FIC: Rite of Passage [BoP-TV: Helena/Dinah]
Title: Rite of Passage, Complete
Fandom: Birds of Prey - TV
Pairing: Helena/Dinah, slight Helena/Barbara
Rating: R, for the standard stuff
Originally Posted '03-ish?
Word Count: 2023
Summary: Helena helps Dinah deal with a tragedy.
Rite of Passage
The water was hot. Blistering hot. But she stayed under the spray, ignored the screams of her flesh. Grabbed the sponge, ran it up and down her skin. Until it was red, until it was raw. Except, it wouldn’t go away. It was still on her. Red. Thick. Damning. Blood. Everywhere, on her skin, her face, her hair, her hands. If she could just get it off her hands.
“Dinah.” She could hear Barbara’s voice through the door. “You have to stop, Dinah. Before you injure yourself.”
“Go away!”
“Dammit, Dinah!” Helena’s voice boomed, echoed off the walls. Her fist pounded on the door. “Either get out of the fucking shower, or I’m coming in.”
Dinah sighed. Stuck her head under the shower spray, watched as the water turned red, swirled down the drain. “If I turn it off, will you go away.”
They answered with silence. Which meant, they wouldn’t be going away at all. Before, this knowledge would comfort her. The knowledge that she was loved, cared for, sometimes hovered over. She didn’t want that this time. Didn’t want to see their accusatory eyes. The shame. Her shame.
It was just a sweep. A regular fucking sweep. She could remember it all. Running across the rooftops with Helena. The wind in her hair. The sense of freedom. Something she’d never had in Opal, or anywhere. The energy coursed through her veins, adrenaline hot and feverish. She felt like a super hero. Strong. Brave. Invincible.
A robbery. A guy in a ski mask holding up a convenience store. Helena leaned against the wall, told her it was hers. Hers. Dinah had waited for that word for months. Going into a fight alone. With no backup. Every decision. Every move hers and hers alone.
She charged into the fray. Saw his eyes widen with shock as she kicked the gun from his hands. Saw then squint with rage as he looked her up and down, the wispy little blonde girl against the big, dumb criminal. He wanted a fight, she didn’t intend to let him down.
The blows came quick. Faster than she anticipated. Stronger than she realized. Sometimes, she had a tendency to forget she wasn’t Helena. She didn’t have the super strength and lightening quick reflexes. Not that she didn’t have her own bag of tricks. She did. They just weren’t of the physically super strong variety.
Then, he hit her. Hard. Large knuckles connected with her jaw and Dinah tasted blood. Her blood. And she felt the rage bubbling inside her. A match thrown onto gasoline and she lashed out. Punching. Kicking. Hitting. Breaking. She threw her leg out, caught him in the ribcage. Watched him soar through the air. Body thudding on the ground. But, he was big and dumb, and he got up and wanted more. Dinah was all too happy to give it to him.
She could hear Helena in her ear, screaming at her to stop. Could see the black figure racing towards her. But, this was her fight, her rules, and she wasn’t done with him. Dinah raised her hand. Felt the power, fueled by her rage, emanating from within. The energy exploded from her fingertips, fired towards him. Caught him in the gut, sent him flying backwards into the air.
After that, it all went wrong.
She didn’t know where it came from. A piece of flotsam from a broken down building. Sharp. Pointy. Metal. It cut through his body like a knife through butter. She could hear the sick sound of flesh and bone ripping open. His eyes wide with shock. And the blood. So much blood. It spewed from his body. Onto the street. Onto her. He choked one last dying breath before his head lolled to the side. Eyes open wide staring blankly at her.
Dead.
She ran towards him. Cradled his body in her arms. Tried to will the life back into him. Only she couldn't. She wasn't that powerful. No matter how much she begged, pleaded, prayed. No one listened. He was still dead.
“No.” It came from her throat in a soft whisper. Erupted into a scream. “NOOO!!!!”
Helena was on her. Hands gripping her jacket. Voice screaming in her ear to move. But, Dinah couldn’t. Sat frozen staring at the man she killed. The man she murdered.
She stood in the bathroom staring into the mirror. Stared into the face of a killer.
Dinah dropped to her knees. Weighted by the guilt pressing down on her shoulders. Arms wrapped around her body, rocking back and forth. Praying to take it back. To make it stop. To give her life in return.
