AN: Enjoy.

She dreams of Jade night after night; dreams of her ebony hair and the smell of sweet grass like the plains in Vietnam. She tastes old malt liquor on her tongue from a long lost memory of her childhood (she had mistaken her glass for her sister's, had sipped something that wasn't hers to drink; there's the stinging of a hand on her cheek and a whispered threat and suddenly the glassiness of Jade's eyes has a new meaning and God, she doesn't look a day over fourteen and yet her sister is already a drunk) and without thinking she turns where she knows the empty bed is sitting, waiting for her eyes to crack open in the night and looking upon it, disappointed.

She senses something new and dangerous lurking inside her, and this time when she opens her eyes in the moonlight the lunacy lying dormant in her genes overtakes her all together, and in a haze she comes up with her stupidest idea yet. She throws off her covers without thinking of consequences.

She has to dig through a few drawers to find it, a forgotten keepsake that's been hidden away between book pages, but it doesn't take long before she finds the fake ID her sister used to use all those years ago. The hair color is wrong and it says she should be twenty three and about ten pounds heavier, but it'll do the job she needs it to do like it did for Jade all those years ago.

She's dressed to attract trouble; she's wearing a pair of jeans that is a few sizes too small, her tank top one of Jade's old ones that shows too much skin. She's even smudged a bit of make up on her face, the cheap black eyeliner beginning to smear under her eyes, her lipstick sticking to the rim of her glass.

She sits at the bar and orders the grossest thing she can find on the menu: straight whiskey, no ice. She hates it, hates that it reeks like her sister.

She doesn't know why she snuck out without Paula's permission in the dead of the night; doesn't know why she's passed up a perfectly good night with her friends in exchange for an uncomfortable bar stool and the lewd looks of some much older men sitting in a booth in the corner. All she knows is that trouble attracts Jade, and if she can get herself in deep enough she'll finally see her sister.

She gets it in her head that if she can tempt fate enough, can get in just enough trouble to catch death's eye, Jade will come. Jade will save her.

She decides to wink at one of the guys at the booth. Someone orders her another round of her disgusting drink, and she's forced to glance back at the creeps over her shoulder, toasting to them.

Come on, Jade. Notice her.

She's halfway through the bought glass when a few of the older guys wander over, sitting a few stools down from her at the bar. She's starting to feel the effects of the liquor; beginning to feel slightly light headed and flirtatious. They strike up an odd sort of conversation with her, and it occurs to her that they aren't bad looking—there's five of them and only one of her but she can still kick their asses if they start to get handsy. She flirts her way to another gross free drink and gets the first one paid for.

... She'll come. Jade always comes back.

Even death couldn't keep her despite Huntress' best attempts, what's a little snow and dive bar to stop her...

Nearly another drink later and one of the guys has sat down on the stool beside her, beginning to tell some sob story about his children that he doesn't realize are her age, one of his hands attempting to move from the back of her chair to her thigh. She keeps checking the door, waiting. Hoping, a little pathetically.

... Maybe...

She's drunk now, and one of the older guys has started tugging at her arm; she can't quite tell if he wants her to sit on his lap or go somewhere with her. Either way she can feel his stubby nails clawing at her arm, leaving faint scratches as another one of the older men shoves her fourth drink into her hands. She's been drinking straight liquor all night.

... Jade?

She can feel herself beginning to panic; it's nearly three in the morning now and the combination of her exhaustion from the day and the alcohol is starting to take its effect. She's blinking rapidly, trying to clear her head and the fogginess that's sitting at the front of it. She tells the guy trying to pull her onto his lap that she needs to make a call. She grabs her wallet and her cellphone and stumbles off the stool, somewhat aware of the jeering behind her.

The women's bathroom is grimy but thankfully only allows one occupant at a time, although it does take her a few moments of struggling with the lock to grant herself some much needed isolation. Everything in the room seems to be covered with some sort of greasy dirt: the toilet itself is a murky brown color, the walls covered with layers of scribbled graffiti. She catches her reflection in a cracked mirror about the sink.

"Fuck." She says out loud.

The girl looking at her doesn't look like the strong, invulnerable Artemis she knows she is; the girl she sees is clearly underage and drunk, her long blonde hair no longer shiny but looking rather scraggly in the fluorescent lighting. Her make-up is smearing and no longer flattering, her clothes hanging off her at awkward angles. She can see her own bloodshot eyes beginning to water, leaving long tracks of mascara down her cheeks.

She's not coming.

She'll never come back for her.

