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"Mrs. McGinnis?"
Mary looked up as the tech turned from the screen to face her. "Yes? Do you have something already?" Her hands gripped one another in her lap, and she felt a sudden pang. Her ex-husband had been dead for years, but he wouldn't have let her go through this alone. He'd been a good father—a much better father than a husband—and they would have waded through the medical jargon and tests together until Matt was cured.
"I'm afraid not," the tech said. "There's been some mistake. Matt's DNA profile doesn't match the one you gave us."
"What do you mean?" Mary asked, frowning. "Has it been corrupted?"
"No, I mean it's not a match," the tech said. "It's a full and complete profile, and I checked to see if there were any other McGinnises in the national genetic database. Warren McGinnis's sister and two of his cousins are in it, and they all agree with the profile you gave me. But they don't agree with your son's profile. Matt is not the son of Warren, not biologically, anyway." She shrugged. "It would have saved me time if you'd told me there was a chance Warren wasn't his father. And I would never have guessed—what with you keeping the old-fashioned 'Mrs.' and your husband's name, I never thought to check if you had an open marriage. If you can track down the biological father, my job will be a lot easier. If not, it will take time. And be more expensive."
Mary stared at her. "There must be some mistake. Both Matt and Terry were in vivo conceptions, and I never slept with anyone else while Warren and I were married. He was Matt's biological father, there's no question about it."
The tech sighed. "Mrs. McGinnis—Mary, can I call you Mary?—you and your ex had been divorced for years when he died, and he's been dead for even longer. It's just you and me here, and you can lie to me but you can't lie to science. And I'm telling you, Mary, there is no way that Warren McGinnis is Matt's father. So tell me the truth. If it was just a one night stand and you have no way of contacting him, I won't judge you! It'll just take a bit longer to whip up a treatment for Matt. And cost a bit more, but if the money's a problem we've got a reduced price scale for low-income patients. If you think you can get a DNA profile—or the father might be in the genetic database—we can wait a bit but if you know you can't get it, I can get started cooking up a retrovirus from scratch, that way we won't waste any time."
"There has to be a mistake," Mary said, clenching her hands tight in her lap. She hadn't slept with anyone but Warren while she was married to him. No one-night stands, no open marriage … no lost time when she might have been drunk or drugged. At least … not that she could recall. Her spine tingled. What happened?
"Ma'am, I'm telling you there isn't, I checked my work several times!" The tech's voice rose. "Matt is not biologically related to this profile, and he isn't related to the other McGinnises on file at the national registry. The profile, on the other hand, is for a man who definitely is related to the other McGinnises in the registry. Either Warren wasn't Matt's father, or this is the wrong profile and your husband wasn't biologically related to the other McGinnises on file."
"I don't …" Mary pressed her lips together and thought. Protesting wouldn't do any good; there had to be a mistake, somewhere. Warren was Matt's father. "Can you send me a report on your findings so far?"
"Sure," the tech said. "Should I get started on a treatment from scratch?"
"No," Mary said. "Matt's older brother Terry might be suitable; I'll have him come in and give a sample."
Mary rubbed her eyes as she stared at the screen. She wasn't a geneticist, but there were several very good genetic analysis tools out there, designed for laypeople. She'd downloaded the trial version of one and used it to double-check the tech's work. Whipping up a better set of genes to cure Matt and embedding it in a retrovirus was well beyond anything she could do, but checking paternity was a simple matter. Yes, the sample in Warren's record showed several similarities to known relatives, just as it should. But it was not a match for Matt's DNA.
She'd run a test on her own DNA, just to be sure Matt hadn't been switched at birth. But no, she was Matt's mother.
How could she have gotten pregnant without knowing about it? Had she been drugged and raped and just not noticed?
Behind her, the door opened.
"Hey, Mom, it's me," Terry said.
"Terry, I'm glad you could make it," Mary said, turning around. She tried to put a smile on her face—she saw Terry less, now that he was married, and of course he was always so busy with work—but couldn't quite manage it.
Terry sat down beside her and took her hand. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Matt's sick," she said. "Khurana's Syndrome. It's a genetic disorder; he got it from me, though I'm just a carrier. They want to use family DNA to tailor a new gene to replace the faulty one. It can't be me because I don't have a good copy of the genes in question; as his brother, you're probably a good enough match to make it easy. And of course, you need to check to make sure you don't have it, too."
Terry tensed. His face and body didn't change, but she could feel it in his hand. "Of course," he said. "Where is Matt now?"
"Band practice," Mary said. "I want to keep things as normal as possible. We caught this early enough that his symptoms aren't bad." And Matt had been anxious not to miss practice. This was his senior year, his last chance to go to the state championships, and he was determined to make sure he and his fellow clarinets were note-perfect.
