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“I'm going.” Tim's voice didn't leave room for argument, not that he would have expected anyone to try arguing with him at the moment. He didn't know who the new kid was—he wasn't sure he cared, other than it would be interesting if Damian was getting replaced so soon—but he did seem to take his cues mostly from Dick, and Dick was going to let Tim go. He knew that.
Dick let out a breath, and Tim could actually see the conflict for a moment before his voice hardened. “Tim, we do need to talk, and I actually could use your help—Damian, do not start—with figuring out how to get Terry back to his own time and dimension—”
“Time and dimension?”
“Dude, you almost qualify for the senior discount where I come from. Well, before they raised it from fifty-five and over,” the kid—Terry—said with a smile.
Tim blinked. That was different. The implications of that so soon after the last crisis—after losing Bruce—there was something familiar about him, almost like Bruce—no. Dick wouldn't lie about that, would he? He hadn't found a young clone of Bruce and hid him—but he said dimension and out of time—he'd talked about the future, but what if this was actually a younger version of Bruce?
Tim couldn't allow himself to get distracted by the possibilities. “I can work on that after we get everyone back in Arkham.”
“Should just kill them,” Damian said, getting a look from Dick and an open mouthed stare from Terry. “It would be simpler.”
“You know it isn't. It goes against the principles we follow and the promise you made your father,” Dick told him, shaking his head. “We don't have time for this. Oracle, do we have current locations for our escapees?”
“One of them made the mistake of going into the East End. Catwoman is on him,” Barbara reported. “Batgirl is handling things on the hill. You'll have back up from Black Canary and Huntress in a few hours, but even with Lady Blackhawk's skills, they can't get here any faster.”
“Red Robin's here,” Dick said. “He can take one of the others. Just tell him where to go and where our highest priority besides the Joker is.”
“I can handle one myself,” Damian said. “If you're giving Drake one, I get one. You know I can do this. I am the grandson of Ra's al Ghul. I don't need you to—”
“Terry, are you okay over there? What's wrong?” Dick turned, looking over at the other boy. Tim had turned, too, when he heard something that sounded like someone wretching.
“Sorry,” Terry said, putting a hand to his mouth. “Just kind of... almost lost my cookies there.”
“I heard,” Dick reminded him. “Is this temporal? Maybe it's a sign of entropic cascade failure or—”
“I think that would work differently,” Tim began, “and if he's not in the right time period, then he shouldn't be experiencing it because our world doesn't have a version of him in it.”
“It's not that, whatever... that is,” Terry said. “I'm just really hoping that Ra's never took over his daughter's body in this world because the idea of that being how Bruce ended up with a son that is technically half... well... I think I might still lose my cookies.”
“You're not the only one,” Dick said, shaking his head. “Oh, that's just about as bad as—Never mind. Not going there. No. Talia was never taken over by Ra's. She fought to stop that happening to Damian. That's not something we need to go into now. We have escaped prisoners from Arkham, and we need to deal with them. Terry, you're staying here. Don't argue. We don't know how much damage you interacting with the world here could do to the time stream and the fabric of the universe. Damian, you're with me. Tim—well, you know what to do.”
“Yeah,” Tim said, almost smiling despite everything. “I do.”
“I can't believe I'm stuck here in the cave. This sucks.”
Alfred gave the boy a look. “I find being in the cave most preferable to being in the 'field.' I do not enjoy or fully understand the need you all seem to share of putting your lives on the line and taking the risks you do. It is, I fear, an exercise that will only end in tragedy, however good your intentions might be.”
Terrence sighed. “I've seen some of that for myself, but I know I could be helping. Those freaks from Arkham? I read up on them. I've even faced some of them—Joker and Mr. Freeze. I can help. I should be there.”
“And would you forgive yourself if something happened that harmed not only this world but yours as well?” Alfred asked. “It is difficult to sit inactive, but sometimes that is the only course of action available.”
“It is totally not schway.”
“I do wish Mistress Oracle could speak with you. She knows better than anyone what you feel now,” Alfred said, thinking that a discussion with Miss Barbara could help put things in perspective for the lad. Unfortunately, she was busy coordinating the efforts of the others and this one, he feared, was too much like his father.
Terrence would leave the cave. He would go after the others. Alfred should sedate him and stop him, knowing what he was about to do, but with the lives of several others that he cared for on the line—Richard, who was burdened with so much carrying on in Master Bruce's absence, being the hope a whole city and one extremely dangerous child needed, and Tim, who was grieving and lost and putting all his faith into what might have been a lost cause—Alfred might not want to accept the needs of the many over the needs of the few.
