Parenthesis

by knottedblonde

"She tries to put a lot of words into the kiss, words she isn't brave enough to say out loud: She'll stand by him because she cares about him, and if there's anything he's taught her it's that when you care about people, really care about them, you don't leave. Not forever." Sequel to my other story, Artemisia. Artemis-centric; the gap between Season 1 & 2. M in later chapters.

18. We're Out of Tune

AN: Sorry for the bit of the late update, my exams have been crazy. Enjoy!

The first section of this chapter is rated M.

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She falls asleep, hovering in and out of unconsciousness as the anxious buzzing in her mind is replaced by Wally's humming in her ear; it's very hard not to feel relaxed with him curled around her, the warmth of his body intoxicating as he exhales broken songs and random notes that echo inside the blissfully empty space in her head. More than once she emerges from sleep to feel the rhythm of their breath beating in sync with each other's, bodies pressed so tightly together that she feels less like two different people and more like one.

(And although it's not the first time she's felt something like this it's by far the strongest... Like so many years ago, when her mother could stand on her two legs and carry in her arms or the not-quite-real memory of laughing on the couch with her father, like the too few times before she feels so completely content in this moment now— she wants to freeze time, live only right here for the rest of her life, with Wally's arms around her and his heart beating loudly against her shoulder blade and her own unburdened admittance that she might be hopelessly, stupidly in love with this boy— )

She stirs when she starts feeling his limbs fidgeting at the stillness, something inside his blood forcing him to move; she's kicked out of sleepiness once by the sensation of his thigh wedging sharply between her legs, denim surprisingly rough from where she's still sensitive. She can't quiet settle properly after that, excitement still lingering in the flush of her skin.

She's hardly dozing when she feels his fingers starting to move, apparently unable to take the stillness and silence any longer; for some reason she feels herself going stiff beneath his hands, breath halting in her lungs and muscles tightening. It's not out of fear, out of wanting distance like it was before— very suddenly she wants to memorize the patterns he traces into her, remember the shapes he draws along her skin, allow them to mark her deeper and more permanently than any of her scars ever have...

"You can look, you know." She mutters tiredly, feeling the way he traces the curve of her earlobe and down the lines of her neck, pausing a little too purposefully at the edge of the medical tape still adorning the base of her spine. A little stupidly Wally jumps at the sound of her voice, as if he really didn't notice that she was awake. "... I know you want to."

He doesn't say anything for a long moment but she still feels the way his fingers hesitate before moving back towards the bandage; she's expecting him to rip it off in one smooth motion, so quick she can't feel it— instead she hears herself hiss as he drags the tape off at almost a snails pace, making it impossible not to wince as the bandage pulls on pieces of crusted over skin or catches at ensnarled ends of hair. "Sorry." He says in an undertone before he's finished.

When the bandage is off she doesn't feel naked or ashamed like she's been expecting to— but, she supposes, this isn't the first time he's seen her scar. She wonders with a strange air of acceptance what it looks like now, if the warbled skin is smoothened into a clean looking slice mark, or if Jade's touch has somehow made it uglier than it already was.

That's the thing about Jade— you never know what those hands are going to do to you.

"... I don't get it." Wally says after a moment, breath warming the back of her neck. "I thought Cheshire tried to stop Sportsmaster when he— you know. The first time." He breaks off, clearing his throat a little gruffly until all trace of sleep is gone from his voice.

She's not entirely sure what he's asking, and she supposes it's her own fault; she's always been so determined not to talk about the past that Wally's grown shy of asking, afraid she'll turn on her heel and run if he intrudes a little too far into her overwhelmingly large vault of secrets. Still, fisting a ball of her blankets tightly in her hand, she tries to do her best to answer him. "I... I mean, you've met her." She starts awkwardly. "When I was a kid, she was kind of like two different people... One was normal, almost— like a real older sister. And the other was just... She was what Dad wanted her to be.

"Sometimes there would be times... There would be times where I'd see her, and she'd see me and it would be like... It would just be us. The two of us as we are, without him." She feels herself gritting her teeth together and quickly stops. "But I said some things the last couple times— right before it happened, actually, and now I don't— I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't think that part of her is there anymore. The good part." She says a bit thickly. "I think I broke her."

Wally's quiet for about half a second, listening very hard to what she's saying but apparently not having an answer. "... Artemis."

"It's fine." She says quickly, not wanting roll back to look at him when she feels one hand on her shoulder, trying to pull her until her back is flat on her mattress. "... Does it look bad?" She asks childishly.

For some reason Wally lets out a warm breath against the back of her neck, finally succeeding in getting her to roll towards him. "You? Look bad?" He drawls out in his usual Wallman tone, brows raising flirtatiously but lips quirking into a kind smile. "Not possible, Beautiful."

It takes a lot of effort not to send him a warbling smile back and instead roll her eyes. "You're an idiot." She scowls, not quite managing to keep the dry look on her face as he leans in to kiss her.

As he sighs into her mouth she suddenly feels quite stupid for trying to convince herself that she could live without him; if she's learnt anything in the past few months it's been that they need each other, even if they come with bumps and bruises. And she supposes, as she runs her hands through his hair, that maybe learning is exactly what they've been doing up until this point— learning how to side step the sticky patches, learning how to brush around the shadowy parts of her past without lingering too long, learning how to change the subject when they need to—

Wally pulls back before she can really pour herself into the kiss, her eyes blinking open a little confusedly and mouth still puckered in his absence; when she finally pulls him into focus he's still trying to smile at her, brows slightly furrowed. "... Don't hit me, or anything." He blurts out, ears going off when she blinks. "For ruining the moment, I mean. But—" He pauses, swallowing and looking nervous. "... Okay, so, we've had our fight, said all that terrible stuff to each other... I'm just wondering if anything's changed."

She feels her face crumple. "What do you mean?"

"Like..." For some reason Wally props himself up onto his elbow, one finger tapping anxiously against her hip. "Like the fact that your Dad is still out, Artemis. Like I still feel like... Like you're only stopping to catch your breath for a second before you're back to running away from me again."

Artemis is a born runner.

As he says it the familiar words bounce around inside her head again, her throat oddly tight as he looks down at her; she doesn't know how to explain it to him, not without saying the words that she's still a little afraid of. "... This time doesn't feel different to you?" She whispers, voice breaking.

She's not sure why she asks the question so plainly, giving him only yes or no parameters to reply with. She's afraid of both the answers he might give her.

When Wally looks her in the eye there's a flash of something she can't quite identify behind the familiar apple of his irises; for several seconds neither of them look away, as if they're calling bluffs in a game of poker, wondering who will be the one to fold first. "... It might." Wally admits after a moment, eyes leaving hers to stare at his hand on her hip, fingers smoothing the pleats of her skirt nervously over her thighs. "... Would it sound really lame if I told you I was a bit afraid to trust it though?"

So there it is, in simplest terms: all her being afraid of trusting Wally had finally made him afraid to trust her too.

She hates it, because she knows it's exactly what her father would want. Lawrence, her sister, they would both tell her that this is for the best— that keeping people at a distance, operating alone... That's the only way to make sure you survive. And maybe at one point that's what she had wanted— to survive, to keep going, to live until her next meal or until the week after next. But she doesn't want that with Wally. She doesn't want fighting for scraps and thirsting for oxygen, for affection, for a reason to stay alive. She doesn't want to keep him at an arm's length— she wants him as close as two people can be together. She wants life. She wants love.

She wants Wally.

She wants Wally so badly that for the first time she's prepared to do something she's never done before: she's prepared to try. To try to change, to try to be the kind of girl worthy of his love. The kind of girl who doesn't have memories as sharp and dingy as broken glass. The kind of girl who can hold his hand in public without looking over her shoulder. The kind of girl who isn't so determined to hate herself that she ends up hurting him too. The kind of girl worthy of being loved by Wally West.

And more than anything she's going to try to embrace this strange and sure vulnerability that's been with her since she fell apart in his arms, that she suspects has been burrowed inside her since she saw him die in Metropolis. She wants to drown herself in the foreignness of it's waters, wants to feel afraid and excited and a thousand different things at once instead of shutting down like she always does. She wants to feel things, wants to feel things with him—

"Like you said before." She whispers after a moment, fingers rising up his arm and brushing through his hair; almost instantly his eyes cloud over at the touch, head tilting against her hand. "... Even if I do run, in the end I'm running back to you, okay?"

It's not quite what she wants to say but Wally seems to understand, mouth quirking up into the crooked smile she so adores, the one that's painted with half-shed laughter and some other happy feeling she's not sure there's a name for; there's a fraction of a moment where his eyes leave his fingers and he sends her such a blazing look that she can practically feel the heat underneath her skin. She doesn't have enough time to process what it means before he collapses onto her, lips claiming hers so fiercely that any other intelligent thoughts are thrown out of her head entirely.

