Chapter Text
It was a month into No Man’s Land by the time it sank in that Batman was gone and not coming back. A month of Helena trying to fight an uphill battle to maintain some form of order in her little corner of Gotham. A month before she finally got frustrated with the fact that no one really knew who the Huntress was. No one respected her, not the way they had Batman. No one feared her the way they had him either. The Bat carried weight. Next to him, she was just some woman in a cape.
It was a month into No Man’s Land when Helena started putting together a new costume. It seemed fitting, new year, new Gotham, new her. It was all black, no purple. There was a bat on her chest. It was a few days into the new year and she was making a few final adjustments when Robin showed up.
“What’s that you’re wearing?”
Helena swore, loudly. She’d really thought she’d gotten used to the kid’s annoying tendency to show up unannounced, but no. He could still give her a heart attack. She turned and there he was, perched on her window sill like the city wasn’t going to hell behind him. He was staring at the bat on her chest.
“Robby,” she said like her heart wasn’t still beating wildly. “What are you doing here? I thought your lot cleared out after they blew up the bridges.”
The kid tore his eyes away from her chest. “Batman’s an idiot,” he said. Helena was surprised by the amount of venom in his voice. “Just because he’s given up on Gotham doesn’t mean that I have.”
Helena was suddenly struck by a worrying thought. “What about your dad, kid? He okay?”
An expression she couldn’t quite place flickered across Robin’s face. “You never answered my question,” he said, gesturing to her costume.
“And you’re avoiding mine.”
Time stretched as they stared each other down.
“You answer first,” Robin said and Helena knew that she’d won.
“I may not get along with Batman, but I can see that Gotham needs him. Now more than ever.” She shrugged. “His symbol carries more weight than Huntress does. It’s not like he’s using it.”
“The bat’s more than just a symbol. It means something,” Robin said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m an English teacher kid. I don’t need you lecturing me on the definition of a symbol.”
He glared at her. “You know what I mean. You can’t just wear it, you have to become it. If you’re doing this, you can’t just be the Huntress wearing a new costume.”
“And what does that mean?” Helena asked. She was pretty sure she knew what he meant but she wanted him to come out and say it
“Batman doesn’t kill,” he said, daring her to contradict him.
“Well he’s not around to stop me, is he?”
“I am,” Robin said with a glare that reminded her that he’d been doing this nearly as long as she had. “I will.”
“You lecture Batman like that, kid?”
He snorted and the tension between them broke. “Why do you think I got the job?”
“I thought you said you figured out his secret identity.”
He shrugged. “That too.”
“Your turn kid,” Helena said. “Is your dad okay?”
Robby sighed and glared at a corner of the room. “He’s fine. Made it out of the city safe.”
“And you didn’t? Isn’t he worried about you?”
Robin glared even harder. “I snuck back in okay? He thinks I’m at boarding school. He’ll be fine. Gotham needed me,”
“And when he realizes you're not?”
“That’s not important,” he said and quickly changed the subject. “We’ve got more important things to talk about anyway. Like what are you planning on calling yourself anyway? I mean, you might be able to pass for Batman from a distance, but up close it’ll be pretty obvious you’re not him.”
She decided to let the topic go for now. If she had the right idea about where this conversation was going, she’d have plenty of time to press later anyway. “What’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”
“Batman needs a Robin.” He said it like it was fact, like he was saying the sky was blue. “And I’m not letting you do this on your own.”
Helena raised an eyebrow. “Did I ask for your permission?”
“You want to be a bat,” Robin said. “That means you’re in my wheelhouse now.”
“Like I can stop you from bothering me.”
“So, what’re you going to call yourself?”
Helena shrugged. “Hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”
Robin finally hopped in from the window sill and started circling her, taking in every last detail of her costume. “The original Batgirl might not appreciate you taking her name, but I don’t think Batwoman’s been taken.”
Helena considered it, discarded. “Nah,” she said. “That just makes me sound like a knockoff Batman. How about something simpler, like the Bat.”
Robin nodded. “The Bat,” he said. “I like it.”
—
“Gotham’s changed since you left,” Helena said, now changed out of her bat costume and into the sort of warm sturdy clothes that made No Man’s Land bearable. “I don’t suppose you bought a coat with you when you snuck in?”
Robby, sitting on her couch, looking chilly in the short-sleeved Robin costume, shrugged sheepishly. He’d finally closed the window behind him, not that it did any good when there wasn’t much warm air to let out in the first place. “The way in was tight,” he said. “Didn’t have room to bring in much of anything.”
Helena sighed, went back to her closet, dug out a spare jacket, and tossed it at the kid. “Did you bring anything useful with you?”
“The Robin uniform,” he said, putting the jacket on. “The tools that go with it. A change of clothes, some granola bars, probably some other odds and ends, some medical supplies. Oh, yeah, and some cash.”
There were at least some practical things in that list. “Rule number one of No Man’s Land kid,” Helena said. “Cash doesn’t mean shit here.”
Robby winced. “Oh. Any other rules I should worry about?”
She honestly wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “Stay alive.”
“Doesn’t sound that difficult.”
“That’s what you’d think,” Helena said. Only a month in No Man’s Land and she’d already seen far too much death.
