Title: Stuck in Freefall (a.k.a. HERE! HAVE A BUCKET OF FEELS!)

Characters: Artemis Crock/Artemis, Wally West/Kid Flash, Dick Grayson/Robin, The Team and other surprises

Rating: T - adult themes and some? swearing (I actually haven't kept track if I've sworn or not in here)

Word Count: 7,500(I NEVER PLANNED IT TO BE THIS LONG I SWEAR)

Summary: They can't go back, and they won't move on.

Author's notes: For Brella (Satellites on Parade), who has this (horrible) headcanon that Artemis will have to fake her death, and (forced) asked me to write it (really though, she totally coerced me into writing this with her feminine wiles and magical words). This was originally going to just mostly be Wally/Artemis centric – but then words exploded all over the page.

But anyway! Here, have some angst – blame it all on Brella.

"…and at once I knew I was not magnificent"

Holocene – Bon Iver

He has no idea what he's doing.

All of his scientific instincts are yelling at him that standing here is pointless. After all, when someone dies, they're gone, permanently. Their body decays under tonnes of dirt, in the crust of the earth, underneath the rapid footsteps and loud conversations of the still-breathing, heart-beating existence that everyone else is living. There's no 'soul' that lingers behind, no essence of being that hangs around the living. Someone dead is someone gone. A graveyard is just a storage place for decomposing corpses.

So why is he standing in the middle of one? Holding a small bouquet of white lilies and trying to figure out what to say to the small plaque in front of him? It's not like anything he says will be somehow heard by her, and the flowers are a ridiculous idea – seeing as she would accidentally kill any flowers she received if she were still-

He frowns and pulls his jacket closed, cutting off his current stream of thought. He also flips up the collar, as the bitter Gotham wind is forcefully propelling itself through the quiet cemetery, causing an eerie and unwanted chill on his neck and ears. It always seems to be windy in cemeteries. A superstitious person may put the blame on restless spirits hanging around their graves, but Wally knows that it's due to the large cleared area, with few trees and buildings around to block the usual gusts of wind.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other; he clearly hadn't anticipated that this was going to be so difficult. After weeks and weeks of explaining to everyone - his uncle, Robin, M'gann, Black Canary and Batman – that he's perfectly fine, he figured that visiting her grave, like they've been hinting for him to do, would also be fine.

But now that he's here – he's entirely stuck and has no idea where he's supposed to move onto from this moment. Because unlike what he'd be advised to do by books about grief and therapists and those overly bright and eccentric motivational posters, he can't just move on. As much as he fakes it, he isn't at the point of accepting it, and if he's going by the five stages of grief, he's stuck on anger, and he'll be there for a while.

Because as long as she's dead, he's going to be mad at her.

He sighs and kicks at the ground. "You're a bitch, you know that?" He pipes up. "You always have to do the exact opposite of what I want you to do. I don't want you to join the team, so you join it. I want you to be easy to deal with and just let me be like everyone else, so you end up being the most infuriating and difficult person I've ever met and always have to call me out on anything I do. I want you to stick around and then you just…"

He turns around in his spot and runs a hand through his hair in frustration. The bouquet hangs loosely in his other hand. "You're here to stay, remember? That's what you always love to say. It's one of the most annoying things about you – you're here. To stay. Always. So where the hell are you?"

He has the vaguest sense that he looks like a madman, yelling and throwing curses towards the name on one of a hundred plaques, gritting his teeth and glaring at the ground as he loses it in the middle of the cemetery. He doesn't care though, what anyone passing by thinks of him; he stopped caring what anyone thought about his mental state a while ago, about the same time he had burst into the Watchtower holding cell that Sportsmaster was being contained in, grabbing the large man and mindlessly attacking him, screaming and spitting obscenities and insults into the mercenary's face.

Funnily enough, the man didn't react to Wally's attack, and took every hit that was thrown at him before the boy was restrained and carried out of the room by Superman. In fact, Sportsmaster had remained quiet, sullen and obedient ever since he was taken in by the League, after surrendering himself to Superboy and Aqualad moments after the single, momentous shot echoed through the large, empty storage room of the complex.

When Wally thinks about it now though, he's not actually that mad at Sportsmaster. No, that's wrong. He is mad at the man; he hates Sportsmaster for instigating the whole thing, for being a prize asshole, and a horrible father.

