It was the most bizarre mission Nightwing had ever employed. Well, not really. In their kind of job there was always room for weirdness. But this one was very crazy so far. Jaime always thought there was something off about their leader. Not a bad off just, well, off.
Because making a Mexican hero with a Scarab attached to his back with a sassy Jimmy Cricket attitude dress as a torero was not really sane. First, he's Mexican, not Spanish, no matter how many Spanish soap operas he watches in secret. Second, he has near to no musical talent. At all. Third, knowing this, why would they make him play the guitar for a flamenco festival? I mean, he might look Hispanic, talk Spanish, but he is no bailaor(1.). He has two left feet and karma must really hate him, because he is going to dance with Cassie.
Cassie, like the Wonder Girl; as in the beautiful demigoddess that is so out of his league. And this is what stresses Jaime so much. Because he might have to dress as a torero and embarrass himself in front of so much people, but having Cassie there made him go all pudding-like. As in his feet suddenly decide to walk backwards and his knees start to buckle. But actually the worst was to hear the Scarab, Khaji Da, talk nonstop about his chemicals reactions. And try to stop his armor when it starts to form a freaking plasma cannon.
But he looks at Cassie from the corner of his eye, and watches as her face lits up in glee when she twirls happily, watching as her skirt flares up and goes around so swiftly. She just seems so happy to dance (because she lived in Spain and something she had to learn there, non?).(2.)
And Nightwing just smiles this creepy little smile and looks at Zatanna, who is fussing all over Cassie's dress, trying to make it look like it was before she started to twirl. And he moves his head to Cassie and looks pointedly at him then wiggles his eyebrows comically. Flushed, Jaime shakes his head, which in turn makes Nightwing look like he might explode from containing his cackles. Add the constant jabbing of the Scarab and he is ready to go crazy.
But Nightwing turns serious in less than a nanosecond and is glancing at the holo-screen in front of him. Jaime then concludes that his leader is totally and utterly bipolar. 'Está loco el guey.'(3.)
'Your thoughts about the Nightwing is biased. He is a perfect leader, Jaime Reyes'
'Shut up, Khaji.'
'I recommend you to use the plasma cannon in 50% of total power.'
'What?! Why?!'
'If you fire the cannon with 100% of power, the Nightwing will expire.'
'I wasn't talking about that! Why do you always resort to use the plasma cannon anyways?'
Jaime was so busy arguing with the Scarab, that he missed Nightwing explaining the mission to the both of them.
"Jaime? Hey, are you okay?" Cassie's voice broke through Jaime's argument with the Scarab. He blinked and looked at Cassie, her azure eyes reflecting concern.
"I'm fine, just, you know, the usual." Cassie nodded in understanding, she was the only one to know about the Scarab talking nonstop inside his head. She smiled inwardly, she feels so happy that Jaime trusts her with his secret. She linked her right arm to his left and dragged him towards the hangar. "You know, this will be very exciting! I can't believe I'm going back to Spain! When I was nine, mom took me there and I learned to dance flamenco." Cassie told him when she first took classes and her first presentation in a mall. All while dragging Jaime with her, who was trying to keep up with her fast pace.
Finally they reached the hangar, M'gann waiting for them in the entrance of the bioship. When she saw their linked arms, she smiled sweetly. She really liked when new team members bonded so much, with luck, they will end up together, she thought wistfully. ´Just like Conner and me when we were young'. Suddenly, M'gann didn't feel that happy, more like bittersweet. Still, she looked at the two teens talking with light blushes, or heavy blushes in Jaime's case, and felt comforted in some way.
The audience was roaring with excitement, the musicians bringing color to the festival and the dances bringing life to the people present. There were food vendors and trifle shops around the area. In one corner, was a gypsy act surrounded by many people, amazed by the beautiful dance the romani was giving life to. And everything was such an amazing thing that no one could be angry or sad. But Jaime was feeling like he might drop from the nervousness.
What he had actually missed, was their covert recon mission to stop a drug trade between a petty drug circle and Kobra. But so far, so good.
Jaime looked at Cassie dance, almost missing a chord but recovering quickly. His breath was taken away when he watched her dance so gleefully on stage. He watched as she performed a series of careos(4.) followed by pasadas(5.), twirling so gracefully, her smile never dropping. And when the act ended, he had never felt so dizzy in his life. Watching as Cassie bowed to the crowd, he muttered, "Soy un pudín…"(6.) apparently, the box player(7.) on his left heard him, and lifted a bushy eyebrow.
"Enamorao el chacho?"(8.)
"Eh…"
The box player looked at him with humour and then at Cassie, he wiggled his extremely bushy eyebrows at him rapidly (that it looked like his face was having a stroke) and grinned.
But he grinned the kind of grin that said he knew something he didn't. and with a flourish, he pushed Jaime unceremoniously to Cassie. Everyone in the crowd cheered and someone started chanting, "Beso, beso!". Soon everyone was chanting, wanting Jaime and Cassie to kiss. Both teens flushed and looked at each other. Jaime was almost having a heart attack. Suddenly, Cassie took both sides of his face and kissed him on the nose quickly. Instantly, everybody cheered. But Jaime was dumbfounded, blushing harder, almost looking like a chili. But he smiled slightly, looking at Cassie, who was blushing too. In two strides, he brought her closer and kissed both her cheeks. This made people cheer more for them.
"It is tradition to kiss both cheeks in Spain, Cass." He added with a cheeky smile. Cassie smiled at him and brought him closer, kissing him fully on the lips. The crowd turned crazy with so much cheering, people giving jaleos(9.) to both teens.
"La neta…"(10.)
Nearby, two raven heads high-fived, while two speedsters took twenty bucks out of their wallets.
"I told you that Cassie was going to give in first!" exclaimed Zatanna, receiving her twenty bucks from Bart.
"Man! I was really expecting Jaime to make the first step! So not crash…"
Dick stood there with his open hand, waiting for Wally to give him his money.
"You just got lucky, Boy Blunder, next time I'll win."
"Oh, you bet?"
"Yeah, next up are the new girl and Gar. I bet Gar will make the first move." Wally said, crossing his arms and looking to the still kissing couple on stage.
"I bet fifty to Rae. That's all I'm going to say."
And at the end, Wally lost again. But what nobody knew was that Dick had M'gann disguised as the same box player that pushed Jaime, and that ice cream vendor that "tripped" and tumbled an ice cream buckle on Raven's head. It's called cheating, but everything goes in war and love.
1. Bailaor: person that dances flamenco, male. For female is bailaora.
2. In my head cannon, she lived in almost every country.
3. 'Está loco el guey' means: 'Dude´s crazy'. Guey in Mexico its the equivalent of dude.
4. Careos: flamenco footwork that is really, really hard. Its like dancing waltz.
5. Pasadas: it's twirling with one foot on the ground and the other 'kicks' to the side you are twirling.
6. "Soy un pudín…": "I'm a pudding", it's referring to the part when he is like well, a pudding, jello or the like.
7. Box player: the box, or "cajón" its an instrument also used in flamenco to mark a beat. It's pretty rad too.
8. "Enamorao el chacho?", basically he is asking Jaime if he likes Cass. Chacho is a way guys are called in Spain too.
9. Jaleos: it's a kind of cheering, like "C'mon! woot!" Like that, kind of.
10. "La neta…" is the equivalent of "cool" in English.
Hi! This is my first story in and I'm excited to see your responses to my fanfic! I hope you liked it and please review!