FIC: Getting Back on Your Feet 1 (B/H)
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, nor am I writing this for profit. The characters belong to the WB and DC comics. No copyright infringement is intended.
Fandom: Birds of Prey
Pairing: Barbara/Helena
Rating: 15
Authors Notes: Thank you for reading. Any criticism can be directed to adliren@yahoo.com. I wrote this story several years ago (2005 if I had to guess) but I thought I would post it here since it was one of my first fanfics and my longest writing to date. Sorry about this first chapter. You have to get through all the background first and later chapters will hopefully be more exciting.
Acknowledgements: A very sincere thank you to Phryne for beta-ing.
What it Means to Be a Hero
Part 1: Getting Back On Your Feet (1)
By: adliren
“Oracle, do you copy?”
“I copy Huntress. What do you see?”
A dark shadow lightly shifted its weight on the edge of a ten story apartment building. “Shit Oracle, there’s like twenty guys with machine guns and they’ve got hostages! What’s the plan?”
In the newly remodeled clock tower across town, Barbra Gordon, aka Oracle, frantically scanned her monitors as Huntress’s panicked voice came over the coms. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She had sent Huntress out to run a sweep of one of New Gotham’s residential areas. The most trouble Helena should have run into was a bored housewife catching sight of her as she soared over the rooftops. Now however it seemed that she had sent her protégé into a disastrous situation unprepared.
She had completely miscalculated. Again.
“Uh, Oracle, you there . . .?”
Barbara snapped her head up and focused once again on her screens. She had zoned out while Huntress was in trouble. What was the matter with her? She knew she wasn’t fully recovered from Harley Quinn’s attack on her home and family, but dammit that was no excuse to leave Huntress in such a vulnerable position.
‘Pull it together, Babs,’ she snapped to herself.
“I copy Huntress. What’s the situation now,” she asked, once again in full Oracle mode.
“Yeah, about that,” Huntress’ laconic voice echoed around the Delphi platform, “actually it’s really dead out tonight. Funny how those guys just kinda disappeared.”
Only because she had been living with Helena on and off for seven years and known the woman since she was twelve, was Barbara able to detect the note of apology in the other woman’s response. Most people would have simply taken the words at their sarcastic face value. For this reason alone was Barbara able to keep from laying into the crime fighter.
“What do you mean it’s dead out?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Well she was mostly successful.
On the couch doing her homework as Barbara had commanded earlier in the evening, the tall blond teenager shook her head with a small smile. No matter how much their lives had changed since the Quinn incident, some things would always be the same.
As Huntress’s snippy response came back over coms and Barbara responded in kind, Dinah shook her head again and focused back on her calculus book.
************************************************************************
Helena Kyle wandered into her apartment above the Dark Horse bar were she worked. It was after 3 am. She was pretty sure Barbara had kept her out so late because of her earlier joke. She realized that Barbara had been kinda worried about her which kinda made her feel like an ass, but she really missed the old days. Before her psycho therapist had tried to destroy their lives.
Before Quinn, Barbara used to joke around with her all the time. Yeah, it was still “Stay focused Huntress” and “You need to be alert at all times Huntress”, but there had been teasing and innuendo too. Now if she could just get Red to say anything other than “I copy” and “What’s the situation”, Helena counted it as a huge success.
‘Well what do you expect, you tried to kill her, the clock tower and Delphi were destroyed, and her boyfriend was murdered,’ Helena thought to herself as she stripped out of her Huntress costume. ‘And who’s fault is that, oh yeah yours.’
And that was the worst part of the whole thing. It was her fault. She had told Quinn everything. The pass codes to the tower, that Barbara had been Batgirl and was now Oracle, and even about Wade.
Why did she have to tell her about Wade?
Helena was pretty sure Barbara would have forgiven her for everything else, even trying to kill her, but not getting Wade murdered. Just because she hadn’t said anything to Helena didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Helena could see the blame and recrimination the few times she had worked up the nerve to look into Barbara’s eyes.
“This sucks major,” Helena muttered to herself as she finally managed to wiggle out of her leather pants. She really wanted to fix things, but even she, don’t worry about consequences or forgiveness girl that she was, realized that it wasn’t that easy, would never be easy.
And that was really the worst part the brunette decided. She could never fix things with Barbara.
