Ch. 2

She had to admit he had surprised her, the jerk. He was like an emotional roller coaster, one minute chewing her head off and the next... Artemis blushed, remembering the kiss. Literally chewing your head off, a tiny, very despicable voice whispered in her mind. "Robin?!" She tried, enraged, but it was just her own thoughts betraying her. If he didn't move so damned fast she would have caught him.

And then what? The voice at the back of her mind whispered. She could torture him, trap him in a room without food for twenty-four hours. Or slit his throat. Give him a lecture on how to treat a girl. God forbid... Kiss him again? She almost groaned out loud. No creative solutions came to mind unless you count medieval torture techniques, taking pictures of him with that stupid teddy bear he slept with and putting them online, or getting in a little sewing practice on his costume...

The situation with Wally was not one of the many complications she had considered encountering when she joined the team. He was unpredictable, and in her short fifteen years she had come to hate 'unpredictable.' From her first moment on the team, he had unsettled her. He never cracked. Never showed anger. Frustration and annoyance maybe, but... What in the world would someone have to go through to make them so...

Try as she might, the words to describe Wally evaded her. She knew everyone thought Wally just said the first things that came to mind, but she also knew that a Flash's brain works must faster than others, and Wally was smarter than he looked, so what was he hiding? She remembered his reaction to her family comment. She had guessed there was something wrong there.

"That boy!" She exclaimed, on her way back from the Stakeout with the others in the bioship. They had all spent the night paired in various locations watching for any sign of the criminal activity that had been rumored to occur, and, except for a mugging in which Robin intervened, it seemed the intel was false.

She looked around at the others, standing in the portal to the bioship, their faces tight with exhaustion. Wally wasn't with them. He had run off, presumably to pout. She would have to figure out how to deal with him when he got back...

Wally was running, his racing thoughts calming as his legs picked up speed. He knew he shouldn't have kissed Artemis, but he had been frustrated, and, despite all of his Uncle's warnings, he had done something stupid. Not surprising, really, he thought. He increased his speed and it felt good to just loosen up. He rarely, if ever, got to run at his fastest. He always had a goal. Take out this bad guy or that bad guy, no, don't kill them, do recon, carry the others to safety... Sometimes it drove him insane. He had joined Young Justice to get a chance to finally do his best, live the life of a hero, but instead he was still just Wally West. The boy from Blue Valley, Nebraska with the bad haircut and chronic black eye, with the broken wrist and the motor-mouth.

Now, however, instead of getting to hang out with his Uncle, he was stuck with a blond chick who didn't really seem to care. It shocked him, the first time he met her. He had always been of a 'If there's something you can do, do it' philosophy and Artemis... She just didn't seem to care about the person who was crying for help or the people held hostage. She was so cool, detached. It went against everything he believed a hero should be, and he wasn't sure why she had even joined Young Justice...

Wally threw these thoughts out of his head as he made his second loop around the outskirts of Gotham and headed back over towards Central City. Instead he thought of ice cream. Chocolate preferably. He slowed down a bit and pulled out his cell from one of his compartments and dialed a number.

"Hey, Uncle Barry, you up for some ice cream?"

The Flash hung up the phone after his nephew's call and sighed. Wally was growing up and changing, and Barry couldn't help but worry about him. He pulled on his civvies and headed over to the ice cream shop in Central on foot, at a sauntering gate that he rarely used anymore, enjoying the scenery. No doubt Wally would be waiting for him by the time he got there, ice cream in hand and a smile on his face, back from whatever latest mission kept him last night. Barry felt a flash of pride. As he continued towards the ice cream shop, walking slowly, he was totally unaware that this was one appointment that Wally would not keep.