Chapter 10
Dick Grayson pushed his chair away from the large antique dining table he sat alone at, completely stuffed. "Alfred that was amazing. The best Chicken Parmesan this side of Italy. It was just like I remembered."
"I'm pleased you enjoyed it Master Richard I will pass your appreciation off to the kitchen staff."
"I thought you said it was your special recipe?" Dick questioned.
"Master Richard, I also told you the tooth fairy was the one bringing you the gold dollars. Sometimes it's more important to enjoy the sausage instead of questioning how they're made," the old Englishman said with a smirk.
"Good point."
Dick had been back at the manor for only a day and already it felt as if he never left. The old wood smell of the mansion instantly took him back to the days of excitement and wonderment of his youth, when fighting crime was a game, when it used to be fun. Instead of looking back in regret at the trials and tribulations of the last few years, he allowed himself to just enjoy being back, being 10 years old again. Being home.
"So what do you have in store tonight Alfred? Up for some billiards, darts maybe?"
"Master Richard had I known earlier of your arrival I would have cleared my schedule, but as it is I happen to have my Bridge Club this evening."
Dick eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the butler.
"You don't play Bridge."
"Fine. Poker. Texas Hold'em I believe. Several of the staff and I play once a month, you're welcome to join us if you wish."
"No that's ok Alfred, I wouldn't want to take your money."
"I appreciate your thoughtfulness Master Richard, "he answered dryly.
"What will you do with yourself this evening?" Alfred retuned the question.
Dick looked out the window, watching the bright moonlight illuminate the manicured grounds of the manor. It was a crime to stay inside on a night like this, but no costumes this evening, no capes, no crime fighting, no Nightwing.
"Well Bruce has that thing in Gotham tonight, so I was thinking about maybe watching a movie, turning in early, but it seems too nice a night to stay inside, maybe I'll go for a drive, it's been a long time since I drove a car. Maybe I'll get out on the road, clear my head, wind in my hair, smell the ocean breeze, and all the other clichés that go with it."
"Very good sir."
"So where does Bruce keep the keys to the Benz?" he grinned.
xxx
Tigress sat perched on top of the Bank of America Tower, directly across from the Ritz for the next hour. Before she came out of the bathroom armed, she had already successfully cloned Faden's SIM card and cracked the cellular network. His phone was now her phone. All the truths he spilled under duress, fearing his impending castration had been true, all except one. Falcone and his family had recently moved out of the 5000 square foot palatial mansion out east, and had settled into one of the more isolated islands of the Port Harbor region of upstate New York, a very secluded and obviously well-guarded region for his new base of operations. Well away from the glaring eye of Gotham, but only an hour helicopter ride to most of his criminal enterprises. No wonder their paths had not crossed. After the judge called to warn his benefactor, the GPS signal confirmed the mob bosses location, and Tigress practically salivated in satisfaction. Faden did exactly what was expected of him, and his time would be coming soon for his betrayal, but Falcone first.
Artemis retrieved the bag she had left on the building, changed, and made her way to the streets. The roads were crowded and it would be a slow ride home, but it didn't matter. The last piece of the puzzle was in place. She could take a deep breath now, the end was near.
She rested her head on the window of the Yellow Cab and her mind drifted to the man waiting for her back at home. The end was really within her grasp and Tigress allowed Artemis a brief moment of silence to dream, to imagine the road ahead, but she couldn't go forward without looking back.
xxx
Tula died in Kaldur's arms. If there was ever such a thing as a beautiful death, that's exactly what Dick and Wally witnessed on Santa Prisca. Her wounds were too severe. Despite Wally's pleas, she would never have survived the trip. Wally could be incredibly gentle when he had to be, but carrying her for medical attention at supersonic speeds over large bodies of water would have been too traumatic. She would never have survived it, and they both knew it.
Kaldur held his love tenderly as they spoke, barely above a whisper, to each other in their private Atlantean dialect. It was almost a song, and she held onto to Kaldur as long as she could, weakly singing along when she could calm the cough that was spilling blood from her internal injuries. The noble Atlantean refused to let the girl he loved more than life itself leave this world in chaos, instead he held her gently, quietly in his loving arms. Soon her breathing stopped and he cradled her for hours until the Bioship finally arrived. The remaining team ran from the ship, but Nightwing waved them off, not allowing anything to ruin the solemn moment. Aqualad carried her quietly into the ship, tears rolling from his face, silent. He did not speak again for days.
It had been a beautiful funeral.
Several weeks later the team gathered at the mountain for the ceremony of Tula's holographic monument being placed in the Memorial of the Fallen. It was a bittersweet reunion as Tula's marker joined those of Jason Todd and Ted Kord. It represented heroism and bravery at its finest, but to Wally it signified a loss he would never be able to accept or live with.
