It was fair to say that Nora Dahrk had gone through a lot in the last year.
It certainly was quite the story of how she went from institute to be a time-travelling demon vessel and then to an agent of the very Time Bureau that she had once opposed.
However, she tried not to think about the interesting string of events that led to being at an actual point of stability. Her Bureau-mandated therapist twice a week was the only time she allowed herself to think about it all (apparently that was one of the issues that she needed work on).
Right now she had another interesting turn of events to focus on anyway.
“I thought that Zari doesn’t drink alcohol?” Nora whispered to the Atom sitting next to her at the table.
It wasn’t uncommon to join the Legends for movie night after a mission she had been sent by Ava to supervise.
Since the agent admitted to her boss/best friend that she had a crush on one of the Legends, she found herself on the Waverider more often than not and Nora held very little doubt that Sara and Ava had some kind of bet going on.
However, Nora’s mind had completely gone blank and the moment she stepped through the portal after going home to get changed and Zari Tomaz hugged her without much pretence.
The totem bearer had slurred out an uncharacteristically excited ‘hello!’ before she announced that she would find them some doughnuts and inevitably got distracted while Nora went to sit next to Ray.
Ray glanced over at Zari and shook his head.
“No, she definitely doesn’t,” he replied, “I think Zari has been really on edge since Amaya left…you know, spiritually speaking? Charlie is really getting on her nerves and she asked Nate to make her some lagoya root tea because it really helps with…reconnecting.”
Nora nodded slowly, she was getting the sense that none of the PhDs Dr Palmer had covered totems so he didn’t fully understand it all, but he seemed to understand enough to know that this tea would cause Zari to touch Nate’s face while she babbled about how he wasn’t steel.
“So you’re saying she’s high on tea?” Nora asked with a smile forming on her face, it was honestly too adorable.
“She may have drank a bit too much of it, Nate isn’t good with portion control,” Ray replied with a shrug, though he did smirk at the agent who had yet to to tear her eyes away from the totem bearer.
There was a point when he thought there could potentially be something between the two of them, but he quickly accepted his place in the friendzone (probably more accurately ‘good’ friend zone now to be fair) and resolved to help her with her crush. So far his and Ava’s efforts (which naturally included Sara as well) for pushing them together hadn’t worked very well, but this did seem like a golden opportunity if the way that Zar had hugged Nora was anything to go by, he wasn’t sure that he had ever seen Zari Tomaz hug anyone.
Nora didn’t reply to the Atom since Zari had apparently gotten bored of trying to figure out why Citizen Steel’s nose was very much ‘un-steely’ because he had managed to distract her by pointing out the fact that Gideon had finished fabricating her doughnut holes.
The hacker smiled broadly at the plate of fried dough and her launch forward towards them gave Nate the chance to slip away.
Nora and Ray watched as she popped a few into her mouth in quick succession and chewed with vigour but the totem bearer got distracted by the stares this time and smiled goofily with her mouth stuffed with doughnut.
Ray snorted into his coffee and Nora just smiled back, hoping that the other woman was either too far away or too high to notice her blush.
Zari took the smile as an invite to come over and sit with the pair and she placed the plate between herself and Nora.
“Hey, do you want one?” Nora asked, sounding much more chipper than she usually did, though it didn’t escape Ray’s notice that all of the positive attitude was directed at Agent Darhk, honestly he didn’t understand how it was that neither woman had yet noticed that the other had feelings for the other.
“Sure,” Nora replied and reached forward to pluck one from the pile and began to lightly nibble at it as Zari watched her.
“You’re really pretty,” Zari blurted out.
Nora almost choked but Ray patted her on the back until her throat was definitely cleared and she managed to reply a raspy “thank you” though she wasn’t sure whether she was talking to Ray or Nora.
“You’re really smart and super badass as well, but you’re also really cute and just a really good person even after all of the horrible things you’ve been through and did I mention that you’re really pretty and I really want to kiss you?” Zari rambled with some slurring.
Nora stared blankly at the totem bearer before she looked over to Rya to see if he had heard it too and the Atom was staring as well with his mouth slightly open.
He had a feeling that if the team had known it was this easy to get one of them to talk, they would have gotten Zari high weeks ago.
