seriousfic

Title: Who I Am (is not who I was)
Fandom: Batman
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,317
Characters/Pairings: Babs/Dinah, Zinda, Misfit, references to Ollie/Dinah.
Summary: Dinah’s not who she used to be. She just doesn’t know who she is now.

There was a time when Dinah was a bimbo. She looks back at that time with more nostalgia than it was probably worth. She dressed up in fishnets, flirted with Ollie, and oh yeah, fought crime. Whenever she was captured, a strapping young man with a cape would save her. It was fun and it was easy and she never had to ask if there was more to life, or if her mother really was proud of her. Then the Hunters got their hands on her, and now things aren’t as easy.

Being a florist isn’t satisfying, but it is restful. She keeps expecting it to be like in Rambo, when the old guy showed up and told Rambo to come in out of the cold, his country needs him. But no one ever needs her, and instead of rescuing her from this ordinary life, all those strapping young men in capes just say that maybe this is for the best, in so many words. She wishes she could kick all of them into orbit, starting with Ollie, who tries to touch her when she needs him to talk to her, and gives up on her when she isn’t worth saving. It’s a relief.

So she watches flowers grow and imagines what it would be like if she weren’t in love with saving people.

Then Oracle wakes her, like Prince Charming’s kiss. Her friends, her old friends, it’s fun to see their reactions when she tells them how. If someone bought them a plane ticket to a hotel room filled with tailored clothes, they would be wary. But they didn’t talk to Oracle. They didn’t close their eyes to focus on that voice. They haven’t imagined what it sounded like beneath the prickly distortion. “You’re a hero, Canary.” It’s not a comfort, it’s not a pitch, it’s a statement of truth. “Isn’t it time you remember that?”

And it’s not always easy and it’s not always fun, but it’s freeing and it’s challenging and she falls in love with her life all over again.

Oracle doesn’t let her off the hook. She’s not outside her comfort zone, she’s had her comfort zone napalmed. Oracle expects her to think things through, and if she doesn’t agree with Oracle, she’s expected to say so. The fact that Oracle actually listens to her makes it easier, and harder. She’s not allowed to be stupid. And after a lifetime of being her mother’s daughter, or Green Arrow’s girl, or a member of the Justice League (but not the leader), she’s Oracle’s partner. Is it any wonder she’s not satisfied with only knowing an electronic voice?

“Okay, how about we meet at a train station? I’ll hold a yellow rose, you can hold a sign that says ‘I sleep with my keyboard’.”

Oracle has a lovely laugh, even distorted. “Then I’d have to spruce the place up, do my hair, wash the car…”

“I could wash your car,” Dinah breathes in that flirty voice she uses on Oracle, just for kicks.

“Oh, dear, someone just put a Russian warhead up for sale on eBay. Rain check?”

“One day we’re going to round up all those warheads and I’m going to call in that rain check.”

Oracle is so quiet that Dinah wonders if she’s gone offline. She’s about to apologize when Oracle says “Okay.”

As it turns out, they don’t meet because the storm ends. They meet because they’re in the eye of the storm.

It’s only a few moments, and each one changes Dinah’s life more. Oracle’s a woman. She’s paralyzed. She’s kinda cute, in a drowned rat way.

Dinah kisses her forehead, because there isn’t time for anything else. “Thank you for saving me,” she says, before rescuing Barbara like a strapping young man in tights.

Then there’s some business with crime lords and talking monkeys and an English accent. But Barbara’s voice is lovelier than she could have imagined, and getting rid of the dread about why Oracle won’t face her, being able to trust her and picture her and know her, takes a weight off Dinah that she hadn’t even felt. Now she’s Superman instead of Black Canary. Flying. Invincible. She has more than a partner. She has a best friend.

Then Helena joins. Helena is fucking crazy.

“Not eccentric?” Barbara asks. “Not quirky?”

“She shoots people! With arrows!”

Barbara smiles a little. “Thinking of asking her out?”

Dinah crosses her arms, not amused. Well, only a little. “I’m just asking why we need her.”

