Hi guys! I'm so happy you liked my last story. You really made my day. 12 reviews for a oneshot! Anyway, I hope you like this one too, though again, it might be a little OOC. I said that about my last one, though, and 'Brock's Geodude' said it wasn't ( thank you! :) ), so maybe this one isn't either. Anyway, sorry I'm rambling. Again, please review. I'd love it if you guys told me what you'd like to see, or want me to tweak to improve my writing, whether it be characterization issues, stiff dialogue, writing style... Anything! Okay, okay. I'll let you read now.
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"What the hell happened to your hands?"
Artemis looked up from her homework, which she had decided to do at Mount Justice's kitchen table. She glanced down at her fingers, which were currently holding her pen.
"What?" she asked, glancing at Wally, who now seemed to be having an intense staring contest with the mentioned appendages.
"You're hands." he said, stepping closer towards the table where she was sitting. "Why are they all…" he trailed off, waving his hand towards hers. "cut up?"
Artemis let out an exasperated sigh and threw down her pen, extending both arms in front of her. Okay, sure, they were a little banged up. There were calluses from her archery, but they weren't that noticeable. One big red scratch ran right in between her left knuckles (courtesy of one particularly good hit she got in during her last mission), and there was a teensy, tiny burn in between her right pointer finger and thumb, a result from one of M'gann's cooking sessions. And then, of course, there were the dozens of little cuts around her nails, which were bitten down to the quick. Her cuticles were almost all raw and red, due to her unfortunate bad habit of picking at them whenever she got stressed. Which, for her, was most of the time.
Assuming he was talking about the scratch, the most prominent of all her injuries, Artemis rolled her eyes and picked her pen back up. He was so stupid sometimes.
Artemis corrected herself, 'All the time.'
"It's a just a scratch, Wally. That's what happens when a sharp object comes in contact with your skin." she said slowly, talking to him like he was a five year old. And mentally, he was.
"Not. That." Wally ground out through gritted teeth. He closed he distance between them and focused in on her left hand, which was pressing down on the table top, fingers fully extended. Poking the puckered skin around her pointer finger nail roughly, he said "That," and withdrew his hand with a frown on his face.
Artemis made a sound and quickly drew her hand up close to her face. She frowned as she took in the dark red slowly appearing on her skin. Great. He made her cuticle bleed.
Sticking her smarting finger into her mouth, she sent him a wicked glare.
"That," she said after she had pulled her finger out of her mouth "is my finger, which is now bleeding because of you."
He sent her a dirty look, though for a moment she could have sworn it was apologetic. "You know what I mean."
"Actually, I don't. I have no freaking clue what you're talking about."
Wally let out a huge sigh, and this time grabbed her hand in his. She was just thinking about how much larger his hands were than hers (really, how had she not noticed this before?) When he touched the skin around her pointer finger nail again, albeit more gently. He didn't seem to mind that it had been in her mouth seconds before.
"That," he said, a little less harshly than before. Then, he dropped her hand.
"Um…" she said. She cleared her throat and quickly snapped back to her usual self. "I don't know. Bad habit. Why does it matter?"
He ignored her last question. "Bad habit? What kind of bad habit is that? You're tearing your skin off!" he exclaimed with a look of shock on his face.
"Ugh. Don't be so dramatic. It's not that bad." To prove her point she wiggled bit her hands in front of his face.
Apparently, this was not the best idea, seeing as her right hand was worse than her left. And he had only seen her left.
Wally's eyes widened. "Geez, Arty!" He made a grab for her right hand, successfully grabbing it. He only got to look at it for a second though before she snatched it back. Unfortunately, she snagged her right middle finger against his hand in the process, making that one bleed, too.
"Watch it, Baywatch." she said. Sighing, she stuck that finger in her mouth. Wonderful. Now they both hurt.
He just watched her, his mouth slightly ajar.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
She just looked at him. "No."
"Oh, come on. It so does."
"No, it doesn't." she glowered.
"Does."
"Doesn't."
"Does."
"Doesn't."
"Doesn't."
Artemis paused. "Did you really think that would work?" she asked, half rhetorically, half seriously.
He glowered. "Maybe." He muttered.
She resisted the urge to laugh.
"Whatever. I have homework to do." she picked her pen back up and looked back down at her papers, trying to concentrate.
