Work Text:
No one was really surprised when Dick said that he was going to be moving. Well, moving in a loose sense. He'd been spending most of his time between California, the Cave, and Gotham, basically living adrift for the past year and a half. He'd kept clothes in the little bachelor' pad Wally lived in just outside of Stanford, and over time just sort of slowly helped out with bills and the like. But that was beside the point.
The apartment he'd shared with Wally was too filled with... well, Wally. Too heavy with the absence of him. So, he was going to be moving back to Gotham. Not exactly the clean streets of Palo Alto, but he needed the change, and it was closer to the only home he really had left. He'd be living at the Manor again until he made other arrangements, on Bruce's insistence. He shouldn't be alone right now.
So, with moving came the obligatory call for friends to come help out. Dick promised coke and pizza to anyone who came to help him pack, not that much incentive was required. Despite the heavy atmosphere it would no doubt bring, they weren't going to leave Dick with the task of going through Wally's belongings on his own.
This was the chain of events that lead to Artemis grabbing Barbra after a late mission one night and pulling her into her room. The Watchtower's ever present hum seemed to grow louder with every passing second, as the Team left their debriefing and headed to the zeta tubes one by one. Tugging the red headed girl down the hall and into the room she shared with Zatanna, she shut the door behind her and slipped off her mask. Barbara, who'd only done minimal resistant tugging until now, finally freed her hand and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What are you doing?” Barbara asked.
Artemis took a moment, sitting down on the edge of the bed with a weary sigh. The room was pitifully bare, a stark contrast to the rooms they'd had for years back at the cave. Nothing seemed familiar anymore – and Artemis wasn't really a sentimental person. She let her mask dangle from her fingers. “I need your help with something.”
Barbara's expression slipped from mildly annoyed to concerned. She reached up to pull her cowl back. “Is... everything okay?”
Artemis wasn't sure how to respond at first. Nothing was okay, but she got the feeling that Babs was speaking of less broad terms. “Yeah, I'm fine, it's just.... a favour I guess. You're going to Dick and Wa... I mean, you're helping Dick move on Saturday, right?”
Barbara nodded. “Yeah. Has this got something to do with that?”
“In a sense,” Artemis replied. She floundered for a moment, eyes flickering to the crack of light under the door as someone passed by. Dick himself had taken a leave of absence from the Team after what happened to Wally. There was no danger of him hearing them. Still, this wasn't something she wanted anyone eavesdropping on. “Listen... during the Reach Invasion, when Wally and I were in Paris...”
Tornadoes touched the earth like gnarled fingers from the storm clouds, raking across the earth. The wind was a roar in their ears, whipping at their faced until their skin was raw. Still, the duo kept fighting. Wally, rusty from time off the field but nonetheless ready, ran serpentine to distract the enemy drones from Artemis, who fired countless arrows at the alien tech. One drone turned in mid air, firing a blast and just narrowly missing her. A truck behind the archer exploded, catching her in the outburst, but Wally was there to catch her before the fire could hit.
“Need a lift?” he grinned down at her.
Artemis rolled his eyes as she bent over backwards in his hold. “Shut up and drop me. Your opening is coming up.”
Without hesitance, Wally gave her a boost into the air and let go, allowing her to flip over high. Pulling back on her bow, she released, shooting down the final two drones before she touched the ground. Taking his chance, Wally sped beneath the Eiffel Tower and disabled the chrysalis. With a great, resounding whine, the storm raging over France died down. Artemis rose to her feet, turning against the dissipating wind to speak into her ear piece. “Omega Squad reporting, target neutralized.”
“Copy that. Good work, guys. Head on up to the Watchtower, looks like everyone else is finishing up too.”
Dropping her hand from her ear, Artemis turned in search of her partner. She found him under the tower, yellow and crimson clad figure standing full bodied, straight, staring up at the massive structure. It was hardly a romantic view, with the dark clouds churning overhead. She walked over to him. His gaze suggested it might be the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. A closer inspection of his face, though, had her wondering if he was looking at anything in particular at all.
“Nice place, huh?” he grinned.
Artemis made a face, nose scrunched up as she looked between her friend and the city surrounding them. “Maybe in a few weeks when it's cleaned up,” she shrugged.
Wally shrugged in return, faking nonchalance. “Might be a nice place to honeymoon.”
“I guess.” Then it registered. Artemis' eyes snapped up to Wally, widening as his grin did the same. “No way.”
