Whether by magic or divine graces, Zatanna does not look like she has been drinking.
"Nightwing," she greets him casually, over a lime-rimmed glass of cheap tequila.
"Zatanna," he says, "at the risk of sounding cliché, I didn't think I would see you here." The bar seat gives a shrill, rusty squeak when he sits down beside her, but this is the price he pays for abandoning Alfred's bartending skills and Bruce's very much not secret collection of hard liquor.
"I think only Kaldur isn't out drinking," she says. The pulp of the lime wedge is cold at the pad of her finger. "What made you decide to go slumming out to Gotham City's sketchiest bar when you have Alfred?"
"Alfred makes sure I remember things after I get drunk," Dick says, his Manhattan on the rocks sloshing in the round bottomed glass. "I don't suppose there's a spell for that? Making sure I forget?" Of course, permanent amnesia is a special side effect of liquid magic labeled 'borderline dangerous amounts of alcohol'. Not his preferred, but still effective nonetheless.
"Ask Dad," is her only response, or that's what it sounds like behind the third shot of tequila—there's a lineup of empty glasses still full of ice in a crooked line by her right elbow.
He laughs dryly. "I didn't know Dr. Fate was as much of a morbid alcoholic as his daughter."
"Lot of tricks up our sleeves," she quips.
"Drinking is a trick?"
"A talent," she corrects him. "One I wonder if you have in your arsenal, Nightwing."
"I might."
"We'll find out," she says. "Cheers." The glasses clink. "It's what he would have wanted." Dick nods numbly and barely avoids vomiting as he experiences Gotham's most unfermented whiskey in its entirety. Disgusting, but exactly what he's looking for tonight.
Alcohol morphs his perception of time like a Dali painting. He measures minutes in shots, hours in sickly sweet mixed drinks with too much simple syrup. Being an honorary Wayne, however, thankfully means he still retains some semblance of dignity despite being inebriated beyond belief—a good thing, because he holds his alcohol like a leaky colander, according to Jason.
So at what Dick estimates is about a quarter past midnight, he stumbles out into the sticky humidity of late June Blüdhaven missing only his jacket, which he finds that Zatanna has anyway.
"No chauffeur or limo?" she asks, a peal of giggles spilling out of her mouth as if the notion was the funniest she had ever heard. In light of current events, it might have been. The apples of her cheeks are soft red among the dark curls of hair that fall around her face, still in perfect spirals. Magic, he decides.
L'oreal, actually, she jokes, heeled boots clicking sharply on the concrete sidewalk.
No way, that's what mine is too.
I know, she tells him in partially shaded lamplight, a half hour's worth of walking later in the manor, her hands meeting skin and cotton and the slight divot of his collarbone. I've used it before.
Multiple times, he agrees. Toothbrush, too.
Shut up.
...
He tells her he loves her without thinking.
"Say it backwards," she laughs, flushed cheeks visible even in the dark. "Then it'll be a lock."
He tries.
...
Almost, the note beneath his clock reads the next morning.
He collapses in a bloody mess in her arms the next time they meet.
"I've ruined your gloves," he laments weakly. "Your white gloves," he adds, a bit stupidly, feeling the need to specify the already obvious.
"The good silk ones, too," she says. "Too bad I'll never get it out. It would have to take magic to get them fixed up."
He makes an attempt at laughter that turns into a spray of red all over the floor. "Tide usually does the trick." She rolls her eyes. They are so blue, it hurts him to look at her. Actually, it hurts to do everything, but he has no intention of changing his previous statement.
"I shouldn't need to tell you this, but hold still." She concentrates as hard as she can. In the back of her mind, her father reminds her to breathe, and the magic will come naturally. Relax. Whatever hit Dick is powerful, but she is better. He's losing blood by the second, come on, hurry up, you can't let him die on you—
He gives a loud groan of pain.
"Okay, okay," she whispers. "Laeh." Some of the blood seeps back into his skin, but an ugly gash still remains on his core. She curses. "Laeh," she insists, and this time her hands glow brighter but oh god, there is blood, so much blood and where is the League when she needs them?
"Batman, zero-two."
"What happened?" he asks in his deep, gruff voice, kneeling beside his wounded protégé.
"The Joker," Dick says, grimacing. "Harley and Poison Ivy too." Bruce looks at Zatanna.
"I tried," she explains weakly. "I can't do it. It's too complex, I don't know how, I'm sorry—"
"It's not your fault. We'll get him taken to a safe house."
