Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: I had way too much fun writing this lmao. Like, seriously. These two are adorable I love them gdfdasfgsd

I hope you guys enjoy this just as much as I did/do! I have a bit of a different take on Zatanna for this universe, which involved doing quite a bit of research/thought-processes (which I'm willing to talk about if you for some reason want to hear about them!). Do keep in mind you're meeting her as a teenager, though, so she still has lots of room to grow in the future. :)

Story title comes Isn't It Midnight by Fleetwood Mac. It's like...my favorite song off of the Tango in the Night album. So if you have like 4 1/2 minutes, you might want to listen to it.

Anyways, I love y'all very much. Until next time,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~isn't it midnight~

"So cool, calm, and collected. You had a style, a rakish style..." Dick sang under his breath as he ran over the low-rise rooftops of Gotham, a smirk resting on his face. He was running after a car containing a couple of burglars on their way to rob a store. They hadn't noticed that he was following them yet, not that they would until they were just about to break into their chosen target. Then he would catch them in the act, tie them up, and leave them for the Gotham PD to pick up. These particular burglars would know the drill; this was going to be the third time he stopped them from stealing. They were two of the many, many faces that had become familiar over the years.

He was working on his own tonight, standard patrol. Selina and Dinah were off doing the same. Bruce had decided to stay home for tonight, since the twins Edward and Gemma were just over a month old and Tony had needed a bit of a break after today between taking care of them, Bea, and the rest of his and Bruce's biological kids now that school was out for the summer. Yes, he did have help in the forms of Taryn, Alfred, and of course Bruce, but he was still recovering from his C-section on top of taking care of six (eight, if you included Dick and Jason, even though they were old enough to be pretty self-reliant) kids, two of which were newborns.

Dick wouldn't lie: he was kind of glad that Bruce was taking the night off. Now that he was sixteen and had his driver's license, his adoptive father was willing to let him take the Batmobile and go off on his own for the nights. That wasn't to say that he hadn't been letting him patrol on his own once they'd gotten to Gotham, because he had, or that Dick didn't like patrolling at his adoptive father's side anymore, because that wasn't true. It was just –

– Being able to be on his own as Robin, well and truly alone, was exhilarating. He'd come a long way since three years ago and that night he'd been able to get Dinah's full acceptance of his being a vigilante. He'd changed out the full-yellow cape for one that was black on the outside and yellow on the inside. He was wiser now, more mature in the way that came just as much from experience as it did with age.

The burglars he was chasing parked the car outside a corner store and turned it off, both of them getting out of the car. Not the smartest of moves, even by the standards of the low level and gang-unaffiliated criminals of Gotham (they weren't particularly known for their intellect), but this wasn't surprising. They'd been pretty idiotic the last two times Dick had stopped them, too.

He waited in the shadows for the right moment. The two burglars walked up to the front of the corner store. One of them had one those electric lock picks that had been making its rounds on the streets of Gotham lately in his hands. Unfortunately for him, the owner of this shop was one of the ones who had gotten the building owner to update the locks on the building to ones that the electric lock pick couldn't easily unlock or break – not without setting off the alarms connected to the locks, which was exactly what the electric lock picks had been built to avoid.

"Dammit," the one burglar muttered. "Aight, time for plan B."

His buddy snickered with delight, throwing the crowbar in his right hand a short distance up in the air before catching it. "Told you that wasn't going to work," he said. "Now, it's my turn."

He got into position to make a swing at the windows. Like breaking the lock, it would set off the security alarms. The difference was, breaking the windows meant getting in easier, which also meant getting the goods that they wanted easier and faster. The Gotham PD didn't have the fastest of response times, but with where they were in the city, they wouldn't be all that slow, either.

Just before he could actually swing the crowbar, though, Dick made his move. He threw a batarang at the burglar's arm. His aim was true, which caused the burglar to let out a scream as the crowbar went clattering to the ground and the batarang came flying back into Robin's waiting hand. "Ow! What the – ?"

"Oh shit," his partner-in-crime said, seeing him as he stepped out of the shadows. "It's Robin!"

Dick grinned. "Yep, it's me."

He was able to make work of them in short order, incapacitating them and tying them up to a nearby street lamp. He activated his comms when he was done. "Agent A, can you let the police know that I have Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum waiting for them here at – " he prattled off the street address.

"Yes, I will let them know," Alfred replied. He and Rebecca had started to occasionally act as the interface between the vigilantes of Gotham and its police force in the past couple of years, hence the necessity for their own codenames. They didn't do it all the time, really only usually on the nights that Bruce wasn't on patrol and maybe a couple nights per month each on top of those. But it made the work a little bit easier when they did. "Good work, Robin."

