AN: Another long one. I keep trying to cut down the length of these chapters and they keep running away on me!
Picks from the playlist: Clouds by BORNS, Past in Present by Feist, Ghost by Ingrid Michaelson.
This chapter is rated M.
When she wakes the next morning to the sound of Gotham sirens it doesn't even take her a second before she starts looking for her cell phone; she had fallen asleep staring at it a few hours ago after she had returned home from the beach, her skin prickled and frozen from both the ocean air and Wally's icy silence. It takes several minutes of rummaging through her blankets and peeling back her sheets before she finds it wedged under the small of her back; when she finally flips it open her heart sinks when she realizes she has no missed messages.
She can hear the sound of Paula's chair as it creaks across the floorboards, the only sound she's emitted since the news broke of Lawrence's release; when she had returned home the night before she had passed the other woman, neither of them acknowledging each other beyond the tightening of Paula's fingers around her tea cup and the determined blankness of her forgotten Huntress stare. She supposes this fear, this distress that her father causing— perhaps there are some kinds of pain that are too overwhelming to speak about.
She's one to talk, she catches herself sneering internally. She hasn't told a soul how terrified she is, won't even really acknowledge it in the front of her mind beyond those few moments she had spent crumbled and shaking on her bathroom floor... This fear is just another thing to ball up and discard, another thing like the lonely drawer in her night table that contains all of Jade's old trinkets that must remain hidden should they stir up unpleasantness...
Her mother's chair pauses outside her bedroom door, ear no doubt pressing against the thin wood and wondering if she's awake; she's expecting the older woman to poke her head inside, expecting the annoyingly chipper voice to prompt her into getting out of bed, far more excited than she is about her attendance to Gotham Academy. Instead there's several moments of silence before the wheels creak against the floorboards as she rolls towards the front door; as she eases it shut behind her she can hear the unfamiliar beeping of the security system Green Arrow had installed inside their apartment, warbling along loudly and being bothered by Paula's exit.
Ignoring her mother— who hasn't once offered her words of comfort in these last few days, hasn't even looked her in the eye as if she's afraid her daughter is going to start screaming at her, blaming for her for the monster who is responsible for the blonde hair sprouting from her skull and the sun spots that blossom on her arms in the summers— she goes back to staring at her phone, flipping it open and closed repeatedly as if hoping a message from Wally will randomly appear.
After a while she hears herself sigh, her fingers fumbling over keys as she types out a text message and sends it before she can stop herself.
"Good luck on your test today, Baywatch."
"So what," Zatanna's voice crackles through the speaker, sounding exhausted at being woken so early. "You're going to skip school and hang around the Cave all day, waiting for him to show up?"
"Unless you have any better ideas." She hears herself snarl, pinching her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she yanks a faded pair of jeans up her thighs. "I told you, he's not responding to anything else."
She's zipping her pants up when Zatanna yawns loudly, sounding almost bored by the conversation. "See, this is exactly why I don't do the whole relationship thing. Far too much effort. If I'm mad at Robin we can just brush each other off for a few days and wait for the eventual horniness to—"
"Stop." She gags into the phone, pushing her hair out of her eyes and catching herself making a face in the mirror. "Don't finish that sentence."
Zatanna lets out her usual loud bark of a laugh, and despite herself she can imagine the younger girl throwing her head back into her pillow, lounging like a cat in her bedroom at the Cave. "Whatever. Also, I want to be on the record saying that this doesn't exactly sound like a grand gesture on your part— just seems like another one of your lame excuses for skipping school..." She lets Zatanna's voice trail off as she sets her phone down on her bedside table, quickly yanking a sweater over her head. When she picks the phone up again the other girl is still ranting. "... And what are you going to do here? Stake out in front of the zeta tubes? You know he's probably avoiding the Cave because that's about the most predictable thing you could do, Artemis—"
"Like I said." She cuts the other girl off, ignoring the annoyed noise she hears through her phone speaker. "Unless you have any better ideas, this is what I'm doing."
Zatanna lets out a low hum, a noise in the background telling her that she's shifting around in her bed. "Can exactly help you there. In every romantic comedy I've watched it's usually the guy who screws things up. Are you going to tell me what you did? Or are you just going to keep that a secret like every thing else—"
She feels herself blushing crimson, hands pausing as she reaches for her hair brush. "I... It was just another dumb fight." She lies, hating the way the other girl lets out an annoyed sounding sigh.
"Right, and it didn't have anything to do with your Dad getting out which— by the way— I'm super offended I had to hear about from Robin, not you—"
She snaps an elastic angrily against her wrist as she tries to pull her hair into a pony tail, catching herself sneering into the phone. "Not you too. Look, can you just— post-pone being annoyed for a few days? I can't deal with another person being mad at me."
Zatanna hesitates but seems to read something she can't identify in her tone, clicking her tongue. "Fine. In the mean time I'll just take all my frustrations out on—."
"Gross!" She scoffs, clicking her phone shut without saying goodbye.
More frustrated with Zatanna's lack of advice than anything she throws her phone across the room, glaring for a moment as it hits her bed frame a bit too hard and falls, almost pathetically, on the top of her pillow. She supposes Zatanna has a point. If Wally's really avoiding her he isn't going to be stupid enough to go back to the Cave.
She makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, stalking across her bedroom and flopping down on her bed so violently that her phone rattles from its spot on the pillow, sliding down and getting lost in her sheets again. And maybe Zatanna's also right... Skipping school isn't exactly a grand gesture considering how much she hates attending the Academy.
This isn't what she wanted. She needs to keep Wally close, needs to make sure that he's safe and not getting caught up playing the hero...
Almost habitually she runs a hand atop her mattress, searching for her phone. As if mocking her when she opens it there's a new crack on the screen, slightly warbling the glaring words she's been staring at all weekend: No Messages.
(And for some reason she remembers Wally trying to teach her how to play chess; remembers staring at the black and white checks of the board and raising an ornately detailed knight to her eyes, thumb running over the ancient wood, as sand and snow flecked as the shoreline she could see through their window. It's just like that now; except Wally is the queen and if he gets taken or hurt or damaged she'll lose, she'll lose him and she'll lose a part of herself too—
"White moves first." Wally had grinned at her, plucking the piece from her hand.)
...She needs a way to keep him out of harm's way as long as possible, needs to rearrange some pieces and make the necessary sacrifices and keep him hidden, untouchable...
She stares at her ceiling for what feels like hours, and finally (after checking her phone half a dozen times) she realizes what she needs to do.
It's gloomy in Central City when her molecules reconstruct there; the late-spring sky seems to be composed of layer after layer of cold looking clouds.
It takes her a few seconds to remember where she's going— the last time she had visited Wally's house it had been dark out, the landmarks she spotted warbled in the half light and shadows looking odd in the middle of the afternoon. It takes her several minutes to realize that she's taken off in the entirely wrong direction, rounding through the same block twice before she's forced to stop and try to navigate through unfamiliar territory—
Finally she spots a park, sees a chain link fence and remembers the story that goes along with it ("My Dad taught me to ride my bike out there." Wally had told her that day on the beach, describing the trees and the jungle gym and the pavement trails cutting through the slight rolling of the hills. "It was a bit of a disaster, he kept getting mad when I couldn't stop falling, eventually Uncle Barry had to step in and...") Even now as she looks at is she can hear his voice, recall the distant memory, and as if some larger part of her is more in tune to something she can't quite comprehend her head turns automatically, focusing on the green-sided house on the corner.
There's no cars in his front drive when she walks towards his house; it's the middle of the day, his parents are probably working and— she flips open her phone again, glancing first at the obnoxious No Messages blaring across the bottom of the newly cracked screen before she checks the time— he's probably just sitting down to write his Biology test right now, his last class of the day before he heads home. There's no snow on his lawn anymore, hints of brittle looking grass not quite hiding the fresh greenery poking through; as she climbs his front porch she glances up automatically, unsurprised when she sees no hint of old Christmas lights.
She gets the distinct sense that the West's are a very methodical family, very routine; the kind that takes their Christmas decorations down as soon as the snow melts and refuses to give in to the temptation of leaving them up all year round, as if afraid of what the neighbors will say. As she sits resolutely on his front step she glances behind her, expecting it when she sees that the wreath on the front door that once told her Happy Easter is no longer there, even the whicker mat underneath it is now simply welcoming her with plain looking block letters, looking slightly weather beaten from people wiping their feet.
She pulls her eyes away from the door, checking her phone again. It's going to be at least another hour before Wally gets home from school, and she's got nothing better to do than stare moodily up at the clouds.
Some grand gesture.
