Title: there's catastrophe in everything I'm touching
Word Count: 4,500
Characters/Pairing: Artemis Crock, Dick Grayson, the Joker; Artemis/Dick
Rating: M (for torture, graphic violence, murder, threats of rape, profanity, and dark themes in general)
Disclaimer: Young Justice does not belong to me, I'm just here to play destroy lives.
Summary: If you scream and no one listens, do you make a sound?
Note: I am so, so sorry for this. I don't really know what happened.
(Inspired by Rush's art; text used with her permission. Special thanks to mswyrr for her helpful and speedy beta skills.)
*Title from The Horror of Our Love by Ludo
Three weeks after everything that happened, Artemis wakes gripping the knife hidden under her pillow. A shadow looms over her bed like a nightmare come to life; unfortunately, she knows all too well how real this exact nightmare is.
"Little Miss Artemis," the shadow sings, high and sickeningly familiar. A blade, also familiar, creeps across her chin to dance over her lips; the scar on her cheek throbs in memory. "Thinks she can run away from me, but she'll learn, won't she? I will always find you." Even through the darkness of her bedroom, his wide smile gleams. "We belong together."
She remains frozen for half a moment, then bats his knife away and lunges from her bed to knock them both to the floor. Artemis straddles his waist, holding her own blade firmly to his neck; it nicks his skin, and blood wells, shining, at the cut.
"That's my girl, always prepared." He laughs, bearing teeth. "Gonna kill me, are you?"
"I will!" she hisses at him, pressing the blade harder. "Leave me the fuck alone, or so help me, I will!"
Her trembling hand calls her a liar. As do his dancing eyes.
"Oh yes, Miss Artemis, I've been such a bad boy. Please, teach me a lesson." He giggles and arches languidly beneath her, making the knife bite deeper into his skin but not the least bit bothered by it.
She snarls at him wordlessly, and they remain locked in a stare-down.
One which Artemis inevitably loses.
She can't do it. God help her, but he's called her bluff and she can't do it. She flings herself off him, crawling to the foot of her bed and gripping it for support. To her horror, she realizes that she's crying; when had she gotten so weak?
"Shhhhh," he soothes, gathering her into his arms and rocking gently. She doesn't have the strength to fight him off. "Shhhhhh, 'Mis, don't cry. We can be together now, always." He rubs his cheek against hers. "Because if you ever try to run from me again, I will kill everyone you love one by one, and leave their body parts for you to find."
He smiles brightly at her, and she knows he means every word.
Artemis doesn't know how long she's been here. There are no windows, no way to keep track of passing time. Instead, she tallies when they bring food, when they're brought to the bathroom, and when they take him to be tortured.
Robin won't tell her what they want. Her own sessions are far less regular, and they never ask her any questions. It's almost…perfunctory. Either they're not very good at their jobs, or she's not the real target.
They always wear clown masks. She's betting it's the latter.
They're kept in metal cages, with bars and everything. Large cages—tall enough to stand in, wide enough to pace in small circles, but still. Cages. It's definitely doing a number on her sanity.
If they both stretch their arms out, they can just barely hold hands.
The masks make identification impossible, of course, so she gives them nick-names in her head. Tall Guy. Thick Throat. The Texan. Chub Chub. Sticky Fingers. The Limp. Twitchy. The Giggler. Rough Hands.
Rough Hands is in charge of her "sessions." His palms are covered in callouses that catch on her skin every time he grips her jaw—he likes to make her look him in the eyes when he hurts her, though she can never see his own.
It might have been a little easier to bear if she at least had the satisfaction of not telling him anything. But he doesn't ask questions, though they must know she has plenty of secrets to keep. Instead, she endures seemingly pointless rounds of torture, inflicted with fists and knives and just about everything in between.
She wonders sometimes that he doesn't do worse; she can sense the way he enjoys making her skin turn colors it isn't meant to be. Artemis knows a sadist when she sees him. There is at least satisfaction, then, in her ability to deny him the pleasure of truly breaking her—Daddy taught her better than that, after all.
(Once, she thinks it's finally going to happen. She's sneered one too many times, defiant to the core, and now he's going to rape her because when it comes right down to it, his kind don't see the need for creativity when a dick will do the job. Then, without warning, Giggler appears behind him.