"It's just a standard catch on a standard patrol," he deflected.

He looked at the two burglars when he was done, holding the electric lock pick in his left hand. "I have to say, I give you guys three stars this time for coming prepared, even if it didn't work out," he said. Previously, he'd given them a one- and a two-star in his grading scale of how good the robbers of Gotham were. "But you've got to understand, I'll be confiscating thi – "

BOOOM!

Dick stopped everything that he was doing, craning his neck towards where the sound was coming from. "What the hell was that?"

Neither of the burglars answered him. He'd gagged them after the one with the crowbar had started cussing him out – his procedure for the past year now. Bruce wasn't very fond of it, just like he hadn't been very fond of the move of squeezing a perp's neck with his thighs to bring them down when he'd first started doing it, but now that he was older...the "cussing out" had become more sexual as of late, and none of them wanted to hear that. So, his adoptive father had taken to putting up with it.

In the distance, about four or so blocks away, there was a shower of blue and purple...sparks, for lack of a better word. He'd never quite seen something like it before. It didn't seem like they had been caused by something...dangerous, per se, but obviously he couldn't say for sure.

He activated his comms again. "Catwoman, Black Canary, did either of you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Dinah asked.

"The explosion. That's what it sounded like, anyways," Selina said. "Robin, it sounded like it came from your way. Everything alright over there?"

"I think so," Dick answered. "I'm gonna go check it out."

"Okay," the theta agreed easily – more proof of how far he'd come over the years, the fact that neither she nor Dinah asked if he was sure he could do this on his own. "Call us if you need backup."

"Always." He looked over his shoulder at the two burglars before he left. "Stay here until your ride comes to pick you up."

Neither of the burglars replied for the reasons already stated, but they both did glare at him – the one who had wielded the crowbar more viciously than the other.

Dick used the fire escape to get to the rooftop of the corner store, and then took the rooftops to get to the general area that the explosion had come from. Although it was dark because it was, y'know, night, he was able to make out that there was a lone figure standing on the rooftop that had to be the exact epicenter of the explosion. As he got close enough, he was able to make out more of their appearance.

The figure was, surprisingly, a teenage girl, probably around his age. She was short, very short, no taller than five-foot-two. She had shoulder-length brown hair with bangs, and she was wearing a black leather jacket over a grey shirt and dark blue jeans.

It was surprising enough to him that the person who had apparently caused the explosion was a teenager, like him. But as he landed on the rooftop that she was on and got close enough, his surprise increased tenfold.

The girl was an alpha, and that was startling precisely because of her height. She had to be the shortest alpha, male or female, he had ever met. The average height of female alphas and thetas was five-foot-ten; most of them fell in a couple inches within that range. The shortest, often, were five-foot-six, sometimes five-foot-five. But it was practically unheard of for an alpha to be five-foot-two; that was more within the range of a female beta or omega.

Then again, Dick knew he was very tall for a male omega. He was five-foot-eleven now, a whole three inches taller than Tony, who was already a tall male omega himself. He'd never cared about how tall he was before or what others thought about him for it. It'd made it kind of hard to find somebody to date as of late, now that he was at the age where he thought he might kind of like doing something like that. But, dating probably wasn't the best of things for him to do anyways, since he was a vigilante. Keeping such a secret from a romantic partner would be complicated, messy, and that wasn't even mentioning how much worse the situation would be if they did find out what he did at night, who he actually was...

The girl was so absorbed in her own thoughts, she didn't even notice him at first. "Oh, come on, Zatanna," she said to herself, wringing her hands nervously. Her voice was musical, lilting, with a distinctive British accent. He thought it was what many would probably describe as "posh." "You've already beaten yourself up over this for twenty minutes now, you don't need to do it for another twenty more. You can do this."

As much as Dick would've loved to see for himself what "this" was, if it was dangerous, he knew he couldn't allow that. So, he decided to burst her bubble. "Do what?"

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed. She whirled around. Her eyes – dark brown, he could tell even with the darkness – widened at the sight of him. "Oh my God, you're – you're Robin. I've heard about you!"

"I'm sure you have, since you're in Gotham," he remarked sarcastically – maybe a touch too sarcastically. Instead of walking it back, though, he just swirled his right index finger in a circle. "Those blue and purple sparks that happened about twenty minutes ago. Did you cause those?"

"Um...yes. Yes. Sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to cause a spectacle."

"Yeah, well, you did," he said. As she winced, he added, "Mind telling me what you were trying to do?"

"Well...actually, I can't tell you that," she admitted. She went back to wringing her hands.

