chapter twenty-three.
( deep insecurities. )

Yue Harlow hates secrets.

She hates what they do to the people around her, how they tear apart family and friendships, and often destroy everything people spend their lives building; she hates how they make her feel, how they leave her confused and uneasy inside.

A cold chill drifts through the living quarters of the Cave and Yue, with her head in the clouds, almost jumps when Wally falls into the spare seat beside her on the couch. He throws an arm over the back of the couch, resting it behind her head, as he smiles softly. "Still upset you didn't catch Cheshire?"

"Yeah." Yue lies with a nod of her head; it almost scares her how easily it falls from her lips. Keeping a secret was one thing, but lying to the boy who had done nothing but love her? This just wasn't fair.

But more than she hates secrets, she loves her team. When Artemis asked her to hide the secret for just a little longer, she knew there was no choice. When it comes to them, to their happiness, Yue would go to the ends of the earth and back; just like they would for her. For that reason alone, she couldn't break her promise and tell Wally the truth, no matter how much she wanted to just be honest for once.

Sick of the silence, Wally calls her name, then waits until she tilts her head to face him; as she does so, he leans in to steal a kiss. She can't help but grin against his lips, the moment acting as a perfect distraction from her thoughts, as his right hand moves to gently rest against her cheek.

The two teens, as Wally's left hand snakes under Yue's sweater, freeze when a cough echoes through the living room. Pulling away from her boyfriend, Yue peeks over his shoulder, a loud sigh falling from her lips as she spots a masked figure standing in the doorway. "Roy?"

Wally, with cheeks burning red from the embarrassment of being caught, jumps to his feet and turns to face their friend. "Dude, what are you doing here?" He asks excitedly.

"Walking in on something no one wants to see, apparently." He laughs as he watches Yue roll her eyes on the couch, then strolls further into the room to answer. "You two better not be doing that when I join the team."

"Wait– You're joining the team?" Yue's brows furrow and she lifts herself off the couch. "What happened to us just being a Junior Justice League?" Despite her questioning, and even despite the annoyance she has felt towards Roy as of late, she can't help but grin.

Roy is, even after leaving the Hall in July, one of her closest friends. They had met when Yue and Dick were the only two sidekicks of the League, and though their first-meeting had been anything but friendly, she cares about him the same way she cares about Dick, or Kaldur, or even the rest of the team.

"Kaldur!" Wally calls out to their leader as he enters the room behind the archer. "Did you hear that? Roy's joining the team!"

"Indeed." Kaldur grins, then rests his hand against Roy's shoulder. "It will be good to have you join us." He turns to face the two teens across from them. "Green Arrow is waiting in the briefing room. He has a mission for us."

"I thought missions were Batman's job." Yue points out, her arms crossing over her chest as she follows the boys toward the mission-briefing room. Her mentor, and Robin, were on their own mission in Gotham – a dynamic duo thing, the others would call it – and so she thought the team would have some downtime.

"They are, but Batman gave me a heads-up." Green Arrow, catching the tail end of their conversation, answers her as he watches the team enter the room. M'gann, Conner and Zatanna are already standing in front of him, their attention turning toward the zeta-tube as Artemis enters the Cave. "Artemis, just in time!" Her mentor calls. "Look who's agreed to join the team."

Artemis' gaze flickers to Roy, her lips curling into a snarl as she rolls her eyes. "Sure. The team needed a real archer," she grumbles.

An uneasiness washes over the room, and Green Arrow awkwardly clears his throat, his hand waving toward the holo-screen behind him. "Sportsmaster was spotted coming from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport," he informs the teens.

"In full costume?" Zatanna raises a brow. "Nervy."

"In street clothes." Green Arrow sighs. With the tap of a button, the image behind him zooms in; Sportsmaster stands in the middle of the airport, unmasked and hiding in plain sight. The villain's face has Yue's eyes flickering over to Artemis, and though she felt guilty for even thinking it, she could almost see the family resemblance. "Facial recognition picked up his I.D." Arrow states. "Find out what he's up to."

"All of us?" Conner motions to the group– there were eight team members standing in the room, a fairly large group for a mission as simple as this. "Seems like overkill for a shadow job."

"Perhaps a small squad." Red Tornado, who has been standing at the edge of the room while Green Arrow presented the mission, suggests to his fellow Leaguer. "Miss Martian's camouflage abilities seem ideal."

"Thought the sidekicks– sorry, ex-sidekicks, could suit up on this." Green Arrow glances toward the original young heroes. "Aqualad, Kid Flash, Flamebird, and Red Arrow."