“You said that Gotham was different.”
“How much of the city did you see on your way in?”
“I saw that everything’s more of a wreck than it was after the quake. Smoke from the fires. People out and about; no one looks up still.”
“The bodies in the streets?”
“Yeah,” Robby said. “Those too. I’d hoped it wasn’t that bad here, already.”
“Like it could’ve ever been good?” Helena asked wryly.
Robby snorted. “No, I guess not.”
“How about the tags, you notice those?”
“The graffiti?”
Helena nodded.
“Here and there, didn’t pay that much attention to it.”
“Well you need to start,” Helena said. “There’s no law here, the city’s been all carved up. The tags mark who owns what.”
Robin nodded thoughtfully. “Then the purple one, on your building, that's…?”
“Mine. Huntress controls this block, keeps what order she can.” Not as much as she’d like, but she was only one woman and building a reputation took time.
“And the Bat?”
Helena smiled. “Well, the Bat’s going to have a hell of a lot more once she starts going out.”
Robin nodded. “Ideally, all of Gotham.”
All of Gotham. She rolled the idea around in her head. “The whole city. Ambitious much?” It was impractical, but she couldn’t deny its appeal.
He shrugged. “I mean, we’d work our way, obviously, but ultimately, yeah.”
“Well, I guess we’d better get started then.”
—
There were things that needed to be done before they really got started of course, but once the decision had been made they could both feel the anticipation in the air. Helena still needed to make a few last minute adjustments to The Bat’s costume, Robin still needed to get the lay of the land, and as much as she'd like to go out and just start hitting things, tactics were required.
Robin dug up a map of Gotham from one of the rooms of her apartment that hadn’t been wrecked too badly by the quake and spread it out on the kitchen table while Helena got to work with a needle and thread. He neatly shaded in her block with pencil.
“First block of Bat territory?” he asked.
Helena shook her head. “No. Huntress isn’t going to disappear when The Bat makes her debut. Her territory stays the same.”
“Not worried about balancing two different vigilante identities?” Robin asked, but he still labeled the block as Huntress on the map.
“I can handle it.”
“Probably a good idea anyway,” he continued thoughtfully. “Stops people from making the wrong connections. Who’s in charge of the territory around us?”
“Black Mask mainly. I don’t know how far north his territory goes, but west it stops at Robinson Park. That’s Ivy’s.”
Robin made a few more notes on the map. “And south?”
“Across the bridges to the south is Penguin’s. Rumor has it you can find anything you’re looking for in that market of his, as long as you’re willing to pay.”
“Anything else?”
“I heard the GCPD are still kicking around somewhere and I think the triads have got Chinatown like they always do, but other than that? It’s a lot harder to get around these days.”
Robin nodded. “That’s enough intel to start at least,” he said. “Take on Black Mask first since he’s closest?”
“No sense in making this any more complicated than it needs to.”
“That will put Huntress smack dab in the middle of Bat territory though,” he said thoughtfully.
“She’d end up there eventually even if we did do something else.”
“Okay,” Robin said. “Only thing to figure out now is when we start.”
Helena smiled as she tied off the last stitch. The sun was beginning to set over No Man’s Land. “No time like the present. Tonight?”
Robin grinned back. “Tonight.”
—
There was a certain clarity that came with the cold winter air, up on the rooftops, as Helena surveyed the broken body of Gotham spread out beneath her. It was a shadow of what the city had once been. Her city, now and always, no matter what Batman said. Helena Bertinelli had been born in Gotham. The Huntress had been born of Gotham, of all the parts and needs that he had turned a blind eye to. And now she was the one wearing his clothes. She was the Bat now, Gotham’s dark knight.
It felt exciting in a way that being the Huntress had never quite been. The Huntress was strong, but the Bat? The Bat made her feel like she could do anything.
“She’s all yours now.”
Helena managed not to startle as Robin’s voice tore her out of her own head. She was starting to get used to his habit of appearing out of nowhere, somehow.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“The city,” he said as he stepped next to her, “All of Gotham. She’s yours now.” He was staring out at the city with an unidentifiable something in his expression. “Or she will be.”
“Mmm, a gift for me? You shouldn’t have.”
Robin shook his head. “No, more like ‘Simba, everywhere the shadow touches will be your’s one day.’”
It took Helena a second to realize that he was trying to put on a voice and another second to recognize what he was referencing. “The Lion King?” she asked. “You never struck me as a disney type of guy.”
He shrugged. “It was a good movie,” he said. “My parents took me to see it when it came out. It was fun.”
The silence that followed had a familiar weight to it. She’d never heard Robby talk about his mom. Back during the whole crazy replacement Batman thing, he’d only said that his dad had been kidnapped. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now? It had taken a blood price for her to end up in a cape and mask. You didn’t become what they were by living a normal life.
“Well then, Mufasa,” she said rather than voice any of that. “How about those shining lights over there?”
Robin snorted when he saw the direction she was pointing in. “Oh, Metropolis ,” he said with smiling disdain. “You don’t want to go there. Too many bright lights, not enough doom and gloom.”
“Unlike lovely Gotham here.” Lovely Gotham was dark and growing darker as the last straggling rays of the sun retreated behind the horizon.
