Archive of Our Own ^beta

Some guys have a list.

It wasn’t always a ladder to climb or a measuring stick either.

And Terry didn’t know it, but he was an alpha-male in every respect save the most obvious and perhaps, most stereotypically common aspect.

He wasn’t a notch-post bragging douchebag.

Still, Terry had a list too.

Of women.

It wasn’t close to as extensive as Jon’s used to be: Jonathan Queen who’d slept his way through half his college co-ed’s - and more afterwards - before finding the one he’d stick with. Finding Tish. 

Like Jon had realised, sometimes a guy just fucking knows. He knows when it’s right. But the journey isn’t always the same.

For Terry, since he was 15, the list held just 3 names with one in bold capitols right at the top.

Dana, Melanie and Taylor.

Dana.

Terry knew too.

But the choice to make them a reality was hers; she’d been his for years.

He would have died if not for Bruce Wayne. And if not dead, Terry would have joined the Jokerz. No joke.

Thinking that now, made his stomach twist. The fool he’d been. The angry kid lashing out in the only way he knew. The attitude dispenser.

An attitude dispenser who knew how to steal, hurt someone (or a group of someone’s) and boost cars.

But if he hadn’t met Jon, maybe he’d have never have considered proposing in the first place. Jon who’d had no idea who his family had been in their past lives, who his father once was – still was, if Bruce was anything to go by – but had taken on the mantle of Arrow and all it entailed.

And made it work.

Darkness always invaded and, always, Jon beat it back.

He’d met Jon during an MMA tournament the year after stumbling blindly into Bruce’s basement. And it was only after meeting him that Terry had realised just how much he’d needed a friend. Someone who understood the difference between deviance and criminality and was intuitive enough to know when to stop pushing. Someone he could trust, who he could share things he couldn’t with Bruce, Max, Dana, Matt or his mum.

A brother who he didn’t have to fear the consequences of an association with. Jon could more than hold his own. They’d kind of latched onto each other.

Plus it made an ironic kind of sense: as a barely middle class kid, he’d managed to make friends with the richest guy in Starling right after being made protégé to the richest guy in Gotham. Go figure.

It really wasn’t just friendship though. Maybe it was the rich thing, he wasn’t sure, but Jon (and Abby by extension) both loved easily. And when they wanted something, they took it. Loved it.

Jon took him to the mansion one afternoon and acted like he’d always been there. His family just… went along with it.

Rich people.

Kind, rich people. Yeah.

In school and college, Terry’s natural propensity to piss people off and his unfailing ability to fall short of fitting into any one crowd, made him the obvious outsider. A target. He’d grown to like it, to appreciate that because of it he could see clearer than most. He could take it.

But it had given him a sense of entitlement that, as a teenager, had caused more harm than good. In the end, he couldn’t fix the rift between himself and his father before his dad was murdered. He’d learned too late.

Instead of clinging to bitterness, he’d made a choice.

He hadn’t looked back since.

But – and he was pretty sure Jon thought the same about him but didn’t say because, chick moment – he thanked God for Jon.

Yes, he believed in God. How could he not with his coincidental meet of Bruce Wayne and everything else that had transpired since? How could he think it all a happy (really fucking dark and sort of twisted) accident? And he didn’t need others to believe as he did.

When all was said and done, when he’d have no one, he’d have Jon. And by extension, the Queen family, who treated him with unrivalled respect, welcome and love. Like he was the family they never knew they had until they had it and vice versa.

Terry wasn’t the kind who needed closeness with his mother. His brother. The distance between them, considering his alter ego, was a good thing. It gave him reassurance and freedom; he would never tell them. They could never know. And yet he enjoyed his intimacy with the Queen’s.

It’s a strange world.

He just accepted what was and dealt with what he would come to understand later. In that, Terry was as simple as could be. With everything else, he was the most prolific and psychologically fascinating man this side of Gotham. Or least, that’s what the media had started saying about him. It paid to dress as a bat.

The irony of Jon wilfully stepping into the same world Terry had also wilfully joined years before, was not lost on either of them.

“What are the chances?” Jon laughed.

“What?”

“Millions of people and I have to make friends with the one dude who can keep up with me.”

Terry smirked. “Excuse you?”

Utterly in his element, Jon shrugged. “Well,” and his lip curled smugly, prick, “I am the son of the Arrow.”

Leaning in - Terry had since adopted a few of the old man’s traits - he muttered. “Show me.”

In the end, Terry had shown him.

“Dude.” Breathing heavily – deep – Jon glared at Terry from his splayed position on the mat. “What the fuck?”

“I trained with Wayne for nearly 3 years before putting on the cowl, moron.” Straight backed, Terry’s hands met his hips. “No, really; it’s cute that you thought you stood a chance.”

Jon pointed a finger at him. “You cheated. Cheater. You’ve been at this longer than me.”

“Yeah.” Terry nodded. “And you were fucking dumb enough to pit arrogance against experience.”

Jon stared at him.

It was truly a divine moment that Terry only enjoyed a bit. Like, a tiny bit. “I have a very good teacher.”

And he was still learning. He had a feeling he’d never stop. He’d tripped onto Wayne’s secret aged 17, had stolen some equipment after the murder of his father and had caught the old man’s attention. Since then, Bruce had demanded he train and familiarise himself with the city and Wayne enterprises.

He did. Age 20, after his college graduation, Terry had made his first true outing the Batman.

Since Jon’s inclusion into a fold now 2 generations old, his losses against the green archer almost met he wins. Almost.

“Bruce likes to employ guerrilla tactics as an effective offensive strategy.” He told John, who was wiping his busted lip.

“There’s only one of you.”

Terry shrugged. “Being the Batman means I have to be a one-man team.”

“The old man’s paranoid.” Jon grumbled.

Terry just looked at him. “Is he though?”

“…If I had my arrows, you’d never stand a chance.”

“What use do I have for archery when I can fly?”

“Shut up.”

Being the Batman sometimes meant – as the name implied – becoming an animal. He learned that too.

“You have claws.” Bruce reminded him. “Sometimes you have to use them.”

He did. It made him itch that he found he enjoyed it. That in the dark he could sink as low as he needed and only Bruce would know, because he’d realised the same decades ago.

“It’s probably the only temptation you can lose to and not be tainted. An animal rests inside every man and woman; it’s primordial. We few have the choice – the obligation – to use it when it’s called for. But take control of it Terry.” Bruce added in warning, quietly, as he watched Terry clean dried blood from cervices of his black suit gloves. “Or it controls you.”

This, he wouldn’t understand yet. Not for years. Not until-

No. Not yet.

You’re ready for that yet.

Joseph Risdon.

Rapist, assassin and all around vile human being: subjected to inhumane treatment in prison, he’d returned a somehow worse monster than the one Mr Queen had put away when Jon was a child.

In Gotham, such a man wouldn’t have gotten close to Terry. Bruce wouldn’t have let it happen but their way of life was somewhat different to the Queen’s. And Terry – being a bat – would have hunted him down in the dark like the vermin he was.

The Queen’s and their alter ego’s had such ties to the city – connections Bruce had never allowed his true face to make – that it had been impossible for Mr Queen, and by extension Jon, to walk around as the vigilante and not make a few extremely personal enemies.

The types that come back to haunt you, that make you fear for your family. The kind that give you nightmares.

The ones that make you have to kill them.

“Anger or fear Terry?” Bruce had asked. “Which is it?”

Side-glancing him, Terry maintained his position by his side throughout the fundraiser: Wayne’s chauffer and body guard. “Remind me what you’re talking about again?”

Bruce was, if nothing else, no-nonsense and succinct. “Jon killed a man. Which are you feeling?”

An animal rests inside every man and woman.

Sucking in a deep breath, Terry answered close cropped. “Neither. Both.”

“It was wrong.” Bruce muttered, uncompromising. “But I understand why.”

“We have a code.” And he was right: Terry’s anger was fear-based. “He broke that code.”

“That code was made for Batman. Other vigilantes, they don’t operative by the same imperative as you. That distinction is important.”

“They should.”

And Bruce smiled in that eerie, predatory way of his. “They should.” He agreed. “They can’t. Gotham isn’t Starling. In a lot of ways, it’s worse. The darker it is, the better you have to be. The standards have to increase. Batman will always have to be harder on himself.”

It took a moment before Terry could answer. “What if I fail?”

What if I kill?

Because Terry wasn’t angry at Jon for killing; he was angry that Jon made him realise how easy it could be. And how much Terry had secretly agreed with the decision, for he hadn’t stepped in to stop him. He’d watched Jon beat a man’s head into much and he hadn’t rushed to stop his friend…

Something inside him had agreed that some monsters had to be killed, so that their loved ones can sleep.

Bruce sent him a look. “Will you?”

Could he?

…No.

Loss was loss; you couldn’t escape it.

Jon lost Roy.

Losing his own father and his uncle 2 years before his father, gave Terry perspective in the loss of role models, something he could offer to Jon who’d been struck dumb at facing the simple reality that heroes could die.

It was one of the few areas where Jon lost to his sister. Abigail Queen, who understood, despite her own unfailing goodness, her self-doubt and naiveté, that even vigilantes were human. They shed blood and cried like the rest. They could die.

He knew Jon wondered how she would handle his own death if the time came. Just as he knew that it was probably the only time Jon considered hanging up the hood.

But he wouldn’t: it was in his blood.

Terry didn’t know why he couldn’t give it up. Stumbling onto Wayne’s secret had felt like fate. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was supposed to do this. Maybe it was about the soul as much it was about blood.

Maybe, the moment he’d walked into Wayne manor, it had claimed him back.

It took him 8 years to fall into it.

Being Batman was like the answer to a question he hadn’t known he’d been screaming. It wasn’t a side job: it was the job. It was a lifestyle. And not everyone was suited to it.

Luckily, it suited Terry just fine.

It made the world simple, allowed him to focus. Everything made sense when he was his alter ego. But there were moments where it felt like his life was the grindstone and he was the grist.

When he finally told her:

“I can’t do this with you Terry.”

Right.

She couldn’t look at him but she was all he saw. “I know.”