(There's only one thing inside her, banging against her pulse as rapidly as her own heart beat— She wants Wally, she wants Wally, she wants Wally...)

She can taste the grin on his mouth as he presses the whole of his weight on top of her, kissing something she doesn't understand into the seams of her skin. She hears herself moan against him as he rolls on top of her, his thigh returning to it's earlier position and wedging between her legs; like before she feels her hips buck beneath him, sensitive to the coarse brushing of the denim and unknowingly rocking her more surely against his rapidly roaming palms, now running down her neck and cupping her breasts—

"Wait." She moans into his mouth, gasping when his teeth reclaim her lower lip for a moment. "You're wrinkling my school uniform."

Wally snorts, grinning down at her when she pulls back, her loose hair fanning out in waves beneath her on the mattress. "So?" He mutters, ducking his head down to press wet kisses against her neck. "Just take it off."

She can tell it's a joke, can feel the slight chuckle of breath that accompanies the suggestion as he burrows into her neck, nudging her about the jaw and getting her to expose more of herself to him. Unwittingly he shifts his thigh and almost too quickly she can feel her skin flooding with heat, wanting building again under his touch. "Y-yeah." She gasps out, one hand reaching out to pull him back by the scruff of his neck until he can look her properly in the eye. "... Why don't I?"

(And she doesn't know why it's just occurring to her now, why after months of wanting nothing but she's suddenly understanding why she had craved his skin touching hers so badly— because if she's going to be vulnerable, going to surrender to this... Feeling, that he ignites in her... What better way of doing that than— )

There's a half second where Wally looks at her, not quite registering that she's not joking and green eyes still crinkled slightly with mirth; she almost bursts out laughing when his smile fades, reading the seriousness on her face and the blush on her cheeks. "I— What?" He says stupidly, ears reddening.

This time she does laugh as she slides out from underneath him— he's gone suddenly ridged, forearms tight as he braces himself above her, expression looking as if he's recently been knocked about the head and forced into a stunned and embarrassed shock. Punching him roughly about the shoulder (and the movement feels so rehearsed, so normal, and it feels like a lifetime ago that she used to do that as an excuse to touch him when she was still too afraid to so much as flatten her hand against his back on the rare occasion he would hug her) she stands a little clumsily, ankle still bothered from all her walking today, looking back over her shoulder as he settles on the edge of her bed. "... Unless you'd rather I get detention for all the wrinkles in my clothes?"

Wally looks dumbfounded as she limps across the room, approaching her dresser. "I, well— no." He mutters, swallowing thickly and pressing his heels hard into her floor. He looks how she feels whenever he changes pace on her, confused and entirely unsure of what's happening. "I just— we haven't, uh..."

She feels a bit stupid, pretending not to notice the hardened and slightly startled way Wally's staring at her, looking as if he can't quite understand what's happening or what her real intentions are. Without him finishing the sentence she knows exactly what he's thinking— they've never actually talked about having sex before, most of their more heated moments the results of plenty of screaming and even smaller squabbles often sending them into feverish lip locking that lasts for hours and doesn't give any sense of relief. And while she's always sort of quietly assumed it would happen— eventually— she gets the impression that Wally's the kind of guy who would want to plan for it, who would want to map it out in his head before it even got close to happening...

(And maybe she's a little curious as to what that would have been like, if she could allow herself to wait for it... But it's too late now, she's too intoxicated by his scent, by the dopamine in her mind and the stubbornness in her veins— she's afraid if she doesn't dive head first into that vulnerable feeling now she'll never get it back, never be ready to...)

She's always found the idea of sex and seduction a little silly, gotten so used to Zatanna's jokes poking fun at it that she feels almost out of her element whenever she tries to be sexy, as if like with everything else that's softened and intimate it's simply not in her genes. Still, she tries not to blush as she pauses at her dresser, jaw tilting when she looks back towards him.

Wally's throat bobs as she starts tending to her buttons, eyes dropping to the swell of her breasts as the white cotton splits open between them, once again revealing the expanse of black underwire and padding beneath it; faintly she can hear the vibration of his phone in his jeans pocket and almost smiles at the way he fumbles for a button to silence it. She hears him suck in a breath when she drags her shirt down her shoulders, letting it fall teasingly down her body and crumpling it easily in her hands, shoving it unceremoniously on top of her dresser.

"Don't y-you, uh." Wally mutters, ears reddening when his voice breaks. "Don't you want to fold that?"

She nearly laughs again, caught between being endeared and wanting to hit him for the question, somehow managing to contain herself to a wry smile. "Do you want me to stop and fold it?" She asks coyly, one hand reaching up behind her for her bra clasp.

Wally goes a deep crimson, shaking his head. "... No."

It's incredibly satisfying, the way the redness from his ears seems to spread to his cheeks at the sound of her bra snapping open; there's several long seconds where she pulls the underwire off herself and Wally's eyes noticeably widen when he lets out a straggled exhale, hands clenching tightly against his knee caps as if to keep himself from racing across the room to touch her.

She doesn't feel as naked now as the first time she undressed in front of him, in the heat of the moment in the library so many weeks ago; still, she feels herself blushing as her breasts spring free, looking a little shyly at the expression in his face and suddenly frowning when she realizes he's no longer looking at her, eyes screwed up and head turned away from her.

"... Wally?" She says his name confusedly, a little offended by his lack of attention and unsure whether or not to keep going. Tentatively she takes a half step towards him, hand pausing on the zipper of her skirt.

Her floorboards squeak with the movement and almost instantly his head whirs back around to her. "Sorry—" He gasps out, sounding almost strangled as his eyes open for a moment and lock eyes with her nipples before they snap shut again. "I-I feel just feel like a creep, like, staring—"

Once again she feels like laughing, although this time for an entirely different reason; too often she forgets that underneath the Wallman persona he's just as uncomfortable and unsure about this kind of thing as she is, only seeming to have confidence when the two of them are yelling in each other's faces and too overwhelmed by emotion to think straight. "Wally." She tries to say patiently, crossing the room until she's an easy foot in front of him. "Wally, you idiot. I want you to look at me."

She feels stupid for what feels like the thousandth time that night, standing there half dressed and having a conversation with his still shut eyes— his phone is going off again in his pocket but this time he's not moving to silence it. When nothing more happens than a nervous muscle beginning to jump in his neck she blushes darker, deciding to take matters into her own hands; hesitating, she fumbles with her zipper and lets the cheap fabric of the Gotham Academy skirt fall to the floor, the only other sound in the room Wally's phone clicking to voicemail.

Wally's hands are clammy when she extracts them from his knees, feeling almost cold for the first time when she guides them to the narrowness of her waist. The second he touches her he exhales hard through his nose, warm air hitting her across her bare stomach. "Open your eyes." She orders him kindly. Almost helplessly he obeys, now almost maroon as his green eyes flicker open, fingers immediately tightening as he struggles to pull her nakedness into focus. She can see his lips part and form an unintelligible swear.

"You're being weird." She tells him almost a little too frankly, head tilting to follow the almost frantic path his eyes mark on her body, the seams of her skin seeming to heat up again under his gaze. "...You've seen at lot of this before, you know. Or are you already forgetting the last couple hours?"

Wally swallows, glancing up for a second at her face. "That was..." He says unclearly. "— I mean, I've never— you know, all at once." He clarifies, voice still sounding slightly thick as his eyes travel back down her body.

It's very hard not to bite her lips when his thumb traces the indentations of her hips, trailing down to touch the swell of her thighs. "And?" She hears herself say a little breathlessly.

"And nothing." He says more steadily after a moment, still blushing but no longer acting as shy. She can feel her skin burning underneath his fingers, wanting beginning to pool again in the low point of her stomach. "I mean... Don't take this the wrong way or anything. But I... I've imagined you naked before." He says a little sheepishly. "Doesn't compare much to the real thing though."

As if to comfort him she braces her hands on his shoulders; it must help, some of his blush receding back up his cheeks, and as if he can't stop himself he keeps talking nervously. "I mean, I've thought about stuff... How could I not, I mean, look at you." He chuckles nervously, nodding at the bare plane of her stomach. "After that first kiss in my room forever ago... I mean, I've thought about how badly I've wanted to pull you close just to feel you pressing against me."