It's like she's a little girl again, always counting on Jade to rescue her, always following her sister from one step behind. Except this time she's been an idiot, thinking that Jade will show up and protect her, will show up and be the older sister she's always wanted. She can hear Jade now, looking menacing for such a young teenager. In this family it's every girl for herself.

She's beginning to get dizzy, beginning to grow unsteady on her feet; there's no way in hell she can go back out there, no way she can be alone with those guys anymore. If they try anything funny with her she's in no state to fight back. She slides down the grimy wall, her too tight jeans stretching against her thighs and slicing into her skin as her breathing picks up.

She left one of her favorite jackets—old, supple leather, a nice brown color— hanging off the edge of her bar stool, the dampness of the bathroom beginning to make her shiver. It takes her drunken fingers too long to extract her cellphone from her pocket, and she realizes that she's not shivering from the cold; she's shaking, full out shaking with panic and self loathing and hatred for her sister for not finding her. It's childish and pathetic and she swallows thickly, trying to keep her manic at bay. She can't afford to lose it on top of being drunk too.

She hesitates, scrolling through her contacts. Her first instinct is, humiliatingly, to call Wally, but he still isn't listed in her phone and checking her call history doesn't help—she's missed calls from a few different random numbers, all the digits blurring together in her drunken state and making it nearly impossible to identify anything. She goes back into her contacts, scrolling.

Robin (is a Dick)

She hesitates, then hits the call button. He answers after two rings. "Hello?" He sounds slightly groggy, as if she's woken him up from sleep. She supposes she probably has.

"Remember when you asked me if I was okay?" She charges on, not identifying herself and simply trusting that he'll either recognize her voice or be smart enough to check his call ID.

There's a muffled noise through the speaker. "Artemis?"

"Well, I'm not." She focuses all her energy on not slurring, but she knows she sounds drunk—her voice is unnaturally high pitched, more feminine than she's sounded in years. She can hear the static through the phone. "I need to call in another favor."

"Where are you?" He sighs. She hesitates, because she's not entirely sure, and he seems to read her mind. "Not important, I'll track the call. Have you been drinking?"

She supposes it's best to be honest. "Yes." She looks around at the grimy walls. "And I'm stuck in the women's bathroom with at least four old creeps on the other side of the door."

She can hear some background noise, as if he's getting dressed. "Night out with your friends got pretty crazy then?"

She grits her teeth and blows a stray piece of hair out of her mouth. "Yes." She lies, and she knows that he can sense somewhere in her voice that he's not supposed to ask questions. "How soon can you get here?"

"10 minutes, maybe." She hears the sound of his door opening and closing. "Do you have an exit point in there? A window?"

She spots a tiny window pane over the toilet that can easily be broken, and tells him so. "But I don't have a jacket, Robin. I left it at my chair."

"I'll be there soon. Break the window and get out of there as soon as you can. And make sure to keep your cell phone on you." He hangs up on her without saying goodbye.

She's a little more wobbly than she should be, but somehow she manages to maneuver herself on top of the back of the toilet. Having the illusion of a goal is oddly helping her stay sober, at least until she faces the tiny pane of glass that may as well be impenetrable. Then she nearly cries.

She's so pathetic.

... She's also so drunk...

She doesn't have much to work with in the bathroom, and after a moment's debate she jumps off the back of the toilet, landing awkwardly on her feet. Then she spots the toilet seat.

"Out of all the things I've ever seen you do, I think that was the most terrifying."

Robin's been in a state of excited shock for nearly twenty minutes now, still reeling over her escape from the bathroom; he had arrived just in time to see her bang against the washroom's window a few times with the toilet seat she had detached from the bowl with sheer force, finally smashing it after the third or fourth blow and sending glass raining down on the street and following shortly after, stumbling into a pile of snow and somehow managing to not look completely incompetent. One of her finer moments, apparently.

"Hmm." She replies dryly. She's still slightly dizzy; the motorcycle ride through Gotham had forced whatever liquor left in her stomach out with few objections on her part, the lingering burning sensation still sounding in her throat and doing little to help her cope with her light headedness and heart burn. Now that she's safe and in her room at the Cave with a ridiculous amount of food and water she's hardly in the mood to recount their latest adventure. She gets the impression that this is the first of many rebellious things Robin will do in his life and that's he's more than excited to be included in her happenings.

He spins in her desk chair, stopping himself by placing a foot out to catch the edge of her bed. "This is one for the history books. No—wedding material." He shakes his head, he glasses tottering slightly on the edge of his nose. "I'm whelmed. Truly."

