Helena Wayne is (the_huntress) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-03 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics, huntress, power girl |
Reunion
Who: Morgan, Max, and Luke -> Helena, Kara, And Bruce
What: Hels gets her not!Dad back and her BFF
Where: Passages, Wayne Manor
When: Tuesday last
Warnings/Rating: Hels being adorbs, Kara being flirty, Bruce being angsty
Once Helena learned that Max was bringing Kara through on Tuesday, Morgan knew that her day was shot. Everything was rescheduled, house visits moved to either Monday or Wednesday and even once Helena learned the time they'd be crossing, Morgan made sure to keep the day clear. Given the commotion the girl was kicking up inside her skull, she knew she wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything anyway.
As soon as she woke up Tuesday morning, she knew she was right. Helena was quiet but awake, almost doing the equivalent of mental pacing in the back of her thoughts. It didn't stop Morgan from doing any of her usual things to get ready for the day, or enjoying breakfast but she skipped trying to read the latest book she'd bought on her iPad for flipping through a few random fashion magazines while lounging outside.
Lunch had been a simple affair and as the hours wound down, Morgan became increasingly aware of the time, until she finally gave up, dressed herself in a pair of jeans and a white button down shirt (the top three buttons undone), cuffs rolled up to her elbows and headed towards the hotel. It wasn't her idea of a good time, but staying at the Wynn wasn't going to make either one of them happy.
After some debate about whether Helena would go through the door when they got there or not, it was finally decided between the two of them that Morgan would remain until they presumably met Max and Luke. Kara's key could take her anywhere and Helena wanted to make sure that she was going wherever her best friend was. With that decided, Morgan grabbed a Travel magazine on her way out of the Wynn and tucked it under her arm for the walk to Passages.
Max wasn't in a great mood. She'd already figured out that the woman in her head had likely changed, but that didn't mean she was going to take any chances, not when the new girl (she was pretty sure she was dealing with a kid) could drive her like a pick-up if she wanted to, which pissed Max off to no end. Chill, said the voice in her head, and Max wanted to smack her, but she couldn't. It didn't help that some woman had controlled Laura and handed over all of LVPD's files without even a blink. Alright, so she'd needed the information, but she didn't like the idea of these door people having so much power and control over here, not after what had happened to Corvus and not after how messed up Luke had been. She wanted her fairy tale princess back, dammit, and that was that.
And so, bad attitude and all, Max had stopped trying to analyze the shit out of her new holographic journal, and she'd dressed in jeans and a button-down black shirt. Her hair was scraped back in a long ponytail, and she was packing a semi-automatic; she didn't even care about her cover just then. If there was any trouble, she was just going to shoot someone. End of story. This city had pushed her way too far lately. She left the Monte Carlo and stormed into Passages like a thirty-something on a rampage, heeled boots heavy on the hallway carpet and her approach and carriage entirely military. She had no idea what she expected from Helena's Las Vegas counterpart; she didn't even know if Helena's Las Vegas counterpart was going to be there, but she wasn't going to risk being blindsided.
Luke wasn’t thrilled about letting Bruce through the door, exactly, but he grudgingly realized that he couldn’t keep him trapped in Vegas forever. He was needed in Gotham, despite how monumentally he’d fucked up, and with Scarecrow on the loose and Ra’s Al Ghul back in town, well, Batman needed to get off the sidelines and back in the game. Besides, he had the pieces of his broken family to put back together. Yeah, he’d taken a pretty bad fall from grace, but he had to give him the chance to pick himself up and fix things.
All he knew, as he headed to Passages, was that Max wanted some sort of back-up there when she crossed, because Helena wanted to see whoever she had in her head despite the fact that it was, presumably, the bitch who’d killed Jason. He might not have been at peak physical condition, but he was in hell of a lot better shape when he’d first crossed after the toxin disaster, and pain or not, he could still fight. Bruce was just as capable of fighting through pain as Luke was, perhaps even more, and in order to protect his daughter he would do just about anything. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t particularly worried. Dressed down in jeans and a slightly worn black jacket over a t-shirt, he moved with only a whisper of the ache that still lingered along his lower back and spread across his abdomen and up, ending just below his ribs. Apparently he was the last one to join the party, and since he knew who Max was he assumed the other woman was whoever Helena now had in her head. “Hey,” he said in greeting, one glance telling him that Max wasn’t in the best of moods. Neither was he, but his was more of a quiet sort of sulk rather than blatant hostility.
