"Orphanage?" Helena removed her helmet, too, looking with disgust at the place, kids must live with their parents not here. "This sucks."

"It was an old building that was donated by a wealthy lady," Barbara explained, opening the main gate. "A group of neighbors cleaned the place up, made small changes and began to pick up kids that ran the streets. After some time, people began to bring abandoned babies."

"Abandoned babies?"

"People sometimes leave babies in trash cans or on the front porches of houses."
"What?"

"Miss Gordon, nice to see you." A lady opened the door of the house and a group of kids ran toward them, screaming.

Helena made a face, no one mentioned kids.

She didn't like kids.

The children surrounded Barbara and she smiled, kneeling to greet them and talk to them.

Barbara looked so sweet. Helena remembered when Barbara arrived home with a bag of candy for her. She waited for her on Tuesdays, the day that she always visited them. Her mind traveled back in time. She still could remember the anxiety she felt, waiting for five o'clock to roll around. Barbara always arrived on time. She had been ten years old and Barbara had been like eighteen or nineteen years old.

She felt she was being watched. She turned her head to her right and looking down. A small kid looked at her -- he had a messy brown hair and green eyes.

"What?" she asked him. "Do I look like an alien to you?"

"Are you going to choose one of us?"

"Excuse me?" the brunette frowned.

"Barbara always brings people that want to pick one of us."

"Oh no, I'm too young to be a mom." The brunette shook her head and looked at the red head.

"Why?" the kid asked.

"Why what?"

"Why you don't you want to be a mom?"

"I didn't say that. I said I'm too young to be a mom."

"You look old."

Well, that was not nice. She glared at the boy. "I'm not old."

"How old are you?" the child asked.

"I'm twenty one."

"You are old. I'm five."

Helena rolled her eyes. "Why don't you go over there and play?"

"Do you like to play ball?" He lifted a plastic ball.

"No, I don't like to play ball."

"I want to play ball."

"I'll give you five bucks if you go play with your friends."

"I wanna play football." The small boy kicked Helena's knee.

The brunette howled and hopped back.

"Helena, what are you doing? He is just a kid." Barbara said, standing at her side.

"This son of…"

Barbara made a face at her and looked at the children.

She understood and bit her tongue with a sigh.

"This kid kicked me!" She pointed at the small boy with her index finger, bending to rub her knee. "I didn't do anything."

"As always…" Barbara sighed.

"She didn't want to play ball with me," the kid said.

"She is old Justin, she doesn't like to play ball." The redhead bent down and brushed the kid's hair.

"I'm not old!" Helena protested.

"Let me check some things here and when I'm finished, I will play with you. Right?"

He nodded.

"Come with me, Helena." Barbara walked to the house.

"You should spank him." The brunette walked behind her.

"Helena, he is a kid, you are an adult."

"Helloooo? He kicked me."

Amused, the redhead looked at her. "Hel, these kids are just looking for attention."

"Well, he got mine."

Barbara sighed. She was still a big kid. She walked toward the house.

"You must be in big trouble if she's taking you inside!" the kid said to Helena.

"Why I would be in trouble?" she asked him.

"When she makes me go in, I'm always in trouble."

"Must be because you are a two feet of trouble." Helena stuck out her tongue and followed Barbara. She felt a ball hitting her back and the child was laughing. She picked up the ball and threw it at him.

She turned and found Barbara giving her 'the look'; she knew it perfectly well. The redhead used to give her that 'look' when she did something wrong. But it was not her fault, it was the kid's.

"He threw it at me first!" she said, both arms out to indicate the child in question.

"He is five." The redhead lifted her eyebrow. "You are an adult… sort of."

"He is a pygmy."

"He is a kid."

Helena felt, then, another hit on her back. She growled and turned, angry. The child was running to hide behind a bush and the ball was rolling on the floor. Before she could react, Barbara pulled her by her arm and took her inside the house.

"Did you see him? He threw the ball at me again!!"

Barbara ignored her outburst, and walked inside. The house was old and with different kinds of furniture. The beds were really small and with a few covers and blankets. The kids were like rabbits; they were everywhere.

"Have you considered using some money to improve this place?" Helena asked, holding her hands behind her back.

