A little background, this is an AU starting from season two episode 9 Darkest, when Kaldur and Artemis (dressed at Tigress) infiltrate Mount Justice and Kaldur is supposed to give Nightwing the flash drive that will help them rescue Lagoon Boy. Things go way off plan when Slade joins their mission and, going against rules, beats and captures Nightwing instead of just planting the bomb, which Robin later deactivates instead of letting it destroy the Mountain.

With that out of the way, Enjoy!

Artemis's heart pounded underneath her orange Kevlar and UnderArmor. The LIGHT's ship was not one of astronomical size by any means, and trying to be discrete about a dinner plate in hand—while successfully avoiding as many guards as possible—is not the way Artemis had wanted to spend her evening. In essence, Artemis didn't want any part of this being in her whole damn day altogether. Yet, despite it all, she held her head high in an almost regal fashion as two simple guards moved to let her pass.

"Looking confident is half the battle." Kaldur's words flooded in her head, reminding her of her first couple days undercover on his god forsaken ship. If she looked confident in her position, no one would dare ask too many questions of Black Mantas son's self-chosen, right hand man—or woman in her case.

The guards might have raised their eyebrows under their helmets, but thankfully didn't watch her as she turned the corner at the end of the hallway.

'Everything's fine. Everything's good. Nothing strange about the random chick taking her dinner through the ship's filthy, rotten basement... Nothing at all' She thought, trying unsuccessfully to slow her rampaging heart. Just a few more hallways... Just a few more corners.

It wasn't just that she needed to see him, to reassure herself that Nightwing was indeed okay. She also wanted to tear him a new one. He had put her through hell today, forcing her to watch helplessly as Deathstroke beat the living shit out of him… her baby brother. Kaldur had warned her things might get tricky; he had told her to expect the worse. What he had not told her was that Deathstroke was planning on actually capturing Nightwing. The mission was supposed to have been an intel swapping. Kaldur was supposed to have passed along the flash-drive... why hadn't he given it to Nightwing? What changed? And more importantly, why the hell wasn't she informed about it?

Artemis didn't know, but she was planning on figuring out, even if she had to tear it out of Nightwing's still-bleeding body.

Thankfully, some karma voodoo must have given her enough shit for the day, and Artemis made it to the prison cell in question without any further encounters. She made one last double take across both sides of the musty, skinny hallway before rifling out the hidden key in her pocket. The door slipped open with a painful creek, causing Artemis to wince, but she continued. When her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, she almost dropped her plate.

Nightwing was slowly trying to lift himself from his stone slab that stood for his bed. Nightwing, her baby brother, whose hands shook in an almost crazed manner at the chill of the metal walls, shielded himself from the blinding light that pooled in, and in that action looked so small, so helpless, that Artemis just barley repressed a gasp.

"Nightwing." She whispered, her voice hard and worried. She paced to his side.

Blood caked his thick hair, matting it in several places. His leg was still bent out at an awkward angle from Deathstroke's sword that had dug into his flesh in just the right way… only after he forcibly broke it of course. He had also been stripped of his uniform upon arrival. Artemis had known about that, even heard his mask was taken off him, but her clever bird had found a way around that before she could see, of course. With all the excess blood that had pooled out of him, he'd apparently had enough to wipe over his eyes, distracting his face and making it near impossible to see his identity. Still, no amount of blood could cover up his brilliant blue eyes. Artemis could have sworn she's seen eyes like his before... But he looked so different now.

Artemis had always seen Nightwing as her little brother, no amount of time or puberty would ever change that, but looking at him sitting there with nothing but a pair of torn prison pants and his black under armor shirt, he looked like he was thirteen again. He looked small, weak, and unbelievably skinny for an eighteen year old. She wanted to help him. God, did she want to help him. He looked so freezing in here... So lost and in pain.

"Hey there. Didn't get enough action the first time?" His tone was supposed to be light, his mouth even curled up a little at his comment, but the cough that ended it was anything but soothing to the archer.

"'Wing, I'm here as me. They can't hear us down here." To prove her point, she lifted her hands to pull off Tigress's helmet and set it in the ground beside her. She took off her necklace and put it in het pocket.

