Summary: As closed off and secretive as Artemis was, passion and violence were always something she could express—for better or worse. Any digging into her past had to be done carefully, with a steady hand and the precision of a skilled technician.
A/N: Blah, finally getting around to posting all my Traught fics. This one has the dubious honor of being the first!
Technician
Artemis Crock was an enigma wrapped inside a puzzle, covered in a cloak of pure conundrums, tied together by a world-class cipher, and then sealed closed with a not-so-healthy coating of violence and guilt that would make even the Batman proud.
For every step Dick would take in uncovering just an inch of her dark and hated secrets, there was always a mile or so left, each footstep more treacherous than the previous one, mines and explosions decorating the worn ground. For someone who was used to knowing absolutely everything about his friends, used to deducting their faults and weaknesses with a skill that surpassed understanding, her unnecessary stonewalling should have been irritating—should have.
With a smug grin etched into his face and a skip in his step, the former protégé of Batman set himself upon the task of exposing each and every covert secret the girl had, determined that he should know her as well as he knew everyone else in his life.
However, he underestimated one little thing.
That Artemis Crock was quite possibly one of the most flawed people in the world and that it was impossible to dig that under her skin without her ripping apart and making a home for you in it. As hard as it was to get close to her, she repaid the favor with threats, pointed barbs, and an unyielding devotion that no one else in the world could ever possibly hope to replicate.
Soon enough, Dick found himself over his head, this impossible paradox of a girl pulling him in more and more with every twisted secret revealed, with every deadly mine deactivated. Until one day he found himself standing in the middle of the warzone of her mind, smiling and ready to leap blindly to any cause of hers. Each layer peeled away and each cipher solved only served as a further incentive to continue, to shed light on the enigma known as Crock.
It was hard, certainly, but the more time that passed, the more he realized that his reasons for doing so were changing too. The time for uncovering her secrets just because he could was over, she meant too much now for him to simply let sleeping dogs lie. Slowly but surely, he started to shoulder her own burdens as well, strapping those deactivated mines onto his person with a skill and deft like no other.
Because Artemis Crock had also underestimated one little thing, that Dick Grayson—current poster-child for all things heroic, orphaned Flying Grayson, for whom his family were his friends and friends his family, whose greatest weaknesses and most ardent wish was someone needing him as much as he needed them—would do absolutely anything for her now.
If she needed someone to carry some of the weight of her existence, then he would be there to do it, a smug grin etched into the contours of his face and a skip in his step. No one else proved suitable for the job.
Miss Martian was too caring—she wouldn't be able to glaze over the archer girl's faults without expressing some treacherous pity.
Superboy had his own issues—how could a boy who couldn't even come to grips with his own existence handle another's?
Kaldur was far too much of a leader—he might express doubt or concern over her ability to complete a mission rather than understanding that she was thinking the exact same thing.
Kid Flash was Kid Flash—she would never dare express herself too much to him, for fear that he would take one look at her in all her corrupted glory and take a step back in their relationship, repeating the same words that had been carved into a dark corner of her beating heart with shaking fingernails.
Insecure. Selfish.
Robin, now Nightwing, fit the bill for several reasons. One being that he actually could accomplish the task; closed off and secretive as Artemis was, passion and violence were always something she could express, for better or worse. Any digging into her past had to be done carefully, with a steady hand and the precision of a skilled technician.
A slip could mean much more than her anger; it would mean banishment, removal of all traces of him from inside her mind, a cool indifference to his presence during missions. At this point in their relationship—friendship sounded too tame a word for someone who you knew better than yourself—just the thought felt like sledgehammer to the head.
This led to the other reason why Dick Grayson was now charged as keeper of guilt and dark secrets for one Artemis Crock—he wanted to.
He wanted to know her so badly sometimes it felt like there was a dull ache in his skull, a gnawing worry over the knowledge that if she wasn't telling him, then she was letting those venomous thoughts run rampart inside herself, clawing and ripping their way through her all too soft heart. He knew this better than anyone; how despite her rough exterior, caring was a word that fit her all too well.
So Dick stayed and he listened and he waited. He waited until the suspicious looks she shot at him when she thought he wasn't looking faded, and were replaced with slack jawed confusion at why he would even bother climbing through her window at three at the morning to hand her a plate of cookies that M'gann had made the day before and that Artemis had left too early to receive any from.
He waited until her snarls of disgust turned into amused eyes, rolling back in her head as he showed her the best way to do a handstand while running away from Supey after he'd accidentally put a dent in Sphere—something Conner still hasn't let him get over even though it was totally her fault too. How dare she dare you to do something and then later claim she had nothing to do with it?
He waited until she started to forget herself around him, when her unease turned to nonchalance whenever she found him sharply intruding on her personal space, such as when he put his arm through hers as he tugged her forward to go egg Wolf to get Superboy back for chasing him all the way to the beach or when he wound his hand around her wrist as he murmured into her ear that Sportsmaster was long gone by now and that she didn't need to shoot anymore.
He waited until having him standing next to her felt more natural than breathing, until she could finally freely confide in him the secrets that she dared not speak even to herself. And he took each and every one of them carefully and thankfully, refusing to pass judgment because that was not what she needed from him; what she needed was him.
