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Nine in the morning on Friday, Terry and Max were at school, and he was already too tired for this shit. They were studying in one of Hamilton Hill's lecture halls, emptied out lately. He could hear other kids studying quietly, with that muffled sound that betrayed a large soundproofed space. Students were precipitously returning in the days after their ugly experiences with that psycho juvie director. Ha, need therapy for their therapy. Terry watched Max tapping away at her keyboard, dragged his eyes reluctantly to her screen, tried to blink his eyes into giving a fuck. It had been harder lately. If anything, that whole business with the juvenile detention center had been his fucking vacation. He sighed, rubbing his face.
Terry was going through the motions, there was no denying that. No waving it airily away, like he did with his schoolwork. He was slowly losing his grip. It wasn't even the lack of sleep, though it definitely was. There was something else, lurking below. This feeling of a terrible drop. This awful emptiness he had a sinking feeling Bruce was used to. The warmth of the lecture hall was making his eyelids heavy. The only thing that felt real was the pen he was barely gripping in his hand.
"Terry," Max said, pulling him straight out of it. "Spiralling again?"
"More like flatlining," he said tonelessly. "Max, you gotta get me out of doing this test. I've got too many plates spinning. Can't you, I don't know, hack the results?"
"I could," Max agreed, tilting her head and looking up as if she were considering it. "Or you could stop spinning, and study for twenty minutes. You're too smart to let Wayne ruin your future, Ter."
He looked at her with an unamused expression. Kids in Gotham weren't raised expecting futures. He thought about that fucking kid, Shawn, locked up somewhere dark for dropping that psycho Wheeler off the edge of the building. He thought about how he'd tried to get the kid to do something good, just to prove that he could. Why was it that Terry always wanted to prove that these kids weren't bad? When would he stop falling for that shit?
"Fine," Max said. "But you owe me an actual break. We're doing a night on the town with Dana, stat."
Terry opened his mouth to reply but someone beat him to it.
"Did someone say night on the town?"
They wheeled around in their chairs. Chelsea Cunningham was behind them, dark shades and perfect nails, looking for all the world like she hadn't spent the last week in an abusive detention facility getting sleep deprived and brainwashed by a Kevin Spacey lookalike motherfucker.
Dana was with her, and she exchanged a meaningful look with Terry. It read: Chelsea's still not all here. Which, fucking duh. She pulled the shades off and Terry saw a telltale redness in the eyes that meant she was self-medicating. Honestly, Terry kind of agreed with her prescription. Considering that the student psychiatrist at HH had also turned out to be a supervillain.
"Hey, Chels," he said.
"Terry," she replied, with a genuine warmth. She didn't know about his secret double bat-life, but she knew Terry played a part in rescuing them. "You're not planning on doing anything fun without me, are you?"
"Never, Chelsea," Max said, with her crooked half-smile, so Gotham it hurt.
"Good," she said. "'Cause we got some credit to burn with the 'rents, after they shipped us off and all that. We're getting everyone out tonight."
It was a fair point, Terry thought. Good on Chelsea, raising a little hell.
"I'm down," Dana said. "We could get ready at mine after school."
Read: I'm keeping you away from your dad so you don't have a total meltdown.
Chelsea fidgeted with her miniskirt, but if she picked up on Dana's little act of mercy she didn't say anything. She looked at Terry and Max.
"You know I'm good to go, girl," Max said. "My folks are giving me carte blanche too, just for reading the brochure."
Terry sighed. "Just so long as I don't fuck this test up," he said.
"You mean you're free tonight?" Dana asked, eyebrow up, knowing smile on.
"Well," Terry said, and the three girls groaned. "I'll come straight from work."
"Attaboy," Max said, clapping him on the back. "You'd better not be too late."
"Yeah," Dana agreed. "Or I'll have to find someone else to dance with." She took Chelsea by the hip and they both devolved into laughter. Max and Terry exchanged an eyeroll.
Terry wasn't sure if it was performative, but he felt a little recharged by the idea of spending time with Max and Dana. Even Chelsea, he was much closer to considering a friend. Terry's social life was mainly as an accessory to Dana, though he tried to temper it with a sort of quiet, positive anti-toxic-masculinity vibe. Mainly he didn't want to be someone like Nelson. Still, his social circle was the first plate he'd been willing to drop. It helped that the people he used to run with were all bastards, and that his one remaining platonic friend knew his secret. Maybe he'd needed this plate more than he thought he had.
