More Words with Gordon

[moonshadows]

“Max,” Bruce Wayne said from the door to the spacious living room, “Barbara Gordon is here to see you.”

No response from the teen stretched out on her belly with her laptop, sock-covered feet kicking in time with the music emanating from noise-canceling headphones and occasionally beating for emphasis against the back of the couch upon which she was sprawled. He scowled.

“Max. Max!” Still nothing. He stumped over, striking the floor harder than was necessary with his cane while Barbara watched from the doorway. “MAX!” he roared, making the girl jump. The headphones fell off, spilling music that was audible even to Gordon. “What have I told you about playing that garbage?!”

 Undaunted, and with a flexibility both the adults envied, she sat up and turned the music off. “That I should play it as loud as I wanted, the louder the better? That I should play it through really good headphones down here so I don’t hear you and you have to stomp and yell? That I should play it without headphones in my room so it blares through the floor and you have to come up and yell? That I have to provide translations for every song not in English before I can listen to it in the house?”

“Yes,” he answered, calming down immediately. “You remembered. Well done. Now, Barbara Gordon is here to see you, Max. She wants to talk. Nothing serious.”

“You don’t think her welfare is serious, Bruce?” the older woman asked sharply, approaching the two of them.

“That’s something for me to worry about,” he retorted, just as sharply. “I’ll be in the study.”

The two women watched him leave, crotchety as ever.

“Soooo,” Max said with enforced nonchalance, closing the laptop and sliding it under the couch. “What did you want to talk about?”

Gingerly, Barbara sat on the couch and turned to the teen. “Your welfare. I know what Bruce was like when he was younger, and he wasn’t easy to deal with for long periods of time then. It’s just natural that I would be concerned about the effect he’d have on a young woman actually living in the same house as him.”

“You want to make sure he’s not abusing me,” the black girl stated calmly. “You want to make sure I’m not going to wind up in the hospital with the kind of emotional damage Terry had.”

Barbara blinked at having the meat of the issue stated so baldly. “Well, yes. Are you happy here, Maxine?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s way schway. I have a room bigger than the apartment I lived in before the old man took me in, an allowance, a clothes allowance…he even bought me a sweet motorcycle for my birthday.”

The older woman didn’t look convinced. “I can see that your physical needs are being taken care of, but…”

Max put on her best superior and insolent expressions. “Look, Commissioner. Bruce cares whether I live or die, which is more than I had going for me before he took me in. He encourages healthy lifestyle choices, he supports my experimentation with elements of other cultures, he ensures both that I’m mentally and physically challenged, and that I have sufficient leisure time, and I get tons of positive reinforcement which, believe me, is absolutely schway.”

“You get positive reinforcement out of Bruce?” Barbara asked incredulously. “Maxine, I just saw him yell at you.”

“You saw a behavioral test in action,” countered Max. “Bruce asks me to engage in standard teenage behavior that grates on his nerves so that he has ample opportunity to deal with his temper in a safe environment. What you interpreted as him yelling at me was a pop quiz. I correctly recited the rules he’d laid down regarding loud music, and got praise for doing so.”

Barbara still didn’t look convinced. “That’s not much praise.”

“Was he more expressive when he wasn’t a crotchety old man?”

“You have a point. Still…”

Max shook her head. “Commissioner, you know what my old man is like. You know how hard he pushes himself, and everyone he trusts. You know what that does to a healthy psyche. I grew up knowing for a fact that my birth destroyed my family. I was allowed to run wild, ignored, yelled at, denied affection, and abandoned. So every little challenge he throws at me is an opportunity for me to earn the praise and love I never got before. It’s an affirmation that I’m wanted, that I’m not a disappointment. I get attention; he gets someone who’s willing and able to rise to every challenge; Terry gets a break from that pressure. I know it’s not normal, but it works.”

“So instead of trying to mold Terry into something he can live vicariously through, it’s you.” The older woman’s lips pressed into a grim line. “You’re allowing, even encouraging him, to mold you in his image.”

“Ahahah. No, Commissioner.” Max waved a single finger in a no-no-no gesture. “No. You don’t get to talk disapprovingly about anyone molding themselves after the old man. Not when you made a Batman costume and flounced after him practically begging for recognition. I don’t want to be Batman, or Batgirl, or Bat-anything. What I want is for my father to encourage me to explore my potential, to challenge me to be everything he thinks I can be, and to be proud of me when I succeed. And that’s what I’m getting. There’s a lot of legacy in these genes, and if I actually want to be a part of it, you’ve got no room to talk because you’re still living in the image of Commissioner James Gordon.” She crossed her arms and glared defiantly, waiting for a rebuttal.