"Now now, kiddo, we're all gentlemen here, aren't we? Except, of course, for our lovely archer girl." He waves his hand vaguely in her direction, letting loose one of his distinctive high-pitched giggles. "We're agents of anarchy, not common street scum. No need to be crude." He slaps Rough Hands companionably on the back, but then, quick as a viper, grips his shoulder with firm fingers. Rough Hands winces sharply. "Understand?" Suddenly Giggler's voice has lost its usual mad levity, and his hold tightens until Rough Hands nods rapidly.
"Excellent!" Giggler claps his hands together like a delighted child, and Artemis finds she's far more afraid of him than any of the other clowns. "Now play nice! But not too nice." And with that, he leaves.
Rough Hands mutters darkly under his breath, rubbing his shoulder. Artemis grins mockingly at him, lest he see how disturbed she truly is. He snarls and grabs her by the hair.
"Don't think you're safe just 'cuz of that. I'm the one with the power here."
Artemis takes careful aim, spits right into his conveniently positioned eyehole, and wonders.)
She knows the Team and the League must be hunting everywhere for them, but just waiting is unbearable. Planning an escape proves challenging, though. They've been stripped of all weapons and tools, left with nothing but the clothes on their backs, now much worse for the wear. The room they're kept in is empty but for the cages, and they never know when someone might be listening or watching thanks to the three obvious one-way mirrors. They're never let out at the same time, and Artemis is almost positive their food is being drugged—nothing lethal, just enough to keep them sluggish and unbalanced.
The point clearly isn't to kill them. (But what is it, then?)
Robin won't tell her what they want, and he won't tell her what they do to him.
Some times are worse than other times. Sometimes he comes back bleeding, but he grins that manic grin of his and reaches through the bars to her. Their fingers catch together. He talks about everything and nothing, anything but where they are right now.
Sometimes he comes back without any new visible marks, but he curls up in his cage and barely looks at her. Then it's her turn to try and fill the empty hours with words. She's not as good at it as he is, but at least she can still get him to laugh.
Sometimes, she hears screams echo down the hall. (She wonders what he hears when their places are reversed.)
Then he starts coming back doing nothing but laughing (and she's finally, truly afraid).
She fights. Every time they take him, she snarls and threatens and blusters and swears. They laugh at her and pay her no mind.
"Don't worry 'Mis, I got this," Robin says as they drag him out, a determined smile on his lips. If it was meant to soothe her, it does a damn shite job. That smile becomes a little more crooked every time.
Sometimes, after they leave, she just screams at the top of her lungs. No one ever comes. (If you scream and no one listens, do you make a sound?)
They laughed at her, but she incapacitates four of them the next time they take her out—for another nice little round of torture—before they finally pin her down. The whole time Robin throws himself at the bars of his cage, until she can't see him anymore; his enraged shouts follow her down the hall.
Rough Hands ups his game, finding new and inventive ways to break her body, but she grits her teeth and doesn't stop smiling around the blood in her mouth. She makes sure to stare as hard as she can into his piggy little eyeholes.
She doesn't remember if she screamed.
"'Mis? Can you hear me? Say something, please say something…"
She wakes to darkness so pitch she can't even make out the bars of her cage. Robin's voice washes over her, tired and hoarse and monotone, like he's been saying the same thing over and over again with little hope of a reply. He probably has. She doesn't even remember being brought back. (She remembers before that though. Very deliberately, she stuffs those memories into a box and locks it tight. Some things are best left in the dark.)
"Robin?" she croaks, and immediately regrets it as her throat pretests violently.
There's a flurry of rustling near-by, so she reaches her arm through the bars. Their fingers connect. She can hear Robin breathing too quickly, sharp and loud in the empty space.
"I'm here," she tries again, straining to see him. "I'm still here."
His fingers squeeze hers, and don't let go.
Texan and Limp drag him back and dump him in the cage. He's sobbing unrestrainedly, and the shock of that sight is the only thing that lets the rest of them to catch her unawares. Before she knows what's happening, they've thrown her out of her own cage. They don't even wait to bring her to her usual room; they start beating and kicking her right there, while Robin screams and cries and begs them to stop. She wants to fight them, rages inside at her own helplessness; she doesn't know how long they've been trapped here, but her body is weak and tired and broken from misuse, and it's all she can do to curl in on herself and try to block out the worst of the pain.
Eventually, they put her back. They crowd around Robin, saying things she can't make out, though the cadence of taunting is familiar and easy enough to understand.
Breathing hurts. Everything hurts.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Robin whispers over and over again when they're alone, rocking incessantly against cold hard metal. Like this is somehow his fault.
