And people thought the hero life was glamourous.
"This is it?"
"This is it." The car slowly rolled to a stop at the side of the parking lot next to the road, and Vic killed the engine, cutting off the bubbly pop starlet on the radio mid-wail. Now Helena would never know if the magical power of love would give the couple in the song the strength to overcome all odds.. probably it would.
She figured she could live with the uncertainty.
"You always take me to the nicest places," she said, deadpan, as she looked out the window.
Another warehouse, in a city full of them. They'd driven to Keeler industrial park in the northeast, not far from her recent patrol territory. Up until a few years ago, the place had been going steadily downhill, but an influx of medium-size companies driven out of the city core by the high rents had brought some energy back into the region. Still, one neighbourhood of cookie-cutter box-shaped buildings looked much like another, especially after dark; the access alleys were drab and tired.
"Next time there's a major crime wave involving five-star restaurants, I'll make sure to bring you along."
"Like that happens often."
"At least once," Q said mildly. "October of 1997. A radical vegetarian group infiltrated the kitchens of major Metropolis-area restaurants in order to contaminate their meat supplies. Forty-seven hospitalizations and five deaths before they were caught."
Helena winced. "Well, that took care of my craving for filet mignon. Thanks."
"Anytime. Where's the map?"
She handed him the roll of paper, and he smoothed the creases, setting it open against the steering wheel. It was well-worn, covered in notations that were perfectly readable in Q's precise angular handwriting but understandable only to him; a series of bright red circles stood out among the rest, and he traced their path with one finger, murmuring to himself.
"Here; here; then here. Distances relatively constant, all thefts committed a few hours after sunset, and never more than four days between thefts." He checked his watch, then turned back to Helena. "Which gives us about fifteen minutes."
"Good. That'll give you plenty of time to finally tell me what's going on." As usual, he had been rather abrupt and less than forthcoming about his motives in starting the investigation; one minute she was filling him in on the dry details of her patrols in Gotham over the last few days, the next he was muttering something about patterns and dragging her off to the car almost before she'd had time to change.
He slid the map onto the dashboard between them, pointing out the areas circled in red. "Two days ago you witnessed the aftermath of a major food-supply shipment interception. Last week, the Wayne Enterprises weapons development facility reported a breach of security and a missing stockpile of small handguns. A few nights before that, someone committed a series of petty cash thefts at downtown area stores."
"Yeah. People steal things. It's kind of why we do this." She gestured to his mask, her costume. "I'm not seeing any reason to assume they're connected, though."
Q shook his head, a subtle shift of his mask suggesting he was frowning beneath it. "Wrong angle. There's no reason to assume they're not connected: so what if they are? Money, food, weapons... what does it mean?"
Helena looked outside, half-focusing on the stakeout as she thought things over. Trying to think like Q resulted in a headache more often than not; though she was a skilled detective in her own way, she didn't have his uncanny knack for finding even the subtlest of associations. Of course the ones she uncovered usually existed.. anyway, since it wasn't his style to come out and explain himself, she had no choice but to make an effort.
"Well, in each case the thieves got away with an unusual amount of stuff," she said. "So if it is the same crew behind everything, they must be building up some sort of stockpile. Must be a pretty big group."
Q nodded approvingly. "And what are they stealing? Nothing that has much resale value, and if money was the motivation they could have kept going after hard cash. Why would someone steal a shipment of food?"
"Because they're hungry, and their boyfriend is too busy sitting outside warehouses being cryptic to take them out to dinner?"
"Helena." She could swear he managed to shoot her a dirty look, despite the blank mask.
"Yeah, yeah. Focusing." She frowned, drumming her fingers on the dashboard. "People usually don't steal food unless they need it. Not much margin."
"Exactly. The weapons are easily explained -- some gang needing to replenish their arms collection -- but the food suggests that whoever's behind this has a significant number of people dependent on them for basic survival."
Helena nodded slowly. "Following you so far. So why are we here?"
He traced a path from the last red circle on the map to their current location. "It's in the area, has relatively light security, and fits the pattern. What else would an armed group in need of basic supplies to stay alive go after?"
The realization came almost before he'd finished speaking, and she gave him a smile. "Medical supplies. They wouldn't want to leave a trail by visiting hospitals or doctors, so they'd need their own stock."
Q gestured toward the building. "This is the only medtech warehouse in the immediate area, and we're on day four of their apparent cycle. If they're anywhere tonight, they'll be here."
She grinned, half in amusement and half in admiration. "Nice work, mystery man."
"We'll see."
"Oh, please. As if you don't know you're always right about these things."
Setting aside the crop circles, which she still didn't buy. And she adamantly refused to brush with lime and baking soda.
