2013.10.13 - Going Back to Gotham

Helena Bertinelli received a call from Oracle earlier, telling her she was needed back in Gotham but not elaborating. That was enough for Helena to realize that it had to do with the District Kings, and she agreed. Now, a handful of hours later, she's got her personal effects all bundled up and ready to go, and she's waiting for the car HAL said she'd send. She just hopes that the car will have room for her longbow. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt and keeping her phone in hand, she waits just inside the sublet apartment Oracle secured for her while she's been staying in New York.
The car that arrives is an old model black sedan. It's well taken care of and purrs like a kitten, but is far removed from the flashy vehicle one might expect the driver to be troughing around the city in. 
That driver slides out of the front seat wearing a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, and a buttoned own white shirt worn open over a white t-shirt. His black hair is short and spiked and about the only thing about him that would ever link him to Bruce Wayne is that smile. That entirely too charismatic smile. 
Dick Grayson slides around the front of the vehicle and snaps his knuckles against the door of the subtle apartment, presumably after going up some stairs and all that jazz. "Hey 'Rebecca', it's Dick." 
Helena Bertinelli reaches for the door at the very first knock, but then stops herself and takes a breath before actually opening the door. "Hey, hello." At least she's a bit genuinely surprised. "HAL told me she was gonna send someone, but I figured just, like, a hired car. You know?"
"If it makes you feel any better, you can tip me a few dollars for carrying your bags?" Dick offers with a half grin, holding his hands out expectantly for any extra things she might have with her that needs carrying. "I was in town for the expo and on my way back to Gotham, so I offered to give you a ride." 
Helena Bertinelli ohhhs and nods, and turns to pick up her bags, offering the normal looking duffel for Dick to carry. She gets her purse and the last remaining bag herself, as well as the longbow and accompanying quiver of arrows. Locking up behind herself, she follows and slows a bit at seeing the sedan. She glances at the bow, then at the sedan, clearly trying to determine if the weapon is going to fit.
Compared to the night before when Dick was walking around with a cane, he's doing surprisingly well without it. There's a noticeable limp, but nothing exaggerated and only moderately visible at all as he hops down the stairs as if testing his luck with his knee. "Is that a longbow?" He asks, even though it is quite clear that it is. Usually the extended associates of Oracle might well have a 'don't ask, don't tell' sort of approach to these things... Dick, he doesn't seem to attribute to that line. Instead, he opens the trunk and tosses her bags inside, then moves some things around and motions towards the open hatch. "Should fit. Unless you're intending to do a little mobile duck hunting on the way?" 
Helena Bertinelli sets her bag and the quiver into the trunk, then carefully settles the longbow into place. "Yeah, it is. Thought I'd try it out, considering how many archers there are running around. Maybe they know something I don't." When he mentions duck hunting she chuckles. "Nah. If I was going to do that, I'd break out my Nikon." As she walks around to the passenger's side of the car, she figures since Dick started this Q&A session, she's going to jump right in. "So, sports injury?"
"You'd take pictures of the ducks?" Dick queries, perking a brow and canting his head inquisitively to one side. His hand lays atop the hood of the car, the other hovers at the handle just shy of opening it until Helena is at the passenger side. "To each their own, I guess... Not sure there's money in it, though?" 
As to her question, he waits until he's slide in behind the steering wheel and got the car cranked. Immediately he reaches out to turn down the radio, which for the briefest of seconds was blaring Lisa Loeb at excessive volumes. "Something like that. It was a 'sports car', at least. Don't you read the paper?" Who does. 
Helena Bertinelli puts on her seat belt and manages to not flinch in surprise at the abrupt volume. "Sports car? Yowtch. And no, I don't usually follow the news. I work kind of weird hours." She then mentally rewinds and answers the question about the ducks. "Well, I don't need to kill them for food, so why kill them? If I get a good picture, it'd be the same in my mind, but without hurting them. I once got a photo of an eleven-point buck that way."
"Well, that's just the official story." Dick says of the sports car incident, "The truth is less glamorous. I'm honestly not the sports car type... hell, I've only driven a handful of them." If his personal vehicle is any indication, anyways. At least it's clear he knows his way around the underside of a hood, since most of the engine sounds more custom than stock. 
He pulls them away from the curb and seamlessly into traffic. New York has some of the worst gridlock in the country, to be sure, but it appears he's unphased by it. All the while listening to her admission about the buck with a brow perked, "I suppose I can see the merit in not bagging the buck, if you don't have to. I'm really not much into hunting either. Seems a waste to sit around for hours waiting on a creature to come around and drink a sip of water only to shoot it." Pausing, "Bad karma." 
