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Helena Bertinelli was a teacher. Sure, she might not have a job at the moment, but she was still a teacher. She had her CPR certification and she kept it up to date. She knew the statistics. CPR was effective at increasing survival rates, but it wasn’t foolproof. It assumed medical professionals were on their way and a certain amount of, well, not being beaten to death.
Maybe that was why, when Batman told her to start doing compressions, she did. She told herself it was because she’d rather not get into a fight with him that night. That it was because Robin looked nearly as freaked out as Nightwing. Whatever her motivations were, she did by the book. Thirty compression, two breaths through the bat-mouth barrier Batman apparently kept in his utility belt. Rinse and repeat. He wouldn’t be able to say she’d failed on purpose.
“Face it,” Helena said, long minutes later. Robin had taken over for her on the CPR front while she caught her breath. “He’s dead, Batman. You’re not going to bring him back.”
Batman just grunted. Robin kept pounding away at the Joker’s chest.
The kid gave up quicker than she had, but he still looked pretty rough from whatever had gone down at Arkham.
Batman still didn’t say anything when Robin stopped and looked up at him like he had all the answers in the world.
“B—” he said.
Batman just turned and stalked to the front door. Nightwing had already vanished off to who knows where and the purple girl had left as well, which meant it was just her and the kid.
“I’m getting out of here before the police show up,” Helena said. “Glad you’re not dead.”
Robin nodded. “I should— yeah.” He sounded breathless and still a little out of it. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you around.”
Helena left. As far as she was concerned, the Joker’s death was good riddance to bad garbage after the last week. Hell, after No Man’s land and six bullets to the gut. She certainly wasn’t going to shed any tears for him.
—
Helena was half-heartedly flipping through job listings when her doorbell rang.
There was a courier on the other side. “Ms. Bertinelli?” he asked.
“That’s me,” she said.
“I need to see some ID, and then you’re going to have to sign this.”
“Really?” but she started to dig through her purse, anyway.
“Sorry, sender policy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She finally dug out her license. One signature later and she was in possession of a rather nondescript envelope, sized a little larger than standard. It was good quality paper; her address on the front was the only thing written on it.
There was a single piece of paper inside the envelope. A letter, written on Justice League stationary. Helena whistled. She hadn’t realized the Justice League sent out physical mail, let alone that they had her address. Though, come to think of it, Batman was a member, so of course they knew.
Dear Huntress, it opened. Helena skimmed it. You have been selected for the internal review committee for… The hearing will be held at… Please note the participation is mandatory, failure to appear will reflect poorly on your standing as a League member… If you have questions or are unable to serve, please contact…
“The hell?” she said softly. “What’s this? Justice League jury duty?” That hadn’t been in the orientation meeting.
She read the letter again. It sure sounded like that’s what they were getting at. Guess she had to go then.
—
It was a couple nights later when Robin showed up at her apartment. It was the first time she’d seen the kid since the Joker’s death. He looked better than he had that night, but he had a nervous energy about him that made her wary.
“You’re on the committee,” was the first thing out of his mouth. It was a statement, not a question.
“Excuse me?” Helena said. She set aside the job application she’d been trying to make herself fill out.
“For Nightwing’s Justice League hearing. You’re on the committee.”
Helena carefully did not look at the Justice League jury duty letter still sitting out on her counter. It hadn’t told her what the case she was getting called in for was about, just gave her a number. “Are you supposed to know that?” she asked.
“There’s only the one case,” Robin said rather than answer the question, which meant that he probably wasn’t.
“Fine then, why are you bothering me about it then?” She had her suspicions. It was Nightwing. She’d seen the way the two got along. If Robin was going to ask her what she thought he was, she wanted him to come out and say it.
The kid looked her dead in the eye. “Nightwing didn’t kill the Joker. I did.”
Helena laughed, more out of surprise than anything else. Of all the things out of his mouth, she hadn’t been expecting a blatant lie to be one of them. Asking her to abuse her official position? Sure. But this?
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s the truth.” She’d hand it to him. He was a good liar. She might even have believed him if she hadn’t seen the aftermath with her own eyes. “I was captured by some of the jokerized rogues in Arkham,” Robin was talking just a little too fast. “They brought me to the Joker. He hit me, I hit him back, and that’s how he died. Nightwing lied to protect me.”
