Work Text:
It's no big surprise you turned out this way
When they close their eyes and prayed you would change
And they cut your hair and sent you away
You stopped by my house the night you escaped
With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay
You said, "Hey man, I love you, but no fucking way!"
- Twin Size Mattress by The Front Bottoms
Helena Bertinelli grows up with a soulmate. ‘Michael Staton’. He is green and she is purple. She spends years and years watching her father, a mob boss, ruin lives. She is 14 and her father kills Thomas. ‘A distraction. He will stop you from growing!’ Her father yells. She fumes in silence. His green disappears from her arm. No new writings appear and she screams. Her room is ripped apart and she hunts her prey. Her father goes into hiding bouncing cities faster than she can get there.
She spends years killing, mob bosses, abusive parents, anything and anyone that hurts someone. She doesn’t care. She is trained by the best of the best. Her arms stay bare and hidden. No one sees her arms, no one can know she doesn’t have a soulmate because he is dead.
She is 25 and meets Dinah Lance. She’s starting an all-female group of heroes with Oracle, a former batgirl. Helena laughs and laughs. She rolls her eyes and smirks. “I’m not a hero, Canary. Go find someone who will follow a hero's code,” She says before turning around and shooting off her grappling hook. “You might believe you aren’t a hero! But the people you save do! You might not be against killing but you still save people. The offer is always open. We’ll keep the seat warm!” Dinah yells after her.
Helena spends another week in Coast City before moving around the globe. She runs into a new bat girl. She takes in the outfit. “You’re new,” She says and it's a statement, not a question. The girl looks at her. “Hunt,”
Helena smirks. “You can join if you wish,” She says and that’s all. She drops a copy of the file, she always carries copies and she does what she always does. Runs towards her problems. Bodies fall to the ground with arrows embedded into them. Others fall unconscious from a shadow and Helena smirks.
Batgirl nods at her. “You good. Great hero,” She says before disappearing. A canary symbol on the ground. Helena smirks and lets out a laugh. Smart kid.
Evelyn Crawford aka Starling appeared in another 2 weeks helping her take down a child trafficking ring. Catwoman, and many others peak in and out.
Around 4 weeks later, Barbara Gordon appears on the rooftop. Helena doesn’t know where she came from, since the last time she checked the elevators didn’t work and she was in a wheelchair. “Why?” Helena raises an eyebrow but doesn’t turn from her perch. “Why what?”
Barbara wheels closer but doesn’t leave the shadows. “We have had multiple people for over two months trying to get you to join. Why don’t you?” Helena lets out a small laugh. “I’m not a hero. You want heroes,”
Barbara sighs and Helena runs off giving her a salute.
Dinah meets up with her once again, but this time not in hero gear. At a mall where Helena is trying to get new clothes for a new identity. “Yes?” Helena asks, not looking up. “One time,” Dinah says, walking up next to her. “One single mission and that’s it. Just one,” Helena sighs and puts the shirt down. “One? Just one. No buts, no strings, no nothing?” Dinah nods. Helena sighs. “Fine, you are all so naggy,” She puts her hand out and Dinah puts a card in her hand.
Dinah smiles and Helena goes back to shopping. Helena rides the elevator up to the clock tower that night. Evelyn, Barbara, Dinah, Batgirl who she recognizes as Cassandra Cain, and Cynthia Reynolds who is also known as Gypsy are all sitting around a table talking.
Cassandra smiles at her and the only seat open is by her. Helena sits right by her. “So, why exactly am I needed? None of the threats that the Birds Of Prey takedown are ones I do,” Barbara sighs and glares at Dinah. “Dinah here should have told you that your father and his partners have 10 child trafficking rings around the country and more globally, are killing off innocents and many other things.”
Helena stares at them for a long minute. “Yeah, I know. Why do you think I haven’t been to Gotham or Coast city in almost a year. The 10 used to be 100, and all those innocents the numbers were up to the hundreds of thousands but I brought it down.” Evelyn stared at her. “How?”
Cassandra turned. “Scared. Them. You.” Helena nodded slowly. “Yes. They are scared of me. They are the prey and I am the huntress,” Helena gives a smile. A vicious picture of a hungry lion or maybe it was a wolf.
