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amillionsmiles · 4 years ago

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in your bedroom after the war (Dick/Artemis)

Title: in your bedroom after the war Summary: As far as coping mechanisms go, Artemis could be doing worse. At least her method has a gymnast’s ass. / Post-Invasion, pre-Outsiders. Rated M. A/N: I have one (1) agenda and that is messy grieving fuck buddies who are each other’s ride-or-dies. if you are not into fic that sits squarely in sad feral horny territory, then this is probably not your speed.

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| GOTHAM

| JANUARY 14, 2017; 12:05 AM EST

Artemis is a bit heavier than she was in her teenage years, but her feet land lightly on the fire escape by the window. An hour ago, she’d called her mom from Metropolis, promising she’d be home by midnight. Ever since her daughter faked her death a year ago, Paula Nguyen has become even more of a worrywart, and Artemis knows that the five minutes she’s running late are going to cause her to receive an earful.

“Didn’t think I’d see you back in this neck of the woods.” A familiar figure drops from the roof above onto the rung below her.

“Nightwing.”

She’s not surprised that he’s been keeping tabs. Officially, he’s been on a leave of absence for the past six months, but Dick, like her, is vigilant in his grief.

She’d come back to Gotham because it put her closer to Metropolis and Beta Squad’s continued investigation of LexCorp, but the truth is that she could have Zeta-tubed from Palo Alto easily. Their—her—apartment had been no good though, not without Wally. So she’d left most of her things in storage to figure out later and moved back in with her mom. On days when Artemis can’t muster the energy to get out of bed, Paula wheels determinedly around the kitchen, ready to whip up some mì xào or a warm bowl of mì gói. They play card games and laugh about how bad Wally was at tiến lên the first time Paula tried to teach him. Your boy has no patience, he always wants to play his strongest cards right away, her mom had teased, and Wally had protested, I make it a rule to always put my best foot forward! and Artemis had loved him even more then.

Loved. Loves. She hates the past tense.

“I mean, were you ever going to ask me to grab coffee?”

She can see the bits of Wally in his cracks. In a room together, it was always easy to tell they were best friends from the way they riffed off each other. The acrobat and the speedster: all verbal gymnastics and fast-moving quips. But unlike Wally, who liked poking fun because he liked getting attention, Dick is at his wittiest when trying to avoid talking about himself.

Artemis reaches out and pulls him to sit down beside her. She makes a show of looking at her watch.

“How’s… 12:15 AM this Saturday?”

Dick pretends to check it against his mental schedule. If his is anything like hers, it probably goes: Wake up. Exercise (beating up bad guys counts). Mourn.

“Yeah, seems like I can swing it.”

“Perfect,” says Artemis, sliding up the glass panes to let them into her childhood bedroom. “I’ve got just the stuff.”

In the kitchen, Brucely stirs briefly from his dog bed to sniff the air and yip, then curls back asleep. Paula hands Dick a mug, waiting for him to take a sip before saying, “So you were the one who had the brilliant plan to have my daughter fake her death.”

Dick splutters; from the table, Artemis rises to his defense. “Mom,” she says. “Leave him be.”

Setting his cup down, Dick leans against the cabinets, bending his head slightly and rubbing the back of his neck. He does a good job of appearing chastised, and Artemis wants to roll her eyes, if only because she’s heard from Bette and Raquel that this pose is far too effective at convincing women to want to forgive him or try again.

“I’m not leading much of anything these days, if that’s at all a comfort to you.”

“Hmph.” Paula sniffs. “You live alone?”

“Yeah.” Dick shoots Artemis a questioning look over her mom’s head. Artemis shrugs.

“What do you do to fill the time?”

“A lot of reading. Gotham’s library system actually has a pretty good selection, believe it or not. I’ve also gotten really into meditating.”

“And you don’t sleep.”

Dick stiffens. For the first time, he looks exposed, a boy with too much guilt and too much time on his hands.

“I do. Tonight I was just… restless.”

Paula nods and backs up her wheelchair so she can sit by Artemis, curling her fingers over Artemis’s hand and squeezing. She raises her drink, Artemis and Dick following suit, the three of them toasting to invisible losses.

“Aren’t we all.”

Later, back on the fire escape, Dick taps his fingers against the railing, jittery. “I feel like I need to start doing jumping jacks. What was in that stuff?”

Artemis bites back a smile. “Yeah, Vietnamese coffee packs a hit. That’s my bad. Probably should have given you something non-caffeinated at this hour.”

“It’s fine. I’ll jog it out, or something.” He turns to go, but Artemis stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, listen—it was good seeing you tonight. And if you need someone to talk to…” What she really means is: it’d be nice to be around someone who’s hurting as much as I am. Not to say that the rest of the team wasn’t as torn up over Wally’s death, but she and Dick had been ground zero. Closest to the blast.

After a pause, Dick nods. “Yeah… I could use a sparring partner, actually. I’ll send you an address.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, Artemis withdraws her hand, curling her fingers into her palm.

It feels like a start.

Dick’s directions lead Artemis to Wayne Manor; from there he takes her to the Bat Cave.

“I thought you were striking out on your own,” Artemis says, using her forearms to deflect a kick to her face. Dick grunts and recovers, throwing a punch to her stomach; she dances out of the way.

“I am. I just pop in here from time to time because Bruce has better equipment. Plus there’s less of a chance of me disturbing the neighbors.” He gestures to the eerily blue-lit stone walls around them.

