Title: The Devil's Advocate
Rating: T
Genre: Humor, Angst, Romance
Fandom: Young Justice
Couple: Artemis/Cameron, Article Jr., Frostbite, CamArt, Winterwonderland
A/N: it's been a while since I wrote anything so I decided to post excerpts from my Artemis/Cameron fic that I've been working on for far too long. So this will be a series of one-shots and coming-of-age arc practice. It's AU, obviously, where after a murder trail Cameron is sent to the League and Artemis gets wrapped up in the Shadows with Jade. I love this universe here and everything I created in it, and I hope you all like it too ;)
Setting: after Jade & Artemis meet Roy in Relasia. Cameron isn't really attached to Roy, but by now he has a sense that he's important to the Shadows after a mishap on an earlier mission (the team and Roy are still separated) against Jade and Artemis.
"Such lonely, lost things you find on your way.
It would be easier, if you were the only one lost."
Catherynne M. Valente
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"I know you're there." Red Arrow growls; Artemis obliges and steps from the shadows, sending him a small smile. He turns, hands reaching for up and in moments he knocks an arrow, but doesn't shoot. "What?"
"Not the one you're expecting?" Artemis smirks and braces her hands on her hips in a very Jade-like manner.
"Who are you?" he demands.
"It's more who you thought I was." She teases, and the clone isn't amused. "Anyway, I thought maybe you could help me. You see my sister asked me to do something for her. . ." She takes a few steps into the light. "Maybe you know her? Green kimono, perfect manicure, raging bedhead?"
Red Arrow's eye lenses widen then narrow into slits, his jaw tightens and Artemis wonders just how much of an impression Jade must have made on him.
"Cheshire." He spits.
"Bingo." Artemis appraises. "So, you mind lending a girl a hand?"
"I don't do favors for criminals." He intones, fingers brushing the feathered end of his arrow. Artemis can feel the power behind the taunt string and appraises it with a steady breath; bows really were the best weapons.
"Don't worry, you won't remember a thing." Her father is quick to get the drop on him with a chloroform rag and grabs him back wordlessly like so many others in the night. The arrow darts past her, hitting the wall over her shoulder.
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"Where's Roy anyway?"
"Finishing up some business." Kaldur says tersely, working his shoulder around in his socket and Cameron grins.
"They handed you your ass, didn't they?"
Kaldur shoots him a look. "It was Sportsmaster I was fighting, I would be astounded myself if I were to walk away without a few bruises."
The grin on Cameron's face instantly fell. "Sportsmaster . . .? Sportsmaster was there?"
"Yes, with Cheshire, as expected, and strangely enough, Tigress was also there."
"Yeah, weird." Cameron bites his lip and Kaldur realizes he has said more than he should have. He knew that Cameron, prior to joining the League, had history with some of the people they fought. It wasn't uncommon for Cameron to go off on his own after a mission. Still, he kept his loyalties obvious and pushed down whatever past demons that gnawed at him.
There were times though, when a certain name—alias: Tigress—made him go quiet, made him shut down.
Kaldur had read the file, had heard first-hand from Robin, that Tigress—an up and coming villainess—had been close with Cameron before he went straight. In fact, she had tried to break him out of jail when he was supposed to be transferred into maximum security. She, of course, had failed, but the gesture was what counted.
"Cameron, I do not think it wise to act on—" but Cameron is already to his feet, looking guilty at the action. "Roy will be fine." Cameron nods like he believes him and Kaldur buys it, he actually does. "I'm going to bed; I suggest you do the same."
"Alright, night." Kadlur turns his back and Cameron—with all the stealth stacked up from years of assassin training—slips out of the kitchen towards the zeta-tubes, thoughts of Gotham ricocheting around his mind like a pinball machine.
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". . . But lost children always find each other, in the dark, in the cold.
It is as though they are magnetized and can only attract their like."
