FIC: Phantom Raven (10/?)

The Phantom Raven

By Erin Griffin

Rating: For now, PG

Pairing: Helena/Gabby

Disclaimer: I wish I did, but I don't own the Birds of Prey (otherwise there would be major subtext in every episode, heh heh heh heh heh...).

Summery: Born a Meta human herself, Gabby Andrews struggles to make sense of her gifts as she tries to make it in the real word. When a conversation is overheard, she is forced to put on a mask to hide her face as she goes out to save the day. She meets Huntress and a romantic adventure begins.

Author's Note: Dedicated as Always to Angel. Love ya' baby. This is a special gift to Dallas. Don't worry, Strapz is coming soon, I promise. That being said, please enjoy the story. I am sorry if these chapters seem short. (They seemed short even as I was writing them out.)

Thanks Rain for all your help. I made a few changes after you sent it back, so whatever looks funky is all my doing. You did a great job.

Chapter 10

"... wake up soon, Huntress, she just fainted from shock. I mean, she's probably never been shot before." I heard a voice say.

"No shit... Well, she has, but her wings saved us, remember Barbara?"

'Barbara? Miss Gordon?! Why is she here? If I'm dreaming, why would I be dreaming of her?' I asked myself. It registered in my mind that I was laying mostly on my left side, my shoulder in the air.

"Yes, I remember. She was lucky it went right through. Go keep Dinah company. She'll be alright, go." My ex English teacher of 2 and a half years said in a whisper. I felt a couple of fingers pat around my shoulder. I hadn't felt anything until the fingers touched me. I let out a whimper of pain. "Shh," she said as I tried to push the hand away. I opened my eyes and saw that it actually was Miss Gordon. Perhaps she was the Oracle figure that Dinah was talking to. She was at the moment changing my bandage on my shoulder where I'd been shot. She was right; I didn't feel a bullet in my skin. There was another hole on the back of my shoulder. Miss Gordon became a little gentler as she worked. When she was finished, she stared at me and I did the same to her, but I was too confused and a little scared to speak. Finally she left, coming back a couple of minutes later with a glass of water and a couple of pills. "Here, take these. It will help make you feel better." I nodded slightly as she gently helped me sit up long enough to guzzle down the pills with the water. "There you go."

"Where am I?" I finally ask, knowing I wasn't in the hospital; otherwise Barbara wouldn't be the first person I'd see. Miss Gordon was silent for a minute, and then smiled reassuringly.

"You're safe," was all she said, brushing back some of my hair.

"That t-tells me nothing of location." She chuckled.

"I promise to tell you all you need to know when things settle down. Try to get some rest, and we'll talk later." she said. She wheeled out of the room and I was alone. I didn't like being alone in this place, wherever I was. My mind ran wild with the possibilities of where we could be, but all I could think of were a space station (ruled out), the Batcave (possible, but where the Hell is Batman?), Some underground lair that is only accessible by sewers (Huntress doesn't seem like one to ever want to go near a sewer), Empire State Building (too far away), Miss Gordon's house (seems too big for a house bought with a teacher's salary)... The list went on. After a while, these thoughts or perhaps whatever it was that Miss Gordon had given me were making me sleepy and I finally drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up, it was daylight. Actually, it looked as if the day was almost over. I must have slept the day away. I was now flat on my back, but my shoulder felt numb. I was aware of my left hand being warmer than normal, and it felt heavy. Someone was holding it. I moved my head and saw it was Helena. I say Helena because her mask was off, her hair was wet and slicked back (not spiked), and her leather was gone, and was instead wearing a sweatshirt and matching sweat pants (white). No one would have ever guessed that she dodged bullets, stopped robberies, and saves New Gotham in her spare time. "How do you feel?" she asked, and it was hard to tell what she was thinking by her tone. She sounded a little bit of everything: hurt angry, sad, relieved, and happy all at once.

"Better. Or at least... better now that I can thin a little more clearly," I said slowly, unsure really what to say to her. "Why didn't you just take me to the hospital?" She looked down.

