A/N: I just want to take this time to make my mandatory "The 5 year gap was stupid and ruined a lot of character building potential" rant about this otherwise great show. There. I did it.
Ages: Artemis is 17, Cam is 18.
Edit 10/4: Corrected the timeline from "Late Fall, Team Year 3" to "Late Spring, Team Year 3".
And When You Fell...
Late Spring, Team Year 3
She was on a solo patrol in Star City when she recognized a suspicious character exiting one of those late night convenience stores that populated the seedier parts of town. There wasn't that much noticeable about him, except for the unnatural calm he exuded walking through this area at night. Star City wasn't Gotham, but crime existed. Following him from the rooftops, she noticed a glimpse of a sword handle peek out from under his trench coat when he passed a flickering street light. There was only one group that she'd ever known to walk around Star City with swords instead of guns.
Ollie's gonna pop a vein when he finds out Shadows are in town.
So naturally, Artemis followed the idiot to see what type of trouble he was up to. The longer she followed him, the more she was convinced he was some sort of low level trainee, or worse, someone who had been outsourced. His surveillance evasion maneuvers were sloppy, showing exaggerated confidence or extreme recklessness, and he led her right to the abandoned warehouse his comrades were.
She assumed he was some outsourced mercenary, because a true Shadows operative would know to expect death for such a colossal mistake.
I mean really, when even the Shadows was having trouble finding good help these days you know the job market must be bleak she thought to herself, a small smirk appearing on her face.
Crouching on a rooftop adjacent to the warehouse, she scanned the building with her thermal goggles. She could make out several heat signatures moving inside. Enough to cause a fight, but not too many for her take on by herself, especially if she got the jump on the perimeter patrol. If things got hairy, Green Arrow was at most 10 minutes away from intervening.
She took her quiver off her back and took stock of her inventory.
"Not enough trick arrows," she murmured to herself. Taken too many breaking up a gas station robbery, and then later an attempted gang-rape. She may have used one or two or ten more boxing glove arrows than necessary breaking up the gang rape. There might have been a few more broken bones than necessary.
Not like they hadn't deserved it.
Looks like I'm gonna be calling GA after all. With her depleted weapons inventory and the number of goons present, and the fact that they were Shadows henchmen (goon-ish or not, they were dangerous), going in alone was an unnecessary risk.
Reaching for her comms, she relished thinking about the can of whoop-ass that was about to be opened on these idiots. Ever since Jade, no Chesire, had joined their ranks, The League had a special place in her heart. And at the bottom of her combat boots.
She was pondering what goatee-related insult to greet Ollie with when something hit her in the back of the head.
…
She woke up with a throbbing headache and a bruise that felt bigger than Wally's ego on the back of her head. Groaning, she moved and was immediately alarmed by the chains she felt around her arms and legs.
Shit.
Taking a few moments to let her eyes adjust to the darkness of her surroundings, she realized her bow and quiver were missing, and so was the hidden knife she kept around her ankle. Reaching for her ear, her heart rate spiked when her fingers did not find her communicator.
Shit. Shit.
They'd gotten the jump on her, and know she was in some sort of cell somewhere. She willed herself to calm her nerves, letting her training kicking in.
Focus. Take in your surroundings. Have situational awareness.
Brick cell, metal chains. Dirty floor. No window. Metal bars. Likely still night-time outside, based off her jumbled internal clock. She wondered if her communicator had gotten through to GA before she got knocked out. She cursed herself for letting them get the jump on her.
She heard movement coming from outside the cell and looked to see a pair of sneering goons staring back at her through the metal bars. Well, they had masks on, but knowing the Shadows, they were most certainly sneering.
"Well, if it ain't one of the junior justice league members," cackled one of them.
"Hey ain't this Green Arrow's sidekick? What do they call her again, Miss Arrow? Arrowwete or some shit?" joked the other, elbowing his partner.
Clearly she was right about them being mercenaries. These were not the typical Shadows "silent and deadly" type. That alone increased her chances of survival dramatically. She silently thanked Batman for his recent crusade against the Shadows over the last few months, mentally taking back every snide comment she made about the endless recon missions it had meant for The Team.
"Nah she has stupid ass Greek or Roman name. Something all special and shit, ain't that right girlie?" replied Goon #1.
"Keep laughing bozo. Any moment now the Justice League is gonna come through here and cut me loose, and then I'm gonna put my foot so far up your ass," snapped Artemis.
"Oh, I'm sure they would have little girl. Ya'know, if we hadn't already found your tracker in your crossbow," Goon #1 said, cutting her off.
