Fic: Beyond The Veil, Batman Beyond, NC17
Title: Beyond the Veil
Fandom: Batman Beyond
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.

Notes: Thanks to thete1, notpoetry, buggery and liviapenn for beta-reading, notes and suggestions. Old!Bruce is porn.

ETA: grammar corrections and formatting. Thanks buggery!



"This was not supposed to happen."

The voice doesn't make Terry jump, exactly. It makes him turn around, body falling into a position that works as innocent surprise at a stranger in his bedroom and sets him up for the attack he hasn't made yet.

And he doesn't, because they hadn't got around to discussing this kind of attack yet. Touched on it, but hadn't quite-

And there's the moment of *pain*, like someone's stuck a ball of hot lead in his gut and then it's gone, because.

Bruce. Is there.

Is disappearing into the shadows and that's so freaking normal that Terry wants to cry, because he hadn't thought he'd ever see that again. He also hadn't quite let himself think that he'd *never* see that again. He's sitting on the bed and he didn't even *realise* it until Bruce moves closer.

"You're dead."

The look Bruce gives him says, very plainly, 'you're stating the obvious, but I'll forgive you this time. *Only* this time, and if you do it again I'll make you do twelve hours of cold-weather training without the suit. Again.'

So Terry says the next-most obvious thing. "Am I going crazy?"

"It's an occupational hazard." Dry as bone, and Terry can't resist just putting his hand up to touch. The first time, his hand goes through and he can feel this *resistance*, like walking through seaweed. The second time it's solid, and his fingers bump against the smooth casing of Batman's old suit.

He thinks that if he tried, he could still push through, but settles for spreading his fingers wide and just resting them there. The suit is cool to the touch, but seems to warm up under his hand. It's not built like his, smoother where his is sharp angled and the texture is entirely different. He's never seen Bruce in the suit in real life. Even recordings are pretty minimal, but-- It *looks* like Bruce. The one he never knew and saw every day.

"I'd say you seem as sane as you ever were, but..."

"Coming from you that doesn't mean much." Terry's grin feels sharp on his face and he knows -Max has told him often enough- that it's the grin he got from Bruce.

"You're dead. You really are, I saw the body and..." Terry swallows and takes his hand off the suit. "We buried you. We were..."


Bruce's request had been to be buried without preservation and in a degradable coffin, something to "let the worms get me before clone-hunters do". The funeral had been quiet and long and taken place twice. The first time had been crowded, and reminded him that Bruce Wayne had known a lot of people. Dana had held one hand and Max the other and he had stared at the coffin and not cried, even when Max started to. He'd seen... *familiar* faces in the crowd. Superman in plainclothes looking as old as Bruce had been and ("Clark. Clark Kent. It's my name.") he'd shaken Terry's hand after. And then there were the people he recognised from the office --Wayne-Powers Corp associates-- and a lot of them had patted him on the shoulder, and said how he'd made a difference to Bruce Wayne, how he'd been more active, and 99% of them assumed he'd been Bruce's... assistant and maybe half of those thought Wayne deserved it.

He hadn't broken the hands of the four people who'd offered, with varying degrees of subtlety, to take up where Mr Wayne left off, but he had made a note to keep a close eye on them after.

And after everyone else had gone there was a small group of people who had introduced themselves with both sets of names. People who'd known Bruce from both sides of his life. Not many, because Bruce had been ("A secretive bastard," Diana had said affectionately) *good* at keeping his secret identity secret.

They'd all had this *look*. Where pain goes through shock and comes back again. Most of them had shaken his hands after, or hugged him and reminded him that they were there if he needed to talk. ("Or just appear out of the shadows when we don't expect it and say something witty and scary," Wally West had said. "I miss that.")

And then Terry had gone out and patrolled, which had actually helped.


"You need to exhume the body," Bruce says. "See if the grave's been disturbed."

"Max put sensors on the--in the coffin," Terry says. He pulls away from Bruce and sits down on the bed. "And we set them up above and below ground to trace any disturbance." He laughs, because he can't help it. "We know your rate of decomposition."

Bruce nods approvingly. "Good. Check them, then head out there to see for yourself. Sensors can be fooled."

"So can the senses."

"Your training should make it difficult."

"But not impossible." Terry shakes his head. "First thing we're going to do is see Max." He checks his watch. "Two birds with one stone; we can meet her at the cave."

He puts on the suit and glides out. He could call the glider for a pick up, but he still needs to test the medium-flight capabilities of the suit and he really needs the air. Terry's making an effort not to be followed, and he's taking the long detours, but whenever he gets back on track he can catch *glimpses* of Bruce-- of the other Batman. It's all shadows and blacker-than-black and he's not sure if it's the fact that Bruce is a ghost, or if Bruce was just better trained than he was.