While the boys turn to each other with excited glances shared among them, Yue stares down at her feet; What if he reveals Artemis' secret to manipulate their team? It wouldn't be the first time he told them something to tear them apart from the inside. The mole issue still weighed heavily on them to this day.

"Good." Conner grins. "Stakeouts make me crazy."

M'gann smiles at her boyfriend, "We could use the night off."

Yue lifts her gaze from the floor, and meets Artemis' dark eyes from across the room. "I want in." The archer suddenly announces. "With M'gann and Robin out, no one's logged more hours piloting the Bioship."

It was true. Despite Yue's love for aircrafts, she had yet to learn how to pilot the Bioship and M'gann was only just beginning to teach the team. Still, as she stares over at Artemis, she can't help but feel there's more to this than her simply wanting to be a pilot for them.

"Artemis, are you sure?" Green Arrow asks.

Her eyes narrow in his direction. "Absolutely."

The boys had disappeared into the back of the Bioship, locking both Yue and Wally's Justice League-Issued motorcycles into place in the hangar, while Artemis and Yue remained in the cockpit.

Artemis sits in the pilot's seat in her crime-fighting costume, the dark shades of green almost reflecting the blue-shaded lights of the Bioship. Her eyes, which have been narrowed frustratedly at the floor, lift to glance over at Yue– the girl sits at the front of the cockpit adjusting the sleeves of her leather-jacket. "You-" Artemis pauses. "You haven't told anyone, have you?"

The question almost catches Yue off-guard, as she turns her seat around to face the archer behind her. "I promised you, didn't I?" She reminds her. "You can trust me, Arty. Your secret's safe with me." The smile that had been plastered on her face since the announcement of Roy joining the team falters. "When are you going to tell the team?"

Artemis' face hardens, and Yue is quick to continue speaking. "I'm not threatening to tell them or anything, I swear," she states. "But... These people are our friends, Artemis. They aren't going to judge you, hell, they didn't judge me."

"It's not the same." Artemis says.

Yue, though she knows Artemis has no idea what she's saying, frowns and turns her seat away. It is the same, she thinks to herself. Sure, her father hasn't actively been a villain since the creation of the team, and he hasn't spent almost every waking minute ruining their plans. But he was a villain nonetheless, and the other ex-sidekicks didn't judge her for it, they knew she wasn't him.

Just like Artemis isn't.

"Okay, this may wind up being one of those things that sound way better in my head than out loud." Wally walks into the cockpit, a grin on his face as he falls into the spare seat at Yue's side and turns to face Artemis. "But, Artemis, you are a real archer."

Artemis' gaze narrows at the boy–not angrily, but more out of confusion. "No, I mean, we're jazzed about Red Arrow. We go way back. But you, you've made your place on this team," Wally continues, his smile softening ever-so-slightly. "You have nothing to prove, not to us. Okay?"

Silence washes over the cockpit, and while Yue and Wally share a look – he turns his chair around, raising a brow and grinning when she smiles back at him in approval – Artemis lowers her gaze to the floor. She presses her lips together in thought, then sighs softly. "Okay," she says, gaining their attention. "And Wally, Yue, thank you."

Wally faces the front window, nodding his head to himself. Yue, however, glances over her shoulder at the archer. She couldn't break her trust and spill the truth, and she certainly couldn't force her to make a decision; all she could do was hope Artemis would say something sooner rather than later.

"Target's heading north." Red Arrow's voice transmits through Flamebird's earpiece, the sound of his jet-ski whirring in the background as he takes off down the lake in pursuit of Sportsmaster. "Pursue, but maintain a discreet distance," he orders the team. "And that goes double for you, Artemis."

On the side of a road closest to the lake, Flamebird and Kid Flash sit on their motorcycles; like the rest of their team – other than Aqualad and Artemis who, while staying out of sight in their respective hiding places, remain in their costumes – are dressed in civvies as they attempt to stay undercover. Sportsmaster wouldn't think twice about two motorcyclists following the road.

"Is it just me or," Kid Flash lowers the visor of his helmet, "Does Roy seem to have it out for Artemis? I thought they were both over the whole "replacement" thing."

The motorcycle beneath her whirs to life as both she and Kid Flash take off down the road. For a second, she entertains the thought of Roy knowing Artemis' secret– it would make sense, she thought to herself. Roy had been standoffish at best, and downright rude at worst, towards their teammate.

"I guess he's not as over it as we thought," she says with a shrug of her shoulders; their conversation, though barely heard over the engines, transmits through the earpieces on a separate channel. Flamebird's eyes flicker towards the water, where she could just barely make out the sight of Sportsmaster's boat.

"He's stopped." Red Arrow announces. Flamebird and Kid Flash slow their bikes to a halt. "Hold your positions. I'm moving in for a closer look."

