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The thing that always bothered Laurel the most about soulmarks was the chicken and the egg dilemma. Did the natural course of her life lead to the words written across her ribs? Or did she read the words and tumble head first into the course that would get her to the person who would utter them? And if it was option A then that meant that fate was a bitch who would not be denied, and Laurel absolutely did not believe in fate.
Terrific and horrible things alike happen. There is no rhyme or reason or some big universe interfering god who moves people and events across the board of life.
So when people in law school asked if her words led her to her seat in Torts 223, her answer was ‘no’. Her father was a cop. She grew up hearing about bad guy one, two, three, four to infinity that walked free after some heinous crime because they had money to pad the pockets of the powerfully corrupt. Becoming a lawyer, and definitely not a corporate lawyer, was the only path she could see for herself.
You have a warrior’s heart rests across her ribcage right below her left breast in a neat, cursive script and has absolutely nothing to do with her law career.
She would also object to the assertion that it has anything to do with putting on a mask and getting justice with her fists, but sometimes Laurel thinks maybe she is just trying to convince herself.
It starts after Oliver and Sara die.
The anguish, the betrayal, the desperation, the hole that carves into her heart that is hollowed out in their shape- it burns her.
It burns in her veins, boils the blood and lights a fire in her soul.
Then the reports of the vigilante in the Glades trickle in.
Nothing in the media of course, because god forbid anyone in Starling City cares about the Glades or the people within them. No, it came from clients at CNRI where she interns during her summer breaks from law school.
“He was wearing a mask?” Laurel asks, disbelief and wonder coating her words.
The young girl nods, eyes wide. “Yes. He just jumped down from the fire escape and beat the crap out of the guy. He gave me back my bag and then just left. It was . . . incredible.”
“Sounds like a vigilante to me,” Laurel whispers. “Why isn’t this all over the news?”
The girl, Adrianna, is only about fifteen and has parents who are fighting back against a scuzzy landlord and enlisted CNRI to help them do so. She snorts at Laurel’s question and rolls her eyes. “Nobody cares about the Glades. We’re too poor and not nearly white enough.” Adrianna dismisses her then, but the conversation refuses to fade from Laurel’s mind.
A vigilante in the Glades.
Getting justice without the law.
It appeals to her so viscerally, so blatantly the idea forms in her head before she could stop it.
It makes her shake her head to think about it now, all those years ago, current law student who lived on the favor of her dad, standing around in the Glades, desperately hoping someone would mug her all so she could catch a glimpse of this vigilante. And best case scenario, she would maybe talk to him.
Laurel remembers with a wince that it didn’t exactly go as planned. She had left that night with a split lip, scraped palms and a bruised ego. The vigilante had paused at her questions and pleas, (“I want to help you. Please. I want to help you.”) but had walked away as quickly as he had appeared.
But she went back.
Night after night after night for almost two entire weeks. Only a few of them actually ended up with contact with the vigilante, but the last night- the last night was the only night that hadn’t left Laurel with shame and a hollowed sadness in her gut.
She had walked upon the vigilante stopping a car theft and protecting a family of three. The vigilante was outnumbered and she reacted on instinct. Admittedly, she wasn’t SEAL Team Six, but she had more than enough self-defense classes under her belt that throwing herself into the middle of the fight didn’t seem like the worst idea. And well, maybe the ringing in her ears would disagree or how she winced when she breathed too deeply (bruised ribs were a particular sort of hell) would definitely tell you she was a brazen idiot.
Ironically, the ribs that hurt the worst laid right beneath You have a warrior’s heart, and for a moment, just one fleeting moment, she thought that the man in front of her was going to say them as she half lay on the ground with her hand pressing on her head. But he couldn’t say them. The moment of hope fluttered away and she knew it was wrong. The words on her skin were feminine. So feminine that she knew her soulmate was a woman and not the tall, bulky man in front of her with a mask covering what she was sure was a disapproving expression.
“I can’t tell if you’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met or the bravest,” he said.
She smiled then and she thought she tasted blood. “You and my dad would get along.”
He let out a noise that she was certain was a laugh. She sat up, bracing herself on the asphalt with her hands.
