Author's Note:
I'm finally writing for Young Justice! Hooray!
I've been obsessed with this series for months now, and I have so many ideas, and since I woke up feeling inspired today (and heck, it's Valentine's Day!), have some Traught!
These will be little snippets from Artemis' life in Gotham, spread out over the years. I have found surprisingly few fanfictions about Robin and Artemis interacting in Gotham, so I aim to rectify that. Enjoy!
1.: Of Sparks and Dreams
Artemis is eleven years old when she sees him for the first time and she's bleeding. Sure, it is only a little scratch on her shoulder and she can easily cover it up, but it stings and she thinks she might start crying soon, because her eyes are stinging as well. Even walking hurts, because she has a big bruise on her upper tight from when she fell off a fire escape earlier and only just managed to break her fall with a poorly executed roll.
Her father will be angry.
In the two years since Jade had left, the training Sportsmaster put her through had only gotten more intense. Recently, he had been teaching her how to wield a sword. The training blade he had handed her was heavy, and the stances he showed her felt stiff and awkward to Artemis. She didn't like the sword. It was too long, and even though she was starting to get quite fluent in the katas, she found the weapon to be unwieldy and too bulky to suit her fighting style. She still preferred using her old sais, enjoyed their comfortable weight in her hands and how easily they followed her fast movements in a fight, but her father kept insisting that she was lacking the natural talent her sister had displayed when wielding the weapons.
He had followed her progress with the sword with a frown though, seemingly agreeing that it wasn't the right weapon for Artemis.
He had told her that he would teach her how to use a bow, in the hopes that she showed more promise for long ranged combat than she had for melee. The idea of using a bow had never even occurred to Artemis before, but now that her father had suggested it, she couldn't help the excited little grin that made its way onto her face. It reminded her of that hero she had seen on the news, a member of the Justice League from Star City. He called himself Green Arrow, and even though his goatee made him look like a dork, she had to admit that she thought the way he used his bow and all those crazy trick arrows was pretty cool.
Maybe she could be like him.
She pictured herself as a cool heroine in Green Arrow's place, wearing a mask and shooting her bow with unmatched accuracy, striking an epic pose while explosions went off in the background, causing her long blonde hair to whip in the wind and-
She snapped herself out of her daydream to eagerly agree with her father's idea, and she couldn't help the happy laugh that escaped her lips when he ruffled her hair in an almost normal gesture of fatherly affection.
It had taken exactly three weeks for her happy little dream to shatter.
Her father had been very pleased when she took to the bow like a fish to the water, displaying such natural talent with the weapon that she could accurately hit a moving target after only one week of practice.
Sportsmaster wasn't stupid. He wanted to avoid alerting the Bat to his daughter's existence, and that usually meant that he could only let her pull small heists. Petty theft was beneath the Batman's attention, since Gotham usually offered more than enough bigger crimes to occupy his mind.
So when Sportsmaster's most recent employer commissioned him to steal the blueprints of a trending new drug from one of Gotham Bay's newer and more inexperienced drug cartels two weeks later, he saw it as the perfect opportunity to test Artemis' new skills in the field.
The plan had been clear in her mind – use her arrows to disable to cameras, get in, avoid the guards at any cost ("But if you have to fight, don't kill them. Murder investigations always draw the Bat's attention."), grab the plans, get to the roof and escape with the zipline-trick her father had shown her.
And she has been a good girl, has followed her father's instructions faithfully, but as she steps out onto the roof of the four-story-building and the cold night air whips around her small form and makes her shiver, she suddenly feels very lost. She carefully moves over to the roof's edge and glances down. The ground seems to be so very far away. It's the first time that her father has ordered her to make her escape this way. Before, he had always allowed her to leave from the ground floor, but since he has given her this mission purely as a test to see her use the new skills he has taught her, that is out of the question.
Artemis doesn't like it.
Her hands aren't shaking when she draws back her bowstring and aims at a pole further down the street, but she can't help the uneasy feeling in her gut when she releases her arrow and watches her zipline sail over the gap and successfully latch onto her target. She disconnects the other end of the cable from her bow and hastily secures it on the railing before she hooks her weapon around the line and pushes herself off from the roof before her anxious feelings can convince her to do otherwise.
Artemis clings to her bow with an iron grip as the world rushes past her at dizzying speeds.
She doesn't get very far.