She lasts about five minutes before she's thinking herself in circles again, her sneaker tapping anxious beats into the wood of Wally's front steps. She's still not exactly sure what she's going to say, how many more times she can apologize for her behavior the other night... Sitting there in the silence of the empty street without even a passing car to break the quiet is beginning to make her nervous.
It's a different kind of nervous than the last time she was here, when she was simply a stupid girl in an ill-fitting dress, trying to perform a part she didn't want. Vividly she still remembers the embarrassment, remembers their fighting, remembers how Zatanna's dress, while beautiful, had made it nearly impossible to climb the steps— She's not aware of dropping her head to glare at her sneakers but suddenly she's jerking her neck up, jeans digging into her thighs as she turns back to glance at the welcome mat again, memory stirring.
... Wally keeps his keys under the mat.
And sure enough now that she's looking she can see it, can see the tiny bump the key chain would make as it sits underneath the M, the top left corner still disturbed from when he had reached down to extract his keys this morning, probably flopping it down a little carelessly in his rush not to receive a detention for his lateness like she knows he's prone to. As little warily she glances back towards the empty street; there's no one, not even a stray pigeon, whose incriminating gaze can stop her.
And maybe it feels a little wrong when she gets to her feet so quickly— or maybe it just feels too similar to the days before she joined the Team, when breaking and entering was something she did half for entertainment and half because she just needed to survive— but she stops thinking too much the second she extracts the key ring from underneath the mat.
There are three keys on the ring (she supposes for his house, garage, and some other place— perhaps his Aunt's home?) and it takes her two tries before any of them will fit into the dead bolt on his door. Vaguely she registers the girl from Metropolis quirking her head, as if intrigued by her rebellious streak, as the door swings open.
Despite the open invitation to enter she still catches herself hesitating, feet actually back tracking for a moment to replace Wally's keys underneath his welcome mat again and taking the care to smooth it properly before she stands. His front entrance looks oddly big now that there's no one there to fuss over her or usher her inside from the cold.
This time she registers the smell as she crosses the threshold, her hand shutting the door behind her and habitually locking it; it's sweet, warm, as if Mary has been recently baking something in the kitchen, intermingling scents of cinnamon and laundry detergent overwhelming her slightly before she catches the barest hint of the familiar walnut smell lingering underneath them. Avoiding the eyes staring out of all the family pictures on the walls she kicks off her shoes, taking care to shove them to the back of the front closet.
It's incredibly unnerving, how empty the house is— the shadows created by the afternoon light leaking in through the windows are acting oddly with the darkened rooms (and for some reason she imagines Rudy making a fuss with the lights in the morning, making sure everything is off before they all leave for the day) and making the lines of table lamps and swells of the couch cushions look threatening. Unconsciously she avoids the dining room and kitchen, bypassing all the rooms she knows from her last visit and wandering vaguely through the living room, her eyes straying to a staircase.
Wally's bedroom...
She doesn't know exactly what she's planning on doing now that she's inside his house, but she does know that she's curious; wincing slightly as the stairs creak in the silence she heads towards the second floor, pausing when she reaches the landing.
The first door she tries is a bathroom, decorated with soft pink tones and a feminine vase of sea shells and flowers on the counter, and the second is a linen closet. She suspects the final door on the left is Wally's parent's bedroom, and not wanting to intrude she glances to her right.
The door isn't even fully open and she knows immediately that she's found the right room— there's that smell again, the one that once made her wrinkle her nose but now seems to fill up every part of her, that scent of walnuts and cinnamon and boyish cologne and everything that overwhelmingly screams Wally West. For some reason, as if she's missed it, missed that smell, she stands still for a moment simply breathing him in until her lungs ache.
She doesn't hesitate long though; in the strangeness of the empty house Wally's room feels like home, and rather than continue to be unnerved by the darkness and the silence elsewhere she slips inside, fingers fumbling for a light switch and back pressing against the door, blinking hard at the intrusion of light.
She doesn't know why she's surprised to see so much red and yellow; his bedroom at the Cave is decorated in the same obnoxious color scheme, but for some reason it feels more overwhelming in the tiny second floor bedroom, as if the colors (of the bed spread, his pillows, the cushions of his desk chair, all the flash and kid flash figurines decorating his book shelves and displayed in a position of honor in the shelf above his desk) are pressing too hard against her sensitive eyes. It's just how she imagined, after he described it to her that day on the beach— the walls are the god awful fire truck red, and he's just as messy here as he is at the Cave. Immediately her eyes are drawn to a poster of a bikini clad blonde woman tacked crookedly beside his bed and too quickly she looks away, ignoring the way the woman's skin is wet with perspiration and her breasts are barely contained in the straining red material.
There's a stack of boxes beside his bed, labelled hastily in his pointed scrawl as Science Stuff; it takes hardly a glance in one to realize it's a collection of old experiments, filled with discard test tubes whose contents are dried in the bottom, medals and ribbons from childhood science fares, old poster paper rumpled around the edges and detailing chemical formulas she can't understand. She finds herself getting bored and replaces the lid on the box, moving on.
She feels herself wrinkle her nose at his Flash figurines atop his desk— it looks like Wally was a fan for a while before he got his powers— and passes over them quickly, her eyes straying to a book shelf almost completely devoid of books. Crossing the room she feels her eyes narrow, one word immediately jumping to her mind: Souvenir.
It looks like mostly junk to her; instinctively she feels her eyes jump to scan the book covers first, pausing on a collection of Harry Potter books whose spines look hardly creased beyond the first few chapters, as if he hadn't liked where they were going but kept receiving them as gifts. The rest of it looks like garbage: a faded red button whose slogan she can't quite make out anymore but can tell by the colors is associated with the Flash, old cellphones that no longer work, chemistry sets that don't have anything inside them, a partially deflated football, a baseball glove that looks far too big for his hand, scattered photographs of his family, of his Uncle Barry, Aunt Iris—
She pauses when she sees her own face scowling back at her, her blonde pony tail immediately distinctive in the photograph; it takes a half second of squinting before she can easily see M'gann, Dick, the whole Team dressed in their civilian clothes and crowded around Wally, party hats skewed and the words, Sweet Sixteen partially visible in green and white icing.
She hardly remembers the photo being taken, hardly remembers sitting that close to Wally, one finger dipping in the icing of his cake and sneering at him as the photo was being taken; it's odd to her that someone would choose this moment, mere minutes after she had told Wally that M'gann and Connor were dating and his mood considerably dampened, to take the photo. Perhaps she's simply imagining it, but she can sense the glumness in Wally's expression, can read something more in the smirk he's sending her way, his ears reddened as they both glare at each other, oblivious to everyone else's smiles.
Perhaps she's simply remembering how it was back them, how easy it had been to tease each other without confronting feelings. Maybe she's reading too much into it—
Her thoughts stop automatically when she hears a noise: the metallic clicking of a key inside a lock and the creaking of a door opening. "I'm home!" She hears Wally call out hopefully to his empty house and sounding habitual in the way his voice drags on, as if he yells this every day; and a little stupidly she braces herself, half expecting him to come zooming up to his bedroom.
Instead he moves slowly— she can hear him kicking his shoes off, locking the door, her hands tugging nervously on the hem of her sweater as he clunks through his house; she's not exactly sure but she thinks she hears the sound of his fridge being opened and it's contents being scavenged through, his mouth humming out half lyrics of songs and whistling vague tunes as he bumbles around, unaware of her presence.
She suddenly feels stupid, being here without knowing what to say; she feels as if she's supposed to have some sort of speech prepared, supposed to know what to tell him to make it better. Silently she totters on her heels, caught between the impulse of escaping his bedroom through his window and wondering if she should be perhaps lying invitingly on his bed— or maybe she should go downstairs and greet him, or—
She enters a state of ridiculous panic when she hears the tab of a pop can being cracked open, Wally's feet heavy on his stairs as she silently debates hiding under his bed and pretending she isn't even here; she has enough time to tug a hand anxiously along her scalp before he's kicking the door to his room open.
It takes him a half second to notice her; he has one hand busy helping him take a hearty swig of pop and the other arm automatically reaching out to fling his backpack off his shoulders and right at her, aiming for his desk chair. It's probably the stupidest he's ever looked, the way his eyes seem to burst out of his skull in surprise, sputtering through a mouthful of soda and dribbling a significant amount of it out of his nose and down his front, coughing and wheezing as she quickly side steps the projectile that is his bag and presses herself flush against his book shelf with a gasp, allowing it to crash wildly and knock a few figurines off his desk.
"Fuck!" Wally swears loudly, still coughing and wincing at the soda dripping out of his nose; for some reason his shock seems to ground her, forcing her into seriousness as she straightens from where she's crushed against the photo she's just been looking at. "What the hell, Artemis!" He wheezes, pounding his soaking chest with a fist.
