Tempest: Chapter Eighty-Nine: In Someone Else's Shoes

AN: Oh, man, you guys are gonna lose your shit.


Artemis came around groggily, her whole body aching.

"Easy there, son, you've had a bit of a fall," an unfamiliar voice came from her side and winced her eyes shut and opened them again to realize it was Commissioner Gordon who she had only seen on TV that was kneeling at her side.

"A fall?" she repeated in a voice that wasn't her own. "What happened?" She looked at her hands. They were olive…a few shades off from her own but identical to Robin's.

"The girl you were with was kidnapped," Commissioner Gordon explained patiently. "Amy Isley-Allen, we've notified her parents."

"Amy's getting some emergency math help from her friend Richard," Wally had snorted, rolling his eyes, "he's kinda a mathlete."

She hadn't really thought much about Amy's friend Richard, she'd only mentioned him a few times -she was a big fan of keeping heroing and home life separate, though, these days they seemed to intertwine a bit more than she perhaps intended-, he was a friend whose dad was friends with her dad, that was how they'd met…but a name like Richard could be shortened to Dick, like Dick Grayson, son of Bruce Wayne. Artemis couldn't help but scoff to herself.

Amy had said she knew a guy at her school…one with pretty eyes and God knew Amy had a thing for blue eyes. And Robin had always had a thing for her, even if he'd never said a thing about it, Artemis could tell…God, it was so obvious, how had she missed it?

Fucking bastard…she was going to kill him when she was back in her body.

And Amy, once they found her.

"Do you remember what happened before you were knocked out?"

Well, fuck. Artemis was seriously screwed.


"Recognize: Robin -B01."

"I'm killing whoever thought it was a good idea for a body swap!" Artemis snarled as soon as she came through the zeta-tube, sunglasses over her eyes like Robin always wore, scowling deeply at all the members of Team who were in the middle of an argument in the kitchen.

"Um," Zatanna said weakly, "I might've said the wrong incantation and caused this whole mess."

"And blaming my girlfriend isn't going to fix anything," Kaldur added with a scowl that didn't suit him.

"I guess that makes you Amy," Artemis presumed before pointing her -his- finger at the rest.

"The aliens switched places," Wally pointed out, "but the rest of us got drawn out of a hat. I'm Raquel, Wally's in your body, Kaldur's in mine…which leaves Robin in—"

"Mine," Amy complained, though she didn't look as uncomfortable as Conner and M'gann, who were just newly broken up and in each other's bodies (talk about awkward). "Okay, so the last thing I remember I was with Robin—"

"With Robin?" Zatanna repeated. "Doing what?"

Amy frowned. "Studying. What else would we be doing? Anyways, some guys drove up with a van, grabbed me and knocked him out and I'm pretty sure who did it."

"Cadmus," Wally said flatly, "they've gotta be pissed since you made off with their hardware."

"Yeah…them."

"When did that happen?" Kaldur asked, almost reproachfully.

"I do love these chats of ours, Kaldur, they really soothe my soul—"

"Amy, you're the one going off and—"

"Enough!" Raquel snapped. "We can question morality later! Amy, you stole something from Cadmus?" She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

Amy wrinkled her nose at Kaldur -which was unbelievably more hilarious because she was wearing Kaldur's face-. "The information I stole on Project Amara on the Fourth of July last year was mostly redacted but I'd been so busy the past year I hadn't really noticed. I'd found some overlap between Cadmus and LexCorps and Luthor and Savage so I needed more information."

Of course…it came back to Roy Harper. It always came back to him, didn't it? The one person Amy would throw her life away for.

Artemis tried not to be bitter but it was hard. Mostly she was pissed at Roy for sewing discord into the Team when he'd been the mole all along and blowing up the Cave when Amy was still inside. She knew it wasn't his fault but that didn't negate the damage he'd done; she could tell Amy was struggling, with what, even she couldn't say.

"So, I went back and stole a hard drive…they had enough of my blood to test it and find out I was Masquerade."

"Enough of your blood?" Zatanna was aghast. "What'd you do?"

Amy waved her off. "Eh, minor bullet injury, nothing to worry about."

Artemis gave Wally a flat stare. "It took a little while for her healing factor to kick in," he amended and Amy glowered at him, even as everyone else looked at her.

She huffed. "It's not a big deal."

"You could've bled out!"

"We have contingencies for that!"

