One of Them

"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil." Oneshot

For: Traught Week at tumblr
Prompt: Revelation

Note: Not written chronologically.
Disclaimer: Don't own Young Justice.

Artemis had never felt this lost before.

As she gazed at her reflection in the mirror, she found she didn't know who she saw anymore. Was she still Artemis, the archer dressed in the iconic green, fighting the good fight? Or had she truly become Tigress, the feline villainess, right hand to Deathstroke?

Suddenly it felt like her entire body was engulfed in this cold substance, despite the room's lukewarm temperature, and the icy sensation was choking her.

Perhaps her father was right all along. Perhaps she could never fight who she was. Perhaps she was never one of them after all.

Perhaps her past had predetermined her future, and she could not escape her fate.

Only a few weeks ago, The Light had commanded Artemis to band together with Deathstroke and bring down the Justice League's covert team. It was quite a stressful and difficult transition from working for Aqualad, where she had at least a shred of comfort and safety, to working for Deathstroke, who was a relentless mercenary.

The Light, via Black Manta, had ordered Kaldur to divulge all the information he knew about the team to Deathstroke and had ordered Artemis to do some reconnaissance on them.

Deathstroke was currently rummaging through all the files of each team member, which Kaldur had provided, that had been spread out for examination on the table. Finally, he picked one up and skimmed it quickly before looking at her over his shoulder.

Artemis looked on wordlessly, her hands clasped behind her back.

"So Nightwing is in charge of this covert operation?" Deathstroke inquired.

Artemis swallowed, weighing her options. Deathstroke was most likely testing her. She didn't want to risk jeopardising her friend's safety, but on the other hand, if Deathstroke discovered she had hidden the truth from him, she could blow her entire cover.

"Yes," she replied, resolutely. Her grey eyes never strayed from his intense stare, despite the chills running down her spine at the sight of the half mask.

He took the picture of Nightwing from the folder. His eye never left it as he ambled over to the wall to pin it there.

"Then he is the one we want."

She still couldn't get used to being on the submarine. In contrast to the large, cosy apartment she shared with Wally, this room was small, practically empty and downright bleak. She was lying on her back on this cot with a hard mattress, which would surely cause her backaches after continuous use, and her thoughts wandered from her family, to her friends and then rested on Nightwing.

As much as she hated to admit it, Nightwing was such an enigma.

Being the great detective that he was, he knew everything about everyone. She remembered the time he had revealed his knowledge about her checkered past, despite all her efforts to keep her family relations secret. But he had known all along... In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if he knew everything about the other team members as well, Artemis mused.

And yet she barely knew anything about him. All she knew was his true age, that he changed his persona from Robin to Nightwing because he was growing up (it still amazed her how tall he had become), that he was a Gothamite like her and that his best friend happened to be her boyfriend.

This made her wonder if Wally knew more about Nightwing than she did.

Probably not, she thought, because Nightwing was the protégé of the almighty Batman after all. She could imagine Batman being very adamant about his affiliates keeping their identity a secret.

It didn't stop her from speculating what was behind the mysterious mask, though.

Did he have green eyes like Wally's? Or were they grey like hers? Or maybe blue like Conner's? She had seen them when they went undercover in the circus, but she figured they were coloured contacts (as if Batman would send him on a mission and let him show his face). She bet they were a much lighter blue than the azure shade she saw then.

As much as she loved Wally, she'd always found dark hair together with blue eyes attractive. The instant she saw Conner soaring over her head, she had developed a physical crush on him. Hell, she even had to admit that Zatanna with her raven black hair and cerulean pupils was gorgeous, and she wasn't even into girls.

So she liked to imagine that Nightwing had the bluest eyes.

She imagined them looking like sparkling and rare sapphires, burning with passion, lapping into your soul like the ocean waves lap against the sandy shores with each push and pull. However, in reflection of Nightwing's personality, she visualized his eye colour being brighter than Conner's perpetually intense blue ones, which flared and dimmed according to his mood.

As she drifted into slumber, her visualization of Nightwing's hidden eyes lingered in her mind, and she hoped that one day he would trust her enough to reveal them to her.

Artemis was unable to comprehend what had just transpired.

All she could focus on was how her breathing had switched into ragged, sharp gasps, how her eardrums could only pick up a strange high pitched buzzing, and how her heartbeat had changed into something like an unsteady hammer slamming repeatedly inside her chest.

She tried to keep her body from trembling as she watched the man she had just fought against collapsing like a rag doll on the ground. Her face paled under her necklace's magical optical illusion as his life and soul were sucked out of his tall body, rendering it defunct. Her grasp on her sword loosened as it slipped from his abdomen, traces of his blood running off of the tip of her sword.