As it turned out, Morgan didn't have long to wait before the woman came in, Max presumably, all anger and hot-tense lines of muscle. Morgan offered her a small smile, hands splayed slightly in an offering of peace. She was no threat to her, to any of them and she felt a warm pulse in her mind from Helena's approval.
The young man that came up next must have been -- 'Luke' Helena supplied and he got the wider smile from Morgan. For all that the young girl in her mind might have referred to him as the man that wasn't her father, Morgan knew she had a soft spot for him. "Hello," she said warmly to both of them, her gaze flickering back to Max. The woman that had Kara -- the reason why she was standing here in this hallway. "I'll go first." Magazine still under her arm, she fished her key out of her back pocket.
Max had no argument there. She was busy assessing the woman in front of her. Not a threat, was the final verdict. Max wasn't listening to the girl that called herself Kara, ignoring the girl's assertions that it was all cool. It had worked with the fairy tale princess, ignoring, and she was trying (with varying levels of success) to pull the same thing off here.
Instead, Max turned her attention to Luke. "If she's anyone other than some blonde Kryptonian," she said of the girl in her head, "he shoves her right back out. Alright?" She wasn't counting on Helena for that, no matter how harmless the woman appeared. She touched a hand to the gun holstered at the small of her back, wondering if it was a better or worse idea to cross armed. In the end, she slipped it out of the holster, emptied the cartridge, and put the weapon on the dusty sconce across from the door. The cartridge went back into her pocket, and she nodded at the woman fishing her key out. "Fine. Go."
The woman’s warmth was surprising, and a sense of relief spread through him as Bruce realized that she was nothing like Tristan. Neither he nor Luke had met her, of course, but they’d both heard stories, and he was glad that Helena had been paired with someone much, much preferable. Some of his sulk ebbed away, but he nodded regardless when Max spoke. “Yeah, he will. He knows what to do. Don’t worry.” He raised his eyebrows when she pulled out the gun, because yeah, not expecting that, but before Bruce could get his hackles raised about it she had it emptied and out of reach. Honestly, him and his guns. Clearly whatever therapy he’d been forced into as a child had failed spectacularly. “Looks like I’m going last,” he said, with a weak smile. “Lead the way.”
The affirmative given, Morgan slid the key into the door and opened it. It was still new enough that it felt odd to her, and maybe it always would as she stepped over the threshold and into Helena's room at Wayne Manor. Helena understood what Max was saying about what would happen when she crossed, but she knew, she believed that it was Kara, not the murdering Shiva who was in the other woman's head. Even if it wasn't her bestie, Helena would deal with that. After. Just like they could deal with Max carrying around a loaded gun. Trying to keep from bouncing from foot to foot, she couldn't stop rolling onto the balls of her feet in her excitement and nodded towards the other two. "Ready."
Max still didn't like it, but she wasn't going to stand there and waffle. Waffling got you killed on missions, and there was no point in wasting time here. It was either going to be alright, or it wasn't going to be alright. She gave the open doorway one last look - harmless, a bedroom - and she stepped across.
Kara had woken up in the wrong place before. Well, twice, kind of. Once when she was fifteen and she landed on Earth way after she was supposed to, only to find Kal all grown-up and herself, well, all grown up too. And five years earlier, when she'd been sixteen and had woken up beside Hel on a beach after everyone they knew had died. This felt like a lot like the latter, and she turned around in the room to look toward the door, her expression one that indicated she was seriously bummed. They'd have to start over - that was her first thought. It wasn't anger or sadness; it was resignation. All the work they'd done building up Starr Industries with that stolen Wayne bank, all her geniuses working around the clock on a cross-dimensional tunneler. She was still sure Apokolips energy was here, because she didn't believe anything happened by chance anymore, but it all meant starting over, and she felt seriously exhausted by the prospect of learning a new world. Not daunted, because they could totally pull it off, even if Hel still didn't believe they'd been followed by anything from home.
Hel.
Chill. At least Hel was here, and that was the one thing that kept Kara from flying out a window and buying an entire department store to make herself feel better. Maybe that other her wouldn't be here? She could hope, yeah? "Hel?" she asked as she turned, blonde hair and the business suit she'd been wearing when she'd been zapped here. She was young, too young for the suit, but she'd been playing the teen mogul for years (Thanks not-dad Bruce for the generous contribution!), and she didn't even think about it anymore. She noticed the man at the door then, and confusion clouded her features for only a second before her nature kicked in. He was cute, she decided, ready to jump into full-on flirt mode. As for being scared? Yeah, as if.
