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Barbara—he could only think of her as Barbara. She wasn’t Babs. Wasn’t Batgirl. Wasn’t Oracle. She was old and firm and looked more likely to arrest them all than don a cowl and join the fight—sat back in her chair and sipped the coffee Flash had made her. She hummed in approval, then glanced sideways at the not-Batman that had appeared alongside her two hours ago.
Dick hated time travel. He didn’t understand it. He especially didn’t understand this future, where Barbara could walk again and Batman was some skinny little kid that clearly didn’t have any training or skill.
Not to mention he was stupid enough to fall asleep in unfamiliar surroundings, in a booth with his feet up on the opposite seat. Still in that high-tech suit that Dick refused to believe could be comfortable. It was a skill only teenagers could manage.
“Kid.” Barbara clicked her fingers in front of the cowl, and he grumbled, flicking at her hand before falling still again. She just smirked and clicked again. “Batman.”
“Wazzimm?” he mumbled, and she tilted her coffee toward him.
“Caffeine.”
“Slag caffeine. Sleep.”
“And you call yourself Batman,” she teased, and he lifted his hand, then stopped and dropped it again, clearly aborting what probably would have been a rude gesture.
“Didn’t you hear? I’m not Batman – he wears tights. Really, really, really disturbing tights…” the kid mumbled, shifting further down in the booth while Barbara hid her chuckle behind her mug. A few moments later, his chest fell back to a regular breathing pattern, and they knew he had fallen back to sleep.
Dick scoffed into his mug. “He’s right. He’s no Batman.”
“He’s good at the glare,” she said lightly, and Dick switched his glare to her.
“This is serious. Everything we all went through and it ends up as that? Can he even fight without that suit?”
“I believe the weeks he does, he calls the most humiliating experiences of his life,” she said, more focussed on her coffee. “He doesn’t like the leather pants.”
“Leather?”
“He refuses to wear tights. This really is very good coffee.”
Dick slammed his fist against the table, but it didn’t have the desired effect. The kid didn’t even shift and Barbara only lazily raised her eyes to meet his gaze again. He leaned over the table, barely keeping his voice in check. “How can you be so calm? You’re not in your safe little future anymore – we have real criminals here. Criminals your gun and this… brat… can’t save you from.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You think the future is safer?”
“It must be, if that’s what passes for Batman.”
Barbara’s smirk didn’t falter. “I won’t spoil the surprise, then. McGinnis.”
“What?” not-Batman barked, his eyes snapping open and making Dick realise he probably hadn’t been as asleep as he looked. He very nearly cringed in embarrassment, but managed to keep his guilt in check for the moment. He hadn’t said anything but the truth.
“Get lost,” Barbara told him, and the not-Batman tilted his head in what might have been a petulant look, under the cowl.
“What, you don’t think I can handle you talking about me with the Old Bird, here?”
“Yeah, that’s what this is about,” she drawled, and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Now scram.”
“Bitter and twisted. All’a you,” he said, and then rolled out of the booth to avoid her punch, laughing as he went. “Alright, alright, I’m going. I think I might go freak out Wayne some more.”
She just watched him go with a fond smile, then looked back at Dick, who had joined the rest of the cafeteria in gaping at the concept of a laughing Batman. Even if he was a not-Batman.
“He’s not useless, you know,” she said, snatching his attention back. “He may not have been trained, but he knows how to get by. He had to, if he wanted to survive the gangs, and prison.”
“Prison? He’s a criminal, too?”
“You all are, technically. Vigilantism. We mostly look the other way, but that’s what you are,” she pointed out, then shook her head. “Terry was a stupid kid that made a few bad decisions. And then he made an even dumber one by stealing the Batsuit and getting himself involved in all this.”
“And yet you don’t put up too much of a fight.” He smirked, picking up his mug and leaning over it. It didn’t feel like he was dealing with Barbara, so much as an old, familiar rival. “A holdover from your own cape and cowl days?”
“I am not my father. I don’t look the other way when it comes to vigilantes,” she said coolly. “I almost had him arrested, more than once. But between him and Bruce, the Tomorrow Knight has proved himself invaluable more times than I can count. As long as he toes the line of the law in other respects, I consider him a private investigator and leave it at that.”
Dick frowned as he swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Tomorrow Knight? It’s not Dark Knight, anymore?”
“Bruce was the Dark Knight. Terry is the Tomorrow Knight,” she said, then smiled wryly. “It’s quite Romantic, really. The old Batman—your Batman—was a symbol of fear. He struck terror into the hearts of Gotham’s underworld. That’s not what the kid does.”
“Yeah, I can’t see that kid causing a lot of fear in anyone.”
She shook her head. “He can, when he wants. He scared the Joker.”
That stopped him. Dick eyed her silently for a moment, swirling his coffee. “The Joker’s still around?”
“He was. In a manner of speaking. I won’t spoil the surprise.”
He noticed the clench in her jaw and the edge to her gaze, and decided he knew better than to push. The Joker was a sore topic for all of them at the best of times, and this was clearly still a dull ache for Barbara.
“Gotham is a cleaner city in the future,” she continued, putting down her empty mug. “But it’s also depressed. The people know they’re in a dead city, kept going only so the overclass have somewhere to do their dirty business deals. The gangs rule the streets, but the police are out in full force. They never catch the gangs committing crimes, and so all they can do is enforce the lesser laws. It’s necessary, but it makes things hard on the lower classes. Terry was symptomatic. Without a good, stable home and a lot of money, kids like him either shipped out or joined the underground. He didn’t have the drive to ship out.”
