A/N: HEY. So. How are you guys? Good? Good. I'm an idiot. :D
I entered THIS story in the place of the OTHER Young Justice story I've posted, so, ugh. THIS is the one with Harley's kid, not the other one. The other one has no relation to Harley. Or Joker, really.
Helene never knew her mom.
She'd heard of her, sure.
Seen her, yup.
Interaction, however?
Definitely not allowed.
In fact, she didn't know if she was happy that the unsaid rule stood... or hated it. Because every time he was on the news, so was she. Kicking and screaming and cursing. And it made Helene feel pity... and anger.
It was none of Batman's business to have taken her away. It wasn't his choice to be made.
She partially blamed the man.
Ever since he had told Helene who her mother was, she couldn't help but wonder...
What would it be like to be "Helene Quinzel"?
She hated this house.
More like... palace.
The Kellers were rich.
How rich, you ask?
Filthy.
Her room alone was the size of a typical full-on Gotham apartment, and to be honest, the space was suffocating.
She didn't hate the Kellers, though. At least, not a lot. She just hated how they had purposefully kept her name Helene to somewhat match their stupid surname.
That was the only way they allowed her birth-given name at this house.
So corny... Helene huffed a sardonic laugh, fogging a part of the glass pane on her Gothic-style bay window.
She wondered where they were right now...
In fact, she sometimes wondered if she belonged to... well, him.
Considering she only had eyes for him, it was the only viable option. It would explain Helene's practically impractical green eyes; the only feature of his she could appreciate. It made for terrifying glares.
She wondered how they could have been genetic, though... He had come to exist how he currently did from a chemical mutation, but would that have affected his chromosomes?
Bah.
Nevermind.
It's a stupid thing to think about.
Suddenly, her alarm started chirping, alerting her that it was the time she had set it for: ten minutes after five o'clock. In the morning.
... She had chronic insomnia. S'all good.
Heaving a big sigh, she lifted herself from the seat and stretched. She walked to her ensuite bathroom to shower for school.
The only thing she enjoyed about being the adopted daughter of socialites was she had access to rich-people stuff besides kickass bathrooms. For examples, private schools and parties.
And the only good part about either of those came in the lithe form of the one-and-only Dick Grayson.
They were both the same age - ten - and they were both very much in love with one thing... Acrobatics.
Dick had shared with her that he had been a part of the circus till his family was killed two years prior, and she almost told him her parents were Harley Quinn and the Joker.
That was when her godfather had borrowed her from Dick at the social gathering and informed her that she shouldn't tell anyone anything about her situation.
Naturally, she trusted him. She didn't regret that. It just felt odd that she felt so inclined to obeying him.
Perhaps she was more grateful for Bruce's decision than she thought.
She was still bitter, though. What if she could help her mother? What if she was the singular thing that could bring Harley from the brink of her own madness?
"I guess we'll never know," Bruce had replied to her question. "But it all comes down to who you are now, and what you'll become in the future."
Helene took his words, although cryptic and borderline cheesy, to heart. And there they stayed.
"Going through the motions" would be the most valid way to describe how Helene was getting through the day.
Going through the motions.
That meant allowing autopilot to take over and mentally check out. And that was something Helene was great at.
"Miss Keller? Is there something in that head of yours you'd like to share with the class?"
She blinked out of her daze and focused her gaze entirely upon the substitute sitting like a monarch at the desk that didn't belong to her.
Their actually interesting teacher was on maternity leave, so they were left with an ancient woman of maybe seventy to act as though she was more important than she really was.
Helene never hid her thoughts, and she actually was surprised it had taken the sub this long to get on her nerve.
The young girl narrowed her unnatural peridot eyes, allowing one of her glares to seep from her being and into the old woman's.
"Oh, no, Miss Armen," Helene replied snidely. "I wouldn't want to bother them with the musings of a 'sniveling homunculus' child."
The woman had gone still, her eyes boring into that of the young girl's. She seemed to go through an array of emotion... First, she flushed with embarrassment. Then she looked affronted. Then uncomfortable. She did attempt to hide this by with a fidgeting action of tugging her starched blouse as if righting a man's Victorian era's vest.
Miss Armen finally managed to break eye contact when there were a few chuckles and mummers around the class. She looked around the classroom, anywhere but the humbling and piercing gaze of Helene Keller before clearing her throat, swiftly moving along with the lesson.
Behind her sounded a familiar giddy chuckle and she smirked, glad she had amused her friend.
The sound of a chair creaking from shifting weight reached her ears just before the whispering voice of Dick Grayson did. "You'd think she'd actually understand by now that she can't get one on you..." he laughed in a hushed tone.
No one liked the old woman. For being a retired teacher of almost forty years, she was too arrogant and she even had the audacity to to despise kids.
And she also seemed to like the sound of her own voice when talking trash about them to other teachers.
Helene discreetly lifted her enclosed fist and he met it enthusiastically, both making an immature explosion sound through their teeth.