She snorts slightly when he mentions weddings and he cocks at brow. "Speaking of weddings, how are you and Wally?"

She strategically shoves another handful of whatever flavored chips were in the cupboard into her mouth, giving him a non-committal shrug. Immediately she can see the slight change in his posture, the way he seems to come down from his high; suddenly he's leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees, no longer the carefree kid spinning in her chair.

"I see." He presses his thumbs together. "Is he why you've been acting so strange lately?"

The question is mostly shy but still with the same edge of interrogation, and she forces herself to swallow and ignore the scratching and burning food dripping down her throat. "No." She says stubbornly.

It's the truth, she tells herself as she stares him down, refusing to drop his eye even though his are hidden by his glasses. She's not doing this because of Wally. She's doing it because she's starting to not care about what happens with the Team, starting to look forward to making up for lost time with her family, starting to get tired of being treated like an outside no matter where she goes. She's being given the chance to make things right, to bond her family tighter than they have been in years—the longer she thinks about it, the more she knows it's the right thing to do. She'll quit the team. She's quit being a hero and being a villain, for once she'll have the chance to just be—be a sister, be a daughter. She'll just be plain Artemis, with two parents who love her and a sister who just might too.

Something shifts in Robin's jaw and she can tell he's not looking at her anymore, his thumbs releasing each other. "I'm worried about you." He finally says. "You aren't acting like yourself. You spend half your time these days trying to get beaten to a pulp, and the other half we all hardly see you. And then—the call tonight—you're my friend, Artemis. One of my best. And I don't want to see anything happen to you."

She stares at him as he stares at his hands.

For the first time in a while she considers telling him as much of the truth as she can. "I'm sorry, Dick." She uses his civilian name because it feels much more soothing on her lips, not the alias she saves for dire situations on the battle field. "I'm just… I'm having a hard time. I've been thinking… Maybe I'm just not cut out for all this."

He glances up at her and he knows she isn't telling the full truth; one of Dick's many gifts is the fact that he can always read her a little more closely than she wants to. "Cut out for all of this? Or just the being a hero part?"

She knows that at the very least he has suspicions about her past, knows that there's something evil and dark inside her lying just below the surface, waiting for the chance to be released again...

She won't let that happen.

She feels her mouth go tight. "All of it." She says honestly. "I'm sorry Dick."

He nods at her, then gets abruptly to his feet—for one wild moment she thinks he's going to storm out, furious, but then he crashes down beside her, sending her whole bed jostling. He lies still beside her in the most platonic way she can imagine, nearly a foot of distance between them with his arms tucked behind his head. From this angle she can see his eyes blinking behind his glasses, his eyelashes almost touching the frames.

"I'm going to miss you." He says after a while, and it's the most honest thing she's ever heard. "It's going to be weird, seeing you only at school."

She rolls onto her back, her mind beginning to become unfogged. "I'll miss you too."

They both stare at the ceiling for a while, in silence so long that she actually begins to nod off. Somewhere beside her she hears Dick whisper. "Just promise you'll hold off on the whole retirement thing for a bit okay? Until the New Year? I have a mission in the works, I want you in on it…"

She hears herself agree.

"Are you kidding?" She jerks awake when she hears Wally's voice, sounding distraught and slightly angry. Her head is aching and Dick is no longer beside her. It's still dark in her bedroom.

"Wally, shut up. You'll wake her."

"Wake her? Who are you, her mother?" She listens to the two boys argue outside her door, feeling sore from her trip out the window.

"Calm down. She's going through a rough time. Cut her some slack, Kid—"

"Slack? Since when do you cut anyone any slack?"

There's a scuffle, as if Wally's trying to get inside. "Look, will you make yourself useful? Go get her some water."

There's more scuffling and a silence in which she falls asleep again. When she wakes up a few hours later her room smells like walnuts and there's a glass of cold water on her bedside table.

She manages to slip out of the Cave without bumping into anyone unexpectedly. She's hungover but despite everything all she wants to do is move, to run, to forget the embarrassment and pain of the night before. She doesn't have much in the way of clothing around the Cave, but before she leaves she manages to throw on a couple of sweaters, hoping the layers will save her from the cold the same way her long lost jacket would have.

She arrives in the familiar back alley of Gotham via zeta, the snow falling heavily from the tops of the murky buildings. Hm. New Years hits and she'll be out.

She has mixed feelings at best, but the more she's thinking about it the more she's realizing that she would be fighting a losing battle, forcing herself to stay any longer. Red Arrow is right and so is her father: she doesn't belong on the Team. They'll be better off without her, stronger even. She belongs with her family, keeping them together like she's always wanted to.

