Artemis strolls in the cave, hands tucked in the pockets of her soft green hoodie. The hood is pulled up as far as it can go, and she takes the long route to avoid the kitchen and the living room, trying to hide from her occasionally over-involved teammates. She doesn't think she can handle any questions, not right now. The archer wouldn't have even come to the cave if it hadn't been to get her iPod that she left here, but even now she decided she'd burrow in her room. She can't face her room at home, with the twin bed besides her made-up like Jade would be coming home any minute. Her face aches, the left side covered in mottled bruises, with a split lip and a cut on her eyebrow. Her abdomen feels like it's splitting open with every step she takes as she follows the edge of the hallway, so close to her room.
It's funny that what gives her away is her door slamming. Once inside, she locks the knob and pulls off her hoodie and her shirt, sitting down on the ground wearing her grey leggings and a sports bra, reaching under the bed for her emergency first aid kid. Her stomach is more colorful bruises, and tiny pinpricks where the blood vessels had broken under the skin. She pulls out a skin balm, dabs two fingers into it, and rubs it on her side. She bites back a cry of pain, the skin was so sensitive, so thoroughly bruised, and she was surprised there was no internal damage. Her father was precise, and knew how to damage, how to toe the line between permanent and temporary damage. After putting as much pressure on the wound as she could, Artemis stands up, grabs her iPod off the nightstand, and lays on her bed, flicking with the wheel to pick out a song.
Maybe, if she had only one headphone in, she would have heard the knock on the door, and the lock being picked.
Staring at the ceiling, she tries to ignore the incessant throbbing on her face and stomach, and the toe-curling anger. Artemis wishes she could punch it out, but no one that saw the damage on her face would spar with her. She reaches up to touch her face, feel the bruise, flinching when the pads of her fingertips graze it.
"Get out, Dad. You're not wanted here." Artemis snarls at her father, standing in the living room of her small apartment.
"Guess that's something we have in common, little girl." Lawrence Crock responds, tightening his gloves. Artemis, taken aback by that response, takes an uneasy step backwards. "What are you talking about?" She asks slowly, and Lawrence grins, all teeth.
"I know that you think you got the happy ending, with your friends accepting your dirty past, but really. Who could trust someone raised to be an assassin? Eventually, this will all fall apart, because they can't squelch that small fear that maybe, you aren't as tame as you seem, you aren't as reformed as you claim you are. Genetics are genetics, and Crocks weren't made for the good side. They keep you around because you're useful, like a wild animal, but they're not going to hand feed you. They're not as naïve as you are." Sportsmaster says, grabbing his mask of the table and snapping it into place. Enraged by his accusation and fueled by the fear that maybe he was right, Artemis leaps out, blind fury making her clumsy, and he blocks her punch and slams his own fist into her face. Blinking away the tears in her eyes, she lunges again, but he strikes her face again, this time smashing into her temple, the metal plate on his glove slicing her eyebrow. Dizzy, she wobbles, and he throws her down, kicking into her abdomen.
"Being with those heroes made you clumsy and too overtaken by emotions," he spits out, disgusted. He kicks her again, and she curls away from his kicks, ashamed of her own weakness and angered by it. He steps over her, not interested in his youngest daughter now that she's incapacitated.
"Remember, little girl, once a killer, always a killer," Lawrence growls, disappearing through the open window.
Her door opens suddenly, with the Boy Wonder himself standing outside of it. Artemis yanks out her earphones, sitting up in shock.
"I didn't know you were going to be here today," Robin says, but he trails off when he sees her face, shiny and purple. He doesn't speak for a moment, his eyes cataloguing her injuries, and when he speaks, his voice is stiff.
"What happened?"
"None of your business, birdbrain." Artemis snaps, scooting backwards on the bed to lean against the headboard.
His lips twitch at his familiar nickname, and as he opens to mouth to continue her line of questioning, she cuts him off with a diversionary tactic. "I know who you are, do you really have to keep those dumb sunglasses on?" Artemis asks, raising the eyebrow on the non-bruised side of her face.
Dick takes them off and tucks them in the pocket of his hoodie, which he discards on the floor by hers and sits on the bed. "Not everyone knows my secret identity, I've got a front to keep up," he teases, a small smile on his face. It quickly fades when his blue eyes land back on the left side of her face, and she curls her hand into a fist to resist covering it childishly. "Now, back to the matter at hand," He says casually, sitting Indian-style on the comforter next to her. "What happened?"
Her lips curl into a snarl, all of her anger and frustration and insecurities from the past day bubbling outwards. "I don't need you to pretend to care about me! I'm a tool to you. I know you guys don't trust me, because I was trained to be an assassin, so just stop pretending like I matter, okay? It makes it worse."
Dick's eyes darken marginally, his face uncharacteristically serious. "Listen here, Artemis Crock. We told you. Your family doesn't matter, the decision to stay with us does. Yes, you're useful, but so are we all. We care about you for you, not because of your skills. You're a part of this team, like we all are." A hand raises to the unmarked side of her face, cupping her jaw and running his thumb along her cheekbone. "We care about you for you." He says seriously, dropping his hand, and Artemis briefly misses the warmth.
Leaning against the headboard, Artemis exhales, suddenly exhausted and empty. The words bubble through her mouth before she can stop herself, fueled by the desire to be told she was wrong, that she was a good person.
"My dad visited last night."
Dick becomes very, very still on the bed, as if afraid if he moves, or breathes, she'll clam up. He's probably right.
"At first I was afraid he came to bully my mom, but he was here…to see me. Just to remind me that I'm still a Crock and blood is thicker than water," she says bitterly.
"And I got stupid." She continued, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall. "I got stupid, and he reminded me that he has more experience than me. He pummeled me, like I had no training. I thought I had gotten better…" her hands curl into fists at this. "But apparently, I hadn't." A silence fell, and Artemis didn't want to open her eyes, she wanted to pretend away reality and it's nastiness.
"Artemis." Dick's voice broke the silence, and she cracked open one eye to look at him.
Leaning forward, her pulls her towards him by her shoulders, and wraps his arms around her. She freezes up momentarily, but slowly hugs him back. His head is resting in her shoulder at this point, and she can't imagine that it's very comfortable, but he remains that ways anyways. "First of all," he beings, voice muffled in her shoulder, "You're awesome. Secondly, your dad is an asshole, but we know that already. Third of all, you're better than you think you are. By so much. Fourth of all, you're a badass but that's common knowledge." She snorts at this, flicking his head. "Flattery will only get you so far, Boy Blunder."
Dick cackles.