YJ- A Shot in the Dark (part 11)
LuthorCorp was mostly dark and almost entirely quiet save for the rapid clicking of fingers dancing across a keyboard. But that was all to be expected. Lex Luthor might have been considered a villain by most, but he definitely didn't want to pay overtime for keeping his employees late. So it was quite the norm, when he was in the building, to find him in his office long into the hours of the night without anyone else around.
The only surprise tonight was his visitor.
"What are you giving him?"
Surprise wasn't a common reaction for him. He was one of those men who planned for every possibility, was ready at the slightest shake-up, could keep one step ahead of superheroes on a daily basis. But there were scarce few, if any, who could prepare themselves for the Bat.
"Batman," the CEO drawled, trying to cover his initial alarm by leaning back comfortably in his chair as he swivelled to face the man in the shadows. "Its usually your brawnish friend accosting me," he commented offhandedly. "To what do I owe the displeasure?"
"Deathstroke," Batman growled. "What are you giving him to track down Artemis Crock?"
Luthor's eyebrows rose at the question, surprised again before his lips curled into sinister smirk. "Artemis Crock," he repeated airily. "How strange that you'd think I have any interest in her."
Batman's expression darkened as he took another step forward. "How much?"
"Not as much as I would pay him for Superman," Lex said vaguely with his sinister smile growing ever so slightly, though he did seem to tense. "But enough that he'll be happy for quite a while."
"If any harm comes to that girl," Batman leveled. "I'll-."
"You'll what?" Luthor quipped, fully used to these sorts of threats. Even if it was coming from Batman.
"Leave her alone," Batman ground out again. "She's just a-."
"A what?" Luthor cut in. "A child? Is that how you still see them? Don't want us to hurt your precious kids?"
Batman tensed at the biting remarks, though the CEO didn't seem to notice as he scoffed from behind the desk.
"You're the one who brought sidekicks into this game, Batman," he pointed out. "You should've known that once they got a taste of it, they'd never leave it. And neither would we."
"She's out of the business," Batman countered.
At that, Luthor laughed. "I'm fairly sure given her heritage, we both know that will never be entirely true."
"Call off the hit," Batman growled.
"Mm, tempting as that is, no can do, Batman," Luthor replied. "Even if I did pull out my share, due to a sudden concern for Miss Crock's welfare, there are others in on that with just as much financial backing and much further out of your reach."
"My reach extends pretty far," Batman commented.
Lex regarded him for a moment, but he couldn't doubt that. If nothing else, he was speaking to one of the few heroes who actually did have resources at his disposal. He was second to possibly only his eldest protégé. That one could sink the world if he chose to call in his connections and debts. Such wasted potential.
"I appreciate your determination," Luthor assured him. "Were you in a more... lucrative business, I'd almost be worried. But as it stands, I don't even know where Slade Wilson is these days. I haven't seen him since the world's polar gravity was thrown off."
"And somehow I doubt that," Batman informed him.
"Doubt me all you want," Luthor said with a shrug. "And you're welcome to check my company's security footage. But, if I'm not mistaken, Miss Crock is already with the assassin and probably has very little time left."
.- .- .
Artemis lurched awake. The cold water might as well have been acid for how much it stung, but it almost warmed to her body temperature as the last drops trickled down. Which made her very aware that her coat was missing and that she was in serious pain, as well as tied to a chair.
Leering at her, his mask gone and arms folded as he leaned on some nondescript metal table just beyond the edge of what light source she was under, was Slade Wilson. "Welcome back to the land of the living, princess. Had a nice nap?"
She glared at him.
"I could almost thank you," he told her, giving a dark chortle as he pushed off from the table to meander around the room. "I had so many thoughts on how to kill you, but Luthor's resources are so much more... plentiful."
"Luthor?" Artemis rasped, looking at the assassin in confusion as she tried to follow him. Nothing in the darkness was coming into focus yet and the glint from the orange of Deathstroke's uniform wasn't helping her eyes register anything past the circle he was walking.
"Of course," Slade said, looking at her over his shoulder with a sick smirk. "Who did you think would own a warehouse this large just outside Smallville?"
It was a good question, but the answer could have been thousands of different CEO's. Hell, Bruce Wayne could've owned something out here for all she knew! But now it was just garishly obvious. She'd dealt herself an even less likely chance of surviving.
"Don't look so discouraged," he comforted. "I'd forgotten about this place too, but-judging by the state of the fence surrounding the property-I'd say everyone else has too. What fun we'll have together..."
She tried to ignore him, letting her gaze wander around the shadowy room in hopes of gaining any sort of idea as to where she was as her eyes adjusted to the theatrical lighting. But nothing seemed to be helping. There were old canisters that might have held Hydrogen or CO2 at some point, maybe still did, lined up against the wall to her left. There was a skylight up above. It might have been a whole ceiling of glass for all she could tell, but the snow on top of it made any hope of light escaping impossible. There'd be no way that Wally would know she was in there unless it miraculously melted enough to act like a beacon.
The thought made her pause. A beacon. Her vest. The tracking chip! Dick had told her that there'd be a tracking chip in the collar. Why hadn't she thought of it before?
In the next second, her heart dropped to her stomach.
There was no fabric behind her neck. No sign of the carefully crafted vest that was meant to save her life. She was dead in the water with Slade circling for the kill.
Of the one eye she could see, Deathstroke seemed to pick up on her realization and he cast her a superior smirk. "Missing something?" he asked, holding up one of her throwing knives. "An arrow, perhaps? Nightwing definitely out-did himself for you, didn't he?"
