Ages: Artemis is 18, Cam is 19. For more context, this would be the summer after their high school graduation, when Artemis & Wally are moving to Palo Alto to go to college and live together. A few months after the last two chapters. Also at this point don't squint too hard at the ages lining up properly over the chapters, because it's embarrassing how many times I've gone back to change/revise their ages in previous chapters. Just know that in this canon Cameron is a year and half older than Artemis, so some chapters he'll be a year older than her, some he's two years.

Home Visit

Late Summer, Team Year 3

I really shouldn't be here.

That was the thought that kept ringing through Cameron's head as he stood in the living room of a house empty of any other occupants but clearly in the midst of a move.

Staring at the wall on the living room, he eyes honed in on a diploma framed on the wall, the name Artemis Lian Crock written on it in bold formal print. The entire Gotham Academy crest was embossed into the material with flare, as if to scream look at me & my fancy prep school. Besides it a different, much tamer looking diploma was also displayed, belonging to someone named Wallace West from Keystone High School.

"You don't need school junior. You need training," his father's voice rang in the back of his head, sneering with contempt even in the memory. Outside of the forced schooling in jail, Cameron never went back to school. Once he turned 18 and got released from juvie, even after he settled the worst of the bruised egos over the Belle Revve incident, he never saw the reason to go back. His father certainly had other plans for him and, all things considered, he just didn't see the use for a formal education in his line of work.

And yet, staring at the two diplomas, Cameron felt something suspiciously like sorrow. As if he was robbed of something. His gut churned, but whether it was jealousy or disgust, he didn't know.

Jealousy or disgust at what? He wasn't sure about that either.

The diplomas were the only two items hanging on the wall. A beacon of organization and tinge of homey-ness that still eluded the rest of the house. All around the living room sat boxes in various states of open, closed, and half empty. A rug adorned the floor, and he could see a small coffee table tucked away in the corner, clearly waiting to be placed in it's final destination. On the coffee table was a picture of a blonde – Artemis – with a dog and some redhead guy.

It took him one look at the redhead to recognize him. Kid Idiot. Of course she was dating, no, living, with the most annoying member of her stupid junior Justice League. God. It took two more seconds after that to put two and two together to realize Wally West was likely the aforementioned idiot's name.

Well. That could come in handy later.

With this new tidbit of information in mind he moved towards the kitchen, where he saw that it was barely more organized than the living room: Dishes were placed about haphazardly. A coffee machine sat plugged on the counter, half of the last brew still sitting in it. There were some university letters stuck on the fridge along with some more homey-looking pictures of the couple and their various friends. He didn't recognize most of them aside from Superboy, but he assumed they were also members of the junior justice league team. He did let out a snicker at the sight of the Kid Flash & Wonder Woman fridge magnets holding them in place, and even pondered opening the fridge and stealing some food just out of spite, but didn't.

Opening another person's fridge and rifling through their food seemed like an unnecessary violation of privacy. A funny consideration for someone who was breaking and entering.

He took a breath and left the kitchen to roam the rest of the house. Two bedrooms, one completely empty, the other with a few boxes in it that had yet to be opened. Not so much as a bed in either one. That bathroom was even more bare-bones, with only a tube of toothpaste and one (one?) toothbrush.

It was clear the residents of this house were only barely starting to move in. And yet the house already looked so…normal. Pedestrian. Average.

Like it wasn't housing two capes.

What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself again.

He knew he should leave. Leave before someone, anyone, the occupants especially, came and started asking questions. Before someone called the authorities, or more likely, other superheroes. He didn't imagine they would take kindly to a criminal breaking and entering in one of their own's private residence, and he didn't want to have to explain why he knew who lived here.

The idea of going back to Belle Revve because of this made him chuckle darkly. That would be just his luck: Getting tossed back to the wolves for something so mundane it might earn him an extra beating just because. No way his father would bother to save him from any broken bones either.

God forbid the capo has to expend some of his precious energy defending his own son.

Later, he would blame that bitter internal monologue about his father for distracting him from the sound of a car parking outside. Or the footsteps coming up to the door. Or the sound of keys jingling. Yeah, later on he was going to be very disturbed that he didn't notice any of that until he heard the lock turning in the door.

