Dinah Lance wove her motorcycle through the Gotham traffic dangerously, drawing an enraged honk from a trucker as she cut him off. She responded only by flipping the bird over her shoulder, her gaze locked intently on the crowded road before her. She was dressed in full Black Canary gear, her unzipped leather jacket flapping in the breeze as her motorcycle flew down the freeway, flashes of headlights and signs passing in a rush. Her already aching knuckles strangled the handlebars of her bike as she navigated it through the narrow space between two cars, uninterested in the shock it gave to the other drivers.
The superheroine remained lost in the furious rush of the road until her communicator came to life. "Canary?" crackled the voice of Barbara Gordon.
"Got something for me?" snapped Dinah, her voice sharp enough to give Batgirl pause.
"The alarm's gone off at Yurman's Jewelry, looks like a robbery," answered Barbara, the sound of shattered glass and angry shouts in the background making it quite clear that she had her own problems.
"I got it," Dinah answered, immediately directing her motorcycle into a u-turn, causing a flurry of honks and furious shouts as she cut into the opposing lane of traffic and took off, racing towards her target.
"I'm tied up right now dealing with Penguin's goons, but we should be able to get you some backup pretty soon," Barbara managed to say as a masculine shout was punctuated by a loud smack and the sound of wood splintering in a crash.
"Don't need any," Dinah answered shortly.
"But–
"Canary out," said the superheroine, cutting off her fellow Birds of Prey member and ending the call. She revved her motorcycle and took off down the road with renewed vigor, weaving around the countless vehicles in her way as she sped towards the site of the robbery, her grip tightening and her ruby lips pulling into a snarl beneath the confines of her helmet as she went.
Dinah made record time as she cut across Gotham, disregarding every road sign, traffic light and angry citizen as she made her way into the older section of the city, the original portion that had been founded more than two centuries before on the east side of the Gotham River by the first settlers to make the journey across the Atlantic. Despite prominent landmarks like Gotham Square and the once illustrious Monarch Theatre, the east section of the city had fallen to danger and disrepair decades before thanks to the presence of both organized crime and the generic street thugs that lingered on every corner with handguns stuffed in their waistbands, their viper eyes always on the lookout for potential prey.
Three punks lingered near the curb where Dinah stopped her bike, their eyes easily drawn to the figure of the blonde crimefighter. The superheroine put the kickstand down and dismounted, her helmet slung underneath her arm as her blazing blue eyes scanned the seemingly calm storefront of Yurman's Jewelry across the street. She was about to go in for a closer look when she heard the footsteps of the punks drawing closer.
"You lost, sweetheart?" called the tallest one, stepping forward confidently while his toadies lingered in the background.
"Piss off," Dinah spit.
"Don't be that way," said the tall punk, his lips peeling aside to reveal a crooked smile, "My friends and I just couldn't help noticing you and we were wondering if you'd like to spend a couple hours with us? We could show you a real good time."
Dinah's disgust steadily gave way to rage as the punks cast lecherous glances at her body and snickered at her scowling face. "I said piss off," she snarled. She didn't have time for this. She had a robbery to bust.
"We weren't asking, bitch," sneered the tall punk, foolishly reaching over to grab Dinah's arm as she attempted to walk away.
He never saw the helmet coming. Dinah's hand immediately caught his in an iron grip, holding him steady as she pivoted rapidly and smashed the backside of her helmet into his face, drawing an agonized yelp as she shattered his nose on impact. Before the other two punks could move, Dinah hurled the helmet at one, clocking him in the head and dropping him to the pavement. The other attempted to rush the superheroine, only for a vicious kick to send him crashing back into the foundation of a streetlamp. The tall punk attempted to stand, but was again reduced to kneeling as Dinah clenched his still-captured hand and broke his index finger with a well-placed twist.
The tall punk was sniveling and bleeding beneath her, his finger and nose broken. Behind him, his companions were hauling themselves up off the dirty trash-strewn pavement, groaning and holding the aching spots on their damaged bodies. "Now," Dinah said, her furious gaze going from the other punks to the one kneeling before her in terror, "Are you going to beat it or do I have to break the rest of your fingers?"
