Location: Keystone High
Date: Oct 21st
Time: 08:49
Wally was at his locker when a familiar wave of lemon, green tea, and an unnamed spice hit his nose. A second later, Emmy stomped past him.
He called after her, "Hey, Em, where you goin'?"
She stopped in her tracks and a muscle in her jaw jumped. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "I'm not going to rip Stacy's arms off."
Wally blinked in surprise. Why was Emmy mad at her? "Uh, okay. So, that doesn't sound super convincing."
Emmy's jaw kept ticking. She ran a hand through her hair and relaxed her shoulders a few inches with a huff. She tugged Wally through the crowd until they were against her locker.
"How well do you know that Stacy chick?" Emmy raised an eyebrow.
Wally swallowed uncomfortably. He didn't know what Emmy was getting at, and he didn't want to give any unnecessary details about Stacy.
"I've had a few classes with her over the years. Why?" Wally raised an eyebrow.
Emmy pinched the bridge of her nose for a second, "Zara finally told me why she avoided me for a few weeks after I got here."
Wally furrowed his brow, "The girl you said was ignoring you a while ago was Zara? I get why she was feeling private." He sighed, "She's had a rough go of it this semester. These high school morons can be cruel."
"Yep," Emmy clipped out.
She had gone to the park with Zara and the kids last night. Emmy had been in a bit of a funk since the foster care ordeal started on Friday. Hunter and Sage had liked the idea of a pizza and park night with their friends from school before they went 'home' to their 'new house', and she was desperate to spend some time them. Emmy and Zara were playing chess when the conversation shifted to school.
"So, why do you still mostly avoid me at school? Hanging with the antisocial orphan too much of a hit to your street cred?" Emmy grinned teasingly at Zara and moved her knight to steal the other girl's bishop.
Zara eyes went wide at Emmy's comment and she moved a pawn. "No, no. Not at all!" Zara chewed on her right thumbnail. "If anything, I don't want to ruin your 'street cred'."
Emmy scrunched her nose, "What do you mean?"
Zara sighed and tugged her grey beanie further over her curly hair. "I kind of have a reputation, and I feel like it would make things harder for you to be around me at school."
"A reputation?" Emmy replied incredulously. What is it the 1840's again?
"I guess I've tried to hide it from you long enough," Zara slumped a little. "Just promise not to hate me afterwards?"
"I promise I won't hate you," the lantern tilted her puzzled head.
"Okay, so, the summer before this school year started, I was really feeling myself. I got my braces off, and I just felt really cute, you know?" Zara responded to Emmy's latest move. "I went to this party, and I ran into Zeke. I had a huge crush on him when we were younger, and there he was flirting with me. He got me a drink, we talked, and when he asked me if I wanted to go somewhere quieter, I said yes."
Emmy grimaced at the idea of getting intimate with Zeke. She wasn't judging Zara for being interested in Jockstrap, but it was a repulsive notion.
"We were uhm…" Zara blushed. "Well, basically, within a few minutes we were only in our underwear. I had just taken off my bra when Stacy Johnson burst into the room. They were off-and-on a lot, and I just assumed that they were off again since he was coming onto me." She sighed deeply, "Evidently, they were about to get back together, and he was using the party, and me, as a chance for 'one more night of bachelorhood'. She was screaming at him so much that I didn't even think she saw me, so I threw on my clothes and ran home."
Emmy moved her knight again. She wasn't sure how any of this would make her not want to be friends with Zara.
"I went to France with my parents for the rest of the summer, and I kind of forgot about the party," the tan girl moved a pawn and chewed on her nail again. "But then I walk inside school in August, and there are pictures of me in my underwear from the party everywhere. And they had all these horrible slut-shaming words and phrases on them."
The lantern frowned. This seemed like a ridiculous plotline from a melodramatic tv show and not something that would actually happen in real life.
"So, I'm kind of the school's 'homewrecking slut' at the moment," Zara fiddled with her fingers, "so I figured you wouldn't want to be around me after what I did."
Emmy burst out laughing. Zara gawked at her. "I'm sorry," Emmy stopped laughing. "I just don't see how any of that would make me not want to be your friend."
Zara's smile was surprised and happy, so Emmy continued.
"All I'm hearing is that you got a little frisky with a guy you were into, and it had bad consequences from his end. It wasn't your job to check that he was 100% single, it was his job not to go behind squeaky girl's back. And she should have been mad at him instead of you when you didn't do anything wrong," Emmy glared slightly. "I can punch her if you want me to. She's tiny. I could have her unconscious in about three seconds."
Zara giggled, "Do not punch Stacy, Emmy! You'd get expelled."
Emmy tilted her head, "Mmm, maybe not." Gibbs had said that she would only get expelled if she brought a gun to school. Was that literal or was she being facetious? Surely one punch wouldn't get Emmy kicked out.
Zara giggled again but made Emmy promise not to attack Stacy.
"Fine," Emmy rolled her eyes. "I don't understand why anyone would care if you wanted to get physical with someone or not though. We're all teenagers. They're probably just jealous."
"I don't know. I mean, I was 15, and that's kind of young to try to have your first time," Zara blushed again but Emmy just let out another sharp bark of laughter.
"Girl, I had sex for the first time when I was 13," Emmy smirked at Zara's shocked expression. "Do you think I'm a slut you want to avoid?"
"Of course not," Zara declared quickly.
"Exactly," Emmy shrugged. "Your body, your life. I just think you're fun to be around. I'd like to be friends inside and outside of school."
"Me too," Zara's shoulders finally relaxed.
They went back to their chess game. The kids said they would be ready for the pizza soon, and the teens wanted to finish before dinner.
"I can't believe she didn't get in trouble for putting those pictures up," Emmy scowled. "Isn't that a form of child pornography?"
Zara sighed. "I couldn't prove it was her. But I know it was because Stacy cornered me in the locker room after P.E. and told me to stay out of her way at school or else she'll leak the photos of me without my bra on. She took photos through the crack in the door before she got involved. I tried to get the principal to investigate and catch her, but anyone Gibbs' asked just said that they didn't see who put them up. The pictures were also only around for the first five minutes of school, so not everyone saw them."
