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"Batman, Bruce Wayne," Terry says, grinning under the suit. "Bruce Wayne, Batman. Or, have you met?"
"Not now," Bruce and his younger self snap at the same moment.
Terry mutters something about broken records, and trots off to help the rest of the time-displaced Justice League get their bearings. They're operating out of an abandoned high school. Terry's abandoned high school, to be exact. Terry's abandoned Gotham, the kid knows these ratty ruins the way Bruce used to know the Narrows and it's not much of an ownership but it's all that's left.
'No Future' is spray-panted along the hallway in orange letters, and Bruce has always wished he could somehow give the kid one but it's been a question of survival. Until now. Until these ghosts from his past showed up and said the magic word, timeline, and the ancient gears in Bruce's head are turning. He can't give Terry a future but he can erase his past, if he plays their cards right.
Even when Diana disappears in front of him, a part of him is thinking: here's proof this is going to work. Here's proof they can still make changes, and it's like the other Bruce can see through him, can judge him for thinking tactically when they know they're both doing it.
Bruce appraises his younger self and finds the contrast between this past-tense Batman and the one that has been here with him much more stark now that he can see them side by side. Younger Bruce's suit has white slits for eyes, where Terry's are massive and adaptive, endlessly tracking to Terry's inquisitive gaze, narrowing and widening to give the boy more information. He's gotten used to it, and finds that he barely recognizes the man in front of him, even though he was this Batman. Easier times are a blur in his ancient memory. And, of course, comparing the two Bruces is a foregone conclusion. The younger Bruce, he acknowledges, has the worse view.
And then he realizes the younger Bruce isn't even looking at him. He's watching down the hall, eyes trailing where Terry had just disappeared, trying to source some getaway tech now that they're down a boom tube. Bruce doesn't say anything, makes his younger self voice it first.
"You gave someone else the cowl," he says. It's not a question. It's just a statement of fact. He's not learning anything about his future that he doesn't already know.
"I've given multiple someone elses the cowl," Bruce replies, even. "He's just the only one to want it."
"Then he's a fool."
"He's a better Batman than you'll ever be," Bruce says, vehement suddenly, and realizes that he believes it.
Younger-Bruce looks momentarily startled, as much as the Bat can ever be.
"The others left?"
This time it's a question, and one elder Bruce can tell he's chagrined to have asked. Especially since it's time travel rules, as Terry might say. Bruce can hear his grin-inflected tone. He doesn't know when he's started using Terry to relate to the rest of the world. He's letting this pause drag on too long, even for Batman.
"You know I can't tell you."
"You're alone," other-Bruce says. "It tells me enough."
"Who knows? Your timeline might be different."
"I can't believe we'd bring another child into this," Batman says. "Especially under these circumstances."
Bruce contends with his younger counterpart's sudden expression of loathing. Not quite self-loathing, in a sense, since it's directed really at another person, but there is a curl of disgust in his lip, a certain venom in his tone. Some of it is anger, lashing out after seeing Diana disappear into thin air, but enough of it is real.
He wonders absently if somewhere in the back of his mind he doesn't hate himself just like this. If, somewhere in his subconscious, the Bat isn't lurking with that same venom. Not that it matters.
"We weren't supposed to live this long," Bruce answers finally. "In this many decades, you find new ways to fail those ideals of yours."
"Of ours," younger-Bruce insists.
Bruce says nothing. This so-called detective can decide how much of Batman's belief system has been sanded down or outright shattered by the arc of history.
Terry's returned, now, and Batman-Bruce almost imperceptibly straightens. He's sizing the kid up, having gotten a better look at his future self. Terry's not oblivious to the politics of it, but pretends to be. He doesn't hide his curiosity about younger-Bruce, but he doesn't approach him, either. Instead, he sidles up to his Bruce, idly checks over the screens splaying out blueprints, memorizing without seeming to.
"Does he look like you did, after the Lazarus Pit?" Terry asks, not looking at either, head cocked to one side.
