7621/Who is Helena Wayne

Who is Helena Wayne
Date of Scene:	31 August 2021
Location:	Batcave
Synopsis:	Babs makes a personal visit to the Batcave to talk to Bruce about Helena Wayne. They have plenty of wild theories about what could be going on and not enough information. With Bruce's permission, Babs is going to dig deeper in to this and see if she can't find out what's really going on.
Cast of Characters:	Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon

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Bruce Wayne has posed:
The bullet wound in his shoulder, though far from fully healed, has recovered enough for the Batman to finally return to patrol. For all the extra hands in Gotham these days, the city never feels fully protected unless he is out there watching over it. The sun is rising over the horizon and the Batmobile has returned to base, the Dark Knight's uniform seeing mercifully clean and free of the blood, dirt, and charring that is all too common for him.

Changed into a pair of loose sweatpants and a towel around his neck following a brief, cold shower he settles down at the Batcomputer. He begins to hour-long process of transcribing the night's events into a series of logs, and uploading his cowl-cam recordings to the servers.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    The elevator opens and out steps the red headed girl who wandered in to Bruce's life all those years ago. She glances around the cave and listens for a moment. No one else here.. "Bruce," she says with a smile and approaches him and the Batcomputer.

    "Can you spare a moment. There's something we need to talk about." That's rarely a good way to start a conversation. She pulls over the spare seat and settles in to it. Her legs tuck up underneath her. She's wearing jeans and sneakers, a black top and her hair is tied back in a pony tail. Casual.

    "It's about a new bird prospect I met the other day." She tilts her head a moment and says, "Something about her is a little.. unconventional."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Is it urgent?" Bruce asks bluntly, keeping his eyes fixated on the screen, "Cataloguing evidence in the Riddler case. Nygma seems to be targeting you and the others. Need to determine why and how Pittman factors into this."

For all that, though, it is clear he's still listening. His hands glide across the keyboard, line after line of speed-written text tagging alongside photograph, video, and audio files he's acquired throughout the night. He's always been good at multitasking.

"Unconventional how? Saw the log. Figured you were withholding something."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    "It's not urgent, but it might be personal." She glances over at the tagging going on. She's been trying not to let the potential doom of Riddlers curiosity with the bats and the birds hang over her head too much. Nothing good can come of this. One dead so far, more to come - until they figure out his game there's no way to predict who he'll target next.

    "Did you see the video footage of how she fought? non-lethal blows, nerve cluster attacks, using the shadows to her advantage. Bruce.. she's not just a highly trained fighter, she's highly trained in the same arts you taught me, taught the Robins.."

    She's still leaving something unsaid, "You should see her confessional to Oracle," she says and glances up at a currently free monitor, letting the iris tracking do the work she says, "Oracle Authorisation play File HW5."

    A video appears of a young woman in a purple costume. She takes off her mask to reveal long black locks of hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a pale complexion. She speaks, "Oracle... whoever you are... I'm trusting you because of the symbol your agent wore tonight. My name is Helena." Pause. Another deep breath. "Helena Wayne."

    I'd like to get a blood test. But facial recognition hits high for both you and....." the thing she's been leaving out, "Selina Kyle. I'd guess she's about 19 years of age. Highly skilled and immediately trusted the Bat symbol on my chest at the time. A risk that she didn't have to take - she helped Flamebird too."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"I learned these abilities from Kirigi - ostensibly the League of Shadows," Bruce answers, brow furrowing, "It's not impossible that someone may have drawn the same conclusions and developed a similar style."

Nevertheless, he pauses and watches the video in silence. He can't deny the similarities are there, along with moves of his own invention and even some he'd never thought of himself. His hands steeple before his face, brows knit in an expression of thoughtful concern.

"As far as I'm aware, Damian is my only biological offspring and that was achieved through deceit. I first encountered Selina twenty years ago, but ... "

He glances for a moment towards Barbara, clearly withholding some kernel of information, and then pushes on.

"She couldn't keep something like this from me. She's capable but not to that level. This is a trick of some kind. A ploy. Ra's al Ghul has all the information necessary to make something like this happen."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    She goes silent as she presses play on the next bit of video. Yes, the moves of Batman are certainly there, but so is the back flip of Catwoman. Very clearly so. She raises an eyebrow and says, "I have theories. All of them weird."

