He'd been sitting in the now-empty infirmary for longer than he cared to count, his shoulder aching with the reminder of his weakness. Jaime hadn't even needed stiches, probably could've used one of the first aid kits in the washroom, but Bart had insisted he get checked out. The doctor and nurse had run their battery of tests while his flesh wound was cleaned and dressed. He was fine; by superhero standards this injury was nothing more than a scraped knee. Still, Jaime had been forced into this white, sterile room stinking of antiseptic like he was some invalid.
The lights had dimmed at some point. He was motionless, a living statue carved from store; unmoving - immobile - but his mind and body where not in the same place. He wasn't dissociating, just zoning out; he was way too furious to dissociate. His right shoulder ached and seethed in low angry pain as it oozed out of his fucking blood. He was painfully aware of every fiber of his being; the way his nails were hooked on the latex of the bench; the way his fingers were clenched so tightly that they had become bloodless and numb; the ache in his wrists as he put all his body weight and the burden of his mistakes on them.
And no one else was there.
Bart had fucked off to God knows where - not that Jaime cared- the second it was clear he had no intention of bolting from the medbay. Jamie being the lone patient.
Jaime listened to the silence ringing loud in his ears. It sat heavy in his chest; his breathing filling the gaps between. No lights buzzed for him, no machinery beeped to keep him company; just the sound of flesh scraping across rubber every time he clenched his fingers.
Drifting.
Alone.
Jaime closed his eyes. Silence where swarming was supposed to be; a vast gulf where there ought to be pressure. Loneliness where there should've been solitude.
No scarab.
Still no scarab...
How long had Jaime prayed, begged, and bartered for a chance at blessed silence? How hard had he fought this homicidal parasite grafted to his spine? He'd been willing to lose his ability to walk over it, once. When he'd attempted the operation to have it removed, he thought he was ready.
Now he prayed for his scarab to come back online.
Jaime stopped listening to the overwhelming silence.
The lights flickered to life, and he looked up, languidly. The door swung shut, and next to it was Artemis, leaning against the wall, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and that fierce expression - somewhere between anger and extreme irritation - where she looked about ready to throw him out the airlock.
Jaime would let her.
Artemis dragged her gaze across his body, over every limb and extremity, before again meeting his gaze, her expression blank -unreadable- but one he knew she wore when she was assessing something she planned to break.
She let the silence linger as she continued to glare at him.
Fixated; like a hawk locking onto its prey.
And Jamie didn't know if he wanted to escape or be eaten
Finally, she pushed off the wall, but remained standing there, at a distance. Out of reach.
"You acted like a complete rookie out there," she began, her voice cold, and sharp. "You were downed. You put yourself at risk. Put me at risk. Put the entire team at risk with your insubordination."
Jaime opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. He shook his head minutely, aggravated; mumbling under his breath. Before she could order him to speak up, Jaime replied to her. "I could've fought," he said, but his voice lacked conviction, lacked the bite that would make someone like Artemis respect what he had to say.
And she pounced on it, that perceived weakness, without hesitation. "I gave you an express order to evacuate. You were down. You were compromised. I had to drag you out before someone killed you. You fought me on this."
Jaime felt a wave of hot shame wash over him. He was too tired to fight, too exhausted to argue. He blinked fast, fighting tears as he looked everywhere but at her. He might've disobeyed an order, but that order was bullshit. Jaime could fight, he could've... He could've done anything, something, whatever...
But Artemis wouldn't hear him if he told her that.
Still, he knew she expected him to say something. "I didn't want-"
"This is so not about whatever the fuck you wanted, Jaime." Her voice shook.
Jaime flinched.
He looked at her. Really looked at her. The anger had seeped out of her, replaced with a mix of relief and fear. Maybe something else Jaime couldn't name; or wouldn't let himself name.
Seconds stretched into minutes. When it became clear Jaime had nothing to add, Artemis closed the distance between them, much more carefully than he'd ever seen her walk; as if she was terrified he might vanish if she made a wrong move. She brought her hand up to his shoulder, ghosting over his injury, like she wanted to touch but didn't dare.
Jaime leaned into her touch. Her fingers explored the bandage, sending low pulses of a throbbing fiery ache through his shoulder. Her hand lingered, then simply stayed, her thumb rubbing his bandage almost absentmindedly. Her eyes were locked onto his injury, the rest of the world was forgotten.
