A/N: I wrote this for guardianwolf216 under the prompt of a 'Sportsmaster/Artemis' fic. There's a little Spitfire in there, if you squint. It's also kind of gory, for those of you who aren't particularly fond of blood and the like. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Trigger

By JustJanelle

"What are you waiting for?"

The night is dark and damp and the fog blankets them. It separates the team from each other but every few moments Artemis will see a flash of light from Kaldur's water bearers or hear a grunt from Superboy as he knocks another henchman to the ground and most often she sees Wally running in circles around the field; his blurred red and yellow form making indistinct tunnels through the fog that last seconds at a time.

Artemis is facing the wall of the warehouse, an arrow notched at her father's heart.

Sportsmaster is slumped to the ground, leaning against the brick wall, holding a gash in his leg that is bleeding profusely. The blood stains the grass that he lies on and Artemis tries not to shiver as the puddle expands, inching closer and closer to her feet.

"What are you waiting for?" he asks again, his voice demanding even though it is underlain with pain, "I thought I trained you better than this. Shoot Artemis. You have a perfect shot, shoot already."

She almost drops her bow. His voice calls her back to a day six years ago.

There was blood then too.

The sun beat down on her nine year old self. It was summer and the morning was humid, the stickiness making her clothes cling to her skin. Her hair was longer then. It was swept in to a ponytail that barely brushed the backs of her knees. She hadn't cut it since she was a baby.

Sportsmaster stood over her shoulder. A man lay at her feet. And there was a gun in her hands.

She was young but she knew what guns were for. She had seen her dad use them one too many times. She'd seen the life sucked from a man's eyes as her father had bent down and sent a bullet through his skull.

Her father was whispering things in her ears, telling her that it was her turn.

"Shoot him, Artemis. Pull the trigger," he said.

Her fingers were damp with sweat and the gun almost slipped from them as she flicked the safety off.

The man on the ground had already been beaten half to death. There were muddy indentations along the skin of his stomach and back in the shape of her father's combat boots. The man screamed as he clutched the hole where his eye used to be. Blood streamed between his fingers.

Her father wiped his javelin on the edge of his t-shirt leaving bloody stains in the white fabric.

"Artemis," her father said over the anguished cries of the man at their feet, "don't you want to kill him? This man is the reason your mother is in jail. He's the reason your sister left us."

No, she thought, that's because of you.

She held the gun pointed at the man's head but her hands shook and her vision was starting to blur. She didn't know she was crying until her father reached out and slapped her across the face.

Tears that had been welling in her eyes spilled down her cheeks and her vision cleared for a moment. She stared down at the man in front of her, wondering if it would be worth it trying to convince her father to leave him there, wondering if he'd live long enough for help to arrive.

Before she could blink her father snatched the gun from her hands, aimed it at the man's head and pulled the trigger. The man's neck snapped back. He twitched once and then was still.

Artemis wasn't crying anymore. She was frozen, staring at the lifeless man.

Her father leaned forward as if to whisper something to her but instead he swung the javelin towards her unprotected backside. She winced, squeezing her eyes shut. She expected to look down and find that she had been cut in half, right through the waist. She expected her father to be standing over her slain corpse with a scowl curving his mouth downward. Instead she opened her eyes to find a shower of blonde hair scattering around her body. It was catching the wind and fluttering in all directions. Some of it stuck to the blood at her feet. Some of it was clutched in her father's hands.

She reached backward warily, feeling the sharp ridges of her newly bobbed hair. She forced the tears back by staring up at her father's face.

As soon as he met her eyes he handed the javelin to her without a word.

"What is-"

"Endurance training," he said, pointing to the woods, "go. I'll pick you up in three days."

"But-"

"You hesitated, Artemis. You can't afford to hesitate in this business. If you want to be a part of this family you'll have to learn to survive on your own. Now go. Three days. If you get hungry maim a squirrel or two," he said.

Artemis nodded. Her father collected the man's body and then she was alone, standing in the field with nothing but blood and hair and a dirty knife in her hands.

"Do it, Artemis, shoot," Sportsmaster says, calling her back to the present.

He is still bleeding. She is still aiming at him.

The arrow is shaking in her grasp just like the gun had all those years ago. She half-expects him to stand up, take the arrow from her and stab himself just to teach her a lesson.

Instead Superboy jumps out of the fog and grapples him to the ground, pressing his face in to the bloody grass.

Wally appears beside her, his figure materializing from a blur of yellow and red. He places a hand on her arm and she lowers her bow.

"Are you okay?" he asks as Superboy hauls Sportsmaster on to the bio-ship.

Artemis looks up at him. The arrow that had been meant for Sportsmaster's heart is still clenched in one hand. Her fingers uncurl themselves and the shaft falls to the ground. She doesn't move to pick it up.

"Artemis?" Wally says. He reaches an arm out as if to touch her again but he falters and his hand falls back to his side.

"It's okay," she says, looking up at the sky. The fog has cleared and the stars are poking out of their hideaways, lighting the night like a trillion tiny streetlamps, "I'll be fine."

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