Lurking Writer

Amid the chaos, Clark's arms were filled with gifts from well-meaning teens who talked over one another and clustered close. Everywhere he looked, there was a teen with bright eyes and a wide smile, many clutching thier phones for a photo or two. Clark allowed them close for about three minutes before he politely excused himself and flew away, ignoring their disappointment.

He checked every gift, high in the sky, making sure there was no tracking or dangerous item. Once they passed his checks, Clark flew to his apartment, making sure he wasn't followed. After touching up his latest story- writing was mostly editing, he found- he took a bath and got himself some dinner.

Only then, right before he was set to head off to bed, did Clark bother to go through the gifts. Most were drawings and handmade beaded bracelets that reminded him fondly of his own high school days. There was one Superman plushie that seemed handmade, which found its way to a shelf in his room, but the one gift that really stole the show was the very last one.

It was a scroll that, upon unrolling, melted Clark's heart. It was an ink painting of Superman saving an elderly couple. It was obviously from the fire a month ago at the Daily Planet, and the couple was someone very dear to the hero.

There, in bold, sharp black lines, was Clark carrying his Ma and Pa out of the fire, thier faces beaming with love. The artist made the artistic decision not to include the disaster he was rescuing them from, so the image depicted the hair midflight with his parents in each arm, the wing blowing thier hair and thier smiles wide and warm.

He would hang this in his fortress as soon as he flew by the farm to show his parents. He stared at it a little longer before rolling it up and hiding it in his closet behind a false wall.

Clark never suspected anything because there was a picture of Superman saving the Kents, taken by one Jimmy Olsen. He fell asleep that night thinking about how much his family would love it.

That was until the monthly Justice League meeting, where the painting came up in casual conversation after it concluded and members were in the process of leaving. Barry was just retelling his most daring rescue of a group of high schoolers at science camp, outrunning a flood to reach the children. He was also showered with gifts, but his favorite was the ink painting of him running with Iris in his arms from the time he got her out of a building with a bomb.

Clark doesn't normally interrupt a conversation- because his Pa raised him better than that- but he couldn't help it this time. "An ink painting? I got one of those from a teenager two weeks ago."

"I got one too," Hal yells from across the table. He's leaning his cheek back with his feet up. Clark knows Bruce is fighting every instinct in himself to not snap at Hal to take his feet off the table. "It was even in a fancy scroll."

"Mine too." Barry and Clark say at the same time. The three pause, exchanging confused looks. A throat clears on the other side of the room; the men turn to find Diana standing there holding a very familiar scroll.

It is the same fabric that Clark's was made of, the same dark material with the twisting green swirls around the painting. The painting itself was of Wonder Woman, sword held high above her, shield at her side, and right behind her, smiling upwards at her like the goddess she is, stands Steve Trevor.

Except Steve Trevor has been dead for over eight decades. There was no way a random high school had found a picture of him, because Diana had spent years looking for pictures of him and had only found two, both too blurry to really see his facial features. The government had destroyed nearly all records of him when Steve became a part of a secret task force in WWII and couldn't afford to have him linked back to the USA.

This meant the gift giver was someone who had gone out of their way to find Steve and knew that he was someone special to Wonder Woman. Which meant this person also knew that the people they had painted for the other members weren't a wonderful accident but a deliberate choice to use thier family members.

"This just became a risk to our loved ones," Diana announces, hand tight around the top of the scroll

Hal stopped rocking in his chair, swearing softly. "They painted my niece and nephew after I saved them from a fire. I did a few loops and tricks in the air to help calm them down, so a lot of photos of us were taken. I assumed that the artist just used one as a reference. I had no idea that....."

His words fade, but no one calls him out on it. Clark's own heart was hammering in his chest, worry and anxiety licking at his stomach in a nauseating manner. The knowledge that someone out there knew his parents and was even bold enough to taunt him by sending him a painting scared him more than he thought he was capable of feeling.

The four gathered around, retelling how they received their gifts and comparing notes for any similarities. The one thing that stood out was that the scroll was always dropped off when a group of teenagers was nearby, meaning the one behind it was either using teenagers or was a teenager themselves.

"Do you think we are the only ones being targeted?" Clark questions while tapping his arm. "Does anyone else in the League receive them?"

"I'll send out a message," Barry offers, typing away on his tablet. A beep goes off on everyone's communicators, reading out the message in code and calling all members back for an emergency briefing. "We need to make it quick. I don't like leaving Iris alone now that I know someone knows about her."

Turns out every one of the main seven had received a scroll, which made everyone uneasy. Almost everyone.

"Did you not like them?" Bruce doesn't pout, but it's the closest any of them have ever seen him get to. "He worked really hard on them."

"He? Batman, do you know who sent these?"

The Dark Knight leans back in his seat, as stoic as the day they met him, but everyone knows him well enough to see the emotions just beneath his skin. Bruce was preening.

"My son painted those."

"Robin?" Clark frowns. "Why did he not just give it to us at the Watch Tower?"

"No. My other son. He doesn't know he's my son, but I know that he's my son, and I'm watching him go out in the world and act like he's not my son."

"Hold on." Barry holds up an arm. "I got confused. Which Robin are we talking about?"

"None."

".....Then how is he your son?"

"He's my biological child, whom I had during a fling with his parents during thier visit to the Tower of London."

"Parent s. As in plural?" Hal cuts in, eyebrows raised.

"Yes." Bruce nods once, sharply, decisively. And because they know him so well, smugly, "They're ghost hunters."

"Right, so your biological son, who doesn't know he's yours because he was raised by the two-thirds of your threesome, painted pictures of our family members and gave them to us as gifts." Oliver summarized, with confusion clearly coloring his words. "Does that mean he knows our secret identities?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell him?" Clark asks

"No."

"Then how does he know?"

Bruce paused for a single second before he shrugged. "He takes after me. He painted one for me as well"

They watch the man eagerly pull a scroll from its strap on his utility belt, letting it roll open on its own. It's an awe-inspiring painting of Batman mid-swing over the city of Gotham, with the moon behind him. It has bold, thick lines that create a contrast with the white fabric.

It is a true masterpiece....were it not for the giant world written across the scroll.

"It says menace."

"Yes. He does not like Batman"

Diana very delicately stepped closer, placing one comforting hand on Bruce's shoulder. "He'll come around."

"He will not. He thinks Batman is a ghost and has attempted to kill me multiple times. He won't let me close enough to talk"

There is another heavier pause before Clark stands. "All in favor of helping Batman with his child, say aye."

"Aye." The word is echoed by six different voices.

Bruce rolls up his scroll. "That's nice."

"Don't worry, Batman. How hard can it be to track down an ink artist?"

Two years later, Clark is sobbing into his hands in the conference room that has been covered inch by inch with Ink paintings. Every new piece is a new taunt. A reminder that for all his superpowers, he had nothing on the mind of a very determined and petty Wayne. "Where is he? Where is that boy?"

"What is he!? A ghost!?" Hal flings blurry photos over the table, each with a teenage boy. He's never in focus, rarely facing the camera, and the only thing clear about him is his bright green eyes, which almost seem to glow. "How can none of us get a good picture of him!?

At first it was just an abject disdain for what her parents did, for what her mother wanted her to be.

The sparkles were too bright, the laughs too fake and loud, the politics too much of a headache for Sam to even want to consider. She could, in honesty, she could, she just didn't want to.

And at 8 years old, that was all that mattered in the world. She didn't want to, so she didn't. She avoided sparkles like the plague, threw tantrums and screamed and yelled.

She learned about goths from her older cousin, Zatanna. A role model that Sam rarely ever got to visit, someone who was glam and glitz, but not high society about it.

Someone who didn't perform to navigate the complex systems of the Rich and Ornery—Zatanna was someone who performed to be seen.

Someone who performed to be herself, to smile and say to the world smile back, that's all I need, smile back!

It was her cousin's greatest trick, making Sam smile.

Almost six years older than her and always on the go, it's a minor miracle Zatanna even met her with Uncle Gio always performing on the road. But they did and Sam has never been more grateful to have her cousin during some of the harder parts of being a high society kid.

Like when she was ten, and her mother was whisper-yelling something with Uncle Gio down the hall. They had just come home from a disastrous gala where Sam couldn't keep her temper and became a mocking point for the other rich families to poke and prod at. More than usual, anyway—more than the typical she's just different; more because now, now it's like it was obvious a goth girl would ruin a gala instead of just…existing on a different plane.