“Yeah,” and there was a fond smile on Robin’s face.
“Well, unless I’m wrong, bats are nocturnal creatures, aren’t they?”
“They are,” Robin smiled. “After you.”
Helena grinned as she leapt into the night.
—
On paper, the plan for the evening had been simple: go out, claim some streets, and put the fear of the Bat in some low-lives. Remind Gotham city that there were still things out there that went bump in the night. And on paper, they’d accomplished all of those things. In execution, however… Spray-painting the bat on brick walls offered a surprisingly good outlet for her annoyance.
“What the heck was that?” Helena demanded as soon as they were back up on the rooftops.
Robin glared back, defiant. “I could say the same to you.”
“ You’re the one that ruined my shot.”
“Yeah, well I thought we agreed that the Bat doesn’t kill.”
So that’s what this was about. Helena crossed her arms. “It was a non-lethal shot.”
“And how was I supposed to know that?” Robin asked.
“I don’t know, you could try trusting me for once.”
Robin winced. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that…”
“You don’t,” Helena said bluntly.
“I’ve… worked with you before,” Robin said finally.
Helena sighed. “I know Batman and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I agreed to follow his rule and that means I’ll do it.”
Robin looked away first, turning to stare out over the lightless skyline. “Sorry,” he said, softly.
Helena followed his gaze. Just a big old splotch of darkness only pierced occasionally by straggling fires. It looked so vast like that. Much larger than the little corner they’d only just started to carve out. She felt tired all of a sudden, and not just from the usual No Man’s Land mix of too much cold and too little food.
“Yeah, well, we’ll get there,” she said with a shrug. “Call it an early night?”
“Sure.”
—
Robby had vanished when Helena woke up the next morning. She wasn’t sure whether she was surprised by that or not. The disappearing game was an old hat by this point, but did he really have that much to get up to in No Man’s Land? Well, she thought as she took care of her morning routine, he’d show back up eventually.
Eventually turned out to be later that afternoon, right as Helena was finishing up a meal. Teenage boys and their sixth sense for food.
“Whatcha cooking?” he asked, climbing through her window in civies and a domino mask.
“Beans,” Helena said. “Warm ones even.” Until her cooking stove ran out of fuel at least, she wasn’t sure how long that would be.
Robby dumped a backpack that she was 90% sure he hadn’t had earlier on the couch. “Anything sounds good right now.”
“Good, ‘cause that’s what we’ve got.”
“So,” she asked a little later as the kid shoveled beans into his mask. That was the other thing about teenage boys: their bottomless stomachs. “What were you up to?”
He shrugged. “Checking out a few things. I brought back souvenirs.”
“Anything useful.”
Robby grinned. “You bet. I’ll show you after I eat.”
“So, I was thinking,” he said one grudgingly washed empty bowl later. “It’s clear we’re not quite there yet with the whole Bat and Robin thing.”
“Speak for yourself,” Helena said. “I was doing fine.”
She was pretty sure the kid rolled his eyes under his mask. “We could both do a better job of working with each other. And look, the crossbow isn’t a very Bat weapon, you’ve got to admit that.”
“It’s what I got kid,” she said, crossing her arms. “What do you want me to do? Draw a bat on it and start calling it the cross-bat or something?”
“No, I’ve got something better.” Robby began digging through the backpack he’d dumped on the couch. “Now I don’t know where Batman keeps all of his secret backup stashes, but I was able to track one of them down and get some supplies. We’ve got batarangs, smoke pellets—”
He pulled each item out as he named it, stacking them on the table. Helena watched as the pile grew higher and higher.
“—bat-cuffs, spare grapnel guns,—” He flipped the backpack upside down and gave it a good shake, “— and a few other odds and ends.”
Helena whistled and began to sift through the pile. “Nice haul. He keep anything else useful in those stashes of his?”
“Plenty,” Robby said. “Some emergency medical supplies, computer backups, I think there’s a spare batsuit in a few of them, not that that would fit any of us. I could only carry so much back.”
“Any food?”
“Yeah, do we need it?”
“Not yet.” Helena had a fair amount stashed away. Though depending on how long No Man’s Land lasted, it might not be enough. “It’s good to have a backup though.”
“Mmm,” Robby nodded. “Ever thrown a batarang before?”
“Is it really that different from throwing a knife?”
“They’re weighted kind of different. And there’s also the whole, you know, coming back to you thing.”
“They really do that?”
“Yeah, I mean, they’re called bat arangs for a reason.”
“I thought he just called them that because it sounded cooler than bat-knives.” He’d certainly never shown her that little trick.
Robby shrugged. “Well, it’s only useful sometimes. But when it is, it is.”
“I’ll bet.” Helena picked up one of the batarangs, felt its weight in her hand. “So,” she said, “you going to show me the tricks of the trade or what?”
He grinned. “You bet.”
—
So the Bat wasn’t ready to go out just yet, but that didn’t mean that the Huntress had to stay in. She still had a job to do. There were batarangs still scattered haphazardly around the beat-up targets in Helena’s makeshift gym. The weight of those weapons was still unfamiliar in her hands, but the crossbow fit as neatly as it always did.
Robby looked up from where he was lounging on the pullout couch when she came out, wearing Huntress’s suit.
