Dick

Artemis walks into the gym on a week in March when the days blur together, and he knows that it is the end of something even before her eyes manage to meet his own. Something soft inside him clenches, and he wonders how many of those vulnerable places he has left, how many he has managed to root out over the years without a thought.

"You cut your hair."

It's an obvious thing to say, and he can tell by the twist of Artemis' mouth it isn't the first time she's heard the comment today. His mind blanks of a witty statement, some biting compliment that would make her blush and turn angrily away. Or maybe she's too old to be embarrassed by him now. She looks so adult, so distant, still wearing slacks and blouse for her on-campus job, her yellow hair hanging down just past her shoulders.

"Yeah. I thought it was time for a change. Look, Dick—"

She cuts herself off, the words rushing out too fast, and plays idly with the bracelet on her long wrist. It's gaudy, a late Valentine's Day present from Wally, little yellow and pink enameled hearts set in gold. He remembers her confiding how much she hated it during a stakeout in Gotham, but that she couldn't bring herself to make Wally take it back. Telling Dick it was like couple insurance, and at least he had managed to get her something this year, even a couple days late.

Artemis clears her throat, and his eyes snap back to her face, the steely determination in her dark eyes.

"Wally wanted to wait and tell you with the team, I think he's worried you're going to try to talk us out of it, or be mad or something, but I thought. You deserve to know first. We're leaving the team."

She lets it hang there for a moment, taking a breath. Dick is surprised at how surprised he is, how unprepared he was for this whole encounter. Though really, wasn't it an inevitability? People leave; they move on, they grow apart.

They die.

That's the way the world works, especially for people like them.

Dick is still so used to keeping tabs on his teammates, to knowing almost instinctively the smaller happenings of their lives. When he was Robin it was second nature, the hacking and snooping, the prying into things and places he didn't technically belong. It was just being prepared, one small aspect of the values Bruce drilled into him since he was nine years old. It was being ready, knowing his team's strengths and weaknesses for the day when he would finally lead.

But being the leader, it's more than he could have imagined, more than he prepared for. Being a hero has always been a part of his life, but now he doesn't seem to have a life outside of it. Between planning and organizing missions, searching out and training new recruits, monitoring the situation with Kaldur while keeping his plans hidden from the Justice League, and patrolling his new set-up in Blüdhaven, he hardly has enough time to sleep, let alone keep up with the personal lives of the team.

Dick knows Gar's history with his mother and Queen Bee, enough to know what assignments he should and shouldn't be on. He knows Zee and Raquel are happy working with the League, and that they'll give him inside info if he really presses them. He knows Connor and M'gann have been fighting lately, though not over what. He knows Artemis and Wally have been gone often for the last few months, for one reason or another. But they've had college, and Dick seems to remember Artemis' mom was sick a while back, and he put it down to the adjustments they have all had to make in recent years. Not this.

"You're quitting."

It's not a question, and he's surprised at how normal he sounds, almost bored. Artemis lets out another breath, and she looks relieved at how well he's taking this. Is he taking this well?

"Wally likes to say we're retiring, though that makes us sound kind of ancient," she laughs nervously, and when he doesn't respond she rushes on, "It's just, with school, and work and everything. And Wally worries, well you know. How it is."

Artemis trails off lamely, and now she's avoiding his eyes again. He thinks of letting the silence hang, of walking off without a word. He wonders what she would do if he asked her to stay. He thinks in a hot rush of kissing her, of taking the words she has spilled back inside him until she forgets that she had ever meant to leave. But he doesn't, and he won't.

"Yeah. I know how it is."