batfakes | (no subject)

[ Adjusting to life in the past wasn't the hardest part about any of this. For the most part, Terry could live without the automation and the other conveniences future living brought to Neo Gotham. Of course, he had to learn how to work a coffee maker that wasn't voice activated and use a manual elevator and remember to use cash because he was pretty sure if he tried to swipe his cash card, he'd be arrested. But it wasn't all bad. Not ideal, but not bad.

So if anyone asked, he'd be quick to tell them. It wasn't hard living retro. It was hard living with Bruce friggin Wayne. He'd always thought the old man was a hard ass, no question about it. But he also got a break from him. He got to go to his own home and sleep in his own bed and maybe sometimes have a social life if his own little merry band of misfits decided they'd behave long enough he could see the inside of a night club.

He thought - stupidly, foolishly he knows - that maybe a younger version of Bruce would be. He didn't know. Mellow? Chill? Not so tightly wound? But he was none of those things. If anything, he was more intense than ever. He'd spent hours interrogating Terry, vetting his story, confirmed what he could of it, looking at the suit and checking the tech in it. And at the end of it all, he still suspicious.

Terry supposed he should have been grateful Bruce hadn't just kicked his ass and tossed him into Arkham the second he popped into existence and claimed he was Batman from the future. And he was! He was even more grateful when Bruce agreed to help him get back to where he belonged. But that meant sitting tight. And it also meant no more Batman of the Future.

He tried. Terry really did and for a while, he was kind of glad to have the time off. There was time to catch up on sleep. To see movies and hang out with the other Bats, when they had the chance. He learned how to boil water and make tea from Alfred, instead of relying on a electric kettle to do it for him. It was nice seeing Bruce's life when it had people other than himself in it. But after a while? It got old. Really old and he found himself itching to get back out there again. When Bruce said no, it made Terry feel like he was going to lose it. He didn't have to be Batman, but Bruce couldn't keep him locked up in the manor forever.

But that was exactly what Bruce intended and that's how Terry found himself on the doorstep of Dick Grayson, after his latest clash with Bruce. It'd been a particularly nasty one and he just needed a few days to cool off. So he packed his shit (he didn't have much) and left. He's leaning against the frame of the door when it opens. ]

Got room for one more?

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[ Terry’s asked. More than once and Bruce brushed him off every time. He would have reached out to Dick if he knew how. Look him up was about all the direction Barbara had been willing to offer.

There’s a beat of silence after Dick’s question. The circumstances had been fraught at the time. Difficult. He thought it would get easier to think about as time went on, but it still feels like it’s only just happened. ]

An executive at Bruce’s company was into some shady things behind his back. My dad was…murdered by him. I went to Bruce with it but he refused to help and told me to take it to the police.

[ another pause ]

So once I figure out he was Batman, I swiped the suit [ gestures to the cowl ] to solve it myself.

[ It always starts with at least one dead parent, doesn't it? It's hard to imagine how something like that could have gone on to the extent where someone was murdered before Bruce caught on, but it's impossible to know what the circumstances were, let alone the fact that this Bruce isn't the one he knows so well. For as much as they have in common there's still a lot that could be very different.

He's taken the cowl and his coffee with him to the table, pushing aside a stack of old police files so that he has some elbow room, angling himself so that he can still see Terry. He'd have to admit that part of this is easy because he has exactly the right kind of look to fit right in with the rest of them, handsome and broad-shouldered with the dark hair and blue eyes, a shade or two lighter than his own. ]

I'm sorry about your dad. That's how most of us ended up here, but it doesn't really get easier. [ Or safer to be around them. ] Was he just saying that to try to get you to leave it alone?

[ Bruce wouldn't have just brushed it off, would he? Even if his age had caught up with him, and he wasn't physically able to keep up anymore. ]

Or to get me to leave him alone. Before me, it was just him and Ace in the manor. For, like, twenty years.

[ For all the ways Bruce annoyed him, Terry did feel sorry for the old man. He'd pushed everyone away and was spending all of that time alone. He hadn't embraced Terry at first - not that he could be blamed for that. Terry did steal from him. But he really hadn't needed much convincing once Derek Powers was exposed for the murderer he was. As much as Terry liked being here, meeting the others, spending time with them, he knew he had to get back to his own Gotham. If only to keep Bruce from being alone. ]

He was lonely in that house. I think he appreciated the company. He'd ever admit it though.

[ This is really going to drive him crazy. He just doesn't get it, and despite the fact that it shouldn't matter, he already knows of several places where Terry's dimension has diverged from their own, it's hard not to want to get to the bottom of it. To try to help, for one, but also just to understand.

It's definitely not going to happen unless he somehow gets to talk to at least one other person, so he also knows he has to be realistic about it. ]

Yeah, I can see how he would do that.

[ Without anyone around to barge in on his isolation? Without Alfred? Of course he'd be alone. And he wouldn't dream of admitting it was lonely. That he missed anyone.]

A lot of this doesn't make much sense without the context, but I'm gonna do what I can. Not just to get you home, but I'd like to help you help him, if you know what I mean. Whatever happened to them, there has to be a better way to deal with it.

[ Bruce isn't immortal after all. Eventually he would be gone and Terry was going to need his people, and doing it all alone clearly isn't the way. ]

We can talk about that. For now you can help me unravel this smuggling operation and wrap up some rowdy local gangs while we're at it.