Chapter Three: Zatanna and Dick
She's been throwing up almost every morning for the past week. And she's starting to think it's not a cold. But honestly the test is just in case, she couldn't possibly be...
Never mind. There's the plus sign.
"Dick!" Zatanna Grayson yelled.
He runs in, half dressed and still blurry eyed, but ready to fight if someone is attacking. He looks confused when there's no assassin in the bathroom, but then he sees the test.
"Zee?" he asks.
"I'm... pregnant," she tells him. She sounds scared. He understands. They've only been married for six months, and neither of them have brought up kids yet. He hasn't even really thought of kids yet. But now that fatherhood is staring him in the face, he finds he's happy. Very happy. A grin splits across his face.
"This is great!" he exclaims. Seeing him so happy makes Zatanna smile too. So, just like with their first kiss, she grabs his shoulder and plants her lips on his.
Everyone on the Team is so busy, they have to tell them separately. M'Gann and Conner are tied up with paperwork to become eligible to adopt and a new gang in their city. Artemis is pregnant with her second child and Wally is swamped with cases in both identities. Raquel and Kaldur just got back from dealing with a purist riot in Poseidonis. But all give them a hearty congratulations.
They tell Dick's family at a small brunch party they were having at the manor anyway. Zatanna is enveloped in a huge hug from both her sisters-and-mother-in-law at once, and she see's her husband getting big claps on the back from the boys, even Damian, who seems to have let his "I-hate-the-world" personality drop, if only for the moment (Zatanna's glad, because ever since Bruce married Diana, he's been extra sulky, even if Diana is the best of stepmothers to him).
They can't tell her father, but he finds out anyway with out their knowing. Fate doesn't usually go in the lounge at the Watchtower, but he walks by it often. Zatarra can hear everything Nabu does. A snippet of a conversation between Black Canary and Wonder Woman comes out as they pass.
"I never thought I'd become a grandmother only a few years after becoming a mother-well stepmother, as Damian keeps reminding me." Wonder Woman says, a little sadly.
"I'm sure he'll come around. And Zatanna's going to be a great mom, isn't she. I mean..." The rest is lost as Fate walks out of earshot, but Zatarra has enough to think about already. He knew that Nabu made him miss his own daughter's wedding, but now he was going to miss out on his first grandchild, and possibly any others he might have. Never had he resented Nabu more.
"Katie?"
"No. Julian?"
"No. Cameron?"
"No. Lilly?" Finding the perfect name for their unborn child was hard. Especially when they had decided to be surprised about the gender. Dick is nervous about suggesting what he wants to do; name them after his parents. But she beats him to it.
"What if we named them after your parents?" She asks, cautiously.
"So, Mary for a girl and John for a boy?"
"Actually, I was thinking of using both for a girls name."
"Mary John?"
"No, but Mary Jo sounds nice. And for a boy, John Giovanni."
"That sounds perfect," He tosses the baby name book into the trash, a perfect three-pointer.
Mary Jo Grayson is seven pounds, five ounces at birth. She has a tiny mop of black hair, and the universe has decided that she has Giovanni's eyes. She's tiny and perfect, and the entire family is absolutely fawning over her. Diana is already calling her "little warrior" after she slapped a nurse in the face (it hadn't hurt her, but the look of surprise on the woman's face was priceless). Bruce was a little clumsy when he first held her, because for all his experience as a dad, holding a baby is something he hasn't really done. All her aunts and uncles stop by, but most have school or hero stuff to do. They catch Damian smiling at her when he thinks no one else is looking, and lightly rib him about becoming human.
Zatanna teared up a bit when she first saw her daughter's eyes, but Dick wiped them away and jokes about who's hair she got (That shade is definitely closer to mine), so she feels better.
There's an article about Mary Jo's birth in almost every gossip magazine they see for the next week. Lois Lane-Kent's is the best, of course, but they paste all of them in the baby book M'Gann got them. Lois tells them later that she's sorry for the article, but otherwise it was going to be Rita Myers, who never has anything good to say about anything. They tell her they don't mind, and there's a framed copy in the living room. There is one line they love the most.
Honoring Richard's parents with her name, Mary Jo Grayson is sure to go far with her guardian angels.
She catches him singing and talking to Mary Jo in Rommani often. She speaks it fairly well, and sometimes will join in the songs she knows. They decided early that their kids will get the best of all the cultures they come from.
By the time she's two (she's got her father's brains), she speaks both English and Rommani fluently.
They figure out that she can do magic around 18 months when she says "Rotiți purpuriu de păr (Turn hair purple)" and her hair turns violet. After that, they have to magic proof the cupboards because she also knows "deschide (open),".
"I honestly thought it would take a few more years for her magic to show. She's a prodigy," Zatanna tells him that night.