They sit there for an hour. But Helena stays working on her stuff. Her computers are going through hundreds of identities and information and secrets. Those that are marked important are sent to her hologram computer. She stares at the group. “Are we going to keep talking about this or do it?”
Cynthia growls. “This might be confusing to you. But we plan to make sure that our teammates, the people we care about don’t die,” Helena stares at her. She blinks, once, twice, three times and she laughs as she grabs her stuff. “I’ll be on the roof of the Apartment building near his hotel. If you want my help, I’ll be there. You have till midnight and then I go in. With or without your team,”
She storms out through the door that leads to the balcony. They stare at her and she smirks. She salutes and jumps off, shooting her grappling gun. A huntress’s laugh echoes around the city. A warning. The huntress is here and her prey will die tonight.
She stands on the roof, a crossbow in one hand and a detonator in the other. She hears a soft bam and turns around. Dinah, Cassandra, Cynthia, and Evelyn all stand there in their uniforms. She takes one look at them. “You do know that I’m not doing this your way, correct?” Dinah tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
Helena gives a small laugh. “I kill people for a living. If I go in the people in there aren’t going to come out alive,” Cynthia opens her mouth but Evelyn glares at her. Cassandra nods. Dinah winces but sighs. Helena pulls the string on her arm as she ran off the roof. She clicked the detonator as silk helped her fall. The wall exploded like fireworks.
She laughed as she flew through the sky. Arrows landing in people’s heads. She jumps and lands on the ground, round-kicking the 4 men trying to hit her. She grabbed a man wearing a business suit off the floor and slammed him against the wall. She could hear Dinah’s scream behind her, Evelyn’s arrows knocking down the enemies, Cassandra’s batarangs flying around the room, Cynthia’s illusions flashing around the room.
“Where is Frank Bertinelli!” He stares at her and she points her crossbow to his chest. “Where?” He starts shaking like a leaf. “He. He’s. He’s in the abandoned mineral factory down the street,” The man utters. She smirks. “I hope your right,” She whispered to him, with a smirk. She steps back and raises her crossbow perfectly to his heart. “Bye, Bye, honeybee,” She says and she lets the trigger go. The arrows hit him and he slams against the wall before falling.
She snaps around and starts running. “Wait!” Dinah exclaimed and she stops. “Yes?” Cynthia, Evelyn, and Cassandra walk over. “Where are you going?” Evelyn asks. “I got information. I’m checking it before it’s too late,”
She shoots her grappling hook and turns to Dinah. “Have a fun time, birdie. This was somewhat fun. Try to keep the untouchables off my back, would ya,” She says and she smiles. An actual smile, Helena hasn’t had that in a long time. She runs into the shadows off for another hunt.
-----
This starts to happen more frequently. Dinah invites her for one meeting and she goes. She disappears once she’s done. But now. Now is when Dinah needs to choose if she really wants a murderer on her team. Because today is the day her father will be murdered by her hands. Helena will get her prey.
They storm a facility but she doesn’t stay with the rest. She storms her way through the building killing anyone in her way. She stops at the last room, an office, just like the one her boyfriend, her soulmate was killed in. The door swings open with a push. Her father turns around and stares at her. Her mask on, blood pouring off of her, a weapon in each hand, crowbar, and knife.
She tilts her head. “Why? Honestly why kill him?” Her father laughs. “You were pathetic back then, I needed someone better and well I got her. Just join your father honey,” She glares and she shoots him. Once. Twice. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Ten times. She shoots her father ten times. His body like a target at a shooting range. She feels complete. She feels like an animal would after finishing their meal. The glass behind him shatters.
Footsteps echo from behind her and she turns. She is covered in her father’s blood and she feels amazing. Dinah stands there staring at her father.
Helena turns around and smiles. “You good there, birdie?” Dinah turns to her. “I didn’t think you would kill him,” Helena stares at her and begins to laugh. She lets the laugh rip out of her throat and takes her heart with it. “Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I kill him? He took everything from me,”
Her sleeves that she has worn for years and years fall. They fall from her outfit, revealing her bare arms. Not a single bit of writing on them. Not a bit of green or purple, nothing just
nothing
.
