Helena Kyle took her last look around at the city she had once tried to protect and then focused on what had once been her home for so many years. Through the silent tears that occasionally streaked down her bruised and gaunt features, she could just make out the tiny speck that sat out on the balcony as it had every night since Quinn's attack.
Two weeks.
Two weeks had drug by since that night, the days and nights blending together in a constant nightmare that no amount of drugs, alcohol, or pain could chase away. Desperate to forget just how badly she had fucked up and hurt the only ones she loved, Helena had tried everything. Last night, when she had willingly allowed herself to be beaten within an inch of her life, and lay there in that dark, rank ally, she realized only one thing was going to release her from the torment that Quinn had trapped her in.
Helena snorted in disgust. Quinn was trapped for life in a plastic cage, her memory wiped by a girl that had lost her innocence the moment she had touched that warped mind. The psychopath would have cackled in maniacal glee had she know just how much damage she had wrought on her enemy. Quinn may have lost the battle, but it seemed the Birds had lost the war.
That night, their family had been ripped apart in a way that could never be mended. And it was all her fault.
Helena viciously scrubbed at the tears, reminding herself that she didn't deserve the luxury of feeling pain and crying. She shoved her battered hands deep inside of her pockets, and clenched the small packet of letters she had there. She didn't know what had possessed her to include one to her father and to Dick, but it had been an emotionally weak moment she supposed.
Keeping her hands firmly at her sides, Helena took one last longing look at the tiny speck in the distance, and then stepped to the edge of the spire atop Wayne Tower. She stood there for several moments more looking down at the streets far below before turning her head towards the shadows to her left.
"Picked a helluva time to come back dad," she said hoarsely.
The shadows shifted and her father stepped forward. "Please don't do this Helena," he said quietly. His face was as emotionless as always, but there was genuine concern in his voice and eyes.
She looked away, closing her own eyes as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. "You shouldn't be here."
"I know the pain you are feeling right now. But this won't solve anything Helena. Please," he asked gently as he shifted slightly closer and held out his hand.
Helena's eyes flashed angrily as she spun to face him. "Leaving didn't solve anything either, did it?" she snapped. "You abandoned us when we needed you the most, and I GET why you did it. But you want to know what hurts the most? Not once did you try to contact us. I KNOW Alfred was in contact with you, but you kept us out of your life and all you accomplished was hurting all of us even more. That was worse than my own mother dying," she spat at him, her eyes going completely feral.
The hand that had been outstretched dropped in resignation, and eyes so much like her own, looked away in old pain. "I won't do that to her," Helena said harshly. "That bitch broke Barbara because of me. I failed the one person that reached out to me when everything in my life had been ripped away. She sits out on that balcony every night, torn between loathing me and everything that I allowed happen, and wondering if I'm still around and safe. I don't deserve that kind of concern, and she doesn't deserve to go through that kind of emotional torture again."
Helena shifted backwards, her heels hanging over the ledge. She pulled the letters out and threw them at his feet. "I suggest you take those and go," she told him flatly.
Bruce Wayne looked down at the letters and then arched an eyebrow when he saw one addressed to both he and Dick. Slowly he bent down and picked it up, absently noting how much Helena's writing was like her mother's. And suddenly it really hit him.
Helena wasn't just another lost person he was trying to talk down. She was his and Selina's daughter. Like him, she had given her heart and soul to protect this city in his absence and it had ripped both from her in repayment. And right now, she had far more courage than he did almost a decade ago when he was in this exact spot contemplating the very same decision.
"I'm not giving up this time," he told her firmly.
He expected some kind of comeback, a goodbye, a curse…something. But her eyes had gone so dead after her angry rant, that not even they had given him any kind of warning. She just….fell.
"HELENA NOOOO!!!!!!" He shouted as he leapt over the edge without a second thought. He wasn't in costume, but he had had enough sense to don his utility belt and harness under the dark clothes he had on.
He watched as she fought her natural instincts and slam into a lower spire, knocking her unconscious. He grimaced as the impact broke bones, and the sharp stonework ripped into flesh, before she continued her plummet to the rapidly approaching street below.
The only thing he had to be thankful of, was the fact that her encounter with the spire gave him the precious two seconds he needed to catch up with her. Calling on every bit of skill and strength his aging body still possessed, he narrowly missed the spire himself, caught her limp figure as it bounced off the edge and pulled her to him as he fired his grappling hook.
The jolt nearly tore his arm out of it's socket, and he grit his teeth as he and his daughter slammed hard into the side of his building and spun wildly for several second before he managed to plant his feet against the wall and they skidded sideways a few more feet.
He hung there for nearly a minute, breathing harshly as he tried to get his heart and mind back under control. It had been so long….
The familiar cold mask finally seemed to descend over him and he swiftly got them both to the ground. He did a quick check and swallowed hard as he realized Helena wasn't breathing and her heart had stopped. He pulled his phone out.
"Marcus please tell me you are still at work."
"Bruce?"
"Marcus are you inside the building?"
"Well….yes…but…"
"Get the med team out to the alley behind exit fifteen now."
"Sir?"
"Damnit Marcus just get them out here!" He shouted, losing his control as he slammed the phone shut and began CPR.
Two minutes later, half a dozen of his employees poured out of the door, Marcus Benton right on their heels. Everyone stared at him in shock, and then they remembered there was a patient to attend to. Marcus reached out and drew Bruce back as they went to work on his daughter. "Bruce…is that…Helena?"
