Title: We'll Put It in a Song
Rating: K+
Word Count: 2,100+
Characters: Wally/Artemis
Summary: (Spoilers for 1x19, "Misplaced"). She closes her eyes and sways in place as she's humming, and he looks at the sippy-cup in his hand. He doesn't think he'd ever forget this moment, but he'll put it on his shelf for a souvenir, anyway.
Prompt: #173: lullaby
Other Inspirations: none
We'll Put It in a Song
He shouldn't want to smile like an idiot when he walks into the gymnasium and the first thing he sees is Artemis sitting on a stack of mats with a bunch of little kids at her feet. But then she starts singing and mixes up the lyrics, and he chuckles when the kids start laughing loudly and she's smiling.
(He thinks maybe she didn't forget how the songs go at all.)
So he hikes the little boy in his arm a little higher, because he's been carrying him for a while and the kid is heavier than he looks, and follows M'gann as they walk over to Artemis. The little boy waves his sippy-cup in his face and then giggles when Wally takes it from him, and he may be seeing things, but there's a split second where Artemis looks totally charmed.
Then she asks about his parents, and no, no one picked up the phone. He hadn't expected anyone to, but he's stubborn and needed to call and now his mood is kind of hampered.
Artemis looks like she's about to apologize for asking at all, but then the door swings open and Conner is there with three kids climbing on him like a play structure, so she just gives an amused smile as M'gann laughs and floats over to pluck the little girl off his shoulders.
"Want me to take him from you?"
Wally looks at Artemis. His arm isn't starting to hurt or anything, but she's smiling and ruffling the boy's hair and making him giggle, and he really can't help but say, "That'd be great."
He shifts the boy into her arms and when he tries to give back the sippy-cup, Artemis pushes it back towards him. "He gave it to you, remember?"
"What am I supposed to do with it?" Wally asks, and he whispers it so the kid doesn't hear. It's not that he didn't find it pretty much adorable, but it's still a sippy-cup and Wally's pretty sure he doesn't need one anymore.
Artemis shrugs and then laughs when he rolls his eyes.
"So, were you pretending earlier, or what?"
She looks at him and raises an eyebrow. "Pretending to do what, exactly?"
"You know, like two seconds ago when you were singing to the kids," he says. She just looks at him. "You totally pretended to mix up those nursery rhymes to get them to laugh? Come on."
"I wasn't pretending, Wally," she informs, and he kind of scoffs a little and makes her roll her eyes before she smiles at the little boy in her arms and bounces him a little to make him giggle again. "I didn't exactly grow up with nursery rhymes in the household, you know. It's not my fault that I don't know every one of them."
He just sort of gapes at her for a minute because, really, who grows up without nursery rhymes?
But then the little boy yawns and squishes his cheek against her neck, and Wally hears her beginning to hum, very faintly, some melody that he's never heard before. She closes her eyes and sways in place as she's humming, and he looks at the sippy-cup in his hand.
(He doesn't think he'd ever forget this moment, but he'll put it on his shelf for a souvenir, anyway.)
... ...
He knows that the gymnasium is mostly empty now, so he tells Conner to go ahead and he'll stay until the last ones get picked up.
When he walks back inside, Artemis is sitting on the bleachers with a little boy at her side and a little girl on her lap, her hands working on a braid as she's singing to them. Except this time, all of the lyrics are correct and in the right order and everything, and Wally laughs to himself when he realizes this. Artemis just looks at him and arches an eyebrow.
So he shakes his head and sits on the other side of the little boy and laughs at all the jokes he tries telling him.
Of course Wally has jokes, too, but when he sets one up and is about to get to the punch-line, Artemis subtly elbows him (hard) in the ribs and yeah, that one wasn't particularly appropriate. The boy just looks at him, though, and he shakes his head and starts reciting his kid-friendly ones.
When their parents arrive a few minutes later, the little boy and girl are running into their arms and crying and their mom and dad are tearing up as well.
(Wally doesn't miss the way Artemis tries to be subtle when she wipes at the corner of her eye.)
Once they've left, Wally turns to Artemis and elbows her, just because.
"What?" she asks.
"So, suddenly remembered all the words, or…?"
She rolls her eyes and slips a hand into her back pocket, pulling out a crumpled index card and holding it out for him. He takes it from her and as he looks, he sees about four or five different nursery rhymes scribbled on both sides.
"Seriously?" he laughs, because this is actually very amusing. She wrote some down, and obviously memorized some, since she was singing without this cheat sheet.
She makes an annoyed noise. "I don't need to stand here and listen to you insult me," she informs, beginning to walk away, but he grabs her wrist to keep her in place and laughs, "Calm down, that's not what I meant." She looks at him expectantly. "You learned them just for the kids. That's… actually kind of awesome."
"Um, thanks?"
He shrugs and releases her wrist. "I'm just being honest."
She's grinning at him and he thinks he totally earned points for that. "I think it's about time for the both of us to get home," she admits, and yeah, he's been anxious to see his parents again, too.
