Werewolves, parenting, and dating, oh my!
As soon as Dinah was sure Jake had settled into his homework, she picked up the phone to call Harry. She hadn't talked to or seen him since Valentine's day, and a part of her was glad for a reason to see him again. Of course, that same part of her wouldn't have minded hearing from him instead of having to call in regards to something business related, but she tried to ignore that part entirely. Not that she'd had much time to wait by the phone, given that she'd been fairly busy over the last week, what with making sure Jake got settled and moving into the Clock Tower, and of course patrols. And, come to think of it, she hadn't taken the time to get her calls forwarded from the landline at her apartment to the Clock Tower.
She dialed his number and waited, praying that he was home. She was with Jake in that she didn't want those wolf belts in the Clock Tower any longer than they needed to be.
----
"Boss!"
Harry started, looking up at Bob in surprise. "What?"
The orange lights in the eye sockets of that empty old skull rolled. "Phone?"
Harry heard the ringing now and jumped up, snatching the receiver off the cradle. "Hello?" he said, hoping he hadn't missed the call by now.
----
Dinah had been just about to give up when the click of the phone picking up on the other line and Harry's voice stopped her.
"Harry? It's Dinah. Are you busy?" She tried her best to keep the tone of urgency out of her voice. If he was busy, she certainly didn't want him rushing away from whatever it was to take care of this, even if she did want those belts gone as soon as possible.
Harry found himself grinning at the voice on the other end. "Hey, Dinah." There was something in her voice that made him straighten up. "Not busy, just got caught up in some reading. What's going on?"
Dinah allowed herself a little smile at the happy tone of Harry's voice. As he seemed to catch onto the fact that something was going on, however, she tried to think of a way to convey the urgency of her situation without worrying him too much.
"It's... well, it's a lot to explain over the phone, but I need your help with something. Would it be okay if I stopped by?"
----
Harry frowned. The research on angels would have to wait a few hours. He peeked out of the trapdoor and was pleased (and a bit relieved) to see that his housekeeping service had come and gone. "Yeah," he said. "Come right over." He dropped back into the lab. "A little bird told me that if you focus on your destination, the City will help guide you there."
Bob coughed, discreetly.
"Unless it's trying to get you somewhere else, for some reason."
The skull nodded, satisfied.
"Well, let's just hope the City doesn't have any other plans for me tonight," Dinah said darkly. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
----
She packed the pelts in a backpack, still careful to keep the towel wrapped around them. She didn't enjoy carrying it on her back, but she didn't dare trust it to stay attached to her bike. Not with cargo that dangerous.
Ignoring the tension that knotted up in her back where the backpack rested, Dinah started up her bike and sped away, focusing on Harry's place very clearly. Of course, the last time she'd been there, she'd been stuck in a loop and had driven by his apartment several times, so it was easy enough to picture.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the City obliged and, two turns later, she found his street. Parking her bike outside, Dinah hurried to the door and knocked. She didn't dare do anything else, remembering Harry's warning about his wards.
----
At the knock, Harry lowered the wards. The spell he used for that had a timer and automatically raised them again after three minutes. In order to actually remove the wards completely would be the effort of a full day, or sixty seconds of insane movement from Bob. But there was something else he could use to let her through the wards easily, and it was a something he had been working on for a few days.
The door unlatched, Harry tugged hard at it, since the steel security door was still improperly fitted against the door frame. Once he finally got it open, Harry flashed Dinah a grin and then turned away, walking back into the living room. The invitation to come in was left unsaid, and this was perhaps the best security precaution he would utilize. If it wasn't Dinah, but something pretending to be Dinah, it wouldn't be able to cross his threshold without leaving a significant portion of itself behind.
----
Taking the non-verbal invitation, Dinah followed Harry into his living room. She gratefully removed the backpack and set it on his couch, a small smile of relief spreading across her face as she was able to distance herself from the contents of the bag. She knew she would still have to handle them through the towel when it came time to show them to Harry, but she still relished the break for just a moment.
"It's good to see you, Harry," Dinah said. "How have you been?" Small talk. That was a good opener before jumping into asking for help with something that pretty clearly involved dark magic.
----
"Busy," was Harry's response, though given with a smile. "Not sure yet if that's good or bad. I got to meet a cherubim, and after a few things he mentioned, I've been doing some research on angels. Had one or two other jobs, too. Found a lost wedding ring, and someone's coin collection."
He took something from his pocket, and held it out to her. "Made this, too." It was a strip of black leather, four inches wide and eight in length. The fasteners at the ends were made from hammered copper and silver. "Should fit your wrist. The enchantment on it will let you get through my wards if you need to."
