BAT: Flight Change Chapter One
TITLE: Chapter 1 - Blown Back
FANDOM: Batman
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Adventure/Mystery/Romance
CHARACTERS: Black Canary/Dinah Lance, Green Arrow, Oracle, Ted Grant
PAIRINGS: Dick/Babs/Dinah, Dick/Babs, Babs/Dinah
WORDS: 2194
SERIES SUMMARY: Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon have differing views on how to balance their burgeoning crime-fighting careers and social lives. When they cross paths with Dinah Lance, who seems to know them better than they do, can they fix things before it comes to an end?
CHAPTER SUMMARY: The last thing Dinah Lance wants to do is be around Oliver Queen, but fortunately when duty calls for a team-up she finds her hands full with the discovery of a stone that sends her to a place with familiar faces from her past.
ARCHIVED: Fanfiction.net
STORY LINKS: (Next Chapter)
STORY NOTES:
Don't worry, I've got the bomb!” Dinah yelled sarcastically as she sprinted past her ex, Green Arrow who was taking his sweet time grappling with his opponent, Catman. “I know how you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
Normally Dinah wasn't one to wear her heart on her sleeve while crime-fighting but this team-up had been awkward from the start. All she could see from the moment Oliver Queen came into view was the scene she had walked in on just one week before. She had arrived at their penthouse apartment expecting to surprise him with an intimate night for two but instead was the one surprised when she discovered Oliver in bed with some blonde that was not her.
She had walked out that night after having a blowout argument with him in front of that tramp, intending never to see him again. Yet now their paths crossed thanks to the two of them being the closest heroes in the vicinity of a super-villain disturbance when the bulletin went out. Oliver had taken the opportunity to try to win back Dinah and smooth things over, but only succeeded in pushing her nerves so far to the edge that she was now lashing out at him in the middle of a battle.
Green Arrow blocked Catman's strike with the shaft of his longbow, before turning towards the departing heroine. “That was just a misunderstanding, Pretty Bird.”
Dinah didn't turn back, shaking her head as she ran towards the factory doorway. “I've stopped pretending to believe your lies, Ollie,” she murmured to her self.
Focusing on the task ahead, Dinah headed through the shattered entrance of the factory and hopped over the entry landing's railing to the floor below. Finding multiple possible directions left to explore and the time left to find the bomb diminishing, she turned to her trusted eyes watching over her back at the home front.
“Hey, O, got an idea where I need to go?”
The microphone on Dinah's earpiece transmitted her words halfway across the country, back to a darkened room in Gotham City where sat one of the world's largest information holders, Oracle, in front of a keyboard and a series of monitors. The wheelchair-bound redhead had been monitoring Dinah's adventure since she arrived on the scene with Green Arrow and was already pulling up the blueprint schematics of the steel factory.
“Always, D. Take the left tunnel; it leads towards the center of the factory where most of the flammable tanks are located. Odds are the explosives should be there in that room. At least if Catman used his head.”
“We'll have to hope he used the right head then,” replied Dinah, a small smile on her lips. Oracle's soft laughter filtered in through the earpiece while Dinah obediently followed her directions, heading into the darkened tunnel. “How much time do I have left before things get messy down here?”
Oracle's fingers flew along the keyboard, rapidly typing in search of the answer. “Well, when Catman originally made his threat public, sunset was thrown out as a deadline. And sunset in the part of the city you are in happens at 7:25.”
Dinah nodded, reaching the end of the tunnel and finding the room filled with gigantic tanks. “And what time is it now?”
There was a short pause. “7:22. Three minutes doesn't leave much room for error. If the bomb isn't visible right away, Dinah, you should leave while you can.”
Dinah swallowed hard and steeled herself, focusing on the task at hand. “You know I can't do that, O. I wouldn't make it back out in time anyhow.”
“I could arrange for the Justice League Transporter to pull you out of there in a flash.”
“And let everyone within a three mile radius that doesn't have a 'get out of jail free' card like that suffer instead? I'd rather go out fighting,” argued Dinah determinedly.
Oracle sighed. “Alright. I had a feeling you wouldn't change your mind. Be careful in there, Dinah. Now, let's save the day.”
Dinah picked up her pace and scanned the room thoroughly, weaving in and out between tanks, finding nothing out of the ordinary in the room until she reached the far corner tanks where a rhythmically glowing object was attached to the side of one. Unable to resist, Dinah walked right up to the stone and grabbed it.
