Disclaimer- I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.
Sorry for the slightly late-ish update. Also for the short chapter. But this is part of why I've decided to start updating twice a week, because some of these chapters will be shorter than others and it's only fair.
Reviews sustain my life force; sustain meeeeee!
Tally ho!
o.o.o.o
Chapter Length: 1,932 words
o.o.o.o
It turned out that Wally West had a home lab on the opposite side of his kitchen.
It looked like a room that had originally been meant to house a dryer and washing machine, but it appeared the redhead had decided sacrificing the devices for his test tubes and beakers was far more than acceptable.
It was no small wonder his hamper had been so full of dirty clothes the morning she left his apartment.
He had showed her the place like a reverent child, and Artemis had to admit she was pretty damn impressed.
He had the works; a bunsen burner, beakers, a scale, a distiller, a cabinet she was pretty sure was full of very dangerous chemicals that weren't supposed to be allowed anywhere outside of a science lab. There was also shockingly enough a small window in the room, and Wally had wedged in a fan nearly the same size inside of it in order to filter out any harmful fumes while he experimented.
"Have you ever had the cops called on you?" Artemis just had to ask. Wally scoffed not very convincingly.
"Never! I know proper conduct around this stuff."
"Right… why don't I believe you?"
It also turned out that the scientist had a day job involving pharmaceuticals of all things. Artemis couldn't keep her interest from piquing at that fact…
Pharmaceuticals. Drugs. As in medicine, things that made people better from illnesses. Vaccines. Cures.
"That's interesting," Artemis murmured to herself, letting one of her palms run absently along the clean surfaced lab table. She splayed her fingers out on it, her mind running a marathon. What kind of luck should bring her to a man that had access to this particular branch of science?
Science that could, theoretically, if she so chose to allow it to, fix her... ailment.
Artemis had dreamed about it before. Dreamed about some how shedding the wolf's skin and just being… normal. Going somewhere safe and away from the pack with her mother, adjusting to a human life with no murder, no deceit, no scents, no full moon, no pack leader…
Just her own life.
And it wasn't that Artemis hated being a werewolf even. It had it's perks, but it came at the cost of living the way she did, and she had no desire for that kind of life anymore. Her father had been trying to bend her to his ways since she was a pup, and she was tired of the constant fighting of it.
Wally West could end it.
If he could even know about it, Artemis laughed bitterly in her mind, her hand falling off the table. And even if he could know about it, what made her so sure he'd be willing to risk his life, his job, his time on trying to help a wolf girl he barely even knew?
"Artemis?" Wally asked, and she realized she'd been silently pondering this entire time. She shook her head, trying to snap herself out of it, and cast him a weak smile.
"Sorry, I was just thinking. This is pretty fascinating… can you tell me what kinds of drugs you work around?"
Wally West's face split into a wide grin.
Artemis felt her heart clench.
o.o.o.o
"Mom, I'm back," Artemis called loudly, shutting the door to their dingy apartment as softly as she could. The hall was aglow with soft light, and she could hear the murmurs of voices issuing from the tv.
The smell of something cooking had the blonde altering her course to the kitchen rather than the living room, and sure enough Paula Crock was heating herself some leftovers in a pot on the stove.
"Something smells good." Kind of a lie.
"Artemis, you are home late," Paula said, turning to face her daughter. Artemis furrowed her brows, letting her gray eyes flick to the clock. She had been at Wally's for nearly the entire day; it was already 7 o'clock in the evening. "I waited as long as I could, but I couldn't say no to heating up some leftover soup when you did not show up."
Artemis felt guilty; the only consolation was that her mother had not gone through the trouble of preparing her any food. She was pretty sure she was going to hurl if she even thought about food. Wally West made very good use of that ridiculous fridge of his, and she was pretty sure he could keep enough food in there to feed an entire army.
That, or a man with a very fast metabolism and a famished werewolf.
"Sorry, I got… uh, distracted."
"Oh yes," Paula hummed, stirring her soup. "You returned the Wally man's clothes?" The woman eyed her daughter expectantly, and Artemis rolled her eyes to the splotched old ceiling.
"Yeah. That's kind of where I've been. All day."
Paula's eyes widened with curiosity, and the spoon paused in it's meticulous stirring of soup.
Here we go.
"You spent your entire day there?" Paula inquired, setting her soup bowl down on the counter. Artemis grimaced; she could see exactly what was running through her mother's mind just by looking at her eyes, and it was enough to make her wish she could suck her own words back up into her mouth.
