Question had been expecting her to ask him for help in tracking Mandragora after cutting through the red tape to discover what hole the government was hiding him in since the last couple of murders in the criminal underworld. Mandragora from a criminal standpoint had done 'well' since the Bertinelli murders yet whether he had known that she survived was definitely an unknown that bothered plus his discoveries about Mandragora's personal life. Another unknown involves said personal life, which could further complicate assisting Huntress in her pursuit of Mandragora.
He shifts his mind from that tangent to one about regarding his search for a connection between Cadmus and Luthor, which had been in mind even before Superman had brought up the possibility to the other Founders.
He did not overhear the meetings about Cadmus, but it felt predictable to surmise that Superman would immediately point the finger at Luthor. Batman in his second meeting with Waller found out that the government had sanctioned Cadmus' activities long ago, but this is unsurprising as elements throughout the military and political infrastructure had grown wary of in the past several years. Costume slip ups come with consequences that in some ways exceed the phrase 'let the punishment fit the crime.' The distrust only adds to the friction yet there are plenty to the stir the pot whether they know it or not.
Cadmus' facilities including their headquarters had been elusive to track down, but he would find it.
"Oh Cadmus, Cadmus, wherefore art thou Cadmus?"
He could hear footsteps, the first set sound like Huntress' high heeled boots, there is no mistaking the sound, but he mentally cringes that he should shift so quickly from Cadmus to her. His mind argues that she is a distraction yet his heart to his amazement quips that this search for Cadmus cannot be the only thing that infuses meaning to his life. The other foot falls belong to Stargirl and Starman as both wore boots though they are nowhere near as loud as high heeled boots. Plus Helena's are quite distinct from Diana's and then he feels a twitch in his face as if instantly aware of that he though of their names, not their costume aliases.
Helena… Huntress is pandering around the room until she sits on his desk and starts talking making a deal for him to help her in exchange for what she knows about Cadmus. He is certain she knows nothing yet at first to his own surprise agrees to help her despite the interpretation that she is clueless about Cadmus. It is clear that her last attempt to get to him had gone wrong and likely got her thrown out of the League.
First she makes reference to apophenia then she made a crack about his appearance yet through it all, she is putting on a show thinking she needs to use her body in tandem with an almost sultry voice to entice him to help her. He would have done it no matter how she put it to him and the likelihood that she is no longer League goes up when he notices her room empty of what little she kept there.
What is more is that her name is off the roster, her access codes are gone, and J'onn is probably the one that had given her the boot. The Martian did after all look a bit unsettled despite his tendency to reveal nothing about his emotions.
Question merely signals for a beam down and so it appears that nobody pays much mind as he had been a frequent traveler ever since the day he first had come topside to the Watchtower. He disappears from the teleport pad and reappears inside yet another of his hidden garages where he left the Pontiac last night after evading detection following the latest change of safe houses for Mandragora. As he kept tabs on Huntress, he also kept tabs on her quarry, yet why he told her nothing about it, he could not say for sure, maybe her making the first visual move is the cue he had been waiting on for months. This is about her, about her pursuit of Mandragora yet somewhere inside of everything else… he had Huntress or rather Helena on brain too much lately.
Now more than ever he felt like he had to do something about it because on the one hand his logical side or his brain kept bugging him about his interest in her while his emotional side or heart would mentally smack the logic for being so crude in language. However he made a point of not exactly following either in order to regain some shred of sanity before his emotions and tendencies got the 'better' of him. The only way to be sure someone from the League is also going to be there or not requires some amount of stealth yet again. It is then that he keeps a watch on Dinah Lance on her way to pick up Oliver Queen though they do make a secluded stop to change into costume apparently, which means he was right to suspect they were being sent as League security to assist Faraday.
