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"Tonight," He spoke to himself, the words sounding foreign on his lips, "We'll do it tonight. I promise."
The blonde turned her back to him, and he couldn't blame her. "Yeah, like you haven't said that a million times." He could practically feel the piercing, gray gaze of her eyes. Judging, taking, filled with melancholy.
"Artemis - " - Understand, please, just listen, he wanted to say. I'm doing the right thing! His mind screamed, phantom words trying to speak, but he found his voice dying.
She - Artemis Crock, Tigress - glanced at him over her shoulder, and he couldn't even /look/ at her as he dropped his gaze. "Please, Artemis - "
"Don't call me that." He couldn't ever call her that, after the infiltration, after losing her trust. "That's not who I am." She faced him now fully, and he could see the extent of who she really was. "My name is Tigress. Artemis was Kid Flash's partner."
So was he! So was he, damnit! Fury bubbled and simmered at the rim of his throat, but he pushed it down. "Tigress, Artemis... they're both the same to me." Even if they never would be, if they never could be.
He stepped towards her, extending his covered hand towards hers. "All's the difference is their mask."
"No." She stared straight at him, eyes almost making him flinch. "You of all people should know that." Artemis took a step forward, eyes now blazing with something, "Because the Robin I knew, cackling ninja and all, couldn't be the son of a bitch standing in front of me." She jabbed her finger at his chest, his hand falling. "This - This person called Nightwing, who'd do it all for the mission, risk it all for the stupidest, tiniest mission."
"You're exactly the man you didn't want to be." Artemis stared into Nightwing's mask, and she radiated pure wrath. "Congratulations."
She stepped back, her eyes no longer bleeding into his. Some part of him was relieved - yet, something in him yearned her to take it all back. To, for, someone, fix this... Turn it all back to when they were just kids, fighting because they wanted to. Not because, because they /had/ to. To be a team, the Team, again.
They couldn't be like that now.
Now, where their masks weren't the only barrier between them. Where trust, once sturdier than brick, now lay on a flimsy string. Where everything they once had, had as a family - they weren't anything but people fighting on the same side. Names blurred, faces too, everything. They couldn't handle one loss after such a big one.
They once were...
Family. Who never gave up on each other, sacrificed everything for one another, who laughed at the pettiest inside jokes, who pulled the worst of pranks on each other.
Who /loved/ each other.
A spark, something, purely irrational, stupid, reckless, but so instinctive he couldn't help but put it ablaze.
"Maybe I am - exactly who I didn't want to be." Nightwing - no, he was Dick Grayson, because Dick Grayson never gave up on family. "Nightwing is everything Dick Grayson didn't want to be."
"Dick Grayson wouldn't give up on his family. Dick Grayson would catch them whenever they would fall - he wouldn't give up." He straightened his back, stepping towards Artemis. "Because he understood what family meant - what this family, meant to all of us."
"Nightwing is a son of a bitch - and I think we can both agree with that. So maybe, maybe it shouldn't be him appearing tonight." He tore off his domino mask, dropping it down to the floor beside them. With his stomach burning, Dick stood directly in front of Artemis.
"Because Dick Grayson believes in family. And tonight, Dick Grayson is going out there, and taking back his family."
"Because behind everything we do - these masks, these missions - what else do we have?
Artemis met his eyes, and he knew, that she was not Tigress. It was Artemis Crock, joining him, in the search for family. He could even /see/ that spark dancing in her eyes as it was in his a few seconds ago. "Tonight."
"Tonight."