Chapter 11 Knew More Than Most
More watching. He supposed it was slightly better this time because he had some company. Five of them crammed into the mid-size sedan. Since he already been pulling surveillance duty, he got to claim seniority, namely he got to drive the car. If not for the fact that anyone looking in could see that all the men had necks as thick as their heads, they just might have passed as inconspicuous. It wasn't the company that changed his boredom to suppressed excitement though. It was the fact that this time they had been promised some action. They wouldn't just be watching the girl go from place to place.
One of the newer guys in the backseat was playing the latest version of a portable gaming system. He had the sound turned off, but the tapping of the keys was driving the man in charge nuts. He took action. He grabbed the small device to the player's protests. The driver then opened the door just enough to crush it on the pavement.
The car was quiet now.
The driver gripped the wheel tightly, desperate for some action.
"Hey Cutie."
Barbara Gordon felt two soft lips on her check to go along with the greeting. Still, her typing fingers didn't falter. She didn't see whose lips and voice were teasing her so, but took a wild guess on the owner anyway. "Hello, Dick. What brings you here?"
Dick pushed aside some papers and leaned against the edge her desk. His inability to sit in a chair like a normal person was a habit that always annoyed Barbara. She suspected that was exactly why he did it. She refused to even turn from her computer screen to glare at him though. "Business."
"Bat or cop?"
"There's a difference?" At his teasing, Barbara granted him that glare. He smirked victoriously but grew more serious as she finished her research. "I'm following a lead. Tell Cassie if she needs an extra hand tonight, Nightwing will be around."
Barbara turned and smirked now, finished with her work. "Referring to yourself in the third person? You really are turning into Bruce."
Dick answered her teasing with a glare of his own. "I came to ask you to lunch but I think I just changed my mind."
"Can't handle the truth Dickie?"
He leaned in closer, looking at her intently. "Is that a wrinkle I see, Babs?"
Barbara turned away, serious again. "I'm not the one who needs to worry about getting older."
Dick sighed. "I'm only forty-five, I've got plenty of time Babs."
"Plenty of time for what? Plenty of time to get yourself killed?"
"I quit the league."
"Only because you were fed up with the business side of it."
"Babs, I don't want to have this argument again. I just wanted to have a nice meal with you."
She didn't want to have this argument again either, but she didn't want him to end up as another fallen hero for the cause. The thought of it unsettled her more then she was willing to admit. Especially since she told him they missed their chance when he tried to propose to her after her father died. "I can't have lunch with you. I've got to work in twenty minutes."
"Rejected." Their eyes met again. The tone shifted to a lighter one. "Well, at the very least let me give you a ride."
"And how am I supposed to get home?"
"Well, what time do you get off?" He paused with a leering grin. "Work that is."
Barbara smiled in spite of herself. "You've been spending too much time with Roy and Wally."
He laughed. "Actually I haven't seen them in weeks. Must have just accumulated over the years."
"I'm off work at ten, but if you really want to drop me off I can find a ride home. I've got the entire Justice League on rolodex after all."
"God knows Superman has nothing better to do than act as a cheap taxi ride for you."
She gave him a smack on the thigh. "Keep that up and I'll leave you to fend for yourself." She rolled to her bedroom fetching her coat and purse. Dick waited in the living room. She yelled out to him. "What are you planning on doing with your afternoon anyway? Spend some quality time with Bruce?"
She got back in time to catch his grimace. "Actually I was thinking of swinging by Wayne Industries to bug Tim." He held the door for her.
"You know there's a slight chance Bruce might be in the building with his name on the front." She rolled through the doorway.
"I'll have to visit with him sooner or later, it's his city after all. Just think Tim will be better company for lunch."
Dick let the door shut behind him.
He spotted the girl walking quickly across the campus. She glanced at her watch and pulled up her falling her bag. She looked to be late for something, but not in a real hurry to get wherever it is she's needed.
The phone rang. The driver answered it. "It's time. Give her a little scare. Find out her skill level."
