From the prompt: "Even if you prove me wrong, I will never agree with you."

So yeah, this one kind of got away from me. I really only meant to make it a one-shot, but then it got really long so I'm going to have to split it up.
Disclaimer: I don't think I've started to own Young Justice yet.

He's curled up on his side, arms shaky, circling his middle, and tries to breathe shallowly through the painpainpainpainpain. His fingers skirt, scared and hesitant, around the gashes in his abdomen, wary and nauseous when he touches something that's fleshy, but not quite skin. The air is thick and metallic, and it burns going down what's left of his throat.

His thoughts are circling in on themselves, nonsensical, foggy with loss of blood and what are probably multiple concussions. He remembers, vaguely that someone is in here with him – a partner. A teammate. The thought trips him up, makes some semblance of clarity pierce through his mind, and he frantically, hurriedly slogs through his jumbled thoughts, still far too slow for his liking. He wants to heal faster, needs to heal faster, to be faster, to find whoever it is, here, with him.

He hears a sharp intake of breath, distant, and it takes him a moment to figure out that it isn't his. He tries to turn, tries to move, tries to see, but he can't because he'll spill, inside out, things that should never never never, be pressed against his freckled flesh. If he wasn't a speedster, if he didn't have the ability – no matter if it still isn't up to par, if it can't heal him as quickly as his uncle, as the Flash, as the legacy – he would be dead. No question at all. And the thought worries him, causes sporadic shivers and at the same time freezes him with fear, because he is the only speedster on the team. The other one – the other victim, and the word sounds hopeless and tinny and wrong in his mind – will not have fared as well as he has. And that is even more terrifying, because he knows for a fact that he is in some deep shit right now.

He claws through his memories, broken and sporadic and frantic, and tries to remember, tries to piece things together. The end of a botched reconnaissance mission, the team loading up the Bioship, the tired happiness from the Martian, weary grunts from the muscled clone, soothing, lilting tones from the ever-fearless leader. The light, catching in the distance, the strange spark, the offers to check, to see, to make sure. Cackles following, strange filtered green off leaves, water dripping. White, blinding, hard, painful, searing, bone-jolting impact. Black. Black and pain.

Robin! His stomach lurches and he's certain another ounce of blood has just squirted onto the floor. He's here! And he's – oh God, he's here. With him. Robin; without powers, without invincibility or invulnerability or accelerated healing. With nothing but his raw skill and trained talent and clever mind to protect him. Robin, barely breathing and suffering and aching somewhere just behind him, so close but so impossibly far.

And the need to turn around and see him is increased tenfold, but he can't. He can't, he can't, he can't, because the pain and the hope and the fear and death hang above his head, heavy and oppressive. It's stupid, he thinks, and so, so pathetic, because they're in a square room six feet across with nothing but floor and walls and ceiling and heavy, bolted, wooden door, small and still taking up so much space. Not even enough room to accelerate even if he could move. Trapped, helpless, and suddenly the idiom 'Shooting fish in a barrel' comes to mind, and it's not a reassuring thought.

Dead, defeated, dying. Playing possum without really having to pretend.

Sweat is beading on his brow, icy and prickling, and his heartbeat is slow. Much, much too slow. They won't last much longer.

The soft click of the bolt as it is unlatched draws his attention, and the door swings open, sweeping through half the room to land on the side wall. And there he is, standing, casual in the doorway, and of course he's back. Back to play another sadistic, twisted, private 'party' game. Because he won't leave them here, alone, to die in the squalor and filth of their own breaking bodies. Because he's having too much fun. He remembers the callous way he'd tossed them in here, the casual way he swung the bat, the happy, breathless light in his eyes as he brought his legs and his arms down, and down, and down. And he remembers the way he had felt Robin's eyes on him, boring into the back of his head, eyes wide and fearful and angry and watching. At some point, Wally's sure he passed out. Passed out far before he even got started on his friend.

He's here to twist their bones and push and push and push to see what it takes to make them break. And Wally almost snarls, low and feral in his throat, but the ripping and bleeding makes it unfeasible. He's going to have a long wait then – he can crush them and torture them and kill them, but it is near impossible to break them. And he thinks he can stand up to it (metaphorically of course), endure and hope and wait for them to come. For them to arrive and save them. But then, their captor, their torturer, their host, turns around and beckons behind him. Invites. Welcomes. And Wally realizes he was wrong. He is much more fragile than he realized.

