B:TAS/Beyond rough draft 2 (cryo pod)

[moonshadows]

When the buzzer for the front gate’s intercom went off, he ignored it. Or at least, he wanted to. The irritation of being interrupted from his nightly regimen of bitter loathing and depression sparked the only warmth left in his grizzled heart: rage. One finger jabbed the intercom button, but he said nothing. Let whoever it was stammer like a fool before he shouted them away.

“Bruce? Is that you? It’s me.”

The voice was impossible, a hallucination of happier times. He remembered that voice, the way it slunk into a smoky, throaty purr that went straight to his loins. The green eyes that watched him, half-lowered, from behind her mask. Lips, soft and pink and sweet against his, intoxicating as wine. Her hair, like gold spun into silk. But she was dead.

“It’s me, Bruce. Selina. Are you there?”

He switched the intercom off, furious at himself for having conjured up her memories, heartbroken all over again for having lost her. Slowly, he stood. Ace lifted his head and stood as well, a comforting heat and weight beside him as he stumped through the halls and stubbornly climbed the stairs. His bedroom was dark, his bed cold and empty. He didn’t care; misery was all he had left and he clung to it like a child clutching a well-worn and frayed plush companion. Maybe tonight, he thought as he stretched out with a stifled groan, his subconscious would let him relive those brighter days.

Maybe this time, he wouldn’t wake up from them.

 

Outside, Selina shivered in the cool night wind and eyed the gate. A few minutes behind a bush, and Catwoman emerged with the small bag slung over her shoulder holding clothes instead of costume. It didn’t take long to scale and vault over the gate. The grounds were dark, but such things had never stopped her. The door was locked, but the walls were easy enough to climb and it was mere moments before she was inside thanks to an unlocked window. She thought of trying to find him, but it had been a long and trying day and the unused bedroom she’d climbed into contained a sheet-draped bed that suddenly looked very inviting indeed.

She threw the dusty sheet to the floor and curled up on the bed, asleep within moments.

 

It was Ace’s growling that woke him, just before dawn. From the sound of it – the lack of barking, the uncertain whine – there was an intruder in the house but whoever it was, they weren’t a threat. He took his time using the bathroom, washing his face, and getting dressed. There was no rush, no reason to face the intruder before he was ready. Finally, he nodded to the big dog and stumped down the hallway as Ace led him to one of the bedrooms that had been closed for years. Decades, really. Ace whined again as his master reached the door. No sound came from within the room, but that meant nothing. He flattened against the wall and rapped sharply on the door with his cane.

“Whoever you are,” he growled, “I know you’re there. Come out peacefully before I call the police.”

The response he got was nothing he’d been expecting.

“Batman?” called that impossible voice, startled and hopeful. Sounds of rustling cloth, a single too-heavy footfall – probably tripped over something – and the door opened with a jerk, hinges screaming and wood shrieking protest.

Cautiously, he stepped away from the wall and turned to face the door just as she leaned out, glancing swiftly up and down for the caped figure he knew she wouldn’t see. When those green eyes settled on him and widened, he braced himself. Realization flashed across her face, then dismay, but the pity he’d expected never appeared. Instead, Catwoman pulled her mask off with an expression of profound relief and stepped toward him – but stopped short.

“You’re not dead!”

He’d expected the words to have come from his mouth, but no – he was tongue-tied, helpless to do anything more than stare as Selina Kyle choked and brushed tears away from her eyes.

“You’re not dead,” she repeated, one part disbelief and three parts answered prayer. “Oh, Bruce, I’m so happy.” She laughed, shakily. “If I’d known it was you all along…”

“I don’t understand,” he said weakly. “How are you…”

“I don’t know. The last thing I remember is being knocked out by Freeze’s henchmen.”

“The last time I saw you,” he growled, suspicion flooding back, “he’d locked you in a cryo-chamber that sank into the ocean.”

“I woke up in a lab,” she said hesitantly, and he realized she was uncertain. Afraid. “They said…fifty years had passed. That they’d finally developed the technology to repair…something, and wake me up. I had nowhere to go, no one I could turn to. They got me a cab to your gate, but no one answered.”

He grunted. “I thought you were a hallucination. I’m not entirely convinced you’re not some kind of trick.” She didn’t seem offended. “Stay here. I need to check your story before I trust you.”