Artemis feints and goes low, ducking under Dick’s guard. Two quick hits to Dick’s sternum pushes him back, before he gets a hand on her wrist and twists her around so that her back is pressed against his chest.

“Weren’t we supposed to be talking?”

Kicking his shin, Artemis breaks free. “All right, fine. I’ll start.” Jab. “I keep wanting a scapegoat.” Kick. “Like, one person to blame, instead of something as big as the Reach. But it’s not some giant revenge thing, and I know Wally wouldn’t want me to go down that sort of all-consuming rabbit hole even if it was, and that pisses. Me. Off.” On those last words, she manages to use Dick’s momentum against him and flips him over her shoulder.

For a minute, it’s so quiet between them she can hear the faint plip of water dripping from a stalactite into the water below the sparring dais. Still lying on the floor, Dick confesses, “I keep hearing him.”

“I make a joke to myself and he’s there, in my ear, with the punchline. And then…” He passes a hand over his face. “And then I realize that the real punchline is him being gone.”

Slowly, Artemis approaches him. She feels like she did when they were undercover at Haly’s circus so many years ago, that brief moment of hangtime before their hands connected in the air. She means to sit down next to him, pat his shoulder, she doesn’t know what, but instead Dick sweeps her legs out from under her and she goes down hard, the air whooshing out of her chest as she falls flat on her back.

“Agh!” The release sets something loose inside her. Next thing she knows, she’s yelling again, louder, just because.

Dick catches on and then it’s just the two of them shouting, their voices echoing through the cavern, threading around and piling atop each other like a flock of birds. After they’re done, Dick rolls so that they’re lying side by side.

“You know, when we were starting out—when we first became friends—I used to make fun of Wally that if he kept talking so much while running he was bound to swallow more bugs, or something. And he’d just shoot back like, ‘Nah dude, you think I’m not fast enough to see them and dodge them in the air?’ But you know how he was always so hungry after missions? One time I was so mad at him I put a bug in his sandwich. I’ve never forgotten the look on his face after he bit into it and I said, dodge that.”

“You didn’t.” Artemis gasps and covers her mouth, horrified, but she can see it so vividly: the colors draining from Wally’s face, making his freckles pop even more against his skin, the same greenish tint his cheeks took the time they went to Vietnam and he got food poisoning. He’d spent two days feverishly glaring up at the mosquito netting, and Artemis had draped cold hand towels over his forehead and promised she wasn’t going to leave him for the very obliging boy who kept bringing them ice.

“I did.” Dick is gleeful. “Really put the ‘rank’ in prank.”

Artemis snorts; the snort turns into a full-blown guffaw. Dick turns toward her, laughing too. His hair is matted with sweat but still soft; it brushes against her forehead.

It feels so good to be close to someone again, to be able to flip on a dime from sadness to frustration to anger to laughter and not have to explain herself. She can’t remember the last time she smiled and didn’t feel guilty about it, and she means it more affectionately than anything when she reaches over and brings Dick’s mouth to hers, like if she inhales whatever they’ve temporarily managed to create here between them, it’ll be enough to tide her over for the next few months. For a second, he’s warm and responsive, before his lips stiffen and he pulls back.

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

Shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. Shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, shouldn’t blame yourself for getting back in the game. Artemis is sick of people telling her how to deal, how it’s supposed to go. It’ll get better and then it doesn’t. People talk like there are guidebooks for this kind of shit, like it’s a marathon she just needs to pace herself through. And it’s the stupidest thing, but she misses being held.

She sits up and crosses her arms, resisting the urge to curl in on herself. “You didn’t do anything. I’ll go.”

“No, Artemis, wait, I don’t think you should go, I just want to understand what’s going on—”

“I want you to touch me, okay?” she explodes. “I want you to touch me because he’s never going to again and I know you loved him too and—and maybe if it’s you, I won’t feel so desperately alone.”

Dick looks stricken, and then, hesitantly, he reaches for her. His eyes are so blue, the kind of crushed eggshell you’d use to make a paint. “You’re not alone.”

“Prove it,” she says, vision blurring with tears—wanting, needing him closer, and then his hairline is up against hers again and his nose is at her cheek, his mouth at her jaw, soft but with a willingness to bruise. Don’t ask me what we’re about to do, Artemis silently begs, and Dick doesn’t.

Wally had been a restless lover. Always turning them over, switching positions. Artemis had taken it as a challenge, part of the ongoing competition that defined their relationship. Deep down, she’d known that Wally would be just as content if the rest of their sex life consisted solely of spooning gently on Sundays, which, if anything, was why she’d been so eager to experiment—because it felt like an easy gift she could give, not something she had to master to “maintain excitement” or make him stay.

She’s not sure what she expected from Dick. Maybe that’s a comfort—that she wasn’t fantasizing before they happened, wondering about all the mechanics of how it would go. Dick lets her call the shots, lets her ride him into the ground, the grip of his fingers around her thighs the only reminder she isn’t just angling toward oblivion. When he presses his thumb between her legs, it’s a weird sort of anchor—like hearing a voice pick up on a line you thought was dead. She has a body, and here’s someone on the other end of it, caring about her release. As soon as that thought hits, the relief shudders through her; she keeps rocking long enough to feel Dick follow, a stutter and a grunt, before she collapses boneless over him, the sweat of his skin a comforting stickiness against her cheek.