It was in one such moment, a frozen minute in time where they were just sitting on the couch in the Cave, watching some stupid show or another, pausing only to discretely chuck popcorn at each other, that Artemis went quiet before turning to him and asking, "Have you ever killed anyone?"
Dick froze for a moment, wondering what had brought this on, but relaxed when he realized that didn't matter. "No, I haven't ."
Besieged by memories he'd rather forget, but didn't dare to for fear of losing his humanity, he continued, "I've come close though, closer than I like to admit."
She nodded, taking the information in and filing it away for later inspection. As always, Dick waited with the patience of a detonation technician, pretending to be staring at the TV while he secretly peered at her through the corners of his shades.
Running her hands through her thick mass of blonde hair, something he knew she always did when she was nervous, Artemis bit the corner of her bottom lip before she said, "Do you wanna know something?"
Dick recognized her behavior well enough to know that she was waiting for him to make the first move and he did so accordingly, sucking in a breath and snipping the red wire. "Have you ever killed anyone, 'Mis?"
Artemis went still, closing her eyes and looking for all the world like a marble statue, albeit one that could break every bone in your body without blinking. Her thick lashes flickered against her soft skin, and it took all he had not to reach out and try to soothe away the wrinkles in her brow.
"I don't know."
His heart sank, not in disgust, but in compassion for the strong girl sitting beside him, who was trying to fight back tears and pretend like she wasn't at the exact same time.
Dick watched silently as she kept talking, "Dad—Sportsmaster. He had me go on those kinds of missions all the time, the ones where he knocked me out and left me alone in some deserted wasteland or something. Except, you know, I wasn't always alone."
She chuckled softly, trying to dissipate the tension in the air. "One time I woke up with a knife against my throat. Apparently I hadn't woken up fast enough."
Dick clenched his fist so hard his nails dug into the rough skin of his palm, trying to keep from jumping off the couch and putting a universe wide APB on one Lawrence Crock. His ribcage seems to constrict in of itself, tightening and dragging its pointed edges across the beating organ within.
"One time…I don't even remember that well, really. It was somewhere in Iceland, and I had a time limit. I think I went a little overboard," she said, her voice lowering to a whisper. "The enemy…this one guy with freaky green eyes…he wasn't moving by the end.
"There was so much blood, I-I didn't even, I didn't even look back after Dad led me out, I was just so desperate to get out of my soaked clothes, it was cold and I—"
At this he finally snapped, reached across the expanse of the couch and grabbed the archer's hand, holding it tightly as he assured, "It's not your fault, Artemis. It's not and don't you dare even think that for a minute."
She cocked her head sadly, seeming to sink into herself as she replied, her voice cracking, "I didn't even ask if he was alright. I just left, augh, and how could I just leave him there? How?"
The desperate, pleading way she stared back at him felt like there were daggers pressed against his neck. "You didn't, 'Mis, you had no choice."
"You don't understand—"
Dick clenched her hand, unknowingly bringing it closer to his chest, almost directly over his heart. His calm broke as he hissed, "I don't think you understand. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't."
Artemis looked back at him with such disbelief that he had to clench his eyes shut just to keep from pulling her into a hug, something he knew she wasn't ready to accept from anyone unless she initiated it.
Visibly slumping, Dick pulled his mouth into a wan smile. "C'mon, Artemis, you're my best bud. Believe me every once a while, hey?"
Her eyes flickered away from him suddenly, and he knew that she wasn't going to be ready to do that any time soon. Disappointment etched into his now sad grin, Dick started to rise up, a distinct lack of a skip in his step.
Just as he was about to return to his place on the opposing end of the couch and resume watching the movie, a hand shot out and grabbed him by the forearm. Grey eyes searched his for the smallest hint of dishonesty, but found none.
What they did find made her suck in one shuddering breath and lean forward, pressing her forehead against his chest, unknowingly bringing it directly over his heart. Slowly, and just a bit shocked, Dick let his other arm fall around her shoulders, more from instinct than anything else. It was nothing resembling a hug—more a hold than anything else, really—but if that was all she could part with, then he would take it happily.
Artemis' fingers dug into through the thin material of his sweater, growing tighter as he heard a soft word escape from her mouth. "Thanks."
"For what?" He asked, grinning a little as he pretended to be oblivious to what she was referring to. Artemis peeled herself off of him and looked appreciative.
Not wanting to return to his designated spot across the couch, Dick settled himself right next to her with an air of nonchalance that only a seasoned pro in the area of bomb disposal could replicate. It was a testament to his success in the field that Artemis didn't kick him away, choosing instead to keep her hand on his arm, still clutching the fabric of his sweater.
Dick's eyes softened as they took this in discretely behind his shades—took her in.
His biggest triumph and his most spectacular failure, the enigma wrapped inside a puzzle, the most amazing contradiction of a person he'd ever had the honor of loving.
Plastering on his signature grin, Dick grabbed a handful of popcorn and flicked a kernel at her, laughing when Artemis took the bowl and eyed him wickedly.
There wasn't a technician in the world skilled enough to avoid her dunking the entire bow over his head, but Dick found that he didn't care so long as she kept smiling like that.