A/N: Oh god, I finally joined the tumblr bandwagon and there are so many spitfire fans that give me so much inspiration. Thank you all! Just like how I use writing to vent my frustrations, so many people use touching art and graphics and it makes it so hard to stay whelmed. They're all so beautiful :')

Thanks to everyone who continue reading this fic! I had a lot of fun writing this one :)

Constructive criticism appreciated ;)

PS: Last week's YJ Invasion marathon was full of tears and heartbreaks, and my friend and I have been moping around all week. Heroes Never Die. Moment of silence for Wallace West, the goofy, loving, selfless hero and other half of Spitfire.

Chapter 3: Languages

With Wally's aptitude for knowledge, he wasn't quite sure why he wasn't interested in languages. The redhead had always blamed his genetics, since neither of his parents had taken languages during their younger years due to their lacking linguistic skills.

But perhaps he could've tried harder; maybe he could have even taken a class or two or signed himself up for the clubs in high school. He had never regretted his decision in his sixteen years... until now.

"Bâtard! Casse-toi! Je comprends pas qu'une personne comme toi est capable d'exister... Merde!" The archer tore at her hair, throwing an incredible mixture of a disgusted, angry yet exhausted look his way.

He did not understand a single word she'd said- regardless of which language- but gathered from her tone that they were not things he was sure he wanted to know. The insults were at the very tip of his tongue, ready to fire off, when Robin walked past the two to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

"Mind your French," he sniggered as he took a swig of his water and shot Artemis an amused look. Unlike Wally, the Boy Wonder was fluent in many languages, and had understood every word the archer had uttered.

She turned her glare onto him and let out another string of curses- in Vietnamese, Wally managed to recognise this time- and the Boy Wonder stalked off with red ears and his palms up in defence. Wally wasn't sure what to say of it.

"Wait... You were insulting me in French?"

She looked at him, her grey eyes darkening like the sky during a hurricane. "Yeah, is that another problem for you too?"

A strange feeling bubbled in Wally's chest and he let out a short burst of laughter. Her eyes narrowed at him, but he ignored it as he looked at her with his eyes crinkled in amusement. "You do know that the point of insulting someone is so that you can hurt their feelings right?"

"What am I, an idiot?" She snapped, but he continued shaking his head to contain his laughter and it wasn't long before Artemis caught on. She almost wished she hadn't.

"It's not my fault you're an imbecile who knows nothing but English," she spluttered, and slammed her frozen pop tart onto the counter.

Wally's eyes followed the movement with a frown. He'd almost forgotten what the fight had been about. It was only because he'd suggested putting the poptart in the toaster would taste better than the microwave, and she'd retaliated that she knew what she was doing and didn't need him and his 'gut guru' to tell her how to enjoy her food, and then he'd insulted her poor lack of taste, and that had escalated into her yelling at him in French.

"Not all of us had time when there were crimes to be punished," he retorted.

"Oh please, you out of all of us had the least training."

"Says the one who only started a month ago."

"I joined my uncle's little tag team when Speedy quit. Didn't mean that I wasn't in action before that." That was technically true, she thought.

"Sure, I believe you."

The archer huffed and gave him another heated look before tossing her poptart into the microwave, daring him to challenge her.

Artemis had been surprised at the rate he'd recovered from his burns, and secretly relieved, though she'd rather be dead than admit that aloud. With three members of the Team in Atlantis, she wasn't even sure why she had even bothered to show up at the Cave tonight. It was her only night off from afterschool activities, and her mom wasn't returning home until later that night. Maybe it was the small part inside her that didn't feel like eating dinner alone, but had she known that Kid Butt would have been here, she would have gladly ordered Chinese and watched late night reruns.

It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them that whatever had gone down in Bialya a few days ago was to remain a secret. They had bonded somehow, underneath the pale, searing sun of the desert, and though none of them had said it, they were both slightly grateful that the other one had been there when they had woken up. Except their memories were returned and Artemis was more than disturbed to find she had bonded with the bane of her existence.

"What's that?" His curiosity interrupted her thoughts.

She looked up from her textbook, the end of her pencil still in her mouth as she'd been chewing it during her pondering. It was a bad habit that left the taste of lead in her mouth, but she seemed to always return to it unconsciously no matter how hard she tried to stop.

"Chemistry," she answered, eyeing Wally (when had she started calling him by his name?) carefully.

The speedster grinned, flexing his fingers confidently as he strode towards her with purpose. Languages weren't his thing, but science had always been one of his best points. He stopped a few feet away from her as she slid her textbook his way, and Wally tried not to look at the pencil tip that was still balanced delicately between her lips.

His eyes focused onto the words and pictures on the textbook and he found that she'd been doodling on the margins with arrows and lots of endless circles. Even the serious archer had normal teenage tendencies. Wally fought to hide his smile, and he pointed to the question she'd been pondering over.

"It's an oxidation reaction, see?"

The microwave beeped and the archer left her pencil on the counter to grab her poptart. "I know it's an oxidation reaction," she answered, her words almost incoherent with the poptart in her mouth. "I checked the answers. I just want to know why."

Wally grinned and launched into a full explanation, waving his hands occasionally to emphasise the movement of electrons, and Artemis nodded as she continued devouring her poptart. The archer knew Wally was intelligent, since he'd managed to recreate the Flash's experiment, but she had not known how much he loved what he studied until now.

She watched his light green eyes twinkle and his lips curved into a permanent smile, and she couldn't help but give a small one of hers in return.

It hadn't gone unnoticed by Wally, and he'd almost forgotten what he'd been explaining when he had caught her with a tender look in her eyes. He'd never seen the archer look so relaxed, and he shook his head before continuing on.