Nightwing looked to the fallen mask with tired eyes. He blinked fast a couple times before meeting her eyes, unguarded. "Hey Artey."

If a person could break with only two words, Artemis would have been an unhinged mess on the ground. "Hey 'wing," she managed, the smallest of relieved smiles on her lips.

The boy moved to sit up straighter, an action that earned a groan, then a sharper cry at the strain of the larger injury to his leg.

Artemis visibly flinched. "'Wing don't!"

Her hands went to his back for support—one holding him around his waist and the other wrapping around his shoulder. He rode out the wave, his eyes crunched together in a pain she didn't want to begin to imagine. To his credit he didn't cry out, just like he hadn't with Deathstroke.

"Shh, shh easy. Try to stay still." She soothed, rubbing circles into his shoulder blade.

The action gave comfort to both. Artemis hadn't shown that kind of affection in all her time as Tigress. This action wasn't Tigress, this action was Artemis through and through. This wasn't an undercover agent consoling a prisoner. This was a sister comforting her younger brother.

"Do I... smell food?" Nightwing mumbled through clenched jaws.

Artemis smiled at his simple question. "Careful there, little bird, you almost sounded like Wally."

His small laugh warmed her heart the same time it plummeted. She moved his body to lean it against the metal wall. She revealed the food to him in as light a manner as she could manage for their current situation. Making a wide circle with it in her hands dramatically. He smiled big and took the still warm plate, grabbing bits of the food with his dirty hands and not caring about it one bit.

As he ate, he seemed to relax minutely, and unconsciously, Artemis allowed herself to do the same. For some reason, her throat felt dry… and her chest was wretchedly heavy. She cleared her throat to distract herself. "You must have really done something to piss this Deathstroke guy off. You weren't on the prisoner's food schedule till tomorrow night."

The boy stopped eating mid-bite. "Did you smuggle this?"

Her stomach dropped. Did he really think she would be so careless about her cover, after everything he'd already sacrificed? "No. You think prisoners get chicken? That's my dinner. I brought it down here for you."

"Oh." He relaxed audibly. His eyes wide, looking slightly sheepish. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it"

He kept eating and Artemis tried not to think about how hollow his cheeks seemed, and how expressively lonely his eyes looked on his face.

"His name is Slade." Nightwing interrupted her thoughts.

"What?"

"Deathstroke. His real name is Slade Wilson. He's an assassin for hire. Usually in the regular-everyday-criminal-guy side of the business, but I've seen him tangle the line with the super villains when the price is right."

"Oh." Thanks for the history lesson, kid. "Okay, then. So what's the history with you guys? What's he got against you?"

Nightwing sighed heavily and she almost regretted the question. But her curiosity won out.

"It's... complicated. There was an accident—no one's fault really, just a lot of bad luck. His son died. I think it's easier for him to blame me then face the fact that those things just happen sometimes, ya know? He's had it out to get me for about three years now."

Artemis blinked. There was a lot he was leaving out; whether to spare her the gory details or because he wasn't willing to relive that painful memory, she didn't know. She just knew she didn't want to press too much. It wasn't her place, and the kid sure as hell didn't deserve extra prodding right now. "So, now he's here?"

"And now he's here" he agreed tiredly.

Artemis stood up from the stone bed and ran a hand through her hair anxiously. "That doesn't explain why you let yourself get captured, though... I'm not blaming you," she reassured his exhausted expression, "I just gotta know the end game here, you know? How exactly are you getting out of this one?"

He spoke almost robotically, fighting to keep his eyes open, "this wasn't part of the original plan. I talked with Kaldur and arranged a plan for him to infiltrate the mountain to pass some intel along that would help us rescue L'gann. Plans changed last minute, obviously, but he managed to plant the information on the decoy bomb you and Slade passed along. Conner will use that information to rescue both me and L'gann when they can organize."

It sounded like he was trying more to convince himself that the plan would work then Artemis. She couldn't blame him, nor did the shaking of his voice escape her. Still there was something bothering her.

"Why didn't I know about this? I could have made absolutely sure the intel was passed along. Why leave me out of the loop?" She tried to keep the anger out of her voice.