Barbara Gordon obliged. “I still don’t think it’s healthy,” she said stubbornly.

“Yeah, I bet you don’t. Too bad it’s not your decision to make.”

“Maxine…”

The girl threw herself back, scooting down the couch to lounge insolently at the far end. “I told you the old man gives me challenges. The first one he gave me was to research every way his legal guardianship could be threatened. I’m not a child, Commissioner. I know the rules. I’m a willing participant in this game, and it’s not just because the old man’s the first adult to ever actually care about me. He doesn’t assume I’m too young or naïve to know what I want. He knows I won’t put up with him being a jerk. He lays down rules to keep me safe; I follow them because I want to stay safe. I’m not like you or Terry or Dick or whoever else. I don’t want to run around risking my life for the thrill of it or because I want to impress the old man. I can impress him just fine doing other things, like not wanting to risk my life.”

“I know you say that now,” the Commissioner said in a reasoning tone, “but it’s just a matter of time before he has you wanting-”

“Nope.” Max wasn’t having any of that. “You’re projecting yourself onto me. News flash: You’re not me! Look, the bottom line is that I like living with the old man, and you have no legal way to dislodge me, so you can just get over yourself and stop throwing your adult temper-tantrum just because Bruce never went all googly-eyed over you.”

Barbara’s lips narrowed into a thin, grim line as she reined in her anger. “Is that what you think happened?”

“Which part,” the black girl countered sweetly, “the part where you’re throwing a temper-tantrum, or the part where my old man never had romantic feelings for the child of one of his oldest friends? Come on, you were what, five when he first put on the suit? You wouldn’t think an age difference like that was healthy in any other couple, so why are you so bent out of shape about it fifty years later?”

“I was a child,” the older woman snapped. “It was a childish infatuation. I grew out of it.”

Max nodded. “Ooooor, you realized that being Batgirl wasn’t getting you the attention you wanted from your crush, and it wasn’t giving you the attention your old man gave my old man, so you decided to model yourself after the former instead of the later.”

For a long minute they stared at each other. Barbara, angrily; Max, smugly.

“You’re a very disrespectful young lady,” the Commissioner said at last.

“Bruce said nothing serious,” the teen shrugged. “That phrase means I can take the verbal gloves off without having to worry about retaliation. Honest communication is important in any family, wouldn’t you agree?”

Barbara shook slightly, fists clenched in held-back rage. “I don’t recall agreeing to this ‘no retaliation’ rule,” she said tightly.

“Oh, I know.” Max held up her music player. “That’s why I’m recording our entire conversation. It syncs to the Batcomputer every three seconds.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Pfffft. That would involve me wanting something from you. I’m just protecting myself. I do it to the old man, too. Keeps both of us honest.”

At that, the older woman looked intrigued. “You record your conversations with Bruce?”

“Some of them, yeah.” Max shrugged again. “He hates it when I call him on something he said but forgot about or regrets, but I’m not afraid to stand up to him and he keeps his word. It’s one of those things that gets me praise and respect. Weird, huh?”

“You really are doing this of your own volition.” Barbara looked dazed.

“Haven’t I been saying that?” Max huffed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Look. I know Terry’s got some pretty big issues with the whole thing, but the assholes behind the Beyond Project really messed him up trying to shape him into the next Batman. No one wants to see him in the hospital like that again, including Bruce. It just so happens that the kind of pressure and expectation that would hurt Terry is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been craving my whole life. I go from being ignored and hated by my mother and sister to being respected and appreciated by my father and brother. None of us could really take our issues to a shrink, but working together, we can get ourselves sorted out pretty well. Assuming no one butts in and tries to disrupt our system.”

The Commissioner shook her head and stood up slowly. “Well, it seems you have everything pretty well under control. I apologize for doubting you, Ms. Gibson.”

Max met and held the older woman’s eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Gordon, but I think you owe my old man an apology, too.”

A silent battle was waged in the space of a breath. Barbara nodded to acknowledge that Max had won. “I still remember where the study is. I’ll go see him now.” She smiled tightly. “I can’t say I’m glad we had this little talk, but you’ve given me a lot to think about, and I thank you for that.”

The teen pasted a magnanimous smile on her face. “Anytime, Commissioner. Anytime.”