Who: Oliver Queen (Green Arrow I) and Dinah Lance (Black Canary) NPCs: Josh, a waiter; a poor woman being brutalized by thugs, thugs. When: Wednesday, March 28th 2012 Where: Various locations in Manhattan. What: Oliver calls Dinah to invite her out for coffee to talk about Mia, then that turns into sparring, where the loser buys dinner, which leads to dessert (actual dessert; I know it's Ollie and Dinah, but come on! Get your minds out of the gutter, people!) and after that they go fight crime. It's what they do. And they insist it's not a date. Except it has all the hallmarks of a date, including kissing and agreeing to try the whole relationship thing again. They're just silly. Thorough synopsis is through because this log is really long. Rating: PG-13
It was nice that they could still consider each other friends—even close friends. It was nice that they could still talk to each other, see each other... not throw things at each other. Yeah, that part was really... well, it was really good. They practically had a family together—kids and all; though Roy was grown with a baby of his own and Mia and Connor were old enough not to suffer from the difficulties associated with a one parent household—but Dinah cared about Ollie's wards (and son) as much as if they were her own, and she tried to keep in contact with them on a regular basis as well, just in case they needed anything.
So it was nice that he could call her and ask her out for coffee and she could say yes and this totally didn't mean they were going to wind up in the sack, no matter what Babs said to the contrary. Just friends, having coffee, like two normal, sane people who weren’t in love. Yep. This was going to be nice.
It was nice. It was good that Oliver could actually dial Dinah's number, all seven digits, without stopping himself out of guilt and that when he did call, that she didn't hang up on him. She was certainly entitled to, after some of the hell he'd put he'd put her through. He was lucky she loved his kids in spite of him; and that wasn't even counting all the times she'd loved him in spite of himself. God, he really didn't deserve her. But he needed her.
He needed to talk to her. He needed to hear her voice, see her… most of all, he needed her to tell him he wasn't going to fuck this up. Her reassurance mattered to him. Her opinion mattered to him in a way no one else's did. She was… the only woman who'd ever really mattered, when he was completely honest with himself. Which was why it was ironic, fucking stupid, really, that he kept flirting with other women. Oliver had every reason in the world to be monogamous, because when he was with Dinah, he was happier than he'd ever been. He loved her. And yet he kept screwing it up, shooting himself in the foot, breaking everyone's hearts in the process.
Stupid, stupid, stupid…
Oliver's emotional beating session was interrupted when he saw Dinah walk through the door. It was forgotten, actually. Seeing her had a way of making him forget things, like why the world sucked or why he'd just been thinking that keeping his distance was a good idea. Dinah made him a better person. Dinah made him smile.He stood to greet her. He even pulled out the chair across from him for her, even though he didn't have to.
"Hey," Ollie said. "You look great." The compliment was sincere. She did look great. She was wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket over a fitted v-neck t-shirt (white) and pair of modest red heels. If it had flirtatious overtones because of their history, that wasn't intentional. This time. And Dinah was definitely able to tell if Ollie was being intentional, because Ollie wasn't exactly one for subtle.
He flashed her a grin. Okay, maybe that was a little flirtatious. He couldn't help himself. It was Dinah.
He sat down again. "Coffee?"
"Thanks." She said with a pleased but slightly incredulous look when he pulled her chair out for her and met his grin with one of her own that was perhaps just a little too friendly, just a little too familiar. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”
She smiled at him the way she used to smile at him on a Sunday afternoon when they'd somehow managed to "forget" to get out of bed. She smiled at him like she used to smile at him when things were good- and there had been plenty of times when things had been good. It wasn't a ploy or an act, Dinah was sincerely glad to see him. 90% of the time, Dinah was glad to see him. The other 10% of the time she would have given her right arm to not see him ever again.
But even during those times there was something that kept her coming back to him; answering his phone calls and e-mails, driving all the way out from Gotham, taking the ferry into the City and driving her motorcycle insanely (or just normally in her mind) through the gridlocked New York traffic just to come when he said he needed her. And the funny thing was, he didn’t even have to say it. After so many years as partners, both in costume and out, there were some things about Ollie that Dinah just knew—like how he preferred his socks folded or the specific curse words that were reserved only for scrubbing out the Queen Family chili pot after a particularly fiery batch, or the tone he took when he needed her to come save him.
“Coffee’d be great. Black? How are you, Oliver?”
Hey, Ollie could be a gentleman. Chivalry wasn't entirely dead.
He placed their orders, a simple black coffee for her and something a bit stronger with a kick of expresso for himself. He needed it, after the meeting he'd had. As much as he loved being able to put his company name (not to mention his own name) towards worthy philanthropic causes, especially one that meant so much to , Ollie still preferred hanging out with the kids at the rec center to business meetings.
"I'm good. Just met with Elle Macphereson for most of the day," he said, gesturing at the suit he was wearing to explain it. Because Ollie didn't wear suits. Not normally. Unless it was business, a funeral… or a really fancy date. In this case, it was business. This was definitely not a date. “Thanks to Bruce’s charity auction," he explained, in case Dinah didn't already know. He shrugged, as if spending the day with a former supermodel was no big deal. "She’s a really into philanthropic causes these days, especially when it comes to HIV and AIDs. And Taoism. She’s nice. I like her. She had some fantastic ideas... and she wants to meet Mia, at some point. I think I might have bragged about her."
There was definite pride in Oliver's voice when he talked about Mia.
"You look good though, she'll definitely enjoy it. Though, I don't know if I would put Mia in front of a celeb. It seems a little too much like a freak-show." Dinah answered honestly. It didn't really matter if she was talking out of jealous (which she didn't think she was, since it was for charity) or not. But Mia wasn't the type to enjoy being strutted out in front of Ollie's ‘date’ and having her story told, even if it garnered more money for the cause. To Dinah, that sounded a lot like yet another form of prostitution.
“I wouldn’t subject her to a freak-show,” Ollie protested, and he did sound mildly put out by the idea. “Mia is more important than all that celebrity crap,” he said, earnestly. Then he paused. "She's why I called you, actually. Mia. I want…" there, Oliver stopped himself, and corrected his phrasing: "I am adopting her. She doesn't know yet. I haven't told her. At first, I didn't want to get her hopes up, and now after everything that's happened, moving us to New York I almost have to start all over again. Every state is different when it comes to adoption."
