Pairings:
WallyxArtemis
Summary:
"Oh, this? It's nothing. I walked into the fridge, and-" "Wally. We need to get you out of that house."
Rating:
T for child abuse.
Multi-chapter?
Maybe.
AN:
I did a one-page comic strip (on my deviantART page) after this fic when it was incomplete, and a few people asked for the fic to be posted.
Don't be afraid to leave a comment! It gives me a little thrill when I see [New Review] in my emails :3
Her entrance had gone unnoticed. Maybe it's because of the fancy shoes that were a donation—which is apparently what it's called when gifts turn up in your locker, minus the pricetag, with a note that reads "I hope these help with your gymnastics – Bruce Wayne," and you are confused since you don't actually take gymnastics—or maybe it was because the door was left half-open. Either way, Wally doesn't realise his girlfriend is watching him inspect his skin in the large, vanity-style mirror in the bathroom just down the hall from the kitchen. Probably for pimples; he's always so sensitive about imperfections. She smirks as the memory of them together on his bed slips in – him having fit snugly between her open thighs, and she'd gasped; "Wally, is that a blackhead in your ear?"
It had taken him four minutes to figure out how to angle the mirrors so he could get a good look in, plus another one and a half for Artemis to persuade him that she was joking, that his complexion was fine, that there was definitely nothing wrong with his ear. By the time he had crawled back on, a bashful smile on his blushing face, she wasn't in the mood anymore.
He'd pouted like a little girl.
And kissed her anyway.
"Talk about self-obsessed," she snorts, grabbing his attention. Wally doesn't spin on his heel like she expects him to, but he'd jumped at the sound of her voice, which gives Artemis a sense of satisfaction. "Our date is in four whole hours and you've started getting ready now? You're worse than M'gann!"
Then Wally turns around, and her smile doesn't fade.
No, it drops, shatters on the floor.
"Oh, Artemis," he laughs nervously. "I wasn't expecting you so early in..."
His words are lost somewhere in the dusty corners of the bathroom, though it doesn't matter – she can't hear them over the twin beats of her heart, one straight after the other, at the sight.
"Wally, what is that?"
"What?"
But he know exactly what.
"He's been in there all morning," Robin'd said – so how much has it healed since it got there?
Almost without thinking, she reaches out her hand, caressing his cheek. Wally twitches when she touches him, flinches when the skin of her thumb—barely—scrapes that above the throbbing plum-, maroon-, and orange-yellow-splattered bruise. Artemis feels her throat clog with far too many feelings.
"Oh, this?"
One of them is sadness.
"It's nothing."
One of them is anger.
"I walked into the fridge, and-"
From the very beginning of this conversation Artemis knew he was lying. When Wally isn't telling the truth, he starts a lot of sentences with a surprised sound. However, it isn't just this – she can see that the mark is the size of a man's knuckles, the edges blurred considerably.
"Wally," she sighs. Her voice is clipped, cold, and even though Wally knows that the intense crack in the name is not hatred directed at him, his face becomes blank for half a second.
He bites his lip, she steps closer, the whites of his eyes turn pink, and she knows he's going to start weeping any moment now, just as much as she knows that he doesn't want anyone, let alone his girlfriend, seeing him cry.
So Artemis loops her arms around his waist, and Wally's wrap tightly around hers. This embrace is one that makes her own windpipe shrink, especially as Wally begins panting out little sobs into her hair.
"We need to get you out of that house," she whispers.
He just pulls her in closer.