She saunters into the room, boots whisper soft on the ground, relaxed and confident and so at home. Her hip cocked, hair swinging elegantly behind her, she looks down at them and he sees nothing. Artemis is gone, wiped clean with that expression of casual amusement. And her lips quirk upwards in that smirk that is so, unquestionably hers, and she spits on those days of friendship and trust and happiness together with one, short, breathy sentence. "This probably goes without saying, but I'm off the team."

And he wants to yell and scream and screw up his face in anguish and terror and anger and so much goddamn disappointment. But he can't be vocal – not anymore – so he does the only other thing he can think of. The only other thing that could possibly elicit a response. He pretends that it doesn't bother him. That it doesn't matter, that he couldn't care less that she defected, that she burned their hope and their reliance and their belief in her to the ground with nothing more than a careless quirk of the lips. He tries to convey his apathy, his acceptance, his conviction that he knew what she was like, he had anticipated it. And his anger burns inside him, so bright and deep and disbelieving that he thinks it will kill him before they do – consume him from the inside out until nothing is left but the charred, smouldering remains of idealism and hope.

"Go ahead, baby girl. Show them how it's done." The voice is low and amused and her expression never changes. Light, smiling, strange. And she steps casually over to him, her eyes empty and suddenly so, so black. Never changes, even when the sole of a heavy combat boot crushes what's left of his knee. Even when he's too tired and defeated to scream. The blood gushes from him, increasing in flow from the jolt caused by the blow, adding to the litres of contaminated, spilt, dirty, blood pooling on the floor. They're swimming now – floating face down in a pool of red; drowning. And she's going to let them.

"Better hurry, Dad," she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. "I put in a call to the Justice League's little babysitting service so they could make the proper arrangements for when they . . . collect them."

Deep, guttural laughter then, from the man in the damn hockey mask, stained dark brown from dried blood. He moves over to the acrobat, lying prone and probably unconscious on the floor mere inches away, and lifts his boot to mirror his lovely, brutal daughter. Wally wants to spit on him as he passes, but pain is clouding his vision and the effort it would take would likely just rip his guts apart. He's surprised then, when he hears the low grunt of pain – impossibly deep and masculine. Robin's never sounded like that, and he can't understand, doesn't know what it means, until the dirty blond head comes crashing to the floor next to his, blood seeping from somewhere just above the straps of his mask.

He's down, with just one well-placed . . . something. And his heart swells with hope and he realizes she's a much better actor than he ever gave her credit for. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" And he doesn't sound surprised, just angry, just terrifyingly vengeful at the very idea that she would have the gall to turn this back on him. A heavy boot, crushing his face, cutting off his airways, before he can even move, so swift and fast and terrible that for a moment, even Wally isn't sure he sees it coming. His breathing stops and she leaves it there, waits for a good six minutes with her fingers lightly ghosting over his wrist, checking his pulse. "Sorry, daddy." And her tone is light and soft and just so easy as she carefully rips off his mask. "I was never very good at following orders."

She turns to Wally then, turns to her teammates, never letting her back face the heavy man on the floor with his nose bleeding, likely broken. "You look like shit." And he almost laughs, he really does, but the beginnings of one die in his throat and he just quirks his lips instead and says, croaky and soft and terribly, terribly weak, "You're late."

She bends down, taking a small syringe from a side pocket on her quiver, uncapping the needle and tapping it, pushing a small amount of fluid out of the tip. "This might sting a little." And one eyebrow lifts up in jocular amusement, because really, it can't feel like more than a bite compared to what's going on with the rest of him. Her lips quirk, but it doesn't reach her eyes, still, and he realizes that the absence of expression deadens them, makes the grey turn to stony concrete.

She turns to Robin first, injects him, and he can hear the spasm of his muscles, the way his breath hitches and contracts and suddenly goes quiet, and his heart nearly stops altogether. But he trusts her. She came to save them, she took down her own damn father, she wants them to be alright. Never mind how Sportsmaster got his grubby little gloves on her. Never mind that she is so damn prepared for this. He trusts her.

She bends down to give him the needle too, and as soon as she pushes on the plunger, he can see a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. "Art . . . " And the sound is so weak he's afraid she won't hear, won't be able to understand, but she swivels around and stabs the tip of an arrow from her quiver straight through his reaching hand. Blood adds to the pool in the floor, his and Robin's and now Sportsmaster's, and he laughs. "So I have taught you something after all. But not enough."

