4. Meeting McGinnis
(#700 + AU?)
It was your average break in. At least, that was how it looked. It wasn't till he saw that boy that he realised they'd crossed paths before. Confirmed when he saw the names on the envelopes placed on the kitchen counter. Once, many years ago. Almost fifteen. He had a brother now, judging from the photos on the mantelpiece.
The parents had been gunned down. Mercifully, the younger had been at a birthday party. Was there now. The elder, not so lucky. Arrived back after a fight with the parental in time to see two men in Joker masks sneaking round the vicinity.. A new emerging gang from an old foe. Had his mother's lips, the boy.
The police had left, for now. His luck, Damian figured. He could do without Barbara.
The boy looked up at his approach, his tear streaked face like so many faces Damian had seen. "My life's been poisoned by the Joker forever," he heard the boy mutter. Damian remained silent. Terry looked up at him, "They said you saved me once." There was a pause. "I wished you'd saved them."
Damian found himself drawn to the desperate anger bleeding through the boy's trembling fingers. Sweet Sixteen. Grayson had tried to make it passable for him. Enjoyable, even.
"I want revenge," he heard the boy say. "I want to make this right." Terry shook his head, "I should've been here."
He had saved the boy once. True. And Grayson had saved him once too, in a different way. He considered the boy. Thought of Grayson. He'd been younger, then. But something about this one… Damian shook himself internally, then reached into his trenchcoat. Pulled out a gun, lobbed it towards the boy. It landed in his lap, cold.
"I can help you," Damian said, voice scraping through the silence of the room for the first time. "Join me." Terry looked at the gun, hands barely clasping in, back at Damian, and back at the gun again. The boy's blue eyes hardened in the dark as he turned to gaze straight at Damian. The coldness was unnerving. He was reminded of his father. The boy chucked the pistol back, and Damian caught it with one hand.
"I'll join you," Terry said, coming to a decision, "but not this way." The boy stared through the darkness to where the bullets had left marks in the plaster, almost unseeingly. "I don't like guns," he said.
Damian's jaw clenched at words echoed from so long ago, and pocketed the gun.