capeandcowllogs | You burst onto the scene already a legend

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You burst onto the scene already a legend

WHO: Helena and Damian Wayne
WHERE: Damian's firehouse
WHEN: Early Wednesday morning.
WARNINGS: Bat-sibs get their own warning.
SUMMARY: Helena wakes up as an eleven year old and breaks into Damian's house in search of some answers and also her daddy.
FORMAT: Para to start, but it's your choice!

It's hard to explain exactly what feels wrong, but the second she opens her eyes, Helena knows something is off. She isn't in Wayne Manor, she can tell by the sounds of traffic and the voices carrying up from outside. And she isn't even in Gotham either, as evidenced by the distinct skyline of Manhattan as viewed from the window in the strange bedroom she's found herself in.

After pinching herself as hard as she can to wake herself up, she realizes she isn't actually dreaming and her mind initially leaps to the worst possible conclusion: she's been kidnapped. It's the worst scenario her parents had warned her about for years, the one they'd been teaching her to avoid by training her to defend herself. The daughter of Bruce and Selina Wayne is a target for evil-minded people, Batman aspect aside. Panic sets in and Helena goes into stealth mode, using the methods her mother taught her about remaining unseen as she surveys her surroundings. Back to the wall, she sets about searching for her captors or any signs that her life is in immediate danger. But the apartment is orderly, tidy, and there is nothing at all preventing her from leaving. So she decides to do just that, after giving the place one last sweep, just in case.

Nothing in the apartment is familiar to her, save for one thing. On the kitchen counter, next to an expensive looking leather purse sits a small black address book, an old fashioned one with names or initials and telephone numbers written in neat, legible cursive-- handwriting that Helena immediately recognizes as her own. This is bewildering for her, she certainly doesn't remember writing down these names and addresses, but she knows her own writing, she's been practicing her penmanship a lot lately and there is simply no mistaking it. A more thorough examination proves her suspicions are accurate, as her own name and vital statistics are written in the book as well. But that provides more questions than answers. Perhaps her father can make sense of all of this. She'll just have to get back to Gotham as soon as she can and let Daddy sort everything out. She grabs the purse and heads out the front door.

But the area code for Gotham does not exist, she realizes as soon as she tries to make a collect call from a pay phone down the block. None of the telephone numbers she knows work, even calling Dick's house number is useless. Frustration rising, she flips open the address book and searches for something, anything familiar. There is absolutely nothing of use in this stupid book, and she nearly flings it to the ground in frustration when one address catches her eye. It's on the W page of the book, written lightly in pencil, just barely dark enough to read. With nothing to go on but a hunch, she shoves the book back into the purse and starts walking.

As she approaches the building, Helena wonders briefly what would possess her to write down the address for an old firehouse. It's very obviously not in use anymore, so maybe it's a shop, or somebody's house. But who? She stands on the sidewalk, staring up at the imposing brick structure for several long seconds before she decides to sneak her way inside, just to look around. Maybe whoever is inside can help her find her parents, or at the very least explain why she would have written down this address in a book.

The firehouse is probably armed with some sort of security system, most buildings are nowadays. Luckily, Helena has been training her whole life to break and enter discreetly. It takes her only a minute to find a window she likes and squeeze her way in, purse still slung over her shoulder. Now that she's inside, it's time to play detective and figure out what exactly is going on here.

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He doesn’t remember falling asleep. That’s not entirely strange, because most nights Damian simply doesn’t. But suddenly he is blinking open his eyes and wondering why he is on the floor. He braces his weight against his palms and pushes himself to his feet. His head buzzes and the room spins, and he reaches out to lean against the wall to steady himself.

A black shape zips through the room at breakneck speed. It pauses on the bed, hissing. It takes him a moment to realize this is a cat. It is glaring at him with wide yellow eyes. It is then that Damian realizes something is very, very wrong, and that no, he is not in Kansas anymore.

Fifteen minutes later he is sitting in the kitchen with a pot of black coffee in front of him, sorting through the foggy haze of his memories. The City—as annoying a place as ever, it seems. But he’s Batman. He doesn’t have the time or the patience to deal with this.

