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“I thought we had settled the matter of these pretenders,” a young but scornful voice said. Terry fought a groan, trying to wake himself up. Was he dreaming? Must be concussed. His head hurt and he was totally slagged. “That there was no longer a question about the one to wear the cowl.”
“And that is you, right, Robin?”
“Tt. Of course. You are hardly fit for the role.”
In spite of the laughter above him, Terry's eyes focused on the sword in front of his face. Curare? She was here? No, wait, that wasn't her. She wore white and this sword belonged to someone in red and green and yellow—Robin. The one voice had said Robin. That didn't make any sense. Robin was gone. Tim Drake had retired years ago. Nightwing, too.
“This one's skills are sloppy,” the first voice said, still full of disdain. “The other pretenders were more convincing in their act.”
“Act?” Terry croaked out. “What...?”
“Why don't we start with a name?” That was the other voice. Somehow familiar, but not familiar. “And don't say Batman. It's not funny, not around here.”
Terry reached up to his head, wanting to stop the ache. He saw past the kid in the Robin costume and stared. Okay, so the suit was old, but it was familiar. He'd stared at it enough in the cave to recognize it. “Mr. Wayne? Bruce?”
Batman and Robin exchanged a look, and something hit Terry in the head before he could stop it.
“This is an unacceptable risk. He should never have been brought here.”
“Your opinion has been noted. Now be quiet or you can help polish the silver.”
“Tt. Such an action is beneath me.”
“Robin,” ground out a voice that was closer to Wayne's, to the one Terry was used to having in his ear. He was almost tempted to talk to it again, but he didn't want to get hit in the head. Again. He was so slagged. “Upstairs. Now.”
As he grumbled his way upstairs, the kid used words that weren't in any language Terry knew. He started to sit up, and that was when he realized it. “You took my mask off.”
“I had questions,” Batman said, moving around the cot. “There have been a few too many faces under the cowl lately, and some of them were a little too homicidal for my liking. I needed to see who I was dealing with—what I was dealing with.”
Terry considered puking and hoped he wouldn't. “Which is?”
“You appear to be from the future, judging from your suit and your face. I'm going to laugh for weeks if one of my half-baked theories turns out to be true, but I am waiting for the tests to come back before I act on any of them. Let's talk.”
Terry frowned. “You... seem friendlier than I would have expected Batman to be. And you don't sound like... like Batman.”
Batman grinned, hopping up onto the cot across from him. “I can sound like him when I want to. Right now, I'm enjoying watching how much it unsettles you that I don't. Your reaction is interesting. Might be a sign of things to come, might be something that I'll get to laugh about when it's not giving me nightmares, or maybe it's a bit of hope. Hard to say.”
“You know I can't tell you about your future. You'd be lecturing me on paradoxes or something.”
“Not really my style, though I suppose I've been doing it more lately.”
“You're not seriously that nice with your Robins. You're a total dreg to me.”
Batman smiled. “You're not Robin. You're Batman. Takes a lot to put on the cowl, believe me. You need the lectures. It's a whole other world being Batman.”
Terry grabbed hold of the cot. “Who are you?”
Batman's smile didn't stop. Something beeped, and he jumped off the cot, going over to the computer. That was familiar. Almost. The setup was close to what Wayne had back in the batcave, but Terry knew that wasn't Wayne. It couldn't be. The guy sounded... happy. Wayne wasn't happy. Grumpy, temperamental, demanding, harsh, occasionally funny in a sarcastic way, but not happy.
Batman spun the chair around and faced Terry. “So, do you go by Wayne or is there another name I should know?”
Talk about a sore subject. “You know, just because I put on the suit doesn't make me Bruce Wayne.”
“I know that better than most,” Batman said. “You can deny it if you want, but the DNA says you're his son. You should know you have more than a few issues, not the least of which is your half-brother. You want to start with a name?”
“I'm not his son.”
Batman laughed. “Yeah, that sounds familiar, too. I guess we wait.”
“For what? I'm not telling you anything.”
“For cookies.”
Alfred passed the youngest Robin, hearing him once again muttering to himself about killing things and Master Richard's stupidity. He had become quite accustomed to this kind of talk and tried to ignore it. Sometimes that was more difficult than others, but he did hope that this time it would not go as far as it had in the past when Damian attacked Master Timothy.
Then again, while it seemed to have escaped young Damian's notice, it had not gone unseen by Alfred or Richard that their new guest looked very much like his former charge had at that age. In many ways, the man seemed almost a replica of Master Bruce.
This could be quite dangerous indeed.
Perhaps that was why Alfred had baked more cookies than usual.
Since when did Batman talk about cookies? Terry must have been hit harder than he thought. He couldn't remember what happened, didn't know how he'd ended up here, but it must have been one hell of a hit to cause this kind of memory loss. Or brain damage. “What?”
“Here we are, Master Richard.”
Batman jumped up and flipped over to take a cookie off the tray in the old man's hands. “Thank you, Alfred.”
“Richard?” Terry asked. “What happened to Bruce? Is Richard your middle name? Or did I really hit my head and this is all some kind of dream? Is this Spellbinder? Is that what's going on here?”