She feels herself shiver as his hand starts to move, following up the middle line of her abdomen until he reaches the dip between her breasts. "Thought about how when you blush it pools down your chest, wondered if it reaches other places..." She's hardly breathing when his forefinger skims the bottom curve of her breast, still several inches from where her blush is extending; she hears herself suck in a startled breath when he runs his thumb too lightly over her nipple, making it pucker. "And that, right there, that small noise you make when I touch you and you're not expecting it..."

All too quickly he pulls away, hand back to running down her stomach; she can feel her fingers flexing almost too tightly into the material of his shirt. "...Thought about how when you yell at me you get this wrinkle over your nose... How good it feels when your hips are pressing into mine, and how crazy it drives me when you run your hands through my hair..." To her embarrassment her abs tighten when he runs a hand over them, thumbs digging into her hips again. "But it's different imaging all those things, compared to seeing it right in front of you." He says thickly, fingers skimming her thigh. "And different too, when you're not standing in front of me and screaming the whole time."

It's her turn to swallow, cheeks going off. "I don't scream the whole time." She says quietly, shivering when he presses the whole of his palm again her thigh, thumb pressing against the ages-old scar beneath her hip.

Her breath hitches when his fingers drag upward, finding the hot point between her legs that's already wet for him again. "... No." He says thickly, watching as her eyes flutter shut. "You make other noises too."

When he strokes her she hears herself let out a tiny gasp in the back of her throat; it's very difficult not to crumble in his arms again, especially when he starts dragging his forefingers along her opening, pressing her wetness into her nerves in fast, anxious little strokes. She gets the distinct impression that he's eager for more experimenting, excited to find new ways to make her moan his name. Biting her lip and trying not to drop her head back in another moan she does her best to speak steadily. "... Wally?"

"What is it, Babe?" He says very quickly, the hand not busy with her wrapping around her waist and trying to pull her closer.

She nearly loses it altogether when he starts pressing languid kisses into her stomach, her thighs twitching before she manages to get his wrist contained in her hand, doing very little to stop his movements as one finger plunges inside her. "What if I told you that I wanted you?" She gasps out too loudly. "What if I want to... You know. With you."

(Privately she wonders if there's a way to ask a boy to have sex with you without wanting to die of embarrassment.)

It's borderline unbearable to feel his lips still against her skin and watch as he pulls back to look at her properly; rather than wait for an answer she ignores the vaguely confused look Wally sends her and instead forces her hips away from his fingers. "A-Artemis?" He has enough time to say her name before she nervously yanks his shirt from his shoulders without hearing an answer, ears crimson and hair rumpled when he emerges. "... Do you want to...?"

There's a half second that seems to last forever where they look each other in the eye; true to Wally's observations she can feel her blush leaking down to color the tops of her breasts. "Do you?" She asks, trying not to blink. "B-because, you know. I want to."

She can't wait for him to answer properly before she launches herself at him, by now wanting him so badly she can hardly stand it; in an instant she's wrapped herself around him, nails digging into his bare shoulders and legs circling around his waist, pressing herself into the thick fabric of his jeans and nearly sending him toppling backwards against the mattress as she kisses him. Wally for his part is stunned enough to kiss her back for several seconds before he frees himself, looking embarrassed when she keeps pressing her mouth frantically against his skin. "But, I uh... Oh God." He mutters the last part when she licks her way up his neck, teeth nipping at his earlobe. "I don't have anything."

It takes a few beats of nothingness for her to understand what he's saying, mouth stilling on his ear and fingers slacking their grip on his shoulder. "... You don't..." She repeats, still a little cloudy from the heat of the moment, both of them ignoring when his phone goes off in his pocket and vibrates loudly underneath her thigh. It takes several long seconds for her to pull back entirely, one hand turning his jaw towards her and looking him in the eye. "Well I don't have anything either."

"Yeah." He blushes, thumb stroking tender circles into her back. "I mean— not like I planned on this happening."

"Right." She says gruffly, feeling stupid with her nakedness and the way she's coiled her way around him. "... We could... Without it?" She suggests half heartedly.

Wally snorts almost immediately, the sound so obnoxious that she instantly extracts herself from around him, embarrassed. "I'm not even going to answer that." He says severely, ignoring her when she rolls off him and flops beside him on the bed. "That was one of the stupidest things you've ever said."

"It was just a suggestion." She snarls, hating that she said it in the first place when Wally laughs again. "I wasn't like— I mean, I wasn't being serious."

"Then why did you suggest it?"

"Shut up."

Wally keeps grinning cockily at her when she loses patience with him, reaching to the foot of her bed for the previous night's pajamas so she doesn't have to keep being naked and embarrassed about it. "So what?" He laughs at her, grabbing at her wrist when she yanks an oversized t-shirt over herself. "Now you're mad at me again? Because I didn't have the foresight to bring a condom with me when I came here to yell at you?"

"Shut up." She repeats, listening hard to the silence of the apartment; she's just about to start swearing at him again when she hears the bell of the elevator in the hall chime out. In a half second she's yanking Wally's hands off her, searching frantically for his watch and twisting it on his arm until she can read the face. "... Shit." She mutters, blanching when she looks at the time and immediately flying off her bed, trying and failing to not bother her ankle. "My mom's home."

"Your Mom's—"

She winces at the volume of his voice when she races back towards her dresser, one hand waving at him as she yanks sweat pants and a hoodie from a drawer. "Clothes, Wally, we'll—" She blushes. "We'll talk out about that... The other thing later. Just get dressed, please."

She's in the middle of yanking her hoodie over her head when she hears her mother's key in the front lock; without looking at him she pulls the sweater over herself, the hood sticking up ridiculously on the back of her head. "You don't have to leave or anything, but—" She pauses when she hears him swear under his breath, realizing that he's extracted his phone from his pocket and is staring at the screen with furrowed brows. "What's up?"

Wally's across the room in a second, the speed of his movement send a back draft across her face and forcing her hood to fall from the back of her head. "Like, a dozen missed calls from my Dad." He says nervously, looking troubled as he backs towards her window. "Fuck. He's going to kill me."

Something quirks in her stomach when he says it, something in his tone sending a wave of nervousness through her. "Blame it on me, tell him I lost track of the time—"

"Two bad ideas in one night, Blondie." He says quickly, blasting once across the room and kissing her so briefly on the lips that for a moment she's almost sure she's imagined it. "We'll talk tomorrow, okay? I have to get going."

She gets as far as watching him scramble up onto her night table and start opening her window before she snaps out of it. "You can use the front door, idiot. What are you going to do, run home?"

She doesn't get an answer, and when she blinks she feels the familiar blast of air smacking her across the face. Before her eyes are even open he's gone.

---

Wally's not even gone an hour before her own curiosity gets the better of her; grabbing a looking glass from a drawer in her dresser she stalks off to the bathroom, seeking answers to a question that he wasn't brave enough to really give her.

It's still sensitive from where he pulled the bandage off before, rubbing almost painfully against the seams of her hoodie as she yanks it over her shoulders. Strangely she feels more naked now, alone in her bathroom, than she had ever felt underneath the warmth of Wally's fingers. It takes her several seconds of breathing loudly through her nose before she gets the nerve to do what she wants to, the small of her back digging into the edge of the sink as she flips her hair over one shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. All at once she lets out a snarling huff and thrusts the mirror out in front of herself, staring hard and trying to get the angle of the reflection right between her shaking fingers.

The first thought that passes through her head is that Wally lied to her.

But she doesn't cry, like she expected to; for several long seconds she stares at the place where all that warbled skin used to sit, feeling an odd sense of emptiness run through her. Maybe he hadn't lied, not exactly. It isn't bad looking.

It isn't beautiful, though.

It doesn't look like much of anything, anymore. All the bumps and uneven skin have been cleanly removed by Jade's slicing, and its place sits an over-large scab, cracking around the edges and stitched up in others. She's sure that whatever mark it leaves will be permanent, although perhaps not quite as ugly.

She only manages half a minute of looking at it before she finds she has to stop, growing dizzy and realizing suddenly that she's not breathing; with a loud stutter of breath she lowers the mirror, placing it clumsily against the sink and listening to it clatter loudly against the counter top.

She's not entirely sure what's worse— The mark from her father or the one from Jade. They're both awful in several regards, both born from screaming and brokenness and put there by people who she was always told weren't supposed to hurt her.

"Artemis?"

She blinks out of the thought when her mother taps against the door, a little surprised to find her eyes oddly wet. "One second." She mutters, yanking her hoodie over her back to hide the mark.

---

A few days later she's back to clenching her cellphone like a lifeline, pacing back and forth in the tiny Gotham apartment. She had had every intention of keeping Wally unusually close, worried that the nervous buzzing in her head would return in his absence. She's not sure why it's happened but the Metropolis girl remains silent as the hours tick on— as silent as Wally, who for some reason doesn't return her calls.