Artemis shook her head as they continued to argue, turning her attention back to her boyfriend. "How bad was it?"

Wally shared a glance with Conner. "We had to give her 2 units of blood but she bounced back…eventually."

"She still took a few days to fully recover, though," Conner pointed out and Wally conceded with a grunt.

"Hey! Hey!" Wally called over to the squabbling pair. "Amy, you've got a tracker on you, right? So, we can find Robin?"

Amy looked away from her argument with Zatanna and wow was their relationship heading downhill fast. Artemis tried not to wince. "Oh, for sure, finding the little bird won't be an issue."

She bared her teeth in a way that positively demonic.

"Prison break!" M'gann sang delightedly.

"You guys know I have school tomorrow, right?" Raquel groaned. "My parents are gonna kill me."


Dick came around slowly and once he felt the restraints around his wrists, he did what Bruce always taught him if he ever got kidnapped -which had happened more early on into his adoption, he had to admit- and that was to play like he was still out of it.

"This the girl? The one Cadmus wants to get their hands on?" he could just barely hear the murmur of conversation and there was something definitely off about that. "Doesn't look like much."

Because the last thing he remembered, Amy had the one that had gotten grabbed, not him, and no one would make the mistake of thinking he was Amy; they didn't look enough alike for that.

He cracked his eyes just barely to see the manacles at his wrists and the faintest scarring along the inside of his arm. He'd heard the story, he'd seen the recording of a small girl stepping between the Flash and Weather Wizard. The fractal scarring on her chest was deep and obvious, but the scarring on her arms had come from the same incident when she'd brought up her arms to shield herself. You wouldn't notice them if you weren't looking.

Which meant that the body he was wearing belonged to Amy.

She was going to fucking kill him.

"Good, you're awake." The woman stepped into the light and Dick couldn't help but stare. He remembered her from Cadmus, when they'd all broken in together. What was her name…oh!

"Dr. Spence," Dick spoke in Amy's voice, lifting his head and trying not to focus on how sensitive his skin felt -was that how Amy felt all the time? God, no wonder she was always so eager to hold hands with everyone-, rubbing his fingers together to see if it would help; it didn't. "You really know how to make a girl feel wanted." He gestured with his hands for emphasis.

"Let's just say you're a wildcard that I'm not interested in playing," the doctor said simply and Dick couldn't help but scowl. "Where's the hard drive you stole, Amara?"

Dick shrugged. "Get me out of these handcuffs and maybe you'll find out." Amy was always a big talker, even in bad situations. All bark and certainly all bite, she was always down to fight.

Then Dick realized there was a heaviness weighing down on his neck. "Oh, you've got to be kidding," he snarled. "An inhibitor collar? Really?"

Honestly, she probably shouldn't've bothered; no one had seen her use any of her meta-human powers in the past few months.

"Belle Reve has some of the classics, so to speak." Dr. Spence shrugged. "I need that hard drive back, Amara."

"Sold it," Dick grinned widely, "someone paid a lot of good money for that info."

Dr. Spence narrowed her eyes. "You're lying."

Dick arched an eyebrow. "Am I?" It wasn't like Dick knew either way. He hadn't even known that she'd broken into Cadmus again, let alone that Cadmus had found a way to track her from there. "How'd you know it was me anyways?"

Dr. Spence actually rolled her eyes at that. "Please. You left enough blood in the elevator that testing it wasn't an issue."

Dick's tongue went dry in his mouth. There's been a few days where no one had seen Amy because her dad had said she was sick. Wally would've known…and he'd never said anything about it. Dick was going to murder both of those cousins and it would be very well deserved.

"I thought Cadmus came under new management after the Blockbuster fiasco," Dick shifted the topic.

"It did." Dr. Spence didn't elaborate.

"I don't see Guardian around," Dick noticed, "so I'm guessing you're the one in charge now."

She'd saved Amy's life once, that much Dick knew. Amy had almost drowned when they'd all broken into Cadmus together, some kind of over-the-top stress test that Dick was pissed that Amy was so nonchalant about (she should be chalant, way chalant, but Amy had probably reached the point in her life where she straight up didn't give a fuck anymore). But she'd also been there the entirety of Amy's…creation and early life, he supposed.

At first, he thought Amy liked her, but Amy had frowned at that assumption.