Emmy scowled at Stacy's threat but then made a slight noise of approval at the last sentence, "At least people were tearing down the posters instead of teasing you."
Zara's cheeks flushed a little bit, "Actually, it was just one person tearing them down. I still don't know how he did it so quickly."
Emmy moved her bishop and stole Zara's rook while the girl continued.
"One minute, everyone's pointing at me and laughing, and the next all the photos are in the trash, and he's yelling at everyone to go to class and shut up," Zara smiled, dazed.
"And who is this knight in shining armor who saved you, fair princess?" Emmy teased.
"Uh, you know that cute guy in our Chem class?" Zara brushed hair behind her right ear. "He's in that math club thing with you?"
Emmy blanched, "Wally?"
Zara giggled and nodded. Emmy didn't like the squeezing feeling in her stomach and flouted it.
"He's more like a random dude in tin foil than a hero," Emmy smirked. Or a kid in shining spandex.
"Don't be mean," Zara chastised Emmy. "He was just so sweet. After he got the pictures down, he went with me to the principal's office and stayed outside until I was done, and then he walked me to my next class."
Emmy felt her lips lift into a fond smile. That was definitely a Wally thing to do for someone.
"It was crazy because we had known each other for years at that point, but I don't think we ever had an actual conversation until the first day of class," Zara's eyes were unfocused. "I wish I had run into him at the party instead of Zeke. He's much cuter in his own way."
Emmy grimaced for a second before moving a pawn, "Yep, yep. That certainly would have been…better."
She had never heard anyone swoon over Wally before. She was used to watching his flirting attempts get systematically shot down. This was new territory. Especially since she really liked Zara, and Wally was officially her friend now.
"He just really understands firsthand how toxic the school rumor mill can be," Zara smiled dopily. "He always asks me how I'm doing before our AP Physics class."
Emmy frowned faintly. She didn't know they were in physics together. Maybe Zara actually would ask her to be her wing-woman at some point. Why did that possibility seem so awkward?
"I'm glad you told me, Zara," Emmy leaned forward, moving her rook without looking at it and shifting the conversation back to what was important, "because now you have someone to help you deal with Stacy."
Zara looked alarmed, "How are we going to do that?"
Emmy smirked and moved her bishop, "Checkmate."
Emmy bit her lip to calm down. After dinner in the park, she had been forced to walk her children to their new, fake parents' house, and then she had gone back to the cave alone. She was sad and angry about a hundred different things, and she had elected to ignore those feelings while somehow simultaneously focusing them on Stacy.
Emmy narrowed her eyes at Wally and misplaced a bit of the rage bubbling beneath her skin, "Evidently not all morons are cruel though. You certainly made quite an impression on Zara."
Wally grinned cockily, "The Wall-man always makes an impression on the ladies."
Emmy pinched the bridge of her nose. Really, Zara? This guy? "Well, hey, by the end of the day Zara will be confident again, and you two can run off into the sunset, or whatever."
Wally smirked at her curt tone, "Are you jealous?"
"No," she glared at him. "I just think she can do better."
"Sure, sure," Wally grinned and cornered her against the locker slightly. He lowered his voice, "Careful, Emmy. Your Bialya is showing."
She sent him an unimpressed snarl before simpering, "Really? Maybe I should see what Trent's up to then. He seemed all too happy to help me forget about Bialya last time."
It was Wally's turn to frown, and he changed the subject. "What does Zara's picture problem have to do with ripping Stacy's arms off anyway?"
"Hello, Wally," Emmy sent him a look. "Who do you think took the photos and made the posters?"
Wally's eyes went wide, and she saw an unexpected disappointment in them.
"That is…a very shitty thing for Stacy to do," he sighed. She just kept finding new ways to get farther and farther away from being the girl he had known.
"Understatement of the year, but yeah," Emmy ran her hand over her hair again. An idea struck her, "Steal Stacy's phone for me."
"What?" Wally recoiled.
"I was going to do it, but you're faster," Emmy shrugged. "I need it, so Zara can decide if she wants to delete the photos or turn Stacy in."
"I-" Wally stuttered. He did not want to go anywhere near Stacy, but he also didn't want Zara to have to worry about the pictures anymore. "I don't-"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Emmy drawled sarcastically. "Did you think that was a request? Do I need to drape you in latex and get a civilian witness for you to be motivated to do the right thing?"
"Fine!" Wally threw his hands up, "I'll do it. I'll get the phone to you by the end of English."
"Good," Emmy rolled her eyes. "You can be so difficult."
"That's not what you said in Bialya," he chuckled.
"It was hard to say anything with your tongue down my throat," Emmy called over her shoulder.
"Hey!" Wally called offended as she walked to their classroom. "I use the perfect amount of tongue, thank you very much." He frowned at her back. She was messing with him. He had barely even used tongue back in the desert, and Emmy had enjoyed it…right? Why was he over thinking this? He didn't care what she thought. Did he?
"Ugh!" Wally groaned in frustration and went to steal his ex-girlfriend's phone.
Location: Keystone High
Date: Oct 21st
Time: 10:21
Emmy and Zara huddled in the empty bathroom. They'd ducked out of Chemistry to deal with 'Lady Problems' and were looking through Stacy's phone. Wally had somehow managed to find out the girl's passcode when he stole it.
"What do you want to do, Zara?" Emmy put her hands on her hips. "Turn her in, or delete everything?"
Zara chewed on her lip. "I just want to delete everything and move on with my life."
Emmy disagreed, but it wasn't her call to make. They erased the photos from a folder in Stacy's camera roll and her email. Zara swept the phone, and there were no other traces of the photos anywhere. Emmy suggested they trash the SIM card just to be safe, but Zara insisted that Stacy wasn't smart enough to have the pictures saved elsewhere and that they had done what they needed to do. Stacy's threats were now empty, and Zara hugged Emmy so hard that it actually hurt the lantern's ribs.
