#Wally’s eyes glow in the dark but it was hard to get on camera

[orangeslice3]

[birdy-bat-writes]

Forever Love

Word count: 2k

Description: Wally and Dick have loved eachother for a long time. They've said it a few times. How long before they can admit that it's not as friends?

A/N: Happy holidays friends! Dear @river-bottom-nightmare Hi! I'm your secret santa😙😙 so I present to you, a birdflash Fic! I hope you love it!

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The first time Wally told Dick he loved him was when he and Bruce had a fight. Dick thought he wanted to be alone and turned off his phone, his emergency trackers, everything. He didn't want to be found and he wasn't going to be found. At least that's what he thought. He sat alone on the floor of a Star City back alley and played the words in his head over and over. "When we're out there, you're not my son. You're my partner! If you can't be there when I need you, you don't need to be Robin!" He knows that me messed up, but the mission went fine in the end. He didn't make excuses; he knew his head wasn't in the game but that's just what happens when you're fighting alongside the Titans and balancing that with Dynamic Duo duties. Dick was already harder on himself than Bruce ever could be about it, but he never thought he'd have to hear the words "you're not my son." Is that all he is to Bruce? A crime fighting partner? Then the tears started to fall. The thoughts rang in his head like church bells over the sound of city traffic. It was all too much. Dick thought he wanted to be alone but now...maybe not. I should go ba-

"Hey." Dick looked up to find his favorite red head looking down at him with a soft expression. Civies, smoking sneakers and green eyes. "You okay?" Wally sat down beside him and Dick abandoned all thoughts of leaving.

"How'd you find me?"

"Well, I'm me, and you're you. Not that difficult."

"I turned my trackers off..." Dick was really taking this one hard. No wisecracks, no sarcasm. It wasn't like the other fights he had with Bruce and Wally could tell.

"I knew you wouldn't be in Metropolis or Smallville because you don't want a hug from Superman, you weren't in the mood to talk yet so not Central City, and Star City has the ice cream parlor you like, which is where we're going after I fix this." Wally gestured to Dick's teary eyes. Dick looked up to face Wally for just a second. His smile brought a type of comfort that Dick forgot existed. "What happened?"

"He doesn't want me anymore, Wally."

"Bruce?" Dick just nodded, knowing he couldn't speak the words without choking up. Wally put a comforting arm around his friend's shoulder. "He said, 'when we're out there, you're not my son. You're my partner.' And that I shouldn't be fighting by his side if I can't be there for him all the time."

“That’s not fair of him. You were with the Titans today. He knows that right?”

“He knows, he just doesn’t care.” Dick choked on his words at the end but pushed himself to continue speaking. “Wally, I’m just a teammate to him, to everyone. I’m not his son, I don’t even know how many people actually care about me when the masks are off.”

“Hey, hey…don’t say that. Maybe B acts like an emotionally stunted block of ice, but I know he loves you. Of course, it doesn’t excuse what he said, but you need to know that with masks on or off, we are all your friends. Donna, Garth, Roy, and… me too. You’re like family for us. We love you. I… I love you.” Dick felt his heart clench. He hadn’t heard those words in a long time and couldn’t help but jump right into Wally’s arms for a very tight hug. Wally’s arms felt like home and he never wanted to let go. Wally felt the remaining tears Dick’s eyes soak into his jacket and pulled him tighter. Without pulling even an inch away, Dick asked,

“Wally?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.” They felt each other’s cheeks raise in smiles against the other’s shoulders.

“Glad to hear it, now how about that ice cream?”

----

The second time Wally had told Dick that he loved him was later that year, in the dark of a hospital room well after visiting hours were over. Dick now donned a blue and black suit, accompanied by the moniker of Nightwing. Wally was now the new Scarlet Speedster. Unfortunately, even speedsters couldn’t escape the pain of cavities. Wally was in recovery after a root canal surgery and he wasn’t happy about it.

Wally couldn’t help but worry about the things that could go wrong if the Flash took a day off. Dick on the other hand was more worried about how Wally would fare in surgery. With a metabolism like his, he’d burn through the anesthesia in minutes, and be awake for the rest of the surgery.

“Oh, come on, Dick. I don’t have anesthetics when we’re out being shot at. This will be a piece of cake, so don’t worry, okay?”

When Wally awoke, the whole surgery was complete. He wasn’t in pain either. That’s odd. How-? Oh. Dick. What did he do now? Just then a nurse walked in.

“Oh good, Dear. You’re awake.”

“Uh… Yeah. What did I miss while I was out?” His voice was muffled by the useless cotton balls in his mouth. The nurses couldn’t have known but he was already healed. 4 hours of sleep and speedster healing will do that to you.

“Well, it’s quite an interesting day in Central City. A few blocks down, Nightwing stopped a robbery and helped a family of ducks cross the street.”

“He- he did what? He’s still here?” Wally asked, baffled.

“Oh yes! He seems to have taken over for the Flash today. He’s on TV right now.” Wally scrambled to get the remote. The first thing he saw on the news was Nightwing being interviewed by Iris West-Allen.

“Well Mrs. West, I love helping out my teammates, and besides, I could always use an excuse to visit Central City.” Nightwing flashed his signature smile right into the camera like he knew Wally was watching. This dude… I thought I told him to go back to Gotham… Why do I even try? Wally thought to himself, shaking his head and smiling at his friend’s antics.

Visiting hours had passed and Wally’s parents had just left. He was contemplating sneaking out to get more food when he heard a gentle thud by the window. One that he’d heard a thousand times before.

“Dick, you could have used the front door.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”, Dick responded. “How are you?”

“Hungry. Hospital portion sizes will be the death of me.”

“Well, it’s a great thing that your best friend is as thoughtful as he is handsome.” Dick emptied a plethora of snacks from his backpack on Wally’s bed.

“And this is why I love you.” Wally said it casually, but Dick’s heart skipped a beat anyway. It got him thinking again. He really shouldn’t have worried as much as he did, but he couldn’t help it. He never can when it comes to Wally. “So, what exactly did you put in my drink before the surgery?” Wally asked between mouthfuls of food.

“Specially designed anesthetic to knock you out for 5 hours. Courtesy of a few friends at S.T.A.R. Labs.”

“You spoil me.”

“I didn’t want you to be in pain.”

“I appreciate that.” Wally’s voice was sweeter now. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble, you know.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

“Aww, were you worried about me?”

“I always worry about you. I love you.” It was a sincere, genuine confession that made both their hearts race a little more. Wally mustered the courage to say one more thing. Something that meant the world to both him and Dick.

“You know when I was going under the anesthetic?”

“Yeah?”, Dick replied.

“I was still awake when you held my hand.” Dick grinned in response.

“I know.”, He said. Wally looked up in question. “You held on tighter when I was about to let go, and I knew you were still awake.” The blushes on their cheeks glowed brighter.

“Yeah, well… don’t let go next time then.”

-----

The next time they confessed was on Wally’s 18th Birthday, one month later. A party was planned with a few close friends and family at Wally’s house, but unfortunately, the icy November rain had other plans. Ice laced every road that wasn’t flooded.

Needless to say, Wally was a little disappointed. No one would be coming. Heck, he couldn’t even leave his own house. Dick was still in Gotham getting ready to leave for the party when he heard of the extreme weather in Central City. Knowing the party would most likely be cancelled, he decided to call in a favor.

Wally was sitting in his room when he received Dick’s rather ominous text message. “Get to your balcony.” He listened. He walked up and saw… nothing.

“Um, Dick, what am I looking for exactly?”, he messaged back. Then he heard the whir of the engines and the pressure release on the plane doors.

“You’re looking for me in an invisible plane!”, Dick shouted.

“Is that Wonder Woman’s?!”

“Yeah! Get on.” Wally climbed aboard. He was awestruck. Dick saw the look on Wally’s face and answered the question Wally couldn’t manage to ask.

“Donna owed me a favor, and Diana thinks I’m adorable. I can get away with anything. Now buckle up.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.” Dick flew Wally up to the Titans Tower where every superhero friend of theirs was there. There were 6 cakes, 2 of them being just for Wally. It was just perfect. Wally cut a slice of cake and brought it out to Dick on the terrace. Against the chilly New York winds, the music inside sounded faint and distant.

“I know you’ve swung around Gotham in the winter in your underwear, but you should still wear a jacket when it’s cold out.”, Wally chimed. “Cake?”

“Thank you very much.” Dick said, taking the plate from his hands.

“Hey, thank you for all of this. Its more than perfect.”

“Don’t mention it, Wall. It’s what I’m for. I’m never going to pass up an opportunity to wipe cake frosting on your nose.” Wally’s heart swelled, seeing Dick smile at him like that. His baby blue eyes had Wally mesmerized.

“Yeah! Just you wait ’till your birthday, I’m getting a whole extra cake to shove in your face.”

“I’ll be waiting.”, Dick chuckled out. “So, I have your present here.” Dick held up a small box and handed it to Wally. “Open it.” Wally undid the red ribbon on the box and lifted the lid to reveal a small coin, the size of a penny with a Flash symbol on it. “I know you lost the souvenir from our first solo mission, but I kept one of the shotgun shells, melted it down, and now,” Dick picked up the coin, “this is for you.” Wally was left speechless. Dick wasn’t one to keep souvenirs from missions. That was Wally’s thing. But he kept this one. And on top of all that, he remembered that Wally wanted to remember their first mission and replaced his lost memento. He couldn’t help it. Wally threw his arms around Dick’s shoulders. Dick wrapped his arms around Wally’s waist and pulled him closer, taking in the scent of his shampoo and cologne. I adore him, they both thought.

“Dick, I love you.”

“I love you too, Wally.” The looked up to face each other, still keeping their bodies close. Wally was the first to lift his fingers and caress Dick’s cheek, and Dick leaned in. The kiss was soft and sweet and lit up a million sparks within them. They didn’t know how long they had waited for this but they had no intention of letting this moment go.

And after that, they lost count. They didn’t have to keep track anymore of how many “I love you’s” were exchanged or kisses were shared. They made a silent promise that night that there would be no end to them and that was enough. Love like that truly was forever.

[biffhofosho]

Idol Thieves | Chapter Five

Chapter Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: Sorry for the late post. Busy week! I made up for it by adding some visual content. :)

TR | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12

The beanpole bowed to everyone before he cleared his throat. “It’s a bit difficult for me to exhibit in our current setting, so instead, I would like to show you a video that will hopefully demonstrate my contributions to the team.”

Hyungwon smiled tightly before he pushed play. After a moment, the black screen flickered to life with a title bar.

Kihyun pinched the bridge of his nose while Minhyuk clapped excitedly beside him.

The screen continued:

And finally:

Suddenly, the screen filled with Hyungwon’s profile sporting a backwards ball cap and a black face mask, all illuminated by the enticing glow of red and yellow neon. Somehow, he made a base model Kia sedan look impossibly cool. His gloved hands gripped the wheel tightly, crinkling as they tensed.

In the audience, Minhyuk leaned back so he could catch Hannah’s attention and whispered loudly, “Psst! Hyungwonnie boosted that beater, but he made me cut that part out.”

Shownu shot him a withering glare before the shameless visual replied, “What? He switched the plate and filled the tank before he returned it.”

“Can that bloody trash heap even break fifty?” Wally needled, but Minhyuk only smiled and turned back to the screen.

The engine revved once, twice, a third time louder, and Hyungwon looked in the camera.

“Let’s do this,” he said, and the camera jerked as the car shot forward. “Eleven minutes.”

The view shifted from the driver to the route, and the challenge became clear. Hannah recognized the crowded streets of Jong-ro instantly; when she wasn’t disappearing into a ribbon of cars after an evening heist, she was languishing in traffic there on mundane afternoon errands for her boss.

While the bottom right corner showcased a timer, the far right corner of the screen outlined a route map from Dongdaemun Market back to Monsta X’s hideout over the Han in Banpo-dong.

“Eleven minutes from Jung-ro to here in that klunker?” scoffed Wally. “Yeah nah.”

Hannah had to agree. “This is going to be some fancy driving.”

Wally set her own stopwatch just to be sure they weren’t getting snowballed with more idol industry magic.

It was dark out and most shops had closed, but every block of sidewalk glowed with relentless advertising, glossy depictions of ideal men and women, and even a Monsta X billboard peddling lip tints. Below, pedestrians bustled along in long coats and clustered at bus stops oblivious to the world until a dumpy little Kia roared past.

The cameraman kept the driver just inside the frame so that the audience could appreciate every hard downshift, every last-second jerk of the wheel, every course-correction as he piloted through the streets of Seoul with the familiarity of a cab driver.

Up ahead, the light shifted to yellow, but the car revved hungrily as it gunned through a chorus of honking horns. The next light had already turned red when Hyungwon pushed through the intersection and zigzagged around a troop of pedestrians, all shouting and gesturing obscenely at him.

“Kihyun’s not gonna be happy about that,” Minhyuk said from behind the camera, and the audience immediately shifted toward the real-time leader. Kihyun’s eyes were sufficiently narrow and his lips sufficiently puckered as they continued to follow the action, yet the fact that he hadn’t scolded them after all left both Minhyuk and Hyungwon on pins and needles.

Back on the video, Hyungwon leaned into a curve as he ripped the emergency brake, swinging the butt of the Kia in a dramatic U. There was a squeal and then another—one from the tires and the other from the cameraman as the camera went fumbling through the air.

“Sorry,” Minhyuk said to the audience.

The engine growled deeply as it tore through a tunnel before bursting back into the night air. Hyungwon whipped around another bend onto an eight-lane freeway to a bridge and weaved through late-night traffic as though it weren’t real life but a video game. On a few of the near misses, Jooheon flinched and braced himself in his seat.

“Look at our scaredy cat doing the phantom brake,” chuckled Changkyun as he watched his fellow rapper’s foot pump the air, and the boys shared a laugh before the screaming of brakes tore through their good time.

The camera jerked forward as the Kia screeched to a halt at the edge of an unexpected freeway pile-up. The countdown rounded six minutes now; no way Hyungwon could make it over the Han in enough time to beat the clock. The driver said nothing as he glanced over his shoulder, threw his car into reverse, and snaked his way backward through frantic drivers. Horns blared and high beams flashed as he angled the Kia toward the shoulder and whizzed back to the main road.

“Hold on,” Hyungwon warned Minhyuk, who spared a moment to turn the camera on his wide-eyed self before the car punched forward, engine whining and tires peeling.

Hyungwon blasted through another red light as he careened around a semi-truck and thumped over a huge pothole, sending the camera flying again. At the next highway on-ramp, he whipped the car left and jettisoned across another bridge, the rumble strips juddering the lens viciously.

“Time check,” the monotoned driver requested as he juked around another truck.

Another whine, this time from his passenger. “7:21.”

Now on the other side of the river, the back end swung wide again, but Hyungwon straightened out seamlessly as he sailed onto one final highway, this one mercifully clear. The driver dropped his mask from one ear to let his triumphant smile shine.

“Want me to play some music?” Minhyuk asked behind the camera.

“We’ll be there before the song finishes,” the driver answered.

“Come on! It’s so quiet without all the brakes and the screeching.”

“When you drive, you can put on music,” Hyungwon huffed.

“Just one song—”

“I like the quiet.”

“But you’d like some driving music better,” Minhyuk assured.

“You are annoying me so much right now, and it’s only been eight minutes. Cut this out of the video when we get back.”

Back in the exhibition room, Hyungwon spared a moment to glower at his former passenger who just shrugged.

Unbidden, chill vocals began to spill out of the cameraman’s phone accompanied by soft snapping as Minhyuk hummed along and Hyungwon reluctantly joined in with the longest sigh anyone had ever heard.

“Fine,” the driver relented as the pair cruised down the empty highway, hands tapping on the wheel and both men finally singing along.

As the song drew to a close, so did the countdown, but they were still a few blocks from their hideout. It was much trickier through the cluttered, sharply angled neighborhoods south of the city. Causing a commotion this close to home would raise too many eyebrows, and Hyungwon reluctantly pulled off the gas as he reset his mask across his mouth. For the first time on the ride, he waited at a stoplight as a couple crossed the street, but the moment it turned green, he shifted hard and fast and jolted up a hill, making one tight turn with only inches to spare.

“One minute,” Minhyuk warned.

Another tight turn, another close shave.

“Thirty seconds.”

“I know,” rasped the driver as his brow furrowed.

The Kia bottomed out over an abrupt hill before it flung around one last turn and slipped effortlessly into a parking space a few blocks from their label. The countdown read 00:00:08.

The driver and passenger were panting. So was the audience.

Hannah licked her teeth furiously to combat the staleness that had crept in as her mouth hung open. The room shook with applause as Jooheon and Wonho shot up from their seats to clamp their hands on Hyungwon’s shoulder.

“Daebak!”

“U-wa!”

Even Wally joined in with a “Nice work.”

“I’ll drive shotgun with you any time,” Hannah cheered. “Props for a crazy creative exhibition, by the way.”

As heartrates finally normalized, the next exhibitor stepped forward. Minhyuk immediately went for the end of the weapons table and grabbed his favorite compound bow. Large and intimidating, it was almost half as tall as Minhyuk with a spider’s web of bowstrings between its camouflaged fangs. Before he took center stage, he slipped a glove on his left hand and a fingerguard on his right and pulled the string experimentally, testing the draw and calibrating it one last time as Changkyun and Jooheon peppered the room with empty soda bottles, jugs, and even some empty moisturizer containers.

With a nod to his audience first, Minhyuk hoisted the bow high, his long fingers curling around the grip as his right hand yanked back the bowstring with emphasis. The tendons in his forearm tensed as he held the string taut while he lined up his first shot at a bottle on the shelf across the room. He closed one eye, kissed the string as he drew it taut, and let the arrow fly. It tore through the plastic and punctured the box behind it, and Minhyuk crouched down, covering his mouth.

“Aigoo! Sorry, boss...”

Kihyun motioned for him to continue, but from the look in his leader’s eyes, Minhyuk figured he’d hear about it later.

The archer leveled the bow in his hands again, this time aiming for a container on the top shelf in the back corner. This one was much smaller than the bottle and much higher up, and Minhyuk savored an extra second to line up his shot. Eye closed, string kissed, thunk! The container tumbled clean off the shelf while the arrow ricocheted into the drywall, hanging out like a lopsided coatrack.

Another crouch. Another nervous look at Kihyun. This time, his leader’s eyes narrowed.

