AN: Sorry for taking a long while to update. the newer episodes got me thinking about the characters more and blhieoaqnwoubvol. DX ... Anyway, I'm back until the writers block kicks in again so I hope you enjoy
Oh, She's Nobody
chapter four: "Visits"
"You are going to see her tomorrow."
"No, I am not," Artemis replied mimicking Kaldur's tone. "Athena" told all the male Justice that she was going to be at a local coffee shop every day until she saw her "little sister" again.
How did she do it? Artemis knew Aria had a way with men, but to fool the all seeing Kaldur?
"Why not? It'll be good for you!" Wally interjected. After hearing this, she grabbed the speedster's collar roughly and pulled him down to eye level.
"You have no idea what's 'good for me,' " she growled gravely, pushing him away from her and glaring at the rest of the team, "None of you do. I'm not going, and that's final."
Most of the boys voiced their disapproval at once so it sounded like a whole lot of nothing to her ears.
"Is there a problem?" Batman interrupting their sounds of unhappiness.
"Nope, none at all. So what happened at Bull's Eye?" Artemis quickly asked, shifting the conversation. All throughout the ride back to Mount Justice, the boys pestered her about going to see her "sister." They wouldn't let her change the subject for a moment, but now that Batman was here...
"You tell me," Batman ordered, his eyes drilling holes into the team, all of whom straightened a little bit at the attention(except Robin of course, who was immune to the "Bat-glare" as he'd dubbed it).
"The explosion centered in their Banquet Hall where the Imperial Jewel exhibit was being held. Conner, Robin and I investigated, but the thief escaped with the jewels before we arrived," Kaldur answered.
"We're pretty sure the explosion happened to prevent anyone from following the thief. Thankfully, no one was in the blast area, though there were a few scrapes from shrapnel. We set up a perimeter and canvased the area, but she was long gone. We looked at the surveillance tapes and found the thief..." Robin added, tapping something into his wrist comp and bringing the holodome to life with a projection of Siren's MO.
There were several pictures of her in motion wearing her gossamer, watery black outfit that looked like it shouldn't be able to stay on. The main close up showed a girl with a model's delicate bone structure. She donned gorgeous eye make-up made out of a black feather-like material that looked painted on, extending past her eyes and onto her temples.
"But if it was her, there must've been something else happening," Conner said after a quick scan of the holodome. Siren was often used as a loud distraction to cover a much quieter, more heinous crime elsewhere.
"That's right..." Batman agreed, but didn't elaborate. He turned to Wally and Artemis, "Where were you when this was happening?"
Wally opened his mouth and closed it again at a loss for words, obviously not expecting the attention so soon.
"Wally here, decided we needed to go out to a place where people recognized him," Artemis explained, hitting Wally upside the head, "We couldn't lose his classmates in time."
Batman remained silent, his glare reprimanding them in a way words couldn't, saying: Don't let this happen again.
Wally and Artemis nodded at the non-verbal command.
"So... what'd Siren distract us from?" Wally asked, his curiosity obviously getting the better of him.
"Vandal Savage escaped custody. He was being transferred to a specially fortified holding cell across town. Red Arrow and the Question helped the local police oversee the move, but Cheshire and Red Panzer got the best of them," Batman answered, the holodome changed to show the new information.
Artemis had enough. She tuned out the boys asking of Red Arrow's well being and stared at Siren's file. It did something to her, well... not the whole file in general. Just one line.
Identity Unknown.
She knew her identity. Heck, the boys had just met her and Aria just wormed her way into "loving and worried sister" status! Artemis clenched her fists, Aria probably had the jewels on her the whole time!
What a fool... Now she(and the Shadows) had a way to communicate with Artemis without question. Artemis had foolishly hoped that she'd never speak to the Shadows again... especially about Young Justice...
Wait. Where'd that come from? Artemis didn't care about this "team," she was just here because working for the Shadows got too complicated (not because working with the Shadows made her instincts scream something was wrong)... right?
