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What happened was this: A skeleton was found off a desert highway ten miles outside of Las Vegas. Because the bones belonged to a long-missing federal prosecutor, the FBI wanted their best on it, so they called Artemis, who dragged West across the country (again). West, being West, found another body a hundred feet away about five minutes after showing up.
Out in the sun. A hundred feet away from the nice big tent that the Vegas office set up over the crime scene.
And West has the nerve to complain. “It’s just that when you come into someone’s office and say ‘pack your bags, we’re going to Vegas,’ you should be more specific about the fact that you actually mean you’re going to make them squat in the desert for hours and slowly roast to death.”
“Aw, Crock,” calls Agent Ervin, from where she’s lounging comfortably back in the shade. “You should choose your words more carefully, it sounds like your squint thought you were going to make an honest man out of him.”
Artemis doesn’t give her the satisfaction of turning around, just puts one hand on her holster and uses the other one to flip Raquel off over her shoulder. Wally just splutters incoherently and goes an even deeper shade of red.
“Come on, West. Just wrap up your examination so we can get all this packed up and sent home so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Wait, what? We flew all the way out here, I almost got cooked, and we don’t even get to stick around and enjoy Vegas a little? Don’t you have witnesses to question? Suspects to intimidate?”
“Squint’s got a point,” says Ervin. “From what I’ve heard about the two of you, it couldn’t hurt to have you around for a few more days.”
And that’s how they end up spending a week in Vegas.
xx
Billie Morgan’s best friend, and the last person who saw her alive, is a waitress at the MGM Grand.
Artemis is fine, she just...needs to stop and take a moment before they cross the casino floor, that’s all.
“What’s the holdup?” asks West, turning back to her. His eyes go wide when he gets it. “Oh my god, I totally forgot. You can’t be here, you’re a degenerate gambler!”
“Recovering degenerate gambler, Bones,” she scowls, punching him in the arm. “And I’m fine. I will be fine. The case is more important.”
“Are you sure? Do you need to sit down? I can go question Jennifer, I mean, no, I probably can’t, I can’t do that thing you do where you make them tell you all their secrets, but...”
“I’ll be fine. But thanks.”
“Whatever you need, Artemis. What else are partners for?”
She ends up shooing West away while she talks to Jennifer - no point in ganging up on the girl, not that he’s a particular intimidating presence - and it’s not until she’s done with the interview that she remembers that telling him to leave her alone in a casino was probably not the best idea she’s ever had.
She probably should have known that he wouldn’t go far, though - almost as soon as she realizes she doesn’t know where he is, she can hear him calling her, and sure enough, there he is, waving wildly in her direction from a blackjack table, with a huge pile of chips in front of him and no fewer than four members of casino security keeping a discreet eye on him.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
“Crock, have you ever played this before? It’s so easy, it’s just math - you just count the cards so you know what the dealer has left, and then--”
“I’m going to stop you right there, Bones.” She grabs him by the bicep and turns to the nearest security guy. “Hi. Sorry. We were just leaving.”
“But I’m winning!”
“As far as those four nice gentlemen are concerned, you are cheating, West, and that is how people end up having their decomposing bodies discovered by squints in the desert, so why don’t you just come with me?”
“How is it cheating to use math? Vegas is the worst,” he gripes.
“You’re the one who wanted to stay,” she reminds him.
xx
“Based on her extensive history of physical injury and the distinctive damage to her bones, I think Billie might have been a boxer,” says West on a video call with the Jeffersonian the next day.
“Wouldn’t boxing gloves have prevented the knuckle fractures?” asks Kaldur.
“Not if she didn’t wear gloves,” says Dick.
“What kind of boxer wouldn’t wear boxing gloves?” asks Roy.
“Ultimate fighters,” says Conner.
Artemis grins at the screen. “You’re into that too, Kent?”
“Wolf and I watch it every chance we get.”
“He finds it soothing, it helps with his anger issues,” adds Meg.
“But even UFC fighters wear some protective gear, and Billie’s injuries are way too extensive for that.”
“Unless...” says Dick.
“No way,” breathes West.
“Out with it, West,” says Artemis, poking him in the shoulder. “What are you dweebs thinking?”
“FIGHT CLUB!” shout Dick and West in unison, because Artemis is surrounded by children.
xx
Their operating theory is that Billie was part of an illegal boxing ring, and that the organizers are the ones who buried her - and, by extension, the same ones who used that patch of desert to dump the prosecutor’s body. What they don’t know is why Billie died - was she just a casualty of a fight gone too far? Did she see something she shouldn’t have? Did she win when she was told to lose? Bet big on herself and piss off the bookies?
Nobody’s going to talk to the FBI. But they’ll talk to a boxer.
