Disclaimer: I own not.
Steaming fresh off the keypad, a fourth chapter. Be jubliant.
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"Wow, Terry. Who knew that somewhere in all that manly-man, me-want-all-the-pretty-girls attitude, there was a gay dude just waiting to claw his way out?"
"Shut the f-k up."
"No, I'm serious," said Max speaking in a very unserious manner. "It was like turning the corner to find out they were filming gay porn in your school, except you knew the actors. I swear. You both looked ready to start-"
"Max! Shut up," said Terry loudly before she could get into further detail. A group of underclassmen girls nearby giggled.
He'd stopped asking himself what would Batman do. It didn't have the same implication when applied to his now very obvious-to himself as well as everyone else-physical attraction for Ryuuji Otogi. He'd rescued a man the night before from drowning in the bay after being dropped there by sadistic Jokers who may or may not have known he couldn't swim. However, if asked, Terry could hardly remember how he'd managed it, or where it was, or very much else. In fact, Mr. Wayne had asked, because Terry had nearly crashed the Batmobile into a pile-driver, and Terry had only shrugged at him and given a bad excuse he'd forgot as soon as he said it. His concentration had been scragged earlier by an hour long lecture from his mother about relationships for all the wrong reasons and the hazy terrain that was friends with benefits. She'd gotten off early just for him, though Terry failed to appreciate the sentiment.
Then, of course, he'd broken up with Dana.
Dana hadn't been too happy about that, and no promise from Mr. Wayne that they'd be back together in a month could make Terry ever believe they would. She cried, said she should have known, and grudgingly gave her best wishes to Ryuuji and him. Then, Terry had had to tell her that he and Ryuuji weren't together, which was a difficult point for just about everyone to wrap their heads around. If Terry was breaking up with Dana because of Ryuuji, why wasn't he with Ryuuji?
In class, Terry had struggled to keep from grabbing Ryuuji and demanding to know what the guy wanted. He'd already lost Terry his trustworthiness, sexual identity, and girlfriend of four years. There wasn't much else Ryuuji could humanly take from him. He wanted to beat Ryuuji over the head with a text book and demand to know all the particulars of attempting to kill one's own father, but knowing his reason-defying sexual impulses, he probably just end up making-out with Ryuuji right there in the classroom, and that didn't accomplish anything unless the math teacher decided to make an example of economics by charging admission. She'd probably get enough money to retire and leave a legacy for six generations. According to Max, if he and Ryuuji actually became an item, they were sure to win as the hottest couple in school at the senior prom, if only for all the public make-out sessions (ignoring the fact that there had actually only been two, and the first had really just been one drawn out kiss for the greater good).
Terry only felt miserable. It was possible he could have felt more miserable, like if Nelson had started jabbing him. But, Nelson held back. This was either because he was scared of angering a gay Terry, or because since Terry was only ever gay with Ryuuji and all the girls adored Ryuuji, it was social suicide to ridicule him as it also implied something of Ryuuji's standards. Terry wasn't at all thankful for this. He could have used a little incrimination from someone other than Mr. Wayne or Max or his mother. Those three were starting to repeat themselves.
"Hey, Ter," said Blade coming aside him in the hall. "How's it going?"
Terry shrugged. He hated how it was suddenly fashionable to call him Ter, and he was sure as hell not used to it. Also, a lot more girls invited themselves to hanging out with him at lunch and on the way to class. He was slowly and entirely by accident developing his own little entourage of girls who felt comfortable around him because, hell, he was gay and Ryuuji liked him. It wasn't nearly as cool as how he'd dreamed developing an entourage of girls would happen to him. Girls he'd never spoken to in his life, who had been too cool to look at him, now stopped him in the halls and asked him nicely to carry their books (a chore Ryuuji was never relegated to performing, by the way, since unlike him, Terry was much larger and muscular) or to walk with them and three other friends to next hour.
Talking often with Max had become difficult because she couldn't stand Terry's other company. He had tried to shake them on several occasions, but since half the student body was female and a majority of the females carried Ryuuji up at the status of a demi-god with Terry something like his high priest, there was no chance of escape for long. Terry had been forced to accept the girls as a fact of life, and Max had been forced to getting used to calling him a lot more than seeing him.
"So yeah, this Jill person would not shut up talking to me in English class today," it was lunch time, Ryuuji was in class, and Terry was trapped with all the fan girls that settled for him in absence of their precious Ryuuji, "and I was totally sending her vibes to leave me alone. But, this girl is like dense or something…." Terry didn't know who was talking, nor did he care. Slowly, he was deadening inside to everyone around him and wished very much that Max was there, Dana was still his girlfriend, and Ryuuji Otogi didn't exist. He stabbed violently at a tomato on his lunch plate and felt sorry for himself forever.
