A/N: I'm back! I've gotten myself a tumblr, which is why I've been absent. I've done a bit of writing, but I just finished Young Justice so I thought I might as well write for it! However, this is awful, and I am so sorry to force you guys to read this. It's terrible. It was just supposed to be the phone call and the cave scene, but my finger's wouldn't stop, so everything before or after that is basically word vomit in a sense. So I'm sorry that you have to read my word vomit. I would take it away, but I kinda like it. In a weird, twisted way. So enjoy this horrible chalant story that has taken my three freaking days.
Gothem City
March 18, 19:30
She's sitting at the kitchen table, eating something she whipped up quickly for herself. It's nothing fancy, but when you get home after League duties she basically made whatever she could in the amount of time she had. She expected to have a quiet night at home, maybe watch a movie, go to bed early, because all she wanted to do was relax. Any hope of that was shattered however when she heard a key turning in the lock of her door.
She sighs. There goes any hope of having a peaceful night for once. Only one person has the key to her flat, and she knew that no matter what she tried Batman would send her off to do something whether she liked it or not. But until he came in, she was going to keep eating like nothing was wrong.
Of course, that plan was ruined when not Batman, but Dick stepped into her kitchen, dressed in his civvies and holding the key to her place in one hand. She almost chokes on her chicken. He laughs and sits down across from her. "Hey Zee. How's it going?"
She merely glares at him, and he holds his hands up in surrender. "Hey, hey. I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner. I called you and you didn't pick up, so I just swiped the key from Bats and came over. I need a favor."
She snorts. "Swiped? Yeah right. He probably knows you have it and the only reason he doesn't care is because he thinks you have a good reason. Which you better, or else I will be forced to remove you from the premises."
He rolls his eyes, but she can tell that he's getting serious. He pulls a necklace from his pocket, and she looks at it. It's an impressive piece of jewelry (for spell work at least), a large yellow stone hanging from a leather cord. She picks it up, tossing it from hand to hand before looking at him. "What do I need to do to it?"
"Glamour charm." She raises an eyebrow. Those were hard, and they depended on how well she knew the person for them to work well at all.
"Who's it for?" He bites his lip at the question, and she gets the feeling that this is a secret she's not supposed to know. "You can trust me." She adds softly, but his expression doesn't soften.
"It's for a mutual friend of ours." He leans back in the chair, and she knows that's all she'll be getting out of him. She sighs, but looks at the necklace anyways.
"I'll do it. But I'm going to need a bit more information."
"It's a girl, they have light hair and medium skin. We're going for darker skin and black hair." You can tell that just giving those few hints about the mysterious person's appearance is killing him, but she tries not to focus on those words and only the description of what the charm needed to do.
"Alright. I've got it." She closes her eyes and wraps her hands around the stone, trying to focus on her magic. "edih eht reraew morf elitsoh seye." She brings up a rough picture of a person based off of Robin's rudimentary description, and slowly lets her magic penetrate the shell of the stone, her power filling it and letting the spell take hold.
She cuts it off from her power with ease, and when she opens her eyes, the formerly dull stone is now glowing with power. "Here." She holds it out to him without another word.
He takes it from her, and smiles. "Thanks Zee. It – it means a lot."
She can't help but smile back, because under his hard new shell, he's still the same dick Grayson at heart. "This is only because you asked nicely, Richard."
He makes a face at his full name, but walks around the table and pulls her into a tight hug. "You're the best. I'll see you around, okay?" She nods and watches as he makes his way out of her apartment, before turning back to her dinner. She knows that something was up that he wasn't telling her, and she had a bad feeling that her not pressing for details would come back and bite her in the butt. But she can only hope that he will trust her enough.
Gothem City
March 20, 02:53
She felt the phone vibrate in her pocket, and at first she ignored it, preferring to keep her focus on her conversation with Raquel. The two of them had become close when they'd gotten inducted together, but she still missed her best friend from the original team. No one could really replace Artemis, even though Raquel came close.
"Zatanna, you do know your phone's ringing, right? And that it's your emergency one?" Raquel points out, and Zatanna swears, forgetting that she's only brought that one, and only three people had the number. Which meant something was very, very wrong.