Turning bashful, Wally reached up to rub his palm over the back of his neck as he struggled to contain his nerves. “As soon as all of this is over, I'm asking Dick. Got the ring and everything.”
Artemis launched her arms around the speedster, pulling him in for an earnest hug that he enthusiastically returned. The end of the world raged on around them, but for the time being, it was oddly quiet. A foreboding anxiety hung in the air, yet proved unable to dampen their excitement.
Barbara listened, arms dropping limp at her sides as she found herself stepping back to find the wall behind her. “Oh my god...”
Artemis could only nod. Even recounting that day brought a hot red sting to her eyes. She pursed her lips, closing her eyes as she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Steady. “Yeah, um...” she swallowed when she found that her voice was still quivering. “No one else knows.”
“But if he bought the ring already-”
“That means it's most likely still in the apartment,” Artemis finished for her in understanding. Rising to her feet, she looked her friend in the eyes. “Barbara, you're one of Dick's best friends. You know him as well as I do. If Dick sees that ring...” she shook her head. “I just don't think he could handle it right now. I need you to help me find it before he does.”
Taking a moment of silence to absorb this information, Barbara tensed her jaw, before nodding. Dick was putting up a good front about all of this. He was being so strong. That's all it was though; a front. He was hurting, more than any of them would ever understand in their lifetimes – if they were lucky. Finding that ring would destroy any semblance of strength he had left, and Barbara didn't want to find out what would happen in the aftermath. “Okay,” she whispered.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Artemis' chest was a tight coil of anxiety by the time she made it to the apartment that morning. She lived a couple blocks away in a house with a couple other girls in her program, and had memorized the way to Wally's apartment by heart. Many late night study sessions, game nights, and casual parties had lead her there. The trip, short though it was, had pulled her thoughts into an endless cycle of memory flashes, realizing that this was likely the last time she'd be there.
“Arty? Artemis,” Zatanna gently nudged her side with her elbow.
Artemis blinked, shaking herself from a daze. “Yeah?”
Zatanna frowned nodding toward the door they stood before. “You've got the key,” she said with a sympathetic pull of her lips. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Artemis answered – too quickly. Zatanna could tell. Quickly fumbled through her purse, she found her copy of the key and moved to open the door. Zatanna's hand reached out to lay on top of hers before Artemis could turn the door knob. Locked into the deep blue gaze, Artemis could only give one more reassuring nod before turning the knob and pushing the door open. This wasn't going to be easy; and Zatanna had no idea.
When they stepped inside, the emptiness hit like a blast of arctic air. The apartment was full, though. Or it seemed that way. Cluttered with cardboard boxes, some full, some empty, some still flattened and laying in piles against the walls. Some of the furniture was already gone, probably sold to nearby college students looking to fill their own bare studio apartments. Dust hung in the air, caught in the dull beams of grey light seeping in from the window blinds.
Footsteps shuffled their way from the kitchen. Dick appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
“Oh! Hey, Dick. Sorry, we thought you were out. Woulda knocked,” Artemis greeted.
Just the sight of him made her throat tight. With bed hair sticking up at odd angles, a style that might've looked deliberate if it weren't for the telltale bags under his eyes, he looked like he hadn't slept in days. It probably wasn't far from the truth. He was wearing sweatpants, a pair that Artemis could have sworn she remembered seeing Wally wear constantly in the library during exams last semester, and a t-shirt. Dick looked – small. Or maybe that wasn't the right word, he looked so far from the big-eared thirteen year old she'd met so long ago. He just –
He looked nineteen. He was only nineteen. She forgot sometimes.
Dick waved her off, laughing quietly. “It's fine, I keep forgetting that the door locks automatically. Conner and Mal were getting stuck outside all morning trying to bring things out.”
“Have you been at it for long, then?” Zatanna asked as she slipped her shoes off on the door mat.
“Just an hour. It looks like a disaster, but I promise we've made progress,” Dick's smile never wavered. “Thanks again, guys. I didn't want to rush, but the lease is up soon anyway, so...” he shrugged.
“Happy to help,” Artemis replied. Walking in, she wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, holding him close for a few moments longer than was customary to them. Artemis didn't ask how he was doing. Didn't need to, and Dick wasn't the type to want to answer. “Well,” she sighed as she pulled back and stepped aside for Zatanna to have her turn, “put us to work.”
