Words: 3,700 (exactly, wow)
Disclaimer: I can't even make up my own decisions about what ice-cream flavor to buy at Baskin Robbins. How could I possibly handle the brilliance that is Young Justice?
trigonometry.
Mount Justice
April 30, 03:13 EDT
Artemis is long past being nervous for this test. Now she's just desperate.
Artemis chances another glance at the clock and away from her notebook. She flinches inwardly at the bright and blinking blue numbers of 3:13AM. The team had returned from a relatively simple recon mission earlier at a quarter past nine in the evening and she had immediately changed out of her uniform and into more comfortable clothes before diving into her textbooks and notes.
That was six hours ago.
Artemis pauses, her jaw shaped in a little 'o.' She blinks at the digital clock on the counter of the kitchen before dropping her pen and her head on top of her open textbook. Why did she have to be a hero? Why did she prefer History and English Literature over maths and sciences? Why did she allow her mother to convince her to sign up for all of the advanced classes in Gotham Academy, of all places? And how was she even accepted into all of them?
The archer groans at all of the numbers, complaints and worries zipping around in her head. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, lifting her head and letting it drop backward onto the top of her chair's backrest. Artemis contemplates shutting her eyes and resting them for a while but knows that doing so would only put her to sleep. And she can't afford to have that happen.
Trigonometry is such a pain in the ass. Sure, Artemis can notch three to five arrows at a time, launch them at completely different targets and hit every single one but unless those targets had anything to do with graphing sine, cosine and tangent graphs, none of her usual talents were going to help her tonight.
Artemis pushes her trig material further away on the counter. She isn't ready to give up quite yet but she's definitely ready to take a snack break. Artemis stands up from her hunched studying position and approaches the refrigerator, cracking her neck and stretching her arms along the way. She lets herself yawn and opens the fridge door to look inside, scratching the back of her neck and flinching a little from the sudden draft of cold air.
Rubbing a bit of warmth back into her arms, Artemis studies the contents of the fridge. Obviously M'gann needs to catch up on her groceries because there's hardly anything to eat. There are leftovers from Kaldur, M'gann, and Connor's pasta dinner earlier that night, Wally had thought to fill the fridge with can after can of different varieties of soda, there's an apple that looks partially edible, a science experiment whose origin could probably be traced back to either Robin or Wally, and a lone cup of pudding. Artemis sighs and grabs the pudding from its position in the middle shelf, as well as a teaspoon from M'gann's tidy drawers.
Artemis has nudged the drawer shut with her hip when she hears another voice enter the room.
"Stealing other people's food now, Blondie?"
She whirls around, almost dropping the pudding she's just retrieved. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen in a pair of red and yellow pajamas is a sleepy Wally West. He's rubbing his neck and looking straight at Artemis, who feels strangely like a kid who's just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she says, and it's actually true. She walks back to her place at the counter and leans next to her study material to eat the pudding.
"That's my pudding," Wally says. He narrows his eyes ever so slightly at the archer, who throws him a half-hearted glare as she shoves a spoonful of the pudding into her mouth.
"Sorry, Kid, it's mine now." She watches as he sighs and mentally gives up. There aren't that many words thrown between them right now and who can blame them? It's past three in the middle of the night (or morning, depending on how you look at it) and tomorrow's a Monday.
Wally swears under his breath and walks toward the refrigerator. He doesn't even try to argue with the archer tonight because his aching stomach triumphs against his pride. Unfortunately, just as Artemis discovered a few minutes earlier, the fridge has nothing ready to eat and he swears again, slamming the door shut before leaning on it to face Artemis's ready smirk.
"I was saving that for tomorrow," he tells her. She shrugs and scoops another spoonful of pudding into her mouth.
"Can't do anything about it now, Wallman," Artemis says. She pauses before asking, "What are you even doing up so late?" Wally yawns and pulls a can of soda out of the fridge before responding.
"Got hungry, couldn't sleep. Besides, I could ask you the same thing." Artemis cringes as she gestures to her open textbook, crumpled notebook papers, and the generally messy counter spread she's been living on for the past few hours. Wally walks over to stand next to her and studies the contents of her work.
"It's already three in the morning, my test is tomorrow and for the first time in the history of my entire math career, I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail this one," Artemis moans, setting down the pudding cup and running her hands over her face again in distress. When she hears no response from Wally – no witty remark or smart-ass comment – she looks up. He's picked up and is studying her notebook and one of the scratch papers on which she's scribbled failed equation after failed equation.