Off course she couldn’t do it. Dana was smart; smart enough to not shack up with Gotham’s vigilante – a man who’d made tardiness, lies and violence seem like the only excesses on which he built his life around – smart enough not to think that kids, a house and peace with him was possible.

That’s what Dana wanted: peace. Love. Security. A future. She deserved nothing less.

She didn’t see that with him.

Why the fuck not?

He saw it. Always had. Being Batman didn’t stop that from being possible.

Only in her eyes it did. He’d lied to her. Repeatedly. For years. And she saw that in the worst possible way. But he’d given her no reason not to. Dana viewed that life - his life - in black and white. It was a goodness he loved about her; but he hated it as much as he loved it. He didn’t need that kind of judgement and she was the last person he could take it from.

Jon? He could spew all he liked; he understands the life. It was why he’d told Dana in the first place, because Jon couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

And what he’d said, as much as Terry loathed it, was right.

“…I guess; go ahead and lie to your fiancé too. Then you can lie to your wife.”

Even when they disagreed, even when he hated when he was right, he had that right.

Dana didn’t. If he had his way, she never would. That world would never touch her. He just hadn’t realised that keeping her in the dark was part of the reason why he’d lose her. He’d never considered telling her: he’d left Gotham for a while - when he’d met Jon - and they’d split. When he’d returned, they’d gotten back together. Then they’d split over his constant unavailability. Then, they’d found each other again.

Rinse, repeat.

He’d planned on marrying her… and never letting her all the way in. It would have – should have - worked.

But then Jon had opened his big mouth and a shock of wisdom had spilled out. So, he told her. Everything, down to the last detail.

It hadn’t gone well.

“Do you have that little respect for me?”

6 months. A year. In time, maybe he could convince her to try again.

“As long as you are who you are, we’ll always come second. I’ll always be wondering where you are, if you’re even alright or if you’re still lying to me.”

…Maybe not.

As long as you are who you are.

The Batman or Dana.

He’d made his choice years ago; the cost was Dana. He just hadn’t realised it, or how much it would hurt when the time came to let her go.

They’d started dating when he was 15 and had broken up 6 times in the decade since then. But where ‘off’ occurred, ‘on’ was never too far away. She was all he knew. All he wanted to know.

Ten years. More than a third of his life- near half. He was 25.

And he’d bought a ring for fuck sake. This wasn’t a game to him. Sooner or later, this had to work.

Or it didn’t.

“It’s for the best.” There was no smile on her face; just a grimace of pain; pain he’d caused her. The rest of her was utterly uncompromising. “I want to be with someone who’ll share himself with me. Who’ll respect me.” She shook her head. “You’re not that person.”

Sucker punch to the gut, falling from obscene heights, bullets pelting him from all angles, the fear Inque had inspired in him… none of it hurt this much.

Swallowing – he couldn’t stop the way his face tightened, because it had been a long time since he’d cried but something inside him was breaking – he just nodded at her.

She was right.

Give her what she wants. Then he could react.

She sighed, as if she’d expected more and yet was still leaving. “I’m done. Bye Terry.”

And she pressed her lips to his cheek, not his mouth, like the punch line to a bad joke; her last kiss. On. His. Cheek. Shit.

With the cream on her skin ghosting his nostrils, she turned to leave. To walk away from him.

He had a gut feeling that this time – the seventh time – might be the last.

He handled the break-up about as well as Jon would.

As in, not fucking well at all. But it was a silent heartbreak.

On the outside, he was the epitome of poise and stoicism – he was sure he made Bruce proud. On the inside he was in pain. A bit of a wreck even.

Yet he wasn’t like Jonathan. He still favoured control, even through agony. And the only time he felt fully in control was when he was Batman. So he suited up because pain or heartbreak normally made him do that, which was very much Jon if he thought about it. It wasn’t unnatural for him to spend more hours than was healthy being a nightmare for criminals.

But loosing days at a time took it ten steps farther than he ever intended: overworking himself in a way that he hadn’t done in years. All for focus. For the simplicity it brought his mind.

“You want to use that as an excuse to get yourself killed?” Bruce had once grouched one 7am business day, seeing a 19-year-old Terry waiting to drive him to Wayne Towers after a clearly sleepless night and a reckless fall from dizzying heights that left his rib cage black and blue. He’d been fighting with his brother for weeks and it had left him mentally absorbed, recklessly so. “Do it with someone else’s equipment.”

The old man wasn’t exactly what you’d call gentle about it.

But he was empathetic.

Something he showed to Terry on a surprise visit a few weeks after Dana left him; surprise because Wayne was sick and had given Terry free reign 6 months before. Since then, he’d still waited a lot of the nights with his winged protégé, to keep up to check. Of course. It was his legacy. But he wasn’t present 100% of the time, especially not for the mundane: suit maintenance, for example.

Terry wouldn’t admit how much he liked him down there. He didn’t need the help, but he liked Bruce watching over him, hopefully knowing that his life’s work was in good hands.

It was a forgivable sense of pride.

“You choose this life or you leave it behind.” The old man said whilst Terry scrubbed clean his gear. “You choose it. And then you choose it again. You choose it every day. And you stick with that choice.” Pushing 300 years old, Wayne’s voice was still deeper than Terry’s. There was virility in him that even age couldn’t dampen. It was soothing. “Sometimes years go by before something shakes you out of that apathy.”

Listening – he always did - Terry asked. “Apathy?”

And eyes still fathoms deep locked to his. “For your own life. You forget that in living one way, you stop living in others. It makes you want.”

Terry got that. He knew that completely: it was written into his skin. He was content with his world. But he still… he still hoped for more.

“You made a choice.” Bruce repeated, softly. “Some days the choice eats at you.”

It sure does. “And when it does?” Terry asked, quietly; as still as a stone. “What do you do?”

Seated, Bruce looked back at the multitude of screens before them: The Batman made the news again that night. “You choose again.”

And you stick with it.

He turns 26, brings Abby over to meet the old man, gets banged up in a fight, helps Jon through a bad patch, gets his further business gradation and all of a sudden it’s a year later and he’s 27…

And his list is added to… by a lot. Or at least, a lot to him.

Janice, Lucy, Reya, Jennifer, Kelly and Sophia.

It wasn’t planned. He’d been working his ass off and found himself in a nondescript bar one rare, free night, taking a brief load off the first time in a long time sans Jon. A full-on relationship was out of the question, but he’d found that nothing drowned out loneliness quite as effectively as an orgasm. Even if it’s brief, fuck me.

It also blocked out the screams for a while.

For a man who did what he did, Terry rarely dreamed. Wayne had once told him it was because he was satisfied. That he had a purpose, was good at that purpose and had accepted it for what it that was.

When he did dream, he usually had no memory of what it was about. But there were a few times where his mother or Dana had woken him because of them. Because he’d shouted.

That’s when he’d realised they were nightmares.

They go away eventually, an ever-so-helpful advisor Jon was not.

Terry never remembered the dreams because he never saw anything. Instead, he heard them. The shouts. The cries for help, the shrieks of pain. The accusations. The fear.

Why weren’t you there? You didn’t save them! HELP US! Where were you?! We believed in you!

And his personal favourite: you will never be Batman.

Because Bruce Wayne was the Batman he’d never come close to being and always would be. Terry was a crass imitation.

He didn’t really believe that, but he’d had it thrown at him in his sleep. So maybe something in him did.

Sometimes Dana’s voice starred: I trusted you! You ruined my life! You’re a monster!

Terry had yet to kill a man. He’d come close. Very. Jonathan knew. He’d told him about it; had confessed to how difficult and yet, simultaneously easy it was for Terry to pull himself back from the brink.

I’m glad you did because you don’t want to do that. You think you might right now, but… you don’t. Trust me.

He did. He trusted Jon with his life. And it was one area he couldn’t top the archer in. One area he didn’t want to.

Bruce was right. Gotham wasn’t like Starling: Starling City degenerated, healed new tissue over old scars and fluxed new nightmares for Jon to fight but Gotham had always been in darkness. If it wasn’t, the Batman wouldn’t have been required. The citizens were used to it. They’d accepted and moved on. They’d made something out of it, made it beautiful. The way Abby saw it when she’d first visited the summer before. There was colour in Gotham that didn’t exist elsewhere.

If he let lose, if he went on a killing spree, he’d tear down the symbol of Batman and what it represented and it would never again be what it was. He couldn’t fight fire with fire. Unlike the Arrow who had a history of killing, Batman couldn’t go there and survive the fall without becoming a demon that made the wrong kind of waves.

Terry had his rules. An honour code he’d adhered to with a vigilance Jon had, in the past, been off-put at the conviction behind. He was glad Jon was like him, that his best friend lived the same lifestyle but he didn’t need the reminder that he never wanted to disappoint the old man. Or himself. He didn’t need help in that regard. I’ve got it covered.

He was too strong now to falter. In too deep to lose resolve.

But he couldn’t deny that he’d thought about it. About what it would feel like to permanently rid the world of the evil he sometimes faced. The kind of evil that hurt little kids.

It’s the children that will get to you, Bruce had admitted once. They’ll make you consider easier alternatives; make you think about taking justice into your own hands. They’ll make the job worth it but they’ll also be the ones that stay with you afterwards.

And haunt him as he slept.

Bruce was right.

Their screams lasted longest.

The best medicine he’d managed to find was Dana. But she’d left him. So, a few months after their split, feeling it – the encroaching nightmares - he went for the next best thing. Sex.

‘Mom hugs’ didn’t cut it – they’d never cut it. Not for Terry. He’d been passed needing them since before he’d even come across Wayne’s basement all those years before.

And he’d always been big on the club scene: him and Jon, they owned it. Or liked to think they did. And no one bothered them unless they were stupid enough to try.

Like the Jokerz who, collectively, had just enough brains to understand that numbers could make up for a lack of strategy. Every now and then they’d get a clue and do real damage but, normally? They were good for a laugh.

It had been a while since they’d made a stir.

Keep both eyes open, always.

The day Bruce Wayne doesn’t speak in Terry’s head is basically the day Terry just… stops.

Still, the club scene had grown quiet, so he’d used it to broaden his horizons. Red head, brunette, blonde, black – didn’t matter. The result was the same.

The result was empty.

