A/N: For Annicaspoons...because she started it. Song is "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry. Set after "Secrets."
Disclaimer: Greg Weisman would not approve of this taking place on ANY Friday night.
Last Friday Night
Pictures of last night ended up online.
I'm screwed. Oh well.
It's a blacked out blur,
But I'm pretty sure it ruled.
Damn.
Artemis awoke that morning to the sensation of microscopic midgets pounding tiny hammers against her cranium. Groaning slightly at the throbbing migraine, she began to notice another offending factor to what was promising to be an interesting morning: she was freezing. And it wasn't just the body pillow she was currently curled around that was cold, but something pressing behind her that was leaching away her warmth.
Groggily, her eyes cracked open, still leaden with sleep, and she took in her surroundings from the dim lights suspended on the walls. Her gaze traveled from an impressive computer setup in the corner to a flat screen on the opposite wall with a futon and several bean bags. A work bench was littered with batarangs in various stages of completion. When her brain finally caught up with her visual input, Artemis realized that she wasn't in her room.
She bolted upright with a gasp, instantly regretting the motion as she clutched her head. The blanket covering her fell down, as did the arm hugging her from behind. To her completed and utter shock, the arm belonged to M'gann, who was beginning to stir, having felt the waves of panic radiating from the blonde she had been cuddling. And it turned out the body pillow Artemis had been content to spoon was an actual body—Kaldur's body to be exact. He was laying ramrod straight, arms crossed over his chest, still fast asleep. A small body on the other side of Kaldur looked suspiciously like Zatanna, burrowing under blankets, wearing Robin's super suit minus the cape.
Artemis tried not freak out. Artemis failed.
She had no memory of how she ended up sandwiched between her teammates in Robin's room, wearing Superboy's too big t-shirt and a pair of Wally's sweatpants. And there seemed to be an obscene amount of sparkly crap everywhere.
She stood up, attempted to step over the mess of bodies crammed onto Robin's bed, tripped over M'gann's leg, and fell off the mattress in a rather ungraceful fashion, landing on the floor with a loud "Oomph!"
The thud was enough to startle both M'gann and Kaldur awake. Zatanna mumbled something incoherent and turned over, pulling the covers over her head.
"Artemis!" M'gann exclaimed. The archer wished the martian wouldn't shout so loudly as it only exacerbated her pulsating migrane.
"Are you alright?" Kaldur inquired, scooting off the bed and kneeling next to M'gann.
"No…No I'm not alright," Artemis hissed, finding anything higher than a whisper agitating to her headache. "My skull feels like it's going to explode, and I have no memory of how I got here or why I'm wearing this!" She tugged at the baggy sweats and shirt for emphasis.
M'gann and Kaldur exchanged a look. The Atlantian prepared to speak when the door slid open, revealing Robin, Wally, and Superboy.
"Oh good, you're finally up," Wally quipped.
"Does this mean I get my room back?" came Robin's teasing inquiry. "Is Zatanna awake yet?"
"No," came the magician's muffled reply from her nest on the bed.
Artemis's eyes narrowed. Wally always looked too smug for his own good, but the amusement in Robin's grin was more pronounced than usual, and the rest of her teammates continued to send knowing glances at each other when they thought she wasn't looking. Like they had a mental link established and had purposely excluded her. It was extremely irritating.
"Okay, what's going on?" Artemis demanded. "Why can't I remember how I got here? And why is Zatanna wearing Robin's costume?" She pointed an accusing finger at Zatanna who came to sit next to the archer, still haphazardly clutching a blanket around her shoulders.
"Hey Artemis, can we not shout hysterically at our friends?" Zatanna massaged her temples.
"I'm not hysterical!" Artemis whisper-yelled, flailing her arms for emphasis.
"What is the last thing you both remember?" Kaldur interrupted.
Zatanna looked at Artemis whose eyebrows were furrowed in concentration.
"We had that encounter with Harm," the magician supplied.
"Who?" chorused Robin, Wally, and Superboy simultaneously.
"Harm," Zatanna repeated. "This crazy homicidal guy with a supernatural sword. And then we decided to leave Manhattan and took a zeta tube to Gotham."