Before Nora could open her mouth to reply (not that she had any earthly idea what to say!) Ava and Sara entered the room hand-in-hand and the captain announced.
“Move is all set up in the library!”
The Legends reacted immediately as they began grabbing their snacks and drinks so that they could migrate towards the library.
Nora stared at Zari for a moment longer, wondering whether there was any way that she could get Zari to stay and talk about it but she knew that this was not the conversation to have with someone who wasn’t very likely to remember it the next morning.
It was for this reason that she just cleared her throat and said, “come on, Z.”
Zari just nodded, apparently unaware that she had all but outright admitted her feelings for the witch, and allowed herself to be led towards the movie with her doughnut holes in hand.
s
As it turned out, Nora made the right choice in putting the conversation off because Zari fell asleep after three more doughnut holes and ten minutes of movie.
After another ten minutes, the totem bearer’s head lolled and fell onto Nora’s shoulder.
Ray had offered to carry her to her quarters but Nora said it was fine and that she didn't want him to miss any of his favourite Star Wars movie. The Atom just shared a look with Sara and Ava who were also smirking at the scene and went back to looking at the screen with a smirk.
By the end of the movie, Zari remained fast asleep and Nora had to accept that she needed to get back to her own apartment, so she let Ray scoop the hacker up so that she wouldn’t wake up in an incredibly uncomfortable position.
This meant that the agent was in for a night of obsessing over Zari’s words and wondering if there was anyay that what she had said didn’t mean that she returned her feelings.
Finally, she decided that she was clearly overthinking something that had been handed to her on a silver platter.
It was for this reason that at 10 am on a Saturday morning, she rushed to get dressed.
Usually at this time, she would probably be leisurely getting dressed to meet Ava for brunch or she would be studying for some of the tutoring classes the bureau was paying for. It turned out that growing up in a cult really impeded education, so she couldn’t be more grateful that Ava was giving her opportunities that she never thought she would get after the first time she lost her father.
Right now, though, she knew there was no way that she would be able to focus on maths equations, so she just allowed her mind to be singularly focused.
All she had to do was go and check on Zari and if she wasn’t still high, they could try and talk about everything that had been said the previous night.
The agent knew that if she hesitated for even a moment, she would change her mind, so she pulled on her patented leather jacket and looked into the mirror as she wrapped her time courier around her wrist.
With one exhale, and a quick check to make sure that there was nothing on her face, Nora Dahrk opened the portal and stepped straight into the kitchen.
She had hoped to find it empty so that she could ask Gideon for some aspirin and water for Zari, but instead she found Sara and Ava sat at the table with half finished plates of breakfast in front of them.
Whatever they were talking about came to a halt when she stepped through the portal and they both smirked at her simultaneously.
“You know it’s creepy when you do that?” Nora said with a sigh.
“I think you mean ‘relationship goals’,” Sara replied.
Ava frowned and looked over to her girlfriend who just waved her hand as if to say that she would explain later. She honestly didn’t understand why Rip hadn’t included memes in her memories, but she did have to admit that it was quite entertaining trying to educate her on some of the more idiotic ones.
“No, I meant creepy,” Nora shot back, “I just came here to…errr…I need to…”
“Z is still in her room,” Sara replied.
“I don’t…” Nora began, but let out a sigh of resignation when Ava snorted into her next bite of french toast so the agent just rolled her eyes as she began to wonder why she had ever let slip about her feelings for the totem bearer. Instead of pretending that she wasn’t planning to go and check on Zari, she just looked up to the ceiling and asked, “Gideon, could you please fabricate some aspirin?”
“Certainly Agent Dahrk,” the AI replied and a plastic bottle appeared in the fabricator a moment later.
Nora strode over to snatch up the bottle and made short work of grabbing a glass of water and she made a point of not looking at either woman at the table as she began her exit from the kitchen along a familiar route. It was one she had walked more than a few times at the beginning of her friendship with Zari which involved them bonding over their rather shitty childhoods and mostly playing video games that they both missed in their time displaced positions.
Nora loved spending this time with the totem-bearer, but over time, she became very aware of the fact that these times would be infinitely better if she was able to kiss the other woman who was almost certainly gushing over how cool her Nintendo Switch was.