Zara was practically glowing when they returned to class and asked if she could sit with Emmy in the cafeteria. Jessie had mastered the trick shot she needed to make her coach use her as a starter a while ago, so the two girls had moved back to their typical basketball jock lunch table. Jessie pointed out that Trent would never hit on Emmy in front of a big group because he didn't want his ego to get hurt, so the lunches had felt pretty similar to her first day; fun and stupid. Emmy had been a little apprehensive that Zara wouldn't like the group, but now that Stacy didn't have any more incriminating photos, Zara was a bubbly ball of energy ready to talk to anyone and everyone. The curly-haired girl laughed at a joke Jason made, and Emmy was pretty sure the two were flirting.
"OMG, Zar-Zar," Stacy's nasally voice was saccharine sweet as she draped herself over Trent's shoulder, "I haven't seen you in the cafeteria in, like, sooo long. I am so happy to see you that I could, like, take a picture of you."
Emmy interjected, "Speaking of taking pictures, I think you dropped this in English."
She held out Stacy's phone and the tiny cheerleader gaped at it; the mound of pink bubblegum almost fell out of her mouth. Stacy snapped her mouth shut with an angry click and snatched her phone back.
"You should be careful about where you leave your phone, Stacy," Zara smiled at the girl with false kindness. "Then again, you are dating Zeke, so I'm sure you're used to people touching things you consider to be yours."
Emmy snorted. The rest of the table hooted, and Jason swung an arm around Zara's shoulder as he wolf-whistled. Trent sent an apologetic look to Stacy when she glared at him for choking on his energy drink. The tiny cheerleader glared at Zara and started to walk away.
"Watch your back, New Girl," Stacy hissed to Emmy as she passed.
Emmy rolled her eyes and sent a thumbs-up to Zara. The table returned to mindless chatter. Jessie scheduled her next run with Emmy. The lantern winced when she realized that she could do anytime the next three mornings because she didn't have to return to the cave to get the kids ready for school. Jessie didn't notice Emmy's reaction and turned to arm-wrestle Johnny. The bag of cookies in her lunchbox fell to the side. Emmy didn't want them, she only ate sugar a few times a week to make sure she stayed in peak physical form, but she brought them anyway because she knew someone who would.
Me:
'Hey, you want some peanut butter chip and toffee cookies?'
Wally- Annoying Redhead:
'Hells yeah!'
Emmy started walking to Wally's typical table and found a very eager redhead meeting her half-way.
"How did it go?" Wally asked, shoving two cookies into his mouth. "I saw Stacy stomp back to her clique."
The lantern shrugged, "Fine. The pictures are gone, and Zara did a nice job standing up to her. Not exactly a bout with the Injustice League."
Wally grinned at her and waved his cast-free arm in the air. He had finally gotten it off on Monday. The speedster was going through weird phases where he either completely forgot that he had been wearing a cast for weeks or was caressing his forearm and promising to never trap it again. The skin underneath the cast was a shade paler than the rest, and he was mildly entertained by the fact that it was still darker than Emmy's. She should be a vampire for Halloween. He was about to tell her as much when he noticed the blank look on her face as she stared at the bag of cookies in his hands. Emmy typically kept her feelings to herself, or at the very least tried to, but she had wept onto his shoulder a few days ago. He doubted that pain had disappeared.
"Looks like I saved the day as usual," he wiggled his eyebrows at her and ate another cookie.
Emmy blinked her way back into the real world and deadpanned, "I could have gotten the phone easily, but I delegated. Yet another reason I'd beat Rob out for team leader."
Wally scoffed and almost choked on the cookie, "I made saving the day far more convenient then."
Emmy shrugged her agreement.
"What are you doing after school?" He asked.
"Nothing. Why?" She gave him a slightly suspicious once over. She wouldn't even be walking Hunter and Sage to the Todd's house after school because they had speech therapy and an extra-credit art class, respectively.
"Well, the way I see it, you already said you owed me one on Sunday, and then I went above and beyond with your little pickpocketing situation today," Wally explained.
"So?" Emmy didn't like where this was headed.
"So, meet me at my locker after school ends," he smirked at her. "You're mine for the rest of the day…I hope you're not too attached to those clothes."
Location: Central City
Date: Oct 21st
Time: 16:54
Emmy's back hit the mattress. She gasped for air. Her heart was racing from exertion. The endorphins sent a smile to her lips. Wally landed to her left. Their bare arms brushed. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. His chest heaved. She could see his pulse beating in his throat.
"I can't believe you're using your 'I owe you' on this," Emmy chuckled breathlessly. "You could do this alone."
Wally smiled lazily at her, "Sure, but it's easier and more fun with you."
Emmy snorted, "You did seem to enjoy that last move."
"I forgot you were that flexible," he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
"Well, if you had given me a warning before you thrusted left, I wouldn't have lost my balance and ended up in that position, Kid Fallible," Emmy stood up and popped her shoulders. "Ready to go again?"
Wally groaned playfully, "Come on, Sunrise, give a guy a break."
Emmy hit him with the nearest pillow and snickered at his offended yell, "Come on, Sunset. Your aunt and uncle only have the truck rented for another hour, and we still have to get the guest bedroom stuff."
Iris and Barry were in the process of moving out of their apartment into a new house, and Wally's parents had signed him up to single-handedly unpack the last moving truck. It was late October, but it was an unusually warm day, and the lugging of boxes and mattresses resulted in two sweaty and tired teenagers.
The speedster huffed and rolled to his feet. He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead. Emmy averted her gaze from the bead of liquid sliding down the center of exposed his abs and faked an interest in a spot on the wall. He was wearing a yellow tank top with the sides cut out (the bastard), black basketball shorts, and red sneakers. She'd abandoned her school outfit for an old red and baby blue AC/DC t-shirt of his and a pair of grey running shorts. Wally had flashed to his house to grab her clothes because she'd been wearing tight jeans unconducive to moving furniture. Wally let his shirt drop, and they went down the stairs to the front of the house.