He knows where they are going so there is no need to trail them any further plus Queen had seen his car so if he did try tail them further then he might prematurely alert Arrow to him watching them. It would complicate bringing Huntress into the mix if that did happen so he allows them to depart while he remains in the shadows with the car turned off. There is also a near certainty that Mandragora's bodyguards would be looking to relieve Faraday of his witness, their boss, which makes another unknown to tumble along with the known variables. He pulls out his wireless laptop, turns it on, accesses his encrypted email server, and sends the message to Huntress' laptop about directions to a rendezvous point that is close to Mandragora's safe house.
Next he dials her cell and expects she'll answer though possibly hesitate as his cell number is also untraceable. Question always made a point of using untraceable hardware because how else could he maintain such a level of secrecy to his actions?
Some questions are just rhetorical, spoken or unspoken, even that thought falls into that category.
[+++]
He knows it probably frustrates more than it intrigues her when he hangs up on her. She is at that rendezvous point ahead of him though knowing her she prefers to be ahead even he had chosen the location. He merely speeds in her general direction yet knows she could dodge a moving vehicle. The swerve is almost like showing off in front of her yet it had a practical point, which is to the point the vehicle towards the route he took to get inside instead of taking the longer way out of the underpass.
"I thought I'd cut out the middleman," admits Question.
What am I saying? I never anything like that at least I thought I did not.
She looks to be sizing up the Pontiac then he slides over inviting her to take the wheel.
"Oh, babydoll…"
She's never looked at him that way before he inwardly thinks while barely sharing the glance.
"… and just for the record, I usually prefer my dates to have a face."
He chooses to ignore her prod of a tease about his face again. She shifts gears then floors the car out of the underpass and follows his directions on how to reach the safe house.
[+++]
As they start down the street where the safe house is, Question notices a patrol car pulling up to the curb so he tells her to pull over to an unlit part of the street in order to conceal their presence. However he wonders if Arrow or Canary had already seen his Pontiac. Arrows is more likely to recognize it than Canary and it feels like he is walking into a loaded situation with the four of them coming together at this location.
They exit the car, he locks it using a remote locking device, and then they follow the sidewalk for a bit before going into the yard just beyond the safe house. He gestures that they are going to hop the fence yet just before they leap the fence Question remembers that no cops were expected to arrive at this time of night. Things just took a bad turn yet they must continue with this as they already are in the thick of things here. As they land on the other side, Arrow and Canary are there on the ground waiting for them as Question had suspected they might be given that J'onn was likely to warn them about Huntress possibly coming after Mandragora and that she would not be alone.
The Martian is cleverer than he looks, but how much can you hide from a telepath anyway?
"You are not getting in that house Huntress that I can promise," remarks Canary.
She knows something, but not the whole story, nobody knows the whole story, not even me.
"I'm here on League business Canary," says Huntress.
They won't fall for it and they know Huntress is out of the League.
"That's not what J'onn said, we just called him."
It looks like we have a fight on our hands then.
"Okay that didn't work…"
"Maybe this will…"
Both women look surprised that I slugged Arrow because I never look the physical type, but all in the eye of the beholder once more.
Arrow stumbles backward recoiling from the punch. Huntress uses Canary's confusion to jump kick her and so she too loses her balance ever so slightly. Huntress keeps up the attacks though Canary expertly dodges them so improvisation becomes necessary now. She slams Canary's forehead into her knee, which appears to make Canary a bit dizzy. Question realizes he is not much of a match for Arrow, but it is all part of the illusion here. Arrow side steps every swing then knocks Question down with an elbow blow to the back yet Question is quicker on the footwork than Arrow.
"Why are you doing this Question?" snaps Arrow.
"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," retorts Question.
We both know you would dismiss and report me in a heartbeat Queen.
Arrow falls onto his back after getting the trip over by Question. The attempt to pin Arrow predictably fails though he does make another mistake by pulling Question back to his feet in order to punch him. Question lands another blow only for Arrow expectedly to follow by flipping onto the ground again.
As for Huntress she is keeping at it with the kicks, which Canary so far seems unable to deflect though all Canary would need is one 'wrong' move to take down Huntress.
"I heard you were some kind of great fighter," remarks Huntress.
