Location: Mount Justice

Date: Sep 12th

Time: 07:09

It had been years since Emmy had such a fitful night's sleep. She sent her fists flying into the punching bag to the beat of the song blasting from the speaker system. Her iPod was plugged in near a bench and had been dutifully blaring her bass boosted songs since she got in the gym.

The dreams about her father had returned. She thought she'd been able to avoid them this year, but then she'd made the mistake of mentioning him in the desert, and Wally had asked if her parents were actually dead. The nightmares came after that. They started small and short. The bloody hockey mask on the wall. The smell of smoke and burning flesh. The sound of a gunshot. The heat of a flame. But last night, the dreams had come full force. In the first one he found Sage and Hunter, saying that he never would have realized they were still alive if he hadn't seen the Green Lantern at Santa Prisca. Then one where he took her ring and crushed it, saying that she didn't deserve it because murderers couldn't become heroes. Life wasn't forgiving enough for that. Then one where he made her watch as he killed every single member of her team, listing all her transgressions and everyway that their deaths were her fault as he went. She could still hear the hatred in the curses her dying friends had screamed at her. Emmy had woken up after the third one, tears running down her face and disoriented. She'd managed to fall back to sleep again after an hour, and immediately had a dream about her father returning during the house fire and forcing her to listen to Sage's and Hunter's screams as the house collapsed. She'd spent twenty minutes walking between the two kids' rooms, cracking their doors open to make sure they were still breathing before she went to bed again. When she finally fell asleep it was 3 in the morning. She'd dreamt that she walked into her bathroom in the mountain to shower, and when she wiped the condensation off the mirror, her father's face had been staring back at her. That dream had unnerved her the most because it felt the most realistic. She knew that she would never let him kill her siblings or her teammates, but she had his eyes and his blood and his panache for violence. She had always been terrified that one day she would wake up and turn into a female version of him.

Emmy did a flying spin kick and smirked slightly when the bag got a dent in the leather. In a way, she almost preferred the punching bag to a real fight. She could be as brutal as she wanted to be without a care in the world. Emmy threw an aggressive hook-jab-elbow combo, sliding away from the bag's return swing. She glared at it as more memories of last night, or, this morning, returned.

She had gone into the bathroom, splashed water on her face, looked at her perfidious eyes in the mirror, and sternly said, "You're not a 10-year-old kid anymore. You survived. You're a Green Lantern. You can kick Sportsmaster's ass without breaking a sweat."

Wally's words from Santa Prisca had become a sort of lifeline for her, tethering her to shore each time a riptide of fear sent her mentally crashing into her father. Emmy had read once that it was important to hold on to what strangers and acquaintances said about you, because they could often see things that you could not. We have known ourselves every day of our lives. We become numb to ourselves because the familiarity makes our uniqueness so commonplace that we often fail to recognize it. Sometimes, a stranger can see you better than you see yourself because they lack the bias through which you see yourself. Wally had known her for less than three weeks and had blatantly disliked her when he said those words to her. He had been a stranger, and she desperately held on to the belief that he had seen her better than she saw herself. Emmy had the same terror in her gut when she saw her father in Santa Prisca as the day he shot her. She knew intellectually that she had grown taller, stronger, wiser, and with the power of a Green Lantern ring at her disposal, she could decimate her father in minutes. But, at her core, she still feared him. He was this horrible boogeyman who invaded her thoughts and lived in her peripheral vision. Everyone moment of joy that she had with Sage and Hunter was tainted by the horror that he would find out they were alive and come for them. Even with the new power, she still felt like a helpless little girl, and feelings can poison reality effortlessly. That was why Emmy found herself repeating Wally's words whenever her father came to mind. Wally didn't know her. Wally didn't like her. But Wally thought that she shouldn't be scared of her father, and she did her best to trick herself into believing him. His words were helpful, even if he had been more antagonistic than normal this week.

After repeating her mantra and feeling the cool water splash her overheated and tear-streaked face, she had gone back to bed. Her dreams had finally lacked the presence of her father, but in his absence, something much, much worse had appeared. She had dreamed about Wally, and it had been a filthy dream.

Emmy growled and attacked the bag with a livid onslaught. She had dreamt about her last argument with Wally on Monday. They had traded the same ripostes in the dream as they had in real life, but this time, when Emmy stormed into the shower, Wally followed her. It had been wet, and steamy, and his mouth had been everywhere, and she'd come completely undone underneath his vibrating fingers, and she moaned his name so loudly that she woke herself up, and she was mortified and outraged. Of all the beings in the entire universe to have an inappropriate dream about, he was the absolute worst option. Ever since the desert they couldn't go more than 30 seconds without trying to rip each other's heads off, and he had started the post-mission enmity. After that last 'nightmare' she had refused to try to sleep again, too betrayed by her unconscious mind, and left her room. In a blind rage she had thrown on clothes, grabbed her iPod, and swung by the kitchen for a handful of water bottles.

