that's the question.

.

A curious tilt of Helena’s head answered Vic’s question, dark brows rising in a silent entreatment for more explanation. And then, of course, when Vic did explain…

Helena watched her faceless lover with shocked-huge black eyes, a spark of delight skittering right through her like static and settling warm and sweet in her belly. And so when Vic leaned in, the curve of his cheek rounding into a smile she couldn’t see, Helena leaned in right back. Over the edge of the table, to catch his lips, off-center in her excitement and the lack of visibility; then another, better kiss; then a sound third. “Yes,” she sighed into Vic’s mouth, hand clenching in the soft leather of the coat she’d been working on before she twisted around and tossed it with unerring accuracy over the camera in the corner. Problem sorted, because:

“Yes, baby, yes,” Helena repeated, happy, as she caught his face in her hands and kissed him again. “Let me see you,” she murmured, giving up on her seat to shuffle closer and loop her arms around his neck. 

“Yeah, I wanna meet your dad,” she said into his mouth, the giddiness those words inspired bubbling right up in her chest. Sal, Tot, the rightness of it—God damn it, Helena wasn’t going to fuck him in the armory. She wasn’t. 

It was just—Vic wanted her to meet his dad. 

She maybe wanted to fuck him in the armory a little bit. “I can’t wait,” Helena said instead, stroking her thumbs through his hair, fingers half-laced where they cupped his skull. “Been wanting to meet him for a while. Give him an earful about how Douglas haunts my dreams,” she joked, dimples slashing deep into her cheeks. She rocked on the balls of her feet, still watching him with bright eyes. “You think he’ll like me?” 

He’d just about fallen into that kiss, dipping to meet her, hold her. Yes. Maybe it’d be a little thing, for most people. Even here, where parents, people, in general, connections beyond these stony walls, were in short supply. (According to the personnel records, anyway. No accounting for secret families stashed away in... some off-grid farmstead in Iowa, or something equally desperate.) But Tot - Tot, and Helena, were it. Absolutely it, so far as his heart was concerned. And it was kicking, now, quick, as their kisses found each other through the magic. Then even that was fading away, the illusion glimmering, gone, as Helena’s arms reeled him in. He went, easy. 

Oh, it was getting dangerously easy to just - believe in this. Hadn’t they asked all their questions? Even the hardest ones, the kind that’d felt like tests. There’d be more, he knew. Always. But for now, for now... Vic let himself cling a little, to Helena, to those solid, real answers. Seen and seeing, smiling against her cheek, her brow, as he kissed her beautiful face. She couldn’t wait. Neither could he. And the old man was impatient as hell, so that worked out. 

Vic had a warm chuckle, caught in those hands. One of his had slung around the small of her back, his knuckles rolling lightly along the path of her spine. “Hrm. Well. Put it this way.” The way Tot had put it, with bright eyes, crinkled up with a flock’s worth of crow’s feet. “Showed him those shots of Sicily. And he said, I quote: he’d never seen anyone look so happy as I was, there, with you. Anyone. Nevermind me.”

Sacrifice. The word was like a gut punch, not wholly unexpected but still painful all the same. 

Steve had never run from death and had no good reason to fear it now.  He remembered each of his deaths clearly and while the act itself could be painful, after was not. And not just because he got to come back. He didn’t know how to describe the sweet, peacefulness of oblivion; if it was even an afterlife or just an end (he’d only ever felt it briefly), but if someone were to ever ask, Steve would say that he believed in a heaven or Elysium or just more.

Never before, however, had Steve felt his impending death so keenly (perhaps that was why he just accepted it would be him). He was familiar with urgency and dread and even the impended-ness of doom, but now it was like he was walking lockstep, arm in arm with the Grim Reaper, unable to escape his pull. Or worse, the reminders. Steve didn’t believe in absolutes (and he’d  fight tooth and claw just the same) but the anticipation weighed on him, made him wonder if he had the guts to do what needed to be done a fourth time after all. 