"No, no, you've got it all wrong, your reference triangle's all mixed up," Wally says suddenly. He picks up her pencil and flips to a new page in her notebook. The redhead quickly sketches two triangles and gives all six corners their respective angles.
"30° is always on the bottom angle next to the right angle," he points to the triangle he's talking about and Artemis leans next to him to study the triangle. "I always draw my triangles with the right angle at the bottom right so that everything's constant."
"In Gotham North, our math teacher always messed things up and drew different triangles each time," Artemis remembers. Wally snorts and drops the pencil to take a sip of his soda.
"Was he legit?" he asks.
"She. And you mean as a teacher? No. Absolutely not." Artemis frowns, "One time, there was this question we all had to do for homework, I think it was number ten or something. Nobody was able to figure it out and during class the next day, all she said was, 'Well, if none of you got number ten, then you, uh, need to get better.'" Wally grins as Artemis shifts her voice to mock her old math teacher.
"Whatever. You have a different teacher this year, right?" Wally offers. Artemis nods.
"Thank god," she mutters. She takes another look at the new triangles Wally's drawn on her notebook and studies her previous work. As she does, Wally actually looks at her for the first time in the evening and he realises that she's let her hair down for the night. It skirts past her waist and dances along the skin of her exposed thighs as she shifts her hips and moves around to fiddle with her work. He's aware that his heart-rate's gradually picking up and only when she speaks does he take his eyes off of her legs and refocus his attention on the archer's eyes.
"So, wait, you're saying if I just switched everything around…" she picks up another piece of scratch paper, "then all of my answers would be right?"
"Yeah, and there are some faster techniques to what you're trying to do," Wally says. He says it in a tone that's so confident but not at all condescending that Artemis just has to throw in a little bit of haughtiness into the mix.
"I thought Boy Wonder was the math genius in this Cave, not the resident Speedster," she teases. Wally scoffs.
"Babe, seriously, with great science comes great necessity to know math. Boy Wonder knows all the extreme algebra and calc but when it comes to useful math, come to the resident Speedster," he answers with no hesitation.
Artemis puts her hands on her hips and stares at him for a good four seconds before making her offer, "Can you help me pass this test?" Wally finishes off his soda and glances at the clock. "In four hours? Blondie, with my help, you'll ace that bitch." Artemis smirks.
"Alright. You're on," she challenges.
"Woah, hold up. What's in it for me?" Artemis sighs. Of course there would be a catch but she really needs this grade to maintain her scholarship at Gotham Academy. She looks around the kitchen before her eyes land on the forgotten pudding cup.
"You can have your pudding back," she offers. Wally frowns at the aforementioned snack.
"But you already ate some," he argues. Artemis rolls her eyes, "Since when was that ever a problem, Kid Bottomless Pit? You've practically eaten off of the entire team's leftovers by now." Wally snickers. She has a point there. He practically has. Wally reaches over to pick up the pudding cup and Artemis's spoon and starts eating.
"Okay, but half-eaten pudding for a guaranteed 96% or greater on a test?" Wally says with his mouth full. Artemis makes a face. "That doesn't seem very fair to me. What say you throw in something else to even the odds?" Artemis glares at the grinning redhead but whether it's from the fact that she needs help or the fact that he's right, she doesn't know. Frankly, she doesn't care.
"Okay!" she exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. "What do you want?" Wally dumps the rest of the pudding cup's contents into his mouth and throws it impressively into the open waste basket at the corner of the kitchen.
"Rocky-Road and Cookie Dough ice cream. One large container each. Here in the Cave, tomorrow, by no later than four in the afternoon," he says, crossing his arms. Artemis raises an eyebrow.
"Ice cream? What are you, eight?" she snorts. Wally doesn't react angrily though. He merely smirks back, turns to face the kitchen doorway and says, "The heart wants what the heart wants. If you don't like the terms, I can walk away."
"Fine, fine, fine. You'll get your ice cream. Jeez. Can we just do this?" Wally rolls his eyes and picks up half of her study material before proceeding to walk towards the den.
"Do we have to work there? Everything's already set up here," Artemis calls after him.
"It's too comfortable in the kitchen. Reminds me of food. Got to switch locations," Wally explains. Artemis raises an eyebrow and shakes her head but gathers the rest of her things and follows him to the den. As she sits down next to her newfound tutor, she wonders if she's making the right decision. This is Wally West she's dealing with; extreme flirter, sharp-tongued, and definitely someone who would hold her lack of mathematical knowledge against her. Plus, he's on the top of her black list. Can she trust this dweeb to handle this situation respectfully and maturely, two adjectives that she would never, in a hundred years, use to describe the speedster?
