AN: Now that school's out this chapter marks my return to full time writing and the official start of summer! Enjoy the update.
She doesn't know how long it takes for her to feel like she exists again.
The seconds seem to tick by in strange spurts, both as fast as the turning of a page in a book and as slow as the evenings she spent as a child, trapped in her apartment. Her heartbeat slaps against her skin and her hair keeps fluttering down from her scalp, looking like platinum leaves swaying from autumn branches. She feels dizzy, weightless, on all fours and digging her fingers into the ragged edges of the rooftop pebbles, as if afraid the world is about to flip and she'll be launched into the abyss of the evening sky. She's stopped breathing.
("You can't not breathe, Artemis." Wally tells her, nearly shaking her and trying to get her to come out of her panic. "Come on, do it with me— in and out together, come on—")
She exhales, her breath steaming up in front of her face and stinging her eyes with its metallic scent; she's bitten the inside of her cheek raw and bloody without knowing it, and before she can even exhale again she's vomiting.
Her stomach has been empty for hours and there's nothing to bring up; nothing except that black flakey bile she so hates that clings to the damaged muscles of her throat, nothing except the blood pouring from the inside her cheek and dribbling down her chin. She tries to swallow and instead spits, sweating so much every seam of her uniform is slick, limbs shaking with the effort of holding herself upright.
(The easy thing would be to fall to pieces, to collapse under the weight of panic and shock weighing down on her. The easy thing would be to die—)
Focus.
Focus.
(And when the familiar tightness digs into her shoulder she thinks of talons, thinks of overlong fingernails that threaten to choke her if she disobeys. She can't lose it now. She can't drown in the horribleness of what's just happened. She can't, she can't—)
She can't. Not when Wally needs her.
She's hardly aware moving until she's stopped, the palms of her hands splitting open and the padding on her knees ripping as she crawls unsteadily through the jagged pebbles of the roof to reach Wally.
(Wally is infinitely more important than she is, infinitely better. And even though she feels like she's about to die she knows she can't, not yet, not until she's sure he's safe—)
He's soaking wet when she reaches out a bloody hand to touch him, her thumb leaving a crimson mark on his mask when she pushes his fringe back; the spray Kaldur sent flying before has left his hair plastered to his head, uniform clinging to his skin, still sallow and nearly translucent in the half light. He hasn't moved from where he slammed his head into the cement border, arms still spread eagled and legs still bent, as if he's about to take off in a sprint again.
(And now more than ever she wants to— needs to— be held by him. She wants him to carry her places far away from the horribleness of tonight, far away from the nightmares that are sure to plague her when she falls asleep—)
It's childish, the way she tries to lift his arm, as if she can hide from the battle underneath it; it feels heavy and deadened in his unconsciousness and she's too weak to support it. "Kid." She tries to say, but her throat won't allow it; either from damage or shock she's lost her voice, mouth opening and only managing to croak the beginning letters before it trails off in a pathetic, almost mangled noise. "Kid." She tries again, no better. Her fingers leave blood behind on his uniform.
There's the sound of more fighting close by, her neck to sore to crane around and see who's winning anymore— the real fight is over anyway, her father got away. They lost. She failed. Her chin wobbles and the arm keeping her upright gives out, her shoulder cutting open as she collapses into the stones. "Wally." She tries to say, voice breaking and stopping altogether before she can finish his name.
(She's only dismissed the battle of Metropolis a few times and now more than ever she doesn't believe herself, especially as she lies there looking at the pool of blood under his shoulder; lying beside him with the life drained out of her she realizes they'll always be running from that place, from the wreck of a person it created. It could be years from now and she will still see it's familiarity in the way they lie in bed beside each other, the way she can taste it in the blood scented air, in the few seconds she wakes from nightmares, unsure what she will see when she rolls over—)
Tears are still running down her cheeks and selfishly she keeps trying to wake him; he's better off under, better off in the comfort of the blanket of unconsciousness, but she's too cowardly to lie here alone— too weak, as always, to exist. When she reaches achingly for his hand he makes a grunting sort of noise in the back of his throat, head lifting to blink around blearily before his eyes close again. He doesn't respond when she wraps her fingers around his hand, exhaling with relief when she feels the reassuring thumping of his pulse beating back at her.
There it is.
She can die happy now, she tells herself, rolling onto her back and staring out at the stars. The blackened corners of her vision are seeping out in front of her. As long as Wally's alive she can die happy.
("In and out together.")
It can't be longer than ten minutes before she's awake again; the blood dribbling down the back of her neck has clotted and crusted over in the chill of the night and her limbs feels stiff, bruised and battered and locked tightly with sleep. "A-Artemis?" A very wet palm presses against her cheek and then her shoulder, as if unsure who they're looking at.
She tells herself that she doesn't belong to that name anymore, and can't bring herself to open her eyes.
"Babe?" There's the scuttling of pebbles and the wet hand is back, pressing against her shoulder and rolling her onto her back. "Artemis? Artemis?"
It's the panic in his voice that does it, and no matter how much she hates the name her father gave her she has to answer to it; when she blinks her eyes open Wally's leaning over her, eyes focused on the symbol across her breasts as if he can't identify her without it. "Hi." She tries to say, the word coming out hoarse and barely audible.
He's soaking wet and shivering from Kaldur's water, blood still spilling from his shoulder and leaking a steady crimson line down his chest. "Oh my god." He mutters, and she's a little startled to see tears in his eyes. "What— what happened?" He's still got a lipstick stain on his cheek and for some reason it makes her feel like laughing at him. "What happened to your hair?"
They get to the part she doesn't want to talk about, and instead of answering she closes her eyes.
She floats in and out of consciousness until the battle really ends, only half listening as people shuffle around them and make decisions. Wally prompts her into sitting up and pretends not to notice when she vomits bile all over herself again.
"Something's wrong." She hears Zatanna whisper in the darkness; it's so open on the roof top, even the smallest sounds creep up and echo against the cement. "... Look at Artemis."
It's the wrong time for her to be glaring blankly at her boots but she's too torn up to do anything else. It doesn't help that Wally's still staring blatantly at the shredded remains of her hair.
She's disoriented when they get to the hospital. Things happen in strange bursts of speed again: she sees the front desk, feels Wally's hand in hers. The lipstick print on his cheek and the lipstick stain on a coffee cup by the receptionist's keyboard don't match in color but mean the same thing to her, for some reason. Kaldur is worried and she can hear the dialing of the phone but she can't feel herself breathing— someone says her name and she forgets to look back and suddenly she's in the sterility of a cold hospital room, no idea how she got there.
Nurses materialize out of nowhere and she's forced behind a faded yellow curtain to be poked and prodded at; she's ignored when she tries to scream, ignored when she asks where her Team has gone, nurses telling her to be quiet when she tries and fails to shout Wally's name. Something's wrong. Zatanna's voice sounds in her head again and again, Something's wrong, Something's wrong.
("Where's Wally?" She says the words out loud but that means nothing to these people; Wally West doesn't exist to them—)
Cornered behind the yellow curtain she feels just like she did last November— Wally's in trouble and hurt and she's been stupid enough to leave his side; she needs to find him, needs to make sure he's alive because suddenly she can't remember if his breathing on the rooftop was real or dream and she's scared, she's terrified—
(If Wally isn't alive she isn't either— she can't live without him—)
One of the nurses— an older woman with kind eyes who reminds her of a softer Paula— sighs, a stray hand reaching up to double check the crisscrossed bobby pins behind her ear. "You need to calm down, dear." She tells her, as if it's an instruction. "You're in shock."
(A part of her feels repulsion at the words; she's a Crock— they don't feel shock, they don't feel weakness. They know only resiliency and determination and adrenaline before they feel nothing, nothing at all—)
As much as she wants to follow the woman's orders she can't, swearing violently when they come at her with a hospital gown and practically spitting when they try to strip her; after several minutes of a very violent tantrum the Paula-like woman, who seems to be in charge of the rest of them, lets out another sigh and resigns to examining her through her uniform.
It's a waste of time and she tells them as much, and in the few minutes she can stand to sit still for them she rattles of her list of injuries as well as they do: head wound, concussion. Several bruised ribs and a pulled shoulder, palms and knees sliced open with rocks that need to be dug out, her left eye scratched and swollen. Angry purple bruises around her neck but only irritated vocal chords.
"Where's Kid Flash?" She finally manages to say, voice still scratchy sounding but at least functional.
She's ignored.
She's ignored again and again as she repeats the question; for some reason she latches onto the words, saying them over and over until she sounds like a parakeet, voice breaking and occasionally failing to work altogether. She says it to the nurses, to the ceiling tiles, to the speckles of blood and sick on her boots. She doesn't get an answer from any of them.
