Title: Alice the Tiger
Song: "Who Are You Really" By Mikky Echo
Rating: T
Genre: Romance, Angst, Friendship
Fandom: Young Justice: Invasion
Couple: Artemis/Cameron, Article Jr., Frostbite, CamArt
Inspiration: Teen Wolf
Note: sorry for the wait, a tad bit of writer's bloke and some other stories came up out of nowhere.
Note 2: i've been using the soundtrack to the 2012 Alice in Wonderland movie for this, check all the songs, but this one isn't from the soundtrack, but I listened to it and it just fit too, too perfectly.
"So you feel entitled to a sense of control
And make decisions that you think are your own."
The sub is becoming a place where time and space do not affect this underwater arsenal of hell. She can't follow the time, the days, the weeks, has it been months? She has to guess at them—or check her digital watch. That always seems to work.
She's been undercover for months, cramped into another body, another life and the strain is beginning to wear on her. Asking herself daily a platoon of questions that make no sense and trying to piece together how everything got so bad this fast.
Cameron is there, of course, talking about the old days—and really the old days seem to be the only thing that makes sense nowadays. This is who she would have become without the Justice League: a villainess, a huntress, a member of the Shadows; going on missions like assassinating the ambassadors of Relasia with her sister and robbing banks with Cam. Bringing home big money and buying the latest gadgets and moving from place to place to place three of five times a month.
But she wasn't that person anymore.
Is she?
Who is she? Who is she really?
What is she capable of in this new her?
"You are a stranger here, why have you come
Why have you come, lift me higher, let me look at the sun"
Psimon shouldn't be allowed in here.
Having spent the better part of two weeks hovering over Kaldur's bed like a doting mother whilst Black Manta searches far and wide like a dedicated father, Artemis was not about to let someone as untrustworthy and downright creepy as Psimon—who has been in their minds before—probing around in Kaldur's defenseless subconscious.
He has powers.
But that doesn't mean he can beat her, Daddy taught her that.
Artemis was sure if she could just slap a collar around his neck, she could make him wish he never set foot on this sub. In a very personal way.
But she has to remember that she's back in her old world now. All fighting—personal, tactical and other—has to be done with a delicacy as one would treat a newborn baby.
In other words: if she has to kill Psimon, she better have the best plan imaginable.
"Look at the sun and once I hear them clearly say
Who, who are you really? And where are you going?"
In the end, it's her father that saves her—which by definition is a particularly cruel twist of fate—more so, it's the toxin he made, but she managed to replicate. Cameron had told her about his attempts to get to Kaldur, to erect revenge for the death of his daughter, who was executed without his permission.
She scoffs and Cam sighs because they both know he's not fooling anyone.
Sportsmaster still cares about her, and that scares him because he can't hide it.
He tried that with her mother—she had watched him try to pretend that he didn't care, Paula was nothing to him, she was his wife, but he played her for a fool—and she saw his façade, his mask, his very shield that kept all others out, crack that day she came home in her wheelchair.
But her father has many masks, and one when breaks, he'll make another.
Paula had been Lawrence's sole focus, his love, his life, his way, his partner in crime.
When she was gone, Artemis had become her substitute and was trained to be so.
Now that she's gone, she wonders if Jade is getting her chance to show just how she is just as strong and resilient, and independent, and family oriented, and drivenas he is.
"Well I've got nothing left to prove
Cause I've got nothing left to lose."
Black Manta believes her lies easily and Psimon is—as of right now—a threat on the Light's watch list and while they hand over his catatonic body to Prince Orm, Artemis kisses good-bye what may be her only chance to save Kaldur without the League's involvement.
Original plan to let Psimon heal him and then knock him out? Yeah, that didn't work and she has the bruises to prove it.
Cam's hands worked as perfect ice-pack substitutes while she relays her new plan off to Black Manta, and the idea of kidnapping Miss Martian is a good one, stupid, but they're only chance since he now thinks M'gann has poisoned his mind to all who enters as well.
"I will take small team to go with me ashore."
"No," Black Manta steps aside to reveal a man in an orange and grey ensemble. "Take Deathstoke with you."
"Perfect."
Perfect.
"See me bare my teeth for you"
{Artemis that is you isn't it?}
M'gann's plea sounds odd to her ears. She hasn't heard it in forever and the intrusion of her mind feels like someone is pulling back the wallpaper of her concentration, peaking into her most private thoughts and laying them out like cards on a table.
She builds steel walls around herself and nods.
It's me M'gann. She levels her crossbow, already loaded with a new flashing bolt to stun her. I'm here to kidnap you.
"Who are you?"
It was easy to take out M'gann.
She held nothing back and just attacked—like the very first time. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, fierce and sharp, making every color brighter and every sting of pain sweeter. Rolling in her stomach and boiling in her blood, the metallic taste rose to her tongue when she landed the drop on her friend.
And although M'gann had been pulling back—although her mind had been shrieking with terror—Artemis had felt like she was on the hunt.
"Now you're moving on and then you say you're alone
Suspicious that this string is moving your bones."
"Tigress, a word?" Black Manta holds open the door for her as they step into the hall—you could tell a lot about a man on how he treats a lady; knowing if it's all a façade or not, however, is another test entirely—and shuts the door behind them. Cameron is standing in the hall; ice manipulated into a defensive layer that bands tightly around his arms to make himself look bigger as they cross over his chest nonchalantly, and calmly watches the scene unfold in front of him.
She keeps her eyes on Black Manta, who was acting every bit of a worried parent that Sportsmaster never was. Does that make him stronger? Or weaker? Cameron and her might have benefitted on his brand of parenting. Not the flat out abandonment, but the fierce love and gentle guidance.
Then again, they wouldn't be themselves without their own messed-up fathers.
"I'll keep an eye on her; I won't let her hurt Kaldur'ahm." She vows and she knows it's true and every fiber of her being is alight with a savage rush of adrenaline that she can reign and use to her advantage, like M'gann really was a threat.
But she's not, and while in her heart she knows that, her mind is veering into different waters.
"We are the fire we see how they run
See how they run, lift me higher, let me look at the sun."
"You okay?" Cam asks, not verbally, but his expression says it all, and she knows that without the cameras she may have thrown herself into his arms then and there, but Deathstroke and who knows who else, is watching so she smiles with her eyes and gestures for him to follow her back into Kaldur's room.
"We've found a method of treatment that will allow the Martian to enter Kaldur'ahm's mind and piece back together all that has been broken by her. I shall need you on the side lines with me to be sure that she does not go back on her word." She says in a clipped no-nonsense voice that Cameron responses to with a peevish nod.
Cameron smiles and M'gann's eyes go wide with panic.
"Hey cutie, haven't seen you in a while. Nice necklace."
Artemis? What's he doing here?!
Composing herself and taking a breath, she answers: He's a friend.
I seriously thought Artemis might try to kill Psimon, but she did something nontheless and I expected her to and then she started talking and it set the perfect mood for my chapter that took me so long to write. yay. Anyone else ticked at the show? Jaime and the Beetle, Lex Luthur and all the other REACH stuff makes me want to bash my head into my keyboard. It's three in the morning. I love you all.
Review and more Frostbite next chap.