Helena Bertinelli chuckles. "Yeah. Something like that. My cousins were PISSED. They'd been planning the hunting trip for months and the shutter noise scared the buck away before anyone else got a shot off." She settles into the seat a bit, listening to the car's engine for a couple of minutes. "I'm no gearhead, but your car sounds more like something off of Top Gear than the dealership sales floor." And she's being honest. She knows the sound of her Ducati's engine very well, to the point that she can hear when it needs maintenance, but she's by no means a mechanic.
"I do all of my own work." Dick says about the car, steering them across two lanes of traffic in the direction of the turnpike over to Jersey. "People are less likely to steal a sedan than a Fiata... but I'd still beat one off the line without NOS." He's probably exaggerating a bit, this isn't a car built to race down European makes, but it's got power under that hood far superior to its usual make and model. 
"So. Brothers, huh? They in Gotham or here in New York?" 
Helena Bertinelli ahhs. That makes sense about the car. Kind of reminds her of the one she's seen Q drive about every now and again. "Not brothers. Cousins. Back in Sicily." She doesn't elaborate on that, though, because it skirts a bit too close to Huntress for her comfort. She already came really close to sticking her foot in her mouth but good around Captain America, she's not gonna do it again around Richard effing Grayson.
"Makes sense." Dick reasons when she explains where it is that the cousins live, "So... Rebecca, eh?" Smirking in a completely nonjudgmental sort of way as he turns them onto another street and glances off to his left when a car tries to do the same, right into their lane. His hands move expertly to dodge the vehicle right out of the way and then back in between the lines without missing a beat. "You're not in the witness protection program are you?" Teasing, very clearly teasing. Which, again, is probably too close for comfort for her. 
Helena Bertinelli's eyes widen when a car nearly turns right into them, but Dick's seemingly effortless reaction gives her no time to react, really. God, she must REALLY be losing her edge if she reacted to that like any normal dingbat civilian. She frowns slightly without realizing as her mind turns toward why she's been in New York. This stupid fool's errand from the Bat. It's just... demeaning.
Dick takes the lack of an answer, as an answer. Figuring he's crawling into the 'none your business Grayson' department he instead changes the subject onto something a little more benign. "So, why New York? You're not planning to leave Gotham are you? You know there's no escaping Gotham... like ever." Joking as he makes another turn and snickers quietly so that she knows as much. 
Helena Bertinelli relaxes a bit from the near-collision. "Oh, um, no. I was just there house sitting for a friend." It's the story she used with Clint, might as well maintain it. "It's not a permanent thing."
"Must be some friend." Dick reasons, checking the rearview, "Or they have some house. Longbow and all." Turning them down yet another street, this one a straight shot for the bridge leading over into Gotham proper. 
Helena says, "Oh, well, kind of. I'd been saving up for that for a while," complete lie, "and the funds my friend gave me for helping out gave me enough to pay for it." Mostly true. The money that the Bat forwarded to her was enough to pay for the bow outright as well as a hotel room for several days. Oracle actually helped her out by locating the sublet and securing it for her. Damn. She REALLY owes HAL big time now. She just realized that.
"So you didn't have to pop an arrow into any would be house thieves knee?" Dick asks with a smirk, whether he's buying the lie or not. He's not fishing, at the least. And while he's got a host of reasons to suspect there's more to Helena than meets the eye, he's clearly got enough faith in Barbara to figure it can't be that bad. Or he would probably already know about it. 
"I hear that's a sure shot way to end your adventuring days." 
Helena Bertinelli blinks at Dick. "Uh... no. I'm still crap with the bow anyway. As often as not I either miss completely, or snap myself on the arm with the string, or both." And, of course, this is when her mind all on its own brings up the memory of Clint being all gentlemanly and stuff and giving her his own arm guard. Snap out of it, H. Guys that hot and that nice at the same time are ALWAYS already taken. Besides, he's a frigging SUPERHERO, and you've been lying to his FACE.
"You know what they say." Dick reasons, his expression fixed in concentration as he weaves them in and out of traffic lines to put them out ahead of the pack of cars that are headed over into the already overcast Gotham skyline. "The only way to get to Carnegie hall? Practice." Chuckling quietly as his face is partially lit by one of the passing over head lights shining down into the car through the windshield. 
Since it bares noting and will probably add some fun... 
There is, in the center console of the vehicle, a holstered pistol with a GCPD badge sitting on top of it. 
Probably something she'd have seen earlier, but we'll say it became visible with the light that lit Dick's face. 
Helena Bertinelli had been paying more attention to the passing scenery (such as it is) than the interior of the car, but as they hear Gotham City itself, she looks over at Dick, trying to place his comment about Carnegie Hall. Isn't that from a movie? However, as she's trying to puzzle that out, her eyes land on the pistol and the badge there in the car's center console. HOLY SHIT. And no matter how much she practices, there is no way she could fully control her reaction to seeing that sitting RIGHT there. Literally, inches from her own hand. Her eyes flick up to Dick's face and back to the sidearm, and then she hastily looks out the front windshield of the car again. Pretend you didn't notice. Pretend you didn't notice.