“You might be a brave idiot, but,” he paused then, sighing and then, “but you got a damn good right hook. Your problem is you lean into every move before you do it. You’re sloppy, too. All fire and no skill.” Another sigh, deeper and longer this time. “But your heart’s in the right place.”
He thrust his hand out to her.
And she took it.
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His name is Ted and he’s a boxer.
He owns a gym, Wildcat Gym, and just for shits and giggles she starts calling him that. He hates it.
“I don’t need a moniker,” he tells her, hands raised, palms out as she pounds her fists into them. “Straighten your spine.”
“C’mon,” Laurel grins. “It’s catchy.”
“You can call me Wildcat if I can call you Hellcat.”
She fumbles then, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Hellcat?”
“It’s in your eyes.” He raises his hands up, indicating for her to continue. “All fire and rage. Not like you’ve been to hell, but like you’re still there.”
She throws another punch and he winces. She smiles, satisfaction coursing through her.
“You’re a force to be reckoned with, Dinah.”
That stops her cold, memories of her mother, soft smiles and family dinners running through her mind, and she glares at him.
“That’s my mother’s name.“
Ted nods and reaches for a towel. “I’m aware.” He leaves her there, walks off to his office and she really wants to wipe the smirk that she knows is on his face right off. Maybe mop the floor with it. “It fits, though.”
She turns her ire to the punching bag.
And if it were Ted or Oliver or her mother or father who stood in the place of the punching bag, well, that’s her business.
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When Ollie comes back (sans Sara) it's like nothing had changed. She looks at him and it was a punch to the gut, but she isn’t going to let herself amble mindlessly down that road.
Oliver isn’t her soulmate. Oliver is her first love. Oliver had been her best friend. Oliver is the worst boyfriend she has ever had who hurt her more times than she could count and so deeply, so excruciatingly she thought the bleeding might never stop.
And worst of all, Oliver is alive and Sara isn’t.
Her grave is empty and her body lies at the bottom of the ocean and Oliver is partying in clubs with Tommy (Tommy who wouldn’t stop calling, who wouldn’t stop talking about how concerned he was. The last time they had seen each other she had a bruise deep on her left bicep and he had demanded to know what had happened. She couldn’t tell him she had stopped a robbery and was just a little too out of depth with the big, beefy dude who could eat her for breakfast) and dating models and being so goddamn smug she wants to scream.
Sara who was so bright and so beautiful it hurt to look at her, who slept with a stupid stuffed toy shark when she was scared or had a bad day, was gone and never coming back. It wasn’t fair.
Another vigilante crops up, but this time in Starling City, and Laurel thinks “good”. It’s time someone made them pay. The Glades is merely a symptom of the corrupt and dastardly politics that poison Starling.
When the mere idea of Oliver being the vigilante is planted in her head- she can’t look away.
Ted dismisses it, but Laurel isn’t so sure.
There is a certain hardness to Oliver, a certain sense of unflagging righteousness that reminds Laurel too much of Ted for her to dismiss it and laugh.
So she watches him.
She continues on with her job at CNRI, spends her nights with the black mask and the black leather suit that fit her like a second skin. Laurel had dipped into her savings to afford that, but boy is it worth it.
Ted had rolled her eyes as she twisted and turned, showing it off, but she caught him admiring it the next day, the leather between his fingers.
“You can admit it’s badass,” she said with a wink.
“It’s flashy,” was all he said in response.
Oh yeah, he loves it.
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Everything changes after the Undertaking.
Laurel was in lawyer mode, desperate to save all the files she can for all the people she could and Ted had came tearing into the office with a look in his eye that Laurel has never seen before.
Ted is terrified.
She presses the files as close to her chest as she can, thinking of her words-
You have a warrior’s heart.
She wonders where they were, if they were safe from all this mass destruction, or maybe caught in the thick of it.
“We have to get the hell out of here, Laurel!” But he doesn’t grab her or try to force her out the door. He seems to understand, watches her stand there with her knuckles sharp and white as she clutches the files as if they promised her salvation.
They are salvation; just not for her.
Ted understands that. Her heart warms as he leaps forward, scrambles and gathers as many files as he can hold, and together the two run like hell out into the street. Her father is there screaming and yelling her name and her heart thuds in her chest.
They dump the files into the back of her dad’s car and they hear it.