"I don't even know if it's still a good idea," Ollie sighed, in a tone that meant he wasn't sure it had been good idea in the first place.
That's why he'd called her.
Dinah listened quietly, stirring her coffee a few times to cool it down before sipping it. She rested her elbows on the table—a mannerism that her mother would have been appalled at- and held the cup with both hands so she could watch Ollie—and she didn’t miss the pride in his voice and on his face when he talked about Mia; which made her smile.
Dinah set her coffee down and looked up at Ollie when he mentioned adopting Mia, careful to keep any emotion off of her face. She studied Ollie’s face with a look that was pure detective and rested her chin in one of her hands.
“You don’t know if it’s a good idea…” She repeated, “Ok, well. Mia’s going to be eighteen soon, isn’t she? So I guess the big question is; why do you want to adopt her? Particularly now when she’s not going to need a legal guardian for much longer.”
“Because she’s my daughter,” Ollie replied. He didn’t even have to think about it. “It was different with Roy, because he was younger than Mia was when I took him in, so making it official made sense to protect him”—the fact that he’d failed Roy epically when it came to following through on his duties as a father aside for the moment, because this conversation wasn’t about the first Speedy, but the second —“and Connor is my flesh and blood. No one is going to question that. They’re both my sons. Not just to me, or you, or our friends, but in ways the rest of world recognizes. Maybe it’s bullshit that what the rest of the world thinks should matter, but—” Ollie broke off. He was starting to get a little wound up, as he often did when he was passionate about something and felt like he had to defend himself or explain himself to others. Perhaps the expresso in his coffee had been a bad idea. He let out another sigh, and took a minute to recenter himself:
“I don’t want the caption under my funeral picture to talk about my sons and granddaughter accompanied by Mia Dearden, who I took in as a wayward teenage girl and helped give a better chance at life. I just want my family, Dinah,” Oliver said. And it was lucky for them both that he was so focused on Mia today. Or was it? Because otherwise, he would have broken down and begged her, “Please come back to me, Pretty Bird,” in a low, husky voice.
But Oliver was thinking like a parent; “Mia’s never had a real family. Or a father. She deserves one,” he went on. Those feelings and obligations managed to overshadow how much he missed Dinah, for today. “I just—she deserves better than me.”
She watched Ollie and didn’t interject, even when he started getting wound up. Let him get wound up—if there was anything that he should get wound up about, it was this… his kids. There were times that Ollie was an atrocious father—not the worst in the world, by any means, but not as good as Roy, Connor or Mia deserved. And then there were times like this… the times when there was nothing in the world that was going to keep him from helping his kids, even in his weird, round-a-bout Ollie kind of way.
“Oh, honey.” Dinah said softly with a heartfelt smile and reached out to rest her hand on top of his across the table, squeezing reassuringly. “I think it’s a great idea. Whether or not Mia deserves better than you; that really isn’t something that you get to decide. She was stuck with her dad until she could run away… but she picked you, Oliver. She chooses to stay with you. Whether or not you’re good for her, she loves you.” Dinah said, though she realized after a moment that maybe she wasn’t only talking about Mia.She held onto his hand for a moment, meeting his eyes and finally gave it a final squeeze before she withdrew her hand again and picked up her coffee.
“Besides, I don’t think you need to worry about your obituary. We’ll get Vicki Vale to write something poignant and ironic like…. Oh I don’t know… something like “Oliver Jonas Queen—he always made the right enemies.” She gave him a wink and sipped her coffee.
Oliver relaxed a little as Dinah spoke, when she held his hand in his and smiled at him in a heart-felt way that made him think that maybe she wasn’t she just talking about Mia. Then she talked about having Clark write him a witty epithet for his obituary. It surprised him; made laugh.
“Gee, thanks,” Ollie said, pretended to be mock-hurt. “You really know how to make a guy feel loved, Di.” He stretched his arms, leaning back a bit in his chair and flashing her another grin before picking up his coffee cup and taking a long drink. “Just promise me one other thing—don’t let Roy put my just my initials on my headstone. He think about doing it, too. To make himself laugh, knowing I’d be remembered as OJ Queen for all eternity.”
She laughed and shook her head, “Okay, okay, okay.” She said, holding her hands up in mock defense, as if Ollie had caught her red-handed in a secret plot with Roy to embarrass Ollie until the end of time, “I won’t let him put ‘he was just a big ol’ queen’ on it either.” She shot him a daring wink and had another sip of her coffee. Dinah was having a great time… and she was more surprised that that fact didn’t surprise her.
Somehow she’d had it in her mind that this would end in a very loud, very public fight and/or very loud, very public sex, neither of which was really good for her right now. She traced the rim of her coffee mug with one finger, looking down into it. Dinah couldn’t help herself. She loved him. And after all these years, she was fairly certain that she always would—but after the last time… God…
He broke her heart. He hurt her. And she tried to say that it was just Ollie and he didn’t think before he acted and everyone knew that—but she thought somehow that she was different; that they were different, that them being them meant something to him, that it was something that would give him pause before he acted. But it hadn’t happened yet. And it was when he leaned back and grinned at her, or made that particular mock-pouting face, or called her Pretty Bird that she remembered that despite it all, she loved him; and there was nothing she could do about it.
Oh, to hell with it.
She lifted her head and grinned at him, “You want to get out of here?”
“Yeah, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” Ollie said, playing along with her joke. “People would probably get it in their heads that Hal and I were secret lovers, which is... wrong. He’s like my brother. Besides, you’re way too sexy to be anybody’s beard,” a smirk played at his lips, and he looked her right in the eye. Oliver’s green-eyed gaze was the kind that sent shivers down her spine. Couldn’t get much more obvious than that.
Oliver sipped his coffee, licking his lips afterward. Then, disregarding any boundaries he might have been toeing up to that point, he said, “You’re my girl. My Pretty Bird.” Doing so effectively put both their hearts on the table, making the question of whether or not he wanted to get out of there inconsequential. He would go whereever she wanted to go. The real question was... now that he’d said that... did she really want him to follow her?