Had she imagined it? That he had said he would call? Or is that just a thing all boys say when someone tries to have sex with them and it doesn't go as planned?

And the more she thinks about it the more she realizes that she had kind of just assumed that Wally wanted her as badly as she had wanted him— did she push herself on him?

(But then she remembers the way he touched her, and no— he had wanted her just as much as she had wanted him, she's sure...)

Nearly three days later she's replaying every moment of their last night together in her mind, running over scripts of all the nasty things they yelled at each other and how they had said goodbye; she worries that she came on to strong, between screaming at him one moment and curling herself around him the next, taking off all her clothes and whispering how badly she wanted him into his neck...

("Fuck. He's going to kill me."

And then she thinks about how Wally had talked about his father and she gets a tenfold more worried...)

She feels oddly helpless, going about her routine of school and promptly going home and avoiding the Cave; she knows she'd probably stand a better chance of finding Wally if she went there but something inside her, something rooted in embarrassment and pride and maybe an annoyance at Kaldur stops her. She's still sore from the mission, both from it's failure and the risk he put them all at in his thoughtlessness, and rather than do the healthy thing and yell at him like she wants to she sits on her couch and broods, checking her phone and glaring at all the missed calls that are from everyone but Wally.

---

She's still a little rickety on her feet but gets the sense that she's healing; her injures from Athens while numerous aren't nearly as bad as those she received in Metropolis, and before long she can settle her weight more evenly on her feet and walk through the hallways without sending an odd swish to her skirt and attracting the attention of a few too many boys.

It's been five days since she last saw Wally.

The final bell's just rung when she senses eyes on her; like an idiot she fumbles with her book bag, still half-convinced that the trouble she encountered in Greece isn't over, despite the amount of time that's passed. Handling the straps poorly and sending the edge of a textbook clanging loudly into her locker she looks, perhaps a little too wildly, over her shoulder. For some reason it takes her a second to place the stunning blue of his eyes, looking a little strange without a domino mask or shaded lenses to conceal them.

(Dick is on the roof and she's gripping the wheel as tight as she can. Tires are squealing and there's a cliff, she's sending them towards death and she can't save them, she can't save them all—)

He's staring at her from across the hallway, squinting slightly with his hands in his pockets; perhaps it's just because she's looking for it but she can see the weeks old marks from the car accident, her throat tightening as they lock eyes. It strikes her that they're both looking for the same thing.

But that's the thing about the two of them. Whether they like it or not they both know a little too much about each other, have gotten to that point where a look is more than a look, it's reliving a moment, a nightmare—

His staring has attracted the attention of his friends, the same loud group of rowdy boys he always hangs out with at the academy, their conversation abruptly cutting off as they all follow his gaze and spot her.

She feels herself blush at the attention and goes back to her locker, shoving notebooks and the day's homework inside her bag and ignoring the shouting now being directed at her. She's always found the school dynamic with Dick quite strange, always found it difficult to not let on just how well she knows the boy across the hall. It's just odd, coming from a place on the Team where they're... equals, and returning to the crowded Gotham halls and realizing that she'll never be more to anyone here than the scholarship pity case, someone who doesn't really belong...

She doesn't see him waving off his friends but she does hear the lone sound of his tread across the tile; she's always found Dick's stride strange and distinctive to listen to. It's too light, as if he's hardly touching the ground. Most people drag their heels, the edges of their feet but Dick... Dick rolls his whole foot against the ground, high arches balancing his weight too evenly to be entirely natural, every part of his foot ghosting against the ground whether barefoot or clad in the highly polished leather shoes he always wears to school.

She can sense him when she stops beside her, leaning almost too easily against the row of lockers, one hand shoved in his pocket and rumpling the clean lines of his blazer. "What do you want?" She asks instead of greeting him, not looking up from her book bag.

It feels easier to keep up the charade they always do at school— like he's just some annoying freshman who bothers her from time to time, like he isn't one of her best friends in the world.

In answer Dick lowers his jaw, the unnerving blue of his eyes surveying her sharply as his friends keeping hollering obnoxiously across the hall. "A word." He says seriously, jerking his head round to send a look to the group of boys when they start whistling.

She rolls her eyes when he hisses a few choice swears across the hall, slinging her bag over her shoulders. "Not today, Grayson." She says easily, scowling. "Don't have time for—"

"Artemis." He cuts her off, looking at her seriously. Something in the way he says her name makes her stop, the way the syllables in the word don't just roll off his tongue but fly, and instantly she knows it's not just a name, it's a mantle. It's all business. "A word."

She forces the surprised look on her face to fall and instead replaces it with a scowl, too pinched to be real. "Fine." She says shortly, slamming her locker shut. She glares when he straightens, the both of them ignoring the jeering of his friends as he passes her, steering her by the crook of her elbow down the hallway.

The both of them go quiet until they're blended into the crowd of academy students all squacking and excited about the end of the school day, allowing the noise and jostling of the people around them to steer their wandering. She's just got the main doors of the Academy in sight when she can't take it anymore, finally glancing at him. "You wanted a word, remember?" She reminds him, pulling her elbow out of his grip. "... It's nice to see you looking like... Like you." She adds in an undertone.

...Because the last time she saw him he was still mumbling at the wall, eyes unfocused and head rolling on his shoulders...

"It's nice to feel like myself again too." He nods back, hands shoving in his pockets again. "... You're doing okay?" He asks after a moment, glancing down to where she's still limping slightly.

"I'm... Alive." She says honestly, unconsciously gripping the straps of her bag tightly. As if they've previous agreed on it they both walk through the main doors, feet slowing as they both emerge, blinking, into the late afternoon sunshine.

Dick sighs. "Yeah. I guess we're all lucky to be just that after everything." For some reason he stops walking, several feet in front of the doors and in everyone's way, forcing the mob of students leaving school from the day to weave around the two of them. "I wanted to ask... Have you talked to Kal? Since everything... Happened?"

Without thinking about it she presses a hand against the front of her thighs as the wind picks up, forcing the pleats of her skirt to stay flat against her legs; several people are muttering angrily as they have to dodge around her. "No. I mean he— He called me once last week, but I didn't pick up."

"And you haven't seen him or anything?"

"No."

"I figured, since you haven't been around the Cave much..." Dick says the last part almost peevishly, as if he's annoying by her not visiting more often; one of his hands leaves his pocket to smooth back his hair— he's let it get a little longer than usual, the onyx locks looking a little strange when they're so slicked back. "... Kal's been sent back to Atlantis. Happened a few days ago."

It takes almost a whole second for her to process what he's just said, the realization being suddenly knocked into her when someone angrily elbows her out of the way. "What?" She bursts loudly, stepping a little too hard onto her injured ankle; instantly she's rewarded with a sharp pain shooting up to her lower back, muscles and tendons twitching at the movement.

Dick looks impatient when she grimaces down at her foot, wobbling unsteadily when another student bumps her in his anxiousness to leave school for the day. "God, Artemis." He sighs, looking around to see if they were overheard; grabbing her elbow again to steady her he drags her away from the school doors towards a bench in the front courtyard. "Shouldn't you be using crutches or something?"

"What do you mean?" She ignores his question, impatiently ripping her elbow from his hand before he can force her into sitting. "What do you mean they sent him back?" She hisses.

"I shouldn't have said it like that." He mutters, hand musing his hair again as he frowns. "Look, I don't know the whole story—" He sighs, dropping his tone so low she can hardly hear him over the boisterous after-school chatter. "... Aquaman's son had just been born and I guess it was... Suggested, that he go with Tula and Garth to pay a visit to the newest heir to the throne. Take a little time off. That's all I know right now."

She feels herself scowling, ignoring him when he gestures for her to sit. "Is it?" She asks suspiciously, glaring. "What about that little girl— Cassie? Or the diary, I mean, do we have anything—"

"Hey." He cuts her off firmly, glaring back. "Concussion, remember? Been kind of hard to find anything out between all the vomit and migraines. If you don't believe me then ask Wally."

"So much for being a detective." She snorts before hesitating, looking at him warily. "... Speaking of Wally. Have you heard from him? Or seen him? Or anything?"

Dick frowns at her before glancing around the courtyard. "No. Not since last week."

The way he says it is so uncaring, as if it's not odd for Wally to vanish off the face of the earth like she so often does. "So, what? That doesn't bother you? Not hearing from your best friend? Don't you worry that something might be wrong?"