"At least this counts as a workout," Wally lightly nudged her with his elbow.
Emmy scoffed, "Getting that mattress upstairs was harder than half the workouts I do."
Wally's laughter filled the air and Emmy smiled. She liked making him laugh. It was a loud, happy, and unapologetic sound, like it had never occurred to him to keep his joy to himself or be ashamed of it.
"Honestly," he grinned, "I bet Supey would have a hard time lifting that thing. And the steps were an absolute nightmare. What architect puts two tight turns on one flight of stairs?"
Emmy hummed in agreement before making her desired inquiry, "So, why can't we use any powers exactly?"
They had been unloading the truck for over an hour, but it was all boxes that they could move by themselves so there had not been an opportunity for a real conversation. The mattress was the first time they had to work together since they got here, and Emmy was curious to know why she had been banned from using her ring.
Wally huffed, "It's part of my punishment. 'No powers, and no friends with powers'." He grinned at her impishly, "They never said no friends not using their powers though."
Emmy rolled her eyes and grabbed a small table and a large vase both labelled 'Guest Room'. She made the mistake of saying she owed him one last weekend. Leave it to Wally to take a common offhanded remark seriously. "Nice loophole, but why are you getting punished?"
Wally put a large box on his right shoulder and looked sheepish, "Uh, that party I went to on Friday? Well, Jacob accidentally sent a picture of me doing a keg stand to my mom instead of me."
Emmy sputtered a half surprised and half horrified laugh, "You drink?!"
Wally frowned at her as they reentered the house. "Sheesh, you say it like I'm an alcoholic. It was harmless, and I made sure that no one else there got too drunk or did anything stupid or illegal."
"Stupid or illegal excluding the underaged drinking, you mean?" Emmy raised an eyebrow with a haughty smirk.
"Go ahead and laugh it up, East," Wally tried to kick the back of her knee, but he lost his balance and missed.
"Oh, I will," she smiled at him before hopping up the stairs. "It's not every day you find out that innocent, dorky, little Wallace "I'm more moral than you are" West did body shots off a stripper."
Wally snorted from behind her, "I did not do body shots off a stripper, and I am none of those adjectives."
Emmy set the table and vase down to the left of the bed frame while he put his box on the floor on the other side of the room.
"Can you even get drunk? With the whole speedy metabolism thing?" Emmy motioned at him with her pointer finger before drinking from the water bottle she'd left in the hallway.
"Drunk? No," Wally shook his head somberly before smirking, "But tipsy? Absolutely...for about four seconds before my body blows through the ethanol, and I'm sober again."
"Poor irresponsible, law-breaking baby," Emmy fake pouted at him.
He snatched her water bottle away and drank the rest of it.
"Rude!" She called over her shoulder before going back to the truck.
"How will you make friends in Belle Reve if you steal all their toilet wine?" Emmy batted her eyelashes at him with exaggerated concern.
Wally scoffed at her, "Like you're so perfect. You've never tried alcohol before?"
Emmy grabbed another box and thought for a moment, "I drank some vodka when I found out the kids were kidnapped this summer, but that was the first time I had any."
"Really?" Wally had two boxes stacked on top of each other as he followed Emmy back inside. "I kind of figured that would be a big part of underground fighting."
"It is, but mainly for the spectators," Emmy glared at the sight of the cursed stairs but ascended them once more. "Drunks don't win fights, and I didn't want to come home to the kids like that, so I just never tried it."
Her mother had preferred hard drugs, but she still went through liquor fast enough that Emmy was worried alcoholism was in her genes. She wasn't interested in accidentally activating it, and certainly not when she was raising two kids.
"Well, congratulations. You're a more law-abiding citizen than I am then," Wally bowed to her sarcastically as they set their load in the room.
Emmy snickered at the ridiculous notion that she had broken less laws than the strait-laced teen next to her and followed him out to the truck.
"Honestly, I have such an inhibited response to alcohol that I'm not sure why my parents are even mad," Wally pouted. "I had the same blood alcohol content I would get from chugging four kombuchas."
Emmy shrugged, "I would be pissed if Sage or Hunter drank at 15 even if it didn't affect them. They could get into legal trouble or a myriad of other problems."
Wally sighed, "I know it's important to be careful, but my dad lets me drink beer with him sometimes, and my mom lets me try the cocktails she makes. I don't see what the difference is."
Emmy scoffed, "Seriously? I would think you're smart enough to get it."
Green eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out if that was a compliment or an insult.
"Hello, Wally, they weren't supervising you," Emmy sent him a look. "You were at a party, you get home in one piece before curfew, and they think all is well. Then the next morning they get a picture of you doing a keg stand and are suddenly acutely aware of just how little they knew about where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing."
Wally sighed and cracked his neck. She was right. His parents were just worried about him and doing their job. He needed to apologize to them. His gaze traveled to Emmy who was standing in front of the open truck with her hands on her hips. He might even need to thank them for assigning him moving duty because his reptilian brain was really enjoying the sight of Emmy in his clothes. It had been a long time since a girl wore one of his shirts, and he had never had one wear his shorts before. The t-shirt, which he had made blue on purpose, swamped her, and she filled out the shorts better than he did. Emmy was unaware of his predatory yet affectionate stare and bit her lip as she looked at the lone item remaining: the mattress for the guest room.
"This mattress looks thinner than the other one," Wally suggested hopefully.
"Yeah, but it's longer," Emmy's lips snarled with disdain.
Twenty minutes of groaning, shoving, cursing, and begging gravity to lessen later, the mattress was in place. The lantern and speedster high fived. Barry arrived to drive the truck back to the moving company, told the teens they did a good job, and sneaked them 50 dollars for 'First Dinner'.
"First Dinner?" Emmy raised an eyebrow.
"Shhhh," Wally shushed her. "Don't ruin this for me."
