A/N: If you want more info on how Terry becomes Batman in canon, then I'm sure you can find the episode on YouTube or something. For now, he's just got evidence that links Powers both to the murder of his father and the plan to take Wayne Enterprises from the Waynes. DCAU Wiki has more info, but I'm not going into too much detail here.

Right, a lot of people have asked for descriptions of what Sarah and Nick look like in their hero uniforms - I've had two very talented artists working on illustrations. The following link is for the work of one of them - take out the spaces when you paste it into your browser. Hope the pictures help!

http: / www. batmanwonderwoman . com / forum / viewtopic . php?f =9&t =684

Chapter Two—Batman Mark II

The aftermath of Terry hearing of his father's murder was pretty much a blur. He could recall the cops questioning him, the funeral, packing up his things and moving into his mother's apartment, but it was like he had been working on autopilot. He'd barely registered his mother's presence, or his brother's. It wasn't until he found the disc hidden among his stuff that things really seemed to come back into focus.

Especially given what he found on the disc.

The wind was blowing hard when Terry stopped in front of the gates and took off his helmet. He looked up at the manor house. It was dark, but he didn't doubt that at least one of the Waynes was up there. He just hoped they'd listen. Kicking the stand down on his bike, he walked over to the intercom and pressed the call button.

"Hey, something stinks with your business partner," he called. "I think it cost my old man his life!"

He let go of the call button and waited. No response.

Terry groaned. Come on, Wayne, he thought. I know you're up there. He pulled the disc out of his jacket pocket and held it up. "The answer's on here," he said, hitting the call button again. "It looks like Powers is gonna blame it on you and your company."

There was still no answer, but the sound of a roaring engine caught Terry's attention and he turned around. A motorcycle was rapidly approaching, only slowing down a few yards away and coming to a halt next to his bike. The rider, dressed completely in black, slowly took off his helmet.

Or rather, her helmet. Sarah Wayne stared at him with serious blue eyes beneath a mussed head of blonde hair, her trademark sparkling grin nowhere to be found.

Terry couldn't move, couldn't say a word. He felt...trapped by those eyes. It wasn't quite like how he'd felt under her father's gaze after he'd found...what he'd found the last time Terry was here, but it was pretty damn close.

Sarah studied him for several more seconds, and then nodded slightly. "Come on, kid," she said, gesturing to his motorcycle. "Let's go. You can tell me and mine about it in the house instead of shouting it out here for anyone who happens to go by." She pulled a remote out of her jacket and pressed a button, causing the gates to immediately open.

Terry stared at her, a little shocked that she was actually letting him into her home, but after a moment, he stopped questioning his good luck. The Waynes were the right ones to go to. Hell, they were the only ones to go to if he wanted Derek Powers exposed for the murdering son of a bitch he was.

Not waiting for him, Sarah kicked her bike back into life, and set off up the drive. It wasn't until the gates started closing slowly that Terry realised he was supposed to be following. He sped under the archway just as the gates closed with a clang, and caught up to Sarah just as she was getting off her bike, leaning forward to swing her leg over.

Now Terry was here on a very important mission—but he was a teenage boy on a very important mission. And when she did that in those leather pants, his mind did wander a little bit. Or a lot-

"Keep looking at my ass, kid, and you're not going to get any help at all," she said suddenly, and without looking at him.

He shivered, but didn't admit that he had been looking at her ass. She punched a code into the keypad by the door—91939, he noted just in case—then put her key in the lock, twisting the handle at the same time she twisted the key. The huge doors opened, and she motioned him inside.

"Follow me. Don't think about wandering off," she ordered curtly.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered.

She led him up to the first floor, to the same study that he'd found the Batcave in. At the door, Terry paused; the wingback leather chair in front of the desk was facing away from him, but he had no doubt about who was in it, or that his reception was going to be anything less than frosty.

Sarah moved to the chair, stood in front of it and spoke quietly. The room was large; Terry couldn't hear exactly what she was saying. He heard the reply though. A very unhelpful, "Find your brother."

