AN: Wow! Back from what turned into a slightly longer break than expected... I have some house keeping to do but I'll save that as usual for my author's note at the bottom. Enjoy!
Picks from the playlist: Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson; 1234 by Feist; Atop a Cake by Alvvays.
She can feel Wally's eyes on her as she clasps her bra, watching curiously as she pins the plastic hooks together just below her breasts before twisting it round to sit properly in the center of her back. "What?" She asks almost gruffly.
And maybe her annoyance at their stopping is showing; she can still feel her wanting for him pressing against the scalding lines of muscle he had touched, can still feel the sensitive point between her legs throbbing and aching for him, stifled beneath the clothing she's forced to cover herself with...
Wally blinks once, still looking a little dazed as he draws his eyes away from where she's adjusting herself so her breasts sit evenly in the cups of her bra. "Nothing. I don't know." He doesn't see the confused look she sends him as he disappears behind the collar of his shirt; when he emerges his hair is mused and his ears are as crimson as ever. "... Don't take this the wrong way, or anything." He says warily, adjusting his sleeves and waiting until she's yanking her own shirt over her head before he continues. "But you're... You're so beautiful, Artemis."
For some reason she's caught off guard by the compliment, her fingers fumbling slightly with the hem of her shirt and tugging it so hard she's sure she's stretched the material out of shape. "Uh, right." She says awkwardly, wondering for a half second if it would be stupid to try to return the compliment.
It feels safer to roll her eyes and turn her back on him, and that's what she does.
It takes them a while to clean up the isle they've trashed, replacing fallen books on shelves and righting what they've rattled in their heat. It takes even longer for her skin to feel almost cool to the touch and she's caught off guard by the goose pimples on her arms, as if her body is instinctively missing Wally's closeness and his warmth.
Still, she finds the book almost exactly where she remembers dropping it, nearly a foot from the place where Wally had crashed into her. The deep emerald of the cover seems too bright for the dingy carpet when she picks it up, the golden text on the cover hardly faded as if its been too long since the oils of finger tips have softened it.
New Venice: The Documentation of All Drowning Seas.
They've hardly even rounded the corner towards the exit when the source of the earlier noise becomes obvious; through a thin slotted window on the library doors she can see Kaldur on the other side, hand braced against the handle and in deep conversation with Red Tornado, wobbling the hinge in the intensity of his speaking. Silently thanking whatever cosmic forces that prompted the interaction she picks up her pace, oddly outstripping Wally and arriving at the door first.
She hands over the book to Kaldur with an almost childish amount of satisfaction, as if she were in grade school and turning in a homework assignment she worked particularly hard on. "Excellent." He tells her, milky eyes looking bright as he surveys the book. "That certainly did not take you long. Or—" He pauses as Wally emerges from the library behind her, the door creaking loudly on its hinges as it swings open and closed. "Ah. I suppose good help never goes amiss."
As he says it she catches his eyes straying downwards and away from her face; just as she feels the familiar warmth of Wally settling a few inches beside her she remembers the over-eagerness of his biting about her neck, remembers how she had hissed as he had broken her skin and how he had pressed wet kisses and suckled against the fleshy joint of her shoulder to soothe her... It occurs to her all too late that he's probably left a bruise behind. "Yeah." She mumbles, and it's about as obvious as she's ever been in her whole life when she tilts her head to the side, dragging her pony tail over her shoulder to hide the wound as she glances at Wally. "It does."
She catches his gaze and there's something she can't quite understand in the half smile on his face; it reminds her so much of so many moments before, back when he felt like one giant unknown rather than just a few small, mysterious pieces. Whatever it is on his face it's is undefinable, as if the green irises blinking once at her slowly hold something soft and tender, yet another thing about him that she doesn't understand (like his fear of losing her, like his unconditional kindness, like why he picked her out of thousands of better, less broken girls to always run back to) but desperately wants to. And maybe it scares her—though not, she tries to think positively, as much as it used to—this lack of understanding, this bumpiness they keep encountering that threatens to tear them apart. But she wants to try.
She just isn't quite sure how to go about doing that.
When she finally glances back at Kaldur he's smirking at her, and for a moment there's absolute silence in the tiny hallway; she can tell he has at least an inkling of what exactly they've been up to, murky tongue poking out to lick his lips as if debating whether or not to say something on the matter. Resolutely she drops her smile and glares, refusing to even acknowledge the mechanic swiveling sound of Red Tornado's head as it turns to glance at either of them, Wally fidgeting beside her impatiently and huffing slightly before speaking. "Okay, book found, Kal. What next?"
The Atlantean's brows furrow once at her before he decidedly looks away, smirk dropping off his features as he falls once more into seriousness; with a wave he sends Red Tornado off as they begin to walk, directionless, down the hallway.
Kaldur rushes them through the updates of various teammates, making it obvious within a few minutes that the examination of S.T.A.R Labs didn't exactly lead to anything hopeful. "The Team arrived back at the Cave almost a half hour ago— I believe Robin was looking for you, Wally. He had a personal matter he wanted to discuss."
"Cool. Come on, Babe—"
Kaldur cuts him off with a slightly stern look, hands folding behind his back. "I was hoping to discuss something private with Artemis. Perhaps she would be willing to meet with you later."
She can feel her cheeks blush crimson, something in the knowing look on Kaldur's face making her nervous, as if she were a child anticipating a scolding from its parent. Beside her Wally's brows shoot up into his hair, expression a little quizzical before he shrugs. "Uh. Okay?" She's more than relieved when he decides to forgo his usual goodbye kiss and instead touches her, almost unnoticeably, about the small of her waist. "... See you later."
Her and Kaldur don't look at each other, heads instead turning to follow Wally's progress down the hall; it's predictable, she thinks, the four or five steps he takes at a normal pace before suddenly kicking into a burst of speed... Or perhaps she simply thinks so because she's used to it. Either way she still closes her eyes against the sudden back-draft of air, her pony tail whipping out behind her and settling after a second.
When she finally gets the courage to glance back at Kaldur he has one brow raised at her, mouth back in that annoying smirk; she's suddenly very aware that her pony tail is no longer covering the mark Wally left on her neck, but she'll be damned if she's going to give him the satisfaction of trying to cover it. Instead she narrows her eyes, ignoring the lingering redness of her cheeks. "... You wanted to talk to me?"
"You two seem to be on better terms." Kaldur says plainly, still smirking. "Am I to take it that sending him to the library was the correct course of action?"
She her eyes widen stupidly, cheeks setting off in her embarrassment. "You sent him after me?"
"I merely suggested it. I too have spent plenty of time studying inside the library, I know as well as you do how extensive its works are— I take it the help wasn't unwelcome?"
She can feels her lips threatening to burst into a series of mortified stutters; somehow she manages to contain them, mouth thinning into a straight line for a moment before she decides what she wants to say. "Congrats, Kal. You're matchmaker of the year. Can I go now?"
The corners of Kaldur's mouth quirk up at her snarling, and she gets the distinct sense that he's quite satisfied with himself. "Not yet. I have been wondering— what are your plans for when you finish high school? Have you considered applying to any colleges?"
It's about the last thing she's expecting him to ask her, and stupidly she feels her scowl drop from her face, brows raising. "I— Well, I don't know. I haven't been like, really looking at anything. Why?"
Kaldur hesitates, those few seconds long enough for her mind to burst into curiosity. "Because you've intrigued me, Artemis, and the rest of the League is in agreement. Have you ever considered... A Future? With the Team, or perhaps in time with the League?"
"I—" A little oddly she glances after Wally, as if hoping to see her own surprise mirrored in the vacant spot he's left beside her. "I mean, not really. I've thought about it, or whatever, but it never really seemed like it would turn into anything. Are you being serious?"
Kaldur nods at her, and she sees a small flash of overly rounded teeth as he smiles at her. "I am. You are perhaps a bit young now—you will be 16 in July, yes?— but if you are interested, I would be willing to put in a good word for you... When the time comes."
"I— Wow. Yes, please." She grins, stretching her skin so tight she can feel her cheeks aching.
"Excellent." Kaldur grins back, and for a half second the two of them are smiling at each other like a bunch of morons before he turns, nodding at her to walk down the hallway beside him. "I am glad of your enthusiasm— I believe after New Years Eve the League sees as much promise in us as I see in you; it is only a matter of time before more young heroes start being shunted our way and more of the older members of the Team are promoted upwards..." For some reason Kaldur trails off; when she glances at him his tongue is running over his lower lip again, an odd habit that she's never seen him do before tonight. "I was wondering, perhaps, now that you know the League is watching more closely, if you would be interested in taking a leadership position in the continued investigation of what happened in Metropolis? Tula has been intrigued by its happenings as well; she's just begun scouring League archives for further information pertaining to the terror attacks on New Venice and Metropolis, searching for further links between the two so as to piece together a full report for the League—"
Her footsteps falter for a moment, the bottom of her sneaker catching slightly on the carpet. "... Tula's working on Metropolis too? Isn't this... You know. Supposed to be information kept only within the Team?" She interrupts, glancing at Kaldur with narrowed eyes. "Besides, wasn't she supposed to be in Atlantis, with Garth and M'gann?"
