Student and Teacher (Barbara Gordon)

[Elena Wayne]

‘Your father was a nice man, a brave man but he was just too busy with his work to have a child in his life was all’ that was what Vicki told Elena when she was a young girl. The statement that Elena now questioned if it was even true, did Bruce Wayne really not want her? Was she really that horrible of an option that he never really wanted anything to do with her? Sure being Batman would occupy most of his time rather than being a father but he raised the other Robins and Cassandra Cain….was raising another child that horrible?

“What do I care, he’s didn’t want me then he didn’t want me there’s nothing to change that now” Elena said angrily as she entered the Clocktower it was the Birds of Prey secret headquarters that Elena was now in charge of. Which she couldn’t do if she was too busy being mad at a man she wasn’t a hundred percent sure was her father!

Elena slammed the door behind her removing her jacket and tossing it on the couch to reveal her Gotham Pee Dee uniform. She undid the tie and was about to remove the buttons when she realized she wasn’t alone. The room felt different though nothing seemed touched or moved since she last left the base. She took a fighting stance and felt watched turning to where she assumed the eyes were she relaxed to see her teacher. Barbara Gordon her father’s first Batgirl and the previous leader of the Birds of Prey.
“Oh Babs…what are you doing here?” Elena asked a bit more relieved and visible relaxing.

[Barbara Gordon]

Barbara was used to the duality in stories about Bruce Wayne, the intrepid airheaded socialite or the hard, cold Batman that was always kinder and more generous than he ever let on. Vicki Vale had never known the whole story despite years of following leads and piecing things together. Barbara almost felt guilty every time she thought about not telling Vicki that Bruce was missing that first year and not travelling abroad or any of the other copious amounts of lies Barbara and the boys had created over the years to cover Bruce’s absence. She never knew if that was part of the reason she had taken Elena under her wing after that first misadventure, or if it was the familiarity with her situation. It was never that he didn’t want to raise her; it was that he disappeared before he could.

After she had gotten it out of Bruce that he had met Elena, and had gotten him as much information as she could dig up at that moment with more to come as she tracked it down, she had taken a nap and headed over to the clocktower at a little before Elena’s shift at Gotham PD would be over with a peace offering of Chinese food. She hoped that she could get Elena to talk to her about this, and maybe find a way to bridge the gap in a way that Bruce could change things when he returned to his time. Or just in this time, if they never did get him home.

She was fiddling with the computers, running program updates and making notes of hardware updates while watching the tower’s security feed for Elena’s return. She winced when Elena started talking to herself on her way up, wishing more than ever she had been able to tell the whole story to Vicki, or even Elena in the first place. It would make things so much less awkward. But she powered down the systems back to a sleep mode and made sure everything was back into place as she wheeled over to the window for one last look out at the view that had been her constant companion for years before she faced one of the more unpleasant things she had to do: Explain to her friends, her family, why Bruce was the way he was.

“I needed to make a list of hardware updates, and add some new programs to your system.” Barbara said, smiling and turning away from the window to roll towards Elena. “And… well, I had an interesting visitor last night, and I thought you might want to talk about it.” She shrugged. “I brought Chinese food as a bribe.”

[Elena Wayne]

“Take out huh” Elena said turning away from Barbara to the takeout food she completely missed when she was in her thoughts. It was a tell of Oracle’s if you wanted to call it that, she always softened the blow or really meaningful talks with take out, when she told Elena that Bruce Wayne was her biological father she had brought forth Pizza to cushion her reaction. Still Elena wished that she wasn’t right for once and took the bait like the idiot she sometimes was. Elena took a bite of food before looking away from the box to the window outside, it was late noon the night would be here shortly and this was usually the time that Elena took to prepare for being Batwoman by suit up then last minute check up on any crime cases that were in the computer.

