Shadows Of My Own (Young Justice Fanfiction)

Chapter 5: Saturday, 3rd February

Artemis had met me outside the apartment building at nine o'clock the next morning. I was slightly tired considering I had stayed up with M'gann and Zatanna talking well into the hours of the morning. I didn't say much to them though. They didn't care. They liked talking and I liked listening.

"Thanks for coming." I said once I saw Artemis.

"It's alright, I needed something to distract me on a Saturday morning anyway."

"Well, let's get started then shall we."

I ushered her in and led her up the stairs. Old, wooden boards creaked under our feet as we walked. About twenty storeys later we reached my front door. It didn't feel right coming in this way. I had hardly ever used the door, let alone the key.

The door clicked open and we stepped inside. The walls were still a light grey and the wooden floor was still dusty. Everything was in our sight except for the bedroom and the bathroom, which were the only two rooms shut off in the apartment.

Artemis shrugged off her jacket and slung it over the couch. She started to take her shoes off but I stopped her.

"Don't bother, it's already really dirty."

"Alright then, what's first?" She asked eagerly.

I didn't have many things, which meant that packing was a breeze. We only spent a little over two hours shoving my possessions away in the cardboard boxes that I found in my closet. We left the furniture though, I already had that at the cave. Then we carried them down into the lobby, where we put them in an abandoned storage closet.

"We'll come back later and take these over to the zeta tube." I said to Artemis.

"Okay." She said. "I know this great cafe a few blocks away, want to go for lunch?"

"Yeah, sure." I said.

As we walked out onto the street, I could see that the sky was now covered in dark, grey clouds. It was just another typical day in Gotham city though, we had to be lucky to get sun here. Or unlucky in my case, I didn't like the sun.

The wind blew our hair back as we walked down the neglected pathway. Not many others were on the street with us, but most of those who were could be seen sitting in the alleyways.

"You have a lot of books." Artemis stated.

"Spell books mostly, though I do like to read." I answered.

"What's your favourite book?"

"Probably Divergent."

"That's a good book. Have you read the sequel?"

"Not yet. I'm going to though."

Artemis opened her mouth to say something, but an icy blast of wind cut her off. She ducked her head and rubbed her shivering arms.

"I left my jacket back in your apartment-" she started.

"Lets go get it. We have time." I said.

We retraced our steps along the path and back up the stairs of the building. Coming to the landing on the stairs for my floor, I stopped dead in my tracks

Even from here I could see my door was open, hanging off its hinges. I could see the dirty footprints surrounding the entrance and I could see tiny fractals of broken glass scattered in the hallway.

As if our minds were in sync, Artemis and I backed up into the wall and started to walk along the hallway. Carefully avoiding the glass, as we both had converses on, we slowly reached the front door. Giving Artemis a knowing look I fazed back into the wall behind me.