noir_canary (noir_canary) wrote in newalliance, @ 2013-04-06 17:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | black canary, iron fist |
Who: Danny Rand, Dinah Lance
NPCs: Bad Guys.
What: Danny takes Dinah on a vacation to China, and tries to take her skiing. Bad guys have different plans. And then there's an avalanche. Whoops.
Where: The Himalayas, China
When: Saturday, April 6th
Rating: PG/PB-13
“For the record, this was not what I had in mind when I asked you to come here with me.” The words were dry humor, and could not have been more of an understatement. When Danny had asked Dinah to come to China with him his thoughts had been on getting away, from Luthor and all of the other chaos. It had been his intention to use the time to get to know Dinah better, all while partaking of various sight seeing ventures and enjoying what hotel luxuries their accommodations afforded them. It should have been a fun, relaxing venture. Today in particular he had planned on taking her out skiing for the day, and had even canceled some of his business obligations make the time. That he did not actually ski was secondary to his want to hit the slopes with Dinah.
It sounded fun, but what actually happened could not have been further from his plans.
But then, one did not usually count on being ambushed by heavily armed thugs.
When it happened, Danny had had one arm around Dinah while he pointed out mountain ranges and other sites along the road to where they would be skiing. He was so engrossed in her and their surroundings, that he did not notice a man step in front of their vehicle until the driver shouted a curse in Chinese. Their sports utility vehicle had slid as the driver tried to remain on the road, but even with all the effort the exerted they had still ended up in a ditch. But they had not stayed there long, as automatic weapons fire tore holes in the vehicle that they narrowly escaped from.
Twenty minutes of hard fighting later, Danny found his words echoing in his head as he felt Dinah behind him. Standing back to back. Surrounded by men wielding both bladed weapons and guns. No, this was definitely not what he had had in mind. Were they after him? Dinah? Was this about his business, or was Luthor striking at them already? It was impossible to tell, and he had no time to think about it.
"Just let the girl go", Danny started in Chinese, but the words had scarcely passed his lips as time seemed to slow and one of the thugs fired at Dinah. In that instant, Danny's arm seemed to become a blur of motion, and the bullet never reached Dinah as he charged the man head on, doing the one thing he could think of in this instance-fighting in the middle of the men so that if they did do any shooting, that they would be just as likely to hit one of their own.
~
It wasn’t often that Dinah could to travel as a tourist. Usually she was working, which meant keeping her attention on her cover and her target and being very cautious, and aware of her surroundings. Plus, there was simply no time during her working trips to enjoy the kind of luxuries that came with Danny’s offer-- seeing the sights, great food... great company. So she’d dug her passport out as soon as he’d invited her.
Besides, Hal said she should get out of the country for a while. So, why not?
“I sure hope not!” She called back, keeping her back to Danny and eyeing the armed toughs surrounding them. Sure, this didn’t look good-- but they’d been in stickier situations before. Or at least Dinah had-- or thought she had. And she was pretty sure this wasn’t nearly as difficult as fighting a dragon either
If they weren’t in the middle of a fight for their lives, Dinah probably would have elbowed Danny for even suggesting ‘just let the girl go’. Luckily the shooter managed to express her sentiments for her, and though there was no way she’d be fast enough, to actually dodge a bullet, she did drop to the ground to try.
Except that she didn’t need to-- because Danny was already moving and somehow she never got shot. She knew he was good, great, maybe even the best, but she hadn’t even suspected...
That was a puzzle for another time. For now, they had bad guys closing in.
Seeing Danny’s strategy at work, Dinah turned her attention to the other side of the circle of baddies around them, and slid at them across the snow. A handful of snow was thrown up into the face of the nearest gunman, and from there it was just a matter of disarming him and keeping his body between hers and the other attackers until she was too close for them to fire on her. And by that point, it was too late. She flew at them in a flurry of feet and fists, arcs of snow that had been scooped up by her footwork streaming behind her like white fireworks.