The softer version of Paula catches her muttering the question under her breath, her hands rubbing together and reopening wounds until there's blood trickling off her fingers. "... Evidence of psychological trauma." She says in an undertone to another nurse, reaching for the bandages.
She feels a lot less warmly towards Not-Paula after that.
By and large there's not a lot they can do for her— her ribs are only bruised and the rest of the wounds are too superficial to need anything other than a good cleaning, although her eye has begun to sting. She allows them to bandage her hands but for some reason starts laughing when they try to wrap her head in what can only be described as a turban of bandages; the second they leave the room she rips this from her head so violently that she nearly takes what's left of her hair with it.
Leaving the bloody turban behind she gets to her feet, not bothering to be discrete; she's leaving, she's going to find Wally, and like a hurricane ripping destruction through a landscape nothing in this world is going to stop her.
It's slow going, finding Wally; the hallway outside of her room seems mostly abandoned in the lateness of the hour, only a distant squeaking of sneakers against tile telling her that anyone is even in the building.
Parts of her are beginning to ache as adrenaline seeps out of her system, the shakiness and weakness of her muscles telling her that she'll be worse off, way worse off, tomorrow. The weaker part of her is tempted to turn back and return to the plushness of her hospital bed.
(Wally. Wally. Wally.)
Now that the world is no longer as blurry with the overwhelming need for survival it occurs to her that she's been here before— there's something familiar about the light fixtures, the sickly peach of the walls. She pauses, hardly a foot outside her room, hand reaching out for balance to clutch at the door frame.
(And the memory hits her, harder than she knows is safe— her fingers are cracked open and crusted in blisters and she's staring at her reflection. She's a mess of bitten lips and sallow skin and Wally is motionless in bed... The salty air of Metropolis is still clinging to her hair and even the sterility of bleach can't hide the lingering scent of vomit and death, and when her fingers press against the door frame she leaves blood smeared pieces of herself behind—)
It's the same hospital. They brought her to the same hospital.
And if she's being logical she knows there's a difference between this time and the last, that any old feelings lurching up like vomit in her throat are just the same memories she's been trying to outrun since February. She knows that wherever Wally is he isn't half dead, isn't lying helpless in the dirt with only a few muttered words between him and bleeding out on the pavement.
(But a part of her is afraid that if she doesn't double check, see for herself—)
(It would be all her fault if he died. All her fault, all her fault—)
(Worthless.)
She only checks a few different rooms but it still takes nearly twenty minutes to find him, her ribs practically boiling with anger under her skin at all the movement; by the time she finds the room with the clip board bearing Flash, Kid on it she feels as if her torso has received the same treatment as a slice of beef working its way through a meat tenderizer.
It's in her nature to hesitate but when she pauses outside of his door it's more out of habit than anything— a lingering half memory of when there were boundaries between them, when he was anything other than necessary for her survival, less to her than what he is now: the blood in her veins. A reason to live.
She shouldn't hesitate but she does— thinking only of Wally, of the comfort of his arms. Thinking only of how badly she wants to retreat into the darkness of his bedroom and hide beneath the covers, how badly she wants him and only him to clean her wounds, nurse her back to health, how she wants him to piece her back together because she's fallen apart again, she's been beaten and shattered just as much as she was at the age of ten and for the first time she's not sure she's strong enough to do her own mending.
She's exhausted, so tired, so broken that she can't manage anymore; she wants Wally to carry her to bed and tell her she's still beautiful even though (and she hasn't looked at her own reflection, she can't cope with the deadened eyes in the mirror) she's sure her hair is now only inches long in some places, raw stretches of scalp exposed in others. She wants Wally to treat her like a child and promise her silly things that are simultaneously meaningless and worth the world and—
... Promises.
Her hand tightens on the doorknob as the memories from the battle flood back to her in the violent way they always do hours after a mission; suddenly she's hit by a stream of emotion so strong she actually feels waves of it washing over her, making her disoriented, dizzy, confused.
Wally had promised her he would listen.
Wally had promised he would try to be safe.
Wally had held her in his arms, looked her in the eye and swore that this time— this time would be different from Metropolis. This time he wouldn't hurl himself like a human cannon ball, wouldn't sacrifice himself for her, wouldn't bleed out on the pavement and make her watch—
Suddenly her throat is burning with anger and her hands are tense under her bandages as she tightens her grip on the door frame. Wally had promised. He had sworn that to her, had sworn that small and stupid thing, and hadn't even bothered to pretend to keep it.
And she thinks of all the other times she's heard those words—
("You have nothing to worry about, Darling." Her mothers mutters into the end of her pig tail. She's ten years old and no matter how much she tells herself she's excited to finally be out with her parents she can't stop feeling nervous. "Nothing will go wrong, Mommy and Daddy will be there. We'll have a cup of tea after, I promise—")
("... Don't be such a baby." Jade sneers at her, reaching out to wipe her tears. Her mother is gone and Lawrence reeks of liquor in the next room. "Why are you crying, anyway? I'm still here."
"And you're never going to leave?"
Jade scoffs. "Duh. Promise.")
(Her arms ache as she fires again and against into the targets, trying not to let any relief cross her features as Lawrence calls for her to stop— if she shows any weakness he'll make her run the drill another time. "We're going to make your sister sorry she ever left." He tells her, grasping her chin affectionately and sneering at her. "That's a promise, Baby Girl.")
It's bullshit, it's all been bullshit— another lie told to manipulate her, trick her into thinking she's worth more than she is. The fact of the matter is that Wally broke his promise (just like Paula, just like Jade, just like her goddamn father.) She feels foolish, like she's been played, tricked into thinking he was different from every other awful person she's ever met—
It's time she stopped pretending, stopped trying to be the girl worthy of being loved by Wally West, if he does even love her. She's never going to be that person, never going to be anything other than the broken, runty girl she's always been. She's never going to be anything other than worthless. Pathetic. Better off dead.
(She doesn't deserve to be happy.)
And suddenly there's no difference between this time and the last, no difference between Athens and Metropolis. She's too exhausted for logic, too beyond function to talk herself down or argue with the claws digging into her, making her furious. Wally had broken his promise to her as easily as he would have anything else in the world— hadn't even given it a second thought, hadn't bothered to think of the weight of those words, what the mean to her, what he means to her— he's a liar, a filthy liar, just like Jade and Lawrence and every other person she's been stupid enough to trust—
She throws the door open with a clatter, thinking that if Wally West isn't already dead he soon will be.
She imagines she must look quite wild, standing there with her tattered hair and bugging eyes, the door slamming open and colliding with the opposite wall; there's several people in the room, a team of hovering nurses and doctors that all jump at the noise she's making— she disregards them almost the second she catches sight of ginger hair.
She means to yell. She means to start screaming awful things at him.
Instead she hears him say her name, hears the mixture of relief and something else she can't identify as the sound bursts out across the room. Instead she watches him struggle to get out of bed, ignoring the prodding hands of nurses that are trying to talk him into being still. She hears forceful words about a sprained ankle and other injuries, she hears disapproving clicks. She opens her mouth to snarl something biting and for some reason can't manage more than a choked noise.
Wally crashes into her in a way that makes all her muscles scream out in pain but she can't bring herself to react, can't bring herself to do anything other than rock a few paces backwards with the impact. He's practically clawing at her the way he's wrapping his arms around her, fingers digging into her back and nails breaking her skin, as if he's afraid that pieces of her will dismantle and fall apart and she'll suddenly cease to exist in front of him—
And as badly as she wants to wrap her arms around him, as badly as she wants to curl her limbs around his neck, as badly as she wants to press her forehead into the blood smeared shallow of his neck she can't— she can't trust all this anger, all this wanting, all these thousands of emotions coursing through her.
Instead she stays stock still, hands clenched into fists at her side.
She glances at Wally in time to watch him shift his weight uneasily, uncomfortable with all the doctors hovering around them; it took a certain amount of coaxing for the nurses to get him to retreat back into the bed, a condition of which was her coming with him. Her hand feels clammy where his fingers are clenched around hers, the hospital bed feeling too small for the two of them.
(She doesn't want to sit beside him, be close to him. She can't trust herself or him—)
"Blood isn't clotting." She hears a nurse mutter, inspecting the joint of Wally's shoulder and picking at the pieces of his tattered uniform sticking to the wound; almost the second she removes the kevlar a thick stream of blood spurts out from where it's being contained from the fabric, landing in thick drops on Wally's thigh.
Wally noticeably flinches, skin still ghostly pale like it had been when he had appeared in the fog. It's done something to him. She thinks in a panic. The fog's thinned his blood, he's going to bleed forever—
Her hand tightens on his as the nurse— a younger woman this time— clamps a sterile looking cloth to his shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding. "We'll have to go about cleaning it— digging out the rocks and such. And then it looks like you'll need stitches."
