Post by adrini on Apr 24, 2013 23:10:05 GMT -5
“I’m from Adrien. My master sent me.” The Japanese women was scuffed and cut, several splinters from her bow were stuck in her costume and even laying on the floor she was moving her wrists gingerly. Slowly she removed the mask. "Hello Oliver."
Oliver slowly removed the metallic blade from her throat and stood up. “Shado. It's been awhile."
She used her elbows to get up slowly, her hands up in submission. She leaned against the wall heavily, the fight had taken the wind out of her. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. My master sent me to find your true strength, and you had to believe they were in danger to release that. You've gotten better. I used to be able to best you." Oliver moved to the wall near her to hear the soft, light voice. Her accent was a odd mix of Japanese, common English and the hint of Californian valley girl.
She looked at him, eyes unflinching black. His gaze had not softened. He walked into his sparing room and leaned against the wall. She was just recovering her breath and he felt her guard fall somewhat. He looked at the simple wall clock and crossed his arms in front of him. “You have three minutes. Less is better.”
“Dangerous men are plotting against you, a number of them. We do not know if they will attack you or your loved ones. The others can be kept safe, but you must go out in the world. You must defend yourself. We needed to know if you could.”
He watched carefully as she waked to and leaned on the opposite wall. She was thin, but her mass was mostly muscle. She hadn't changed much from the island. “What does this have to do with Adrien?”
“She called in protection. That is all. My master took it from there. I promise no harm was done to anyone. I know how much you missed this place, I wouldn't hurt it. I owe you that." Shado looked down.
He looked around the gym, grease on the floor, broken netting, several wood slivers scattered. “The place will need a cleaning. Now what? Are you going to show up for another three AM sparring session tomorrow for old times sake?"
She stood up and walked over. “I can’t afford the bows.” She sighed and nodded. “I saw her today, the one you were looking for. She's absolutely perfect for you. I don't see you waiting long with her. You're building a family here, you've earned one. I'd like to help protect it."
“Tell your master I want to have words with him. You do not return unless invited.” Ollie swallowed. "I'll need to think about this."
“I will tell him.”
--)->
[/b][/color]As the woman left, Oliver walked back to the staircase feeling weakness in his legs feeling increasingly lightheaded. He had one of the best security systems in existence. Yet she had had no trouble getting in. As useless as it felt, he rearmed the alarm and sat down in the dark family room to wrap his head around the morning’s events and let the shock subside. Relaxing and taking a few deep breaths went a long way to making him feel more steady.
“Ollie? What are you doing awake?”
Dinah sleepily fastened her black silk robe as she approached. He could feel relief build. She was okay. She was safe. Thea was safe. John and Roy were safe.
He felt himself get up and hold her close. “Thank God,” he said into her hair.
She pulled back, seeing he was obviously shaken by something more than just a nightmare. “Something woke me up and you weren’t there.” She turned on the light switch and looked at him. “Your face!”
He held her close again before kissing her forehead then leaning his against it. “We have problem.”
She touched his face and he grimaced in pain. “Why don’t we get you showered and cleaned up?” She began turning his face to look at the damage, but the wincing wasn’t encouraging. “We need to tell the others.”
“Be still,” she said as he winced once they got upstairs. “It goes quicker that way. We’ll get you to the hospital for a check up later.”
The damage to his face was far worse than he thought it would be, but within a few minutes Dinah had it well on the way to being amazingly cleaned up. He gaped at the difference. “I keep finding new talents in your arsenal,” he said as she used a cream from her purse to lighten a bruise. “Where did you learn to do this?”
She smiled. “Experience. Far too much experience. I have a lot of fighters in my family. My Uncle Ted is the worst. I think he enjoys taking face hits.” She took another skin graft slip and sealed a nasty cut on his cheek, the last. “No more fist fights before those heal or it’ll all go to waste.” She briefly washed her hands of a good amount of blood before returning to anxiously double and triple check her work. "Do we need to go after whoever did this?"