Artemis is walking into the apartment that night with Jade when someone body-checks her against the wall. Fresh from her flight of jumping time zones, Artemis blindly swings at the intruder, and fails. Cold spikes in her arms so sharp that she cries out and the lights snap on down the hall, filling the narrow corridor with light. There's one cold hand locked onto her wrist and the other is extended, holding her sister at bay.
Jade is yelling in Vietnamese and pulling at Cameron's shoulder.
"Where's Roy!?" Cameron snaps.
She reacts without thinking—not yet registering that this is Cameron, but just that someone had grabbed her—and snaps her elbow at his face.
Suddenly, he's flying back in the small space between one wall and the other, back knocking into the table were they set their bags and Jade follows him, her keys threaded through her fingers like claws. One hand cuffs a handful of Cameron's hood and uses it as leverage in his stumble to project him back into the wall, the bony part of her elbow driving into his shoulder. The keys are at his throat.
"Jade, no!" She lunges at her sister, stumbling between English and Vietnamese to comfort her, to stall her, anything to give Cameron a chance to get free. Jade is steadfast, and all her attention is on Cameron.
"You've really got some nerve showing your face here, traitor." Jade snaps in brute English, her is voice husky and rugged from screaming. Artemis doesn't take her hand off Jade's arm; pulling back until the edges of the keys are further from Cameron's exposed throat.
Cameron looks unscathed and even now ice is crippling across his clothes and sharpening his features. "You took Red Arrow, I know you did." Blood begins to roll across his upper lip, but he doesn't move to do anything about it. "He didn't call in after he got back, what did you do to him?"
"Shut up!"
They all turn to see Paula in her wheelchair. Her eyes are narrowed and her jaw is set but there's something in her face; the disappointment etched into her stern features. Artemis feels as though someone punched her in the gut.
Her hand pulls away from Jade's wrist that holds up the keys and soon Jade puts that away too and Cameron rights his posture, still jostling the table he had been pinned up against; his eyes snapping between Jade and Paula.
For a moment there's an uncomfortable silence and Artemis wonders what her mother must think.
Artemis turns her head just enough to catch a glimpse of blue in the corner of her eye. Cameron's eyes are intent on her.
"He should be back by now. Leave." She mutters to him and walks up to her mother. There's a lot of noise behind her. Cameron yanking at the door and Jade making threats against touching her sister and promising more than keys and that he should never come back. All Artemis can see is her mother, a warrior queen banished from her hunt.
Her jaw tightens. "Mom, I—"
"Artemis, I think I've seen enough." Her mother says before Artemis is spun around again and Jade's infuriated expression is inches from her face, snarling.
"What do you think you were doing? Even mentioning—"
Artemis catches her mother rolling back towards her room, and steals a glance back at Jade. "It was the only way to get him to leave! You know that. Mom, wait—"
The slam of the door cuts her off, but Jade is still yelling.
"—do you want him to die? Because it's starting to sound like you do. Artemis, look at me. I know you. I know you understand the severity of this situation. You're not an idiot, that's for sure. I raised you better. Artemis—"
"For once and your life Jade stay out of it!" Artemis snaps back and her sister reels, before she schools her expression into rage. Artemis growls at her and runs out the door.
There's a few fleeting seconds where she's in the hallway, a few doors are open and people are coming up to talk to her—"are you okay, honey?" and "I have to be at work in two hours" and "I'm calling the police"—but all she can see is Cameron almost to the staircase with blood on his nose, matching the stain on her elbow.
He's staring at her dejectedly with his shoulders slumped like a big cat not yet up to weight and begins his descent.
The door opens behind her and she launches herself into motion down the corridor, ignoring Jade's words, her mother's voice, the League, and Eric, and the Shadows, and her father, and everyone—and throws herself over the railing and plots on the stairs landing a few steps behind him. She stops for a moment to steady herself, dizzy with her own luck and laughs, shortly. Cameron eyes her like she's some stranger he's never seen before.
Artemis's gut twists and she darts past him, faster and faster.
Without thinking—or for once, really thinking—she looks up at Cameron's receding figure and calls, "Keep up, Frostbite!"