Internally, she apologizes to Bruce for desecrating his training space. Then again, they’re hardly the first of the Justice League to get handsy in less than appropriate places. She’s seen how Black Canary and Green Arrow act around each other.

Below her, Dick catches his breath. The rush of blood—his or hers—is loud in her ears.

“I didn’t think you’d be so…” Giving, she means to say, but it gets lost on her tongue. “I mean, Zatanna…” she trails off again.

If Dick’s embarrassed at the prospect of his ex-girlfriend having blabbed about the details of their sex life to Artemis, he doesn’t show it. His fingers find a snag in her hair; gently, he works it loose. The air smells hedonistic. He keeps combing. Nice is the only word she can think to describe it, and that makes her want to cry again, so she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Thank you,” she whispers against his chest.

Dick pauses his ministrations. He flattens his palm against the base of her neck and just—holds her there.

“Don’t mention it.”

When she goes home that afternoon to shower, she runs the water on full blast for a long time.

Armed with Chinese food, she visits Dick’s place the next day intent on making amends. Dick doesn’t even act surprised; he just points to the glass coffee table where she can set the bag of chopsticks, napkins, and takeout.

“I’m trying to decide what to watch.”

There’s really no need for him to stand in front of the TV the way he does, one hand propped on his hip as he clicks through options with the remote. Artemis lets herself ogle, a bit. The surest way to blow past what happened between them yesterday is to be honest with herself, right? And as far as coping mechanisms go, Artemis could have done worse. At least her method has a gymnast’s ass.

“Any preferences?”

“Between what?” asks Artemis, cracking open the carton of lo mein and settling back against the cushions. The Netflix suggestion algorithm onscreen paints a condemning picture of Dick’s tastes. “True crime or… true crime?”

Wally had been really into nature documentaries. One time during freshman year, when they were still living on Stanford’s campus, they’d gotten high in Wally’s dorm room and watched Blue Planet. Wally had cried when the seal got flung apart by killer whales.

“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark it is, then,” says Dick. He settles next to her on the couch, peeling back one of the orders and sniffing its contents. “What’s this one?”

“Salt and pepper ribs. They were today’s special.”

“Artemis.” Dick beams. “You really do care about me.”

Ten minutes into the episode begs a single question: “Isn’t it sort of depressing that you spend so much of your day fighting crime, and then you go home to unwind and just watch… more of it?”

Dick shrugs. “It keeps me sharp. And it’s nice seeing other people solve problems.”

“Well, if you ever feel like branching out, there’s a short film about Rubik’s cubes you might like.” Artemis nudges his side. “Remember when you were a scrawny math geek?”

Bringing both hands behind his head, Dick smirks. “Still a math geek. Just not scrawny.”

Artemis stares. That was just a bit of friendly showboating, right? Or was it a flirt? Not trusting herself, she whips her gaze back toward the TV. What feels like eons later, the credits roll.

“Artemis,” Dick says, too soft for having just finished a show about murder. He taps the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got some food stuck.”

She wipes with the back of her hand; a breaded piece of orange chicken emerges as the culprit. Without thinking, she flicks it off, sending it flying somewhere onto Dick’s carpet.

“Oops.”

Chuckling, Dick shakes his head. “I need to vacuum tomorrow, anyways.”

The mention of tomorrow stirs her. “Right. I should head out.”

“Yeah.” Dick rises to help her clean up their mess, holding open the plastic bag so she can toss in the soiled napkins and other bits of trash. “Or—”

He hesitates, but the hesitation’s enough. It might as well be a hand on her wrist, with how it stops her in her tracks. All night, despite what she told herself, she’s been looking for proof: proof that his aloneness fits the shape of hers, that he needs her, too. This time, Dick makes the first move—cups her face in both hands and kisses her, slow and deep and full of heat. Some pepper from the food they ate still lingers on his lips, making her mouth tingle, and Artemis is dizzy and flat on her back on the couch before she knows it, giving in.

Not scrawny at all, she thinks, admiring the solidness of Dick’s knees on either side of her, the weight of his frame as they grind together. The sheer mechanics of it feel very horny-teenager-after-prom, but the way Dick sucks her bottom lip and swallows her breath down with it is decidedly adult. These days, Artemis practically lives in her sports bra, which doesn’t exactly grant easy access, but when Dick’s fingertips skim over the cotton covering her breasts the sensation zings all the way down her spine.

“Need… off…”

“Yeah,” Dick murmurs, humming as he moves down the column of her neck. “Gimme a sec, I’m working on it.”

She’d worn sweats because she figured their bagginess would keep her from sparring again and any potential… situations that could arise from that. Instead, all it means is Dick unties the drawstrings easily, sliding her pants down her legs. Cool air brushes across her as he shifts positions; she wants to sob in relief. His teeth graze her hip and then catch the edge of her panties and—oh. Fuck. The moan tears out of her and she scrabbles at the armrest, hips rising of their own accord. Next time, she is handcuffing Dick to a bed, because what he’s doing with his tongue and fingers should be illegal. She can feel him grinning, the bastard, and the only thing keeping her from crushing his head to a pulp between her thighs is the maneuver he pulls where he hooks her knees over his shoulders, so he can change the angle and plunge in deeper. Artemis shoves the edge of her T-shirt into her mouth at the last minute, only barely managing to muffle her cry.

Dick surfaces from his solo mission looking entirely too satisfied, mouth glistening. Trembling, still, from her orgasm, Artemis squints at him, possessed by some combination of unbridled lust and rage.