It wasn't hard to know that the subject of the fight was her.

"Don't take it to heart," Zatanna had said then, sitting on the floor beside her as Sam sniffled into her knees in anger, "take it to the stage."

But Sam's never been a performer, never been a star like her cousin so clearly was. She always preferred the daylight than the glittering lights of chandeliers. She preferred fresh air and sunny patches of green over too large rooms lit softly in the night.

Greenhouses, over galas.

She angrily wiped at her face, trying to keep her voice low when she explained this to her cousin.

"Then plant it deep." Zatanna had shrugged, smiling as she leaned over to carefully pull something from behind Sam's ear: a bright red rose. "Prune the unnecessary parts, tender the soft parts and grow deadly."

She offered the flower, and Sam took it delightedly. When she smelled it, it smelled fresh. Like it had just bloomed for her for this one single trick. Her cousin's eyes softened, the sheen of her eyes glinting the way tree leaves rustle in the dredges of Summer.

"You don't have to play their game," Zatanna whispered, just for them, gently bumping Sam's chin up with the crook of her finger. "But that doesn't mean you can't weather the storm and come out the other end more vibrant than any other."

She remembered, then, how Zatanna had smoothed over the ruffled feathers of Sam's mistake earlier that night by making roses just like the one in her hand pop into existence in clouds of colorful smoke. She remembered in particular when Zachary Newman, the reason Sam had lost her temper, had grabbed the rose that appeared in front of him and cried out at sharp indents of thorns.

And it felt like she understood what her cousin was trying to say, even if only by the feel of her words.

"Bloom, goth girl," Zatanna whispered, a show just for the two of them lit by the moon, "thorns and all."

Sam remembers clutching that rose to her chest, remembers the distant whisper-yelling of her mom, remembers Zatanna leaning heavier into her side like comfort, the smell of roses flooding her system like it had no idea what else it could do.

Sam kept those words buried deep within the marrow of her bones, because she wanted to be the kind of flower Zatanna would admire. She wanted to be the rose that she pulled from behind an ear, wanted to be the petals that scattered like confetti in the spotlight, wanted to bloom and make her cousin proud.

It helped more than she could say, more than she could handle sometimes, when she was called to perform.

When she could feel her mom observing her, eying the minutiae of Sam's every movement and breath. Searching for something, but never saying what.

She was never going to be the perfect daughter, nor did she ever want to—being goth was a rebellion until it wasn't anymore. But some part of her still rankled. Some part of her still wanted to play nice, even if her dresses were all black and purple and her accessories were sharp and pointed instead of shimmering and expensive.

She wanted to be different—that didn't mean she wanted to be a failure.

And then Sam turned twelve, and they moved to Amity Park.

A lot of things changed then.

She already didn't have that many friends in high society, and while she did have a small group of other outcasts she could call friends, they weren't the type to keep correspondence with someone who left.

It meant Sam only had her cousin, Zatanna, who would send her postcards from her shows on the road.

Sam has an entire collection of them, from all over the world. Sometimes, trinkets would be included, sometimes a flower would pop out from seemingly nowhere.

Sometimes, Zatanna would personally deliver them. Those times were her favorite.

They were sporadic in nature, but there was always one constant: Zatanna would always send a postcard on Sam's birthday.

This postcard, the last one to arrive at the old house for her twelfth birthday, was the most important one; It was the one that kept her company in their big, obnoxious Mansion, located in this new town, with nobody she knew but her parents.

Her room still echoed, with nothing yet on the walls, no rugs unpacked, just boxes and boxes that she made sure the servants wouldn't open and rearrange for her.

She sat on the floor to her bedroom and tried not to cry, clutching the postcard to her chest and trying her damnedest not to wrinkle it.

Happy Birthday, to the most magical Manson I know. You got this, goth girl! -Z

That postcard bolstered her through unpacking her room, with the scent of Jasmine wafting through the air and the melodious sounds of some garage band from her previous city—friends of friends of classmates who were just starting out.

Two days later, Sam only has one final thing to unpack.

She had left a wall blank and free of furniture on purpose, a clear space that her mother had made the painters set up when they painted Sam's room dark purple—a wall covered in expensive cork top to bottom just like her previous room, framed in a somewhat understated black filigree trim.

Her parents knew how important this was, even through all the differences and screaming matches and pleading, they would never take this one thing away.

The night before she is set to go to school, Sam spends most of it pinning up all the post cards from her cousin with a heavy tin of push pins surrounded by the smell of incense. Pictures of her old friends, of her family, band posters and even ripped out pages of poetry she's particularly proud of, cover a small expanse of the wall.

It's room for growth.

She doesn't know, at this point, that Zatanna's most recent postcard is more important than she thinks it is. She doesn't realize that it's the most important and will stay the most important.

She can't, not for four more years when finally, finally—the next postcard from her cousin arrives.

It's late, and she should be some kind of mad about it. Four years too late. Or maybe it's on time.

She should be kicking and screaming or scoffing and throwing it away, but her fingers are stuck.

The postcard is of a train station, from some place called Utrecht Station. Sam heavily suspects it's European, but can't actually recall where this place might be.

It looks like one of those old timey photos, taken from the street where you can see all the windows of the station curving in black and white tableau due to the reflections of the light, simplified from the older generation of photography. All the people in it are walking briskly, like they have a destination or, more probably, a train to catch. They dress like old timey mobsters, actually. The kind that Tucker likes to mimic the accent of in those bank robbing movies.

She stares a little too long at it, mind unhurriedly processing in contrast to the busy bodies in the photo. She hasn't even flipped it over, doesn't fully know for sure who it's from but—but who else could it be?

She only has two friends, and she left both of them mere minutes ago after they planned a whole dinner and show for her at the local slam poetry night. Is planning to see them tomorrow morning before class. Bubba always uses those crisp, square envelopes, never postcards.

Feeling ridiculous, she flips it over to confirm it is who she thinks it's from.

The confirmation is quick, but only leaves her with more questions than answers.

How can you be lost when you know the exact coordinates of a grave? When the human body fits in a six foot dirt pit and the memory of a soul can be condensed down to a block of stone with a name and dates on it?

But she lost her mother. Dead or alive, she's out there somewhere that Zatanna cannot locate and now her father has suffered the same fate. Except it's different now: she doesn't know her mother beyond the confines of photos stored in old albums, the breath between stories told to her like bedtime lullabies, the dreams her brain conjures up at night.

But she knows her father. She knows the breadth of him—the scent and habits and ticks. She knows the cadence of his speech, the feel of his hand ruffling her hair, the feel of the soft forehead kisses he gives when she cries, the weight of his I'm proud of you, the security of being cradled in his arms like a child no matter how old she gets, the scrunch of his brow when she scolds him on his diet.

Her mother's circumstances aside, how could she lose her father? It seems unfathomable. He's a grown ass man, and he loves her, and they have a show that must always continue.

But just as Death cares not for schedules and promises, Reality is always blunt and honest: her father is missing and Zatanna feels the ache of it like she's been cored out from her gut. She feels it in the back of her teeth as she smiles on stage, and she feels it when she's sitting backstage in the dark and trying to breathe.

In the end, Zatanna can't even go through a second show without him. Thankfully, it isn't hard to simply cancel the rest of the tour and disappear. It's not like they ever had a concrete schedule—not like they do in the summers, doing shows in Vegas.

Zatanna, mostly, wants to scream.

She embarks on a questing trip to find her dad, instead.

It turns out to be…a lot more convoluted than she ever thought it would be.

===

Before Sam turns thirteen, she goes through puberty.

Well, she thinks it's puberty anyway. Your body and it's natural changes, and all that. Birds and Bees? Sam doesn't really care.

Meat starts to sit heavy in her gut. Just looking at it makes her want to puke. Her breasts haven't changed but she's grown a couple inches, and somehow the aches are on her joints and in her gut.

Taneisha brings an assortment of meat for lunch—and worst of all beef jerky to class, munching on it at all times, and the smell of it bothers Sam. Danny brings something called onigiri for lunch, rice balls with an assortment of fillings that his sister made for him. Somehow, Sam can still smell the salmon and tuna even with the overpowering scent of mayo and sriracha mixed in.

