Author's Warning: You've probably played video games gorier than the medical textbooks I've read, but for the squeamish of stomach, beware! There be blood ahead.

Two - Artemis

I wake up to throbbing pain in my arm. Why is it nine times out of ten I wake up to pain?

I groan, coming to. My left arm feels like it's on fire. Then I remember that, oh yeah, things like this are bound to happen when you get hit by a car. I need to know how bad it is.

Gingerly, I try to move it but it feels restrained. I peek an eye open. It's…in a sling? I roll over onto my other shoulder to better take a look. That's when I spot Wally across the room.

"Wally!" I hiss loudly.

I push myself up on my good arm, my bad one sending a spike of pain through the left half of my body. I don't trust myself with standing up so I awkwardly shuffle over to him on my knees and one arm, trying my hardest not to move the bad one.

"Wally!" I shove him roughly, "Wall, wake up!" No reaction.

Smacking him doesn't help. Neither does insulting his mother. He's dead to the world and at least for now, I'm on my own.

I glance around: looks like we're in a rectangular crate. Flat metal panes decorate the walls and ceiling and the shape of a door stands out near the corner, with no handle.

I scoot to sit back against one of the steel walls to rest my arm. But when my back comes in contact with it, I jump away. It's warm, a little TOO warm. Like a microwave on a very low setting. My stomach drops with uneasiness but I steel my nerves and break down my situation like my training taught me.

Okay, so I was hit by a car. A car I didn't see because fury apparently DOES give you tunnel vision and once we get out of this, I'm blaming Wally for everything. But yeah, car. Wally caught me—…it's still his fault—then I blacked out. In a steel plated microwave room with him now. There's a door, but no handle. No other visible entry points. I grit my teeth as I tenderly poke at my bad arm. It's probably broken, at least fractured if I'm lucky. Seriously though what kinds of kidnappers give their victims medical attention?

I check my pockets for the collapsible crossbow I keep on hand at all times, but my pockets are empty, cleaned out of everything in them, including my wallet and weapons. Damn.

Finally, forever late as usual, Wally groans awake beside me.

"Rise and shine, princess," I say humorlessly. "Can't wait to tell you how screwed we are."

"Wazzit whozzit?" he grumbles incoherently, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. He looks to me, his eyes focusing. "You okay?"

I point to my sling arm and try to pretend I don't feel like a jerk that I was ready to rip him a new orifice and the first thing he asks me is if I'm okay.

He catches himself. "Well…that's what happens when you jaywalk in Star City! Cars hit you," he says smartly.

"And kidnap you?" I shoot back, hiding my small amount of relief. He didn't know that was Gotham. He didn't notice. Thank god for tunnel vision.

"Not so much a complimentary pair," he agrees, trying to get to his feet. Wally leans on the wall before I can get to words out to stop him.

He yelps and yanks his hand back. "Yeowch! Hot hot hot hot!"

I roll my eyes—force of habit—as he finishes getting to his feet, shaking out his hand. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get on my feet without support, but I'm not ready to ask Wally for it yet. Too busy still kicking myself for letting an entire car get the jump on me.

So I let him walk around a bit, investigating, though I doubt he'll catch anything I didn't spot already. Meanwhile, I timidly test out my bad shoulder. It feels like it's been dislocated and relocated within the last couple hours, ("Why isn't anything ever just located?") and it's one of the worst feelings in the world. It makes it feel like something's still wrong with that shoulder when there really isn't anymore.

"What do you got, Sherlock?" I ask.

"Looks like a storage container," he says, walking over to where the handle-less door is, "that someone tricked out, cut in half, and tossed on a Bunsen burner."

Huh. I hadn't considered that. "The floor isn't hot," I point out, feeling it. But it's soft, padded with rubber.

Wally does something weird. He puts his hands on his hips and takes a gulp of air. "Well the air's not too bad right now. But if it keeps going up, we might have to worry about suffocation."

"Lovely," I say, and take a gander at getting to my feet. My head spins and I almost stagger into the hot wall before Wally catches me. I glance up to say something but end up face level with his blood stained undershirt. My stomach summersaults. Was that mine?

Wally steadies me until I can stand without his direct support, then I ask, "So, got a plan?"

He just smirks. "Three."

"I got five," I counter. "Unfortunately, two of them involve us being armed in some way. You got anything on you?"

He lets go of me to turn his pockets inside out to my same results, complaining, "Oh man, they took my candy bars!"

A sound from outside interrupts me before I can rail on his prioritizing. Footsteps, heading our way. Wally and I exchange a look. Even though we can hardly go ten minutes without throwing some kind of jibe at each other on our down time, I can appreciate how Wally (usually) totally goes on the hero clock when the situation calls for it.