“You don’t worry that Dana might hear about it?” Jon asked; brow cocked as Terry (during one of Jon’s visits) slumped in a seat in a downtown, early morning cafe – strained and very tired – after escaping the bedroom of… Sonia? Sofia? They’d both been awkward as hell about it and she’d clearly not wanted him there. The feeling was mutual.

“And since when were you me?”

“Dude.” Twisting to see him, Terry threw him some shadowed side-eye. “You’re attached.” And everything that went with it: love, trust, security.

Jon wasn’t Terry, but even Terry could see the path Jon was heading down and it started and ended with a ring.

Jon rolled his eyes. “I meant, before.”

Yeah, a saint, Jonny boy had not been.

“Yeah.” Terry breathed, looking away. “But I was supposed to be married by now.”

He’d wanted that. It wasn’t as if he’d planned the whole thing, but he was 5 years past knowing that Dana was the one for him. The forever one. Being a vigilante didn’t mean he couldn’t have a life. He didn’t think like Bruce did…

He’d taken one look at the heads of the Queen and he’d known that’s what he wanted. To be Batman and to have a family.

Now his forever had left him stranded and alone. It had been 16 months since they’d broken up and he’d felt every second of it.

He felt Jon’s hand pat his back as he leaned closer to ask. “Have you ever thought that the reason why it didn’t work with Dana is because she isn’t right for you?”

In the past, his go-to answer would have been don’t go there. Don’t touch what he’d gotten a handle on already. Time changed a lot. And now he entertained a lot of things.

“It isn’t black and white.” Was his non-answer.

“Think about it,” he was still going there; Jon’s eyes held sympathy but also quiet resolve, “She never really knew you. She was dating who she thought you were. An image you helped create in her head.”

“Not helping man.”

“It wasn’t real.” Jon pushed. “When she found out the truth, she saw that.”

Terry started shaking his head. “You never liked her…”

“So?” Both brows rose, the ‘yes, I am judging you’ glare at the ready, Jon continued.  “What I think shouldn’t matter.”

But it did. It mattered.

Jon understood the lifestyle and he’d found someone who accepted it and wanted to share it with him. In this, Jon’s insight beat his. It made him… not right, necessarily - Terry’s ability to hold a long-term relationship more than offset the deficit - but it made his words something to consider.

He heard Jon sigh. “Are you going out again tonight?”

Clubbing.

“No.” Maybe never again. “I have to sleep sometime.”

And waking up to a face you don’t recognise or trust was so much worse than the alternative. To waking up alone. He definitely didn’t need that. Better to stay alone than… that.

“Just…” Terry glanced up, a little thrown by the worry in Jon’s face. “Just don’t do what I did.”

What he did.

Terry knew immediately what that meant.

After the fire.

The same year he and Dana broke up, two kids were killed in a fire on Starling because Jon hadn’t known they were in the building. Or at least, that’s how Jon had seen it. Negligence. It had crucified him to find out later how close they’d been to him, that he could have gotten to them if he’d just gone to check...

You can do everything right and it can still go wrong.

Mr Queen.

On many levels, he was just as wise as Bruce. Even if their creeds differed.

But no amount of wisdom or love or understanding or beating criminals to a pulp had touched Jon. For months, he’d let himself sink into a depression that had worried Terry, who’d watched his friend question why he was even doing what he was doing.

Mrs Queen hadn’t been able to help (the usual suspect) nor his girlfriend (a woman who inspired all sorts of bullshit poetry from Jon) or his father (who had more than enough experience in internal punishments of the soul…)

No one had managed to get through to him: the drinking he’d cut back on since becoming the Arrow returned with a vengeance and his manner was excessively… unkind. It felt like bitterness.

No, it was Abby who’d picked up on that. The last person Terry had thought would get the job done. The again, she was also the last person Terry had thought Jon would ever snap at – swear at - like that.

Jon had told him. After Terry had dropped him home – September 44 – Abby had just come out with it.

“You never used to be a mean drunk.”

He could only imagine the affect that would have had. Abby, who was Jon’s – the Queen’s – joy, their princess to protect, who’d already been hurt by their secret lives, disappointed in him.

Idiot didn’t want to lose his place on that white horse. He doesn’t need to worry.

But it surprised him.

It wasn’t that Terry thought Abby was weak: what he thought she was, was fragile. She lived in a household of vigilantes, people even Bruce approved of (as much as he could, anyway) in that cantankerous way of his. So detached from that way of life, in many ways, she didn’t fit. In a lot of ways, they all needed her. Needed someone who didn’t wear masks but accepted the ones her loved ones wore.

But Abby had her own demons, all internal. All unseen by anyone else but her.

Terry didn’t understand depression: he’d never been depressed, so of course he didn’t get it. But he did appreciate how difficult it must be for her to have her emotions leave her control and drag her down, how alone she must be in it. That she fights it was just another sign that she’s her parent’s kid. A given. Respect.

But, because of this, he was sure she’d crumble under the weight of her brother’s demons too. She didn’t get the vigilante perspective, he saw that. She tried but, no amount of trying can really bring a person to understand something they’ve never felt.

Care bears, darkness and violence don’t mix.

Clearly, at least in one way, he was wrong. Understanding of personal demons had given her an edge the others didn’t have. That, and, like he’d said; Jon never wanted to lose place as her hero. Terry had missed seeing that before.

Either that or his relationship with his own sibling coloured his opinion. He loved his brother, but since he planned on never ever informing him or his mum that he was in fact the Dark Knight of Gotham, the idea of comradely affection and support was a mute one.

Matt would forever and always think Terry was an unreliable, irresponsible waste of space. Love from him, yes. Respect, no. He’d come to terms with that.

Obviously, Jon and Abby did their thing a different way. Apart from the clear hero worship, he didn’t know how Abby had viewed her brother before the truth came out but Jon had implied it had been more to do with being left out of the family loop than anything involving his morality.

Her belief in him – her disappointment on the flip-side of it – meant more to Jon than his own pain. Thinking he’d hurt her, had been unwittingly cruel to her, or that her opinion of him had fallen, had forced him to face himself.

Slowly, Jon strove forwards. Not healed exactly, more changed than anything. He was working through it. In many ways, he was weaker for it – plagued in a way he’d never been before (that intrusive gut reaction some experience when humanity fails them) - but in all the ways that mattered, Jon was stronger. Once he fully understood why he was doing what he was doing, he’d grow stronger still.

Thinking back on it though, Terry remembered more than once having to cart his friend home; drunk as a skunk afterwards using the excuse of a bad day. Emotionally agonised.

Terry didn’t drink to get drunk. He did more dancing than drinking.

He’d stopped dancing.

The past year had been a whirl: some alcohol, a few women, Wayne enterprises, business academia and his usual nightly escapades.

He knew it wasn’t right, sleeping with strangers. It didn’t feel right. It felt hollow.

And yet, he’d had to do something. He thought it would alter him, would lessen his feelings for Dana and make it easier not to miss her.

“It worked for you.” He replied honestly and it was less an accusation than a question. Why isn’t it working for me?

“Fuck, you know that with this – only this, don’t get ideas – you were always… I don’t know, better.” Jon shrugged. “You didn’t go out to get laid and you never got too drunk to drive.”

I live in Gotham, idiot. He’d said that to Jon during college, when drinking into the wee hours of the morning was cool. He’d get wasted in Starling but not in Gotham.

“So why am I trying now?” Terry aired; stirring the coffee Jon had bought for him. “I don’t know. I guess… I guess I just wanted to not feel it anymore.”

“Feel what?”

“Alone.” Undeserving. Terry murmured. “I’m not saying it’s a problem.” He continued, quietly, because the look on Jon’s face just went two levels down from bemused to… “Don’t be a dick; I don’t need any of that.” He wasn’t lying and he flicked a finger at the sympathy there, the sadness. “I never have. You have your family. Your way of life; it includes them. Mine doesn’t. I came to terms with that long before you even took on the mantle. I just thought…” what had he thought? “I thought Dana might actually become a fixture.”

Part of him, of this new him. The him he’d wanted her to get to know.

Jon’s voice was just as quiet. “Someone you could share it with.”

His life.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I thought rebounding might take some of the edge off but…” Terry shook his head. Nada.

“I keep telling you, you’re not built that way.”

“I know.” He really wasn’t and it had hurt more than anything else. His chest ached with it. Terry wolfed his coffee. “Thanks man.”

Jon glanced to the side and back again. “For what.”

“For listening. For asking. Buying coffee.” For not making him feel worse about being the single one. For not making him feel worse about his choices. He shrugged on his coat. “Take your pick.”

Jon watched him. “Where are you going?”

Standing, Terry looked out of the window. “Wherever I want.” He looked back at Jon. “You brought your gear with you?” He already knew the answer.

“You even need to ask?” Jon grinned. “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t like he was suddenly all better. He hadn’t healed: he was still a little lost. But he stopped looking for the easy way out of it.

After a while, it eased…

He’d never told Jon but, when Risdon had him and his family, Terry had responded in the only way Batman could.

With silent rage.

He’d made a stir that night in Gotham: too far away to be of any immediate help and obligated to bring in a road rage killer, he’d gone a little over board despite a bad leg. Busting one guy hadn’t been enough.

In the space of a couple of hours - the time between when he could physically leave (public appearances and all that) Gotham for Starling in the early hours of the morning - Terry had managed to put away as many criminals or have them indicted, as he normally would in the space of months.

And he caught attention from it.

Media outage, absolutely, but they weren’t the ones who lured The Batman into their nest October 2045 because of the feat.

Turns out Terry had unknowingly hit a drug ring, fucking up a deal that would bring in a crime lord with ties to some organised crime syndicate - the Yakuza, the Bratva, the Odessa, the Triad: pick one - lots of money to throw around and a new synthetic compound that, if it were to be put into circulation, would destroy a third of the city in 12 months or less.

In the years since, the crime lord’s benefactors and 2 local gangs had joined together with one goal in mind: eradication of the city’s greatest protector.

It was a semi-decent attempt.

Arms deals were made – they brought in the big guns; auto’s, launchers and a few other surprises - off the books man power was shifted, recruitment efforts were galvanised, teenagers were taught how to shoot guns and wield knives and employed in one almighty strategic area downtown of East End, favours were called in with the few dirty cops left under Gordon’s strict regime, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend was utilised to great effect.