"Stitches?" Wally repeats in a weak sounding voice.
Something inside her stirs at the fear in his voice, some long forgotten instinct she's repressing in her anger with him; she wants so badly to comfort him but can't, can't bring herself to do anything except sit stock still beside him, glaring at the white tile on the floor. There's too much activity in the tiny hospital room, too many bodies sweating and breathing up all the oxygen, leaving her lungs to be filled with only Wally's scent that she both craves and hates now...
She can't stop the anger from rushing through her every time she thinks of his broken promise, and wishes her fingers were free from his.
One of Wally's legs— the one without the swollen ankle— is tapping anxiously against the floor, thrumming out a rhythm almost too fast for her ears to hear. More doctors bustle around them, gathering medical thread and ripping a wide hole in Wally's uniform to better expose the wound. Wally glances repeatedly at her, as if he can sense something is wrong, but neither of them acknowledge each other beyond the inexcusable affection he had thrown at her a few minutes before, not talking as invasive hands check him over.
(She can feel herself shutting down again, being consumed by the Metropolis girl and all her hatred again: Wally broke his promise. Wally broke his promise…)
((And even worse, he had never intended to keep it in the first place.))
She grits her teeth when Wally's grip tightens on her hand, gripping her so hard she can feel the blisters on her fingers throbbing; the Doctor brandishes a pair of tweezers and a needle and Wally screws up his face, head turning towards her.
"It's okay." She tries to say, throat only managing to croak out a rasping noise before she seals her lips shut.
(And for a moment they lock eyes, and she knows that he can sense it as well as she can— he can sense the presence of the Metropolis girl, the ghost of the snarling creature he met last August lurking, barely contained. And as well as he can sense that other girl she can sense him, sense his fear, sense the floorboards crumbling out under both their feet, giving way and throwing them into the flames—)
"Don't leave." He mutters in an undertone, the tail end of the words cutting off with a gasp of pain. There's several seconds of tense silence and then the tweezers pull back, a tiny pebble twanging into a metal bowl on a table. By now the wound is so swollen and bloody she's sure any disturbing the muscles and tattered skin is going to cause terrible pain. "Stay. Please." He adds through gritted teeth, lips sealing shut.
And at first she does. She stays and she listens to the sound of pebbles being extracted and the needle sewing him up, listens to his torn flesh being worked back together and watches as the blood keeps pouring out between the gaps of the thread. The wound on his shoulder is deep, far deeper than she thought she saw in the heat of the battle; she stays and she watches as Wally's face flips between maroon and chalky, watches as he flashes at her like a warning light.
She manages until the noises come.
It's awful, her own specific brand of torture when she hears the noises Wally makes at the cold metal of the doctor's needle piercing nerves and muscle ligaments— it's as if every gasp or grunt or inhale is peeling pieces of her away, yanking her skin from her bone and only reminding her that she nearly got him killed tonight... If she had only been faster, hadn't screamed, hadn't made him lose his focus— if he had only listened to her—
"Artemis." He gasps out once, her name on his lips sounding like the many other times he's said it; at once she can only think of sweat and languid kisses and the memory alone is suddenly tainted by all this pain.
Finally she can't take it anymore, hearing him try not to scream. "I can't." She mutters, fighting to get her hand back.
Wally calls her name, and like a coward she runs to hide in the quiet of the hallway.
She practically collapses into a chair outside the little room, throat aching as she draws in breath; even though she's out of ear shot she can still hear the noises pounding against the back of her mind, can feel panic creeping up her spine—
Don't be a baby.
Focus.
She sits there, breathing going haywire and head pressing painfully into her hands for what feels like too long before Rudy and Mary burst through the hospital doors; there's a considerable amount of shouting and confusion, so much noise that even she can't ignore it from inside her panic. Jerking her wet eyes from where they've been pressing painfully into her knuckles she gets to her feet. "He's in here!" She calls.
It takes a second for the both of them to place her— she realizes vaguely that she's still wearing the mask, the absence of her distinctive blonde pony tail no doubt throwing them for a moment. "He's in here." She repeats gesturing to the door across from her. "Kid Flash."
It takes a half moment for her voice— so raspy, unfamiliar to even her own ears— to register in their memories, Rudy for his part glancing down to the symbol on her breasts, moving to the spot on her belt where her bow is clipped. There's only the vaguest recognition. "Come on." He says to Mary, who's only now finding something recognizable in her eyes.
She doesn't blame them for hardly giving her a glance after she points them in the right direction—they look frantic, like parents who are half convinced that this time, this call, is the one where they discover they've lost their son. She wonders how many of these they've gotten before, how many they'll get again, and feeling overwhelmed with guilt and anger she lowers her head into her hands, trying not to cry.
She feels almost numb to the time passing, eyes glazed over and bloodshot as she sits, slumped, in the uncomfortable hospital chair; it's not until the door to Wally's room snaps open and she jerks out of a half sleep that she realizes nearly an hour has passed, maybe more judging by the soreness in her legs. Ignoring the pain she gets to her feet, barely recognizing Mary's face as she bursts into the hallway, her cheeks soaked with tears.
"How is he—" She starts to ask, the words dying in her throat as Wally's mother launches herself at her; there's a half second where she's overwhelmed, feels as if she's being choked by the sensation of arms circling her neck, tugging her closer until all she feels is chocolate curls brushing against her cheeks.
Mary takes a deep breath, lungs rattling slightly with phlegm. "He's fine, dear. It's alright." She winces at the feeling of her shoulders being squeezed so tightly—her own mother doesn't touch her like this, and in the face of the alien sensation she finds it just as strange as she does comforting.
It finally occurs to her that she should maybe hug the other woman back; her arms feel almost weighed down by lead as she raises them, not managing to produce more than a pathetic pat on the back before the older woman is pulling away. "That's great." She says mechanically.
The Metropolis girl wants to be released from this closeness, from this comfort, but Mary won't comply; instead she's trapped at an arm's length from Wally's mother, finding it very hard to look at her as tears keep running down her aging cheeks. "He didn't like the part with the stitches." Mary tries to laugh. "He never has—I remember once, when he was learning how to ride a bike… He was screaming his head off in the doctor's office." The older woman lets out a watery chuckle and in turn she tries to smile, her cheeks feeling waxy and teeth too pointed to do it properly.
"He's more worried about you, dear." Mary continues sweetly, squeezing her again. "... Wally's always looked forward to going to prom, with a date… I'm sure you looked lovely." She adds quickly, glancing once at the frayed ends of her hair that are sticking up with the beginning of forgotten curls. The older woman's smile falters. "Rudy and I are just so happy you're safe, from what Wally told us…"
There's a moment of sticky silence and she knows what's going to happen before Mary gets the courage to phrase it properly, her stomach sinking. "… He mentioned that your father was there?" The older woman blurts out, looking sorry for how she's putting it. "I thought you didn't see him much? Or is he another hero? Anyone we would know by their name?"
Wally told them about her father?
... No. He wouldn't do that to her.
It's very difficult to breath, pieces of Mary reeking so much of Wally that she suddenly feels as if there's snow on the ground and she's admitting to the darkness of her past all over again; inhaling so sharply she nearly chokes she extracts herself from Wally's mother, feeling her face crumple into misery. "… Not another hero, no." She mutters, feeling shame burn hot at the back of her throat as her mind races into a panic.
Not again, not again...
Like Wally, Mary seems to understand without her saying that this is difficult for her; she allows the older woman to pat her once on the cheek. "… It's alright, dear. He's probably just babbling, all the pain medication... We can talk about it later. How about we go in to see Wally, hm? He's been asking for you for the better part of an hour."
She doesn't nod but allows Mary to take her by the hand, trying not to drag her feet as the older women squeezes her fingers tightly the way her son had been doing before; she doesn't know why she's dreading seeing Wally, why the angry burning sensation in the pit of her stomach is both spurred on and quailed by the thought of him…
The air is odd in the tiny hospital room when they enter—it's not just that there's too many people inside it (although there is; the air in the room feels almost sweltering with body heat and people hissing as they step on each other's toes, the room packed with Wally's family and her and a mess of doctors) it's that the energy is off—almost the second she walks in she can read the angry redness of both Wally and Rudy's ears, can tell by the way all the nurses are avoiding her eye as they enter, busying themselves with tending to Wally despite the fact that it's clear he would rather yell than sit still.
"... Hi." She croaks out when she sees him, not sure why she suddenly feels like crying. Mary helpfully prods her in the small of the back and like an idiot she takes a few steps towards the bed where he's sitting, stopping before she even gets close.
Wally tries to smile and doesn't quite manage it. "Hi."
