Just a short little something I threw together. Kind of a filler chapter I guess. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors and what not. Until next time MistFits!

The Ditch

Chapter Seven

Splinted

When Terry finally walked outside of the hospital room, his light face seemed somewhat paled and drawn, and his blue eyes dulled. McGinnis leaned against the wall beside the door and released a long and very overdue exhale, allowing his back to slide down the length of the wall until the boy squatted on the floor. He had thought hearing Max scream when attacked by Curare was nerve-wracking, but this came a close second behind her phone call torment by the clowns. Bruce hobbled out of the room next, a humbled frown wearing upon the creases in the old man's forehead. Wayne looked down to his apprentice before gripping the cane tighter and staring ahead at nothing in particular – he was good at that: appearing detached. "The girl's got moxie…"

Terry wiped his forehead and exhaled once again. "She's got something."

"Hmmm," hummed the former Dark Knight in agreement. Silence passed between them as the nurses gingerly crept outside and began to disburse after receiving soft thanks from the two males. "Will she-?" began Bruce as the final nurse exited from the room.

"She'll be fine," answered the young and sweetheart brunette with a comforting smile. "We got the splint on, she's lined up. Now she just needs to rest for a while and then if we still don't hear anything from the surgeon or if nothing changes during monitoring, we'll send her home."

Terry linked his fingers together and pressed them to his lips. "Will she…walk again?" Somewhere in his voice, was a low crack – a fear…a hate. Bruce raised a brow, strategically pondering whether that hate was for the clowns who did this – or worse. Wayne knew all about that feeling of guilt, anger, and the drive for revenge. He knew how the world seemed to shift once you'd let it consume you. He also knew that it never helped.

The nurse's smile faded a little as she looked to the young man before she dropped to his eye level and placed a hand on his shoulder. "She will. But it might take some time. Her ankle dislocation was worse than we thought." Terry nodded. He remembered the nurses getting the leg finally aligned and putting the ankle in place. Max's cries had subsided once they were "finished", but a couple seconds later she suddenly flinched and cried out, "IT'S OUT!" Sure enough everyone turned to her ankle and it had fallen right back out of place again. The nurse continued, "Her ankle is going to need surgery. We were hoping to just put it back in place and call it a day, but for it to respond like that only shows the damage is more severe than a simple dislocation. Everything in there is literally stretched to the point it can't hold."

Bruce rubbed his chin in thought. "What are we talking about here?"

The nurse rose back up to full height and shrugged. "I'm not the doctor, but in my opinion: I'd say she'll need metal to hold that leg together, and probably bolts in the ankle to force it in place as it heals on its own. The bolts in the ankle will come out…but the metal in the leg will probably have to stay forever." Forever? Terry stiffened at that and a shiver raced through his spine. Great, now the image of Max frozen with death had been momentarily replaced with a picture of Gibson hobbling about like a cripple. No more VRROOM, no more running, laughing – no more the Max he and everyone else loved. Everything she used to be able to do snatched right from under her…

The nurse cocked her head to the side somewhat. It was almost as if the young woman could feel the negativity swirling through the young man's thoughts; felt, and wanted to quell such things. "She will walk again," she assured the teen. "That girl is one tough cookie after all she's been through leading up to this point. She'll need a couple surgeries, months of physical therapy too – but Ms. Gibson will pull through. For now, let the drugs kick in and let her sleep. She needs it." With a final nod of the head, she took off down the hall, meeting up with remaining staff to head to their next patient.

Bruce watched her depart before once again staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. More silence overwhelmed them until finally the old man grunted, "I didn't think you'd show up at all."

Terry growled between gritted teeth. "I could say the same. What the hell are you doing here anyway, Bruce? And with Gordon, too?"

Wayne clenched his wrinkled fingers against the hook of his cane, almost as if the old man were debating whether or not he still had enough guile to knock Terry upside the head with it. At the very least Wayne was heavily resisting the urge to. It wouldn't be the first time – for resisting or doing. For now, however, Wayne wouldn't give power to the teen's smart mouth; after all, he was pretty sure the hospital beds were still pretty filled up – there wouldn't be any room for McGinnis. Oh well, Wayne could always find a training exercise to give Terrence as payback. "Whether you've realized it or not," cut the senior, "I may not approve of Max's involvement in our…lifestyle-."

"Know it all too well," scoffed the teen.

Wayne chose to ignore that also. "-but that doesn't mean I don't recognize her part in it," finished Bruce, gaining a look of shock from his hotheaded protégé. "I'm not as heartless as I may look. I would've thought you'd realized that by now, McGinnis."

Terry heaved his shoulders in defeat as he too stared ahead at nothing. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I just…" the boy struggled to find the right words to say, twiddling his thumbs against his fingers alongside a deepening frown. "I don't know what to do, Bruce." Terry looked up at the old man with a look of strange, angered longing. "It's not enough."

Wayne furrowed his brows at the young man but said nothing at first, allowing Terry's words to sink in and register Bruce's own memories and understanding. It wasn't enough – revenge. Wayne understood that all too well: he knew what it was to be so angry by something that he just wanted to lose all control; he knew what it was to feel weak by not avenging the ones he cared about or the innocent who were wronged…and also what it was to feel weak by struggling to avoid and resist it. Terrence McGinnis had smashed in the craniums of too many Jokerz to count – both before and after Max had been found – but coming here and seeing her like this in such an agonizing stage even after escaping the horrifying grip of death, only made him angrier. "You feel…splinted," answered the former vigilante of justice. Ignoring McGinnis's questioning stare, Wayne analyzed quietly, "You got what you wanted: Max is alive, the Jokerz's carnage of the night has been silenced, and you got the chance make those idiot clowns your own personal punching bag – but even after all of that, it isn't enough. Beating them shitless, letting the cops arrest them, all of it is just a temporary fix for the real problem." Bruce curved his line of sight back to the hero in training and offered him an all knowing glance. "Splinted," Wayne repeated to solidify McGinnis's newfound clarification of what Bruce had meant.

