The old saying goes that opposites are supposed to attract, whether it be through some kind of unequitable magic or instinctual chemistry brought about by the clashing of their personalities. It was a common enough phenomenon that it was the stuff of storybook cliché: opposites attract. Helena didn't believe in free floating magic, but she had felt this undisputable element at work in her own experience, and she knew that it was real. Trying to get a fix on the specific components that made up attraction was hard, as most of the individual facets were simply beyond her. She couldn't say that it was love at first sight when she met Q, and even now she couldn't name specifically what it was about him that made her feel the way she did. She could spend an entire evening, or even two, picking out his traits and holding them up for scrutiny, and still not come up with an answer as to what one, or combination, happened to strike the cords of her attraction so perfectly. From what she could tell, it was something about the whole, impossible to alter or define. Vague, but powerful. And when they first started seeing each other, that had been just fine.
But there was something else floating around them now, something quiet and cooling that had stolen over them like a bad memory. She could imagine Q chalking it up to some ludicrous government linked fever dream rather than acknowledging it as a real, metaphorical something, but it was there nonetheless.
Helena alighted on the decorative concrete lip that lined the sixth floor of the Gotham National Bank building. The heel of her left boot just missed the ledge as she did so, and before she could notice her mistake, her entire foot slipped, so that if anyone working late in the surrounding buildings were to look out their window at that exact moment they might have seen Huntress momentarily clinging to her support cable like a rookie as she dangled over the street. After a quick minute of struggling, she managed to get both feet and all of her weight fully onto the ledge, but with her face blazing a few degrees below boiling under her mask. It didn't help her state of mind at all.
She stalked along the concrete edge, away from the splash zone of the city lights, and turned her back on the clock tower in the distance. Which she knew had to read at least four o'clock in the morning. It wasn't typically her habit to be out this late when the only item on her to do list was patrolling. There was a whole mundane, average life that she had to manage outside of her costume, and that meant trying to keep marginally sensible hours.
On the streets below her, everything was quiet and immobile. Even a city of unabashed crime had its down hours, and she made a point of knowing them. For a second, Helena wondered how things were in the hours before dawn in Hub City, but then squashed the thought.
She hadn't been planning on a late night when she left her apartment earlier that evening. And she certainly hadn't planned on anything at all when she stormed out of it again only a half hour ago.
Leaning her shoulder against the side of the building, Helena reached into her utility belt and withdrew her phone from a hidden compartment that had been worked into the fabric lining directly against her abdomen. It was an emergency precaution that she knew most of her peers wouldn't dream of taking, but Helena felt more than secure enough in her own abilities to chance bringing a cellphone along on her patrols. Anyone who doubted her was welcome to test out her combat skills themselves. If anything, it was probably more of a mistake taking it out right now with her mood being what it was. She tapped her passcode onto the little screen anyway, and brought up the message history that had been taunting her for almost a week, in addition to starting off the gastronomically unpleasant evening that still had her nerves screaming raw even now.
The last message sent was time stamped for several hours earlier, when the sun was closer to setting than rising, and its content was to the point:
"Q? Please call me! I want to know if you're okay!"
She didn't need to scroll up further in the conversation to remember what the messages of the past seven days entailed. She recalled exactly what had gone into each one, emotionally and textually. She found herself skimming them anyway though, noting the rising intensity of the tone, feeding a molten anger roiling in her stomach. One, two, three, fifteen outgoing messages, descending in terms of suggestivity and rising in concern, and not one in return. For a moment, she didn't know whether her eyes were tearing up or if the flaming hot rage she was containing inside was actually steaming her vision. As she finished the re-reading, she banged her fist and phone against her thigh in a way that might have just been hard enough to leave a bruise for her in the morning.
Above, the passing airplanes twinkling against the overcast purple-black night sky showed no signs of caring. On the street below, everything was dyed an orange-gold hue from the streetlights. Despite the color distortion though, and despite her distance from the ground, Helena could still make out the displays in store front windows. Giant red ribbons, made burgundy by the lighting, and heart adorn fixtures signaling the beginning of February and the cozy middle point between winter and spring. The first of the messages in her unanswered string had been a precursor to all this seasonal flare.