The threat set off a stream of begging and pleading and promising that mostly just annoyed the superheroine, her eyes on going back to the jewelry store across the street. With a final shove, she released the tall punk, who wasted no time in running off with his two companions, quickly disappearing around the corner of the nearest building. Dinah hurriedly retrieved her helmet and left it on the seat of her bike before drawing closer to the jewelry store.
Dinah crept carefully towards the front window, her eyes scanning the area vigilantly for some sign of a trap. Cautiously, she raised her head up to the glass to peak inside. Inside the store, there was nothing but destruction. Shattered jewelry cases, pilfered of their valuable merchandise, took up most of the space. On the floor, she spotted the body of a well-dressed man, fresh blood leaking out through a lethal gunshot wound in his forehead. The superheroine felt her fury beginning to boil over when she heard the sound of a door crashing open out behind the store.
As she raced around the back, sounds of rough masculine voices swearing and laughing reached her ears. Edging towards the corner, she peeked around and spotted the robbers. There were five. All concealed their faces behind black ski-masks. Two carried pump-action shotguns. The other three only had handguns stuffed in their waistbands, their hands occupied with heavy canvas sacks no doubt weighed down with the stolen merchandise.
Some quiet, far off section of Dinah's mind feebly protested the course of her thoughts, whining that it might be better to wait for backup and that she wasn't wearing any body armor. The protests were soon squashed as she thought of the dead jeweler, throwing gasoline on a furious blaze that had been burning all day. Without a word of warning, Dinah stepped out from behind cover and unleashed her sonic scream.
The onslaught of the sound waves took the murderous robbers completely by surprise, knocking them all off their feet and scattering them around the alley in an enormous groaning mess. The first one off the pavement yelled frantically, screaming about his nonfunctioning ears as he wandered forward like a soldier dazed from an explosive blast. Dinah responded with a roundhouse kick that sent him careening into the brick wall of the jewelry store.
Black Canary didn't hesitate to rush the other four robbers, who were evidently less dazed by the piercing scream than their comrade had been. Dinah found herself ducking as one managed to pull his handgun and began squeezing off wild shots in her direction. Angry shouts mingled with the bark of the firearm as she rolled under the last bullet, rising up beneath the shooter's extended arm and dislocating his elbow with a surgically-placed blow. An uppercut dropped him before his pained screams could fully resound.
Dinah, however, had no time to appreciate her success as one of the three remaining robbers rushed up behind her, attempting to put her in a chokehold. As the thug's forearm closed around her throat, one of his companions rushed forward. Despite the sudden lack of oxygen, the superheroine managed to swing a leg up from the ground, shattering the approaching thug's jaw with a thunderous kick that nearly sent him airborne. With the other attacker down, Dinah smashed the back of her skull into the robber strangling her, stunning him and allowing her to break the chokehold. She was about to knock the stumbling criminal out when she heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun shell being chambered behind her and instinctively ducked.
The shotgun blast went entirely over Dinah's ducked head, instantly killing the chokehold robber. The last robber swore angrily at this blunder and attempted to chamber another shell before the superheroine was on him. He didn't have the time. The agile crimefighter swiftly kicked the shotgun from his hands, two well placed jabs knocking him back before a furious right hook knocked him out completely, toppling him to the ground like a chopped tree.
The satisfaction the woman felt at her victory was only momentary, shattered by a piercing pain shooting up from her thigh. Dinah looked down to see the first robber, the one with the shattered eardrums, leaning up from the pavement with his knife buried in her exposed thigh. A punishing blow from Black Canary's knee finally knocked the last robber out for good, his face plopping onto the spilled contents of one of the dropped canvas jewelry bags. Dinah, meanwhile, yanked the blade from her leg, wincing in pain as blood began to flow from the wound. She stepped forward gingerly to lean against the alley wall, biting her lower lip as jagged waves of pain shot up from her injured leg.
"Busy night?"
