Chalant Candlelight

Chapter 26

(Zatanna's POV)

I opened my eyes to my gray ceiling, fine for a minute before remembering the events of last night, I look to see if Dick had stayed the night but I was alone. I decided to venture out to the circus on that misty Saturday morning, knowing Robin he would have gotten back into the flow of things almost immediately after coming back, that's just who he was, someone who doesn't miss a beat. After putting the pieces together it was only plausible for him to be at Haly's circus through the weekend and no less at four in the morning. I maneuver around all the training crews and equipment in the thick fog. I felt like I was going back in time to early nineteenth-century Europe in a way. I finally made it to a stand that held an obscure long aerial silk, gracefully twisted up in the silk was none other than Dick, with his tattoos on display. I watched him work on his routine, his muscles flexing and contorting as he moved around. I went unnoticed by him as I watched from afar and slightly covered by a nearby costume trunk, I could easily pass for someone who performed there, just because I had snuck into their loosely put-together practice session. I would have joined him on the silk if I had any ounce of acrobatic skills. Instead, I watched as the woman I had already met in his trailer climbed the silk, Yuliya Romanov, was her name. She effortlessly met him halfway, he looked surprised for a second before smiling as he wrapped her in his arm and they began to mess around in an impromptu duet routine. I watched their graceful performance with a nervous stomach,

"Is he like this with every girl?" I ask myself, wondering if I had been so stupid to think that he liked me when he's just a flirter, Artemis was right, he was a player. Dick and Yuliya end their duet standing on the grass, they're facing each other, Dick's head slightly lowered toward her, she held his forearms still with a smile on her face as they both chuckled, probably falling in love. I feel even sicker after basically confessing to him yesterday. I didn't even have the motivation to hide when he noticed me fifteen to twenty feet away,

"Z?" He questioned, Yuliya looked at me next, moving around him in a hug, staring me down as if trying to tell me that he was hers. She broke the hug before whispering to him that she had to go. He kept his eyes on me while Yuliya left us. I shook my head at him, too hurt to even say anything, I turned away beginning to walk back the way I had come when I felt his hand on my wrist spinning me back around before planting his fluffy lips on mine. I melted into his kiss, my arm un-tensing in his hand, my knees almost buckling at the sudden passion,

"I've wanted to do that forever." He let go of my lips for a moment to say before I put my hand up to his face bringing him back to my lips,

"Me too." I sigh.

A week of flirtatious glances and little comments passed yet we remained undefined. Sometimes before a mission, he'd pull me aside to somewhere hidden and give me a quick kiss but he had yet to make us official and I feared talking about it because I had never been in something more fragile than Dick Grayson's attention. I feared it would only take a second to fall from his good graces back into a mere friendship. I couldn't keep my eyes off him, and I didn't want to take my hands off him when I had the chance during our brief kisses. He was hypnotic once I fell into his blue eyes I couldn't get out.

(Robin's POV)

My stomach was in knots every waking minute, was I wrong for kissing her? For making her fall for me? For falling for her? I loved the freedom her kiss gave my mind, I hated the anxiety of caring so deeply about someone that all I could think about was ways she could be taken from me. What was I thinking? I'm Batman's sidekick, I shouldn't even think about caring about someone,

"Rob." Wally pulled me from my thoughts back to the mission at hand. Posion Ive had me wrapped in vines, next to Wally. He had gotten caught, the rest of the team were in different pairings and in different parts of the random bio lab that Ive had broken into,