She rolled her eyes with thinly veiled amusement.
"The kids are staying out of the cave tonight, right?" Wally asked carefully.
Emmy's shoulders drooped a little, but she nodded.
"Let's go get food then," he threw his thumb over his shoulder with a jaunty smile. "There's a 24-hour diner down the road that contributes heavily to my enjoyment of life."
The lantern's stomach grumbled, and before she could blink, she was behind the diner with her stomach churning. Wally enjoyed her discombobulated reactions to unexpected superspeed a little too much.
"Bastard," she muttered into his shoulder from her position in his arms.
He chuckled roguishly and gently set her down.
"You love it," he smiled down at her.
Emmy raised an eyebrow. He blushed and led them to the front of the diner. The second Wally opened the door, three people were calling to say hello to him. She was still surprised every time they saw yet another person in Central City who knew Wally. It wasn't exactly a small city, but it seemed like everyone knew and loved him. She was very careful not to cultivate relationships with anyone at the spots she frequented in Bludhaven, and it was odd seeing Wally be so carefree and memorable. A tan woman in her early twenties guided the pair to a booth in the back left quadrant of the diner.
"What are you doing back in town, Lynn?" Wally asked the girl. "Shouldn't you be at Stanford?"
Lynn smiled at Wally, "My classes got cancelled, so I thought I'd come home for a four-day weekend and help Gramps with the diner."
She turned to Emmy and motioned for them to get into the booth, "This has been Wally's favorite booth for 13 years."
"Why?" Emmy looked at it. There was nothing particularly special about it. It was the same dark red vinyl as all the other booths in the restaurant, and there was a crack in the material in the center of her seat revealing the dark yellow foam beneath.
Wally enthusiastically pointed to a display case full of pies to their right.
"Ah," Emmy nodded. "The view."
Wally ordered a chocolate milkshake and three different burgers with fries. Emmy chuckled as Lynn enviously lusted after Wally's 'insane teen boy metabolism' and decided on the cobb salad with extra bacon. Lynn disappeared, and Emmy and Wally observed the patrons of the diner in silence for a few minutes. A guy about their age was in the booth behind Emmy. There was a cute old couple sharing a strawberry milkshake at the bar and each were insisting that the other was drinking more than their fair share. Two booths and two tables were occupied by families with small children. Emmy felt melancholic as she watched a tiny girl with box braids steal a handful of her brother's French fries.
Wally followed her eyeline and bit his lip. He didn't want to pry, but he thought that talking might help her in this instance, "What's it like so far?"
Emmy looked at him perplexed, "What is what like?"
"Having the kids be gone part of the time," Wally clarified softly. "They're staying with the foster family until Saturday, right?"
Emmy sighed. The kids had moved in with Sam and Delilah Todd on Sunday. They spent Monday with them, came to the mountain on Tuesday (where they talked about all the toys the Todd's had for them), and then they'd gone back to the Todd's Wednesday night.
"It's kind of like..." She trailed off, struggling to find a way to explain it. "How would you feel if you had a girlfriend, and she dated you the first half of the week, someone else the second half of the week, and then when she came back to you all she talked about was how great the second half of her week was?"
Wally cringed sympathetically. He actually had a decent idea of what that was like. "I would not feel great about it."
Emmy fiddled with a straw wrapper, "I feel like I'm in competition with the foster parents, and I'm already losing. I don't know. I know that it's better for the kids, and they really like it, but it's…rough on the ego, I suppose."
He nodded sagaciously, "It will probably take a while to adjust to the changes for everyone involved."
Emmy shrugged. She still had Supey and Megs, but it was weird being in the cave with just them. She considered their makeshift mountain family to be the Easts plus Connor and Megan. Now it felt like Sage and Hunter had been swapped out for older, different versions of themselves who were dating each other. Emmy made a mildly disgusted face at that and was very grateful the food arrived and interrupted the mental image.
"That was fast," Emmy raised an impressed eyebrow.
Wally smirked and picked up his first burger, "Gramps, the guy who owns this place and cooks, is the closest thing this world has to a magician."
They ate in a mix of amicable silence and frivolous conversation. Lynn arrived halfway through their meal to refill their waters. The waitress put her head in the crook of her elbow to sneeze and accidentally sent water flying onto Emmy's lap with her other hand. The lantern jumped at the abrupt arrival of the frigid water and brushed the ice cubes off her legs and shorts. Lynn was horrified and kept apologizing while Wally cackled.
"It's totally fine. I can take a hint, I know I need a shower," Emmy grinned at the girl. "But in my defense so does Wally."
Lynn relaxed when she realized Emmy wasn't about to go on a rampage, "I already really like you way more than Wally's old girlfriend. She was fucking mean."
Emmy quirked an eyebrow at Wally, "You had a 'fucking mean' girlfriend?"
"Uh," Wally sent a panicked look at the waitress, but Lynn did not notice.
"Yes, he did, and ugh she really was the literal worst. It was like waiting on Satan herself," their waitress rolled her eyes. "Wally kept bringing her here for our endless pancakes days for years and making her our problem before they finally broke up."
"She was not that bad," Wally glared slightly at Lynn, "and we only dated for a year."
Emmy felt an unusual tinge of displeasure at hearing him defend the mystery girl. She was surprised by the idea of Wally having a girlfriend at all let alone for an entire year. She assumed he'd never had a legitimate relationship before. Emmy wasn't sure why she thought that, other than his tendency to mindlessly flirt with anything that moves, but she figured Wally had kissed a few random girls over the years and been on maybe one or two real dates. She hadn't spent much time thinking about it, that was just what she figured was normal for most teenagers. The mental image of kissing brought Bialya back to mind and she frowned a little. He had been very confident and very skilled. Two things which almost exclusively come from practice. Emmy looked at Wally skeptically. That definitely wasn't his first time doing any of that. He had practiced with someone, and it was most likely the girl Lynn was talking about.
"Do I know her?" Emmy raised an eyebrow delicately. Her voice was casual, but there was something in her eyes that both scared and thrilled Wally and made Lynn jump into action.