"What are you going to do, drag him there?" Zatanna snaps. "Not in this state. Where's Aqualad?"
"With Aquaman doing liaison in Atlantis," Batman tells her.
"Then get my father," she says. "Where is he?"
"Unavailable," is the curt reply.
So she'll have to try harder. She puts her hands together in front of her chest, and this time, her entire body glows when she casts the spell. "Laeh sih sdnuow ylluf." It takes a lot out of her, more than she is used to exerting, and the sheer magnitude of the magic required from her is enough for her to join him on the brink of passing out.
"I ever tell you how much I love you?" Dick whispers, nose inches away from her lips. The true mark of being raised by the Batman, to be professing his love in a pool of blood on Death's doorstep.
"Once or twice."
A million times, she thinks hazily, some in closets, some in the corner of the Cave, a handful over text, too many while dying inches away from her face, and still never often enough.
"Well." He laughs faintly. "I love you. A lot."
"So chalant about it," she whispers, a grin playing on her face.
"It's how we are," he says, and he dissolves with the rest of the world as she slips into unconsciousness.
Funny, she thinks within her last moments before passing out. He's always been funny.
...
Zatanna wakes up back in her bed at the Cave in perfect health, energy fully restored. A slight buzz of magic fades out in her veins—she probably didn't spend any time in the hospital. She sits up to take a drink of water, then observes a new presence in the room.
Black Canary drops the corner of her trademark cropped punk jacket. "How are you feeling?"
Years of knowing Artemis and gaining her edge have trained Zatanna to know when she's being psychoanalyzed. "Fine. Dad put me right again." She runs her fingers quickly through her hair, a cursory movement in an attempt to appear neater and better kempt.
"I know. What you did to Nightwing helped a lot. Your dad said he was proud of you. I didn't know if you were awake to hear it, but he is."
"Thanks."
"You didn't have to do that for him, you know." Dinah is cool and pragmatic in her word choice, careful to avoid stepping on lingual minefields.
"I couldn't let him die," she says. "That's not an option for me."
"I'm not insinuating that you would let him," Dinah clarifies.
Then what are you insinuating? she thinks. Her face is going to give away her frustration with Dinah—Dick's always told her she was bad at lying.
"Nothing goes out of this room," Dinah assures her.
"I don't know what you're trying to get me to say," Zatanna says.
Black Canary folds her legs in the armchair opposite Zatanna and steeples her fingers. The look on her face is a blend of kindness and concern that, on anyone else's face, would appear condescending. "I think you're in love with him."
Oh, she thinks. Zatanna Zatara, daughter of Dr. Fate, magician, the Boy Wonder's latest fling. It seems to be a title deserving of its place on the list.
"You shouldn't be ashamed," Dinah continues. "Look at Ollie and me. It isn't illegal, or unprofessional. But if you think it interferes with your line of work, you should consider taking a break."
Taking a break, like Artemis. For an indeterminate amount of time, done of grief and a heart that had been broken too many times. Zatanna does not mourn Dick, nor has he broken her heart—which begs the question, has she ever placed it in his possession?
"Okay." She picks at the spotless white of her gloves—Tide really is magical. "I'm not in love with him."
Dinah unfolds her fingers. "Just think about what I said," she says as she walks out. She turns around to lean on the doorframe. "In case you ever change your answer."
"I will. Thanks."
A sticky, stifling August midnight rushes to meet her two months after Black Canary's statement. Dick stands outside her apartment door, head bowed, arms on either side of the doorframe to support his weight.
"Artemis," he says, before she can ask. The tiger's mask in his hand clatters to the floor, confirming every worst case scenario she has turned over in her head since June in the Arctic.
He stumbles in over the threshold and sits down on the couch too hard, like all his muscles have decided to give out at the last second. He doesn't even hesitate when Zatanna opens a bottle of whiskey and hands the whole stupid thing to him.
Between mouthfuls of alcohol that slosh and drip down her chin, she asks, "How?"
"Solo mission in Paris. You saw how the Eiffel Tower is completely covered in ivy and has a chunk missing from its leg, right?"
"It was her," Zatanna says numbly.
Dick covers his face with one hand and pushes his hair back. "We couldn't even recover the body."
Zatanna's stomach twists in on itself. The irony of it all is demonically cruel—nothing but crime and poison ivy where roses should have been to honor the place where Wally and Artemis made their last stand together.