He hits the cave and Max in exactly the position he expected her to be, hunched over the console. Max is dealing with Bruce's death only a little better than Terry. She doesn't have much practise at losing someone (you thought was immortal) close to you.

"Terry! I didn't expect you back yet. I was working on blending the League's mixed-world computers with the Batsuit and..." he can see the exact moment she sees him, and then he's ducking because Max is throwing a can of diet soda. He doesn't look to see if Bruce dodged it, or caught it or if it passes right through him. He's already on Max, standing behind her and holding her still.

"You can see him?"

"You're... What are you?" Rise in pitch and volume and Max has gotten *good* at turning fear into anger. "Who the hell do you think you are, wearing that costume? You don't get to do that!" She tries to head-butt Terry. "What were you thinking leading him here?"

"He found it on his own, Max. And he found me."

Bruce is stepping forwards and he takes off the mask and. It's not the Bruce he remembers. This one is younger and there's no scar and no grey in his hair.

"Tell me what you see," Terry says. He needs Max to tell him because it's too easy to believe it himself and he knows the more you want something to be true, the more suspicious you have to be when it *is*.

"He looks like a..." Ghost, she doesn't say. His eyes are still dark and where his cloak folds into shadow, it disappears. Terry can see the floor through it. He lets go of Max cautiously and she stands on her own, shaking her head. "No. There are a dozen logical explanations for this."

"Good. Find out which one it is." Bruce's voice just *there*. He's watching and the outfit changes. The hair goes paler and the suit changes into a *normal* suit and there's a cane. He has to stop himself from walking past Max and putting his hand up to feel that scar.

"I'm on the grave. Max, check the reports on the sensors since the funeral."

"Fine. And you stay here," she says to Bruce. I want to run some tests on you."

"You'll do it," he says to Bruce. Bruce raises one eyebrow, you're giving me instructions now, and Terry grins. "You'll do it because if you are him, or any part of him, you'll want to know as much as we do."

Max still looks disturbed, but she's taking obvious refuge in science. He doesn't exactly want to leave her alone with... Bruce, but he doesn't have much choice. And he's pretty sure that leaving her with nothing to do will drive her crazier than doing spectral analysis on a freaking *ghost*.



The grave is as he left it. He disables the sensors hooked to alarms, leaves the passive ones to record, and starts to dig. They'd laid different types of earth on top of Bruce in patterns so they could tell if they were disturbed. They hadn't been up till now. Down to the coffin and the...

...he takes samples, because that's why he's here, then gets out and is covering up he coffin again when he hears a buzz in his head.

"Superman here. Someone is disturbing--"

"His grave, I know. It's me." Terry curses himself. If he hadn't been sloppy, he would have spotted the bugs Superman-Clark left. They knew each other before Terry was even born, were *friends*, as much as Bruce would admit that Batman had any. He should have known that Clark would leave sensors here, as a final tribute to an old ally's (paranoia) *watchfulness*, if nothing else.

"Should I be there?"

Yes. "No." He takes a deep breath. He can't trust his own judgement in this. Bruce trained him to block telepathy as much as a norm could be trained, but... "I need a list of questions, things only the two of you would know, that you could use to check his identity. Things that I won't know." Piling the dirt back on top doesn't feel half as comforting as it should. He's breathing heavily, even with the suit.

"What's happened? Are you sure--"

"No! I mean yes." Presses the soil down and starts to roll the turf back on top. "Stay where you are. I'll send you the responses I get, and you can tell me if they match."

There's a pause, but Superman *trusts* Batman, trusts the original enough to trust the new. "Okay. Are you recording this?"

He takes Clark's questions back to the cave.

Max looks like she does on hour 24 of an all night session in the computer lab-- wired beyond *words*, bright eyed like she's about to cry and smiling when she doesn't think about it.

"Where is he now?"

"He went out."

"You let him go out on his own?"

"You think I could stop him? If he is who he--who he looks like he *was*, or if he's any of the alternatives? I'm not that good, Terr. You're not that good."

"What did the tests say?"

"What didn't they say?" She calls up results, several monitors worth. "He's not there on anything, except for when he is."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It really doesn't. Everything-- electric, manual, whatever-- sometimes he registers and sometimes he doesn't. I couldn't take a sample of him and you can see what happens when I try X-ray or MRI. Even on the scales, sometimes he has weight and sometimes he doesn't." She pauses. "I only looked at the science stuff, Terr. I want to do some more research before I break out the ring of Isis."

"Ibis."

"Whatever." She looks at him and he realises that he's still got the mask on. He takes it off. "What about you?"

"It looks like the only person who disturbed the grave was me." He takes the sample case. "Max, can you..." Looks at her. "Talk me through it."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out. "No, I'll do it. This is why I took the extra credit, remember? And you're needed out there." She takes the sample case with one hand and squeezes his arm. "'The city doesn't stop because one of us does.'"