~
The way Danny fought almost seemed like a choreographed movie fight scene. One moment he was bending like a reed to avoid a machete, and in the next he was catching and breaking the harm of the same man. He ducked, and the man behind him laid out the man before him with the butt of a rifle before falling himself to a sweeping kick. Before that man hit the ground the ground Danny went onto one hand in the snow to kick him with his other leg, sending him into two of the other armed thugs.
A couple of quick mounted punches later, and it was over.
He rose to see that Dinah had more than taken care of herself, which made him smile given his previous comment, even in spite of this situation. As he walked to her he dropped a bullet from his right hand.
"I just want to reiterate that I am usually much better company than-"
He broke off when he heard the roar of an engine coming their way. Two trucks, with men hanging out the sides. Danny cursed.
"Forget it, I'm terrible to be with."
He grabbed Dinah's hand and ran toward the mountain, looking for cover in some brush.
~
Dinah straightened to catch her breath, surveying the damage they’d left in their wake-- but so far, no one was stirring. She gave a nod of approval and brushed snow off of her hands, looking around for her gloves which had been somewhere in the car. She flashed Danny a grin when he tried to promise that she wasn’t going to get killed by hanging out with him.
And of course that was when more bad guys showed up.
Dinah looked up from her search for gloves just as Danny grabbed her hand and started to run, dragging her along with him. Part of her wanted to go back and find her gloves because her hands were already cold; but she had a coat at least, and pockets and until they got these nutjobs off their trail, that was going to have to do.
Really; she was already sick of these uninvited guests crashing their vacation. She chased up the mountain with Danny to the cover of some brush, and hid long enough to catch her breath again.
“Hang on, I’ve got this.” She said, standing up and planting her feet. She drew in a deep breath and made sure that Danny wasn’t in the line of fire before opening her mouth and let forth an incredibly loud SKRRREEEEEEEEEE noise-- the force of which toppled one truck onto its side, right into the other and made the mountain groan at the disturbance...
~
Danny was not much of a planner. No. He was more of a dive in, and sort things out as he went sort of individual. Only now that they were outnumbered and he had to worry about someone else-though, honestly, Dinah could handle herself just as well as he could-he found himself being more cautious. And that meant taking a moment to assess the situation. Which was what he thought he and Dinah were doing, right up until the moment she decided to take matters into her own hands.
He had not had the experience of hearing her canary cry before, and so when she drew a breath his first thought was that she was going to charge back down the hill. He tensed and readied himself, but saw there was no need when her screech resounded across the mountain side, the focused energy of which decimated the trucks in spectacular fashion. It was amazing. Except that as she did it, and the vehicles keeled over, he looked around and realized what else was going on.
Above them, the snow began to resemble a rolling sea. Fissures cracked open in the ice, and trees along the mountain side snapped like twigs as the wall of white descended down upon them with a deafening roar. Danny tried to call out to Dinah, but it was no use, so instead he launched himself at her to hold onto her as tightly as he could when it reached them, even as he used his body to shield her to the best of his ability.
And then everything went white.
~
She didn’t have time to consider what a bad idea that had turned out to be. Sure, it had gotten the job done when it came to getting rid of the gunman (they were definitely down for the count), but she hadn’t been counting on the loose pack of the snow and the fragility of the ice above them . She just had time to look up, over her shoulder, when Danny tackled her to the ground and the snow followed on top of him.
Dinah must have blacked out after that because she didn’t remember what happened next. When she opened her eyes, everything was black. Not just dark; but black with the total absence of light. She reached out to try to feel where they were, what had happened- and one hand came into contact with a rough rock. They must have somehow made it into a cave then- which would explain how she wasn’t dead.
“Danny?” She whispered, her voice strained from slight overuse- but it wouldn’t be bad enough to leave her throat sore. Without otherwise moving, she felt around in the dark, but all her hands seemed to find was more and more snow and ice.
“...Danny?” Please don’t be dead.
