For multipliiehearts, who requested Helena warning them about Selina getting shot.
"You and your morals," Selina muttered. "You always make things twice as difficult."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "If we're talking about Jerome again—"
They'd been working for the past hour, trying to figure out how to help Helena. After two hours of discussion, he and Selina had fallen into bickering. Helena's eyes were tired, as if it was something she was used to. She sipped her coffee matter-of-factly as she sat on the floor in front of them, her back leaning against the couch and her legs stretched in front of her. His and Selina's arguing didn't seem to faze her, suggesting that they still made a habit of butting heads thirty years into the future.
Oh well. He guessed the more things changed, the more things stayed the same. (To be honest, he would have been a slight bit disappointed if they had stopped fighting. They wouldn't really be them without it, would they? But he could have done without this argument.)
"I had him!" Selina complained. "Seriously, Bruce."
"Well, I'm sorry I just wanted to keep you from having blood on your hands!"
"Unless you've forgotten, I already do. I pushed a man out of a window for you!"
"I didn't ask you to!"
"That doesn't change the fact that Valeska would be dead by now and Gotham safer if you hadn't stopped me."
Bruce saw Helena stiffen, and a spot of coffee sloshed from her mug and spattered on Selina's floor. The look on her face was hard to determine, but one he was beginning to recognize. They'd just touched a sore spot for Helena, one that meant they'd hit on something that connected to their futures.
"Jerome…he…" Helena took a deep breath and started over. "Oh man. I'd forgotten how close it is to—"
"To what?" Selina asked. She glanced at Bruce, the animosity between them immediately evaporating.
"You know something," Bruce said. "And you don't know whether or not to tell us."
"Yeah." Helena frowned into her mug. "I don't think I can warn you about everything. Because it's not entirely Valeska. If he wasn't the one—" Her brows furrowed. "It's like knowing how to save your parents, Dad, if you went back in time. You know when they get shot, but someone was out to get them. If you'd saved them then, would they just die another time, and you'd be caught in a time loop forever trying to stop it?"
"Someone dies?" Selina asked. Bruce could feel the tension radiating off of her. He wanted to grab her hand, put an arm around her—something. But he didn't think she'd accept it from him just then.
Helena shook her head. "You don't die. But you do get shot. And it's…it's bad."
"How bad?" Selina asked. Anyone else would have thought her voice perfectly even and emotionless. But Bruce could hear the slight quiver in her words.
Helena's own voice wobbled. "They said you'd never walk again."
"They said," Bruce rushed to say before he could face the look on Selina's face. "She does, doesn't she?"
"Only because you cheated," Helena said quietly to Bruce. "The way you saved Alfred."
"Water from the Lazarus pit," Bruce said in understanding. "But how—"
"It wasn't Valeska's idea to shoot her," Helena said. "His plan to break you failed, Dad. But then Ra's al Ghul came and…he knew how to hurt you the most. And he knew what you'd do to help Mom, even if it meant being manipulated by him. Becoming what he wanted you to be."
"Just…just stop," Selina said. "Can't we just stop it?"
"I don't know! He shoots you at Wayne manor. The day… I don't know the exact date. You guys didn't like talking about it much." She took a deep breath. "All I know is that you always referred to it as one bad day, like it meant something."
Selina looked at Bruce, and though she tried to hide it, he could see the fear in her eyes. Selina wasn't one to show when she was frightened, and he wished he knew what to do.
"Then we find Jerome," Bruce said. "We find him, and we take him in like we tried to do before."
Helena looked uncomfortable. "I said Valeska. Not Jerome." She bit her lip. "You'll understand that better when it's time."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bruce asked. "Helena, you have to tell us."
Helena shook her head. "I can't. Do you realize how much you already know? I don't know how much I've changed history already. And if I tell you more, maybe it will end up better in the end. But it also might end up worse."
And Bruce knew that, as much as she might want to, his daughter wouldn't share anything more.
*Yep, I went into some speculation there. I can't imagine that Selina won't walk again in Gotham, but how she regains the use of her legs (if the doctors aren't wrong in their prognosis) is up to the imagination. Personally, I can easily imagine Ra's giving Jeremiah the idea to shoot Selina to hurt Bruce, and of course he wouldn't need much prodding to do so.