“Oh,” he said, “give me a minute—“
“No.”
“No?” The amount of skepticism the kid could convey through a domino mask was rather impressive.
“No,” Helena reiterated. “Huntress doesn’t work with Robin.”
Robin scoffed. “Since when?”
“Since Robin started working with the Bat.”
“Like we haven’t worked together before.”
“Look, aren’t you the one all about keeping identities separate?”
He muttered darkly at that, but finally said. “Fine.”
“Look if you’re bored, can’t you like, snoop around or something?” she offered.
“I’m not bored!” Robin protested. “I have plenty of stuff I can be doing.”
“Sure you do kid.” Helena was nearly to the window when another thought struck her. “Oh yeah, if you follow me, I will know.”
“I’m not going to follow you.”
“You better not.”
“Look, just go already!”
“See you later, Robby,” she said, and climbed out into the night.
—
Robin taught Helena how to throw a batarang. She taught him where to throw a punch where it would hurt the most. (Not that she was sure how much she really taught him and how much the inscrutable little shit was just humoring her, but it felt fairer that way.) They sparred in her makeshift gym, learning the way each other moved. The movement was a way to fight against the ever present cold. Helena made a few last last minute adjustments to the Bat’s costume. Robby made a mess of mending some of the old clothes she’d given him so that he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.
Neither of them were the sort to wait too long.
There was a spark in the air as the sun began to set that night and they both could feel it. Robby was pacing, glancing out the window every now and again. Helena found herself itching to put on the suit, to feel the freedom that came with flying through the air, the satisfaction of a good fight.
They made eye contact and both of them knew that tonight was the night.
Helena still got a thrill whenever she put on the batsuit. There was a power to it, the promise of fear, of respect, of Gotham at her fingertips. If this was how Batman felt every night she could understand why he did it, even if so much of the rest of the man remained a mystery to her.
They slipped out together into the night. For all that they were smoother together now than they had been, the flash of color at her back still caught her eye. And the fact that for all Robin might chat back at her apartment, he was quiet as a whisper now — well, Helena could get used to that.
Even with the streets quieter at night in No Man’s Land, it didn’t take that long to find trouble. In this case, in the form of a few guys cornering a couple kids in a ruined alley. Helena relished the way the thugs jumped as she dropped down into the mouth of the alley.
“You know, it really isn’t nice to take stuff that isn’t yours,” she said.
The men, who had been taking a couple of nervous steps backwards, stopped.
“Wait,” one of them said. “Who do you think you’re supposed to be? You’re not the Batman.”
Robin jumped down into the other end of the alley. “You sure about that?”
He jumped. Robin smirked. Both men began to inch their way towards the exit. The kids, who’d picked up enough self-preservation instincts from living in Gotham, pressed themselves out of the way to the sides of the wall.
“Not so fast,” Helena said. And then everything exploded into violence. It was quick. She was better than any two-bit criminals. A punch and a kick and the first one was down. Robin took care of the second.
“Just who the hell are you?” One of them asked from the ground.
“I’m the Bat,” Helena said, “and I’m your worst nightmare.”
Robin picked that moment to do one of his appearing acts right at her side. “If I were you, I’d start running,” he said.
The men did just that.
Robin turned to the kids. “You can come out now,” he said. “The fighting’s all done.”
They crept out of the shadows one by one. “We don’t want any trouble,” the older said.
Helena pulled out the part of her that used to interact with kids on a daily basis and softened her voice. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “Recognize this symbol on my chest?”
They both nodded.
“Anyone could just wear it though,” said the older.
“Yeah, you might be just trying to trick us and get our stuff!” said the younger.
“But would anyone have Robin too?” Robin added. “Everyone knows Batman and Robin are a team.”
The younger looked convinced, but the older still looked dubious.
“But you’re not the Batman,” he said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Helena asked.
“You’re a girl.”
“You can’t believe everything you hear,” she said. “People tell all sorts of lies when they don’t want to admit to being beat up by a girl.”
That convinced both of them.
“So you’re back now, for real?”
She nodded. “I’m back. Spread the word. This area’s under Bat protection now.”
—
Bat territory grew street by street, corner by corner, bat after bat spray-painted on the walls. People were beginning to notice. Helena could hear the whispers when she went out as the Huntress during the day. Memory was short when everything was focused on survival, but people were beginning to remember that Gotham had been the Bat’s town before everything went to hell.
Helena still felt a thrill whenever she went out with the bat on her chest. She was getting used to the constant flash of color at her back. She and Robin were getting better at fighting with each other as an actual team and not just staying out of each other’s ways.
Outside, in dead Gotham, it snowed. It was almost pretty if you just watched it fall and didn’t pay attention to where it landed, blending with rubble, piss and grime. Cold killed in No Man’s Land. Cold and wet together killed even faster. Both the Huntress and the Bat did what they could to help the people in their territories, but shelter could only do so much and fuel grew more limited by the day.
Robby still went out every day in his costume with the short sleeves, stubbornly persevering like he wasn’t freezing his arms off. Some choices made more sense when you had actual heat to come back to at the end of the night. There was a reason she’d reluctantly redesigned her original costume to have pants and that reason was that she’d thought long and hard before deciding that, tragically, fashion did not outweigh the practicalities of warmth and armor.