“Um, O, this doesn't look like a bomb, more likely a fancy mood rock,” she said, turning it in her hands.
“What are you talking about, Dinah? Quickly hold it up to your earpiece. The camera on it will let me see what we're exactly dealing with before time is up.”
Dinah brushed back her hair away from her right ear and held the stone up, feeling ridiculous while doing it but knowing that the clock was ticking. “Any thoughts on the rock?”
“Well, you were right about it not being a bomb; I don’t see any explosive properties from the stone. I'm running the image through my databases to see if it gets any hits. I worry about it glowing like that though, there almost seems to be a pattern to it.”
Shifting the stone in her hand, Dinah noticed something else besides the glow pattern of the stone increasing. “I don't want to worry you, O, but the rock is getting warmer, almost uncomfortably so and I'm wearing heat resistant gloves!”
Before Oracle was able to respond one of her monitors beeped gaining her attention and the information on the screen only heightened her alarm. “Dinah! I want you to drop that rock immediately and GET OUT OF THERE NOW! It's not a bomb, it's a Time Masters temporal stone that looks to have been modified and it's counting down to something. You'll want to-”
Dinah tried to drop the stone the moment Oracle's warning came over the earpiece but it was already too late. The temporal stone refused to let go of her hand and the once rhythmical glow of the stone now became a steadily growing blinding light that quickly enveloped Dinah's vision and sense of awareness completely.
The room filled with the bright white light for several agonizing seconds but when the light started to diminish back to regular levels Dinah was gone and only her earpiece lay on the floor where she had been standing.
***
The moment Dinah regained consciousness she instantly became aware of the fact that she was lying on the ground, her cheek pressed against a type of rough canvas and that there was a hulking figure hovering over her. She hurried to clear her mind of the disorientation and decide on a plan of action when a gruff voice interrupted her thoughts.
“You alright, kid? I didn't think I hit you that hard.”
Dinah froze. She recognized that voice, or at least a version of it that was similar, maybe with a little more wear on it. Throwing out her elbow and rolling onto her back, Dinah's suspicions were confirmed when she found herself facing the sweaty face of Ted Grant.
Ted, a middle-aged former champion boxer, was known more for his adventures with the Justice Society as Wildcat these days than for the belts he won back in the day - except the Ted that stood in front of her looked much younger and more livelier if that was even possible.
“Dinah, darling, you still with me here?”
Dinah realized she had been staring quietly at Ted for several minutes without making any attempt to acknowledge him. “Yeah, I'm fine,” she said, surprising herself with how steady her voice sounded despite the shock and possible hallucination she assumed she was currently experiencing.
Ted chuckled and rubbed his wrist. “I guess I don't know my own strength sometimes.”
Dinah nodded absentmindedly and went back to trying to figure out how she had gone from being in a factory with a bomb about to go off to lying in a boxing ring with a not so old Ted Grant. She didn't recall an explosion from the bomb - no, it wasn't a bomb she reminded herself - it was a temporal stone was what Oracle had said. Unfortunately, Dinah had no idea what a temporal stone was or what it did.
But she figured Oracle would know. Accepting Ted's outstretched hand, Dinah was helped back to her feet while she wondered how to go about contacting Oracle. That was when she remembered the earpiece she wore on missions.
“Do you read me, O? I'm a little lost here,” she said, putting her hand against her ear.
Ted looked confused. “You sure you're alright? I've never known you to be one to talk to yourself. Maybe you should let Charles take a look at you before you go; I can give him a call.”
Dinah ignored Ted's concern, instead focusing on the lack of an earpiece on her ear. Brushing her locks of hair away to uncover her bare ear, she next noticed that her hair didn't have the resistance it normally had but her exclamation died on her lips when the tugging on her hair caused it to fall from her head and land in her hands in the form of a blonde wig.
She hadn't worn a wig in years, having switched to bleaching her dark hair blonde instead as it was much easier to deal with in her lifestyle. Dinah was all about looking good on low maintenance. The fact that she was wearing her old wig again worried her; it meant Ted wasn't the only one that was different in this hallucination.
“I think you need a little time-out at least,” said Ted, grabbing Dinah's arm and guiding her out of the ring to a bench seat against the wall. “I'll give your mom a call.”
That awoke Dinah from her stupor. “You don't need to do that, Ted,” she said quickly, waving her hands dismissively. “You'll only worry her.”
Laughter erupted from Ted. “Now you're sounding like your self, Little Bird. How about you make a deal with me and promise to go see your mom soon? Gotham City is only a drive away.”