He looks as if he's trying very hard not to roll his eyes at her, the corners of his mouth quirking patiently. "Look who's talking. When was the last time you went to the Cave?" She glares at him, watching as his hands press his hair back against the top of his head. "...Listen, you haven't known Wally as long as I have. Every once in a while he'll... Sometimes he'll just space out for a while. Kind of reminds me of you, actually." He adds as an after thought, smirking when she blushes. "Happens every couple of months. There's some stuff... It's not my thing to tell, alright? But you don't have to pretend to be worried about him or anything. He'll come back."

She feels a pang run through her, annoyed that he doesn't believe she's actually worried; ignoring this she continues on, glaring. "It may be normal for him to space out on you." She says severely. "But Wally's never disappeared on me. Ever."

"Last Christmas never happened, did it?" He counters, a brow raising.

Before she do more than blush and open her mouth angrily she's cut off by a shout across the courtyard, both of their heads turning and catching sight of a redheaded girl across from them, waving Dick over.

She catches herself wrinkling her nose. "Who's that?" She asks, turning just in time to catch the wave he sends back at the unknown girl.

"A friend." Dick says vaguely, looking slightly red about the collar. "By the way, Zatanna's getting annoyed with you skipping out all the time. And the rest of us aren't impressed either. I'd come back there before she starts taking matters into her own hands."

"Right." She nods, eyes flickering back to where the other girl is still waving, beginning to look annoyed. "... Zatanna."

Dick seems to notice her frown and raises a brow at her. "What are you looking so mad about?" He chuckles, eyes catching on something over her shoulder. "You have someone waiting on you too."

She feels like an idiot when she follows his nod, turning to look over her shoulder towards the main gates of the school. She blushes bright red when she sees Wally, grinning sheepishly from the sidewalk, gesturing a little helplessly at her with two ice cream cones in his hand.

---

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asks rudely when she finally reaches him, so surprised to see him that she can't quite be bothered with being anything other than slightly angry.

(As she walks over she can feel the words pounding into the ground through her feet— It's been. Five Days. Since she. Scared him off.)

Instead of answering right away Wally simply grins at her, extending a cone towards her and raising his brows when she doesn't take it. "What?" He asks a little accusingly, still grinning when she squints up at him, the ends of his red hair fading into the brightness of the sun. "You don't like chocolate?"

"You're an idiot." She tells him, finally accepting the cone and rolling her eyes. "Everyone likes chocolate."

"Not everyone." He counters, not bothered by the fact that there are still dozens of uniformed students passing them, sending curious glances at the rumpled collar of his shirt. "Rob hates it. Says it gives him headaches."

She watches for a moment as Wally twists his cone in his hand, tongue trailing up the soft serve. "Yeah, well." She mutters, still too surprised to see if him so suddenly that she can't think of anything better to say. She squints again, not quite able to see his face against the sun, finally bringing the cone to her mouth. "Are you going to tell me why you're here? Or why you decided to completely disappear for the better part of a week?"

Again Wally avoids the question, frowning at her as she sinks her teeth into the top of the cone. "Are you going to tell me why the hell you're biting your ice cream?"

"I'm not biting it."

"Artemis, if you use your teeth it's called biting—"

She makes to roll her eyes at him again, one hand raising absently to shield the sun from her eyes. "Wally—" She starts to say exasperatedly, cutting herself off and feeling a panicked jolt run through her before she realizes why. "Wally, what happened to your eye?"

Now that she's looking at him properly she can tell something's wrong with it; there's a yellowness to the skin around it, the swelling mostly gone but still leaking out into faded purple bruising. "Oh." He says unhelpfully, grimacing and turning to walk away from the main gate of the Academy. "Yeah, that."

"That." She repeats, a little surprised at her own annoyance; Wally doesn't even look back over his shoulder at the word, already walking down the street.

It takes her longer than usual to catch up; Wally's walking so briskly that she doubts she'd even be able to keep up without her ankle still so fragile. In the back of her mind she wonders if he's in the middle of a growth spurt, the both of them having been too busy being angry or mysteriously absent to notice the fact that his stride has gotten so big. Either way it takes her the better part of the block to catch up to him, one arm reaching out to seize him about the elbow and force him to stop. "Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?" She snarls, annoyed at the deliberately blank expression on his face. "First we... That night in my room— and then you're completely gone for the next week, and then suddenly you're at my school and— and what the fuck happened to your eye?"

She says it all too quickly, sounding both angry and worried; the tips of his ears blush red when she reachs up to yank on his jaw, tilting his face down to hers so she can better look at him. "It's not a big deal." He mutters easily, slipping out of her grip and not looking at her.

She feels her brows furrow, hardly glancing down when her own cone begins to dribble melted ice cream onto her hand. "Not a big—" She starts, huffing herself into silence as she catches up to him. "Wally, you have a black eye!"

"Is it still black?" He asks almost conversationally, back to licking his cone. "I figured it would be mostly healed by now— you know, fast metabolism."

He's not expecting her to rush in front of him when she does, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she cuts off his walking, arms spread and cone still dribbling. "Wally." She says as firmly as she can, feeling like a mother forcing the truth out a child as she grits out words between her teeth. "What. Happened."

He exhales hard through his nose, looking anywhere but her. "I kind of had it out with my Dad." He mutters, ears still red. "After the other night, after we... He wasn't happy... Took my phone and everything. This week has been pretty lousy at home."

"Oh." She manages to get out, eyes narrowing hard at the bruising around his eye. With a lurch in her stomach she thinks she sees the faint outline of a wedding ring carved into the top of his cheek. "So he... After you got home?"

"This morning was the tipping point." He mutters, running his free hand through his hair. As if he knows what she's thinking or can somehow sense the anger beginning to bubble inside her he finally looks her in the eye, jaw tight. "... It's fine, Artemis. It— Every once in a while it happens, and if I don't take it he'll..."

When he trails off she feels her hand clench tightly around her cone, some of the starch cracking loudly between her fingers. "... He'll what?"

Wally shakes his head. "Doesn't matter." He tells her, shrugging around her and ignoring the astonished look she sends him as he starts walking again. "It's not a big deal." He repeats.

"Oh, right. Of course it isn't." She snarls out sarcastically, staring incredulously at his back and watching as his one hand keeps ruffling his hair nervously. "So what if your Dad beats you. Sure."

Wally sighs angrily, turning back to look at her. "... I shouldn't have told you. You don't need more stuff to worry about—"

"Yeah, why should your girlfriend know something like that?" She snarls out, glaring at him. "Who am I to worry about something as trivial as, you know, your safety—"

"I told you, it's not a big deal, okay?" He huffs, glancing at a passing car on the street. "He gets mad and I take it, I heal fast. It's fine. Fast—"

"Metabolism." She finishes for him, and more out of frustration than anything she throws her melted cone to the ground, shaking the dribbles of ice cream off her fingers and fumbling angrily with her napkin. "I get it."

Wally looks at her fussing with her sticky hand for a moment before sighing again. "So what, I get the shit kicked out of me and now you're mad too?"

"I'm not mad!" She says childishly, glaring at her cone on the ground and now wishing she had thrown it at him instead. "I'm just... I don't know." She snarls out, finally looking at him.

(Because Wally's hurt and once again it's her fault. If she hadn't been such an idiot, if she hadn't run away and made him chase her like always he would be fine—)

Something in the backs of Wally's eyes hardens, jaw tightening for a moment before he walks back to her. She doesn't know why but the movement feels almost predatory, as if he's got her cornered in an alley rather than in the openness of the late afternoon light. "... I can't believe you just dropped that cone." He finally says, trying to smile and not quite succeeding. "I thought you knew better than to waste food in front of me?"

She exhales loudly through her nose. "... Why are you here, Wally?" She asks, sounding exhausted.

He's not stupid enough to ignore the finality to the question and sighs, taking the least sticky of her two hands between his. "I've had a shitty week." He admits after a moment. "And I just wanted to see you... Look. Can we just... Do you want to be normal for a bit with me?"

He asks her the last part very suddenly, and before she can silence it the memory is sharp in her mind: her father just getting out of prison, the wildness of her demanded normalcy in the darkness of her bedroom. And all at once she thinks she understands this evasiveness, understands what he needs of her even if she doesn't like it and only wants answers for his leaving her and for the mark on his face and whether or not he still wants her at all, after how wild she acted the other night...

(It takes a lot of effort to swallow her own feelings down but she reminds herself that she's supposed to be trying. Supposed to be trying to be the girl he needs.)

((And if he needs someone to get lost in, she can do it, like all the times he's done it for her...))

She forces a smile to her face, getting the sense that Wally's patience for talking about the subject is beginning to get a little strained, in need of distracting. "Fine." She says as evenly as she can, gripping his hand tightly. "How about we start by getting me another ice cream cone?"

