One-Shot. Wally West/Dinah Lance. Inspired by the random paring generator at: teland (dot) com / livia / dcparings (dot) htm
They shouldn't have known when she couldn't make the rent on the shop. Or when she'd forgone buying a new dress for the JLA annual it's-not-really-a-ball celebration. Dinah worked hard to keep her personal life separate from the superheroes around her. But somehow they knew.
She'd turned down Ollie's money. She'd turned down Oracle's stipend, and the offer to re-do her taxes. She didn't take money for new costumes, although she loved the jacket B Batman had handed her after they blew a tanker full of Persian Opium.
A girl had to have her pride, She told herself. Dinah stripped the thorns off another rose, dropped it into a bucket of tepid water, and grabbed the next one. It was boring, it was demeaning, but what could you expect from an eight-thousand dollar sale without an ounce of design or creativity. At least she could pay up the next few month's rent.
Red for passion the groom had said. Roses the bride had said. She'd tried to interject some sense - perhaps some greenery? Beargrass? Ferns? No, they'd insisted, red roses. Eight-thousand dollars worth of red roses, every single one of them de-thorned so the guests could take them home and "share the passion."
Simpering idiots. Love didn't work like that; it was about accommodation and understanding. Dinah expected that true love was like when two of the silver-barked magnolia branches grew too close and found themselves grafted together. Love based on passion burned out. She knew this. One weekend the bride would have to leave town and when she returned Mr. Red-for-passion would be in bed with the Au Pair. Or he'd find her with the pool-boy. She'd seen it often enough.
The shop was almost silent, she could hear the sound of every thorn hit the floor over the hum of the refrigeration cases. Of course her assistant had run off this weekend, Dinah thought uncharitably, although she knew as well as anyone that visiting a hospitalized parent on the other side of the county was hardly "running off."
The sun had already set, and she only had 40 hours until the flowers had to be delivered. Oh well, she'd been awake longer. Yes, she'd been tracking drugs through Central America, and yes, it had been life-or-death, but... A girl had to have her pride, and she'd be damned before she let a voice and a pair of fishnets become her main income.
She had a gift, and she'd use it. But that was that. Dinah had a shop, and a life, and buckets upon buckets of roses to deal with.
She didn't notice the first gust of wind, or the second, but the third came as she opened the back door to dump stale water and refill the bucket. It scattered the damaged petals she'd plucked but not yet swept up and lifted the broad heavy rose-leaves an inch from he floors before they glided to rest.
She knew that wind. Flash. This was going to suck; the JLA never called on her unless it was necessary. Save the world, or save her shop. Maybe she could re-open in Georgia or South Carolina, somewhere warm and sunny where she'd...
The thought was cut off by the Flash pulling up outside of her shop. Courteous, that. Of course, he might remember the lecture he'd gotten from the one time he stopped inside her shop. All of the petals had blown off the dried wreaths, the drying flowers hanging from an overhead pipe, and the most delicate of her window displays.
She had made the JLA pay for that.
"Flash?" She asked, dumping the water over the railing with a satisfying splash. He was at her elbow before she could straighten up, stammering an answer.
"Um, Black, er. Ms. Lan- no Dinah, you see-" He was in street cloths, either a good sign or a very bad one. Rocking on his heels too fast for the concrete stairs to be comfortable, he continued, "I um, that is,"
"Wally." She interrupted him. "Come inside. I've got sodas, home-made iced tea, and about a million roses I have to deal with before Saturday afternoon. You can tell me while I work."
She heard the door shut, the hydraulic thing at the top wheezing a little on the last few inches as it was jerked closed too quickly. "Fridge is to the left, glasses should be in the cabinet above it." She spoke before he could.
He poured them both tea, and pulled himself up a stool next to hers.
"I never thought about you working." He said. Dinah looked at him and raised one eyebrow - a skill she'd perfected after Oracle had told her how annoying it was when the Bat did it. "I mean, uh, I know that Lantern's an artist, and J'onn does detective stuff sometimes, but, um,"
"Everyone has to eat," she replied, gesturing at her tea, and a half-eaten noodle bowl a bit further down the counter. A moment later, Dinah handed the bowl and chopsticks to him and watched the remains of her dinner disappear. She picked up the next rose. Damn. She hadn't refilled the bucket.
"Wally, can you fill this? There should be a hose right by your feet,"
He moved at almost normal speed - this wasn't a crisis then - as he reached for the hose and filled the bucket. He watched as she de-thorned a rose, vibrating just fast enough that the rattle of his stool on the uneven floor hummed like the refrigeration cases
"Will-you-go-out-with-me?" He blurted out so fast that his voce went up an octave.
"What!"
"On a date. Tomorrow. Er... the JLA thing."
"I don't have a dress," she tried to put him off, "and..."
"Oh, me neither," he laughed. "I was planning to go in costume."
"I have hundreds of roses to deal with before then."
"Oh, the eating thing." He sounded crestfallen.
"Yes, the eating thing." She sighed, "and the rent thing, and a million other things. I'm sure you've heard the rumors."
"Rumors?" He looked baffled now, maybe he really hadn't.
"Wally, look, I know that someone asked you to come here and invite me to the party tomorrow to cheer me up, but I can't go. I have work to do. And while they may not think it's important, it's the other half of my life, maybe more, and I won't let it go."
He blushed, and looked uncomfortable. "No-one-asked-me-to-ask-you," he mumbled so quickly she was grateful she had experience listening to speedsters. It was Dinah's turn to feel embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, "It's just that they're so well meaning, but..." She didn't know how to end the sentence.
"S'okay."
"I really can't go." She made her voice softer this time. It was nice to be asked, but it still wasn't possible. She gestured helplessly at the roses crowding out all of the other flowers in her shop. "It's a big wedding, and my assistant is visiting sick parents."
"I could help." Gently, so slowly it must have been painful for him, he took the flower from her hands. It was missing half of its thorns. "Show me what to do."