The younger man had been made privy to Helena's existence when Bruce had placed him in charge of Wayne Enterprises and had set up the various trust funds for his extended family members. But in all these years, Marcus had never met the young woman since she had not once touched anything that had her father had set up for her. Having Bruce show up like this was enough of a shock, but to have them both here like this….it was a bit overwhelming even for him.
"Yes," was the quiet and grave answer.
"Dear god, what happened to her?"
"She jumped," Bruce whispered hoarsely.
Marcus's moment of near panic finally passed however and he snapped to full alertness. After all, Bruce Wayne hadn't been a fool when he'd chosen Marcus to fill in during his absence. Recalling everything he'd been briefed on in case a medical emergency with Helena should arise, he pulled his phone out and hit a preset number. "Dr. Thomspon? Yes it's Marcus Benton. Yes I know I'm overdue for my company physical and I hate to interrupt my impending lecture, but we have a rather pressing situation at the Tower that needs your…special attention." Marcus paused.
"Leslie, I wouldn't bother you at this time of the evening for something as trivial as that," he sighed impatiently. "It's Helena and she's seriously injured. You need to get down here right away." Another pause. "Yes….it appears she did. Please hurry Leslie, my team will do what they can for her until you arrive."
Bruce watched numbly as the medical team loaded Helena onto a gurney that had been brought and continued to work on her as they prepared her to be moved inside. To their credit, the team worked quickly, and efficiently, and Helena was inside and upstairs in a matter of minutes.
Marcus pressed a damp towel into his hands, and Bruce looked down to see blood covering both his hands and clothing. "I called Alfred. He is heading over to Barbara's right now to pick her up. Given rumors of recent events, I felt it would be best if he informed her and drove them down here. Thankfully, Leslie was just closing up her clinic which is only a few miles from here. She should be up momentarily."
Bruce just nodded.
Leslie arrived ten minutes after the call, and merely blinked once in her surprise to see Bruce before diving into the fray and taking control. The medical teamed deferred readily to her command, realizing she had better knowledge and familiarity of their unique patient. The room was quickly being transformed to an operating room, and the staff was scurrying about to prepare for surgery.
Leslie finally broke away from the group and pulled Bruce out into the hallway just as Alfred arrived with Barbara and Dinah. Barbara looked at the amount of blood still covering Bruce and swallowed hard, her jaw trembling with barely concealed emotion. "Bruce?"
Finally faced with his former partner and protégé since her paralysis, Bruce suddenly found himself unable to speak. Leslie spared him for the moment, and knelt next to her old friend and pulled her into a fierce hug. "I'm going to do everything I can to save her sweetheart. That cat still has a few more lives left in her and I'll be damned if I let her check out early like this."
"She actually jumped?" Dinah asked, her face devoid of almost all emotion.
It was the first time Bruce had really noticed the girl, and what he saw, chilled him to the bone. There was nothing of the sunny disposition Alfred had described to him. Now there was only, a cold and haunted look. And a tinge of something that almost looked like madness on the fringes of those icy blue eyes. Obviously her encounter with Quinn had scarred the girl badly…perhaps even for life.
Bruce nodded slowly looking back at Barbara and Alfred. "I tried to stop her….but she hit one of the spires before I could catch her."
Leslie rattled of the number of injuries that they were aware of, knowing Barbara would want to hear the cold hard facts. Fifteen broken bones, a shattered collarbone, dislocated left shoulder, lacerated kidney, massive cerebral bruising and swelling, three fractured discs in her spine, a punctured lung, and bone fragments all over.
"She's pushed her body past it's healing capabilities this time. The medical team was able to rescucitate her before I got here, but it's been touch and go several times since," Leslie admitted. "My surgical team will be here shortly, and with Bruce's own team, we should be able to repair most of the damage."
"Most?"
"We won't know how badly the damage to her spine or brain will be until she wakes up."
"If she wakes up at all." Dinah added flatly into the silence.
"Dinah!" Barbara gasped.
Dinah continued to stare at the doctor who finally sighed and looked at the ground. "That's awfully rude of you in this situation young lady," she reprimanded even as she admitted to what Dinah had said out loud for her.
"Despite Bruce's efforts to save her, the blow to her head was severe. She's in a coma right now and completely unresponsive. Her body is barely even able to keep its normal autonomous responses like breathing on it's own. We are most likely going to have to place her on a respirator. But since the subject has been brought up," Leslie said with a hard look to the teen who simply shrugged indifferently.
"I need to know at what point do you want me to stop?"
Barbara lost it at that point. She stared at the floor, her features going pale in shock, and dropped her head into her hands as tears formed in her eyes. "This can't be happening," she whispered, as Alfred moved forward to rest his hands on her shoulders in comfort.
Bruce empathized with her completely, and could see that even Alfred was struggling mightily to keep his own composure. "Do whatever it takes to keep her alive Leslie," he answered tightly. "We won't make any decisions like that until there are no other alternatives left."
"As you wish. I should continue preparing my patient and we need to keep that room sterile so I am going to have to ask you all to remain out here from now on."
With that, the older woman pushed back through the large doors and left the small group in apprehensive silence. Dinah finally muttered something about needing air and left. Alfred was looking expectantly at him, and swallowing hard, Bruce knelt down next to Barbara.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as she allowed him to gather her into a hug for the first time in her life. "I tried to stop her. But I was too late."
"I can't do this again Bruce. I can't lose her too," she wept as her finger left bruises in his arms.
"We won't," he said, knowing he would do everything in his power to fulfill that one promise.