School ended with a sort of anticlimactic shuffling. There still weren't the numbers for the usual mad dash to the exits; packed trains, all that. Besides, Terry had the car today. He drove it up to the manor, picked up Bruce, took him down to Wayne Powers for a stockholders' meeting, and took the opportunity for a nap. By the time Bruce had gotten back into the car, it was 5:45.
The old man moved with a fluidity that was almost disconcerting when he was in private. When it was a good day. Terry actually physically adjusted the mirror in the unbelievably retro car. He checked out his face and his hair, just to piss off Bruce. He did things occasionally, to remind Bruce that he was a fucking teenager playing grown-up. It was a petty little revenge for the old man getting into the back of the car rather than the passenger's side.
"Everything go the way you wanted?" he asked, starting up the car.
"I'm getting another representative on the board of directors, and I get to choose the department, so long as it's not weapons tech."
Terry nodded. So, just about. Ever since Bruce had gotten his foot back in the door at Wayne Powers when they'd started all of this two years ago; he'd been slowly strengthening his presence. Terry was about to turn onto the street when Bruce shook his head, just barely. He pulled out his phone. His eyes, sunken but terrifyingly sharp, zeroed in on Terry's in the mirror.
"Take me to Foxteca, and get a patrol in. You can see your friends tonight, after all, but you're training double tomorrow."
"Foxteca, it is," Terry said, smiling easily. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but then, Bruce was surprisingly unobservant when it came to people he wasn't trying to have locked up. He was sure he'd get the business lecture tomorrow, along with the training. One thing Bruce never missed was a chance to make a point.
The sun was coming down by the time he'd started his patrol in earnest. He texted Max and Dana that he was with Wayne doing a board members thing, and that he'd meet them at the club. Max texted back an eyeroll, and warned him that the whole thing was getting a little out of hand. It sounded ominous, but he had crime to thwart. Jokerz were antsy lately; a lot of them probably had to go underground because of the high profile of teen crime. Now, they were in full lash-out mode. Batman was going through the motions here, too, which would have pissed Bruce off even more if he were watching.
There was a time when Terry got angry. Really angry, at the sight of all the Joker shit. It made him sick. He saw the stupid fucking costumes and the face paint and all he could think about was HAHAHA in a hallway in shitty orange paint, while his mother choked back sobs. Now, he pulled away as one of them swung a punch, and the only thing he felt was the air move. Huh, when had he gotten surrounded? Where did the extra ten of them come from? Why couldn't he seem to disengage the goddamn autopilot in his brain?
Suddenly the air crackled with static. Terry wheeled around, expecting to see the father, but got the son instead. Robert Hawkins was new to the game, but Batman liked him already. It helped that Virgil Hawkins was his all-time favorite hero. The kid, only a year younger than Terry himself, but irrevocably a kid to Terry for some reason, got a nice hit in on the big guy, the gene-spliced pale-pale Joker. Some of them even bleached or acid-treated their skin, for nutso-gang brownie points.
They went back-to-back quick, and working with him actually felt pretty good. Terry could really get into the kinetic movements, the sharpness of the batsuit. He felt color bleed back into things as he ducked and swayed, watching his footwork, pulling his punches even as he leaned into them.
"Nice shot," Robbie called over his shoulder, as Terry took one out for him with a well-placed batarang. They were making short work of this, and now Terry felt something like adrenaline seeping into his brain. He could almost taste it, and he was faster than ever, grinning a bit manic. So why was he letting that fist come closer? Why was he leaning into the punch? He felt his lip burst under the suit, and pulled his face away from the swinging fists. A kick to the jaw and he fell like a dead man.
And that was that, except for the mysterious appearance of a kid who lived in Dakota City, a couple states over.
"Hey, man," Terry said, bumping the side of his fist against Robbie's. "What brings you to Gotham?"
"My old man," he said. Terry's eyebrows shot up. "Not that one, the other one. Sounds like Wayne wants him for a board member? He got called up to Foxteca HQ, like, stupid o'clock this morning. He was super annoyed, too, he hates leaving his workshop. But my dads; you know, they'll do anything for Wayne. Total hero worship."