To her surprise Kaldur blushes, unfamiliar splotches of deep purple coloring his cheeks and leaking down his neck, splattering unevenly along his gills. His tongue darts out unexpectedly to moisten his lower lip again, and for the first time she realizes that it's slightly swollen. "... Tula decided to remain behind." He says simply, avoiding her eye.
She catches herself rubbing tiredly at her eyes a few hours later, gaze straying away from the dingy League archives she's been scouring on a laptop to glance at the time in the corner of her screen. It's a little after one in the morning and she can't remember another day in her lifetime feeling longer than this one.
For some reason she feels an odd sort of disconnect with the girl she woke up as this morning; it's as if in the span of a few hours she's outgrown her, overstepped her. It's hard to imagine beginning her day by being worried over something as stupid as meeting Wally's parents, hard to find that part of herself that donned a dress and allowed make up to be smeared along her cheeks. She feels a tenfold more grown up, a hell of a lot older than simply fifteen; she wonders if this is how Dick, or even Kaldur, feel all the time, knowing that their future is so obviously intertwined with the Team, with the League itself. As she thinks it she jolts slightly, pulling her eyes back into focus and trying to find the spot she's left off in her reading on the screen.
Maybe it's a bit of a stupid thing to be proud of; she knows as well as anyone that things like this are never truly promised, never really a sure thing— there's just too many moving parts, too many unknown variables. But it feels like a big deal to her, going from suspected traitor for the better part of a year to someone who's playing a key role in an actual Team-led investigation. That has to mean something? Right? It means she's finally proven her worth, proven herself, finally— finally— earned some trust...
And maybe it doesn't matter that she doesn't exactly know what qualifies her for this sort of thing... It's not like it's as important as being Team Leader, where credentials must be considered and something as sticky and dark as her past probably wouldn't be tolerated. But maybe this is better than that; this isn't directing people or policing behaviors and squabbles— this is action, this is validation, this is a guaranteed spot on the Alpha Squad, when there's actually enough people around to form one. This is Kaldur, her closest friend, looking her in the eye and telling her in so many words that he sees her future. He sees potential, he sees someone worth keeping around—
She's never had someone look at her and see that before.
She feels her pride tight at the back of her throat and for some reason she has to force her eyes to focus hard on the pixels she's been staring at to stop the annoying burning she feels hot along her lashes.
That's not exactly true, she supposes. There's Wally, as there always is— sweet, absolutely annoying and wonderfully horrible Wally. He's always seen the best of her, hasn't he; always been there to pester her into believing in herself, always there to nudge her elbow and grin at her as if he's known all along that good things were coming. He's always seen a future for her, for the both of them, together and happy and with each other and the Team... And that's what he had meant? He wants them to make it— it's real. It's real, it's real...
And it is, that much she knows is true, as true now as it had been when they were so close in the library, his fingers between her legs and her eyes clouded with the sudden realization of how she can't lose him, won't lose him—
She feels her eyes burning again and manages to distract herself by reading a few lines on the screen before she's pulled out of her own head by a sigh; she'd almost forgotten Tula was there. They're hauled up in another one of the Cave's ridiculous conference rooms, similar to the one that held Red Arrow a little less than a week ago yet somehow brighter, less threatening to her eyes; when she glances around a little wildly she sees the Atlantean sitting oddly straight in her chair, hands splaying out in frustration over an assortment of papers and the book she had retrieved hours ago.
"I am not sure I understand." Tula sighs, fingers flipping a little absently through the edges of a few sheets of paper; she can't stop herself from glancing down at the movements of the overlong, slender fingers, dainty oval nails smoothing creases and fixing imperfections in the parchment. For some reason watching the other girl's hands makes her suddenly self-conscious of her own ragged cuticles and bitten nails, and she catches herself curling her hands into fists on her keyboard to hide them.
They've been working in relative silence since she first joined her in the room several hours ago. Despite herself she feels a slight hesitation towards the other girl, her good first impression being marred by the fact that Tula has been bothering Kaldur's good judgment; she still hasn't forgiven her for the unknown joke that somehow prompted Kaldur to casts suspicions on her so recently...
As she thinks it she feels the pride she's been feeling suddenly burst, all the heat of joy flooding from her stomach and being replaced by a cold, tight twisting. Perhaps that's what this is about, his asking her to take a lead in this investigation despite someone like Dick being much better suited— it's not Kaldur showing faith in her, it's another one of his "treats," like his allowing her to interrogate Red Arrow alone; this isn't showing faith in her, it isn't a promotion, it's just another half-bribe to convince her to forgive him for his lapse of good judgment—
For some reason she can suddenly hear Wally's voice at the forefront of her mind, snarling the word "insecure" at her and slamming a sai on the ground at her feet. It's the same thing all over again, the same stupid problem—
Suck it up.
Don't be a baby.
Don't be insecure.
She can feel her nails digging into the crease of her palm, anger at Kaldur so pressing that she has to forcibly wrap her ankles around the legs of her chair to keep herself from rising and seeking him out to interrogate him; it takes longer than it should to become composed, to shove her insecurities inside the cage where she keeps the worst of herself, her voice still sounding slightly cold as she raises her eyes from where they've been glaring at Tula's hands. "What don't you understand?"
Whether by biological Atlantean means or simply her own Tula is a fast reader, way quicker than her by far; it's obvious by the sheer quantity that she's finished sorting through that the girl is spending no more than perhaps twenty seconds on each page before flipping onto the next, eyes seeming to scan and memorize more than simply absorb information. A little childishly she unfurls her hands, fingers working hastily as if she has a chance of catching up, as if this is some sort of competition. "This… tablet, that the S.T.A.R Labs developed. They created it in response to the theft of a piece of biological matter Atlantis supplied them with, yes?"
She feels her own fingers pause in the act of pounding against laptop keys, scowling into the unnatural lights of the screen. It's the third time Tula has asked her this question tonight. "… Uh, yeah. That's what Kal said."
In the few hours they've spent together she's realized that when she's thinking Tula repeats the facts out loud and frequently, often disrupting her own work to do it. She's supposes it must help, starting in the firm boundaries of fact before moving onto more abstract ideas; Tula lets out a huffy breath and instantly her otherwise pleasant scent (lavender, sea salt, an unidentifiable moistened sweetness) hits her hard across the face, her nose wrinkling as she hears overlong fingers tapping once against the cover of a book.
"And this biological matter," Tula says slowly, humming again and not looking at her, "as we had already confirmed, was not a creature that was native to Atlantis, but rather to New Venice. Suspected to be a genetic relative or byproduct of whatever magical forces downed New Venice in the first place, although that is yet to be confirmed—"
"Correct." She says tersely, catching herself biting the inside of her cheek and stopping. Tula looks at her, and despite her annoyance she can feel herself being softened by the confusion in the milky green eyes— she supposes she understands, in some small way, how Kaldur could be so infatuated by Tula, especially when her amber eyelashes blink slowly, almost helplessly at her. "What are you asking me, Tula?" She says impatiently after a moment, getting tired of watching the other girl find different ways to be perplexed.
In response Tula tilts her head almost absently on her shoulders, neck cracking to the left; she's seen her and Garth do the gesture on numerous occasions, even remembers Kaldur still having the habit when she first met him— she supposes it is like an Atlantean shrug but smoother, less jarring, infinitely more elegant and charming that its counter part on the surface world.
"I am not sure what to ask really." Tula mumbles, one finger pressing firmly against her lips. She realizes, with a slight pang, that her lips look slightly reddened, swollen in the same way Kaldur's were, but before she can make much of it Tula's drawing her attention elsewhere. "Perhaps... How are such creatures simply appearing out of thin air in New Venice? Biologically, these traits the— Electro Magnetic Pulses they give off, the ability to do so must be inherited from a parent, yes? Even with the influence of magic the effect would not be permanent, it would stop working when the caster was drained of energy. If I recall that was what intrigued Atlantean scientists in the first place with your... Squid. The fact that it was so old, untouched for so long, yet had such a powerful presence of Electro Magnetic Pulses..."
It takes her a few minutes to answer, mind still distracted by the other girl's lips and wishing suddenly that Wally were present; he's the one who came up with the theory she's about to tell Tula, she knows he'll be much better at explaining it that she has a chance to be. Sighing, she momentarily nudges the laptop away and focuses on her quarry across the table, trying to remember exactly how he worded it to her.
"... Have you ever heard of an atomic bomb?" She says a little stupidly, frowning when the other girl shakes her head. "Okay, well, basically the United States and Russia were really competitive back in the day... I mean, you know the whole thing about Capitalism and Communism and the Cold War, right?" She's a little relieved when Tula nods and pulls a scrap of paper towards herself, seizing a nearby pencil. "Well, basically there was this huge fight between them, that never actually escalated into a full blown war, but both sides had built these big, deadly bombs that were designed to knock out whole civilizations called Atomic Bombs.