As glad as Dick was to have Tim back, as much as it seemed like they now had a chance to mend the rift between them and fix things, as much as he needed Tim's help with this Arkham breakout and getting Terry back to his own world, Dick almost wished he'd stayed away.
He wished Damian didn't see everything between him and Tim as a competition. Dick might even have been willing to give Damian his own assignment if he wasn't worried—again—about Damian taking things too far. He wanted to trust the boy, and there were times he had to, but Damian was the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul. Only a fool would trust that kid completely, and Dick wasn't a fool. He'd been raised with plenty of paranoia and distrust. He just knew how to hide it a lot better than Bruce did.
Bruce had told him once that he was the better man. Dick wasn't so sure about that.
“Batman,” Babs said in his ear, and Dick tried not to cringe when he heard it. Even now, it didn't feel right. “The crowd's been Jokerized. They're turning on each other and the cops that were there to contain the situation—”
“Are now a part of the problem.”
“Yes.”
Dick looked down at the crowd. Jason would have gone straight for the Joker, and that meant he was either keeping him busy or the clown was dead already, and there was a part of Dick that would not regret that at all. “Robin, we need to get the antidote to those people and contain the crowd.”
“And you expect me to do that while you go after the Joker?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Listen to me,” Dick said, trying to restrain the impulse to grab Damian and shake some sense into him. “We already know that Red Hood is here. He is with the Joker, and they might end up killing each other. That doesn't mean that we can ignore what is going on with that crowd. Those people didn't ask for this, and the cops were trying to help. They take precedence over getting the bad guy.”
“If Joker escapes, he'll infect more people. He'll kill them. You know this.”
“I do. Which is why one of us is going to the help the crowd while the other one deals with Red Hood and the Joker.”
Damian scowled. “You will need me.”
“I might, and if I do, I'm counting on you to come for me, but first you have to stop the crowd.”
Terry figured, if nothing else, Dick would have been proud of him for being more aware of his surroundings for once. He shouldn't have been—he'd been focused on the screens of the batcomputer, listening to the chatter from police bands and the heroes in the field—Batgirl who was not Barbara Gordon; Red Robin, who was far from the Tim Drake he knew; Catwoman, someone he kind of wished he'd met before; Robin, who grumbled about everything; Oracle, who seemed to know everything; and Batman, who wasn't doing much talking.
Then again, knowing what he was up against out there, Terry didn't blame him. Robin had his hands full trying to give the crowd an antidote, and Terry wasn't sure how long his half-brother would try before abandoning them to go after Batman. The kid actually seemed worried about him, which was strange.
Still, with all that was playing out on the screens and as bad as the situation was, Terry had managed to pay enough attention to the butler, knowing to switch their glasses before taking a drink.
“Sorry, Alfred. For what it's worth, your cookies are schway, and I really like you,” Terry told him, hoping the sedative was a mild one and wouldn't be too bad to wake up from, “but I know when I'm needed and right now, I'm needed. They're getting slagged out there, and I can't sit here and let it happen.”
He pulled on his cowl, grabbed some more of the Joker antidote, and went for one of the bikes. This wasn't really what he was used to, but he'd make it work. He'd taken one like this for a spin once, just to see what it was like, and for outdated technology, it wasn't bad. Mr. Wayne had been angry, but it was so worth it.
Besides, when he got closer, he could fly.
“I knew you'd come. You had to come. You have to ruin everything.”
“I'm not here to ruin anything,” Dick said, walking into the light. Jason had known he was there the moment he entered the room, and there wasn't any point in trying for surprise. They were both trained by Bruce. They'd fought together in the past. They'd fought against each other. They knew each other far too well for pretenses.
“You mean you're not going to stop me from killing him? Yeah, right.”
Dick shook his head. “I don't have to stop you. If you were going to do it, you'd already have done it by now.”
Jason's hand shook, the crowbar in it dropping splatters onto the ground as the Joker stirred slightly. Jason kicked him. “He needs to suffer the way he's made everyone else suffer.”
Dick snorted. “Do you think it changes anything if you make him suffer? It doesn't matter how long it takes you to kill him. He doesn't learn anything from torture. He won't change. It doesn't give you any satisfaction. Killing him won't make a difference. Think about it—how many times have you been close enough to do it? And yet he's still alive. You could have done it, but you haven't. It's not because you can't. Not because you're not angry enough. Not because he hasn't suffered. You know, deep down, that it won't give you what you really want.”
