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Dinah hasn’t celebrated her birthday in a long time. It started out when she began working in undercover ops. She’s usually been in deep cover around that time of the year, and couldn’t reveal herself by anything so trivial as her turning a year older. And after Vinnie’s death, she just didn’t have any reason to celebrate, nor the time for it anyway, as she dedicated all her time on finding and killing Sonus and his men. Even though these times were long over, and she now had a group of people she considered friends or brooding acquaintances in Oliver’s case, she was still a rather private person. The team didn’t even know about her birthday since all the information they had or cared looking up, was the file the police had on her, which didn’t even contain her real name let alone her birthday. Also, they never asked her about it, so why would she tell them anyway?
So, when her birthday came up this year, she didn’t even give it much thought. Felicity called her while Dinah was still working, saying there wasn’t anything urgent to do that night and that she could take the night off to relax, thank god. When she came home after work, she turned on the TV and went to call her favourite Indian place to order some food. While she walked to the kitchen, Dinah caught a movement in the corner of her eye. But before she could turn around to investigate, she felt a dull hit on her head, then everything turned black.
When Dinah regained consciousness, her head hurt. But for some reason, her hands did not feel cuffed, and she seemed to lie on something soft, a mattress she guessed. Whoever knocked her out was obviously stupid enough to think they could take her out and live, especially if they didn’t even cuff her hands. She prepared herself to fight her way out of this situation as soon as she opened her eyes, what she didn’t expect was finding herself on a mattress surrounded by candles.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t wake up until sunrise. Which would have made the effort I made pretty much worthless.”, a bored voice said. “I’d probably just leave you here until you freeze if you slept through all of this”
“Oh please no.”, Dinah groaned, rubbing her still aching neck when she recognised her company. Sitting up and turning around, she stared into Black Siren’s apathetic face. “Are you kidding me? What does Cayden James’ lapdog want from me now?”
“Really? I thought you would appreciate this a bit more.”, Siren explained, “I mean look around you. I even brought you a cake?!”
Dinah took the invitation to inspect her surroundings a bit more. They were sitting on a rooftop in the middle of Star City, next to the mattress there was a table filled with her favourite food (how did Siren even know that?) and a small cake saying, “Happy Birthday Eugene”, behind her, a screen and a beamer were already set up.
“Happy Birthday by the way”
“Huh- “, Dinah might not have expected to wake up on a comfy mattress after being knocked unconscious, but what she really didn’t expect was Black Siren, the Black Siren, knocking her out to then celebrate her birthday on said rooftop. “H-how do you- “
“I’ve known you, well, the other you, on my earth. She wasn’t one for birthday celebrations either, at least that’s what she told everybody. But when somebody surprised her, her eyes lit up in a way that showed everybody just how grateful she really was. Since she was my, umm, friend, I kinda, maybe, took it upon me to make sure she got her birthday party even if she didn’t ask for it.”, Siren told her in a melancholy voice and somehow Dinah knew that there was more to this, but the look on Siren’s face told Dinah to know better than to ask any further.
“But this still doesn’t explain, why would you do it for me then”, Dinah questioned, still confused about the villain‘s intentions for all this weirdness.
“I- I’m not sure, makes me feel normal somehow. Makes me feel a bit like back home”
“You didn’t care about normal when you started working for Cayden James”, bit Dinah.
“It’s true, she was one of the few people I cared about on Earth-2. So yeah, when I see you, I think about her and about seeing her get killed for her abilities. Only because we were stupid enough to feel safe together.”, Siren retorted, staring into the distance. Oh, so that’s the reason for all of this, Dinah’s Earth-2 counterpart was dead, and this was Siren’s twisted way of coping. When Siren realised, she just revealed a very private part of her life, she snapped defensively, “If you don’t want to stay, fine, leave anytime you want. If you want me to leave so you can enjoy this by yourself, also fine. But if you don’t want to be alone on your birthday, then stop being such a bitch about it.”
Dinah was shocked about Siren’s outburst, not because of the outburst herself, she had seen her in the field being controlled by rage. But because this was different, there was something other in her eyes besides the always present rage. Grief? Regret? Hurt maybe?
“Okay, fine, Siren. I’m not going to start about it again. I get it, you miss her, and you want to preserve a piece of her” Dinah sighed. This seemed to calm the other woman a bit.
“Laurel”
“Huh?”
“Call me Laurel. I usually go by Dinah too, but this would make it just awkward, wouldn’t it?” Laurel grinned.
“Okay…, Laurel, what have you planned for tonight?” Dinah smiled, still unsure about how to feel about the bizarre events of this evening but decided it would be easier to just go with it.
Dinah’s question made Laurel give her an excited smile. It suited her Dinah thought, she looked beautiful when she’s able to think about anything other than all the bad things that happened to her, even if it’s just for a moment.
“Well, you’ve already seen the cake and the food, which by now probably is cold. I could reheat it though, there are a lot of apartments in this building, if I break into enough of them, I’ll probably find a microwave….”
“Laurel you know I’m a cop, right?” Dinah laughed, “I mean the sentiment is sweet, but you know…”
“Sorry, yeah, it’s your choice, you’ll have to eat it, even if it tastes gross when it’s cold. Where was I? Right, so I’ve brought some movies, I thought you might like, …, at least my Dinah liked them, and I guess you have the same tedious obsession with these romcoms.” Laurel explained while turning on the beamer. She then turned to a box, opened it and showed Dinah a couple of movies. “Your choice Canary, I’ll suffer through any stupid romcom you choose.”
“Laurel, seriously, I don’t know what to say tonight”, Dinah really was speechless, she and Laurel weren’t friends, not even acquaintances, they were enemies on the field. But still, here she was, celebrating her birthday with her adversary, picking a movie to watch while eating nearly cold food and cake stolen from some random person.
“Then don’t say anything” the villain murmured sitting close to Dinah, after starting the first movie, “Just enjoy the company.”