First day back/on the job

[moonshadows]

Max caught up to Terry just outside of school grounds.

“Hey, Terry, how was your first day back?”

He shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“Dana didn’t bother you?”

A faint smile surfaced on his face. “She’s still so pissed at me that she ignored me the whole day. You really got up on the table to dump her for me. I wish I could have seen it.”

Max grinned at him. “If I’d been thinking, I would have copied it from the security system before it got purged.”

“Hey, at least you got her off my back. Thanks, Max.”

She frowned; he still sounded tired in a way that was less having expended his store of energy, and more trying to download a ten-gig file with an ancient 56k modem. “So…what’s your afternoon look like? Got time to tackle that history thing?”

Terry grimaced. “Mom’s working late tonight. She wants me to babysit my twip of a brother, make dinner, and have the dishes done by the time she gets home.”

A brother. A baby brother. She asked, “Can I help?” almost before she knew she was going to open her mouth.

He glanced at her in surprise, but whatever he’d been about to say was drowned out by the insistent ringing of his phone. “Great,” he muttered as he pulled it out to see who was calling. “It’s the old man. Hold on a sec. Hello?”

Max couldn’t quite make out what Bruce was saying, but the way Terry’s expression sank said more than enough.

“But I have to-” His jaw clenched as he was cut off. One breath. Two. Three. “Can’t it-” Again, Bruce Wayne verbally trampled him and this time, his face lost all animation. It was like looking at him still in the hospital.

The black girl reached out and took the phone from his hand. “No,” she said firmly.

Bruce sputtered to a halt. “What?”

“No, Mr. Wayne. Terry can’t work tonight.”

“That’s unacceptable!”

“Don’t you use that word with me!” she shouted, suddenly so angry that she was shaking. “You hired me to say no, and I’m saying no. Terry. Can’t. Work. Tonight. I don’t care what you want him to do, the world didn’t fall apart while he was in the hospital and it’s not going to fall apart now just because he has to babysit while his mom’s working late!”

“You don’t understand-”

This time, he was the one cut off. “No, old man, you don’t understand. I was looking right at Terry when you started telling him what you wanted him to put his life on hold to do for you, and you know what I saw? I saw him start to break again. He just came back to school after getting out of the hospital, and you’re already pushing him back in! Whatever’s happening can either wait, or be dealt with another way. You have other resources; use them. Call the police. Call the Justice League. But don’t you dare call Terry McGinnis, because he won’t be answering!” Angrily, she jabbed the screen and ended the call. “Sorry,” she said shortly as she offered it back to Terry. “Didn’t mean to get all grabby with your stuff.”

He looked at her, still breathing like a pink-haired bull about to charge, and his dead expression transmuted into something faintly like awe. “Why don’t you hold on to it for a bit,” he suggested warily. “Just in case he does try to call back.”

Max scowled at the phone. “Okay.” When she shoved it into her pocket, the cred card Bruce had given her brushed her fingers. Food allowance for the week, he’d said. “Hey, Terry, what do you say we pick up a pizza for dinner? Old man’s paying.”

“That sounds great,” he said, wary awe melting into a smile. “You really want to hang out with me and the twip?”

“Your brother is my brother.” She linked arms with him. “So, what kind of pizza do you like?”

Terry shrugged.

“Let me guess, they didn’t script that?”

“Guess not.”

“We’ll deal with that later, then. What kind of pizza does the twip like?”

“Cheesy Dan’s, nothing but cheese,” Terry answered instantly.

“Lead the way,” she mock-commanded, brandishing the cred card grandly.

 

“Terry! You’re home!”

The kid, no older than eight or nine, had Terry’s thick black hair and blue eyes. Max wondered if this was what the old man had looked like as a child.

“Yes, twip, I’m home. And I brought a friend.” Terry stood from having knelt to hug his brother and ruffle his hair. “Matt, this is Max. She works for Mr. Wayne, too.”

“And I,” Max said with a grin, “brought pizza.”

Matt’s face lit up. “Alright! Cheesy Dan’s!”

“Delicious, nutritious, and almost no clean-up,” Terry said, waving a wad of napkins. “Just put it on the coffee table and help yourself.”

They ate pizza, they played video games against Matt, they tackled that history thing while Matt played video games by himself. The old man didn’t call either of their phones. Finally, six o’clock rolled around and Max excused herself, saying that Mr. Wayne would need dinner as well, and slipped off before Mrs. McGinnis could return home.

“You’re late,” Bruce growled from just inside the front door as she slipped in at six-thirty-two.

Max flinched, clearly expecting to be yelled at, offering neither apologies nor explanations. She also didn’t meet his eyes.

“Max.” the silence stretched. “Max, look at me.” She didn’t, and the guilt in his stomach churned until he tasted bile. When had he turned into such a horrible monster? Had he always been this bad, or had it happened in the last few decades? What had made him think he could be a better parent than-

The self-destructive train of thought derailed. Max’s mother had hated her. Her sister had hated her. He was better than either of them by default, but that wasn’t good enough. He pulled her into a rough hug.

“I’m angry at myself,” he said quietly. The shudder of her frame as she sucked in a lungful of air and hugged him back was a knife twisting in his belly; she’d been afraid of his reaction. “You were right to yell at me. Thank you.”

“You’re sure?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’m very sure that I’m angry at myself,” he replied bitterly. “But I’m not angry at you.” He released her and stepped back to eye her grimly. “You did exactly as I hoped you would when I hired you, Max. Not just on the phone, but just now when I told you that you were late. Do whatever you like for dinner; I can’t eat until my stomach’s settled down.”

“I ate at Terry’s. Bought pizza with my food allowance and helped him babysit his brother and worked on homework.”