"Sorry." She cringes when he looks sour, one hand plucking his shirt from where's it's now soaking and sticking to his chest. "I didn't mean to— here, let me help you—"
She takes a few hesitant steps forward, as if to take the half empty can from his hands; she doesn't miss the way Wally noticeably flinches, one hand raising out in front him as if to hold her off, his back still flush against the door. "It's fine, j-just let me—" He starts, looking a little relieved when she stops trying to get closer; instantly she can feel her heart aching, realizing suddenly that he's afraid of her.
"... Okay." She says quietly, stomach twisting and throat tight.
Wally sends her one more wary look before his face sets, jaw tight and still looking slightly nervous as he takes a few paces forward, carefully setting his can of soda on his bedside table, no doubt leaving a bright orange ring on the wood that will match the stain sopping into his shirt. He glances once more up at her, as if checking that she's still unmoving. "... What are you doing here?" He asks quickly, turning and pulling his wet shirt over his head with an almost offensive amount of modesty.
It's very hard not to stare at the freckled lines of muscle on his back, but something in the wary tone of his voice forces her to keep her eyes on his face, or at least what little of it she can see behind his crimson ears; very vividly she can see one of the marks she left on him, a dark purple bruise on the fleshy muscle that joins his neck to his shoulders. "I don't know." She says stupidly, trying to force herself to smile. "... You're always chasing after me when we get into fights. I figured it was my turn to come to you."
Wally makes a non-committal noise in the back of his throat, hands crumpling up his soaking shirt.
It's not much for her to go on, and feeling like an idiot she tries to keep the nervous smile on her face. "I just— Missed you? I guess? A-and you weren't returning my calls." She hears herself stutter when he turns round to face her, crossing the room quickly and glancing at her as he approaches his closet, ripping another long sleeve off the hanger. "... Hi, by the way." She says, unable to meet his gaze as he glares at her; she catches herself looking a little too intensely at the oddly tight lines of his abdomen and quickly looks away, glancing instead at the photo of herself on his shelf.
She hears him inhale. "... Hi." He says stiffly, and by the time she gets the nerve to look at him again he's redressing, tossing his dampened clothes into a growing pile in the corner. "How'd you get in here? Did you jimmy the window open?"
She feels herself blush again, arms crossing peevishly. "You keep your keys under the welcome mat, Wally. I didn't exactly have to try hard."
"Oh." He says plainly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Okay, well... I have to study, big Biology test tomorrow, so..."
She feels her eyes narrow, shoulders tightening as she glares at him. "Don't lie." She says evenly. "You wrote that today."
Wally hesitates for a half second, eyes narrowing as he shrugs this off. "Okay, well, not my fault there isn't a polite way to tell someone to leave." He huffs almost childishly, neck rolling on his shoulders as he glances wildly around his bedroom. "Can you just do whatever you wanted to do? My Mom's going to be home soon."
She feels herself scowl but quickly stops, trying to smoothen the wrinkle popping over her nose. "I just— I wanted to talk. About the other night." She sighs out, hating that he won't look at her. "... I'm so sorry, Wally, I don't know what I was thinking."
Wally blinks twice, glaring hard at his bed spread. "Oh." Is all he says, ears reddening.
She can't stop herself; her instinct is telling her to fly at him, to wind her arms around his middle and pull him flush against her, to find a way to tell him what he needs to know without speaking. As if he knows what she's thinking Wally flinches again when she takes another step forward, static sounding on his carpet when he fumbles a few paces back. "L-listen. Can you just— Can you just stay there for a bit? I..." He trails off, grimacing at the way the hand she's just extended towards him crumples back to her side.
"I'm sorry." She repeats, folding her arms over her stomach again and slouching. "That was… I don't know. It was stupid, okay?" She breaks off, watching the way his jaw tightens and his teeth seem to grind together as he glares for a long moment at her, finally dropping his gaze to the ground.
"It wasn't stupid." He finally blurts out, some of the redness of his ears trailing down to his cheeks. "I mean, I get it. You were upset about your Dad and you just wanted... To be normal, for a bit." He hesitates, and when he finally speaks it sounds rushed, unplanned. "But you weren't— when you were touching me— I wanted to, Artemis. I wanted to do a lot of things, and I almost did. But... When we do stuff, when I touch you... I means something to me, okay? It's not just like, a game, or just something... I don't know what I'm trying to say."
He breaks off, running a hand through his hair, and she hears herself speaking quietly in the silence. "... It means something to me, too." She says defensively.
"It didn't then." He says seriously, ripping his hand from his scalp and leaving the ends of his ginger hair ruffled. "You were acting like an animal, clawing at me and— Look, I liked it, I— You were driving me crazy, Artemis. But I've told you before... I don't want to just be some guy to distract you when things get heavy. I don't— I don't want to be another thing you lock away and only take out when you need it. That's not what this is to me—"
"It's not like that, Wally." She shakes her head at him, this time ignoring the way he takes a step back as she advances on him, his back smacking hard against the wall. "You know it isn't."
His throat seems to bob quickly at her closeness, muscles tightening despite the fact that she's not even touching him; for a long moment he glares at her before he suddenly glances at his feet. "... I know, I know." He sighs, screwing his eyes shut and replacing his hand in his pocket. "I just... God, I wish I could figure out what you're thinking."
It's an odd thing to say, her eyes blinking at him confusedly for a few seconds. "... Why do you want to know what I'm thinking?"
Wally blushes, this time spreading his redness over the bridge of his nose and painting all his freckles maroon. "I-I don't know I guess I—" He hesitates, his face serious enough to scare her; there's a half second where she can practically see the whirring of the words I love you passing at the forefront of his mind before he brushes them off. "I just like you a lot. Like a crazy, stupid amount, considering how much of a pain in my ass you are— I mean, I always assumed we felt the same, or whatever, but—"
His voice trails off when something shifts in her face, the hardened edges of surprise softening; as if he can read something there that she's unaware of showing he presses on, sounding worried. "... I'm not stupid, Babe. I saw your face, I dealt with you after... I don't know what you're thinking of doing but... Promise me you aren't going to do anything stupid now that he's out." He says quietly, cutting her off when opens her mouth to say something. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I know there's that part of you that... That wants to go after him, or something. Just please don't. Please."
He's just as afraid of losing her as she is of losing him.
She doesn't know why it's just occurring to her now; she suspects it's old habit, after years of thinking herself worthless, of having others shove it in her face. But suddenly she's remembering the desperation on his face when he had grabbed her in Metropolis, how he had allowed her one second to fire her arrow before he had pulled her to safety, how he had used is own body to save hers, how all the blood that poured out of him was poured out for her— and more vividly than anything she remembers the fluids bubbling at the corner of his mouth and the tears leaking down the side of his face, how the world around them was falling apart and he had been drowning inside himself and he had tried to say her name, just her name, just feel her on his mouth one last time in some small way—
Maybe she's not the only one fighting to keep one of them safe. Maybe she's unknowingly attacked her closest ally, somehow bitten into his skin with the emotional debris of friendly fire...
Maybe there are three players in this game of chess she's been playing with her father. Maybe her own queen is playing the game like a pawn.
Maybe she needs to keep a closer watch on him than she thought.
As if he's worried by her silence Wally's voice picks up again, rambling slightly as his eyes switch between hers. "And I'm sorry I've been... Avoiding you. I don't know why I did that, I just thought..." He hesitates when she frowns, words stringing together so quickly that she's having a hard time understanding his babbling. " I don't know what I thought. It was just hard, not knowing what you were thinking, and I guess I was a little... Freaked out after everything, because you were so not yourself, you know? And now that I'm thinking about it you probably thought I dropped you, and I didn't Babe, I swear—"
"Wally." She cuts him off, and this time she ignores both his wincing and the tightening of her stomach as she reaches for him; despite her deliberate gentleness he still grits his teeth, as if expecting her to start scratching and biting him again as she places her hands on either side of his face, her thumbs hardly touching the swell of his cheek bones. "Relax, okay?"
"Sorry." He blurts out, still sounding nervous. "I just— after last time— It's just hard to think with you this close."
As he says it his eyes shift a little wildly, still not trusting her to behave with the wild girl inside of her; feeling her brows furrow she lets go of his face, going back to not touching him as she glances down at her feet. "... I don't even know how to apologize for that." She sighs, feeling herself blush again. "I... It's just that you're so easy to get lost in, Wally." She mutters with an embarrassing amount of honestly. "And maybe that time I was— I don't know. Using you, a bit. But it's only because you make it so easy to."