Dick Grayson left shortly after the monument was activated. He never spoke to anyone and snuck out as silently as he arrived. Tula represented another loss of life that was mounting up quickly. It had not been that long since Dick stood at the same exact spot, watching another holo-generator come to life with an image of someone close to him, someone who'd been under his command, another member of his family. It was too much.
The Justice League held a private service later that evening, ending with King Arthur and Queen Mera speaking briefly, then taking Kaldur back home, to grieve with his family privately. Most everyone stayed at the cave that night, staying up late telling stories and kind remembrances of their fallen friend and teammate.
Despite living in California, Artemis and Wally kept a room at Mt. Justice, just for long missions or social gatherings. Garfield had eagerly taken Wally's old room, and since they were a couple of long standing, no Leaguer ever commented on the fact that they would share a room together, her room to be exact.
Artemis woke up late that evening and the bed was empty, she didn't have to guess where her warm companion had wandered off to. She walked the beach about a half mile when she found Wally sitting on the wharf, staring out to the stars.
She silently sat own beside him, wrapping them both in the blanket she brought. It was a stupid question given the circumstances, but she asked it anyway.
"Babe what's wrong?"
"I didn't wake you did I?"
"No. Talk to me babe."
"Just can't sleep that's all," Wally answered.
"That not all," she countered.
"I'm just worried about Dick."
"He hasn't called?" she asked worriedly. Dick and Wally spoke or texted almost daily. Sometimes about missions, sometimes about absolutely stupid things, boys will be boys no matter what their age.
"No. I probably just need to go see him; as far as I know he didn't speak to anyone at the memorial either."
"He needs time," she said, tracing her fingers delicately up and down his muscular arms.
"I know, but his my best friend. I need to do something. No one's lost like him, his parents, Jason, Tula. He can't take anymore, he just can't." Wally trailed off, clearing his throat to cover the cracking in his voice.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his neck, snuggling into him as close as she could.
"Death's never easy, I...I saw a lot of it growing up, just not ...not from this side of it, the ones left behind," she spoke uneasily but without fear, Wally never judged her past, he knew how far she'd come.
"I just want to be there for him, he doesn't need to be alone, I get so worried, he'll become like ….you know."
"Bruce," she finished. "I know babe."
Wally reeled around. She could still see his nervousness in the pale moonlight. "Can I ask you a question?"
She put her thumb to his cheek, lightly tracing his few remaining freckles. "Anything."
"Where do you see us going? You know as a couple?"
Artemis paused for a moment. "That's a hard question, but the short answer is I want to be where you are."
She was hoping that answer would calm him, but it did not have the desired effect. She knew she never wanted to be with anyone else, but both were way too young and had too much schooling ahead to talk about a more formal arrangement, at least not yet.
"What if I...wasn't here, if I left. Would you come with me?"
"Leaving school?" she asked, unsure where it was going.
"I mean...leaving the team."
"Because of Tula?"
"Because of you." he said with a sincerity most people rarely witnessed outside of her.
"Wally you're scaring me babe."
"I just keep imagining that was you, that was you I was holding on Santa Prisca, you in my arms dyi…,"he swallowed hard unable to finish the word.
He rose to his feet, a small bit of claustrophobia enveloping him from Artemis's firm hold. This was not a comfortable subject for him by any means.
"I've never been in love before Artemis, not real love anyway. My heart huts when I think about all the times you were hurt, before you even joined the team, I think about all the times I've almost lost you, all the pain and sadness I've caused." He wiped the dampness from his eyes and looked down at her. "My day starts and ends with you. You're my sunrise and sunset."
She stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, god she loved that boy. "I get sick to my stomach when I lose you on the com channel, when you speed ahead and leave us mere mortals in the dust. You're my sunset too you know."
"I ...I've been thinking about this for a while, but I was too scared to say anything." He hesitated, he was nervous, this was a game changer. "I want us to leave...leave the team, leave the life."
Artemis wasn't shocked, but not surprised, not really. Ever since he'd spent those nights in the infirmary three months ago after he'd been shot, she'd spent the night at his bedside holding his hand, making promises to deities she no longer believed in for him to be alright. This had been a long time coming.
He had shown her more love, more compassion and respect in two years than she had known in a lifetime. If Artemis had known how head over heels in love she would be with him, she would have smacked that scrawny redhead the first time he laid a cheesy line on Megan and drug him to a supply closet and kissed him to oblivion. He was her everything. Relationships when you were a superhero aged like dog years, they had to in a life that moved as fast and dangerous as it did for them. It seemed like they'd been together for years, and he was the best mistake she'd ever made.