She hated it. She hated how he played with her heart like that and how he knew all of her buttons—literally; all of her buttons—and made liberal use of pushing them, depending on what he wanted. And she wasn’t his girl. Of course he knew that, it was just more fun to…. To… what? Pretend? Irritate her? Was he just trying to get a reaction or was there something else there? GOD, he was infuriating.
Alright, fine. He had chased her until she caught him; at least for now. So what happened next? He had left it up to her and while she certainly wouldn’t mind a good roll in the hay (for old time’s sake of course), there was still a part of her, one of the most real and vulnerable parts, that said that this wasn’t a good time; she just wasn’t ready. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a good time in the meantime.
She finished the last of her coffee then got up, fixing him with a challenging kind of smirk, “I know just the place; as long as you’re up for some heavy physical activity and close contact.”
Damn it, Oliver. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Oliver cursed himself. Even though she didn’t say a thing, she didn’t have to. He could tell by the look in eye that he’d seriously misjudged how far he could go... again. He hadn’t meant to for his words to hurt her. He loved her. But he couldn’t blame her for mistrusting that, after he’d been unfaithful in the past, more than once. He felt ashamed. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, which he compensated for by drinking the last of his coffee.
Once again, Dinah made it impossible for Ollie to dwell on how he’d hurt her, by offering him a challenge he couldn’t refuse, and by pretending things were normal. He agreed readily. “Lead the way.”
Dinah got up and waited for Ollie before heading out of the coffee shop. She even let him open the door for her and smiled gratefully at him as she ducked under his arm to get out onto the side walk—where her motorcycle was parked alongside the curb. She threw one long leg over the bike, flicked the ignition and raised the kickstand before looking up at him with one of those dangerous, spontaneous kinds of grins that always meant the best kind of trouble. “Hey baby. Going my way?” She smirked up at him and revved the engine, waiting for him to climb on behind her.
God, she was a tease. Oliver grinned. “Sure am, sweetheart,” he said, getting on and straddling the bike behind her. His arms went securely around Dinah’s waist out of habit. They’d done this before. This close, under the guise of being her passenger, he could safely breathe in her smell—the cherry blossom fragrance of her shampoo together with the citrus of orange and lavender from her body spray and with a hint of something uniquely Dinah underneath—without intruding on her boundaries (not that Ollie could name any of the those individual scents off-hand; he couldn’t. He just knew she smelled good, and that it was one of the most addicting things on the planet).
They travelled for about 15 minutes, give or take some traffic. Every now again, Dinah’s hair would whip back into Ollie’s face, but he didn’t mind. Just like he didn’t mind the new March chill. His jacket, gloves, hat and close proximity to Dinah were all the warmth he needed (yeah, he was corny. Sue him). They finally pulled up in front of a dojo. It was the Central Park location, not far from the cafe where they’d met for coffee.
“You really know how to speak my language,” Ollie said to Dinah, once they’d dismounted. He slipped easily into his Green Arrow persona, at least as far as personality went. He could tease, too. Literally tease: “You ready for me to kick your ass?”
She didn’t mind his arms around her, or his chest against her back as she hunkered down into the bike and zipped in and out of traffic. Dinah loved her motorcycle. More than love; Dinah adored her motorcycle. She loved the feeling of freedom and speed and the power of it. She took great pride in the fact that she had built her bike (and all her previous bikes) herself; though she sometimes accepted the assistance of her Uncle Ted. She was fearless on her motorcycle, breezing between clogged lanes of traffic smashed so tight that if either she or Ollie wanted, they could reach out and touch the cars stopped in the congested streets. She could play tag with subways and run down bad guys and outmaneuver police. It was the closest that this particular bird got to flying.
She waited for Ollie to get off the bike first before kicking down the kickstand and turning her purring baby off and swung off the bike. Grinning, she walked backwards towards the door, and called back, “Sure—and afterwards I’ll take you out for a nice dinner of crow. I really think it’s become one of your favorite meals.”
Oh, there were so many ways he could respond to that. There was a particularly dirty way involving a play on her codename Canary, with obvious naughty implications, but they’d already firmly established that neither of them were truly ready for that, so Ollie didn’t go there. Instead, he chuckled. “Oh, so you plan to keep me out all night, do you?” His tone was playful. Ollie absent-mindedly stroked his goatee as he spoke, before running his hand through his hair. “In that case, what’s your curfew these days? I don’t want to get you in trouble with Babs.”
He followed Dinah into the dojo, holding the door open behind him to let a group of kids pass through. They shed their outerwear, and then Oliver and Dinah changed separately, in the men and women’s locker rooms (obviously); but even though he knew that’s what proper decorum dictated and he knew that the two of them in a room together sans clothes would only spell disaster for their friendship and any potential revived relationship, Ollie did think it was kind of a shame, because he loved seeing Dinah naked. He was Ollie.
Ollie paid the requisite amount of money to buy a uniform, because he couldn’t very well practice martial arts in a business suit, and he hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes. He’d been thinking coffee, not coffee and a work out. Though with Dinah he should have expected anything.
Next time.
Not that it mattered. It was nothing for Ollie to fork over a bit of cash. He was rich. As he’d always said, it was somewhat ridiculous that people called Green Arrow a modern day Robin Hood, because what was he going to do? Steal from himself? From Bruce? Yeah, right. That made a hell of a lot of sense. Still, Robin Hood he was.
“She’s my partner, not my mother. I’ll come home whenever I like, thank you very much.” Dinah teased, making a face at Ollie as she headed into the locker room.
Being that she was 1) not a millionaire and 2) a master martial artist, all Dinah really did as far as changing was hang up her motorcycle jacket and slip out of her heels; so poor Ollie was stuck thinking that she was getting naked when, in reality, no such luck. She bent at the waist and flipped her head over to grab up her hair and pull it into a sloppy ponytail high on the back of her head before she went out to the sparring mats and waited for him with a grin. She didn’t even bother stretching. Dinah loved Oliver for all the things that he was; a father, hunter, lover, marksman, partner, blow hard etc.—but a martial artist of her caliber, he was not. "Ready?”
