The Faraway Past
It was about eleven o' four on a Thursday night, and the skies, a deep, tender blue drizzled with lazy, drifting luminescent clouds that seared the skies with a virtuous white and smattered with twinkling, bright stars that glimmered brightly but paled in comparison to the swell of the bright, creamy full moon that hung in her rightful place in the sky, completing the flawless masterpiece known as the night sky, an elegant horizon to decorate the rooftops of Gotham, where below, it was a different story.
Bruce cracked the thug's skull on the light post and heard a satisfying crunch as he relinquished his hold on the base of his scalp and allowed him to drop to the ground. Framed in the streetlight that encased the entirety of the fiasco. Behind Bruce, back-against-back, Zatana raised her hands to the men that descended upon her, and spoke with urgency tempered by well-learned serenity.
"Eezerf won." She commanded, and as if they were figures on a television, they froze so, pausing in mid-air, knives aimed at her and legs too far, too low, or too high so that had they not been suspended by the help of her magics their centers of balances and gravity would have deemed that they fall.
With a following command of "Peels," they dropped to the ground like the dead weight they were and became lost to the realm of Dreams and their lord Morpheus.
Satisfied with her handiwork, Zatana dared to look back at Bruce as he lifted a man off his feet with the force of his fist, and watched as the poor bastard made that brutally quick descent to ground and unconsciousness and made the wise decision of turning back to her troubles, resorting to a quick right hook that allowed her opponent to be distracted enough to be ensnared by Dreaming as well.
"Holding up all right?" Zatana grinned, not allowing herself to look at Bruce as they rotated as if one a dime, maintaining their back-to-back position.
"Perfect. Don't let your guard down." Bruce responded back curtly before she heard a grunt and there was a loud thud as something dropped to the ground.
"Don't let yours." She teased and kicked up to knock a man silly and then jabbed his eye before murmuring, "T'nod evom" and then asked as she battled another, "Do you want to go somewhere after this?"
"Why do you ask?" He retorted and there was a punctual crack as they danced in the streetlight, coattails and cap fluttering and casting long, menacing shadows.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because tomorrow's my twenty-first and I wouldn't mind having a friend tagging along." She not-so-subtly implied as she briefly engaged in fisticuffs and returned victorious.
After the longest of seconds passed as the large group surrounding them eventually became whittled down to two, she heard Bruce reply, "Maybe."
She fought a grin threatening to split her face in two as she commanded a man to fall to the ground and become unable to do anymore.
"Aww. You do care." She said as she turned to him and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Only if you're lucky, though." Bruce said, and she swore she could hear that oh-so-rare sarcasm he used that hinted in his voice.
"What makes you say that?" she asked as confusion dashed across her face, but before she could even think of finishing her sentence, with the most impeccable timing, an alarm moaned through the night, impending and whining, and before she could even react, Bruce had turned to extend a hand, and with a snap of his grappling hook, left the spotlight of the streetlight and returned to the darkness with the silent implication and expectance that she would follow.
"Ah." Zatana said, nodding to herself, and with the quick incantation, "Wollof mih" she retreated into it as well.
It was dark in the cave, where the shadows consumed the world all around them and feet skittered on the stalactites above, while water made a slow, steady descent into the darkness of the recesses below while the steady hum of machinery, displaying how even man could invade upon the sanctity of the world below, the world hidden from them, and the light from said machinery made Zatana appear blue and yellow from it on the cot as Bruce knelt over her ankle and set a bandage on it.
"Honestly, it's fine. I could have used my magic to take care of it." She smiled, embarrassed at the attention that had been called upon her, looking to Alfred for relief as he strode in, formal as ever, and set down a tray of tea on the table besides them.
"It's only because he cares for you, Miss Zatana. He would not do this for anyone, especially when I could do it for him." Alfred replied primly as Bruce continued to wrap the gauze about her ankle, slowly, surely.
"I don't trust magic," Bruce added, brow furrowing as he spoke, and Zatana arched an eyebrow at his comment.
