Star City, The Kanigher, Then
It wasn’t the first time that Dinah had visited the Kanigher building - Ollie did live in the penthouse, after all - but it was the first time she’d decided to take the stairs, rather than the infinitely more convenient express elevator. Seventy-three floors. She told herself that it was just because she wanted to see if she could make the climb, to test her limits. Ted was always droning on about the necessities of constant challenge, that if you didn’t push your limits then your limits would start to push you. Yeah, she told herself, that’s why you’re taking the stairs. Just for the exercise.
She wondered when lying to herself had gotten so easy.
She had to fight her natural urge to race up the first few flights, though whether that was because she recognised it as an unnecessary waste of energy, or because she didn’t want to rush what was to come next is, she didn’t like to dwell upon.
She wasn’t more than ten floors up when her calves started to burn, her chest beginning to ache as the lungs struggled to fill with oxygen. She knew this was just her bodies way of dealing with the awkward exercise. Climbing stairs is technical challenge, even for practiced athletes. Propelling your entire body weight on one leg, against gravity, each subsequent step adding to the challenge? You better believe that it’s difficult. There’s a reason boxers train by running up stairs;it’s a great way to push your lactic threshold. So Dinah knew that if she just kept going that she’d push through the worst of it, that the climb would get easier the longer it went on, that her body would eventually fall into a rhythm to better handle the challenge. She could handle that kind of workout, no problem. Hell, it wasn’t anything worse than Ted had set her in the past. Easier, in fact, seeing as she didn’t have to perform to his punishing pace.
And yet she stopped anyway.
She took a moment during her unearned and underserved breather to admire her surroundings. Yeah, in the stairwell. The Kanigher, hotel and apartment complex designed to cater to the cities wealthiest visitors and most influential residents, built and owned by Robert Kanigher, stunk of money. Even here, in the lifeline between floors, the wealth on show bordered on the obscene. The stairs themselves were encased in white marble tiles, cleaned and polished so bright that she could almost see her reflection in them, a warped and distorted Dinah Lance glaring back at her from a world turned on its head. She wondered idly if that Dinah had anymore of a clue than she did, or if her upside down doppleganger was just as directionless as she was. With a sigh she pushed herself on.
She settled into a slow, sedate pace, using the polished dark wood banisters to haul herself up, step by step. She didn’t need the aid, at least not physically, but it felt easier, pulling herself along, as if there was some invisible force there, trying to force her back down the stairs. Despite herself the seventy-third floor still came around way to quick for her liking. She took a breather at the top step - another break that she didn’t really need – and fixed her hair, mussing the tousled dirty honey blonde locks into something resembling order. Another moment to check her makeup … then to test that her bootlaces were still tied.
She was just about to examine her cell for any missed calls when she lost her temper. When did she become such a cowardly bitch, so scared to do what needed doing that she’d make up excuses to try and distract herself from the tough choices. Woman up, Lance. She kicked the stairwell door open, stopping just long enough to cringe as it bounced off the plastered wall, before marching down the hallway towards Ollie’s penthouse. She knocked hard at his door, refusing to give herself any more time for second thoughts. Or tenth thoughts, as the case may be now.
She waited for what seemed like eons for the door to open. She hoped he was home. She hadn’t called ahead. Hadn’t had the guts to. The tension in her guts unraveled to slightly more bearable levels when she heard the telltale clicks of the locks being undone, only to have them wrap themselves back into a tight little sphere the size of a ping-pong ball when the door started to open. No turning back now, she realised with alarming certainty.
It wasn’t Ollie who opened the door though, but rather his best friend and housemate, Tommy Merlyn. Relief and annoyance mingled in a confusing toxic cocktail. She liked Tommy, enjoyed his charming company and zest for life, but right this second she didn’t think she could exchange even two words with him. Her resolve just didn’t feel up to it.
“Dinah … Jeez, I thought you might have been the cops for a second there, the way you hammered.” His face settled into a familiar, warm smile as he began to open the door wider to let her in. “Ollie’s in his bedroom, guess you’ve –” She cut him off before he could continue any further.
“Could you go get him for me?” The words came out in a tumble so fast that they began to blend into one another. Tommy’s smile began to fade, dropping just a fraction. Ollie and Dinah had been an item for a couple of years now. They didn’t sit on those kind of social niceties. Hell, she was here so often that Tommy had began joking about asking her for rent.
“Uh, sure. Why don’t you come in and I’ll go grab him.”
“I’ll wait here.” Tommy’s smile was a distant memory now, an unfamiliar frown taking its place. It didn’t suit him, she thought. “Please, Tommy.” He nodded once, before closing the door. It wasn’t long until it opened again, Ollie stepping into the corridor and closing it behind him.