"And why not?" No verbal response. His eyes narrowed. "Who are you? What's your name?"

"My name's Zatanna," she said.

Zatanna, he thought. He'd never heard a name like that before, but it was strangely...fitting for her.

"And where are you from?" He cleared his throat at the way the question sounded. It'd been a long time since his biological parents had died, and he didn't have many memories Marenda and Jonas Grayson, but he did remember the judgments before they'd died. The glares and harsh looks sent their way. The slurs. His parents telling him that the reason they'd given him such a gadjo-sounding name was because they'd wanted him to not be immediately judged in the way they had been, and that the reason for them moving to Gotham was because they'd wanted him to have a better life – a desire that had led them to their deaths right in front of him. "I mean, you sound – "

"British? Yes, I know," Zatanna replied. "My father and I lived there until four years ago. We live on the West Coast now."

Dick cocked his head. "Then what are you doing here?" The question was one with multiple meanings.

She made a face. "Um...I suppose you could say I'm going to school here. Boarding school. Only for the next six months, though. I'm kind of in a transfer program."

"Oh, really?" he asked. "Where?"

He didn't really know why he had asked the question. It wasn't really any of his business to know. He didn't think she was a threat. He didn't know how she had caused that explosion, because there was nothing on her person or near her that was big enough or had the power to have caused it, but she wasn't threatening. Nothing about her screamed that she was dangerous.

Moreover, he was currently walking around her in a wide circle like he was the predator and she his prey, and she wasn't acting territorial because of it. Not like how most alphas would have acted, had they been in her place.

"It's not a place you would know," Zatanna said.

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow. "Zatanna, I've run down all the streets of this city I can't tell you how many times over the last three years. Believe me, if it's in Gotham, I would know about it."

He watched her flail for words. "I didn't mean you would literally not know about it! I meant more of, um – um – " At long last, she sighed, her shoulders visibly slumping. "Oh, forget about what I just said. I can't really tell you the name of the school, either."

"Is it a secret?"

"Of sorts."

"And how much trouble would you be in if you told me about it?"

"Much."

"Mm. Well, is whatever it is you're doing going to put anybody in danger?"

"No."

"Oh." He shrugged then, turning around. "I guess carry on, then."

He began to walk away.

"Wait! Are you just going to leave like that?"

Dick paused in his step, smirking. She'd done exactly what he'd wanted her to do. He'd gotten her right in his trap.

When he pivoted back around on his foot, the smirk is gone. "Would you rather I tie you up and leave you for the police to find?"

Her face flushed. "No. I just – I don't understand. I've heard a lot about you and the rest of the vigilantes of Gotham. You're...a lot different than what I was expecting."

"So you were expecting to meet me?"

"Yes. No! I – argh!" She stomped her foot in frustration. It was such an un-alpha-like reaction from her, he couldn't help but laugh, causing her to glare. "Don't laugh at me!"

He did his best to stifle himself. "Sorry, sorry. Just...do you want to try that all over again, maybe with telling me the truth? I promise you, whatever it is, I can keep a secret."

"I'm sure you could," she muttered. Louder, "It's not you keeping the secret that I'm worried about. It's not something that we're supposed to reveal to...outsiders."

"You mean like the gadjo?" Dick guessed.

Her eyes widened once more. "You're Roma?"

"My biological parents were," he clarified. "Are you?"

"My father is. I...often feel like I'm more of a geyri myself." Just by the term, he could tell she wasn't from the same subgroup that his biological parents had been, but that was alright. He didn't know the last time when he had met someone that was at least somewhat ethnically like him even was. "I don't speak the language," she acknowledged.

"I'm the same way," he offered.

This seemed to appease her. She looked around, as if she was trying to see if anyone was listening. Finally, she stepped forwards, meeting him as he stopped. She offered out her hand, staring up at him sharply. "My legal name is Zatanna Loveridge, but I prefer to go by Zatanna Zatara – Zatara is my father's stage name. He decided on it because it made him sound more exotic and gypsy-like, which got him more gigs as a magician in spite of the racism he experienced. I'm sure you know how it goes. My mother was a geyri, in more ways than one. She...well, let's just say she was a witch who taught my father how to use actual magic, and because of her, I am, too. It's why I came to Gotham – there's a school for people like me here, and no, it's nothing like Hogwarts. And like I said, I'm only here for the next six months. And the only reason why I'm telling you all of this is because I prefer to practice in open spaces, and the only open spaces that I can do that here is on rooftops. So, if you see 'sparks' for the next six months, that is probably me. But you don't need to worry about it, because I won't practice any spells that will harm others while I'm on the rooftops. I will only practice perfectly safe ones, I give you my word."

