AN: So this is kind of an experiment for me. It's in the present tense, which I have never done before, so sorry if anything comes out weird. Also I can't claim to know what goes on in a 13 year-old boys head, let alone one as complex as Dick Grayson, but when I was around 12 I did have similar feelings when my 23 year-old sister got her first serious boyfriend- so that's kinda where this is coming from.

This is part 1 of a 2 part one-shot. I split it up because I am having difficulties with the second part and this can be pretty much left alone. As always, this is related to my YJ fics Deliver Me and My Crimson Memories but you don't have to read any of those to understand whats going on. Again thanks goes out to 8swords for helping this make it out of my head and onto the computer.

Standard Disclaimers apply: if you recognize it I don't own it.

Hope you like it!

She's pretty for a friend stealer.

He doesn't think this when they first meet because honestly nothing about her particularly stands out to him—certainly not her friend stealing abilities.

And he does notice her thick gold hair and pretty blue eyes, but in a childish way that accepts prettiness as some bizarre prerequisite for being a female superhero. So he thinks she's pretty but so is Miss M and it says absolutely nothing about her as a person.

But Wally reacts so hostilely to her and its odd because he's so friendly to just about everyone. He swears that when they were younger Wally once apologized to a thug for throwing him too hard. So this is what is seared across his memory of their first meeting because Artemis had been with them less than a minute and already she made Wally act in a way that he was completely unfamiliar with. It makes Dick Grayson nervous and Robin confused. He doesn't want to think about what that might mean so he had pushes these thoughts aside at the time and attributes Wally's actions to some misguided sense of loyalty.

Later his mind is still buzzing with their stupid bickering and he thinks that for all her prettiness she was less than whelming on their first mission together.

On the way to Wayne Manor, he wonders if she will do better in their next mission. Or if she's ends up being more trouble than she's worth. As it turns out it, he has to work in Gotham for the next mission. He thinks briefly of thick gold hair and a certain redhead's laughing green eyes and he doesn't know if the weird feeling in the pit of his stomach is relief or something else. And rather than deal with this pointless introspection, he can at least admit that he was disappointed he wasn't going to be able to see how she works in this mission.

She was pretty but there was nothing special about her and every good detective has a healthy sense of curiosity.

On his return, the next thing he knows is that Wally, his best friend, is more than a little fixated on someone who is a virtual stranger to him. When he asks what exactly is going on with those two Kaldur is vague with the details, but Robin knows that it's not normal to pay so much attention to someone who supposedly aggravated you as much as Artemis aggravates Wally. It rankles and he wishes that that mission in Gotham never happened.

Then he thinks of the people he saved, the little girl with the big brown eyes, and he doesn't.

So he ignores it, because that's what Robin is good at—ignoring things that bother him.

It still rankles.

"So then she makes me look like a complete idiot in front of Megan about the magic thing. I mean what's her problem? You know? It's like she just loves to be—"

"A thorn in your side? The complete bane of your existence? Yeah, you made that clear for about the last…" Robin's shaded blue eyes seek out the clock on the wall. "Dude, you've been talking about this for the last hour! I am so not feeling the aster right now."

The redhead next to him looks sheepish enough. "But…"

"Can we play a game of Black Ops without distraction? Or should I call Supes and teach him the controls?" Robin teases.

Wally snorts and says, "You think you could?"

"Um I'm Robin—Boy Wonder. It shouldn't be too hard."

"Rob, he still watches the No Signal channel."

"Oh, right."

The room is silent for about a second before Wally starts laughing at Robin's surprisingly inarticulate response. He glares at KF until the redhead gasps, "I…haha...can just see it. Hehehe The controller wouldn't live to see another day."

Blue eyes widen, the laughter is too contagious and soon the two are red-cheeked and teary eyed.

Things seem to go back to normal and Robin is relieved for a good fifteen minutes until a figure of green and gold passes the edge of his periphery. He doesn't even need to fully turn to see that Wally's eyes aren't on the screen anymore. Fifteen minutes of relief, five minutes of that nameless emotion, and at twenty minutes he watches as the figure stops, provoked into trading insults with Wally. Wally doesn't even notice when he stops the game, clutching the controller so hard that his knuckles are white with the effort.

It was then that he really notices the sick hot burning that blooms deep in his chest. He thinks he can name it. He doesn't really want to.

The feeling brings thoughts to his mind that he's better off not thinking.

Why was she so interesting? What on earth held Wally's focus? Why can't either of them be within ten feet of each other without baiting each other like that?

Why is this upsetting him so much?

Robin ignores the answers to those questions for a long time. It's harder for Dick to ignore it but he tries and if he's a little more aggressive with his training then Alfred or Bruce haven't said anything yet. He hasn't thought about what he'll say when they do. So he hopes it passes before then.