The distinctive baritone froze Dinah in the middle of a wince. She instantly straightened up, rising to her full height to greet Gotham's most famous vigilante. "Nothing I couldn't handle," she answered calmly, her face a perfect mask of composure even as blood was beginning to run down into her boot.
Despite being hidden behind the white lenses of his cowl, Dinah could feel Bruce's eyes zeroing in on her injury, a look of disapproval that she was dying to smack off appearing on his face. "I can see that."
The superheroine met the Dark Knight's gaze with an acidic blue glare. "What are you doing here? Don't you have bigger fish to fry in this city?" she asked tersely.
The stoic vigilante had no external reaction to her anger. "Batgirl said you might need backup," he answered calmly.
"Well, I didn't," said Dinah, aware she was being a bit petulant, but too angry about the day's events to care. Besides, it never hurt to give Bruce a taste of his own surly medicine.
The dark vigilante said nothing for a moment, his sharp eyes scrutinizing Dinah, studying her like a piece of damaged equipment in need of some type of repair. She said nothing and glared back, her teeth clenched tightly behind her ruby lips as her bleeding leg began to tremble, searing pain settling into the whole appendage as a crimson streak grew longer down its side.
The sight shook something loose in the Dark Knight, causing him to release a sigh. "You need to get that wound looked at."
"Yeah, I got that. Thanks, dad," Dinah grumbled, ignoring the unimpressed look Bruce sent her way as she attempted to brush past the vigilante. She didn't get more than a step, agonizing waves of pain shooting up her leg, drawing an audible gasp from the tough woman as she collapsed back against the brick wall, leaning on it for support as her wound throbbed.
She didn't hear Bruce stepping closer over her own short, agonized breaths. It wasn't until his gauntleted hand touched her shoulder that her head shot up, her cerulean eyes narrowing at the Batman as he stood before her. "Come on. You can't do much else with that leg as it is," he said, hand still extended.
Dinah pursed her lips, trying to think clearly despite the pain still coursing through her system. She wasn't looking for any company. If anything, she had hoped to throw herself into as much action as possible that evening, to really lose herself in dishing out some well-deserved beatings to Gotham's most unsavory residents. Still, the more rational part of her mind still maintained some measure of control, reminding her that she was losing a good deal of blood and that she wouldn't be able to fight much more crime without getting her wound treated.
"Fine," she relented, her lips twisting into a mixture of a scowl and a grimace, "But if you try to carry me, I'll put my boot so far up your ass that you'll be digesting it."
"Noted," Bruce said, allowing the fellow crimefighter to sling her arm over his broad shoulders and lean on him as they walked out of the alley.
"And no hospitals," Dinah added through a wince.
"Do I look like I use hospitals?" Bruce asked, glancing at his colleague while his free hand pushed a button on his belt, summoning the Batmobile.
"No, I suppose not," mumbled the wounded crimefighter as she spotted the Batman's personal tank approaching from far down the street.
Dinah could count on her fingers the number of times she'd been in the Batcave before. Even if Bruce wasn't such a hardass about his privacy, there wasn't much about the secret lair that was appealing, full of impenetrable darkness, dank air and the distinctive scent of bat guano. The nocturnal creatures could regularly be heard shuffling along their perch on the roof of the cavern, their distinctive squeaks echoing off the thick walls of rock around them. It made her wonder if Bruce had ever needed a rabies shot.
The superheroine sat awkwardly on a frigid metal examination table, across from the immense glowing screen of the Batcomputer, her hand pressing a wad of white gauze into her wound. She grit her teeth as she continued to put pressure on the injury, intent on slowing the bleeding despite the pain. In the background, she could hear Bruce digging through various bins and cabinets over the sounds of the bats overhead, searching for the necessary medical supplies to treat her.
Dinah was still pressing the blood-stained gauze down when Bruce materialized, having procured what he needed. "Has the bleeding stopped?" he asked, approaching the table.
"It's slowed," Dinah bit out, gingerly removing the gauze from her leg, immediately feeling the cold air of the cave on her injured flesh. The punctured strip where the blade had entered still wept droplets of the woman's blood.