With that cheery thought she headed into her small bedroom to stare at the ceiling until she was exhausted enough to sleep.
************************************************************************
Sitting at her desk finishing off her second cup of coffee, Barbara waited for the first bell to ring. Until then, the high school English teacher was determined to enjoy some peace and quiet. That was if she could stop thinking about last night for even a minute.
Barbara realized she hadn’t really been mad at Helena. The other woman had just been joking around like they used to. Granted, giving her false reports was one of the quickest ways to annoy the redhead, but she hadn’t cut Helena any slack last night. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she regretted her response. She wasn’t angry with Helena, she was angry with herself. She just couldn’t seem to get back to the way she had been before . . . before Wade.
‘Before I got Wade killed,’ she thought.
Barbara sighed softly and made a mental note to apologize to Helena later when they communicated for sweeps. Knowing the brunette though, she had probably already forgotten about the incident. The dark crime fighter had a lust for life and short enough attention span that holding a grudge was just not in her nature . . . except were her father was concerned.
Realizing that she wasn’t scoring any points on that whole relaxing thing, Barbara was perhaps a little too happy when the door to her classroom opened. Consequently the smile that she bestowed on her youngest ward was perhaps a little too bright, causing Dinah to look at her somewhat strangely.
‘Sizing me up for a white jacket and padded room,’ the redhead thought to herself.
“Hey Barbara. I just wanted to say hi before I head to class,” the young blond stated with a sunny smile. “I can’t believe that school is almost out for the summer. I mean just two more weeks. It’s just crazy. Do you think there will be some kind of like super cheesy assembly in the gym, you know like “go out and have fun this summer but stay safe”, cause you know that’s what we used to have at my old school. You’d tell me if we were right? So I could be prepared, you know to not show up or something. They try to trick you into going you know? So you’d tell me wouldn’t you?
Barbara, by know used to the girl’s amazing ability to talk rapidly and cover a multitude of seemingly random subjects, just nodded until the girl paused for breath.
“Of course I wouldn’t tell you Dinah,” she responded. “Those assemblies build character. Besides if I have to suffer through them, so do you.”
“That’s just mean. And not fair, really not fair. And did I mention mean. I can’t believe Helena ever made it through one of those. I bet you told her when they were having one.”
Barbara took a moment to compose herself, not wanting the blond to know that she had in fact told Helena when they were having assemblies, simply so the brunette wouldn’t heckle the principle or pull some kind of stunt. Helena had been very troubled after her mother’s death and throughout her last year of high school.
And just great, now her thoughts were back on Helena. Barbara took off her glasses and pinched the bride of her nose trying to ease the headache she felt coming.
Putting her glasses back on she focused once again on Dinah who hadn’t stopped talking while Barbara’s mind had gone off on her tangent. Once again she found herself more pleased than she perhaps should have been when the first bell rang, cutting off her young charge in mid-sentence.
“Oh there’s the bell,” the blond said reaching for the door. “I’ll catch a ride home with Gabby if that’s okay. Okay great thanks. See you at home.” This last was shouted as the retreating figure hurried down the hall.
Barbara shook her head at the resilience of the teen. The Quinn attack hadn’t seemed to affect the girls sunny out-look on life. She found herself absurdly grateful for that fact. She may be falling apart, but at least the two most important people in her life seemed to be coping fine.
Wheeling her chair closer to her desk, Barbara grabbed a stack of papers and prepared to greet the rush of her first class.
************************************************************************
“Hey all, I come bearing movies and pizza on speed dial,” Huntress shouted as she breezed into the clock tower two weeks later. As she entered she noticed Barbara was set up at the Delphi platform apparently completely absorbed in whatever was being displayed on the monitors. She didn’t see the Kid, but muffled sounds from the training room gave her a pretty good idea of where to find her. ‘Unless Alfred has decided to take up Tai Chi.’ Smiling at her own wit, she tossed the movies onto the couch and bounded up to the Delphi.
“Hey Red, come on, did ya hear me? You, me, the Kid and an all night movie marathon to celebrate the close of another school year. Whatcha say?”
Barbara craned her neck to look over at Helena with a small smile. “That sounds absolutely wonderful Hel, but I doubt I would be considered a suitable guardian for Dinah if I allowed her to watch your sort of movies.”
