Helena Wayne is (the_huntress) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-09-22 03:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics, huntress |
Who: Helena W and Selina K
What: A meeting
Where: Centennial Park, Metropolis, DC Door
When: After their convo on the journals
Warnings/Rating: The feels man, the feels.
This Catwoman wasn't her mom, Helena kept reminding herself. It didn't help. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be so close to Selina, or Bruce, or Gotham, but when she'd been given the choice, this had been the only one she was interested in. Selina asking Bruce... No. She hadn't been able to tell Bruce the truth and she wanted to determine when and where and how this Selina learned the truth. That, and if she was going to ask Batman about how Helena got her W, she wanted to be there to see it.
Parking her rental Prius, Helena took a deep breath and stepped out to soothe her clothes down. For the most part, she looked like an ordinary young businesswoman, perhaps a lawyer, in her tailored white button down shirt and heather gray slacks. She didn't go with regular heels as most might, but went with boots instead, calf length under her pants, the toes pointed and the heel wedge shaped instead of a sharp point. She could do this. It wasn't her mom she was going to meet.
Nerves, anxiety, had been trained out of Helena at a young age and fights didn't scare her, but facing down the Joker, even facing down Darkseid might have been easier than entering the park at that moment and heading for the statue of Kal-El.
It had been a challenge for Selina to get to Metropolis. Most days, she welcomed challenges, but this one had been slightly unwelcomed. The stitches had just come out of her side, and the antidote had been administered, but it had all left her feeling less like herself than she had in years. It wasn't even the injuries. No, it was the vulnerability that came with it all. The kitty cat hated vulnerability. She had hated it when she was a kid in a foster home where she was forced to steal, and she had hated it when she was turning tricks against her will in a Gotham brothel as a teenager. She had promised herself to never be vulnerable again when she'd been thrown off a high rise in her later teens, and yet here she was, feeling vulnerable all over again - and all because of Scarecrow.
But this visit had nothing to do with Scarecrow. It had to do with Selina's curiosity. That curiosity led her to "borrow" one of Bruce's lamborghinis (the one he drove to a charity luncheon that evening), and it led her to make the drive to Metropolis. Selina didn't much care for Metropolis either, where all those bright lights were blinding, even at night, and she felt like a kitten in the wrong territory. But she wanted to meet Helena W, and she wanted to meet her badly enough to brave the bright city. She had originally assumed the woman was a spouse no one had felt the need to tell her about, maybe from the baby bird's timeline. And the kitty cat, she just had to see her. And even after Damian clarified matters, it didn't make Selina any less inclined to make the drive.
Selina parked the lamborghini with a loud squeal of tires, and she climbed out of the lifting door as if she owned the thing. She wasn't in her suit. Oh, no, not in Metropolis, and not to meet a potential rival. She was dressed in sleek black, a cocktail dress that matched the car she'd arrived in, her whip wrapped around a narrow waist, in place of a belt. Stilettos and a diamond clip from the Wayne vault holding back inky, black hair that was short and framed a face with strikingly bright green eyes. She was in her early twenties, and even all that money couldn't hide her youth. She didn't try to hide her attitude either, though she was a pro at doing that when the con called for it - this one didn't.
Selina slowed as she approached the statue of Superbore, seeing a figure in the shadows of the light that lit Clark Kent and made him look more god than hero. "I never did like Superman. Did you know him?" she asked from a distance, as she approached the woman whose features she couldn't yet make out. "He was boringly unforgiving, and he didn't have a funny bone in that entire body of his," she said.
There was Selina Kyle. Catwoman. Her mom. But she was so young now, her presence as sharp as the whip that she had wound around her waist. She was beautiful, just like Helena's mom had been and it nearly hurt to see her now. Was this what her mother was like here? What she had been like years ago before she and dad had gotten together? She stepped out slowly, the lights at the base of the statue catching on her. Some cats could see in the dark, but she knew without aids her mom hadn't been able to. Helena guessed the same was true of this Selina.
"I-- yes. Kind of." Helena finally said as she wrenched her gaze from the exquisite woman and to the statue instead. This Kal looked young too, just like the one from her previous world, but her real world, not this one made from a movie, he'd been so much older. Here he looked like little older than she was and the lights turned him from savior into deity. If her world had survived, would they have made a monument like this to him there? To her dad? To her mom?