Well, look at that. Home sweet home. Bruce recognized the Manor, of course, whether it was Helena’s room or one that had sat untouched for decades, and a great deal of Luke’s hesitation came from the other man rather than himself. Oh, god, if he froze up and couldn’t cross he was officially submitting a request for a new alter, stat. Seeing Helena through the door helped, however, and as soon as Max crossed, whatever wall had sprung up crumbled just as quickly. The blonde girl was definitely unfamiliar to both of them, but she didn’t look very threatening, and unless all those comic books had been wrong she definitely wasn’t Shiva either. It sounded like she recognized Helena, if she was this Kara person, but it was the way the blonde turned to look at him that got him through the door. Yeah, no, he was not dealing with being hit on by a comic book character today. Ready or not, Bruce’s punishment was coming to an end.
It felt like an eternity since he’d been back in his own body, and his last memories were hazy, plagued by exhaustion, the toxin, and Stark’s antidote, all of which made it seem like a very bad dream. There was a momentary sense of strangeness, as though his mind was re-accustoming itself to having a physical vessel again, but it didn’t last, and Bruce merely let out a long exhale as he stepped through. Sleep was a great improvement, and while he still didn’t appear as he usually did, the picture of health, he was certainly a far cry from the man who had crossed through the door after what had been one of the worst nights of his life. He looked more like Bruce and nothing like the Bat, dressed surprisingly casual in sweatpants, a t-shirt, and socks; all black.
His gaze went to Helena first, and he offered a wary smile, unsure of just how much she knew, before turning his attention to the unfamiliar blonde. “Is this Kara?”
There was that excited hop-bounce-roll of her feet again as Max came through -- and was Kara. For a few seconds, everything was forgotten, including the fact that her not Dad was there, all the strangeness with Tim, and she had her best friend in the room again. She never even stopped to consider that this Kara might not be hers once she saw her again. For one brief moment, there was only the joy at knowing her best friend was finally here, whole, and perfect, and absolutely the way that Helena remembered her. In those few seconds, she was still, but as soon as Kara turned around again, motion kicked in. She rocked back onto her heels and this time when she rolled forward onto her toes, she jumped and flung her arms around Kara's neck.
"Kara!" She laughed into the curve of her throat, face buried there where her best friend smelled like sunshine and ozone and expensive soap. Kara.
Helena was still laughing when she looked over the other woman's shoulder to see Bruce, the question drawing her attention. Was this Kara? Yes, she nodded. He wasn't the complete picture of health, but he didn't look like he had on that day when they'd met after the party. Unwinding herself slowly from her bestie, she stepped closer to him, paused while looking up at him, and then gave him the same leaping koala bear hug. "You are in such deep shit," she said quietly to him. She rarely ever cussed, but there were no other words for it.
The exuberant hug was totally Hel, and Kara didn't even think before returning it, her arm around Hel's back and both of their feet lifting off the ground for a spin. Hel had always been the huggy kid, the young one to her wild one, and it solidified any doubts Kara had about whether or not this was her Hel. She put Hel down just in time to watch Hel turn to the man in the room with them, and where Hel was all hugs and acceptance, even when she was chastising not-Bruce, Kara was less trusting.
They'd always avoided any of the not-people from their old world before, and this was the first indication that things were way different here, and not in a way Kara necessarily thought was good. Five years avoiding people was a long time, and she didn't have Hel's intervening months to get close to everyone here. She was wary blue eyes, older and a little distrusting. Her cuz, he'd always been the trusting one, and he was dead. This not-Bruce was closer to theirs than the old one had been. Older, which might explain why Hel had taken to him, but Kara already sensed a hella fight to convince Hel why they still needed to find a way back to their real home.
While there was no one with which Bruce would ever have such a reunion, except perhaps his parents, who were unlikely to appear anytime soon, he could appreciate the significance of what he was seeing. Clearly, this blonde girl meant a great deal to Helena, and vice versa, and he was glad that this other Bruce had raised her to be far more capable of proper human interaction than he was. He hung back in order to give them their space, respecting the fact that they would need it, and he merely expected a response, in order to confirm the fact that this was indeed Kara and not someone he would need to shove through the door. Shiva was, quite obviously, gone, and he was very much relieved. Ra’s Al Ghul was dangerous enough without a human killing machine to act as his right hand.