“Dick.”

“You calling, or asking?”

“Shut up,” she hisses. She feels like a newborn foal, after what he just did to her, but the urge to dismantle him just as thoroughly sends her surging upward and pushing him back. Dick welcomes their reversed positions by peeling off his shirt and tossing it over his shoulder, all while Artemis works furiously at his belt. It shouldn’t feel so good, to hear the metal clink against his button and watch the leather slide through the loops. To see the shadows the light of the TV casts on him—the lashes on his cheeks, the hollow of his throat. Artemis hadn’t paid much attention the first time, too desperate and caught up a bit in self-loathing, but now she’s actually enjoying this, savoring the flex of Dick’s abs as he pushes up to meet her, his skin pebbling at her touch.

“I’m going to take you apart,” she purrs.

Dick groans and bucks. The sensation sends a sharp spike of pleasure through her, and she clamps down on him tighter, refusing to yield.

“Try me, Tigress,” he rasps, pushing himself up on one arm so he can mouth at her collarbone. With his other hand, he pulls off her hairtie so her hair comes free of her ponytail, and this is going to be a thing with him, isn’t it, him wanting to fuck her while her hair swings loose around her face. She indulges him for a few minutes, claws his back and bites his shoulder for good measure, but then she’s pushing him back down and stretching out her body as languidly as possible to remind him who’s boss. Their pace slows. Dick keeps a hand fisted in her hair, so he can tug her head back in order to keep her neck exposed to his wanton mouth, but his grip gets less sure the closer she pushes him to the edge.

“Art—” says Dick, the single syllable like a painting pinned to the wall, fraught with desire, and then he just lets it drop, the tresses of her hair falling through his fingers. She wants to tell him that he’s beautiful, that he does look like a boy wonder, right then, in the midst of coming undone, chest flushed and hair mussed and pupils blown nearly wide enough to overtake the blue.

She doesn’t, but she stays the night, and that’s close enough.

High-functioning, Artemis’s therapist had called her, before Artemis moved back to Gotham. And it does feel like a high—the sneaking around, the after-hours meet-ups, the back-and-forth. There’s no one really keeping tabs on her, though Artemis has plenty of cover stories if anyone asks (new intel, side reconnaissance, etcetera, etcetera). Her mom eyes her and says, “As long as you’re not planning on staging your own death again, because I will find out and I will kill you this time,” and that’s that. Artemis nearly laughs. If anything, what she’s doing is the opposite, a small resurrection. An entire month and a half passes this way: day trips and dinners and movie nights and Dick and her in a bathtub, in the shower, against a wall. She even wears a gown and heels once, not because they have an actual event to attend, but because Dick has a fantasy that involves taking her from behind in the Wayne Manor library.

They’re in his apartment on a Sunday morning bathing in the afterglow, sheets tangled around their waists. Thank god Dick is one of those assholes that splurged on not only a nice mattress but also a solid bed frame. Artemis reaches over to push the hair out of his eyes. The black tuft on the back of his head that she likes grabbing is fluffed up like a duck's tail, and under the sunlight slanting through the windows, he looks angelic.

“Are you falling back asleep?”

Yawning, Dick snags her around the waist, dragging her to him. She should not delight this much in being manhandled.

“You wore me out,” he complains, tucking his chin over her shoulder.

“They just don’t make them like they used to,” Artemis sighs. Dick growls a little at the dig, fingers tightening against her hip.

Well. If he’s going to nap, she is, too. Comfortably spooned, she snuggles back against him, prepared to drift off.

“Do you think Wally would have wanted…” Dick doesn’t finish the thought.

Artemis turns in his arms. Dick has long eyelashes, and he’s looking at her through them almost bashfully. She places a hand on his chest. Feels his heartbeat thump once, twice.

“I think he would want us to be happy.”

“Are you?” Dick’s voice fades out and he has to swallow hard to clear his throat. “Happy?”

“I’m not… miserable.”

Dick runs his hand up her bare arm, over her shoulder. “Me neither.”

“You know, Wally and I thought…” She bites her lip, remembering a whoosh of air, Wally speeding to her side to kiss her and interrupting her report on the disabled Paris MFD. I know we promised each other we’d get out of this game, but maybe we can have our life together and play hero, too. “We thought we’d have everything.”

Dick’s response isn’t mournful; it’s matter-of-fact. “After my parents died, I never really convinced myself that I could have it all.”

“That sounds like something Batman would say.”

“Does it?”

“A little.”

Once upon a time, Artemis had stood before the team ready to lay bare her darkest secret, waiting to be kicked out. And Dick had shown his hand: he’d known from the beginning and hadn’t cared. You aren’t your family. You’re one of us. She knows he’s second-guessed himself over the years, wondering how fit he actually is to play leader. But for her, trust has always been the easiest thing about the two of them. It was why she’d said yes so easily to his deep cover mission—because she knew that he wouldn’t quit until he’d brought all of them home, that he would do whatever he could to keep them safe.

Taking his face in both her hands, she looks deep into his eyes. “You deserve good things, Dick Grayson.”

“Mm.” Dick smiles into her kiss, hooks his ankle over hers. “Keep telling me that. I’ll start to believe it.”

Jade abandons Will and Lian on a Tuesday, and Artemis’s carefully crafted equilibrium falls apart. At least this time she’s not the one directly being left, unlike when she was a teenager. Her expectations of her older sister had hardly been high, but if she’d plotted them on a graph they’d have trended upward. Now they’ve tanked.