A scanner reports sightings of the Arrow and some other hooded figure a few blocks down.
“We have to help him,” she tells Ted, grasping at his jacket, eyes wild as she pleads with him.
She thinks he’s going to reject the idea. Say something along the lines of “he can take care of himself”, but he doesn’t. He nods and reaches for her hand. Off they go, leaving her father behind- “Laurel!”- but she ignores him.
She has a city to save and a hero to help.
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Knowing that Malcolm Merlyn is behind the Undertaking is a lot to swallow.
Knowing that Oliver Queen is the Arrow isn’t too big of a bite since she had suspected all along. Especially after he had come to her to help Thea just as the Arrow was going after Vertigo.
So many coincidences, so many lies, but also- a tinge of vindication. Oliver isn’t just some spoiled overindulged asshole with a golden spoon in his mouth. He is so much more. He is a good man with a good heart and Laurel had always seen it.
Seeing him with her own two eyes, his eyes smudged dark and the bow clutched tightly in his fist- is surreal. And exhilarating.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice is harsh and his features twisted.
Malcolm Merlyn has escaped and she kind of thinks they should be going after him, but Ollie looks like he wants to hash it out. So be it.
“You two know each other?” Ted asks, gesturing between the two of them.
“Who the hell are you?” Oliver spits.
“Wildcat,” Laurel answers for him. Ted gives her a look that hints at displeasure, but he’ll get over it. “And the Arrow and I here used to date,” she tells Ted dryly.
Ted’s eyes widened, but he shakes it off and lets out a breath before turning away from the scene in front of him.
“And to answer your question, Ollie, I was saving your ass.”
“I had it under control,” he growls.
“Really? It looked like he was gonna break your back and I’ll take a ‘thank you’ at literally any time during this discussion.”
“Laurel,” Oliver says, and she can see that vein in his forehead start to throb. “You’re a lawyer. You’re-“
“Lawyer by day. Vigilante by night.” She smirks as she says it and pride surges through her.
“You’re not a vigilante.”
“I am actually. And I was doing this before you decided it was a good look. And Ted outranks us both.” She looks over at Ted, admiration in every line of her body as she does.
Oliver clears his throat, and his eyes dart between her and Ted. “Is he-“
“No,” she snaps. “He’s a friend.”
Oliver doesn’t have any words upon his skin and she has always wondered if that influenced his behavior towards her and women in general, but she never asked. She wasn’t about to start now.
About ten percent of the population walk around words-free, and it is a private matter. A topic that Oliver had never brought up himself. The closest he had ever come had been one night after he had snuck her up into his room, into his bed, and later as their skin cooled against the sheets and the night air, his fingers brushed over her words. He had stared at them, eyes focused with precision and the rough pads of his fingers traced the lettering with feather light touches, but he remained utterly silent.
The sirens cut off whatever Oliver was about to say and Ted comes forward. “We should go.”
Laurel nods and gives Oliver one last look.
“I’m not surprised about you, you know. I always knew you could do incredible things. Be an incredible man.”
She smiles at him, and his eyes soften. He reaches out to her, one gloved hand, the one that had read her words, but she turns and jumps after Ted, clinging to a fire escape.
The sirens fade as she runs faster with Ted by her side.
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As it turns out, Malcolm Merlyn is more nefarious than they had originally thought.
Murderous piece of garbage just scrapes the surface.
Member of the League of Shadows is somewhere in the middle.
Laurel isn’t sure she wants to find out what he has hidden at the very bottom, but she does feel like it is her responsibility to stop him before his reign in Starling ends in another blood bath.
Ted disagrees.
“We’re not meant to save the world, Laurel. We’re only human.”
“Maybe we’re not meant to, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” Laurel feels absolutely firm in her belief, but Ted is one stubborn son of a bitch. “Merlyn felt comfortable attacking the Glades once before. Who’s to say he won’t again?”
Ted nods. “Then I’ll be here. Ready to defend it. Until then, my concern is immediate danger to the Glades and nothing else.”
Laurel sighs.
Malcolm may haunt the horizon, but the return of Helena Bertinelli lords over the present.
Felicity Smoak has spotted her on a traffic cam in downtown Starling. She met Helena briefly the year before under the assumption that Helena and Oliver were together. Oliver gave her the run down of Helena, her father and Helena’s dead fiancé.