The hug was very much unexpected. In all honesty, Bruce had expected anger, for her to lash out, or even chastisement; it was undoubtedly what he would receive from everyone else, with good reason. Before all this, before Crane and the fallout and the destruction his silence had caused, he wouldn’t have known how to respond. Now, however, he returned the hug-- with less exuberance, of course, and a hint of stiffness, but it was not forced. “I know,” he admitted, just as quiet, when she informed him that he was in deep shit. Lack of eloquence aside, it was very much the truth. “I have a great deal to make up for. I’m sorry, Helena.” He was aware of Kara’s eyes upon them, and for someone like him, who did not trust easily, her own distrust was blatantly apparent. He looked up and met her gaze, and after unwinding one arm from around the girl who was not his daughter, and yet was all the same, extended a hand in greeting.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kara. I’m Bruce, but I presume you already knew that.” She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her, and yet their mutual wariness might be something they had in common.
It had been easier in their last world to stay away from all the not-people, the not-Dad, and not-Mom because she'd had Kara there. Without Kara here (not that Hels blamed her!) new friendships had to be forged. Some people could do very well being solitary, like this Bruce, but that just wasn't her. She bonded easily, always had, and once she did it might as well have been a kitten seal of approval because it wasn't something that broke easily.
Even with her not-parents. This Bruce wasn't her dad, wasn't ever going to be her dad, no matter how similar they might be in the end. They simply didn't have that past. But he was Bruce and he was Batman, and he hadn't committed her like the last one -- all points in his favor. In another time and place, it would have been her mom ripping her dad a new one if he'd ever tried a stunt like this. Bruce could handle a hug and a lack of eloquence.
"I know," Helena said before stepping to the side, one arm still loose around his shoulders. "And you're not going to do it again, are you?" She asked, voice harder, jaw set in what could only be Wayne stubbornness.
The reversal of roles between the two of them was almost comical. He was the adult, the parental figure, and yet Helena was the one chastising him, as though he was the child who’d misbehaved. Then again, in a way, his behavior had been rather irresponsible. Maybe it always had been. No one but Alfred had been around to keep him on track before, and still he managed to meet each and every obstacle head-on and very much alone. It might be time to change his approach, he mused. This Gotham was different, as were its villains, and he needed to adapt properly, like he’d failed to do when he first arrived.
Despite the bizarreness of it all, Bruce reacted much differently than he would have had a girl of her age spoken to him as such months ago. In a way he was impressed by, even proud of, Helena’s stubbornness. “No,” he said gravely. “I’m not. I learned a very hard lesson, one I intend to remember.”
Kara was out of the loop, but she'd fix that as soon as she got Hel alone. She almost told Bruce that he wasn't their Bruce, but she held her tongue for Hel's sake, and she was glad of it in the end, because this was way worse than she'd originally thought. There was hugging, and she almost groaned. They were never going to get home now. No way Hel was going to fleece not-Bruce, not when she was hugging him like he was her real dad or something.
"This is about that stuff the woman on the journals was saying," Kara said. Oracle hadn't given her name (Kara wouldn't have known if it even if she had.), but she'd been quick to chastise, which meant something had gone hella wrong recently. "And about whoever killed that not-Robin." Because even in the Gotham they came from before, Jason Todd wasn't Robin. She was starting to feel seasick with all these changes, and she just wanted to have fun and shrug it off. Hel would know that look on her face, the one that said this was all way too serious, and that she was over it.
Kara turned her attention to Bruce, finally, and she gave him a flirty smile. He wasn't actually Kal's BFF or anything. "Karen, actually. Karen Starr." She needed to find out if the business existed here. It better, because she was so screwed otherwise.
"Good." Her mom wasn't here to chastise him (their fights had never really been fights, mostly her dad thinking her mom was wrong and her mom proving that she was right) and he needed to have someone do it who was going to forgive him. Or, in Helena's case, already had. She understood why he kept his secrets, even if she didn't agree with them. That unforgiving line of her jaw melted into something sweeter as she smiled and hugged him again briefly. "We should have dinner after you make your first rounds with everyone."
It was a peace offering as she stepped away from her and closer to Kara -- always Kara to her -- and it took everything she had not to hug her again. She could wait, at least until it was just them and she could tell Kara everything that had happened since she arrived. "What woman?" Helena didn't know who she was talking about, but she suspected she'd find out later, when they were shopping by the look in Kara's eyes. Serious had to be doled out in equal amounts of fun for her BFF.
Her BFF. Screw waiting. She'd been waiting since she arrived to see Kara again and now she was here. Hels grinned, waited long enough for them to make introductions before she was hugging her again, simply to make sure that she was there and not going anywhere.