He was curious about the bag, but a light case of nerves had distracted him already, sudden growing nervousness about her acceptance of something so simple. He'd had to make it himself, of course, but it was decent work. The heavy fasteners resembled the medieval shields on his own bracelet, made from the same materials, in fact. Murphy had gotten a crystal to wear around her neck, but Dinah needed something that would work with her costume, so the cuff seemed a better idea.
----
Dinah’s eyes widened in surprise as she took the bracelet. She immediately put it on and then smiled up at Harry, a slight tingle rushing up her arm that she was pretty sure had little to do with the magic in the bracelet.
“So I guess this means you don’t mind my visits?” she said with a grin.
Beyond that, she knew it was a very strong gesture of trust, and her acceptance of the bracelet was just as much an unspoken promise that she wouldn’t willingly break that trust.
Dinah stood on her tiptoes and kissed Harry’s cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She drew back almost as quickly, clearing her throat nervously.
“Though hopefully you won’t reconsider that when you see what I’ve brought you.” Dinah reached into the backpack and pulled out the towel. “I didn’t know where else to take them, and I was hoping you’d know how to destroy them.” She unfolded the towel to reveal the belts.
----
Harry blushed when she kissed him, his grin turning a bit sheepish. "There's, uh... well, if you need to, touch the shields with the tips of the middle and ring fingers of your other hand. It'll give you some extra energy, but not for too long, and not every time. It'll need at least three days to recharge fully once you use it." It was based on the same principle as his kinetic rings, holding back a small amount of energy every time she moved her arm and storing it to release later, Only, instead of expelling it with explosive force, it was tuned to release the energy back into her like the silver bear belt buckle he once used did. At her words, Harry's expression focused, the smile dropping away. His eyes widened when he saw the belts. "Hell's stars and freaking stones bells," he swore. "Where did you get those?"
He remembered those things. If he tried, which he was loathe to do, Harry could even remember the thrill of wearing the belt, of changing, of hunting and -- He stopped himself sharply, realizing he had been moving towards them, reaching for one. Part of him wanted to wear it again. Harry gave that part of himself a punch in the nose and told it to back off.
"You know what they are, don't you?"
----
“Yes, I know what they are.” Dinah said with a grimace. “And I’m not the one who…” she sighed. “It’s a lot to explain, but I think I’ve mentioned my friend Barbara before? She was in the City about five years ago and she apparently adopted a twelve year old boy. Well, I stopped by her old apartment in the City and he was there. Sleeping. When I woke him up, well, he didn’t even realize that he’d been missing from the City for five years. So, I’ve sort of taken over Barbara’s duties in caring for him. And he’s the one who brought these home. He ran into a few of them-the shapechanging werewolves.”
Dinah shuddered, still angry with herself for allowing a twelve year old boy to walk home alone, for not being there for him.
----
Harry's concern was immediate and sincere. He hated when things happened to kids. "Hell's bells, is he alright?" He grimaced a bit. "Poor kid. That's a shitty way to wake up."
He looked at the belts, even picked one up (with the gloved left hand) to examine it closer. He still had a scar in his right shoulder from his last encounter with these things. "How did he get away?"
----
“It really is,” Dinah agreed. “I think he’s going to be okay. I’m not Barbara, but I’m doing the best I can to be there for him. It’s…” she shrugged helplessly. “He’s been through a lot, and I just hate that he had to wake up here, with everything changed like that.”
She watched Harry handle the belt, feeling a slight pang of guilt at bringing something like that to him. They clearly bothered him, though she couldn’t blame him for that.
When he asked about how Jake had gotten away, Dinah took a moment to answer. She was still putting all the pieces of the Jake puzzle together herself, so it was a bit difficult to figure out how to explain him to someone else.
“He killed two of them, and someone else came along and helped him kill the rest, thank goodness.” She looked down at her hands, her voice strong with frustration. “I should have been there.”
----
Harry blinked in surprise when she said that the kid had killed two of the werewolves -- the hexenwolves, as the belts proved them to be -- but what she said next had Harry dropping the belt and kneeling beside the woman. "Hey," he said, taking her hands in his own and looking into her eyes. "It's not your fault. There's no way you could have known something would happen. I'm sure that any kid your friend Barbara took in, she would have made sure knew enough to take care of himself. It's not your fault. Blame this stupid City. That's the one switching the streets around."
He didn't think anyone, not even a twelve-year-old kid, would willingly walk into danger. And if the kid had managed to kill two hexenwolves, then he had a pretty good handle on how to protect himself.
