AN: So sorry about the late update. Things have been more than a bit crazy on my end the last week and it doesn't help that this is the longest chapter in my whole series— over 20,00 words!

Enjoy the newest chapter!

"What's the deal, Kal?" Wally asks for the both of them when they find their way into the debriefing room; she feels incredibly overdressed, especially in such small company—only Kaldur, Dick, and Zatanna have answered the alert, everyone else already gone and enjoying their Prom night.

For some reason Kaldur looks surprised to see the two of them, hand hovering above the keyboard and brows raised. "Apologies." He says quickly. "I had believed the two of you had already left for your promenade."

"Prom, Kaldur." She corrects him, one elbow jutting out to Wally's side when he snorts. "What's going on?"

(Her stomach churns, thinking of the missed call. But no, it can't be— not tonight, out of all the possible nights—)

Kaldur only adds to her suspicions when he slips into an unsettling quiet, rounded teeth jutting out to bite his lip; for a long moment he stares at her, unreadable, silence filling the room again. "I am sorry. I had thought you had already left; if you wish to go, you may."

There's a few curious looks at the two of them, and all at once she understands the wordless message: leave, while you still can. "Okay." She tries to say easily, finding it difficult to shrug with her shoulders so tense. "Come on, Wally."

When she takes his hand and pulls a little too insistently Wally's brows raise, sending her a confused look. "What's your problem?" He chuckles, refusing to move. Across the room Zatanna's eyes flicker between hers, reading something in the panicked crinkles of her fake smile that she's too slow to hide. "We're already here, might as well hear what's going on. Kaldur?"

More lip biting and another strange silence. "I had simply wished to… Counsel everyone. As to whether or not we should take action." Kaldur says with the air of approaching the worst, glancing up at her as his fingers whir against the keyboard.

Again he pauses, eyes finding hers in a hair-raising clash of grey and barely blue. Without him saying anything she remembers their deal, remembers everything he wouldn't promise in the sanctity of their lonely part of the beach. Traitoriously her eyes twitch to Wally beside her, and when she looks back Kaldur's no longer looking at her at all.

"... What's going on?" She hears herself ask, even though she already knows the answer.

"... It is Sportsmaster."

Even though it's what she's been expecting she still feels the entirely of her body tense, each muscle popping angrily and rising like a startled wildcat; there's a familiar and unwelcome coldness running through her veins, artic and impenetrable and numbing the happy, warmer sensation that's been burning so brightly in her stomach— she feels as if parts of her are being frost-bitten with shock, heart ceasing to pump and lungs halting in their breathing, brain stuttering all it's functions and focusing only on one thought—

Sportsmaster, Sportsmaster, Sportsmaster.

It all happens so quickly and then promptly stops, and as suddenly as the icy dread appeared a new burning anger sounds through her, all the frozen emotion stirring to her surface in the same way her muscles are popping against her skin, threatening to burst off her bones. She hardly feels Wally's fingers in her hands, doesn't notice the way they slack with shock and promply tighten.

"He is in Athens." Kaldur's telling her, eyes narrowing at her stoney expression and trying to find something, anything, readable there. "... Justice League intel has uncovered an expected attack at a local museum. Authorities in Athens have been alerted, I simply wondered—"

"If I wanted to know." She says stiffly, finishing the sentence for him. "Right."

There's another silence, this time so loud and painful to her ears that she noticeably flinches, head dropping to stare at her high heeled clad feet and fighting back bile in her throat. Prom. She doesn't feel as if she exists in the same universe as it anymore, doesn't feel as if anything so happy and carefree could have ever managed to be conceived in a world with her horribleness in it. She feels like an idiot, standing there dressed as nicely as she is, expecting that she'll be allowed to have one evening without the burden of her past grinding her into the pavement. Just like always she's gotten her hopes up, believed in the best of things, only to have her father come back with his javelin and the hatred in his eyes and remind her she isn't worthy of anything normal, isn't deserving of anything except the pain he inflicts—

Worthless.

She doesn't realize she's gripping Wally's hand like a lifeline until he turns to her, fingers clenching around hers and returning the pressure. "What are you doing?" He asks seriously.

She tries to breathe and feels a shudder run through her, hardly aware of the expectant gazes of the rest of their teammates. When she manages to look at his face her eyes can only focus on her lipstick print, still a bold crimson on his cheeks. "I— What?"

"What are you doing?" He repeats, over emphasizing the syllables in a way that she hates, tugging her hand until she's forced to face him. "Because whatever you're doing, I'm doing."

The seriousness on his face unreadable, and she's not sure if there's anything she can say back that won't make him angry. "No." She shakes her head. "It's fine... Listen, let's..."

She can't bring herself to say it. Let's just go to prom. Let's just pretend we're normal. Saying it out loud is unbearable, would feel like more of a lie than anything else she's ever said to him. She swallows, thinking hard. Wally has to stay safe. "Look, I just need to... You go to prom, okay? I'll meet you there, once I know everything's under control."

—she can't function unless she knows her father isn't going to burst in and ruin everything—

"Meet me there?" Wally laughs in her face, eyes narrowing when her cheeks blush. "Yeah, right. Stop pretending I'm stupid, Artemis."

"Wally—"

"—I'm not letting you deal with him on your own—"

Before she can counter his argument Zatanna cuts across her, smirking as if she's reminding the two of them that everyone else is still there. "She won't be alone." She says sternly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "If she goes we'll all go too."

Despite the show of loyalty this only frustrates her more, her nose wrinkling. "Zatanna— you don't have to, okay? No one has to. He's my Dad—"

"Sportsmaster is unfinished business for all of us." Dick interrupts, arms crossing and sunglasses glinting. "M'gann and Connor would say the same if they were here."

She opens her mouth to argue but before she can do anything other than make an annoyed noise in the back of her throat Kaldur is cutting across her, fingers back to jabbing against the keys. "Then it is decided. We will all go to Athens—"

"Nothing's decided!" She bursts out angrily, rounding on all of them. She can think of a thousand reasons why she doesn't want her friends along but none are blaring as loudly inside her head as the ones arguing for Wally's protection, and in an act of desperation she turns to Kaldur. "You said it yourself, Kal. Local authorities have been alerted, they're taking care of it. I can go on my own and—"

"And get yourself killed?" Wally cuts across her, looking angry. "... Artemis, we all know how you get about... Remember New Orleans?"

She nearly slaps him for bringing that up now, her hand twitching out of Wally's involuntarily as her cheeks turn a blotchy maroon. "Then I'll take a small squad—"

"There's five of us here." Dick points out unhelpfully. "I'd say any smaller against Sportsmaster is a risky move. He never goes anywhere without reinforcements."

She's practically seething now, cheeks blazing and hands clenched into painful fists at her side. There's a second or two of silence when she realizes she's losing the argument, and angrily she turns her glare to Kaldur. "Well?" She snarls accusingly, hands on her hips.

Once again her gaze meets his and once again they both know what the other is thinking— she knows as well as he does that everyone else has a point. Going in there with any less than a five-person squad is risky, as much as she hates to admit it. Kaldur sighs, eyes narrowing until he's glaring back. "I cannot, Artemis." He says lowly, as if trying to prevent everyone else from hearing. "Wally must join us if we are intending on going."

She's caught between wanting to punch him in the jaw and bursting into tears, and more to stop the angry quivering of her chin she bites into the inside of her cheek, turning away from everyone so violently that she wobbles in her heels. Somewhere above the ringing in her ears she hears Wally's voice, low and angry. "What?" He snarls, and even with her back to him she can tell he's glaring between the two of them. "Of course I'm going. Why would that even be a question?" An awkward pause. "Artemis—"

She cuts him off, not wanting to fight in front of everyone. "Wally, you've been looking forward to prom for weeks—"

"I don't care about prom." He says severely, and she knows as well as he does that he's lying through his teeth. "You said it yourself, prom is stupid, right?"

She blinks at the way he's snarling at her, not trusting herself to say anything back. There isn't a right answer anyway.

It's deathy quiet on the Bioship— there's no noise, none of their usual pre-mission banter. Nothing to distract her from her own pulse pounding hard against the absent scar on the back of her neck.

Sensing someone's gaze on her she glances up, turning in her seat and eyes instantly locking with Dick's across the cabin. After a moment of staring at each other he looks away, the blue irises under his mask no longer focused on her.

It happens several more times, everyone taking their turn to stare her down, looking for signs of fear, of anticipation, of the random bursts of blood thirst she used to be plagued by. Each time the concern in their gazes unnerves her; maybe she isn't doing the right thing, going after Lawrence. Maybe she should have left it to the others, left it to people who don't have blood on their hands because of him, who don't have to hold him accountable for their violent past or the unusual blonde hair sprouting from their scalps.

(Maybe she should have yelled at Wally about it. Gotten on her knees and begged him not follow. Maybe she should have tried to lift him over her shoulder, tried to physically drag him to prom, drag him to safety, lock him in a closet or hide him under the covers, force him to stay somewhere far away, somewhere where she won't be checking over her shoulder even when there's no threat in sight because if Wally's not breathing she isn't either, he's everything, he's—)

(... Maybe it would have been better if she had never let her guard down. Maybe everything would have been okay if she hadn't allowed herself to linger on the crisp apple color of his eyes that first time...)

(Maybe everything would be better if she could just stop loving him.)

(It would be better, but she can't.)

She's silently working herself into a panic, realizing that for the umpteenth time she's glanced up to check the reflection in the window in front of her, checked for the familiar blazing red and yellow to be present behind her— she must look as if she's developed a nervous tick. Feeling embarrassed at her nervousness her shoulders hunch, elbows locking tightly as she slouches in her seat. She can't stop thinking of the Watchtower, can't stop imagining the cramped scent of walnuts and sweat and fear brushing over her skin. A muscle in her neck twinges, anxiety beginning to claw up her shoulders. Tell him now. Tell him now while you get the chance.

Maybe it's time she stopped this strange chess match she's been enduring for so many months— whether against Wally or her father or anyone else she's never had a knack for the game, never really understood the logic behind it or the strategy. She simply can't think like that, can't deal in moves or counter-moves. She's Artemis. She's the girl who survived on the streets of Gotham, who wedged her arrows into flesh and did what she needed to thrive in her abandonment. She deals in the present, in the next turn only— tomorrow was never a luxury she would afford, anyway—

She's going to say what needs to be said, even if it scares her half to death. Even if she's only saying it because it's the last trick she has up her sleeve that will guarantee his staying safe.

(And maybe she's saying it because she needs him to know. Properly, not when they're both half asleep and in denial. She just wants to say the words, just the once.)

She notices the anxious tapping of her foot against the leg of her chair and quickly stops the movement, instead unbuckling her seat belt and rising from her position at the right flank. Sending a pointed look to Wally, who's been sitting unusually still in the seat behind her and glaring at the back of her head, she stalks obviously towards the tiny cabin between the here and the engine room, hoping he'll get the message to follow.