It was colder at night, when the Bat roamed the most. There were ways of keeping warm at home, with walls that still held most of their insulation, candles, heated bricks to use as bedwarmers, and keeping close quarters. Outside, she was glad to have the full face mask to protect from the wind chill and keep the heat close to her head. Layers helped some. Otherwise, you just got used to the constant chill in your bones.
What Helena wasn’t used to was a cold lump of teenage boy crawling into bed next to her when she’d finally gotten everything to a tolerable temperature.
“What’re you doing here kid?” She mumbled, halfway to sleep and with no particular desire to wake back up again.
“’S cold” came the muffled reply.
“You’re cold,” she said without much heat.
Robby grumbled something inaudible and went back to maneuvering himself into a teenage-sized lump at her side.
Helena decided she didn’t care enough to do anything about it. Besides, he was warming up quick, a nice thing about teenage boys she supposed.
She woke up surprisingly warm, blinked a couple times as she processed that it was because of the teen-aged vigilante half sprawled over her. He was still wearing the domino, she noticed as she extricated herself from him. Paranoid little bastard, it couldn’t be comfortable to sleep in.
“Sleep well?’ she asked when he dragged himself out of her bedroom later that morning.
Robby at least had the courtesy to look embarrassed. “It was cold on the pullout couch,” he said.
“Mmm. You know Nightwing at least let me see his face before climbing into my bed.”
The kid turned bright and started sputtering. “You— He— It’s not—”
Helena laughed. “I’m teasing you, boy wonder.”
Robby glared at her and marched out of the room. That didn’t stop him from crawling into her bed again the next night though. She still didn’t kick him out; it’d be stupid to waste body heat in the cold.
—
Expansion of Bat territory began to slow. They’d carved away nearly half of Black Masks territory; he had taken notice and begun to put up more of a fight. The Bat and Robin poured over the map of Gotham that had taken permanent residence on what had once been Helena’s kitchen table.
“He’s concentrating his forces,” Robin said. “Here, here, and here.”
Helena maintained the Huntress’s grip on her own territory during the day, Robin vanished into No Man’s Land and brought back intel.
“Mounting an offense?”
Robin shrugged. “I can’t imagine he likes losing this much ground. Rumor has it Scarface and Penguin are starting to take an interest as well.”
“Vultures,” Helena said. Robin didn’t disagree. “He’s cornered and he knows it,” she continued. “He’s starting to get desperate. He’s becoming less stable, taking more risks.”
“Putting up more of a fight.”
Helena nodded. “Still, it shouldn’t be that hard. Take him off the map and his little cult crumbles. We play our cards right and we can even snatch up most of his territory in the aftermath.”
“Hnn,” The noise Robin made was pure Batman if Batman were say, a teenager whose voice hadn’t broken yet and not a full-grown man made of shadows and disdain. Helena had unfortunately interacted enough with Batman and his brood to know what that noise meant.
“It’s going to have to happen eventually,” she said.
“I know,” Robin said.
“We can just let him go and start causing problems again.”
“I know .”
“Then what’s got your tights in a twist?”
Robin sighed. “You know.”
The question of how. There was an obvious answer and then there was a Bat answer. “No Man’s Land doesn’t have Blackgate to toss him back into,” Helena said.
“Batman doesn’t kill.” Which was about the only point she thought he knew how to make.
Well, it’s a good thing I’m not Batman then , Helena wanted to say, but didn’t. There was a certain amount of don’t ask, don’t tell in their partnership. The Bat didn’t kill and Robin didn’t go poking his nose into what the Huntress did. There were crimes that people couldn’t get away with in the Huntress’ territory. For that one block of Gotham, she was the only justice there was and her options were limited.
“What do you say we do then?” she asked instead. “Since you’re the expert. Wait for someone else to make a move? Let Penguin or Scarface take care of it?”
“That’s not how we do things either.”
“So what then? Can’t hand him over the courts, Can’t let him go. What’s left?”
“There’s the Boys in Blue.” It was a weak suggestion and Helena was pretty sure that the kid knew it. The members of the GCPD who’d remained in Gotham were all the way down south. She was almost certain that they didn’t have the resources to hold Black Mask anymore than they did.
“Besides,” Robin continued. “We’re not in a position to take him head on just yet. We’ve got time. We should be focusing on what we’re doing tonight.”
Helena let the topic drop. The kid was right on one thing. They did have time. She doubted any new options would magically manifest themselves though. Eventually Robby would have to realize that.
—
Day 68 of No Man’s Land: there was someone else in the clock tower. Barbara didn’t need the security systems still compromised by the quake to tell her that. Or who was the type of person to sneak into her home and lurk in the shadows instead of saying hello for that matter. Took him long enough , she thought as she set aside the notebook she’d been writing in.
“You know, some people say hello instead of lurking in the shadows,” she said as she turned around. “I was wondering when you’d show your face here.”
The figure who slunk sheepishly out of the shadows was not, in fact, who Barbara had been expecting.
“Robin,” she said. He wasn’t completely unexpected. There’d been just as many rumors mentioning flashes of red, yellow, green as there were of the Bat’s return. That didn’t change the fact that after months of ghosting her, he would have had the decency to apologize in person.