“Remind me why I have to take the lead on this? Because that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Because,” says Artemis, “Sweet Pete is a sleazy asshole who will feel more comfortable doing business with an equally sleazy boyfriend-slash-manager than dealing directly with a woman who can beat him senseless.”
“Why do I have to be sleazy? What can’t I be your loving and supportive boyfriend-slash-manager?”
“My loving and supportive boyfriend-slash-manager who’s registering me for an illegal boxing ring whose only rule is ‘no outside weapons,’ you mean?”
“I don’t know, maybe that’s your dream, and even though I’m squeamish about it I’m still lovingly supporting you.”
He’s not wrong about this being a disaster waiting to happen, she thinks as she steps out of her room into the main suite.
“Oh my god, Crock, what are you wearing?” West is practically shrieking. It’s not a good sound for him.
“I know you’re used to the FBI suit look, but I am actually capable of wearing dresses,” she reminds him.
“But you’re supposed to be an athlete! I was expecting workout clothes!”
“Where the hell would I keep my gun? In my sports bra?”
West seems to be choking on oxygen. “Where are you keeping it now?”
“Thigh holster.”
“Can I - no, wait, never mind, I want to live, I’m fine.”
“If you’re done shoving your foot in your mouth, can you zip me up the rest of the way? The dress is too tight for me to do it myself at this angle.” Her phone goes off then, the ringtone drowning out whatever squawking West is doing. She turns her back to him when she answers, pointing impatiently at the zipper. “Hey, Dick, what have you got?”
“Judging by the angle of the blows, Billie’s last opponent was 5’6” and left handed.”
“The pool of fighters isn’t that big,” she says, sucking in a breath as Wally tugs her zipper up. (She’s just trying to make it easier to zip up, that’s all, it has nothing to do with his fingers brushing against her back, nothing.) “I shouldn’t have a problem spotting her while I’m scoping out the competition.”
“Man, that’s hot,” says Wally, his breath a rush of warm air against the back of her neck, and she nearly drops the phone.
“Was that Wally? What’s hot? Did you guys finally hook up? Crock, did you answer the phone during sex? Hello? Crock? Put Wally on. Can you guys hear me or are you busy? I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but--”
“No, no, no, no, and no, Dick. It’s...Vegas. Vegas is very hot. Desert heat. You know. Okay, going undercover, hanging up, bye now!”
West, who apparently managed to pull himself together while she was babbling at Dick, is clear across the room and putting on his hideous jacket like nothing ever happened. Almost immediately after she hangs up on Dick, West’s phone starts ringing.
“Trust me, don’t answer that. We need to get going anyway,” she says.
“After you, dollface,” he says in some horrible mess of an accent that, if she had to guess, she’d call his attempt at a Jersey mobster.
“Wally, I’m only going to say this once: Unless you want us both to get shot in the face, never use that voice again.”
“Noted.”
xx
She knew Sweet Pete was going to be sleazy - she planned their whole cover around it, after all. He’s just a lot sleazier than she was expecting, and inching a lot closer to handsy, probably because she forgot to factor in that she wouldn’t be able to threaten him if he crossed a line.
So maybe she’s clinging to West a little more than she planned to play up the “boyfriend” part of “boyfriend-slash-manager.” Director Wayne’s always saying that no plan survives first contact with the target, and she’s just adapting, that’s all.
Besides, West is the one who started throwing around words like “engaged” when Sweet Pete’s leering went on for too long.
“We’re more engaged to be engaged,” she says, tossing Pete what she hopes is a flirty grin and not a homicidal one while she stomps on West’s foot surreptitiously. “A town like this, you don’t want to place your bets too soon.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” says Pete. “Okay, sugar, you’re in. You call this number tonight, the boys will tell you where to go.”
“Can we get back to the casino now?” asks West once they’re out of earshot.
“What, you want to push your beginner’s luck some more?”
“Don’t call it that, you’ll jinx it!”
“Since when do you even believe in luck, Bones?”
“I don’t, but Vegas obviously has its own distinct culture, and anthropologically speaking it’s only wise to--”
“Fine, fine, we can go, just don’t let me place any bets, and don’t break character, Pete’s definitely got a guy following us.”
xx
The fights are held in an abandoned auto body shop a few miles outside the city. It’s packed wall-to-wall with spectators, all cheering wildly and waving betting slips in the air. The only open space in the whole building is the makeshift ring, literally just a painted circle on the floor where the fighters face off. West circles the room, taking in the fights and trying to spot their 5’6” southpaw. Artemis is warming up.
She’s already fought and won once. Sweet Pete didn’t think much of her, apparently, so he’d given her an insultingly low seed and set her up for what he thought was a guaranteed ass-kicking, up against a woman with silver-white hair and an honest-to-god eyepatch whose fighting style just screamed to Artemis that this woman had a black ops background not too different from her own.