The smallness of the room seems to fill almost instantly with heaviness, the same heaviness weighing on her lungs and pressing against her airways. She's not sure there's a name for this emotion, for the intensity of the dread and sadness and fear beating her from the inside out. Unthinkingly she crosses her arms, hands clutching at her elbows as if making to hold herself together.

(Don't cry. Don't be a baby.)

(Keep it together.)

She catches her reflection in the window: mascara coated lashes peaking out ridiculously from the eyeholes of her mask, the cherry color of her lips smudged. For the first time she doesn't recognize the girl looking back, can't find the raw happiness now hidden in the numbness of her stomach that had ever prompted her to believe that she could be normal, unburdened. Even the curls of her pony tail look stupidly optimistic, sitting at a jaunty angle on the crown of her head and creasing her mask.

Another reminder of the perfect evening she lost to a dead-beat father she'll never outrun. Ever.

More out of anger than anything she rips the elastic out of the curls, meaning to simply retie her hair more practically. She's rewarded with a violent snap at the wrist, and her elastic breaks.

It shouldn't be this hard not to cry, but it is.

Wally allows nearly a full minute to pass before he follows her; having given up on her hair she's had more than enough time to fill a plastic cup with water and slug it back nervously, lingering by the back window and watching as the ocean unfurls beneath them: they're going to be there soon. By the time she finally hears the door to the back cabin open and close she's crumpled the cup in her hand, nerves getting the better of her.

(Her pulse sounds in her ears twice before she remembers she's supposed to be telling him things.)

"Hi." She mutters, looking at his reflection for a moment in the glass of the window before turning towards him; he's still got the stain of her lipstick on his cheek, the crimson mark smudging out underneath the triangle shapes of his mask.

"Hey." Wally breathes out.

She can't stop herself, hand tightening around the crumpled cup in her fist. "... You mad at me?"

For some reason Wally takes his time with answering, arms crossing and the muscles of his shoulders stretching underneath the Kevlar. "... A bit." He says after a moment, sounding painfully honest. "... But that's not why we're both back here, is it?"

"Isn't it?"

"You really want to spend this time fighting?"

He's got a point. "... No."

It's quiet again, and in the silence she can sense him looking at her— really looking at her. It's very hard to stay still as he stares, and for not the first time she feels as if he's seeing through her, looking underneath the seams of her uniform, looking at something she doesn't want him to see. She realizes jarringly that he's memorizing this moment, storing this away in her memory, and she can't decide if she wants him to or not.

Even though she can't look at him his eyes don't leave her face. "… I think I like you better like this." He admits suddenly, voice lighter but still with an odd edge to it. "The dress was nice, I mean. But you look... Well, you look more like Artemis like this." A pause. "Except the hair."

It takes her a second or two to remember anything about her appearance— Prom seems like another lifetime altogether, like much longer ago than simply an hour— before she self-consciously glances back at her reflection, curls blossoming out stupidly over her shoulders and pooling below her waist. "… Elastic broke." She says glumly, turning her back on the window and tossing the crumpled cup into the trash.

"Right." She hears him say, and when she glances back at him he's holding something out to her. "Good thing I brought this. It's yours, from forever ago. I was messing with it before we met up tonight, slipped it into my suit pocket by mistake."

Her eyes narrow, and when she realizes he's holding out her old elastic her throat tightens.

Focus.

"Oh." She says dumbly, sounding oddly choked when she takes it from him. For some reason the second he passes it to her he takes a few steps back, as if he's wary of being too close to her. It's hard not to be hurt by it. "... Why were you messing with it?"

He doesn't reply at first, watching with a tight jaw as she presses her curls behind her ears, securing them with four loops of the elastic. "Just thinking." He says vaguely.

She wants to ask what about, and then she remembers she's not supposed to be asking questions. Stupidly she opens her mouth too quickly, lips gaping open like a trout as she searches for a place to start. She doesn't find one.

Wally seems to read something in the way she quickly seals her lips shut. "… You okay?"

"Yeah." She says unconvincingly, nodding so hard that her teeth clatter together.

She doesn't fool either of them. "No, you're not." He sighs, eyes narrowed on her face as she continues to not look at him.

She makes it several seconds before there are tears burning at the back of her throat, eyes screwing up. "No, I'm not." She agrees.

(And there are some things she'll never know how to start telling him: that she loves him, the kind of way she used to read about in books but not really believe in. That's she's sorry for thinking he needs protection, for not trusting him to take care of himself. That he's her best friend, the only person she's been stupid enough to break all her rules for, and she's terrified of losing him, terrified that all the happiness they've made together is about to be ruined by something bigger and more powerful than she is. That she wishes she could freeze time and just keep reliving the last few weeks, with their laughter and their summer breezes and the tiny noise he makes in the back of his throat when she pulls him between her legs— that she wants him pick her up the way he did in Bialya and run her somewhere too far for all her awfulness to catch up—)

But she doesn't say that. Instead she makes a choking noise and tries not to combust from the inside out.

Wally seems to understand without her saying, as he always does when she gets like this; her face is crumpling and she's hardly turning towards him before a blast of air smacks her across the face, his arms encircling around her. Suddenly she's trying but not managing to hide the almost desperate way her arms fling themselves over his shoulders, the way her feet almost leave the ground in her overwhelming need to touch him, and he knows.

She doesn't have to tell him anything. He knows he knows he knows.

"Hey." He hums out, gently smoothing the curls of her pony tail into the center of her back. "It's going to be fine, Artemis." He murmurs. "It's just like any other mission, okay?"

Except it's not. She thinks, blinking hard and turning her face until she's pressing her cheek to his, the dull pounding of his pulse twanging between both their temples. This time her father is going to be there, and this time he's not going to let her get away with her betrayal, this time he's going to make her bleed, carve out her heart while it's still beating—

"I know." She lies, setting her face and pulling back enough to look him properly in the eye, her hands moving of their own accord to trace up the column of his spine and splay across his back, her mind tricking her fingers into thinking she feels the lingering scars of bullet holes that have already healed without a trace.

Wally takes a moment to read her expression, brows furrowed. "… Something else is wrong." He says. It's not a question.

For some reason she nods, giving herself away but suddenly unable to look him in the eye; biting her lip she drops her gaze until she's staring at the half visible lightning bolt on his chest, obscured by the swelling curves of her breasts as she presses herself against him.

"Tell me, Beautiful." Wally quietly implores her, breath warming her face even through her mask.

She's not exactly sure what she wants to say, and finds it even harder to focus when she gets the courage to glance up at him; this feels strikingly like the moment they shared in the closet together on New Years that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about, feels like what she should have done before when she was sure they were about the die. Something inside her shifts, something familiar but also sinister—

And maybe she's still a little afraid of the other girl who once lived inside her, afraid of what she might have been capable of; as if she's being haunted by her still she hesitates, wondering if this is the right thing to do. Wondering if maybe it's too late, maybe she's too broken or too messy for it to be alright. But it doesn't feel wrong, the way she guides her hands over the swelling of his shoulders, thumbs pausing on his collar bone before she traces the column of his neck, fingers finding his jaw and pulling it down to meet hers.

It isn't a mistake to kiss him; Wally seems to be expecting the ferociousness with which she places her mouth on his, lips full and taught and pressing hard but unmovingly against his. She can feel some part inside of her getting a grip on her battle plan, lining up pieces in her weary game of chess and deciding which spaces need to be filled or left vacant. She can do this, this is just another part of the plan, the way she inhales Wally's breath out of his lungs and drags it over her tongue, tasting the walnut smell for what might be the last time.

It won't be the last time, don't say that. Don't even think it.

She's doesn't need to tell him that she loves him. Things like that have always been better said with silence between them, anyway—and suddenly as if she's already dying she can see a thousand memories with Wally, can see the squeaking rubber of his sneakers touching the soles of her boots as he shifts closer to her, kissing her goodnight at the zeta tubes; can see the view out of their window, his hand outstretching and shoulder brushing against hers as he points out the constellations and she pretends to listen; she feels the sand on the beach as they watch the sunset for the first time together, feels the sheets of her bed rubbing against her back as he leans into her, a hum bursting out of his throat as he presses a kiss to her mouth. She can smell tea in her cup and can feel his fingers on her wrist and can feel her own heart now counting out beats, can feel it drumming along to the only important thought that's ever entered her mind: Wall-y, Wall-y, Wall-y…

She pulls back, enough for her nose to graze his and for her eyelashes to flutter him into focus. She feels all of him, hot under her fingers, her breath warming his lips when she whispers. "I need you to promise me something."

Focus.

Her voice breaks on the word "promise" but she remains unflinching; for the first time in a long time she feels that other part of her stirring, not the Metropolis girl necessarily but the wild part inside of her, the one who relies on instinct and is strong enough to fight this battle the way it needs to be fought. That part of her is holding pieces of her together and making sure she doesn't fall apart at the most crucial part of the plan—because there isn't a point in this if she doesn't do her best to make sure that Wally is safe, that he lives, just in case—

"Anything." Wally breathes, lips brushing against hers.

It's the answer she's been hoping for; strategically she pulls back, looking him in the eye. "… You know how you're always making me promise not to be an idiot?" She asks vaguely. She doesn't blame him for the confused look that crosses his features and continues quickly. "I need you to promise me you won't be an idiot too. I need you—I need you to promise me that you'll be safe."

He lets out a confused exhale that ruffles the hair around her face, shaking his head slightly. It seems to take him a few seconds to realize she's being serious. "I—I don't get it." He says, pulling back so she's no longer pressed so tightly against him, as if he needs her at a distance to think. "I mean—of course, I'll be safe, but…" There's a short and angry pause. "Wait. You're not—"

"No." She cuts him off quickly, not knowing if his suspicions are correct but not wanting to hear them in case they are—she doesn't want to lie to him. Shaking her head she moves closer again, until her breasts are brushing against his chest and her hands are following the panels of his suit up the back of his neck, stopping when she reaches his hair. "No. Of course not."

"Good." Wally gets out, exhaling when she runs her fingers through his locks, looking as if he's trying very hard not to relax into her hand as it muses over his scalp. "Because that would be about the dumbest thing you could do, Artemis. Even for you."

He says the last part good-naturedly and out of habit she grits her teeth at the dig, pulling perhaps a little too sharply at his hair as she forces him to look at her and not close his eyes at her ministrations. "Very funny." She says dryly, forcing her mouth into a small smile before falling back into seriousness. "… I need you to, though." She continues, hand falling from his hair. "I need you to promise me that… That you'll listen to me out there. The two of us... We're a team. But you have to let me take the lead on this one, okay? Make the decisions? Because this is... I know my Dad, I know… This might not be like the other times we fought him. It might be... I don't know."

Something sharp, too focused, shifts behind his irises. "… What's that supposed to mean?"

She tries and fails to swallow. "It means that if I tell you to run, or turn back, you listen." She says severely, fingers tight on his shoulders as she stares up at him unblinkingly. "I know him, Wally. And I'm not letting him do anything that—"

"So what am I supposed to do?" Wally cuts her off, ears turning a startling red. At once his arms are like a cage around her, fingers clenching so tightly to her waist that she winces. "Let you take a bullet for me? Again? I'm not leaving you behind, Artemis. I don't care—"

"I care." She says grittily, and for once something in her tone forces him to shut up, her eyes glaring at him with such an intensity that he seems to understand to be quiet, redness seeping down to his cheeks as he scowls back. "I need you to promise that you'll listen to me on this, Wally. I need to hear it."