He pulls up the collar on is long black trench coat and makes his way into the entry. He’s arrived without his cowl, but if memory serves there are Batcaves being maintained around the City. He’s in the process of trying to figure out where the nearest one might be, his back turned to whatever intruders might be arriving.

Helena makes her way through the apartment, moving as quietly as she's ever moved in her entire life, senses on hyperalert as she creeps along. Her stomach twists in anticipation, something deep in her gut telling her that coming here was a very bad idea, that she's in very real danger if she doesn't leave. But curiosity killed the cat, and being Catwoman's daughter, she realizes it's too late to turn back. Even as a little girl, she's always been a little more foolhardy than smart.

She follows the logical flow of rooms past the kitchen toward the entryway and her heart stops beating for a solid second or two when she sees the man at the door. Before she can stop herself, a sharp gasp escapes her lips. The sound is loud enough for the figure looming at the door to maybe have heard her, and while she's dying for the chance to study the man and see his face, she's also dreading the idea of getting caught.

On tiptoes, she sprints back down the hall and into what appears to be a bedroom to hide in the shadows behind the door. From her hiding spot, Helena can see a small black cat perched proudly on the bed. It hisses at her, for good measure. Heart now beating eight hundred miles a second, she prays that the man will ignore the sounds she and the cat have been making and leave, letting her figure out this mystery all on her own.

He hears her. However, he is not on his game enough to register the noise, to recognize it and react before she runs away. It does put him on guard, though. And a sense of unease settles down on him as he suspiciously begins following his instincts back towards his bedroom.

The noise of the cats alerts him more, and in another few moments he’s through the door. Instincts kick in before thought, and he reaches out to grab the girl by the collar of her shirt and lift her up so he can get her turned around and see who dares break into his home.

Helena lets out a shrill scream in response, hands clasping tightly around his arms in a bid to get him to drop her. She's never been grabbed like this before, and she isn't even sure what to do. She's too scared to even really get a good look at him, the only thing on her mind is getting her feet back onto the ground so she can run away as quickly as she can.

"Please don't hurt me!" Her voice quakes, words mooshed together in an almost unintelligible mess. Her eyes are closed tightly now, like she's anticipating being hit or something. "Please!"

He winces when she screams, but that only sparks his temper. So he gives her a little shake even as he tries to figure out what to do with her. He has a soft spot for kids, he always has, even though he has never counted himself as one of them. He doesn't recognize her, and since she's the first person he's encountered he doesn't know that anyone else has changed.

"How did you get it here. And who are you. Tell me, now."

"Helena," she says quickly, opening one eye, then the other. Her heart is pounding so quickly it feels like it's going to explode inside of her chest. When her eyes finally focus and steady on him, she sees nothing at all that's familiar, not even anything all that distinct about him. She didn't expect that she would recognize him, but she makes every effort to really study and memorize his face, in case she needs to recall it later. "Helena Wayne. The window, it was open and I squeezed inside."

Edited 2012-10-05 05:10 (UTC)

He freezes. Holds her a little bit further away from him and examines her face. It only takes him a few moments to confirm--the features, the coloring, even the inflection of her voice. She has to be Bruce and Selina's child.

"This is getting ridiculous."

He walks her over to the bed and fairly dumps her down on it.

"Do you know who I am?"

She lands on the bed with a soft thud, the cats leaping away from her in disgust. Staring up at Damian, she searches her memories for a shred of anything that will give her his name or any clue to who he might be. Maybe he's a friend of Dick's? Someone she met a long time ago when she was in preschool? One of Uncle Clark's cousins by marriage that she visited once when she was small? Try as she might, Helena can come up with nothing. If this is some sort of elaborate plot to test her memories and she's actually supposed to know this man, she's failing miserably. But at least he's put her down and isn't scaring the hell out of her anymore.

"No."

He sighs and rubs a hand over his face. He considers, briefly, trying to cushion this for her somehow. Then he decides he doesn't really care about handling this delicately. He looms over her, his lips pressed into a thin line before he speaks.

"My name is Damian Wayne. I'm your brother."

It's the first time he's used that word to describe their relationship. For some reason, in this state, he doesn't care as much.

"... What."