"Where we ran into Scarecrow," Artemis continued, trying to recall what transpired afterwards but drawing a blank.
"And then what happened?" Robin pressed.
"I—" Artemis's voice faltered. She turned to Zatanna who merely shrugged her shoulders. Clearly waking up in a new place wearing someone else's clothing didn't faze her like it did Artemis.
"We don't know," Artemis finally replied, looking back at her friends.
"Well, Rob and I can fill in the blanks after we found you," Kid Flash grinned, ignoring the elbow to his ribs by the boy wonder.
"Can't you just link us up and recover our memories?" Artemis asked the martian. "Like in Bialya?"
"Bialya?" Zatanna raised her eyebrows.
"Another time," Kaldur told the magician. "M'gann?"
"Only from the point where our motorcycles were destroyed onward," Artemis warned, having no desire for everyone to know her reasons for wanting to ditch the dance. M'gann nodded before linking up the team, and memories from the previous night began to play out like a movie.
Zatanna and Artemis watched from a nearby rooftop as the police hauled off Harm.
"That bastard," Artemis seethed, still in shock that the boy had murdered his own sister.
"We'll make sure he won't be able to do anything like that ever again," Zatanna reassured the archer. "It kind of dampened the whole 'girls night out' though."
"Yeah," Artemis agreed. "I kinda want to get out of Manhattan now."
"Do you want to go back to the Cave? Horror movie marathon?" Zatanna suggested.
"Not really," Artemis mumbled, racking her brain for Plan C of the night. A thought struck her.
"You know," the blonde drawled, shooting her comrade a sly look, "There's always something going down in Gotham…"
The magician returned the conspiratorial grin. "I'm listening."
Artemis checked her communicator. "Zeta tube's two point seven miles that way," she nodded back in the direction they originally arrived. "Race ya."
Heading over to Gotham was a quick enough ordeal, and finding trouble took even less time.
There was a very obvious trail of property destruction starting two miles from the portal and creating enough ruckus that Artemis and Zatanna were led straight to the source.
Scarecrow had apparently decided that Halloween was the perfect time to throw on the old mask and test his new toxin on the citizens of Gotham. The girls watched for a moment as the madman ran through the street, a small tank of fluid strapped to his back draining out through a hose that fed the substance to a metallic tube. The tube vaporized the liquid into a mist that Scarecrow used to douse everyone he came across.
The person targeted by the vapor appeared to be disorientated for a few moments. Then, as the solution was breathed in, that person would stagger away, tearing things apart, shouting obscenities, stealing things out of broken windows, and fighting against any police officer that arrived at the scene.
Even more bizarrely, some of the affected people sang off-key, danced like no one was watching them, and attempted to streak through the street.
"It's like they're drunk," Artemis whispered, notching an arrow and firing a net over a group of people attempting to make a pipe bomb.
"It must take away their inhibitions instead of making them fearful," Zatanna muttered back, jogging alongside Artemis as they attempted to catch up with Scarecrow while simultaneously stopping the drugged civilians from creating too much chaos.
Scarecrow eventually took note of the decreasing sounds of mayhem behind him and turned around in time to see Artemis and Zatanna running straight toward him. They weren't quite in range of his vapor gun, but the criminal mastermind had come prepared and launched a grenade-like projectile at the heroic duo.
"Watch out!" Artemis attempted to shove Zatanna out of the way before it could explode, but the contents were released immediately upon impact, immersing the two girls in a cloud of concentrated toxin.
Much coughing ensued, and Artemis was still trying to muddle through the sensation of everything around her moving up and down and sideways when Zatanna pointed a wobbly finger and shouted, "He's leaving! Quick! Get him!"
Artemis was vaguely aware that they were supposed to be apprehending a villain, so she reached for her quiver, decided to play Russian roulette, and selected an arrow at random instead of carefully choosing one appropriate for the scenario.
Everything was still undulating around the archer, but that didn't stop her from sending the arrow straight for Scarecrow's back. Fortunately for him, it was one of the exploding goop arrows to be used when the archer was unexpectedly dropped from a great height and required a soft landing pad.
Zatanna giggled and clapped her hands in delight. "Oooh! Shoot another one!" she begged.