Neither of them had noticed the shadow behind the couch, staring at the scene with wonder. Robin wasn't sure he'd ever seen them last five minutes without insults and a lot of yelling. He had just returned from debriefing with Batman on Bialya, and on the revenge plot that had nearly killed the speedster when he had decided to grab a bottle of water.

The pair seemed too engrossed in their argument to notice that he'd only retired to the couch, and he watched with amazement as Artemis nodded in understanding and even thanked Wally for the help. Then, Robin had almost fallen off the couch when the speedster had offered his help whenever she needed it.

The Boy Wonder acted on instinct then, wanting this serene truce they seemed to have developed to continue, and he asked the archer, "Why are you doing Chemistry? I thought you were on break."

Of course, no one else but him knew that Artemis was starting at his school in a couple weeks. He saw her in a new light at that moment, as he figured that she was doing extra work to keep up with Gotham Academy's high standards.

"I don't want to fall behind since joining the team," she answered smoothly, popping the last chunk of poptart in her mouth before washing her hands.

"Don't you have a grade point average of 4?" Robin asked too innocently, and Wally turned to stare at Artemis with wide eyes.

"Don't you have other things to do with your time than interrogating fellow teammates?" Artemis replied, narrowing her eyes at the younger boy.

Wally ignored their conversation as he watched the archer wipe her hands dry with a small towel hanging on the oven door. A GPA of 4?

He hadn't known Artemis was the studious type. To him, she seemed to be the easy-going kind of student, the one that didn't really care about what she wanted after school- or anything at all, actually. He had expected her to be rebellious, apathetic, and not the least clever-and Wally realised he knew nothing about the archer. She knew his name, where he lived, where he went to school, but Wally knew nothing about her. Well, he had always suspected she lived in Gotham despite her uncle living in Star City, since she often arrived smelling faintly of smoke, a scent that Robin carried too.

"Wait, you're smart?" He asked, and he realised a little too late when the blonde had turned on him that his question had come out a little too brusquely than intended.

"Is that so hard to believe?" She rounded on him, whatever peace they had established disappeared along with her textbook as she took it from him.

"Yes- I mean no?" He blinked at her, still a bit confounded at this piece of news.

She scowled and tucked the pencil she'd been chewing earlier behind her ear as she picked up her books. "You're an ass."

"For helping you with chemistry?"

She glared up at him. "I didn't need help. You just barged in and decided I was some damsel in distress."

Wally's jaw dropped and he realised that this conversation was beginning to sound familiar. "You were staring at that question for a while."

"I was thinking about other things, what's it to you anyways?"

The speedster stared at her and realised she had a point. Still, it did not mean that her words hadn't stung a little bit. He thought they'd at least gotten past disliking each other, but he'd reminded himself that she was still the outsider that had shown up out of nowhere one day, smirking and patronising him. "Absolutely nothing," he finally answered, a little too softly, and if he had looked up from the counter, he would've seen a tiny flicker of regret in the archer's eyes. "I don't even know why I offered to help."

Artemis turned away from him before she could do anything reckless. What was it about Wally that gave her whiplash? He was sorta nice one second, then completely annoying, and then acting like a kicked puppy the next.

"Exactly," she answered firmly, before marching off to another room, preferably one without the speedster.

Across the room, Robin shook his head. And he thought that the peace would last somehow. He should've estimated as much, the two were always in discordance with each other. If only they could be in cordance.

Wally watched her leave and heaved a sigh, before moving to join Robin in front of the TV.

"How about a game?" He asked, taking out the game controllers from the cabinet under the TV.

"Sure," the Boy Wonder answered, giving a little shrug.

As usual, after about twenty games or so, Wally had lost the majority of them. Though he usually lost against the younger boy anyways, Robin knew he was distracted since he had lost far more than usual, and it didn't take much to know what occupied the speedster's thoughts.

"It's Artemis, isn't it?" He finally asked, putting down his controller.

Wally turned to him with a surprised look on his face.

"It's not? I doubt it's anything but Artemis," Robin added.

The older boy sighed and slung one arm over his eyes. "Is it wrong of me to want to know more?"

"About her?"

Wally scoffed. "I thought we'd just established that."

Robin stared at his friend unblinkingly and there was something about the way Wally acted that reminded him of a word he wasn't sure he wanted to say. "Are you... Lovesick?"

The speedster's arm fell from his face immediately as he straightened and looked at Robin with widened eyes. "What the actual fu-"

"-I'm wrong?" Robin interjected before the older boy made his ears bleed. He had heard enough from Artemis earlier.

"Of course you are!" Wally exclaimed, his voice incredulous. "I just meant that we know nothing about her, and yet she's invited to join the Team. She's also secretly smart, and has a 4 point GPA and have you seen how she fights? It's not how an amateur fights. She could be a spy for all we know!"

"She's not though, don't you think you're overreacting a little?" Robin rolled his eyes.

"She could be a Russian spy, or maybe she has an evil twin brother we don't even know about who's looking for revenge and-"

Robin cackled, interrupting Wally's rant.

"She's just one of us, Wally. She'll trust us soon enough, but we'll have to trust her first."

The knowing smile Robin shot him was unnerving and as much as he knew that he was older, the Boy Wonder sometimes seemed twenty years wiser than he could ever be. With a sigh, Wally slumped back in his seat and picked up the controller.

"Another round?"

Thanks again to everyone who read this fic, it means a lot to me when I see the number of views. I post only to share everyone's dem feels when it comes to Spitfire.