"So you don't trust me." She said, her mouth twisting up as if she had tasted something sour.
"I didn't say that." He replied, in the right interval of time so that it was not said too quickly nor too late.
"And had he said so, he would have had more than just you to answer to, Miss Zatana." Alfred said to him with a frown, an interruption to the usual placid expression he so often assumed and nodded to her as he retreated out of the room.
"Thank you, Alfred." She grinned but found it quickly replaced by pain as Bruce tightened the bandage just the slightest bit too tight.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked, looking up to her with apprehension, and she looked down at the face behind the cowl, concerned yet refusing to reveal that he felt so.
She felt suddenly warm, realizing that he had not abandoned his hold on her ankle.
"Just—just fine." She smiled at him, hoping the darkness of the cave would conceal her blush, and she straightened out her legs with a creak of bones as Bruce allowed her ankle to become hers once more and sat up straight, allowing her legs to dangle over the side, swaying with the slightest motion.
"That should take care of it for now. You'll just need to rest easy on it." He said as he walked to the computer and she murmured a quick invocation to heal her leg as he walked away and out of hearing range (or so she thought).
"Sure thing." She said, and stepped daintily onto the hard stone below with a click of heels and then followed after Bruce as he sat at his chair, staring up at the great computer before him with files and files of information, to reveal new cases to solve, new crimes to stop, and people to save.
Zatana wondered if he had a file of her on that computer, as she stood at his side and watched the descent of files, and looked down to him.
"So. Thinking about that date?" she grinned shamelessly at him as his gaze did not wander away from the screen, failing to capture his attention even for the slightest.
She received a 'hmmm' in response and knew when it was time to quit, choosing to roll up her sleeve and admire the small wrist-watch her father had given her ages ago, listening to the relentless, steady ticking of the hands below ever-so-slightly scratched glass.
"Hey. What d'you know, I'm twenty-one." She tsked to herself, and then groaned, raising her arms to the ceiling and turned to go with a click and a clack of heels.
"Look, Bruce, I better get going. Birthday plans and everything, you know how busy they can get and all…" she trailed off, eyes only on the door, not bothering to mention how she would be the only one celebrating it for the third time in a row nor how she had really, really hoped, even if she was going out on a limb, how she wanted him to come with, at the very least.
"Wait."
With an eyebrow arched, she turned away, from the gaze that had been so solidly locked onto the door, and turned to find herself looking up at Bruce, who no longer was in his chair but standing right before her, practically over her, closer than they had been in that streetlight and so much more intimately, oh geez…
He leaned down, silently, and kissed her as he gently pulled her to him, holding her as if she was the only thing that mattered, holding her like she was important to him, and it was soft and sweet and simply put, the best birthday present she had ever received in all of her now twenty-one years of existence.
After a moment that seemed, simply put, too short, he pulled away and whispered, "Happy Birthday, Zee."
"You buy the best things." She said, and he was so close that her very words tickled his lips, but they did not let go of each other nor did the thought cross their minds as they pondered upon this birthday present, until the door leading to the cave slid open to reveal Alfred standing prim and proper as usual, holding a not quite large but not quite small slice of cake with pastel blue frosting and a sparkling white candle that glimmered like the stars in the sky.
"Forgive me, Miss Zatana, but I did not think it right to let you leave without a birthday—oh. Am I intruding upon something?" Alfred would have blushed the color of a tomato had he been lacking in self-restraint.
Zatana looked to Bruce, as he looked to her, and then they relinquished their embrace to stand up straight, clearing their throats and shifting their collars.
"No, not at all, Alfred." Zatana smiled, and Alfred nodded, satisfied with the answer, if but for the moment.
"Of course. Now, if you would like to blow out your birthday candle?"
"Of course," Zatana replied with a nod, giving Bruce a last glance as he watched her go to receive the incredibly sweet gesture from Alfred, and wondered if maybe the rest of her birthday would be just as great as it was turning out to be.
You know, because we could all do with a happy ending to a chapter every now and then, right?