Leaving the Past
JR
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize are the
property of DC Comics, and are therefore not
mine. This story is not for profit.
Notes: This story takes place in the Batman
Beyond universe. However, a great deal of the
'historical' stuff will be pulled from the comics
rather than the Batman animated series. For the
sake of argument, assume that Terry is in his senior
year of high school. Set a month after the events
of 'BB:ROTJ'.
Summary: Why didn't Terry ever take
Commissioner Gordon up on her suggestion of
tracking down Nightwing?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Unhide the truth, rattle the bones,
This time I should have left the past alone..."
Mistake of Youth -- A. Ashmore
Gotham City, November 2049
It was just another typical night of patrol.
Up to that point, the mean streets of Gotham had
offered up two armed robberies, one attempted
homicide, and one attempted rape. Nothing that
Batman couldn't handle. As far as Terry McGinnis
-- the teenager inside the bat-suit -- was concerned,
this was a good thing.
"It's almost one a.m. and it's been quiet for
the past hour," Terry said softly, knowing that the
microphone concealed within the mask he wore
would relay his quiet words. "I've got mid-terms
tomorrow, so if it's alright with you, I think I'll
call
it a night."
"Alright," the voice of Bruce Wayne
replied. Along with the microphone, the current
version of the Batsuit was also equipped with a
transceiver to allow two-way communication
between the former and present incarnations of
Batman. "Good luck tomorrow."
"Thanks," Terry replied. With the ease of
long practice, the youth turned in mid-flight,
heading back to the warehouse rooftop where his
civilian clothes were safely hidden. "I'm going to
need all the help I can get."
"Have you been neglecting your studies?"
ayne gruffly questioned, his voice practically
dripping with disapproval.
"No! I haven't!" Terry quickly defended.
"It's just that tomorrow is Trig and History -- two
of my least favourite subjects."
"I'll remember you said that the next time
you try either pushing the flight capabilities of that
suit past the design limitations..."
"Hey, I don't do it *that* often," Terry
interrupted in his own defense.
"...or the next time you try to track down
one of your...predecessors without my knowledge
or consent."
The com-channel was silent for a few
painfully long moments. Terry was almost grateful
when the warehouse that was his destination came
into sight. He waited until he set down upon the
rooftop before replying to the accusation the older
man had thrown at him.
"So you know about that, huh?"
"That you spent four hours yesterday
searching the net for information on Dick
Grayson?"
Terry swallowed audibly. There were
times he really resented the old man's almost
omniscient knowledge. It was that resentment that
finally managed to turn the icy-sensation of fear
that had been present in his gut since Bruce's
revelation into the burn of anger.
"How could you know that?" Terry
practically growled. Reaching into a crevasse
between two central air conditioning units, he
pulled out his backpack with a great deal more
force than was necessary. "What, do you have
cameras on me at school now or something?"
"Don't get melodramatic, McGinnis," Bruce
answered coldly. "In your searches, you tapped
into protected WaynePowers files -- twice.
WaynePowers security has long standing orders to
inform me personally of any such breaches, in case
of any potential kidnapping plots. Imagine my
surprise when I learned that, this time, they'd traced
the source of the inquiries to a terminal in Hamilton
Hill High."
Terry did not imagine the censure in the old
man's tone. He'd been sloppy and had been
caught. Looking back, Terry knew that he should
have waited for Max, as her computer skills far
exceeded his own. But Max had been unavailable,
too busy studying for her exams to lend a hand on a
search for data on a matter that was not life-
threatening. Once again, Terry's own impatience
had come back to bite him in the ass, and it was
time for him to brace for the teeth marks.
"I'm sorry," the teen apologized. "I know
I should have come to you first, but whenever I ask
you about any of your former...team, you always
cut me off."
"That's not..."
"That's not what?" Terry quickly
interjected. "True? Oh sure, you drop their
'Bat-names' occasionally when you mention old
cases, but you never talk about the *people* they
were. Hell, if it hadn't of been for the Joker
coming back, I probably never would have known
what happened to Tim Drake, and even then, I had
to practically drag the information out of
Commissioner Gordon because you refused to tell
me."
"We've discussed this before, Terry," Bruce
defended, "about the need for..."
"...secrecy -- yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the
drill," the teenager countered. Reaching into his
backpack, he withdrew his jeans and t-shirt. "I'm
in the masked vigilante club now, too, remember?"