It was plausible. The best lies had a grain of truth in them.
“I'm not blind, kid. I know what I saw.”
“You didn’t see anything. The Joker was already dead when you arrived.”
Helena sighed. She was a detective too. Maybe not the greatest in the world, but she could still put the pieces together. She knew that Robin knew that too. “What do you want?”
“I want you to believe me. Nightwing shouldn’t be punished for something that wasn’t his fault.”
“And you do?”
He looked away. “I’m a minor. I was acting in self-defense. They’ll go easier on me.”
She crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair. “I don’t like this.”
“Please,” he said. “Just do this and I promise it’ll be the last time I ever bother you.”
It didn’t sound nearly as convincing as he probably thought it did, considering the circumstances. Helena gave him a look.
“Just trust me on this,” he insisted.
“Because you make it so easy to do.”
“Helena—”
“Robin,” she said pointedly.
He shut his mouth, beginning to pace back and forth across her kitchen. He opened his mouth a couple times, looking like he might say something, but closing it again before he actually came up with any words. Helena was starting to get a little dizzy watching him go, when finally he stopped, glancing around furtively like he was expecting there to be someone eavesdropping. “Tim,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s my name,” he sounded like he would rather be saying anything else rather than what he was. “Tim.”
Wasn’t today just full of surprises? Helena weighed it up. He could be lying. Knowing just his first name wouldn’t narrow down his identity that much, especially since it was a common first name, but it was something. It was more than she’d ever thought she’d get from the kid.
“Okay then,” she said.
“So will you do it?” Robin — Tim — asked, because that’s what this all boiled down to in the end. Part of Helena wondered what the kid would do if she said no, just how far would he go for this.
She sighed. “Fine,” she said. “I believe you. You killed the Joker.”
“Thank you,” Tim (apparently) said and climbed back out her window and into the night, leaving Helena to wonder just what she’d gotten herself tangled up in.
—
[Hawkman]: Huntress, you were there weren’t you? Who would you say did it?
[Huntress]: I already told you what I know. The Joker was dead when I got there, and both of them were standing over the body. I couldn’t say which one of them did it.
[Hawkman]: But you suspect.
[Huntress]: I do.
—
Nightwing cornered her after the hearing was over. “You voted that I didn’t do it,” he said.
Voting records were sealed. The room they’d deliberated in was designed to prevent evesdroppers of both the human and superhuman varieties. He couldn’t know for certain, but he had been trained by the world’s greatest detective. He could figure it out.
“And if I did?” Helena asked.
“Why?” Nightwing demanded. There was a wild look in his eyes visible even behind the mask. Helena wondered if he’d had that look in his eyes when he’d gone to kill the Joker.
“What you did was justice. You weren’t guilty for that.”
Nightwing slammed a fist into the wall. “I killed a man.”
“You killed the Joker,” Helena said with a shrug. “He deserved to die.”
“That wasn’t my decision to make.”
“I don’t see why you’re so worked up about it. You won,” she said. “The Joker’s dead. Be glad about it.”
He laughed, harsh and ugly. “If you can’t see that he won, I don’t know what to tell you.” And then he turned and focused all of that boiling emotion on her. “You just threw Robin under the bus like that, and you’re going to pretend what you did was justice?”
Helena looked away. “Robin’s a big kid. He can make his own decisions.”
Robin (Tim) had looked his age being led away afterwards, small against the larger than life figures of the rest of the League's members. Helena forced herself not to think too much about it. He had made his choice. He had asked her to do it. She wasn’t going to feel guilty about it now.
“I don’t know why I ever thought we were on the same side,” Nightwing said. “I don’t know why I was ever stupid enough to trust you.” And with that, he stormed off.
She never saw him again after that, him or Robin.
Helena asked Oracle about Robin once, when they started running together. Well, when Helena started running for her really.
Oracle had blinked at the question. “Robin? What about him?”
“You know, what’s he up to these days?” Helena said. “He still getting into trouble?”
“He’s in school, outside of Gotham.”
“Do you think he ever regrets it?”
Oracle didn’t answer for a minute. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t think he does.”