HOMEMADE DYNAMITE !
❝ BLACKOUT. ❞

MAYA BLACK'S HOUSE BURNED TO THE GROUND. It burned and burned until nothing but ashes and dust remained. A phantom seared into Abigail Lance's memories the same way it lay in the glowing embers forgotten. The place she now stood, boots buried in the rubble, hair smoke stained and soot smeared. Bitter morning air stung her cheeks, the cold kiss of winter on a dull and grey day.

"We should go. Never should've come back here in the first place."

Dick Grayson's voice softly reached her ears, soothing the guilt which made her head scream. His voice brought back her memory of the moment in the car, when he was dying, when she couldn't think about anything but trying to show him what she couldn't say. Fuck. Her impulses once again had landed her in more trouble than good. Aunt Dinah was right. That was annoying.

"They won't come back," Abby murmured, tearing her eyes up from the embered coals to meet his gaze, "They took Jess. And Kory. And Gar. They won't come back. They have all they need for us to come to them."

Dick let out a long sigh. His warm breath contrasting the biting cold, rising in a white puff and mingling with the ascending haze of smog. Daybreak City was cold. Icy. Dark. An ironic oxymoron to its namesake, a twisted paradox. Shadows lived here and Abigail Lance knew that's why Maya Black, why the Ghost, decided to move to such a place. To save this city. It seemed Oliver Queen and Barry Allen had rubbed off on her.

"Still," Dick finally said, "We should go. We've all had the shit beaten out of us and —."

"Getting the shit kicked out of you," Abby turned to face him abruptly, "is very fucking different to dying, Grayson. You didn't get beaten up, Dick. You died. How can you have forgotten that?"

"And I came back. I haven't forgotten." he ground his teeth together in frustration. "Obsessing over it isn't going to magically let you understand the reasons. We don't linger on the unknown. We accept it and we move on."

She turned her sharp eyes on him. "Was I just supposed to accept it if you died?" she scoffed, turning back towards the flames. "You know me better than that."

"Yeah." He let out a light laugh. "I do. I'd have woken up in the Lazarus Pit. Ra's al Ghul would be ecstatic."

Abby barked out a laugh. "He wouldn't have a say in it. If it wasn't me, it'd be Bruce or Melanie."

"Melanie, maybe, but Bruce... no, not Bruce," his voice softened, vulnerable like a ribcage split open, heart bore to the world. "He has a line. He doesn't cross it. Not for anyone."

"Good job you've got me then, Batboy," Abby mused with a smile, crossing her arms as she moved around him, heading back towards the SUV.

Noah and sat grief stricken in the car at the wheel. Rachel was sleeping on the backseats, dried tears still staining her cheeks. As soon as the two vigilantes appeared in the window, relief flooded Noah's face. He could leave. The corpse of his home could finally stop haunting his peripheral vision.

"Where do we go from here?" Noah asked softly, voice barker above a whisper.

"The only place we can go," Abby sighed, folding her arms as she glanced back to the house, "After them."

"Is that a good idea?" Noah replied, "Last time they pretty much wiped the fucking floor with us, Abby."

"What other choice do we have?" Abby replied snappily.

Dick interceded, in an attempt to pacify the growing contempt, "Abby's right, Noah. We have to go get them. We can't just abandon them."

Noah sighed, grip tightening on the steering wheel, "It's suicide, you know that, right?"

Abby grinned, flinging open the passenger door, "Best rescue coups are."

As the engine fired up, a slight smile spread across their faces — except Rachel's. The blue haired girl was fast asleep on Dick's shoulder, the latter looking a frustrated combination of annoyance and fondness.

Abby cooed mockingly, "Look at that, all those years babysitting Lizzie are finally paying off. Seems you are good for something after all!"

"Yeah, having a baby sister did teach me a few things," Dick muttered, beginning to shift in his seat.

"Oh yeah?" Abby raised an eyebrow, turning in her seat to face him, "Like wh—? Ow!"

Interrupted by the blanket once tucked in the side compartment of Dick's door hitting her face with a poof!, Abby snatched the red fabric from her face with a glare. Asshole. She wasted no time screwing it up into a ball and hurtling it back at him just as quickly.