But he's not mad at him. The stem of his anger doesn't go to the man that caused this whole thing.

No. Instead his anger falls on the girl whose name he's currently glaring at, gold-plated letters on the grey surface of the plaque.

"I know what you did, you know," he mutters, crouching down to get closer to the name. "Maybe no-one else saw it, but I did. I saw what you did that day."

"Dad – don't."

Sportsmaster shrugs, barrel of the gun hovering towards Kid Flash as the speedster struggles to get back on his feet. "Sorry kid," he says to Artemis, "but you have to learn that being a hero means that sacrifices have to be made." Wally could rush up there and knock the gun from his hand and take him down in a matter of milliseconds, but his head is pounding and his eyes can't focus and he's not sure he can get his legs to work right at the moment.

The gun edges closer to Wally's head and Artemis is fixed in place, switching her gaze from Wally to her father in a desperate attempt to try and figure out how to change this situation. "Dad, please. Don't"

"I won't," Sportsmaster replies her, "I'll put the gun down right away and let him walk out of here," he turns his face towards Artemis, "on the condition that you give up this childish game of hero play. Quit fooling yourself; you're not a hero. Give up this game and come with me."

Artemis hesitates for a moment, frowning. "I can't do that," she hisses.

"Well then, I guess I can't let your friend here, live." He moves to pull the trigger.

They all see Artemis run towards her father; they all hear her screaming, "No Dad! Don't!" They all see her step in front of the gun and they all hear the shot that comes next.

But what Wally is sure that no-one else sees, is Artemis' hand move up towards the gun, and her fingers pushing down on Sportsmaster's, setting off the trigger herself.

"And I'm never going to forgive you for that."

He rocks back on his heels and rubs his face. He can't forgive her for that, or for dying on him, again, or for making him care about her before she did. He can't forgive her, and if he could, he wouldn't want to anyway.

He lays the lilies down in front of the plaque, before leaning forward and pushing himself back into a standing position. He exhales and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Whatever," he sighs, directing his attention upwards, "just…if there does happen to be some place where dead people go, somewhere or whatever, and you can hear this, I hope you're happy Artemis. I really do." He lets out a bitter laugh and looks back down at the plaque.

"You might as well be, because I'm telling you, there's no way that the rest of us are. And I blame you."

~O~

The wind passes through the maze of gravestones, flowers and lumpy grass, and blusters across to the other side of the cemetery, stinging the face of the young woman standing in front of another grave, half-concealed behind a nearby tree as she watches the redhead from afar.

She grabs at a dark strand that is flying over her face and glares at it. To her, the now shoulder-length, dark brown hair that falls over her face is a mark of everything that's happened, everything she's had to change and everything she's had to now become. While she had known the main gist of what was going to happen, she didn't think too much about a disguise. She didn't think – or maybe she just hoped – that she'd have to change her hair. After all, she's the girl with the bow and arrows and the insanely long, blonde hair; and while she can't be the former anymore (she's forbidden to partake in any vigilante activity – hidden or not – and Batman made sure she had an extremely limited access to her usual weapon, allowing her only one small crossbow for protection), she was kinda hoping she'd still be able to keep her infamous hair identity. But of course, that's not the case.

Now, the only real thing she knows of herself – her real self – is her friends.

The same friends that have no idea that she's still alive somewhere.

She hates it. Despises everything about it. She hates the fact that she had to shoot herself in order to push this whole thing into motion, and that instead of just disappearing, she had to "die" to start the change. She hates, over and over again that her friends weren't allowed to see her while she was being patched up in the watchtower, and that she wasn't even able to say goodbye before Martian Manhunter put up a block between her mind and the rest of the team's (though she could swear that she was still hearing M'gann's inward screams and sobs for the period between when she was announced dead and when she was taken away from the Watchtower).

She hates her new name, and her new home in New York (not Gotham, but close enough for Batman to step in if he needs to), which is nowhere as near as exciting as it was when she went on her girl's night out with Zatanna.

And speaking of Zatanna, while living in New York, Artemis can't stop herself from being reminded about the young magician, just like she can't help being reminded of M'gann whenever she has to make her dinner, or Kaldur when she sees the ocean or Conner when she's feeling particularly angry and is desperate for something to hit or break. And then of course, is the young man who lives on her floor in the apartment building, who loves to make jibes and Alice in Wonderland references towards her, reminding her constantly and redundantly of Wally, which makes her frustrated, angry, regretful and heartbroken.

