Summary:The Wayne family has dinner together and present Helena with a present. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's early evening in the Wayne home. Dinner is prompt as always, at 6:30 PM. Already settled at the table, Bruce is sitting, and holding a package in his hands. Set upon the table, his hands are folded over the wrapped package as he waits for the two women to join him. The patriarch of the family waits patiently, as Alfred is setting out plates and drinks for three - himself, Selina, and Helena. The core of the family.
Helena has been putting the final touches on her science fair project. It's an ambitious thing, an extension of tech she wanted to try to use on the streets but couldn't quite get right, so she's been using the science fair as an excuse to continue tinkering with it. It's taken up most of her evenings lately - no doubt much to the relief of her parents.
"Hi, Alfred," she sing-songs as she comes into the dining room, pausing by Bruce's chair to deliver one sideways hug before she's slipping into her usual seat. "So, I think I've got it all almost worked out. I just have to figure out the best demonstration for it."
Selina nods to Alfred with a smile as he fills her glass, thanking him and letting a moment pass for dignity's sake before taking a sip and sighing. Some days she thinks the toughest struggle of her life is resisting the instinct to become a wino. She looks from the present to Bruce with a bit of a twinkle in her eyes, than the smiles when Helena appears. "Glad you could join us, professor~" She greets merrily, well aware of her daughter's project, and nods her head once. "Mmm, the worst part about any project is finishing it. That's why we only take endless jobs around here~"
When Helena arrives for dinner, Bruce rises for her. "What did you decide on for a project?" he asks, greeting Helena with a kiss to the top of her forehead. "Hello, little kitten." he responds, before Selina settles in, and Bruce glances aside. Reaching out, he gives her hand a warm and affectionate squeeze, before he turns his attention back to Helena. "Your mother and I have been talking. And we've talked it over. And over." he says with a chuckle.
And with that, he slides the package over to Helena for her to open. When she does, within she'll find the same polymer fabric that both the Catwoman and Batman suits are made of - the undersuit base of them. "Your mother will be providing you with the information, but I believe I have found an appropriate way to start your first street training. Once you have decided on a name, and a costume."
There's a firmness to his lips, but it gives way to a hint of pride. "It's time." he offers to her. "Supervised, of course." And you know he's going to have rules, so hold tight for that.
"It's the mind-reader," Helena starts to explain. A couple years ago, in the aftermath of registration, she started looking into powers herself. And one of the ones that fascinated her was telepathy. After all, trying to communicate with a team without giving away your position is a serious problem. So she'd started working on an interface and a system that could interpret brainwaves into words - at least key ones, similar to hand signals that a SWAT team might use when they could see each other.
"I'm a little worried that it takes calibration. Like, I can't have just anyone sit down and use it, because it takes repetition to match their brainwaves to their interpretation of the information, so…it kind of relies on the research and my demonstration, which kind of makes it look staged," she grimaces. "So. We'll see how it goes."
Her frustrations with her project, though, at forgotten in a moment when he slides over the package, brow arching curiously before she starts to open it up. "No way!" she exclaims, about four octaves higher than she'll ever admit to. "No way!" Bouncing up out of her chair, she catches first Bruce and then Selina in throttling hugs, accompanied by more of that high-pitched noise.
Selina sets her glass down, and crosses her arms in her lap, devoting her attention to this, and glancing away only to give Bruce a wry look at the second 'and over'.
Her delight at Helena's reaction is obvious, drawing a laugh from Selina that is interrupted by a quick yelp "Whoah!" when Helena hugs her super tight; putting her own arms around her daughter and hugging her back as she purrs, "You deserve it, Kitten. You worked haaaard." She puts her hands on Helena's shoulders and kisses her forehead once. "I'm proud of you~"
There's an ooof as Bruce is solidly collided into by his daughter, and he returns the hug, though he warns. "Don't get excited. This is the easy part." he warns her, as he settles into the chair and waits for Helena to settle back into her seat. "First. Your mother will be in charge on this mission. She says leave, you leave. You don't talk back, you don't sass. This isn't like being at home. They don't know that you're Helena Wayne. They don't know she's Selina Kyle. You keep it that way. Get used to calling her Catwoman when you're with her."
"Two, trust but verify. Everything. I don't care if you know it's a sure thing, you have Selina look at it as well. We have experience that you don't." he responds, hands folding over each other on the table.
"Third. You're going to meet other heroes out there that are your age. You do /not/ share your identity with them. I don't care how much you think you can trust them, one of the strongest things we have going for us, Helena, is that people do not know who we are under the mask. You give your identity, you lose the mystique to go with it. This includes if you decide to join a team. I was in the first iteration of the Avengers, and I can count on one hand how many people on that team know that Batman is Bruce Wayne. I expect the same from you."