“Babs can you check up any assignments from the Batcave for me or any possible leads that Gotham Pee Dee has on any of their cases” Elena said putting the food down and walking toward a closet in the far side of the room. Elena pulled the wardrobe open and first thing that appeared was the Batwoman costume, Elena unbuttoned the rest her shirt and slide it off wincing a bit as the soft fabric barely touched the huge purple bruise on her shoulder. That was a momento of her first job with Batman; she figured the bruise began when he slammed her into the white van than really sunk in when that thug hit her with a baseball bat. Yeah great times she would certainly tell the grandkids one day.

Ah there it was again, that one thing that would make Vicki’s day. Elena getting a boyfriend, getting married and having kids; Though Vicki didn’t know about Elena’s nightly activities she was aware of her daughter being a police officer and wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t want Elena getting hurt but there always seemed like something more than that when Elena talked about helping people with her mom, that look of determination in her eyes was all too familiar to Vicki. Though Elena didn’t agree she sometimes suspected that Vicki was afraid of losing her daughter the way Bruce Wayne disappeared. Maybe Vicki saw a family as a way of grounding her daughter by forcing her into retirement, though to be honest a family was the last thing on Elena’s mind right now. Maybe when Gotham no longer needed a Batwoman she could take it into consideration.

[Barbara Gordon]

“Yeah, takeout.” Barbara replied, fully aware that her offering of takeout food often meant she was going to go into touchy subjects that whoever she was talking to wouldn’t enjoy at all. Though really, with how many times Babs got takeout instead of actually cooking food it couldn’t be that obvious. Though she didn’t always buy it and bring it over to places that she wasn’t in residence unless she needed to have a talk with someone. But she supposed even all the Chinese food in the world would soften the blow of an absentee father walking back into one’s life. She had always been lucky; her father was as constant as taxes and had known that something was awry when Bruce disappeared, because the top seven didn’t just leave without an explanation or a trace. Well, Bruce probably could, the rest, not really.

“Already done.” Babs said, pulling the files up on the screen before turning to look at the younger woman. “Elena, where in heck did you get that bruise?” Great, the first time Bruce ever meets his daughter and she gets hurt. Lovely. No wonder he said she wasn’t up for the job, though Babs knew she was. If Bruce had anything to do with it she was going to throw things at him the next time he came to visit for information. Like she didn’t have enough trouble keeping eyes on the younger members of the Batfamily, now she had to keep eyes on their Patriarch who was much, much better at hiding that the lot of munchkins. She could already feel the headache start behind her eyes just imagining the days she was going to have to put in while getting them back to the proper timeline.

Sometimes she suspected the Commish of doing the same thing Vicki sometimes tried to do when she was Elena’s age, and younger even when she was out in the field. Of course James Gordon had been able to ban a young Barbara from the police academy, but not from a cowl, though they both knew and ignored the fact that he knew it was her the whole time. “Elena, stop suiting up. I know you ran into a Batman, one that wasn’t Will.” She said, her command softened with sympathy. Babs, Tim, Dick, and Cass were equipped and used to dealing with the original Batman, even if those skills were rusty. The others, not so much. “I wanted to come over and tell you what happened, why he left so suddenly and without a trace.”

[Elena Wayne]

“Well I got shoved against a van then I was hit with a baseball bat when I was helping someone” Elena said simply she didn’t really feel like sharing all the details of her night with Bruce Wayne. If anything Elena felt that he thought less of her after that night, not that it mattered or anything but she didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with that guy. He was nothing like Will if anything he was scarier, more intimidating though Will could do all that if you pushed his buttons the right way. She was finished with putting her costume of she was about to add on the utility belt when Babs told her to stop suiting up.