A dark cloud passed over Bruce’s features, the reality of what he had returned to still weighing heavily upon his shoulders despite the fact that Helena, at least, seemed pleased to see him, and while he didn’t think himself deserving of forgiveness he was grateful for it all the same. “Yes,” he said, though he wasn’t sure who ‘the woman’ was; there were too many options to consider. “Jason. His name is Jason.” He had no desire to go into details with someone he had just met, whether she was Helena’s friend or not; he had enough trouble trusting his newfound family and he’d known them for months, not all of five minutes. Besides, if she knew Bruce Wayne was Batman, which he had a strong feeling she did, she would easily be able to catch up on the news of a copycat going rogue and killing people. How well the cover story had worked, he didn’t yet know, and anyone aware of the situation would know the truth. He was ashamed of what he had done, but he would not hide from it.
Karen Starr wasn’t immediately familiar, but upon first arriving in Gotham he hadn’t heard of Metropolis, or Arkham City, or a great many things that simply hadn’t existed in the version of the city he came from. He nodded, his own return smile polite and nothing like hers, before returning his attention to Helena and her suggestion of dinner. The apologies he needed to make, the people he needed to reach out to, it was daunting, and something to look forward to afterward--especially if it went badly all around--might be nice, especially with Alfred’s telling absence as of late. “I’d like that,” he agreed. It was clear, however, that Kara and Helena needed some time alone, and the last thing he wanted was to intrude.
“I’m sure you two have a great deal to catch up on,” he said, taking a step back towards the door. “As for me, I have some amends to make.” And some catching up of his own to do, if truth be told. There was a moment of hesitation before he left, leaving the two to themselves.
Kara listened to not-Bruce's terse explanations, all while Hel glomped her, and she gave in and nuzzled the brunette's head with her nose. He wasn't like not-Bruce, and he definitely wasn't like real-Bruce. She might have said more, but she didn't. Not with him there. She and Hel had spent too many years away from the rest of the superworld, and she just didn't trust these not-people. Hel hadn't either, once upon a time. But even Kara had to admit that Hel would have buddied up with the people in their last version of Gotham if Kara had just let her. No, staying apart was definitely her thing, and she was seriously worried that Hel would insist on staying here. She frowned thoughtfully, displeasure evident in her young features. "Is Kal here?" she asked. Not cuz, because he wasn't the closest thing she had to a father, not this one, if there was a this one. She didn't ask about Lois. Thinking about Lois was harder, and she didn't like to do it if she could help it. Yeah, they were definitely shopping after this.
"Tonight," Hels said easily. It'd give them a chance to talk, but he needed to talk to the others too and Hels knew that. He'd made a mistake -- a huge one -- and he was the one that was going to have to fix what could be fixed. Given what he said and the look in his eyes, Helena knew that he knew that. She wasn't going to rehash it. "Good luck."
Turning back towards Kara, Hels pressed her forehead to her temple and grinned. For a moment, she did nothing more than stay there, her arms loose around Kara's waist, forehead and then nose to her temple, her lips barely touching the other woman's cheek before the grin faded. "He was, but he's not anymore. He's -- missing." That was the best way to describe it. "Not missing, missing. But --" How was she ever going to describe this? "There are some people that aren't here. They're missing. Not kidnapped or dead, just not here."
She paused. "But Lois is here. Here at the manor. I haven't met her yet." But she knew that Kara would want to know that.
Kara didn't say anything else until not-Bruce was gone. It was an old habit, one that came from five years of totally avoiding everyone from their world. Yeah, Hel had met Damian Wayne, but he hadn't existed back home, and he'd had his ass handed to him anyway. Not-Bruce was different, just like not-Lois was. She could handle the Damian Waynes of the world, the weirdo aberrations that didn't actually exist, or that were cheap replacements, but that was different than hanging out with Kal or Lois or Hel's rents.
When Hel said Kal was missing, Kara frowned as her not-Kal, not-Kal, not-Kal mantra chimed in her head, but the rest of the description made her frown even worse. "Hel, this is all messed up. This has to be Apokolips energy doing this. It doesn't make sense to be in people's heads, or to have them in ours. Even you have to admit that's just messed on some cosmic weird cosmic level. We have to get to the bottom of it," she insisted, looking around at the Wayne bedroom and frowning again. "Are you staying here?" And too much frowning was going to give her wrinkles. Shopping and a facial.
Ok, so it was time to be practical, even if she hated practical. Kara moved away from her friend, and she paced, feet leaving the floor after a few thoughtless seconds, until she was pacing midair. "What's the bank situation? Are we broke?" Maybe she should have said me, but she still wasn't thinking that way.