She nodded, then detached her hood and offered it to him. “You put a tracking chip on it, remember?” she said softly. “I didn’t see a point in removing it, not after…” A shudder. “Anyway, you might be able to check it out and confirm that it’s the same one.”

For a long moment, he studied her face. She had that same stoic, hopeless look she’d worn when he’d handcuffed her after the Red Claw incident. Finally, he nodded and took the hood from her. Once relieved of it, she retreated into the room and curled up on the bed again.

He stumped down the stairs and into the Batcave.

An hour later, having spoken to the lab technicians about the woman they’d revived and confirmed that Catwoman’s hood did contain a tracking chip he’d planted on it, he stumped back up to the second floor and stared silently at the woman sleeping on a bed that, like him, hadn’t felt the heat of a slumbering body in many years. The desire to believe in the perfect dream she represented was nearly overwhelming, but he’d resisted pretty illusions in his distant youth and the last twenty years were proof enough that his willpower had only gotten stronger while the rest of him weakened.

After a few moments, her slow, even breathing shifted and she opened her eyes. “Time for kitty to get tested?” she asked, giving him a wry grin.

He wanted to apologize, to explain, to ask for her forgiveness. All he said was, “Follow me.”

She did so with the patience and resigned amusement of someone who has nothing to hide, and he loathed himself just a little more for asking this of her…but he had to be sure. Neither of them said anything as they descended into the Batcave, the clicking of Ace’s claws against stone echoing into the cavern to come back as whispers. Blood tests, genetic tests, tests done to strands of her hair – she sat through all of them with feline grace and when the last one finished, he felt like scum, like the lowest form of slime, for having put her through everything to satisfy his unreasonable suspicion. This was no clone, no shapeshifter – this was Selina Kyle, the same woman he’d thought lost forever, and he’d been brusque bordering on rude to her.

“Isis is buried in the back garden,” he said by way of apology, unable to look the woman he’d mourned for half a century in the eyes. “After your cryogenic pod vanished…Maeven was worried she’d get out and try to look for you again. I took her in; she knew me, recognized me from when I’d nursed her back to health. Maeven gave me some of your things – clothes, sheets from your bed to help make her comfortable here. She never tried to get out, but she’d meow at me sometimes, as if she were asking me where you were. She died in her sleep a few years later. I had a feline mausoleum built for her.”

A single, choked-back sob was all it took to shatter the strained, awkward tension between them. Suddenly he found himself holding her to his chest, murmuring soothing words into her hair while she cried onto his shoulder, and all that mattered was that she was back. It took a few minutes before it sank in that she was whispering “thank you” between broken sounds of pain. That just made him feel worse. Fifty years had turned him into a bitter old man; he’d greeted her with harsh mistrust and anger, and still she clung to him and thanked him for watching over the cat she’d risked her freedom and her life for. Something in his heart cracked open, and sorrow bled sluggishly out.

“I missed you,” he said quietly. Then, without realizing he was going to say it, “I love you. Please don’t leave me again.”

Shakily, she laughed. “Which you? Bruce Wayne, or Batman?”

In response, he held her as tightly as his muscles would allow. “Both.”

He didn’t think it was possible for her to press against him any more than she already was, but he was wrong. Her soft curves melded with the stiffer planes of his body in a way that made him wish he was fifty, even twenty, years younger.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere even if I had somewhere else to go,” she murmured in that smoky purr.

“Good,” he said shortly, then chided himself for being sharp with her. “Are you hungry?” he asked in what was supposed to be a gentle tone, but came out stiff and formal.

She laughed. “I haven’t eaten in fifty years.”

 

“I’m hiring you as my assistant,” he told her abruptly over eggs, toast, juice, and coffee. “It’s a vague enough position to cover just about anything. I’m an old man, you’re newly-released from half a century of cryo-stasis. No one will question you being my live-in assistant, even if they remember you, and the salary will be more than generous.”

She grinned at him. “I don’t care what he position pays; I’m more concerned with the benefits.”

It took him a moment to realize what she was implying. “I have a heart condition,” he chided sternly.

“And does that heart condition prevent kissing, cuddling, walking hand-in-hand, romantic dinners, and sleeping in the same bed?”