"...You are all dismissed until we get a lead on Siren, and the Savage case," Batman announced, kicking her out of her thoughts. Pfft... "leads." All Artemis had to was call.
"You did what?" Artemis yelled, feeling her eye twitch in annoyance.
Kaldur placed his cup down calmly before answering, "It is rude to keep a person waiting. I knew you were not going to see her, so I went to tell her myself."
"..." Artemis death-glared her leader, too annoyed to speak.
"You will go tomorrow," he stated, but before the archer could reply he adds, "Or I will send Robin in your stead."
Artemis was floored! Why would he send the others? ! Instead of justifying his actions with an answer, she made a non-committal noise of displeasure and stormed off to her "room."
When she got there, a wrapped box sat "innocently" on her bed.
Thinking it a "gift" from her "darling sister" "Athena", she poked and prodded it, searching for any "surprises" or "incendiary devices", her "devoted sister" so adored.
Holding her crossbow at the ready, she gingerly removed the bow holding the package together and leapt away several paces. After no imminent ticking sounds were heard, she took a breath, and, grasping another arrow, tipped the box off the bed, spilling it's contents on the floor, causing her to inadvertently flinch.
Noticing she wasn't on fire, or you know, dead, her eyes immediately searched the floor for the contents...
"Flopsie!" she squealed rubbing her cheek against the otter plushie she had seen at the store. Catching herself, she snapped to attention and held the children's toy away from her body, glaring at it like it knew the cure to cancer, but wouldn't tell her. Picking up the in-house communicator she dialed Aqualad.
"Don't think this makes up for what you did today!" she yelled into the receiver the moment she heard his voice.
"You are welco–" Kaldur's amused voice began.
"And stay out of my room!" she yelled, hanging up before he finished his unwelcomed... welcome!
She glared at the otter as if it was it's fault for being so cute. She got about a minute in before she forgave it and huggled it to death. She never got a gift like that from a boy before...
Red Arrow was bored. Bored and angry with himself. He should've listen to the Question when he said he had a bad feeling, but Roy just had to feel stubborn. It was such an impromptu move that no villain should have known about it. So, he gave his OK to go on with the prisoner transport.
It was going just fine, for a while. Savage was quiet, (though Roy now suspected he was just waiting) the officers were alert and he didn't sense a big attack to rush the criminal out... Then he felt pin pricks on his thigh...
His eyes grew hazy and he knew something was wrong. He looked down at his leg and found four long needles in his thigh. Even as he immediately moved to pull them out, he felt his body shutting down. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the eyes and smile of Cheshire's mask.
The first thing he saw when he awoke was the familiar green of his old mentor's relieved gaze. He woke up fairly quickly from the poison and (judging by the get well cards) some of the Justice League had visited while he slept through the first day.
Recognized. Artemis. B07.
Most of the Young Justice had personally said their best wishes, but he wasn't expecting this particular one to show up... at least not alone.
"What do you want?" he asked straightening in his bed. He didn't like his chances if he got into a fight with the teenager, the poison still effected his nervous system so he was much weaker than usual.
"Can't I visit a fellow archer without prosecution?" Artemis replied lazily walking off the effects of transporting to the hero healing bay.
Red Arrow was not amused. He wasn't an idiot. They were nearly alone and he knew something about his replacement wasn't right.
"Can you not be prickly at me for something I haven't done and not planning on doing?" Artemis replied sounding like she'd already had this conversation with him before. In reality, the last time the were alone together was the first time they've met.
"... what're you doing here?" Roy rephrased the question, but it sounded like 'I will, once I can trust you.'
"I wanted to check up on you!" she yelled from frustration, but that sounded like 'I never gave you a reason not to!'
"Why?" the boy asked and looked away because her subtext had a point.
"Being stuck in the hospital sucks and Cheshire's poisons are a pain, wolfsbane right? I heard the team was in a lot so I thought you'd need intelligent stimulation," Artemis answered and found that all of it was true. She actually felt that maybe there was a chance for her and Roy yet.
"You know a lot about Cheshire?" he asked suspiciously. Okay... so she stood corrected.