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In celebration of Terry's ruinous circumstance, Ryuuji had started hitting on him with increased vigour. Apparently all it took was for Terry to dump Dana and give up on life, and Ryuuji was contented. Terry didn't plan to ask Ryuuji out anytime soon, though. He still had his original distrust of the guy, and suspected Ryuuji to tease him until the end of time. It likely would have made things easier if he and Ryuuji were a couple, but for that reason alone Ryuuji was bound to taunt him and say no. Terry didn't think he could take another rejection. When Ryuuji ignored him for three days, it was extremely difficult to work the case, and Mr. Wayne made sure Terry knew it.
Meanwhile, third hour had become a level of hell.
"Now, say you have a standard deck of cards; what is the probability, without replacements, of drawing a red face card on your fourth out of five draws?"
Terry frowned at the equations on his class console. This math wasn't making any sense. Worse, there was the flashing orange button in the corner of his screen.
Is this class boring you?
Terry nodded since he was sitting right next to Ryuuji. The guy could see him.
Then you're going to fail.
Terry shrugged.
You're so lazy you can't type.
Terry made a motion that suggested "…and?"
You're going to fail
Terry shrugged again, since he'd been pulling late nights recently, and this class made him sleepy even when he wasn't already exhausted. Ryuuji was right about that much, at least. He seemed quiet now, so Terry went back to dozing. He almost successfully made it into a fantasy about speaking his newly learned Chinese to the grouchy Asian couple who lived next door and were very rude because no-one on their floor spoke Chinese. Terry imagined himself putting them in their place once and for all, to the rejoicing of the entire condominium. He was accepting everyone's gratitude with food down in the kitchen, when he noticed the orange rectangle flickering again. Drowsily, he clicked it.
Don't fall asleep
Terry put his head back on his desk and ignored the warning. A few moments later, there was a sharp pain in his arm. He bolted awake.
"Owe! You slagging pinched me. What the hell is wrong with you?"
The teacher looked up crossly from her lecture notes to Terry and Ryuuji.
"Mr. McGinnis, what seems to be the problem?"
Ryuuji pretended she'd been addressing him.
"Sorry, ma'am. He was falling asleep. I pinched him. We pinch in class when I was younger. You pinch a person next to you and they pinch someone. Terry is supposed to pinch Alex."
For some sadistic reason, the teacher was amused and insisted that it would help improve Terry's grades if someone kept him awake. Then she did a one-eighty and reprimanded Terry harshly for having the nerve to doze with his grade how it was. Did he simply not want to graduate with the rest of his year?
"How the hell do you do that?" demanded Terry catching up with Ryuuji after school. Ryuuji, who had gone to his next class and not seen Terry in the past two hours, didn't know what Terry was talking about.
"How do I do what?"
"Talk yourself out of everything. It's not fair."
At this, Ryuuji nodded knowingly. He seem accustomed to the subject. "Oh, it's perfectly fair. Want to know how?"
"How?" Terry growled.
"I usually come up with a way to talk myself out before I do anything," which sounded as pathetic as it did impossible, but Terry waited for Ryuuji to finish talking. "My decision to prepare myself trumping your decision to do nothing is not unfairness. Sure, maybe five-percent of the time it's spontaneity, but otherwise I'm just very boring and plan ahead. Do you wish it was more dramatic, that four winds speak in my ears and such and tell me what to say?"
"No," said Terry, as if that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.
"Then there's nothing special. Practise is really all you need. And not being stupid helps."
"And you think I'm stupid, don't you?" asked Terry with a sigh, since it was a large part of how he figured Ryuuji viewed him.
"Sometimes, yes. But I didn't mean you when I said that. Don't take it personally."
Terry wondered if he felt better or not knowing that Ryuuji only thought he was stupid sometimes. He couldn't decide on which, and was interrupted by Ryuuji prompting an arm on his nearest shoulder.
"I want to go somewhere," said Ryuuji whimsically, leading Terry across to the parking lot, "and by go somewhere, I mean make-out. We should go public, you know, just find a spot in the middle of the quad and see if anyone dares chase us off for PDA."
"What makes you think I would agree to that?"
"It seems to coincide with your first brilliant advance at the airport, and I can been accommodating."
Terry shook his head slowly. "No, I didn't think that through. Seriously. I don't think I'll be launching onto you in public places again."
"Are you sure?"
"I hope so."
Ryuuji grinned and continued walking, still well-attached to Terry. Terry was maybe a little stunned to be talking and strolling so almost-normally with Ryuuji, albeit the talking was about making-out for audiences, however normal discussing that could be. He thought of Mr. Wayne for a second, not right away sure why. Probably Mr. Wayne struck him as having never have had a similar conversation in his entire Batman career, thus showing the dramatic distance between their two crusading styles. That, and whenever Terry tried to imagine Mr. Wayne as Batman, he imagined the man to still be around a thousand years old beneath the mask, regardless of how much Terry knew better.
