Father Figures

I've wanted to do something like this for a long time now. Unfortunately, I've never had the time or the patience… and Wally hasn't been too cooperative, either. Anywho, I'm still stuck on the whole child abuse thing, so let's pretend that in this story, Innocence never happened, k? Awesome.

Wally, if you please.

Wally: I really don't see why you make me do this. I own myself, so why do I have to say that you don't?
Me: Because… I don't know! Because!
Wally: Whatever. Lost doesn't own anything. Oh, and there may be possible triggers throughout the story related to child abuse, so read at your own risk.
Me: Also, extreme violence warning. Feel free to skip the parts in italics if it makes you uncomfortable. Trust me, I know how that is.

Enjoy!

Something was up with Artemis.

Wally watched her out of the corner of his eye. The archer's shoulders were tense as she leaned over her book. He couldn't see what she was reading, but he was willing to bet the words weren't registering in her brain. Her eyes were skimming past line after line, but she wasn't reading. Her mind was a million miles away.

Usually he'd be over there by now, annoying the heck out of her. But his instincts told him this wasn't typical Artemis Brooding Time. Something was up—something big. And Wally had used up every ounce of his patience to sit quietly for almost a full two and a half hours and watch her. He strolled casually by the couch she was sitting on. He tapped a rhythm softly on his knees. He pretended to take a nap. Occasionally Robin came by asking to play some video games because he was bored, or Kaldur would request training time, and Wally would come up with an excuse to turn them down. On a normal day, he would've pounced on the chance to do something on such a slow week. But this wasn't a normal day. Something was up with Artemis.

He was naturally impatient, even before he got his powers. All this waiting around was driving him nuts.

Finally, finally, Artemis closed her book with an audible thud and snapped, "Will you stop staring at me?"

Wally blinked. A thousand clever comebacks shot through his head in less than a fraction of a second, but all that came out was, "Was it that obvious?"

Her eyes rolled—something she seemed to be doing a lot lately. "No, I just made you sit still for two hours just to see if you could do it."

"That was sarcastic, wasn't it?" Wally scowled. He hated being played—with a passion—but the way Artemis acted, he might as well have been a fiddle. "Look, something's wrong."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Wally zipped over to her as she stood so fast the pages in her book went flying. He leaned over her to get right up in her face, because he knew she hated that. "You've been sulking."

Artemis' face turned purple. "I have not!"

"Have so!" He pushed a finger into her face to indicate her furious expression. "See? You're doing it right now."

Artemis made to swipe his finger away but he pulled it back before she could get to him. "That's because you're up in my personal space," she growled. "Now back up before I knock you on your yellow behind."

Wally crossed his arms. "Look, I'm just saying. Something's wrong, and I want to know what."

"Nothing's wrong."

The ginger studied her. That was a blatant lie. It was completely devoid of insults and jabs, and her eyes shifted somewhere over his shoulder so she wouldn't have to look at him. Artemis was an amazing liar, and he could tell—but he was also hyper-observant, and he could see all the tell-tale signs that she was lying.

"Artemis," he said, taking a step forward, his voice more serious than he usually liked to take himself. "What's wrong?"

Again, her face turned a variety of colors, from purple to red to pale. "Nothing's wrong," she said again, but this time pouring every ounce of venom and anger into her voice that Wally stepped back a bit in case she started spewing fire or something. Without another word she pushed past him and stomped off to who knows where. Her book had dropped onto the floor and Wally bent down to pick it up, staring at the title.

A Child Called It

Oh, man. The book slipped from his fingers and thumped back to the floor. Wally stared at the far wall, plagued with flashbacks.

Dad was mad.

Wally crouched in the tiny space between his bed and the wall, knees curled up to his chest. His bright green eyes squeezed shut and he held his hands over his ears, but that didn't help much. He could still hear Dad breaking things in the kitchen outside his room. His mother was crying. His father was yelling. Thuds and crashes assaulted his ears. A few tears slipped out of Wally's eyes but he brushed them away hastily. He was almost eight, he wouldn't cry.

Heavy thumping in the hallway told him Daddy was coming for him now. Daddy always found him—the house was small, and even though Mom told him to hide when Dad got mad like this, he always found him. Sure enough, the door opened, and Rudy West stood, swaying on his feet, glaring into the dark room.

Wally clapped a hand over his mouth and tried not to breathe as loudly as he thought he was. It didn't matter. Dad marched over to the side of the bed and grabbed Wally's arm.

Wally bit his lip as his father's fingers dug into his arm, laying bruise on bruise on bruise. He didn't cry, didn't react as his father dragged him out of his room and threw him against the wall in the hall. Wally hit the wall and slid to a sitting position, dazed, but couldn't recover fast enough to avoid the foot aimed at his midsection.

The session lasted eight minutes this time. Better, Wally mused to himself as his father passed out on the couch in the living room. Usually the sessions lasted half an hour to forty-five minutes. Once, it had stretched to almost two hours. Wally hadn't gone to school for three weeks after that.

Wally sat up slowly and assessed his injuries. Nothing felt broken. He knew what broken felt like, because once Dad has broken an arm and two ribs in one session. But not this time. This time, he had only a dislocated wrist, a few long cuts, a bloody nose, and a whole mess of bruises. Not bad at all.