“Let’s stick with the bottles, guys. Maybe line two up in a row?” Minhyuk suggested, and the boys worked to clear the field and reorganize. Hyungwon lined up three sets of plastic bottles along the top shelf and then nodded at his friend.

Minhyuk nodded back, and with the field clear, he let his arrows fly more quickly. Thp! Thp! Thp! Each one speared the bottles with a satisfying crinkle before tottering to the floor.

“Stop pretending to be modest, Minmin,” Jooheon scolded from the audience. “Show them what you can really do.”

The rapper jumped up from his seat and thrust a crossbow from the table into the archer’s hands. Jooheon gave him his best stern look and spun him toward the audience. “Turn around.”

Minhyuk followed his friend’s lead, and when Jooheon gave him the okay, he turned back toward his makeshift range where he found the hype man grinning impishly. “There are six hidden targets, and you’ve got six arrows. Don’t miss.”

The archer nodded and set his first arrow in the crossbow’s cradle. The bowstring creaked deliciously as the suspense in the room crescendoed. Once he had lined up his five remaining arrows, Minhyuk’s eyes scoured the room, looking for anything out of place.

His first target was a doodle of a stick figure making a face. Jooheon had tucked it behind a shelf support so only its head peeked out. An incredibly small target, its raspberry-blowing face was about the width of a cucumber, and to make it more challenging, a third of it was obstructed by the metal support. An inch off to one side, and the arrow would ricochet into the wall, and an inch to the other, it would pierce a box with who knew what inside.

Minhyuk raised the crossbow, his finger hovering beside the trigger as he nuzzled his cheek to the chinrest and leveled his eye to the sight. He breathed deeply, holding his breath until his lungs burned. He exhaled.

The arrow ripped through the doodle man’s face and lodged in a thicket of magazines stuffed behind the victim.

Hannah whooped. Wally licked her lips.

The next doodle man peered out from behind the TV, his smug little face eyeballing the archer along with a sassy wave. Despite the expensive obstacle, Minhyuk repeated his crossbow steps with methodical precision. Deep breath, aching lungs, swift exhale. Another slaughtered stick man, this one with a now-tragically limp arm.

The third target dangled upside down from a support in the drop ceiling, one stick hand on its hip and the other poking a dimple. The arrow pierced its stick legs, and Minhyuk pouted his bottom lip.

“Joohoney!” he whined. “You made that one too cute. I didn’t want to shoot him.”

“Just do it, you baby,” the rapper commanded. “Three more.”

Minhyuk sighed and surveyed the space. He spotted two more doodles on the opposite side of the room, one mooning him from the top of a file cabinet and the other giving him the middle finger as it scaled the shelves. They were much further away than the others, and it took the archer longer to configure his shots, but there were no do-overs, and he could feel the keen-eyed, white-haired mercenary judging every adjustment to his aim.

With another swift exhale, the first arrow loosed with a fsst! from the bow and obliterated the poor stick man’s naked butt, and Changkyun doubled over with laughter while Jooheon feigned shock. “You monster!”

But, for a change, Minhyuk remained all business as he brought the climbing doodle into his sights and punctured its face with effortless grace. The target fell to the ground, arrow sticking straight up as a grisly reminder of the charismatic singer’s hidden savagery.

After another minute of searching, Minhyuk still couldn’t find the last drawing. He glared at Jooheon, who nudged his chin toward the shelves and added, “I didn’t say I’d make it easy.”

Minhyuk narrowed his eyes and took one last survey of the shelving units. Finally, on the second to the last one, he spied something peering through a hole in the support about the size of a 10 won coin. The doodle man’s face filled the hole with a snarl and some very grouchy eyebrows.

The archer sighed. “I think you’re overestimating my skills.”

But Jooheon crossed his arms and shook his head. “Nah.”

Minhyuk sighed again and targeted the tiny mark. Each time he repeated his breathing technique, he hedged at the exhale and couldn’t pull the trigger. No matter how he gripped the bow, he couldn’t seem to get the sight to steady. The longer he waited, the sweatier his hands got and the more he wavered, and even though he had no timer, somehow he knew he was running out of time. Finally, he inhaled, held his breath, and when he exhaled, he closed his eye and loosed the arrow.

Thwack!

Everything went silent.

The next thing he knew, Minhyuk was swept into a bouncy hug by his rappers, who were taking turns screaming into his ears. Somewhere behind him, there was a round of fervent applause, and when his bandmates finally let him go, Minhyuk could see his arrow jutting through the hole smackdab in the center of the stick man’s face.

With a huge grin, he turned back to his audience and found a sea of proud faces. Even the muted Shownu had taken a break from Hannah’s puzzle to smile at his friend. Wally, on the other hand, was staring at him from under hooded eyes, stroking her bottom lip with her thumb.

Confused and unsettled, Minhyuk grabbed his recurve bow and a handful of fresh arrows and returned to the field where the two rappers were busy dressing the stage for the archer’s big finale. The boys scrambled to line up eight sets of bottles along a shelf before Wonho surprised his maknae from behind. The singer pinched the squealing rapper on the shoulders to hold him still while Hyungwon forced an elaborate helmet on Changkyun’s head.

“Come on, guys,” their maknae whined, “you know I hate this trick!”

“Move those feet, Kkukkungie,” Wonho teased as he pushed him toward the center of the room. “Feel free to run.”

“What is this thing on my head?” he protested as he groped the helmet and ground his heels against Wonho’s shoves.

“I made it,” Kihyun said, and for a moment, the room stilled as their leader’s betrayal penetrated, but as more people studied the unique headdress, a few snickers broke out.

Changkyun’s hands closed around the soft edges of fabric mounted on a stick at the top of the helmet, but he couldn’t make sense of the shape he was tracing.

Finally, Kihyun said, “It’s the underwear you never bother to wear around the dorm. I figured you wouldn’t miss it.”

Peals of laughter shook the room as Wonho, Hyungwon, and even Minhyuk doubled over in laughter. Several pairs of underwear had been layered flat like a sail on top of the helmet, and as Changkyun flushed, Wonho gave the rapper one last stiff shove with his shoulder to propel him across the room.

Minhyuk stopped laughing immediately as he raced to set his first arrow and loose it at the moving target. Changkyun swerved around the range, trying to avoid having his underwear riddled with holes, while the crowd hollered. Zzzzpts and thwips whizzed above his head, and he could feel the tug on his helmet as arrows pierced the yielding fabric. By the time he’d made it, breathless and red-faced, to the other side of the room, four arrows impaled his underwear.

“Uptight prudes!” Changkyun shouted as he lobbed the arrows back at Minhyuk to choruses of laughter.

But that died down as soon as Minhyuk filled his quiver one last time and prepared for a rapid-fire barrage at the last of the bottles. The archer closed one eye, kissed the bowstring as he pulled it taut, and spared a final moment to strategize before he loosed the arrow.

Without warning, Wally strolled onto the range, tossing one of Ahjumma Kihyun’s bruised apples in her hand as an arrow whizzed past her face on its way to clobber a bottle. Minhyuk had already set his next arrow and had to jerk the bow up at the last second, sending the next arrow into the ceiling above her head.

“Are you nuts!” he shouted, clutching his chest.

“That should be obvious,” Wonho muttered though he was wide-eyed and breathless, too.

“I could have killed you!”

For her part, Wally seemed unconcerned. She tossed the apple again, never taking her eyes off the raven-haired archer as she caught it. With a cock of her head, she turned the ruby red fruit in her hand and said, “Shoot this.”

“You want me to shoot the apple?”

Wally caught Minhyuk’s gaze and held it. “I do.”

“O-kay,” he said slowly. “Put it wherever you want.”

“Ready,” she said as she tossed it again and again.

“I—” But Minhyuk stopped himself when he realized it was useless to argue. He glanced back to Hannah for assistance, but she was watching Shownu try to solve her puzzle. Meanwhile, Kihyun studied the explosives enthusiast, his arms crossed and his head cocked. Why didn’t more people care about this psycho mercenary lobbing fruit on an active archery range?

Resigned to his fate, Minhyuk studied Wally’s rhythm and pacing, trying to avoid the intensity of her chocolate eyes as he instead focused on the vermillion of his actual target. Up, down. Up, down. He let his eyes skip ahead in the pattern, and, when he felt ready, he nocked the arrow and waited another breath, then two.

Fzzzpt! Splt!

The apple landed back in Wally’s hand, this time skewered on the shaft of an arrow. She smiled and licked her lips as she withdrew the arrow with a squish before taking a deep bite from the neat wound. When she looked back up, she found every pair of eyes now gaping at her. She took another bite.

“Ew—Dobby, stop!” Hannah shouted as she jogged over to her friend just in time to stop Wally from licking the apple juice from the arrow. “Don’t be weird.”

Wally laughed, a sound so alien for the mercenary that a few of the boys stumbled as though Hannah had just pulled out more explosives. “It was just for effect. I wasn’t really gonna.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know how you get.” Hannah turned back to Minhyuk and shrugged apologetically. “Wally has a thing for perfect aim.”

The leggy merc nodded without breaking her gaze from the archer. “Oh, hell yeah I do. How about target practice sometime? There’s a range right near my place.”

With an unsure laugh, he answered, “Um, as long as I’m not the target, I guess.”

“Oh, you’re the target, all right,” Wally said, taking another step closer before Hannah clamped onto her shoulders.

“Down, girl. We still have one more exhibitor I think we’re all dying to see.”

Wally groaned and rolled her eyes. “Dying of boredom maybe.”

Wonho scowled at her, his eyes flicking from the apple back to her lips. As if an answer, Wally ripped a bite out of it and chomped it with a sneer.

“Just keep your eyes on me, Miss Mercenary. You’ll see,” he said as he stripped off his jacket, untucked his black T-shirt, and headed for center stage.

A/N: Wish I could add the song on here the boys were jamming to on the ride, but it was Lauv & Troye Sivan’s “i’m so tired...” See you next chapter!

[crypterion-moon]

Tiamat: Rise in Shadow p.3

Summary: Fresh from their missions, the team finds intruders stepping into their new territory. But the mad scramble nearly costs Tim his life and limb, if it weren’t for a mysterious stranger saving his life. But it isn’t over and a clue is left behind

Tags: Violence

Dick let out a heavy breath as he tipped back in his chair, eyes straining from working at the computer for too long and legs, jelly and aching from standing for hours trying to piece together information the team had found while fighting the Light, while trying to pull up whatever he could on what had killed those men and what little he could find, any possible leads always went nowhere. No evidence of alien activity lately since the Reach, it was too sudden, no reported similar sightings or cases that led to their island and no motive except maybe revenge or a contract but those seemed unlikely as well, Dick couldn’t tell with so little evidence. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t seen sickos do things like this before, that’s why generally, the team is told to avoid Gotham, not because Batman was possessive but because only he knew how to handle cases like this. If Dick had to be frank, they were lucky to have to deal with alien invasions and crazy robots mostly. Difficult, but easy on the mind and eyes, most of the time. It was too easy to underestimate how perverse the mind of a human could become and the Joker was evidence of this. But he was only one psycho in the midst of seven billion other possibilities some, probably capable of sicker methods, less efficient but as long as it was...fun. And Dick had seen too many of these since he became Robin, it made him wonder how he managed to not go insane as well. He tapped a key on the console, which brought up a new window, the camera overlooking the team’s kitchen where they were all congregating, over cake. Bart eating most of it, as usual, and Dick remembered, the reason he hadn’t tipped himself over the edge, the Young Justice, the team he, Kaldur, SuperBoy and Wally started all those years ago, disobeying orders and causing mischief, were the ones keeping him together. He had to protect them, protect what they had. He sighed, closing the window, great job he was doing. If only Wally was still around. If only he could go back to the way things were, he missed the way he could goof off as Robin. But people grow up and superheroes grow up even faster, lose that innocence even before they could enjoy it. That’s just how it was. The responsibility grows heavy on his shoulders. It was easy to underestimate how cruel and disgusting the world could be. For their sake and Tim’s, he had to protect what was left.

Suddenly, the alarms began to wail and it startled Dick so hard that he fell out of his seat, instinctively, when he picked himself up he immediately dropped into his combat stance. Already, the rest of the Young Justice were running out though half in uniform, half not in Beast Boy’s case, who managed to pull on the top half of his suit but was still in boxers. M’Gann and Cassie were still in sleepwear.

“What’s going on?” Robin asked as soon as he reached Dick, now tapping away at the console, flicking through camera to camera.

“Not sure yet, but the perimeter sensors were tripped, we’ve got someone snooping around outside.”

“Sure it isn’t some deer or something?” Bart said earning him an elbow to the gut from Jaime.

“Course not, why would we put them there if they kept picking up animals.”

“Jaime’s right, those sensors are designed to detect intruders and suspicious activity, if they’re going  crazy, there’s definitely someone out there,” Dick said, as he checked each camera, suddenly his eyes caught a fleeting shadow out of 14b, just outside the third entrance, west.

“There!” Dick turned to the team, “Alright, Robin, Superboy you guys are coming with me, everybody else, cover the exit points, make sure that whoever has trespassed doesn’t leave. We don’t have much time, let’s go.”

As Bart was the fastest, he was gone before any of the others had reached the mouth of the cave. Very soon, Robin, Nightwing and Superboy reached point 14b, right where the disturbance was picked up. Of course, there was no sign of anything but following in the direction of the shadow, they continued the pursuit.

“M’gann put us into a mind link.” Dick said through his comm.

“Already done,” came her reply.

“Kid-Flash, see anything?” Dick asked through the mental link as the three continued the chase.

“Nuh-uh, pretty dark here and all I see are trees and more trees, I must’ve run in circles about a dozen times now.”

“Keep looking, they can’t have gotten far.”

There was nearly no sound, nothing stirred, if this was an infiltration by the Light they would’ve come out by now for a fight and a large group geared to take down superheroes wouldn’t be this quiet. Dick grimaced, it could only mean one thing, that their murderer was prowling nearby. Time to change tactics.

“Listen up, I want everyone to take caution and keep a careful eye out,” he paused, “There’s a possibility that our mass killer is here. Engage from a distance if possible and pull out if you can’t beat him, I repeat, engage from afar, retreat if the threat is too much.”

Just as Nightwing was barking orders, Robin who trailed behind the two, looked to his left and noticed a glint of light, shining from the cover of bushes as they ran past. Suddenly he felt overcome with the urge to look, forgetting to notify Superboy or Nightwing, He slowed down to a stop, eyes still glued to the two little lights and began to walk towards them, all thoughts leaving him with only his overwhelming curiosity. As he got closer, he saw those two dots flicker and move, retreating further into the dark of the woods. Against all his trained instincts screaming at him, he followed them in. His legs taking him forwards until he was very much lost within the thick clumping of trees, in that exact moment, his senses returned and Tim realized he’d just broken off from the group without them knowing. He attempted to call out mentally but no one replied, his link to them broken or blocked somehow. He could feel fear slowly building up inside.

“Okay, breathe, you can do this,” he muttered to himself as he gripped his bo staff tighter, “You faced Killer Croc, Ivy, Clayface and Two-Face, you can beat this creep.”

He advanced, though he could try find his way back to the cave, but in the minutes he’d walked further on like a zombie, Tim was unsure of where his location was, and the forests surrounding HQ was, simply put, vast. With the mind link gone, he felt alone and lost. This was bad.

“Miss martian, Blue Beetle?”

No one answered as he called out loud, “Nightwing? Superboy?”

How far had he walked? This was embarrassing, getting so lost even though technically he was so close to base. And it looked like it was getting darker than night, the deafening silence surrounded him. There was no way one of them wouldn’t let him go with this, especially Gar. The thickening shadows was lowering visibility further and further that for some reason his night vision lens was becoming less effective, then without warning, they malfunctioned and he had to switch back to normal vision. This was bad, he shouldn’t have wandered forwards. Robin decided to turn on his heel and attempt to trace his steps back. The moment his back was turned, a large, roaring mass slammed into him, sending him down onto the ground with its weight pinning him there. Robin grunted and struggled, trying to unbalance whatever was crushing him. It growled in response and Robin felt its grip tightening, claws digging into his armour which must have made it through the first layer. He swallowed, sincerely hoping it was just Gar playing a stupid prank on him.

“If that’s you Beast Boy it’s not funny. Get. Off.”

Robin tried to elbow his assailant lightly, just enough to take Garfield by surprise and hopefully get him to move but when he swung, he realized that it wasn’t Beast Boy at all. Not with that growl, that look. He’d never seen a creature like it, a hulking, oozing beast that was more bone and spines than flesh, pus and boils covered what skin it had, and it’s teeth, oversized, filthy spikes, constantly drooling. It’s breath was reminiscent of any rotting thing Robin could remember. Nothing should be that hideous and yet here it was pinning him down and savouring the moment before it tears him apart. And all at once, he felt the terror rip through him. Thinking fast, he took out the taser and attempted to knock it out or at least stun it with a jolt. It roared and reared it’s ugly head for a moment, seemingly distracted Robin attempted to kick the beast off him but before he could wriggle away, it turned back to its prey, visibly irritated now. Great, he thought, that did nothing accept piss it off even more. Think Tim, his mind running through various scenarios, any possibilities on how to dislodge the creature. You’ve faced bigger, badder, uglies than this from invasions and mutants. Suddenly, Tim’s mind blanked as he watched the creature rear up, staring right into his eyes past the mask, reading him, his mind, his life and regurgitating all the negative things from the empty void. No soul, no life, not an extraterrestrial mammal built for survival. No words just things Tim could see in it’s glowing eyes, and he couldn’t look away. A deep guttural growl bellowed from it, the creature now bearing all its rotten teeth, black oozing from its jaws. It seemed to be laughing, he couldn’t tell through the fear that was now bubbling through. This thing was playing, a mortal toy in its grasp and it knew nothing Tim or anyone could do would stop it. Suddenly, he couldn’t help but wonder, if he’d see Jason. He wanted to shut his eyes tight but he couldn’t, that thing was holding his gaze, all he could do was hope for a quick end. The teeth and pain never came. Instead, he heard a distinct hissing followed by something far quicker than the eye colliding with the monster. Caught off guard it bellowed with a deafening roar and was launched away, and then, Tim couldn’t feel it pinning him down anymore. He propped himself up feeling the weightlessness again, almost lost in relief before his eyes blinked in the dark, seeing two glowing eyes not looking at him but past him. He still couldn’t move, something was nagging the back of his mind, his comms but his hands weren’t listening.

“Did you really think I would be fool enough to assume you and your damned ken wouldn’t follow me here? You think little of me.”