The thought made Helena swallow hard and once more, her gaze moved to the other woman. Curiosity was readily apparent, but there was no aggression, no fear either in her eyes. But there was something in them, something very close to a desperate hope.
And then Helena's training kicked in again. Whatever she felt, whatever she wanted was secondary. Catwoman moved with an easy grace, an arrogance that bordered on confidence and that was the same between this woman and her mother. Those were Wayne jewels in her hair and she wondered now, if they were together here or if Selina had borrowed them like Helena had a tendency to borrow things. "I knew him where I'm from," Helena said, quietly. "Not here."
When the girl stepped into the light, Selina discarded her original thought - that she could be Bruce's wife - entirely. Even without the baby bird's information, the girl would have been too young for the Bat - for this Bat. Selina knew even she was on the young side for this Bruce. Not for hers, who hadn't seen thirty yet, but definitely for this one. Hmmm. Admittedly, she stayed away from Damian's little computer in the Batcave. Looking things up didn't change anything, and the kitty cat had always been terrible at research. Too impatient to sit and read, when she could be out doing instead.
"Did he have a sense of humor in your timeline?" Selina asked, the upturned corner of her ample lips saying she very much doubted it. She stepped closer, and she stopped, something familiar in the girl's grey gaze arresting her and almost stealing her breath away.
Definitely a daughter.
"Lois lives at the Manor," Selina continued, after regaining her composure and taking a few more steps forward. She dropped the rich socialite act once she reached the statue, and she slid up and sat at Clark's feet, crossing her legs at the thigh with feline grace and only a hint of a hiss to point at any kind of recent injury, and then regarding the girl. "Now my Lois, she has a sense of humor," she said fondly of her reporter, willing to be more open now that she'd verified Damian's claims. "Why avoid Gotham, kitten?"
A sense of humor? The only ones that really had a sense of humor were her mother and Kara. Cat got your tongue. "We were --" Helena shook her head. "No and he was much older."
The hiss was noticed, but Helena didn't rush in. She had a feeling this woman, so graceful, so very young, wouldn't have appreciated it. Her mother hadn't either, but she'd known when to accept help and Helena had learned when to offer it and how to do so. Her gaze turned away for a moment, back to the young, immortalized face of Kal-El. "Lois was killed where I come from. To hurt him," she said with a small tilt of her head before her gaze settled back on Catwoman.
So many differences, but Helena remembered those eyes flanked by a mask. "It's not my Gotham," she answered. It wasn't her Gotham, wasn't even her Earth, or her family, or her concern and she knew the moment she stepped back there, the moment she saw any of them that she wouldn't be able to walk away again. "And my mom -- she said to be where I was. There wasn't any use in wishing to be elsewhere. To mark my territory and live in it."
Selina glanced up at the statue. "Mine was younger," she said of her Clark. "He wasn't nearly as much of a boyscout as this one is, apparently," she explained, but her expression turned clouded once Helena mentioned the fact that Lois was dead in her timeline. The fact that the reporter was killed to hurt Clark wasn't surprising to Selina; Lois was constantly being dangled off buildings. But thinking of the vibrant reporter being dead, that was something Selina didn't like at all. "He's not here anymore," she said of Superman, "and Lois is safe in Gotham, where no one's going to kill her to get to anyone." At least that was true. With Clark gone, Lois wasn't nearly as much of a target, as long as the old butler could get her to stay inside.
"It's not my Gotham either, kitten, but it's still home." Selina had fought with that very problem at the beginning, and she knew how it felt. "I thought the same thing, that it wasn't where I belonged. I went other places, even here," she said of Metropolis, motioning to it with a fair hint of feline disdain, a very Wayne diamond bangle glinting on her wrist. "That was me wishing to be somewhere else, when I belonged at home. This Gotham might not be the one I grew up in, but it still feels like Gotham, and nowhere else feels like that," she said truthfully. The city was terrible, dark, foggy and rife with crime, but there was something about it that made it feel like the only place the kitty cat ever wanted to dig in her claws and make a home.
Selina looked away from the glow of Metropolis' street lights, and she regarded the girl at her side again. "Make sure you don't mark the wrong territory, kitten, just because you're running," she offered, before sighing, her expression turning more serious. "You have his eyes."