"Her tests were more interesting and they hurt a lot less, that's all," she'd said about it. "I was never totally sure if she gave me to Mardon on purpose…she claimed she hadn't but…" Amy had shrugged, doubt still clear on her face. "She was always a fan of advancing science, no matter the cost."

Dick could feel a pain building at the base of his spine, sharp and like agony that was stretching down his legs…that couldn't be normal. But he thought about everything that Amy's body had been put through in the past few years…there was no way she could just bounce back from getting the Cave dropped on her.

There were a few dulled thuds and yells and Dr. Spence started, looking back.

Dick grinned. "Guess that's my friends kicking ass…and you're next."

The door suddenly exploded outwards and there was Artemis -or maybe not Artemis given Dick's present condition- standing there, bow in hand. "Make a move, lady, and I shoot," Artemis warned, "and believe me, my shooting isn't the best today, so I'm making up for it with more explosions."

Dick grinned widely.


"On a scale from one to ten…how screwed am I with Artemis?"

"Like a twelve," Amara told him, straightening her jacket and twisting her wrists. Even though she hadn't been the one tied down, not really, she could still feel the pressure from where the manacles had lain.

"Great," Dick muttered. "I knew it was going to bite me in the ass eventually."

Amara's lips curved upwards just slightly.

"Can I ask you something?"

Amara made a gesture with her hand to continue.

"Do you always…feel like that?" Dick asked slowly.

"Like what?" Amara frowned in confusion.

"Like…acutely sensitive to everything?" Dick rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Things had been pretty awkward since Zatanna had managed to get her counter-spell working, apologizing profusely for the unintentional mix-up. At least they weren't Conner and M'gann avoiding each other as much as possible, not that they hadn't been already.

Amara paused, looking down at her hands, rubbing them together nervously, but Dick knew now that that didn't help. "Some days more than others."

"And the pain?"

That made her freeze like she was carved out of ice. "Leave it alone, Grayson," she snapped suddenly, striding quickly away from him and towards the zeta-beam.

Dick was faintly stung.

"What happened?" M'gann asked in confusion.

"I…I have no idea," Dick admitted, none noticing how Raquel's eyes flicked towards Zatanna and narrowed.


"If you're not feeling up to it, we don't have to go."

"I'm fine!"

Amara arched an eyebrow, keeping her hands tucked into her pockets as the train came into the station. Smallvile, Kansas was very…rural. She knew that Clark Kent lived in Metropolis but somehow 'country boy' didn't seem like a word that applied to Superman…even guys like him had humble beginnings, she supposed.

"I just…I didn't sleep that well," Conner admitted, looking down at his hands.

Amara's face softened. "What was it about? If you want to tell me about it." She was no stranger to nightmares, and Conner was well aware of that; if he was ever awake late into the night, there were all the obvious signs that Amara was still awake and had been for quite some time.

"Being cold…frozen," Conner admitted, "and watching all my friends grow up around me, leaving me behind." And eyes a clear blue, bluer than the sky and a smile that stopped his breath.

Amara breathed in sharply, looking to him just as the train doors slid open and then he was getting up and moving past her to exit. She huffed, grabbing her purse and darting quickly after him, snagging his hand once she'd weaved through the thick throng of people. "Conner! Hey, stop!" She jerked his arm to get him to comply. "Are you worried that we'll abandon you because we might age faster than you? Because we won't, I promise."

"How d'you know?" Conner countered and Amara gave him a faint smile.

"Because we're friends, and even if we have to put you on ice for several years, for, I don't know, nearly dying or something, if that's something that could ever happen to you…I'd rather that than having to bury you, you know?" Amara implored, squeezing his hand for good measure. "We don't abandon our friends around here, and we definitely won't abandon you, I promise."

Her words were genuine, Conner knew that, but there was still something about his dream that put him off…like a doomsday getting steadily closer.

"I promise if you get put in a coma or something, I won't tell Wally you've got a mad crush on him," Amara added and Conner's cheeks burned bright red.

"Shut up!" He shoved her face away and Amara laughed loudly.

"Come on," she said with a wide grin, "we've gotta catch a ride and you don't have any money."

Conner grumbled loudly.


Conner knocked quietly on the door and it flew open to reveal a woman he'd never seen before. She was a woman with dark hair and eyes, dressed simply in worn jeans and a tucked plaid shirt.

"Hi!" the woman smiled broadly, "you must be Conner."

"Um," said Conner.

"Hi, Lois," Amara waved at his side, "I'm just here for moral support."

