A/N: There's not much spitfire in this chapter, but I added in a small part in the end which might be rushed and insignificant. So, shoot your criticisms at me!

I know I write for fun and because there's no other way for me to express my feels when it comes to Spitfire, but thanks to everyone who actually encourage me to post them online. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little babies and it means so much just to see email notifications :)

Thank you to:

Black Bat Girl, Gorgeous Chaos, Misa3000, MusicLoverBLD, NinjaBagel, ZeroV, ingrid, marinelife2299, spitfireforever, star-eye, Arrowlover17, doggybye, kateygirl7

PS: I recently went over to a friend's house and played Injustice League for the first time... Umm... IT'S SO COOL. I practically cried at seeing Flash (even though it's Barry Allen). It's holidays soon, so I will be writing more!

Chapter 5: Death

Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear,
To be we know not what, we know not where.-John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe

'What was death like?'

That had been the curve ball Black Canary had thrown Artemis during their therapy session in the aftermath of the simulation failure. Relieving, Artemis had found herself answering, almost willing herself to believe it. Rather peaceful, like I never existed in the world in the first place.

The older woman had merely raised an eyebrow at her mellow response, but Artemis had been adamant to keep her inner turmoil a secret. The truth was entirely too horrific to even think about for Artemis, let alone explain. Being dead had been complete nothingness, and that terrified the archer.

The stubborn blonde had always been a believer of the great adventure after death, and the fact that dying had been so easy- so completely unexpected- Artemis tried with much difficulty to keep the memories of the experience pressed deep down into her subconscious. In that one second she had been there, and the next, whilst she had not even realised what had happened, she had been nothing at all.

The darkness seemed to linger closer to her consciousness more than ever, and she felt the shadows deep within the recesses of her mind constantly coaxing itself out of its hiding place. She felt zombified, like she had somehow died and given the chance to resurrect, except death still kept her in its bony grasp and no matter how hard she tried to blink the dark spots in her vision away, they'd appear suddenly, and without notice.

For the first time in her life, Artemis Crock was frightened for her safety, for the risks that came with her job, and being only sixteen made her question whether her mother had been right all along. This was no life for a mere teenager, only she knew that once you were in, you'd never get out. That was what her life was entitled to, and fear or no fear, Artemis wasn't one to give up so easily.

But the archer knew she wasn't the only one mentally scarred. She knew her teammates had experienced worse horror than she had and constantly, Artemis felt at fault in their presence. After all, Martian Manhunter had said that it had been her death that had triggered M'gann's subconscious, and the archer felt that it was best to avoid the team for a while after the fiasco.

Everything had changed in the Cave since the simulation. Daily therapy sessions were required and though Artemis knew she wasn't really alright yet deep within her, she tried her best to keep her distance. She didn't want to remind them of the reason (or the person) why they'd been sucked into that hellish nightmare in the first place.

However, her attempts had been futile considering she had to attend Black Canary's little stare-down therapy every day, and she had only managed to avoid her teammates the first three days when she had unintentionally walked past the living room they'd been loitering in.

Superboy had caught her gaze with surprise and the archer had felt the need to escape from the pressing air of grief around them, but M'gann had spotted her from behind the kitchen counter and had given a strangled cry.

"Artemis!" She gasped, as if she was shocked to see her there with them- alive.

She offered the older girl a smile and knew from the tearful expression on her friend's face that she had succeeded more of a grimace instead.

M'gann's moist eyes took her in, and the archer had barely enough time to stand her ground before she was assaulted with a tight hug. "We missed you," M'gann murmured in a strained voice.

Artemis felt the back of her eyes itch and she patted the Martian's back gently. "Thanks, M'gann."

When the older girl had finally let her go, the room's ambiance was an edge lighter than before and there was even a small smile on Connor's face.

"And she's alive!" came Robin's attempt at a joke next to her and she allowed herself to crack a smile at him.

"Why the long faces?" She added, letting her eyes narrow with mock sympathy at her friends. "You all looked like someone died in here."

Robin forced a chuckle and M'gann offered a meek 'yeah' as the others all watched her with stoic expressions. If she hadn't been fighting thoughts of death in her mind, Artemis would've winced at her bad joke. Too soon.

Looking up, she couldn't help but notice the flash of orange that was leaning against the wall further away, and she craned her neck a little upwards to catch sight of the speedster, when he had disappeared from her sight as soon as he had appeared.