Helena knelt down next to her, draped the shivering body in a towel. Dinah offered no resistance as the woman dried her off, hands rigorously rubbing her skin for warmth. Then, she was in Helena’s arms, carried into her bedroom. She wanted to feel, to touch. To know she wasn’t ‘wrong’. Dirty.
“Helena.” She reached for the pale face so close to her own. With the only strength she had left, pressed her lips against Helena’s. Could feel the salt stinging her eyes as Helena returned the kiss, gently pressed Dinah onto the mattress. Coaxed and soothed her with butterfly kisses, a trail of heat across her jaw line, throat, collarbone.
And Dinah wanted more of this, more of her. Hands reached for Helena’s shirt, pulled and tugged, shed it like skin. She drew upon Helena’s heat until the shivers stopped and she was craving, wanting, desiring. Maybe this would be her penance. Her forgiveness and she reached for it. She took something tonight that was not hers to take. In turn, something would be taken from her. In the grand scheme of things maybe it wasn’t fair, or exactly balanced. But, it was all knew.
She knew Helena would take her. Wanted Helena to take her. The last shred of her innocence. Watched as the eyes changed in hue, the feral growl that rumbled up her throat. Had crossed the edge where choice was no longer an option. And Dinah offered herself, to Helena, to the altar of contrition.
Hands wrapped around her wrists, pulled them above her head. Bound her to the bed. The long lean frame pressed against her own. Teeth on her flesh, marked and claimed the terrain. She writhed under Helena’s touch, moaned at the heat each sensation caused. The slight pain from dexterous fingers entering her, slickened by her own heat, thrusting into her, taking her. Taking the one thing Dinah had left to give.
She held on as much as she could. Helena writhing above her, her heated mound sliding up and down Dinah’s thigh. Helena’s fingers inside her. A coil of tension pulled taut. Back arched high, body bowed, Dinah screamed, low, guttural, a scream of pain, remorse, regret, but mostly, one of pleasure.
Her body writhed, bucked under Helena’s weight. And still Helena pushed her further, deeper, more. Even when her orgasm ebbed, Helena was still on her. Taking. Flesh nibbled between sharp teeth. Fingers and tongue on her, inside her. Mouth and lips. Where vision faded and all that was left were the sensations. No thought. No guilt. Just pleasure and pain.
And then, blackness.
***
The air was cold, crisp. Made colder by the hard winds whipping across the land. Barbara sat on the balcony. Hands in her lap, staring out into the night sky.
She could hear Helena behind her, bare feet padding softly as she took her usual perch on the ledge. Blue eyes staring at her, waiting, expecting an answer.
“Well,” Helena broke the silence between them. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say, Helena?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Say anything. Tell me how you feel.”
“How can I say it when I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” Barbara looked down at her hands. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“What?” Helena jumped from her perch, marched towards Barbara. “Dinah killing someone, or me fucking her?”
“Please don’t turn this into a fight,” she looked up at Helena. Saw the anger dissipate. “It happens to the best of us.”
Helena shrugged. She walked over to the ledge, slumped down the wall onto her backside. “Did it happen to you?”
“Of course it did,” Barbara snorted softly. “I was the same age Dinah was. The same age you were.” She saw Helena’s brow lift slightly at the admission. “I was sixteen. High on my own power. Feeling cocksure and invincible. Ten feet tall and bulletproof. Going up against an arrogant son of a bitch who wanted to teach me a lesson.”
“How’d he die?”
“I kicked him through a seven-story window.”
“What’d Bruce say?” Helena sneered.
“Nothing. I never told him,” Barbara bowed her head, suddenly interested in a piece of lint on her slacks. Anything to not look into the familiar blue gaze. “Maybe he always knew. Maybe he didn’t. I just knew I could never tell him what I’d done. To see the.. disappointment in his face.”
It came from no where. The anger. She hated the constant shadow her father placed over everything. The hold he still held over Barbara. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he would have fucked you.”
“Stop it, Helena.”
“Why? This is what it’s all about isn’t it?” Helena rose onto her feet again. “Guilt tripping me into feeling bad about Dinah.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Helena?”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t,” she paused, waited until her anger cooled. “I remember that look in your eyes, Helena. Remembered how I felt. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Helena stuck her hands in her pockets. Glancing up at Barbara through her bangs. “You were my first.”