Terry groaned. "Just like Wayne not to give me a heads-up." Richard Foley would be a huge asset to Bruce on the board if he could swing it, and a permanent line to Dakota for backup couldn't hurt for Batman, either.
Robbie's costume was a tasteful, understated revamp of his dad's. Terry liked how the new hero era all seemed to fit threads-wise. They all kind of got the picture. Heroes were a different game now. Robbie looked a bit sheepish, though. "Did he tell you to come out here?" Terry asked, eyes narrowing.
The poor kid shrugged. "I think I was getting in the way, so I asked where you were. I just wanted to get out of Dakota for the weekend, you know? Get some heroing in somewhere I'm a little less... pressured."
Terry threw his head back and laughed. "R, you're probably the first person ever to come to Gotham to feel less stressed."
Terry got it, though, in a sense. OG Static was in everything over there, every brick in that city had an OG Static story. Same with Batman and Gotham. It was just one of those things.
"Yeah, it's not working so good yet," Robbie agreed easily.
Terry checked the time. It was 11, still a bit early, but the girls had texted him to say they were headed to the club. "Look, R, if you want to blow off some steam, why don't you come with me? Some friends are headed to Club 54. You know, my girlfriend and Max, that sort of crowd. Non-vigilantes."
Robbie's eyes widened. "You go clubbing? Bruce lets you?"
Terry shrugged. "It's actually productive for my cover, you know? I don't want to raise any eyebrows. You down?"
The kid nodded vigorously. Kid, again, for Christ's sake, he's seventeen in, what, a month? Get a grip, Terry thought. They changed in an alleyway and left their things with the Batmobile. Of course Robbie's other clothes weren't very Gotham, and Terry considered offering to lend him a shirt. The poor bastard was in a dark blue button-up and black jeans, with the shirt tucked in but thankfully, mercifully with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and the top two buttons undone. Plus, he had matching blue-black Jordans, which, fair. Retro, but fair. Terry did up a bit of eyeliner on the way and tossed it to R, who shrugged.
"When in Rome," he muttered, applying it sparingly.
Maybe Terry was just the slightest bit punch-drunk. Robbie stuck to him, and they made their way through, past security. They didn't have to wait in a line anywhere, maybe because Terry was here just often enough, or because he'd had a rep here ever since the night his dad died, but mainly because of how they looked, and the fact that Terry pointed up as they passed, as in upper floor. The bouncers didn't give them another look after that; they pulled the upper-floor look off easy. T, with his Neo-Gotham tight clothes, all racially and sexually ambiguous, and R, obviously too young to be here.
Inside, Terry tapped a girl on the shoulder and put up two fingers, and she handed him two sets of earplugs. He tossed one to Robbie, whose look of confusion he sympathized with.
"Trust me," he said. "It's deafening up on the levels, and you don't want to get fucked up on any of that Trip-Hop stuff. Cutting edge Gotham music: auditory hallucinogenics are the big genre right now. You'll still hear, just not enough to get you high."
Static just shook his head. "Gotham, man."
Terry shrugged. "Yeah. Just read lips, it's no biggie. Also most of us know a bit of sign. Don't smoke anything anyone gives you and let me know when you've had enough drinks."
They went into the main atrium; where all four of the massive levels could be seen, with the giant glass window at the roof letting in some purple Gotham sky now that it was dark enough to be opened. Lights flared everywhere, but T liked that this wasn't one of the places that went overboard on the smoke.
Each level had a different vibe, but Terry had easy money on a middle one for tonight. Chelsea seemed like she wanted to call the shots, and the mid-levels were full of young straight people looking for a body to grind on. Dana wasn't going to let her get into that hardcore upstairs shit, anyways. Robbie stuck to him and they made their way to the third level. Terry snaked his way to the bar and got them both shots. They knocked theirs back, and Robbie grinned. A flash of white in the neon-glare. The music thrummed through him, something perfect, obnoxious and fucking young, with that low-low base that he knew meant trip waves. He watched the crowd to get a feel for the vibe, and they seemed pretty blissed out, so he decided to keep giving it a pass for now.
Suddenly he felt someone touching him. It was Max's skinny arm circling his waist, and he couldn't help but laugh. "Max, geez, give a guy some warning."