Helena had to laugh at this, especially when it was accompanied by the raised eyebrow and quirk of red lips that she was such a sucker for.
“Yeah well, those movies are for later, you know when the Kid’s asleep. You don’t mind keeping me company later and watching a little “quality entertainment” do you,” Helena purred causing the redhead to blush. She really couldn’t help herself, she flirted with everyone, it was just her nature, but with the shade Red was turning, she may have to consider toning it down.
Barbara seemed to pull it together pretty quickly however. “Well Hel, I’ve never minded a little late night viewing. I hope you rented something that can keep my interest. Otherwise I may be forced to take matters into my own hands.” At this Helena was pretty sure her heart stopped for a minute then went into overdrive to make up for lost time. “I’m sure I remember there being a documentary on the evolution of the microchip on the History channel,” Barbara continued after a moment. The redhead smirked at Helena and turned back to monitors to continue her scans.
Man she loved how Barbara could do that. It didn’t matter what she threw at her, Red always just seemed to give it right back. Leaning down and putting her lips next to Barbara’s ear she purred, “Well in that case I’ll have to make sure I stick around. How could I refuse such a blatant display of self-pleasuring?” Chuckling at the redhead’s involuntary shiver, she pulled back. “Until then I guess we’ll just have to settle for Free Willy.”
The chuckle became a full out laugh as she wandered back toward the couch with Barbara’s voice following her. “You did not rent Free Willy, Hel.”
“Helena,” Barbara whined when the brunette didn’t answer immediately. This soon deteriorated into the occasional mutters such as, “physically impossible for a twelve hundred pound whale to jump that high” and “no one actually likes the harmonica.”
Helena just continued laughing and went to set up the DVD player.
************************************************************************
Huntress was doing her fair share of the muttering later that night. Mostly it included phrases like “this is how I spend my Friday night” and “just stay down fucker,” accompanied by the sounds of her fists and feet connecting with flesh.
The alert had come in over the Delphi just as they had all settled in to watch the second movie. Immediately Barbara had raced over and ordered Helena to get her Huntress outfit. Apparently there was a robbery at one of New Gotham’s larger banks and a security guard had been killed. The suspects were still at large and the police were having no luck tracking them. With Oracle’s technology, however, it would be a simple matter to direct Huntress to their location.
So instead of enjoying a quiet night with her family, Helena was out on the streets handing an ass whooping to the five masked men. ‘My life is so fucked up,’ the brunette thought to herself, not for the first time. Of course kicking the shit out of scum like this was definitely something she enjoyed. A lot, she added feeling the nose of one of the robbers break under her fist. It was just that she was really looking forward to spending some time with a relaxed Barbara now that she was no longer at school and constantly reminded of Wade’s absence.
“And whose fault is that?” Helena asked the men gathered around her, three already moaning or out cold on the ground. “Mine again,” she clarified, punctuating her accusation with a round house kick to the fourth robber’s jaw.
‘And then there was one,’ Helena thought to herself as she closed in on the last man.
Seemingly oblivious to the fact that this small, lithe woman had just decimated his companions the man pulled a knife and began to taunt her, his eyes dark pits in a sallow face. “Come on baby,” he crooned waving the knife. “Gonna make you feel things you never felt before, gonna make do things you never thought about doing, but you know you want to, yeah you do.”
And just like that, all Helena could see was red - and then black because she wasn’t seeing anything, just feeling the burn in muscles as she pounded her fists into something that occasionally whimpered and made wet, cracking noises.
Eventually a different sound began to pierce through her fog and made her take notice. A voice that sounded calm, but that Huntress knew from long association was starting to hold real fear. “Huntress, come in. Huntress, please respond. Helena!”
This last exclamation fully registered with the crime fighter and she slowed down the motion of her arms and then finally stopped. All she wanted to do was focus on the voice in her ear and let it calm her, but the blackness that had temporarily settled over her vision was fading and she was forced to see what she had done. Forced to look at the . . . body that had once been one of the bank robbers.
‘Before I turned him into hamburger,’ the brunette thought, her stomach immediately rebelling.
And body was definitely the right word. With her enhanced senses, Huntress could immediately see that he wasn’t breathing and hear that his heart had stopped beating. She quickly got to her feet and scrambled away.
