So I've written a few drabbles to go with Young Justice remixes of the "A Softer World" comics, and I'll be posting them all in this story in separate chapters. The first few are Wally/Artemis, but I might get to others (depend on which ones inspire me). Links to the comic for each drabble will be posted on my profile page.
First up: 656 - "Please don't leave me alone with our stupid children."
Wally/Artemis - 1,227 words
"You are beautiful when you sleep,
But it's getting a bit old.
Please wake up."
The doctors advise against it, say there's a very slim chance she will come out of this, but being her legal guardian (even if it is only for a few more months), Oliver insists on it, and the younger archer is hooked up to the many tubes and cables, and surrounded by countless screens, all emitting different colored lights and variously pitched beeps at different times.
Much of the other members of the League and of the team disagree with Ollie's decision, but he ignores any protests ("I already lost one of these kids before; I'll be damned if I lose another!"). Wally however, can't seem to thank him enough. He keeps opening his mouth to try and say something, anything to show his gratitude, but his voice is unable to force it's way through his choked up throat, and through the wild rush of his mind, he has no idea what he would say anyway.
He thinks Green Arrow knows it though, as the older man rests a hand on his shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze while they watch doctors and nurses hook Artemis up to multiple machines. Wally is the first one into the room as the doctors step away from her.
It's unnerving - sitting down in the chair next to her bed, reaching out for her hand - that her fingers are seem so small and limp in his. They're supposed to be strong, calloused, and ever so active (her subconscious habit of drumming those fingers on almost every hard surface she could find would drive him up the wall), but as he picks them up into his palm, they feel so lifeless and fragile that he's afraid that if he grasps onto them as tightly as he wants to, they'll crumble to dust in his hand.
It's not supposed to be this way though. Artemis is supposed to be strong, unflappable, bouncing back like her annoyingly stubborn self after every hit she takes. Never backing down or showing weakness.
But right now, with her darker skin contrasting against the white of the hospital bedsheets, her larger mass of hair spreading out around her head and over her shoulders, and dwarfed by the multiple machines around her, all Wally can think, is that she looks so small.
And he really, really hates that.
He puts her hand down gently and edges the chair closer to the end of the bed and brings his head down close to hers. "Time to wake up now, Sleeping Beauty," he whispers, a sad smile cracking onto his face. "Now, quit being such a laze-ass and get up already."
~o~
He isn't able to stay for long before visiting hours are over and the only person allowed in her room is Green Arrow. After heckling from Dick and Black Canary, and finally the final word from Batman, he heads back to the cave and crashes there for the night, setting his alarm for the morning so he can head straight back.
Once he gets back to the hospital, he sees Ollie and Dinah off to the side in what looks like an intense conversation with a woman that Wally guesses is the head doctor. He pauses next to two nurses near the door of Artemis' room and listens to the hushed conversation…
"…had to revive her three times last night…"
"…just cruel, keeping her like this…"
He dashes past them straight into her room, ignoring his wariness around her from yesterday and snatching up her hand as he sits down in the chair, squeezing it tightly.
"Seriously Artemis, it's time to wake up now. I don't care if it's just to punch me. I don't care if you end up hating me in a few year or months and we break up. I don't care about any of that. Please, all I care about is you waking up."
He tries to ignore the fact that her hand is still cold and limp in his. "Please, just wake up."
~o~
She has to be revived two more times during the day, Wally being dragged out of the room each time and forced to stand and watch at the window until she's once again stable. After the second time that day - the fifth time all up - Ollie lifts his face from where it has been resting in his hands and looks at Wally, giving a minute shake of his head.
Wally shakes his own head in return. "No," he says to the older archer, "We're not doing it. We can't shut it off yet."
"Wally," the older man sighs, "everytime we have to revive her, there's less chance of her coming back. I know you don't want to accept it - hell knows I don't - but it's only by some massive miracle that she's actually going to wake up." Wally notes that his voice is hoarse; whether it's due to a lack of sleep or because he's been crying, the younger boy can't tell, but he can tell that obviously Ollie has thought about this a lot over the past few hours.
Still, the younger man stubbornly shakes his head. "No," he says firmly through gritted teeth, before turning his head to Artemis and whispering rapidly at her.
"Artemis, please. I'm begging you. I won't ask you for anything else, I swear. I'll stop making cheesy jokes, I'll accept that you can kick my ass whenever you want. I'll do anything, I promise. All you have to do is wake up - right now.Please."A hand rests on his shoulder and he closes his eyes, knowing what Ollie is going to say to him next.
"Wally, it's time to let her go."
~o~
It doesn't take long for Ollie sign the forms. Wally tries to plead with him more, but he eventually starts to see the reasoning behind it, and after Artemis needs to be revived once again, he knows for sure that keeping her around like this just for himself, is not only selfish, but cruel, and everything he doesn't want Artemis to have to go through.
He opts not to be in the room when the machines are turned off, because really, Artemis was gone a while ago, he just didn't see it, and there's no point seeing her off when she's not actually there anymore.
Instead, oddly enough, he finds himself rummaging through her room in the cave for a piece of her, but of course Artemis never really kept momentos, and he only finds a few little bits and bobs that are essentially meaningless.
So he falls back onto her bed and stares up at the ceiling while, miles away, the ventilator pushes its last gasp of air into Artemis' lungs and lets it trickle back out, while the heart monitor begins to slow more and more until it's a flat line and a long, cold, empty beep.