She nearly bites her tongue when Wally looks so suddenly annoyed, her arms flying up as if to stop his unmade attempt to escape where's she's boxed him in. "No— That's not what I meant! I just mean— I don't know how to put this. With you it's just... So good, Wally." She blurts out, immediately blushing red but ignoring her own embarrassment, rushing onwards when he looks slightly quailed. "It's hard not to get lost in you. Even when you just k-kiss me, uh—"
She hears herself stuttering and winces; Wally for his part blushes slightly about the ears, but something shifts in his expression, something friendlier and more teasing. "... Even when I kiss you...?" He prompts.
She can tell he's being clueless on purpose but goes against her instinct to throttle him for it; she suspects he needs to hear her say this, even if she does bumble through it. "... I-it's like I can't breathe properly. And s-sometimes you'll touch me when I'm not expecting it, even if it's just little things like grabbing my hand, or tucking hair behind my ear, it's like I stop thinking altogether, and I can't focus on anything." She can feel herself surpassing maroon but keeps muttering on, encouraged by the soft smile beginning to blossom in the corner of his mouth. "... And I think that's why I got so... Carried away. You just— you make me so happy, Wally." She says sincerely to her socks. "... You can't blame me for wanting to hold onto that, before things... Change." She adds in an undertone.
"... I guess I can't." Wally says back quietly, and although she isn't looking at him she can sense his muscles moving, back no longer pressed flush against the wall and inching the tiniest bit closer to her.
She glances up at him through her lashes, determined to mumble through this last part— she has the distinct sense that if she's going to keep him safe, going to get him to follow her blindly when the time comes, she's going to have to play the card she has very carefully. "Next time..." She says quietly, and unconsciously she feels herself shift closer, their toes brushing through their socks. "Next time I won't be so... Out of my own head, okay?"
It seems to take him a half second before he realizes what she's saying, the muscles of his chest seeming to tighten as she brushes her folded arms against him. "Uh." He blurts out, throat bobbing and a shadow of a nervous smile ghosting across his lips. "... What, uh, will next time be like?"
His voice is low, inviting, exactly what she's been hoping for; absently she uncrosses her arms, relieved when he allows her ever closer still. "I don't know." She says honestly, because she doesn't have a clue what she's doing; she's never seduced anyone before, never wanted to do to anyone what she's about to do to Wally— all she knows is that she wants to make up for her awful behavior, wants him to understand why it's so easy to drown in him, and maybe wants to remind herself of how wonderful this boy is, how full he can make her heart when he pants out her name and why she has to, needs to, keep him safe. "I... I think I'd start by kissing you. Softly."
Wally stays very still when she ducks her head to move closer, and despite everything she still suspects that there's a part of him that is still slightly wary of her, wary of the feral creature inside of her and the fact that it's planning something deadly; her nose barely skims him before she presses her lips, full and taught, against his, his mouth framing hers and breath ruffling a few of her baby hairs as he exhales into her. It can't last longer than a second or two before she pulls back, licking the taste of him off her mouth. "... And then I-I'd want to kiss the freckles on your cheeks." She blurts out impulsively.
Once again Wally stays still, watching carefully as she raises her arms, being gentle about pressing her hands against the side of his neck, trying to balance as she goes up ever so slightly on her toes; he's growing again, she swears. She can feel the tiniest of breaths against her neck as she leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, the tail end of his sigh turning into a low groan as her fingers barely brush into the ends of his hair. "Freckles are a good place to start." He says vaguely, and when she pulls back to glance at him he's allowed his eyes to shut.
She takes her time, pressing her lips into the constellations ironed into his cheeks; she can feel him beginning to let his guard down, beginning to breath more easily as she follows the warbled triangles dotting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, fading out gradually as she traces the arc of his brow and dips down to his chin. He feels warm, like he always does, and just as she thinks it she registers his hands finally escaping his pockets, hesitantly resting on the small of her waist; a little clumsily she skims too close to the line of his lips and as if it's instinctual he turns his head, mouth claiming hers.
It reminds her so much of being on Hell's Gate Bridge; back when she had been so afraid and he had refused to give up on her, touching her tenderly and gently fighting with her until she had broken down. Most of all it reminds her of that kiss, their first kiss that had mattered, back before the lights had gone out and they were left alone and terrified in the dark—
Except this time he's the one who pulls back, moistened lips parting and clouded eyes glancing at her, beginning to grow curious. "... Then what?" He asks in a hushed tone, making it very hard to think when on of his hands strays down to her hip, gently tracing the popping bone and hard lines of muscle.
It takes her a second to remember why she's doing this, to remind herself what she wants to do; for a moment she hesitates, trying to figure out what to say. "A-and then I'd tell you..." She pauses, biting her lips. "How much you mean to me. How much—" She can sense her voice about to break with nervousness and clears her throat. "I'd tell you how I never thought I'd be with someone like you. And..." She can feel herself losing her nerve, not quite sure where she's going.
Wally seems to fill in the blanks of her confusion; suddenly something in his face is hardening and she can sense it again— those words, the ones she can't bear to hear, not now, perhaps not ever, not when the stakes are so high. "Artemis... I—"
Before he can say anything else she kisses him, a little harder then the warbling kisses she's been pressing against his cheeks; she doesn't know why but suddenly he's sighing into her mouth, breathless and panting slightly when she pulls back, rushing to keep things moving before he can get his head together again. "And then I'd tell you to be quiet." She says not unkindly, fingers moving of their own accord to scratch lightly through his hair, smoothing his permanently wind-whipped locks. "Because... I want to kiss your neck."
He doesn't protest when she gently tilts his head back; she can hear him beginning to breath more loudly, can feel the shudder moan he barely manages to contain as she lowers her chin, pressing a wet kiss against his collar bone before she pulls back ever so slightly, tongue poking between her lips and licking wavering lines over his muscles and pulse points. She can feel his hands tightening on her waist, can feel the guttural pants beginning to slip past his mouth as she starts increasing the intensity of her languid kisses, lips pinching and tongue rolling wetness into his skin; suddenly he's whispering her name when she runs her lips over his jugular, tongue dragging up his neck until her lips are right beside his ear.
It's then that she can feel it: the familiar yet unfamiliar hardness, sticking up and not contained by the denim of his jeans—without thinking she presses herself to it, fascinated by the barely there noise he's letting slip out as she continues to muse his hair, shifting her hips until she can feel it pressed at the hot point between her legs. She doesn't know why she's doing this, doesn't know why she's about to do… this… all she knows is that she wants it for Wally, wants to make him grunt out her name…
"And then..." She whispers into his ear, tongue hardly brushing against his earlobe. "... Do you have any ideas?"
Wally chokes back a gasp when she pulls back, lips grazing his cheek. "I-I have quite a few, actually." He whispers lowly, head ducking and lips pressing against hers.
It takes more effort than it should to dip her jaw, to force herself to keep talking in between the frantic kisses he's started trying to press against her mouth. "I have— one—" She stutters out, finally managing to pull him back by the scruff of the neck, doing her best to look him in the eye as one of her hands leaves his hair.
He opens his mouth as if to ask her teasingly what it is and all at once his voice dies in his throat, clouded eyes suddenly focusing and pupils blowing out. Wally seems to freeze up when he feels her stroking him through his jeans, every muscle in his body arching and tensing but still not comparing to the hardness that's in her hand; suddenly the redness that's usually just in his ears is flushing down his cheeks, his neck, and suddenly she's no longer brave enough to keep looking at him, her lips marking a nervous trail across his cheek back to his ear. Rolling his length through her palm again and curious when his hips jerk she pulls back, allowing herself one shaky exhale in his ear before she sets her mind to it, the one hand still in his hair trailing down his chest and meeting the other now attending to his belt.
"A-Artemis?" He gasps out when she slides the leather apart, fumbling slightly with his zipper as she maneuvers herself downward. It's a little awkward, looking up at his surprised face as she struggles with yanking his jeans down his thighs; all at once his pants and underwear are pooling around his feet and his erection is springing up, so hard and wanting that its tip is barely brushing her chin. "W-what are you—" He stutters out when her hand braces his hip and pins him to the wall; no wanting to wait and be nervous any longer she closes her eyes, one hand wrapping around his shaft and guiding the tip of him into her mouth.
"Holy shit." Wally swears, and vaguely she hears a dull thunking sound, as if he's just tossed his head back and accidentally collided with the wall.
She's never done this before, but she's heard enough dirty jokes from Zatanna and glanced through enough of M'gann's Cosmopolitian magazines to get the gist of it; pulling back slightly she runs her tongue along the length of him, hand working and listening to the shuddering noises firing out of his throat, the unfamiliar taste of salty skin mixing with the inherent sweetness of her favorite walnut scent.
