Chapter Text
This is the most uninteresting field trip Terry's ever been on. His classmates aren't exactly riveting people to have around, unless you count Dana and Max. The field trip guide is a 25-year-old intern who sneers at them like they're a group of snot-nosed elementary schoolers, and Terry can't even blame him. He continues to drone on about something to do with chemical compounds.
They're here because they're studying chemical compounds in science class, and Star Labs is doing a simple project with that now. They've toured the entire building to learn about 'the process of how science experiments work' but Terry's feet are going to fall off if they have to take another step. He'd rather be on patrol now, even if he was getting his butt kicked by Jokerz, with Bruce yelling in his ear. Even that would be more interesting than this field trip.
"You need to be vigilant at all times. You never know when vital information can cross your path." The old man's words echoed through his thoughts. Like a ghost, Bruce's lessons (and his paranoia) are always behind him, even when he doesn't want them.
"As you can see, we are in the final stages of testing with these compounds. This one here is the closest to being finished." The intern stands proudly, nose turned up. The group is gathered around a station of tubes and beakers, filled with liquids of different colors. Microscopes with petri dishes sit on the table as well, but no one has taken a peek at them yet. "Any questions?"
No one raises their hand for a long minute. A quick survey shows him that most of his classmates' hands are either crossed along their chest, shoved into the pockets of their pants. While Terry grips the straps of backpack. He almost feels back for the guy, despite the haughty attitude and all.
Then, Chelsea raises her hand and he really starts to feel bad for him.
She raises an eyebrow towards the intern. "So, like... when are we ever going to use this in the real world?"
Next to him Dana rolls her eyes. "She should be the next journalist at Gotham Gazette, huh?" She nudges his shoulder teasingly and Terry feels a laugh bubble up in his throat.
Mr. Michelson, their science teacher, berates Chelsea's choice of question. "Miss Cunningham, I appreciate you asking a question, but it would be better if you chose something with substance to it-"
Above them, a shaking sensation interrupts Mr. Michaelson's lecture. Several floors over them, a loud KA-BOOM reaches Terry's ears- it's hard to miss.
Frightened murmurs erupt as the floor shakes a second time.
"What was that?" One of Terry's classmates asks the intern who stands to the side, dumbly, about as clueless as they are. The question itself seems to put him into action.
"Uh- One second!" The intern scrambled over to the computer station, typing away commands fervently.
"We don't have one second!" Mr. Michaelson yelled as the sound of shifting and clashing could be heard on the floors above.
Terry gripped his backpack. If he managed to sneak away through all the chaos, then he could put on the Batsuit
The ceiling above shakes again. The fluorescent lights that hang onto it to give the lab a more 'sophisticated' feel swing cautiously. They give an ominous groan and Terry, without even thinking about it, pulls Dana away from it by her back. The rest of the class seems to have gotten the hint too.
With a loud CRASH, a hole bursts open and contents of debris from the floor above spilled onto the ground before them.
"Remind me to never go on a field trip again." Terry sighs.
"Agreed." says Dana.
Terry's brain worked quickly to observe the situation. The mess from the floor above separated the group from their intern guide. The wall of rubble was long, but not very wide, and from the looks of it- with the way the rocks and broken lab equipment tumbled from it every few moments- it wasn't very stable.
However, if Terry could save him, he could make an escape and change into the suit in the same breath. The building was starting to come down. There had to be people on the rest of the floors who hadn't been able to evacuate.
It would give everyone a scare disappearing like that, but he had no comms to contact Bruce, and with that there came no back up.
Terry and Dana turned to each other at the same time.
"You have a plan?" Dana questioned. Terry had no idea how his girlfriend was able to pick out his thoughts out like that.
Sometimes it freaked him out, but it made things easier too. While she was frustrated with his odd disappearances, lackluster excuses and constant bailing on plans last minute, it was clear Dana knew whatever he was up to was important, even if it wasn't tending to Wayne's 'demanding' regime. Sometimes Terry stared at her, knowing that the Batsuit was hiding in his bag, or that he was wearing it like a second skin and wished he could tell her he was Batman.
But then, Dana would be a liability. Bruce always warned against it. He had already been furious when Max had managed to figure it out.
Terry scoffed lightly. "I do have a plan." He admitted, eyes flickering to worried classmates behind them. Their rose-tinted glasses painted an odd picture of Neo Gotham, 'nothing ever happened. ' Clearly they didn't check the news enough. "I'll meet you outside? By the buses?"
Dana smirked. "If they don't send us straight home first." She gave him a peck of a kiss on the cheek before letting go. "Be safe. For real."
Terry simply nodded. Their group of unassuming classmates were being guided by Max. Even Mr. Michaelson was looking to her for guidance.
