#also what dirt does he have on taylor swift she MUST be able to hear how boring this is
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are there still beautiful things?
ahahah guess who’s finally back! with another fic that i lowkey am not sure if i like but whatever here it is its back to dinah/helena except this time its a childhood au based on seven by taylor swift bc a bitch does be loving folklore. (also on ao3.)
~~
There was a spot by the beach, hidden away from the sand and the water, that only two people in the whole world had ever known about. Bushes and branches blocked the view from the ground, and leaves draped down to cover the entrance. It was Paradise, impossible to find if you didn’t know about it — there was no path, no sign. Just instinct and memory. Both of which Dinah had inherited.
The sound of the other kids got quieter as she made her way through the dirt and trees, feeling for the familiar marker, the stub that meant she was almost there. She wasn’t sure she liked the silence, not when she didn’t have someone to share it with anymore. He’d sworn her to secrecy, and she always kept her promises, but Dinah hadn’t realized how lonely it would be to keep this secret all to herself.
The swing was exactly as she’d left it. He’d built it for her when they first found the spot, had promised it wouldn’t break, that it would be waiting for her every summer, and she’d never known him to be wrong but she still sighed in relief when she saw it. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get up without his help, but she’d grown since last year, and the difference between eight and nine was enough to reach the seat. Hanging from the branches above her, it gave her the height she needed to see the water through the leaves, to look down at the rest of the world and not have to worry about being seen.
She wondered if he could see her up here. If he looked down on her the same way she looked down at everyone else. Mom said he did, but Mom believed in a lot of things that Dinah wasn’t sure about, and the world didn’t feel big enough for ghosts and heaven. Not when it already had magic.
A noise pulled her back into reality, and she turned in time to watch a girl fall through the leaves and into Paradise. “Hey!” Dinah yelled without thinking, “You can’t be in here! This is mine!”
The girl jumped and turned toward her. For a minute Dinah forgot why she was yelling. She was the prettiest person she’d ever seen, except for Mom. Her hair was in two braids, each one long enough to pass her shoulders. Her eyes were so big she felt like she couldn’t stop looking at them, even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t. Once glance and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to stop looking.
The girl still hadn’t said anything, was just staring at her, and it was only then that Dinah realized she looked scared. “How did you find this place?” She asked, trying her best to sound less angry.
“I didn’t — I mean, it was an accident.”
“No one’s supposed to be able to find me when I’m in here.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll leave, I promise, I just — can I hide here? Just for a little bit, and then you never have to see me again.”
Dinah jumped off the swing, stepped closer to the girl. She’d picked herself off the ground, and now, standing in front of one another, Dinah realized the other girl was just a little taller than her. Usually she hated being short, hated that no one ever saw her as anything other than tiny and cute and weak, but this girl almost looked like she was trying to be shorter, to take up less space. Dinah didn’t understand it at all.
“Who are you hiding from?”
“Everyone. But mostly Sal.”
“Who’s Sal?”
“My driver.”
That explained the uniform, the fancy looking dress and the super tall socks and the church shoes. Dinah thought it looked all wrong on her. Like a costume, something she was dressing up in just for show. “You’re one of those super rich people then, aren’t you?”
The girl made a face, like the question confused her. “I don’t know. How do you know if you’re super rich?”
“Well, most people don’t pay other people to drive them around unless they’re really, really rich.”
“Oh.”
Dinah shook her head. She’d always known they didn’t have much, felt like she was constantly being reminded of it. She wondered what it would be like, to get to not think about money. To have so much you didn’t even realize you had it.
She tried to not be mean. It was something Mom said she had to work on, so she took a breath and reminded herself that it wasn’t this girl’s fault her parents had money and Mom didn’t. “Okay, so why are you hiding from your driver?” Dinah smiled. “Is he a spy?”
“What? No.”
“A pirate?”
“No.”
Dinah hesitated, before lowering her voice and asking, “Is he trying to hurt you?”
The girl gasped. “No. Sal would never hurt me.”
“Then why do you need to hide so badly?”
The girl looked down at the scuff marks that would surely be out the next time she wore those stupid shoes. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I won’t.”
The girl looked up, and she must have seen the truth in Dinah’s eyes, because she sighed and said, “He doesn’t ever leave me alone. Everywhere I go lately he’s always right behind me. I’m just sick of it. I’m ten years old, I don’t need to be babysat all the time.”
“You’re right.” She looked at Dinah in surprise, so she added, “My mom lets me come here all the time. And I’m only nine.”
“She does?”
Dinah nodded. “We live down the street. I know every corner of this place.”
“Does that mean you know all the best hiding spots?”
“Yep. But none of them are better than this one.” She sat down, motioned for the other girl to sit with her. “You can hide here. I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.”
“Thanks.” She slowly sat down next to her. “I’ve never been here before — Papa decided we needed to spend more time out of the house. Sal’s the one who picked the beach.”
“Did he not tell you where you were going? You’re not even wearing a bathing suit.”
“I didn’t have time to grab one — Papa had people coming over.”
“What does that mean?” She asked, but the other girl’s eyes had already widened, and Dinah didn’t know what she’d said but she’d seen that look before, knew it always meant something was wrong.
“I’m not supposed to talk about it. About Papa. About business.”
Dinah shrugged. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” The other girl nodded, but she still seemed nervous. She didn’t know what it was, exactly, but there was something about the sight of her fidgeting with her braids, loosening strands of hair until they poked out between the crosses, that made Dinah feel like she’d do anything to get it to stop, to make her feel better. It possessed her, took over so quickly she didn’t have time to think before she opened her mouth and said, “My Dad used to build houses.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He built everything. He made me that swing,” she pointed behind her, “and he helped me make this place. Helped me hide it.”
“He sounds like a lot of fun.”
“He was.”
The girl’s eyes scrunched together, and her head tilted slightly as she asked, “Was?”
Dinah nodded, stared at her hands in her lap. “He died last year. It was an accident.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t like to talk about it that much.”
“Then why are you telling me?” She looked up, watched the other girl hesitate before adding, “That wasn’t right, was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that wasn’t what I was supposed to say. That’s not what people usually ask.”
Part of her wanted to lie, but she shook her head instead. “No, not really.”
The girl's hands drifted back up to her braids, and now she was the one who wouldn’t look Dinah in the eye. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I never know how to do things right.”
“It’s okay.” The girl gave her a look, as if she didn’t believe her. “I’m serious. Everyone always gets weird and fake when my Dad gets brought up. I’d rather get questions like yours. Even if I don’t know the answer.”
“Really?” Dinah nodded. “Mama always says that I have to start learning how to be normal. But I don’t think that’s something most people have to learn. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, I think normal is boring and stupid. You don’t need it.” The girl smiled, and Dinah couldn’t stop from mirroring it. “I’m Dinah,” she said, sticking her hand out in front of her.
The girl reached for it, but pulled back. “I can’t tell you my name.”
“What? Why not?”
“Papa says we aren’t supposed to ever let anyone know who we are unless they already know. He says we have to protect ourselves and the family.”
“This isn’t like Stranger Danger, though. I’m not going to try and kidnap you with candy and a puppy.”
“I know. But I still can’t tell you.”
Dinah wanted to get mad. She thought she would. The past year, everything seemed to set her off, to fuel a fire in her stomach that she hadn’t noticed before, but now...the fire was quiet. And she wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Well, I need to call you something,” she finally decided. They both sat there, thinking, and in the silence Dinah could hear the birds chirping above them. She looked up, watched as two flew into the tree that carried the swing, danced around one another before flying off. Even as they flew away they stayed close by. It was like they belonged together.
“I don’t have any nicknames,” the other girl said, but Dinah kept staring at the sky, following the birds until they were nothing more than a speck in the distance.
“How about Blackbird?”
The girl frowned. “That’s an animal, not a name.”
“So? My Dad used to call my Mom Canary. That means animals can also be names.”
“But why Blackbird?”
“My mom sings a song about one a lot. It’s really pretty. So the bird must be pretty, too.”
“Your Mom’s a singer?”
Dinah nodded. “That’s why Dad used to call her Canary. She has a different job to make money, but singing is her favorite. Just like me.”
“Then maybe I should call you that, too. So we both have nicknames.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.” Dinah couldn’t stop from smiling, especially when Blackbird smiled back at her.
It faded as she turned toward the leaves. Dinah stared at them too, and a second later she heard the footsteps. Neither of them breathed as the sound passed by Paradise; it was only when they got quieter again that Blackbird exhaled.
“That’s probably Sal looking for me.”
“Will you come back?” She couldn’t stop the hope from slipping into her voice, from making her sound as desperate as she knew she was. Friends weren’t very easy to come by, and she wasn’t ready to let go of this one. Not yet.
“I don’t know — I’ll try. I’ll tell Sal to bring me back next time I have to get out of the house. He should listen to me.”
“Well, you’ll know where to find me if you do. I’m always here.”
Blackbird smiled, and it looked like she was about to leave, before she stopped. The smile disappeared as she said, “You can’t tell anyone about me. Ever.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
She looked so afraid. Dinah didn’t understand why it mattered, but she held out her pinkie anyway. When Blackbird just stared at it, she sighed and reached for hers, forced their fingers to intertwine.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s a pinkie swear,” Dinah told her. “It’s stronger than a promise. It means I won’t ever tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”
Blackbird stared at their hands, their fingers still tied together. Dinah looked at them, too. It felt right. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew she didn’t want it to stop.
The footsteps went by again, and she watched Blackbird jump, tug her hand back. She waited ten more seconds, staring at Dinah the entire time, before she disappeared, backed out of Paradise and into reality.
—
A whole week passed before she saw her again.
She’d begun to worry that she would never come back. Dinah told herself that not everyone had the freedom she did, that if Blackbird didn’t show it wasn’t because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t get away. Convincing herself took more work as the days passed. It wouldn't have been the first time she thought she’d made a friend only for them to bail on her. She knew people lied, but something about this girl had felt different. And she’d seen Paradise — she had to come back.
