Batman: So leave me where the kids are all right (Bruce, Dick, Terry)

[karanguni]

Third in the Better Dead Than Lead arc.

So leave me where the kids are all right

Fandom: Batman/Batman Beyond
Characters: Bruce, Dick, Terry
Rating: PG
Warning: Hints of slash. Hints of problematic family relations. Lots of hints, too.
Summary: Dick, boy wonders, and also Batmen.

(Follows on the heels of a 50 year displacement into the world of Terry McGinnis.)

5104 words and more inter-Batclan relationship tsunamis. \o/



Dick spends the evening of the Wayne function watching Terry being everything he's not. While everyone fights to shake hands with Robbie Drake - heir apparent and billionaire walking - Terence McGinnis plays unnoticed outcast. Mostly he lingers, a very blasé watchdog by Bruce's side. Other time he mingles, but never quite enough. Bruce used to host events like these - giant mill-arounds where Dick or Jason or Tim would be forced to spend entire evenings associating, meeting and greeting, memorising. It's dangerous to think in past tense when that Bruce is in his present, but everything now is so out of place that continuity correction seems to be the last of Dick's problems.

It aches, Dick thinks, as he smiles at Jordan Price and watches hate blossom in the other man's eyes. Aches like a joint dislocated - terrible, acute, but not necessarily fatal.

Things have changed. Dick's not sure precisely what universe he's in, but he knows he has to believe in something. Start with logic and move on from there. Search for the constant, and then change the controls. He's never wrong. He's never wrong.

'I see you've met Price,' Bruce says, gliding into place next to Dick and causing a small surge in the crowd. People start coming closer. It probably has something to do with natural magnetism, in the way of plate tectonics and charisma.

Dick hides his grimace behind a sip of his drink and nods. 'Not a friend of yours, I'm guessing.' Wayne money is a touchy subject. Everyone wants to get their hands on it. Bruce never lets it go. It's a dichotomy that people have had problems with since before Dick was born.

'He'll live through the beating that his ego is taking,' Bruce murmurs.

There's so much foreign pride in Bruce's eyes that Dick's unsure if he made the oath to the right person earlier that night. He's not sure if anything - or anyone - can be entirely unitary. But here Bruce Wayne is, being Bruce Wayne. Even his voice has changed. Dick leaves his half-finished champagne flute on a table, and goes off (flees) to continue playing the game.

There are people from Foxtecha, people who are second-generation Cadmus, people who are STAR Lab pedigree. The names have all changed. The personalities, not so much. Dick wants to tear the suit off by the second hour, and not for the benefit of the women who've been staring at him like he's a particularly fine chop of meat.

By the time it's over, Dick wants to do nothing but to go out on patrol and run himself ragged. McGinnis looks dead from boredom. Bruce looks like Bruce. They take the shortest route home.

'Rough night,' McGinnis quips as he parks the car. Dick's starting to see a pattern to his speech; it's in the way McGinnis instinctively tries to push the oppressive silence of the cave back. It's something Dick empathises with: sometimes you can feel dwarfed by the enormity of the cave, the mission, the silence. You'll do anything to stop yourself from being devoured, because if you don't talk, if you don't joke, if you don't make some noise, you turn into Batman, and that's more of a curse than Dick thinks Terry understands just right now.

'Get suited up,' is all Bruce says, even though in another life(time) he might've (should've) had Terry at the computer regurgitating information from the earlier session. 'The night's hardly begun.'

Bruce turns and gives Dick a look that is entirely different from the one he just gave Terry. Dick shrugs slightly, and goes to suit up. The Nightwing costume that Bruce has in the -- has in storage is different from the one that he came in: it's rougher on the edges, older, less streamlined. It'll have to do, for now - and it's not the equipment that matters, in any case. The only piece of tech that really counts is the new communicator. Dick flips it in the air once, then slips it into the canal of his right ear.

'Come on, kid,' he motions at Terry, putting on the domino. 'Time for you to show me what you're made of.'

'We'll see if you can keep up,' Terry replies, pulling on the cowl. It's the strangest and most pleasing thing Dick's heard yet when the kid's timbre shifts and roughens with his next sentence: 'Nightwing.' It reminds Dick of Bruce.

'Get the car, little bat.'

The cowl hides most of Terry's expressions, but Dick thinks he can see a smile when Terry says, 'Guess who's riding side-saddle today?'



Dick gets the scope of things on the way to Robinson. Terry's not totally efficient when he points out the trouble spots and the most radically changed areas of town, but then again he's a young kid coming off the shoulders of giants: no one beats Bruce at dissemination, and Dick's used to Tim and his little brother's partially frightening analyticity. Terry squeezes in a lot of opinion on the side - "that's Jokerz territory; good hunting but lots of bad taste to make up for it" - but he gets the job done.

'So the N line,' Dick says, studying a layout of the neo-Gotham transit system. 'It's right below us and heads to the park?'

'Not exactly,' Terry shakes his head. 'Changes over to the number 2 train at the Midtown junction.'

'That used to be a pretty big interchange,' Dick nods. 'I think I can handle it.' He knocks Terry on the back of the cowl, rat-a-tat-tat. 'Little bat, slow down a bit.'

'Handle what?' Terry asks, turning back to look at Dick as he eases up on the car. 'Hey, don't touch t--'

'I wonder what this little red button does?' Dick asks rhetorically, and then he hits the cockpit release and stands up to meet sweet, sweet air resistance. 'Bingo. I'll meet you at the park, kid. Don't get lost along the way.'

'Are you crazy?' the kid demands, pulling the Batmobile down to a pretty pathetic crawl, considering its capabilities. Dick can almost see individual buildings instead of a generalised blur now. 'Your suit's just kevlar! You hit anything on the drop down and I'll be scraping pieces of you off the sidewalk and giving you back to Wayne in a plastic bag.'

Terry reminds him, briefly, of audiences at the circus. They never want to believe what they know they're going to see. 'I'd better not screw up, then,' Dick grins. His domino doesn't hide anything; it was never designed to. 'Because I don't think Bruce will be too happy if I end up dead on your watch. Be on time, little bat. I won't wait forever.'

There's the beauty of improved technology: the southbound automated N line hits the tracks beneath them just on schedule, and Dick manages a small wave before he lets his de-cel rope go taut and leaps. If Terry's saying anything, he doesn't hear: the world moves into a cacophony of sound and action. Dick lands on the roof of the middle carriage with enough room to spare for a roll and a stand: he comes up, sticks the landing, and has the cord drawn back in before Terry even manages to open the secure channel between their commlinks.

'Are you out of your mind, Nightwing?'

'Live a little,' Dick shouts over the rush of air. 'You'll love it if you try it. And you really shouldn't talk while driving, kid. N out.' He shuts Terry down before opening a link back to the manor. 'N to B,' he says. 'I know you're there.'

'Yes.'

'Your kid is easily impressed,' Dick says, bounding over the gap between cars and heading for the front. It's better to have more leeway for the jump than less, and Dick's always liked riding close to the line in any case. 'Never quite showed him the ropes, did you?'

'I haven't had the time,' Bruce says, dry as anything.

'Who would've thought that age'd give you back your sense of humour?' Dick flexes his fingers, and watches the lights of the number 2 coming in from a distance. 'It's not a very good trade-in for the training, Bruce.'