As much as Helena wanted to deny the woman's words, that it wasn't her Gotham, was never going to feel like her Gotham, Helena knew. There was no where else like that particular city, no family like hers, and it was only a matter of time before she returned to the dark streets to do what she had always been trained to do.
Her thoughts were interrupted by what Catwoman said next, and she gave a brief, somewhat bashful smile. "Who told you, then?" There was no asking who she was referring to, Helena knew. She had no idea what Bruce's eyes looked like here, beyond what she saw on the internet, half assed pictures snapped when he was Batman, and the usual round of pictures at one gala or another. "Was it Tim?" She asked, finally giving up and sitting down on Kal's opposite foot, one of her own tucked up under her thigh. A surprisingly relaxed position, more suited for comfort than the previous strange, feline regard of someone unknown. "He's always giving up the goods."
Selina laughed at the idea that Feathers had told her anything. "Feathers hates me. He thinks I'm a bad for his daddy and the birds," she explained bluntly. It was no secret that Tim wanted her as far away from Bruce and the rest of the Batfamily as possible. "He would never tell me anything. No, Damian told me," she explained, fondness for the baby bird carrying in the husky timbre of her voice. "Is Tim from your timeline?" she asked, a careful, casual curiosity that meant she was paying much more attention than was immediately evident. She didn't ask the question she wanted to ask, the proverbial elephant in the park. She knew that Helena and Damian didn't share a mother, or Damian wouldn't have referred to her as a half sister. She very much hoped the kitten wasn't the boring lawyer's daughter from some other timeline. She might not have this Bat for herself, but that didn't mean she liked the idea of anyone else having him either.
"Damian," Helena repeated and gave another one of those rueful half smiles. "Did he tell you anything else?" She'd have words with him later. He'd gotten her skin last time, but there was something strangely childish about his actions that made her feel protective rather than vindictive, no matter what anyone thought.
Helena shook her head briefly to the next question, her eyes far too bright as they regarded Selina. The proverbial elephant remained the elephant. "No. I haven't met anyone from my-- world. My time. And I really wish I had Kara here." Along with her mom and dad, but in some manner, in some way, maybe they were already here. Helena didn't want to think about that too much though, not with Selina sitting so close to her, looking younger than she could ever remember her mom being.
That rueful half smile felt familiar, though Selina didn't know why, and she tipped her head and regarded Helena for a moment before answering. "Just that you were his half-sister, even if you weren't from here," she finally said. "Should he have told me something else? The baby bird isn't always forthcoming," she explained, green eyes going sharp and focused. Selina didn't realize what the secret was - mainly because she would never, ever consider it as a possibility - but she knew there was something. "Bruce is here. Is your mother here too?" she asked, thinking that was the only thing Damian would keep from her, some other woman, to avoid the kitty cat digging her claws into her. She hadn't been very nice to the boring lawyer, after all, but neither had the baby bird.
"Kara?" Selina asked a moment later, her green eyes turning up to look at Superboring. "His cousin?" She didn't know much about the little blonde Kryptonian, but she knew the name.
Helena gave a brief shake of her head. "No." What he hadn't told was Helena's to tell and she wasn't going to give it up that easily. She had told Catwoman that she didn't want to lie to her and she wouldn't, but there were definitely things she didn't want to talk about. "She's around," she said blandly, with a wave of her hand. Unlike Selina, she had no sparkling bangle on her wrist to catch the light, but the movement was very much the same. "Are you two together? You and Bruce?" She asked, in what seemed like a change of subject.
The question about Kara would be answered in a moment, after Helena's own curiosity was sated.
Selina didn't actually believe her about there being nothing else to tell, but then kitty cats were seldom trusting. She watched the wave of the young woman's hand, taking a moment to appreciate the grace of the gesture, and then she looked back at Helena's face at the reply that her mother was around somewhere. Now that didn't make Selina feel any better about anything. "She isn't a boring lawyer, is she?" she asked, trying not to sound jealous. After all, the kitty cat was never jealous. The question about being together with Bruce earned Helena smile that was all warmth and feline confidence, a contrast to the almost-jealous question from a moment earlier. "That depends which of us you ask," she said, and then she uncrossed her thighs and rested her hand on the statue's base, her gaze turning a thoughtful green. "In my timeline, you could say so. In his, he hadn't ever met me. Now? Now he doesn't have any idea what to do with me," she admitted, looking over at the young woman at her side. "He cares about everyone in his little family of creatures, and I think he mistakenly believes I'm part of that family," she said, though there was something in her voice that said she wasn't sure exactly where she fit in.