“Did she leave any hint of where she was going?” Dick asks over the whir of his juicer. He’s gotten really into squeezing oranges lately; Artemis can’t complain because he always gives her the first glass.

“It’s Jade. She never wants to be found, and I hardly think she’s about to try an Eat Pray Love type thing.”

“Eat Slash Steal, maybe?” Dick offers, dropping two ice cubes into a drink and setting it in front of her.

Artemis sips, balling up a napkin and throwing it at him at the same time. “Watch it, that’s still my family you’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry. How’s Will taking it?”

“As well as any dad trying to raise a two-year-old by himself would.”

“So, poorly.” Dick taps his finger against the table. “Are they coming here?”

Artemis looks at him blankly. “Why?”

“I figured they might want to be closer to you and your mom now that Jade’s gone. Gotham’s not so bad—you and I turned out fine. And Will probably needs to look into preschools and a babysitter for Lian soon. If you move in with me, you can bring her over whenever.”

The last piece of information slips in so casually she thinks she’s misheard. “What?”

“If you move in with me, you can bring Lian over whenever,” repeats Dick. “This place is as good as yours. You’re over here all the time anyway.”

Suddenly, she can’t breathe. “You’re serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She can’t meet his eyes. “W—Will’s home is in Star City. He’s not going to move.”

Slowly, Dick says, “Okay. But my offer doesn’t really depend on Will.”

Her stuff is still in boxes. She’s still paying for a storage unit almost 3,000 miles away. And Dick is waiting on her so intently it makes her chest hurt.

Artemis stands up. “We’re not doing this.”

Dick’s eyebrows rise. Annoyance, or maybe anger, flickers across his face. “You wanna fill me in on what exactly it is we’re doing, according to you?”

“We’re not going to fight about this like we’re…” In a relationship. In love. In anything other than a messy configuration started by shared grief. She doesn’t say any of it out loud, but she doesn’t need to—Dick’s always been great at reading people, and he’s known all her tells from the start.

“Right.” The single syllable comes out as cold and pointed as an icicle. He pushes his chair back from the table and stands up. The clouds are rolling in, throwing shadows across his features. Even now, Artemis wants to kiss him, wants to be the one to smooth the furrow between his eyebrows away.

“Dick…”

“Do me a favor, will you?” Dick grabs his jacket from the hook by his door, shrugging it on. He pauses, briefly, in the doorway. “Lock my door on the way out.”

That night, she lies alone in her bedroom next to the picture of her, Wally, and Brucely. Brucely snuffles at the foot of her bed and then leaps onto the covers, and this time she doesn’t shoo him off. Neither does she fall asleep.

There was a song Jade had liked to sing, passed down from their mother: a Vietnamese lullaby about a yellow butterfly, to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” The butterfly flies all over the sky. Come and see. Come and see. When it became clear that Artemis’s hair would grow in blond, not black, Jade started pulling it, making her giggle. You’re the yellow butterfly, see?

The taxicab she calls for the airport is bright yellow in the morning light. Plain old civilian travel for plain old civilian business. You don’t need to be a superhero to fly across the country and move in with your brother-in-law and your niece. She’ll sing silly little songs and wash Lian’s hair, and they’ll be a family same as anyone else’s: clumsy, incomplete.

“Artemis.” Dick coalesces out of the fog. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a week, and she should be mad that he’s here because it probably means he’s been monitoring her web traffic and caught wind she’d bought plane tickets. Still, all she feels is relief.

Jade had laughed when Artemis had let slip what she was doing during one rare sisterly bonding moment. “Oh, darling sister, your thing with your little bird boy isn’t about moving on. You’re using him as a holding pattern. Try not to damage him too much, hm?” Rankled, Artemis had hung up the phone—what did Jade know about anything, besides shoving it under the rug and pretending it didn’t matter? Now, though, Artemis sees things more clearly. Jade did know something about bodies and what they could and couldn’t fix; after all, isn’t that why she ran?

She worries with the strap of her duffel bag, letting Dick approach.

“If this were a romcom, you would have waited until I got to the airport and then run through security.”

“If this were a romcom,” says Dick, stopping in front of her and shoving his hands in his pockets, “I’d be trying to make you stay.”

She thinks he might be the one person left on this planet who knows her best. She thinks they could save each other, if they’d let themselves try. But they each have work to do on their own, first.

Setting down her bag, she tucks her face into the crook of his neck and breathes him in. Wherever else she goes, this spot will always feel like forgiveness. Nose buried in her hair, Dick squeezes her back.

The taxi driver rolls down his window. “Is this guy coming with us or not?”

Artemis pulls back, and there’s so much sky in Dick’s eyes.

“You know where to find me,” she says.

| STAR CITY

| JULY 29, 2018; 7:30 AM PST

“Who are you here to recruit this time?” Will asks, leaning against the doorframe, but Artemis doesn’t need an answer, doesn’t need any details but the black hair she can see just over Will’s shoulder, Dick’s voice at the end of a line.

He jumps, and she jumps with him. They’ll figure out everything else as they go.

Before Dick can respond, she says: “I’m in.”