She pulls it out, looking at the ID. Dick Grayson. "Hello?" She moved the phone to her ear, mouthing 'Nightwing' to Raquel, who nods and smirks, causing Zatanna to blush slightly.
"Zatanna, I-" He breaks off, and Zatanna thinks she can hear someone crying in the background. "There's been an accident."
"What's wrong? Do you need help?" She could feel a pull in her gut at his words, her nerves starting to race.
"It's Artemis, Zee." Her heart drops, and yeah, that is crying she hears. And from the sound of it, it's M'gann. "She-she's dead, Zee."
She's stunned into silence, falling to her knees, staring blankly at the street. The phone slips from her fingers, but Raquel places a force bubble underneath it at the right moment, stopping it from shattering on the asphalt. She hurries to her friend's side, holding the phone in her hand. "Zatanna? You okay? What's wrong?"
Zatanna doesn't answer her, choosing instead to take her phone back. "How?" She forces out, and she can feel hot tears start to make their way down her face.
"We were ambushed. Kaldur - Kaldur got to her." The words shake her even more, if that was possible.
"How could he do that, Dick?" She wails, crying full force. "He was our friend, I thought of him as a brother. How could he?"
"I don't know, Zee. I really don't." He's silent for a moment, and she can hear Conner in the background, trying his best to comfort M'gann.
"What do we do next?" She forces out. Raquel's still looking at her like she's lost it, but she can't find the words to explain.
"There's going to be a memorial service at the Cave. I'll meet you there." She hears other voices, people gathering around the group of four – three now – but she stays focused on his voice, letting it keep her grounded.
"Where will you be?" She asks, but in her heart she knows. Dick was closest to him anyways, besides her of course. He would be the only logical choice to tell him, not to mention that he always took the hardest part of every mission. He was going to break a heart. And they both knew it.
"Palo Alto. I don't know when I'll be back." No more words are needed, his name reverberating in both of their heads. Wally. Poor, poor Wally.
"He won't take it well." She finds it somewhere within herself to be strong, for her sake. "Make sure he doesn't – doesn't try and join her."
"I can't make promises I might not be able to keep, Zee." His voice is soft and serious, and she's the only one who knows how close to tears he actually is at that moment. Robin, Nightwing, Dick, the one who never showed any emotion aside from joy. He would never admit that he was soft, that this had broken him. But she could tell.
"Just try. Please." She could barely deal with Artemis' death. But no way in hell could she deal with the death of two of her teammates.
"I will. Tell the others. Conner and M'gann will be on their way shortly. And Zee, I lo-be careful." He changes what he was going to say halfway through, and before she gets the chance to respond, he's hung up.
"Zatanna? What happened?" The magician turns her tear streaked face towards Raqul, trying to get herself to say the words, because she knows once she says it, any hope that the blonde archer was really alive and this was all just a dream would dissipate.
"Artemis is dead." And just like that, the two girls are holding each other, crying on each other's shoulders, trying to find comfort in the other, knowing that their comrade, friend, and sister has fallen.
Mount Justice
March 20, 03:58
She stares at the glass, her fingers wrapped tightly around it, her tears still dripping off her face and landing with soft plops in her water. She has a feeling that she won't want to drink it after this.
The cave is the quietist she's ever heard it as before, broken only by the sound of people crying, all huddled together in front of the TV, flashing it's No Signal with a blaring familiarity. Nothing about the place had changed, except for the fact that their team had fallen to pieces.
Recognized : Nightwing B01. The zeta tubes announce his arrival, and her head shoots up, and she knows she's not the only one. The entire room seems to wait with baited breath, watching as he steps into the room, running his hand through his hair. He sighs, and it's a broken sound.
"How'd it go?" Conner's the first to speak, looking up from where he's leaning against the wall.
"Bad. He's with his parents." He leaves it at that, walking into the kitchen, sitting down at the bar next to her. "Hey Zee." His voice is quiet.
"Hey." She sniffs subconsciously, rubbing her eyes. He moves to place his arm around her, but at the last moment decides not to, pulling away.