A figure emerged slowly from the shadows, glowing blue eyes stared down yellow ones. A young man maybe only a few years older than Tim, dressed in all black in what looked like a dress shirt and pants, grinning like a devil, he was oddly...attractive. Which was an alarming thought to have for someone who literally just walked out from nowhere, but unable to help feeling himself drawn to the stranger. If it weren’t for the blaring danger that he’d been trained to be aware of, he’d have forgotten entirely about the multi-legged slime monster growling from in front of him. He looked to and back from them both as they continued their little stare down. The man didn’t seem to have acknowledged his presence and the monster, he hoped, had temporarily forgotten about him.

“You,” it growled, oh, it talks, “I could smell you coming.”

The young man gave a dark chuckle, “Flattering, seeing how you chased me around I take it that you like it?”

“We will have you, your kind won’t hear you scream here,” the demonic hound growled, leaning back on its haunches.

“I think you will find I can fend for myself, mutt.”

At that, it launched itself with a screech at him, with Tim only just managing to scramble away. The stranger not missing one moment, reached behind him and brought that hand back around, a long weapon in his grip. The shaft slammed hard enough into the creature to hear a squelch and crack of what Tim could assume was bone and something else. He didn’t really want to think about what it was made of. The weapon was completely materialized by the time the monster had stumbled back on its feet. It resembled a bo staff like Tim’s except it was black, not painted, black like obsidian or onyx. Was it possible for a weapon to be completely forged out of a mineral? Attached at the end was a weighted blade, curved and warped, a series of sharp edges wrapped around a crescent.

“Now, depending on you answer, I can make this quick or you can make this enjoyable for me.” he said, whirling the staff in hand, “Where is he?”

The creature answered with a roar and pounced again, jaws gnashing. The strange took a step back and before it could come crashing down on him, he brought his knee back and up into the its gut. It howled and crumbled into a trembling heap, snapping at nothing. Tim watched as the stranger strode up to it, crouching just a couple of feet away.

“I’ll ask you again, where is Reavon?”

A low, wet sound rumbled from the creature, it took a moment for Tim to realize it was laughing. The young man instead of looking frustrated or even slightly offended, smiled. A smile disturbingly beautiful in this current moment. Before he took the creatures head, slowly and carefully twisting it off. Tim gaped in shock and horror, watching as the young man examined the head like it was an interesting object. Reaching inside and pulling out some kind of red matter. Tim couldn’t hold it in anymore and threw up.

“Well, I didn’t expect you to enjoy the sight but you have quite a weak stomach for a Gothamite.”

At that, Tim looked up in surprise, “How-?”

He attempted to scramble to his feet.

“I wouldn’t move yet, you’ve been caught in his curse,” the stranger took a step towards him, his hand reaching towards Tim, “This won’t hurt.”

“Tim!”

Suddenly, the sound of Dick’s voice calling his name brought him back to reality, he’s still on Mount Justice island, still alive. A sharp hiss like a snake brought his attention back to the stranger, his face pulled into a look of irritation. As backed up into the shadows again, his eyes turned back to Tim, giving a knowing nod and vanished. It seemed he didn’t plan on sticking around for them to question him. Tim wanted to call out, ask him to wait. Just as soon as the thought materialized, it vanished along with the stranger’s presence and his mind went blank.

Dick arrived in time to see Tim collapse back, slouching limply in a sitting position and just in time for his sharp eyes to catch part of a figure, disappear into the shadows. But his attention focused on Tim. H knelt by the boy, removing the mask.

“Hey, hey, you okay? What happened, are you hurt?”

Tim was unresponsive, numbly staring up at Nightwing’s eyes and occasionally glancing back at the mutilated monster and the space where the figure was only moments ago. Dick caught the look and followed his gaze behind him.

“Shit!” he cursed under his breath. He finally took the black mass in all its horrible detail, there’s nothing natural about it, things in places that didn’t make sense. Flesh that wasn’t really flesh at least not one kind of flesh, torn out and realized, this creature wasn’t built for survival, it was built to kill, built for fear. If the things Zatanna had told him about magic were true, he was looking at a good example of the bad kind. He checked Tim all over for any signs of injury, knowing these types they probably carried venom or worse in their bodies. Dick sighed in relief, luckily, Tim seemed fine on the outside but his eyes still stared blankly ahead, as if his mind had shut down. He had no way of helping him here, at least not out here while it was dark. They’d have to deal with any traumatic stress back at base. Sounds of leaves rustling and feet running approached and the other heroes finally caught up. Bart came to a skidding stop as he closed in on the scene, his eyes taking in the creature lying in a pool of its own blood. He replaced the mask over Tim’s eyes.

“Robin!” Connor ran up to the two, eyes widening in shock, “What the hell happened?!”

“He was attacked,” Nightwing stated bluntly, reaching into his belt.

“Yeah, I can tell! I want to know what the hell is that thing?” Connor’s voice was close to yelling his lungs out as he pointed one angry finger at the bloody mass. Which Bart was now toeing cautiously, then retreating with a shudder.

“Oh man, that’s nasty.”

“I don’t know, okay? Not exactly,” Nightwing took a swab of the substance that coated the Robin uniform, analysing it, he narrowed his eyes, “But I’ve got a gut feeling that says I need to talk to Zatanna.”

Superboy calmed down as his face settled into worry, he seemed to understand what that meant. Nightwing pocketed the sample and lifted Tim up, whispering something barely audible to the others. Tim finally nodded, blinking a few times and muttered something back, he dug the heel of his palm into his eyes.

“Is he alright?” M’gann asked, tentatively resting her hand on Tim’s shoulder, “Do I need to...take a look?”

“Not right now, let’s go back. We’ll let him rest then we can find out what happened here.”

Suddenly, something further into the distance caught his Dick’s eye. A small light, blue and shining in under the dark of the trees. He could be sure that it wasn’t there before when they passed. He paused for a moment, staring, a moment too long. Superboy’s voice snapped him back to the present.

“Here I’ll take him back,” Connor offered. Nightwing handed Tim over gratefully. The boy hung limp in Connor’s arms. He and watched for a moment while they flew away.

“Beast boy, Kid-Flash, M’gann come with me and M’gann, tell everyone you have on the telepathic network to return to base and stay there.”

When he looked, the light was gone but he had its approximate location, though the distance was uncertain. Nightwing led the group on. But was silent, no orders, no comments, just an unsettling silence even for him. M’gann watched him with concern. She could read his mind, know what he is thinking and it could help her act appropriately but he’d no straight away she used telepathy, that would be rude. She hung back a bit before deciding to speak up.

“You must be really worried, for Robin I mean. After what happened...last time, you must be terrified for him.”

Nightwing sighed, “I am, I don’t know what happened exactly, or what that thing is. But it could’ve killed him I’m sure of it. I got samples but I have a feeling it won’t answer our questions. Especially who got to him before us,” Nighwing paused, hands clenched, “M’gann, I wasn’t there, I didn’t save him. Someone did but I didn’t get there in time. If it weren’t for, I don’t know who, that thing could’ve torn him apart and I still wouldn’t make it there, to save him. Just like I couldn’t, for him”

The martian put her hand on Dick’s shoulder, “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself, you can’t be everywhere at once. I’m at fault too for not noticing. Compared to you, a lot of us have failed a lot more. I don’t want anything like last time to happen again either but blaming yourself, won’t help. We don’t even know what we’re up against.”

“Shouldn’t we?” Nightwing said a little to harshly. M’gann flinched, hurt.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m letting it get to me. I just can’t be helpless, I can’t fail and lose my friends again.”

M’gann flung her arms around him, “Me too.”

“Hey guys, what’s that?” Garfield said, pointing a finger up ahead. It was the shining object again, it certainly was farther than Dick had expected, but it seemed no more and no less brighter.

“That’s what I saw earlier, could be a clue.”

“Or could be more of those things, eugh, I really don’t want to see those monster dogs up close and ready to eat us.”

As they walked towards the glowing object, the air seemed to change. A presence that pervaded all around them now, it was heavy and empty at the same time. For Dick, it almost felt like the time he walked through the cemetery at night to see his parents, an oppressive atmosphere that left him feeling empty and cold and frightened. He forced the sensation down and glanced at the rest of the team. Both Kid-Flash and Beast Boy looked twitchy, something that nagged at their every instinct while M’gann was beginning to falter, hovering closer and closer to the ground, he face scrunched up in discomfort or pain.

“Are you guys okay?”

“Don’t feel so good,” Gar said, his tone on the edge of queasiness.

“Me neither,” Bart added wobbly.

Garfield suddenly shifted into gorilla form, letting out a frustrated roar and beating his chest. For a moment, he almost seemed unable to recognise any of them, fearing an attack. Dick stepped up in front of him.

“Beast boy! Stop, hey it’s me,” he said, holding out both hands trying to calm down the disorientated shifter. Bart, wobbly on his feet had to lay down. Beast boy looked uncertainly at him, at Nightwing and M’gann who now hovered unstably above, then back at Nightwing.

“Easy there. You still with me?”

Gar nodded, finally speaking, “Yeah, yeah, sorry, just something messing with me.”

Whatever the glowing thing was, it was seemed to be affecting all but Dick. M’gann not much later couldn’t hold herself in the air anymore. She drifted just a few inches above the ground before landing unsteadily on her feet, stumbling towards Dick. He caught her just as she was about to fall, visibly in pain.

“Something is interfering with my psychic powers, it’s messing with my mind. Nightwing...”

 “Stay here, don’t come any closer, okay, stay right here all of you,” he said as he gave her over to a gorilla beast boy. The object still glowed brightly but with how it was messing with all their powers, he left the rest behind. He could feel something but if anything, it was more like pressure, like someone had put him in a pressure chamber and turned it up to eight. His legs felt like they were slogging through marsh but nothing more. When he finally walked right up to the little dot of light, it dimmed considerably. Now he could see what it was. A small stone, crystal. Blue, somewhere between a sky and deep sea. He reached down hesitantly, tapped at it. No shocks or pain, so he picked up the crystal. It fit into the palm of his hand surprisingly no bigger than a pebble when it was shining so brightly only moments ago.

He turned it over, examining it, “What is this?”

“Nightwing!” he turned to see the other three making their way towards him, visibly disturbed but no longer in pain or discomfort.

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah, whatever was messing with our powers, it’s gone now,” M’gann said.

“I think it’s this,” Nightwing held up the stone had completely stopped glowing, turning into a deep midnight color, the surface was smooth as a gem and it felt like one to. If reflected light like a crystal normally would, he would’ve thought it was some kind of gem, like the one Klarion used before in his ritual. It was shaped like an opal. Truly like a pebble, if it wasn’t glowing, he would’ve missed it. The other’s looked curiously at it too. He observed how they seemed to be perfectly at ease now around it, now that it had stopped emitting that strange light.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, we’re fine now,” M’gann said.

“Still a bit off from feeling the mode but all good.”

“Kinda weird though, I swear something was making me to go full ape, literally. Like it was talking to my instincts, that sound weird even in my head.”

The now dormant object had lost all of the oppressive aura from earlier, slightly cold to the touch almost too cold. M’gann used her telekinesis to hold the object aloft. It didn’t react.

“Whatever it is, it seems to have stopped for now. Let’s go back, I need to see what it is and where it came from.”

[heysoup]

Fluffy February Day 2 - Movie Night

Reminder to follow @fluffyfebruary ​ to see the prompt list and that I’ll be using the tags #fluffyfebruary and #fluffyfeb for these.

Continuing the fics with day two! I’m super proud of this one; It’s dripping with fluff and teenage angst. Warning for potential secondhand embarrassment - they’re both idiots in love and have no idea how to show it.

Chapter 2: Films and Fears

Pairing: Butch/Male Lone Wanderer

Summary: Dealing with life in the vault can be tough, especially for an outcast like Jamie. When he befriends Butch through his G.O.A.T. assignment, however, the two make their own safe place. Butch decides to surprise him there one day with the promise of treasure, and it leads to something more than they both expect.

Ao3 Link

Jamie tosses and turns in his rat’s nest of a bed. It’s midnight – he’s too hot, the vault’s ventilation system’s groaning is echoing around him like a damn chorus, and his sheets keep scratching uncomfortably against his clammy skin. He brings his wrist close to his face to mindlessly check his Pip-Boy for the millionth time that night, his arm feeling as heavy as lead, and he squints at the fluorescent light of the screen as he taps it awake.

Though Butch showed him a few times before, it still takes him a moment to remember the right sequence of buttons to push to unlock developer’s mode and navigate to the messaging tab the other boy set up for them. It’s only been about a month since Butch found an old Pip-Boy manual in Stanley’s locker and got this trick to work, but already there’s a considerable backlog of messages between the two.

Jamie scrolls through them with the dial on his Pip-Boy, worrying the skin of his lower lip with his teeth as he reads through some of the older messages. It’s become a new habit for him on these particularly rough sleepless nights. When he’s too exhausted to write in his journal, draw, or jump around his room in an attempt to tire himself out; he talks to Butch.

If someone had told him a year ago that Butch DeLoria, his childhood bully and teenage rival, would be one of his only sources of solace these days he would have called them insane. Turns out, giving the vault’s two delinquents deadbeat jobs with no supervision and shoving them in the same closet of a studio space could make them form a pretty strange alliance. The enemy of my enemy and all of that, right?

It also doesn’t help that Amata is forever busy with her new duties as overseer’s assistant – or whatever her job title is actually called. Jamie misses her like he’s lost a part of himself, and even though he knows she’s not locked away with her father by choice he can’t help the nagging part of his brain that is convinced she abandoned him.

Butch is dealing with the same thing, though with less consequence. His fellow Tunnel Snakes are relatively busy with their new jobs – Wally as a security guard and Paul as an engineer – but they still make some time to see each other. Butch is just one of those people who needs constant attention, which is where Jamie supposes he comes in handy. He tries not to think too hard about it.

He’s is snickering to himself while he reads some messages sent a few weeks back during one of their spats, most of which were petty insults and some pretty creative curses, when a new message blips through and pulls his screen to attention.

913473: nosebleed u up?

Perfect timing, Jamie thinks, sitting up in his bed to type. The 6-digit code is what Butch called his Pip-ID – apparently every Pip-Boy comes with one coded in by default. It was weird at first, trying to memorize the numbers and calm his own paranoia at the thought of someone hacking into their conversations, but Butch said that their numbers were for their Pip-Boys alone, so Jamie trusted him. The horrible, agitated crawling under his skin that was keeping him up all night begins to fade as he replies.

604272: didja even have to ask? 913473: just say yes or no damn 604272: k. no 913473: oh fuck off

Jamie can’t help the soft laugh that escapes him, and he grins like a complete idiot down at the screen.

913473: if ur done being an ass i have somethin for us to do 913473: if u aint busy of course 913473: meet at the place? 604272: sure. be there in 10

He switches his Pip-Boy screen off and hops out of bed, stretching languorously before grabbing his jumpsuit from where he left it earlier that day in a heap on the floor. He tugs it on leg by leg and zips it up before checking himself in the mirror.

His hair is a mop of curls on his head and he does his best to smooth it down, knowing Butch will scold him for not using the correct conditioner to tame his flyaways like he showed him. The bags under his eyes are a bit darker than usual, but there’s nothing to be done about that. He shrugs to himself and turns to the door. No point in being too self-conscious about his appearance this late at night – isn’t like this is a date or anything, he tells himself.

He doesn’t bother being quiet as he leaves his room, knowing his dad would still be working at the clinic or at the very least passed out there on one of the cots. He doesn’t come home much these days.

Jamie shoves his boots on, not even bothering with socks, and peers out of the thick window into the hallway. It seems empty, so he hits the button and creeps out through the door.

The neon blue emergency lights that run along the edges of the ceiling and floor greet him when he steps out of his apartment. He shoves his hands in his pockets, a nervous habit, and peers around the corner before continuing his path. The door closes not-so-softly behind him and he walks down the hall past the restrooms that separate his and Butch’s apartments. He stops momentarily outside the door to the DeLoria’s apartment, noticing it’s dark and quiet inside.

Butch must already be down there, Jamie thinks, picking up his pace as much as he could without making too much noise. Despite the constant creaking and rumbling of the vault’s ventilation and reactor systems the halls at night could carry quite an echo, and his boots aren’t the quietest things to sneak around in.

Patrols were lax recently but knowing his luck he’d get caught breaking curfew and would have to clean the bathrooms again. He briefly regrets not wearing socks because he refuses to take his boots off and walk barefoot on the cold steel floor, even if it is quieter.

Further down the hallway and a bit past the occupied wing of apartments, Jamie stops at the top of a short set of stairs that lead down to a small corridor with one door. A large INACCESSIBLE sign glows ominously above it, and in the corner of the hallway facing the stairwell is a single security camera. It rotates at a snail’s pace, its gears clicking audibly with every circuit it makes of the dead-end hallway.

Jamie ducks down near the wall at the top of the stairs, watching the camera as he has so many times before to study its crawling path. When Butch had discovered this place, they figured out a way to tilt the camera up ever so slightly with the handle of a broom from their shop – creating about thirty seconds of a blind spot to get them from the stairs and through the door without getting caught if they hugged the left wall.

Peering down the hallways around him one more time to make sure no patrols were coming; Jamie types a quick message into his Pip-Boy.

604272: here

He waits a few moments until he hears a couple sharp raps on the metal door down the way, telling him that Butch is there whenever he’s ready. Jamie waits a few more moments and listens to the camera click back into its blind spot before he hops down the stairs, staying low and to the left as he stalks toward the door. He hits it lightly with his palm when he gets there, and it slides open. He has just enough time to duck inside, slamming his fist on the button to shut it just as he hears the security camera restart its rotation.

“You’re still gonna act like it's some big heist no matter how many times we come down here, huh?” Jamie turns around in the darkness and is met with Butch’s grin, a bottle of beer already in one of his fists. His Pip-Boy light is on, basking them in a dim green glow.

“Keeps it interesting,” he replies, punching Butch playfully on the arm. On this side of the door is a long flight of stairs and they continue further down into the pitch darkness, hands pressing along the walls for purchase with nothing but about three feet of lighting in front of them.

The emergency lights are shut off down here, along with the security cameras – probably to save power, so Jamie turns his Pip-Boy light on as well. It’s a bit brighter, but not by much. They’ve been down here enough times by now that their bodies remember how many steps there are, but Jamie always has a nagging fear in the back of his mind that one day the staircase will just keep going forever. He shakes that thought from his head, listening to the sound of their boots stomping down the steps and focusing his gaze on Butch’s free hand as it slides against the railing.

