Note: Just to erase any doubts, the timeline is set after the episode "Double Date".
Eccentric charm
by Erugenel
Chapter 2: My Unconventional Hero
Well, if it was anything else it was gallantry, on his part. And, usually, both Helena Bertinelli and the Huntress (one and the same)were capable enough of getting themselves out of sticky situations, which was why she stayed up so many nights after her brush with the Question, wondering why she chose to ask him for help in the first place.
Now that she was kicked out of the Justice League she had more time on her hands, factoring in her crime fighting in Gotham every night and being a teacher at Gotham County High School. And she filled those spare hours grading papers, preparing lessons, training herself to be better, stronger, and faster than ever as the Huntress. And some nights she lay awake, thinking about how her life would have changed had she stayed in the League. Or thinking about him.
She stepped out of the steaming shower into her apartment; hair wet with water flowing in rivulets onto the floor, and sighed again. Making herself a cup of coffee to last her a few more hours, she sat down at her desk, closing her eyes, letting his faceless face fill her mind.
She knew what the other Leaguers had called him behind his back. Insane. A nutjob. And she knew that they never liked her too, a reckless, moody vigilante from Gotham City. Batman was bad enough. The more she thought of it, she realised in some ways, both she and Q were quite similar, the outcasts of a flashy superhero team. But she didn't feel any pity for him, for both of them, and probably Black Canary thought that she did. It didn't matter though.
She sat back for a while and closed her eyes. That night, after busting Mandragora, she had questioned him. Why did he help her? Risk his life for a League castoff? Now she had the questions, and the Question had the answers.
"I…like you."
He had turned his face (or lack thereof) away from her, as if the mask didn't already conceal his features from her. And in that moment, he had nothing of the cool, collected façade of the Question, he lacked the confidence with which he moved when he was sure of something. She realised that he was venturing into uncharted territory, and, maybe for the first time, he was shy.
The thought nearly made her blush and giggle. The Question, shy! She once heard Batman mutter to Wonder Woman when he thought she wasn't listening, "The things that Huntress makes some men do…" and she had made the impermeable Question admit that he had feelings for her.
Words weren't necessary. She basked in the realization that a man liked her. Flattered, she felt. Shy, too, so unlike her. And soon she felt something else too. Warm tendrils of softness and tenderness seemed to draw him to her. Inexplicably, she felt drawn to him too. The things that man made her do…
She knew then what she had to do. Grabbing him by his tie, she kissed him where she supposed his lips were, surprised but expecting the feeling of warm soft lips under the mask pressing against her own, yearning to plunder her mouth and claim her as his. Something stirred in them, the realization that something new was happening. Both of them, lonely, she desperate, he misunderstood, maybe finding new direction in each other.
In that moment, she knew that she too had fallen hard for the Question.
He had brought her then to a quiet jetty, with the sparkling waves of the coast beneath them, and there, they had talked. Slowly, in halting sentences due to her nervousness and his shyness. But soon he had her describing to him her Italian heritage, making sure to avoid the darker parts, that which they had unearthed that night. He had let her in on one of his conspiracy theories, and like so many others before her, she had shook her head. But, instead of laughing, she gave him a sad, amused smile, accepting him for his quirks, unlike the rest.
Now, sitting at her desk after a night of working Gotham's streets, she yearned to feel him, to see him again, smell the crisp, clean smell of his trademark blue overcoat. She could envision him, tall, reserved, an enigmatic figure in his blue overcoat and fedora. Not your conventional superhero garb, and yet, he was not your conventional superhero. A part of her was drawn to this unfamiliarity, no more skin-tight but instead loose fabric; not the revealing masks but instead the charisma of the unknown. And that early on in their…relationship, she had not even seen his face. A part of her knew that some day he would show the real man behind the mask to her. She didn't want to have to ask him, but instead, she wanted him to take the initiative. It would only be a matter of time.
She slowly opened her eyes, knowing that she did have another job that included her having to mark assignments into the night. She heard a knocking at the door. Wondering who would bother to come at such an ungodly hour, she opened the door to find a man, dressed in a blue overcoat complete with a fedora on his head. She smiled, but it quickly turned into a frown.
"What are you doing here? Do you know how late it is?" she then realised how stupid she must have sounded.
"Of course. I came to see you." He cocked his head at her, "Aren't you going to let me in?"
She stepped aside to let him in, closing the door just as it started to rain. "Were you waiting outside all that while?"
"Well, my sense of morality and honour couldn't possibly allow me to enter your apartment when you were bathing, no matter how much that would have…ouch!" he cried when she had slapped his arm.
"And of course, I don't even have a key to your home."
"Which means yes," she finished for him. "Have a seat, I'll get you something to drink. What'll you have?"
"Water please." He said, seating himself comfortably on her shagpile sofa. His overcoat was thrown over a chair, his fedora fluttered to the coffee table. From her position in the kitchen, she could see him in the living room, loosening his tie, running his hands, now ungloved, through his hair. These little things endeared him to her. She carried a glass of water to where he was, and had barely set it down on the table when he took her hand and pulled her onto his lap.
"Hey!"
"On the contrary to your protests, I think you rather like it like this."
"I have papers to grade, Q!"
"And tomorrow is Saturday. Why not take tonight off?"
"Touché." She smiled and snuggled into his warmth.
"Shouldn't you be at home?" she asked him, running her fingers over his hand.
"I thought maybe you and I could spend some time together. And besides," he said, gesturing at her rain-lashed window, "I can't possibly head home in this downpour."
She smiled deviously. "So you're here for the night?"
"Pretty much so."
"Good." She lay in his arms, warm and comforting, as the rain in a steady cadence lulled them to sleep. But before she was pulled into the realm of slumber, she heard him say something.
"Goodnight Helena," he said softly, brushing away stray locks of hair from her face.
"Q?" she said.
"Hmmm?"
"What's the real colour of your hair?"
She could feel him smile beneath the mask. She would uncover him, uncover the Question bit by bit, savouring each new thing she knew about him, storing it away to call upon in times of loneliness.
"Its red."
"Oh. Goodnight Q." At least it's a start.
"Its-"
He was about to tell her his name when he heard her soft breathing. He closed his mouth. There would always be another time. Tomorrow, maybe, at breakfast.
Smiling at the notion of spending one more day with the beautiful Helena Bertinelli, he dropped off to sleep, his arms around her, as the rains of Gotham slowed and steadied, a natural lullaby.
