Fandom: Young Justice
Story Title: "Take Me Home"
Summary: Things like this don't happen to freckled white boys from Kansas. /Or, Young Justice is actually a boy band.
Character/Relationship(s): Wally West/Artemis Crock, Conner Kent/M'gann M'orzz, M'gann M'orzz/La'gann, Dick Grayson, Kaldur'ahm, Zatanna Zatara, Gordon Goffery,
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, sexual content, homophobia/homophobic language, boys being boys
Story Word Count: 9k+ (so far)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.
Notes: I'm so sorry this took so long to finish, I really am. Oh my God I suck. But with the response that this got and all the YJ fandom drama I've been tired. Here's to hoping part three will be up faster! Many thanks to Libby for the last minute beta and to Morgan for helping me get my ass in gear.
Take Me Home
Chapter Two
The picture was a tangle of legs and arms, among other body parts, with no clothes in sight. Wally has to admit that the coloring is good, but the farther that he scrolls down the more than he wants to stop.
"Conner, do you just have a folder of these on your computer or what?" Wally asks, quickly deleting the message off his phone. Heaven forbid he leave it somewhere and saw gay porn saved in his messages.
"Did Conner find more porn of us?" Dick asks, looking over Wally's shoulder.
"I already deleted it, dude."
"Conner, send me one."
"If you want," Conner says, clicking away at his computer again.
"Wait, what?" Artemis asks, looking up from the book that she's been highlighting for the past hour.
"Conner has a folder of Wally and Dick erotic... fanart on his computer," Kaldur explains. "And he sends it to them regularly."
"I've got to admit, it keeps our friendship fresh," Wally tells her, making Artemis laugh.
"Oh yeah. Don't some fans 'ship' you guys together, or something? Whatever that means. I just found it whenever I Googled you guys before taking this job."
"Yeah, even though we've said a million times that we're not together. Conner here thinks it's funny, so he goes around looking for fanart of us and sends it to us when we're bored." Dick throws Conner a look, and the other boy shrugs it off.
"Well at least I don't go looking for fanfiction."
"That was onetime!" Wally protests. "God, will you guys just let that go? I just wanted to see what it was about, okay!"
"If I remember correctly it had something to do with a chicken alfredo burrito being very phallic, and how Dick biting into one made Wally cream his pants," Conner muses out loud.
"Oh that's it, you're on pal." Wally puts down his bag of chips and tackles Conner, even though he knows that it's a lost cause, a war that's been lost before it's even begun. Even if Conner did have his Macbook on his lap.
And in the background, Artemis laughs again.
.
"Guys, I think it's time," Dick says, and they all groan in response.
"We don't really haveto," Wally protests, crossing his arms in front of his chest because this was honestly theworstthing about going on tour.
"It's still better than having him call us."
"He will be expecting us to," Kal says firmly, making the rest of them shut up. They all know that Kal's right, but that doesn't make the truth any less annoying. Or frightening.
"Wait, what's going on?" Artemis asks.
"It's time to make The Call," Conner tells her, as if that is enough to explain it. Just hearing the words makes Wally shudder.
Gordon Godfrey, the genius behind the Factorand creating Young Justice, the biggest boy band since the Beatles according to some, expected updates and reports from all of them, and when he didn't get them he called himself. They'd only gotten onecall from him, but that was far more than enough.
"It's better to call Gordon as a group, on speaker, because that way he's less obnoxious and rude."
"I... see," Artemis says, even though it's clear that she doesn't.
"He likes an audience," Dick explains and she nods but says nothing.
There's no delaying it now, so Wally pushes the button of the phone built into the bus and waits. The phone rings three times—just like always, nothing more and nothing less, to show that Gordon wants to answer your call but he's so busy he couldn't pick up the first two—before they hear the man's voice on the other end.
"Hello, boys."
"Hey."
"Hi."
"Hello."
"'Sup."
"What can I do for you?"
This too is a staple in any conversation over the phone with Gordon Godfrey. It's not what you can do for him, but instead what he can do for you. Complete and total bullshit, of course, but then it's been a long time since Wally's felt any sort of gratitude and hero worship for the man that got them to the top. Sure he got them there, but it was their talent and hard work that kept Young Justice there. Gordon's an asshole, plain and simple.
"We just wanted you to know that we're a-okay," Wally says, and everyone save Artemis agrees.
"Have there been any problems?" ArethereanymessesthatIhavetocleanup?
"Of course not," Dick answers quickly.
