Title: Alice the Tiger
Song: Where's My Angel by Metro Station
Rating: T
Genre: romance, angst, friendship
Fandom: Young Justice: Invasion
Couple: Artemis/Cameron, Frostbite, Article Jr., CamArt, that one ship that's actually cannon in the comic books.
Inspiration: so many things I cannot name
Note: I swear this is the last time it takes me so long to update . . . this story at least.
"Break down, I can see you're upset
So high but I didn't help it,"
Why do we hurt the ones we love? When we promise with our pinkies and wish on stars and heads up pennies and swear on graves of loved ones past; we just mess everything up in the end? Is this how life's supposed to be? Letting down everyone around you until you're alone, utterly and completely and people avoid you like toxic waste that shouldn't even exist?
She digresses.
There was something about Wally that made her feel guilty all over whenever her old tendencies showed themselves. Like thousands of needles digging into her skin because she was lapsing back into old habits.
He was so sweet, so pure, and patient and he wanted her. Her.
Meanwhile, Cameron, knowing full well and who he was to her and everything down to the day they first kissed, is happily existing like he didn't have a clue who Wallace West was and that was perfectly fine by him.
Then again, maybe she's just thinking about this because she's Tigress right now and hasn't been Artemis for a while. When she's Artemis again, everything will be fine and there will be no more of these questions.
Then Cameron will be—.
Well, Cameron would be gone then.
That feels like needles too.
"I wish I could just forget you
Up now, heart beats racing."
They sit shoulder to shoulder and Cameron relays off, in great detail, the events that took place after Belle Reve. How through the corrupt system he managed to get tried again as a kid for being two weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday. Once he got out he apologized and offered himself up to the old powers her parents relied off of. They were kind enough, forgiving too, willing to give him work so long as he followed their rules. He accepted them, and their instilled belief that all failures must be carved into the flesh.
Her fingers trace over the new ridges of his back.
"Why didn't you come to me?" she asks but knows why and it's hopeless. "I could have—I would have tried—"
"I needed to deal with this on my own, Art." He's still hunched forward as he was. Elbows propped on his knees and hands curling together as frost twists across his skin. His jaw rests against his shoulder when he looks at her but she can't make the eye contact he's searching for.
Her eyes keep trailing over the marks like her hands do.
"Do they hurt?"
"No. I'm numb." He says and watches her fingers graze above a nasty healing scar, gently. Always gently with Cameron—he was the ice boy she needed to look after and shelter. "My back armor is weak there, but no one really aims for my back anyway, so it's—well, it's just something I have to deal with for now."
"Do you—?"
"Don't even start with the blame game, Art. That began long ago and it gets us nowhere."
"Alright . . ."
"Okay?"
"Alright."
He pushes his face into hers. "Do you promise?"
Eye contact, she decides, is a dangerous dangerous thing. Through someone's eyes in the first fleeting seconds they look at you, you could see exactly what they were thinking. The truth is dangerous, just like hiding the truth is dangerous, like eye contact.
Artemis gazes into Cameron's icy blues.
Yet so lovely at the same time how just a look could change everything.
She nods. "I promise."
"One touch, now I'm faking
This time, there's no escaping you,"
They sit in silence as the clock ticks back and the dark lights of the sub turn light. She feels battle worn, as dirty as dishwater, but still jittery from all the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She wonders when she'll finally crash again.
"The missions getting too dangerous." She says and Cameron nods like he's been in on it the whole time, and had not just torn himself from someone else's army to join hers.
"What will happen to us?" his voice is quiet when he says us and she knows he means him and her, the universal us in his vocabulary. He says us like most people said God and holds the word in his mouth like a knife that will tear him apart whence he uses it. "When all this is over?"
She can't even bring herself to answer him.
"Things are changing now," She dives her fingers through her hair and pulls them until they're in knots. "I don't see this ending well." She lets her hair tumble loose and free down her shoulders; it's growing long again, and Cameron is carding his fingers through it like a comb.
