miss maggie (
bossymarmalade) wrote in
thejusticelounge2012-03-18 12:17 pm
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Men Troubles
Dinah quickly rushed to the Manhunter’s suite, trying not to knock to fiercely. She needed to speak to the woman though as soon as possible. Her dinner date with Craig had been less than ideal. She heard Kate call her inside so she threw the door open, rushing in.
She froze inside, eyeing Kate’s bandaged sides. Suddenly, she felt bad that she was coming to her, despite the pain she must be in. “W-What happened to your ribs?” Dinah moved to sit on the floor next to Kate’s bed, facing the woman.
Kate buzzed Dinah in, though she was a little slower getting up than she’d meant to be. Her ribs had felt mostly acceptable right after the fight, but the next day was proving to be killer. Her own fault for drinking, then.
“Hi,” she said, smiling softly. Dinah looked a bit frantic, but not frantic enough to not be courteous, and Kate did appreciate it. “Would you believe I actually got this way in a courtroom? Green Lantern’s extraterrestrial trial turned more than a little ugly.
“Here, please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the desk chair. It wasn’t right to have Dinah—a colleague, and likely a client—sit on the floor. “Did you want coffee or something? Tea?”
“Ah, right.” Dinah quickly shifted to the desk chair. “Um, I’ll have some tea. It might help me calm down. I’m sorry to hear about that. I bet you didn’t expect defending Kyle to be such a dangerous job."
Kate got to her feet—initially moving faster than she should have, and wincing and slowing as she realized it was a bad idea. It didn’t take her long to get over to the electric kettle and pour in some water, though.
“I thought it’d be at least a little more sedate,” she agreed, getting out a teapot and mugs, then brewing some tea for them both before fairly creaking back to her seat. Damn it. “And he really did give off that impression, so I should have known better. But it was actually sort of good to get in a real fight—it’s been a few months, I was starting to get worried that I was out of practice.”
Dinah waited until Kate had gotten settled down again. "He certainly is a handful.” She smiled, the tea taking it’s desired effect in calming her down.
After a moment of inhaling the steam from her tea, Kate leaned her chin in her hand and settled a curious gaze on Dinah. “So you said you’ve got some ex problems?”
Dinah nodded, setting her mug on the desk and clasping her hands before her. “I don’t know if you can help me or not, but it would mean everything if you could. Back in college, I met this guy, Craig Windrow. We didn’t date long before we tied the knot, but obviously, it didn’t work out. We were constantly at each others throats and he ‘bummed around’. Wouldn’t work, spent all of my money on alcohol and gambling, etc… I had filed for divorce years ago and that was supposed to be the end of it.” Dinah paused for a breath, allowing Kate to process her information.
“A few days ago, he called out of nowhere and told me we were still married. I thought it was another drunk trick so I tried to brush him off. He… convinced me to meet him and when I got there, he was very sober. He said that a filing error never legalized the divorce. I guess, I’m here because I need to know: what do I do? I don’t want to try and work things out but I don’t think he’d sign the papers again if I refiled.”
“I’ll see what I can do, definitely,” Kate said, in perfect honesty. Even if she and Peter got along really well now, it was after some seriously painful times, including legally painful ones. She was of the belief that their getting along was 100% due to them not being married (and a good chunk of that was due to Julie…gracias a dios for Julie). People who didn’t like each other as much deserved that much and more.
“California is fairly good for divorce even in cases where one of the two people don’t want to move on the situation, historically, but you’ll end up with a seriously drawn out court battle regardless, unless you can prove somehow that he means to do you harm with trying to enforce the marriage. This ‘filing error’ sounds incredibly suspicious, though—if it’s okay and you want to give me some dates and details, I’ll make some discreet enquiries into what’s actually going on.”
“I’ll get everything you need together A.S.A.P…” Dinah moved to sit next to Kate.
“There’s something else though…” She shifted, uncomfortable with the topic. “Maybe you know… or maybe not… There was an incident a few years ago… I don’t really feel like going into the subject too much… But I lost the ability to have children.” Dinah paused, trying to find the words without choking on them. “I don’t know how he got them, but Craig told me he… has eggs of mine from before. When we talked, he kept going on about us having a baby together. I told him no, but he left claiming, ‘I should understand because I’m his wife and that I’d find out what that means’. I’m not sure, but he might try to use them to make a baby. But, he’s not allowed to legally do that, right? I mean, not without my consent and…” She felt frantic again.