Wally groans when she pumps her hand against him, one palm running down the length of his thigh to feel the achingly hard strip of muscles shaking, mouth salivating and slurping almost embarrassingly loudly."Artemis… He gasps out, breaths starting to come out in pants in a way that must make his lungs ache as one hand reaches out for her, pushing her hair behind her ear and looking her dead in the face as she swirls her tongue in a slow circle around his head.
He gets as far as uttering the beginning of a swear again before she tries to take nearly all of him in her mouth; she keeps her lips tight and wet and still nearly chokes on him, throat humming almost as loudly as Wally's moans, his hand leaving the side of her face and smacking hard against the wall behind him, palm splayed and nails digging against the ugly red paint.
It's easy as it always it, getting lost in him— except this time he's coming with her. This time they're both listening hard to the guttural sounds bursting out of the back of his throat, the way he keeps tossing his head back and muttering out a mixture of swears and her name. This time she can see the sweat shining along his temples and the creases that form in the corners of his eyes.
And vaguely, as she hears his lips sputtering and sees the lines of his abs tightening, so hard and taught that she can't resist yanking the hem of his shirt up to run a hand over them, she realizes that as much as she loves getting lost and staring at the ornate pieces that they still have a game to play.
( "Whites moves first." Wally had grinned at her, replacing the knight in its proper square. She had felt her brows furrow, no longer interested in the game and more intrigued by the softness of the inside of his wrist, fingers reaching out automatically to stroke his tendons.
"Explain the rules to me again." She had said, leaning in perhaps a little too close in the hopes of distracting him.
Wally had managed part of a sentence, eyes flicking once to her fingers. "It's... We're playing chess. It's a game of, uh, strategy, thinking ahead of the person you're playing..." He had trailed off, eyes automatically closing as she had leant in.)
The real Wally lets out a feral sounding moan, loud enough to jar her out of her thoughts. Vaguely, as he pants out her name, she decides the real game hasn't started yet.
This is all about arranging her pieces.
Several minutes later she's lying beside him in the limited space of his twin size bed, tongue still burning from the half taste she had gotten of him and palms still feeling oddly warm from where he had spilled over in her hands; despite cleaning up in the washroom after she's still tricking herself into feeling pieces of him lingering on her skin, in her mouth, the sensation doubling every time he glances at her, breathing out a slightly gasping apology.
"Shut up." She tells him as he lifts his head again, sprawled on his stomach and ready to repeat himself. "I told you, Wally, it's not a big deal."
Instead of saying anything he simply drops his head back to his pillow, ears reddening as he extracts and arm from underneath himself, throwing it over her stomach and dragging her closer. As if shooed off by his closeness she can hardly hear the dull buzzing of anxiety rubbing against her temples; in an act of long-forgotten instinct she shifts closer to him, drawn to his warmth. She can't help but smile at his sheepishness, at the way he's trying to conceal his grinning and his heavy breathing, and before she can stop herself her own face is splitting into a quiet sort of smile, cheeks going pink and slightly curious. "... Was it, uh— Good?"
She suspects he might normally burst out laughing at her embarrassment but instead he raises his head off his pillow again, looking shocked. "You're kidding right?" He lets out a hoarse sounding chuckle. "I mean— that's a joke?"
She snorts at his frankness, another fuller sounding laugh flying out of his throat as he rolls on top of her, pressing her into his mattress. "How am I supposed to know!" She argues back teasingly, still relieved that things seem somewhat normal between them. "Not like I've ever done that before."
"Well, neither have I!" He counters, looking pleased when she laughs again, his jaw ducking to press a playful kiss to her cheek, hands roaming down her sides to pinch at the ticklish spot above her knee.
For the first time it's easy to slip back into old habits— or maybe it's just easier now that they actually have a good place to start, a habit that involves more laughter and less bickering than ever before. It's effortless, too simple, the way her leg kicks out at him, the way he catches it, the mixture of wet raspberries and teasing kisses he presses against the side of her face forcing a surprising squeal out of her throat.
It takes a while for the laughter to die out between them, for the ridiculousness of Wally's kisses against her neck begin to ease and leak into softer, more gentle ones; she can sense his tiredness, can sense the seriousness coming back to him, and all at once he pulls back, balancing his weight on an elbow and looking her in the eye. "I get it, you know." He says quietly, leaning in to press a kiss to the tip of her nose.
"You get what?" She asks, sounding oddly breathless.
"Why you... Did what you did, on Saturday." He says vaguely, ears reddening. "... We're not normal. I mean... I understand, not wanting to deal with... Reality, all the time." He fumbles through his sentence slightly, eyes raking the slope of her jaw and following the curve of her neck, pausing almost unnoticeably at the beginning swells of her breasts popping up through the neckline of her tee shirt before he glances away, eyes focusing on their hands clasped loosely beside her head.
She tightens her grip on his fingers, one leg moving unconsciously underneath him and curling around the back of his thigh, keeping him close. "I'm sorry." She repeats, beginning to sound like a skipping record with the number of times she's said it in the last hour.
In answer he shakes his head, dismissing her apology. "It doesn't matter anymore." He says easily, one of his rare moments where he's above holding grudges. "Next time could you just... I don't know. Take me with you when you try to outrun something? I don't like being left behind."
She doesn't know why but she feels herself nodding, blinking a little stupidly at the intensity of his apple eyes; once again she feels as if she's being x-rayed, as if he can see some deeper part of her. "... Okay."
Her back arcs underneath him, eyes drifting shut and neck stretching, trying to find his lips; there's a half second where she feels the familiar heat of his mouth brushing against hers before he pulls back, his hand leaving from where its tangled in hers and pressing against her shoulder, and forcing her to lie flat against his mattress. "What?" She hears herself huff.
She's not expecting the serious look on his face, nor the increased intensity behind his eyes; for some reason it quails all her annoyance, forcing the frustration beginning to sound in her stomach into silence. "About before." He says quietly, one hand reaching out to brush some stray hair off her forehead; as if he's trying to be subtle she's suddenly aware of the trailing nature of his fingers, going back to the hand he was holding. She's a little surprised when he doesn't loop his digits between hers, instead wrapping his palm tightly around her wrist and pressing it hard into the mattress, as if expecting her to start struggling. "... You never promised me you wouldn't go after him. Or do anything stupid."
She feels the flash of panic and somehow manages not to show it in her face; she's less quick with her hand though, and without thinking she feels her whole wrist clench into a fist, tendons popping and pulse no doubt speeding up, banging hard enough against her skin for him to feel it.
He always sees right through her.
Wally doesn't take his eyes off her, brows furrowing as he studies her face and the lack of reaction there; she can tell immediately that he's been planning this for at least a day, been planning how to corner her and get her to swear her own safety to him. It occurs to her that it's just another game she needs to play, just another match of cat and mouse that they used to so love playing with each other— except this time it isn't about sneering comments, or competing to see who can make the other feel worse. This time it's a game of safe-keeping, of keeping guard, of both of them risking their own lives to make sure the other doesn't—
But this time she suspects she has the advantage, and presuming as such she rolls her hips beneath his; she's rewarded by his jerking against her, still slightly sensitive from his recent orgasm. He's distracted long enough for her to smirk at him and slip easily out of his grip, hands snaking round the back of his neck and grinning fondly at his reddened ears.
She doesn't promise—because she never promises, promises only get hopes up and leave her feeling terrible, leave her feeling let down and broken and crying on her kitchen floor—but she does kiss him; tongue slipping past his mouth and flicking invasively against his in a way that makes her sure that he can taste himself there. Predictably Wally tenses up, breath shuddering in her mouth before he presses himself into her, the mattress squeaking underneath them. "That's not— a— promise." He mutters out between her kisses.
She feels herself smirk against his mouth, the one leg she's snarled around his thigh tightening, pulling him closer for a second. "It's good enough." She grunts out as she pulls back, weight already shifting and flipping him onto his back before he can do much more than frown at her.
She's feeling remarkably better an hour later, long after Wally's mother has gotten home and witnessed both their burning cheeks and swollen lips; despite her suspicious gaze she supposes that Mary must like her— she had been forced to scuttle down the stairs and back into her sneakers to avoid the prospect of another dinner with Rudy present and the older woman had seemed distinctly disappointed when she had rejected the invitation.
