Chapter 1: An Old, Grey Building

The building was old and grey. She hated it already.

It was the first day of the new term and the courtyard was milling with students, unfamiliar faces dressed in skirts and ties with shiny black shoes and shiny black laces.

She was in a bad mood. She had spent an hour trapped inside the sweaty metal skins of buses and trains to get to Gotham Academy on time. An hour spent pressed up against strangers dressed in their business suits, hiding their faces in their 'I'm too good to talk to you' newspapers. Sweat patches forming on their silk shirts as they glanced at their gold watches hoping to not be late.

She didn't like enclosed spaces. Maybe it was just the crowds of boring, mundane people that seemed to chafe at her.

She tugged at her skirt and scratched at her collar–the uniform sucked. Her new shoes pinched at her toes. She would never be able to fight properly dressed in this. Maybe that was the point. She couldn't believe she had allowed her mum to talk her into this. But the Wayne Foundation Scholarship was too shiny a coin to pass up. The letter had said something about 'academic excellence' and 'socio-economic disadvantages' but she knew that was bullshit. She had never been any good at school.

The sun was peeking over the shoulder of Gotham city, its watery light making the silver skyscraper shards shine. Gotham Academy was left in shadow. The school was in a nice neighbourhood–far from her apartment block (hence the hour long commute). The houses nearby were large, tucked behind cute, white picket fences. Their flowerbeds were carefully cultivated, lawns mowed, windows sparkling.

The only similarity between those houses and Gotham Academy were that they were both buildings, filled with rich people, and they had been built in the same area.

Okay, maybe she was being unfair. But there was something about Gotham Academy that had her feeling on edge. Maybe it was just the nerves. She fought against super villains, for heck's sake! No one else here could shoot an arrow straight out of a backflip and hit the target ten times out of ten. But there was something about starting somewhere new, where nobody knew or expected anything about or from her that filled her with equal parts anticipation and dread that coiled around inside her stomach like worms.

"Hi, you must be Artemis! I'm Bette. I'm here to show you around." Okay so maybe she wasn't as invisible as she had thought. The voice had bubbled out of a blonde girl who was now in front of her. She was buxom and her clothes were neatly ironed. Her makeup was immaculate. She made the uniform look good on her. Artemis tugged her skirt lower.

"I'm Artemis, although… uh… you already seem to know that," she said. The girl giggled, and Artemis felt her cheeks redden. She shifted the bag on her back. It was heavy. She didn't have her timetable yet, so she had brought all of her textbooks. They weighed her down like bricks.

Suddenly someone was pressed against her side, something held out in front of her. Her muscles clenched and she forced herself to not dislocate the warm arm that snaked around her shoulder.

"Relax," the boy said. "We'll laugh about this someday." The phone in front of her clicked, the boy smiled at her and ran off. There was almost something familiar about his voice and dark hair, but she couldn't place it.

"Who was that?" she asked Bette, turning to see the boy as he walked off after a willowy redheaded girl.

Bette looked over past her shoulder. "Just some freshman. You'll find that we're all very welcoming here at Gotham Academy," she smiled at Artemis, and turned towards the large uninviting entrance of the school. "I'll show you to the office so you can get your timetable."

They walked through the hallway. Bette made introductions to the students who walked past or who leant up against their lockers like question marks.

"This is Artemis, she's new here. She came here from… Where did you go again, Artemis?"

"Gotham North."

"Oh do you know Susan?" a small mousy-haired girl asked. "Susan Foles?"

Oh, the bitch, Susan, the one who Artemis had punched in the face the first day of freshman year. "Don't think so," she said.

"Oh."

By the third person Artemis had zoned out, and now just smiled blankly at the next person as they were presented to her. She just wasn't that interested in having friends at Gotham Academy. She didn't have time. And anyway, she already had the Team. They were the only friends she needed. If they're still your friends after they find out you're lying to them about your family, she thought.

No, they'd understand. She'd worry about it if she told them.

When she told them.

They reached the office without any incidences, although she already felt lost within the twisting hallways and numerous stairways. It was as if the floors didn't quite line up. On the way they had climbed up two flights of stairs and yet were still (Bette informed her) on the same floor. When she had questioned Bette about it, Bette had shrugged and said "It's an old building. Of course it has its quirks."

Artemis thought it was a bit illogical to put the reception somewhere in the middle of the building, but hey, she wasn't an architect or interior designer. Two workers were stencilling what was presumably meant to 'office' on the frosted glass door, but they had missed an 'F' so were now angrily scraping away their work.

Inside, the office smelled like printer ink and fresh paint. A receptionist tapped away at a computer, dark hair cut short, face downturned. The desk she was sitting at was cheap, and the lacquer was peeling.

"This is Artemis…"

"Crock," Artemis supplied. Bette flourished her arms at Artemis as if she were unveiling a new statue of Superman or presenting some official trophy.