She'd entered the gym at 04:41 and hadn't looked at the clock since. Emmy first jogged six miles on the treadmill, punishing herself for the last dream because she hated running almost as much as that infernal boy. She eventually concluded that it left too much time to think and had transitioned to attacking the punching bag. She would occasionally stop to drink water and fix her hand wrappings, but right when she thought she might be calm enough to try to sleep again, a memory of Wally's seductive voice muttering nasty things against her neck would return, and she'd be at the bag again with a furious yell.

Emmy did a back handspring away from the bag and glowered at it. She kept picturing faces on it, and it would periodically change from Lawrence's ugly mug to Wally's haughty one. Emmy honestly couldn't tell which one was filling her with more rage at the moment. Probably Wally's. He was just such a pain in her ass. First, he hates and distrusts her, then he gives her a pep talk, thereby subtly accepting her as a teammate, then he's concerned when she gets hurt on Mars, but then all of the sudden he's pissed at her for Arrow Boy not joining the team. Emmy launched and kicked the bag with both feet, backflipping away from it with the force of her blow and landing on her feet again, hands up and starting to jab. Then he's mad at her for going to his school, then blames his friendship drama on her, then fights with her about magic, but then accepts her help on the beach and is suddenly buddy-buddy enough to help with her homework, but then they woke up in the stupid desert without their stupid memories, and all of the sudden he's calling her a friendless whore and getting up her ass about some random guy at school, and then he has the audacity to show up in a smutty dream. Alright, so that last one technically wasn't his fault, but everything before that is a valid complaint! Emmy snarled and threw an uppercut at the returning pendulum. She just did not understand that boy at all. He could either hate her or be friendly toward her. Emmy didn't give a shit which one he chose as long as he finally chose one because he had been doing more back-and-forth than the punching bag.

Wally had initially been annoyed when Dick asked to move their Sunday Arm Day from 1PM to 7AM. Bruce had decided, at the last minute, to take Dick to the Daytona 500 to practice stunt driving in a controlled setting this afternoon, and while Wally was incredibly jealous, he loved his friend enough to willingly abandon his extra weekend sleep and dragged himself to the mountain this morning. He had just zipped to the kitchen for a light morning snack of three bananas, 53 grapes, and 6 apples when Dick texted that there was some trouble in Gotham, and he would be there for weightlifting closer to 7: 45AM. Wally had sighed dramatically and trekked toward his room in the mountain to get a precious extra half hour of sleep when he heard music coming from the gym. He followed the thumping bass and found Emmy beating the absolute shit out of the punching bag. There were three empty and crumpled water bottles on the bench next to her, so she had clearly been at it for a while. He had never seen her hit anything the way she was hitting the bag, and since she had no idea that he was there, he took the opportunity to examine her.

She was fascinating to watch. Feral but graceful. Deadly but smooth. Like liquid mercury being injected into a vein, mesmerizing to observe but lethal to experience. It was like watching a tsunami crash upon a city. Like seeing a streak of lighting split the sky, momentarily illuminating the dark world in a stunning display, and leaving behind smoking ruins. He could see that she had been an arena fighter because the second she entered the ring during their team training sessions, she adopted a persona. It wasn't a dramatic shift, but it was certainly a noticeable one. She would flirt and quip and trash talk and rile up 'the crowd', but her eyes were cold and calculating, and she had an infuriating ability to make a fight as lengthy or as brief as she wanted. Unless it was with Canary, of course. He had noticed that Emmy would occasionally start to make a move in the ring and then abruptly stop or change steps. He had asked Canary about it during one of their sessions this week, unsure if the habit served a real purpose in a fight or was just some kind of weird tic.

Canary had looked at him appraisingly for so long that he regretted asking the question at all, but then she simply said, "She's stopping herself from doing moves that would actually hurt any of you."