It sounds like a quote and he doesn't need to think very hard to guess where it came from.

"Besides, you need to be out there even more. If this is just some kind of distraction, something to take your attention away from--"

"I know." He takes the glider out. It's not hard to find trouble, even if it's only Jokerz and he's grateful for it. It's simple and clean, right up until he sees this flickering shadow that goes *solid* next to him. It's ducking and bending and he'd think it was another sign that it -he- wasn't *real*, but he knows Bruce could move exactly that well when he was in his prime. It feels good to be working next to him -mostly thoughtless, except for this vague territorial *thing* when he throws someone Terry was aiming a kick at.

"That one was mine," he says, subvocalising like he did when Bruce was on the other end of the comm. And the other pauses like he heard it, then gives Terry a smile that has the two guys standing between them backing away, between the devil and the other guy with pointy ears and glowing eyes. Bruce's Batman has this *presence* Terry doesn't. He *looms*, looking like one of the empty skyscrapers around them taking a walk in mostly human form. It's impressive.

Gets the Jokerz looking at him, wondering if he's the easier option. Terry gives his own smile. He doesn't have Bruce's size, and he doesn't look like a granite and black broken glass part of the city, but he's honed his image and himself to something sleek and sharp like the better kind of knife, all sharp edges and almost disappearing if you look at it sideways.

The Jokerz decide there is no easy option, split up and attack them one-on-one. It's pretty much the most stupid thing they could do, not that they stood a chance whatever they did. One kick and his joins Bruce's on the ground. Terry zipstrips them up and seals the ends before making an anonymous call to the cops.

He picks a rooftop where they can watch the cops make the pick-up and waits. He doesn't actually see Bruce joining him up there and he was looking out for it, which maybe means something and maybe doesn't.

"I have some questions," he says. Bruce looks big- he always did, even at eighty, even hunched in his chair, but now he's just this *shadow* and all Terry can see is the white gleam of his eyes and this vague curve to the darkness that suggests Bruce is smiling.

"I thought you might."

"When Braniac was controlling your mind, who took over your duties?"

There's something about the way the shadow doesn't move that suggests he just might have surprised him and if it really was Bruce, Terry would count that as a major victory, even if it made him a little less sure that it was.

"Tim took care of Gotham on his own, then Clark took his place. Pretended to be me."

And the use of actual names was one kind of confirmation, but Terry couldn't trust any answer he already knew. "What did he do to freak out Tim?"

"At a guess... I'd say Tim disliked it when Clark used my voice. It's easy to find someone that looks like me in the costume and Tim wouldn't have been disturbed by the sight of that. The sound is another matter."

"Who wanted Ollie in the League?" Terry doesn't know who Ollie is, although he's going to look it up at the Cave. The questions go on and most of the answers go over Terry's head, but he records them and sends them to Clark when he's done.

And then he can't quite resist stepping forwards and holding Bruce and-

He doesn't know if it's worse if it is him or if it isn't, but he just *presses* his body against him and breathes in.

He's always going to associate that particular combination of scents as meaning night and old power and secrets. It's Bruce, and it always was, and always the same, whether it was expensive aftershave and the aftermath of a particularly bloody board-meeting or the late-night, by proxy, post-battle *rush* after he'd talked Terry through one fight or another. Or even the smell of chemicals and burning from working on the suit or the glider. Just *Bruce* and everything that went with him.

He's suddenly, supremely grateful that the mask covers his whole face because otherwise he'd probably do something very stupid and. He doesn't know how, yet, or why, even who, for sure, and it's really hard to remember the latter when every instinct is saying *exactly* who it is.

Exactly who Terry wants it to be.

He steps back because Batman is nothing if not *control* and he really needs that right now.

And-it's not a nonreaction. He's breathing more deeply than the fight deserved and Bruce is *looking* at him. It doesn't help his control, until it *does*, because Terry was always at his best when he knew Bruce was watching, because Bruce always demanded he be exactly that.

He's not at all surprised to hear back from Clark barely a minute after he sent the replies, along with the strong suggestion that he get in touch with Clark *now* and explain it. He's not entirely sure he wants to explain it, which is exactly why he should.

"I'm heading back to the Cave," he says to Clark. "Meet you there." He pauses, then adds, "and I hope you can explain it," before signing off.

"You sound like you've been making friends." It's not exactly approving.

"I met some of your old associates at your funeral," Terry says, more than a little relieved that he can speak normally. "They let me know I could call on them if I needed help."

"Have you?"

"It hasn't come up." Pride there, because he's nowhere near as territorial as Bruce was, but Gotham is *his* city. He takes care of it.

Which gets him one of those sharp, approving half-smiles and he'd forgotten how warm those made him feel, in a completely different way than his family or friends. He *earned* those smiles. Bruce taps the side of his mask and Terry can hear him comming the cave.

"Max. Expect visitors."


