I wrote this for the Valentine's Day fic exchange on tumblr and am barely transferring it here, woops. Written before the canon version of events, so I guess now it's an AU of Artemis's secret being revealed and her and Wally's relationship. Reviews would be lovely. Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
So if there's one thing Artemis is sure of, it's that she is not dating Wally West. Of course, convincing her mother of that is near impossible.
"He's just such a nice boy, Arty and I see the way he looks at you." Her mother says one day after some of the team hung around their apartment. It has been about six months since the shit had hit the fan and at this point everyone knew who her dad was. Instead of being torn apart as Artemis had expected, the team had pulled together.
"Mom, the only time he looks at me anyway is when I'm carrying food. And he isn't nice, he's tolerable. And that's on good days." Artemis replies as she scrubbed a plate. She likes having the team over but they always leave a mess. Connor usually breaks something, albeit by accident, Wally eats too damn much and Robin (whose alter ego she still didn't know and who stillwouldn't take off his damn sunglasses) is a huge snoop. It was tiring to have them all there.
She was just finishing cleaning the last plate (they'd had lasagna and half of it was stuck to Kaldur's plate and she had to really scrape to get it off) when the doorbell rings. Her mother moves to answer it, but Artemis waved her off. Opening it, she found Robin (looking mischievous) and Wally (looking bothered).
"Can you go for a walk?" Wally says without looking at her. She raises an eyebrow.
"I sure could." She smirks. "But you'll have to give me a good reason."
"Well, that's a resounding no. Forget it." He says and disappears down the hallway. Robin crosses his arms at Artemis and grins.
"Because now you're curious."
She forgets to grab a jacket, but not really. As in, she doesn't have a jacket, but it's mostly due to the fact that she assumed she wouldn't need one because it was a nice day in Feburary and she's sort of a superhero for cripe's sakes! So between the silence that the trio has suffered for about ten minutes and her goosebumps, Artemis is getting, well, pissed off. Finally, she bursts.
"Are we just going to walk around in silence? Because honestly, that seems like more of a Tweedledee and Tweedledum thing than a golden trio thing."
"Shut it, Hermione. We're going somewhere." Wally snaps back. She is about to complain about the cold, when with a sigh, Wally pulls off his jacket and tosses it at her. She catches it nimbly and raises an eyebrow at him; half in protest, but half in shock at his caring. He shrugs. "Don't try and tell me you don't need it."
"Thanks." She mutters, pulling her arms through the sleeves. It smells nice, like Snickers and something she can't quite place but definitely associates with Wally. The jacket is too long on her and feels entirely too homey and she doesn't want to like it. But she does.
"So, Harry, tell me. Where are you taking us?" Wally says and Artemis is sort of happy to have made a Harry Potter reference because maybe now they can talk about something. Robin smirks (more so than his usual expression even) and nods towards a park.
"There's a tunnel under that bridge. And I hope you realize that in your analogy, you just became Ron." Robin leads the group across the quiet park.
"So I guess saying M'gann's Ginny would make things weird?" Artemis says with a laugh.
"Kaldur would be Dean Thomas." Wally says, successfully avoiding Artemis's comment.
"Because he's black?"
"No." Wally struggles for a moment. "Okay, maybe, but who else would he be?"
"Neville." Artemis and Robin say simultaneously.
"Zatanna would be Cho Chang." Artemis continues as the group reaches the bridge and slips under it. She notices a slight blush creeping up Robin's neck and hears Wally chuckle.
"Who would Connor be?" Robin asks as he clicked on a flashlight.
"Viktor Krum, definitely." Artemis says as she ducks into the tunnel. It smells oddly nice and she is put off kilter by it. That's the reason for what happens next. No really, it is not Artemis's fault. It's these smells. The jacket smelled oddly nice and the room smelled oddly clean and it was all just very odd smelling and that's the whole reason the events played out as they did. It wasn't that she was contemplating the fact that if the jacket smelled nice then by default Wally almost had to smell nice. And even if Artemis was thinking that, it was purely for research purposes. If A is from B, then does B smell like A?