It was on Friday, as she sat on the swing trying to convince herself to not lose hope, that the leaves rustled. She turned and watched her walk in slowly, like she didn’t believe anyone would be waiting for her. Dinah saw the moment she saw her, saw the smile creep onto her face, and she knew she wore one, too.
“You came back.”
“You waited for me.”
Dinah jumped off the swing. She still had the same two braids as last time, but the church dress was gone; instead, Blackbird was wearing a white tank top and skirt. It still didn’t look like her. “You’re not dressed for the beach again.”
“I know — we were on our way home from Tennis lessons when Sal turned around.”
“I didn’t know you played tennis.”
“I do lots of things. Mama loves activities. She says it makes us dignified, but I don’t really know what that means.”
Dinah shrugged. “I play soccer during the school year, but I don’t do much during the summer. Except when Mom teaches me guitar. What do you do?”
She spoke like she was reading from a book, saying another person’s words. “Fencing and Chinese lessons on Monday’s. Archery and Spanish on Tuesday’s. Piano and Italian on Wednesday’s. Violin and Gymnastics on Thursday’s. Chess and Tennis on Friday’s. The weekend is for practice. And church.”
“Wow. That’s a lot.”
Blackbird shrugged. “Mama says they’re all supposed to teach me stuff, but sometimes I think she just wants to keep us out of the house.”
“Us?”
“My brother and I. He has his own lessons.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Blackbird smiled, which made Dinah smile. “Yeah. He’s only seven, but he’s already way smarter than I am. And he’s really funny, except for when he’s being annoying.”
“You’re so lucky. You have a brother, and you play two instruments. I only know guitar, and I’m not even good at it yet.”
She shook her head. “You’re the lucky one, Canary. You get to come here whenever you want. You don’t have to hide from your parents.”
Dinah bit her lip. She knew she could lie, knew if she agreed Blackbird would think nothing of it, but when she tried to nod, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to — not with her. “Actually, I kinda do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my mom doesn’t think I’m alone when I come here. She thinks I have all these friends I hang out with. If she knew I didn’t have any, she’d worry. And she has enough to worry about already.”
“You don’t have other friends?” The question was so genuine Dinah couldn’t get mad. She didn’t say it like she was trying to make fun of her, but like she didn’t believe it. Like Dinah being friendless couldn’t possibly be true.
“No. After my dad, I got kinda mad at everyone. Wasn’t very fun to be around. And now…” she shrugged. “I don’t really know how to try again. Everyone at school’s already made up their minds about me.”
Blackbird didn’t say anything. Dinah wondered if she’d done it again, managed to ruin it before they could even start, but then she sighed. “I’m not sure how to help,” she finally said, “because I don’t have any friends, either.”
“You don’t?”
She shook her head. “My family…intimidates people. The other girls at school are told not to talk to me.”
The anger came almost instantly. “Well, they’re dumb! Who cares what your family does?”
“They’re not dumb — they’re scared. But I’m not entirely sure why. I think it has to do with the business, but no one will tell me what that is.”
Realization hit her. “Is that why you didn’t want to tell me your name? So I wouldn’t be scared?”
Blackbird wouldn’t look at her. “It might have been part of it.”
Dinah reached for her, ignored the way her nerves seemed to jump as she grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to tell me, but I don’t care who your family is — nothing about you could ever scare me away.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I’m not a coward — plus, it doesn’t matter what your last name is. You’re not scary. Especially when you’re dressed like that.”
She smiled, and Dinah knew she should let go of her hand now, but she lingered, just a little. It felt nice, and Blackbird wasn’t pulling away. So they sat there for a minute, neither of them saying anything, and Dinah didn’t usually like silence, but she didn’t mind this one.
“Hey, did I tell you what we called this place?” She eventually asked. Blackbird shook her head. Dinah smiled, stood up and spread her arms out wide, did her best to act as dramatic as possible. “This,” she announced, “is Paradise.”
Blackbird laughed, and Dinah thought it might be the most beautiful sound in the world. “It’s perfect. I never want to leave.”
—
Their meetings were sporadic at best. Blackbird rarely showed up on the same days or at the same times, but Dinah could usually count on seeing her at least a few times each week. She always wore something frilly and fake, and Dinah wasn’t sure what looked like her, but she knew it wasn’t anything she’d ever worn.
They spent most of their time talking. She was always having to listen for Sal, and they never knew when she’d be able to come back, so they fit as much as they could into every day. Dinah told her about the best Saturday morning cartoons (Blackbird’s parents wouldn’t let her or her brother watch them), and she told Dinah about all her different lessons. Dinah learned that she liked archery and the piano best, and hated chess most of all.
“It’s too slow,” she complained, “and I always lose.”
“That’s why you should just play checkers instead,” Dinah kept telling her. “It’s faster and way more fun.”
“Mama says chess teaches you strategy and patience.”
“When are you ever gonna need to know how to do strategy?”
She laughed at that. “Strategy isn’t something you do, it’s something you learn.”
“Well, it sounds boring. It’s summer! You’re not supposed to be learning anything!”
“Not in my family.” She laughed, but it always made Dinah a little sad to hear her talk like that. Blackbird had looked so confused the first time she asked why she didn’t just quit whatever she didn’t like. She’d said that what she did wasn’t up to her; Dinah decided then that she wasn’t a fan of either of Blackbird’s parents, not if they kept her from doing fun stuff. From figuring out what she liked. Who she was.
—
She remembered the first time Blackbird used the swing. Dinah had caught her staring at it for weeks, but she didn’t say anything. Sharing Paradise was one thing, but he’d made the swing for her. It felt wrong to let anyone else use it.
The more time they spent together, the more she thought maybe she was looking at this all wrong. He might have made Paradise for her to hide in, but that didn’t mean she had to hide alone. And she wanted Blackbird to be happy. She was beginning to think she wanted that more than anything else.
So the next time she caught her looking, Dinah decided not to ignore it. “Do you wanna use it?”
She looked at her like a deer caught in headlights, like the very act of wanting it was something to feel guilty about, and whatever hesitation Dinah might have had disappeared instantaneously. She stood up, held her arm out and waited for her to take it; it took her a minute, but Dinah would have waited hours if that’s what she needed.
“You can’t swing too hard, otherwise the branch could give out,” she said as they walked up to it. “But you can see the whole beach from up there.”
Blackbird reached for the seat, letting her hand drift over the wood. “Are you sure I’m not going to break it?”
“I’m positive.”
Dinah watched as she jumped up, clinging to the rope that tied it to the tree above them. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to bring up the view she’d memorized ages ago, to pretend they were both looking at it at the same time, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Not when Blackbird was staring at the beach with wide eyes and wearing a smile that blew the view itself out of the water.
“It’s beautiful,” she said softly.
Dinah hummed in agreement. “Dad used to say this beach was the secret gem of Gotham. That it stayed beautiful because not many people knew about it.”
“He was right.” She seemed to speak on instinct, and Dinah watched as she brought herself back down to earth, her face changing along the way. “He made this for you. It’s special. I shouldn’t be up here.”
“No, it’s okay.” She had to reach forward to stop her from jumping off the seat. “Stay.”
“But—“
“But nothing.” She looked at her like she didn’t believe it, and Dinah had to search for the words to explain what had changed. “My dad made this whole place for us to be together. He built me the swing so I could see what he saw. But he’s gone now, and I don’t want to be alone here anymore.”
She didn’t look fully convinced, but she also didn’t try and jump off again, so Dinah counted it as a win. They stood there, listening to the birds and the bugs and everything else around them. It was funny, she thought, how different the world sounded when there was someone else with you to listen. How nature’s noise didn’t feel like it was desperately trying to fill the space around her anymore.
—
There were some days when Blackbird was quiet. She’d come in and sit down, never saying much or looking up at her. It was almost like she was in a trance, like she was lost in her own head, and Dinah couldn’t do anything but wait for her to find her way out again. On the quiet days, she sat with her, stared up at the sky and made sure to stay close enough so that she always knew she was there.
It had started as one of those days, until Blackbird broke her own silence. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“How does it feel? To lose someone?”
Dinah couldn’t stare at the ground fast enough. “It’s not great.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m not — I don’t want to make you sad. Or talk about it if I’m not allowed to ask.”
“No. It’s okay,” she said, and she was surprised to find that she was telling the truth. Everyone else who asked her about it only pissed her off, but something made this different. Made her different.
“It’s just — I don’t think I’m going to be very good at losing people. And I want to be prepared for when it happens. I don’t want to make things worse the way I always do.”
“You could never make anything worse.”
“I already do. With everything. It’s like the whole world was given a rule book except me, and now I never know how I’m supposed to act or feel or think, and everyone can see it but no one will tell me the right answers.” She waited a second, before adding, “I think you’re the only person who doesn’t notice.”
If Dinah could fight everyone who’d ever made her feel that way, she would. “The world is wrong, then,” she said, “if they can’t see what I see.”
Neither of them spoke for a minute. Dinah thought about her question, thought about the blurry days from right after and the nights she heard Mom pretend she wasn’t crying. She thought about all the months since, and she didn’t know which part was the most important, but she knew that Blackbird deserved to hear the truth. Or some version of it, at least.
“Losing people is weird. You keep thinking it’s going to stop hurting eventually, but it doesn’t. Not really. The hurt just...changes. Like, some days I feel totally normal, and then something little happens, and it’s like I can’t breathe all of a sudden. Other days the pain just kinda sits in the background of everything I do, and no matter how much I try to ignore it, I can’t.”
“That sounds really hard.”
“Yeah. The worst part is that there’s no one to blame. It just happened. Mom says that as more time passes, it’ll get easier, but she also says we have to do the work to heal before that can happen. I don’t really know what she means when she says that, but I pretend like I do. I think it helps her, to think that I understand.”
Blackbird closed her eyes. “I hope I never have to lose anyone. And I hope you don’t have to anymore, either.”
Dinah tried to smile, but she couldn’t quite find it. “Yeah. Me too.”
—
“Do you believe in magic, Blackbird?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too good to be true.”
Dinah hesitated, before asking, “Would you believe me if I said I have magic?”