Lois smiled. "Amy. How's Barry and Iris?"

"Good…Mom's still annoyed that she hasn't gotten a Pulitzer yet to match you, though."

Lois laughed, opening the door a little wider to allow them inside. "She'll get one soon, I just know it. She's an excellent reporter."

Amara smiled before turning to Conner. "This is Lois Lane, she's Clark's wife."

"Oh." Well, that explained why she was in the house, he supposed. "Okay."

"You came!" The relieved surprise echoed through the foyer of the home and Clark Kent might've seemed larger than life as Superman, but as Clark Kent he seemed almost smaller. "I wasn't sure you would."

"Neither was I," Conner admitted.

Lois cast her eyes towards Amara. "Amy, why don't you and I go for a walk while the boys chat?"

Amara squeezed Conner's hand. "Do you need me here?" I can stay if you need me, went unsaid.

Conner thought for a long moment and he reminded her unbelievably of herself when she was debating asking Roy to stay the night when she'd first started living with Pam and Harley.

"Nah," he said at long last, "I'll be all right."

"Okay." Amara smiled. "I'll be outside…call if you need me." She leaned up to kiss his cheek. "And I'll call Robin to steal some Kryptonite if I have to."

That made Conner actually laugh, even though it would've hurt him too. And he waited until she'd disappeared out the door with Lois before turning to face the man who might've been considered his father.


"You're so fucking lucky that we're not at the Cave right now or you'd be a pile of guts on the ground," Artemis growled under her breath when Dick Grayson sat down opposite her at the lunch table.

"I figured," Dick muttered equally quietly, "Bruce figured out something wasn't right with me last night…you weren't very good at pretending to be me, apparently…Amy would've done a better job, or Wally…"

Artemis scowled deeply. "They know? What about the rest of the Team?"

"Bruce likes my identity to be on a need-to-know basis," Dick shrugged, "So, it's just them and, well, Roy."

Artemis tried not to be bitter about it…they were the original sidekicks, Storm Chaser, Robin, Kid Flash, and Speedy…ready to take on the world. And look what the life had done to them. Roy was missing and presumed dead after being coerced into bombing the Cave while Amy was still inside, Dick's parents were killed before he'd even started as Robin, Wally's had been only recently, and Amy…Amy's body could only take so much.

"Guess you and Amy really tell each other everything, huh?"

Dick turned pink, which was always amusing. "We don't tell each other everything."

Artemis gave him a look that he opted to ignore. "I guess you're the guy that Amy said had unbelievably pretty eyes that goes here, then?"

That turned his pink cheeks positively crimson. "I'm pretty she didn't say unbelievably."

"Uh-huh," Artemis smirked into her water bottle before frowning. "She and Zee are fighting a lot."

Dick sighed. "Yeah, it sucks when the person you're in love with is the reason you're so on edge about setting them off."

"Not really sure who's totally to blame with that one," Artemis conceded. "Zee says things that annoy Amy, Amy's pastime is literally being a thief and helping people when the law fails them…I feel like if you can't get over that stuff, your relationship's probably doomed."

"Probably," Dick muttered, trying not to think about how painful her spine had felt.

"Dick! There you are!" Barbara almost slammed down her tray of food, making the pair jump.

"Yeah, sorry for running off, Babs, I just had to tell Artemis something."

Barbara looked to Artemis, narrowing her eyes in confusion. "Artemis?"

Artemis waved for emphasis.

"She's the girlfriend of a friend," Dick offered helpfully.

"Babs, right?" Artemis asked and the girl nodded. "Sup. I guess you're the one that keeps Dick sane at school."

Barbara laughed. "Something like that."

"I'm pretty sure you're the one Amy called cute."

That made Barbara flush and Dick scowl. "Amy needs to stop flirting with all my friends."

Artemis sniggered. "I'll tell her when you do."

Like his heart didn't race when she flirted with him…what an idiot.

She just hoped Amy and Zee's impending breakup didn't go nuclear.


She didn't ask what they talked about and she didn't pry about it.

"I can zeta you some clothes if you're staying the night," she told him when he left the house to see Amara sitting on the porch steps, making polite conversation with Lois.

Conner crossed his arms. "I'm coming back tonight."

"Mm-hm?" Amara hummed doubtfully, earning her a glare that he didn't actually mean. "Did it go well?"