"I would like to ask you something," Kal starts, but then he pauses. Even he's not completely unflappable when it comes to their producer. He clears his throat and starts again. "My mother has been ill and I would really like to have time off to go and see-"
"No can do, Kal," Gordon interrupts, and all the air seems to deflate out of Kal. "You can't cancel, people will talk and that just can't happen. Everything rests on you boys' images. You should all remember that. Don't do anything stupid."
"But what about when we're in Houston?" Conner asks. "That's halfway, and we always have a week long break. We can do all the publicity stuff early and Kal can go for a few days before coming back and finishing the tour."
"People will notice that all of you aren't together."
"Not if I do something," Conner offers, even though he looks pained at the very thought. "I'll do a solo interview or whatever."
"No one is interested in the four of you as individuals."
At this point Conner looks like he wants to punch something, but instead he does what Kal always tells him and takes a deep breath. "I'll go to a club and get wasted and let everyone know about it and that'll distract them all enough."
There's silence in the air, because everyone knows that Conner is one hundred percent sober one hundred percent of the time, and they want to see what Godfrey is going to say.
"Try not to get arrested," Gordon says after a moment. "I have to make some calls now, get all your interviews moved up to Friday of that week. Kal, you can go see your sister for a day." And with that the line goes dead, and that's the end of the conversation.
No one speaks, and then Artemis lets out a whistle. "Wow. He's a hard ass."
"You do not have to do that for me, Conner," Kal says softly.
"You'd do it for us."
"No, don't worry," Dick interrupts. "Conner, you don't have to do anything. You hate clubs and you can't go in one by yourself. I'll do something." Dick looks like he's going to say something else before he frowns, and simply walks away.
Wally wonders what he's thinking about doing, but doesn't ask and Dick doesn't offer any information.
.
"DIE MOTHERFUCKERS."
"I hope you do know that shouting that isn't actually going to help you kill anyone."
"Shut it, Boy Wonder." Wally clicks his controller a few more times before feeling it vibrate, the shot of death. "Dammit."
Dick cackles beside him as he's announced as winner once again.
"Another round?" Conner asks, grabbing his controller from off the table where he'd traded it for a bag of chips when he died.
"Y-e-s," Dick replies, and Kal shrugs.
"Hey Artemis," Wally calls. "Do you want to play this time? We'll go easy on you."
"Okay, I'll try it. But I've never played this game before so I probably won't do very well. I'm not great at video games."
She comes to sit between Wally and Dick, and Wally can feel the heat of her knee through his jeans where their bodies brush. Kal hands her a controller and Artemis smiles at him in thanks. All of a sudden Wally doesn't have a great feeling about this.
"Start again?" Dick asks, and when everyone agrees it's all out war. There's something mindless and comforting about video games. No matter how many times you 'kill' the enemy they'll always come back, like clockwork.
Artemis is kicking ass, cutting down more alien/werewolf hybrids than any of them. Wally's the first to die, since he's watching Artemis so closely and doesn't even see when a hybrid comes up behind him. Conner's next, and then Kal, and then it's just Dick and Artemis, neck and neck.
Dick is easily the best player out of all of them, which he says is because he was a huge computer nerd before he was an international pop star. So when Artemis eventually outlives him andbeats the level that they have all been stuck on for a week, something's up.
"I have come to a conclusion," Wally says finally, after they all spend a beat staring at the screen in disbelief. "I have concluded that when you said that you couldn't play video games you were playing on our sexist undertones, and are full of shit."
"Well said," Dick concurs, sore at being beat. If Wally wasn't so focused on Artemis, he would be laughing.
"My sister plays video games, and she taught me a few things. She's probably better than all of you in this room. Compared to her I'm nothing and I die every time."
"Okay, you're not allowed to play with us if you're going to kick our asses like that," Conner tells her and Artemis laughs.
"Fine. I'd hate to bruise all of your delicate male egos."
.
Wally's wondered before why they hired Artemis. Not that he's complaining, anymore, because he likes Artemis and when she's on duty she's very diligent about her job.
Stereotypically, however, a bodyguard is a guy roughly built like the Hulk, hopefully with a heart of gold.
Artemis is shorter than him, and thin, the complete opposite of Roy who was huge and had thigh muscles bigger than Wally's head. He also had a fierce punch, as the whole band had found out once when Roy was off-duty and had decided to go out and had gotten drunk.
Wally wonders why, in the back of his head, but he finds out why in Chicago.
For some reason the fans there (Midwest represent!) seem to be rowdier, and when one breaks free of the gates that hold them in, Artemis is on the girl in five seconds. She slams the fan to the ground from her own velocity. The physics nerd in Wally is impressedafter he does the calculations in his head.