'It's easier to simulate combat modules in the cave than it is to demonstrate acrobatics with arthritis.'

'Does this one listen, at least?' asks Dick, pulling himself into a crouch.

'Occasionally,' Bruce replies.

'Good,' Dick says. 'I'll get him back to you in one piece, but I don't think he's going to like me very much by the end of it all.'

Bruce says, 'Did you like me very much during your training? ' just as Dick throws himself across the tracks and onto his new ride. It takes him a good three seconds to swallow down the adrenaline. Dick flattens himself out and says, 'No,' as Robinson Park comes in closer from the East, zooming in at sixty miles an hour under the dark, filthy air. Dick thinks he could get to love this Gotham almost as much as the one he knows. 'But I sure loved you for it afterwards.'



The Park is a dead end and then some. Dick meets up with Terry at the co-ordinates of his appearance (the look on the kid's face doesn't hold up to his attempt at being casual when he tells Dick "you're alive"), and they do as fine a sweep as they can considering that the trail is two nights old. Dick goes for a lay of the land while Terry takes the intangibles.

'Radioactivity readings are normal,' Terry reports, coming back in from a loop around the radius of the original blast. He joins Dick on the roof of the park's visitors' centre. 'No significant EM spikes. No heat signatures. Air constitution is dead on average. If there's anything we're supposed to be seeing, I'm not picking it up.'

'Fancy,' Dick whistles, motioning at the suit. 'Spectrograph and mini-analysis lab all in one. Wish I had that in my day. How many times does it factor your strength?'

'Roughly ten,' Terry says offhand. Kid definitely takes the thing for granted. The cowl's eyepieces flicker. 'And I'm not getting anything on any of the light spectrums.'

'The scene's too contaminated,' Dick agrees, pointing down. There have to be at least eight couples and a few solo stragglers wandering around below them, counting only the ones that have gone by in the past hour. 'If the rip even left any at all, it could be in one of a thousand places by now. Needle in a haystack. This one's a dead end.'

'What other ends do we have? Wayne's being pretty unhelpful about this case.'

Dick shrugs. There's no point in getting frustrated, either at his situation or at Terry's abilities of detection. 'We keep monitoring the city for any other potential spikes. Consult whichever resident magic user is in Gotham at this point. I'll hit the archives in the morning, check up on any news from the date that I got plucked out, and sieve out any anomalies from there. We bother Bruce only when we have to.'

Terry crosses his arms, and here comes some of the scepticism that should have been there right from the start. It's only in this family that being a suspicious bastard is a good character trait, but some things even Dick won't question. 'I don't think the old man's just going to sit this one out.'

'Sit it out?' Dick raises his eyebrows. He resists the urge to waggle them, resists the urge to turn this into a game. 'He's not sitting this one out. If anything, he'll be pursuing whatever avenues I didn't and can't think of - and he'll tell us if anything comes up.'

'This is turning into a waiting game,' Terry gripes. 'Not exactly my forte.'

Problem with the cowl is that you can't ruffle a guy's hair while it's on him. Dick settles for patting Terry on the arm. It's not a great substitute, but Terry isn't exactly a kid -- not one of Bruce's, at least. 'Instant gratification got old with email,' he says. 'Come on, little bat. Time for you to pick up some traditions.'




It's not the easiest thing in the world, Terry discovers, to have a conversation on the top of a block of moving metal death. Shouting to be heard is difficult to do while simultaneously hanging on for dear life.

'Have you and the old man ever thought of getting yourselves psychologically profiled!'

'Nope. Get ready, little bat.'

'Because I think you'd both benefit from seeing a shrink. God I am so fragged -- '



Terry's still shaking when Dick calls the car over and gets him to change in the back seat. 'You're dripping,' Dick points out helpfully, kicking the car into a sweet, silent slide and heading straight for Terry's home.

Terry's hair is plastered right over his face. He looks flushed, worked over, a little manic. It looks good on him, looks right. The trains knock cockiness out of people almost as fast as they knock the breath out of people's lungs. What Bruce calls (called?) a sharp, severe shock. Bruce always has the quaintest expressions.

'Dripping? I'm surprised I'm not dead,' the kid grumbles, shoving the cowl aside and scrubbing his face with his fingers. 'You've got strange ideas of fun, mister.'

'Tell me you didn't like it and I'll never make you do it again,' Dick offers.

Terry snorts a laugh. It modulates his voice back into something a bit younger. 'I'll get back to you about that when I'm feeling less motion sick.'

There's the sound of the suit getting pulled off. Dick risks a look backwards, and catches a glance just in time to see how flawless the kid's skin really is. Lots of bruises, but not exactly the kind of post-war minefield that his body - or, god knows, Bruce's - is. Scratches here and there. Marks Dick would've dismissed as surface wounds, if he didn't have a sound idea of exactly how much heat the kid had to have had packed against him for the suit to have allowed that much through. Dick has potholes in his own body; craters and valleys where flesh and blood emptied out to air and water. Bruce - Bruce's body is alien territory. Foreign, fabled, fantastic, fucked up.

Terry's body is a different kind of fucked up. He pulls a tank over his head, and it all disappears a little bit too easily. Dick can't exactly wear anything even resembling a wifebeater without at least a light jacket, not unless he wants to get asked questions about whether he's ever seen active duty or got into accidents.

'Drink up,' he says to Terry, tossing the kid a bottle of water. 'You're going to need to stay hydrated.'

'Yeah,' Terry says, cracking the top of the plastic and taking a good few mouthfuls. 'Wouldn't want to make it any easier for you to kill me or anything.'

'You were relying on the suit's flight capabilities just a little too much, little bat,' Dick says, with an appropriately tempered amount of glee.

'You could have told me before jamming them,' Terry complains.

'Who says I'm the one who jammed the jets?' asks Dick.

Terry snorts. 'The old man thinks I'm vulnerable enough as is. Not exactly his style to cripple the kid with the handicap.'

'Not his style?' Dick has to laugh at that one. 'Little bat, I think you just haven't seen what Bruce's style really is.'

'Heh,' Terry says. 'You're the master.'

The kid has a good laugh. A little edged by cynicism, but if what the files on him in the cave say is anything close to accurate, Dick's pleased at how gentle that edge can be. Terry saves the anger for the mission; it's the opposite of what Bruce would've wanted him to do, but it works, and it's better than watching one more bird's voice die on a caged song. 'There's only one master in this house,' Dick sings. 'I'm just an odd robin.'

'Want to tell me all about it?' Terry ventures.

And he goes where arguably no man has gone before. One small step for social graces, one giant leap for Bat-kind. 'It's a long story,' Dick warns.

'Hey,' Terry shrugs. 'You could always drive a little bit slower. C'mon. Everyone I know who knows likes to drop hints about the great and fabled Dick Grayson.'

'I may not be the same man, you know,' Dick has to point out. 'Everything's a little bit different down here, and it's not just this century's funky looking fashion.'

'Are you kidding me?' Terry says. 'The only Dick Grayson who lives down in the cave is probably right about your age. The Nightwing suit doesn't fit old men.'

'Point,' Dick concedes, because he'll be the last person to say that they don't all live at least a little bit in the past. Bruce is a master at that particular art, and Babs's other favourite past time is telling him that he's inherited way too much of the tendency to brood. 'How much do you know?'