~
It had all happened so fast that Danny could not tell whether he had actually been the one to find the shelter, or if they had just been fortunate enough to be swept into a cavern. Either way he was feeling the price of having borne the brunt of the snow and the ice when it had hit. Rock and ice had made a ruin of his coat so that it hung on him in tatters, and as he heard Dinah's voice he reached a hand to the back of his head as he rose unconsciously. The warmth and the sticky mat in his hair confirmed why his head was pounding as he reached out with his other hand to touch Dinah's shoulder.
"I'm here. Are you alright?"
Even as he spoke the words, he wiped his hand hand off and balled it into a fist. He wanted to look at Dinah for himself, and so he focused his chi as he would for the Iron Fist to illuminate the cave. They were indeed surrounded by snow and ice but Danny was far too intent on checking out Dinah to take stock of their situation. Her head, her arms, her chest, back, and legs. He even shuffled around Dinah before he was satisfied, and it was then and only then that he looked around.
"Well. I guess I have you alone now."
~
“I’m okay.” She answered, astonished that they weren’t actually dead. Astonished, and grateful. She patted herself down quickly to make sure that she wasn’t accidentally missing any body parts and just hadn’t noticed yet from the adrenaline rush; but she could still feel a significant amount of pain in each limb which seemed a good indication that they were all still attached.
She was just starting to try to move through the dark to find him when light suddenly filled the cavern-- and she was only a little surprised to find that Danny was the source of it. That was certainly a handy trick. She gave him a bit of a smile to show she was okay- despite some cuts on her extremities which hadn’t been blocked by Danny throwing his body over hers.
Dinah reached a hand out to the cold stone that made of the side of the cave and started to pull herself up, only for her right knee to buckle and dump her right back into the snow. Staring at the offending leg in shock, she moved to pull it out from under her and stretched it out as straight as it would go (which wasn’t totally straight), and slowly rolled her pant leg up, hissing in pain.
It was swollen and already starting to bruise, but when she pressed on it and the surrounding tissue (despite the pain it caused), there were no cracks or shards of bone. Just a bad sprain then.
“This is why you always roll with the avalanches kids, instead of trying to stand against them.” She muttered to herself, grabbing a handful of snow and packing it between both hands before putting it over her offending knee. “At least we don’t have any shortage of ice.” She said, forcing a smile up at him and gesturing to the snow surrounding.
The seriousness of their situation hadn’t quite set in yet-- there were still other, more immediate problems to deal with... like the fact that she just noticed that Danny’s head was leaking blood.
“Oh my God. Danny, you’re bleeding!” She said, quickly shrugging out of her coat and setting it across her lap, beckoning him to come closer so she could look at his injury.
~
“It’s just a flesh wound. Really.” He came forward reluctantly, though he did not do so in a straight path as his equilibrium was more than a little off. When he went down to one knee he almost fell into Dinah’s lap, but managed to catch himself at the last moment. “I’ve had worse.” It was true, but did nothing for his current state.
So instead of making a point of it, he turned his head and raised his glowing hand so that she could likewise inspect him. He figured it was only fair. And it was only then as she did so that he began to look around and take in the gravity of what they were up against. This was not the first time he had been lost in these mountains, and as memories surfaced of everything he had lost all those years ago in a place not far from here he unconsciously hugged an arm around Dinah’s good leg and looked back and over his shoulder at her. Without a word, he swore to himself that he would get her out of here. One way or another.
“You need to get that coat back on”, he said as he turned where he was kneeling to look up at her. “The snow out there is still settling, which means more of it is piling up over us.” It sounded sort of like thunder in the distance. “It’s only going to get colder...”
Rising, he got up and sat with Dinah, helping her back into her coat whether she liked it or not. And once that was settled, he maneuvered so that he was behind her, so that he could her tight and cross his forearms over her chest. The mystic flame that seemed to burn around his fist extended over those forearms, providing light as well as warmth without harming either one of them.
“We’ll get out of this. I’ve just gotta think.. and you know it’s hard, what, with you flashing your leg and all.”