The thing was, Ollie had yet to find a good dry-cleaner in New York who could get blood out of thousand dollar Armani suits that didn’t ask questions and didn’t use products that were harmful to the environment. He really did need to talk to Roy about that. Note to self. But he didn’t need an excuse to imagine Dinah naked... his mind was perfectly capable of doing that on its own. He wasn’t surprised to come back and see she hadn’t changed.
“You bet,” he said gamely.
It was true that Dinah was the superior martial artist of the two of them, but that didn’t mean Oliver’s skills were lacking. He’d trained very hard and very well in more than one discipline to help himself become a better vigilante over the years. He’d attained a high rank. He could probably beat most people there.
But not Dinah. He knew that going in.
Usually, Dinah tended to go pretty easy on Ollie. Not easy in the sense of letting him win by any means—any wins he had against her he had earned fair and square—but by the sheer fact that she didn’t do anything with an intention of hurting him. Sparring wasn’t about hurting the other person at all, it was about learning about oneself; how you react to certain provocations, how well you can see your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Sparring was about watching yourself through the mirror of your opponent and finding the balance between offense and defense, self and other, friend and enemy, war and peace. Even if it had been about hurting one another, Dinah wouldn’t…. couldn’t do that to Oliver.
It scared her sometimes, how good she was at hurting people. Sometimes, when she was sparring with an opponent or facing bad guys in the streets, she would think about how delicate and fragile people actually were- even strong, youthful, healthy people. All they were, really, was bone and muscle and tendons and blood. There were pressure points that could stop a person, that could harm a person, that would pinch or sting. There were also pressure points that could incapacitate, paralyze, maim and even kill people—all by applying the most firm of two-fingered touches to one tiny, insignificant spot. All it took was one thrust of the heel of her hand into the bottom of someone’s nose to drive their septum into their brain. It only took one broken femur or a few moments holding down the carotid artery and Dinah could kill someone just as strong and as sweet as Oliver. And sometimes it scared her.
So she held back. Not out any real sense of winning and losing and playful “don’t hold back”-ness; but because there were some things that she had learned in all her years of martial arts training that she could never use, that she swore to never use or teach to anyone lest she open a door she couldn’t close. All the same, this wasn’t a lesson and this wasn’t a fight to the death. This was just play for them, and Dinah slid back on her bare feet to settle into a standard defensive position with her knees bent, her weight evenly distributed between both feet, the heels of her feet never quite touching the ground.
“Bring it.”
All the things Dinah thought about, Ollie knew as well. People were damn lucky is what they were. Health and strength and vitality, those things were gifts. He’d been reminded of that three years ago, when he’d gotten his leg smashed to hell by a pissed off metahuman wielding a bat. He’d nearly been forced into retirement, actually gave up the Green Arrow mantle... didn’t like to dwell on the fact that he could have died, if the injury had gone the wrong way. But he could have, and then he would have missed out on reconnecting with Roy. And Lian. He would have missed out on being a grandfather. That would have sucked. And Mia and Connor and...
Life was a blessing. Oliver thanked god he didn’t die, and even more than that, he thanked God he fell off that stupid yacht and got stranded. He couldn’t imagine where his life would be if circumstances hadn’t inspired Green Arrow. He never would have met the woman smiling at him from across the mat, challenging him. He would probably be dead. Or alone and fucking miserable, still living in Queen Manor, nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels, two vapid models upstairs waiting for him in bed, probably more interested in making out with each other than with him. Yep, he’d take this life any day of the week, even if Dinah never agreed to be with him again.
At first, Ollie mirrored Dinah’s defensive stance, waiting to see if she would make the first move. They liked to trade off doing that, since theirs was always an equal partnership. After about 20 seconds, though, Ollie kicked outwards in a move that would have unbalanced most other people, but Dinah was quicker than him. Lighter on her feet. In seconds, she had him flat on his back.
“Well, this is fun,” Oliver said to Dinah as she looked down at him. He was still on his back, and a lopsided smile played at his lips. He didn’t seem to mind at all that she’d bested him so quickly. In fact, he seemed amused.
Dinah moved through a simple Aikido move which was used to counter opponents bigger and stronger than oneself—which Oliver certainly was. The last she heard, the pull strength of his bow was pushing 100 lbs and that was several years ago, so she certainly couldn’t win by brute strength alone. No, Dinah’s game was all about finesse.
She quickly side-stepped Oliver’s kick, ducking under it and putting all of her weight down on her back leg while straightening the first and pivoting her hips, moving that front leg to sweep his ankle. As he fell, she swung around again and moved down with him, straddling his chest and wedging her knees into the soft, fleshy insides of his elbows to keep him pinned down.
“I always knew you were a glutton for punishment, Queen.” She teased, practically sitting on his chest though she never actually put any of her weight down on top of him; if only because that would put her in an awkward and vulnerable position if he decided to break free of the hold and fight back. “I guess I underestimated your love of eating your own words.” She grinned playfully at him, but didn’t let him up—yet. “Best two out of three?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s me,” Oliver agreed when she finally did let him up. “Total glutton for punishment.”
Talking halted after that, as they began another round of sparring. This time, it was not so easy for Dinah to try and take Ollie down, as he seemed determined to beat her this time. They parried each other’s hits, throwing a front kick here, a left hook there, blocking all the time. Finally, though, Ollie overpowered Dinah with an entangled arm lock. It was a move from Judo. He’d gained control of her movement, immobilized her shoulder, and he had a firm hold of her wrist, while maintaining light pressure on her elbow. The thumb side of his hand was facing her elbow, while the back of his hand was facing in the direction of his own body. If she were his enemy, he could easily dislocate shoulder with this move. But she wasn’t.
“You always were my favorite torture, Dinah,” he said. This time Dinah was the one on the ground, with Oliver above her. For a moment, it seemed like he might kiss her. He didn’t. But he was getting near that line. Again. “Why do you think I keep coming back for more?”
Dinah looked up at him like he might kiss her and like she might not mind … much… or at all; or maybe she was going to kiss him. Maybe that would be just fine; just the first step back on the road that brought them together. She looked like maybe that would be the best thing in the world.
But she pulled her head back, pressing it back against the mat and looked up at him. She smiled, gently, “in a way that said maybe someday but not today”, and tossed her head to flick her hair out of her face.
