Location: Keystone High School
Date: Nov 5th
Time: 13:52
Emmy hadn't seen much of Wally today. She was mildly grateful for his absence because she was decidedly not prepared for their next interaction. Should she downplay everything if he mentioned or, God forbid, teased her about the…event? Should she just admit that it was an impulsive moment she did not think through at all? Should she ask what he thought about it? Emmy grimaced slightly. Definitely not that one. She had tried replying to his last text twenty times in the past 18 hours. Emmy pulled her phone out to look at the offending message yet again.
Wally- Annoying Redhead:
You were partially right. An East did get some action in the laser tag arena…just not the one you were expecting.
She huffed and tossed her phone back into her locker. How the hell am I supposed to respond to that? Whether that text was flirty, dismissive, teasing, casual, questioning, or some amalgam of the aforementioned options she did not know. All Emmy knew for sure was that she had acted like a complete moron and potentially risked the tenuous friendship she had cultivated with her fastest teammate.
Emmy pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly. At least it was Friday, and the team had an easy mission tonight. Bats hadn't given them all the details yet, but Rob heavily implied that they were going to check out the latest Sparks' Kobra Venom tip. Emmy snarled at her Physics textbook at the thought of Bobby entering the team's crosshairs. She had three distinct parts of her life: before the fire, before the last match, and after the ring. Her team was in the latter portion, and she did not want them anywhere near the first two parts. She shut her locker to find a faintly sheepish redhead looking at her.
Emmy's stomach jolted at the unexpected arrival. Please don't mention yesterday. "May I help you with something?"
"No, but I can help you with something," Wally smoldered at her with arms crossed over his chest.
"Meaning?" Emmy forced her countenance to remain calm as she lifted a single eyebrow.
Wally stopped trying to be suave and ran a hand over his face. This was not how he wanted to talk to Emmy for the first time after the arcade yesterday. He had no idea where her head was at, and he was painfully aware of her lack of reply to the debatably risky text he sent before his rational brain had a chance to talk him out of it.
"Okay, so, there might be a new rumor going around, and I might have accidentally-not-on-purpose started it?" The redhead put his hands up emphatically. "I didn't say anything, they just assumed!"
Emmy rolled her eyes and relaxed. Even though she'd been in school for almost three months now, she still didn't care about the rumor mill or any of the imaginary social hierarchy stuff. However, a rumor update was far better than Wally asking about her recent and inexplicable action.
"And I care, why?"
Wally muttered something under his breath. She sent him an 'enunciate and try again' look.
He sighed. "The rumor is that you and I," Wally hushed his voice, "had sex in a supply closet."
Emmy let out a strangled bark of laughter at the way he whispered the word "sex" while looking around the hallway like it was a bad word and a teacher was going to scold him. She smiled languidly when her snorting stopped, "And how did that particular rumor start?"
Wally was mildly offended by her apparent amusement at the idea of being physically intimate with him, but he explained anyway, "You remember last week when we ducked into the closet to listen to Rob's voicemail about the next mission?"
Emmy nodded.
"Well, someone saw part of your tattoo through your shirt," he pointed at her long sleeve black V-neck crop top. It had small cutouts on the sides, and if she twisted in a certain way it showed half of the lower butterfly's wing. "So, at lunch the football team was saying that whoever found out what your tattoo was got the betting pool they'd set up-"
"Why do these people care so much about what I do?" Emmy scoffed. "I've never even talked to most of them!"
"Hello Emmy," Wally sent her an exasperated look. "That's exactly why they care. You're still the semi-mysterious new girl who won't pay attention to the popularity zeitgeist and social fault-lines."
Emmy sighed. If the only way to get these people to leave her alone was to talk to them then it probably wasn't worth it.
"Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted," Wally shot her a look and she motioned for him to continue his story. "Brandon overhead the bet and yelled 'Wally knows what it is!' And I don't know if he was guessing or what because I never mentioned your tattoo to him, but next thing I know everyone's staring at me and I'm saying, 'it's a black outline of two butterflies', and at first no one believed me but then some bench-rider pipes up with 'I saw the two of them come out of a supply closet last week!' And long story short, you're the new 'school whore' for getting with a 'school geek', and I have half the football team calling me 'Stud' and $103," he winced and pulled a dense wad of bills out of his pocket.