"Next. We do /not/ take a life." He's said this, time and time again, he knows he has, but he has to reiterate it one more time. "Taking a life leads in a direction that it's near impossible to come back from. There are exceptions to this - we will discuss those at a future time."
Now that its out of the bag, and the first rules laid down, he waits to see how Helena responds to these first rules.
Helena slides back into her chair, now absorbed in looking over the details of the suit. Checking the fabric, the stitching, the placement of the extra shielding. They can probably both see the gears turning in her head as she works out her own modifications. But once the rules come out, she looks up, eyes serious as she listens to her father. Each time she nods, serious, though there is the slightest grimace when he mentions secrecy. It's clearly something she's been thinking about, too.
"I've been working on the holo-disguise too," she says, glancing back to her mother. "For identity stuff. You know, in case anything happens."
Selina's good cheer is tempered by a bit of a sympathetic smile offered to Helena was the rules are read out, no doubt not for the first time; though it doesn't seem like Helena is frustrated by it like Selina would have been as a kid, so that's good~. As hypocritical as it may be from Selina Kyle of all people, she figures the less rebellious chafing the better.
Selina tilts her head curiously, and nods once in regards to Helena's project. "That'll be something." She says, mostly making an effort to be supportive since, offhand, she can't quite picture such a device herself. Makes her feel kinda old, to be honest. "But until then, our faces stay covered even if it means wrapping wearing a paper bag on our heads." She smirks, "As a last resort, I mean. We'll get you something more stylish~"
"You can use a Robin mask until you figure out your identity. I was told to stay out of that one." There's a glance over to Selina in amusement, as Bruce turns his attention away from his fiancee to his daughter. "I know you have your driver's license." That was her sixteenth birthday present. "Access to the vehicles will be on an as-needed basis. As far as the world will know, you will be the Robin to Selina's Catwoman. Or.. I guess Catgirl?" he's not even sure on this one.
But, that also should say something to /Selina/. He's willing to let her take change. He's trusting her with their shared heartbeat and treasure. "Do you have any questions?" he asks her finally.
Helena looks painfully serious. Aside from her excitement when she first opened the package, she's been very quiet, carefully contained. She's pushed for this long enough to know exactly how serious it is and exactly how quickly it can go away if she makes a misstep. And this is much too important to her to risk messing it up with a wrong world at this delicate juncture.
"Everything is under wraps, right?" she asks, looking between her parents. "It's not just that I'm not Helena Wayne, it's that crime-fighting me is just…" She pauses, allowing a faint smirk. "Just another ward slash foundling slash whatever people think Robin is to Batman. I'm not Batman and Catwoman's daughter either. I'm just…the intern. Right?"
Selina shares a wry glance with Bruce, but also gives him an affirming nod. She knows how much his trust means, especially in regards to their child, and she takes that seriously. More than anything, though, Selina seems almost intrigued by Helena's composure. The smile she gives is proud, but also almost a little… 'sad' isn't quite the word. But seeing the moments in which she takes after her father is a funny feeling. She nods once to Helena in confirmation, and says, "You're you, hon. Whatever that happens to mean to you. And what we are to each other, well, that's nobody else's business."
"Most of the world knows that Selina Kyle lives in Wayne Manor with her fiancee, Bruce Wayne, and their daughter Helena.. and my various wards as they come and go." Bruce responds. "The world does not know that Catwoman and Batman live together. They think that Catwoman's turn over a new leaf and trying to do right. That she's part of.. most people call them my soldiers. You and Selina have changed that.. soldiers makes it sound as though you are both pieces on a chess board to be moved." Bruce lets out a long sigh of thought as he moves to drink from his wine finally.
"You're my family. More than any of my kids were before you, Helena. You are my flesh and blood. You're the bond that your mother and I decided to have together." he glances aside to Selina. He knows how hard this is for her, and he lets out a breath. "Your mother.. she is very much like you are. She's a free spirit - she's so indpendent. I want to marry her. She knows this. But she wants her room, her space to figure out what it is that she wants to be. But I do know this. She loves you as much, if not more than I do. And even if we can't acknowledge that when we're out there in the cowls? That does not change underneath this roof." Reaching out, one hand takes Helena's, the other takes Selina's, and he squeezes them both.
"Welcome to the Mission, Helena. I don't know what you're going to use for your nickname yet, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you're prepared." he says quietly, seriously. "Selina can tell you what you're going to be doing, and when. For now?" he says, as Alfred arrives with their meals, the smell of poached salmon in the air. "I want to enjoy dinner with the two women I care for the most."
"I know what we are," Helena smiles crookedly back at her parents. "I'm just making sure I know what we are when we're not…you know, us. So I can be prepared." Not that she hasn't been preparing for this her entire life. She definitely has. When Bruce calls for food, she reverently folds the suit, tucking the paper back around it before setting it gently on the chair next to her. Where she can make sure it doesn't disappear.