Dinah had no desire to pay her mom a visit while she was hallucinating like this. She needed help to figure out what was going on, and while she trusted Ted, he wasn't exactly a thinker. He was always one to use his fists first and discover facts after. That method wouldn't help her in this situation.
No, Dinah needed her best friend, arguably one of the most brilliant minds in their profession, Barbara Gordon, who was known only as Oracle to most heroes not in the know. And she also happened to be in Gotham City. At least Dinah hoped that hadn't changed too and she was still there. Before she could make him worry anymore, Dinah turned back to Ted's concerned face.
“You know what, you're right,” she said with an amount of cheer in her voice she certainly didn't feel.
Looking past Ted she could see her reflection in the wall mirrors of the gym and the dark mane of hair on her head that she hadn't seen in years stood out glaringly to her. Something was wrong and she had to get to the bottom of it. “I think a trip to Gotham is just what I need.”
After answering a handful of questions from Ted and completing a few exercises to show her old mentor that she was fine, Dinah left the gym as quickly as she could, still wearing her workout clothes and with her duffel bag holding her Black Canary costume inside strapped to her back.
Having found some cash in her bag Dinah was able to catch a Taxi ride to the Grand Central Terminal so that she could buy a ticket to get on a bullet train heading towards Gotham. As it was late in the evening the crowds were thin and as a result traveling through New York City was quick and relatively easy.
On the way to the station numerous things in New York stuck out as being different from what she remembered. It was darker, grittier; characteristics that were wiped away from the streets over the years were back with a vengeance and didn't look like they were going anywhere.
She chose a comfortable seat, threw her duffel bag down in the seat next to it and settled in for the journey to Gotham. It was only then that the facts of what had just happened to her were starting to hit Dinah and she was beginning to have trouble justifying everything as one big hallucination.
Leaning her head back against the seat, Dinah stared out the window of the train, her mind plagued with worry of her situation. She truly hoped she would find the answers she was looking for in Gotham City. And if not that, she wished for her best friend to recognize her upon arrival, because if she didn't that would be a sign that Dinah's growing suspicions were correct.
She wasn't hallucinating. She was in the past.
FANDOM: Batman
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Adventure/Mystery/Romance
CHARACTERS: Black Canary/Dinah Lance, Green Arrow, Oracle, Ted Grant
PAIRINGS: Dick/Babs/Dinah, Dick/Babs, Babs/Dinah
WORDS: 2194
SERIES SUMMARY: Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon have differing views on how to balance their burgeoning crime-fighting careers and social lives. When they cross paths with Dinah Lance, who seems to know them better than they do, can they fix things before it comes to an end?
CHAPTER SUMMARY: The last thing Dinah Lance wants to do is be around Oliver Queen, but fortunately when duty calls for a team-up she finds her hands full with the discovery of a stone that sends her to a place with familiar faces from her past.
ARCHIVED: Fanfiction.net
STORY LINKS: (Next Chapter)
STORY NOTES:
- Yes, another story I'm starting on before finishing the others, this one (formerly titled: Canary Winds) is nearly 2 years in the making from initial conception.
- Hopefully the first of many chapters to come from me in the upcoming week, I have a Chlark one-shot next on the list to be finished.
Don't worry, I've got the bomb!” Dinah yelled sarcastically as she sprinted past her ex, Green Arrow who was taking his sweet time grappling with his opponent, Catman. “I know how you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
Normally Dinah wasn't one to wear her heart on her sleeve while crime-fighting but this team-up had been awkward from the start. All she could see from the moment Oliver Queen came into view was the scene she had walked in on just one week before. She had arrived at their penthouse apartment expecting to surprise him with an intimate night for two but instead was the one surprised when she discovered Oliver in bed with some blonde that was not her.
She had walked out that night after having a blowout argument with him in front of that tramp, intending never to see him again. Yet now their paths crossed thanks to the two of them being the closest heroes in the vicinity of a super-villain disturbance when the bulletin went out. Oliver had taken the opportunity to try to win back Dinah and smooth things over, but only succeeded in pushing her nerves so far to the edge that she was now lashing out at him in the middle of a battle.
Green Arrow blocked Catman's strike with the shaft of his longbow, before turning towards the departing heroine. “That was just a misunderstanding, Pretty Bird.”
Dinah didn't turn back, shaking her head as she ran towards the factory doorway. “I've stopped pretending to believe your lies, Ollie,” she murmured to her self.
