Summary:Rose and Helena bump into each other, and talk about shooting people in the groin. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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After her last encounter with the Nightfall, Helena is hurting a bit. The wounds aren't anything she won't recover from, and they're far less than they ought to be thanks to her suit, but she's got nearly half a dozen shallow bulet wounds healing across her torso and an impressive collection of bruises from the ones that didn't make it through the armor. Which means she's not using her time to fight crime right now.
Instead, she's put her time to use on a more future-forward task: searching for internships. The whole college question is still up in the air as far as she's concerned, though Bruce is likely to pull all strings necessary to make certain she ends up in classes. But Helena is looking for something a little more hands-on. And preferably not her father's company.
She's just coming out of the Baxter Building, checking the folder she's carrying to make sure there are still resumes inside of it. In white linen slacks and a navy blouse, she looks very…professional.
Rose Wilson is casually walking down the street, hefting a heavy looking metallic case in one hand, but she doesn't seem overburdened by it too much. The platinum blonde seems mostly content, her singular eye focused on manuevering through the people ahead of her.
And, by coincidence, her route takes her to the front of the Baxter Building as she passes, pausing, and squinting. "The hell are you doing here?" Rose wonders of Helena, a bit suspiciously. Afterall, only nerds go in the Baxter Building. Everybody knows that.
Helena looks up at the question, a wry smile curving when she recognizes Rose. "I was just dropping off a resume, actually," she answers. "Hoping I can get myself an internship to use as some leverage with Mom and Dad."
She tilts her head, giving the case a curious look. "What're you carting around the city on foot?" she asks. "I'm guessing it's not your keytar for busking at the subway station."
"Internship?" Rose scoffs, "You really want to intern here?" She seems to be reassessing Helena. Then, she shrugs her shoulders, some. "Your life," she says. Likely she will have much more to say on it later. But for now?
"Guns," she answers, "Headed to an underground shooting range to test them out. Got a few SigSauers, some Glocks, and a pair of Nighthawk Customs." She seems pleased enough. "Wanna come?"
"Are you kidding? This place is the dream when it comes to internships. Reed Richards is the top of…every field. Yeah. If I could get an internship here, that'd be insane." Helena looks up at the building, taking a deep breath, though Rose may not the slight hitch in it before she lets it out.
"Guns," she echoes, looking amused for a moment. "Don't you need a permit or something to carry all of those around the city? What even are New York's concealed carry laws?" She's not turning down the offer yet, but she hasn't agreed either.
"Tell that to Punisher, or Deadpool," comments Rose, with a brief smirk. She shrugs, non-committaly to if she has to have a permit or not, then looks back to the Baxter Building, and frowns again. "Yeah. I suppose if you like building shit more than people. From what I hear, he hardly ever leaves this place." Again, she shrugs.
"But hey. If science gets your juices flowing, that's your deal. We all got our things. Just make cool shit. No fucking automatic vaccum cleaners that don't even work. Like, a flying motorcycle. I'll take some of that shit."
"One pre-order for a flying motorcycle, noted," Helena says, amused, before she nods. "Yeah, sure, I'll come. As long as no one's likely to shoot me there," she adds with a shrug. "Underground shooting range sounds like the sort of place where the targets are the unlucky guys who didn't make a payment on their gambling debts."
Rose makes an amused sound, "Not this one." She says this as if there may be other shooting ranges that do just that. "C'mon." She gestures down the direction she was headed, "Just up the street a bit, and down an alley. Place used to be a parking garage, but after a big fight few years ago, they never were able to fully rebuild, so they turned the underground portion into a shooting range that was still salvagable," Rose explains.
She starts down the street, then, leading Helena towards the range. "So what's the deal with Stephanie? Your dad even talk to you before he takes these people in?"
"Steph?" Helena shrugs as she follows along, holding the folder across her body. "Not really, no. But he's been doing it for so long that it's just, you know. Life. I mean, I was three when he took in Dick, so he's kind of been doing it for as long as I can remember."
She looks over, quirking a brow with a faint smile. "I figure it's not really that different from most people having siblings, except for the part where they were usually older than I am, and my understanding of the sibling process is that they're usually younger than the first kid when they get added. But we've got the resources, and Dad's got a soft spot for kids in trouble, understandably, so I've got a whole crew of pseudo-siblings."
