#artemis grace

There are perks, of course. You have to remind yourself of that sometimes. Perks like traveling to exotic locations. Abandoned ones, usually, but exotic all the same. Take now, for example: left all by your lonesome on a sun-scorched beach while they ran off on some absurd, deadly mission, something you might’ve seen in the movies. You can’t even quite remember the last movie you saw. So you sit there in the salt-heavy breeze, tossing rocks into the restless ocean while the gulls wheel overhead, shrieking and jeering like they know exactly what you are, a thing with its wings clipped, doomed to watch the horizon and call it freedom.

One of the three will come back to you first. Usually Bizarro. Sweet, lumbering Bizarro, who will sit beside you in silence for a while - broad and strange and almost gentle - so long as he is not busy hauling back one of your captors with half their blood and organs dripping out of them.

You used to be angrier all the time. Maybe after two years of this, you simply grew used to this wretched shape of your life. Sitting there, dull-eyed and motionless, waiting for them to come back. No longer praying for a bullet to end it all, just deep enough to strike something vital.

Instead, it’s usually only scrapes and shallow cuts, little mocking injuries meant to taunt you with relief.

“You’ll catch a cold out here. Told you to stay in the safe house.”

Jason’s voice cuts across the hill before he does, loud and irritated and entirely too alive. No wounds today. Luck favored him, as it so often does. Not you. Artemis follows close behind, the dying sun set ablaze behind her towering Amazonian form, gilding her in molten gold and making her look less like a woman and more like some merciless war goddess - stepping down from an old and wrathful myth.

You would have to be stupid to try to run from them. Not because they are attractive, though that is certainly one of the more cruel little perks of this particular hell. No, it’s simply because you are almost certain Jason Todd, raised by a man sharpened into paranoia, has probably tucked a tracker somewhere into your bloodstream. And Artemis? Artemis has always been humiliatingly fast when it comes to your feeble escape attempts, catching you with insulting ease before scooping you up like a half-feral cat and pinning you tight against her chest until your kicking finally burns itself out.

Artemis is uninjured, too.

What a thoroughly unfortunate day for you.

₊˚⊹ ᰔ

While Bizarro cooks dinner, happily humming some off-key little tune to himself, you sit on the floor fresh from your shower, hair dripping onto a fresh shirt - one of Jason’s. While Artemis sits behind you on the poor couch that is on the end of its life, deft fingers working through your damp hair as she braids it with absent-minded care, humming softly beneath her breath.

So painfully domestic it makes your stomach turn.

You have asked her a handful of times now, voice thin with exhaustion each time, why. Why you? Why this? Why any of it? Why does she have the little polaroid of you from your relationship with Jason. 

You almost wonder if she’s the one who drove him to your apartment. 

Artemis never gives you anything worthwhile. Only that same maddening little answer.

Why not?

She says it with warmth in her voice, with something perilously close to fondness glowing in her sharp eyes, and sometimes you find yourself wondering if once, long ago, there had been someone on that island who looked a little like you. Someone she loved. Someone she lost. It’s a foolish thought, perhaps, but it clings to you all the same.

Across the safe house, Jason sits at the table cleaning weapons, the metal glinting coldly beneath the light. Wiping the blood from the day, before it has the chance to dull the blade. Later, he will wash up after you both, scrubbing away blood, salt, and sand as if tending to some ordinary little life together instead of this grotesque imitation of one.

A pit is already beginning to open in your stomach by the time Jason calls out toward the kitchen, just before grabbing the extra towel on the sofa, giving Artemis a kiss to the temple.

“Actually, Biz, do you mind picking up something sweet?”

Bizarro agrees at once, bright and eager, pleased to be useful.

You aren’t even sure if there’s a grocery store on this island, much less the next one over. You suppose logic doesn’t matter much when you have the Superman equivalent living with the three of you.

Then Artemis’s arms slip around your shoulders, strong and warm, and she presses a kiss against your cheek so tenderly it nearly makes you ill. Her lips linger a beat too long, soft against your skin, and the touch feels horribly at odds with the weight of her body behind yours.

You fight every urge to pull away. Instead, you sink into it, letting your shoulders loosen beneath her hold, letting her think you can be folded neatly into this.

Perhaps that will grant you mercy in bed later.

Outside, the waves crash endlessly against the shore below, a steady hush and roar through the open windows, like the island itself breathing around you. The whole house is steeped in that same false tranquility. Salt in the air. Dinner on the stove. Lovers brushing kisses against your skin as though any of this could ever be called gentle.

You really wish one of them had come back injured.

A gunshot wound. A knife between the ribs. Something ugly and difficult to mend. Something that would keep their hands busy with blood and bandages instead of you.

It would be mercy, stitching them back together with your own two hands. Sitting them down at the kitchen table beneath the warm lights, pressing gauze to torn skin while the pot on the stove simmered and the sea battered itself senseless outside. A pretty little picture of love. Domestic in all the worst ways.