Wally was flabbergasted by the comment and had watched Emmy out of the corner of his eye the rest of the week. Now that he knew to look for it, it was blatantly obvious that she was holding back. She would evade instead of striking or flip and joint lock instead of kicking and beating. He could even tell when she was about to lose because her shrewd eyes would flash with a look of acceptance a few milliseconds before the move that brought her down was made. And after Canary's comment, he knew why. Emmy was constantly running through possible moves in her head as she fought, and the second she realized that she could only win by doing something that could injure one of her teammates, she conceded. He supposed it made sense. She had been a little girl getting wailed on by grown men. She had gotten used to receiving and initiating vicious attacks. It must have been quite a change to spar against people on your side. Underground fighting was dirty and deadly and dangerous, and she had done it for years. She must know a thousand moves that could break their bones like twigs. He didn't like the idea of a girl his age being able to beat him in a fight, but he did find himself begrudgingly appreciating the care she took with their team. He hadn't trusted her when he first learned that she had a criminal past but knowing that she intentionally censored her every movement when practicing made him feel like he misjudged her. It was obvious that she cared about their teammates. Seeing her restrain herself on Tuesday, even during her round against him, had been a hard pill to swallow, particularly given how he had treated her the day before. He'd made an ass of himself. He had unnecessarily criticized her in multiple ways and been pissed that she let another boy kiss her when he really had no legitimate reason to feel that way. Sure, it gave him an unpleasant sense of déjà vu from last year, but Emmy wasn't Stacy and she had exactly zero obligation to him in any capacity. Any residual embarrassment he had from his freshman year was not Emmy's problem, and he shouldn't have put that on her. If she wanted to date a prick, that was her prerogative. Even if he didn't like having to see it firsthand.

Watching her let loose and attack was a thrilling experience. The bag was inanimate, and she was ripping it apart. The force and torque behind each hit were impressive. There were no pointless taps. Every breath she took was intentional. She put her entire body behind each move. The bag was getting annihilated by elbows and knees and knuckles and heels. She was vicious, and he was enthralled. Captivated by the way her assaults were perfectly on beat with the gradually changing music. It made it seem like she was dancing instead of fighting, and the stark juxtaposition between the elegant timing and the savage motions had put him in a trance as he silently watched for the last ten minutes. He figured it had been about ten minutes because three songs had played since he arrived. Wally was particularly riveted by the way she seamlessly changed her fighting tempo during song transitions. He felt bad about giving her shit for living her life at school, and he also felt bad about the way he came at her about her parents on the mission. That was a crazy thing for him to even suggest. Why would she say her parents were dead if they weren't? An 11-year-old wouldn't just start raising her two siblings for the hell of it. Their minds had been severely messed with, and he had yet again assumed that she was a liar and bad addition to the team instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt. He decided that he needed to be the one to extend an olive branch this time. Once there was a break in her rage, that is.

Watching her fight like this was also intriguing because she wasn't in uniform. Her lantern suit was as skintight as it could get, but in a way, it was pretty modest. The only skin that showed was on her face. However, the red sports bra and black shorts she was wearing now, he was vaguely amused by the fact that they were matching today, left a lot of skin in the open and little to the imagination. He saw the way her muscles flexed and rippled with each movement. How a few beads of sweat followed her curves on their way down. The way her body arched and contorted was riveting. He almost wished that her lantern suit would change to look more like Artemis's. His newest teammate had an attitude fairly similar to Emmy's minus the high and mighty aspect, so he wasn't interested as a whole, but she did look good in her arrow get up. Then again, if Emmy wore skimpier clothing in the field, he wasn't sure he'd be able to focus because he had lost track of how many songs had played so he was now officially unaware of just how long he had been studying her. He started to feel creepy about it. He hadn't meant to lurk for so long and looked for the soonest opportunity to announce his presence.

Emmy backed away from the bag. She had a new move she wanted to try. She watched it swing for a second and jumped into a front handspring. She wrapped her legs around the bag after she pushed off the floor with her hands and brought her elbows down into it roughly as she landed. She smirked in satisfaction. That would definitely take out a guy if she could time it right to wrap her legs around his waist. The bag was swinging with her on it, her ankles interlocked around the back keeping her steady. She leaned backwards until her back was against the edge of the bag beneath her ass and decided it was time for some water. She reached her hands toward the floor, unhooked her ankles, and dropped to the ground in a jilted back walkover. Unfortunately, she mistimed the swinging of the bag and it hit her as she was kicking her legs over her head. The abrupt jolt sent her tumbling onto her back with a startled yelp. She raised herself to her elbows and glowered at the bag swinging innocuously before she dropped completely against the floor and slammed the sides of her fists into the mats with an angry grunt.

"Are you going to fight the floor too now?" An amused voice called out. Her stomach flipped with an uncomfortable blend of fury and arousal. Oh, great. He's here. She tilted her head at a diagonal and saw Wally leaning against the doorframe looking down at her. "Hey, I get it, the bag has an attitude. But we all know the old saying about what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."

Emmy narrowed her eyes at him from her position on the floor as she caught her breath before standing up and turning down her music a smidgen. She put her hands on her hips.