They took position within a non-descript apartment block. 

Then they shut the block down.

With The Batman trapped inside.

Camera crews set up shop down the street from the building – airing it on every channel - reporters were on the scene, and police blockades cut off all escape points, thinking that, at the very least, the drug dealers, gangs and crime lords would have nowhere to go if it went to shit.

Trouble was, they were prepared to loose it all.

He’d been lured there by a distress call that was, well, distressing and – not for the first time - for the first time, Terry had been glad to be completely alone against insurmountable odds. The ugly flank of Gotham. The men inside were ruthless, dirty and after his head. Literally.

And though he couldn’t fight fire with fire, he’d used their haste, their passion and their lack of expertise – in comparison to himself - to help them kill each other. Which they did. They were willing to risk their lives to take him out of the equation. Generating the same level of hate as the previous Batman was a passing of the torch Terry could have lived without.

It hadn’t made him feel good. Or righteous. Or powerful. Not even vindicated. What it did do, was build up his legend (in the whispers that would be spread after this) as he stared down at charred remains – at bullet ridden corpses and broken bodies – with a resolve to be better. Always. What did they get out of the senseless violence they were forcing on him? Maybe humans need conflict. Maybe they’re not happy with peace.

Or maybe, there are clusters of the bad infiltrating the good that had to be stopped. That would always have to be stopped. And he would stop them.

Still they got in a few good licks. And at the end, he’d truly feared death.

So he’d let the monster out of the cage.

Trapping a bat in the dark? Not the best idea. The suit wasn’t just a suit.

Locked down, layers of shutter walls, solid steel reinforcements and barricades shooting up (or down as it were) out of thin air (they’d really planned it this time) and nowhere to go, Terry – the Batman – fought for his life.

This lasted through the night; over 6 hours…

Then, at precisely 05:13am, the shutters lid up – or rattled open as it were, since half the building had been destroyed by the end of it - Batman walked out. Simple as that.

Of course, he was dragging Dymtrus Sarkov – the head honcho behind the attack - with him by the ankle.

He was alive. One of the few to survive the night.

Bloodied, torn – over 6 feet of pure muscle, anger, strength and darkness - Batman had still cut quite a figure before the 15 police men standing – staring – open mouthed at him before he took off with only 4 words rumbled for their chief.

“You have a mole.”

They’d flinched, shooting back as he took to the air: he’d sounded less than human and he didn’t know what to think about it.

Tired, hungry, thirsty, and relieved. Angry, full of energy, passionate and victorious. Sad, world-weary, defeated. Rebuilt, resolved, restored.

Mostly, he felt responsible.

Quiet.

A shadow.

Batman.

He made it to Wayne Manor following the sunrise to find Bruce sitting beside the monitors, his eyes already on him…

And Abigail Queen who – pale faced and overly alert - looked like she’d stayed awake through the night, waiting.

For him to return. Alive and as well as can be.

It was unexpected… he was surprised Bruce had let her in. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be. She was Felicity Queen’s daughter after all and Bruce had difficulty with the Queen matriarch and the word no.

Being that, the word had no effect on her.

“Jon called.” Abby said to him after he’d stripped off his gear – she’d turned away during that part. “Said he was sorry he missed the action.” Terry shook his head, of course. “You’re going to need to handle clean-up there.”

He looked at her; hiding how much moving ached his forehead. “Tell me he isn’t feeling guilty?” For not being there.

She looked at him. You know Jon.

He really did. Idiot. Guilt and the Queen family were loyal bedfellows.

She circled round towards the table he normally cleaned his suit on. “Come here.”

And he normally wouldn’t let her patch him up but he was tired and strangling under the very real weight (it is a literal feeling) of Bruce’s penance stare. Let. Her. Help. You.

Leaving treatment for too long made for nasty little surprises, like, infections and agonisingly stiff joints.

Fine. He didn’t need it but if it gave the old man peace of mind then…

Sighing, he pulled himself up on the table… and slowly eased his under-armour (more of a layered black muscle-vest) up off his shoulders.

It was a little odd undressing in front of Abigail Queen.

But he heard her hissed inhale from behind him and any awkwardness vanished. “Terry…”

Black and blue, there were sear marks and ripped skin in places.

Underneath those… was the odd scar. It was expected, that kind of fallout in this line of business. Still, he had less than Jon. He was more careful than Jon.

Twisting his head – because his sides wouldn’t allow further movement after being hit by only god knows what armaments continuously over a stretch of hours and his amazing suit could only take so much punishment – he made eye contact with her and said, “I’m okay.”

Taking a shaky breath, her eyes flit over him again, lingering in arrears before flying away and she cleared her throat as she moved towards a cabinet. “From where I’m standing, ‘okay’ is relative.”

He smiled thinking, since when was that new?

She saw it. Rolling her eyes, she rooted through his medical supplies when-

“My God. Terry, really?”

Blinking, he looked at her again. “What?”

She stared at him for a moment – open mouthed, appalled and un-seeing of Bruce’s approaching form - before yanking out a case filled with an assortment of ointment’s, tablets, bandages, surgical instruments: everything the body needs to heal itself and showed it to him as if he hadn’t been in it a few days before.

He looked from it to her. “What?” He repeated.

She cocked a brow. “It’s a mess.”

It really was, at least, in comparison to how Wayne had kept it. “Is that judgement,” he flicked a finger towards her face, “I see right there?”

“It’s definitely something.” She muttered, looking away and he couldn’t help but grin again when he saw her petit jaw clench. “I’m going to sort this out for you before I go. And it better stay that way.” She grumbled, hustling about with his equipment…

He caught Bruce’s look. That same, unimpressed look Mr Queen gave to Jon whenever he did something stupid.

Terry shrugged, wincing when it pulled at his ribs and the look tripled in strength. “I have a different work dynamic than you.”

“Chaos over structure?”

“Big things over the little things.” Yawning, he cracked his jaw and he rotated it.

“Small things become big.” Abby muttered, leaning over to look at his side. “You need stitches here.”

His eyes closed. Perfect.

Bruce had a steady hand and was far gentler with it than appearances dictated. However, his hands had, in the past year, started to shake if kept still for too long. He couldn’t do it. He’d try though. Terry moved to reach around, capable of doing it himself even though it would sting more, and-

He felt her fingers there – wearing surgical gloves – as she carefully wiped over the area with an antiseptic. “Stay still.”

He did… and she got to work.

“You’ve gotten better at this.” He muttered a few minutes later, re-opening his eyes.

She immediately pulled back, looking stricken. “Am I hurting you?”

“I can feel it but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” She had a steady hand now too, thanks to Jon’s injuries in the past.

Bruce watched her work for a while until he asked. “The suit?”

“It needs repairing.”

“Use the spare for now.” One large, aged hand closed over the black uniform and lifted it before his cane started to beat a quiet base on the floor. “Good work Terry.” He said as he turned. “Take the day. Get some rest.”

Then he walked away…

Pushing 90, Bruce Wayne looked 15 years younger and still behaved 20 years younger than that.

His last suit up had been almost 30 years ago. At aged 60, Bruce had still had at least another 5 years left in him, but his heart had denied him the right to continue. Age hadn’t left that marker; at 49 he’d been told about certain defects, problems he may reach as the next decade reared its head.

True Bruce Wayne style, these warnings went ignored. 

He’d paid for that on his final outing, having had to resort to wielding a gun – breaking a rule he’d made as a child after losing his parents to bullets - just to get out of there alive.

Terry had given him the chance to change the city for the better once more. To alter what it was becoming, or rather, declining into. Becoming a vigilante hadn’t been a means to an end for Bruce: he firmly believed the city needed the Batman and so he became that figurehead. And he was right. Gotham would always need Batman.

Even if the face behind the cowl changed, the symbol wouldn’t.

“He was worried about you.” Abby murmured after a moment, Terry’s eyes following after Bruce. “We all were.”

‘All’ encompassed the Queen family and its add-on’s.

She pulled back, reaching for gauze but her eyes held his for a moment. “Are you ok?”

“Day at the beach.” She scoffed because, ‘understatement of the century’ and she’d never understood how both Jon and Terry could be so accepting of the risks to their person. Or that they could deliberately chose to risk it again and again.

Since she wasn’t asking he wouldn’t say anything. “Damage control?”

Jon.

“Let him sweat until I’m gone.” It came out as more a question than anything else. “I don’t want him to know I was here.”

He levelled his gaze at her. “Why?”

The gaze – the one criminals have been known to tremble at – bounced off her. “He’s like dad: he worries too much about me.”

No, they worry just enough. It’s a guy thing. “He misses you.” Terry pointedly corrected.

“I’ve been gone a month. It’s not a good sign if he already misses me.”

He shook his head because; the Queen siblings were a little dumb in this. “He missed you when he moved out.” This, he knew, because Jon hadn’t stopped grouching about his phone bills (obviously not about the money: about the time he spent on his phone) and Abigail’s new love of all things Gotham - beat that, shitbird - arts and boys. In this he was different to Terry. When he and Dana broke up, Terry stayed resolutely silent about it. “But you were in the same city and he could see you whenever he liked.”

“Which,” she said lightly as she dropped the used medical supplies into a slide out bin, “is why I don’t want you to tell him.”

He conceded, lips pressed together. “…Alright.”

Outside the mansion, the daylight seemed surreal to Terry.

He fully planned on 10 hours sleep the moment he got home, followed by pizza, painkillers and Miles Davis.

But first…

“How are you doing?”

Not bothering with a coat – the waning summer made for warm winds – Abby already had her keys in hand. “Sorry?”

“A month into your first semester at GU and… this.” He gestured from himself to their surroundings: Wayne manor in all its very quiet, very gothic glory.

“I’m not the one who spent the night with drug dealers.”

“You also didn’t have to come by.” Looking her in the eye, he added with a level of seriousness he tried hard not to show most of the time. “I get why you did it for Jon, but it isn’t necessary here. Bruce has machines and a doctor he trusts in case something happens.” He explained when she frowned and shifted, looking down at her feet.

Embarrassed.