"And the other one in your quiver," chimed in Goon #2.
"And the two more embedded in your boots. Girlie, I gotta thank you for letting me get the jump on you. If the bosses found out I got tailed and didn't notice, well, let's just say it sounds much better for me to say I let you follow me as part of a trap," continued the first one, and the two broke out into laughter at their 'good' fortune.
Artemis quelled the snarl crawling up her throat, instead keeping her face drawn stone cold in her best impression of her sister. There was no doubt these two got off on being assholes, and she wasn't going to give them the pleasure of showing them any sort of emotion as they left, clearly enjoying themselves.
As their voices got quieter and their laughter trailed off, she didn't change her expression, but inside her mind started to race as the horrible reality dawned on her. No trackers, no comms, and no distress signal before she had disappeared. Meaning it would be at least a few hours before people were truly concerned.
Shit.
…
She started to lose track of how long she'd been in their captivity. Hours? No, too long. Days? Definitely not more than a week. At some point they'd drugged her and moved her to a different cell but it felt like the same building. Whatever they used made her too disoriented to track time in any reliable way, and it had the side effect of some pretty lucid dreams, only adding to her confusion when she did wake.
There was no window in her new cell, and no cracks in the wall for sunlight, or moonlight, to seep through and indicate the passage of time. The only hint she had was how many times they offered her food, or at least how many times she was awake enough to register if the bowl in front of her was new.
At first she'd refused to eat the nasty gray gruel that they passed as food, but eventually the hunger gnawed at her until she forced herself to shove it down. She reasoned if they were going to kill her, they would have done it much more colorfully than poisoning her food. Nevertheless, it was amazing how crappy the food they acquired was. Almost as if they were going out of their way to find the least edible gruel that wouldn't kill her, which she wouldn't put past them. They'd also given a bucket for her…other needs. One that they never emptied and that she almost never used, especially given how there was always a guard near her cell.
She didn't trust them not to stare either, and in those moments she wished she had been captured by actual members of the League of Shadows. At least they had some twisted sense of honor.
Even without her tracker, she trusted the Justice League to find her. She trusted the Team to find her. By now, Wally would have scoured every alley in Star City, Dick would have hacked everything even remotely hackable trying to track her movements, and M'gann would have wrecked the minds of whomever was refusing to cooperate. Nevermind whatever the hell Green Arrow & Black Canary were doing to every thug in sight.
Yes, any second now the idiots guarding her would get their skulls smashed in.
So what's taking them so long?
…
"Hey, look at what I can do!" exclaimed Cameron, jumping onto his feet with far more excitement than seemed appropriate for a 13-year-old.
Artemis was in her room, hanging out with her old friend, and staring in awe at a beautiful creation. A rainbow of colors had lit up her usually dark room: Faint hues of green, purple, yellow, red, blue took radiated beauty. The rays – waves? – of light around her moved with a sort of rhythm to them that only added to the display.
"H-how can you even do that?" she asked, her voice gushing with awe.
"I-I'm not sure. I've only ever done it once before, and last time it was different colors. I think it has something to do with my emotions."
"This is..this is amazing."
The two sat down on Artemis's bed, basking in the sight before them. For a few blissful moments, they were just two kids living a life full of ugliness who were appreciating something beautiful.
After a while of sitting in silence, Cameron spoke up, his voice a little bit more than a whisper.
"Don't tell my Dad. I-I don't want him to know I can do this….He…he makes me do things with my powers."
Her hand reached out to cover his and squeezed it reassuringly.
"Don't worry Cam. I always got your back."
"We've got each other's backs" he corrected with a crooked smile.
"Hey Artemis?" he asked.
"Yea Cam?"
"Artemis?" he repeated, his voice sounding more distant now.
She opened her mouth to respond again, but for some reason she couldn't.
"ARTEMIS" hissed the voice, jolting her fully awake.
It took her a few seconds to adjust back to the dark light and for the fog of the dream to clear up. This dream had taken her to a memory she hadn't thought about in a while. Memories of a certain old friend she wished she could forget.
If it only it were that easy.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness enough to see who stood on the other side of the cell bars, she was convinced that the dreams had escalated into full blown hallucinations.
"C-cam?"
A/N: Dun dun dun! Cliffhanger! This chapter got kind of long so I ended up splitting it two. Also the flashback scene from this chapter was the inspiration for another short fic I published called Dancing Lights. I consider that fic to be just an extended scene of sorts from the flashback. Part 2 of this chapter will be up in a few days.