Rose grunts. "Different strokes," is all she says in comparison to just how different her life has been compared to Helena's. "I grew up solo," is all she says in response. "Probably for the better." She also makes no mention of Helena's resources. It's not why she's chosen to spend time with Helena, afterall. She doesn't care about the Wayne Fortune.
She changes the conversation. "You ever shoot before?" Curious. Since there are so many things, apparently, Rose has done that Helena hasn't.
"Yeah, I've gone with Aunt Kate a few times," Helena nods. "She went to West Point for a while, you know. Her dad was a Marine. She's not actually my Aunt, she's my…second cousin, I think?" she squints. "But ages, relationships, family's weird like that, so I've always just called her Aunt Kate."
She pauses, laughing. "I mean, okay, to clarify, she hasn't taken me to an underground shooting range. But I've shot a gun before." A shrug, as she shifts her folder to the other arm. "Dad's not big on guns, though, so. Haven't spent a lot of time around them."
"Figures," Rose says, though the comment is more thoughtful, rather than judgemental. It certainly afterall makes sense from a public figure viewpoint as much as the Wayne's and the business are in the news on a constant basis.
She gestures, "Here we are," and walks down a series of steps descending down with an arrow pointing downwards, just like on 'Cheers' - except far more dingy.
Once inside, the clerk seems to recognize Rose. "Brought my own today. Just need a couple headsets. Charge my account." The burly, slightly overweight and harrassed fellow behind the counter nods, grunts a non-verbal agreement, and places two headsets onto the dingy countertop.
The slight state of disrepair seems to not bother Rose in the least. "We'll see how you shoot, first. Then I'll offer a few pointers, if you want. Figure we can start with pistols. Easier to handle. Automatic rifles can get a bit tricky with the backfire."
Helena follows Rose, keeping her folder held against her chest as she looks around. The blouse and the pants and the whole professional look are definitely not…fitting in here. But she smiles awkwardly at anyone who looks her way, letting Rose take point on this.
Once they're settled in, she sets her folder down next to their spot, reaching into her pocket to pull out a hairband and tie her hair back into a ponytail. "Right. Sure, sounds good. You may have to remind me of a few things," she adds, rueful. "It's been a while."
Rose does not take the 'bait' (though Helena probably doesn't think of it as such) and snatch the folder like an older sibling or snoopy friend might. Instead, once they're shown into their own section of the mostly not-in-use shooting range, Rose instead sets the case on the ground and opens it up. There's a number of pistols inside, all of the automatic variety - no oldschools here. There's a box of bullets too, which she takes out, and then picks up one of the Nighthawk Custom's, fills the cartridge quickly and hands it to Helena, then sends the target to the far end of the curved concrete room - designed so as to prevent bullet bounce-backs. "Let's see what you got, girl. Head, groin, or chest. Get all three, and I'll buy dinner."
Before Rose hands over the cartridge, Helena is giving the gun itself a careful look, as if refamiliarizing herself with it. She checks the trigger, checks the safety, checks the chamber. Goes through a list of safety checks and even mouths them to herself, like someone drilled them into her before she was allowed to do anything.
Only once she's done that does she take the cartridge, looking at first one side and then the other, then comparing it to the gun itself, double-checking which way it goes in. Which is when she realizes she didn't put on the ear protectors first. "Uh." Very carefully, she sets both gun and cartridge down, putting on the safety gear before she picks them both up again and carefully inserts the cartridge.
Rose makes a noise which is a bit off, as it's half amused, and half irritated. But, she can't fault Helena for following protocol, and so she simply crosses her arms as she leans against the backwall, at least courteous enough to give Helena her own time and space to shoot.
Helena might get the feeling if she wasn't at least doing something right, Rose would probably correct her as Rose generally speaks what's on her mind. No matter whose around.
Only once everything is in order and has been checked again does Helena raise the weapon. Nothing about the action is automatic, even if the gun is. Everything is carefully thought through, like she's going down a checklist in her mind. Finally, she nods to herself and adjusts her stance a bit.
First she closes one eye, then she forces it open, shaking her head at herself. And then she fires.
The gun kicks slightly in her hand - not so much that it represents a danger to anyone, but enough that it looks like she may have forgotten how it works. But then she tightens her grip with a grimace, firing a few more times…even if she leans her head away from the gun a bit, causing most of her shots to go wide.
Rose huffs, and once Helena is done with her rounds, suggests, "Brace your wrist with your opposite hand to prevent the recoil. You'll still have some, but it will help steady your shot." Without a gun in her hand, she demostrates what she means.
