"Stop making that face," Artemis orders, crossing her arms. "It's not like I took away your pancakes!"
"No, you just have to challenge everyone!" Wally narrows his eyes. "Doesn't it ever get exhausting?"
"Not as exhausting as you are."
She's leaning on one hip, making a perfect curve down one side, and her lips turn to stone between sentences. Her chest stays perfectly still, as it always does during fights, and the vast, dark emptiness surrounding the Watchower only emphasizes how light her hair is.
Its beauty practically shines right into his eyes and he's momentarily awestruck.
And then he remembers he's actually mad at her.
"Oh my god, woman," Wally starts, clenching his fists, and he means 'woman' in the best possible way, because, man, what a one she is. 'You are literally impossible."
She casts her eyes to the ceiling, noticing a few team members starting to pay attention. "This coming from the guy who stopped existing for three whole months."
"Yeah, well, at least I'd close my eyes if you asked me to."
"Wallace, we've been over this. It's not about me trusting you; it's about me needing my eyes."
He grabs a fistful of his hair and tugs. Sharply. "Ugh, can't you just let me guide you in the dark like a normal person?"
"No! I don't know where you are taking me! What if I need my bow?" she counters. "I'm not the girl on Angel who blinded herself to be a better warrior; I need my vision!"
"Do you really think I'd do that?" he asks with a groan.
"Hmm. Let me recall. Did I really think you'd go after Lex Luthor without backup?" Artemis asks. "No? Well, apparently, I can be wrong!"
Oh, again with that.
"Well, now I'm telling you that it's not a danger zone! Can you trust me now?"
"Maybe, if you'd started with that," she mutters. "It's not the first time one of us would be possessed; come on, what did you expect me to think?"
He sighs in exasperation. "Maybe something stupid; I dunno! You are well aware of the moronic things that come out of this mouth!"
"Uhhh… Artemis?" M'gann says from the side, grimacing. "Wally's… not being brainwashed. You should go with him," she finishes quietly, peeking up at her best friend.
"Thank you," he says, gesturing to the Martian with a roll of his eyes. Really, he thought this would be the easiest part of the night.
The blonde purses her lips, nods curtly to the mindreader, and turns back to her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow. "Then why are we in uniform?"
"What, still?"
Wally's mouth actually hangs open this time. Is she just looking for excuses?
"Ugh, because we need to use the Zeta tubes!" He punches the air and whips around, mouth twitching when he looks back at her.
Her stare pierces the air between them and his lights the resulting void on fire.
Their lips curl, eyes refuse to blink, hands vibrate in anticipation of whatever's to come.
Finally, the nerves and excitement and her freaking face become too much for him and he hooks his fingers into the opening in the fabric on his neck, prying it loose.
"Okay, fine! You want no uniforms? No uniforms! Oh, just watch this," he mutters, scowling at her.
Wally strips down right in the middle of the glossy floor—in front of who knows how many security cameras—where numerous superheroes have abandoned any and all pretenses of a briefing and are now watching them with unabashed curiosity.
He yanks his red Flash costume off with enough force that she's surprised it doesn't tear. What's he…? Oh, of all the nerve…!
Well, can't let him make a statement alone. She was the one who objected to the suits, after all.
When she spots a glimpse of his heart-stamped underwear under the costume, she takes it as an okay to follow his lead, angrily unzipping her belt and letting it drop with a clank.
No way is she gonna let him win at this.
Her green mask and underwear stay—and so do his—but everything else is thrown into a pile on the floor, even her boots. The colorful pile of kevlar and spandex mocks them from below and she shifts her weight from foot to foot, finding with great surprise that the glassy floor is cold. Like, really cold.
"Now," he says, mouth in a thin line between words, "I am freezing and a little bit horny, and you had better damn be happy right now because all of this is for you, and will you please just put on a blindfold, you insufferable—" The appropriate word eludes him for a moment. "—babe?"
"Oh, fine!"
She stomps over to the zeta tube, grabbing his hand on the way, and all the heat magically returns to both of them. She drags him along until they halt to a stop inside the giant construction and puts his palms on his eyes from behind.
"That's what you wanted, right?" she asks, making an effort to loosen her shoulders. Her own hands fly to her ears and she mutters something under her breath.