“Please… Tell me what I can do.”
If Kate had been at all anticipating this situation as straightforward, the revelation made things just that more complex. She felt a little sick just hearing Craig’s words secondhand; she couldn’t imagine how it must feel for Dinah, and she mentally cursed the bastard out. Seriously twisted misogynistic fucker.
The disgust likely showed on her face. She’d never been that good at poker.
“He can’t do that,” she agreed. “Not without you signing a load of paperwork—your ova are your own and he can’t manipulate them without your direct written, witnessed, and notarized consent, which you’d remember giving. Though that doesn’t mean he won’t go outside the law. Dinah…”
Kate cleared her throat and tried to put it as gently as possible. “Without going into too much detail, I know it’s not easy to talk about…but do you have any idea how he might have gotten the eggs?” Something else Dinah’d remember giving if she’d done it with any kind of consent, that. The harvesting process, from what she’d read, was painful and invasive.
At least this was evidence towards wishing Dinah emotional harm.
Dinah rubbed at one of her eyes, feeling pained and exhausted from this whole mess. “I’m not sure exactly when… I think it was back right before we got married. I had just started in this hero gig and had gotten really hurt. Gunshot wounds… I had them taken out as a precaution… Craig convinced me somehow to do it… But I know I had asked them destroyed after the divorce!” It was all coming back, and if the divorce wasn’t final, she wondered if anything with Craig was. “If I can get them back, out of his hands, that’s the most important thing. What to do with them is my choice, right?” When she met Kate’s eyes again, she felt her face scrunched in despair. “I just want to be rid of him.”
At least Craig hadn’t stolen them, Kate thought, or had them taken out by a villainous scientist in his lair or…whatever. Weird shit like that seemed to be rife in meta-land, but it was next to impossible to work up a prosecution against it when there was no legal precedent.
She furrowed her brow in thought. “What to do with them is your choice,” she agreed. “Provided you haven’t signed them over to him exclusively as property, which I seriously doubt…it’s not standard in that kind of situation especially if you did it before the marriage. You’ll have a far easier time claiming them as solely your own, not shared, thank god. Even if they were shared, he can’t do anything with them until you’ve consented, but as I said, that doesn’t mean he won’t do anything illegally. It’s terrible, but we’ll have to get them back before he can try. That should be our first priority along with refiling the paperwork and a statement from yourself to legally indicate your intentions.
“You’ve got copies of your paperwork from the initial filing, I hope?” Please please please, she hoped. “We can do this, Dinah, I promise. It won’t be easy, but we can make it happen.”
“I do.” They’re locked away safe, just in case…” She stood up, feeling more exhausted than she had in years. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Kate. Craig has no right whatsoever to my eggs… I just hope we find him before anything happens.”
It was probably not called for, but Dinah leaned forward and gently hugged Kate, mindful not to upset her broken bones. “This means everything… Thank you.” She let go, preparing to go get some sleep. In the morning, she had some paperwork to pick up.
“He doesn’t,” Kate agreed, vehemently. The idea made her feel sick, and it was definitely going to drive her to do the best for Dinah. And if the legal system didn’t work in their favor, there was always, always street justice.
The hug was surprising, but she welcomed it—she hadn’t had a hug or that close a touch from anyone except Ramsey lately, and she hadn’t even seen him in weeks. She hugged Dinah back, though a little gingerly as raising her arms hurt. “We’ll get him, Dinah. I swear we will. He has no right to treat you like this. Get some rest, okay?”
--- --- ---
"Bruce, I need to talk to you. Can we... meet up? I think this is important."
Sitting at the Batcomputer his eyes fixated on Dinah’s visual, trying to read her body language on what she is wanting to talk about but doesn’t have the slightest clue. “Name a place and I’ll be there soon.”
“I was thinking you could just do your Bat-thing and show up at my apartment in Gotham. This is… sort of a private matter and I don’t really feel safe talking elsewhere.”
“Understood,” he said, hanging up the call and dressing in his batsuit. Shortly after he drove the batmobile to her apartment, parking at a nearby alley. Climbing to her balcony, he knocked on the sliding glass door.
