Young Justice: Salem
September 28th, 2010
By the time that Kent transported Zatanna back to Poseidonis so she could take the zeta tube home and meet up with her father, we had hammered out a basic plan of action. It wasn’t a perfect plan. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure it was a particularly good plan. But it was a plan nonetheless, and that was more than we’d had until now.
No matter what we did, Giovanni wasn’t going to take things well. At the end of the day, Zatanna had gone behind his back repeatedly to spend time with me and then, to top it all off, I’d gotten her pregnant. Perhaps I did not know the man particularly well, but I didn’t need to be a seer to know that he was going to be angry. Furious, even. I certainly would be in his shoes.
Thus, instead of how to stop him from being angry, the question instead became ways to mitigate his anger. How to best approach things, proper timing, atmosphere, and so on. Eventually, we decided that Kent would organize a small dinner at the Tower, to which he’d invite both the Zataras and myself. With any luck, a neutral meeting place such as the Tower would help ensure that no one did something regrettable.
Theoretically, Giovanni would see nothing wrong with the invitation. He often hosted Kent at his home for dinner, and Kent occasionally invited the Zataras over to his own home as well. My presence would probably come as an unwelcome surprise, but hopefully it would not stand out at first either. After all, I’d been learning magic from the elderly wizard for some time now and we’d become somewhat close after I’d helped free him from Klarion’s clutches.
From there, well, we had a number of ideas for how things could go. After some discussion, we’d decided that it was probably best to mention Zatanna’s pregnancy first, and only then bring up that we’d been seeing each other for some time and planned to marry. With any luck, the second part of our announcement would be overshadowed by the first, which was probably better than letting his rage build up.
How exactly we were going to present things, however, was still somewhat up in the air. We had some ideas, but it would really depend on how things were going at the time. Kent, Zatanna, and I all had our own ideas for how things could go, but the only thing we really decided was that the initial news would have to come from Zatanna’s mouth. The rest of it would be brought up at an opportune moment either by her once again, or possibly by me.
The issue was that none of us were quite sure how Giovanni would react. He was certainly going to be angry, but that could manifest in a number of ways. Thankfully, unlike many people in his situation, he probably wouldn’t insist on terminating Zatanna’s pregnancy, which was good because that was completely out of the question. However, it was entirely possible he’d try to cut all contact between us, which was also unacceptable. There was also the slim possibility that he would get angry at Zatanna for her behavior and lash out against her, which had to be planned around no matter how upsetting the idea was for my soon-to-be wife.
Things started off rather well. Not wanting to put things off too long, Kent invited Giovanni to come over on Tuesday night. Not having any shows that night, Giovanni happily accepted.
Though dinner was planned for seven o’clock, I arrived at the tower just after five. On Zatanna’s recommendation, I was dressed nicely, but not as formally as I’d originally planned. I wore a dark blue blazer open over a white shirt, khaki pants, and a black belt to match my black leather shoes.
I was also wearing six different enchanted gold bangles hidden under the sleeves of my blazer, enchanted cufflinks, my charm necklace, and every single piece of clothing I was wearing had been painstakingly enchanted for durability and protection instead of comfort. I also spent nearly an entire hour casting additional spells on myself, not just wand magic but also some of the protective spells Kent and Ozpin had shown me.
By the end of it, Kent was giving me odd looks and my skin was prickling from the amount of magic surrounding me. Over the course of the last three days, I’d invested more than twenty mana into enchantments I was now wearing, along with a considerable amount of blood and hard work.
Perhaps it was a little bit overkill, but I was about to sit down with a very skilled and experienced wizard and tell him that I’d fucked a baby into his darling little girl. I wanted to be absolutely certain that a poorly thought-through ‘ied’ from the man didn’t end up with me in an early grave. And in any case, while some of what I was wearing wouldn’t last long––the suit and pants in particular would probably combust sometime in the coming days as the spells woven into the material began to clash against one another––the bangles would make a wonderful gift for Zatanna and the cufflinks would hopefully serve me well for years to come.
Giovanni arrived with Zatanna at ten till seven. I stayed in the dining room as Kent went down to greet him, but he looked to be in high spirits as he walked through the door several minutes later. I’d been following the news closely all day and there had been a report of him driving off Felix Faust with minimal damage and no casualties early this morning. There was a smile on his face as he laughed at something that Kent had said, and Kent was carrying an expensive-looking bottle of white wine.
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I stood up as he came in, stepping around the table and extending a hand out towards him. It took him a moment to notice my presence, and when he did a frown briefly flashed across his face before he wiped it away.
After another moment, he shook my hand briefly. I inclined my head. “Mr. Zatara, it's a pleasure to see you again. I heard about your encounter this morning with Faust, excellently done.”