"We have two houses in New Gotham," Barbara explained. "Fifty around the world. This is new, the community created it and they just called us a couple of months ago asking us for help to improve the place."

"And?"

"We are just starting, we just bought the beds and painted the house."

"It's dark."

"You should have seen this place two months ago. It was worse, with junk everywhere."

"Yes," the old lady guiding them said, "Miss Gordon has helped us a lot. We started to give them three meals a day. Before, we couldn't."

Helena turned her head and noticed the small kid was walking behind her, imitating her way of walking. She stopped suddenly and the kid hit her leg and fell, sitting on the floor. She grinned and kept following Barbara.

"Supporting this place is not easy. It costs a lot of money in medicine, food, clothes and doctors," the redhead said.

"How many kids are here?"

"Fifty," the old lady replied.

"Fifty?" Helena opened her eyes wide in disbelief. That was a lot.

"Plus five newborns on the upper floor."

"That's sad." Helena turned her head once more, that damn kid was behind her ass again.

"Yes, people are very irresponsible with kids," Barbara said. "What do you think about this?""

The brunette didn't answer, she had turned her head around, looking back.

"Hel?" Barbara said, noticing she was distracted.

"He is following me!"

The redhead looked behind her and noticed the small kid walking like the brunette. "I guess he likes you." She smiled.

"He does that with people he likes?"

"People usually imitate persons that they admire or love."

"He can't love me! We just met!"

"Kids are incredible, Helena, you don't know them." Barbara began to walk upstairs.

Helena glared at the kid, who looked at her and stuck out his tongue. The young woman made her eyes change to cat pupils and growled. "Go away!"

The kid opened his eyes wide. "Wooww!!!" he shouted. "That is cool!"

"What?" another kid asked.

"She has cat eyes!"

Helena felt a hit on her back. She looked down. Who had thrown the ball at her now? She turned and saw Barbara.

Barbara looked like she wanted to kill her. She pointed at her own eyes with her fingers, indicating that Helena should control herself. People couldn't know she was meta.

"Could you please control yourself a bit?" Barbara hissed at her.

She sighed, closed her eyes and they changed to normal. She began to walk upstairs.

The old woman began to show them the changes on the upper floor. Helena stopped in the middle of the corridor, looking at a small painting on the wall; it had been done for kids. It showed some children playing in a garden. All the children were smiling.

They didn't have parents, how they could smile living a lonely life in such an awful place?

She felt some one pulling her pants. She turned and found a group of six kids looking at her anxiously, including little Justin.

"Do it again," Justin said excitedly.

"Do what?" Helena asked curiously.

"Cat eyes."

"He says you can do a cool thing with your eyes," another kid said.

"Show us!" shouted another one.

She made signs with her hands, asking them not to shout so loud. What was wrong with children that now they didn't scare so easily?

"Do the cat eyes trick," Justin said.

"Why?"

"It's cool," the child answered smiling at her. "It's great."

"All right," Helena said, kneeling on front of them, "but promise me you will go after this."

The kids nodded happily.

"And you will never hit me with a ball again," she told to Justin.

The child nodded.

She couldn't avoid smiling, looking at their faces. She exhaled and closed her eyes. After a brief second, she opened them again and made them change. The children clapped and shouted excitedly.

"I told you!"

Justin came closer to her and lifted his hand to touch her face. The movement surprised the brunette. The child had his eyes fixed on her. He touched her cheek and smiled.

"It's great!"

"You are great, too."

"Your eyes are beautiful."

Helena smiled.

The children clapped.

"All right," Helena stood up and rubbed Justin's head. "Now go." She pushed them downstairs.

"Whoa! That was so cool!" a child yelled.

"Yeah!"

"She is great!"

Helena watched them go. It truly was so easy made them happy. She couldn't remember when she had felt happy, happy like them, as a child. It had been so long. She wondered if some day she would feel that again. When she turned again, she found Barbara leaning on the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I… I…" she mumbled lowering her head, to change her eyes back to normal. "I was telling them to go downstairs."

"Thanks."

Helena didn't know what to say. What was she talking about?

"You made them happy."