---

The two of them walk (or at least start out walking— after a block and a half Wally loses patience with her slowness and talks her into climbing onto his back, her skirt creasing as she circles her legs around his waist) nearly half a dozen blocks before they find a shoddy looking diner.

She catches herself looking at him a little too closely after their food arrives, eyes narrowed and watching intently as he sets to work on the large amount of food he's ordered. In typical Wally fashion he's trying to keep conversation light, trying to distract the two of them with food and forced laughter, as if he thinks he can somehow ease the harshness of the mark on his face into the back of her mind.

She's always knows things between him and his father haven't been... The best. She gets the impression that his family works very hard at pretending to be normal, pretending they don't have some dark secret lurking in the corners of their home like she does. And she's always known that Rudy has a temper, has known it since that night all those months ago when Wally had come slamming into the Cave...

But before he had been running to her... Not running away...

The thought sits oddly in her stomach as her fingers fiddle with the straw of her milkshake and guide it to her mouth. And what had Wally said? "If I don't take it he'll..." He'll what? What happens if Wally doesn't let Rudy hit him? What happens if he fights back?

Wally seems to notice her staring, throat bobbing as he swallows a very large mouthful of burger. "What's up?"

"Nothing." She says quickly, reaching across the table to steal a fry. He's trying very hard to pretend things are still normal between them, and she knows him well enough to understand that she shouldn't breach the topic until she knows exactly what to say to make him feel better.

Wally lets her be quiet for a half second before he forces himself to smirk. "I've been meaning to ask." He grins, taking a bite of his burger and then speaking through a rather full mouth. "What's with all the Alice in Wonderland stuff?"

She pauses in her reaching across the table, the fry she's stolen hovering above the half empty pool of ketchup smearing across his plate. "... What?"

"In your room." He clarifies, and she feels a jolt run through her— she's forcing her mind to be so far away from what happened in her bedroom that it takes her several seconds to remember staring at the poster angrily while they were fighting. Apparently Wally's still dwelling on it. "The poster, above the other bed? And every time I've been at your place I've always seen a copy or two on your book shelves. Is it your favorite book or something?"

She blushes, dunking the fry mercilessly in the ketchup and popping it into her mouth. "Not mine." She says evasively.

The smile on Wally's face crumples slightly as something clicks into place. "Oh... Jade's?"

"Guess it's obvious." She shrugs, leaning back against the red vinyl of their booth. As if knowing what they're talking about she can feel the mark Jade carved into her skin burning slightly at the movement, silently screaming at the feeling of being pressed against the sweltering plastic. "I remember her reading it all the time when we were kids. I guess I just started liking it too, after a while. But that was all when she was just Jade not... Cheshire."

Wally goes quiet, glancing out the window beside them and staring out at the Gotham streets, still managing to look grey and depressing even in the early spring sunshine. "... So, if she's Cheshire, does that makes you Alice?" He asks suddenly.

She hears herself snort. "Doesn't make me anything."

"Come on, blonde hair?" He teases, gesturing at her pony tail. "And you both look good in blue."

She glances down at the navy of her blazer and scowls. "I'm not anything in that stupid story."

Wally keeps talking, ignoring how annoyed she is by the suggestion as he starts eating again. "If you're Alice then who am I? The Mad Hatter?"

"You're both big enough lunatics." She mutters peevishly, trying not to smile when Wally makes a face, eyes crossing. "... Maybe the White Rabbit."

"Is that supposed to be a metaphor for something?"

"Metaphor? I means you're always late. And getting me into trouble."

"Oh." Wally swallows another large mouthful, nearly finished. "I thought you meant like... Never mind."

He misses the almost expectant look she sends him but he can't avoid the kick she aims at him underneath the table, the toes of her good foot prodding him a little painfully until he gives in, ears going crimson. "I thought you meant— you know, after the other night, like... I mean. Rabbits are— they fuck a lot." He finishes badly in an undertone, going red.

Wally's blushing seems to set off her own, and suddenly the two of them are as red as the booth they're sitting in. "Oh. Right." She mutters, horrified, shifting her weight in her seat.

"I mean, not that we actually, you know—"

"Yeah. No. I get it."

They're suddenly back to doing what they do best— specifically, not talking about it. Rather than embarrass herself anymore she avoids his eyes as he watches her look wildly around the diner, staring hard at the other patrons and wondering there's ever going to be a time where she won't be this embarrassed around him.

Wally allows her almost a minute of doing this before he loses patience; out of the corner of her eye she watches as he sets down his burger again, wiping his hands on a napkin and leaning across the table to whisper at her. "I just want you to know... I wanted to, the other night." He says very quickly, eyes fixed firmly on her as she keeps blushing brighter. She doesn't know why but she can't bring herself to believe him. "I was just kind of surprised, like, we've never really talked about.." He trails off for a moment, waiting for her to stop pretending to glare at another customer and tilt her jaw towards him, listening properly.

"... Okay." She says evasively, wishing he would stop talking altogether.

"And I mean, when it happens— I mean, I'll make sure it's really—"

She's now blushing so hard that she can actually feel the temperature of her cheeks reaching a boiling point. "Wally." She murmers, hiding behind her hands. "Don't do this, okay? Let's just... Forget it happened, alright?"

When she peeks out at him between her fingers he's looking at her a little blankly, blinking once. "Forget it happened?" He repeats.

She's mortified that they're even talking about what happened at all. "Yeah." She shrugs, removing her hands. "I mean... It was a bad idea in the first place." She mutters out, not meaning what she's saying but still putting it out there in case it's what he's thinking.

Wally looks confusedly at her for a several more seconds before he seems to lose some of his nerve, going back to his burger that's nearly finished and looking muddled. She feels like crying when he doesn't disagree with her. "I... Okay. If that's what you want, I guess."

"Great." She sighs, tapping her good heel moodily against the floor and watching for several minutes as he finishes off the better part of his food. It takes her a little too long to remember that she's supposed to be trying to be more caring, and take better care of him. "... You going home tonight?" She asks after a while.

Wally takes another bite, nearly finished. "Not sure." He shrugs at the table. "Probably just go to the Cave. Or maybe Dick's, that's where I've always gone when... Yeah."

She nods, her bare thighs sticking against the booth when she shifts her weight again. "Okay. Well... Do you want me to go there with you?"

"To Dick's?"

"To the Cave, idiot." She corrects him, scoffing. "Because— I mean, you said you wanted to see me, or whatever."

Wally's eyes catch hers, remnants of the burger suspended halfway to his mouth and looking at her as if he doesn't quite understand her at all. "Oh. Yeah, actually." He says very shortly. She doesn't know why but she scowls.

---

She feels a strange surge of protective energy building up overwhelmingly inside her, all her pent up frustration with Wally and what would have happened in her bedroom if she hadn't been an idiot turning inward and making her startlingly clingy despite her bad mood; as if the Metropolis girl is somehow back but with better intentions she tightens her grip on Wally's hand, hating his absence between her fingers in the few seconds they're forced to separate for their atoms to dissolve in the zeta tubes.

It bothers her, truly bothers her, than someone could look at Wally and... And hurt him like that. Like some sort of water torture it drips and aggravates her all day, the idea that someone supposed to protect him, supposed to raise him would hurt him. She feels an angry surge of hatred for Rudy, for the man who gave Wally his red hair and his freckles and his temper.

A part of her wonders if maybe this is how he felt when he found out about her father, and vividly she remembers the moment her first saw her scar, the anger and disbelief that had passed over his features...

... And another part wonders if they're really as different as she once thought...

They get to the Cave late, the hallways seeming oddly empty as they walk through them; either everyone is out or avoiding them in their annoyance, and either way she finds she doesn't care. She waits until later, when they're both curled up on the couch in their pajamas and Wally's head is in her lap before she brings it up again, hoping the comfort of the half darkness and the sappiness of the show they're watching will somehow hide how disturbed she is. Unthinkingly she knots her fingers through his hair, watching at his eyelashes flutter at the touch. "... How come you never told me?" She asks quietly, half embarrassed and half curious. She can't bring herself to be more specific.

(She had always thought there was a magic in the way Wally came back to her, how she could push him away and he'd still be there, fighting to stand beside her for a few seconds before she started struggling against him again. It had been endearing. And her speech the other day, she had thought she was being noble, vowing to find her way back to him but...

Is he only coming back to her because he has nowhere else better to go?)

In answer Wally shifts, back flattening against the couch and head rolling on her lap, neck arching over the swelling of her thigh. Without her explaining he seems to understand the question. "... I don't know." He mutters, sounding tired with the lateness of the hour. "I guess it felt... Like I would be whining? Because... I mean, Dad's an asshole." He shrugs, and she catches herself staring a little too hard at the bruising on his face that she can hardly see anymore but still knows if there. "But you know... He's not like Sportsmaster."