Sarah left, meeting Terry's eyes neutrally, neither glaring nor smiling at him. The chair didn't turn around either. So the old man was going to ignore him? Screw that. He slammed the disc down onto the polished mahogany surface of the desk.

"In case you weren't listening, Powers had my dad killed!" he spat furiously. "And he's going to blame it on you and your company, leaving Wayne Enterprises completely clear for him to takeover. This isn't just my problem!"

Finally, the chair turned, and Bruce Wayne regarded him with inscrutable eyes. "If you have evidence, take it to the police."

Even as he said that, he took the disc and slid it into the laptop in front of him. At the sound of footsteps, Terry turned to see Sarah coming back in, her brother in tow. Now he looked like Wonder Woman—how no one had spotted it before was incomprehensible, especially considering the amount of paparazzi whose job it was to simply follow Nick Wayne around. They both went to stand behind Bruce's chair, reminding Terry uncomfortably of a scene from The Godfather. Couldn't beat the classics—but although he would have expected such a reenactment to be ridiculous, knowing the identity of these three people...it was anything but.

Bruce titled the laptop toward his daughter, who bent to scan through the files quickly, her blue eyes moving to and fro as she read. She glanced up at Terry. "You found this?"

"Yes," he emphasised. "See what I mean? This is bigger than- than just my dad." Christ, it hurt to say that.

On Bruce's right, Nick's gaze softened slightly.

Bruce repeated his question. "So why not go to the police?"

"Oh please, like they'd listen to a kid!" Terry protested. "I'd be accusing a member of Gotham's elite, and all they'd put it down to was my not being in my right mind because of what the bastard did to Dad!" His tirade started, he wasn't about to stop now. "Added to which, even if they looked at the disc, who's to say they're not all in Powers' pay anyway? I'd probably just get myself killed too!"

"They're not all corrupt," Nick said mildly.

"It's Gotham," Terry shot back witheringly. "Of course they are."

Bruce ejected the disc, slid it across the desk. "Take it to Commissioner Gordon."

Terry's mouth gaped. "And how the hell do I get to Commission Gordon? There's no way they'd let me anywhere near her office, let alone her!"

"Tell her we sent you. She'll listen."

"So that's it?" Terry exploded. "You're just telling me to leave and let the police handle it?"

"Yes."

Nick glanced at his father with a frown. "Dad-"

Bruce overrode him, not taking his hard eyes from Terry's. "You know where the front door is."

"This is bullshit! You have to do something! You're Batman!"

Bruce's gaze sharpened. "I was Batman."

Contrary to his words, the batglare came back with force, and Terry took an involuntary step back. Bruce wasn't finished. "Leave. Now."

"Fine!" Terry snapped, snatching up the disc and shoving it into his pocket. Without another word, he stormed out of the study, and out of the manor itself. He drove back to the city at a speed only thirty miles per hour above the limit. If the Waynes wouldn't help him, then Terry would take Powers down himself.

Sarah watched from just behind her father's shoulder as the kid's motorcycle roared down the driveway. "Daddy," she asked quietly, "are you sure?"

He turned to her, eyes curious. "Why aren't you?"

She shrugged. "He obviously hasn't told anyone. Don't you think we...owe him?"

"No, I don't," Bruce said flatly. "Besides, Barbara will listen to him as long as he tells her we sent him."

"If he trusts Babs enough," Nick pointed out from the fireplace. "If he doesn't then what? We'll look into it, right?"

"No," was the slightly surprising answer. "We can't risk more exposure than we already have."

"It's a murder!" his son protested. "What's so different about this one to all the others?"

"The others are public figures," their father replied. "People whose lives affect the city as a whole, not just-"

"Not just one family? Since when did one person's life become less important than another's?" Nick demanded.

"I said no. That's my final word." Bruce's tone made it clear that no further argument would be brooked.

Nick left the room angrily, muttering, "Looks like we've got Batman back again..."