Had Artemis been in the right state of mind, she would have taken in the magician's dilated pupils, staggering gait, and feverish cheeks and dragged her straight back to the Cave's infirmary. Unfortunately, the archer's condition was identical, and she was more than willing to indulge her friend's crazy suggestions.
So she notched another random arrow to her bow, hands shaking slightly as she spoke to Zatanna. "He ruined our girls' night out. He should be punished!"
She fired the arrow, a simple metal one, and it lodged in his right shoulder as he attempted to get up from the mess of gunk.
"Owwwww!" he howled in pain, clutching the protruding arrow. "Are you crazy? Heroes aren't supposed to aim to kill!"
"True," Artemis agreed as she and Zatanna walked over to where he was flailing around. "But you ruined Girls' Night. There must be consequences."
She aimed another shaky arrow at his head, but Zatanna put her hand on Artemis's arm and pushed down. "Wait! We can still have fun. Shoot a flare and we'll let Batman punish him!"
Artemis's eyes lit up at the thought. "You're right! Let's go!" She shot the arrow straight up into the sky, watching as it exploded into a shower of fire. Zatanna chanted something next to her, and the fire turned into a downpour of glitter.
"It's way prettier like this!" Zatanna giggled, grabbing the blonde's arm as she tugged her beneath the sparkly mess and began to spin in circles. Artemis laughed and spun around next to her, arms extended outward like propellers, the writhing Scarecrow completely forgotten.
The vision cut to a rooftop where Robin had just observed the entire scene, radioing his best friend on his communicator. "KF, you're not going to believe what I just saw."
"Is it important?" Wally hissed on the other line. "I'm kind of at a dance here."
"I'm going to need backup," Robin replied simply. There was no response from Kid Flash, but five minutes later the speedster appeared by his side, dressed in his superhero costume.
"This had better be good—Whoa. What happened?" Kid Flash whistled, taking in the wreckage, the mess of glitter, and the sporadic fires surrounding them.
"Artemis and Zatanna happened," came Robin's grim reply as he bound Scarecrow, careful not to jostle the arrow wound too much. "I need you to run him to police headquarters while I figure out where Zatanna and Artemis are now."
"You lost them?" Kid Flash raised his eyebrows.
"Zatanna transported them somewhere and I was occupied with this mess!" he gestured to the villain, still moaning in pain.
"Okay, I'll take him to the commissioner, and you can send me coordinates when you find our teammates," Kid Flash said, hoisting Scarecrow over his shoulder and zooming off.
"Easier said than done," Robin sighed, hoping against hope that Artemis hadn't ditched her com link.
The situation rewound slightly, and the focus turned back to the two girls. Glitter was still drizzling down when Artemis remarked, "It's just like magic pixie dust! Can we fly now?" She turned to the magician, gray eyes widened innocently.
"No," Zatanna frowned for a moment before coming up with an idea. "But it can transport us! Watch!"
She gathered a fistful of glitter and tossed it into the air, chanting a spell as she did so. Artemis felt a swooping sensation in her stomach before finding herself in a completely different part of Gotham.
"It worked!" She grabbed both Zatanna's hands, spinning them in happy circles as they laughed uproariously at absolutely nothing.
"Yay! Hey! Is that a party?" The younger girl gestured to several people in costume walking around a large area of construction. Loud music emanating from the building the patrons were entering seemed to confirm the fact.
"Looks like it. We're we invited?" the archer questioned, looking at Zatanna as though she might know the answer.
"I don't know," Zatanna bit her lip. "But I LOVE this song! We should totally go!"
"I don't want to walk around this construction," Artemis said simply before drawing an arrow, launching it into the pile of roadblocks, and watching with satisfaction as it detonated into thousands of pieces.
"Isn't that illegal?" Zatanna pondered, not really upset, merely curious as they wandered through the rubble.
Artemis shrugged, ignoring the screaming citizens running away from the site and glancing down at her glitter-covered ensemble. "I don't think we're dressed for the occasion," she informed her companion.
"Ooohh! We should wear superhero costumes!" Zatanna exclaimed, pointing at a whole group dressed like the Justice League.
"I don't want to be Green Arrow," Artemis pouted, crossing her arms in front of the entrance to the club and refusing to move.
