Dayshift 49: Bus 2
Morning hit without warning, with the sheer knowledge hitting the Digimon before anything else that today they were going back to Doyletown. Her feet hit the floor and she rotated her right shoulder experimentally. The skin stretched tight, soreness persevering, but it moved fine. She stretched her fingers then curled them into a fist, staring at
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So they got to spend a day on the town, huh? Somehow Terry didn't think it was going to be all nightclubs and greasy food joints. Especially not when his nurse produced an outfit that looked like it'd been rejected from the bargain bin at the charity shop. The jeans were fine, if a little ragged, but how anyone could have thought the sweater was a good idea fell beyond Terry's realm of understanding. And the nurse was expecting him to wear it? Slagging great.
Now that Terry's mood was about as sour as it could possibly get, the nurse led him to the bus, sweater and all, and dumped him off with the first equally happy-looking kid she found. Left with a final order to behave and the intercom-promised bagged breakfast Terry settled back with a sigh before looking at the guy next to him. Might as well play nice, and find out what he could about Doyleton. "Looks like they really work hard at making us look like twips, huh?"
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"Huh?" he said, temporarily distracted by the assault on his vision. He caught up quickly enough, however, though the initial question still stood. "'Twips'?"
While he wasn't familiar with the term, the context did help suggest it's meaning well enough. "I suppose... I do have to wonder how much of this is on purpose, considering everything else that seems to happen around here."
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Pulling out the hairbands that kept her red hair up, Asuka took the first and aimed it at the back of Brainiac's head. It unfortunately flew right over.
Well shit!
She tried again, aiming a little farther down at his neck. "Hey! Brainy boy!"
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When the kid questioned his word use though, Terry had a whole knew reason to sigh. "Uh. Dorks? Something like that. Sorry." He shrugged slightly, eyeing the contents of his breakfast bag. "It's so common where I'm from that I forget not everyone's heard it."
He was about to comment on the apparent love of torture on all levels (this seemingly designed to specifically target the teenage ego), when Terry saw something sail over the kid's head. The voice that sounded out behind them sort of helped him figure it out, and Terry turned his head to try and identify the owner and apparent shooter. It really was a return to every bad elementary school field trip ever.
"Fan of yours?" Motioning behind them with a shrug of his shoulder, Terry grinned. "I'd say she's got a crush on you, but Brainy boy's kind of a harsh name for someone you like."
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He'd been intending to elaborate a little, or maybe ask the other boy's name as well, but was cut off when something sailed over his head and a moment later another object hit the back of his neck surprisingly hard. "Ow!"
Twisting around in his seat, Brainiac 5's eyes narrowed into a glare when he spotted Asuka. "We're not friends," he directed to the other boy, though his eyes didn't leave Asuka and the next part was more directed at her. "And my name is Brainiac 5 or Brainy. Not 'Brainy boy' or anything of the sort."
His frown deepened and he sighed irritably. "What do you want anyway?"
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Turning to the boy in the seat next to him, Terry let his expression grow serious. He dropped his voice, not wanting to make a bigger scene than what they already had going on. Especially not if this kid--geez, a Brainiac kid--was anything like the one Terry had read about in the history books.
"Some place that's heard of you. Or at least, a version of you, if you're number 5." Sometimes Terry wondered if he'd become overly suspicious since taking on the mask of Batman, but this wasn't one of them. He knew what Brainiac was capable of, and just what it had taken to beat him. "Superman's pretty famous where I'm from. So are the guys he fought against. Including ones that wanted to absorb the knowledge of the universe and then destroy it."
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With that said, he turned back around in his seat to face the right direction and look out the window, wondering how long the bus trip would take. The other boy spoke up again, and Brainiac 5 glanced at him sharply, all his attention now focused on what he was saying. He hadn't run into anyone really who knew about his ancestor or even what the name 'Brainiac' really meant. He'd gotten used to not having to explain things, or worry if people would find out about it and judge him based on a name.
Apparently he should have realised that wouldn't last.
"I'm nothing like him," he said as calmly as he could manage, lowering his own voice to match the other boy's. "I may be the fifth to have the Brainiac name, but I am not my ancestor. I rejected everything he represented some time ago."
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"Wish I could just believe it that easily." And Terry really did; even if it made him a better crime-fighter, Terry missed being naïve sometimes. Then again, given just how bad things had gotten without Batman? Better that he make the sacrifice than someone else. "But the original was a program, right? And computers don't overcome that sort of thing." Not most, anyway. He couldn't help thinking about Zeta just then. Another machine who'd been programmed for destruction, and chose, actually chose something else for himself.
"So why'd you give it up?" Batman had heard Zeta's story, and even if he hadn't been convinced, he couldn't deny what had happened. Maybe this guy had something like that happen too. Or maybe he was just trying to fool everyone while he was stuck in a human body. Terry didn't know for sure, but he intended to find out.
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"Why should I have to justify myself and my choices to you?" he answered hotly. "You might know something of my ancestor's activities and the legacy forced onto me, but I don't answer to you or anyone else."
Folding his arms and fixing the other boy with a glare, Brainiac 5 continued. "I made my decision a long time ago, and I've proven myself to the people who matter most. I don't have to prove myself to you as well. Especially not when I don't know who you are and we're both trapped here.