Bruce had drawn his cowl back, his glacial eyes assessing the wound for a moment before he removed his gauntlets. "You're going to need stitches."
"Oh goody," Dinah muttered, removing her hands from the area as the costumed billionaire reached for a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
"This is going to hurt," said Bruce matter-of-factly.
"Can't hurt any more than the knife did," said the superheroine with a careless shrug. Her companion simply nodded before proceeding to clean the wound, the sting from the alcohol hitting instantaneously. Dinah clenched her jaw, the heavy exhale through her nostrils serving as the only outward indication of the pain she was in. Bruce was efficient and methodical in his cleaning efforts, the strong scent of the rubbing alcohol lingering in the air as he reached over for the needle and thread. "I thought you had a butler that did this stuff for you?" asked Dinah as Bruce prepared for the sutures.
"I do," Bruce answered, leaning in close to the wound, "He's on vacation."
"Oh...wait, you have done this before, right?"
The corner of Bruce's mouth pulled into a smirk, a bit amused by the question. "Yes. I may not be quite as good as Alfred, but he made sure to teach me the necessities over the years."
Dinah felt the first sharp prick of the needle as he began to stitch her up. "I imagine having some medical training comes in handy in our line of work," Dinah commented, using the conversation to distract from the pain.
Bruce nodded, his eyes not leaving the wound as he wove the severed flesh back together. "It does. It's particularly good for helping friends," he added, his needle stopping and his eyes turning up to meet Dinah's, "What's wrong with you anyway?"
"What?" Dinah asked, the insinuation instantly aggravating her.
"You're better than this," Bruce answered, gesturing at the knife-wound, "I can't remember the last time some street thug was able to do you any real damage."
Dinah scoffed. "He got lucky. I was busy dealing with his friends when the asshole snuck up on me and put a blade in my leg."
Bruce arched an eyebrow. "Since when can two-bit goons sneak up on you?"
Dinah's glare turned away as she crossed her arms, stewing in her anger as Bruce continued with the sutures. The steady pricks of the needle only served to aggravate her more. After everything, the last thing she was in the mood for was a lecture from Bruce, even if he was fixing her leg up for her. She glanced back at the billionaire, who remained focused intently on his work. The fact that he was willing to drop it for the moment, not interrogating her for an answer like she suspected he would, gave Dinah pause, increasingly aware that her anger was misdirected. "I thought you'd have heard by now," she muttered, "Nobody on the Watchtower can shut up about it."
Bruce paused. "Shut up about what?"
"You really don't know?" Dinah asked, surprise overtaking her, "I thought you knew everything that went on in the League?"
"I've been busy the past few weeks," Bruce said, "Even when I am around, I don't pay much attention to gossip."
Dinah was quiet for a moment, the squeaks of the bats and the distant whir of the Batcomputer filling the air. Even thinking about what had happened brought some of the anger back, although she could feel a newer feeling creeping in as the hours had passed, more akin to sadness than anything else. The superheroine released a heavy sigh. "Ollie and I broke up," she said.
Bruce's usually stoic face betrayed a bit of surprise, his dark brows rising on his forehead before swiftly settling back down. "Oh," he said, a bit awkward as he got back to stitching.
"Yeah," Dinah said bitterly.
"I hadn't heard."
"Well...I guess if you haven't been around the League lately you wouldn't have. It's not like it's on CNN or anything," Dinah said, although with the way her colleagues were talking about it she felt like it might as well have been broadcast on every news network on earth.
"What happened?" Bruce asked, his question and his needle sending another unwelcome jolt of pain through the superheroine.
Dinah sighed deeply, feeling a great sense of betrayal rising up in her like bile. "He cheated on me."
"You sure?" Bruce asked, looking up again from the sutures, "The media likes to exaggerate things when it comes to celebrities."
Dinah rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure, Bruce. This wasn't just some shit I read in a tabloid. I caught him doing it."
Bruce was silent for a moment, his hands still wielding the needle effectively. "I'm sorry," he finally said.
