"Rrrgh." Terry opened his eyes for a brief moment, and quickly squeezed them shut, overwhelmed by the maelstrom nature the world seemed to have adopted while he slept. He sighed, and quickly regretted that, too; his ribs seemed to jut into his lungs when they expanded.
"Awake?"
"Ugh." Without thinking, he tried to sit up, and regretted that most of all. "Ah! Damn..."
"What hurts?"
"What doesn't?" Terry groaned in reply. Then, as the memories of his last fight flooded into his mind, crashing on an already intense headache, he asked without thinking, "Am I dead?"
"No, but if you're asking that, you're worse off than I thought," Bruce's deep voice replied, tinged with equal parts concern, relief, worry, and irritation. Something seemed odd about the voice, but what with his temples pounding like pistons, Terry was rather more concerned with forming some semblance of a coherent thought.
"I...um...what?" He failed rather spectacularly as he pulled himself a little further upright on the hospital bed kept in the Batcave, the pain having subsided just below his battle-built threshold.
"Lie back down and go back to sleep," Bruce authoritatively commanded, and when Terry took too long to do so, he felt strong hands pressing him down carefully, so as not to hurt anything.
"Fine, fine..." He opened his eyes a sliver to make completely sure of where he was. Familiarity greeted his eyes – shadowy rock formations, pitch black corners, the glow of monitors – until they finally focused on the man hovering over him.
They widened to the size of small moons.
"W-what the hell? You're young again!" he babbled before choking for lack of air.
"Don't forget to breathe, McGinnis," Bruce sighed, holding the teenager still.
"Okay," Terry managed after a few deep breaths, "What happened?"
"You lost."
"I know that," Terry snapped, eyes shadowed by the feeling of failure at the stern deadpanned statement of fact, shoved aside only for his curiosity at Bruce's age regression, "What happened to you? Lazarus Pit therapy?"
"Don't be ridiculous. The Lazarus Pit was destroyed, and there would've been no way to get to one quickly enough. Go back to sleep – you need it to recover," the older man replied, fixing a stern gaze at the younger.
"Not until you tell me how it is you look all middle-aged again." Terry returned the stare determinedly, being by then used to it, and an awkward moment passed in which nothing was said nor thought.
Sighing, Bruce explained. "I've been overseeing the development of a retroviral therapy treatment since last year, after you recovered the Joker's crude genetic chip. It's made good progress, being a lot more reliable and sustainable than his crapshoot of a nanotechnological method. You know how retroviruses work, right?"
"By rewriting RNA into DNA and inserting it into the host, making the host produce more of the retrovirus and... You mean you used it to mess around with your genes?"
"In short, yes. Retroviruses to rewrite the genes to make rapid modifications and have cells replace themselves quickly, along with creating telomerase to lengthen telomeres – "
"To reverse some of the effects of aging. Holy shit." Terry stared at the ceiling and blinked blankly.
"Well, it's good to know you're bright enough to understand what I'm talking about," Bruce muttered.
"So wait, doesn't that make you pretty much... immortal?"
"Don't oversimplify things. There are many factors in aging, and also, the treatment is highly experimental. It hasn't been tested before."
"Then..." Terry tried to make sense of things, but his head refused to wrap itself around thoughts as it began to pound again.
"McGinnis, we can talk more about it later," Bruce stated firmly, "Right now, you need rest."
"But I'm not tired," the young man protested, sitting up a little only to gasp at how much every part of his torso ached at movement.
"One broken rib, multiple bruised, along with your sternum and your larynx. Internal bleeding – thankfully, not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Shoulder popped out of socket, mild concussion, and contusions all over. You're lucky to be alive, so you'd damn well listen to me, McGinnis, or I'll sedate you for your own good."
Terry closed his eyes as the words struck him like the blows they described, frustrated at his condition as it hit him how badly he'd had his assed kicked, so badly that Bruce resorted to extremely drastic action to keep him from death at his enemies' hands. More than humiliation, he felt disappointed in himself – he had thought he was prepared for anything after his confrontation with the controlled Tim Drake, and to realize that he'd gotten unwarrantably arrogant struck a sore nerve. Smothering a curse under his breath, he slammed his head against the pillow, which only succeeded in replacing his frustration with a haze of pain.
"Hey," Bruce muttered, softening the edge to his voice with awkwardness, "Don't be too hard on yourself."
"Hm. Not what you usually say."
"And you usually don't beat yourself up like this."
"I don't usually lose so miserably. Especially not after facing pseudo-Joker."
"It happens. Get used to it. You came back in one piece." Getting no response but a dejected scoff, Bruce plodded on. "I've informed your mother that you're doing overtime work for me, and will be paid accordingly. She wasn't happy about it, but said it was up to you, now that you're a responsible adult. That will save you some trouble in the future, I imagine, especially if you move into the university dormitory."
"...Yeah." With that, silence fell over the room, and soon after, Terry fell asleep, still physically exhausted, only vaguely aware that Bruce had left.
Batman's former protégé wandered the halls of the mansion, remembering a time when he used to live in it, smiling wistfully as he almost expected Alfred to chastise him about being up entirely too late for a child his age. Despite the inch of dust accumulated through the years since the devoted butler's passing, the place still looked oddly inviting to him the way it would never to most anyone else. The faint happiness at reminiscence disappeared as footsteps approached, and Dick Grayson turned to face the man who'd mentored him so long ago.
"Well, I'm guessing we can continue our conversation now, Bruce," he remarked coolly.
"I don't see that I have a choice in the matter. You won't leave until you're either satisfied by or irritated enough with me." Dick averted his gaze at the stern stare the former Batman gave him; he'd never been good at returning such an intense look, and he didn't know many who were. Still, he continued firmly – he'd long grown past being intimidated by it, at least.
"I don't care that you used whatever treatment you did. Drastic occasions call for drastic measures. But that was an occasion that shouldn't have had a chance at occurring, and you know it," he accused, the chill in his voice thinly veiling anger, "You haven't been training the kid at the level he should've been trained, and he's paying the price for it. And yet even now, you're going to let him keep going as Batman."
Bruce sighed wearily. "I can't take this from him – by now, it's ingrained in him whether I like it or not," he stated, words met with a dubious cough from Dick, "Up until now, it's never been necessary. The suit – "
"Is a damned crutch, and one he can't even rely on – which is why he's lying in the other room with severe injuries, and why you've overridden your own principles," Dick retorted, "Now that you've got the ability to train him, you'd better rough him up – or someone else will, and I don't think they'd have as good of intentions as you do."
"I know that very well. And I fully intend on making sure that Terry will never – never – ", Bruce repeated with heavy emphasis, expression hard and severe, "Lose a fight for this reason again."
"Good. Because I'll wager I'm not the only one you'll have to deal with if he does. I'll be monitoring him, and he'd better improve, or he's not the only one who'll have to answer for it." With that, Dick turned and walked away, hiding the frustration simmering beneath his cool exterior that the first time he'd spoken to his past mentor in years had to follow the same antagonistic pattern that they'd developed years ago. Some things, he thought to himself wistfully, never change.
A/N: Dropping chapter titling because it just doesn't suit. Chapter's a bit short, but it seems to have cut off too well here for me to go on. Hope it's not falling into the realms of boredom.