His shoes scratch the carpet beside hers and he falls into step with practiced ease.
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Cameron snares her shoulder outside the apartment and Artemis titters for a second. Her eyes are wide and cautious and her mouth pulls thin. "What the hell?" he shouts to the night and her and every damnable deity that seems keen on destroying his life.
"You wanna get this over with?" Artemis makes a gesture like even being outside wasn't big enough for her, and snorts. "Okay—let me hear it. Go."
"Roy." His teeth grind and blood seeps into his lips. "What happened?"
Artemis wants to groan and pull her own hair out. "He's fine. I already told you. If that's all then—"
"No, you know something else. What's going on—?"
"I can't trust you!" She screams and her voice catches in a tone too close to tears, she gulps and tries again. Cameron's expression is stony, but even she could see that that had hurt him. "I can't tell you. I just, you can't know. I barely know. I can't tell you these things anymore, Cameron. You're on the opposing side, you're my enemy now."
He stares at her, statue still and blood rolling down his chin. "Artemis . . ." And he just looks so hurt, her heart gives a squeeze. Blue and red lights flash across the parlor of his white skin and Artemis tenses, head snapping in the direction of the squad car that idles to the curb.
Twin doors open and slam near perfect unison, two officers surveying the area. They are faceless, dark shapes like the ones who appear from the black of the night. They're the monsters from her childhood stories.
One of her neighbors, she assumes, opens the door behind them wrapped in a bathrobe. "This is them, officers! They're the disturbance!" the old woman shouts in a withered accent. Artemis glares over her shoulder and the door slams closed behind her.
"Cam," she says panic edging her voice. He's still holding her arm, anchoring her in place.
The officers advance.
Artemis tears her gaze away, "Cam."
She says his name in the place of many things. Important things and secret things like please go with me and I need you and I miss you and one last time. He knows this because that was her name to him.
His hand closes around hers and they take off down the ramp, across the pavement, and keep running and weave through cars with the cop's shouts ringing in their ears. Sirens follow them for a few blocks and seven months apart prove that they still are an exceptional team.
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Artemis can feel the power in her stride provided by the night, cold air whipping her cheeks pink and sweat builds across her skin. Cameron runs along beside her as they clamor over a chain link fence and through yards like the police were still chasing them. It's like old times.
Her joy, however, is short lived.
"So," she ventures on the walk home, "anything new?" Cameron insisted that he walk with her even though it was three o' clock in the morning and he probably has to report back to wherever and really did not want to talk to her, he insisted, so she persisted.
"Artemis, please don't start."
"I'm serious," she says and glares at him. In moments like these, she hated him for everything. She hated missing him and sharing with him. "Tell me something nice." She says and it feels like a plea. "Tell me anything. Any cute girls, classes you like, friends?"
"Can I tell you any of those things?" he asks, sarcasm dripping from his tone. He rubs at the red tinting his upper lip with the cuff of his sleeve.
And he's right. They shouldn't even be walking together; she shouldn't have run out after him, he shouldn't have been at her apartment. A lot of shouldn't's were becoming did's already tonight. Why not try a few more?
"They'll make me feel better," she admits. "I want to know if your new life is as great as it sounds."
He stills says nothing and wipes at his nose out of nervous habit. She comments on it a few strides later and he shoves his hands in his hoodie. "Just leave me alone."
"Pssh, then you leave me alone." She walks ahead of him. "You're doing a bang-up job of it."
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" . . . How I would like to lead you to brave, stalwart friends who would protect you and play games with dice and
teach you delightful songs that have no sad endings.
If you would only leave cages locked and turn away from unloved Wyverns, you could stay Heartless."
He walks her around to the side of the building—since, in the rush she was in she forgot her keys—when he finally talks. "So how were the Relasias'?"
And she wants to knock his head into a brick wall.
She glances back at him, first bar of a rusty ladder gripped between her hands. And her expression screws up into a scowl. "Wouldn't you already know?"