'How much do you think they tell me? It's Wayne's game to play hide the graveyard. If he ever talks about you guys - which he doesn't - it's only to put me in my place. "None of the Robins,"' Terry does a more-than-passable imitation of Bruce's low rumble, '"ever complained". Right.'

'I don't think we complained,' Dick says. 'Yelled, shouted, snapped, screamed, yes - but complain? It's one thing to take Bruce to task for being heartless, and another thing altogether to say you don't want to finish a training sequence.'

'Who could?' Terry sighs. 'When the old man gets disappointed, the whole world gets to know.'

That makes Dick smile. 'Maybe you're just hypersensitive, little bat.'

'Could you ever look away when he was in the room?' Terry pauses. 'Sorry. Hard not to think of you in past tense.'

'Don't worry about it,' Dick waves it off. It's hard for him not to think of Bruce - this Bruce - in the present tense. 'And no, I couldn't. But I don't think I ever really wanted to in the first place.'

'Then why did you leave?'

The million dollar question. 'I think you'll have to keep at this another couple of years before you're ever going to understand the answer to that one, Terry.'

'If I had a cred for every time someone mentioned that to me, Nightwing, I'd be pretty rich by now.'

Dick drums his fingers on the steering. 'There's Bruce,' he says finally. 'And then there's the mission. Sometimes all you'll ever see is the former. It's who Bruce is. It's what Bruce is. I don't know anyone who doesn't - openly or secretly - want to be like him in at least one way. You step into his world and nothing else in your own will ever be as immediate again.'

Terry's a good listener.

'Sometimes there are days when Bruce forgets about anything but the mission. And on those days you'll realise what it's like to matter not at all to Bruce - not at all to Batman. And let me tell you this, little bat,' Dick says, softly. 'There's nothing more humbling or degrading than how that feels. The world narrows down to a fine, high wire. I couldn't walk that line when I left. So I went.'

'You never came back.' In the monitor that feeds the rear view, McGinnis crosses his arms, an angry motion. 'None of you came back.'

'Maybe there was a reason,' Dick shrug. 'Or maybe none of us could be what Bruce Wayne is and always has been.'

The kid obviously wants to hit him for saying bad things about Bruce, and Dick would've wanted to hit himself too, in a better world. But sons are allowed to say what they want about their fathers, even if that's never been what either of them are. Dick lets Terry enjoy the entitlement of the newly converted. 'What's that?'

'Independent,' Dick answers, pulling the car up in an alley three streets from Terry's apartment block. 'Alone.'

Terry picks up his backpack and palms the cockpit controls. 'Maybe,' McGinnis says, climbing out. 'Or maybe not, Grayson. I'll catch you tomorrow.' He goes.

Dick shuts the cockpit roof. 'Yeah, little bat,' he smiles. 'I hope you prove me wrong, too.'




Bruce finds him far later than Dick expects to be found. Three a.m. and the manor is a mausoleum, expansive without Batman working against the soft light of the cray consoles and too quiet without the eternal hum of one engine or another running diagnostics in the background. Whenever Dick visits - visited - he is - was (god) used to the quiet, clockwork functionality of Bruce's playground. Nothing ever lay still: there was always a job to be done, always a case to be filed, always a toy to be designed or improved or tested. In recent - later - years it was the almost-imperceptible feedback from Tim's earphones as his little brother did his laps on the treadmill. Sometimes it was Bruce on the rings, just steady breathing and a rush of displaced air. Alfred coming down the steps. Cass in still meditation. It didn't have to be noise to be alive.

This cave is dead. Dick comes in to find more than three quarters of it shut down, and even though he started at one and hasn't stopped since, it's only still halfway active by the time he hears the sound of the lift hydraulics working.

The systems are the least rusty; Bruce still works from them, by the look of the files and the additional functionality that doesn't quite mesh with what Batman would've used if he quit two or three decades ago. The gym equipment gets rearranged - it's clear that McGinnis favours the pommel and the mats over the bars and the rings. He probably doesn't know how to work the higher elements well enough to like them; Bruce probably isn't in any state to show him how. Dick takes some of it out of storage: the extra rooms are in the same place, and the codes haven't changed. He dusts his hands and takes three sets on the horizontal bars before he's calm enough to move on.

The forensics lab is full of stale air and cobwebs. Dick knows that part of it is due to the nature of the suit - he needs to sit down with it before he'll know what it's fully capable of, but right now he wouldn't put it past Bruce to have installed enough additional functionality into the thing to make a full lab slightly redundant. But he knows it's also part of who McGinnis is. He's a real kid - the kind with a family - and an old kid. He's nothing like Tim - doesn't have the natural ability, and nowhere near the level of (Dick has to admit it) near-crazy dedication his little brother has to emulating every aspect of the Batman mythos. He did time in juvie, but he's doing time as Batman, fighting for every moment in that suit and for every part of Bruce's old morality. He's not Jason. He's also nothing like Dick himself: there's no way Bruce locks McGinnis into a lab and forces him through the motions, not with the kind of schedule McGinnis runs.

It's a strange feeling, like someone walking over his grave, that Dick gets when he runs tests on all the stock chemicals that Bruce still has here. He throws away about a tenth of what he finds - expired, or oxidised from a lack of proper sealant - and brings the rest out. Someone has to start teaching the kid, even if Bruce doesn't think that basic chemistry and criminology is worth the effort in this day and age. Dick wipes down the lab, and then keeps going.

There are all these aspects of Bruce that have decayed. The cave is lovely, dark and deep, and Dick has --

'You could use some sleep,' Bruce says, stepping out of the elevator and limping towards Dick. It's cold in the cave at night, always has been.

'You don't really mean that,' Dick says from his place in front of the computer. He's on a break, reading case files that look important, and keeping an eye on the EM monitors on the side. He's perched on a stool he's dragged up instead of sitting in the console's chair.

'No,' Bruce agrees, coming to stand next to Dick. 'I don't. Are you satisfied?'

'What with?' Dick asks. 'The state of the cave? No. Its authenticity? Maybe.'

'Good answer,' Bruce says.

'Are you satisfied?' Dick asks, closing the file he has open on Inque.

'No,' Bruce says, taking his seat. 'I never am.'

Dick shouldn't feel more assured by Bruce's answer than by anything else that has happened so far, but he does. It's as harsh as it should be. It doesn't have the padding that Bruce seems to eager to present McGinnis with. This is the Bruce Dick knows: the Bruce who doesn't want him to trust anything, or anyone. The Bruce who pushes instead of ever giving. The Bruce he can't come close to, can't touch. 'Terry's got potential,' he offers, a report more than anything. 'A lot of green that needs to be trained out. But a lot of spirit.'

'Mm,' Bruce says.

Dick shoots a look at the display cases behind them. He spent five minutes with a cloth and glass cleaner there, standing in front of one Robin suit and then another, wiping and wiping and wiping until he realised what he was doing. He tears his gaze away, brings it back. 'Is it because he reminds you of something, Bruce? Is that why you're compensating?'

'I'm not compensating,' Bruce says, opening up a document that requires security access that Dick doesn't have.

'Aren't you?' Dick says, antagonised. 'You're blunt with him, Bruce, and I don't mean the way you speak. You're letting him get away with easy lies and mediocre ability. He's got a brain that you're not working. He's got athleticism that you're not even encouraging him to develop. It's not because you can't, Bruce. You won't. You won't send him to whoever it is that's the equivalent of the League, or Shiva, or even any one of the good guys. You let him walk away from the Justice League when they could've put him through the paces you can't. You're compensating for something.'