She wonders what will happen when she leaves. She knows Robin will keep the information that she's leaving quiet—that kid is all secrecy and lies—but she's still not excited to see the look on everyone's faces when she tells them. She wonders who will look disappointed and who will just look relieved.

She passes the window of a gas station and she can't resist popping in, even just to warm up for a few minutes under the guise of wandering through the aisles. It's getting close to Christmas now; she wonders if M'gann will throw some sort of Christmas party for the Team, wonders if it will be filled with all the clichés she's seen in the holiday movies: Secret Santa, candy canes, mistletoe. She feels oddly disconnected from the celebrations as if they're already something she's remembering.

Her eyes catch at the ridiculous collection of pathetic looking last minute gifts, focusing on a rather red mug. She realizes that The Flash has released his own line of lame looking coffee mugs.

She doesn't think before grabbing it, doesn't think when she hands the annoyed looking cashier the small amount of cash in her wallet. She watches him with a weird type of ferocity as he wraps the mug in extra pieces of paper, making sure it won't crack if dropped, not feeling anything other than curiosity as to whether or not Wally will like it.

She makes it about twenty steps outside of the gas station door when her phone starts ringing. She half expects it to be Robin, maybe even Wally, and feels her brows tense when she reads the caller ID.

Unknown Caller (Unknown)

Her ears are already beginning to hurt from the cold, the metal of her phone stinging slightly as she presses it against her exposed skin. "Hello?" She asks the air in front of her.

She hears a low and dangerous chuckle and at once her feet stop moving. "Look behind you."

She whirls on her toes, feeling ridiculous for automatically shielding her present for Wally behind her back—she doesn't have anything else to defend herself, she's already seen just how dangerous a simply cup can be, it's just a stupid Flash cup, who cares—and feels her pupils dilate, as if hoping to see the threat before it materializes.

Jade smirks at her, clicking her phone shut and replacing it in the pocket of her coat.

The Cheshire Cat always comes back.

She looks oddly like every other girl in Gotham, her hair curling and frizzing under a worn baseball cap and the bottoms of her jeans wet with snow. The same unexpected and threatening wave of relief and affection runs through her, the same one she felt when she saw her a few weeks ago, kissing Red Arrow. Her sister, alive and breathing, walking down the street. It's all very surreal and exactly what she's been craving.

Jade tilts her chin back, as if to survey her over the tip of her nose. "You can stop pretending like you're going to attack me." She sneers. "Relax. I have no quarrel with you—not now, at least."

She can't help but glance down at herself, her feet spread and her muscles clenched, ready for a fight that isn't coming. She straightens herself, forcing a glare to her face. "How did you get that number? It's supposed to be for League members only." Jade scoffs, the sound in the back of her throat saying all she needs to—Please Artemis. I'm not an amateur—so she changes her question. "Why do you have that number?"

Jade shrugs. "Never know when it will come in handy."

They survey each other for a second or two, just long lost sisters who happened upon each other on the street. Then Jade glances down at the plastic bag in her hand. "You on a cigarette run for Mom?"

The question is too normal, too much like their childhood, and it puts a bad taste in her mouth to answer. "No. Mom stopped smoking in prison." Jade nods, and so does she. The snow is starting to seep through her boots. "... I've been wanting to see you, actually. After Thanksgiving."

"I don't need a kid like you checking in on me. I can take care of myself." Jade taunts, her face tight and sneering and cruel for a few seconds before she uncharacteristically softens, the usual Huntress styled drawl dropping from her voice. "... Dad told me he came to talk to you." A pause. "Are you going to do it?"

One of the plastic handles is digging so hard into her hand that the sensation overrides the numbness of the cold. "I don't know. Maybe." It's one of the first honest things she's said to her sister in years. Jade is watching her face carefully, one of her brows raising when she says what she does next. "Would you want me to? After everything that happened? Would you want me and mom around more?"

Jade shrugs, glaring at the ground. "I don't care, Baby Girl."

"... But we're your family."

"Artemis, I haven't had a real family in years." Jade's eyes are off the pavement and glaring at her, grey and steely and more terrifying without the mask hiding them. "... I don't know what to tell you." The wind catches a piece of straggly hair, and Jade spits it out of her mouth. "... Depends, I guess... On you. You got much to lose?"

She shrugs, and the bag digs into her hand harder.