"Oh, don't even worry about it, Girl. You are clearly the better option. No competition." Lynn nodded in agreement with her own words.
Wally shifted uncomfortably under Emmy's cool gaze.
"Of course, there's no competition. Wally and I aren't dating. We're just friends," Emmy smiled casually up at Lynn.
Wally saw the guy in the booth behind Emmy wince and whisper something about the friendzone. He glared at the eavesdropper. Even if Wally, like most teenagers, hated to hear 'we're just friends', this instance was fine because he was friends with Emmy. He definitely did not feel a little disheartened. Nope. Not at all. That would be bizarre.
"Yeah, why do you think she's sweating like a pig, Lynn?" Wally nodded at Emmy. "I made her help me move stuff into Uncle Barry's new house."
Lynn laughed, "My bad, that's totally a friendzone move. I'll go get you some napkins Emmy, and you can choose any slice of pie you want for dessert later. On me."
Emmy smiled at the retreating girl, but it fell when she registered the full sentiment. Helping someone move didn't automatically put you in the friendzone did it? The teens scrutinized each other as the awkward silence grew.
"You didn't answer my question," Emmy spoke lightly, folding her straw wrapper into a small triangle to accentuate her insouciance regarding the situation.
"Uh, right," Wally rubbed the back of his neck. "She goes to our school, so you've, uh, probably seen her around a few times."
He didn't exactly feel like getting into the whole Stacy history with Emmy right now or at all. Dammit Lynn.
Emmy's jaw ticked to the side. The ex went to their school? That meant Emmy had most likely seen the girl who taught Wally his desert moves.
"I can't believe I didn't notice a girl in full Chewbacca cosplay walking the halls," she smirked.
Wally rolled his eyes and flicked a few drops of his water at her.
"Hey, watch it Sunset. I'm soaked enough as is," Emmy ducked.
He snickered, "That's what she said."
"I had a feeling this wasn't the first time a girl you were hanging out with only got wet from the actions of someone else," Emmy deadpanned.
Wally glared at her, "I'll win one of these days."
"You could genetically engineer and gestate a pig with wings faster than you could outwit me," Emmy winked.
Lynn returned with some napkins and the duo went back to their meal with their typical ambiance. Emmy found herself mentally trailing back to the new information about Wally every couple minutes though. She was trying to picture him as a boyfriend. He didn't exactly exude roses-and-candle-lit-dinner energy. Then again, neither did she, and she had been in a relationship for over two years. Alright, East. Be a little less hypocritical.
It was normal for people to date, and Wally had dated. No big deal. It had nothing to do with her. Emmy's brain wondered if he slept with the girl, but she informed her subconscious that was A) none of her business, and B) unlikely because Lynn had implied that they broke up when Wally was fourteen or fifteen which would mean they started dating at 13 and…I was sexually active at 13.
Emmy gave Wally a once over. He was passionately talking about the pros and cons of the latest Star Trek movie re-make while they waited for the pie to get to the table. Emmy had never seen a Star Trek episode, so she had no idea what he was talking about, but she was more than happy to stay silent while he rambled. He had a youthful exuberance in his eyes, and fry grease all over his lips and hands which were both moving violently as he complained about a key inaccuracy in the plotline of the movie. She squinted at him and tilted her head slightly to the left. She could not picture Wally having sex at 13. Didn't he say he had braces then?
Wally's inflection changed as he talked about the Spock-Uhura relationship, and Emmy faltered when his lowered voice briefly reminded her of the way he sounded when he pinned her to the ground during their make-up fight. Emmy gulped down the rest of her water. Wally stopped his ramble to look at her inquisitively. He could tell she was lost in thought. He hoped his mindless drabble would give her a break from her sibling worries or kickstart one of her own fangirl rants, but now she was blushing, and he was confused.
Lynn plopped their pie on the table. Wally forgot about his movie complaints and eagerly grabbed the fork. Emmy chose a slice of peanut butter pie, and he'd opted for two slices of key lime.
"Not to pry," Wally started after they spent a few minutes arguing over the correct answer for the last question on the AP Chem homework they had turned in this morning, "but why didn't you go with Sage and Hunter to the Todd's?"
Emmy took a bite of her pie to give her more time before she was expected to answer. She had been given the option of going. She considered it. Under normal circumstances, she might have. But while the Todd's were cleared by the League as acceptable fosters, they did not know that Emmy was a lantern. She couldn't operate in a home with curfews or rules or parental expectations when she could be called on a mission at any moment. She had read a lot of articles about the transition into foster care, and many of them mentioned the problems that arise when an older sibling is thrown into the mix.
The siblings are moved into a stable household, the foster parents try to set 'healthy boundaries and behavioral expectations', but the eldest sibling is used to functioning as the authority and the younger siblings are used to responding to the eldest. If Emmy joined her kids, it would be the same dynamic they always had except there would be two adults present who felt that they should have a say in decisions. Emmy didn't want to make it harder on Hunter or Sage to adjust than it already would be. And if she was being honest with herself, she could not handle living in a household with 'parents' again. She was too used to taking care of herself and being autonomous, and she had no intention of changing that for the year and a half until she turned 18. The very idea of some random couple telling her how to behave made her want to take a sledgehammer to the nearest wall. Emmy also hoped that by not entering the partial foster system, the situation would always feel temporary, and the kids would not get too attached to the Todd's. The fosters were the best option for now, but when Sparks was gone, their father was serving life in prison, and Emmy had enough experience as a hero to know when the kids would need outside supervision, the situation would be completely different. They could come back to her.
"I didn't want to," Emmy answered bluntly. "It's been too long for me."
Wally nodded, "It would rough for you to try to learn how to take direction from parentals again when you're so used to being responsible for yourself. Plus, if you're not there, they both have to come back to the cave to see you on your off days and that will help remind them that the foster involvement is temporary."
Emmy gaped at him for a few moments, "Yeah. Exactly."