It's clear out and not too cold as they walk to where they know the nearest zeta transporter is, and she actually gives him a smile as she's entering in coordinates. It's a clearly exhausted smile, which is more than understandable after today's events, but a smile nonetheless, and one he returns as he watches her step into the abandoned photo booth and disappear in a flash of white light.
(Later that night, once his mom's finished crying and insisted he let them tuck him in to bed, he'll send Artemis a goodnight text.
Her reply will be Goodnight, Bay Watch with a smiley face, and he'll slip his phone shut and put it back on the nightstand beside the crumpled index card he kept.)
... ...
He's come to find out that Artemis is surprisingly awesome with kids. It's not like there weren't hints for the past five years that he's known her, but it'll never stop being something he likes witnessing firsthand, because she's just so good with them.
"You should become a teacher."
Artemis kind of spins around to face him when he tells her this, Lian jerking back awake in her arms as she asks, "What?"
He walks over to her and places his hands at her waist, shrugging one shoulder. "I think you'd be great," he tells her. "You're awesome with kids."
She laughs a little and shakes her head. "You've only ever seen me with Lian and Damian," she reminds, "and one's my niece and the other is practically my nephew. That's different."
"No," he argues, "you handle kids so well! They love you, more than they love Flash. And, okay, I get why Jade and Roy keep asking you to babysit Lian, but you're one of Bruce and Selina's top choices for babysitter, too, because Damian loves you. And that's saying a lot, because that kid is a brat with almost everyone he's not related to."
She looks amused. "Don't criticize Damian because you're jealous."
"What? You don't think I don't notice that every time I have him, he spits up on me or spills stuff just so he can get you to himself while I have to clean up?"
Artemis rolls her eyes and laughs, shifting Lian in her arms. "You're ridiculous, did you know that?"
He scoffs, and she just bounces Lian a little to get her to rest her head against her shoulder again. He pulls her into the living room and he sits down on the couch with Artemis across his lap and Lian falling asleep between them. Artemis is singing a lullaby that he's heard her and Jade hum before, but this time he can actually hear it clearly enough to realize it's in a completely different language.
(He'll eventually learn that it's Vietnamese, and one of many that their parents would sing to them when she and Jade were young. That's why Artemis didn't know any in English.)
... ...
Artemis is working late with Zatanna and Batman at the Watchtower one night, and Wally just tells her he'll save dinner and put Jayden to bed. Normally they all eat together and then spend the remaining hour or so between dinner and Jayden's bedtime to play with him, so it kind of sucks to have to compromise that part, but he gets it. If Batman wants you to do something, you're going to do it.
Everything was going smoothly until around midnight when Jayden woke up crying.
Artemis just called, too, saying everything took a lot longer than they all expected and that she'd be home in half an hour.
And look, it's not like he lets Artemis parent Jayden alone. They raise Jayden together and are both there for even the smallest milestones. He knows his son, and knows what'll make him stop crying. The only problem is that it's the Vietnamese lullaby, and Artemis has always been the one to sing it to him.
"Did you try feeding him again?"
"He won't take anything," Wally tells her. "I've tried just about everything."
He hears Artemis sigh on the other end of the line. "I don't know what the problem is, Wally. You know the lullaby puts him right to sleep. Why did you need to call me?"
"Because!" he kind of shouts, and then winces as Jayden cries a bit louder from his room. "You're the one that's supposed to sing it to him, not me!"
Artemis exhales loudly. "That's the problem? Wally, you know I wrote the lyrics and pinned them above his crib, and I know you've heard me sing it a million times already. You'll be fine."
He mumbles that he just doesn't want to sing it wrong and make it worse, and she apologizes for being so harsh, it's just that they've been working nonstop for hours now and she just really wants to get home. He couldn't agree more, and when he tells her this, he can practically hear her smiling through the phone before she hangs up, saying she loves him and promising to be home as soon as possible.
When he hears the door open and close an hour later, he's sitting in bed with the TV on low, not really paying attention to the channels he's flipping through. He turns it off when she gets into the room, though, and watches as she kicks off her boots and throws her clothes aside so she can change into her pajamas.
He lies down as she washes up and brushes her teeth, and when she emerges from the bathroom and slips into bed, she looks thoroughly exhausted.
"How's Jayden?" she asks, facing him on her side.
He grins proudly, "Sound asleep."
She laughs and closes her eyes. "I told you that you'd be fine."
He rolls his eyes even though she can't see that. "Just go to sleep, woman."
"Sing it for me, then."
He chuckles. "I don't have the lyrics in front of me, and I don't speak fluent Vietnamese like you. It was honestly a miracle Jayden still fell asleep to it, but I guess he settled for what he got."
She laughs and rolls a little, so that her back is pressed against his chest, and he wraps an arm around her waist. "Then hum it?" she asks sleepily, barely above a whisper, and he kisses her bare shoulder and hums it against her skin like that, until the both of them fall asleep.
(When he learns that she's pregnant with their second child, he'll hum it to her again, and the night they find out it's going to be a girl, he'll sing it to her with their hands clasped over her tummy.)