She rolled her big eyes gracefully, stepping to the side to reveal Dana, Chelsea, and Blade.
Dana kissed his cheek, and Terry diplomatically hugged Chels, nodding to Blade. That girl was a little less... likeable, he supposed, than Chelsea. A little less interesting. It put her firmly in the camp of people Terry didn't really bother having time for. Blade barely looked up at him, so he supposed the feeling was mutual. Then again, he remembered briefly that Blade had gotten dumped last week, maybe she was just sulking.
"Dane, this is Robbie Hawkins," Terry said over the music. "Friend of mine from Dakota City."
Dana raised her eyebrow, but gave Robbie the once-over, and seemed to more or less approve. He hadn't said it was an old friend, after all. Those were the dangerous ones.
"A friend of Terry's?" Chelsea repeated, intrigued. She turned her analytical eye back to Terry. "I didn't know you had people."
"I know him through Wayne," Terry said, which wasn't untrue, but was obviously the wrong thing to say because Blade perked up like she'd been told drinks were on the house for the next year. Terry could almost see her eyes transform into dollar signs.
He looked to Robbie, to see how the kid would handle it. Of course, the little electric prince nailed it.
"Wayne charity, that is," Robbie said, eye wary on Blade. "My dad runs a community outreach program in Dakota City, keeping kids off the streets."
It was true, Virgil Hawkins did do community outreach. Richard Foley was a big-shot inventor, but Blade definitely didn't need to know that. He said it with a light in his eyes that made Terry feel a twinge of something, he could probably label it jealousy if he dwelled on it, but that wasn't going to happen. He pulled an earplug loose and tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder.
Dancing with Dana was easy, and Terry was pretty sure that through the haze of the numb thing he wasn't working past, he loved her. She politely didn't comment on the split lip, which Terry's tongue darted out to meet as blood pearled when he grinned. Dana was under the impression that Terry occasionally caught hell as a coping mechanism for the whole dead dad thing; like, that he was going out and beating on Jokerz every once in a while. For therapy. Which was an impression Terry was happy to foster. It was another one of those cover things. Like clubbing. Explained the cuts and the lost time, and made him look like a normal teenager.
The dancing was nice. Dana dragged everyone else in, and danced with Max for a minute. Max grinned her fucked, lopsided cheshire smile and tilted her head back towards Terry.
"You just gonna let me steal your girl?"
"She'd be trading up, and we all know it," Terry said, grabbing Robbie. The music was getting a bit more frenzied, and Terry surreptitiously fastened his earplug back in. The sound on its own was plenty, and he didn't need much to be sideways when he was coasting on four hours of sleep. He danced with Robbie until Max cut in, and they cut up well too. Max was gay, and Terry was in the grand tradition of Neo-Gotham teens, undecided, but they looked good together in a purely platonic, aesthetical way. Which was probably why some guy cut in, putting a hand on Max's hip. She wheeled out of the way, and when the guy pressed again, Terry's hand found his wrist and squeezed.
In the batsuit, that might have broken a bone. It was a weird feeling, being something less in your own skin. Robbie didn't have any of that shit, his costume was just a costume. That blue shock was all him. Terry was just some fucking punk who thinks he's Batman; to quote a dead man. That wasn't completely fair; in fact Terry figured he was the only person on Earth who could do this job. The only kid empty enough to be a vessel for all of Bruce Wayne's fucked up crusade. Bruce poured his trauma into that fuckin' suit with Terry still in it, and nobody who couldn't dissociate past it would last a week.
That was also why the whole club thing was important. Terry had to hide that he wasn't a person the way his friends were. He was a persona. The half-rehabilitated lower middle class Gotham street trash; still getting into the occasional fight, still getting high in a club he was four years too young to be in, but holding down a good job and more or less being the guy in the room who did the right thing. That was someone Terry thought Terry McGinnis could believably have turned out to be.
The guy didn't back off right away, so Terry pulled the arm in, past Max. He got a good look at the dude, maybe two years older than them. He was sizing up Terry, too, and T looked at Chelsea, who made the shrugging I-don't-know-him look that was more or less permission. Terry pulled down on the arm and punched the guy in the face. Max stepped over his legs to go dance with Chelsea and Dana, while Terry could feel Robbie close ranks at his shoulder.