Dinah shrugged. "You're not the billionaire playboy I'm pissed at," she said, eyes drifting off into the darker portions of the cave, memories of her and Oliver appearing like uninvited houseguests and making her scowl, "Worthless bastard. I heard so many rumors about him, but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed what he told me, that none of it was true, that it was all just gossip. Next thing you know, I come back from a mission early and walk in on him screwing Fire. He didn't even have the decency to pretend he was ashamed of it, just launched straight into a tirade about how it was my fault, that I was never around and what was he supposed to do."
Bruce said nothing, his usually hard gaze softening a bit in sympathy as his colleague spat the angry words out. Her eyes were beginning to blaze again as each memory stoked her anger, the pain of the ongoing stitching forgotten.
"Needless to say, Ollie's going to need a trip to the dentist soon," Dinah finished, flexing the fingers on her right hand, recalling the satisfying smack of her knuckles into Oliver Queen's smug face.
A slight chuckle escaped from Bruce. "At least you got a little payback."
"Yeah," Dinah said, giving a sigh and running a hand through her blonde tresses, "I just feel so stupid."
"You're not stupid."
"Sure feels that way. I let that jackass convince me that I was the only woman in his life. Christ, I even thought…"
"What?"
Dinah shook her head and scowled deeply. "I thought me and Ollie might get married someday. I guess I'm a shitty judge of character."
"You're not the first person to misjudge someone," Bruce said, pulling the thread through the superheroine's wound.
Dinah arched an eyebrow, the weariness in Bruce's voice piquing her curiosity. "You speaking from personal experience?"
Bruce was quiet for a moment. "Yes."
Dinah hesitated, perplexed at the change she observed in Bruce and the sadness that occupied his face. She rarely saw him when he wasn't Batman, the dark terrifying guardian of Gotham. What she did see beyond Batman consisted almost entirely of news reports on the drunken escapades of his playboy persona every few weeks. With two very different personas taking up most of his life, the superheroine wondered who the real Bruce Wayne was. She wondered if Bruce even knew.
"What happened?" Dinah asked.
Bruce sighed deeply. "A long time ago, back when I was still training to be Batman, I met someone. She was the daughter of one of the people I was learning from," Bruce said, eyes taking a far off look as the old memories played before him, "I loved her and I thought she felt the same way."
"She didn't love you?"
"She said she did. Hell, she might've even thought she did, but it fell apart when I realized that she and her father wanted to turn me into something I wasn't," Bruce explained, "Looking back, I don't think she ever really loved who I was. I think she loved someone she thought it was possible to turn me into."
"Damn," Dinah muttered.
"Yeah," Bruce continued through a sigh, "Before I knew what was really going on, I thought there was a real future for me and her."
The billionaire looked up and caught Dinah's gaze. Both wore looks of unconcealed sympathy as they looked deep into the other's eyes. The superheroine silently wondered how many others had gotten to see past Batman and the playboy, to see even a sliver of the vaguely defined person underneath. Once past the masks, it seemed that there was something there, a person whose heart could be broken just like anyone else's, just like hers.
"I'm sorry," Dinah said, reaching forward to place a comforting hand on Bruce's shoulder. The action drew a look of surprise from the billionaire but he didn't remove her hand. Instead, he mustered the closest thing to a smile that he was capable of at that moment.
"It's alright," Bruce said, finishing the last stitch, "I've had some time to come to terms with it."
"Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt," Dinah commented as Bruce rummaged around for a clean bandage for her freshly-stitched wound.
"You're right about that," admitted the billionaire as he began bandaging his colleague's thigh.
"Reminds me of something Ted taught me back when he was first training me," said Dinah.
"What was that?"
"I was pretty young. We were only a few weeks into my boxing training when Ted pulled me over and demanded I spar with one of his more experienced students, this gigantic Russian chick who'd already turned pro and had a right hand like Mike Tyson," Dinah said, finding herself oddly fond of the memory upon recalling it.
"Really?" Bruce asked, smirking a bit at the thought of a vastly inexperienced Dinah going toe to toe with a professional.