It had been unsettling, and it had been close, but Artemis won, and the woman hadn’t even seemed to mind.
And now Pete has Artemis slotted to face off against someone who goes by Devastation, and she could tell from the furious betting that went on as soon as the matchup was announced that Devastation wouldn’t be going down easily. So: Warming up.
Of course, when she finally sees Devastation, she realizes that no amount of warming up would ever prepare her for this. Devastation is at least a foot taller than Artemis and has at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle on her. Artemis starts off relying on her speed and agility, the only advantages she really has in this situation, to stay out of reach and hope that maybe Devastation will tire first, but the crowd wants blood and, ever so gradually, they start to tighten the ring, making it next to impossible for Artemis to keep a safe distance. She gets a few lucky punches in, but it takes almost no time at all for Devastation to grab her and force her down to the floor, landing blow after blow like she’s trying to drive Artemis straight through the concrete floor.
It’s not the worst Artemis has ever gotten her ass kicked - she is a Crock, after all, and back when she was still in training this kind of thing was known as “Tuesday” - but it’s definitely the worst in a long time, and when she finally manages to break away she’s more focused on whether Devastation will actually back off if Artemis forfeits than she is on finding a winning strategy.
Then she hears West in the crowd, calling her name. He’s not quite at the front, she can’t see him, but he sounds like he’s only one or two people back, and sure enough, after another few seconds, when she’s dodged her way over to the other side of the circle, she sees him break through to the front, where he promptly starts waving her over like she can just call time-out and go over there for a chat.
“If you found something,” she hisses when Devastation moves far enough to the right that Artemis can get close to him, “can it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“No, I know,” he says, “I’ve been watching, and it seems like she’s got a severely compromised fibularis longus on her left side, if you can get yourself in a position to force her to rely on it I think you could potentially take her down and overpower her by--”
“Wally, English, please!”
“Sweep the leg,” he shouts.
“If this is just an excuse to make Karate Kid references I will end you,” she says, but she takes the advice.
It works. She wins.
xx
“For the record,” he says later, when the garage has started to empty of spectators and she’s still slumped against him, wincing every time she moves, “making truly great movie references is not about needing an excuse, it’s about conveying exactly the right idea at exactly the right time by relying on a shared cultural experience, and I think we can all agree I did an amazing job.”
“You’re right,” she says. “That was unfair of me to say. All my training and experience meant nothing until you whipped out just the right eighties joke. Where would I be without you?” She lets her head fall onto his shoulder. It’s been a long, long night.
“Petey,” West calls across the room, like it’s totally normal to call hardened criminals who murder people and bury them in shallow graves in the desert by whatever name you want, “my woman won, where’s my money?”
“About that,” says Sweet Pete, stalking over with a grim look on his face. “You may be new to town, but you should know we don’t look kindly on fighters getting greedy, and the same goes for their little boyfriends.”
“That what happened to Billie Morgan?” asks Artemis.
“Oh, you heard about that little bitch from the others, did you? I thought she’d make a good example, but apparently I need to set another one if the message wasn’t strong enough for you.”
“You might want to rethink that,” she says, flashing her badge. “At the FBI we don’t take too kindly to being threatened.”
Artemis will go to her grave swearing that Sweet Pete lunged at her. West saw the whole thing, he’ll vouch for her. She was severely weakened by her fight with Devastation and had no choice but to kick him in the balls, it was the only sure way to incapacitate him.
“Seriously, though,” says West when Agent Ervin and her team have swept in and apprehended most of Pete’s team. “Where the hell were you keeping the badge?”
“Classified,” says Artemis. “Can we go home now?”
xx
“Hey,” she says on the flight home. “When Sweet Pete said you got greedy, how greedy are we talking?”
“Two grand, thirty to one odds against you. So...pretty greedy.”
She takes a brief second to be offended by those odds, but quickly moves past it. “Two grand? Did we have that much left in the cash fund the Bureau gave us?”
“Not...exactly,” he says, the tips of his ears turning bright red. “It was mine.”
“Why?”
“To see if we were right about Billie betting on herself. And...”
“And?”
“Beginner’s luck,” he mumbles. “Ever since we landed in Vegas, I just kept winning, and I figured that if I bet on you...”
“I couldn’t lose.”
“Something like that.” She’s never seen anyone blush so intensely.
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you or your luck,” she tells him, resting her head on his shoulder again. She’s still battered and bruised all over, she’s allowed.
“Any time. We make a good team.” He’s leaning back into her just the slightest bit, like he’s being careful not to put any pressure on her still-hurting side.
“Wake me up when they start bringing snacks around?”
“Sure thing, babe,” he says, dropping a quick kiss on the top of her head, and she’s just exhausted enough to let it slide. What happens in Vegas and all that.