“Sure thing,” Dick nodded as he hugged Zatanna and stepped aside. “Babs is in the bedroom right now if you want to help her. I've been mostly going through the living room and – well, everywhere else.”
Meaning he was avoiding the bedroom at all costs. Artemis' gaze flickered to the side, where she found a blanket and pillow thrown haphazardly onto the couch. “Sounds good.”
Zatanna opted to get started on the kitchen, putting her powers to use as she sorted through the cupboards for food to be either tossed or donated. Dick soon after disappeared behind a stack of boxes, going through the TV cabinet from the sound of it. Leaving them to it, Artemis rounded the corner into the bedroom. Barbara was seated on the floor, surrounded by mounds of clothes that she was folding into neater piles.
Artemis' lips twitched into a weak smile in greeting, a look mirrored by the ginger. She joined her on the floor. “Any luck?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” Barbara shook her head. “I've been here since last night, slept over. I've checked the closet, under the bed, between sofa cushions, anywhere I could think of.”
Artemis frowned as she grabbed a few garments off the pile and started to help fold. “It's not a big place – he couldn't have hidden it that well.”
“He was trying to hide it from Dick Grayson,” Barbara pointed out. “He probably hid it in the one place he knew Dick wouldn't find it. Problem is, I have no idea where that could be.”
Artemis shook her head. “Well, we've got all day. One of us has to find it at some point. There's no chance that it was already packed away by accident?”
“I checked every box before Conner and Mal took it out, even the furniture he sold. Nothing.”
Artemis nodded, but found that she didn't have anything else to add. At this point, she was just as lost as Barbara. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked into the other room, where she could just barely see a black tuff of hair over a stack of boxes. “How has he been?”
“Good,” Barbara answered, following her gaze. “I mean, he's not himself, obviously. He's subdued, but – he's been handling everything alright.”
Pursing her lips again, Artemis looked down at the t-shirt she was folding in her lap. One of Wally's, she was pretty sure. It had all just become one mound at that point. Finishing the fold and setting it aside, she pushed herself up. “I'm going to work on the closet.”
It took all day, but they got it done. Into the afternoon a few more friends and teammates showed up. Kaldur was only able to stay for a few hours, but picked up the food for lunch break on his way there. Conner and Mal came back to throughout the afternoon to get furniture and the heavier items. M'gann couldn't get there until later in the evening, but was a life saver in actually cleaning the place up for the next tenant. Other than that, it was just the four of them, working in mostly silence until Dick had realized that it was too quiet, and put the radio on, laughing that it must have been so boring. They laughed along with him.
Boxes were filled, sealed, and carried out. Some of it had been labeled to donate, the rest was going on a truck heading across the country from California to New Jersey, with a pit stop in Kansas at Wally's parents house. They didn't know yet what they were going to do with Wally's things, but it was a bridge they'd cross when they got there.
The tasks they'd set themselves to, though monotonous, were oddly calming. If they kept busy, it was easier to look past the fact that they were packing someone's entire life away. Some things, though, didn't break that illusion so much as rise up through it.
“Oh,” M'gann had gasped softly at around four in the afternoon, when the sunlight had gone from grey to gold in the windows. One hand rose up to her mouth as the other pulled a battered book off of a shelf. “I'd forgotten about this.”
Dick had crossed the room to peer over M'gann's shoulder. His eyes had flashed when he saw the scrapbook Wally had made for his thirteenth birthday. They had added to it for a few years, pictures getting sparse at times, and more frequent when they had remembered that it existed. It had been a while since he'd seen it off the shelf, an old relic of a time that seemed like an entirely different world now. Still – he smiled. Taking it from M'gann's hands, he flipped through a few of the crumbling pages, and all he did was smile. “I think I did too,” he laughed, smile fading slightly as he closed it, taking in a breath through his nose. Without another word, he packed it away in one of his personal boxes, and turned toward the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.
By dinner, the truck had been loaded up save for a futon, a few spare boxes, and a dufflebag of clothes and toiletries for Dick. He'd be leaving in the morning. And still, much to the frustration of Artemis and Barbara, there was no sign of the ring Wally had mentioned. Pulling Artemis into the bedroom after they'd brought out the last boxes, Barbara fought to keep her voice lower than before. In the empty room, every noise seemed to echo.
“Dare I hope you found it already?” Barbara whispered.
Artemis shook her head. “No luck. Do you think he might have put it under a loose floorboard or something?”