It sounds suspiciously like, "I am not losing track of you again."
He calibrates the zeta tube to his specifications, disabling the computer voice for fear that she might hear, and exchanges a look with M'gann
Wally gives her a grin that shows all his teeth, is a little bit crooked, lifts his eyebrows—and with them, his heart. The redhead's pulse steadies against his girlfriend's smooth back and he takes a deep breath. Whatever happens tonight, happens. Can't go back now.
The zeta tube powers up, its golden glow enveloping them in a slightly electric, warm fog, and the next moment they're in an old, wooden building that looks to be haunted. Or possibly on the verge of collapsing.
"Keep your eyes closed," he whispers into her ear, still in his underwear. He gently takes her hands and places them upon her eyes, leaning into her so that she doesn't glimpse anything during the change.
Then he swoops her up—as he has hundreds of times before—and zips through the dark, damp, narrow, and empty streets of Paris.
"I can hear an accordion," she says, keeping her eyes closed even under her fingers, but debating whether to peek or not.
"Well, I can't sew your ears shut, can I?" He grins down at her, glad she can't see it.
Her forehead puckers. "If you ever try, I will obliterate you."
"I'm too wise for that, babe," he says, pressing a light kiss to her lips and nearly stumbling over something in the process.
"Dude, you're carrying me. Some respect, please?" she asks after the jolt.
"Sorry. We're almost there. Just gotta… avoid the… population. Superheroes in tights is one thing," he says. "But superheroes in underwear?"
"It's gonna be a thing," she announces with perfect confidence.
"Oh, yes, it's so much easier to fight with literally no weapons or protection. We should make your dad wear only underwear; even the playing field a little."
"Trust me," Artemis warns, nearly breaking her promise in order to give him a look that so badly needs giving, "that is not a pretty sight. At all."
"Yikes." He feels a chill run down his spine. "Okay, noted."
"Are we there yet?" she asks, practically bouncing in his arms.
"Uh… just about."
He runs his tongue over his teeth as his destination approaches, a trail of leaves falling behind him. Where did he put Zatanna's cloaking spell again? It was right in the back pocket of his—
Of his suit. Oh, terrific.
He frowns, looking at the curious girl in his arms, and the way she peeks up at him for a split second does it; they just have to make do. He can't afford to delay it any longer.
Wally runs a circle around the asphalt, slowing with every step until he can set her down without fear of harming her. She keeps her eyes closed as he had asked and, in this moment, he's so glad he had the forethought to put that something special into his boxers instead of his suit, unlike Zee's charm.
He turns her into the proper direction, extremely aware of the few people in the vicinity who watch the two colorfully masked, half-naked youngsters with curiosity at four in the morning.
All she sees is darkness, but it's also light. Flickers of yellow, dancing shapes have flown behind her lids as she listened to him talk, heard him breathe, focused on the amazing strength of the arms holding her. Now they're starting to dull as he's being almost alarmingly quiet, but his hands are on her and that's really all that matters.
Then she hears him take a deep breath and her hands are lifted and all she sees is light. With a hint of darkness.
Thousands of lights illuminating the piercing black of the night sky shine around them. Every last piece of metal crinkles with color above her, every complicated maze of construction makes perfect sense in this moment.
The light changes colors, just like that, and something crawls up her throat, and she's not entirely sure she can feel her pulse anymore. Her arms wrap around her to instinctively shield her from the brightness, even as her eyes refuse to blink for fear of missing beauty.
Somewhere in the distance, water rushes up in the air in tiny, tiny drops and falls back down, reflecting every bit of the color that Artemis is gazing at, but she pays it no mind. Right just then, she's sure she's at the center of the universe.
It's a while later that her thoughts start working again. Ah, that's right; she's an actual person and not a beingless entity created solely for the purpose of admiring light, of all things. For a moment, she could've sworn… Oh, well.
Which muscles do you use for lowering your head, again? 'Cause all she can do is crane her neck up at the metal sky, marveling. But then she hears his breath, the sound she will never ever mistake for anything else, and she finally remembers what to do with her muscles, turning back to search for her lover with his name on her lips.
It dies when she spots him behind her on one knee, holding up a ring that reflects the colors even better than the fountains, still wearing his heart boxers.