She looked up, and Dinah watched her think it over before answering. “Yes.”
“Why? You just said you don’t believe in it.”
“I believe in you. And I don’t think you’d ever lie to me. So if you told me you could do magic, then you can do magic.”
Dinah hesitated, before sitting up. “Okay. If I tell you this, you can’t tell anyone else. Ever.”
Blackbird sat up, too, stuck her pinkie out. Dinah reached for it, and while they held onto each other, she whispered, “My mom has superpowers, and I do, too.”
Her eyes widened. “What can you do?”
“Well, I can't do it yet. Not really. But my mom can destroy things with just her voice. And she’s gonna teach me how to do it when I’m older.”
“Wow.” She’d never told anyone before, but now, looking at her, she wasn’t sure why Mom had been so worried about people knowing their secret. Blackbird wasn’t scared of her. If anything, she seemed...amazed. Like Dinah’s powers made her special. Like Dinah was special.
“Mom says we have to hide it for now, but one day we’re gonna use them for good.”
“How?”
Dinah shrugged. “I guess fight bad guys.”
“Oh! Like the girls in your cartoon!”
She laughed. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“I like that idea,” she said. “You would be a good superhero.”
Dinah gasped. “You should be one with me!”
“But I don’t have any superpowers.”
“Who cares? You can use your fencing swords! Or your bow and arrow! Or all that chess strategy.” Blackbird smiled, but she still looked like she didn’t believe it. Like she couldn’t see it. “We could wear matching costumes,” Dinah continued. “And we can use Paradise as our superhero base.”
“I guess I could be a good sidekick.”
Dinah gasped, reached over and punched her on the arm. “Don’t say that! We’d both be the heroes.”
“Is that even allowed?”
“Who cares? We’ll be grown-ups — we can make our own rules.”
She laughed, but it didn’t last very long. “It just doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Your parents won’t always be able to tell you what to do and where to go. One day, you’ll get to decide everything for yourself.”
Blackbird just shrugged. “Maybe.”
Dinah knew they could end it at that, but something in her didn’t want to let go of this just yet. “What color would you want your superhero costume to be?”
“I don’t know. Whatever color you like, I guess.”
She shook her head. “No, you have to pick for yourself. What’s your favorite color?”
“Mama says I look nice in green.”
“But what do you like?”
“I don’t know. Green, I guess. It’s easier to like whatever Mama likes.”
Dinah wasn’t sure what it was about today, what made this time different from the other days they’d spent here, but she couldn’t take it anymore. The anger came up before she could stop it. “What’s wrong with you?! Why don’t you ever stand up for yourself?”
She wanted the words back as soon as they came out. She wanted to rewind, wanted to be nicer, calmer, but instead she was stuck, forced to watch the way Blackbird’s face fell, the way her eyes widened and filled with tears. Her hand jumped up to her braids. She’d almost forgotten about the habit, hadn’t seen it in over a month, and she hated herself for being the reason it came back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and Dinah couldn’t stand that her voice sounded that small, that she was the reason for it. She tried to stand up, tried to find the words to make it better, but Blackbird was gone before she had the chance, backing out of Paradise and disappearing among the trees.
—
She spent three days practicing what to say if she ever came back. She wrote it down, memorized it, stared in the mirror and repeated herself over and over and over again. Not apologizing had stopped her from getting her old friends back; she wasn’t going to let it stop her from losing this one.
With every day that passed, she tried to imagine what Blackbird was doing. Whether she was winning in fencing. Whether she was learning a new song on the piano. Whether she was thinking about her. Missing her. Dinah thought about her life and wondered if maybe she’d overestimated what Paradise had to offer, if maybe she’d taken away its only appeal when she yelled at her.
She was sitting on the swing when she finally saw her again. It almost felt familiar — the sound of the leaves rustling, Dinah turning back to find a skittish girl standing behind her. “You came back,” she said, instinct driving her off-script before she could even start. “I wasn’t sure that you would.”
“I wasn’t sure that you’d want me to come back.”
“No! I mean, yes! I do! I do want you back!” Dinah jumped off the swing, reached for her hands and prayed she wouldn’t pull away. “I’m so sorry, Blackbird. I never should have yelled at you like that. I didn’t mean it, any of it.”
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have run away.”
Dinah shook her head. “No, this was all my fault. I didn’t mean to get upset. I just...I don’t like seeing you be mean to yourself. And I don’t like that you feel like you can’t be a person outside of your family. I think that’s what I was angry about, but I took it out on you. And that was wrong.”
“Why does that make you angry?” Dinah usually loved how every question she had felt honest and genuine, but she didn’t want her to ever have to question this.
“Because I want you to be happy.”
“Why?”
“Because I think everyone deserves to be happy, but especially you. I care more about you being happy than anyone else. You're my best friend.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“I think you’re my best friend, too, Canary. I promise I’ll never run away from you again.”
She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to jump or cry or scream; instead, she said, “I know you don’t like them, but I’m going to hug you now, because if I don’t I think I might explode.”
Blackbird laughed, and Dinah couldn’t help herself anymore. She flung her arms around her, squeezed as tight as she could. With her head against her chest, she could feel the way her body moved when she laughed, could feel the softness of those stupid clothes, could even hear her heart beating, the sound quiet but strong. She decided this, not Paradise, was her favorite place in the world.
“Would you be mad,” Blackbird said hesitantly, “if I told you I still don’t know what my favorite color is?”
Dinah fought back a smile, even though she knew she couldn’t see her face. “No. We don’t have to be superheroes until we’re super old, anyway. I’m sure you’ll figure it out by then.” She forced herself to step back, to let go, to look her in the eyes. “Besides, whatever color you like now could change. So much will probably be different by the time we grow up.”
“Not us, though, right?”
“No,” Dinah said, and she knew she was telling the truth when she promised, “We won’t ever change.”
—
Dinah saw her for two weeks straight at the beginning of August. The first week was perfect. The days felt special — earned, almost. As if it was their reward for having spent the rest of the summer stealing minutes and hours whenever they could. The sun never left, and it took Sal longer and longer to come looking for her. Most days, Dinah prayed he wouldn’t show, that his footsteps wouldn’t ever make themselves heard along their dirt path, and during that first week, her wish almost felt like it was coming true.
On the eighth day, though, Blackbird burst through the walls of Paradise in tears. Dinah watched for a second, shock freezing her in place. Once it wore off, she had to fight the urge to throw her arms around her, to hold her so tight that she couldn’t feel anything else. Dinah remembered days when she used to cry like this. Sometimes she needed the pain, needed to scream and cry just to get it all out, so she sat next to her, put her head on her shoulder and waited for her breaths to slow.
When they did, she had to bite back all her questions. She added patience to the list of reasons she wished she could tell her Mom about Blackbird, put it right next to the other things their relationship proved: that she hadn’t lost the ability to be a friend to someone, that she hadn’t been lying all summer, that she’d be okay. But she’d made a promise. And no matter how selfish she wanted to be, she wasn’t in the habit of breaking promises. So she waited. And waited. And after what felt like forever, Blackbird finally spoke.
“I heard him,” she whispered, “on the phone.”
“Heard who?”
“Papa.” She stared at the trees in front of them, and she spoke in a voice Dinah didn’t recognize. It was almost anger, but not quite. Almost sadness, too. Somewhere in between, maybe, but whatever it was, whatever she was feeling, it was heavy. Dinah fought back the thought that maybe she wasn’t strong enough to help carry it.
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear it all. He didn’t know I was there. But it was the way he said it. It…” she shivered, and Dinah finally put an arm around her, tried to pull her closer. “I’ve never heard him talk like that before. Not to me, not to anyone.”
For the first time she turned, and all Dinah could see was panic. “On the phone, he...he was threatening people. He was yelling and using bad words, and he was acting really, really scary, but I don’t think it was pretend. I think he meant it all.”
Dinah didn’t need to know anything else. “Okay. Then you’re not going back.”
The panic melted into confusion almost instantly. “What?”
“Home. You’re not going back. Not if your dad is scaring you.”
“Where would I go?”
“You can come live with me. My mom won’t mind. I know she won’t.”
Blackbird shook her head. “She wouldn’t want me.”
“Of course she would. You’re nice and smart and fun and pretty. Anybody would want you.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me. If you came and lived with me, it would be like Paradise, but every single day.” She smiled, let herself run away with the idea. “You could sleep in my room with me, and we could stay up late every night, and we could come here whenever we wanted.”
She smiled, just a little bit. “It does sound fun.”
“It would be perfect! You wouldn’t have to be scared all the time, and I wouldn’t have to be alone.”
For a minute, it looked like she let herself see it. The life they both wanted, almost within their reach. But it didn’t last. “My family would find me.”
“Then...we’ll run away! Just the two of us. We’ll go somewhere so far they’ll never find us.”
“How? We’re just kids.”
“We can jump on a train. Or become pirates and sail across the ocean.” She saw the hope in her eyes fading away. Dinah desperately tried to get it back. “Or maybe I can learn to drive, and I’ll take my dad’s old truck and come get you, or—“
“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “Nowhere in the world is far enough that they won’t find me. They’d never let me go.”
“Not even if you asked?”
Blackbird shook her head. “They need me. For business.”
“Why would they need you for that? You’re ten.”
“Not now — later. My family,” she said softly. “They’re all part of it. Whatever it is. Whatever we do. And one day, I will be, too.”
She spoke as if the words were a realization. Dinah watched her eyes go wide, her hands creeping toward her braids. “Hey,” Dinah reached for them, tried to pull them away from her hair. “It’ll be okay.”
Blackbird shook her head. “I think it already started. I just didn’t notice.”
“What are you talking about? What’s already started?”
“Letting us in on the secret. I think...I think I’m going to know everything soon.”
“Didn’t you want to know?”
“Not anymore.” She stood up suddenly, started pacing around Paradise. “I’m the oldest. It’s gonna be me. And I’m going to have to mean it all, too.”
“Wait, Blackbird, slow down. What’s going to be you?”
