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

Chapter Twenty-Four

DISCLAIMER: The only things I own in this story are Nessie and Hallucination. You can ask my cat if you don't believe me.

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I jerked my head up, hearing my name being called. Blinking my eyes a few times, I looked around and remembered that I was on the subway with Artemis, heading to Gotham Academy.

"Wake up. This is our stop," Artemis told me, and I stood and got off with her, still half asleep.

"Sorry. Couldn't sleep last night," I admitted, rubbing my eyes.

"Nightmares or something?"

"You could say that." Every time I went to sleep last night, I kept dreaming of myself being possessed by Hallucination, pointing a gun at Robin, then waking up when the gun went off. Artemis and I continued to walk to school in silence, and we soon reached the main courtyard.

"I need to run to my locker to get my math textbook. Wanna come?" Artemis questioned.

"Walking's the only thing that will keep me awake, so sure." We soon reached Artemis' locker, and she began dialing the combination when I saw a familiar raven-haired boy walking towards us.

"Morning ladies," Dick greeted us.

"Hey," I replied, and Artemis nodded her head in his direction. Something had changed between Dick and I since our conversation in the courtyard. Maybe we were closer now, or something like that. All in all, he was hanging out a lot with me lately. But the strangest part was that I didn't find it as annoying as I had previously. Artemis slammed her locker shut, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"I have to go talk to my human geography teacher about my grade, so I'll see you later Vanessa," Artemis stated.

"Okay, see you in literacy," I told her. Artemis then looked at Dick, and a smirk crept onto her face.

"Stay out of trouble, you two," she said with a wink, then walked around the corner and was gone. I was positive that my face was scarlet, and I quickly glanced at Dick. He had a slight blush across his cheeks as well. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat, and we began walking back to the courtyard. Soon, we saw about three guys, jocks by the looks of it, leaning against the lockers. The tallest one stopped in front of us when we tried to pass them. Fantastic.

"Well, well, well. Looks like little Dicky's got himself a friend," he stated, and the other two joined the first.

"Babe, why are you hanging out with Loser Boy? You should really be spending time with us, considering how beautiful you are," the second one smirked.

"Look, can we just go past-" Dick tried to say, but was interrupted by the third jock.

"We? You think she actually wants to go with you? You're delusional." Jock #3 shoved Dick, and he stumbled backwards.

"What're you going to do, Grayson? Run home to mommy and daddy?"

"Oh wait, I forgot. Mommy and daddy are dead." My hands clenched into fists at that, and I knew that if I beat up these idiots, my scholarship would be out the window. But that didn't mean that I couldn't talk to them, or rather, yell at them.

"Hey, you three," I called. The jocks looked at me.

"Yeah, gorgeous?" Jock #1 asked.

"Could I, like, talk to all of you?" I batted my eyelashes, playing the stupid-girl card. They soon were standing in front of me, and I stole a glance at Dick. He looked defeated, and he probably thought that I was joining them. Then my face changed from dumb to angry. "You three are the lowest guys I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen some pretty low guys. How DARE you bring up his parents, as well as make fun of him for it! If you were in his shoes, I doubt you would be teasing him. I'm pretty sure the only reason you're at this school is because your families have money, not because you're smart or talented in any way. Now get the hell out of my sight. And if you mess with him, or me, or anyone else for that matter, I will make sure that you will NEVER be able to have kids. Got it?" The three jocks' eyes were widened in shock, then they backed away and walked down the hallway in the opposite direction.

Turning around, I found that Dick was walking away from me. "Dick, wait! Where are you going?" I asked, catching up with him. He turned to me, and his face was so full of rage that I didn't even recognize him.

"You didn't have to do that back there. I could've handled myself," he spat.

"Yeah, because getting beat up is totally handling yourself."

"Don't be sarcastic. You embarrassed me back there! Saying that created an an even bigger target on my back!"

"Dick, I-"

"Just get away from me!" I tried to hide the shock and pain from my face, but to no avail. Quickly, I turned and briskly walked down the hallway. My mind wandered back to one of the things I saw while I was on the Fear Gas, and that was Dick leaving me. Did I just lose him back there? I kept telling myself this was all just another fear attack, but deep down I knew that it wasn't. "Vanessa!" I turned around to find Dick running up to me, regret etched onto his face. "Wait. Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like...that," he confessed to me.

"No, you have plenty of reason to be mad at me. I should be the one apologizing. I wasn't trying to make you an even bigger victim, but when they said that about your parents, I just...kind of lost it." I bit my lip in embarrassment. One of my biggest pet peeves was feeling exposed and vulnerable, and I was in that position now.

"Lost it how?" Dick asked, then got quieter. "Is it because of your parent-situation?"

"In a way, yeah. It is. Those boys were making it seem like you WANTED to not have your parents around, but you didn't have a choice. I didn't have a choice," I paused and turned away, feeling like I was about to cry, for some reason. "God, I'm being so stupid right now."

"No, no, no. Nessie, you're anything BUT stupid," Dick stated, and I turned back around to face him. Those eyes of his were filled only with sincerity and honesty, and at that moment I wanted to come clean with him about me being Catgirl. And I was about to. Luckily, the bell for first hour rang, and students began to fill the hallways.

"C'mon, let's go to class," I stated to Dick. He looked like he was going to say something else, but didn't. He only smiled, and we joined the crowd of students trying to beat the late bell.

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Prepare yourselves, for this will be a long, important Author's Note...

First of all, I am EXTREMELY sorry about the wait! I planned on having this chapter done by last Friday, but life got in the way, mainly school. I'm in my school's musical (Peter Pan!) and have had no free time lately. Luckily, the shows are next week, so after next week, I'll try to update every Friday. Hang in there!

Secondly, this is basically a filler chapter, and I know it's not my best. Mainly because I didn't even know what to write for this one. But the next chappy I'm really excited about, and you'll see why when I post it. :D

And third, I still need ideas for Nessie's play-scene-thing. So far, I have gotten nothing. :I

Thanks a bunch, and vote, comment, and follow!

~~The Bat has left the room~~