“And you, Mr. Black.” He smiled tightly, clearly lying through his teeth. “It is a shame I was unable to capture him, but Faust is a slippery foe. I was glad to have prevented him from causing any more harm than he already has at the very least.” He released my hand and turned to Kent, who’d entered the room at the same time as he had. “I hadn’t realized we would be having other guests. Is anyone else coming?”
Kent set the bottle in his hands down on the table, where it joined two others that he’d brought out earlier. “No, not tonight. Just the four of us.”
Zatanna, who was standing behind her father, smiled at me as Giovanni turned to address Kent. There was a certain tension in her posture, and her smile wavered after a moment as she bit her lower lip, nervously studying the back of her father’s suit jacket.
I smiled back, doing my best to project as much confidence as I could, even if I wasn’t really feeling it. This was a hard moment for both of us, but there was a lot more pressure on my wonderful Zatanna than there was on me. Giovanni was a veritable stranger to me, and the only blood family she had left to her. Giovanni could cause a lot of problems for me, but his ultimate impact on my life was minimal. No matter what happened, she was the one who’d have to live with the results of this evening
We took our seats around the table, Giovanni swiftly moving to sit between Zatanna and I with Kent sitting across from him. Though the table was large enough to seat ten or so people, there were just four chairs, leaving all of us at least moderately physically separated from each other.
Things were a tad awkward at first, but conversation slowly began to flow. We mostly spoke of magic––that was a relatively safe topic for all of us––with Kent and Giovanni carrying the conversation with the occasional comment from Zatanna and I.
As dinner progressed, it was clear that Zatanna was feeling rather hesitant about what she was about to do. There were several moments where I felt like she was about to break the news, only to think better of it at the last moment and fall silent or change the subject.
Finally, we were just about finished with the meal and preparing to clear the table for dessert when Kent proposed a toast. Both he and Giovanni had been drinking lightly so far, their wine glasses still half-full, but Giovanni agreed and they decided to open the bottle of wine he’d brought.
New glasses were brought out and one by one he filled a glass for Kent, himself, me, and then he moved to pour a small quantity for Zatanna as well. Zatanna, who had been rather silent for the past ten minutes or so, finally spoke up. “Oh, thanks dad, but, uh, not for me tonight. I shouldn’t drink, I’m pregnant.”
Giovanni stopped pouring and raised the bottle. “Of course, no one is––” and then he froze as the rest of Zatanna’s words finally registered in his mind. The bottle slipped from between his suddenly limp fingers and only Kent’s quick casting stopped it from shattering against the floor.
“What…did you say, Zatanna?” he asked slowly, his accent bleeding heavily into his words. He’d stood up to pour the wine and now he leaned forward over the table, his white shirt dangerously close to the remnants of his dinner.
Zatanna met his gaze squarely, then quickly looked away. “I shouldn’t drink because I’m pregnant.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but in the suddenly still and silent room, it may as well have been a shout.
“You’re…pregnant…” he took a slow, shaky breath. “Zatanna. Tell me that this is a joke.”
She shook her head. “It's not a joke. I’m really pregnant.”
Giovanni closed his eyes. There was a moment of silence and then he turned to face me, his eyes wide and his hand raised in the air. “You!” then he swore loudly in what I assumed was his native Italian. Even if I hadn’t been able to understand the specific meaning of his words, I think I would have known what he was trying to say. “How dare you! After what I did to help you, you force yourself upon my daughter? You!” he swore again, his eyes blazing with fury.
Zatanna was on her feet in a moment. “It wasn’t like that! He didn’t force me to do anything!”
Giovanni whirled back towards her. “So it was him? It was?”
“Yes, but it was me who––”
She continued, but Giovanni was no longer listening. He was absolutely furious. “How. Dare. You. How dare you. How dare you!” He gestured sharply towards me, slashing his hand through the air. “Terger!” he barked.
Two different barriers instantly failed and something slammed into my occlumency like a battering ram. Sparks of aura erupted around my head and a sharp pain shot through my skull as my outer shields failed in an instant, but the second layer held. One of the bangles on my left arm went from cool to blazing with heat as the runes on it flared to life, reinforcing my stressed mental defenses.
“Giovanni! What are you doing?” Kent called out, rising to his feet as well.
I pushed my chair back and my wand fell into my waiting hand. Unfortunately, as fast as I was with aura augmenting my movements, the pain in my skull slowed me down enough that Giovanni got off another spell.
“Tuo!” he cast viciously, and I was lifted off my feet and sent flying towards where the door had been at the start of the meal. I slammed into the hard stone of the Tower’s walls and another shield shattered, but my aura and protective enchantments were far better suited against blunt force than mental attacks. I raised my wand, a spell on the tip of my tongue.