Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"...Dad?"

Bruce was in raw pain everywhere, and definitely hallucinating, but awareness that he was hallucinating somehow didn't make the emotional pain less. Over and over, his father's floating head had berated him, and now suddenly it had manifested into a whole human being, reaching out to him with a gentle hand he didn't deserve.

"I failed you," Bruce croaked. "I'm sorry, I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry," he repeated, rocking back and forth.

Wait. No. He had a thing he needed to do. What was it again? Scarecrow. 

He stood up woozily.

Terry had just been at Bruce Wayne's funeral, feelings incredibly mixed. The man had held on for a very long time with the best of modern medicine, but in the end, did it matter when he had died nearly completely alone? Even Terry hadn't been sure if he had wanted to be there for the cranky old man who continually drove everyone away, who hadn't been honest about his suspicions right away about Terry being his genetic duplicate. Terry accidentally seeing a photo of young Bruce and tripping over himself in shock hadn't been fun.

"You don't need to be there for him, you know." Dana was a friend, though no longer a lover. They'd drifted apart over the years. "The dead can't care about their bodies. If he was mean to you, you don't need to honor his memory or anything like that."

"I do owe him a lot, though, and... I just feel this weird sense of regret. He had all these people in his life and in the end none of them were there for him? He drove people away, but he also had an incredible amount of trauma. I just think things could have been different, you know?" Terry said.

And then, one Justice League mission gone wrong later, suddenly Terry was in a different time line, or maybe a completely different dimension, because right there in front of him was the original Batman. Only, he was way, way too young, because he didn't have the bulk to him that Terry remembered. He looked, well, like teenage Terry. And wasn't that a scary thought? Terry wasted no time knocking out the thug that normally should have been no match for Batman whatsoever.

Bruce was bleeding and shivering, even though the air was warm, and looked up with a slightly glazed look in his eyes in Terry's direction. Then he glanced at things that weren't there.

Terry shouldn't interfere with the timeline. Bruce would be alright. He'd take his mask off for a second so Bruce could take him for a hallucination and not another threat.

"...Dad?" Bruce said, sounding agonizingly young. Terry's heart clenched, and in spite of himself, he stepped forward. Bruce started babbling about failure.

Bruce tried to get up, and Terry threw out a stabilizing hand. "I've got you, kiddo. It's okay."

Bruce smiled, and slag, that was the weirdest fucking thing Terry had ever seen. Bruce was clearly not okay.

"I'll be Batman for a bit, okay?" This kind of shit had happened to Terry enough he actually had a backup historical Batman costume on the off-chance he couldn't wear the Batman Beyond one. But if this was a different dimension, maybe it didn't matter if he wore the new costume. Plus, the new costume had automatic filters for gas. There were considerable advantages to a full skin covering.

"You can't be Batman," Bruce said with a slow frown. "You're not real."

"I am." Terry put his mask back on.

When Bruce came to, he was inside the Batmobile wrapped in a blanket, completely bewildered how he had gotten there. The scarecrow, he needed to stop-

His blood felt like it froze as he saw there was a note.

Who was this imposter, and how did he take down this threat?

Scarecrow had been completely baffled by the different Batman coming out of the blue from the sky and kicking him in the nuts, which very much wasn't Batman's usual style. Terry wasted no time wrapping him up after taking out his goons. Then he interrogated them on their little scheme and if any fear toxin was left loose, before dropping them off.

"Woah, since when could Batman fly?!" a cop exclaimed.

Terry was at a loss. Normally, he would have hit his dimensional beacon by now (current JLA standard equipment due to all the nonsense they got into) and requested to get sent back home, but... he felt bad. This Bruce really looked like he needed someone. He decided to check back up on him one last time from a safe height above, only to discover the Batmobile wasn't in the same location anymore, and neither was Bruce. He contemplated taking off into the sky again or just hitting his beacon, but the fast absence made him suspicious.

Instinct had him turning and ducking from a grab - not a punch, Terry noted gratefully - aimed right at the back of his head, perhaps to pull off his mask. They danced in a flurry of limbs, equally matched - no, Terry was at this point a bit more experienced, plus he wasn't injured, and was slowly but steadily pulling ahead. He made no move to hurt Bruce though, and why would he? The guy was already busted up.

