beyondthesuit | Dated March 19, 2012

A few hours in and he has to adapt. Healing and dressed like a normal citizen of the island, Terry's world starts spinning itself into some kind of order. He folds up his Batsuit in a knapsack from the clothes box and keeps it on his person, but doesn't wear it. He starts crafting stories in his head, like he used to tell his mom when he came home with bangs and bruises that couldn't be hidden under clothing.

A few hours in and Terry McGinnis is on the island. Batman's brief appearance remains only with the first few who saw him.

Only one obstacle remains and it lives next door to Cass and Steph and, for now, him too. As he sits on the warm ground, trying to figure out what to do and what it all means, his eyes keep drifting toward the other hut. Bruce isn't home now, but if he's anything like the Bruce that Terry knows, eventually he'll come back to his cave. And when that time comes...

Well. Terry's not actually sure what comes after that. Hi. So you don't know me yet. But when you're old and there are no Robins or Batgirls. You get me. How's it going? I'm Terry.

Yeah, that'll go well.

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"You're not getting to the point," I remark, quickly growing more suspicious by the minute. He's hiding something, and while there's a chance that he knows what he's doing in making that choice, I don't make a habit of trusting people I've only just met. I don't have that luxury.

I've been duped plenty of times before, and every time I come away knowing that it's better to be too suspicious than not enough.

"He found a way to cheat? Lay old demons to bed? What exactly does that mean?"

Terry wants to groan in frustration, but he knows that that won't do him any favors either. "I'm not telling you because what the Joker did to beat death? How he did it? It was so wrong and slagged that you haven't talked about it in forty years." It was that bad. That wrong.

To tell Bruce that he killed the Joker for tearing apart Tim Drake's mind? About the night that tainted the Batman name forever?

He won't spit on that legacy.

"That should be all the more reason to tell me," I reply, tone low. Something that I wouldn't talk about in forty years? I wonder. There are plenty of things that I tend not to talk about, no matter how often I run over them in my mind. Jason's death went unacknowledged for years, save for the suit that I kept out in the cave to serve as a reminder.

There was still an important lesson to be learned from what happened, however, and if I can learn that before tragedy strikes, then all the better.

"With all we know about this place, maybe this knowledge can be retained as a warning."

Terry bites down on another sigh, wrestling with himself and the memory of the look of absolute pain hidden in old Bruce's face at the thought of his Robin. Is this the right thing? Maybe if he just gives only as much detail as he has to.

"Way before me...Years and years. The Joker...he kidnapped. He kidnapped one of your Robins and he did some really sick stuff to his head. So sick that you'd had enough. You meant to kill him but it was Robin that got the killing blow."

And it should have been done then. But this part, at least, is easy. This part is Terry's story.

"But the Joker had an insurance plan. His whole self embedded on a microchip, piggy backed on Robin's subconscious. He came up against me. Thought I'd be the same old Bat, have the same tricks. But I got the better of him."

Is it something the Joker would do? Certainly. I already see flashes of Jason in my mind, the way I found him, battered and bruised, the strikes falling any which way. Not in a pattern which would have taken him easily out of commission, but instead wherever physics would land the blows. And if the Joker could find some way to plant his consciousness into another person's body and take it over entirely, of course he would try.

But as far as I'm aware, there's no way for him to manage that without notice.

In that many years, however...

"What happened to Robin? Which Robin was it?"

"He looked fine, before I left. Battered and bruised, but Joker-free."

It feels like a betrayal to say his name and Terry stands there a long time, imagining Tim Drake's face as he slowly slipped back into himself.

"Tim."

Tim. I feel my eyes harden at that. Not Jason. Joker moved on from there. But Tim.

It sounds so much like something he'd do. And the fact that this young man knows, so shortly into his time on the island, that Tim Drake is one of my Robins— neither does he bat an eye at the thought of there being more than one— has me trusting more the idea that he is closely related to me in some way.

Whether or not it's positive, I can't say for certain.

"So what is it that you're trying to get here?"

"What? From you? From this place?" Terry isn't sure he actually has an answer for either of those questions. It's hard enough just moving and letting go of the story, watching Bruce get the same hardness in his eyes that he always had. It translates through years.

"'Cause I guess I want you to believe me. As for the second question, I don't know. I just got here."

"From this conversation," I clarify. "More the former than the latter."

I'm still not convinced that any of us is on the island for a reason. No reason beyond the arbitrary whims of some empowered force or madman, at least. But I'm not much of a believer in fate.

To have that kind of faith wouldn't do anyone favors, from what I've seen.

"One conversation isn't going to convince me of much," I tell him. "I suggest you settle in as well as you can for the time being. My goal is to leave the island. I doubt there's much for us to gain from being here."

It's Bruce. He should know that a few words won't convince him of anything. Terry's smarter than that, knows the old man better.

But the part of him that doesn't think, the one that's all tangled up with instincts and hopes, is crumpling into itself.

"You don't...you don't trust me now. But I swear, in my world, you will."

But now he has no way to prove himself.

I can see something change slightly in his expression. Is it disappointment? Something about him screams of being a child.

And I don't know what to make of that.

"I think we're done for today," I tell him. "But I'm sure we'll run into each other soon."

Let's seem him work up a decent track record first. A day means nothing.

Dated March 19, 2012

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