Slowly, his astonishment faded and he returned her sly grin. “No. No it doesn’t. I just thought…” The smile died. “I’m old, Selina. You don’t have to…”

Her hand on his clenched fist silenced the half-formed protest. “I don’t care. I’m not saying your marvelous physique wasn’t a turn-on, but that’s not why I fell in love with Batman and it’s not why I enjoyed spending time with Bruce Wayne.”

“Selina…” he sighed, feeling the weight of decades settle on his shoulders. “I’m not an easy man to live with.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” she asked, her strong, smooth fingers curling around his old, gnarled ones. “Because I’ve finally got you, and I don’t intend to let you chase me off that easily.”

Was he trying to chase her of? Was he really so bitter and miserable that he couldn’t accept the possibility of having anything to be happy about?

“It’s been a long time since I had anyone I could trust,” he said slowly, the words somehow coming out as a threat.

Her eyes dropped. The hand not holding his absently picked up her fork and toyed with the remainder of her breakfast. In a low voice, one he’d heard right before he cuffed her, she said, “I’m surprised you trust me at all.”

“You pled guilty.” His fingers tightened around hers. “You saved my life, even when you had to track me down to do it, and risked your own for me without breaking the law again. If you’d let me get close enough as Bruce Wayne, I would have proposed to you.”

At that, she looked up, her green eyes spearing his blue ones. “And now?”

“People will talk,” he said shortly. “They’ll call you a golddigger. Even people who know you were frozen for fifty years will say you’re marrying me for my money. If we give it time…a year or two, and make it a quiet ceremony with as little fuss as we can…”

She studied him for a long minute, weighing and analyzing, and he was surprised to discover that he was afraid he wouldn’t measure up.

“We’ll have to be seen in public together,” she said matter-of-factly. “Let people see that I enjoy your company and get used to us.” The sly grin returned. “Maybe even convince some people that you’re taking advantage of my unfamiliarity with the modern world.”

“An old man wooing a beautiful young woman, hmm?” The ghost of his charming smile flitted across his face. “I think you just want me to dote on you in public.”

Unashamed, she retorted, “Are you saying you don’t want to?”

“Are you going to let me, this time?”

“Darling,” she purred in that smoky voice, “the only reason I didn’t let you before was I thought it wouldn’t have been fair to you. Your lady-love’s heart belonging to the Dark Knight? It would have been dishonest of me and if you hadn’t secretly been the Dark Knight, you would have been miserable with it. But now that I know the truth, I’m all yours.”

He frowned. “I haven’t been Batman in twenty years.”

“Your voice says otherwise. It doesn’t feel right to call you ‘Bruce’ when your voice is the one you only used at night.”

That startled him. He hadn’t realized that the line between his personas had blurred so much, and for a moment he worried about who else might be able to identify him from his growling tone – but no one else had, yet, or if they had, they hadn’t acted on it.

“I haven’t had much reason to be Bruce Wayne in a long time,” he said reluctantly. “I need your help, Selina. I need you to remind me that there’s more to me than not being Batman. I need a reason to be Bruce Wayne again, and not just a bitter old man who used to fight crime.”

Selina looked down at the Catwoman costume. “For that,” she said dryly, “I’m going to need some new clothes.”

 

It didn’t take more than a few days for them to settle into a remarkably domestic routine. She called him “Bruce” and lavished attention on him, and slowly he began to lower the barriers of surly cynicism and crotchety temper that had held the world safely at bay for years. Mornings were spent cleaning: dusting, airing, laundry, and in general making Wayne Manor once again a place where the living dwelled, rather than a mausoleum for the not-yet-dead. They had lunch in fancy restaurants and went shopping afterwards, buying all the things a well-to-do lady of the modern age required in her daily life. Evenings were for learning. Selina learned how modern technology worked, became familiar with the equipment in the Batcave, and told stories of her past while he insisted on preparing dinner. Together, they made use of the private gym where he maintained as much of his strength, speed, and stamina as his heart would allow, and she performed acrobatics that made him wish it were stronger. He took her with him as he stalked grumpily through public appearances, wrapped fetchingly in conservative business suits and calling him “Mister Wayne”. She fielded phone calls and fetched items, trailed after him with binders and folders. All in all, Bruce Wayne’s lovely new assistant made hardly a ripple as she slid into his life.

 

It was evening, and they were driving back to the manor after a late meeting, when they saw taillights ahead of them on the long, curving road that led to the gate. Selina flashed him a concerned look as his hands tightened on the steering wheel and the car accelerated in a way that hinted at more than a cosmetic relationship to the Batmobile she remembered.