"Hey, did your father ever find out about the airport thing?"
"Why?" asked Ryuuji with a slight flicker of displeasure over his face. "Are you worried what my father thinks? That's my job."
"Well, maybe that's why you got me in trouble with my mom."
Ryuuji laughed, much like he had when Mrs. McGinnis had walk in on them in the hall. "Nope, I completely forgot about her. It was some of that five-percent spontaneity. You see how well that works. Did you really get in trouble?"
"Yes. She keeps lecturing me and looking disappointed."
"Really? That's funny. Do you want me to apologise?"
"Not really, no."
"Do you want me to go to her and promise to marry you and move to France and adopt little Ethiopian children?"
"No," said Terry more firmly. Ryuuji looked disappointed. "They have to be Vietnamese and we've got to move to Paris."
"I said France."
"Texas."
"You're lying."
"What? About the Vietnamese, the moving to Paris, or about Paris, Texas?"
"Ch'. Your mother's really picky, Terry."
"Yeah, too bad for you."
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Terry, as suggested by Mr. Wayne long before, tried desperately to find anything he knew Ryuuji was interested in and was preferably affordable. Nothing came to mind. He settled therefore on the inane. The next day, he showed Ryuuji how the commuter lifts worked by accompanying him in one. It wasn't the best plan, having started in a highly impromptu manner following a chatty speculation on Ryuuji's part over how Domino didn't have commuter lifts, and Terry responding to it with an invitation to show them to him.
And for some odd reason, Ryuuji had accepted. Terry was still trying to figure that one out even as he bought them both tickets.
This could have been worse, Terry told himself repeatedly when they ended up without seats for several stops or when someone boarded with an obnoxious smell. Ryuuji, who drove or was driven most places to avoid public transportation, found the lifts quaint, which may or may not have been a good sign.
Knowing this wasn't his most brilliant arrangement to date, if in fact he had ever made any brilliant arrangements in his entire career as the Batman, Terry spent the whole trip praying Jokerz didn't break in. He briefly explained to Ryuuji all about how unsafe the lifts actually were. Ryuuji, whose greatest ambition was to give Terry an ulcer, found it to be vicariously thrilling, lamenting how transportation wasn't nearly as lively in Domino.
"Do you think if Jokerz come after us, we'll get to see the resident vigilante, the Batman?" Ryuuji asked, receiving uncomfortable looks from the lift's other passengers who were certain he was trying to jinx them. Terry, for reasons only he knew, merely shrugged in answer.
"Lets hope that doesn't happen. You're making everyone nervous."
"Well, then everyone, I apologise," said Ryuuji sincerely to the rest of the lift. Then, he whispered to Terry, "but what exactly do the Jokerz do to people they catch on here? I haven't got a credit on me. Would that make them angry?"
Terry couldn't answer. He didn't know the answer, for one. Also, he was mildly horrified.
"Wait. You don't carry credits? Really?" asked Terry, having never heard of such a thing.
"Not to school. What good are they to me there?"
Terry just kept looking at Ryuuji like he'd lost his mind. He didn't know what the Jokerz would do, he finally confessed, people tended to carry credits, and that usually appeased them. They may just pie his face if he was broke and laugh, who knew? Ryuuji thought it sounded horrible. He quickly formulated a solution.
"You should give me some credits. Just in case."
Terry didn't think it was so great a solution. "What? No. They're mine."
"But they will pie me."
"Maybe they'll just squirt you with water."
"That isn't any better. How about you just give me one credit?"
"Only one?" asked Terry with a small sigh to himself, slowly giving in.
"Or three. Or fifty. Are you feeling generous?"
"Not particularly," said Terry, thought he was already reaching for his wallet. He removed a credit and held it out to Ryuuji. "There, there's one credit. Try not to spend it all on one Joker, okay?"
Ryuuji was elated. He plucked the card out of Terry's hand and slipped it into the front left pocket of his jeans. "Brilliant. Now if I'm robbed, there will be a nice rumour about how I hardly carry money around. Hopefully it discourages people."
Terry only shook his head and glanced out the window, beginning to wish Ryuuji would stop chatting so easily about Gotham's greatest fear and eyesore. He made everything sound ridiculous and the whole lift was starting to feel insulted.
The two remained aboard the lift, to the dismay of other passengers, until the end of the line at a long walkway just below the upper mid-city. A long stairwell went the rest of the distance up to a sunny platform that was a bus stop at one side and narrow walkway leading to a train station at the other. Ryuuji insisted they go there as soon as Terry mentioned it's existence.