“Oracle,” he replied.
“You’re not Batman.”
“I’m not,” Robin admitted. He was fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to another. Probably the bearer of bad news.
“Well you can tell him that if he wants my help, he’s going to have to come and ask for it himself,” Barbara said.
“That’s, um, not why I’m here.” He looked more nervous, and yes, she was annoyed, but she didn’t bite .
“So?”
“It’s. Um…”
“Spit it out, kid.”
“I’m not working with Batman,” he blurted out.
Barbara blinked. Re-calibrated. She’d heard reports from several trustworthy informants that would imply otherwise. This is what she got for having to rely on word of mouth in Gotham. The loss of omniscience was frustrating.
“Does he not know you’re out here then?” she asked.
“Considering I haven’t heard from him in months, probably not,” Robin snapped. There was a flash of anger there, quickly buried.
Another set of puzzle pieces thrown aside. Robin hadn’t heard from Batman in months. She hadn’t heard from Batman in months. There was almost certainly a Bat running around in Gotham, an unknown variable.
“So B isn’t in Gotham then.”
“No.”
And that meant…
“Robin?”
“Yes?” She was pretty sure he knew what she was about to ask. He looked guilty, not just nervous.
“If B’s not in Gotham, who’s running around wearing his mask?”
“I promise she’s trustworthy,” he said, like it didn’t set off all sorts of red flags.
“Who is it.”
“She’s doing good work and I think, if we pool our resources, we can really—”
Barbara cut him off. “Just tell me.”
“Huntress,” Robin said. He didn’t look at her.
“Huntress?” In retrospect, it made a certain sense. Huntress’s territory had been surrounded by bat territory on all sides. That didn’t make the truth any more palatable.
He nodded.
“Really? You’re working with her ? You know her methods. And what? You’re just letting her run around out there as Batgirl?” Running around as her , who she used to be? “Letting her spit on everything it stands for?”
“She’s not Batgirl,” Robin said softly.
“What?”
“She’s the Bat, not Batgirl.”
The distinction felt like splitting hairs. Barbara suddenly felt tired with it all: No Man’s Land, this whole mess, everything. “That doesn’t change the fact I don’t trust her to run around as one of us.”
Robin shrugged. “She promised not to kill.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Well, as the Bat at least,” he amended. “Robin doesn’t work with Huntress.”
“And you trust her,” she said flatly.
“Yes.”
“And you’re asking me to trust her too.”
“I’m asking you to trust me,” Robin said. “We both know Gotham needs all the help she can get. B’s gone and the Bat’s here. We pool our resources and we can do more than we could on our own.”
“And what if I say no?”
He shrugged. “I’m not leaving No Man’s Land.”
“You’ll keep working with her?”
“I’ve been working with her for over a month. She’s doing good work.”
Barbara sighed. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll give it a try.” She didn’t like it. She really didn’t like it. But Robin had a point, with Gotham like this, she couldn’t afford to pick and choose her allies. “But if she goes over the line, all bets are off.”
“Thanks,” Robin said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Barbara said. “This is strictly probationary.” She began rolling toward the kitchen. “Now, tea?”
Robin perked up. “If it’s warm, I’ll drink it,” he said.
“Good. After ignoring me for a month, you owe me the chance to pick your brain.”
“I had reasons,” he protested.
“I’m sure you did. You better not do it again though.”
He smiled. “I won’t.”
—
Helena came in to find that once again Robin had brought back souvenirs. There was a radio and transmitter sitting on the kitchen table next to the map.
“What’d you get up to this time?”
“This and that,” Robby said, fiddling with the radio. “Reached out to a friend.”
“Anyone I know?”
The radio crackled to life. “We’ve spoken,” came a voice from the other end. There was something familiar to it, but nothing Helena could place.
“You’ll have to remind me,” she said.
“I’m an ally of the Bats on occasion,” the voice said, “among a number others.”
Something clicked in Helena’s head. The voice was different — didn’t have any of the electronic distortion she remembered — but the tone was the same. “You were the woman on the phone,” she said. “That Oracle chick.”
“I am.” Helena could practically hear the predator’s grin on her face.
“You didn’t particularly like me the last time we spoke,” she said.
“I still don’t,” Oracle said. “I don’t trust you, I don’t approve of your methods, and if I had the choice of anyone else as an ally I wouldn’t be doing this. But Robin vouched for you so I’m willing to give an alliance a shot.”
“Can’t be too picky when we’re all stuck in here?” Helena asked.
“I’ve heard you’re wearing the bat,” Oracle said. “That means something, and if you abuse it, I will make your life miserable.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all, lady. Robby already read me the riot act.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page,” and the radio cut out again.
Helena waited a few seconds to make sure that it wouldn’t come back on. She turned to Robby who had been quietly filling in new intel on the map while that conversation had been going on. “So,” she said.
“Oracle’s good at what she does,” he said. “And we could use all the help we can get.”
Helena looked down at the map, at how much of Gotham was still under enemy control. “I suppose we do,” she said, and left it at that.
—
They weren’t talking about Black Mask, which was fine, because it wasn’t like they were getting any closer to him in the first place. With the element of surprise exhausted, they settled into an uneasy stalemate. He knew his enemy and they knew theirs.