She continued to stare at him after she was done.

Dick, meanwhile, remained silent. Like an idiot.

Of course, this frustrated her. She scoffed, rolled her eyes. "You don't believe me, do you?"

All at once, he felt like he came back into his body. "No, no, it's not that! It's just..." Now she wasn't the only one stumbling for words. Taking in a deep breath, he nodded and accepted her hand. He shook it. "Thank you for telling me this, Zatanna. I won't lie, the fact that magic apparently does exist is...mind-boggling." Seriously, his brain was spinningfrom it. "But as long as you mean what you say about not harming anyone with it, I promise I'll convince the rest of the other vigilantes to hold off on you."

She gave him a smile. "Thank you. That means a lot."

True to his word, once he had it confirmed with his own two eyes that she was a witch (which was absolutely insane, let him tell you. He'd known ever since Bruce had come back from Siberia with Rebecca and Jason that the supernatural existed because of the Lazarus Pit, but the spells she performed for him to give her proof of her claims...they were something else), Dick made sure to keep Bruce, Selina, and Dinah off of her back. Of course, he didn't tell them about her being a witch, not even his adoptive father, because it felt like it had been too personal of a secret revealed, too special after finally finding someone out there kind of like him. But he did tell them that she was enhanced, and that she wasn't putting anybody in any danger. She wasn't even thinking about doing any crime-fighting like Dinah had after her fiancé had died.

"She's still putting herself at risk. If certain people find out she has powers, they won't hesitate to try and go after her. Use her," Dinah said upon him telling the other three this. "But, she isn't staying in the city that long, and if she's willing to accept any possible problems...I'll stay clear of her way."

Selina winked at him. "Same goes for me, except I might have to meet her. She sounds nice."

Strangely, Dick felt mortified at the prospect. It was probably because of her tone. "Please, don't try to scare her off or something."

"Oh, don't worry, little bird. I won't do that."

"I agree with Dinah," Bruce said after some consideration. "If she can handle herself, we won't bother her. There's more problems in Gotham to worry about and take care of than her."

Dick found Zatanna on another rooftop a couple nights later and told her the news. She was relieved, and reassured him that she could "most assuredly" take care of herself. She was new to the world of spell-casting, she did admit, but "by no means" did that mean she was "an amateur."

He did stumble across her three more times after those first two meetings over the span of the next couple of weeks. And, although he wouldn't admit to it to anyone except for himself...only one of those times was on accident. None of the times did she realize he was there, as he stuck to the shadows, and he didn't stay for very long. He only stayed long enough to watch her perform a couple of spells, which he quickly figured out were not performed in a different language like he'd thought but in English backwards, and then he went on his way back to making Gotham a safer place to live.

To put it simply, he had never met someone like her before – and he wasn't talking about her being a witch when he said that. She was...fascinating. Enchanting. Mystifying. Even with only seeing her the five times, he thought about her a lot, once again more than he would admit to anyone except for himself.

Unfortunately for him, though, he didn't actually have to admit to anything for other people to notice. "Thinking about your girlfriend again?" Jason taunted him once when dinner was almost ready and they were waiting in the living room for it with the rest of their siblings. It might have seemed odd to most people that they weren't elsewhere in the house, doing other things, but they didn't need to be blood-related to be extremely close to their younger siblings and the rest of their adoptive family.

"I don't have a girlfriend!" he protested.

"Yeah? Then why's your face all red?"

Dick hadn't noticed his cheeks heating up. But, now that he had...

He got to his feet, growling. "Listen here, Jason," he threatened. But his little brother didn't listen, instead choosing to take off running out of the living room. Dick went flying after him. "Get back here, you little shit!"

"Language!" Tony shouted from the kitchen.

Later, after a dinner in which Jason kept on pressing his buttons just like the little shit that he was, as Dick was finishing up his homework in his bedroom before patrol, there was a knock at his open door. "So, what's this I hear about a girlfriend?" Tony asked teasingly.

Dick groaned, tossing his notebook onto his bed. Yeah, he wasn't getting the rest of that done tonight. "Jason doesn't know what he's talking about. I don't have a girlfriend."

"But there is a girl?"

"Tony..."

"Relax, bambino, I'm just teasing you," his adoptive omither said. He smiled fondly. "Look, I'm not gonna press you for details or anything. I would've been mortified if my mamma had done that back in the day. But if you wanna talk about it or anything, I'm here. Oh," he added with a glance over his shoulder, having turned around, "and please, for the love of God, practice safe sex. Or just let me know if we need to have the Talk again."

Dick was even more humiliated than he had been before. "Tony!"