Sarah looked calmly at her father. "Daddy...he has a point. If you really think crimes that don't affect the public shouldn't be investigated, then the League never should have gotten involved when Nicky and I were kidnapped. You and Mom should have left it to the police."

Unable to believe what he was hearing, Bruce frowned hard at his daughter. "Sarah, if we'd left it to the police then we never would have found you!"

"Exactly," she replied softly. "The cops might never find who killed the kid's dad. If you think it's too dangerous, I'm not going to go against you." She kissed his cheek. "But I don't think we can afford to take our eye off the ball with this one." Leaving it at that, she went after her brother.

Things settled down into an eerie peace after their confrontation with the McGinnis boy. Sarah made a point to watch the mutterings of the press even more closely than she normally did, but there was no mention of Batman, Reaper, and Prometheus in connection with Bruce Wayne and his two children. She and Nicky also kept a close watch on the police chatter, but there was no mention of any investigation being opened against Derek Powers on that front either.

A few days later, the annual Mayor's Ball was held, attended by nearly all of Gotham's elite, including the Wayne family. It was probably the most prominent event in Gotham, a field day for photographers and the rest of the press, but for Sarah herself, it was usually the most boring night of the year...except for the occasional, surprise entertainment.

"I can't believe you threw Rob Lindstrom into the fountain!"

Sarah smirked at her brother as Bruce pulled the car through the gates. "Hey, the guy was feeling me up after I told him to buzz off. Besides, I figured he'd rather cool off that way rather than be the subject of Daddy enhancing his 'overprotective father' reputation." She glanced up at the front seat and saw the grim look on her father's face. She grinned.

Nick shook his head. "Patricia Lindstrom looked ready to have a heart attack," he said.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Because she was afraid her little baby boy was going to catch a sniffle." She snorted. "Like that was going to happen in the dead of summer."

"True, dear," Diana spoke up. "But you're not the one who had to listen to the woman rant about it for over an hour."

"Well, if she'd taught 'her dear little Robby' that when a girl says no, she probably does actually mean no, then she wouldn't have to rant about him being slapped or thrown into fountains."

Bruce stopped the car in front of the house and turned it off. As they climbed out, he said, "Next time, let me deal with him, Sarah."

"What? So you can scare him so badly that he decides to join a Swiss monastery? That's no fun-"

"Dad," Nick cut his sister off, "Sarah. Look."

He pointed up the stairs to the door and they followed his gaze. The doors were hanging open.

All joking around and thoughts of Rob Lindstrom immediately fled.

Nick took point, with Bruce and Diana right behind him, and Sarah taking the rear, and the four of them cautiously entered the manor.

Sarah's eyes swept over their immediate surroundings. Nothing appeared out of place, but she knew they would be inspecting every room in the house long into the night. And that was before they called the cops.

They moved further into the house, finally coming to the study. The chairs and desk were in place, but not all was as it should have been. The clock that hid the Batcave's entrance was ajar by about a foot.

Sarah stifled a gasp. Not again...

Her family was apparently of a similar mind, because they sped up and one by one, they dashed down the tunnel, down the stairs, and into the Cave. Sarah's eyes immediately went to the computer, but it was powered down, just as she'd left it before they had left for the Mayor's Ball. She then hurried over to the lab bench, where they did much of their forensics work, but nothing seemed out of place there either.

"Shit," Nick spoke up from behind her. "Dad, look."

Sarah whirled around to where her brother was, but he was pointing in a different direction. She followed his pointing hand, and found herself looking at the display cases. One of them was conspicuously empty, the one that held the Batman costume that Daddy had started working on before he retired. The one he never used for himself, but continued to develop even after he stepped back from field work.

Come to think of it, Daddy had never really given anyone a straight answer about that costume and why he kept developing it. He just said that it was important, just in case.

Whatever the case might have been, it no longer mattered. What mattered was that the costume, which was completely state of the art, was gone. God only knew who had it...

Sarah froze. Wait a minute... "McGinnis, it has to be him. The kid's taken it."

There was a moments' silence, and then Diana's furious voice echoed throughout the entire Cave. "How could anyone be so foolish as to think they were capable of taking up the mantle of Batman?"

