Summary:Helena comes home to get her boo boos fixed. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Helena went out on a mission to help stop the Nightfall from taking even more kids. She was with SHIELD, she was with the spiders. She should have been fine. Except that the Nightfall had some bigger guns than anticipated, which required all of the spiders' attention, leaving Helena to deal with the Crows inside the warehouse on her own.
She did well, up until the last minute, when the last remaining Crow had a semi-automatic trained on her. Helena took the hits to make sure that the kids escaping behind her didn't.
"Blackbird returning to the cave," she says over the comm, voice sounding hoarse. "Took some damage, gonna need a first aid kit."
Her bike rumbles into the cave and she gets it into place before struggling off of it, wincing behind her mask.
'Catwoman is not a crime fighter' is the image Selina has tried to keep up for basically her whole career. It's gotten pretty frayed over 19 years of good work. The 'thief mode' costumes might not be fooling as many people these days. But it does tend to keep her away from bigger, more public outings; and when her daughter's involved in them, that tends to drive her slightly crazy.
So she'd already been pacing the cave when the call came in, her guts seizing up a bit to hear her daughter in pain, though her voice is steady when she responds, simply, "Ready."
A seat and table is already set up, and Catwoman is already walking towards the batcycle before it comes to a halt - in costume with her hood left to dangle, goggles hanging below her chin - as she reaches out an arm, grimacing as she offers to help Helena walk to it. "Come on." She says softly, waiting a few steps before she loses the ability to resist worried pestering, "Are you all right, Kitten?"
There are holes in Helena's cape, and holes in the suit underneath it, though she's plugged them with the wound-sealing spray that they all keep in their belts. "Probably," Helena answers, leaning on her mother and hunching over a bit as she walks. "I can still breath, the blood's not pooling anywhere, no signs of any organ disfunction. Took most of it in the chest, where there's armor, anyhow."
She pushes back her hood, pulling down the mask across the bottom half of her face, though she still doesn't look like Helena, thanks to the holo mask she wears. "There was a biokinetic there, but…I didn't want to risk being identified."
Selina looks at Helena and reflexively recoils just slightly for that milisecond it takes her to process that the unfamiliar face is just a hologram. It's always jarring to see your daughter… not be your daughter. "Hnnnn." She grunts softly in response, having been around Batman entirely too long. "That's something, at least." She says without much relief in her voice, more focused on both the fact that her daughter is hurt, and the taxing task of not freaking out about that. She sits Helena down on a backless chair next to a table with a medkit and various tools on it and drags a second seat over for Selina to rest on.
"So," She says distractedly as she opens the kit, "Are we racing to take care of this before your father finds out?"
"Yeah, I think that horse is out of the barn, Mom," Helena says ruefully as she settles herself carefully on the chair. "I'm gonna be feeling this one for a while." Once she's seated, she turns off the mask, peeling it away from her face to leave just the golden contacts in place.
With her cape out of the way, the sheer number of blows to the chest armor are visible. It looks like someone emptied half a clip into her. There are half a dozen spots with the wound spray on them where the armor was too damaged to stop them completely, another four or five where it's clear the bullet was stopped, and a graze on her left shoulder and right side.
"On the up side, the suit did its job."
Selina smirks faintly despite herself as 'cat out of the bag' is narrowly avoided, though it fades a bit as she regards the signs of violence peppered all over Helena's costume. She sighs. "… Yeah. Thank god for that. Used to poke fun at your dad's cape, but…" She says, though she can't quite muster a smile as she starts to get to work treating Helena's wounds with the practiced skill of someone who's had to do it many many times. "You picked a hell of a time to start the business, huh? … Heh." It's like she's trying to be as cavalier as usual, but she isn't quite feeling it.
After a few minutes, she just softly asks, "You know how I said I wouldn't freak out and make you take up accounting the first time you got hurt?" She gives a rueful smile, "… Waaaay harder than I thought it'd be."
"Yeah, you know how I've seen the bruises and been told a million times how bad bullets hurt?" Helena smiles ruefully back. "They also hit way harder than I thought it'd be."
The peeling off the uniform and the wound spray has to be the worst part, right? Yeah, probably not that lucky. It takes a few minutes and a lot of wincing, but once it's done, it at least looks like the wounds that made it through the armor are shallow - not making it past ribs or muscle. She's got a few scratches from where the armor shattered, but most of the damage is going to be some very colorful bruising.
Selina shares a smile with Helena over the particular sort of madness that amounts to the norm in their lives, saying "I guess it's a learning experience for everybody." then regards her wounds with a sigh. "Looks pretty good, all things considered." She says, treating the worst of it first. She's careful, of course, but she's also used to working quickly with people who have a high pain tolerance, so… could be better, could be worse. Still, you're in experienced hands, at least! "You know I used to poke fun at your dad for the cape?" Selina shakes her head. "Had to knock *that* off after a few dozen deflected bullets. Grit your teeth real quick."
Warning: AUGH JEEZ. Then it's over.
And back to the lighter stuff. "Hope you creamed the other guy."
"It was this, or take the chance that the bullets were going to hit the kids behind me on their way out," Helena grimaces, her jaw clenching now and again as she discovers new ways to hurt. There are a couple of hissed breaths between her teeth as well, but she does her best to stay still for it.
"They're all okay though. So worth it. And yeah. I got my staff up under his chin, so I've got a feeling he's gonna need some dental work while he's in prison." She looks back over at her mother, letting out a long breath. "Everything worked the way it was supposed to, Mom."
Selina frowns slightly hearing about the circumstances Helena was hit under, though the knowledge of the offending enemy's dental related fit does seem to cheer her up a little.
She looks up at Helena as that last line hits her ears, a bittersweet look in her eyes as she finally nods, once, saying, "I know." She smiles a little. Then a little wider, a genuine if tight-lipped sort of smile before she puts one hand on the side of Helena's head and kisses her forehead softly. "… Proud of you, Kitten."
Helena leans her head into Selina's hand, as much contact as she can comfortably have at the moment. "Thanks, Mom," she says softly. "I'm pretty sure I didn't leave anything behind. Might be a little tricky just being me for a few days, but, uh. Guess I can say I stumbled over something at the graduation. Plausible deniability, at least."
Selina nods. Then smiles. The grins. A little wider than she wants to. She shouldn't say it. She has to say it. In an 'average nameless student' voice, she notes, "Wow Helena, that rabbit got you worse than we thought!"
Helena groans, then laughs, then groans again, holding an arm across her ribs. "Yep. Attacked by a vicious rabbit," she says, rueful. "As long as no one sees the bruises, should be fine. Helena Wayne who's afraid of a rabbit probably limps worse than I will over it, too."