"I think you'll find that I'm more of an unstoppable force than the floor is an immovable object."

Shockingly, Wally just laughed and agreed. She was thankful that her skin was already flushed from exertion because she was not ready to be in a room with this asshole when vivid clips of her last dream kept popping up in her head without warning. He zipped over to the bench next to her, and she sighed in appreciation at the cool breeze he always brought with him. At least there was one good thing about his presence.

One of the many bad things about his presence was that he was wearing the guy version of skimpy gym clothes. Red sneakers, black basketball shorts with red stripes on the side, and a red tank top with the sides cut out. His legs were spread in the typical way guys do and his arms were thrown across the back of the bench. His obliques were peeking out from his shirt and his biceps and deltoids were taut and prominent. She momentarily stopped reaching for the water bottle next to his right leg because she was battling an asinine urge to straddle him. Nope, nope, nope. Never. She was mad at him. He'd started acting like an ass on Monday for no reason. She wasn't going to let the content of her brain's sleep hallucinations distract her from his behavior. She shook her head a bit, attempting to erase her thoughts like an image on an Etch-A-Sketch toy, and snatched up her water.

"Why are you even here at," she paused and turned to the clock on the wall. She blinked in surprise. "7:25?" She had been here a while.

"Rob and I do weights together every Sunday," Wally started as she brought her water to her lips, surveying him through half lidded eyes. Emmy unfortunately and inexplicably enjoyed two things: redheads and muscular arms. This current situation was not conducive to overcoming the incensed and confounded state her dream left her in. At all. "He had a holdup in Gotham, so I'm just chilling until he gets here."

Emmy guzzled water as he moved to stretch his arms over his head. He tugged on each elbow for a few seconds, his triceps popped out at her. Had his arms always been so toned? Was she still asleep? Was she having a mental breakdown? She brought the half empty bottle away from her lips absentmindedly. She'd clawed at those triceps in her dream when he'd effortlessly lifted her up, his scorching body a stark contrast to the freezing shower tiles. His lips were being used for something other than unnecessary quips for once as he pressed open mouth kisses down her neck and sternum until he'd finally moved to-

"Earth to Emmy," the smugness in Wally's voice announced his smirk long before she saw it. She snapped back to the present. Don't let a random dream fool you, East. You already decided Akio would be the last jerk you ever dealt with. She blinked at him with a void expression. It wasn't enough. He had already caught her ogling. And he knew for a fact that he was not in My Little Pony boxers right now, so she actually was checking him out this time. Take that, Basketball Boy, he thought to himself. Emmy casually took another sip of water.

"Yes?" She asked expectantly.

"Well, I had been asking if you wanted to spar, but if you'd prefer to just stare at my arms until the bird gets here, I can sit pretty," he smirked up at her.

"Zoning out is different than staring," Emmy glowered at him.

Wally was still simpering. He arched his back over the edge of the bench, put his hands behind his head, and flexed his arms for all they were worth. Emmy's eyes followed the motion immediately, and her eyes slanted with poorly repressed desire. Emmy tore her eyes from the offending muscles and sent a contemptuous look at Wally's shit-eating grin. This interaction was fantastic for his self-esteem.

"Is it?" He asked with fake naivety.

"You tell me," Emmy tilted her head to the right. "Were you zoning out when you were secretly watching me train for who knows how long, or should we just agree that it was staring?"

His grin fell. He put his elbows on his knees and changed the subject, "So, sparing? Yes or no? I'm a lot more fun than the floor." He nodded at the mat she hit after falling.

Emmy snorted, "Is that why you call yourself the Wall-man?"

He huffed in amusement but waited for her response. Emmy thought for a second.

"Why would you want to be around me anyway? I'm a caustic ass no one wants to be friends with, remember?" she deadpanned.

Megs and Supey, now going by Connor, started school a few days ago. Emmy had asked Megan 'how school was' for a change, and the Martian squealed and talked all about classmates and getting water thrown on her as a cheer team initiation. Emmy was happy for her friend and said that she would be right next to Connor in the stands for the first football game. She did not want to go watch a bunch of 15-year-old stand around on a field, but Megs got so happy that Emmy wanted to come cheer her on, pun intended, that the lantern was pretty sure the East's Friday nights would be booked up until the end of the semester. Connor's answer to the question had been a shrug, but when they went to the gym later, he asked her what it meant if a cheerleader told Megan, 'Your boyfriend is hot but kind of a freak'. She was ten minutes into an explanation of the nuances girls utilize to speak about boys when he'd asked her if Megan thought he was cute. Emmy had cackled, won their sparring match by flipping him onto his back, and told him that Megan thought he was as perfect as he thought Megan was while he blushed beneath her foot. Emmy glared at Wally. Neither of Happy Harbor High's newest students had even vaguely indicated that they didn't want to spend time with her anymore.