“You did a good job.” Very good. “But don’t feel like you have to do that. Not here.” In Gotham. Where she now lived. She was literally an hour’s drive from him at most.

Which was… weird was one word for it.

Keep her safe man. Though he knew Jon hadn’t meant ‘watch over my sister night and day’, Terry had, on her first day (and twice since), flown over to where she’d be holed up the next 3 years to find her getting along with some class mates. A natural thing about her: people liked her. She didn’t even have to try.

Good for her.

She didn’t let her depressive states stop her from living. Another surprising move: Abby, the most vulnerable of the family, had been the one to uproot herself from her home to find her niche in another city.

Brave. Bold.

Surprising.

“You were on the news.” And if her tone was any indication, what the news outlets had shown or said hadn’t been pretty. “On every channel. All night.”

Expressionless, he just watched her.

“This is the thing with what you do.” She continued. “It feels a little different from Jon; mom, dad, Tish, Elaine – enough of us know his secret.”

Ah.

He guessed. “I’m not alone Abby.”

Her head tilted. Correct guess. “In a very real way, you are.”

He… had no idea what to say to her.

Just as she’d said: people knew about Jon. They knew when he was out late and why and they knew when he was in trouble and when he was hurt.

Terry was beholden to no one. It hit him, now, the freedom in that.

And the isolation.

But he’d never had to explain for himself before about it. It threw him a little. “I’ve made my peace with it Abby.”

“I know.” She nodded, totally copacetic. Really, she was. “But, for my feminine peace of mind,” she bunny eared that, “I needed to see that you were alright. And you are… sort of.” Her eyes fell over his shirt, where the most obvious evidence of the night’s events where making colourful spirals over his rib cage and chest. “That’s going to really hurt later.” She said on a breath before swallowing and moving to unlock her car door. “Make sure to take your meds when you wake, lots of water and something sweet with…

He heard it in her voice as she went on. The very real affection she held for him. The fear she’d felt. He knew she cared about him and him her. But he wasn’t used to this…

…Which probably explained what he did next because he didn’t really have a fucking clue why his hand moved out - his fingers fitting loosely under her chin – to pull her face, her eyes, back to his.

She stilled, shutting up, blinking at him.

“Hey.” He lifted her chin because the days of her trying to shyly hide her face were over. Gotham wasn’t for the meek. And the crush she’d held for him for years seemed to have finally seeped away. “This has happened before.” Voice low, he spoke slowly. They had all the time in the world after all. “I get hurt. I patch up. I move on. And I’m fine.” He almost whispered those last two words as he smiled at her – not a smirk. “It’s the job. It’ll always be this way. And I’m good with it.”

So stop worrying.

She exhaled then and the for god’s sake in it confused him, her eyes closing briefly before her blue-brown gaze hit his darker one. “I know. This is your life. It’s what you’ve chosen. And I will never judge you on it.” Her brow furrowed and he had a feeling he was being chastised for something. “I will never ask you not to go.” Something tightened at the back of his throat then because these words that were now for him, had once been for her brother. Her father. “No matter what happens, I will never ask you to stop.” She rolled her eyes. “You won’t listen, so there’s no point. I will not beg you to stay or hate you for leaving.” The lump in his throat slid down to his stomach. “But sometimes… sometimes I need to patch you up myself.”

For a moment, he took her in. Young as she was, there was a will there, in her eyes. A light that wasn’t bright like her mothers, but burned amber… with hope.

A depressant who hoped.

Who tried.

The type of strength that could fuel a fire as long as someone was there to put logs on it. As long as there was someone out there who loved her and reminded her to fight.

Thumb pressing into her chin, he nodded. “I can handle that.”

And she smiled then; a small thing that told him she was slightly overwhelmed with herself. She wasn’t the only one. “Okay.”

“Okay…” and then, because the moment felt a little long, Terry let go of her, mussing up her hair with his sleeve and listening to her grumble.

There. Normal.

“I need food.” She groaned, stepping away to slide into one of Bruce’s cars. I’ll get it later. “Breakfast calls.”

Same old Abby… except she also wasn’t quite the same Abby who he remembered from her stay at his mom’s home the year before.

“You sure you don’t want me to drop you off?” He asked. “I’ve got to pick the car up anyway, so…”

She squinted at him. “Should you even be driving in your condition?”

“You make me sound pregnant.” He said, deadpan.

Already in gear, he saw her smile again. “The day after tomorrow. Get some sleep Terry!” She shouted through her open window as she sped by.

He waved, watching the car turn into a long running path, towards the inner gates…

Yeah. Weird.

And as the car left the grounds, Dana walked into view.

Black hair gleamed in the morning sun, she came to a stop near the lawn where he stood. As usual she was wearing one her tight dresses; the kind of snug fit that made a man’s eyes wander. And wonder. Hope a little. It had never bothered him, her showing her form off because she had quite the figure and he wasn’t controlling. He’d always loved her confidence…

But her eyes were different now. Cautious. A little sad.

The five metres between them felt like 5 miles.

“Dana.” Was all he uttered.

It took her a minute before she spoke. “…Can we talk?”

“You’re back together?”

Jon’s voice – on speaker – filled the air with quiet incredulity. “She said she wanted to give it another shot.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

And they’d kissed after too, just to be sure they still had something. And they did. But it had altered somehow.

“Um, then why don’t you sound ecstatic by that?”

…Because he wasn’t.

“It’s been a while since we broke up.” And it confused him that it was even a point of interest… but it was.

“You’ve split up before.”

“Yeah.” But that felt different from before too.

“You still love her?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

The fact that he didn’t need her anymore?

He’d brought her into the mansion, thankful that Bruce felt compelled to spend as long as he still could in the basement. Then she’d said the words he’d wanted to hear months ago, a year ago, more than that…

And yet…

“I know you love Tish.” Terry started.

“Huh?”

“But do you… need her too?”

“What is this about?”

“Will you just,” hand lifting, Terry rubbed the space between his eyes, “answer the question.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Tish.” And it was a statement, her name. “She… she makes me feel… like a, well, a man.”

It was the last thing Terry expected to hear and yet, he found he wasn’t surprised by it.

“…In a way that the hood never has. As if I wasn’t a complete human being before her.” Jon added.

And… damn, because fuck if that was what Terry had wanted to feel with Dana. And hadn’t.

“She needs me. Like, I can do things others can’t. Like I make her better the same way she makes me better…”

Though Jon couldn’t see it, Terry nodded with him. “…Right.”

He was quiet because, even before breaking up with Dana, he’d never felt better with her. Or more. He’d always felt like Terry McGinnis. Just Terry McGinnis. But he was also the Batman in every single way. He liked being the Batman. He didn’t want validation that way, but he wondered if he even needed to feel like more around a person.

He already was more. He didn’t need an audience to that more.

So, what was his problem?

“Terry?”

“Thanks man.” He mentally stepped back. “I know that took a lot of guts to say.”

“Hey-”

“And I appreciate every beautiful word.”

“Go fuck yourself.” And there was laughter in Jon’s voice.

“Nah, I have Dana now.”

He had Dana now.

Life was good.

…Until it wasn’t.

“If you’re not suiting up, why do you need to go? Stay with me. Please.”

“It’s just a few gang bangers. They can wait another night, c’mere.”

“You’re leaving? Now? I know you have priorities but, my family is here!”

“When will you be back? You mean, I won’t see you until tomorrow?”

“Oh my god Terry, your shoulder. I keep thinking that, one day I’ll get up and you won’t come home and I won’t know for hours. Days.”

It became clear that every night was a question for her about where he is and what he was doing. Until her fear made every explanation a weary one. For weeks that blurred into months afterwards, he spent more time explaining himself to her than he did spending time with her. And he’d needed that. Needed, wanted the intimacy.

But he’d made her paranoid with his secrets.

It didn’t help that she didn’t understand his way of life or why he’d chosen it. And he’d tried explaining but he wasn’t sure how much of it had really sunk in for her.

Spending Christmas apart hadn’t been a deliberate choice; she’d made plans in advance that, since they hadn’t been together, didn’t include him.

It hurt that it didn’t hurt him when she went away. Skiing for a month. Bon Voyage.

“Right, because she couldn’t have ordered another ticket.” He’d said to himself, protesting just for the sake of it since he’d been more relieved than anything else – and he suspected she was too – that he didn’t need to spend the holiday’s telling her why he was where he was and how long it took and whether he ever thought about giving up being the Batman as they’d talked about their schedules.

That was another thing: they planned everything now.

Before they’d flown by the seat of their pants. Now they prioritised. At first, he’d been more than happy to give her that piece of mind. Now…

He didn’t need the suspicion, the looks, the ‘did you need to stay out all night’ and ‘did you go to Bruce Wayne straight afterwards’ and ‘are you sure you’re telling me everything’ and his favourite, ‘you couldn’t take just one night off Terry?’

He didn’t need it.

Love turns sour sometimes. He just hadn’t thought it would with them.

“Hey.”

Blinking in the sight of Abigail Queen in Max’s kitchen, Terry dropped his bag beside the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Ssh.” Finger to her lips, Abby gestured towards the living room. “Max is asleep.”

Glancing to his left, through the open door, he saw said woman curled up on the couch. They’d been working the south side, drug deals having taken a bit of a turn in recent months, but Max had work too. He didn’t see her as often as he used to: she wasn’t always available. She said she was fine but, sometimes he wondered.

“Right.” His eyes hit Abby again and then the clock behind her.

It was after 2am.

He walked over to the small kitchen island. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“We drama kids can pretty much get up when we want during theatre season.” Must be nice. “And it’s the week after my mid-year.” She sounded supremely solid about that, like she knew she’d done well in her exams. “I have no classes for a fortnight. I’m visiting my parents next week.”

She was mid-way into her first year, it was February and she 19 years old now. The differences in her were starting to show.

“You look happy.” He quietly told her, slipping onto a stool.

Her smile, though small, was genuine. “I’m doing alright.”

He nodded because in Abby-speak, ‘alright’ was pretty much bouncing off the walls.

He’d seen her once since October, when she’d having a rough time of. Home sick, very tired and working her butt off at school had triggered another one of her crapola episodes; must suck. To have it happen, like he flick of a switch and totally powerless.

