With These Hands

Waking up, he was met with a face full of hair. Confusion set in before he quickly recalled the events of the previous day. As the pieces fit in his head he also noticed something else. 

They were spooning. 

Artemis' back was to him, and as such, her rather shapely rear had sandwiched his rapidly hardening member. Moving to extract himself from an awkward situation had mixed results. He successfully adjusted but his movement had woken his bedmate. 

With a groan, Artemis turned around, now facing him. "Well that was something." She muttered. 

"You could just pretend like that didn't happen." He said, pushing his face into the pillow. It was too early to deal with this. 

"I could." She teased right before he felt her hand brush his package. "But I'm not going to."

His face shot to her in surprise. She was bold, he'd give her that but that was not the response he expected.

"You're not the only one who knows how to tease." He said, feeling her shiver as his fingers traced her bare stomach. 

There was a certain look in her eyes that he recognized that made the room get a bit hotter. The smirk on her lips didn't help. 

Before things could intensify, there was a loud knock on the door. He could almost laugh upon hearing the curse that left her lips. 

Rising from the bed, he pulled on a shirt, ignoring the low whistle from Artemis. Quickly reaching the door and opening it, he was faced with a tall blond man with a crooked grin. 

Before he could speak, the small cylinder in the man's hand extended into a javelin which pierced through his stomach. 

The man's name immediately came to mind as he twisted the javelin deeper. Lawrence Crock, also known as Sportsmaster. 

"Good morning." Sportsmaster said, the grin not leaving his face as he stepped in, pushing the javelin deeper into Liam. 

He heard a gasp from Artemis who had come out of the bedroom, now wearing a shirt. 

"Liam!" She screamed, seeing the item protruding through his body. Moving to act, she paused as her father raised a hand, twisting the javelin once more. 

"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you." He taunted, closing the door with his foot. "I gave you a job to do and not only did you fail, here you are fooling around with the mark. You compromised the job."

With each word he said, she ground her teeth harder. "What do you want?"

"For you to learn your lesson. You don't mess with the league of shadows." He swiftly pulled out the javelin before stabbing it right back in, through Liam's heart this time. 

The boy let out a pained cough as he spewed up blood. His cough was accompanied by Artemis' scream of pain. 

Pulling out the javelin, he allowed the boy to fall to the floor, limp. 

Artemis fell to her knees, tears falling from her eyes. "No no no no…" she muttered in disbelief. 

Sportsmaster watched with a cruel smirk as his daughter cried over the boy who was now bleeding out on the floor. "Sorry baby girl, you just have to learn that the hard way."

"Is that so?" A familiar voice said, causing the two of them to freeze. 

Before they could react, Sportsmaster was lifted into the air and tossed into the wall with great force. 

The culprit, Liam who now stood in his pool of blood, glaring daggers into the man. Both father and daughter had their eyes fixed on him, specifically, the holes in his body that were now gone, healed. 

Though the skin looked a bit red with all the blood, it was quickly and visibly going back to its normal color. 

"How?" Sportmaster questioned as he picked himself up. 

Barely a second later, Liam was in front of him, holding the man up on the wall by his throat with his feet above the ground. The teen's eye had turned to slits, scales on the sides of his face. 

"You have some nerve!" He growled, putting more pressure into his grip, the man choking and his face slowly turning blue. 

"I should kill you right now." He added, raising the pressure. 

Just when it looked like the man was about to pass out, he loosened his hold before delivering a haymaker that knocked him unconscious. 

Though the first javelin to the stomach caught him a bit off guard, he allowed the second one to hit. He wanted to see what information Sportsmaster would spill out that could be useful. The answer; not much. 

He'd already started regenerating the moment he was pierced. Barely a few seconds after he hit the floor, the holes were mostly closed. 

Letting his eyes return to its normal appearance, the scales disappeared along with them. Tossing Sportsmaster aside, he turned just in time to catch Artemis who leapt into his arms. 

"H-how?" She croaked out, crying into his chest. "I thought he killed you. How are you still alive?"

"I'm tougher than most people." He said, gently rubbing her back in an attempt to smooth her. Her body trembled in his grip, slowly subsiding. "I'm alright."

He didn't count on her reaction to it, deciding it in the heat of the moment. They stayed in that position for a while, her shaking reducing by the minute until she was stable. 

As for what to do with Sportsmaster, he needed to send a message. 

-[Later]-

In an abandoned warehouse, Liam waited, leaning across on a large crate. He'd been there for about an hour. 

Artemis was still at his apartment. With Sportsmaster words, it was safe to say that she most likely had a target on her back. They knew where both of them lived so it didn't make a difference where she stayed, except that he was much stronger. 

A few minutes later, soft footsteps reached his ears. "You sure took your time getting here." He said without turning back. 

He knew who it was. 

Batman strolled into view, an ever present scowl on his face. "You blew off our appointment. An appointment you set up." The man growled. 

"I was more than a little occupied. Don't worry, I have something to make up for it." Liam said, getting off the crate he was resting on. 

Cracking it open, it revealed Lawrence Crock, hands and legs tied in chains. His eyes were wide open in terror, squirming. He struggled in place but the bindings on his mouth stopped him from screaming. 

He noted the disturbed look on Batman's face as he turned to him. "That's…"

"Sportsmaster, aka Lawrence Crock." Liam said, gesturing to the crate. "All yours."

The man had not been spared from his bite and he'd injected him with enough venom to keep in his frenzied mad state for a full day. 

A message needed to be sent.