The nurses wrapping gauze around Wally's shoulder seems to notice the angry silence, and almost tactfully she can see them picking up the pace; as if the rest of the doctors can sense the uneasiness she's suddenly aware of people filing past her, anxious to leave the cramped room.
Mary seems to notice the tension as much as she does, except the older woman is brave enough to act on it. "What's going on?" She asks very suddenly, eyes following the path Rudy's have marked, still glaring at her and his son across the room. "What's happened?"
"Nothing." Wally says shortly, turning his gaze to her as the last of the nurses file out, their rush towards the door forcing her a bit closer to him. "Where did you get off to?" He asks her, sounding annoyed when she stops a foot away from his bed.
It's about as much as Rudy can take, and before she can answer she's being talked over. "Did you know about this?" He bursts out gesturing wildly at the two of them and snarling at Mary so loudly that the last nurse leaving jumps in surprise, the door clattering shut behind her.
In answer his wife looks at the two of them, nonplussed. "About Artemis and Wally?" She says confusedly, looking a little blank. "Of course dear—we had her over for dinner—"
"Not that." Rudy waves her off, the movement of his hand so violent that for a moment Mary flinches, as if expecting to be hit. In the corner of her eye she can see Wally's hand tighten around the starchy hospital sheets. "About her! Did you know about her?"
Almost instantly her head wheels back to Wally, looking at him angrily. "You told them?" She bursts out, practically spitting.
"—They're my parents, Artemis." He mutters, glaring and not looking sorry about it. "I'm under eighteen, League requires it if I end up in a hospital—"
"League also says that I'm entitled to a secret identity if I want it, Wally—"
"What about Artemis?" Mary cuts across their bickering, voice hardly snarling like Rudy's but somehow commanding more attention in the room.
She opens her mouth but finds suddenly that her throat is too dry to speak; Mary gives her several seconds to pull herself together, and when it becomes obvious she's not capable of doing anything other than glare at her feet the older woman tries again. "Artemis? Is there something you need to tell us?"
Before she can even gather the nerve to try opening her mouth again Rudy's speaking for her, gesturing at her wildly across the room. "Yes, anything you'd like to mention? How about you start with the fact that your father is the monster that did this to my son—" He snarls at her.
"Dad." Wally cuts across him, looking just as furiously back; once again she's caught off guard by how similar the two of them look when they're angry. "I'm fine—"
Mary manages to silence the room again, raising a hand to quiet her son. "I—" She starts, and she feels her heart sink into her stomach at the look on the older woman's face. "I don't understand, dear. I thought you never saw your father?"
She senses the movement when Wally tries to take her hand again, as if he can somehow fix this by being supportive, and instinctively she moves away from him. She won't be able to get through this without crying unless she acts tougher than she is—still, it doesn't stop her from wishing there was a computer screen or a keyboard for her to hide behind like all those months ago. "I don't." She manages to get out, glaring at the floor. "See much of him much, I mean. The only time I—my father is Sportsmaster. One of the villains who escaped during that mass break out last month."
She allows Mary several seconds to get over the initial shock before she raises her eyes from the floor; she's expecting horror, anger, at the very least surprise, nothing like the politely muddled expression the older woman is wearing before her mouth splits into an understanding smile. "… Oh. Well—Well, then you're just proof, aren't you, the apple can fall far from the tree." She says kindly, walking across the room until she's a clean foot away from her. This time she doesn't quite manage not to flinch when the older woman takes both her hands in hers, trying to chuckle. "Really, it's not as if you come from a whole family of—of bad apples…"
She notices Rudy's seething over Mary's shoulder and forces herself to pull her hands away, trying not to feel heartbroken when the other woman's face falls. "… That's the thing, actually. I… I'm kind of…" She loses her nerve again. "Everyone in my family has been… A bad apple, at one point or another. Even me." She admits.
Wally's not expecting that last part and she doesn't spare a glance over her shoulder at the noise he makes in the back of his throat; Mary for her part remains quiet before Rudy's pouncing on them again, charging across the room and ripping his wife behind him. "I've had enough of this." He snarls out. "Get away from her, Mary—"
"Now Rudy—"
"Enough!" He snarls out, the hospital room now so quiet that she can hear her own humiliation burning and bubbling at the back of her throat. "I warned you to stay away from my son, young lady, the first time you set foot in my house, I— And now look at him! Bleeding through his damn uniform and being stitched back together in a hospital room—"
"Dad—" Wally starts, shifting in his bed and looking as if he's about to charge across the room. "If Artemis wasn't there I'd be dead right now—"
"And whose fault would that be?" Rudy counters, moustache bristling. "That damned father of hers—Sports-whatever… Probably ordered her to finish you off in your sleep—" As if something's just occurring to him Rudy turns a spectacular maroon, his cheeks firing far darker than any shade she's ever seen plastering against Wally's. "Get away from my son!" He hollers, charging at her.
He isn't trained the way is, getting distracted by the uproar that seems to burst out almost immediately when he makes a move to hit her; instantly Wally's shouting from his bed and Mary is screaming after her husband, several hospital staff whirring into the room at the sound of all the commotion. Before his fist can make it closer than beside her shoulder she acts without thinking, ducking under the blow and smacking it off balance, sending the whole of Rudy's impressive weight into his forearm as she grinds his bone against the wall.
It all happens quickly; in a matter of seconds she feels hospital staff prying her hand off Rudy, feels herself being steered to the opposite end of the room. Rudy keeps swearing every few seconds, hand clutching his wrist and glaring at the bright red mark she's left there.
"It's fine." She snarls when Mary tries to apologize, the older woman's cheeks going crimson as she shrugs out from underneath the comforting hand she's trying to place on her shoulder.
There's more hospital staff rushing into the room, now trying to subdue Wally and Rudy, who are both spitting swears at each other and fighting to whack each other about the ears; she can feel herself blushing a furious red as Wally makes to swing with his bad arm, upsetting his stitches and sending a fresh wave of blood coating his bandages.
When she moves to storm out of the hospital room she doesn't make it far; she's hardly even out of the room before Wally's stepping on her heels, swatting away his parents and nurses who are trying to reel him back into bed. "He didn't mean it, Artemis." He's saying hurriedly.
"Of course he didn't." She snarls sarcastically, ignoring the shocked look a nurse sends her as she hurries past. "Just like he doesn't mean it when he hits your mom. It's just another one of his quirks—"
"How did you know about that?" Wally asks in a rough sounding voice; for once he's struggling to keep up with her, his rolled ankle not up to his usual speed.
Taking pity on him she whips back, ribs aching. "Does it matter?" She spits savagely, ignoring the nagging memory of her conversation with Connor thrumming against the back of her mind, her eyes flickering back and forth between his.
"... No." Wally admits after a moment, ears going off. "... Are you okay?" He asks very suddenly.
She snorts. "Yeah, Wally. I'm great."
His ears glow brilliantly at her sarcasm, frowning as he struggles to read her expression. "... Look, I've said it a thousand times, he's an asshole, okay? It's been a long night, we've all been through a lot... It doesn't have anything to do with you."
He says it as if this somehow makes things better, as if she wasn't just humiliated and as if he wasn't the one who put her through it. "Okay." She nods angrily, turning to walk away.
He grunts when he moves to cut in front of her, ankle no doubt twanging as he prevents her from going any further. "Okay, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know!" She bursts out, hating that her voice rasps and breaks with exhaustion. "I just— I can't deal with this right now, Wally. I can't— my Dad just tried to kill you, your parents know that I'm basically vermin, and your dad just tried to—"
"So what, you're just going to leave?" He snarls out, interrupting her. "I'm stuck in a hospital and you get to disappear on me? Again?"
She can feel her cheeks blotching. "I'm not disappearing— God, I just..." She's so furious she's finding it difficult to put anything into words, the fact that heads are beginning to pop out of doorways and peer curiously at their fighting not helping in the slightest. "I'm not doing this here." She says finally, seething.
"Doing what here?" Wally bursts out, sounding alarmed.
She doesn't answer, instead ducking around him in a way that makes her ribs ache. "Get your shoulder fixed. Meet me at the Cave when you're done."
"Meet you at the—"
She interrupts the beginning of his snarling, too furious to let him finish. "Your shoulder, Baywatch." She hisses, not looking back at him as she stomps away.
Almost the second she materializes in the Cave it occurs to her how much she doesn't want to be there; already she's regretting agreeing to meet Wally here, regretting thinking that she'd be capable of talking about... Talking to him at all, after everything that's already happened tonight. Her mind is buzzing too much, she's unfocused—
Vaguely she considers turning back, considers simply running away from the disaster of an evening; the thought isn't even fully formed in her mind before a nasty voice scratches at the back of her skull: it's not like she has anywhere else to go.