He still thinks it will pass until it happens.

The whole team is searching this military-grade building that housed some pretty sketchy research. Kaldur suggests they split into teams of two to track the targets that had infiltrated the building. He is just about to eagerly suggest breaking off with KF when Kaldur groups Miss M with Supes and KF with Artemis. He thinks derisively that it makes so much sense to pair the two who have yet to have a conversation that could be labeled anywhere near friendly. Things said under memory modification did not count. Somewhere in his head he knows that this is a good opportunity to learn from Kaldur but he can't help thinking that every chance to work alongside Wally keeps on getting taken from him. Stolen from him. And it smarts because he's never noticed how important working alongside his best friend was before.

Even though he's not completely surprised by the grouping, he is curious enough to ask Kaldur for his reasoning.

"It would be better for the whole team if they would just learn how to work together," Kaldur responds.

"So throwing them into a dangerous situation when they can't get along is going to accomplish this?"

"Time can only breed understanding. I am merely giving them this time."

"Or you're giving one of them ample opportunity to maim, kill and hide the body," Robin intones as they continue to scan the halls looking for the thieves.

Kaldur ignores his comment. "Further, I do not think Kid Flash actually dislikes Artemis. Rather he is an incredibly loyal person, who feels that she is threatening a close friend's place on the team."

"Roy."

"Exactly." He sees Kaldur nod out of the corner of his eye.

"I thought as much but that's no reason for all of this hostility."

Kaldur's clear blue eyes search his briefly before continuing to speak. Robin idly wonders, if it were not for the mask, would Kaldur see that same nameless emotion that is always bubbling just at the surface. "And most likely, this hostility arises from a sense of guilt that his attraction is in some way a betrayal of his initial feeling for M'gann."

A noise is heard down the hall, effectively interrupting their conversation. Robin considers Kaldur's words as he ran. He almost wishes that he had never asked. Getting someone else's opinion forces him to acknowledge what he already knows. He admits to himself that it fits the aberrant behavior marked by Artemis's presence. And as much as Dick Grayson wants to think that Kaldur has been spending too much time breathing from the nose instead of the gills, the part of him that is raised by the world's greatest detective takes it all in and moves on—KF likes Artemis. It wasn't the end of the world.

That emotion—it still has no name, if he names it some part of it thinks he won't be able to deny it anymore—tells him it is the end of something. He doesn't know what, but the image of pretty blue eyes and laughing green ones directed solely at each other instead of him makes him burn.

Dismissing this burning would be a good idea but fate has never been kind to Dick Grayson.

Where those two were concerned disaster was inevitable.

Miss M's message that Wally and Artemis got stuck in a titanium-enforced room is not as alarming as it should have been. The lack of bickering thoughts or voices that had clouded the periphery of Megan's mental link was. Capturing the thieves is easy and he can hack the substandard security locking the room in less time than it takes to say motion sensors.

The awkward air around the two unnerves him. They dodge each others' eyes and don't even argue on the way back to Miss M's ship. Wally's not even looking at Miss M. Artemis barely responds to Kaldur's attempts to find out what exactly happened. And he knows that something happened. He knows this like he knows that Wally can run just past the speed of sound on a good day and that Artemis hits the bull's-eye 9.85 out 10 times during practice sessions.

The lack of bickering between the two might as well be silence and it persists all the way to Happy Harbor. It's just so wrong that Robin's tempted to comment on the differences between bewildered and wildered. Because he was definitely not wildered right now and was feeling the be- pretty heavily. He doesn't because Wally hasn't looked over at her for the past half hour, he and Wally are talking like they used to and he's happier than he's been in a long time. So he just doesn't have the heart to bring up how confusing the speedster and the archer are acting.

Deep down inside he thinks that maybe the reason for all this is that they've reached the understanding that Kaldur wanted so bad and it makes Dick's insides twist.

It's not long before the twisting and burning collide together and he acknowledges this sick feeling by name.

He's going to Wally's room to hang before heading back to Gotham when he sees them. The redhead has her pressed against the wall by his door and all he can see of her are her slender dexterous fingers combing through his fiery locks. Artemis makes a noise that he didn't even think she was capable of producing. It's high and feminine and makes him wonder how pretty her eyes might look right now. Wally gasps, visibly trembling and the sight of hands lifting a green-clad leg around the speedster's waist reminds him of what exactly he is witnessing. He flushes and stumbles into the wall behind him.

They hear the noise, startling them out of their actions. Those green eyes meet his masked ones and he's rushing down the hall before Wally can even say "Robin, wait!"