Focusing on the task ahead, Dinah headed through the shattered entrance of the factory and hopped over the entry landing's railing to the floor below. Finding multiple possible directions left to explore and the time left to find the bomb diminishing, she turned to her trusted eyes watching over her back at the home front.
“Hey, O, got an idea where I need to go?”
The microphone on Dinah's earpiece transmitted her words halfway across the country, back to a darkened room in Gotham City where sat one of the world's largest information holders, Oracle, in front of a keyboard and a series of monitors. The wheelchair-bound redhead had been monitoring Dinah's adventure since she arrived on the scene with Green Arrow and was already pulling up the blueprint schematics of the steel factory.
“Always, D. Take the left tunnel; it leads towards the center of the factory where most of the flammable tanks are located. Odds are the explosives should be there in that room. At least if Catman used his head.”
“We'll have to hope he used the right head then,” replied Dinah, a small smile on her lips. Oracle's soft laughter filtered in through the earpiece while Dinah obediently followed her directions, heading into the darkened tunnel. “How much time do I have left before things get messy down here?”
Oracle's fingers flew along the keyboard, rapidly typing in search of the answer. “Well, when Catman originally made his threat public, sunset was thrown out as a deadline. And sunset in the part of the city you are in happens at 7:25.”
Dinah nodded, reaching the end of the tunnel and finding the room filled with gigantic tanks. “And what time is it now?”
There was a short pause. “7:22. Three minutes doesn't leave much room for error. If the bomb isn't visible right away, Dinah, you should leave while you can.”
Dinah swallowed hard and steeled herself, focusing on the task at hand. “You know I can't do that, O. I wouldn't make it back out in time anyhow.”
“I could arrange for the Justice League Transporter to pull you out of there in a flash.”
“And let everyone within a three mile radius that doesn't have a 'get out of jail free' card like that suffer instead? I'd rather go out fighting,” argued Dinah determinedly.
Oracle sighed. “Alright. I had a feeling you wouldn't change your mind. Be careful in there, Dinah. Now, let's save the day.”
Dinah picked up her pace and scanned the room thoroughly, weaving in and out between tanks, finding nothing out of the ordinary in the room until she reached the far corner tanks where a rhythmically glowing object was attached to the side of one. Unable to resist, Dinah walked right up to the stone and grabbed it.
“Um, O, this doesn't look like a bomb, more likely a fancy mood rock,” she said, turning it in her hands.
“What are you talking about, Dinah? Quickly hold it up to your earpiece. The camera on it will let me see what we're exactly dealing with before time is up.”
Dinah brushed back her hair away from her right ear and held the stone up, feeling ridiculous while doing it but knowing that the clock was ticking. “Any thoughts on the rock?”
“Well, you were right about it not being a bomb; I don’t see any explosive properties from the stone. I'm running the image through my databases to see if it gets any hits. I worry about it glowing like that though, there almost seems to be a pattern to it.”
Shifting the stone in her hand, Dinah noticed something else besides the glow pattern of the stone increasing. “I don't want to worry you, O, but the rock is getting warmer, almost uncomfortably so and I'm wearing heat resistant gloves!”
Before Oracle was able to respond one of her monitors beeped gaining her attention and the information on the screen only heightened her alarm. “Dinah! I want you to drop that rock immediately and GET OUT OF THERE NOW! It's not a bomb, it's a Time Masters temporal stone that looks to have been modified and it's counting down to something. You'll want to-”
Dinah tried to drop the stone the moment Oracle's warning came over the earpiece but it was already too late. The temporal stone refused to let go of her hand and the once rhythmical glow of the stone now became a steadily growing blinding light that quickly enveloped Dinah's vision and sense of awareness completely.
The room filled with the bright white light for several agonizing seconds but when the light started to diminish back to regular levels Dinah was gone and only her earpiece lay on the floor where she had been standing.
***
The moment Dinah regained consciousness she instantly became aware of the fact that she was lying on the ground, her cheek pressed against a type of rough canvas and that there was a hulking figure hovering over her. She hurried to clear her mind of the disorientation and decide on a plan of action when a gruff voice interrupted her thoughts.
“You alright, kid? I didn't think I hit you that hard.”
Dinah froze. She recognized that voice, or at least a version of it that was similar, maybe with a little more wear on it. Throwing out her elbow and rolling onto her back, Dinah's suspicions were confirmed when she found herself facing the sweaty face of Ted Grant.