Somehow she managed to focus in on the voice again, this time able to recognize that Oracle was trying to reach her, calling out again and again, asking if she was okay. At this Helena had to laugh, she was never going to be okay. She had killed a man. Not a super villain, not some kind of huge threat to the safely of all good citizens of New Gotham. No, just some two bit bank robber who had threatened her with a knife and said the wrong thing.
“We don’t kill.” Isn’t that what she had told Barbara when she had her hands wrapped around Quinn’s throat? She had been trying to save Barbara, not Quinn when she had said that.
“We don’t kill.” Well it looked like she did. So who was going to save her?
She quickly turned on her com unit and told Oracle to send the police and an ambulance to her location. Then leaping up onto the rooftops she removed her necklace and earrings and raced as fast as she could away from the robbers, the body, and the knowledge of what she truly was.
************************************************************************
Furiously typing on three separate keyboards, Barbara Gordon frantically tried to understand what had just occurred. She had sent Huntress out to apprehend a simple gang of bank robbers and now all hell seemed to have broken loose.
At first things had seemed fine. Huntress had engaged the targets with her usual banter and occasional expletive, but then something had gone very, very wrong.
The communication device she had designed was very sensitive so it was easy to hear the sounds of breaking bone and cartilage as Huntress had attacked the man. Knowing she had to do something Barbara had called to the other woman and eventually resorted to using her real name even over her coms. That had seemed to reach her and suddenly everything went silent.
Then Huntress had asked her to call for the police and an ambulance. This wasn’t that uncommon for the crime fighters, and normally Barbara wouldn’t have been concerned. But there was something in Helena’s voice that had shaken Barbara. Or maybe it was that there was nothing in her voice. The tone was completely dead, without emotion. For the amazingly boisterous Huntress, this was unheard of. Barbara knew the sound of Helena’s voice very well. She might be angry, depressed, joyful, or any number of emotions, even at the same time, but Barbara could never remember hearing just . . . nothing.
Suddenly all the signals she was receiving from Helena’s coms went dead. She had no way of communicating with or locating the brunette. Barbara had no idea what was going on and she was starting to get scared. Glancing over at one of the screens she saw the EMT’s report from the scene. Three letters seemed to bore into her brain. DOA. And suddenly Barbara Gordon wasn’t scared anymore, she was just numb.
************************************************************************
Fandom: Birds of Prey
Pairing: Barbara/Helena
Rating: 15
Authors Notes: Thank you for reading. Any criticism can be directed to adliren@yahoo.com. I wrote this story several years ago (2005 if I had to guess) but I thought I would post it here since it was one of my first fanfics and my longest writing to date. Sorry about this first chapter. You have to get through all the background first and later chapters will hopefully be more exciting.
Acknowledgements: A very sincere thank you to Phryne for beta-ing.
What it Means to Be a Hero
Part 1: Getting Back On Your Feet (1)
By: adliren
“Oracle, do you copy?”
“I copy Huntress. What do you see?”
A dark shadow lightly shifted its weight on the edge of a ten story apartment building. “Shit Oracle, there’s like twenty guys with machine guns and they’ve got hostages! What’s the plan?”
In the newly remodeled clock tower across town, Barbra Gordon, aka Oracle, frantically scanned her monitors as Huntress’s panicked voice came over the coms. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She had sent Huntress out to run a sweep of one of New Gotham’s residential areas. The most trouble Helena should have run into was a bored housewife catching sight of her as she soared over the rooftops. Now however it seemed that she had sent her protégé into a disastrous situation unprepared.
She had completely miscalculated. Again.
“Uh, Oracle, you there . . .?”
Barbara snapped her head up and focused once again on her screens. She had zoned out while Huntress was in trouble. What was the matter with her? She knew she wasn’t fully recovered from Harley Quinn’s attack on her home and family, but dammit that was no excuse to leave Huntress in such a vulnerable position.
‘Pull it together, Babs,’ she snapped to herself.
“I copy Huntress. What’s the situation now,” she asked, once again in full Oracle mode.
“Yeah, about that,” Huntress’ laconic voice echoed around the Delphi platform, “actually it’s really dead out tonight. Funny how those guys just kinda disappeared.”
Only because she had been living with Helena on and off for seven years and known the woman since she was twelve, was Barbara able to detect the note of apology in the other woman’s response. Most people would have simply taken the words at their sarcastic face value. For this reason alone was Barbara able to keep from laying into the crime fighter.