Robbie was a great guy. One day, he'd make a good Justice Leaguer. He was a team player, like his folks. Maybe Terry could convince him to be his Robin instead. Gothamites all had hangups about the Robin thing, but maybe Robbie wouldn't. Some guy went on TV when Terry was a kid and pulled out a chalkboard, drawing a timeline. He looked half-crazed, Terry remembered, but this was after a year of no Batman sightings. Everyone was on edge. He said, Batman's been active more than three decades. Three decades of service, puts him probably somewhere around retirement age. But you know who weren't at retirement age yet? The Robins. Why hadn't they taken up the mantle? Weren't they sort of trainees? Why the hell did they abandon Gotham, when things were worse than ever? Public opinion turned on them, and Terry and the rest of the Gotham kids who idolized one Robin or another shut the hell up about it and picked new faves. Like Static.
Terry knew a bit better now, from Barbara, and the context of the dark, empty house. Bruce was alone, and Terry could guess why. He'd fucked up his life, fucked up everyone close to him, and now there was just some kid and a giant empty mantion gathering dust because Terry wasn't the fucking maid, and he wasn't going to go around fixing Bruce's shit no matter how much he wanted the old guy's approval.
His brain snapped back into reality with a light tug on the wrist from Dana. Chelsea pulled out her pen, presumably what she'd been using to self-medicate at school, and gestured outside. The third floor had a decent balcony, and it was still only something like midnight, midnight-thirty, so it shouldn't be too crowded.
They followed her out, and sure enough they could gather pretty easily around a table. Terry pulled his earplugs out, now that the music was safely inside, and gestured that Robbie could do the same.
Chelsea watched the two boys. "You know, McGinnis, I'm surprised. Have you ever noticed how all your friends are girls?"
"I simply do not vibe with men," Terry said, loftily. That earned him an easy laugh from Chels, who passed him the pen. He couldn't see a good reason to turn it down, so he gave it a quick hit, and thankfully it was just weed.
"Terry's very in touch with his feminine side," Robbie agreed, and Max put an arm over his shoulder for it.
"I'm not drunk enough for this fucking music," Blade said, filing her nails. How the fuck she got a nail file past the bouncers wasn't particularly surprising, but it was a bit funny.
"Well, one of us has a well-paying job," Chelsea said, watching Terry with an amused look.
"Yeah, and he's trying to go to college, Chels," Terry said, laying it on thick. "Besides, aren't you here to bite back at your old man? We'll split the first round."
They got tequila shots, like properly shitty teens, and did them around the table. Chelsea ordered a round of cocktails for everyone, too, and Terry wound up splitting that, but it spelled trouble. Sure enough, Chels' little bag opened up to reveal a handful of pills. Terry was too sleep deprived, and took this Batman shit too seriously to get faded on percs. Dana exchanged a look with him that said reign it in. Poor girl had probably spent up all her credit with Chelsea already, trying get the chick to take it easy.
Terry hadn't though. He put a hand over hers, which held the little fuckers, an leaned in.
"Hey, Chels, would you mind saving it? This is Robbie's first night in Gotham and I don't wanna play babysitter."
Chelsea surveyed him, and Robbie, who was talking to Max about basketball and computer engineering, and shrugged. "Works for me," she said. Dana mouthed thank you over her shoulder, and Terry winked back.
There was a genuinely nice time to be had gathered around the table with his friends, if he could just fucking tune in. Above them, the sky looked a garish, light-polluted, everything-polluted purple. They were just high up enough that he could see Wayne Towers in the distance one way, and the dark, blown-out rattiness of Old Gotham below. When was the last time Terry's shoes had touched street-level down there? Last week? Two weeks ago?
The cross-fade was settling in, and it wasn't helping his sense of restlessness. Blade turned around and waved, which never meant anything good. Sure enough, across the patio, Nelson and a couple of his lackeys were making their way over. One of them was the guy who'd just dumped Blade, and the other two were... He looked at Max with a help-me face.
She pulled her phone out and a second later Terry got a text. It read: "eric and chad. no, really."
Terry put his phone away and shot Max a deeply unimpressed look. She put her arms up in the universal sign for 'hey, buddy, you're preaching to the choir'. Blade was all over the ex, right away.