“I know.”
Helena shifted her eyes towards the Clock Tower. “Do you think I did the right thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know. Right or wrong, she needed to feel something, a connection. Anything to bring her back. Is sex the only answer? No, but it is one of them.”
Helena chuckled softly. Barbara stared at her. “What?”
“Seven years down the road, do you think we’ll be having this same conversation with Dinah?”
“God,” Barbara laughed, ran a hand over her face. “I’ve set such a bad precedent haven’t I? The teacher deflowering the student.”
Helena cocked an eyebrow. “You think Bruce did it to Dick?”
“Helena, stop,” Barbara giggled.
“Come on, no straight guy wears that much spandex. And a cape, that is so the flaming queen.”
Barbara couldn’t hold back her laugh. She brought a hand to her mouth, slightly embarrassed, caught laughing at her mentor. Helena leaned down, before Barbara could realize what she was doing, kissed her softly. Then kissed her again, letting her lips linger a little longer.
“What was that for?” Barbara panted.
“Just in case,” Helena ran her thumb across Barbara’s lips. “For the record, I wouldn’t have changed a thing either.”
Barbara smiled. Tilted her head up and gently kissed Helena on the forehead. “Go on, she shouldn’t wake up alone.”
“Everything’s changed now, hasn’t it?”
“Don’t know. Does it really matter? You know, as long as we have each other?”
“No,” Helena smiled as she stood up. “I guess it doesn’t.” She walked towards the door. Stopped, turned back to Barbara. “Hey, Barbara.”
“Yeah,” she turned to look at the brunette.
“What does the super hero manual say about the student falling in love with the teacher?”
“Don’t know that either. Guess we’ll cross that bridge with Dinah when we get to it.”
“Who says I was talking about Dinah?” Helena winked before disappearing into the Clock Tower. Barbara stared at the empty space Helena filled before eventually turning back towards the skyline. A melancholy sigh blew across her lips. She was wrong, something had changed. It wouldn’t be easy, but, eventually, they would get through it. They would get through it because they had each other.
In the end, that was all that mattered.
END
Fandom: Birds of Prey - TV
Pairing: Helena/Dinah, slight Helena/Barbara
Rating: R, for the standard stuff
Originally Posted '03-ish?
Word Count: 2023
Summary: Helena helps Dinah deal with a tragedy.
Rite of Passage
The water was hot. Blistering hot. But she stayed under the spray, ignored the screams of her flesh. Grabbed the sponge, ran it up and down her skin. Until it was red, until it was raw. Except, it wouldn’t go away. It was still on her. Red. Thick. Damning. Blood. Everywhere, on her skin, her face, her hair, her hands. If she could just get it off her hands.
“Dinah.” She could hear Barbara’s voice through the door. “You have to stop, Dinah. Before you injure yourself.”
“Go away!”
“Dammit, Dinah!” Helena’s voice boomed, echoed off the walls. Her fist pounded on the door. “Either get out of the fucking shower, or I’m coming in.”
Dinah sighed. Stuck her head under the shower spray, watched as the water turned red, swirled down the drain. “If I turn it off, will you go away.”
They answered with silence. Which meant, they wouldn’t be going away at all. Before, this knowledge would comfort her. The knowledge that she was loved, cared for, sometimes hovered over. She didn’t want that this time. Didn’t want to see their accusatory eyes. The shame. Her shame.
It was just a sweep. A regular fucking sweep. She could remember it all. Running across the rooftops with Helena. The wind in her hair. The sense of freedom. Something she’d never had in Opal, or anywhere. The energy coursed through her veins, adrenaline hot and feverish. She felt like a super hero. Strong. Brave. Invincible.
A robbery. A guy in a ski mask holding up a convenience store. Helena leaned against the wall, told her it was hers. Hers. Dinah had waited for that word for months. Going into a fight alone. With no backup. Every decision. Every move hers and hers alone.
She charged into the fray. Saw his eyes widen with shock as she kicked the gun from his hands. Saw then squint with rage as he looked her up and down, the wispy little blonde girl against the big, dumb criminal. He wanted a fight, she didn’t intend to let him down.