"No," Helena said, laughing. "She's not a lawyer and she's definitely not boring." She might not know this Selina well, but there was nothing about the woman that suggested boring was a term that could describe her. The warmth in that smile though, her mom gave smiles like that and there was no masking the brief rise of sadness in her eyes. She looked away and when she turned back, it was gone again. "Mistakenly?" The wry humor in her tone was plain as she gave a little shake of her head.
"No. I don't believe that at all." Helena's mouth went tight at the corners, as if she was trying to hold the smile in. "I know you're not the same one in my world, but there you were one of our greatest." And maybe it was a little girl's belief in her mom, or maybe it was the wild hope that if there was something of her dad in Bruce, there had to be something of her mom in Selina. But before she gave away too much, there was that shake of her head again, and another of those small smiles was offered up.
Closeness, the confiding nature of their conversation was given up momentarily as Helena returned to the earlier question. "Yeah, Kara is his cousin. They're nothing alike."
The response was what Selina had been hoping for, and yet it made her feel worse instead of better. Boring, lawyerly Rachel Dawes would always be boring. Bruce, despite his little fixation with a type, needed someone to help him loosen up, and the boring lawyer definitely didn't fit that bill. But what if this other woman wasn't like that? A frown marred her young features for a moment, and missed that questioning mistakenly? The insistence that she was the greatest at anything but being a thief brought the smile back to Selina's lips, teasing and playful and definitely someone was prone to more than her fair share of trouble. "The greatest thief, maybe. I'm no hero, kitten. I'm sorry to disappoint," she said honestly. "You can ask Feathers about that. He'll tell you all the ways the Cat is bad news, and I'm not even from his timeline."
"Well, that's a plus for Kara," Selina said of not being like Clark. "Lois is going to like you," she said truthfully. "I think she's lonely for people who know her world better than we do. She's safer in Gotham, but I think she misses all this goodness and light," she said, with a roll of her eyes, and a twinkle in her teasing green eyes. "How are things with Bruce? You said you'd talked to him?" Worry seeped through in that question, belying any earlier comments about her relationship with the Bat.
The frown and the quick switch to a smile was all feline. They could change in a moment, just like her mom could, just like this woman did. "He already did." Yet, here she was, still quietly believing in something better. "They all tried to tell me," she said with a little huff, her back straightening as she took a deeper breath in and grinned. "I'm not. Disappointed. After all, he likes you right? Bruce? There has to be something good in you." She shifted a little on the toe she was on, both hands resting on the statue by her hips.
"I -- a little. We spoke the first day." But the way she said it made it clear that was the last time they'd spoken. "He's not -- everyone wants to tell me that he may not be the dad from my world, but he's still dad." Her back straightened again, lips tightening into a look that was very close to feline indignation. "I wasn't trained by him, I'm not his daughter, I'm not even from his world. He's not my dad."
"Did he?" Selina asked of Tim, unsurprised. Feathers liked to warn everyone about her in advance, despite having spent precisely no time with her here. She thought it might be an extension of her close relationship with Damian, along with something terrible she'd done in a timeline she didn't know. Even though she asked the question like she didn't care what Tim had said about her, anyone who knew her well enough would be able to tell that she did care. She didn't expect this girl to pick up on tells, and she wasn't being as cautious as she usually was. The information that more than one person had been saying bad things about her was, admittedly, surprising. She had a good relationship with Stephanie, and Bruce wouldn't, and she didn't dream that Damian would say anything negative. "Did they? What did they say?" She laughed a little when Helena insisted that there must be something good in her if Bruce liked her. "Kitten, don't assume anything just because a man has a soft spot for a woman, especially Bruce. His judgement isn't always the best." She was thinking of Talia, and worry skittered across her features.