With nothing but the sound of crickets and the steady stream of the lake to listen to, Flamebird falls deep into her thoughts. Roy couldn't know about Artemis, she realises silently. He wasn't the type to judge somebody for that; he knew about her own past, down to the bloodied details of her father's occupation, and he accepted her for it just like the others had.

So, why was Roy treating Artemis like an outsider?

"Do you think Roy really cares about being replaced?" Pulling the helmet from her head as she lifts herself off the bike, she quietly voices her thoughts to Kid. "It's been months. Why would he join the team if he's just gonna be a jerk to Artemis?"

Kid Flash shrugs, then removes his own helmet. "He's not very good with new people," he reminds her. Then, with a smile tugging at his lips, he says, "Didn't you almost punch him the first time you met?"

She did punch him. He was new to the job, having joined the crusade a few months after her, and going on and on about teaching the weaponless city kid a few things; Yue, an orphan from the pits of Crime Alley itself, delivered a punch straight to his masked face for insinuating she didn't know what she was doing.

Flamebird parts her lips to speak, only to fall silent as Red Arrow's voice shouts into the earpiece. "Artemis has been made!" He announces.

She jumps into action, stepping back towards the motorcycle, when Wally shakes his head behind her. "There's no time, leave it." He tells her, then takes the girl into his arms as he runs in the direction of Artemis and the Bioship. The dark roads surrounding them pass by in blur, and when they reach the clearing, the smoke begins to settle.

Red Arrow lays on the ground, with Cheshire straddling his lap. "But at least a kiss is still a kiss," she says, tilting the boy's chin toward her with the tip of her sai. Kid Flash sprints forward, sliding across the ground and knocking the assassin off their friend, before plucking the weapon off the ground.

He twirls the sai between his fingertips. "And a sai is just a sai," he grins, then tucks it into his belt. "And quite the souvenir, by the way."

Red Arrow braces his hands against the grass beneath him, pushing himself onto his feet as he shoots a look towards Artemis. He calls her name, "Tracer arrow on Sportsmaster, now!"

Planting her heel firmly against the ground, Artemis spins to face the water and pulls back the bowstring; she scoffs, then lowers her weapon with a hardened expression. "He's out of range."

"Move." Red Arrow huffs, pushing past the girl, as he aims an arrow up into the night sky. He inhales a deep breath, then releases the bowstring– the arrow slices through the air, splitting into two, and pinning a tracer dart onto the back of Sportsmaster's boat. He runs towards his jet-ski.

Artemis' eyes widened. "You're abandoning?" She shouts, throwing an arm out to gesture towards Cheshire as the assassin pulls herself off the ground.

"I'm prioritising!" Red Arrow snaps, then takes off on the jet-ski to follow Sportsmaster's trail.

"Oh, that's gotta sting." Cheshire amusedly taunts the archer; she stands across the clearing, a mocking grin painted across her visage as she kicks her kabuki-mask up off the ground and secures it over her face once more. "He makes the shot you were afraid to even try."

Flamebird and Kid Flash take defensive stances; while the latter holds the sai out in front of him protectively, Flamebird unfolds her bo-staff and runs at Cheshire. The assassin dodges the first swing of the bo-staff, ducking beneath the weapon and tackling the girl onto the ground.

"We've been made." She can barely hear Aqualad's voice through the earpiece as she kicks Cheshire off herself. As Flamebird collects herself off the ground, Artemis engages Cheshire in a fight; and her mind, for a moment, flickers back to the warehouse a few weeks prior. "Plant a tracer on Cheshire and throw the fight. Surely they will rendezvous soon."

Artemis steps to the right, narrowly dodging her sister's sai– and as she ducks past the assassin, she swiftly attaches a small tracer to the metal weapon. Cheshire spins around, her foot pressing against Artemis' back as she pushes the girl onto the ground. "Oh how I'd love to stick around," Cheshire says. "But I have bigger fish to catch."

A flash of light illuminates the clearing, and as each of the heroes readjust to the night, Cheshire disappears through the treeline. Flamebird's eyes flicker down to Artemis, her brows furrowing as she watches Kid Flash help their teammate back onto her feet. "Did you-?"

"Tracers on her sword." Artemis grins proudly.

"Brilliant!" Kid Flash holds a hand up, laughing when Artemis reaches out to high-five him. "I knew you could-" The speedster is cut off by the sound of the jet-ski returning their way. Red Arrow and Aqualad slowly make their way towards the group. "So we threw the fight as ordered. After Artemis planted the tracer."

Artemis stares down at the device in her hands, then approaches the team. "Cheshire's heading North," she informs.