~
“Head wounds always look worse than they are,” She agreed, carefully brushing her fingers through his hair, looking for the source of the blood. She took a handful of snow and blew hot breath on it to wet her hands, trying to clean the dried blood out of his fair hair. “But I never underestimate a concussion.
“I don’t think it’s going to need stitches.” Dinah added after a moment’s further inspection. Which was good, because she didn’t really want to think about how she was going to jerry rig a needle.... or what she’s going to jerry rig it out of.
She frowned when he hugged onto her leg (albeit only barely) and fondly smoothed the hair at the back of his neck, though she dropped her hand away when he moved again.
She made a face at her coat, rolling her shoulders to work out some stiffness. “I didn’t want to sweat in it and get it all wet.” All the same, Dinah relented and let Danny help her back into her coat, looking back over her shoulder at him as he sat down. “What about you?” His coat barely counted as a coat anymore-- hell, what was left of it she wouldn’t even use as a dust rag.
His hands were warm though and while at first she tried to avoid the strange glow coming off of his fists, not knowing what it might do to her, she finally leaned back against his chest and watched curiously as the flames crept up Danny’s arms and over her own. It didn’t burn though... it didn’t even sting or tingle. More than anything else, it felt like sitting with your back to the sun on a crisp Autumn afternoon.
For now, she dropped her head back against his shoulder, chuckling a little at his accusation. She laced her fingers in with his, letting his hands warm her cold fingers, and turned her thoughts back to their predicament.
This wasn’t panic worthy, right? They just needed a moment to sit and collect their thoughts. And then they’d find a way out- easy as pie. … Right?
“We should see how far back the cave goes. There might be an exit not too far back. Then we just have to keep it clear of snow until the storm passes and we’ll have a way out.” She broke away from him long enough to roll her pant leg back down before she leaned back once more.
Now that they weren’t fighting for their lives, it was starting to get a little chilly.
~
Danny thought it odd that he could enjoy this little moment with Dinah in his arms even as he contemplated whether or not they would make it out of this mess, but he could not allow himself to be distracted. Despite his efforts her hands still felt cold within his own, and with the daylight hours waning it was only going to get colder. He knew that if it came to it he could keep them alive for a protracted period of time in deep meditation, but that would not help them find a way out. Which meant that Dinah was right, and that they ought to check out the rest of the cave.
“That sounds good, but let me take care of us first.” Instead of explaining he nestled his head down on her shoulder as he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, focusing his chi to an even greater degree. His hands and forearms ceased to glow, but in their place the dragon tattoo upon his chest came alive with a mystic fire that danced over Danny’s body, and then Dinah’s own. There had been a time in his life that Danny believed that the Iron Fist was purely a weapon, but he learned that it was far more than that. More a force of will than anything else. Without exerting effort, he could have healed himself. But by focusing as he did now he simultaneously closed their wounds, and relieved her sprain. Dinah might have noticed that in her time with Danny that he had no scars for all of his years as a martial artist, and whether or not she realized it immediately, some of her own faded as they were bathed in the power of Shou-Lao.
When he was done, they were not only healed, but refreshed.
Danny opened his eyes and used his fist as a torch as he got up, offering his other hand to Dinah. The cave did indeed go on as she suspecting, but there would be no telling whether or not it lead to an exit or not until they went exploring. That he saw nothing but blackness beyond the light he shed did not offer him a lot in the way of hope, but he was not about to give up. If he had to fist his way through the mountain, he swore he’d get Dinah out of this.
“I don’t know what it is about us and first outings, but if you agree to see me again after this I’m taking you somewhere warmer.” He made a little smile, and looked over his shoulder at Dinah. “You ready to check out the rest of this cave?”
~
She tried to look over her shoulder at him when he said he was going to take care of them first, clearly a little confused. “What are you going to--” She started to ask, but trailed off when he lay his chin on her shoulder and the glow that had been coming from his hands transferred to his chest, then covered them both. It was almost too bright to look at, like when you stepped out of a dark room on a sunny day and she had to close her eyes and turn her head away from him briefly to let her eyes adjust. Even then, she had to shade her eyes with one hand just to be able to turn her head towards him.