The woman didn't look up from where she was typing. After a moment of silence interrupted only by the click-clack of the keyboard, and the scraping of the file with a loud cuss from the workmen outside, the receptionist placed a sheet of paper up onto the desk without looking up.

When Artemis didn't move, the receptionist looked up. She wore red rectangular glasses. "Timetable," she said, then looked back down and continued typing.

Artemis walked over and took the piece of paper. She looked at her timetable. English, Gym, double Math–not bad... Wait what? She hadn't signed up for Drama.

"Excuse me I think there's been a mistake? I–" Artemis began.

"–No mistake," the receptionist interrupted.

"But-"

Anything she was about to say was drowned out by a renewed flurry of typing. She huffed, and was about to let loose on that woman spawned in hell when Bette grabbed her arm and gently but firmly dragged her out the door.

"Come on, Artemis, we'll be late," Bette said. "And that's pretty much the last person in the school you want to annoy. She inputs all your grades, has the final say for all you classes…"

They exited the office and turned down the opposite direction they had come from, Bette eventually letting go of her arm.

"Don't believe what they say," Bette said.

She had insisted on walking Artemis to her first class after she had shown Artemis her locker (which was small, and smelled strangely of oranges).

"About what?" Artemis said.

Compared to before, Bette walked quickly. Artemis had to half-run every third step so as to not be left behind.

"About the school." Bette turned to Artemis and leaned in close. Her hair smelled like strawberries and her breath was hot and minty. "It's not actually haunted."

"Oh." Artemis was taken aback. "I'll ah, remember that."

"Amalia was unhappy. She didn't just disappear like the rumours say. She just…" Bette trailed off and slowed down as they climbed a flight of stairs. A girl had dropped her books and was blocking the stairwell. Bette pushed past her. Artemis did the same, muttering an apology to the girl. "Left." Bette finished, "She just left."

Bette came to a stop, and Artemis stumbled into her. She put her hand out instinctively to catch her fall and it hit Bette's shoulder, her fingers trailing like pale tree roots over her neck. Bette's neck was cold and clammy. Like she had just been underwater.

Bette flinched. Artemis pulled her hand back. There was an awkward silence.

Bette looked up at her, eyes deep and dark like seashells. For a moment there was an overwhelming sadness on Bette's face like a flitting shadow.

But then Bette flicked her hair off her face in a golden wave, and just as quickly, whatever it was it was gone, and Bette was the same person Artemis had met in the courtyard before–happy and bubbly and all smiles.

Except for the small tick above her right eyebrow. It jumped every few seconds, like it was being pulled up by an invisible puppeteer.

"Here you go," Bette said. She gestured to the classroom they had stopped in front of. "This is your class. I'll see you in Gym later."

Bette walked away and was lost in the bustle of the hallway before Artemis could say either thank you or goodbye.

She checked her phone. She was still a few minutes early. As she waited more and more students arrived and milled around the classroom doorway talking about their vacations and their families and their hook-ups and their sick pets. It seemed like here, everyone knew everyone. And it also seemed, as Artemis listened to a boy describe flying halfway across the world over the last weekend to catch the snow season as simply as if he were reciting a shopping list, that everyone here was rich.

Artemis didn't have anything against rich people per se, it was their attitude she hated. There were millions and millions of starving people around the world who had nothing, and this boy flippantly took his family's private jet to go skiing? She didn't blame him exactly, it was society's construct. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the broke starved. At least Green Arrow used his money for good; charities, and foundations and the like (not to mention financing vigilantism), but there was always something more the rich could do. Should do. It was as if they didn't care. They were like a looter who steals from a store while around them the store is burning down.

Bruce Wayne spent his money on you, so you could come here, she reminded herself. She looked around at the strange faces surrounding her. Thank you so much, Bruce Wayne.

"Hey, New Girl." He made it sound like a name rather than an unfortunate occurrence.

His voice was a gravelly bass, and it belonged to a squat boy with a square jaw. He wore his tie crookedly in a way that suggested it had taken him a few minutes to arrange it. His hair was cropped and his eyes were a startling shade of blue.

"I'm Billy. This is Tack." He gestured to the lanky boy standing next to him. It looked like a giraffe was standing next to a rhinoceros.

Tack waved awkwardly at her, teeth flashing white and crooked. His smile was infectious and Artemis could feel her lips quirking in reply. She fought the smile down. So maybe they weren't all bad at the school. But she still wasn't there to make friends. She just wanted to graduate and leave.

"It's actually Artemis. New Girl is a name that's more common… hmm let me think… nowhere."

Her reply didn't discourage them like she had thought it would. Billy and Tack laughed. When he laughed Billy's eyebrows waggled up and down like thick caterpillars.

"Touché, Artemis," Billy said. He had leant up against the doorway, one foot tucked under the other as if he didn't have a care in the world. His eyes shone like ice.

"Artemis," Tack said. "Like the archer?"

She smiled then despite herself, "you have no idea."

"You're right. Is that Greek or Roman mythology? I can never remember," he muttered to himself.