He cursed under his breath, turning to the door and folding his arms to conceal the ice daggers he was forming for quick retrieval. The entering form threw the door open with a grunt, shoving a hefty looking moving box inside the room and dropping it very suddenly when they noticed the intruder.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked tersely, her breath a little short from the weight of the box she just discarded on the floor.

"Good evening to you too," he answered, noticing her immediately scanning the room exits to the hallway and kitchen, no doubt looking for signs of an accomplice. "I'm here alone."

"I asked you a question," she stated, eyes snapping back to him. She noticed he was iced down, something he never did on the job, and relaxed slightly. It meant he wasn't looking for a fight, at least not immediately, her mind supplemented as she also noticed the folded arms, and the daggers that could be hidden behind them.

He shrugged in response. "I came to visit." Technically, that wasn't a lie. He just hadn't meant for her to stumble upon him during his visit.

Or did you? asked a taunting voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Crystal.

"The door was locked," she said, closing said door gently behind her. It was a statement with an unspoken question.

"It wasn't locked when I walked through it," he answered nonchalantly.

"So you broke into my home?" she asked and he clenched his jaw because in his life it was always the apartment or the safehouse or my current residence but never home and why the hell did that bother him? The pride and safety that the word "home" emanated coming off her tongue. Like this barely moved into beach-house could have some deeper meaning that was invisible to him.

This, he knew, was the unmistakable pull of jealously. He just didn't understand what exactly he was feeling jealous of.

"Honestly, I didn't take you for the beach house type. A Gotham girl in Palo Alto?" He shrugged, then added "But I suppose I don't really know much about you these days."

"You broke into my home," she repeated, purposefully ignoring the barb at their...relationship? Frenemy status? Estrangement?

"You seem a little hung up on that. Tell me, do you have the same reservations about the law when you go out at night and beat people up with Wallace?"

At the mention of her boyfriend, she narrowed her eyes. "Don't mention him."

"Oooh, struck a nerve there didn't I?" he taunted playfully, reaching for something, anything to needle at her. To put her on the defensive and take her focus away from why he was here. Because he still didn't have an answer to that question.

"Keep it up, and it won't be the only thing that gets hit tonight Cameron," she said, taking a few steps closer to him.

"I'm so threatened," he responded mockingly, but she felt the room temperature drop about a dozen degrees and saw his skin turn a shade paler. Blaring indicators that he was gearing up for a fight, and he wasn't being subtle about it.

"You should leave. Before someone else comes," she warned, reigning herself back and keeping her voice calm. She wasn't 14 anymore, and this wasn't a playful conversation between friends in her Gotham living room. Getting riled up now wouldn't end with a playful punch and some middle school insults.

"What's the matter? Afraid your boyfriend will get here and see me? Wonder what a low-life scumbag such as myself is doing in this fine establishment? Or maybe you're worried that he won't be expecting an icicle to the face?" He was fishing now, desperate to poke a hole into this façade. Tear down this picture of a normal life she was building because now that she was here, in front of him and making it so real, it was making him sick.

"I'm not afraid for him," she responded calmly. "I'm afraid for you. If he gets here, you'll be sorry."

"Oh I'm just petrified," he answered, putting his hands to his face in mock horror.

Artemis exhaled deeply, clenching and unclenching her fist a few times while she considered her options. She didn't want a fight, especially not when she didn't have her weapons with her. But if it came to it, she might be able to close the gap and get a hit to his solar plexus before he finished icing up. Or she could get a jab in with the combat knife she had strapped under her shirt, maybe get a painful slash in across the ribs–

His ribs.

Suddenly, she felt the phantom stickiness of blood on her hands. The burning warmth of the liquid spreading between her fingers. The sound of bony knees hitting a grimy alley floor, the figure clutching their side in pain. And then it transitioned to a different night at a warehouse with even more blood and an arrow sticking out and – snap out of it! the voice in her head yelled.

Looking down at her hands to remind herself that they were not covered in blood, she decided right then that she wasn't going to let this escalate into a fight. Instead, she moved to sit on the gargantuan box she had entered with, doing so slowly and deliberately to show that she wasn't making a move for a weapon.