"To Artemis—Tigress," she hiccups, shakily pouring herself another glass of the precious amber liquid. "And Wally. A-And ending crime, and justice, and Paris, and love—" The glass is too full now; all the alcohol spills out in cold streams along her hand and she drops the bottle, crying, trying to not drop the cup and add to the field of shattered glass already on the floor.
Dick, always the more composed one, raises his glass in a gesture that looks more like a curse on heaven than a toast. "To love," he says, "and all of the above." Ha, he thinks. It rhymes.
She starts laughing. Quietly, at first, then hysterically, a frenzied almost-screaming mixed with salty tears and the burn of liquor. Toasting to love in the midst of death. It sounds like some kind of morbid alien ritual. "To love, and all of the above," she repeats, clumsily knocking her glass into Dick's. The glass on the floor clinks when she kicks it.
They drink. They cry. And then they run away from each other again, just like every time.
The first day of December is colder and snowier than he remembers. It had always snowed, and on his birthday every year except the recent ones, Jason had always celebrated by hurling an eighty-mile-per-hour snowball at his chest. But Jason isn't here, and Bruce has decided to throw him a party for his twentieth anyway, inviting basically all of the Justice League and some old friends.
Dick enjoys it, for Jason.
"The guests have arrived, Master Dick." Alfred's countenance is as perfectly blank and unbiased as it ever is when he enters Dick's room.
He puts down the aftershave with unnecessary force. "Everyone?"
Alfred hesitates. "Almost."
Dick grimaces, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "Barbara's here at least, right?"
"Yes. Recall that she was one of the first guests to RSVP, Master Dick."
Dick peels off the mask and rubs the slightly damp skin around his eyes, blinking a few times. The palm of his hand still smells like aftershave. No matter how much Zatanna may have teased him in the past for taking after Bruce and throwing ridiculous parties, she hasn't missed a single one in the six years of knowing him, and he is painfully aware of her absence now.
"Your guests are waiting, Master Dick," Alfred says patiently.
He's right. Okay. Deep breath. Straight back. The thick wool of his suit crinkles as he takes his hands out of his trouser pockets. "Thanks, Alfred."
"You're welcome. Happy birthday, sir."
…
Barbara is, unsurprisingly, the first person Dick sees when he descends the twisting stairs to the hall.
"You look much better than you did for your fourteenth," she teases him, standing on tiptoes even in her heels to properly hug him and press her cheek to his. "Almost legal now," she adds, purposely swishing her mimosa in front of him.
"I find my way around that," he assures her, smirking.
"I'm sure you do." As much as Dick enjoys Barb's company, he can't help but sweep the crowd for familiar dark curls, and she notices.
"She'd come if she could, you know," she says.
"I know, I know. She's always been there, though. Speaking of which, how are you and Bette? Where is she tonight?"
Barb nods towards the punch bowl. "Looks like her second glass already." He watches as Bette deftly ladles a glass of punch without spilling a single drop on her trademark black cocktail dress, gold bangles clattering on her wrist.
"You know, I should go say hi to everyone else," Dick says abruptly. "Thanks for coming. Have some fun, okay?" Barb's anxious eyes follow him.
"Dick?" she says. He turns around. Barb is handing him a flute of champagne taken from the tray Alfred currently has balanced on his arm. He takes it hesitantly, the tips of his fingers barely meeting around the thin stem of the glass.
"Happy birthday," she says, raising her glass an inch before bringing it to her lips.
…
Most of the Justice League is there to wish him a happy twentieth—Ollie and Dinah, Diana, Arthur, and even Billy, who tells him happy birthday with no fewer than five throat-clearings to hide his puberty-induced voice cracks. Conner, Kaldur, Roy, M'Gann and the rest of the younger team are there too, including, Dick realizes with a flash of grief, Jaime and Bart, the latter of whom is waltzing around at a dangerous speed with a glass of (hopefully) non-alcoholic punch in one hand.
The sharp whining of a crystal glass reaches Dick's right ear as Bruce runs his finger along its rim. Those in the vicinity pause their conversation, and the effect runs through the rest of the crowd so they all face Dick and Bruce. Dick looks at him in question, but older man looks ahead.