(Her apartment? Paula will be there, will ask questions.
Oliver's place? She's never been, and even if she managed to find her way he's never been one to let things sit unanswered...
Jade's apartment? She knows the approximate location, thanks to her run in with Red all those weeks ago... But going there is a death sentence, practically asking to have a sai thrown into her throat...)
Her muscles are tense, feet tottering and shifting back and forth on the tile, mind racing and debating what her next move will be. She could use the zeta tubes again, go somewhere else—she knows instantly it's a no go, even if she had another place to run off to. While Team members may not be able to see the last coordinates a public zeta tube is programmed to she knows the one at the Cave is designed to lock on the last known location, simply for the sake of convenience come mission time; should she try to go somewhere else Wally will surely be smart enough to check and follow without hesitation.
("Look at it this way... Even if I do run away, you can always catch up.")
Resolutely she turns her back on the zeta tubes and starts moving, hating the sensation of being still.
She'll have to stay here, have to simply wait for whatever is coming for her. Instantly her stomach sinks at the thought; a larger part of her—the one that keeps repeating Rudy's words, snarling them at the back of her mind and scratching them into her skin until blood is drawn for ink— is arranging pieces, replaying the night over and over again. It isn't just that Wally broke his promise, that he disregarded the one thing she was sure would keep him alive.
It's that he betrayed her, just like everyone else.
Her stomach tightens. Standing here and waiting for it isn't an option.
Childishly she considers hiding, her eyes roaming the kitchen as she passes through it; she's sure the Cave has its fair share of nooks and crannys, and even though Wally may know its layout better than her—or at least she assumes, he's spent more time here than she has—there has to be at least one place he hasn't found. This idea isn't appealing either, and absently she slinks through the common area, head turning automatically to look out her and Wally's window, wondering if she can run far enough along the beach for it to turn into anything worth going towards…
She pulls her eyes into focus, no longer looking out into the distance and instead staring almost shocked at her own reflection. She doesn't recognize the girl she's looking at, and a little stupidly she glances back over her shoulder, wondering vaguely if there's somebody else behind her.
She's still squinting at her reflection when she finishes crossing the room—the girl looking back at her looks entirely unknown, a stranger with her mother's lips. She looks once over the injuries, scowling when her mirror raises a hand self-consciously to her hair, feeling the uneven and haggard ends that in some places brush the tops of her breasts and in others don't bristle out much further than her scalp. The girl bouncing off the window is not pretty.
She doesn't know why but she watches as her expression goes sour; hating herself and her reflection she feels her face screw up against the emotion rising inside of her, her teeth grinding together and a pathetic sob sounding strangled as it comes out of her throat.
(The girl Wally fell in love with is gone.)
She wants very badly to shatter herself, to start drawing arrows from her quiver and fire them at her and Wally's window until it doesn't exist anymore, until she doesn't exist anymore—she hates herself, she hates her reflection, she—
The wrinkle pops up over her nose when she tries to hold another sob in, there's a very sudden tightening in her chest, a kind of pain that feels old, familiar in how it unsettles her.
She's back. Really and truly back.
She realizes it as she starts biting hard at the inside of her cheek, her breath beginning to come in short and the buzzing that's been only teasing the back of her mind beginning to hum, low and furious like a swarm of wasps, stinging the edges of her vision. It's time she faced the truth:
The Metropolis Girl is back.
Or maybe she never left, not really; maybe she simply shoved her in one of those boxes that couldn't fit Wally, the ones where she puts the things she needs to survive but is afraid of. But she's out again, she had no choice but to bring her out the second she was threatened, the second Sportsmaster turned his gaze to Wally and marked him as a target.
And it had been foolish to put her away in the first place, she sees that now. Childish, to think that something as stupid and frivolous as love could be enough, could protect her. She owes her life to the Metropolis girl, who she realizes now has been alive much longer than simply the battle in Metropolis. She's been the one shoving aside her human instinct, pushing all those emotional impulses and affections away. She's been the one keeping her alive since Jade left, she's—she's everything Jade taught her, everything her older sister did for her to keep her alive after Paula was taken away. She was the thing that protected her from Lawrence, from her own taste of hell that painted over the peeling wallpaper in the apartment…
The Metropolis girl. That's who she's been all along, save for these few months of madness with Wally. She hasn't been Artemis since she was ten years old, since she last had the protection of her older sister. And she had needed to be the Metropolis girl because of Lawrence—and that's why the Metropolis girl had kept her alive, that's why she's been so furious at being boxed up all these months.
The Metropolis girl was created by Lawrence, made lethal by Jade, and she'll be the one to set everything right. She'll be the one to destroy her father, to bring Jade home, to protect her mother... And nothing, not even Wally, is enough to stop that.
... And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? If she wants to fall in love she has to be Artemis. If she wants revenge...
But maybe it isn't about revenge. Maybe it's about finally living, maybe it's about breaking free of the chains her father fastened around her, maybe it's about eliminating the source of all her pain and suffering— Artemis can be the one to live, later, when the time is right. The Metropolis girl can be the one to murder—
But she can't do that with Wally by her side. She can't expose him to that, can't hold him so close to the line of fire.
... No. He needs to be out of the picture. He needs to be safe.
It's confusing, trying to think this way with her head so full of emotion, logical thought drowned out by the buzzing in her temples and the exhaustion in her limbs. But it's clear to her now, clearer than it's been in a while at least—unaware of her heavy breathing she stares at herself in the glass, finally recognizing the slightly deranged girl that's there. She can't be both at the same time—she can't be Artemis and the other girl. Artemis is soft, Artemis shows mercy… Artemis loves Wally, and it occurs to her how troublesome his existence is suddenly. He loves both these girls, has managed to tame one to form the other. He's a problem, her one weakness, the one thing between her and the death of her father and—
(And what?
She kills him and Jade comes home? Paula gets her legs back?
No. But the score is settled at least.)
And she read the words once, telling her that if she loves someone to set them free and it makes so much sense to her now—she's not supposed to be with Wally. She's been blinded these past few months with her own selfish human impulses, forgotten how repulsive she is, how horrible, how truly despicable she is in comparison to him. If she loves him she should make him leave, not because it's safer, or better, or the right thing to do (but it is, it is, it is.) She should let him go because she isn't human enough to have a life with him— and how can she be? As long as Lawrence still breathes she'll never be more than lost inside her own head and trapped in the stuffiness of the apartment. She should set Wally free because it's in his nature to be so, it's how it has to be—he can run and be as wild as the wind that used to catch in the length of her hair but it's not fair, it's not fair to make him keep coming back to someone stuck in shackles. In chains.
(And tonight has been proof of it— the Metropolis girl can control herself but she can't control Wally. Can't control love. And if she can't manipulate him, destroy him the way she's destroyed herself, then there's no purpose to it. None at all.)
Her thinking slows for half a second and she has enough time to register the low and unbearable heartache in her chest before the feeling is promptly cut off. She can't afford to be upset, can't afford to be weak. She can't afford to be Artemis, because being Artemis means ruining Wally and even the other girl can't stand the thought of breaking him like that.
It's settled. The Metropolis girl is her load to bear.
And hers alone.
She nearly jumps when she hears the whirring of the zeta tubes; her mind has been racing so rapidly inside her head it's difficult to tell how long she's been standing there, staring at herself. Stupidly her first instinct is to run, all her muscles fighting her mind to move, and she realizes she isn't entirely in control anymore—
Artemis is a born runner. But the Metropolis girl…
She stands still, rigid in the half light. So this will be Artemis' last act: ending it with Wally. Fitting. The other girl was always awful with feelings anyway.
If she's being honest she knows the right thing to do is end things now. Before they get worse.
(Before she hurts him even more than a flesh wound to the shoulder, before the next time he pays the price for loving her with a bigger piece of himself getting carved out by her father, before a javelin point is slicing through the tendons of fingers or the marrow between his joints, before she gets him killed because she wasn't strong enough to keep her distance—)
And in the end, nothing has changed. It may as well be the New Year all over again for all the progress she's made.
It takes all the courage she has not to run, all her strength not to betray herself with anything other than a shaky breath and a quivering chin. She remains stick still, facing out towards the window and trying as hard as she can to stare at only the stars and not the reflection of what's happening behind her; she can see the familiar golden light barely leaking into the kitchen, the hum of molecules coming back to themselves. A part of her nearly turns around (nearly goes running to him, nearly changes her mind, nearly breaks down) when she senses her favorite shade of auburn hair come back into existence.
Focus, the buzzing in the back of her mind seems to tell her. And like a fool she trusts it, because this is the buzzing that's kept her alive for fifteen years. This buzzing has been the only thing she could count on.
