I really have no idea where this came from. It didn't start out like this either, I had a totally different idea in mind when i started this, but it kind of got out of hand.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Hope you enjoy!
Jade didn't pretend she was a good person. Quite the contrary actually, she knew that she was a horrible human being who did horrible things to people. She's killed people and single handedly ripped apart any chance she had at a good relationship with her sister.
Jade wasn't, in any form of the word, good. But Artemis was.
Somehow, after being raised as an assassin and spending her childhood being forced through intense training regimens that were scarily close to abuse, Artemis had turned into an all-around good person. She had managed to pull together the mess that Jade had left behind and make a life for herself outside the tangle of criminals and villains the rest of the family was involved with. That was something Jade had never been able to do for herself.
Maybe, Jade searched her sister out when she was on missions. She pushed and prodded her with words to test whose side she was really on, but Artemis never bended.
In some obscure, misunderstood way, Jade was proud.
So, when Roy came home, his eyes refusing to meet hers, with the news that Artemis was dead, something inside Jade snapped.
.
.
"Jade, you can't just go looking for him like this," Roy pleads, bravely blocking the exit. He's holding Lian in his arms, knowing that she won't deck him out of the way if it will hurt her.
"Of course I can, and I'm going to," Jade hisses, her knife dangling dangerously from her hand. "Move, before I make you."
Roy shifts Lian to his other arm, tactfully reminding Jade of his precious cargo. The baby giggles and grabs at her father's scraggly hair, oblivious to the tension between her parents. "I know you can, I'm just saying you shouldn't. "
"He killed her, Roy. Can't you understand that?"
Roy sighs, and his whole posture slumps forward, as if he's suddenly too tired to hold himself upright. "I understand more than you know," he mutters darkly, turning his head away.
"She's dead," Jade states again, bluntly.
"Don't do this, Jade," Roy insists, stepping towards her. "Don't do this to us, to Lian. Think of what we're trying to build."
"This doesn't affect any of that," she says. "Stop looking for feeble excuses and get. Out. Of. My. Way." Jade's voice is dangerously low at the end.
"No."
"Why are you making this difficult?" Jade crosses her arms in front of her, and glares at her husband. Roy only laughs without humor.
"When don't I?"
Lian makes a gurgling sound and reaches her hands out towards Jade, her fingers clenching into fists. Roy steps over to her and places Lian in her waiting arms. "Kaldur is thousands of miles under water. Let it go."
"How can you say something like that?," Jade demands, stepping away from Roy's hands that are clutching her shoulders. "You don't get it."
"What don't I get?" Roy asks, raising his hands and letting them fall to his sides. "You're not the only one who cared about Artemis." Jade suppresses a flinch at the past tense. "I spent all day at the Cave today, watching her real family mourn, while you were here making revenge plans. You didn't have to watch M'gann have a mental breakdown, or see Conner completely helpless. Nightwing is absolutely destroying himself with guilt…"
"Why is Nightwing guilty?" Jade interrupts, her head snapping up.
"He thinks it's his fault," Roy says, caught off guard by the sudden question.
"Is it?"
"What?"
"Is it his fault?"
"No of course it isn't, Nightwing is just over protective and he couldn't save her," he says, not really sounding sure of the defense he's trying to create for his friend.
Jade's eyes lit with realization. "He was the one who asked her to come back, wasn't he?"
"That doesn't mean anything."
"I would bet anything that he was with her when it happened."
Roy sighs, his eyes exhausted. "Don't start on him, Jade."
Something about the way he says her name, slowly and carefully, like she's about to explode in his face, irks her. She snaps at him, "Why not? He was the reason she was there. Couldn't he have done it without her?"
"They needed a long distance shooter."
"And you couldn't have gone?" Jade asks, not thinking.
"So I would be dead, instead?"
Jade stops her next sentence abruptly. She glares at him. "I didn't mean that."
"What did you mean then?" Roy asks, raising his voice. "Did you mean to point out that the team and I aren't on the best terms? That they haven't wanted me on a mission in months? What are you going to prove by pushing all this onto Nightwing?"
Jade stomps away, Lian giggling quietly in her arms.
.
.
Cheshire watches Nightwing fly from roof top to roof top. He easily soars over the open spaces and lessens the impact of landing with perfectly placed somersaults. Behind the white mask, her eyes narrow.
From her spot atop a taller building, she has the perfect angle to fling a knife that would impale itself in his skull. Jade fingers the weapon, flipping it between her fingers, wondering if that simple death will be enough to satisfy her.
Jade was usually very subdued when it came to things like emotions. Artemis was the one who let raw feeling slip into her tone and shrieked at you when she was hurt. She had never learned how to control her passion and thoughts, and it never really fit with Father's vision of a perfect daughter. Jade was more private, and was very skilled at bottling things up.
Killing him from afar would be Jade's style. It would avoid confrontation and not draw any unwanted attention towards her. It would just be another one of her jobs, assassinating the face that showed up in her paperwork.
But this wasn't a job. This was vengeance. Jade wasn't really sure, seeing as she'd never cared enough for someone to desire revenge, but she felt like Nightwing should know why he was dying. He should take responsibility for what he'd done to her fragile, broken little family.
Before she could change her mind, Jade jumped down from her ledge and started bouncing across the skyline towards her target. She settled herself on top of the roof of the small building that housed the stairwell, just behind Nightwing.
"Good evening," Cheshire drawls in her pompous voice, because taunting is something that comes naturally. "Beautiful night for a stroll, hmm?"
Nightwing whips around, his legs dropping into a fighting stance. He straightens slightly when he recognizes the white mask staring down at him. "Cheshire?" he asks, confused.
Jade lunges down at him, gripping his shoulders and forcing both of them to the ground. They roll over to the edge of the roof, and drop onto the fire escape, the old metal clanging, and groaning under the sudden weight. Nightwing quickly flips himself on top of her, his knees dig themselves into her wrists and he pushes her knife away.
"What are you doing?" he hisses, struggling to restrain the thrashing woman beneath him. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Quite the opposite actually," Jade says, her voice still light. "But I'm going to have to kill you." Cheshire arches her back and bucks the teenager off of her. She scrambles to her feet and dives forward, her hands grabbing for his throat. Nightwing neatly ducks to the side, his feet at the edge of the small square. He grabs her arm and twists it behind her back.
"It's your fault," Jade whispers through gritted teeth.
Nightwing's grip loosens in shock and Jade twists around and pushes him to the ground, falling on top of him and wrapping her fingers around his throat. His head hangs off the side of the stairs, dangling high above the traffic below. "You did this to her."
His face is starting to turn purple when a hand grabs the back of her collar and rips her off of him. She's flipped backwards and crashes through the glass window behind her. She tumbles, landing upside down in a pile of shattered glass, looking up to see Robin helping Nightwing to his feet.
Panting in rage, Jade clambers to her knees. "It's your fault," She repeats. "She's dead because of you."
The older boy turns to stare at her, his mouth turned down in a troubled frown. "I know," he whispers, looking down at his feet.
"C'mon Nightwing," Robin says, nodding his head in the direction of the ground. He jumps off the edge of the fire escape and disappearing.
Nightwing stares at Cheshire for a moment. Jade can't be sure if they're actually making eye contact, but something shivers down her spine. She closes her eyes, trying to break the connection. When she opens them again, he's gone.
Jade lets herself fall forward, her head banging against her knees, and for the first time since she was that tiny kid leaving her sister behind, she cried.
Please reveiw!