So when Robin ducks out of the tunnel and pulls a door (a door that will cause Artemis years of heartache because why didn't she notice the damn thing it was right there) shut and locks it, Artemis and Wally are trapped inside.
"Very funny, Boy Blunder. Now let us out." Wally rolls his eyes as he speaks. See, Robin had picked Wally up in much the same manner as the duo had Artemis, albeit he was more willing since Robin was his bro and whatnot. But now he was beginning to think that he'd been hoodwinked, tricked, etc and so on.
"You two need to work out whatever it is that you aren't talking about. It's screwing up the team chemistry. I'll come back in an about forty-five minutes."
"If you don't open this right now, the thing that will be screwed up with the team will be one missing birdbrain!" Artemis screeches. But it is clearly to no avail, as there is only silence answering Artemis's calls.
"We could, y'know, talk about the thing." Wally suggests awkwardly after a few minutes of the pair shouting at the door. He moves to sit in one of the folding chairs that it in the small tunnel, the only evidence of human presence aside from a dinky lantern.
"Did you plan this?" Artemis spins on him, jabbing a finger in his face. "Are you seriously so deluded that you thought that trapping me in here with you would resolve in anything good? I mean, shit, I knew you were dumb, I just thought there was a limit and-"
"I didn't know either. Now if you would calm down-"
"I don't like small spaces." She snaps, but steps away from him. "And I don't want to talk about anything, especially not that."
The thing that the two teen crime-fighters were avoiding was something that had taken place six months prior. Now, it is to be noted that this is the same timespan as the team knowing about Artemis's background; this is no coincidence. The events coincided directly, as in they happened the same day.
It was a balmy day, which is arguably the best kind. The sort where it's nice out, but a little warm so a person feels the need to drink lemonade or something of the sort to cool down. It was sunny and the whole world just seemed a bit better. That is, until the team went out on their mission. It began as most missions did: squabbling between Artemis and Wally, M'gann cooing over Connor, Kaldur and Robin discussing strategies. They had been a team for about a year at this point and had fallen into something of a rhythm. Of course, when they arrived on the shores of Lacona Beach and Sportsmaster smiled too widely at Artemis, things started to shift.
Of course, though no one would admit it, things had been shifting amongst the group for a while up to then. Wally continually pushed Artemis out of the way of peril, claiming that he could barely handle how annoying she was uninjured, much less with an ailment. Artemis seemed to have a little trouble steadying her arrow if she couldn't hear the speedster bantering with whoever he was fighting (she still hit whatever she was aiming at, obviously, but sometimes she was a few millimeters off and really now, it's all relative).
So Sportsmaster popped up and the ball game was almost done, the fat lady had all but sung and it was in favor of the good guys, when he reached for a gun. Artemis dove forward because that little girl part of her brain kept thinking her daddy wouldn't shoot his little girl. But there was a bang and she felt a sharp pain in her arm and she could have screamed if it wasn't for whatever the hell was pushing her down. It was Wally (who would argue that Artemis was in fact very able to scream, and was screaming a variety of obscenities in his ear) who had dove forward after her. He had caught the bullet in his shoulder, which bled rather badly but as it is now six months later and he is very much alive, it is safe to assume he was fine overall.
So Artemis struggled out from under him and moved to attack her father. Before she could reach him, the man fell with an arrow protruding from his throat. Artemis turned to look for Red Arrow, but it was Chesire.
"You weren't the only one he trained, sis," she shouted over the hubbub of Wally yelping in pain, Robin helping his friend and the rest of the team taking down the remainder of the henchmen (or henchwomen, there were two of those who M'gann was taking out). But the thing about Chesire's shout was that it was loud. Like, really loud, to the point of where the whole team heard and Artemis had to tell them everything in the medical bay of the Watchtower. (Which is where they all ended up because of Wally, or perhaps more accurately, the arrow in his shoulder).
She trips over words in telling them, because she keeps glancing over at Wally and his stupid trusting look and the sling around his arm and if telling them all this will make all the feelings that looking at that stupid boy stop, then she'll never stop talking. She tells them how Cheshire is really Jade, who likes Daphne better than Velma but hates Scrappy Doo and who used to paint her nails and put little flower stickers on them when her parents would fight in the other room. She tells them about how her father used to make her run in the morning for an hour for as long as she can remember and how he drilled into her that she would never amount to anything unless she stuck with him. The words keep coming, all these deep secrets and she realizes it's true what people say about admission; they make you feel clean.