"Artemis—"

"Please." She whispers, not blinking.

(And for a moment they aren't in the back-cabin of the Bioship; they're back in her bedroom and they're sweating and she's got her fingers curled in his hair. They're a mess of skin and gasps and nails running down backs and when he hesitates she begs him for it, begs him to get closer—)

It's Wally who looks away first, eyes glaring down at his feet for a moment before he jerks his chin back up, exhaling loudly through his nose. "Fine." He grits out, jaw tight. "… I promise I'll trust you out there."

The second he says it she feels a part of her unwind, something deep and so internal that it hardly phases the intensity of the tightness of her muscles; still, she hears herself exhale, feels the tiny trace of relief cross her face as her hands run up his neck, thumb brushing against the edge of his jaw. "Thank you." She breathes out, leaning in.

Wally tilts his head back when she tries to kiss him, hardly looking as relaxed as she does. "I need you to promise me something too." He says seriously.

Like an idiot she feels the ease of her expression break, eyes narrowing as her finger traces up his cheek. "… What?"

Wally hesitates, only for a second but long enough for her whole body to go tense again. "… Promise me you'll save me a dance, when we're done with all this." He says easily, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards as he tries to break the tension.

She hears herself let out a shaky chuckle; without thinking her forefinger brushes over her lipstick stain on his cheek. "I promise."

"On a scale of one to ten, how mad would you be if this was a false alarm? Like, if you missed Prom because you were too busy camping out for your father who doesn't even have the decency to show up so you can get the satisfaction of kicking his ass—"

"Zatanna." She hisses, warning the other girl to be quiet. By now it's grown so dark outside that she can hardly see the other girl stationed beside her.

There's an annoyed huff, and even without listening for it she can hear the forced normalcy in her voice, as if Zatanna's deliberately trying to keep things light. "Just making conversation. We've been here for an hour with no action, I'm getting bored." There's some rustling and a muffled snapping noise, the bush they're currently camped behind shaking slightly as if one of it's more willowy branches has just been ripped off. "... I mean, I would be annoyed. At least a seven out of ten."

"Zatanna." She sighs more insistently, not able to stand talking to someone while her mind is busy buzzing with anxiousness and unsaid words.

("It is time." Kaldur had called back to them. "We will be landing shortly."

And something inside her had almost refused, had almost called back to him that she couldn't face it; couldn't face leaving the comfort of Wally's arms and the manageable world she had constructed in the back room... But she hadn't. Instead she had gone against every instinct pounding so insistently in her body, instead she had pulled back, instead she had wiped too quickly at her eyes, suddenly aware of the wetness dribbling down her mask.

Instead of telling him she loved him she had avoided his gaze. "We've got to..." She had trailed off, blinking.

"... Right."

Instead of following her he had turned to watch her progress to the door, jaw set and eyes blazing. And for a second she had seen it, raw but so much more real than any of the other times before— his throat was bobbing, lips opening, mouth freezing around the words.

"Hey." She had cut him off. "I know, okay? I know."

And for the first time, she had known, really known...)

Even thinking about it now her throat feels tight, eyes burning in a way that makes her glad for the cover of darkness. She doesn't know why she stopped him from saying it— maybe it would have been nice to hear. And maybe it would have been nice to say it back, even just the once. But she supposes it's too late to think about what-ifs and second chances. If she's being honest she gave those up hours ago.

Still, she feels as if she's left a part of herself there, back in that back room with Wally and everything neither of them could say. She doesn't know why there's such a sense of finality to it, as if she'll never be able to go back to that moment, as if everything is about to change. She has to remind herself that nothing's even happened yet— and even if something does, it doesn't matter. It took her this long to get to Wally, months of breaking down walls and arguing their way into each other's hearts. He's her life now, has been for far longer than when his blood had stained her fingers in Metropolis. When did it happen, anyway? The day he helped tend to her cracked and bleeding hands? The night he sought comfort in her after the Exercise? Or were they somehow marked for each other the second they met, the second his freckled skin had splattered on the floor in front of her?

It doesn't matter. She's never going to let him slip through her fingers again.

(And as she thinks it she feels something stir inside her, something dangerous and hardened and maliciously determined—)

For some reason the other girl goes uncharacteristically silent beside her; for several long moments there's no noise except for the crackling of radios and the snapping sound of the twig Zatanna's acquired being broken into smaller pieces. "... I have to ask you something."

She lets out an annoyed exhale through her nose, struggling to find a way around it. Local authorities had already swept the perimeter of civilians and museum employees by the time they arrived, and there truly isn't anything for them to do except sit and wait to see if threats of Sportsmaster's presence are going to actually be fulfilled. She scowls in the darkness. "Then ask me something."

"...What exactly is the endgame here?" Zatanna blurts out in an almost whisper. "Say everything goes great. Say we do catch your father. Then what?"

She hesitates, listening hard to the wayward crackling of the radio in her ear; instead of answering right away she swallows thickly, ignoring the way Zatanna is remaining expectantly quiet as she mulls her reply over. "… Then he goes to prison." She says simply, ignoring when she senses the other girl's gaze. "And I get my life back."

Zatanna makes an annoyed clicking noise in the back of her throat. "And you and Wally live happily-ever-after?" She asks sarcastically.

For some reason she turns her head to glare defiantly into the darkness, thankful the other girl can't see her blush. "I don't know... Maybe." Even though it's impossible to tell she thinks Zatanna stares at her for a long time in the silence between them, as if the blackened Athens night is telling more about her than words ever could.

She jumps when she hears the familiar dog-like laugh, the barking edge to it startling her so badly that her hand automatically flies to her belt, slipping her bow free and snapping it into position so quickly that it bursts open into the bushes, shaking the leaves violently. "That's such bullshit, Artemis." The other girl drawls out between chuckles.

There's a nervous twisting in her stomach and she even though she knows it won't be seen anyway she tries not to let any hurt cross her features. "... No it's not."

Zatanna snorts. "Right, okay." She drawls after a moment, and when she continues she sounds much gentler in her observations. "What about after that? What happens if he breaks out again?"

"Then we go out and we haul him back to prison again."

"So what, you just keep hunting him? And dragging us along for the chase?"

She feels a wrinkle popping up over her nose. "Kaldur coordinated this mission, not me—"

"You're missing the point." Zatanna cuts her off, and she can imagine a scowl on the other girl's face. "I'm just wondering, if all you're doing is chasing him around—when do you find the time to live your life? When exactly is that happily-ever-after supposed to happen? You can't have a whole life with someone in those few weeks or months your dad is out of the picture. And what about Cheshire?"

She drops her eyes from where she's been scowling at the vague outline of the museum, fists clenching at her sides as she glares into the distance. She's a little unsettled to discover that she doesn't have an answer.

As if understanding her silence Zatanna sighs. "Other people don't get it." She says in an undertone. "Believe me. They don't understand... You and me, we're kind of the same, you know. Both our dads getting tangled up in..." The other girl trails off for a long moment. "I'm not being critical, or anything. I know it might sound like it. And maybe I'm just trying to find some answers for myself. Try to figure out what I'm supposed to do when the hunt finally ends, if it ever does."

There's more quiet. "... You thinking of going after Fate?" She asks quietly, head turning towards the sound of Zatanna's breathing.

"Going? Please, I'm already gone." The other girl laughs bitterly.

She waits until the barking chuckles have died out before she responds, giving herself a few extra seconds to think about what she's saying. "... So that's why you won't give into Dick?"

There's the sound of fabric wrinkling, and she supposes the other girl is shrugging. "I guess. It's not that I don't... He's a great guy. But I don't think he understands that— Maybe it's just that Bats screwed him up. Or maybe he did it himself... I don't think he understands that I can't stop. Not until..." More silence. "No point in dragging another person into my mess, especially someone who doesn't realize it isn't temporary. Although, I think it's different for you and Wally." The other girl says with a bitter edge of honesty. "Wally seems like the kind of person who can hold on through all that. If you have to leave to figure things out. Or ditch him for a bit to get your priorities straight. I don't think Dick is the same."

"Yeah." She says before she considers it, frowning. "I mean, I've never really thought about it."

(And yes, she's never really thought of it. But then again, a nastier part of her reminds her, remember how well he reacted when she'd had to go MIA? Remember all the phone calls, the text messages? The never ending clinging...

... And is that exactly safe for him? To be so attached to her, to love her? When the person she's hunting and who's hunting her would kill him as easily as he would swat a fly—)

"Well, I mean, you guys have talked about it." Zatanna throws out casually. "Like... He knows what he's getting into, right?"

(... Not really. But granted, neither does she...)

Instead of answering she gnaws ferociously on her tongue, stomach twisting in knots. Pressing a finger to her ear just to give herself something to do she listens for a moment to the renewed static of their radios. "Anything yet?" She mutters in an undertone.

"No." Kaldur answers her after a moment, sounding tired. "We are waiting to—"

A painful rage of squeaking cuts him off, the same kind of violent scrambling that reminds her eerily of their failing radios in Metropolis; distantly, above the hum of static, she hears the low drumming of a helicopter.

Not even a second after she registers the sound do the explosions start— even though they're plenty far from the museum she can feel the impact, instinctively closing her eyes as the massive panels of glass making up the dozens of windows burst and spray shards out in all directions. Instantly there's screaming, smoke furrowing out of the ground level as if a fire has been started, her hair whipped back off her face as the helicopter looms overhead—

"Artemis!" Zatanna yells out, hand latching tightly around her forearm; it occurs to her that she's gone still, frozen with her eyes shut, as if trying to block out what's happening.

She shakes her head, trying to pull herself together (trying not to taste the salty air of Metropolis because this isn't like last time, they're better prepared, no one is going to die,) her eyes watering as she raises her head, ponytail sticking to the sweat on her back. "Someone's trying to move onto the roof of the museum." She screams, the hand holding her bow jutting out to point: as she says it the helicopter gives a wobble, still miles from the roof top, but obviously intent on landing. "Aqualad—" She starts, finger jamming into her ear and immediately being rewarded with a squeak.

"Coms are down." Zatanna confirms, wincing. "This is just like Metropolis, all our radios went down before—" She's thankful for when the other girl cuts herself off, and together they look at each other with panic in their eyes.

Between the two of them she's the first to recover, head turning automatically to stare at what's unfurling in front of them. Now that she's looking she's decided that it can't be a fire on the bottom floor of the building— it's the wrong kind of smoke, not nearly dark enough to be from flames. Even as she squints she thinks she sees figures moving in and out of it, but of course that could always just be a trick of the half light...

"Civilian officers are still in range." She hears herself shout, stomach churning with nerves and voice coming out much sturdier than she feels. "If I know my father he'll try to lure them inside, use them as bait."

Mechanically she draws an arrow from her quiver, eyes narrowing and thinking hard. "How does he even know we're here?" Zatanna counters.