“What do you mean it’s dead out?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Well she was mostly successful.
On the couch doing her homework as Barbara had commanded earlier in the evening, the tall blond teenager shook her head with a small smile. No matter how much their lives had changed since the Quinn incident, some things would always be the same.
As Huntress’s snippy response came back over coms and Barbara responded in kind, Dinah shook her head again and focused back on her calculus book.
************************************************************************
Helena Kyle wandered into her apartment above the Dark Horse bar were she worked. It was after 3 am. She was pretty sure Barbara had kept her out so late because of her earlier joke. She realized that Barbara had been kinda worried about her which kinda made her feel like an ass, but she really missed the old days. Before her psycho therapist had tried to destroy their lives.
Before Quinn, Barbara used to joke around with her all the time. Yeah, it was still “Stay focused Huntress” and “You need to be alert at all times Huntress”, but there had been teasing and innuendo too. Now if she could just get Red to say anything other than “I copy” and “What’s the situation”, Helena counted it as a huge success.
‘Well what do you expect, you tried to kill her, the clock tower and Delphi were destroyed, and her boyfriend was murdered,’ Helena thought to herself as she stripped out of her Huntress costume. ‘And who’s fault is that, oh yeah yours.’
And that was the worst part of the whole thing. It was her fault. She had told Quinn everything. The pass codes to the tower, that Barbara had been Batgirl and was now Oracle, and even about Wade.
Why did she have to tell her about Wade?
Helena was pretty sure Barbara would have forgiven her for everything else, even trying to kill her, but not getting Wade murdered. Just because she hadn’t said anything to Helena didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Helena could see the blame and recrimination the few times she had worked up the nerve to look into Barbara’s eyes.
“This sucks major,” Helena muttered to herself as she finally managed to wiggle out of her leather pants. She really wanted to fix things, but even she, don’t worry about consequences or forgiveness girl that she was, realized that it wasn’t that easy, would never be easy.
And that was really the worst part the brunette decided. She could never fix things with Barbara.
With that cheery thought she headed into her small bedroom to stare at the ceiling until she was exhausted enough to sleep.
************************************************************************
Sitting at her desk finishing off her second cup of coffee, Barbara waited for the first bell to ring. Until then, the high school English teacher was determined to enjoy some peace and quiet. That was if she could stop thinking about last night for even a minute.
Barbara realized she hadn’t really been mad at Helena. The other woman had just been joking around like they used to. Granted, giving her false reports was one of the quickest ways to annoy the redhead, but she hadn’t cut Helena any slack last night. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she regretted her response. She wasn’t angry with Helena, she was angry with herself. She just couldn’t seem to get back to the way she had been before . . . before Wade.
‘Before I got Wade killed,’ she thought.
Barbara sighed softly and made a mental note to apologize to Helena later when they communicated for sweeps. Knowing the brunette though, she had probably already forgotten about the incident. The dark crime fighter had a lust for life and short enough attention span that holding a grudge was just not in her nature . . . except were her father was concerned.
Realizing that she wasn’t scoring any points on that whole relaxing thing, Barbara was perhaps a little too happy when the door to her classroom opened. Consequently the smile that she bestowed on her youngest ward was perhaps a little too bright, causing Dinah to look at her somewhat strangely.
‘Sizing me up for a white jacket and padded room,’ the redhead thought to herself.
“Hey Barbara. I just wanted to say hi before I head to class,” the young blond stated with a sunny smile. “I can’t believe that school is almost out for the summer. I mean just two more weeks. It’s just crazy. Do you think there will be some kind of like super cheesy assembly in the gym, you know like “go out and have fun this summer but stay safe”, cause you know that’s what we used to have at my old school. You’d tell me if we were right? So I could be prepared, you know to not show up or something. They try to trick you into going you know? So you’d tell me wouldn’t you?
Barbara, by know used to the girl’s amazing ability to talk rapidly and cover a multitude of seemingly random subjects, just nodded until the girl paused for breath.
“Of course I wouldn’t tell you Dinah,” she responded. “Those assemblies build character. Besides if I have to suffer through them, so do you.”
“That’s just mean. And not fair, really not fair. And did I mention mean. I can’t believe Helena ever made it through one of those. I bet you told her when they were having one.”