Dinah jumped, surprised he made it so fast. She rushed forward, pulling the door open. Once he was inside, she spoke up. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I… I need your help and I don’t know what to do…”
“Listen, I understand this is a personal matter, and the only reason I’m even here today is because I realize it will jeopardize the work relationship we have. The quicker you explain, the faster I can assist you and then we can stop these personal meets, do you understand?” He was being harst but it was with a purpose, he knew Dinah was strong but he never thought she would be asking him of all people for help on a personal matter, so he had to put in some fear to help her understand it’s something he’s honestly not quite comfortable with doing.
She looked a little hurt at his words but pressed on. “It’s my ex-husband, Craig… He called me the other day and told me we were still married. I went to meet him, and he said that a filing error never legalized our divorce… He also said that he… from when we were married, has frozen eggs… of mine.” No matter how often she spoke of it, Dinah always choked up at this. “I can’t have children of my own anymore, and if it were anyone else, there would be no problem but… I don’t want to have any more to do with Craig. I told him as much but he stormed out. I’m afraid he might try something without my knowledge. Manhunter is looking into the divorce but… I’m scared of what he might do, or rope me into.”
He now understood why Dinah called for him to come, she knew about his detective skills and his absolute devotion of getting vengeance and justice. Craig’s actions just made him a thug like all of the other criminal Bruce apprehends on a daily basis.
“I understand, I’ll look into what he’s planning and let you know what I find. What he’s doing is wrong even if it’s not technically illegal due to a filing error. In the mean time, go to the watchtower, or do something that doesn’t make you think of him or this.”
She wouldn’t let herself cry in front of him, not even if the tears weren’t sad. Instead Dinah stood, moving forward. “I’ll do that now.” She leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you for your help, Bruce.” Dinah left quickly, grabbing her jacket and comm link to be teleported up to the Tower.
When things had finished shimmering apart and shimmering back together around her, Dinah found herself on the transport platform with Green Arrow behind the transport controls — and not the one she’d prefer.
Ollie first pasted on a tight, polite smile when he saw her, but then his eyebrows furrowed and he came out from behind the control panel, jogging over to her before she could pull her jacket more tightly around her and stride away. “Dinah?” he asked, ducking in front of her. “Are you all right, honey? You look … you look like somebody just walked over your grave.” He put out his hands to hold her arms, then stopped, hovering just shy of actually touching her, waiting to see if it was okay with her.
Dinah pulled away from him, as if his almost-touch would have burned her. “No. I’m not all right. What’s it to you? Last I checked, you had other women to worry about.” Dinah stormed away from him. Bruce had told her to do something that wouldn’t make her think of this issue for now and avoiding Oliver was the next best thing to sleeping. Dinah just wanted to close her eyes and maybe forget about this horrid mess for a few hours.
The problem with the Watchtower corridors was that if somebody big enough tried hard enough, they could block you in any number of the smaller offshoots. Ollie managed to ootch in front of Dinah, facing her, and planted his palms on the walls briefly before letting his arms fall.
“Dinah,” he said, “I know you’re upset with me. You got reason to be. That’s fine. But come on, there’s more to us than just the bedroom, right? Honey, if there’s something this bad going on with you, I wanna help. I wanna be there for you. In any way I can.” He curled in closer to her, trying to get her to meet his eyes. “Last time I saw you look this way … Dinah, that was one of our worst times. I thought you might never get back what that bleeding asshole Jankowski took from you — not the bruises and wounds, ‘cause I know you’re tough as tungsten, but inside you, all that passion and brightness. I can’t just go away when you tell me to, not without trying to be there for you through whatever this is.”
Dinah was getting pissed off. She was tired, angry and definitely didn’t want to be touched right now, especially from him. She could have dropped him where he stood but that would have taken more effort than she had left in her. “Nothing for you to be concerned about. Craig contacted me and is just being an ass… again. Kate and Bruce have it covered though. There’s not a lot you could do to help.” She looked at him firmly and poked his chest. “And I mean that, Oliver. You aren’t the detective or the lawyer. You can do good in a brawl but if anyone beats the shit out of that weasel, it’s me! Let it go, Green Arrow.”
His eyebrows shot up, eyes big and faintly uncomprehending as he stared at her finger jabbing hard against his chest. “Oh,” he said. He blinked a couple of times, then, quieter, “…oh. Okay. Whatever you want, Dinah.
“And whatever it is that’s going on, I’m sorry. I hope you and Bruce and Kate succeed fast as possible.”