Thankfully, Emmy just chortled. She didn't care if a bunch of teenagers tried to slut shame her. She didn't accept criticism from anyone she wouldn't take advice from, and she genuinely did not care about the opinions of random people. Emmy was also relieved to experience Wally's signature spastic story-telling style. It seemed like he was going to bypass the last half hour at the arcade, which made her life a lot easier because now she didn't have to navigate that particular mess.
"So, what?" She smirked at him. "You here to ask me to corroborate your story if I get asked?"
The tension in Wally's shoulders eased when he saw that she wasn't going to attack him.
"Well, hey I was going to text you to corroborate but you weren't exactly replying," Wally joked with a hint of uncertainty.
"Oh," Emmy was a little embarrassed by the call-out, "I haven't really…checked my phone today."
Wally waved her off, "Anyway, I'm actually here to see if you want to join me on blowing the spoils." He chuckled at her confused face. "There's this new sushi restaurant in New York I've been wanting to go to. And it's only fair I bring you since your underage ink is the whole reason I have this cash in the first place."
Emmy chewed her bottom lip for a moment. Green Arrow was picking Hunter and Sage up from school for their therapy session, so she didn't have anywhere to be before the mission. Wally hadn't referred to yesterday at all, so she was pretty sure she was safe on that front. Plus, free sushi was always tempting. Just keep things light and casual. It's not a date. It'll be fine.
"I'm in. It'll be funny to watch the horror on their faces when they realize you take 'unlimited' as a personal challenge," Emmy grinned mischievously.
Wally smirked back and told her to meet him at the Zeta by his house after school.
Location: New York City
Date: Nov 5th
Time: 16:31
The restaurant was eons fancier than Emmy expected. She'd never been to New York before, and she'd falsely assumed the movies exaggerated the poshness of the city. The sushi place was a long rectangle with a small width on a street which was well-known and lavish according to Wally. There was a thin koi pond spreading the length of the entire restaurant. There were only a few other people inside, but those present were dressed far more elegantly than the two teens fresh from high school. At least the leather jacket and top she was wearing were somewhat nice because her worn combat boots and old black jeans were casual at best. Wally was wearing a light-yellow crewneck sweater under a dark brown suede jacket with jeans and sneakers. The duo didn't look bad, but they were definitely underdressed.
Fortunately for Wally, the hostess did not seem to mind. At all. The hostess was a really pretty girl named Asami with glossy straight black hair that flowed down to her waist. She was a few inches shorter than Emmy, a little older, and looked fabulous in her shiny pink kimono. Emmy would have simply acknowledged Asami as pretty and moved on with her life, but that proved to be difficult with the girl practically throwing herself at Wally. The hostess had her hand on Wally's arm and shoved Emmy slightly behind as she showed them to their table.
Emmy glared at the back of Asami's head. Wally didn't seem to notice anything and was asking how many and which species of koi they had in the pond. The hostess "didn't know" but "would be so happy to find out for you, Senpai". Emmy scoffed behind them. It may not have been a date, but it should have looked like one from the outside. Asami should have seen them and assumed that they were on a date. She did not, which meant the girl either thought Emmy wasn't pretty enough for Wally or just wasn't tough enough to fight for him. Possibly both. The fucking audacity.
Emmy knew she would never be recruited to model, but she also knew that she was pretty. And with the mascara on her lashes and soft red tint on her lips, her features were shown off a little more than usual. If anything, the hostess should have a thing for her and not Wally, and if that chick didn't stop giggling and get her manicured little hands of his arm in the next two seconds Emmy was going to-
A particularly high giggle cut off the mental threat as they finally reached their table. Emmy sat down, still glaring, but Wally just plopped down with a smile and told the girl they'd like two unlimited sushi deals.
"Excellent choice, Senpai," she batted her big brown eyes at Wally, scooting toward him with a menu. Emmy barely managed to catch the one carelessly thrown at her.
"Is there a particular roll you think we should start out with?" Wally asked, staring at the menu intently.
Asami giggled and leaned in further until she was almost sitting in the speedster's lap. A muscle in Emmy's left cheek twitched. Seriously? That's it. Emmy glanced at the menu before she turned to the girl.
"We'll have a pot of green tea and two spider lily rolls," she snapped at the shocked hostess in Japanese. "And unless you want to be gutted like one of the fish I'm about to eat, find your own redhead."