Once seated, she inhaled deeply, gathering her nerves, and looked up at Cameron to ask again, "What are you doing?"

"Oh you know, just catching up with an old friend," he said, looking at his nails as if he was observing a recent manicure job. If he noticed her momentary freeze up he didn't say anything, but the icicle daggers were gone now.

"Bullshit. What is–" she gestured vaguely with her arms "–this? What are you doing right now? Breaking in. Trying to rile me up. Getting personal. It's not really your thing."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Isn't that what superheroes and villains do?"

"Last time we met, you saved me Cam." At great personal cost to yourself. "Not sure you qualify too much in the supervillain category."

She had lied to the League about the circumstances of her escape, just as he'd requested, claiming she had been moved by a masked guard. That he over-estimated how drugged she was and she caught him off guard. Her lies protected him from bearing the sudden might of a protective Justice League/Team hunt-down, but there was no way he hadn't faced other repercussions for her escape. Aside from the knife to the ribs, that is.

"A moment of weakness," he answered, and she wanted to scream it was strength, not weakness. "One that I paid for in full."

Based on the brittle tone, she changed her guess to a lot of repercussions.

"I ask again, what are you doing here?"

His face flickered through a range of emotions before he pulled them back under a veneer of cool, unbothered calm. It was impressive really, how quickly he put the mask back on for someone who just a few years ago could have been read like an open book by a passing stranger.

It was also unbearably saddening, to see how far they'd both changed. How guarded they were, even under relatively neutral conditions.

Suddenly he looked at her and asked, "Would you have done the same thing for me?"

"What?" she asked, startled by the question.

"If the tables were turned, if it was me sitting in some Justice League cell somewhere being prepped to get sent back to Belle Revve, would you have done half of what I did for you back in Gotham? Lie to your superiors? Break me out?"

"Cam-"

"Hell, I'm not even talking about talking about taking a knife to the ribs. I'm just talking about making the effort. For old time's sake. Would you have even tried?"

"You know it's not that simple. You know that's not how it works." I would have found another way. Without betraying The Team.

"Why? Because I'm a bad guy, and you're on the side of the angels?"

"Yes," she answered automatically, and hated how fast it came out. How sure it sounded out loud. It didn't convey the nuance she felt on the issue, or how fiercely she knew that she would never stand by and let him be shipped back to Belle Revve. Not again. Not after everything.

She was trying to formulate the words to convey that feeling when Cameron responded.

"Is that right?" He all but spat venomously. "Do they even know who you were? What you did?" The acidic tone stifled whatever response she was planning, and instead she heard the questions he really wanted to ask. Do they know how close you were to the other side? About the blood on your hands?

"They know enough. And they know who I am," she answered defensively.

"So no. You didn't air out your laundry with them. Didn't tell them your dirty little secrets. I wonder what your friends would think, what your boyfriend would think, if they knew about the things you did," Cameron continued, his eyes fierce with accusation.

"Don't you dare go there!" she growled, finally raising to the bait. "Everything I had to do was against my will, and don't pretend for a damn second that it wasn't! I left when I had the chance. I didn't give up. I'm not like you."

"Yea, you're not. At least I know something about loyalty!" he shot back, voice raised.

"There's a difference between loyalty and blind obedience!" she snarled.

"Well congratulations," he sneered, lowering his voice back a few decibels but not relinquishing the icy veneer. "You think you're better than me because you left, but you're not. You're not better than me or any of the other kids that were born into this life. You just got a lucky hand."

Her face went through a variety of emotions, starting with rage, before it finally just softened into something else. An expression that was familiar to him and, in a different year, would have been comforting. "I never said I was."

He didn't respond to that, didn't look back as he brushed forward past and her and out the door into the warm humid air outside and down the steps. He couldn't get out of the house (her home) fast enough. Get back to the familiar comfort of one of his barren safehouses (not home, never home). Couldn't wait to ignore the prickly sensation that was creeping up the back of his throat.

When Wally got home later and asked why the house was "colder than Batman during an Arkham breakout", Artemis pretended not to hear the question.

A/N: Thanks for reading. :)