YJ - A Shot in the Dark
"...and that's what it is, as it is," she said, smiling into the microphone as she clutched the left ear of her headphones to her head. "I'm your host Lucky Linda. Tune in tomorrow for more funny things from Hollywood, the bash of the day, an interview with Keystone City's own Mayor, Ron Velroc, and of course the best music you can find! That's all for me, folks! But don't touch that dial, Danny O's up next with your Nightly Crawl! And here's a few tunes to start you off!"
Her steel-grey eyes traveled up towards the words "on air" and she watched with her bright smile until the red light behind them died. Her smile left just as quickly and she pulled the headphones off to hang them on the mike stand.
"Great show, Linda!" a voice called over the speakers in the sound booth.
She smirked and pressed the intercom. "Thanks, Mac!"
"Are you sure you don't want to take over Danny's time slot too?" Mac nettled, followed by an indignant shout from the guy in the other booth with him.
"Not even if you paid me more," she said with a laugh, letting go of the button again to pull on her brown leather jacket. Besides, this was just a stepping stone, with any luck she'd get on the Keystone News team across the river by the end of the month.
"Going shooting?" Mac continued over the speakers. "Hit a couple targets for me!"
Smirking as she flipped her long blond hair out from under the collar of her jacket and gave a thumbs up. Going shooting was her excuse for any time she took off. Everyone knew she was an archery fan so it was easy to use, but it usually covered trips to see old friends or she wasn't feeling well. This time leaning towards the latter as she definitely felt a cold coming on.
With one more glance around, she sighed as she grabbed her bag and strode out of the booth. It barely took two minutes to jog down from their broadcast room to the building's main exit, and even less time to get to her motorcycle. The day was just ending, casting an orangey-red glow over the city as she drove to its skirts. To what was now a very familiar abandoned arcade. It made her feel old, to some extent, since she could remember days when she and her elder sister would sneak out to places like it where they'd grown up.
She was tempted to get off the bike when she stopped, taking off her helmet as she idled by the curb. She could have gone in just for nostalgia's sake, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop herself from activating the technology inside. Instead she took a breath, looking down to her bag and the crossbow that sat within. The slightest movement drew her attention, though not her gaze, to the growing shadows around her.
"They wouldn't mind, you know," a familiar voice said from behind her.
Instantly her crossbow was out, loaded, and aimed to fire, but a moment of recognition made her pause. "Aren't you and Dinah supposed to be out in the Caribbean or something?"
"Bermuda," the blonde man corrected, giving her a lopsided smile through his goatee as he leaned against a neighboring building in a way that made him look like a grown up boy-band member. He pushed off the brick and slipped his hands into his pockets as he strode up the pavement, nodding towards the crossbow. "Nice to see you're using your Christmas present."
She smirked, finally lowering her weapon if only to turn off the bike. "This one's from my birthday, actually," she said, setting the kickstand and dismounting. "The Christmas one needs a new string."
A smile came to the man's face and he stopped in front of her. "I always get those two mixed up," he said, pausing only a moment before he pulled her into a tight hug with a contented sigh. "It's good to see you, Artemis."
She snorted a laugh into the soft fabric of his grey suit, but her eyes began to tear up at the sound of him saying her birth name. "You say that every time you see me."
"No less true," he reported, not letting her go.
Artemis tried to laugh again, but it was painful. She knew why her former mentor was here. It had been three years since that night they'd saved the world. No, not they. He. The night HE saved the world by doing something that would take him away from her.
Memories surged forward, attacking her as brutally and effectively as if they were agents of the Reach too. She clutched her mentor's jacket, holding him as tightly as she dared while not wanting to show how much she wanted to crumble. There were very few people who could make her this vulnerable and she hated seeing the pity on their faces. The hurt it caused them to see her.
She'd been pretty good at hiding it for the first year, but when the one year anniversary had come along her view had taken a very dark turn. Landing her in the hospital, which made her guilt even worse. It had been a final straw for Green Arrow and the Flash. Aqualad had to forcibly restrict her from hero work.
Not that she'd gone quietly. She raised hell and pitched a fit, but when all was said and done, she couldn't blame them. Being an active part of the team, without him beside her, had been too much. So she'd moved, once she was cleared by her doctors and the League, to Keystone City-former home of Kid Flash-under the new identity of Linda Park.
Ollie still checked in on her, visiting on her days off or abducting her for vacations that he knew she couldn't afford. He was better than her own father in more ways than one. Though, really, her biological father and his friends had been added reasons to become someone else. As if to prove it, his hand went to check her forehead.
"So," Artemis said, pulling away and touching under her eyes to make sure her mascara wasn't running-though she was fairly sure most of it had already created a stain on Ollie's shirt. "What are you doing out here, then? Looking for dinner?"
He smiled and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You know me too well."
She scoffed, giving him another one of her lopsided smiles. "I know you can't cook," she said, swinging a leg over her motorcycle again and detached the spare helmet, which she promptly tossed to him, "and you'd die if you'd tried."
Ollie raised an eyebrow at her, looking as though he was tempted to take her words as a challenge for a moment, but climbed onboard behind her as she kicked the bike into gear.
.- .- .
"Still not as good as Mom's," Artemis said, swirling her water glass. "But it's the best I can find in Keystone City."
She smiled as Ollie nodded in agreement, his mouth too full of curried chicken to actually answer. It was one of the things she loved about him. No, he definitely wouldn't have chosen any form of Asian cuisine as his go-to meal, but he never turned down anything spicy and kept up with her fairly well. There was only one other man who'd done so, but she still had to remind herself that he wasn't coming back.
Ollie's hand clasped hers and she looked up to see a concerned expression that made her blush. Apparently she'd gotten lost in thought again.