"It's a curse." He folded the map carefully and tucked it between the seats, returning his attention to the view. Helena did likewise, although there wasn't much around to pay attention to; the place had the particular soulless emptiness of a business district after hours, and though the handful of other cars scattered in the lot suggested that at least a few intrepid workaholics were still around, she had seen no signs of life since their arrival.
She retrieved her binoculars from the floor of the car and trained them on the target warehouse. It was difficult to get a clear view between the branches of the sparse trees across from their parking spot, but the additional shielding was worth the sacrifice: major heists tended to be hard to miss, anyway.
"Anything unusual?" Q asked.
Helena shook her head. "Place could use new siding, but otherwise.."
Just as she lowered the 'scope, headlight beams swept across the car, providing a brief flash of illumination and throwing shadows of branches and leaves in their wake. She saw the arriving van, white and unmarked, and it pulled off the road directly in front of the warehouse. Another identical van followed it; this one drove past the depot, turned the corner, and disappeared behind the building.
Exchanging a glance with Q, who nodded, she looked through the binoculars again. The van's doors swung open, and three figures emerged, moving quickly toward the entrance.
"Weird," she said.
"What?"
"Guess they didn't get the memo about the criminal dress code. No masks, no identical black jumpsuits.. they look awfully normal."
"Hmm." Though he sounded almost uninterested, she could sense him processing the information, filing it away for later use.
"Probably just amateurs," she said, but even as the words left her mouth they didn't seem right. The operation seemed too polished, too organized; the trio of thieves moved with purpose, one approaching the door and doing something she couldn't make out while the other two kept careful watch.
The figure watching their side of the street -- a woman, Helena noted, short and sturdily built with dirty blonde hair -- took a few steps forward, turning a suspicious eye to the parking lot where they were waiting. Helena held her breath, resisting the urge to crouch down like a character in a slapstick comedy: if they'd been noticed, it wouldn't help, and if they hadn't any sudden movement would just call attention to them.
The woman took another step forward. Helena's hand moved surreptitiously to the crossbow at her side, and she opened her mouth to hiss a warning to Q. By then, though, the man at the door had apparently finished his work, and it slid open; with one last long glance toward the parking lot, the woman turned and followed her companions inside.
"Close call," Helena said under her breath, releasing her grip on the bow. "As paranoid as you are, you ought to have cloaking on this thing or something."
"I'll talk to whoever made Diana's jet," Q said, unruffled.
Hmmph.
"You just want an excuse to talk to her."
"Amazons aren't my type. I prefer a woman who'd actually have to put a little effort into beating me."
"What a romantic thought." She shifted in her seat, eyeing the clock. "So, are we going in and busting some heads?"
"At the moment? No."
Outside, the second van emerged beside the warehouse's loading dock, and several well-muscled men entered the building through the now-open service entrance. "Are you sure? They're going to get away with the stuff," Helena said.
"That's the idea."
She leaned back with a sigh, sensing that her urge for action was going to remain unsatisfied for a while. "We're following them, then? That's so tedious. You get to do all the fancy driving, and I just sit here and hope you don't get us hit by a train."
"Not always. As I recall, last time you were hoping I didn't get us hit by a bus." He laid a placating hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. Once we find their headquarters, your unparalleled... interrogation skills will be very useful."
"Flatterer." Still, she couldn't help smiling. Maybe the evening could be salvaged after all.
"For all we accomplished, we could've spent the evening at the Halifax, you know," he said, adjusting his toque as they walked; no snow on the ground yet, but the November wind was a little sharper than he'd expected, especially down near the waterfront.
"La Traviata's playing. I know one of the tenors. And then we could've gone to the Chateau du Lyonnais for a nightcap, they have an excellent wine list, and '75 was a great year.."
"Nineteen seventy-five or eighteen seventy-five?" she asked.
"Those too."
She shook her head in amused disbelief and squeezed his arm. "Maybe next time, Ollie. But would their coffee have that burnt taste I like so much? Pass it here."
He unscrewed the cap and handed her the thermos. They'd filled it at the mission from the dregs of the near-empty machine. He'd had to tilt the silver kettle drum until it was horizontal to get anything out.
"At least we tried," she said. She took a drink, and wished she'd accepted the friendly offer from the other patrons to Irish it up.
"We did," he agreed. "Sometimes, though.. sometimes not everyone wants to be found."
She'd met Daniel last spring.
There was a streetside newspaper vendor on the corner a few blocks down from Dinah's apartment building, halfway between home and work. It was handy, because she could hang the 'back in five' sign on the door and pick up something to read on a slow morning after the delivery guys showed up. Usually the Gazette: the international section was terrible, but the crossword was better than the other two dailies, and the editorial pages had recently moderated their anti-Batman positions somewhat.
They didn't seem to have any opinions on Black Canary, which was vaguely disappointing. Shouldn't the B-team get some notice too?
Oh, well. That's what you get for living in someone else's town.
