Black Canary

Back to Square One

Brooklyn, New York

After a long night of singing in front of a drunken audience and being hit on by sleazy men at the lounge she works at, Dinah Laurel Lance walks home exhausted, ready to just pass out on her bed and forget about the night. She had worked an extended shift that night, which had worn her out and she was finally glad to be on her way home. During her walk, she gets a voicemail from her ex-girlfriend, Olivia Queen. Despite the fact that they've been broken up for a while, Olivia still sent her voice messages trying to reconcile their relationship.

"Hey, it's Liv. Or Ollie. Or Via. Or, whatever you wanna call me. You probably don't wanna call me anything right now and I definitely get that if you do. But, look. If you just-

Dinah turns off the voicemail before it can finish, not really feeling like hearing what Olivia had to say, especially after a long night at work.

On her way to her apartment building, she passed by one of her new neighbors, Clint Barton talking to the landlord.

"I get you own the building but you just can't boost the rent whenever you feel like it." Clint tries to tell the landlord, Ivan.

"Look, bro. I own building, bro and I control prices. That means if I want to raise price, I'll raise price."

Clint scoffed and shook his head.

"You do realize that a part of being a landlord is fixing the apartment problems, right? The lady that lives next to me has been dealing with clogged pipes for weeks? Or that Gilbert has an oven that won't warm anything up? He's been coming over to my place to use mine. Or, are you too money hungry to do anything about that?"

"Now, you listen bro-

"What's going on here?" Dinah asks, walking over to Clint and Ivan.

"This guy's raising rent prices. Again!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I'm trying to tell him to tone it down but he's got his head shoved too far up his ass."

"If you can't afford rent, find somewhere else live. Simple, bro."

"That's totally unfair. Every place in this city is already more than 1 grand." Dinah says, with Clint nodding in agreement.

"Are you telling me how to run my apartment?" Ivan asks, narrowing his eyes at Dinah and Clint. Clint opens his mouth to answer but Dinah gets in front of him, with a serious expression on her face.

"As a matter of fact, we are. You're being an asshole and someone clearly needs to put you in place. So, you either make these prices reasonable, or I'm gonna be seeing your ass in court."

With that, Dinah continues her walk to her own apartment. Ivan and Clint look at Dinah, surprised by her outburst. To them, she was usually a quiet and reserved woman, who tried to avoid trouble so seeing her go off on Ivan shocked them both.

"...I think you should listen to her." Clint tells Ivan quietly, before walking to his own apartment.

Dinah enters her apartment, plopping down on the couch tiredly.

"How was work?" Her roommate and friend, Helena Bertinelli ask, walking into the living room and sitting next to Dinah.

"Very. Fucking. Tiring. God, you're so lucky you don't work in that hellhole. It's just non-stop ogling-

"Well, it is a night club. In New York." Her other friend and roommate, Barbara Gordon interrupted.

"Not helping."

"Sorry. Have you been looking for other places for work? New York's huge. I'm sure you could find some other line of work... Like a waitress." Barbara suggests.