He ignored the pain and limped over to his mother. As usual, Mary West was unconscious on the floor in the kitchen, bleeding slightly. Dad always took out his anger on her first before coming to find Wally. She was an easier target, Wally figured. Because she was a girl. Every time Dad went into one of his sessions Mom ended up on the floor. Wally crashed to his knees by her side and grabbed her hand, waiting for her to wake up.

Rudy woke up minutes later. Mom was still unconscious as he staggered into the kitchen, holding his head. His eyes fell on his son and wife, and Wally stared right back up at him. He didn't usually get up after his sessions, but Wally was beyond showing surprise, or any emotion, really. Rudy's eyes widened in horror and he fell to his knees, checking his wife's pulse and then gathering Wally up into his arms, not noticing when the seven-year-old tensed at the contact. The smell washing over him was the familiar but unwelcome stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke off his father's clothes and mouth.

"Oh, my God, Wallace," the man sobbed. "What have I done? What have I done? I'm so sorry!"

Wally let his father hug him and stared at the wall behind him. He'd never done this before. Was it too much to hope that maybe he'd get okay again? Maybe he was just sick, maybe he got help. Maybe, finally, they'd be a family again.

There was a picture hanging up, a picture of him and his father and his mother. He was just a baby then. He didn't remember the happiness in the picture that looked so right, so nice. He wanted to so bad.

Tears sprang to his eyes again, but this time, he let them fall.

"Dude." Robin snapped his fingers in front of Wally's face. "Dude!"

Wally blinked. "What? What's wrong?"

Robin frowned at him. "You were just staring off into space, like you were frozen or something. Are you okay?"

Wally thought about it and then gave his friend a grin. "Yeah, dude, I'm awesome. Want to play some Black Ops?"

"Can't," Robin said, shrugging. "Gotta find Artemis."

"Why?" Instantly Wally was alert. "Is something wrong?"

Robin rolled his eyes. "You should know; you were staring at her for a good two hours."

He sprinted away, cackling, while Wally crossed his arms and scowled. "For the record," he shouted after him, "it was more like an hour and a half!"

…

He knew. Artemis knew he knew, and that's why it was so infuriating. Something in the way he looked at her sometimes, when they weren't screaming at each other, told her that he knew. Didn't matter how hard she tried to hide it. He always freaking knew.

"I'm your father," his eyes said. "Of course I know."

Somewhere between growing up, being part of the Shadows, and joining this stupid team, she'd lost sight of her goal. Her objective. Her purpose, her mission, her everything. She'd gotten soft. And he knew that.

That's why he'd worked her over so hard this morning. He'd visited her mother's apartment while her mother was away, trashed the place, broke every picture, tore every curtain, wrecked everything that her mother worked so hard to rebuild. And then he had gone out and intercepted her while she was patrolling with Ollie. He didn't lay a hand on her. He just stared at her with his arms crossed and said, "I'm very disappointed in you, Artemis."

Artemis hated him. No, she loved him—that's why it was so hard. He knew she loved him, so all he had to do was say a few simple words. Crush her soul, her spirit. Break her down without ever touching her. He didn't need to—the Shadows and their training did that for him. All he had to do was be a father—except in overdrive.

Those six words nearly brought her to tears. She wasn't afraid of him—well, in some ways she was—but fear wasn't the emotion he worked on. He worked on her longing to fit in and be loved. To be rejected cut deeper than any blade could. Artemis had a lot of walls. They didn't do her any good when it came to her father.

She managed to choke out an, "I'm sorry," before he cut her off.

"You've lost sight of what matters most," he said. His voice sounded pained, like the last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt. "If you keep straying like this… I don't know what will happen."

A threat. Except not. Because he sounded like he didn't know, he sounded like he hated this just as much as she did. Sometimes Artemis wondered if he loved her. Because everything he said and did screamed of fatherly protectiveness… but then he did this. And she was so confused and frustrated that none of it made sense.

It would be so much easier if he were evil like the rest of the Shadows. At least then she could say that she hated him and mean it.

Artemis stared up at the ceiling now, in her bedroom at Mt. Justice. At some point during the last three months Wally had snuck in and wrote Wally's watching you! in blue and green Sharpie. Stalkerish, maybe, but now it seemed almost comforting, knowing she could come home and be normal like everyone else.

She sat up suddenly. Come home? Where had that come from? She shook her head sharply. "I can't think like that," she whispered to herself aloud. "I can't think like that."

Mt. Justice wasn't home. Mt. Justice was an enemy stronghold she was currently living in as an undercover assignment as a mole. She was feeding information to the Shadows and stabbing her friends—her enemies—in the back in the process.

She didn't have a choice.

I want to clarify some things. This fic will be dealing with physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. I refuse to write sexual abuse into a fic—not because it doesn't exist, but because I'm so disgusted by it I can't bring myself to write it. Maybe someday. The only reason I'm writing physical is because I'm already an action/adventure writer, and the only reason I'm writing emotional is because I've experienced it.

This won't all be abuse. The plot is orbiting around the plot of Artemis as the mole (which I don't believe, but it's a fun concept to play with). Anyways, a lot of people have Wally treating her coldly when he finds out. I want to put him in a position where he can't, because he knows what it's like.

Anyways, because of this sensitive material this fic will be a high T. If any of this makes you uncomfortable, I don't recommend reading this.

Thanks!