Prompt: Under A Spell

I don't really write much Zatanna, when i first watched the series i felt like she was only included as a love interest for Robin but i liked her as a sorta straight man to the team's antics and I really liked that secret episode where it's just her and Artemis dicking around 

criticism aside, she was the first character i thought of when i saw the prompt but this isn't shipping - you can read it as that if you want 

"I promise, it's just a small cold," Robin said for what felt like the fifteenth time. He knew he had a bad reputation but he didn't think it was bad enough to be hounded every time he sneezed or coughed. He'd get it if he had coughing fits so bad he was left breathless but they weren't that bad. "Bats wouldn't let me be here if I wasn't."

"You can't blame us for knowing you too well," Wally replied. He'd been particularly pushy with making sure it was just a cold and whilst he winced away with every cough like one germ atom would kill him, he still kept close to the younger as though he'd die at any second.

"And since I haven't dropped dead, I would assume you'd figure out it really just is a cold. I can get sick without making things worse," he argued back. "The worst I have is some sore ribs from coughing all the time. Even that's not too bad."

"Don't they make medicine for that?" M'gann asked. 

"Yeah but it doesn't always work," he explained. "Sometimes you have to feel shitty for a bit."

"Or maybe you don't," Zatanna announced as she closed her book dramatically. "This is the perfect time to practice the healing chapter."

"You wanna magic it away?" Artemis asked doubtfully. Robin was just as distrustful of a quick fix. He certainly knew Batman would hate it. His mentor was begrudging in dealing with and working alongside anything supernatural or magical. Maybe because he saw it as the easy way out or how everything always came with a downside.

"Pretty much or at least tone down the symptoms. Most of you don't get sick very often and the ones that do aren't here if they are. I don't want to risk doing it on myself either.. This might be the only time for me to get practice in," she clarified. 

"Oh, but you'll risk doing it on me?" 

"If I was sick, I could read it wrong or mispronounce the spell which none of us want," she shot back, giving him a light shove. "C'mon, the worst it will do is nothing."

"Or turn me into a big pile of phlegm," he teased. He supposed there really was no harm in it. Zatanna wasn't the type of person to risk their safety or health just to learn the ropes of magic. She was already too familiar with how much magic could take in exchange for its power. It would also be nice not to have to cough all the time or breathe a little easier. "I guess there's no harm in trying."

"Great!" She quickly reopened her book, making her dramatic closing of it a bit redundant, and flipped over to the right chapter. She ran her finger over the sections until she tapped one passage with a pleased smile. "Okay, so this one is specifically for the cough."

"Do I have to do anything?"

"Nope," she replied. She scanned the passage a few times, making sure it sounded right in her head. "Ready?"

"Yep. Just so you know, I have witnesses here so if you do kill me, I'll win the wrongful death suit."

"But you'll be dead, what's the use in that?" Connor asked.

"Vengence," he answered, imitating his mentor's gruff tone. The only good part of being sick was having a pretty accurate Batman voice. "I'm ready."

"SMOTPMYS SIH EVOMER!" she shouted. 

They expected more fanfare—maybe fireworks or a mystical healing light engulfing Robin. At most, Zatanna's fingers sparked a little, but in the harsh lighting of the cave living room, that was practically nothing. They stared at Robin, waiting for him to get up and reveal that it had suddenly worked. He took in a breath and hummed. 

"Got rid of the blocked nose."

"That's all?" she asked, disappointed.

"No, I'm teasing. I feel fine now. A little tired still but I'm always tired," he responded with a soft smirk. "Nice work Z."

"Wait, I got all of it? All of your sickness?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I can breathe through my nose, I don't feel the need to cough and I don't have a headache anymore. Just tired." She grinned at her victory. "Maybe you're a healing magic savant."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, all I did was heal a little cold."

"Question now is how you're gonna explain it to Batman. He hates magic," Wally proposed.

"Oh, he doesn't know I'm sick." The team narrowed their eyes.

"You said he let you come here," Kaldur reminded him.

"I didn't say that. I said if it was bad, he wouldn't let me come here. I didn't say he knew I was sick in the first place."

"And you wonder why we don't trust you when you say you're fine."

Two days later Zatanna was still riding the high of curing her teammate. She hadn't expected to do more than lessen his symptoms but clearly she was better than she gave herself credit for. When he came for training, she asked if his symptoms had come back and she nearly jumped for joy when he told her they hadn't. If her dad was still himself, she knew he would be proud of her after lecturing about the dangers of performing magic unattended on her friends. 

She carried that pride onto their sparring session, not caring when she lost and letting every win go to her head. Eventually, she and Robin were put against each other. He always gave her a good fight as though they were really out in the field battling for the world. He'd already learned a few of her signature spells and cut her off before she could finish them. One session she tried to levitate him off the platform, a dirty move she knew that, and he just shot a grappling hook around her feet and knocked her to the floor. 