Having enough of the marksman's distrust, she rolled her eyes. "Uncle" Ollie wanted them to be friends, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. It was like leading a dehydrated prize horse to water though it refused to drink. Frustrating. At least she can say she tried to be friends with the guy.
Ignoring the last question, she rolled her eyes and proceeded to plop her gift bag on his poisoned leg. Roy was happy to say that he didn't flinch at all at the searing pain of the near infected wound.
"Well...? You going to stare at it, or you going to open it?" Artemis asked after watching him glare at the gift.
He said nothing but his suspicious glare shifted to the markswoman. They had a five second glaring match.
"URGH! You're almost more annoying than Wally!" Artemis yelled, looking as though she wanted to rip her hair out. Instead, she snatched the bag and emptied it on him. A pair of heavy duty half gloves, red hand grips, a tool kit and a bunch of semi-broken trick arrow tips scattered about on the bed.
"What is all this?" Roy demanded surprised by the objects.
"Do you ever stop asking questions?" she snapped, which only caused him to sharpen his eyes at her. Artemis sighed loudly and proceeded to explain with a flourish, "Gloves and grips are from Uncle Ollie. And I thought you'd want to work on something so I snagged some unfinished arrowheads."
"... That's... thoughtful..." he said slightly surprised. He picked up a particularly broken tip that he needed to fix. They were just the things to keep his mind busy so he wouldn't die of boredom, yet they were productive at the same time.
Artemis watched him examine the trick tip, feeling satisfaction that only giving a good gift could bring. She would savor the feeling, but instincts told her there was some kind of subtext coming from him.
"... What?" she demanded absolutely hating having connotation she didn't understand.
His head snapped up at the outburst and he looked at her with eyes that inquired: why?
She could feel her eye twitch at yet another question, though, to be fair, he didn't actually ask it. She had to take a calming breath before she could say in a slightly contemptuous voice, "I am known to be nice on occasion, you would know that if you weren't so busy questioning every move I make."
"I see..." and that sounded like 'I suppose I would.'
A charged silence fell around them, though they both suspected that it would always feel like that between the two. They started out on the wrong foot and it seemed like it would always land that way with them.
Roy went back to examining his present and Artemis shifted angrily waiting for him to show his gratitude for it. Not that she really needed it, she'd just appreciate it if he'd show his appreciation!
Seeing that she wasn't going to get anything from him she tsk'ed angrily and said, "Whatever, see you around, Red Annoyance."
He grunted an automatic farewell, but looked up to see her back walking towards the teleporter. He glared at it for a moment then commanded, "Wait."
"What?" she swung around irritably thinking he was going to go on about her new nick name for him.
"Thanks, Artemis," he said making sure to keep his tone even and without inflection, but, by doing so, told his "replacement" how much he meant it.
Her eyes widen a fraction from surprise. Well, that wasn't expected... She turned away quickly after feeling her cheeks redden for no reason. So what if that was the first time he ever said her name?
"Yeah yeah, if you get caught with those, I'll deny I gave them to you," she said using the teasing as a way to get rid of the strange feeling she got by hearing her name from him.
"Hm," was his amused answer then chuckled soon after. Unable to resist herself, she turned around to smirk at him before she transported away.
Maybe he was too quick to judge... though he still didn't know why Bats and GA decided to hide her history from the team...
Artemis now knew that she should never get between something her team leader wanted.
It was five days and all five teammates and she still heard stories of how "awesome" and "worried" "Athena" was. Geesh, how she wished she could tell them why she didn't want to go so badly. Seeing Aria would force her to give information on the Young Justice. Of course she could've used the "I'm-so-low, I-don't-know-squat" trick, but, after seeing the team, Aria would know that was a lie...
Maybe she should just go...
...nah.
AN: Okay, so there's your bit of Roy for you RA fans. There's going to be more of him and less of Athena/Aria I swear. And yes, I know I know, Siren is traditionally Atlantean, but this is fanfiction, please bare with me. review your displeasure(or pleasure) if you like