Technically precedes my other Batman Beyond DCAU tale, It's a Family Business, and will be followed by more as I come up with them. And you can all thank JaggerK for providing the motivation I needed to really get started on this story.

Prologue

"Terry?" He remained silent, and eventually Max just gave him a pat on the shoulder before walking away. She was replaced, though, by lighter footsteps, followed by gentle fingers being placed over his own clenched fists.

"Ter? C'mon, babe, you're scaring me." He ignored Dana as well, and after a few more pleading words, she sighed and left too. Then came the sound of weary steps that he'd been dreading, the ones accompanied by an antique cane.

"McGinnis." Bruce's voice seemed to be just as gruff as usual, but internally Terry cringed at the hint of sympathy behind it. "It wasn't you fault."

"Should have been there." His eyes squeezed shut, involuntarily summoning the image of the smashed up car, Matt crouched by the curb and sobbing, a pool of blood mingling with his mother's ginger hair...

"You were busy elsewhere." Stopping the Terrible T's from smashing up cars and sports fans down by the stadium, sure, but what kind of an excuse was that? They weren't doing anything lethal. Unlike certain college punks who'd had a lot too much to drink, speeding down pedestrian walkways towards defenseless women and kids...

The Old Man tried to get him to snap out of it for a bit longer, but eventually he decided to leave the eighteen year to his silent state, moving further down the hall to take his own seat. Terry wasn't sure how much more time passed before his next visitor arrived, but this one he didn't have the chance to ignore or brush off. Matt never said a word: just hopped up onto the bench his big brother had claimed and burrowed into the teen's side. Automatically, Terry wrapped an arm around the boy, holding him close. It was a position they hadn't gotten into for years, since the early days of their parents' divorce, but at the moment neither cared.

All they had left was each other.