So another chapter is up. This is a shorter one, just another bonding moment between our two favorite kids. Keeping it fluffy folks, very fluffy. Like I said before I don't have the time to write out my personalized reviewer responses but if you have a really pressing question just PM and I'll respond as quickly as possible - my life is nuts right now and only escalating. But I'd like to thank ShipperBody, SpitfireChick, j9162, honeylove900, Geist1321, Guest, Kamil the Awesome, YJ, noaverageangel, ItsGacyPuddin, Prnyctina1091, Bookworm2700, purplestara, Dextra2, fixations, and Irenerb. The two biggest questions I got is how will I present the experiment that gives Wally his powers and if it will be a romantic relationship. In answer to the first question I have some ideas, I think it will be more focused on what that event caused and how it changed their lives forever. For the second questions not sure...although I want them to be together I think once I've written more and developed their relationship as children I'll better know where I want to take their relationship.
Thanks everyone for your reviews and encouragements. (Really hope I can keep these updates going I have feeling my writing is about to take a nosedive.)
Thanks to silent reviewers.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or its characters.
Chapter 3: Red Handed
"Are either of you going to tell me where my cookies went?" questioned Mary hands on her hips as she stared down the two rambunctious hooligans who stood before her innocently.
"What cookies?" queried Wally. "I don't know anything about cookies. Do you Artemis?"
"Nope." Her cheeks flushed slightly under Mary's pensive gaze.
Mary shared a look with her husband who was chortling behind his children, it wasn't a very pleasant look and he stopped laughing immediately. "I know one or both of you are guilty."
"Are we?" challenged Wally, "Are we really?" There were some days where Mary absolutely adored her offspring and then there were others where she just wanted to throttle him. She usually found Wally's pranks or "crimes" as she technically termed them endearing and doubly cute when he pulled off a caper with Artemis but those cookies were for tomorrow's bake sale and she did not have time to make anymore.
"Alright," she began. "Go play but I will get to the bottom of this." Thrilled the two children high-fived, clearly an immediate sign of guilt, before rushing off probably to watch the news and see if they could find a clip of their favorite hero, Flash, doing something dangerous they would mimic later.
"They're just kids Mary," chuckled Rudy leaning on the kitchen door frame.
Mary sighed. "Yeah. But honestly I don't know where they get it from. Although," she walked across the room brushing cookie crumbs out of his mustache. "I have a pretty good idea."
Sitting inside their fort atop Wally's bed made out of both their pillows, his Flash blanket serving as the roof, the children looked over their warm gooey bounty with glee. Wally especially wore a Cheshire grin as he picked up a freshly baked cookie holding it aloft. "Ahza! We sure fooled her."
"I don't know," said Artemis examining their prize not yet having taken a bite. Wally had already had three. "Maybe we should give them back to Mary."
Wally sent her a funny chocolate smeared look. "Why do you call her Mary? Her name's mom."
"Because," she looked down bashfully feeling an awful wave nausea hit her, "She's not my mom."
"You have another one?" questioned Wally genuinely curious. Obviously, it had never really occurred to him that Artemis had a family before literally falling into their lives.
"Not anymore."
"See then you do have a mom." Artemis closed her eyes. She was incredibly grateful to the West family for taking her in, and she had come to care about them to the point where it was hard to imagine her life without them. Now, three months after her arrival, Wally seemed to be under the delusion that this was a permanent arrangement. Nothing in her life was permanent. This was the longest she had ever stayed in one place or the safest she had ever felt. But it couldn't last it just wasn't possible.
Artemis bit her lip her face getting hotter and her stomach turning uncomfortably. "I can't stay here." It was funny how quickly her and Wally had become friends too, once they got over their initial misunderstanding and instead became partners in crime.
Growing up Artemis had hardly spent anytime with Jade, although that might have been attributed to the fact that Jade hardly spent anytime with her. When she wasn't training, she was dating and when she wasn't do either of those things she was complaining. Jade was four years older then her and didn't have time for troublesome baby sisters.
Wally was different. Though he would never admit it they were great friends. She'd never been this close with any person her age before and it was nice. He was nice.
"Why not?!" Artemis felt the world spin as she tried to articulate her words, a six year old's vocabulary wasn't very extensive and Wally possessed a bigger one then hers already.
"Because I don't belong and eventually you'll get tired of me and…" she lurched forward pressing her boiling face against the cool linen of Wally's sheets. "I feel sick."
"Huh?" said Wally reaching out to touch Artemis's burning forehead. "You okay?" Artemis was dizzy and she felt terrible but she couldn't even muster the words to talk merely shaking her head rapidly her untied hair becoming an awful mess of knots. Wally scrambled up puncturing the roof of the fort as he hastily jumped off the bed. "Mom! MOM! MOM!"
Mary stormed up the stairs slamming his door open. "Wallace Rudolph West what have I told you about shouting around the house!" That was when she spotted the cookies, "We need to have a discussion about fibbing young man."