Barbara took a moment to compose herself, not wanting the blond to know that she had in fact told Helena when they were having assemblies, simply so the brunette wouldn’t heckle the principle or pull some kind of stunt. Helena had been very troubled after her mother’s death and throughout her last year of high school.
And just great, now her thoughts were back on Helena. Barbara took off her glasses and pinched the bride of her nose trying to ease the headache she felt coming.
Putting her glasses back on she focused once again on Dinah who hadn’t stopped talking while Barbara’s mind had gone off on her tangent. Once again she found herself more pleased than she perhaps should have been when the first bell rang, cutting off her young charge in mid-sentence.
“Oh there’s the bell,” the blond said reaching for the door. “I’ll catch a ride home with Gabby if that’s okay. Okay great thanks. See you at home.” This last was shouted as the retreating figure hurried down the hall.
Barbara shook her head at the resilience of the teen. The Quinn attack hadn’t seemed to affect the girls sunny out-look on life. She found herself absurdly grateful for that fact. She may be falling apart, but at least the two most important people in her life seemed to be coping fine.
Wheeling her chair closer to her desk, Barbara grabbed a stack of papers and prepared to greet the rush of her first class.
************************************************************************
“Hey all, I come bearing movies and pizza on speed dial,” Huntress shouted as she breezed into the clock tower two weeks later. As she entered she noticed Barbara was set up at the Delphi platform apparently completely absorbed in whatever was being displayed on the monitors. She didn’t see the Kid, but muffled sounds from the training room gave her a pretty good idea of where to find her. ‘Unless Alfred has decided to take up Tai Chi.’ Smiling at her own wit, she tossed the movies onto the couch and bounded up to the Delphi.
“Hey Red, come on, did ya hear me? You, me, the Kid and an all night movie marathon to celebrate the close of another school year. Whatcha say?”
Barbara craned her neck to look over at Helena with a small smile. “That sounds absolutely wonderful Hel, but I doubt I would be considered a suitable guardian for Dinah if I allowed her to watch your sort of movies.”
Helena had to laugh at this, especially when it was accompanied by the raised eyebrow and quirk of red lips that she was such a sucker for.
“Yeah well, those movies are for later, you know when the Kid’s asleep. You don’t mind keeping me company later and watching a little “quality entertainment” do you,” Helena purred causing the redhead to blush. She really couldn’t help herself, she flirted with everyone, it was just her nature, but with the shade Red was turning, she may have to consider toning it down.
Barbara seemed to pull it together pretty quickly however. “Well Hel, I’ve never minded a little late night viewing. I hope you rented something that can keep my interest. Otherwise I may be forced to take matters into my own hands.” At this Helena was pretty sure her heart stopped for a minute then went into overdrive to make up for lost time. “I’m sure I remember there being a documentary on the evolution of the microchip on the History channel,” Barbara continued after a moment. The redhead smirked at Helena and turned back to monitors to continue her scans.
Man she loved how Barbara could do that. It didn’t matter what she threw at her, Red always just seemed to give it right back. Leaning down and putting her lips next to Barbara’s ear she purred, “Well in that case I’ll have to make sure I stick around. How could I refuse such a blatant display of self-pleasuring?” Chuckling at the redhead’s involuntary shiver, she pulled back. “Until then I guess we’ll just have to settle for Free Willy.”
The chuckle became a full out laugh as she wandered back toward the couch with Barbara’s voice following her. “You did not rent Free Willy, Hel.”
“Helena,” Barbara whined when the brunette didn’t answer immediately. This soon deteriorated into the occasional mutters such as, “physically impossible for a twelve hundred pound whale to jump that high” and “no one actually likes the harmonica.”
Helena just continued laughing and went to set up the DVD player.
************************************************************************
Huntress was doing her fair share of the muttering later that night. Mostly it included phrases like “this is how I spend my Friday night” and “just stay down fucker,” accompanied by the sounds of her fists and feet connecting with flesh.
The alert had come in over the Delphi just as they had all settled in to watch the second movie. Immediately Barbara had raced over and ordered Helena to get her Huntress outfit. Apparently there was a robbery at one of New Gotham’s larger banks and a security guard had been killed. The suspects were still at large and the police were having no luck tracking them. With Oracle’s technology, however, it would be a simple matter to direct Huntress to their location.