It makes lunch a terrible ordeal, seemingly out of nowhere.

She finds her only reprieve in the garlic steamed vegetables Chef makes for the table at home.

Her mom notices, because her mom notices too much.

Vegetables, tofu, pastas and salads start becoming more prominent at the table.

Sam doesn't say thank you.

Her mom doesn't mention it. Her dad continues to chatter quietly to fill the space.

It's a long year of trial and error.

Her skin itches like the very air around her prickles at her skin, her two best friends are childhood friends who may or may not be in love with each other, her mom won't say anything of substance, and the roots of her hair needs to be dyed black again.

But her veins feel full and she isn't yelling at her mom as much and Danny thinks the bits of blonde that poke out make her look more goth, actually, and she's taller than most of the girls in her class and it makes her feel smug.

There's an energy that thrums under Sam's skin, a restlessness that crawls into the atmosphere, that huffs out in foggy breathes of cold crisp morning air.

Something is wrong with her. Is this normal?

It starts to rankle when she blinks awake to find herself in her yard, a fistful of grass in one hand and the taste of dirt on her tongue.

What the hell is she doing?

She can't stomach meat, she can't stomach fish.

She used to love sushi, and now she's eating fucking grass.

She throws herself into research—finds an article about slaughter houses, and realizes that life isn't something to take for granted—that privilege is real, and frankly she should be paying more attention.

Danny's dad is Japanese, and his half-Asian features make him more feminine than he wants to be. Taneisha's a black woman in a white man's world. And the patriarchy is a shit place to be when you're a goth girl, even if she's white and rich.

Puberty fucking sucks, and eating meat is a sign of genocide.

She starts to tell everyone she's vegan. She determinedly eats salad, talks about the treatment of cows and chickens and pigs to anyone who will listen.

Her dad gets a greenhouse built, her mom creating a sanctuary of exotic flowers and expensive herbs in it.

Sam and her mom share custody of it, in a sense. She determinedly keeps dirt in her hand and not her fucking mouth, and sometimes her mom makes salves for the itch under her skin. Sometimes her mom makes perfumes, or lotions, or even dyes that Sam dips her fingers into to turn the tips of them a sort of blackish purple.

She doesn't think about her mom giving her salves without Sam telling her anything. She doesn't think about the perfumes and lotions she sneaks back into her parent's bathroom. She doesn't think about her dad, carefully patting her mom's hand at the dinner table when her mom won't stop staring at Sam's fingers.

She doesn't think about the perfumes and lotions not showing up on her vanity anymore.

She gets her shit together.

She goes to school, eats her vegan lunch, and tries to tell herself it's enough.

Summer comes and goes in a blur.

Danny sheepishly shows them his crazy house, shields them from his borderline mad scientist parents as best he can, introduces them to his sister Jazz.

Taneisha tells them she's not a she anymore. Taneisha tells them she's never been a she. Taneisha tells them she's a he.

Taneisha whispers he likes the name his mother gave him, but can't hold it anymore. Taneisha's voice cracks about how he doesn't know how to tell his family. Taneisha warbles shakily about how he thought he was a lesbian, which would have somehow been easier to handle than this. Taneisha cries, and it's the first time Sam's ever seem him cry.

Danny, panicked and more of a crybaby than any of them, frantically says boys don't cry, don't cry!

Sam, angry at the world and the tears—not at Taneisha, but of the emotions that overwhelm him—hisses that boys can cry whenever they want, stop spreading toxic masculinity dummy!

Taneisha's laugh shatters around them but they get through it.

They sit in a huddle in Danny's room and look up boy names until Taneisha isn't Taneisha anymore.

The end of the Summer is cresting, and Sam and Danny meet Tucker for the first time.

You're my best friends in the whole world. Tucker says, his hand in hers and Danny's completing a circuit that zings through her.

And suddenly she's not quite so alone anymore. It's not all better, she still hasn't told them about her…everything, and she obviously doesn't belong to them the way they belong to her, but it's enough.

It's enough, for now.

She goes home, does not eat the fucking grass, and smiles a feral smile.

It's why she kept coming back the House of Mysteries, why she risks time dilation whenever she slips between dimensions.

She's had a hell of a year and she deserves this, she tells herself—even as a small voice in the back of her mind still whispers judgmentally about seeking carnal pleasures when her father is still out there, somewhere.

But that voice is the same voice that sneers at her in the middle of the night—the same voice that asks her what if Dad disappeared on purpose, because of you? Isn't that what Mom did?

Raspy kisses lave upon her neck, John's hands traveling up and down her body, bringing her thoughts to heel. She bites at the nearest piece of skin nearby, and the groan she gets in return is both gratifying and grounding.

Useless thoughts have no right to swirl around in her head. She's met heroes and gone on adventures with new hero friends and whilst she still hasn't found her father, her network has grown exponentially. She has access to rumors, to magic, to an organization that keeps getting more and more influential the more heroes join it: The Justice League.

Already, she's heard whispers of at least her father's living status. He's out there somewhere and it's better than what her father could glean from her mother's disappearance.

To the world at large, her mother is dead. To her and her father, her mother is missing.

It helps, knowing that the situation with her father is different in some minute way.

It helps, because this means there's hope.

What it doesn't help is answer Zatanna's questions: Why he disappeared in the first place, why he won't contact her, won't even send a postcard.

This stray thought catches on the ridges of her teeth, mind wandering as her body goes numb again.

She thinks about her cousin, Sam, thinks about how the days have blurred together and she can't quite remember if she sent a postcard to her this year. Zatanna's own birthday passed without her knowledge, but surely Sam's birthday hasn't passed yet?

Aunt Pam had moved them to some small town, hadn't she? Zatanna will have to look for it. Perhaps rework a spell.

Strong hands grip her thighs, spread her decadently as a line of heat gently lays upon her like a blanket, skin on skin on skin.

"You with me, 'luv?" John whispers into the crook of her shoulder and neck. The soft kiss he punctuates the question with is hesitant, checking in.

"I'm here, John." Zatanna rasps, thoughts scattering, dissolving into nothing but flesh again, blissful as the heat of his lips dissipates and she tries not to let it.

"Still okay?" John's hands stop wandering, either seeing her distraction or actually worried, which won't do at all.

She wraps her arms around his neck, clutches at him with her legs.

She melts away, thoughtlessly, carelessly, buoyantly.

She doesn't need to worry right now. She doesn't need to think.

She just needs to be here.

She kisses him, and he kisses her back, and that's all she can carry for the moment.

Tomorrow—tomorrow, she'll pick the rest of it back up.

But that is for tomorrow.

===

Danny dies on a muggy Summer day, just before Sam's fourteenth birthday.

Sam's heart won't stop fucking beating on her chest like it's trying to rip out of her for the entirety of the remaining Summer.

The unnameable thing under her skin threatens to swallow her in a maw covered in needles and pins, but she cannot fucking think about it.

Puberty does not last that fucking long. Puberty does not make you want to crawl out of your own skin, does not make you feel like the marrow in your bones are sucked dry, does not make your head spacey and irritable, does not make you eat fucking grass.

She's ultra recyclo vegetarian and it is unfortunately the best decision of her life, and she can't fucking think about it because she saw her best friend die, and being near him feels electric.

She wants to get closer, but doesn't want to touch.

She blames it on hormones.

Come on, Danny.

Sam stomps into the greenhouse, breathes heavy like anvils and skin burning like there are a million tiny brands sizzling on her pores.

A Ghost Zone?

Her arms are covered in dirt, she's sweating and she's surrounded by plants. The soil is damp and the coolness of it, the soft almost melty, almost fluffy cadence of it sinks into her as she digs and digs and digs.

Aren’t you curious?

The greenhouse is technicolor, and the air is soft and stark like petals and pollen. Her knees make indents in the potting soil, she's a fucking mess—her skirt and crop top are covered in dirt and petals and roots, her doc martens are smeared with mud, and she feels wild and manic and unreal.

You gotta check it out.

Famous fucking last words.

She doesn't how long it takes for her to feel normal again, but eventually all of the buzzing on her skin drains out of her. Her breath steams out of her like locomotion, but she's finally on solid ground. Pun not intended.

She's elbow deep in potting soil, the humid air of the greenhouse coddles her, and her body is thrumming with something she doesn't want to name.

Danny is alive. Danny is alive, and that's all she needs to know. She will not look a gift horse in the mouth.