She must have chosen a bad target, Artemis thinks as she feels her zipline wobble for a moment and the pole she is racing towards bends under her weight. If she was nervous before, she is definitely panicking now. The wind is howling past her ears, but she can hardly even hear it over the sound of her frantically beating heart. With only seconds to save herself, she spots a fire escape at the side of the building she is just passing, and with only a moment's hesitation, she lets go of her bow and makes a leap of faith.
Just then, the pole she had chosen as her target snaps in half and the cable, suddenly free from the force that had pulled it taut, whips through the air furiously.
Artemis would have been able to hold onto the fire escape's railing, but just as catches herself and tries to get a proper grip, the cable whips past her and hits her arm. It is more surprise than pain that makes her let go.
She flails desperately as she falls, and she is lucky that she isn't very high up anymore, or her clumsy parcour roll wouldn't have saved her from anything worse than a few painful bruises.
When her momentum slows and her mad tumble comes to a halt, Artemis just stays where she is and stares up at Gotham's cloudy sky dazedly. Her breathing comes in panicked little gasps, and she dimly remembers what her father has told her about hyperventilation, but her heart is pounding and fluttering in her chest and she is feeling lightheaded, so she would really rather stay where she is right now and not think too hard about anything.
Until she hears the shouts coming from the building she has just left, that is. With a jolt, she realises that the guards must have found her abandoned zipline, and that they could be here any moment now-
Artemis is running before she has even finished the thought, years of training taking over where her thoughts are too jumbled to be of any use. She doesn't think she can fight right now – she has lost her bow, most of her arrows have fallen out of her quiver, she still feels off-balance and she is only just realising that she is bleeding where the cable has struck her. At least she has the blueprints safely stored in her backpack, but still, her father will be angry.
Panting, Artemis ducks into an alley. She feels dizzy, and she can't run much longer. She needs to hide somewhere.
The young archer fights her way into the tight space between two dumpsters and ducks behind some cardboard boxes. She concentrates on evening out her breathing. The foul stench in the air makes it difficult to breathe deeply, but Gotham's streets are dangerous at night. She can't afford to attract any unwanted attention with her loud gasps.
Artemis sits like that for a while and listens to the sounds of the city. They've always had an oddly calming effect on her.
It doesn't sound like anyone has followed her, but she doesn't want to take any chances.
While she waits and listens to the distant sirens and the occasional traffic noise, the adrenaline that has pushed her through the night slowly dies down. Artemis feels very tired all of sudden, and the aches that have accumulated during her fall make themselves known. She whimpers quietly when she moves her arm and a sharp string races through her body.
In this very moment, she really hates the bow her father has given her. It has been useless and it has made everything tonight so much worse – had it not been for the weapon, she would have been allowed to make a normal escape and she would have finished the mission perfectly. Instead, her father will be angry and she is hurt and tired and she just wants to stop doing this already, wishes with all her heart that Jade had taken her along all those months ago because she hates it when her father gets angry at her and yells and hits her, and she can never escape this life at this rate, can never be that cool hero archer from her daydreams because it is the stupid bow's fault that she has failed in the first place, and-
A sudden noise interrupts Artemis' frantic inner rant and makes her flinch just as a dry sob escapes her throat. She clamps a hand over her mouth to silence herself and carefully shuffles closer to the dumpster on her right, peering around the edge with wide eyes and laboured breathing. She can see three men, obviously drunk, stumble into the alley. They are dragging something along behind them, and with a sick twist in her stomach, Artemis realises that it is a woman. She is struggling against her captors' grip, but they roughly shove her into a wall and she gives a pained whimper through the hand that is tightly clamped over her mouth as the men gang up on her.
Artemis feels sick. She doesn't want to see this, doesn't want to watch this happen, but she is in no condition to help and has seen and heard enough of Gotham's darker neighbourhoods to know what would happen to her if she got herself involved.
So instead of helping, she flattens herself against the dumpster and prays to every God she knows and doesn't believe in that the three men won't notice her. She bites down on her lip and closes her eyes tightly as she tries to ignore the strangled cries of the victim and the sound of tearing fabric as her clothing is forcibly removed.
Suddenly, there is a grunt, and a surprised cry, and the sound of a body hitting the ground with a considerable amount of force, and Artemis carefully opens her eyes.