    Not quite as weird as having this entire conversation with her mentor, "I considered perhaps someone got DNA and used a surrogate, but ... you still need to teach someone how to move like that, how to fight like that." And great, now she has the image in her head of Batman and Catwoman two decades ago.

    "With your permission, I'd like to instruct her to provide a blood sample to Batgirl. I'd like to know if just how.. contrived this might be." Of course, there is one really out there theory that she hasn't brought up yet.

    "I tried to track her face. World wide. Not a single hit until recently. She came out of no where - just as she is. It's possible she came from another world. Like those doppelgangers from earlier in the year. Or it's possible this is the result of magic, or time travel, or...." Yeah the list of weird really does go on.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Let's eliminate the obvious first before we delve into time travel and alternate dimensions," Bruce adds, still frowning at the images on the screen.

"Go ahead with the investigation. Blood samples. Speech pattern analysis shows a Bristol-Gotham accent, which is difficult to replicate perfectly but the algorithm gives it a 98.3 percent likelihood of being genuine. Get some further analysis of her fighting style and her other methods, maybe see if Batgirl can get into her confidence and learn some more about who she is. If it's a ruse, she may slip up even if she's done her homework."

There's a moment's thought before he adds: "Don't let Selina hear about this. That would complicate the investigation."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    Babs glances back to Bruce. The awkward is written all over her face. They've faced some pretty weird stuff together over the years and this ranks right up there in that pile. At least so far there's no hint of malice involved, no scent of a supervillain behind it all.

    "Okay.. but at some point you're going to have to talk to her. She might have the answers." May be she gave up a child and never told him about it. There are some even more awkward places this line of thinking could go. Perhaps she donated eggs at some point too.

    "I think I'll play this close to the chest. I'll talk to her again as Batgirl. If I draw Steph in to it, she'll have a lot of questions." Questions neither of them have answers for yet. "I'll also get a sub-dermal scan done, just in case this.. is all surgery." A quick and easy thing to check.

    "... and Bruce, no matter how it goes I'm still considering her right now for the Birds. Even if she's some supervillain plot, she might be unaware of it - she's still a person who seems to have a good heart."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Do it."

These are far from the things Bruce wanted to admit to Barbara. For all his openness with his former student, there were some facts of the Batman's life that he kept concealed even from those closest to him. He watches the video in silence once again.

"If you're going to make her part of your team, you're obliged to keep tabs on her. I don't have to tell you that she shouldn't be getting full access immediately. You need to clear her first."

"I'll see what I can dig up about Selina."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    Babs can see he's getting distracted by it. She uses the eye tracking system to interact with the screen and open up the folder with all the footage of Helena she's gotten so far. Mask on and off. As well as a map with lines all over it indicating her movement and where she's staying.

    "On it. I'm sorry Bruce, this is super awkward." She slips off the chair. She really did ride her bike all the way over here just to talk about this with him face to face. "May be it's all a coincindence, may be the name Helena Wayne, is just a fluke and she learnt it all from someone who learnt it from the League of Shadows. May be there's nothing more to it than that."

    Odds are low though. It's a problem with all the likely scenarios are as equally improbable, even the stupidly outlandish ones. If this were something she'd looped anyone else in on - Dick for instance - she'd place her money on time travel paradox. But no, she's kept all this to herself until she could share it with Bruce.

    "She's on the Bird network if you want to follow her real time. She's fully aware she's being monitored by the Oracle. I asked her to show me who she was - through her deeds. I'll know soon enough if she can walk the walk."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"I'll keep my distance," Bruce answers, brow still furrowed, "I don't think a confrontation will make things any clearer. This is better handled by you and your operatives."

He turns his attention back fully to the Riddler evidence on the screen, still frowning.

"I'll focus my attention on the Riddler. Also need you to adjust patrol routes for tomorrow night. I'm going out of town. Want to take a look at the Bates murder scene in Long Island. Something unusual about it."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
    "The roster is good, we've got you covered for tomorrow night." She pauses a moment - may be she should have gone herself. But she needs to keep her trust in Steph. She built her up and set her free as Batgirl - she deserves that trust.

    "And then there's Harper Row. I'd like to know why she was there, what threat she was pulling to put her in that apartment. As usual, too much going on. It's like the smell in the air before the rain, something big is coming our way."

    She pats the back of the now empty chair and pauses, "If you hear from Dick..." She shakes her head not bothering to finish that sentence. Instead, she's moving away quietly. The sound the elevator going up announces her departure.