Her mother's daughter

10 Things learned by Dinah Laurel Lance in her first semester at Gotham University:

1. College students are able to argue for hours about the finer points of morality, and only ever agree on one thing: it is NEVER immoral or unethical to use fake Ids or just a good bluff in order to drink underage, provided one is a college student.
2. There are 56 different places on the GU campus in which a young vigilante can change into her crimefighting costume without being disturbed.
3. There is no such thing as a 100% reliable hangover cure, despite the insistence of every student alive that there absolutely IS ONE, and they've found it.
4. Once you're at college, your mother never complains about having to do your laundry, as long as you come home to do it. She'll even scrub bloodstains out of leather without asking awkward questions, all of a sudden.
5. No matter how sneaky you think you're being in sneaking in and out of your dorm after lights out every night, roommates will always notice. They're worse than mothers, in that respect.
6. Fortunately, they'll assume you're seeing a male student when you do that, and silently approve, even help by making sure that the path to your bed is clear and learning to sleep with a nightlight on.
7. This makes it easier when you do happen to start seeing a male student.
8. Being a tough, capable, seasoned crime fighting and judo expert is no defence against a charming smile on a rakish older man.
9. Some men like brunettes.
10. One or two things about business studies.



10 Things learned by Dinah Laurel Lance in her second semester at Gotham University.

1. Craig Windrow's favourite colour (blue), his favourite dish (Spaghetti Pomodoro), his favourite position (not disclosed) and a number of other things about Craig Windrow.
2. That the only thing more appealing than a night on the streets beating up muggers is a warm bed with a warm man.
3. Mothers don't often like their teenage daughters dating men over a decade older than them.
4. Just because you don't live at home, it doesn't mean you're not capable of a full blown screaming match with your parent, up to and including the storming out.
5. It's possible to storm out a long way when you and your boyfriend both have motorbikes.
6. It's also possible to make it from Gotham City to Las Vegas by motorcycle in three steamy, passion fueled days.
7. Being a college student doesn't make you smart
8. It's easier and quicker to get a marriage in Nevada than it is to get a divorce in New Jersey.
9. If you never go to a single one of your classes, it's unlikely you'll pass Freshman year and be allowed to stay on for the next year.
10. Sometimes this isn't a bad thing, all told.

She changes into civvies in the alley behind her school and catches a late bus back home, all the time grinning like a crazy thing. It isn't that she needs approval or anything, and certainly not from a new cape who isn't even J.S.A. recognised, but it's nice to have it anyway: finally someone's found out what she's doing and hasn't told her to stop. He respects her, even trusts her, and has definitely acknowledged her competence. She isn't going to mess this up. She's finally made it and the Black Canary's going to be the greatest superheroine in the world again.

She's practically humming as she silently turned her key in the front door and slipped inside. It's late - it always is - but her mother would be...

"Dinah!"

Dinah sr is standing in the living room, hands clenched in fury and behind her sits Ted, guilt and worry all over his face.

Oh crap.

Dinah's eyes slip to the side table by Ted, where the ledger she stole from his office sits like Courtroom Exhibit A.

Ted himself looks awkward, as if he's regretting what's just about to happen. "If you need to know something, Junior, you ask me." He's able to say this because Dinah's mother is almost speechless, shaking with fury. She marches across the room towards her, and grabs the strap of her sports bag.

"Mom..." Dinah tries to feign innocent indignation, but she's never been good at lying, and Dinah sr has already ripped the bag open, spilling the wig onto the ground.

"I can't believe it!" her Mom screams. "You disobey me, use an old friend against me..."

"He's my friend, too!" Dinah's temper rises in the face of parental anger. "And he's only helping me like Grandad did you!"

"I told you the rules were different then!"

"The rules are the same!" And even if they weren't, Dinah's got the bug now, she won't stop. She can't. "Uncle Ted told me about..." He's sitting right there, but Dinah has too much momentum to stop herself now. "...about Jake. It's always been dangerous!"

"You betrayed my trust!"

"Trust? You never trusted me to do anything!"

(Uncle Ted, Dinah notices, stood up when his name was mentioned, trying to act as mediator. "Stop it! Would you two...")

It's so unfair. Her Mom's always tried to holdher back, to stop her from doing the only possible thing she can do, from...

SO UNFAIR. She's never been this angry before. Never had the need to scream, even when her Dad died. It's like a storm inside her.

"You can take your trust and go. To

"HHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLL

Which is an appropriate word for what happens next.

"What do you think you're doing?"

She's been tracing them for days: shadowing both in and out of costume, breaking into her Dad's now-empty office, rifling through her Mom's notes, She planned this, knew how it was going to go down, had a system, wanted to grill that one for more information after taking down all his buddies. She knew what she was doing.

Then the stupid stupid Bat showed up, gave them one look, and they spilled everything and ran away.

"I think I'm saving you a fight," he says, watching them run. Dinah scowls and forces her hand down from an itch on her scalp. She's been staking out this hideout for hours, and is sweating like crazy under her wig.