She can't help smiling now; she feels considerably lighter, happier, so much so that even the loneliness of the dingy Gotham streets seem friendly to her gaze, ears suddenly deafened to the wailing sirens or distinct noises of car windows being smashed. Distractedly she presses the button of a stop light— she hates this corner, it's always crowded waiting for the light to change but she's not stupid enough to try to cross without it, not with this kind of traffic— mind lost and rethinking all the soft noises Wally had made in the heat of his excitement, reliving the expression on his face and the sweat gathering at the corner of his brow as he had moaned her name—
She blinks, eyes pulling in a figure on the opposite corner with a feral amount of sharpness; suddenly her muscles are tensing, shoulders popping and haunches rising like a wild animal, upper lip pulling back into a snarl— blonde hair, tall figure, her father, her father is on the opposite corner—
No. No, no, not now—
Then the lights are flashing, the walk light changing, and people all around her are bumping past her and muttering swears at her and the man, the man on the opposite corner he's—
He's not Lawrence at all.
She realizes it as the cross light beeps loudly, telling her unmoving feet that she only has ten more seconds to cross— now that she's looking properly, now that her adrenaline is pulling her vision into focus she can tell immediately that it isn't her father now approaching the sidewalk she's remaining stationary on; his coloring is right but his build isn't, shoulders too narrow and oddly bony as he stalks past her, not noticing her gaze as she turns to stare after him. It's not Lawrence, she tells herself, it's not Lawrence— still her heart pounds inside her chest, still her muscles remain taught and popping over her bones, teeth still bared and feet suddenly aching for movement...
And the buzzing, the buzzing that Wally had silenced is suddenly back and increased a tenfold, vibrating her tendons and altering the pumping of her heart, smashing the creases of her bones together and chipping away pieces. And she can't think, can't breathe, can't do much other than keep staring after the unknown man, look on in terror at the pieces of Lawrence he carries with him and she's suddenly wishing she had a knife to stab him with, had an arrow to fire at him or better yet pounce on him with; she wants to carve out his innocence and see it leaking out on the pavement, wants to take her sister's sia and shove it underneath his ribs and into the cavities of his heart—
No. No, no. She doesn't want to do that— that isn't her, that's someone else talking, that's— this isn't her father, this isn't Lawrence, this is just a civilian— she needs to calm down—
She turns back to face forward and realizes jarringly that she's missed the light all together, feeling trapping in the small crowd of strangers beginning to loom impatiently around her.
It happens twice more, her panicked eyes tricking her into seeing her father's face hiding behind the mask of anonymous people on the street; she barely makes it three blocks before she's glancing wildly over her shoulder, shivering underneath the lightness of her sweater. Everywhere she sees him, parts of Lawrence lurking in shadows or ducking quickly behind the grungy corners of alley ways— ridiculously she's beginning to feel dizzy, caught in a panic of pursuing the fake-Lawrence's and caught between wanting to run, wanting to hide, her breathing hitching and lungs spasming and growing nauseous at the overwhelming stench of garbage and sweat and the vile core of Gotham city...
As if she's been waiting for this the girl from Metropolis rattles against the metal of her cage, her thundering and screaming and thirsting for blood and action so loud inside her own head that she can feel her thighs shaking, rattling around her bones and making her feel unsteady.
... Maybe it's time she stopped pretending. At least in the quiet of her own mind, somehow hidden underneath the wailing of her own insanity.
She's afraid of her father.
And perhaps it had been easy to forget, to ignore the blood thirst of the animal inside her and easy to ignore the truth when she was feeling Wally's skin underneath hers, but it isn't here— not when she's alone, not when she can suddenly hear the sirens and the screaming and taste the city on her tongue. She's terrified of Lawrence, terrified of the fact that she can suddenly feel all the scars he's left on her body burning, can feel all the ancient bruises and welts he's branded into her skin awakening, reminding her of just what she's facing, who she's facing, the horror of what he was capable of when she was just a child...
She's not aware of stopping, knees refusing to bend and keep her too quick pace along the sidewalk; without thinking her shaking hands whip her phone out of her back pocket, dialing before she can stop them.
He answers on the second ring, voice oddly stiff with no trace of joking in his mellow tone like their usually is. "Green Arrow." He greets her with his own name, flat and unfeeling and doing little to comfort her.
She feels hands winding around her throat— Artemis Crock doesn't ask for help, the Metropolis girl insists. Artemis Crock is a warrior, she isn't afraid, and she'd rather die than be a coward. And it had been a mistake to ever trust this girl, to trust the wild part inside of her that demands survival and blood and at one point Wally West, and now she doesn't have a choice, doesn't have any option but murder, be it her life or Lawrence's or Wally's or Paula's or—
It takes her a second to find her voice, throat incredibly tight and tears burning at the back of her eyes; she can hear her own labored breathing sounding loudly in the phone speaker, rattling with phlegm and blocking out the sound of traffic whirring by her. He seems to understand immediately that something's wrong, not allowing her to say anything as his voice suddenly changes, even more serious but no longer cold. "Artemis? Artemis, are you there? Is everything—"
"I'm scared." She blurts out, voice cracking like a child; almost immediately she claps her hand to her mouth, holding back a sob. As if they can't be contained she hears her words slipping past her fingers, sounding hysterical. "I don't know what to do, Oliver."
"Sweetie—"
"I just need someone to know." She rushes on, cutting off his startled tone. "I just— And I'm sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn't have—" Stupidly her throat tightens up again.
"Where are you?" She hears him ask as she pulls the phone away from her ear, flipping it shut without answering.
She makes it another block or so before she gets so dizzy she has to sit down; her lungs refusing to properly function in the wretchedness of the Gotham air, the stink making her so nauseous that she's forced to plant herself on the edge of a curb, practically asking to be mugged as she shoves her head between her knees and tries not to cry.
It's unsafe being still, her hands tugging painfully against her scalp and trying to force her own panic back to where she had hidden it inside her skull; unrelentingly the Metropolis girl refuses to loosen the imaginary hold she has on her, ignoring the way her fingers are trying to peel off the manic grip she has around her middle, nails scratching along her stomach and drawing blood, cutting through her skin and clawing out organs, pieces of her toppling out and landing noisily on the pavement...
She becomes aware of her own crying just as she hears the sound of tires slowing against the asphalt; not bothering to hide her blotchy and tear stained cheeks she glances up. "Artemis!" Oliver calls through his open window; vaguely she registers the jerkiness of his stopping, not bothering to turn on his flashers as he gets out of his car.
A little stupidly she feels her face crumple at the sound of car horns honking around them, several people swearing at him loudly and swerving dangerously close to the pristine silver of his bumper. She opens her mouth, as if wanting to tell him that he shouldn't drive such a nice car in this part of the city, he's sure to get the glinting rims of his tires lifted; instead she grits her teeth together, hating how relieved she is to see him dodging through traffic to reach her.
He stops when he's a few feet from her, not bounding up to sit beside her like she was expecting; for a long second he stares at her, the blue of his eyes looking almost grey through the tint of his sunglasses, moustache oddly ruffled. "... Hi." She warbles out.
"Jesus, Artemis." He sighs, one hand clapping his forehead when she gets embarrassed and hides behind the folds of her arms and the swell of her knees. "Didn't I tell you months ago to never scare me again? I swear, these last few days..."
He trails off, grumbling; after a few seconds of silence she hears the sound of his dress shoes against the pavement, his suit no doubt creasing and staining when he sits beside her. "... How did you get here so fast?" She asks her knees.
She's surprised that he can hear her over the whirring of horns still blaring, seemingly untroubled by the annoyance his car is causing the other drivers. "You said you were scared." He says sincerely. "Also helped that I happened to be visiting Roy— getting my car back on top of trying to talk some sense into him; I swear the two of you are going to be the death of me..." He mutters the last part, trailing off for a moment. "... Doesn't matter. You call and I'm there, Sweetie."
It's the comforting gesture she doesn't realize she's waiting for until it happens; all at once his arm is flinging around her shoulders and without thinking she leans into it, surprising herself when her breath starts coming in stuttering gasps again, as if overwhelmed by the closeness. "I'm so sorry, Oliver." She bursts out, tightening her grip around her knees and probably making it impossible for him to hear her over the traffic. "I didn't... I didn't mean what I said. You're— You're more of a father—" She stutters, not quite knowing what to say as his arm tightens around her, pulling her until she's fitted neatly into the curve of his shoulder.
"I know, kid." He says smoothly, moustache tickling against the top of her matted hair in a way that tells her he's smiling; she suspects he's quite pleased to hear her stutter through speech. "Just try to calm down, alright?"
He waits for her to finish with her rushed breathing, not paying much attention to the people yelling at him or the vulgar language people are spewing at them as they sit on the curb in silence; it takes her several minutes and one embarrassing hiccup to pull herself together. "Sorry about... This." She says thickly, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
She doesn't try to pull away and Oliver doesn't remove his arm; bothered by the closeness the buzzing in her mind is beginning to dull, quietly only drumming against her temples now. "You don't have to apologize, that's what a mentor is for." He says simply, and when she peaks out from her folded arms she can see him surveying her through his sunglasses, the crinkle of his crow's feet extending beyond his lenses as he smiles gently at her.
