AN: I am so amazingly sorry that this took so long to write, I seriously couldn't think of an idea for K.
I hope you enjoy it and review!
Arty x
K is for…
keeper.
He stood, completely frozen in terror, one hand raised but unmoving.
He took a deep shuddering breath.
"Come on Wally, get it together." He muttered to himself. "You can do this! You've fought villains, you've pranked Batman….you've asked Artemis out on a date….you're just meeting her mother…I mean, sure, she was an assassin, but she's retired now and you can handle it….just knock on the freaking door!" He ordered himself, and forced down his nerves long enough to rap gently on the door, only to yelp as it instantly swung open.
He stared at the woman who had answered the door, taking in her dark hair and eyes. "Um hi?" He said awkwardly.
Artemis had gotten a lot of her features from her mother…Including the unimpressed stare. "About time you finally stopped talking to yourself and knocked, you're lucky the neighbours don't call the police." She said as way of greeting.
Wally instantly turned red and spluttered, completely mortified. "I-um-you heard that!?"
Her lips twitched slightly in amusement, the same way Artemis' did when she found something amusing. The thought made him smile slightly and he held out one of the bundles of flowers he had cradled in the crook of his arm.
"Um it's nice to meet you Mrs Crock…these are for you."
The woman smiled at him, shifting from unwelcoming to welcoming in an instant. "My, my, Artemis was right you are a charmer." She said, wheeling herself down the hallway. "Artemis! Wally's here!" She called out through the small apartment.
Wally took this as an invitation and stepped cautiously inside and followed Mrs Crock into the lounge.
Where he was tackled by a blond blur.
He caught Artemis laughing at her excited but nervous expression, as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in for a kiss.
"Urgh you kiddies are so mushy." A familiar voice-that was not Mrs Crock- said from the other side of the room and Wally and Artemis jumped, startled and spun in unison towards where it came from.
A woman with wild black hair and dark eyes lay sprawled across the sofa lazily.
"Jade, what the hell are you doing here!?" Artemis practically snarled.
Ah.
The crazy sister that kidnapped them and dumped them on her island for a vacation.
Not knowing really what to do Wally just sent the woman an awkward wave, which she returned with a wink.
"I'm visiting our mother, dear sister, is that a crime now too?" The assassin said calmly, causing Artemis to practically hiss.
"Girls, no fighting." Mrs. Crock ordered from the kitchen, where she was setting the table. "And Jade, please tell Red Arrow to stop loitering on the fire escape and come inside."
Wally and Artemis gaped slightly as an awkward Roy, climbed in through the window and apologised before sitting besides Jade, who sprawled across him instead of the couch.
"Er…Hi Roy." Wally said, as his girlfriend silently fumed besides him.
Roy looked almost as awkward as Wally felt.
"Um yeah…hi Wally."
"oh yeah, I got these for you beautiful!" Wally offered Artemis the slightly squashed flowers, hoping to calm her down before she attacked Jade.
It seemed to work as she smiled and kissed his cheek before walking off to put them in water.
"Um…you have a lovely home Mrs crock." Roy said quietly, trying to break the awkward silence.
The woman beamed at him over the table. "Oh thank you Roy, and please call me Paula, you too Wally, and boy's please come sit at the table dinner's ready." She added, sending the speedster a smile as he appeared at the table eagerly, before she had even finished, Artemis smiled as she placed a plate of curry in front of him, loaded with extra rice and curry.
"Looks great Mrs- I mean Paula- Did you and Artemis cook this? She told me she likes to cook with you." Wally asked, curiously.
Paula grinned at her daughter before smiling. "Yes we did. Has Artemis cooked for you before then?" She asked curiously.
Wally nodded swallowing a mouthful of curry. "Yeah, loads! It was all delicious." he answered, grinning at his girlfriend, who smiled back embarrassed.
"You know…I was so surprised when Artemis told me she was going out with you." Paula said suddenly, studying them both. "All I kept hearing was about that 'annoying flash boy' and something about flirting with anything with breasts. I never would have guess it was jealousy." She added bluntly, causing Artemis to choke on her food, shooting her mum a horrified look. "m-Mom don't tell him that!" She hissed.
Wally gave her a half-hearted glare. "I do not flirt with anything with breasts!" He protested, and Roy let out a snort of laughter that turned to a coughing fit as his food went down the wrong pipe. Jade slapped his back, a slightly amused yet concerned look on her face. "You okay there red?" She asked, as the coughing subsided.
"y-Yeah, I'm fine just the idea of Wally not flirting." He explained to her with a grin.
"Dude, I don't flirt that much!" Wally protested.