"An Atomic Bomb was a bomb that was dependent on nuclear fission and energy to destroy its target... But the most dangerous thing about an Atomic Bomb wasn't that it just landed and it exploded and people were killed." She pauses to draw a tiny circle, the lead of her pencil filling it with scratches of dark grey. "It lands, and there's an impact, but the real devastation is in what it leaves behind—sort of waves around the initial impact, where the closer you are you receive the most damage." She drags her pencil, drawing a another, wider circle to encase the first colored one. "If you're close enough to the impact it kills you, burns your atoms apart within seconds..." Another circles encasing these two. "Sometimes being that near the radiation can cause cancers, birth defects, prevents people from living to a certain age." A final, much larger circle to encase them all. "There's way more waves of damage than just the three, circling miles around the initial impact... The waves of radiation sometimes damage soil, prevent crops from growing, make it unsafe to live there. It doesn't just hurt people, it hurts the place they're living too."
She glances up at Tula automatically, double checking to see that she's following. "I don't really... It's Wally's idea." She says a little sheepishly. "He's better at explaining it. But— maybe he's right. Say whatever magic Ocean Master used to down New Venice, say it... Hurt the area underwater where he dragged it to? So all the Electro Magnetic Pulses—"
"Would have ingrained themselves in the ocean floor and permanently damaged the environment." Tula finishes for her, eyes narrowing slightly as her forefinger traces her lips again. "Thus allowing for the creation of new creatures like your Squid. It is an interesting theory... But your Squid is much older than simply a few decades, yes? Much too old for simply Ocean Master's meddling?"
She opens her mouth to argue; after a few seconds she scowls, going back to her computer screen. "I know that." She says, sounding childish. It had just been one of Wally's stupid ideas anyway, something he had tossed her way weeks ago when they were still obsessed with what happened in Metropolis and still too weak to do anything about it. "... Maybe he dragged New Venice onto another spot already lousy with Electro Magnetic Pulses from something else..." She suggest half heartedly.
They fall into an uneasy silence again, her eyes glaring unseeing for a few moments on the computer screen before she finally starts to read again; she's hardly made it a quarter of the way down the screen when her ears start being bothered by shuffling papers again. She has the good sense to run a finger over her mouse pad, highlighting the sentence she's stopped on so not to lose her place again when Tula speaks. "The device that was stolen was designed to track EMP's." She says plainly, not really asking a question. "To track more creatures that emitted such pulses..."
"Yeah." She blurts out almost rudely in the silence that follows, not sure if she's supposed to respond.
Tula hums out the same half note she's been repeating all night, not looking at her. "… And once your Squid was stolen you believe chemical engineers harnessed the power of EMP's with the intention of implanting them in people? When blended with your… Kobra Venom, was it?" Tula stops speaking again for a moment and she decides to nod like an idiot, eyes half straying back to her computer screen. "The Kobra Venom intrigues me. Does it also release such Electro Magnetic Pulses when used?"
She's just gone back to her highlighted text, just unselected it just as Tula says this; she loses her place almost immediately when she glances away, eyes narrowing. "... I don't know. I'm not sure if it's been tested for that."
"... You will pardon me." Tula says after a moment, and this time it's clear by the rapt focus of her eyes that she's actually speaking to her, not just at her. "Perhaps it is not my place to know such things, as I am not an official member of the Team, but... Kaldur'ahm has confided several things in me. One of which is the fact that Kobra Venom was created to enhance super criminals, allowing them to battle on more level terms with the Justice League... Should this Kobra Venom actually mimic genetic potential for powers in the material of a super heroe's DNA, should the original DNA not emit Electro Magnetic Pulses in the same way...? In theory, the stolen tablet should be able to track specific heroes— even heroes who have undiscovered potential for powers in their genetics— around the globe, be able to track them much more specifically than just through zeta-beam transportation..."
For a moment she feels her whole body run cold, feels her pulse pounding hard and fast in her ears at the thought...
Her father would be able to find her whenever he wanted, would be able to track her down and kill her without so much as a second thought.
"I—" She starts and then stops, forcing the sheer terror out of her head and instead willing her voice to run evenly, refusing to indulge Tula at the ridiculousness of the thought— after all, she's the one supposed to be leading this investigation, she can't afford to fall apart when things look tough. "Kaldur shouldn't have told you all that, you're right." She says coldly. "... I'll alert the League about the possibility... But, I don't know, Tula." She says frankly, hoping her confidence in the matter will at least soothe the wrinkle between the other girl's amber brows. "This is America, super heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash... The government doesn't exactly leave them alone. Scientists in this country aren't content to let them run around constantly, unsupervised. They used get tested on like lab rats back in the day, they probably still do now. If there was something important to find they would have found it."
It's a bit of a weak defense and she doesn't quite miss Tula's frown deepening for a moment before she looks away, as if she's decided to play nice rather than argue. "Perhaps you are right." She sighs, hesitating before leaning back in her chair. "I am turning into a conspirator, it must be worrisome for Garth..." There's a rather sticky sounding pause, and for some reason when Tula glances at her she feels the skin of her arms prickling warily. "But Kaldur'ahm is worried too. I do not know if he has said anything to you, but..?"
She catches herself biting the inside of her cheek again, turning back to her computer as one hand rubs at the length of her arm, trying to smooth the bothered skin. "… I know that he's worried about the tablet being missing." She pulls out evasively, not sure if that's what she's being asked.
Tula lets out a small tinkling laugh, overtly feminine yet not high pitched. "Certainly, of course." Out of the corner of her eyes she watches as the other girl leans forward in her chair, fingers folding neatly together atop the pile of papers. "But I can sense there is something more, something he is not telling me... I have known him nearly all my life. He is my dearest friend…But he never tells me these things anymore. His thoughts, his worries…" She pauses, chin dipping and surveying her through thick lashes and flopping bangs. "He speaks most highly of you, Artemis. I could tell, even before I saw the two of you together… He cares about you very much."
She can feel her cheeks reddening. "We're close." She says vaguely, pulling her eyes back to screen and disappointed when Tula doesn't pick up on her hinting to drop the subject, instead leaning further forward to talk to her in a hushed tone.
"You joined this Team in late August, yes?" She feels herself nodding along to Tula's question, eyes unfocused on the pixels she's supposed to be staring at. "I remember, he was most excited about you."
Against her better judgment she looks away from the work she's supposed to be doing. She's a little caught off guard at the wry smile the other girl is wearing, looking at her curiously but not unkindly. "… I must confess, I thought perhaps… Perhaps there was something more, for a while. Naturally that was before I knew of you and Kid Flash. But, still… Perhaps this is petty to admit, but I might have been... Jealous?"
She can feel a pang of surprise cross her features before she can properly hide it; almost at once she hears Tula's tinkling laugh again, feeling immediately stupid at her reaction despite it being Tula's blunder. "Pardon me, I did not mean— you must understand. Kaldur'ahm and I are the greatest of friends, the dearest of— I simply meant of your new closeness; it is odd, being once so intimate with someone and then those feelings... But distance does that." There's another one of her odd pauses. "Of course."
Absently she clicks a few stray keys on her keyboard, still feeling the lingering redness about her cheeks; there's something strange in the way Tula is suddenly blundering through her sentences, something off in the way her overlong fingers begin nervously fidgeting with the papers, arranging them carefully into even stacks. She feels as if she's being prodded into admitting something, as if she's being interrogated by someone too polite to say plainly what they want of her. "... Right." She nods back warily, mostly because it feels like it's the right thing to say.
There's another brief moment of silence in which she hears her own fingers cease their typing, brain whirring ahead of her, prompting her to ask a question that's been bothering her for over a month now. "... So that's why you brought Garth then? To... I don't know. Mark a boundary with Kaldur?"
She can tell it's the last thing Tula is expecting her to say, her amber brows shooting up into her hair. When the Atlantean speaks she can hear a straight note of haughtiness there, the rounded points of her nails cutting creases into her perfect papers when she tries to laugh again. "... Perhaps we are both misunderstanding each other. Garth and I have long since been curious over the happenings of the surface world, and Kaldur—"
"I know, I know." She waves her off, for some reason embarrassed at the Atlantean's tact. "He told me. But… I also know Kaldur wasn't expecting you to bring Garth. Kind of rude to invite a guest without telling the host." She shrugs, glancing back at her computer for the sake of having something to look at other than Tula. "Maybe that's just me but... Kind of seems like you only brought Garth along because you thought Kaldur had someone else too. And I know Kaldur was looking really excited to spend some time alone with you."
Oddly the tip of Tula's nose reddens; for a moment she's sure she's about to be yelled at, flinching despite herself when the other girl opens her mouth to speak. "... Really." She's more than off-put by the quiet of her tone. "... I was looking forward to spending time together too."