The other Bruce bristles visibly, this time. Bruce is almost of a mind to laugh. If Terry had been spying on their conversation he couldn't have come up with a better kick to the pride.
No. The boy just knows, somehow, the track younger-Bruce's mind would go down.
"Younger," Bruce answers, and can't help something manic tugging at the edge of his mouth. He'll chalk it up to one too many overdoses on the Joker's Laughing Gas.
He knows exactly how old this Bruce is. He could even probably guess down to the week. He can tell just by the way he's interacting with Diana and John. He can tell from the self-assuredness. This is Batman in his prime, younger than Terry's ever seen Bruce.
"The Lazarus Pit?"
"Younger?" Terry echoes, and turns around, appraising Bruce. "How many years has he been Batman?"
"Don't get your hopes up. You're still green compared to him," Bruce answers. Why is he playing along with Terry? Maybe the self-loathing-of-the-other-self goes two ways.
The boy's having the time of his life making young-Batman squirm. Maybe that's why. Something in Bruce's hindbrain is telling him to give Terry less of a hard time today, and he's learned not to distrust that instinct in their relationship.
Sometimes he and Terry can be so close to the same wavelength, it's like they're two hands of the same beast.
And the storm in the kid's veins matches the fear in Bruce's subconscious. High stakes, dire straits, time travel physics. He can feel the death lurking in their base of operations.
Like always, it gathers around him but never quite touches.
Zatanna used to have a joke, that demons told their children about Batman to scare them. Or was it John Constantine?
Zatanna died a long time ago. Constantine, cockroach-like, might still be alive.
Terry can sense he's in his head, because the boy leans in, pretending to look back over the screens. His elbow taps Bruce's, and Bruce subtly shifts his weight, leaning forward on the cane.
Are you okay?
Yes. And mind your business.
Younger Bruce has made no attempts to get an answer to his question. Just stewed in his fear and disgust, toying with the idea of leaving the room, annoyed with himself for asking questions when he knows better. Unable to stop wondering how he can ensure that he doesn't become the bitter old man he can't help watching, knowing he will.
Even if things don't go like this, he will. Things went wrong with Bruce way before they went wrong with the world.
But Terry will be there, whether Bruce likes it or not. The fucking kid is inevitable.
"In a sense, this is suicide, isn't it?" Terry asks quietly.
Both Bruces snap to attention. They both agree.
They're helping the younger heroes change the timeline. They're killing themselves, Bruce is gambling, swapping their negative-sum future for a clean slate. The timeline has to be healed, that much is true. But it's an unknown, and it's oblivion for Terry and elder-Bruce.
"Yes," he says, finally. What's the point in trying to shield the boy?
"So why are you both still so afraid?" Terry asks, and... it's a good point. The worst that could happen is already going to happen. The worst that could happen has already happened, so much so that they're going to hit a reset button. Terry's undercutting the current of fear-anger-disgust-frustration running like so many livewires between the two Bruces. He reaches for his cowl, and younger Bruce hisses.
"Stop," he says, turning already. "I can't--I can't see who--"
"We need to find Cronos," Bruce says, a little more forgiving. The others trickle in now. The Green Lantern watches the tail end of the Bat-tragedy with a wary eye, mostly so that he doesn't have to look across from him at his future son. "Go."
"He doesn't know the city. A lot's changed," Terry counters, petulant for the sake of it.
"I can still shake down a criminal," young-Bruce answers. "Are they any different now?"
"No," older-Bruce answers.
"Good enough for me."
Other-Bruce takes the out, cape flaring behind him as subtle as a neon sign. The rest of the Justice League, young and old, snap to attention like a spell's been shattered, and the original Bat is out the door. He shoots a final glance at Terry, almost as if he's about to apologize. Then something comes over him, or rather, he comes back into himself, and he's Batman again and everything else is put away. Terry smiles privately, and when the room's relatively vacated, he pulls his cowl up and away, revealing a terrifyingly young man, ready to die.
It still hurts so much when it happens.