10828/Masks Are Just Cages We Wear On Our Face

Masks Are Just Cages We Wear On Our Face
Date of Scene:	20 April 2022
Location:	The Narrows - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	After the big fight, Helena brings Evan home to patch him up. Sharp suture needle is sharp!
Cast of Characters:	Evan Cooper, Helena Wayne

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Evan Cooper has posed:
The fight has ended. The mechs have been disabled, the pilots zip-tied hand and food to await the police. The hostages in the cages have been released, miraculously with no significant injuries. In the distance, sirens wail out in protest. No emergency services ever truly *rush* to the Narrows. They'll get here when they get here.

Walking with a limp, Wraith heads toward Huntress. He's had high-caliber cannons literally emptied into him, he's been slammed against steel mechs and trees. And the dude is merely walking with a limp. "I couldn't have done that on my own," he says, not even slightly out of breath. "I'm glad you were here, Huntress."

A perceptive eye would notice he's favoring his left side, holding his arm against it. It's nearly impossible to see on a black uniform at night, but some sort of wetness is gathering there on the left side of his abdomen...where his descending aorta is.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne gives the scene a last, long once-over before moving closer to Wraith. She steps right up to him, slipping a shoulder under his arm to help him walk. "You should be dead, y'know." she replies. "Walk with me and I'll get us both out of here."

They may technically be heroes, but Huntress knows that when it comes to finding destruction and mayhem, the GCPD tends to arrest first and ask questions later. She's not very big, but the woman manages to shoulder a good portion of his weight all the same.

"Can you ride? How do you feel? Any difficulty breathing or blurry vision?" Yes, she's trying to assess injuries and blood loss, hoping that she won't have to stop for first aid this close to the combat zone.

Evan Cooper has posed:
Wraith does gratefully lean against Huntress as walks alongside her. "Yeah, I can ride. I lost 430 milliliters of blood through a 1.5 centimeter tear on the lateral side of my descending aorta," he says. "Now that my blood pressure has dropped back to the normal range, the blood loss has slowed considerably. It'll stop on its own in about fifteen minutes."

What. The. Fuck? He stops and peers at Huntress. Even through the opaque black mask one might surmise he looks embarrassed suddenly. "I mean, I think." A shrug. "Ish?"

He starts moving again, in the direction of his parked bike.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne keeps on walking while they talk, although she turns to stare at him with mouth agape. He tries the smooth recovery and the shrug, causing her to give a light snort. "That's a pretty damn specific assessment, I'd say." she replies.

"I didn't take my bike tonight, but it sounds like you're in good shape to drive." she replies. "You showed me your face once, so I'm going to do something I should've done a while ago." Huntress replies. "That was stupid of you, by the way. We're going back to my place so I can assess this 1.5 centimeter tear on the lateral side of your descending aorta. Or whatever the hell it is."

Evan Cooper has posed:
He leads Huntress down an alley -- let's be plain: we're talking about a dark alley in the fucking Narrows -- to a pile of old carpet. He tugs it aside revealing a plain black, custom-built motorcycle. With a bit of effort he climbs on, but sits back clearly leaving room for Huntress to get in front of him and drive. One arm still favors his left side, holding protectively over it.

"When you start it, there's a small button hidden under the left handlebar. Press it once and you have five seconds to start the bike otherwise the entire thing electrifies." He lets out a small chuckle. "Please don't electrocute me."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne tilts her head as she watches him get on, then slide back. Purple lips pull into a wry smile as she expertly mounts in front of him. She gives the cape a casual flip to tug it out of the way, then looks back over her shoulder at him. "Small button, left handlebar. Got it." she replies. Helena looks around, as if searching for other little booby traps. Flip the switch then start the bike. The starter chirps, then she revs the engine a couple times.

"You'd better hold on. That very detailed assessment aside, I want to know if you pass out and fall off the bike." She'll wait for him to do so before putting it in gear and slowly letting our the clutch.

Evan Cooper has posed:
One might wonder if this is was the idea all along. Wraith wraps his arms around Huntress' body. "If I fall, don't back up to check on me and run me over!"

The sirens are getting louder and closer. Judging by the doppler changes in the sirens' tones, this place will be flooded with police and EMS in well under a minute. "You better hit it or we'll have free room and board for the night downtown."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne feels his hands around her waist, the woman leaning back a little to make sure he's holding tight. The initial acceleration is slow, but then she feels the firmness in his grasp. "Just hang on!" she repeats, popping the clutch as she shifts into second.