“Looks like it’s time to go.” There was an edge to his voice, but more firm than angry. He wasn’t avoiding the topic either, not exactly. But Question looked … well, it was hard to say anything for sure, he was always more disjointed than not, but something had shifted. Whether it was this place or the monster or just Question doing Question-y things Steve couldn’t say, but a breather seemed to be in order. For both of them. 

He did a quick check to make sure everything was how they left it and then moved toward the door, prepared to herd Question out if he had to. But outside was cooler, fresh, and Steve took a deep breath, eyes closing. The word sacrifice still hung there, clouding his thoughts, but Steve forced himself to move past it, thinking a bit more like Diana, a place where there was always hope and no one was beyond saving. And so when he opened his eyes, he was suddenly resolute. 

“Say we do find Trnkovic alive and -” he couldn’t say well, not when he barely believed alive, but, “if he’s alive but can’t help then could we help him? I mean, freeing him from any hold it has on him must be easier,” not to mention safer (if only briefly), “than manifesting a god.” Right?  Hell, at this point, Steve would just settle for saving someone. “But if it’s keeping him alive … because it needs him or got attached, what-have-you, then it might not like it if his companion - ” That was the kind word, at this point Steve was picturing more of a pet, “- was suddenly ripped away.” 

 It stood to reason: if a voluntary sacrifice forced a manifestation then surely a forced loss would encourage a voluntary appearance.  Or Steve was just delaying the inevitable. Either way, he didn’t think it would hurt to try.

That steel-strong energy Steve carried around him rippled, there. Vic couldn’t help a shiver, the sensation unexpected, unsettled. Sacrifice. What did that mean, to Trevor? Exactly. (Seemed a soldier would know more about it than... all the things Vic had been, over his lives.) It’d clearly resonated. He might’ve asked how, precisely, but. No. Even if he’d bristled at the insistence, at being told they were done, when they weren’t, when there had to be more and he wanted to chase it - Vic could feel how right the Captain was. And he’d be back. Soon. 

Trevor got a begrudging sort of sound as he passed; agreeable, if far from satisfied. Miles away. Skull still swirling, Vic threw a last, hard look around the bookshop, running the heel of his gloved palm across the musty pages of that gardener’s guide before he slipped it into his bag, decidedly stolen. Then, with a swish of that long coat, he let the place close up behind him. The bell rang, muted by the heavy wooden door - and Vic already had a cigarette between his teeth, turning to see about Trevor. Could practically hear the Captain’s thoughts jangling, there, dragging along at the end of a fraying rope. 

That raveled back together, tightly, by sheer force of will. Easy to see why Diana kept coming across Captain Steve Trevor. They were damn near made for each other. Still. “Must it?” Vic had to ask, that silver lighter snapping in his hand. “Depends on him. Unfortunately.” Harsh, perhaps. But they couldn’t presume Trnkovic would want their help; couldn’t count on the man being trustworthy, either, not with this... psychic tick buried in his head, drinking him dry. Not that the Question counted on people being trustworthy. Broadly. Thing was, it didn’t matter if Djordje couldn’t fight that hold - or worse, didn’t want to - or didn’t mean so much as they thought to this monster of theirs, and would simply be cut horribly loose if they tried to snip him away... or, or, or. None of the many, many wrong turns this chase could easily take changed the fact that for all their work, they still had just the one damn lead to follow. One chance, it seemed, of finding any answers. And stopping this. Before it became whatever worse thing it might. Before anyone else died, or suffered, to feed it. 

He twitched, smoke jagging after his hand as he spun to find the source of a strident, hungry yowl. Of course. The fucking cat, licking its chops, watching from that black iron balcony. With a hiss of his own, Vic flicked some ash into the street. “Mm. Think it’s a chance worth taking. When we get there.” When, not if. “But, just so we’re clear,” he pointed two fingers and that cigarette, “if there’s ever a call to be made, between getting you home, or Djordje out - it’s you. Capeesh? If he’s too stuck on this thing to make our job easier, he’ll only make it harder. Too many people’ve been hurt, and worse, already. Suspect more than we’ll ever know. But you, you can...” Save today? The phrase, unfamiliar and not at all what he’d meant to say, had reached up and rung its way into his head. Vic shook it off, stepping into the street. “... keep looking. Be seeing you,” he tossed back. At Trevor and the damn bookstore tabby, both. 

