Brucely never howls, but today, he is. And Artemis is cranky.
"I'm up, boy," she stammers through her yawn. The thin rays of light coming in past the curtains reveal that the sun hasn't been up very long. She checks his food and water dishes, and both of them are relatively untouched; he hasn't been pawing at the door, so there's no need to let him out, either.
Her and Wally's adopted pitbull sits impatiently in front of the front door, his short stump of a tail hitting the wooden floors. Artemis stands on her tiptoes to glance in the peephole.
"Nightwing," she says.
"Morning. Sorry I had to get you up so early," he says, bending down to scratch Brucely behind the ears. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah, take your shoes off," Artemis replies, gesturing him in. She cracks eggs into a pan and throws some frozen waffles into the toaster while a pot of strong, black coffee brews next to her. "What's happened?"
Dick takes off his aviators and rubs his eyes, which are now more tired looking than ever before. "You'll want to have something to eat before I start. It's a little long."
Artemis serves breakfast and slides a mug of coffee across the table to Dick before dousing her waffles in maple syrup. "Right. I'm eating."
She watches as he pours creamer slowly into his cup, stirring in meticulous circles. He takes a sip. "We've been keeping tabs on Reach hotspots over the past few years. Most of them are inactive for the most part; not much to investigate besides the occasional electrical hiccup that comes from old age. But yesterday, we picked up on unusually large amounts of kinetic and magnetic energy over the south pole."
Her fork clatters loudly on the plate. "Are you...are you sure?"
"Well, that's what we want to investigate. You know the Reach, Artemis," Dick says, cutting a tiny square of waffle. "It could be a trap."
"But if it isn't," she says, "then it could be. It really could be him." She can't seem to say his name, for fear that she'll jinx it.
He nods. "It might be."
Artemis has an intense flash of deja vu to the last time he had come with important information. She was going stir crazy then, too, and it had led her to accept a mission with truly reckless abandon––and look where that had got them.
"I want in," she says immediately. "When are you starting?"
"Just a second," says Dick, "are you sure?"
"What do you mean, 'are you sure'? It's been more than four years, Nightwing. Every day, I wake up and say good morning to an empty bed. And every night, it takes hours to fall asleep because nobody's there. If there's a sign that Wally's back, I'm going after it." Brucely's ears perk up at the name and he starts wagging his tail.
"I know," Dick says. "I get that. But I need to make sure this mission won't hurt you, Artemis. I want Wally back just as much as you, and I'm going to make it happen, but I can't risk so much collateral damage."
Artemis's waffle is soggy now. "Don't worry about me. I can hold my own."
"We know that. Nobody's saying you can't. But you've been flying solo for a long, long time now. We need to make sure you've still got your marbles."
"What, gonna make me jump through hoops?"
Dick rubs one thumb over his knuckles, remembering to be patient. Years of Artemis going rogue have turned her even more distrustful of people, essentially isolating her from the last place she might've been able to call home. While she claims that being Tigress has soothed her more than anything else she could have done, Dick has his doubts about his old friend.
"Artemis," he begins, "you're always going to be part of the Team. You always have a standing invitation to come back to us. When we became a team, we all promised to have each other's backs, no matter what happened to us. That'll never change." He offers one calloused hand, palm up, to Artemis.
A cool stream of air hisses from her mouth when she exhales. "Alright. Thanks. When are we starting?"
"It'll be a pretty covert ops mission," he says. "We don't know exactly how the speed force affected Wally––for all we know, he might not remember us, or worse, he could be a threat. But there is a chance that he'll be regular when he comes out, but in case one of the above scenarios occurs, we'll want someone who means a lot to him to be present. We'll start as soon as you can come. You know where to be."
Artemis takes a moment to process everything and digest––literally and figuratively. It's what she had been looking for all these years, what she'd cashed in favors and put her life on the line for. She had invested in some shady endeavors and corrupt scientists to give her any sign that Wally might still be there. And now, Nightwing comes waltzing in with a clue on a silver platter?