"Things change." He says, tone as equally dicey, and leans against her heavily like her needs the body heat brought into him. "What we have is right now. Do you remember how to live that?"
Oh God, does she ever.
There's still silence like a black void around them and they huddle close together in the darkness. It's second nature to them. It's instinct bred form all those nights of training and hiding out and finding shelter in each other. Cameron leeches warmth from bones and Artemis ices her bruises against him. They exchange breaths and doze against each other like they did once in the med bay with Kaldur catatonic and none the wiser.
She feels like there should be something wrong about this. There should be some unsettling strangeness between them, sticking between their skins like strangers bumping against each other in the subway car on morning commute. They have been apart that long, but being back something just snap clicks into place.
There's nothing weird about it. It's instinct. It's Cameron.
"I don't know how else to bring this up . . . what did you mean, when you said M'gann wasn't lying?" Her head is fitted under the curve of his neck and his cheek is pressing against her hair, their fingers tangled.
"You know," Cameron whispers sleepily and when she doesn't lunge away, he takes that as encouragement. "You've always know."
"Where's my angel?—Go on and take my life
Where's my angel?—I need someone here tonight,"
When her mother went to jail and Jade went to the Shadows, she lived with her father. And her father relayed off the villain community for work, support, and kinship. Therefore, she was born into the Life before she even knew it existed.
Cameron's mother died giving birth to him and his father was in the Life long before with connections and friends. And so, Cameron was as well entangled in the Life before he knew it existed.
Maybe that's why they'd been so drawn to each other? They saw something similar in each other. A feigning weakness and craving for a normal life, lives of their own. No abilities of dark assassin skills, no monstrous forms to take on, no masks, no evil fathers, no tough choices, no jail time, no unnecessary tears.
They built unsteady bricks of shelter and fed off each other's confidence for survival. Nursing wounds with kisses and bandages and stories left from whatever half-forgotten nursery rhyme they could summon.
That's why she jumped, with some hesitance, to pull herself at least away from the bad side. Her skill set was useful to the League and she made friends on the Team. But her old life remained.
Then she and Wally settled down to move into their cozy apartment and begin taking college courses at a high ranking university. She slept for weeks with her knife under her pillow before she could lock away her bow and suit, gain a pound or two.
Wally adapted back to normal life, used to the unusual droll hours of the night carved out for sleep. His mouth against her neck couldn't make her forget the thrill of lunging through the night like something powerful and glorious. And she didn't know why.
She had chosen this. For once she had chosen a path—with Wally and she would defend it tooth to nail against everyone if she had to.
But then Impulse dropped in on their lives, and Wally was forced to suit up. And he came home . . . the same, calm and perhaps a tad jittery and completely starving, but no other indication that he'd just launched head first back into the League's games other than the impending frown on his lips.
Then there was the plan, and Dick's ideas to pull her out of retirement with a little refresher course in Bludhaven.
After Artemis had launched into battle she'd felt . . . revived. Like something laying dominant in her had been resurrected and was now swelling with gushing red life, raw and powerful. Something wild and terrifying, like a tiger. She could barely sit still, she missed the old skin of her suit, she felt like the Goddess Artemis herself once her arrow hit a target, and once she dodged a near attack she had breached the stars.
That's how she felt in battle. That's how she felt being with Cam again.
And then she felt ashamed for it.
Wally could give up on the life, why couldn't she?
Because it's all I ever known. Wally had known something else. He had a childhood and photo albums stocked with pictures of childhood antics and friends before his little science experiment gone right. He had a loving mother, a father, and a family that spent Christmases and Thanksgivings together, and ate dinners, and had inside jokes, and were just so normal Artemis felt downright criminal for thinking badly of them.
And it was nice and she wanted to settle into it.
And she wanted to believe Wally when he said he understood and lightly teased her.
But sometimes she just needed someone who really knew.
Where's my angel?—Go on and take my life
Where's my angel?—I need someone here tonight."