Red Arrow, with his arms crossed over his jacket, raises a brow beneath his sunglasses. "Sportsmaster was headed South," he states, then huffs out a sigh. "Kinda like this mission."

"Maybe he'll double back," Artemis shrugs her shoulders. "Maybe she will."

"Either way," Kid Flash turns to reassure Red Arrow. "They'll rendezvous and we'll find them."

"We had better." Aqualad says. "Sportsmaster has acquired an attache case. We need to learn what it contains."

Flamebird faces their leader with furrowed brows. "The same case Cheshire had in Gotham?" She wonders aloud. Batman had been, reasonably, beyond mad when Cheshire and Sportsmaster escaped with the case after Artemis blew their cover. "Maybe he's finally delivering to whoever his boss is."

"Then the stakes are higher." Aqualad nods, then glances at Artemis. "If you had stayed aboard the Bioship-"

"I saw Cheshire sneaking up on him," Artemis points an accusatory finger at Red Arrow.

His eyes narrowed down on the archer. "Then you radio in a warning," he reminds her.

Artemis crosses her arms. "And if she found you by hacking our frequencies?"

"It is true." Aqualad sighs as he turns to his old friend. "We have come to rely on M'gann's telepathy over our radios."

Kid Flash nods. "So let's stop looking to place blame and start looking for Cheshire."

"Here." Artemis walks across the clearing, slamming the tracking device against Red Arrow's chest as she glares at him. "Since I clearly can't be trusted, you track her."

Flamebird reaches across to snatch the small device from the boy. "Artemis, what are you-?" As she attempts to hand the tracking device back to her, Artemis shakes her head.

"It's fine," she answers with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'll follow in the Bioship."

"Kid, Flamebird, take your bikes. Arrow and I will return to the river, and we will all follow as originally planned." Aqualad orders the team.

As he and Red Arrow move towards the water, Flamebird glances back at Kid Flash. "Just give me a second, I'll meet you where we left the bikes." When he reluctantly nods his head and walks back in that direction, Flamebird jogs toward Artemis; she reaches out and grabs the girl's wrist, preventing her from boarding the Bioship.

"What are you doing?" Artemis turns to face her, an unimpressed look painted across her visage.

"You're up to something," she observes. "You wouldn't just sit back and take this from Red. What are you up to, Artemis?"

Artemis falters, then pulls her wrist out of Flamebird's grip. "Nothing," she answers in defence. She turns around, beginning to board the Bioship, before she pauses where she stands. "Just... Let me handle this, Flamebird."

Flamebird's lips curl into a frown as she watches the Bioship close behind her friend, then with a sigh, she turns to follow Kid Flash.

Across the clearing, at the edge of the lake, Red Arrow silently watches their exchange.

Flamebird, Kid Flash and Aqualad had followed the tracker for miles before Red Arrow's voice ordered them to double-back and meet at his coordinates. By the time they arrived at the dimly lit warehouse, Artemis was already there– cornered by Cheshire amidst the various colourful floats.

Kid Flash sprints into the room, somewhere in their travels he had changed into the yellow and red costume, and body slams against Cheshire. He knocks the assassin off her feet and into the nearby floats.

Flamebird is the next to come running into the room – rather than the black and red leather jacket she had been wearing in their last fight, she now wore her Flamebird costume – her bo-staff braced in front of her as she guards Kid Flash's back when he turns it to help Artemis to her feet. "Aqualad, Birdy, and I found the tracer on a caboose," he informs their friend. "And I don't mean Cheshire's."

"Seriously, KF?" Flamebird glances over her shoulder, raising a brow at her boyfriend's chosen phrasing.

"She must have ditched it," Artemis answers quickly. Her tone is off, and though Flamebird knows better than to question her here and now, she notes it in the back of her mind; she knew Cheshire didn't ditch the tracer, but the thought that Artemis purposely sent them on a wild goose chase... It stung.

"Figured." Kid Flash nods. "Wait, then how'd you and Red end up here?" His question falls on deaf ears as three consecutive flashes of a bright red light emit from the warehouse's office.

"What the hell is-?" Flamebird's voice is cut off as Cheshire lunges out from the float and pins her to the ground. The back of her head hits the concrete, a loud ringing echoing through her ears as she stares up at the kabuki mask-wearing assassin.

"Flamebird!"

"We meet again." Cheshire's voice lowers into a whisper, though it doesn't sound any less taunting, "I do hope you've managed to keep my sister's precious secret."

