This ignores most of Season 2. (Jason is alive! Red Hooding it up... yeah, that was bad.)
BTW I don't own anything.
"How long have you been sitting here for?" Artemis looked up blurry eyed as Nightwing took a seat next to her on the couch.
"I'm not sure." She looked at herself for a moment, her eyebrows furrowed. "I could have sworn Red Hood was sitting next to me." She blinked at him dazed and pulled her knees up to her chin hugging them close. She placed her cheek on her knee.
"He went home two hours ago." Nightwing leaned back on the couch and folded his hands together on his lap with an exhausted sigh. "Mis, what are you doing here?" He turned his head to watch her rub the glassy look out of her eyes with a small yawn. "You told us you were done."
Artemis gave him a sad smile and pushed her tangled hair back and away from her face. "I was, er, well, we were. He made the choice and I went with it." She shrugged and looked down at her lap blinking rapidly. "He said he wanted to start our own family." She whispered so quietly that he had to lean in to hear.
He sat up with a frown and slung an arm around her shoulders. "What'd Wally do?"
She took a deep breath and swallowed before looking up at him, her face was determination mixed with heartbreak and anguish. "Wally and I are no longer together. I-" She stopped abruptly, licked her lips and looked over his shoulder. "He cheated on me." It was heart-wrenching to hear the rough and tough girl that he had known since he was thirteen speak so brokenly.
Nightwing pressed his lips together in a thin line, sadly this wasn't the first time Wally had strayed, this was just the first time Artemis had opened her eyes. He had tried to warn her several times, but he has been told multiple times by others that Love is blind and Artemis was clouded in it when it came to Wally. He squeezed her shoulder.
"I should have listened to you." She looked into his masked eyes again, the pain was just below the surface of her silver eyes. She gave out a harsh disgusted chuckle. "I was a fool for not listening each time you told me he had been fooling around behind my back. I'm sorry, you were only trying to save me from this." She gestured at her pathetic form, the dark bruising under her eyes, the red rimming and the blood shot whites, the paleness of her usually olive complexion, the stringy blonde tangles that hung limply from her head, her lips were bruised and in some places split, and the loose white T-shirt and gray sweat pants that he was almost one hundred percent certain came from his room.
Nightwing sighed and pulled her into his chest. "Don't apologize, I've been told Love does some crazy things to people."
Artemis laid her head on his chest almost in defeat. "I don't think I want to be in Love again." It was muttered into the blue symbol on his chest but he heard every word and his heart dropped.
"Don't say that." He pulled her back far enough to be able to look her in the eye. "You don't mean that."
She gave him a broken expression, "How could I not mean that?"
"Love does crazy things, sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's wonderful. With the good, there will always be the bad." He sighed before standing and scooping her up into his arms. "In the mean time, lets put you to bed." She curled her arms around his neck and put her forehead against his collar bone, he frowned noticing how extremely light she felt in his arms.
"Are you sure you're doing alright?" Red Hood asked Artemis as he physically caught her outside of the locker rooms, his arms caged around her waist was the only things keeping her from kissing the floor.
"Ah, yeah, yeah." She used his upper body to right herself, her arms shook slightly. "I'm just fine."
He didn't say anything in reply, instead, he took in the blood shot eyes and black bags under them with a frown.
"Promise." She took a step out of his embrace and gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"When was the last time you slept?" He kept his hands on her hips.
She sighed and hung her head to look at her shoeless feet. "It's been a minute."
"It's been much longer than a minute." Red Hood rolled his eyes then slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her hands his lower back to keep her face from hitting. His arm hooked behind her knees to keep her from kicking him.
"Hey!" She cried pushing up on his back to look over herself at him. "I can walk just fine!"
He grinned at her, "I know I just like this view so much better." He grabbed her ass and shifted her on his shoulder when she yelped.
"Put me down!" She cried hitting a fist into his back and attempting to kick her legs.
"No can do, sugar. You've got a date with a king sized mattress and I'm here to make sure you don't ditch." He slapped her ass once more before taking her down the hallway, swearing all the way down.
Nightwing looked up from the apple in his hands as they passed him by with a raised eyebrow, "Do I want to know?"
"Nope." Red Hood gave him a two fingered salute as Artemis glared back at him from over her back.
"He's kidnapping me." She told Nightwing in a monotone voice.
"Yup." He popped the 'p' and continued on down the hallway.
Nightwing watched Artemis mouth 'help me' and kick her legs a little bit. He gave her a smile and waved at her, he had noticed her fatigue during training and was glad that the others were attempting to help her out.
"We need to talk." Nightwing picked up Artemis' ankles to sit down next to her. He placed her feet back over his body.
She untucked her head from the burrito of blankets she had made once they got back from a mission. She eyed him sullenly, her eyes weren't wet like he had been expecting, but dull and painful. "What?" She rasped with a frown. "What do we need to talk about?"
He sighed and reached over to grab fistfuls of her blankets and tugged her onto his lap. "How about we start with how you reacted to Kid Flash."
"How about we don't." She tucked her chin back into the blankets muffling most of her words.
"Mis, you can't keep shutting us out, it's not healthy." Nightwing untucked her chin from the blankets and held her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "And frankly, very bad for missions."