'Yes,' Bruce says, which stuns Dick for a moment. 'I am blunt.' Bruce clicks and starts typing. Dick spares the screen a look and it's -- a file on him. Last edited last night, now with additional footage from Terry's cowlcam and apparently pictures from when he'd slept in his room the night before. New DNA analysis cross referenced to his old set. It's just like Bruce. 'I've become blunt,' Bruce qualifies as he fills in more details. Dick looks away before he can read just what. 'It's what old age does. Iron sharpens iron. Without that, iron rusts. There has been nothing in Gotham in the last decade but petty thieves and obvious liars. There's no challenge. Nothing to rise up against. Nothing for Terry, and nothing for me.' The silence that comes as Bruce stops typing rings in Dick's ears. 'Now you are going to be my flint, Dick.'

Now, Dick can't help but thinking, now the world is going to burn with the fire you've lit beneath all of us, isn't it, Bruce?

'You're frightening when you're like this,' Dick admits. 'I haven't seen you weak before. I haven't seen you smile like this since --'

'Those were simpler days,' Bruce growls, cutting in. 'And these are now simple times. You can walk down a street and get shoved into an alley by punks with caked makeup pretending to be a chip off of a monster they don't even remember or understand. Welcome to Gotham City, Nightwing,' Bruce pantomimes. It makes Dick shiver. 'She and her two-bit criminals that won't stand up to a boy wonder in a magic suit. But that's already starting to change.'

It's unfair of Bruce to use that term. It's unfair, and that's exactly why he's saying it. 'So does McGinnis make you laugh, Bruce?' Dick throws back. 'That's why you let him talk the way you let me talk? And will you teach him how to stop the hard way, too?'

'He doesn't make me laugh, Dick,' Bruce shakes his head, but just once. 'But he does make me remember what it was like, with you.'

Oh. Oh.

'When did you learn to start complimenting people?' Dick hazards a joke, because if he doesn't then he won't know what else to do - won't know what else to say to the man who seems to be at once Batman and Bruce Wayne, like two and two added together and finally halved the way he's always meant to have been halved. If he doesn't make the joke now, Dick won't know what to say in response to the words he's wanted to hear from Bruce for what feels like the eternity of his life since he flew the nest - the words that are coming now, fifty years in the future, from a man who's eighty years old and completely different from (and exactly the same as) the one Dick left behind. That's dangerous, too dangerous, and too easy.

Don't let your emotions get in the way. He's always right.

He's always right.

Bruce probably hears every single thing that Dick doesn't say, but Bruce knows just as well when things ought to be allowed to stay under rug swept. 'Things change,' Bruce says.

'You said it,' Dick murmurs, hopping off his seat. This is enough, for one night. Enough for him to justify more of his belief that this is real, and more than enough for him to go to sleep over. 'Need anything? Coffee, tea, me?'

'Go to sleep,' Batman says, the real Batman, emerging slow and evolved and breaking free from an old chrysalis.

You're using your command voice, Dick wants to tell Bruce, wants Bruce to know. Do you realise that?

'Yes, sir,' he says instead, and sheds the Nightwing suit as he walks past the case worth of odd-numbered Robins.

-----


[edit:] Ow, do my hands hurt from this "drabble arc". Right, K, whatever floats your boat...

Comments

[zenithjolt.livejournal.com]

I like! So, so good. I love the idea of Dick training Terry. Can't wait for more :)

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

♥

[beatrice_otter]

Ahh! Yes! I love this series, and I love this story, and please don't ever stop.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'll have to stop sometime before my fingers fall off completely, but until then! 8D

[axolotl-lan.livejournal.com]

Cuute!~ Oh Terry/ Dcik interaction is fun and I sense a touch of the jealousy bug goin on on both sides... and soo cool!~

I'm glad this drabble series is less drabble and more series *nods*

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

♥ Thank you!

[felonazcorp.livejournal.com]

Aw man, I love Batman Beyond so much. Even more so when there's mention of DICK!

Can't wait for the next part. :)

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

:DDDD

Your stuff is all really cool, too! *did a really long readthrough this morning* ♥

[smgriffin.livejournal.com]

In reality, Felon is a man with a genius monkey who takes credit for its literary genius.

>.>
<.<

*COUGHS*

It's ok, she can't see my comment. *whistles innocently and bakes her cookies in repentence*

Anyway, *has melted into bouncey ball of wibbling happiness*

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

*laughs* The two of you know each other?

[smgriffin.livejournal.com]

Of course not! You think I go around insulting people I LIKE? *checks AIM to make sure she's not on*

I mean, she's a horrid beelzebub of uh... something not nice! AND, she's never online. Except she is. So she's online, but NOT!

See, has 'villainous scum' written all over her.

Oh, and she's my plotting buddy, but don't tell her that!

[scheherezhad]

Once again, selected highlights of what I liked about this:


Dick's starting to see a pattern to his speech; it's in the way McGinnis instinctively tries to push the oppressive silence of the cave back.


'Does this one listen, at least?' asks Dick, pulling himself into a crouch.

'Occasionally,' Bruce replies.


Problem with the cowl is that you can't ruffle a guy's hair while it's on him.


And there is train surfing and talking, and more talking! Dick's talk with Bruce made my chest hurt. Oh, boys.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

You = make me flail like Robin. \o_ _o/ \o\ /o/

8D 8D 8D BATFAMILY. To slash them render unto Caesar what Bruce Wayne took upon his head 80 years ago to do.

[bastet-in-april.livejournal.com]

I am thrilled to pieces that you worked a train-surfing scene into this!

This chapter was outstanding. This fic just keeps getting better as it goes on!

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

8D Thank you! ♥

[loopylouise123.livejournal.com]

Poor Terry... he really didn't know just what he was getting into when he went out to patrol with Dick. ^^

And Dick and Bruce really do have *issues*, plus, things do change, and I guess Dick just has to cope with that.

Wonderful, as always.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

Dick and Bruce's issues go so deep that you probably have to drill to get to all of them. 8D Heh heh heh.

♥

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

Ugyahhh more Lead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PREPARE FOR CAPSLOCK.

Um, a couple of the sentences sat a little strangely with me. Maybe it's just country differences? Like I feel as if "under rug swept" should be "swept under the rug", and "case worth" should just be "cases"...Otherwise, NO COMPLAINTS WHOO HOOOO.

Oh Terry. Second-string even at the parties wtf. So the class difference kicking in there. SEE I TOLD YOU HE WAS LIKE STEPH T_T

LITTLE BAT JAKSDFHAJSFH;FJHDSJFASD YES, MORE OF THAT PLZ. And hooray for Bat voice! That always gives me a tingle when it happens in the series; glad Nightwing noticed. SIDESADDLE BWAH

Pure glee at Terry's utter freak-out when Dick decides to fly. "I'm going to have to scrape you off the WALLS and then Bruce is going to KILL ME OMG" ...and Dick's just dying to tell him he has NO IDEA what this job entails...especially with his Batsuit of Awesome basically doing the job for him. I love their interaction; I was a bit worried Dick was practically writing Terry off, but the boys seem to have some real bonding going which is very cute. Dick's wry affection vs. Terry's being a smartass to cover up how really quite impressed he is. Enjoying that very much.

