Kei set her stuff down on her desk, attempting to catch her breath.

Not wishing to waste the gas, she decided to take a cab and then got stuck in traffic so elected to sprint the half a mile to her building.

Now it was 9:15am and she was approximately an hour late.

"Kei! Where the hell have you been?" Gloria demands, her heels clacking on the ground as she stomps over to the desk.

"I know! I'm sorry I...got stuck in traffic." Kei's cheeks flushed pink, but Gloria doesn't notice, too preoccupied by her own stress and worry to pay attention to insignificant details such as the amount of pinkness on her colleague's cheeks.

"Well, I'm glad you're here now because somebody pissed off Adrian this morning and he's on the war path. I presume you have something to write for your Court of Owls piece?" Gloria asks, wringing her hands nervously.

"Uh...yeah, I do. I should anyway." And before she can stop herself, she blurts out, "I nearly died for it last night."

Gloria stops what she is doing for a moment and stares at Kei.

"You what?!" She nearly shouts, but before she can ask any questions, they are interrupted by a familiar gruff voice.

"Gloria! Where is this week's advice column articles?"

Gloria huffs, rolling her eyes.

"I swear, your uncle would be nowhere without me!"

Kei indulges herself in a smile for that comment. Adrian's wife and Kei's dad have said something similar over the years.

Before she can leave however, Gloria turns back around dramatically and points a finger in the young reporter's direction.

"When I get back, I want details Kei Nakajima! Details!" Gloria says as a parting goodbye before she rushes to Adrian's office.

Kei sighs, plopping herself into her desk chair. She isn't honestly sure how much she can tell Gloria about last night without inadvertently spilling the beans on her new cat burglar accomplice (who she had...ahem..."had her way with" so to speak).

But she tries to push all that aside and instead, fueled by the bustle of activity from her colleagues and the smell of coffee in the air, Kei boots up her laptop and cracks her knuckles, ready to type up a masterpiece.

✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩

The tension in the office has simmered down  considerably in the few hours that Kei has been working on the article. She's been making steady progress: with the tip Phoebe Bloom supplied, she is able to find a mountain of research into Windermere Technologies and the personal life of Violet Windermere.

She has a massive fortune but she's become even richer with the recent death of her husband Oscar, a well known criminal lawyer in the area that took on many cases for less well known Arkham inmates to grant them potential rehabilitation and parole hearings.

Oscar Waite was the son of Welsh immigrants, having migrated over for a better life as many did and still continue today (Kei would know, as the daughter of Japanese parents). They had settled in the city of Newark, New Jersey. Oscar was content to stay there the rest of his life, but after hearing about the tragic deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne that shook Gotham to its core, Oscar moved to pursue a degree at Gotham University in law, where he met his wife Violet, who was studying a degree in business.

Kei found an excerpt from Oscar's autobiography, Justice Waits For No One: My 30 Years in Criminal Law, which stated it was love at first sight when Oscar met Violet:

'I saw her at the top of the stairs in the East Wing building. There were dozens of people going by us but none of them seemed to register. In my mind, all I saw was Violet and me in that hallway. I still remember her from that day: blonde hair pinned back in a short ponytail. She had on brown Penny loafers with a purple pencil skirt and sweater. To me, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen and I knew I had to get to know her.'

In his younger years, Oscar was a handsome with black hair, a well groomed mustache and a muscular build. As he got older, however, he became hunched and his hair began to thin. His wife Violet aged more gracefully though Kei wondered if that was due to the societal expectation that, as a woman, Violet couldn't show her aging at all (or, in an out there scenario, she could've had plastic surgery. The family is well off enough to afford it).

Speaking of Violet Windermere, unlike her husband who was always described as kind and having a good heart, as a woman in business, Violet was cutthroat and ruthless. She did everything she could to keep herself in the green. But outside of work, she was generally described as being the same. An ice queen, a control freak, a shrewd woman who looked down her nose at everyone (that last one wasn't much of a surprise. Kei had looked at enough headlines from the newspaper that rich people in Gotham—everywhere—could be as rich and entitled as you imagine. And could get away with it too).

No one mentioned in anecdotes about Violet but from context clues, she clearly loved her husband. That seemed to be the one thing she was content with in her life.

In a beach photograph from their college days, Violet looked at Oscar as though he had hung the moon. On their wedding, Violet smiled wide, her face caught between a laugh from something her newly wedded husband said.

Oscar had died a few months ago, after being in poor health and developing dementia. At the end, he couldn't remember much, only bits and pieces of his childhood and their life together.