"… Don't be weird about this, okay? But— Listen. We're having a rendezvous with a couple big timers on a few days after Christmas. If you're serious, I'll take you along so you can get a feel of what you're getting into." The Huntress drawl is back up and running, and so is the stiffening of her jaw into what looks like a rare smile. "See if you're still capable of handling the family business. Look for my call... It's not often I make an exception to my every-girl-for-herself rule."

In a way that seems almost eerily familiar Jade smirks and turns her back on her, beginning to disappear as usual. She can't stop herself—it's so rare that she sees Jade without one of them attacking the other, and she has a feeling that she won't have another chance. She takes a few clumsy steps forward. "Wait! Wait—"

Jade stops like she's been waiting for this. "What?"

She has a thousand words at the front of her mind—I love you, be safe, why are you always fucking leaving me?—but she trusts the safest and maybe the stupidest ones on her lips. "I need boy advice."

She clutches the plastic bag tighter into her fist when Jade laughs, full and much younger than what Cheshire would allow. It takes her only a few seconds to compose herself, her chin dipping and her eyes glaring at her, hard. "You want advice? Stay the fuck away from them."

She opens her mouth to argue, to talk about Red Arrow and how much of a hypocrite she can be sometimes. Without warning the snow starts falling faster and thicker, and just like the Cheshire Cat...

Jade is gone.

"… And Artemis, don't get me started on Artemis."

She pauses in the hallway, her muscles tensing. She can hear Black Canary's voice floating through the hallway, cut off abruptly by a masculine chuckle. She presses herself closer to the doorway that leads through to the counsellor's office.

"Oh yeah? What's got her goat this time?" She hears Oliver ask. There's the shifting of paper work against a desk.

"Nothing, that's the problem. I thought that after everything she'd be more inclined to talk, more eager to… But nothing. Every time she sits across from me it's like some sort of ridiculous game of pass the present, and just when I think I've finally unwrapped her I discover another layer…"

A slight pause. "She's a tough girl, Dinah. She's not going to come around as easily as the others."

There's some more shifting of paper, and when Canary speaks again it sounds as if she's reading from a file. "Artemis Lian Crock: Anxiety disorder. Possible PTSD. Unwilling to disclose emotions or interact with others unless hostile." There's a loud sigh. "I don't know what to do, Oliver. I'm worried about her. She needs to start a healing process, otherwise… She needs to initiate it herself, soon. I'm so worried…"

She jerks her head back when she hears a low coo from Oliver, signaling the beginnings of a comforting speech. She stiffens and walks on.

It's the 20th of December. Wally hasn't talked to her in nearly 15 days.

She's getting tired of the silent treatment, getting tired of trying to catch his eye every time they're forced to materialize in the same room for training. Since her first day at the Cave she's been in almost constant communication with him, even if that communication was somewhat strained at times; it's so weird, now, for her to look at him and not know what to say.

She wishes she hadn't kissed him. It had been stupid, impulsive as all her mistakes are. She can hardly look at him now without feeling his lips on hers, hearing the small groan he had let out as she bit his lip. She had woken the other night with her fingers between her legs and the imagined smell of walnuts in the air; she had to throw herself out of bed and open her window to the Gotham winter before her skin would cool down.

She's ruined everything and can't figure out to get things back to the way they were.

It's a last ditch attempt, designed to soften him and to preserve some of her dignity if that's still possible. She hasn't even bothered to wrap it, the Flash themed coffee mug still coiled in tissue paper and a Quick Run plastic bag. She's already decided that regardless of how things end between her and the rest of the Team, she's determined to leave on good terms with Wally.

She places it in front of his door before she knocks. For the first time (maybe ever) she's gone before he can make an appearance.

To Wally,

Happy early Christmas, or whatever.

-Artemis

…4… 5…

She's just taken a break in her reps when she catches Robin's eye in the mirror. With a slight grunt she lowers the dumbbell from her fist to the floor of the training room, smirking at his reflection. "Dick." She nods at him, wiping a bead of sweat that's running down her temple.

He leans against the doorway to the training room, looking oddly excited despite the fact that he's pretending to scroll through his phone. "Artemis."

He keeps scrolling, his thumb moving too quickly to actually be doing anything. She can feel herself frowning and almost expectantly she turns to face him, her hands flying to her hips. "Any reason you're lurking around here in particular? Or can I get on with my work out?"

Robin jerks his head slightly, the florescent lights catching on the lenses of his glasses and flashing at her. "Just got word from Bats himself, that mission I told you about? It's a go." The corner of his mouth jerks up in an almost child-like way, and she can't help but smile back. "Shower and get ready, we leave in an hour. It's undercover, I'll leave your mission attire in your locker."