Her nail slips, scraping a delicate line across his forehead and prompting her to whisper an apology when he lets out a small hiss of pain. For several seconds it's very quiet in the half light of the common area, her eyes locked on Wally's as he looks up at her. "I thought we were done with that." She says vaguely, swallowing and resuming her fiddling with his hair. "With trying to out suffer each other."

"We are." Wally says firmly, rolling back to face the television as if the matter is settled. "... But if we weren't, you know you'd win this one."

The comment bothers her, her eyes narrowing to glare at him even though he isn't looking— she doesn't need his pity. But maybe that's what he's saying too; maybe neither of them need to compete with the other about who's been through more. Maybe they've outgrown their childish games. Maybe they just need to be there for each other.

Still, she catches herself biting her tongue, twisting a ginger lock around her forefinger. "... You can tell me stuff, you know." She says, repeating his words from so long ago, back when she was the one trying not to break down and he had been the one to comfort her. "... I don't want you to feel like... You don't always have the be the tough one here." She says badly, blushing when the corner of Wally's mouth perks up. "I'm pretty tough too."

It's not exactly what she wants to say— that he's supported her through a lot worse and it's the least she can do, really, to listen to his problems— but it seems to be enough for Wally; at the very least something seems to settle between them, as if her just attempting to say it aloud is enough for him.

Instead of saying anything he hushes her, head rolling underneath her hands in an attempt to get her to start playing with his hair properly again. "Sure, Blondie. As if you'd ever let me forget it."

---

Wally jerks violently in his sleep, one hand flying upwards and knocking her about the chin; it's not hard enough to bruise by any means, but it's hard enough to jolt her out of her sleep.

They've fallen asleep on the couch and in her own unconsciousness she's managed to end up slumped against the cushions, neck lolling uncomfortably against the bend between its back and arm; either in his sleep or in a few moments of wakefulness Wally's thrown himself almost entirely on top of her, his body boiling hot as always and the weight of his head pressed so surely between the slopes of her breasts that she's suddenly wondering how she managed to sleep through hardly being able to breathe.

She makes tired noise in the back of her throat and shrugs off Wally's hand from where it's now been tickling her neck, one of her own removing itself from where it's been looped between pieces of his hair to scrub the sleep from her face; there's a kick of the familiar walnut smell that seems to wake her, eyes squinting up to look blearily at the light of the television.

She likes being close to Wally, especially with how... Precarious, things have been between them.

(But when have things ever not been precarious with Wally? When has she ever felt like she's really been on solid ground? There's always something...)

Maybe she should wake him, convince both of them to get up and go back to their rooms... But it is quite nice, she supposes, his warmth, the closest she's been to him since her bare breasts were pressing against the muscles of his chest, lips opening under his—

"Hi."

She's just registered the static on the screen and nearly jumps out of her own skin when someone speaks out to her in the darkness; instinctively all her muscles jolt into readiness, both hands clutching tightly around Wally as she inhales sharply, the tiniest frightened squeak firing out of her throat as if ready to scream.

In the less than half second it takes her eyes to recognize the familiar broad set of shoulders sitting in the chair across from her Wally's awake, one leg firing out wildly and smacking against the coffee table. "Babe?" He chokes out after a hiss of pain, trying and failing to get onto his elbows to look at her, her grip not yet loosened around him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She gasps out, heart still thundering under his ear. "Nothing. Connor just scared me, it's fine."

"Sorry."

Wally mutters something she doesn't quite catch, head burrowing against her shoulder; now that she's so incredibly awake she's realizing she's starving, being so distracted with comforting Wally and worrying herself sick over him that she's forgotten to eat more than a few of his fries that afternoon. "Move." She nudges him. "I'm hungry."

He mutters something again, finally obliging her and sliding off. "... Get me some to."

She rolls her eyes even though his aren't open to see it; as she gets to her feet she thinks she can see Connor staring at her in the dim light.

She hasn't spent much time with Connor, just the two of them; vaguely she remembers her initial attraction to him, trying and failing at making nice with a cup of tea. Since then any moments shared between them have been scarce and slightly embarrassing for her, usually accompanied by the swift appearance of M'gann or another teammate who cut some of the tension. It's not that she doesn't like Connor—he's a good guy, he treats M'gann well and Wally seems to enjoy his company. But she mostly senses that they simply don't have much in common, despite what she first thought, beyond participation in the Team.

It's a little hard to ignore his stare as she rounds the back of the couch, especially when both their eyes fly to Wally when he starts snoring. "... What, do you want something too?" She asks a little coldly.

"No." He replies in his typical short sentences. Suspecting he's nearing his word limit for the day she shrugs, giving him up as a bad job and making a beeline towards the refrigerator.

She's immediately disappointed when she examines its contents; there aren't any good leftovers inside it, and judging by its more barren than usual shelves those who were around for dinner must have eaten the best of what was left. Scowling slightly, she pushes aside a tupperware full of an unidentifiable mush and pursues deeper inside the fridge.

She's just pulled a take-out container clearly marked with Zatanna's name—she's put out to discover only stale looking fries inside, as if the main entre has already been eaten—when she realizes the buzzing static of the television is no longer present, only the muddy sound of Wally's snoring filling the room. Popping one fry into her mouth she straightens and makes to glance back towards the television, curious.

Like an idiot she jumps again, mouth fumbling around the fry and sending her hacking for a few seconds; the television is off and Connor's somehow managed to sneak up on her, the door of the fridge colliding with his chest as she swings it open a little wildly in her surprise. Connor looks only mildly confused at the reaction, one brow quirking as she presses a hand to her mouth to contain her coughing.

The snoring on the other side of the room stops almost immediately. "Babe?

"M'good." She chokes out, forcing her screaming lungs to go quite, eyes streaming. "Go back to sleep."

Connor doesn't say anything as she tries to glare at him, cheeks red and lungs still not quite working. "I thought you said you didn't want anything?" She wheezes.

She gets a single blink. "I don't."

The way he says it— the overwhelming plainness of his tone, as if something is obvious to him that isn't to her, strikes a nerve. "Okay." She says back the same way, scowling and fetching a bottle of ketchup from the fridge.

He's back to staring at her, eyes slightly narrowed as she walks a little unsteadily towards the island; she can tell by the weight of the container that there's only enough food inside it to satisfy her, the stale leftovers nowhere near what's needed to tackle Wally's infamous late night snacking. Almost defiantly she stares back at Connor as she drags a chair out, wondering vaguely if she's about to be yelled at.

There's nearly a minute of silence in the kitchen, consisting of Connor and her staring each other down from opposite ends of the room; she doesn't realize what she's waiting for until Wally starts snoring again, a loud rumpling noise from the couch telling her he's thrown himself back against the cushions, sleeping again. "... Can I help you?" She finally asks in an undertone.

"You're back."

"From Athens?" She guesses, bracing her elbows on the counter. "Uh, yeah."

Before she's even finished speaking he's shaking his head, a few stray pieces of onyx hair falling across his forehead and reminding her quite suddenly of how handsome he is. "No. I've known you've been back from the mission for a while." A pair of bulging arms cross in front of his chest, blocking the stark red "S" from view. "I meant you're back at the Cave."

"Oh." She croaks out, a little confused. More to give herself something to do other than stare at the hardly blue irises of his eyes she opens Zatanna's take out box, fumbling with the ketchup bottle and wincing when it squeaks. "Didn't realize I was gone that long."

"Almost three weeks. That's not like you."

"Didn't realize you knew what I was like."

There's more quiet after she says it, the only sounds Wally's increasingly obnoxious snores and her teeth grinding between bites of Zatanna's food. Unlike herself she drops his gaze and ignores it when he starts staring at her again, face almost vacant of expression; despite being free from Cadmus for almost ten months he's still a little off.

Out of the corner of her eye Connor finally nods vaguely, still watching her eat. She's just started wondering if he means to talk to her about anything more specific or if this is about as close as he'll allow himself to get to having an actual conversation with her when suddenly his fists flex for a moment, forcing the tendons to pop on his arms. "… We all know." Connor blurts out, eyes narrowed. That Sportsmaster is out of prison. You don't have to hide it from us."

She thinks she deserves credit for not choking on her food again; out of all the people she's been expecting to have this conversation with, Connor isn't one of them. Still, she swallows her food a little painfully, her eyes watering at the sudden pressure in her chest. "Right." She says almost warily. "Okay..."

Connor stares at her for a solid ten seconds, seeming to study her expression in a way that makes her blush; she manages to hold his gaze dazedly for a second or two before hungrily returning to Zatanna's fries.