"How could I forget?" the old man
answered wryly.
"I understand your wanting to protect their
privacy, but I've met with Mr. Drake a couple of
times in the past few weeks. He actually seems to
enjoy talking about his adventures as Robin now
that he's out from under the Joker's influence. He
mentions Grayson's name a lot. Hell, even
Commissioner Gordon said that I should look up
Nightwing someday. He's the only member of
your Bat-clan I haven't met yet. Can you blame
me for being curious?"
"I suppose not," Bruce reluctantly
conceded. "But that doesn't mean you should
continue searching for him."
"And why would that be?" Terry pointedly
wondered aloud. "I have to admit what I did find
only raised my curiosity. According to the
Bludhaven Police records, Officer Richard Grayson
disappeared without a trace over twenty years ago.
Since the file is still open, it's pretty safe to say
that
he was never found. Funny, but according the
newspaper accounts, Bludhaven's resident
cowl-and-tight guy stopped making appearances
around the same time, and hasn't been seen or
heard from since. Fortunately -- or unfortunately,
depending on how you look at it -- so many people
go missing in Bludhaven, nobody ever made the
connection between the disappearance of Dick
Grayson and Nightwing."
"Leave it alone, Terry..."
"My first suspicion was that something
might have happened," the youth speculated.
"After all, Grayson must have had a *lot* of
enemies from both his day and night jobs."
"McGinnis, I said drop this," Bruce
growled, a dangerous edge creeping into to his
tone of voice.
"But then I thought about the couple of
times that both the Commissioner and Mr. Drake
have talked about him. Both of them talk about
him in the present tense, which I doubt they would
do unless they knew for certain that Grayson is still
alive somewhere."
"Enough!" The roar of the voice in his ear
was enough to momentarily deafen Terry, but that
was not what left the teenager reeling. What
shocked the young vigilante to the very core of his
being was the fact that, for the first time in over
eighteen months of working together, this was the
first time Terry had ever heard the old man
completely lose control of his emotions.
'Whoa!' the teenager thought to himself,
opting for the smart choice of remaining silent for
the time being. Judging by the ominous lack of
sound coming through the receiver next to his ear,
Terry could only assume that his mentor also opted
for a verbal 'time out'. Neither of them would
ever know whether it was minutes or hours that
passed before the older man finally recovered
himself enough to speak.
"I...," Bruce began in a tired voice.
"What... happened with Nightwing...it...was...in the
past."
'Damn!' For a minute there, Terry foolishly
thought that his mentor was about to give in, to tell
the story the teenager was desperate to hear. Of
course not, Terry fumed.
Oh, how he hated how the old man and his
secrets! Wayne's silence usually left Terry
frustrated, but this time, he didn't know whether to
scream or to put his batsuit- enhanced gauntlets
through the nearest wall. What angered the
teenager the most, however, was the fact that
Bruce must have known *exactly* how annoyed
Terry was at that moment.
"Mc...*Terry*," the older man amended.
His voice was softer, missing that iron-will quality
Bruce often used to emotionally distance himself
when forced to talk about anything that approached
a personal subject. "I'm...asking you, please, just
let it go."
"If I promise to drop this," the teenager
blurted, his curiosity overwhelming his better
judgement. "Will you at least answer one question
for me?"
For once, Terry took the old man's silence
as permission to continue.
"Nightwing's leaving...was that your
decision or his?"
Only moments ago, Terry had considered
Bruce's silence as an ally. However with each
eternally long second that passed, the teenager
could feel his mentor's emotional shields rising.
Just when Terry thought that he had pushed too
far, too fast; he received a hell of a surprise.
"Dick Grayson is my son. Anything else
isn't important," Bruce finally answered in an odd
tone of voice, but seconds later, it returned to its
normal, gruff manner. "Check in before you start
your patrol tomorrow."
"Uh, yeah, sure," Terry replied, his voice
sounding just as distracted as his thoughts.
The soft hissing sound of the open channel
ceased, letting Terry know that his mentor had
signed off for the night, leaving the youth alone
with his thoughts.
'Well, that was weird,' the teenager mused
silently. While Bruce's admission had fallen vastly
short of what Terry had been hoping for, it was,
nevertheless, more than he would have normally
expected from the old man. That Bruce had said
anything at all on the subject was a glaring
indication of just how important the Grayson guy
was to Bruce Wayne.