"Now, how likely do you think it is that the league will let you out to play for a while on Valentine's?"
Helena moved her line of sight away from the retail street.
What it was that she had been thinking, what it was she'd been expecting from Q, was too embarrassing to admit. Helena had gone into whatever their relationship was with her eyes open, albeit quickly, fully knowing that it would be irregular in nature and need to have certain restrictions. It was to be expected when rendezvousing with someone who contorted his face into a featureless blob on a daily bases—because wearing a mask like any other self-righteous super hero just wouldn't do. And she hadn't complained about their relationship. She had gone along with it. On one occasion, just to make him feel better, she had even gone through the trouble of checking her food for government issue tracking devices when he insisted she'd be a threat to his security (and found absolutely, freaking nothing). But when Q had been saved from Cadmus, things took on the illusion of changing. She had seen his face for goodness sake, mottled though it had been, and it seemed as if a transition had been at hand. Things were going to become. . .realer. And ever since, she had been patient. For her standards, which was no small feat. It had been well over a month now though, and Helena could swear that nothing had progressed between her and Question. If anything, things had been regressing. It felt as if. . .
Huntress pushed herself away from the wall and went pacing toward the far corner of the building. Stomping more than walking along the ledge, really. She was sulking on the side of a building in the middle of the night, tired as hell but knowing that she didn't want to go home and find her apartment empty, and the same thoughts that kept circling back through her head.
Opposites were supposed to attract, and she guessed that that had been the case between her and Q. No one could ever call her a slouch, but she certainly didn't go to Question's extremes in terms of obsessive detective work, chasing big bads that were most likely never there to begin with. She wasn't careless, but she certainly didn't bypass the line of paranoia in her need to be completely and utterly off the grid. Q was locked up in his own tiny box of conspiracies and subterfuge and stealth. She liked to have everything simple, know who her bad guys were, take them out straight on. Prone to action. Confident. Alive. She was human, something she sometimes wondered if Q would step outside of if only he could. She had certain expectations of her partner. She simply wasn't built to tolerate blatant neglect.
With deliberate absent minded-ness, Helena tapped the hand still holding her phone against her leg. The idea of feeling the phone vibrating from a new message kept running through her head, though, as keenly as she felt the desire for it to happen, the only response she could see herself doing involved hurling her phone into the Gotham night sky.
From amino acids to girl scouts, there was no doubt that Question saw the world in a different way than she did. She couldn't say why she found his eccentricities as magically endearing as she did. She wasn't put off by the fact that Q started off with a definite edge in knowledge about her and her life. Nor by the awkward streak that belied a man who didn't socialize often, platonically or otherwise. She was even amused by the way that his rambling speech often flowed into a stream of consciousness monologue, always so completely oblivious to the ridiculousness of what he talked about. And she had even been accepting of what he did with the Justice League's trash, which would make more than a few of the space station live-ins blush. She thought it was reasonable enough; every couple needed to get use to each other's quirks. But relationships needed two people to be present and accountable as well, and the Question built his identity trying to be anything but.
A late night breeze unsettled her hair and cape as Helena finally slipped her phone back into its compartment. The problem was, she realized, that Helena was dating the symbol, not the man. No phone calls, no dinner dates, no mingling between secret identities.
She had been furious when she found Q in her apartment earlier that night. She had dropped into her own living room through a hinged pane in a glass skylight, so beautifully work into the stylized metal frame that no one would even notice there was a hidden keyhole, any more than they would that the glass was bulletproof. She landed in her living room to that distinct feeling of crowdedness that only came when one expected to be the only person in a room and weren't, and then she'd called out her warning:
"Alright, you can show yourself now or after gaining a few bruises."
"Interesting, I had the impression I was always welcome."
"Q?!"
Her relief at hearing his voice had been so overwhelming, Helena felt mortified to think of it in the present. As if she had never stopped to think about who it was she'd been dating, if dating really was the right word. It was all too easy for her to picture the worst now, after Cadmus.