Because even while all these reminders weigh down on her, and everything else piles up, she remains acutely and unceasingly aware of the realization that she never actually said sorry to him.

She's aware of very few things as she's lying on the solid concrete floor. The shouts and battle cries of Superboy and Aqualad, muffled underneath the blood pounding in her ears. Hot tears stinging her eyes and agonizing pain blooming from her left ribcage, becoming more and more unbearable as someone with no hesitation – Robin? – presses down on the wound. Two hands cupping her face, the thumbs drawing slow round circles on her cheeks. Warm breath on her face. Wally whispering desperately and furiously at her.

"Don't you dare do it. Don't you dare die on me again. You've already done it once. Don't you dare try to do it again."

She never said sorry for that. For both times when she died on him, and didn't stay dead either time.

"You know you're not supposed to be here." She jumps, although really, she should be used to it. She turns around to look at the younger boy standing behind her, arms crossed over his chest.

She shrugs passively. "I know," she murmurs. She's learnt that the quickest and easiest way to get rid of the Boy Wonder is to act as nonchalant and disinterested as possible. After needling the information of her continuing existence out of Batman, Robin has taken it upon himself to act as her probation officer, checking up on her every few weeks, giving her the vaguest information about the team when she asks, and somehow appearing during any moment when she's doing something she's not supposed to be. For example, now; being in Gotham and turning up at her grave, acting like a creepy stalker and spying on Wally.

"How'd you get here anyway?" Robin chirps, though he probably already knows. "You're supposed to be in New York." He receives another shrug.

"I took the bus."

He quirks an eyebrow, and Artemis knows from that gesture that he's starting to get annoyed with her (he and Batman aren't the only ones who can play detective). "And you didn't think it'd be suspicious at all, going to the place of your own grave?"

"For all anyone could tell," Her voice is beginning to raise a bit, "I'm just some normal girl who wants to pay my respects to a…" She glances quickly at the gravestone in front of her feet, "Frank McCarthy. There's nothing unusual about that."

"Really?"

"Yeah – really." She spits. She's starting to lose her temper at him and she knows that's exactly what he wants. The second she starts to lose it, he has an excuse to stick around, and ironically, despite her extensive need to be able to see and talk and live with her friends, whenever Robin is around she has to push him away.

(Keeping him around like this – letting him have the knowledge that she's still alive but the inability to let everyone else know and ease their suffering – it's cruel.)

She hears him sigh while she glares at Frank McCarthy's grave, trying to distract herself by wondering whether he died of a heart attack or illness, or he just died in his sleep (she does the math from the dates on the grave – dead at 82 – no – 81). "Okay." Her eyes flick up to where she was spying before, trying to distract herself from Robin's words. "Look, Ar-Alice..."

"If you're going to tell me off, at least call me by my real name," She snaps, glaring harder at the grave. She hates been called Alice. It feels so unnatural, slimy even. She loathes the way that the end of the name sounds like a hiss, and the way it sticks in her throat when she has to introduce herself to someone. And it's funny really, because if it were a few years earlier, she would be ecstatic at the idea of changing her name to Alice. But it's not a few years earlier, and she doesn't appeal to her new name at all, because really, what kind of name is Alice, anyway?

"Fine," he groans, "Artemis. You can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"This," he steps in front of her line of sight and frowns at her through his glasses. "You need to stay away from him, Artemis. You know that."

The girl presses her lips together and frowns at the grass below her feet. Maybe if she concentrates on the green blades resting on her boots, Robin will get bored, or forget she's there, and just leave. Preferably forever.

But that's a stretch.

She raises her head again and narrows her eyes at the place she was looking at before, but Wally has finally left. She can't decide whether she's relieved about that or whether she wants to run off in search of- no. She's relieved. She's happy he's gone. She wasn't supposed to see him anyway, so it's better; it's better that the temptation to walk up to him and tap him on the shoulder has disappeared with the speedster.

Robin walks around to stand next to her, switching his gaze from her to the spot she's staring at, dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "You have to stop this," he whispers. Artemis exhales a shuddering breath.

"I know."

