Title: The Games We Play
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Nightwing(or Robin)/Artemis
Genre: flirting
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice
Summary: "They've been playing this game for a while now. She's not sure how it started or how it's going to end, but there don't seem to be any rules besides don't get caught."
Notes: Kind of... not as good as I wanted to be, but I got lazy.
They've been sparring for hours, and the sweat makes her hands slick and his arms slippery, so she blames it on that when she fails her throw (never mind that he's thirty pounds heavier and six inches taller than he used to be, when she could toss him with a simple twist of her hips). She loses her footing trying to heave him over her shoulder and his hand catches her wrist as she lets go, dragging her down with him.
They fall in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor, her chest pressed against his, feeling his heart pounding through the thin layer of nylon and cotton. His face is shockingly close and his breath brushes against her lips. There's a pause as they both lay atop one another, panting as if they'd just finished an exercise of an entirely different nature.
After ten and a half heartbeats, she pushes herself off him and gets to her feet, offering him a hand. "Good move," she says, helping him up.
He smiles. "Not bad, yourself. Your wrist alright? I didn't yank it too hard or anything?"
"I'm fine."
"Let me see," he insists.
She's spent years holding her bow straight and pulling the strings taught, cocking back her arrows weighted down with explosives and rockets. They both know it'd take a lot more than an awkward fall to hurt her, but he takes her hand anyway, turning the palm up and sliding his fingers lightly along the thin, sensitive skin above her pulse.
She watches his face but he keeps his gaze focused down on her wrist, his brows knit and his expression solemn as he checks for injuries.
She isn't fooled for a second.
They've been playing this game for a while now. She's not sure how it started or how it's going to end, but there don't seem to be any rules besides don't get caught. She has no way of describing it except as a game of chicken—a game of seeing how far they can go before one of them wants to stop. A flirtation with disaster. With each other.
He brushes his fingers lightly over her skin, leaving a tingling sensation in their wake and massaging all the knots of tension that years of bow-stringing and arrow-cocking have built up. After he works his way to the tips of each of her fingers, he lets her go.
"Everything checks out," he says with a smile that says he noticed the way her pulse picked up as he pressed his fingers against the delicate skin of her wrists.
"I told you I was fine," she says, a smile of her own twitching at the corners of her lips. She arches her brows and smirks to show she is completely unaffected she is by his touch, and brushes past him.
"Artemis."
He catches her arm and she turns to ask what's wrong but his lips brush hers and she stops, surprise snatching her thoughts away as he his face hovers close, studying her reaction. After a moment, he presses his lips against hers again, more firmly until thought returns and she breaks away.
"Cameras," she breathes.
"Blind spot," he replies but steps back and lets her go.
There's a pause as he gives her that shit-eating grin of his, which fades to a half-guilty look as she narrows her eyes. Pursing her lips, she watches him squirm and she imagines he's wondering if he's pushed too far this time.
"Not bad," she says at last with a shrug and a smirk of her own. "See you next week, Boy Wonder."