She doesn't say it like it's a question, like having him repeat it will somehow shed light on the situation and explain away how it's possible that this man is her brother. Rather, she says the word with such utter disbelief that her voice even squeaks a little. She's already got an older brother, thank you very much. And his name certainly isn't Damian Wayne.

Helena's face contorts a bit and it's unclear whether she's going to laugh or cry.

"Is this a test? Or-- or a joke? Where's Dick? Where's Daddy? This is stupid. I don't want to play anymore."

Daddy. That shouldn't still hurt, but it does. Damian channels that, however, and the hurt does nothing more than put an edge on his temper. This girl, this little thing who was pampered and cared for, he has no use for her.

"I don't play." He's never known how. "And they aren't here. Not the ones you know."

Helena's face falls at the sharpness of Damian's voice. She isn't used to hearing that edge. There's never been any need for her to hear that edge. Her parents, Dick, everyone's gone out of their way to keep her far from anything painful like that. Her world has been one of beauty and civility. There was never any place for raised voices or anger. Not toward her. Never toward her. She isn't quite sure how to take it.

Swallowing it all down deep, she manages to look back up at this Damian Wayne again, looking for something of her father in this man. Maybe it's because she's too young and doesn't know what to look for, but she still can't find him in Damian's face. Or maybe she's too upset to let herself see him at all.

"Where are they? Are they...?" Hurt? Dead? Somewhere far, far away? Her imagination is filling it all in with a thousand endings, none of them pleasant.

“They’re fine,” he lies, easily. More easily than he lied as a child. He doesn’t actually know much about Helena’s world, but he doubts his own Grayson is fine—not when he’s a dimension away. “But they can’t come here, right now. You need to listen to me.”

It will make his life a whole lot easier if she would. He only hoped that she wasn’t like he was a child—skeptical, rebellious. A pain in the ass.

“We’re in another world. Something’s happened to us. You need to behave until I can fix it.”

"Another world? That doesn't make any sense!" But how was that possible? How was any of what he said possible? Helena has no experience with other worlds, no way of proving what Damian is suggesting is true. But unlike Damian, she's not the type to argue with him simply for the sake of it. She's strong-willed, the type who can dig her heels in if it suits her, but she doesn't like to fight if there isn't a reason for it.

She stares at Damian, eyes meeting his in an unbroken gaze. What exactly she's looking for, she doesn't know, but she needs a reason she should just blindly trust him.

"I'll behave if you can prove you're my brother."

That statement surprises him. However, at the same time, Helena might have just moved up in his esteem. It's a good test, a good demand. Even if she looks weak and untrained--why does she look weak and untrained?--she has good instincts. Which is just as well, and only to be expected, considering the genes they both share.

"I don't have time to run a DNA test on you," he growls. He doesn't expect what aging up has done to his voice, which is making it low and raspy. It's easier for it to be frightening, though he doesn't know that yet.

He pauses, for a moment, then says: "The Bat who guards Gotham City. Not many know who he actually is. Do you?"

She swallows the lump that's managed to build up in her throat. She knows enough to know to hope that her face isn't giving anything away. This is something that she feels she's known forever, even if she's only been trusted with the secret for a few years now. She knows Batman, knows her father was Batman, but she can't think of anyone outside her immediate family who would know that, or know to even bring that up.

This could be a trick. This could be some sort of plan to force her to reveal her father's secret identity, the one he's been able to guard successfully for decades. It'd be just like her to spoil it, too. But Damian hasn't kidnapped her. He's not forcing her to speak or threatening her. She's the one that broke into his house, not the other way around.

Helena blinks once, long and slow, and then she speaks.

"Yes, I know. And you do too, right? You know all about him?"

"Yes," he says, and although he doesn't have a full set of memories from another life lived, he knows with absolute certainty that he is Batman. That's the only future that lies ahead of him. But for these purposes, he knows two others--his father, and Grayson. And because of that he is sure that no one on earth knows Batman better than he does.

"My--our--father is Batman. Is that proof enough for you?"

"Yes," she answers, sitting up straighter and taller on the bed. No one else could possibly know this, no one outside of their family. So if Damian knows this secret, he must be who he claims to be. This situation is still kind of scary for her, but if he really is her brother, she's probably going to be safe with him. He's no Dick Grayson, but in terms of an older brother, he'll have to do. "How are you going to fix this, Damian? How are you going to send us home?"