"How about our team?" Zatanna suggested. Not waiting for a response, the magician quickly spoke the incantation that changed them into Kid Flash and Robin uniforms.
"You have a cape!" Artemis tugged on the material before doubling over in giggles.
Zatanna stuck out her tongue. "Yeah, well…you're supposed to be fast!"
"Zatanna! Artemis! Wait!"
The two girls turned sharply to find Robin running toward them.
"Let's see just how fast I am now," Artemis whispered to Zatanna before grabbing the magician's wrist and pulling her into the crowded club, ignoring the bouncer yelling behind them that they were underage.
Robin was about to follow when he felt Kid Flash screech to a stop next to him.
"Did you find them yet?" The red head demanded.
"Yeah, they went inside there," Robin pointed toward the entrance with a very disgruntled bouncer still shouting after the two girls.
"Better run in now before he's not distracted," Wally mumbled, grabbing Robin and rushing them both inside before the bouncer knew what had happened. "So what's the plan?"
"We'll split up and look for them! We can cover more ground that way!" Robin shouted over the pounding bass.
Kid Flash nodded once to show that he had heard his friend before weaving in and out of people in costume dancing to the beat. He was making his way to the DJ station when a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Turning his head all the way to the side, Wally's jaw nearly dropped at the sight twenty feet away.
There was a girl flitting in and out of the strobe lights, wearing a Kid Flash uniform identical to his. If he didn't know better (and at the moment, he didn't), he would have said it was one of his spares. Momentarily forgetting his mission objective (he was only a teenage boy after all), Wally pushed through the hot bodies, trying to get closer to the entrancing siren, finally reaching her as the song changed.
"Tonight…I want all of you tonight…Give me everything tonight…"
The girl chose that moment to turn around. "I love this song!" she exclaimed, her eyes alighting on the boy dressed exactly like her. "HEY! We're matching!"
Kid Flash was overcome with a wave of familiarity. Her long hair streaming behind her out of the cowl, her dark eyes, her sharp curves: everything about her screamed Artemis.
"I want you tonight…I want you to stay…"
"Artemis?" he whispered. The archer might not have heard him had she not just tossed her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
"No gorgeous, I'm Kid Flash," she giggled. "You should know that…"her voice trailed off as she tugged on the logo of his uniform.
"Grab somebody sexy, tell 'em 'Hey! Give me everything tonight…'"
"Give me everything tonight," she sang along, pulling the speedster's head forward and kissing him full on the mouth.
Somewhere, in the back of his head, the voice of reason was shouting at Wally to abort his current course and disengage the blonde temptress currently pressed flush against his chest. Not that it mattered; the speedster was resolutely ignoring any logic threatening to interrupt the greatest kiss he'd ever received.
Unfortunately for him, Zatanna chose that moment to glomp Artemis, effectively breaking the lip lock.
"Give me EVERYTHIIIIIIIING tonight!" the magician sang off-key, laughing at Artemis's annoyed face. "Hey! He said to grab somebody sexy!"
"I was already grabbing someone sexy!" Artemis tossed her hands up exasperatedly. "Where were you anyhow?"
"Dancing on those tables," the shorter girl pointed at a bartender across the way cleaning up a mess of glass and glitter off the counter as several patrons continued to toss the sparkly confetti in the air and laugh drunkenly.
Kid Flash, for his part, stared dumbly at the girl wearing the most amazing replica of Robin's costume that he had ever come across. The mask obscured her eyes, but she looked just like—
"Zatanna?" Kid Flash questioned, drawing the younger girl's focus away from Artemis for a split second.
"Oh no," the brunette muttered just as a shout arose from behind.
"Zatanna! Artemis!" Robin yelled. He was close.
Zatanna rapidly muttered something under her breath, causing Wally to freeze in place. "Quick! It's only temporary!" She hollered, dragging Artemis by the wrist to the nearest exit.
They burst into the crisp night air, and Artemis paused to slide a dumpster in front of the door they just vacated. "Come on!" the archer urged her companion as they ran from the building, the pulsating music still reverberating through the night.
The music was so loud that most of the club's occupants failed to notice the aforementioned door shatter from several well-placed batarangs.