For the past month or so this has been their escape. Butch somehow figured out how to break into the door they just passed through, and they discovered a whole wing of abandoned apartments under the ones they were currently living in. So far all they had done was clear out one room that had a ratty old couch, some blankets, a broken Nuka Cola mini-fridge, and a few wooden storage crates in it. Jamie had also rigged up a small emergency generator and they were able to find some lamps to make it a little less depressing.

Most importantly, they had booze smuggled from Butch’s mom’s liquor stash, a few cartons of cigarettes they’d traded with Stevie for some chems Jamie snuck from his dad’s clinic, their collection of comic books, and Jamie’s old BB gun for when they got bored. It’s far from perfect, but it’s space, and when you’re destined to roam the same hallways with the same people for the rest of your miserable existence – that amounts to a lot.

“So, what are we actually doing?” Jamie asks as they turn into the apartment they’d claimed as their base. Butch has the generator running and the room smells thickly of his peach pomade and cigarette smoke – he must have been down here for a few hours already.

“I,” Butch begins, stopping to pull the cork out of his new bottle of beer with his teeth before spitting it on the floor and taking a swig, “am gonna show you some treasure.” He finishes with a flourish, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, and plops down onto the couch next to his discarded Tunnel Snake jacket.

Jamie snorts and pulls up a crate, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and propping his feet up. He clicks his tongue in mock annoyance when Butch’s boots crowd his own on the small surface and, in a fruitless endeavor, they battle for leg space before giving in to sharing. It’s obvious the other boy is already a bit tipsy.

“Treasure, huh? That’s cool, I guess,” Jamie snickers, snatching the bottle of beer from Butch and downing some before he could protest. It burns in his throat and brings a comforting warmth to his chest. He continues nursing the drink and settles further back into the worn corduroy couch, his posture absolutely terrible. Butch reaches for another bottle.

“Yup.” The bottle pops open and another cork joins the pile growing on the floor. Another drink and an obnoxious burp, then Butch sits forward - feet falling to the floor, his hands on his knees, and an excited light in his eyes. His leg is bouncing incessantly.

“Listen, I was going through some rooms down here and I found an old projector – like the one Brotch has?” He glances at Jamie, blue eyes a soft, dreamy color in the low light, and Jamie can’t help but gulp at the intensity he sees there. When Butch has a plan he’s excited about, he turns into a different person – like all the stress of conforming to the monotony of vault life has washed away and he’s finally allowed to be the mischievous and passionate person hiding underneath it all. Or… something like that. Jamie’s waxing poetic again, something he can’t help but do when around Butch.

“That’s pretty cool,” is all Jamie can bring himself to breathe out as he sips on his beer. He picks at the loose threads on the arm of the couch as he tries not to think about the fact that Butch had his lips on this same bottle just a few seconds ago.

Butch deflates a bit. “Pretty cool?” he mocks, leaning closer. Okay, maybe he’s more drunk than Jamie had first thought, if the redness of his cheeks were any indication.

“Nosebleed, I found full on ho-lo-disks,” Butch emphasizes, blowing a few messy curls away from his forehead. Jamie just shrugs.

“Okay?” he begins, not seeing the big deal. They already have these things in the classroom. “What’re we gonna do, watch some lectures? Don’t tell me DeLoria wants to brush up on his studying,” he taunts.

Butch just sneers at him in response, standing up and only swaying a bit – much to Jamie’s surprise. “You have no imagination, dweeb. Stay here!” And with that, he storms out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Jamie can see the green light of his Pip-Boy flash on through the window as he walks further away into the dark.

It’s a few minutes before he comes back, and Jamie can hear the ruckus he’s causing before he sees him. He’s startled out of his comfortable position on the couch and perks up. The door slides open and Butch pushes the projector into their base on its rolling cart. One of the wheels must be rusted because its screeching like a damn rat, scraping against the metal flooring as he drags it to the center of the room. He grabs an old cardboard box from the lower shelf of the cart and slides it on the floor over to Jamie with his foot before going back to set the projector up with their tangled mess of extension cords.

Jamie picks it up and grimaces at the box – it’s a little rank and it feels crusty in some spots. “This thing is probably covered in like a hundred different types of mold,” he complains.

“Didn’t give it to ya so you could judge the box!” Butch snaps, banging the top of the projector impatiently when the power flickers. “Open the damn thing.”

Jamie places the box on the couch beside him and sits up, peeling it open to peer inside. His jaw drops in amazement at the sight – more holodisks than he’s ever seen in his life, all with unique and eye-catching, full-color illustrations on the covers. He stares at Butch in disbelief and catches the other boy staring at him, an unabashed, beaming smile on his face when he sees Jamie’s reaction. When their eyes meet, Butch clears his throat and snaps his attention back to the projector, fiddling with some dials that don’t seem to change anything.

“Cool, right?” He says, his ears turning red as he dismisses his earlier excitement with a sheepish shrug.

“It’s fucking great!” Jamie laughs and begins to rummage through the box. There are real films in here, like he’s only read about in pre-war history classes or his cheesy novels. Aside from a whole slew of superhero films starring characters like The Silver Shroud and even some of Grognak the Barbarian, there are titles that look like they’re about pre-war animals in different parts of the world, some with soldiers in power armor, some ancient recordings of sports, and what looks like a few western and sci-fi films

Butch walks back over and sits beside him, throwing his arm over the back of the couch and leaning in to look at the titles. Jamie’s breath hitches at his closeness and he can feel his cheeks heating up. He tries not to show it, leaning in ever so slightly to let their shoulders brush.

“You can pick first, my treat,” Butch says while gesturing to the patchwork sheet he’d hung up on the opposite wall of the small apartment – Butch must have stitched it together himself out of whatever excess fabric he found. It’s hanging a little crooked and the projector’s STAND BY image is a bit fuzzy, but a bubble of excitement forms in Jamie’s chest regardless. He doesn’t want to read too far into things, but Butch had found this and made it a surprise specifically for them to share. That made him feel a certain kind of way.

He blinks those embarrassing thoughts away and nods, his face warm. Looking over their choices carefully, he finally decides and picks the western – he always did have a fondness for the freedom that seemed to come with being a cowboy – and walks to the projector to pop it in and press play.

He half expects Butch to make fun of his choice, but the other boy is oddly quiet, carefully inspecting his fingernails as Jamie switches off the lamps and kicks off his boots before returning to sit cross-legged on the couch. Butch still hasn’t scooted further away or removed his arm from the back of the couch, so their knees bump and he can feel the warmth of Butch’s arm behind his neck and it sends prickles through his skin.

Only as the movie begins do they realize they don’t have any speakers hooked up – so it’s completely silent in the room other than the whirring of the film in the projector.

“I didn’t even think of that,” Butch sighs and shakes his head in disappointment. Jamie just laughs.

“It’s still cool,” he assures him. “They used to have silent movies all the time apparently – especially back in cowboy days. It’s authentic,” he purses his lips at the end, trying to do his best impression of Mr. Brotch. It seems to work because Butch cracks a grin at him and snorts.

“Sure, it’ll work for now, but I saw some terminals in another apartment down here. We can check for some speakers there later,” Butch says and then his playful grin becomes roguish. “Push comes to shove, we can just swipe one from upstairs. Who’d notice a missing speaker?”

Jamie just scoffs and elbows him, turning his attention back to the film as the title screen fades in and he reads, ‘High Lonesome.’ He didn’t bother to read what the film was about, but it opens with a group of people in a wagon on a vast desert plain with plateaus towering in the distance.

There isn’t too much to see at first, but one thing that sticks with him is the impossible vastness of the sky as the camera zooms out to show a wider view of the prairie they’re riding along. He’s seen pictures of the sky, sure, but something about watching the tiny silhouettes of people move around under it was chilling – it was huge and incredibly empty. He didn’t know if what he was feeling was amazement or terror.

Despite the film being in black and white, the shimmer of the sun on the horses’ flanks as they gallop is bright enough to seem real and Jamie is completely entranced as he watches. And, luckily enough, there seem to be subtitles, so they’ll still be able to understand what’s going on.

Jamie’s trance is momentarily broken when Butch leans down and grabs something from under the couch. He returns with a box of fancy lads which he presses into Jamie’s hands. Jamie mumbles his thanks, his eyes never leaving the picture as he tears into a package and shoves a whole powdery cake into his mouth.

Butch just laughs at him and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. He lights one just as the young cowboy on screen does – much to Jamie’s delight – and they chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

They pass the snacks, beer, and smokes back and forth between each other as they watch their movies. When the western is over, Butch picks a film called ‘Teenage Caveman,’ saying that it has to be good because the cover has tits and a giant lizard monster on it. It ends up being the worst piece of garbage they’ve ever seen – and that’s saying a lot considering they’ve only seen one other film in their whole lives.

“That dude didn’t even look like a teenager! He had to be like thirty,” Jamie says, tossing the film into a box they decide to label ‘shit.’ According to Butch, they were like pioneers and had to record their findings, so not only were they watching the films, but they were sorting them from best to worst. As Butch had put it in his best overseer impression, they were doing future vault residents a great service and fulfilling their civic duty… by saving others from watching total pieces of trash.

“There wasn’t even a single boob,” Butch mopes, snubbing out the last of his cigarette in the cracked coffee mug functioning as their makeshift ashtray. “Talk about false advertising. The giant lizards were kinda cool, though.” Jamie smacks him upside the head.

“You wouldn’t know what a boob looked like if it smacked you in the face.”

“You take that back!” Butch laughs and tosses their snacks on the floor, lunging for Jamie who’s cackling just as hard. They’re fucking hammered at this point and they roll off the couch into a heap on the floor, knocking a crate over as they grapple at each other. They wrestle like this sometimes – it’s a great outlet for Jamie’s aggressive energy and, when they’re less drunk, Butch actually teaches him how to kick ass. Now, they’re just breathless laughs and fumbling hands as they scramble for purchase on the floor and try their damnedest to pin the other down.

Butch may be stronger on a normal day, but at the moment he’s piss-drunk compared to Jamie who still has a bit of his wits about him. He flips the taller boy over so quickly it’s almost comical and pins him, pressing his knees against his thighs and holding his wrists at his sides to stop him from getting up. He laughs triumphantly.

“What’s wrong, Butchie? You’ve never lost a fight so fast!” He grins down at the boy smugly but stops short when he sees the look on Butch’s face. It’s endearing how red his cheeks are, his hair a mess and his blue eyes wide. Butch just fixes him with those piercing baby blues.

“Don’t get cocky, Nosebleed. I let ya do it,” he says in a soft voice, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. Jamie’s mouth goes dry, his eyes fixed on Butch’s unbelievably pink lips. He hates himself for how much he wants to kiss him then and without thinking he begins to lean forward. He catches himself, though, and his thoughts have him jumping off of Butch and falling back against the couch like he’s been shocked, his chest heaving. He feels dizzy and he can still smell the earthy spice of the other boy’s aftershave enveloping him like a thick haze he can’t shake.

Butch laughs and pulls himself up into a sitting position, shooting Jamie a dazzling grin from his seat on the floor. “What’s wrong, Jamie?” Butch teases, his voice only a bit slurred and a shit-eating grin creeping its way onto his face. Hearing his name come from Butch is rare and it knocks the breath out of him. All he can do is stare.

Butch clambers ungracefully back up to the couch with him, leaning awfully close and whispering, “cat got your tongue?” His breath is warm on Jamie’s face and it smells like a mixture of smoke and alcohol, something he never thought would smell so intoxicating, but of course it does – it’s Butch.

Jamie’s heart is in his fucking throat and he can’t breathe. Butch is pressed against his side and his back is against the arm of the couch. There’s nowhere for him to escape to – not that he necessarily wants to, but he was never very good with facing his feelings. Either Butch is actively trying to flirt with him or he’s fucking around, and Jamie can’t decide which one is worse.

“You’re drunk, you idiot,” Jamie laughs weakly and goes to push Butch away by the chest but stops when he feels his heart pounding under his t-shirt. The other boy’s breath hitches and his body stiffens at Jamie’s touch, his lips parting as if he were trying to think of what to say.

“So are you,” Butch finally settles with, reaching up to wrap his fingers around Jamie’s wrist. His touch almost feels like it burns. They sit like that for a moment, staring at each other, eyes like fire.

The generator chooses that moment to shut off, leaving them in pitch darkness. Out of instinct, Jamie curls his fingers into Butch’s shirt, his ears ringing at the sudden silence in the room and his breathing becoming labored. Darkness feels suffocating to him sometimes, and this is one of those moments. It lays over them like a thick blanket, and the only thing that pulls him out of his internal panic is Butch’s free hand cupping the back of his head, fingers twining through the thick, curly hair at the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t even have time to think about what Butch might be doing before he feels the press of the other boy’s lips warm against his own. Though they’re unbelievably soft, the kiss is rushed and clumsy – desperate almost – and Jamie grunts when their teeth knock together. He wastes no time returning the kiss, though, his eyes fluttering shut as he focuses on the feel of Butch’s lips against his own and the rough burn of his stubble as it brushes against his chin.

It must have just been a power surge, because suddenly the generator kicks back on and the projector screen lights up the room. Their eyes fly open and they wrench apart, still holding onto each other as if for dear life. Whatever safety they felt shrouded in the darkness is ripped away and they’re left feeling vulnerable and exposed. Jamie’s breath comes out in stutters and he dares to glance up at the other boy.

Butch’s eyes are filled with a fiery heat he can’t even describe and something akin to tenderness – which is hard for him to pinpoint since he’s never been looked at like that before. He sucks in a sharp breath. For some reason, even though he’s been dreaming of this moment for months, he just feels terrified and embarrassed – like he fucked up somehow. The panic must be written clearly on his face because Butch pulls away like he’s been slapped and falls back to the other end of the couch.

“Sh-shit, I,” Butch stutters, his hand clutching his chest where Jamie’s was a moment before, “fuck, Jamie, I didn’t mean to.” His voice cracks, sounding almost pleading. Jamie doesn’t know what to say, his mouth flapping uselessly, and it’s too much for him to handle. He doesn’t understand what his problem is. Everything in his heart is telling him to leap forward and continue kissing Butch, but he’s just too fucking scared.

“It’s fine!” He practically snaps, standing up suddenly. He’s shaking and feels clammy and he’s sure he’s as pale as a ghost – is it even possible for something good to give you a panic attack?

He glances around for his boots for a moment, but it’s still too much and he can see Butch starting to reach for him with concern in his eyes. “I have to go,” he blurts out, and he turns tail and runs.

The last thing he hears before he leaves is Butch yelling his name, but he jogs up the steps in the darkness, tripping over his own feet and bruising his knees. He knows he’s acting like a child, but he can’t bring himself to care. He is absolutely not ready to face what’s happening and he needs to be alone in his room now.

When he reaches the door, he doesn’t even stop to think about the security camera on the other side, he just slams his fist on the button and rushes out and thankfully luck is on his side this time because he can hear the camera click into the end of its circuit.

He slows down when he reaches the halls, his bare feet making a lot less noise than his boots, but fuck the floor is cold and he regrets not stopping to find his shoes. Soon he reaches his apartment, and he rushes inside, thankful to see that it’s still empty. He locks himself in his own bedroom, suddenly feeling like everything is too much, and he rips his jumpsuit off, flopping onto his bed in just his tank top and boxers and pulling the covers over his head.

He wants to scream, maybe tear his hair out a little or punch the wall. He cannot believe how badly he fucked that up. He doesn’t even know what this means for their friendship – if he had tried to make a move on Butch and the other boy ran away, he would be devastated! Would Butch even want to talk to him anymore? He worries over these thoughts for a few hours until his brain feels like jelly. The last thing he’s aware of before falling asleep is how his lips taste ever-so-slightly like the sweet mint chap stick Butch always carries around.

---

He wakes up later to the sound of incessant beeping coming from his wrist. He groans, rubbing his hands over his eyes and down his face. He feels like complete shit – hungover, most likely, and his head is swimming.

He looks at his Pip-Boy to check the time and realizes he’s overslept. It’s two in the afternoon and he’s late for his work assignment at the studio but if he’s being honest the thought of having to drag himself out of bed and sit in a room with Butch all day doesn’t seem as great as it used to. He can’t help it when he opens the messaging app, biting his lip as he prepares to read whatever might be there.

913473: it was a prank haha i rly got u good

That one was sent almost immediately after he’d left last night, according to the timestamp. Something about it makes his gut twist, gives him a bit of nausea. He’s not sure if he believes Butch or not. Once again, he’s not sure which is harder to deal with. Dated about an hour later there are a few more.

913473: jamie im sorry pls answer me 913473: don’t ignore me man if ur mad just come beat me up 913473: are u sleeping? damn out of all the times 913473: its k. i kno u need it. gnight

Jamie doesn’t realize he’s chewing his lip to shreds until he tastes blood, and he curses, wiping it away on the hem of his tank top. His eyes are glued to the screen, his heart thundering in his ears. Dated even later are a handful of other messages and he can tell by their contents that Butch must have kept drinking in his absence. The thought of that tugs at his heart a little – maybe he isn’t the only one who’s terrified of his own feelings and kind of a fuckup.

913473: i know ur asleeeep 913473: gdamn typing onthis shit. fcking sucks 913473: m drunk but idc. i kissed u jamie n itfucking rocked 913473: wasnt a prank. im srry. dont hate me 913473: u can hit me all u want. ill evenlet u win the fight. 913473: jsut dont hate me

Jamie groans and grabs his pillow, shoving his face into it a few times and letting out as loud of a yell as he dares. It’s not enough, but it will have to do. Breathless and flushed, he’s about to lay back down when a new message comes through and his heart leaps so high into his throat that he nearly chokes. He peeks at it over the pillow.

913473: yo you’re late dude. like super late! 913473: i figured id let u sleep off the hangover a bit but damn 913473: i aint gonna cover ur ass if the overseer comes knocking. i have enough of a headache. 913473: so get down here!!! 913473: speakin of headache i was drunk as shit last night. dont remember a thing past that crappy monster movie. so ignore whatever embarrassing crap i sent you, k? 913473: and dont tell anyone im a talkative drunk or ill pummel you, nosebleed.

Jamie looks at the messages in disbelief and flops back onto his bed, his thoughts racing. He can’t tell if Butch is lying or not – he knows even if Butch doesn’t remember there was still something different about what happened last night but fuck if he’s going to bring it up now.