He rode the bike over, so she has to trust that he knows how to lean. Huntress banks the first turn as a little test, and if she doesn't spill him she'll take the second turn like a racer. Yeah, the woman knows what she's doing. Between the quick turns and dodging down dark alleys, if there WAS any pursuit they're left far behind.

At last she rolls up into an alley behind a nondescript apartment building. "You still back there? I'll stash your bike with mine."

Evan Cooper has posed:
A laugh. "I'm still here, but I think I shit myself two 60-degree turns ago."

Wraith gets off the bike to let Huntress stash it. "Make sure you press that secret button *exactly* seventeen times to deactivate the explosives." He's...kidding...right?

Still holding his side, he walks slowly around taking in the environment. "So this is where you hang your cape?" he says. "That's big trust bringing me here. I don't know if I should be flattered by it, or concerned that you're going to murder me and hide my body in a dumpster."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne opens what looks like a shed door, showing a big, purple bike inside already. There's enough room for a second, but only just. "Seventeen... wait, what? Explosives?" All the same she pushes the button, and carefully counts.

She beckons, jumping up high to pull down the fire escape ladder. "Put the body in a dumpster? Don't be silly. The main reason I rent this place is because of the cast iron, ceramic tub. Acid leaves no evidence."

Her delivery is deadpan, but her upper lip twitches just a little. "That's for the explosives crack, by the way." Once he gets up to the first landing she leads the way. Top floor, of course. There's a lock on the window, but it takes her about five seconds to jimmy it open.

Evan Cooper has posed:
Despite his injuries, Wraith follows Huntress up the fire escape easily. "I *think* it's seventeen, but I lost a lot of blood. I might be eighteen. I dunno, we'll find out in a minute."

"And I'm not entirely sure, but I think you just offered to let me take a bath." He squats on the fire escape and patiently waits for Helena to jimmy open the window. Without so much as a care, he tugs off his mask. He has a severe case of sweaty mask head with his matted, chaotic locks going everywhere. "Wow it's good to get that damned thing off." He draws in a deep breath and exhales upward, blowing his damp, sweaty bangs away from his brow.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne jimmies the window lock and steps aside to let him in first, mostly because he's already taking the mask off. She swings in lightly behind him, closing the window and drawing the blinds. Booted feet stride across the room in the darkness, turning on a small table lamp with a click. "Sit down and rest, Wraith." she offers softly. "Just don't bleed on the furniture. It's rented"

The apartment decor is neat and simple, nice without being extravagant, and quite tasteful. After the first glance, it become apparent that there are no personal items really around. No pictures, mementos, or anything. Not so much as an Elvis plate on the wall.

Standing close to the lamp, Huntress watches him and slowly removes her cowl. The cape follows, showing her true face. Perhaps it's experience, but her black hair is only a little windblown.

Evan Cooper has posed:
Wraith sits down on a couch. He's already moving much better than he was out in the Narrows. When Huntress removes her cowl, Wraith's gaze stops in surprise on her face. He swallows once. "You're...," he murmurs, but trails off. Then he looks away. "Rented...rented furniture? That's a curious choice." Obviously this is his first unmasking. Nobody's ever going to hire him as a model, but he's a handsome enough guy. He looks like the type who would shine up real nice with a shower and a shave.

"Evan," he says simply, still looking at anything he can find in the room that isn't Helena. "My name is Evan."

Helena Wayne has posed:
She is a lot of things, of course, but mostly she is younger than probably expected. About his age, most likely. Purple lipstick and all. "A temporary choice." she corrects. "In case I have to suddenly move. No receipts. No loose ends." And nothing personal here, either. "I'm Helena." she replies simply.

The young woman begins removing equipment, now. Utility belt, crossbow, grapple gun, the collapsed staff running along her spine. A hunting knife, two throwing knives. The purple and black fits her quite well, and he gets a good look as she turns back towards him. She steps up close, hands on hips.

"Now, then. Tell me what you are, Evan."

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan watches Huntr...er, Helena unpack her equipment. He shifts a little in his seat. He doesn't have anywhere near that much cool gear.

"*What* am I?" A smirk. "An aptly worded question. I guess I'm a machine freak who looks human." But there is no evidence of any kind of machinery. He looks...absolutely like a normal person sitting there.

"I mean, how much have I overstepped? You're my first, um, colleague. Do I give away all my secrets? What's the protocol for this sort of thing?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne tilts her head, looking down at him and lifting a brow as he replies. "Machine freak? You look pretty human to me." she replies. "Then again I haven't gotten you into the bath, yet." Her upper lip twitches. She's joking, right?

Right?