“Me too.” Dinah pushed past him, and on towards her room. Maybe she’d feel more guilty for brushing him off in the morning. Right now, all she wanted was to pass out.
She froze inside, eyeing Kate’s bandaged sides. Suddenly, she felt bad that she was coming to her, despite the pain she must be in. “W-What happened to your ribs?” Dinah moved to sit on the floor next to Kate’s bed, facing the woman.
Kate buzzed Dinah in, though she was a little slower getting up than she’d meant to be. Her ribs had felt mostly acceptable right after the fight, but the next day was proving to be killer. Her own fault for drinking, then.
“Hi,” she said, smiling softly. Dinah looked a bit frantic, but not frantic enough to not be courteous, and Kate did appreciate it. “Would you believe I actually got this way in a courtroom? Green Lantern’s extraterrestrial trial turned more than a little ugly.
“Here, please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the desk chair. It wasn’t right to have Dinah—a colleague, and likely a client—sit on the floor. “Did you want coffee or something? Tea?”
“Ah, right.” Dinah quickly shifted to the desk chair. “Um, I’ll have some tea. It might help me calm down. I’m sorry to hear about that. I bet you didn’t expect defending Kyle to be such a dangerous job."
Kate got to her feet—initially moving faster than she should have, and wincing and slowing as she realized it was a bad idea. It didn’t take her long to get over to the electric kettle and pour in some water, though.
“I thought it’d be at least a little more sedate,” she agreed, getting out a teapot and mugs, then brewing some tea for them both before fairly creaking back to her seat. Damn it. “And he really did give off that impression, so I should have known better. But it was actually sort of good to get in a real fight—it’s been a few months, I was starting to get worried that I was out of practice.”
Dinah waited until Kate had gotten settled down again. "He certainly is a handful.” She smiled, the tea taking it’s desired effect in calming her down.
After a moment of inhaling the steam from her tea, Kate leaned her chin in her hand and settled a curious gaze on Dinah. “So you said you’ve got some ex problems?”
Dinah nodded, setting her mug on the desk and clasping her hands before her. “I don’t know if you can help me or not, but it would mean everything if you could. Back in college, I met this guy, Craig Windrow. We didn’t date long before we tied the knot, but obviously, it didn’t work out. We were constantly at each others throats and he ‘bummed around’. Wouldn’t work, spent all of my money on alcohol and gambling, etc… I had filed for divorce years ago and that was supposed to be the end of it.” Dinah paused for a breath, allowing Kate to process her information.
“A few days ago, he called out of nowhere and told me we were still married. I thought it was another drunk trick so I tried to brush him off. He… convinced me to meet him and when I got there, he was very sober. He said that a filing error never legalized the divorce. I guess, I’m here because I need to know: what do I do? I don’t want to try and work things out but I don’t think he’d sign the papers again if I refiled.”
“I’ll see what I can do, definitely,” Kate said, in perfect honesty. Even if she and Peter got along really well now, it was after some seriously painful times, including legally painful ones. She was of the belief that their getting along was 100% due to them not being married (and a good chunk of that was due to Julie…gracias a dios for Julie). People who didn’t like each other as much deserved that much and more.
“California is fairly good for divorce even in cases where one of the two people don’t want to move on the situation, historically, but you’ll end up with a seriously drawn out court battle regardless, unless you can prove somehow that he means to do you harm with trying to enforce the marriage. This ‘filing error’ sounds incredibly suspicious, though—if it’s okay and you want to give me some dates and details, I’ll make some discreet enquiries into what’s actually going on.”
“I’ll get everything you need together A.S.A.P…” Dinah moved to sit next to Kate.
“There’s something else though…” She shifted, uncomfortable with the topic. “Maybe you know… or maybe not… There was an incident a few years ago… I don’t really feel like going into the subject too much… But I lost the ability to have children.” Dinah paused, trying to find the words without choking on them. “I don’t know how he got them, but Craig told me he… has eggs of mine from before. When we talked, he kept going on about us having a baby together. I told him no, but he left claiming, ‘I should understand because I’m his wife and that I’d find out what that means’. I’m not sure, but he might try to use them to make a baby. But, he’s not allowed to legally do that, right? I mean, not without my consent and…” She felt frantic again.
“Please… Tell me what I can do.”
