Something wasn't right. No. Something… something was wrong.
As Conner jumped down from the bioship, a feeling washed over him, one that he wasn't truly accustomed to yet, much to his relief. But it didn't feel so good right now because what he had come to realize as dread was washing over him faster than waves he had seen Kaldur control.
Something was out of place here. As he ran forward, he didn't need anything but regular sight to see that Nightwing was crouched over a body clad in green, his shoulders jerking with the rough movements of his arms.
Conner's legs pushed him forward until he was standing near the scene with M'gann jumping down beside him. The dread was soon joined by shock when he realized what exactly Nightwing was doing to Artemis.
And he couldn't hear a fourth heartbeat.
Conner had never consciously realized that he had memorized the beats of his teammates' hearts. Truthfully, they all sounded the same at first, some slower, some faster, but there were distinctions that he had come to understand.
He could hear Nightwing's heart – it was always the most prominent. Usually the sound was normal, solid and strong and deep, but now it sounded so frantic and the beats clenched when they didn't skip. He could hear his own. He could hear it begin to pick up speed with the sudden stress of the unknown situation before him, the situation that was registering in his chest before it would ever fully reach his brain. Perhaps even more familiar than his was M'gann's. From beside him he could hear the usually light and warm sound, the one that he had gotten so used to but now pained him to even hear, was beating loud and clear, jamming against her chest from a mixture of exertion and fear.
Conner knew heartbeats and he could remember them. Wally's resembled a humming bird, fast and light and fluttering, but it wasn't abnormal, and Kaldur's – Kaldur, he seethed – was the slowest and sometimes it seemed like it didn't even beat because of how calm he was. Garfield's was always loud, though it wasn't necessarily fast, and Mal's was hard and precise. But one that he had come to know equally as well as Wally's or Nightwing's or Kaldur's was the one that was missing now, and it belonged to the woman that Nightwing was trying to revive.
"I – I don't hear her heartbeat," he stuttered in a soft breath of disbelief. Nightwing ignored him, lifting his head up just enough to try and hear her breathe out.
There was nothing.
There was no easy pump, no flutter, no harsh beat coming from the blond on the ground. There was no life. It was different. It didn't seem like the life had been ripped away from her like that Golem he had fought with Blue Beetle; it seemed like it shouldn't have happened, like it didn't belong, because it didn't. This was Artemis – you couldn't defeat her.
Yet, there she was on the ground, her lips parted, her eyes shut, her body limp with blood below her bust. And there was no heartbeat.
He could hear M'gann' sbeat quicken beside him while Nightwing's slowed down. Conner watched with bated breath as the team leader sat up slowly, his shoulders slumped and his head down, and the words that came from his mouth were more defeated than Conner had ever heard.
"She's dead."
Saw something and decided to get this off my chest. The writing is lame and short, but oh well.