Which was how she noticed what was happening. She could see the light, clean scar on the outside of her palm from when she’d cracked a board at the wrong angle as a teenager and dragged a splinter through her hand. It had faded over the years, but now... within the few moments where Danny’s warm light was wrapped around them, it had disappeared completely. What was stranger was that she saw it disappear. This wasn’t the slow fading that came from the passing of 20 years-- this happened in an instant. One moment it was there, the next... gone.
And that wasn’t the only one either. Chicken pox scars she’d had since she was a toddler, the holes in her ears from when she used to wear more than one pair of earrings, even the mark on her thumb from where she’d accidentally cut herself on a broken wine bottle-- they were all gone.
Maybe it was vanity that prompted her next action, but Dinah pushed the sleeves of her coat up to look at her wrists hopefully. The rings of scars were still there, deep and thick, but less obvious now-- as if ten years had passed since she received them instead of only five. Staring at her hands for a moment longer, she finally tugged her sleeves back down to cover the scars again, and turned to look at Danny when the light faded and he started to get up.
“How did you...” She whispered, watching him shock, tinged with a strange type of awe. She knew. He’d told her that he got powers from fighting a dragon and all that but she’d never imagined... She looked down at her hands again before shaking her head to clear it and took his hand to let him help her to her feet.
It was only with passing curiosity that she noticed that her knee didn’t hurt anymore-- and she felt like she’d just gotten up from a nice nap, and a long shower. Whatever it was that Danny did-- it was weird... and pretty cool.
“I look good in a swimsuit,” She agreed with a slightly playful smile as she followed after him; though she still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe there was a lot more to Danny and his powers than he let on. “But this still isn’t the worst date I’ve been on. So you don’t have to worry about that. All the same though, let’s go see what we can find.” She said, moving one hand along the side of the cave wall to feel it out, trying to tell if it would be opening up or getting narrower in front of them.
“Hey, you don’t happen to know anything about cave exploration or spelunking, do you?”
Really, where was Batman when you needed him?
~
Danny did not voice it of course, but the thought of Dinah in a swimsuit made him forget all about the cold. And everything else too for just a moment as he managed to almost trip despite the light he was still giving off. He played it off as nothing and kept on walking like it didn’t happen, but the vision remained with him none the less.
“Not really, no.” He knew that was not at all reassuring, but Dinah was holding it together well enough that he did not feel the need to sugar coat anything. At least not yet. Because it would not really be bad for them unless they discovered that there were not any other exits from the cave. In that scenario there would still be other means of escape, but they would not be easy, and would be dangerous in their own right. Because though Danny knew he could break stone with his hands if he had to, there was always the risk that he would hit a wrong spot and start a cave in. Instead of mentioning any of that now though he just took Dinah’s hand.
“I am also trying to fathom how a date could be worse than this. I mean, short of us actually being buried...”
He smiled at Dinah. “At least we have each other?
~
She grinned when he almost tripped and pretended not to notice. While he had many monk-like qualities, it was good to know that celibacy wasn’t one of them (hopefully, anyway).
Well, at least he was honest about not knowing anything about cave diving. She was no expert either, but knew enough to know not to disturb any water, if they found any. Canaries didn’t get along so well in caves-- too much like coal mines, and while Dinah was all for being a good alert for trouble up ahead, she’d prefer not to suffocate just to sound the alarm. She glanced back the way they came, but it was already too dark behind them for her to see the entrance of the cave. Maybe she could have used her Cry again to open the cave up again-- but who knew if the snow had settled enough that it wouldn’t cause an even more massive avalanche? Or with the echoes off of the cave walls, there was a chance she could deafen Danny-- even with his amazing Kung Fu powers.