She’d told her father, who’d told his wife, who’d given him a call and asked if he could just distract her. Anything.

“Yeah, of course.”

In his head it had been a great idea for her to see the city form the top of Wayne Towers. It was sort of symbolic for him. One of the tallest buildings in the city was owned by the man who’d given him purpose and it was the same building he soared down from when he was hunting the streets late into the night.

“Careful.” He stood to her side, waiting cautiously in case she wobbled she looked pretty sturdy. “We’re pretty sigh up.”

Understatement.

“I’m, not afraid of heights.” She muttered, peering down. “Besides, if I were to fall - not that I’m going to - I know you’d catch me.”

“You don’t even look tired.” He grumbled and she really didn’t. “How dare you be here, looking radiant at almost 3 in morning.” Not that he looked bad; he’d long since grown accustomed to odd sleep patterns, but still; not fair.

Rolling her eyes, he saw her try to quell another pleased smile and felt grateful that he’d been able to do that for her at least.

Since he couldn’t for-

“You want some or are you too much of an adult for hot chocolate?”

He watched her pour something thick, hot and heavenly scented from a small pan into two chipped mugs. He frowned. “Doesn’t smell like hot chocolate.”

“My own recipe.” She slid him one of the cups. “Inspired by many a late night over the past few years, with a Tish twist.” She shrugged. “She influenced me.”

His eyes hit hers over his cup. “A Tish Twist.” He felt himself smile too, “Sounds like a cocktail,” before taking a sip.

Then the flavours exploded in his mouth and… holy shit.

Seeing what was probably a blank expression on his face, Abby’s own scrunched up in a near wince. “That bad?”

“That good. This isn’t hot chocolate.” It couldn’t be; since when was hot chocolate slightly spicy, minty, creamy and not too sweet?

“I do another version with vanilla, cinnamon…” She eyed the way he was gulping it down. “Want some more?”

“Please.” He sighed after swallowing, already feeling the gooey warmth spread through him.

“It’s a winter drink,” she explained as she poured the remainder into his cup, “and it can either help you sleep or-”

“Keep me awake?” There was enough sugar in it for that but it was also comforting enough to put him into a coma, especially against the cold outside. His eyes were already drooping. “Thanks.”

There was a beat of silence as he cradled his cup.

“You okay?” She asked and her tone, quiet, was hesitant. Caring.

Shit. He exhaled. “Jon told you?”

Because he’d talked to Jon who’d said exactly what he’d been thinking. You don’t need this Terry.

He loved her. But what was missing? What was he doing wrong?

“No.” He peered at Abby, one brow arched. “Hey, girls know stuff.” She promised, leaning on the table top with her elbows. “You’ve got that weird frown thing on your face.”

“Weird frown thing?”

“That thing.” She flicked a finger off her cup to his brow. “It’s a little curve in your forehead that pushes your eyebrows down.

He blinked at her. “I have a tell?”

He didn’t like that.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I might be wrong. But your face gets beyond serious sometimes.” She drank from her own grey cup. “Girl problems?”

No. Not going there. Not with Abby. “Abby.”

She pressed her lips together. “Sorry.”

“I… there’s just nothing to say.” Nothing that hadn’t been said. Or thought. He just didn’t know what he needed to do.

“Alright.”

He swallowed the last of his chocolate, just in time for it to mellow the tang of bitterness that crawled up his throat. “Thanks for this.”

Sleep. Sleep sounded very good after the week he’d spent cleaning up the streets.

“For what it’s worth,” she softly called after he’d turned and he looked back, “I think Dana’s just scared. I’m just guessing – I don’t know a lot – but she’s had no time to get used to you being who you are. It hit her all at once so she left. Then she thought it through and it may take a while again to… to build up that rapport. I mean, if you’re certain about the two of you, maybe time will…” she trailed off, but he got it.

Hope.

“And if not, you’ll find it again.”

The promise of forever in a person.

He just looked at her.

Her head tilted. “You’re a catch.”

He swallowed. “Am I?” And it was probably the most vulnerable he’d allowed himself to be in a long while, but-

This is your life. It’s what you’ve chosen. And I will never judge you on it.

That.

“Let’s see.” Pretending to think, Abby rested her chin on her hands. “You’re not bad looking.” She winked and a huff-like chuckle made his chest move. He knew he was attractive: he’d been shown enough times but it wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to rely on. “You’re educated, you’re the nearest thing to an heir Wayne Enterprises has,” this made him wince because as true as it sounded, the thought was terrifying, “you’re focused, loyal and a genuinely good person and you take the time you could be sleeping, saving people.” Hushed, it was as if she was speaking about this – seeing this - for the first time and was in awe. “There is nothing mediocre about Terry McGinnis.”

He felt it too; the words, her tone, the way she was looking at him… all of it.

Suddenly, the usual hair rub didn’t seem to fit and he found himself wrapping an arm around her neck over the table, bringing her head under his chin in a stretched, one armed hug as he whispered. “Thanks kid.”

“Anytime.”

Days later, he found himself slipping back inside Max’s apartment for an update, smelling of smoke and stopped at the large flask on the surface of the kitchenette.

A note was stuck to the side:

It keeps.

Warmth.

He was about to twist it open when he caught sight of a further message on the back:

Smile. And dance more; I know you can. Girls like that.

He shook his head. Now he had two Queens giving him advice.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Time passed faster than expected and Terry found himself one early summer month outside the dressing rooms at Gotham University’s Performing Arts Theatre.

After a short while, where he’d watched pretty girls and – somewhat discomforting – prettier guys flitter by, the door he was waiting in front of opened and Abby stepped through, still in ‘make up’. “Terry! They said someone was… What are you doing here?”

Pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against, his hands came from around his back. “Flowers for Milady.”

Her mouth opened in an ‘O’ as she took the huge bunch of white roses. “They’re beautiful.”

“Your parents are already inside.” Each bearing gifts and looking beyond excited to see their only daughter. “I can’t stay: Jon wanted me to tell you he was sorry too but he needs my help: Deadshot’s roving tonight.”

It wasn’t the original Deadshot (which wasn’t a rare occurrence, criminals playing legends), but whoever had stolen the moniker was just as precise. And just as deadly. His target was a Starling elitist with ties to the government.

She shook her head. “No, it’s alright; Jon warned me in advance. And Mum tracked Deadshot: I don’t want him out there either. A night at the theatre is easy recompense. Besides,” she added in a nudge on his arm, “you’d be asleep ten minutes in.”

Possibly. “Hey, I am not as bad as J-”

“Abby! Come on.” A voice – a male voice – shouted from inside the room.

Oh yeah…?

“Just a minute!” She called back, a little flustered, and Terry found a great need within him to nig at her. Just a little.

“Who’s that?” He didn’t smile. And if he had to bite his lip to make sure he stayed that way… no one knew but him.

Her tone was overly airy. “A friend.”

Sure. “Do I need to have a word with this guy?”

“No.”

Was that a fast answer? I think that was fast.

His expression oh so serious, he couldn’t help his next question. “Are you being safe?”

“Oh my god, Terry.”

“Hey,” don’t laugh, “I’m just-”

“I know exactly what you’re doing.” Okay, he did laugh, but it was a quiet thing. She bit her lip. “Just… don’t tell Jon?”

“My lips are sealed.” He leant closer, utterly serious. “For now.”

It was absurdly cute how put on the spot she looked, what with that pleasant pink flush on her face that kept a smile firmly on his. He moved forward but her hands immediately came up. “Don’t even think about it Ter! I’m on in 15 minutes and have zero time to fix static hair.”

His grin was lethal. “Would I do that?”

Her eyes narrowed.

Laughing again, he raised his hands. “I promise I wasn’t going to do that.” Reaching around her, he pulled her into another one-armed hug. “I think we might be passed hair ruffles anyway.” Not that he’d stop.

She grumbled into his chest.

“Break a leg.” He called as he walked away – fast. “Not literally,” he winced, shooting it to her over his shoulder, “but-”

“I got it! Go.”

He went.

His business acumen had definitely soared the past year but he hadn’t expected this.

“It’s what I want Terry.”

And what the old man wanted, he got.

Terry lifted his head from the papers in his lap. “You’re practically giving me everything.”

“The company runs itself; good people are in charge, they’ll only come to you if there’s an issue.” The old man walked towards him. Even if Bruce was having one of his ‘bad health days’, he’d never rely on a chair. “You’d be the owner in name only.”

Terry couldn’t do anything but look at him. “Why do this now? You have years…”

“Don’t be naïve.”

“We both know you’re too stubborn to die from old age.”

A slight smirk was all Bruce gave him. “I need to be sure.” Terry felt his eyes on him as his own returned to the Will in his grasp. “You already know what I want, my plans… this house - the basement - is already yours.”

“I don’t-”

“It’s my legacy.” The Batman rumbled from where he stood against his cane. “I need to know that it won’t die with me.”

“If you don’t know that by now, then you don’t know me and I’ve wasted my 20’s with a madman.” Terry murmured, looking him in the eye. It had been a long time since Terry had been child enough to look away. “Your legacy will continue. But you’re not dead. Not yet.”

“…Not yet.”

“Meh, I don’t need this right now.”

Terry practically tore the cowl off his head. “Need what?”

Jon blinked at him. “I’ve got plans with Tish.” He looked him over. “What’s up with you?”

Sweat made Terry’s fringe stick to his forehead and it dripped down when he shook his head, speaking low. “It’s nothing.”

“Dude, it takes a lot for you to snap like that.”

Because, control.

“It’s nothing.” Towelling off the back of his neck, he pulled off his gloves but moved no further to change. He felt Jon’s stare on his back and his eyes closed. “Wayne’s altered his will.”

He heard Jon’s sigh, because Jon knew what that meant. “Sorry man.”

The signalling of an end, no matter how far ahead that end might be.

“It isn’t a big difference but his doctors were talking a while back and… I don’t know, normally I’d have told them to stick their diagnoses where the sun doesn’t shine. Bruce would have been the first to say fuck that noise. But sometimes I look at him and…”

He could see the ravages of time on him and the counting down of a particular clock.

And Terry wasn’t ready. Not even close.