Barbara squeezes her hand, and Dinah hasn’t forgotten how good it is to be able to feel that. “Ask yourself why she needs us.”

Dinah still can’t figure out when Barbara decided she was big sister material.

Somewhere along the line, Barbara and Dinah get drunk. Barbara is telling Stupid Bat Tricks stories, like the time Robin dared her to make-out with him in the Batmobile and the next week Batman had gotten her a motorcycle (“Have you seen Robin lately? I’d make out with him for just a moped,” Dinah jokes, and Barbara laughs like only drunk people can). And Dinah thinks how good it is that Barbara can talk about her old life and she remembers how suffocating it was when she was a florist.

“You’re more than a florist,” she blurts out, then laughs, because she’s drunk.

“How so?”

“I mean… you’re more than just Batgirl.”

Barbara stops laughing.

“Heroes rescue other people, but you had to rescue yourself, all alone, and I know how hard that is.”

“I had you.”

And Dinah hasn’t even begun to consider that this rescue was a work-in-progress when Barbara kisses her. It’s not a friendly kiss, or a passionate one. It’s like their lips are drawn together, and once they’ve met, it’s too comfortable to part.

Dinah pulls away, forcing her eyes to open, forcing her heart not to pound. “That was the wine,” she says. Not me.

Their conversations are quiet for a while. They lean on Helena to fill the silence and like a good teacher, she does. Then Ollie comes back and Dinah has always loved him and of course Barbara understands.

And for a while, they go back to being partners, only talking about the mission or gossip. It’s like when there was a filter distorting their words, only this time Dinah isn’t trying to glimpse a face, she’s trying to forget a spark.

Things with Ollie go sour, because he’s Ollie and she’s Dinah, and as much as he loves her, he will always love being the womanizing he-man more. And Barbara is there, willing to listen to every word and dry every tear.

Dinah’s not an exile now. She has her own circle, her own hard-traveling heroes, and when they look at her, they don’t see fishnets, a wig, an arrow. They see a friend, a leader, a sister. It feels good, being this new Dinah. It feels really good.

Lady Shiva roars back into her life, doing what Shiva always does: probing for weakness. Dinah almost gives in, spends a year being torn down before she asks how Shiva will rebuild her. But it’s not who she is. She’s not Batman or Shiva. She won’t kill, even if she could do it with one blow. She won’t deem everything that makes her weak a weakness, even if they can be used against her. She won’t be someone she’s not, even if she’s still not sure who she is.

Barbara watches her get off the plane with a prepubescent in tow and smiles wearily, fondly. “Welcome home,” she says.

“No place like it. How were things with ‘Jade Canary’?”

“Shiva?” Barbara folds her hands patiently. “Guess how good the world’s greatest martial artist is at housekeeping?”

Oracle is merciful. She dries the mountain of dirty dishes that Dinah scrubs. Squirting Barbara with the hose, Dinah thinks that she would take this over being a ninja master any day of the week.

It takes a few months for Dinah to wonder if she’s traded something she’s not for someone she’s not. It’s not Barbara’s Angels now. It’s not even a team. It’s an army, and she’s the one General Gordon has waving the banner. She’s not a big sister anymore, she’s a den mother, and she finds herself thinking of the flower shop more and more. No responsibilities, no pressures. Roses don’t violate civil rights or invade other countries. They just grow when you water them. That’s what makes them beautiful.

When she quits this time, everyone tells her they need her. She doesn’t listen.

This time around, it takes little more than a week for the shop to become a prison. She calls Barbara a lot, but no one has much time for a canary who won’t sing. “Barda just totaled the training room, again. Call me back?” “Zinda has gotten it into her head to buzz Lexcorp, can it wait?” “Misfit is… oh, you don’t even want to know. How about we do seafood on Tuesday, catch up then?”

The thought of a date with Barbara, no Birds of Prey to disguise their friendship or excuse their closeness, is as frightening as a roller coaster. Dinah decides not to ride. “Sorry, can’t. I still haven’t found a good daycare for Sin.”