Later when the group dispersed to be with their mentors (well, except for Connor, who was off punching walls or something) Artemis hung back to speak with Wally.
"You didn't have to take the bullet for me. And wow, I mean that literallythis time." She said as she helped him sit up.
"C'mon, Artemis, if he'd shot you, you would have always be able to claim you were the first one shot on a mission from the team and I couldn't let you walk away with those bragging rights, so I—"
"Wally, just tell me why. You've been doing shit like this for months now. Do you think I can't handle it?"
"It's not that," he said without looking at her. He managed to stand up, despite the various tubes and wires connected to him. He brushed them away and squared his shoulders towards Artemis. "I think I couldn't handle it. I mean, if something with you-"
But he didn't finish because she was rolling her eyes and he was just so sick of them avoiding this and pretending there wasn't a this (and by that point he was thinking in the plural and "this" and all that, because he had noticed the way she carried snacks in her quiver sometimes and he knew or at least he sort of did because he was still just a boy and they never really know anything do they?) so he kissed her. He sort of expected her to pull away, but she did just the opposite.
Her hands found his hair (like she'd imagined doing too many times to admit) and she tasted like blood and something girly, like candy or flowers or something but it's nice. A beep was the interrupter of the pair, the sound emanating from one of the machines Wally had been attached to.
They broke apart and Artemis climbed out the window as Wonder Woman (who was on duty at the Watchtower and seriously hoping that the Wally wasn't just pushing buttons to get her to visit him) rushed into the room. No, like, Artemis literally climbed out a window to avoid being seen there and so Wally assumed that she thought it was a mistake and he never mentioned it again, because if she won't, then he won't. She assumes that he regrets it, or was meaning to head-butt her and she reacted wrong and so there's no way in hell she's going to be the one to bring it up.
But back to the present, where the two superheroes are trapped in a tunnel and arguing.
"Y'know what? Screw it! I'm going to kick the damned door down," Artemis shouts after a moment.
"You're that desperate to avoid talking about it?" Wally mutters and he thinks he says it quiet enough that she won't hear.
"Talk about what exactly? How my father almost killed you or how I almost wrecked our friendship?" She pauses, possibly for breath, although one could argue it's for dramatic effect. "And I swear, if you comment on the fact that I consider our sorry state of whatever-this-is, friendship, I will kick your ass."
"I like you," He says it so simply that it calms Artemis instantly. Wally thinks he could kick himself for not just saying it sooner. It's worth admitting, even if she laughs at him. Which is what he's starting to think will happen as a corner of her mouth quirks up.
"That's it? You like me?" She says, biting at her lower lip (which is really distracting to Wally) to hold back a grin.
"I mean, I also find you really annoying and your sister scares the shit out of me…but yeah, mostly, I just like you." He catches on that she isn't laughing at him, not entirely at least. "The fact that you aren't laughing in my face, or kicking me, suggest that you…?"
"I suppose I like you too." She admits. It's so easy, this thing that even preschoolers tell each other between snacks and naptime. He saunters (or struts, a bit like James Potter and maybe that's who the two of them are most like: Lily and James, the two bickering lovers about whom so little is known) over to her and kisses her. It's not like the first time, which was rushed and an almost mistake, but instead gentle and sort of sweet and they break apart and Artemis laughs.
"You literally take a bullet for a girl, steal her away to a secret love tunnel and despite having half a year to plan it, the only thing you say is, the ever eloquent, 'I like you'? Nicely done, Wallace." She says with a smirk, his arms still resting on the small of her back.
"Look, most girls are swayed by my body language. You should be flattered I put in the extra effort. And who said this is a 'secret love tunnel'?" He protests, but for once neither of them are particularly annoyed with the other.
"I did and I plan to make you a man of my word." She says and closes the gap between them. When Robin unlocks the tunnel's door half an hour later, neither teen really notices. Robin smirks and decides he'll have to bring up the danger of distractions at the next team meeting.