Her breath catches and her eyes stay even more frozen than when gazing up at the Eiffel Tower and, boy, she really never thought she'd be one of those girls who's absolutely speechless at this moment, but no witty quip lands on her tongue.
Just the promise of the kind of love that she's never been able to show anyone else. She keeps it to herself, safe and warm as it rolls back into her.
"Look, hear me out babe," he says, giving her a glimpse of a grin that lasts no longer than a blink. "This is where I realized for the first time that, if given the chance, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. This is where I had one of the happiest moments of my life and I know you did, too. This is… This our spot, y'know? I know we've talked about coming back here, but I'm just tired of waiting for 'someday' and 'when we have the energy to plan'.
"I want to give you Paris and I want to give you stability," he says, words quickening, "and, and, and a lot of other things that I didn't practice enough and have now forgotten. But I promise I won't forget in the future and, and also I love you and we're gonna have our tenth anniversary soon and I personally think that it's been enough time to know that I just wanna be with you always.
"I know I said that once before and then I left," he pours the words out, flinching, "and no words will ever let you know how freaking sorry I am for that, but I want you to know, from the bottom of the abyss of my heart—or, uh, something less gloomy—that this time not even decapitation can stop me, okay? By which I mean, uh… Fuck. Look, I'm in this for the long haul. In cuddling and in passion, in arguments and in snide comments, in combat and in kitchen, I am with you." His looks straight into her eyes, trying to convey how much he means the words. "As long as you'll have me."
His hands shake as they hold up the small box and he belatedly remembers to breathe, his heart hammering against his ribcage.
"And I could've said that all in much fewer words, I know, but, hey, it's me and you knew what you were getting into, and this is kinda when you're supposed to shut me up and say y— Oh my god, you're not breathing." His eyes widen. "Are you breathing? Holy shit, Artemis, are you okay?" He jumps up, letting the ring fall to the rough asphalt, and takes her face into his hands, searching for some sign of distress.
"I'm fine," she manages, watching as his face relaxes and still drawing a blank in her mind. "That's just… not what I expected."
But, in a way, it is.
"Yeah, I'm sure those two Italians didn't either." He nods over to the small gathering of tourists watching them. Wally casts his eyes down, fingers making little patterns on her skin. "Was it a… good unexpected thing?"
She looks up into his eyes, biting her lip, and, of course, this is when the words return. "Y'know, it would be… But you never asked me what I think you meant to ask," she points out with a smirk.
He freezes instantly, searching his brain for any single words or phrases in the entire English language that his rant may have left out, but she lays a hand on his cheek, melting him as she so often does.
"Wallace Rudolph West," she says slowly, a wicked glint in her eyes as she snakes her arms around his neck, "will you marry me?"
It takes him a moment to process the meaning behind the words and then he swallows, his hands gliding down her shoulders to rest on her waist. He could really use a cough right about now to clear that mass of butterflies stuck in his throat, but he's not about to let her maintain the upper hand for too long.
He purses his lips and looks up at the Eiffel Tower above them, pretending to be considering it. "If I say yes, do I get to wear the ring?"
"No," she says immediately. "Mine."
He tries his hardest to keep from grinning. "Hmm, I'll have to think about it, then. See, it is a very nice ring."
"I'll buy you a nicer one," she promises, face pressing closer to his until their lips are barely quarter of an inch apart and his breath tickles her skin. "It'll be perfectly round and golden 'cause you're a winner," she says against his mouth, feeling his heat on her nose as her eyes travel down to look at his soft lips.
The air starts to hum somehow and his skin prickles in the best way.
"And instead of a diamond you'll have a lightning bolt," she continues, "and you will never ever forget that you have a reason to rush home as fast as you can."
She finally raises her eyelids and looks right into him, flushed and bare in more than just the lack of clothes.
"Well, how can I refuse that," he whispers against her lips, entranced by her gaze. "Yes. A million times yes."
"Good," she whispers back and takes his mouth with her own, marking it as forever hers.
A/N: These will be rolled out over the week and will probably all be rush jobs but whatever. Also I will hopefully participating in this event twice, once with Spitfire and once with a different pairing every day, so you should keep an eye out for that. And no, this is not my giant AU thing, this is just a thing that was needed. The giant AU thing is coming.