Vic’s hands had a way of distracting Helena, which he clearly had no qualms over taking advantage of. Big and warm and calloused, they could just about engulf her own—and Helena couldn’t help but slacken her grip on the coat she was supposed to be sewing, nudging her wrist towards his traveling fingertips. Let him take her hand, turning her palm into his with a loosening of her shoulders. 

“Oh?” she asked, a slow smile unfurling over her mouth. “Maybe I’ll tell you over this dinner you had a thought about. Care to share with the class?” 

He was distracting her. So? Helena didn’t let herself get distracted for nothing. His fingers curled with hers, finding that comfortable fit, and a couple notes of Sinatra - come fly with me - hummed up and away from him, the world already a little lighter than it’d been, a few minutes ago. 

Ain’t that something. 

“Well.” Vic started, well aware that he’d grinned to match her. “That depends. As stories go - think this one’s heart attack material?” Vague. He didn’t leave her guessing. Couldn’t, too full of this... buzz, an eager, sparking, uncertain sensation, to wait. “Tot’s gonna be up late as hell. End of semester, marking to do. You know. Told me he could use some company. If you’re ready to meet the old man, then...” It wasn’t now or never, but - Tot’d looked so goddamn old, when the two of them facetimed after Sicily. The web of wrinkles around his tired eyes, the deep creases in his cheeks as he smiled and sighed, so gladly, to see the pictures - the urge to make sure Helena didn’t miss him, that their chances didn’t run out by some hideous Hub City chance, had caught Vic by the throat and fucking refused to let go. 

Dramatic, maybe. But. Their lives were like that. See the report that’d sent him up here. 

Swaying closer, Vic watched those black eyes for an answer, thumb running back-and-forth along the lines of her hand. “So?”

.

How ridiculous they were. Helena wondered what the other vigilantes they knew would’ve answered for the question; wondered if their answers would have been better, meatier. The ones she knew had more normal wants than them, Helena figured. Babs, Dinah. They were real people in a way she sometimes felt like she wasn’t, people with lives and friends and families. What kinds of long-term goals did people like that look forward to? 

Good thing, Helena figured, that Vic was just as much of a not-real person as her. (Even though thinking of him with that word, even in a different context, twanged an old ache she’d swallowed down a month ago.)

“Vic Sage. Always such a romantic,” Helena teased, for what felt like the dozenth time. The stretch of her smile cut the dimples back into her cheeks as she looked at him through the pre-dinner sunshine, conversation all around them and people walking by their flower-crawled side-street patio. “Gonna hold you to that.” 

–

“Mmmm,” Helena hummed where she was sprawled across the foot of the bed, all four limbs extending up into the air as she stretched like a contented cat before letting them flop back down. She felt pleasantly exhausted, but not enough to sleep just yet; they’d gotten back in late after walking what felt like half the city, enough that even her well-walked feet were aching, and the first thing she’d done had been to kick off her shoes and toss herself on the plush bed. It felt amazing on her back, and she’d be happy to not go anywhere at all for the rest of the night until Vic rolled her lazing self further up into a blanket cocoon, full of good food, good wine, and good company as she was.

But. 

Helena lounged on the bed for a long minute, soaking the rest up. Time ticked, and ticked, and then she was cutting her eyes to Vic with a growing smile. “Hey,” she said, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Wanna go for a late-night swim?”

His eyebrows ticked up, attentively, as Helena underlined his name; took that, to pull his mind away from the dark gleam of her eyes, the fullness of her smile, the fit of their fingers, woven together. “That all?” Vic took a lean over his elbow, smiling into another kiss, lips to the curve of Helena’s sun-kissed cheek. “I mean - could hold me to a few other things. In the meantime...” 

Just, seeing as that long-term was unthinkably far away. Thank fuck.