She tries not to feel uprooted when she stands up.

She fails.

She stares at the greenhouse flowers, distantly wondering when the adrenaline will crash.

Every blink she makes flashes the same images in her head, on rotation. Danny's body, jolting when he put his hand on the wall—on the button that wasn't supposed to be there. Danny falling to his knees, crashing to the floor. Danny not moving, not breathing, the sudden absence of noise.

Danny's scream echoes in the space between her ears, short, agonizing, cut off like a rose bring pruned.

Her own roses are vibrant, red, red, red.

It's a boon, she's never hated green until now, and everything feels overwhelming.

I'm okay.

Danny's voice has always had that sort of lilt to it, something about the consonants or maybe the vowels. He doesn't have an accent like Jack does, is as American as she or Tucker are, but his consonants are softer, somehow.

I'm okay—Sam, Tuck, I'm okay.

She clings to this memory the most, Danny blinking his eyes open with a groan and panicking at the sight of his two best friends crying, distraught.

Danny still doesn't know what to do in the face of tears, and that more than anything had calmed both of them down. Helpless laughter had bubbled up between her and Tuck, a new kind of understanding they had trouble finding after Tucker transitioned.

Not because Sam had a problem with Tucker being a guy, but because it was another thing that separated her from the group now—that she was the only girl.

She still hasn't told them about her parents. She's still scared.

Almost losing Danny makes her want to be brave. She's already in deep, and she can't—

She furiously wipes her eyes, tracking dirt all over her face and somehow it makes her stronger.

The smell of leaves, of pollen, of soil, it all dives deep into her as she takes a bolstering breath.

She clenches her fists, feels the trace of pebbles between the spaces of her knuckles, and decides that it's far too late to still be scared.

It's been too late.

After school starts, she'll invite them over. They'll play bowling, and she'll—she'll stand her ground if they change their attitudes.

They won't, some part of her knows, hopes, but if they do—

She closes her eyes. Takes another breath.

Danny's body on the ground, Tucker's scream overlapping with hers, the heat of their bodies as they held each other afterwards, the crackle of something as she felt Danny alive.

She opens her eyes, sears the image of the bright colors of the greenhouse into her brain, and leaves.

Sam can only calm down when she eats, can only direct her ardor towards supporting Danny in being a hero, invests all of her energy in the green house, she feels everything and feels nothing.

Everything is itchy, petty squabbles of teenagedom feel monumental, her moods are erratic, she's self righteous with Danny's new responsibilities, and she and Tucker fight like cats and dogs.

In short: Sam is a heinous bitch.

This is nothing to be surprised about, most teenagers are assholes, hormones and puberty and all that. It's not even all the time, just little moments here or there.

But Sam doesn't feel like herself.

She feels uprooted, like she's outgrown the pot she's been planted in, where the pavement starts to crack and weeds start to sprout.

She tries to change the lunch menu, she hates and loves the feel of Danny's mouth on hers, Tucker's voice gets grating even though she cares about him and his opinions—she does she does she does.

She tells them about her family, finally, and it's good, it's great. It's supposed to make things better, smooth over the rough edges and it does, but not for long.

Not for long at all.

There's something incandescently unfair in the way she feels so close to her friends and so far at the same time, like her life is spiraling out of control but at least she's not so fucking alone.

The ghosts, at least, are easy. The ghosts are good. The ghosts give her an outlet, even if she feels like a dick making Danny deal with them like a fucking weapon.

The ghosts give her a purpose, an enemy.

And then she wishes she never met Danny or Tucker.

This is the first crack in her facade.

Being the only one there, being the one to set the dials, being the one to kill Danny again, it ruins her on a molecular level.

It cracks something fundamental inside her that she doesn't think she can fully recover from.

Because this isn't her—this isn't who she wants to be.

But some part of her begs her to do something, begs her to fix the only things that have made sense in her world for the past year—begs her to get back to normalcy even if that means ghost fighting.

Even if that means Danny dying again, means her skin has to burn in the wake of the portal ripping itself open again.

She tries not to feel flayed, and utterly fucking fails.

The second crack, the pivotal one, the life changing one that splits her into pieces, happens when she gets swallowed by the Green.

She doesn't really remember much of her time in Undergrowth's hold, doesn't really remember the things she did—just like everyone else in town she remembered seeing Undergrowth, remembered getting surrounded, and then…nothing.

Just blinking awake to see Danny, concern writ all over his face, giving her a tiny crystal made from his new ice powers and smiling at her in a way that made it all seem…trivial. Because she was back, they were all back, and nobody else remembered and Danny said it was fine so why should it matter?

So it didn't.

Until it did.

===

It starts with the dreams.

They're nothing at first, comforting even. Like being nestled.

They're not so bad, in all honesty. They're not good, but they're not…bad.

They're disturbing only in the fact that they aren't disturbing.

She's surrounded by darkness and the familiar thumping of her own heartbeat.

The dreams are just that, at first. Just her being cradled.

It's nothing. It's simultaneously less than nothing and more than nothing—her heartbeat and the darkness.

Small snatches in the vast landscape of her mind in REM.

It's when she hears voices that things take a turn.

Not voices. A voice. The voice.

Undergrowth.

She doesn't know it's his voice definitively for a while, waking from these dreams like a haze is still framing her vision.

She doesn't even remember what the voice says at first. Too tangled up like vines around her throat, her eyes, her ears.

And then one day she gasps awake with Undergrowth's humming, the words yes, yes you'll do, blooming in her head.

She avoids the greenhouse that specific day, asking Shenzi, one of the gardeners, to tend to it in her stead.

Shenzi gives her a long look for it, all the of staff employed by the Mansons know to steer clear of it beyond maintaining the glass and the temperature, but she does it and that's all Sam cares about. Shenzi is thorough and good with her hands, and she takes absolutely no shit from Sam—of course Sam can trust her.

It isn't until Shenzi, in the aforementioned act of taking absolutely no shit from Sam, refuses Sam's request that she realizes things have begun to rot.

"Sorry?" Sam blinks up at the woman.

"I said," Shenzi, in that half-lidded calm stare of hers, "that I will not be able to abide by your request, Miss Sam."

"Why—" Sam, bewildered, takes a moment with a stutter to her breath. "Why not?"

"Because you love that greenhouse," Shenzi slowly informs her, in the same way she had to explain to a nine year old Sam that even though poison ivy was a good deterrent to intruders it would not be a pleasant plant for the gardeners to keep around the Mansion, "you yearn for it, but you have not stepped foot in it for three weeks."

That. Can't be true. Can it?

But Shenzi would never lie, and more importantly, Sam cannot recall the last time she was in the greenhouse.

She realizes then that Undergrowth's voice has been haunting her, no pun intended.

Innocuous moments plagued by snatches of memory. Snippets of selfish violence, of harsh encouragements and rumbling satisfaction.

It's the questions that have ruined her. The cooing and, worst of all, how his words make her feel.

Do you feel the power?

She did. She does. Power beyond her imagination, flowing through her veins like root systems being flash flooded.

Aren't you thankful? Aren't you proud?

She never would have tasted this kind of power without him, she realizes. She was never meant to take so much when she was only supposed to be a caretaker. She was only supposed to be his proxy, and Mother.

Doesn't it feel good, to take? To grow them? Isn't it lovely?

Question upon question that she doesn't really know the answer to, or does and doesn't want to know the answer to. Always yes and no at the same time in equal measure, when she it should have just been no.

Do you not love them?

And she did. She really did—

Is it not love to give and give and give? Is it not care?

And it wasn't, it isn't. She's taking in equal measure, she was smothering them—

Is it not a mother's way? To nurture? To let roam free? To feel the flush of Spring?

Not when it overruns the city. Not when flowers weren't meant to be this big, not when Nature's response has never been growth in size, but growth in numbers—fields of flowers, the next generation, over and over, life cycles meant to be short and blossoming like fireworks.

Flashes of giant vines, of stems being stretched to the limit and beyond, of giant flowering carnivorous heads of plants that hungered plague her when she blinks.

Nature's response was never bigger. Nature's response was always more. Nature's response was always share.

She thinks of her own mother, of the finger dyes and the salves her mother still leaves her on occasion. Of the modified dinner menus to suit her new diet, of the watchful way her mother looks at her, but never says anything.

