The night smelled of rain and burnt magic. Gotham’s skyline glittered beneath the storm clouds, and you stood on the rooftop, ringed by the fading embers of a spell that nearly tore the city in half. Your lungs burned, your shirt clung damp to your skin, and your knuckles were raw — but you barely noticed any of it.

Because she was there.

Zatanna Zatara. Black coat swaying in the wind, fishnets torn, a small cut along her jaw glinting in the faint streetlights. Her hair, wild from battle, stuck to her cheeks in damp strands. And her eyes — those damn sapphire eyes — locked on you with that mix of frustration and longing you knew too well.

“You disappear for six months,” she said, breathless, anger threaded through exhaustion, “and the first time I see you again, you’re half-dead, trying to punch your way through a hellmouth.”

You leaned against the rooftop ledge, forcing a crooked smile despite the weight in your chest. “What can I say? I missed the warm welcome.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Don’t joke with me.”

“Not joking,” you said softly, your voice lower now, carried away slightly by the rain-soaked wind. “I always come back, Zee.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, crossing her arms, “until you don’t.”

That hit harder than you wanted to admit. The silence stretched, broken only by distant sirens. You swallowed, glancing away. “I never leave because of you.”

“I know.” She sighed, shoulders slumping as she stepped closer, boots crunching on broken glass. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s never because of me. You vanish when you want, come back when you need me… like I’m a spell you keep tucked away for emergencies.”

You flinched at the edge in her voice, but she wasn’t wrong. You had always been distant, untethered, drifting between missions, between wars, between versions of yourself. Yet somehow, you always ended up here. With her.

And maybe that was the problem.

“Zee,” you murmured, her name tasting like a confession on your tongue. “I’m not good at… staying. But when I’m with you… it’s the closest thing I’ve got to home.”

Her jaw tightened, and for a moment, you thought she’d throw up another wall, another shield of sarcasm and fire to keep you out. But instead, she stepped forward, close enough for the rain rolling off her coat to touch your skin.

“You’re impossible,” she whispered, and you could hear the exhaustion in her voice — not from the battle, but from you.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “But you keep letting me back in.”

Her lips parted, like she wanted to deny it, but instead, she let out a shaky laugh and shook her head. “God help me, I do.”

You reached out slowly, fingers brushing her hand, tentative, as though touching her would set the universe ablaze. She didn’t pull away. And in that moment, everything unsaid between you — the fights, the disappearances, the nights tangled in each other’s sheets, the mornings when neither of you dared to speak first — collapsed into silence.

“Stay tonight,” she said finally, her voice low, almost pleading. “No magic, no missions, no disappearing. Just… stay.”

You nodded once, feeling the weight of it, of her, of this. “Yeah,” you breathed, meaning it more than you ever had before. “I’ll stay.”

And like a deal, you seal your promise with a kiss.

And maybe tomorrow, you’d drift again. Maybe you’d vanish into another war, another life. But tonight, under the storm-soaked Gotham sky, she was yours, and you were hers, in the way only two people who could never quite let each other go could be.