A/N: I know I said it would be four times Wally flirted with other girls, but I changed it to three. I had lots of fun writing this, so I hope you all enjoy it! This is set right before Bereft. :-)

DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, none of these characters belong to me. If Wally West belonged to me, I would be the only one allowed to play with him ;-) Any dialogue or plot that looks familiar belongs to DC and Greg Weisman and other people who are not me.

Summary: This is the story of Artemis and Wally and their evolution from teammates, to friends, to boyfriend and girlfriend, to husband and wife, to soul mates and everything and anything in between. Please review! XD

Genre: Friendship, Romance, Action/Adventure, Humor

Rating: T (just to be safe, it might go up later if I'm feeling particularly ambitious)

Characters: Artemis Crock, Wally West

The EVOLUTION of SOUL MATES

Evolution: the gradual development of something, esp. from a simple to a more complex form.

Chapter 3: Flirt (OR three times Wally flirted with other girls, and one time he flirted with Artemis)

After a little less than a month of being on the Team, Artemis was coming to accept that some things were a constant: Kaldur was the calming voice of reason; M'gann always liked to try out a new recipe before a mission; Robin was a sneaky little troll; Superboy had some slight anger management issues; and, last but not least, Wally was a flirt. In fact, look up the word flirt in the dictionary and you might find a picture of a pale, ginger kid looking up at you with suggestive eyes. Not that Artemis had ever been on the receiving end of those eyes; no, because it seemed like the only girl Wally didn't flirt with was her.

She didn't know whether to be hurt by this or be angry, so she went with the easier of the two: angry.

Artemis tried not to think about it when she entered the Cave that day. She'd just gotten into an argument with her mother again about attending Gotham Academy (they made you wear a uniform, yuck), and as such, she was not in the greatest of moods. The foyer of the mountain was empty so Artemis made her way to the kitchen in hopes of finding someone there. To her surprise, she found all of her teammates there, huddled around a laptop.

"What's going on?" she asked, wondering if something had happened on the news.

"Oh, good," Wally said, and if that wasn't enough to make her suspect something was up, she didn't know what would. "You're just in time for my debut."

"Your debut?" she repeated, crowing around the laptop with them. She watched as Wally clicked on a link. "This can't be your TV debut. You're been on the news before."

"How would you know?" Robin asked smirking.

Troll. She felt her cheeks flush, but kept her edge. "It's not like I live under a rock," she said. "I've seen Flash boy here on the news."

"This is way better than that," Wally insisted, enlarging the video so it filled the whole screen. "Now everyone pipe down. It's loading."

After a moment the video started. It was clearly some sort of amateur newscast by the looks of it. A pretty, young Asian girl stood in front of the camera, holding a microphone. In the background was what looked like a typical high school.

"This is Linda Park reporting for Keystone High News. Today we are truly honored to have with us, Central City's own teenage superhero, Kid Flash," the girl said, and the camera zoomed out to show Wally in his Kid Flash uniform standing beside her. He smiled and saluted at the camera nonchalantly. "Thanks so much for joining us today."

"The pleasure is all mine, babe," Kid Flash said, winking at her.

Linda Park giggled in a high-pitched way that made Artemis want to strangle her. Nearby Robin struggled to control his own laughter.

"Now, Kid—do you mind if I call you Kid?" Linda asked suddenly.

"All my friends do," Kid Flash teased.

Linda blushed prettily before continuing. "Well, Kid, inquiring minds at Keystone High would like to know: what's it like working with The Flash?"

"The Flash is a great guy," he said. "He's really the inspiration for everything that I've accomplished."

"And just what is it like being the fastest kid alive?"

"It's amazing, you know. I get to use my powers to help fight crime. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do with them. Except for maybe this…"

In an instant Kid Flash was gone and then back, now holding a bouquet of flowers that he presented to a gushing Linda. Artemis scowled.

"Wow, thank you! Oh my gosh, how thoughtful!"

"Thoughtful is my—" Wally started, before stopping suddenly. "I mean, you're welcome."

"So, Kid," Linda simpered. "Just for the record, do you, uh, have a girlfriend?"