"I'm glad," Terry said. His hand was still tense, and he withdrew it, settling back in his chair. He looked so still and polished in his suit; it was unlike him. Was this the face he showed at Wayne Enterprises, cool and collected instead of hot-tempered and impulsive? He was staring at the screen with the test results; did he know enough about genetics to figure out what they meant? Terry's high school biology classes were more recent than hers; he might have an easier time. "What's the clinic name?"
"It's the Kiplinger Clinic at Presbyterian Hospital," Mary said. Of course, Terry might not be a match, if Warren wasn't; what were the odds that she'd somehow ended up with two children from sex she didn't remember? She didn't know what to think. But it was worth a try, and if it didn't work … well. Then at least she'd know.
"I'll set up an appointment tomorrow," Terry said. His voice sounded … far away, as if he was thinking of something else.
"Thank you," Mary said. She tried to think of something else to say, some question to start a conversation, but her mind kept going around in circles. How had it happened? Who was Matt's father?
"Can I tell you a story?" Terry asked.
"What?" Mary frowned. "Is this really the time, Terry?"
"It's important, Mom," Terry said.
"All right," Mary said.
Terry paused to gather his words. This was obviously important to him, so Mary tried to gather her attention.
"This story starts years ago," Terry said, "with a woman named Amanda Waller, a government agent who ran Cadmus Labs. She dealt with superheroes and metahumans—it was her job to come up with ways to counter the Justice League if they went bad, for example, and she supervised scientists who were studying various metahumans. She admired Batman, and believed him necessary to the safety and security of Gotham and America. So when he got older and had to retire—and wasn't replaced, like other heroes were—she got worried.
"Waller came up with an idea to duplicate Batman, or at least as close as you could get without cloning, which wasn't possible then. She found a Gotham couple whose psych profiles were almost identical to those of Batman's parents, and the next time the husband came in for a flu shot, he got a retrovirus to overwrite his gonads with Batman's DNA. If Waller couldn't get Batman, she'd get Batman's son, raised in a similar family."
Mary recoiled. "Is that … Terry, is that a true story?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Is that … were Warren and I the couple?"
"Yeah." Terry nodded. He sighed. "I found out a few months ago. I should have told you then. But honestly, I didn't think it would ever come up. And … I didn't know what to say."
Mary sagged back in her chair, feeling tears of relief well up. No holes in her memory, after all. "I wish I'd known before going to consult with the genetics tech this afternoon," she said, numbly. "When she said Warren wasn't Matt's father, I didn't know what to think."
"I'm sorry," Terry said. "I know how hard it was when I found out, it must have been bad."
"How did you find out?" Mary asked. If this was true—and Mary couldn't imagine Terry making up a lie this strange—this must have been a closely guarded secret.
"When Bruce needed DNA for a new kidney, I got tested," Terry said. "And I was a perfect match. So I found Waller and asked her about it." He watched her warily.
It took her a few seconds to process this. Her brain felt like cotton balls. "You're saying that Bruce Wayne was the old Batman?"
"Yup," Terry said.
"And I suppose," Mary said carefully, "that you're the new Batman."
"I did try to tell you, that one time," Terry said. "You didn't believe me."
"Because I didn't believe you would wear a costume to go beat up Jokerz in your spare time!" Mary said. "My God, Mister Wayne knew you were underage, and he let you endanger your life without even so much as a hint to your parents that anything was wrong? Coming up with a cover job for you so that you could spend time on the streets without my knowing it? Encouraging you to lie to me?" Her voice rose as she spoke.
"It's not … it didn't start out that way," Terry said. "He didn't want me to be Batman, but I wanted to avenge Dad's death, so I stole the uniform. When he knew I couldn't be chased off, he gave me training so I would be safer."
"And yet it never occurred to him to let me know?" Mary demanded, furious. "That wasn't his decision to make! It was my decision!" She frowned, in sudden thought. "When did he find out?" Had he been acting as a parent without telling her? Undermining her authority with her own son?
"He knew I stole the suit right away," Terry said.
"No! When did he find out he was your biological father?"
"I don't know," Terry said. "Bruce … doesn't talk, much. I don't think he knew until around the time I found out, but I can't be certain."
"What right did he have to make you Batman?" Mary demanded. "What right did he have to send you out into danger? I don’t care if it's what you wanted, you were an adolescent and he was the adult, whether or not he knew he was your biological father he shouldn't have allowed it! And Waller, what right did she have to play God? What right did she have to decide that a second Batman was more important than Warren's own child would have been? What right did she have to use our family as her own personal experiment on nature versus nurture?"