"It's... something." Hels agreed, but Apokolips energy? More Darkseid? It would have been easier to believe when she was in Tristan, but she didn't want to talk about the other woman now. Not when she finally had her Kara back. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, one foot tucked under her knee, her free leg swung back and forth while Kara paced. "It is weird, but we all have one. Even people that don't have the same door as we do. It couldn't have gotten that far."
She paused, seeing Kara frown. It was rare to see that and she felt a little twinge of guilt about it. "I was—am. Am. I was staying at Drake Manor with Timmy, but I told him once Bruce came back I'd come back here. I didn't want—" There was so much to tell her, so much she needed to let Kara know. "I was staying here before because my person before, her name was Tristan, she was," Hels shook her head. "Not good. We were trying to get her arrested but we didn't know if I would be stuck with her and I wanted to be back here if I was only going to have a few more days here. But then she did get arrested and I got a new person and that's when Bruce got in trouble and everyone got mad at him so I was staying with Tim for a while since Bruce wasn't here anyway, but he needs someone to forgive him." She took a deep breath.
"And we're not broke. That's how he and I ended up meeting this Bruce. I took out too much money and they notified him, but I was talking to Tim and Tim figured it out and told him and he asked me to come to dinner. I wasn't going to, but then I met Tim and Selina and –" Another deep breath. "He didn't have me committed. He's not my dad. But he needs help and so does Gotham."
"It still might be here, Hel, even if it isn't through the other doors," Kara insisted, and how completely weird did that sound? Doors, like their world was a bedroom or something. "Listen, I know I was the one who insisted on finding energy signatures, and who was sure we'd been followed, but it was true. Just before things went upside down, I found a signature. Don't you want to get home?" she asked, stopping her pacing and looking down at Hel. Her Hel, but it felt like her BFF was miles away just then. Yeah, they'd had tons of arguments about stuff back in their not-home, but this felt different. Kara felt alone, and she didn't like it.
"Timmy? Drake Manor?" Kara had no clue what Helena was talking about. It was like learning everything all over again, and she wondered how many times they were going to have to do this. Each step was a step farther from home - from their real home. She didn't stop to think about the fact that there was nothing to actually go back to there, because so not going there. At least wanting to go home was a goal, and searching for the Apokolips energy signature was something to focus on. Without that, it would be like giving up. Kara wasn't ready to just give up and call this new weird place home.
As soon as Hel started talking about not-Bruce needing someone to forgive him, Kara knew this was gonna be a lost cause. She sat on the bed beside Hel, just as Hel started saying Gotham needed help, and then she flopped onto her back, unthinking about how much energy was behind the flop. The bed crashed down, and Kara groaned and tossed an arm over her eyes dramatically. "There's a lotta Tim in this story," she finally said, peeking out from behind her arm. Not-Bruce and not-Selina, she might be able to fight against them and win, but if Hel had a boy? No way. Lost cause. Might as well just give it all up and go shop.
They'd had this conversation a hundred times before if they had it once and it was always the same thing, until Kara admitted that she'd found a signature. All of that was briefly, temporarily interrupted when Kara flopped onto the bed and it cracked under the force. Furniture wasn't like Kara's uniform which was routinely destroyed, it was usually something that Kara thought about.
Unless she was so upset that she wasn't thinking about it. Hels crawled up the bed to kneel by her side and paused. It didn't feel right and she didn't know why. This was the girl that she'd been missing since she got here and maybe it was because they were in Gotham, where Kara had tried so hard to keep her out of last time. She didn't know. "Why didn't you tell me that you'd caught a signature?" She asked quietly, no mentions of Tim or Bruce or anyone super powered as she finally laid down beside Kara and curled into the other woman's side, like she might be taken away if they didn't stay close. If the mentions of Tim were throwing her off -- Hel would wait to tell her the rest.
"It was right before I got zapped here. Something came through, and it almost got me. It had the same kind of power I did, which flipped you out," Kara admitted. She considered getting up and doing something about the bed but, nah, it could wait. She frowned at the ceiling until Hel curled up beside her, and she sighed and slung an arm around her BFF. "You've been here forever, right? Or something like that? Long enough to be in two people out there in that other Earth through the door? Well, I haven't. I was home until yesterday, and you were there too, Hel. This is all- You missed stuff, but you were still there for it. None of this makes sense," she insisted. Maybe it was just her way, because she'd had a harder time than Hel accepting their last home too. Five years, and she still didn't like it there.