"Your wings were stretched out, you were wearing leather and rubber not unlike Batman's costume, you're Meta, so who knows what they would have done if they found your blood wasn't normal... Must I go on?" she asked. I pulled my hand away from hers.

"No, I guess not." I whispered. Her hands both enveloped my left hand again, and my heart thudded with her touch.

"Why didn't you tell me that you are Raven?" she asked, her voice softening.

"For the same reason you never told me that Helena Kyle is the Huntress." I replied.

"But I never told you that, yet still you knew." she said.

"I sorta figured it out."

"When?"

"Later that night... when I told the Huntress that I loved someone else. Little did I know that she was right there under the mask," I said, looking down.

"You mean it was... me?" she asked, as if she didn't believe me. I suddenly looked up into her eyes.

"Yeah! I mean... God, I've liked you since high school when you used to drag Dinah back there kicking and screaming. And I'd thought I was dreaming when it seemed you were taking an interest in me-" Before I could finish that sentence, her lips had found mine. I responded immediately, wanting to feel these lips since we'd last met. One of her hands ran through my hair, her fingernails lightly scraping my scalp. I'm not sure how long this kiss lasted, but it wasn't long enough.

"Eh-heh-hem!" We broke apart then. "I don't care what Marvin Gay says, I doubt Gabby needs 'sexual healing'." It was Dinah talking. I tried not to blush, but it wasn't working. I hid my face on Helena's shoulder so Dinah didn't see it.

"Are those my leather pants?" Helena' question made me look up. Indeed, Dinah was wearing the same leather pants I first saw Helena in the first time she had to drag Dinah back to New Gotham High School after she skipped her first 4th period.

"Yeah." She said with a shrug as if she didn't give a damn. "You know the rule, you leave your shit around the Clocktower, I get free reign over them."

"Yeah, well I'll 'free reign' your-"

"Children! Take that elsewhere." came authoritative voice I knew so well from the days of being in the same English class as Mark 'Oreo' McGriff, AKA the class of 2005's class clown.

"Miss Gordon?" I asked.

"Barbara. Please... Call me Barbara here."

"I-I'm so used to calling you Miss Gordon, so it will take me a while before I get used to calling you just Barbara. Besides...Where's 'here'?"

"You're in the New Gotham Clocktower." Miss Gordon said.

"Yup, the new and improved secret lair." Dinah said. I didn't say anything. I was thinking over the links between these three women and what I knew about superheroes. It was certain to me now that Canary was Dinah. It was actually a surprise to me that I hadn't figured it out before. During the course of our friendship, there have always been times where Dinah had to leave abruptly from a movie or from my house after I'd see her touching her ear. It was then I realized that her jewelry was the same as what Huntress wore... what Helena wears. Thinking back, I would hear or read about a robbery stopped or a murder mystery solved thanks to a couple of unknown vigilantes. It shouldn't surprise me, I mean, Dinah did know so much about these superheroes.

'B.J Gordon... I thought Gr'Nadia was talking about a man.' I thought.

"If you don't mind me asking, what is your middle name, Miss Gordon?" I asked, curious as to know what the J stood for.

"Uh, Joanne. Why?"

"My... my trainer says 'Hi' then." She didn't say anything at first.

"Gr'Nadia." She said in not a question, but a statement. "She's still in use then?" She asked.

"Well, someone updated her and she's helped me out a lot, and talks about her creator constantly when in converse mode," I told her. I must be insane. I'm talking about her as if she was real. It's almost like talking to inanimate objects, but then, Gr'Nadia isn't really.

"I created her a while back before my injury to originally train myself a little better, but after I got into the chair and adopted Helena, I finished her to train Helena in areas I could not."

"She annoyed me though, and I knocked her to the point of malfunctioning, which means-"

"Which means she was repaired." Miss Gordon cut in.

