A/N: Finally able to upload this! To clarify somethings: in this fic the Team has been together almost four years and Wally can't remember the last three. The only new member of the team is Zatanna. Roy isn't on the team he just lives in the cave (Which, if you've read the comics, is due to his addiction. The team is helping him through it.). Also, there is no Rocket or Wonder Girl, I just didn't have time to fit them in.
This fic was supposed to be a multi-chapter but I got lazy and squished the entire idea in to a long one-shot. I hope you enjoy it!
I'm just gonna go ahead and dedicate this to lovely Anon on Tumblr who talked to me while I was writing this and comforted me when I couldn't upload it last night. You are wonderful, whoever you are. Thanks for the support!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
M'Oublier
By JustJanelle
"Wally? Wally, can you hear me?"
Wally's stirred infinitesimally. His head hurt a lot but other than that all of his other appendages seemed to be in working order and as he moved he could feel that the numbness in his legs and arms had begun to settle, a sign that he had been asleep for a long time.
"Wally?"
The boy responded to the voice by frowning slightly. The voice was strangely familiar but he wasn't used to it being used in a tone that sounded worried or anything other than incessantly annoyed.
No, he thought shaking his head vaguely as he slept, That can't be-
"Wallace Rudolph West, wake your ass up!"
Wally's eyes blinked open and he grinned weakly, Yup, it was Artemis.
"Where am I?" Wally rasped. His throat was dry but he hardly cared. The only thing he saw was Artemis standing over him. Her hair was down. He had never seen it down before and it tumbled from her head in a waterfall of molten gold. Her face was barely visible underneath it all but he could just make out her eyes and her lips and the tears that were slowly trickling down her cheeks.
When his eyes widened at the sight of her actually crying, Artemis flinched and automatically wiped her face with the backs of her hands.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Uh, fine I guess. Nice to know that you care," Wally said offhandedly, looking around the room for the others. He was in the medical bay and they were the only ones there.
Artemis narrowed her eyes, "Why wouldn't I-"
"Say, Arty, where are the others? What happened to me? My head kind of hurts," Wally said, skipping from subjects like he had a severe case of ADD.
The lack of attention wasn't what surprised Artemis about Wally's demeanor it was the juvenile quality in the way he spoke to her. He almost seemed different, younger.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Artemis asked the boy warily.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Wally said, frowning at the girl, "You know Arty, you've been acting kind of weird since Bialya. Are you okay?"
Artemis practically jumped away from him. Her fingers twitched in the direction of her communicator but she caught Wally's eyes before she pressed down on the button.
"Wally, what day is today?" she asked hesitantly, an insane kind of fear gripping her heart.
Wally blinked, "It's December 4th. Shouldn't you know this, Arty? The team's been together for five months today."
Artemis' finger hit the button on her comm an instant after the word 'December' had left Wally's lips.
"Robin," she said slowly, "You and the others may want to get over to the medical bay… now."
"So you're saying that it's not December?" Wally said slowly. He scratched his head, which still hurt, as he surveyed the team that had surrounded his bed.
Kaldur stood to his left and was the closest. The Atlantean shook his head morosely, "No, it is June. June 2014."
Wally rubbed both of his index fingers against his temples, "Okay, I think I almost understood that time. Can you repeat again?"
"Come on, KF! What is so hard about this?" Robin said from the end of his friend's bed, "It's been three years since the team came together. We were on a mission against Poison Ivy. You and your clumsy self hit your head and now you can't remember the last few years. It's simple enough. You're acting so overwhelmed."
"Overwhelmed?" Wally said incredulously, "Rob, I can't remember anything. Anything. And from the looks of it a lot had changed."
Robin agreed silently. Just glancing around at the group that surrounded the speedster one could tell that there had been many changes to their team's dynamic.
Zatanna and Roy were present, Zatanna with her arm slung around Robin's shoulders and Roy leaning casually against a far wall. According to Robin, Zatanna was a member and had been for two years while Roy was just free-loading at the cave because he didn't have a place to stay.
M'gann and Conner were standing beside Wally's bed. Conner stood behind M'gann with his hands on her shoulders as the girl leaned against his chest. Conner was taller now, older-looking. His chest was almost twice the size of the girl in his arms and Wally had almost mistaken him for Superman, a resemblance that he was sure Conner didn't appreciate. M'gann was the same, of course, Martians aged slower than humans, but her hair had been chopped off in favor of a crew cut. The fringe of her bangs was swept away from her eyes so that he could see them glistening worriedly in the dim light.
