DISCLAIMER: If Birds of prey was mine, it would still be on the air.
This was supposed to be a companion piece to "The Purest Kind of Love", around the same length and with the same structure, but then it just kind of started running away with me. I guess even though I identify more with Helena, Barbara is easier for me to write. So….yeah.
Helena Kyle is an enigma even to me. She always has been, from the day I first met her at the gymnastics class. I was instantly captured by the spirit in her dark eyes and the way she faced every challenge head-on, never backing down or doubting for one second that she would succeed. Her self-confidence and determination were only exceeded by her playfulness and seemingly inexhaustible energy, and the more I worked with her, the more she intrigued and charmed me. Even at a young age she had her mother's flirtatious wit, a trait that I can safely say has only grown with time. Yet I can see her father so clearly in her as well: Her fierce loyalty and commitment to our family as well as Bruce's darker side: Like him, she takes herself to task for even the smallest mistake, and I can see the way she has to battle her demons with every rising of the sun.
Helena is the reason I am alive right now. That first year after Joker ripped both of our lives to shreds, she was the only thing that kept me from finishing what he had started. I've always been independent, much like her, and having that taken from me nearly destroyed what was left of my life. Helena gave me something to fight for; someone to live for. She's far from perfect—God, there are times I want to strangle that girl—but I'm so proud of the person she's become. On a good day Helena is stubborn, reckless and hotheaded; on a bad one, she's downright ornery. But I know that underneath all of that is a kind, sensitive young woman who would take on the world with her bare hands to protect the ones she loves. Helena is special; I've known that since I was nineteen, but until she came to live with me I never realized just how special. I can safely say that none of this Oracle business would be half as fulfilling without her by my side.
As strange as this feels to admit, Helena's movement entrances me: The lines of her body and the way her motion is so fluid and graceful. I suppose part of it is most likely due to the fact that I can't move the way she does any longer, and watching her somehow makes up for my lack. My favorite thing is sparring with her, watching the passion and spirit blaze in her ice-blue eyes as they stare intently into mine, reading and anticipating my every move. There's something almost intimate about it, and I feel an unexplainable disappointment whenever it ends. Perhaps it's because sparring is one of the few things Helena does with me where she has no defenses up, no shields—she shows me everything she is, gives me all she's got and more. I would give anything to have that more often; as much as I love her, and I know she knows I do, she pushes me away out of fear. I know; I've seen it before.
….as much as I love her. God, do I ever. She means more to me than anyone ever has before, even Bruce or my father. Helena has the unique talent of commanding my attention whenever we are together. She is a magnet, and my eyes cannot stray no matter how hard I may try…not that I ever do. She's the only one who can manage to break through my frustration whenever I hit a wall and Delphi has nothing to give me. I'll never forget the day when Helena was the one who held me up instead of the other way around. It was almost eight months to the day after Joker struck, and I was trying to pick my glasses up from the floor but couldn't quite reach. Helena offered to help me and I refused, but with each passing minute I grew angrier and more exasperated until finally I hit my breaking point. Up until then I'd managed to keep it together with the logic and grace that would one day be Oracle's, telling myself that this was my reality and I had to learn to live in it. But the fact that I couldn't even pick up my own eyeglasses was one push too far. I happened to be sitting by the silverware drawer, and I ripped out one of the larger knives and threw it into the wall. I grabbed a second one and was about to slash my wrist in pure rage, but before I could even blink, Hel ripped the blade from my hands and pinned me back against the chair by my shoulders. Her eyes were an incandescent blue as she snarled "No! You didn't let me give up; don't you dare do it to yourself!"
"Why the fuck shouldn't I?!" I'd demanded, which was one of the very rare instances where I cursed—generally I try to avoid it, not that I have an example to set anymore with how much time Dinah and Helena spend together. "I'm useless like this, Helena, and you know it, so tell me why I should even bother!"
"Because we don't quit," came the answer in her low, fierce voice, hands tightening on my shoulders. "We fall and we break and we get up again and go on. We do not quit."
It was the same thing I had told her when I found her in her room with three bottles of sleeping pills clutched in her hand. I don't know what surprised me more, the fact that Helena had actually listened, that she was giving me my own advice or that instead of me being her shelter, she had become mine. That was the first time I cried in front of her and the first time she told me that she needed me. It was also the last, because not too long after that, the walls went up and I haven't seen her since. Not until Dinah came around and softened her up.
"Hey Babs, you mind giving me a little of the blanket there?"
Helena's voice breaks me from my reverie, and I look down to see her blinking sleepily at me, head in my lap. She must have fallen asleep during the movie, which is odd; for some reason Captain America is one of her favorites. As her words catch up, I notice I've absently tugged most of the blanket onto my legs. "Oh. I'm sorry."
She grins up at me, a contented, lazy grin, and I feel warmth blossom in my chest and spread throughout my entire body, like I just took a sip of really good coffee. "Just don't let it happen again," Helena teases, and as she rests her face back against my legs I feel a slight vibration. It takes me a moment to realize what the sensation is—something I've only seen once or twice before that lets me know how happy Helena truly is right now.
She's purring.