Before he could take another step, Terry felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around.

Bruce, for his part, wasn't the fool. He just played one in real life. The look in Terry's eyes, Bruce had seen it before, years ago when he was less gray, less wrinkled, less old. But even then, he was still *older*, and teenage boys should not be having those sort of daydreams about old men.

Bruce opened his mouth, his well rehearsed speech ready to trip off his tongue, when he stopped himself. The blue eyes that looked up at him curiously didn't belong to Terry McGinnis, high school student and hormonal boy. Those eyes, those piercing blue eyes who searched his face imploringly, belonged to an older creature, an infinitely more wise being.

Dick had blue eyes, too, Bruce thought. Bruce had been firm about his decision with Dick. He had loved Dick more than anything, but a relationship, the sexual relationship both of them longed for, could only have ended badly. So Bruce denied them both the one thing they had ever wanted. And it ended badly. Dick's eyes, though, had been full of joy and life, constantly twinkling with some unspoken joke.

Years later, when they met again over Alfred's grave, those eyes had still been so youthful, so innocent and incorruptible. Even in his 50s, Dick was still so young, a little boy inside the body of a man. No, the eyes that stared up at him held the same familiar look Bruce saw whenever he glanced in a mirror. The jaded cynicism, the underlying pain, the desire, the need to give love and to be loved in return. Terry was looking up at Bruce with Batman's eyes.

"Bruce?" Terry asked. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes," Bruce said evenly, slowly retracting his hand from Terry's shoulder.

"Listen," Terry said, touching Bruce's arm, more just to feel the still-firm muscle than to get his attention. "Why don't you come home with me? I'm sure Mom wouldn't mind if you stayed for dinner."