Chapter Text
Zatanna had heard a lot of things, but a screaming voice in her head was new. It first appeared a few days ago, on her train ride to Bludhaven, in a choking half sob. The voice had come back intermittently in the days since.
Now, in an IKEA of all places, it chose to come back with a vengeance. It took Zatanna by surprise; she still wasn’t quite used to a voice in her head not being her own. She flat out stopped walking, and leaned herself on a sage green ottoman, cradling her temple in her hands. She didn’t want to cause a scene and she definitely didn’t need Dick concerned for her sanity, but the voice came on with such splitting volume that she couldn’t help it.
Dick had kept walking, moving on to a beige rocking chair with tassels on the arms, investigating it with an unnecessary amount of seriousness.
(HELP, PLEASE HELP)
Zatanna tried to cope with it for a second, focusing on the velvety feeling of the ottoman beneath her fingers.
Her mind pulsated, ears popping as the voice exceeded all possible decibel range. She felt her head might explode.
“Zee?” Dick asked, finally seeing what was wrong. He slowly walked towards her, head leaned to left in concern. He reached his hand to her shoulder but Zatanna stopped him, her head still not leaving her hands.
“Please…” She said, her voice soft, and broken. “One second, please”
Dick sucked in a breath. He’d never seen her like this. “Zee, tell me what’s going on. What do you need?”
“Just- I don’t know.”
The voice kept going, shouting, screaming. Zee had had mental connections with people before, notably her father. Back when she was young, the two of them would very rarely speak out loud, and simply just talk directly to the other with their thoughts. Her dad had used it as a way to force her to practice mental control. She remembered at 11 trying so hard just to get just a quiet whisper through her dad’s head.
It was the power of this call that surprised her. The voice sounded young, and yet the strength of the message was astounding. She tried to control her breathing, with Dick still hovering over her shoulder. To her relief he didn’t press any more, just stayed by her side until it passed. It lasted for only a few minutes but, God, it felt like hours.
When her mind finally quieted, Zatanna felt like she’d run a marathon. Her breath stayed shaky, her shoulders resting in deep shudders.
“Zee?” Dick asked, as softly as he could.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m okay now,”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later, okay? … Please.”
There it was, that please, in such a desperate tone. It set Dick’s mind ablaze, his adrenaline pumping, hyperactivity filling every bone in his body. That energy, activated by just the lilt in Zatanna’s voice, unfortunately had nowhere to go, as the thing she was so desperately asking him for was to be patient, and wait until later. Waiting patiently wasn’t a strength of his.
They continued their shopping; Dick was trying not to hover, trying to be completely normal and only kind of succeeding at either.
Zatanna tried to push her mind to furniture shopping. She had been so psyched for the move. Because her previous home had been a trailer in a circus caravan, she found little stress in moving, and was excited for the first time in her life to own furniture that was completely hers. Was it paid for by Wayne Enterprises? Maybe, but it was still hers. And the apartment would be hers too. The goal of this IKEA mission had originally been to get some shelves and a couch. They’d found some dark wood shelves that looked okay but no luck on any couches. Only a deep purple bean bag chair had caught her eye, which Dick graciously had slung over his left shoulder to carry for her.
She struggled to put her thoughts back into her head, but the fluorescent lights were beating down hard and the air in the store was so incredibly still and everything just felt out of control. Dick had asked her something but she didn’t hear.
He repeated himself and she caught a few sparse words. Something about texture and fabric. She tilted her head back, took a deep breath in, and asked, “Sorry, can you say that again?”
He paused, looking at her for a long moment. She saw the concern in his deep blue eyes, saw the slight frown on his lips as he thought about how to help her.
“Zee, we can do this another day.”
Relief swept her from toe to head.
“Are you sure?”
Dick chuckled. “Of course. Any excuse to get out of the manor is A-OK with me. And you’ve got a bed and a kitchen. At the end of the day that’s really all you need. We can get a couch and build those shelves another day. I promise.”
She grabbed his hand. “Thank you.”
“Always.”
Dick handled check out himself. The sales associate at the register was a sweet, older woman, who clearly loved her job for all the endless opportunities to talk that it gave her. Upon Dick coming even close to the register, she lit up like an alarm, beginning a string of questions and comments.
“Gosh I love these shelves, you both picked some good ones. You can ignore the instructions, they go together real easy,”
Dick smiled, only half forced. “Thank you, I’m excited to get to building it” He had always been good at niceties.
“Y’all are a cute couple.” The woman said. “You take good care of her.”
Dick took a look back at Zatanna, who stood a few feet away, eyes transfixed on something in the fluorescent distance. “We’re just friends.” He said quietly. Zatanna stayed dissociated. Dick wanted to get her out of here as fast as possible.
He thanked the woman, grabbed their things, and began to walk back out to the parking lot. Zatanna followed, quietly, reaching a hand out to just barely touch the tip of Dick’s elbow, grounding herself on him.
