a/n: I really should be reading my course texts. xD But oh well. Not too sure how the tone is working out in this one, but there ya go. Hope y'alls likes!
Chapter 19
When Terry first came to, it was dark, and the darkness was spinning. His back felt as if it had been dragged along a highway for a good mile or so, and he wasn't entirely sure that wasn't the case. It wasn't long before he passed out again, the hollow sound of voices muffling through the walls.
The next time he came to, the darkness had stopped spinning somewhat, and he could make out a sliver of grey light somewhere in the distance. The bottom of a door, he supposed. He felt behind him the best he could, only to find that his hands were weighed down with fetters. An experimental shift of his legs told him that his ankles were similarly bound. It was starting to seem like a very bad movie. He tried to focus on the voices beyond the wall, thanking small mercies for the cell he was in not being an Iso. He heard hoots of laughter, guttural mumblings and the occasional crash of furniture. Or crates. Or bodies. The giggling brought him back to how he had ended up in that state. He'd been rescuing two girls. Well, McGinnis, he thought he'd been rescuing two girls, but like some rank amateur had ended up in a trap.
Very schway.
The voices grew ever so faintly closer, and Terry strained forward in an attempt to hear.
"C'mon man, let the good times roll!"
"Come off it, Ghoul, Boss said he wasn't to be touched." Sounds of grumbling and grousing followed.
"I honestly don't think he's all that, do you, Dee Dee?"
"Me neither, Dee Dee, and why does he keep coming up?"
"It's because of that old guy Wayne, you mutts." J-man. Terry winced. At least he knew the gangs really were consolidating their numbers now. Someone began giggling, the rise and fall of it repeating itself unnaturally. The name dropped came back to him like a boomerang. Wayne. There was more to this, then. He hoped that whatever it was, he'd get out in time to warn Bruce. He remembered finding Bruce sprawled on the cave floor, laughing in that constipated wheezing as he gasped for breath, scrabbling weakly at the floor for purchase, face locked in a rictus of grinning agony. Not something he'd want to see again in his lifetime.
"You think you're all that, J-man, just so you know, we worked for the real Mister. J"
"Sure, Chucko," that sounded like Scab, the low growl filtering through the door, "And who beat him? Batman."
"You think Batman's gonna come after No Fun Boy?"
"Like he'll be able to find him!" J-man announced, glee evident in his voice. The group burst out into a fit of giggles, someone banging heavily on the door as they passed. The metal clangs resounded past Terry's ears in the small space, and when the echoes had stopped, so had the voices.
It'd be a long haul, he figured. He tried not to think about the chill that was beginning to descend on the room, or the lactic acid building in his arms as they were kept locked behind him. Absently, he wondered if the fact that he was at least sitting down was something to be glad about.
Bruce wanted to smash something.
As it was, he was sitting very calmly, if with a strong stubbornness set in his frame without which he probably would be smashing something, or at least biting verbally into the officer currently sitting across the table from him. He had gone up to the Gotham Central Police Station, not just to see Barbara but to offer his assurances to Mary McGinnis who had rushed down to the station as soon as she had been informed. Being the last person apart from Dana who had seen Terry, the officers on the case had deemed it pertinent to, as they put it, 'ask him a few questions'. Who wouldn't want to ask questions? He wanted to ask questions, he wanted to root out the answers that would bring him to Terry's assailants. This was a complete waste of time.
"Miss Tan informed us that Terry was in the area due to an errand you had sent him on. Can you confirm this?"
"Yes."
"Could you let us know what this errand was?"
"Taking pictures of the historical areas of Gotham."
"That was all?"
"Yes." Bruce grit his teeth and stared stonily at the cop. His partner who had been leaning against the wall pushed off it in one smooth motion and approached the table.
"So he's your errand boy, eh?" he said, silky voice rubbing like sandpaper across Bruce's mind.
"Of a nature."
"Ooh, of what nature, I'm wondering." The audacity.
"What are you insinuating?" Bruce asked, levelling one of his glares at him. Silly boy, trying to play at bad cop, and reading too much into tabloid speculations. His life as a public figure had meant all sort of scrutiny when it came to those with whom he developed a closer association. He was usually able to take it in stride, even encourage it at times. This was not one of those times. He gripped his cane harder to prevent himself from throwing the table to the floor.
"What we're just needing to know is the nature of your relationship with Mr. McGinnis." His partner quickly said, sending the other cop a warning glance.
"Professional. He is my personal assistant. I took him on after the unfortunate death of his father."
"Yeah, we heard about that," the log decided to speak again, "seems like bad luck runs in the family, huh. Bad luck to do with your company, or you."
This time Bruce did get up, baring his teeth. "I believe you've asked enough questions." He made for the door, only to have Barbara Gordon open it before he got there. He slated a look at her. "You may want to keep your men in check, Commissioner," he muttered with vitriol before stalking out. She reached out a hand to grab his arm and he twisted in her grasp, but stalled.
"We just need to know if there's anyone who might want to do you harm," she said. He looked at her, blue eyes a boiling sea. Then the sea calmed for a moment even as he gripped the cane harder. The girl at a nearby console thought he looked fearsome. He thought he looked pathetic.
"Do you really need an answer to that, Barbara?" her grasp slackened and he slipped quietly out of it, and walked down the corridor, past a distraught Dana, past a Mary McGinnis with worry etched across her face in the only way a mother's could.