All her life, she's trained herself to see the strings attached to things. And she's not stupid, she knows the risks of going on a mission, especially one with such emotional value. It seems too perfect. Perfect rarely occurs naturally. Perfect makes her suspicious.
The sound of Dick sucking the dregs of his coffee prompts her to ask, "Want anything else?" She waves a hand at the fridge. "Have whatever. But I haven't kept it full since...you know."
"No, thanks," Dick says, depositing his plate and fork in the sink and running cold water over them. "I've gotta run to Gotham after this."
Artemis throws his leather jacket towards him as he leaves. He slips his aviators over his nose again and turns away.
"I offered you a chance at this because I knew you were invested. But Artemis, this is just a hunch. You have to brace yourself for disappointment."
"I know. But I've been living it for five years." Brucely rubs up against her calf and whines softly to be petted, to which Artemis obliges.
Nightwing looks at her one last time before saying, "It'll be nice to have you back." And then he gets in his car, an inconspicuous black rental Toyota, and peels away into the street.
Brucely trots back into the house and curls himself into a ball on the side of the bed. Artemis sits down and holds the picture frame on the nightstand.
[The door unlocks with a click, and Wally steps in. "I'm home." A kiss on the forehead, a rustle of plastic bags.
"Hi. Did you buy laundry detergent?"
"Sure did," he says, propping up a bottle of Tide on the glass table. "Brought back something else too." He slings his backpack onto the table, eliciting a yelp from inside.
"Did your backpack just yelp?"
"No," Wally says, extricating a small, wriggly gray blob, "this guy did."
Artemis claps both hands over her mouth. "A puppy!" She had begged her parents and even Jade a million times to get her one of the puppies from the windows of the Humane Society around the block, but never to any avail.
"He looked so lonely in the adoption center. I knew you'd love him." Wally lets the pup waddle over into Artemis's open arms.
"I do love him," Artemis says, accepting a lick from the little dog. He willingly snuggles up between his two owners, obviously satisfied with his new home.
"Let's take a picture," Wally suggests, leaning in with his phone. A brief flash, and then he pulls up a full sized photo onscreen. The puppy has his paws up, and Wally and Artemis are happy and content and so in love it shines from every bit of the picture. So, so in love.
"Hey," Wally says at last. "It's our first picture as a family."]
She presses a gentle kiss with two fingers to the glass where Wally's cheek is.
"I'm coming back for you, babe."
[...]
After she packs two black duffel bags with the essentials and finds a dogsitter (her neighbors, Michelle and Jackson) to take care of Brucely, she takes a Greyhound to the tiny street where, at the end of it, is a blue police box that will take her to the place she needs to be. She makes sure nobody's tailing her when she enters, and fights against the typical wave of nausea that accompanies space-time travel.
The cold slate gray of everything brings back so many teenage memories. Her mind knows every exact location of everything: over there, by the kitchen counter, is where she and M'gann and Zatanna would share chocolate chip cookies and talk every Saturday afternoon. And there, on the couch, she and Dick would toss popcorn into each other's mouths while Kaldur frowned. And there, in the center of the room, just before the console, is where she and Wally kissed for the first time.
"Artemis." The deep boom of Kaldur's voice is unmistakable. "It is good to see you again."
"Same here," she says, returning the smile. "How are you?"
"Well. Atlantis is rebuilding at a good pace. Soon, much of the infrastructure will be repaired and operational."
They talk Atlantean politics for a while, and then move on to the status of the Team. It turns out they're all in relatively good shape, training with Black Canary and developing their teamwork skills together, and Connor and M'gann are now back on speaking terms. Not dating, but not the uncomfortable, icy silence they used to have.
"Where's Nightwing?" she asks Kaldur.
Before he can answer, a loud streak of yellow and red comes hurtling in from the side of Artemis's vision and hugs her tightly.