Besides, it wasn't as if Terry had to quit
investigating altogether. He could lay low for a
while, wait it out until the extra security the old
man was sure to have installed around Grayson's
record was lowered his guard again. Hell, he
could even ask Max to get on it right after exams.
After all, part and parcel of accepting the
Mantle of the Bat was an abhorrence of leaving a
mystery unsolved. The original Batman had long
been considered by many to be the 'World's
Greatest Detective', a skill which the original caped
crusader had instilled and honed in all of his
proteges, including Terry. And, at that moment, it
was that training that clashed with the teenager's
instinct that his mentor would be *very* displeased
if Terry were to continue his search for Nightwing.
Not that Bruce's displeasure ever stopped Terry
from a chosen course of action in the past.
Unfortunately, there was one additional
factor in this internal battle, one that not even the
threat of Bruce Wayne's ire could overcome --
Terry's own curiosity. And that was a factor that
could cost the young man the war in this clash of
wills with his mentor.
But Bruce had *asked* Terry to let the
subject drop. That alone was enough to make the
teenager pause. He stood there for a moment,
trying and failing to recall any other occasion that
the old man had ever *asked* him to do anything.
Ordered him? Yes. Commanded him? That was
a daily occurrence. Bullied him? That happened
more often than Terry wanted to admit. But
making a *request* of Terry? That was something
utterly new and foreign to the teenager.
And it was also a big, fat indicator of just
how badly Bruce wanted Terry to stop nosing
around the twin subjects of Nightwing and Dick
Grayson. To his credit, Terry actual gave Bruce's
plea a few moments of genuine consideration.
Could he do it? Could he leave the puzzle of Dick
Grayson alone?
Dressed back in his street clothes, the
teenaged vigilante shoved the Batsuit into his
backpack. If he hurried, he might still make home
in time to get a few extra hours of cramming in
before getting some sleep. Heading for the
stairwell door that he had propped open earlier, the
teen started the short walk back to his mother's
apartment.
'He *asked*,' Terry thought, finally
reaching a decision on the matter. 'That's enough
for me...'
...at least, for the time being...
--finis, for now --
JR
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize are the
property of DC Comics, and are therefore not
mine. This story is not for profit.
Notes: This story takes place in the Batman
Beyond universe. However, a great deal of the
'historical' stuff will be pulled from the comics
rather than the Batman animated series. For the
sake of argument, assume that Terry is in his senior
year of high school. Set a month after the events
of 'BB:ROTJ'.
Summary: Why didn't Terry ever take
Commissioner Gordon up on her suggestion of
tracking down Nightwing?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Unhide the truth, rattle the bones,
This time I should have left the past alone..."
Mistake of Youth -- A. Ashmore
Gotham City, November 2049
It was just another typical night of patrol.
Up to that point, the mean streets of Gotham had
offered up two armed robberies, one attempted
homicide, and one attempted rape. Nothing that
Batman couldn't handle. As far as Terry McGinnis
-- the teenager inside the bat-suit -- was concerned,
this was a good thing.
"It's almost one a.m. and it's been quiet for
the past hour," Terry said softly, knowing that the
microphone concealed within the mask he wore
would relay his quiet words. "I've got mid-terms
tomorrow, so if it's alright with you, I think I'll
call
it a night."
"Alright," the voice of Bruce Wayne
replied. Along with the microphone, the current
version of the Batsuit was also equipped with a
transceiver to allow two-way communication
between the former and present incarnations of
Batman. "Good luck tomorrow."
"Thanks," Terry replied. With the ease of
long practice, the youth turned in mid-flight,
heading back to the warehouse rooftop where his
civilian clothes were safely hidden. "I'm going to
need all the help I can get."
"Have you been neglecting your studies?"
ayne gruffly questioned, his voice practically
dripping with disapproval.
"No! I haven't!" Terry quickly defended.
"It's just that tomorrow is Trig and History -- two
of my least favourite subjects."
"I'll remember you said that the next time
you try either pushing the flight capabilities of that
suit past the design limitations..."
"Hey, I don't do it *that* often," Terry
interrupted in his own defense.
"...or the next time you try to track down
one of your...predecessors without my knowledge
or consent."