“Though I am unfamiliar with the name, I do believe this 'Spellbinder' you speak of is not at all the cause of this,” the old man said. “Though I must say, you bear an uncanny resemblance to Master Bruce at that age.”
“And everyone else wanted DNA to prove it,” Batman said, eating the cookie. “What do you think, Alfie? Another Talia or something more... normal?”
“I would rather not speculate. The less I know about the future, the better.”
“Come on, Dick. Give me more to work with,” Barbara said, studying her screens with a frown. She could see everything that was going on around Gotham, everyone of her extended family and friends, except for the niggling silence from Dick.
The man in the bat costume they'd found should have been awake by now. Dick was good at getting people to talk, and he should have learned something—she should have heard from him. She knew he was trying to handle as much of this on his own as he could, but he'd already contacted her once. That meant he would call back again.
She tapped her fingers on the desk impatiently. She should have heard something. If not from Dick, then from the batcomputer.
She had work to do.
“Would you care to explain to me what is happening?” Terry asked. “I mean, the cookies are great and all, but even I know that I'm not supposed to tell you too much about the future.”
Batman rocked back in his chair. Terry had lost track of how many cookies the other man had eaten, but they were schway, so he couldn't blame the guy. It was just weird seeing Batman eat so many cookies. He still wasn't sure what this was—didn't feel like Spellbinder, but Terry couldn't be sure of that—but since this Batman wasn't Bruce, it wasn't as wrong as it could have been. Except—where was Bruce? And why was this guy calling himself Batman?
“So you think I should just answer all your questions because you're allowed to know all about the past?” Batman asked. “This isn't necessarily the world that becomes yours, kid. You can't know that this past is your past. And even if it is, some details are better lost to history.”
Terry disagreed. He needed those details, and he might as well get them here. “Bruce never tells me anything, Richard. Maybe you will.”
“It's Dick. Not Richard. Only Alfred calls me that. And Barbara, when she gets mad at me,” Batman—Dick said—pushing back the cowl. He picked up another cookie and bit into it.
Barbara? Who was—oh, right. Terry knew who she was. “Commissioner Gordon. Right. I forgot she told me you two used to date. Well, until she dated Bruce.”
Dick choked on his cookie. “What? Babs never dated—oh, that's going to leave images in my brain that I did not need. Where is Jason? I think I'll let him kill me this time.”
“Who's Jason?”
Dick stood, and Terry swallowed because in that moment, even without the cowl, he looked just as dark and menacing as Bruce did, scarier even because this guy was in his prime. “I don't know who you are, but there is no way you can be Batman and not know about Jason Todd.”
Terry held up his hands. “Look, Bruce barely told me about you, Dick. I found out most of what I needed to know from Commissioner Gordon. She was the one that told me about Tim. Not Bruce. I only know what she was willing to tell me, and it wasn't much. She didn't approve of me wearing the suit.”
“Save it,” Dick said, pulling the cowl over his head. “Alfred, keep an eye on him. If he does anything—”
“I know what to do, Master Richard. Leave it to me.”
“Hey, Oracle. You have something for me?”
“I have plenty,” Babs said, and Dick had to smile at the sound of her voice. That was familiar and comforting. He needed that after what had happened today. “First off, those metals that the computer couldn't identify haven't been invented yet, though I was able to find some leads on people who may end up inventing them. Secondly, you weren't far off the mark with your theories—”
“You saw what I saw. You knew it wasn't really a theory,” Dick reminded her. No one who looked at that kid and knew Bruce like they did would doubt it for a second. “The minute I took that cowl off, I knew it was Bruce's son. He looks more like Bruce than Damian does.”
“I know,” Barbara agreed. “I haven't been able to track down the mother. Nothing in the databases. That doesn't mean anything. They are far from complete. Mostly we have access to criminals, government workers, and the military. Plenty of people fall outside those perimeters. Including us.”
“Well, that's we do what we do. The glory of it. Fame, fortune, recognition,” Dick said, laughing. It wasn't true, though sometimes he thought they were all addicted to the thrill of the work. He let out a breath. “It's possible that his mother hasn't been born yet. Or...”
“Or, what, Dick? I know that tone.”
“He didn't know who Jason was.”
Silence. Then the sounds of fingers hitting keys with speeds even Babs could manage, no matter what any of the Flashes said.
“I knew that we were dealing with something temporal,” Dick went on. “I didn't detect anything recognizable, no signs of the usual suspects, but he could have come through a method of time travel that hasn't been developed yet. It's possible that he's not just from the future, though. He could be part of another universe. This could be his time. We just don't know it yet.”
“Anything's possible. Have you been able to get anything else from him? Data we can compare and verify?”
“Not yet. I had to break for a moment, and before I got too far into this, I wanted to make sure you'd already destroyed the batcomputer's records of the test. Even if this guy is from another universe, I don't want Damian finding out the results yet.”
“You know that's dangerous ground. How many times did you get mad at Bruce for keeping secrets from you?”