“Jokerz,” he growled in terse explanation as they sped up the road and screeched to a halt just before the gate.

Caught in the headlights were half a dozen comically-dressed punks and thugs on garishly-colored motorcycles, all in a semicircle around a more normally-dressed teenage boy with a shock of barely-tamed black hair. No sooner had the car come to a dead stop than he was out and stalking towards them, brandishing his cane.

“Get off of my property,” he snarled. “You’re trespassing!”

As Selina struggled to catch up in her too-tight skirt, a female punk in a polka-dot mini turned her motorcycle towards him and taunted, “Oh, is that right?”

“It’s okay,” the normal-looking teen protested. “I can handle this.”

The leader of the punks dismounted and swaggered up to Bruce Wayne. “Who do you think you’re talking to, old man? We’re the Jokerz.”

Despite the punk having grabbed him by the lapels, he wasn’t impressed. “Sure you are.”

The punk leader, looking remarkably like his gang’s founder in a black suit with an overdone pompadour and painted-on smile, deflated slightly at Bruce’s patronizing tone. Only for a moment, though, and then he made the mistake of throwing a punch.

It never landed.

Selina hovered just outside the area lit by headlights, raging silently at her skirt while Bruce and the kid neatly dispatched the thugs with hands, feet, and cane. The fight was over in seconds, the defeated Jokerz rushing away on their bikes.

“Man,” the remaining teen enthused in quiet awe, “you’re something. I’ve never seen anyone…” The rest of the sentence died as Bruce’s breathing became strained and ragged, and Selina hurried forward to support him before he toppled, cane falling from suddenly-weak fingers. “Are you okay? Hey – is he okay?”

“My…medicine…”

“It’s in the house,” she supplied, voice tight with worry. “You, kid – can you drive?”

“The name’s Terry,” he shot back. The sharpness faded from his tone as he watched her settle the older man in the back seat of the long, black vehicle. “But yeah, I can drive.”

“The gate will open automatically,” she said. “Would you drive us to the house, please?”

Terry looked at the old man, flinching as his breath rattled. “Yeah. Sure.”

The drive was quick and quiet, and even Ace only whined when Terry helped Bruce into the drawing room while Selina ran for the medicine. She returned shortly with pills and a glass of water, seemingly ignoring the teen to fuss over her employer.

“So, hey, uh…I’m just gonna call my dad, okay?” When neither of them paid him any mind, he edged away towards the phone on a table by the standing clock. “Here’s where I’m grounded for life,” he muttered as he lifted the receiver, but before it got to his ear, he put it back down. Behind him, something was chittering and scratching and…flapping?

When Terry turned around, he saw a small bat frantically trying to escape from the standing clock. Cautiously, muttering reassurances more for himself than the animal, he opened the glass door to free it and realized it was somehow trapped behind the clock face itself. Puzzled and curious now, he fumbled at the side of the mounting, looking for a hidden catch. Just as he found it and the entire thing moved aside with a grinding sound, revealing stone stairs leading into darkness and scaring the bat back down them, a female cry of “Don’t touch that!” rang out from behind him.

Somehow more predatorily intimidating than a woman in a pencil skirt had any right to be, Selina stormed up and slammed the mechanism shut. “I thought you were calling your father.”

Terry jerked away from the clock as if it had bit him, trying not to look at what was undeniably the entrance a secret passage. “Sorry! I just…there was a bat…look, I don’t want to know about whatever kinky sex dungeon you have down there. Trust me, I’m happier forgetting that thought ever crossed my mind. I just want to get home, okay?”

 “Call your father,” was all she said before stalking back over to the chair the older man was seated in. “It’s okay, Bruce. He didn’t see anything. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he grunted. 

“Oh, Bruce. You know you shouldn’t have jumped them like that.”

The look he gave her was nothing resembling apologetic. “I thought they were going to attempt vandalism. This wouldn’t have been the first time they’d tried it. I’m not saying I miss the Joker, but at least he had more style than those punks.”

“Uh…” Terry’s voice cut hesitantly in, as though the teen wanted nothing to do with the entire situation. “I hate to interrupt, miss…”

“Kyle,” she supplied. “Selina Kyle. I’m Mr. Wayne’s assistant.”