She narrowed her gaze at him, but he just chortled at the glare before letting the blade fly. Artemis winced, holding back a scream, as she felt the smooth metal graze her neck before it embedded itself somewhere behind her. A wall perhaps.
"You know, I shouldn't have been surprised that they'd put a tracker on you," Deathstroke continued, holding up a small crushed electronic device as though he was examining it. Artemis scowled though her heart started racing, Slade had too much dramatic flare for her tastes sometimes. "Nightwing's always been so... resourceful that way. One of the few traits I don't think I'll rub out of him."
"Go to hell," Artemis snapped. Nightwing might have been a hero in his own right, but Dick was still her little brother, as far as she was concerned, and there was no way she'd willingly let this monster near him. "What does he matter to you? You've already got me. I doubt whoever sent you wants him too."
Deathstroke regarded her for a moment before his chilling laugh filled the space. "Oh you're right," he informed her. "They don't want him. Or you anymore, actually."
Artemis blinked. "Then why am I here? If they called off the hit, then-."
"Just because their interest in you stopped, doesn't mean mine has," Slade snapped. "When they first ordered the hit on you, I was more than happy to accept for personal reasons. Which I'm sure you remember."
"Sure, you, me, Black Manta," she drawled, subconsciously drawing inspiration from Wally's futuristic cousin. "Good times."
"Indeed," Slade commented before he started to stroll around her chair. "But imagine my delight when I found out who exactly you're tied to."
"Sportsmaster and Cheshire," Artemis snarled, trying to give him an incredulous look. "You're after other assassins?"
"Of course not," Slade scoffed, coming back into view again as he went on yet another lap around. "If I wanted to hurt them, I'd go direct. They've made it more than clear that they don't care about you."
"Gee, thanks," Artemis muttered as he passed her shoulder again.
"But," he added lowly, slowing his step and she could feel him leaning closer to her ear. "There are others who do. And you seem to be the perfect linchpin for me to... eh.. kill more than one bird with a stone, as it were."
Artemis swivelled her head towards him as best she could. He was smirking, he had to be smirking under that mask and she glared at him. "What are you talking about?"
He chuckled, seeming to shake his head in amusement, but fast as a blink he'd straddled her chair and taken hold of her jaw, squeezing hard enough that she was sure there'd be bruising. If there wasn't already.
"Don't pretend you weren't part of why I was cut from the light's inner circle," he growled. "But that and even your mentor are almost small matters compared to Grayson."
She stared at him in absolute horror. Slade knows Nightwing's name?
"Oh yes," Deathstroke hissed, then let out a laugh that made her cringe. "I know all about the boy who used to be Robin. And before I'm done with him, he'll be begging for death! What better way to start than with the girl who became his first sister? Just imagine the torment he'll feel knowing that it's his fault for putting you to death-again. That he'll be putting that idiot Oliver Queen through the pain of losing you-this time for good!"
Terror building inside her, Artemis reacted in a way that she was fairly sure would hurt her more than him. She spit in his face.
Slade released her, shoving her face to the side as he moved away from her. Artemis could only stare at the dark wall across the expanse. Nightwing was in danger. Grave danger. And she was being used to bring him down.
The responding blow hit her not a moment later, knocking the breath out of her as she curled forward despite the pain in arms. And just as strong as the physical punch, came another recognition of what he'd said.
"Oliver?" she gasped.
"Yes," Deathstroke sneered, circling her chair. "Rich boy Oliver Queen-I knew your mentor before he even knew how to fight. There isn't a thing he knows how to do that I didn't know first!"
Artemis glared at him. "He knows more than you."
Wrong thing to say to a man who wants to, can, and probably will kill you. But, all things considered, she never could go down without swinging. Even if it was a stupid idea.
Granted, even if her taunts couldn't do anything physically, he could return it that way. And he did. There had been the briefest of seconds after the words had left her mouth, but it might as well have been five minutes for how long she'd been anticipating the next hit. She'd hoped that psyching herself up for it would make the blow hurt less. This was definitely not the case and she couldn't stop the scream that tore itself from her lungs as pain seared through her shoulder.
"How tragic," Deathstroke sneered, leaning down close to her face. "Even if you did somehow make it out of this, it doesn't look as though you'd shoot again. Guess you'd have had to find some other reason for the Robin Hood wannabe to keep you around."
The fact sent the strongest spike of fear yet down Artemis's spine. He walked away from her again, smirking as he left the large room, and Artemis stared after him. He knew. He'd read her like a book when no one else had been able to in more than four years. Somehow he knew the exact thing to say-to do-to knock down half her want to survive.
She'd never told them, the boys, that she'd always kept it as a back-burner hope to keep fighting the good fight way into her fifties or later. Like Jay Garrick. Meeting him just before she and Wally dropped the team to go to college had been something of a reassuring relief. Just to feel like she could still be worthy of the man who'd become her uncle, of her friends.
Of Wally.
It was as if she could feel her will shattering and suddenly she didn't care about being strong. With a shuttering breath, she started to cry.
A/N: Okay, this was going to be longer, but I'm currently in panic mode due to some issues involving family members. Hopefully the next chunk'll be up soon, though! I'm kinda drawing from all sorts of influence at this point (which, I'm sure you've guessed) and I hope it all meshes... Well, enjoy! And thank you all so much for your feedback! I love you all!