“I can’t believe he remade his will.” He confessed to the silence. “When he…” he swallowed because he couldn’t even say it yet, pansy. “When it happens, I’ll basically be the heir to his kingdom. To glory in his works and despair. Or, hopefully, not.”

He’d been to one to many plays recently.

“Terry?”

“I don’t match up.”

Jon made a noise that on any other day would have made Terry smile. “Fuck you don’t. The amount of good you’ve done for Gotham City-.”

“Is neither here nor there.” Terry said to him, turning to gracelessly sit on the bench in Jon’s ‘lair’. “The Wayne legacy belongs in the hand of a Wayne, not a McGinnis. Half the criminals I faced when I first started were either remnants of a time long gone or people who remember Batman in his glory days; not the cocky jerk dressing up like him.”

“Maybe when you were a teenager, 10 years ago, sure.” When he was 18 and resolved to being more than he was. “I’d give you that. But now?” Brows high with the question Jon walked over to him. “You’re building a legacy of your own. Some people may remember the Batman Bruce Wayne used to be but it’s your name on their lips when the shit hits the fan. It’s your image they see in their heads, the picture of you flying through Gotham like a fury that the media can’t get enough of. And it’s thanks to you that people feel like they can walk home again at night.” He dipped his head and muttered, “Though they probably shouldn’t,” as he sat opposite him. “And one day, some punk ass kid’s going to be living up to your legacy. Your works. Your name. And asking those same questions”

For a moment Terry was silent.

Then, “That’s fucking terrifying.”

“Yeah.” A shaky laugh left Jon. “I get where you’re coming from though.”

He did. Oliver Queen, like Bruce Wayne, was a living, breathing legend who Jon felt he could never match up to. But Terry had only just understood that maybe Jon didn’t want to. Maybe he liked having that unreachable pole to measure himself upon. Something no one could take away from him. Something he could admire and say to himself ‘my father did that’.

There was also a freedom in it. As long as Oliver was still alive, Jon could never truly fail the mantle.

But one day – decades from now – Oliver would die. And then Jon would have to bear the full weight of his own legend.

It was just that, Terry’s time had come first. Way first. And going through it now, Terry knew Jon wouldn’t be ready to let go either.

“There’s another thing.” Terry told him, unfastening his suit down the side. “The money.”

Jon blinked. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah.”

“Man,” and that eat shit grin was back on Jon’s face, “you think you were popular with the ladies before; you’re going to be beating them off with a stick.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously; you look like someone who walked off the set of Dark Knight.” A vampire drama Jon had found far too much humour in the title of. “Well, that and the TMZ.”

Another thing to look forward to: increased paparazzo presence. And he may have had Wayne, a man who gave him more money when he’d started working with him than any teenager could hope to have - more money than Terry had ever hoped to have - but it wasn’t the same.

“Terry.”

He looked up at an unexpectedly serious John.

“He isn’t going anywhere yet. He’s got years; there’s too much in him to call it quits.”

Terry hummed. “It’s like he’s waiting for something.”

“A sign?”

“Or something.”

Jon was right. There was time. At least a little. Years…

The moment came.

You wanted it, Terry thought. Well, here it was.

A personal foe.

Some forgotten, barely successful attempt at a villain who Terry had torn down when he was 18, had resurfaced somehow, someway: the details were inconsequential.

The problem was that, like Bruce had once told him, the worst of the worst… they target loved ones. Family. Partners. Friends.

Lovers.

Ten years had passed and this guy had still managed to connect the Batman to Bruce, Bruce to Terry… and Terry to Dana.

Head bowed where he sat, Terry’s mind flew through the past few hours. How did this happen?

How did it get so complicated and yet, so simple?

“We’ve got a lock on her Terry.”

He hadn’t really spoken to her that morning.

After they’d broken up, he’d seen her a few times - with friends or with a guy and as he’d tried hard not to gouge his own eyes out - and he’d either stood there awkwardly or he’d turned away from her. When they’d gotten back together, he hadn’t kept up with who her friends were. So, he hadn’t known where she was or who she was with. He’d contacted old friends who were stunned to hear from the guy most likely to die via gang warfare in school and hadn’t gotten anywhere with any of them.

They’d all thought he was stalking her.

But he had back up – he’d always have back up: Jon had his six, Mrs Queen got him a location, keeping check on com chatter and transport… what could go wrong?

Turns out, a lot.

“Why is she in there?”

Jon’s voice on the com had hissed down his ear and he felt his stomach contract when the reason why became clear.

The Savant Grand Theatre. A huge building where Abigail Queen – this very same day – was taking a third tour. Star struck with the place, was how Jon had out it. Finishing her first-year top came with the pick of the best of the best work placements over the summer for the end of the following year provided she remained in the top 3 percentile. So there she was, touring the building just before her second year could start.

Also, the supreme ass-wipe who’d sent him the death threat – so nice of him to tell them his plans – was a bomb expert.

She doesn’t know I can see her Terry-boy. But I’m right under her feet. Getting to you is pointless; I’ll lose, but getting to her? It’s so simple, I’m laughing.

I know all about you.

I know where you live; who your friends are… you can’t stop me.

Yes, I can.

You ruined me. Now I’m going to ruin you.

The fuck, why?

Moving – flying as fast as he could – he’d been nearing the Theatre; Mrs Queen having sent armed police to their location – and Oliver Queen in a helicopter, because their baby girl was in there - and an order to evacuate the premises.

Which would leave just Terry, Dana and the bomber – and Jon, when he finally got over there. Don’t need wings, my ass.

And maybe this was why he’d never thought of telling Dana. Dana who’d thought it was the perfect time to get to know Abigail Queen because Terry had – unwittingly – told her about the girl he knew from Starling. And where she’d be that day because he’d planned a lunch between herself, him and Jon.

And unfortunately, Abby had seen her first.

Jon would explain later that Abby knew what Dana looked like because Jon had shown her a picture. Seeing her there, after the alarm shrieked into existence, she’d followed her; not knowing that Dana had received a set of instructions to obey lest the mad man kill her anyway, not knowing anything at all…

It’s what saved them both.

He’d sped up the outside of the building, the arms inside ringing in his ears just as Abby reacted.

10

9

Loud noises used to be a stimulus for her. In the past, they’d made her freeze. She’d obliviously progressed since then.

Now they made her run.

8

7

6

She’d practically flown across the rooftop, intercepting a stunned Dana before the woman could cuff herself to the rail as per instruction, grabbing her hand – ignoring the ‘hey, what are you doing’ - and sprinting with her to the north side where the building veered off into an overhead path towards a main road.

5

4

Pushing Dana into an alcove that led to a set of stairs down the side of the building and away from the destruction inside, Abigail had turned at the very last second, looking behind her, over the rooftop-

-Because she’d heard him scream her name.

“Dana! ABIGAIL!”

2

1

Her mouth opened – to say what, he’d never know – because the ground beneath their feet rumbled powerfully before it crumbled inwards, the sides fluxing, swallowing Dana into safety and catapulting Abby towards the edge-

“NO!”

6ft, 4 inches of predator tore after her – a black gash streaking through the sky – but the building was crumbling, falling, slanting and he glimpsed her wide eyes before she fell over the side.

And then he was diving after her. “Abigail!”

Super charging the boosters on his suit, he shot down – arms stretched out - in time to reach her before she hit-

Before she could hit the water.

The building was bent tall over the river. They were high up enough that-

No.

“Look at me!”

She did. She was. As the tips of her fingers and his touched, he realised she wasn’t even screaming. Instead she looked-

She looked like she knew he’d catch her.

“I’m, not afraid of heights.” She muttered, peering down. “Besides, if I were to fall - not that I’m going to - I know you’d catch me.”

Faith.

His arms were around her before he could wonder at his speed – the strength that was suddenly in him - but his body was spinning, his back facing the water-

“Terry.”

He woke up with a choked gasp, retching water. “Ab-” a fit of coughing shut him up and he twisted where he lay, curling slightly to offset the pain in his chest.

“You’re okay… thank God.”

Abigail.

It took effort – too much for a simple roll – to turn, to pull himself against the dirt beneath him but he had to see her, had to see that she was safe. Unharmed. Untouched. Still Abby.

Squinting through his mask, he saw her; her face pressed into the dry earth next to his, his body half covering hers with the roll but by the position of her legs he had a feeling he’d been in her lap before he came to.

“So,” breathing like he’d run a marathon - she was too; her eyes on his, slowly blinking - his voice sounded like a 40 a day chain smoker, which considering his voice modulator, was unsettling. “That was a fast ride going nowhere.”

After a weary chuckle, her personal ‘you’re a dumbass’ eye roll was cut short when her stayed closed.

“I’ve heard of falling into a girl’s arms but this is just…” yes, lame joke but he was a little fragile… but then her eyes didn’t reopen. “Abby?” He breathed; his gut clenching and he dragged his arm up to touch her throat. “Abigail?”

Tell me she isn’t hurt. I’ll do anything, just tell me she isn’t-

“I’m alright. You’re alright.” She muttered, her eyes fluttering back open; her brow slightly furrowed. “Stop worrying.”

Like, you hypochondriac, you.

He stared at her, hard; his suit making his eyes taper. “Stop worrying?”

“Yep.”

She almost sang that.

The little- “You…” he was speechless.

Her eyes opened fully, cocked a brow. “What?”

Little Abigail - tiny nosed, face round and cute like a button - Queen, giving him sass.

Though she wasn’t so tiny anymore. And her face had changed; it was still… cute, symmetrically perfect even, but it was also different. That difference was confusing.

“So, you’re fine?” The energy he had left, he focused on the insane girl that was lying under his arm and shoulder: both were pinning her to the floor, she doesn’t seem to mind. “You just fell - God, I don’t even want to know how high up that was because I’ll have to tell Jon and my gravestone needs to be picked out - into the water and-”

“CPR.”

Stopped in his tracks.

“What?”

This ridiculous smile was on her face; ridiculous because no one should be able to smile like that, with so much softness, after what had just happened. “I performed CPR on you.”

Brain. Did. Not. Compute.

“…Excuse me?”