Without M'gann's telepathy, we read each other's minds. I take the right side of the door, Wally takes the left. We're both extra careful not to touch the walls. I ready my good hand to give the signal.

There's a sound of jangling keys and muted conversation until finally the lock clicks. I brace myself for the door to open, to swing and punch with one arm and make our daring escape. But it doesn't. Instead, there's a pause in the conversation.

Someone says, muffled, "Wait."

I exchange a quick look with Wally, confused. Then the shot blast rings out.

The acoustics of the crate make the sound agonizing. One arm isn't enough to cover both my ears and I'm scared I've gone deaf in the uncovered ear. But when the ringing tones out, I know I haven't because I can hear Wally screaming.

I open my eyes and for a second see him on the floor, clutching with both arms at his bleeding leg, before the door swings open at me and two men storm in.

I shake off the shock just in time to step back for a more wiggle room and punch the first guy, a smaller man, across the face with my good arm. A little skip forward while he's dazed, and I drive my knee into his solar plexus. He goes down.

"Now, now," the other starts, seemingly amused, "we wouldn't want anyone to get—"

Without stopping, I spin on my standing foot and hook kick Goon 2 in the temple. He crumples down too. I don't even stop to lament that I'd meant to hit his jaw and the cast arm threw me off balance.

My vision swirls but I dash over to Wally on the ground clutching his leg. The blood's running down his pants, soaking into his socks and sneakers and I fight to keep my poker face on as I try to find where the actual wound is, pressing my good hand to where he seems to be clutching.

So I'm not prepared when a real muscle grabs me in a one armed bear hug from behind. I thrash instinctively and kick at him as he lifts me off the floor, but he only has to flex once and the spike of pain in my arm is so sharp I'm sure the bone's going to split in two. The spots dance in front of my vision and I cry out, still kicking blindly, hoping something connects.

"Still kicking, sweetheart?" the muscle asks, his voice deep. "Very well. You'll be the only one."

I notice the gun in his other hand as he points it at Wally.

"NO—!"

The containment crate explodes with the blast again, but my ears are tuned on the frequency of Wally's agonized scream, watching in horror as his other knee explodes, the blood splattering onto his undershirt and the black floor.

"WALLY!" I hear myself screaming. "WALLY!"

"Now, will you come quietly, Ms. Crock?" He pulls back the hammer of the gun. "Or will we have to even out your boyfriend with a couple rounds to his shoulders as well?"

He's serious. I go limp in his arms, my eyes riveted to the growing pool of blood under Wally's tangled legs. I choke my screaming. Wally doesn't.

The man calls his goons and they stagger out the door, woozy, but I can't take my eyes off Wally, screaming and writhing on the floor as the muscle takes me from the room. I'm shaking hard trying not to make a sound.

Outside, he drops me on the ground. I have barely enough time to catch myself, forgetting momentarily that I don't have use of both my arms, before he grabs my good arm in a vice and starts dragging me towards a second crate. My training directs me. I get a short, limited glance of my environment through my distorted vision—a storage lot, a highway rumbling somewhere above us, a fence, a canal—before I'm inside the second crate, being shoved into a chair and handcuffed to it.

One of the hardest things to do in a situation like this is to think rationally when an ally's been hurt. I have to shut down the half of myself that isn't going to help—the part that can still hear Wally screaming from the other crate—and pull myself together.

They're setting up a video camera on a tripod three feet in front of me. I think through the adrenaline, turning it to my advantage like my father trained me, and all I hear in my head is Ms. Crock, Ms. Crock, Ms. Crock.

If they were gunning for superheroes, they should've called me Artemis. They should have done something to restrain Wally's superspeed. Did they really think he was just my boyfriend? Had they actually just shot Kid Flash in the kneecaps without knowing he had superpowers?

Ms. Crock. It clicks.

This has something to do with my father.

It's either ransom or payback. My dad had no doubt pissed off some non-superpowered thugs who thought I was daddy's defenseless little girl who they could kidnap and hold hostage. They didn't want to hurt me—that was obvious by the cast. Maybe they just wanted to send a message to my father and keep me in tact long enough for him to get it. But Wally…

Wrong place, wrong time. Now they had a nice chunk of collateral damage they could exploit against me.

But if they think I'm just Crock's little girl, then they've hugely underestimated me. Sometimes, underestimation is a stroke of luck. People are more likely to give out information if you let them boast about it rather than if you try to beat it out of them. Maybe playing the helpless/clueless card is my best shot here.

I put on my most terrified face—which at this point, isn't really that far of a cry for my acting skills—and ask in a shaky voice, "W-What do you want from me?"

The muscle man gets behind the video camera, smirking.

I try to choke down the vomit swirling in my stomach since I woke up and the wooziness throbbing in my temples. It doesn't help that I can still hear the crystal clear sound of Wally screaming.