"Last action hero." Dick says, as if he's just read her mind. He hasn't, he just knows that look when someone is puzzling through where they've heard some quote and wondering why someone would use it. "One of Arnie's better movies, if you ask me. It was seriously under appreciated." 
Now, that being said... he does note her reaction and glances down at the center console with a 'ooooo' face, nodding slowly. "You'd be surprised how often I get that reaction. Don't worry, the badge is real... actually that's probably not much reassurance since it's a GCPD badge..." Canting his head back and forth, "I'm running out of one-liners to set you at ease... help me out here." 
Okay, H, you can work with this. Just... go with it. "So, uh, you're.... off duty?" She tries to make her minor freak out seem purely because of the sidearm and not because he's specifically GCPD. "Sorry. I just... hadn't noticed it sitting there before. I, um, I usually watch the horizon 'cause I get carsick." Yeah, that sounds believable, right? The whole rambling thing speaks of honesty, really!
In Dick's line of work... Both of Dick's lines of work... he gets a lot of reactions that are tells that someone is covering and/or omitting some of the truth, if not outright lying. Glancing, fidgeting, these are all dead giveaways. Rambling, that's another. His grin doesn't slip away, never once falters, when he glances over at Helena with eyes that scream: 'I know your deepest darkest secrets now'. Which is a far cry from what he actually says... 
"Hey, I didn't radio for backup when you tossed a longbow in my trunk... I think you can probably relax." His chin juts down at the badge and gun. "I'm not even sure how long I'll still be on the force anyways. They were less than pleased with my 'sports car' accident." 
Helena Bertinelli ohs softly and tries to make it seem like she's calming down, which she is, but only because she's forcibly reminding herself that Oracle sent Dick to give her a lift back. Even if he IS looking at her like he's the cat and she's the canary. "Okay, yeah. You're right. Sorry. Just kinda caught me by surprise... wait, what? They'd kick you out because you hurt your knee?"
"Long story." Dick says about kicking him out, "And it probably won't be because of my knee." Finally in Gotham proper, he seems to require less observing as to where they're headed. Not that he's taking his eyes off the road for any extended period of time, but he clearly has a better grasp of the surrounding boroughs than when he was driving in Metro. 
"Short version, it opened a door for others to take advantage of. Not much that I can do about it, but we'll see how it plays out." 
Helena Bertinelli ohs and wrinkles her nose. "Oh. Stupid workplace politics. I swear. So if you do end up off the force, what're you gonna do?" Again, her own idle question opens up another thought. What is SHE going to do? She's given up on ever being able to teach again, but... that leaves her with exactly jack and shit. "Oh, hey, my building's a couple of blocks down that way." Not really, but close.
"I have no idea." Dick admits with all honesty. "I've got a little money saved up, but nothing that would sustain me for more than a couple weeks. Even with my shitty apartment in Bludhaven." Any myth about him being a billionaire playboy are thus destroyed in one fell swoop of his mighty admission hammer. Still, he doesn't look terribly broken up about it either. "I'll figure it out, though. These things have a way of working out for the best, if you just look at it the right way." 
At her direction he nods and turns them down the street towards the indicated section of buildings. 
"Yeah, I suppose." The faint tone of defeat in her voice is something that can't be faked. She then indicates one of the buildings. "It's that one there." Just another of the many many brownstone buildings in this part of town, almost indistinguishable from any of the others around it. Of course, her own apartment is actually a few buildings back.
Dick pulls up along the curb and cuts the car off. "This one?" Leaning forward to look up at it through the windshield. After a moment, he slides out and heads back around to the trunk to pop it open and grab up one of her bags, "I'd offer to help you take your bags up, but given my reputation, that would probably get me slapped... so, instead of getting slapped..." Her longbow is handed out to her, along with the quiver. 
Helena Bertinelli climbs out and joins Dick at the trunk, taking her bags and shouldering them, the longbow last of all. "Yeah, well, I've been gone for a while, I don't even want to think about the state of my fridge so probably best that you don't. Reputations I really don't care about. So, thanks. And if you need my help for anything, you've got my phone number, right?"
"You've clearly never been to Bludhaven." Dick jokes when she mentions her fridge, "Your fridge would be a step up from the best place in that cesspool." He gives her a nod and another glance up at the dark brownstone. Then spins his keys on his finger and starts back towards the driver seat. "I do... or rather, I can get it. Thanks for the company. It isn't a long drive, but it sure can be a boring one." One final chin jut and another charming, if slightly distant and tired, smile and he disappears behind the steering wheel. "Have a good night, Rebecca." 
"Good night, and I'm glad I made the drive a little more tolerable." Helena takes a step away from the car and waits for it to pull away before turning toward the building. She walks up the steps slowly, waiting for the black sedan to disappear around a corner so she can head for her actual home.
Category:Log