Her whole body rebelling against her, she reaches toward him but he flinches back. That hurts worse than anything else, honestly. (If she doesn't have him anymore, what does she have?) She closes her eyes instead, and tries not to listen to his ceaseless, senseless apologies.
She still doesn't know why they're here.
She still doesn't know why no one's rescued them yet.
They pass the time by telling stories.
"Remember that time in Siberia—"
"Where you pretended to be cold so I would share my sleeping bag with you?"
"Yeah, that one. I disarmed a bomb; you kicked people in the face. It was a good mission."
"That's one way to put it. I certainly learned my lesson."
Or:
"Remember that time Wally accidentally ate caviar and then when I told him what it was he practically barfed all over the place?"
"No! When was that?"
"You weren't there?"
"No way, I'd remember that. Spill!"
"Well, don't tell him I told you, but…"
They both avoid talking about their individual pasts, but eventually they run out of other stories to tell.
"I was in the circus. The one we went undercover on for that mission."
Or:
"I wanted to be a hero for so long. I used to watch you on the news, you know."
Or:
"My parents died a long time ago. That's how I found Batman."
Or:
"My dad's been training me to kill since before I can remember."
It's better to talk about the past than what's going on right now.
(Once, in the dark: "I love you. I just wanted you to know that.")
She's not sure how it starts but somehow she's screaming at him.
"Why are we here, Robin?" Her voice echoes off the walls, and normally she wouldn't draw more attention to them than they already get but she's at her absolute wit's end. "What do they want? Not to kill us, or they would have done that already. Not for info, they haven't even interrogated me. Not for ransom or an exchange, we've been here too long. What could it possibly be then?"
He won't look at her. Instead he stays curled up in his goddamn cage, back tensed and turned towards her. Artemis wants to hit him until he talks or looks at her, one or the other.
"Don't ignore me, douchebag!" She rattles her bars violently, an animal scream building in her throat. She is so tired of being hurt and aching and terrified. "You're supposed to be the smart one, so what's going on? What do you know that I don't know? Why won't you tell me?"
He doesn't respond at all, except to curl into a tighter ball. She doesn't realize she's crying until she feels the hot drops land on the exposed inside of her elbow.
Fine. He's not the only one who can give the cold shoulder, and damn him, she'll be cold as ice.
She crawls into the far corner, wraps her arms around her knees, and finally lets herself cry.
She's just so tired.
The next time he comes back, Robin won't stop laughing. That scares her more than anything that's happened so far. (They're all wearing clown masks; she doesn't understand, but she's not stupid.)
She can't ignore him now. He hardly responds to her when she tries to talk to him though, but maybe he can't, because sometimes she says something and he just laughs harder. Her stomach aches just listening to him.
Finally, she apologizes.
"I'm sorry, Rob. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn't have. I just can't stand it anymore—we have to get out of here, one way or another, or I think I'll go insane"
"Don't fret, Missy 'Mis," he sing-songs, voice high and teasing. "It'll all be over soon."
She grips the bars so hard her knuckles go white. "What do you mean? Robin! What's going on?"
But he just laughs.
When she wakes, it's dark again. They like to do that sometimes—leave their prisoners with no way to see, no way of knowing it they were alone or not.
At this point, she can't even bring herself to care.
"Hey, dork knight, you feeling any better?"
There's no response.
"Robin? You there?" Artemis gropes for the familiar confines of her space, straining her eyes against the black for any hint of movement. "Rob, this isn't funny." She can't hear anything, not the rustle of cloth or the scrape of boot against metal; not even the rasp of breath.
(Oh god. Is he dead?)
"Robin?" she calls tentatively; she's acutely aware of how her chest expands and contracts, rapidly picking up pace. Artemis ruthlessly quells the useless, premature reaction—she doesn't even know anything for sure.
Then the lights come on with a slow electric hiss, and she knows.
His cage is empty.
Her breathing picks up again. How long has he been gone? When had they taken him? How had she not known? The clowns certainly had never bothered to be quite before. She should have been awake.
"How nice of you to join us," calls Giggler from the doorway in his wheezy, high-pitched voice. Artemis jumps to her feet in a moment.
"Where's Robin?" she growls, glaring fiercely (for all the good it's ever done her here). "What've you done with him?"
"All in good time, all in good time." She can't see his mouth, but she imagines it stretched into a crazed, mocking grin right now. He just sounds like that sort of guy. "In the meantime, we're going for a little walkies. The gang's all waiting on you."