Jason threw away the crowbar, and Dick reached for a pair of batrangs, knocking the guns out of Jason's hands as soon as he reached for them.
“Batman stopped me before. That's why he's alive. That's the only reason he's alive,” Jason said, forgoing weapons and going for hand-to-hand combat. “Because all of you are too damn chicken to do what you need to do, too stuck on outdated principles that don't work in Gotham.”
“Maybe they seem outdated, but they are what separates us from them,” Dick said, switching between fighting techniques and wishing that Bruce hadn't been quite so thorough in training Jason—or maybe that was stuff he'd picked up after his resurrection. Either way, they were too closely matched for Dick's liking. “I'd rather be me than him, and I can tell you that it doesn't fix anything. It doesn't erase the past or the pain or make things better. It doesn't give you any satisfaction. The man who killed my parents died, but it didn't bring them back and it didn't heal me.”
Jason tried to kick him, and Dick dodged away from the blow. “That's not the same. You weren't killed by that sick freak. The Joker didn't kill you and get away with it.”
“No, I killed him.”
Jason stopped, caught off guard for a moment before rushing at Dick in a rage. “You're lying.”
“I'm not,” Dick said, catching his fist. “I beat him to death with my bare hands. I killed him. I did just what I'd told Barbara a few hours before that we couldn't do. I did it for you. For her. For what I thought he'd done for Tim. I got there before the others and I killed him. And it didn't make me feel any better. It didn't solve anything. It just made me hate myself.”
“I'm not like you,” Jason said, but even as he spoke, Dick thought the doubts were winning. “You... You did that? You actually killed him?”
Dick grimaced. “Not my finest hour. I don't like talking about it. It wasn't easy to come back from, but yes. I did. Stop this, Jason. It doesn't have to be like this. You are not past saving. I don't believe that. You are my brother. I wanted you back more than you will ever know.”
“You're an idiot,” Jason told him. “Still, you killed the Joker, which makes it hard to hate you.”
Dick smiled. It was screwed up, but it was a start. Maybe Jason could get real help this time, overcome the pit and his anger. He wanted to believe that.
“Aw, isn't... it... cute?” Joker asked, stopping to wheeze and spit blood out of his mouth. “The Bat brats... are bonding.”
Dick threw a batarang at him. “Shut up.”
“Stop that,” Jason said. “You're really making me almost like you, and that's just wrong.”
Dick laughed, pulling Jason into a hug against his will.
“Okay, I know I'm new to the whole Batman thing, but I didn't know we hugged the bad guy around here,” Terry said, setting the wiggling, snarling and cursing mess that was his half-brother on the ground after landing next to Dick.
“Only Grayson,” Robin muttered. “He must somehow believe that it will change us from evil to good if he does it.”
“Don't discount the power of love, hugs, and puppy dogs. These are ancient, mystical forces greater than you realize,” Batman told them, and Terry knew he wasn't the only one staring.
“Don't say stuff like that under the cowl," the guy in the red helmet said. "Although, now that you mention it, there are a few things I always wanted to get someone under a cowl to say. Stuff like, 'you're such a tool' or even one of your dorky phrases.”
“Holy escape artist, Red Hood! Joker's about to get away again!” Batman said. Robin put his palm to his face, and Red Hood tossed a bolas, knocking the clown back to the ground. “Never mind.”
“You're still an idiot.”
“So are you, Little wing. You want to join us in rounding up the rest of them?”
Robin shook his head. “You're not actually going to trust him with that, are you?”
“Why not?” Batman asked, actually sounding like he might mean it. “I trust you, don't I?”
The kid bristled, glaring at Red Hood before turning back to Batman. “That's different.”
“How, Demon Spawn?” Red Hood snorted. “You're an assassin. You've killed. You're not any better than I am.”
Terry put a hand to his own head. “I don't understand. I'm still half-convinced there's something in those cookies. What is going on here?”
“That is a long story. Too long to explain when half of Arkham is terrorizing the city. At least it isn't the Slab this time,” Batman said, sounding like that deserved a shudder. “And you were supposed to stay in the cave. What part of messing with times and dimensions did you not understand?”
“I figured I could disperse the antidote a lot faster than Robin could, and face it, you need me. If you're going to let that guy help, then you have to let me help, too.”
Batman grunted. “Fine, but just for that little bit of blackmail, I'm letting Batgirl pick your name.”
“I have a name. It's—Oh. Crap,” Terry said, knowing he couldn't go by his own name out here, and everyone knew Dick as Batman. “Uh, Batman, I don't suppose we could just go with some kind of numbering system, could we?”
“No.”