"I could have taken them," Dinah objects.

"I know." he turns and faced her, showing a face almost entirely covered by a cowl, not even the eyes showing under white lensed panels. "You're an outstanding hand-to-hand combatant. I've been watching you."

"Watching me?" She feels fists forming at her hips. Watching her? Watching her? "I'm not a criminal."

"But I had to be sure about that," he said, his voice as ever infuriatingly steady. "Just as I had to be sure that your methods weren't going to cause me trouble or get in my way. Your mother's friends taught you well, Dinah."

The punch hits home again, but this time Dinah's on the same level at him, staring him straight in the face, having just been denied the satisfaction of a good fight. She wants to scream at him- and right now, she could scream loud enough to throw him against a wall - but instead she throws a punch.

Which he blocks.

He blocks.

And in the same instant, punches her back.

She's so shocked she doesn't even blink until after he's swept away.

It's a simple plan. She finds the bar just before the polls open, and follows the crowd of nearly a hundred street people to the polling station, just needing to catch them in the act.

She never gets the chance.

Just as they're approaching the station, an home homeless woman starts wailing, out of control.

"My eyes!" she screams, "my eyes! I can't see!"

Mo, Dinah's target, is conveniently near the distraught blinded woman, and clamps a gloved hand over her mouth before she can say anything else. He cringes away when the bearded man snaps at him, "what the hell did you pour down her throat?"

Mo has no words, and Beardie turns away in disgust, fielding the rest of his poll fixing flock down the street. "C'mon fellas, we don't want to be late."

Dinah doesn't follow. She can't. Still in the shadows of an alley, in the trash and the dirt, she stares, transfixed, as Mo closes his other hand over the old woman's nose and forces her down.

Paralysed with horror, Dinah watches him murder a blind old lady.

It's only when he drops the body to the floor like a lump of meat and strides away that she finds herself able to move. Not after him, but to the old lady. Fishnets tear as her knees scrape the road, and she gathers the woman into her arms, but already much to late. Eyes clouded with tears, Dinah holds her head back and wails silently.

By the time despair gives way to anger and determination; and she gets to her feet to chase Mo, he's already out of sight.

"No..."

---

The old woman murdered by Mo wasn't the only victim of the moonshine. As evening approaches and she starts hunting down her quarry, Dinah begins to discover more bodies. Three in the space of a few hours; faces distorted in pain, hands cold against stomachs or mouths, one in a pool of his own vomit. Each time, she finds the body too late to save them, and the even more people she finds looking sick and scared, are too scared to tell the woman in the costume what might be wrong.

The night is a failure, and Dinah just gets angrier and angrier. It doesn't occur to her to go to school the next day. She'll just have to ask around, and starts around the bars in the neighbourhood of the poll in question. It's not until the sun starts setting that she discovers a successful tactic.

Before Dinah can even start asking questions, as soon as she sits at the bar, the bartender passes her a glass of some brown sticky liquid.

"Uh, I don't drink."

"It's caramel water, sister." He's gruff, but friendly, giving Dinah a sort of patronising look. "None of the girls drink when they're walking. You are working, aren't you?"

He thinks she's a prostitute. Clearly it must be the fishnets - Dinah wonders for a second why her Mom never mentioned this, but she decides to go with the line. "Sure - but right now I'm mostly looking for Mo. He owes me, you know - for yesterday."

"Oh yeah," the barman says with a wry smirk. "I heard he was paying the local girls to take the aftrenoon off and vote. How much you squeeze him for?"

Dinah twitches her mouth sideways to give a look she hopes is naive hope. "$10?"

"I love to see Mo pinched but you sold yourself cheap, kid. You can find him holed up in the Wayfarers. And then get your butt back to school."

She wishes all bartenders were as cool as Justin. But this guy's rough concern makes her smile anyway as she slips out and heads towards the Wayfarers - a run down hotel a few blocks down. She gives the same 'working girl chasing payment' story to a half-interested receptionist, and sneaks her way up to the only occupied room in the place. There, Dinah crouches at the door and peers in the keyhole, to where her Mr. Beard is busy taking his frustration out on Mo. And the walls of the room.

"What was in those bottles, Mo? What was in those bottles?"

"But - but - you tol' me not to waste any more money, or - or - "

"Moonshine. You bought rotgut street liquor. You got any idea what the Roman's gonna do t'us if this turns into an election scandal? Do ya? It's not about some cheez precinct, Mo. It's a damn Empire we're messing with."

Mo takes the beating badly, and ends up cowering on the floor. "I can fix it, Larry. Honest to god. I can fix... fix..."

"You'd better." Larry pulls Mo up by his lapels, Outside, Dinah guesses what will happen and scurries away, hiding around a corner in the corridor. Just as she gets around there, the door is opened by Mo flying through it, surrounded by old bottles.