“It’s my magnetic personality— I’m just so attractive.” She punned, horribly, and laughed, “Sorry, that one was really bad. My quipping muscle has atrophied. I need you to keep me in shape.” Oh God, did she just say—holy crap; she really said that. She really just said she needed him, hoo-boy. What was she thinking—what in the world had she been thinking?!
That made Green Arrow grin widely, showing teeth. It stretched across his whole face. He got to his feet and pulled her up with him, close against him. That wasn’t any sort of martial arts move. It was pure Oliver Queen.
“You’re in luck,” he said, letting her go. “That happens to be a family speciality. Or so they tell me, and they’re probably right: I’ve got a smart ass son and a daughter who can’t keep her mouth shut. And then I’ve got another son, who is the least like me in that regard and he’s the one with my genes. Go figure.”
She only grinned when he pulled her in against him, her mind focused only on the present moment and the present sensations of being close to him with nothing of the past or the future between them. Dinah pulled away when he released her, stepping back a few steps to resume her position across from him.
“Funny—for a second I thought you were going to say Connor was the smart-assed one.” Dinah smirked across from him and waited until Ollie had the chance to recover his stance before charging in at him again. This time, though, she stopped short of him and leaned down. Dinah dropped both hands flat to the ground and flipped up into a hand stand before bending back towards Ollie and dropping her legs and the back of her knees on either of his shoulders. She tightened her legs around him then pushed off of his body, completely reversing her momentum in an attempt to flip him back over her, and onto his back.
She attempted to flip him over... attempted being the operative word. He anticipated her attack, and planted his feet firmly. Oliver had the advantage of 35 lbs over Dinah to help him keep his balance. And it wasn’t just 35 lbs, it was 35 lbs of solid muscle that he worked out every day.
“Nice try, sweetheart,” he huffed, but didn’t pause, because they were still sparring. He held her legs where they were, and proceeded dumped her down onto the mat, which allowed him to take the upper hand. “Guess you’ll be buying me a steak,” Ollie said, smirking at her. It was a reminder of promise to make him eat crow. He was being cocky.
“Guess again,”
In a move that would have made Lian proud, because it was oddly reminiscent of one of the iconic scenes of her one of her favorite Disney movies, Dinah suddenly had Oliver pinned, much to his surprise.
“Goddamn,” he said.
Dinah grinned fiercely, but she didn’t make him cry uncle. Instead she patted him on the chest affectionately before she climbed off of him and offered him a hand up.
“I’ll still buy you a steak. But we’re getting dessert. Lots of it.”
Oliver took the hand up, but shook his head once he was standing. “That’s not the rule,” he said. “Loser buys.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “You can get it next time. We’ll bring the kids and skip the steak.”
The fact he was planning ahead like that was a good sign, wasn’t it? “Back in a minute,” he said, throwing her a smile before he headed for the change rooms.
She did start to protest, but stopped when he interjected and held up his hand. She gave him a mock angry look which easily faded into a genuine smile and she nodded once, looking away briefly, then back at him. “I’d like that.” She admitted. She missed the kids—and it wasn’t like she didn’t ever see or talk to them that she missed them.
It was more that she missed being a family... in their own skewed kind of way. She missed the time they all spent together, with Mia snarking and Roy arguing with Ollie and Connor sipping tea quietly in the background. She even missed all the noise that came along with it; her apartment in Gotham seemed so empty without a teenager or other young person, or the constant political rants from Oliver.
She nodded and headed back to her own locker room to pull her shoes on and to collect her jacket and keys and such. She went out to her bike, and leaned against it as she sent a quick text message, waiting for Ollie.
Ollie returned quickly as promised, rubbing his gloved hands together as he stepped out once more into the fresh air. With his jacket on, he looked a little more like himself. That wasn’t to say he didn’t look handsome in an suit. He certainly did. He was born for that life, born into it. Aesthetically, he was great for it. But it didn’t really suit him as a person. Oliver wasn’t the type of person who could put up a facade for some people and be completely different with others. He wore his heart, his convictions and most of his emotions on his sleeve 90% of the time. He was passionate, and loud, and capable of great extremes. And he was more comfortable down in the dirt with the proletariat than he was with his own kind, schmoozing with the upper echelon of society. He smiled at Dinah. It seemed like he hadn’t stopped doing that.
Leaning against her bike like that, she looked like she could step off the pages of a magazine. But maybe he was a little biased when it came to her looks. He knew every inch of her curves, whether or not she was a bottle-blonde and if she had any grey... and Ollie would never tell on her. There are certain secrets a gentleman never reveals about a lady, even to his bros.
Since he was paying, Ollie gave Dinah directions to the restaurant he’d picked. It was a sports bar with a relaxed atmosphere that suited them both. Once again, she drove. It was her bike, and well, the truth was he almost always let her drive anyway. Not because she was a better driver, but because it made her happy. The Grill was located 3 miles from the dojo, and they got there in just under 10 minutes thanks to Dinah’s skillful driving.
“There’s no desserts here,” Ollie explained, “But the food is really good and so is the company, and I promise what I have in mind for dessert will be worth the wait if you’re willing to take another drive. Hint: It doesn’t even come close to rhyming with S-E-X, because this isn’t a date,” that was partly a joke intended to make her laugh, partly simple truth.
“Has Roy told you we’ve entered the ‘spell every F-R-E-A-K-I-N-G T-H-I-N-G’ phase with Lian?” he continued, making small talk, like he hadn’t just brought up “date” and “sex”; even in an playful manner.
That was one of the many things that Dinah loved about Oliver, his willingness to socialize with the common folk. Not just willingness, but love for. There were plenty of documented case of millionaires trying to live a “normal” life—the difficulty in that was that they just didn’t understand what normal was, having never had it. But Oliver wasn’t like that. Somehow he’d figured out what normal was and how to replicate it in the midst of having several million (or was it billion now?) dollars in the bank. It may not have been everyone’s form of normal; but the fact that he still did dishes (albeit while complaining about how Lincoln freed the slaves) and laundry… that was normal to Dinah.