"Well done, Tigress. We're finally rid of that nuisance. The Light will be pleased to hear about this," Deathstroke said beside her, his grating voice layered with haunting malevolence, brutishness and sadism. She could envision him sneering at the corpse behind his mask.

As he turned to her, he said, "I knew you had it in you."

Her heart froze at those words. All the muscles and tendons in her body tensed up to the point that they were on the verge of snapping, and she could feel cold flames consuming her. They licked away at her flesh and bones, a chilling sensation she couldn't sweat out.

A thousand thoughts flooded her mind, a thousand memories of her dad training her when she was only nine years old, drilling her, pushing her to the very limit, reminding her every time that she was a Crock and that she needed to learn this because she was one of them.

Then her memory of the moment when she finally confessed her roots to her teammates crept into her mind. She remembered how they were all shocked at the news, except for Robin. He had just stood there and smiled. And it wasn't his trademark I-love-trolling-you smirk, but a genuine smile that reassured her she wasn't her family. She was one of them.

She shuddered at the vivid flashes in her head, pressing her eyes tightly shut. Forcing herself to relax, she composed herself and turned to face Slade, stretching her lips into a victorious grin.

"Was there ever any doubt?"

Artemis had waited in the shadows of the cave, carefully watching, anticipating the moment she'd find Nightwing all alone.

He was discussing something with Mal. The boys frowned pensively at the picture of a kid in a speedster uniform—she assumed this was Bart Allen, codename Impulse, the kid from the future Wally had told her about—on the large computer screen.

Dressed in her civilian clothes, Karen walked into the entrance of the cave to join the boys, linking her one arm with Mal's. She began telling them something Artemis couldn't hear while gesturing animatedly with her free hand. After she was done talking, Mal cackled while Nightwing just smiled softly. Artemis saw Mal kissing Karen before they said their goodbyes to Nightwing.

Artemis sucked in her breath. This was her moment to capture Nightwing.

She leapt stealthily from her hiding place as quietly as possible, but just as she expected, Nightwing had heard her landing. When she hit the floor, she found him staring right at her.

"Artemis," he whispered barely audible.

Something intense emanated from the whites of his mask, and she could almost feel his eyes flashing with a glint of guilt.

As her heartbeat accelerated, she felt as if time was slowing down.

She blinked out of her reverie and then leered. "It's Tigress now, remember?"

Nightwing blanched at her response, his body completely numb as the shock and pain and shivers washed over him all at once, creating an opening for Artemis to attack him head on. She immediately took the opportunity and lurched forward, kicking him in the face so hard he spun around. Then she crouched down, swinging her leg around to floor her prey.

When he fell on his back onto the ground, she smirked smugly and jumped on him, with her knee crashing into his elbow and breaking his arm in the process.

Before he passed out, Nightwing's painful cry echoed through the cave.

Artemis leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, watching Nightwing stir as he slowly woke up and regained his senses.

A moan emitted from his lips as she pushed himself back up, and when his eyes lost the blurriness of sleep, he sat up and faced her. The silence was sepulchral, building up the tension more as the two never broke their stare. The way she was studying him was unsettling, and he felt as though his breath was stifled as guilt sunk into the pit of his stomach.

Nightwing believed it was all his fault.

The undercover mission was his plan; he had consciously asked Kaldur and Artemis to put their lives at risk. Because of his plan, Artemis and Kaldur had taken on the guise of villains, making impossible decisions and doing impossible things (in the criminal underworld). Nightwing couldn't begin to imagine what they must have gone through so far. It plagued him, and seeing Artemis like this was evidence that his nightmares had become reality.

The memory of her last words returned to his mind.

"You're still Artemis," he suddenly said.

The words caught her off guard, but she refused to let her surprise show. She simply walked closer to the cell she was keeping Nightwing in—she had made sure he couldn't escape by removing his utility belt earlier—and let her fingers slide over the barred door until she reached the end of the metal. Then she started toying with her glamour charm, playing with the yellow jewel between her fingertips.

Artemis inhaled sharply, and her brow furrowed deeply in thought. "Artemis wouldn't have done the things I did as Tigress."

The crack in her voice saddened Nightwing, and regret was beginning to consume him.

"I don't know who I am anymore," she continued, and her fingers wrapped around the trinket more constricted. "Have I truly become Tigress, just as my father always wanted? Or is Artemis still in here, as my mother hopes? It's the classic struggle. 'In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil.' But which in me will conquer?"