"MOM!" he cried plaintively grabbing onto her skirt. "Something's wrong with Arty!" Mary stopped berating her son and stared at the panting, moaning little girl on his bed.
"My heavens! Go get your father Wally," she said as she rushed across the room and pressed her hand to Artemis's feverish forehead. "Wally go!"
One emergency room visit and a couple of frantic phone calls later the entire West clan plus Allens were assembled in the living room while Artemis slept upstairs in her room.
They were having a hard time keeping Wally in the room as he dodged limbs trying to go upstairs. "Artemis needs her rest Wally," chided his mother, worse for wear. "She had a very bad case of the flu. You'll only bother you."
"How do you know?" asked Wally frantically trying to dive between Barry's legs. Barry merely plucked squirming Wally off the ground easily depositing him on the couch.
"You need to calm down, kid. No point losing your head. She'll be perfectly alright." He wasn't thinking rationally at the moment since he hadn't been allowed to see her at all and he just wanted to know if she was even upstairs or if this was a "parent" trick used when they didn't want to tell you horrible news so he blurted out,
"Why did she say you weren't her mom?" Wally turned towards Mary with expectant eyes. "Is she going to leave? Don't you want to keep her? Didn't you say you were going to keep her?" Wally questioned at a mile a minute. Usually these thoughts would never have occurred to him. But he and Artemis had grown so close and she was his best friend.
His parents shared an alarmed look. "We are keeping Artemis, for as long as she wants."
"Why isn't it forever?" Wally's fists clenched as Barry pressed him into the couch. Usually Barry was on his side and they were playfully competing over who could eat more but today Barry was all hard lines and seriousness.
"Kid do you remember how you met Artemis? At the playground. Someone left her there or forget her." Wally continued to squirm. "Or she ran there. Your parents decided to take care of Artemis but that doesn't mean her own family isn't worried about her or that they won't come and find her."
"But they didn't!" protested Wally. "She's my friend! She belongs here!"
Iris smiled down at him sadly. "That's great Wally. Artemis is very lucky to have a friend like you. But things don't always go the way we want I'm sure that if Artemis's parents were to come forward they'd still let you be friends."
"But you said they hurt her," Wally recalled as he vaguely remembered their conversation months prior. Mary winched, eyes sad and Barry sighed.
"Kid, this isn't a perfect world."
"That's why there's the Justice League," Wally crossed his arms. "Flash wouldn't let Artemis go with the bad guys. People who hurt people are bad."
"Look," said his father seriously. "Nobody said anything about Artemis leaving as far as we're concerned she's staying. Wally, you need to calm down. Nothing is going to happen. None of us want us to see Artemis hurt."
"Then why doesn't she call mom, mom?"
Rudy sighed. "That's her decision." Wally squirmed and even the arrival of Jay and Joan with a cake didn't brighten his mood. Clearly the adults weren't going to do anything about this so he needed to take matters into his own hands.
Sneaking out his bedroom door Wally crept down the hall quietly propping open Artemis's door and slipping through. "Psssh." There was a groggy moan from beneath a massive pile of blankets on her bed.
"Hey Arty."
Artemis coughed weakly but still managed to grimace. "I told you not to call me that." Wally breathed a sigh of relief it couldn't be that bad if Artemis was still threatening him.
"You okay?"
"No, duh." Wally scrambled onto to her bed, maiming the cookies he had brought with him. He held one out towards her flushed face as she stared at him through half lidded eyes. "Ugh, no."
Wally frowned. "You're supposed to eat when you're sick." Artemis grimaced as he once again shoved the cookie in her face.
"Things like soup."
Wally's face brightened. "I can do soup."
"No you can't stupid, you'd have to use the stove," she mumbled sinking further beneath the blankets as she shivered. "You're not supposed to touch the stove." House rule number one. Wally wrinkled his nose and bit his lip. He just wanted to help. He didn't want her to leave.
"S'cold," she muttered shivering. Wally blinked groggily sleep finally sinking into him as he scooted under the blankets with her gripping her long fingers in his pudgy ones.
"You okay?"
"Mmmm." He squeezed her hand. "Owww, stop it Wally."
"Don't go Arty." Artemis cracked an eye to look at him, light from the street lamp outside her window reflecting in the grey pools and Wally for the first time thought she was really pretty.
"I don't want to," she responded feverishly. "Not my choice. His choice."
Sometimes Artemis mentioned this "him." But he had no idea who he was although she seemed really scared of him. "I'll protect you."
"I'm the older one," she snorted drowsily. "You couldn't protect a sandwich."
"It would be safe in my stomach," he countered jokingly although his forced laughter petered out at the end. "You're…my sister."
"Really?" she asked weakly. "Because if you're lying I'll give you an Indian burn so bad it won't disappear for weeks."
"Would I lie?" he asked.
She snorted. "Sometimes. You smell too. But you're not a terrible brother." She snuggled into his shoulder. "I'll try to stay."
"Call mom mom," he whispered. "She'd like that." But Artemis was already snoring on his shoulder tiny puffs of air brushing against his collar as she fell asleep.
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