So instead of enjoying a quiet night with her family, Helena was out on the streets handing an ass whooping to the five masked men. ‘My life is so fucked up,’ the brunette thought to herself, not for the first time. Of course kicking the shit out of scum like this was definitely something she enjoyed. A lot, she added feeling the nose of one of the robbers break under her fist. It was just that she was really looking forward to spending some time with a relaxed Barbara now that she was no longer at school and constantly reminded of Wade’s absence.
“And whose fault is that?” Helena asked the men gathered around her, three already moaning or out cold on the ground. “Mine again,” she clarified, punctuating her accusation with a round house kick to the fourth robber’s jaw.
‘And then there was one,’ Helena thought to herself as she closed in on the last man.
Seemingly oblivious to the fact that this small, lithe woman had just decimated his companions the man pulled a knife and began to taunt her, his eyes dark pits in a sallow face. “Come on baby,” he crooned waving the knife. “Gonna make you feel things you never felt before, gonna make do things you never thought about doing, but you know you want to, yeah you do.”
And just like that, all Helena could see was red - and then black because she wasn’t seeing anything, just feeling the burn in muscles as she pounded her fists into something that occasionally whimpered and made wet, cracking noises.
Eventually a different sound began to pierce through her fog and made her take notice. A voice that sounded calm, but that Huntress knew from long association was starting to hold real fear. “Huntress, come in. Huntress, please respond. Helena!”
This last exclamation fully registered with the crime fighter and she slowed down the motion of her arms and then finally stopped. All she wanted to do was focus on the voice in her ear and let it calm her, but the blackness that had temporarily settled over her vision was fading and she was forced to see what she had done. Forced to look at the . . . body that had once been one of the bank robbers.
‘Before I turned him into hamburger,’ the brunette thought, her stomach immediately rebelling.
And body was definitely the right word. With her enhanced senses, Huntress could immediately see that he wasn’t breathing and hear that his heart had stopped beating. She quickly got to her feet and scrambled away.
Somehow she managed to focus in on the voice again, this time able to recognize that Oracle was trying to reach her, calling out again and again, asking if she was okay. At this Helena had to laugh, she was never going to be okay. She had killed a man. Not a super villain, not some kind of huge threat to the safely of all good citizens of New Gotham. No, just some two bit bank robber who had threatened her with a knife and said the wrong thing.
“We don’t kill.” Isn’t that what she had told Barbara when she had her hands wrapped around Quinn’s throat? She had been trying to save Barbara, not Quinn when she had said that.
“We don’t kill.” Well it looked like she did. So who was going to save her?
She quickly turned on her com unit and told Oracle to send the police and an ambulance to her location. Then leaping up onto the rooftops she removed her necklace and earrings and raced as fast as she could away from the robbers, the body, and the knowledge of what she truly was.
************************************************************************
Furiously typing on three separate keyboards, Barbara Gordon frantically tried to understand what had just occurred. She had sent Huntress out to apprehend a simple gang of bank robbers and now all hell seemed to have broken loose.
At first things had seemed fine. Huntress had engaged the targets with her usual banter and occasional expletive, but then something had gone very, very wrong.
The communication device she had designed was very sensitive so it was easy to hear the sounds of breaking bone and cartilage as Huntress had attacked the man. Knowing she had to do something Barbara had called to the other woman and eventually resorted to using her real name even over her coms. That had seemed to reach her and suddenly everything went silent.
Then Huntress had asked her to call for the police and an ambulance. This wasn’t that uncommon for the crime fighters, and normally Barbara wouldn’t have been concerned. But there was something in Helena’s voice that had shaken Barbara. Or maybe it was that there was nothing in her voice. The tone was completely dead, without emotion. For the amazingly boisterous Huntress, this was unheard of. Barbara knew the sound of Helena’s voice very well. She might be angry, depressed, joyful, or any number of emotions, even at the same time, but Barbara could never remember hearing just . . . nothing.
Suddenly all the signals she was receiving from Helena’s coms went dead. She had no way of communicating with or locating the brunette. Barbara had no idea what was going on and she was starting to get scared. Glancing over at one of the screens she saw the EMT’s report from the scene. Three letters seemed to bore into her brain. DOA. And suddenly Barbara Gordon wasn’t scared anymore, she was just numb.
************************************************************************