"You scared the hell out of me." It was barely a whisper, not so much spoken as breathed out. And still, her voice shook with emotion.
Artemis leaned into him, slow at first, but then she wrapped her other arm around him, pressing them together. Jaime felt her warmth against him; all her curves pressed against his chest; her hand and fingers clinging to his back. He shivered with her every breath drifting across the crook of his neck; inhaling his scent greedily. Like he might be gone at any second.
They stayed like this for a while and he lost count of the breaths they took intertwined in the infirmary. He ignored the heat that snaked up his neck, ignored how Artemis would most definitely be able to feel the temperature change in his skin. As if this had been the signal she was waiting for, her mouth found his neck, then his jaw, and Jaime was too dazed to react - to encourage or stop her; then she claimed his mouth.
It felt more like a warning than a kiss. Artemis was not gentle, she was fierce. Their lips collided in a needy embrace, her teeth scraping his lower lip, biting him in a way that said 'you're mine'.
She didn't say, 'I'm sorry.'
She said nothing at all.
And Jaime didn't stop her.
Because if he didn't pull away-
Then maybe she wouldn't leave.
This continued for longer than Jaime's sleepy brain could process. The rough edges of her mouth, the way she gripped his shoulder, the press of her body—Jaime liked it. Despite everything.
Jaime liked being owned by her like this. He liked the way she dug into him, how she took from him; the pain her teeth and nails inflicted on him.
The pain that grounded him.
The pain he deserved for being such a weak fuck-up.
Then, as quickly as it had started, she pulled back. Jaime felt the cold air of the clinic against his skin where only moments ago, he'd been on fire.
Artemis straightened her clothes and wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb. Back to business as usual. She didn't even glance his way as she turned and walked away.
"You're done for the weekend. Go home and sleep," she told him, but her voice wasn't quite as cold and demanding as when she had walked in.
She paused in front of the door; hesitated. Whatever she was thinking, she seemed to make up her mind as she finally reached for the door-
Revealing Cassie, hand extended, ready to pull the door. She flinched back as it swung past her. A short silence filled the room. Artemis crossing her arms, waiting.
"Whatever you have to say to him, hurry up, we're sending him home for the weekend," she said, an edge to her voice.
"I just wanted to check on Blue," she replied casually, unbothered by Artemis' curt attitude. She turned to look at Jaime, who had just managed to put his shirt back on. "How you holding up?" she asked, walking into the infirmary, past Artemis.
Jaime opened his mouth to reply, still dazed by what had just transpired. His eyes snapped from Cassie to Artemis as she fixed him with a venomous glare. He snapped his jaw shut and looked away.
Cassie must've interpreted it as regret, or shame - which it partially was. She stepped closer, not quite close enough to touch; a silent invitation to a hug or physical contact if he wanted it. "Hey, we all get days we're put through the wringer; just because you got downed doesn't make you any less a hero."
Jaime didn't look at her. "I'm fine, Cassie, thanks," he mumbled, when he finally found his voice. "I gotta go, 'm supposed to help Milagro with a project anyway."
He dragged himself off the examination table, shoving past both of them - blood roaring in his ears - not waiting for either to stop him.
His house was quiet when he entered. That was usually how he liked it; but tonight, Jaime fought to fill the silence with everything he had. Helping his mother wash the dishes; sitting with her while folding laundry; helping Milagro with her project – he hadn't lied to Cassie about that - though it might've only been inadvertently true. He smiled at his father's jokes, but his face felt too tight. He jerked when someone would call his name; he shivered if someone touched his shoulder.
His body was home, but his mind hadn't left the infirmary.
His hands were moving, his voice responding when Milagro asked for help, but his brain, remained tangled in Artemis's hair and teeth and breath. No matter how much he fought it, his brain was drunk on her.
Which only made sleep all the more elusive. He lay in bed, exhausted but unable to drift off to sleep. His mind was replaying the scene in the infirmary on a constant loop.
Jaime shifted in his bed, the sheets soaking up his sweat.
The way she wrapped around him. The heat of her breath on his neck. The pain in his shoulder. The bite.
He could still feel where her fingers curled into his spine. Where she bit him. He could feel the heat she left behind like a fever in his blood.
He could still feel it.
The way it lit him up.
The way he liked it.
His hand moved before he even thought about it. He didn't want to. He did. He didn't know anymore.
It was fast. Ugly. Desperate. Over before he could even breathe. And the shame hit harder than the orgasm.