#young justice #artemis crock #dick grayson #traught #dick x artemis #my writing #fanfiction #ff: yj

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zerochanges · 6 years ago

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Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative - One Night Movie Premiere

If you told me ten years ago that I would be able to regularly watch anime movies on the big screen in theatres I would have surely not believed you. Besides maybe a few Pokemon movies or an occasional film in some mega franchise I don’t particularly care for such as Naruto, the prospect would probably seem alien to me even. So it’s funny how times have changed and how anime screenings in theatres is becoming increasingly more common in North America. Just last month I was able to watch the phenomenal Dragon Ball Super Broly film in a packed theatre with a ton of other nerds and it was a delightful experience. Before that I got to see the fun anime version of Die Hard known as My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, and before that a love letter to Go Nagai known as Mazinger Z Infinity! Now only a month after Broly I get to watch an honest-to-God Mobile Suit Gundam motion picture in a theatre too? I feel like the luckiest guy alive.

If I am being honest, I actually hate going to the cinema most of the time, and spent many years avoiding doing just that. I was always the type of person that was happy enough to rent a movie once it released on DVD/BD and that was the extent I would need out of cinema at large. The only exception I started to make was when Disney purchased Star Wars, and that was more out of fear that ravenous fans online couldn't keep their mouths shut than it was about anything else. Over the years however I started to develop a greater appreciation towards movie theatres at large and a lot of that has to probably do with anime. As I began to become a serious collector of anime and made the transition from my old DVDs to crisper BDs I realized I was at the point where as a fan I wanted the most out of my all time favorite movies--because these were not just my favorite anime movies but my actual favorite movies, and that’s when I realized I truly wish I could have seen them the way they were meant to be; on the big screen, with an insanely powerful surround sound system, with fans all gathered around cheering at the best moments. I will probably never get this experience for Akira, or Galaxy Express 999, or the many other films that mean the world to me now, but I can get the experience for future movies, so I don’t want to miss out ever again.

Gundam is one of my favorite franchises from my childhood. As a young kid I fell in love with the amazing robot designs and was blown away at the prospect of an anime that just felt so different from DBZ, which besides Pokemon was probably my only real understanding of anime at that age. As a teen and young adult especially the franchise became increasingly important to me and left a lasting impression on my psyche. I can’t tell you my favorite Gundam series nowadays because the answer will probably be different every time. Maybe I’ll say the original Mobile Suit Gundam, warts and all, it’s everything I love about anime from the 1970’s and to this day I still love the original Ocean Group dub from Canada. This dub while wooden and showing its age terribly will forever be etched in my mind as the definitive voices for most of the Universal Century characters despite Shuichi Ikeda buttery smooth, ecstasy inducing voice in most of the Japanese series. Maybe I’ll say Zeta Gundam as Kamile was a character my younger self identified a lot with and the series as a whole left a very strong impression on me. Maybe I’ll say Turn A Gundam, a beautiful psychedelic series that displays some of the best writing from series creator Tomino.

So yes, having a chance to see any Gundam film in theatres was something I couldn't miss. Even if said film ended up just okay it wouldn't matter, as not in my wildest dreams did I actually think I would get this opportunity. I figured the closest I would ever be to seeing Gundam on the big screen would be if I happened to be in Japan for some reason around the time a new Gundam OVA or film was being screened. When Gundam Narrative tickets went on sale for North America I bought them the day online orders were opened and was even the first person to buy a seat at the theatre (thanks to reserved seating I could see nobody else had bought a seat yet). It didn't matter to me that I had to drive 45 minutes to the cinema, nor did it matter to me that I honestly knew nothing about Gundam Narrative, I just wanted to experience Gundam this way at least once in my life. And so last night I made the trek across the city and finally got to see Gundam like I never have. Now I have decided I want to share some of my thoughts and impressions about it. This won’t be a formal review, nor is it meant to be, as more or less I’m just expositing some of my thoughts, off the cuff.

First a little background information. Sunrise’s current "UC NexT 0100" project that tackles the next century of Gundam’s UC (Universal Century) time-line as well as their ambitious promise to deliver a new theatrical Gundam film every 1-2 years from 2018 onward is something to behold, so it’s no big surprise to me that the first film to kick off both of these initiatives would be a sequel to the highly acclaimed Gundam Unicorn OVA series. Saying Sunrise is kind of on a Unicorn kick right now would be an understatement after all. I actually don’t mind this so much however like a lot of people seem to, as Unicorn deserves all the praise it got and there is no two-ways about it being a pivotal factor behind Sunrise’s returning commitment to the UC time-line again after releasing nothing major in it for nearly a decade. Gundam Narrative serving as a sequel to Gundam Unicorn is something I am totally neutral about.

My greater concern going into the Gundam Narrative film was more that Gundam and films have a pretty rocky history. Honestly most Gundam movies tend to be more on the awful side. If I had to rate all the ones I've seen I would probably only say Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky and Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower are fantastic, the original Mobile Suit Gundam film trilogy is an excellent compilation movie series and a good enough replacement for its own television version, the Zeta New Translation films are incredibly disappointing and omit too much, Char’s Counterattack is a hot mess that barely makes a lick of sense, Gundam F91 would have been a fantastic TV show but as a movie it makes me sad, A Wakening of the Trailblazer is okay but also undone by its own weirdness, Endless Waltz is what you would expect out of Wing, the Turn A compilation movies are pointless, and G-Savior sure was … a thing that exist.