If Kate had been at all anticipating this situation as straightforward, the revelation made things just that more complex. She felt a little sick just hearing Craig’s words secondhand; she couldn’t imagine how it must feel for Dinah, and she mentally cursed the bastard out. Seriously twisted misogynistic fucker.
The disgust likely showed on her face. She’d never been that good at poker.
“He can’t do that,” she agreed. “Not without you signing a load of paperwork—your ova are your own and he can’t manipulate them without your direct written, witnessed, and notarized consent, which you’d remember giving. Though that doesn’t mean he won’t go outside the law. Dinah…”
Kate cleared her throat and tried to put it as gently as possible. “Without going into too much detail, I know it’s not easy to talk about…but do you have any idea how he might have gotten the eggs?” Something else Dinah’d remember giving if she’d done it with any kind of consent, that. The harvesting process, from what she’d read, was painful and invasive.
At least this was evidence towards wishing Dinah emotional harm.
Dinah rubbed at one of her eyes, feeling pained and exhausted from this whole mess. “I’m not sure exactly when… I think it was back right before we got married. I had just started in this hero gig and had gotten really hurt. Gunshot wounds… I had them taken out as a precaution… Craig convinced me somehow to do it… But I know I had asked them destroyed after the divorce!” It was all coming back, and if the divorce wasn’t final, she wondered if anything with Craig was. “If I can get them back, out of his hands, that’s the most important thing. What to do with them is my choice, right?” When she met Kate’s eyes again, she felt her face scrunched in despair. “I just want to be rid of him.”
At least Craig hadn’t stolen them, Kate thought, or had them taken out by a villainous scientist in his lair or…whatever. Weird shit like that seemed to be rife in meta-land, but it was next to impossible to work up a prosecution against it when there was no legal precedent.
She furrowed her brow in thought. “What to do with them is your choice,” she agreed. “Provided you haven’t signed them over to him exclusively as property, which I seriously doubt…it’s not standard in that kind of situation especially if you did it before the marriage. You’ll have a far easier time claiming them as solely your own, not shared, thank god. Even if they were shared, he can’t do anything with them until you’ve consented, but as I said, that doesn’t mean he won’t do anything illegally. It’s terrible, but we’ll have to get them back before he can try. That should be our first priority along with refiling the paperwork and a statement from yourself to legally indicate your intentions.
“You’ve got copies of your paperwork from the initial filing, I hope?” Please please please, she hoped. “We can do this, Dinah, I promise. It won’t be easy, but we can make it happen.”
“I do.” They’re locked away safe, just in case…” She stood up, feeling more exhausted than she had in years. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Kate. Craig has no right whatsoever to my eggs… I just hope we find him before anything happens.”
It was probably not called for, but Dinah leaned forward and gently hugged Kate, mindful not to upset her broken bones. “This means everything… Thank you.” She let go, preparing to go get some sleep. In the morning, she had some paperwork to pick up.
“He doesn’t,” Kate agreed, vehemently. The idea made her feel sick, and it was definitely going to drive her to do the best for Dinah. And if the legal system didn’t work in their favor, there was always, always street justice.
The hug was surprising, but she welcomed it—she hadn’t had a hug or that close a touch from anyone except Ramsey lately, and she hadn’t even seen him in weeks. She hugged Dinah back, though a little gingerly as raising her arms hurt. “We’ll get him, Dinah. I swear we will. He has no right to treat you like this. Get some rest, okay?”
--- --- ---
"Bruce, I need to talk to you. Can we... meet up? I think this is important."
Sitting at the Batcomputer his eyes fixated on Dinah’s visual, trying to read her body language on what she is wanting to talk about but doesn’t have the slightest clue. “Name a place and I’ll be there soon.”
“I was thinking you could just do your Bat-thing and show up at my apartment in Gotham. This is… sort of a private matter and I don’t really feel safe talking elsewhere.”
“Understood,” he said, hanging up the call and dressing in his batsuit. Shortly after he drove the batmobile to her apartment, parking at a nearby alley. Climbing to her balcony, he knocked on the sliding glass door.
Dinah jumped, surprised he made it so fast. She rushed forward, pulling the door open. Once he was inside, she spoke up. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I… I need your help and I don’t know what to do…”
“Listen, I understand this is a personal matter, and the only reason I’m even here today is because I realize it will jeopardize the work relationship we have. The quicker you explain, the faster I can assist you and then we can stop these personal meets, do you understand?” He was being harst but it was with a purpose, he knew Dinah was strong but he never thought she would be asking him of all people for help on a personal matter, so he had to put in some fear to help her understand it’s something he’s honestly not quite comfortable with doing.