Helena felt uncomfortable, she blushed.

Barbara cocked her head looking at her. "I wanted you to come here to meet them," she said, "to see how they live. I need you at the foundation."

"Me?" Blue eyes blinked. "You have my father's money, why do you need me?"

"Helena, this is like a glass of water," the redhead explained. "If you drink it all the time and never refill it, one day the glass will be empty. We need to help to raise funds. You help one kid and another one appears. Look." Barbara walked inside a room that was being pained. "As you can see, this needs a lot of work. Every day we need more and more money to support this kind of project. We never finish helping people."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Help with foundation- it's a lot of work. We need to supervise this place, raise money. The foundation also provides scholarships and supports schools for disabled people. We need millions of dollars each year. Wayne Enterprises give us a good amount, but it is never enough. We began to grow and now…" the older woman shrugged her shoulders, "well, this is huge, you can see it."

Helena looked at the dirty walls, not saying a word. She felt sorry for the kids but, but there were so many things that bothered her, maybe her father was behind all this. Was he trying a new trick with her?

"I think you could help us a lot." Barbara brushed her hair back.

"Why are you asking me this?" Helena lifted her head and looked at the redhead with distrust. "Is this a trick of my father's to make me work for him?"

"He does not work with the foundation."

"He could be using you." Helena rested her back on the wall and crossed her arms over her chest.

"No one uses me."

"Yeah…" Helena said, grinning "Maybe you are the one that uses people. You are trying to use me, no? Why?"

"Pardon me?"

"What do you want, Barbara?"

"Do you know what your problem is, Helena?" The redhead pointed at the brunette "Your problem is that you think that the world is against you, that you are its only victim. Look around, Helena, stop being so stupid and selfish."

"Watch your mouth." The brunette straightened and glared at her.

"Watch yours first," Barbara responded angrily.

"You are using those kids to make me accept you as a friend, to get me involved in my father's life again!" Helena took a step toward her. "I don't need anything from him!"

This time, Barbara couldn't hide her annoyance. "Those children need help," she clenched her teeth. "I asked you to come here because I thought that you, knowing what it is to feel the loss of a parent, would understand their needs better."

"You don't know what I feel!"

"Exactly, and I don't want to know. I know I don't like what I see. I thought that maybe you could help me support those kids that no one sees because they are perceived as a hindrance!! But I was wrong. It was my mistake, I'm sorry."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Helena felt angry, no one talked to her like that.

"In your world, the only one who suffers is you," Barbara shook her head, disappointed. "You think no one else needs attention, just you. You are pathetic. You are wrong. There is a world beyond Helena Kyle. I'm sorry if I distracted you from your own sorrow. Keep feeling sorry for yourself, if that is what makes you happy." The redhead turned and stormed toward the door.

"Don't ever talk to me like that!" Helena shouted, clenching her fists in balls, trying to control her fury. Who the fuck did she think she was? "And don't walk away from me!"

Barbara turned around and stood in front of her. Helena instinctively took a step back and bumped against the wall. The redhead was inches from her face. She was furious, she could see it in her expression, the fire that seemed to burn in her green eyes.

"I'm not going to discuss your traumas," Barbara growled, holding herself back from spanking the brunette. She was a capricious girl and she was tired of her attitude and stubbornness. "I don't want to convince you of anything. If you want to join this cause, do it, but now there will be conditions. First, you must forget your stupid issues against your father. This foundation is not Bruce, this foundation is the kids." She pointed at the children playing in the garden. "But you will work for them, not for any else. Get that inside your damn head. Second, I want your trust, if not, forget it. I want to deal with an adult and not a child. And don't worry about the bike, I can send someone to pick it up from your place tonight." The redhead turned her back on the younger woman and left the room in a fury.

The brunette kept immobile in her spot; Barbara's perfume filled the place, she had left her speechless and annoyed. She still could see those green eyes so close to her, burying in her soul and making her feel like a real asshole.

She hated it.

She hated her.


"Can you believe it? She tried to blackmail me with those orphans." Helena walked toward the fridge and took out a glass of milk.