“I don’t see how that’s any different to Gotham now. Except for the police part.”
“The police are a result of Bruce,” she said. “Batman proved that crime can be beaten. My father cleaned out the police force and made them strong again. Once Batman put fear back into criminals, the police could clean up the streets. But that didn’t heal the city.”
Dick pushed his hair back behind his ear, leaning over his mug again. “And what, by some miracle, the kid is?”
“No miracles. It’s just that Bruce always focussed on the bad guys. Terry doesn’t. He stops to make sure people are alright. Takes them to the hospital for twisted ankles,” she said, then laughed and sat back. “Bruce tells me Terry’s rescued more than one cat from a grisly fate, though Terry denies it.”
Dick snorted despite himself. “Your friendly neighbourhood bat-man, hm?”
“Something like that.” Her eyes lowered, and she frowned, then sighed and shook her head. “It’s more than that, though. Terry – Terry believes in second chances. Redemption. I hadn’t spoken to Bruce in years… he’d become so…”
“Bruce-like?” he supplied with a smirk, but she shook her head again.
“You don’t know. You couldn’t know. But you will.” She took a breath and stood up, and he followed her over to the coffee machine. She didn’t look at him as she began making another cup. “Terry did something. Reminded him of who he had been, and what he could still accomplish. Sometimes I think the damn kid might have done the same to me. He definitely did for Tim.”
“Tim?”
“He was in a bad way for a long time, Dick. And not just… never mind,” she muttered, frowning at the coffee. “Now, the three of us speak almost regularly. Terry even has us meeting for dinner next Saturday, if we ever get back in time. Stupid kid.”
“What am I? Dead?” Dick asked with a grin, and she gave him a shrewd look.
“I don’t think he’s wormed your name out of Bruce yet. And until he’s told, he won’t go looking for you.”
“He seemed to know who I am.”
“Doesn’t mean Bruce has told him. Which means he won’t tell Bruce he knows. They’re funny like that.”
She finished pouring her coffee and turned to face him again, before almost immediately looking away, around at the superheroes littering the cafeteria. Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl were pretending not to watch them, and a few others were doing a much better job of it. Quite a few were openly staring. Not that she minded, really. She was a norm amongst superheroes – she’d gotten used to the looks a long time ago. But she lingered on the Founders, knowing they were more curious about Terry than her. Wondering about the man inside the suit – who Bruce Wayne could have possibly chosen to succeed him.
“Getting back to the point: Bruce always believed the bat was above others. Above the police, above the common people, above you and I. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought – thinks he’s above than most of the people in this room,” she said, saluting the Founders with her mug. Flash blanched and hunched over his coffee, and the Lantern studiously focused on his, but Hawkgirl smirked and raised her own drink in acknowledgement. Barbara nodded in return and started moving back to the table. “He’s never been part of anything – never even seen himself as one of a group.”
“Yeah… It’s one of the things I kinda hate about him,” Dick agreed, and she sighed.
“It’s something he never has grown out of. But Terry; even as Batman, he’s still just another citizen of Gotham. He makes very little secret of the fact he doesn’t work alone. He asks for help when he needs it and doesn’t hide from the authorities until they try to catch him.” She smirked at him as they sat down again. “He understands what it’s like to be lost, and yet he keeps fighting to be better. It makes people feel like they can fight too. He gives them hope for tomorrow.”
“The Tomorrow Knight,” he surmised, and she inclined her head.
“Or so the papers say.” She took a sip of coffee and grimaced. “Not nearly as good. Still, beggars and choosers.”
Dick ran his finger around the top of his mug, considering what he’d been told so far, then looked up again. “He really must have changed. The man I know would never put up with something like that. He beats the optimism out of us every time we even show hints. Says it’s naïve. A weakness.”
“I remember. He lectured Terry on it just last week,” she said evenly. “Bruce disapproves of most things Terry does. But Terry is just as stubborn as Bruce, and learns exactly the same way: hard or not at all.”
“Still, I can’t imagine he’d put up with someone wearing his suit—his symbol—and being so…” He hesitated, then surrendered to the inevitable. “He’s weak. He’s untrained. He’s a smartass.”
“So were you.”
“Bruce trained me how to investigate! He taught me to listen. I didn’t need some high-tech suit to get by!”
She just met his gaze over her coffee cup for a long minute. Then narrowed her eyes with a smirk. “You’re assuming things about Terry. That’s never a good idea. We all made that mistake, and we all paid for it. Even Bruce.”
He raised his eyebrows in silent question, and she shook her head. “They’re more alike than either of them are willing to admit. Sometimes it’s like looking at a shattered mirror: the image is there, but it’s all skewed and back-to-front,” she said wearily. “The anger, the pain, the violence just beneath the surface… it’s all there. But while Bruce wears his out for everyone to see, Terry keeps it hidden until he can use it. Bruce’s cape and Terry’s wings make for an excellent metaphor that way.”
Dick snorted again, and she drank deep from her mug.
“The suit is high tech. It’s protective and strong, and does a lot of things Bruce made us learn by hand. Terry relies on it. Too much, maybe.” She stood up again, looking at him down her nose with a cool, unforgiving gaze that he refused to believe his Babs could give. “A lesson Bruce learned the hard way, Dick, and one you should learn before you underestimate the wrong person: the suit might be all you can see, but it’s not what makes Terry the Batman.”
“You telling me not to pick a fight with the kid, Barbara?” he asked mildly, and she turned away.
“Go ahead. I’m just telling you not to assume you’ll win.”