I was sorting out files on my computer and found this ficlet I forgot I wrote in response to a random fic prompt generator. It made me sad re-reading it, so I'm making all of you sad too. (Written back before Convergence made some of this a bit more canon.)
Prompt: _ confessed their love to _, but was rejected.
She had never expected it to go this far.
While Helena's dating history had been…varied over the years, one constant was that the subjects of her attraction had always been male. It wasn't that she was against same-sex relationships, no matter how devoutly Catholic she was, it just was never something that had crossed her mind.
Until Renee.
Their partnership had developed from an uneasy team-up to a surprisingly strong friendship faster than Helena realized. No one else but Dinah had ever accepted her with so little judgment, but beyond that, Renee seemed to understand her on a level the more cheerful blonde couldn't quite relate to. Maybe it was their shared history with Vic—Charlie, as Renee knew him. Maybe because they both understood hate and the consuming burn that demanded revenge when loved ones were taken. Maybe because neither of them glamorized or shied away from the darker side of their fight against Gotham's nastiest residents.
Either way, Helena had found herself more comfortable and relaxed around Renee than she had even with the Birds of Prey. There was nothing to prove, just an easy and, she had to admit, fun energy when they worked together. And Helena realized that was something she had never really expected to have in her life, but had desired more than she knew possible. And whenever Renee got injured or risked her life in a fight, Helena started to realize how powerfully she didn't want to lose that warmth in her soul.
Once she acknowledged how much of her heart Renee was beginning to take up, she started seeing the other woman in a different way. The carefully contained ferocity and passion with which she fought, as if every criminal was a personal insult to her past role as one of Gotham's few sincere police officers. The way her eye twinkled with insufferable mischief when she countered Helena stubborn-for-stubborn. The vulnerable side that she had begun to allow Helena to see when talk of the past or families came up. The way the scar on her forehead, the Mark of Cain that turned Helena's stomach with guilt for not stopping Renee from taking on that burden, faded and looked less raw whenever Renee was hanging out with her.
She had to admit it; it felt a bit like love. A truly kindred soul didn't come along every day, and after some consideration of whether she was just over-analyzing a good friendship, Helena had come to the conclusion that she was willing to pursue the idea that this could be something special no matter what body that soul was in.
And so it had been more gutting than she ever expected when a mission caused their paths to cross with the red-haired vigilante from Renee's past, a formidable Batwoman introduced to her simply as "Kate", and Helena discovered that Renee's heart already belonged to another.
She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, though. She had learned from long experience in Gotham that no matter how much she might try, she would never be able to compete with a Bat.