"No right at all," Terry said. "Problem is, there's nothing we can really do about it. I checked; Dad was altered just before involuntary genetic modification became a crime. And she's proud of her work; she knows there were questionable parts, but she believes that overall they balance out more good than bad."
"Damn her to hell!" Mary said. She stood up and faced the window, arms folded to reduce the temptation to punch the wall. Or throw something. "What about Matt? Is he in on this?"
"No," Terry said. "As far as I know, he's never figured it out, and I haven't told him."
She turned back around to Terry. "I want to see Wayne."
"Okay, I'll see when …"
"Now, Terry."
Terry's eyes widened at the tone of her voice. He'd been living on his own for a few years, now, but he still knew and responded to her you're-in-trouble voice. "Don't you think you might want to give yourself time to maybe cool down, first?" he asked.
"No, Terry, I don't," said Mary.
He shrugged. "Okay. But you might not get much satisfaction out of him."
Wayne was sitting in his study when they walked in, a glass of water the only thing in front of him. "Mrs. McGinnis, what an unexpected pleasure," he said, his voice warm. He didn't look surprised to see them.
"Matt's sick," Terry said before Mary could figure out a suitably cutting reply.
"What do you need?" Wayne leaned back in his chair.
"Nothing from you," Mary said. "What on earth did you think you were doing, sending a teenage boy out to fight crime that seasoned cops couldn't handle? What possessed you? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have you up on charges of child endangerment!"
Wayne was unfazed. "I'll give you two. First, if you think I could have prevented Terry from going out, you're gravely mistaken. All I did was give him the training and resources to survive it. And second, to do that you'd have to expose Terry as Batman. He's made a lot of enemies over the years; how long do you think it would be before some of them came after you and Matt as a way to get to him?"
"You bastard," Mary spat out. "How can you call yourself his father when you did that to him? Sent him out into a situation where he has to fear that his family will be used against him? Yes, he got into trouble; yes, he got into fights. But he was a good kid, and he would have grown out of it. You turned that into a career. You sent him up against far more dangerous people than he ever would have faced as just plain Terry McGinnis!"
"Matt's got Khurana's syndrome," Terry put in. "They did genetic testing."
"I see," Wayne said. "I didn't know Terry was biologically my son when he took the cowl—and he did take it, Mrs. McGinnis; he stole it to help him avenge his father's death—but it wouldn't have changed anything on my part."
"You should have told me!" Mary said. "The second you knew he was going out, you should have told me. Even if you couldn't have stopped him yourself. Which I don't believe, by the way; with all your resources, you couldn't have stopped one teenager? But you should have told me!"
"We don't wear costumes for fun," Wayne said, coldly. "We wear them because every person who knows our identity is another person who can let it slip; another person who can become a target. When you choose that vocation, you don't go around telling people."
"An adult can make that choice," Mary said. "A child or adolescent can't. Do you know why? Because their brains aren't fully developed enough to truly understand long-term consequences. Which is one of the many reasons they don't belong in a life-threatening position in the first place!"
She stared at Wayne's craggy face, willing him to back down. To show at least a glimmer of understanding that he had been wrong. To apologize, both for sending Terry out and for being Terry's father in the first place.
Amanda Waller might have concocted the plan, but none of it would have been dreamed of if Bruce hadn't been Batman.
And the worst part of it was, Waller's plot had worked. She'd denied Warren the chance to have his own children, invaded his body, left Bruce's children like a cuckoo in the nest, and gotten everything she wanted. Mary's son sent out like a child sacrifice.
Not a muscle of Wayne's face twitched.
"Hey, Mom, want to see the Batcave?" Terry tried to break the staring match.
"Terry," Wayne said, voice heavy.
"What? She knows, already, what harm can it do?"
"Is that what you call your headquarters?" Mary asked. "If so, I'd love to see it." She shot Wayne a look, but he didn't try to stop her.
"Okay!" Terry rubbed his hands together. "If you'll follow me?"
He led her out of the study and down a long hall, stopping at a grandfather clock to adjust the time on it. The clock swung aside, revealing a dark stairway heading down. A chair on a track was mounted on one side of it, probably for Wayne to use to get up and down the stairs. Mary shivered at the draft.
The cave was indeed a cave, Mary noted as she followed Terry down. And it was large enough that she wondered how stable the foundations of the house were. It was chilly and dank and dark, even with the lights on. Along one side were a collection of bizarre objects, including a giant penny that she couldn't guess how they'd gotten down here. Across from that was a command center with lots of monitors, some revealing ongoing surveillance or reports.