"Not to mention that, in case you haven't noticed, I'm hardly in any position to go around imitating my ancestor anyway. I'm human now."
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"Not entirely, no. But it's something I need answered." Calling the orginal Brainiac his ancestor put Five into the future, and that was dangerous for Terry. Just what year was he from? If he was lying and Terry revealed too much, it could put everyone in danger. "Believe me, I wish I could trust you, or just not even care. I can't."
The glares didn't phase Terry; he'd gotten far too many from the master for that. But he didn't like the guilt that was twisting in his stomach over it. He really might be pressing an innocent kid. "Look, your ancestor did terrible things. Back home, I'm in a position to stop guys like that. And that responsibility doesn't go away just because I'm here. If you've really turned your back on it, then maybe you can understand. If I don't do everything I can to keep people safe, even if it's just finding out information? Then it's not good enough. Clearly it doesn't make me popular, but it lets me sleep at night." In a manner of speaking.
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He didn't imagine the patient next to him had any way of knowing any of that, however. So it stung that he was acting as though Brainiac 5 wouldn't know what his own ancestor's crimes were.
"'Maybe I can understand'?" he repeated, folding his arms and frowning at the other boy. "I don't expect you to know anything about me, since you're clearly leaping to all the wrong conclusions now, but I'm part of a team called the Legion of Super Heroes, based in New Metropolis in the thirty-first century. I've been part of that team for the last five years since I left Colu, and I've more than proven that I am not the enemy here."
That said, he fixed the other teen with a pointed look. "So, are you going to tell me anything about yourself, or do you want to keep digging up things about my personal history?"
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So he focused on the minor details, at least for now.
"Thirty-first century? Seriously?" Terry suddenly understood how others must have felt talking to him, at least a bit. "You're from even farther in the future than me, then." So, what did that mean in terms of making his reasons even clearer to Five? Terry knew that a lot of insane technology had been developed, even before his time. It wouldn't exactly be far fetched to think that Five could jump into a time machine and deliver a juicy tidbit or two to a past version, if he wanted. "Here I thought I was the only one from our world not from the classic days of the Justice League."
Terry thought it over for a minute, then shrugged. If Five really was from the future, then he might already know all about Terry McGinnis and his role as the second Batman. Considering all the data the old man had managed to gather, it didn't seem too out of the question; when it came down to it, Bruce Wayne was just a human. Who knew what Five would be capable of? "I'm from Gotham, about a thousand years before you. And it sounds like we're in the same line of work."
Except Terry had only been at it for a matter of months, and he still had a secret identity to think about. Five probably had to be quite a bit more open about things, kind of like Kurt. The line about being in a human body now pretty much pointed to that, anyway. And on top of that, there was the fact that Terry had turned down the JLU's invitation when it came. Not a pretty situation overall, given how it started. Being greeted with suspicion and a lack of trust; now just who had been acting like that just a few minutes ago?
"Look, I'm sorry about giving you a hard time." Terry let out a sigh, and leaned his head against the back of the seat. He really was letting Wayne get to him a little too much. Suspicion had its place, but Terry didn't like how this whole thing had started off. "It's a bad habit I need to reign in."
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"I'm used to being from the future in comparison to most people," he said absently, thinking. Gotham... There was really only one hugely significant heroic (the term used more loosely in this instance) figure from that city, and unfortunately it was also one of the ones that was least known about. Not to mention that, while Batman had been the most notable figure and therefore the one mentioned most in what little history there was from that time, it didn't mean he was the only hero from Gotham then.
So either the other patient assumed he was going to be extremely well-known after even a thousand years (and Brainiac 5 knew what Booster Gold looked like, so that ruled that out), or he hadn't really told him much of anything.
"Why exactly should I trust you?" he wondered aloud. "You haven't even told me a name yet, and you likely know as well as I do that saying you're from Gotham in the past doesn't mean much of anything. What's to say that you haven't decided to try and end the 'Brainiac threat' personally, now that you know I'm-" Vulnerable. "-human."
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"For now, just call me Alex." Good old fake name. It wasn't like Five couldn't figure out that it was an alias, or that he couldn't find out Terry's real name from any of the nurses. Of course, that'd only do him any good if McGinnis was in the history discs; from what Five was saying, he might not be. Somehow Terry thought that might be for the best.
But now it was Terry's turn to frown at the question that had been posed. Okay, maybe he deserved it on some level, but seriously? Just what did his history say about Batman if Five even thought that was a possibility? "You mean what's to say I won't kill you, right?" Terry knew well enough just the sort of reputation Batman had, but he also knew that was one line that Bruce had never crossed--and neither would he. "Sorry. Don't know how heroes handle it in the future, but that's something I don't do."
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Half-turning in the seat to lean against the side of the bus as well as watch Alex - there was a high probability it wasn't the other patient's real name, considering the time period he was from and the circumstances of their meeting - Brainiac 5 studied him a moment before answering.
"It's against Legion code to take the life of another sentient," he said calmly, though not without the faintest twinge of shame that he was fairly sure didn't reach his voice, though he glanced away briefly.
"However history files are a lot less complete about the beliefs of some ancient heroes..." He trailed off, his pointed look hopefully conveying the rest.
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