The comment about Bruce drew Selina's attention entirely, concern in her green eyes as Helena went on. "You sound like Damian," she said once the girl had finished. "You sound like me, when I first met him. He wasn't my Bat. I said that so many times he started to hate hearing it, being compared with someone he wasn't," she said candidly, because this was too serious for teasing or kitty cat smiles. "But if you listen, and you get to know him, you'll see. It's not the same, no, but it is. For me, he's what my Bat would have grown into someday. Maybe for you, it's what your father was before he had daughter to care about. In the end, Helena, this is the only world we have now. Don't wish to be somewhere else, kitten. Mark your territory and live in it, remember?" she asked, quoting something Helena had said earlier, something that made a lot of sense to the kitty cat. She slid the bangle off her wrist, antique setting and diamonds that were older than both of them combined. Without asking, she reached for Helena's wrist and slipped it on. "Don't forget who you are," she said, taking her fingers off the bracelet entirely, her fingertips sliding over a "W" engraved into the platinum long ago.
There was so much she wanted to say and all the words dried up with her mother's words in Selina's voice. She was so much younger, her voice too, but she still sounded like her mom. When she reached for her hand, Helena gave it willingly, not even thinking twice about it. It felt too much like her mom, but her mom would have pulled her close, hugged her and called her kitten. A ragged, raspy breath forced fresh air into her lungs and she looked away, forcing back the lump in her throat.
This wasn't her mom. No matter how much Selina reminded her of her, she wasn't. Helena didn't run though, no matter how much she wanted to find a place to lick her proverbial wounds, but eventually turned back to her eyes dry even as she rubbed her thumb over that W. "Nothing that I listened to. How's your side?" She had seen the wince earlier and not talked about it, but now Helena wanted a change of topic.
Selina tipped her head quizzically, trying to figure out Helena's reaction. She watched the girl rub her thumb over the W, and she didn't interrupt or say anything until Helena spoke again. It took her a second to realize what Helena was referring to, and then she realized Helena was referring to what she'd been told. "Secretive? Am I allowed to ask who, or are you worried I'll claw them in their sleep?" she asked. She wouldn't, of course, but she was having trouble figuring out what her own territory was these days, and she couldn't help but wonder if others shared Feathers' feelings without telling her.
The question about her side left Selina equally perplexed, and she touched her fingers to it without thinking. "It's fine. Nothing that couldn't be stitched up. Crane was the real problem, and he doesn't shoot guns, kitten. Who told you?" she asked, unaware that this girl was as observant as her father, that she had caught the slight wince. And, of course, the emotion the girl had swallowed back had been noticed as well, even if Selina had waited to comment on it. "You should meet him," she said of Bruce, assuming he'd been the cause.
Crane. It was Crane that hurt her not-mom. Focusing on that was easier than thinking about her real mom. "You did," she said offhandedly. "When you sat down. You winced, but not when you shifted. It was just a matter of where." She ignored the question about who her mom was. Hels wasn't ready to give that up yet. Her thumb slid over the W again before her hands dropped back down to the statue.
"Secretive," she finally said. "And if I wanted to meet him, don't you think I'd be there right now?" It was enough to meet Selina, to meet Tim. Bruce was Gotham and Helena knew that she'd never come just for dinner like he had asked her to. Even knowing now that Crane had hurt her not-mom was making it hard to resist the urge to go now and get justice for her. "I'm not-- when the times right. Maybe."
Helena paused and turned toward her again. "If there's something of my dad in Bruce, then there must be something of my Catwoman in you."
Selina made an impressed sound. She definitely took after her father, this one. The baby bird would have never noticed something so simple as a nearly imperceptible wince. He was all adolescent boy, Damian. When he looked at her, he saw curves and pouty lips and his hormones spiked. He didn't notice nuance, which Selina expected from most men. Bruce was different. Her Bruce had managed to see both parts of her, which made him stand apart from most men she'd known in her life. "Good catch. I'm impressed," she said, and it was an honest compliment, one offered without even a ghost of sarcasm. "Crane, Joker and Riddler worked up a little test for all of us. Three crimes, all on the same night. We all split up. I'd say we mostly won, but it wasn't a solid victory." She paused, and she looked out over the park, eyes going dark and haunted for just the briefest moment. "There were too many casualties for that."
The stare Selina gave the girl beside her was long and candid, a reaction to her statement that the time wasn't right to meet Bruce. "It's like the kitty cat told Bruce; in Gotham, if you wait for the right time, then you'll never do anything at all." And maybe that was the Cat talking, but Selina had learned to survive, just like those feral cats in the colonies, and she seldom looked before she lept. That was all Bruce, not her.