She thinks about the staff, carefully selected by her mother, who never balk at Sam's requests. Who are as nonplussed about anything she could get up to, despite knowing full well how difficult she is, how strange she must be compared to other high society "darlings." How many of the staff are actually more similar to Sam than they are to her parents.

Sam blinks. Shenzi has laid a delicate hand on her shoulder.

"Miss…" Shenzi bites her lip. Sam distantly notices she's only seen Shenzi make this face once before, when she was thirteen and had stood at the mailbox waiting for her cousin's postcard only to never get it. Shenzi was the one who had to bring her back to her room, she remembers.

Shenzi was probably the one who told her mother, too. Her mother, who wordlessly brought her tea and left when it was clear Sam just wanted space.

"I'm okay." Sam automatically says, even though she's far from it. Different memories overlapping in a way that tries to infect her reality. "I'm—I'll. I'll take care of the greenhouse today."

Shenzi looks like she might object, even though she was the one who refused first. Her hand squeezes Sam's shoulder's once, before letting go.

They stand there together for a moment, breathing. Sam is trying to focus, and it isn't until her fourth deep breath that she realizes that she's copying Shenzi's exaggerated breathing.

Embarrassment floods through her, but it is infinitely a better feeling to drown in than panic and guilt and whatever the hell else Undergrowth, her mom, and her missing cousin brings about in Sam's chest.

"Perhaps I will join you?" Shenzi soothes, as if Sam is a horse ready to bolt. "We can go together."

Sam is more grateful than she ever has been in her entire life. She nods, and they make their way slowly towards the back of the mansion. Sam squares her shoulders and Shenzi lets her take the lead. Her solid presence behind her makes everything easier.

Against all odds, against all the fears, being in the greenhouse isn't so bad.

The flowers greet her like they've been waiting, and Sam is nothing if not a lover of her plants.

She can do this.

She touches the petal of one of the rhododendrons. It seems to stretch towards her, though not quite literally. It seems to hum, as if trying to assuage her of any doubt of whether she belonged here.

Relief floods through her, that at least she'll still have this.

The plants love you, and you love them back.

Undergrowth's voice whispers to her, and she tries not to flinch.

===

It ends in the greenhouse.

Ends might be a strong word for it, it…solidifies in the greenhouse. It grows, like the rest of the plants in residence, until it can't anymore.

Until the dirt starts cracking—until Danny and Tucker watch in pure silence for a whole minute, staring at the same plot as she is. Staring at what she's done.

"…So," Tucker finally says, "You're definitely a plant witch."

"I am not." Sam reflexively says, if only because her first instinct is to disagree with Tucker at all times.

She can feel Danny and Tucker exchanging glances from slightly behind her, can feel them twist as they bump into her shoulders when they lean back to do so. Danny on her left, Tucker on her right.

"Hate to say it, Sam…" Danny winces, leaning into her as if to ground her. The touch of him brings a shiver down her arm. "But definitely a plant witch."

"Isn't this a good thing?" Tucker nudges in from her other side, sandwiching her as if she'd wither away if they didn't. "Aren't you in love with like, Poison Ivy?"

"Go kiss your imaginary Oracle," Sam grits out weakly, "and leave me alone."

Sam is still shaking at the patch of plants before her. At the patch of dead plants before her.

"They're real I swear it!" Tucker insists, vehemently as he always does, "They're real!"

Danny places his hand on hers, gentle as he always is, squeezing. That, too, electrifies her, like her veins are quivering at his mere touch. "I think…"

But he doesn't finish his sentence, because he doesn't know what to think. She doesn't know what to think.

Tuck brings his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. His touch isn't a jolt to her senses. His touch is comforting—his touch is warm and solid, his touch, more than anything, reminds her of how human they all are.

Cold, zinging electricity on her hand. Warm, sooty heat on her shoulder. Damp, earthy softness underneath.

She is a mixture of textures, a livewire connecting from point A to point B to point C and beyond.

She has never killed a plant in her entire life, and now she kneels before a small graveyard of her own making.

She swears she can hear Undergrowth laughing at her.

She used to parade around in her stage magician outfit, her hero outfit, even if she's not exactly virtuous or rescuing damsels in her travels. But she's helped heroes here and there, chasing leads towards her father, making friends. It made sense, before. Magic made it easy.

Now, in the Arctic of the Far Frozen, she knows better. It's not the first time she's had to tumble through a place without magic, and it's equally not the first time she's had to change into better clothing.

She learned the hard way but she learned.

There should be a doorway around here towards her next lead—the Realms has always connected but tricky to navigate—but it'll keep. Her legs are tired, and there's a convenient little cavern she can rest in.

By the time she digs out the source of the beep, a Justice League communicator, she's settled with a little fire and a piece of jerky in her mouth with her belongings slowly piling up around her because of course it's at the bottom of her bag.

But the beep is important, because the beep is from Batman, and Batman apparently has John Constantine in Gotham telling her he found something that might be worth checking out.

Something in her chest jumps, because even though the thing with John ended almost as soon as it began it was important to her. It was pivotal.

It was something she needed desperately just so she could move forward.

Neither of them could claim it was love, but neither of them could claim it wasn't either. These two things are true, and can be true at the same time.

It means something, that they parted and still come together in little ways like this.

She grins at this gift from John, a warmth that spreads from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head, in a different dimension and feels a little bit of that hope that's been clinging to her get a little steadier, and little stronger.

The Far Frozen doesn't feel so far or frozen, in moments like these.

She finishes her jerky, and in the warmth of the fire and this unexpected gift, she types out a reply to change course and set her next destination.

===

It begins with a sword.

More precisely with an elemental by the name of Allura, who is trapped in a sword.

Zatanna frowns, staring down at said sword stuck in a rock in the corner of a dimension she's still not comfortable in despite using it as a sort of magical highway thoroughfare.

It's a simple thing, really. A thoughtless thing.

Zatanna is only 20 years old, and even though she feels much older she is still young. Careless. Straightforward.

Cocky.

Because she has contacts now. Established heroes who call her to ask about magic. Colleagues who hum, impressed by how easily she wields her magic, how much she has, how smart she is with it.

So she spells a question and considers it irrefutable, considers herself indomitable.

Llet em touba arataZ.

But of course, it is only four words.

Four words do not make an unbreakable chain—they dont even make a wall.

Four words make a door with a welcome mat.

I knew your Father, Allura had said. Free me and I can help you find him!

And like a fool Zatanna had taken it as gospel.

She had spelled for information about her father, but she had not spelled for truth.

Batman would berate her for this, surely.

Flimsy, rickety, unlocked—a door with a fucking welcome mat.

Stupid. Young. Cocky.

"Oh, to be young again!" Allura breathes through Zatanna's lungs, "Oh, to be free."

And Zatanna, trapped in her own skin, can only watch as Allura takes her body for a joy ride.

===

It ends with a long overdue hug between father and daughter.

The curtain falls and the finale is loud and joyous and tinged with smoke.

Her father's arms are just as comforting as she remembers, and the amount of sheer exhaustion and relief flooding through her as she cries and cries and cries is insurmountable.

It's all she can do to remember to breathe, to remind herself that this is real, that it all did turn out okay.

A brightly lit stage and a crowd of cheers had nothing on a hug from her father.

In the end, it is as simple as it is anticlimactic:

There is a curse, and a ritual, and heroic friends, and of course—an epic battle with an evil twin as the bad guy. Well, there is a Bad Allura just as there is a Good Allura, and Zatanna's not sure if they are actually twins or even sisters but that is how they identified themselves so who is Zatanna to question it beyond that?

Bad Allura is being taken into custody after un-cursing her father thanks to Good Allura and the Justice League has plans to keep her out of trouble, so Zatanna lets it all go in the safety of her father's chest. The tears, the snot, the fucking sobs.

Thank fucking God for Batman.

If it weren't for him, she'd still be stuck backseat driver to her own body and her father would have been—

But she can't focus on that now. She can't.

All she can do is remember to breathe until she falls asleep, just like that, crying into her father's hug.

===

It isn't until she's at a bar, having a celebratory drink with John that reality comes crashing back down.

It's been a couple months since things have gotten back to normal, her and her father beginning to book shows again and returning back to normalcy on the road.

"Did you hear about Amity Park?" A stranger stage whispers to the bartender two seats down from her.