_

It really was - different, being here. Not in the way Sokovia was, with its unsettled spirits and looming monsters. How long had they wandered around, after dinner? Through the Sicilian evening, still gently, sweetly warm. Perhaps it was just the scale of it all, how relatively small the city was, compared to the sprawl and skyscrapers he was used to. Maybe it was simply that he hadn’t had his face out, his magic stripped back, for this long in years. Both, likely. Whatever the case, Palermo felt so much... closer, somehow. Just, as a space. More intimate. More real, vivid with texture and sound in a way the Mousehole had never felt. 

Unless he was with Helena. Connected.  

Vic had half-sat up from the bed when she did, laid out long on his side, a hand settled on the dip of her waist. A swim. He hadn’t even owned anything to swim in, before those few days they’d rushed to pack. Which Helena’d fixed, of course. Looking after him, like - always. “When in Sicily. Right?” That’d been the idea. To know this place the way Helena did, and wanted him to. The thought sent a smile flashing over his face, quick as the handful of ass he got ahold of before slipping right off the bed, making a beeline for their bags. How he’d fucking grinned, pleased with himself, with - everything. “Bet we’ll have the pool to ourselves. Actually...” No ghosts, even. Most of the hotel’s spectral residents seemed to be sunseekers; except for that cluster at the bar, still glimmering together as he and Helena passed. Too busy with their cocktails of memory to bother anyone. “Or,” he turned, hooking Helena’s swimsuit - sleek, strappy, sure to be the best view around - out of her luggage. “Were you thinking... the beach?” Wouldn’t that be something. When in Sicily. 

.

“I promise not to tell Diana how easily I steal her favorite data guy’s attention,” Helena teased as Vic kissed her neck, made her shiver and bloom with a smile. Always so eager. “Careful, or I’ll steal all your whiles.” It was stupid, how pleased that made her, still. Always so happy every time he unselfconsciously showed her how much he loved her, how much he liked her. 

Helena’s lingering smile did fade at Vic’s questions, though. She turned the coat over in her hands, shaking her head slowly. “Actually off. I’m alright,” she assured, then sighed as she settled back in at the broad workbench. “Just thought I’d like to spend a couple nights in after the mission. It was…” Helena paused, testing the words on her tongue. “Heavy. I don’t want to think about what a disaster it would’ve been if not for Bruce.” She dropped her eyes back down to the leather and worked her jaw, reaching out to rifle through her tools. 

“There was a mob hit out on me,” she explained, feeling oddly calm about it all. “As both Helena Bertinelli and the Huntress. It’s always nice not to be forgotten.” Alright, sarcasm wasn’t helpful. “We went to Rome to investigate. You can guess now nasty things got.” 

Oh, that got a smirk. He was sure she’d hear it, through the magic and all, warming the hum that followed after. “Hrm. Careful. Not my style.” Especially with Helena, really. On the subject of whiles and wiles alike. He’d lost time so easily, over the last few years; lately, it’d been more like he gave it away. Willingly. Happily. No. Didn’t feel quite the right way to put it, actually. Maybe... shared. Since Helena helped herself to his desk, he’d started to get used to sharing his time. So much so that even a quick trip to Rome had left him over-aware of all the spaces she’d left empty.

He hadn’t been afraid for her. Obviously. Helena was the Huntress, and neither Gotham nor Luthor’s fucking Task Force had managed to keep her down. Still. Didn’t mean she never got knocked over. (Or shot, three times, standing between some kind of evil and those who couldn’t hope to defend themselves.) His brow furrowed, just a little. Heavy. Took a few tons of emotional weight to make a thing heavy, for their kind of people; vigilantes, with their over-burdened shoulders, they were used to bearing up. Too used, probably. Helena as much as any of them. A heavy mob hit, in Rome. For her whole life, not just the mask or the mafia heiress. Nasty...

Vic had snuck a hand over one of hers, running slow - soothing, he’d hope - up the back of her knuckles, the bend of her wrist. “Probably.” He could guess. “But. If you want to tell me. Your way, not the report’s...” 