Selina hopped down from the statue, graceful despite the stilettos and the twinge in her side. "She's older?" she asked of Helena's version of Selina Kyle. "Damian's version was older too, and he said she went soft." She shrugged slightly, the corner of her mouth tipping up. "I don't want to go soft. Sounds boring to me." But there was something in her voice that said she made those statements all the time - it didn't necessarily mean she believed them.
Something in Helena's eyes narrowed, hardened at the mention of Joker, Crane, and Riddler setting up a test. They might not be her family, not her mom and not her dad, but she remembered them from her own world and the thought that they hurt these people, however different they were from the people in her world, was enough to have her jaw tightening. Maybe that trip to Gotham was going to come sooner, rather than later. Rushing into things was her greatest weakness.
Helena's lips were still tight when Selina spoke of Bruce, and waiting. It was something her mom would say. Judge the space. Jump. "You didn't. In my world," Helena said quietly, her eyes less steely when she looked back to Selina. "You and my dad." there she paused, wondering if she had said too much, but it was too late to take it back. "You and my dad, you died defending Gotham together. As heroes."
Helena glanced down at the bangle on her wrist, the diamonds catching in the lights that lit up Kal-El. The W. She should get one with a K on it too. "Not as an old, boring thief and an old vigilante. Heroes." Maybe it was the faith of a child in her parents, but whatever it was, it was unshakeable. Helena absolutely believed in what she was saying as she hopped off the statue, landing easily on the grass with far more grace than expected.
Helena's hardening eyes and her tightening jaw made Selina wonder if she should have stayed quiet about the recent troubles in Gotham. Maybe it reminded her of Bruce, that determination in Helena's eyes just then, but she wondered if she hadn't just somehow set this girl on a path without meaning to. She was about to try to turn that around, if it was the case, when Helena's tight lips loosened enough to tell her the Selina Kyle in her world hadn't gone soft. That was nice to know, especially since Selina didn't have any idea this girl was from another version of Earth; Damian had neglected to inform her of that fact. And would it really have mattered? They were all from different versions of something, weren't they?
But Helena kept talking, and what she said did not make the kitty cat happy. It wasn't that she couldn't imagine a world in which both she and Bruce died. After all, Lois was dead in Helena's world. If there was something catastrophic enough, then it made sense. Selina was out to keep herself in one piece, but recent events had proven that she would put her own hide at risk for the right fight, if it was personal enough. The fact that she completely believed it could happen didn't make her feel any better, because nothing could make death feel better.
"What killed everyone?" Selina asked, just as Helena looked down at the bangle, but there was something in Helena's insistence that made the kitty cat look more closely, pay more attention, and something about the way the girl hopped off the statue made her want to run, start the Lamborghini and never look back. It wasn't knowledge, really, more like the intuition that made a great thief great. But she didn't run. "Kitten," she said quietly, but with certainty, "thieves and vigilantes can still be heroes. The world isn't about black and white. It's about shades of grey." She reached out and spun the bracelet on the girl's wrist, mirroring Helena's attention to the W. "This Bruce is very much alive, but he's still the most heroic man I know." She would never say that to the Bat, but saying it to this girl was different.
Half of Helena wanted to throw her arms around this woman that looked, and acted, so much like her mom. The other half wanted to push her away, put distance between them, let the walls slide back up that she'd spent so much time building. Helena didn't do either however, but reached out, fingers almost wrapping around Selina's wrist as she turned the bracelet. At the last moment, she thought better of it and just rested her fingers there instead. Light. Gentle. "Darkseid. It was his forces. He wanted our Earth."
Helena swallowed hard and met the other woman's bright green eyes. "Kara and I were the last ones left. We tracked them and then we went in and --" Her vision went distant for a moment. "It was one of dad's fail safes. It had to have been." She blinked, focused again. "There was an explosion and then I was falling into the ocean with Kara. We weren't on our world anymore." Then, quietly, as an afterthought as she ran her thumb lightly over the inside of Selina's wrist, "You were young there too."
For a long moment, Helena was simply quiet, her thumb still moving slowly, following the blue lacework of Selina's veins before her hand dropped down to her side. "You were a thief and a hero where I come from. They tried calling you other things but -- that wasn't who you were. So either the world is black and white, and you're a thief and no hero, Bruce is just another Bruce Wayne and nothing at all like my dad, or the world is full of color."