It had been windy all day, which mean the wind was incredibly strong in the upper mid-city since there were fewer buildings for it to travel through. Here, up so high, as high as you could get on public transportation, Gotham transformed. Since the industrial fashion of the century was to go up more than out, the caps of most downtown buildings were decorative and greatly mismatched their bases. It was common to have one entrance to a building at the very bottom and more entrances scattered further up. It was also common for a building to change purpose halfway through at each level there was an entrance, making Gotham a stratified vertical habitat of expense and popularity increasing with altitude.
The upper mid-city was particularly different from most other levels of Gotham. It only existed downtown and was were Terry imagined people like Ryuuji spent a great deal of time, seeing as it was brighter, cleaner and full of entrances to fine shops, restaurants, and nearly every penthouse in the city. Ryuuji lived in one of these penthouses four blocks away, but it was difficult to walk there so high up where all platforms were almost exclusively roads. This was a sign enough that you didn't travel the upper mid-city without a vehicle.
"So how do we get back down?" asked Ryuuji, leaning precariously over a railing and peering down, trying catch a glimpse of what he called Gotham's "forest floor".
"We go back downstairs and wait for the next lift in two hours. Everything's synchronised to the lift. The bus and train here wait for people getting off the lift. We missed both of those for you to look around."
"So you're telling me you just stranded us up here."
Terry shrugged and sat down on the ground next to the station building. "It was your idea."
"You should have told me better."
"I did. At every stop on the way up here." Terry sighed and leaned back so his face was in the shade of the awning. He mentally prepared for a long, boring wait. Ryuuji, meanwhile, looked like a strong gust of wind would take him right off the railing and into the highway below. "You just ignored me and kept asking about Jokerz."
"So? They interest me. You're the only person I'm acquainted with who would know anything about Jokerz, so you get all my questions."
"Thanks for making me of some interest, then, I suppose. I'm probably the envy of every girl in school. Yay…."
"Sure you are," said Ryuuji with his knowing smirk. "That'll show them and their puffy-haired ways." He motioned around his head, but lost balance and nearly toppled over. Terry was sitting up immediately to rush over to him, but Ryuuji had already caught himself laughing.
"Ha! That was close, right?"
Terry frowned. "Get down from there. You're going to get yourself killed."
"Of course not. I just won't let go with both hands again. Adaptability is key."
"Get down or I'll pull you down." Terry said this sincerely, which ended Ryuuji's fun.
"Sure you would," said Ryuuji bitterly, but jumped away from the railing all the same. Terry was the understood stronger of the two, and Ryuuji probably did not want to be involved in a struggle that would disrupt his hairstyle. Instead, being every bit melodramatic, he collapsed haughtily next to Terry and didn't say anything more.
"You know, Max thought I was a member of the Jokerz once," said Terry after a few moments of silence to get Ryuuji to talk. He was by now too aware of how epic Ryuuji's silences could be, and there was no-one else to talk to. "She tried to hunt me down."
This didn't seem to interest the annoyed Ryuuji much. He only nodded and quietly walked his fingers over Terry's up-folded knee. There was small hole in the fabric from falling down one time or another, and Ryuuji worked on making it larger.
"I used to get in fights with Jokerz," Terry added, assuming Ryuuji had no excuse not to at least hear him. If he said something interesting enough, Ryuuji wouldn't be able to help but to chime in. "What you get for having a hot girlfriend and everything."
Ryuuji was tracing circles into Terry's knee now, looking perfectly bored. Terry sighed over his failure to interest Ryuuji in any way whatsoever. He was going to tell Ryuuji to just go back and stand on the railing again if that was fun, but Ryuuji spoke.
"Dana told me your father was murdered by Jokerz."
Which wasn't true. Terry's father was murdered by Derek Power's personal assistant, but Terry would have sounded paranoid if he told anyone the truth. He let Ryuuji believe what Dana had said.
"Yeah," said Terry, keeping a neutral tone. "They traced me back to him. I must've pissed them off, done something stupid. Whatever. I should have been there, but I stormed out before they showed up."
There was a long silence. "Hn," said Ryuuji only, reaching himself over to pat Terry on the head in an strange consolatory gesture. Part of Terry was convinced it wasn't meant to console at all.
"Is it still bad for you, losing your father?" asked Ryuuji. by his tone, he could've been asking about Jokerz or homework assignments.
Terry shrugged. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, why wouldn't it be?"
"Who knows. Maybe you'd come to terms or something," said Ryuuji with the faint trace of a smirk. "I for one wouldn't be so devastated over my father. Jokerz can have him. Swap face painting secrets and jokes over a garbage fire."
"And you'd just give him away?" asked Terry, disbelieving. "A old crazy man?"
