DISCLAIMER: Birds of Prey and its characters are the property of Miller/Tobin Productions, Warner Brothers, DC comics etc. no infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Dinah Has Two Mommies
By Teh_no
The Huntress paced on top of the last in the series of rooftops she loved to run across. Not that she had any particular preference in rooftops, but when her patrol took her through that section of the city, she very much enjoyed jumping on those three buildings. Maybe because it was as far away as possible from the gargoyle-laden buildings that compromised the city square. Or possibly because her first night out, she had been running across them when someone had said "Look! Up in the sky!"
She didn't mean to compare herself to other superheroes, especially not the symbolically Jesusy ones, but if someone else wanted to…
"Goddamnit!" she swore violently, unable to gain a reprieve from her internal monologue via the magic of nostalgia. Her internal monologue, for the record, resembled most a hotel room as occupied by a glam rock band.
Unable to find anything satisfying to kick, detritus or human, Helena sat down wearily on a cooling unit and butterfly-knifed her legs under her to take them out of the path of the cold air. Then, with a heavy sigh, she fingered the iPod from her coat pocket and browsed through it.
It was, of course, not really an iPod at all so much as it was a desperately ingenious device for controlling her link. As always, it was set to Oracle. Not as always, she scrolled down… into the "emergency use only, do not call ever" section.
Who to call? Who to call? Black Canary might've been a good bet, but she'd long ago been taken off the list. Jesse would be no help in the area and though the break-up had been amiable, as far as such things go, there could be some lingering resentment. Not to mention all the AWKWARD eavesdropping on the conversation.
Nightwing. Nightwing was a good, solid choice. Intelligent, articulate, and most importantly, well-versed in the art of Barbara Gordon wooing.
"Who is this?" Nightwing said in a yawning drawl at the other end, after ten minutes of constantly ringing him.
"It's Huntress. I need a favor."
"It's two in the morning. Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"Shouldn't you be out on patrol?"
"I don't do that anymore. Gone legit, remember?"
"Oh." Huntress did remember. Something about joining the police department. In a different city. Not that he burned bridges or anything. "Guess I missed that issue of the newsletter. Oracle still has you listed as…"
"Could we just call her Barbara?" Nightwing asked suddenly, cutting her off. "I mean, c'mon. Who are we kidding?"
"Oracle's name is Barbara?" Huntress asked in a shocked tone.
"Oh… shit!"
"Just kidding."
"Not funny. You realize she would castrate me if I let her identity slip?"
"And that would make the world just a little less happy place to live in."
"My fiancé would certainly think so."
Huntress winced. If this kept up, she would have to seriously consider giving up snark for Lent. "How is ol' balloon-bod anyway? Still with the quickies between bouts of super modeling?"
"She's taking a break to plan the wedding. Less quickies. More longies."
"Right. So where's the reception, Area 51?"
Nightwing let out a high, sarcastic laugh before replying. "An alien-fucking joke. Never heard one of those before. Tell me, do you have something against interracial marriages too?"
"Only if it's between a white woman and Black Beauty, interspecies boy."
"You know," Nightwing said conversationally. "There's been some research that indicates metahumans might be a separate species from baseline humans. Homo Superior. Food for thought, nay?"
"Homo Superior, that reminds me. How did you get Barbara to go out with you?"
There was a long pause on the other end, so long that Huntress slapped her earpiece to make sure it was working. "Excuse me?" Nightwing said in the nick of time.
"I'll use smaller words. How you get redhead do thing with you go before touchy-touch pee-pee?"
The new pause quickly displaced the previous pause's place in the Guinness Book of World Records. "Why do you need to know?"
"It's for a term paper. Look, can you hurry up and tell me already?"
"I bought her flowers. Huntress, I'm warning you…"
"Oops, sorry, got a call on the other line, gotta run!"
"…you do anything to hurt Barbara," Nightwing managed to get out before Huntress shut down the call.
"You know you were off link last night? For five minutes," Barbara mentioned pointedly as Helena walked into the clock tower, hands behind her back.