With the way things were falling apart the building had an hour, maybe less, maybe more before it collapsed in on itself completely.
Terry glanced back at the group once last time, making sure no one was looking before jumping into action. He climbed the wall of debris, testing each move before he made it. Hopefully the intern on the other side wasn't injured.
'Landing was shaky. ' Terry could practically hear the old man's comments on his performance as he jumped down. Even though he wasn't here, Terry tried to admit that he didn't rely on Bruce too much. The truth was in the way his hands shook after the barely sticking the landing.
This would be his first time going on a mission solo without Bruce's guidance. If Bruce wasn't with him when the problem presented itself, Terry could always contact him on comms. Of course he hadn't even though to bring his comms in an attempt to prove Bruce wrong.
"It's a field trip. Won't need em', trust me. " Terry had put the earpiece into Bruce's palm the night before. The old man hadn't said a word, yet the glance from the earpiece to Terry had been enough. Being wrong sucked.
Terry walked into the room on the other side of the wall, lights flickering like something out of a horror movie. When the intern spotted him, he sighed with relief.
"I thought no one was coming for me!" He wailed.
"The building is starting to collapse. There's a group on the other side of the wall of the debris, but you need to climb it." Terry explained. The intern didn't look enthusiastic at that news, yet then again, civilians always teeter-tottered on the seesaw that was being grateful and being complaintive. "Do you know what caused the explosion?"
"There- there were talks of scientists on level four working on a wormhole machine. But those were just rumors! No one thought they were stupid enough to go through with it! I mean who creates a wormhole machine inside of a building!" The man chuckled manically. Terry had no idea what he was on about.
"Just go! Stick with the group that's evacuating." He replied.
The intern had no haste in his steps as he ran to the wall of debris to climb.
Terry was feeling the pressure. He turned to the computer, but screen was barely usable, being on the fritz.
"C'mon you stupid thing! Work!" Terry yelled at the thing. The only thing he got in return was a glaringly red screen that read:
WORMHOLE TAMPERING DETECTED. COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
Well that can't be any good.
What seemed to be a blueprint map of the STARS lab building popped up from beneath it. An indicator was pointing to, not the second floor, which they were on, but the fourth floor- the same floor the intern had mentioned.
Behind him, Terry heard the unmistakable sound of rock and debris crumbling.
"Max? What the hell are you doing?" Terry says.
The girl hopped down from the makeshift wall and brushed any leftover dust off. "I thought you would need some help, duh. Dana looked worried, but she was doing a pretty good job at hiding it." She answered. "Plus, we couldn't find Jared. I thought you might've seen him."
"He wasn't with the group?"
Max shook her head.
He and Jared had sat together on the bus? Jared had mentioned he'd had the chance to do visitation with his step-dad over the weekend...
At that memory, the gears in Terry's head started to turn. "Then maybe he had something to do with this. " He turned the computer monitor so that Max could see the blaring notification. "We need to find him, shut the machine down and evacuate anyone else we can."
Max gave him a funny look. "You're not going to... change?"
Above them, once again, the ceiling groaned. "I don't think we've got time for that."
***
The floors above weren't any better than where Terry and Max had started out.
Experiments and projects on every floor destroyed, light fixtures hanging off by a thread from the ceiling, and sensitive piles of debris littered the third. The evacuation alarm blared in their ears likely causing hearing damage, but by time they were reaching the fourth floor it became white noise.
Luckily there weren't many people left in the building, and even less injured people. Terry worked quickly to get those people paired so they could evacuate the building together. Every time Terry heard another ominous groan from the ceilings, it put him on edge. The building was less stable the further they went up. This STAR labs building had six floors, so Terry figured that the blast from the machine, must have started to sever the building in half.
When they finally made it to the fourth floor, things got even harder. Marks of long extinguished fires could be seen, the soot settling in the air. It was dark on this level, most of the electricity on the fourth level was fried, so Max pulled out her phone and let the flashlight lead the way.
"I hope Jared's okay." She said aloud softly.
Terry agreed. "I hope so too. Maybe he got out, this place is pretty much deserted."
Even if Jared wasn't the one who tampered with the machine, they'd find out who it was when they got to the Wormhole machine. Without Terry's suit or Bruce's comms, they could only even hope that they were going the right way.
Their continued search led them to the end of the fourth level. They'd passed and checked destroyed offices, crushed machines, desks flipped over and all their contents spilt on the ground, as well as computer monitors that still managed to flicker the same message:
WORMHOLE COLLAPSE IMMINENT. ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE.
Then, the pair reached the last deserted office.
"Hello? Anyone home?" Terry peered into the office just like they'd done all the others. This one was in the worst shape, though.