"Stop! You've been drugged!" Robin yelled as he ran outside, but the two superheroines paid him no mind except to see how far behind he was.
"Hurry! He's gaining on us!" Artemis shrieked. "We need a distraction!"
"Shoot another exploding arrow!" Zatanna laughed, tripping slightly over a rock before catching her balance.
"I can't! It's not part of my costume!" Artemis whined, glancing behind her as Robin was slowly catching up.
"Nruter eht wobssorc won!" Zatanna exclaimed, and the archer found that her crossbow magically reappeared in her hand.
"Hang on!" Artemis bellowed, getting a better grip on Zatanna's arm before shooting one of her grappling arrows into the side of the nearest building.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Zatanna whooped as they swung from the line, and the two giggled at Robin's exasperated face. They kept laughing until Kid Flash suddenly appeared beside the boy wonder, surprise plastered across his features.
"Uh oh."
"This is going to complicate things," Zatanna agreed. "What do you want to do?"
An evil grin fanned across Artemis's lips. "Well, they can't spoil our fun if they can't catch us. Let's split up!"
"To the Batcave!" Zatanna cried before leaping out of Artemis's arms onto a street lamp. "Distract them!"
Artemis aimed one of the stubby arrows directly between Robin and Kid Flash. Zatanna chanted the appropriate spell, and the arrow transformed into another burst of glitter, blinding the two boys with ridiculous amounts of sparkles. Both girls laughed evilly and continued on their merry way, Artemis heading toward a nearby park and Zatanna heading toward Gotham's civic center.
Robin dusted off the glitter while Kid Flash stood gawking after the retreating backs of his teammates, not daring to believe what had just transpired. "So, Artemis and Zatanna got doused by Scarecrow's poison, have no inhibitions about anything, and are now running rampant in Gotham in our uniforms making things blowup in showers of sparkles?"
"Pretty much," Robin deadpanned, ensuring that the confetti didn't somehow affect his utility belt. "We need to get them back to Mount Justice before they do anymore damage. I'll nab Zee. You get Artemis. We'll radio if we need help."
Kid Flash sighed audibly. "Well this is fan-freaking-tastic. They're not going to remember any of this, are they?"
"Who knows?" Robin grinned. "Hey, blackmail material."
Kid Flash returned the conspiratorial grin. "True that." They fist-bumped before taking off after their respective targets.
The speedster had little trouble following Artemis's trail after she grapple-lined out of sight. He could occasionally see bent objects that she had either crashed into or landed on before taking off again, and he finally found her running through a nearly-deserted park. She would stop at random, tear off portions of his speedster costume and discard them on the ground before taking off at a jog once more.
He finally reached her as she attempted to unzip the back of the uniform. "Artemis! Stop!" He tackled her to the ground, which in retrospect was a poor idea as she was better at close combat and soon had him pinned beneath her with the crossbow pointed at his chest.
"It's too hot for this," she tugged at the bright yellow and red suit, and he tried not to think of how ridiculously sexy it looked on her.
Without warning, the archer leapt off him, unzipped the uniform, and quickly stripped it off, running toward the fountain thirty yards away.
"Oh no…" Wally's mind had just caught up with the situation, and the last thing he wanted was for the police to cite Artemis for public indecency or for the news to get wind of the situation and blow it out of proportion. He didn't need Kid Flash's reputation marred with anything like statutory rape or attempted assault of a naked teenage girl.
Wally gingerly picked up the remaining super suit and trudged over to the archer who was currently giggling and splashing around in the fountain like it was some sort of waterpark.
"Artemis," he began, careful to avert his eyes high enough to only see her face.
"Come on in! This feels sooooooooooo good," she moaned, scattering water over the concrete rim.
Kid Flash tried to ignore her sighs of contentment. "No, you come out this instant."
"Would you jump in if I kissed you again?" she bribed, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she attempted to shoot him a smoldering look.
He was very thankful for the darkness as it hid the blush rapidly creeping up his neck and across his face. "You need to come out and put this back on, Artemis. Scarecrow sprayed you and Zatanna with toxins, and we need to go back to the C-"
He was cut off by Artemis pulling him down into the water with her, pressing her lips to his until they were both fully submerged then releasing him.