He makes a funny turn when he gets past the kitchen, as if to start off towards her bedroom, before he seems to realize she's standing there; she suspects the light above the island is enough to illuminate a few parts of her—maybe a few tangled shards of her hair, she thinks bitterly. Regardless of how he sees her he still stops, a mess of taut muscle and ragged lines of his torn uniform, one arm being held a little awkwardly as if aware of his injury.
She blinks her eyes closed when he makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, so quiet yet so loud in the nothingness between them; she finds she can't even stand to look at his reflection anymore when he lets a few words fire out across the room, sounding a mixture of angry and annoyed. "... You said you wanted to talk?" He scowls, a faint edge of suspicion tailing the ends of the words.
She watches his reflection for a moment, studying the hum of unasked questions that seem to hover in the air around him. She finds she doesn't really know how to go about answering any of them—Why is she angry with him? Why couldn't she stand to be alone with him in the hospital? Why did she attack his father? Why did she leave?
Her throat burns as if her father's hands are still clutched around it.
Artemis isn't strong enough to do this, to throw away the only person who's been an unfailing source of comfort so long—she can't imagine a life without Wally, without the steadiness of his arms or the predictability of his scent… But she has to, if she's going to protect him she's going to have to be strong enough—
Something must break on her face, something large and painful enough not to be dulled by the muted reflection off their window's glass; she manages to hold herself together long enough to watch the anger on his face falter before she's back to screwing her eyes shut, leaning forward until her forehead bangs loudly against the glass. "… Artemis?" She hears him repeat, sounding wary, as if he thinks this is a trick.
She's not aware of the fact that she's started repeating the motion, not aware of the fact that she's started sobbing until he's suddenly pulling her back, a bruise rapidly swelling on her forehead and a disgusting mixture of mucus and tears dripping off her chin. She doesn't know why she fights him on it when he tries to pull her closer, why she wants to keep hurting herself, why she wants to go burling through their window and feel the pain of glass ripping through her skin—all she knows is that even though she has to she doesn't want to be the Metropolis girl, not when the one comfort she won't allow is so close, not when it would be so much easier to send broken glass scattering and maybe, just maybe, put herself out of her own misery.
It would be easier to put a gun to her head and end her life than to look Wally in the eye and end things with him.
She doesn't realize he's been saying her name until he stops, his voice dropping down to a whisper so quiet she can hardly hear it above the desperate sounding sobs that are coming out of her own mouth. She stops fighting against the too-solid arms that are encased around her and instead turns her head towards the hollow of his chest, trying to at least half listen to the words of comfort that are coming out of his mouth. "It's okay." He tells her, even though it isn't. His heart is pounding under her ear, a reminder that as long as she loves him those beats are limited, being hunted down by her father... "Artemis—calm down— I'm here."
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
(Until he isn't anymore…)
The last thing he says sends a new wave of despair through her, one long and drawn out sob escaping her mouth before she silences her crying altogether, any noise of desperation or sadness hitting the curled in ends of her lips and escaping only through the tremors now knocking through her limbs. Wally doesn't realize what's about to happen yet, he still thinks she's Artemis. He doesn't know that she's not really in control, it's the other girl—
(And for a second she wonders—does the Metropolis girl love Wally? Yes, she has to. But it's a different kind of love, an all-consuming kind of love…
Artemis loves Wally for his softness. For the warmth he rubs into her joints, how tender he can be with her when she's knows little more than abuse. She loves him for the feelings he brings out in her, how he can make falling in love both frightening and exciting and the best adventure she's ever been on—
But the Metropolis girl… She loves Wally for the sole fact that Artemis cannot survive without him, cannot function without his existence. He is a tool to be manipulated, a motivation for her twisted mind to keep her weather-beaten body going when she's close to giving up. She loves him like an object, a prize, the symbol of an unmarked life, of betterment, of status. She loves him like a hunter loves their trophy—affectionately, but still with the full knowledge that to put him up on the mantle she had to hollow out his insides—)
Wally manages to force her out of the safety of his chest, hands taking her gently by the shoulders and holding her at an arm's length, only wincing in the slightest when his muscles strain against their stitching. For a moment she can still see the anger in his eyes, can see his weariness at the no-longer fun game she just can't break the habit of playing, but almost the second she registers them all those emotions vanish, being replaced by something softer, more concerned. Instantly she can tell it's because she must look like a real wreck of a person, her eyes puffy through the holes of her mask and uneven hair frizzing out like a lion's mane, lips still sealed up and lungs barely managing to take in any oxygen.
In typical Wally fashion he tries to smile at her. It's a poor substitution for the crooked, freckled grin she adores. "Breathe." He reminds her just as she realizes she's been staring too hard at the triangle bottom of his mask—the lipstick smudge is gone. "Let's… How about we get your hair out of your face, okay?"
She keeps staring at his mask, memorizing which freckles are visible and which are hidden as he fumbles for a moment with his wrist; he must have plucked up her elastic from the battle field, must have managed to keep it securely around his wrist the whole way from Athens to the Cave. The idea strangely settles her, makes her feel more grounded, and she hears herself suck in a rattling breath through her mouth.
She doubts even she would be able to force her hair into a decent pony tail now—the ends are too frayed, too short in some places and overlong in others. Still, she doesn't say anything, just watches Wally's face in silence as he struggles, trying to recall small details she won't remember later, after what needs to be done is done. She thinks of the crinkles around his eyes that deepen when he smiles. The triangle of freckles below his left eye. The stubble on his chin that always appears in patches. She blinks, looking at his nose and studying the lingering sunburn. Could that really have only been weeks ago? Just a few weeks ago when she had tricked herself into believing in forever?
Just this morning she had thought she was in love.
Wally curses under his breath as her hair refuses to cooperate and she finally manages to speak; her words sound ragged and she wonders if it's her own emotion or her father's hands that are to blame. "… You broke your promise." She tells him. Or at least she tries to tell him; her voice breaks and turns nearly indistinguishable as another sob racks through her. The trembling is starting again.
Wally's hands fall from her hair, unsuccessful, and slip the elastic back onto his wrist. She hates that it's there, a souvenir of the worst night of her life. "… I know." He says quietly, looking defeated. The shame in his voice isn't enough to quail the anger burning inside her, and this time when he reaches to comfort her she takes a step back— she can tell by the look on his face that this hurts more than anything she can think to say. "… Is that why you left me behind?"
"Yes." She says defiantly, even though it's not the whole truth. It's why Artemis ran, but it isn't why the Metropolis girl did.
Wally pauses, eyes narrowed and scrutinizing. She knows he can tell she's not quite right in the head anymore. "… Was it because of my dad?"
("Was it because you couldn't stand the truth?")
She doesn't want to deem this with a response. "No." She can still hear Rudy's words ringing inside her ears, the disgust as he had found out what she was seeming to slap, permanently painful, against her memory. "... Not like he said anything I didn't already know."
For some reason her eyes start stinging again and more to avoid his penetrating gaze she wipes her nose loudly on her forearm, nearly missing what he says next. "… Was it because of yours?"
Her hand drops obviously and for a long time they look at each other; it feels just like it used to months ago, those sparse moments when they would lock eyes and glare, silently battling each other… It's one of their classic stale mates, both of them unwilling to compromise or admit to anything. Even if they've outgrown all their other games they never truly outgrew hating each other.
(And she knows what he's really asking: "Did you run because you were afraid of your father? Afraid of what he did? Are you still a coward, hiding under the blankets from your dad the same way you did as a little girl? Are you ever going to grow up and stop letting him control you?")
There's a bitter taste in her mouth when she's the first one to look away—it feels like she's admitting something, some kind of shameful secret he isn't to be trusted with. "… You promised me you wouldn't leave my side." She says quietly, trying to force herself to be as angry as possible. "You promised me you'd stay safe, and that you'd listen to me." She hesitates, and feels a burst of fury through the numbness. "… You're a liar, just like everyone else."
Wally hardly moves as she says this, only blinks once as the last part slaps him across the face, her breath no doubt reeking of hatred and spite. "… Everyone lies, Artemis." He finally says back, and she can see his expression beginning to harden again, no longer indulging the girl at the window. "Stupid to pretend otherwise. How many other deals do you have with Kaldur behind my back, huh—"
"That's different." She snarls out.
It's not really a confession to anything but Wally seems to take it that way; before she can think to move back he's less than a foot away, getting both her wrists in a death grip, forcing her to stay close as he starts talking, voice so low and dangerous it scares her. "Everyone lies." He repeats. "They do, okay? And I've never lied to you unless I had to. What was I supposed to do tonight? Tell you I would be a good little boy? Tell you I would wait on the Bioship for you to finish?"
"You could have stayed behind."
She flinches when Wally throws her hands back. "... You know I couldn't have done that. You know that." He snarls.