Kara rolled onto her stomach, arm over Hel's stomach, careful not to send the bed crashing any further this time, and she looked at Hel's face. "It feels weird. Doesn't it feel weird?" she asked. Tim was forgotten for the moment. Maybe he shouldn't have been, but he was, and Kara just huffed, her breath fanning at Hel's cheek. And then she flopped back onto her back after a second. "I can't come be with your not-family," she said reluctantly, glancing over at Hel. "I'm gonna see if Starr Industries exists here. Some of this stuff had to be here before your not-dad showed up, right?"
"Almost three months," Helena clarified. Three months without Kara, without anyone she could really talk about what was going on, and now Kara was here and it was like nothing had changed at all. It never occurred to her that they might have left at different points, but there it was, clear as air, she'd left before her bestie did and now they both had things to catch up on.
She waited until Kara was back on her back before she rolled over, twisting mid roll so she could lay her head on her stomach. She could still see Kara's face – mostly and was glad that she hadn't picked today to wear one of those midriff tops that showed off her bare belly. That would have been a little more than Hels could take. "I looked when I first got here," she confessed quietly. "I couldn't find anything." But it could have changed. And she knew that she didn't know all of Starr Industries' holdings, but when she had been in Tokyo and Hong Kong, they hadn't been there.
"I don't know," she started. "You were the one with geniuses, I was the one with gadgets." That made her smile a little, remembering when things weren't weird, just sad, and it was them against the world. "You don't have to stay, but give them a chance. If there's Apokolips energy here, they're going to need help."
Three months seemed like a hella long time, and Kara tried to count back three months to everything Hel might have missed. And if Hel had been here, then who had been with her? She didn't like thinking about that, not one bit, and she tugged her fingers through Hel's dark hair while she thought about it Their lives had become so completely weird. Not that her life hadn't been weird before, but this was even weirder. "Maybe it wasn't here because I wasn't?" She suggested hopefully of her Starr holdings. Maybe they just showed up when she did, or whatever. "I'll go looking," she said, giving herself a purpose aloud, where it wouldn't be so easy to just shove it way out of sight.
Kara's return smile was sad too, because everything had changed, and all without her realizing how much she'd gotten used to it being them against everyone else. Here, if Hel got into trouble, she wasn't going to be the one to come to the rescue. She'd been coming to the rescue with Hel since they were both teenagers. It was going to be hard to make the transition. "Is the goody two-shoes version of me here?" Supergirl being here would be a total bummer, and Kara wasn't really in the mood for more bummers.
"You sound like that woman on the journals who was lecturing me for not being around to help," Kara added. She hadn't liked that much.
"Maybe," Hels said, hoping that it was true. She hadn't wanted to start over, hated starting somewhere new alone, but she knew that Kara would hate having to start doing all her hard work again. Maybe. Just maybe. She smiled up at her, head tilting slightly as Kara's fingers ran through her hair.
Hel never considered that it might not be Kara coming to her aid once the other girl showed up. It'd been them for so long and now that she had her back, and they were together where they both belonged, she didn't want to give that up. She wanted Gotham, wanted some place to call home but she wanted Kara there too. Nowhere was the same without her.
Rolling onto her own belly, one arm came up and hooked around Kara in a loose hug. "She's not and what woman?" She perked up, like a cat with all the hair puffed up. "I'm not -- but there's things we can do to help them if..." If we're not here. If they somehow made it back home, Hels didn't want to leave this place open for what had happened to them. " I don't want Darkseid to do to them what he did to us," she said quietly as she laid back down, the side of her face flat to Kara's belly.
Kara knew that maybe. It was the kind of maybe Hel always used when Kara went on about parademons, which Hel had never really believed had followed through through to their previous planet. It was Hel's version of a pat on the head. Coming from Hel, Kara thought it was kinda adorbs.
Well, at least the do-gooder wasn't here. "She didn't say her name. She was talking to That Woman, and I kinda took over. But she was from here, not from out there. She said they could have used my help," she explained, not sounding particularly impressed. The year she'd spent on Earth, before things went crazy, had been spent mostly on Micronesia, with Kal keeping her a secret weapon in the war; Kara didn't like the idea of anyone thinking they had a right to her abilities anymore, not without her wanting to use them. And, admittedly, she'd spent most of her power chasing down Apokolips shadows, and not just helping people, like Hel had been more likely to do.
"It doesn't sound like Darkseid was the problem, Hel," Kara pointed out. She knew some of what had happened in Gotham before she came, and she had no idea how things could be so messed up here, not if it was real. It made her less and less sure that it wasn't just all something related to them being sent through in the first place. She breathed deeply, fingers stilling in Hel's hair. "If I put the bed back together, can I crash tonight? I'll go hunting for my own stuff in the morning."