"See Wally? Isn't this the best?" she demanded, sloshing around as Wally sputtered and coughed.
"Artemis!" His voice was angry, but his eyes were wide and uncertain. She sat in front of him, wet hair plastered to her shoulders and down her front, gray eyes sparkling with mirth. Her expression momentarily took his breath away; he'd never seen her so happy, so joyous, so completely and utterly content in the moment.
"Well, I got mine," chirped an amused voice nearby.
Wally was glad he was sitting down; the sudden appearance of Robin with an unconscious Zatanna slung over his shoulder might have caused him to topple over.
"I can't get mine to put her clothes back on!" Wally gestured to Artemis angrily, but the archer didn't seem to care, submerging everything but her head underwater as she began to sing the last song she heard playing in the club.
"Give me everything tonight! For all we know, we might not get tomorroooooooowwww…"
"Well, I don't have a towel in my utility belt, so I don't know what to tell you," Robin replied sarcastically.
Wally was about to make a scathing remark, but Zatanna's cape caught his attention. "Hang on a sec," he told his friend as he sloshed out of the water. Carefully, he unclasped her cape from the uniform. Then, taking the fabric in his arms, he jumped back into the fountain and wrapped it around a protesting Artemis before lifting her out of the water.
"Ready?" Wally demanded, trying to keep a firm hold on the wriggling blonde in his arms.
"Yeah, nearest zeta tube is a mile and a half that way," Robin nodded in the direction of the original wreckage.
"How did you knock out Zatanna?" Wally questioned, wondering if it would work on Artemis as she was doing her best to writhe out of his hold and back to the fountain.
"Knockout gas," Robin informed him, shifting the magician to his other shoulder. "She was beginning to get hysterical, and I couldn't calm her down long enough to get her to come with me. It was my last container though. Sorry, man."
Wally sighed frustratedly as he shifted his grip on Artemis. "Look, I need to get Miss Congeniality back to the Cave ASAP or I'm not going to be able to hold onto her. Do you mind if I run on ahead? You can radio me if you run into problems."
"Go for it," Robin told him. "I'll be right behind you."
"Later."
Kid Flash was quick, but he was certain he'd probably set a few new personal records while racing over to the transporter. Only now Artemis had stopped wiggling and was trying to press against him to savor his warmth. Her body was mostly dry, but the wind from going superspeed had chilled her, and Wally was currently the most dominant source of heat.
Ignoring the rising blush to his cheeks at her attempts to get as close as humanly possible, Kid Flash managed to squeeze them both into the transporter, sighing in relief when he saw the inside of Mount Justice.
Conner and M'gann were both standing in the kitchen next to Kaldur, and all three pairs of eyes widened upon seeing Wally carrying Artemis wrapped in nothing more than a square piece of cloth.
"Wally! What—"
"No time," Wally rushed out. "Conner, give me your shirt."
"Why?"
"I need it!" the speedster yelled, making his way to the couch. He went to set Artemis down, but her hands shot out and wrapped around his neck in an iron grip.
Wally accepted Superboy's proffered shirt with a free hand, the other wrapped protectively around the archer, ensuring that the cape didn't accidentally slide down.
"Artemis," he spoke softly, waiting for her to focus her dilated gray eyes on him. "I need you to let go for a second so I can put this on you." He waved the black shirt in front of her. "It'll warm you up. Promise."
"Okay," Artemis replied, compliantly releasing his neck. Gently, Kid Flash pulled the shirt over her head, pausing to allow her to put her arms through the too-big sleeves. The shirt only covered her to mid-thigh, but it was better than nothing.
"I have some sweats you can borrow," he told her. "I'm gonna go grab them. Can you wait here a minute?"
She shook her head back and forth rapidly, like a five year old refusing to go to bed on time. Wally sighed exasperatedly, trying to ignore the smirks making their way to his teammates' mouths. "Fine. And up you go."
She was back in his arms, chortling amusedly while shouting, "Go faster, ya slowpoke!"
He obliged, if only to avoid further embarrassment in front of his sane friends.
"Should we follow them?" M'gann inquired, looking at Aqualad for direction.