"Don't get any ideas, mom," Artemis said, pulling a chair out with an earsplitting squeal and plopping herself down in it. "We just… talked about some stuff. Turns out he's this huge science geek and I was pretty interested in what he had to say about it. End of story, here I am." She crossed her arms.
"I see," the dark woman said slowly, wheeling herself and her soup to the table as well. Artemis got back up to prepare her mother a drink. "Well, did you enjoy yourself then?"
That gave Artemis pause. She stood with the refrigerator wide open before her, staring blankly at it's contents while she processed her mother's innocent question.
From the moment she had arrived on Wally's doorstep Artemis had been so at war with herself, fighting against that one small half of her that could see Wally becoming a, dare she say it, friend. A normal human being that she could escape to when she needed, if only to try and pretend she was just a human too.
She knew there were risks not only to herself but to him; she could not bear the thought of any harm coming to him, especially not after all he had done for her, even if she thought him rather stupid for doing it.
But the one thing that was standing out in her mind right now was his friendly welcome of her. The way he had fed her despite her strange appetite and had not bombarded her with questions about it; the way he was so childishly enthusiastic about science.
But most importantly, it was the fact that Artemis had completely forgotten about her worries once they had started talking about science. When Wally West had started prattling off about his job, his lab, the drugs, experiments he had done, fire alarms he had accidentally set off, experiments he could show her in the future… she had been so at ease. She had talked and laughed and wondered right back at him, and it had just felt so nice.
She'd never felt so happy. So much like she'd had a friend.
Artemis grabbed a jug of cold tea from the fridge. Her mouth opened and closed silently as she struggled for her words. She let out a breath, shrugged, and smiled a little to herself.
"I did, actually. I really did."
"That's wonderful, Artemis," Paula said, grinning at her daughter as she placed a cup of tea before her.
"I guess," the blonde admitted, sitting herself back down. She stared thoughtfully at her mother's steaming bowl of soup, imagining she could see vague shapes unfurling in the fumes rising up from it. She chewed hard on her bottom lip, felt an old crack bust back open to spill metallic flavor into her mouth.
"Are you alright?" Paula asked after a while.
Artemis sighed heavily, jumping back to her feet again. It wasn't like her to be so antsy, but the decision she was making could be one that made or broke her life as well as Wally's. Yet something deep inside of her told her she already knew the decision she was going to come to, even if she thought there was still a war being waged in her mind between the two options.
Still, she decided to indulge herself to her mother.
"I want to see him again," she blurted out, tossing her long mane of hair back over her shoulder tetchily. She rounded on her mother, pointing a stern finger at her. "And before you get any ideas it's not like that. It's just… he's so nice. The kind of nice that gets you in trouble. He's stupid nice. And when he talks about science it draws me in like a lecture would and I just know he's right about it all, he knows his shit. I felt so at relaxed there, listening to him and talking. I… I was away from all this," she made a grand gesture towards the window she could see in their living room, encompassing the entire werewolf controlled area of the city that lied beyond. "I was away, and I just thought maybe I could at least use him for an escape from time to time. Is that wrong of me?"
Paula Crock studied her daughter for a long time, standing there breathing a little heavily from her rushed words, her brows furrowed worriedly. She had never seen her daughter so worked up over an individual, not even the humans she secretly aided in their war against werewolves.
Clearly, this was a big deal, and Paula was smart enough to know exactly what her daughter both wanted and needed to do.
She gave Artemis a smile.
"Of course it's not, my dearest daughter. I think it would do you a world of good to take this Wally West as a… source of enrichment outside of werewolf territory."
Artemis snorted. "Nice way of putting that, mom."
"Well I thought saying friend would send you into a frenzy so I backtracked," she conceded, sipping more soup from her spoon. "But no, I do not think it is wrong of you. I am happy for you, and think you should see him more, if that's what your heart is telling you to do."
"My brain is telling me I could get the both of us killed…" Artemis murmured, pressing her chin against the table. "Ugh!" she bemoaned, covering her head with her hands.
Paula stretched across the table and patted her offspring's arm. "I think I can see in your eyes that a relationship with this man is worth the risk. You just need to admit it to yourself. You know the precautions you can take to keep other wolves off your trail, you're smart. Do not let your father win, go out there and do what you think is best for you. Just like you've always done."
Artemis looked up at her, her lips pursed, fingers drumming on the table. By the time Paula had finished her meal Artemis seemed to have come to a decision. She got up from her chair, strided over to her mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Thanks, mom," she said, taking the empty bowl and putting it in the sink for her.
