One last spell | Dick Grayson and Zatanna Zatara

Chapter 9: s'lived ecivda

Dick was better — or at least, that was what he kept telling himself.

He still couldn't believe how easily he lost himself. How fast. It was almost impressive, in a very depressing way. The words Zatanna had said still echoed in his head, sharp and precise: "You will never, ever even hear someone saying my name again."

Yeah. He had been a jerk.

He knew this version of himself well — the one that showed up when he got obsessive, when he decided he knew best and everyone else just had to keep up. He hated that version. He also knew he couldn't afford to let it take control again.

That Thursday night, he had been planning to go after Jason Blood. Everything was supposed to be perfect. Clean. Efficient. He told Barbara to relax, that he could handle patrol on his own. Bruce was still out of the city, which made it feel like a rare window of freedom — or a lack of supervision, depending on how honest he wanted to be.

And then Zee had another magic leak.

During training.

Something that had never happened before.

It happened just hours after their fight — not really a fight, if he wanted to be technical, but hours after she had spelled it out for him, slowly and clearly, how unhappy she was with his behavior. After she had told him, without leaving room for interpretation, that she would dump him if he didn't change.

Dick was terrified.

And still, shamefully, that alone might not have been enough to stop him. His first thought had been automatic, defensive, painfully familiar: If only she could understand. I'm doing this because of her. All of it. For her.

When M'gann called him with the news, he was asleep.

And the way he woke up felt like cold water against his skin — sudden, unforgiving. The kind that knocked the air out of his lungs and left only one clear thought behind: What the fuck am I doing?

He couldn't lose her like this. Not like this. Not because he had convinced himself that obsession was the same thing as devotion.

And besides — he wasn't eating. Or sleeping. Or training properly. He had lied to everyone in his life, sometimes out loud, sometimes just by omission.

This wasn't strategy.

This was self-destruction.

And it couldn't pay off.

It just couldn't.

So he forced himself to recalculate — what he really wanted to do, why he wanted it, and how he was going about it.

When the idea first took shape, he had told himself it would take time. There was no reason to rush the way he had been. Life was moving forward whether he liked it or not. It was his senior year — and Zee's too. The team had other cases unfolding. His life was on the verge of changing, and this time, forever.

He needed to stay grounded in reality. Only then would he allow himself to break into the Tower of Fate — when he was truly sure it would work.

It was still one of his priorities. It just couldn't be the only one.

He waited patiently until Bruce was out of town again, which took about four weeks. During that time, he kept studying cases of possession by external entities and building theories around them — but not with the same relentless intensity as before.

When he finally talked to Zee, he asked her to forgive him. Really this time. Because now he understood — truly understood — what he had been doing to her.