Dinah stares at her arms and Helena can’t tell if that makes it worse or better that she’s not staring at her face. Pity forms on Dinah’s face and Helena hates it. She hates the pity, the feeling, everything. She hate’s everything and anything. She hates all of this. She grabs her crossbow, snatched the 3 arrows that fell to the floor, and runs out of the broken window. Her arrows will disappear in 30 minutes at max.
Huntress goes out the next night, no mercy given to anyone even the petty criminals. Bodies litter the street, holes in the bodies from her arrows, from her vicious lion teeth and wolf jaw. She does not pity them, they became the prey willingly, she was doing her job as the hunter.
She does not see the birds of prey that night. Or well any night for the next 4 weeks and maybe, just maybe a piece of her that had been taped together again broke once again. She bounces from city to city never staying at one. She might have killed her father but she knows damn well that it isn’t over. He had thousands of little worker bees tuning the song he had tried to make. He had partners and sellers. They would continue to try and finish his plans and she will rip them off her list one by one like a chess match.
Finally, after weeks of hunting, Dinah appears next to her on her way back to her safe house. Helena will point her crossbow to her chess and raise her eyebrow. “You shouldn’t be this far from Gotham and Star City, Birdie. They could get in some major trouble.” Dinah stares at her an emotion that Helena didn’t know on her face.
“I’m glad that you care, Helena. But that’s not why I’m here,” Helena stares at her and laughs. “Of course not. No one wants to leave their homes to see me. Not unless necessary. So what now? Another bomb in Gotham? Need someone to revive someone for you? Need someone to ruin their life for you?”
Dinah stares at her with pity. “No, that’s not what I’m here for either,” Helena slightly lowers her crossbow before pulling it right back up. “Then why? Why are you here!” Dinah sighs and that pisses her off. You don’t just sigh at her. You don’t.
Helena opens her mouth to say something else, but before she can Dinah grabs her cheek and brings her into a kiss. Helena freezes, every muscle and bone in her body freezes, she stops breathing, everything stops and Helena wants to scream. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.
THIS ISN’T RIGHT!
She had a fiance, she had a fiance, she had Michael. Now he’s dead. Flashes and flashes of him go by and 5 words come to mind. The five words he would say as he bled out on the ground in her arms. “Let me go. Be happy,”
She closes her eyes and wishes Michael, goodbye. She will never forget him, but right now. Right at this moment, he can be let go from her clutches. Her fierce, tough, beaten claws. His final wish, granted. She lets her crossbow go with her anger and she falls into the kiss.
Dinah lets her go and Helena stares at her. Both of them were out of breath. She can feel something on her face, and when she wipes off, she realizes she was crying. She was crying in front of Dinah. She closed her eyes and gulped. She could break later. Right now she has things to do.
“Come back with me?” Helena smiles a so very weak smile.
“I can’t birdie. I have so much more work to do and no one else to do it for me,” Dinah stares at her and Helena feels so very sorry. So, so, so very sorry.
“Do you mean your father? You killed him,” Helena laughs.
“Unlike other criminals, he had partners, sellers, and buyers. He had companies almost as big as the Daily Planet putting money into his schemes. He had more people buying than people work at Coast City and Gotham City combined. I have so much to undo. I can’t leave the people with no one,” Dinah stares at her and Helena wants to cry. She wants to fucking break. She is tired. That’s what she is but she can’t. She has to take down her father’s workers, make sure Spyral is under control, and so much more. Dinah walks forward and takes her head by the chin.
“At least. At least let the Birds of Prey help. Please,” Helena stares and laughs a pity laugh that rips itself from her throat.
“Fine, but we do this my way and my way only. No, arresting. It won’t work not with these people.” Dinah looks at her once more and nods. Helena sighs. “Let’s meet in Central city in 4 days. That’s my next hit. We can talk about all of this then,” Dinah nods and they go their respective places.
They learn to love each other without soulmate marks. They don’t need those. Helena lets herself pull up her sleeves and show them around. Dinah walks around with her hand in hand. They aren’t perfect and never will be but they are together. And that’s enough for them.