"Artemis," murmured Zatanna one day after combat training, "Kid Flash over there is totally staring at your ass."
Unfortunately Artemis had just taken a huge gulp of water, and suddenly she was hunched over, choking on the liquid whose confusion as to what pipe to go down surely had nothing to do with what Zatanna had just said. Her eyes swam and she found one hand traveling to her throat. As if choking herself would solve the problem of her being unable to breathe.
"Impossible," she croaked eventually, managing to straighten her spine.
"He is," said Zatanna again with a cool sort of certainty. "Robin's talking to him and he's not even paying - oh, I think he knows I'm on to him, he's looking away now."
No, she corrected herself, choking herself was her body's way to escape from Zatanna, and her ridiculous, incessant urge to talk about Wally and his nonexistent crush on Artemis.
M'gann, who had a knack of arriving just as the conversation reached things Artemis knew her Martian friend wouldn't let her forget, drifted over. "Are we talking about Wally?" Artemis shook her head vehemently, no, just as Zatanna responded with a cheerful "Yes!" The blonde glared at her, sighing with exasperation. This whole Wally-is-in-love-with-Artemis-let's-talk-about-twenty-four-seven thing was getting old more quickly than the Kid Idiot himself could eat a whole pizza. Because first of all, it was completely inaccurate. Sure, they had their moments, but they definitely were not Play A Celine Dion song moments, or anything like that. It was small things, little, meaningless things. Like him saving her the last cookie because he knew she loved snickerdoodles. Or her getting him that dumb science kit he wanted for Christmas because she knew that his parents wouldn't buy for him because of an incident he fondly referred to as "The Hydrochloric Acid Disaster". That was it. Things that didn't mean anything.
Secondly, her friends' preoccupation with their relationship that Artemis had to be extremely cautious whenever she so much as looked in Wally's direction. One nice word too many and she would have M'gann and Zatanna analyzing every breath she took and announcing the wedding date (yeah, right) to the entire Team and the Justice League. The two of them perceiving Wally's zoned out gaze as him checking Artemis out was little short of a catastrophe.
"He was staring at her butt," said Zatanna proudly.
M'gann snickered. "It's getting out of hand. Last mission, he could barely concentrate -"
"M'gann!" Artemis glowered at her best friend, now turned traitor. "I thought we decided we would forget it."
"I can't forget true love," said M'gann, half joking and half completely giddy over the mere thought.
"At the very least, he appreciates your finely toned ass," said Zatanna. She sighed. "I wish Robin would stare at my ass that way."
"You do have a great butt, Zatanna," said M'gann helpfully.
"Guys," said Artemis. Her face was so warm, it could have provided heating for all of Mount Justice. "This entire conversation is completely irrelevant, because a, Wally has no interest in me whatsoever, and b -"
"He's staring again," commentated Zatanna. "Jesus, Wally. For a member of a covert ops team, he sure isn't subtle."
M'gann nudged Artemis, winking conspiratorially. "Oh, Wally!" she called in a sing-song voice. "Are you -"
"Shut up!" hissed Artemis. Her two friends dissolved into giggles. Across the room, Wally had frozen just as he was about to take a sip from his water bottle. To Artemis's absolute horror, he jogged over towards him, a smile on his face that almost looked embarrassed. As if he had something to be embarrassed about, which he did not, because he had not been checking her out!
"What's shaking, ladies?" he said, with a forced wink at M'gann. "Did you see how quickly I took out your boyfriend, Megs? I was on fire today."
"Hmm," Zatanna hummed. "That's not all we saw you do."
"Zatanna!" Artemis had to clench her fists to physically restrain herself from either punching Zatanna square in the jaw or hiding her own face in her hands. Or perhaps both. It was so idiotic. She reminded herself, Wally is not in love with her, and will never be, and most certainly was not staring at her butt, and even if he was, it was just because he was zoning out or something else as equally stupid.
Wally narrowed his eyes at them, although Artemis couldn't miss the sudden color in his face. Like he'd been called out on something. She gritted her teeth. Screw him, he was making it so much harder for her to deny Zatanna and M'gann claims! "Uh... I assume this is one of those conversations girls have where I'm just here to prove a point?"
"I suggest you run," said Artemis as lightly as she could manage.
Wally took a step back, nervously. "Is that a joke or for 'realsies'?" he asked, making quotation marks with his fingers. She let out a short breath through her nose, annoyed. For realsies? What was he, a tween girl from 2004? What a moron.
"We just want to know if anything has caught your eye recently," said M'gann casually. "Like you know, video games, girls -"
"A certain someone's butt," added Zatanna. Artemis groaned. She actually hid her face in her hands this time.
"Uh," replied Wally intelligently. "Uh." She peeked through her fingers. Wally was rubbing the back of his neck, his face a shade of red so bright it actually was clashing with his ridiculous costume. Why couldn't he just hit on M'gann or something, be cheeky to Zatanna, do anything that would convince her stupid friends he hadn't been totally staring at her ass?
"See?" said Zatanna triumphantly. "We were right!"
"Wait a minute," said Wally quickly, even though they all knew it was too late for him to possibly change their minds. "I didn't even say -"
"Bye, Wally!" said M'gann sweetly, waving to him. He opened his mouth like he was going argue again, then sighed, deflated. Clearly he understood the stubborness that was M'gann and Zatanna. "Okay, bye..." he muttered. He walked away, hurrying to catch up with Connor and Kaldur, casting confused glances at them as he went. Artemis waited until he was out of earshot before she whirled around, seething.
"Do you guys hate me or something?" she demanded. Zatanna smirked, evidently very satisfied with herself. Worse than that, the Martian beside her had a dreamy look on her face, biting her lip. While Zatanna at least was doing this as a sort of joke, to torture Artemis, M'gann honestly believed that a certain speedster and archer would be an actual cute couple. It made said archer want to gag. "That moron is gonna think that whole interrogation or whatever was my idea, that I -" She quickly stopped talking, before her so called friends could get any ideas. Any wrong ideas, she should probably add.
"As if you weren't totally excited by the fact that he was checking you out," said Zatanna, rolling her eyes. She shook her head at M'gann, mouthing "kids." M'gann laughed.
"I'm not -" Artemis cut herself off again, huffing angrily. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Will Wally be joining you?" asked M'gann innocently.
"Just remember, anything you say can and will be used against you," added Zatanna.
Artemis chose to remain silent.
Just a dumb little drabble about Wally and Artemis. I'm still in mourning over this show being over, and I just love Wally West and his butt thief ways.
Please review! I'm new to the YJ fandom, so if I need some help keeping my characters in, well, character, please don't hesitate to let me know! Favorite and follow if you like this - I'm working on some other Young Justice fics and so yeah. :D