Piggyback

"My feet hurt."

Artemis tensed, clenching her fist where it rested by her hip. That had to be the fifth time he'd said that to her or to himself in the last twelve minutes alone and she'd already been sick of hearing it by the first time. "Maybe if you hadn't lost your shoes…" she seethed, opting to glare at the empty air in front of her rather than look at her companion…if he could really be called that.

"I told you," he countered sourly. "I didn't lose them. I gave them to Summer because—"

"—she has tender feet and you didn't want her to have to walk across the rough ground barefoot," Artemis finished for him exasperatedly, having heard the excuse about as many times as she'd heard that his feet hurt. Really, the boy was an idiot when it came to girls with big chests…or girls without them, or girls in general, or really anything. He was just an idiot no matter what.

"Well, I didn't…" he grumbled under his breath. Artemis just rolled her eyes and after that they walked along in silence. For another minute or two, anyway, until…

"Ugh! How much further till we're back at Mount Justice?"

Artemis sighed. "I don't know, Wally. Another mile or so?"

"That's so far!" he complained. "And my feet—"

"Don'tsayit!" Artemis stopped in her tracks, spun to face the speedster and stomped one boot-clad foot against the ground. "I am sick and tired of hearing you complain about how much your freaking feet hurt!"

Wally huffed indignantly. "If you don't want me to complain, then get me off my feet so they won't hurt anymore."

"And how, exactly, do you propose I do that?" It wasn't like she had a car or Megan's bioship handy. If she did they wouldn't be having to walk home from their recon mission in the first place. Or…what was supposed to be their recon mission. It started out that way, anyway. They went in their civvies to stake out an abandoned morgue where Batman had suspicions some illegal experiments were being performed. When they got there, lo and behold, a girl was being held captive to be used as a lab rat. The plan was to call the League if they found anything, but Wally insisted there was no time to wait because they could decide to turn her into a kumquat at any second. Long story short: they'd freed her and sent her on her merry way, but she'd been shoeless from some test and claimed to have sensitive feet so Wally told Artemis to give her her shoes and she'd refused so he gave her his own and blah blah blah… The end result was that they were walking home because everyone else on the team was with their mentors except Megan and Superboy, who'd taken her bioship to some place in Pennsylvania for some mission thing. …The details Artemis and Wally had gotten on it had been sketchy at best.

"You could carry me, if you were strong enough," Wally responded, a challenge clear in his voice.

"Are you calling me weak, West?" Artemis rose to it.

"If the shoe fits…"

"That's it, get on." Artemis turned so her back was facing Wally and crouched down a fraction of an inch.

Wally blinked, confused. "Wait. What?"

"Get. On," Artemis reiterated. "And be quick about it! I don't have all night."

"…You…want me to get on your back?"

"Yes, genius!"

"Oh…kay." Wally inched forward and placed his hands on Artemis's shoulders. "Are you sure you want—" She shot a glare over her shoulder, effectively shutting him up and forcing him to finish his mount. Once he was up, Artemis looped her arms underneath his knees and rose to full height. She wavered slightly on her first step, his weight being more than she expected, but soon fell into her normal gate…well, normal except for the way she was hunched over slightly.

"You sure you wanna do this?" Wally asked smugly.

Artemis narrowed her eyes, "Positive."

Oh, thank God.

Artemis let out a quiet sigh of relief as the mountain came into view. Wally may not have been that heavy at first, but after carrying him for what had to be half an hour at the least he felt like an oversized cinderblock. She, of course, refused to let the exertion the whole process was taking show. Aside from the mildly labored breathing and still-hunched stature, that is. Even so, Wally still smirked lazily.

"Y'know," he started, sounding incredibly content, "You didn't have to carry me all the way back just to prove you're strong enough to hold me."

Artemis quirked one brow, looking dead ahead at that beautiful, glorious mountain. "I just didn't want to hear you nag anymore."

Wally smiled. "You're so weird, Arty."

"Shut up, Wally!"

A/N: Well, this was short. =) I just love this pairing, they're so cute and they have the most adorable love-hate relationship (even if they don't know it).

I got the inspiration for this from the cutest pic over on dA! (I was going to post the link to get to it, but even with spaces FFNet won't seem to let me. So, I'll tell you this: To find it, just go on over to dA and type 'Wally Artemis' into the search bar. (It'll be the second one and it's by BuddahtheBob. Sorry I couldn't do the link.))

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and drop me a review if you have the time. =)

-With love,
Tali-chan