"Why do you look so surprised?" He raised an eyebrow at her playfully. "I am very astute."
She rolled her eyes, her lips twitching upward as she spoke, "More like ass-toot."
Wally sent her a blank look while she snickered at her joke, "I cannot believe everyone thinks you are so mature when you're constantly saying things like that."
"Simple," Emmy smirked and took another bite of her pie, "I only say that stuff around you. Everyone else gets the stoic, maternal, all-around-badass orphan treatment."
Wally disregarded the way his stomach flipped at the implication that she treated him differently than everyone else and glared at her with rancorous amusement, "You are a cocky and conniving nightmare."
"It's the Little Nightmare, actually," Emmy corrected on outdated instinct.
"Huh?" Wally tiled his head to one side.
"Oh," Emmy's brain caught up with her words. "That was my ring name back in the day."
"Really?" The redhead scrunched up his nose at the idea. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't that. "I would have thought you'd be The Flaming Tiger, or The Blonde Demon, or something."
"I was 11," Emmy said defensively. "I just wanted The Nightmare, but the commentator threw in 'Little' before my first match."
Wally snorted, "Because they needed that to notice you were a child?"
"That's what I said!" Emmy replied emphatically. "I was 4'10 when I started. The name was redundant."
"I mean," Wally smirked, "it's not exactly like you're tall now."
"Hey, 5'6 is the average height for women of European descent," Emmy's scowl looked suspiciously like a pout.
"Sure," he drawled out and leaned forward, "but you're closer to 5'5."
"Are you sure you want to set a precedence of not letting someone claim an extra inch?" She countered with a pointed look between his legs.
"When a claim is backed up with this much evidence it's just called a fact," Wally sent her his best smolder.
"Oh, no one told you?" Emmy winced with faux sympathy, "Your imagination doesn't count as a reliable source."
"Is that your way of saying you want to peer review me?" Wally checked her out with calculated disinterest, "If so, I would rather finish my dessert."
"I would offer to finish you as my dessert," Emmy clicked her tongue and looked forlorn, "but unfortunately for you, I don't like the vanilla Tootsie Rolls."
"Please, Baby, I'm no Tootsie Roll, I'm a ZERO," the grin fell from his face as soon as he heard how that sounded out loud.
Emmy snorted so hard her throat hurt. Wally pouted and regretted his life choices.
"I couldn't think of another white candy bar that was bigger than a Tootsie Roll," he crossed his arms defensively and grumbled while she continued to laugh.
Emmy snorted again, "You could have said Milkybar."
"You are so gross," Wally rolled his eyes. "Maybe The Little Nightmare is an appropriate name for you."
Emmy shrugged and finally cooled her laughter down to the occasional lip twitch, "Whatever you say, Zero Dark Thirsty."
"You're such a fucking spitfire," Wally lamented with an eyeroll. He lurched slightly as he realized what he said and frowned to himself.
Emmy's phone buzzed and their verbal sparring paused. She scowled at the article as she read it. She had Rob teach her how to set up a keyword search engine alert and used the new skill to make sure that anything relating to Bludhaven and Sparks came to her attention. The article was on a shitty social justice vigilante blog by an anonymous author. It was riddled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, but it was the first information she had gotten in months that seemed probable. Sparks had a product that was rumored to be shipped out from an unknown location in Bludhaven at 10:30 pm. Tonight.
She looked up abruptly, "I need to go."
Wally was startled by the sudden movement. "Why?"
"I need to check something out," Emmy purposefully tugged on the thin silver chain around her neck that housed her ring when she didn't have pockets. "Covertly."
"Oh," he nodded and looked a smidge jealous, "GL stuff. Got it."
Emmy stood up and was about to run to a hiding spot to power up when a thought occurred to her, "Do you wanna come with?"
"Will I be considered an honorary Corps member?" Wally batted his lashes at her.
"No. But you did claim my time for the rest of the day, so you can be a temporary partner to a Corps member."
"I'll take it," he threw Barry's cash on the table and followed her outside. "What's the mission?"
Location: Bludhaven
Date: Oct 21st
Time: 22:19
Emmy landed on the rooftop of the building across from The Hideout. It was one of the shittiest, sketchiest bars in Southern Bludhaven, it had a path to a plane hangar in Delaware that was entirely backroads, and Bobby was distantly related to the owner through married cousins. 'Graveyard' by NEFFEX was playing in her subconscious as she waited for Wally to report. She had given him the addresses of 61 possible locations for a Sparks shipment, and he had cleared 57 of them so far. It was nearing the alleged delivery time, and Emmy had gone with her gut and flown to this spot to wait.
A breeze hit her back and KF skidded to a stop on his stomach next to her as they overlooked the edge.
"60 places cleared," he whispered as he pulled his goggles onto the top of his head. "Well, there was definitely some sketchy stuff happening, but it was mostly bar fights and theft. No organized crime or big shipments, so this should be the place."
Emmy nodded at The Hideout, "How many heat signatures?"
He flipped his goggles back over his eyes, "Seven upstairs, and thirteen in the basement. All armed."
Emmy narrowed her eyes at the building. The fastest path to the hangar was Southwest of their current position.
Emmy raised into a crouch and turned to Wally, "This is a shipment out, so we don't have to worry about a buyer coming. We need to identify what Sparks' new product is. I think he's graduated from drug running to arms trafficking. No one can know we were here."
Wally gave her a dangerous grin, "I have an idea."
…
Emmy entered The Hideout through a broken window and dropped behind a large barrel of peanuts. The place smelled like rotting wood and tepid vomit. She peaked around the edge of the barrel with one eye. Four of the guys were doing shots at the bar, and the other three were patrolling the inside perimeter. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Three, two, one.
The lights went out. The goons started yelling. Emmy sent seven gigantic mallets soaring through the air at once. The slight glow of her uniform helped her grab the weapons from the unconscious men and crush them into a useless sphere. An AK-47 fired from the basement. She flew down the stairs and slammed into the shooter who flew into the wall and slumped into an unceremonious pile.
