Chapter Twenty Six

It wasn’t until after the mission that Dick got to talk to Zatanna.

By the time they’d finished Harley’s makeshift new uniform, they were cutting it so close that Zatanna had already moved into position for the black market bust.

The location turned out to be an abandoned warehouse out in the middle of a desert. When the Watchtower had zeta’d them down- a trick that took no little effort and fast talking to get Harley temporary authorisation without flagging the system and bringing Bruce down on them- and he first saw the place, he’d stopped in his tracks.

For a fraction of a moment, he considered leaving and telling Zatanna to pull back. The memories of grainy camera footage, pictures taken from a live video feed, insane cackling, a teenage voice cracking, a bloodied yellow Robin-

The memories had hit him, the feeling of despair and misery he had felt when he found out that it had happened weeks past, that these were old footage and images. The memory of those four voicemails he still had saved, swearing and begging and-

He had almost turned around for that fraction of a second. Then he’d pulled on a smile, ignored how his stomach burnt with acid and the urge to vomit, and started walking towards the building. Zatanna was counting on him, and he couldn’t let another person down.

He coordinated with Harley on how to safely collapse the smaller entrances, and then explained the plan. With the other points of escape blocked, she would come in through the main double doors, and her job would be to hold that spot, making sure nobody other than Nightwing and Zatanna got past.

Meanwhile, Dick would drop in through the broken skylight, and take position in the rafters. Zatanna would be interrupting the deal and securing the artifacts, at which point Harley would enter and Dick would drop down to cover Zatanna and take out the crooks doing the deal.

With that arranged, they got moving. It all seemed to go well. When Dick got inside, he counted two dozen people, seemingly a dozen on each side of the deal. When the crate was opened to show a softly glowing stone laying in a bed of hay near the top of the crate, Zatanna appeared from one of the shadows.

She cast a spell, snagging the box and safely moving it from their reach. Nightwing dropped from the metal beams above, and exploded into motion, waving a dance of **** through the men and women that had been going for Zatanna.

As he did, some had gone for the exits, only to find them all blocked, and Harley waiting at the only open one. While she wasn’t quite so fluid or graceful as Nightwing was at his unique blend of gymnastics and overwhelming physical ****, she hadn’t lived this long without learning her own tricks. She bounced and zipped around, chaotic and unpredictable in her movements, but ultimately nearly as effective as her companion.

Soon after, Dick slammed an escrima stick into the temple of the thug he was fighting, and they dropped like a sack of rocks. He turned in time to see the last man standing, one of the ones who had been leading the deal, pull a gun and point it at Zatanna.

Nightwing yelled at her, “Zee, GUN!” as he dived for the shooter, knowing as he did that he wouldn’t grab them in time. The weapon fired at the same time Zatanna shouted, “!REIRRAB”

He collided with the criminal and used the momentum to slam his head against the ground as they fell, knocking him out. Immediately, he was on his feet again to check on Zatanna. She stood with her hand outstretched, and the bullet shimmered against a light blue magic, then dropped as she released the magic.

Nightwing let himself breathe in relief, and then looked around at the piles of **** black market criminals. He sighed, and got to work restraining them all so the Watchtower could collect them and get them to whatever law enforcement was applicable.

Harley joined him after watching a couple of times, and they made quick work of it while Zatanna went through the crate of artifacts and examined them. Once they were done, the unlikely couple went over to the magician.

“You know you can always just text me to come hang out Zee? No need to find someone for me to punch to see me.” Dick quipped, pointing a smirk at her.

Her features flashed for a moment with something- concern, and maybe regret?- before she sassed back at him, “Oh, but you do so enjoy punching, dear. I wouldn’t want to deprive you.”

He considered digging for that emotion, but decided against it. He didn’t want to ruin this, and they weren’t close like they used to be. They were more like colleagues now, and she didn’t owe him visits like a close friend would. Or, like a close friend would once have. Nowadays his close friends hated him the most, so the most he expected or hoped for was getting left alone.

Instead, he put more effort into his smirk and theatrically put a hand on his chest, “You know me so well.”

But rather than the returned light humour and empty conversation, that emotion flashed again, and she frowned. Not just frowned, but frowned at him, and immediately replied, “Not as well as I should.”

Dick knew that his smirk was looking a little fixed, but he needed a moment to process, because- huh? He slipped his features into a more consolatory and friendly smile. “Zee, you’re a big time Leaguer. I was just kidding with you, I know you don’t have time for-”

Her eyebrow lifted and her frown shifted slightly, “For keeping in touch with you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

He kept smiling at her, his tone a light and easy thing, “Seriously, no worries! I never expected-”

Again, she interrupted him, this time with a slight bite to her words. “Maybe you should have expected, then?”

Dick’s facial muscles ached from how much effort he was putting into maintaining this smile and keeping his cool. “C’mon Zee, it’s not like I’m all that important. And really, I’m fine, I was just joking, okay?”

She didn’t say anything, just stared at him with an unreadable expression that made him uncomfortable, made him feel unusually seen. He clapped his hands theatrically, looking at the crate, and bluntly redirected the conversation, “So, what kinda loot did we get?”

For a moment longer, she stared at him. Then, she shook her head slightly, and seemed to let it go, thankfully. She waved a hand at it, “Nothing much. A few gems with some charge. One or two holy items. The usual stuff. Insignificant for real magic, but dangerous in the hands of normal people.”

Her eyes drift to Harley, and raise a brow in question. Dick’s surprised it took so long honestly, but he hadn’t expected how the conversation had actually gone. “Are you going to introduce me to your new friend? She seems…familiar.”