"Like that," Dick mused, only laughing harder when the blanket crashed back into his chest.

Abby frowned in frustration. "You're such a fucking child."

"Am not."

"Are too!"

Dick opened his mouth to retort again, when a blinding brightness erupted before them, a cascade of heavenly light descending. Noah slammed on the brakes sharply, all three passengers skidding forwards in their chairs — some more than others. Others being Abby. As in she was half in the footwell. And all she could thing was how the hell did she end up with such childish friends.

Abby popped back up immediately, hand on her bruised head as a scowl worked its way across her face.

"Noah, what the fu..."

Her words died in her mouth.

It wasn't a light that made him brake. It was a person. A woman.

She was starlight incarnate. A supernova in flesh, bundled up into the human form stood before the car. The very universe was woven into her skin, stellar nebulas collapsed and imploded in her burning irises. Galaxies raged in her hands, at her fingertips. She made the sun look dim and the world around them colourless. Every drop of light in known existence seemed to have made a home in the body of the woman before them.

Stars lived and died inside this woman. Entire solar systems crumbled at her feet. But Abigail Lance simply knew her as Nora Black-Allen.

Three faces stared in awe, somehow they'd almost forgotten the ethereal plane in which Nora Black-Allen seemed to exist on, the celestial echelon she ascended to when her powers manifested.

Slowly, dazed and moonstruck, the three of them stepped from the car, stalling to a stop behind their open doors, as though another step towards her presence would incinerate them. Wipe them from this very existence.

"Remind me again why the world named her Blackout?" Abigail breathed, hand falling from her head.

The light began to fade, dissolving into her skin like liquid gold as the colour of the world began to leak back, ebbing into their vision as the dark haired woman became took a clear form before them. She stepped forwards, dark eyes and hair a strong contrast to the image she arrived in, and raised an eyebrow to Abigail.

"Remind me again why I always have to clean up your messes."

Nora. Abigail couldn't believe it. Wouldn't. Her friend hadn't been seen in years, been so far off the radar she hadn't existed for the past half decade. She was here. And suddenly the idea that she had inhaled too much smoke into her battered and bruised lungs seemed more probable, more likely, than the raven haired woman stood before her.

Dick took a step forwards wide eyed. "Nora?"

The girl grinned, a sly smirk which curved up the edges of her lips and transformed her entire face. She got that from her mother. "In the flesh, Grayson."

Oh my God. The words left Abby's lips so fast, so faint and blurred, she wasn't even sure if she'd said them. She stumbled forwards, throwing her arms around the girl tightly, holding on as though the fear that Nora might vanish in a blink of light was too terrifying to risk. Because it was. Abigail Lance was good at doing things on her own. She prided herself on being independent. Some of her strongest strengths lay in her ability to shoulder the heavens better than Atlas.

But fucking hell. No sight could've lifted the weight on her shoulders more than that of one of her oldest friends. She would be okay. Nora had come home.

Nora's aura softened. The very stance in which she held herself dulled and gentled in the embrace of the once little girl whom she'd found wondering Wayne Manor. Her arms encircled Abby, pulling her into a bone-breaking hug. And suddenly that dark loneliness which had been eating away at her heart the past five years seemed like nothing. A fading star in a brightening dawn sky. Carried away on the morning breeze.

"And I thought our reunion was warm," Dick commented from behind Abby.

"And I thought five years would've taught you to keep quiet," Abby retorted snarkily as she pulled back from Nora to glare at the brunet.

Nora dragged in a deep breath, letting it out with a happy sigh as she looked at the duo, "Oh I missed this. Nothing quite like Abby Lance and Dick Grayson pointlessly arguing to make you feel like five years was five seconds."

"C'mere," Dick held his arms out with an eye roll, pulling Nora into a hug, "I missed you too, Black."

"It's Black-Allen, now," Nora protested, voice muffled in Dick's shoulder.

Noah let out a laugh, "At least you and Dad are finally getting along then."

"Baby steps, bro," Nora pulled away from Dick and grinned at Noah, "Baby steps."

The four of them took a moment, drinking in one another. Five years had changed them. There was no denying it. The years wore down on their shoulders, bending them crooked, pushing them down. Finally, cracks had begun to show. Cracks in the perfect facades the vigilantes had crafted into perfection. Time may not have been kind, but the people whom it was so cruel to now stood together stronger than ever. Stronger because of their cracks and crooked skeletons.