“Right. Miss Kyle. Look, I don’t want to be a bother but my dad’s not picking up and I know he’s home. I know he’s probably in the bathroom or something, but…”

Slowly, Bruce stood up. “But you’re worried.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you have a fight?”

The brief look of guilt on Terry’s face was answer enough.

“Alright. We’ll drive you home.” He turned to his assistant. “When’s your appointment at the DMV?”

She grimaced “Tuesday.”

Terry looked at her curiously. “You don’t have a license?”

“It’s expired,” she said dryly.

 

The police cars parked in the street reassured exactly nobody as the Wayne car pulled up and parked at the curb.

“Dad,” Terry muttered, unbuckling and reaching for the door.

Bruce and Selina exchanged a look.

“Terry,” she said, one hand on his wrist in a gesture that looked gentle but was more like steel in actuality, “If you need someone to talk to, come to us.” She slipped him a slip of paper with a phone number scribbled on it.

“Right,” he said impatiently. “If I need geriatric martial arts or help picking out a whip, I’ll call.”

Silently, they watched as he tore up the sidewalk and past the police tape, into the house. Silently, they drove away. When the news came on and reported that Jokerz had killed Mr. Warren McGinnis, the silence turned angry.

“Something doesn’t smell right,” he growled, standing up and moving towards the clock. “The Jokerz are crude and random, but this isn’t their style. Besides, the core of their gang was with us at the time.”

Selina opened the clock and followed him down into the Batcave. “I’ve always wanted to see you work, but not under these conditions. What are you going to do?”

“Start by finding out everything I can about Terry’s father,” came the terse reply. “What happens after that depends on what I find.”

When the first picture of the departed came up, his fingers faltered. The second picture showed the whole family, and Selina leaned forward while he frowned.

“Was Terry adopted?” she asked almost rhetorically.

Records flashed up and were dismissed; no, he wasn’t, and neither was his brother Matt. The riddle was put aside in favor of researching the deceased.

“Warren McGinnis worked in the research department of Wayne-Powers. He had a meeting with Powers earlier in the day. I don’t like it.”

Selina’s disdainful look echoed his scowl. “If I knew more about modern security, I’d go see what I could dig up,” she growled.

“If I were younger, I’d do the same.” He sighed. “I hate being old.”

 

A few days later, during dinner, the phone rang. Bruce rolled his eyes and growled wordlessly, but Selina picked it up.

“Wayne residence,” she said pleasantly.

“Miss Kyle? It’s Terry. We, uh, met last week.”

“Of course, Terry. I remember you.”

Across the table, Bruce’s expression hardened.

“Yeah, I was hoping you might. I, uh, need to talk.”

“Bring him here,” Bruce growled.

“Mr. Wayne offers his deepest sympathies on the loss of your father,”  she said first. “If you’re free tonight, please accept the hospitality of Wayne Manor and allow me to pick you up at…your mother’s?”

Bruce grunted. “Better than what I would have said.”

She covered the mouthpiece. “There’s a reason you hired me, darling.”

He grinned at her. “And it has nothing to do with your social skills.”

“Yeah, sure.” Terry said on the other end of the phone. “That sounds great. Uh…you did get…um…”

“Yes,” she replied with audible amusement. “I did.. See you in a few, okay Terry?”

“Yeah. See you in a few.”

Selina placed the receiver back on its cradle and stepped close enough to lean down for a kiss. “I’ll be back soon, darling.”

He wrapped his arms awkwardly around her, holding her in place long enough for a second, deeper kiss. “Hurry back,” he said when he finally let her go, his voice caressing the words like fingers trailing down her spine.

“Mmmm. Lions and tigers couldn’t keep me way.”

 

“What is it?” Bruce demanded from the depths of his chair almost before Terry was in sight.

“Bruce…”

He sighed, but didn’t protest Selina’s chiding tone. “I assume you found something,” he said, his words stilted but not accusing. “What is it?”

If Terry was surprised at the interaction between employer and employee, he didn’t say anything about it. “This,” he said, holding out a small disk. “Something stinks in your company, and I think it cost my old man his life. He hid it in a picture frame. I’d take it to the cops, but you know how cozy they are with Powers.”

The older man didn’t move to take the disk. “So why bring it to me?”

