For Traught Week

Prompt: Wordplay

Warning: Idea conceived at 3 AM while taking a shower. May contain crack.

Note: All of the dialogue takes place over radio communication. You know, the walkie-talkie style ear pieces the team uses when they're too far apart for M'gann's mind link or when M'gann isn't with them on a mission.

An Artemis By Any Other Name

It started when M'gann and Conner left on a "covert mission to Mars" (M'gann's excuse to visit her humongous family and introduce them to her boyfriend).

Without M'gann's telepathic link, the Team had gone back to using wireless in-ear receivers, wild hand signals, and word-of-mouth to communicate.

On the outskirts of the nuclear reactor, Artemis and Dick were automatically paired up to assess the situation and then take out any hidden cameras or guards before Wally provided a distraction, and Zatanna and Kaldur made the second wave of attack.

Even though the Team members knew each other well enough that no announced plan of action needed to be given (Dick knew Artemis was behind him in a tree, and Artemis rightly guessed Dick was hidden in one of the bushes lining the perimeter), Dick liked the idea of old-school radio communication and took it upon himself to give everyone "code names."

"Kaldur, you're Fish Cadet."

"Zatanna, Magic Fingers."

"Wally, Wallman."

"Artemis…Crock Pot."

His other teammates pointedly ignored him, but he could tell by the skeptical snort on the other end of the line that Artemis was rolling her eyes.

"If you're going to give me a nickname, at least come up with a half decent one."

"Hm," he rubbed his chin, and his mouth spread into a mischievous grin. "Can I take that as a challenge?"

"You can take it however you want, as long as you take care of that guard who just found you because you were yapping your big mouth!"

"'Mis!"

"Huh?" Artemis kept her eyes trained on the battalion before her but cocked her head just slightly, as if the motion would improve her ability to hear what Dick was saying. "I just shot down a robot with a single arrow. How could you call that a miss?"

"No… I mean you are 'Mis!"

"Okay," she said, notching another arrow in her crossbow, "this has gotten personal. Don't butcher my name, Bird Boy. If you haven't noticed already, I use it as my superhero alias. So I'm pretty attached to it."

"But 'Mis is so perfect! It rolls off the tongue…"

"No."

"…has a beautiful double meaning…"

"Did you hear me?"

"…like I can say 'I miss you 'Mis!' or 'Oh how much I miss 'Mis! Or the best holiday of the year, Christ-'Mis."

"Let me spell it out for you: N-O."

"Arty Crocker."

"Ew, no," she said with a wrinkle to her nose. "That's so lame it's insulting."

Over the weeks, Artemis had ceased to be surprised when Dick randomly brought up a new nickname idea in the middle of conversations and inappropriate situations. Like now, when he was trying to diffuse a bomb.

"Then how about pH?"

"Let me guess. I'm acidic."

"No, pH stands for pArty Hard."

She snorted. "Now you're being insulting AND a dork. Forget it."

"Back to the drawing board," he mumbled with feigned disappointment and a smirk on his face.

Dick secretly enjoyed the excuse this nickname game had given him to shower Artemis with unwanted attention. Usually, she wouldn't have tolerated his trolling for so long.

Not without punching him in the face, at least.

"I've decided to come up with some nicknames that compliment your lovely self. Care to hear them?"

The archer picked at something between her teeth. "I'm sure they'll be just as stupid as the rest, but fine."

"I should have thought of this from the start, but I just remembered where your name originally comes from…"

Artemis frowned. She did not like the sound of where this was going.

"…the Greek goddess Artemis!"

His teammate groaned. Just when she thought she had gotten past the middle school teasing and bad jokes from every doofus who knew a scrap of Greek mythology, Dick had to bring it back up.

Then again, with how annoying he had been acting lately, she shouldn't have been surprised.

"How about…Huntress 2.0?"

He took her irritated silence as a "no," and continued down his list.

"Goddess Divine?"

"Mistress of the Moon?"

"The Virgin…"

"Okay, stop right there before I strangle you through the radio."

"No more nicknames having to do with some pun on my name, alright?"