Wally winced, "I," he paused for a second and looked up at her. "I shouldn't have treated you like that on Monday. I was trying to- it doesn't matter. Look, I took some things out on you that weren't your fault, and I'm sorry." He tugged at the hair on the nape of his neck for a second. "I'd like to start over with you. Maybe we can give trusting each other and being friends a shot. I'm thinking we spar, you get to punch me a few times if you're fast enough, and then we have a fresh start?"

If Emmy was moved by the apology and suggestion, she didn't show it. He seemed to have a habit of 'taking things that weren't her fault' out on her. He used her as a scapegoat for any problem he had at school. Nevertheless, she wasn't opposed to a fresh start. It would be nice for them to be less contentious, and it would certainly put less strain on the team. Out of everyone, she needed to get along with him the most because she saw him almost every day of the week. But if they started over, that would mean this would be her last shot to punish him for the way he'd been an ass to her all week and the event last night. The odds of him finding her training today weren't high, and she wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

"It'll be more than a few punches," she started. Wally perked up when he realized that she was consenting to his idea. Emmy thought for a second. She was pissed at him in more ways than one. He most likely felt the same. This could work out well. "One condition though," he nodded, eager for her to continue. "If we're going to be all chummy after this," she eyed him prudently, "we should make this sparring as hostile as possible."

"Meaning?" Wally furrowed his brow at her. He was intimidated by the gleam in her eye.

"Meaning, nothing we say during this match counts as soon as it ends. We get the resentment from the last two months out, and then we let it go and re-introduce ourselves." She watched him think about her suggestion carefully.

"Using complete honesty as a transient catalyst for amity. So, for instance," he started slowly, "if I wanted to complain about the way you play the martyr for taking care of Sage and Hunter when the only other option was to let them die…I would say it now."

Emmy grinned dangerously at him. He got it. "Exactly, and if I wanted to mention how pathetic it is that you hated me on day one just because I saved ten children while you and two other sidekicks struggled to free one clone, I'd do it before the end of the match."

He smirked at her. He liked this idea. "Deal."

Emmy put her water bottle next to him on the bench slowly, noticing the way his eyes dropped to her cleavage as she bent over. "Now, did you say you were more fun than the floor or more fun on the floor?"

He gulped at her coquettish murmur. She smirked and walked toward the open mat behind the bench. If he wanted to tease her, she could do it right back. "Sail" by AWOLNATION was nearing its end as they hit the mat.

"You want a minute to stretch?" Emmy cooed. "I'd hate to wipe the floor with you too soon."

"Oh, don't worry about me, Green Apple," Wally tugged his shirt off and tossed it on the bench, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "I don't need warmups. Fun fact about being a speedster: I'm always hot."

That little prick. Emmy met his challenge and raked her eyes over his bare torso as he walked to meet her in the center of the mat. She looked up at him when she finished, "I already removed everything that I'm willing to take off, if you're trying to start something."

She nodded at the baggy t-shirt that had been thrown by the speaker after she finished with the treadmill. Wally's eyes roamed her body in response.

"Could I persuade you to put your shirt back on then?" He taunted. Emmy snorted. "And for the record," he lowered his voice. "If I were trying to start something, you would know."

Emmy hummed in agreement, "Now that I believe. You're not exactly a subtle person, Kid Frantic."

"Do I wanna know?" filled the room from the speakers.

"Arctic Monkeys?" Wally quirked an appreciative eyebrow at her as they faced each other.

"If you want One Direction, you'll have to wait for Sage to wake up," Emmy dropped into a fighting stance with her left foot forward.

"I'm good," Wally chuckled as he matched her stance. "This is actually my favorite song by them."

Emmy made the sign for "same". She had it set up on her playlist to play three times in a row before moving to the next song. Wally looked at her hand motion confused for a second and she sighed, "Hearies."

She preferred signing to speaking most days, so she'd be happy when the kids woke up. They circled each other. The lyrics had started. Emmy met Wally's eyes and joined in.

"Are there some aces up your sleeve? Have you no idea that you're in deep? I've dreamt about you nearly every night this week," She smirked dirtily during that line. How appropriate. Wally looked nothing short of flustered, so she kept singing. "How many secrets can you keep? 'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat."

Wally swallowed and broke the electrifying eye contact Emmy had initiated. She used the opportunity and lunged for his shoulder with a jab. It made contact and knocked him off balance. He bounced away from her on the balls of his feet and pouted.