Kaldur wasn't the leader anymore, he had relinquished his position to Robin a few years ago, but from the way he stood to the side of Wally's bed, erect with his arms crossed and a thoughtful expression on his face, the speedster could tell that his opinion was still taken in to high regard.
Then there was Artemis, who was still seated beside his bed but refused to look him in the eye. She had grown since he had last seen her—or rather since he last remembered seeing her. Her features were sharper, her hair seemed twice as long and when she shifted her weight in the chair Wally couldn't help but notice just how much she had changed since he last remembered.
Normally she wouldn't be ignoring him. She would have started a fight, and personally he'd rather be yelling at her right now than have her not even look him in the eye.
Wally stared at her and his fingers began to itch. He wanted to grab her shoulder, to shake her and ask why she was so different, but he sat still, his mouth dry and his words lost in the silence that had fallen over the room.
"So~" Robin said, interrupting Wally's thoughts, "Now that KF is awake and…amnesiac, someone should take him on a tour on the cave. To see if he remembers anything," Wally opened his mouth to protest but before he could Robin shouted, "I volunteer Artemis!"
"What? No," Artemis said, her head whipping around and her eyes meeting Wally's for the first time since the rest of the team had arrived.
"Why not?" Wally said, crossing his arms as he stared at her. All the while convincing himself that he wasn't arguing because he wanted Artemis to give him a tour. Oh, no. He was arguing because Artemis seemed so against it.
"Because…" Artemis trailed before throwing her arms up in frustration, "Fine. Fine I'll show him around the cave. Is he okay to…?"
Wally looked from Artemis to Robin, "Am I okay to what?"
"Walk," Robin explained, "and no. You can use that."
Robin pointed toward a metal contraption that was tucked behind a cot across the room.
"No. No, not happening," Wally insisted.
Twenty minutes later Artemis was pushing Wally around the cave in a wheelchair.
"This is not happening. This is so humiliating," Wally whined.
"It's not all wine and roses for me either, Wally. Now zip it," Artemis snapped.
For a brief moment Wally was actually silent and Artemis was content to simply push the chair toward the living room without having to say a word to one another.
"Are you…feeling okay?" Wally asked after a minute.
"Yeah, why?" Artemis said in confusion.
"You called me Wally, and not mockingly either, just Wally. Are we…right now, in this future, are we friends?"
Artemis stared at the back of Wally's head. His red curls needed to be cut, they were bouncing as she rolled him down the hallway, flopping over the back of his neck and ears and she felt the urge to push them back from his forehead; if only to feel the warmth of his skin underneath hers.
"Yeah," Artemis conceded, "friends."
"So this is the kitchen," Artemis said once they'd arrived, "You'll recognize the fridge."
"Of course, this fridge and I are old friends," Wally grinned, "Now push me closer Arty, I want some ice cream."
Artemis rolled her eyes at him, "Um, no," she said, "Tour now. Ice cream later."
"But…but-" Wally pouted only to be refuted by Artemis.
"No, not- Wally!"
Artemis stared incredulously as Wally stood up from the wheelchair and sped over to the fridge. He grabbed a carton of ice cream and a spoon before Artemis could protest further.
"You can't be running!" Artemis shouted when Wally had seated himself back in the chair, "You still have a concussion Wall- Kid Idiot."
"Ah, that's the Arty I know, full points for the insulting nickname. Now take me on this tour. I've got my ice cream. I'm set," Wally said, shoving a spoonful of Rocky Road in to his open mouth.
"No."
"What?"
"I said no, Wally. Get someone else to take you. I'm done," Artemis said stiffly.
Wally watched after her in confusion as she stormed out of the room, her mane of blonde hair trailing after her like the train of a gown. He opened his mouth to say something but the only thing that came out was a dribble of Rocky Road and he wiped it on the back of his hand absentmindedly.
"Well you certainly messed that up sooner than I expected."
Wally spun in his chair to see Robin standing directly behind him.
"Gah!" Wally exclaimed, "Rob, I hate it when you do that!"
Robin chuckled, "Well, I guess some things never change. You're jealous of my ninja skills in this future too."
Wally turned from his friend and concentrated his gaze on the tub of ice cream in his lap. For the first time in his life he didn't feel like eating. Well, he was still hungry but after Artemis' reaction a moment ago he had decidedly lost his appetite.
"Rob, why is Arty acting so weird?" Wally asked.
"Uh," the boy said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I think that's something Artemis should tell you herself. It's none of my- none of my business per se."