Maybe I should listen to Ollie for once, maybe it's time for a change. The Pacific Northwest's pretty, and I've never minded the rain.
Across from the vendor was a large square park, with benches and chess tables surrounding the main grass field, and a respectable stone fountain in the centre. She often cut through it on the way back.
It was a Wednesday, usually the lightest day: people bought apology flowers on Monday and they didn't start thinking about refreshing their table arrangements until Thursday. Other than some nice elderly women who came by the Sherwood in the afternoon to chat and admire the Oleanders, she wasn't expecting to have much to do. So she stopped after buying a paper to feed some cookies to the pigeons, and was wondering if it was like chocolate for dogs when she heard the fingernails-on-chalkboard tuning screech.
She followed the sound to its source. She put him in the mid-forties. He had sharp bright blue eyes, a salt-and-pepper beard, and shaggy dark brown hair. He was dressed in a worn grey smoking jacket with faux-leather elbow patches on both arms, casually thrown over a tired sweater-vest, and surprisingly elegant brown loafers.
There was something out-of-sorts about the combination, an incongruity she was familiar with: it was clearly the outfit of a man working to retain something of his past in very different circumstances.
He looked at her with open but respectful appreciation. "I'm honoured," he said, with a rich deep voice. "I'll try to offer beauty for beauty."
"How thoughtful!"
"Daniel," he said, and offered his hand, wide and long. She took it.
"Dinah. I haven't seen you around here before. Do you come to play often?"
"Here? Only recently. I used to play up at Grant Park, but I thought that I could use a new setting to get my inspiration back."
"Although I might have been wrong about that," he added reflectively, the fine lines around his eyes crinkling as he picked up his violin. "Maybe it wasn't new scenery I needed, but a new Muse."
She smiled.
"Shall we find out if I'm right? Any requests?"
"How about Bach's Partita number two in D minor? The fifth movement."
He blinked. The Chaconne was arguably the most fiendishly difficult piece ever written for solo violin. If the Devil went down to Georgia, that's what he'd play to show off.
She laughed. "What can I say? Growing up the classical stuff was cheaper, three for ten dollars, and I was on a budget. I learned a few things. But you can play whatever you like."
He paused, tipped his hat, and began.
He was wonderful. The instrument had seen better days, but somehow Daniel turned the weaknesses into an asset and gave the difficult notes a yearning quality, forever stretching toward something out of reach. She couldn't quite place the piece, but it sounded early Renaissance, marrying earthy honesty and angelic grace in a slow crescendo to fulfilled hope.
She didn't know how long he played, but at some point awareness returned and she could see once more, and the greens and browns of the park seemed brighter than before in the light of the midmorning sun.
"You're very good," she said, after some time passed.
"I know," he replied solemnly. "It's a gift."
The next day she'd given him a deep blue carnation for his lapel. "Beauty for beauty," she said, as she attached it and straightened his collar.
She'd also made herself a new sign: 'back in twenty'. Just in case.
And so it went. Every few weeks, she'd find herself crossing the park when he was there -- his schedule seemed entirely random, but he'd always say that he could only play when the spirit moved him -- and she'd join the crowd listening to him. 'Our fiddler', the local shopkeepers said, and break times were gently changed when he was seen arriving.
She'd come when she could, watch the water in the fountain leap towards the sky, and let the music carry her away from the madness of the city.
As the months passed she learned Daniel liked Beethoven, Brahms, and Telemann, roughly in that order, and would usually play them, but he had impressive breadth and seldom had to admit to not knowing a request: most people got what they asked for.
Except for Vivaldi. Daniel categorically refused to play anything by 'that man', had never explained why, and the pained look on his face when the name came up didn't invite further questioning.
So she didn't ask. And she was curious about a lot more than his inexplicable Vivaldi hatred. But she respected his reticence, and never asked him about his life, his history, about how he became a wandering busker; and he never volunteered anything. He would speak only through his music.
Once, one of the two times she'd seen him without his violin, she passed through the park and found him sitting on one of the benches, silently watching the birds. She knew she shouldn't, that giving to agencies was more helpful -- 'Your kindness keeps me here', said the subway posters, beneath the pictures of sympathetic beggars -- but she couldn't help herself and dropped some change into his empty hat.
He stood so suddenly she took a step back.
"What is this? What's this you've done? I'm an artist," he said, affronted. "Does it look like I'm performing?"
Pride was typically one of the first things to go on the street, at least pride about accepting money; it was a luxury the hungry can't afford. It seemed he hadn't lost his, and she flushed, embarrassed, as she fished out her coins under his angry glare.
She moved to speak but he shook his head abruptly, turning away, and she left, uncomfortable.
She hadn't seen him for several weeks after that, but then one day she recognized the unmistakable strains, and she crossed the grass, determined to set things right.
