? And where is Batman or Br..?'"
"No way! Real quick on the uptake isn't he?" Max said sardonically, shaking her head.
"I know, he almost blew Bruce's identity if I hadn't already known it." Terry rolled his eyes.
"Well, what did you say to him?" Max demanded.
Terry grinned. "I just looked at him blankly for a bit, and then it hit me that he didn't remember who I was cause of the starfish memory loss. Then I pointed at the suit and said with just a touch of sarcasm, 'Who do you think?'"
Max fell off the couch again. "Priceless!" She howled.
Terry agreed, "Yeah, Bruce had been halfway down the stairs too when I said it and all we heard was his cane falling down the steps with Ace barking his fool head off. Turns out the dog was scared that something was the matter with Bruce. Poor dog had never seen the man laugh before. Max let me tell you, I've never seen the old man lose it like that, it was hilarious. His eyes were actually tearing he was laughing so hard!"
Max tried to get herself back under control, her tummy was starting to hurt. But Terry leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial manner, "Psst, and to let you in on a little bit of knowledge that you might not be able to find anywhere else… Kryptonians blush like crazy when they're embarrassed." And then he drew out a picture that was made from a still of one of the batcave surveillance cameras. It was a tight headshot of Superman, his black and white suit top visible and he was blushing five different shades of red. Max pealed with laughter.
"Too bad he still doesn't wear the red and blue suit eh? That way he could have matched his old cape." Terry said.
He obviously wasn't in awe of the man anymore, or the rest of the JLU either for that matter. Max was glad, she hadn't wanted to lose her friend and now she knew that she wasn't going to. He wasn't going anywhere for a long time as far as she could tell, not with the plans that he was making.
"Oh Ter, I'm so glad you're back. I missed you." She said when she finally got her breath back.
He smiled at her surprisingly sweetly. "And I'm very glad to be home. I missed having people around that know me for who I am." He reached over and gave her a quick hug. "Now, what are we ordering? 'Cause there is no way that I am willing to risk your cooking again."
"Oh you…!" Max growled.
Laughing, he had to use his Bat reflexes to duck her attack as an infuriated Max threw the pillow at him a little less playfully than before. It was good to be home.
End