Laurel’s heart hurts for her, and hurts even more after Team Arrow begins referring to her as a “crazy psycho ex”.
“Maybe she’s changed,” Laurel argues.
Oliver sighs deeply and shakes his head.
“You don’t know her, Laurel. She’s dangerous and not afraid to kill people.”
“Are you talking about Helena or yourself?” He gives her a look then and it is amazing how small Oliver can make her feel with just a glance. But she doesn’t measure her worth or her value by how Oliver Queen perceives her.
Oliver isn’t going to change his mind and she doesn’t see Felicity or Diggle budging either. So Laurel distances herself from then and decides to be one-woman show.
She still helps Ted when she can, aiding him in whatever he needs and even doing her own patrols in the Glades. Oliver doesn’t ask for her help, which is fine by her. Laurel is pretty sure he is still upset about the Helena situation.
The Helena situation, as she begins to refer to it in her head, has taken on a life of its own.
When Laurel finds her, after a brutal fight with Oliver, Helena limping in an alleyway, she takes her chance.
Helena levels her bow at Laurel’s face (hand shaking and arm straining, but her jaw was set and her eyes promising bloodshed) but Laurel only blinks. Removing the mask and the wig that make her scalp itch in the middle of fights.
“I want to help you,” Laurel says.
“Help me,” Helena laughs, but her arm drops to her side and her fingers loosen around the crossbow. “Help me straight into a jail cell, huh?”
Laurel shakes her head. “Oliver’s gunning for you. You need a place to hide out. I can help you with that.”
Helena laughs again, but this time Laurel can hear how tired, how angry and how desolate she is. Helena sags against the wall and her voice is scratchy when she replies. “Why would you help me, Laurel?”
“Because you deserve a second chance.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I don’t need to read your soul inside and out to know that you’re not a bad person. You’re not this person.”
“I didn’t realize your third job was a life coach,” Helena quips, but she pushes off the wall and follows Laurel to a warehouse she uses for her vigilante needs.
Helena stays longer than Laurel thought she would. She stays and softens and one night when Laurel heads out to patrol Helena stands in the middle of the room awkwardly with her hands in her pockets.
“You, um, you used to work with Ted,” she says lamely.
Laurel nods and picks her wig up off the counter.
“Do you like having a partner?”
Laurel shrugs. “It’s nice to have back up, yeah,” she tells her. Helena nods and runs her fingers through her hair in a rush.
“Would you . . . it’s not a big deal if you want to fly solo, but I was just wondering if you, uh, if you would like some backup tonight?”
Laurel smiles at her, soft and slow, and Helena smiles back tentatively.
“I’d like that,” Laurel tells her.
Helena suits up and just before they’re out the door, Helena grabs her shoulder and turns her around.
“You should ditch the wig,” Helena says. “It’s a hazard waiting to happen.”
Laurel thinks about it and then the itch sets in and she agrees. She pulls it off and shakes her hair out and around her shoulders, the blonde tresses falling easily.
She drops the wig onto an empty chair and doesn’t look back.
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She has imagined a thousand different ways her words would be spoken, how they would be said, the look on her soulmate’s face when they would say them.
Her imagination pales in comparison to reality.
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Malcolm’s destruction (unfortunately) doesn’t go unnoticed.
The Dark Archer has enemies, and the League of Assassins is just the beginning. They sweep into town and it’s so bad that Oliver asks for her help.
She’s speechless at first, but she agrees.
He is desperate enough to not even be outraged at her hiding Helena or even Helena tagging along (“where you go, I go, Laurel. Get used to it.”).
When she finds out she’s meant to help protect Malcolm Merlyn from the League she’s never been so angry in her life. Malcolm, an unrepentant murderer, and an even worse father and he was hiding behind them like a coward. So when she finds out that Thea is Malcolm’s daughter her entire world goes still for a moment as shock takes over. Oh, Thea, she thinks. Poor Thea.
For Thea, Laurel believes, she can put her absolute disdain for Malcolm aside and help keep the father of someone she views as a little sister alive.