It doesn't register, at first. John is chuckling into his drink beside her and despite it all the gravel of it brings a little shiver down her spine.

"That cursed little podunk town?" Another patron asks, confused. "What about it?"

John leans in, tobacco and musk a comfort to her senses. Memories start to flood her body, and she can't help but relax just a little.

"A portal's been ripped open, hasn't it?" The bartender hums, wiping up a little spill on the counter. "A miracle that nobody died in the process, what with the Realms bein' involved."

At this, she and John meet eyes. There's lust there, sure, but there's also a mutual sort of curiosity. Realms business always piques the curiosity of their kind.

"No, no—well. Yes. There has been, but that's not what I'm talking about." The first patron shakes their head, leaning in closer. "I hear a witch has claimed the town!"

"So?" The bartender shrugs. "There's a protector spirit, wouldn't be unusual for a witch or two to take up space nearby."

"You don't understand—" The patron insists again, slapping the bar in emphasis. "She's a white witch."

"A white witch?" The second patron yelps, overtly loud now. "In that ghost town?!"

The bartender whistles. "A white witch claiming a Realms infected city? How is she still sane?"

"I don't know!" The first patron throws their hands up, somewhat elated. "That's what makes it interesting, no? And she's just a child."

"I heard she's well in her middle age." A third patron cuts in, to which pandemonium starts to break out. Other patrons begin to chime in, but it's useless to take those into account. Gossip sessions such as these are never reliable when it's a large group—you can never really know who is actually contributing, who is playing telephone, and who is just making stuff up.

She and John quickly pay their tab just to get away from the sudden crowd.

"A white witch in Amity Park, eh?" John mutters, shaking his head as he lights a cigarette once they're outside the bar. "Insanity."

Zatanna opens her mouth to answer, only to falter. Because she remembers now, recognizes this name.

The small town that Aunt Pam decided to move to, all those years ago.

Suddenly, it all comes rushing back to her:

It's the end of July, and Sam's birthday is next month.

Sam, whom she hasn't been able to send postcards to for years now.

Sam, her one and only cousin.

Sam, who was only 12 the last time she saw her.

Sam, who may or may not be magic.

A knuckle lightly tips her chin, and she blinks up into the concerned eyes of John Constantine.

John's brow furrows as he asks her in a low voice, "You alright there, 'luv?"

"My cousin," Zatanna croaks, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt and fear, "My baby cousin might be the white witch."

John's eyes go wide. And then—

She doesn't know how Aunt Pam could stand it.

Then again, Aunt Pam doesn't really have much magic in her like her and her father do.

Thinking about Dad makes her heart clench, in anxiety, in—in something.

Not the time. Dad is fine, she is fine. There are more pressing matters to attend to.

Zatanna stares at the ground before her. There's no distinctive line, no border to denote clearly where the bad zone begins and where the good zone ends, but she can feel it in her bones as if there were. She taps a foot, biting her lip and glancing left and right.

She moves her fist to her hip, the other one coming up to ruffle her hair. She's not in her show suit today, in a simple ensemble of a fitted black long sleeve, boat necked and almost cropped, barely tucked into some good old reliable jeans she may or may not have stolen from John.

It might have been a hassle to convince John to let her handle this, considering the family affair of it all, but she has to admit that he's a good chunk of why she feels brave enough to weather said family affair and all its complicated emotions tied into it.

Zatanna feels the guilt creeping up in her gut. About missing the birthdays, about needing John just to relax, about being stuck here at a stupid invisible border.

The road leading into the city proper is wide, and empty.

She looks down at her foot again. Does not move.

She wants a smoke, suddenly. Her fingers twitch towards her pocket, despite the fact that she doesn't have any cigarettes in her pockets.

She's trying to quit, and flames are still—

She shakes her head, shuts her eyes.

Breathes.

It doesn't help.

===

It takes her an embarrassing amount of time to even get to the city proper.

On the upside: the rest of the town didn't feel so…wrong.

Crossing the border cost her something, she's just not sure what—and whilst it didn't hurt it wasn't pleasant either.

The air feels heavy and her magic is disagreeable, so it's difficult for her to figure out the best place to start her search for her little cousin.

Not for the first time, she wishes her father were with her. It's ridiculous, considering she's an adult and has been without him for the past four years, but it doesn't change that niggling little fear she has whenever he's out of her sight.

The fact that he will be arriving in a couple days, needing to sort things out with the Justice League for some reason or other, is the only reason she's able to be even remotely calm.

She's just stopped at a bustling fast food joint, a place named Nasty Burger of all things, when Death comes walking in.

Death is a boy, this time around, with a companion who smells of sand and metal.

Death is Asian, and young—in his teenage years.

Death is laughing and stepping around her, frozen awkwardly near the entrance but not quite in line, to order a Nasty Burger Combo with a pink lemonade, no ice.

"What did Sam say she wanted again?" Death asks his companion, and lighting begins to flash in her consciousness.

"Just some large fries." The companion, a young African American teenager who may or may not be a teenager (or even human) at all, answers as he reads from a PDA. "Hey, Val, can we also get a Double Patty Combo with a root beer?"

"Please, and thank you." Death tacks on, to which the cashier nods and punches in the transaction.

"Tell Manson she can just email me what she has for the presentation, I know she's been sick, so I can just finish it up for her no problem." The cashier mutters, glancing over her shoulder as if trying not to get caught as she takes Death's money for the meals.

"Roger that." The companion nods with a giant smile and a cheeky salute.

Zatanna may or may not be frozen in shock, staring as Death and his companion take a seat nearby. The cashier is giving Zatanna some kind of stink eye, eyes flicking back and forth between her and Death.

"Can I help you, Ma'am?" The cashier, right—Val, grits through a forced smile. "Do you have business with my friends?"

At that, Death freezes. His companion swings around to meet Zatanna's eyes, angling in a way to block her view of Death.

A couple booths down, a table of high schoolers slowly bring their gaze to her. The other customers begin to murmur, and suddenly the air begins to crackle.

The air is tense, and cold. Frosty.

"Yes." Zatanna finally says, meeting the companions blazing eyes. She is being Judged, in some way. She doesn't think the boy realizes he's doing it. "I believe you know my baby cousin."

Death peeks over his companion's form, squinting at her. "…Baby cousin?"

"Sam Manson." Zatanna straightens. "Would you be able to help me?"

The pair blink, and the air goes tepid.

The murmurs change to something more ambient.

"Alright, Fenton?" One of the high schoolers at the distance booth asks. He's buff, blonde, and looks a little mean—a football player, perhaps.

"…Yeah," Death nods, not taking his eyes off her, "yeah, I'm alright Dash."

The footballer looks at her skeptically, but leans back into the booth. The others at the table begin to slowly chat again.

"I recognize you now." Death, Fenton, says from in front of her. She's startled, almost enough to take a step back. She hadn't seen or heard him come up to her in the scant moment she glanced at the other booth. "We've seen pictures of you with her."

"My name's Zatanna Zatara." She introduces herself, hoping to confirm her identity.

"She never explained who you were, or what your name was." Death shrugs, as if this isn't a devastating fact for her to know. He gestures to himself, before thumbing over his shoulder at his companion. "I'm Danny, that's Tucker."

"Identity confirmed." Tucker wiggles his PDA at her. "We can take you to her after our orders are ready. You want to grab anything while we're here?"

Zatanna shakes her head. She's not really hungry—she should be, but she mostly stopped in here to figure out how she would search for her cousin.

Tucker and Danny meet eyes, having some kind of silent conversation Zatanna has no hope of interpreting.

Luckily, it's at that moment that Val calls out. "Order's up, Fenton."

Danny and Tucker grab the to-go bags with a soft thanks. Val holds the bag she hands to Danny for a second longer, glancing at Zatanna before muttering lowly. "Be careful. Page me."

Zatanna pretends not to hear, and follows Death out the door.

It's at that moment, when the door closes behind them, that she realizes something really important.

She's about to see her cousin for the first time in six years, a cousin she hasn't contacted in four.

Does she demand to know what happened? Does she scream? Yell?

Gods forbid, what if she cries? That's the last thing she wants to do—is, in fact, the one thing she's 100% sure she doesn't want to happen.

She's on her knees, elbow deep in the dirt and a swirl of thoughts she has no way of articulating when she hears the familiar sound of the Greenhouse doors swinging open.