He doesn't know if Wally actually does call out to him but he's on the R-cycle to Gotham without being followed, so he thinks not. Robin wouldn't have if the situations were reversed. It's not that he blames Wally for starting a relationship with the pretty teammate. And he knows that it's none of his business anyways but it still hurts because Wally had promised and they haven't hung out in ages.

He storms into the Batcave hating himself for hating her.

Because he doesn't hate her, not really. He actually really wished he got to know her before and independently of Wally's thing with her. He wishes this because the part of his brain that still runs on logic realizes that she would really get him. She was powerless, from Gotham, and the few times they spoke in and out of missions he sensed a level of respect from her that he had to work really hard to get from the others. Sometimes, he thinks he still working for it. But all he knows when he thinks of her long gold hair, pretty blue eyes, and those slender fingers that held Wally's hair so tightly is this irrational jealousy.

Jealousy.

The roaring in his ears and burning in his chest crash into his thoughts and consume him as if called by name.

Going through the gymnastics routine should be difficult when he's so distracted but he finishes it flawlessly because of who he is and who he was. So he channels this jealousy, aggression, no— jealousy into the punching bag. He does this repeatedly until that he swears his un-taped knuckles might start to bleed.

"Might I suggest you take a break from attempting to physically harm yourself, Master Richard?" Alfred speaks up from the shadows along the mouth of the cave.

He winces because he's been caught and he still hasn't thought out what to say to Alfred or Bruce about his behavior.

"May I inquire what has upset you so?"

"I'm not upset, Alfie. I'm just a little disgruntled is all." Robin says, hoping in vain that his dismissal will make the butler drop it.

"With an emphasis on the dis- Master Richard?" Alfred responds.

That gets him to look up and the roaring dies down enough for him to really see the worried look in Alfred's eyes. He knows that Alfred fears him turning into another Bruce and it makes him feel like a jerk because Alfred's been there through everything and the least he can do is assuage the old butler's worries. So he sits on a bench and haltingly explains the very emotions that he's tried so hard to deny. Dick tries not to clam up, as his blatant fear of losing his best friend is exposed for the first time like some aching wound that is too big for him to lick himself anymore.

He finishes and startling blue eyes fix themselves on old wise ones, "Did Bruce ever, you know, go through problems like this with his friends?"

"Sir, what do you honestly think is the likelihood of Master Bruce having friends at your age?"

His laughter echoes through the cave. He tries to imagine Bruce at 13 and it nearly breaks his brain because he can't see Bruce doing any of the things he does with Wally. The image is so sad and funny and awkward that he momentarily forgets until Alfred speaks again.

"Maybe it would help to discuss this with Master Wallace?" The butler says and Robin makes a face at the weirdness conjured by the thought of talking to Wally about feelings. Wisely Alfred decides to make another suggestion, "Or perhaps you can make friends with the young lady?"

"Friends with Artemis?"

"Yes, so the three of you can do the 'hanging out' together."

It teases the edge of his thoughts for second or two until the burn starts again and he feels with every fiber of his being that he shouldn't have to make friends with her. She's the problem not the solution.

He laughs again but this time it's filled with a bitterness that reminds him so much of Bruce. "Nah, thanks Alfie but I don't think that'll work very well."

"Very well, Master Richard."

He can hear well-disguised disappointment in Alfred's tone and it just makes him want to train harder because he hates that sound more than he hates being second-guessed. The last thing he needs is to be angrier at himself. He works until he's too exhausted to feel let alone think and passes out on his bed.

He trains this hard a couple of times a week now.

Weeks go by and their relationship progresses into this sweet thing filled with quite moments and tender touches.

Wally is so utterly devoted to her that it makes him sick. He knows that this jealously is more befitting the 13 year old child who is Dick Grayson than the level-headed superhero Robin. But he can't help the path his eyes take under the domino mask, watching him watch her.

The panic associated with losing his best-friend increases in direct correlation to the time on and off duty the two spend together. And he feels that this panic is justified because Wally is more than his best friend. He is his only friend really, because how could the others in Gotham Academy know how life is like for him?

It's not fair.

Despite their distant hometowns Artemis could see Wally with an ease that Dick could never have—wasn't allowed to have. Robin only has these moments with Kid Flash to carry him through the monotony of being Dick Grayson. And he thinks with growing vehemence that secret identities really suck.

So he may hate his feelings, his disappointments, his very thoughts but for the first time he actually hates being Robin.

Then the harrowing thought occurs that Wally may not even like Dick Grayson.

So he clings even harder to Robin.

Now let's be real I feel just like a child

Someone could be taking all my toys

So call me dumb, call me wild

See that's the thing with little boys

Jealousy, Darren Criss