He's rolling over, about to get up, to stand, and she can't afford to let that happen. No more stupid games – she's done playing. Her foot comes up again, and she kicks him when his face whips back around, with the satisfying Crack! of his nose. And he sees the way she angles upwards, ferocious and contained, knows her well enough to realize it's deliberate, that she's trying to shove the bone fragment into his brain. That she wants to kill him.

"Artemis," Wally starts, and it's weak and desperate and so, so helpless. The sound grates on her, pierces her skin, but she won't turn around, won't acknowledge him. Can't afford to. "Artemis, don't."

And Sportsmaster is on the ground again, backed against a wall, half-dead and skull partially pierced. Wally's frightened now, of where she's going. Can see her, barely, hazy and confused from the medication. "Artemis. You're better than this. I know you are." His voice is less than a whisper, carried solely with force of will and fear and confusion.

But her arrows are nocked and ready, and she releases without hesitation, without fear, without remorse, without regret. Two arrows at once, one straight through the heart, the other through the skull. She never misses. "But I'm not, Wally." And the sound is so low and sad and disappointed and quiet, that he wonders if it's just a dream as he slips from consciousness.

The artificial light filtered into the Med Bay is a soft, buttery yellow, calm and happy. It's almost exactly the opposite of how he feels, which he finds gratingly annoying. Like they're trying to dictate his mood or some other authoritarian crap. He glances over to the side, where the short brunette is propped up in bed, leaning back, utterly relaxed despite working on some triple encryption mission reports. He scowls. The sound it makes must be tangible, because Robin quirks an eyebrow and looks over.

"You're already up?" he asks, petulant. His friend quirks a smile. "I don't have the whole 'accelerated-healing' thing going for me. Your body can accomplish way more during an REM cycle than mine can. You need to be out."

He continues to pout nonetheless. "So . . . ," he drawls. His friend doesn't look up from his screen. "Did I miss anything? While I was out?"

Robin snorts. "Are you kidding me? I was up for like, three hours before you were. We got four visitors, all of whom brought food for their poor, incapacitated, endless stomach of a teammate. Like they were afraid you were going to die because you were starving."

Wally ignores the weak joke, eyes immediately shooting in the direction Robin gestures. At the foot of his bed are piles of food – yogurt and pudding and tapioca and rice and soup. He frowns. The distinct lack of cookies bothers him, but beggars can't be choosers, and anyway, someone remembered to grab his favourite flavour of pudding cup – strawberry cheesecake. He grabs a cup and rips off the top, inhaling the contents and tossing the empty container at the trashcan by the wall. He licks his lips as he reaches for another. "So, how long have we been out then?"

Robin casually opens a calendar on his device. "Uh, six days."

Wally nearly chokes halfway through inhaling the third cup. "Are you freaking serious? Do you have any idea how much training we've missed? Holy crap, Black Canary's going to kick our asses once we get out of here."

"We're lucky," (and here Wally snorts in derision), "We should have been out for a month at least. As it is, we only got out of ICU yesterday." He winces, touching his ribs tenderly. Beneath the thin hospital gown, Wally can make out the thick ridges of bandages wrapping around his torso. He stares, contemplative. "How bad was it?" he asks, and it's really more of a question for confirmation than an inquisition for new information. Robin frowns, his mouth pulling down at the corners so low it's almost comical. He can tell he doesn't want to tell him, but Robin is honest, always has been honest (for the most part), so he waits in patient silence.

"We should have died." The silence stretches for a moment, heavy and solemn. Wally lets him collect his breath before he continues. "You almost died. Both of us, it would have been –" and he cuts off, calm, collected, in control. "It's fine now. We had to have some reconstructive surgery, well, mostly me, in the legs and in the arms and there was some skin grafting that had to be done, especially around the abdomen. The only reason we made it was because of some sort of weird medication. Some sort of drug even Batman's never seen before. It's weird – like it was made specifically to accelerate the healing and reduce blood loss. I don't know – they're still analyzing the traces they found in the lab."

Wally lets out a low whistle, vaguely impressed. "Damn. Artemis couldn't just tell them what it was? Or where she got it?"

This time, the silence is heavy and awkward, and Wally can tell he's said something strange, something sensitive, but he can't figure out what it is. "Artemis . . . gave us the medication?" Robin asks, slow, careful.

Wally looks over – finally finished with his stack of pudding cups – confused. "What do you mean?" Then he relaxes, eyes glazing over with pity and guilt and sorrow. "Oh, that's right, you were . . . out. Yeah, Arty gave us the meds. She didn't tell you guys? Kicked Sportsmaster's ass . . . too." And he slows, memories catching up with him through his medicated haze, images misting in his mind. He can't remember what's happened. After the medication, the injection, the world is . . . blank.