She froze, looked down at her as if it was obvious. “I’m going to be in charge. Of the business.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone. Mama, Papa, my aunts and uncles. That’s what they meant when they said we were the legacies. Next in line. It was always going to be me or Pino, but if the one in charge is going to have to…” she shook her head. “It has to be me. I won’t let it be him.”
Dinah tried to wrap her mind around what she was saying, but it was like trying to do a puzzle while missing half of the pieces — the picture just didn’t make any sense. “But do you want to do it? Be in charge and be mean to people?”
“Don’t you get it?!” Now, for the first time all summer, Dinah was seeing how anger, plain and simple, looked on her. “I don’t get to do what I want. Ever. I never have and I never will. I can’t hide, I can’t run away. Nothing in the world can stop this from happening.”
They sat in the silence for a minute. It hurt more than the ones she’d grown used to — as if it was filled with pain instead of comfort, anger instead of ease. She wanted to fight back. She wanted to stand up and yell, to say that she was stronger, that she could fight it. She could save her. But Dinah had nothing to offer. She was small and adults were big, and nothing she did could change that. Not yet, at least. Not now.
But not forever. Mom always told her that the power inside of her, inside both of them, would let them help people. One day, Dinah would be the powerful one. The hero. She’d learn, and she’d grow, and she’d never have to feel helpless again. Her voice would save them both — all she needed was patience.
“I’ll stop it,” she finally said. “When I’m older and stronger and can use my powers. I’ll come save you. I’ll protect you. You just have to wait for me.”
“How? How could you stop it?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll figure out a way. And you won’t ever have to be what they want you to be. You won’t have to do anything unless you want to.” She stuck her pinkie out before she could decide whether it was a good idea or not. “I promise.”
Blackbird looked like she was going to protest, but she didn’t. She nodded and locked pinkies with her, and Dinah prayed she wasn’t making a promise she couldn’t keep.
—
The following Monday came heavy with the truth neither of them wanted to acknowledge. It was hidden in every word they said, in the silence between. They skirted around it, tried to ignore it as long as they could, but with every passing minute, she knew it only grew stronger: the feeling of running out of time.
Dinah broke first. “What are we going to do when school starts again?”
Blackbird just shrugged. She was laying down, staring up at the sky. Dinah sat on the swing, and she was tempted to look up with her, to try and find whatever had caught her attention, but nothing the world had to offer could make her take her eyes off Blackbird. Not when she wasn’t sure how much longer she had to memorize the sight of her.
“I don’t want to think about school.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” She hesitated, before adding, “I wish we got to go to school together.”
“We wouldn’t be in the same grade, though. I’m a year older than you, remember?”
“Yeah, but we could still see each other during recess and lunch. Plus, just knowing you’re there would make it better.”
“You would hate my school. We have to wear uniforms every single day. Dresses with tights and fancy shoes.”
“I would wear them for you,” Dinah said, and she saw her smile, still staring at the sky. “You would hate my school, too — the only afterschool activity we have is basketball. Nothing as fancy as everything you do.”
“I would give up all of my lessons for you,” she said back, and Dinah didn’t know what to do with the way her words made her feel. Warm and fuzzy and seen. It made her never want to hide again.
Blackbird turned, shifted onto her elbows so they were facing each other. “Canary,” she said, and Dinah could hear it in her voice that the time for pretending was over. “Are we ever going to see each other again after this week?”
“Of course we are,” she responded with more confidence than she had.
“How? When?”
“I don’t know. But even if we have to spend all year without each other, we can always come back to Paradise next summer.”
“That’s a long time from now.”
“Yeah,” Dinah said, “but I’d wait forever if I had to. Best friends don’t give up on each other.”
Blackbird nodded, with more determination than Dinah had ever seen from her. “I believe you,” she said, “but if it’s going to be that long, we should make this week the best week ever. Do everything we want before we have to wait.”
She knew exactly what she wanted to do, had known for a while, but found the courage in Blackbird’s conviction to follow through, to make a plan and stick with it. “Okay,” she said. “Best week ever.”
—
“I have a surprise for you,” Dinah said the minute Blackbird stepped into Paradise on Tuesday. She pulled the guitar from behind her back and watched as her eyes widened.
“Are you going to play for me?” Any nerves she might have had slipped away with the question. Dinah wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Blackbird sound that excited. And it was all because of her. The thought made it impossible to fight back a smile.
She nodded, sat down and heard Blackbird sit down across from her. She’d spent all morning anxiously tuning the strings the way Mom had shown her, playing the hard parts over and over again until she knew she wouldn’t mess them up.
“Remember when we first met, how I told you about that song? The one my mom likes to sing?” She fiddled with a couple of the strings as she talked, listened to make sure the notes sounded the way they were supposed to.
“The one about the Blackbird?” She asked, and Dinah smiled, answered her with chords, watched her fingers to make sure they moved to the right places at the right time. Her first breath shook just a little but she let the words out anyway:
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly,
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
She didn’t trust her hands not to falter, not if she looked up, looked at her, but she stole a glance anyway, felt her fingers stumble across the notes as she took in the sight of her. Blackbird was smiling, wider than she’d ever seen. Dinah knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to keep going if she kept her eyes up, so she forced them down, let the verses ease in one after the other. The chorus came quickly and she let it, let her voice lead her instead of her mind, let it carry her through the melody. Singing had always come easily to her but now it felt effortless, as natural as breathing.
She waited until the song ended, the last guitar notes fading into nothing more than an echo, before letting her eyes drift back up to Blackbird’s. She was wearing the same smile she’d spotted earlier, only this time it was accompanied by a blush in her cheeks and tears in her eyes. They sat in the silence for a moment, and Dinah wouldn’t have minded if it never stopped, if they’d been able to live in that moment forever.
“That was beautiful,” she eventually told her, voice barely over a whisper.
Dinah felt heat underneath her own cheeks. “It sounds better when my Mom sings it,” she confessed, “but I had her teach it to me after we met. I’ve been practicing all summer.”
“I don’t care what your mom sounds like — no one could possibly sing that better than you.”
She laughed. “I guess I live up to my name, then.”
“Yeah, I guess you do.” She hesitated, before adding, “I don’t ever think I’ll live up to mine. To that song.”
“You already have,” Dinah told her. “You’re better and more beautiful than any piece of music.”
She blushed some more, her cheeks filling with bright red, and Dinah couldn’t help but laugh. “I wish we could be like the song and just fly away,” she sighed, and Dinah thought she looked hopeful this time. Like she could see it. Like part of her was beginning to believe it might actually come true.
“One day, we will.”
Blackbird just looked at her. Dinah couldn’t explain the way she felt, couldn’t find words or lyrics or melodies to match a look like that. All she could do was take it in.
“Can you sing to me again?” She asked. Dinah smiled, nodded, adjusted her fingers and let the notes fill the space around them, let them build until the rest of the word faded away.
—
On Wednesday, it was Blackbird who walked into Paradise with her hands hidden behind her back.
“I have a surprise this time,” she told her, and Dinah smiled, stood up and stared at the object she held out in her hands.
“You brought...a pocket knife?”
She nodded, completely unfazed. “It’s Sal’s. I found it in the car today. I was thinking we could use it to write our name on one of the trees. That way anyone who finds this place will always know that it’s ours.”
“You’re so smart,” she told her as she turned her head, looked around Paradise for the perfect spot. She gasped when she found it, staring back at her in plain sight. “We should write it on the swing!”
She ran toward it, but when she turned around, Blackbird hadn’t moved. “Your dad made that for you,” she said softly. “I can’t put my name on there.”
“It’s okay — I want you to.”
“But—but it’s special!”
“You’re special,” she told her, and Blackbird looked down, began fidgeting with the knife. Dinah walked over, reached out and held onto her hands until she felt them stop.
“Why?” Her voice was so quiet, Dinah wasn’t sure she would have heard her if they hadn’t been standing inches apart.
“You’re the only person I know who looks at me and doesn’t see someone broken. And I want to remember that.”
She looked up then, freezing her in place with nothing more than her eyes. “How could anyone ever see you as broken?”
“Doesn’t matter. Because you don’t. So would you please come over and help me carve our names onto this swing?”
She waited a minute, staring at Dinah as if she was giving her a chance to change her mind; Dinah knew she never would. Blackbird must have realized it, too, because she nodded, held onto her hand as they stepped over toward the swing.
Dinah flipped it over. “The back isn’t polished, so it’ll be easier to put them here.”
“Is it okay if we use our nicknames?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Who you are doesn’t change just because someone calls you something different. Here,” Dinah said, grabbing the knife out of Blackbird’s hand and flipping it open. “I’ll go first.”
“Be careful,” she said. “I’ve never actually used a knife like this before.”
“Don’t worry — I used to watch my dad do stuff like this all the time. We just have to be slow and careful, and never aim the knife toward our bodies.”
It was only when she started carving that Blackbird let go of her hand, moving to hold the swing steady instead. Dinah kept her eyes down as she worked, watched as each letter took shape. It wasn’t as clean as she’d have liked, but it would have to be good enough.
“Okay,” she said, taking a step back and holding out the knife. “Your turn.”
Blackbird moved even slower than she did. She carved each letter with precision and grace that Dinah knew she’d never have. When she got to the letter c, she started and stopped, frowning at the wood in front of her. Dinah didn’t wait for her to ask for help, knew that if she did, she’d be waiting a lifetime; instead, she walked to the other side of the swing, placed her hand on Blackbird’s and helped her finish the letter, and then the next, and then every one after that. When it was done, Dinah waited, just an extra second, before stepping backwards, letting space grow between them again.
“There,” she said. “It’s ours. Blackbird and Canary will forever have this spot marked.”
“What happens if someone moves the swing?”
“They won’t,” she replied instinctively, before deciding to add, “and if they do, we’ll just find it and bring it back. We won’t let anyone take Paradise away.”
“We can do that?”
“We can do anything.”
Blackbird smiled. “If the world thinks you’re broken, then I’m glad I get to be broken with you.”
“You’re not broken. Not even a little bit.”
“And neither are you. So maybe it’s everyone else that’s shattered. Not us.”