But while Artemis is pondering whether Wally has hidden objectives to agreeing to tutor her, there's also this flooding sense of relief – most of it located in her shoulders. Her head isn't hurting as much, her fingers have stopped cramping, and her eyes have refocused now that she knows that someone in the vicinity is willing to take some of her burden and turn it into real knowledge.
So Artemis decides, to hell with potential obscure intentions. Wally says he can have her acing this goddamn test, then so be it. Besides, it's not like she was making any real progress on her own anyway.
Wally starts immediately after speeding to the fridge and grabbing an armful of sodas for the two of them. He tells her that it's going to be a long night and if she wants to refrain from killing her tutor for the next few hours, she's going to need a little sugar here and there. Artemis doesn't understand the logic behind his reasoning but accepts the can of Coca Cola nonetheless.
He reviews with her what she already knows and what her previous teachers and her current math teacher has already taught her about trigonometry. He asks her numerous basic questions about triangles, rules, angles and identities for about ten minutes and she can see from the look on his face that he's forming some kind of impromptu lesson plan in his head. Artemis has to refrain from being impressed.
This isn't the first all-nighter Artemis has pulled for academic purposes. She's pulled a few before and she knows they're usually meant to be a tedious, fire-blazing-behind-your-eyeballs-until-you-just-want-to-cry kind of activity. Except for some reason, this all-nighter isn't as bad as the previous handful of others through which she's suffered. She stays wide awake the whole time, doesn't feel even the slightest bit bored, and actually gets a lot of studying done.
But no way could the cause all of these unexpected perks be her brand new all-nighter partner. Artemis is not grateful that Wally is annoyingly patient when she messes up cosine and sine a couple of times before she gets the hang of finding angles again. She does not laugh when he not only makes good fun of her current math teacher for accidentally giving her a few wrong answers on the answer sheet but also when he cracks lame math jokes every now and then. Lame math jokes are not her thing.
But she wonders if they can become her thing.
The fact that she even thinks about it at all scares her so she focuses again on a particularly difficult problem Wally is walking her through. For a split second, her vision swims with wobbly triangles and she blinks to clear her sight. A little pissed off that she can't figure out how to get this freaking angle because there just isn't enough information, okay, and maybe she doesn't know how to find that information, she tosses the pen down next to the paper, startling her redheaded tutor.
"I can't get this. Why should I even try to get this, is this even going to be useful in the real world?" she snaps at Wally. He gives her this helpless, lopsided smile.
"The magic question. Every math student asks that but really? It's pointless to ask. Math teachers don't care if what they're teaching you'll be useful in the future. You're taking this test one way or another." Again, their roles have flipped and now Wally is the voice of infuriatingly logical reason and Artemis is the one bitching and whining.
"What if I forget everything, Wally? This isn't even the hardest question in the unit!"
"Don't kid yourself. This is a pretty tough one. Just go back to the beginning and see what you have –"
"I can't do this. I can't do math," Artemis insists, running a hand through her hair. Wally turns to look at her and puts down his pencil. From the corner of her eye, Artemis watches as Wally tilts his head and purses his lips.
"Sure you can." Artemis just scoffs.
"I mean, you're an archer, and a great one. A huge part of archery is mathematical." Artemis bristles at his offhand compliment.
"That stuff comes naturally, I don't think about the math behind it."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. Every time you do your 'archery thing,'" Artemis locks an unamused gaze on him at his play of words. Wally just smiles and continues, "you're doing math. And it's just the simple things." He picks up his pencil again and sketches out a stick figure with an impossibly long ponytail which Artemis assumes is her, along with a crude drawing of her bow and arrow.
"Like, what if the wind's blowing really hard and to the East? You adjust your shot appropriately, right?" he adds in arrows and curvy lines that Artemis presumes is the wind.
"Well, obviously, but I don't see how –"
"It's all kind of objective. You're not really thinking about it, but you are doing it."
"What's your point, Wally?" Artemis asks exasperatedly. She isn't feeling any better about her math skills. He shrugs.