"Eleven years ago, Dick Grayson was just a child. Today, I know him as an invaluable partner in fighting crime and upholding justice. I'm proud to have watched him grow from a young boy to the man with unquestionable honor he is today. Happy birthday, Dick." Bruce turns around and raises his glass of Merlot with a nod, and the crowd cries "hear, hear!", punctuated with the sound of clinking crystal.
"Thank you all for coming here tonight," Dick begins. "And thank you, Bruce, for those touching words. Please, enjoy yourselves, and all the alcohol I am still not legally allowed to drink." His last addition elicits a ripple of laughter from the crowd and a covert wink from Alfred.
Bruce claps Dick on the shoulder. "Enjoy the party. I trust that's fruit punch in your glass?"
"Absolutely," Dick agrees, pretending it isn't Artemis and Zatanna's top secret recipe for blackout-drunk jungle juice. There is punch in jungle juice, ergo, he isn't technically lying. "I think I'll go get some air."
Gotham City is beautiful in the early half of winter. The balcony of Wayne Manor is frozen over and dusted in snow, icicles cling to the railing, and beside the patio table, Zatanna Zatara shimmers into view, a dark fur stole wrapped around her slim shoulders.
"Am I late?" she asks in her familiar low voice.
"Fashionably," Dick responds, taking in the glittery, low cut black dress that sweeps the frosty ground. "You look good. I thought you wouldn't show."
"I couldn't break tradition." She pulls him down to her height and presses a kiss that tastes of Moet and Chandon to his lips. "Happy birthday, Boy Wonder."
He laughs softly, the vibrations of sound moving back and forth between their mouths. "Say it backwards."
"Evah a yppah yadhtrib," she murmurs with a slight giggle, lips just barely brushing the crease where his earlobe touches his jaw. The scent of Lancôme perfume from the pulse points at her throat clouds the air immediately around them, rose and cedar mixing in one sweet, drowsy cocktail.
This is how it should be, he thinks, his nose touching the curve of her neck and her fingers gripping the wool of his suit, no empty space between their skin. This is what they deserve to be.
"So, twenty, huh?"
"Same as you now," he replies. He pulls back, just enough for their foreheads to touch without having to move his hands from her waist.
"Almost." She refrains from making fun of his thing for older women, but just barely. "Older by five months, remember?"
"July seventh," he recalls, "seven-seven. Magical numbers and all that."
"You remember." Her breathy laugh is warm against the cold skin of his neck.
"You think I'd forget?"
Her first two fingers tiptoe with the gentleness of butterfly wings up the side of his neck. "Not really. Still, I didn't think you remembered."
"I'd like to say I know you well," Dick says. "Really well." His lips skim along the tender skin right by the side of her throat, and she suppresses a shiver completely unrelated to the weather.
"Come inside," he offers. His arm fits around her waist automatically, all muscle memory—the product of the many midnight visits seeking solace in each other. "The orchestra Bruce booked for tonight is great."
To his surprise, she pulls away. "I can't stay."
"Why not?"
"That's not what I mean," she says, softly and sadly, turning so the waves of her hair cover her eyes like a grainy black and white fifties movie.
He swallows his realization like a bitter pill. He can't say he's surprised by her statement, or angry. In fact, at the forefront of this barrage of emotion is not sadness, or even cynicism, but instead gratitude for the way she delivers it. There is no anger in the way she says it, only a vague, lilting sorrow.
A look of understanding passes between them. Something else too, something akin to relief, maybe. In a moment of such intense emotion, he feels almost surprised at the lack of mournful violin music, or else some other kind of cliché.
"Oh," he finds himself blurting out at last. The word tastes faintly of bile. "Okay."
He puts his arms around her waist—for the last time, he tells himself hollowly. She doesn't resist, but leans her head on his shoulder and traces a pattern—Van Gogh's Starry Night, maybe—on his neck.
Did you love me? he wonders.
Fo esruoc, she would tell him.
Dick wants to laugh at the bitter irony of their relationship. Fate's design is what the poets say. Doctor Fate's design is his take on it. He'll laugh about that with Giovanni some day.
She lets go of his shoulders, and already does he begin to crave the fading heat of her hands on his neck. The way she moves away from him is unquestionably final; he recognizes it in her slightly hunched shoulders, the black curve of damp eyelashes.
Don't leave.
"I love you," he says softly to her retreating figure.
Her sorrow-filled eyes shine back at him—they are brilliantly, cosmically blue in the growing space between them.
"Me too," she whispers.
When she disappears, nothing is left of her except the lingering scent of perfume.
fin.
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