"Yes. I know because the world ended in those five minutes. Hence the big deal you're making of it. Thanks for reminding me."
"Helena, you know how I worry…"
"Yeah, I do." Helena suddenly sat down a vase full of roses on the desk in front of Barbara. "Here. These are for you."
"Oh. Uh…" Barbara moved the vase out from between her and the monitor. "Thank you. It really spruces the place up."
Helena hopped up onto the desk and nodded at the meager praise. "Thanks. Say, were you doing anything Saturday night?"
"Coordinating operations for an elite metahuman counterterrorism unit. Same old same old."
Helena nodded again, trying very hard to picture her happy place (it looked a little like this, only with less clothes). "So…"
"So…?"
"Can you… get away from it for an evening? Go out?"
Barbara smiled. "Sure. I'd love to have a girls' night out. I'll tell Dinah she can come if she finishes her homework. What'll it be, figure-skating or horror movies?"
Helena bit back a quip about the remarkable lack of difference between the two. "Actually, I was thinking that we could go alone."
"Why? Do you have a problem with Dinah?"
"No, no, Dinah's fine... sometimes she runs the showers too long and takes up all the hot water, but…" Helena closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. "I was thinking we could go as… more than friends."
Barbara stared at her, confused. "…sisters?"
"Like… as in… maybe…" Helena closed both her eyes. "A date?" She then hesitantly widened one eye to a squint to gauge Barbara's reaction.
Barbara nodded. "As in… romantic? Sexual?"
"Hopefully."
"Okay."
Helena looked at Barbara askew. "Was that a yes?"
"It was an okay. But that's a synonym for yes, so… yes."
"I'm sorry, this is just usually the part where I wake up from an unexpectedly vivid dream… actually, the part where I wake up is usually later, when we're… I'll pick you up at eight."
She began to walk out, but stopped when Barbara called after her.
"Helena!" Babs held out the dry vase. "Flowers need water."
Dinah was hard at work on an English Lit essay, specifically the tone section, widely considered to be the venomous stinger on the scorpion that was the English Lit essay. She was so hard at work that she didn't notice the gentle whir of motors as Barbara entered her room.
"Dinah, we need to talk."
Dinah looked up from her essay, dutifully saving her work should the goddamn computer crash and cause her to lose all her goddamn work. "Oh, hey Barbara. Say, you wouldn't happen to know what Joyce Carol Oates was so on about, would you?"
"Can't help you there." Barbara took off her glasses. "Dinah, we need to talk because things are changing between me and Helena and I don't want you to be scared or confused by those changes."
"You're breaking-up?"
"Quite the opposite, actually. You see… our relationship has deepened, over the years, and now we're going to take it to the next level."
Dinah stared at her.
"A level that goes… past friendship, if you understand what I'm getting at."
"Yeah. You're completely gay for each other. What else is new?"
Barbara put her glasses back on. "Beg pardon?"
"You and Helena are like hetero-life partners. Without the hetero. And you're going on a date. So what?"
"Well, I…" Barbara sputtered. "I'm glad you're taking this so well."
"It's not like it's some big secret. Do you even know what the kids at school say? 'Dinah has two mommies.' 'Dinah, can you get me a video of your foster-parents going at it?' 'Dinah, is it true your foster-parents were arrested for public indecency?"
"No, no, and yes, but there were exculpatory circumstances." Barbara paused from her rote answer to realize that apparently, everyone but her and Helena thought that she and Helena were…
Well…
Head-over-heels-over-Brokeback for each other.
"Well, it's almost eight," Barbara said, backing out. "I'd better get ready."
"Relax. Helena isn't really the sort of person that you dress to impress."
"Dinah, we need to talk," Helena said as she impulsively barged into Dinah's room. Dinah did a double-take when she saw that Helena was dressed in a very flattering… "Does this evening gown make my ass look big?"
Dinah gave the posterior in question a critical look. "Yes, but in a good, rap video hoochie kinda way."