In the funeral photos, Violet looked sullen and forlorn. A big part of her life was gone.

There was mentions of a daughter. A young teenager who shared Violet's hair and her father's kind, blue eyes. Eloise Phoebe Windermere was said to be quite popular at Gotham Academy despite being shy and not generally one to stick out in a crowd. Then suddenly a big scandal happened and the Windermere women were not on speaking terms.

Several outlets (read: tabloids) had theories on the truth: Eloise got pregnant or she had a secret affair with the son of one of Violet's business partners.

But before Kei could investigate further, she felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly jumped, looking up to see her uncle standing over here.

"Sorry." Adrian apologizes, slowly releasing his grip. "Didn't mean to scare you, kiddo."

"It's fine. I'm just researching about the Windermere family for my article." Adrian nods, his eyes searching for something.

"About that, Gloria told me that you mentioned having a harrowing experience last night."

"Yeah...something like that." Kei murmured, her cheeks tinged pink again. She explained the story about what happened last night (leaving out a certain cat burglar). Adrian listened patiently, not interrupting. Once she was finished however, he let out a tired sigh.

"Kei, I'm not going to tell you what to do: you're an adult. But next time you plan on getting yourself killed, let me know first. I don't want have to explain to your parents how I lost our girl, okay?"

Our girl. He said. Kei has always been Our Girl to her family. She was the youngest sibling in the family. Her parents' only daughter. To Adrian and his wife Rose, she was the child they never had. Kei didn't want to find out what would happen if she died last night.

Trying to hold back her tears, Kei nodded in agreement and smiled tentatively up at Adrian.

"Don't worry, I will."

"Good." Adrian replies, resolute and relieved. "Now that all that heavy stuff is out of the way, what do you say you and I get some lunch, hm?"

"Oh! Is it that time, already?" Kei glances at her computer's clock, almost 1 in the afternoon. An email notification appears on screen, but Kei ignores it for now. She can check it later. "Okay. I can eat."

"Great. There's a new taco truck I want to try." Adrian explains as he walks back to his open office to grab his coat.

"Right," Kei says as she follows him, "and what would Aunt Rose say about that?"

"Oh, what she doesn't know won't kill her, huh?" Adrian winks at her as he makes his way towards the Gazette's front door.

"Alright, fine. I won't tell. This time." Kei warns with a smirk on her face as her uncle lets her out of the building first.

✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩

After a long day of research and backtracking, Kei finally came home at around 4pm, an hour longer than she was expected.

Turning her key into the door, Kei let out a tired sigh hoping to have a nice soak in the bath or watching a comfort show before bed.

However, when she entered her apartment, it was colder than when she left it and that's when she realized: the window was open. The cold evening air fluttered through the window and billowed onto the curtains. After Kei closed it, hoping to stave out the chill, she noticed something else too.

On the coffee table, a single purple rose laid along with a note attached to its stem.

Picking up the rose, Kei rubbed the parchment-like paper from the note as she read it. It said:

'Thanks for yesterday. See you around, kitten. —Selina'.

Author's Notes

Hey, so sorry I haven't updated since July. Life got busy, school got in the way and my mental health took a nosedive...

But in good news, I recently found out that Helena appeared in a comic again:

I was very excited when I saw a tumblr edit about it and had to find it immediately😁

I could only grab a sample with my kindle (since I don't pay for kindle unlimited or for any service—I had a DC Infinite subscription but idk what happened to it lol). But until I can actually grab it physically, I will have to survive on this,,

(I could go to that comic shop near me but I've only been once and I'm shy/lazy. If I find it somewhere online I'll buy it maybe. Or you know, do the obvious and um...go through a totally legal method /sarcasm👀)

Anyway, you are not here for me to go on a random, unrelated paragraph about Helena😅 Back to the fic...

I could not resist having Selina call Kei "kitten", it's perfect for her🥰

I just love romantic nicknames—I say I hate romance and then I see character A call character B call them something like "darling" (personal favorite❤️) or "sweetheart" and the hopeless romantic in me just melts :')

Selina's gift was originally an amethyst ring but then I found out that purple roses are associated with love and enchantment at first sight and that is adorable <3

(Not to mention way less expensive and far more realistic. Selina may be a cat burglar but she has standards. She was not going to give a stolen ring to her girlfriend and also wouldn't be able to afford one in the first place)

ANYWAY, she's already using nicknames so I love yous may be on the horizon😌

I will see you all hopefully soon for another chapter, we shall see x

BatgirlGeek❤️