They're wasting time now, and scrambling to fit her arrow in the notch of her finger she jerks her head, hoping the other girl can see her signal to move. "No idea. But he has to be responsible for the radios going out— Sportsmaster works for The Light, and they were responsible for Metropolis, or at least Luthor was."

They start working down the hill they've been perching on— the museum is sitting almost in a valley, the rocky Grecian terrain nearly impossible to maneuver in the dark. Twice she stumbles and nearly loses a few arrows, and behind her she hears Zatanna mumble some backwards jibberish she doesn't have the time to decipher. "Better question." She calls, and when she turns to glance over her shoulder she realizes the other girl has given up on trying to jog her way down and is instead floating beside her. "Why would he want to bait us inside?"

Her stomach tightens and she doesn't answer.

By the time they make it down to the ground level entrance to the museum there's nobody left to rescue; glass crunches under her feet as she jogs to a halt, that strange fog still unfurling into the air in great looming tendrils that seem to consume everything in a clouded grey, nearly impossible to see through. "Where is everyone?" Zatanna calls, landing beside her when she stops moving, unsure about going any further. "Aqualad was supposed to be down here, supposed to be working with the police."

Her stomach clenches. "And Kid and Robin were supposed to be doing perimeter." She can't keep the waver of fear from her voice, the hand keeping her arrow defensively in place on her bow string tensing.

"You don't think the glass got them, did it?"

As much as instinct is telling her to avoid the smoke— there's something unsettling about its color, the strange floral scent it's giving off that's making her salivate— she takes a few hesitant steps forward, carefully skirting around the few feet of toxic looking grey cloud hovering around all their entrance points. "Kid is fast enough to out run it, if I had to place a bet his first move would be to grab Rob and take off."

She can hear the crunch of Zatanna's heels in the dirt, both of them too nervous to stay still. "What about Kaldur then? Could Kid grab him too?"

It's still too dark to really see anything, but even in the partial light the fog seems to be putting off an eerie, milky glow. "No, and he couldn't grab a whole squad of officers either."

"So what then? If the glass got them then where are the bodies?"

"I—" She's just opened her mouth to answer when her boot catches on something, heel spasming inside her shoe as she lets out a surprised sound in the back of her throat.

"Artemis?" Zatanna calls out, voice sounding sharp and fearful in the dark. "Artemis, are you alright?"

It takes her a few seconds of squinting at the ground to find what she's looking for. "... Found one." She hears herself say, sounding oddly blank.

By the time Zatanna's caught up to her she's kneeling in the dirt, squinting in the pearly light of the fog. She doesn't know how she missed it before— now that she's right beside him she can smell the metallic scent of blood, the bitter scent of emptied bowels all dead bodies release mere seconds after death. Her stomach churns and she feels as if she might be sick. "Oh my god." She hears in the darkness. "Is that—"

"Nobody." She says, feeling empty as she stares at the face that wouldn't be recognizable, even without the shards of glass shredding the skin, the blood pouring from the eye sockets that were still looking on in fear when he died. For some reason her hand strays out, turning the unknown man's chin in her direction. "I mean, not anymore. He's wearing a uniform, looks like an officer. Police chief, maybe."

"What's that sticking out of his chest?" Zatanna whispers, sounding horrified. She wonders if this is the first time she's seen a dead body.

It's very hard to look away from the shredded remains of the face, but something about the fear in the other girl's voice grounds her; swallowing down the bile in her throat she drops her gaze, squinting in the dark.

... It's a javelin. Or at least she supposes it has to be— so much of the tip is buried inside the unknown man's chest she can really only see the back end of the tip. But it's the handle that gives it away, the ornate straightness, the length of it easily over half her height.

(And instantly her heart is racing, and she's no longer in Athens, no longer even in Metropolis— she's a child and her father is carving her out, her father is running the edge of the blade along her cheek, leaving tiny stripes of pain along her skin and reminding her that she's at his mercy, she'll always be at his mercy—)

Something inside her stills the awful stomach-wrenching sensation that's threatening to send her into a panic and instead forces her to narrows her eyes, head turning to examine the end of the blood soaked tip sticking out of the officer's chest, to follow the straightness of the handle she can hardly see in the dark. She's getting ahead of herself— this isn't her father's javelin. Her father's is a long rod, narrowed down to a deadly point— whatever she's looking at now is much cruder, less sophisticated and balanced, probably mass produced and nothing like Lawrence's unique instrument...

Her stomach churns again as she feels the blood soaked end sticking out of the man's chest, counting several prongs and a definitive latch before the handle , this isn't Sportsmaster's javelin, he would never use something with multiple prongs, incapable of piercing an opponents body all the way through. She turns her head to follow the dead man's line of sight, wondering what he would have been looking at when he was killed. She blinks stupid at the museum's front door.

(Vividly in her head she can imagine it— Someone, not her father, hiding in the museum... Waiting for a signal, waiting until... Until what? Until the helicopter was in range? And then... And then bursting out of the museum front door, killing someone on sight, creating a distraction—

... If Kaldur had seen someone killed in front of him he would have reacted, she's sure of it. He would have charged forward without hesitation, and she's more than willing to bet that the others, officers, police men... They would have come charging too...

And then of course the glass would have burst out, and fog would have unfurled...)

She looks down again at the dead man's chest, fingers leaving the wound and instead roaming over his uniform, the padding on his arms. Even as she's looking at it she can only see a few superficial marks, the only evidence of glass even hitting him being the exposed skin of his face... And Kaldur, Kaldur has that thick Atlantean skin...

"Aqualad's inside." She blurts out, not wanting to look at the dead body anymore, not wanting to be close to it. "Look at this guy's uniform, he's got some sort of armor underneath it— I bet all the other officers were fine if they had the sense to cover their faces. This guy had just been hit, he'd probably still been shocked by the impact when the glass went off, or didn't see a point in defending himself— he must have known the javelin was too deep, must have known he was about to die."

Even if she's not following her train of thought Zatanna rises with her, face set. "How do you know it's a javelin?"

She's not entirely sure where the answer comes from but the second she says it she knows it's right. "Jade and her goons used these the last time we were here— Sportsmaster must be working with the Shadows too."

If Zatanna's having her doubts she apparently doesn't have any better ideas; when she resets her arrow against her finger the other girl nods, looking determined. "If Kaldur's in the fog too then that must be where Robin and Kid are— actually, I'd bet money on that being Rob's first move, getting the Team back together to regroup."

"Then let's not waste any more time." She agrees. Without looking back at the dead man on the ground, they both march on.

She's been around campfires, seen a fair share of smoke when she hasn't been properly paying attention to what she's been cooking— she even remembers one summer when an apartment a few blocks over had been burnt to rubble in an act of arson. Real smoke is lighter than air, leaves the scent of destruction in her lungs, sticks with an invisible grittiness to her tongue when she inhales it.

She had been right about the smoke unfurling now being sinister; as her and Zatanna climb the few steps to the place where the front doors of the museum used to be she knows almost immediately that something is off. The second they become enshrouded in it she can feel it sitting heavily in her lungs, pressing against her skin with a strange humidity and warmth, a slick and oily moisture that sends beads of anxious sweat bursting out along the seams of her uniform.

This is wrong.

They hardly last five minutes before they're both panting, lost and unseeing in the maze that is the museum; the longer she breathes the smog in the more she feels like she's drunk— the fog is doing something to her senses, slowing her down. "This isn't right." Zatanna says beside her, her voice sounding warbled and exhausted. "Artemis—"

There's a shuffling noise to her left and it takes her too long to react to it, head turning clumsily and eyes seeming to stay closed too long as she blinks. When she opens her eyes she's alone.

She's dizzy, she's— she feels as if she's going to vomit as she turns clumsily on the spot, looking round for Zatanna. The fog may be dulling her senses but it isn't dulling the adrenaline rushing through her, her muscles throbbing with panic but unable to move the way she wants to, her heart beat banging against her ears and making it impossible to focus as her hand fumbles for her belt, searching for the mouthpiece she knows isn't there, searching for something to cleanse the air around her—

Focus, focus—

She loses control of her fingers just as someone knocks too hard into her left side— she can't even move to catch herself as she goes crumbling, body slamming hard against the ground. She blinks again, mind struggling to comprehend the impact as her limbs flop, uncontrollable and knocking against the bottom corner of an art display.

She manages to see a uniform, a glinting of blue and black against gold. The police. "I'm on your side." She tries to blurt out, mouth only opening and giving her a taste of sourness of the fog before her lips sputter into a slobbery silence.

Her eyes narrow, or at least she thinks they do as the police man hovers over her; he's not affected by the fog, for some reason, his movements still precise as he kicks brutally at her hands, forcing her bow and arrow from her fingers and sending them sliding away into the nothingness of the smoke. That can't be right. Why would a police man try to disarm her? She can't even fight back as his boot collides with her shoulder, kicking her onto her back; she blinks again, registering the painful sensation of her quiver digging between her shoulder blades before her eyes open, struggling to find a face.

He's got a mask on, that's why he's moving so easily— there's a complicated mess of tubing and plastic covering his nose and mouth, it must be filtering his air for him. She tries to breathe in again, tries to focus, except each time she drags in a breath more and more of the strange fog seems to linger there, threatening to drown her. The police man fumbles for his belt— and this all seems to be happening very slowly, or maybe her eyes are just not working right anymore— and extract a pistol, cocking it and aiming for her forehead.

Something inside her screams, a thousand sirens telling her she's about to die. Instead she blinks again.

Then she hears a tiny trill of noise and something explodes.

She knows it isn't big— she can tell by the burst of blackened smog that erupts in front of it that it was a small, short range explosive that's meant more to confuse an opponent than anything. There's a strange cackling noise that she knows should be familiar but for some reason isn't, and she can hear the sound of fists colliding with skin, can hear the sound of plastic breaking and weapons clicking. She doesn't care what's happening anymore, weight rocking her back onto her side. She feels like falling asleep.

She's barely conscious when gloved fingers roll her, much more gently, onto her back; someone's slapping her cheek, trying to get her to open her eyes. It's her mother, reminding her that today is another school day and she's going to be late if she doesn't get out of bed soon. "Wake up." Her mother will say, hitting her playfully.

Never, she thinks back. She's never getting out of bed—

The unknown hands give up on her and instead start lifting her head, which by now feels too heavy for even her own neck to support. She wrinkles her nose at her mother, who is smoothing her hair over her ears and still trying to get her to wake.

"You're going to be late on your first day of school!" Paula yells, slamming her door open and glaring at her from the hallway.

She's already in her school uniform but she still burrows under her covers. Someone is laughing at her— she can hear the voices of the boys in the hallway and feels hands ruffling her skirt. She wants to stay in bed forever but the mattress seems to slip out from underneath her, her knees aching when she lands clumsily in front of her locker.

Robin's eyes are blinking at her. "Around here I go by Dick." The strange boy tells her. Over his shoulder she can see his friends laughing at her.

