✞ · @noqtem : / &. / plotted starter for huntress ( helena wayne's version. )
helena bertinelli has always hated new york city.
perhaps she’s only saying that because she’s been, once again, assigned an undercover mission by her lonesome at the heart of one of the boroughs — ( what state needs five, anyway? ) — and she ( with good reason, long story and personal history ) hates undercover missions with a burning passion. the big apple is just easier to pin the blame on.
this city never sleeps, either, but it doesn’t carry the same dire emotional undercurrent as her hometown. the lights are bright, the people are busy, the traffic is nonstop ( which is why she opts to walk tonight — her mistake, and the first domino piece of today’s bullshit, in hindsight. ) and yet, none of these really give her hope or relief.
and still, to nobody's surprise, she somehow manages to actively lose both of those in a crushing manner, anyway. not because of the ambush, of course — she was here to disarm and destabilise the local mobsters’ frontline henchmen, to begin with, but right after she got the information she needed from those dogs before she can proceed with the rest of the mission.
but neither of those happen thanks to her unforeseen, unexpected, unwanted saviour of the night, the very vigilante who takes out the one lead helena bertinelli had even a semblance of hope for, the very hope this caped crusader ironically takes away from her, unintended and yet irksome all the same.
“did you…” getting back up from where she was instructed to hide, the brunette readjusts her coat and her hair as she walks up to where the vigilante is, looking at not her but the unconscious men in front of them, knocked out cold in literal nanoseconds than any mortal being could’ve reasonably perceived. “okay.” can’t even get mad at this woman, can’t let her see helena being disappointed, can’t let the civilian facade slip, all helena can simply breathe and say, “thank you. there is nothing to be said about this that hasn't already been said. i think.”
five stages of grief experienced in real time, helena simply accepts that the mobster she’s tackling is going to be even more pissed and wrathful at the lost of his best men — and she’s still none the wiser about their hideouts and motives, thanks to her —
— saviour. wow. helena can’t believe it; not the stranger’s instinct to save her, that part she very much can relate to for worse and for better, but her own self, at the implication that she looked like she needed saving. which makes this loss feel more of a personal failure than it really is.
“don’t leave,” the voice comes out flat, so not exactly like a command, but helena finds herself needing to soften the blow anyway, “please. it’s important, i promise.”
they’re both bad at this, the roles they place themselves into:
i. helena bertinelli, not a damsel in distress, but a crime-fighter playing bait in civillian attire.
ii. and her strange saviour, not a knight in shining armour…
but a crossbow wielder who wears pointed masks and purple kevlar.
is helena unknown on crazy pills or is the universe playing a massive joke on her today? oh, sorry, MULTIVERSE, because doomed earths are apparently like a bag of chips to the divine creator and fate itself: can’t fucking stop at just one!
“are you…” ( don’t interrogate, don’t interrogate, don’t interrogate. look nice; dorky, if you have to. ) “… sorry, i’m blanking on the exact name, i’m still a bit shaken up from the mugging,” she admits with a fake laugh that should pass as the nervous kind, before looking at her conversational counterpart again, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck: “you look very familiar. what was your hero name, again? or do they call it,” in case this uncannily familiar stranger, too, finds ‘hero’ a loaded term. “code names? sorry, not my usual scene, i’m more in my element with—” pick a normal hobby. you have several of them, helena. “—english.” jesus fucking christ. “i’m a teacher.” because honesty is the best policy! just fucking excellent, wow. this is why helena rosa bertinelli hates undercover missions. not because she sucks at cover stories, but because they suck. fundamentally.