He’s relieved, but also disappointed, maybe a little angry – either at himself or at Butch, he can’t tell. He’s shaking, wracked with nerves at the sudden sense that everything might change soon. He can’t handle change – can’t handle much, if he’s honest with himself, but change is the hardest of all. He curls his fingers into his hair, tugging ever so slightly and trying to resist the urge to pull it out in chunks. He’s losing himself in his worries again when another message notification shakes him out of it.

“Fuck!” he shouts, wishing he could rip his Pip-Boy off his arm and throw it away.

913473: NOSEBLEED GET THE FUCK TO WORK NOW 913473: its boring alone

Jamie feels like he’s actually going to tear his hair out, but he can’t help himself from laughing. He gives in and types out a quick response.

604272: for the love of GOD 604272: STFU 604272: im on my way now 604272: and i didn’t read ur stupid messages don’t worry. too many for me to care

He bites his lip again, his heart twisting uncomfortably in his chest as he writes out one more message.

604272: i don’t even remember much of the shitty movie lol, u know im a blackout drunk

There are a few minutes without a reply and Jamie starts to think maybe he’s fucked it up again, then more messages come through.

913473: u stupid fuckin idiot 913473: what would i do without u 913473: to pick on i mean

Jamie lets out a trembling sigh and gets out of bed, shaking himself free of his worries and tugging on his jumpsuit again. His hands are quivering, probably will be all day with the way his nerves are, but he can handle it.

It’s only as he’s going to leave does he realize he doesn’t have his shoes.

913473: i have your boots btw dumbass

Jamie is terrified of change. He’s terrified of his own emotions, especially when he can’t control them. He wishes things were simpler and he wishes he could have been born into a more agreeable body in a more agreeable time, but as he walks, shoeless, out of the apartment and to the studio space he shares with Butch, he feels a bit comforted in the fact that Butch might feel exactly the same way. Even if shit is messy and he fucks it up, Butch keeps coming back - and that’s good enough for him.

[kumeko]

Title: some walls need to be torn down

A/N: For the @superbatexchange! Unfortunately, my giftee dropped out, but I had already finished my piece so this is now for the community in general. 😊 Hope you enjoy!

Summary:  Bruce had never been good at letting down his walls, at letting others in. Even for Clark. Especially for Clark.

…

…

…

…

i.

“How’s Friday?” Clark asked, flipping through his planner. Red circles, scribbled in appointments, and stickers decorate every month. His finger tapped on one of the few empty dates. “I’m technically on assignment, but I can always hop back for the night.”

 “How old school of you.” Bruce pinched the planner between his fingers, dangling it in front of him. “You have a phone.”

 “It’s easier when I can write it out.” Frowning, Clark swiped the planner back. He smoothened the page, clearing any wrinkles. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much good; there was a permanent crease where Bruce had gripped it too hard. “Damn. You’re lucky the year’s almost over.”

 “Or what?” Bruce asked dryly, taking a sip from his coffee. He never understood Clark’s preferences for diners, but at least this one had a decent coffee. Leaning back on his seat, he observed the restaurant from their booth. The breakfast crowd was here, a strange mix of truckers and businessmen hurrying to work.

 And of course, one journalist, who was still pouting over his agenda. Clark sighed mournfully. “Maybe I should tell Dick to pick on you.” He glared at Bruce grumpily, tapping on the Friday insistently with his pen. “So. Friday?”

Obliging, Bruce pulled out his phone and checked his own schedule. Friday, Friday, Friday—he had a single meeting in the morning, and the rest of the afternoon was clear. Thank goodness for Lucius Fox, he really knew how to minimize his “CEO and Playboy Bruce” appearances. “I should be fine.”

 “Great.” Clark beamed, pure sunshine. “It’s a date.”

    ii.

 There was a familiar prick on his back, the sense that someone was watching him, and Batman pulled out his batarang. Tense, he crouched slightly. It couldn’t be another thug—he had cleared out most of Black Mask’s men from the warehouse. Whatever ones he hadn’t caught would be running away. Then who—

 A cape swished behind him and he relaxed. Of course. Superman. Standing straight, Batman turned around. His own cape curled around his legs and he crossed his arms. “Superman.”

 There was no responding smile, no exasperated sigh, and the hair on his neck stood up. Superman scanned the surroundings as he slowly floated down. His lips were a flat line, his tone distant. “I caught the runaways.”

 “Then that clears up everything.” Feeling uneasy, Batman dropped his arms to his side and took a step forward. In the dark, it was hard to see Superman’s face, to see the ridges and planes he knew intimately. “Are you angry?”

 Superman’s feet touched the ground with a quiet thud. Stiffly, he bit out. “Yes.”

 It’d been a while since he’d seen him this angry, even longer since it’d been directed at him. “I couldn’t ignore—”

 “I’m not asking you to ignore criminals or the bat signal or whatever case you’re on,” Superman growled, his jaw tight. “That’s what we do. But this isn’t the first time you’ve blown me off. Or the second or the third—you do this more often than we actually go on a date.”

 Even though he knew Superman wouldn’t talk like this if there was anyone around, he instinctively checked their surroundings for any interlopers. Coolly, he answered, “It was a time sensitive matter.”

 “They’re all time-sensitive matters. It always is,” Superman bit out bitterly, shaking his head. “But we’re not alone. Nightwing, Robin, Oracle, Batgirl—any of them could step in for a single night. They do it already for each other.”

He looked away, unable to refute the point. Feebly, he argued, “I had to handle this myself.”

 “We can’t keep doing this,” Superman said, his voice oddly soft. He started to float again, slowly rising up to the hole he’d made in the warehouse ceiling. The moonlight hit his face and all Batman could see was the weariness on his face. “Even after all this time, you still won’t let me in. And I…I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”

    iii.

 That was not his ceiling. No, that wasn’t completely accurate. To be precise, it was more that something felt off about his ceiling. Like there was an extra dent in it or the paint was more chipped than it should have been. Even his bed felt strange, too soft to be his. Lying still on the bed, Bruce kept his breathing steady, listening for any intruders. There were no strange sounds or, even more worrying, the usual ones. By this point of day, Alfred would have had breakfast ready.

 Quietly, he slipped off his bed, his feet landing on a layer of dust. Bruce stared at the hardwood floor, then at the tables and dressers around him. Everything was covered in a thick grey and he had a sinking feeling this wasn’t a prank by Dick or Stephanie. No, something was wrong here.

 Without a second thought, he crept out of his bedroom. At the very least, his batcave should still be untouched and maybe he could find out something more there. The rest of the mansion was coated in dust, looking unused, and Bruce fought the urge to shiver. It looked abandoned. Forgotten. Even the old grandfather clock looked like it had seen better days. His fingers were sticky as he typed in the usual password and suddenly, a shrill alarm rang.

 Immediately, he took a step backward, his body crouching as he scanned his living room. No one swooped out of the shadows, running to see who had broken in. He’d have to find a place to hide, to observe—

 Glass twinkled behind him as a large object burst through the bay windows. Turning around, Bruce shielded his eyes as he took in the attack, a bright red and blue blur that hurtled at him. Wait, red and blue? He knew that colour, knew that ‘S’. “Clark?”

 “Bruce?” Superman halted in front of him, his eyes wide in surprise. “You…you’re alive?”

 Alive? Well, he had been right then. That wasn’t his ceiling.

    iv.

 “Here, have a cup of tea. You still like two milks, right?” Clark smiled awkwardly, setting down a fragile teacup on the coaster in front of Bruce. Dressed in overalls in his family farmhouse, Clark looked more like a farmer getting ready to milk a cow than a reporter chasing a news story. Then again, maybe that was the case here. The only thing to indicate that he wasn’t purely a country boy was the gold necklace that disappeared under his collar.

 “Yes.” It seemed that at least he shared the same tastes as this world’s Bruce. Scanning the room, Bruce noted pictures of Ma and Pa Kent, of Conner and Kara Zor-el. It seemed this world wasn’t too different then. Except of course, one notable exception. “I take it I’m dead?”

 “Uh…” Clark rubbed the back of his neck. His lanky frame was too big for the couch, his knees bent uncomfortably. The furniture here hadn’t changed at all from the last time Bruce had visited the Kents. “Yes.” He paused. “Sorry.”

 “It’s not your fault, is it?” Bruce asked, picking up the tea. He had always known he’d die from his duties. It didn’t make it easier to hear, even if it was just in a different universe. “You don’t need to apologize.”

 “Yes but…” Clark frowned, running a hand through his shaggy hair. Now that Bruce was looking at it, it was peppered with white and grey hairs, a Clark that was much older than his. A Clark he might never get to see ordinarily. They’d never really confirmed if he’d age normally, if he’d live forever. “I’m sorry all the same.”

 “Always with the saviour complex.”

 Clark blinked, before breaking into a hearty guffaw. Not remember restraint (as usual), he wrapped an arm around Bruce’s back, squeezing him tight. “And you’re still a prissy cat.”

    v.

 “Luckily for you, the league’s still active.” Puffing his chest proudly, he pointed at one of the more recent photos, showing him with grown-up Conner and Kara. Their costumes had changed, Kara’s more battle-oriented, Conner’s less casual, and they were all grinning as they stood in front of the Justice Hall. A newly rebuilt Justice Hall. “We’ll find out soon enough if it was magic or science that brought you here. Or something else entirely—I feel like we keep finding things that go beyond everything we know. Guess it’s one of nature’s miracles.”

 Bruce didn’t want to think about how many times they must have built, destroyed, and rebuilt that place. The iterations of the league’s hall. “The new generation took over?”

 “Yeah. Especially some of the kids from the Justice Society. Us old-timers are taking over what Jay and Alan started there.” Clark smiled fondly as he held up a photo of him surrounded by a gaggle of masked teens. Some were easy to pick out—Liam Harper, Wally’s kids—others less so.

 And with the bittersweet tinge in Clark’s expression, Bruce knew better than to ask what had happened to Jay and Alan. “So even you retired?”

 “Even I retired,” Clark chuckled. “Though I can’t help myself if something happens nearby.”

 “No, that’s you.” Bruce scanned the other photos, the changes in his companions. Older Hal. A kingly Arthur. Diana, still going strong. And more, beyond that, and there was something reassuring about the idea that even after he was gone, the work still continued. To find a picture of Cassandra as Batman, of Dick and Damian still patrolling together, of Stephanie refusing to give up her purple abomination.

 A picture of him and Clark, sitting awkwardly next to one another. Clark grinning brightly in the camera as he snapped the selfie, this world’s Bruce trying not to smile and failing miserably at it. Another, of Bruce with a pair of champagne glasses. More and more lined the wall, it was impossible not to see them now that he’d noticed the first one. They almost seemed to glow, dragging his eyes from one to the next. A first year anniversary. A surprise dinner. A relationship that was much further than anything Bruce had at home.

 The pictures suddenly stopped and he stared at the last one, of them sitting by a river, watching the sunset. Did he die after that? Involuntarily, Bruce asked, “What happened?”

 “To what?” Clark approached him from beyond and Bruce could hear as his breathing shallowed, as his breath hitched.

 “Us,” Bruce answered bluntly, the only way he knew how.

 “Oh.” Clark stepped back, sitting down on the couch once more. He interlaced his hands, resting his chin on his knuckles. “No wonder you felt so familiar.” He smiled sadly as he looked up at Bruce. “You’re also in love.”

 “I wouldn’t use that word,” Bruce corrected reflexively.

 “You don’t have to be so defensive.” Clark lowered his eyes. His foot scuffed the floor. “You’re only hurting your Clark, you know.”

 “Like I hurt you?”

 “No, like my Bruce hurt me.” Clark closed his eyes, curling into himself even more. Again, Bruce couldn’t see his face. Again, Bruce wished he could make out his expression. “Like I hurt him. He couldn’t open up and I was tired of trying and…and then he died, before anything happened. Before anything could happen. No apologies, no understanding, just nothing.”

 Bruce stepped closer, his hand hovering over Clark’s back. “I’m sorry.”

 “Me too.” Sitting up straight, Clark pulled out the chain around his neck. On the other end was a plain silver band. “I was going to propose, you know. Thought I’d finally surprise him for once. I wonder what he would have looked like.”

 There was really only one answer to that. He squeezed Clark’s shoulder. “Happy.”

    vi.

 A woman stood in front of him, her hair black as night, and Bruce could have sworn it was Zatanna. Except, it was her granddaughter, and there was something both happy and sad about that knowledge. Catching his stare, she clicked her tongue and rapped his head. “Close your eyes. It’s bad enough you’ve seen what you have, can’t have you finding out more.”

 “Your grandfather, was he—”

 “No guesses either!” The woman growled.

 Clark chuckled. “He’s probably right. He always is.”

 “Yeah, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of confirming it.” The woman snorted indignantly. “Alternate world or not, we’re similar enough that we could be his future. And it’s dangerous to know the future.” She rested her palms on the side of his head. “Sometimes you can make it happen.”

 Knowledge could prevent terrible futures, Bruce wanted to point out, but the magic in her hands washed over him, lulling him to sleep. He drowned in drowsiness, his eyes getting heavier and heavier, and the last thing he saw was Clark, was his wedding band on his finger. The silver glinted once, twice, and then all he saw was pitch black.

    vii.

 This was his ceiling. Bruce stared at the pock-marked ceiling, the burn mark from one of Damian’s surprise training sessions. His bed was the right level of firmness. There was no dust anywhere in the room and through the vents he could hear Alfred humming, the scent of coffee wafting in the air.

  He was back. Immediately, he rolled over and picked up his cell, tapping the third speed-dial number. All Bruce would see was that Clark’s sad smile, the apology that lingered in the air unspoken.

 And maybe that was their world’s future and maybe it was just a similar alternate world, but either way, he couldn’t let that happen here. Now.

 “Clark? We need to talk.”

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Burnt Bacon pt 3

The Light Finds Wall First.

“You’re sure about this?” Will asks gently, as he packs Lian’s little overnight bag. 

“The Shadows sent him here for you,” Artemis says. “He’ll come back, and you and Lian can’t be here when he does.” 

“But you can?” Will asks, turning to her, looking worried. “Artemis...whatever that thing is...I don’t think it’s Wally anymore.” 

“Beetle is waiting for you out front. You and Lian zeta to Happy Harbour,” she instructs, gently lifting a sleeping Lian from her bed and handing her to Will. “I’ll call when it’s done.” 

He stares at her for a long moment. “What are you going to do?” 

“Don’t worry about me.” 

“Artemis-” 

“Go, Will.” 

He swallows, holding Lian close, before hurrying from the room. 

She follows him down the stairs, nodding to Jaime as they leave. 

Once they’re gone, Artemis turns on all the first floor lights, and waits. 

***** 

“You have failed, Nameless.” 

“My first attempt was...unsuccessful,” he admits. “I will not fail you again, Master.” 

“See that you don’t.” 

***** 

“No sign of him,” Dick says as they exit the zeta tube into the Watchtower. “It’s as if he��s completely disappeared.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Barbara says as she shifts her chair over to them from the wall of screens she’s been looking at. “I did some digging into the Shadow’s database. The Nameless has been trained in ten different kinds of combat, and six languages...he can hide in plain sight. And with Will and Lian here…” 

“We don’t know when or where he’ll strike next,” 

***** 

She waits hours, but it pays off. 

The door opens, and there he is; clad in deep black, darker than his old stealth suit, but  his Shadows uniform is a strange perversion of his Kid Flash uniform, complete with goggles and bright hair, much shorter than he ever wore it before.

Artemis stands, staring at him. “It took you long enough.” 

He stands still, more still than she’s ever seen him, watching her. 

“You’re not my objective,” he says. 

Wally’s voice but...not. No playfulness or warmth. 

Just..dead.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’ll have to get through me to get to him.” 

The Nameless smirks. “Doesn’t seem like much of a challenge.” 

Artemis cracks her knuckles and then her neck. “I guess we’ll find out.” 

***** 

“Where is Artemis?” Dick asks as he watches Barbara run scan after scan. 

“We do not know,” Kaldur says. “She said she just needed time.” 

“That’s...not exactly true,” Will says awkwardly as he steps back into the main meeting hall after tucking Lian in. “She stayed behind at the house. She had a feeling Wally, or...or whatever thing that with Wally’s face is...would come back. She said she had to face him alone.” 

Dick and Kaldur stare, eyes wide. 

“Babs?” Dick asks. 

“Definite activity at the house in Star City,” she tells them.

“Get M’gann and Conner,” Kaldur orders. “I’ll find Zatanna and meet you at the zeta tube.” 

Dick runs. 

“You should have told us,” Kaldur tells Will. 

“I didn’t think he’d seriously double back,” Will snaps. “He can’t possibly think I would still be there.” 

“Artemis purposefully lured him there. If Wally is faster than he used to be, and trained to fight in ways he was not before, she may not be able to beat him alone.” 

***** 

They wreck the house. 

She fights harder than she has ever fought in her life. Not holding back, not pulling punches and ever time she manages to connect, it hurts her as much as it hurts him. But it’s a pain she ignores.

He’s not invulnerable. He has the weaknesses of any other man.

He’s just so damn fast. 

“Y’know, Wall-man, if you had this kinda training when we were kids, I mighta dated you sooner.” 

He doesn’t respond, merely grunts when she manages to grab him by the hair and yank, slamming his head against a wall. 

He stumbles back and makes a run for it, zooming around the house, and up the wall, before landing behind her with a hard kick to her back.

She yelps and lands on the floor. Artemis does her best to get up, wiping blood from her nose. 

“I hope you know this is not how I pictured this reunion.” 

He says nothing. 

She looks him in the eyes. Still green. Still beautiful. “Do you even remember me?” 

***** 

He blinks, narrowing his eyes at her. He’s got a busted lip, and possibly a couple of busted ribs that will heal sooner rather than later. 

“Do you even remember me?” she asks. 

Blonde hair. 

Dark eyes. 

Strong fingers. 

That voice…

He shakes his head. “You’re not my objective.” 

She stumbles a little. “Tell me you remember something. Anything. Babe, it’s me.” 

He narrows his eyes and reaches forward, grabbing her by the shirt, vibrating the fingers on his other hand. “You’re not my objective.” 

He reaches for her temple, but doesn’t get that far. 

“PEELS!” 

The world goes black.

*****

Artemis drops to the floor and huffs, looking up at her team. “I had him on the ropes, guys.” 

“Dnib!” Zatanna snaps, and glowing rope binds itself around Wally’s form tightly. 

