Fix You

Anchor

"Artemis, would you take out the garbage?"

"Yeah, sure." Artemis sighed as she dropped her backpack at the door. She bent over and hefted a small plastic, overstuffed garbage bag over her shoulder and kicked open the door. The cold Gotham air greeted her once again, moving quickly to make sure her cheeks hadn't warmed up too much since they'd last been out. The archer grumbled to herself as she made her way down the steps of the fire escape, careful of the patch of ice at the bottom. Leaping over the precarious patch of pavement she hurried around the corner and chucked the bag into a pile with the rest of the apartment's trash. A few other people were hurriedly sliding through the front door, garbage bags over their shoulders as well. It was an inexpensive apartment and that meant every renter for themselves.

Artemis avoided eye contact and quickly turned around, shuffling back to the metal steps and scurrying up them. She rarely if ever used the front door – there was always someone else in the vicinity and the fire escape was faster. At the door, Artemis yanked it open, stamping her feet before slipping inside. She toed off her school shoes, angrily kicking them into the corner (they were the ugliest things she'd ever worn). The kitchen was empty now – her mom must've gone into the bedroom or the hall – and Artemis ambled over to the fridge, jerking it open and taking out an apple.

The apartment was warm enough, though extra heat was extra money and when the landlord didn't feel like turning on the main buildings heat, things cooled down real fast. Today he'd gratefully left it on and Artemis could feel the warm draft drifting under the door leading to the hallway. The archer bypassed the couch, heading instead straight for her room. She wasn't in the mood to interact with her mom and wasn't really sure she'd be able to reign in her temper if she was asked any questions about school.

School itself wasn't that bad; she had reasonable grades and had only been sent to the principal's office once, and that was a fluke anyway. Someone had said something extremely… uncalled for about Dick and why he'd been absent so long and it had involved gypsies, men, and illicit things. Artemis had snapped and punched the girl (not even very hard) and some teacher saw and almost called the police. The whole ordeal had ended pretty shortly, the principal less upset than one would think, and she'd been sent off with a warning. The other girl had gone home because she'd gotten blood on her nice white blouse and couldn't handle the emotional trauma. Though Artemis suspected it wasn't the first time she'd been hit.

Her mom already knew about the incident and there was really nothing Artemis was hiding from her, but the archer couldn't stand to think about the dreaded institution and all the snobs that came with it. She was sick of the rumors that were spreading like wildfire through the school, about Dick and his stay at the hospital. Some people believed the story of the freak skiing accident, but others were convinced it was something far… dirtier. Artemis hated how they talked about the boy, always being sure to mention that he was from gypsy stock and had grown up in the circus so he probably grew up learning how to harangue people out of their money and out of their clothes.

It was pathetic, really. He was thirteen – fourteen – and looked completely respectable. He acted a thousand times more polite and considerate than the vast majority of the preppy students and did more to help people than the whole of their filthy rich 'philanthropist' parents combined. There was no reason for any of them to be talking smack about him in any way except that his life actually kind of sucked and as a result he'd ended up with the richest man in Gotham. Of course they were all jealous. Anything to poison his reputation as the golden child of Gotham, they would jump at.

So Artemis spent the days snarling and barking at them, always restrained by the leash of rationality, until that leash inevitably broke and all were subject to her true wrath. Her bite was a heck of a lot worse than her bark. But Dick wouldn't approve of her paralyzing half the student body, no matter what crap they talked about him, so Artemis held back for him.