"What's the matter with Kid Moody?"

The Boy Wonder's mouth opened to answer her, but he had decided against it at the last moment, and he turned his head away from her to stare at the direction Wally had gone.

"Wally has some stuff to figure out at the moment... He took the brunt of everything harder than the rest of us," he replied, and Artemis did not miss the slight glance he had shot at her three remaining teammates.

The archer frowned, but said nothing. She didn't think Wally was the brood alone type, but then again, she hadn't expected Kid Flash to be such a Wally anyways.

"Is it rude for me to ask where you have been in the past few days?" Kaldur interjected, and her eyes whipped towards their team leader's serene silver eyes.

She swallowed, but managed to execute a nonchalant shrug before making a noncommittal sound. "Busy."

The Boy Wonder's eyes narrowed suspiciously under his mask- Artemis could only tell by the little crease between his eyebrows- and he approached her slowly. "You weren't avoiding us, were you?"

"Of course not," she replied swiftly.

Kaldur's clear gaze sized her up, and though he nodded and made his way to the hallway, he still gave her a worried look over his shoulder.

Robin soon followed him out, having to have another rebriefing with Batman, and he patted her arm gently before leaving. "You'll be here tomorrow, Artemis. Or... I'm telling Batman."

Though his words carried a threat she did not appreciate, his tone was light and airy, and she shrugged him off with a smirk. "Ooh, I'm terrified."

He cackled before saluting her goodbye. Then there were three, and with just her and the alien couple in the room, Artemis couldn't help but feel intrusive on their closeness. She had expected them to stare uncomfortably intensely at each other as they'd done so often before, but both were hovering around her, faces tight with nightmares that still haunted their thoughts.

Out of nowhere, Superboy marched towards her with his thick eyebrows furrowed and his clenched fists by his side. "Don't say anything you'll regret," he warned, and Artemis had been about to retort in his face when he turned around abruptly before storming out of the room.

The archer had turned to lift a questioning eyebrow at M'gann, but her gaze lowered when she realised that the Martian had plopped herself down onto the floor, her head between her knees. The archer noted her position in shock as she approached her, letting her hand rest on M'gann's arm gently.

"Hey, you okay?" she inquired.

The redhead lifted her head momentarily to send Artemis a grim and apologetic look that sent waves of guilt crashing over the latter. "I'm fine," M'gann whispered, before resting her chin on her knees again.

"Listen, I'm really sorry-"

"-no, forgive me, I-"

Both girls spoke at the same time as Artemis' mouth opened in surprise and she closed it, before hesitantly moving to sit down next to her friend, sharing whatever warmth she could still muster.

"Nobody blames you," Artemis reassured after a few moments of silence, as she gave her fingers a slight squeeze.

"But-" M'gann's breath rattled through her lungs, and she looked up at Artemis with liquid pooling in her eyes. "You should. You died... Hello, M'gann!" Her low, hollow laugh reverberated through the empty room. "It was my fault. You were in a coma. Even you thought you were dead, and it was all my fault and-"

The archer shook her head adamantly, and for the first time since she joined the Team, she enveloped M'gann's fragile frame in a crushing hug. "I shouldn't have died. I started the whole nightmare," she admitted aloud, expecting the Martian's body to freeze in her arms and push her away, but the Martian only held onto her tighter.

"That's silly, Artemis. I've never heard anyone on Earth apologise for death," came the muffled voice against Artemis' shoulder. "Is this why you've been avoiding us?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" She asked, slightly miffed despite it being the truth.

"You ran away from us after you'd woken up."

Artemis grimaced as memories from that night filtered through her mind. She'd remembered how disorientated she'd been, how lost and frightened, thinking she'd slept for a millennia instead of the twenty minutes they had told her. Then, the short briefing arrived and the fact that she'd been the one to trigger what was only natural for the Martian... It had been entirely her fault. She had been too careless. To think, she had been the first to trip up in the mission- a simulation nonetheless- and it had been a failure that had impacted the others more than she'd wanted it to.

"Just don't hide from us anymore, okay?" M'gann requested as she pulled away from Artemis with a soft, shaky smile on her face. "I think we all need to see your face for a while around here. Especially Wally."

The speedster's name snapped Artemis from her thoughts and she voiced the question that had been plaguing her since their earlier meeting. "What exactly happened to Wally in there?"