The applause of the scattered lunchtime listeners died down as she approached, and various bills were added to the case. He looked around, spotted her, and smiled after a moment. "Shall I play another?" he asked his audience. He gestured gallantly at Dinah.
"I could never resist beauty. The lady's choice." A peace offering. It's okay; you meant well.
"One of Paganini's Caprices would be lovely," she told him. "But I hear they take a true artist." Thank you. I'm sorry.
"Beauty and taste," he said, with a slight bow. All is forgiven. "As for artistry, we shall see."
Then he played; and the world fell away leaving only the place deep in the soul where sound and scent and memory met.
She closed her eyes.
Eventually the song ended, and the foretaste of future glory faded, its imprint of sorrow and longing becoming a half-remembered dream. Her face damp, she put down a twenty, and this time he made no complaint.
She missed him.
"You could be right," Dinah told Ollie, giving him back the coffee flask. No reason she should carry it while he was there. "He showed up suddenly, he could just as easily disappear the same way. But still.."
"You think Daniel would've said something first. He'd have said goodbye."
"I know he would have. We had, I don't know, a connection."
She told herself that it wasn't surprising it had taken her so long to notice he was gone -- not seeing him for a few weeks wasn't uncommon, especially when she was busy with League duties -- but she wished she'd picked up on his absence earlier.
A week or so before, she'd started to feel slightly concerned, and had asked at the nearby shops. No one else had seen him either. In case he'd returned to his old haunts, she'd even driven up to Grant and had spoken to the regulars there. Several remembered him, but they hadn't been much help.
"Oh, you can't worry," someone had said, waving a hand dismissively. "People are always comin' and goin', can't expect to keep track of 'em all. Been a lot of that this year."
"Worse than most?" she'd asked.
"Couldn't rightly say. Lot of it last year, too. Lot every year."
And that had been one of the more informative conversations.
"Well," he said, "we can look again tomorrow. It could be that he's just changed parks. We could even request some help from Upstairs if we need to."
She stopped and looked up at him. "Ollie," she said, "thank you. For everything. I know searching local missions in disguise wasn't exactly the evening you had in mind."
He smiled at her. "Hey, pretty bird, that's why I signed up for this gig in the first place. No point in saving the world if we won't try to save one man. That's all the world is, when you get right down to it.. billions of ones, each one special."
Classic Green Arrow.
"Of course," he added after a moment, "some are more special than others.."
She hugged him, enjoying his warmth. "I'll make it up to you. I promise."
"I look forward to it."
She took his arm again, and they soon arrived at where she'd parked her new motorcycle. It was okay, but it wasn't the same.
She supposed she owed Huntress, for helping rescue her from the whole mind-control combat scene, but that didn't bring her old bike back from the water it sank beneath. If it hadn't been for Huntress' need for revenge, they'd never have had to chase her and the Question into that tunnel, Ollie'd never have had to call for an emergency teleport, and she'd still have her bike..
Dinah had managed to get reimbursed by the League for the damage, but they wouldn't lend her the tech to salvage the original. Engine was probably shot anyhow, as had been dryly pointed out.
"Let's go home."
They'd made it a few blocks -- Dinah driving with Ollie behind her like usual -- and were waiting at an intersection for the light to change when a nondescript white van went by.
"Huh," she said, when it had passed. "That's odd."
Now why is that van setting off bells in my head? There's something familiar about it..
"What?"
"I'm not sure. But.. how fast would you say that van was going?" she asked.
She felt his shrug. "I don't know, maybe forty, forty-five?"
She nodded, and turned right to follow. Over the years she'd learned to trust her instincts in these situations, sometimes her unconscious could spot things that her conscious mind hadn't noticed yet.
"What's up?" He raised his voice to be heard over the headwind and the roar of the engine as she tried to catch up but stay out of view.
"What's the speed limit here, Ollie?"
"Let's see.. forty-five, I think. Fifty on the expressways. So?"
She laughed softly as she weaved through the narrow gap between two slow-moving cars; he held onto her a bit closer. "That's right, I keep forgetting you're from Star City. But this is Gotham."
"And?"
"No one drives the speed limit."
He sighed in understanding. "Not unless they don't want to risk being stopped?"
"Not unless they don't want to be stopped," she said, and even in the secondhand clothes, she was Black Canary now.
The toque was quickly removed. Then Green Arrow reached back and opened one of the cycle's rear storage trunks for his mask and his hat, and the side chamber for his bow.
She cut a dangerously tight corner, nearly throwing him off, and as he reset the strap on his shoulder the energy started to course through his blood, that old brash excitement he gave up denying years ago – and from the small smile playing at the edge of Canary's lips he knew he wasn't alone.
This way you know you're alive, she'd said once about her driving, after a chase where gravel scraped all the skin off his left knee. Can't you feel it?
Yes, he thought. He could.
"So let's stop them."