"Yes you do." Both Roy and Artemis said together, exchanging a slightly startled glance that they had both actually agreed on something. "You hit on Wonder Woman, remember." Roy added with a grin.
Wally paled slightly. "You swore you would never mention that again." He hissed, glaring at the male archer.
"Wait you hit on Wonder Woman!?" Artemis repeated with a grin. "What happened!" She asked Roy, forgetting their mutual dislike. Roy let forward and happily explained the time he, Kaldur, Robin and Wally, met Wonder Woman and in his nervousness, hit on her and almost getting pounded by said woman after he put his foot in his mouth and said something rather sexist.
"The Flash had to zip him away before she put him in the infirmary. He hid in his room for weeks and he still avoids her like the plague." He finished with a grin, glancing at Wally, who had sunk down in his seat and turned almost ears bright red as everyone laughed.
"So how did you to finally realise you loved each other?" Paula asked, after the laughter had calmed and Wally's burning cheeks had cooled down. She blinked as both Wally and Artemis sighed, while Cheshire snickered.
"Am I missing something?" Paula asked with a confused frown.
"No Mum…its just…well." Artemis sighed again. "I found out Wally liked me after he unintentionally insulted me, and then he tracked me down to apologise and to tell me he loved me." She explained, ignoring the guilt that flashed across the speedsters face.
"Unintentionally insulted?" Paula inquired her eyebrow rising, and Wally blurted out the story so fast it was indecipherable.
"Wally your speed talking." Artemis muttered nudging him and causing him to blush again. "Sorry…that happens when I'm nervous sometimes…I-my friend Robin well he was bugging me about Artemis and how apparently he knew I'd always liked her and wanted me to confess, and I stupidly denied it by telling him that I didn't think she was beautiful-A complete lie you're absolutely beautiful." He added to his girlfriend, before continuing with the story, his voice still quite fast and nervous.
"Anyway, she overheard and ran off, and I felt awful because she was crying and I ran after her and tracked her to Gotham and I couldn't find her and the team followed, and I was so busy berating myself that Miss M had to mentally inform me that Artemis had been standing in front of me. I apologised and it somehow turned into me confession everything and for a second I thought she was going to punch me, but she kissed me instead and boy that really surprised me, but it was totally awesome!" He said with a wide grin.
"And that's how we got together!" Wally finished, before snatching up his drink and gulping it down.
Paula's smile grew as she listened, mainly because the speedster was so nervous and it was adorable, but also because of her daughters soft expression as she watched him too.
He seemed to be a keeper.
"…You know flash boy, I almost went to hunt you down after I saw my little sister in tears in a café, asking me if she was pretty…" Jade spoke up suddenly, her eyes glinting as she twirled her knife. Wally paled slightly, his eyes following the knifes motion, but Jade smiled slyly and continued.
"But lucky for you, flash boy, I saw you running frantically around Gotham in your civvies, looking for her, and I decided to give you a second chance…" she paused her sly smile growing. "After all I owed you…You did jump out of a plane for her when you can't even fly."
Paula and Wally spoke at the same time.
"Jumped out of a plane for her!?"
"Wait how did you know about the plane thing?"
Jade smirked at her sister. "Oh my little sister mentioned it and I was curious so I did some digging…did you know that those crooks you were fighting had security cameras installed in the cargo hold?" She asked with her trademark Cheshire grin at the two horrified teens.
She dug into her handbag and pulled out a tablet and after a minute she turned it to face her mother and played a grainy security feed.
A lone gunman was standing in the middle of a cargo hold, his arm wrapped around a bleeding Artemis and Kid Flash and Robin were visible, behind a crate in the corner.
"Well, well…what a pretty little thing." He said, darkly, hugging her tightly.
"Get off of me you pervert." Artemis said coldly and spat in the man's face, causing the man to hit her across the face. Kid Flash started to get up but was held back by Robin.
The man dragged Artemis forward roughly.
"Now all you little freaks better give yourselves up or the little archer goes for a little trip outside." He said darkly as he hit the button to open the planes hatch.
Artemis began to struggle as she was dragged towards the hatch and she managed to kick him in the crotch and force the gun away slightly.
Kid Flash risked a glance over the crate, just as the man jerked the gun, hitting Artemis with enough force to daze her, causing her to cry out and stumble backwards. Her boot hit the edge of the ramp and then she was dragged out of the hatch by the wind with a scream.
"NO! ARTEMIS!" Kid Flash's voice was raw with horror and terror, his voice drowning out his other team mates as he shot towards the hatch in a blur of yellow, colliding into the man and sending him off camera before leaping out of the plane with out even hesitating.
