A/N:

Hurt/Comfort theme

Plot: Artemis finds a bottle of concealer that belongs to one of the boys on the team, and she's determined to find out who it belongs to. Mentioned and/or hinted abuse for about two-four paragraphs. Waltermis (slightly OOC Artemis)

Last night had been a late mission, a last minute call in from Bats. The five of us, the team minus Robin, had come in at only two this morning, and Kaldur, Wally, and I had crashed onto the couch and chairs in the lounge almost immediately. Superboy stayed with Megan until she had placed the bioship in the hangar and most likely made sure she returned to her room rather than pass out in the hangar.

I woke up seven hours later, to find Kaldur still asleep on one of the chairs, one of his legs tossed over the armrest, and his head rolled back. Megan was once again in the kitchen (it was practically like she lived there) and Superboy sat on the couch staring ahead at the TV. Robin had still not appeared yet, and Baywatch was not here, hovering over Megan to flirt with her.

Yawning, I stretched out my arms and staggered to the nearest of the five bathrooms in the mountain.*

In the bathroom, I brushed out my tangled hair, and washed my face. Just as I reached for the towel, my hand grazed something plastic. Wiping my eyes, I found that I had stumbled upon a bottle of liquid concealer. However, I owned no such makeup (I admit it, I do have some eye liner and mascara and eye shadow, but I rarely use it). Megan had no need for it, being as she could just change her appearance on whim. Black Canary didn't keep anything here, not even a toothbrush, and Zatanna was not allowed to be here unless her father directly permitted it.

Therefore, the concealer had to belong to one of the boys.

Being as the shade was too light for Kaldur, it had to be for Superboy, Kid Flash, or Robin.

Superboy I wouldn't be surprised with, being as Robin or one of the others could have tricked him into thinking that it was natural for most men to wear makeup often. He was a clone and slightly gullible.

The other two, however, were a different story. While I had always believed that there was some sort of bromance going on between them, they often seemed more "macho" than to use any sort of makeup.

But before I could confront one of the three, footsteps shuffled towards bathroom, and I stepped beside the door as it creaked open and closed again, and a half-awake Baywatch shuffled over to the sink. He was wearing red Flash pajama bottoms and a black Bon Jovi t-shirt, and his often spiky hair was flat and hung over his forehead.

About to yell at him for coming into the bathroom without knocking, I took a half-step forward, but froze as Wally reached for the concealer.

Maybe he's just looking at it? I thought, watching as he first examined the label of the bottle, but decided against this once he unscrewed the tiny container. Pushing back the red hair from his forehead, Wally revealed a darkening bruise that reached from his eyebrow to his hairline. Dabbing at a napkin with the concealer, he brushed the bruise gently with it, and slowly the mark disappeared.

Then, Wally tugged at the neck of his shirt, exposing yet another bruise on his collarbone. Pulling his shirt over his head, the bruise revealed to spread from the edge of his freckled shoulder to the center of his clavicle (A/N: collarbone), and was even darker than the masked bruise on his forehead.

Those weren't from the mission I thought as Wally dabbed carefully bruise.

"Wally?"

Instantly, the red head spun towards me and hid his hands behind his back. His eyes hardened when he saw it was me. "Where did you get those bruises?" I ask, taking a step towards him.

He flinches as I come close to him. "The mission, of course."

"Wouldn't they have healed already then?"

Wally looks away and sighs. "Yeah." He turns back towards the mirror, and starts dabbing at it again, but slower this time and missing some of the spots. "I don't really want to talk about it Artemis."

That's when it snaps into place, when it clicks in my head.

"Your parents are abusing you, aren't they?"

The redhead freezes, and his green eyes catch mine in the mirror. A deer in the headlights look. "No, not my parents."

"One of your parents then."

He closes his eyes in defeat. "Yeah," he whispers, so quiet I can barely hear it. "My dad."

"Why?"

Wally just shrugs. "I'm not sure, exactly. I mean, I was never really the best son, you know? More brains than brawn. Mom loved me a whole lot, and she adored dad's sister, my aunt Iris. Dad got kinda pissed when she got married to my uncle, and I started to spend a lot of time with them, but it was the final straw when I ended up in the hospital trying to recreate Flash's experiment. When I came out with super speed, completely healed and the new Kid Flash, he slapped me for the first time. It shocked us both, and it didn't even leave a mark." He rubs his cheek subconsciously, as if still being able to feel the hit.

"I went home about an hour ago, to get cleaned up, tell my parents I was alright. Mom had already left for work, and Dad and I fought about me being a superhero. Said he was going to throw me out of the house, you know? Didn't want a sidekick living under his roof.

"I yelled back, that I would be fine with that, that I'd just move in with Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry. They had always taken me in when things were strained at my own house, and they surely would again until I could get a job and find my own place to live. I could even ask Bats if I could live permanently at the Cave if I had to, like Megan and Supey.

"He aimed for my face, my eye I think. I had enough time to react to back up a bit, and it ended up hitting me in the shoulder instead. And once the first hit flew, the second and the third and the forth came as well. After the shock that my own father, who had only laid a finger on me threateningly once before in my life was now beating me, had worn off, I sprinted as fast I could to Uncle Barry's. He wasn't there. I waited half an hour before I finally gave up and came back to the Cave."

Wally showed me the concealer. "I was going to put it on earlier than dump it, but I got a call from my mom on the phone. She said she was going to work things out with Dad, and we went into this big discussion about whether or not I should return home, and I left it here until I was done with talking with her." His hands shook and a single tear streaked down his cheek, which he quickly wiped away.

Carefully, I turned Wally towards me, and took the concealer from his hands and started to apply it myself, fixing the spots he had missed and smudged.

"I'm sorry, Wally." I whispered. "I know what it's like, to have your dad hit you. At least you have multiple other families that would take you in in~ a heartbeat, like your aunt and uncle, Robin and whoever he lives with; Megan, Connor, and Red Tornado; and probably friends at your school. I didn't have that." I looked back up at his eyes, and brushed the hair from his face, and applied more to the mark on his forehead, before dumping the napkin and bottle into the trash.

Wally pulled the shirt back over his head, and pulled me into a hug. "You won't tell any of the rest of the team about this, right?" He mumbled into my hair.

"No, but I expect you to tell Robin, since he's your best friend." Wally pulled back and grimaced, but nodded. I gave a quick kiss on the cheek, and left him as I returned to the lounge of the Cave, where the scenery remained unchanged: Megan in the kitchen, Superboy watching an off TV, and Kaldur passed out on a chair.

A/N: Feel free to make requests for stories.

*It's a very large mountain, okay? There can be as many bathrooms as I say there are. So there.

~ there are two "in"s there on purpose. That's not a typing error