She shifted taking her chin out of his hold and wrapped the blankets tighter around her. She took a sharp breath in and held it for a moment. Her body melted onto his with the exhale, her temple resting on his clavicle. "I know." She whispered. "But it's hard." Her voice broke on the last word and she swallowed three times. "I wanted to punch in that freckled face and hold him down until he could breathe again, but I also wanted him to hold me and never let go." She cleared her throat, "I can't be around him yet. That part of me hasn't healed."
He curled his arms around her blanket burrito-ed form and tucked her properly under his chin with a hum. "But it will heal." He heard her take in a sharp breath and then felt the waterworks soak into his chest. He held her tighter to his chest, letting her finally break in his arms.
Red Hood walked into the room with a bottle of water in his hand and a frown on his face. He met Nightwing's eyes and set the bottle of water on the coffee table and turned back around. "Who thinks they can beat me at air hockey?" Nightwing heard him ask the others in the other room. He smiled softly knowing that even though she was breaking the team would be there to help pick up the pieces and put her back together again.
"Are you sure about this?" M'gann asked placing her hand on Artemis's shoulder looking down at the tiger like mask held in her hands.
Artemis looked up with a soft smile. "I need the change."
M'gann sighed softly wrapping her arms around the blonde's torso and tucked her chin over her shoulder.
Artemis leaned into her embrace, "I'll be fine."
M'gann smiled and held her tighter, "Yes, you will be." She gave her one last squeeze before letting her go to walk into the room that the rest of the team were waiting for them for mission debriefing.
Artemis breathed in deeply and unclenched her white knuckles from around the orange and black striped mask. She looked up at the end of the hallway and placed the mask over her face. The fit wasn't as tight as her other mask, but strangely the weight put her fears to bed. Her mother was right, the suit fit her like a glove and felt like coming home. Closed her eyes and tilted her head back for a moment just basking in the feeling of finally being alright.
She took the last few steps forward and into the hanger meeting the curious stares of the team with a smile.
Nightwing turned to her his eyes widening for a moment. "Are you ready, Tigress?"
She looked him right in the eye, "I am now."
"Right," He turns back to the team as a whole and begins to explain the mission.
"Come on Babe, we really need to stop meeting like this." Red Hood grunted as Artemis crashed into his arms from two stories up.
"I agree," She said breathlessly clinging to his shoulders in an attempt to get to her feet.
Red Hood winked at her before dodging a fire of bullets and skidding around the other side of a dumpster. "So, Kitten, you ready to get your claws dirty."
"Kitten, really?" She snorted as he set her down on her feet.
He gave her a smirk and another wink before taking out his own guns that only carried rubber bullets. "Of course."
"Save the flirting for after we kick their asses." She pushed away from him and hit the wall of the alley at a run, she got three steps across the bricks up and diagonally around the dumpster before she pushed off into a flip that turned into a harsh down sweep kick to the back of a man's head sending him careening into the dumpster. A metal twang rang out when his head hit face first into it.
She immediately ducked low under a spray of bullets and rolled away only to come out of it with an upper cut to the underside of a goons chin. She turned in time to see Red Hood take down the last two black clad men. "Think we should radio in?" He asked counting his rounds quickly before snapping them back into place.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Didn't Nightwing order radio silence?"
"Well, that was before they bombed you off the roof, who knows who else got caught in the fire?" Red Hood shrugged and tucked his guns back into their holsters while walking towards her. She rolled her eyes but met him halfway.
"My guess, Beast Boy or Blue Beetle ruined their cover."
"I was thinking Lagoon Boy got impatient."
She threw her head back with the force of her laughter, it shook her entire frame and she wrapped her middle section with her arms. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and traveled down her face as she blinked and gasped for air.
He gave her a soft smile. "You know that wasn't really all that funny, right?"
"Shut up." She was still gasping and wiping the tears from behind her mask, but her mouth was still curved in a large smile.
"Can you believe it's been one year since I found you in that same exact spot?" Nightwing asked with a smirk, his arms folded across his chest.
Artemis moved, lifting her face from her hands and dropping her arms to hang in between her legs. "Yeah, but for a totally different reason this time."
"Oh?" He asked, glad to see the bags that used to reside under her eyes were gone, her skin was dark once again, and a smile curled her plump pink lips.
"Yeah," She moved over on the couch and he took a seat next to her. She laid her head on his shoulder, "Don't challenge Red Hood to a drinking competition, he's insanely good with liquor." She rubbed the side of her face roughly.
Nightwing laughed, "Oh, hung over are we."
"Sorta," She sighed, "Headache is mostly gone now, just feeling really lethargic right now."
"Did you know that they say you can cure headaches without using medicine." He smirked and put a hand on her knee to push her up right.
She rolled her eyes but sat up to face him. "If you say sex, I will have to remind you that the cave is full of minors that could walk in at any moment."
He feigned an offended face placing a hand splayed over his chest and the other one at his hip, he even adopted the tone of voice. "I never said we'd do it here." HE dropped the act and leaned in close his lips a breath away from her own, "Besides, you didn't outright refuse it either." He wiggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively.
She pushed his face away with a laugh, "Dude, so not happening."
He burst into laughter.
Er, well... this ran away from me. Wasn't at all what I had planned, but I like it?
One shot is complete. You can thank 'Learn to Let Go' by Kesha for this story, I've been listening to it too much.
Maybe I'll write another one?