"… Do you want tea?"

She looks up from the nearly empty take out box so quickly she can feel her neck spasm, looking at him with a ridiculous amount of surprise despite her slightly bulging cheeks. "Do I—what?" She asks between her food.

"Do you want tea?" He repeats, and suddenly she's hit with a hard sense of déjà vu, as if its months ago and she's still new to the Team, still trying desperately to prove herself and attempting to make friends in all the wrong places. "Wally says you're better at talking when you have tea." He adds, jerking his head towards the couch as if to clarify.

She hasn't even properly replied and yet he's already setting to work, moving quickly around the kitchen cupboards; instantly her cheeks blush again, and more to give herself something to do other than watch him fumble with preparing the kettle she tosses the empty take out box a few feet beside her and into the trash. "Connor." She says seriously after a moment, folding her hands neatly on the island counter, feeling as if she's talking to a small child. "Is there something you want to talk to me about?"

He keeps his back to her as he messes with the burner. "… Wally thinks you don't talk enough."

Instantly her brows furrow, glaring at the back of his head. "… Really." She hears herself say coldly.

As if understanding what her tone means Connor turns back round to her, posture still stiff. "Yeah. He was telling me—he gets really worried when you stop talking and disappear on all of us. He doesn't think it's healthy."

She can feel her blood beginning to pound angrily in her ears, and she supposes he must be able to hear it too; suddenly the serious look on his face is cracking, looking anxious. "Not that he was talking about you behind your back or anything." He says quickly. "He just—he's my friend. And he says it helps him when he talks to me about stuff. So I just figured… You know. You can talk to me about stuff too."

For some reason she feels oddly taken aback; she always forgets how kind Connor actually is, forgets that his soft, unfailingly loyal center is hidden beneath such a hardened and encrusted outer layer. Despite herself she feels her brows raise just as the kettle behind him starts hissing tiny streams of air, signaling it's a few minutes away from being boiled.

"... Wally talks to you about stuff?" She hears herself ask suddenly, fingers clenching so tightly together she can see lines of white popping around her knuckles.

Connor seems to notice too, his eyes falling to her hands. "Yeah." He shrugs, arms crossing again.

She can sense the slightest bit of unease there, as if they both know they're tiptoeing around something they shouldn't be talking about. Still, she doesn't hesitate, even with Wally's snores coming so loudly from the couch. "... Has he ever mentioned his Dad?"

This time she's the one watching his hands; there's the distinct sound of joints popping and knuckles cracking as he clenches his fist, so tightly for a moment and hardly hidden underneath the fold of his arms. "Not a lot." Connor admits after a moment. "He doesn't like talking about him."

"Do you know why?" She presses.

Unconsciously his head turns back towards the couch, looking on for a moment and listening hard to the snoring that must be almost thunderous in his ears. When he looks back towards her something in his jaw is set, making him look suddenly more sinister. Less human. "I know you've met him." Connor sighs. "I've met him too, right when I first left Cadmus. Wally let me stay with him for a few days."

She nods encouragingly but it still seems to take him a few seconds to decide on the phrasing; one thing she's noticed about Connor is that he never says anything without meaning it. Every word he utters seems to carry a heavy amount of significance and thought with it. "... Wally's dad is a bully. I don't think there's another way to put it." He finally gets out. "I'm sure he loves his family but... He likes picking on them. Likes controlling them.

"Not in a sinister way, or anything. But I guess Wally grew up watching him pick fights with his mother, sometimes getting a little rough... Wally doesn't tell me much. But it kind of seems like he started standing up for his mom when he got old enough."

Connor breaks of and too late she realizes that she's had one of Zatanna's fries suspended halfway to her mouth for nearly half a minutes. She clears her throat, suddenly not hungry. "... It's just weird to me." She mutters. "When I went over there it was like... It was like they were the perfect family. I couldn't image anyone being unhappy there."

And she feels like an idiot for being jealous.

"I don't think it was all bad." Connor admits after a moment. "Wally loves his parents... I just think sometimes he runs and finds his own happiness somewhere else, is all."

She wants desperately to keep talking but suddenly he's got his back to her, hand removing the kettle from the burner seconds before it boils. She doesn't offer him any help when it comes to making tea; this is his idea and he should be the one to do it. Still, she wrinkles her nose when he pours too little water and plops two bags into two separate cups after, and nearly stops him altogether when he spoons a heaping teaspoon of sugar into each one without stirring; instead of saying anything she bites the inside of her cheek, wondering when they can start talking again.

Connor passes her a cup and takes a seat across from her, his own mug in his hands. She can tell immediately that the tea is made all wrong; it wasn't steeped for long enough, the hot water hardly softening the leaves before he had removed the bags—he's more prepared her sweetened leaf water than actual tea. More to be polite than anything she raises the cup to her lips, trying not to grimace when she tastes it.

"Thanks."

He nods pointedly, taking a sip of his own cup; either he actually likes what he's drinking or he doesn't really know what it's supposed to taste like, and regardless his face remains impassive as he swallows. She keeps her eyes on the liquid in her cup, mind, listening hard when she hears his cup settle against the counter, her own hands clenching tightly around the porcelain. "... I don't want to talk about Wally anymore." He says plainly.

It's so firm that she can't help but look up, stunned. "What? Why?"

Instead of answering he drops his jaw, surveying her. "… Are you scared?" He asks quietly.

She feels her head duck down as she scowls, as if her neck is suddenly unable to support its weight. Her nose whistles as she inhales. "I don't know." She says honestly, hesitating. She hears Wally's snoring from the couch and decides to change her answer. "… Not as much as I was a couple weeks ago, I guess."

She glances up in time to see him nod thoughtfully at her, his lower lip stiff like the rest of him. "I don't think you should be." He tells her.

"Yeah?" She's not entirely comfortable talking to him about this, and she still can hear the slightly biting edge of her sneering; Connor for his part seems unbothered by her renewed coldness, no longer earnest and desperate to talk to him. "Why not?"

He pauses, sipping the tea again; this time she actually sees his mouth pucker behind his cup in disgust. "You're a good fighter." He says after a moment. "I think you could take Sportsmaster, or at least hold him off for long enough."

The way he says it makes it sound as if it's the most rational place to start an argument; she snorts slightly into her cup as she lifts it to her mouth again, slugging back the foul tasting liquid. "Right."

For some reason Connor smiles at her, a wreck of perfect teeth, shining eyes, and a dimpled chin. "I think you'd be less scared if you stopped trying to deal with it on your own." He adds thoughtfully. "M'gann gets really upset when you spend so long away from the Cave. She misses you."

"Oh." She tries to say, instead getting stopped by an odd tightening in her throat.

"And Wally doesn't like when you don't return his phone calls." He adds almost as an after thought when she stay quiet. "... You make him really happy, Artemis."

She ignores the pained jolt that runs through her and tries to look as if what he's said hasn't just stopped her heart altogether, not knowing what to say. "... That's another good point." She says hoarsely.

She looks at him expectantly for another few seconds, watching his handsome features suddenly go flat again. "That's about all I have, off the top of my head." He says honestly after a moment; she can see his hand reach up to clap the back of his neck, and she realizes with a pang that it's a gesture he's borrowed from Wally. "Did I help?"

She doesn't know why but she nods, allowing herself to try to smile back at him as he drains his cup of liquid entirely. "Yeah." She says, and she's surprised to discover that she's not entirely lying. "Thanks, Connor."

He shrugs at her, and not long after he rinses his cup out and bids her goodnight; she has the tact to wait until he's left the room before dumping the rest of her tea down the sink.

---

AN: Another chapter up, even if it is one of the transitional ones I always hate. Sorry about the delay again, exams have been hectic and this has been sitting almost finished for the better part of a week.

I received a ton of reviews for the last chapter, mostly people demanding for an update... Sorry to keep you waiting!

A quick Q&A...

Q: When are these chapters taking place? What year is it?

A: The first season of the show covers the better part of Team-Year 1, and Parenthesis starts immediately after all the kissing on the Watchtower. In my story I mark New Years Eve as the start of a new year in Team time. So right now it's Team-Year 2, sometime towards the end of April.

Q: What happened to the playlist before each chapter?

A: If I'm going to be plain and simple, I thought it was a waste of time. Only two people over the course of writing this have ever mentioned it to me, and to be frank I thought nobody was interested. I still have the songs that I work to, and the chapter titles are still given their names from the lyrics to these songs. If there's a popular demand for them I'll start putting them back up, but if there's no interest then I figured why bother?

Read and review (especially if you want ETA's on new chapters!)