Nick tried to pacify her; he couldn't imagine that Terry McGinnis was being all that rational. "Mom, the kid probably isn't thinking straight. He's just lost his father, and even if he did try and contact Babs, there's no guarantee that he managed to." He directed his gaze at his father now. "And we weren't prepared to help him. And now he's likely to end up dead in an alley somewhere, so what are we doing still standing here?" he demanded, angry that this was even necessary in the first place.

The kid needed help; helping people was what they did, end of story. Why his father had refused was beyond him, and the fact that Sarah had backed him up- Well, that wasn't all that surprising, she always did. But in this case, Dad was so obviously wrong, so why the hell couldn't she see that? For a genius, she could be so...blind sometimes. Not wasting anymore time, Nick spun into his costume and then took to the air, flying toward Gotham at top speed.

Sarah watched him go with a sigh. "Great. Now I have two of them to rescue," she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

She changed quickly, then came out of the changing rooms snatching up a spare batarang or two on her way over to the car. "We'll be monitoring you," Dad said, already sitting at the computer.

Sarah nodded, then pulled her hood up and got into the Batmobile, roaring out of the Cave in a cloud of tyre smoke. On the way into the city, she accessed Nicky's com-link. "What are you going to do, Prometheus, fly around Gotham until you find him?"

Her brother's voice was annoyed. "Well, what do you suggest?"

She smirked. "Computer: locate Batman." The smirk quickly disappeared when she saw where the blinking yellow dot representing Terry was. Tapping on the touchscreen, she accessed the suit's status. McGinnis's heartbeat was elevated, and the suit was showing a small breach on his upper arm, and increasing impact to the knuckles. Meaning the kid was in a fight. In the batsuit. Which meant that the kind of criminals attacking him probably would not be your average thug. "Shit," she hissed softly. "P, meet me on the corner of 11th and Broadwalk. Gilbert Building roof."

"Affirmative."

Prometheus was further away than she was, and she'd get there first, but she'd wait for him. She blasted through the city, then parked just behind Gilbert Investments, activating the security as she locked the car. Like the suit Terry currently occupied, her boots were equipped with flight-capabilities, and the bottom of her cape was flame-retardant. She flew up to the roof and set down silently, moving over to the other side. Activating the infrared in her mask, she could see what was happening in the alley opposite. There were ten figures that she could count, nine scumbags surrounding the figure in the batsuit. Most of them were wielding knives; a couple had chains. The kid didn't look like he was doing too badly, but in a moment he'd get overwhelmed.

A second later, Nicky dropped down out of the sky next to her. "What are you standing here for?" he demanded in a whisper. "Kid's going to get himself killed!"

He made as if to dive off the roof; Sarah grabbed his wrist to stop him. "Wait!"

"Why?"

She motioned toward Terry. "Let's see what he can do first."

"Reaper-" Nicky started to protest.

"P," she broke in. "Trust me."

He didn't look convinced, but nodded. "Fine..."

A few seconds later, however, it was clear that they'd have to intervene or the kid would get taken down. Permanently. Both of them descended at once, dealt with the remaining five thugs within ten seconds, and then faced Terry McGinnis.

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. "That was sloppy, ill-conceived and misjudged," she criticised. Her gaze softened just a little bit. "But for a novice...it wasn't bad."

Nicky clapped him on the shoulder, making his knees buckle just a little bit. "You've got potential, kid."

Terry didn't look like he knew what to say. "Uh, thanks?"

"Don't get cocky," Sarah quashed. "You're coming back to the Cave with us right now and giving us the suit back. You haven't earned the right to wear it."

Terry wasn't budging. "What about my dad?" he demanded. "Your fath-" Sarah glared warningly at him, and he amended his sentence. "Batman refused to do anything about it!"

"We'll solve it, kid," Nicky assured, "but you can't be involved."

"This is my father we're talking about!" he protested. "No way am I sitting in the sidelines while you try and-"

"We don't 'try', kid," Sarah told him, "we just do."