"I'm impressed," Harry said, nothing but honestly in his voice. "I only had to deal with four of them. And I had a lot of help." Granted, there had been some other things to worry about at the time (the hexens being FBI agents, the loup-garou, Tera and the Alphas, not to mention the berserking biker lycanthropes), but Harry was still impressed. "And he figured enough to take the belts to you. And you got them to me." He gave the belts a look. "I don't like them, but they're going to be safer here than anywhere else I can think of. If I figure out how they were made, I can work on destroying them."
----
Dinah gave Harry’s hands a grateful squeeze.
“Thanks. I guess I just feel like I should have known better than to let a twelve year old kid walk home alone, even in the daylight. Not here, at any rate.”
She didn’t voice her concerns that maybe she wasn’t the best choice to watch over a kid. Didn’t get into the fact that she’d let Sin get taken in by another family and hadn’t visited as much as she should have. That she hadn’t really been able to find a balance between her crimefighting duties and parenting with Sin, and she still wasn’t sure if she had any business continuing to be the Black Canary now that she had Jake.
“Well, he’s a pretty impressive kid,” Dinah said with a small, proud smile. “And, um, he’s actually the one who told me to bring them to you. I probably would have thought of it myself, but he’s got this ability to pick up on people’s thoughts, and he somehow knew that you would know what to do with them.”
----
This time, Harry's eyebrows shot up. "He's psychic?" The wizard shook his head slightly. "Alright. I'm impressed. Very impressed. That's one hell of a talent for someone that young." Harry shook his head again, and poked at the belt he'd been holding. "Smart, ass-kicking, and psychic. Nice to know he's in the right place."
With a sigh, he picked up the belt again. "I had to use one of these once. Damned things are far too addictive for my tastes. Managed to throw it off, thankfully. I'll burn them when I'm done." Again, his head shook, but this time in bitterness. "These things do not need to be here."
----
Dinah took a step towards Harry and rested her hand on his shoulder.
“If I can help, I’m happy to. Even if you just want me to stick around while you destroy them,” she said gently.
Dinah wasn’t about to just turn her back until she’d seen it through, especially not now that Harry had alluded to his painful history with them.
----
Harry turned just a bit and tossed the belt in his hand into the fireplace. There were four others to research, and he needed to be sure that fire held enough purifying energy to destroy it completely. "Fuego."
The fireplace blazed, consuming the belt eagerly. Harry watched it for a moment, feeling for the moment when the enchantments broke. When that happened, Harry glanced back at her.
"Do you like Japanese? I ran across a nice Japanese steakhouse yesterday. I was thinking of trying it out."
----
Dinah breathed a small sigh of relief as Harry destroyed the first belt. She felt the mood in the room lift just slightly and could tell he was relieved as well.
She wasn’t going to complain about the change of subject, or about the dinner invitation. Dinah couldn’t help but smile.
“I love Japanese, and can’t remember the last time I went out for dinner. Back in Gotham, I lived on a lot of take-out and easy mac.”
----
Harry looked back at her and smiled. "Good. Tomorrow? That should give you a chance to get someone to watch the kid, or to get him ready. Unless you want to bring him along." He didn't mind if she did, but he was looking for a date here, and thought he'd want to meet the kid a little further down the line. "What's his name?"
He motioned his head towards the fireplace without actually turning towards it. "Fire is purifying. It can negate the enchantments and break them down, and destroy the belts. Some enchantments can bypass that, but these aren't. So I know I can destroy them completely."
Dinah returned the smile, a little thrill rushing through her. Was he asking her on a date? Then again, he had offered to allow Jake to come along, so that would most likely hint at it not being a date.
“Tomorrow would be great. His name is Jake, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay for a few hours on his own. The Clock Tower has the best security system money can buy. Well…” she considered the Batcave. “Perhaps second best, but it’s still a safe place for him to stay for awhile.”
She followed his motion to the fireplace and nodded.
“I ran into someone the other night… a demon hunter, and he pretty much said the same thing about fire being the best way to get rid of most things. At any rate, it’s good to know that you’ll be able to destroy them. From what Jake said, those things… they shouldn’t have existed in the first place.”
----
Harry grinned when she accepted, and just a little wider when she agreed that Jake could manage on his own. "Excellent," he said. "It's a date, then. But I'll have to bring something instead of flowers, because you own the only florist shop I know." Harry raised an eyebrow. "Demon hunter, huh? That's different. Did Jake say anything apart from them being evil and addictive and needing to be destroyed?"
----
Dinah’s smile widened as well. A date. Well that was just… a nice surprise. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a first date, and she certainly couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this happy to accept a first date.