"So," Nora sighed, before looking between them expectantly, "Anyone gonna tell me who the tween staring at me in the car is? My Guess-Who skills aren't what they were, I'll admit."

"Don't worry, I'll give you three gos," Abby replied seamlessly, though her eyes moved to the car to find a conscious Rachel staring at out at them.

Dick seemed to ignore her comment. "That's Rachel, she's—."

"The reason all this is happening?" Nora cut in, hand on her hip inquisitively.

Noah blew out a long breath, "I nearly forgot how fucking blunt you are, twinkles."

"Really? I didn't," Dick muttered.

"You forgot everything else you did five years ago so I guess it evens out," Abby commented flatly as the four of them began to make their way back to the car.

"You definitely didn't," Dick grumbled back.

Nora turned to her brother as they reached the car, "Please tell me wherever we're going has more than one room."

Noah grimaced mockingly as he opened the car door, a solemn look mocking crossing his face, "We can only hope."

ABIGAIL LANCE HAD NOT REALISED HOW MANY HITS SHE'D TAKEN. But now, looking down at the tapestry of cuts and bruises painted on her fragile skin, it was clear she'd taken more than she realised. After she'd peeled off her suit, her skin had been caked in liquid rubies and garnets.

The motel they'd decided to stay at was nicer than the one Abby had nearly found herself killed in. There were a lot less murderous nuclear families roaming the car park. The five of them had doubled up on rooms, with Noah and Dick resorted to bunk buddies as Rachel, Nora and Abby piled into the second room, the latter two sharing a bunk — and suddenly Abby found herself going from half the world away from Nora, to is that your foot or mine?

But right now Nora was teaching Rachel a few tricks of the trade with her powers, and the radiant dazzle illuminating the entire room from the window told Abby it was going well. Her own rescue attempt on the large cut on her chest wasn't fairing so good.

Needle halfway through the fourth stitch, a loud thump! at the door made her jump. Letting out a low hiss as the needle slipped into her finger and burrowed in the skin of her wound, Abby stood up quickly, shaking her stinging hand as she rushed to the door. Pulling it open, it revealed the inward turning form of Dick Grayson.

His eyes dragged up to her face, lips parting before his gaze fell back down and his worried grimace was replaced by an entertained frown.

"Having trouble?"

Confused, Abby looked down, and her entire face scrunched up in a mortified groan as she noticed the abandoned needle still protruding from her chest, stitches and thread in tact. Brilliant.

She recovered quickly and looked up at him, nostrils flaring, "Not at all."

Spinning on her heel, she returned to the vanity in the corner of the room, using the mirror once again to try and rectify the mess she'd made of her stitches. In her defense, it had been a while.

Cautiously, Dick followed her into the room, the door clicking shut softly behind him. He moved to the bed closest to the door, leaning against it as he watched her with thinly veiled amusement.

"You sure about that?" he asked again, crossing his arms.

Abby flashed him a tight lipped smile, "I have this perfectly in hand."

And at that moment her trembling hand fumbled again, slipping and slicing open the entirety of the stitches she'd just sewn into place. She let out a frustrated huff.

"Okay, let me," Dick instructed, standing to his feet and making his way over to her.

She remained planted firmly to the seat, determination carved into her features as her shaking fingers picked up the needle and a new line of thread. He placed a hand softly over them.

"Lance, you've always been shit at stitches," he pointed out fairly, "Your hands are never still. Just let me help you."

"I don't need your help," Abby snapped back, turning back to the mirror to start again. But her hand hesitated. After a moment, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh.

Brown eyes meeting his, Abby slowly stood to her feet, handing him the needle and thread. Dick shrugged his jacket off, throwing it on the bed, and easily looped the fabric through the eye of the needle. He placed the needle against her blood soaked skin and opened his mouth to speak when she interrupted him first.

"Only because I'm out of practise," she reminded him warningly.

His brow lofted, bemused gaze meeting hers, before he gestured to her chest, "The wound's covered in blood. I need to clean it first."