Icy blue eyes narrowed at the warm brown ones and the girl finally scampered off. Emmy turned and saw Wally staring at her with impressed shock.
"You speak Japanese?"
She pushed some hair behind her left ear, suddenly feeling embarrassed by her minor outburst, "Only enough to order food and a few threats."
"Threats?" He raised an eyebrow in interest.
"I had a match with a guy from Japan a couple years back," Emmy shrugged.
That was actually what started her relationship with Akio. He'd taught her how to perfect her pronunciation the night before the match, and that much focus on mouths had ended with them kissing. She shoved down that unwelcome memory and focused on the boy in front of her.
"So, what was that last thing you said to hostess lady?" Wally asked with a still-quirked eyebrow. "I recognized the first thing as green tea, and I'm pretty sure the second thing you said was some type of roll?"
Emmy's eyes widened slightly, "Wait…do you speak Japanese?" She sure hoped he didn't.
Wally's innocent facade turned shit-eating and she groaned at the ceiling.
"Only enough to order and a few threats," he quoted in a falsetto which Emmy supposed was meant to be a poor imitation of her naturally huskier voice.
She looked at him unimpressed. He grinned impishly.
"Find her own redhead, huh?"
Emmy scowled, "It had nothing to do with you."
"Sure, sure," Wally nodded with fake understanding. "It was a female ego deal. You were just marking your territory."
Emmy snorted, "Yeah, I'll be sure to cover you in lipstick marks and my perfume next time."
The comment came out less sarcastic than intended. She forced down a blush at the sound of Wally's delighted chuckle.
"I'd prefer that to you shoving cake in her face," Wally winked.
"Hey, she was being unreasonable. This should look like a date from the outside," Emmy waved her pointer finger between them and instantly regretted it. Why would I bring that up?
"What I meant to say is that, you know," the lantern tried to clarify, "she should have assumed that we were, uh, and she didn't. So, clearly she didn't find me intimidating which is ridiculous because I am both hot and capable of kicking her ass with one-" Emmy cleared her throat and glanced at the ceiling again. "Just…she…Girl Code and whatnot."
Wally's eyebrows were threatening to disappear into his hairline. Emmy was one of the more eloquent people he knew, which made her uncharacteristic and nonsensical ramble oddly interesting.
"All I'm hearing is that you wish this was a date," Wally put his head on his hand and batted his eyelashes at her. His levity was loaded with genuine curiosity, and it made her skin crawl.
"Give it a rest. Wishful thinking isn't a good look on you," Emmy monotoned.
"No problem," he observed her intensely. "I'll try to be a good, quiet little trophy for you."
Emmy briefly considered the consequences of punching him in his smug face, but Wally thankfully gave one last cheeky wink and moved the conversation.
"Bats had Rob and me go to Japan in January to take a one-week immersion camp," Wally had his turn to look a little embarrassed. "Rob picked it up quickly, like he always does, but I'm not that good with languages. All I really remember are the different tea types." He smirked at Emmy. "But I'm very exotic in Asia, and even I managed to learn 'Find your own redhead' when Rob had to say it every time we went somewhere, and people tried to touch my hair."
Emmy cursed her past self. Of all the phrases she could have chosen of course it had to be the one that Wally actually knew.
"I got us the spider lily rolls to start," she ignored him and looked at the menu. "So, how does this unlimited thing work? Do they bring out two pieces at a time or something?"
The discussion of food managed to distract Wally, and he moved on to the explanation of the sushi with gusto. The first order would be six pieces, and after that they would all be two pieces if it were sashimi or three if it were any other kind. You could order three types at a time, but you had to finish all the sushi currently on the table before you could order the next round.
"How did you even find out about this place?" She asked after his explanation.
"I have an alert for sushi restaurant openings."
Emmy laughed at him but admitted that it was probably a good idea. Their pot of green tea hit the table and a minute later they were using their marble chopsticks to shove the spider lily rolls into their wasabi soy sauce.
"These are really cool," Wally looked at the fancy chopsticks. They were grey and black marble with the restaurant name vertically engraved in gold near the top.
"I'll fake choke on a piece if you want a distraction so you can steal them," Emmy whispered conspiratorially, mostly joking.
Wally rolled his eyes and patted her left hand sympathetically. "And you had been doing so well staying on the right side of the law," he looked at her with fake concern. "Don't steal. Let me help you help yourself."