Her smile dimmed slightly, though didn’t disappear entirely as Harry changed the subject back to the werewolves and Dean.
“Well, aren’t we all a little different here?” she said with a half-amused smile. “After all, most people wouldn’t expect to meet a professional wizard or a costumed crime fighter. Apparently you’re not the only one who thought comic books were fiction before arriving here. Though I have to say you took it a lot better than Dean, the hunter, did.” She thought for a minute, trying to remember exactly what else Jake had said about the wolf belts. It had been easier to put what he’d sensed out of her mind while she made sure they got to the right place to be destroyed. “He said that they skinned the wolf while it was alive, trapping its spirit inside the belts so the rage and hate it felt fueled their power, created that sense of addiction.”
She considered what it might have felt like for Harry to wear one of those. She’d had experience with brushing up against power that was strong enough to wipe out a person’s sense of self, their moral structure. She knew it was seductive, and hard to turn away from. She could only imagine how much harder it would have been for him to turn his back on something like this. An involuntary shiver ran up her.
----
"That was an interesting different, not a damn, that's weird different. There's a difference." But Harry was grinning too, glad that she'd accepted the invitation. "And I can honestly say that even in my own world, no one expects to meet a professional wizard. But I wouldn't mind meeting a demon hunter. I knew a half-demon who was a hunter, but that's a little different." At least, he thought Kincaid was a half-demon. It would explain most of his capabilities, and the title of 'Hellhound' that had been bestowed on him. Still, he was one of Harry's better allies, so he couldn't protest much.
He shuddered, hearing the truth about the wolf belts. It was enough to make his stomach churn. But he dismissed his own feelings when he saw a similar shiver go through Dinah, reaching over and taking her by the shoulders with his right hand, the left rubbing gently at the back of her neck. "Hey. You alright there?"
----
“Well, I’d be happy to introduce you two, though he’ll probably accuse you of being delusional too,” Dinah said with a small, amused smile. “As I said, he didn’t take the whole ‘comic books are real’ thing very well.”
She leaned into the touch, resting her head on his shoulder. Her eyes fluttered close for just a second as her nerves calmed slightly and she just enjoyed the feel of his arm around her shoulders, his hand on her neck.
She opened her eyes and tilted her head to look up at him.
“I’m fine. It’s just… a lot of dark power, and a pretty awful way to get it. It’s not the same thing, but where I come from, the top assassin offered me the chance to train with her. I tried to follow her path for awhile, hoping that I could use those abilities for good. But if you’re not careful, something like that can swallow you until you’re nothing but a shell of the person you used to be. It’s hard to resist the chance to get stronger, but even the best intentions don’t hold a lot of water when faced with that type of power.”
She sighed. “I’m just glad that… well, Jake said that when he sees things, they don’t necessarily stay with him. Not like… some other ways of seeing things do. I’d rather he not have to carry a fresh memory of something like that around.”
----
Harry merely shrugged. "I've been accused of worse," he said softly. "I've even admitted to worse. I know I'm real, and that's enough for me. I'm not that concerned with what other people try and tell me." For the most part, anyway. The ones he was close to, Harry listened to. Many times, they had guided him to the truth, to knowing if he was being used or manipulated. But other people, random people, couldn't faze his if they tried. That was why his so-called 'treatment' at Arkham hadn't been successful.
Listening to Dinah relay her concerns, her fears, Harry held her a bit more snugly, supporting her body with his own. "No intentions hold water when they're used to get power. No matter the reasons, it's the power." He remembered, all too clearly, the weight of the bronze knife in his hand when he slit Lloyd Slate's throat on the Stone Table. He remembered the warm blood that spilled from the man, the look of relief and calm in Slate's eyes. For Maggie. For his daughter. He knew the price, he knew the penalties. It had been for the most noble of causes, the greatest of reasons - to save his daughter - but Harry had no delusions about what he had done. He had taken a man's life in exchange for power. "I think - I hope - that if you can keep reminding yourself about that, about the real issue, it's possible to keep your intentions good." He had to believe that, to hold onto that.
He kept rubbing her neck, trying to ease some of the tension he felt there. "Want me to talk to him? I was about his age when my power first came to me. I know a few things on the subject. Trying to deal with those thoughts and memories... it's hard, but I've learned ways to cope."
----
“Mm,” the sound was half in agreement with what Harry said, and half a sound of contentment as some of the tension eased in her neck due to the massage. “You wouldn’t mind talking to him? Because I would really like that, if it’s not too much trouble.”