As they stood on opposing sides of the platform, she noted that he looked paler than usual. She wrote it off as the blue light of the platform causing some sort of illusion. He got into his stance but his hands seemed to quiver like he was using all his strength to keep his fists closed. She glanced over to Dinah to see if she'd seen it too yet it was hard to decipher with her consistently serious expression. Then again, if she had seen it then she wouldn't be letting them fight. 

Before they got the go-ahead to begin, Robin broke his form and put a hand to his head. 

"Something wrong, Robin?" Dinah asked.

"Sorry, I," he trailed off, his lips still moving but nothing other than a wheeze coming through.

"Do you need a medic?" He went to answer only for his eyes to roll back and his body to fall like a puppet having its strings cut. 

"MIH ETATIVEL!" Zatanna yelled in a panic. Thankfully she was right in time and his head didn't crash against the ground. "Yltfos dnal," she added. He was brought to the ground lightly similar to a petal falling from a cherry blossom tree. She breathed a sigh of relief and ran over, meeting her mentor by his side. Dinah tapped the side of his face in hopes of rousing him however she may as well have done nothing at all as his eyes remained closed. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and made a face at what she found. 

"What's wrong?" Zatanna asked.

"No fever." She checked his pulse. "Pulse is fine too. Did you cast without speaking?"

"No! I'd never- that's a total cheat move," she said defensively. 

"There's no symptoms," Dinah muttered. She shook her head and picked him up like he weighed nothing, holding him not unlike a precious newborn. "Someone get a hold of Batman and tell him we need a pick up for Robin. Zatanna, you come with me."

"Why am I coming with you? I didn't do anything!"

"I have a feeling." Zatanna followed behind her anxiously.

Even after hooking Robin up to all the monitors available, they all showed normal vital signs. If they hadn't seen him faint, they would've thought he was just asleep. It didn't help that he hadn't given them anything to work with. This could be a poison masking his symptoms and attacking something they couldn't see or some sort of spell he'd been hit by working in Gotham. It didn't make any sense for nothing to be out of place. Dinah then turned to Zatanna.

"You've been different this morning," she began. "Secure in yourself. Confident. You only get that way when you perform a spell you've not done before. Given that you're well-versed in spells for combat, I'd assume this is a domestic spell."

"I didn't do this!"

"I'm not saying you did this but I am suggesting you've done something that indirectly caused this." She threw her arms up in disbelief. She wouldn't curse Robin no matter how annoying he could be. That was a closed section of her spell book that she hardly looked at let alone performed. "I won't be mad. You had no intention of hurting him but whatever you've done, you need to tell me now."

"I don't see how I could've done something to cause this."

"You don't see how because you haven't performed a spell or because you have but it didn't intend for this consequence?" 

"I did a spell to get rid of his cold a couple of days ago but I can't see how that would lead to him randomly fainting," she admitted. 

"What was the spell?"

"To get rid of his cold."

"Specifically. Was it a spell to heal his cold?" Dinah asked with deadly severity. She thought back to the passage she read. It was under healing spells so she assumed it would heal the cold. It said it was to get rid of the symptoms but surely that was the same as healing. Magic was tricky with wording but her spellbook never tried to trick her into casting incorrectly. 

"It was to get rid of his symptoms," she answered slowly. "It got rid of symptoms."

"It just didn't get rid of the virus," Dinah concluded. "He still has it and it's presumably something more than a cold."

"And because the symptoms were gone, there was no way to see it progress."

"Can you reverse the spell?" She nodded. Surely if she could make the spell she could reverse it and she was no stranger to her own invocations. "Reverse it. I'll be ready to step in."

"Era yeht sa smotpmys eht laever," she proclaimed. They waited a moment and then the monitors went haywire yelling at them that there was something clearly wrong. "Crap."

"I'd use much stronger wording."

By the time Batman arrived, Dinah had gathered all the symptoms together and took a healthy guess that what had first presented as a cold was actually viral pneumonia. She told Batman as such when he stormed into the room as though they'd intentionally given him pneumonia for fun. 

"How did he get pneumonia so fast?" he asked. 

"I may have tried to get rid of his cold but only gotten rid of his symptoms. Causing him to be asymptomatic," Zatanna explained quietly, anticipating a telling-off she'd never forget. He glared at her. "I'm so sorry."

"Did he consent?"

"Enthusiastically."

"Then I evidently have more to teach him." Great, not only was she in the dog house but she'd dragged down Robin with her. "I'll have him transferred. Next time you wish to play doctor, think again." She nodded feverishly. Healing spells were off the menu for a while. That's if he ever brought Robin back to the mountain.