He shrugs and tucks his hands into his pockets again. His shoulders look so thin, with all his baggy clothes it's easy to forget how thin Cameron is. It's a defense mechanism he learned early, making himself look bigger to intimidate others. It was armor not unlike his ice. Artemis remembers wryly when he used to walk around in baggy clothes, elbows out and voice loud to take up space in the school hallways, sending icy glares in every which direction to ward off unwanted bullies. Now that he was older he simply let the baggy hoodies and his astounding height do the talking for him. Now he knows how to look at someone and make his eyes cut.
He wets his lips. "I'd like to hear from you. To see if your life is as great as it sounds."
She releases the bar and drops back to the pavement, and kicks a stray box out of her way. "Don't you start," she growls. "Don't you even start with me, Cameron Mahkent." She wipes her hands down the sides of her jeans, marking them with coppery streaks from the rust. She balls and unballs her hands into fists, trying to work out the numb white feeling curling across her wrists. "You have no idea—no right to judge me."
"Then tell me!" he bellows, raising his voice for the first itme. "Give me something to go on, Artemis! Tell me why! Tell me why you decided to become just like them!"
"Them? Them?" she chuckles but backlashes with a stony thrill. "They are my family! And they were yours too! Once upon a time." She wheels up to him. "Or, have you forgotten about them already?"
"No."
"Do you think you're the good guy now? Well, make me your villain then, Cam." She growls out his nickname, its tastes like childhood and summer on her tongue, and she tears it to shreds with her teeth. Cameron flinches. "Did you forget that our parents were trying to support us? Or, Jade trying to live after everything that happened? What about Eric's parents? Do you think he wanted this? Crystal? Freeze? When the chance comes are you just going to throw them in jail—"
"I wouldn't have a choice!"
"There's always a choice, some are just harder than others." She says. "What about me? Would you lock me up, too?"
"I would have to!" he shouts back and his voice catches, lowering. "I would have to, Artemis. If you break the law, I've got to lock you up. I cannot have split loyalties because of you, or anyone."
"You would lock me up?" She repeats, shocked.
"You choose to break the law."
"I choose to survive." Artemis grits her teeth. Cameron looks torn. Artemis tears him further. "I choose to survive. I remember a time when you did the same."
"If you think I don't remember, you're wrong." Cameron's eyes slide close. "I lived that life. I lived through Hell with you. I remember all the good just as well as the bad, Art. I'm trying—" His teeth grind together. "I'm trying to teach them that."
Them, he says. He means his team.
She imagines Cameron bringing up his past in a casual conversation. Talking about how they used to spend Christmases and birthdays at safe houses across the county, jumping on beds, playing pranks, and gorging on stolen food. All the times they caught each other falling, and kissed away bruises and scratching away blood.
He's trying to round himself out. Become the devil's advocate. Ask if the thief who puts a knife to a rich man's throat is truly a bad person or a broken man with two hungry kids at home.
"Justice is overrated anyway." She says, opening back up to reality. "There's always that richer opinion that wins out the truth. Even if it could be fixed—all that corruption, that taint, it would take years to change opinions enough to fix it."
"I can believe, can't I?"
"Never knew you were such a visionary."
"It's something new." He grins all boyish and charming with his messy hair and blue eyes. Artemis's heart breaks just a little.
"You can, I just don't."
"Join our side." His voice pleads. "We'll fix this. You can become a part of the Team."
She closes herself off from him by folding her arms to her chest and turning her head. "I can't."
"Why not?" His hand closes around her wrist and she glances at him. She can't look away, she can't hurt him. He's so open and patient, his voice lowering to a whisper like there was a secret in the world he could keep without anyone knowing. "Just come with me tonight—we'll go and find Bats, you can say you want to join and—we'll—"
Before he starts stumbling she entertains the idea of going straight. She sees herself in someone underground base with Cameron, going on missions like old times and fighting back to back. Her fingers tangle with his.
With every blink, poisonous reality creeps back into her mind.