He whips out her key with a flourish, making sure he has her full attention before pushing it in the lock. She steps forward quickly, torn between desperation and caution.
"Ah-ah!" he admonishes her, waving a cajoling finger. "No funny business, got it? Not if you want to see your little red-breasted friend any time soon, that is."
Artemis nods slowly, not trusting her tongue to keep civil.
Giggler leads her out, to who knows where or what.
This room is not one she's seen before (then again, she hasn't exactly gotten around much). The walls are high, higher than she can see; the lighting is so poor she wonders why they even bother. The clowns are all here—she does a quick count off, just to be sure—clumped towards the far wall.
Suddenly Giggler grips her shoulders firmly. "I really must thank you," he says directly into her left ear, raising unpleasant goosebumps all over her arms. "You've proven a most useful tool in the breaking of my newest toy…"
The clowns shift, revealing a member of their number she hadn't been able to see before. Only rather than a mask, his face is grotesquely painted, ghostly white face and garish red lips and sickly black surrounding bright, bright blue eyes. He smiles at her, ear to ear. Eager.
Her hand claps over her mouth, to keep from screaming aloud. It echoes loudly inside her head anyway.
"How random that you're here, 'Mis!" Robin trills casually. "Don't suppose there's a spelling bee in the area?"
Tears spring into her eyes without permission; she can do nothing but stare in horror.
"No? That's too B-A-D." He starts toward her, giggling like a loon—too high, too harsh. Wrong in every way imaginable. She can't even move, her limbs frozen and lungs hot. Her insides twist around shards of glass.
"Now, the way I see it," Giggler says, still behind her, hands still on her shoulders (but she knows who he really must be, doesn't she?), "as far as tools go, you're pretty much used up. So I said to myself, why not let my new pet have a go, eh? It'll be a little experiment—his first real taste at some good, old fashioned sadism. So what do ya say, archer girl?" Again that horrible cackle, the one she's become so sickeningly familiar with, and he pushes her forward roughly without waiting for the response she can't even begin to formulate.
Robin grabs her hand, leather gloves smooth and cold against her fingers, and grins savagely. He looks her straight in the eye, and nothing she sees there is recognizable. He might as well not be her Robin at all (how could he leave her alone like this?).
Nothing recognizable but the color of his eyes. She's seen those eyes somewhere before…
Silver flashes in front of her face then, gleaming and sharp and impossible to ignore. He traces the knife delicately along her throat, not hard enough to leave a mark but most certainly there. The cool touch of metal makes her shiver, leaving goosebumps in its wake. His wretched smile only grows larger, his eyes more fever-bright, and he hasn't looked away for even a moment.
"Robin," she pleads, though for what exactly she doesn't know. With cruel tenderness, he cups her jaw and presses the flat of his blade to her lips like a demented kiss. Her fingers grasp his green vest, yet she can't bring herself to push him away. This twisted, fracture reflection of Robin terrifies her to the core, but she can't quite quell the hope that he's not so far gone that she can't reach him. Any alternative might just break her—if she doesn't have him, what does she have left?
"You still haven't figured it out, have you?" He sounds disappointed in her, somehow.
"Figured out what?" Abruptly his hand twists, so quickly it takes her a moment to register the sharp, shallow sting on her face. She hisses in pain, trying to pull away from him, but he renews his grip on her jaw with bruising force and pulls her even closer.
"Tut tut!" he scolds her. "Clumsy little 'Mis. Here, let me give you a hint: look deep into my eyes." He tips her face up until they're practically nose to nose (when did he finally get taller than her?), gaze intent and filled with barely-suppressed glee. She scowls back at him, all too aware of the knife only an inch away from her eye.
"I don't know what you expect me to see."
He face twists to a snarl. "Don't play dumb, Artemis. It doesn't suit you."
She opens her mouth to retort, to hell with the knife, but faster than thought he slips the blade between her lips, forced against the corner of her mouth. Any attempt to pry his hands away is stymied as he bears down on her.
"C'mon 'Mis," he breathes. She's reminded forcibly about times when he laughed like a cool summertime breeze, carefree and gentle. Those warm memories really didn't do anything but make the icy chill of his blade burn hotter against her skin. He smiles, the grin stretching like a stain over his pale face, continuing, "I said we'd LAUGH about this someday…"
And just like that, it all falls into place.
"You?" She chokes on the single word, reality hop-scotching right past any point of return.