The attempted low murmurings of her best friends, coming out louder than probably intended, drift closer to where she has firmly planted herself, back to them.

"I'm just saying that Japanese spirits are different from American ghosts." Danny argues, for what seems like the millionth time since the beginning of their friendship. "American ghosts are either white glowing memories or balls of resentment."

"I wouldn't call Lunch Lady either of those things." Tucker counters, arguing as always. "And anyway, isn't that like, racist?"

"What??" Danny squeaks, "No!"

She laughs, finally standing up and dusting herself off to turn around and face them. "I don't know, that sounds kind of racist."

"I am not racist." Danny scoffs, offended, as he jabs a finger into Tucker's shoulder. "It's like—like how you're okay with beetles but you're scared of cockroaches!"

At this, Tucker pauses, mid rubbing his shoulder in faux pain. He brings his hands out, palms up, rotating them as he ponders aloud, "Am I…racist against cockroaches?"

"What?" Danny's voice is disbelieving, and she realizes then that they can tell she's nervous, that they're putting on a show for her.

They can tell something's not right here, especially with how they stop farther away from her than usual, blocking the third visitor from getting too close to her. They inspect her, waiting for the go ahead, and she loves them with all her fucking being.

She nods, crossing her arms and popping her hip, trying to project confidence.

Danny and Tucker share a look, but seem to take her at her word. They turn, backing away to the side, closer towards Sam but still dividing them—still protecting her.

And there she is. Zatanna.

Her cousin looks different. Somehow, Sam didn't expect that. Her hair is soft and almost wavy, when in their youth it was straight and blunt. Sam would know, it's the kind of haircut Sam has now, minus her signature little ponytail.

She looks like an adult. A proper one. She looks like she's seen some shit, but just as glamorous as Sam remembers even despite the grungy little outfit.

Still, Sam can't help but note that her cousin looks like she's being chased. No—that's not true. It looks like her cousin has been hunting something, searching without rest.

Like she's only just landed somewhere, and is still figuring out how to pause, discovering over and over again that she can just stay.

She looks beautiful, and young despite it all, and terribly, terribly sad.

And then Zatanna breaks, face crumpling.

"Oh…Goth Girl…" Zatanna breathes, scared and on the verge of tears. "What happened to you?"

Sam wants to laugh, because isn't that what she's supposed to say? She wasn't the one who disappeared after all.

But then again, maybe her cousin can tell that Sam's been to hell and back. Multiple times. Maybe it's written all over her face. Maybe, just like Sam, Zatanna can tell she's tired. That despite the youth she should be enjoying she's had to grow a little faster than she should.

Four years in a ghost infested Amity Park might do that to a person.

"I could say the same thing." Sam scrunches her face, looking away. "What happened to you, Show Girl?"

Zatanna laughs, watery. When she takes a step towards Sam, Sam automatically takes a step back. That makes her cousin pause, and the silence that follows it is heavy and almost unbearable.

The feelings clearly projected at the moment can only be described as…complicated.

In her periphery, Sam can see her two best friends glancing at each other in abject wariness.

Sam can't blame them.

Tucker and Danny have never seen Sam react this way—keeping distance, keeping her feelings in check. Sam has always been brash, brave, bold, all the b-adjectives they could cram into a teenage girl. She knows, because they've said this almost verbatim more than once.

But Sam can hardly be blamed—her cousin, a once stable and reliable place for her to be, stopped sending her postcards and disappeared off the face of the Earth, only to show up just as suddenly.

Like a fucking magic trick, spanning across three years.

It feels like that now—three years of long silence and confusion passing in condensed form, second by second.

Finally, Tucker coughs, elbowing Danny and pasting on an amiable smile. "So, family reunion, huh?"

Danny rubs a hand down his face, breathing in as if to pray for patience, or mercy, or maybe even just a clue on how to overcome this sudden hurdle of social interaction.

"Exciting!" Tucker rallies, even going so far as to shake imaginary pom poms. "Maybe we start over, there's definitely better ways to say hello to a cousin you haven't seen in…"

There's a pause, too long of one, where Tucker's eye begins to twitch. Danny purses his lips, glancing back and forth between Zatanna and Sam in either exasperation, anxiety, or maybe just at a loss.

Sam's known Danny a long time, but even still she can't read all of his expressions.

"…Six years." Zatanna finally says, biting her lip and rubbing her arm up and down. "We haven't talked in four."

Sam scoffs. "If a postcard with no return address can count as talking, anyway."

Zatanna flinches, imperceptible if not for the way Sam watches every minute reaction. She's never seen her cousin so nervous before, but then again, she's never seen her cousin be anything but confident.

Thinking about it—that's weird isn't it? That she only knows one side of her cousin.

Maybe she doesn't know her cousin at all.

Tucker whistles, shakey because he sucks at it, and laughs awkwardly. "Wow! Long time. Life must have been busy huh?"

"Must have." Sam mutters bitterly, before affecting a joking tone that fools nobody. "You don't write, you don't call. What brings you to my corner of the world?"

"I…I heard a white witch had taken up residence in Amity Park." Zatanna carefully answers, flicking a glance at Danny for some reason. "And I was hoping…it wasn't you."

"Me?" Sam furrows her brow, "A white witch?"

"As opposed to what, an Asian witch?" Tucker quietly asks Danny, who shushes him.

"It's a loose sort of classification." Zatanna explains, gesturing towards the Greenhouse at large. "White witches tend to work within the domain of Nature—Mother Earth, elementals, that sort of thing."

She, Tucker and Danny share a look then. This…explains a lot. Maybe.

"What makes you think I could be one?" Sam adamantly does not look towards the west side of the Greenhouse, where the dead patch of plants still lays like a graveyard. "…Why would it be bad if it were me?"

"We come from a long line of magic users." Zatanna shrugs, smiling wryly. "Not just the Las Vegas variety, but real magic."

"That doesn't answer my other question." Sam points out, but when Zatanna hesitates to answer once more she switches gears in impatience. "Are you a white witch?"

"Obviously. She's not a Black witch." Tucker grumbles, which turns into a grunt when Danny elbows him in the side for it.

"I am, technically." Zatanna takes the out.

"Why only technically?" Sam needles.

"Because I'm powerful enough to work outside my domain too." Zatanna shrugs, again, this time nonchalant.

A pause—because wow. Okay. She said it in such a way that it felt like it was obvious—like it was a foregone conclusion. The kind of nonchalance that speaks of experience and very little of it being loss.

Must be fucking nice.

"Why would it it be bad if I were the white witch, Zatanna?" Sam stubbornly gets them back on track.

Zatanna looks pained, but this time doesn't pussy-foot around. "Because a white witch could die, or worse, go insane in a Grave Town like this."

"Whoa whoa whoa—" Tucker cuts in, now firmly standing between her and her cousin. "Die? Sam could die??"

"What do you mean or worse, go insane?" Danny chimes in, wedging himself in as well. "How is that worse than dying—"

"Guys—" Sam tries to calm her friends down, but it's no use. They're frantic now, and—

"ecneliS." Her cousin says, and suddenly sound is non-existent.

Her friends' mouths are flapping, but words aren't coming out. Sam herself is trying to say something, but nothing escapes. In truth, it's terrifying. Judging by the looks on her friends' faces, it's scared them too.

"Sorry." Zatanna frowns, sighing. "Please calm down, I'm here to prevent that from happening."

She snaps her fingers, and sound starts flooding in again. The ambient noises of plants and grass and bugs and most importantly: Tucker's dramatics and Danny's quiet relieved sigh.

"How can you tell?" Sam coughs, working a hand around her throat just to feel the vibrations of it. "If I'm a white witch."

"It's not a precise process." Zatanna crosses her arms in thought. "Have you done any magic lately?"

Sam shares another look with her friends, and at their encouragement reluctantly confirms.

"Show me what you can do." Her cousin flippantly requests, though she somehow manages to make it land soft on Sam's senses.

"I can't." Sam's voice cracks, desperate but not sure how to explain. "I…don't want to."

"We can show you what she's already done." Tucker hastily offers, taking up the burden of speaking and stepping towards where the dead patch of plants is.

A splinter of panic lances through her, but the relief of not having to do whatever the hell it was that caused that terrible fucking feeling is too great for her to mind.