“We know you did,” Dick tells her, helping her to her feet. “Jeez, he really kicked your ass.”

“When he snaps out of this, you’re not allowed to tell him,” Artemis says. 

“If,” Conner says. “We don’t know if he can snap out of it. Or if it’s really him.” 

M’gann kneels down next to Wally’s unconscious form, gazing at him. “I can go into his mind, but…” he glances back at Conner. 

“We don’t have any other options,” he says softly. “We need to know if it’s really him in there, or…” 

“It’s him,” Dick says.

Kaldur gazes at Wally sadly. “We will find out soon enough.” 

***** 

It occurs to M’gann that she’s never been in Wally’s mind. 

But this...feel distinctly not like the Wally she remembers. The walls are white tile, and bare. 

There’s nothing here.

No memories; no feelings...nothing. 

There’s no one here. 

“Wally?” she calls, looking around worriedly. 

There’s a voice. Small, but it echoes. 

“Is...am I...Wally?” 

M’gann takes a breath. “I...we think that you might be.” 

“I have an objective,” the voice tells her quickly. “My masters-” 

“Are manipulating you,” M’gann cuts him off. “They trained you to be a weapon, but I don’t think that’s who you are.” 

She gets no response. 

**** 

“Well?” Artemis asks impatiently as M’gann opens her eyes. 

“He doesn’t know who he is,” M’gann tells them. “There’s no trace of anything that resembles Wally in there...at least on the surface.” 

“So dig deeper,” Dick says. 

“Not alone,” M’gann shakes her head, before looking to Artemis. “If...if this is really Wally...if he’s really in there…” 

Artemis swallows.

“He needs you,” M’gann tells her, reaching out and taking her hand. “Come with me.” 

***** 

“This is...there’s nothing here.” 

M’gann nods as they wander around the white, empty space. 

“Even fractured, Kaldur’s mind had elements of who he is,” Artemis goes on. “There’s just...nothing.” 

M’gann narrows her eyes as she spots a door off in the distance. “Maybe not nothing.” She holds out a hand, and slowly, the door gets closer, until they’re in front of it. 

It’s large, at least five feet taller than they are, and metal, with no doorknob; no way to get in.

“Someone trapped him in here,” M’gann says sadly. “Psimon’s hands are all over this.” 

“How do we get in?” Artemis asks. 

M’gann gazes at the door. “I suppose...we knock.” 

***** 

It turns out the door is open. 

“That was easy,” M’gann comments with a weak grin. 

“Well, he is Wally...supposedly,” Artemis mutters. “Easy was kind of his thing.” 

They step through into what used to be someone’s living room. It’s an odd mix of furniture, misplaced and overturned, singed as if it were caught in a house fire. 

Amongst the overturned couches and half-burnt out chairs are objects. A medical-grade carrying case. A Cheshire mask. The Helmet of Fate. 

“God, look at all this,” Artemis says softly, kneeling down to pick up the Cheshire mask. “His old souvenirs from Mount Justice…the couch from our apartment at Stanford...I think those are his parents’ dining room chairs...”

M’gann looks around, lifting a burnt up photo of  the team from nearly a decade before, and looks around. “Wally?” she calls gently. “Are you here?” 

There’s no answer.

Artemis sighs and lifts another photo, this one of a younger Wally with Barry, making funny faces for the camera. Wally’s face in the photo is nearly burned off. “He must be terrified. What did Psimon do?” 

“I don’t know if this was all him,” M’gann says as she moves further into the room. “Wherever Wally was after he disappeared, it may have damaged his mind.” 

“Do you think you can help him put it all back together? Like you did for Kaldur?” Artemis asks worriedly. 

“I don’t know,” M’gann admits. “And Kaldur’s recovery took time. Wally’s would be equally time intensive. There’s so much damage…” 

Artemis frowns as she finds the yellow Kid Flash cowl in tatters, under the couch. “If he’s not here...where is he?” 

M’gann looks around once more, underneath a staircase that leads to nowhere, and smiles sadly as she spots the form of a small boy hiding there. Dirty red hair and big, nervous green eyes. She kneels down, keeping her movements slow. 

“Hi, Wally.” 

Artemis freezes, watching as the little boy comes out, a perfect match for the old photographs Mary West used to break out at family dinners, complete with a missing front tooth. 

“Who...who are you?” he asks. 

“We’re friends,” M’gann tells him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of now. We’re here to help you.” 

“I...I made a mess,” he says sheepishly. “Mom’s gon’ come home and be real mad.” 

Artemis swallows as she watches him carefully. “I think she’ll let it slide just this once.” 

Wally lights up a little. “Really?” 

M’gann smiles and nods, feeling tears prick her eyes. “Absolutely. And we can clean it all up before she gets home.” 

“I tried but...but it all burnt down,” he says, looking around. “I didn’t mean to burn it down, I just...I ran...I ran too fast and...and then there was a man and he locked me in here…” 

“None of this was your fault,” Artemis says, kneeling next to M’gann, reaching out and brushing soot from his face. “None of it.” 

M’gann takes a deep breath. “Wally? Because you’re so safe now...do you think we could talk to big Wally?” 

He thinks for a moment, and bites his lip. “Big Wally doesn’t wanna play. He says he’s donezo.” 

Artemis laughs just a little, and sniffles at the same time. “Well, can you tell Big Wally that his girlfriend would like a word?” 

Wally shakes his head. “Uh-uh. He doesn’t think you’re you, he thinks you’re the mean man in disguise.” 

“How do we prove that we’re not the mean man?” M’gann asks. 

“You can’t,” Wally tells them sadly. “Y-you should go now.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Artemis says. “Not until he - you - he...talks to me.” 

“No,” Wally snaps, stumbling back. “No, he doesn’t want to. I don’t want to. Go away. Go away!” 

***** 

M’gann yelps as she stumbles away from Wally’s prone body, blinking as she comes back to the physical world. Glancing up, she sees Artemis, also back, staring at Wally sadly., 

“What happened?” Dick asks quickly. “Was it him?” 

“Oh, it’s him,” Artemis says softly. “But he was less than cooperative.” 

Dick shakes his head. “What do you mean? What did he do?” 

“He kicked us out,” M’gann says. “But he’s in there.” 

“Let me talk to him,” Dick says. “Let me go in.” 

“I think it’ll take all of us,” M’gann says. “Whatever happened to him, it was too much. He’s hiding, because he doesn’t know how to rebuild what’s been broken.” 

“Then we go in, and we get him,” Conner says. 

M’gann frowns as she turns to Wally, and watches as his eyes open. “Wait…” 

He starts vibrating in the bonds. 

“Zatanna, can you hold him?” Dick asks frantically, backing away a little. 

She lifts her hands, concentrating. “He’s...so strong…” 

“Wally, stop!” Artemis cries, rushing to him to grip his shoulders, but flinching away at the vibration. “You have to listen to me: your name is Wally West, and we are your friends.” 

He vibrates loose, but only gets halfway to the door before M’gann shouts, her eyes glowing green. 

Wally drops, and for M’gann, Dick and Artemis, the world goes white.

***** 

“Where are we?” Dick asks, looking around, 

Artemis frowns as she turns in a circle. All of the wreckage they’d seen before behind the door in Wally’s mind is now out in the open, the white room a battlefield of old furniture, photos and relics of the past. 

“We’re in Wally’s head,” she tells him. “But...but I think we broke it.” 

“It was already broken,” M’gann says sadly. “But before, it was tucked away, compartmentalized and meant to be forgotten about. Now…” 

Dick kneels down and lifts a cracked set of red goggles, gazing at them before looking around. “Is he in here somewhere?” 

“Somewhere,” Artemis nods. “Some version.” 

“Who did this to him?” Dick asks quietly. ‘What...what happened?” 

“It’s a question for later,” M’gann says. “First, we find him.” 

***** 

“You’re name is Wally West, and we are your friends!” 

The voice reverberates and he…

Is that who he is? 

Is he Wally West? 

“You’re not,” a voice tells him, firmly. “You are the nameless. These people are trying to trick you into believing that you’re one of them, but you’re one of us. One with the Light.”

“But they know me,” he argues. “They look at me and they...they know me.” 

“It’s all a trick, dear boy. They know nothing.”

“But-” 

“You have one job,” The voice orders. “Get rid of them. Complete your objective.” 

***** 

“That’s Psimon’s voice,” M’gann says angrily. “I can find a way to shut him out, but we’ll need Wally’s help.” 

“We have to find him,” Artemis nods. “Let’s go.” 

***** 

“That girl,” he says. “The blonde one. The way she looked at me…” 

“Liars are often good at their jobs.” 

“Did I...Did I know her? I see her sometimes.” 

“An old enemy from a former life.”

“That’s not right. That doesn’t sound right.” 

“You’re confused.” 

He swallows and looks around the wreckage; broken chairs and a table missing one of its legs; he turns and looks around and there’s a door, cracked open with a little light coming through. 

“Don’t!” 

He does, swinging it open and stepping through, closing the door. 

The voice doesn’t follow.

When he turns and looks around, it’s…

It’s a house. 

A nice house with a kitchen and dining room and living room, and there’s a large spread of food on the table. Pancakes and waffles, bacon and eggs; fresh squeezed orange juice. 

And people. 

So many people. 

The blonde woman again, stepping forward. Happier-looking. Beaming at him. She cups his face gently.

And it feels…

Right. 

Safe. 

“Hi, Wally West,” she says softly. 

“Is...Am I...Wally West?” 

“Of course you are,” she says. 

“Then...why don’t I...why don’t I remember?” he asks. 

She smiles. 

“Is this...is this a memory?” he asks. 

“We’re all memories,” a raven-haired man tells him. “Your memories.” 

“Open your mind,” a woman with green skin tells him gently. “Let it all in.” 

He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. 

***** 

The white space goes black; all of the wreckage disappearing, and Artemis reaches out, grabbing M’gann’s arm.

“What just happened?” 

“I think Wally’s taken control,” she tells them.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Dick asks warily. 

M’gann grimaces and looks around the deep blackness. “Wally?” 

“Gimme a minute,” Wally’s voice say softy. “I’m...I’m still a little shaky.”

After a few moments, Wally steps into being; the Wally they remember. He looks exhausted, like he might collapse. 

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, guys. Long...long time no see.” 

Tears threaten Artemis as she watches him. “Oh, my god.” 

He smiles sadly. “Babe.” 

Before anyone can move, Psimon’s voice booms.

“NO! YOU’RE MINE!” 

“Ugh,” Wally rolls his eyes. “M’gann? Little help?”  

She nods, and lifts a hand, her eyes going green, and a moment later, Psimon appears before them. 

“Welcome to the party,” Wally says, grinning viciously, before reeling back and punching him in the face.

Psimon stumbles and snarls. “You’ll pay for this! You’ll all-” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Wally says. “I have my memories back now, and I’ve been trained by the League of Shadows. You better sleep with one eye open. I’m probably not gonna let you get away with screwing with me so hard.” 

Psimon glowers, before disappearing. 

Wally takes a breath, and turns to them, giving an exhausted smile. “That was easy.”

With that, his eyes roll back and he collapses, not hearing the shouts of his loved ones as everything goes dark again.

***** 

“What happened?! M’gann? M’gann!” 

She shoots up, gasping for breath and looking around frantically. She spots Wally in a heap by the door, and Artemis and Dick coming to slowly. 

Conner is shaking her shoulders a little, obviously worried. “M’gann.” 

“I’m...I’m okay,” she says. “Tired, but okay. And...and I think we did. I think we got him back.” 

“We should go,” Dick says, doing his best to get to his feet. “Psimon will have reported back to the Light and the Shadows by now, and we can’t be here when they come looking for Wally.” 

Kaldur nods and helps him back. “Zatanna, help Artemis. Superboy-” 

“I’ve got M’gannn and Wally,” Conner nods, and scoops them both up easily. 

M’gann sighs and gives him a hopeful grin, receiving a kiss on the temple for her trouble. 

“Let’s get to the Zeta Tube,” Kaldur orders.

[icanhearyouglaring]

pt.4: the one with the arrows

title: this is the why pairing: spitfire (main), supermartian, +more summary: It has to be a trick of the mind, or indigestion from last night’s Big Belly Burger, because there is absolutely no way Wally West could have that kind of effect on her. Ever. [pt.1] [pt.2] [pt.3] [Ao3] [ffnet] a/n: here’s a mighty long chapter for everyone who has been waiting a mighty long time for it! you guys should send @oochihas​ thank you messages for basically ensuring this fic will be finished in this century. Also leave feedback in the tags because when the writing gets tough, I look at your tags and find the will to continue! Only one more chapter to go after this! :) Enjoy!

“So, is that your boyfriend?”

Jade’s voice cuts through the silent house like an arrow through the wind, her question striking Artemis between the ribs and knocking the breath from her lungs. Artemis jumps away from the peephole and races to flip the nearest light switch on the wall. With the living room lit, Artemis can glare at her sister properly.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Artemis snaps, holding her sore hand to her chest. “What the heck are you doing hiding in the dark?”

“Not so loud,” Jade hisses from the living room couch. “Turn the lights off. Mom doesn’t know I’m home.”

“Mom isn’t home,” Artemis scoffs as she pulls off her boots and places them by the door. “You would know that if you ever called her.”

“Oh, really? Her light was on.” Jade perks up and rests her dirty sneakers on the coffee table. “Where is she?”

“She leaves it on so the house doesn’t look empty. It’s girl’s night at Veronica’s place and Mrs. Hall is dropping her off later,” Artemis explains, moving into the kitchen and speaking louder so Jade can hear her as she rifles through the cabinets and gathers what she needs.

“That’s perfect,” Jade replies smugly, sinking deeper into the couch.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Artemis reminds her as she returns to the living room with a bottle of water, an ice pack, a paper towel, and a pill in hand.

“And you haven’t answered mine”–Jade raises a brow as Artemis takes a seat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table–“though maybe I didn’t ask the right one. What happened to you?”

Artemis doesn’t mean to do it, but as soon as she finishes wiping the dried egg flakes off of her shirt, pressing the ice pack to her hand, and downing an ibuprofen, she unleashes the whole story (sans The Wally Problem) on her sister. Later, she’ll claim absence made her heart grow fonder and that’s why she poured out her feelings to Jade of all people, but the fact remains that Jade is the only person who could possibly understand where she is coming from right now. Plus, Jade is more likely than their mother to condone physical violence as a problem solving method.

“You should’ve kicked him,” Jade eventually reprimands her, breaking the familiar tension that flares up every time they bring up their father. “I mean, I’m sure you pack a good punch, but those boots would’ve done more damage.”

“Next time,” Artemis sighs, rolling her eyes.

“And eggs?” Jade scoffs. “Amateurs. My first Morse party ended in a paintball war. Took out three windows and a birdhouse.”

“You’re joking.”

Jade shakes her head and quickly adds, “It was before Michelle forgot how to have fun.”

“Wow,” Artemis breathes out slowly, unable to imagine Megan’s uptight older sister having anything to do with Jade or her old friends. She makes a note to ask Megan if Michelle ever mentioned Jade.

“Listen up, kid,”–Jade calls for her attention in a tone reminiscent of their mother’s when they’re in trouble–“when we moved here, I played along with the happy, little family front for your sake, but it’s past time to end this charade. Mom might think otherwise, but I couldn’t care less what the people in this town think of us. So your loser friends know about our deadbeat dad– who cares? If they’re really worth keeping around, they sure won’t.”

“They won’t,” Artemis says quietly, trying hard not to imagine the looks on their faces when they realize (if they haven’t already) exactly who Crusher Crock is.

After her outburst at the party, who could resist the temptation of digging deeper? Everyone being one search engine click away from finding the Gotham Gazette’s three page spread on her father’s unprecedented six month string of heists along the East Coast during her childhood was anxiety-inducing enough without having his name thrown out like a bad party favor. The paper never calls Artemis or Jade by name, but the media circus surrounding Crusher Crock’s nationally televised standoff, which only came to an end when two little girls dragged their own mother out of a burning hideout and begged for it all to stop, went on for weeks. Who could forget that?

The tight expression on Jade’s face says she never will.

Jade examines her nails with feigned interest as she goes on to say, “As much as I hate to admit it, Lawrence is always going to be part of our stories, but God, Artemis, sometimes you let him be the whole damn book. You’ve got to stop. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

A bright light shines through the half-open blinds and illuminates Jade’s sudden smirk.

“That’s my ride,” Jade says before she stands and searches for something in the couch cushion. “If you see Mom, tell her I’ll be home in time for breakfast.”

Artemis reminds her, “You could always call and tell her yourself.”

“Nope,” Jade says, popping the ‘p’ as she pulls her phone from the couch victoriously.

Artemis nods, rolls her eyes, and asks, “Of course not. Why bother having a phone if you never use it?”

“The camera, duh,” Jade replies easily, stuffing her phone into her jacket pocket.

“Of course,” Artemis repeats.

“So,” Jade begins innocently (which is to say in a not-at-all-innocent manner), “was that your boyfriend? He looked familiar.”

Artemis looks out the window, simply to not look at Jade. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Jade says, and Artemis doesn’t even need to be looking at her sister to know that there’s a grin on her face, “so he’s your boy toy, then? Looks like I have taught you something. I am so proud.”

“Jade,” Artemis groans, but her next words are overpowered by a car horn outside.

“So impatient,” Jade tuts as she puts on her jacket. She takes a step towards the door before giving Artemis a second glance. The horn outside honks again. Jade sighs shortly.

“A word of warning, Sis. Redheads in this town? Clingy as hell. Think about what I said”–Jade pauses to reach over the coffee table, pluck a piece of eggshell out of her sister’s hair, and flick it onto the rug–“and take a shower. Eggshell in your hair? Kind of pathetic.”

Jade may not be the kindest, most attentive sister, but when she walks out the door and gives Artemis one last look before she leaves, Artemis has to admit it.

Jade has her moments.

-o-

After a hot mug of tea and a hotter shower, Artemis crawls into bed and counts the glowing stars on the ceiling in an unsuccessful attempt to drag her mind out of the contemplative place Jade’s words put it in. It’s easy enough for Jade to say her friends won’t care (Jade’s friends didn’t care about anything). Artemis takes her input with a grain of salt, seeing as the friend department is the one area where Artemis has always had an advantage over her sister (that advantage being that Artemis is nice). Plus, Jade doesn’t even know Artemis’s friends. Not taking into account their brief overlap at school, Artemis could count on her fingers the number of times Megan has interacted with Jade.

A knock at her window cuts her star count off at 23.