The League is formidable. Unlike any villain she’s ever faced in Starling. They are swift and deadly and each blow has meaning and power. She’s facing what she thinks is a woman, blade sharp and swift as it arcs in the air. Her batons are more sturdy then they look, reinforced by Cisco and Laurel matches the woman cut for cut. She lost track of Helena, who had been at her back, but sees Oliver out of the corner of her eye twirling his bow and using it to knock his opponents off their feet and on to their backs.
Laurel gets a high kick well placed and the woman stumbles back, but the triumph Laurel feels overtakes her too much and when the woman slashes out, the blade cuts through her gear and she feels the sting of the blade upon her skin.
Laurel doesn’t cry out. Her feet stutter and she falls backwards, hand reaching over and clutching at her injured arm. She doesn’t think it’s that deep, but she can’t be sure. The adrenaline is pumping and her heart is thudding in her chest and she can feel the blood soak into her gloves.
The blood only enrages her and Laurel drives forward, hitting harder and faster and the woman meets each thrust of every limb and Laurel almost sees red when she hears the woman laugh.
So naturally, that’s when it happens.
“You have a warrior’s heart,” the woman says. Laurel falters. The woman pulls at the shawl covering her face and a smirk pulls at the corner of her lips. The woman’s blade glints under the light of the street lamps. Anything Laurel was going to say dies in her throat as the woman raises her blade again and attacks. Laurel spins out of her soulmate’s reach and then Helena is there (Helena is always there, at her six, watching her back and proving to be everything that Oliver thought she wasn’t), firing arrows and one knocks the blade from the woman’s hand.
“You okay, pretty bird?” Helena asks, a hardness coating over her words cementing them with her anger. There’s a nasty cut along her cheek and she’s breathing heavily, but her bow hand never trembles.
“Just a flesh wound,” Laurel jokes.
She thinks of what she’s supposed to say. To the woman who is her soulmate. To the woman who has Laurel’s handwriting upon her skin, whose own handwriting rests on Laurel’s and she watches the frustration and violence dance across this woman’s face. She’s beautiful. There’s no denying that, but she also stands for everything that Laurel rejects.
She’s a member of the League of Assassins and as much as Laurel knows it should repulse her, it doesn’t. She is only curious, but the curiosity ends and any chance of replying, of saying any words, fades as the police sirens sound.
The woman is up and gone before Laurel can process it and she can hear her father’s gruff voice over the megaphone (“SCPD! Hands up!”). His orders are futile, the League scatters and so do the vigilantes.
Later, Laurel sits on the counter as Helena dabs at the laceration on her arm. A butterfly band aid sits on Helena’s face from Laurel’s own tending moments before. It’s just the two of them. Their own rag tag little team.
“You okay?” Helena asks quietly.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Laurel assures her.
“That’s not what I meant.” The tone in Helena’s voice shifts and Laurel swallows thickly. “I heard her.” She presses harder on the wound. Laurel tamps down on the sting, refusing to flinch during a conversation that has her on edge. “I’ve seen your words, you know. Your sports bra doesn’t cover them.”
Laurel nods, but doesn’t reply.
Helena doesn’t say anything else on the subject and Laurel is grateful.
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Of course, that doesn’t last.
Laurel isn’t surprised. She’s only mildly shocked that it takes Helena seven whole days before bringing it up again.
“I’m just gonna say one thing,” she starts in the middle of their sparring session. “After, feel free to ignore me, tell me to go to hell, whatever. But Michael was my soulmate. His words are still on my skin, but he’s gone. He’s gone and I’m alone and I don’t regret it. He changed me for the better. I was a good person when I was with him and most days without him I feel dead inside. I feel worthless. And yeah, maybe you deserve better. I know Michael deserved more than a mobster’s spoiled brat of a daughter. But maybe that woman needs you. And maybe you need her, too.
“I don’t think whatever entity that put these words on our skin made a mistake. Maybe it’s not romantic, maybe you’re just friends, maybe she’s actually a great person who, um, took a bad turn or maybe she loves every second she spends in the League. But are you listening? There are so many maybe’s. So many possibilities and you hiding here, you running from destiny is just a crap decision. You’re Dinah Laurel freaking Lance. ADA during the day and badass vigilante by night. You don’t run from things. They run from you.” Helena swipes out and pushes Laurel’s still injured arm. She shoots Helena a nasty look as the pain radiates down her arm and Helena only pulls a face that tells her to suck it up.