“Bring her along. We can go to IHOP. She still likes pancakes, right? That wasn’t a phase?”

“Babs, I just can’t.”

“Oh. I see. Then why are you calling, anyway?”

Dinah hangs up.

As harsh as it is, a part of her blames Sin for this. When Ollie swoops in and saves her, makes everything like it was, she’s grateful. And this time he wants to marry her, which means things have to be different. So what if he respects Hal’s opinion more than hers, or is more comfortable KOing her than having a discussion? Barbara saw her as an equal and look how that worked out. Barbara ended up seeing her as the heart of the team, like she was a goddess or a good luck charm. And she’s just Dinah. She kicks people. She’s not a leader, she’s not on the A-list. Ollie sees that, he sees her as she is, not as some golden idol of potential.

Her marriage is not a flower shop, she reminds herself every morning.

Then Oracle calls her with a mission. “It’s Charlie.”

“Bzuh?” It’s 6 AM in Star City.

“You know, Misfit?”

“Oh. What happened? Did she finally bamf into Robert Pattinson’s bedroom?”

“No, but there is a boy involved.”

“She’s a teenage girl, of course there is.”

Getting on the Aerie again pumps butterflies into her stomach, and not just in anticipation of Zinda’s flying. Lady Blackhawk gives her a crisp salute, which she holds for about a millisecond before the bear hug. “Hasn’t been the same without you, blondie!”

Dinah’s surprised to find herself returning the hug. Even more surprised to say “Good to be back, Zinda.”

Misfit is sitting by the window. She’s gotten tall. “Hey, Canary, what are you—aww, nerts, they promised me Zinda would teach me how to fly! I did not sign up for the cool aunt lecture!”

“If you want, you can share my midget bottle of beer.”

“Actually, we have full-sized bottles now!” Zinda beams.

They fly to STAR Labs in Metropolis to pick up this month’s tech for Barbara. Dinah teaches Misfit how to knock back a shot as they talk about the boy.

“His name is Zack and he’s so dreamy! You’ll totally want to pedo on him. But don’t.”

“Zachary Zatara? The Teen Titan?”

“I know, right? A real superhero! We’ll be like Nightwing and Starfire, only less slutty on my part, and the priest won’t explode at our wedding.”

Dinah crosses her legs and stops drinking from the bottle. “Barbara tells me he insults you?”

“It’s just a couple-y thing.”

“He called you a metal-mouthed moron with delusions of adequacy.”

“You’re taking that out of context!”

“What’s the context?”

“I had just gotten braces.”

Dinah sighs softly. “Charlie, this is going to be hard to understand. But you’re charging and no, I’m not just talking about your breasts. You’re maturing as a person. Right now, I know he seems really cool and charming and everything, but in a few months, you’re going to be wondering what you ever saw in him. Because you’ll have grown past him, into someone new and better.”

“I don’t wanna grow past him!”

“What if there’s someone better for you?” Dinah insists. “What will you miss out on if you’re holding on to something… that isn’t you anymore?”

Misfit is oddly quiet. “Have you ever outgrown anyone?”

Dinah finishes the bottle. “Yes. I have.”

Barbara is hard at work when Dinah walks in. Everything looks different. Dinah thinks about how wonderful that is.

“Canary, hey. Are you staying for dinner? We’ve all missed your taste in take-out.”

Dinah sits down. “Do you have time?”

“Always.” Barbara types in a few commands before turning around. “What’s up?”

“This is going to be chick flick as hell, I’m warning you” Dinah takes a deep breath. She needn’t have bothered. The words come easy, once she lets them out. “You make me a better person. You make me want to be a better person. You push me. You don’t accept my limitations. You believe in me. And that’s really scary, because a lot of the time, I don’t believe in me. It’s so scary that I backslide, trying to get comfortable, but I’m only comfortable when you’re making me uncomfortable. I guess what I’m saying is… I’m not scared anymore. And I want back on the team. And would you have dinner with me?”

Barbara has a lovely smile. Dinah has always known it, even when she was just a voice in her ear. “I’d love to have dinner with you.”