“Who told you about that?” Elena asked when Barbara brought up Bruce, though she had been ranting about it earlier she really didn’t feel like going on with the subject once more. For one reason Elena thought Barbara might be more biased on the way Elena saw her father. The way Elena saw Bruce Wayne was anything but a father, a father would have shown up for a birthday, school occasion hell Elena would have taken a Christmas card for god sakes just some acknowledgement from him that she existed was all she wanted. Still Barbara was the first Batgirl, she almost married his first Robin she had worked with him for years much longer than she knew Elena. Of course Elena trusted Barbara if anything she considered Barbara to be her aunt or something closer, a friend maybe but on topics of Bruce Wayne she didn’t want to hear it.

“Babs we’ve been over this before nothing you ever say to me will change my opinion on Bruce Wayne…and that’s not a good thing” Elena said the last part silently more to herself. Bruce Wayne was never a part of her life and frankly Elena wasn’t even sure if she wanted him in her life. The only person she really talked to who knew her father was Barbara and that was because she needed her for training and she to be quite honest Elena had gotten attached to having a Gordon around whether it be Babs or Jim.

[Barbara Gordon]

That someone she was helping sounded suspiciously like a certain bat that tended to be too hard on his allies, though Babs just raised an eyebrow in response. She could always find security footage of any fight, because between Babs needing eyes out and the general paranoia of the regular Gotham citizen most of the city was completely covered with video cameras, though Babs’s were the most untraceable and least noticeable. The great wiring of Gotham happened after Bruce and the others had disappeared, when they were losing more people than she liked to admit and she needed more eyes.

“I’m Oracle.” She replied drily, as if that wasn’t obvious. “Your father and Red Robin told me about it. And don’t you dare think I didn’t lecture him already.” Alright, so Babs was a little biased, but not quite as much as Elena thought. She knew quite well what Bruce was like when he didn’t like someone taking up his symbol, in fact the first time she jumped off a building he cut the line and sent Robin after her. She was still rather mad about that particular event, and that was just something at the beginning of everything. She had witnessed the good and the bad, through robins, batgirls, the good times and the bad. But she also knew that the good in Bruce hid deep, and was hard to find sometimes, but it was there. At least now they had some explanation to why he disappeared.

“Sweetheart, for him three weeks ago... well, I was twenty-six and running down leads on the Scarecrow’s involvement in New York and you’re mother had just told him she was pregnant.” She knew it was probably useless. There was no way she was going to be able to heal twenty three years of nothing with something as simple as time travel. But she couldn’t help it, after Andi entered her life she always felt the need to at least try. And Elena, she considered Elena part of her own family. “I know you hate talking about him. But the next time you cross paths with him don’t you dare let him tell you that you aren’t cut out for this life.” She informed her , rubbing the bridge of her nose. She had a headache, and she didn’t think it was going to leave anytime soon. “I hate time travel.”

[Elena Wayne]

Elena listened to everything that Barbara was telling her, she figured that Babs would eventually hear of her and Batman’s interaction. Sometimes she felt bad for Antigone, Barbara’s daughter she must have a hard time getting things past her mother. And here Elena thought Vicki was bad, she still made her twenty-three year old daughter do check up calls every few weeks or so. But still the fact that Barbara was in contact with Tim and Bruce was unsettling to her. Mostly since the fact that Elena didn’t stay in contact with that side of her family, she was a bit of a loner and didn’t trust people without proper observation first. But once she found out her dad was Batman Elena just shut herself out from the Waynes…even though they could’ve helped her out the most when learning how to be Batwoman.

“Time travel?...why didn’t I think of that….wait he said I wasn’t cut for this?!” Elena’s tone went from realization to anger. Sure she had some more to learn but to say she wasn’t cut out for this was a much too far. Elena wouldn’t say she was the best hero but she had been definitely doing a lot of Gotham in and out of the cowl. She did have that fear of heights but she had to face it every night as Batwoman and it had yet to stop her and here was this man who never met her who was judging her right off the bat.