"I suppose proper etiquette would require us to trade secrets, one at a time, until one of us didn't want to share anymore." she suggests. "I'm from an alternate dimension version of Earth."

Evan Cooper has posed:
A slight redness to Evan's ears at the bath comment reveals his opinion about that.

"Oh, an alternate dimension? That old chestnut?" he says in a good-natured, teasing tone.

"Well my father, who *probably* had my mother murdered when when I was six and she left him and took me with her, implanted a whole shitload of my insides with unique, experimental biological cybernetics when I was 14 and his employer accidentally blew me up on purpose." A long, slow breath.

"So how did you get to this dimension?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne shifts, folding arms over her chest at the long-winded explanation. A dark brow lifts, the young woman looking somewhere between curious and impressed.

"My best friend threw me into a boom tube... it's kind of a wormhole... before our world got blown up by alien invaders." she replies lightly. "Oh, and MY dad was the one who taught me how to fight. In my version of Earth, he was the Batman."

Which... probably explains a helluva lot.

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan's eyebrows go up at that. "Batman? Okay, note to self, do *not* get into a fistfight with you." Then after a moment, he shrugs once. "I'm sorry your home universe got destroyed. I don't think...I don't think they make Hallmark Cards for something like that." He reaches up and run a hand back through his sweaty hair once.

"My father was definitely no Batman. He created high-tech, experimental weapons and the company he worked for sold them to the highest bidder. The stuff inside me was designed to create super soldiers but it was deemed too expensive. A soldier's life apparently isn't worth enough to justify the cost."

Helena Wayne has posed:
"And I'm sorry your father murdered your mother." Helena replies, unfolding her arms to give a courteous bow. "Thank you." She relaxes, then, and offers a small smile.

"Has it been fifteen minutes, yet? And if you don't mind, I'd like to see how you're healing. That's something heroes do when they work together." She makes a finger-curling gesture, beckoning him. To remove his shirt?

"If our positions were reversed, I'd expect you to do the same."

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan can't help but quirk a grin. It probably doesn't take an expert in psychology to figure out what he's thinking. He stands up smoothly and removes his shirt. "Yes, ma'am."

He has a respectable build to him, but it certainly isn't the super-ripped sort of build that your garden variety vigilante would have, like a Robin or a Nightwing. It must be that his internal machinery does much of the work for him. On his left side is a visible, nasty-looking incision that surprisingly isn't actively bleeding but is still weeping blood. He mops at it with his costume top, which is currently wadded up in his hand. "See? Good as new."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne's upper lip curls to match his quirky grin, the brunette shifting her weight before stepping slowly closer. The woman crouches down, resting lightly on the balls of her feet like a gymnast. She pulls off one glove then the other, tossing them aside before gently poking at his wound.

"You call that good as new? This is probably a good time to mention my mom was Catwoman. A burglar, a thief, and a really good judge of knowing when people were lying to her. Even if they had themselves convinced."

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan frowns down at the wound. "Yeah okay so it might be a bit of a mess," he confesses. It's not a very long wound, but the skin is torn up pretty badly. "How are you with stitches? I keep a field kit on my belt," he says, patting one of the compartments. "I mean, it will definitely reduce the chances that I'll bleed all over your rental couch." A smile seems to come easily to his face. It fits there well.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Crouched down like she is, Helena meets Evan's gaze evenly. "Save your field kit. I have a full, EMT medical box. Don't go away." She rises, padding over to a door to open it. On the way back she stops and kicks off her boots, wiggling bare toes in the carpet.

Crouching down beside the wound, she lifts that arm and holds it up. "Right there. Now don't move and this won't hurt as much." she declares. Picking through the box, she finds a sealed box of pre-threaded sutures, each one sealed in its own package. "You'll find that any one of us is a decent field surgeon, but some are more high-tech than others."

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan whistles low, impressed at Helena's medical kit. "I just have a sewing kit I got at Costco for seven bucks." Already Helena might be getting the sense that it's difficult to tell if he's kidding or not when he says things so deadpan.

He holds completely still to allow her to do her work. Maybe it's reassuring, maybe it's not, but he does wince a bit each time the suture needle pierces his skin. Apparently he is alive and can feel despite what he claims is going on inside of him.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne works deftly and neatly, her hands steady. She pinches the flesh together just the right amount to allow freedom of movement without tugging on the stitches. She watches what she's doing, and for a few moments she works in silence. "If you'd like, we can see about freshening up your gear a bit." she offers.