This time, the smile that caught his lips was real, curling his features without effort, “Oh, yeah… you’ve probably heard me complain about her before. Zee, meet Harls. Harls, Zee.”

Zatanna nodded in greeting, seeming to focus on the blonde as she scoured her memory for where she was familiar, and said, “Nice to meet you. My name’s Zatanna, though Nightwing calls me Zee.”

Harley smiled brightly at the magician, and took pity on her, “Yeah, same way he calls me Harls. My name’s Harley. Ya know me ‘cause Bird-brain and me used ta’ fight all the time when he still wore the sparkly shorts.”

The raven-haired woman’s eyes widened with realisation. “Harley Quinn? But… I was under the impression you were a Gotham villain. A- what was the term Batman uses… A Rogue?”

Harley rolled her eyes theatrically, and deadpans, “I quit.”

Zatanna blinks a few times, clearly at a loss, so Dick chimed in. “Yeah, turns out the benefits are way better. Would you believe Joker doesn’t offer dental? Now that’s crazy. At least with me she gets all the ‘benefits’ she wants.”

He’s playing it up by a lot, forcing this casual and blunt innuendo, but he knows his reputation will let him get away with it. At least it’s good for something. He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. It takes a moment for it to sink in for Zatanna, but when it does, her eyebrows race towards her hairline. Then she looks from Dick, to Harley, then back to Dick, then at Harley again, then- Dick starts grinning, and it seems to break the cycle.

Rather than explode into questions, or accusations, Zatanna just asks softly, “You are…together?”

Dick nods, a hint of vulnerability creeping out despite his efforts to remain casual. He’s been thinking he doesn’t care, insisting to himself that he doesn’t need it and that it doesn’t matter to him… but he really does want to be able to introduce his new girlfriend to at least one of his friends or family. He wants to show her off, and for someone to approve of her, or be happy for him, or something. He wants to be proud of her, and share that pride.

It takes a few seconds, but then Zee smiles, and says, “Then… it seems I definitely need to keep in contact. I need to get to know the woman that’s stolen your heart, and make sure she’s a good caretaker.”

Dick felt like his face might break from how widely he smiled.

—

Zatanna was awake long into the night after returning to the Watchtower.

She was distinctly unsettled, her emotions wild and conflicting. Not only conflicting, but battling within her for dominance.

She was happy, for how Dick had managed to find someone to care about even in such an unlikely character. There was worry, that the blonde woman might be playing him for some reason. Some uncertainty, lingering from when she had watched him fight, finding his combat style altogether different to what she remembered from their teenage years. Then, he had been as swift and light as his bird namesake, always going an extra step to show off with a flip or unnecessarily complicated move. Today, he had moved with a deadly efficiency, a brutality present that flew against the flair she associated with Dick Grayson.

There was also a hefty amount of jealousy and envy, to know that the boy she had once sought so much, the man he had grown into, had found another woman who would fight beside him and guard his heart. Especially one as attractive as Harley. That was where the desire entered. Zatanna might prefer men, but that didn’t change her appreciation of the female form, and Harley? She simply oozed sexuality, especially in those leather pants. The mere idea of her and Dick together, their bodies pressed against one another-

But overwhelming all of that, keeping the forbidden fantasies and minor worries at bay, was a deep concern and regret. Regret that she had fallen so far out of contact with Dick that it had truly taken them meeting for work in order for her to realise how much he seemed to miss their friendship. And concern, because…

‘C’mon Zee, it’s not like I’m all that important.’

He had said it so casually. So confident in it that it didn’t need emphasis. A fact that was so repeated and so widely known that the knowledge just became a casual statement. He said it like he believed it.

And that’s what kept Zatanna lying in her bed and staring at the fabric drapes obscuring the steel ceiling of her bedroom in the Watchtower.

Because how could he possibly think that? Not just think it, but believe it so utterly, accept it so completely, that it becomes a part of casual conversation? She travelled the world, space, even occasionally the multiverse, and never had she found someone more important than Dick. Not even Robin or Nightwing, but Dick Grayson.

There were hundreds of people, and dozens of young heroes, who owed their lives to Robin. First, for standing beside Batman as they had travelled the streets of Gotham, but then even without the Dark Knight, there were young men and women that only had the chance to learn about their powers, to find safe haven long enough to live into adulthood, because of Robin going and throwing all that he had into creating the teams, the Titans and then later, Young Justice.

And Nightwing? Even if she put aside the thousands of civilians he must have kept safe over the years, she would still find it impossible to believe he wasn’t important. Practically half of the Justice League remained intact because of Nightwing’s actions in some way. Whether that was grounding the founding members when tension rose, offering a warm welcome to newly joined heroes, or dropping everything to come and help anyone and everyone who needed it at the slightly suggestion that he would be welcome.

He’d called her a big Leaguer, a significant figure because of how sought after her magical expertise was. He’d implied that he was just a small time name in the hero community, just a hero of his little town. Which was- well it was insane.

In reality, Nightwing could snap his fingers and she doubted there were more than a dozen people in the Justice League that wouldn’t come running to help him. Superman and Wonder Woman were his unofficial uncle and aunt, for goodness sake! Without him making the two young hero teams, the League would be dozens of valuable heroes shorter, herself likely included.

‘C’mon Zee, it’s not like I’m all that important.’

What had happened to her friend? What could have taken Dick Grayson’s, the first Robin’s, light and dimmed it so much that the only thing that made it shine was a blonde ex-villain? And more importantly, when there were so many people that owed him, so many people that loved him…

…why hadn’t anyone noticed it?