Under a pile of rubble, there was a quiet noise.
"Help... Help me!"
Max flashed her light towards the rubble, and gasped. "Jared!"
Terry started to move immediately. A desk had flipped over on top of Jared, along with some of the ceiling from a above, which had crumbled from the explosion. "How are you even still alive, man?" He asked, using all of his strength to lift the destroyed desk off of Jared as Max pulled him out.
Jared went into a coughing fit. "I... I hid behind the desk. But the machine exploded and the ceiling caved." He answered afterwards.
"Why were you here messing with the machine in the first place?" Max asked, then paused. "It's not your step-dad, is it?"
Terry's chest was heavy at the fact that it was even a possibility that Jared's Step-Dad could have dragged him into his 'line of work.' He knew that Mr. Tate regretted the crimes he committed, but a desperate man, was a desperate man.
"No. It was me." Jared frowned, shrugging. "I overheard two scientists while eating lunch at a diner the other day, they were talking about this project. They said the wormhole machine had the ability to take you through time. Then I remembered we were going on the field trip here, today. I figured maybe it
wouldn't hurt if I messed with it a little- set my Mom and Jim up earlier, I could have a whole family... a Mom & a Dad."
Max softened, putting a hand to her friend's should. "Jared, that's dangerous. We don't even know all the things this machine really does. You could've been lost to time, forever. Or worse." She explained.
"You know, if you were having problems, you could've just talked to us." Max paused for a moment. "My parents are divorced, and my neither of them are really home a lot either... it's just me and my sister. So I understand."
"Really? I never noticed Max." Jared's head hung low. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, no biggie. I don't like to tell everyone anyways."
Pride swelled in Terry's heart at the short interaction. While they would still getting Jared the help he needed, Max was right. She hadn't shared those details with anyone other than him and Dana. It was something she liked to keep private.
After that, Terry surveyed the room. It was presumably a small shared lab station, now blown to bits. In the corner of room was a large contraption, almost as tall as the ceiling. It was modeled like a circle. The machine's shell flat and white. There was an inner ring attached to it, silver, almost like a doorway. A console station was placed next to it, but it had seen better days.
Max, curious and curiouser, inspected the ragged machine as well. "As far as I can tell this thing is fried." She raised her foot to kick it.
"Max don't-"
Without letting him finish, she kicked the wormhole machine. Terry held his breath, thinking it would spark, or even worse- overheat itself again but it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
Until a soft whirrrr sound began to emanate from the machine.
Jared's eyes widened. "Oh slag, it's starting up again! We have to leave now. I'm not sticking around for it to explode again."
Before Terry could ask him to explain further, Jared started to run. The machine's inner ring picked up speed and churned as the whirrr sound got louder.
Terry grabbed Max's hand and took off after Jared.
The room itself started to change too. Things deified gravity as they floated up into the air, Even Terry himself started to feel heavy, sluggish, his steps weren't as fast as they should have been. The whirr -ing sound had since transformed into a high-pitched ringing that made all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The room was beginning to glow in a purple-ish, blue-ish hue, like the aurora borealis was in the room with them.
The longer Terry ran towards the exit of the fourth floor, the longer it seemed like they weren't going to get there at all. The hallway stretched forward exponentially.
Holes, black voids of nothing began growing out of thin air. Terry tried to stay focused on getting to the exit but it was hard to, when he saw the void swallow floating things whole, never to be seen again.
"They said the wormhole machine had the ability to take you through time." He remembered Jared saying it only minutes ago. He did not want to spend lunch with the Dinosaurs, thanks.
He scrambled to get his footing right. The heavy feeling in his body, in his legs that was overwhelming was taken over by feeling light instead. Terry's legs were floating involuntarily off the floor, Max along with him. It was nothing like flying with the Batsuit, where had control and direction. No, this was haphazard.
Terry looked ahead. The exit was close than it had ever been. Jared had made it, he was fine- waving at them from the corridor, telling them " This way! This way! " Though his voice sounded warbled, like they were underwater. He swam, reached his hand forward, but nothing worked.
Out of the empty space in the room, more and more things were getting swallowed by the deep voids. Before them, one appeared.
At first it looked like a small dot, an imperfection. It grew with ease, like a hungry mouth. It floated towards Terry and Max when they had nowhere to go. Then, it swallowed them whole too.
It was painful, and strange, just like every other experience he'd had being Batman. When Cuvier had injected him with the Vampire Bat mutagen, or when the psychics had invaded his mind, or when the enhanced thugs he was fighting threw him against a wall.
His stomach flipped wildly, his some senses dulled, others overwhelmed, Terry felt his limbs stretched way too far, and his body all too small for him at the same time. He tried to hold his consciousness close. It was ripped away from him far too easily.