Laurel shakes her head and pulls Helena into a hug.
“You’re not worthless,” she tells her. “And you’re never alone.”
Helena doesn’t respond. She only hugs her back.
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It’s three weeks later until she sees her soulmate again.
Oliver calls her Nyssa and Laurel lets the name roll around her head and sit upon her tongue.
Nyssa sits in a cell, sullen, but composed. Oliver is full of self-righteous empowerment as Laurel looks at him as if she has never seen him before. She wonders, not for the first time, if maybe she never has.
Laurel tiptoes around the cage, and that’s really what it is, taking quick looks every now and then of her soulmate, but her soulmate never looks her way. She stares straight ahead, unflinching and spine straight. Her soulmate doesn’t speak to her until Team Arrow vacates, heading out to face a robbery situation at Starling City Bank. That leaves Laurel standing stiffly by the cage and Felicity smashing away on her keyboard, muttering to herself and answering the others on her comm intermittently.
“You were a mighty match,” her soulmate tells her. Laurel is only a little ashamed that her soulmate has spoken to her twice now, and she still stands there quiet and wide eyed. “But your technique requires refinement.”
Laurel feels a spark of indignation and has a retort on the tip of her tongue.
“Laurel!” Felicity calls. “You okay over there?” She’s looking over from her place at the computer, concern etched into her face.
“We’re fine,” Laurel answers, arms crossing over her chest.
Nyssa quirks an eyebrow at her and a smirk pulls at the edges of her lips. It brightens her face and Laurel can’t help but gaze at her lips, full and free of any lip gloss. Nyssa sees her looking and the grin stretches even wider.
“For someone in a cell, you’re sure smiling a lot,” Felicity quips as she walks up next to Laurel. Nyssa’s smirk drops and Laurel admires her calm, but fierce stare as she levels it at Felicity. To Felicity’s credit, she doesn’t flinch.
For the rest of Laurel’s stay in the Arrow cave, it is Nyssa’s eyes that track Laurel and if Laurel puts a little pep in her step, a little swing to her hips, well, who could blame her?
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Laurel learns a lot of things about her soulmate before ever having a conversation with her.
Nyssa’s father is the head of the League of Assassins and they have a troubled relationship. Nyssa is the strong, but silent type and looks devastatingly beautiful in everything she wears, but shines in green. Nyssa has siblings, and offhandedly mentioned a sister. Nyssa doesn’t like Oliver or anyone on Team Arrow for that matter. Nyssa likes Malcolm Merlyn even less and she is deadly with a sword, with a stick, with a baton, with her fists and could probably kill a man with just one leg and her hands tied behind her back.
As much as she learns about her soulmate and as much as she actually decides she likes her soulmate, it’s Helena who has an actual conversation with her first.
“So what did daddy dearest ever do to incur the wrath of his daughter?” She asks mockingly. Laurel knows her heart is half in it, a victim of her own father, and more than likely striking up a conversation to give Laurel more information about a woman she is timid and quiet around in an effort to skirt around fate.
“He insulted me.” Nyssa says it simply, but her hands curl into fists at her side and her eyes gloss over with a vehement anger.
“Your hair?” Asks Helena, mocking and playful.
Nyssa’s eyes narrow, but Helena stares her on. “He stole my birthright and wants to give it to a man that is not worthy. That does not even want it.”
“And your birthright is to be the leader of a bunch of assassins?”
“Yes,” Nyssa insists. “It is mine by rights.”
Helena sighs and adjusts her face mask. “Whatever happened to just inheriting a butt ton of money?”
Nyssa rolls her eyes and Helena and Laurel both can tell that Helena has been dismissed. After a few moments of Laurel debating of what a coward she is and that dammit, she should just say something, anything really, but then Nyssa tenses and her hand tightens on the handle of her blade.
“They’re here,” she says.
It’s all the warning they get before the League descends.
It’s another flurry of black and the gleam of swords.
Laurel lets instinct take her. Her moves are fluid and harsh. She strikes to disarm, to wound, and to protect herself. She can hear Helena grunting behind her, and her senses zone in on Nyssa as well.
Nyssa is beautiful.