"Could have," Hels admitted. "I wasn't here for it either." More than Kara's help, she simply could have used having her best friend around again, but now that she was here... "We're going to make sure your woman knows you're not Shiva. She tried telling me that you killed someone but I knew you wouldn't." She stopped herself before she went into a full tangent about what Max had said. She had her Kara back, that was what mattered.
"Since when have we ever needed a bed?" She teased, even as she gently extracted herself from her friend. That first night when they'd made it away from their real world, they'd slept on the beach, beneath the stars with nothing but each other and the waves for company. Hels almost missed those days. "Of course you can." It wasn't the first time and likely wouldn't be the last time they shared a bed.
"You want to borrow something to sleep in?" She had her normal PJs of course, but she had extras too. Sliding off the bed, she went to the huge closet to dig them out as well as a pair for Kara. She stopped when she saw what was at the end of it. A door. Timmy did it. A small smile crossed her lips before she grabbed some stuff out of the dresser and brought it out.
"Oh, she doesn't matter," Kara said of Max. "I can control her now. I was just figuring it out before, but it's all good now," she explained. As for not needing a bed, Kara just smiled a wistful smile, the kind of thing that didn't show itself on her face much anymore. Yeah, the good old days seemed way in the past, and she didn't want to focus on that. Sleep, shopping, a nice party, and then some property purchases. Well, she was hoping she didn't actually have to buy new labs, but it was a possibility.
Kara nodded about the PJs, and she lifted the bed high in the air without even a hint of effort, before using her heat vision to weld the frame back into place. It only took a few seconds, and she turned just in time to see the door at the edge of the closet. "What's that?" she asked, even as she tugged her shirt over her head. Modesty wasn't something Kara was good with, and this was Hel. It was all cool.
Hels didn't watch because it was all too easy to stare and then she'd end up wanting and – no. Instead she distracted herself by changing out of her own clothes and into her typical Batman t-shirt, her Hello Kitty flannel pants draped over the end of the bed in case she needed them in the middle of the night (with Kara here, she wasn't likely to, the woman could be a furnace). If had been anyone else but Kara in the room, she would have changed in the closet or ducked into the bathroom, but they'd seen each other in worse and less over the years. It was no big deal right?
She still didn't look up until she was relatively sure that Kara had a shirt on again. "Oh. Timmy built a doorway between our rooms. His room used to be on the other side but he's living in Drake Manor now," she explained, short and sweet before she walked into the en suite bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.
Kara slipped the shirt over her head, and she frowned down at how snug it was. A quick tear at the neckline made it much more comfortable, and she got rid of everything else but her panties, before crawling onto the newly repaired bed. The mention (again) of Timmy earned a brow quirk. "I need to meet your boy, girl," she told Hel, because Hel never talked about anyone this much. This Timmy had to be a thing, which totally explained Hel's willingness to live this new life. The door just solidified it, because no one built a door into a room like that unless they were banging, especially when walking down the hall was just as easy. She didn't like the feeling that settled in her stomach at that realization, but she was always protective of Hel, and maybe it was time to let her grow up on her own, no matter how much she wasn't gonna like it.
Kara didn't say anything else, and she just burrowed under the blankets and closed her eyes, tuning out the sound of water from the bathroom. Everything seemed way despairing right now, but she'd turn it around in the morning. That's what they did, right? Pick up the pieces whenever life handed them some new kind of chaos. So she might have to do it on her own this time, but she was gonna be fine. She repeated it to herself a few more times, and she let the water lull her to sleep.
"He's not my boy," Helena said as soon as she didn't have a mouth full of toothpaste foam and toothbrush. She couldn't tell if Kara heard her or not though as she washed her mouth out. Tim wasn't hers. Her friend yes, a confidant maybe, but one that had seen parts of her that even Kara hadn't seen. The thought made the tops of her cheeks pinken, not much, but just enough to register. She splashed her face with cold water.
Not that it mattered. As soon as she came back into the bedroom she saw that Kara was asleep in bed. "He's not mine," she repeated softly, wondering if the words would carry into her dreams. They could go later and meet him though, if Kara wanted. Hitting the light switch, Hels crawled into bed and burrowed under the covers, migrating as she always did until she found Kara under them. They'd move around in the night, drift to the ends of the bed, come back together and wake up with one of them acting as a pillow. "I'm glad you're back," she whispered into the darkness, reaching out briefly to run her fingers through Kara's short blond hair. There was a tug in the center of her chest, a want for more, but she consoled herself with settling in close enough to feel Kara's steady breaths across her lips as sleep took her.