The younger boy gives her a look that is difficult to perceive, particularly through his glasses, and for a moment Artemis wonders how he manages to deal with it all. She feels a rush for sympathy for him, because out of everyone, he has to be the one that's been handed the worst part of the deal. He has to live on both sides of the situation, knowing that she's alive, but unable to tell anyone else; pretending that her death was real and watching the unnecessary aftermath of grief.

She has to wonder why he bothers to do this to himself.

"You should go, Artemis," Robin is now standing in front of her, blocking her view, "You should go back to New York." She feels vaguely grateful that he says New York and not home, because she'll be dammed if she ever calls it home, or if she ever calls her current existence a life.

She finally sighs, "Okay," directing her attention back down to her feet and turning to leave. She's taken a few steps when her former teammate speaks up again.

"Promise me you'll stop following him. It's hard enough to keep the truth from him without having to worry about him interrogating me because he thinks he's seen you around." When she doesn't say anything to that, he adds, "Just, promise me you'll try to move on."

She presses her lips together until they turn white and pulls her jacket around her waist tighter. "I promise," she mumbles, hastily walking away from the Boy Wonder and out of the cemetery.

She breaks that promise when she arrives back at her apartment that night. After flicking through news channels in vain, she moves to her computer, booting up the search engine and searching through online news reports. When that isn't enough, she moves to YouTube, resorting to shaky, low quality, phone camera clips, intently watching the movements of the heroes – not unlike what she used to do before she became one herself – her eyes fixated on the speedster in yellow.

~O~

It was only a matter of time. That's the thought that runs through Robin's head when his best friend finally confronts him, clinging desperately onto the denial of reality and the possibility of complex and ludicrous schemes.

Only this time, Wally doesn't theorize about zeta tubes or teleportation or motherships (though Robin wouldn't have been surprised if he did); this time he just walks up to Robin and drops the thought that's on his mind.

"She's alive somewhere, isn't she?"

The bluntness of Wally's query throws the younger boy off. In hindsight, he should have expected this, he should have prepared for Wally to come up with this idea and confront him with it – and if it were two weeks ago, he wouldn't have a problem telling Wally the truth: that Artemis is gone, and she's not coming back.

Only he knows that the truth isn't actually truth now.

So Robin swallows back the real truth, the truth that is begging to jump out of his throat and give his friend what he needs, and give Wally the fake truth. He shakes his head sombrely. "Wally, she's gone. She's not hiding anywhere. She. Is. Gone.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, watching the flickering light of hope in Wally's eyes die back out. The older boy's shoulders fall back into a slump and he frowns and directs his focus to a vacant spot on the ground.

"Yeah, that was a dumb idea. Just- uh…" he shoves his hands in his pockets and begins to walk away, "just forget I said anything."

Once the speedster is out of the room, Robin curses and walks in the opposite direction to his friend, straight for the zeta tubes where he steps inside the entrance and punches in the code for downtown New York.

~O~

Roy begins to join the team on missions; particularly those where a long range marksman is required. While Red Arrow is a valuable team member – experienced and with no reluctance – the decision is still one that doesn't please many of the others. The older archer is often arguing with the team, disagreeing with many of Robin's ideas as their new leader. It's soon understood that with Roy, it's his way or the highway – he'll argue with other ideas, pick out the tiniest things he thinks someone else has done wrong, and has a horrible habit of going off by himself without notifying anyone. Red Arrow is a solo hero, and getting him to work with the team begins to become more and more difficult as time goes by.

No one says it out loud – but Artemis was so much easier to work with.

~O~

She comes across the gym by accident.

It's a day when water has decided to throw itself down from the sky (it rains a lot these days), and she's pressing herself against a wall underneath the shallow eave of a building, trying to get a moments respite from the rain. She unconsciously shuffles to a door of split and peeling wood at the entrance of the building, and after seeing for a while that the rain isn't going to ease off anytime soon, she decides to step inside.

It's old, run-down, and definitely seems like the place for a secret mafia boss meeting, with rusty metal poles and torn up carpet, mats and punching bags. She's certain she can feel the layer of dust in the atmosphere of the large single room, and in the dim lighting she can see a few distinct shapes working the bags around the edges of the room.

An old man with hunched shoulders and scars scattered all over his dark skin nods at her from a small messy desk at the entrance. Against her initial instinct and better judgement, she walks up to the desk.

