"I have no idea why I even agreed to this," Arsenal spits out, watching her through narrowed eyes behind his cowl. "You might be in good with Ollie, and my clone, but I don't know you at all. To me, you're just a combat instructor who likes to play therapist in her free time."
The words hurt, but Dinah doesn't let it show. "I'm not asking you to trust me," she says calmly. She walks forward, slowing her pace when he bristles like a spooked animal. "I promise, I won't do anything you don't want. I'm only here to talk, and to give you something, if you're willing to accept it."
She has to keep reminding herself to be careful with him. This Roy is a fighter, but he's also very much a victim—it's ingrained into every aspect of his behavior, from his vindictive sense of retribution to his obsession over any threat of capture. It breaks her heart to see him like this, but Arsenal doesn't want her condolences or her sympathy. She's lucky he even accepted her invitation to meet him here.
Dinah won't waste that chance for the sake of her own feelings. This may be the only opportunity she gets to win his trust. She'll have to do things Bruce's way for now: pragmatically.
"Take this," she says, slowly sliding the duffel bag's strap off her shoulder. She holds it out, prepared to counter Roy's clear expression of mistrust. "You can search it if you like. There's only clothes in it. They belonged to Red Arrow, once, but he asked me to throw them away for him a long time ago. You know Oliver never gets rid of anything."
Roy kneels down reluctantly to shuffle through the bag, seeming to find nothing objectionable in its contents. "These were mine first," he mutters darkly, remembering. Then: "Why didn't you toss them when you had the chance? Ollie's bad habits finally wear off on you?"
Dinah stops herself from letting a sigh escape. "I don't know," she answers, honestly. "Maybe...I wasn't ready to see him grow up."
Roy stands again, and she's pleased to see him sling the bag over his shoulders. "Don't think you can pull a fast one on me," he warns, stepping back. "One zap from Virgil, and any tracking device you may have planted on this thing will lose its charge."
She shakes her head, smiling sadly. "Take this, too," she advises, reaching into her pocket to pull out a heavy wad of bills. "I don't want any of you stealing to get by."
He takes the money incredulously, before his expression morphs quickly into a scowl. "What do you take me for?" he snarls angrily. "What, Nightwing says I made some mistakes on a mission, and suddenly I'm a criminal?"
"No, Roy," she tells him, softly. "You're a hero."
Her answer catches him off-guard, for just a moment; white lenses widening inside his mask.
Then, he's gone, stalking off angrily into the night without another word. He'll be rejoining his companions.
Dinah's worried about them too, of course. But this rejection is the one that cuts the deepest. Arsenal may not be her Roy—her Speedy—but he's still Roy. He's still her son.
And this is all she can do for him.
Shoulders sagging, Dinah turns her back again, and starts walking toward the nearest Zeta-Beam.