"Artemis!" After the blur settles into the form of a teenage boy with a mop of red hair, Artemis returns Bart's hug. He's grown quite a bit, surpassing her in height.
"Wow," she says, "a lot has changed around here." Bart flashes her a cheeky grin that makes her heart stop for a second before she realizes that it's not Wally smiling.
"No kidding," says Bart. "Luckily, you didn't see the worst parts. Tim experimented with facial hair for a week until Gar introduced him to a razor."
"Tim did what?" Nightwing plants himself firmly between Bart and Artemis, frowning with amusement at the boy. Bart puts his hands behind his back and whistles innocently. "Artemis, let's go."
She follows him towards the holograms, where he pulls up blue screens showing mission details, including gear and procedure. The mission is simple: take the bioship to the South Pole and attempt to extract Wally while doing minimal damage. M'gann and Zatanna will be present to fix potential memory loss and injuries, while Flash, Kaldur, Dick, and Artemis will serve as cues, familiar faces so as to not cause alarm.
"I'm going to suit up," she tells Dick, who nods.
The orange and black mask is cold and heavy against her face, her weapons equally heavy against her back. Dick had told her that her old suit was in her room, but she hadn't wanted to go get it, or even go near her room. If there's anything she's learned from living with a family of criminals, it's that the past will never stop hurting, and the least you can do to keep it from hurting is to not prod the bits and pieces that still tease you in the present.
When she finally adjusts everything, she realizes the reflection of her is not quite Artemis. Not quite Tigress. Older and more knowledgeable than Artemis, but more optimistic than Tigress. The face of someone who can only believe in love one last time.
She's only got one more shot. But she doesn't miss.
When she heads down to the docking bay where the bioship is, the rest of the team has already converged and are talking amongst each other. They're all outfitted in their usual superhero costumes, which sends a wave of nostalgia rippling over her.
Artemis exchanges hugs with M'gann, who's cut her hair in a bob, and Zatanna, who's left her hair in exactly the same way Artemis last saw it.
"Artemis," M'gann says warmly, "it's good to see you again." As usual, she smells like vanilla and homemade cookies, which is comforting. She strokes Artemis's hair once before saying, "Come on. Let's go get Wally back."
When she takes her seat in the back of the bioship, it is disconcerting to not see Wally piloting. Where there should have been be red hair, there was Nightwing's dark hair.
"Hey," someone says. Artemis turns to her right. It's Flash. "You okay?"
Of all the members of the League, Flash had always been the friendliest and the easiest to warm up to. He was also the one Artemis saw the most often in her lonely years of isolation, when Wally wasn't there to fill the void in her life. Every year without fail, on June 20th, the day of Wally's death, Flash would be in Palo Alto with flowers for Wally's grave and a hug for her. It made Artemis smile, knowing that for once, Flash wasn't late to something, which used to annoy Wally to no end.
"I'm fine," she answers.
"You look nervous," he comments, gesturing to the pale film of sweat on Artemis's brow. "He'll be happy to see you."
"Nightwing said he might have all of his memories erased."
Flash looks contemplative at the statement, then sighs and eases back in his seat. "Maybe, but I doubt he'd forget you. And I'm not just saying that." Artemis tilts her head, prompting him to continue. "Even as a kid, he was totally whipped. Every Sunday we'd sit down for dinner and he'd always talk about you while he did the dishes. He ran his mouth faster than he ran his legs, which is saying something. And think about it: he lost his memory once, in the desert, and the first person he remembered was you. Not me, or Batman, or Nightwing, or M'gann. You, Artemis. He'll remember."
While Flash's consolation is appreciated, it is Artemis's upbringing and shady past that force her to question its validity. Jade had always teased her about being so trusting, as the baby of the family, so she had resolved to keep everyone at bay. And then she'd met Wally, and there was none of that 'breaking down walls' bull, just the two of them in the kitchen talking and laughing and sometimes holding hands (if they were brave, and they were).