Well, if that was all Vic wanted to say on that, Helena wasn’t going to push him for more. (For the moment. She could wheedle very annoyingly when she put her mind to it.) She hummed a little mmhm of agreement, reaching up to trail a fingertip down the side of his face. From scarred temple over brow to scarred cheekbone, enjoying the odd disconnect of feeling his features but only seeing a blank canvas of skin. 

She shut her eyes when he moved in closer, picturing his face in her mind’s eye. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she commented. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Yeah, I’d like that. I’m going to take the next couple nights off from patrolling; we can do it then?” She flashed a smile as she pulled back enough to meet where his eyes would be. “In the meantime. You wanna keep me company for a while?”

Helena wasn’t done with this. Vic could tell that much, hear it, clearly, in the particular note she’d just hit. Made sense. She’d held those illusions, felt for them, looked into what she had supposed, fairly, were the soft stares of children, and been deceived. Like everyone else. Except the Question, clinging to every instinct that told him to suspect. If only he’d been wrong. Would’ve preferred that, actually: a case that was no case at all, over-cautious paranoia. Not the first time he’d thought that. Far from. 

Unlikely to be the last. 

But she’d summon the subject back, when she wanted to. And he’d do his best to be ready to answer better, then. In the meantime, Vic settled into those gentle, soothing touches, drifting through the magic he was wearing. He simply shrugged that flicker of surprise off, about the photographs; just another of those throwbacks, to some life or other. Not a skill he’d learned, exactly, so much as discovered he had, and updated, over and over, one generation of technology to the next. Daguerreotypes to digital. Back to the SLR he’d carried around Sicily, the weight of it familiar in his hands, the camera older than he was. Another piece of his history that he’d trust to Helena, without hesitation. The way she’d trusted those jasmine-sweet streets she loved, that hidden-away home of hers, and Sal, the last of her family, to him. As they made some history of their own, together. Ain’t that something. 

“Absolutely. All the while you want.” For Helena, he had every moment of whiling he - had. Really. Vic tucked another kiss against the long, swan-elegant side of her neck, then leaned out of her way, her light, so she could work. Even as his head cocked, tilting towards concern. Not headlong into worry, just... in that general direction, curiosity piqued. “Nights off?” The next couple. “Actually off? For what? You alright?” She seemed to be, from his quick-eyed assessment, and had been, last he’d seen her; only a couple hours back. But things changed fast. In their world, especially...

“Promising,” Steve agreed. Maybe not about the same thing, but it was. Promising. If its instinct was to stick to the safety of the trees, surely something could be gained in forcing it out. But how? Where? Could it be done safely, controlled. The logistics of it made the thought much easier said than done. And the same could be said about finding Djordje Trnkovic who was, as far as Steve could tell, notably absent. 

(Not necessarily a setback. Sometimes what was missing said as much as any tangible evidence) 

It wasn’t good news. But Steve at least appreciated the blunt honesty, for once. The attempt at dry humor (from what Steve could hear anyway) less so. And he was sure to level Question with a look that said as much. His little trip across planes (or whatever) might have been necessary, given what it had unveiled, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t also been poorly carried out. Dangerously, so. Which was the rub, really. Steve had no problem bending rules and defying orders. He would in fact do so without complaint if it got the job done, better and more efficiently. Just look at where he was now. But that didn’t mean he was willing to just throw caution to the wind. There was risk and then pure stupidity. 

That was Steve’s survival instinct. Prudence. 

And all his instincts (save for one, that foreign invader) said no. Stay out of the woods. This was one of those instances, though, where a bit (a lot, rather) of risk was necessary. So it wasn’t a matter of want. They had been shown Trnkovic, in a matter of speaking. They were meant to find him. And so if he wasn’t here, that meant there was only one place he could be. 

“Don’t think there’s much of a choice at this point.” He sighed, started going about returning the folders to their rightful home. “The woods aren’t exactly teeming with shelters.” Not any that he had seen anyway. There was one area that Steve and his team hadn’t properly explored, some supernatural force or instinct keeping them away. Probably both. Which meant: “If there’s any remnants of this guy there -” And it would have to be remnants, right? Have to. Because: “- he must have been staying awfully close to our friend.”  