"What's a young, pretty girl like you doing 'round 'ere?" His voice is hoarse and rattling, and Artemis deduces that it's from being punched in the throat one too many times. He regards her with a suspicious and condescending nature. Artemis ignores his greeting.

"What's your rate?" She asks, popping her bag up on the counter ready to pay.

The man shrugs. "No rate," he replies, "You can come and go whenever you please among opening hours. Five dollar rent fee if you need to borrow a pair of gloves." He jerks a hand towards a bucket of old leather boxing gloves.

When he looks back from pointing out the gloves, a five dollar note has already been slammed down on the bench.

~O~

"Why didn't I do anything?" M'gann murmurs one day, staring blankly at an empty bowl while Wally is getting a drink out from the fridge. He doesn't know whether she's talking to him or herself; whether she actually knows he's there, but still, he stands in silence and listens. "I could have taken the gun out of his hands with my telekinesis…I- I could have made him fall asleep…I could have moved you and Artemis out of the way in time…" so she is talking to him, even though she knows that she probably won't get an answer.

Wally doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth; that it wasn't Sportsmaster that she needed to stop, but Artemis. Even he tries to tell himself sometimes that he could have gotten her out of the way and saved them both – sometimes he imagines a sequence where he does save her, and she's still alive, rolling her eyes at him, or running her finger around the edge of a bowl that M'gann is using to cook and licking out the batter. Sometimes she and Robin are sparring on the training grid, or she's sitting with them on a movie night, joining in the big debate over a chick flick or action blockbuster.

But he can only deny the truth for so long until it creeps up on him – and he remembers she's dead, and it's of her own doing, not Sportsmaster's. And while he can't protect M'gann or anyone else from the former reality, he refuses to burden them with the latter fact – they have to know that Artemis didn't die as anything less than a hero.

~O~

Sometimes, when the topic rises, and everyone begins to feel the pain of Artemis' death all over again, Robin feels like screaming the truth to them all at the top of his lungs, letting them all know she's alive and dragging them to her.

But he can't. And he doesn't. He swallows back the truth and tries to remain out of the conversation.

It's on those days when he turns up in New York City, plastering on a cheeky grin and pretending that he's there to tell Artemis off for something, but really, he just takes in her living presence, before he has to go back and pretend she's dead.

~O~

"Artemis?"

"Hey Mom."

"How are you?"

Artemis shrugs, twirling the cord around her finger tightly, holding it until the tip of her finger goes purple. "Fine. You know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Mom," she gives an exasperated sigh, "I'm fine. Everything is just fine."

"Alright." Her mother sounds unconvinced on the other line. "Is there anything you need? I can send something your way."

"No, I've got everything I need."

"Alright."

…

Artemis shifts uncomfortably, glancing at the stopwatch at her feet. Four minutes and eleven seconds of awkward silence. "Look, Mom. Five minutes is almost up. We should probably hang up soon."

Hopefully the rule of one five minute call at a set time each week will hold her at bay. "Right. Of course." Artemis closes her eyes and sighs in relief. "I love you."

"Yeah, love you too."

~O~

Dick can feel Batman's stare on him before he even steps into the cave. Instead of walking in and ignoring the attention of the Dark Knight like he has been doing a lot recently, he decides to challenge it, lifting his chin and meeting the eyes of his mentor as he walks in. Alfred is standing next to Bruce with a tight and concerned expression on his face, while Bruce looks at his ward with tired eyes.

"What's wrong?" Dick chirps as he walks up to the two older men, even though he can read from Bruce's expression of sympathy, disapproval and parental exhaustion, that the problem is him. Alfred makes a comment about making some supper before seeing himself out of the room, leaving Bruce and Dick in silence.

Dick continues to stare hardly at Bruce as the silence extends on, before the older man breaks it. "You've been lying to me," he says.

Dick's jaw tightens and he presses his lips together. "You lied to me."

Bruce sighs and rubs a hand over his face. Dick figures that it must have been an exhausting night out on patrol, because he doesn't normally show tiredness like that, but the Boy Wonder has been noticing a subdued nature fall over his mentor the past few months, ever since the Team was told that Artemis died.

"Dick," he says softly, "I'm going to have to ask you to stop seeing her." Dick crosses his arms over his chest.

"I can't do that."