For a half second she feels more than immersed in awkwardness, suddenly wishing she had M'gann or Zatanna here as a guide for what to say neck. "Yeah." She says dumbly, marking her spot on her screen again; it takes her a few moments to gather her nerve for what she's about to say next, wondering if the reaction she wants is worth such a risky bluff to get. "... But I guess you're making up for that now, right?"
It's about the pettiest thing she can think to say; almost pointedly she glances at Tula's mouth, feeling an instant twist of satisfaction in her stomach when the other girl's teeth suck her lower lip into her mouth, hiding it from view. Before she can stop herself she's spurred on by that spitefulness, voicing all the nasty thoughts that have been in her head since it became clear that Tula's been meddling in her position on the Team. "And I'm only going to say this once, okay? So listen carefully." She says lowly, almost too coldly, glaring daggers when Tula opens her mouth to interject angrily. "I can understand why you want to be here, and I can understand why you might have felt threatened before. I know what it's like, feeling like you're losing someone.
"But you need to realize that you are interfering with a Team that relies on balance and trust to function. And you need to realize that that interference, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, screws up people's lives. What you do with Kaldur on your own time is your business." She says clearly, locking her own eyes on Tula's and making it clear that she isn't about to take her suspicions to Garth. "But when it messes with my Team, with my family, then we have a problem. So you can use whatever excuse you want to be here, closer to Kaldur, and none of us will treat you as anything other than welcome. But you can't keep messing with his head. He's our leader, Tula. His mind needs to be present, with us, and not caught up in whatever you're putting him through. Okay?"
By the time she's finished it comes out less fierce and more exhausted than she wants it to; it's supposed to be a warning, a clear message to stay out of Kaldur's head and away from interfering with Team matters. Yet suddenly all she can feel is the weight of her own exhaustion, the heaviness of what they've uncovered and all the emotional baggage she's carrying, and before she can even try to control it she's sounding weary, almost broken.
She doesn't see Tula's curt nod, doesn't see much when she disappears behind her hands for a moment to try to scrub the tiredness out of her skin; the only thing she knows for sure is that something in the air changes when she emerges, and somehow without verbalizing it they're both pretending to be absorbed in their assignment again. This tension between them isn't new, it's the same one-sided annoyed emotion she's felt since she discovered how easily Kaldur had believed whatever mocking Tula had done behind her back; it's just suddenly doubled, divided, but not unwelcome—it figures she would be the one to look out for Kaldur's best interests, to let Tula know that she's watching her carefully—
After a while the tension turns slightly sour and she finds herself getting distracted; more to escape the tiny room she gets to her feet, stretching. "I'm going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?" She asks almost coldly.
This hatred isn't like that with Roy, or with her sister; it isn't even real hatred, in fact. It's just two entirely different people, with entirely different lives, forced to rub together as evenly as they can as they're joined together by one person, one purpose. It feels older, more tame and manageable; or perhaps she simply feels older, more tame, in the new found maturity her position is allotting.
"No, thank you." Tula nods her out, not even looking up from the book.
The door clicks shut behind her but she doesn't move, not immediately; rather than take further steps into the hallway she remains still, hand clenched around the door knob and mind exhausted but still buzzing with such a recent influx of confusing and tangled theories.
She feels as if all her emotions, thoughts, worries the past twenty four hours have pushed to the front of her mind are suddenly boiling to her very brim, threatening to spill over her edges entirely—
She can sense her anxiousness, can sense how her exhaustion is playing with her emotions and suddenly tempting her into crying, breaking down; rather than allow herself to crumble under the pressure she releases the doorknob, turning on her heel until her shoulder blades are pressed flat, almost painfully, against the door behind her.
Breathe.
And she does; as if her lungs have been waiting for the invitation to start working she feels them expanding almost achingly between her ribs. She's not sure when these odd moments between doorframes started sticking with her, when she started bracing herself between the three panels of wood to force herself to focus. She doesn't remember picking it up anywhere, doesn't remember watching Jade do it and copying it in an effort to be more like her sister... No, this is organic, biologically ingrained like her blonde hair or the naturally pointed edges of her nails, something entirely her own and entirely uncorrupted by her own existence— She hears the air rush out through her nose, feels her neck crack and she tilts it backwards and forwards, pony tail hanging limply over her shoulder as she stares at her feet, thinking hard, trying to push her emotions and exhaustion back inside herself until she's capable of working again—
"Hey." She jerks up when Wally calls out to her from the end of the hall, her head knocking back against the door before she gets the sense to abandon her position. "I was just coming to get you and Tula, Kaldur thinks it's time you both called it a night."
Her eyes narrow for a moment at the odd pace of his walking, her face splitting into a half smile despite herself when she realizes he's holding a cup of tea for her, one hand wrapped around the handle and the other cupping her mug almost protectively. "Oh." She says dumbly, walking a few paces to meet him. "Thanks. That's— that's sweet of you."
Wally glances up as she reaches him, eyes too busy trying to read the bags under her eyes and not watching when he hands her the mug. "Shit." He says quietly when he sees her wince, eyes finally looking down in time to watch as a good half inch of liquid slugs over the edge of the porcelain and onto her knuckles, burning her. "Sorry—"
There's instantly a great deal of fuss, a lot of him trying to grab the mug back from her and her trying to simply dodge the mess now dribbling onto the white cotton of her socks. It's clumsy, awkward, and not at all in the good way it had been in the library— nothing like how it had been in the heat of the moment, when she was too lost in the seams their muscles stitched together to be bothered with hurt feelings, or fumbling...
She manages to hit his hands away when they try to grab the mug back, holding her cup almost loftily about her shoulder; for some reason after their bumbling it goes oddly quiet between them, both of them looking at each other with shy eyes and reddened cheeks, unsure of what emotions are still furling between them and whether there's anything worth still being angry about.
And perhaps it's just her tiredness, her lack of patience because of lack of sleep, but suddenly she feels a surge of strange hate for him, for both of them together, and for the fact that they just can't seem to get this right.
She can't take the awkward silence, so much like the strange silence she left behind with Tula, and more to give herself something to do to fill the emptiness between them she glances down at her tea sodden forefinger, hardly thinking before placing the length of it in her mouth, slurping what he's spilt there off her skin entirely.
Immediately she knows it's not the right thing to do; she makes the mistake of glancing at Wally as she does this, eyes locking on his and catching her off guard by all the emotion written there. Suddenly his ears are reddening and he's staring at her mouth with such intensity that the slight popping of her lips releasing her finger sounds borderline lewd; it's a tenfold more awkward when she looks away, wiping her hand embarrassedly on the denim of her jeans before shoving her it in her pocket.
"So, uh." Wally starts, throat catching before he has to clear it, gaze now on his feet instead of her as if she's too indecent to look at. "How's it going in there, anyway? Find anything interesting?"
"Okay, I guess." She says honestly, her eyes drawn to the thick line of muscle on his neck as he nods at his feet. "A few things I need to talk to Kaldur about, some things to double check but... You know how it is."
Wally nods again, still looking sheepish, and she decides she'd rather hide behind the rim of her mug than keep looking anxiously at the messiness of his hair as it brushes across his forehead. Ignoring the heat of the tea she slugs over half the cup back, frowning slightly when she gets the courage to look at him again and discovers he's still avoiding her eyes. "... Okay. Well... I guess I'll just go tell Tula we're done for tonight. Thanks for the tea—"
She hardly even turns before Wally looks up at her; he's not even touching her, not even doing anything to stop her from leaving, but for some reason something in his face forces her to freeze, muscles and joints and cartilage in her legs stiffening into stillness. She knows that look, knows it all too well— it's that same look he wore in her bedroom after the Exercise, the same one he wore their first day together on the beach, the same one that always seems to punch her in the gut and force her to glance back at him, however warily. It's the same one he always wears whenever he wants to say something but can't— her eyes narrow as his mouth half opens, brows knit tightly together and apple eyes fixed on hers, searching for something lost inside his head that he can't quite get out.
She allows him a few seconds of staring at her before she grows impatient, her own nervousness biting and twisting in her stomach until she hears herself huff. "Wally?" She sighs, watching as his mouth closes, eyes dropping hers again and trailing downward.
And maybe her tone is a bit too cold for the way he's looking at her, maybe it only comes out like that because suddenly she knows exactly where he's looking, knows that he can see the bruise he's left on her neck; she can see his throat bobbing, can see by the way his eyes shift and focus hard that he's remembering their closeness, remembering the breathy mewls he had pulled out of her, remembering all the broken pieces their heated bodies had tried to mash together to fix.
She doesn't flinch when he reaches for her; to anyone else it would look as if he were clapping her on the shoulder, as if he were wishing her well. But she feels it, the way his thumb strays across the taught skin of her collar bone, the way it presses against the mark he's made; there's something unknown and therefore alarming on his face again, something hard and terrifying in that it makes her whole body flood with heat, makes the frantic twisting of her stomach seem to refocus between her legs. As he touches her, tracing the indents of the bruise his teeth left behind she feels completely frightened, both of losing him and of staying still beneath his fingers— ridiculously her toes flex into the floor, forcing her not to move, forcing her to simply shiver as he touches the mark he's left on her...