"You're not just a mentor." She says shyly, finally raising her chin up from where she's been hiding. "... Just so you know."
Oliver nods, looking pleased; after a moment of looking at her fondly he glances back to his car. "... So you're scared, huh?"
She feels her stomach clench up as he says it, old instinct wanting to counter him; it takes several seconds to brush the impulse off. "... Yeah. I don't know— I was fine all day. I had other stuff on my mind, and then when I was walking home I just... I thought I saw him." She feels his arm tighten around her and instantly rushes on. "It wasn't him, it was just a person... But once I started I couldn't stop, it was like parts of him were following me..."
She sighs, cutting herself off. "I don't know what I'm... I mean, what do you do?" She asks vaguely, continuing when he looks confused. "I mean he's not even here and he's already ruining everything, like, what's going to happen when he's actually here, how am I supposed to—" Her voice cracks loudly and she makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "... Is there some sort of trick I don't know? For keeping this kind of stuff separate? To stop it from—" As if she knows she's being talked about she feels the flaring of the Metropolis girl inside her, snarling at her as she wrinkles her nose. "—Killing me from the inside out?"
Oliver hesitates for a second, tongue clicking; apparently she's stiffened again as she's been talking, his hand rubbing against her shoulder and trying to get her to relax. "I'm afraid it isn't that easy, Sweetie." He says seriously, and instantly she can feel her heart sinking. "You can't turn this kind of stuff off as easily as you can just put an arrow back in your quiver. Some things stick with us no matter what we do."
He pauses and in the silence she senses there's a bit of stickiness there, as if he's remembering something unpleasant that she doesn't know about. "... I guess I just try to remember that the person who wears the mask isn't who I really am. There's a separation there, even if sometimes it isn't clear."
"What am I supposed to do then?" Her voice breaks again, but this time she rushes on and ignores it, a hand pressing painfully against her scalp. "When I take off the mask I'm his daughter, when I put it on— I mean, that's the only time I feel like myself. And even then he's still after me; Sportsmaster's right, how am I supposed to outrun him, there's no where I can go, no person I can be that's—"
"Artemis." He cuts her off when she starts panicking again, the arm around her shoulder pulling her close and the other removing her hand from where it's rubbing savagely at her forehead. "Listen, kid, I can't do much for you if you don't calm down. Let's just—" He sighs, and she can tell he feels about as hopeless as she does. "Let's just think about the options here. Whatever you want, I'll make it happen, Sweetie. I can do more security around your apartment, more sessions with Black Canary, increased training; Hell, if it will make you feel better you can even come and live with me for a while, you and your mother—"
She stops listening at the end of his sentence, ears perking and mind racing. "Yeah. No, no, that's what I want."
For a moment his moustache twitches, looking slightly bewildered. "You want to come live me?"
"What? No—"
"More sessions with Black Canary?"
She snorts and almost tells him that he's being stupid, catching herself only seconds before she says something offensive. "No, increased training. I want— I want to be ready." She says vaguely, quailing slightly when his expression changes, looking at her sternly. "Just— Anything you can teach me that I don't already know. Please."
Oliver looks at her for a long while, moustache bristling. "... You sure that's how you want to go about this? Violently?"
"Yes." She says a little too quickly, feeling herself blush when his eyes narrow.
"... I don't know, Sweetie. You already have so much on your plate— You're already doing the investigation into Metropolis, plus school and that Wally kid—"
"Oliver."
For a moment he studies her, gaze scrutinizing her face before he finally glances away, noticing the fuss his car is causing on the street. "... We'll talk more about it later." He says, finally releasing her as he stands. "Come on, if I don't move my car soon I'm going to get a ticket. Let me drive you home."
Oliver walks her up to her apartment despite her insistence that his car is too nice to be left alone on her grubby street corner; at first she chalks this up to good manners but is quickly horrified when he calls what he refers to as a round table discussion— that is, a frank scolding with the two of them and Paula around the kitchen table. It's humiliating, sitting there and shrinking in her seat as he politely but firmly tells her mother that she needs to get a grip on her daughter, even more embarrassing when he looks are sternly and asks her is she has any feelings to discuss. Instead of answering she marches off to her bedroom, slamming her door shut and pretending not to notice when his sigh carries down the hallway.
Despite Oliver's coddling she doesn't feel any better, even when Paula seems wake up from her silent desperation and starts coming back to her again in the form of lukewarm cups of tea; she's permanently jumpy, forcing herself to wake from an unrestful half-sleep and sit uncomfortably straight on the edge of her bed, listening hard to the creaking noises of the old apartment. It doesn't matter how many times she reminds herself that the people she saw walking their rounds on the Gotham streets weren't Lawrence— she still remains anxious, unbalanced, her neck aching from glancing over her shoulder so often.
It bothers her, Oliver's vague answer about upping the intensity of her training. Each time she tries to talk to him about it she gets the distinct impression that she's being brushed off, his cerulean eyes seeming to crease deeper each time she asks as if worried by her pestering. Disappointed she resolves to keep her arrows sharp, the tips of the metal now unnecessarily deadly and reminding her so when her hand slips one evening, leaving a deep crimson crease along the edge of her thumb.
It's Thursday when she returns to the Cave, growing weary of the depressing grey of the Gotham apartment; despite herself she's comforted by the familiar dim lighting and the salted scent of the air, and of course by her friends— she hasn't even made it to her bedroom yet to change out of her school uniform before she bumps into both Connor and M'gann, the two looking excited to see her after her absence, so much so that her own dreary emotions are overwhelmed by the martian's happiness.
"We're just about to take a ride in the bioship!" M'gann squeals, removing her hand from where she's had it wound around the strap of her backpack on her shoulder and holding it tightly between both of hers; the moment the seams of their skin connect she feels a renewed sense of warmth, of joy, of emotions so bright inside her she nearly flinches as they fill up her emptiness. "You should come!"
A little stupidly she glances at Connor— even after several months she's still slightly intimidated by him, his stature and handsomeness imposing, his presence slightly overpowering compared to the other men who regularly haunt the Cave. She catches the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, his perpetual peevishness seeming to waver under M'gann's enthusiasm. "You should." He confirms simply, hands pressing against his hips.
"Maybe next time." She shrugs, taking her hand back. "Have either of you seen Wally?"
She doesn't add that she's only looking for him because she needs help with her Chemistry homework— despite herself she remembers the intimacy of the last time she saw him and suddenly blushes. For some reason M'gann looks delighted by her question and by her blushing, as if nothing could make her happier than her and the red head in question spending time together. "He's not here yet. But I bet he comes soon!"
It takes several minutes of conversation before Connor's huffing about wasting daylight and she's dismissed with a swift hug from the martian; as it always is with M'gann her sudden absence is leaving her feeling cold, the false projection of happiness and ease disappearing and leaving her own anxiety suddenly washing over her, as abrupt and unwelcome as the violent crashing of a wave against the Happy Harbor shore. Her own emotions seem to overpower her, leaving her feeling isolated, coming out of her own head momentarily when she realizes she's half undressed in her bedroom, trying to shove both her legs into the same hole of her jeans.
Even when she sits at the kitchen island she can't shake her own nervousness, fidgeting in her stool and drumming her pen hard against the granite of the counter. She's having trouble keeping focused, eyes repeatedly drawing away from her homework to glance warily around her, as if expecting someone to jump out at her or surprise her; she locks eyes once with the security camera above her, feeling eerily as if she's being watched and promptly forces her head back to her textbook, trying to remember what she's supposed to be working on. The Cave is no longer comforting like it was in the first few moments of her arrival; she's suddenly very aware of all the shadows, all the lurking places her father could possibly occupy. Giving her homework up as a bad job she slides off her stool, hands yanking on her hair as if to pull her own fear out of her, wondering if a cup of tea will help.
She's just filled the kettle when she hears the disembodied voice call his name; for some reason she feels the muscles in her back tighten as she sets the kettle on the burner, suddenly raw and aware of the previous comfort of his presence. Despite their new intimacy she's on edge from her encounter with M'gann, worried that any conversation with Wally will leave her feeling worse after— as if on cue she feels old insecurities rising, immediately making her suspicious of him, as if the grin that spreads across his features when he sees her is somehow fake, as if she's somehow unknowingly managed to ruin things between them like she always does—
The familiar gusting air announces his movement before she can see it; it's very hard not to flinch as he comes to a skidding stop in front of her, knocking into her slightly and nearly forcing her to set her hand on the red-hot burner for balance. Wally for his part looks untroubled, his arms wrapping around her waist and tugging her so close she can hardly breathe. "Hello, Beautiful." He says in his charmingly low voice, not even really looking at her before he kisses her.