"But I think it's your turn, now. Catwoman, remember?" She pauses, then, tugging a little on the thread. "I don't mind talking a little, though. Mom taught me how to pick handcuffs about the time I could walk. By the time I was eight, I could get out of police handcuffs as fast as they were put on."

Evan Cooper has posed:
When the sutures are finished, Evan peers down at the wound appraisingly. "Nice. Do you take BlueCross?" A grin as he rubs his fingertips gently over the sutures. "Expert job."

"My turn, huh? Well, I mean I sort of encapsulated most of it. My father eventually died from cancer. The doctors all said it was from spending so much time around the bizarre, experimental technology that he used to arm rich dictators around the world. So I guess in the end he died of Acute Poetic Justice. I inherited everything, including some extremely lucrative patents. Now I use that money and this...this...*shit* he filled my body with..." For the first time since Helena met Evan, his voice hardens a bit. It's pretty plain he doesn't care for the cybernetic implants regardless of what abilities they give him. "...to do some good. I have abilities that were made possible by the evil my father did, and I'm going to use those abilities to help others or die trying." A shrug.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne looks over the freshly-stitched wound with a bit of a head tilt. "Don't touch it yet." she replies, looking for gauze and tape and antiseptic while he talks. Taking a pad, she sprays it liberally and waits for him to finish. "This is going to sting. A lot." Then she takes his hand and moves it to hold the gauze down.

"Keep that in place." Pulling off long strips of tape, she tears it with her teeth and starts anchoring the pad in place. "So all this tech gave your dad cancer? How does that, um...."

Affect Evan? Yeah, potentially delicate subject, there.

"I definitely get the idea that you two didn't get along. Were you like a test subject?"

Evan Cooper has posed:
Evan grits his teeth a bit as Helena finishes dressing the wound. "He didn't get cancer from working specifically with the tech he put in me. Just, in general, all the weird shit he experimented with through the years."

The dude's an unrepentant toucher! He rubs his fingertips over the gauze pad after it's all secured in place. "When I was fourteen I was living on the Germany campus of ForgeTech, the company my father worked for. I stole a truck and tried to run away. I didn't know it at the time but the truck I stole had a lot of company secrets on it, and ForgeTech had no idea who took it. So they remote detonated it. I was basically all but clinically dead when they brought my body to my father. Without asking permission, he equipped me with this stuff to save my life." He shrugs one shoulder. "And he did."

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne purses her lips and gently, yet firmly, draws his hand away from the gauze pad. She just holds it, keeping eye contact while he talks. "Okay, so I'm side-stepping the my-turn, your-turn rule, but we've already gone down this rabbit hole a ways." she replies.

Continuing to hold his hand, Helena closes the EMT kit with her free hand and sets it aside. "You don't need to tell me all of what you can do. And in fact, it's probably not a good idea for you to anyway. Heroes here are still pretty secretive, and I'm pretty sure I'd get a lot of demerits for taking off my mask."

And with that, she raises his hand to lightly kiss the fingertips before releasing it.

Evan Cooper has posed:
Drawing in a deep breath when Helena kisses his fingers, Evan shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "O-Okay, so your universe is destroyed. You end here in this shithole universe. There is a lot of... Could I have some water, please?..." He clears his dry throat. "There is a lot of space between that and you running around Gotham as Huntress. What happened next?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne rises slowly, turning and heading towards the kitchen. She's wearing the bodysuit still, although she's lost all of the accessories. And she apparently likes being barefoot on the carpet. A moment later she returns with a couple bottles of water, offering him one before settling back down again.

"I was Robin to my dad's Batman, and it was a great partnership. Once he let me join him, that is. But when the invading army unleashed their scouts and people started dying..." Her voice trails off a bit and she takes a swig.

"I became the Huntress. My dad had a code against killing, but these things didn't have a code. So neither did I, as far as they were concerned."

Evan Cooper has posed:
Still standing, Evan accepts the water. He open the bottle and drinks it down in a single, long pull. Then he sits gingerly, favoring his injured side. "I can't even imagine how nervous I'd be if I ever met Batman. I'm not even a bad guy and that dude scares the shit out of me. So what does Batman think of your tactics? Is he supportive of your mission? Does he try to stop you? And how many of you guys are there in Gotham?"

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena Wayne shrugs a little at the barrage of questions. "I haven't fought this Batman, but from what I've seen he is certainly worthy of the mantle." she begins. "Against real people, I am still back on the no-killing code." Helena pauses for a moment, then adds. "Don't get me wrong, I'm plenty rough on the bad guys. But I'm a very, very good shot. And my mission here is pretty much the same as his."