Robin's frown is soft this time, understanding, compassionate, and suddenly he's the one looking at Wally with pity on his face. Wally isn't sure he wants to know, but Robin's lips open, and he can't cover his ears fast enough. "When the team . . . found us, we were in really bad shape. They'd gotten a call from Artemis that she'd isolated our location, but she never came for them. Went ahead on her own or something. Wally . . . she wasn't there. When they found us, we were the only living people in the room. It was empty."

Now it's Wally's turn to frown. "Well that's weird. What could she have been doing? Did she tell you guys when she came back?"

Robin shifts uncomfortably in his open-backed hospital gown, jostling the I.V. drip and averting his gaze. Wally waits, stares, and eventually his young friend relents. "It's just," he sighs, agonized, "no one's seen her. Not since . . . not since we were . . . since the end of the last mission."

Confusion must show on Wally's face though, so the acrobat tries valiantly to press on. "We – she left the team a note. After – after they collected us. She," he stops, briefly. "She left the team."

Wally's face is blank. He doesn't understand this, can't process this new information. He looks down at the box of empty pudding cups on his lap. Then, how did it get here? He suddenly recalls that the only person who's ever actually bothered to find out his favourite type of pudding cup is Artemis. He turns, still unsure, to the only other occupant in the Med Bay. "But, she came to visit us, didn't she?"

Robin shakes his head. "No one's seen her. Since the last mission."

Wally stares resolutely at the colourful red cardboard. "Then, who brought me the pudding?"

It's two more weeks before either of them can walk on their own, and even then it's in small, stilting steps. Wally's unusually subdued during the entirety of his physical therapy, and the team knows while he's attempting to put it down to his inability to move fast fast fast, he's still confused. And hurt. And he can't understand why he doesn't see the telltale whip of golden blonde hair around the corner, over the couch, and sometimes (though he'll never admit he wants this back too) brushing just past his face, engulfing him in a perfumed cloud of jasmine and spice.

No one offers him an explanation, and he doesn't bother asking for one.

Even when they're finally okay, when they can move on their own without halting and stopping and tripping over nothing. Even when their muscles stop twitching and disobeying them, even when he can stretch and run and go just as fast fast fast as before. He seems different. More quiet. His lively banter hasn't stopped, and his witty comments and lecherous lines have continued their happy rounds, but it's more one-sided. Empty. A jester's mask without a face to rest on.

And one day, Robin can't stand it anymore.

"You could just ask you know." Wally looks up, stiff-backed as he turns to face his friend leaning casually in the doorway. He doesn't pretend not to know what he's talking about. "No one told me."

"Because you didn't ask."

Wally laughs then, bitter and cold. It sends a shiver down the brunette's spine, because if there is one thing a speedster should never be, it's cold. "Maybe because I didn't want to know."

Robin snorts, and it sounds so light and out of place in this stark, fluorescent kitchen, in this heavy conversation, that Wally almost flinches. Almost. "What a crock," he bites, and he puts special emphasis on the one word he knows will elicit a legitimate reaction from his friend. It works – Wally flinches so largely and visibly that Robin almost feels a sharp pang of guilt, like he's inflicted physical pain on the redhead. But he doesn't. In their line of work, almost is never good enough. "You want to know so badly it's burning you up inside. You're just too scared to do anything about it."

Wally whirls back to the table, shoulders hunched and stance defensive. He doesn't refute the accusation.

"Go ahead – ask." He's goading him now, he knows, and it's cruel and pointless but still all too necessary. Wally's hands form shaking fists, and he vibrates them so violently that he can push it right through the table. Robin's eyebrows go up, impressed, but he wisely chooses not to comment.

"Fine," he forces through gritted teeth. "Why did Artemis quit the team?"

To his credit, Robin doesn't say something teasing and stupid, like 'See, was that so hard?'. "She knew she wouldn't be able to come back."

Wally turns, confused. He's so easily confused these days, Robin thinks, but he answers the unasked question anyway, "Sportsmaster is dead." Cutting straight to the point, not wasting time hiding behind trivialities and tact. Wally doesn't look the least bit surprised – instead, he looks resigned and angry. Now it's Robin's turn to be confused.

"You said no one told you anything."

Wally stalks off, brushing brusquely past his shoulder on the way out. "They didn't."