Since they had started dating, Artemis had given up fighting against Dick's stubborn insistence on finding her a pet name, but she felt like she at least deserved some say in the matter.

"Alright then…no Artemis or Crock puns. That's fine. Let me think up something else."

He stayed silently in thought for a few seconds, just long enough for Artemis to feel a brief sense of relief from his pestering before he asked, "What do they call it when an nineteen-year-old dates a certain vigilante minor?"

"The worst decision of her life?"

"Wrong. They call it…Robin the cradle."

"The puns. Make them stoppppp."

"The Gotham tabloids have been struggling to think up a celebrity couple name for us."

"Dick. I'm busy with a legion of ninja. Can we talk about this later?"

"You see if you combine our names…"

"Dick. Please."

"It forms an inappropriate but catchy turn of phrase."

"Ninja. They're trying to kill me. So stop talking!"

"You know, something like DickArt."

Her fist slammed into the nose of a ninja that had snuck up behind her, and she groaned, "For the love of…"

"Reminds me of the lovely doodle Conner sharpied on our locker room door in the Cave."

"Wait, Conner did that?" She laughed. "I always thought it was Wally!"

"Wally's art skills are not nearly to Conner's level," Dick replied with mock-seriousness.

"You mean a penis that looks like a hairy canon on wheels?"

"Like I said. Genius."

"Well then, tell the tabloids to come up with something better than naming us after Conner's phallic imagery."

"I'll see what I can do, the beautiful Art to my Dick…"

"SHUT UP!"

"You'd think after eight years of dating, you would have gotten tired of this already."

"Let me try just one more, please?"

Artemis sighed loudly. She did not need this sort of thing from Dick after thirty-six hours of no sleep.

"You're going to say it even if I tell you, 'no,' so fine."

"How about…Mrs. Richard John Grayson?"

Half-listening to him, she yawned and said, "Isn't that kind of long for a nickname? Though I suppose it has a nice ring to…"

Then she replayed what he just said in her brain. "Wait. What?" Her eyes widened, and she put a hand to the radio microphone in her ear. "Oh my god, you're…"

"Artemis Crock, will you marry me?"

"..."

A long silence hung between them. Dick started grinding his teeth and listened nervously to the uneven sound of Artemis' breathing.

"…Dick."

"Yes?"

"I'm going to do you a favor," she said, enunciating each word. "I'm going to ask M'gann to erase my memory of what you just said and give you a chance to try again. Because that was the cheesiest, most inappropriate, random proposal I have ever…"

Her voice started cracking as tears filled her eyes and she clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

After a quiet moment, Dick asked hesitantly, "…Artemis, are you still there?"

She sniffled loudly and mumbled, "Yes."

"Um, does that mean after the unnecessary brainwashing and second proposal attempt, you'll say 'yes?'"

"Of course I will!"

"How do you know that?" he said, the rising pitch of his words betraying his panic. "What if after you forget, you won't feel like saying yes anymore, and you say no the second time I do it? What if…"

"God dammit," she said, pulling the tiny radio receiver out of her ear and to her lips, "SAY 'WILL YOU MARRY ME' TO MY FACE, AND I WILL SAY YES. BRING A RING. THANK YOU."

Then she hung up, leaving his eardrums ringing with her words.

What she never told him (even after he came up with a much better way to pop the question, which involved an artfully done scavenger hunt leading to the site of their first date, where he was waiting at a candlelit table with dinner and a box with a ring in it. He got down on one knee and started reciting the proposal speech he had written and worked with Kaldur and Bruce to refine and perfect…but he didn't get to finish it because Artemis attacked him halfway through, screaming "Yes, yes!" and kissing him soundly) was that M'gann hadn't actually erased her memory of the first proposal.

It was just so…Dick of him to do something like that. "Mrs. Richard John Grayson" indeed.

Well, he had finally come up with a name to give her that she could accept. In fact, it was a title she lived happily with for the rest of her days.

A.N. Random fun question: if you were Dick, what nickname would you think up for Artemis?