Well I am happy to say Gundam Narrative is among the rare films for the franchise that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish! A lot of this has to do with the scale being relatively small versus the usual scale in Gundam films that are way too big for their own good. Narrative’s laser focus on chasing after the missing Unit 03, the Golden Phoenix sibling to the two Unicorn and Banshee units we've seen in the previous Gundam Unicorn series allows it to tell a story largely separated from politics and the world at large--and let’s the characters become the main focal point of the film like any good movie should.

This aspect alone is missing from so many other Gundam films and is partly why so many fail at being a good viewing experience. I’d say the few that do find that focus, mainly the Thunderbolt series of films and the original trilogy of movies made from the 1979 TV series are the best in the franchise’s filmography. A ton of other Gundam films tend to be bloated as well with rather boring middle sections, so the brisk fast pace of this 90 or so minute runtime for Narrative was a welcome relief. There are some awkward cuts to the film sure, but honestly I felt this beat sitting in the theatre for two and a half hours bored at the long winded middle section that goes nowhere like some previous Gundam films are especially guilty of. This was just enough time to tell a story of this scope properly. Of course the characters and scope of the story isn't enough to carry an entire film so the fantastic soundtrack from returning Unicorn composer Hiroyuki Sawano helped to sell a lot of scenes in the film as well.

The biggest factor that made Narrative for me however had to be the film’s focus on the more metaphysical aspects of Newtypes. Despite my disliking of a lot of Char’s Counterattack I still find the more psychedelic (so to say) aspects of it to be fascinating, just as I always have when such spiritual topics have shown up in prior Gundam works by Tomino and the many teams at Sunrise. While far from perfect I always enjoyed this kind of kooky spiritualism to the Gundam universe, a sort of new age 80’s science fiction interpretation of the soul would be the best way I can describe it but there’s no real way for me to do it justice nor to make it not sound ridiculous. Since Tomino has left a lot of Universal Century Gundam series have focused more on everyday soldiers instead and not so much on Newtypes, the future evolution of mankind, and the soul. In fact I always felt Sunrise somewhat shied away from a lot of these aspect to Gundam since then, so when we got to see this aspect return near the very end of Gundam Unicorn it was a nice treat to me personally. Having it permeate almost the entire runtime of Narrative’s story had me over the moon. A lot of people disagree, and more power to them, but I just can’t get enough out of the spiritual aspects seen in Narrative.

Gundam Narrative being a modern UC time-line production means it of course has references and lore connections to a ton of other classic Gundam series and moments. I really enjoyed most them even if they were just silly fan service moments. I love that we got to see the famous Colony Drop drawn with modern day high budget animation and it wasn't just reused old footage. Getting to see clips of the Psycho Gundam ravage Hong Kong City was a joy on the big screen even if it lasted only about 10 seconds. I loved that we got to hear some of Char’s Dakar speech again in Narrative--this gave us an opportunity to hear Keith Silverstein, the modern English voice of Char since 2010 handle this legendary speech of his from Zeta Gundam.

Speaking of the English dub my favorite performances were definitely Griffin Puatu’s portrayal of the protagonist Jona Basta that had to carry a lot of the emotional weight of the film and Stefan Martello’s portrayal of the off-the-walls insane Zoltan Akkanen who was just a pure fun villain that ate up every scene he was in. The Narrative Gundam itself being a reworked prototype of Amuro’s Nu Gundam from Char’s Counterattack four years ago was also a fun way to fit another Gundam into this time frame and I love it gave us such a classic looking Gundam in the Unicorn era of the franchise.

I had almost zero expectations for Gundam Narrative, and all I really wanted was the big screen experience for Gundam. As someone that loves the psychedelic spiritual aspect of Tomino’s old works, and someone with zero expectations that a Gundam movie can really be all that good anyways I walked away from that theatre last night loving what I saw. Gundam Narrative has me personally excited for the future of Gundam films, especially if it means we may see more theatrical screenings in North America for said films. This is probably not a film for everyone, and is definitely heavy on both your love of Gundam Unicorn and your love of some of the craziest stuff Tomino would whip out in his heyday of working on the franchise, but if you’re like me I think this one will be a lot of fun, even off the big screen.

#Gundam #Mobile Suit Gundam #Universal Century #Gundam NT #Gundam Narrative #Anime

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recentanimenews · 8 years ago

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Three-Episode Test: Jared's Winter 2017

Welcome (back) to the Three Episode Test, where contributors give you the low-down on what they're watching from the current simulcast season and why.

Fuuka

Streaming on Crunchyroll Yuu Haruna, a shy kid more comfortable communicating online than in real life, moves in with his sisters when his parents move overseas to work in America. While adjusting to his new school and life, he (his face, really) has a chance encounter with a spirited girl named Fuuka (her knee, actually). From this meeting, a story of love and music begins to unfold that could have been interesting if it were better written.

Based on Kouji Seo’s manga and a sequel of sorts to Suzuka, Fuuka could sound compelling due to some of its attributes (all of which appeal to me): music, romance, love triangles, and people discovering the joy of a creative outlet. Having read the manga (available on Crunchyroll Manga), I felt like a fun, teenage rock 'n’ roll romance could be carved out of the mediocre source material if the right director got their hands on it. Sadly, the show quickly squanders any chance it could have had in favor of forced fanservice and poorly executed melodrama. The only thing good about this show: Megumi Nakajima of Macross Frontier fame sings the ending theme. Thankfully, that's on YouTube, so you can go straight to it and skip the anime entirely.

I can’t recommend Fuuka. Kids on the Slope does this so much better.

Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (sequel)

Streaming on Crunchyroll The end has become the beginning. We return to the stage where Yotaro has been dutifully waiting for us as if nothing has changed, but in reality, everything has. We return to the story in a time where the future of rakugo seems uncertain. I will forgo going into any details to spare my editor and partner Ink from reading anything that might spoil his viewing experience, but any fears I harbored that the second season would be unable to match the first season’s dramatic force seem silly now. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju could surpass itself with this new season and story. No doubt you will hear more about this wonderful show from both Ink and myself on Oldtaku No Radio or on the pages here at Ani-Gamers. I highly recommend both this show and its prequel.

Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu has no rival this season.

Yowamushi Pedal New Generation (sequel)

Streaming on Crunchyroll After the long, dragging, but ultimately rewarding Grande Road, we’re treated to a new season that feels rushed along at a breakneck pace. Following their victory at the Inter High, Sohoku must say goodbye to its third year leaders and make way for a new generation to carry forward their spirit. Oddly enough, the “new” generation hasn’t introduced that many new characters yet. The sole exception is a new racer at Hakogaku, the bitter rival of our heroes. The departure of third year climber Makishima has greatly affected our main hero Onoda, who can’t seem to get motivated to race despite having a fancy new bike.

YowaPeda hasn’t changed its formula much at all for good or ill. If you liked the first two seasons of the show, you will enjoy Yowamushi Pedal New Generation for all of those reasons. By the end of the third episode, you’ll already be back at the races for more plot twists and shounen sports heroics. I’ll be interested to see where the road takes me.

Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga (sequel)

Streaming on Crunchyroll, Amazon’s Anime Strike After watching the original Blue Exorcist series for 2016’s Anime Secret Santa, I looked forward to seeing the spawn of Satan in action again. From the first episode, I found myself immediately confused by the setup. Helpful people on Twitter informed me that the end of the first season went beyond the manga and therefore would be retconned by this new season. After learning that, I decided to set my confusion aside and give it a shot. As of this writing, I’m still not sure where the show it trying to go. The first episode seem strong enough, but the last couple feel like they meander a bit. Most of the cast from the first season has taken a backseat to introducing a host of new people I have little reason to care about — particularly in light of the tension between Rin and the rest of his classmates.

The show seems to have received a coat of fresh CGI to enhance its shading and coloration in places, and I’ve enjoyed the show visually so far (when there’s been action enough to show off the animation, at least). I’m going to keep watching weekly for the time being, but I’m beginning to think this may be one I end up binging later.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 (continuing)

Streaming on Daisuki, Hulu The curtain has opened on the final act of Iron-Blooded Orphans, and after three heartbreaking episodes, the show has entered its “Zeta Gundam” arc. If you’re not already watching this Gundam series by now, I’m not sure what else I can do to convince you. Most of the real character development takes place outside of the mecha, and I appreciate that aspect of the show the most (despite my avowed love for giant robots). I also find the level of intrigue and political maneuvering to be well done in comparison to most other shows in the Gundam franchise. Mari Okada seems to understand the tropes that make a Gundam show and how to breath new life into what frequently becomes a stale formula. I also continue to be smitten by the mecha designs as evidenced by the growing number of gunpla I keep finding myself owning.

Child soldiers have long been a staple of Gundam dating back to the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. The stark realities of that plight been never been confronted as head-on as they are in Iron-Blooded Orphans. I hope Mikazuki and the kids of Tekkadan will find a path from the lives of war they’ve been forced to live, and I look forward to following their journey…no matter how much blood remains to be shed.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Streaming on Crunchyroll Further proof that going on a drinking binge can lead to life-altering consequences, Kobayashi ends up freeing a dragon and inviting said dragon to come live with her. The next day, in the midst of her hangover, Kobayashi answers her door to find the dragon ready to honor her life debt by becoming her maid. Gag anime ensues.

Dragon Maid actually got a little flak from me in our recent bonus episode of Oldtaku no Radio, but it's turned out to be pretty entertaining. Kyoto Animation does a masterful job of elevating what could have been a mediocre comedy into at times beautifully animated show with well-timed comedic delivery. Even if I wasn’t reviewing the show on a weekly basis for Wave Motion Cannon, I’d probably still watch it because I’m a sucker for good comedies. Throw in superlative animation cuts like the “roughhousing” scene in Episode 2, and I’m going to watch it as soon as I can.

Scum’s Wish

Streaming on Amazon’s Anime Strike Hanabi and Mugi look like the perfect couple from the outside, but they both love other people that they can’t have. So they use each other. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Manga-ka Mengo Yokoyari’s darkly erotic exploration of teenage unrequited love reminds me of Flowers of Evil in how much it wants you to be uncomfortable. That spirit has transferred rather nicely to the anime, and director Masaomi Ando (School-Live, White Album 2) has a solid grasp of how to transform the manga into what could be a hit show.

My only misgiving about recommending this show stems from the fact that there’s no legal way to watch the show without both an Anime Strike subscription AND the prerequisite Amazon Prime subscription. The double paywall Amazon has in place to get to this show (and the rest of its Anime Strike catalog) feels like a cash grab and is not fan-friendly in any sense. That aside, Scum’s Wish has shown thus far to be a solid show with an excellent visual sensibility, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this fake romance leads.

originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on January 30, 2017 at 2:00 AM.

By: Jared Nelson

#Anime #News #Ani-Gamers

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