Chapter 5
Those couple of weeks that passed were the longest that passed without the presence of the cat in my life, but the recovery she had to take was one that she refused to have me around at all and Bruce was more than happy to oblige. He, however, took the time to go back and forth to see her, the guilt that consumed him for the events of that day, no matter whose fault it was, it was his building and it was therefore it was his fault that it happened. He took far too much on his shoulders again, and the addition to a broody mini him moping around the manor, it was almost too much for him to take on. We did it though, managed to get that angry little girl settled and eventually after a couple of weeks, he sent me back to school, after I passed the various tests as fit enough to go back both physically and mentally. I don't think anyone fully understood the hell I went through at that school, not in the slightest, but like both of my parents, I was so good at hiding my secrets, that not one of them would catch on to the fact.
When mom left the hospital, it was a couple of days before I could go anywhere near her. It was a day when the rain fell hard on the streets, the traffic ran through Gotham and I was locked inside Wayne Towers with a pile of crayons and some form of assistant to keep an eye on me. She smiled and played with me, probably because she was paid to do it. Babysitting wasn't usually on the roster of things to do when you worked at Wayne Enterprises, so she probably took it as an easy day in the office, God, was she ever wrong to underestimate the eight year old flight risk at her side. I was, however, so engrossed with the pens and paper in front of me, something that I learned to love from my little witch, that I didn't notice her presence until she was in the corridor behind the glass, arguing, again, with dad. Arguing until she saw me look up, then I bolted. Bolted as did she, straight toward the child she hadn't seen in weeks, weeks that felt like years to me. You will never appreciate the presence of your mother more than when she is gone, the need to be in her arms was more than I can ever express or even fathom myself. Falling to her knees was all the signal I need to grab onto her tightly, my small arms around her as she grasped as tightly as she could.
"Kitten…you have no idea…." She took breaths between words as she refused to let me go. My face buried into her hair as it melded with my own. "Have you been a good girl?"
"No…not really…" I shrugged and lied, anything to have her take me home with her, even if it meant causing hell in the middle of the work place. "Are you better now?"
"Almost. You know mommies never get ill, we're too strong for that." She purred as she stood with me in her arms, there was something wrong, and I knew it more that she thought I ever would. "I need to tell you something. Something you aren't going to like."
"You mean about me living with Bruce?" The fact I used his first name in front of him was a sign that at that point, I blamed him completely for taking me away from her arms. "I thought it was just while you got better?"
"No honey, mommy has a lot to get sorted before you come home." She was attempting not to cry which in turn, made me cry fully. "Helena, listen, you are going to see me again."
"No…no I won't…" I didn't care that people were watching the scene unfolding in front of them as the crying became temper tears.
"You will, on your birthday, I promise, three short months kitten, and I promise you, your father will look after you until then. Then it'll be whenever you want too. You know where I am. I know where you are."
"I won't! I won't go and live there!" I screamed, screaming was my natural defence to issues at that age, as if I could scare them all away with that high-pitched cry.
"Helena Kyle, you are better than this, you are stronger." She placed her head on mine as she calmed the wildcat in her arms, running her hand up and down my back. "I will never abandon you, you leave your window open, you hear me?" she demanded and I nodded to her as I still cried on.
"Selina, give her here!" Bruce had obviously heard the screams from the corridor and came running to stop the scene unfolding. "Give me the child."
And she did, something that I never thought she would do, attempted to hand me over as I clung on for life before she broke my hands away.
"Put me down! Now! I won't go! You can't make me!" I kicked and scratched as best I could to get his grip to loosen. It was pointless as he held me firmly under his arm, taking me to the door, passing me off to a waiting Dick Grayson.
"Take her home, she's too angry right now." He looked at me with a mix of both rage and pity, like he had no right to be angry with me, but was more embarrassed at the way I had reacted, but what did he expect? That was the first and one of the few moments I hated that man with all I had. He turned and returned to the room where Selina had turned her back, probably to stop herself running and taken me with her. At that age, I didn't get the fact that her sacrifice was for me, and not her. She was willing to give up her piece of happiness for me, so that I could have the life she wanted me to have. It was in that moment, that my father comforted my mother, held her in the way he did me. It was one of the only moments I had known them to be in a room and not kill each other. It was for the betterment of their child. A mutual decision that I had not one say in.
"No! Put me down Dick!"
He didn't say a word as he picked me up in his arms, letting me scream out my two weeks of pent up anger and aggression onto his shoulder as he held me tightly against him. I think I screamed all the way from the top floor to the bottom as he took the elevator to the lobby where I had eventually turned screams into sobs and annoyance.
"Come on Hel, we'll go for a shake, and I'll tell you what's really going on, okay? You think you can be a grown up about it?"
I nodded and that was enough of a promise as he placed me on the floor, holding onto that small hand tightly as we walked to the nearest shake shack, which in Gotham, for some reason, was easy to find.
"You finished crying now?" Dick Grayson's eyebrow raised at my now red and less angry face but I still found it in me to scowl at him with a little anger as we sat in a booth at the back of the café.
"Yes…." I poked at the shake with a straw as his arms crossed before letting them go to lean on the table. "No, you can't have any."
"Sometimes, I worry about you, then you open your mouth and I know your fine." He chuckled and went in to take food from the plate in front of me, and I, like the angry cat I was, stabbed at him with a fork.
"Stop making small talk and tell me what's actually going on Grayson." I looked up at him and took my fork back to my plate.
"Jeez kid…" he rolled his eyes and rubbed the back of his hand in annoyance. "Bruce is taking you from Selina because he doesn't want you to be hurt."
"Hurt how?" I was never going to let this subject drop.
"By the bad guys. Like the time when you were younger." He looked at me with a frown, as if I didn't remember and it was all that haunted me at night. "Your mother knows some…odd…people."
"You mean with the clown?" I looked at the plate and pushed it away, somehow, it took my appetite to think on that situation.
"Yes, like that." He looked like he was sad for some reason as if it hurt him more than it changed my DNA or mental state.
"Moms more than capable to look after me, you know that. She would never let anyone near me. Bruce is just being his possessive self again"
"I'm not saying that. But there is always someone there, waiting to take you, to hurt you. With parents like yours, you know you're always going to be a target for every physco in Gotham Hel, which is why you must be careful. No running away."
"You need to teach me, to do what Daddy does, what you all do, then I won't have to run." I scowled and glared at him, that jaw set and eyes on fire with a little anger behind them.
"You're eight, in a few years…"
"Bullshit!" I cut him off, a little too loud than I should have. "You were my age when you trained at the circus." I growled and met the eyes of many a disapproving person at the language that spilled from my mouth. There were always two sides to my personality, the side which I gave out to my parents the public and then there was this Helena. The angered little brat who thought she owned the whole of Gotham, her family included
"That's the circus, not fighting on the streets of Gotham. You're too young."
"No, you all think I'm too young. I could be Robin, easily. But you all try too hard to protect me because I'm a girl."
"It's nothing to do with you being a girl, look at Barbara, she does this. It has more to do with you being Bruce's girl."
"I don't care. You need to show me, and I won't stop until you do. He can't protect me and keep me from this forever. I grew up in the Batcave, I know more about fixing cars and hand to hand combat then I do history and math"
He stared me down with that look on his face that meant he was angry but couldn't do anything about it, that he knew I would win the argument and wouldn't stop until he gave in to what I wanted.
"Just like your old man." He growled back and stood up "Come on then, it takes more than your angry face and a few magic gymnastic tricks to do this."
"Funny, that's what I thought you did." I retorted and followed closely behind him, ready to take on the world as I thought I knew it.