“Hey, Pretty Bird,” said Ollie. His brows were dipped in concern, his eyes lit with happiness – a conflict of emotions playing out across his face. Dinah dreaded the notion that in the next few minutes, she would only make it worse. “What’s up?”
He leaned in to kiss her. Her raised palm, held up between them, stopped him in his tracks. His hurt and confusion played out on his boyishly handsome face. For a moment Dinah felt terrible, worse than she’d ever felt in her life, maybe even worse than when dad had … and all she wanted to do was smile, tell the big idiot that she was joking, and throw her arms around him. But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She had to speak now, and speak fast, before her treacherous heart made this even harder than it had to be.
“Ollie, listen. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and … I won’t be … I mean that I can’t …” Familiar anger rose up in her chest, anger at herself, anger at Ollie, anger at everything that led them to this point. Instead of trying to repress that raw emotion she used it, just like Ted had taught her. A weapon to cut through her own bullshit. “I’m not coming on the Queen’s Gambit with you.” She balled her fists, knuckles clenched tight; jutted her chin,eyes full of challenge, daring him to try and stop what came next.
“We’re over Ollie. It’s been on the cards for a while now. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Some stupid cruise with your dad isn’t going to fix all our problems. They run too deep to just be plastered over like that. Eventually we’ll come back to Star City, and everything we’ve been running from will just be waiting there for us, just like we’ve never left.”
The silence that followed was agonising. Ollie just stared at her, eyes darting all over her face, from her eyes to her lips to her eyebrows and back again, searching for something she knew he wouldn’t – couldn’t – find… And then he broke into that stupid, idiotic, adorable grin of his, and he laughed. He laughed. “Oh, man. Oh, man, Di – you really – you almost had me for a second there,” he took a breath, laying a hand on his chest, “Don’t do that, you goof. You could kill a man. Geez.”
It was the laugh that did it. The laugh that blew at the flames of her anger and turned it into an inferno. Of course, of course he’d laugh. It was that carefree, devil-may-care attitude that had attracted her to Ollie in the first place, the same attitude that grated on her so much now, that had forced them to this point. And even now with their relationship crumbling all around them, he still couldn’t recognise that fact. Well if he couldn’t change – no, scratch that, wasn’t willing to change – then she didn’t see why she had to either, not for his sake.
She was an angry person. It was true. Deep down, in the core that formed who she was fundamentally, she knew that there was a rage there, the seeds planted the day her father was murdered. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with that fact, and she was far from proud of it, but it was what it was, and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d learnt to live with it, to cope with it, in some ways to suppress it even, but she knew she’d never be able to change it. For his sake she’d tried to control her emotions tonight, to save him from hurt that she’d felt he hadn’t earned. Well, all that had just gone out, along with what was left of Dinah’s cool.
She shoved him in the chest – hard – throwing him back into the closed door. It wasn’t difficult. This man-child, billionaire playboy, trust-fund baby had never had to fight for anything in his life. It wasn’t just that he’d never had to. It was that he’d never chosen to. Oliver Queen didn’t fight for anything. He just expected everything he wanted to fall into his lap, like it had his whole life.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, holding him still as she forced her face in close to his. He was taller than her, but right that moment she knew she was bigger. Nothing but a single breath separated them, the distance of a kiss. How many times had they been in this position before? This will be the last time, she realised with sudden and intense clarity. Somewhere inside her a sliver of regret made itself known, but before it took root she used it as more kindling for the fire. This will be the last time, and that’s all his fault too.
Her every word came out as a whispered snarl, but she knew that even if they hadn’t been standing so close, he would have still heard her. “You laugh at me again, and I will kill you, you spoiled brat.” She shoved him again, rattling his head upon his door, but didn’t step away. “This is the fucking problem Oliver, you never take anything seriously. Not even me. Not even us. I can’t live like like this anymore, with someone who refuses to take responsibility. I shouldn’t have to. We’re fucking done, you hear me? Done! I don’t want to see you again. Ever.” She resisted the urge – barely – to shove him again. An angry snort that just might have been a suppressed sob she turned on her heel and stomped down the corridor, telling herself she wasn’t about to cry.
Behind her she could hear Oliver, calling out her name, desperate, hurt – getting further and further away, before it was lost behind the slam of his apartment door. He didn’t drink his sorrows away, like Dinah had expected him to – didn’t go clubbing with Tommy, seeking a cheap distraction from what had just happened. He just stayed in his apartment, and let the tears flow freely down his face.
Two days later, he left for the Queen’s Gambit… and Oliver Queen died. Dinah had said that he refused to take responsibility. Well, the man that came back five years later… he had learned why.
Because that man knew that responsibility came with blood.
Member
Dion
An Outsider
Lord Wraith