Selina knew the name, Darkseid, but that was all she knew, and even that took her a few seconds longer to focus on than it should have. Her gaze, instead, dropped to the fingers on her wrist. Somehow, that touch was unbelievably jarring, but she didn't yank her arm away as she normally would have done. She listened, and she watched as Helena tried to get through the telling. She couldn't imagine a world where the only people left where two girls, but she could easily imagine a world in which Bruce Wayne created a failsafe like the kind she mentioned. The finger running over her veins made her shiver. "You ended up in another Gotham?" she asked, trying to imagine what that would be like. Losing everything, only to end up in another place that looked like home, but wasn't - and then doing it all again here.
Suddenly, the kitty cat felt extremely protective of the kitten in front of her. The girl's hand dropped to her side. Selina shook her head after a moment, a surprised smile on her lips, and she tucked two fingers under Helena's chin for a moment. "I'm no hero, Helena. I'm just who I am. But I'll take your colorful version of the world any day." She motioned to the park and Metropolis. "Just don't make the kitty cat live in the sunny parts." Because at the end of the day, Selina couldn't imagine being anywhere other than Gotham. The thought made her turn her gaze back to Helena, worry crossing her features. It would be easy to tell her to go back to where she'd been, where it was safe. Gotham was too close, and being Bruce's child and a girl made her a bigger target than any of the Bat's other birds. But that wasn't how Selina lived.
"When you're ready to come back, you go see the Bat. There are things that make this Gotham different, and you need to know what you're facing." When, not if. There was a seriousness in Selina's voice that had been absent the remainder of the conversation. "If he tries to wrap you in a bubble instead of being straight with you, you come see me." It wasn't that Selina didn't trust the birds to bring Helena up to speed, but she wasn't going to let this particular girl fall into Crane's clutches. Crane, with his obsession that couldn't be satisfied. But it just wasn't like Selina to tell the girl to stay away. Gotham was home, and Helena would end up there eventually. She cupped the girl's cheek, feeling so much older than she had at the beginning of this conversation. "Alright, kitten?"
"Cats never live anywhere but where they want to be," Helena said with a small smile, her eyes a little too bright when the other woman touched her chin, lifted her face up so that it was easier to look into her eyes. This Selina wasn't her mom, but there was so much between them that reminded Helena of the woman that had raised her, cared for her, trained her. Would Bruce be the same? Nothing in their training had ever prepared her for this, but she was their daughter and deep down, she was tired of running.
A part of Helena wanted to reinforce the 'if' make sure it was clear that she wouldn't step foot in Gotham until she damn well wanted to, the words were dead on her tongue. If was cleaving to when. She nodded slowly, gaze twisting down before it shot back up. She'd go see Bruce and find out the truth, even if she just agreed that she'd come to Selina. Her father had always been protective of her, but it was her mom that trusted her. "He'll be straight with me," she said, all easy confidence that she didn't strictly feel. She said nothing about how she planned on talking to him sooner than that. If things were that different here, she wanted to know now, not later.
Her mouth opened to agree, but it was the look in Selina's eyes, so close to her mom, the hand on her cheek. Distance was easier when she was on a different continent, not this close, and she was stepping forward before she could stop herself, arms wrapping around the other woman tightly but mindful of the injury to her side, Helena's cheek to her collarbone, confidence washed away by memory. "I will. Promise," she whispered. This Selina was not her mom, too young, too sharp around the edges, but the word still slid out, muffled and hushed as a whisper.
Selina smiled at the very true statement about cats. "Can't make us stay when we don't want to," she agreed, and it was very much her own mantra. No one to tie her down, and nothing but what she wanted. But that was all shifting with frightening speed. Not doing what she wanted, because that was too much a part of who she was to ever change. No, it was what she wanted that kept moving, and she was having trouble keeping her paw on it.
The girl's nod made Selina feel more reassured, though that new concern was still vibrant behind her green eyes. "He'll be straight with you," she agreed of Bruce, her expression turning knowing. She might not be with this version of Bruce Wayne, but that didn't mean she couldn't predict his reactions to nearly everything. "And he'll want to keep you tucked away somewhere safe. I don't blame him, but I'd rather you be out with someone who can help you, than see you go out on your own because you feel like you're being hemmed in," she explained knowing, instinctively, that Helena wasn't the type to sit around when things fell apart. She didn't want her to end up like Stephanie, alone while the Riddler filled her with bullets.