"Yeah," said Ryuuji with a shrug, sounding as if he already had. He quickly brought his arm up to eye level with Terry and pointed at a sharp roofed building, all angles and an apex. "Change of subject: What's that?"
Terry shook his head reproachfully, but looked. "A very expensive hotel with a night club at the top. It's got some weird name that changes every other week. Used to be called Club Gotham, but Club Gotham went bankrupt."
"Oh. And what's over there? Way back there?"
"Old Gotham."
"And there?"
"Gotham Games, being investigated for illegal stakes."
This seemed to amuse Ryuuji more than anything. "Hm. Not much inspired for names here, are we?"
"What do you mean?"
"Everything here is Gotham-this, this-that-Gotham."
"It's like that in all cities."
"Yeah, for public buildings. Club Gotham just sounds silly."
"Which is why they went bankrupt."
Ryuuji laughed, and Terry was relieved that it wasn't at him, because it was a very hateful, superior laugh. The sound of it put Terry instinctively on guard, but more than that it succeeded to irritate him. He wanted to snap at Ryuuji over it, but he couldn't think of what to say.
"You should be funny more often," Ryuuji suggested enthusiastically once he'd gotten beyond his loathing of Club Gotham. "Not so gloomy and annoyed. You take everything with such seriousness."
"A little maturity is not a bad thing."
"Yes, but that's not it, and you're just playing dumb," said Ryuuji, turning so that he could sit himself on the balls of his feet facing Terry. He held Terry's knee to keep his balance. "There's too much seriousness all the time. It's mostly how your face is lain out, how you treat everything I've ever said like it's important. I'm not flattered. I'm insulted. In fact," he added, waving a finger disapprovingly, "it's partly why I turned you down last week."
"Because I'm so serious and mature for my age?" asked Terry sarcastically.
"No, because it was so serious and calculated and mean," said Ryuuji, sounding annoyed and giving Terry a stern look that rivalled that of Mr. Wayne's. "Your strategy makes no sense. Make a move on Ryuuji this day. Ignore him for Dana. Hit on Ryuuji this day. Ignore him for absolutely nothing whatsoever. Ask Ryuuji out this day. Ignore him again most likely. I was feeling very made-fun-of, very picked upon. I decided to beat you there on the last one."
"I did not do that," said Terry disbelievingly, denying it to the stubborn end. He refused to accept that his inability to make any progress with Ryuuji was mostly his own fault. Ryuuji over-thought things.
"If you think so, then you are not at all in touch with your signals. I was confused. Admittedly, I did stir you up in front of your mother, but that was payback. I'm vindictive. I've sort of now accepted we're those friends who kinda get along and occasionally make out in public places, and only because you're a weirdo."
"I'm not a weirdo. And what kind of friends are those?"
Ryuuji only shrugged and made a doubtful face. "I was assuming it was an American thing. I think I saw it on tv once."
"You're ridiculous."
"You are. I don't go around jumping Kaiba Seto in international airports for no reason."
"Kaiba Seto?"
"It's a Domino expression. Means: Very rich man, with a big company and an obsession with children's games, who could easily have your head baked in manatee fat fried baby harp seal on a platter for nothing."
"I thought it was the name of KaibaCorp's CEO."
"The man, the legend. If you were an ugly guy, I would have exacted a terrible revenge for the ages."
"And you call me the weirdo?"
"Always. In Domino, I'm normal. In Domino, you're still a weirdo."
"Would you believe me if I didn't intended to come off as a weirdo, then?"
"Partly, except you were so good at it."
Terry rolled his eyes and got up. There wasn't any arguing with Ryuuji, not because Ryuuji was a rhetoric master, but because of the absurd statements he argued with. It was like arguing with his little brother if his littler brother had been Japanese and gay and rudely sarcastic, which, considering:
"Are you gay?"
Ryuuji had absolutely no idea where the question had come from. His annoyed look told Terry so much. "Are we playing truth or dare now? I pick dare."
"I dare you to tell me the truth if you are gay or not."
"Clever," said Ryuuji, implying Terry was anything but. "I am. I suppose now's where you act all confident and tell me you're not like I even care, and then you realize crushingly that I don't give a damn about your orientation, that I'm still going to touch you because you like it."
"I wasn't planning to say anything like that," said Terry, laughing, though a bit uncomfortably. He had no intention of saying anything Ryuuji had suggested. What bothered him was Ryuuji broadcasting it as public knowledge that Terry liked it when they touched and did things Terry still couldn't mentally see himself doing. He did, he supposed, like it, and that was why he kept at it. Ryuuji's phrasing, however, irritated his belief that he was not in control, that apparently some gay or make-out addicted other-being possessed him, and then he couldn't help himself. But, no, Ryuuji had to say that Terry liked it when Ryuuji touched him, which wasn't the same sort of safe, distant phrasing Terry snugly planted himself into when he tried to rationalise his actions. He could half-heartedly refer to himself as gay and attracted to Ryuuji, but to choose it for himself, to enjoy kissing Ryuuji not only by an uncontrollable consequence but because he wanted to enjoy it and sought it out, that was too much.