"Wally..." she interrupted to no avail.
"Not forever, but at least till we finish school, maybe grad school. Then we can decide. I know how much this life means to you, how much amends you feel you need to make, but I..."
He never finished, she never let him. Her lips met his and she held on for dear life. When she finally broke it off, she brought her forehead to his. "This life does mean a lot to me, but you mean more."
"You deserve a normal life Artemis, more than anyone I've ever known. You deserve to be happy. I just want us to get away from all this so you can be."
"I am happy. You make me happy. Let's go inside and figure what we're going to tell everybody."
"Is that a yes then?"
"That's a yes Baywatch."
Despite the dim light, she swore his eyes grew greener, and her body grew warmer. Within minutes she knew it was right the right decision.
xxx
Deathstroke pulled the blade from Wally's chest skillfully. The wound wasn't meant to be deadly; it was mean to stop a speedster in his tracks. The blade entered the chest cavity, breaking a rib, slicing into capillaries, but most importantly puncturing and collapsing his right lung. You couldn't run if you couldn't breathe. Without proper medical attention Wally would soon be dead, but that was the plan all along, just on a slightly different timetable.
Slade grabbed Wally by the neck and easily tossed him over the stone retaining wall that spilt Gotham Park West from the adjoining streets and sidewalks, giving them a measure of privacy away from prying eyes. The speedster's limp body hit the ground with a sickening thud. Within moments what had been a casually dressed older man became an orange and blue steel booted mercenary.
"Who"….the speedster wheezed, unable to inhale enough air to speak, let alone breathe, "are you?"
"I know we've never been formally introduced, but I would have thought you'd remember me, no matter. I'm Deathstroke and you can imagine what I do."
Wally clutched his chest protecting the wound as air and blood escaped Slade's incision. He tried to speak, to ask questions, anything to stall him, but nothing would come out.
"Betrayal is a pet peeve of mine, and after I discovered Tigress's true identity, I've been trying to arrange a face to face to discuss the matter. Your girlfriend is not retuning my calls so to speak, so I'm sending her another message….you."
Slade stood up a sheathed his sword. He raised his arms above his head and stretched, a sonic cascade of knuckles and joints cracking following after.
"Tigress was an excellent pupil. With proper training, away from that oaf Sportsmaster, she might have ended up in an elite class of assassin, rivaled only by myself and possibly one or two others. Instead she betrays me, the Reach are defeated , and those fools in The Light climb back into their holes like sewer rats, and well… you know the rest."
"But enough about me, how've you been kid? Keeping a low profile I see. When you sit in a holding cell with only CNN as your companion, you get a chance to relax, catch up on the little things, like how a teammate of the women who betrayed you suddenly becomes almost a foot and a half shorter. I'll give your doppelganger credit, he does look like you. I can't believe I'm the only one who notices these things."
Wally tried to crawl away, his tan t-shirt slowly turning crimson, while Slade went on with his monologue, but he barely made it two feet before a powerful hand gripped his ankle and flipped him around like a rag doll, knocking what little breath he had out of him.
"Kid, that was rude. I was talking to you."
"Anyway the long and short of it is, she needs to be punished, and there lies the problem. Death is too easy, hell she'd probably welcome it, but what she really needs, what would really hurt is loss. I've known where she's lived for months, but I wanted to take something away that she cares about. I have to give credit where credit is due, Nightwing is a tough target, he's been a challenge to track down to say the least, but after seeing you two, the way you walk hand in hand through the park like love struck high school kids, well I think you might hurt more.
Deathstroke dropped down hard on Wally's chest straddling him, causing more blood to ooze out of the gash between his ribs. Wally's face screamed in pain, but was unable to make a sound. Slade reached behind him and pulled out the long knife, its blade shimmering in the Gotham night.
"So as I was saying, you're my gift to her, but I want her to know who did this. I'm going to just nick your carotid artery," he touched the blade gently on Wally's neck, tapping in for effect, "right about there. See this little piece of silver?" he asked showing the prone speedster the small object in his hand. "It's a stint, to keep it open and keep it from clotting. It's a slow bleed, it will take hours. I'll leave a little note for her where to look, and then if you don't mind, could you pass our conversation on to her? Tell her we're just about even."
Slade took of his mask and smiled. "Thanks kid I owe you."
He pinned the redhead's arms on the ground behind his head with one powerful hand, and used the other to bring the blade towards Wally's throat. Wally's body shook as his shallow breathing turned into a fast pant.