She smiled at the sign on the door as she climbed off the bike and followed Ollie in. A playfully pissed off look hit her face, and she put her hand son her hips when he said there was no dessert, but made a show of being talked into letting him have his plan, though she was smiling the whole time.
She burst out laughing at his bad sex joke, “Well you know, I usually try not to eat and have sex at the same time… it doesn’t usually end up working out as well we thought that one time.” She teased and reached up to pull her hair down out of its pony tail.
“Well maybe if you guys weren’t constantly talking about things that were inappropriate for Lian to hear, you wouldn’t have to S-P-E-L-L them A-L-L the T-I-M-E.”
“Yeah,” he said, agreeing with her on that point. Even if it hadn’t worked out well, Ollie had fond memories of that night. “At least, not for us. We’re too good at distracting each other.” He winked at her. ` “Are you talking about the shouting matches, or my revised Communist Manifesto?” he joked, pretending to be wounded at the same time. It took talent to do both at once.
“All of the above; plus the usual father-son chats regarding ‘how best to meet a nice young lady and show her the tour of your house’, to put it in polite terms. By the way, I’ll totally know if you try to use one of Roy’s moves; so don’t even think about it.” She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye with one eyebrow raised and just the barest hint of a smirk. She was trying to look very serious and scolding—but it wasn’t working out too well.
Dinah followed the hostess to an out-of-the way booth for them and slid in one side, waiting for Ollie to join her and glancing at the menu, “Drink?”
Okay, so her strict ninja-diet sent via secret ninja mail from Shiva said that she shouldn’t have any caffeine, sugar, alcohol, excess fat, salt, chocolate (not even the dark kind with antioxidants!) or red meat along with various other staples of Dinah’s usual diet. But really- Shiva was never going to know and this was a special occasion, damn it; she would just work out more later.
“Are you implying that I need to borrow my son’s moves?” Oliver had raised an eyebrow at her, but his expression quickly turned to one of mock-outrage. “I think you and I both know I do pretty damn well in that department on my own, lady!” Then he burst out laughing. Neither of them could be serious about this. “Besides, you can’t teach an old dog too many new tricks.”
Other patrons probably thought they were on a date, or something. But they weren’t (really, they weren’t).
Ollie followed the hostess and Dinah to their out-of-the-way booth, his male hindbrain noted that the hostess was attractive in her own way. But all he did was thank her as they sat down, sliding into the side of the booth opposite Dinah. She had his undivided attention tonight, whether she realized it or not.
“Sure,” he said when she suggested a drink. It didn’t even occur to him to ask if she was on any kind of diet (and he wouldn’t have anyway. He’d learned a long time ago never to ask a woman about what kind of diet they were on or the food they chose to eat; he’d dated supermodels. The only time he would make an exception is if he thought they had some kind of truly serious eating disorder).
Their waiter turned out to be a guy, a little older than Roy, around Dick’s age. He was probably still a college student, by the looks of him. He was blond, and tall, but wiry, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans with half apron that said ‘MATT’S GRILL’ around his waist. He held a pad and pen in hand, and smiled in particular at Dinah.
“I’m Josh, and I’ll be your server tonight. What can I get you guys?”
Ollie rolled his eyes. “I’ll have the Six Point Resin draft to start,” he said.
(Go ahead and flirt with him, Dinah).
“Hi Josh.” She said with a light but fairly inattentive smile. She liked good looking men, of course (who didn’t, honestly?) and she had been known to ogle Dick’s acrobatic butt a few times over the years, but to seriously consider doing anything other than buying ice cream for someone old enough to be Roy’s brother wasn’t really her idea of a good time on a Saturday night. No, Dinah had always been a sucker for older men—as evidenced by the man she chose to share a meal with; even though it wasn’t a date.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be nice to him. Dinah had waited tables once in her life—never ever ever again. It was a rough gig. And she also didn’t feel like having any foreign objects or bodily fluids put in her food while it was still in the kitchen. “Can I get a Rogue Dead Guy ale from the draft?” At least if she stuck with something light, she could justify the cheating on her diet—for like the fourth time today. Whoops.
“I don’t know, Oliver. You’ve always had a knack for tricks.” She said with a smile, referring more to his classic trick arrows than anything else.
“Tricks, quips... It’s why you miss me, baby,” he said, flashing her a dazzling smile. “I’m punny.”
It was so cheesy he cracked up at himself. “Okay, that was bad. Way worse than your magnetic personality. At least that’s true. Mine was just.. one of the worst pick-up lines ever.”
“Staying away from the tequila,” Ollie teased, once Josh had gone. Dinah could hold her liquor well, and Ollie had even seen her drink some men under the table... except when it came to tequila. And it wasn’t a matter one tequila, two tequila, three tequila floor, it was more a matter of... well, it was like that country song. Tequila makes her clothes fall off. “That’s good. I think Babs might get the wrong idea if I had to put you to bed tonight. We definitely don’t want that to happen.”
Josh returned with their drinks, and Ollie ordered a steak for his entree. He looked at Dinah. “D’you want an appetizer?” he asked.
Dinah smiled at Ollie’s bad, bad, bad pun and watched him scramble to make up for it. “Oliver? Shut up.” She said, breaking into a grin and winking at him before she went back to surveying the menu.
“Oh gee, tequila.” She rolled her eyes and head back, holding her hands up in a “What’s a girl to do” kind of way, “No, no tequila today. It’s kinda early for me and hard liquor anyway; and someone has to drive us back.” Because the idea of Ollie driving her motorcycle or of leaving it at the bar were equally preposterous. Would you leave a child at a bar? No, of course not. And she wasn’t leaving her bike either.
“The problem isn’t really the putting to bed part, honestly. It’s more the fact that you’ll have to carry me out of here in a table cloth like that one time when we stopped in Opal City with Ha—” Dinah stopped reminiscing when she saw Josh standing there, totally privy to that little confession. Smooth, Dinah. Real smooth. She ordered a big cheese-y, bacon-y burger (well if she was going to cheat she was definitely going to make it worth it) with a load of fries and shook her head at the offer of an appetizer, trying not to imagine what this kid was going to do with the private information he’d just skimmed off the conversation.