"Hey, I had her," Kid zipped next to GL.
"Then why was she shooting at you?" The lantern raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "That's not exactly covert."
"I had twice the number you did," KF gestured at the room of limp lackeys.
"Fair," Emmy shrugged and moved toward the opposite wall.
There was a black Range Rover with tinted windows and no plates next to a hangar door that wasn't noticeable from the outside. The trunk was still open. They had been loading the final case into the car when Kid killed the lights and ambushed the basement. Every seat except for the driver's and passenger's were removed to allow as many cases inside the car as possible. Wally heaved one to a nearby table.
Emmy tilted it to its side and unhooked the clasps. She glanced at Wally, "Time to see what kind of weapons we're dealing with here."
"I bet they're HK416's with armor piercing rounds," Wally crowded around her shoulder with spirited anticipation.
Emmy huffed in morbid amusement and opened the case. Her face and stomach dropped. Wally sucked in a breath next to her ear.
"Shit."
Her thoughts exactly.
Location: Mount Justice
Date: Oct 22nd
Time: 01:15
Emmy trudged into her room and kicked the door closed. She and Wally had been forced to call in last-minute backup once they saw the contents of the cases, and Connor and Megs weren't happy that they were excluded from an impromptu mission. She knew the rest of the team would feel the same way when they found out, but in her defense, she had no idea the cases would be full of Kobra-Venom.
She rubbed the center of her forehead and exhaled. Once they got the Range Rover into the Bioship, Megs updated Batman, and the Dynamic Duo was waiting in the cave by the time they got back. Robin immediately disappeared to run tests on the material, and Emmy and Wally debriefed Batman on Sparks' assumed contribution to Kobra-Venom distribution. Batman was unhappy that they went on a mission he had not assigned, so Emmy had taken the blame and pulled Corps authority rank. Batman informed her that did not extend to the other members of her team and she needed to clear their involvement with him beforehand. Wally had not appreciated that, but Emmy understood the implications and agreed to do things differently in the future. She needed to work on less frequently pissing off the man housing and feeding her and her siblings.
Batman had told them he would take the Sparks investigation from here, chastised them for heading into a mission without previous recognizance, then quasi-praised them for their swift and successful execution. Wally beamed at her and mentioned something about them being a good team, but Emmy was too focused on the problem at hand and trailed off to her room.
The lantern went into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. If Sparks was a Venom runner, then there was a very high probability that he was working with her father in some capacity. Emmy gulped and tried to keep the bile in the back of her throat from rising. She had torn down seven 'Wanted by Sparks' posters with her face on them from the inside of The Hideout. Her bounty had double since last month, which was a whole different problem entirely.
If her father and Sparks came across each other, how long would it take for them to realize that their dead daughter and missing thief were the same person. Emmy punched the wall. It left a small dent in the mountain. She blinked in surprise. She expected that to hurt but had forgotten her ring was still active. She groaned and grasped the edge of the sink. This was a disaster. Her two biggest problems were colliding, and she felt like a countdown clock had started ticking over her head.
Emmy ran a hand over her exhausted face. She couldn't do anything about it tonight. She just needed to shower and sleep. The lantern powered down her ring and realized that she was still in Wally's clothes. Her own were in her backpack at his house. Whatever. Emmy headed toward the scalding water, and if she accidentally inhaled the calming scent of cinnamon and musk from the shirt while she puled it over her head that was not her fault.
Thank you all for reading the latest chapter. I haven't directly responded to comments in the past, but I thought I would shake it up a bit.
ukitakeitalialover041757: Thank you for reviewing on Ch 26 back in February before I went AWOL for a while. I am honored to have a story in your top 10 favorite fanfic list.
Admiral809: You skipped the amnesiac desert make out session, what a shame :P I'm happy to hear that the team feels more alive to you even if you're not the biggest fan of the way I structure the chapters. I personally feel like a lot of authors on here could skip big chunks of the canon episodes since the majority of us have seen the show (and read the episode transcripts again each time someone inserts their OC), so I chose to write my fanfic in the style of one I would like to read.
FromThereToHere: Thank you for the kind words, and I take your concerns to heart. I am under a time constraint outside of helping with my brother since medical school starts soon (I have no idea how that will change my daily schedule yet), but the pruning should not be too drastic or take away from the core of the story.
KirikaAndo: Nice to hear from you again! You're right, the beginning of the last chapter was definitely rushed (I wrote the first six pages on my phone in the waiting room of a hospital at one in the morning as a distraction lol). I will strive to keep the story from sounding that way again in the future. Yeah, Sage is definitely a brat; I modeled her after some of the interactions I've had with my own siblings cough cough. I'm so pleased you like watching their relationship dynamic grow and change…but I'm not commenting on Emmy's birth name yet ;)
linkjames24: You crack me up; I love that you didn't like things about the earlier chapters but still binged the story in a few hours. That is something I would do and have done. Thank you for taking the time to review, but if you're hoping that the future chapters will be heavy on Hal Jordan, 100% canonically accurate Batman, and teenagers who always make good decisions, then this tale is unlikely to fit your predilections. To address your comments, Bats assigns missions and oversees the Team, so it makes the most sense to me that he would be the one to recruit Emmy. And I'm focusing less on her as a lantern and more on her as a YJ member, so Jordan just has to suck it up and deal with his limited screen time. I'm glad we can agree that Emmy and Wally are cute though.
Boomer1125: I was in the middle of insomnia-writing last night when you favorited/followed everything, so thank you for the late-night shots of serotonin :) I got the alert emails for the faves/follows and I thought, "I hope they review because I would love to hear their thoughts after binging the story", and then two minutes later you submitted your review lol. I actually don't have a specific actor I associate with Emmy, do you? I think everyone should be able to picture her however they like, but I suppose I would lean toward a young Margot Robbie/Anna Joy-Taylor amalgam if you forced me to choose.
Until next time,
TheDarkAbyss