She rubs again at the sweat on her brow. "Sure."

If there's one thing she loves in this world, it's a warm shower.

She suppose it's just part of the symptoms of growing up the way she did, an occupational hazard of being Artemis. Years of acquired knowledge regarding firearms, fighting styles, and survival skills, and yet the most important thing she's learned? Never turn down a shower, before or after a mission. You never know where you'll end up, what you'll be messing with, and how long it will be before you manage to get properly clean again. She presses her body back against the cool tile of the shower stall, the steam whirling up so thick around her it's almost hard to breathe; she likes her showers scalding, to the point that her skin feels like it's boiling off her bones.

She likes the intimacy of being alone with her thoughts, like standing still until the water runs cold. She tilts her head slightly, feeling a slightly thicker stream fall across her forehead, running down her cheek and between her breasts.

Like many showers before this she's still stuck on Wally, this time the fact that he's yet to even acknowledge the fact that she got him a Christmas present. A rather shitty one, to be fair, but she knows that idiot has a sentimental side; it wouldn't be like him to toss it without even bringing it up.

The thought of him alone is beginning to get her slightly warm about the cheeks in a way that has nothing to do with the water; she has to clench her fists to her side to keep her fingers from wandering between her legs. She needs to keep herself together, she has a mission to go on. She can't be thinking of red headed idiots, can't be stressing over a goddamn Christmas present—she needs to focus…

… The way his hand had pressed against her waist, pulling her close until they were flush against each other, all muscles and hips and tension… Without knowing it she's shifted under the water, an unexpected stream hitting the sensitive point between her legs.

She grits her teeth and reaches for the tap, turning it to cold.

"For fuck's sake."

It takes her a while to dry her hair and get into her designated mission attire, which turns out to be something she expects would only be appropriate at a really slutty circus; she has to wrestle herself into a white spandex suit that barely holds her breasts in place, complete with both poorly sewn in ruffles and cartoonish flames. When she looks at herself in the mirror she can't help swearing.

She feels ridiculous, her frustration with Dick only mounting when she discovers the last piece of the ensemble—a flimsy tie-around mask that looks as if it was bought at a dollar store. She's beginning to think this is his idea of a sick joke when she tries and fails multiple times to get the mask to sit evenly on her eyes without bothering the knot of her pony tail.

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

She bites her tongue, which has been about to utter another colorful curse and glances around wildly, her cheeks reddening when she realizes Wally is hovering awkwardly around the door way. She supposes she's been practically screaming for the last quarter of an hour; between attempting to fit the entirety of her body into her suit and nearly burning her scalp with the amount of hot air she had to produce from the hairdryer to get her hair in working order, she's surprised someone didn't come running before now.

He has an odd sort of expression on his face, like he's caught between hilarity and his own annoyance at her; he's struggling to keep his lips from quirking up as he surveys her with a stony face, the look reminding her of the one he sent her after they kissed and doing nothing to relieve the wanting that's pooling in her belly. "Sorry." She mutters, blushing.

She's aware that the cheap white spandex is leaving a lot less to the imagination than her regular kelvar suit does; unlike her uniform the circus-like suit is uncomfortably tight in some places. She crosses her arms in attempt at modesty that nearly sends his eyes bugging; with a glance down, she realizes she's only made her breasts pop out further. She watches Wally's eyes quickly switch from her chest to the wall, his ears reddening. "What—uh—what's going on?"

The question catches her off guard; she had been expecting him to leave almost immediately. She catches herself twisting the cheap mask in her hand, struggling to keep her face as impassive as possible. "Robin's called me out for a mission."

His eyes finally leave the wall, one brow quirked and sending her a sheepish smile. "… Dressed like that?"

It's such a ridiculous relief, seeing his lips stretch into a grin; after such a long absence it nearly makes her knees tremble. She wants to run across the room, wants the throw herself at him like she did before—instead she smirks, uncrossing her arms and shrugging her shoulders, gesturing hopelessly to herself. "Your guess is as good as mine on this one, Kid."

He takes a few steps closer under the pretext of investigating further; it's the closest they've been since their kiss, the only exception being sparring training where his touch on her waist had been enough to nearly shut her down, the only time he had almost beaten her. He's standing nearly three feet from her, well out of the range of her arms, as if he's afraid she'll grab him. He gestures at her legs, smirking at the flames and frills. "I'd say circus prostitute."

She nearly rolls her eyes out of her head. "Couldn't just be a circus performer, could it? I had to be a circus prostitute."