"All right?" Nelson asked, addressing Chelsea.
"Hey, Nelson," she said.
"McGinnis," he said next, drawing to his full height in the stupid goddamn letterman jacket. "Surprised to see you out at night. Doesn't your boss keep you on a tight leash?"
Terry nodded. "Hey, Nelson. I'm not really in the mood for the whole..." he trailed off and gestured at the four guys. "... fragile masculinity thing, tonight."
He put an arm around Dana and finished off his cocktail. Nelson watched him, and Terry watched the calculation spin, and he temporarily turned his energies towards Chelsea.
Robbie gave Max a confused look, and the girl made a dismissive gesture. Terry was just thinking about the calculation. Maybe Nelson had made the wrong call, and maybe he had too. Maybe what Terry needed was a bit of that idiotic macho bullshit to connect with his fist. He just couldn't be bothered.
"Terry's got beef with Nelson; Hamilton Hill's big man," Max said. Her tone was flippant.
"Ah," Robbie said. "So it's a high school thing, not a..."
"Yeah," Terry said.
The alpha-jock-walking-stereotype wasn't making any progress with Chelsea, though, who might have matured a bit in the last two weeks. Terry could see him darting his eyes back over at him, and he winked when he caught the eye contact.
"Chelsea tells me you're flashing cash, McGinnis," Nelson said suddenly, pissed that Chelsea had moved on to talking with Dana. "Finally putting that Wayne money to good use, huh? Say," he said, and Terry could feel the eyeroll coming on in the back of his head. "What does Wayne pay you for, anyhow? Cause my dad's cousin is married to a Powers, and she says the old man's got eye candy on the payroll."
"Yeah, that's right," Terry said, smiling in a way that made his lip throb. He licked at it again, felt blood over his teeth. "I get paid to look pretty. Industry tip? Lose the fifties wifebeater haircut."
"See how Nelson thinks he subtly slipped in that his family's big in the Gotham business scene?" Max asked pointing at the display like she was critiquing a scene from a bad movie, which Terry felt like he was in. Robbie laughed good-naturedly.
"And he still couldn't afford me," Terry said, pantomiming checking his nails.
Dana rolled her eyes and finished her cocktail, sensing a fight brewing.
"Hey, Robbie," she said. "Ever seen a Gotham club fight? Terry's about to give you the full tourist experience."
"You think you're fuckin' cute," Nelson said, ignoring Dana. Max grabbed Chelsea by the arm, but Terry noticed that Blade had disappeared. Probably doing lines in the bathroom. Her man was still here, posturing behind Nelson with the other two. Chad and... Eric. New kid Eric. Ah, fuck, he didn't know which was which.
"Bitch, I'm adorable," Terry said, picking up an empty shot glass.
Behind him Robbie straightened himself out. Nelson had a good half a foot of height over either of them, and three buddies, but Terry liked their odds, and R was a smart enough guy to know he couldn't use any lightning shit.
"Wayne's a washed-out perv and you're just the latest consolation prize," Nelson said.
Terry sighed. It was only 2am on a Saturday. He was disappointed that apparently he was too mature, now, to find it funny that Nelson kissed Batman's ass, and hated Terry's guts. It sucked the fun out of teasing the bastard. So he didn't. Ironic, really that Nelson was accusing Terry of being a rentboy, and here he was skipping the foreplay. He saw the girls surreptitiously leave the balcony, as people started to gather a bit.
The first punch Terry threw connected with Nelson's surprised face. He felt warm flesh against his knuckles. It was too quick a punch to really level the guy, too bad an angle, and too far upwards to punch, but it did the trick. He tossed the shot glass at the second guy. Jurgen, or whatever the fuck. Blade's boy. It thunked off the back of his head, and Robbie tackled him.
Kind of a shit call, Robbie. Now one of their guys was incapacitated, but three remained, while Terry was the only guy standing. Plus, the floor was probably gross.
Nelson had recovered, and Terry barely dodged his swing.
The pull away got his heart beating. He didn't dodge the next one, but he moved with it, and let it glance off his shoulder as Nelson tumbled forward. Terry kicked down hard on his knee, and the other two guys were on top of him. He headbutted one, and Robbie came out of left field to take the other. Nelson was getting up, but the rest of the patio was devolving into chaos, too.