“Yeah,” Dinah smiled, and she knew she wasn’t pretending anymore when she agreed, “Not us.”
—
The weather on Thursday was perfect. Dinah remembered staring at the sky and thinking it looked fake, that it must have been a painting, because real skies couldn’t possibly be that blue. The sun was shining, and Paradise was theirs, and not even the threat of the end of summer could ruin her day.
Blackbird was sitting in front of her. She looked the way she always did, with her two braids and that church dress and those stupid shoes she’d worn so many times. Staring at her, Dinah wondered whether she’d ever see the real Blackbird, not the one her parents controlled. What would that girl look like? Did she even know?
“Why are you staring at me?” Her voice knocked her out of her own thoughts.
“No reason,” Dinah replied quickly, before impulsively asking, “Can I braid your hair?”
“It’s already braided.”
“No, I mean, can I take it out and do a different braid?”
“Why?”
Dinah shrugged. “You always wear it the same way. Plus, Mom’s been teaching me how to do all kinds of braids. I think I’m getting pretty good at it.”
“My mom braids my hair, too,” Blackbird said. “She’s the one who does it like this every morning. She’ll notice if it’s different.”
“I can rebraid it like that before you have to leave. I just wanna see what you look like with something different.”
“Okay,” she said, and Dinah wasn’t sure why she seemed nervous all of a sudden, but she decided she didn’t want to push it. Not today, when they only had tomorrow left.
She watched as she reached for the hair ties, separating each strand until her hair hung loose across her shoulders. It felt longer this way, and part of her didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to change it at all. She looked older, too, and more relaxed. She hadn’t realized hair could change a person so much. Maybe it was its own kind of magic.
“Why are you staring again?” Dinah could see the way her cheeks began turning red, and she smiled, reached out for it before she could help herself.
“You look really pretty with your hair down,” she told her, running her fingers though it as she got up and kneeled behind her. “You should wear it like this more often.”
“Thanks,” she said, and Dinah couldn’t see her face but she knew she was blushing again. “How are you going to braid it?”
“I think I’m gonna start up here, kinda on the side,” she told her, “and then it’ll come all the way around to your other shoulder.”
They didn’t talk much as she worked. Dinah didn’t expect to be grateful for the silence, not on their second to last day, but there was something nice about the quiet. There always had been. With her other friends, she used to hate it when they had nothing to say, but Blackbird made it easy. Blackbird made everything easy.
Dinah finally broke it when she asked for her hair tie. She tied it off, moved in front of her and brought the end of the braid with her, laying it down so it just barely rested on her shoulder.
“How does it look?”
Dinah didn’t know how to explain that it made her look like a princess straight from the movies she watched and books she read, so she settled for, “I think it looks pretty good. I wish I had a mirror or something to show you.”
“That’s okay,” she said softly. “I trust you.”
They sat like that for another minute, face to face, the grass and dirt and air keeping the rest of the world locked away. She wished more than anything that they could stay right here forever. That nothing ever had to change. That time could stop, rewind and let her do this whole summer all over again.
She watched Blackbird’s face, saw the smile slowly fade away. “You look sad. What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to miss you,” Dinah said softly.
“I’m not leaving yet. We still have tomorrow.”
“And after that?”
Blackbird looked down, and Dinah saw her fidget with the extra hair tie now wrapped around her wrist. “After that, we go back to real life.”
“I hate real life.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“How am I going to last until next summer?”
“Maybe,” she said, and she looked up with the tiniest smile. “Maybe we can write letters to each other. And we can hold onto them until next year, and then when we see each other again we can read them and catch up on everything we missed. And maybe that’ll make it feel like we’re still here. Like we still get to talk to one another.”
“It won’t be the same,” she snapped. She saw Blackbird’s face fall, and quickly added, “But it’s better than nothing. We should do it.”
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s a stupid idea.”
“No, it’s not stupid. I’m sorry. I just wish we could talk more.”
“So do I. You’re the only person I actually like talking to. Well, you and my brother, but he gets tired of talking really fast.”
“At least you have a brother. I won’t have anyone to talk to anymore.”
“You have your mom,” she said, “and you can—“ she froze, her eyes wide and her body completely still.
“Blackbird, wha—“
“Shh!” She lunged forward, threw her hand over Dinah’s mouth; a few seconds later she heard it. Footsteps, familiar ones, passing right by them and then disappearing.
“Is that Sal? Already?” She whispered.
“It has to be,” she said as she stood up. Dinah watched her reach for her braids and only finding one, the panic growing as she frantically undid the hair tie.
“Here, let me help.” Dinah jumped up with her, undoing all of her work as fast as she could. “Why is he already looking for you? You just got here.”
“I don’t know. But I have to hurry. I don’t want him to find us.” Dinah stepped back, watched as Blackbird shook her unbraided hair out and ran her fingers through it. “I’ll catch him on his way back down.”
“Wait!” Dinah reached out, grabbed her arm before she could step through the leaves. “You’ll be back tomorrow, though, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Promise?” She asked, and Blackbird opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the footsteps passed them by again. Dinah watched as she brought a finger to her lips, before slipping through the leaves.
Dinah knew she shouldn’t follow. Most days, Blackbird left before he came looking, but now they were right outside, and she couldn’t help herself. She crept forward, stuck her head out just enough to see them without being spotted. They’d only made it a few steps past Paradise, but Blackbird had found her way in front of him, so Dinah could only see his back.
“Boss says I’ve got to get you back home, kid.” Dinah thought his voice sounded funny, but maybe it was just the accent. She’d heard lots of people in the neighborhood whose first language wasn’t English, and he reminded her of them.
“Can we come back tomorrow?”
“Sure, Helena. Whatever you want.”
She heard the leaves underneath them as they walked away, and she stuck her head out further, tried to watch them for as long as she could. Blackbird must have been thinking the same thing because she looked behind her, caught her eye and smiled. She stuck her pinkie out, and Dinah did the same, before she turned forward and walked out of the woods.
It wasn’t until they were gone that Dinah realized what had happened. What she’d heard. What she now knew.
—
Helena. She spent all Friday morning practicing the sound of her name. She liked how it felt, found herself whispering it while she waited in Paradise, the word getting stuck in her head like the lyrics to her favorite songs. Helena, Helena, Helena.
Dinah thought about what would happen when she told her she knew. Blackbird—Helena would definitely freak out, but she’d begun figuring out the secrets to calming her down. And maybe, once she had time to think about it, she’d realize that it was okay for Dinah to know the rest. And once she knew everything, well...waiting all summer seemed pointless. If they were going to be writing each other letters, they might as well send them.
She rehearsed every word, imagined every possible scenario and prepared for it, but Blackbird never came. The hours slipped away slowly, painfully. As Dinah walked home, the setting sun her cue to leave, she began to worry. Sal had said they could come back. She’d pinkie promised. And Dinah knew people lied, knew they said one thing and meant another, knew they were cruel and broke promises all the time, but not Blackbird. Not them.
—
She spent most of the next few days trying to convince herself that Helena was okay. Her imagination loved to run wild, and the few stories she’d told about her family only gave them more fuel. Maybe her parents decided she needed to go last minute back-to-school shopping, or maybe they decided she needed to be locked up forever, like a Princess stuck in a tower. Maybe they went to visit her aunts and uncles, or maybe they’d shipped her off across the country, or maybe they’d sent her over the ocean on a boat so far no one would ever find her again. Dinah came up with hundreds of potential explanations, each one burying the thought that maybe she hadn’t come on purpose. Maybe she’d finally figured out what everyone at school already knew: Dinah Lance was not someone you wanted to be friends with.
As she walked on the bus Monday morning, she tried to keep her head down. Most people didn’t look at her much anyway, not after last year, which made ignoring them a lot easier. The only exceptions were the boys from the street over, who always sat near her and never shut up about anything.
This morning was no different. As she sat down, she heard them bickering, risked a glance up and saw them crowding over a page from a newspaper. Curiosity trapped her, left her looking for too long, and before she could stop it, she caught another pair of eyes.
“You see the news, Dinah?”
“What news?”
He tried to hold the paper out to her, but another arm pulled him back. “Dude, are you crazy? She can’t see this.”
Her pride betrayed her, made her narrow her eyes and ask, “And why can’t I?”
She watched the way he began to squirm. Like he hadn’t expected her to fight back. “It’s just— I don’t want it to upset you.”
“Why would it upset me?”
“You know the Bertinelli’s?”
Dinah raised an eyebrow at him. “Who?”
“The Bertinelli’s. One of the biggest crime families in Gotham. Don’t you pay attention?”
His friend smacked him on the arm, which almost made her laugh. “I guess not.”
“Well, someone went after them last weekend.”
Dinah waited for him to say more. “And this would upset me because…?”
He looked away, and suddenly she wondered if she should be nervous, if she should have kept her mouth shut and left it well enough alone. “Whoever it was, they took the whole family out. Burned the mansion down, too. But they, um. They also sent out photos to the press. Of the bodies. And I know that your dad—“
“Shut up and let me see that,” she said, grabbing the paper out of his hand before he could pity her any longer. She knew what everyone thought, but blood and gore didn’t scare her. It wasn’t anything new. She looked down, stared at the people lying in black and white on the floor, prepared herself to prove him wrong when—
Those shoes. She knew those shoes. They were too fancy for the beach, always worn with long white socks and polished no matter what happened to them, except now they were covered in spots, the same spots that everybody was lying in. Blood, her mind whispered, that’s blood, but she hardly heard it, because next to her was a boy, small and sinking in a puddle of grey, and she didn’t know him, not really, but she knew he was funny and sweet and that Blackbird had promised to give everything up to protect him.
She didn’t want to see it anymore, but her eyes wouldn’t let them go. Her body was covered, a woman lying practically on top of her, but creeping underneath she could see Blackbird’s hair was still down. She never wore her hair down. Dinah had promised she’d rebraid it but they’d run out of time, and now she was laying there with long hair and bloody socks and—
“Why.”
“Why what?”
“Why did they do it?”
