Can A Bird Trust A Cat? (A Young Justice FanFic)

Chapter Thirty

DISCLAIMER: I'm running out of ideas to tell everyone that I own nothing and nobody except for Nessie and Hallucination....

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"Could I have about $50?" I asked Selena after school one day.

"What do you need $50 for?" she inquired, looking at me skeptically.

"A dress," I stated. When I first bought clothes, I made sure that I didn't get any skirts or dresses. Now that I was going to the Winter Ball, as Dick's date none the less, I was regretting that decision.

"You got invited to the Ball, didn't you?"

"How did you know?"

"People like you don't ask for dresses."

"So...can I have the money?"

"No, because I have plenty of dresses. You can borrow one. Of course, you'll have to get it hemmed and adjusted, but it'll cost less than buying a brand new one," Selena said, then walked toward her room. "Come on." I followed her into her closet and was shocked by how big it was. And what it contained. She had to have owned at least 10 dresses, as well as shoes.

"Where do you get the money for these?" I asked, running my hand over a sparkly green dress.

"Like I said, I know people. But don't take the red one; I'm wearing that."

"You got invited too?"

"Well, of course. By Bruce Wayne himself. I'm his date," she smirked.

"What? But you said to stay away from him..."

"That hasn't stopped you, though. Has it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Bruce and I are close. He told me who his ward was taking," she stated, looking directly at me. I turned away and looked at a dark purple dress to hide my red face. Then I saw it. The dress was dark blue and long, with one shoulder and a lace cutout on the side. I knew that it was perfect immediately.

"Can I use this one?" I asked, pointing to the dress.

"You can HAVE that one. I've never worn it," Selena said, and I grabbed it and went to my room to try it on. When it was on me, I knew it was right for me. Sure, the length had to be adjusted, but it was beautiful. Who knew that I would be so excited to wear a dress? I took it off and changed back into my normal attire of jeans and a T-shirt, then hung up the dress and walked back to the living room. I found Selena sitting at the table counting a small stack of money. The money had to be at most $500.

"Whatcha doing?" I asked. She stopped counting and held up the stack of bills.

"This is all of our money. We're going to have to steal another jewel of some sort soon," Selena stated. I bit my lip, wanting more than ever to tell her about the Team's offer. But I couldn't now, after I had just gotten that pretty dress.

So instead of telling her, I responded with an "okay" and went back to my room. No, I needed someone to talk to about this. It was so hard having no one know that Vanessa was Catgirl and Catgirl was Vanessa. As I picked up my phone, I searched through my contacts until I found the person I was looking for. It was time to tell someone.

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"Thanks for letting me come over. I know you don't really want anybody here and stuff, but-"

"Shut up and follow me," Artemis told me, smiling and dragging me into her apartment.

"Feeling better?" I asked, looking around. Her apartment was a lot nicer than mine, and a little bigger as well.

"Definitely. It was a stupid 24-hour thing," she stated.

"Artemis, who is this?" I turned around and saw a Vietnamese woman in a wheelchair. I guessed that she was Artemis' mom.

"Mom, this is Vanessa, a friend of mine. Vanessa, meet my mom," Artemis introduced.

"It's nice to meet you," Artemis' mom held out her hand, and I took it to shake.

"You too," I smiled.

"Okay, let's go to my room," Artemis led me away to what I guessed was her room. It was twice as big as mine, with two beds and a dresser with a big mirror. On one side of the first bed hung a poster of a guy doing karate surrounded by a purple dragon. The other bed had a poster of Alice In Wonderland, depicting Alice looking at the Cheshire Cat in a tree. "So, what's up?"

"Look, there's something I have to tell you-" I stopped when I saw a fancy envelope on the dresser. On top of it was an invitation to the Winter Ball. "You got invited too?"

"Yep. Dick gave it to me about a week ago. Still have to find a dress, but whatever. Wait..." Artemis smirked at me, and I knew where she was going with this. "You said 'too'. Let me guess, you're going as his date!"

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," I stated nonchalantly. But of course my stupid cheeks decided to get red, and Artemis smirked even more.

"I knew he liked you. Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Well, not really. But I'd rather talk about the dance than what I came here to tell you."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. Okay...two things. First, I know about you being Green Arrow's apprentice. And being on the Team," I started. Her eyes widened, then narrowed.

"How do you know that? Who are you?" she asked skeptically. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

"I'm...Catgirl. And I live with Catwoman, aka Selena Kyle. We're not related, I'm just staying with her to get off the street," I hurriedly said. Artemis just sat there with wide eyes and a pale face. "So go ahead and hate me. I deserve it for lying to you. I deserve-" I was cut off by Artemis holding up a finger, a sign for me to stop talking.

"You think I'm going to hate you?" she laughed. I raised an eyebrow.

"You're taking this surprisingly well," I replied.

"Look, I'm going to tell you something that nobody knows except for my family. Not even the Team knows. And since you're excellent at keeping secrets, it shouldn't be a problem," Artemis stopped laughing suddenly.

"You've got it."

"Have you heard of Huntress, Sportsmaster, and Cheshire?" she asked me. I nodded my head. "My mom was Huntress, but she's crippled now, so she's retired. Sportsmaster is my dad, and Cheshire is my sister." She motioned to the poster of the Cheshire Cat, and everything clicked.

"Wow. And I thought that who I lived with was bad..." I stated. "But it's okay. I'm not mad at you either."

"My family proves that no matter where you come from, you can be a hero. Vanessa, Catgirl can become a hero."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Today she told me that we're running out of money and that we're going to have to steal another jewel. She's probably going to kick me out if I tell her, and not let me keep any of my stuff."

"Just talk to her. She might surprise you," Artemis advised. I bit my lip, but nodded in agreement. 'I'll talk to her', I kept telling myself. But would I ever really go through with it?

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ARTEMIS KNOWS NOW! Heh, and you thought Nessie was going to tell Dick. Wrong, sir, wrong!

The dress Nessie is wearing is posted on the right if you're reading this on a computer. Imagine it in a dark blue color.

I'm updating kind of early (yay me!) so...yeah.

Thank you all for commenting and liking this story so much! Every time I see that someone commented, it just makes my day. Keep being awesome, people!

Spring Break is over next week for me, so I will be going back to school. Probably won't have as much time anymore, but I will NEVER take more than a month to update. Probably not even two weeks.

Thanks again! :)

~~The Bat has left the room~~