TRAIN RIDE WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I do love it when Terry gets all shrieky! Looking forward to a lot more of the "YOU'RE ALL BATSHIT" reactions. Moo ha ha.

And the heart-to-heart talk, oh. This is exactly what I wished for and knew would never happen with Beyond. Terry had to figure it all out on his own, all he got was little trickles of whatever Bruce and Barbara allowed him, and nobody to sit him down and clue him in on how it all worked. Nobody to work with him. Not even a proper exercise program, poor boy.

Bruce and Dick interaction was so authentic and raw. It's so true about the lack of real villains! It sucks cos crime hasn't gone down, maybe it's worse, but it's all petty theft and corporate infighting and dumb kids with too much money/time/inexplicable powers on their hands. I love Bruce totally failing to say how much he and Terry needed Dick, and yet he makes it perfectly obvious. And the last few moments of that conversation KILLED me. OH indeed. Hello long-buried feelings on both sides. Hello snarky wee stewardess joke (I almost had a HEART ATTACK, looks like Bruce was right about the likeness). HELLO BATMAN, maybe it's time Terry finally met you.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE WAKING UP TO A PERE COMMENT? WELL I DO I DO I DO.

I think the weird grammar is just me doing my psychotic "ooh let's reinvent English! How about some Alanis lyrics? HERE WE GO UNDER RUG SWEPT 8D". My English teachers past and present, they weep.

I LOVE LITTLE TERRY MCGINNIS' BIG BOY VOICE. God he's such a runt but he's such a GOOD RUNT when he goes all growly and Batman. Even if he's a Bat that has no idea how to fly without the help of those useful little booster rocket things that he's got on the underside of his shoes. *cackles*

DICK IS MESSED UP. I claim responsibility, especially for all the bad odd-numbered robin jokes through this thing. Could.. not... resist...

In the future - fucked up pairings! BECAUSE THEIR SLASH, IT IS SO MENTAL.

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

Alanis Morrisette! Explains so much. XD

Dying to see Terry learn the grapple. He was quick enough to pick up the boosters, but we all know you're not a Bat until you get a feel for the de-cel lines! Plus they develop shoulders awfully well. *gives Dickie backrub*

MENTAL FUCKED-UP SLASH ARE OK WIT ME

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

Mmm, shoulders.

I THINK ONCE THE FUCKED UP BATPOLITICS EMERGE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET SCARED but it's okay Bruce admits he is very scary

[hopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

I kept checking, hoping and rereading and hoping some more to see something new added to this--and lo! You delivered!

This is gorgeous--I'm not sure which I like better, Dick's banter with Terry, or his verbal fencing with Bruce. The social outing scene was very telling, and something I never would have thought of--it's just another battleground to Dick and Bruce, and how Terry misses that entirely ... but how could you blame him? He didn't grow up a Wayne, or the ward of a infamous billionaire.

I must admit, I'm torn--I'm not sure whether I want Batman Beyond Bruce to be the inevitable future of the Bruce that Dick knows or not. As much as I love both characters, it has always bothered me that despite all his sacrifice and the people he trained, he ended up alone, rattling around an empty mansion full of ghosts .... I hate to think that still being in store for Dick's Bruce.

Wow, I got kinda maudlin there, didn't I? Anyway, beautiful fic! I hope the muses continue to inspire more!

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥ Thank you!

Terry didn't grow up a Wayne - Dick makes him wish, just a little bit, that he did, I think - but all he has to do is spend another week or so with these guys to realise how fortunate he is that his head was spared the carnage that comes with Growing Up Brucie.

S'the fun thing about future fics is that there are so many ways of tweaking whether any one character is going to turn out the way he turns out, or if certain actions will change certain things. 8D Bruce and Dick, they will fight this one out. 8DDDDDDD

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Just found these, read them all in class ^.^ Nightwing being thrown into this future is very interesting and the interactions you've written are really intriguing. I like how both Dick and Terry have things to be jealous about and things to be glad they never had to experience. I really want to see more of this and I'd also like to see what happens when Dick returns to his own time/world/whatever, how this future Bruce affects how he treats "his" Bruce.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

♥ Thanks for dropping in a few words! Heh, Terry and Dick have automatic, uh, sibling rivalry. :D :D

[bluepard.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that Terry has had some training--Bruce got him that martial arts master who subsequently died fighting some dinosaurs. But he hasn't had Bat training, you're right.

I love watching him and Dick interact. Please write more?

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that he has some training - Bruce wouldn't let him out of the manor otherwise - but I'm coming off an insane comics binge, in which Bruce does a number of incredibly incridible things in the name of "training". 8D Hey, why not torture Dick by replacing him with Jason and then getting Jason to run a guantlet in which the villain is, um, Alfred! 8D Timmy's 16 birthday present - boots? A new books? Nah - let's send him a message from the "future" and get him to analyse the potential for evil in all his close friends. Dick thinks it's a bit unbelievable that Terry gets away with generic work experience.

By any other standard, Terry's competent. By their old one? Not so much...

*salutes and gets to writing*

[hiasobi.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, ow! Ouch!

That hurts, and you've jut made my day. I've been looking for a Batman/Batman Beyond crossover which deals with the issue of Dick Grayson and how Batman Beyond just lost him in translation or something. I'm not a religious Batman follower but even I was absoultely stunned with sort of how Terry made no sense in being a recruited bat, and how untrained he was even if he had the suit.

And also I fumed on the simple principle Dick is my fave character and god, ha, I am a Bruce/Dick shipper in anyway context (ha); and just oh how bitter Bruce is without Dick....

I love how you protray that the Bruce Wayne that Terry knows(sees) is different from the -real- Bruce Wayne in the way we know. I love how in the scenes of these fics we see how different the intereaction of Bruce and Terry is, from the deep/yearning/almost-bitter understanding between Bruce and Dick has.

And really, yes, Terry does need to be trained. And who better then well...Robin as in BatmanAndRobin, the Robin who was fearless, effusive, full of grace, and was Batman's partner as opposed to Jason-Robin and Tim-Robin who were Batman's soldiers.

And I THANK YOU for speaking out on how I'm not the only one who was hit with the parallel-ism of Terry and Teenager-Dick. I thought Bruce was totally compensating for how much he had hurt Dick before.

I'll stop with the gushing now, but oh, I'm waiting for the next installent in this arc with braely braced excitment.

:D

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

D'awww, thank you loads! ♥ ♥ Dick's my favourite character, too - and god knows that I ship Bruce/Dick. The entire Batfamily dynamic between those two could fuel a few nuclear reactiosn well into the next century. 8D

*g* School's been eating my life recently, but I do want to write the rest of this pretty soon. Bruce being old, and Terry being Terry, and Dick being alternately jealous and terribly afraid. \o/

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I like this. Thank you for writing these chapters! It's so hard to find good Batman Beyond fic these days. Of course there's good Batman fic, no matter what canon/uni/cartoon/whatever it's from, but poor BB? ;_; I swear that 98% of all great Batman writers sneer at poor BB. I'm so glad to have stumbled across this. *like, totally bookmarks it with stars, fangirl style*

And don't get me wrong, I do like good Batfic of all sorts! I just wish I could keep up better with all the canons, but I'm a starving busy college student with poor connections and my best knowledge of Batman stuff is the Intarwebs and cartoons (and the movies, I keep those religiously). I am lost at comicanon, but your story is so well-crafted that I can pick up tons from just the characters! Bravo! Even as an ignoramus, I was never truly confused during reading.