Days turned into weeks with neither side gaining the upper hand. The sharks were circling, waiting for the first taste of blood in the water, and Black Mask knew it. There was a certain desperation to his strategy. He fought like a cornered dog, like a man who knew that he had to win because his only other option was to lose everything.
As for the Bat and Robin, the intel Oracle provided helped, but there was only so much it could do. It was still only the two of them fighting an impossible battle. Bat territory needed to be maintained as well as expanded and Black Mask’s men could easily cover more ground than they could.
The same streets changed hands back and forth again and again; the people living on them hunkered down and held their breaths.
“We’ll get there,” Robin said as they both stared down at a map that changed far too little for either of their tastes. “Take back all of Gotham.”
He said it like it was a fact and Helena found herself nodding along despite the fact that the status quo had barely changed in the past two weeks.
They were relearning the art of war: strategy and tactics forged from scratch, understanding the importance of supply lines, morale, terrain. Things had been simpler when all Helena had needed to do was stop the rapists and muggers in the streets and figure out what the mob was up to. At least she’d grown up with the mob. She hadn’t grown up with any of this.
“It almost makes me miss high school,” Robby said one afternoon they spent redrawing lines on maps and sticking pins into her kitchen table, staring at the streets until they all blurred together in a single mass. Outside, it had warmed up just enough that the snow had turned into icy sleet.
“I could help with that,” Helena said. “My personal library survived the quake.”
Robby gave her the look of teenage boys everywhere when confronted with the prospect of extra schoolwork. “You really don’t need to,” he said.
“No really, it’d be my pleasure.”
“Don’t we have a city to take back? I really don’t think we have time.”
She grinned at him. “There’s always time to develop an appreciation for literature.”
Robby groaned. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It would be a good idea to make sure you don’t fall too far behind in school, though,” Helena said more seriously.
“Look, it’s really not important in the grand scheme of things,” he said. “Not compared to Gotham.”
“Mmhmm?” she said skeptically.
“No,” Robby said.
Helena hummed and went back to staring at the map.
“I’m not doing it!”
She’d have to dig up some of her books.
—
“I have something for you,” Oracle’s voice crackled over the radio. “Black Mask is meeting with Penguin, tomorrow afternoon.”
“Where at?” Helena asked.
“By the bridge on their border, Black Mask’s side according to my informants.”
“Knew we should’ve taken that bridge,” Robin muttered.
Helena didn’t disagree, but Black Mask valued having contact with the Penguin and his market too much to make it easy to take. “We’ll check it out,” she said.
“Let me know how it shakes out.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll pay the piper,” Helena said and the radio crackled out again.
For all the Bat was no longer a creature of just the night, it still felt strange to go out in the suit in broad daylight — or as broad as daylight got in the middle of a Gotham winter. In No Man’s Land, you got work done when the sun was out and went to bed when it wasn’t. There was no point in the Bat and Robin doing anything different.
The meeting place wasn’t hard to find: an old building by the water that had been half-repaired when the evacuation order had gone out. The first floor was stable enough, the second creaked and shifted in an uncomfortable way as they moved across it. There were plenty of holes you could use to peek through to the level below. Good for eavesdropping, not so much for stability.
Down below, negotiations between Penguin and Black Mask went back and forth while on either side of the room, their men lined the walls, trying not to look bored. Black Mask was angling for an alliance and was wanting weapons. Penguin was coy about the alliance and was asking more for the weapons that Black Mask was willing to pay. The subsequent negotiations were quite revealing as to the state of each man’s territory. Penguin was angling for something specific. Black Mask was unwilling to give it. The conversation came in and out through the floorboards beneath them.
“I’m going to see if I can get closer,” Robin whispered.
“No, wait,” Helena hissed back, but the kid was already slinking over to the area directly over the mob bosses’ heads. Most of the time when they were out as the Bat and Robin, he listened to her. That didn’t mean all the time though and Helena cursed under her breath as she moved to follow him.
She didn’t like the way the floor was creaking under them. “Robin, you should turn back,” she whispered.
Either he didn’t hear her or he was ignoring her. She crawled forward another few inches. The wood beneath gave another uncomfortable creak.
Helena was not a large woman by any means, but she still weighed more than a fourteen-year-old kid who hadn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. That made a difference to the quake damaged floor and with one last crack, it gave way under them.
There were shouts of surprise from below.
“It’s the Bat!” someone shouted helpfully.
“I thought Batman was dude,” said someone else who clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that Gotham was under new management.
Helena had managed to salvage her landing into something that, while far from graceful, also wasn’t landing on her ass and was going to count that as a win. There wasn’t much time to prepare before someone shouted “Get them!” and everything started happening at once.
There weren’t any bullets flying because in No Man’s Land, bullets were too precious of a resource to waste by bringing them to a meeting you weren’t expecting to see action in. Thank God for small mercies. The fight was still a mess though. Helena dodged and countered thugs wielding whatever makeshift weapon they could get their hands on: knives and chains and plain old fists. She kicked one of Penguin’s goons, sending him flying backwards, and punched one of Mask’s false-facers in the stomach. She went to hit him again while he was doubled over and then Robin rammed into her with a grunt, sending her stumbling into the range of a guy with a baseball bat. He nearly got a good hit on her, but she dodged at the last second and took him down a solid one-two, finally clearly a path to the exit.