A string of swings and blocks then Huntress pulls a wrong move, a roundhouse kick, likely the very same that Canary had tried to pull on Arrow during their first sparring match back on the Watchtower. The surprise on Huntress' face is noticeable even to Question who is still on the ground debating whether or not to get up and try to swing at Arrow some more.
You chose the wrong move, but this is not over Huntress, I assure you of that… Helena.
Canary utilizing all her upper body strength lifts then flings Huntress into a parked car. She crumples to the ground.
"You heard right," admonishes Canary.
Arrow not waiting to give Question anymore shots at trying to attack throws him against the car yet Question cannot shift direction to avoid colliding with Huntress as she tries to get to her feet.
This is not how I thought I would end up closer to you, but it seems to be the way things are coming together.
Arrow stands over both of them with an arrow ready to be shot at them if they try anything else.
"I'd advise you to stay down. These impact arrows are non-lethal, but they hurt… a lot."
She decides to play along for now and so must I until we find something to put us back on the trail.
"He is gone… Mandragora is gone," exclaims Canary.
[+++]
All three Federal agents including Faraday are injured to some degree so it might be up to someone else to track down Mandragora. Arrow, Canary, and Faraday are naturally quite mad about the escape and more so the distraction brought on by the presence of Huntress and Question.
"You have any idea what you have done?" snaps Canary.
"Yes I am after a murderer… a murderer that the League is protecting," hisses Huntress.
These two under other circumstances might have gotten along better, but then we will not get far here without butting heads with someone even if it has to be Arrow and Canary.
"We don't have time for this…"
All three glance over at Question who appears to be examining several things in close proximity to the doorway. Arrow recognizes that Question is up to something, but he is obviously not sure of what exactly.
"Don't make me ask again," demands Arrow.
Question pulls the key out of his pocket.
"You mean this?" chirps Question.
Canary takes the key from him and they prepare to leave them behind.
"This is a storage key for a place down near the train station," comments Canary.
"You two stay here…, "commands Arrow.
He looks briefly to Huntress before finishing his statement.
"Don't make me sic Black Canary on you - you've only seen her nice side so far."
Arrow… Queen… is clueless to just how dark people can get when they stop believing in being nice. Nevertheless the diversion appears to be working for the time being.
Huntress punches Question in the shoulder.
"Ow! What was that for?" grunts Question.
You underestimate at your own risk and so do I.
"All that crazy mystery man mojo and you couldn't even pick up a clue without being seen?" chides Huntress.
The subtlety appears lost on her, but she had given me the opening that would not have been possible had I done this… without her.
"The key wasn't the clue. The key was mine. Now, this list of container ship arrivals I palmed when they were yelling at you: that's the clue."
She eyes the schedule's cover and slightly smiles then opens the door to run the way back to car except Question on the way back to the car notices that Canary's motorcycle is still where she left it so either they made a teleport to the train station or they were still here. Whatever the case, they had to get out of here and to the waterfront. This time he would be driving the car of course. The Pontiac lights up and roars away then he notes a motorcycle getting ready to follow them.
I dupe you, you almost trick me, and now I must ditch you two somehow.
[+++]
"You're even smarter than they say," concedes Huntress.
"Smart enough to realize you don't know jack about Cadmus," admits Question.
"...I needed your help," confesses Huntress.
"Talk to me about Mandragora. What did he do to you?" queries Question.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Wouldn't understand what? That he worked for your father Franco Bertinelli or that your father himself was a powerful crime boss?"
The memories coming flooding back with the surprised look on her face.
In her mind, his narration fits every detail like a glove.
'You were just a child. You certainly didn't understand what your father did for a living. You just knew that when he talked, people listened. That he always had his guys around him to do whatever he said, but the most frightening one was Mandragora. That looking into his eyes was like looking into an empty pit. Then one terrible night, Mandragora decided he no longer wished to take orders.'