“Good luck,” Sara’s shout carried down the corridor and Nora was smiling as she made a conscious effort to walk faster towards her destination, she was really trying to minimise the chance of any more distractions.
Finally, the agent made it to the desired door and did a quick once over of her outfit to make sure that she had actually managed to dress herself properly in her haste. Thankfully, she didn’t look like she had just jumped out of bed like she had which was always a good start.
She moistened her lips and her knock at the door was accompanied by the rattle of the aspirin bottle.
Nora waited with bated breath, until she heard a faint, “come in.”
The door seemed to respond to the words as it slid aside and Nora took a step in to find Zari sitting at the edge of her bed with her head in her hands and she raised an eyebrow at the woman. For a completely badass ‘air bender’, she looked rather pathetic right now.
“I told you I’m fine Sara…” she trailed off when she finally looked up to see who was actually standing there, “…and you’re not Sara…”
“Good to know you can still see,” Nora shot back with a smirk.
Zari felt butterflies erupt in her stomach at the sight, but she cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter.
Nora took this as an invitation to come further into the room and she presented the glass of water and aspirins to the woman who had a moment ago claimed to be ‘fine’ and she took them without any further hesitation.
“Thanks,” Zari grumbled as she popped two pills into her mouth, already thinking of how she was going to punish dating for being the cause of her pounding headache. Though there was also a part of her that wondered whether she would pass up the chance to be reminded just how much Nora in fact cared about her.
After all, she had literally no other reason for being on the Waverider right now.
“So…how is your first hangover?” Nora asked after a moment of silence.
Zari sighed and flopped down to the bed with a groan after placing the glass onto the bedside table and grumbled, “it makes me glad that I’ll never have another one.”
Nora let out a little laugh and bit her lip as she considered her next words, “how much do you remember about last night?”
Zari scrunched her eyebrows together as she tried to recall a time before her headache. She remembered the vision quest being absolutely no help, and then feeling really giddy afterwards. Nora showed up in the kitchen and she had jumped her with a hug. There were doughnut holes and then she sat next to Nora and Ray and then…well and then there was the word vomit.
The totem bearer shot up with wide eyes.
“I…I didn’t…I mean…” she started, but she trailed off when she realised that there was literally no way that she could defend the words that had come out of her mouth. If she had stopped at the second time that she had called her ‘pretty’ then she might have gotten away with platonic compliments, but the ‘kiss you’ part hardly fell into that category.
A part of her shouting that she should just blame the tea, but then another part was just saying ‘get it over and done with’. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Other than losing her friend that was.
There was also the undeniable upside of Nora possibly also wanting to kiss her too. That would definitely be an undeniable upside if that were the case.
It was for this reason that Zari took a deep breath to halt any more words from rambling out of her mouth and said, “yeah...I remember…”
Nora nodded slowly as she inspected the other woman’s expression to see if she could discern how she felt about it. When she decided that she couldn’t figure out what it meant, she just went for it and asked, “and...did you mean it?”
“Yep,” Zari replied instantly so that she didn’t change her mind.
“Oh,” Nora said and clasped her hands together in her lap, before she added, “you can, you know, if you want to…”
The butterflies in Zari’s stomach almost exploded at the words. She was pretty sure that she knew what they meant, but this was the kind of situation where one would have to be sure, so she asked, “I can?”
Agent Darhk drew her bottom lip into her mouth and tried to remind herself of all of the dangerous and stupid stuff she had done since...well since she had originally met Zari in Jitters. She had done all of those things without thinking too much, somehow this felt all the more terrifying.
But she did it anyway.
“You can kiss me…”
Well there was no way that either woman could deny what this meant, so they each leaned forward at the same to connect their lips.
The kiss was short and sweet, but there was a promise of more as they leaned back with smiles on their faces.
“Do you want to…” Nora began but she was cut off when Zari said:
“You can pick me up at seven.”
“Great,” the agent replied, before it occurred to her that she had no idea what it was she should do next.
Zari tentatively placed her hand on the lapel of the other woman’s leather jacket, almost in reverence that it was something she could now do, “would you mind staying with me until this headache is gone?”
“I would love to.”