The man gave small, devilish smile. Closed the phone and signaled his men. They get out of the car, heading in different directions, but with the same destination.
Helena always suffered from a healthy dose of paranoia. Even before notes in blood and lying parents she was just waiting for some bad guy to jump out behind the corner. However, since her parents' deaths her paranoia sharpened, having some reason and cause behind it. When you are left a cryptic note in blood, your irrational fear of a knife-welding maniac out to get you becomes a bit more reasonable. So in her heightened state of awareness it didn't take her long to notice the big man following her.
She tested it, taking a few wild turns, and still he followed. She didn't really get worried until she spotted the second guy.
Then a third.
When a forth approached she found herself surrounded and decided it was time to put irrational paranoia aside, and run. They followed, funneling in after her.
She might have been able to shake them off if not for her bag banging against her back. She refused to ditch it though. The five hundred dollars worth of textbooks could be replaced but not the nearly finished assignments or notes from lecture heavy classes.
She pushed whatever got in her way and managed to notice a fifth man had joined them. Their bulk made them slower, and Helena thanked the chance of rain today for making her wear tennis shoes rather than flip-flops.
She spotted the library and rushed towards it, seeing it as her salvation. If her mind had had another second to process it, she might have wondered how a handicapped librarian was going to help her with five spokesmen for Steroids Are Us.
Barbara was gathering up her information for her meeting with Helena. She knew she was missing something. She could just feel it. Part of her thought about asking Dick before he left, if just for an excuse to keep him with her for a few more minutes. Everything about Helena was familiar. It was like she already knew the answer, a secret from years ago, and she just wasn't connecting the dots.
It was all so familiar and all so frustrating.
It was at that moment that Helena burst through the doors.
She looked scared and flushed as she pressed herself back against the doors, like she was running from something and was now trying to keep that something out. "Help me."
The resounding bang that followed her plea only reassured Barbara's feeling that Helena wasn't the type to over-react to a harmless problem. She sent out a distress signal to Dick. He'd only left five minutes ago, so he wouldn't be far. He also knew Barbara well enough not to question her over-reacting to a situation either.
Seconds later Barbara realized how bad the situation truly was when five big men shattered the wooden doors around Helena. One of the men made a grab for Helena who ducked and ran into the science fiction section. The men pursued her with a reckless abandon but Helena evaded their attacks with a surprising amount of skill and grace.
Barbara was forced to sit behind her desk and just watch Helena get attacked and her library get destroyed. She never missed the action of being Batgirl, but Barbara absolutely hated just watching helplessly. Barbara desperately tried to think of something to do to help keep Helena okay, at the very least until Dick arrived.
Barbara was impressed with what she saw though. Helena had trained with Cassie for a little over a month and she was doing quite well. Her ducks and occasional hits showed a perfect combination of grace, beauty, and strength. The image sparked the old flame of recognition in Barbara. Suddenly, she knew where she'd seen Helena from before she met her.
Dick made his entrance in that moment to everyone's surprise. Though Barbara's shock wasn't over the broken skylight or a Bludhaven vigilante in Gotham daylight, it was Helena. Helena used the men's new-found focus on Nightwing to escape next to Barbara who was still staring at her. Helena might have noticed if not for the fight.
Nightwing was in full form. All five men were bigger than him, but he'd already taken one out and just managed a second as well. He blocked a high kick but the force of it made his back jerk.
Barbara might have noticed the wince of pain across Dick's face if another noticing hadn't had her complete attention. Helena. Helena looked so familiar. So like her. Helena now stood beside Barbara now watching the end of the fight as the men retreated from Nightwing carrying away their injured, but Barbara couldn't take her eyes off her.
The face was wrong, the cheekbones too high, face too narrow, and eyes too blue, but the rest was her. How had Barbara not noticed the striking resemblance before? She no longer needed a piece of paper to identify who Helena Troy was, hell, Barbara herself had helped hide her. Helena Troy was Selina Kyle's lost daughter, found.