"Sadly, no," Kid Flash said, putting on a sad face. "Still looking for the right girl."

Kid Flash looked at something off camera. "Sorry, Linda, that's all the time I have today. Catch ya later!"

"Wait! I didn't get to give you my—" Linda started to say, but the young speedster was already gone. "—number."

Linda turned back to the camera full on and composed herself. "Well, you heard it here first," Linda reported. "Kid Flash is single and looking!"

In the background of the shot, Wally, now dressed in his civvies with a baseball cap covering his bright hair, had inched into the frame and was waving at the camera obnoxiously.

"This is Linda Park for Keystone High News, signing off."

The video didn't stop rolling there however. Linda looked behind her and spied Wally lurking. "Did you ruin my shot, West? If you did, so help me—"

Finally the video cut and they were left looking at a blank black screen. Wally turned to them all, grinning broadly.

"Well?" he asked. "How awesome was that? My own school did a news story on me! Without anyone knowing it was me!"

"Aren't you worried about your secret identity?" M'gann asked worriedly.

Wally shrugged. "Nah, you saw Linda," he said. "She had no idea it was me."

Artemis rolled her eyes. Before anyone else could say anything, Black Canary strolled in, wearing a curve hugging little black dress. Wally let out a whistle.

"I didn't know we were going out tonight, gorgeous. Give me a second to change. I'll be back in a flash."

"Funny, Wally," Dinah deadpanned. "None of you will be going anywhere tonight. Batman has a mission for you. It looks like it might be overnight, so he told me to make sure you're all ready."

"We always make sure to have supplies back for emergencies," Kaldur told her. "Did Batman give any indication to what the mission would pertain?"

"You know Batman," Dinah said. "He didn't exactly give me many details. But, you all seem like you're prepared, and I have somewhere to be. Good luck."

As quickly as she had appeared, Dinah was striding out of the kitchen.

"Man, if I was 10 years older, I would so love to—"

Before Wally could finish his sentence, Artemis elbowed him in the ribs. Robin snickered.

"Hey!"

"Would it kill you to show a little respect?" she asked him.

Wally mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "little harpy killjoy" and sped away. Artemis chose to be the bigger person and ignore him.

The oven timer dinged and M'gann hurried over to take out whatever was in there. Instead of using her powers to take out the tray, she used a pair of oven mitts.

"Snicker doodle cookies," the Martian girl proclaimed, brandishing the tray to the closest person to her. "Careful, Superboy, they're hot!"

Superboy took one, seemingly unconcerned. Wally, of course, chose that exact moment to speed back over, swiping the cookie out of Superboy's hand.

"Not as hot as you, babe," Wally cheesed, before tossing the cookie into his mouth.

"Thanks, Wally," M'gann said uncertainly. "That's, uh, sweet."

Even with his mouth half full, the idiot couldn't resist spewing out one of his stupid one-liners. "Not as sweet as you, sugar!"

Artemis couldn't restrain herself. "Oh, grow up!" she said, smacking the speedster on the back of the head. She went to take a cookie as well and tried to ignore the glare Wally was sending her.

"Team, report to the Mission Room," Batman's voice came over the loudspeaker.

They all exchanged serious glances before heading one by one out of the kitchen. Artemis was one of the last ones out. At the door she turned to see Wally swiping as many cookies as he could and sighed, shaking her head. She continued on her way wondering what fun mission the Batman would have in store for them.

She was floating in the black oblivion of unconsciousness when she heard a voice. His voice. Whose voice, she wasn't exactly sure, but it was familiar.

"Hey, Beautiful," the voice said softly. "Wake up."

Later, when she looked back on the whole Bialya thing, she would think how typical it was that he only flirted with her when he didn't know who she was…

A/N: You like? If so, please let me know! Also, please let me know if I you think any of my writing could use improvement. Thanks so much again to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, story alerted, and author alerted! You all are the best!

Please let me know if there's anything you would particularly like to see. Next chapter will be set during Bialya. Would you like to see Wally's POV, Artemis' POV, or both? Leave a review and let me know! :-)