[closed] truth and beauty are wonderful words

[controlledvariable]

Date & Time: 10/06
Location: The Hold > Helena's apartment
Characters: Stephanie Brown & Helena Bertinelli
Summary: Batladies beat each other up and then have dinner
Warnings: Self-destructive violence bordering on self-harm. Steph is not in a good place rn.


[There are literally no words for how awful she feels, not in English, not in the handful of other languages that she knows, so she decides to use action, instead of trying for words. At first she just takes to the streets, searches out the dark corners where criminals lurk and throws herself into fights without a second thought, but it's all too easy, finished too soon, and she can't find it in herself to be as vicious as she wants, not when they're all so obviously below her skill level.

None of them can give her what she really wants, anyway. What she needs is blood in her mouth or broken bones or bruises on her skin, she needs someone to hit her hard, as if that might make her feel less guilty, less torn up. She needs to fight someone who can fight back, needs to be ruthless without worrying about hurting them, and needs them to hit back just as hard, so she can feel it. Anger is a messy, awful thing, guilt is worse, and the only way she knows how to cope is with violence.

She misses Cass and Bruce, because they'd both know what she wanted and would give it to her, fighting until she fell over, like the first time her and Cass sparred, like almost every time Spoiler and Batman, or Robin and Batman sparred. She misses being Robin.

It's why, when Helena invites her over for dinner, Steph realizes that she should extend those dinner plans to include sparring as well, and she's so relieved when Helena accepts. Four pm, she said, but she's there early, dressed in simple civvies (she doesn't care if Helena is herself or Huntress, but there's too much armour in her Batgirl suit for this fight to be satisfying), and looking as wrecked and nervous as she feels. She finds herself on the gymnastic equipment while she waits, but she's so unfocused that she keeps falling, missing her grip on the bars or losing her footing on the beam, and she's already bruised and battered by the time four actually rolls around.]

Comments

[crossbearing]

( It's Helena who watches Stephanie on the gym equipment; at least if she arrived as Helena and slipped away to the become the Huntress that might be a bit less conspicuous than coming to the gym kitted out in her uniform and finding Stephanie waiting for her. Dinah was always so free with her identity, but it had always been important for the Huntress to be more discrete - perhaps because if the mob knew what she was responsible for she'd quite possibly be dead already.

She may not have worked with Spoiler a great deal, but she's seen her in high pressure situations before, and the way she's moving gives more away than she had when they spoke. Reckless, and though it's not necessarily a surprise (not with who they are, what they do) it's sad. Stephanie is hardly older than some of the children she teaches, and Helena knows she really has to stop thinking of her that way, but the memory of her being so young is still there . She's an adult, she's a Bat, but she is still so young; her funeral was barely months ago, by Helena's memory, and that's only one of the way Gotham stripped the chances she had of actually being young away, of working things out without the weight of the world on her shoulders - the weight of the Bat.

There are too many ways that she reminds Helena of herself, too many ways she can imagine the Bats hurting her, and part of her is sorry Stephanie took that uniform because she remembers all the hangups that come with it.

Even lost in those thoughts, she realises Stephanie is going to fall the moment before it happens, moves fast, and catches her before she can slam into the floor. It takes a second before she can speak, with the impact of catching her, but she still tries. )

We have to stop meeting this way.