"It's true." Wally calls out from across the hallway, for some reason wearing his grey prom suit. One of his hands is messing with his tie as he approaches them, looking pleased when her and Dick shout out in welcome. "My last name is West." He tells her instead of saying hello.

She reaches out to touch him and finds her hand slips through his shoulder, fist colliding affectionately with the locker behind him. "I know that." She tells him.

Something clamps over her mouth and nose and almost the second she inhales the world comes back into a frightfully sharpened reality— it feels as if she's just jumped into a vat of icy water, all her muscles spasming and jumping and bursting back into life as she drags untainted oxygen into her lungs. Almost at once she's coughing, spit hitting the mask that's been clipped to her face, the sounds of battle— screaming, blood splattering, feet thundering against the ceiling— slapping her senses violently. She gasps out, panicking, no longer warm and comfortable but terrified and alone and— Zatanna, she needs to find Zatanna—

"Artemis." Someone calls out her name, and it takes several bouts of blinking before her eyes start seeing properly, the familiar domino mask and onyx hair crouching beside her. "Artemis, you need to relax. Just breathe clean air for a bit." Dick tells her, hands still fitting the mask around her face.

"What's happening?" She nearly screams, realizing she's shaking as he fits the straps behind her ears; her eyes are spinning around violently, unable to see through the fog still but spotting the uniformed officer a few feet away, now maskless and lying helplessly a few feet away. "Where's everyone else?"

When Dick speaks again and she realizes his voice is muffled— he's wearing another stolen mask. "Wally's getting Zatanna and Kaldur's upstairs, we're going to rendezvous as soon as you can stand."

"I'm fine—" She starts to say angrily, brushing off his hands as they still fumble with her mask; almost the second she gets to her feet she feels light headed, nearly falling over until he catches her, slinging one of her arms around his shoulder.

"I told you, just start breathing, okay?" He says insistently, and she decides it's best not to disobey him. "The fog contains opium, you're going to be disoriented until your lungs start processing clean air. Where's your bow?"

She tries to focus on breathing through her mouth, struggling to remember what she thought she saw through the haze, it's almost impossible to orient herself in any direction, the smog obscuring everything that isn't a foot in front of her. "Over there." She nods clumsily, feeling again as if she's about to vomit.

Dick tries his best to help her walk, and she supposes there's some improvement the longer she breathes in clean air; soon it's no longer a matter of dragging her but simply keeping a grip on her arm to avoid losing each other in the density of the smoke. "What's happening?" She asks again.

In answer Dick bends to retrieve her bow, apparently not trusting her to do it herself. "Still figuring that out. I was on the north end of the building when all the explosions happened. Only just managed to get out of the way too." As he hands her bow back to her she can see scratches covering his arm, a few still bleeding. "Wally was on the east end, he didn't see either but by the time we met up and went looking for you and Zatanna you were both gone. We figured you guys had gone inside."

"We did." She confirms, and together they start moving through the smoke again.

Dick pulls up the screen on his gauntlet, apparently trying to find their position on a map; she's still oddly jumpy, notching an arrow against her finger and starting at old displays of artwork and statues as they bubble up through the smog. "Watch my back." He instructs her before continuing. "Almost the second we got in here Wally started acting funny— kept forgetting where we were, half the time he seemed to think he was at the Cave or talking to his Aunt. It's his fast metabolism, it just sped up the effects... We weren't even in here a minute before a bunch of goons jumped us—"

"They're Shadows." She interrupts, tensing and taking aim into the smoke for a moment before she realizes she's about to attack a door frame. "Zatanna and I found a body outside, he was killed with the same kind of javelins Cheshire and her squad were using the last time we were here."

"What?" Dick says distractedly, glancing away from the screen. "Somebody was killed?"

"Yeah, right outside the main entrance." She pauses, instinct kicking in. "I don't think she's here though, Rob. She'd be out here messing with me." She not entirely sure why she says it, and continues speaking before he has time to suspect her of defending her sister. "What happened next?"

Dick takes a sharp left— if she's reading the map right he's directing them towards a staircase. "Well, Wally was too much of a mess to fight but I managed to get a mask off one of the Shadows. Pretty straight forward from there— once Wally was working again we met Kaldur, he was stumbling around too. But he had figured out that upstairs is safe, it's only down here that's being effected by the fog, he had come back down to see if he could find us."

"What about Sportsmaster?"

"Your guess is as a good as mine." He says bitterly. "No sign of him yet. Come on, we need to—"

The clean air must be helping, because suddenly she feels a tenfold more alert; there's voices near them, still muffled by the intensity of the fog. Something moves in front of them and without thinking she lunges forward, forcing Robin behind her as she aims an arrow into the smog. "Move!" She snarls.

"Whoa!" A familiar voice starts, and even though it's too late to stop her release she purposely jostles it, her arrow flying several feet from her target and disappearing beyond where all of them can see. There's a twang of metal burying itself into wood, as if she's just found her mark in the frame of a very expensive painting, and Wally materializes in front of her.

"You're terrifying, you know that?" He tries to say cheekily, but there's still an edge of exhaustion to his voice; the longer she stares at him the worse he looks, eyes popping almost bug-like above his mask, skin so pale it might as well be translucent.

She supposes she must look the same.

Zatanna materializes too, and before any of them can say anything else in greeting the moment is cut off by the squealing of their radios in their ears, static so sharp and violent that all of them instantly cry out in pain.

"What the hell was that?" Zatanna screams through her mask, the tail end of her question being cut off by a loud crashing noise; apparently the helicopter has landed, clumsily, on the roof top.

There's more static in her ear, and this time she hears another voice cutting through in between the squeaks. "Team—" She hears Kaldur say before the system goes silent again.

"Come on!" Dick yells at them all, jerking his head to their left— she's right, he's been taking them to the main staircase, and without hesitating they all follow.

The second floor is in a mind numbing chaos by the time they emerge, each of them ripping their masks from their faces and discarding them half-hazardly as they reach for weapons or gear up to use their powers; there's dozens of police officers here, all clad in the same uniform and making it impossible to tell who to aim her arrows at, impossible to know who to help and who to hinder as they fire bullets at each other—

There's a blast of air as Wally starts moving, the back draft sending her sweat-slicked skin prickling— he's not bothering to distinguish between good and bad, undercover or on their side; he's simply running and disarming at random. She frowns, switching her aim between multiple targets. "How are we supposed to know who to fight?" She calls out, hoping for an answer.

All her screaming as attracted the attention of an officer to her left— before she can even make up her mind as to whether or not to shoot he's ducked behind a nearby sculpture, emerging on the opposite side and flicking his wrist. There's the sound of something snapping into place and—

She dives out of the way just as the javelin is thrown at her, it's impact into a cabinet sending glass shattering everywhere as she's forced to roll across the floor, skinning the side of her ribs on the hardwood. "Guess that's how you know." She hears Zatanna yell out, not stopping to make sure she's alright.

She can hardly think; between firing arrows and slamming the brunt end of her bow into noses and the occasional crackling of her radio she can feel raw instinct kicking in, can feel a low buzzing vibrating against her skull as she fights to stay alive. It's all memory, pure muscle memory, her anxiousness a back drop to the loud pounding of her heartbeat in her ears reminding her to be careful, watch Wally, where's Wally—

Her head turns to automatically follow the streak of scarlet and yellow across the room and almost immediately she loses focus, trying to track him. "Artemis!" Kaldur screams out.

A spray of water hits her across the face and she flinches, muscles moving of their own accord to snap her bow into position; she has enough time to see the wall of water in front of her, see the javelin suspended in the rocking of waves, less than a foot from her temple before it splatters to the floor, and without thinking she fires, her arrow catching her quarry in the shoulder and knocking him down.

"Thanks." She gasps— even though there's no fog up here she still feels as if she's unbalanced, unfocused as Kaldur appears beside her.

"Have you—" He starts to ask, but before he can finish their radios are wailing again; without warning there's an explosion several feet in front of them and they're both forced to dived out of the way.

Someone else screams out her name as she collapses against the floor, chalk white debris and acidic smelling smoke erupting into the room as she throws herself underneath a sturdy looking table; beside her Kaldur thuds to the floor, cracking his skull hard against the hardwood before his body flattens, not moving. There's shouting all around them, fresh air bursting into the room— it's as if one of the walls has just been blown open, no rhyme or reason existing anymore as displays begin to crumble, glass cabinets bursting; she's done something funny to herself in the fall, knocked her head against a leg of the table she's hiding under in a way that sends all her muscles stunned one moment and then slack the next—

"There it is!" She hears someone shout above all the noise, and in the madness unfurling around her she can hear footsteps thundering towards her, things being shoved out of the way— she feels as if she's back in the fog again, losing herself, her limbs refusing to cooperate as she lies, stunned, as whoever is breaking into the museum stops only feet from her.

"It's right there." Someone says, and there's a clattering as the casing of whatever's on the table is thrown open. "Right there, come on, he wants this to be quick."

"Are you sure?"

More clattering. "Look at the screen. It's giving off EMF readings, has to be it."

Something clicks in the back of her mind, enough for her to raise her head off the floor. EMF Readings. Electro Magnetic Field Readings. Same as the squid. Same as what the device stolen in Metropolis was supposed to be able to track...

It all happens so quickly that by the time she muddles through the fact that she shouldn't let whoever just took whatever it was from the museum leave they're already gone; like an idiot she scrambles into her hands and knees, struggling to climb through the debris now littering the floor to pursue them.

It's still chaos when she emerges— the battle is still raging on despite the fact that half the museum is starting to fall apart, nobody in pursuit of the Shadows who have just disappeared leading her to believe that she's the only witness to the theft, although she can hardly be of much help now, she has no clue what they took or why...

Think. She tells herself, looking around wildly. Think.

But that's proving harder than it should be as well— there's a dull pounding at the back of her head, a warmth trickling down the between her shoulder blades telling her that she's wounded, although she doesn't think seriously... Feeling desperate she starts sprinting towards the blown open side of the building, feet thundering against the unstable ground and heart racing, still not sure what she's doing— the night air is cold when she pauses to look out over the city of Athens, head aching as she swivels it in different directions— and then she sees it, a door at the end of a hallway marked in neon red, and even though she doesn't understand what the words say she suspects that it's an exit point, a roof top maybe—

She's weak; when the familiar gust of air slaps her painfully across her skin she stumbles, feet wobbling underneath her until a too-fast hand grabs her about the elbow, yanking her steady. "Artemis!" Wally screams in her face, hand going round to cup the back of her head. "Artemis, what the hell happened—"

"It's fine." She tells him, even though she's not entirely sure it is. "Wally, Shadows were back with that EMF reader they stole in Metropolis, they took something—" He's not listening, not properly at least; when he pulls his hand away questioningly from the back of her head his palm is soaked with blood, dark crimson and staining against the material of his glove. "Wally!" She screams more insistently. "Wally, listen to me, okay, go back and get everyone to follow me out that door—"

"Out which door?"

"That one—" As she points she can see his muscles setting, getting ready to ignore her plan in favor of his own, unthinkingly her arm shoots out, holding him in place.