"But that's never stopped you before," Wally muttered.
Rob laughed again. Wally had to admit that it was weird seeing Rob like this. It seemed to the speedster that just yesterday his best friend had been just over four feet with an obnoxious cackling laugh that sent shivers down his enemy's spines. Now, Robin was almost Wally's height and his laugh was subtle, nice even.
"Want me to show you around?" Robin said, leaning on the handlebars of Wally's wheelchair.
"Naw, dude. I just want to sit here for awhile. I'm- I'm hungry," Wally lied.
Robin just nodded, not saying a word before he disappeared from the room just as quickly and silently as he had arrived.
Wally sat in the kitchen for another minute before hauling himself from the wheelchair on to a barstool. He played with his spoon by plunging it in to his melting ice cream, making caverns and cliffs in the confection with the back of the utensil.
"Wally?" M'gann whispered from the doorway.
Wally looked up at her and smiled as cheerily as he could manage.
"Hey, Megalicious. What's up?"
M'gann noticeably cringed at her nickname.
"Something wrong?" Wally asked, narrowing his eyes.
"No, just- You- Uh, you haven't called me that in a long time," she admitted, before making her way over to the counter. She flipped her newly short (or rather, new to Wally) hair away from her eyes with a flick of her head.
"A lot of things have changed, huh?" Wally sighed.
"Yes," M'gann said, "Things are quite different now, from when you remember."
"My parents."
"What?" M'gann asked.
"Oh, sorry. I was just- My parents. They gotta be worried," Wally murmured.
"Well, I know that Robin contacted Batman and Batman must've told the Flash about your condition and I'm sure that the Flash will tell them for you. Robin also said that Batman has ordered that you are to stay in the cave as long as possible. He hopes that you'll recover your memories in the next few days." M'gann divulged, curling her fingers nervously as she said this.
"Can't you just- You know, help my memories along? With your telepathy," Wally said.
M'gann shook her head morosely, brushing her hair with her fingertips. "I- Uh, tried. I already helped you remember most of your life while you were asleep. I thought that I had helped you remember everything it's just the last few years… They're tough to coax out of your subconscious. I fear that if I plunge any deeper in to your psyche I could do permanent damage."
"Oh."
"Yes, I'm sorry. It's- I hope you remember on your own." M'gann whispered, her voice trembling.
"I hope so, too," Wally said. He was almost relieved that he didn't have to see his parents. He was scared that they would have changed, that he wouldn't even recognize them. He barely recognized himself.
After an extended silence Wally looked up at M'gann again. She was scribbling something in a cookbook, her face scrunched in concentration.
"So…in this future do you still make awesome cookies?" Wally asked.
M'gann looked up at him, her mouth twisting in to a smile, "Of course," she said, "would you like some?"
"Yeah, ba- M'gann. I'd love some," Wally said.
He watched as she floated the ingredients from the cabinets with her telekinesis and tossed his empty container of ice cream in to the trash. He had a feeling that it was going to be a long, long day.
"So. Memory loss, huh?"
Wally turned around on the couch, where he had been seated as he scrolled through TV channels at superspeed, to see Roy leaning against the doorframe. He was older, skinnier and far less athletic in appearance than the Roy Wally remembered but he was still Roy. He still had that rebellious curl in his lips and that independent spark in the corners of his eyes that set him apart from the rest of the team.
"Yeah, dude," Wally said, "It sucks. Feels like I can't- like I can't control anything that's going on anymore."
"I can relate," Roy said, taking a seat on the other end of the sofa.
"You can?" Wally asked the boy, turning away from the TV to stare at him.
"Yeah," Roy said, averting his gaze from Wally's face. He opted to stare at the TV instead. Wally had paused his flipping on a channel that was showing a re-run of 'Hello Megan!' M'gann's favorite show. "I- Uh. It's been a long three years since you can- last remember, I guess."
"Do you-" Wally shifted uncomfortably, "Do you want to talk about it."
"No," Roy said, his teeth grinding, "sorry, I just- I can't talk about it with you. It's not something I want to tell you twice."
"Oh. Okay." Wally shrugged.
For the next few minutes they watched 'Hello Megan!' in silence. By the third time the M'gann look alike had flitted across the screen, bopped her head and repeated her catchphrase Roy turned to Wally with a look of desperation on his face.
"Can you please turn this shit off?" he groaned.
"Hell, yeah," Wally said, flipping the channel.
"Actually," Roy said, making a lunge for the clicker, "Give me that. You need to go talk to Artemis."
"Artemis?" Wally squeaked, "Why?"