But the older omega was already gone. He could hear his not-so-quiet cackles as he walked down the hall.

Two and a half weeks after he'd first met her, Dick sought out Zatanna for the fourth time, making this the sixth time that he'd seen her. He found her on a rooftop close to where they had originally met. She was wearing a muted green jacket tonight over a black shirt and a black skirt, which was...unusual. Most female alphas didn't care too much for dresses or skirts unless they were attending formal events. In fact, if he didn't know better, he almost would've wondered if she was an alpha at all...

But, no. He'd smelled her scent, and while scent-blockers did smell a lot like the real thing, Bruce had taught him how to pick up on the subtle differences. Her scent was the real deal, nothing synthetic about it.

He watched her finish the spell that she was performing. Then, much to his surprise, rather than going on and casting another one, she let out an amused huff and looked up – right at the spot where he was hiding in the shadows. "I know you're there, Robin," she called out. "There's no point in hiding. I've known you were there the past four times, too. You like watching me work?"

Left with no other choice, Dick slunk out of the shadows. "Err...yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly at being caught – at having been caught all along, he corrected himself. "I hope you don't mind."

"I don't. Don't worry." She smiled at him as he approached, her eyes twinkling with mischief in the moonlight. Then she turned her head, looking out at the city. "I met Catwoman the other night, by the way."

Oh God, he thought. "And? What did you think of her?"

"She's very nice," Zatanna answered. "I'm presuming, though, based off of how she spoke, that I'm unlikely to meet the other two of your team."

"Yeah, probably not."

"A shame," she sighed. Abruptly, she looked back at him, curious. "Why have you been watching me, Robin? Besides just wanting to watch my spells, I mean. I have a feeling you have another reason for it."

Oh, fuck. He needed to come up with something to tell her besides the truth, and fast.

But his brain refused to conjure up any excuses at all, and even if it would've, he couldn't get his mouth to work, either. He couldn't say anything except for a lame, "Um..."

Way to go, Grayson.

Zatanna took a step forwards, crossing the roughly four-foot distance between them. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"What – " dammit, he really needed to get his shit together " – what do you think?"

"I think," she said, "that you like me."

His heart was beating so fast in his chest, he thought that it was a wonder he wasn't dying from tachycardia on the spot.

He swallowed, feeling his Adam's apple visibly bob. "And if I do?"

"Well, that's a good thing," Zatanna told him. "Because I like you, too."

"Wait," Dick said. "You're not bothered by my height?"

"Are you bothered by mine?" When he shook his head, Zatanna's smile widened. "No, I'm not. You're much more than just a tall omega, Robin. I don't know you very well," she admitted, "but I do know that. You're brave, because you have to be in order to be a vigilante at our age. And...you're like me. I've never met somebody like me before. Even my classmates at my school – they're witches, but they don't have the same experiences that I do, you know?"

He nodded numbly. "Yeah."

She laughed at him. Her laugh was musical, like wind chimes. "Oh, I like you very much Robin," she said. "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?"

She didn't give him a chance to respond. Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips against his. It was his first kiss. Her lips were soft; they tasted like blueberries and vanilla, so he assumed she was wearing some sort of lip gloss.

Although it took a moment for him to get himself into gear, he started kissing her back. They didn't do anything more than just kiss, not involving their tongues or anything like he'd seen the couples that loved to engage in PDA at St. Philomena's do. When they mutually broke it off, he gazed into her dark brown eyes. There was only one thing he could think to say: "Wow."

"'Wow,'" she repeated, agreeing. "That was your first kiss, too?"

"Yeah."

He thought about his previous musings on dating, and everything she'd told him during their first meeting. She'd put a lot of trust into him.

Maybe, despite how dangerous he knew it could potentially be...maybe he could do the same. He'd gotten good at reading people over the years. He doubted she would share his secrets, especially when he was already keeping hers from Bruce, Selina, and Dinah.

Carefully, he reached up to his face and took off his domino mask. Her expression turned into utter shock at the action, because clearly she recognized him as Dick Grayson, the adoptive son of Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark. But he didn't introduce himself in that way. All he said was, "Hello, Zatanna Zatara. My name's Dick. It's nice to meet you. I think I'd like to date you, even if you're only going to be in Gotham for six months."

It took a second, but the edges of her mouth curled upwards. "It's nice to meet you too, Dick. Thank you for telling me your name," she said, which only cemented his theory that he'd made the right choice. The implication was clear: she would indeed keep his secret in the same way he was keeping hers. "And I think I'd like to date you, too."

(One thing was sure: hers was the face of a pretty girl he would always remember.)

Word Count: 4,994