Her lips part, a slight rush of air slipping over her tongue as she remembers the pain of his biting; even in the tenderness of the touch now she recognizes it for what it is, what it was intended to be in the moment— Wally making a claim on her, marking her as his...
"Just in case, you know. I wasn't clear before…" He breathes out, voice catching again. "I didn't mean what I said, you know that, right? This… You and me. It's real—"
"—I know—"
"And I just want to make sure you understand— I didn't mean to make you feel, I don't know, like you weren't good enough. With meeting my parents, or whatever." Wally pauses, glancing down to watch her fingers as they tighten around the handle of her cup. As if burned he retracts his hand, sliding it into his denim pocket. "I just— You saw my Dad. He's... Hard to please. I just wanted to get you in and out of there in one piece, and I get it, it blew up at me, I just really wanted you to meet my mom, she's—"
She can see him working himself into a bit of a rant and decidedly she cuts him off, finding suddenly that she doesn't want to hear an explanation; it's a weird sensation, the way Wally's mouth freezes under hers as she presses her mouth to his, forcing lips misshapen with speech to still. She feels the cup pressing between her breasts, forcing a distance between them before she pulls back, surveying him through her lashes. "I know." She says, even though she's not sure she does.
She's exhausted; tired of being awake, tired of thinking, tired of trying to sort things out with Wally. And she supposes that even if she wasn't so drained she still wouldn't try to fight him off when he reaches for her; she feels as if she's suddenly long since outgrown trying to resist him, trying to fight off what she knows she wants. Despite the fact that they're frayed around the edges and very nearly falling apart half the time she does need him... All she wants in the world is more of him him—more of his kisses, more of his body pressed against her and less, way less clothing next time—and when he pulls her flush against his chest she allows him to tuck her head beneath his chin, her eyes closing when she feels his familiar warmth and the walnut scent clinging to his skin.
It is real. She repeats inside her head. And it has been, ever since he stumbled into her life clad in swim shorts and a sunblock smeared nose... She's been unable to shake him, unable to loosen the grip he felt he had a right to take on her reality; she's decided long ago that this boy— this stupid boy— was meant to hold her like he is now, like he did under the Bialyan sun, like he did when they were lost and alone and falling apart and she found comfort in the gentle green eyes of a stranger. Of all the hate she's known, of all the abandonment she's endured, this is real, even if they can't quite put into words yet what this is. Because some feelings, like the happiness he brings out in her, like the feeling of his thumb as he presses it against the small point on her back, just can't be faked. It doesn't matter anymore, the things they say to each other during their fights; she's done over thinking it, done sabotaging herself and ruining the only thing in her life that means anything to her.
She's done with being insecure.
She doesn't stop herself from pressing her lips against his collar bone, one arm snaking around his neck to pull him closer.
The first two weeks of April seem to fly by almost as quickly as January did, although in an entirely different fashion; instead of exhaustive meetings the days are filled with unexciting patrols, her evenings spent trying to make up for all the school she's missing and continued research and theories about where the tablet from S.T.A.R Labs was taken. Soon it becomes an asset that she requires so little sleep, and before long she's scoured the entire League archives twice, coming up with nothing useful and becoming doubly frustrated.
She doesn't know how she feels about all this new trust and responsibility, but she thinks she likes it. It feels good, being useful.
She likes it too, that Wally insists on keeping her company during her late night work sessions; rather than being jealous over all the time she's spending working he's oddly supportive in a way she wouldn't have counted on him being when they first met. For the first time since they got together things seem more settled, yet different from the quiet tenderness that so frightened her before.
She's not quite sure how to explain it, what even marks the difference in her mind. She just knows it feels easier to breathe if they try to forget who they are, easier forget that they're anything other than normal teenagers as they stay curled beneath the blankets of her bed reading, or walking alone through the docks of Happy Harbor, away from the Team and from the Cave. In many ways she feels as if she's borrowing moments from another life, from two different people living on another timeline who are unburdened by heroics; as much as she lingers on the strangeness of the thought she also indulges it, ignoring her homework in favor getting lost in the tracings of Wally's fingers as they press patterns into the sensitive point behind her ear and wondering what would happen if they were simply two kids who met by chance, if they ever would have gotten together without having so many things try to tear them apart...
But it doesn't matter, she supposes, to think of what could have been or what might have not. There could be a thousand universes, a thousand lifetimes that contained the two of them, and the only one of them that would matter to her is the one where they're together as they are now: specifically, the one where Wally is asleep beside her, snoring so loudly that she's having difficulty focusing on her math homework.
She's just lost her focus in the middle of problem twenty for the third time when she sighs, leaning back against her propped up pillow and nudging him with her elbow. "Wally." She pauses, watching him fuss slightly beneath her comforter, one hand flopping out in a dozy attempt to remove her and getting caught under the blankets. "Wally, if you're sleeping you have to go."
There's a rule at the Cave— an unspoken rule, but a rule nonetheless— about sleeping over in each other's rooms. She knows from watching Connor and M'gann sneaking around in the early mornings that generally it's frowned upon by the mentors to spend the night together. She's witnessed Canary's infamous reprimanding first hand and has no desire for either her or Wally to fall victim to it.
Wally rolls over, one hand sleepily thrusting out from underneath the pillow he's claimed and clawing for her; she nearly swears when he knocks the book out of her hands, unknowingly scattering half of her homework as he grabs at her waist, pulling himself closer until he's pressed flush against her hip and making it nearly impossible to get any work done as he keeps pawing at her, trying to force her into lying beside him. "Baywatch." She scoffs almost sternly, knee bending and only managing to prod him once painfully in the ribs before he's hooked a hand behind it, dragging her leg over him and not stopping until she's laying flat on top of him.
"I'm completely awake." He mutters, tightening his arms around her when she tries to sit up again, one hand pinning her face into the shell of his shoulder under the guise of smoothing her hair. He ignores the pointed look she tries to send to her homework that's now scattered everywhere. "I think you're confused, you're clearly the tired one here. I mean, I don't blame you. It's—" She glares when he lifts his hand, making a great show of checking his watch before suddenly his face falls almost comically. "Oh."
He no longer looks half asleep, his eyes suddenly rapt and focused as he stares at the digits for a few too-long seconds; he makes a sudden movement to hide the time from her, but before he can even get his hand fully under the blanket she's seizing his wrist, dragging it until it's at her eye level. April 13th, 2011. 1:37 am.
She looks at the numbers for a long time, trying to scavenge in the depths of her mind for some sort of significance. "Oh?" She says after a while, letting Wally's limp hand slip between her fingers and crash beside her on his stomach.
"I—uh, nothing." He shrugs, rubbing his face and emerging somewhat sheepishly behind his fingers when he realizes she's still looking at him. "Okay, you're gonna think it's weird, or whatever but... Tomorrow is M'gann's birthday."
"Oh." She repeats again, less questioning and more confused. "... Why would I think that's weird?"
Wally shrugs a little jerkily and finally lets her roll off of him, one of his arms bending to rub behind his head as he props himself up on his pillow. "I don't know. Because I was so nuts about her, or whatever. Before." There's not even a second of pausing. "But I mean, I was no where near as nuts about her as I am about you, Babe."
She almost repeats the word "Oh" again and has to stop herself, blinking a little dumbly at the way he adds the last part, as if she's supposed to be jealous or angry that another girl had his attention. She's never really thought about his old crush on M'gann; even when it was at its most annoying she never really cared, not really, as long as he wasn't being careless and getting the rest of them into trouble. But it feels like so long ago, like from someone else's life, all these forgotten memories of his one-sided flirtations; it's as if they belong to someone else, another person who's hand isn't resting on his chest, feeling the rapid beating of his heart under their fingers.
She splays her hand flat against him, thumb smoothing the wrinkles of his tee shirt and pausing almost unnoticeably on the scar she can barely feel but knows is there. "Relax, Wally." She snorts, noticing his red ears. "I'm not the jealous type."
"Oh." It's his turn to sound a little stupid. "... Good."
There's a few moments of silence in which she's almost sure he can hear the cogs inside her head turning, and despite the fact that she's just said otherwise she's suddenly a little curious. "... Pretty impressive, knowing it off the top of your head, though. Were you going to, like, throw a party for her or something?"
"Uh." Wally says unintelligently, glancing at her before looking firmly at the ceiling. "Okay, this is the weird part. You know that show Hello Megan, right?" She nods. "So after that whole thing happened in Quarac... I must have watched every damn episode of that show. I don't really know why, I didn't even really like her like that anymore but... It was important to her, I guess. And Megs and I have always been close, even when I was being an idiot—"
"Get to the point, Wally."