Nightwing looked apologetic and guilty and Artemis immediately regretted her harsh tone. "Slade is on to you. I don't know about Kaldur, but Slade was watching your every move during the mission. Kaldur and I didn't want to take the risk of him finding out. And Kaldur promised to fill you in on the details later."

Artemis crossed her arms. She wanted to forgive them, but the level of lies they had drown themselves in was already over their heads. Nightwing was just adding fuel to the fire at this point.

Then she heard him let out a shaky breath, and lift his scared, bruised hand to his nose. "I'm sorry..." He mumbled.

Artemis froze. "What?"

Nightwing's voice shook something awful with exhaustion, stress, fear, and pain. His shoulders shook and he wrapped his arms around himself as painlessly as he could manage. "I'm sorry," he continued. "God, I'm sorry, Artemis. None of this was supposed to happen. I-I didn't mean for it to get this out of hand. Any of this. And you and Kaldur are here undercover right in their hands. And lagoon boy held prisoner too. I... I don't know what I'm doing anymore. None of this was supposed to happen."

Artemis didn't even register walking back over to him, she just felt her arms encircling her baby brother, trying not to upset his injuries. She felt one of his arms squeeze her back as her heart raced.

She had never before seen this kind of emotion from Nightwing. Not in his civvies, not is his Robin uniform, and certainly not in his Nightwing persona. But here he was, finally letting his levee break right in front of her.

All her anger ebbed away with it, too. She murmured half-desperate consolations to the boy, squeezing him as hard as she dared.

How had they gotten into this situation? How had they fallen so deep? If you had asked Artemis just a couple month ago what she thought she would be doing with her life, no way in hell would she have ever guessed herself in this situation. Her only true consolation was the feeble hope that they would make it out. That Conner and the team could somehow manage to bypass the LIGHT's security and actually rescue their fallen, imprisoned team mates.

May god give them strength.

Nightwing took a deep breath from the crook of her neck and pulled back slowly, as if relishing this moment of comfort himself. He forced a smile out of habit. "Sorry."

"Why?" She asked incredulously.

"For putting you through all this. Wally's been giving me hell for it. He's really worried about you."

"Stop it." She demanded. "And tell Wally to grow a pair. I'm fine, and none of this happening is your fault."

"Even though it is..." His eyes unfocused dangerously. His lids started to droop as he lost the battle with his body to stay awake.

"No. It's not," Artemis ran an instinctive hand through his bangs, soothing them both. Nightwing let his head fall back to the metal wall all the way and allowed his eyes to flutter closed. Artemis gently guided him to lay down. She guessed a person would have to be absolutely exhausted to actually sleep on this stone bench, and she didn't think he would get the best night's sleep either.

Her heart went out to the small bird for the umpteenth time. Artemis was sure the pair would probably get equal sleep that night; she knew that as soon as her eyes would close that night, the bloody, beaten form of Nightwing would be her only haunting company.

"There you go, baby bird. Be careful," she soothed, lying him down all the way.

"Mm'not a baby..." he murmured.

Her mouth let out a shaky little laugh at his childish tone. "Yeah you're tough, little brother." She pet his hair soothingly, listening to his breathing even out.

God, why did he have to look so young?

"Artemis?" He whispered.

"Yeah?"

When he didn't reply right away she bent her head to look at his face. His eyes were open and more focused then they had been almost all evening. His damn expressive eyes looked like they held all the sadness in the world. She was almost glad for a moment that he kept them hidden most of the time.

"What is it, Nightwing?"

"I-" For a moment, it didn't look like he was going to respond. Then, "...thanks for dinner."

Artemis didn't believe for one second that that was what Nightwing wanted to tell her, but she left with a small smile and nod nevertheless. She just didn't want to cause him any more pain, she wanted to hold him tight and take away all his worries.

"No problem, little brother."

Thoughts?

I've actually been sitting on this for a while now... I almost forgot I wrote this! but I found the dusty document and thought, well what have i got to lose right? ;)

Because of that I've got quite a bit of this already written... so i'll post the rest if this chapter gets any feedback.

Thanks for clicking and reading! and also reviews make me happy! c;