"I don't like that you start fights without warning." The first truth of the match. Emmy smirked.

"I thought you said you were too hot to need a warmup," she batted her eyes at him.

He scoffed. "In general, I think you're less moral than I am."

Emmy suddenly remembered how annoyed she was with the boy and sent a side kick toward his head. He jumped away from it at the last moment.

"When I said that I thought Mr. Twister wasn't Red Tornado in disguise, you immediately blew me off, and then I was right," Emmy threw a hook that he dodged. "We could have stopped him before he wrecked Happy Harbor."

Wally's eyes widened, but he threw a jab-hook combo at her that she blocked easily. "I'm pissed that Batman recruited you to take care of the rest of us. I put in over two years of work before he would even consider me for this team, but after your first mission on earth he thinks you're the only one who can 'handle the darkest parts of the job'. What the hell does that even mean?"

Emmy grazed his forehead with the sole of her sneakers as she sent an abrupt forward kick at his face. "I hate it when you act bipolar. Like this week and with Dr. Roquette. I'm not a punching bag for your problems, so if you want to use me as one, you're going to have to suck it up when I hit back."

Wally dropped and tried to sweep her legs. She avoided it and somersaulted away. He glared at her, "I hate it when you act like our six-month age gap is a big difference, and I hate when you replace the 'Flash' in my name with your word of the day."

"I hate it when you try to guess my birth name." He barely managed to dodge the uppercut she sent.

Emmy smirked and bounced on the balls of her feet, "This is fun, Kid Fulminate."

"Very cathartic, Petunia," Wally grinned waggishly before grazing her side with his fist as she side-stepped away from his punch. He thought back to watching her eat lunch with that halfwit and his crew all week and blurted out something without thinking, "I hate your boyfriend."

To his surprise, Emmy cackled. Her eyes were wicked and sparkled with amusement, "He is not my boyfriend."

He ignored the wave of relief washing over him, "You might want to tell him that."

"Oh, I don't have to," she taunted, "Unlike you with Megan, he can recognize disinterest."

Wally glared at her, and she ducked under his roundhouse kick.

Emmy threw four jabs at him back-to-back, which he blocked, but then she got him in the side of the knee with the top of her shoe. He hissed and limped away for a second while she impishly relayed her next complaint, "I cannot believe you almost got us killed by lava because you're such a big flirt."

He rubbed the side of his knee for a second until the pain went away, "I am not that big a flirt."

"You called me cute four seconds after seeing me without the balaclava," Emmy quirked an eyebrow challengingly.

Wally narrowed his eyes at her, annoyed she remembered that unfortunate part of one of their earliest interactions. "I can't believe you think I'm flirty when you're the one who says blatantly salacious things all the time."

He sent a hook at her head so she would still think he was trying to hit her. He really didn't want to hit her, actually, but he did want to draw this fight out as long as possible.

Emmy rolled her eyes, "I do not."

"You talked about having a gay bondage voyeurism kink in the middle of Cadmus, when Megan shifted into your lookalike you immediately made a joke about having sex with a clone of yourself, you made fun of my name two seconds before you said it would sound better moaned, and-" Wally's rant was cut off when he realized what he had just alluded to.

Emmy faltered slightly. It was the first time either of them had mentioned Bialya. Wally wanted to smack himself in the face. He had just ruined their truth time, hadn't he? They hadn't discussed the desert at all so of course they wouldn't talk about it even when they were-

"Fine," Emmy smirked and quirked an eyebrow for a second. "Maybe we both have dirty minds." She forced her brain not to think about the dream and voiced her next grievance. "I hate it when you use me as a scapegoat for your problems."

Wally smiled sheepishly for a second. "I hate that you always smell good," he confessed. He'd been holding that one in for a while.

Emmy's face flashed with gaiety as she blocked his next punch and hit him in the ribs. "I hate that the only perfect score I've gotten in physics so far was on the homework you helped me do."

Wally winced from the pain in his side, but his eyes were mirthful at her admission. "I hate that I'm jealous that you were chosen for a lantern ring."

"I hate that I'm jealous that you're close with your family," Emmy confessed quickly. I hate that I had a sex dream about you. There was absolutely no way she was saying that, so she doubled up on her turn.

"The magic thing," her jaw ticked. "You literally turned into Doctor Fate, and it infuriates me that you won't even consider the possibility of magic. You always think you're right!"

Wally glowered at her, "And you never think you're wrong!"