Robbie was already getting bogged down with some of the other patrons. Somewhere in the crowd Terry saw the guy whose arm he'd twisted earlier making a beeline for the eye of the storm where he and Robbie were. Some big biker got between him and Nelson, and Terry saw his chance. He took Robbie by the forearm and jerked them both aside, just as someone smashed a glass against their table.
They ducked swinging fists and chaos, and found the exit to the main club floor. Terry couldn't resist turning to see whether Nelson had spotted them. He had, and he looked pretty angry. Terry blew him a kiss and they did their best to disappear on the dancefloor.
The music was insanely loud, and both boys had ditched their plugs ages ago. His heart was beating a little too quickly, they had to get out before it kicked in or he'd be in for it with Bruce when he felt the comedown in a few hours. Terry spotted the staircase exit and booked, as the fight began to spill over from the balcony into the dancefloor. He saw a flash of orange hair.
The stairwell was thankfully noiseproof, and Terry skipped two flights barrelling down.
"C'mon, we don't have a ton of time," Terry called behind him.
"Overstayed our welcome, huh?" Robbie asked, breathless and amused.
Downstairs, Terry burst out and started thinking quick. There, across the street, parked illegally, was a boxy red sportscar that could only belong to one person. Fuck me, Terry thought, the plates even read 'N3ls0n'. He dashed over, and felt the underside for the magstrip.
"R, would you mind?" he said, gesturing at it. Robbie shrugged, letting sparks fly between his fingertips. He stepped in and did his little party trick, and the car's magnetic suspender blew so that it sank to hit the curb on the drivers' side.
"McGinnis!" Nelson called, slamming the side door he and Robbie had just come out of.
"Okay," Terry said. "Time to go."
They ran off, and didn't stop running until they'd left the warehouse district altogether, and signs of more normal Gotham nightlife began to emerge. Late-night internet cafes with seating open outside, now that the Gotham spring had finally started to come into full force. People shopping and partying; business types with their ties loose at one of a thousand bars. Neon signage and holo-ads; some of them even smart enough to change their message to fit the two teens.
"Where'd the girls get to?" Robbie asked, soaking all the bustle in.
Terry checked his phone. It was just past 3am. That meant Deckard's; especially since they were cross-faded.
"You hungry?" he asked. Static grinned. Terry tried to draw off a little of that enthusiasm, tried to let the warm buzz seep through the fog.
Deckard's was mostly quiet. Dana, Max and Chelsea had a booth to themselves, and Dana had ordered him fries, apparently. He and Robbie slid in easily.
"There you are," Dana said, as if Terry was late for a date.
"Worried we were going to stand you up?"
"You and Nelson Nash," Chelsea said. "We used to take bets in PE. I had Nelson."
"I do okay for myself," Terry said, fake-defensive. "We fucked up his car."
Maxed laughed. It was a low, rumbling sound, that Terry privately loved. "Oh, Monday's going to be interesting."
Terry couldn't see Monday. He couldn't even really make out the next few hours. But he laughed along and ate his fries as the conversation drew on. Dana seemed to remember something and leaned to the side.
"Ter, we're going to stay over at Max's tonight. Mind walking us?"
"No problem," he said.
He dropped them off, another walk through the cool spring night. The sky was clear, and from Max's apartment you could actually more or less see it. He had two missed calls from Bruce; one at 3:30 and one two minutes ago at 4. The second he and Robbie were a good distance away, he pulled it out and answered.
"McGinnis," Bruce said.
"Hey, boss."
"How soon can you be in the Narrows?"
Terry checked the map in his head. Down forty levels, and a few miles south. "Fifteen minutes. I've got company."
"Drop him off at the hotel his father's staying at, this is Gotham business."
Terry rolled his eyes at the territoriality he pretended not to also feel.
"What's going on?"
"The computer's flagged a seismic disturbance. Definitely man-made."
So, either Wayne Powers was doing a bit of illegal construction in Old Gotham, or some villain shit was going down out where the city's mains were less protected.
"Right, I got it."
Bruce ended the call. At this point, Terry didn't even go for the little red button.
"You're going on patrol again?"
Terry grinned, and felt a bit of tightness at his cheekbone. Definitely bruised. "Who sleeps anymore?"