He lay there, breath stuttering in the dark, the sting of guilt burning hotter than anything else. It wasn't supposed to feel good. It wasn't supposed to feel like this.
She was his teammate.
She was his friend.
She didn't even look at me afterward.
He rolled over, covering himself with his blanket despite the his sweat drenched body and the Texas heat.
Wishing for his scarab back.
Or something. Anything.
Later that night - in the darkest hour before the sunrise - Jaime felt a familiar prick in the back of his skull. Not quite a jab, more like a pressure that was both encircling his entire being and wholly separate.
He sat up in his bed, extending his senses to their limit. Waiting. Hoping.
A spasm in his back.
A shiver up his spine.
Another buzzing prick.
A sigh of relief; a shuddering, stuttering breath that threatened tears to spill.
Jaime wasn't alone anymore.
He felt the familiar scutes of the armor wrap itself around his body, encasing him in his second skin. Familiar pressure from all sides, and a rare but welcomed purring sensation in his back. The scarab was hugging him. His heart slowed—though he hadn't even realized how fast it had been beating.
He didn't question it. Didn't speak.
Just leaned into it like it might be the only thing left that wouldn't leave him. Jaime stayed like that, armoured up on his bed, for quite some time, simply feeling out the armour and the scarab. Despite everything, he'd missed it more than words could say; like an amputated limb had been successfully reattached.
He wanted to flex it.
Jaime stood, ignoring the warnings that Artemis and Nightwing had given him in the weeks prior, and he disregarded the buzzing in his head as he remembered his last mission. A familiar buzzing Jaime had long since gotten accustomed to but as he took to the skies outside his bedroom window, he realized why the scarab had advised against going out.
It was still coming back online, recalibrating its tools, and repairing itself; flight was not yet operational.
Jaime faceplanted from the second story and stayed there, feeling like the dumbass Artemis called him all the time. The stars in the sky had visibly moved positions by the time he gathered his courage enough to pull his head out of the divot he'd dug into their lawn. He tried to fix it as best he could, but was resigned to have his father question why there was a hole right under Jaime's window.
He crawled up the wall like a bug skittering to safe place, and plopped down onto his bed.
Pulling out his phone, he typed a message to Artemis:
BB: I'm back online.
His thumb hovered over the send button in a familiar dance as his thoughts battled internally. He wasn't fully online, but the scarab had booted up. He couldn't very well go into the field like this, so maybe he shouldn't bother her. But, she would be exceedingly angry if he didn't tell her anything.
Jaime didn't want to text her.
He cut the message and instead pasted it into his conversation with Nightwing, but didn't send it yet.
Jaime stared at his phone screen. His thoughts were racing.
He pressed the call button.
The line picked up almost immediately.
"Hey... Artemis." he greeted tiredly.
"It's late," she replied sleepily, and something inside his chest tore.
"I needed to-" he paused. Needed to what? Tell her his suit that she and the entire team distrusted was back online? That he wasn't useless anymore? That he had thought of her in a way that both revolted him and made his blood sing? "I needed to hear your voice," he said, and it nearly broke him to admit it.
He heard her shift on the other end of the line. "What's up?" Her voice was deceptively soft, but it soothed Jaime in a way he didn't know he had needed.
"I, uh..." he hesitated, his heart hammering against his chest, against the armour that encircled him. "It came back," he said eventually. "The Scarab. It's... not fully there yet, but it's working again."
Silence stretched on the line. He heard her breathing.
"That's good," she said finally. Calm. Neutral. Maybe even distant.
Jaime bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted her to say more. To sound relieved. To sound like she missed him.
The same way he missed her.
"I can't sleep," he admitted. "Everything's too loud. Even when it's quiet."
"I know," she murmured, and the way she said it sent a chill down his back.
Jaime closed his eyes. "I didn't know who else to call."
Another pause. He could hear her shift in bed again. "You don't have to explain, Reyes," she said softly. "You did the right thing."
And just like that, Jaime's breath caught, and his chest fell apart in a wonderful release.
He'd been drowning all night, and now she'd just given him a rope.
"Thank you," he whispered.
"Get some rest," Artemis added, still gentle. "We'll talk later. Okay?"
"Okay."
But long after she hung up, Jaime stayed on the line. Listening, pretending she was still there.
He sent the message to Nightwing and went to sleep.
The armor stayed on.
Just in case.