Disclaimer: Characters of Warehouse 13 do not belong to me, sadly. I'm just playing with them. I'll put them back once I'm done.
A/N: Prompt from Crazycat9449 – "warehouse 13 hg/myka a kiss on the hand". Hope this lives up to any expectations! :)
"It's the curls." Myka said with an air of certainty that waivered slightly around the edges, as she appraised her reflection in the mirror suspended above the fireplace in Leena's living room. "It feels weird, having them back. Does it look weird?" Spinning to face the other occupants of the room, she darted her gaze back and forth between them and waited for an answer. Claudia, reclining across the sofa in a way that ensured she took up every available inch of sitting space, lifted her hands to cover her face and released an exasperated sigh.
"Myka, for the kajillionth time, you look amazing." She dragged her fingertips across her face to showcase the lovely pink of the inside of her eyelids. "You always look amazing." She let one arm fall away from her and off the side of the couch, hanging rigid as she gestured towards Pete with a flailing hand, silently communicating to him that he could jump in at any time. Seeing it, he hastily shoved the rest of the cookie he was nibbling on into his mouth and gave Myka a hearty thumbs-up.
"Hot like a fembot." He managed around his mouthful, chewing a final few times and then swallowing as Myka regarded him with a somewhat dubious grimace.
"I don't know if that's good or not." Pete gave her a confident nod.
"Oh, it's good."
"Yes, yes, a compliment of the highest ranking." Claudia said hastily, then held a hand out and snapped her fingers in Myka's direction. "Hand over the Farnsworth." At the appearance of the older woman's poker face, which wasn't very good when she was flustered and nervous, Claudia simply raised an eyebrow and continued to hold her palm out. "You're far too resourceful to let the fact that your dress doesn't have pockets hinder your ability to be reachable at all times in case a disaster should strike." She snapped her fingers again. "Hand it over." Rolling her eyes, Myka bent to the handbag she'd dropped at her feet and lifted it, tossing it gently towards the reclining redhead who beamed triumphantly and unzipped the main pocket. She pulled out the rectangular video communicator and held it above her head with one hand. "And once again, victory is mine." Pete curved his hands around his mouth, making a sound that semi-mimicked the noise of a roaring crowd of applause.
The chime of the doorbell echoing through the hallway beyond the room caused all other sound to cease and Myka blinked perplexedly towards the open doorway as Pete glanced around the room and silently counted the occupants, mumbling something to himself about Leena not needing to ring her own doorbell and the fact that Artie barely knocked before entering their bedrooms. Myka spun back to the mirror, staring hard at her reflection.
"Could one of you guys get that? I just need to fix," she brought her hands up, gesturing at the general area of her head, "this." Behind her back, Claudia was pointedly staring at Pete and shaking her head while he cocked his own to the side like a dog that didn't entirely understand what its master wanted it to do.
"Actually, my feet are killing me-" Claudia started and Pete caught on quickly, turning his attention to the woman still fussing over her appearance.
"My back is still kind of iffy from that thing when I walk." Slowly, Myka turned to face them and shot the pair a glare so hot, they were honestly kind of surprised they didn't melt and become one with material of the seats beneath them. Releasing a huff of frustration, Myka shook her head and strode through the centre of the room and out into the hallway. Once she was out of view, Claudia held her hand out in the universal sign for "hit me with a high-five" and Pete leaned forward, butt lifting from his chair as he obliged with a giggle and a grin.
"Wait," he paused, hovering for an instant, "why did we just wake the beast?" Claudia waved a hand dismissively at him.
"You'll see."
Myka grumbled her way towards the front door whispering heated though mostly unintelligible insults to no one in particular. They knew she was nervous, they knew she'd already changed outfits twice and was worried about looking too skanky, 'ho-ly' as Pete called it, or too conservative, 'nun-ly' as Claudia had offered, and they knew she was running out of time. She reached out, gripping the door handle with a little more force than necessary and, twisting, yanked it open, an altogether entirely unwelcome greeting ready to spring from her lips.
"Ah, darling. Splendid." That flickered and died as the door opened to reveal H.G. standing on the porch, brushing down her trousers and beaming up at Myka through the curtain of her hair. Straightening, she flicked it back over her shoulder and ran her hands along the front of the fitted grey vest she was wearing, tugging at its hem to straighten it. Myka blinked owlishly at her.
"Helena. What are you, how did, how are you here?" She finally managed, sputtering a little incoherently between each attempted question and glancing back towards the stairs that led to the second floor of the bed and breakfast. Helena lips curved into a smile that lingered close to a smirk as dark eyes gave Myka a sweeping onceover. The taller woman was wearing a deep purple strapless dress that ended a little way above her knees and was the only reason her legs did not go on forever. H.G. pulled her gaze up and chuckled quietly at Myka's evident befuddlement.
"There's not a drainpipe in all the land I'd be unable to shimmy down." She quipped, though, short of unauthorized artifact usage, it was the only explanation because Myka's attention had flickered towards the hallway every few seconds while she'd been attending to her appearance in the living room and she hadn't seen a so much as a glimpse of the other agent.
"You shimmied down a drainpipe?" The requested clarification was voiced with no small amount of disbelief and it only served to fuel Helena's obvious delight.
"Indeed I did." She admitted rather smugly and then glanced at something, nothing, over Myka's shoulder. "I was led to believe that one is to 'pick up' one's date for a planned evening of festivities, is that not correct?" Bemused, Myka's curly hair bobbed as she shook her head.
"No, that's… correct." A small frown creased her forehead, the formality of the word sounding odd and almost stilted as it passed her lips, and she quirked an eyebrow. "Pete?" Helena blinked slowly, her facial expressions shifting just slightly in a way that conveyed some reluctant amusement.
"Miss Donavon, actually." And then she sniffed, once, with an air of feigned derision. "Agent Lattimer's suggestion was far more vulgar." Myka rolled her eyes, finally releasing her grip on the door handle. "Though both partook in my plan of escape and, oh." Seeming to suddenly remember something, Helena stepped backwards off the porch and vanished from view for a moment before reappearing to proffer a small bouquet of sunflowers. "My acquisition of these." Myka's face blossomed and brightened into a smile at the unexpected gesture and she happily took the flowers.
"Helena…" She sighed, lifting them toward her face and inhaling their scent. "You didn't have to do any of this. The drainpipe, the flowers." She paused, an odd thought striking her, and then asked, "Why sunflowers?"
"A lady is to be doted upon in all senses of the word whilst gracing another with their company." And while someone else might have taken Helena's teasing smile as a clue to some underlying falsity, Myka knew her heavily accented words were heartfelt. "And I was informed of their," the inventor indicated the flowers, "meaning and felt them entirely suitable." Myka's lips parted as she readied herself to ask and then felt her breath catch as some long ago stored away memory reasserted itself at the forefront of her mind, but her words fell flat for the moment and Helena beat her to it. "Adoration and devotion." The air between them seemed to come to life, instantly charged by the words, but the crackling and popping was drowned out by the thunderous heartbeat that Myka could hear pounding in her ears. And then Helena stepped forward, dark eyes locked with green, and grasped the fingers of Myka's free hand in her own. Lifting it to her mouth, she pressed a feather-light kiss against her knuckles. "Are you ready to depart, darling?"
An unexpected and slightly ridiculous urge to laugh filled Myka at that and her lips curved upwards utterly against her control; because she was already so far gone.