By the time they get back, Clark is already there. He's wearing the new suit, with the white replaced by grey, and it's one of the signs of *mourning* that the rest of the world doesn't get. Wonder Woman's been wearing white for the same reason and the papers have been speculating on the significance and not getting it.

He wonders what Bruce will think of it and makes a note to ask him later. He lands the glider quietly and gets out. Clark's in front of him before he can register the movement, his arms crossed. There's a delay of about three seconds and then he feels Bruce's presence in the Cave.

He doesn't have time to speculate on what Max told Superman, because Clark--he just reaches out and grabs-- not grabs, *hugs*-- and Bruce isn't in the bat suit now. He's as old and grey as he ever was and he's holding the cane in front of him like it's a shield against Superman's affection. It does absolutely nothing to stop him, and Terry wonders if Bruce has less control over his solidity than he thought, because the alternative is that he's letting Clark hug and that's deeply, deeply disturbing.

Clark pulls back and the look on his face is--it's the look Terry's been trying to keep his own face from showing. It's not happy or scared or excited. It's just freaking *grateful*. Clark's hand is hovering over Bruce's hair and one arm is one his shoulder just holding him in place. Then Bruce is in the suit again, one of the later models, and it's pretty obvious that he's doing it as a *defense*, because it just makes Clark smile and hug him again.

Until there's a batarang against his throat, which isn't a threat so much as a sign of Bruce's displeasure, but it makes Clark step back.

"It is you."

"You changed the suit."

"You *died*. And now you're back. I don't think we need to go into my costume right now. How?"

"I don't know." The discomfort in his voice is loud and clear. "From what Max and Terry have worked out, it doesn't look like any technology we know."

Clark moves away from Batman and looks at Max. He looks exactly like he does on the vids, only more so--warm, heroic, *good*. "Max was showing me the results of her tests. We have more sensitive equipment at the tower, but..." He looks at Bruce. "You don't think it's science either."

"You were never comfortable with magic."

"I never ignored its existence either."

Terry steps forwards and takes off the mask. "You think it's mystical?"

They both look at him and it's more than a little intimidating. He's glad Max is there just to help balance out the sense of *history*. "Do you know of anyone working magic in Gotham right now?"

"People mostly stick to science and psychics these days. It's more reliable." He shrugs. "I have a couple of contacts in the community, but there's no major-leaguers here."

Bruce nods. "We have the Ring of Ibis. It can be used to detect and define most magics. I can talk you through the--"

"Way ahead of you," Max said. She holds up the small gold ring. "It's pretty user-friendly. I could probably work it now, but I think it pays to have a professional."

"You gave her the security codes?"

"He didn't have to. I'm just that good." When it comes to computers, Max can out-arrogant anyone.

"Don't get cocky."

"I've had weeks to access the cave's systems while you were... gone."

Which kills the conversation for about 30 seconds. Clark recovers first. "You don't have any idea how you got here? No gods or demons."

Bruce shrugs. "Not that I remember. Nothing otherworldly."

"No tunnel of light, no dead relatives?" Terry says.

"Did you see..." Clark lets the sentence hang; code for things they don't want the younger generation to know.

Bruce gets it, because he half-smiles. It's something like nostalgia. "I met a few old friends in passing. The dead don't hold as many grudges as you'd think."

Clark lets out this sigh. "I'm glad you got some kind of-closure."

"I died. That's about as much closure as you can get."

Superman raises an eyebrow. "We've both known enough cases where that wasn't true. You're not the first to come back."

"I never wanted this to happen." Stubborn and unbending and the statement makes the three of them just look at each other.

"Do you want to move on?" Max says. "Should we be looking for an exorcist or someone?" She looks more spooked out now than she has since she first saw him.

"You don't look like a ghost," Clark says. "Or any kind of spirit I'm familiar with.

Terry wants to disagree --the disappearing with the shadows, the dead man walking fits pretty much with his definition of a ghost, but Superman probably has more experience than him.

Clark squeezes Bruce's shoulder. "You don't feel like one either."

"I put my hand through him earlier," Terry says. "It felt--it wasn't cold. Aren't ghosts supposed to be cold?"

"Except for the pyrokinetic ones," Clark says. "You didn't answer the lady's question, Bruce. Do you want to be here?"

They all look at him. The monitors are split, showing Max's results, random scenes of Gotham and the latest news from six different channels and it sets random flickers of bluish light across their faces.

"It's not a question of want. I'm dead. The dead don't usually come back without a reason, and they almost never come back on their own." He's still in the Batman suit but he shoves the cowl down around his neck. It's a meaningful unmasking, and it works even though Terry knows Bruce's *skin* is mask enough. "Until we find out why and how I'm here, I'm not counting it as a good thing."

With the not-so-subtle, unsaid statement that they shouldn't either, but Bruce... He had to know it was *harder* on the ones that got left behind.