"Good, that's what I was going for." Helena stared at her ass in the mirror on Dinah's door before giving it an approving slap. "Baby got back!"
Dinah looked confused. "What's that from?"
"…A Midsummer Night's Dream. Alright, now quick…" Helena finger-brushed her hair. "How do I look?"
"Pretty good… could be better… what's with the make-up?"
"I put on some rouge."
"Rouge?" Dinah shook her head. "Ladies pinch, whores use rouge."
"Really?"
"No, not really, that was a joke. Nice dress. Where'd you get it?"
"Sears."
Dinah blinked once. "Off the rack?"
"Where else would I get clothes?"
Dinah looked heavenward. "Oh Lord, what fools these mortals be… alright, okay, this is salvageable." She squeezed Helena's face with one hand, forcing her lips to a pucker, then carefully applied a sheen of lipstick with the other. "Now, rub them together like this."
Helena followed Dinah's example. Satisfied, Dinah handed the tube of lipstick to Helena.
"Every half hour or so you touch it up. Don't be butch on this, Helena. Every half hour."
Helena nodded. "Every half hour. Got it. Thank you, sensei."
Dinah bowed respectfully as Helena left.
"Well, this is different," Barbara commented as Helena pulled a decapitated shrimp tail out of her mouth.
"What? Haven't we had fun?"
"I don't know…" Barbara looked at her menu. "It just seems like there's this gap between us now. Talking to you used to be so easy and now, whenever I try to make conversation… all I can think about it that you're picturing me naked."
Helena reached across the table and took Barbara's hand. "Babs… I'm picturing us naked."
"That's so much better."
"And having really romantic sex. With candles and rose petals and stuff."
"Please stop now."
"The fantasy you and me are taking a bath together."
"Is this all our relationship is going to be about?" Barbara asked seriously. "Sex?"
"No, no, God, you're getting me all wrong." Helena took a moment of Barbara's stare before relenting. "Alright, you got me, I do want to have sex with you, duh, but… all that other stuff, the relationship stuff, we kinda have that covered. At least a little, right?" she continued desperately. "We've known each other for so long, I thought that could be like a foundation for… you know, all the rest. And that we could just move on to the next level. The sex level without waiting around at the pit stop."
"Relationships don't work that way," Barbara advised her. "We have to start all over now. Build things up from ground zero. I mean, I thought I knew you and now I find out that you've been nursing a crush on me all this time…?"
Helena smiled nervously. "There were so many times I wanted to tell you… there's no way you could know how afraid I was. That you'd think I was… I don't know… more of a freak than I already am. Plus, the time never felt right. I was this gawky teenager and there you were, so confident and beautiful, and I knew I wasn't ready. And all the rest of the time, I kept asking myself 'am I ready? Am I ready?' Because I don't want to mess up with Barbara Gordon." She looked down at her plate. God, when would the food get here? If she didn't have a distraction, how could there be an escape attempt? "And for a while there, I thought I was over it. Really over it. That it was just an adolescent… thing, a phase as I was going through, and I could finally start my real life. You and me was a childish dream. Couldn't happen in a million years. But every time I look at you, I feel like that same scared little girl." She started to look up before hastily looking down again. "Ummm… I have to go touch up my lipstick. Dinah says it dries out."
She left Barbara alone with her thoughts as the waiter arrived.
"Madamoiselle, what will be your order for the evening?"
"My…" she struggled with the word, "date will be having a clamshell soup with crackers and a side of Salisbury Steak. As for me… you wouldn't happen to have any anagnorisis in stock, would you?"
"I'm afraid we don't carry that vintage."
"Figures. Just give me a salad. And a lot of wine."
"Red or white?"
"Thrill me."
As the waiter left, Barbara buried her face in her hands… then sprung to attention as her Delphi beeper rang.
"What's up?" Helena asked as she returned to the table.
"Apparently," Barbara replied, scanning the code on the beeper through her memory. "We have vampires."
The End