Kaldur was about to respond when the zeta tube announced Robin and Zatanna's arrival.
"Zatanna!" the martian exclaimed, rushing over to the unconscious magician. "What happened to her?"
"And why are you sparkling?" Superboy inquired.
"Scarecrow," Robin replied. "His new toxin doesn't spread fear; it makes you fearless. Everyone's running around Gotham doing whatever they want. They have no inhibitions." He gently set the sleeping girl on the couch. "And I'm sparkling because Zatanna and Artemis were sprayed with the stuff and thought it would be extremely amusing to shoot projectiles and transform them into glitter bombs," he grumbled.
"We should inform Batman of the situation," Aqualad proposed.
"Already did," Robin informed him. "He's busy with a couple of other league members putting out fires in Gotham, and we should have an antitoxin soon. But I think it wears off after a while." He glanced down at Zatanna, who had begun to mumble in her sleep. "We should probably give both her and Artemis a dose just in case. Which reminds me, where is Artemis?"
M'gann was about to respond when a resounding crash echoed down the hallway towards the bedrooms followed by a loud, "ARTEMIS! PUT THAT DOWN!"
The team barely had time to turn their heads when several of Robin's batarangs were chucked into the room, creating a thick smoke screen. All heads rose at the sound of a grapple gun being fired above them, and Artemis swung through the mist, now wearing Wally's sweats in addition to Superboy's shirt. Zatanna's cape was wrapped around her like a scarf, partially covering her head and mouth.
She released the line, landing in front of her open-mouthed friends in dramatic fashion, declaring, "I'm Batman."
It was all they could do not to burst out laughing, and Robin couldn't help the snort of mirth that left him as Wally burst through the dissipating smoke and tackled the blonde to the ground.
"Gotcha!" he exclaimed, wresting the cape and grapple gun away from her.
"Killjoy," Artemis grumbled, shimmying out of his grip.
"Look, I'm going to put Zatanna in bed before I can't hold her because I'm laughing too hard," Robin informed the group as he lifted the magician and headed toward the bedrooms.
"NOOOOOOOO!" Artemis acted too unexpectedly for the Boy Wonder to respond, and she wrested Zatanna out of his grip into her own arms. "You can't take her from me!"
"Artemis, no one's taking her away," Aqualad interjected calmly.
"We just want to put her in her room so she can sleep this whole thing off," M'gann tried, but Artemis seemed to get even more riled up as her teammates pressed closer.
"NO! Stay back!" She whipped out a taser she'd swiped when she had taken the grapple gun and smoke bombs. It was currently aimed at a shirtless Conner, who was miffed that she was targeting him as he had hardly said anything to merit such hostility.
"This is exactly what happened with Zatanna," Robin told the team, stopping their advancement on the excited blonde.
"M'gann, can't you calm her down mentally?" Wally demanded as Artemis shifted her grip on the magician so she could better aim her weapon.
"I can try." The martian put her fingers to her temples, closing her eyes, reaching out toward her friend. "Artemis!" she called mentally.
But the archer's mind was so jumbled from lack of restraint and desire to act on sudden impulses that the martian gave up on trying to communicate and simply set out a blanket feeling of calmness.
The male teammates watched as Artemis's eyes became slightly unfocused, and she simply dropped the taser. Letting out a huge yawn, the archer spoke.
"I'm dead tired. Kaldur, would you please take us to bed? M'gann can come too because it was Girls' Night," she informed the Atlantian as he made his way over, scooping up both her and the magician in his arms.
"Why can't we come?" Conner demanded, crossing his arms over his bare chest.
"Because you're dating M'gann," Artemis shot back angrily over Kaldur's shoulder. "And I have to kiss Wally to get him to do anything I want, so he can't come either." Robin burst into laughter at that last statement, and his peals of chortling could still be heard over Wally's protests as the four made their way down the hall.
Kaldur was about to deposit Artemis and Zatanna in the magician's room, but Artemis began to protest and squirm in his arms. "NO! Take us to Robin's room! He has all the cool gadgets!"
Kaldur rolled his eyes and sighed, but he did as the archer requested, depositing them both on Robin's bed before preparing to leave.