Huntress again sees that night through eyes of her younger self, the little girl who answered happily to the name Helena, but everything was about to change when the Bertinellis rush home that night.
"Get behind me Helena, it will be alright."
'At the time you probably desired that his reassuring words would be made reality because people listened to him, but not that night, that night nobody listened to him except you. Your father hoped to protect you by hiding you in the closet. He placed you inside, you went along with his command, and then he left you in there.'
"He's coming…"
"He tried to get between your mother and Mandragora once Mandragora began advancing on them. But you saw the whole thing. Steven Mandragora killed your parents while you watched helplessly… isn't that what happen?"
In the memory, the little Helena silently cries and is later found by her father's still loyal associates.
In the present, a single tear begins to flow from her right eye though she is quick to rub it away.
"If you knew all that, then you probably know what I'm gonna do to Mandragora when I catch him. So why help me?"
"That... is the question."
Perhaps I am seeking to help you avoid making a decision you'll regret or be there when no one else is.
"Somebody is following us," notes Question.
"Lose them!" orders Huntress.
"Like airline luggage."
Question remembers he is still wearing his earpiece comlink when he hears Black Canary's voice in his ear. Huntress almost automatically snaps out of her somber reminiscence at the sound of that voice too. Question realizes Canary will not allow them to reach Mandragora first so he would have to find a creative way to end the chase. He swerves the Pontiac towards the ramp on a parked car trailer and leaps across the distance between it and the rail tracks.
Midtown Tunnel... well that means there will be a train along soon and the other track is still a few minutes ahead, it'll be close, but it can be done though I really hope they are not idiotic enough to follow me. Canary might be furious enough to venture it so it falls to Arrow to dissuade her, but it won't work out.
"Train!" pips Huntress
"I see it!" retorts Question.
She repeats herself and so does he then somehow he dodges the oncoming train by swerving the Pontiac into a tunnel that runs almost parallel to the one they were just in seconds ago. There would be no room for Canary to dodge the train regardless of how far behind she was with Arrow on her bike. He would not want to be him right about now and besides he had more important things to deal with by the time they got to the waterfront.
[+++]
Mandragora's limo shows up right on schedule or close to it given that he would want to change clothes before coming here to meet the freighter as Question thought most probable. His two bodyguards get an unwelcome surprise when one of Arrow's arrows binds them together and Canary mistakenly thinks she can get the drop on the larger man. His attention gets a diversion from Arrow firing a spread of electric discharge arrows at him then he goes to pile drive Arrow presumably except Question jumps on his back despite how futile a gesture it really is against Mandragora. The fat man merely hurdles him at Arrow and their combined weight hitting the crane tower's base causes its payload to shift position. A single I-Beam falls yet fortunately misses dropping on both Arrow and Question.
Canary vaults over Mandragora and makes probably the most ridiculous declaration that Huntress ever heard yet if there is anything she had learned from Question tonight is someone else tends to provide a good distraction. The idea about she could use that method occurred to her after what happen with the key and the schedule. She did not think she have to test it out in a situation as lethal as this one. Canary's subsonic 'cry' only shreds the upper part of Mandragora's expensive suit before she collapses from the exhaustion of using the ability against someone of his size.
"I have got special arrows too. The kind that can cut right through you…"
Huntress is not the little girl anymore yet he can still kill them all right now. She demands that he put Canary down, he obliges, and presumes to think she will be taking him back to federal custody. At first she had no intention of doing that, but then she hears a child voice's calling out.
Arrow and Question knock out the bodyguards that had come out of ship after the boy.
"Papa!"
"Edgar!" exclaims Mandragora.
He goes into detail about how rivals had kidnapped Edgar and only recently had his men been able to recover the boy. He also relates how they are going to disappear together and assume new identities in the hopes that nobody would come looking for them ever. She is intent on carrying out the sentence that he had escaped in her mind all these years and then he said the same words to Edgar that her father said to her just before her parents were killed by Mandragora. It made her tremble inside even more than her parents' killer having a son.
"Huntress… is this really what you want?" asks Question.