Ted, a middle-aged former champion boxer, was known more for his adventures with the Justice Society as Wildcat these days than for the belts he won back in the day - except the Ted that stood in front of her looked much younger and more livelier if that was even possible.
“Dinah, darling, you still with me here?”
Dinah realized she had been staring quietly at Ted for several minutes without making any attempt to acknowledge him. “Yeah, I'm fine,” she said, surprising herself with how steady her voice sounded despite the shock and possible hallucination she assumed she was currently experiencing.
Ted chuckled and rubbed his wrist. “I guess I don't know my own strength sometimes.”
Dinah nodded absentmindedly and went back to trying to figure out how she had gone from being in a factory with a bomb about to go off to lying in a boxing ring with a not so old Ted Grant. She didn't recall an explosion from the bomb - no, it wasn't a bomb she reminded herself - it was a temporal stone was what Oracle had said. Unfortunately, Dinah had no idea what a temporal stone was or what it did.
But she figured Oracle would know. Accepting Ted's outstretched hand, Dinah was helped back to her feet while she wondered how to go about contacting Oracle. That was when she remembered the earpiece she wore on missions.
“Do you read me, O? I'm a little lost here,” she said, putting her hand against her ear.
Ted looked confused. “You sure you're alright? I've never known you to be one to talk to yourself. Maybe you should let Charles take a look at you before you go; I can give him a call.”
Dinah ignored Ted's concern, instead focusing on the lack of an earpiece on her ear. Brushing her locks of hair away to uncover her bare ear, she next noticed that her hair didn't have the resistance it normally had but her exclamation died on her lips when the tugging on her hair caused it to fall from her head and land in her hands in the form of a blonde wig.
She hadn't worn a wig in years, having switched to bleaching her dark hair blonde instead as it was much easier to deal with in her lifestyle. Dinah was all about looking good on low maintenance. The fact that she was wearing her old wig again worried her; it meant Ted wasn't the only one that was different in this hallucination.
“I think you need a little time-out at least,” said Ted, grabbing Dinah's arm and guiding her out of the ring to a bench seat against the wall. “I'll give your mom a call.”
That awoke Dinah from her stupor. “You don't need to do that, Ted,” she said quickly, waving her hands dismissively. “You'll only worry her.”
Laughter erupted from Ted. “Now you're sounding like your self, Little Bird. How about you make a deal with me and promise to go see your mom soon? Gotham City is only a drive away.”
Dinah had no desire to pay her mom a visit while she was hallucinating like this. She needed help to figure out what was going on, and while she trusted Ted, he wasn't exactly a thinker. He was always one to use his fists first and discover facts after. That method wouldn't help her in this situation.
No, Dinah needed her best friend, arguably one of the most brilliant minds in their profession, Barbara Gordon, who was known only as Oracle to most heroes not in the know. And she also happened to be in Gotham City. At least Dinah hoped that hadn't changed too and she was still there. Before she could make him worry anymore, Dinah turned back to Ted's concerned face.
“You know what, you're right,” she said with an amount of cheer in her voice she certainly didn't feel.
Looking past Ted she could see her reflection in the wall mirrors of the gym and the dark mane of hair on her head that she hadn't seen in years stood out glaringly to her. Something was wrong and she had to get to the bottom of it. “I think a trip to Gotham is just what I need.”
After answering a handful of questions from Ted and completing a few exercises to show her old mentor that she was fine, Dinah left the gym as quickly as she could, still wearing her workout clothes and with her duffel bag holding her Black Canary costume inside strapped to her back.
Having found some cash in her bag Dinah was able to catch a Taxi ride to the Grand Central Terminal so that she could buy a ticket to get on a bullet train heading towards Gotham. As it was late in the evening the crowds were thin and as a result traveling through New York City was quick and relatively easy.
On the way to the station numerous things in New York stuck out as being different from what she remembered. It was darker, grittier; characteristics that were wiped away from the streets over the years were back with a vengeance and didn't look like they were going anywhere.
She chose a comfortable seat, threw her duffel bag down in the seat next to it and settled in for the journey to Gotham. It was only then that the facts of what had just happened to her were starting to hit Dinah and she was beginning to have trouble justifying everything as one big hallucination.
Leaning her head back against the seat, Dinah stared out the window of the train, her mind plagued with worry of her situation. She truly hoped she would find the answers she was looking for in Gotham City. And if not that, she wished for her best friend to recognize her upon arrival, because if she didn't that would be a sign that Dinah's growing suspicions were correct.
She wasn't hallucinating. She was in the past.