"By Batman." I finished. They all looked at me as if I was insane. "What? He watches over the city one-way or the other. How else do you think I acquired his tools?" I asked. "Or maybe it was that other guy." I shrugged. It was silent for quite a while as everyone fell into their own thoughts. "So uh... Do the three of you have a team name that you all call each other, like The Justice League or Teen Titans did?" I asked, looking around at them.

"Yes, the FOUR of us do." Dinah corrected. Barbara shot her a LOOK, and Dinah shut up immediately. I guess Barbara was the only one Dinah cowers from when glared at.

"Alfred likes to call us the Birds of Prey." Helena supplied.

"Why?" I asked. I looked over to my best friend once again. She shrugged.

"I guess it's a British thing."

"Oh." I said as Helena started to laugh. I knew I was missing some inside joke. If I ever joined them (I kept hoping that one day I would be working with Huntress) I knew I would be left out of many inside jokes. "Uh, who is Alfred?" I finally asked.

"That would be me," I heard a familiar voice and I knew instantly that he was the man I heard on the video I got for Christmas. As the recognition spread across my face, Alfred (an elderly man wearing a tux and holding a tray with a tea kettle and 4 teacups) smiled warmly at me. I smiled back. "It is sure nice to finally meet you, Gabby." He said, handing us all a teacup. Everyone but Helena took one.

"Wonderful to meet you as well." I said, not sure if I should ask about the whereabouts of Batman.

After everyone had their tea, Barbara took my temperature and changed my bandage again, even though there wasn't any blood on it. Then she left, and Helena had to go too, saying she had to go to work. I took a mental note to call Jenna when I could to tell her that I can't come in for a couple of days, though looking at my wound when Barbara changed my bandage a few minutes earlier, it seemed as if I'd heal a little faster than the people on TV do... in fact, the scrape on my face from falling after the gunshot was almost nonexistent. Dinah stared at me for a little bit. "What?" I asked, feeling a little uncomfortable under her gaze.

"My best friend, a superhero, huh?"

"I should be saying the same thing." I countered.

She shook her head as if to say 'True, true'. "When?"

"When what? When did I start being a superhero or when did I find out I am Meta?" I asked. Dinah shrugged.

"I sorta know when you became a superhero. When did your powers start to show?" she asked.

"As far as I know, they started when I was nine." I looked at her curiously.

"I started having weird dreams when I was 8 or nine as well. It's weird, Helena didn't start showing signs of her Meta human abilities until after her life was altered, and Gibson always had his power, even if it isn't an active power." She said. She chuckled. "Mob movies… I should have known it was you right then."

Yeah, well, I was tempted to respond to the word 'skidaddle' I mean, come on, who says that word anymore?

"I do."

"You and about 2 others…" I mutter, grinning when she glared my way.

"Anyway, though Gr'Nadia must be a great trainer, I hope you start to train with Helena and me. It would be nice to finally be able to kick someone's ass." She said after a while.

"Thanks." I said dryly.

"I mean, it would be GREAT having you around and not having to keep secrets from you and have it be like a real friendship, no lies, no secrets... But at the same time, one can get tired of never winning a fight."

"How do you think I will feel?" I ask, pretending to be hurt. She grinned. "Besides," I continue as I shift a little, "Doesn't it really only count out there? When you fight the bad guys?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah." She said.

"Well, when I get better, I will try to take it easy on you."

"You are in no position to be challenging me. In the classroom you may have been my superior, but in that training room... I'll whoop you." She declared.

"Okay okay... But that doesn't mean I won't try."

"I won't be expecting anything less from you, Andrews." she kissed the top of my head. "Get better soon," she said before leaving. It seemed like these women (plus Alfred) had a pretty nice system going. If Miss Gordon said it was okay, I would love to join them as a- what had Helena said Alfred called them... Birds of Prey- I would love to join them. They seemed to make a cozy little family. Though Miss Gordon was a very nice person (obviously... look at my shoulder...), she still seemed like the alpha female of the trio, and well, working with her as a superhero would just seem odd. Still, I guess we'll see how things go.