Days press on with Kaldur healing and she walks in tow with him and his father around the sub. Black Manta has taken to addressing her and asks for her opinions on security details. She forgoes textbook remarks, and gives her actual opinion on a whim and knife-like smiles that she has no idea where she summoned from.
The Tigress persona wasn't as unfeeling and cold as she had hoped to become.
The Tigress she created was a fierce warrior that went rounds with troopers and earned her respects and her titles. Men on the floor both adored and feared her in equal measure—as Cameron mentioned—and Tuppence nods in gentle regard when they pass on the sub. Tigress demands order under her guard, and some would say she's a rising star of the Light.
It's not even association, like she always assumed, it's her mannerism. She was born for this line of work and leading armies all her own.
"So cold but you have my body
One kiss and this is gonna haunt me."
She got in a fight again, on mainland, and took down a police battalion all her own.
"That's our Tigress," Cameron grins and Kaldur looks skeptical at her increase of strength. "Adrenaline—you should have seen her during basic training when we were kids learning hand-to-hand, she fought like a wild thing."
"Cam," Artemis warns, eyes flickering to Kaldur because now he knew and Cameron knew and M'gann knew and too many people. Her past was a fragile thing and Cameron held it in the palm of his hands like an intangible and unbreakable thing that no amount of future could change. He shared pieces of it when he's proud with nudges and eyebrows. He likes to dangle it in front of Kadlur. A piece of her life her friends could never touch.
Kaldur doesn't rise to his bait.
"Tigress, I will expect you on the brig tomorrow morning. The big move is coming up." He says this with a severity he had taken to addressing her with and she answers it with a cool glare while inside she was screaming.
"Junior," she watches his entire body twists to follow her, eyes sharp and in tune with her rage as well as her happiness.
"Tigress," Kaldur calls again and she pauses to face him. His eyes are set, staring at Cameron's retreating back down the hall towards his room, but the moment he looks away—and Cameron will know when—he'll take a left instead of a right. "I do hope nothing will hinder your decision."
"You can't pressure me by calling me out in front of your troopers. You know that." She growls back and something sharpens inside of her. Prickly and black and ugly—uncontrollable as a hurricane. She wants to protect Cameron from the plan that had been carefully laid out and set the moment Kaldur stepped over to her old neighborhood.
"This is not a call out, my friend," he says in his there-will-be-peace sort of voice, soft yet stern, the same way he often spoke to Super Boy when he was still shaving at the edges of his anger management issues. "This is a reminder of the promises you not only made to me, but to this cause."
Double meaning: the Light but really the Justice League. Meaning: she's can't let Cameron into her life like she's been doing.
A part of her wants to launch herself at Kaldur and tear at him with her fists. Such violence she could barely rein is back with the bear mentioning that this is Kaldur. He was her friend and he just didn't understand the major identity crisis she was going through right now. He didn't understand that she needed Cameron. Needed him like air in this submerged tank. She can't even tell him that.
Troopers were watching.
"Not. Now." She growls and watches Kaldur's eyes narrow.
"I will not allow this."
"I don't remember asking for your consent." And then she leaves, finding Cameron iced-down in her room, waiting for her.
"My god, you look so lovely girl."
Cameron's hand presses into her shoulder. Her skin doesn't bruise easily and this was no acceptation but she feigns pain in order to keep him close. His presence was like an icepack, numbing herself to the real problems.
He doesn't ask her what else Kaldur said to her, he just seems to know and let's his fingers linger on her shoulder longer than necessary to create an icy haze across her aching skin.
"Thanks." She says and ties her hair up in a high ponytail. She striped down into her fatigues in the bathroom, a tank and a baggy pair of sweats. Cameron's eyes are still on the necklace circling her throat and she knows he wants to ask, but knows better than it.
"So, what were you studying in college?" he asks, reclining back onto her bed on his elbows because by now he knows it too.
"A bit of everything actually, Vietnamese literature and some classes in teaching." She bites her thumb and hates to think that shooting an arrow and throwing a punch was all she's good for. "I get good grades, but I just haven't found anything interesting yet."