"Wow," Wally can her Kal say from beside him as they're all rushed to the bus, having to pick up the pace just in case anyone got any similar ideas while Artemis was preoccupied.
"She's got our back," Wally says and Kal nods.
When Artemis finally gets to the hotel that they're staying in, he's waiting for her. He knows that security is supposed to stay up a few hours later than them to make sure no one's scaling the walls or creeping up and down the hallways trying to find them, so he also has a Starbucks coffee in his hand.
Artemis just looks at him before shaking her head and sliding down the wally to sit next to him as he hands her the coffee and she takes a long drink. "I wasn't sure how you liked your coffee so I just got you black."
"Black's fine. Thanks."
"So... where did you learn moves like that? I've only seen stuff like that in movies."
"My dad. He was pretty crazy about all that stuff so my sister and I learned self-defense first, but then martial arts and whatever else he could think of. I hated it, but it's gotten me more than a few jobs so I'm okay with it now."
"Well, you're a good bodyguard. I just wanted you to know that."
"Thanks. You're a pretty good guy, I just wanted you to know that." Artemis is smiling at him and he can feel his stomach fill up with butterflies, and that's how he knows that Dick was right. "I didn't think that I'd like you guys when I took this job, but you're all great."
She finishes her coffee. "Thanks again for the Starbucks. I've got to go do perimeter, so go back to your and Dick's room and make my job easier, okay?"
And when he's flopping into his bed for the night, Wally knows that Dick was right - he's screwed.
.
The first thing that Wally does that morning is grab his Mac and log onto Twitter. He sees the usual things in his notifications, lots of 'I love yous' and that sort of thing, before he gets back on his tweet deck and sends out a 'Good morning! How is everyone?'
moriuhgr8 thx!
organggood morning 2 U
sexycaniGood now that you're on. ;)
He watches the tweets flood in before he goes and searches for Artemis's twitter. He knows that she has one—she told him months ago that she had one—but he never thought to look before now. She's easy enough to find thanks to her unusual name, and her Tweets are all hilarious musings about her day and her schoolwork and her job. All under one hundred and twenty characters, of course.
Wally thinks about tweeting her, but that would put her on the market of semi-fame, and he knows that she'd hate that. So instead he just follows her and closes his computer with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Artemis comes up to him a couple of hours later, bottle of water in her hand. She sits next to him and props her feet up on the table, crossing them at her ankles, before she says, "I got a couple hundred twitter followers today."Wally gets really interested in the gaming magazine that he was flipping through before. "You wouldn't happen to know why that is, would you?"
"Maybe it's because an international popstar started following you? I don't know, I bet that helped."
When he dares to look up Artemis is smirking. "You're an idiot, but that's okay. Thanks for the follow."
.
Houston comes faster than Wally thinks it should, and with it comes the halfway mark of their American tour.
As promised, all of their press in Houston is done in one very, very long day, and at the end of it they're all exhausted. Conner immediately goes to his and Kal's side of the suite, Wally and Dick find themselves sprawled out on the couch, and even Kal takes a break and sits down at the kitchen table before packing.
"It's like...they're hungry piranhas or something," Wally started when he found it in himself to speak.
"And we're..."
"In a 1970s movie with Bradford Dillman?"
"Exactly what I was thinking. That's why we're soul bros."
Wally and Dick look at each other, contemplate fist bumping, and then simultaneously decide that it is too much work.
Kal gets up from the table, the bromance obviously overwhelming him. "I must continue packing, my plane leaves in three hours."
"Oh man," Dick says once Kal leaves the room. "It's going to be so weird being on tour without Kal."
"We're not going to be performing without him, but I know what you mean," Wally agrees, and thinks once again about how strange this whole thing is.
Wally grew up in the suburbs as an only child. He'd loved biology and singing, and was bullied equally for both during school. Trying out for The Factor had been a dare that one of his old high school friends had put him up to—and then that dare had changed his whole life.
He'd performed and competed on The Factor before losing. After that Wally had thought that it was all over, that his dream about being famous had died a cold, hard death. So he'd focused on science and stopped singing entirely. He'd be accepted to Stanford before he'd gotten the call from Gordon that had said that he was putting together a group of other Factor contestants that had lost, and would he like to be in a band instead of trying as a solo artist?
Stanford had been dropped like a hot potato, and he'd met the boys, and they'd become like brothers. Wally couldn't imagine life without them anymore—when he lived in LA they constantly got together as much as their schedules would allow. But tour was something else.
Tour was theirtime together, and it always was. Of course there were people surrounding them too, but being on tour and having one of them absent would be weird, like a missing tooth, poked and prodded and commented upon until it came back.