Next to the command center were a series of glass display cases with superhero costumes in them.
Some of them were for children. Robins, she guessed, from vague childhood memories.
"I see you weren't the first child he sent out on the streets at night," Mary said dryly.
"Mom, he didn't send me anywhere," Terry said. "I did it myself, okay? He tried to stop me!"
"How hard did he try?" Mary asked. "And for how long? After Powers went down and your excuse for vengeance was over, did he try again or just accept it as the new status quo? Lying to me about what you were doing for him?"
"Mom," Terry said, with a pained tone, but he didn't argue with her. She took it to mean she was right: Wayne may have protested at first, but not hard and not for long.
"You were a kid, Terry," Mary said with as much patience as she could muster. "You shouldn't have been allowed out at all—that's child endangerment! And you certainly should not have been allowed to conceal it from your parent. The fact that it seems to be part of a pattern—" she nodded at the cases "—makes it even worse."
"That's what this is really about," Terry said. "You're upset that he's my biological father, and you can't go after Waller so you're taking it out on him. Well, that's not going to change anything! Whether you like it or not, I am Batman, now; and the fact that he's my biological father didn't have anything to do with it! When we started this, he didn't know he was my father and I didn't know I was his son. It wasn't hero-worship, he didn't seek me out to continue his legacy!"
"Well it happened anyway," Mary said. "Waller bred you to be a pawn, and here you are, falling right in line with her plans. Why would you do that, Terry?"
"Hey, I'm no one's pawn!" Terry said, bristling. "Waller primed the genetic pump, but she's not the one who killed Dad, she didn't lead me to the cave, and she didn't shove me into the suit. I'm Batman, but I'm not the same kind of Batman Bruce was. Don't take this out on Bruce—he didn't do anything wrong!"
Mary stared at Terry. "Terry, do you and Dana plan to have kids?"
"Yeah," Terry said, looking confused. "Why?"
"When you do, when you hold your first child in your arms, I'm going to ask you again if Bruce was wrong to send you out into the streets with nothing more than a fancy suit and a fifty-year-old legend." Mary shook her head. "If you'd made the choice as an adult, that would be one thing, whether or not you were Bruce's son. But you didn't. Waller created you for one thing: to fight her war. Bruce took you as a youth and molded you further in that line. Neither of them were trying to raise a child, or a teen; neither were looking out for your best interests. What they wanted was a good soldier." She pointed to one of the cases, where a suit for a boy, probably a teenager, was labeled with that epitaph.
She shook her head. "Whether or not Wayne knew you were his son … he was wrong to do what he did. Waller was even worse, but she's not my problem right now. I can keep her away from Matt. Wayne obviously doesn't respect my authority as your mother, and you're not much better—"
"Mom," Terry said.
"No, Terry, it's the truth," Mary said, holding up a hand. "Loving me is not the same as respecting me. I have no doubt you love me, but if you had any respect for me you wouldn't have been sneaking behind my back and lying to me for years." She wrapped her arms around her waist, and shivered a bit in the chill of the cave. "If Wayne wants something with Matt … he's the biological father and one of the richest men in Gotham. I doubt I could stop him. I am asking you to keep him away from Matt. At least until Matt's done with his schooling, not just high school, but whatever vocational or college schooling he decides to do. And I'm asking you not to bring him into this, either."
"Mom," Terry said, voice pained, "if we were going to bring Matt in to this, we'd have done so already."
"He's only seventeen, Terry, that's not helping your case. Keep him out of the Batman legacy. And the Wayne legacy, too, for that matter. Promise me, Terry."
Terry sighed. "Yeah, sure, okay."
"I promise not to approach Matt in any way until he's done with his schooling," Wayne said.
Mary jerked and turned to the long stairway leading down to the cave. Wayne stood at the top, leaning on his cane. She wondered how long he'd been there, and how sharp his hearing was. "Thank you," she said stiffly.
"But," Wayne said, leaning forward, "if he comes to me, I can't make any guarantees."
Mary clenched her jaw, briefly. But, she consoled herself, what reason would Matt have to approach Wayne? He'd never shown any interest in troublemaking before, he was no more obsessed with Batman than any other teen. As long as he didn't find out … but what were the odds that Terry would have found Wayne in the first place? "All right," she said at last. She checked her watch. "I need to get home. Matt will be home from practice soon, and he'll need help with his treatments, and I need to get in at least a few hours of work before bed."
"Since we parked in the main garage, it'd be easiest to go up through the house," Terry said.
Mary followed him up the stairs, nodding shortly at Wayne as she passed him.
It was a very quiet drive home.