He had been so baffled by her reaction. Completely oblivious when she brought up the week's long silence via phone and text. Any longer and she would have been swallowing her pride and battering the League communication lines that she wasn't supposed to access any more, and dealing with the severe humiliation that would have ensued.
"I decided to give up cellphones to maintain obscurity."
In a flash that hit her so heavily that she had temporarily lost the ability to speak, the broken triggers in her head had snapped together, and her mood had changed. Her eyes reacted first. She had felt them glare fire through her mask, just as they had every second since, and if Q had had any sense at all he would have looked scared.
"Over a week ago?"
"It's important to maintain an untraceable line of communication in order to—"
"Unreachable from me? Were you planning to tell me, Q?"
"I assumed you would be able to reach me through other channels –"
"In what world does that make sense!" She had cut him off, already blind angry, at being left out of the loop, at the sniggering implications that such oversight could have implied, at knowing already that those weren't the case, because she was dating the only man in the world who really would just stop having a cellphone. And because he hadn't sounded sorry enough. The last sparked her temper to new heights, and, insensibly, her volume.
"I can reach you without using a phone, you can reach me. I'm sorry that I upset you, but I don't see how this is an issue."
"That's the problem!" she had snapped. "God, I've been trying to reach you for days! When I was out on patrol. . ."
"You bring your cellphone with you while on patrol? The risks of that alone are—"
And that, had been the wrong thing to say.
Helena shook her head as she remembered the fight. Verbal in nature, which had left her feeling jittery and volatile with the pent up rage, even now. It was almost a shame that she hadn't run into any of the Gotham sleazebags that were usually so reliable during the earlier hours of the night. She would have liked the chance to let some of her anger out, but instead it twisted itself around in her gut. Around and around, until it soured into remorse.
She didn't know whether she had a metaphorical something of any kind in her life now.
Huntress felt tears threatening to make an appearance again, as she watched the five o'clock morning train leaving Gotham in the distance. She wondered whether Q would be on it, whether he would be hiding his featureless face behind a newspaper to avoid notice, or disguised as his civilian self.
All this time, only seeing his face once.
The self-righteous rage peeked its head through the pending depression tainting her thought process again, as if checking up on her. Helena only shook her head.
"Mommy, look! It's Huntress!"
Helena looked down with a start to see that a car had appeared at the traffic light below. A little girl with her window rolled down was pointing at her from the backseat. It was shocking to see a child so wide awake this early in the morning, but more importantly, it shocked Helena out of her thoughts. She realized all at once that the sky was significantly paler than when she first landed on the building. Time had been freely passing while she'd been trapped on the dreary merry-go-round in her head. People were waking up, cars were moving, trains were leaving, and soon she would have to get up and start her civilian life. All too painfully soon.
Huntress waved to the little girl as the light turned green and resisted the urge to sniffle as she left for home.
~k~
The thought of calling in sick to work was very tempting after Helena finally changed out of her Huntress gear. By the time that she had finally made it back to her apartment, it hit her that she wouldn't be able to actually get any sleep before she was due to teach her first class of the day. The bed had beckoned, but she instinctively knew that she'd rather have the distraction of spending the day at work than wake up to the aftermath of the night before. With that in mind, she had turned into the bathroom for a hot shower and then to the kitchen, where she filled up two grab-and-go thermoses with coffee, before heading out the front door.
By the time the day ended, "tired" was no longer an adequate word to describe how she felt. She was drained entirely and utterly, to the point where she couldn't even grumble about the way that the bruise on her thigh ached a little with each step she took up the stairs to her apartment. Upon reaching her living room, she had immediately kicked off her shoes and turned sluggishly toward the bed.
She managed to twist off her jacket as she simultaneously sank onto the mattress, already deciding that the rest of her professional attire would just have to suffer through the creases. Her head hit the pillow and her heavy eyelids shut. There wasn't a bad thought in the world that could keep her from drifting into a blank, black sleep for hours.
The knock on her door was immediate, almost as if it had been waiting for her. Helena spent one long moment trying to convince herself that she had only imagined it in her delirious haze. Then she cracked open one eye as another knock came through the door, and cursed quietly to herself in Italian.
