Artemis
It was a rainy Thursday in Palo Alto when a somber Dick Grayson appeared on their doorstep. Wally was still in class, some advanced biochem seminar that she had yet to get an understandable explanation on, and Artemis had just returned from archery practice, her hair in a messy bun and sweat drying on her arms. She smiled at his nondescript civvies, his signature unnecessary shades, and wondered if he realized that he could be himself here, with both of the house's inhabitants in the know. Maybe he forgot sometimes, as she still so often did, that he was other than Nightwing, that it was his secret identity was supposed to be his true self.
He held her gaze for a moment too long, face unreadable, and her smile faltered. Who is it this time? she wondered recklessly, refusing to look away, refusing to let him into her house before he said what he had come to say. A smile quirked at the corners of his mouth.
"Look, everyone's fine Artemis, will you please just let me in? It's kind of wet out here." He ran his fingers through his damp hair as if to prove the point, slicking it back on his head. She felt a vivid flash of déjà vu, and for a moment he was much younger, an impish grin upon his face. Had it really only been five years? She wondered if she had aged as much as he had, if her eyes looked as tired. Artemis opened the door.
Maybe it should have surprised her, how easily she agreed to throw away the life she had worked so hard to build. He promised to sort everything out when it was all over, to find a way to return her scholarships, to make Stanford let her back in, to reimburse her credits and find her another part time job. It all rang so falsely she wondered whom he was trying to convince, but said nothing, allowing a terrible elation wash over her. Later she would let herself feel the guilt, the worry, the fear, but for just this moment she wanted to bask.
It had always been a choice for Wally, from the moment he decided to replicate his Uncle-in-law's famous experiment, to be a hero, to make a name for himself, even if no one could remember it. When she was feeling particularly unfair she would wonder if the gig had always been just a game to him, and once he had seen some of his favorite players lose it just wasn't as fun anymore.
Artemis had never had that choice. From the moment her father had started training her she had known there was only ever two paths for her. After tasting that exhilaration, the adrenalin pumping through her like a drug, feeling the fear beating through her veins and learning to conquer it, she could choose only hero or villain.
But after Ted and Tula, after Jason, after Kal, she had felt so tired. So weighed down in her inevitable life, that it was easy to allow Wally to convince her to retire with him. She told herself she was easing Wally's fears, that it had nothing to do with her own. She had pushed down her shame then, convinced herself with Wally's words that this was the option that made sense, that the team would be fine, that Nightwing would be fine. And it was easy to not see the pain in his eyes then, when they had remained hidden behind his domino mask. She allowed herself to believe it only felt like a betrayal.
It wasn't that Artemis didn't love her college life, she did. She savored the competition of her studies, the rush and pleasure of working and knowing she was better than anyone else. A feral grin would leap to her face as she raced ahead of the class, as the rest of the students groaned when she could answer better and faster, when she yet again set the curve. She hadn't made many friends that way, but that too had its benefits. It had meant more time with the team at first, and after more time with Wally, going to his parties, finding she actually enjoyed the company of most of his friends. And there were others too, who understood her fierce competitiveness, teammates in Archery who cheered her onto greater victory, more difficult challenges. Scarcely knowing how little challenge there was to be found.
She was restless. Movement had been part of her life since before she could talk, her parents always running one step ahead of whatever enemies they had made in the life. Even after the accident her life had stayed in motion, her father constantly on the job, sometimes disappearing for days at a time, or training his daughters in the finer points of his craft. Jade had felt it worse than she ever did, always threatening to run away, always returning, until she didn't. And when the action of her insignificant life in Gotham had settled, when her mother was free and stable enough to act as parent again, Artemis had joined the team.
So now she ran through the campus, when she had the chance, or exercised the dog, or went with the archery team to nationals on a trip to Tampa she couldn't really afford. She got a job waitressing on the side, though only after promising to never again let Wally inside. She found that she loved Archeology, and managed to convince her professor to let her intern at the lab on weekends. She finished all her homework, and went shopping for Wally, and called her Mother every Sunday like a good daughter.
So she leapt when her chance came, and if it had felt like she still owed Nightwing, well that was all right too.
It had never been a choice for him either.