At first, she thinks she imagined it, but then the knock turns into another, and another, and another, until it falls into a familiar rhythm and she knows it’s real.

Artemis’s brow furrows as she slips out of bed. She slowly makes her way to the window and pulls the curtains apart to reveal Megan, standing on the other side of the glass with a sheepish smile. When her best friend waves, Artemis can’t help but give Jade a little more credit. Redheads in this town really are clingy.

“What are you doing here?” Artemis asks as soon as she opens the window, making sure to keep a hand on the old frame so it doesn’t slip down between them.

“Well, you left your phone and your bag and your bike at my house,” Megan explains, shrugging off the messenger bag and passing it to Artemis through the window. “I brought these, but your bike’s still in the shed.”

“Oh, thanks,” Artemis says, tossing the bag onto the floor and accidentally sending her phone sliding out of its pocket. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to come back in the morning.”

“It’s not a big deal, trust me. Michelle and Melissa are being...” Megan waves a shaking fist at the air and huffs. “I had to get out of there, and Conner offered to drop me off on his way home, so here I am.”

It’s then that Artemis spots the tattered Hello Kitty backpack hanging off of Megan’s shoulder.

“They booted you?” Artemis asks, even though she already knows the answer.

There exists a cruel and unusual punishment between the Morse sisters within their household, a punishment Mr. and Mrs. Morse have yet to discover even after the nearly eleven years of its existence. Megan has never divulged the full story of its origin, but Artemis has heard enough to know that the three eldest Morse sisters–Morgan, Mabel, and Minnie–are not to be trifled with in any capacity.

Legend says Mabel was the first to be booted, unanimously, by all five of her sisters (though perhaps five year old Melissa and four year old Megan’s votes should not have been counted) after refusing to tell their parents that she was the one who backed the car into the playhouse. Back then, Booting meant sleeping on the musty couch next to the spooky, drafty window in the basement. Over time, Booting only got worse, moving from a sleeping bag in the treehouse to full blown property banishment with only Hello Kitty as a companion.

“Yup. With the Iron Boot, too. Can I...?” Megan trails off, tentatively placing her hands on the window sill.

Artemis doesn’t hesitate. “Of course you can.”

Megan climbs through the window with practiced ease and Artemis closes it behind her. They stand and consider each other for a few seconds before Megan cracks first.

“You left,” she says, not accusingly per se, but Artemis hears the why in Megan’s words.

“I couldn’t stay,” Artemis starts. “I felt like a one woman freak show. I mean, people were watching through the windows, from the fence– I even saw a couple of people in your hedges. There was egg goop in my hair and my bra. I had to get out of there. I’m really sorry for disappearing and I know I should’ve said something, and, I mean, I definitely thought about it once I passed Fir Street and I was going to text you but–” Artemis cuts off her own rambling with a steep breath and a wave of her hand towards the ground where her (most likely dead) cell phone lies.

“It’s alright that you left. I was just worried.” Megan shrugs and drops her backpack onto the floor. “I am worried. I’ve never seen you so upset.”

“Well, I’m okay now,” Artemis assures her as she walks to her dresser and opens a drawer.

Megan takes a seat on Artemis’s bed and shakes her head. “I know that’s a lie.”

Not the worst one.

“Do you need pajamas?” Artemis asks abruptly, pulling an old band t-shirt from the drawer.

Megan nods. “Yes, please. I barely had time to throw on non-egg covered clothes before they kicked me out.”

Artemis tosses Megan the top and raises a brow. “It took you that long to get here?”

“Well, they waited until I helped get everyone else out before they booted me,” Megan explains, stripping off her sweater and replacing it with Artemis’s top.

“Convenient,” Artemis notes, as she digs deeper into the drawer.

“Pfft, yeah, for them. And then I had to finish talking to Conner. We were making up for awhile.”

Artemis pauses for a second and smirks. “Sure you weren’t making out?”

“Making up,” Megan emphasizes with a slight whine, letting Artemis know that she is one hundred percent on target about them making out.

At least that went right, Artemis muses, pulling a pair of bunny-print shorts from the drawer and handing them to Megan. “Here, you left these here the last time you spent the night.”

Megan smiles as she examines the shorts. “Oh, sweet, I thought Melissa stole them. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Artemis says as she moves from the dresser to reach underneath her bed. “Oh, and I’ve got a surprise for you– if I can– just–”

The tip of Artemis’s fingers brush against a battered box and she has to stretch to grab it and pull it out into the open.

“We don’t have to sleep back to back anymore,” she says, opening the box to reveal a mass of plastic. “My mom got an air mattress at the Lanes’ yard sale. You can take the real bed.”

“Ooo, fancy,” Megan notes, and she joins Artemis on the floor to help spread out the plastic. “And no, I call dibs on this one. It reminds me of camping. It’s nice.”

“Yeah, fact check: it was five bucks and has no holes. And they even threw in the hand pump for a quarter extra,” Artemis adds, shaking the box to get the tightly-wedged hand pump out and into Megan’s hands.

They sit on the floor as Megan holds the nozzle in place, and Artemis sends air into the mattress with steady pumps of the handle. As the mattress rises, so does Megan’s curiosity. Artemis catches a glimpse of the question in her best friend’s eyes and makes it a point to concentrate on the pump. Her arms begin to ache as she pumps a little too fast. When the air mattress is full and covered in some spare blankets, Artemis practically races to get under the covers of her own bed and say goodnight.

Not even a minute later, Megan breaks the silence.

“So,” she starts, in a sleepover–, we aren’t sleeping tonight– kind of way, “are we going to talk about it or are we acting like it never happened?”

Artemis sighs at the glowing stars above her, as though they’ll hear and grant her unspoken wish for another distraction.

“Is that a talk sigh or a go-to-sleep sigh?” Megan asks.

The stars aren’t on Artemis’s side tonight.

Artemis rolls over, looks over the edge of the bed, and finds Megan smiling up at her innocently.

“It’s a talk sigh,” Artemis relents, moving herself into a seated position.

“Oh my god, yes,” Megan says, before she bounces off of the air mattress and climbs up onto the bed with Artemis.

As soon as she looks into Megan’s sparkling, hope-filled eyes, Artemis freezes. A thought, one more horrifying and familiar than any other, strikes her. Bad Dad was one thing, but what if Megan doesn’t get it, it being the foundation of lies Artemis laid back when they first met? Until today, Megan had never had a reason to question the cover story Artemis threw together the day they became real friends.

What if knowing the whole truth, that not only is her best friend’s father a pretty notorious criminal, but that said best friend also lied to her face about it for so long, hurts her?  

She’s had enough of hurting people today (including herself).

“Actually, forget that.” Artemis turns away from Megan, lays back down, and begins to pull on the covers. “It was definitely a go-to-sleep sigh.”

She’s almost there with the covers over her head and her face a few inches from the pillow, but Megan promptly rips away the comforters and says, “You said you wanted to talk. So talk. Please.”

“I change my mind.” Artemis tries to pull the blanket back, but Megan’s grip is strong.

“Artemis,” Megan whines softly, yanking the covers so hard she pulls Artemis up into a seated position. “No take backs. Not this time.”

Artemis wrings the edge of the blanket in her hand, tries to swallow down her panic, and stumbles over her words. “If I tell you, you can’t– you can’t freak out, okay? Because what Cam said, it’s– I’ve done enough freaking out over it, okay? I’m so sorry. Just–please don’t look at me differently.”

Megan clasps both of Artemis’s hands in hers, gently untangling them from the blanket before she says, “Artemis, I look at you and I see my best friend– no, my sister. My favorite sister, and that’s saying something. Nothing anyone does or says is going to change that.”

Artemis bites the inside of her cheek before she softly admits, “I lied to you.”

Megan tilts her head, and Artemis takes that as a cue to continue.

“I lied a lot, to everyone. I told you my dad was living in another state and he’s a total douchebag, and that’s so true, but I never told you the real reason we moved here. I haven’t told anyone.”

“Well, why not?” Megan presses.

“Because it’s hard,” Artemis says quickly, not giving her voice a chance to break, and she pulls her hands out of Megan’s in order to tug at the end of the blanket, “I mean, how do you even have that conversation? Hey, nice to meet you, my dad’s a high profile thief and nearly got my whole family killed because of it, isn’t the weather nice today? That’s an icebreaker if there ever was one.”

“Well, don’t stop now,” Megan says, gently nudging Artemis’s arm.

“And it’s not like I want it following me for the rest of my life,” Artemis continues. “My childhood wasn’t normal in the slightest and when people find out all the details, I can’t get past it because that’s all they can see. I lived in Gotham for, what, maybe three months after my dad got busted? One person figured out who we were and after that, no matter where I went, all I heard was, Poor little Artemis, her dad’s a thief. Hope the apple falls far from that tree. Better hold onto my wallet a little tighter, just in case. Or Really? Paula is that woman? I’m surprised they didn’t take those girls away from her after all of that. Or Hey, Bill, did you hear? Those Crock girls just moved in downstairs. Guess the neighborhood really is going to the dogs, isn’t it? Everywhere, all the time. And those were just the adults. The kids were worse. And as much as I wish it didn’t bother me, it did. Jade and I got into so much trouble telling those people to mind their freakin’ own. So my mom moved us out here, for a fresh start in a new place where we didn’t have to live under a microscope.”

Artemis sighs and looks down at her hands as she continues, “When I met you at the park, I couldn’t get over how nice it was to have a conversation where I didn’t have to defend myself to a complete stranger. And I– I didn’t want that to go away, so as soon as I got home I made Jade and my mom swear to leave our past in the past.”

And they had done just that, with an apparent ease Artemis envied greatly.

“And that was it. After that, it was easy. A little lie here and there wasn’t going to hurt anyone. At least it wasn’t supposed to.” Artemis looks up and winces. “Sorry for ruining your party.”

“Woah,” Megan says, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she holds Artemis’s gaze, “you did not ruin the party. Cameron and his groupies did that, and then he had his meltdown.”

“Still,” Artemis says, shrugging, “it was a lot. This is a lot.”

“Yeah, it is,” Megan agrees with an understanding nod, “but I get it. I mean, when we met, I gave you directions to 7/11; you didn’t owe me your life story.”

This draws a laugh out of the both of them, but it burns out as quickly as it came.

Megan sighs slowly before she says, “You know, you still don’t owe me anything, right? You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to.”

“What happened to don’t stop?” Artemis half-jokes through a weak smile.

“Well, we all have our secrets.” Megan shrugs and smiles back. “Also, it’s late and I only do one big reveal a day.”

“So,” Artemis starts slowly, “we’re good?”

Megan nods. “We were never not good, dummy.”

Artemis smiles. “Good.”

Megan waits half a second before pouncing and giving Artemis a tight hug, a hug which she hastily returns with just as much feeling. When they release each other, Megan lies back on the bed, rolls off the side, and lands on the air mattress with a short laugh.

“Having fun?” Artemis asks, looking over the edge of the bed.

“Oodles.”

Artemis gives Megan time to get tucked in before she leans over and asks, “Hey, how’d you know I went home and not to the park?”

“I have my ways,” Megan says slyly.

Artemis snorts. “You went to the park and then came here.”

“No,” Megan laughs, “Wally told me when he came back.”

“Oh.” Artemis stills in confusion. “He went all the way back there?”

“Yeah, his bike was in the shed, and he tried to help clean up but I sent him home.”

“Hm,” Artemis murmurs before posing a question as nonchalantly as she can (which is to say not at all), “does he seem different to you?”

“Different how?” Megan asks, rising to her elbows.

“I dunno. Different. Like, less.. Wally?” Artemis says his name like it means something, and that’s not even her first mistake.

“Ohhhh,” Megan gasps, quickly dropping back into the mattress and hiding her traitorous grin behind her hands, “you do like him.”

Even in the dark, Megan’s brown eyes sparkle with uncontained glee, and Artemis is torn between hiding under her pillow or tossing it in her so-called-friend’s face.

“I do not– Wait, what do you mean do?”

“Well, I’ve had my suspicions but–”

“Suspicions from where?” Artemis’s voice cracks.

“Um, everywhere? You two were looking pret-ty close at my party.”

Artemis flops back into her bed, looks to the stars, and asks, “How’d you see that past Conner’s steely blue eyes?”

Megan presses on, unfazed. “And he walked you home.”

“He walked behind me, in the same direction. It was totally separate walking,” Artemis clarifies.

“You did talk a lot over the summer.”

“I talked to the mailman a lot, too,” Artemis says snarkily, leaning over the edge of the bed again. “Doesn’t mean I want to bone him.”

It’s the wrong thing to say; Artemis knows this the moment it leaves her mouth.

“Oh my god, you want to bone Wally.”

“What?” Artemis shrieks. “I didn’t say that!”

“You sound ready to smother me so I know I’m right. Aw, Artemis,” Megan presses her hands against her cheeks to soften her grin, “tell me I’m right. I want to be right so bad. This night’s been such a mess; let me have this.”

“Shut up,” Artemis whines, rising and turning in bed to face the window. “Aren’t you tired yet, Grandma?”

Megan props herself up, grinning from ear to ear. “I won’t be until you admit that you like him. Seriously, you two would be so cute together.”

Artemis feigns shutting her eyes and clips, “Sleep. Please.” To her surprise, this seems to do the trick, as there isn’t any immediate reply. Artemis settles into her bed and tries to follow her own orders, but curiosity and anxiety get the best of her only a minute later, and she makes the mistake of peering over the bed to see if Megan is still awake, which, obviously, she is.

The redhead quirks her eyebrow and holds Artemis’s gaze for a moment, as if determined to pry the truth out of her this very instant. It’s a good staring game, and she almost wins, but Artemis has had too much practice at this with Jade (even if she’s rarely won) and eventually, Megan flops back down to the air mattress with a dramatic sigh.

After a while, Artemis adds, “Even if I did like him–and I’m not saying I do– but if I did, I just couldn’t, you know?”

Megan doesn’t hesitate. “Couldn’t bone him?”

“No– God– Your mom is right. I’ve been a terrible influence on you. I just–” Artemis exhales loudly and flips onto her back as the words do backflips in her brain. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning, maybe?” Megan suggests before laughing shortly. “Remember when you threw an apple core at his head in middle school?”

Artemis snorts fondly. “I got lunch detention for it, so yeah.”

“You’ve come so far. I’m so proud,” says Megan, as she wipes a fake tear from her cheek.

“It’s so weird. I still can’t believe it. I don’t even know what happened. He has the nerve to stop being such a geek all the time and actually be nice and his hair freaking wooshes every chance it gets and it’s like, who the fuck gave Wally West permission to get hot? I have some choice words for them.”

“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank’ and ‘you’,” Megan giggles.

“And my words for you are ‘shut’ and ‘up’.”

“Well, I can’t help it,” Megan huffs goodnaturedly. “You’re never like this about a guy. I have to get my teasing in while I can. You tease me about Conner all the time. It’s only fair.”

“So this is, what, karma?”

“Justice,” Megan answers. “You have to tell him. Oh, oh, can I please be there? Not there there, obviously, but you’ll tell me when you tell him, right?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Artemis says flatly. She rolls on her side and turns her face into the pillow, so the words she says next are only loud enough for herself to hear.

“Have fun waiting forever.”

-o-

For all the doomsday prepping they’ve done in the dead of night at countless sleepovers in the past, Artemis and Megan have no intricate survival strategy ready for what awaits them within the walls of Happy Harbor High on Monday morning.

Artemis takes it as a true sign of the end of times when they walk into Carr’s class and the room goes silent. She lingers in the doorway to watch her classmates avoid her eyes. Megan gently guides (pushes) her into the room just as the second bell rings. They sit in their usual seats and the chatter that usually fills the room before Carr snaps his fingers to start the day is noticeably absent.

Perfect, Artemis thinks, holding her pencil so tightly it’s a miracle it doesn’t snap in half. The tip doesn’t hold up half as well, as it breaks as soon as she presses it against her notebook.

The rest of the day is full of the same stares and whispers, and had there been any other reason for people to be talking about her, Artemis would have been just fine, and Megan (and by extension Conner) would not be sticking to her like glue whenever possible despite her (quite vocal) protests. They’re part bulldozers, part brick walls; no one gets through to Artemis without their approval. And as much as Artemis would love for things to be a little more normal, she appreciates their enthusiasm.

Come lunch, she almost feels like a celebrity.

Megan keeps the conversation at the lunch table strictly about the party and the upcoming dance and Artemis could not be more grateful. Apparently, Megan’s party had been filled to the brim with dramatic moments even before Cameron showed up. Halfway through Bette’s story about catching some freshmen in a coat closet, Artemis loses interest and rests her head on her folded arms on the table. From her position at the edge of the table, she can see most of the quad, including the table where Wally and his friends usually congregate.

Artemis taps her feet against the ground as she contemplates her next move and watches Wally furiously write something at his table. She already knows it’s the history packet that’s due next period, but there’s a voice egging her on in her head (the one that sounds suspiciously like Megan) saying, Go tell him.

“Hurry, lunch is almost over. I want to watch,” Megan whispers into her ear, a little louder.

Artemis raises her head and gives Megan a withering look. Megan just smiles back.

“Absolutely not,” Artemis says, turning back to look at Wally.

“Please,” Megan quietly begs.

“Nope.”

Artemis watches Wally flip the pages of his homework back and forth and back and forth before he places his pencil and highlighter down and smiles victoriously to himself. It is only by chance that when he glances up he catches her staring. The smile slips off of his face faster than she can look away, so she’s forced to watch his expression flatline before he quickly looks away. Ouch.

“I am going”–Artemis abruptly addresses half of the table as she stands and picks up her backpack–“to the bathroom.”

“Boo,” Megan says next to her, pouting childishly as she starts to pick up her own backpack.

Artemis shakes her head and starts walking. “No entourage. I think I can handle this myself. I’ll see you guys in the locker room later.”

A chorus of ‘later’s send her off before they return to their regularly scheduled post-party debrief. Artemis can feel Megan’s disappointed gaze on her back as she walks out of the quad towards the classrooms. As much as she’d love to rip the bandaid off and get out of the limbo of not knowing, Artemis knows that confessing in the middle of the quad in front of half of the cross country team is not ideal. Things like this need to be done more discreetly. Megan will have to hear what happens secondhand.

Artemis walks straight past the bathrooms and enters Ms. Lance’s classroom with one thought in mind:

Today’s the day.

-o-

Wally walks into history class just before the late bell rings and sits down behind her without giving her a single glance.