“I don't know,” Barbara replied. “You knew him better than I did. Would he have done something like that?”
“Honestly, nothing he could do would have surprised me,” Artemis said with a shrug, her voice hoarse, tone bittersweet.
“Well, we only have a few hours, and tearing up the place might look a bit sus-”
Dick leaning in through the doorway silenced their hushed conversation immediately. “Hey, I'm ordering pizza. Toppings? So far there's a civil war brewing about whether to put pineapple on it or not, I need a tie breaker.”
Masking how startled she'd been at his sudden entrance, Artemis stammered for a moment. “Um, yeah, sure, I'm good with anything...” A flash of light from Dick's chest had her trailing off before she could finish her sentence. Honestly, Artemis didn't know how she hadn't noticed all day. Both her and Barbara had spent the entire day with him and neither had noticed the simple gold chain hanging from his neck, and the thin band hanging from the end. Artemis felt her heart drop, squeezing between her lungs. “Oh...” she breathed. Barbara, from the looks of it, realized their mistake too. Her shoulders dropped.
Confused for a moment by Artemis' staring, Dick followed her gaze down to the chain and ring. “This?” Dick muttered as he played with the band between his forefinger and thumb for a moment. “Uh, found it yesterday. Dumbass tried to hide it in a box of Raisin Bran. I hate the stuff, but I haven't bought groceries with the move, so...” he laughed. Dick wasn't fooling anyone this time though. Both women saw the quiver in his jaw, heard the hitch in his breath. “Pizza?”
They used boxes as a table and sat on the floor, eating off of paper towel plates and drinking coke from solo cups. With all said and done, the others said their goodbyes, told Dick they'd see him back on the East Coast, and headed out. Even Zatanna found herself getting tired as the night went on, half asleep on Artemis' shoulder, and decided to head back to her girlfriend's house. Artemis told her she'd be back in an hour or so, and to not wait up. Zatanna was comfortable enough there with her roommates to not worry.
So, Barbara and Artemis cleaned up with Dick. It took maybe five minutes, and still by the time they were done, they looked back into the living room, and the younger man was nowhere to be seen. An open window carried the humid salt water breeze into the small space, pushing through the sheer curtains. Barbara and Artemis exchanged a look without words before climbing out and onto the roof.
Dick, sure enough, was seated on the apex of the rooftop. The building itself was only about four stories, a small complex off the main road, but it had a decent view of the bay from there. With minimal moonlight, but handfuls of stars peering through the veil, the horizon looked empty. Like the world just dropped off in a warm and dark nothing. The soft roar of the water rolled up from the distant shore.
Crawling up across the black shingles, Artemis and Barbara came up from behind Dick and sat on either side of him. For a while, none of them said anything. Finally though, Artemis ran her hand back through her hair, strands falling loose from her ponytail and damp with the humidity, and spoke. “Wally told me about the ring,” she confessed. “We were trying to find it before you did.”
“Shockingly, a cereal box was not on our list of places to look,” Barbara attempted a smile.
Dick didn't so much laugh as let out a staccato breath through his nose, mouth twitching up as he dropped his head between his shoulders. Barbara shifted closer, her arm wrapping around his torso and her head resting on his shoulder.
“We weren't going to keep it from you- it's yours, obviously, but...”
“We just didn't want you to get hurt,” Artemis finished.
“It's okay,” Dick sighed as he let his head fall to the side for a moment, leaning on top of Barbara's. “I understand. Thank you for trying, but... it's fine. I'm okay. Just...” his hand rose up to hold the little gold band, “wanna keep it close.”
Silence again. Dick sat up, and Barbara shifted back again, letting him brace his hands behind him and let his head fall back, staring up at the night sky. It wasn't like there were a thousand breathtaking stars shining down on them from the heavens. But it wasn't empty either. That was all that really mattered.
Dick laughed, not like he had all day. The sound was punched out of his chest, his smile brilliant, incredulous at himself for a moment and fading just as quickly. He shook his head. “You wanna know the worst part?” he said. The suddenness of it had both Artemis and Barbara startled. Still, they listened.
Dick's gaze searched the sky, the bay, still shaking his head to himself until he let it drop so they could see his face. There were already silent tears streaking down his cheeks, dripping down from his nose and chin. “I would have said no,” he confessed, voice cracking. “I would have said that it's not the right time, that we should wait. I would have told him to wait.”