"I'm just saying. You're a fantastic archer. And that says a lot about your math, too." Artemis tries to get him to look at her but he stares at his sketch of her with her bow and arrow, a shade of red on his freckled cheeks. Wally rubs the back of his neck. What is he even saying? Don't get him wrong, it's all true, and even if Robin somehow finds out and teases him about it tomorrow, he'll stand by his word. But still, what is he saying and why is he trying to make Artemis What-Are-You-Looking-At Crock feel better? And besides, why does this blonde-haired, steely-eyed harpy always find reasons to make herself feel inferior to others or less than what she really is? Why does she constantly find ways to beat down on herself when no one else is around? And why does he care so much each time?
Yeah, why does he care so much?
Frankly, that question has nothing to do with chemistry or trigonometry and instead of making his head hurt, it makes his chest hurt so he doesn't dwell on it. Wally turns back to the matter at hand now that Artemis has picked up enough self-esteem to finish the problem. And finish it she does; in record time, too.
By six in the morning, the sun is hesitant but still peeks over the horizon of the sea. Wally gives it a glance through the window as Artemis finishes the last of his mini rapid test, which is a combination of his impromptu problems and some of the questions from her textbook.
"Done!" Artemis drops her pen and Wally quickly hits stop on his watch. He laughs out loud in triumph.
"23 minutes! You beat your time." Artemis forces a half-yawn, half-laugh. Only now does she realise that the sun is starting to rise, the critters that reside outside of Mount Justice are starting to make their chattery morning noises, and she still has about an hour before she has to get ready for the day.
"You're ready, Blondie." Wally leans on the arm of the couch and shuts his eyes.
"Thanks, Wallman," she mutters, laying her head sideways on the back of the couch, which suddenly feels ten times better than the comfort of her own bed at home. She closes her eyes and hears Wally yawn.
"Just don't forget my ice cream, harpy," he replies. She grunts in response and as if they've agreed upon the same thing, the two teenagers simultaneously crash next to each other on the couch, sound asleep.
An hour later, at around seven o'clock, M'gann is kind enough to wake Wally, reminding him that he was meant to pass by his house before heading to school. In his state of consciousness, Wally mumbles a thanks to M'gann and focuses on the archer next to him instead, completely forgetting to flirt with the martian. M'gann allows a smile to grace her features before leaving the den to start breakfast for her teammates.
Wally checks the time and decides that Artemis should sleep a little longer for that math test later. He rips a page out of her notebook and scribbles a note onto it.
Go get 'em, Blondie.
The day goes by like Wally didn't just pull an all-nighter a few hours ago. The bullies are bullies, the teachers are teachers, and school is school. Wally takes a few pop quizzes, hands in some late geography homework, and saves a freshman from having to hand over his lunch money by handing over his own dough. Wally is amazed at how normal his life is out of the uniform and his legs unconsciously itch to run, run, run, and to run far away. He goes through the most boring Monday morning since the first week of school back in August and in the five-minute break between Biology and English Lit., he's glad to find a distraction in a new text message from his encrypted team phone. It's from Artemis.
Aced that bitch. Easy as ice cream.
Wally grins and texts her back as he turns the corner to his Lit. class.
The Wallman never lies, Arty.
The phone beeps again as he takes his seat towards the back of the classroom.
Whatever. But thanks, Baywatch. We should pull all-nighters more often.
Wally isn't sure how, but he's about 87% positive that this text isn't just Artemis spewing a random statement or making conversation. This is a truce, like a green-light for the both of them to keep going. If by day, they would both remain snarky, annoying and ruthlessly infuriating, maybe by night, they could learn to deal with the other. Wally might be an idiot sometimes but he isn't a (secret, undercover) A-student for nothing. Artemis's offer for more all-nighters is a step out of her comfort zone; her version of a white flag. This is their chance to finally gain some ground and get used to each other. Wally would be stupid if he didn't take this chance. And he is not stupid.
By now, Mr. Greenwood's walked into the room and has already started handing out their essays from last class so Wally rapidly presses the keys on the screen of the Batphone, which is what he and Robin call the team's smart phones.
Anytime, Blondie.
This is part i of the three-shot that is All-Nighters. Originally, this story was only supposed to be a three-part one-chapter thing made up of three, I don't know, 500-600 word drabbles but then obviously, each part exploded and I didn't want to make a huge, unorganized monster-fic, so there we go! My first Young Justice chapter fic. (I hope that all made sense.)
Part ii has already been outlined and it's about halfway done on my Pages doc. I'll be able to finish it soon along with outlining then writing part iii. We'll see what happens because I've been going through a hell of a writer's block for the past few weeks.
Hope you guys enjoyed this even the slightest bit! There are still two more chapters coming up!