“Because you’re territorial enough and crazy enough and stubborn enough to take on Jokerz with a heart condition. I guess I thought you still cared what that slimeball is doing with your company.” His eyes – blue eyes, Selina noticed – narrowed. “Wait just a second. You said you assumed I found something. That means you thought there would be something to find. You smelled something fishy about my old man’s murder, too.”

“Is the disk the only clue you found?” Bruce demanded, and this time, the woman standing beside his chair didn’t chide him.

Terry ran one hand through his hair, deflating slightly. “No. The cops said it was Jokerz, but there’s no way they could have figured out who I was, who my dad was, where he lived, and trashed the place and killed my dad all before I got home. Plus…he wouldn’t have opened the door for Jokerz. I thought it didn’t make sense, but then I found the disk. Now I’m afraid it makes too much sense.”

“Say it,” the old man urged.

“I think Powers had my dad killed for whatever’s on this disk,” Terry said, the last of the anger that had been sustaining him draining out.

Bruce looked up at his assistant. “What do you think?”

Outside, thunder crashed.

“Dark night,” she replied cryptically. “I think it’s a sign.”

“Terry, look at me.” When the younger man met his eyes warily, he said, “Can you keep a secret? From your friends, from your loved ones, even if it means lying to them to keep them safe from men like Powers, who would threaten them in a heartbeat if he knew he could get to you that way?”

The teen swallowed. “What are you asking me, Mr. Wayne?”

“If your father was murdered by Powers, and the law was unwilling or unable to bring him to justice, what would you be prepared to do?”

Something dark and fearless entered Terry’s expression, and Selina saw the ghost of the youth Bruce Wayne must have been, long ago. “Whatever it takes,” he said grimly. “No one else needs to know. If I gotta lie to my mom to keep her safe, then that’s what I’ll do. I owe it to my dad.”

Bruce stood up; Selina moved towards the clock. “Good. Let’s go see what’s on this disk.”

“Whoah, hold up!” Terry held both hands up as though disavowing all association. “I am not going down into your kinky sex dungeon. You’re both adults, I don’t care what the two of you do on your own time, but leave me out of it!”

“It’s not a kinky sex dungeon,” the old man said sternly.

Selina opened the clock and triggered the mechanism. “As much as I wish it were, it’s something better.” She shook her head. “Never thought I’d say that.”

“I’m gonna regret asking this, but what’s better than a kinky sex dungeon?”

Bruce smiled, an expression tight and fierce that fell just short of baring his teeth. “The Batcave.”

Silence grew and stretched like a bubble filled with disbelief. Then it popped.

“Nope. You’re both whackjobs. I’m out of here.”

“Terry…”

Backing away, both hands up, he replied, “I want nothing to do with this, Mr. Wayne. I don’t want to be involved in your senile delusions. No offense.”

“There’s a framed photograph on the bookcase to your right,” Bruce said, unperturbed. “Look at it and tell me you’re not already involved.”

Curious despite himself, Terry looked. The man and woman were strangers to him, but the boy lovingly held between them…

“What the hell?” he half-muttered, reaching out to brush dust from the glass, then lifting the worn metal frame to bring the photograph into better light. “Why the hell do you have a picture of me with two people I’ve never seen before in my life? Is this some kind of sick joke?” He lifted his head to glare accusingly at the older man, and found a strained, wistful, sad expression where he’d expected something smug or gloating.

“That’s not a picture of you,” Bruce Wayne said quietly.

Terry took another look, and now he could see that the shape of his chin was different, as was the bridge of his nose. But the boy in the picture, no older than five or six, looked close enough to be a brother or a cousin. Troubled now, he flipped the antique frame over and carefully slid the dusty back off. A neat hand had written Bruce’s 5^th Christmas on the back of the photo in pencil. Slowly, he replaced the back of the frame and set it gently on the dusty shelf where it had been.

“That’s you,” he said in a hollow voice. “That’s you, as a kid, and those are your parents. But it could almost be me, or my kid brother. Why?”

“When I find out,” the older man growled, “someone better damn well have answers for me to give you.” He paused, blue eyes so like Terry’s own hard and cold. “Or, have answers for you to give me. I’m too old to wear the suit anymore, but I think it’ll fit you just fine.”

“You really are Batman.” Terry shook his head. “No wonder you could fight. What about you, Ms. Kyle? Batgirl?”

Selina glanced at her employer. “Batgirl?”

“Barbara Gordon. After you got frozen. Her own idea; she was trying to emulate me.”