After a moment, she clears her throat, looking up with a much more mischievous curve of her lips. "We can tell the others though, right?"
Selina smirks to herself, propping her head up on her hand with her elbow on the table - TERRIBLE table manners - and shakes her head, gesturing with her free hand to Helena when she speaks. "We just need a refresher sometimes, hon, you know that." Her Bruce could be so serious sometimes~ But she kinda loves that about him.
Helena's question prompts a wide grin from Selina, "Oh yes, you brag your little heart out." It could come back to bite her, but that's true of most fun things.
There's a shake of his head and Bruce just looks amused. "They wondered at times if I was going to make Ace a member before you." There's a sigh. He's worried, it's clear in his expression for a moment as the plates are set down to get them started on their meals. He closes his eyes, perhaps in thought. Perhaps in prayer. They're going to need both, he imagines.
But finally he speaks. "There is one more rule. In this house, when the masks are off? Everything stays with them. It's the one thing that centers me, is knowing that within these walls, I can still be Bruce Wayne. But if you ever need me. To talk. Anything. I'll be there." he says finally.
"I know you will, Dad," Helena promises, reaching a hand for his. "And I'll make you proud. I promise." Selina may note that's the only actual promise she's given. But then, she's been in on more of her daughter's tricks than anyone else.
"So, Mom and I went shopping for prom dresses while you were out the other night," she obligingly changes the subject away from masks.
Selina nods once in agreement with Bruce, an understanding smile on her face - she can put up with /some/ rules, she's nice that way - though her smile tightens slightly with amusement as she catches on the a subtlety of her daughter's that shhe finds almost gratifying in the sneaky fingers-crossed spirit of omission. She reaches out for Bruce's other hand and gives it a squeeze in concert with her daughter.
Helena's change of subject, though, prompts a sharp "Ha!" from Selina who covers her mouth to turn it into a mischevious chuckle. "Oh, right. You'll love it, don't worry about a thing. You've had your heart pills?"
She knows there's no heart pills.
Really? Heart pills? That's how they were going to try to sneak that past Bruce? "Who's the date? I assume he will be coming here to pick you up?" he asks, a lift of his brow to his daughter. Though it's Selina that draws the look. He considers. "There's some people that owe me favors. Maybe I can get Isley.. or Nygma…" to visit him.."
He's kidding, right? It's hard to tell with that poker face. He just squeezes their hands, and returns his attention to tucking into his meal. "Alfred did exceptionally well on the fish tonight, don't you think?"
"Yeah, well, your threat would have more teeth if there was a date," Helena rolls her eyes, trying to smirk but not quite managing. Instead, she pushes her fish around on her plate, though she does look up long enough to flash a grateful smile in Alfred's direction. "It's great, Alfred, always. But yeah. No date. Apparently someone managed to start a rumor that the reason I got into that fight with Parker earlier in the year was because he asked me out and not because he was being a complete and utter douche to Olivia, and now the guys who weren't conviced I was a weird nerd are now also terrified of me, so. Good news, I am scary when I punch people."
"Mmm!" Selina agrees mid bite and leans back in her chair to wave, then point vaguely at the fish, then point at Alfred where he can see it so she doesn't have to talk with her mouth full. Helena's story draws a a sympathetic but deeply amused look from Selina, who asks. "What's the opposite of a late bloomer?" She asks proudly and very rhetorically.
Pushing the fish around a bit Selina shakes her head bemusedly "I wouldn't worry about it too much, hon. Sooner or later you'll punch someone who can take it, and you'll know you've found someone special." She's joking, and she may regret egging Helena on in that fashion, but she DOES give Bruce's arm a brief squeeze as she finishes so… maybe it's not a TOTAL joke, even if it's meant to be.
"Fine. But have they done chaperone signups yet?" Bruce could be totally teasing her about it as he considers. "Trust me, that is not a task I want to willingly take on. I have a hard enough time with the PTA meetings." There's a smirk at Selina's comment. "She's your daughter." he reminds her, amusement tucking onto his features.
"We're not rehasing that story tonight." he holds up his hands in mock self-defense. No, they don't need to share the story again of how Selina got an early drop on Bruce. Then he feels a vibration on his wrist. He glances at his watch and draws in a breath. "Patrol." he tells the two, as he takes one more bite from his meal as he rises to his feet.
Going over to Helena first, he leans over and kisses the top of her head. "I'm proud of you, Hel. And I know you can do this. Anything you put your mind to." he promises her. And then over to Selina, placing a kiss on her mouth, and a quick caress of her cheek. "See you in the morning." he offers to her, before he's turning to head out.