M'gann winced and averted her gaze to the tiled, grey floor. "Same thing that happened to all of us: you died."

It had been nearly a week of therapy sessions when Artemis had had enough. Especially since her superhero therapist had hit a nerve in their most recent session.

The words had tumbled out of the archer's lips before she'd even realised. "Can you even imagine what Wally would think?"

Like she even cared what the linguistically challenged idiot thought. Thinking about the redhead riled her up even more, and she wanted nothing else but to hunt down the speedster and scream profanities at him, except nowadays the archer barely saw him. She had been showing up at the Cave more recently, though she never saw Wally except for the telltale blaze of his orange hair skulking around corners.

And even if she did conveniently find him, he would never show her anything more than one of his disturbing forced smiles.

Artemis snorted, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. She had thought Wally had been bad after Kent Nelson's death, but Wally seemed even more distant now than he did then. There was something inside of her that was clawing its way out- sympathy perhaps, or worry- but whatever it was, she would keep it to herself and prove Black Canary wrong. She was Artemis Crock, and she did not care about what a snivelling, nerdy little redhead thought about her.

Only the redheaded, insufferable moron gave her every reason to worry about his wellbeing. His behaviour was no longer predictable; it was completely erratic, and Artemis couldn't remember the last time she had caught the speedster near the fridge or stealing one of M'gann's cookies.
He was sometimes easily annoyed at her, or sometimes bizarrely cordial, and he had given Artemis major whiplash during a recent mission a couple days ago.

In the middle of combat, she had whipped around, arrow loaded to shoot whoever it was behind her, only to find an unconscious body and a flash of yellow and red.

"I thought we'd settled this," she had huffed, letting the foam arrow fly towards the feet of another villain not far away. "I can handle myself, Wally."

There hadn't been a reply, and she had given the speedster a brief glance to find that he had been hovering around her, tackling down the further ones that were approaching her.

Although preoccupied, Artemis had glanced at his blurred silhouette frequently throughout the battle. As she took down all the ones closer to her, she had stopped to glare at the yellow shadow that was still circling her.

Annoyed, she had taken a trick arrow and shot it a few feet away from Wally, and waited as it hit the ground just as he stepped into its vicinity. The arrow exploded, but Artemis had already predicted that he'd be faster as he jumped out of its range.

"Are you trying to kill me?" He'd turned towards her, the most riled up she'd seen in a week. Distracted by his anger towards her, Wally hadn't noticed the threat behind him and with a roll of her eyes, Artemis had shot one of her arrows at the oncoming villain.

Yelping, he'd ducked, but soon realised that he had not been the target. That hadn't stopped him from rounding on her though, and as soon as Artemis had reloaded her bow, he had been directly in front of her, his green eyes as scorching as a forest fire.

"Do you have a problem?" He'd half-yelled into her face.

Irritated at the fact that he'd taken her shots, then accused her of trying to kill him when he hadn't been listening to what she'd been saying, and then having the gall to say that she was the one with the problem, Artemis leaned forward, refusing to back down.

"Yeah, I have a problem with you!"

"You're so-"

"-like you're any better-"

"-not even grateful-"

"-should I be?" She demanded as he faltered. "I'm not some delicate little girl, Wally. I can take care of myself. Don't you dare look down on me."

"I- you- I'm not!" He spluttered, before he averted his eyes to the sky in an exasperated yet exhausted manner. "Is trying to keep you alive such a bad thing? Well, I'm sorry, Little Miss Capable." Wally's chest rose with every breath, and Artemis' eyes had been wide when his words had finally registered.

The archer had known that her teammates had been impacted by her supposed death, but out of all of them, she hadn't expected Wally to be so deeply affected. She had been- and still was sort of touched- but she'd never tell him that and it still didn't change the fact that he was being annoying. Protection, she snorted. He was no Superman- or boy.

She had taken a step closer to shove his chest roughly. "Like I said, I can take care of myself. And why should you care? As soon as I'm gone, your little arrow buddy will be here to replace me. Just stay away from my shots, Wally. Or you'll be the one that needs saving." She nocked an arrow in her bow for emphasis.

He had scowled, but the fire in his eyes was doused, and he had that guarded look on his face again, the one he'd been wearing the whole entire week, the one that was beginning to replace his carefree, friendly grin and masked his bright, viridescent eyes.

Artemis frowned when she saw his grim expression. Frankly speaking, she actually missed the old Wally.

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