"Well there's a birthday episode of the show, right? It was the last episode they filmed before they realized the show was going to be cancelled, so it's right before the finale— anyway. And in it Megan's mom decorates the whole house with pink balloons, pinks streamers, cake with pink icing. It sounds like an eye sore or whatever, but I know Meg would really like it. And there's this whole other plot to the show, where Megan is trying to set her two friends up by playing spin the bottle, but she just can't get the two in the closet together—"
Wally trails off, grinning a little vaguely at the ceiling; for some reason her chest feels oddly strained and she doesn't know why. "So... You were going to throw a whole Hello Megan themed birthday party... For some girl you didn't even like anymore?"
Wally hesitates and then turns his head towards her, brows furrowing as he tries to read her expression. "It sounds weird when you say it like that... I don't know? Whatever, it's M'gann..."
Wally trails off and stares, ears still blushing, at the ceiling; suddenly her voice feels tight in the back of her throat, constrained by some sort of emotion or affection she can't quite identify for the boy beside her. "So what?" She asks when he glances at her, voice sounding a little thick and distracted as she makes a show of tugging her covers up to his shoulders. "Just because you have a girlfriend you can't throw her a party anymore?"
Out of the corner of her eye she can see Wally looking surprised. "Well, no... I mean—"
"Because I think you should." She sounds so firm it's almost threatening, her fingers perhaps pressing a little too hard against his chest as she smoothens her blankets over him. "She's turning eighteen, right?"
"Technically I think she's forty-some in Martian years."
She scowls at his precision, nudging him teasingly. "Whatever. Come on, we might as well, you know Connor isn't going to think of anything as good as your Hello Megan party. Besides, it's an excuse to celebrate."
"And you're fine with this?" Wally asks almost suspiciously, as if waiting for her to change her mind.
She shrugs, pulling her math homework towards her from where he's scattered it. "Sure. Just..." She hesitates, wondering if she's going to sound too bratty. "Just do something cool for my birthday too."
She's immediately surprised by how difficult it is, actually coordinating a surprise birthday party. If she recalls correctly it was M'gann who coordinated Wally's party last November; she remembers the Martian marching around the Cave with a clip board in her hands, roping all of them into doing their part in making sure decorations were being hung, a cake was being made, and Wally remained mostly oblivious despite his obvious hinting at wanting his party to be surprise. A little reluctantly she passes the majority of the responsibility onto Wally— it was his idea, after all— and decidedly spends the next day or so hovering, unexpectedly anxious, watching to make sure he does everything right.
The actual planning feels more like the organization and structure of an undercover mission than that of such a girlish birthday party; it feels ridiculous, almost goofy, using their radios to communicate the party's existence and force their teammates into fulfilling tasks. Twice she catches herself in the heat of annoyance snarling at Dick over her communicator to do his part— for some reason he's been moody over the past few days, doubling up on sarcastic remarks and unhelpful comments— and twice she wishes the party wasn't a surprise and that she could simply call M'gann in to coordinate the planning.
Wally insists on dragging her along to a party supply store the night before M'gann's birthday under the guise of needing a "female opinion" in regards to themed decorations; it becomes painfully clear within a few minutes that she doesn't know the first thing about decorations or parties or anything remotely feminine. Against their better judgment they both grab anything pink and disgusting looking off the shelves and she catches herself grinning like an idiot in the balloon isle.
Only M'gann and Connor go to school on her birthday; despite the fact that she's sure she's not the only one dangerously behind in her school work everyone works past their own bad tempers and insists on skipping class to help set up. They spend the better part of the afternoon putting up decorations, baking a cake, covering almost every available surface with the words, "Happy Birthday," and trying to make their living room somewhat resemble the set of Hello Megan. It feels borderline strange that in the midst of all their research, in the middle of all their conspiracy theories and investigations that time could slow for something as simple as a birthday—but it's M'gann's birthday, Wally reminds them all when tempers get a bit heated at around noon, and she would do the same for any of them no matter what else was happening.
Just before three they all coordinate on Zatanna's count, anxiously fidgeting and waiting around the zeta tubes for M'gann and Connor to appear. She's not exactly sure why but she's nervous, as if for some reason M'gann will be anything less than delighted with what they've thrown together. When she glances to her left she sees Wally craning his neck to look round the room, checking and double checking everything from the sprinkles on the cake to the presence of her Uncle J'onn and other League members.
His head is moving so quickly he may as well be a blur of ginger hair; for some reason watching him sends an odd pang through her stomach and without thinking she cuffs him about the shoulder. "Relax, Kid. Everything's perfect."
"Right. Yeah. Perfect." He repeats, glancing at her once before going back to checking the rest of the room. "You don't think maybe I should run back and inflate a couple more balloons? The kitchen is—"
Suddenly the zeta tubes whir to life and her throat is cracking with laughter before he can even finish worrying, all of them screaming out like over excited children as Connor and M'gann piece together in front of them, arms weighed down with school books. "Happy Birthday!"
Unsurprisingly M'gann jumps, which promptly turns into less of a jump and more actual flight, her whole body suspending and stiff and battle ready. There's a few seconds where they're all laughing and her mouth is falling open in a delicate "o" shape before suddenly she's squealing, jumping into Connor's arms with such force that he can't do anything but drop her school books and wrap his arms around her waist.
She's just about to surge forward, arms outstretched to pull the martian into a hug, when suddenly lips are crashing against lips; it's embarrassing, awkward, and more to give herself something to look at other than her two friends sucking face she turns blushingly to Wally.
She's a little surprised by what she sees there: a mixture of complete shock, annoyance and for a half second— ridiculously her stomach pangs, her own heart beat loud and hot and making her nauseous— something like jealousy contorting his smile into an unbearable looking grimace. It's only there for a moment, so brief she's not even entirely sure she's really seen it, before it retracts back into his features, hidden in the blushing red of his ears as he looks pointedly away from the suckling noises she hears behind her.
What the hell was that?
Despite never thinking of it at all, ever, Wally's old crush on M'gann is suddenly the only thing she can focus on; suddenly she's being slapped across the face with old memories, of him cradling her unconscious body as they battled Red Torpedo, joking about mouth-to-mouth, even things as stupid as his hinting for a birthday kiss all those months ago— it's stupid and she knows it is, but still she feels her whole body heat up with annoyance, feels her muscles clench as she narrows her eyes at Wally's face, trying to find that half-second of jealousy buried beneath her skin.
Wally glances at her just as the squelching sound of lips leaving lips seems to echo through out the room; she's not as quick at hiding her disdain as he is, and before she can look away from him his brows are raising, looking bewildered. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing." She tries to say sincerely, because it is nothing, she knows it's nothing, this is stupid, there's nothing even remotely logical about getting jealous over something that happened so long ago—
If it was so long ago, then why did he remember so easily?
Wally turns to her, brows knitting together and opening his mouth as if to repeat his question when suddenly he's being cut off by a loud squeal; M'gann has flung her arms around Conner's neck again, voice so high pitched soon only dogs will be able to hear it. "Connor! I don't even— How did you manage to pull this off? Thank you!"
She feels a second pang in her stomach as Connor glances a little helplessly in their direction; beside her Wally's ears go slightly pink, hesitating for a moment before he forces a sincere looking smile on his face, surging forward. "Yeah, 'atta boy, Supey! You sure know how to throw one hell of a party!"
And there it is, right there, the one thing that quails her jealousy— Wally's a good guy, she reminds herself. The type of guy who thinks of oddly specific themed parties for his friends months in advance, who skips school to throw it together last minute. He's the type of guy who worries about there not being enough balloons in the kitchen, who arranges the sprinkles carefully on the icing of the cake, who goes through all this effort for some girl he doesn't even like anymore and still allows her boyfriend to take the credit.
Wally West is a good guy. And she's being a jealous idiot.
She needs to get more sleep.
She hears herself let out a slightly stupid sounding sigh, as if this is some sort of a relief, before she realizes she's the only one not rushing forward, not fighting to give M'gann a hug. "Happy birthday, Green Cheeks!" She hears Wally laugh, wrapping an arm around the martian's shoulders.
She makes it a half-step before she's forced to watch him plant a rather roguish kiss on her cheek.
It's hard not to enjoy herself, even if she is a little bothered by Wally's expression and the fact that she can't figure out what it meant. She tries to smile when M'gann blows out her candles and ignores the way her stomach seems to twist recklessly around the birthday cake she's forced to eat. Suddenly the easiness of the party seems to swirl outside of her, beyond the seemingly clouded cage that she feels her own mind pulling her inside; someone hands her a drink and for the first time in her life she catches herself wishing for the cutting taste of hard liquor to bite across her tongue.
It's stupid, to be worried about Wally and M'gann. She knows it is. But it doesn't change the fact that things have been so precarious between them lately, doesn't change the fact that she's still undoubtedly not good enough for him, no matter what he says.
It doesn't change the fact that M'gann is beautiful and soft and undoubtedly the kind the girl his father would want him to be with.
Is that why he pursued the martian in the first place? Is pursuing her instead some sort of rebellion?
It takes her a second to feel Wally's hand when it plants itself on her shoulder; before she can even properly look around he's propelling himself over the back of the couch and beside her, waggling his brows at her once before addressing the room as a whole. "And what kind of Hello Megan party would this be," He starts, smirking around at the Team, the lone survivors of such a girlie party that somehow managed to choke out every adult before seven o'clock, "without a little Seven Minutes in Heaven?"