"None of us are going to apologise for being pleased to see you," Clark says. It's a pretty good attempt at Bruce at his driest.

"But Max's right," Terry adds. "We should have a professional look at you. Names?"

"Jason Blood." Bruce says without hesitating.

"The Etrigan guy?" Terry frowns. "He was in Libya the last anyone heard. I guess Superman could--"

"Pick another," Clark says firmly. "I know why you want him, and that's exactly why he's not coming. He's trigger happy, Bruce." He nods his head at Terry and Max. "Do you want them between him and you?"

"...Fine."

Clark relaxes. It's one step removed from smug. "I'll ask around. I heard Zatanna's kids were performing in London. We'll get to the bottom of this." He tilts his head. "I have to go. You... Take care, all of you." He's off almost quicker than Terry can see. He glances at the screens and isn't surprised to see the breaking news of an explosion in Metropolis.

It leaves the three of them. Max runs her hand over her head. "You probably want to know, but the samples from the grave came up blank. Not blank like--" she gestures at Bruce-- "Blank like, pretty much how you'd expect a non-preserved corpse to be after this time. No indications that it was disturbed before Terry."

She looks at them again, then she walks to Bruce and raises her hand, not quite touching him. It hovers there for a minute, then she gives up the attempt and turns to Terry, dragging him away to the stairs. She sticks her hands in her pockets and looks at the floor. . "You know, a little warning about the visit from *Superman* would have been good," she says, low enough that Bruce ... that Bruce can *still* probably hear them, but at least they have the illusion of privacy.

"I thought he did."

"'Expect guests' isn't exactly informative. I thought we were going to be attacked. Doubled the defenses."

"It didn't look like it slowed him down."

The look she gives him is all equal parts amusement at his own stupidity and left-over awe. "It's *Superman*. You said they were friends, but..." She grins. "So Bostoned."

"Max." Looks at Bruce and she follows his gaze and rolls her eyes and turns so her back is to Bruce and mouths the word "married". Then him, both arms around him *tight* "Terr-- What Superman said, you know? I'll see you tomorrow. Call if anything... Just call, all right?" Pause, and he can feel her smiling. She steps back and waves goodbye to Bruce before heading upstairs.

"How long has she been living here?"

He didn't hear Bruce come up to stand behind him. "In the mansion? She moved in after you died. She's got the green bedroom." His joke on her, because that room used to belong to at least one of the Robins.

"You're still in the same apartment."

"Compromise. I want to stay close to Mom and Matt, at least until the end of the year. She needs someone to look after him sometimes and she's not *comfortable* taking money from me." She wasn't *comfortable* with his inheritance, and she didn't even know half of it. Staying close was the best way of reassuring her. "I probably sleep there half the time."

"Ace?"

"With my little brother. He was pretty lonely after you died. Looking after the twip gives him something to do when we're out."

No need to say that it was easier on them when Ace was guarding Matt, alert and watchful, than it was to watch him here, raising his head every time the house creaked and just *waiting*.

Which is half the reason why he hasn't moved in yet. He'd needed Max to take the edge off the ghosts first, which is actually kind of funny *now*.

"You seem to be doing well, McGinnis." And there's this mixture of amusement and approval in Bruce's voice and when Terry looks at him, he's *not* Terry's Bruce. He's the Bruce that belongs to the pictures of lost loves and the memories and *history* the others had brought to his funeral.

"I get by. I had a good teacher. Still do."

"Doesn't look like you need me to teach you anything."

"You're never too old to learn and I wasn't talking about you. I looked up Dick, even got Barbara to pass on a few words of wisdom. As far the world knows, I'm taking advantage of my part of the Wayne inheritance to educate myself. Part-time college and a lot of private tutors." Terry lifts his hand traces it along where Bruce's scar should be.

It's just normal skin for a moment and then he can feel it. Bruce is still not *his* Bruce, still too young and costumed, but that scar is there. Something to hold on to, even when the mask appears above it.

"You're going to tell me why I shouldn't do this," Terry says. His voice isn't as steady as he'd like and he'd guess the way the costume conceals the more obvious signs of his need doesn't mean a damn thing to the man who made it. Who trained him to fit into it. He moves his fingers up from the scar to trace the edge of Bruce's mask.

"You know why you should wait," Bruce says. "Whatever I am, you don't want to give it any more access to you. You've been doing research enough to know who Jason Blood is, then you know how dangerous it is to give something other *permission*." He's pulling Terry's hand away, holding with just enough of a twist to hurt. Terry relaxes it for a second, then breaks out of the hold and just *pushes* him down.

He's wanted to do this for pretty much ever, and didn't because one, the old man was still dangerous and two, the old man was *old*. Damaged and dangerous enough to force Terry to take that extra bit of *care*. Bruce isn't throwing him off and, suit or no suit, Terry's pretty sure he could do it.