"I thought she might be, with your magic plus my mom's gypsy heritage," He says, turning out the lamp as he leaves to go on patrol.
When he comes back, Mary Jo's learned a new word. "pluti", or float, and spends the next hour trying to get her off the ceiling and back to sleep.
It's at her second birthday party Mary Jo meets her other grandfather. They all are a little shocked when Dr. Fate walks into the decorated cave, looks around at the people staring at him, and removes the helmet.
Mary Jo, in all her two-year-old glory, breaks the silence first, tugging on her daddy's pant leg and asking "Tati, who that?"
"That's your other grandpa, sweetie," hearing this, Mary Jo runs up to him, then, in an unusual bout of shyness, quietly says "Hi."
Giovanni smiles and kneels down, looking into her eyes, so like his own.
"Hello, little one," he says and she hugs him. Zatanna has tears in her eyes as she embraces her father next.
"mamă, why you crying?"
"I'm just happy, honey."
They get called to the office after school one day when Mary Jo is seven. This isn't the first time she's gotten in trouble (using the swings as a balance beam, somersaulting over other students, and "somehow" replacing her teacher's apple for a doughnut tends to be frowned upon). But they've never been asked to come in before.
"Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, your daughter is out of control." The principal tells them sternly. Mary Jo is sitting in a chair between them, head down.
"What happened?" Dick asks.
"She was involved in a fight." This surprised the couple. They were prepared for a random prank, some magic they'd have to explain away, maybe a hacking incident.
"Apparently, she believes punching another student is acceptable. The boy is going home with a black eye." She continues.
"Did you ask her to explain what happened?" Zatanna asked.
"No. It was fairly obvious that Mary Jo was the instigator."
"I was not!" Mary Jo suddenly spoke up, angry. "He was ripping up Millie's teddy, and Ms. Kale wasn't doing anything!"
The Graysons look at Principal Clemens. She seems surprised by this new information. She's prevented from saying anything by the parents of the other child coming in.
"What do you think you're teaching your daughter, punching my son like that?" The man demands.
"I taught her to stand up for herself and the people she cares about. Your son was harassing her friend, ripping up her teddy bear. What are you teaching him, that he thinks that's OK?" Dick asks, angry.
"How do you intend to punish her?" he says, ignoring the question.
"Me? Ice cream and a movie." This stuns everyone except Zatanna. Mary Jo quietly asks her mother, "Can we get Millie a new teddy, too?"
"Of course we can," Zatanna tells her, and the Graysons walk out of the office, leaving two stunned parents and a principal who asks them to sit down to
"discuss your son's behavior as well"
Later, they tell her not to fight at school, but her grandmother tells her "atta girl" so she knows she's not really in trouble.
At the tender age of nine, she demands to come on patrol with her father, wearing a small version of Zatanna's uniform, but with full pants(tights) and a domino mask. Dick and Zatanna put their feet down, but when she turns the puppy-dog eyes on them, they relent, but they make her wait a week (they don't tell her, but they use that time to make sure the worst of their villains are locked up by then). To say her best friend Iris West is jealous is an understatement.
The first spell she uses to take down a bad guy is "cravată-l cu frânghie (tie him up with rope)". He couldn't be prouder as it works, the ropes binding the mugger tightly. She also takes down a few with out any magic, which makes her dad happy. When they get home, careful not to wake up four-year-old Johnny or one-year-old Bruce, she tells her mother all about the bad guys she took down, babbling in both languages excitedly.
At the beginning Mary Jo's senior year, as practice for her collage essays, her English teacher assigns them one on family. It's so good, Bruce retypes it with the heroes names (as opposed to their secret I.D.'s) and puts it on display at the Hall Of Justice.
The introduction went like this: (A/N: the stuff in parenthesis here means the rewritten version)
If you look at my family tree, you'd see many great people, like my grandfather Bruce (Batman), or my tati, Richard Grayson (Nightwing). But if you want to see my family, you couldn't just look at who's related to me by blood. I have so many honorary "Aunts" and "Uncles" that I had a hard time keeping them all straight when I was younger. If you checked our DNA, nothing would be in common with most of who I call my "family" but they are the people I feel most at home with, blood ties or not.
In college, Mary Jo majors in Computer Science and minors in Drama. Just like her parents, she's a performer at heart. She never gives up heroing, and is known as "Miss Mage" for the rest of her hero career.
Most of her family (aka, the girls) tear up at her league induction, joining along with Iris, who took up her mother's "Artemis" mantle. And as she looks around, she can't think of a better place to be.
Author's note: Sorry for the wait, I don't know why I had such a hard time with this chapter. Anyway, I know some of you might not be fans of "WonderBat" but I am, so you're gonna have to deal. Reviews are appreciated, but flames will be used to make personal pizzas.