He isn't sure he believes his eyes when he sees her, sitting innocently outside a cafe across the street. She seems calm, happy. It's such a huge contrast to the grim, focused girl who walked into the concrete holding cell months ago that for a moment, he thinks that he must have imagined the whole thing. But he can feel the slight, buzzing strain in his muscles, and the slightly off rhythm beat in his walk, and he knows better.

He stands and stares for three beats of his heart before he finally just crosses the road. There are so many questions, so many things he wants to ask, but when she finally looks up, all that he can think of is the way the light shines silver in her eyes and her hair glistens gold in the sun, more precious than any metal. She looks alive. He stutters out an awkward, "Hi."

She turns, startled at the proximity when she almost whips right into his chest, and he takes a self-conscious step back. She smiles, and her face is open but hesitant, and she offers up a soft, "Hi," too. She casts an appraising look at his form. "Good to see you're doing better." She squints a little bit, and he knows she can see that he's off-beat, but she doesn't comment on it.

"Why did you do it?" he blurts, and just like that, all the disappointment and hurt and confusion has surfaced, airing out on the quaint tiled table in front of them. She stiffens, and her hand automatically reaches for the cup of Darjeeling steaming in the brisk fall air. She takes a quiet sip, and pauses, ruminating.

Finally, her lips (her soft, beautiful, impossibly deep lips), part, and she releases a cloudy breath. He stands, almost vibrating, and she gestures lazily to the chair opposite her. He pauses, tense, but he takes it, leaning back in the seat, waiting. He's learning to do that a lot, lately.

"It was the third time," she says, and it's soft and sad and angry all at once. She doesn't look at him, just stares resolutely into her warm drink, like the surface is a screen replaying all the memories she doesn't want to see. "And the first two times, you were lucky. You were so, damn, lucky. Less than an hour each, because we were tracking you." She swallows, throat thick, and she has to close her eyes. "He kept, he kept targeting you. And don't – " she holds up her hand to stop his indignant response, "don't pretend you didn't notice. He was always after you. And I knew why."

Her fingers trace delicate paths around the edge of the porcelain cup. "He was doing it because of me. And he wasn't going to stop. Just keep coming and coming and coming." She trails off, sentence dying in the bustle of a city in the morning. She looks out at the street, gaze distant. "And I was sick of the possibility that he might outlive you."

His face colours, and suddenly his blood is boiling and he can't control himself. "And that's why you killed him?" And it's a whispered shout, but she still looks scandalized and offended and she abruptly stands, leaving her money on the table and stalking off. He knows she expects him to follow, but he does anyway. "What gives you that right? To dump your responsibilities and walk away? What could possibly exempt you from the retribution that you deserve? For being a murderer? What, just because your father trained you to murder people, it's okay –" He hastily cuts off mid sentence, because he knows that this is a line he shouldn't have crossed, that this is a point he never should have made.

She whirls, arms clenched to her sides so tightly she's shaking, and she glares at him, cold and hard and empty. "Then you'd better get going before someone find's out you've been hanging around some 'questionable' company." Her words drip with venom and ice, and he takes an instinctive step back. "I wouldn't want you to dirty your Goddamn hero's ideals with my freaking life!"

She turns, so fast and hard on her heel that her hair whips him full in the face, stalking down the next street and out of sight. Out of his life. Again. He hates that he can still smell the jasmine spiced perfume of her shampoo.

"You're an idiot," he remarks dryly. Wally doesn't have to turn to see the despairing look on his best friend's face. He doesn't humour him with a response.

"The first time you see her in months, in months, Wally, and you tell her she's a morally depraved harpy?"

"She just – it had to have been planned Robin. Pre-meditated. She was thinking about it. She – " He's cut off by a brisk, sharp pain across his face. "Dude! That hurt!"

"Good." Robin shakes his head, disgusted. "I may not agree with it, but God DAMN it, Wally, I thought you would be the first to understand where she's coming from!"

"What? I would never kill – Ow! Seriously!" He holds his blazing cheek, staring indignantly down into the flat black plastic that marks the area where his friend's eyes should be.

"You WOULD HAVE." He says it so forcefully, that Wally finds himself momentarily rendered speechless. "Remember the exercise?" The redhead blanches. "Line. You are crossing a line."

"And you never do that, right Wall-man?" And these are more lines that he's rubbing out, blithely, with the heel of his shoe, but Wally doesn't have the conviction or the hypocrisy to call him on it. He turns, abruptly, to leave the room, calling lightly over his shoulder, "You were going to kill every single one of them."

And he sinks his head in his hands and remembers his rage and his pain and his arrogance, and tries to contain himself so he doesn't vibrate straight through the table.