"And holding my hand is going to keep my on the straight and narrow?" Emmy smirked as Wally glanced at his hand still on top of her before he gently removed it.
Emmy couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between his slow retreat and the typical jolting departure they usually had when unexpected contact was pointed out in the past. It's no big deal. He just called you his friend yesterday. Don't overthink it. She had expected the dinner to have an uncomfortable air to it, but so far, their mildly flirty, majorly banter-y dynamic had been unaffected.
"You can't trust a sheep to lead itself," he recovered. "That's why the shepherd has the hook cane thing."
Emmy chuckled around her third piece of sushi, "Talk about the blind leading the blind."
Wally ate two pieces at once. She took the opportunity to put him on the spot.
"What if I yell, 'Sweet! Souvenir', before I grab the chopsticks. That makes stealing fine then, right?" She looked at him pointedly.
"That's-" Wally stuttered a bit before frowning. "That is completely different, and you know it."
"How?" Emmy leaned forward challengingly. "Because you're the one doing it?"
He frowned at her, "You know what? Maybe you should get chopsticks for me since you never brought me that Halloween candy I was promised."
"Yeah, I didn't go trick-or-treating, remember?" Emmy stuck out her tongue at him.
"Excuses, excuses," Wally stole the piece she was reaching for next. "You could have at least brought a bag of Skittles or something."
"You don't even like Skittles," Emmy rolled her eyes, "I brought a flask to the dance."
"That so does not count," Wally pointed at her with narrowed eyes. "A: You didn't 'bring it', you swiped it from some morons outside. B: it was in no way, shape, or form even remotely related to candy, and C: you didn't even share it with me."
She sighed, "I contest the first point, but the last two are valid."
"How could you possibly contest the first point?" Wally quirked a playful eyebrow.
Emmy leaned forward with a grin, "I said, 'Souvenir!', before I took it."
"You did not!" Wally argued. "And even if you did, you know for a fact that I only get souvenirs from criminals in the first place."
"By those parameters, it still counts because underaged drinkers are criminals," she smirked as he floundered.
The argument lasted a few minutes before it finally dissolved into muffled giggles. They talked about innocuous topics for the next hour. She told him that she and the kids were going to celebrate their birthdays this month since they missed them over the summer. He told her that he had single-handedly created six new Sno-cone flavors for the limited winter menu. She agreed to go try them all with him on Monday. Emmy was surprised that they had managed to discuss Halloween without their time on the dancefloor coming up, but she was still careful to avoid all mention of anything related to arcades and tipsy, tension-filled dances, so most of the conversation surrounded what type of sushi they wanted next. Even though their interactions seemed the same on the surface, Emmy was aware of a slight energy buzzing in her peripheral. It was like they were each delicately trying to walk the tightrope of amicability without falling into either extreme. Emmy briefly wondered if this actually was a date and Wally was just testing the waters. She brushed that thought to the side almost immediately. There was nothing overtly romantic about talking with their mouths full of rice and fish.
After 43 pieces for her and 178 for Wally, they were both full and ready to Zeta to get ready for the mission.
"I'll need a nap before I put on my uniform," Emmy leaned her elbows on the table. She'd had a light breakfast and lunch, so this heavy dinner was weighing in her stomach like cement.
"Is that a statement or an invitation?" Wally smirked at her.
He had been infinitesimally pushing the boundary since they got to the restaurant. Emmy was a veritable Fortress of Solitude when it came to her personal thoughts, and he was subtly gauging her reactions to all his comments.
"That depends on how you feel about being the little spoon," Emmy matched his tone and expression.
The bill landed on the table with two fortune cookies. They both grabbed one to open.
"Disbelief destroys the magic," Emmy read before looking at her companion. "Well, well, well. The fortune cookie gods got this to the right table but just couldn't take it all the way to the right person. Almost destroys the magic."
Wally rolled his eyes and opened his cookie. He bit his lip and huffed a laugh.
"What's yours say?"
"Guess," Wally's eyes twinkled with mischief.
"How on Earth would I be able to guess that?" She monotoned.
"It's six words. Get it right and I'll call Bats 'Dad' next time I see him." Wally offered.
Emmy tried to think. That'd be worth seeing. "Your dinner guest is the best?"
He snorted and shook his head.
"The llama mama in the Bahamas?"
"What even?" Wally asked, amused. A few more increasingly horrible guesses and she gave up.
