A/N: Hi! This is my first multichapter Traught fic…I have a lot of young justice fics/drabbles on my tumblr account, but I figured I should use this one too! I hope you enjoy, please read and review!
All characters belong to Young Justice and DC, and "Her Morning Elegance" belongs to Oren Lavie and the producer(s).
Soon she's down the stairs,
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
-Oren Lavie
Artemis Crock is not a morning person. That would imply that she wakes up in the morning. She's properly known as a nocturnal animal, working from eight at night to varying times in the morning as a waitress-part-supervisor at an all night diner called Harry's Place; handily located by the airport so businessmen can stop for food after long flights over the pacific. Full of jet-lagged customers and locals who enjoy the comfort cuisine, Artemis Crock serves them with a smile on her face and a quiet, friendly demeanor. Standing at five foot seven, half Vietnamese with olive skin, grey almond shaped eyes, and long golden blonde hair, she was a stunning mix-and with a smile plastered on her face, she rarely had unhappy customers.
She sheds this mask as soon as she clocks out.
Throwing off her puke-worthy frilly apron, she grabs her gym bag and her car keys and starts her ancient Honda civic, watching her dash clock change from 4:03 to 4:04. She is tired but determined to surf this morning, mechanically moving the car from park to reverse, pulling out of her space and gunning it out of the parking lot, flipping on the headlights as the sun began to rise.
As she pushed her foot on the gas, whizzing down the winding road at far over 45 mph, she mentally calculated how many hours she would have on her next pay check, wincing at the pidly amount. There goes any plans of eating anything but ramen and spam for the week, she sighs mentally, pulling into the beach parking lot and popping a few quarters in the crooked parking meter. In her cramped backseat, she manages to change into one piece with a peeling speedo logo, hopping out of the car as she shoves her laundry on top of her other dirty clothes that fill her back seat. "Laundry might be a good idea this week," Artemis muses aloud.
Grabbing her worn surfboard off of the top rack, she makes her way down the beach path, board tucked under one muscled arm. When her mom had sighed at her daughters muscled physique, and her friend's mom said boys didn't like girls who were more lean, sinewy, and hardened then soft, delicate, and curved, Artemis would shrug her muscled shoulders, saying nothing but thinking she could pummel them if they said anything.
Whistling a tuneless song, she paddles out into the water, the sun making its way above the horizon and dancing on the waves. Sitting up, she watches the waves build up and ebb back. When Artemis spots a good one, she paddles towards it, waits, and stands as the wave rears up. The water and blood pounding in her ear drums, she lets out a wild scream, feeling wild and free. She never felt like this at home, at work, or out with friends. "This is my home!" Artemis yells, whooping with joy and adrenaline.
Little did she know, Artemis wasn't alone on the waters that day.
Dick Grayson, the mer crown prince of the undersea, watches curiously from under the water as the human female mounted an oblong board of all things, balancing on it and riding it towards the shore.
"Fascinating," he says aloud to no one in particular, as she leans on the oblong shape, paddling back towards the heart of the ocean. "Doesn't her riding this board towards the sand defeat paddling back out here? She needs to get traught." He scoffs, trying to convince himself of this human stupidity Bruce talks about, yet he can't stop watching her paddling out and riding in.
Lacing his fingers behind his head, he leans back, tail flicking casually, the blue scales catching the light filtering through the water. As his gills flap to covert water to oxygen, his eyes curiously followed the tawny two-legged. Her (at least, he believed it to be female) legs were muscled and strong, and he observes her toes, with raggedy green paint coating the hard surface that protected each digit. Like fingernails, he observes, glancing at his own hands.
Dick propels himself closer, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that reminds him of Bruce. "Stay away," it warns cautiously, hostile towards all things new. "It's a threat."
He swims closer carefully, close enough to touch the smooth skin of the two leg, when it angles the oblong board towards the sand, paddling slowly towards land.
Mentally taking notes of the two-legged, the crown prince swims back towards the heart of the sea. "Tim will love this!" He grins, his much younger brother coming to mind.
With two flicks of his tail, he propels himself down towards his humble abode, the palace. With a nod towards the guardsmer, he makes his way through the pearly gates. Spotting a familiar dark head of hair and a muted green tail, he pounces on his adopted brother.
"Tim! I got so close to a two-legged today, I could have touched it!"
Tim's young face pinches into a frown, brows drawn. "You shouldn't get to close, Bruce wouldn't like that."
Dick brushes his brother's worried off easily. "You worry more than a daddy seahorse, you'll give yourself grey hair." He ruffles the younger teen's hair.
"Dick, you're already nineteen. Shouldn't you be more focused on ruling the undersea?" Tim asks, looking pointedly at the crown prince.
Dick sobers slightly. "I know I'm the crown prince, but I don't think I'm cut out to be Bruce. I'm not him, so I know I'll disappoint him when I take the throne. I can't help but feel I just don't fit in here. I'm heading to my room," he adds, cutting off whatever Tim was going to say. With a nod and a smile, he makes his escape.
...
Artemis jerks awake at the sound of a car horn. Blinking, she realizes that she nodded off at the red light by her loft. Waving apologetically in the rear view mirror, she hits the gas and turns into her apartment building's parking lot.
Slamming the car door shut, she hefts the pile of dirty laundry in one arm, manually locking the car and compiling a mental to do list: laundry, shower, sleep. Checking her waterproof watch, the numbers 7:37 blink lazily up at her, and she groans. She needs to go to bed. Tossing the load of wash in with some detergent, she sets it and heads in the shower of her apartment. It was one large room, with a couch, coffee table, open kitchen, bed, and a kitchen table. The only separate rooms were a laundry room and a bathroom.
Shampooing her hair thoroughly to wash any traces of salt or sand out, she focuses on her schedule for the following week instead of contemplating how quiet her life has been since she fled from her father in New York City. A crime lord in the organization the Shadows, he tried to influence her to follow in his footsteps, much like her older sister Jade, a hit man in the same organization.
"You can run from me, baby girl, you can run from the Shadows, but you can't run from genetics," he had hissed when she was packing to leave. Squaring her shoulders, she held her head high, praying he was wrong.
Artemis sighs as she towels her long blonde hair dry, thinking about how when she left the family behind, and the life behind, she also left the people she liked behind. Like Cameron. Criminals, but people that she liked, and liked her. New York had her dad, but also her friends and sister. Even though Artemis had lived in Hawaii for a year and six months, she hadn't really made any friends.
Sighing as she slipped on her boxer shorts and ratty tee shirt, Artemis put the matter to rest, mentally wrapping up her antisocial tendencies in favor of collapsing on her unmade double bed, curling up under the fluffy comforter, unaware of how much her small world would be flipped upside in the next 24 hours.
And she fights for her life as she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught by a thread
She pays for bread and she goes…
…And nobody knows.