Bruce hmphed at her still-uncertain tone. “Is all your homework done?” When she shook her head, he continued, “Go do it. I’ll be downstairs,” and stumped off before he could cut her with his sharp edges any more than he already had.

Long before he was expecting her, Max padded down into the Batcave with antacid tablets she’d found in a bathroom medicine cabinet and a glass of water. He didn’t look up as she laid them on the console within easy reach, didn’t say anything until she was halfway back to the stairs.

“Thank you.” The words carried, echoed like slow ripples in the darkness. The tablets fizzed as he dropped them into the glass, and her footsteps stopped.

“Want me to make you some of that gruel you like?”

“It’s cream of wheat,” he corrected as he sipped.

Scuffing; she’d turned around. “What’s the difference?”

Bruce smiled thinly. “Marketing.”

“You still didn’t answer the question, Bruce.”

He hated being old. “No. Do your homework. I’ll make my own gruel when I’m ready for it.”

When he felt that he could possibly put food into his stomach and have it stay there, he ventured up into the kitchen to find a bowl, spoon, and unopened cream of wheat packet arranged by the electric teakettle, which was keeping hot water warm. He stared at them for a long moment, unsure if he should be humbled that she cared so much about him despite his being a bitter old man, or angry that she felt she had to do everything. In the end, he just sighed and carried his bowl of gruel into the cavernous living room to glower at the news while he ate. What greeted him instead were the strains of his favorite classical music being played at a comfortable level, and his daughter camped on the couch studiously doing her homework. The news was already on, but muted. Irritated at being soothed, but too soothed to truly be irritated, he loomed over Max until she looked up.

“It’s the piece and volume the player’s history recorded as being selected most often,” she said before he could do more than scowl. “I know you want me to act like a rowdy teenager so you get practice dealing with it, but Terry’s not the only one you push harder than you should.”

He couldn’t argue with that. He wanted to, but it would be a lie and they both knew it.

“I’ll misbehave tomorrow, I promise,” she hurried on when he failed to reply. “I’ll pick something popular and grating and play it so loud you can hear it downstairs, but just take this evening to relax, okay?”

“Use headphones,” he snapped. “Play obnoxious music loudly in your room until I come up and yell at you, but down here, use headphones so you don’t hear me and I have to yell at you.”

She looked at him steadily, withholding judgment for the moment. “New rule?”

New rule, new hoop for her to jump through to earn what passed for his praise, new thorn in the flail he was scourging himself with. Bruce hated that he had to ask this of her, but Terry’s hauntingly blank face and the memory of a woman he’d professed to care about demanded that he not fail again, and he didn’t know how else to do it.

“New rule,” he said shortly, earning her nod, and sat sullenly in his chair to eat the only thing his stomach would tolerate at the moment.

When he was done eating, the idea of listening to the news held no attraction for him. Instead, he closed his eyes, leaning into the embrace of the chair and letting music wash soothingly over him. His thoughts floated on currents of sound, revisiting the last time he’d seen Diana. She’d been angry, and disappointed, and sad – but mostly angry. Selina had died. She’d gone to Superman for help after his attempts to do what was best for her had only led to more pain. Superman had deferred to the Amazon princess, and his fierce, vibrant Catwoman had walked out of his life to spend her own on Themiscera, her location hidden from him until such time as he understood that what he’d done was wrong and expressed regret for it.

Too bad he was such an arrogant fool that he hadn’t understood until it was too late. Even then, he’d nearly caused unforgivable harm to Terry, his own son. But now he had Max, who could tell him when he was going too far. And who had.

Abruptly, that sank in.

Max had stopped him from hurting Terry. She’d made sure Terry was okay, and then she’d let him know – even though he didn’t think he deserved it – that she cared about him, too. She was the pink-haired canary in the coal mine of his pathetic, ruined life, a black St. Bernard whose fiery spirit could melt the avalanche he’d buried himself in and drag him out of the cold darkness into warmth and daylight again.

He found himself shaking, gripped in the undeniable certainty that he had to make sure he didn’t drive her away.

“Max.”

Sudden movement from the couch as she sat up, alert and wary. “Bruce? Are you okay?”

The look her pinned her with was anything but reassuring. At least she didn’t look afraid, only concerned. “You did very well today,” he said stiffly, unsure how to communicate how grateful he was for her.

“I was late for dinner,” she said slowly, still wary in a way that made his stomach turn again.

“Terry is more important.” The words were absolute, allowing no argument. “Although next time, remember that you can call to keep me informed of your activities or to warn me if you’re going to be late.”

Brown eyes blinked. “Right. Sorry, I’m not used to having anyone who cares where I am unless it’s school. You sure you’re not mad at me for yelling back at you?”

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed, massaging his temples with one hand. “I’m not angry at you, Max. I won’t deny that I was angry, but you did the right thing.” He offered her a rueful half-grin. “You see why I need you; I’m not used to anyone arguing back, and I over-reacted.”

Max nodded slowly, but he could almost see the gears in her head whirling furiously. “What if we practiced?” she asked. “Set aside some time every day for me to yell at you like an ungrateful teenager, and let you get used to it without anyone actually being in the line of fire.”

“And in the meantime, you get practice in acting – not to mention thinking on your verbal feet. I like it. We’ll start tomorrow. Say, six? That will give us time to get a good argument in, and for me to calm down enough afterwards to eat dinner.”

She nodded, beaming, and the tightness in his chest and belly eased. He wasn’t going to drive her away. He’d never held with any ideas of a benign deity, not since he was eight, but if there was a dark god of justice then Bruce was his disciple, and he must have sent Maxine Gibson to haul this bitter old wreck of a Batman out of his purgatory. He should have known, honestly. There had to have been a reason beyond stupid, stubborn pride for him to still be alive. He still had work to do.

And now, he had Max to ensure that he didn’t fail.