He put his elbows on the table and sent his vibrant green eyes at her, "You're cute," he paused. "Can I keep you?"
Emmy blinked at him. Once. Twice. Her cheeks and the back of her neck grew a little hot until she realized he wasn't just saying that and chuckled, "Is your fortune cookie really trying to get you laid?"
"No, it's trying to find me a life companion," he clicked his tongue at her. "You're so crude."
"At least it's a better wingman than Rob," she offered.
He snorted. "No kidding. Did I ever tell you about the time I was about to get a girl's number and he popped out of nowhere, kissed me on the cheek, and said, 'Hey, ready to go, Babe'?" Wally scowled at the memory and it sent the girl in front of him into cackles.
"What did you do to him before that?" She asked smiling, mentally cheering Rob's efforts to keep a girl away from Wally.
"Why do you assume I did something?" He was indignant, but she sent him a look and he avoided eye contact with a blush. "I may have hidden his normal uniform so that he had to wear the green speedo version from when he was 9 on a mission."
Emmy snorted and choked on the last of her tea. Wally was thankful she couldn't see how affectionate his grin was as she coughed and hit her chest. Their phones simultaneously beeped. Megan was texting that they had 90 minutes until the mission briefing.
"Better hurry if we want to get that nap cuddle in," she winked dramatically, and the redhead rolled his eyes to hide his excitement at the slight chance she wasn't joking.
"Yeah, we wouldn't want to run out of time and have Megan interrupting with milkshakes again."
Emmy shifted in her seat. The image of their lips getting closer together at the dance popped into her head without warning and she panicked. "I would prefer to get interrupted by fake Kid Flash again," she grinned stiffly, "He was cute. Should've excused his poor taste in heroes and gotten his number."
Wally raised a simultaneously unimpressed and confused eyebrow.
"Then again," Emmy fiddled with the edge of her napkin as she folded it into a triangle to place in the middle of her plate. "I was pretty gone so I don't remember the dance that well."
"I thought you said you weren't even tipsy," Wally furrowed his brows at her an iota.
"I didn't really feel like admitting to being a lightweight," Emmy lied easily. "Besides, with all the hormones flying around that gym anything anyone did wouldn't really even count."
The redhead surveyed her vague dismissal skeptically. He wasn't entirely sure what her point was, but he didn't think he liked the implication.
"I'm not really sure any of that's relevant," Wally replied slowly.
"Why not?" Emmy raised an eyebrow.
He leaned toward her, forearms on the table. Wally's peridot gaze intensified pointedly, "You were sober yesterday."
Emmy sat up a little straighter as her lips parted in surprise. Wally had a knack for finding a way to be blunt in nebulous circumstances, making his point clear without even voicing the necessary context.
"I-" She stopped. He was right. There was no explanation for why she kissed him in the arena yesterday, but then again, there was no explanation for why he kissed back either. After another moment of silence she responded, "So were you."
He looked between her eyes until she felt the desire to sink under the table and hide, "I never said I wasn't."
The fear Emmy had been ignoring voiced itself in her subconscious. Remember the shitstorm that happened last time you tried to date someone?
"I have a responsibility to the kids and to everyone else to focus on stopping Sparks," she replied without really replying.
Wally understood anyway. "Who's stopping you, Butterfly?"
He watched carefully as she winced at the nickname. As he suspected, it was the same odd reaction from yesterday.
"No one, I guess," Emmy admitted slowly. "I just don't want to repeat any mistakes."
She glanced at the tablecloth and her hand absentmindedly rubbed the thin scar on the left side of her neck. I can't afford to repeat any of my mistakes.
He watched her hand move and cracked a jaunty grin, successfully ending their non-conversation in an instant, "Good thing you have a team to keep you from doing that then, huh?"
The waiter walked past the table to check if the bill had been taken care of yet, redirecting the duo's attention before Emmy could reply. They glanced at the check. With taxes, the three pots of overpriced tea, and the small cherry blossom raindrop cake they'd split halfway through their sushi storm, the total ended up being $154.78. She started to reach for her wallet, but Wally waved her off and added a few more twenties to the money her tattoo had gotten him.
"I have some cash with me," Emmy offered but he shrugged.
"You can just pay next time," he replied so casually that Emmy was momentarily stunned.