"I just can't believe it." She whispers, looking up at him. "I expect to turn around and she'll be there, but she's not." This sets off a fresh round of tears, and this time he does gather her up in his arms, pressing her face to his chest, stroking her hair with his hand.
They stay like that as League members slowly filter out of the cave, Team members slowly slinking off to their rooms, until they are the only ones left in the room. She pulls away from him first, and he slowly lets his arms fall to his side, staring back at her. "Are you gonna be okay?"
She nods slowly, before getting to her feet. "Tell Wally that I hope he's okay." She makes her way to the zeta beam, but before she leaves she turns to face him. "And Dick – be careful too."
He can't help but smile a little as she disappears in a flash of light, thinking back to their phone conversation. He wishes it was under a happier occasion, and he hates having to lie to her, but at least he knows where he stands with her.
The smile falls from his face as he sighs, unlocking the cooler in the back of the kitchen and pulling out a beer, taking a long sip. (Batman didn't like him to drink, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.) He was just kidding himself. He had no idea where he stood with the magician girl.
Santa Prisca
September 25, 21:27
"Get down!" Zatanna whirls around, trying to find the owner of the voice to no avail. "I said get down!" She drops to her feet, deciding that if anyone was trying to help her in the middle of this mess than it would be best to listen.
The moment she hits the ground she feels a missile whistle over her head, hitting a row of Black Manta's soldiers lined up behind her. With a sharp intake of breath she scrambles back up to her feet, letting her eyes scan over the mess in her one moment of safety.
Cassie and Barbra had cornered a group of soldiers and seemed to be holding their own, while Tim and Jamie were doing just fine off to the side. M'gann and Conner were fighting together, and Zatanna watched as she levitated someone up and Conner punched him square in the jaw. Various members of the League were scattered throughout, and just like always, her heart skipped a beat when her eyes skimmed over Dr. Fate.
She suddenly felt someone start to move up behind her, and the moment of peace is shattered as she whirls around, sending the attacker flying into the air and right into a tree. She then starts to move through the crowd of fighters, landing shots where she could as she tried to find him. He'd been gone since the start of the battle, dashing off from her side. She'd tried to follow, but then she'd gotten held up with a few idiots, and by the time they were on the ground he was gone.
She feels someone bump up against her and she turns, catching a bit of yellow and red before turning back, sending a bolt of fire at an assailant. "Wally? Why the hell are you here?"
"For her." She hasn't seen him since he retired, and his voice is rough, serious, but she assumes that's because of the loss that's still stinging, even after six months.
She doesn't know how to create a reply for that statement so just turns back to the fight, finding a sliver of comfort in the fact that she's back with a team member, even though they were even less of a team now. She suddenly feels him dart off, and as her last man falls, she finds herself in yet another peaceful bubble.
Someone blazes out of the crowd, pushing her to the ground, and she screams, before her breath leaves her as she lands on the dirt. The person stands moments later, but doesn't leave, and she scrambles away, looking at the back of them.
"Kaldur!" She screeches, getting to her feet. He ignores her, still facing away from her, drawing his water-bearers. "Kaldur, turn and fight me! Damnit Kaldur!" She can't bring herself to use magic on him though, and she has the feeling that he knows that.
"Zatanna! Get out of here!" A woman is suddenly clutching her arm, and Zatanna realizes that she has no idea who she is. She doesn't get much of a chance, as she's suddenly on Wally's back and is being sped out of the battle ground.
"Don't ask." He mutters to her as he sets her down in the forest. "I've got to go get everyone else. Stay here." And then he's gone again, and she's practically stunned into sitting down.
"Sorry about that." Dick drops out from the tree above her and she stifles her scream with her hand. He laughs and pulls her hand away, holding on to it. "This is an extremely covert mission."
She huffs, staring at him. "Are you going to tell me now or let me feel the shock when I learn about whatever the hell you've been planning?"
He laughs again, sitting down next to her. "The later. Although if you die of shock, I might regret that. So I'll give you a hint of sorts: I can't conjure ghosts, so anything you see will be real."