Alfred, at the table, prepared the lasagna. The brunette rested her hip on the table and she sipped a bit of milk, fixing her eyes on the walls of her home. Maybe she needed to redecorate her place. She needed to paint the walls.

"And then," she added, "he pissed me off and Barbara scolded me!! ME! And I didn't even do anything!"

"He?" Alfred asked distractedly.

"The kid, he lives in the orphanage."

"What did he do?"

"He threw a plastic ball at me!" she grumbled. "He is a moron."

"Ah."

"He might be a child, but it doesn't give him the right to attack people."

"How old?" Alfred covered the lasagna, it was ready to cook.

"Five."

He opened the stove and put the lasagna inside. "I see. He should be put in jail then."

"I'm not joking." Helena went toward her living room.

"I know. It is a serious problem that a five year old child hit an experienced crimefighter like yourself with a plastic ball and pissed her off."

"I hate you." Helena sat at on the window sill, lifting her leg over it.

"So, Miss Barbara asked you to work with her," he washed his hands at the sink, "the kid attacked you, and what happened then?"

"She tried to convince me to work at that place, but… it's all a trick, Alfred."

"A trick?"

"My dad sent her."

"Do you think he sent the kid to attack you, too?"

"Alfred…"

"Miss Helena," he lowered the sleeves of his shirt, "why do you always think that your father is behind everyone that tries to be close to you?"

"He always tried to keep an eye on me! At the manor! Remember?"

"Sure, I would do the same. Every week you were involved in a scandal. He was worried about you and, as I remember, helped you to get out of all of it."

"You know what I mean."

"And do you think those orphans at that house were a trick, as well?"

"Of course not!"

"So," he looked at her, "why don't you accept the job? You can do a lot for those kids."

"They are using them to get me in his game," she said.

He exhaled loudly and walked toward the table. "Miss Helena, your opinion of Miss Barbara really disappoints me."

"You don't know her."

"I know her." He removed his eyeglasses and cleaned them with a napkin "She has spent many hours working for those children, she had made the foundation grow from supporting two orphanages to almost fifty around the world; she started a scholarship program that benefits another three hundred children." He picked up an envelope on the table. "But maybe you are right and she worked all those years so hard just so she could 'get you' now."

"Don't try to be smart with me, Alfred," Helena said, irritated.

"I am not. My point is that you got all of your mother's and your father's strongest genes."

"What?" Helena knew she would regret asking, but cats are curious creatures.

"In my opinion, you are more pigheaded than your mother and your father put together."

"Alfred!"

"You push all the people that care about you out of your life and you live thinking everything is about you. That's a big mistake, all the people you know are moving on with their lives, except you."

"That's not true."

"Have you considered that perhaps I am a 'spy'?" Alfred lifted his brow.

"Don't be silly." Helena crossed her arms.

"I could be." He walked toward her. "And maybe I'm so good, that you have not realized it."

"That's not funny."

"Well, I think, then," he exhaled, standing in front of her, "you will not accept her job offer."

"Exactly, I'm not going to be his puppet… or hers."

"When you make a decision it's final," Alfred said, extended an envelope to her.

"Yes." She looked at him and the envelope with distrust. "What's that?"

"An invitation to the First New Gotham Charity Foundation ball."

"I said I won't work for them," Helena said, glaring at the envelope.

"It's not work, it's just a ball."

Helena opened the envelope and read the invitation.

"And, before you start creating theories about why Miss Barbara invited you, let me tell you that the foundation invited you because you are the daughter of its founder and they need someone representing him."

"I'm not going." She shook her head and stood up, annoyed "I'm not going to represent him, why should I?"

"Because the event raises funds for the study of pediatric AIDS. Every year, half of million are born infected with HIV and only fifteen percent get medical attention." He picked up his umbrella and opened the door. "The most important and wealthiest people in the city will be there."

Helena tilted her head. "Alfred, suppose I go, what can I possibly do?"

"I think that is the least you can do for those unfortunate children." He smiled. "I've already confirmed your attendance. I'll pick you up Friday at seven." He closed the door behind him.

The brunette stood in the middle of the room, playing with the invitation in her hands. She was starting to think that Alfred really was a spy… and that he and Barbara had an agreement to make feel her like a piece of shit.


TBC