"Who the hell are you?" Bruce's deep voice sounded. His lip was totally busted and his face was bruised.

It would have been more intimidating, if Terry wasn't stuck on mentally calling this version of Bruce baby-Bruce. He was just still so much smaller than the pictures of Batman in his prime that Terry was used to, or hell, even the grumpy old man version that had dunked himself in the Lazarus pit to make himself temporarily young.

"You can think of me as a guardian angel," Terry teased. Gods, it was so weird being older than the man, especially when Bruce at this age already had grumpy old man energy.

"You sound like me," Bruce said with alarm, always way too attentive for his own good. Shit. "You were there when I was hallucinating."

I'm what you would have been if you'd had a few more happy years with your parents and less wealth, didn't sound like the right thing to blurt out. "How would you like an older brother?" It wouldn't be Terry's first time big brother-ing, and his real little brother didn't need him any more. Heck, his little bro was fully capable of being Batman himself at this point.

"That's not possible," Bruce said, and, oh, he was trying to do scary Batman voice, but all Terry could think was that he'd scared him.

"If that's not something you want, I'll just go away," Terry said agreeably. "Forever." He turned, ready to fly off the ledge of the building.

"Wait," Bruce reached out, hesitant and conflicted. "I just don't understand how you're claiming that's possible."

Gods, this Bruce was so young he hadn't quite mastered his patented stoic face yet, nor had he gotten used to endless clone and dimensional bullshit. That was priceless. Or he was still reeling from Scarecrow, that too.

Well, Terry had no desire to be a complete jerk. He took off his mask for the second time tonight (double checking for cameras first of course) and the satisfaction of Bruce's stunned stare at his appearance. "It's pretty simple. I'm from another world and I accidentally ended up in this one. Whether you want to keep me around and come up with a more plausible story for this particular world about my existence is up to you."

And Bruce?

Bruce just looked so lost. Like he didn't know at all how to respond.

"That's okay if you haven't made up your mind yet. For all you know I'm like, an evil doppelganger or something." At the glare, Terry hotly added: "I'm not! I'm not after your money. I already have more advanced tech than you do, so I don't need your Batcave either." He pulled his mask back on. "I can lay low and just hang around in Gotham for a few weeks, it's not a big deal." He'd have to tell his JLA he was off-world so they wouldn't worry, but that was quick enough to deal with.

Bruce was still standing there in agonized silence. Like he didn't have it in him to say yes, but a part of him desperately didn't want to say no. Finally, he said: "I don't trust you."

"I don't expect you to. Still, if I were totally evil, would I have helped you to your car, given you the fear toxin antidote, and captured the Scarecrow for you?"

"Are they alive and unmaimed?"

"Yes, of course," Terry said. "I may have kicked one of them in the balls tho'." That doesn't get even a tiny flicker of a smile. Bruce is giving that trauma stare again. Terry sighed and outstretched a hand toward Bruce, and Bruce jolted backward like it was venomous. "Your place or shall I sleep tonight in a pocket dimension?"

Hey, the future had some nice tech alright? They'd eventually managed to deal with the pocket dimension instability problem, managed to cheapen the price down to the point it could be attached effortlessly to housing for a fairly reasonable price, and with that, city overcrowding problems and housing scarcity had been nearly completely ended overnight, just like that.

"That sounds dangerous," Bruce was in Batman mode. "Couldn't that rip a hole in Gotham if not the world?"

"The secret is adding pre-existing fault-lines or arches that lead to natural breakpoints, like a bridge made for earthquakes that can take a few cracks. If it collapses it'll just murder me, not the world." Somehow, Batman does not look that re-assured by that. "It'll be fine."

"My house," Batman makes up his mind, a stubborn purse to his lips indicating he won't be argued out of it. Of course, Terry had no intentions of it. "I don't like you there, but I like risking Gotham with an unknown technology even less."

"If that's what makes you happy." And like that, Bruce instead of Batman is back, and he can tell from the gaze that Bruce doesn't understand him one whit at all. "Again, may I remind you, I can just leave?"

Bruce... does not tell him to leave.

Terry can tell Bruce is incredibly confused and concerned by this fact.