The characters and interactions are just engrossing here. They're real and they feel and it never once seems like I'm "just reading another fanfic." It's as if I'm watching uniquely handmade episodes! But with more depth and--hey look, wow, character exploration! We don't get that much in the weekend cartoons. ^_^ Bruce and Dick--that awesome combination of old familiar and off-kilter for poor Nightwing, with the whole world turned sideways, shaken, and dumped on his head like that. Bruce is so Bruce--because of course if he were anything else, it would never work. XD Mellow in his old age? Well, "mellow" is relative.

And I just plain squee to see Terry portrayed well in a fic. Such a rare find! I treasure it like long lost gold. He's such a good kid, in his way, and I don't care what the sneering scoffers say--he's sure stubborn enough to keep up with Bruce, even if it's a *cough* "mellow" old Bruce. He's willful, with a temper, but without being volatile. He'd take any amount of challenging and pushing dished at him, training or enemy, and push right back; I think Dick will be pleasantly surprised if he thinks Terry would just fold under harsh training.

Dick's undercurrent of jealousy and antagonism over how "indulgent" Bruce is with the new kid...that's amusing as well as heartfelt. The old man kicked the heck out of the "older brothers" during their traning and careers, and now he's babying the...well, baby of the family! Miff. I'd be jealous too. (In fact, I often am, being the oldest of my family's lot. ^^ ) I'd also want to knock the kid off his high horse, without being too mean about it (Terry's kicked puppy look would be cute for the 1.5 seconds of its existence before he got his game face back on). In BB, Bruce has always seemed to vacillate between pushing Terry hard over some things, and letting a lot of others slide. I can see how that would indeed drive Nightwing...batty.

*is hauled out and shot for punning*

^^ It makes me wonder, though...does Bruce's "softness" toward Terry have anything to do with Cadmus' Amanda Waller and her Project: Batman Beyond? I'd almost think that would make the old man harder on the kid, but Bruce is notoriously unpredictable (and really there's no one in the world with a bigger heart, though he hides it better than anyone alive). That's the sort of thing that would really make Dick blow his top... amusing, hm.

....and I have written a small book instead of a grateful review. Sorry!

Thank you so much for sharing this brilliant piece of writing with us! I hope you feel inspired to write more of it sometime. If I were an artist, I'd try to bribe you with drawing; if I still had time to write, I'd pen odes. But such as I am, I bow to your skill and wait humbly for another installment.

Thanks again, and may the muses bless you!
~Becky T.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

H-holy. ♥! First off, a huge, huge, huge thank you for taking the time out to write such a ridiclously amazingly beautifully long comment type thing. ♥ I'm having a bit of a Time (TM) juggling a bunch of fandom writing things that keep crashing one on top of the other to get written, but Lead has a dear, dear place in my heart and there'll definitely be more of it. Your words, they light a fire under me. 8D

Old Bruce versus, uh, Previous Bruce (AWKWARD TERMINOLOGY GO) is just the world's most convenient and multi-layered plot device. 8D Exploring him is an indulgence, but it always makes the fic harder to write - part of me wants to take this (and it started out this way) down the road of a relationship!fic, but the way this is written and the nature of THESE SILLY BATS makes it undeniably gen. SO EVEN I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING SOME DAYS; there's pools and pools of stuff to dive into, and I hope you hang on for the ride as I madly engineer the rollercoaster in an attempt to not get thrown off. 8DDDDDDD ♥

[btailweaver.livejournal.com]

Wow, you mean other people have to juggle like school and trying to write and things? I'm not the only one! <--and oh hay look, this time I'll remember to log my stoopid self in to my long-neglected Eljay!

^_^ Bruce is a walking plot device, isn't he? And if I may say so--Gen is good. Gen is great. For this, this story is perfect as Batfamily gen (and I do so loves me good heartfelt Bat Gen!), as it's all sort of about the Family and the Traditions and the Skills--all the things the poor deprived McGinnis child isn't getting enough of--and the Past staring the Future in the eye. (Not to say that Terry isn't pretty bada$$ even without the Suit--was looking at some of my old DVDs today. Kid can improvise.) Thus, I cheer for gen and offer my sincerest encouragement! This pool you've picked to swim in is a veritable ocean of possibility.

And in a response to the honorable Pere-chan's comment, that's absolutely right--it really wouldn't wash, Bruce not knowing something like that. ^^ Which is why one of the co-writers of the thing said that Bruce found out about it almost as soon as Terry started working for him (because we all know how absolutely meticulous he is about knowing everything about everybody, especially the kid wearing The Suit), and uncovered most of Waller's plot. Figuring it wasn't important to the Mission (O_o), he just never said anything about it so that Terry would be his own man in continuing to choose to be Batman (and out of respect for Warren McGinnis). And I suppose cartoon episodal time constraints didn't let them go into all the little details... (Of course, I've had all kinds of plot bunnies for ages after seeing that ep. Bad plunnies! Down!)

And I completely understand the constraints of that kind of a Time. I've got a bit of it myself, in an educational sense. I wouldn't want any of your writing to be rushed! ^_^ I will wait here in patient hope.

Anyway, I shall endeavor not to write yet another book in your comments section. I should be doing final papers myself! (And yet I come to read Lead again, instead of Shakespeare. XD You are that good.) In the meantime, I root for both your paper success and your continued inspiration. Good luck ahead!

~Becky T.

My god, my life needs to stop for a moment so that I can reply to people's comments

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

xD School and life and writing. I wish they got along more often. 8D


Bruce is the world's most convenient plot device. Just add psychosis! No, seriously - just so many amazing and talented authors and artists have had their go at almost every aspect of his life. Writing him is like getting to shop free-for-all at the world's biggest toystore.

I don't know why - writer's imperative, maybe! - but now that I come back to this arc a few months after having written it, the need to un-gen it isn't as strong as before. You're right - the family is so amazing *fucked up* that their motivations for even keeping up a familial relationship are sufficient - IF NOT STRONGER 11!!! - than anything else could possibly be. 8D Gotta be bad to be Bat.

Re: Bruce's omniscience - who knows how far is too far for this man? He's like the goddamned internet. xD He's got to have his limits, but it's always weird trying to deliminate where his paranoia ends and where real-life begins. The Mission - another convenient device! 8D

♥ I love books in my comments section. Thank you so much for taking time out to say all of this!

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

Bruce is not actually supposed to know about the whole "shares your DNA" thing (which is why it doesn't wash with me--imagine Bruce not knowing something like that. Pffff).

Let's bribe her together! I too am terribly looking forward to seeing the boys tussle some more. Dickie is the bestest big brother ever. Except for the girl issues, and wouldn't I love to see THAT conversation happen. C'mon K! Tell you what--I will draw them in their OTHER SUITS. Just for you. Maybe even CLUBBING. And I haven't forgotten your bikep0rn!

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

HOW MUCH BRIBERY CAN I TAKE? XD Yeah, but no - seriously - I've got a literature paper to take tomorrow, so the writing commences after Monday and then there will be batporn! 8D

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

HA YOU ARE AWAKE.