M'gann squeals as the rest of them groan, and she privately thinks that if Wally ends up in the closet with another girl she's going to lose her mind altogether.
M'gann and Wally walk them all through the official Hello Megan rules of spin the bottle; it's a lot of showboating and unexpected laughter and she's sure had she not suddenly been worried about Wally's feelings for the other girl she would have found it quite endearing. After nearly five minutes of babbling and Wally arranging them all into a circle she gets the gist: they're to take turns spinning the bottle and whoever it lands on is the person they're stuck in a closet with for seven minutes. It sounds pretty stupid to her—she does have a boyfriend after all, and for anything interesting to happen it's going to take more than seven minutes for her to enjoy it— but everyone else seems excited, so she goes along with it.
M'gann goes first, and before she even finishes setting the empty wine bottle into a proper spin she thinks she hears Zatanna whisper something beside her; they're all unsurprised when the bottle lands on Connor and they all pretend not to be grossed out when they see the two of them emerge after the allotted time, hair mused and lips swollen.
The bottle yields some entertaining results, she supposes. Kaldur and Zatanna, Wally and Connor, Raquel and Garth. She knows well enough that not all of them are exactly making the most of their time in the closet, but half of the fun is in imagining the possibility of the coupling that might be happening.
Dick's in the middle of laughing when he spins the bottle with such force that it nearly jostles his glasses off the end of his nose; there's a moment when she can clearly see his cerulean eyes peaking at her over the shaded lenses before they disappear with a jerk of his head. She hasn't even finished looking away yet when she hears several teasing catcalls and Wally's loud, "Oh, man..."
She jumps jerkily from where she's sitting, promptly leaning away from where the bottle is pointing almost dead center between her and Zatanna.
"That's me."
"That's Zatanna."
She doesn't blame everyone for the sudden ripple of laughter that shoots nervously through the room when they both speak—Zatanna's glaring daggers at her as if it's her fault that bottle is stuck nearly down the middle between them and she's sure she looks ridiculous, with her cheeks blushing maroon and her whole posture shifted backwards as if there was a snake between them rather than a bottle. "It's Zatanna." Dick says back confidently, nodding and already getting to his feet as if it's a done deal.
She actually wants to leans across the circle and throttle Connor when his eyes suddenly narrow, lower lip jutting out slightly with thought. "I don't know. It looked more like Artemis before she moved away."
"Dude!" Wally hisses, voice trailing into a slightly high pitched whine. "That's my girlfriend."
"So?" Conner counters, shrugging at Wally. "You and I went in there and nothing happened."
For some reason Wally blushes bright crimson at the tips of his ears, sputtering ridiculously for a moment. "I— that's different."
Privately she thinks Zatanna could make much better use of time in the closet with Dick than she ever could, but somehow her unfounded annoyance at Wally flares up to the front of her mind and turns her whole mood sour. "God, guys." She sighs, hating that her cheeks are blushing red. "Can we all just decide?" She snaps.
There's a predictable amount of squirming as she's forced back to her previous seating position; in typical fashion with such a large group there's some squabbling, some mediation on Kaldur's behalf, and particularly sticky moment when Garth makes an odd comment about Dick simply taking the two of them with him that comes out sounding slightly lecherous. Finally it's Raquel who puts them all out of their misery by fetching a measuring tape from the kitchen, and soon it is without a doubt that she is, in fact, closer to the bottle than Zatanna.
Someone hushes her when she swears but Dick simply shrugs, looking as if it doesn't really matter to him either way. "Hey, Rob!" Wally calls out after them as they stalk off to the kitchen pantry, looking stern. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do—wait, no, that came out wrong—"
Before she can do anything other than snort the door is shut behind them.
The pantry is cluttered, overfilling with various kitchen supplies and a few select non-perishable items M'gann likes to use to bake; she doesn't often stick around for meal times at the Cave but she supposes it has to be kept well stocked to feed such a rotating and ever-growing selection of hungry mouths.
"Are you even going to talk to me?" She asks Dick dryly, shifting slightly from where a shelf is digging into her back. The whole closet can't be more than a few feet wide, the addition of shelves forcing them little more than a foot apart. "Or are we both just going to pretend this isn't actually happening?"
There's no real light in the closet save for the blinding bright of Dick's phone screen; she can see him glance up from where he's been scrolling absently, grinning at her and for some reason still wearing his sunglasses. "That would imply that something actually is happening. You know, other than you putting as much space between us as you can and pouting."
"I'm not pouting." She tells him childishly, crossing her arms and nearly toppling a bag of flour from the shelf, glaring when he snorts and goes back to his phone. "... How much time do we have left, anyway?"
There's a brief pause where she can see the reflection of him switching applications on the lens of his glasses, his fingers moving too quickly for her to see in the half light. "Six minutes and twenty seconds." He tells her moments before she figures out how to read it backwards.
"You have an actual timer going?" She snorts. "Thanks for that, Rob."
Dick shrugs, and what little she can see of his face tells her that's he's unbothered by her teasing. "A couple minutes in a closet doesn't change that fact that you're dating by best pal. And happen to be one of my best friends. Besides, you're not exactly my type—"
"Whatever." She cuts across him, feeling odd about his explanation and shrugging it off with a slightly exaggerated waving of her hand. "Can we just... Talk or something? If I have to do another five minutes of this awkward silence—"
"Technically we still have to do another five minutes and fifty seven seconds—"
"How's school, Rob?" She talks over him, voice so loud she's sure it's carrying beyond the shut door and probably making the rest of the party snigger. Huffing slightly when all he does is snort she changes her tactic, talking more conversationally. "Seriously though. How are you doing? I feel like we haven't talked in a while."
There's a half second where she registers that the silence between them changes; suddenly Dick is clicking the lock button and shoving his phone in his pocket, plunging them into total darkness. "... Fine." He says seriously before he charges on, and she can tell immediately that he's forcing himself to keep the conversation light. "Good, actually. I heard about Kaldur letting you take the lead on the Metropolis thing. That's a big deal, probably not right now, but the Team is getting bigger all the time—kind of marks you out as useful while it's still noticeable."
"Yeah." She says carefully, wishing for the light of his phone again so she could better read his face; it's difficult, trying to figure out what he's hiding from her, so much so that she actually abandons her post of cowering beside the wall, as if getting closer to him will help her understand. "Thanks. But— I mean, how are things? School's good? I don't see you around there much."
"To be fair, you hardly ever go."
She feels herself squint into the darkness at his joking, listening hard to his forced tone. "... How's Bats?" She pushes, deciding to try prodding one more time.
There's that tense moment of silence again, and she actually blinks when she feels him sigh warm air onto her face; he's gotten closer without her realizing it, forcing her to taste the sweet scent of cake frosting still lingering about his mouth. "Wally's right, you are stubborn. Not as bad as him, but still..."
"Are you going to answer the question?" She asks dryly back, ignoring his jibe and uncharacteristically forcing herself to keep talking, leaning against the wall opposite of where she thinks he's standing. "... All those raging fourteen-year-old hormones making things extra tense at the Bat Cave?"
He doesn't say anything but she almost fools herself into seeing his mouth stretch into a smile, a slight disturbance in the air telling her that he's shaking his head at her teasing. "Ha ha, very funny." Dick snorts, and even though she can't see it she imagines him pausing to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "… Nah. It's nothing like that. Not really, anyway."
He pauses again and she can feel herself begin to lose patience, even more so when he pointedly takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time, clicking the lock button again before she can read the reflection on his glasses. "Come on, Dick, don't be a baby. What's the problem?" When he doesn't do anything more than sigh moodily she tries a different approach. "Fine, whatever. I'm not like, your mother or anything. Can you at least tell me how much time we have left?"
"...Bats is the problem." He blurts out after a moment, sounding oddly ruffled. "And we have four minutes and thirty four seconds."
"Oh." She says dumbly, blinking in the darkness for a few moments before she decides to take a page out of Wally's book. "... Do you, uh, want to talk about anything?"
Dick shakes his head again and she fully braces herself for him to turn down her offer and plunge them both back into the awkward but bearable silence; stupidly she's surprised when he starts talking low and quickly, as if he's been waiting to let all this out on some unsuspecting party. "… Ever since The Exercise a couple months ago… I don't know. I haven't been so keen on… Everything." He glances back at her, and she thinks she sees him look sharply at the confusion on her face, as if he can see better in the dark despite his glasses. "I don't really know how to put it. Before… Before I couldn't wait to get older, to—you know—become him. And now… I don't know. Lately there's been a lot of pressure… A lot of pressure to start training more intensely. To outgrow the Robin mantle and take on a new one."
She doesn't quite know what to say and instead bites the inside of her cheek, thinking hard. "… But I mean... You're still only fourteen. What's the rush?"