"Dick, please." It's strange to hear a plea come out of the Batman's mouth, and it causes Dick to hesitate a little, but only for a moment. "You're only risking her life and yours by doing this. You have to-"

"She's got no one!" The words burst forth from his mouth and Bruce's head jerks up in surprise. "I'm the only person she still has!" Dick adds to fortify his point. Bruce has to understand him. He has to.

He doesn't.

"She's a tough girl, Dick. She'll get through it."

"She's not even allowed to see her own mom anymore! They only get to speak every few weeks!"

"That's not any different from what Zatanna had to go through when Zatara took up the role of Doctor Fate, or what Artemis herself had to do when mother was sent to jail when she was young. It's not much different from what you had to go through yourself."

"It's completely different!" His arms are immediately uncrossed and they start flinging around in wild gestures that makes him think of himself as Wally. "I had you! I had Alfred! When Zatara became Doctor Fate, she had the whole team to help her! Artemis doesn't get that! She gets none of that, because you've made sure that everyone either believes or is pretending that she's dead!"

The only reply he receives is a heavy sigh. While he's expecting a detailed and forceful argument to deter him from continuing his visits to Artemis, or excessive reasons for the League's actions, all he gets is silence and a sombre nature that would normally confuse or concern him, if he wasn't so angry.

He drops his arms by his side. "Why did you do it?" He asks softly, his throat tightening. "Why did you have to make her dead to help her?"

"It was the only thing we could do."

"Come on. You guys are a group of the best superheroes in the world! You're the Justice League for god's sake! Killing off her existence couldn't have been the only thing you could do! Couldn't you have thought of a different solution? Couldn't you have told the whole team what you were planning?" Bruce pushes himself off his seat and steps up to the boy, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"If we had done that, the whole team would have been placed in danger," he says, squeezing the shoulder of his adopted son. "You've already done that to yourself and Artemis by continuing contact with her; we couldn't let the team put themselves at risk."

Dick glares at Bruce. "So instead you just let us all believe that one of our friends is dead?" he hisses. He glances at the hand on his shoulder before shrugging it off and turning and walking away. Batman sits back down on the chair with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands hanging helplessly.

Half-way up the stairs, Dick pauses and turns slightly to speak. "If I had been in your position when it happened," he looks Bruce in the eye as he finishes, "I would've thought of another way."

~O~

The room, up until now, had remained relatively unchanged since she had left years ago. It had surprised her when she had snuck in one night that Artemis hadn't bothered to change anything – from the posters on the wall to the sheets on the vacant bed.

Now though, it's a different story.

Their mother has cleared out the room, stripping sheets and clearing off the bedside table. The pile of weapons (or what they called "toys") and other odd knickknacks that had been stashed underneath the beds over the years has also been pushed away, leaving the room bare, except for the base furniture and the posters that remain tacked up on the walls (no doubt they only remain there because Paula is unable to pull them down from her wheelchair).

Jade sits on the bed head of where her sister used to sleep and glares up at the poster that she had tacked up years ago, balancing on her tiptoes on her mattress while Artemis watched. A sai flips over and over in front of her as she twists it around with her fingers. She can't get to Sportsmaster, who's damn lucky that he's unreachable to her in jail, and she doesn't want to have to face the sad, broken woman that replaced her mother long ago.

She narrows her eyes and jumps off the bed, crossing to the other side of the room, bring her face up close and glaring to the poster. She doesn't feel regret. She doesn't. She's a stone-cold, steel-hearted assassin; she doesn't feel the human sorrow and shame that others do. She's not supposed to.

Because, in the League of Shadows, a death is just a job done, or an unfortunate consequence. It's not supposed to be anything more than that.

If the Shadows don't feel regret though, maybe she should have never joined them in the first place.

She's long regretted the actions of the angry, selfish and independent fourteen year old that left this room six years ago. She just thought that maybe she would have been able to make up for that one day.

She brings a hand up to the top edge of the poster. "There's a reason Alice was never supposed to stay in Wonderland, Artemis," she whispers, pulling down on the poster, ripping it into uneven thirds.

Blaming a poster is easier than blaming herself.

She hears a noise from outside the door, and before the time that a normal person would be able to collect themselves to leave, she has already disappeared.

Like she always does.

~O~

Robin is leaning against the bench with his head bowed when he says it, and even though Artemis has been able to tell that he's been holding something back during his entire visit, she is still thrown off when he speaks.