Dick sighed, leaning against the wall. “I trust Damian, but considering what he did to Tim, I don't want to know what he'd do to someone who really is Bruce's son. And this thing is a lot more complicated than his feud with Tim. We don't know how many timelines or futures could be altered if anything happens to this guy. I don't want to take any chances. Damian can hate me for it later. There are bigger things at stake right now.”
“You know who you sound like, don't you?” Barbara asked, and Dick didn't know if he was flattered or sickened by the comparison. “You need anything else from me?”
“Somewhere to send Damian so he doesn't kill our new friend?” Dick closed his eyes. “Even if he doesn't get the results, I have a feeling that he'll take this news about this guy staying for a while about as well as he takes Red Robin's presence.”
“You could call the Justice League.”
“Funny, O.”
“I thought so.”
Dick grimaced. “Mock me all you want, but you know as well as I do that the last thing we need is the two of them going at it while we deal with a temporal disturbance. I hate time travel. And alternate universes. Too many paradoxes for this pretty but empty head of mine.”
“There's a brain in there, too, FBW. You can use it.”
“None of this is my area of expertise. I was hoping not to have to go to the Justice League so soon after taking up the cape—”
“It's not an admission of failure,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “You told me that you took up the cowl because the city needed Batman. They needed to believe in him. The city isn't the only one that does. Damian and this kid need you, too. If that means asking for help, you ask for help.”
Dick nodded. “I'll call them. Thank you, Babs.”
“Anytime, Man Wonder.”
“Alfred?”
The butler looked at Terry and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
Now that he'd said something, Terry almost regretted it. He just didn't know what else to do. He might be able to make a run for it from the batcave, but what good would it do? This wasn't his time, and he didn't know how to get back to it. Mr. Wayne was the one that did all the science stuff. Terry didn't understand most of it. “Will you tell me about Bruce? You raised him, didn't you? After his parents died?”
“I did,” Alfred answered. His face seemed to soften a little, less stern, and Terry figured all of this might be worth it just for meeting Alfred. “Master Bruce was rather a... quiet child. Some might call him troubled. He never could get over losing his parents the way he did. I had so hoped when he met young Master Richard that he might truly start to heal, but even Richard's smiles and antics could not mend so deep a wound.”
Terry nodded. “Losing my dad—it still hurts even after all these years.”
Alfred frowned. “Then Master Bruce is... dead?”
“Oh, no,” Terry said quickly. “Bruce is still alive and kicking. Should have seen him take down those Jokerz. He might be old, but he can still fight.”
Alfred smiled. “I would expect nothing less of him, though I had hoped that he would someday give up Batman to be himself.”
“He thinks of himself as Batman.”
The old man sighed. He picked up the tray, looking at the nearly empty plate. “I was afraid of that. He loved cookies, though. One of the few times that he acted like a child. Even more so, I think, when he was in competition with Richard for them. It was an unofficial part of the lad's training, seeing which of them could get to the cookies first.”
“Wow. Totally schway. I wish my training was like that.”
“Not all of it was fun. In fact, there were many times I questioned Master Richard's involvement. The things he was exposed to, things he learned to do, things he saw, none of it was fit for a child his age,” Alfred said. “It is a wonder to me sometimes that any of you can smile after doing what you can do. The cost of it seems so high most days.”
Terry nodded. Sometimes it seemed way too high, and that was just missing dates with Dana and never seeing his family. Speaking of never seeing his family—no, there had to be a way back. He wasn't going to accept that there wasn't. Someone could get him back where he belonged. Someone in the Justice League. If Bruce was here, he'd know, wouldn't he?
“I don't know how I got here. I don't know if I'll be able to get back where I belong.”
“I'm afraid I cannot reassure you on either of those matters,” Alfred told him. “That is not my area of expertise.”
“He does make the best cookies, though.”
Terry jumped, whirling to face Batman—Dick. “You twip! I didn't even hear you.”
Dick looked at him, arms folded over his chest. “Why do I get the feeling you rely way too much on what that suit does for you and not your own eyes, ears, and mind?”
That was Batman. Lecture and all. Dick was more like Bruce than he probably knew. “I thought you said you didn't lecture.”
“I also said I do it more now,” Dick reminded him. “I've got a new Robin in training.”
Terry shook his head. “I don't know if I'm going to be stuck here for a long time, but one thing I do know—I am not going to be your sidekick.”
“I don't want another one. If I were to have two, there's already someone who has a claim on that spot, and I don't even know if he'd forgive me, but he's got more right to it than you.”
“So Tim got taken and tortured by the Joker already? He already turned him into Joker Junior? Damn. If there was one thing I think I'd try and change...”
“There are a great many things I think we would all change, had we access to the ability,” Alfred said. “I think there are a great many more that we should not be allowed to change, however painful they may be.”
“I guess.”
“Besides, I'm starting to think you're not from the future but from an alternate dimension's future,” Dick told him. “Maybe not even the future. It's hard to be certain. I called in a favor, and a couple of Justice League members are going to help us figure it out—and hopefully get you back where you belong.”
“Thank you.”
Dick shrugged. “You don't have to go if you don't want to. You can always stay for the cookies.”
Terry laughed. “Don't tempt me. These things are pretty schway.”