"Stop calling me that," he said irritably. "My name's-"

She cut him off again. Hera, did he have no common sense? "Not out here," she warned.

"And until you earn that suit, it's 'kid', understand?" Prometheus added.

The kid nodded reluctantly. "Yeah."

"Good," Sarah said. "You're coming with me."

"I'm patrolling," Nicky said.

She nodded. "Take care."

Knowing that the kid would follow her, she led the way back to the car, opened the top and gestured for him to get in. "This is so cool," he said once she'd gotten behind the driver's seat.

"It is not 'cool'," she said sharply. "It's a very advanced, very expensive piece of technology that is not to be handled in a frivolous manner, is that clear?"

McGinnis fidgeted in his seat like a naughty school boy. "Crystal," he muttered.

Sarah lifted into the air and opened the throttle all the way. He had a point, really. It was a very cool piece of advanced technology.

It took them little time to get back to the Cave at the speed they were driving, and her parents were waiting for them. Both were glaring. "Take off that suit, and get out of our home," Diana snapped, as soon as the canopy was open.

"But-"

"Now!"

"I didn't want to steal the suit, but you didn't exactly leave me with much choice!" Terry protested. "The police wouldn't help me-"

"Did you even try?" Bruce asked bluntly.

"Of course I didn't!" he spat. "This is Gotham, what the hell would be the point?" Throwing the cowl back, Terry started tearing off the suit.

Sarah bit her lip, preparing to do something she had never done—contradict her father. "Wait a second, kid."

Bruce's head swung around so fast she wasn't sure for a moment if he'd sustained whiplash. Mom, too, looked utterly shocked. Sarah spoke to her father—she cared what Mom thought, of course, but Gotham was Bruce's city still, even if he no longer patrolled there.

"Prometheus and I agreed to help," she said, ignoring the way his eyes narrowed to deadly slits, "but there's something else."

"Which is?" her father barked.

She motioned at Terry. "I think the kid should be trained."

Thankfully, Bruce always took note of her opinion, as he had since she was thirteen. Even when he didn't agree with it. He looked over at Terry, gaze sweeping the kid up and down as though he were a mannequin upon which the batsuit was hung. "Because?"

"He's got potential," she said. "From what I saw, lots of it. He's sloppy, he rushed in, he's arrogant and had Prometheus and I not been there, he would be dead right now."

"A lot of faults," Diana commented calmly.

"Yes," Sarah agreed, "but despite them, with the right training he could be good."

"Batman good?"

She nodded. "In time. Once he learns discipline."

Terry apparently got tired of being discussed as though he wasn't there. "Hey, who said anything about being Batman? I just took the suit to try and get justice for my dad, which if you'd agreed to help in the first place, I wouldn't have-"

"We already said we would," Sarah interrupted. "Now you have to make a decision. You can go home to your mom, to your brother-"

He opened his mouth to demand exactly how they knew about his mother and Matt, but the glare he got from Bruce told him it would be a bad idea. He looked back at Sarah. "-or you can do something. You can help stop what happened to you from happening to some other kid."

"You and Prometheus-"

"Can't be everywhere at once." Her voice softened a little with regret. "Maybe you're the result. I'm good, kid, but two of us would be better."

He frowned. "There's already two of you-"

She smirked. "Two of us who can make Gotham's underbelly wet their pants with a word."

Terry stared, bug-eyed, at her—and then at Bruce, then Diana. The princess's expression was a lot softer than it had been a moment ago, but the head of the family was still glaring. "If you do this," he finally said, "then you leave vengeance at the door. Reaper and Prometheus will bring Powers down—you'll have nothing to do with it. Only afterward will you be allowed to operate in the city. For justice, not anything else."

"But-"

"This is not a negotiation. Accept the terms or get out."

Finally, Terry nodded.

"Good," Sarah said, her tone suddenly much different than it had been. She sounded almost…gleeful. Holding out her hand to him, she added, "Welcome to our world."

A/N: Review please!