She rolls her eyes, but smiles a little. "No shit you can't summon ghosts, Boy Wonder." He grumbles in annoyance at the nickname, but she laughs and leans her head on his shoulder. "That wasn't much help, you know."
He smiles down at her, and Zatanna feels a tingle in her stomach. These moments had become so precious to them, the times when all the events of the past few months just fell away and left them alone in their happiness. Nothing had truly happened between them, but the moments when they were happiest was when they were alone.
Their moment is interrupted by Wally speeding back into the clearing, placing Conner down as M'gann floats to a stop next to him. He cackles as his eyes land on Nighwing and Zatanna, and the happy sounds seems almost wrong coming out his mouth. "Get a room." He fires, before departing again, his laughs still ringing around the trees.
"Did he just…laugh?" Conner asks, and Zatanna nods slowly.
"He has reason to be happy, you three. Now sit like good superheros. Bat's has already gotten the rest of the League and the Team out. We're waiting on two more, and then, well, kaboom." Dick makes an explosion motion with his hands. The others look at him like he's lost his mind. But he doesn't get a chance to explain himself because Wally is back, holding the dark skinned women from earlier in his arms.
He places her down gently, before pressing his lips to hers quickly and racing off again. Zatanna looks at her in stunned silence. "Okay, who the fuck are you?"
The woman blushes, and Dick laughs – the nerve of him! – before getting up. "Take the necklace off now. I mean, we have to tell them sometimes."
The woman laughs and pulls a yellow pendant from under her clothes. Zatanna gasps. That was her glamour charm. The one she'd made for Dick, because he'd asked her to, because he'd told her she could trust him.
She slowly unfastens it, and as it falls to the ground, it's like all the air has been sucked from the clearing. She stares at them, and Zatanna can barely hold herself up. She hears M'gann fall to her knees behind her and she knows she's not the only one who's completely struck into shock at the person standing in front of them. Because the person in front of them, looking no worse for the wear, was Artemis.
They're saved from trying to react by Wally dashing into the clearing, carrying none other than Kaldur on his back. Conner turns towards him with a growl, but something – maybe it's the way Dick stands almost protectively in front of Aqualad, or the way Artemis glares at him – holds him back. Instead he just snarls one word at the group of four. "Explain."
And Dick launches into this long winded explanation about how Kaldur was always working for him, and how Artemis' death was faked, and how they'd just blown up Black Manta's ships because Kaldur had planted micro-bombs, and that they'd cut off connections between Manta and the aliens. But when he starts apologizing for the whole thing, that's when she snaps.
"You think – you think you can tell us that everything we've known for almost the past year was a lie, and that we'll be okay?" She screams, cutting Dick off mid-sentence. "Because that's just not going to fly! You tell me that my best friend is dead, and then just bring her back like that? You had me make her a charm, for god's sake! Why couldn't you have just told me, you, you dick!" She watches as his face crumples slightly when she turns his name into an insult, but she doesn't stay to see more. "ekat em ot my talf." And with a flash, she's gone.
"Well." Wally turns to Dick. "She took that well, man." Artemis elbows him.
"Shut it, Baywatch." She snaps, and that seems to wake up Conner and M'gann, and they're hugging her and Kaldur and laughing, but Dick's just staring at the spot where she'd vanished, wondering what he'd done wrong.
Gothem City
September 25, 22:31
She instantly collapses onto her bed, tears streaming down her face. Deep down inside she was beyond elated that her friends were back, that the team really was back together, but Dick's blatant betrayal of her trust had shaken her to her very core. She'd trusted him with all her secrets, gone to him when the pain of losing her father and Artemis was just too much, and when he told her his civilian identity she'd though that maybe he'd finally opened up to her, that he trusted her too, that he loved her.
The realization hits her like a rock, and she finally sees how much she loved him. She wanted him to trust her, wanted him to feel like he could tell her things that no one else knew about. But maybe she just wasn't that special to him. Maybe he didn't care as much as she did.
When the door opens, she instantly stiffens, not bothering to lift her head to see who it is, because she was almost positive that he hadn't returned her key to Batman. He sits down on the edge of her bed, and says nothing. Normally she wouldn't mind, but she needs him to talk to her, needs him to explain that he didn't mean to hurt her.