"Sorry," she said quickly, picking up her fork to make more of a dent in her food. It may have been three years but her appetite still hadn't improved. Only a quarter of the plate was cleared and she was already thinking of announcing that she was full.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Ollie assured her, his grip gently tightening around her hand.
Artemis gave him a weak smile, but she couldn't make herself agree with him. "Neither do you."
He didn't have an answer for that and it was a testament to those years of training that she still knew him so well. But there was something else in his expression that made her frown.
"What?" she asked suspiciously.
Ollie set his own fork down and folded his hands between himself and his plate before he looked up again. "It's... for the League."
Her gaze narrowed. "What is?"
Their waitress appeared and Ollie quickly held up his card to pay with a flash of his famous playboy smile. The girl hurried off and Ollie turned his smile back to his protégé, whose frown only deepened.
Nothing else was said at the restaurant, outside of small talk that redirected any unwanted attention as they got back to her bike. Not long after which, Artemis found herself taking him home on his insistence to make sure she was actually doing as well as she claimed.
It didn't take long to get to her building and up to the seventh floor for her sprawling studio loft. Once upon a time the building had actually been a factory, for fabrics as far as she knew, but after decades of neglect someone had refurbished it into a hundred or so urban apartments. Surprisingly, Artemis had really taken a liking to the style and, as Linda, found it fit her "no backstory" life perfectly.
Ollie looked around, nodding and looking impressed if not pleased with her style, which she watched from the futon beneath the large windows. The flickering thought that the older man might actually proclaim that he liked it so much that he'd buy the building passed through her mind, and she wouldn't put it past him. But, eventually, he joined her on the futon with the mug of tea she'd poured.
"Very nice," he commented, still staring at the open beams and industrial fan far above them.
"Thanks," she said, smirking at him before sipping her own tea. "So... What does the League want?"
"Hmm?"
She frowned at his clueless expression. "At dinner," she reiterated. "You said you were here on League business."
"Oh, right," Ollie said, half choking on the tea. Clearing his throat he let out an intelligent, "Umm..."
She couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Oliver!"
"Okay, not quite League," he admitted. "But I am going to see Flash and his grandkid."
"Impulse?" Artemis raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because.. Did you hear what, uh, Nightwing-."
"Yeah," Artemis said quickly, cutting him off before the hope in her could rise. "Yeah, I heard."
Nightwing had actually called her first, two weeks after he'd taken a leave of absence from the team, as soon as he'd discovered this small possibility that... that Antarctica might not have... been what it looked like... He'd stayed in contact with her over the years, most recently having been only a few days ago. He wanted her to come with them when he and the Flash went down there to test their theory. But she couldn't. And she'd been doing her damnedest to keep them from getting her hopes too high, she didn't think she could handle it if they were wrong.
Oliver was looking at her with doe eyes right now, she didn't have to see him to know. And it was a look she avoided from him, since it always made her burst into tears. So she kept her eyes on her tea, forcing herself to take discrete breaths before she tried to change the subject.
"Did you get to listen to any of my show today?" she asked, plastering a smile onto her face when she looked up again. "That last one sounded like something you'd hum when barging in on a crook or something."
"Art-Linda, I-."
"No, really!" she urged, ignoring the fact that he wanted to return to the topic of... Antarctica. "It just had this rhythm to it-."
"Linda," Oliver said firmly, his expression was sympathetic even if it was stern. "You can't just ignore this."
"I'm not ignoring anything, Ollie," she informed him, though she definitely noticed how her hand had started shaking even if he hadn't.
"You are," he assured. "Nightwing wants you there, with him, to pull Wal-."
"Don't!" she gasped. "Please just don't."
"He's not dead, Artemis. I know you still love him."
"Shut up." Tears were stinging her eyes, threatening to over-take her.
"What are you scared of? That kid was over the moon about you! Are you scared that'd change just because of three years in the speed force?"
"No!" She snapped. If nothing else, she was sure he'd never change even if it had been three years in Gotham! That wasn't what worried her.
"Then what?" Oliver demanded and she got the distinct feeling that he was going to camp out in her livingroom if she refused.
She let out a small growl of irritation, partially wanting to throw her mug of tea at the wall. "Me!" she finally shouted. "I'm the one who's changed! Face it, Ollie, I'm the one who's had to go on. I'm not the girl he left in Stamford. Hell, I'm not even Artemis anymore! On the team or in civilian life! Even if I do get the job at KFMB and get to see him every once in a while-he may not even like Linda Park."
"Are you kidding?" Oliver yelped, shaking his head in disagreement before setting his mug down to hold her head, forcing her to look at him. "Yeah, it's a change, but it's not that big! You're still as smart and sassy as ever. You can still take down any opponent you come across and hit every target. You've got moxy, kid-."
"Moxy?" she couldn't help repeating, wiping at her eyes with a teasing smile. "Has Dinah been making you watch 1930's mobster movies again?"
"And this is Wally, we're talking about," he continued, smirking. " That kid would love you even if Zatanna turned you into a-."
"Watch it," she warned him, strangely feeling happy by his strange form of comforting.
Oliver gave her a grin, before he looked at her seriously. "I know you might not feeling exactly great, but we want you there."
She locked eyes with his as she thought it over. She knew it would kill her to be there, but somehow it'd be worse if Nightwing was right and she wasn't there. Especially when she didn't have a better reason to avoid it. "Which me?" she asked with a sigh. "Artemis or Linda?"
"Both," Oliver said, smiling even more brightly. "Now go get your bag, we've got a bioship to catch."
A/N: Yep. Crossed into another fandom. *sigh* What can I tell you? I rather liked Young Justice and decided that the ending did not befit my continual love for Wally West. I grew up with him as my Flash so I needed to work everything out ^_^