"My mom," she says eyes digging into his. "Jade." Her body turns to face him and her other hand touches his elbow. "My dad," she says the word with equal measure of disdain and affection. She rolls her eyes anyway, and bites back the curve that drawls at her voice when tears begin to sting. "I can't leave them, Cam. I can't betray them. I'm not going to leave them."
His expression is distant for a few moments of silence and his fingers tighten and untighten around hers. "I understand," he says and bows his head towards her; she could feel the cool rush off of him. "I understand."
She leans up on her toes and kisses his cheek. "Thanks."
He gives her a leg up to the ladder and she monkeys the rest of the way on her own. He's still there when she gets to her window and turning the corner when she's sliding it closed. She sits by the window all night, watching it fog with her breath and hoping—fool heartedly—that he would come back and ask her again.
She's a livewire tonight.
She just might say yes, now that she's weak and worn down.
Artemis counts her breaths to the sunrise and buries her face into her pillow to stifle her tears.
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M'gann asks him about his nose when he gets back to Mount Justice and he waves off her bantering and ice pack. Conner raises a brow at him and moves his feet from the couch and prop them on the table instead. Though it would more since to take the middle seat, he throws himself onto the edge and perches there with M'gann sitting between them.
"So, I got elbowed in the nose from my old best friend. Apparently, I shouldn't go to her house anymore."
"Why did she elbow you?"
There are a few more lines of exchanged confusion and awkwardness between the three until Kaldur makes an entrance. He eyes Cameron before hovering near the back of the couch. "So, where did you hurry off to last night?" he asks.
Cameron scans the rec room and decides that Robin and Wally are probably doing their bestest-buddies thing elsewhere.
"Only something's you might not like." He wants to be honest. The League and the Team have given him so much, he wants to be honest. "I went to see Tigress. I thought she might know something and lo and behold, she does."
"And? What fruits of knowledge did you harvest from your visit?" Kaldur crosses his arms over his chest, looking skeptical.
Cameron buries his face in his palms. Blunt nails scrapping into his hair and dragging at the ends into his nape. The place where her mouth touched his cheek burns with memory. He wants to run all the way back to Gotham and ask her to do it again.
He could imagine it: grabbing her face in his hands and kissing her full on the mouth, unabashed and uncaring. Or, more likely, chickening out a second before the last and brushing his lips across hers so she would have to haul him against her to kiss.
The sweetest of the memory is tainted by another.
"They did take him. She told me so, but . . . I think they did something to him."
M'gann rises to her feet. "What happened to Red Arrow?" M'gann asks.
"He did go off the radar for an hour late last night. He says his gear wasn't up to par with the distance."
Cameron nods. "Tigress said he was fine, but they did something to him Kaldur. They must have."
"She told you this?"
"She did."
Kaldur takes a deep breath and sighs, looking at Cameron. "So, I will report this to Batman and tell him what exactly?"
"That I gathered information on Roy's missing hours from a highly reliable possible ally." Cameron clips and thinks about it for a moment. He covers his mouth with his hands. Beside him, M'gann and Connor shift and look at each other.
Cameron had made a mistake.
Kaldur is staring at him with an expression close to muse. "That, my friend, is a dangerous emotion to have."
"Don't tell anyone." Cameron whispers. "Please, if anyone finds out. If the League even thinks," Cameron grits his teeth. "I can't go back. You don't understand, I can't. If I go back they'll kill me for sure."
Kaldur answers him with the most unsettling silence and M'gann touches his shoulder. "You're safe with us Cameron." She says quietly and Connor nods at him. Cameron looks back to Kaldur who looks clearly torn.
"Just," Kaldur strains for words and sighs again. "Just tell me what you found later."
"No, wait a second—"
"Later."
"Kaldur!" Cameron spins on the couch and watches the Atlantian hurry into the alcove leading towards the bedrooms.
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thank you for reading! Sorry if that was confusing!
I will be updating this whenever I feel like it, but hopefully soon.
Drop me a line, tell me what you think.