The com-channel was silent for a few
painfully long moments. Terry was almost grateful
when the warehouse that was his destination came
into sight. He waited until he set down upon the
rooftop before replying to the accusation the older
man had thrown at him.
"So you know about that, huh?"
"That you spent four hours yesterday
searching the net for information on Dick
Grayson?"
Terry swallowed audibly. There were
times he really resented the old man's almost
omniscient knowledge. It was that resentment that
finally managed to turn the icy-sensation of fear
that had been present in his gut since Bruce's
revelation into the burn of anger.
"How could you know that?" Terry
practically growled. Reaching into a crevasse
between two central air conditioning units, he
pulled out his backpack with a great deal more
force than was necessary. "What, do you have
cameras on me at school now or something?"
"Don't get melodramatic, McGinnis," Bruce
answered coldly. "In your searches, you tapped
into protected WaynePowers files -- twice.
WaynePowers security has long standing orders to
inform me personally of any such breaches, in case
of any potential kidnapping plots. Imagine my
surprise when I learned that, this time, they'd traced
the source of the inquiries to a terminal in Hamilton
Hill High."
Terry did not imagine the censure in the old
man's tone. He'd been sloppy and had been
caught. Looking back, Terry knew that he should
have waited for Max, as her computer skills far
exceeded his own. But Max had been unavailable,
too busy studying for her exams to lend a hand on a
search for data on a matter that was not life-
threatening. Once again, Terry's own impatience
had come back to bite him in the ass, and it was
time for him to brace for the teeth marks.
"I'm sorry," the teen apologized. "I know
I should have come to you first, but whenever I ask
you about any of your former...team, you always
cut me off."
"That's not..."
"That's not what?" Terry quickly
interjected. "True? Oh sure, you drop their
'Bat-names' occasionally when you mention old
cases, but you never talk about the *people* they
were. Hell, if it hadn't of been for the Joker
coming back, I probably never would have known
what happened to Tim Drake, and even then, I had
to practically drag the information out of
Commissioner Gordon because you refused to tell
me."
"We've discussed this before, Terry," Bruce
defended, "about the need for..."
"...secrecy -- yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the
drill," the teenager countered. Reaching into his
backpack, he withdrew his jeans and t-shirt. "I'm
in the masked vigilante club now, too, remember?"
"How could I forget?" the old man
answered wryly.
"I understand your wanting to protect their
privacy, but I've met with Mr. Drake a couple of
times in the past few weeks. He actually seems to
enjoy talking about his adventures as Robin now
that he's out from under the Joker's influence. He
mentions Grayson's name a lot. Hell, even
Commissioner Gordon said that I should look up
Nightwing someday. He's the only member of
your Bat-clan I haven't met yet. Can you blame
me for being curious?"
"I suppose not," Bruce reluctantly
conceded. "But that doesn't mean you should
continue searching for him."
"And why would that be?" Terry pointedly
wondered aloud. "I have to admit what I did find
only raised my curiosity. According to the
Bludhaven Police records, Officer Richard Grayson
disappeared without a trace over twenty years ago.
Since the file is still open, it's pretty safe to say
that
he was never found. Funny, but according the
newspaper accounts, Bludhaven's resident
cowl-and-tight guy stopped making appearances
around the same time, and hasn't been seen or
heard from since. Fortunately -- or unfortunately,
depending on how you look at it -- so many people
go missing in Bludhaven, nobody ever made the
connection between the disappearance of Dick
Grayson and Nightwing."
"Leave it alone, Terry..."
"My first suspicion was that something
might have happened," the youth speculated.
"After all, Grayson must have had a *lot* of
enemies from both his day and night jobs."
"McGinnis, I said drop this," Bruce
growled, a dangerous edge creeping into to his
tone of voice.
"But then I thought about the couple of
times that both the Commissioner and Mr. Drake
have talked about him. Both of them talk about
him in the present tense, which I doubt they would
do unless they knew for certain that Grayson is still
alive somewhere."
"Enough!" The roar of the voice in his ear
was enough to momentarily deafen Terry, but that
was not what left the teenager reeling. What
shocked the young vigilante to the very core of his
being was the fact that, for the first time in over
eighteen months of working together, this was the
first time Terry had ever heard the old man
completely lose control of his emotions.