Still, Steve rose a brow, undeniably wary. “What does that mean, though? Another way through?” Maybe Steve was just a bit too thick, so far out of his element that he didn’t know how to follow where Question led. But Question, he had learned, needed to be pressed. He wasn’t one to volunteer information, a bit of a problem when Steve always wanted more. Needed it, to the point that he would expect proper preparation and precautions. Contingency and back-up plans. Especially if they were going there, the place he didn’t dare tread. 

That was a good glare on Trevor. Parade ground ready, officer material. Fair enough. Vic Sage read the news, not comedy. He kept on smirking to himself, at least, as he chose a cupboard to crack. If they could count on time - they’d already had more than he expected, undisturbed, which was verging on disturbing, in and of itself - he’d have done a more methodical job, but this, this was a method. Just, a different kind. 

They’d need to consider different methods, clearly. To manage what they hadn’t yet. He hummed in agreement, that cupboard wheezing shut as he finished and picked another. No choice at all. Everything, everything was sending them into the trees. Even the mindless drawings that kept appearing in the edges of his Sokovian newspapers and daily notes: jagged, dense branches, or roots, those crescents, that shape they’d both run from, now. Gaping, horrible. Hungry.

“Trnkovic was - or is,” he underlined, just, just in case, unsettling as it was to consider, “an artist. Turning ideas into something you can see. That you can hold, in your hands. Get attached to.” Tot still had his little, long-gone boy’s books on the shelf. There was reverence, in that. “All good, for a god. Maybe it’s a fan of his work.” And it, in turn - might’ve made a hell of a muse. Fairy tales needed good monsters, after all. “Could be it’s keeping him close. By some means. Keeping him alive, even. A sort of... feedback...” He’d trailed off, mouth twisting at the thought. Precarious magic, the stuff of life and death and in-between. Couldn’t get something for nothing. From nothing.

Vic tilted out of his own thoughts, hard, towards the Captain’s. What did it mean? “The way from here, to there - where it lives, where it can die - it’ll have logic. Internal logic. To this thing, its own story. Which we don’t know. Because nobody seems to, anymore. Possible it doesn’t remember all that clearly, these days...” A forgotten god who’d started forgetting itself. Vic had paused, not for effect; goddamn, his head was pounding. He sighed, scuffing a hand through his illusion. 

.

Good question. Good question. (Good Question. So good to her.) Helena considered it, face tipping back into the sunshine. There weren’t a lot of people she could really just sit and talk to like this, just of Vic and the Birds. (And Sal. Who Vic would be meeting, by the weekend’s end.) That she’d think about these kinds of things with, these squishy-soft sentiments. But. She supposed that the first thing that came to mind was:

“I want to see Charlie graduate college.” It was soft, almost-wistful. In the way that there was a part of Helena, a growing part, that couldn’t help but worry that wouldn’t happen, for one reason or another. “And—ignoring all our international, governmental problems, for a moment—I want to go back home. See if I could swing getting my job back.” Her hand squeezed in Vic’s. “Turn on the news and watch you, all handsome and indignant. Come visit, like I promised. Probably way too often.” Helena’s smile sparkled for a moment, before fading away. Not into melancholy, just… Thoughtful. 

“But that’s it, you know? It’s always been like this, since I finally got rid of Cassamento and the rest. Never really learned to think much past tomorrow, once that was done.” She swirled her wine, took a sip. And looked over at Vic. “You?”

Such everyday hopes. The kind most people would take for granted, or even less. But Helena set them out like... like Tot put down the good dishes, with a tidy, mindful delicacy, brought up out of their box for an occasion. This felt that rare. When all she wanted, was - to watch Charlie walk across that convocation stage, to go home, to do her job. Her real job. One most people would rather drink bleach than even attempt, and she missed it. Missed doing all she could, for Gotham’s kids. Vic had squeezed back, at that. Then again, hooking a leg under hers, tangling tighter as she said she’d come visit. 