"That's just the thing, Artemis." He sighs. "For Bats it's like… It's like handing over the deeds to a family business. Ever since he took me in he's kind of been... Grooming me, or something, and I guess he thinks I'm getting close to being ready." Dick pauses again, and this time she gets the sense that he's actually just realizing what he's said to her and what it means. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't dump all this on you— I just... I read your file. I know that you know what it's like..."
She feels her jaw tighten, her fists clenching up without her noticing— Yes. She knows, she knows exactly what he's talking about and how hard it can be, being forced into a mold of a person you simply aren't going to grow properly into. "... You want advice?" She says, sounding almost severe before she remembers she's trying to comfort, not channel past rage at her father. "... You don't have to be who he wants you to be. You can be— You can be whatever, Rob."
Rather than lift Dick's spirits she suspects she's only dampened them; she can hear him sigh again, can hear what sounds like nails scraping against scalp as he runs a hand through his hair. "I know, Artemis, I just... He's like a father to me. He took me in when I— I had lost everything. It feels like I owe him, I guess. If he wants me to take over for him, become the Dark Knight, to get a Robin of my own so when the time comes I can keep up the legacy too… There's no other path I can take. And I just don't know if I'm up to scratch, you know?"
"… Dick." She says without knowing what else to say, and unthinkingly she reaches for him, hand grabbing first at the cotton sleeve of his hoodie before pulling him forward into a hug; it's a little off putting, the fact that without her noticing he's grown—she's suddenly very aware that he's at least her height, maybe taller.
"I just… I've seen it, Artemis. That part of him that is Batman… It's fucked up." It's unnerving, feeling the muscles of his cheek move against hers as he swears— she realizes that she's never heard him do so before. "And I don't wanna be that. I don't wanna drag some other kid into this, even if it is to save them. I just… I don't want to grow up."
His arm reaches up behind her, not to hug her back but to instead swipe pointedly under the lenses of his glasses before he pulls away, leaving her gripping him tightly by the shoulder. "… I hate to break it to you, Dick, but we're all getting older." She says not unkindly, still squinting and trying to see his face in the darkness. "But you should know that all of us... We don't care what stupid name you decide to go by. We're always going to have your back... I'm always going to have your back, okay?"
She hears him let out a snort that sound oddly congested, and even though she can't see his expression she releases him and looks away, as if afraid to see him crying. Sometimes she forgets how young he still is, forgets how hard it must be to manage adult-feelings of trauma compacted into such a youthful mind. It takes him a second or two to pull himself together, clearing his throat loudly. "Very impressive with the whole sentimental thing. You could give Black Canary a run for her money."
"Right." She sneers out, relieved when he sounds half-normal again. "I've been practicing."
"Clearly." He chirps back, voice sounding lighter from the other side of the pantry. "So now that we've dealt with my issues, how about we talk about the elephant in the room—" He pauses, as if waiting for her to interject. When she doesn't she can practically hear him smirking at her. "Really? Come on. You've been glaring daggers at Wally and M'gann all night."
She can practically feel her cheeks glowing in the dark she's blushing so hard, and pathetically she can only think of one childish response. "Was not."
"Was so." Dick sneers back, snorting.
She hesitates, and suddenly she thinks she understand why Dick burst out so easily before; there's something about the darkness of the room, the intimacy of the space, that makes her feel as if nobody in the whole world will ever know what she's about to say, not even Dick. "... I know it's stupid, okay? So don't laugh. But... You don't think Wally might... still have feelings for M'gann?"
She flinches when Dick lets out a loud peel of laughter, and she's sure that everyone else outside can hear it too. "You're kidding." He snorts out between chuckles; there's a loud clunk in the dark, as if he's just thrown his head back and accidentally slammed it against a wall. "Oh my God— is this still Artemis Crock I'm talking to? Did another girl walk into the closet without me noticing?"
For some reason his use of her full name sends her cheeks off, and suddenly she's fighting the urge to reach through the darkness and punch him about the jaw. "Don't be a dick, Dick."
"I'm sorry— I just, come on. Boy advice? Since when do you need boy advice?"
She hears herself make a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, not sure if she's annoyed by his continued laughter or by the fact that he's right— she usually knows how to keep annoying guys like Wally under control (granted, she's never had to keep one under control for this long) and the fact that she's doubting herself probably isn't a good sign. "Whatever." She scowls when his laughter fades into a series of snorting chuckles. "Forget I said anything— and don't tell him either!"
"I can't believe you even asked me that." Dick chortles, and she doesn't miss the fact that he doesn't swear to silence. "I mean— I know I've known Wally longer than you have, but have you even met him? You routinely swap spit with the guy, did you even bother getting to know him first?"
She catches herself pulling back her upper lip to expose her canines as if to threaten him, realizing all too late that he can't really see her face. "I thought I asked you not to be a dick."
Something in her voice seems to force him into seriousness; all too quickly his chuckles die out and they're back to silence again, her eyes squinting glaringly through the darkness and trying to find him. "Listen." He says after a moment and immediately there's an odd energy to his hesitation, as if he's trying to find the right words for what he wants to say. "Wally's been my best pal for years. I've been forced to bear witness to some pretty awful attempts at getting girls, and yeah, a lot of them were like M'gann—"
"Great start, Rob." She sneers.
"Then let me finish, Crock." He cuts her off, using her last name in a way that forces both a surge of unpleasantness and affection through her stomach. "Listen, Wally's an idiot. Girls like M'gann... I mean, she's great. She's pretty, and sweet, and fun but... She's not what's good for him. I mean, we all remember how awful it was, watching him hit on her. I'm pretty sure countries like Bialya use it as an obscure form of torture."
She catches herself snorting at his joke. "God. He was so persistent it made me want to puke."
Dick chuckles again, this time softer than the unabashed youthful laughter of a few minutes ago. "He made everyone want to puke, pretty sure." He laughs. "The point is... I don't think you have to be worried about anything, okay? I know for a fact... All that stuff with M'gann, with other girls, it was like a game for him. Like a way of proving something to someone." She catches herself thinking of Wally's father and quickly stops. "But it's not a game with you, okay? You're the most— the, uh—whatever he might have felt a couple of months ago... Let's put it this way." He stutters out the end of his sentence, somehow managing to pull himself together in the half second of silence he allows himself. "There's only one girl Wally loves at this party. And she's stuck in this closet."
For some reason it takes her several seconds to actually process what Dick is telling her; it's as if upon hearing the word "love" her brain suddenly stutters to a halt and dribbles stupidly out of her ears. Before she can properly come to her senses she can feel her heatbeat, hot and tight and pounding anxiously at the back of her throat and making her feel as if she's about to vomit when she speaks. "... Wally doesn't love me." She says quickly, practically sputtering. "U-unless he said something?"
Dick must be able to see the shock on her face because he lets out another rude sounding snort. "Geez, would you relax? You know what I mean; you don't have to be jealous."
"I know that." She sputters back too quickly again; she's suddenly aware of the fact that her lungs have stopped working, her ribs aching as she draws in a shaky breath. "A-and I'm not."
Dick chuckles, the sound making her aware that he's gotten close to her again; she feels herself squinting when he checks his phone, his screen illuminating the foot wide space between them that's quickly being occupied as he takes a step closer. "Yeah, yeah. But just in case you are— We have less than ten seconds left."
It's as if alarm bells are going off in her head again; ridiculously she actually catches herself bending slightly as if to adopt a defensive pose, like she's expecting a sudden invasion of grabbing hands and moistened lips. "Dick, I swear to god—"
She senses him reaching for her in the darkness, and before she can even get it into her mind exactly how to kick the hinge of his jaw clean off his skull he's grabbing her hand; she gets as far as making an outraged noise in the back of her throat when she realizes he's pressing his lips against the knuckles fighting to break free and slam against his nose.
"... Oh." She says stupidly, blushing when he snorts into her skin and practically throws her hand back at her.
"Time's up." He cackles.
AN: It's good to be back. I'm realizing right as I post this that this chapter is kind of an unintentional recap of what's been going on and where I left things before the holidays... Well, hopefully it's a nice way to ease you all back in after such a long break.
Q&A!
Q: What's the updating schedule for the New Year? Is anything set in stone yet?
A: Unfortunately after a week or so of classes it's looking like my course load this semester is going to be quite a bit heavier than the last, so I would expect updates no quicker than once every week and a half. However, I've decided to go back to my old rule of the more reviews I get, the quicker I post. If I recall it was a system that worked really well and kind of allowed me to speed up my updates as the story demanded it; that way if I left the story on a cliff hanger people could actually force me to post the resolution quicker, and with slower chapters I could allow myself an extra day or two before I posted the next. Works well for me!
Q: What would you consider a high enough number of reviews to get you to post quicker?
A: At one point when I was getting 20 or so reviews every chapter and I would consider anything around 25-30 reviews and private messages significant enough to make me drop everything and start working on editing the next chapter. However because of the fact that over time reviewers drop off more and more, I'm down to about 5-10 reviews and messages per posting. I would consider anything more than that significant enough to force me back to my computer.
Please read and review!