"Babe—"

She doesn't even let him speak in protest; ignoring the look on his face she grabs him hard by the shoulders, fingers digging into the kelvar of his uniform as if afraid he's going to run out of sight. "You can't, Wally!" She screams at him, nearly shaking him. "You promised to listen to me, remember? I don't know what's going on out there, I can't let you— don't—" She's not being clear, or maybe Wally just doesn't understand—she doesn't know how she knows, but she can sense something bigger is about to happen, that if her father is hiding anywhere it's outside that door, in the unknown battle on its other side—

But he's still not listening, not really, eyes glaring at his crimson palm before he yanks his goggles down over his eyes. "You're hurt, Artemis." He tells her simply, as if she were a child. "I'm not letting you."

"Not letting me— No!" She screams out as he bursts away from her, voice aching and throat feeling as if it's splitting into blood soaked tendrils with the strength that she yells after him. "Wally! You promised!"

But he's gone, already far beyond where he can hear her screaming. Far enough that nothing, not even the weight of his broken promise, can catch up.

Even though her body is aching and her head is pounding she tears after him, continuing her rampage of hysterics as she follows the lingering disrupted air down the hallway—this can't be happening, this can't be happening. She can't lose Wally, she'll die before she lets him out of her sight again—

She throws open the doorway to find a narrow set of stairs, ramming the toes of her boots painfully she begins to climb; it's steep with too-many sharp turns, aching in her over tired muscles— it must lead to the roof top, must lead towards the helicopter, must lead to whatever she's both been hoping for and dreading for weeks now... She's quickly approaching another door, this time marked in a bright blue paint, and notching an arrow against her finger she charges through it.

The door isn't even fully open before another burst of speed is whipping across her face, so over powering that for a moment she has to close her eyes against the pressure of the back draft, the hairs on her arm standing on end with both static and fear; in the second her eyes are shut she can hear the sound of knuckles colliding with bone and the sound of crumpling muscles against the pebbled ground of the roof…

And perhaps what's most recognizable of all is the heart-wrenching, almost animal cry that she knows is Wally's; for one wild moment she's back to where it all started, back to when she knew little more about him than his mantle and had saved him out of mercy, out of doing what was right—

She opens her eyes and a part of her freezes, terror mounting and blurring her vision until the only thing in the world that she knows for a moment is that noise, that noise that reminds her of beginnings and endings and death and dying, the noise that belongs to the boy she loves and the boy she would die for, would kill for, is going to kill for— and she can sense the panic attack threatening to consume her, can feel vomit rising in her throat but she can't, she can't—

Focus.

Focus for Wally.

(As if in a blur she can feel their lives together flashing at the back of her eye lids like they did in the safety of the Bioship, a thousand memories of the only happiness she's ever known: the Gotham Academy bleachers, the surprise in his eyes as he had seen her face for the first time; blood pouring down her forehead and gentle hands peeling back her mask. Apple eyes staring at her over their homework, lingering on the lines of her uniform and sending an unknown heat between her legs— their window, a sai at her feet and the blue and green blend that was their earth staring at them as they stood inside the Watchtower… Lips on her neck, her breasts, fingers touching hip bones, the perspiration beginning to cling to the dip of his collar bone—)

She watches Wally's body collide into the ground, limp muscles jerking on impact and a gasp of air firing out of his lungs as he lands flat on his back, unmoving; she has enough time to see the point of a javelin raise itself into the air and hear unknown words being screamed out in distress from someone else who doesn't even exist to her in this moment—

As if she's only inches above him she watches his lips open, feels the imaginary breath Wally lets out before slipping into unconsciousness.

She feels as if she's been set on fire.

Something inside her snaps— all her nerves are blazing, nose wrinkling, a thousand merciless pricks of pain firing through her, and she's not aware of the blood thirsty snarl that she lets out, not aware of anything except of the fact that it feels as if every part of her is being set aflame with rage. She's unthinking, hyper focused, her breath only fanning the flames as the Metropolis girl awakens, rising from the ashes that Artemis used to be.

Lawrence freezes at the noise, still focused on his quarry at his feet. His head hasn't even turned towards her before she sends an arrow forward to pierce his heart.

She hadn't expected it to hit and it doesn't, Sportsmaster sensing it in the air the way he had once taught her; she watches the familiar oaky muscles shift and change position mid-motion, no longer intent on slicing Wally open and instead whipping wildly to slash her arrow off course. She hears the ear splitting twang of metal on metal and watches her arrow plunge, tip first, into the pebbled ground several feet from Wally's head.

There's a moment where her father stares, muscles still taught and stance still defensive, at the quivering green feathering on the end of her arrow; she can't read him behind the mask like she can with Jade, can't decipher any meaning of the dull blue eyes staring out of the grey plastic. There's a long moment in which all she can hear is an unknown female crying that seems to be echoing all around the roof top without a source before her father comes back to himself, straightening slightly and looking round to find her, still cornered on the entrance to the roof. "… Baby Girl."

She's not his Baby Girl anymore...

His voice is so sneering, so hateful— despite the fact that she isn't Artemis anymore she still feels a shiver run through her as if she's a child, cowering in fright in her bedroom; for some reason she can't bring herself to say anything in greeting, as if he'll recognize something in her voice she isn't willing to admit to herself.

(That she's crazy? That she's lost it? That she's so weak she's finally succumbed to using the weapon he placed inside her as a last resort? Will he be able to hear it, in the way she can in her ragged breathing that's bothering a few stray pieces of hair over her mask— will he be able to tell that she's finally become the mindless animal he's always wanted her to be—)

There's a clink of metal beside her and reflexively she straightens defensively, extracting another arrow from her quiver and snarling. "Don't bother." Lawrence says coyly, and she watches as the Shadows she's aiming at lower their javelins. "Priorities, remember? Let me enjoy my little family reunion."

There's another spasm of fear bursting but she refuses to indulge it as the Shadows go rushing towards the helicopter, loading unknown bags that could contain the EMF reader or the stolen object; uneasily she shifts her weight, aiming at her father and trying not to blink when the helicopter blades split into a stuttering spinning motion.

For some reason Lawrence laughs when she pulls her string tighter, advancing towards her and leaving Wally to recover on the ground. "What's the matter?" He chuckles at her, head tilting back to survey her better through the holes in his mask. "Can't spare a word or two for your old man?" He barks. "Or maybe you'd just rather talk to the Doctor?"

He makes a gesture with the end of his javelin and stupidly she flinches as if he's just thrown it directly at her—she should know better, her father likes to play with his food before he eats it, he's just like Jade—and following his gaze she feels her mouth go dry; vividly she recognizes the blonde hair, the startlingly milky skin like Cassie's. Doctor Sandsmark, bruised and beaten and bleeding in several places— cowering and fearful where the Shadows have thrown her to the ground like garbage, no doubt as unsure about her own intentions as her daughter had been, months ago…

Wally stirs, several yards away from Sportsmaster but still in danger; if she's going to attack she's going to have to get away from both him and Sandsmark, they're too vulnerable—and suddenly she's back to chess pieces and sitting in front of their window and distracting Wally with gentle fingers on the inside of his wrist…

Focus.

"Why did you bring her here?" She spits, not sounding like herself. "Why go to the trouble of getting Cheshire to take her in the first place?"

Sportsmaster's feet stop, halfway between her and Wally, javelin lowering to his side but still pointed at her, suspicious. "You sound scared, Baby Girl." He taunts. "The Doctor was just helping some friends with a little science project they've been working on."

"What kind of project?" She snarls, muscles tightening when he starts moving again, hoping to distract him.

Her father only laughs, shaking his head at her. "Not so fast, Artemis." And she's been wrong— she's always thought Jade took her voice from Huntress, but now, with all this taunting, she's hearing strange notes that sound eerily familiar too... Her shoulders ache as her father paces a few steps to the side, advancing closer to the Doctor. "Don't you think you owe Daddy Dearest a proper hello first?"

She can't save both of them, she has to act fast—

Her lips pull back, exposing her teeth as a disgusted noise rips out of her throat. "Hi, Dad."

The sound makes Lawrence laugh again; she can see the corners of his eyes crinkling underneath his mask, javelin lowering with mirth. "Now that's more—"

She moves as quickly as she can; her arrow flies and her father's forced to move, not noticing as she extracts an explosive tipped arrow from the marked section in her quiver— her radio is squealing again in her ear, the rest of the Team regrouping, trying to figure out what happened and shouting her and Wally's names so loudly she can hardly think; they'll be here soon but she'll need to buy some time, she's not sure if she's capable of keeping her father busy on her own, she needs Wally to—

There's a dull clattering noise as her arrow misses and disappears into the pebbles coating the pavement rooftop, the dodging movement sending Sportsmaster a few steps back; he's not quite as prepared for her second one nor the explosive tip—as she charges towards him she can hear his sharp inhale of surprise as he's engulfed in smoke and heat and the firing of rocks all around them. She can feel the tiny impact of stones hitting her hard across the bare points of skin her uniform exposes, no doubt leaving dozens of dime sized bruises and cuts but she doesn't allow herself to get distracted, doesn't allow herself to take her eyes off the last place she saw him…

She hears him whirring through the smog and watches the clean path his javelin cuts through it towards her; it's hard to move on the roof's warbled surface, her heels digging in and leaving her almost unbalanced on her feet as Lawrence makes a slicing motion and cuts a thick line in the air towards her—she manages to dodge once, twice before he catches her, arms twisting and using to momentum of his swinging to spin his javelin in his hands, catching her hard in the shoulder with the blunt end and throwing her off balance.

She cries out and immediately means to turn the force he knocks her with into a flip but the terrain won't allow it; instead her graceful movement becomes clumsy, sending her rolling once over the rocks and skidding painfully on the uneven ground. "Tsk." Her father snarls at her, finally becoming fully visible as the smog clears. "Not very impressive, Baby Girl. Did you forget all my training already?"

For some reason the wrinkle over her nose pops up, her lips pulling up over her teeth to snarl at him. "Shut up!"

He lunges at her again and this time she's quick enough to dodge it properly, moving maliciously as if she has something to prove; ducking wildly around his swing she burls her weight downward, rolling against the ground on her shoulder and kicking her leg up as hard as she can. It's a risky shot, something she wouldn't have attempted if he had been fully straightened, but for the first time in her life the universe plays to her advantage; she hears the loud crunching of her heel kicking his jaw back, and the clattering noise of teeth smashing together. Lawrence has enough time to snarl in shock and half crumple before she's back on her feet, swiping her bow around and slapping him hard across the face with it.

Even though she's hit her father before a burst of wild satisfaction sounds in her stomach as he goes stumbling to the ground, almost out cold— the realization that she wants to hurt him, wants to really make him suffer, suddenly feels more real and more tangible as he skids across the uneven ground, muscles limp and unthreatening. Do it, something whispers to her, clawing at the back of her mind. Make him bleed.

At the same time she can hear Wally stirring several yards away, head flopping up and shaking as he looks round, not really seeing her. "… Babe?"