And that he liked to kiss Ryuuji was easier even to say then he liked to touch Ryuuji, or taste Ryuuji, hold Ryuuji, or anything-else Ryuuji. Kiss was general and innocuous. He most certainly wished to disagree with Ryuuji saying that he liked Ryuuji to touch him, to taste him, hold him, et cetera. It put power in Ryuuj and a helplessness in Terry, which was the most uncomfortable feeling of all. He didn't care that Ryuuji might say something like that for the same reasons Terry said similar things to himself about Ryuuji. Looking at himself as controlled by Ryuuji in any way rapidly involved Terry more deeply than he preferred to consider himself involved.
"Earth to Terry McGinnis, are you planning to return to us any time soon?" asked Ryuuji mockingly, clearly oblivious to the crisis he'd just introduced to Terry's whole self-universe. Ryuuji had only been kidding as always, saying things in ways that were the most abrupt for droll amusement, but telling himself this didn't make Terry forget it any faster.
"Yes, I'm right here," said Terry, waving Ryuuji's hand out of his face. For an instant, his fingers brushed something, a finger or back of a hand, and everything inside him was awkwardly aware of it.
Terry had to be acting on some self-deluding pretence. This wasn't what he usually felt towards Ryuuji. He hadn't been like this when Ryuuji was busy investigating his knee, or crammed beside him on the lift. Had the small phrase, hardly considered by it's speaker, altered him so much? And if so, why and why didn't Ryuuji notice?
"Well, right here I am as well, and right here isn't very interesting," said Ryuuji as he pulled out a cell phone. "I'm going to call my chauffeur."
"You have a chauffeur?"
"For now. I can never remember his name."
"And why didn't you call him earlier?"
"I consider it a sign of defeat if I need to call him."
"Why?"
"I need to get to know Gotham. After my father's died, I might stay here."
"Your father's dying?"
"Sure," said Ryuuji, lifting the phone to his ear. "He's old."
"What's he got?"
Ryuuji shrugged. "He's just old. Old people die. Why are you so curious all the sudden?"
Terry would have given a half vindictive answer concerning Ryuuji inundating him with questions on the lift earlier, but Ryuuji had begun speaking to someone in rapid Japanese. This perked Terry's attention as he proved to himself that he was still hopeless at Japanese. He was also suspicious about Ryuuji having a Japanese-speaking chauffeur.
"When he going to be here?" asked Terry once Ryuuji hung up.
"Never, considering I just fired him."
"What? Why?" asked Terry, even more ashamed with his Japanese that he hadn't had any idea of what was going on.
"He says he's hung over still from last night. Paxton Power's chauffeur is a lush, and I suppose he was being polite to drink as well. But, I wasn't out so late that he'd still be sick, so he's fired. He was hoping I wouldn't call. Now he can go complain to Power's chauffer."
"Yours and Power's chauffeurs? Do chauffeurs congregate on Thursday nights or something?"
Ryuuji laughed. "Why, were you not invited?"
"No, I wasn't."
"Well," said Ryuuji. "I dunno about the chauffeur social scene you're clearly not cool enough for, but last night I was busy resolving things with Paxton Powers." He sighed deeply and was overcome by an obviously false despair. "I've given up on dating CEOs. I really have. I swear."
Terry was a little alarmed by this. Sure, Ryuuji was gorgeous and flirty and so many other attractive things, but Ryuuji had always occupied Terry's thoughts as perpetually single since Terry knew no-one gay who could date him. That Ryuuji had had a boyfriend, and that it had been Paxton Powers of all people, was something Terry would never have imagined. "You were with Paxton Powers?"
"Yes, how long do you honestly think someone like me stays single?" asked Ryuuji, using bragging as always as his natural inflection. Then, he grinned. "Are you jealous? That would be adorable and so like you."
"Of course not," said Terry, who didn't currently feel overwhelming jealous or upset, just generally overwhelmed all over.
"It would also be so like you to deny it."
"Shut up. You and I hardly know each other."
"Ah, but you want to know me. Or do you also deny that?"
"Not if you're just playing with me. I have my damn dignity."
"So you admit it?"
"Yes."
Ryuuji looked at him appraisingly a moment, a near-smile on his lips and complete belittling laughter in his eyes. Terry was absolutely convinced Ryuuji was forever toying with him. There was no doubt, and yet he had to get closer just to get Ryuuji out of his life. He had to pin him for attempted murder and then go back to being normal again and less conflicted. Being conflicted was no fun and stressed everything.