Flamebird's eyes, behind her mask, narrow into a glare. "Don't you think you've lost the right to call her that?" She spits venomously. Leaning her head back, she suddenly throws herself forward and headbutts the assassin's mask with her forehead. Cheshire falls off her and Flamebird, with her ears still ringing and her heart pumping loudly in her chest, rises to her feet.

Kid Flash turns in their direction, quickly sparing Artemis a glance. "Go, we've got this," he tells her. When Artemis takes off running towards the glowing red light, Kid Flash dodges Cheshire's heel as she aims to kick him. He drops to the ground, swiping his leg out to knock the woman off her feet– Cheshire places a hand atop his auburn locks, then vaults over him and lunges toward Flamebird.

Flamebird stumbles back, avoiding the up-swipe of Cheshire's sai. She raises her bo-staff, both of her hands curling around the metallic weapon, to block the next swipe of her sword. "Why don't you ever learn-" Pouring all of her strength into pushing Cheshire back, she watches as the assassin loses balance. "--to stay down!"

Cheshire staggers backwards, and as another bright red flash illuminates the room, the body that had been falling onto the ground suddenly turns to ice and shatters as it hits the concrete. Flamebird and Kid Flash lock eyes immediately, the boy awkwardly scratching the back of his neck as he steps up to her side. "What the hell just happened?"

"Let me be clear." Standing in front of the zeta-tubes with his arms crossed over his red shirt, Kaldur lets out a sigh. "We failed." He states. "Though the Injustice League is in custody, their allies still scheme and we have learned nothing of their plans."

"Gee, I wonder why." Roy chimes in sarcastically, his eyes narrowing at Artemis as she turns to face him with an equally hostile look in his eyes.

Artemis' hands ball into her fists. "Hey, who found out Sportsmaster was working for The Brain, Klarion and Ivo?" She snaps at him.

"Yeah, great intel." He scoffs. "Except Ivo's been in Belle Reve the whole time, and the guards just checked. It's the real Ivo, not a robot."

With a shared look, both Yue and Wally step between the two archers. "You know, I'm getting pretty tired of you dumping on her." He tells their old friend.

Roy glances down at them, then raises a small tracer. "So?" Yue questions, her arms crossing over the phoenix symbol painted across her chest. "Cheshire ditched it."

"No. Artemis ditched that-" Roy points at Kaldur who, with a frown on his face, holds up a second tracer. "-to send us on a wild goose chase. She put this one on Cheshire."

Yue doesn't falter under Roy's hardened gaze. She already knew all of this; it hurt that Artemis followed them on her own, that she didn't trust the team with the secret that's been forced onto Yue's shoulders, and that this was the second mission ruined because Artemis wanted to prove something. But, as she stares up at Roy defiantly, she doesn't care anymore.

She had spent weeks now promising Artemis they'd all have her back, and she wasn't going to break that now.

Wally doesn't seem to feel the same way, and with a hurt expression, he turns to glance at Artemis. "Are you that freaked out about Red Arrow joining the team that you had to prove yourself by taking the bad guys down solo?" He asks her. "Please tell me I'm wrong."

Artemis' lips part to speak, as though she had something to say, but as quickly as her mouth opens it closes again and she frowns. "Well, nice going." Wally scoffs. "What you proved is that you're insecure and selfish."

Yue's head snaps in her boyfriend's direction, her eyes widening at his venomous tone. Artemis had been their teammate for months now, while Roy had been back for not even a whole day but was already turning them against her. Yue's eyes flicker between the ex-sidekicks. "Artemis did something reckless, so what? We've all been there."

"This is different." Wally turns to her. "She cost us the mission. She put herself – and the rest of us – at risk, for what? Because she thought she had something to prove? Because she can't handle Red Arrow being on the team?"

"Not every mission can go off without a hitch!" She points out, desperately defending their teammate. "We know that better than anyone, Wally." She glances back at Roy, "What about when you disappeared to Rhelasia for three months?"

Roy frowns. "Yue-"

"Or you, Wally–" She spins back toward her boyfriend. "Can you really say you've never done anything reckless on a mission?" She wants to point out the brutal truth; that Wally was only a hero because he recklessly recreated an experiment that could've killed him. But she bites her tongue.

"You're hiding something." Roy steps forward, his eyes burning into Yue's soul. Just like the others, Yue has known him long enough to know he could almost read her like an open book. It was the reason she was so scared he'd find out the truth. "Do you seriously trust her, someone you barely know, when there's a mole on this team?"

She holds her head high. "I trust her with my life."

author's note.

We only have three more chapters left of act one and I am both scared and excited to move on to act two after an entire year (and more) of writing season one. I just wanted to drop in and warn everybody though that there might be another break between acts, I'm still trying to work out my plans for the end of act two/start of act three.