And for a moment she nearly ignores him, hand twitching towards her quiver— Sportsmaster is unbalanced, off guard, she's good enough to send an arrow through the eye hole of his mask, good enough to lodge the pointed tip through his skull, pierce his brain— and it would be perfect, carving out a piece of him just like he did with her, it would feel so good to kill him...

There's shouting coming from the staircase, voices whispering from the helicopter, the Doctor's weeping. She can feel herself withdrawing into her broken insides, can feel herself surrendering as the Metropolis girl takes control, getting ready to do what she's been thirsting for all this time—

"Babe?" Wally calls again, sounding more questioningly in the darkness. "... Artemis?"

Wally.

She blinks, realizing that she's staring at her father on the ground, hand clutching the end of the arrow that should end his life. "... Wally?" She hears herself whisper back, pony tail getting caught by the wind and catching on her lipstick.

Focus.

It takes more effort than it should to turn back to him, hair whipping off her forehead as the helicopter blades start spinning more wildly, signaling take off soon. "Kid!" She says, as if it's a prayer, bow lowering. "Kid!" She repeats, turning to sprint towards him, collapsing her bow and clipping it to her belt for good measure.

And she knows there should be other priorities, or at least that's what the malicious voice inside her head is hissing at her— she should be rescuing Doctor Sandsmark, she should be finishing off her father. She should be attacking the Shadows that are still furiously moving inside the helicopter, about to escape. The buzzing in her head tells her of a thousand things she should be doing, but only one of them makes sense; she can't focus on anything, not when Wally is so close and needs her—

Wally's her life now. And she needs to protect him.

And she can't help herself from touching him when she crouches beside him; like he always used to do to her in mid-battle she's suddenly running her hands all over him, carefully inspecting the scratches on his cheeks and the bump on the back of his head, the skid marks and tiny tears along the seams of his uniform. And after all this time she thinks she finally understands, understands what he's known for a while now, maybe since before the New Year...

She can't be what the Metropolis girl wants her to be. She can, if she really wants to, but she won't. She won't be that wild girl with the broken eyes, the cutting voice and the blood under her finger nails. She's never going to be her again. Not when Wally is looking at her with those apple eyes, believing in the best of her. She can't embrace the worst.

(Not yet.)

Wally seems slightly dazed, as if Sportsmaster's blow has done something to his head, or maybe that's just her touch. "Where's the Doctor?" He asks frantically, seizing her hands to get her to stop touching him, clasping his palms tights with hers. "Artemis, focus!"

Focus.

"Right." She says shakily, for some reason suddenly feeling light headed. She can feel adrenaline seeping out of her, defeat setting in. It's over. It's over and she didn't have the nerve to murder her father; Zatanna's right, he's just going to go back to another prison and she's going to spend her whole life chasing him, too afraid to live her life but too cowardly to end his... She tries to help Wally to his feet, suddenly feeling as if all the strength has left her body. Weak. "She's—"

There's a loud shriek that seems to be coming from inside her body rather than outside of it; without speaking her and Wally whip towards the sound, hands still interwoven tightly and unbreaking in the warmth of the Athens air.

Somehow she knows what she's about to see before she even really sees it—it's predictable of her father to go after the weakest link when he gets the sense that he's lost, so typical of him to seek a fight with the defenseless when his quarry is proving too challenging. Still, it doesn't stop her from locking eyes with the Doctor, looking unsettlingly small and terrified as she's lifted off her feet by Sportsmaster, shaking in the fold of his bicep and craning her neck backwards to avoid touching the deadly point of his javelin aimed at her jugular.

And it's going to happen again; someone's going to die because of her stupidity, her weakness, and be it soldiers in Metropolis or Cassie's mother she's never going to learn this lesson, never going to learn not to be weak—

(Worthless. Pathetic.)

Wally seems to recover first, jaw tight and teeth smashing together as he screams across the dead man's land between him and her father. "Get your hands off her!" He snarls, hands tight on hers.

Her father sneers, tilting the javelin a little daringly towards Sandsmark's neck, close enough to brush against the frindged ends of her blonde bob. "I could say the same to you." Her father barks back. "You never told me you had a boyfriend, Baby Girl."

No. No...

She can feel her heart stuttering with fear inside her chest, but as if she's been planning this moment all night the girl from Metropolis starts battling her for control, clawing at the backs of her eyes, teeth sinking into the scar on her neck; mechanically she feels her and Wally's hands fall apart as if burned. "Shut up." She snarls at her father in a way that may as well be a confession, taking her bow and snapping it open again.

And as she extracts an arrow from her quiver there's a moment, a half second where Wally's eyes meet hers— more plainly than ever she can read what's written there, can tell that he never intended to keep his promise to her. Whatever is about to happen is like taking those bullets in Metropolis, another betrayal of her love and trust, and she can't stop it, he's too fast, she can't keep up—

"No." She breathes. "Kid, don't—" She doesn't know what she's about it say, but it doesn't matter.

It's too late catch him, anyway.

(And later, when she thinks of this moment, she'll tell herself that Wally stayed. Or at least he wanted to. Wally, with the blisters on his toes. Wally, with the wet kisses he presses into her cheeks. Wally, who laughs as if everything is the funniest thing he's ever heard, Wally, whose freckles seep into the wrinkles on his forehead as he smiles at her—

No, Wally stayed. Wally kept his promise. It was Kid Flash who was the one who could never stop running—)

There's hardly a beat of silence in the air again before she moves, yelling intelligibly and racing in a sprint after him; in a split second he's taken off at a break neck speed into the terrifying space between them and her father, moving so quickly that pebbles and dust are forced to stir up from the roof top. Without thinking she charges after him, ignoring the spraying to stones and dirt as she tries to figure out what's happening, what he's already planned out without her for the sake of protecting her, watching as he laps her father several times and making him practically blind to the incoming assault, senses bogged down by the lack of vision and reflexes not quick enough to catch the sensation of a woman being ripped from his arms—

He's rescuing the Doctor. He's clearing her range so she can—

She switches her arrows out just in time, releasing just as the spray of pebbles and dust are settling, signaling that both Wally and the Doctor are out of harm's way; she doesn't see if it even hits her father but she hears the blinking of the flash bomb on the end of it and manages to close her eyes at the sudden burst of light; releasing her second arrow she hears it collide with the edge of the roof and release another thick cloud of smog, no doubt blindingly black from the recent brightness…

She hears the swinging of his javelin and the sound of a boot sending stones spraying as he stumbles and trusts the Metropolis girl when she extracts a pointed tip from her quiver and fires into the darkness, rewarding her with a scream as she starts sprinting again, for some reason eager for a fight in a way she wasn't before—

The fog clears with the swing of a javelin and she feels a pang run through her stomach when she sees an arrow sticking out of a thigh—she's managed to wedge the pointed tip into the upper part of her father's left leg, dangerously close to an artery and even closer to where her scar from Metropolis would be on her own body. As if he's stunned by the wound or that she was the one who inflicted it Lawrence freezes, muscles tense and popping in his thigh as he looks down to the feathery green of her arrow tip, watching his own blood seep out of him in horror.

"… So it's like that, is it?" He snarls, looking up at her with eyes narrowed behind his mask. "You trying to kill your old man?" He screams at her, ignoring the arrow still sticking out of his leg and swinging his javelin up above his shoulder, charging almost lopsidedly towards her.

She's just about to move when she feels wind whip across her back, her own hair flipping in front of her face and blinding her; there's a half second where it's all she can do not to choke on the length of her pony tail, bow still raise defensively but not knowing where to fire—

She rips her hair off her face, both snarling and blanching when she sees the familiar blur of yellow and red in front of her—Wally's there, he's come back, he's… He's being an idiot, attacking her father head on. Deliberately putting himself in danger, deliberately breaking his promise... In horror she watches, bow string taught and pointed arrow sitting against the notch on her finger, watching but unable to act as Wally hurls himself at Sportsmaster, grabbing weapons from slots and removing knives from holsters and somehow managing to avoid the slashing of the javelin through the air.

Her heart is beating so fast that she feels she might faint, bile threatening to spill out of her throat when suddenly— it's almost as if she can sense Wally's misstep as he plunges hard against the pebbles, ankle rolling and muscles not shifting quite right, or at least not in the perfect way she knows them too. Her father seems to notice how the uneven nature of the roof's terrain is bothering him, and as if it's what he's been waiting for he swings his javelin.

She hears the feral outcry again and for a moment her whole universe comes to a stand still; as if in slow motion she tricks herself into thinking she can see the fibers of his suit being torn apart, separating the padded portions of his shoulders from the clean Kevlar lines of his chest and slicing through skin and muscle and tendons and there's blood, there's blood spurting from the joint in his shoulder—

Wally's blood…

He's moving too quickly for the wound to be deep but she can tell he's shocked by the pain; for a moment Wally stops running altogether, wincing and staring wide eyed at the proof of his mortality flowing from his veins.

She hears herself let out a feral scream: she doesn't sound like herself, sounds a ten-fold more feminine and dangerous as she cries out his name—and it's his real name; not Baywatch or Kid or anything else either affectionate or sterile that could have crossed her lips. It's Wally.

It's always been Wally.

It all happens in less than half a second. Like an idiot Wally looks round at her, wide-eyed and shocked by her scream, and that's about all the hesitation her father needs; spinning his javelin in his fingers he looks at her, hard, as he goes in for the kill.

(And she's been right all along; her father would make her watch as he kills Wally, will make her watch as he bleeds out on the pavement…)

"No!"

She doesn't hear herself let out a blood curdling scream in defiance but she does feel her fingers release her arrow; without meaning to she's let the Metropolis girl gain control again, but she has to, she has to if they're going to survive—

Her arrow moves much faster than her father's javelin, and he doesn't even have a moment to block it before it's reached him; flying underneath his outstretched weapon she watches, with a numbed satisfaction, as it pierces through the center of his free hand.

The momentum of the arrow yanks her father backwards and the instability of the other wound to his thigh sends him crashing to the ground— but it doesn't stop the spinning of his javelin. Wally cries out as the blunt end slaps him hard across his open wound, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing, head first into the concrete barrier bordering the rooftop.

Wally's bleeding and unmoving but the Metropolis girl doesn't have a thought to spare for him; Sportsmaster is rising, the arrow previously lodged in his thigh breaking off and the pointed head forced deeper inside him as rolls through the pebbled ground, coming to a skidding stop. She grabs another arrow and feels her stomach churn as she tries to put herself between her quarry and Wally, watching the horrified expression on Lawrence's face carefully as he stares at the center of his palm, split open and bleeding with her arrow poking out of either side.

"You're going to pay for this, Baby Girl." He snarls.

And she knows instantly that he intends to be true to his word; before she can even brace herself for what's coming she watches in horror as he snaps the feathered back of her arrow off and throws it furiously at the ground, wincing when he seizes the blood covered tip and yanks the splinted end through his palm. It's sickening to watch, so much so that for a moment she freezes, blind sided by the anger on his face, the fury on his features.

He's going to kill her this time.