She sent a backwards roundhouse kick at him, but he caught her ankle. He yanked her foot up higher in the air and grabbed her left arm into a behind-the-back arm lock. The same kind she used against him when they first met. He had thought moving her ankle up would get her off balance, but now she was just standing in the splits with one arm pinned behind her back. He struggled to reign in his imagination as he learned how flexible she was.

Emmy was a little surprised when Wally managed to catch her foot and send her leg up higher. She frowned and was about to escape his arm lock when he pulled her back flush against his chest and sang lowly in her ear, "So have you got the guts? Been wondering if your heart's still open, and if so, I wanna know what time it shuts. Simmer down and pucker up, I'm sorry to interrupt. It's just I'm constantly on the cusp of tryin' to kiss you."

Emmy was stunned by the sultry voice tickling the hair on her neck. She had lost track of the music in the background, which was very unusual for her. She wasn't even sure if the song had played more than once yet or not. Who knew Wally could sing? The lyrics sent an unwelcome chill down her spine even as his overheated body seared her bare skin at each contact point between them. Emmy breathed shakily. This was way too similar to the dream that sent her into the gym in the first place. She mentally swore at the boy causing her so many problems.

Wally smirked slightly against her hair and kept singing, "I don't know if you feel the same as I do. But we could be together if you wanted to. "

Emmy jerked the ankle in his hand down as hard as she could. It threw him off balance, so she jumped up, planted her left foot on his thigh, and did a forward flip out of his grasp. She hit the ground on her feet and spun around to enjoy his shocked countenance.

"See, that's the kind of move you would have done back in Cadmus if you were on my level," she mocked before dropping her voice to a flirty tease. "And speaking of which, you mentioned my alleged 'gay bondage voyeurism kink' in the Tower of Fate too…is that your way of saying you'd like me to tie you up, or your way of saying you'd like a boyfriend?"

Wally narrowed his eyes at her. "I hate that you always have a snappy retort ready."

"I hate that you always wear a second shirt over the first shirt," Emmy criticized. "I mean what is the point of that?"

Wally's baffled eyebrows rose, "Why would that bother you?" He saw regret flash across Emmy's face as she avoided eye contact. He glanced at his fists, raised to protect his head and his confusion transitioned into an elated bark of laughter. "Wait, is it because it covers my-"

Emmy growled and launched at him. He blocked two rapid jabs, but then she dropped to the ground and swept his legs. He fell to his back, and Emmy scrambled on top of him. She pinned his wrists down, straddled his hip bones, and moved the top of her sneakers onto his shins so she could use her entire body weight if he tried to escape. She was panting slightly and blew a green strand of hair out of her face.

"Do I wanna know? If this feelin' flows both ways? Sad to see you go, was sort hoping that you'd stay," she smirked down at a baffled Wally as she sang. "Baby, we both know, that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day."

His face was almost pained, and he was looking anywhere but her, which proved to be difficult since she was all over him. Her cleavage was in his face, and her bare stomach was brushing against his as they breathed. She smirked. Look who's flustered now. She leaned down more, letting her chest graze against his. Wally's eyes shot down without his permission and when he tried to pull them away, he met bawdy blue eyes full of malevolence.

"You know," Emmy leaned down even more, letting her gaze stay on his pink lips for a long second before flicking back up to his alarmed eyes. "It is such a shame that we didn't make it behind that sand dune."

Wally inhaled sharply and struggled against her. She slammed his arms back to the ground, and he bit his lip. She got even closer, slowly fluttering her dark eyelashes as their breaths mingled. Wally had an identity crisis underneath her as Emmy observed him like he was her prey. She captured both his wrists under her left hand, so she'd have one free. It wasn't the most stable position, but she was confident that Wally wouldn't try to escape again. She lightly dragged her thumb across his bottom lip, prompting him to stop biting it. His heartbeat was pounding through his trapped wrists, fast even by his standards.

The muscles in his clamped jaw were twitching as he worked to contain the animalistic growl rising in the back of his throat. He was struggling to keep himself from crashing his mouth against her infuriating, ruby lips when she continued. "Did you know that you taste like cinnamon hot chocolate?" Emmy lightly traced his straining jawline with her pointer finger. "There's really no telling what I would have done to you."

He hissed through clenched teeth. For the love of God was she really talking about how he had tasted? Emmy relished the distressed expression on his face as he tried to hold himself together. She moved her hands to his inner biceps and slowly slid them up his arms as she made her way back to his wrists. Wally gulped. Their words wouldn't count after this, but would their actions? Emmy leaned to the side slowly, lips grazing his earlobe as she spoke, "After all, I am a whore, right?"