If he wanted to.

"I don't think you need any more permission, Bruce." He's got one leg either side of Bruce, and his suit was designed as a compromise between protection and sensitivity. "You appeared in my *bedroom*. And then you were at the Cave. How much more access do you think you can get?"

He leans forwards, bracing his arms on either side of Bruce. Bends his neck and kisses him. And it's one more reason to think that Bruce isn't just a phantom, because he feels real. His mouth is warm and with the smallest bit of a smile and Terry takes the deliberate lack of response as the challenge it probably is. Gives his own smile. "C'mon, Bruce, you can do better than that."

He shouldn't be able to tell when the mask is still on, but he *knows* Bruce has one eyebrow raised under there. His eyes are bright white and shining and it should probably feel stranger than it does to be crawling on top of him while he's still suited-up and mask-down.

It doesn't, because in all the time Terry's known him, Bruce has still been the Bat, even when he hadn't put the mask on in *years*. Doesn't mean he doesn't want it --all of it-- *off*, because it's denying him access. He needs all of it, all of *Bruce*, right now and Bruce isn't. Freaking. *Helping*.

Terry's kissing is hard and hungry, and Bruce is just--

"Off," he says, and his hands are searching for releases on the suit. "You wouldn't have let me take you down if you didn't want this too, so how about giving me a hand here?"

Bruce is apparently in a literal mood, because his hand is in what would be exactly the right place if he wasn't still wearing the suit and if Bruce wasn't wearing--

Well, actually no. The gauntlets are fine. Those can stay. The rest of it, though...

Still can't find the releases and he's not actually sure if the suit has any. He gets his mouth back on Bruce, and one hand tugging at the back of the cowl and...

And the mask is gone and--it's like being hit by the good kind of lightning. This sharp, sparking thing that goes through him and hurts like a hunger and feels as good as getting it satisfied. And--it tastes like how Gotham looks at night after the rain, when the lights reflect off *everything* and the trees get this extra burst of *green* and-- There's smoke and fire and stone and underneath it, there's the taste of Bruce, the feel of his mouth and his hands stripping the Batsuit off Terry and he just falls into that. The rest disappears leaving just him and Bruce and the cave floor.

It's not a disappointment. Bruce gets the suit off him faster than Terry gets it off himself and there's a moment when he's just *stroking* Terry, running his hands along his legs and the sides of his ribcage. It makes Terry feel like Bruce is --not examining him, exactly, just noting down everything. Pattern of muscles and Terry has never felt so much like the outcome of his training, his work, building on what nature provided.

Bruce is underneath him and more solid, more *real* than anyone has a right to be. His body-- his scars, and they're appearing and disappearing as Terry touches them, and he has access to Bruce's files, he could find out what each there-and-gone cut and bruise means, but he'd rather Bruce just tell him. Show him. It's a complete *necessity* to touch Bruce, something like breathing.

Bruce is naked and it's a thing of beauty. He doesn't realise until Bruce smirks that he's actually said that out loud, but shrugs it off. Just rocking against Bruce and the part of him that wants --that always wants--to show Bruce that he's fucking *capable* is protesting that humping Bruce probably isn't the best evidence of Terry's maturity, but Bruce is doing pretty much the same thing and--

It's a treacherous thought and it's tempting fate so he doesn't even acknowledge that he's thinking it, but--

They have time.



Maybe the underworld has it own psychics or maybe they can just sense it, dumb animal instinct like dogs running away before the volcano erupts, but there isn't much action tonight. Even when he was patrolling solo, he'd still count it a quiet night. As it is, it just gives him too much time to *think*. He's staying close enough to Bruce that he can just about *feel* him, and making a note of sites of worship in case last night's indulgence comes back to haunt him.

He spent the day looking up ghosts and demons and looking at the possible effects of sex with a ghost and trying to find anything to explain why something that looks like (*is*) Bruce is here.

Reads up on incubi, and it's kind of funny to think of Bruce as a *sex* demon, and easy to disregard because Terry has never felt more *on*. He's on top of the few crimes before they start and it's a quiet night, but it's a good one, one of those where it feels like Terry can't make a wrong move.

He circles round down-town. Tension's up between the splicer packs and Jokerz, and the more organised elements hate both of them. He's making his presence felt, keeping just on the edge of sight and *smell*. Letting them know about the consequences, that there *will* be consequences. Splicers that are smart enough to listen to their instincts know when to back down. Jokerz mostly require something a little more crippling, but...

...the packs are quiet and staying out of shadows. Even the hyenas are quieter than usual. He can see the hackles go up and thinks if he can feel Bruce, it's not surprising they do too. Misha, current laughing-girl of the biggest pack, goes out of the club to sniff the air. She jumps when he lands, nervous laughter that could have come from the splice, or her previous existence as a B-list for the popular table.