.............wtf I'M awake. *RUSHES TO SHOWER AND BED*

Good luck with your paper!!! Le Guin right? omg must read Left Hand of Darkness again. (as if I needed another fandom)

HOORAY FOR BATP0RN!!!!!

*ok, REALLY REALLY GOING NOW*

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

No no, Le Guin's my... in-depth-y paper-writer-y text; I've got Shakespeare, Atwood and Burgess to cover today. xD

GO TO BED YOU STRANGE CREATURE.

[lipsofpoison.livejournal.com]

I should have been in bed hours ago, but this is so engrossing that I can't stop reading. There's almost a poetry to it but such a harshness, balanced by a brilliant grasp of BB!Gotham and damned perfect voices for all three of them. I loved every single interaction and it's beautifully crafted.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!!!! SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS BAD.

*g* But, that said, I'm glad that you like this fic! ♥

[raikomotomiya.livejournal.com]

Y’know, I’ve been trying to compose a review for the entire series so far for weeks and things keep dissolving into incoherent SQUEE because of the pure awesome that keeps hitting me when I read this over and over again.

So… eighty-fourth time’s the charm in keeping this even slightly readable, right?

So some things that really struck me in no particular order…

Hi Jordon Price! I wasn’t expecting to see you at a Wayne function party – given events in ROTJ, I would’ve expected that you might be behind bars. I guess Batman recorded conversations aren’t admissible in court. Terry must’ve been real happy to see you.

Speaking of Terry, his working class background is really shining through in that party scene. He (like in the swanky restaurant scene in Mind Games) has really no idea how to interact in high society functions, and it’s nice that you had that scene in chapter 2 about Terry borrowing Dick’s clothes because his family didn’t run in the same circles (and a nice shiver inducing intro to Bruce’s issues). I always liked the subtle class issues that cropped up through the series – such as it being implied that Terry helps with the bills by several characters – and uh, to save the ramble, seeing anything that references his background is awesome.

Dick, you’re going to have to show the boy the ropes in more than the kicking ass and solving cases department, methinks. Maybe you can bond over bikes or clubbing.

Little bat! *SNORT* Absolutely perfect nickname. And noticing the Bat Voice. And Terry’s special brand of fucked-upness in the lack of major scars so far. You’ve got yourself a new little brother, Dick, see, you already have that time honoured sibling rivalry. Though you did seem a little thrown by Terry’s ‘so you wanna talk about it?’ Giant leap for Bat kind indeed. I think you’ll be getting more of those surprises in the
future.

And I’m hoping more train scenes. Come’on Terry. You liked it.

I’m not sure that all the current rogue gallery isn’t up to the standards of the old Batman villains. I’d make a case for Inque at least to be up to par with them. Terry’s good, Terry’s competent… he wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t, especially in that mess with the Joker, but he’s not great. You raise good points about his lack of experience, training, knowledge, and temperament – things that are lacking because of the age in which Terry started, and Bruce’s age and the difficultly in balancing a life where you have to go to school, have a social life so you don’t fall too far on the high school pecking order, be Batman, and being there for your family --- and oh, find time for sleep too. But the fact that he manages and is as good as he is despite all that, points to his potential, and it’s good that Dick’s picking up on it.

That comment by Bruce about him being blunt sent more shivers through my spine. There are things a coming!

In response to a commenter above, Terry does use grapplers/ de-cel lines throughout the series, heh. Though not often for swinging through the city. Given the architecture and design of Gotham in the future with its monstrous buildings and huge canyons between skyscrapers, the wings for gliding and the rockets for propulsion are actually pretty practical for how things are set up, methinks.

But all in all, AWESOME.

[karanguni.livejournal.com]

LEAVE IT TO ME TO IMAGINE THAT I'D REPLIED TO THIS COMMENT. Oh my god, my fail, it is so epic that I cannot believe how epic it is. I'm so sorry for getting back to you so late! :D :D :D This comment made me spazz and spazz and spazz and I love you for it.

Terry is so weird as a boy, innhe? The more I watch the series (and I tend to leave it on, when I'm in an English-cartoon-y mood, because Kevin Conroy is, I swear to all goodness, secretly a hypnotist) the more I wonder whether he's half-part genius or half-part crazy or whole-part sane. :D :D It's so nice to have him be "normal" in a way that even Tim Drake isn't -- Tim's still blue blooded, secretly, and Dick's the closest the family's got to the everyday man and he grew up with a butler and the Manor. \o\ Terry, the only Bat to know how to operate a washing machine!

Dick needs to love Terry. He thinks. Maybe. Kinda. But Bruce is already overloading on the loving department, and all... That and the fact that Terry doesn't seem to have any of the 3 billion issues that Dick's used to seeing in Robins.

I think the rogues gallery thing is completely up to author to abuse. *BEAMS* It's just that Beyond, being a cartoon, really didn't have the room (or audience) to go into the kind of sheer psychosis that the comics can. The villains in the comics break my heart: Harvey Dent in the Loeb run made me want to weep, the Joker actually manages to scare the shit out of me both in the comics and in Beyond, Ivy and Harley are messed up, etc etc etc. The episodic nature of Beyond doesn't allow for the kinda crazy range that arcs like War Games or BW: Murderer did, and it's just a little thing of mine to TORMENT TERRY by insinuating that they aren't as ebil as the villains of days past. :D

Return of the Joker being the crux: Terry got so fucked up there, it was beautiful, and it was also the one shining moment where I jumped up and down and screamed GO MCGINNIS, YOU WERE SILLY BEFORE BUT IN SPITE OF YOUR LACK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING YOU'VE GOT THE BRAINS FOR THIS! :D

\o\ Aaaand now I've rambled forever. Forgive me! And thanks again! :D :D :D :D

Long reply of long - part 1

[raikomotomiya.livejournal.com]

Kevin Conroy’s voice is liquid sex. That’s the only way it can be described.

Ain’t it? He isn’t a only child, still has some of his family, is a product of a broken home (so many kids in this show are screwed up by either divorce or abusive parents or just plain neglect), latch-key kid, former street delinquent, independent and totally able to take care of himself… heh… at least on the domestic side of things. He’s a totally unique Bat. I dunno if he’s totally sane (some degree of fucked upness seems to a job requirement for a Bat) but it’s in a way that makes him appear pretty gosh darn balanced most of the time.

Alfred would be relieved to find that there’s a Bat out there that can be trusted with the daily wash and not turn chicken soup into toxic waste. :D

Oh issues. Aside from the issues caused by Warren being murdered, we’ve got a hot temper (that he gets better under control as the series progresses), that damn guilt complex and self loathing – “It’s my fault.” – that pops up practically every episode, and the fact he doesn’t see himself as much of a worthwhile human being (ah ROTJ how I love thee). Another one is the weight of Bruce’s legacy – okay, everyone’s; the gaze from all those cases must feel like mountains upon Terry’s shoulders – along with everyone left living measuring him up in comparison (Barb, Superman, The Joker… now Dick) and finding him lacking… even if it’s true… that’s difficult to deal with, especially given how highly Terry thinks of Bruce. Then we have the Inque issues. And… probably more I’m not thinking of off the top of my head. Certainly not as much as comics!Tim or Dick or Bruce or any of the rest of the Batclan (yet)… and yeah, not all 3 billion of the issues Robins seem to get. But uh, Dick, give it time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, a psyche isn’t clearly perceived in a night (or two). And if you can’t love him, you can at least try to be friends with him, right?