Roy looked at the boy solemnly, managing to snag the clicker from his unsuspecting hand.
"I saw her earlier and she looked- A lot has changed in the last three years, kid. Go talk to her," Roy said.
Wally grumbled something under his breath and sped out of the room, pretending not to notice when Roy switched the channel back to 'Hello Megan!'.
Wally raced down the hallway toward the training room. He knew that if Artemis was anywhere it would be the training room, especially if she was still mad at him. He half-expected to walk in to find her beating the crap out of a punching bag with his face on it. Instead he found something worse.
Artemis was hunched on the floor, holding her arms as she cried. Her hair was askew, coming out of her normally neat ponytail and sticking to the sweat on her face. She looked so small in her gym clothes, the tank-top and shorts barely covering her skin as she shivered frantically in between sobs.
On any normal occasion if Wally had found Artemis crying he would have attempted to comfort her. But as it was the situation was far from normal and Artemis already had someone to comfort her.
Kaldur was leaned over her, pulling her in to a hug as Wally hid just outside of the door.
He was whispering things in Atlantean to her, sweet assurances, loving murmurs that Wally never could have found within himself to say.
"It will be alright Artemis," Kaldur said, reverting to English, "You have to remain strong."
"I-I can't Kaldur," Artemis stuttered.
Wally had never heard her sound so delicate. She was supposed to be Artemis, BAMF and independent and pompous. Now she was just Artemis, poor, broken Artemis and Wally didn't even know what was wrong, let alone how he could help her.
He'd never felt so useless.
"Artemis," Kaldur said, his voice breaking Wally out of his reverie, "You know that Wally will remember eventually."
"But what if he doesn't?"
"He will."
"He won't, Kal," Artemis insisted, pushing the Atlantean's arms away from her.
She wasn't crying as hard anymore and Wally was confused. This was about…him?
"It took years for us to become more than friends. Years. I'd never revealed my past to anyone before. He was the first one I told. He was there when my mom died, when Jade- When Jade disappeared. He helped put my father in jail. How the hell am I supposed to look him in the eye, the boy who is my boyfriend, practically my only family, when he has no idea who the fuck I am?" Artemis snapped, sinking further to the floor.
Wally slumped to the floor as well, his legs buckling underneath him.
He was…Artemis' boyfriend?
He couldn't understand exactly what was happening inside of his head at the thought of the snarky blonde archer being his girlfriend. It was like his Uncle Barry had reached down and tousled his hair, and suddenly there weren't any red curls falling in his eyes, suddenly he could see.
He could see Artemis in Bialya, in his arms, in Doctor Fate's tower pressing her finger adamantly in to his chest, in the harsh wasteland of the training exercise as she disintegrated right in front of him. And as he saw all of these incarnations of the blonde girl, flitting inside of his eyelids, layered with the image of her crumpled on the floor of the training room with only Kaldur for comfort he began to understand something that he probably should have sooner: he loved her.
Maybe not love. Maybe not love yet. But he certainly liked her more than he thought he did an hour ago, or three years ago. The last he could remember of her she had been chuckling as he had tripped in to the kitchen her hair flying across the countertop as she swung her head in fits of laughter. He'd thought she was an annoyance, a pesky, sexy, slightly deranged annoyance, but now he realized how wrong this assumption had been.
"Um, Wally," M'gann's voice whispered.
He looked up to find her hovering over him, literally, her hands stretched downwards from her position in the air.
He looked at her once and gave her what must have been a crazed look of tempestuousness before he jumped up and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her out of sight of the doorway.
"Wall-" M'gann began to yell but Wally gently placed a hand over her mouth.
"M'gann listen," Wally whispered, "You have to try and restore my memories again."
M'gann backed away from him, floating up in to the corner of the ceiling, an expression of horror on her face.
"No! Wally, that's crazy. You might never recover, I couldn-"
"M'gann, listen," Wally said, waving at her to come back down and stop shouting so loudly. He could hear Kaldur and Artemis moving around in the training room behind him and he didn't want to alert them to his presence, "I really need you to do this. If you don't and I don't remember…Art- the team would be in trouble. I need to remember."
"Wall-"
"Wally?"
Wally turned to the doorway to see Artemis standing there. She was wiping at her eyes with a wash cloth and pulled her hands through the knots in her ponytail when she was finished. Her eyes flitted between him and M'gann skeptically.
"Flirting with M'gann again, huh? Right back to your old tricks," she muttered, before spinning on her heel.