She nodded curtly, heart pounding. He disappeared into the bathroom, the soft sound of water gushing from the tap echoing around the unnaturally silent room and he returned moments later with a damp cotton cloth.

"No offence," Dick started, looking down at the mistreated state of her wound, "But this is why your wounds always got infected."

"Shut up and stitch me up, Grayson," Abby growled, voice sliding close to dangerous.

He gave her an unimpressed look, but did as she asked — ordered. He cleaned what blood and grime he could from the cut with the cloth, dropping it crimson on the chair, before rummaging through the medical kit she'd found in the back of Noah's car. Turning back to her, victorious with an antiseptic wipe, he grinned impishly.

"This is gonna hurt," Dick warned, "Like a bitch."

Abby looked at him with a furrowed brow, "Why do you say that in amusement?"

"Let's just say it'll be nice to have you cursing something other than me for once," he muttered in response, ripping open the packet and pulling the antibacterial wipe out.

As soon as the chemicals touched her skin, her hand grabbed onto his forearm, gripping it tightly in a form of relief as she let out a low hiss. She did not miss this.

"You'd think," she forced out from between ground teeth, "that after over a fucking decade of this shitshow, I'd have a higher goddamn pain tolerance."

Glancing up from the cut for a moment to smile softly at her, before returning to his work, Dick's voice came out distracted, "Well in your defence, you had five years off."

Abby began to let a small laugh bubble in her throat, teetering on the tip of her tongue, when she sucked in a sharp breath, her grip tightening on his arm as he wiped away the last clot of blood and dirt. Why didn't she stay in fucking Star City?

"Hey," Dick smiled, voice soft and encouraging as she lifted her gaze to meet his gentle one, "you did great."

She rolled her eyes fondly, "Just get it over with. I want more than five hours sleep for once."

Dick replied with a short nod, picking up the needle and thread again, only hesitating for a second before he began to sew the split skin back together. He made quick work of the mess she'd left him, leaving a neat row of stitches behind his calloused and crooked fingers. He always managed to do this. And she never ceased to be amazed at the delicate fragility in which Gotham's hard hitting sidekick (former!) managed to patch her up.

Her iron clamp of a hold on his arm slackened as he placed the needle down. But the clamp on her chest tightened into a death lock as he leant down, so close his breath grazed her matted skin, to bite the end of the thread off. As though he felt her heart hitch into her throat (she was pretty sure he did, he was practically half ninja), his dark brown gaze drifted up to her as he tied the knot in the thread.

Up through eyelashes and strands of stray hair that begged her to brush them out of the way, just for a clearer view of the irises which dragged her in the first time. When her skin set on fire under his cold hands she pulled away, ignoring the twang of her stitches yanking as she did.

He left you. She had to remember that. He didn't come back. No matter how much she had wanted him to. No matter how much he claimed to have wanted to. He didn't. No amount of kindness, of soft hands and gentle smiles and arrow-taking could change the facts. It was set in stone.

"You okay?"

He sounded concerned. He left you.

Abby nodded firmly. "Course."

Dick frowned, clearly unconvinced. No, not unconvinced. Five years didn't change much and it was clear the man before her still knew her just as well as the boy she befriended all those years ago in Wayne Manor.

He took a step towards her, and she took one back. His eyebrow lofted, tone dripping with sarcasm, "Obviously."

She shrugged flippantly, "I'm fine. Stitches just hurt that's all."

Dick crossed his arms, and Abby knew she was not going to like the words that came next. "I don't understand you, Abs. You go from hot to cold in a split second. One minute I think you might actually be my friend again, and the next it's like you can't even stand being in the same room as me."

"Bullshit," Abby spat. "You always understood, more than anyone and you knew that — know that."

"Then why does it feel like I haven't got a clue what's going on in your head?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

Abby pressed her lips together, forming an ambiguous line. "Because you don't want to know. You don't want to admit that you fucked up! You fucked up, Dick Grayson."

"Now isn't the time to—," Dick began, starting to turn towards the door, not wanting to face her.

The brunette was in front of him in seconds, leant against the door, blocking his way. She'd spent too long running from this conversation. "No, no now is as good as time as any — you nearly died and I'm still no closer to figuring out how you taking a fucking arrow for me in any way makes sense after you left me."