"That's okay; you don't have to decide yet." She flops down beside him, drawing up one leg and rests her chin on it.
"I feel like I should. I feel like I should have everything figured out, right now." She confesses and tries not to think about how weird it is to worry about things like grades and college majors at a time like this. "I've got nothing. I can give an accurate and detailed description on how to break in and out of a house without getting caught, but I can't pick a damn college major?"
"Well, there's something. You could work in security."
"I don't want my two lives to merge, Cam." If there was a double meaning, he doesn't catch it and closes his eyes. His head tips back and she watches his Adam's apple bob in his long neck as he thinks.
"Well, what don't you want to do?"
She pauses. "History."
"Boom—that was the sound of a thousand options cut off. They're still there, mind you, but that narrows it down."
They spend the rest of the night deliberating majors and untangling long job titles in their ignorance.
"Hearts gone tonight is your chance
To trade love, for a little romance."
Artemis wakes sometime around midnight and the sub is progressing slowly towards a destination she hadn't bothered to track. Her hairs' pulled out of its ponytail and she's lying with her body pressed against something cold amidst the warmth of her sheets. Her eyes crack open and for a split second, seeing Cameron dozing innocently beside her doesn't reach her.
It feels great to sleep again and for the moment that's all the matters. She can sleep. She can rest and think and nothing's wrong.
But Cameron's arms draped over her waist and in sleep they had moved closer to each other. His lips brushing against her hair, her nose pressed into his neck, their legs tangled.
She pushes herself up suddenly and disentangles herself from the sheets and Cameron and sleep in such a jumble she barely realizes that the hair flailing around her face is blonde not black. Her necklace tumbles to the sheets between them.
Cameron's eyes are open and awake. "I can explain—" he starts.
"Don't even," she says and pulls herself to stand.
"Artemis." He lifts the necklace towards her as a peace offering.
"No!" She snatches the necklace from his hand and tried to clasp it while yelling. "Do you know what would have happened if someone had walked in? Any idea at all?"
His brows rise in that shut off sort of way that silently asks her if he's too dumb for common sense. "Well, they would first find that Cameron Mahkent is sleeping next to a blonde and then after further deliberation, possibly necklace and security tape, they'll find that the blonde is, in fact, Tigress. A.k.a., Artemis Crock. A.k.a, supposedly dead ex-Leaguer."
She makes a noise and tries to, once again, do up the clasp.
"I wanted to see what you looked like now," he explains. "You were asleep. I thought I put the necklace back on."
"No right." she mutters back and her fingers slip.
"Art—" She flips her hair back around her shoulder and Cameron slides on the bed towards her. "Art, let me help." She gives him an insidious look. "You'll never get it back on, Blondie." He deadpans and keeps his expression blasé as she tosses the charm back at him.
"Just do it quickly." She grumbles and holds up her hair for him. Her heart fumbling against her ribs to beat out a steady tempo in her fury. She plotted to kick him out after this, give him the boot, sleep a bit more and go see Kaldur.
Cameron's fingers press across her skin, dragging the necklace.
"It's not that I don't think this form is pretty too—because I do, you always look gorgeous to me. But I like you the way you are, without the fake skin and cover up." He chuckles a little at the end, in earnest. She glances at him from the corner of her eye and he keeps staring at her, as if he were still visualizing her blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. His hand is still lying on the back of her neck, over the clasp.
"Why did you want to see me so badly?" she asks.
"Because if I were to kiss you," he says. "I want to kiss you, as you."
And scene.
I swear to everything holy, unholy, and whatever you believe in: two reviews and I will update on Sunday.
The Frostbite feels blossom in this kind of weather for me. And I have written two one-shots building off each other in this ship's honor. Please check them out if you already haven't. They are titled "what about the moon" and "panda express" and the prequel to both of them "Moscow" will follow shortly after.
It's funny (reading my old author's notes) I started out having no job, broke and angry, to juggling three at a time and now two and now one again and just barely gripping onto that until spring when I can get my other job back. I just need to work at a book store.