Words with Gordon

[moonshadows]

“Mr. Wayne, Commissioner Gordon is here to see you.”

He didn’t look thrilled, but then again, he never did. “Thank you, Maxine.”

Barbara Gordon watched the black teen leave the room, heading in the direction of the kitchen, before sitting in the comfortable chair across from her old friend and mentor. “Another one, Bruce?” she asked in a tone of disapproval.

Unperturbed, he replied, “She’s an orphan. There was more than enough legal ground for a case of neglect against her sister, so I took her in.”

“I better not see her wearing my old costume.”

The expression on Bruce’s face sent a tiny frisson of unease down her spine. It was a look Batman had worn many times, when he had someone right where he wanted them. “Max, come back in here for a minute.”

The girl with shockingly pink hair reappeared a moment later. “You called, Bruce?”

“Commissioner Gordon says she doesn’t want to see you in the Batgirl suit. What do you have to say to that?”

Max looked the older woman up and down, hands on her hips in a distinctly defiant pose. “I know you loved your old man, Commissioner. I love mine, too. But I don’t want to be him, and I’m sure as hell not going to try to cram myself into his image trying to get his approval. My name is Maxine Gibson, not Beyoncé Wayne. When the old man’s confident that I could go out in a suit and not get my ass kicked, if I decide that that’s something I want to do, I’ll design my own damn costume and be myself, not follow in someone else’s footsteps. I don’t let anyone tell me who I am. Not the kids at school, not the guys who thought I was unacceptable for the Beyond Project, not Batman, and not you. My entire life has been me not fitting into a mold of what someone thinks I should be, so why should this be any different?” She crossed her arms, daring the older woman to comment.

For a long moment, Barbara Gordon stared at her in shock before closing her mouth and slowly shaking her head. “Well, she certainly is…emphatic. I’d say she was set in her ways, if she were old enough to have ways to be set in.”

“She gets it from me,” Bruce said with an almost proud grin.

That startled Barbara. “You mean she really is…?”

“Uh-huh. Her and Terry. We’re still trying to figure out who, and how.”

The commissioner groaned and covered her face. “No wonder he refuses to give up the suit. I’m dealing with another you.”

“No.” The word was hard, sharp, and full of repressed fury. “Someone out there tried to mold Terry into another Batman without knowing a thing about Bruce Wayne, and it nearly broke him. When I find out who hurt a child in my name…” He trailed off ominously, one fist clenched so hard his whole arm shook.

“…you’ll bring all the evidence straight to me, and they’ll be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Barbara didn’t look intimidated at all. “Isn’t that what you were going to say, Bruce?”

Bruce smiled again, gesturing with one hand to indicate that Max had the floor.

“The full extent of the law, Commissioner, would include accounting for damages done to every family chosen to raise a potential Batman.” Max took a deep breath. “My mother’s husband divorced her before I was two. She hung herself when I was eight. Damages for pain and suffering aren’t going to bring her back, and attention from the trial will only hurt my sister worse. Do you want to put Terry’s little brother through that? Be the one to tell him that his dad wasn’t his dad? Do you want to do that to his mom? I know we aren’t the only two. There are others, boys and girls who weren’t ideal, who actually look related to their families. Happy marriages. The full extent of the law would barge into perfectly normal homes and tear those families apart with the news that their little darlings are actually cuckoos, illegitimate children of Bruce Wayne. Do you want to do that to them? Ruin marriages and shatter the self-identity of those kids?” She stared the older woman down. “Do you resent my old man so much that you want to do that to him?”

Barbara said nothing, eyes dropping away from Max’s face and avoiding Bruce’s.

“To bring them to justice in the eyes of the law is to expose everything they did,” Bruce said quietly. “I won’t put the lives of innocents on public display like that, and I won’t ask Terry or Max to do it, either. You can’t expose the details of the Beyond Project without exposing them. And me. And Dick. And you.”

“I never should have let you talk me into putting on that silly costume,” she grumped in an attempt to concede by changing the subject.

“You put it on of your own free will, Barbara. I didn’t know you were even planning something like that until you showed up with Robin, looking for me.” Without looking away from the older woman, he said, “Maxine, that tea’s not going to brew itself.”

“Yes, Mr. Wayne,” she replied promptly, and left the room.

“You called me here just to walk me into this, didn’t you.” The words were more resigned than angry, although there was a fair amount of resentment.

Bruce Wayne didn’t look the slightest bit repentant. “I wanted the inevitable confrontations over Max and the Beyond Project to happen in private. The only way to guarantee that was to initiate them myself.”

“Damn you, Bruce.” He’d won, and she knew it, but she wouldn’t let it go without letting him know she wasn’t happy. The glare she directed at him only glanced off his stony expression, but she knew him better than that. “You’ve put me in a corner again. Either I follow through on this and bring myself down with it, or I look the other way – again – and compromise my integrity and the oaths I took.”

“You chose this path, Barbara,” he replied evenly. “You chose this the instant you put on that costume and pretended to be me. I never forced you. I never forced any of you. I tried to warn you all away, to push you out of danger. But none of you listened, so I did what I had to in order to keep you all alive. You resent me. Dick hangs up on me. Terry may never trust me again. But you’re all alive.”

She wanted to argue with him, she really did. There just didn’t seem to be any words to argue with. When the black girl came back with a full tea service, it was a welcome distraction.

“Will there be anything else, Mr. Wayne?” Max asked, formal and distant as an English butler.

“No, Maxine. Thank you. You can go work on your homework now.”

“It’s already done, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce sipped his tea. “I’ll be checking it at eight o’clock. Is your room clean?”

“Yes, Mr. Wayne.”

“And dinner?”

“Prepared and ready to go in the oven.”

That hard, demanding expression thawed slightly. “Alright, Max. You can go downstairs and play on the big computer.”

Max’s prim and proper posture dissolved into ecstatic contortions and a high-pitched sound of joy. “Thanks, Bruce!” she exclaimed before darting over to the clock and letting herself into the Batcave. Barbara couldn’t help but grin as the mechanism closed behind her.

“I think she’s the only one that actually likes me,” Bruce said with dry amusement as he helped himself to a tea cookie.

“I’m surprised.” The older woman followed suit, eyebrows raising as she took a bite. “Alfred’s old recipe?”

Bruce gave her a knowing smile. “She’s a fast learner. Almost as hard on herself as I was on myself when I was her age, and she thrives under strict guidance. It’s forcing me to lighten up. For her sake, and especially Terry’s, if not my own.” He sipped his tea, savoring the flavors for a moment. “Whoever’s behind the Beyond Project slipped up with her. If she’d been pushed at all rather than left to her own devices, you’d be asking for my help in tracking her down. Instead, she’s going to track them down and take vengeance for herself and all the other victims of their little scheme.”

“I suppose I can’t blame her,” Barbara sighed. “Even if I disagree with it. You win, Bruce. Just don’t break her.”

To her surprise, he laughed. “I don’t think I could. She won’t let me.”