She is even more striking when she fights, more gorgeous as she concentrates and her face pulls stern and furrowed as she goes in, sword penetrating the air and flesh as she wields it like another limb, graceful and filled with intent. She is the perfect ensemble of a deadly dancer with knives rather than ballet flats and ribbons. Her hair, dark curled ringlets, fly about, twirling with each jerk and jar of her movements.
Laurel’s focus upon her is the only reason she sees it.
There’s a third member of the League approaching and Nyssa is very good at what she does, she must hear him.
But what if she doesn’t?
What if there are words on Nyssa’s skin and Laurel doesn’t say them, doesn’t bring them to life, until it’s too late?
What if the words on Laurel’s skin were a farewell instead of a greeting?
Laurel wants to scream, to cry out and knock him on his feet, but she’s no metahuman. Instead, Laurel takes her arm back, baton clutched tightly, and she flings it forward. It whistles through the air, and connects with his throat. She smirks.
Nyssa disarms and fatally wounds the other two men she had been facing before turning to Laurel, eyes sharp and focused. “Don’t look so shocked,” Laurel tells her, smirk still firmly in place. “It’s all in the wrist.” The shock that falls across Nyssa’s face is alarming. She staggers a bit and Laurel’s smirk falters.
Don’t look so shocked. It’s all in the wrist.
Those were her words.
She spent all this time trying to think of the perfect thing to say and in the end she tried to be cute while showing off, preening her black leather feathers.
If they weren’t in the middle of a fight with deadly assassins, Laurel would pray to whatever higher power there was for a black hole to open up and swallow her right then and there.
Nyssa dispatches of the goon Laurel had nailed in the throat and Laurel jumps to Helena’s aid who looks more chipper than a girl should be while fighting three men at once.
Laurel is weak and achy and so very tired when the fight ends. She’s not sure why it ends, but the name Ra’s al Ghul is thrown around and Laurel is observant enough to know that is Nyssa’s father, the one that hurt her. Laurel gets the sense that the surviving members of the League will be returning and when they do, they’ll have their Demon with them.
For now, Laurel doesn’t care. She just wants to go home and soak in her big tub with lots of bubbles and some rocky road ice-cream. The thought of food sends her stomach grumbling and there’s a hollowed ache in it that demands she eats now.
Laurel isn’t proud, but she sneaks off without anyone knowing. Not even Helena is aware when she slips away, and especially not Nyssa.
Laurel’s not sure what she’s scared of.
Well, that’s not true. She knows what her deep, dark fears are.
Everyone she has ever loved has left her.
Oliver left her repeatedly. Figuratively and literally. Always something better, always someone better. She was never enough for him and as many times as she smiled and understood and forgave, it pierced her, dug into the tender parts of her heart and tore. Sara died and Laurel struggled with that every day, feeling responsible and if she were honest, a bit like she had died with her. Her mother left. Her favorite child dead and Laurel just . . . existing. Again, there, open and honest and ready, but not enough.
She was never enough.
Why would that be different with a soulmate?
Soulmates weren’t guarantees. The fundamental differences that existed in both Laurel and Nyssa were evidence enough and there were just, what? Supposed to overcome?
Laurel tore into her burger, suppressing a moan as her taste buds shot off from the cheese and fresh bread. She swallows and gathers up some fries before dipping them into her milkshake. It tastes divine and Laurel knows this is it. This is the moment of utter fulfillment and she can die now, happy and sated. She’s entranced with her food and almost startles when a shadow falls over her.
It’s almost comical, the way she swallows as she looks up at the exact person she was hiding from as she stares up with wide, unsure eyes.
Nyssa stares down at her, hands folded in front of her and clears her throat. If Laurel didn’t know any better she would say that Nyssa were nervous. “May I sit?” Nyssa asks.
Laurel tells herself it’s the food in her mouth that has her shrugging and jerking her head towards the empty chair that sits across from her.
“You ran out very fast,” Nyssa prompts, sliding into the chair. “I didn’t even get the chance to tell you that I wasn’t shocked at your agility, but at your desire to help me.” She sits primly, back straight and elbows off the table. Laurel sits there, star struck, elbows burrowing into the table and burger hiding her face as she peers over it, heart beating wildly. “While I was tracking you here I realized that was the point. You were running. You knew who I was weeks ago.” It’s a statement and Laurel can’t tell if Nyssa is hurt or angry or if she even cares at all. She is completely vacant of emotion as she sits there, talking. “I’ve waited a very long time to meet you.”