"You're definitely weird," said Ryuuji after a moment. "You don't even know."
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"So, want me to call a taxi?" Terry asked after twenty minutes of silence between them in which Ryuuji had migrated back to the railing with a complaint about Terry being boring. Ryuuji must've shrugged in answer because Terry couldn't see him. Terry had moved to the opposite side of the building cast in shadow to escape the heat of the sun that always seemed too close the higher one got in Gotham. No-one in their right mind would be up at the station at this time. He couldn't think why they were still here. Maybe forty minutes had already passed since they'd arrived. Forty slow minutes. There was still so much longer to wait. Terry couldn't stand to think about it. He hated waiting more than anything.
Ryuuji hadn't moved out of the sun. Terry could hear him shifting sometimes as he leaned against the railing on the other side of the platform. He was passing a die through is fingers, and once or twice he dropped it. When that happened, Ryuuji swore in Japanese and refused to pick it up. Terry was starting to wonder how many dice Ryuuji had on his person and, most importantly, where they were kept.
Eventually, Terry went back downstairs. Ryuuji caught up at the bottom and began asking where they were going. Terry, who wasn't sure but couldn't stand doing nothing, shrugged. He was saved having to answer when his cell phone rang.
"I've got to go. Mr. Wayne calls," said Terry. "I suppose you can arrange a taxi yourself?"
"Yes, although it's very unromantic to just ditch me here."
"I thought Dana told you everything about me. What did you expect?"
Ryuuji rolled his eyes and had begun to dial the number of a taxi service as Terry ran the other direction. He'd parked Mr. Wayne's car in a garage a several blocks away, involving a lot of stairs to reach, and so expedience demanded he run. His phone, however, rang once more. He groaned and answered it at a jog.
"Hello, this is Ryuuji Otogi calling to let you know I only have one credit on me and the taxi costs significantly more than that."
"Slagging hell," Terry snapped, stopping to look back. There was Ryuuji on the phone waving at him.
"Also, wow. You run really fast," Ryuuji added. "And listen to you, you sound so composed. Not a single pant or anything."
"Just shut up and get over here, it's a long walk," Terry ordered and hung up. He dialled Mr. Wayne and prepared for the worse.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo
Terry had been forced to take Ryuuji with him. Mr. Wayne had been forced to accommodate Ryuuji. Things were not going well. By the time a car arrived at Wayne mansion to pick Ryuuji up, Terry was flying over Gotham in costume and on the job, intercepting drug imports, helping people out of their collapsed condominium, and checking in on Mad Stan to make sure he wasn't preparing for another rampage. The night had reached its lull where he'd started picking off the miscellaneous Jokerz gangs, when Mr. Wayne finally opened his communication line. Knowing nothing good was coming for him or had been coming for him for the past few weeks, Terry prepared for a thorough, self-esteem shattering reprimand.
"You already know that you should never have brought Ryuuji Otogi to my house."
No question why had he brought Ryuuji. No congratulation for actually being with Ryuuji. No apology for making him hurry over like there was a doomsday plot ready to go off in fifteen minutes when really he was supposed to track a drug shipment to the inner city that had been moved up an hour. No, nothing positive for the Batman protégé. Instead, Terry was suppose ignore all the had done tonight in order to reflect on himself and his wrong decision until he felt terrible enough to learn from it.
"You could have compromised everything bringing him here," said Mr. Wayne. "Obviously you still severely underestimate Ryuuji Otogi. That's dangerous."
Terry wanted to say something, something good. He always had a comeback, didn't he? Only now the thing he would have said would be to ask how did he really know Ryuuji was so terrible? And he knew the answer. He misjudged Ryuuji, he was being tricked, and if Mr. Wayne wasn't a thousand years old, he'd pull Terry off the investigation and work on it himself. Still, it was hard to see what was diabolically threatening about the guy. Sure, he was an arrogant, smart-ass, son of a bitch, but Terry had yet to see anything worse than that. Even if Ryuuji wanted to murder his father, why should the Batman care? People killed off older relatives all the time in secret inheritance plots or out of sheer frustration. When they were caught, it was all over the news for a day, and then it was over. Terry would never have known it happened before the news got a hold of the story, and he wouldn't have really cared anyway. It wouldn't have been any of the Batman's business, to fight crime in people's personal lives. It was hard to believe Mr. Wayne was such a truly idealistic crusader for fighting injustice and crime wherever it presented itself.
"There's something I don't know about Ryuuji's father, isn't there?" asked Terry after a long moment in which Mr. Wayne assumed he was reflecting on the error of his decision-making ways.
"Why?"
"This whole investigation strikes me as a little strange."
"And you're asking now?"
"Better late than never," said Terry with a sigh. "What's so important about the old man anyway?"