She supposes he must chalk up her tenseness to being caught off guard; for a moment she's unwaveringly still, hands still up and clenched into fists before she comes to her senses, forcing raised haunches and snapping tendons to go slack, hands automatically going to his shoulders as he pulls back with a loud smacking noise.
"Hi." She says dumbly, not quite sounding like herself with her voice so high pitched.
Wally doesn't seem to notice the stunned expression on her face, or must think nothing of it; ignoring the way she shakes her head—caught in a whirl of her own emotion... surprise, guilt, worry, fear, so much fear that isn't calmed by Wally or the walnut smell— he weaves his fingers together in the small of her back, thumb tracing the slop of muscle that runs along her spine. "Long time no see. Have I mentioned that I haven't stopped thinking about you since Monday?"
"I— No." She says vaguely, not catching his teasing tone.
"Well, I haven't." He grins lopsidedly at her, arms tightening around her. "I—" He leans in, as if to press a wet kiss against her cheek and suddenly stops, brows raising and smile faltering as he reads her expression. "What's wrong?"
For some reason her lower lip wobbles— because it's one thing to talk about it with Green Arrow, who's... equipped to handle her emotions, her outbursts of fear and panic. It's another thing altogether to unleash herself on Wally, not when her track record with doing so is terrible and nearly always results in the two of them fighting or her sniveling like an idiot in his arms. Blinking rapidly she shoves all her emotions aside, mouth setting in a firm line. "It's nothing. I—"
Wally cuts her off, loosening his hold on her to get a better look at her face but not releasing her. "Is it— you know. Stuff with your Dad? Do you want to—"
"No." She says quickly, shaking her head so violently that her teeth clatter; as if to get a grip on reality she reaches up, pretending to adjust the collar of his shirt and really encasing the fabric tightly in her hand. "It's fine Wally. Just— Tell me about your day, okay? I just need a bit of a distraction right now, it's nothing..."
For a long second Wally doesn't look convinced, and in the silence she can hear the low humming of the kettle, signaling that the water is close to boiling; almost imperceptivity she catches him glancing down to where her fingers have an iron grip on his shirt. As if that somehow gave him an answer to an unknown question she suddenly feels his arms tightening on either side of her, and before she can brace herself for his rapid changing of pace he's kissing her.
She's nearly knocked off balance again by the force with which his mouth collides with hers, her knees knocking against his and wobbling underneath her; it's dizzying, both in a good way and bad, her jaw ducking and cheeks crimson as she tries to pull back. "W-what are you doing—" She pants out almost angrily, not managing to say anything else before he's grinning at her, a mixture of mischievous and endearing as he seizes her pony tail, yanking her closer again.
"Distracting you." He mutters.
She hasn't even fully closed her eyes again when Wally reclaims her, jaw dropping and lips pushing so hard into hers that most of her weight is abruptly pushed back against the edge of the counter—it's embarrassing, the tiny squeal that bursts from her lips, mouth opening beneath his and the noise quickly being silenced when his tongue slips inside her.
And there's so much to feel, so much to taste and suddenly she's dizzy again; the scent of walnuts and salt and the faint burning smell telling her that the stove top need to be cleaned— his hands roaming up and down her sides and touching scars on her arms that he doesn't know the meaning behind, a hand in her hair and tugging at her scalp, forcing her to focus— Wally's mouth, feverish and hot and panting around her— it's like their kiss on New Years Day all over again, she's growing sick with so many sensations wobbling inside her head, unbalanced as they sit on top of her already overflowing emotions—
Suddenly the air between them is thick and hot again, Wally hips pressing urgently between hers and forcing her legs apart; she groans when she feels his hands running down the length of her sides, cupping her rear hard for a moment before he's scooping up the backs of her thighs, forcing her feet from the ground and planting her firmly on the counter.
"Wally—" She gasps for a moment, not able to ask him to slow down before his lips are back on her, wet and warm as his hands pry her knees apart, hands tugging her hips closer until the dull throbbing between her legs is pressed achingly up against the hardness that's beginning stretch the material of his pants tight. For a few moments they're a mess of lips and gasping— her hands musing Wally's hair half in wanting to pull him closer and half in pushing him back and his palms pawing at the front of her shirt, one hand boldly sliding up her back and fiddling unsuccessfully with her bra clasp.
She's a mess, her mind hazy and cloudy and not entirely thinking straight, suddenly realizing how Wally must have felt when she had attacked him in her bedroom—and this is the kitchen, Wally, they could be walked in on any second and this is nothing like the privacy of the locker room alcove from all those months ago or the abandoned section of the library—as his fingers drag up the muscles of her leg, nails clawing into her jeans. She feels them skim the bullet hole scratched into her thigh, feels his little finger get caught in her pocket—
Wally's teeth catch on her lower lip, hand lingering on her hip for a moment as she gasps out; all at once his fingers are between her legs, rubbing tenderly against the denim, his thumb pressing hard against the throbbing that's suddenly tripled with heat. She has enough time to feel blood pounding in her ears, a jolt striking down her spine as her hips buck against him, and before she can even think on it the Metropolis girl —the one who's been staring out of her skull with wary eyes and been growing fearful of Wally and what she feels for him— suddenly the feral girl is snatching at his wrist, ripping it from her body and slamming it so hard against the edge of the counter that he actually cries out.
"Fuck!" He swears, mouth falling from hers and eyes screwing shut as she digs her nails into his wrist, breaking the tender skin that coats his tendons. "Fuck, Artemis!"
It takes her a moment to realize what she's just done, the all the blood in her body suddenly firing to her reddened cheeks and away from her thighs, still stretched and aching for him; immediately she releases him in horror, breathing stuttering out in a stunned manner as he stumbles back from her, clutching his wrist as he leans against the island. "Oh my god." She says, not sounding at all like herself. "Wally—"
She hates that when she clambers off the counter he flinches, doubled over and pressing his wrist against his thigh in pain. "Just—Artemis, just don't for a second, okay?" He says through gritted teeth.
Obediently she goes back to standing with her back against the edge of the counter, looking at him with her hands pressed hard against her mouth as he examines his wrist—already she can see the line of the counter beginning to swell up and bruise around his bones, his fingers moving one at a time as if to test that everything is okay. "Are you alright?" She asks between her fingers.
Wally opens and closes his fist for a moment. "Yeah, looks okay." He says gruffly, finally looking at her with still rough eyes. "What the hell was that about?"
In answer she shakes her head. "I-I don't know. I just… It was instinct. I just got… I don't know, scared or something." She grits the last part out between her teeth, cheeks still red and hair still mused.
Wally looks at her for a long moment, hand still rubbing the swelling of his wrist and trying to read the expression on her face. "… Was it… Did I do something wrong?" He asks a little sheepishly, looking confused. "Did I hurt you? Or was it too fast?"
A little helplessly she shakes her head, not quite knowing what to say. "No, Wally. I don't know why I did it." She doesn't miss the way he flinches again when she takes a small step forward, looking as hurt and uncomfortable with her presence as he did a few days before in his bedroom. "… I'm sorry."
Wally doesn't accept the apology and glances back down at his wrist, fingers still prodding his bones and tracing the line of the swelling. "… Listen. I've gotta get going. Mom's expecting me home for dinner. We can... talk about this later." He adds the last part more for her benefit than anything.
She glances at the clock. It's barely four and Wally's lying through his teeth to her face. She scowls. "... Early dinner?" She asks, glaring.
Wally doesn't look at her. "Yeah." He says, and before she can even stop him he's already gone.
She nearly screams—she's always screwing things up. She's wanted this with him for so long, she's spent nights aching for it and mornings waking with her fingers between her legs, imaging it was him. Before she can stop herself she can feel frustrated tears stinging at her eyes, and with a low growl in the back of her throat she rubs her palms a little too hard against her lids, willing herself not to cry as the kettle on the stove hisses loudly, boiling over.
AN: Not sure if you all saw the big YJ news going around Twitter... Season 2 is back up on American Netflix, coupled with a tweet from the show's creator mentioning that if we want Season 3 the best thing to do is sit down and watch it. Repeatedly. Not too sure if it's a hoax but it sure as hell gives me an excuse to binge watch!
A quick Q&A before I sign off:
Q: Is there any hope for a friendship between Roy and Artemis?
A: If we're going by canon (which I'm trying to) it seems pretty obvious to me that by Season 2 Artemis and Roy reach... and understanding. Roy seems to know her well enough to feel confident speaking on her behalf when Oliver needed a pep-talk, and that combined with the fact that Jade seems to have re-entered family life leads me to believe that there is eventually a friendly dynamic there. So of course there's hope!
Please read and review!