“I’m not sure.” She heard his voice soften, and part of her hated the pity that crept in but most of her couldn’t find the room to care about what they thought of her. Not anymore. “Money, probably. Everyone’s always killing people for money.”
She heard the other kids stand up, heard them walk toward the front of the bus. She tried to follow but she couldn’t move, not when she couldn’t stop staring at her. She saw his hand reach for the paper, let him pull it away.
“I’m really sorry we showed you. It’s probably hard, with your dad and all, to see other people...well. You know.”
She forced herself to look up, to look away, to nod and blame her dead father and keep the most important promise she’d ever made, even when she wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. Blackbird—Helena, Helena Bertinelli had warned her that it would be dangerous if anyone knew they were friends. And Dinah had questioned her, had mocked her, but she’d been right all along. So nobody would know. Ever.
She didn’t remember anything about school that day. She stared at the board but all she saw was lines of shoes, all speckled and soaking and too still, even for a picture. She kept her mouth shut even when it hurt, even when all she wanted to do was cry and scream and yell at the sky. The boys on the bus home left her alone, and if she’d had room for any sort of feeling she’d be grateful, but feelings threatened to break the carefully built wall she’d constructed in the time it took her to get to her classroom that morning, so she gave them nothing.
When she got off the bus, she walked past her house, past the water and the sand, through the trees, until she found the stub that meant she was almost there. Part of her wished she’d walk through the leaves and find her waiting, on the swing or sitting on the ground, but Paradise was empty. It was gone. And it was never coming back.
The dam broke. Dinah felt it snap, heard the echo from deep inside her, let it come out with no restraint. She opened her mouth and screamed, until the trees shook, until her vision went blurry, until she didn’t feel like a person at all. She swore she could see it, the power, the sound itself, but she didn’t care. It hadn’t been enough. Whatever it was that lived inside her, she knew it couldn’t be magic, because magic wasn’t supposed to be cruel. Magic wasn’t supposed to leave you when you needed it most. Magic was supposed to be strong enough to save her.
When she woke up, her head was in her Mom’s lap. She could see the swing in front of her, the ropes frayed and barely hanging on, and she knew it was her fault. She’d destroyed Paradise. And nothing her Mom said could ever make it better.
—
Her training started pretty soon after that. Her heart wasn’t in it, but Mom was so worried, told her she had to know how to control it, so she went through the motions, learned about breath control and aim and how to turn it on and off. Using the cry left a bitter taste in her mouth, but every minute she spent focusing on training was a moment she didn’t have to think about mansions filled with smoke and bodies drowning in blood. And Mom looked so happy whenever she hit a milestone. One of them deserved that, she decided.
School never got better, but if Dinah was being honest, she knew she was the one who stopped trying. Her own worst enemy, as always. Mom worried, had asked about friends more than a few times, but her grades were always good, and eventually she learned to lie well enough to keep her questions at bay. Eventually, the lies began to feel a little like the truth.
—
She thought about her more than she meant to. It was always in the little moments. The mini victories, the accomplishments she had no one to share with. As she got older, she tried to imagine what they’d be doing if things had gone different that day. What would Helena think about the girls at school, who glared and laughed at her behind her back and wore more makeup than twelve-year-olds ever needed? What would she think when Dinah showed her how much better she’d gotten on guitar? Would she have figured out her favorite color by now?
She tried to write a letter, once. The way they’d planned. Every word felt fake, pointless when she’d never get a chance to read them. She tried to finish, because she’d made a promise, and she didn’t break her promises, but Helena had. Every time she closed her eyes, Dinah saw her turning around, smiling, pinkie held out toward her. Maybe if she’d run after her, if she’d made it official, Helena would have kept it. She would have come back.
Dinah crumpled up the paper, threw it away, and didn’t try again.
—
Years went by. Life got busier. Dinah joined the choir, found people to talk to at lunch and in between classes, but she knew better than to let it go any further. Acquaintances were safe. They didn’t ask questions or have any expectations. They wouldn’t hurt to lose.
Mom went to work, came back later and later, always seemed frustrated at the world. When Dinah was fifteen, she introduced her to friends who wore outfits like the ones she’d imagined as a kid and had all sorts of powers and abilities that shouldn’t be possible. She told her that she was fighting with them, that she needed to do more. They’d talked about it when she was little, talked about doing it together one day, but Mom couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t sit by while people suffered. Not when she had the power to change it. But no matter how much she wanted to go, she still asked for permission. For her permission. She wouldn’t do it, if Dinah didn’t want her to.
Dinah let her go. She watched as she went out, night after night. Mom told her that once she turned eighteen she could come out with them, and Dinah wondered what she’d do when the day came. Once upon a time, it had been all she’d ever wanted, but that dream had died a long time ago. And yet, every night, every victory she watched them celebrate, gave it a little more life, made her think about colors and outfits and cartoons and doing good. She liked the idea of doing good.
—
Twelve days before she turned eighteen, Mom went out by herself. Dinah begged her not to. She wasn’t strong enough, not alone. She told her the police wouldn’t come, wouldn’t help her if she was the only one. She told her that life was unfair and people would always be hurt and she couldn’t save everyone, and risking her life when it wouldn’t help anything was reckless and dangerous and stupid.
Mom wouldn’t listen. She suited up, tried and failed to hide the pain in each movement. Dinah could see the leftover bruises and scars from the never ending battles that came before, decorating her body like a scrapbook dedicated to pain and suffering. Each one served as a reminder of what was waiting for her on the other side of that door. Each one could have been the end.
She tried to stop her; Mom ignored her. She begged to go with her; Mom refused. She threatened to go anyway; Mom gave her a look she’d never seen before, made her promise she wouldn’t follow. She swore she wouldn’t, even when the words felt like a betrayal.
Dinah watched her leave. Ninety minutes passed before she decided she didn’t want to be the person who kept her promises anymore. She ran, faster than she ever had before, ran until she heard sirens, blue and red lights illuminating a scene darker than all of her nightmares combined.
The first thing she saw was the puddle. With each flash it changed shades, but she’d never needed color to recognize blood. The black of her uniform wasn’t dark enough to hide it, and she was still, too still, and nobody was doing anything. They walked around her, ignored her, left her out in the open for anyone to see. Dinah wanted to run to her, wanted to grab her and take her away, but the news vans began driving up, and even then, some promises were too strong to break.
She didn’t know where she was going when she turned and ran, but she wasn’t surprised when she walked through the leaves and into what used to be Paradise. The swing wasn’t hanging anymore but it was still there, lying on the ground, dirty and hidden and forgotten. She hadn’t come back, not since the day she’d found out, when she’d woken up in her mother’s arms and cried until she couldn’t breathe. She’d held her, carried her home, and Dinah knew she’d believed the same thing the boys on the bus had, but she let her, sat on her lap and pretended her grief was old and resurfacing and nothing more.
Her knees hit the ground, the first thing she remembered feeling since she ran out the door. She wanted nothing more than to scream, but Dinah knew her own strength now, knew the damage she’d cause, so she bit her tongue until it bled and suffocated any noise that threatened to escape. She stayed there until the sun began to rise, until she knew for sure that no one was coming to get her.
—
By the time she met Cass, she’d grown used to the silence. She’d spent years drowning the memories in anything that would bury them, from whiskey to cigarettes to men and women who didn’t mind being used. In her low moments, when the thoughts snuck in, a voice questioning what they would think of her if they saw her now, she reminded herself that bad things happened all the time. Trying to prevent them was nothing more than wasted effort. She should have learned that lesson years ago, or at the very least last week, when she went back for Quinn only to get left with an ungrateful drunk clown and more attention from Sionis than she’d ever wanted.
There was something about the kid, though, that she couldn’t ignore. Maybe it was the way she reminded her of herself at that age, a little angry and a little stuck, or maybe it was her Mom’s lingering hold on her, but when she watched her get driven away, diamond in tow, she knew she couldn’t leave it alone. Bad things happened to innocent people, but Cass didn’t deserve to suffer under the hand of Roman Sionis. Fuck self-preservation — she’d put up with whatever trouble came her way to make sure Cass didn’t become another name on a list that was already too long for Dinah’s liking.
Which was how she found herself in this god-forsaken circus, with Montoya and Harley fucking Quinn and some wanna-be vigilante with a crossbow. It was exactly the kind of situation she’d spent years trying to avoid, but Cass was waving a gun around, and she knew how they’d found her, knew who’d sold her out. When she grabbed it from her, when she aimed it toward Quinn, she wasn’t thinking about anything other than keeping her safe. She kept one eye on Harley and the other on Cass, half listening to whatever nonsense the others were rambling about, and that was enough until—
“Helena Bertinelli.”
She’d never been shot, but Dinah imagined it felt something like this. Sharp pain in her chest, sucking the air and life out of her, the world suddenly moving in slow motion while her heart raced faster than it should ever be able to. She turned, looked at the now unhooded assassin and saw both a stranger and a memory. The look in her eyes was unrecognizable, foreign in every sense of the word, but the rest of her face — she’d spent enough years dreaming about that face to know it, even after all this time.
Dinah heard her detailing the men who’d killed her family, the men she’d hunted to return the favor. She couldn’t stop staring, looking in her eyes, searching for the girl she’d known. She watched the way they shifted when she declared she was done, resolve turning into panic, and the emotions may have been new but nobody else had ever told so much with just their eyes. It was that, more than the name, more than the explanation, that made her believe it. Blackbird, standing in front of her. Alive. Real.
Cass’s voice took all of their attention away before Dinah could figure out what to do, what to say. They moved toward the window, saw the army waiting for them. Dinah wondered who she’d pissed off to curse her with a fate as cruel as this one, to give her the gift of a lifetime only to promise certain death before she could ask if she remembered the little girl with the swing and the guitar.
Harley reminded them they didn’t have time for wallowing. She gave a speech Dinah knew they all needed to hear, Cass most of all, and then they were digging through a weapons chest, arming themselves with whatever they could find, wondering if it could possibly be enough.