(Which he’d been sure of, because, yes, she’d promised. Helena didn’t promise beyond her powers. Or without her whole heart in it. Not that it was such a big thing, but - it was, to Vic Sage. It’d be a big thing, to show her around the city he loved, the town that’d made him. To see what she saw, to find out if she could love it, too.) 

But that light of hers had dimmed, ever so slightly; the weary creak of a bowstring seemed to draw between her thoughts, and release, as Helena turned the question back over. Fair enough. Couldn’t ask what you weren’t prepared to answer. “Mm. Don’t have much practice looking at the long-term, either.” They’d both outlived their own expectations, at some point. Hadn’t they? Helena survived her vengeance. Vic, he’d... survived at all. For so long. Relatively. “Can’t be sure KBEL's ever gonna make anything like news, again. But. If they do. See you at six.” It’d be something, Christ, to know Helena was watching. Something bittersweet, maybe, knowing how far away she’d be. (Seven hundred and eighty-two miles, and an hour. Exactly.) “And anytime I can. My place or yours. Not like I can’t handle a red-eye.” His fingers wove through hers, finding a little more closeness. While they could have it. “Way too often,” Vic scoffed, quietly, half-shaking his head as he swayed those joined hands into a kiss, to the back of her wrist. Then - lingered. Right there. “Please...”

When Vic didn’t respond to her text, Helena figured that it was one of three things: he was neck-deep in a research bender (very possible but hardly a good thing), he was napping (God, she hoped it was that one, unlikely as it was), or he was coming up to see her (which would be almost as nice as knowing he’d gotten some extra sleep). 

She wasn’t all that disappointed when she heard the door open. Especially not when she peeked over her shoulder and caught a glance of Vic, hiding a smile to herself while she tried to look busy. But she barely lasted up until he pressed into her, melting back into a happy sigh and dropping the jacket she’d been working on for Dinah. 

“That’d be really nice,” Helena murmured, turning her head to press a kiss to Vic’s cheek. Nuzzling in for a moment. She didn’t mind the illusion, never had, it was just—she missed the smell of his aftershave, the way the magic took that away. “Google says there’s a shop just outside Matchak where we can get the pictures developed. Place here closed down after everything with Novi Grad, so…” She turned in Vic’s arms, catching his blank face for a kiss. “Mm. How you doing, baby? That was some report.”

It would. It’d be really, really, really nice. To have those photographs, those memories, in hand - there was something to that. The tangibility of it. His arms had slung around her waist, hands on his own wrists, a loose but longing hold on her. Smiling, at this, and the fact that she’d already looked around, found somewhere to get the negatives done. He’d used film. Old-fashioned, but. Tangible, again. Familiar, from a few lives now. Like the Canon he’d packed along, a camera just older than either of them. From the locker, when he’d found it. A gift from a past self. The kind that kept on giving. 

But back to the news. 

He sniffed, sharply, with a wire-tight grin she’d be able to feel. “Mm. Ain’t it just. Hell to tag, for the system. Only the start, too...” So many kinds and levels of threat assessment, and re-assessment, a shitload of personnel adjustments and additions, armament and artifact records. Bursting out of that relatively scant little submission in every goddamn direction, like drunk, furious wasps reeling out of an abandoned can. “But. Off my desk. For now.” Only for now. Which was why he’d slunk to the armory, in the meantime. The precious meantime. Christ, he hated a clusterfuck that couldn’t be parsed, learned from. What lesson was there, in this? He wouldn’t have done his part any different. Knew his limits, at least on this cosmic kind of scale. And within those, he’d seen precisely enough to ask questions that needed asking. Reviewed, annotated, added to the database. With that, his job had been done. Passed on to hands more suited, in one way or another. So he’d hoped. But the Avengers, the X-Men, the Nomads he’d just filed this shitshow under - they were powerful. Undeniably. Capable. Definitely. And, none of them, none of them were all that and anywhere near as objective as they should be. As they needed to be. 

But he knew that, too. They’d all known that. Hadn’t they? Apparently fucking not.