Far more mercy than they have ever shown you.

Instead, after Bizarro takes his leave, the quiet house fills with the soft simmer of soup and the distant crash of the ocean, Artemis drags you with her down the hallway toward the master bedroom.

Her hand stays firm around your wrist the entire way.

She dresses you herself.

A little babydoll set, pale and sheer, delicate as tissue in her hands. The fabric glides over your skin in a whisper, cool at first, then clinging warm where it settles. Soft, the kind of thing chosen to feel luxurious while leaving you nearly bare. The hem barely skims the tops of your thighs, feather-light when you move, and the thin straps sit on your shoulders like they could slip free with the slightest tug.

You imagine it’s more for Jason than it is for her.

For Artemis, you suspect she’d rather have you spread and naked beneath her, stripped of even this flimsy little pretense. Jason enjoys the softness though. The fragile presentation of it all. The pale fabric, the easy access, the way it makes you look sweet enough to keep.

Tonight, however, she slips the dress over you with surprising care, smoothing it down over your hips as though she’s admiring handiwork.

She lays you down on the bed, guiding your shoulders back against the mattress, before lifting your hips just enough to slide a pillow beneath your bum. The sheets are cool and crisp under your back, the pillow plush beneath you, the whole bed too comfortable, too indulgent, another piece of this polished little fantasy they insist on building around your captivity. The position leaves you tilted upward, the gauzy fabric riding indecently high along your thighs.

“Comfy?” she hums.

Her voice is warm, almost playful, but her eyes are greedy as they drag over your body, taking in every inch the dress fails to hide. She looks pleased, like this is some shared intimacy instead of an arrangement.

You don’t indulge her with conversation.

She doesn’t seem to mind.

Jason, however, gives a low, teasing whistle from the doorway.

“Is it my birthday, doll?” he coos.

You don’t look at him.

Your gaze drifts to the ceiling instead, while the waves keep breaking somewhere beyond the walls, the soup simmers downstairs, and Artemis stands at your bedside, and Jason steps into the room - all expectation. It all fits together so neatly that it makes your stomach turn, this counterfeit little home they’ve built from violence and want.

The towel drops somewhere behind him with a soft thud.

Maybe mercy will come tonight.

Maybe Bizarro will choose something instead of standing in the middle of a grocery store aisle, staring at shelves and trying to decide between a dozen different desserts while the minutes tick by.

Maybe he’ll come back sooner than expected.

Instead, you feel gentle fingers cup your face. Artemis sits at your side and kisses your lips with careful tenderness, so soft you can’t help but kiss back, the warmth of her mouth lingering while the mattress dips as Jason shifts between your thighs. The windows cracked open just enough that the distant crash of waves bleeds softly into the room.

Gentle kisses and sharp nips follow, his calloused hands spreading your legs further apart, the rough scrape of his palms catching against sensitive skin. He drapes your legs over his strong shoulders, the back of your knee brushing against the gritty bandage placed on his shoulder, the gauze stiff and uneven beneath your skin. Soft, kitten licks brush against your exposed slit, collecting your juices on his tongue before gently probing the tip inside, because why would you have the luxury of wearing panties around them?

“Missed you,” he muses, before a loud suck around your clit. “We haven’t had the chance to take care of you.”

All you can respond with is a moan as his tongue circles your clit once more, spelling his name in greedy, slobbering letters. Artemis fondles you through your nightdress, the pale fabric bunching in her palm as her tongue dances with yours, capturing every little whimper that slips past your pretty lips. The thin material of the dress clings where it’s damp, whisper-soft against your skin whenever you shift.

Slowly, you feel her hand travel from your breasts as Jason’s kisses and licks move upward, following the curve of your body. Always in motion with each other, like this is something practiced and rehearsed between them. Her slender fingers begin to circle your clit while two of his fingers start to ease you, the slow drag of them making your hips twitch against the mattress.

“So responsive today,” she muses, quickening her pace to match Jason’s fingers that scissor and stretch you open. Despite the strain on your walls. Unforgiving movements that have you closing your eyes.

Outside, a gull cries somewhere over the water, the sound sharp through the open window before it’s swallowed again by the steady hush of the tide. You wish you could think of anything else, but the orgasm comes far too quickly, a whine, a whimper, a low moan as your legs try to press together.

Jason only eases them back open so Artemis can nurse you through it, the mattress creaking softly beneath the shifting weight of all three of you. She removes her hand only to move and sit on your face, your tongue already lolling out to taste her slick. Perhaps it’s to distract you from the blinding feeling of Jason easing himself in.

“Fuck… It’s been a while,” he moans with the first slow thrust after a couple of love taps with his angry tip, ignoring the tight resistance and the heavy throb of your sensitive walls.

It has been a while. Two weeks, maybe?