She looked a little hurt at his words but pressed on. “It’s my ex-husband, Craig… He called me the other day and told me we were still married. I went to meet him, and he said that a filing error never legalized our divorce… He also said that he… from when we were married, has frozen eggs… of mine.” No matter how often she spoke of it, Dinah always choked up at this. “I can’t have children of my own anymore, and if it were anyone else, there would be no problem but… I don’t want to have any more to do with Craig. I told him as much but he stormed out. I’m afraid he might try something without my knowledge. Manhunter is looking into the divorce but… I’m scared of what he might do, or rope me into.”
He now understood why Dinah called for him to come, she knew about his detective skills and his absolute devotion of getting vengeance and justice. Craig’s actions just made him a thug like all of the other criminal Bruce apprehends on a daily basis.
“I understand, I’ll look into what he’s planning and let you know what I find. What he’s doing is wrong even if it’s not technically illegal due to a filing error. In the mean time, go to the watchtower, or do something that doesn’t make you think of him or this.”
She wouldn’t let herself cry in front of him, not even if the tears weren’t sad. Instead Dinah stood, moving forward. “I’ll do that now.” She leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you for your help, Bruce.” Dinah left quickly, grabbing her jacket and comm link to be teleported up to the Tower.
When things had finished shimmering apart and shimmering back together around her, Dinah found herself on the transport platform with Green Arrow behind the transport controls — and not the one she’d prefer.
Ollie first pasted on a tight, polite smile when he saw her, but then his eyebrows furrowed and he came out from behind the control panel, jogging over to her before she could pull her jacket more tightly around her and stride away. “Dinah?” he asked, ducking in front of her. “Are you all right, honey? You look … you look like somebody just walked over your grave.” He put out his hands to hold her arms, then stopped, hovering just shy of actually touching her, waiting to see if it was okay with her.
Dinah pulled away from him, as if his almost-touch would have burned her. “No. I’m not all right. What’s it to you? Last I checked, you had other women to worry about.” Dinah stormed away from him. Bruce had told her to do something that wouldn’t make her think of this issue for now and avoiding Oliver was the next best thing to sleeping. Dinah just wanted to close her eyes and maybe forget about this horrid mess for a few hours.
The problem with the Watchtower corridors was that if somebody big enough tried hard enough, they could block you in any number of the smaller offshoots. Ollie managed to ootch in front of Dinah, facing her, and planted his palms on the walls briefly before letting his arms fall.
“Dinah,” he said, “I know you’re upset with me. You got reason to be. That’s fine. But come on, there’s more to us than just the bedroom, right? Honey, if there’s something this bad going on with you, I wanna help. I wanna be there for you. In any way I can.” He curled in closer to her, trying to get her to meet his eyes. “Last time I saw you look this way … Dinah, that was one of our worst times. I thought you might never get back what that bleeding asshole Jankowski took from you — not the bruises and wounds, ‘cause I know you’re tough as tungsten, but inside you, all that passion and brightness. I can’t just go away when you tell me to, not without trying to be there for you through whatever this is.”
Dinah was getting pissed off. She was tired, angry and definitely didn’t want to be touched right now, especially from him. She could have dropped him where he stood but that would have taken more effort than she had left in her. “Nothing for you to be concerned about. Craig contacted me and is just being an ass… again. Kate and Bruce have it covered though. There’s not a lot you could do to help.” She looked at him firmly and poked his chest. “And I mean that, Oliver. You aren’t the detective or the lawyer. You can do good in a brawl but if anyone beats the shit out of that weasel, it’s me! Let it go, Green Arrow.”
His eyebrows shot up, eyes big and faintly uncomprehending as he stared at her finger jabbing hard against his chest. “Oh,” he said. He blinked a couple of times, then, quieter, “…oh. Okay. Whatever you want, Dinah.
“And whatever it is that’s going on, I’m sorry. I hope you and Bruce and Kate succeed fast as possible.”
“Me too.” Dinah pushed past him, and on towards her room. Maybe she’d feel more guilty for brushing him off in the morning. Right now, all she wanted was to pass out.