They're both breathing so hard in each other's faces that the window is beginning to steam; letting out an annoyed hiss she watches as he cranes his neck backwards, looking as if he's asking a higher power for patience. "... You should have stayed behind." She mutters.
"Yeah, well." He huffs out, finally glaring at her again. "I didn't. It happened. Deal with it."
There's too many emotions thrashing in the space between them, so many unsaid thoughts and half phrased arguments pummeling inside her head that's she's beginning to lose focus, beginning to forget why she's angry. Maybe she was wrong, maybe tonight is the wrong night for this conversation. Maybe she's better off doing this with a good night's sleep, when she can actually think about her words instead of just blurting out the first thing that comes to her mind.
"... I'm going to bed." She tells him.
She wants to run away before he can touch her but suddenly his hand has caught her about the elbow, pulling her back until she's flush against his chest. "Don't leave like that." He says lowly— not quite angry but not quite anything else, eyes flickering between hers. "... Come on. What happened tonight— your dad, my dad— It doesn't change a thing, Artemis." And all she can think is that she's not Artemis, not anymore. "Tonight was just tonight. A bad night, a bad mission. Everything's the same between us, okay?"
Her heart breaks when she hears the desperation underneath his words.
"Not for me." She tries to say angrily, arms aching as she tries to push him off of her; instead she sounds exhausted, defeated, hardly moving in his grip.
"… What's that supposed to mean?"
It's supposed to be snarling but he's let a bit too much emotion slip through it, an edge of disbelief and curiosity. The words send a dull twisting through her stomach—he genuinely doesn't know what's about to happen next. "I—" She starts, losing any resolution when she makes the mistake of looking into his eyes again, nearly biting her lip as she gets lost for a moment in the confused wrinkles forming around the lines of his mask. "... You know what it means, Wally." She says lamely, finally taking a step back.
Wally stares at her as his hands fall back to his side; without wanting to she's back on the Bioship all those months ago, and he's bare faced and his eyes are locked on hers, trying to read the expression behind her mask. It's very difficult to shove all those old feelings aside, all the distant memories of people they used to be before tonight broke them.
They must stand there in silence for nearly a minute before his throat bobs, voice sounding rough. "... Say it."
It's a command, and even though her mouth opens to obey it she can't.
He glares at her, fingers clenching into fists at his sides when she closes her mouth, lips sealing together as she scowls at her feet. "Say it." He repeats, not even hesitating before he's hurling more words at her, voice getting louder. "Say it!" He snarls. "Tell me you want to end things."
She can't. "I don't have to." She gets out after a moment, voice breaking. Whatever fight is in her has slipped between her cracks and is collecting in a puddle on the floor. "You just did it for me."
It's about the best that she can do; there are still tears cutting tracks in the grime on her mask but she refuses to start sobbing in front of him again, refuses to allow herself to be comforted a second time—she knows full well that if she lets him touch her like that again she won't be able to leave, not really.
She's hardly turned away from him before his hand is shooting out, yanking her by the elbow and trying to get her to turn back towards him; although he stops her from leaving she refuses to face him again, all her muscles growing ridged and tense at the feeling of his gloved fingers touching her skin. "So that's it?" He snarls, fingers shaking as they clench her. "I break one lousy promise and suddenly I'm out? It's just that easy for you?"
She rips her elbow so hard out of his grasp that she can practically feel his nails clawing at her, not leaving a mark but still burning on her skin. "Yeah." She spits out, feeling spiteful as she turns to glare at him for the last time. "Yeah, Wally. This is easy. You figured me out."
It's not the time for sarcasm and Wally goes still when she says it, redness leaking down from his ears and appearing in blotches below the lines of his mask. She wants to move, wants to run and hide in her bedroom, but something in the small of her back keeps her still—maybe some larger instinct is keeping there, can sense that things aren't over, not quite yet, especially when Wally blurts out his next words. "... You're gonna go after him. That's why you're doing this, isn't it?"
He doesn't specify—he doesn't have to. Unconsciously her hand reaches behind her to pick at the end of her pony tail that's usually hovering about the small of her back, a dull wave of shock running through her when she remembers it isn't there anymore. "Maybe." She says vaguely to her shoes.
Out of the corner of her eye Wally shakes his head in disbelief, jaw tight. "You're an idiot." He tells her frankly, eyes narrowed. "The biggest fucking—"
"—Skip the lecture, Baywatch—"
"Have you even thought this through? At all?" He snarls at her, yelling so loudly her ears are aching. "What about after? Let's say you do get him back in prison. What are you going to do then? Wait for him to get out again?" These last few sentences are almost mocking, and despite her determination to never look him in the eye again she catches her head swinging towards him, nose wrinkling. "You're going to spend the rest of your life playing cops and robbers with your Dad?"
"You sound like Zatanna."
"Answer the question." She grinds her teeth together, glaring when he snarls at her. Wally allows her several seconds of angry silence before he laughs, loud and mocking, in her face. "You don't have a clue, do you? Go to bed, Artemis. You're not thinking straight—"
Her cheeks heat up. "I'm not thinking straight—"
She's not even finished repeating his words angrily before he cuts her off, yelling over her. "No you aren't! Going after your father— I forbid you—"
"You forbid me?" She snarls, so furious that she actually raises her fists, ready to clock him about the jaw. There's several moments of silence in which it seems to occur to Wally that's he overstepped a boundary, one of his hands raising as if getting ready to block an attack.
... Focus.
... He might be right. Maybe she does owe him an explanation.
She lets out a very loud exhale though her nose, thinking hard; she doesn't know why she's bothering to explain herself to him. He lost that right the moment he left her side in Athens. Still, she listens to the pounding silence for nearly a minute, trying her best to keep her voice level when she finally speaks."… He terrified me as a kid, Wally." She blurts out badly, fists lowering.
It's very hard to look at him but she forces herself to hold his gaze, careful not to blink. "I spent my whole life letting him break me. Letting him terrorize Jade, letting him tear my family apart… I was too young to stand up to him." Her voice is beginning to get louder than it should, her throat tight and threatening to cut her off with a sob any moment. "I couldn't save us from him… But I can save you, okay?"
"... I don't need you to save me." Wally says gruffly.
She swallows, finally looking away. "I need to save you, Wally, and I need to go after him. I need to do it for me." It's worded badly, and when she says it Wally only looks more confused. She exhales again. "Look, I don't expect you to understand—"
"Then explain it to me!" Wally cuts her off, grabbing her by the shoulder and forcing her to turn back to him, eyes raking desperately between hers. "You don't have to do this by yourself, okay? I'm here. I don't know who taught you that you have to do these things on your own, why you think it's easier to disappear on me when things get hard..." Something in his voice breaks and he squeezes her tighter, his thumb rubbing anxious circles on her bicep. "I can help, Artemis—"
"You can't, Wally." She repeats, so loud that whatever else he's saying quickly dies in his throat. For the first time in a long time he looks slightly afraid of her, afraid of the wildness in her eyes and the slightly bug-eyed way she stares at him, trying to get this through his head as she jerks out of his grasp. "You can't help okay? You—" Her voice catches and she's forced to let out a shaky exhale, head ducking to address the floor. "He knows what you are to me, Wally. I could see it on his face tonight. He knows how much I—" Her throat tightens and she nearly loses it altogether. "He'll use it against me. Just like he uses Mom, and Jade. He'll figure out who you are and it won't just be you who's in danger—your parents too. It's just… It's better for everyone if I just disappear on them."
Wally's eyes narrow as she says this, head shaking as he turns to glare out of their window. The stars are reflecting off the glassiness of his eyes, as if he's trying very hard not to start crying as well. "… What about what's better for you?" He asks her quietly.
She sniffs loudly, sounding choked. "Doesn't matter." She admits, one knuckle reaching up to rub at the eye hole of her mask. "I don't care what happens to me."
Wally's head jerks back from the window to look at her. "… I care." He says almost defensively.
For some reason she lets out a bitter sounding laugh, the tail end of it breaking half in exhaustion and half with the thickness of her tears, which are now pouring thickly down her cheeks. Her mask feels water logged. "Don't say things like that to me." She half sobs, trying to smile and only managing to stretch her quivering lips tighter against her teeth. "… Look. Let's just… Call this for what it is, okay?"
Something in the back of his eyes darkens, his jaw tightening angrily as he stares at her. "… What is this, then?" He says very slowly.
She feels as if she's no longer looking at Wally, as if some hostile figure has replaced the freckled and laughing boy she so adores; in the back of her mind she can vividly hear a sai clattering against tile, and without knowing why she feels bile rising in the back of her throat. "… I don't know." She says honestly. "Another one of my mistakes, I guess. And maybe one of yours too."