"That's a long story, but one you deserve to know." Oliver had been with his share of women before, but none of them had come close to her. Admittedly the grief of his parents loss had been the heavy lesson that had broken him of past sins, but he liked to think that if they had come home safely Dinah would have broken him of them anyway. She was what he had been searching for, it just never occurred to him to look in Africa of all places.
"This is an island thing, isn't it?" Di sat on the bed next to him and took his hand. "You don't have to, I understand rough years. You can tell me when you're ready."
"I want to, for us. Plus I'd rather not have anything jump you later." He squeezed the hand. "Shado was on the island with me for my time there. We hid on the island together until Adrien got us out."
"You became close, I assume." Dinah filled in. "Are you still?"
"No." His voice hardened. "Someday I'll tell you why, but no. She wants to help protect us, make up for what she did. I have trouble trusting that."
"I'm sure it's deserved. What are we going to do?" Dinah kissed the tightly clenched hand, it eased somewhat. "We do need help."
"I'm going to talk to her master, Adrien, go from there." Oliver looked at his better half. "Is this a problem? Her, I mean, for us."
"It isn't." Dinah looked at him. "If you had waited, maybe. You were kidnapped and alone, of course you sought companionship. So long as I have you now."
"You do, I swear." He pulled her close. Oliver looked at the clock and walked over to peak out the door. “It’s still only three, how about we clean up and close off the gym so the others don’t freak out?”
Dinah nodded and grabbed his hand. “You can tell me what happened while we’re down there.” She held him close for a moment and smiled as she felt his arms engulf her. He excelled at making her melt inside. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”
--)->
[/b][/color]“Holy hell...” Dinah cautiously stepped over a pile of grease, rope and finger blades as she walked into the archery room. When he described the fight it sounded improbable to say the least. “You weren’t kidding. I’m glad to know she’s a friend.”
They had showered and changed into jeans and cotton tops for the day before heading down to clean up. Sleep did not seem likely after the early morning’s events.
“We’ll get a message from her master soon. With any luck that will be the end of this. I’m done with this nonsense.” Oliver pulled the last of the arrows from the pale green walls. He had emptied the full quiver at some point.
Dinah smiled at the wish that these sort of events would end. “I could do with some shopping trips and minor fights about how we wash the forks.” She was calming down when they got to the gym wing but seeing the damage had shaken her again. It brought back too many memories. Discussing dishware sounded like a good idea.
Oliver had a full dozen arrows in his hands, which he placed back in their quiver on the wall. “Sounds like a dream, except I really couldn’t care less about washing forks. We could fight over how many formal events we go to. I get invited to all of them. Sometimes I even have to attend.”
Dinah had pulled the trash can out of the corner and was carefully pulling the shreds of the net out of the muck. The finger blades were hard to avoid even laying on the floor. She tried not to think of them flying at her significant other, and took the offered change of subject. “I clean up very nicely, thank you. Besides I can’t let you go to those things alone. There are too many women out there who don’t understand the concept of ‘taken’.”
“Until a few months ago, I wasn’t,” he said gently and joined her pulling rope from the grease. He hesitated. “I wasn’t a saint, even beyond the island. Nothing that should carry over but a lot changed when I lost my parents.”
Dinah was aware of his past. “More than a few of the women at the camp were planning on taking you up on that reputation you know.” She winked at him and laughed when he blushed. “There were stories. I can’t believe them now, though. They just don’t seem possible.”
Oliver had grabbed a small box for the blades and was removing them from the mess, starting aggressively in the area Dinah was working in. “They are likely true, maybe. The past six months have clarified a lot for me.” He used an arrow to push the blades away from her as her clean up expanded. “Mom and Dad were always happy, they would leave little notes here and there or pick up a favorite treat for the other on the way home. When I lost them I came to the realization that the clubs and parties and super models just were never going to be in the same ball park.”
Dinah grabbed a blade he had missed and dropped it in the box. “Being a billionaire heir surrounded by super models and top shelf booze just didn’t do it for you?”