“I think it’s time we said our goodbyes,” she said and she and Robin were off running.
They were up on the rooftops first chance they got, keeping to the ones that they knew were structurally sound, thank you very much.
“Well that was a mess,” Helena said once they were safely paused on top of a building solidly in Bat territory.
“Yeah,” Robin said. He was breathing heavily, one arm leaned against a wall, the other pressed to his side. His uniform was looking a little more red than it was supposed to be.
Helena took a couple steps closer. “You okay there, Robby?” she asked.
He didn’t protest the name which was worrying. “Just a—” he winced “— just a scratch.”
“You sure about that?”
He shrugged.
“Let me take a look.”
“It’s not that deep,” he said. “…I think.” He still moved his hand away though.
It… looked worse than it actually was. She hoped. “Can you make it back to base?” she asked. She sounded calmer than she felt. Injured kid, rooftop, No Man’s Land. Really a great situation to be in.
“I mean I kind of have to, don’t I?”
“I could carry you,” Helena said. It’d be a pain, but they’d make it there in the end.
“I should be able to make it,” Robby said. “It’s not that far.”
He was able to make it, collapsing on the couch as soon as they got in. Blood stains would add character she supposed, Robby was the one who slept on it anyway. (At least in theory. In reality, he hadn’t stopped invading her own bed.)
Robby didn’t complain as she helped peel off the body armor, only tensing when it all came off and the cold hit.
The good news was that the wound really did look worse than it was. It was shallow enough that Helena could take care of it with her basic first aid skills and the supplies she had stashed. Which was good because she really didn’t need to have to figure out how to get him halfway across the city to where Robin said there was a real doctor.
“So,” she asked, once it was taken care of and Robby was all bundled up in sweaters and blankets. “How did that happen?”
“Lucky shot,” he said. “Whole fight was a mess.”
“It really was.” Helena leaned back on the couch, breathed out. Let the weariness from everything that just happened hit. “You’re staying in until that heals up some,” she said.
He pouted. “It’s not that bad.”
“Yeah, and I want to make sure it won’t get worse. Don’t need you giving me any more heart attacks than you already have.”
“But it’ll be boring. Don’t you need my help?”
“If it's really as not bad as you say, it won’t be long. Besides, I’ve got something you can do.”
“What?” he asked, half curious, half suspicious.
Helena got up from the couch and pulled one of the books she’d dug up earlier off the bookshelf. “You can read this,” she said, tossing it over to him.
Robby caught it. He gave her a look once he read the title. “ Fahrenheit 451 . This is a school book.”
“And you said you missed school, kid,” she said with a grin.
He glared at her. “And I regretted it as soon as I said it.”
“You did drop out of school though. Figure it’s my job to get some culture in you since I’m your boss and all.”
“I never said you were my boss.”
She sat back down next to him on the couch. “It was implied.”
—
It was a rare sunny day. Still cold as balls, but sunny for once.
Helena was trying to figure out if there was any way to spice the can of beans she was making for lunch. Sometimes she wished cooking had been a more important skill for a mob princess to learn. Now was definitely one of those times.
Robby was curled up the couch, reading. He’d actually started reading Fahrenheit 451 and seemed grudgingly invested in it though he still got grumpy when she brought things like themes and literary devices.
“I didn’t come to No Man’s Land to do homework,” he’d said.
“But you came to hang out with me,” she’d replied.
“I didn’t know there’d be homework.”
She’d laughed at him then.
The radio on the table crackled. Robby set down his book. “Oracle!” he said. “What’s up?”
“Robby,” she said, Helena could hear the smile in her voice. Robby made a face, but didn’t correct her. “Haven’t seen you out in a bit.”
“He’s grounded until he can learn to dodge better!” Helena called.
“Oh?”
“It was only a little knife wound,” Robby muttered.
“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re okay, then,” she said.
“Yeah, well. How’s your gang war going?”
A staticy sigh, “It’s going. I think the blue boys are winning.”
“That’s good,” Robby said.
“Yes. This isn’t just a social call though.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“You haven’t started picking a fight with Scarface without telling me, have you?”
Helena and Robby exchanged a confused look. “No,” Helena said. “We’ve been lying low. Why?”
“Someone’s up to something up there. Spray-painting bats on the walls and if it isn’t you, then…”
“Is it…?” Robby asked.
“Maybe,” Oracle said. “He certainly hasn’t said anything to me, if it is.”
“But if it isn’t him, then…”
“Could be another person taking the symbol. Could be a rumor, though I trust my informants.”
“You’ll let us know,” Robin said.
“I’ll keep you updated,” Oracle said, and the radio crackled out again.
“So,” Helena said after a few seconds had passed. “The big bad bat’s back in town.”
“We don’t know,” Robby said. He was picking at the blanket. “It might not be him.”
“But it might be.” Schrödinger’s bat. He might by in Gotham, he might not be. Helena wasn’t sure which one she hoped it would be.
“It might be,” Robin said. She was pretty sure he didn’t know which one he wanted either.