Somehow, in between TV shows and albums and tours and screaming fans, the four of them had become brothers.
So yeah, Wally would miss Kal, and yeah, this would be weird. But he was also planning on using this time as wisely as he could.
.
They all went on the drive to Hobby airport to see Kal off, even if they didn't go to security with him, and after Artemis came back Wally decides that now was as good a time as any.
He clears his throat and begins, "Artemis? You have tomorrow off, right?"
"Yeah," she answers, turning to face him. "Why, what's up? Need protection?"
"No. No, no, no, not at all, not yet, I mean I hope...but nope I don't...why would I..." Wally trailed off because oh. She'd been talking about the physical kind. God. "Anyway, no. I mean, I know you have to be with us all the time. But I was hoping that you'd want to go on a date. With me, I mean. Tomorrow. Together."
Artemis cocks her head and begins gnawing her lip. Wally internally crosses his fingers. It's been a while since he'd asked anyone out, but the last time he'd failed this spectacularly had been when he'd tried to ask Brittany Wu to junior prom. This isn't going well, in any universe.
"Is this a date?" she says finally.
"Absolutely. Unless you don't want it to be. But I was sort of planning on it being a date, yeah."
Could he do anythingright? Vaguely, he hears Dick and Conner snort, but Wally's not completely sure that was actually them and not just his paranoia.
Finally, blessedly, amazingly, Artemis smiles at him. "Yes, I'll go out with you, if it's a date. But this won't get me in trouble or anything, would it? Because I don't remember this being in the contract or anything. "
"No, you know Megan from technical? She and Conner dated for a while, and it was no big deal. You just can't exploit us or anything."
"I'll try to contain myself then," Artemis smirks, but when Wally turns away to go fist pump she grabs his wrist. "I'm really glad you asked me," she says, stepping on her toes to give Wally a kiss on the cheek before she glides away.
.
Wally takes a while to get ready of the morning. He sees Dick smirking at him in the reflection in the mirror, and Wally makes a face.
"Do I look good?" Wally asks. "Seeing as how you've got a gene inside of you that knows about fashion and all that."
"Stereotypical much? But you look fine," Dick answers. "And I'm not just saying that because I'm gay."
"Well, here goes nothing." Wally looks at himself one last time in the mirror before grabbing his Ray Bans and heading to the lobby, where he and Artemis are planning on meeting.
Downstairs there aren't any paparazzi that Wally can see, which is a blessing, and not too many fans that are staring at him.
"Come on," he says from behind Artemis, grabbing her hand. "Let's get out of here before anyone realizes that I'm not actually a Ed Sheeran wannabe."
Artemis laughs all the way to the cab that's waiting out front.
.
"The mall?" Artemis says finally. "Really?"
"Hey, this is one of the best things to do in Houston, and it's just a stop on the list. The Galleria is one of the best malls in the country, though."
"If you say so," Artemis replies, but she's smiling while she says it, so Wally's feeling pretty confident. After the disastrous asking, Wally figures that nothing can go that badly afterward, and he was right for once.
"Want to go ice skating?" Artemis asks as they walked onto the first floor. Wally looked longingly at the food court before he answered.
"Hell yeah, let's go!"
They skate across the rink for a few laps, during which Wally only falls a total of four times, and he was pretty sure that the bruising wouldn't be toodeep. But for the way Artemis laughs at him every time he falls, hands over her mouth and ponytail over her shoulder, he would have fallen a lot more times.
It's weird, being the sole focus of her attention in public. Privately they'd had their conversations together, and had sat next to each other in the quiet days, but this was different. Normally Artemis was on duty in public, watching not only the four of them, but everyone around them.
But now she was only watching Wally, and it's a heady feeling. One he could get used to.
On their tour of the mall, on the second floor, Wally grabs her hand and she squeezes his back, but otherwise hadn't commented or pulled away.
When they pass by Claire's there was a big section of the store dedicated to Young Justice, and Wally stops in his tracks.
"Oh no. No way," Artemis exclaims , laughing as Wally stared up at a blown up version of himself and his best friends.
"This is so weird," Wally says, because he'll never get used to this. "We have to go inside."
"I don't think your head needs to get any bigger," Artemis argues, but she follows him inside.
He sees t-shirts and necklaces and journals and pens with the whole band on all their faces. He spins until he sees a stretchy black bracelet that proclaims IHEARTYJand buys it for Artemis. The cashier pauses as she rings him up, glances at the poster behind her, and then back at Wally.
"Are you-?"