For a moment everything was calm. Dinah looked over, saw Helena smearing black shit over her eyes. She wondered if this was it, the only chance they’d get, and her feet were moving before her mind had figured out what to say. Helena hardly paid her any attention, which might have made it easier, had her brain not chosen that moment to let genuine, irrelevant curiosity take over. “Hey, what’s up with this bow-and-arrow shtick?”
“It’s not a fucking bow-and-arrow, it’s a crossbow, I’m not twelve.”
The laugh came out before she could stop it. She’d only seen anger on her face once before, and to get it now, over something as simple as a name, was the cherry on top of the absolutely ridiculous scenario that life had thrown her into. The girl who’d refused to tell her who she was, who spent all summer using codenames chosen at random, now couldn’t stand her weapon being referred to as something she considered childlike. The girl who’d run away the first time Dinah raised her voice, who’d been shy and meek and scared, now snapped at a stranger as they prepared to storm into battle armed with baseball bats and roller skates. Nothing about this was funny, but its insanity was utterly and completely comical. So she laughed, until she looked up and caught her eyes for the first time.
It’s me, she wanted to say. I waited for you. I mourned you. I sang for you. Do you see me? She wanted to tell her, wanted to ask straight out. Time and cigarettes had left her voice sounding nothing like the one she would have known, and everything about herself felt different, but she wanted to ask anyway. More than that, she wanted her to say yes. She wanted her to remember. No matter what else came with it.
At the last second, she bit her tongue. They were about to walk into what would probably be the fight of their lives, one that she honestly doubted they’d walk out of. The last thing she wanted was to become a distraction. To be the reason she lost her a second time. So she said nothing, waited until Harley came up to them and asked if they were ready, prepared herself to leave it at that. But as they walked by one another, the thought running through her mind slipped out without her permission. “You can yell all you want,” she whispered, her words an echo of a conversation she’d almost forgotten, “I’m not a coward. Nothing about you could ever scare me.”
Two seconds later, men crashed through the ceiling, and nothing else mattered but survival. She went down the slide, because of course there was a fucking slide. Helena took just long enough for worry to creep in, but before Dinah could climb right back up, they heard her yelling; an instant later, she slid down, kneeling on top of the man she was burying her knife into
She knew it should have disturbed her. If she was normal, it probably would have freaked her out, sent her running in the opposite direction, but all she could think about was how far they’d come from the kids who delicately wielded a pocket knife to carve letters into a piece of wood. Dinah watched her and felt impressed, proud at the girl who’d learned to stand up for herself. And the tiniest part of her felt grateful that maybe they were both broken in the same ways, the cartoon morals they’d once held onto similarly crafted and shaped into whatever it was they were acting on now. And damn if taking down a man in a carnival slide wasn’t cool.
—
It should have been over when they walked out of the tunnel.
The fight itself had been mostly a blur, panic and instinct taking over and not letting go until the last man went down. She didn’t know what she’d done, what the others had done, but she knew that they were all standing at the end of it. She wasn’t sure anything else mattered.
Dinah remembered staring at Helena as they made their way out of the building. There was so much she hadn’t noticed earlier. Like the purple in her top, deep and dark and almost blending in with the black around it. And how she still stood taller than her, all these years later. And the braid in her hair, small and only on one side. The tunnel was dim, the early morning sky still dark, and all she wanted to do was see Helena in the daylight. She wanted to know every part of her, exactly the way it was.
The gunshots shattered her daydream. She watched Montoya go down, pulled her back as far as she could. She wanted to stay but Helena was alone up there, so she ran, grabbed the discarded gun on the floor and shot blindly into the ambush they’d walked right into. She watched Cass get dragged away, and the familiarity of it all threatened to leave her frozen in place. Another person, gone. Another loss she’d have to shelve among the rest. Someone else she was too helpless to save.
Except there was Blackbird. Standing by her side, shooting into the crowd. Fighting for a kid she didn’t even know. Fighting for herself. Alive, after all this time.
If it had been quieter, she may have heard the voice in her head yelling at her for letting her guard down. If it had been quieter, she may have recognized it. But noise this loud could only be silenced if it was overwhelmed, and she had been powerless for long enough. She’d made a promise, once, to use her powers to protect the people she loved. To protect Blackbird. And Dinah Lance didn’t break her promises.
She was already going through the motions when she heard it, words that could have come from any of them. “Canary, you know what you have to do.” Two quick breaths in. A third, deeper, slower, reaching down into her gut, until she could feel the power pulsing inside her, anxious for release after years of lying in wait. She let it build, remembered throwing out a last minute warning before running forward, out into the line of fire.
Intentionality. It had been her first lesson, the thing Mom said she’d always need if she wanted to use her powers. You have to mean it, she’d told her. You have to have something substantial behind it. A reason for using your power. It’s not a party trick — you have to feel something. She wasn’t sure she’d truly understood it until now. When Dinah opened her mouth, when she dug deep, it wasn’t just her power she found; it was pain. Years of it, piled on top of one another, buried underneath walls so thick she wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to break them. She could feel the way her power intertwined with them, could feel it suffocating underneath the weight of everything she’d tried to ignore, all the suffering and guilt she’d tried to hide. It would hurt, letting it out. It would leave broken pieces behind that might never get put back together, but when she stood in front of Roman’s army, when she thought about Cass and Helena and Montoya and even Harley, she knew somehow that if she shattered, if she screamed until there was nothing left, someone would come to pick up the pieces. They wouldn’t let her break completely. They wouldn’t leave her alone. And she’d always known that any amount of pain would be worth saving the people she loved.
She took one last breath, and let it all out.
—
Dinah woke up to Montoya standing over her. She could see her mouth moving, but whatever she said wasn’t louder than the ringing in her ears. Or the pounding in her head. She’d seen Mom go through this all the time, but Dinah was out of practice. The last time she’d truly used her powers like this had been years ago, when Helena—
Helena. She tried to look around, but the entire world still felt like it was vibrating. Dinah squeezed her eyes shut, willed the feeling to pass. They didn’t have time for this. Helena needed her. Cass needed her.
When she opened her eyes again, Montoya was still talking, eyes frantic and hair slightly disheveled but overall alright. “—your car,” Dinah finally heard her say. “Canary, where’s your car?”
Dinah reached up and pointed in the general direction she’d parked, not trusting her voice just yet. Montoya nodded, reached down and helped her up. “Bertinelli already went after Quinn,” she said, “but they’ll need help. We gotta go.”
As they stumbled over to her surprisingly unscathed car, as her head cleared and her vision steadied, Dinah thought about what Montoya had said. Helena’s last name, thrown out so casually. Like it didn’t mean anything. Like it wasn’t the secret she’d kept for years. Like it hadn’t been the reason for one of the worst days of her life. She said it like it was just a word, nothing more, and Dinah wondered if maybe she was right. If they’d given it more power than it had ever deserved. If everyone had.
“I’m driving,” Montoya told her, and Dinah bit back a protest, tossed her the keys and hopped in the passenger's seat. They found Helena along the way, a little battered and bruised but still standing, followed her on her bike all the way to the pier. As they ran toward the sounds of gunfire, past statues that stood in the shadows and floorboards that snapped underneath their feet, all she could think about was Cass. The universe couldn’t take from her when it had just given back. Not when she’d fought for it this time. Not when she’d finally done everything right.
Finding her and Harley, standing together, staring into the water that was too red even for Gotham’s standards, Dinah wondered if this was destiny. If everything before this had been lessons disguised as punishment, showing her what she had to do. Teaching her how to fight for what she wanted, for who she loved. Teaching her how to survive. And if maybe, now that it was over, she would finally get a chance to do something more. To live. She had no idea what that looked like, but for the first time in her life, she was excited to find out.
—
They didn’t talk in the restaurant. Not at first. Dinah couldn’t stop looking at her, as if she might disappear if she let her out of her sight, as if all of this might have only been some figment of her imagination. It felt fragile, somehow. Like one wrong move, one wrong word, could bring the whole fantasy crumbling around her. So she kept her thoughts to herself, tried not to think too hard about the fact that Helena seemed to let her eyes roam anywhere else, so long as they never landed on her own.
The worry didn’t creep in until Harley stole her car. Helena laughed, the way she used to before, and suddenly she was nine years old again, sitting in the dirt by the beach, hidden behind the leaves and trees. That sound echoed throughout her happiest memories. She’d spent years calling on it, closing her eyes and going back when life became too much to handle. But what if she was the only one? What if her memory failed her, told her a story glossed over with time, one that looked much better than the truth? What if everything she thought she knew was wrong? Helena might not remember her at all. Or worse, she might not care. Dinah might be nothing more than a blip, a spot on a timeline that meant nothing in comparison to what came after it.
When Montoya stood up, when she handed Helena a business card and told them both to call her tomorrow, her heart started racing. It was just the two of them, the way it had always been, but they weren’t in Paradise anymore, and Dinah couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that this was the moment where everything changed. She’d spent years imagining something exactly like this, crazy and impossible scenarios where the people she loved came back to her, but imagining always let her control what happened. Now it was real life, and nothing was scarier than the fact that she had no idea what might come next.
“So,” Dinah assumed she’d be the one to break the silence, but she wasn’t brave enough to come right out and ask. “I guess—“
“They called you Canary,” Helena said, her eyes in her lap and her hands fiddling with that toy car Cass had given her. “And your voice is magic.”
A million feelings hit her all at once. Relief, ecstasy, shock, awe. Fear, with its lingering grip, still refusing to let go. Comfort, fighting for a place at the table, made stronger when Dinah thought about what she’d said. Canary. It had always sounded right when it came from her. Like it was her own title, her own name, not one passed down by someone she’d never be able to live up to. It reminded her of how she’d felt that summer — like someone could finally see her, just her, just Dinah, and still like what they saw.
She nodded, before realizing Helena wasn’t looking at her. “That’s true.”
“I knew a girl who had magic,” Helena whispered. “I called her Canary, too.”
The very words she’d feared came so quickly she felt embarrassed at her own doubt. She should have known — everything had always been easier with her. “And I knew a girl who hated chess and didn’t know her favorite color. But I never called her Huntress.”
Helena looked up, the same awe and genuity in her eyes that Dinah found so incredibly familiar. “You know who I am?”
