"Uh, hey, if you're just gonna sit there"—Helen doesn't quite have time to decide if she should be agitated at that introduction or not, because Kate barrels right on through with her question despite the arched brow—"can I play with your hair?"
The unexpected question has Helen blinking at the younger woman. "Excuse me?"
That does stop her, and suddenly, Kate looks embarrassed by both the desire and the question. "Uh. Sorry, no. Forget I asked."
"No, it's quite alright; I—"
"It's just that it's always so… perfect," she defends awkwardly.
Helen chuckles, canting her head. "Come on."
Kate's torn, but eventually gives in to just waltzing her way over to the couch with unconcealed enthusiasm and tugging her fingertips gently through the Doc's perfect waves of hair. "So it's not like, brushed by angels at night and you, you know, get up in the morning and never have to touch it, right?"
Helen's head tilts backwards and Kate's fingers fall out of her hair when blue eyes meet hers. "What are you trying to ask?"
Again, she amends with a cleared throat and a more direct approach. "Got a brush in here?"
"Ah. Bottom right drawer of my desk."
"Great," says Kate, trotting off behind the desk to search the indicated drawer. What she finds is the brush and a whole array of other beauty gear to go with it—comb, mirror, and a makeup case to boot. It's weird thinking of Magnus sitting behind her desk, touching up her lipstick when nobody's looking. She's always so busy and so put-together, it's damn easy to imagine that she wakes up flawlessly groomed head to toe every morning and doesn't think about it at all during the day. "Damn, Doc."
A brow arches on that expressive face, and Kate shrugs semi-apologetically. "You don't much seem like a playing-with-hair kind of girl," Magnus remarks in that intentionally blithe tone she sometimes uses.
"I mean, everybody likes hair though, right? Yours is sort of just… you know, perfect," she repeats, squinting and rather wanting to punch herself in the face for her ineloquence.
"Years of practice and careful grooming. And very good products," Helen assures her as Kate moves up behind her again. She's turned so her back is against the arm of the sofa now, and Kate lifts her hair out of the way before Helen reclines into the cushions.
She watches the boss' eyes close in repose before pulling the brush carefully through her locks, like she's afraid of doing damage. "So… you like having your hair played with?" she remarks, reaching for something to fill the void.
"It brings back fond memories of my mother," Helen says. That's not the whole truth, but Helen is more or less certain it's a universally-acknowledged fact that there's something lovely about gentle fingers against your scalp. Kate's pretty sure of that truth herself; she just always supposed Helen Magnus was about a thousand miles outside of any norms society had to offer. Regardless, the explanation at hand is easy enough, and Kate buys it readily.
"Yeah… mom used to play with my hair a lot too," she supplies a little awkwardly, biting her lip as she brushes out Helen's part, thanking whatever gods exist that the Doc's eyes aren't open to witness her expression. She probably looks like she's just started the third World War with a single backwards stroke of a hairbrush.
Boss-lady's apparently got her own agenda though, because she's practically crooning from her comfy perch in the cushions. It's a little hum that might or might not be a moan, and Kate eases her fingers through the smooth locks, gathering her hair up before combing her fingers through from bangs to tips a few times, just for kicks.
She doesn't stop for a long time, and Helen relaxes into the touch, nodding off as the fingers move steadily across her scalp, occasionally pausing to fiddle with the longer locks, like she's trying to decide if arranging it in some way is a good idea.
"It's been a long time since I tried to braid hair. Like, it was Barbie's hair I was braiding, a long time," Kate says quietly after a while.
Helen hums again in contented acknowledgement. "Feel free."
Kate'll be damned if it doesn't sound like Helen's ready to fall asleep right there, legs curled up under her and her arms folded across herself. So she doesn't say anything else.
It takes a while to get it right, but when Helen wakes up, Kate's evacuated, and her hair's pulled into a loose French braid that she rather thinks she likes enough to keep.