"I have to stop seeing you."

They're both standing in the kitchen of her new apartment; Artemis pauses in the middle of stirring sugar into a mug of tea when his words break into the atmosphere. She stares hard into the mug, watching the tiny clear crystals dissolve into the hot brown liquid as Robin raises his head to look at her.

"I-uh…won't come back after today," he elaborates, all the while Artemis can feel a weight drifting off her – whether it's the weight of guilt for keeping him around this long or her last connection to her friends and identity slipping away, she can't tell.

"Artemis?" She snaps out of her daze and continues stirring her tea, ignoring the intense gaze that she knows is lying underneath those glasses.

She swallows. All the air and saliva in her mouth has frozen together and become a solid, sticking in her throat. "Okay," she forces out. Robin pushes himself away from the counter, digging his hands in his pockets and looking down at his feet.

"I should probably just leave now," he mutters, obviously thinking along the same lines as her. There's no point in delaying this.

"Okay."

"Okay," he whispers. "I'll uh…" He trails off and frowns.

She finally looks away from the mug and faces him. "See ya, Dick," she says quietly, because she knows that neither of them can actually say goodbye properly.

The edge of his mouth twitches up in a sad smile. "Yeah. See ya, Artemis." He turns and walks out of the kitchen without looking back, and Artemis hears the front door open and close, and then she's left alone.

Alone. For real this time.

The tea is forgotten and she slides her back down the cupboard door and sits on the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest. "Okay," she whispers to herself, "okay. Okay."

But as much as she chants it, it's not okay.

~O~

The team as a whole begins to bicker more; chinks in the armour begin to show. M'gann and Conner struggle to work under Robin's leadership, preferring the more passive command of Kaldur. The Atlantean himself starts to feel lost among the group, spending more and more time underwater. Wally just drifts, becoming a creature of bored expressions and shrugs. Zatanna buries herself in her magic, Artemis' death bringing up raw memories of her father's absence – and Robin become even more secretive than before, for someone who's supposed to be leader, he becomes very inaccessible – not that anyone really searches for him though.

Arguments start to rise during missions – whether they are from a disagreement over orders or something completely irrelevant from earlier. The team as a whole begins to lose its focus, and Batman and Black Canary both push to try and fix it.

On really bad days, the arguments end up revolving around Artemis' death, harsh words and accusations being thrown around, causing a complete collapse of the group and an explosion of bottled up emotions, and massive therapy time has to be demanded by Batman.

~O~

The first few weeks at the gym are painful; every punch she throws, every twisting movement of her body and every kick she pushes towards her selected bag aggravates the old bullet wound settled in her left ribcage. The scar pulls and stings, and her ribs burn with every sudden movement, aching powerfully in the mornings.

But rather than causing her to hold back, the pain drives her. She pushes through every ache; she grits her teeth and blinks back tears that threaten to spring from the corners of her eyes.

The owner of the gym – she learns that his name is Tony – sighs and shakes his head at her continuously. "I don't know why a girl like you is so mad for," he mutters one day, "You're young, smart, pretty. You got your whole life ahead of ya." He fumbles with a bandage that is wrapped around his hand. "You don't know how hard and horrible life can get."

She pushes a left hook into the bag, her body twisting and bullet wound screaming in protest. The bag swings wildly and she glares at it. "I know how hard and horrible death can get," she hisses, twisting her body again to kick the bag with her right leg.

After that, the only time Tony addresses her is when she arrives and leaves the gym.

~O~

Wally finally breaks under Black Canary's therapy, telling her what he had seen Artemis do, and releasing all his anger at her for doing it. After the hour-long session is finished, his head is pounding, his breathing is heavy, his knuckles are covered in bruises and blood and the constant ache in his chest feels like it has intensified.

But even so, he feels a little lighter.

~O~

It's a while before he starts running again. It's a while before he remembers why he loves the action so much. But once he begins to run again, he understands why he is so appealed by the act. There's something about the wind buffeting against his face and body, the inability to hear anyone or anything over it, the idea that he is able to run away from anything, no matter how difficult or complicated, that calls to him. While he's running he can forget about the problems of the world that are surrounding him; he can forget about having to face his friends back at the cave or his parents, trying to ignore the looks of concern thrown his way.