Artemis is eleven years old when she sees him for the first time, and she's bleeding. Sure, it is only a little scratch on her shoulder and she can easily cover it up, but it stings and she thinks she might start crying soon, because her eyes are stinging as well. Even walking hurts, because she has a big bruise on her upper tight from when she fell off a fire escape earlier and only just managed to break her fall with a poorly executed roll.
But at this moment, she doesn't even care that her father will be angry when he finds out, because she is seeing something extraordinary and entirely unexpected, and she's not sure if she can trust her eyes.
One of the men that had assaulted the woman is lying on the ground, clearly unconscious, and the other two are just gaping stupidly at their fallen comrade. The woman is covering her bare chest with her hands, so she can't muffle the sob that escapes her as she backs away from the scene (Thank God, Artemis thinks shakily, she is still wearing her pants), but she stumbles and falls, and Artemis flinches when the remaining two drunks turn back to her with hungry expressions on their faces.
They are interrupted by an eerie cackle echoing through the alley, and something small whirrs through the air and hits one of the men between the eyes. He collapses to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
The last drunk looks very scared now, and Artemis thinks she can hear him slurring something along the lines of "vengeful ghosts", and then a shadow crashes into him from above, his head connects with the pavement, and just like that, there's silence.
Artemis can't see the shadow very well in the gloom of the narrow alley, so her first thought, excited and giddy, is It's Batman!, but then the shadow moves and she notices how small it is. It bends down to and Artemis sees something metal glinting in those small hands, and she hears a click! and realises that this kid (because that's what the shadow is, must be) has secured the drunks' hands behind their backs with handcuffs. The shadow straightens (but it's still tiny, even smaller than Artemis herself) and reaches a hand up to its ear. Artemis wonders at this for a second, but then, a quiet voice reaches her. "Robin to Batman", the voice sais. The vowels are strangely soft, and Artemis thinks that the kid sounds a lot like someone who is trying very hard to suppress an accent but hasn't had a lot of practice at it yet. "The suspects are apprehended", the child speaks into what Artemis realises must be a comm unit and moves over to where the men have discarded the remains of the woman's blouse. He kneels down in a fluent movement to pick it up, and now that he has moved out of the shadows, Artemis can see him more clearly. Because the child is indeed a "he", even though he is short and clearly younger than her. He has messy black hair and wears a domino mask. The rest of his outfit is also quite dark, but the archer thinks she can see a hint of red and yellow peeking out from where his cape parts slightly over his chest. Robin, he had called himself. And he had been talking to Batman just now.
She watches as the child makes his way over to the quivering victim. He nods to something he hears over his radio, pausing momentarily. "Understood", he answers. "ETA in seven minutes, I'll hurry. Robin out." His hand drops to his side and he kneels down next to the woman, gently handing her the blouse. "Don't worry, you're safe now", the child murmurs in his strange accent-less-accented voice. "I have already called the police, they'll be here in a few minutes." He suddenly bounces to his feet, his calm demeanour instantly replaced with a mischievous grin. "HaHA!", he cackles, a wide grin on his face. "Nailed it! That was awesome! Did you see how I hit that first guy? And then nailed the other one in the head? Just like Batman showed me!" The woman doesn't answer. She just stares at the kid with a dazed expression, clutching the torn fabric of her shirt to her chest.
Artemis can't blame her.
Robin halts, apparently remembering his promise to Batman that he would hurry. "Anyway, gotta go. I'm Robin, by the way. It was nice meeting you!"
The boy waves cheerily and throws something at the ground, and a cloud of smoke erupts around him. Artemis hesitates for a moment, but she decides that she should use this opportunity to get away. She doesn't want to be here when the cops arrive. The smoke is already starting to clear (she can't see Robin anywhere), and she hastily gets up and sprints out of the alley. Her body protests the movements, and she remembers how angry her father will be once she gets home.
But she saw something extraordinary today.
Maybe she can be like Green Arrow after all, Artemis thinks. If a tiny kid like Robin can be a hero, then so can she. She just has to try harder. Get better and get out of this life one day. Suddenly, the awesome heroine with the windblown hair Artemis had pictured herself as doesn't seem all that unreachable anymore.
And even though she cries herself to sleep this night because her father had only added to her bruises in his rage, there is a tiny spark in her heart that burns stubbornly and steadily, no matter how miserable she is.
And when Artemis sees the newspaper's headline the next morning ("GOTHAM'S DARK SQUIRE: THE BIRTH OF THE FIRST JUNIOR PARTNER IN SUPERHERO HISTORY?"), she has already made up her mind.