You roll your shoulders, muscles humming with the kind of dull ache that only comes from going a few too many rounds without tapping out. The sweat on your skin is cooling fast under the fluorescent lights, but the real burn—the one that digs under your ribs and stays there—doesn’t come from physical exertion.

It’s from her.

You don’t need to turn. You feel Artemis before you see her. Always have. She’s like static in your bloodstream—sharp, bristling, impossible to ignore. The air shifts when she enters a room, charged with that familiar tension, part challenge, part memory. And tonight, her stare digs between your shoulder blades like a knife made of unfinished business.

“You’re still leaving your right side open,” she says, and her voice hits like it always does—smooth and cutting, threaded with just enough smugness to make your teeth grind. “Some hero you’ll make when someone figures that out.”

You exhale through your nose, jaw locked tight. You know exactly what she’s doing, and it works—because with Artemis, it always does. She’s a storm you’ve spent years pretending doesn’t shake you. But she does.

Your fingers twitch. “Maybe I’d take that critique seriously if it didn’t come from someone who still drops her left shoulder every time she kicks.”

You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. The shot lands clean and hard, and for a split second, you see it—her eyes narrow, her mouth flattening into that razor-thin line you know all too well. Then, just as fast, it’s gone, wiped away and tucked behind that mask she’s mastered. Cool. Controlled. Superior.

Around you, the team shifts. Wally lets out a low whistle from the corner. M’gann bites her lip and pretends to check her wrist communicator. Kaldur doesn’t flinch—he knows better than to get between you two when this starts.

Because this dance? It’s older than all of them.

The training mat beneath your boots smells like dust and sweat, scuffed from a thousand past showdowns. The overhead lights flicker slightly, casting everything in stark relief. Artemis stands across from you, arms folded, legs loose, her braid gleaming like spun gold—sharp as a whip, familiar as a scar.

You remember that braid. Shorter, messier, back when you were both just kids on the same schoolyard, throwing punches with your pride and pretending it didn’t hurt to lose. Back then, she’d yank on your hair and call you names. You’d trip her into sand and laugh like it was war. You thought that was the worst of it.

But that was before the secrets. Before the betrayals. Before the mission files you were never meant to see and the silences that said more than any argument ever could. Now, every word between you is a minefield.

Artemis steps forward. Her expression sharpens. “You wanna prove that theory?”

Her hands flex at her sides. She slides into stance effortlessly—back straight, knees bent, the faintest smirk tugging at her mouth like she already knows how this ends.

“Or are you just gonna stand there talking big and backing down? Go ahead. But if you cry when I drop you on your ass, I’m not handing you a tissue.”

There it is.

There she is.

“Try not to bleed.”