The Flash allows him more independence, letting him patrol alone more and more often. Rather than hovering over and coddling him like everyone else does, his uncle and mentor understands that what the younger speedster needs is time and space, as well as a chance to prove himself and regain his confidence as a hero. It starts off at just a few times every so often, but soon becomes a regular thing, once a week, around the same troublesome areas of the city.

Kid Flash is charmed by the idea far quicker and easier than his mentor could have hoped, and relishes in the opportunity to gain independence, freedom and get back in the game. Each week, he helps put someone away for a crime, or he assists in protecting or saving a civilian. Each week, he receives praise and thanks from civilians or law enforcement; they stare at him in awe and shower him with compliments, gratitude and admiration. He is commended for being brave, fearless and selfless, for being able to do the things that normal people can't.

And even though the doubts still sometimes creep into the edges of his mind and try to conquer his thoughts, he starts to realize, that maybe he is fast enough.

And maybe next time, he'll get there in time.

~O~

It's probably creepy, following him around like this. But then again, she is dead, so she might as well take on the identity of an earthbound spirit.

It's become a routine for her. Every second Wednesday she takes a train to Central City, scoping out the city for areas where the scarlet speedster and his yellow clad protégé have been reported. She listens to Central City news on the radio, and goes wherever the voice of the reporter takes her, spending the night in a hotel or walking the streets, going back to New York the next morning.

It's difficult at first, and she hardly ever catches him, but she memorizes the patterns and norms of Kid Flash after a few weeks, and whenever he comes across trouble, she's almost always there, watching. She hangs back near the edges of the crowds, close enough to see, but far enough away to avoid submitting to the pull of the action and blow her cover.

If Batman has a problem with it (because she knows that there's no way he isn't aware of what she's been doing), he doesn't confront her about it, and thus she continues – sneaking, stalking and watching; taking in every movement and action of the boy in yellow, trying to keep her distance.

It's incredibly difficult; harder than she imagined it would be. Her heroic instinct and teammate complex begs her to jump in and help, and sometimes she even has to check herself and freeze in place when she realizes she has pulled her crossbow out of her bag.

One night, she gets in too close, and as Kid Flash is fighting a group of four thieves, one breaks away and makes a run for it, twisting and fleeing down the back of a restaurant. Artemis moves before she can think, shooting from her crossbow and pinning the man to a wall with three arrows.

She disappears from the alley shortly before Kid Flash rounds the corner, pulling her hood over her dark hair and climbing up onto the roof of the restaurant. She slows down her breathing and watches as Wally looks at the man and his incapacitation with a confused look, before glancing around the area, the light of the streetlamps catching the green in his eyes, murmuring something to himself that Artemis can't hear.

Hiding up in her post, Artemis curses to herself, her whole situation, and the universe she's been stuck in. Because goddammit – she's a hero, and she's not the one that's supposed to be hiding. She's not the person that is supposed to be punished and locked away. She's not the person who's supposed to be dead, but not really dead.

So she continues, just like she did in Gotham city; a time that felt like (and probably could be considered as) a lifetime ago. She stays low and continues to watch like she normally would, but instead of keeping her distance, she steps closer. Instead of subduing her heroic instinct, she goes along with it, helping out Kid Flash in simple discreet shots, and hiding in the shadows whenever he gets close.

She doesn't know whether he has an idea of who it might be; maybe he thinks it's Roy, or just a newbie hero trying to cement their place, but even so, Artemis notices the same look of intensity and slight confusion cross his face whenever he picks up one of her arrows. It's the same kind of look that she recognizes from when he would try and figure out a scientific formula; he's thinking of possibilities.

But he doesn't act on them. Artemis half expects him to try and jump her some nights, trying to find out who is following him, but he doesn't, and they end up with an unspoken, unseen teammate agreement. The only time he acknowledges that someone is helping him out is when he gathers up the few arrows she has shot, leaving them in a pile for her to retrieve as he speeds off.

His lack of curiosity or initiative to try and figure out just who she is piques her attention, confuses her for a while before one night, when he bends down to pick up yet another arrow, and she notices the secret, cheeky little smile dancing on his face. Instead of dropping the arrow he has in his hands down into the pile he's made of all her others, he twirls the arrow around in his fingers, before whispering with a grin, "Souvenir," and dashing off, silently daring her to follow him one again.

And at that moment, Artemis knows that he knows.