When they finally surround the dead patch, Zatanna inspects it as if she's seeing something they can't.

The intense inspection has Sam on the edge, has her skin twitching and her heart beating faster and faster. When she did the magic it felt wrong and its abundantly clear that it is wrong. Looking at Zatanna's furrowed brow, the concern and wariness, it's hard not to feel like some kind of monster.

It's hard not to feel rotted on the inside.

Sam focuses on her cousin as best she can, trying to retain some semblance of normalcy even with the evidence to the contrary literally two feet away from her. Zatanna has begun muttering something, but nothing coherent until— "Dad would have—"

And it's at this reminder that a thought suddenly occurs to Sam, jolting her upright and looking around frantically enough for everyone else in the room to jump in shock as well.

"Wait, did you come alone?" Sam steps away as if to check back at the entrance of the Greenhouse but stops herself. "Where is Uncle Gio? Why isn't he here? Did something happen?"

Sam realizes with horror that she's never seen Zatanna without her Uncle in her entire life. Sure, Zatanna's an adult now but she's visiting—Uncle Gio would never pass up the chance to visit Mom, would never pass up the chance to visit her.

She was already on edge and this feels like the tipping point.

Zatanna raises both her arms, as if trying to calm down a rabid animal. Her heart is beating too fast to feel offended by it. "He's fine. He—yes. Something did happen but everything is fine now."

Relief suddenly washes over her that she almost buckles from it. All of her hurt, indignation, bitterness, all of the complicated emotions from the loss of her cousin's one contact—it all washes away with it. Because of course—of course something happened.

Part of her knew—but a larger part of her had hoped it wasn't—her breathing starts to pick up.

Danny, though he's bad at it, attempts to comfort her with a hand pressing lightly to her back. She forces herself to breathe, tries not to feel lost and afraid. His touch is almost grounding, if it didn't also make her feel like she was floating in the air with Danny's fingers her only tether.

Zatanna makes an almost hurt noise, striding past Tucker and his attempts to distract and guard.

She yanks Sam away, and though her first reaction is to protest it's like suddenly she can breathe again.

"Don't—" Zatanna bites her lips, gaze flickering between the three of them. "Don't touch her."

Sam, confused and unmoored, passively watches as her two best friends' hackles begin to rise. The air starts to shift, which prickles on her skin, and this time Sam is the one who make a hurt noise.

It's like she's been underwater and didn't know she needed air until this very second. Her entire diaphragm is flooded with oxygen, jerked into it like a weed being pulled.

The air is sharp and gravity is heavy on her shoulders.

Zatanna is…she's doing something to her senses and it feels…it doesn't feel wrong, but it's not something she feels right with either. It just feels real.

It feels like she should know this sensation, but doesn't. Can't.

She's been overfed, starved. Over-watered, thirsty. Grown beyond her plot, withered.

But despite it all—her best friends are here, her cousin is here, and…somewhere her mom and dad are near and it'll be okay, somehow.

The prison loomed in the distance like a rusted beast made of iron and misery. Chains rattled endlessly somewhere in the fog while ghosts scattered out of Danny’s way the moment they spotted him.

Walker himself appeared almost immediately.

“Lord Phantom,” Walker greeted stiffly, eye twitching like it physically pained him to be respectful.

Danny gave him a lazy salute. “Walker. Any riots? Escape attempts? Illegal soul harvesting rings?”

“Only three this week.”

Danny snorted quietly and continued walking through the massive prison halls, half-listening as Walker listed updates about inmates, contraband, and a smuggling operation involving cursed playing cards.

Then Danny stopped dead.

His body just… halted.

Like every instinct he had suddenly slammed into a wall.

Down in the cafeteria, surrounded by dead warlords, failed tyrants, and extradimensional criminals, sat a living human.

An older man with sharp green eyes and a white streaks in dark hair, perfect posture despite the prison uniform.

Danny’s core went ice cold.

Walker noticed immediately. “Lord Phantom?”

Danny didn’t answer at first.

Because there was no way.

No fucking way.

But Danny knew that face.

He remembered that face looking down at him with complete indifference.

He remembered being ten years old and realizing, in those final moments, that this man had never loved him at all.

“…Walker,” Danny said quietly.

Walker straightened.

“Who,” Danny asked with terrifying calm, “is the Mortal?”

“Oh. Ra’s al Ghul,” Walker answered. “Imprisoned for the illegal misuse and contamination of Lazarus Waters across multiple realms.”

Danny stared.

Then he laughed.

It was sharp. Breathless. Wrong.

Several nearby ghosts immediately pretended they had somewhere else to be.

“Oh,” Danny murmured. “Oh, this is rich.”

His eyes flared green.

Not the bright, clean ectoplasmic green most ghosts associated with Phantom.

This was darker.

Sickly.

The color of corrupted Lazarus Waters.

Walker took one instinctive step backward.

Every survival instinct he had developed over centuries screamed at him to leave immediately and pretend he had never seen anything.

Unfortunately, it was his prison.

Phantom started walking again.

Slowly.

The cafeteria quieted almost immediately as inmates noticed him approaching. Conversations died mid-sentence. Trays stopped moving.

Ra’s looked up at the disturbance with visible annoyance.

Then confusion.

Because the being walking toward him looked young, young enough to be almost insulting.

Tall now, broad-shouldered, clad in black and white with space itself curling unnaturally through the edges of his aura — but still young.

And furious.

“Ra’s al Ghul,” Phantom said pleasantly.

The room went still at the tone.

“Well,” Phantom continued, smiling without warmth, “this is a surprise.”

Ra’s narrowed his eyes. “Should I know you?”

Phantom’s smile widened.

“You know,” Phantom said conversationally, “that answer honestly hurts my feelings a little.”

Ra’s opened his mouth, but he never got to speak.

One second he was sitting down.

The next, his face slammed into the metal cafeteria table hard enough to crater it.

The sound echoed through the entire prison.

Several inmates screamed.

One ghost in the back dropped his lunch tray and whispered, “Oh, thank Ancients it’s not me this time.”

Phantom had Ra’s pinned before anyone could react, one hand twisted into the man’s hair while his other pressed him against the ruined table.

“Don’t worry,” Phantom called casually over his shoulder. “I’ll fix the table later.”

Walker stared at the destroyed table.

“…You always say that.”

“I usually mean it.”

Ra’s struggled violently beneath him. Phantom barely had to use force anymore. Twenty years old in human age meant very little when his existence had become something vast and ancient enough to make lesser ghosts instinctively lower their heads around him.

Phantom shoved Ra’s to the floor instead.

Hard.

Then planted a boot against his throat.

The entire cafeteria watched in horrified silence.

Because Phantom was kind.

Phantom negotiated treaties.

Phantom gave second chances.

Phantom once sat through a forty-hour mediation between two warlords because one had allegedly “stolen the other’s emotional support leviathan.”

This?

This was something else.

Phantom looked down at Ra’s with open hatred.

Not rage.

Not blind fury.

Hatred aged over ten long years.

Carefully preserved.

“Walker,” Phantom said calmly, never taking his eyes off Ra’s, “how much money would it take to transfer custody of this inmate to me?”

“What?”

Phantom finally glanced back. “I asked how much.”

Walker blinked.

Then blinked again.

Because somehow that was the part that disturbed him most. Phantom — the paragon of individual rights and resident goodie-two-shoes — would never ask something like, "How much money do you want for him?" as if this were a slave market.

Pointdexter slowly raised a hand from one of the cafeteria tables. “Uh… Lord Phantom? Respectfully? What the fuck is happening?”

Phantom ignored him.

Ra’s finally managed to rasp out, “Who… are you?”

Phantom stared at him.

Actually stared.

And his grip tightened slightly against Ra’s throat.

"Seriously? You don't recognize me even after all the hints I gave you?" Phantom mocked. "Don't you remember how you treated me? Like a punching bag? Like a spare? Don't you remember putting your foot on my neck until I died, only to use my body like some twisted kind of footrest?!"

Ra’s went still.

Walker’s expression changed instantly.

“Oh,” Pointdexter whispered faintly.

Phantom’s voice never rose.

That somehow made it worse.

“No,” he breathed, face going pale.

Recognition finally hit him.

“Oh,” Phantom mocked quietly, smiling. “There it is.”

“…Tariq?”

The name sounded wrong coming from him.

Phantom’s eyes glowed violently green.