She doesn't entirely believe what she's saying, more letting the words fall out of her mouth as a last resort, something to hurt him enough to hopefully convince him to keep his distance; when she gets the courage to glance at him again his jaw is clenched almost painfully tight, the corners of his eyes oddly wrinkled. "A mistake?" He repeats, eyes so cold she can't find any trace of affection there. "That's all these last few months have been to you?"
She shrugs, the whole movement thrown off by the fact that she's still trembling. She doesn't have anything else to say. "… Yeah."
She waits several seconds, as if giving him the chance to say something horrible to her—she doesn't know why but she's convinced herself that this will be easier if they part ways hating each other. Absently her eyes stray out their window, focusing on the brightest star she can see and staring at it with an odd intensity, her fingers clutching painfully about her elbows. As she watches some of the navy sky begins to fade— dawn is coming.
She wants to hate him so badly, and sometimes she almost thinks she does.
But she can't.
When she hears the bitter sounding laugh firing out of his mouth her head turns so quickly back towards him that she feels a spasm running through her muscles, eyes widening in disbelief to watch his mouth twisting into a malicious smirk. "You're the worst liar I've ever met." He tells her.
She narrows her eyes, back straightening as she forces herself to stop trembling. "Excuse me?"
It's another challenge between them, like everything is. Wally keeps staring at her, looking almost predatory as the smirk on his face widens. "You're lying." He tells her frankly, looking slightly maniacal as he keeps talking.
She can feel the wrinkle popping up over her nose and doesn't do anything to stop it. "No, I'm not." She says very slowly, feeling a chill of anger run flush down her spine when he lets out another brash chuckle.
"Prove it." He challenges her, more snarling than actually speaking.
For a moment her jaw mashes together, lips pulling back over her teeth in a feral snarl that hasn't crossed her features in what feels like the longest time; it takes her several seconds to level out her expression again, blood angrily hammering against her ear drums. "… You're an idiot." She says lowly, and before she can think it over she decides to do the meanest thing she can think of:
She decides to walk away.
It's meaner to turn her back on him but instinct doesn't allow herself to let her guard down—she doesn't entirely trust Wally right now, can't see anything familiar or affectionate in the way he's leering at her. Stupidly she makes to step around him, eyes straying one more time to the stars outside their window—
It happens so quickly she can't block it, can't fight against it; before she's even passed him Wally's rounded on her, hands forcing her arms to unfurl around herself and slamming her back against the window. She feels pried open as she cries out, vulnerable and ribs aching as he pins her wrists against the glass, her eyes flying open in shock—
But his grip on her isn't painful, more insistent as he braces their hands on either side of her head. His body is looming so close to her she can feel the heat, can see the haze in his eyes when he won't allow himself to touch her, the seams of their uniforms barely grazing each other as he shifts his thighs in front of her. It isn't predatory, threatening—it's a demand for her to stop running, for her to stay still for a moment.
His grip on her wrists is loose enough for her to break free if she wants to. She hates that she doesn't want to.
"What are you doing?" She tries to snarl at him, voice not quite sounding angry.
In answer Wally drops his jaw, now so close to her that she can feel his hips hovering near hers. He's staring at her, hard, carefully reading her face and studying her reaction. Another one of his experiments. "Prove it." He repeats, face now so close to hers she can feel his breath against her lips.
She swallows, trying her best to keep staring at him. She's not aware of him releasing her hands until she feels his fingers sliding down her forearms, gloves squeaking against the glass before taking her waist, gently tugging her off the window until her hip bones are pressing against his; unwillingly her neck rolls up to keep looking him in the eye, the back of her head rocking back into the window and face now tilted up to him. "... Prove it." He says softly one more time, half curious, half tempting.
She opens her mouth to snarl something awful and realizes her lips are shaking too badly to speak; she still has her hands up, pinned against the glass as if in surrender to some invisible force. "I-I don't have to prove anything to you."
She feels a flood of heat between her legs when Wally skims her nose with his. "That's what you think."
When Wally kisses her it isn't soft; it's a mess of chapped skin and teeth, of mouths prying each other open and desperate half-thoughts spilling over their tongues. He's clawing into her again, arms winding around her waist and trying to pull her close, trying to stop her from getting away and she's surprised when she realizes she's doing the same back—they're a mess of fingers in hair and nails digging into shoulders. And she knows this is it, her last kiss with Wally—and for some reason it hits her even harder that this is going to be her last kiss with anyone, ever. She was right when she called it a mistake, that's what it was—a distraction from her greater purpose, something to get lost in when her own reality was too horrifying to face. She's never going to love another person again, not when being loved by her is such a danger—
She's the Metropolis girl now.
She starts sobbing, the sound bubbling out of her throat and forcing her to pull back for air; she's back to shaking again, Wally's arms forcing her to stay in the comfort of his warmth rather than pull back to the safety of the cold glass. She realizes with a pang that he's shaking too, his chest quivering underneath her cheek. "Don't do that!" She gasps, one of her fists beating against his chest. "Why do you always—"
He disregards her hitting, flinching but still trying to keep a grip on her; for every one of his hands she deflects there's another, wiping at her tears or caressing her cheeks, overwhelming her senses with walnut flavored breath. "I'm sorry." He whispers, repeating the words a thousands times. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
And she's not strong enough to fight back, not when he's pressing his lips to her cheek and murmuring other comforts into her skin. It's easy, as it always is, to drown in him, to forget the real world. "I'm so sorry." He mutters against her mouth, kissing her for only a second before his voice breaks; his cheeks are wet.
"Wally—" She starts to say, ducking her head.
"... I love you." The words are whispered into the mangled ends of her hair and followed by more frantic kisses against the shell of her ear; they're said so quietly she probably wouldn't have heard them, were they muttered anywhere else.
It's about the last thing in the world she can stand to hear; as the words slip out of his mouth she feels like actual pieces are being ripped from her heart, a kind of torture so intense and painful that she's actually wishing for the pointed tip of a javelin instead. It takes about all the strength she has left to push him back, fighting against his arms until she's escapes him, skin prickling against their window as she flings herself back against it, wide-eyed and quivering.
Wally stares at her for a moment, looking pained when she stays silent, glassy eyes reflecting the mess of stars behind her. "Don't do this." He whispers, shaking his head. "Don't, okay? I— I love you, Artemis." He repeats, waiting for her to say something back.
She wants so badly to get her mouth to work, but the Metropolis girl is smarter than she is; instinctively she crosses her arms across her chest again, as if trying to force a physical barrier between the two of them. "… Why would you say that to me?" She chokes out after a second. "Don't you— It's over, Wally. Why the hell would you—"
Wally blinks, eyes screwing up tightly for a second; she half tricks herself into thinking she sees tear tracks on his cheeks in the half-light before he's back to looking her dead in the face, throat bobbing. "I don't know." He says gruffly after a moment, wincing when he tries to shrug. Blood is beginning to leak through his bandages. "Because it's true, I guess."
She feels another pang run through her and tightens her arms, physically restraining herself from reaching out to comfort him. "Well— It's over." He voice breaks and she finds she can't speak unless she's staring at the lightning bolt on his chest. "… I don't love you." She spits out quickly, pushing herself off the glass and dodging around him, hating the way the words taste on her tongue.
This time he doesn't move to block her, doesn't try to catch her arm as she steps around him, heading for the zeta tubes; he doesn't move at all, actually, except for the pained dip in his jaw, his shoulders slumping in frustration and hurt. She forces herself to keep moving, tears running so fast and thick down her face that nothing she can do will stop them.
"You're lying again, aren't you?" The words are blurted out too loudly, as if she's across the room instead of only a few feet away.
Despite herself her feet pause, head turning to glance back over her shoulder. Her stomach tightens when she catches Wally's gaze in the reflection of their window, which she supposes won't really belong to the both of them anymore, not after tonight. For some reason he's got his face stretching into almost an intolerable smile, the warbled reflection of freckles and yellow making her heart ache.
She forces herself to look away. "No."
"Prove it." He yells after her, the words following her into nothingness.
AN: Another chapter up. I've been procrastinating posting this because even looking at this chapter makes me upset, but I had a few of you yelling at me in the reviews to get a move on.
Q&A:
Q: Will you ever do a Parenthesis from Wally's point of view?
A: Unfortunately that is unlikely— Artemis' Parenthesis is actually the biggest work I've ever attempted to write, covering the 5 year gap between Season 1 and 2. As I'm planning on going quite in depth with plots and sub-plots, I just don't know where I would find the time to write something unique and interesting from Wally's perspective. I do, however, have a few stories I'm planning that will be written from Wally's POV— if you're interested in seeing what those will eventually look like, check out my profile.
Well, I expect a lot of you are angry with me. Feel free to read and yell at me in the reviews.