"Quiet night," she says, managing something close to casual.

"Let's keep it that way."

"Hey, I can keep my boys in check. It's those freaks, pathetic wannabe bad guys." She shakes her head. "No style, just--"

"Pale imitations." Bruce's voice, feeling like it's coming from the comms *and* out from some bone-deep place of*Gotham*.

She jumps. She looks around, hunching over a little and mouth open, then looks back at Terry. "We're better than those freaks," she says, nervous and *laughing*. "We don't need to prove it to them, we just--they don't get in our place, you can take care of them in theirs, right?"

"It's what I do," he says, and he can hear the echoes of *history* in his own voice, the extra depth of being Batman. Like hearing the echo of Bruce in his words.

She nods and heads back inside, head down and flicking from him to the shadows.


"Terry."

He almost starts at Clark's voice. "Here."

"I've got a specialist. We'll be there in--" Clark breaks away and Terry can hear him talking to someone, brief burst of words he can't quite make out. "Explosion in Indonesia." There's a pause where Terry can hear Clark *not* swearing. "It's..." another half-heard bit of conversation. "He says he can make his own way there. Let me know how things go. Superman out."

"Wait, Gotham's a big city, how am I gonna--" It's as far as it goes, because his attention is drawn to a guy on a roof about 100 metres away. The man gestures and the air glitters.

He lands next to him and gets out of the glider. The guy looks to be late twenties/early thirties. Brown hair and glasses and generally unremarkable, although not *so* unremarkable that it makes Terry suspicious. He doesn't recognise him from the files and he's *definitely* not one of the siblings Zatanna. There's an owl flying overhead and it's pretty much a given who it belongs to.

"What do I call you?" Terry asks. He's done enough research to know better than to ask for a name.

"Tim. Timothy Hunter." The accent's English and the smile is friendly, but awkward. "The sibs asked me to help."

"Why didn't they come themselves?"

Hunter hesitates. "Liv had a look at the problem before she asked me to come. This--she thinks I might be better equipped to handle it."

"Where do you want to do this?"

Timothy Hunter shrugs. "There's a park about half a mile back, near a river. We can meet up there."

"You can get there by yourself? The Batplane's not really built for two."

Hunter grins and gestures and there's a spiral of gold wrapping around them and the smell of mint, and then they're in the park. The birch trees are rustling loudly and the white trunks look like waving steel railings. He can feel the instant Bruce is there and wonders if that's Hunter or Bruce and which is the better option. Bruce is in costume, black on black, and there's light and shadow dancing on the surface. Only half if it looks like it comes from the surroundings.

Hunter steps forwards. "Hello. Tim Hunter."

"You're who Superman found?" Bruce says. He looks at Hunter. "I don't recognise the name."

Hunter shrugs. "It's not much of a secret, but I don't advertise, and since I don't have any plans to take over the world..." he trails off, smiles and pushes his glasses back where they've slid down. "I'm not so involved in your line of work." He hesitates. "If it helps, I was friends with Zatanna."

Bruce doesn't say anything.

"She was one of the people who showed me around when I was being introduced to all this." He holds out his hand and the owl goes to his arm. Hunter strokes it, looking slightly nervous. "It's bizarre actually meeting you," he says after a while. "I'd always assumed you were a myth or something, but Zatanna said she knew you and you were purely human."

Terry's rapidly revising his estimate of Hunter's age, moving it up several decades.

"You can call them if you want to check up on me," Hunter says.

"Already done," Bruce says. His voice is low and holds just the knowledge of violence. Not threatening, just letting you know that he could.

"Do you need anything? A circle, candles, blood?"

Hunter shakes his head and stretches out his arms. The owl flies off and hovers in the sky, catching the light from the city and reflecting it back like a second moon and the world just *fractures*.

--He's thirteen and walking home from school and it's already dark and there's something in the shadows and something watching the shadow things from overhead /he's at [is] the docks, and there are people and things crossing over from the sea to land and back again and/he's crunching his fist into a [the] Joker and half of his mind's on the red and green working to disarm the bomb before it blows a hole in the city and the other half is just/can't see it, but they warned him about it and now he's hanging midair with a broken rib and his proto-empire in ruins and note for the police stuck to/his city and this thing is trying to destroy it in ice, freeze it dead and sterile and/green blood flowing through him, growing brick by brick and the voices make up his breath and/looking down from the highest point and Gotham is dark and alive and/gardens and window boxes and green growing and it's good, and stone and then metal and plastic and blood fighting back crunchcrunchcrunch against the/feeling the knife go in the guy just will not *die*, dark out of the shadows and vengeance of city and--

He's on his knees in the park. He can still see these four dimensional fireworks at the edge of his vision, and he can't tell if it's abstract patterns or faces in them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise it would take you like that." Timothy Hunter sounds sincere and he offers Terry a hand. "You okay?"