Ollie snorted. He didn’t really care what the kid thought, but did wait ‘til he’d left to comment. “It was our own damn fault for letting you out of our sight. You move fast on the dance floor. Would have gotten there sooner if I hadn’t been trying to rescue Hal from a Carol look-a-like,” he said. “And if I hadn’t had to punch that asshole trying to take pictures. That was some night. It’s not often that I get to rescue the damsel-in-distress with you, or that I’m the most responsible one. It must have been opposite day.”
Dinah beamed at him like she was very proud of herself to getting into so much trouble and making Ollie juggle both his drunken friend and drunken girlfriend at the same time. “My memory of it—which, granted, is very blurry and prone to long spans of having no clue what happened—is that it was someone’s birthday; but I don’t remember whose. It must have been Hal’s, since for yours we would have just had a little cake.” She said and trailed off in the memories of Ollie’s birthday that the celebrated in Seattle—like the one time when she’d put so many candles on the cake that they needed a fire extinguisher to put it out, and how he accused her and Hal of never having birthdays. She smiled at the thought and turned her head away, hiding her sad smile in her beer.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was Hal.”
Ollie ducked his head, taking a long drink of his beer. He was starting to feel wistful, and didn’t want it to show on his face. Some of the foam stayed in his facial hair after he drank, and he wiped it away with a napkin.
“So,” he said, changing the subject, diverting it away from the old days when the band was all together and it was like a happy version of Paul, John, and Yoko, “how are you? All we’ve done is talk about the kids.”
Like divorced parents. Or a separated couple.
Dinah probably wouldn’t have been happy to be labeled as Yoko—but in a happy scenario, she could go for it. They were like Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds in Singing in the Rain. She could get behind that—mostly because it had a much happier ending that didn’t result in Ollie getting shot and Hal marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter.
“I’m good.” She said, pulling her eyes back out of her beer and smiling at him, trying to ignore the moment of mutual nostalgia that had just passed between them. “Still in Gotham. Still running around with the Birds. Oracle’s looking to do some recruiting here soon so I might get a few more days off…” She didn’t say what she thought she might do with those days off, nor that New York wasn’t that far away and always a nice city to spend a weekend or so in. “I’m kinda toying with the idea of opening up another shop.”
Okay, Dinah’s scenario was better. More fitting, even if Ollie did get shot and Hal wound up marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter.
He listened attentively as she talked about work, thinking to himself that Batman would be displeased at them for mentioning Oracle and the Birds out of costume in a public place, even if it was a loud restraunt and the likelihood that anyone would over hear them was slim. Of course, as he imagined the Caped Crusader making that disgruntled noise of his, he imagined the conversation that would follow,
”I could hear you,”
“You had us bugged! Of course course you could hear us! But who else besides you does that, Bruce?!”
“S.H.I.E.L.D., for one. Do you want me to go on, Oliver?”
… the fact he could come up with that in head so readily was a bit concerning. He didn’t like to think he shared Batman’s paranoia, but on some level, he did. He steered the conversation away from their costumed work by latching onto the idea of Dinah opening another florist’s shop. He’d supported her wholeheartedly when she’d done it in Seattle (only to ruin their relationship by kissing her assistant Marianne on New Year’s), and thought it was a good idea now.
In fact... “I bet Mia would love to pick up some shifts,” Oliver said, further insinuating himself and his kids into her maybe-endeavour, and thereby suggesting (without saying it) that she should open her shop in New York, because Ollie had a very strict ‘No Going to Gotham Without A Lot Of Supervision’ in his household where Mia (and Connor, but mostly Mia) was concerned, because more villainous psychos with an axe to grind seemed to live there per capita than anywhere else in the country. That was due in part to the fact that Arkham Asylum was located there, and indeed, that had a lot to do with it. But it also had to do with the Dark Knight. In Ollie’s opinion, he was a walking psychosis, and every manner of damned sociopathic fruit fly flitted towards him (but he liked the guy, really. Most of the time. When he didn’t want to punch him). So there was no way Mia could work in Dinah’s shop if it was in Gotham.
It wasn’t that Ollie didn’t trust Dinah to look after Mia, he trusted her completely, even in Gotham, but if Dinah were to have a shop and Mia were to have a job, there was no way Dinah could gaurantee that she would always know where Mia was. Running a business was hectic.
So Dinah’s shop would have to be in New York. Simple.
She liked that Ollie liked this idea—and it was more than clear that he liked this idea. She still wasn’t sure though. After things at the Sherwood Florist had gone so, so far down the tubes… Dinah’d had to declare bankruptcy for the whole business and that meant that there were a lot of financial hoops and hurdles she’d have to negotiate to try to start up a new shop. But maybe she could get it down where her mom’s shop had been, near the park.
Dinah smiled brightly at Oliver, enjoying his suggestions and support. “She’s going to need transportation to get down to Gotham every day. Maybe I could show her how to build her own bike.” She had clearly misunderstood what he meant. Gotham wasn’t that bad after all; she was born there, she grew up there. Sure, there were plenty of costumed super villains running around, but there were also plenty of heroes to take care of them—and besides, Gothamites were a tough, resilient breed. There was something to be proud of about that, in the same way that New Yorkers were proud of being New Yorkers. While it might not be the best place to live in all the world, there were plenty who wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Oliver didn’t bother to correct her misunderstanding, for now. Instead, he skipped over it and addressed the idea of building Mia a bike: “She’d have to wear a helmet,” he said. That was an example of his ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ parenting... neither he nor Dinah had worn helmets while riding this evening.
Their conversation paused as the food arrived, and they dug in. They ate in a sort of companionable semi-silence. They didn’t need to talk and keep the conversation going the whole time. There was none of that pressure. They’d known each other so long, been together so often during that time, that they were just as comfortable with each other saying nothing.
There was one topic neither of them would broach, however. And that was the question of where they were seeing other people.
“This is...” nice, Oliver wanted to say. I miss you, he wanted to say, but settled on, “good,” talking about the food. “How’s yours?”
“Of course.” Dinah said, completely oblivious to the fact that Mia was going to throw a fit because no one else in the family wore helmets. “We’ll get her a real motorcycle helmet too—not one of those silly bicycle helmets.”