Wally let out a strangled groan and had just decided to kiss the life out of her and beg for forgiveness for ever saying that word around her when a voice interrupted the moment like a needle popping a balloon.

"Sheesh, guys. When I said, 'get a room', I meant one with doors."

Emmy looked up at Robin. Wally used the diversion to topple her off of his torso and switch their positions. Emmy landed on her back with her lips parted and eyebrows raised in shock. He smoldered down at her. The cockiness she had when she was in control and torturing him vanished immediately. Her treacherous brain chose the exact moment he forced her arms above her head to start replaying the highlights of the dream she had about the shirtless guy on top of her.

His stare was intense to the point of being lewd. Emmy's cheeks got pinker, but she couldn't keep her eyes from flicking between his. He had thin wisps of gold throughout his green irises that she had never noticed. Wally took his time gazing at her as her breathing hastened before he leaned toward her lips. He was only an inch away from her parting lips when he took a detour and brushed his mouth against the shell of her right ear.

"I shouldn't have called you that," Wally apologized sincerely before his husky voice turned bold, "But let's make one thing clear, he didn't kiss you like I did."

Emmy's harsh exhale almost sounded like a whimper and the noise made Robin intervene again.

"I do not want to witness whatever's about to happen here. Should I come back in 20 minutes? 20 seconds? How long can you last, Wally?"

The two older teens glared at the bird.

"Nothing is about to happen," Emmy snapped. It wasn't incredibly convincing given how breathless she was.

Wally smirked down at her. "Of course not. Just say I'm right, and I'll let you go."

Emmy glowered at the boy leering on top of her. She headbutted him without warning and pushed him off of her before rolling over her shoulder to her feet. Wally clutched his nose. Emmy lifted the left corner of her lips. Robin cackled in the background.

"Rude." Wally declared glumly.

Emmy snorted. "Please, I didn't even hit you hard enough to make your nose bleed."

Wally glared at her but found that she was right. "I win that one."

"You do not!" Emmy scoffed as she plucked her iPod from the speakers and tossed each of her empty water bottles into the trash can. "I had you down before Boy Blunder distracted me."

Wally got to his feet with a smirk. "We'll call it a tie and do a raincheck rematch."

Emmy paused for a second, but then her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Deal."

He walked toward her with an almost predatory gaze, invading her personal space despite Robin's perplexed surveillance. She looked up at him.

"Hi," He grinned down at her casually, throwing a drop of levity into the ocean of tension that still remained from the end of their sparring match. "I'm Wally."

She quirked an eyebrow in amusement. This was them starting new, then. "Hi, Wally, I'm Emerald," she checked him out one last time before she finished her introduction, only to further provoke him, of course, "You can call me Emmy."

Wally's eyes were dark and heady. Emmy, once again reminded of that damned dream, and even worse, reminded of the way he looked at her in Bialya before kissing her like his life depended on it, quickly stepped away from his two-foot radius of heat. Finally able to breathe air he hadn't just exhaled, Emmy cooled down some. She turned on her heels and walked out of the gym, "Have fun with your weights, boys."

Wally watched her swinging hips leave with rapt attention, to the great amusement and mild horror of the bird. Robin cleared his throat. The speedster shook his head and zipped over to his friend.

"Hey, Rob. So, uh, yeah, how was your Gotham thing?"

Dick raised an eyebrow at Wally, "Evidently, a lot less of an aster than your thing. Dude, what the hell was that?"

Wally got a conflicted look on his face, but it was gone as soon as it arrived and he shrugged, "Sparring."

Robin snorted and moved to the weights. "In that case, there are a few girls at school I'd like to spar with."

Emmy was barely out the door when she realized she left her shirt by the bench. She went back in and picked up the offending item. Wally, still shirtless and gleaming, was spotting Rob on the bench press. Emmy bit her lip and perused him for a second. She thought about his request. Trent hadn't been horrible or anything, but the five second peck he planted on her had been too bland, too mediocre, and too nothing special. She would only say it once, but West was a damn good kisser. She felt Wally's eyes track her as she walked out of the room with her shirt slung around her neck like a towel. She stopped right before the exit. They had agreed to momentary honesty, after all.

"Hey Wally," she called over her shoulder.

He perked up immediately.

"A desert is a lot hotter than a cafeteria. In more ways than one."

He grinned at her departing figure with smug triumph. Take that, Basketball Boy.

"What is she talking about?" Rob huffed while finishing his penultimate rep.

Wally shrugged, but his smirk didn't leave for a while.

-Looks like they *didn't* kiss and made up. Thanks to Yoduvanchik, ukitakeitalialover041757, and httpstress for reviewing!

Until next time,

TheDarkAbyss