He shakes his head to clear it. "What was that?"

"I think I know what he is," Hunter says. He turns to look at Bruce. Old and grey and he picks himself up from the ground, leaning heavily on his cane.

"You're not a ghost," Hunter says.

"Then what am I?"

"You're a god. Sort of. That's probably the best word." Hunter smiles and Terry stares at him and Bruce is smiling too. Not impressed or shocked, but with an edge of genuine humour. "It's... It's not necessarily as impressive as it sounds. But you're definitely a god. Little 'g'," Hunter adds, sketching the letter in the air.

"A god," Terry says. "But it's nothing to get worked up about, right?" He keeps his voice low, Batman layers of scepticism.

"Godhood--it's a spectrum, you know? It's not all about worship or world-building. And it's a bit of a catch-all description, like demon or spirit. I mean, one man's guardian spirit is another's god is another's demon is another's fairy is... Spectrum."

"A god of *what*?" Bruce says. The suit's starting to cover him and for whatever reason, it's slower this time. Bits of dark just attaching themselves to him.

"Of Gotham, mostly. As much as I can tell."

"Who did this to me? Why?"

"There are a lot of ways for someone to become a god, but most of them involve power, sacrifice and *belief*." Hunter looks at Bruce and Bruce is half there and half *more*, solid shadow and half this explosion of *almost*. Black, but with red ribbons of light just on the edge of vision, this white *edge* to the darkness. It's what was there, what it was when Terry kissed him. Hunter's not looking at him, but he's saying this to both of them and Terry wonders if that's why he's there, to bear witness.

"I don't think anyone did this to you," Hunter says. "As near as I can tell, it just happened. That's how it works sometimes." Hunter calls the owl back and sits down on a park bench. "Look, I can give you some advice and the names of people-- human and not --that have experience with the small-D divine. If you want, I can help you move on." It's an offer, serious and quiet. "But if you want my opinion, I think you're here because this is where you should be. This is your city. You're its... whatever."

And maybe Bruce could disagree with the rest of it, but not that last bit. Terry *knows* how territorial Bruce is. Thinks it's not surprising that the only other costumes Bruce has *tolerated* in his city are the ones who were born in it or bled in it.

Or better yet, both.

You didn't have to lose someone to Gotham to work there, but it *helped*. Terry almost laughs at the *rightness* of the thought, the way it feels absolutely *correct*.

He looks up and sees Hunter laying something out on a park bench. "My card. It's got my email and a phone number and if that doesn't work, burn it. I should get the message."

Bruce isn't saying a thing. Hunter nods, looks a little awkward again and opens his mouth to speak. "This is--I really did think of Zatanna as a friend and I know she thought a lot of you. Of course, she always had some pretty questionable--" he ducks his head a little and shrugs. "If you want more answers, you know how to reach me." And he's gone, without any sign and it makes Terry wonder if the sparkles before were just his way of showing off.

It leaves him and Bruce.

When he turns around Bruce looks old. Grey and hunched over and leaning on the cane like he almost never did. It hits Terry pretty much like it always did. There's the desire to go over then and offer temporary support. Temporary, because it's always been, up to the day of the funeral, hard to imagine the old man *not* pulling through. And then there's the instinct to be careful, because even when Bruce is *fragile*, breakable, he's still more dangerous than most people are at their best.

"You okay?"

"Apparently."

Terry sits down on the bench Hunter just took off from. "So... Does this mean I have to get on my knees for you before I go to bed?"

The look Bruce gives him says that he's not amused and it's unlikely Terry's ever going to get close to him again. It's several steps closer to normal and Terry is used to ignoring most of Bruce's threats.

"Not that I'm objecting," Terry adds.

This time the look Bruce gives him is so strong that Terry thinks the mask was there to protect Gotham's worst from feeling the full effects of it. It's probably not a good sign that Terry finds it *comforting*. He picks up the card and hands it to Bruce. Bruce takes it and puts into a pocket and Terry has no clue how that even works.

"You're taking this well," Bruce says. And apparently dealing with Terry is just as settling for the old man as it is for him, because he's standing up straighter. Still looks the same, still looks like Terry's Bruce, but Bruce on a good day.

"I'm just happy you're not an incubus." Terry smirks, knowing that Bruce can see it through his mask. "I've done my research." Looks at the scar move as Bruce gives that half-smile.

"What I am doesn't bother you?" He hears the police over the comm before he hears the distant siren. Bruce stiffens and Terry knows he heard it too.

The glider's where Hunter left it. Terry stands up. He's not at all surprised to see Bruce suited up. There's not a trace of those extra, almost-seen lights or the fragmented visions, just the solid *weight* of Bruce's presence. He stands close enough to touch. "It never did," he says. Turns around and doesn't look back.

Bruce can make his own way there.

end.