Chalant Candlelight

Chapter 13

(Dick's POV)

"What am I doing here?" I sigh, a small roll of my eyes while I adjust the cuffs of my yellow button-up worn over a black turtle neck with a simple silver chain, black jeans, and yellow boots,

"I have absolutely nothing going for me, her father doesn't like me, and Bruce doesn't want me mingling with the aristocracy, she's actually Zara, and I'm Robin. Why does she want to meet me? Why am I meeting her? Girls throw themselves at me all the time and I don't agree to meet them at parties, so why am I meeting Zatanna of all people?" I thought to myself, stepping around the edge of the fountain, I had distanced myself from most of the party that was transpiring over the hedge in the backyard of some mansion. I was in the garden, hiding from all the overdressed, boring socialites, "I should just leave." I hopped off the fountain lifting my eyes towards the garden's exit and seeing the most beautiful ray of the moon shining down in front of me, she had a purple dress and big curls in her hair. And when she smiled for a minute I thought my feet had left the ground

"H-Hi." I managed to stutter out, breathtaking, she was absolutely breathtaking,

"Hi." She repeated with an excited grin on her perfect purple lips. I was frozen, my feet glued to the ground, "Sorry, I'm a little late, my father insisted on being introduced to the Willow's family before he left me here." She explained but all I did was watch her lips move and how her eyes moved around both a little embarrassed but mostly shy,

"Don't worry about it." I turned my blushing cheeks from hers, hiding,

"Shall we rejoin the party?" She reached her hand out for mine, I left my hands firm at my side until she got the message that I wasn't planning on taking hers. I had to remind myself to be cold in front of her because she was Zara, she was the personification of annoying. Not only that but she would hate me if she really knew me. I began walking towards the party, her trailing behind.

The party was lively with dancing music from years past and plenty of people to have a crowd. All I could think about was ways to escape. If I could jump into the very well-designed pool and sit at the bottom until everything died down I would,

"Do you know anyone here?" Zatanna attempted to make small talk,

"I assume question this is in light of everyone staring at me?"

"Well, you could say that." She looked about at the crowds' fascination with me,

"You must be quite the catch, Mr. Grayson." I only smirked at her response to me but on the inside, my stomach was doing flips at her wording. I was quite the catch, these kids could catch quite the drama if they're lucky. A third of these kids wanted to put me into every bad headline and humiliate me and the Wayne name, a third wanted to get in my pants, and a third wanted to do both, probably at the same time, those sick animals,

"A lot of these kids go to Gotham academy."

"Oh, do you go there?"

"I do. Where do you go?"

"My father hired a private tutor to homeschool me when I started high school," Zatanna said not noticing we had made our way to the wall so we could talk, she took a seat on a bench against the outside wall of the house,

"Your dad must be pretty protective of you." I smiled knowingly,

"Yeah, you should have seen him when I joined-" Zatanna covered her mouth seconds away from giving away her affiliation with the team, My smile almost fell out of my mouth, I was shocked,

"Joined what?" I egged her on, I wanted to see what she would say. Would the princess lie to me?

"Um, knitting club." She, with big surprised eyes, lied to my face,