'Whoa!' the teenager thought to himself,
opting for the smart choice of remaining silent for
the time being. Judging by the ominous lack of
sound coming through the receiver next to his ear,
Terry could only assume that his mentor also opted
for a verbal 'time out'. Neither of them would
ever know whether it was minutes or hours that
passed before the older man finally recovered
himself enough to speak.
"I...," Bruce began in a tired voice.
"What... happened with Nightwing...it...was...in the
past."
'Damn!' For a minute there, Terry foolishly
thought that his mentor was about to give in, to tell
the story the teenager was desperate to hear. Of
course not, Terry fumed.
Oh, how he hated how the old man and his
secrets! Wayne's silence usually left Terry
frustrated, but this time, he didn't know whether to
scream or to put his batsuit- enhanced gauntlets
through the nearest wall. What angered the
teenager the most, however, was the fact that
Bruce must have known *exactly* how annoyed
Terry was at that moment.
"Mc...*Terry*," the older man amended.
His voice was softer, missing that iron-will quality
Bruce often used to emotionally distance himself
when forced to talk about anything that approached
a personal subject. "I'm...asking you, please, just
let it go."
"If I promise to drop this," the teenager
blurted, his curiosity overwhelming his better
judgement. "Will you at least answer one question
for me?"
For once, Terry took the old man's silence
as permission to continue.
"Nightwing's leaving...was that your
decision or his?"
Only moments ago, Terry had considered
Bruce's silence as an ally. However with each
eternally long second that passed, the teenager
could feel his mentor's emotional shields rising.
Just when Terry thought that he had pushed too
far, too fast; he received a hell of a surprise.
"Dick Grayson is my son. Anything else
isn't important," Bruce finally answered in an odd
tone of voice, but seconds later, it returned to its
normal, gruff manner. "Check in before you start
your patrol tomorrow."
"Uh, yeah, sure," Terry replied, his voice
sounding just as distracted as his thoughts.
The soft hissing sound of the open channel
ceased, letting Terry know that his mentor had
signed off for the night, leaving the youth alone
with his thoughts.
'Well, that was weird,' the teenager mused
silently. While Bruce's admission had fallen vastly
short of what Terry had been hoping for, it was,
nevertheless, more than he would have normally
expected from the old man. That Bruce had said
anything at all on the subject was a glaring
indication of just how important the Grayson guy
was to Bruce Wayne.
Besides, it wasn't as if Terry had to quit
investigating altogether. He could lay low for a
while, wait it out until the extra security the old
man was sure to have installed around Grayson's
record was lowered his guard again. Hell, he
could even ask Max to get on it right after exams.
After all, part and parcel of accepting the
Mantle of the Bat was an abhorrence of leaving a
mystery unsolved. The original Batman had long
been considered by many to be the 'World's
Greatest Detective', a skill which the original caped
crusader had instilled and honed in all of his
proteges, including Terry. And, at that moment, it
was that training that clashed with the teenager's
instinct that his mentor would be *very* displeased
if Terry were to continue his search for Nightwing.
Not that Bruce's displeasure ever stopped Terry
from a chosen course of action in the past.
Unfortunately, there was one additional
factor in this internal battle, one that not even the
threat of Bruce Wayne's ire could overcome --
Terry's own curiosity. And that was a factor that
could cost the young man the war in this clash of
wills with his mentor.
But Bruce had *asked* Terry to let the
subject drop. That alone was enough to make the
teenager pause. He stood there for a moment,
trying and failing to recall any other occasion that
the old man had ever *asked* him to do anything.
Ordered him? Yes. Commanded him? That was
a daily occurrence. Bullied him? That happened
more often than Terry wanted to admit. But
making a *request* of Terry? That was something
utterly new and foreign to the teenager.
And it was also a big, fat indicator of just
how badly Bruce wanted Terry to stop nosing
around the twin subjects of Nightwing and Dick
Grayson. To his credit, Terry actual gave Bruce's
plea a few moments of genuine consideration.
Could he do it? Could he leave the puzzle of Dick
Grayson alone?
Dressed back in his street clothes, the
teenaged vigilante shoved the Batsuit into his
backpack. If he hurried, he might still make home
in time to get a few extra hours of cramming in
before getting some sleep. Heading for the
stairwell door that he had propped open earlier, the
teen started the short walk back to his mother's
apartment.
'He *asked*,' Terry thought, finally
reaching a decision on the matter. 'That's enough
for me...'
...at least, for the time being...
--finis, for now --