"Just a second . . . !"
The tight fabric of her knee-length work skirt seemed to purposely constrict around her legs as Helena pulled herself out of bed and groggily dragged herself across the room.
She put her hand on the latch when she reach the door, but stopped to briefly to scan the room around her and check where her high heeled shoes had landed, and note the proximity of the cast iron vase she kept on a small table near the couch, should she needed a weapon. She was for the most part certain that she could beat the snot out of any doorjacker assailants without using anything other than her own limbs, but it never hurt to be sure of the options.
The man on the other side of her door wasn't familiar to Helena at first. All that she could initially make out was a shock of red hair and a wide forehead, made wider by the distorting effects of the little glass bubble. Then as the man on the other side fidgeted, she took in the thin lips and green eyes, so much clearer now than they had been in that memory that was still a part of her nightmares. He was lifting his hand for the third knock when Helena fumbled with the locks in her hurry to get the door open. When she did, the knuckles were still posed.
The green eyes widened a little at the sudden change, or maybe because she looked unabashedly as if she'd literally spent the entire night in an alley. Helena hardly paid it any attention as she looked over his face, completely devoid of the bruises and swelling that had made it so hard to recognize a moment before.
"Hello. . . "
"Hi."
Helena waited as twenty seconds ticked past in awkward silence. The man in front of her opened and closed his mouth three times, the rest of him as stiff as if he'd been painted on cardboard. She didn't realize she was amused until she said, "You must be more uncomfortable right now than you've ever been in your life."
"You'd be surprised." Q looked down the hall and then back at her. "Can I come in? It's exposing enough to come through the front door."
A stranger speaking to her in a familiar voice.
"You must be glad my building doesn't have a security camera, aren't you?"
"Doesn't have a camera that you're aware of."
Helena couldn't help staring at him as she let him walk into her apartment, knowing that he had been there before but somehow thinking that he looked so out of place. She closed the door after him, and almost as quickly as she turned around, the stranger who she knew wasn't a stranger at all had tossed aside the jacket he had been holding over his arm (brown rather than blue, she noticed) and produced a bouquet of dark purple roses that had evidently been hidden under it. He held them out to her as if they were a magic wand, blossoms first. When she looked at his face, she saw him watching her nervously, his lips bent in a weak curve that gave her the impression that he really didn't know what to do with his face.
"For you."
"What are you doing, Q?" The expression on his face was so awkward, that even as Helena spoke she felt herself suppressing a laugh, whether from the situation, or the relief of seeing him still in her city. . .or just the sheer level of exhaustion she felt.
"I could try chocolates as well, if that would be better. Or—"
"Q."
"I'm, uh. . .apologizing," Q said quietly. "I'm not good at these things. But I want to. . ."
Another fifteen seconds passed.
"You want to?" She tried to suppress it as she took a step closer to her visitor. It was unnerving to see his eyes fixed onto her as she moved, and the rosy color darkening to bright crimson in his face at a rapid rate. Under his coat on the couch, she saw the edge of what looked to be a candy box sticking out. Heart-shaped, if she were to judge by the distorted lump in the fabric. It brought to mind in a second, the memory of their first "real" date, take out dinner and a stay in movie, a paranoid man's twist on in the most old fashioned, cliché and endearing terms.
"I want to say that it wasn't intentional. I'm not use to having to think about. . ." He trailed off again, awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Helena looked him over again once more, noting the difference in the details but the undoubtable likeness of the whole. She knew that it wasn't easy for him to be here (for one thing, he was right that there were actually cameras in the building). She stopped Q in his struggles with a suddenness that didn't fit with the extent of her exhaustion at all, throwing her arms around him and hugging him hard. She couldn't help it. There very well may have been a magnet there. She was just too overcome with the sensation to gloom lifting off her to care what it was. Him trying was enough right now.
"Quiet, Q." She buried her face in his brown jacket, feeling the edges of his red hair against her ear, and hiding the moisture that was trying to escape her eyes. "I'm sorry too."