"No!" Wally shouted, darting forward, his hand encircling her wrist.
"Let go!" she yelled.
"No!" Wally said again.
M'gann was floating silently toward Kaldur, ushering him away from the fight that was bound to start. The Atlantean seemed to want to object but eventually gave in, wandering down the hall as Artemis and Wally glared at each other.
"Wally, I'm serious, let me go now or I swear-"
"Listen, just listen, Arty. I heard what you said just now, and-"
"You heard?" Artemis shrieked, yanking her hand back from him, "You listen Wally. I am not dating the Wally of three years ago. I am not the girlfriend of the Wall-man, Baywatch or Kid Idiot. The Wally you are, were, today is a lot different than the Wally you were, or-ah-are, now. True you're still and idiot, and you still flirt all the time, and you still eat like a pig and you're still clumsy and-"
"The point, you're missing it," Wally muttered.
"Right." Artemis sighed, "Wally, the point is that I'm not dating you. You're not the same person. And if you're not my Wally just- just forget about me."
"Don't say that! How can you say that!" Wally shouted and Artemis stared at him with something akin to confusion stretched across her face, "I mean, don't you- You know- Like me?"
Artemis grinned, "I love you, Wally."
"Then why-" Wally said, ignoring the fact that his face was entirely red.
Artemis reached forward, brushing her fingers across the stubble on his chin. He couldn't finish what he had been saying. Hell, he couldn't remember what he had been saying.
"I love you, Wally. It's just that I've never been very good at feelings and crap," she swore abruptly cutting off the mood, "You don't remember a lot of what's happened the past few years. And a lot has happened. It makes me wonder that if faced with the same course of events twice, would you make the same decisions that you did? I just don't want to take the chance that you won't. I want to remember you the way you are, not the way you might become if you discover some of my more illustrious secrets."
"I can handle it."
She nodded, "You did once. I don't want you to have to twice."
"Art-"
"No, Wally. I already talked to Kaldur about this. I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" Wally said.
"Leaving the team."
Wally grabbed Artemis' shoulders, almost shaking her as he trembled with words he couldn't pronounce.
"Wally, just forget-"
He sucked the sentence from her lips as he kissed her. For a moment she just stood there, startled, but then she moved again fluidly under his arms in a way that told him they had done this before.
She kissed him back, her arms snaking their way under his t-shirt as he sighed.
Suddenly, as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning, energy coursed through his entire body and his brain jilted forward, seizing with pain.
Wally groaned and Artemis pulled away from his lips staring as he sunk to his knees.
He could vaguely hear the sounds of footsteps approaching them rapidly as Artemis screamed and screamed and screamed.
The second time he woke up in the med bay wasn't as nice as the first because this time Artemis wasn't worried. She was mad.
"What were you thinking!" she shouted the very second his eyes blinked open. "Running around with a concussion? You could've died."
He tried to sit up but she held him down again, her hands spread wide across his chest but if anyone could make such an intimate gesture intimidating it was Artemis.
"Art-" Wally began to say but Artemis cut him off.
"And kissing me? Wally, I told you. I'm leaving. I can't deal with you not looking at me the same and everyone giving me such pitiful looks, even Batman—the Goddamn Batman—asked if I was alright this morning. I just can-"
"Artemis," Wally said, finally gaining her attention.
She stared at him, at the new bandages around his head and the soft, amused expression he was giving her.
"What?"
"It's our anniversary today, isn't it?" Wally said, staring up at her from the cot, she gasped but he continued, "We've been together two years. And Lian's birthday's in a month. Roy has been clean for almost a year, Conner and M'gann are going to visit Mars soon and wasn't Dick going to ask Z out at some point? He promised he would do it last month but then he invited Babs-"
Artemis leaned forward, tears welling in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Wally's neck.
"Wally," she sniffled uncharacteristically, "you're not pulling some elaborate prank on me so that I'll stay are you?"
Wally smirked at his girlfriend. He'd always thought that the whole true love's kiss thing was a phony bunch of bullshit. He was a man of science. Kissing someone couldn't be magical.
Yet here he was, sitting next to a girl who was constantly defying his expectations. She'd kissed him and he'd remembered everything.
Their first date.
Their first kiss.
The night when she had sat in front of them entire team, her bow broken in her lap as she explained that Sportsmaster was her father.
"How could you tell me to forget you, huh?" he prodded.
"I-I, uh," she stammered, pulling away from him.
He pulled her back, grabbing her chin in between his fingers as he whispered, "I will never forget you."
I hope you enjoyed it.
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