"Yep. She proceeded to kick my ass all over the ring. She finally hit me with this one shot that was so hard I had to bring my glove up to my face to check that all my teeth were still there. After I got up, I was ready to quit, but Ted stopped me as I was trying to climb under the ropes. He said, 'Get back in that goddamn ring!' and pushed me back from the ropes," Dinah said, drawing a chuckle from Bruce as she imitated her former mentor's gruff voice, "Well, I got back in and got my ass kicked for a while before Ted finally called it. I thought he was pissed, but, as I was unwrapping my hands, he came over with an ice pack and told me he was proud of me. As I was icing my two black eyes, he told me that I had what it took to be a great fighter, that I had endurance. He kept stressing how endurance wasn't the same thing as stamina. According to him, all you had to do to have stamina was to do a bunch of cardio. Endurance, on the other hand, wasn't something he said you could teach. It wasn't something you could get by training. It was all mental. It was about your ability to keep fighting through pain, to take your opponent's best shots and keep going. He said all the great ones had it."
"Wise man," Bruce commented, finishing the bandage.
Dinah nodded, smiling at the thought of Ted. "I think so. I know he was only talking about fighting, but...I think it applies to a lot of areas in life, even dealing with a bastard ex-boyfriend."
"Oliver's an idiot," Bruce muttered as Dinah gingerly got to her feet, testing her leg and fortunately finding the numbness gone and the pain diminished.
Dinah chuckled. "You don't have to tell me that. I can't tell you how many times I watched him put a shirt on backwards."
"No, I meant that he's an idiot for throwing away what he had with you," Bruce snapped, the words coming out so quickly that it betrayed a lack of control on the billionaire's part. Dinah froze, her eyes widening in surprise as Bruce looked away, forcing a gruff cough as if that could somehow recapture his escaped words.
"Thanks," Dinah said, her cheeks turning a bit pink as Bruce pulled his cowl back over his face.
The Batman simply nodded at Dinah before retrieving his gauntlets from the examination table and pulling them back on. "Here," he said, extending a small bottle of pills to the superheroine, "Painkillers...if you happen to need them."
Dinah found herself smiling a bit at the gesture and took the bottle. Instead of taking the pills, she slipped them into the pocket of her jacket. "You mind giving me a lift back to my bike? I don't think I'm quite ready to run a marathon," Dinah joked, gesturing to her bandaged thigh.
"Sure," Bruce said stoically, the Batman persona in place. Just before the vigilante turned back towards his car, he thought he saw Dinah smiling at him again. Even the thought was enough to make him wish his mask covered his entire face.
The Batmobile's cockpit opened automatically as the two approached, Dinah wincing as she climbed into the passenger seat beside Bruce. "You alright?" he asked as the cockpit sealed above them.
Dinah nodded, the pain passing. "I'm good," she said, glancing at her bandaged leg before turning to the vigilante with a playful smile, "I meant to ask: does the Bat Hospital need proof of insurance?"
Even in the suit, Bruce found himself releasing a small chuckle at the joke before starting the vehicle's engine. "No charge."
Dinah widened her eyes in mock surprise. "Wow. No enormous bill? No copay? This must be how Norwegians feel all the time."
"Just don't go and get yourself stabbed again anytime soon," said the Dark Knight as the door out of the Batcave opened in front of the car.
"I'll do my best," Dinah drawled, "However, if I do find myself seriously injured again, I'll be sure to give you a call."
Bruce responded with a nod and drove his enormous vehicle out of the cave, hoping Dinah didn't see him swallow nervously at her playful words and the beautiful smile pulling at her lips.
A/N: I know this is a bit of an odd one, but I like to explore unconventional pairings. I suppose it's because it's easier to be original when the pairing hasn't been done very much. I also thought Bruce and Dinah might be interesting since they share some commonalities like being very formidable in hand-to-hand combat and working close to the streets. For anyone who doesn't know, 'Ted' is referring to Ted Grant, aka Wildcat. In some comics, he helped train heroes like Batman, Black Canary and even Catwoman.