Billy had produced a packet of chips from some pocket on the inside of his blazer and was munching on them contentedly. His square jaw worked methodically, like a wood-chipper. He must have noticed her watching because he offered the packet to her, eyebrows raised. She shook her head. He shrugged and continued crunching away.

"So, why'd you move here in the middle of the semester?" Billy asked in between mouthfuls.

Artemis shrugged, "guess that I felt like I wanted a breath of fresh air."

"Ah," Tack nodded sagely, "parents forced you to come here, eh? Join the club."

"I..." She was stumped–she wasn't normally read that easily. The bell rang high and piercingly loud. That would get annoying, but for now it was a welcome distraction from that line of questioning. The teacher swept past them and into the room, students following afterwards like leaves blown in the wind.

Billy waggled his eyebrows at her as he and Tack went in. She lethargically followed them.

It turned out that the seats were assigned. The boy sitting in front of her was so tall she couldn't see past his head to the whiteboard.

Even worse, she spent the whole of English being hit on by the guy sitting next to her.

"Hey cutie, can I borrow a pen?"

She rolled her eyes and didn't answer. She couldn't decide what the worst part about it was–that this was the fourth time he had asked her this question or that it was now forty-five minutes into the lesson. If you can't acquire a writing utensil or a new pickup line in forty-five minutes then you are a complete and absolute idiot, Artemis concluded.

It was hot in the classroom, and not from any emerging sexual tension. The air-conditioning was broken. It was hot and stuffy. The room was small and packed. The students were hunched over their desks.

The teacher droned on about Shakespeare. His arms occasionally gesticulated wildly like he was brushing away a fly or was having a heart attack. His name was Brown or Beige or something. Some boring colour.

The underarms of the teacher's white shirt were soaked with sweat, and he mopped at his brow with a soggy tissue. A small piece of the tissue got stuck between the wrinkles on his forehead and it bobbed up and down like a buoy as he frowned in various stages of frustration about the classroom.

Her desk was covered in graffiti. She traced the grooves idly with the tip of her finger. It was strange to think that all the different marks were different people. She wondered what she would leave behind when she left, you know, when she died. Her 'part-time job' wasn't exactly the steady hallmark of America's workplace safety standards. It was kind of inevitable really. Who was the last superhero who had retired to a small beach-side home to live with their seven cats, making tea and baking biscuits until a heart attacked swooped in one night like a hawk to drag them off to heaven or wherever?

How many people would remember her, when she was gone? She might not even make it to superhero status. Artemis couldn't count the number of young sidekicks that had died trying to step into their mentors' shoes, and that was half because she had forgotten all of their names.

And thinking about leaving got her thinking about Amalia, whoever that was. 'She just left,' Bette had said. What did that mean?

Artemis sighed and stopped tracing the marks and scratches. There was no use thinking about it. It was so hot her arms seemed to stick to the cheap wooden desk from her sweat. Her heart seemed to thud deeply in her chest. She brushed her fingers over the soft hairs on her knuckles.

The boy threw a ball of paper at her, presumably because he didn't have the mental capacity to fold it into an airplane. It hit her on the side of the face and landed on her desk. Billy and Tack who had somehow managed to land seats next to each other at the back by the open window, burst out laughing. She turned in her chair and glared at them. She half-welcomed the distraction.

Billy and Tack weren't the only ones who had noticed.

"Please don't pass notes in my classroom. If you have something to say, everybody can hear it," Brown-Beige said. "Pass it here." He directed the last part to Artemis.

As much as she didn't like Romeo next to her, she wasn't exactly a fan of people of authority humiliating the people they were meant to be teaching. Batman or Black Canary would never do anything like that to the team.

"But you told us to not pass notes in your classroom, and now you want me to pass one up to you? That's a bit confusing, Mr… sir." She looked up at him, a look of feigned confusion on her face. She still couldn't remember his name. There were a few laughs and mutterings from the classroom. She was pretty sure it was Tack who snorted.

The white blob of tissue sunk lower. "I don't appreciate the snark, Miss Crock, and your first day too," he said.

"Comes with the package." She smiled sweetly up at him.

He grumbled a bit, but the lesson went on without any more note sharing. The ball of paper sat safely in front of her on her desk. Artemis leaned back in her chair and tried not to think too deeply about life, or fall asleep. It was a hard task.

Eventually the bell rang.

She was up out of her seat immediately, moving towards the gymnasium. Finally something she was good at. Or at least something that wouldn't verge on thinking-about-suicide-to-escape boring.

As she left the classroom she opened and read the crumpled note that she had saved being read out in class. 'Hey cutie, can I borrow a pen?' it read. She almost laughed. Almost. Just from the irony of it all. She scrunched it up and threw it in the next bin she came across.

She passed the same boy in the hallway. "Maybe next time you should ask to borrow a better line," she threw him something that he fumbled and dropped onto the floor. He leaned over and picked it up, hair flopping over his eyes.

She left him looking confused, holding her pen. She'd had worse starts to first days.