With his last bit of strength, Wally wiggled his arms out from Slade's grip, one hand grabbing the assassin's hand holding the blade, the other landing directly on the man's chest, weakly trying to push him off.
"That's cute kid," Deathstroke chuckled.
All around him white spots began filling Wally's vision, blocking out the image of mercenary above, as the park began to fade around him. He pushed as hard as he could when he began to notice the smell of burning flesh. Slade's grip on him lessened and Wally quickly rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. When they came into focus, Slade was staring back at him with a surprised, almost amused expression, alternating from the speedster's green eyes to his own chest. That's when Wally saw it, saw his hand sticking directly through Deathstroke's chest. Wally panicked and unknowingly vibrated again and he pulled his hand back out with a sickening squish.
"Well played kid," Slade rasped before falling to the ground. Wally looked in horror as he pulled his hand in front of him and saw it was holding a human heart. He frantically tossed it aside, wheezing through his gag reflex.
He was still panting, bordering on hyperventilating as he crawled away on his hands and knees. A light rain began to fall and Wally prayed that Artemis's apartment was still across the street.
xxx
Dick Grayson felt good; the drive had done him wonders. Catching corners and speeding along the winding roads had been quite a rush, a fun diversion. Driving a $150, 000 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class had that effect on people. Eventually the clouds rolled in, covering up the brilliant Gotham sky, and Dick stopped and closed the top. He wasn't ready to go home yet; he was ready to see a friend.
His confession to Bruce had felt good, freeing, but that was just the first step. There was one more person he needed to open up to, to purge his guilty conscience to and let his healing begin. Artemis was a good friend, probably his closest, he hoped she would understand. He no longer wanted to be haunted by Wally's ghost, but celebrate his life with fond and loving memories, not anger and resentment. No matter how they ended, he knew deep down Wally wouldn't want him to live like that, and he was tired of disappointing his best friend.
He pulled in front of her apartment within the hour. Despite their close relationship, he had only visited her there once, and very briefly at that. She was still a very private person and never actually had invited him, instead they spent time in the small secluded courtyard behind her home that she had turned into her own private sanctuary, covered in beautiful Asiatic lilies and other exotic flowers. Who knew she had such a green thumb? he pondered.
The rain began to pour and Dick ran to the stone landing heading up the stairs to her door when he noticed the blood. Drops on the sidewalk slowly dissolving, smears on the doorknob and bell. The rain began washing it away, sending it towards the culvert on the street, but not before he saw the direction the stains had headed towards, her back door. His senses screamed to life as he pulled out the razor sharp bird-a-rang along with a Taser and carefully made his way around back. He passed worried a few miles back when visions of Artemis flashed through his mind; she was hurt, possibly mortally so. She lived a dangerous life with dangerous enemies; his greatest fear was when that lifestyle finally caught up with her. He couldn't lose her again, he wouldn't allow it.
The wooden door to her fenced-in porch was open. He had his back to the fence, when he sprang around the corner, weapons hot.
On the stairs, moving at a snail's pace was a man soaked with rain and dirt, inching his way up the landing, grasping the wrought iron rails with one hand while his other shaking, blood covered hand tried fruitlessly to support him, panting like a frightened animal. A brief relief rushed over the ex-boy wonder when he realized it was not the archer lying there, but he needed to be cautious, the man crawling towards her door was severely wounded and someone might be close by to finish the job. Finally the victim's arm fell and his body dropped flat on the stairs, the last of his strength finally leaving him. Dick side stepped him on the stairs and carefully touched his neck to check for a pulse, still eyeing all around him for the attacker lying in wait. Dick turned the man over and came face to face with the ghost of person that had been haunting him for the last two years.
xxx
Artemis was still miles away from home, the bumper to bumper weekend traffic clogging all paths in and out of downtown, aggravating her to no end. Wally had promised to wait up for her, but this was taking too long, and she felt guilty for leaving him to begin with. She pulled out her phone to call him at home when she remembered it had been off for the last few hours, a necessary precaution. The display on the screen came to life and she checked the last hour's activities. She'd missed a call form Megan, the Martian leaving a message that could wait till morning to be returned, if at all. Artemis knew she'd been a shitty friend to a woman who called her an earth sister, a woman who had shown her nothing but kindness and love. Megan was one name on a long list of people she planned to make amends to someday.
She began to dial her home number when the text came in from Dick Grayson.
Perfect timing Dick, she thought to herself wearily, not wanting to get involved in a drawn out texting marathon with a man she was inadvertently avoiding. She sighed, pushed the enter button, and read the message.
"Gotham Memorial, 6th and Union. I've found what you've been hiding. What in the fuck were you thinking?"