Dinah was glad they didn’t have to talk throughout dinner. That was one of the biggest problems with dates and dating and starting relationships that hadn’t already been going on (on and off at least) for ten years. She could just enjoy her burger and her beer—the first of each that she’d had in a month—and the company.
“It’s good.” She said, dunking some fries in ketchup and munching on them. “So are you sure Mia even wants to be adopted?”
That gave Ollie pause. He hadn’t actually considered the possibility that Mia might not want to be adopted. As usual, he’d only been thinking about it from his side of things. With her best interests at heart, but from his perspective. God, he was selfish. A hint of doubt creeped into his green eyes.
“I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow,” he said.
Dinah’s heart broke a little at the look in Oliver’s eyes when he thought about what she said. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She reached out and put her hand on his, squeezing softly. “She’s going to say yes, honey. I just think it’d probably mean a lot to her if you asked too. That way she actually feels like she has a say in it—even if you’re just going to do it anyway with or without her approval.” The last bit was said with a joking edge and she squeezed his hand, “You’re going to do great, babe.”
“Remind me of that when she hates me,” Oliver said. He didn’t mean that in a gloomy way, just that he knew it was going to happen at some point. He was a parent, and it was hard.
“Nobody gets along with their parents 100% of the time.” She said and squeezed his hand again, trying to get him to look up at her, “You know all the trouble me and my mom had, but…” Dinah paused for a minute and looked down at their hands, “..You also know that there’s not much I wouldn’t give to have her back.” Her eyes met his once more and she offered him a friendly smile, moving her other hand to clasp his between them, “I think that’s just part of growing up though.”
Ollie looked at their hands. Hers were soft, feminine, in contrast to his, which were large and callused. Tonight, her nails were pink. They fit together well. He squeezed her hand in return, then let it go.
He looked her in the eye and smiled. “I think I just got the hang of that,” he said; “Maybe.” He was referring, of course, to growing up.
“Just don’t grow up too much.” She smiled right back at him, her blue eyes locked on his green ones and she didn’t once look away while her thumb feathered absently across the web of his thumb. She had callouses of her own, but they were less prominent, concentrated more across her knuckles and on the heel of her hand rather than fingertips and palm, like Oliver’s from his bow string. She tried not to look—and tried not to feel—disappointed when he let go of her hands and she dropped them back into her lap.
“Dessert?”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Ollie assured her with a wink. And it probably wasn’t. Oliver Queen had never acted his age, in costume as Green Arrow or out. That was part of his charm, and the reason he was able to keep up with a bunch of other heroes, most of whom were at least 8 years or more younger than he was.
“I promised, didn’t I?” he said, when she asked about dessert, flagging Josh over to so that he could get the bill for dinner and pay. Josh was still a little too friendly with Dinah for Ollie’s liking, but she didn’t seem to be paying him any mind, which made him feel better.
He paid, and together two of them returned to Dinah’s bike, getting on for one final ride. As he’d warned her it would be, it was a longer drive to the dessert place than between the other locations, but 20 minutes wasn’t bad for New York. Hell, it wasn’t bad for most cities these days.
“Was it worth the drive?” Ollie wanted to know, once they’d parked her bike, gone inside and Dinah had ordered her first dessert. He watched her take her first bite.
She actually moaned when she took the first bite, closing her eyes and making the same kind of contented, overjoyed face that appeared on the little porcelain Chinese kitchen cats. She loved desserts; particularly good chocolate-y ones. “Mmm…” She murmured, taking a long time to enjoy her first bite of dessert before finally opening her eyes and smiled with her mouth closed, nodding and chewing all at the same time. She beamed at him once she’d finally swallowed the first bite. “Oh man. That’s dangerous.”
Oliver laughed. He found it entertaining to watch her moan when he hadn’t actually done anything. He was eating a chocolate chip cookie, which wasn’t as boring as it sounded. It was actually really good.
“I think you can handle a little danger in your life, Di,” he said.
She gave him a playful look, somewhere between incredulous and mock terrified at the prospect of adding more danger into her life. After all; how much more dangerous could it get? But just a little bit more dessert wouldn’t kill her or anything.
“You’ve got to try this.” Dinah said, scooping up a bit of her fudge brownie sundae in a tiny little shot glass with an equally tiny spoon. Holding her other hand open beneath it, Dinah held the loaded spoon out for him to try. It may have been a very date-y, relationship-y, flirty kind of mood, but Dinah hadn’t actually considered that before she did it. After so many years of knowing each other (and so much spit swapped over those years), it seemed that it would be more awkward to make him go get his own spoon and dig around in her dessert himself. This was just easier.
How much more dangerous could her life get? Well, she could get back together with him and risk her heart again. That was dangerous. If Dinah wasn’t thinking of the flirty, date-y aspect to her actions, Ollie certainly wasn’t. Or if he was, he didn’t care if she didn’t. He leaned in, taking the bite she offered. Chocolate wasn’t one of his particular vices, but he could see why she’d enjoyed it so thoroughly. It was kind of sinful.
But no more sinful than wanting to push the spoon out of the way and kiss her when she smiled at him like that.
Down, boy. That was still a bad idea. Neither of them were ready for that. But god, it was tempting.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It is dangerous.” He wasn’t talking about dessert.
Dinah looked at him and knew exactly what kind of crossroads they were sitting on. They’d been here time and time again- sometimes they threw caution to the wind and dove in head first and could end up having sex in the bathroom (which had happened before and honestly wasn’t even remotely close to the most public place they’d done the horizontal mambo in) or … not. That had happened before too, that they both realized it was a bad idea right now and turned away from it and there would be a bit of an awkward moment and then they could laugh about their awkwardness and she’d take him back his place and then go back to her own place and they’d, of course, call each other at some point in the week and get together for another dinner or sparring session maybe. And no one would have to feel guilty, or used emotionally vulnerable. But at some point, he’d have to take her seriously and one day when she dropped him off at his house he wouldn’t call her again and … and that would really be the end.
As much as he hurt her, and as much as she put up a fight against getting entangled with him again—Dinah couldn’t think of anyone else that she wanted to… that she wanted period.
She set her spoon down and leaned in a little closer to kiss him; soft and sweet and tentative as if the kiss itself was a fragile thing.