The room was silent as Cheshire put down her tablet.
Artemis turned to Wally, who had unconsciously grabbed her hand, when he had seen the video play. She pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "Thanks again Baywatch." She whispered, pecking him on the cheek as she pulled away.
He smiled at her, but jumped slightly in surprise as her mother claimed his other hand in a tight grip. Her eyes filled with grateful tears as she smiled at him.
"Thank you for saving my little girl." She said simply, before giving his hand one last squeeze and letting go, moving away from the table and moved to the fridge, pausing briefly to wipe her eyes discreetly.
When she turned back to the table she had a huge chocolate cake in her lap.
"you know…I have always worried about my girls." She said softly, as she set it down on the table. "I met their father on a job two years before we had Jade…I thought I loved him once." She said, her voice wistful and sad.
"Things grew bad and I realised that he was a man whose heart had long since turned to ice, he was violent and cruel. I like to think that that some part of him not hardened and twisted by his choices, loved us in someway, but it is unlikely. We were close to separating, I was growing tired with killing. when I discovered I was going to have Jade and all the problems seemed to vanish and the fights stopped."
Wally watched as a slight smile flickered across the woman's face. He spared a quick glance at the others at the table and noted Jade and Artemis staring blankly ahead with oddly identical vacant expression. But he could tell they weren't as untouched by their mothers words as they let on if the vice like grip Artemis had on his hand and the slight pain that flickered across Roy's pensive face was any indication.
He met the other red-heads eyes for a split second, before returning their gaze to their girlfriend's mother as she continued her story.
"I wonder sometimes why I never notice the cold and calculating look in his eyes as he watched the girls. Why I never noticed how different they seemed each time I returned from an overseas mission…by the time I saw the signs…of training…Jade was already well on her way to being his new weapon." Jade twitched at this, her eyes dark and Roy flinched and glanced at her worriedly.
"I was ready to leave him when I came home to Jade bandaging up a knife wound on Artemis' arm, I did not enjoy the life of an assassin and I refused to let my little girls lose themselves to the same…I decide to take on more job…to secure funds for us to disappear where he would never find us…" Paula paused, her hands gripping the arms of her wheelchair tightly.
"I should never have gone…I was paralysed during the job…he left me behind…I went away and got out six years later…in those six years…I lost contact with them…I returned home to find it empty and I used everything I had to desperately hunt them down and get my girls back. I found Artemis with a broken arm, looking after herself in an empty house. She told me how Jade had ran away from home and become an assassin for the Shadows…Cheshire and that Artemis had been raised alone, defiantly resisting her fathers attempts to turn her into a weapon…I confronted him and took Artemis with me when I left."
The sombre atmosphere broke, when the woman laughed.
"I was actually worried when Artemis kept sneaking out at night, even more when Batman and Green Arrow showed up in the lounge. When they told me how she had become a vigilante hero, I admit that I was so relieved that I may have disturbed Green Arrow with my laughter." She said cheerfully.
She finally picked up the knife she had brought to cut the cake, giving it an expert twirl before serving up the cake.
She spoke again as she handed out the plates
"After their father and I split…I grew worried about how they communicated with civilians, I feared that when they finally met a man, they might have been badly affected by how we acted when we were supposedly in love and the worries only grew as Jade threw herself into The Shadows, and Artemis kept everyone she met away with her admittedly cold attitude that she used to protect herself. I worried they would never find someone who understands them…" She smiled at both couples, her eyes glistening with happiness.
"I am glad…that you all found each other."
Wally couldn't help shifting closer to Artemis and smiled at her, when he noticed her do the same, she smiled back, her face happy and relaxed, before giving him a small kiss.
They all fell into less serious conversations as they ate the dessert and the atmosphere lightened considerably.
And Wally couldn't help the small sigh of relief he uttered while everyone was distracted.
The night had gone way better than he had expected, which admittedly involved Paula deciding he wasn't good enough for her daughter and sending Wally to a watery grave in Gotham Harbour.
…Okay he may have let his imagination get away with him.
He happily accepted the second serving Artemis handed him, he was taking his first bite as Artemis continued with her own, when Jade looked up from her plate with a frankly terrifying grin.
"Oh, by the way Mother dear, I forgot to tell you that you are going to be a Grandmother!"
Wally choked on his cake and began to cough violently, the choking noises coming from either side of him, told him Artemis and her Mother had reacted much the same.
Roy let out a long suffering sigh, as his girlfriend cackled next to him.
Chapter end.
AN: so i hope you like it!
any ideas for L will be considered :D
and i will make sure to get it up quicker!
Arty x