Sorry this took so long, please review ;)
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The next night that Wally knocked on her door, Artemis had already changed into shorts.
"Come in!" She called. The speedster waltzed in to find her untying her bandages and beginning to unwind them. She frowned as she had to pass the end under her leg, and he sank to the floor to help her out.
"I got it." He grinned. "Tell me things."
"Things?" She arched a critical brow and he snorted.
"I dunno. How was your day?" He shrugged, focusing on his task.
"Hm. Well, today at school there was this irritating girl named Jamie. And she thinks she's so great..." Artemis ranted on while Wally smiled slightly. He liked this new thing they had. As it turned out, Artemis was pretty cool when she wasn't glaring or arguing with him.
"Sounds awful." He said absently, retrieving a new pot of ointment.
"Whoa, whoa!" She exclaimed, jumping from her chair and edging away. "I know what that is, and I don't trust you with it!"
He grinned wickedly and waved the pot around menacingly. "Scared of a little medicine, Arty?"
She scowled and folded her arms defensively. "No, just cautious. And anyway, it's not the medicine I'm afrai- I mean, cautious of. It's you. I know what kind of villain you can be."
He cackled in a devious way that was reminiscent of Robin, and screwed off the top.
"Get back, fiend!" She commanded in mock anger, picking up a nearby spray bottle of water.
"Never!" He shouted, dipping his fingers inside the pot and jabbing towards her with his sticky digits.
She brandished the spray bottle with a fierceness that rivalled Wonder Woman with her lasso.
"You asked for it!" She warned him, hopping onto the bed and furiously pulling the trigger of her impromptu water gun.
Wally let out a manly squeal as the mist of water rained upon him and clung to his hair and eyelashes. He scrunched up his face as he took the brunt of several sprays, and tried in vain to bat away the minuscule water droplets.
"Haha! Take that!" Artemis gloated from her stance on the bed. "Artemis reigns victorious once more against the evil Wallman!"
"Alright, Aqualassy, get down, I surrender and admit defeat. Just let me finish wrapping you up." Wally snorted, and she dropped onto her bottom with a creak of springs.
There was a smile splitting her face, brighter than any he'd ever seen as she allowed him to get back to work.
"Why do you have a spray bottle in your room, anyway?" He muttered, feigning a little bitterness.
"Watering the houseplant." She said as though it was obvious.
He stared and then burst out laughing, guffawing until tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes.
"You've been watering that thing?"
She glared suspiciously at him. "Every other day."
He laughed all the harder, succumbing to the mirth until his amusement was silent and he was shaking.
"What?" She snapped, as he continued chuckling.
"You know that houseplant is fake, right?" He asked once he'd recovered from his laughing fit.
Artemis gaped at him as a stain of pink spread across her cheeks to the tips of her ears. "You're kidding."
He shook his head, grinning at her.
She winced, squeezing her eyes shut and slapping a hand to her forehead. "And when I asked Red Tornado to water the plant while I was in Vietnam...?"
"He was so confused that week. He kept asking if it was a human saying or a code phrase or something." Wally answered gleefully.
"Great." She groaned, going even redder at the thought. He smirked but didn't say more.
Wally peered at the scars on her legs, most of which were nothing but faint pink lines against her olive skin. The ones he'd been watching for the past two days had knitted closed and were losing the angry red they'd started with.
"Well? How's it look, doc?" She smirked, seeing the satisfaction on his face.
The corners of his bright green eyes crinkled as he smiled and she found a smile rising to her own lips.
"Damn good." He replied succinctly and she laughed, throwing her head back.
Wally's smile broadened and he felt something warm and nice brew in his chest. It was...friendship. Maybe. It was different than what he felt with Robin, but not the same as what he'd felt with girls he'd liked in the past, like M'gann. (Contrary to popular belief, he did actually like her for sometime, but he was over it now.)
Whatever it was, it was comfortable and he didn't want it to stop.
He finished applying the ointment for good measure and quickly wrapped up her legs with clean bandages. Patting her leg to signal he was done, he stood up, clearly pleased with himself.
"Good news is, you don't appear to scar easily, so these probably won't stick around for much longer. Most of these cuts were superficial, so they should heal almost completely." He explained and she nodded, looking lighter than he'd ever seen her.
"Cool. I've missed wearing shorts. Summer's coming up, so that's great to hear." Artemis said leaning back in the chair.
Wally sat up on the edge of her bed and stretched, hearing several bones pop as he did. Artemis cringed at the noise and he noticed immediately.
"What, don't like that noise?" He asked mischievously. When she shook her head disdainfully, he proceeded to crack every single knuckle, one at a time.
"Stop it!" She shrieked, slapping him and wincing at every pop.
He snickered at her reaction, mentally filing away the information for a later date. It never hurt to know people's weaknesses.
"So, how was your day?" She asked, mimicking his tone from earlier.
He smiled (he seemed to do a lot of that in her presence), and began to explain about this one teacher he absolutely hated. Artemis seemed content to interject with the occasional witty non sequitur, and he went on to do a quick recounting of his day.
"Hey, Wally?"
"Mm?"
"Why are you doing this?" She asked curiously. Wally's breath hitched and he inhaled sharply.
"Why am I doing what?" He desperately tried to affect innocence.
She gave him a pointed look and he sighed, shoulders slumping.
"I mean, because I'm a decent human being? Because I care about the health of my team?" His voice went soft. "Because I feel guilty?"
Artemis said nothing, only watched him carefully.
"I mean, I'm part of the reason you did this to yourself, right? I'm trying to put things right." He admitted. When she didn't respond, he chuckled mirthlessly. "Trying, anyway."
Surprisingly, her eyes softened and the corner of her mouth lifted. "Okay. That's...astonishingly thoughtful of you. I appreciate it."
He grinned nervously. "Every once in a while I seem to do something right."
She raised an eyebrow sceptically, but didn't hide the smirk on her lips. "And those times are few and far between, but for now you seem to be doing alright."
"You know what? I'll take it. I will accept that answer and enjoy it and love it because that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Wally shrugged honestly. "Anyway, I gotta get going. Y'gonna be okay?"
"Yeah." She smiled serenely, and he nodded cheerfully.
"See you tomorrow, then." With a little salute, he was speeding away from her with a grin still tugging at his lips.
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You know the drill.
Playlist:
1. The Spark by Joshua Hyslop
2. Feeling Good cover by Michael Bublé