And now those days are locked away in a treasure chest of the past, cast out into the ocean like a time capsule Artemis will never open. It's cruel, she thinks, that she can't trust the existence of anything anymore. Being with Wally hadn't just brought stability to her life, but a new reality.
"And, Artemis?"
She turns to Flash.
"If you still needed convincing...he asked me where I bought Iris's engagement ring, and the next day, he went there. He won't forget. It doesn't happen like that."
[...]
The first thing that registers when they land is the lightning.
"Something's definitely up," Nightwing says, pulling his fur-lined hood over his face. "Weather conditions in the Antarctic virtually cannot allow lightning to form. Everyone, be on guard."
The sky snaps and snarls above them, stirring up small drifts of snow that blow past. It feels wrong. The whole thing feels wrong, coming here as if they were capturing a wild animal and not on a recon mission for a person missing for five years. Nightwing holds some kind of gadget in his right hand that emits tinny, artificial pings in the presence of high electrical activity.
The hair on the back of Artemis's neck prickles, but whether it's from the cold or because she's getting closer to the spot where wally vanished, she doesn't know. Nightwing's sensor starts pinging faster and faster, and lightning crackles ominously. Artemis thinks it's like being trapped in a bad action movie.
"We're definitely onto something," Nightwing says. The lightning cracks even louder and closer to the group, so close that his hair stands straight up and Zatanna has to cast a protective barrier spell.
"This is indeed strange," Kaldur notes. "Storms rarely occur in this part of the world." He points at the slow swirl of gray clouds above them. If she didn't know better, Artemis might have guessed it was a tornado, by the looks of it. Except, of course, for the deadly cracks of electricity flickering around it.
"There's a lot of energy outside this barrier," warns Zatanna. "Don't move out of it until the storm has calmed down a little." The team nods.
"Wait." Artemis points at the heavy looking mass of clouds, now descending a few hundred feet in front of them. "It's moving."
"Stay calm, everyone," Flash advises.
The mass condenses, growing darker and smaller and eventually adopting some color into its gray hues. It's a little hard to see colors, because everything is tinted burgundy by the protective barrier, but Artemis swears she can see crimson and yellow beyond it.
And that's all she needs to see.
She finally thinks she knows what it's like to be him, or the Flash, because when she starts running, space and time bend in unusual ways around her and she refuses to process anything except for the feeling of her feet running across the hard packed snow, sprinting as fast as she can towards those clouds. Distantly, she thinks Nightwing or Flash are calling out for her to stop, but before either of them can act or Zatanna can cast another barrier spell, the snow and wind are clawing across her face and she's there, almost there––
The vortex is starting to die down, but it's still going extremely fast and still poses a danger to her; the electricity alone could kill her, not to mention the speed and the sheer size of the thing. But as it slows, Artemis becomes more and more sure of the presence of a red and yellow suit spinning around, buffeted by the wind.
"Wally!" She tries to reach into the vortex, but a snap of lightning forces her to retract her hand. There's nothing she can do but wait, and the seconds that it takes for the thing to slow down are excruciating, but something eventually stumbles out weakly.
He collapses at the knees in front of Artemis, who bends down to be face to face with him. In the speed force, time must move differently, because the face that stares at her is exactly the same as the one in the picture perched on the nightstand at home. The ginger hair is as soft as she remembers it, the eyes just as beautiful and green as her heart remembers.
Count to three, Artemis commands herself, just to make sure it's real. So she counts to three, and carefully, carefully lets her fingertips, and then her palm, and then her whole hand slide underneath his jawline, feeling for the slight scratch of stubble. Real.
"Hi," she breathes, heart shaking.
Wally slowly brings his hand to cup around hers.
"Hey, babe."
thanks for reading! please drop a comment and maybe hit up my tumblr lancebabe! god knows i need to talk about these two dorks more often