She looked so damn pleased with herself. “I pulled you out of the water; you float pretty well. Something hit you on the way down, the water did the rest. And I’m a pretty good swimmer. Dad made sure.” He would after what happened to him when he was her age. Her smile vanished. “I didn’t know if you were breathing Ter.”

I didn’t know if you were breathing Ter.

So he’d scared the shit out of her after she’d been scared shitless.

“I’m sorry.” He offered quietly, his head dipping down near hers.

But she looked thrown. “Why?”

He blinked because, what? “I scared you.” He said slowly, feeling weirdly insecure at the strength in her; strength he didn’t recognise the name of. “Weren’t you scared?”

“Of you? No.” She left it there.

“I…” he slumped. “I have no idea what to do with you right now.”

“Ugh.” Her eyes finished their role this time as she settled under him. “Men.”

He closed his eyes; surprisingly comfortable where he was. “I know: we need help.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, “I’m going to be crying in about ten minutes anyway. It’s a girl thing. I’m probably in shock.” Her nose scrunched then and – cute. “You might want to go; it’ll get ugly and messy…”

He shifted a thick piece of her hair that was stuck to her face and the second the tips of his gloves touched her skin he felt the tremors. “I’m comfortable here.”

“I mean it.” Said the girl who’d just saved Dana from being flung off a precipice with a shaky voice: he wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m talking snot, the works.”

“Well tell me when you’re ready, hero.” He manoeuvred them  - wincing, shit, when a spike of pain shot up his back - so that she was off the ground and sprawled over him. “My arms are waiting your mess Miss Queen.”

“I- I think you were hurt before.” And that’s where the concern she should have had for herself was: it was on him. “You’re back…”

Her hand moved round to touch him there but he caught it, moving it to join the other on his chest.

“Later.”

He could wait.

She couldn’t.

A little while after, sat there; half in his suit – half out of it, Terry had another choice to make.

Actually, it was the same choice as before. And suddenly it was also much easier to make.

“Big damn hero.”

Face wet from his shower, Terry patted it dry. “Shut it.”

“No, I mean it.” Standing in the doorway, arms folded over themselves and still in green leather, Jon was smirking. “You got a concussion, your back was blown to shit but you still managed to save the girl.”

Concussion. Peering into the mirror before him, he lightly dabbed the damp towel to the bump/laceration just inside his hairline. “Slight concussion. I’m not sleeping after this so don’t worry.” He threw the towel in the hamper. “And my back’s fine.”

There was silence for a full 20 seconds longer than the 1 it normally took for Jon to come back with something. It made him look at him.

And Jon looked dead serious. “You saved her.” He sounded so grateful…

Terry gave him a look but spoke just as quietly as Jon had. “It’s Abigail.” No thanks needed. Not ever. And- “It’s what we do.”

Nodding, Jon swallowed it away. “Did you want to speak to him?” The bomber.

Jon had gone for him, moments after Terry had caught his sister. After 5 minutes of collecting oxygen, Terry had flown - with Abby in tow; I don’t need to be carried Terry, yes you do - beyond the fallen structure, past the hundreds of people (who weren’t freaking out and running far from falling bricks and mortar) catching snapshot after snapshot of Batman carrying Miss Queen - it would make the paper for weeks afterwards - up to where the first ambulances, fire brigades and police vehicles were lining up…

Which just so happened to be exactly opposite the area where Oliver Queen’s helicopter landed.

Moments after he’d delivered Abby into her father’s waiting hands – the look on the older man’s face had been so far beyond thankful, Terry hadn’t known what to do with it – Jon, the Arrow, had shown up with the bomber almost in traction.

In moment’s Terry had the man in his grip. Less than a second after that, they were shooting up into the sky.

They didn’t come back down until he had Mr Bomber snivelling.

It lessened, a tad, the unsettlingly dark look on Mr Queen’s face. But not the fear in Jon’s.

Before leaving, Abby – in a moment of either sheer insanity or courage – had hugged him. The Batman. A small thing; she hadn’t thrown herself at him. She stepped into him slowly; making sure the TV crews that were already rolling captured the act of gratitude, whispering her thanks when it was over.

From the side, Dana watched… she didn’t move. It was the right thing to do. But it was also symbolic.

Through the mirror, he gave Jon a ‘you’re smarter than that’ expression. “And give him a greater sense of his own self-importance?”

A clue? No.

“It took more than I care to admit to not scalp the fucker. Couldn’t shut the fuck up.”

Brows joining, Terry’s sarcasm rang clear. “How dare the madman be mad and shit.”

“I’m such a fuckin’ goody-two-shoes.”

“Yeah, who’d have thought? Jon Queen. The example.” The Arrow.

The guardian of Starling City.

Jon grinned at the floor. “I’m not the one who leapt off a capitol building and dove down to save a life. I’m also not the one who survived a night in what might as well have been a war zone. Badass.”

Pulling on a shirt, carefully, Terry hummed. “So, if I’m not a goody-goody, what am I?”

And it was one of those few moments bro’s are allowed to have, the kind that make you question your manhood. Jon’s face softened before he muttered words that were anything but.

“You’re The Batman.”

Reticence.

Or maybe, he was just beginning to understand both himself and his life. And how he wanted to live it.

He’d found fulfilment. Sometimes that calls for sacrifice.

“You’re ending this?” And she didn’t quite believe it, Dana. He could tell. “After everything we’ve been doing to try to make it work, you’re giving up?”

That’s how she sees this? “Giving up? No, I’m giving in.”

She shook her head. “What?”

This probably looked like it came out of nowhere for her, since he’d always been the one to cheerlead them.

“We don’t work Dana.” They really didn’t. A while ago, he would have been so angry, so heartbroken at that fact. Now? He felt acceptance. Sadness. A reticent grief. “The man you want me to be doesn’t exist. And it’s my fault.” He gave her, because it was.

She’d fallen in love with Terry McGinnis, thinking she knew everything that came with him when she hadn’t actually had a clue. And maybe she could handle that, maybe she could learn him anew and accept him for who he was.

Unfortunately, he knew that was asking too much. The image of him in her head would alter and she didn’t want it to be altered. She wanted Terry without the Batman. She wanted Terry enough that she was willing to try to accept his alter-ego life, without really accepting it at all.

The questions, the suspicions, the confusion… the hurt on face whenever he chose to don the cowl instead of stay with her whichever night of the week; like he was choosing it over her each time, and in a very real way he was. But she’d known when they started again what he was and did and that she shouldn’t take it personally.

She still did.

“I lied to you.” He saw her swallow but he didn’t move to touch her. “Repeatedly. And I made you believe that Terry McGinnis was all there was to see.”

“I love Terry McGinnis.” She whispered.

Once, he would have responded with I love Dana Tan.

Helpless, he shook his head. “How could you, when you don’t love the Bat?” he was both. Always would be. “He’s been a part of me, not long after we first started dating. He is me. I am Batman.”

I am Batman.

It was a cross to bear. He bore it gladly.

Like Bruce did.

And it made him see that he needed, demanded both. That if he was ever – for he may never – going to be lucky enough to have the love of a woman then he needed her to love his other face too. Even if she hated it at the same time. And accept that the city was his mistress.

Always and forever.

When Dana looked down, he realised something else that she didn’t see.

If any woman ever did that for him, the love she’d receive in return would more than offset the isolation she would feel at times. The loneliness she’d experience in intervals. The worry and fear she’d have for him on certain nights and the possibility of pain.

He’d love her enough that it would hopefully make his difficult – near impossible to deal with – lifestyle, bearable.

But he and Dana hadn’t let each other do that. They hadn’t let each other in enough. He thought he had but hindsight is 20-20; he realised that when she’d broken up with him – even though it had been more than in her rights to do so – she’d left a mark of distrust in him.

She’d broken his heart.

He no longer trusted her with it.

Nor could he love her the way she wanted to be loved.

“I love you Dana. I’m always going to.” He told her, quietly but emphatically. “But there’s a part of me you don’t accept. That part is vital to me. If you don’t accept it, then you don’t accept me. You don’t truly love me.”

Outrage shone in her gaze. “Terry, I-”

“You don’t. You fucking don’t.” And this was the real Terry. The set gaze, the solemnity, the darkness… he could be light too. Real. But she didn’t want real. She wanted the illusion back that he’d once given to her. “And the love you did give to me, I don’t deserve.”

Because he’d earned it through lies.

“You deserve more.” So do I. “This back and forth we have, it isn’t healthy. And isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Taking a step forwards, towards him, she spoke so vehemently he almost believed her. “We can work on it.”

He took a step back and she faltered. “I want more Dana.” More than the dying embers of a fire. “You should too. I can never be what you want. You’ve been trying to fit me into the image you have of us, of our future together.” He cleared his throat. “I think you need to accept that I can’t be the person you see. I never have been.”

“But I love you.” Teary eyed, every inch her shouted pain, disbelief and anger. “I came back to you.”

“You saw me on the news that night and it reminded you how much you missed what we once shared. It made you regret your choice.” And made her want it again. “But that ended.” And though his voice was clogged with emotion, he’d never sounded firmer with her. “We deserved to try again but I think we both know we can’t make it work.”

Standing there, outside the hospital room where Abby was getting checked out – where Terry had told her he’d speak – Dana looked him over. From the injury to his head, to the partial suit he wore.

“You’ll never find another woman like me to love you.”

And it was probably the most vindictive thing she’d ever said to anyone. And if the way her eyes flashed immediate remorse, she knew it too.

She didn’t take it back.

Part of him – the part that had almost fallen into the criminal element of Gotham - believed her.

But another part of him immediately thought; no, I won’t. I’ll find better.

He didn’t voice his thoughts: he just looked at her… passionless.

“Goodbye Dana.” He said, before he turned. “I’m sorry.” Before he walked away.

She’d done it first after all.

He felt Jon eyeing him the moment he entered Abby’s room. “You ok?”

Nodding, he let out an exhale; his own eyes watching Abby nod and shake her head at the doctor’s questions. “I am.”

And he was.

He especially was when Mr Queen shook his hand: it was less of a hello and more of a thank you for my daughter.

And he didn’t say that his goodbye to Dana was so relieving it hurt, nor did he say that it broke something inside him. A remaining piece of youth he quietly grieved over.

But it was due.

Batman wasn’t a child after all. And I am Batman.