Only a few seconds passed before-
"Wait." Artemis sighed, looking back up at Wally. "So…what do you do? Do you just, like, gnaw at your fingers or something?"
"Wally!" she growled. "I swear if you don't shut up-"
"Alright, alright. I'm going!"
Grabbing what he originally came there for, a granola bar, Wally sped out of the kitchen.
Whatever. He'd find out one way or another.
Over the next few weeks Wally observed Artemis. Not stalker-like or anything. He just watched to see when she scratched at her hands. Like an experiment. Yeah, thats it, an experiment. And Wally, being the science nerd he is, just loved experiments.
So he watched.
Eventually, he found out that she only did it when something was particularly troubling to her. So far, he had seen her do it when Batman was chewing them out over some mission gone wrong, when she was cramming for one of her many tests, when Robin had gotten a pretty large cut on his calf (which looked way more serious than it was) and when Wally himself had gotten hurt during a spar with Superboy. And never, ever, when he and Artemis got into a fight.
He was still surprised about those last two.
But still. Out of the times she did do it, three out of four times it was because she was stressed. That wasn't just coincidence.
He couldn't let he keep doing that. It was disgusting. Every time Wally saw her wince, he flinched too. Not because he cared, mind you. Just because it was so…nasty. Yeah.
So instead of being his usual, rash, unthinking self, he decided not to directly confront her about it. Or at least, not as directly.
He really hoped this wouldn't backfire.
The next time he saw her doing it was when Batman was debriefing the whole team for a mission, something with Sportsmaster. Artemis had started doing it as soon as the name was mentioned, though he didn't know why. Maybe a bad experience or something. Whatever. It didn't matter.
Setting his plan into action, he slowly reached out with his left hand to her right, thankful they had stood next to each other. Wally quickly grabbed it, squeezed, and let go, all the while keeping his eyes on Batman.
Artemis, on the other hand, was more than a little shocked. She narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a look that was part glare, part confusion.
Slowly, she put her hand back down.
He smiled. She didn't do it again for the rest of the debriefing.
He saw her doing it again when she got back her chemistry test.
Wally had seen her studying at the cave the night before, after a particularly long night. She was looking at her notebook for two hours, head buried in her hands. He felt bad, and he wanted to help, but he was Wally. He would never help Artemis.
Well, not counting this.
And she looked frazzled enough already. Besides, she probably would have shot him down even if he did offer.
Which he wouldn't.
So there she was, standing in the middle of the kitchen looking at her test. In big bright red marker stood the number 52. She held it in her left hand, with this frustrated look on her face, her right hand scratching furiously at her cuticles. He rushed in there, grabbed a banana, and right before he left, grabbed her hand and gave it a little squeeze. She looked up, but all she had time to see was his small smirk thrown over his shoulder and then he was gone.
Later he sped by her for another snack. Her hand lay untouched.
Next was when Miss Martian got hurt. It wasn't bad, just a cut that, thankfully, didn't run too deep. But Artemis was still worried, though she wouldn't admit it. As she left the med bay her left middle finger steadily scratched away at the skin around her thumbnail. She seemed like she didn't realize she was doing it.
But Wally did.
He sped over to her, just coming back from checking up on M'gann, and gave her a smile.
"Don't worry so much."
And then, once again, he squeezed her hand and sped off. As he was running he quickly glanced back. She didn't do it again.
And so the pattern continued. Every time Artemis would even start picking at her hands, Wally would be right there, squeezing it and sometimes (always) giving her a smile. If their teammates noticed this, they didn't say a word. Eventually, her hands were nearly blemish free.
But that didn't stop her from trying.
Although her cuticles were no longer raw, it took Wally's constant vigilance to keep it that way. But he didn't mind. After all, bad habits were hard to break.
Some time later, Wally noticed that he kept glancing at Artemis. He told himself that it was just to make sure that she wasn't crazily tearing off the skin of her hand, but he knew better than that. Most of the time he wasn't looking at her hands, he was looking at…her. It was crazy. And as the weeks continued, he discovered that now that he was aware of it, he really did look at Artemis a lot. Not in a creepy way. Mostly just to make sure she was okay in missions, or to see if she thought something was funny, or just to see her smile. It was almost like a bad habit.
…Bad…habit…
Crap.