The blows came quick. Faster than she anticipated. Stronger than she realized. Sometimes, she had a tendency to forget she wasn’t Helena. She didn’t have the super strength and lightening quick reflexes. Not that she didn’t have her own bag of tricks. She did. They just weren’t of the physically super strong variety.
Then, he hit her. Hard. Large knuckles connected with her jaw and Dinah tasted blood. Her blood. And she felt the rage bubbling inside her. A match thrown onto gasoline and she lashed out. Punching. Kicking. Hitting. Breaking. She threw her leg out, caught him in the ribcage. Watched him soar through the air. Body thudding on the ground. But, he was big and dumb, and he got up and wanted more. Dinah was all too happy to give it to him.
She could hear Helena in her ear, screaming at her to stop. Could see the black figure racing towards her. But, this was her fight, her rules, and she wasn’t done with him. Dinah raised her hand. Felt the power, fueled by her rage, emanating from within. The energy exploded from her fingertips, fired towards him. Caught him in the gut, sent him flying backwards into the air.
After that, it all went wrong.
She didn’t know where it came from. A piece of flotsam from a broken down building. Sharp. Pointy. Metal. It cut through his body like a knife through butter. She could hear the sick sound of flesh and bone ripping open. His eyes wide with shock. And the blood. So much blood. It spewed from his body. Onto the street. Onto her. He choked one last dying breath before his head lolled to the side. Eyes open wide staring blankly at her.
Dead.
She ran towards him. Cradled his body in her arms. Tried to will the life back into him. Only she couldn't. She wasn't that powerful. No matter how much she begged, pleaded, prayed. No one listened. He was still dead.
“No.” It came from her throat in a soft whisper. Erupted into a scream. “NOOO!!!!”
Helena was on her. Hands gripping her jacket. Voice screaming in her ear to move. But, Dinah couldn’t. Sat frozen staring at the man she killed. The man she murdered.
She stood in the bathroom staring into the mirror. Stared into the face of a killer.
Dinah dropped to her knees. Weighted by the guilt pressing down on her shoulders. Arms wrapped around her body, rocking back and forth. Praying to take it back. To make it stop. To give her life in return.
Helena knelt down next to her, draped the shivering body in a towel. Dinah offered no resistance as the woman dried her off, hands rigorously rubbing her skin for warmth. Then, she was in Helena’s arms, carried into her bedroom. She wanted to feel, to touch. To know she wasn’t ‘wrong’. Dirty.
“Helena.” She reached for the pale face so close to her own. With the only strength she had left, pressed her lips against Helena’s. Could feel the salt stinging her eyes as Helena returned the kiss, gently pressed Dinah onto the mattress. Coaxed and soothed her with butterfly kisses, a trail of heat across her jaw line, throat, collarbone.
And Dinah wanted more of this, more of her. Hands reached for Helena’s shirt, pulled and tugged, shed it like skin. She drew upon Helena’s heat until the shivers stopped and she was craving, wanting, desiring. Maybe this would be her penance. Her forgiveness and she reached for it. She took something tonight that was not hers to take. In turn, something would be taken from her. In the grand scheme of things maybe it wasn’t fair, or exactly balanced. But, it was all knew.
She knew Helena would take her. Wanted Helena to take her. The last shred of her innocence. Watched as the eyes changed in hue, the feral growl that rumbled up her throat. Had crossed the edge where choice was no longer an option. And Dinah offered herself, to Helena, to the altar of contrition.
Hands wrapped around her wrists, pulled them above her head. Bound her to the bed. The long lean frame pressed against her own. Teeth on her flesh, marked and claimed the terrain. She writhed under Helena’s touch, moaned at the heat each sensation caused. The slight pain from dexterous fingers entering her, slickened by her own heat, thrusting into her, taking her. Taking the one thing Dinah had left to give.
She held on as much as she could. Helena writhing above her, her heated mound sliding up and down Dinah’s thigh. Helena’s fingers inside her. A coil of tension pulled taut. Back arched high, body bowed, Dinah screamed, low, guttural, a scream of pain, remorse, regret, but mostly, one of pleasure.