Even still, the fact that the old man so easily grasped an incomparable insight into the teen's mind was as relieving as it was disconcerting. Part of Terry found Wayne's perception to be beneficial as far as the job went – but when things revolved around his personal life, McGinnis couldn't help but feel concerned, especially when Terry himself had no clutch on his emotions about the situation. It was – for the lack of a better word – eerie. "What's," asked Terry nervously as he lowered his knees and swallowed, "the real problem?" Somehow he knew he wouldn't like the answer…he typically never liked Bruce's answers – no matter how truthful they tended to be.

Wayne looked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Max knocked out in bed – so still with exhaustion that he almost couldn't tell if she was breathing at first glance. The old man gave the teen boy a strange gaze but eventually stated, "You might say it's the Jokerz. You might try to convince yourself that it's the clowns who are really at fault here and that they need to be taken out completely to stop tragedies like this or worse from happening again. But really, kid, it's just an excuse: a lie you tell yourself so you won't feel like a waste of oxygen." Terry was on his feet now standing toe to toe with Bruce, and all curiosity had melted from his features only to be replaced with agitation. Still, this wouldn't stop the original Dark Knight and Justice League founder. If he could stare Darkseid in the face, there was nothing that could scare him from telling a hormonal teenager the truth. "The real problem, McGinnis, is you." Terry stiffened. "When it's all said and done, a tiny voice is still going to be in the back of your mind saying the real issue was that you couldn't step up your game and be the hero that Gotham needed – that she needed. I'm not saying that voice in your head is right – sometimes they are very wrong – but you've got to deal with it, or else this city will go to hell. A brief moment of self-doubt is all it takes to destroy Gotham…and to destroy Batman."

Before the teen can even begin to fully process his boss's analogy, Commissioner Barbara Gordon made her way down the hall – hands stuffed in the long coat pockets in her signature posture – and finally came to stand before the two men…two men who had a very dark secret that Gordon had a larger part in than anyone could have ever imagined. "Bruce," she acknowledges with a tight expression. "Kid." Barbara's brows furrowed a little, noticing that she just might have interrupted something. "Sorry to intrude, but I came to check on our witness."

So that's why she came. McGinnis had had a feeling the Commissioner's presence here was for something far deeper than just dropping off her former master and partner in vigilantism. Terry clenched his fist, already not liking the road Barbara might be taking with this conversation. "Witness…"

Barbara adjusted her glasses and sighed, "That's what I said, kid. The girl could be a key witness to putting the Jokerz who attacked her away for a long time. She's also the perfect symbol to Gotham higher ups on just how big of a problem the clown gangs are-."

And that was where Terry drew the line. "You are NOT using Max as a poster child for your campaign against the Jokerz!" growled McGinnis with a sudden jolt of hostility.

No one said a word for a moment – the two elders' merely stared at the seething teen…until the Commissioner took exception to the neo-Batman's attitude. Barbara's brows descended dangerously after the short pause. Just who the hell did this brat think he was raising his voice at? "And just what the hell would you call what you're doing?" hissed Gordon, taking an aggressive step forward and pulling her hands out of the coat's pockets; almost as if ready for a fight. Gordon had one hell of a long night, and she'd be damned if this kid thought he could talk to her any kind of which way he pleased. "You forget that I've been in your shoes before. You think I don't know what's going through your head? Maybe if you stepped up your inexperienced game, Gibson would never be considered a poster child for this violence in the first place!"

"Barb," warns Bruce in a low voice, holding forward his cane as a barrier of division between her and his apprentice.

Barbara Gordon matched eyes with Bruce briefly before relaxing her posture a bit, though the frown of irritation was still evident upon the older woman's features. Damn kid was lucky. "I'm offering Gibson a chance to put these guys away to stop them from doing the same to someone else. And for her. Think about it, Batboy," whispered the Commissioner. "Wouldn't she feel better knowing her assaulters were locked away where they couldn't get to her again? Try looking at it from her perspective. The girl's been through hell and high water – she's probably traumatized, whether she'll admit it or not – the least you can do is drop her a damn life jacket to keep from drowning." With that Barbara's phone buzzed and she looked at the screen for a moment, then offered Wayne a goodbye nod, turning to leave. "Talk to her about it, and have her call me when she makes a decision." She didn't have the time to stand here and rip the kid a new asshole – she still had an entire city to run, and what was most important was that the woman managed to briefly get the gist of her point across. Whether the brat would adhere to it or not was specifically up to him….and Bruce. Gordon threw her hand up in farewell and briskly stalked down the hospital corridor for the nearest exit.

Terry bit his lip in undesirable thought. As much as he hated to admit it, Barbara might have had a point. McGinnis turned on his heels and leaned against the doorway to Max's room, watching his best friend strung up in IV's with a splinted leg, sleeping the world and all her troubles away if even for a small moment. Terry decided right then and there that she wouldn't have to worry about the Jokerz or her family hurting her again – not as Batman, but as her friend; and that was somehow even more valuable. "Hey Bruce."

Wayne rested his hands on top of one another on his cane, still staring straight ahead. "Yeah."

Terry's blue eyes narrowed. "About Max's recovery…"

To be continued...