"You wouldn't understand," he muttered, trying to move past her.

She blocked his path with her arm, tone set, "I wouldn't understand? Try me, Grayson."

"Abby. Just move," he asked. Pleaded.

"No, Dick!" She shook her head, seething, burning, her blood beginning to turn to flames. "I deserve to know what I did wrong."

After all this time, after all these years, didn't she deserve the truth? Didn't, after everything they'd been through, he owe her at least that? She knew a lot of things in her life weren't certain, and she knew a lot of things in his changed daily, but she knew for a fact, that he didn't just wake up that morning and decide he didn't love her anymore.

"Abby!" he spat fire, words hot and raging.

"No! Talk to me!"

He began to move her arm, voice so cold it lowered the temperature in the room, "No! No, I will not put you through this! Not aft—!"

"That's not your choice! You left me! ... Dick," she cut him off, standing in front of the boy as he tried to make it past her, "Dick, I deserve to know. Just tell m—!"

"Because leaving you was the only way I could keep you safe!" Dick snapped, looking down at her in frustration and heartbreak and like the day he walked out had only been yesterday, "Okay?! That's it! That's all I've got!"

"I was safe! And I could fucking take care of myself if I wasn—."

"You know we weren't safe. You know it, Abby," he ground his teeth in annoyance, "And we weren't safe because of my actions. Because of what I did."

"What you did... it was wrong, Dick," Abby let out a sigh, placing a hand on his arm, anger dying in her throat like ashes of a burnt out fire, "But it wasn't just your fault. We all played our part."

From where he stood, still trying to get out the door, she found herself wedged between him and the corner of the hotel room. He was so close. So close she was worried her heart would pull the stitches in her chest. So close she could feel his heart beating just as fast and fuck, all he wanted to do was close the distance between them.

His voice fell quiet, "I never meant to hurt you, Abs."

"You never should've left," she pointed out softly, her brows pulling together, "We could've left together."

"He nearly killed you," he murmured, "If staying meant risking your life then I'd leave again. Every time."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Abby muttered, a bemused smile tracing her features, "I don't need you taking arrows for me every time a guy waves a weapon in my direction."

"I know, I know. You're a big girl. You can take care of yourself," he smiled down at her, edging closer, "But if you're gonna kiss me every time I nearly die then maybe it's worth it."

She placed a hand in his chest. Soft, but firm. Holding him back. Suddenly she wasn't sure if this was worth risking her heart the way she did before. Watching him die not even forty-eight hours ago had left an ice in her bones not even his burning skin could thaw.

"Kissing you was a mistake." The words stung her like a sharp blade, slipping softly between her ribs. She couldn't imagine how he felt. I thought you were dying. They lay unsaid in her mouth. 

He stepped back. She didn't know two feet could feel like two galaxies but here she was, on the other side of the universe to him. It felt as though she was further from him now than she had ever been. Her words hung heavy on her tongue, like lead, stifling her, suffocating her. But she couldn't. She couldn't do it. She couldn't hurt like that again.

Gently, his arms guided her to the side, the brunette letting him move her as she watched silently. Her arms wound around herself, watching him open the door. He was only a foot out, barely in the hallway, when he stopped and glanced over his shoulder at her.

"For what it's worth," he said, voice like gravel, "I'm sorry."

When her reply didn't pass her lips, his gaze fell to the floor, a soft sigh escaping his nose. He slowly turned, the door clicking shut quietly behind him, not quite bringing himself to look back.

And the room was empty, swallowing her whole, and she found herself alone once again; she felt the words slip from her lips like silk, vanishing into the void before her.

"Me too."

NOTE!
4000+ words of trash!!! trash i tell you!! but 2000 extra makes up for the week late update, right? more divergence next chapter dont worry 😌 I'M NOT SURE WHAT IM DOING YET BUT IM EXCITED TO MAKE IT UP

also! please don't get upset, but i'm moving updated to once a week, instead of every four days — as you clearly can see, i just can't do it. but i will update every friday. every single friday. an update. around 10pm GMT (10pm in the uk).

thoughts!? what did we think? i promise i'll resolve abby and dick,,,,, like at some point. eventually. 😔✊