Her body writhed, bucked under Helena’s weight. And still Helena pushed her further, deeper, more. Even when her orgasm ebbed, Helena was still on her. Taking. Flesh nibbled between sharp teeth. Fingers and tongue on her, inside her. Mouth and lips. Where vision faded and all that was left were the sensations. No thought. No guilt. Just pleasure and pain.
And then, blackness.
***
The air was cold, crisp. Made colder by the hard winds whipping across the land. Barbara sat on the balcony. Hands in her lap, staring out into the night sky.
She could hear Helena behind her, bare feet padding softly as she took her usual perch on the ledge. Blue eyes staring at her, waiting, expecting an answer.
“Well,” Helena broke the silence between them. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say, Helena?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Say anything. Tell me how you feel.”
“How can I say it when I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” Barbara looked down at her hands. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“What?” Helena jumped from her perch, marched towards Barbara. “Dinah killing someone, or me fucking her?”
“Please don’t turn this into a fight,” she looked up at Helena. Saw the anger dissipate. “It happens to the best of us.”
Helena shrugged. She walked over to the ledge, slumped down the wall onto her backside. “Did it happen to you?”
“Of course it did,” Barbara snorted softly. “I was the same age Dinah was. The same age you were.” She saw Helena’s brow lift slightly at the admission. “I was sixteen. High on my own power. Feeling cocksure and invincible. Ten feet tall and bulletproof. Going up against an arrogant son of a bitch who wanted to teach me a lesson.”
“How’d he die?”
“I kicked him through a seven-story window.”
“What’d Bruce say?” Helena sneered.
“Nothing. I never told him,” Barbara bowed her head, suddenly interested in a piece of lint on her slacks. Anything to not look into the familiar blue gaze. “Maybe he always knew. Maybe he didn’t. I just knew I could never tell him what I’d done. To see the.. disappointment in his face.”
It came from no where. The anger. She hated the constant shadow her father placed over everything. The hold he still held over Barbara. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he would have fucked you.”
“Stop it, Helena.”
“Why? This is what it’s all about isn’t it?” Helena rose onto her feet again. “Guilt tripping me into feeling bad about Dinah.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Helena?”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t,” she paused, waited until her anger cooled. “I remember that look in your eyes, Helena. Remembered how I felt. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Helena stuck her hands in her pockets. Glancing up at Barbara through her bangs. “You were my first.”
“I know.”
Helena shifted her eyes towards the Clock Tower. “Do you think I did the right thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know. Right or wrong, she needed to feel something, a connection. Anything to bring her back. Is sex the only answer? No, but it is one of them.”
Helena chuckled softly. Barbara stared at her. “What?”
“Seven years down the road, do you think we’ll be having this same conversation with Dinah?”
“God,” Barbara laughed, ran a hand over her face. “I’ve set such a bad precedent haven’t I? The teacher deflowering the student.”
Helena cocked an eyebrow. “You think Bruce did it to Dick?”
“Helena, stop,” Barbara giggled.
“Come on, no straight guy wears that much spandex. And a cape, that is so the flaming queen.”
Barbara couldn’t hold back her laugh. She brought a hand to her mouth, slightly embarrassed, caught laughing at her mentor. Helena leaned down, before Barbara could realize what she was doing, kissed her softly. Then kissed her again, letting her lips linger a little longer.
“What was that for?” Barbara panted.
“Just in case,” Helena ran her thumb across Barbara’s lips. “For the record, I wouldn’t have changed a thing either.”
Barbara smiled. Tilted her head up and gently kissed Helena on the forehead. “Go on, she shouldn’t wake up alone.”
“Everything’s changed now, hasn’t it?”
“Don’t know. Does it really matter? You know, as long as we have each other?”
“No,” Helena smiled as she stood up. “I guess it doesn’t.” She walked towards the door. Stopped, turned back to Barbara. “Hey, Barbara.”
“Yeah,” she turned to look at the brunette.
“What does the super hero manual say about the student falling in love with the teacher?”
“Don’t know that either. Guess we’ll cross that bridge with Dinah when we get to it.”
“Who says I was talking about Dinah?” Helena winked before disappearing into the Clock Tower. Barbara stared at the empty space Helena filled before eventually turning back towards the skyline. A melancholy sigh blew across her lips. She was wrong, something had changed. It wouldn’t be easy, but, eventually, they would get through it. They would get through it because they had each other.
In the end, that was all that mattered.
END