"'Cause what they'll do to us will make death look pretty!" Larry shouts from inside as the door slams back. as Dinah watches, Mo gathers up the bottles and runs out of the hotel.

Bottles.

Moonshine.

Oh god, he's going to kill them all.

Dinah gives him a head start to avoid Larry's notice, then follows, sliding down the banister and leaping into the street past the astonished receptionist.

"Hey!" she screams, "MO!"

He jumps, shattering the bottles in his hands, and looks back in fear before he starts running away.

It was stupid, shouting, but no more stupid than trying to run in these heels, what was her Mom thinking? Dinah sprints after him, following him out into the crowded main street.

"You're not getting away from me, you murderer!"

People turn to star at her, but they don't get out of her way, and he's already on the bus.

"I" Dinah puts on another spurt on speed and reaches out with her Mom's leather gloves towards the back of the bus.

"Won't." She's going to make it..

"Let..." aaagh!

Getting hit by a car behind her wasn't part of the plan. She's thrown back against the hood, and has to whip her legs up to prevent them being crushed to shatters against the bus.

"YOU!" As she rolls back, she recognises Larry at the wheel. Apparently he came to the resuce of his colleague, but Dinah really won't let him. She continues to roll, straightening out her feet to send her heels straight through the windshield, and into his face.

So that's why her Mom wore these ridiculous heels. She follows through and tires not to think of the grossness of sitting in the unconscious guy's lap as she drops down to reach for the brake. She fails, and the car slams into the back of the slowing bus, which she guesses is for the best.

One down.

Out of the car, Dinah leaps onto the roof of the bus as people crowd out in a panic. Among them is Mo, but instead of milling around the crash site, he tires to run away.

Dinah leaps after him

Her heel slams into his back and he falls to the floor, but still has enough fight in him to turn and punch his assailant in the stomach. He kicks her, and knocks the wind out for a second. Dinah responds to that by kicking him hard in the chin, and punching his face with enough force to knock him to the ground unconscious.

"I told you you wouldn't get away with this."

She stays until the police arrive, and arrest Mo and Larry on the witness statement from the Black Canary. she poses for a picture with one of the officers who apparently has always been a fan. They take the men away.

Within the week, Larry and Mo will receive visitors and later be found dead in their cells.

Someone got away with it.

There aren't many people Dinah recognises at her father's funeral; the rest of the family died a long time ago and most of the Society took serious the widow's request that they not attend - for fear of any association in light of the way Larry died. Two of Dinah's uncles ignored these wishes; Johnny sits with her mother, and Ted Grant sits on her own other side, his strong arm curled around her shoulders for most of the service.

It's short, and controlled, and some of what's said is vague. Dinah's mother tries to say something but it's lost in tears. Dinah herself thought she'd want to sing, but she backs out at the last minute. A stream of clients and ex-colleagues from the GCPD say platitudes but don't give any indication that they actually knew the man who gave his life for the woman he loved.

Squirming in her chair, Dinah spies a young girl sitting with the group of cops who turned up. Demure in a pretty black dress, she's sitting by a man with a huge moustache who Dinah takes to be her dad.

Their eyes meet briefly and the girl offers a tiny, sympathetic smile. In that moment, Dinah hates her more than anything.

Don't smile at me. You still have your dad and you have no idea how much this hurts.

She leans away from Ted and wraps an arm around her mother's waist.

Something weird but not too weird happens with time when Dinah's in Milliways. It doesn't stop, but it might well do. She's beginning to suspect that maybe there's some greater force at work about the timing that means she can spend hours at the bar at a time without her parents ever worrying about why she's spending so much time alone in her room.

Not that they ever have.

Dinah. Is not. Resentful.

She shuts the closet door just as there's a the faint sound of magic downstairs and she hears voices: a few voices, but the first one she really recognises is Carter. So instead of staying up in her room and reading, Junior puts on her standard I-love-my-uncles smile and bounces down to see them.

"If I'd know you were all coming back I'd've put the coffee on," she says cheerfully when she's halfway down. It's easy to be mad at her mother for perceived neglect, but all that is thrown out for her uncles.

"Hi, Junior," Ted - Wildcat- says, as his large arms enfold around her. But it's not a hug of I'm-glad-to-see-my-niece. It's tight, possessive, and at the same time ridiculously gentle for a large man who knows exactly what his student can take. Dinah pulls back out of the hug and peers up into his face. For a fleeting moment, she sees a fond but sad smile, and then it's gone, and all that remains is sadness.

"What's wro..."

She turns around. They're all there: Carter, Alan, Wesley, Rex, Kent, Charles, even the other Ted, who doesn't come over often. Johnny has his arm around her mother's shoulders, and her head is turned away and down, the wig obscuring her face. All in costume, all the men with their masks off. And all (except Charles) looking at Dinah Jr with the same mixed expression: regret, sadness, and above all of that, pity. Pity for her.

Dinah actually physically feels the warmth drain out of her body.

"Where's Daddy?"