She almost doesn't react when he throws the javelin, hurling the pointed metal at her heart; perhaps it's just from spending so much time with Wally, or maybe she's simply gotten faster in these past few months, but for once in her life she's able to dodge the attack, knees aching with the speed she ducks, the movement forcing the arrow notched on her finger to waver, slipping over her callouses— and stupidly she looks after the javelin, because it's falling, going for Wally, and she's relieved when she hears the crunching of metal submerging into the cement wall bordering the edges of the roof, twanging loudly but hitting too high up along it, missing his head by a foot—

Her father takes advantage of her moment of distraction, and when she gets the sense to look back towards him she's terrified at his closeness, and like an idiot she feels her arrow slip even further in her fright, hears it clatter uselessly onto the rocks at her feet, and she needs to reach for her quiver but her arms are frozen, she's frozen—

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

He's too close for her to swing round to hit him properly but she still tries; like she did so many weeks ago with Jade she winds back as if swinging a baseball bat, knowing before she even starts that it's useless— Lawrence is done toying with her, now things between them are more personal than ever, and it's unsurprising when her father catches the bow in his fist and sends it clattering several feet away.

There's something funny in the way he does it, or maybe she's so rigid with fear that her hands almost refuse to let the weapon (her last hope) go, the movement so jarring that for a moment she gasps when she feels her arm crackling and slipping out of its socket, shoulder loose and unbound for a skin stretching, muscle aching moment; in her second of gasping and eyes watering Lawrence has a hold on her, slamming down hard on the joint of her shoulder and twisting her so her back is to him, beating between her shoulder blades until all her breath leaves her body, her muscles screaming with pain— suddenly she's not sure how or which muscles are giving out but she feels a sharpened pulsing at the center of her back and she's on all fours, the uneven edges of pebbles digging into her palms and knees—

She cries out again when he kicks her, as hard as he can in the stomach; there's a hatred to it, a bitterness, and she nearly vomits as the force of the movement knocks her a few feet sideways. She doesn't even get a moment of rest before he's back on her—twice more he kicks her, bruising several of her ribs and making it nearly impossible to move as he continues the assault, only laughing when bile bursts from her mouth and dribbles down her chin. One more kick and she cries out when her head collides with the cement of the wall bordering the building, scalp rubbing against the concrete and splitting open even further, blood bursting; in panic she forces her eyes open, unable to move, unable to scream out as she looks at Wally's unconscious body, looks at the blood still oozing from his shoulder…

She can't stop the tears that start blossoming in the corner of her eyes when her father crouches over her, hands seizing her hard by the shoulders and turning her to look him in the eye. She's going to die. She's going to die. "There." Lawrence sneers at her through his mask, and she thinks she can hear the smile in his voice as he watches a thick track of tears begin to leak out of the corner of her eyes, cutting clean lines in the grim coating her cheeks. "That should teach you to disobey your father."

She's so breathless and weak now that she can't resist his clambering on top of her, only a bitter swatch of rebellion bubbling out of her throat. "Fuck—" She starts to swear at him, not managing to get the words out before he slaps her hard across the cheek, nails scratching at her eyes and not even allowing her to finish before his hands are on her throat.

Lawrence sneers when she tries to gasp, back arching underneath him and hands clawing uselessly at his broad fingers. She can feel his blood seeping into her skin, staining her. "Language, young lady." He snarls, head quirking as she starts letting out pathetic sounding choking noises, grip so tight she can feel bruises blossoming like flowers along her neck. "So you haven't learnt your lesson… Maybe I need to change up my methods."

She can see his eyes shifting to Wally almost curiously and she can't stop herself from clawing at him more desperately, fingers slipping between his and managing to get enough leeway to speak. "—Don't…" She croaks out, the only air left in her body bursting out in an effort to save him.

(And she knows what's happening, Lawrence has trained her to recognize the symptoms of oxygen deprivation— the victim panics, the lungs ache, spots appear in the corners of eyes... And her brain is moving slower and she's going under, and she has to fight against the strange surge of calm running through her, her fingers going slack and muscles beginning to melt into the rooftop—)

Just as she's about to slip into black his fingers release her, her brain nonfunctional and unaware of the desperate breaths her collapsed throat is trying to consume, mind lagging but terrified as her father looks at her, apparently displeased. "You're lucky I have bigger fish to fry than you and your little boyfriend, Baby Girl. But still…"

She's still gasping for breath when he grabs her by the throat again, maneuvering off her and lifting her by her neck as easily as if she were a rag doll; she can hear herself practically screaming as she fights for oxygen, legs trying and failing to kick out in an effort to get him off of her, hands still numb and attempting to claw her way out of whatever horror is coming next—

She nearly faints when he pins her upright against the wall, his hand releasing her throat but making it nearly impossible to draw in the breath she needs as he shoves a forearm against her clavicle; she can barely keep her eyes open as he grabs at her pony tail behind her head, yanking it so hard she's instantly forced to focus. She's slumped into a sitting position, muscles not working properly to hold her up and he's—he's tying her to something—

He's tying her hair around the end of his javelin.

It's meant to be humiliating, her weakness being put on display like that— imagining how the others will find her, pinned up like a trophy, sends a twang of heartache through her churning stomach. It's almost blindingly painful when she stops supporting her, her muscles not working and lungs demanding oxygen she can't give; all her weight is being yanked upwards by her hair which feels as if it's going to be ripped from her bleeding scalp at any moment, the rest of her body too weak and oxygen deprived to do anything other than sit there, useless. All she can do is look at her father and wait, wait for the worst—

Her father's too busy sneering at her to hear the shift in the air but she does; in the middle of her gasping she's registering the sound of voices, the sound of shouting—she can barely see around her father when he takes one of the last arrows from her quiver, pressing the point between his fingers as he takes a step back to look at his handiwork, apparently about to decide where he should carve his brutality into her again; she can barely hear anything above her own choking and battered throat, but somewhere in the back of her mind she recognizes the cackling of electricity, the humidity of water…

"... Now, who ever heard of a blind archer?" Her father muses, grinning when her pupils dilate with fear.

But before he can stick her arrow tip into her eye socket something happens— Lawrence cries out when Kaldur catches him off guard, a swirl of humming water slamming into his side and knocking him several feet away; beside her Wally's sprayed with an off shoot of water but doesn't wake. It's very hard for her to process what's just happened—vividly she can make out the snarling face of Kaldur as he runs into her line of vision, glancing at her once and not quite seeing her, head double taking and stride pausing in horror. "You are alright? You and Kid?" He calls, automatically changing course to free her. "Artemis?"

He's not paying attention, doesn't see what she can bursting out of the staircase behind him—Shadows, dozens of them, flooding onto the roof and calling for blood. Her voice isn't working, arms too weakened to wave out a warning; it's about the most difficult thing she's ever done, forcing her damaged throat to function again, forcing herself to scream. "Behind you!"

But the words come out warbled and intelligible, of no help at all; she has enough time to watch Kaldur turn to glare over his shoulder before all hell breaks loose on the roof—she can see Zatanna coming to their aid, maybe Dick too, but she's not sure— can hear weapons being drawn from places she can't see and smells the bitterness of gunpowder. In the blurriness of the moment she loses a sense of what's happening, bruised skin aching when she feels the back splash of helicopter blades taking flight in the evening air.

And she doesn't know why but her eyes find her father in the crowd; between bodies flying and water consuming everyone he's the one she spots first, despite her vision being black around the edges. She can't tell if it's her own stupidity or her lack of breath but it takes her several long seconds to realize what's happening as a ladder descends from the helicopter, what's happening as her father reaches for it, Kaldur and Zatanna and Dick too outnumbered to stop him—

Her father is going to get away.

...No. Not this time. Never again.

It's too much work, trying to force herself to move— even the Metropolis girl can't do anything if she's stuck here, lifeless and defeated. Her hair is so long, he's wrapped it multiple times around the javelin, she doubts she'd even be able to untie it if she was in a right mind to do it. Stupidly she starts struggling against her own hair, a throaty cry sounding out when she yanks against the knot Lawrence has placed there, any movement only tightening its hold, increasing her slumping against the wall and making it nearly impossible to remain upright. "Wally!" She tries to hiss out, knowing full well he can't hear her, won't be able to help, her hand reaching helplessly towards where her bow is still lying several yards away.

She wants to beat her fists against the stone wall she's trapped against—once again her father's reduced her to a helpless little girl, made it impossible to stand up to him. More out of anger than anything she slams her head backwards, blinking hard at the pain and hoping it will help her focus, think her way out of this...

Her ears register something at the movement, the skin growing goose pimpled at the unfamiliar brushing sensation rustling at the back of her neck— she stares hard at her lap as golden threads fall from the sky, and when her shaking hand manages to maneuver onto her lap she it takes her several seconds to realize that her hair is falling out of her head, his knotting around the tiniest expanse of blade is slicing ribbons of her free, loosening the hold he has on her…

She won't be able to yank the javelin free of the cement, and nobody else has a moment to spare to help her...

Experimentally she raises a hand, her fist barely managing to fit between the blade and the top of her head. As she seizes a fist full of hair and rubs it against the javelin she can feel it slicing into her skin, can feel the sensation of her blood dribbling down her fingers, down her neck, but she can also feel...

She doesn't pause to think about her hair, or how she's always loved it's length—this is survival and she's the Metropolis girl again, her own heart beat clanging in time with her hammering back against the wall, hands getting cut open as she slices herself free, ignoring all the shouting and the violence around her as she bangs her head backwards and forwards with the insistence of her sawing, nearly crying with the pain as she shreds her hair from her scalp, her elastic dropping from her locks and landing next to Wally in the pebbles—

Sportsmaster's just gotten into the helicopter when she finally breaks free—ignoring the sensation of hair skimming the bottom of her chin she breaks into a sprint towards her bow. The fight around her is beginning to die, most of the troops down and unconscious but a few remaining to stand and fight as the mission objective is fulfilled. And still she doesn't think, doesn't look back— she's the Metropolis girl now, she doesn't have feelings or sentimentality, only calculation ramming at the front of her mind as she reaches into her quiver.

And nobody sees as she presses the tip of her arrow, alighting the tracker inside it. Nobody notices as she notches it against her finger and releases it into the night. Nobody watches it fly into the darkness and clang against the helicopter or sees the last pieces of her humanity leave her, disappear and chase after her father like always…

Nobody looks on, pauses even, as her bow slips from her fingers and lands on the roof top. Nobody watches as she crumbles to her knees beside it.

Nobody sees Artemis Crock raise a hand to the back of her head, nobody sees the blood pouring down her wrist. Nobody sees the tears that roll down her cheeks when she feels the uneven ends of what used to be flowing blonde hair, her fingers catching on exposed scalp and ragged pieces that barely reach her chin. Nobody sees her look back to stare at the golden knot still pinned to the cement wall, a souvenir of her father's cruelty.

For a moment, Artemis Crock doesn't exist in anyone's mind. Not even her own.

AN: There! I had a few of you anxiously waiting for this so hopefully that was worth the wait. Once again sorry for such a long break between updates— I'm doing Spring courses at my university and I had a paper due the same day I wanted to post this. On the bright side that class is over on the 16th so I'll be in full blown summer writing mode after that!

Please Read and Review!