Ollie laughed but looked at her warmly. “Strange as it sounds, no.” The blades were done so he went back to cleaning up rope. “They were happy because they slept next to the same person every night. There was one person they knew one hundred percent of the time would have their back, no matter what happened. It didn’t matter if the company went bust or if we partnered with Wayne industries that week. Twenty years down the line the same person would be there. They were together because they loved to be together. There wasn’t anyone else they wanted to be with, romantically anyway. There isn’t a one night stand in the world that can compare to that. I hated hear it at the time, but it’s true.” He pulled the last of the rope out and grabbed a couple nearby rolls of paper towels, and smiled sadly looking into a memory.“They were together at the end too. If they had to go they deserved to be together when they did.”
Dinah had gotten misty eyed, she knew what he was talking about. They started putting the towels down to soak up the oil. “I remember when my father was alive. When I was very young he was still working up the ranks so we didn’t have much but it never seemed to matter.” She put a few soaked towels in the trash can. “There was this used game store around the corner. On Fridays Dad would buy a new game and bring it home. Mom would make some incredible meal from scraps from the week and we would stay up way past my bedtime playing and reading. A blind man could see how much they loved each other. Life had to be hard, with Dad’s job being so dangerous and money being so tight, but all I ever saw was them doing a million things a day to make each other happy." Dinah looked down, trying to hide tears. "Toward the end, when Mom was really getting weak, she started getting delirious and seeing people. The person she saw the vast majority of the time was my father. I have to believe they’re together again.”
Oliver pulled her close and they nestled in. After a time Oliver pulled her face to his and stole a kiss that was happily returned. “I know they are.”
She decided to let the towels soak for a while and settled in further. “What’s the timing rule for asking for something like that?” She asked as his arms pulled her closer. “A year? two? It has to be more than six months.”
Oliver chuckled and brushed a stray blond stand from her face. “I have it on good authority that my Dad waited a solid eight weeks before ambushing my mother with a ring. The same authority says she had been waiting for it for a couple weeks at that point as well. It all depends on when you’re ready.”
“My parents were traditionalists. They waited a year.” Dinah said with a laugh before looking at the man she once didn’t believe was out there. “I think we’re ready.” She said slowly, looking at the cut, bruised, beautiful face of the man she loved.
Oliver had to pull her close for a moment to catch his breath. He ran a hand though her hair and took in her scent. “I think we’ve been ready.”
--)->
[/b][/color]Diggle heard his alarm go off at eight AM sharp and rolled out of bed. He grabbed a quick shower, looking forward to a calm day at home.
It was almost nine by the time he arrived at the kitchen where Roy and Thea were huddled over a corner of the kitchen table.
Thea looked up, her long black hair wrapped in a towel, and beamed. She seemed too excited to speak so she waved him over. Roy looked up from the note with a start when Diggle walked over and, beaming just as much, motioned to the same.
Diggle briefly wondered if the two had lost their minds before he grabbed a cup of coffee and read the paper that garnered such interest from the others. It was written in Ollie’s half-cursive, half-print handwriting.
“To the household,
Firstly do not go down to the gym for the next day or two. We’ve cleaned up the knives, nets and oil. After that we scrubbed away the blood and patched the dry wall. The floor in the archery room is still slippery, though, and part of the floor in the sparring room will have to be refinished. Until professionals can be brought in it’s just best to avoid the area.
In answer to your questions Adrien called in a specialist to help us with the Deleon situation who wanted to test my skill and happily found it satisfactory. Her Master is coming to see us to discuss the finer details later but we have a new ally which is always a good thing. Worth the cost of repairs I think.
It might be late in the day before we come down. But when we do try not to be too mean about how I look. I got marked up in the fight and Dinah did her best to clean me up. I’ve been up since roughly two, and Dinah since three. It took the better part of three hours to clean up the gym as much as we did. The time is currently just before six AM and we are both ready to crash. Later today Dinah wants to swing by the hospital just so I can be checked out. Remember for us as I’m fairly sure we’ll forget.
Also we think you should know that while we were cleaning we decided to get married. When you find your other half you want happily ever after to start as soon as it possibly can. No definite plans yet, other than something small and soon. We’ll decide more once we get some sleep.
See you around noon,
Ollie”