She thought about his statement while they walked back to the zeta beam, enjoying a pleasant silence, and observing the lights of New York as the sun went down. This excursion had started as friends eating an early dinner at the expense of high school stupidity, but then they had their weird quasi-discussion and Wally paid the extra $80 they'd racked up. Eighty dollars was an expensive meal for two people on its own. And the argument that he ate more so he should pay more didn't work because the brunt of the meal had been the unlimited sushi that cost the same amount for both of them.
Emmy's stomach felt a little funny as she thought about the possibility of this being a date. She had been worried that things would change and be weird, but Wally had a way of naturally calming her. They had fun. Their typical undercurrent of hostility had been gone from their conversations for a while now. He had tried to hide it, but she had caught him ogling her Halloween costume last week (when they had almost kissed), and he'd been more than receptive to her laser tag distraction (when they had actually kissed). So, did this count as a date? And more importantly, did she want it to count as one?
"There's your favorite direction," Wally broke through her reverie nodding at the setting sun.
She smirked at him. "Can you blame me? The colors are more varied at night. In the morning it's all just yellow and red. Vary garish colors if you ask me."
"That's just because, unlike me, you do not have the skin tone and beauty to pull off those colors," he put his hand on his chest over the yellow sweater.
She looked at him suggestively and backed him into the 'out of order' phone booth, shutting the door behind them.
"And yet," she ghosted her fingertips on the abs underneath the hem of his sweater. "I can still pull off clothes those colors."
His green eyes darkened. She pushed him backwards into the zeta beam, his body transferring to the mountain before anything could happen. Emmy put her hands over her face with a groan and hated how fast her heart was beating. What was wrong with her? This was Wally. The Wally who spent the first couple months he knew her constantly bringing up her ex-criminal status. Then again, he hadn't done that in a while. Well, so what? He was still just her annoying teammate who didn't fully want her there. Except that he had actually been pretty sweet lately. And they were basically friends now. And they also seemed to be flirting with each other so that felt new. But it didn't mean he liked her, and it didn't mean she liked him. She needed to be careful not to mess up the team family for Sage and Hunter. She hadn't been careful enough with letting Akio into their lives, and the kids got attached to him just in time for her to move them out of his apartment in the middle of the night in January.
But he had never looked at her the way Wally did, and he had never spent more than $10 on one of their dates. Not that she had wanted him to. She'd been 13 with no experience in anything romantic and let the older boy take the lead. She'd just wanted another body to have around, and Akio had been attractive and simple. He was an idiot but easy to deal with, until the end of course. Wally wasn't. He was smarter than her in a lot of areas and seemed to enjoy it when she showed him up in her own areas of expertise. Akio just saw her as a criminal and his 'resident dame'. Wally appeared to see her for more of who she actually was, as much as he could when she hid so much of herself from the world. However, Wally was possibly the most difficult and complicated boy she had ever met. Even after becoming friendly, they couldn't go more than a day without arguing over something ridiculous. The rush of air confirming that Wally had landed in the cave hit her face. Emmy jumped, embarrassed to have caught herself thinking about the speedster so intently.
Why was she even comparing Wally and Akio? That was a total non-sequitur. Nothing was even happening with the former, and things had gone to absolute hell with the latter. She was overthinking things. Wally didn't like her, and nothing had changed. A kiss could just be a kiss. It was an isolated moment, not the start of anything. Emmy didn't have the time, energy, or desire to look for any kind of romance when she had two maniacs to stop and two children to protect. Whatever had happened at the arcade didn't matter. She wouldn't put Hunter or Sage in danger again. She was a Green Lantern who had shit to do.
With that final thought she hopped into the beam and joined her team in the mountain.
Location: Pennsylvania
Date: Nov 5th
Time: 21:49
The team was in the bioship, flying toward the coordinates Bats provided. There were rumors of a shipment of Kobra Venom being sent from Bludhaven to an undisclosed location through a rural pathway. The team was to observe, confirm that the Venom was being transported, place trackers on the vans, and report.
Miss Martian sent the bioship into camouflage mode as they got closer to the target pathway. She would stay with the ship in the sky while the rest of the team hid on various parts of the forked road to observe possible trucks on the desolate, dirt road.