"Yep," Wally answers, grabbing his purchase as Artemis grabs his hand and they walk out of the store together. There's a moment of silence before the both of them start laughing again.
When they stop Wally gets the bracelet out of the bag and hands it to Artemis.
"Oh no. Seriously, I couldn't."
"Artemis, you're offending me," Wally says, throwing a hand over his heart. "It's not like you don't heart us, right?"
"No, I totally heart you guys," Artemis finally admits, rolling her eyes as she does so. "Put it on me." She holds out her wrist and Wally obliges, grinning as he does so. He grins down at her wrist, and then notices that her eyes are on his face.
Wally hasn't had a lot of first kisses that don't involve shady bars and alcohol, but he can feel this one in his gut. He doesn't know which one of them leans in first, but he leans down and touches his lips to hers and everything feels right, even when they have to break it off because Wally's smiling against her lips.
"Come on, pop star," she says. "Let's keep looking."
Artemis holds out her hand and Wally takes it.
.
Wally literally floats the entire way back to the bus. "We should do this again some time," he tells Artemis, and she agrees.
They stand outside looking at each other before she finally says, "Well are you going to kiss me outside the door or what?" and Wally does as she asks until things get too heavy. "See you later," Artemis tells him before walking away.
Wally does some fist pumping again. He does that a lot where Artemis is involved, it seems.
He floats back to the bus and into the hotel and for several hours after. He flops on the bed and just thinks about the date, replaying it over and over in his mind, before Dick finally says something.
"Wallman. Wallman. Wally! Seriously, this is important."
"What, what is it?" Wally asks, sitting up.
"You're going to want to see this. So you know how I have us all on Google alerts? Well, look at this?"
Wally peers into the laptop screen, and then his heart stops cold.
There are pictures, grainy pictures but it's still clear that Wally is Wally, of him and Artemis kissing in the mall, as well as holding hands at Discovery Green. iHeat Builds in Houston?/i the headlines ask, and Wally feels his blood boil.
He skims the article, noticing that they don't leave out the fact that Artemis is their bodyguard, or the close sources that mention that things between them started at the beginning of the tour. It's all bullshit, of course, but the fan comments make him feel worse.
The worst ones call Artemis a slut and a whore, or that she's just a beard for his and Dick's 'relationships.' The best just seem genuinely hurt, which is a whole other can of worms. This was only their first date, and this has already happened?
He can't believe this, or the sick feeling he gets in the pit of his gut.
"Don't worry," Dick says. "This is going to be okay."
"How? Don't you remember Megan and Conner? And this is only one date. Dick, I like her, more than I've liked anyone in a long, long time. And she's not going to use me or tell magazines anything or use me. She likes me back, and now...now everything's going to go up in flames before they even start."
"Not necessarily," Dick replies. "I can help with this. Deflection and all that"
"I have to go talk to her, I have to show her this, or something," Wally says, and he walks out of the room before Dick can stop him.
He knocks on Artemis's door and when she lets him in he asks, "Can I use your laptop?"
"Right here, I was working on some school stuff. Why?"
Wally just shakes his head and types in their names together and clicks on the TMZ article. Wordlessly he turns the screen towards Artemis and lets her read it.
"Do you know why Megan and Conner reallybroke up?" he says once he knows that Artemis is done reading. "He broke up with her because of stupid stuff like this. Because she wasn't handling the pressure of being tied to someone famous, and the shit that comes with it. I asked you out today because I honestly didn't think that anything like this would happen. But people are already saying horrible things, and I'm sure your twitter mentions are exploding. I understand if you don't want anything to do with me if this stuff is already happening now, but I want you to know that I reallylike you. I like you enough to stop this now if you can't handle it."
Artemis just looks at him before starting with punching his arm in response. "Don't you think I didn't know that this was going to happen? Of course I knew it was going to happen, I'm not an idiot. I know how the world works, and I knew that eventually everyone would find out. I didn't think it would happen so soon...but I did. And Wally? I'm not Megan. I'm willing to do this with you, because you mean a lot to me."
She pauses, before continuing. "And it's sort of early to be talking like this, but I want it, okay? I want us, even with all of the bullshit in the way. Okay?"
Wally just looks at her and knowsthat he lucked out. The sick feeling in his gut lessens some.
"Okay," he answers, before wrapping her up in a hug.
.
When he goes back to the room he finds Dick sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, phone in his hand.
"Hey, are you alright? You look sort of sick."
"I'm fine," Dick answers, looking up. "You're going to have to buy tomorrow's People, though. They're having to re-do the issue, and I'm going to be front page. Headline: YoungJustice, NotAsStraightAsTheySeem. I sold Zee my story."