It was a good feeling to have an offer of help with Jake, to know that she wasn’t alone in helping him deal with abilities that were beyond her own capacity to truly understand.
Beyond that, she reveled in the feeling of being this physically close to a man that she trusted, that she cared for. There was a large comfort in that reminder that caring, attraction, connection all still existed. That those things were within her reach again.
It had been awhile since Dinah had believed that she could find those things within a romantic relationship. She’d certainly given up hope on the idea that ‘love conquers all’ awhile ago.
“Thank you,” Dinah murmured, not bothering to clarify what she was thanking him for.
----
"I wouldn't mind," Harry assured her. "Even just for his sake. It's not always easy to talk about power, and even if he's a good kid - which I'm sure he is - it's always better to know that there are more and more people willing to offer a hand." Harry had seen what happened to people when he denied information. They usually ended up dead. He'd taken a different approach with Molly, and was proud of the wizard his young grasshopper had become. "I had an apprentice before. She's older than Jake, but I've been training with her for years now. I doubt he'll be a wizard, but power is power. I can try, if he's willing."
She was responding pleasantly to the massage. Harry shifted his hand slightly, starting to work at the base of her skull.
----
“I think that would be good for him.”
Dinah smiled serenely.
“You know, you are going to have to stop being so damn likable, because it’s definitely something I could get used to.”
She tilted her head up slightly, her lips just inches from his. All she had to do was stand on her tiptoes just a bit, and…
A loud ringing sound filled the room, jerking Dinah out of the moment. She broke apart from Harry and nodded in the direction of the phone, which hadn’t stopped ringing after several rings already. Apparently whoever was on the other end was persistent.
“Are you going to get that?”
----
Harry clenched a fist, slowly releasing his gathered will back into the fireplace before he could hex the phone. "I guess," he said with a sigh that bordered on a growl. "I was hoping to ignore it for a few more minutes. Until it stopped ringing." But he was already walking towards the device, muttering to himself. He picked up the receiver and, barely catching himself, answered with a strained voice. "Hello?"
"Mister Dresden?" came a male voice, edged with panic. "I'm sorry, your service said the office was closed, but I asked and asked, and they finally said they would put me through to your other line. Please, please tell me you're for real. I really need you to be for real."
Any anger was lost in the way the man was talking. His fear was genuine, Harry could tell even over the phone. "I'm for real," he said, speaking softly now. He glanced at Dinah and held up a hand, indicating for her to hang on a moment. "Calm down, and tell me your name. What's going on?"
A shuddering sigh of relief came from the other end. "Mort Calvin. My girl... my fiancée. She's gone. She's gone, Mister Dresden, and no one else will help me."
Hell's freaking bells.
----
Dinah noticed the change in Harry’s voice and the way his shoulders went a bit rigid. As much as she hated the interruption, clearly it was a good thing he’d taken that phone call. She gave him a small smile as though to indicate that it was okay and took seat over on the couch, trying not to listen in on the conversation, despite the fact that her natural curiosity was piqued. It was hard to ignore a mystery when it was staring her in the face-that much had been passed down from the long line of police officers on both sides and, in her mother’s case, a costumed crime fighter as a result of her gender keeping her from being allowed on the police force. And if Dinah’s intuition was right, Harry’s call had something to do with a mystery, judging from his body language and tone of voice.
Still, he deserved his privacy, so she busied herself with scanning the selection of books piled on the coffee table, and mostly tuning out Harry’s side of the conversation.
----
Harry was a few minutes longer on the phone, grabbing at some paper and a pencil to take down some notes. He asked a few questions, quietly, and agreed to meet the client in the morning at his office. After about twenty minutes, he finally hung up the phone and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, looks like I've got a case."
He glanced at Dinah with a sigh. "Sorry about that, but the guy's pretty freaked. Apparently his fiancée left him, but he thinks she was kidnapped or something. The police won't take the case, so he's desperate." He frowned a little. "Hate to get started and have it turn out that she did just leave him. That's how it usually ends up."
Still, the guy was adamant about paying Harry's fees, had offered a thousand dollars down, and waved off the two-day retainer as 'no problem'. So he must have had some reason to think he had a case.
----
“Yeah, I would have to say that break-ups are more common than mysterious kidnappings, but you never know,” Dinah said.
She stood up and walked back over to Harry.
“At any rate, I suppose I should get back to Jake. I want to make sure he gets to bed all right before I head out on patrol. But I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
She placed a kiss on his cheek, and then pulled away, smiling up at him.
“I suppose there’s one upside to the fact that cell phones get fried around you. Less chance of interruptions on a date.”