"I'm sorry, Zee." That's all he says. And then he's silent again. She wants to grab him by the shoulders, shake him and scream at him until he says something – anything – that would make her feel better about the whole situation. But she just says there, face pressed into her pillow, feeling her mascara make its way down the side of her face and stain her sheets. She'll have to wash them later.
She expects him to leave, to get up and walk away and pretend everything's okay because that's how Dick Grayson runs his life. Just keeps moving along, water under the bridge, feel that aster and all that shit. But he doesn't. He keeps talking. "I wanted to tell you. I did. But that would have put you in danger, and if you knew that Kaldur was with us all along, or that Artemis was really alive than you wouldn't have been able to pull of the act. I could because everyone thinks I don't have the ability to show emotion. But you would've given their cover away without even meaning to."
She sniffs, and although the words hurt her a little, she knows he's right. And she understands just how much he'd grown since he was Robin. Then he would have not said anything, just left her alone. But here he was, taking charge, telling her that it was partially his fault, but he wasn't covering up the truth. He was telling her why. And for some reason, it made her fall for him even more.
She sits up slowly, looking at him. "I know. I was just…surprised."
"Everyone was, Zee. It's fine, it was my fault anyways." He smiles at her and softly takes her hand. "Come on. Everyone's going to be meeting back at the Cave again."
She nods and swings her legs over the edge of the bed, getting to her feet as he stands. He moves to pull his hand away, but she has an iron grip. He stares at her, and she smiles. "Thanks, Dick. I needed that." She stands up on her tiptoes and gently kisses his cheek, before letting go and walking out the front door, leaving him slightly stunned in her bedroom. God knows that she was the only one who could leave him speechless.
Mount Justice
September 26, 09:53
She's sitting in the exact same place as she had been during the memorial, (which in hindsight had been more of a tear fest than anything else) but this time she's talking to the one whom she'd thought she'd never see again, catching her up on the last six months. Wally hasn't left her side the entire time, which means he's constantly talking with Dick while his girlfriend is trying to carry on conversations with other people. At the moment, Dick was sitting next to Zatanna with his arm around her shoulder, laughing at something his best friend had just said. Probably a really stupid joke.
Artemis just sighs. "Six months and he's still an idiot." Zatanna giggles, while Wally looks wounded. Artemis just smiles and kisses him softly. "Lovable, but an idiot all the same."
Wally suddenly pulls Artemis away to go talk to his Uncle, leaving Dick and Zatanna alone at the counter. They're silent for a moment, but it's an oddly comfortable silence, where she feels like she needs to fill it, but if she doesn't that's okay too.
"You know…" Dick starts off, and she turns to look at him, even though his shades are still covering his eyes. "I think this mission went off well."
She rolls her eyes. "You think that every mission goes off well as long as no one dies. Well, dies for real."
He shrugs. "True enough. And Zee, I really am sorry."
She smiles, but something stops her from replying. Maybe it's just the stress that's been lifted from her shoulders, or that fact that everyone's euphoria is contagious. So instead, she just leans forward, gently kissing the boy sitting next to her, pulling away with a smile. "I know."
He blinks for a minute, before smiling. "You're not leaving this time, Zee." He wraps his arms around her waist, bringing her back in for another kiss. She hears someone wolf-whistle from behind the bar and she guesses that it's probably Wally, and from the sound of a hand hitting someone's head she decides he's right. But really, she couldn't care less about what's going on around them. Because she's happy. Everything had gone right in her world for once.
When they pull away for the second time, he's grinning like a madman, and she can't help but laugh. "Surprised?"
"Pleasantly so." He takes her hand, and she feels a pleasant tingling sensation run up her arm.
"Get a room!" Wally calls from behind them, and Dick turns bright red, whirling around and getting to his feet, jumping over the bar to get to the speedster, who zips away with ease, but Zatanna knows that no matter what he's not going to back down until he has Wally cornered in some remote part of the cave and he can torture him to his liking. And she smiles, because it seems like everything in her world is finally back to normal.