Emmy hovered above her section of the pathway in silence for a few minutes. She was on the most eastern section, so she would notice the contraband first. So far, there had only been two cars along the road, neither suspicious. A flash of light reflected unnaturally in the corner of her eye. She flew closer to it. There was a semi-truck hidden with cloaking materials. Now that she knew to look for it…Emmy frowned. There were seven commercial trucks approaching the path. She relayed the information to the team as the vehicles passed beneath her.
"The trucks are uniformly heated so are thermal imaging isn't working," Robin frowned at the truck and lowered his binoculars. "If that's all Kobra Venom..." Robin trailed off and looked toward Aqualad's hiding spot. They had been told to expect two trucks at most. "We can't let that shipment get where it's going."
"No kidding!" Kid Flash ticked his fingers as he did some quick math, "If we assume each truck is 90% full by volume...and Venom is housed in a liter container...that amount could make roughly 596 Banes." KF blinked at his own deduction in mild horror. "Shit."
Aqualad nodded solemnly. "We intervene. Incapacitate the drivers in stealth mode. We will take ownership of the Venom, load the criminals and material on the bioship, and take them to the safehouse in New Jersey for interrogation."
The team confirmed and descended upon the drivers. Two arrows from Artemis had the driver and passenger unconscious in thirty seconds. Emmy flew inside through the window and brought the semi-truck to a stop. The rest of the team had a similarly easy time stopping the other vehicles.
"Guys," Superboy sharply called through the mental link. "These aren't full of Venom."
Emmy frowned and flew next to Artemis who was staring into the back of their truck with wide eyes and mouth ajar.
The lantern gasped. Forty pairs of emaciated eyes stared back at her. The trucks were full of people. This wasn't Spark's latest Venom run. This was human trafficking.
"There are kids in here," KF's voice was clipped and hard.
A small groan sounded next to Superboy's foot.
"You," the clone growled and yanked the driver up by the collar of his leather jacket. "You think it's okay to enslave people? Where were you taking them?"
"The fuck are you talking about Krypto?" Snapped the injured man in Superboy's grasp.
Emmy's spine locked straight. The lantern slowly turned toward the source of the familiar voice. The man in Connor's grasp was 6'3 with wavy black hair, brown eyes, and a trickle of blood running down his temple. He had a defined, square jawline, sparkling brown eyes, plump lips, and tan skin. He was in black jeans with a silver chain linking a pocket to his belt. His fingers were covered in silver rings, and a few chains hung around his neck on top of his ripped black t-shirt. Black tattoos peeked out from the edge of his jacket on his exposed hands, and a large butterfly spread across the front of his neck. Her stomach clenched. What the hell is he doing here?
Emmy instinctively walked back and stepped on the hand of a goon causing him to groan loudly. The sound brought Supey's raging eyes toward her, and the goon followed suit. Brown eyes widened in recognition and bewilderment. Emmy's stomach flipped into her mouth.
The man's eyes narrowed in confusion. His voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke, "Emery? Is that you?"
Emmy's mouth fell open slightly. How did he know it was her? She was in uniform! The lantern felt her team's eyes on her, the green ones resting on her shoulders rather heavily, as she struggled to find the words to explain away her lowlife ex-boyfriend's sudden appearance and recognition of her secret identity on their mission.
"Emerald," he laughed in awed disbelief. "I thought you died!"
The man attempted to break out of Supey's hold, but the clone punched him. Emmy watched in numb surprise as Akio's unconscious body hit the ground once more.
Her team was still looking at her.
A breathless, "Fuck," was her only explanation.
Hello lovelies, after a month of more family medical drama, a Spring Break road trip, and going to my COVID-delayed college graduation, I'm back! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and the next one will not be a month away (I didn't mean to go that long without posting anything).
Thanks for reading,
TheDarkAbyss
Boomer1125: They can be idiots, yes. My email for this account is tdams2021 . I am super excited to see the fanart and hopefully you can share it somewhere.
ella64: Thank you so much for the kind words. I'll try not to make the ride too painful ;)
Cozy Owl: I hope your exams went well! I love Spitfire too, but I wanted the freedom that came with an OC instead of using our beloved Artemis. Not to spoil anything, but we just haven't reached 'failsafe' in my timeline yet. I always hate the fics that have people get on Wally for being a 'pervert' when he really doesn't do much, especially since when I was in high school my friends and I were 100x worse than he ever was lol. I'm happy to hear that you find Emmy and her dirty mind refreshing. Thank you so much for the compliments, and I'm sorry you're going through similar things with your siblings.