"We'll call that a practice round. Start again, same deal on the table. Go on, hotshot, impress me. Wouldn't have brought you here if I didn't think you could do it."
Rose almost sounds … encouraging?
Helena quirks a brow at the last, smile tugging at one corner of her lips. "I'm a little concerned about your confidence in my ability to shoot people in the groin," she notes, adjusting her grip and starting again.
She jerks a little on the first shot still, though it seems more at the impact of the gun going off than any real recoil. But this time she shoots more slowly, seemingly taking a moment before each shot to force herself not to flinch away from the gun.
And it helps! There's one shot in the general chin / neck area, a couple in center mass. The groin shot is the hard one, though. But there might be some severed femoral arties.
"Best place to make a no-kill shot, if you just really want to fuck someone up," Rose says, conversationally. "Like, some asshat perving on you. Paparazzi who won't get off your ass," she teases.
But, when Helena is done Rose presses the button to zipline her target up to her, and she unpins it, and hands it to Helena, before pinning a new one up. She considers, "I suppose I'll count those. Dinners on me. You like hotdogs, right?" Junkfood for the win!
She sends the new target back down the line and begins to load another clip, for the second Nighthawk, which clearly she intends to shoot.
"Though, admittedly, knives are easier to conceal. And prettily easily thrown. And you've got a good arm on you," she mentions, casually.
Helena makes sure to set the safety on the gun before she very carefully sets it down, taking a look at the target with a proud smile. "Hey, that's not terrible," she says cheerfully. "But I think I'll still hold off on shooting anyone's dick off. For now. I'd rather just knee them. I mean, you can only shoot someone's dick off once," she points out. "But if you leave it there, you can knee them in it for ages."
Spoken like a true kid sister.
"Knives are also very stabby," she notes, helpful. "And violent. Which is also usually frowned upon as, you know. Excessive force. Throwing them does always look cool though, in the movies."
Rose picks up the gun, and is not nearly as 'careful' as Helena was. She doesn't hold back, either. Maybe she doesn't know how, or maybe she just doesn't care. With a familiar motion she's picked up the gun, flipped the safety switch, and fires off a series of consecutive bullets.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, each headshot is near or at dead-center, the same with the chest shots, and same with the grown shots.
Rose steps back, nods once with satisfaction. "That one works," she says, casually.
Then she finally comments back, "True."
She looks back at Helena, thoughtful. "You ever take any self-defense classes?"
"Yeah a few," Helena nods, hooking her thumbs in her belt loops as she watches Rose shoot. "We switched contractors for security and I think we must have added some sort of kidnapping insurance, because I spent a weekend listening to a bunch of ex-military guys with necks you could hardly tell from their shoulders tell me how not to die."
She grimaces, looking over with a slight roll of her eyes. "It was a real hoot and a half, let me tell you. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for it," she adds quickly, raising her hands. "That thing at the dance was…a lot less terrifying having been told what to expect."
"Yeah? Well. You're welcome for the real party. Even if you were lame and didn't drink anything." Rose snorts, and starts to bring back her target. "So, no guns, no knives. Just knees, elbows, and hands. And, broken crates." She chuckles, dryly.
She asks, then, "So. Tell me, Helena. Why do you hang out with me?" She tilts her head, looking frankly at Helena, not accusing, but curious. And, there's no question, they -are- an odd pair, the two of them.
Helena looks somewhat amused by the question, smile quirking. "Well, you take me fun places, that's for sure," she points out, gesturing around herself at the gun range. "I don't judge people by appearances," she finally says, shrugging. "I judge them by their actions. And yours are a little rough around the edges, but so far they've been in service of better causes."
A beat, and her smile deepens, a glimmer of humor in her eyes. "That, and I'm pretty sure I don't want you as an enemy."
Rose wasn't sure what she was expecting as an answer, so when Helena's answer comes, she considers it, commenting casually, "You look like you need to have more fun. Probably all that time you spend with a microscope, or circuit boards, or whatever," she counters, vaugely good-naturedly. But, she's at least somewhat satisfied.
"Come on. We got another half dozen more to test. Gotta make sure these fire smooth."
She hands the next gun over to Helena, apparently they're going to take turns. "Hell. You improve your shots, I'll even buy dinner at a sit down restaruant," she offers with a chuckle.