You begin to slurp and suck at Artemis as she grinds firmly against your face, her slick heat pressing to your tongue while her own tongue tangles hungrily with Jason’s. All the while, he moves at a maddeningly slow pace that borders on cruelty, the slow, velvety drag of him making the sheets bunch beneath your hips.

You can’t help the drowning feeling within you, the one where your mind goes quiet and all your tongue can do is swallow the sweet taste of Artemis as she grinds her hips enough that you know your jaw will ache in the morning. Each grind matches the pace of Jason, who begins to pick up, the sounds of your cunt and his heavy balls slapping against it filling the room.

The squelches, the noise of it all, blur together beneath the tightening grip of Artemis’s thighs around your head. Beyond the walls, you can hear birds cawing somewhere along the cliffs, wild and free above the endless stretch of water, and for a fleeting moment all you can think about is how free they must be.

You aren’t sure when Artemis finally moved off your face. Was it the first time she came? The second? Was it when Jason spilled inside you, your nails clawing desperately through the firm muscle of Artemis’s powerful thighs in a silent plea for mercy?

But when she does move, it’s to stand behind Jason, one hand settling possessively on his hip while the other wraps around the base of his cock as he thrusts back into you.

“Good boy,” she coos softly, easing the swollen tip of him back into your weeping hole, white already gathered at the base where her hand rests. When she slowly pulls him back out, leaving only the sensitive tip inside, she thrusts him forward again, jerking the rest of his seed out, and you finally realize she’s milking more of him into you.

Your eyes meet hers as she glances over Jason’s shoulder, her gaze dark and satisfied.

“Feel that, pretty?” she murmurs. “Feel how full you are for us now?”

Before you can answer, Jason’s hips snap sharply back into you, and your mouth falls open in a silent moan as the blunt tip of him presses hard against your cervix. A mixture of pain and a blinding feeling scatters throughout your body.

And it lasts like that until even he’s pleading for mercy, voice wrecked and breathless. Each time he spills into you, you cannot fathom how he manages to recover so quickly, only that Artemis keeps stroking the remnants of him deep inside you. Sometimes she eases his cock out only to press more back in with her long, slick fingers, pushing it deeper, keeping your shaking legs spread and hips tilted and raised so every last drop stays where she wants it.

As though your body was built for nothing else but to take and keep and hold.

Your mind is already soft with it, half-melted and useless, no longer clinging to the sharp, bitter thoughts it usually curls itself around. Instead swallowed whole by the delirious, suffocating heat of it all, left floating somewhere hazy and distant while your body lies limp and pliant beneath her hands. The faint smell of sweat and salt hangs heavy in the air.

She finally lets Jason go, instead more focused on the toy in her hand that she slowly eases into you. That little whimper you make earns a small coo from her, like everything will be okay.

“I’ve been thinking,” Artemis sighs, pressing a slow, thoughtful kiss to Jason’s flushed cheek as he moves to clean up. The quiet rustle of fabric and the soft slap of a towel break through the haze while he tosses a pair of panties over to Artemis. You remember them from your apartment.

Artemis begins to slowly put them on you, keeping the toy nestled deep inside, all the way down to the base. Can't risk anything escaping. The panties hold it in place, ensuring everything stays where she wants it.

Your gaze drifts to the ceiling once more. 

Counting the cracks again. 

You’re not even sure if the number has changed or if you just forgot.

Ignoring the fullness of it all. Ignoring the sounds of their quiet domestic bliss. The soft kisses exchanged. The towel passed back and forth. Jason’s deep sigh as he pulls on fresh clothes.

The stupid conversation of missions.

And all you can do is count. Yet, your mind keeps going back to one with each change of conversation.

Then, from somewhere beyond the room, you hear the front door creak open.

Perfect timing.

“Jay wants to settle down in Gotham.”

Artemis moves to sit beside you, strong arms guiding your head to rest against the warm, solid weight of her chest. Her sports bra rough against your cheek, slightly damp with sweat, but your eyes grow heavy all the same. Jason removes the pillow from your hips and props it beside you instead, settling close with a quiet sort of contentment. He presses lazy kisses to the soft, sensitive swell of your breasts as though this is affection and not ownership.

“And I…” Artemis murmurs softly, thoughtfully, “I want a place to call home.”

Her hand slides into your braid and begins to unravel it strand by careful strand, loosening the neat plait with reverent patience, as if undressing you down to something softer, something more obedient.

Outside the room you can hear Bizarro’s heavy footsteps, the rustle of paper bags, the muffled thump of something being set down on the counter.

Dessert, perhaps.

Something sweet. Something meant to be shared after.

The tiny spark inside you gutters.

“I think we can finally start a family now,” she says, her voice low and warm and terribly certain. “You’re so tame now…”

Her fingers drift through your loosened hair, smoothing it back from your damp face with slow, soothing strokes.

“I don’t even have to worry about you running off anymore,” she coos, the words dripping with praise.