She catches a reflection of her younger self in the eyes of Edgar.
"No …"
Her finger closes down on the trigger, but instead of firing immediately, she instead aims upward at the support cables holding up the I-Beam payload. His body is tough enough to withstand it even if it is crashing down on him. Arrow and Canary cover Edgar from the backwash of the falling beams. As the dust settles she slowly walks towards the unconscious Mandragora.
"… That's not what I want at all."
[+++]
Mandragora is back in custody with no options, but to cooperate and as for Edgar, he is going into protective custody as well. Question with some measure of satisfaction felt that he done all he could to follow the variables and cope with the unknowns to get Huntress… to bring Helena to this moment instead of a moment where she might killed her parents' killer instead of sparing him. There is some unexplainable anxiety on his part even after all that had happen tonight, but it had more to do with what happens now between him and Huntress. She is bound to confront him to discern his motives for what he did tonight.
"You knew all along that kid was gonna be on that freighter", remarks Huntress.
"I do my homework", responds Question.
It is true that I had known much more from the start Helena.
"Then why go to all that trouble to help? Why would you risk your life for me? "
"Because I... like you," mumbles Question.
You really are one of kind Q, but I am still going to find out your real name some day.
Question looks down as if expecting her not to really react at all. He is taken a bit by surprise when she pulls him by his tie and their lips meet or at least she hopes she made her connect with his. It is brief yet passionate kiss at least to Question except it appears she is not done with him... not yet anyway. She pulls him along by his tie and could care less in the moment to whatever Canary is saying about what just happen to Arrow.
"Where are we going?" asks Question.
"Don't ask so many questions," answers Huntress.
[+++]
It is time for us to have a real date Q and for me to show how thankful I am to you.
They climb back into the Pontiac and drive off into the night only to stop somewhere secluded yet awkwardly romantic. It is dark enough for Question to consider venturing removing his mask though before he does, he flicks on the window tint, which is a very uncommon feature in cars though he had a few connections to people experimenting with artificial tinting mechanisms.
"You sure you want to be here Helena?"
"Get over yourself Q, I am here, you are here, forget about what we do for the rest of tonight."
He removes the mask and so they kiss more in the darkness with the car upon the sands of some beach miles from any familiar cities. She removes her mask as well and so for once he gets to see the outline her face without having to be looking at it in photos or from watching her without her knowing about it. Question does not believe himself a stalker, perhaps a mere admirer from afar, but now he is getting a taste of kissing her. His mind conjures up a thought of something that a silver screen actress once said though he cannot recall it precisely as part of him is having too much fun kissing Helena.
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
Ingrid Bergman was right about that, but his thinking side turns its full attention towards Helena. He caresses her dark hair and strokes her face.
She loosens his tie while perhaps wondering about when she might see his face instead of just the outline in the dark. She suspects she will just have to be patient with him because he had made been more than that for her especially in the last several hours.
The experience of being with him like this makes her feel so much more feminine though that is not necessarily a bad thing because she spent so much time training on how to fight, but nothing could ever have quite prepared her for someone like Question. She realizes now in some way why she felt so affected by being around him and why she put on lipstick before going to meet with him earlier tonight or last night depending on the time now. Whatever the case, she does not recall feeling this lovely in a long time and for that she would do more than just adore him.
A/N 1: This is more from Question's perspective during Double Date. He is very much aware of more than he lets on for most of the episode so I took it a little further in that he knows not only where Mandragora is and what he is planning to do, but who from the League is keeping watch on him.
A/N 2: Much of the dialogue except for some bits from early on and towards the end is from Double Date. There is plenty of internal thought on Question's part naturally. The episode really does live up to its title yet still deals with a serious subject in terms of how Question seeks to help Huntress.
A/N 3: I know Huntress/Helena isn't shown seeing his face until Flashpoint though here I simply have them kissing in the dark without their respective masks on. This particular idea for a scene occured to me from a number of films where kissing among other things was done in the dark.