“When a guy asks you to marry him so you can give him sons and when you explain why that’s not going to work, he has his version of Oddjob come beat you nearly to death? I mean because that takes the number one spot on my ‘worst dates ever’ list.” She said easily, though it was hard to tell from her tone of voice if she was being completely serious, or joking.
She was, for the record, completely serious.
“And that’s just the number one spot. This...?” She said, looking around a bit warily, with caution and concern on her face but no panic as of yet, “This doesn’t even hit number five.”
A piece of ice shifted nearby and crashed from the cave ceiling on to the ground, splintering with an incredibly loud shattering noise, but no real harm caused, except to make Dinah jump a little.
“Okay; it doesn’t hit five, yet. But if we die I swear it’s shooting straight to the top.”
But he was right-- even if this did turn out to be the worst date ever... she was in infinitely better company than with the last grand prize winner.
~
There was something very chilling to Danny about the way Dinah spoke of her former flame. She said the words out of hand, in a manner that could have been perceived as a macabre joke to break the tension of their situation. But he was far too intuitive to let her little narration simply pass him by, and in many ways it disturbed him much more than the avalanche or the identities of the individuals who had attacked them. It had been real. He was sure of it. And though she might have otherwise tempted him to laugh about it if he was oblivious of how genuine she had been, he instead found himself wanting to hug her fiercely.
But this was not the time or the place.
So for now, he just put the thought in the back of his head, and focused on the present enough to touch a hand to Dinah when she startled.
“We’re going to be fine”, Danny said as he shone the way ahead with the light of Shou-Lao before them. He still had an image of what she had said coupled with his own horrible memories of being lost in the mountains before he ever reached K’un-Lun the first time, so his words sounded more serious than he intended them to be. So to lighten the mood he quickly added, “When we get out of here, I’m going to make this up to you. You may not believe it but I am actually capable of a feat or two with my hands that does not involve breaking things. Once I lay my hands on you...”
Danny trailed off when he saw a light ahead that was not his own. He paused where he stood and held his other hand up to similarly stop Dinah in case she had not yet seen it herself. He wanted it to be light from outside, but he took a few cautious moments to be sure that it was not anything else.
And apparently.. it wasn’t. He took Dinah’s hand once more and lead her toward the opening, through which they could hear a helicopter overhead. As it turned in the sky, they could see ‘Rand’ writ upon the fuselage.
“It looks like that’s our ticket out of here.”
~
She smiled sheepishly when he touched her arm after she flinched. Okay, busted. She had certainly been caught in the act of being a little bit more skittish about the whole situation than she let on. Between her own determination to take the dangers one immediate problem at a time, her training to be controlled and calm in dire situations, and Danny’s all together very zen-like, collected demeanor (aside from a few little cracks in his armor, like when he’d hugged her legs and the way he looked at her just then), panic hadn’t had a chance to rise yet. Still, she was hoping they would get out of here sooner rather than later, or she might actually start to lose her cool.
Dinah raised one eyebrow at his come-on, tilting her head to one side with a curious, almost mischievous expression. “You know, no one’s stopping you.” She said casually, sliding her eyes from him towards the distant light. After all, the only person who was stopping Danny from getting his hands on Dinah was Danny.
Stopping behind him when he did, peering towards the light. He must have been able to see or sense something more than she did- because all she could determine was that they must have been in the cave for quite some while, because the light hurt her eyes a little. She took his hand again when he started to lead them out and looked up at the sky with a bit of a smile, turning in a complete circle to enjoy being out, and free of the tight confines of the cave. She shaded her eyes with her free hand, looking towards the helicopter and couldn’t help but chuckle as she called over the noise of the helicopter, “Man when you’re a billionaire, they really come looking for you fast.” She teased, though she was grateful for the timely rescue, but as she moved to catch up with Danny, she couldn’t help but turn her attention back to the initial danger to begin with.
“Who would want us dead so badly they’d attack in broad daylight? That’s not very ninja of them...” She mused aloud, not really expecting an answer, but looked over at Danny anyway. Whether they were after him, or her, or both of them- it seemed they had a problem... and one that probably wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.