“There’s not enough makeup in the world that could hide you from me,” she said, and she felt herself smiling, tried to think of a time when she felt this happy and came up blank. “Hi, Blackbird.”
Had she not spent all morning staring at her eyes, desperately trying to catch her gaze, she may have missed it; instead, she saw the way tears threatened to make an appearance at the sound of her old nickname, just for a moment, before she blinked them back. Her face was a mosaic, and Dinah knew she could look at her for hours, searching for each individual emotion, memorizing every inch of what she thought she would never see again.
Helena stared at her, mouth open, and Dinah could see the wheels turning, searching for the right thing to say, before she sighed and settled for, “Hi, Canary.”
“It’s been a while, huh?”
“Yeah.” Helena shook her head. “I don’t understand. I never told you my name.”
“I heard your driver call you Helena on that last day. When you didn’t show, when I saw what happened in the news, it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together.”
“They mentioned me in the news?”
Dinah thought about the bus ride, the black and white photo and the bloody socks. The boy in the puddle, the one who didn’t crawl out of an execution. The boy Helena had vowed to protect. “I saw a family photo,” she said, omitting details to still hold onto the truth. “Recognized you.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
Helena didn’t say anything at first. Part of her wondered if she’d pushed too far, ruined everything already, and Dinah was seconds from handing out another apology when Helena finally spoke. “Do you remember the time I asked you about your dad? And what it was like to lose people?”
“Yeah.” The conversation came back in flashes. “You said you wanted to know what it was like. That you didn’t think you’d be good at it.”
She shrugged. “I was right.”
“Well, you can join the club, then.” The confused look on her face was so familiar, Dinah almost didn’t want to elaborate. “You think I handled losing you well? I almost destroyed Paradise. And after Mom?” She motioned around her. “I won’t bore you with the details, but this was probably the first good thing I’ve done since then.”
“You lost your Mom?” She sounded so sad, as if she’d known her. Dinah supposed in a way, maybe she had.
“Yeah. Years ago. She was doing this. The hero bullshit. The same kind of thing we talked about doing one day. Do you remember?”
“I remember everything.”
She didn’t know how to respond, how to tell her that their summer together had been the happiest time of her life, sandwiched in between the worst. That memories of them in Paradise, doing nothing but spending time together, had taunted her when she slept, reminding her of a time she could never go back to. That seeing her here, now, in the flesh, was everything she’d ever wanted, a dream somehow turned into reality. Remembering was an understatement.
“Yeah,” she finally told her. “So do I.”
“I’m sorry,” Helena said. “For leaving. For not coming back.”
“Not like you had a choice.”
“But I promised.”
She blinked away the image of Helena looking back at her, pinkie held out, smile on her face. Minutes from a massacre. “Yeah. And I promised I’d keep you safe. So I guess we both dropped the ball.”
“You couldn’t have protected me. No one could.”
“I could have tried.”
Helena just looked at her. “We were kids. You were hardly tall enough to get on that swing. You really think you could have stood up to some of the most ruthless people in Gotham?”
Dinah shrugged. “You never know. Looks can be very deceiving. What I lacked in height, I made up for in confidence and pent-up aggression back then.” She thought she was joking, but the more she spoke, the more it felt like a confession. “If I had just learned how to use my powers a little faster, maybe I could have taken them. I could have saved you.”
“Or you could have died.”
Dinah just shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know.”
They sat there for a minute, the silence comfortable and familiar, the way it used to be, until Helena said, “It really was impressive. Your voice. I always wondered what it would be like.”
“Oh, sure,” Dinah said with a smile. “It was real impressive the way I passed out in front of everyone. So graceful. So strong.”
“I thought it was beautiful,” Helena told her, and she was so serious, so genuine, that for a moment Dinah began to believe her. It was fascinating how quickly one sentence could challenge years of self-deprecation, of guilt and frustration and anger. Could make her question her own self-image. Could make her feel beautiful, if only for now.
“Yeah, well, you always saw me as better than I am. I guess some things never change.”
“Some things do.” She felt the shift, could hear it in her voice. Dinah didn’t want to think about the in-between, the time they spent apart. The tragedy of their own lives. It was easier to ignore it, to joke and deflect and laugh it all into oblivion.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You definitely know how to use a knife now.”
She smiled, just barely, and Dinah took it as a win.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “We aren’t kids anymore. Everything is different.”
“Not everything,” Dinah said instinctively. “Not us.”
She knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Helena winced, as if the words were a slap across the face, as if she could feel them. As if they hurt her. As if Dinah hurt her. Her grip on that car tightened, and her eyes drifted away, looking for anything else. Anything but her.
“I shouldn’t — I’ve gotta-“ she turned, stood up and walked out of the restaurant. Dinah swore to herself, threw some money on the table and ran after her.
“Hey! Wait!” She kept going, kept her head down, but Dinah had let her walk away once before. She wasn’t letting it happen again.
She caught her right as they turned into the alley where Helena’s bike was parked, hidden in the shadows of the buildings next to them. Dinah jogged an extra step, put her hand on her shoulder. “Blackbird, please—“
“I’m not her anymore.” She snapped, turned so quickly that for an instant they were face to face, inches of air keeping them from touching. They stood like that, neither of them moving, until Helena blinked, swallowed and stepped backward. “The girl you knew,” she added. “Blackbird. She died that day. She’s gone. I can’t get her back.”
Dinah knew she’d never find the right words, but she searched for them anyway. She wanted to lie, to tell her that everything would be okay. That they’d reached the easy part now, that all the suffering was over, that she was wrong and they could close their eyes and be the kids they used to be. But she’d promised to never lie to her. And Dinah Lance didn’t break her promises.
“That makes two of us,” she settled for, before sticking her hand out into the new space between them.
Helena just stared at it. “What are you doing?”
“Making an introduction. My name is Dinah Lance. Some people call me Canary. My voice is magic, my mother was a superhero, and my best friend in the world died when I was nine. If I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure I died with her.”
Helena didn’t move. She didn’t speak. But when she looked up, when their eyes met, Dinah didn’t see the hardened assassin or the little girl from the beach. She saw someone entirely different. Someone she desperately wanted to know.
Slowly, Helena took her hand. “My name is Helena,” she said. “Helena Bertinelli. Some people call me Huntress. My best friend used to call me Blackbird.” She hesitated, before adding, “And my favorite color is purple.”
Dinah smiled, watched as Helena’s face began to mirror her own. “Purple’s a good choice. It’s nice to meet you, Helena.” Saying her name, the one she’d practiced, the one she’d held onto for years in secret, came with the same level of anticipation as it had before. Like anything was possible now that she had it.
Helena didn’t pull away, so neither did Dinah. They stood there, hand in hand. She could feel the callouses, the scars and rough edges that decorated her palm. It was a map, a timeline of everything she’d done, everywhere she’d been, and Dinah wanted nothing more than to know all of her stories.
“I don’t know what happens next,” Helena said softly.
“I think that’s up to us.”
“We could take up Renee’s offer. Wear the outfits, be the heroes.”
Dinah let go, only to hold her pinkie up in front of her. “I’m in if you are. We’re a team, remember?”
Helena smiled, reached for her, and suddenly there they were, miles from Paradise and years from childhood, pinkies wrapped around one another. “It might be fun. Doing something good. Helping other people.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing.”
“Plus, I don’t—um,” she dropped her pinkie, only to fiddle with the hair tie around her wrist. “I don’t really have anything else to do anymore. I’ve crossed every name off my list.”
Dinah had a million questions she wanted to ask about that, but it was early, and she was tired, and it dawned on her that they didn’t have to do everything today. She finally had the one thing she’d wanted more than anything else — time.
“Yeah,” she said instead, “I’m pretty sure I’m out of a job now, so I’ve got some free time.” Helena looked confused, so she added, “I sang at Sionis’s club. But I don’t really see them staying in business much longer.”
“You were a singer?” Dinah didn’t know how she managed to sound both happy and sad when she asked, like she couldn’t decide how she felt about it. Like her own feelings were a contradiction.
“Yeah. Most people didn’t really listen, though.”
Helena scoffed. “Then they’re stupid, or tasteless. Nobody sings like you do.”
She felt her entire body go warm, the same way she had all those years ago, when she’d brought the guitar into Paradise. “Yeah, well, I didn’t really care what they thought, anyway.”
“You didn’t?”
Dinah shook her head. “They weren’t you.”
“Oh.” She watched Helena look down, at her hands, at the ground, at anything else, but she couldn’t hide the smile, or the red on her cheeks. Watching her, all Dinah wanted to do was dig through her stuff, tune up her old guitar, and sing again. Not on a stage, not for a crowd, and not even for a paycheck. Just for her.
Helena looked back at her bike. “I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“Then don’t. Walk with me. It’s beautiful out.”
Dinah held out her hand. Helena stared at it for just a moment, before she took it, followed her out of the shade and back into the sunlight. Dinah finally got a chance to see her, to take everything in without any distractions. She saw her eyes, exactly as she remembered, dark and deep enough to drown in. She noticed the way her skin was littered with scars, new and old, small and dangerously large. But mostly, she noticed how even with her make-up almost entirely rubbed off and blood still decorating her body, Helena was still the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.
“Can I ask you something?” Helena said as they walked down the street.
“Anything.”
“Is it still standing? Paradise?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. I haven’t been back in years. But I have the swing. It fell off the ropes a while back, but the base is still good.”
Helena shrugged. “Maybe we can rebuild it.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but the best part of Paradise was never the swing, or the beach. It was being with you.”
Helena stopped walking. “Then I guess we're already there.”
“Yeah,” Dinah said, looking up at the girl next to her. The one who left. The one who came back. “I guess we are.”
#pls pls validate me im such a sucker for that#also im gonna try and write more or go back to my abandoned WIPs but idk if u have prompt requests im always open to those#also the amount of italics i put in this...i need to be stopped#birds of prey#dinah x helena#crossbow canary#dinah lance#helena bertinelli#bop fanfic#fanfic#ao3#TFLAO3#folklore au finally exists
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