“Hmph. I have more style than that.”

Terry rubbed his eyes. “You know what? Never mind. I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it later. Can we get on with figuring out why Powers might have bumped off my dad?”

A small, dry smile flitted across Bruce’s face. “Sure. Just follow me down into the kinky sex dungeon.”

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you,” the teen grumbled as he followed.

Selina reached out to ruffle his hair, but simply patted him on the shoulder instead. “Just think of it as a story ready to tell. Cavern under Wayne Manor? Batcave? Golly gee, no, that’s Mr. Wayne’s kinky sex dungeon.”

Repressing the urge to cover his face, Terry groaned, “Please stop. Somehow, it’s even worse when you say it.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he paused to look around in awe while Bruce, unconcerned, went straight to the computer and began checking the disk.

“I’m not used to it yet, either,” Selina said from just beside him.

He gave her a sidelong look. “But you’re…”

“Catwoman? Yes. I hadn’t learned Batman’s other identity when I got locked in a cryo-stasis pod. I only figured it out after I was woken up and found myself alone in the future, with no one to turn to but an old man who might not even have remembered one woman out of dozens he went out with a handful of times fifty years ago.” She chuckled, a low, rippling sound. “That gravely growl he uses? He used to speak in a higher, lighter, warmer voice, and save the growl for the cowl. Gave his secret away the instant he opened his mouth. Not that there’s anyone left who could identify Batman by hearing Bruce Wayne speak.” The amusement faded, and she laid her hand on his shoulder again. “Terry,” she said quietly, “don’t let his sharp edges chase you away. He’s been alone for so many years that he’s forgotten how to be anything else. He has a big heart, but he closed it long before you were born to keep from getting hurt again. He’s furious at whoever’s behind you looking like you do, but part of that is the wasted time that could have been spent getting to know you. Bruce lost his parents when he was eight; he’s had no other living relatives for more than half a century. Just give him a chance, okay?”

Terry watched the grizzled old man for a long minute, remembering him fighting off thugs and nearly collapsing afterwards. He wondered what it must feel like to have been Batman, and then been forced to put it aside by his own body betraying him. He wondered what it would have been like to have Grandpa Wayne lurking in the corner for holidays, holding his twip of a brother when he was a baby, that grim and foreboding face sporting a faint smile when presents were unwrapped, that gravelly voice thanking his mom for a lovely time and asking for more pie. He thought about having had someone to talk to, to confide in, when his parents split up. Suddenly furious, he crossed the Batcave to where his – grandfather? – to where Bruce was glaring at the information that had cost him a father.

“Hey.” He threw the word down like a challenge, every bit as furious as the old man for having been denied time and knowledge. “Once the issue of my dad is settled, I want to know how I’m related to you, and why.”

“That makes two of us,” Bruce shot back. “Until we find our answers, though, we’ll need to work out a cover story to explain our association.” His fingers stilled on the keys. “And aside from avenging your father, I don’t want you going out in the suit until I’ve had a chance to assess your skills and, if necessary, make sure you have the knowledge and ability to keep yourself alive out there. This is not up for discussion.”

That startled Terry into a disbelieving laugh. “I haven’t even put the suit on, and you’re already grounding me?” Then he sobered. “My dad grounded me, the night he died. I blew him off to go to a club. If I’d listened…if I’d been there…”

He closed his eyes, focusing on not crying rather than the soft sounds of Bruce standing up. Then the older man was hugging him, roughly, awkwardly.

“I was there when my parents were killed. My father was there. All it got him was shot. Powers is using my company to make nerve gas. He would have sent a strong enough force to your father’s house to account for both of you. If you’d been there…”

“Your mother and brother would be mourning you, too,” Selina said softly as she stepped forward to take a turn hugging the teen.

“I know you feel the weight of guilt and responsibility.” Bruce’s face and voice were back to being stony, locking the pain inside. “I wish I could say it gets better as time goes on. Maybe it will for you, since you didn’t watch it happen, or since you have your mother and brother, or since you’re older than I was – old enough to take vengeance. But don’t ever blame yourself for not being there because if you had been, then Powers would never have been brought to justice.”

Terry shook himself free of Selina’s arms. “But he hasn’t been brought to justice.”

The smile on the old man’s face was nothing short of predatory and somehow, it gave the teen hope. “Not yet.”