Elena was slightly offended but her anger left just as quickly, he was Batman after all and once he went back to past she doubted he would make any immediate chance to get to know her. He had that chance before and he never made it did he? If anything Elena was more worried what would happen if she did meet Bruce, would he stop her from being Batwoman? Would he stop her from being born at all? The last thought seemed a little scarier to her. The only time she ever felt strong, like something so much better than herself was when she was Batwoman. Hell for all she knew Elena Martha Wayne could be the mask and Batwoman the real person, at times it really felt that way to her.

[Barbara Gordon]

At least one thing Bruce didn’t pass on to his daughter, she actually stopped and listened. It was much more than Barbara sometimes got from other members of the batfamily, Will liked intimidation more than asking, Tim listened, but only to a point, Jake and Jack, well they were teenage boys after all, and her daughter seemed to enjoy just being defiant. Sometimes she thought she was being too hard on Antigone too, but then Barbara usually told herself was that while she was nosy and an information nut, her daughter was born to be devious. It was like Andi was born to try to outwit her mother, even as a toddler Andi tended to make a game of slipping then entire Birds of Prey at once in various settings and venues. No other hero had given her nightmares of getting too close to the Joker, or many of his associates, without realizing the danger they were in. Of course that had given rise to the ‘No Joker’ rule, which had been followed by the ‘No Harley,’ ‘No Pandora,’ ‘No Harlot,’ and eventually the ‘No Costumed Villains’ addendums to said rule. So far that worked, she wasn’t sure how much longer she would actually be able to keep Andi from things, though.

“It was an early theory, but one we could never prove definitively until now.” She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. The ‘we’ had been any number of costumed (and uncostumed when they got desperate) detectives that had been put on the case since the loss of the Justice League. There were a lot of theories that first year, ranging from time travel to alien abduction, dimensional rifts to faked deaths. While time travel had seemed like a good option, no one had ever proved it and there had been no suspicious spikes on any power grid around the time the missing crowd had actually gone missing. But they now had evidence and the beginnings of a plan in place to send the missing back to their time whether they wanted to go or not. That would solve more problems than she could ever admit.

“Elena, telling people they aren’t cut out for the cape is pretty much what he does every chance he can. I heard it every time I crossed paths with him the first year I was batgirl. So did Dick, Tim, Jason, Cassandra… for years he told Huntress, Stephanie to go away…” Barbara sighed. At least she was mostly sure that Vicki would never give up Elena no matter how much Bruce tried. At least if Bruce went back he could give Elena the training that Babs and Tim never could quite get right, and let her out earlier, even let Elena take up Batgirl before she got into the costumed villains. “The key is to keep on going as Batwoman. Eventually your father will get it through his thick skull that he can’t keep you from it.”

[Elena Wayne]

Elena listened to Barbara tell her about Bruce Wayne though she was still upset that he told her that she wasn’t cut out for this she didn’t let it get to her when Babs explained that this was a common thing. Still she was worried that is she didn’t prove Bruce wrong that he would go back in time and make sure she didn’t take up the cowl. Elena was going to confront her mother on the issue once she had time to go see her this talk was long overdue.

But Elena was wondering what was Barbara getting at, that she should get to know her dad now that he was hear? Elena wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good idea if anything the man appeared to want nothing to do with her which was exactly how Vicki said he would act. Elena would only slow him down and she knew that this was true. Damian was robin he had been useful to Bruce and Elena was positive she couldn’t be that to him in the past.

“Babs if you’re trying to get us to act like a father and daughter it’s not going to happen. He doesn’t want or need a kid in his life now that he’s Batman. I would only slow him down and it’s not killing me to have a dad in my life I’ve gotten along just fine without him” Elena said her voice holding a tone that showed that she wasn’t all that interested in being included in Bruce’s life chances were he didn’t even want her taking the cowl in the first place.

“If anything I think he’d rather I was a just Vicki’s daughter and not Batwoman at all and I’m not going back to that Babs I just can’t” Elena almost pleaded in the end. She didn’t want Bruce Wayne in her life if he couldn’t accept her as Batwoman.