"You forgot the rest of Stevenson's quote. 'All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are.' You are the one who will decide which side will stay. Not your father, not your mother nor sister. Not Wally, not me, not Deathstroke, but you."

She turned her gaze from her necklace to him, with a frown tugging on her lips and the rims of her eyes filling with sudden tears.

"I don't know what I want anymore."

"Yes, you do. Five years ago you snuck out of your house and defied your dad's wishes by saving Kid Flash. And it's because you wanted to. You wanted the hero life," he countered, a proud smile dawning on his face.

Artemis shook her head, dropping her eye-lids, and causing the tears to stream down her face. "That was five years ago. This is now. You don't know what it's like. Deathstroke—he is vicious, beyond vicious. And the things I've had to do to conceal the undercover? It was unbearable." She paused, shifting on her feet as she attempted to control her sobbing. Then something flickered in her eyes, and suddenly they were much more guarded, darker. "I killed someone innocent, Nightwing. I feel like I'm in too deep."

"You are not," he told her, and he crawled forward, slipping his hand in between the steely bars as he tried to reach out to her. "Casualties were bound to happen. Kaldur has made unspeakable decisions as well. I'm sorry that you had to do that, I really am. You're not in too deep."

She was still staring at him unblinkingly.

"You're stronger than you think you are, Mi."

And there it was.

That affectionate nickname he had only used once before.

She remembered like it was yesterday. It was when she was 17 years old and he was 15, and they were at the Cave after school as usual. Miss Martian was teaching Artemis how to bake a carrot cake, because she wanted to do something special for Paula's birthday.

Kid Flash and Robin had been sparring, but when they walked into the kitchen, all sweaty and hyped-up, the timer of the oven rang, and M'gann used her telekinesis to take the cake out. The room was promptly filled by the smell of the burnt cake, and Wally, as usual, couldn't pass up teasing his girlfriend. He had pinched his nose shut, saying the stench was killing him, and quipping that he hoped she'd make a better housewife the day they decided to settle down.

This drove Artemis over the edge, and she retorted that he would have to stop being a baby first and learn to eat carrots (Wally had never liked the taste of carrots). Then she shoved one of the peeled but unused carrots in her mouth, chewing loudly. Her behaviour upset Wally, and he mumbled that it was a bit mean. Then Robin, who had been watching the exploding scenery on the sidelines with M'gann, attempted to calm them down by chuckling and telling M'gann that Wacky Wally and Mean Mi should get a room. At this Wally laughed, and Artemis blushed.

And then Artemis cried, pressing the heel of her palm into her mouth to keep from making too much noise and dropped down on her knees. She reached out and let Nightwing hold her hand. His touch was comforting, something she needed most.

"I'm so scared," she whispered.

"It's alright."

"I can't do this anymore."

"Yes, you can."

She closed her eyes, breathing hard as she laid her forehead against the bars that separated them. "I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"No, Nightwing."

"Yes."

"I don't know why you asked me to do this task. How can you trust me? I don't even trust myself."

"I trust you with my life," he replied defiantly.

But she kept going, unfazed. "You shouldn't. You really shouldn't. I don't have the—," and then she was interrupted when he told her, "Mi. Look at me."

She didn't.

"Mi, please?"

Swayed by the concern and sincerity in his voice, she craned her neck to face him.

"I trust you with my life," he reiterated. He let go of her hand and lifted his fingers up to remove his mask in one swift motion, tossing it onto floor beside him. The sound reverberated across the room, fizzing against her eardrums in disbelief.

And in a blurry daze of shock, confusion and expectation, all she could think about was that she was right.

He did have the bluest eyes.

And then realisation dawned her as she recognised them from her first day at Gotham Academy, when this freshman had snuck up on her to take a picture of them together with his cellphone.

"You're him," she laughed weakly. "I can't believe it. You're Dick Grayson. So all this time you were him and he was you."

A simple smile graced his features. "Now you know the real me. Like I know the real you. You're smart, you're tough and you're caring. I've seen the best and the worst of you, on the field and off. You are a hero."

She peered at him, wide-eyed and moved.

"You're Artemis."

She thanked him, tears spilling from her eyes and a smile painted across her lips, and then she told him that he should leave before Deathstroke came back. She quickly opened the cell and gave him back his utility belt. He was reluctant to go but she assured him she'd be fine now. She would tell Deathstroke Nightwing had escaped under her nose, since he was the elusive Nightwing after all, but she also told Dick, "You should be careful. Deathstroke will come after you, and he's a force to be reckoned with."

He nodded, agreeing with her.

Before he left through the door, he reminded her, "Never forget who you are."