I can't send you home. Even he had to admit on that one, though he didn't want to. He'd been in the City for a year and a half, and even though he was older now he couldn't take on the Porter.

"Don't worry about it," he says, lightly. "I'll fix it." But he won't get them home.

She's not sure how he expects her not to worry. It's very frightening to be here, all alone with just Damian to rely on. Should she even be relying on him? It isn't like he's Dick, it isn't like he's been at her side for the entirety of her life and feels some sort of connection or loyalty toward her. She may as well be a stranger to him, right?

But she refuses to panic. Aside from the initial fright he gave her, he hasn't been cruel. And he says he'll take care of it. Part of her really, really wants to believe him.

So, she figures, she should.

"What should I do? Where should I go?"

Damian pauses, considering this. He's already seen from the Network that Barbara and Stephanie were affected, and they would be the first people he'd call in a situation like this. Drop the bundle of joy with the women, and carry about his business. But since that isn't an option...

Why is she his responsibility, again? He had told her older self to leave him alone. But he was a very different sort of child from the one in front of him. And Robin--and Batman--protected children.

"You can stay with me. If you want. For however long this lasts."

"I can?" Helena's voices hitches a little, and she takes a long, deep breath. Did she even want to stay with him? She wasn't sure it was such a good idea. But the other choice was to go back to that other apartment and try sleeping there on her own. That didn't seem like such a pleasant prospect. Maybe a few days with him wouldn't be so bad. He could probably fix all of this very quickly if he put all of his efforts into it. She could maybe even help him. Two of Batman's children working together could probably solve any problem!

"Okay. I'll stay here with you."

Damian just nods. He wonders, idly, where he's going to put her--there are extra rooms, but they aren't furnished. It's just his and Grayson's, the latter of which hasn't been touched or cleaned in months. He doesn't like going in there.

He looks down at Helena and doesn't really feel pity. She doesn't deserve it. But there's something between them, even if its just half their genes.

"Fine. Just don't cause any trouble."

"I won't."

She smiles, taking this as her cue to stand up off the bed and regain her bearings. There's a lot to look at in this room, probably even more places to explore in the old firehouse. She's the curious sort of child, and now with permission to stay, she's just aching to check out every inch of this place. And when she's done, she'll settle in to help Damian. There's absolutely no doubt in her mind that he'll want and need her assistance in this.

"Do you think we could have some breakfast, maybe?"

Damian suppresses a sigh. Now that he's accepted this girl into his home, he's going to have to deal with her. And that hardly seems like something he wants to do. He just nods, though, and makes his way back to the kitchen. (He doesn't bother to see whether she'll follow.)

The cupboards aren't exactly stocked. But there's fruit on the counter and Damian grabs a peach while he begins rummaging around for cereal and milk.

Helena trots after Damian, lingering quietly at the entry to the kitchen as she watches him forage for food. The choices aren't exactly that exciting, obviously substandard compared to what Alfred usually serves her for breakfast, but she's not about to turn down a meal.

"What kind of cereal is it, Damian?"

Damian looks at the options--they're all childish, sugary cereals, Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes. Grayson had been a cereal nut; he'd kept the cupboards stocked with five different varieties at all times. So when Damian bought groceries--or had them delivered, as was more often the case--he continued to work off of the list he and Grayson had organized.

"One with no nutritional value that Father would probably skin me for feeding you." Normally he doesn't joke about Bruce. Somehow being older and further removed makes it easier. He sets a bowl and a carton of 2% down on the counter and offers her her pick of the cereal.

It's almost like Dick's kitchen back home, she thinks. The sheer amount of sugary sweetness in the food is something to behold. Her father would never let her eat that, nor would her mother, so the only time she'd get the chance to sample such tasty delicacies was on over nights with her older brother. And even so, these cereals were like the ones from home on steroids.

She picks up the box of Frosted Flakes and sets about pouring it into the bowl and adding the milk. "Are you going to eat some?"

He's standing a little ways away from her, arms crossed over his chest. At her question, he just gives her a look.

"No."

"Why not?" She gives him the same look back. It isn't exactly intentional. "Is it poisoned?"

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You burst onto the scene already a legend

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