On a note aside, I must wonder how much the divorce, being Terry’s initial trauma and kicking off his troubled behaviour, feeds in to his current quirks. Given how Terry and Matt look nothing like their parents (not to mention Epilogue’s bombshell!) I could easily see accusations of infidelity contributing to the breakdown of family life or even setting off the divorce proper. From a child’s perspective, I could see Terry seeing it as his fault, and the seeds are planted to blossom into issues. And given Terry’s in Genetics (class with Max mentioned in Bloodsport) and he’s not an unobservant lad, he probably knows Warren isn’t his father inside but chooses to lie to himself about it so he doesn’t lose more of the man that was taken away from him and he doesn’t shake up the rest of his relationships with the family. Would explain the pyrotechnics in that worst case scenario flashback of Terry’s in Epilogue when the truth came out.

Ah the loving. Part of it is overcompensation on Bruce’s part, part of it is jealousy on Dick’s. It’d probably be easier for Dick to bond if Bruce was as distant and cold as he was in Dick’s time. Terry’s the last chance to get things right for Bruce, or so I believe he thinks. The Mission needs him and Terry’s the only one left that’s willing to pick up the legacy (for now, and if Max has her say, that’ll change one day) – Gotham’s going to hell again, has gone to hell in ways Bruce’s just finding out now that he’s coming out of his isolation at the Manor (Powers’ machinations with his company for instance) – so he’s trying not to do the same things that hurt Dick and drove him away. And Terry and Bruce’s relationship is far more co-dependent than Bruce and any of his other kids, just by virtue of Bruce’s age and he can’t do for himself what he could in the past. And then there’s being isolated in his tomb of a manor for gods knows how long with just the dog, all close relationships broken and rusting, and what that does to a person, until Terry literally breaks into his life. And then there’s the whole genetic son thing. So, totally overcompensating, yeah. But maybe entitled just a little?

It’s still not helping Terry develop into a fully fledged Batman.

Re: Long reply of long - part 2

[raikomotomiya.livejournal.com]

I admit I’ve read very little of the comics so I don’t really know the full breadth of the psychosis some of these guys reach. The Killing Joke and a handful of others. I’m far more familiar with the toon versions of the characters and my perceptions of things are coloured by that. I should be reading more comics, anyway.

Thinking about it, it totally seems like a different world - the Beyond future I mean. Gotham’s completely different, the brooding Gothic architecture has completely given away to this almost Aztec seeming industrial style that’s just as brooding except in the historical district and that district is completely condemned. Old established cities like Gotham shouldn’t change that much in 50 years - look at Paris, New York, and London. Makes me think that something happened to it… The Near Apocalypse of 09, the earthquake and subsequent No Man’s Land, which really required this massive rebuilding. It’s a far more diverse city – triads like the Tong (Huntress could have cleaned out a good chunk of the Mafia and created a power vacuum for them to come in) and these touches here and there like a lot of the ads and company names on billboards and buildings in the background are Asian based, not to mention there’s more than a few background characters with heritage other than European. And Gotham’s clean(er), at least on the surface… all these little things.

But it’s not just Gotham, really. You get the sense in The Call that the world’s gone into a lull and there’s not just that many superheroes running about at the moment, and that feeling’s echoed throughout the rest of the series when there’s no mention of any other heroes running about, doing their thing – the government manufactured Terrific Trio excluded of course. Other than Batman, there’s the current Justice League, Nightwing’s out there and we’re not sure on his status, and thanks to Static Shock’s Future Shock, we know Static, Gear, and Wonder Woman are about. How many more are around is just speculation but one get’s the feeling that it’s not like in the glory days. Though again, there’s that feeling that all that’s going to change.

So that’s my very longwinded way to say that I see where you’re coming from and I agree with you. Ah… torment on?

And yes, yes he does have the brains for it. He got past Bruce and Ace and whatever security measures Bruce had running to loot the Batcave after all in Rebirth. I mean, it’s Bruce. At any age, getting past him would require more than rubbing together two brain cells. He just needs to be pushed – he’ll rise to the occasion.

Heh, don’t apologize for rambling. Just look at me! *points up* I can’t help but love to pick things apart and write essays in the process.

Re: Long reply of long - part 2

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

Small note on one of your points--am also completely fascinated by indications of public perception of capes. Small comments in "Heroes" indicate that most people were relieved to have the presence of black-and-white "good guys" for once. And the Watchtower had a distinctly creepy vibe, even allowing for the presence of Starro. I mean--Superman in black, without his life as Clark Kent? It doesn't seem to be just Gotham; the whole world in Beyond seems to have gotten more bleak. Dick is in for some depressing stuff.

Maybe Batman needs a Robin XD There was a HILARIOUS tie-in comic issue in which Terry dreams of his younger brother Matt as being Batman. It does open up some juicy speculations...

I really should be paying attention in my Immunology class instead of typing this

[raikomotomiya.livejournal.com]

Superman dumping rocks on Terry and Aquagirl. Superman being comfortable with the idea of acceptable losses. To the point where Big Barda is shocked. Big Barda, the one who wouldn't lighten up even in a training session - "do you expect our enemies to go easy on us?". This is the Supes in his own series and in Justice League who would move Heaven and Earth before sacrificing one of his own men. And then there was that cut scene of Superman tending to an invalid Lois Lane.

We have Aquagirl being blasé on occupational hazards. The Metrotower... uh... Watchtower now (maybe the orbiting Watchtower is gone?) is so isolated from the rest of Metropolis... though then again, it was built that way in Justice League Unlimited. The League's behaviour in general. As you said... the creepiness and Starro.

I'm kinda getting why Terry refused in the end to have anything more to do with the League than being called when it was absolutely necessary. And why Bruce didn't push him. I also wonder if this is part of the reason why Babs is so against vigilantes, aside from post relationship storminess with Bruce and other Bat related issues.

Something really had to have happened in the years gone by... it may have been the Near Apocalypse of 09, it may not. I completely agree with you about the bleakness. It's a dark, dark world, and in ways they haven't seen in the past.

Especially since government controlled superheroes were the ones people were considering wholesome and relieving, as you pointed out. Gives me shades of Cadmus... makes me wonder how much some of the players from that era were involved in the Trio and were running about the background.

Somewhat of an aside... notice that the mention of Arkham comes up exactly once in the series? ROTJ mentions that Arkham was moved away to a new high security facility somewhere else, and that the old one was left partially demolished and left hung open, like a rotting wound. Creepy bit of imagery right there... the home of so much psychosis broken open and oozing its poison into Gotham for decades.

I think he does. I don't think it would be healthy for Terry not to have someone at his back for the long term. One of the purposes of the Robins is to keep the Batmen some degree of sane after all. I dunno if Terry would go for it though. He's seen what's happened to all of Bruce's old sidekicks and how that affected their relationships with Bruce. Given that the past tends to repeat itself to a certain degree in BBeyond, I could see Terry being afraid that it would repeat itself in this area as well... which could explain part of his refusal to let Max do anything more than background work.

That said, there was that certain feeling of inevitability in the show that Max, and to a lesser degree, Matt would have donned their own mantles at some point.

I so need to read the comics. Just for that alone...

[beatrice_otter]

Just stopping by to tell you I'm re-reading this again, and would love to see more of it. It's awesome.