Unfortunately for him, Artemis's hand shot out to grab his wrist, preventing his departure. "Don't go!" she pleaded. "They might try to take Zatanna from me! You have to stay and protect us! And tell us a story!"
Kaldur sent M'gann an imploring look to just make the archer fall asleep and be done with it, but the martian shook her head. "Her mind is getting harder to subdue. I can't just knock her out like this."
The Atlantian sighed deeply once more. "Very well. If you promise to go to bed, I will tell you a story."
"Yes!" Artemis raised a victory fist into the air. "You can sit between Zatanna and me," she told him, pulling him down on the bed as she waited for his story. M'gann sat on the other side of the archer and played with the blonde's hair as Kaldur began to tell them one of his favorite Atlantian folk tales.
The soothing baritones of their leader combined with the excitement of the night eventually caused both the martian's and the archer's eyes to flutter closed. Kaldur would have left the girls, but Artemis had a vice-like grip around his middle, and he didn't want to chance waking her if the toxin hadn't worn off. So he simply lay on his back, arms crossed over his chest, and dozed off.
Robin entered the room later that night, trailing glitter everywhere as he covered Artemis and Zatanna with quilts. He didn't bother to cover his two fire-hating teammates as he didn't want them to overheat. After administering the antitoxin to both delinquent girls and snapping a photo, he left the room, chuckling softly as the door closed behind him.
Miss Martian disengaged the mental link at that point, and the silence following the exposition of the previous night's events was deafening. A pin could drop in the ocean outside, and Artemis was very certain she would still be able to hear it.
She couldn't believe she had done all of that, had said everything that she did to her teammates. But owing everyone an apology wasn't the worst case scenario. What if she had let something about her past slip? What if she had run into someone from—
"Well," Zatanna broke the stillness, "That was quite the bedtime story you told, Kaldur. I'm sorry I missed it."
Kaldur smiled, Robin and M'gann laughed and Conner rolled his eyes, but the comment did its job, and the awkwardness wasn't quite so palpable.
"Anyways, I'm famished," Zatanna continued. "Anyone else up for breakfast? I make a mean omelet…"
"Oh! You'll have to show me how!" M'gann exclaimed, walking with Zatanna out the door. Robin, Conner, and Kaldur followed, leaving Artemis and Wally alone in the room as the door slid shut.
"So…we—"
"Yep."
"And I—"
"Mmhmm."
"And you—"
"Yeah."
"I can't believe—"
"Me either."
"Are you mad?" she blurted out before he could interject.
"Well…" he drawled, sauntering toward her. Artemis could see the beginnings of that self-satisfied smirk tweaking the edges of his lips, and she knew that he wasn't upset. But she also knew that whatever he was about to say next was only going to vex her. He stopped inches away from her nose, and she could count the thick ginger eyelashes extending past those bright green eyes.
"I'm flattered that you think I'm sexy, but if you're going to try to make out with me every chance you get, you should at least take me to dinner first," he winked, strutting to the door as her mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Although," he paused in the doorway, "I'd settle for a movie date next Friday night. There's a new ninja action flick I've been wanting to see." Without another word, he headed for the kitchen, the smell of bacon, eggs, and toast no longer ignorable by his insatiable appetite.
She didn't know whether the quiet was a blessing or a curse. It gave her time to recover from Wally's out-of-the-blue, not-so-subtle date request. Or was it more of a demand for causing him all that grief and embarrassment? On the other hand, the silence left her alone with all her freshly restored memories on top of the volcano of feelings only the speedster could elicit from her.
Rather than sort through the mess of emotions, Artemis decided to answer the call of her growling stomach and made her way to the bustling commotion of the kitchen. M'gann was squealing in delight as Zatanna proceeded to flip an omelet in the air and catch it perfectly in the pan. Kaldur was mixing pancake batter, Conner was burning the toast, and Robin was alternating between chopping vegetables, sneaking glances at Zatanna, and swatting Wally's hands away from the food.
The archer took in the scene, surmised it wasn't the worse way to wake up from the most embarrassing night of her life, and decided that as long as there were no repeats next Friday night, she would be in good shape. Besides, she had that date to look forward to.
Yeah, I think we broke the law.
Always say we're going to stop
This Friday night.
Do it all again.