Finally, he looks satisfied, and strokes her cheek gently. "Me."
And he laughs.
"You gonna take all day at this or what?" calls Rough Hands. Artemis startles, to her embarrassment; she'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. "If you're not gonna do it properly, I could take the little bitch and—"
And that's as far as he gets before Robin's (Dick's?) smile turns feral and he tosses the knife over his shoulder with the flick of his wrist. It sprouts out of Rough Hand's throat, and Robin descends an instant later.
Artemis's first thought is to guard against Joker's retaliation. He'd removed his mask at some point, but made no move to prevent the slaughter of his minions; instead, his eyes tracked Robin gleefully.
Behind her, there is the distinctive click of a chamber being loaded. No time for thought, only action—she flies across the room, punching the gunman (Chub Chub, she would later recall) in the elbow hard enough to feel bone splinter. The man screams, but then she grabs the gun from his hand and punches him in the jaw. He goes down like a rock.
Three more of the clowns turn her way; with the precision born of hours upon hours of grueling practice, Artemis brings each of them down with a single bullet in the thigh.
The rest circle Robin, who swings his knife about with abandon, deadly accuracy, and a distinct lack of care for how much blood he sheds. They're all too close to Robin to risk shooting, so she wades into the fray and cracks a few skulls with the butt of her gun.
Finally, only she and Robin remain standing, back to back and breathing heavily. Rough Hands wheezes and gurgles at her feet, blood leaking bright trails down his neck.
"He deserved it, and more," Robin whispers in her ear from behind, hands coming to rest on her upper arms. "When I think about all those times he took you away, while I sat there in that fucking cage, imagining what he could be doing to you…" He hisses wrathfully, then nuzzles his nose against her hair and throat, leaving fire in his wake. He inhales deeply, and gently takes the gun from her hands.
Artemis doesn't have to imagine. She's tried so hard to keep all those memories in a nice little box, where she doesn't have to look at them. But now the lock breaks, and she remembers every moment. It's all she can do to remain standing, so she leans against him instead. He takes her weight easily.
"It makes me want to string him up and carve out every bit of flesh I can get at," he continues; she trembles. "I can only imagine what you must feel like doing." Robin presses even closer, until his lips brush the shell of her ear. Artemis wavers on the brink of hyperventilation. "Why don't you show me, huh 'Mis? Don't let him get away with what he did to you."
Her leg lashes out, and she kicks Rough Hands in the stomach for all she's worth. The man cries out, and adrenalin floods her body. He's hurt her so many times, and taken such sick satisfaction from it. But no more. Who has the power now, huh?
Her next kick she aims at his head, and she doesn't stop; not until gunshots ring out, and she jerks around to see Robin put bullets into each of the downed clowns with cold efficiency.
"Robin…" But what can she really say? She'd just kicked a man until he stopped moving, Artemis realizes with distant horror. Robin looks at her, a manic grin on his face, as though waiting for her to share in his triumph.
Loud clapping echoes off the walls.
"Beautiful!" cries the Joker. "Absolutely moving. The drama! The suspense! The delightful brutality!" He wipes a fake tear from his eye. "I haven't seen such a good show since the little bird's parents took a tumble off their trapezes." He clutches his chest melodramatically. "Such poetry! Such music!" And then he cracks up until he practically keels right over.
Robin wraps his arm around her shoulders. "We'll be leaving now, Mr. Jay," he informs the man cheerfully.
"Awww, but we could make such wondrous music together, my boy!" His face is a mask of exaggerated disappointment. "And your little lady friend doesn't look like she's having fun yet."
"Don't worry. She will." He presses a kiss to her neck, like a promise. "Remember, 'Mis? You have to get traught or get dead."
This has gone too far. Artemis gives herself one moment to take a breath, then spins and punches him in the solar plexus. He lands flat on his back.
"Don't touch me, you bastard," she snarls. He gasps, breathless. But then a giggle escapes him, followed by a chuckle, a chortle, until he's full-out cackling at her feet.
She looks at him. She looks at the Joker, who watches her back with dancing, cruel eyes. She looks at the carnage strewn about her, carnage that she had helped to create. She looks at her hands, clenched into fists, white-knuckled and shaking, covered in scars both old and new. Finally, she looks back to Robin.
Not saying a word, she walks away with careful, firm steps. There is nothing left for her here.
"Go forth and spread chaos, my child!" the Joker calls behind her.
(Robin's deranged laughter echoes in her ears long after she strides out into the night.)
She runs.