Wally's brows shoot up and his hand gestures of its own accord. "Well, with an outfit like that…"

She has the strong urge to hit him and has to force herself to remain rooted in place; she's not quite sure where she stands with Wally, not sure if it would be too much too quick to reach out and smack him. She settles for baring her teeth and leering at him like some sort of animal. "Watch it, West."

The fact that she's a bit annoyed seems to egg him on, the way it used to when they would tease each other all hours of the day. He smirks a bit and leans forward, tilting his head slightly and looking her up and down. "Hm. I feel like it needs something." In answer she holds up the flimsy mask, and a full out smile crosses his face. "Oh boy. Please put that on."

She looks at him for a half a second, the same look Jade sent her the other day; her jaw tilted downwards, surveying him. She doesn't even give herself time to think before she turns to face the mirror above a sink, her fingers beginning to tie a knot that hopefully doesn't fall to pieces at the bump of her pony tail. God, she has it bad for this boy.

Wally's watching her in the mirror, still standing a few paces behind her; after her first few attempts to tie the mask she begins to swear under her breath again, and after almost ten she's red in the face, nearly cursing at the top of her lungs. She can see his smile getting wider every time she sets it on her face crooked, the eyeholes matching up with her brows more than her pupils.

He lets out a chuckle and she nearly loses it all together, her cheeks burning. "What's your problem, Baywatch?" She sneers at him, another attempt at a knot failing.

Wally laughs at her, openly and slightly meanly. "How are you so bad at this? I mean, aren't girls supposed to be better at tying bows and stuff?"

The comment sends a rush of hot and angry blood to her cheeks, and she whirls round to face him, snarling. "Fine! If it's so easy, you do it!"

For a second he eyes the now crinkled mask she's thrust at him; it's another challenge between them, another thing one of them has to win. She can see the calculation going on behind his eyes, can see him weighing the odds in his favor. Then his mouth twitches and he dons a confident smile. "Fine."

She should have known better; for a moment they simply glare at each other, both determined to be the lone victor in this new game they're playing. She's just convinced herself that she can do this—after all, it's Wally—when he crosses the few paces and grabs the mask from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers.

It's the tiniest touch, her forefinger against his, and yet it sends what feels like fire through her veins. All at once the confident looks falls from both their faces and she's aware of the fact that the sink is behind her and he's in front of her—if he wants he could kiss her right now, press her into the sink and just grab at her and she wouldn't stop him— She can see something shift in Wally's eyes, can see his Adam's apple bob slightly as he swallows. She knows he's thinking it, knows that he's thinking about the kiss too. Without thinking, she moistens her lips.

She watches Wally run his fingers along the seams of the mask, trying to get it to sit flat after her fiddling as his ears turn red. "I, uh—" He stops, his voice cracking slightly. She blinks at him expectantly, trying to keep her face demure as he glances down at the mask in his hands; she tries not to notice his eyes flickering to her chest for a fraction of a moment, her breasts still barely contained in the wrapping of spandex. He clears his throat, starting again. "I need you to turn around."

She does as she's told, turning and bracing her hands on the sink, watching him in the mirror and trying not to clench her fingers into the porcelain. She's tied the neck of the suit so that it covers the worst of her scar but she can't stop him from seeing the rest of her back; it's marred with tiny marks from misfired arrows and various battles but Wally's looking at it like it's some sort of master piece, his eyes moving in a blur in an effort to see them all.

She doesn't like the attention he's giving her, doesn't like that he's standing so close she can feel his breath on her shoulder. She clears her throat, still sounding huskier than she intends. "Anytime, Kid."

He blinks and catches her eye in the mirror, his ears practically glowing. "Right." He swallows.

His reflection doesn't move though; instead he simply stands behind her, breathing, his eyes looking bright and excited over her shoulder. Her cheeks are beginning to redden. The slowly, so slowly it nearly kills her, he reaches up. She instinctively closes her eyes, expecting him to reach around to place the mask over her lids.

Her eyes snap open when she feels the elastic being tugged out of her hair.

She sucks in air between her clenched teeth, watching him drag her hair loose, her blonde tresses falling in waves between them. Wally's freckles are practically blushing themselves, his hand dragging through her hair and gripping the very ends, his knuckles barely brushing the small of her back."Sorry." He says thickly, sounding slightly embarrassed. "It was in the way, that's why you couldn't—"

"It's fine." She interrupts, sounding vaguely breathless. She can't help the slight arc of her back, the desperate need to feel more of his skin on hers, even if it is just knuckles through a thin layer of spandex. She's pathetic.