Laurel puts her burger down and wipes her hands on her napkin, trying to look anywhere but directly at her soulmate.
“I was hungry,” Laurel tells her lamely. Nyssa doesn’t say anything and Laurel feels like the biggest asshole to grace planet Earth. She feels like Oliver back when they were in college and the thought of it makes her stomach roll. “I’m sorry,” she confesses and braces herself against the table. “I don’t know what to do.” It’s the most honest she’s been in a long time.
All the anger and aggression she let out on Ted, because of Ted, was all raw energy and while it was an outlet, it helped direct her feelings to the improper channel. With Helena, Laurel spent her time as the rock, as the solid one in the relationship, and wow, was that a joke. But here, with Nyssa, her soulmate, she couldn’t be any of those things and it wasn’t fair if she tried to be something or channel her feelings away and into something else because while Laurel ran, Nyssa ran after her.
“You have a warrior’s heart,” Nyssa said. “I meant that and I still do.”
Laurel laughed then, lightly. “Maybe on the streets, in my suit. Or in the courtroom, in my other suit. But me? Alone? With my family and friends? Not so much.”
“You’re very short-sighted.”
“Excuse me?” She’s not sure what Nyssa means by it, but she tenses all the same.
“Your words. ‘Don’t be so shocked’. It says it right on the back of my neck. When I was a child, I thought maybe you were a trickster. Like the people with the cards that loitered the streets. I thought maybe you did a trick, and as I got older I thought maybe you were like me. Maybe your trick was more deadly. But I was wrong about that too. Then I thought maybe you were completely mundane and you did something that made me pause, and perhaps you wanted reaffirmation and that’s why you started the way you did.” She pauses then and Laurel watches as she licks her lips and her eyes dart away. Nyssa is nervous and it lightens Laurel like a sunrise. “You don’t need anyone’s affirmation. Not mine or a friend’s or anyone else. You are a warrior.”
Laurel smiles and takes another bite of her burger. She swallows and says, “Thanks.”
“You saved my life today,” Nyssa continues. “I can count on one hand the amount of people who have ever intervened to help me and I would have room for four more.”
Laurel’s throat tightens and for a moment she thinks yes, this is why we wear each other’s words, this is why. “I highly doubt I saved your life. You know what you’re doing. You knew he was coming.”
Nyssa nods, slowly and deliberately. “That matters very little to me.” Nyssa is staring at her and for the first time in Laurel’s life she has no idea what to do. She has always been composed. In the face of the bullies that used to target Sara, in the face of her father’s anger and disappointment, in the face of her mother leaving, in each and every courtroom she has found herself in- she has always been ready. But now she falters and it’s the absolute worst time because Nyssa is staring with what Laurel thinks is hope and want in her eyes. And how is it that the assassin is being so open and forthright and the hero the papers call Black Canary is absolutely stuck in place with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth?
The glass cup of her milkshake shines and it grabs her attention.
“Have you ever had fries and milkshake?” Laurel asks. She’s one hundred percent aware she’s deflecting, but she’s also trying to reach out. That has to count. It has to.
Nyssa blinks. “What?”
“You take a French fry,” she picks one up and sticks it in the air like a spoil of war. “Then you dip it in the milkshake.” She swirls the fry around, picking up as much of the ice cream as she can before popping it in her mouth. She smiles as she chews and throws her hands up in the air. Laurel swallows and then says, “It’s all in the wrist.”
Nyssa smiles then and it’s the first time she’s ever seen Nyssa in such a way. Beautiful and free and happy and Laurel will never admit it, but her heart stutters and the butterflies are released, flapping away inside of her belly. She wipes her damp hands on the leg of her pants and watches as Nyssa tentatively grabs a French fry and copies all of Laurel’s movements. She looks contemplative as she chews, but her eyes brighten and she nods and Laurel feels her heart fluttering and she knows that this is it.
Maybe it was fate that led her here. Maybe fate is a bitch that can’t be denied and at this point, Laurel has no desire to deny fate, or her soulmate, absolutely anything.