Artemis is stubborn. If someone is going to challenge her, she's going to complete it and rub it in their face when she's finished. That's just the kind of person she is.
So when Robin challenges her through a text message to find him, she simply puts on her costume and equipment and sneaks out through the window in her room. Artemis combs through Gotham in its entirety yet she doesn't even find a trace of the Boy Wonder.
She knows he's a ninja but she's not lacking in that department either so she just find something.
She's exhausted when she finally gives up and goes back to her little apartment.
That's where she finds him, lying on her roof gazing at the stars with his hands making a makeshift pillow for his head.
If Artemis wasn't so tired, she would have punched him.
Robin just smirks at her when he sees her. "Artemis! What took you so long?" he asks. "Come on, have a seat." He pats the ground beside him.
She rolls her eyes but she sits down anyway. "What was with the wild goose chase?"
"Batman didn't want me to patrol tonight so I was bored," Robin admits.
Artemis has a witty comment on the tip of her tongue but something in Robin's tone and demeanor make her stop. He's different tonight. She has seen this before too. It's wistful and... tired. She looks just like that whenever she thinks back to the time when her family was whole. Before her mom got sent to jail. Before Jade ran away. Before her dad increased her training.
She wonders what before Robin is thinking about.
"When I was a kid my parents and I would sleep outside sometimes when the sky was clear," Robin says. "My dad would point out all the constellations and I was just so overwhelmed. He was amazing, both of my parents were." He smiles as he speaks. She could actually hear the fondness in his voice.
Admittedly, this is one of the reasons why Artemis thought they got along so well.
He knew tragedy just like she did.
People like Wally who hadn't tasted the bitter fruit of lost and sorrow couldn't understand.
"Did your parents ever do something like that with you?" Robin asks idly. He's not trying to brag or rub it in her face, he's just honestly curious.
So she shrugs. "Um... they took me camping a lot. Jade would always win whenever we played hide and go seek in the forest," she answers. Sure, her dad only took them on those trips because he wanted to hone Jade and her survival and hunting skills but some of her fondness memories were made during their camping trips.
Robin doesn't say anything else for the rest of the night. They both just stare up at the starry sky and enjoying the unusual quietness of Gotham while it lasted.
He dozes off to sleep after awhile and she drapes a blanket over him before heading back to her bedroom.
She would wake him up but the small smile he wore on his face as he slept was just too perfect to disrupt.