“It’s okay Zee, we’re close.” Dick said, low. They made their way to the car and Zee sat down in the back, eyes now screwed shut. The entire drive, Dick checked on her through the upper rearview, but she didn’t budge. She didn’t say anything either. Dick didn’t like silence. Every atom in his body wanted to ask Zatanna every question he could think of, pinpoint exactly what was wrong and fix it as fast as possible. But that wasn’t what she needed. So he’d grit his teeth and be okay with silence. Mostly. He peppered a few more questions back to her, most of which she ignored. So he had no choice but to be fine with the silence.
They pulled into her building, which was a tall, semi rise in Bludhaven. Zatanna had counseled Bruce that keeping her in Gotham limits might cause some magical turf wars, and all parties involved agreed that outside Gotham but still nearby would be best. She wasn’t going to be an on-call vigilante by any means, but she’d be on speed dial for any magical or demonic issues that Batman or the Justice League ran into. And in exchange, here was her penthouse apartment, on the top floor of a funky shaped glass building. As they got out of the car, Zatanna gave him a pained expression. Before he could ask what she needed, she just completely disappeared. Evaporated into thin air.
If the circumstances had been different, Dick would have made fun of her for making him carry all of the stuff up stairs. When he got all the way up, she was laying on the floor, a dishtowel on her forehead. He had almost stepped on her.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Book from my room. ‘Pathics’ by Angee Afrenzel.”
He did as he was asked, trying not to read into the pained lilt of her voice. The book was worn with use, its binding thrown soft from years of reads. It was a dark green, with the title embossed. Aside from that it looked positively blank, no images or gold linings. He placed it next to her head on the floor. She flicked a few fingers on her left hands lazily, and the book fluttered open before sliding down next to her. She lifted the cloth off of her forehead and began reading silently.
Dick sat on his heels a few feet away, watching her intently, unsure of what he could do to help besides watch awkwardly. His hands ran themselves across the waving pattern of the wooden floorboards. He stayed like that for almost an hour, just watching intently from a middle distance as Zee’s eyes travelled through pages.
He got up to go to the kitchen and make some tea, lavender camomile, for her. Whether or not it would help whatsoever, he wasn’t sure, but it felt good to do something at least. He left the tea by her head, assuming she was too engrossed in reading to notice. She turned her face towards him and felt for his hand.
“Thank you,” She said, “You can leave if you’d like,” her eyes were almost crystal in the light from the windows to her left.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Zatanna didn’t answer.
Dick continued on. “Honestly, I don’t exactly want to leave you alone right now, but if you want space I understand,”
She let out a long breath. “I’d like it if you stayed,”
Relief washed over him. He didn’t want to be overly protective, lord knew Zatanna could certainly take care of herself, but he knew he would sleep better knowing she was nearby. He still didn’t even know what it was that was getting to her, but if it could shake her this much, he wanted to be there to help.
“I’m gonna call Alfred from the other room,”
“Sounds good,” she said, and got back to scouring the book.
Dick walked to the bedroom, clicking the second speed-dial option on his phone.
“Master Grayson,”
“Hey Alfred. Calling to let you know I’m going to stay at Zatanna’s apartment tonight,”
“Oh?” Alfred’s voice went coy.
“Not like that. She’s - uh - having an issue,”
“What kind of issue?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll loop you and Bruce in if it seems city-threatening, though,”
“Okay. Be safe,”
“I will,” He hung up the phone and headed back into Zatanna’s living room. She had put the book down and was now looking up at him.
This was the first time in the last hour that she didn’t look pained. He took his opportunity. “Do I get to ask what was happening to you earlier?”
“Yes, you can ask now, but I need you to not say that I’m crazy,” She prefaced, wanting to make sure he would be prepared for her to tell him she was hearing voices.
“Zee, I wouldn’t say that. I know you, and also the kind of stuff you deal with,”
“Okay,” She sighed. “I’m hearing a voice in my head,”
“Huh,” Dick answered. “I see why you gave the disclaimer,”
“Yep,”
“So, what was hurting you then?” He asked, leaning on the kitchen counter.
“It was the voice. It was a young girl in pain, and it was louder than my brain could even process,”
Dick couldn’t fathom what that felt like, the violation of hearing an alien voice in your head.
“The kind of power it would take, to broadcast into my head like that,” Zatanna continued, “that’s what’s worrying me most,”
“Do you think it’s a trap? Someone mimicking the sound of a little girl in your head?”
“I don’t think so,” She said. “When you say something in someone else’s mind, especially someone trained, that’s putting yourself in a vulnerable position. It can always be traced back to you,”
“Have you tried to trace it, then?”
“That’s the thing, every time I try, I can’t get much. If I go into her mind, I feel like… like I’m dying, it’s so painful”
“So it is a trap then, the pain keeps you from seeing her thoughts and feelings” Dick said.
“No,” Zatanna’s voice grew firm. “The pain is how she’s feeling,”