"Yeah, I…um, it went really well," Conner mumbled, scrubbing quickly at his eyes in case they started leaking.

It had been good for him, he wouldn't lie. After months upon months of feeling inadequate compared to Superman, feeling like he was lesser because he wasn't fully Kryptonian and didn't have access to all of Superman's abilities.

"I know this is a bit unconventional…but technically you are family…and we're related and…if that's something you want, you're welcome to it."

"I'm staying for dinner," he told her, faltering slightly, "apparently."

Amara smiled. "Sounds like it's going pretty well, then. Good, I won't have to shoot anyone."

Lois snorted and Clark arched an eyebrow where he was leaning against the doorframe.

"Amy," Clark coughed, "you know bullets bounce off me, right?"

"I'll just get one made of Kryptonite," Amara decided, unconcerned about the details and he choked on a cough.

Conner smiled. "I love you," he told her.

"I know," Amara grinned back. "Call if you need me, yeah?"

"Promise," he said, holding a pinkie out, an action that Wally taught him and Amara actually laughed.

"See ya around, Gene Pool." She gave him another hug and a kiss to his cheek before taking up Lois' offer to use of the Kents' zeta-tube in their barn, only glancing at her phone briefly to see a message from Raquel saying 'there's something I need to tell you. When can we meet?', frowning as she tucked it away.

Conner watched her go a bit bemused. "Amy's, um, a unique person," he muttered to Clark, who seemed remarkably unperturbed.

"I've heard the stories," Clark said with a fond twitch of his mouth.


"Hey, aren't you supposed to be in school?" Amara asked with a grin, sitting down outside the café that she'd been kidnapped outside of several days ago. Luckily, it looked like Dr. Spence and the Cadmus crew were going to spend a few months in prison, which wasn't much, but Amara would take it.

Raquel looked up from her phone seriously and Amara faltered slightly. "Mom thinks I'm sick. I have a few hours before she realizes I lied my ass off…unless I can manage to fake being asleep all day."

"Now I'm getting worried," Amara said slowly, sitting down opposite Raquel. "What's wrong? You look like something is seriously wrong."

Raquel interlocked her fingers, tapping them against each other. "You remember when Zatanna said she must've said the wrong spell and unintentionally body swapped us?"

Amara snorted. "Yeah." Explaining that to her parents had been a fun one. Barry had huffed and muttered "Magic," in the same way that Wally would and even though Amara hadn't technically been the one kidnapped and would she please be more careful next time? All her moms were getting just a touch exasperated, which Amara could relate to.

"She lied."

Amara blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"She lied, she did it on purpose," Raquel repeated, "I went to grab her for dinner and I saw her spellbook open."

Amara frowned, a bit lost. "Why would she lie?" Even if she'd been a testing a new spell, none of them would've blamed her for it.

"Look," Raquel sighed, "I don't know Zatanna as well as the rest of you…but I think there's something very wrong going on and I'm pretty sure it started the night we all went after that case that Cheshire had."

"But that was…" Amara paused. That was ages ago…and after… "She tried to come see me."

"Huh?" Raquel warbled in confusion.

"That night, she tried to come see me," Amara remembered, "but I'd gone off to see a friend, Richard, and she was always irritated afterwards when I mentioned him, I told her she didn't need to be jealous, it's not like I'm dating him, I'm dating her and I love her and—"

"Amy, focus and breathe," Raquel reminded her, dropping a hand on top of hers.

"Right." Amara sucked in a breath. "The next day she was so excited to show me these offensive spells she'd been looking into, powerful stuff that she hadn't done before and I remember…back before her father put on that helmet, she'd said that that kind of power took training, that it was more than just knowing the incantation…but she'd managed it overnight."

Raquel leaned back, scrubbing at her eyes. "I think a spell went wrong somehow. I think it's affected her and I think you know that something's been wrong for a while but you love her so you've been trying to grin and bear it and hope that it gets better."

Amara scowled at that. "She's -she's not abusing me or anything—!"

"Amy," Raquel said carefully, "you know better than anyone else that there's more to abuse than just physical."

Amara did know that…emotional abuse had been a large part of her childhood.

"I've got to go," she said suddenly, standing up quickly. "I'll, um, I'll see you later." And then she was practically lurching away from the entire conversation. She didn't look back, too afraid that she'd see pity in Raquel's eyes.


AN: Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man

Next chapter, guys…it's a doozy.

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