"They'll do all they can, Mrs. McGinnis," he said, inwardly knowing in his infirm heart that he would do the same. More. He got into the car and drove back to the manor, camera tucked in his pocket, slipped to him by Barbara as they passed at the door. The motorcycle would be delivered later, he was sure. He thought about the enemies and possible enemies he had acquired, encountered, defeated and been utterly beat by over the years. So even Barbara thought someone was trying to get at him through Terry. The question was, which him? Bruce Wayne? Batman? Who was this person, how much did they know? And once the police got involved, not that they weren't, unless Barbara took the case upon herself, more questions would be asked. No, Barbara would do this, if not for him, for the boy. The boy? A voice in his head laughed mockingly as the skies overhead rumbled a disgusted purple at him, as if condemning his every decision since the day he had first set his eyes on the expanse of the cave. He tasted bile in his mouth, and let the bitterness flow through him. No. He would find him, he would be alive, and if one hair on his head was hurt ... he would sick sweet rage on those responsible.
Ace was at the gate, waiting for him as he drew up to it. Diana was at the door.
"I heard," she said. "You might want to check the news too." Bruce spat into the grass in response. Media, that was the last thing they needed. He wouldn't even be surprised if the tip off came from the poorly disguised gorilla that was the officer in the room.
"We have work to do," he said as he stepped into the main hall. It was dark, night was approaching fast, but through that darkness the last blaze of the sunset sliced through the living room windows. His eyes were drawn to the play of colours across the floor, and felt something in his gut that was mingled with so much poison. It was tiny, like a spark, ascending from an ashy expanse. A tingle of desperation. A tinge of hope. He would not fail Terry. He descended the stairs to the cave, flanked by Diana and Ace. A small room at one end of the cave opened up as he pressed a button on the console, and he went towards it, rolls of film in his hand. The red light seemed almost alive as he worked within the darkroom, and a good few hours later he emerged, having pegged up the photos to dry.
"I contacted some of the League," Diana said as soon as she saw him. He jerked his head up to look from her to the screen. Diana placed a hand on her hip in ready annoyance at his own. "Don't give me that look, Bruce." He bowed his head in rare assent, moving closer to the computer.
"I would have preferred to request assistance after assessing the situation."
"Assessing the situation? Your protégé, and Gotham's active guardian, a part-time member of the Justice League, is missing, as a civilian." Her voice had remained steady through this, the calmness being somewhat unnerving in its granting Diana intense precision in enunciating each word, which she did to great effect. "Don't tell me this isn't important enough." She allowed herself a small pause, and Bruce readied himself for an onslaught of berating from the Amazonian. Instead, she smiled.
"Anyway," she said, tossing her hair back, "I called up old hat. Ones you'd be able to stand working with. For a while. Some were even in town."
At that point a scarlet blur shot past them.
Bruce's only suitable reaction was giving her a look that said, 'You didn't.'
It was not strictly true that Bruce Wayne did not come into contact with League members long after hanging up the non-cape cowl. The members that came after his retirement he did not know. The members that came before that he didn't know beyond their powers, abilities, weaknesses and histories, usually stayed away from him, and after his increasing absence in the Watchtower, began treating him almost like the mythic spectre he was to most of humanity. The members that did regularly attempt to interact with him, or that he allowed for a while to interact with him, became increasingly restricted to the founding members of the League. Within this core existed a veritable irritant that liked to remind them that he was their conscience. He didn't do this explicitly, lording it over them like a bragging child. No, he just tested and tried their patience daily, then wiped his infractions away with a mocha, a smile, and very quick getaways. Somehow it worked.
Said irritant's daytime job brought him with rather frequent contact with Gotham, and so had never failed to appear on Bruce Wayne's increasingly hostile doorstep over the past few decades on the occasions that he was in town. Said irritant was Wally West, and he was currently buzzing between the computer screen in the Batcave and the evidence table at an increasingly high speed.
"West, did age not slow you down?"
"Can't say it has Bats. Made me hungrier though. Say, you got any food around here?" The blur shot up the staircase and came back again five seconds later with a box of fried chicken Terry had left the night before.
"So, what've we got so far, Bats?"
Bruce wanted to mutter 'nothing' in a manner which conveyed his increasing ire with as little effort as possible. The easy manner in which the Flash still leaned against the back of his chair, as he was doing now, immediately caused him to long for the usual silence that surrounded him when was in the cave. The Flash's manner of speech served to fuel his frustration. In the earlier years of Wally West's career he had written it off as naive immaturity. Thirty five years later and a sizeable amount of world and off-world crises thrown into the mix, he realised now that the hyperactive, patented happy-go-luckiness that was, indeed, the Flash, was indeed, the Flash. Bruce had accepted that his aggravation was an instinctual response. Bruce valued instinct. At this point, however, the urge to glare Wally's exuberance into contriteness seemed softened, buffeted by what the man had said. Rather, what he had called him.
"Bats?"
Said in such a casual way, but of course everyone was the Flash's friend, even his villains. 'Bats'. Names were strange things. They defined not only the person, but the relation of the person to the speaker. The speaker defined the relationship, did they not? The speaker identified the person. No one in their right minds would think that the balding, feeble man barely holding his weight up in that grey throne could in anyway be a 'Batman', that he was still capable of it. Not even him. Old Man was the much favoured moniker that his own psyche had chosen. Certainly not 'Bruce', which would only be heard in the voice of his Mother, coloured with tinges of previous... loves, shot through with the bitter aftertaste of iron and blood. No, they never did quite get it right, not Shriek or Powers. Even Terry had believed he addressed himself as 'Batman' internally. Batman was a spectre which had haunted him since he was eight. Batman was the shadowy figure he became. Then there was Bats. Cheekiness with affection, of which Wally West mostly was. In that, a reminder of himself. Funny, how that worked. He would've thanked Wally there and then. He settled instead for a glower as some sauce threatened to drip onto his shoulder.