Selina stiffened for a moment, a cat grabbed and squeezed that had no idea what to do with the unexpected show of affection. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had hugged her, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd hugged anything that wasn't a cat. Sex didn't count. It took a few seconds, but she tentatively raised her arms around wrapped them around the girl's back. As far as hugs went, it was less than successful, but the promise against her collarbone made Selina relax. She rubbed one hand over Helena's back soothingly, the touch firm and strong, even with the injury to her side. "You aren't alone, kitten," she promised, because it was all she had just then. "You can come to me for anything," she added, and it came after a very long pause, because being dependable wasn't something the kitty cat considered one of her better qualities.
All of it was too close to her mom and dad. Dad wanted to keep her safe, and mom was the one that took her out for the first time, stayed close but let Helena handle the thugs. Everything coming of out Selina suggested things would be much the same if she returned to Gotham. She'd stay close, make sure she was safe, while Bruce went off to handle whatever he did and they'd come back, successful -- Don't know you know when the Cat's got your tongue? -- "No PDA afterwards, though, okay?" She said with a quiet laugh, remembering the first time on her Earth. Even this was like then, her mom hugging her.
"Just us girls," Helena whispered, pressed her face full to Selina's shoulder. "Dad was so mad when we went out without him." And that was close, too close. Helena hadn't let the truth out yet and she wasn't sure she should this time. They were just meeting and -- she pulled back slowly, almost as slowly as her hug had been accepted. Her back still felt warm where Selina's hands had been. "Yeah," she said quietly, not meeting the other woman's eyes. It took her a moment, her eyes a bit moist, but there were no tears matting her eyelashes and tumbling down her cheeks.
"Okay." Helena agreed, even if the words felt like a lie. Maybe it would be different if they were actually moving, fighting, instead of hovering in this space where Helena could only remember her own mom. "I'll remember if you do," she said, pushing herself to smile, even if the corner of her mouth wobbled slightly.
Selina's quizzical look was lost over Helena's shoulder, but she realized Helena was talking about Bruce with her PDA comment, which the kitty cat found extremely entertaining. "This Bat doesn't do PDA," she assured the girl in her arms, though she was trying to imagine a world in which he did. In the end, she assumed it would take a lot of coaxing and this Bruce never stayed still around her long enough for her to try. The only time Selina ever managed to nab him alone was when someone was almost ready to die, and that didn't allow the kitty to dig her claws into him. There had been that time in the hotel, but they were all under some strange influence there, and it had never repeated itself.
It was Helena's voice that drew Selina from her thoughts, and she chuckled at the girl's comment. She didn't read into it - Oh, she could have. It would have been so easy to read into it, to assume she'd taken Helena out because... But no. It didn't necessarily mean anything. Selina had gone prowling with Stephanie, hadn't she? And she went out with Damian all the time. It didn't mean anything. "He'll be mad here too," she finally said, a very feline smile at the possibility of getting Bruce riled up over something. "But he'll get over it. A little anger is good for him."
Selina let Helena step back, and she didn't question the feeling of loss. The kitty cat never questioned things; there wasn't any point in it. "I'll remember," she promised, though the last thing she'd do was intentionally drag this particular girl into her brand of trouble. Now that this encounter was coming to a close, all she wanted to do was find a store to hit. She was all nervous energy and adrenaline beneath the skin, even with the injury and the inconvenient clothing. She'd just have to find somewhere upscale to visit for her take, and luckily Metropolis was bursting at the seams with things to steal. She touched Helena's bracelet one last time. "Remember who you are, kitten," she reminded her, and then she took a step back toward the Lamborghini. She paused then, stopped, her back already to the dark-haired girl. "Were your parents together where you're from?" she asked. No specifics, just curiosity killing the cat.
Helena laughed when she spotted that particular smile even as she took a step back. The touch to the bracelet reminded her again and she knew those words would stick in her mind like other things her mom had said to her in the past. This Selina might not be her, or maybe she would be sometime in the future, but she knew there was at least a little part of her mom in this woman.
The question caught her, made her still and quiet in the lonely hum of the lamps lighting the statue. She was smiling when she answered a moment later. "Until the day they died," Helena answered honestly. She didn't offer more than that, no details on when they'd gotten together or how long they'd been together for, just the very simple fact that they had gone together, the same as they had lived.
She didn't wait for a response as she turned back towards her rented Prius, head held high.