"I can't trust you with that information."
"And why not? I'm stuck right in the middle of all of this. I need to know."
"You don't need to know yet. Trust me."
"And how am I supposed to trust you when you don't trust me?"
"Terry, this is not the time."
"I'm not going to drop it."
"Yes you are. Gotham Games' vault is being been broken into. You better get over there and do something."
Terry sighed and made sure it was very loud and obnoxious in the communicator before he turned around towards the gambling district. "Fine," he grumbled. For a moment, he remembered Ryuuji pointing Gotham Games out to him. That got him thinking about Ryuuji's dice and how he went on and on about risks. It wouldn't be surprising if Ryuuji spent time there, gambling alongside Gotham's criminal and business elite. Did it make Ryuuji look more worthy of condemnation? No, not really. Ryuuji had not known what the building was, anyway, unless he was lying to Terry. Which was too likely to make Terry proud. And knowing himself, Terry decided that Ryuuji Otogi, if truly as horrible as Mr. Wayne said, had him entirely fooled. It was a crushing realisation, Terry being the Batman and all. He was supposed to know better.
"Maybe Max should investigate Ryuuji?" said Terry later when he'd returned to the Batcave. Mr. Wayne watched him darkly.
"What are you talking about?"
Terry took a breath and prepared himself to explain. He'd been thinking what to say the entire flight back, had formed it all perfectly. The problem was Mr. Wayne's penetrating gaze that threatened to make Terry lose all the words and determination to say them. He only fought it by not looking Mr. Wayne in the eye.
"Well," Terry said, "maybe she wouldn't be so biased. I mean, she figured out he spoke English without anyone helping her. All Ryuuji does is…well…trick me. I fall for everything."
When Terry finally venture to look up, Mr. Wayne was looking back at him just as disappointed and irritate as Terry had imagined he would be. "You shouldn't be backing out, Terry," said Mr. Wayne with a firmness that would refuse to let Terry drop the case for anything. "And Max is not our accomplice. She is your friend. You don't bring her into this."
"But maybe this once. I mean, I haven't been doing anything at all. I just look like an idiot."
Mr. Wayne shook his head, dismissive, but understanding. "You're just letting Ryuuji Otogi get to you. It's nothing."
"But he's already gotten to me. I can't do this."
"Yes you can. Resolve."
"That's easy for you to say. You've got all the facts. I don't even know why Otogi's old man matters."
"I've already told you, Terry. Giving you that information right now would only impede the progress of the investigation."
"Really?" asked Terry, his voice rising in frustration. "Because in case you haven't noticed, I seem pretty good at that on my own. I don't imagine how it could be any worse."
"Terry," Wayne said warningly. Terry refused to look at him. He thought he heard something like a growl from the old man. It was followed a moment later by a disappointed sigh, sort of a slow understanding on Mr. Wayne's part that was sure to belittle Terry and all he felt. Mr. Wayne would tell Terry how typical he was, how what was happening now was not important unless he learned form it. Mr. Wayne always gave such depressingly practical speeches as that.
"Terry, you've always put too much of yourself into your cases," said Mr. Wayne slowly, calmly. He was always calm, even when he was raging. He had a sort of cold, frozen inner peace about him always, "and I've let you down by allowing it to grow out of control. I'm telling you now that you need to stop putting your emotions into this. If you would learn that, you would be better. That's why I'm not giving you all the information on Ryuuji's father. You need to become less effected. I'm sorry I haven't stressed that enough with you."
"I know that already," said Terry shortly, betraying guilt because as Mr. Wayne had said, he had failed instructing Terry on controlling his emotions.
"Then learn from it."
Terry had nothing to argue back when Mr. Wayne played the I've-let-you-down card, professing not to have trained Terry enough yet. He'd already emphasised so much sending Terry to fighting classes and becoming furious with him for being rash in hopes that Terry would fail to be rash again. It didn't work. Terry wasn't a kid who did what he was told to do. He listened only to what the thought he needed to hear, then he acted to the better or worse as a result of it. So far, his arrogance had served him well enough as the Batman.
Now, however, arrogance left him crippled and unable to do his work. Mr. Wayne was right. Terry should have practised distancing himself from his work, should have been more logical and goal-oriented. Instead, Terry's lack of training exposed itself completely and begged the question if Terry would ever become a sufficient successor to Bruce Wayne.
"I'll consider it," Mr. Wayne called as Terry was halfway up the stairs. "Your friend Max. I'll consider calling her in. But, it is still your case. I won't let you give it up."
"Sure, great," said Terry unenthusiastically and continued out.
Endnote: Sorry for no boys kissing this chapter. I tried, but the natural resolve wasn't boys kissing. I'm terribly sorry about that.
In better news: I have a plot for this fic now. That's always a good thing, right?