Wally's eyes catch hers in the mirror, slightly wide and excited the way every teenage boy is, curious at her reaction. He replaces his hand at the back of her head, carefully running through her tresses again, watching as she shuts her eyes and gnaws at her lips as he grips her hair, the bumps of his knuckles hitting her back. She can feel the familiar coiling sensation in her stomach, still sensitive after her "almost" in the shower; she has to remind herself what he said to her in his bedroom, has to remind herself that she's broken and unfixable and wrong for him in every possible way.

He snags a knot with his fingers, and she actually makes a low noise in the back of her throat, just loud enough for him to hear it. "Sorry." He says quietly, not realizing she liked it. "You should wear your hair down more often." He says in a slightly thick voice. "… You look really pretty."

She catches his eye in the mirror, steady for the first time in a while. His cheeks are ridiculously red now and she forces herself to break eye contact and smirk at the sink. "Weren't you supposed to be putting on my mask?"

Wally blushes again, his hand burying itself in her hair again as he starts to trip over words. "Oh, uh—" His finger catches on the tie of her suit and he stops speaking.

She winces slightly, knowing that he felt the protruding at the bottom of her neck, felt the long line of nobbled flesh that rests there. She doesn't meet his eyes when he glances at her in the mirror, questioningly, asking for permission, but she also doesn't stop him when he parts her hair, flopping it in equal sections over her shoulders and exposing it.

Maybe that's progress.

She clenches her hands against the porcelain of the sink, all the muscles in her back on high alert and waiting for his judgement. His hands are tight on her shoulders, keeping her hair off her back as his thumbs press into her skin, the lone wanderer of his right hand tugging the tie of her suit lower, better to expose the scar. She watches his brows tense in the mirror.

She hears him breathe and out almost ten times before he speaks, and when he does his voice is so much different than before, no longer thick with excitement but low and dangerous; she can see an odd mixture of fury and pity on his face. "What happened?" She hesitates, and the longer she waits to answer the angrier he gets; he whips her around by the shoulders, glaring. "What happened, Artemis? I swear to God—"

He's so furious he actually cuts himself off, one hand waving angrily through the air and going to rub angrily through his hair, and she decides to answer. "Wally—"

He interrupts her, already in on the fact that she's about to lie. "The truth Artemis. What's the truth?"

She bites her tongue and for a second they simply glare at each other, her looking mildly annoyed and him looking ready to commit several different types of murder. Then she narrows her eyes and tilts back her chin, looking at a fixed point above his left shoulder. "I told you. My Dad is an asshole."

She avoid his eyes as his expression falls, looking a mixture of disgust and pity. She doesn't want to hear what he has to say, doesn't want him to demand more of her than what she's obligated to give. She doesn't want to hear words of comfort or horror or any other kind of words for that matter, she knows it will only make her feel worse and place even more weight on the point he made in his bedroom: she's broken. She's a banged up little girl with scars he can't heal, broken limbs he can't set.

She's broken and there's stuff broken between them; she won't be able to fix the damage she's done no matter how hard she tries...

She wouldn't be good for him.

She swallows down the part of her that is still hoping he'll reach out and touch her, still clinging to the naivety that he'll ever want her after seeing proof of the darkness inside of her. She can see the horrified look on his face, his ears no longer red, can see that it's become apparent that he can't save her from herself. Her father was right, she's not meant for this kind of stuff. No one so beat up can play the hero.

She ties the mask on herself, not bothering with the fact that the eye holes are still crooked despite Kid Idiot's revelation. The line of his lips is no longer excited or inviting, just sitting in a straight line above a clenched jaw. "I'm late." She says, brushing past him.

Wally doesn't move, doesn't wish her luck or tell her to be safe. It's one of the last times she'll ever see him, she's almost sure, and with that in mind she glances back over her shoulder with the hope that he'll at least meet her eyes. She's disappointed when she sees him glaring at himself in the mirror, her hair band still clenched tightly in his fist.

She blinks her eyes a bit too quickly. The she turns her back on him and all their "almosts."

AN: I'm not 100% happy with this chapter but the boyfriend and I are jetting off on a vacation for the week and I really wanted to give you guys something to remember me by! We'll be out exploring the mountains and lakes of southern British Columbia and I won't be able to update until Sunday.

Once again, feel free to cast your votes for my next work: Sister piece in Wally's POV or a Sequel that covers the span of the time gap between season 1 and 2? So far it's about 60-40 in favor of a direct sequel but I still would love opinions.

Have a wonderful week and please REVIEW! If I come home to over a dozen reviews I promise to update before I even unpack!