The note folded up underneath Artemis’s hand is covered in shitty eraser marks and more than a few scribbles, but it’s sincere and that’s really all she has to offer. A series of what ifs creep into her mind as she prepares to pass it back when Ms. Lance tells them to pass up their homework. What if she’s wrong? What if it sounds too weird? What if the everything Megan had been talking about had been something else entirely?

As Ms. Lance sets up the documentary they're scheduled to watch on the projector, Artemis unfolds her note and reads it three times. As soon as she reads the last line for the last time, she panics, crumbles the note up, and stuffs it into her backpack.

This is so stupid, she yells internally.

After Ms. Lance passes each row a question sheet to go along with the documentary, Artemis peels a sticky note out of her binder, scribbles a quick Thanks for walking me home. I owe you one. -A on it, and posts it on Wally’s question sheet before she passes the paper to him.

She spends the rest of class waiting for a note that never comes.

No matter how many times the opportunity arises for him to successfully pass a message along, not one piece of paper with even a short No problem written on it makes it to her. Each passing moment makes Artemis more nervous. Her pencil taps against her desk in time with her foot tapping against the floor. She manages to fill in most of the question sheet even as her focus keeps flipping from the material on the screen to the figurative radio silence from the boy behind her.

It feels like an eternity before Ms. Lance turns on the lights and the bell rings. People turn in their papers to her as they file out of the room.

Artemis is the last to hand in her question sheet and she walks out of the room in a slight daze, wondering how on Earth she just got ghosted in person.

-o-

There’s something soothingly satisfying about the sound Artemis’s arrow makes when it hits the center of a practice target. It’s too bad she hasn’t been able to hit one all goddamn day.

Artemis’s eyes flit from her target to the tarp roof and walls of their temporary shooting range. Maybe it’s the new range that’s getting to her. She just needs time to adjust. That’s all it is.

To her left, Roy releases an arrow and Artemis watches it fly straight into the center of the practice target.

“Money,” Roy fake-whispers to himself, as he oh-so-unfortunately often does.

After making a mental note to see if Jade knows about that, Artemis takes a deep breath and roughly releases it through her nose.

Just one damn shot, she thinks, setting her shoulders back and narrowing her gaze at the target. Please.

But the tension in her shoulders, bruises on her knuckles, and mess in her mind keep Artemis from landing a single, spot-on shot and it sucks.

A bunch of teens talking about her is one thing, but that doesn’t bother her has as much as Wally completely blowing her off. Maybe “Maybe” wasn’t a good mindset to hold onto after all. She should have been more realistic. Wally probably searched “Who is Crusher Crock” over the weekend and decided she was more trouble than she was worth. Artemis sighs heavily as another arrow hits the dirt underneath the target.

There has to be a better explanation than that. Maybe he feels bad for her and doesn’t know how to treat her anymore. The look of pity he gave her back at the party flashes through her mind just as she releases another arrow. This one hits the top of the tarp and falls to the ground at the end of her lane.

“Okay, enough,” Roy says, quickly stepping forward to stop her from yanking another arrow out of their shared bucket.

“What gives?” Artemis asks with a huff, holding her bow closer to her before he can take that too.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you’re out here shooting worse than that human disaster,” Roy jerks his thumb towards where Coach Queen is currently confiscating the bow from Lori Lemaris’s panicked hands, “I feel like I have a moral obligation to make sure you don’t hurt somebody.”

Artemis blows a piece of loose hair away from her face and sardonically asks, “Haven’t you heard? I already have. You’re a little late.”

Roy scoffs. “Of course I’ve heard. Even if Jade hadn’t filled me in, the whole school has been talking about it all day– and you want to know what I think?”

“Not really,” Artemis deadpans.

“You should’ve kicked him,” Roy continues, pretending not to hear her. “Why the hell are you risking your hand when we have a qualifier next week? With Lori on deck, we need all the points we can get.”

“Aw, Roy, I didn’t know you cared,” Artemis says, rolling her eyes as she takes a seat on a bench near the edge of the shooting range and pretends to pick away invisible fibers from her bowstring.

Roy takes her lead and sits down beside her, but before he can say a word, Artemis silences him with her sharp eyes.

“You’re in a good mood,” she says accusingly, pointing the tip of her bow towards him.

“It happens,” Roy says flippantly, using a finger to push the bow away from him.

Artemis warily asks, “Is this a Jade thing?”

“I thought you said we were done talking about Jade,” Roy retorts, picking up a water bottle from underneath the bench.

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It is not a Jade thing, or an any thing. Who are you? The mood police?”

“No, it’s just that Jade was weirdly nice at breakfast this morning and that usually means one of two things. She won a fight or she got–”

“O-kay,” Roy interrupts her quickly, harmlessly thwacking Artemis’s arm with his nearly empty water bottle, “no more talking about Jade. If you want to talk, let’s talk about what’s turning your shots to shit.”

“That’s personal. We don’t go there,” Artemis reminds him.

Roy shakes his head. “Oh, trust me, I’ve been there longer than you think.”

“Wait, what?” Artemis asks, turning to face Roy fully. “You already knew? About my dad?”

“Well, yeah,” Roy says, shrugging. “After I found out you and Jade were sisters, I had some questions and, surprisingly enough, Jade gave me more answers than I expected.”

Artemis waits a few seconds before she asks, “And?”

Roy rolls his eyes at her. “And what? She’s my girlfriend and you’re the little blackmailer who keeps trying to break my records. It is what it is.”

“Yeah.” Artemis nods slowly, appreciating Roy's indifference.

“I can’t believe she just up and told you,” she admits after a moment, a bit miffed that Jade would spill the beans so easily.

Roy sucks his teeth before he says, “Oh, don’t bring this up with her. She said if I ever told you she told me, she’d tell Dinah we let Sin watch The Bride of Chucky.”

“You did?”

“Of course not, but Jade would still tell her that.”

Artemis wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, why do you like her again?”

“Well,” Roy’s brow creases for a moment before he shrugs and says, “I don’t know. She gets me? Also, I think if I didn’t love her, I’d probably hate her.”

“That’s kind of fucked up,” Artemis says dryly.

“That’s life sometimes,” Roy says, clapping his hand against the bench and nodding towards the stadium bleachers in the distance. “I meant what I said about taking it easy on that hand. You need to let off some steam, constructively, and since you’re banned from using any more projectiles for today– hey, it’s for the greater good– you can go run. I’ll tell Oliver you’re conditioning.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Artemis says, smartly saluting him as she rises from the bench.

Roy raises his hand for her to stop. “Hold up. One request. Can we go back to doing that thing where I pretend not to care and you pretend to hate my guts? This was nice and all, but I have a reputation to uphold.” A small grin edges its way up his lips.

Artemis waves him off as she picks up her backpack and sports bag on her way out of the shooting range. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, you big softie.”

“Get out of here, Blondie,” he calls out after her.

“Stuff it, Archie.”

Artemis jogs all the way to the stadium bleachers with her backpack and sports bag in hand. She drops them at the bottom of the bleachers before she picks a set of stairs and starts running. With each step, her mind goes over the gameplan to solve The Wally Problem (this in addition to her usual bleacher mantra of ‘Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip’).

She comes to the conclusion that living between knowing and not knowing is no way to live. She should’ve just given him the original note in history and been done with it. Her cards would be on the table, plain as day, and if things went wrong, she’d get over it (though she’d really like it if things went right this time). Anything is better than being ignored (and if he is going to ignore her, he could at least have the decency to give her a reason why).

Halfway through her set, she decides to trash the note in her backpack and just talk to him face-to-face. No more hiding behind pieces of paper. While it would be a hell of a lot easier to write it out and chuck it in his general direction, she knows this needs to be done a certain way. She is going to tell him about her Big Feelings, and he is going to listen.

Artemis spends the rest of her run thinking of ways to talk about said feelings without sounding like a complete weirdo. It takes a concerningly long amount of time for her to settle on something, and her aching feet and burning lungs thank her when she reaches the bottom stair. She plucks her water bottle out of her bag before climbing back up at a walk to cool down.

A few rows from the top, she stops, lies down on her back on the bleacher, and laments not wearing a hat before flipping over onto her stomach. Through the gaps between the rows, she spots a small pile of backpacks surrounding one of the support beams. The collection remains undisturbed for only a while, though, as two familiar figures– one raven haired and the other red– jog into view. What kind of luck.

“Jay really ran us ragged out there today,” Wally says, taking a seat on the grass near the backpacks and stretching out his legs. “Become one with my feet, my shoes have.”

“At least you didn’t have to deal with Tommy trying to tackle you halfway across the field,” Conner says, sitting beside Wally and rolling his shoulders back. “I’m telling you, if Artemis hadn’t already met our violence quota...”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. You saw what went on with their freakin’ leader in Cross’ class.” Wally snorts. “Chucking my backpack at his head would’ve been worth the detention, by the way.”

Conner shakes his head and pulls his backpack closer to himself. “That was my backpack and no, it wouldn’t have been. They really don’t know when to quit, do they? I’d bet an entire pizza they were the ones who put tuna in Kaldur’s locker this morning.”

Artemis narrows her eyes and adds that bit of information to her list of Things Deserving of Retribution.

“Definitely,” Wally agrees pensively, and there’s a slight pause before he moans. “Dude, we’ve talked about this. No more food talk right after practice. It’s painful. Plus, I can’t believe you’d risk a whole pizza. Go half, at most. If you bet half of a whole pizza and lose, you still have the other half.”

“What if you’re buying by the slice?” Conner asks, pulling a water bottle out of his backpack.

“That wasn’t what you said.”

“But what if?”

“Fine,” Wally relents. “If you’re buying by the slice, then you must not be confident in whatever it is you’re betting on. At that point, you shouldn’t even make the bet. Go big or go home.”

“Hm... Speaking of going big,” Conner segues, rubbing the back of his neck, “Megan asked me to ask her to the dance by the end of the week.”

Artemis, intrigued, dares to peek further and get a better look through the stands. Megan had told her she’d been dropping hints, but since the girl is about as subtle as an Independence Day fireworks show, Artemis doesn’t doubt Megan said something to that effect.

Wally winces, not totally sympathetic but definitely trying to be. “Oof, tight deadline this time around, dude. She gave you a month for the Swing Dance last year.”

“Yeah, and I think she wants it to be some sort of– I don’t know,”–Conner waves his hand in the air–“grand gesture? She made it seem like it should be a big deal.”

“Oh, it has to be a big deal. It’s Homecoming, not Spring Fling,” Wally explains matter-of-factly, pointing the end of his sports drink at Conner.

Conner sighs, and Artemis can practically feel him rolling his eyes as he says, “It’s going to be just like the last one.”

“You know, this kind of attitude is exactly why Megs has to give you a timeline,” Wally says, raising an accusatory brow at his friend as he takes a sip of his sports drink.

Artemis takes her own swig to that.  

Conner bristles. “Yeah, well, what about you? Have you asked Artemis yet?”

What?

Artemis nearly chokes on the last of her water and stiffens to stay hidden on the bleacher as she muffles her coughs. Luckily, Wally is too busy choking on his own drink to notice her.

“What?” Wally asks once the worst of the fit subsides, voicing Artemis’s own train of thought (though her What sounds more like a flatlining heart monitor).

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Conner says, giving the still-coughing Wally a hard pat on the back for good measure.

Wally takes a long, dramatic breath before he says, “I am not dramatic. You just surprised me. What makes you think I want to ask Artemis to the dance?”

There’s a sinking feeling in her stomach, one strangely opposite to what she’s become used to feeling when he says her name. It’s different this time, as if asking her of all people to the dance would be as terrible an idea as asking Medusa to be your optometrist.

“Um,” Conner starts with an air of sarcasm, “I don’t know, maybe it’s the everything about you two.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wally laughs him off.

Conner doesn’t buy it. “Sure, you don’t.”

“Look, after everything that happened this weekend...” Wally trails off, shaking his head. “I just– I don’t–”

“If you’re that scared, ask her to go just as friends,” Conner advises (with an air of authority Artemis is pretty sure he doesn’t have on this matter).

Or, you know, he could just talk to her, Artemis thinks, hanging on every word.

“Ugh, dude, you don’t get it,” Wally says after a moment, and he continues with all the certainty in the world, “I don’t want to be her friend.”

Artemis, de-statuified, flinches hard enough to send her now-empty water bottle careening off the side of the bleacher bench and straight through the gap right above Wally. The plastic cracks against the top of his head and he yelps in pain.

Conner, quite dexterously, catches the bottle mid-air, looks up, and regrets (if the curse he mouths is any indication).

“What the heck?” Wally asks, one hand on his head.

He tilts his head upwards and scans the stands above him, and Artemis pinpoints the moment he realizes exactly who she is.

“Whoops,” she says flatly, loudly, as she fights the urge to take off her shoe and drop it down, too, because the bottle couldn’t have hurt Wally as much as his words hurt her, which she would personally liken to a Buffy-style stake to the heart (talk about flatlining). It was one thing for her to think he might feel that way, but to actually hear him say the words sends all of her plans straight into the garbage.

“Artemis?” Wally asks with a gasp, still rubbing at the spot the bottle hit his head. “Hey–I–”

Artemis doesn’t bother listening, not that she’s able to hear him as she makes her way down the bleachers at a record pace with thundering steps and remarkable grace. She plucks her backpack out from under the bottom row of seats, puts it on, and makes a beeline for her bike in the parking lot at the other end of the stadium. The signs and posters about the upcoming dance and class elections tied to the fences blur as she she rushes away, and her feet slam against the pavement, filled with every pushed down emotion she refuses to set free.

Not here. Not here.

Her theory had been wrong. Knowing was worse than not knowing. Knowing unleashed a whole new flood of questions.

What had she been thinking? Had Wally played her, or had she played herself? Had it been the fucking woosh, putting thoughts into her head, making her see things that were obviously not there? If only it was that easy.

But what if it had been there? What if everything had been real and good until the party? What if Wally couldn’t just say ‘It is what it is’ like Roy did and that be that? That thought alone makes her walk faster. He couldn’t handle it. That was it. She doesn’t even has to ask why because he said it himself.

After everything that happened...

She passes the shooting range, narrowly avoids bumping into Roy, and doesn’t look back when he calls out her name. For a split second, she thinks he calls her again, but upon closer listening, she hears that it’s another person calling out her name (and it’s a bit dangerous for him to do so considering she wants to put Jade and Roy’s advice to use and punt him across the football field for making her feel this way).

By the time she reaches the bike racks in the parking lot, Artemis decides she’s had enough for one day. She makes a run for her bike and rushes to unlock it from the rack, but when she moves to pull it out, the front tire detaches from the frame.

“What the fuck?!” Artemis shouts, her eyes blazing as she holds up her bike frame. “Who the fuck–”

Stupid question.

Artemis grits her teeth as she picks up her detached and undeniably flat tire. “Go to fucking hell, Cam.”

She quickly scans the ground for the missing pieces of her bike, but her chances of finding them are slim to none, considering Cameron probably took them and Wally’s getting closer. With her options limited, Artemis carries her bike frame in one hand and her tire in the other and starts walking.

“Artemis, hold on!”

“Go away! You walk me home, you act like my friend, and what?” The bite in her words increases even as her voice breaks. “You didn’t talk to me all day and now you have something to say?”

Artemis swings around, placing half of her bike between them. For a moment his face lights up with hope, but then he looks her in the eye and that quickly changes. Jade’s words flash through her mind and slip through her lips with a venom just as Jade.

“You know what?” she asks slowly, inconcealable anguish dulling the edges of her words. “I’ve heard enough. I’m done. Whatever problem you have with me, it’s your problem. Not mine. You don’t want to be friends? That’s your loss, Wallman. If I needed friends like you, I’d go hang out with the jerk who did this.” She raises the wheel in her hand and uses it to (rather restrainedly) push Wally further away.

Wally cringes and holds a piece of the tire as he quickly says, “Look, Artemis, that’s not what I–”

The screeching of brakes overpowers Wally’s words.

Artemis never thought she’d see salvation in the form of Roy’s ancient pickup truck waiting at the curb, but there it is.

“Are you bothering her, Wally?” Roy asks, as he steps out of the truck with a menacing glare on his face. He glances at Artemis’s broken bike, and his glare gets worse. “Did he do that?”

“What? No!” Wally shouts, frustratedly releasing the tire and taking a step back.

“This,” Artemis says, slightly lifting up her bike frame, “was Cameron and his stupid friends.”

“Yeah, Roy,” Wally interjects crossly. “Why on Earth would you think I’d do–”

“That,” Artemis interrupts, nodding her head towards Wally, “is really bothering me.”

Roy nods his head a few times before taking hold of the bike frame.

“You, get in the truck,” he says to Artemis, “I’ll put this in the back and drive you home.” Then he turns to Wally. “You, leave her alone.”

Artemis wastes no time sliding into the truck’s passenger seat. She places her tire at her feet and puts her backpack and bag over it. Through the rear view mirror, Artemis watches Roy load her bike into the bed of the truck and tell Wally to scram (at least, that’s what it looks like. Reading lips in a mirror is hard, okay?).

“What a freakin’ day,” Artemis mutters to herself as she tries to calm down.

Roy doesn’t say a word when he enters the truck, buckles his seatbelt, and pulls out of the parking lot going well above the 15 miles per hour speed limit. Artemis watches Wally disappear in the side view mirror and it’s then, when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, that she realizes she’s crying. She swipes the few tear tracks on her face out of existence with the back of her hand and wonders just how long she’s been doing that.

“Glove compartment, left side,” Roy instructs her, not taking his eyes off the road.

Artemis opens the compartment in front of her and pulls out a small packet of tissues.

“Thanks,” Artemis says, and she knows Roy knows it’s for more than just the tissues.

“No biggie,” Roy says nonchalantly. “I owed you one.”

He turns up the radio and the hits of the 2000s drown out the sound of her sniffling. The eight minute drive to her house gives Artemis’s just enough time to pull herself together before she sees her mother. When Roy slows to a stop in front of her house, Artemis gathers her bags, tire, and used tissues and gets out of the truck.

“Leave the tire.” Roy sticks his arm out of the open driver’s side window and plucks the tire from her hands. “Oliver and I will put your bike back together this weekend. Do you need rides until then?”

“I- uh- thanks, Roy,” Artemis says, slowly walking backwards towards her front door. “I’ll catch a ride with Conner, though, he lives just down the street. You don’t have to go out of your way.”

“Alright, then,” Roy says, nodding. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Artemis nods gratefully as Roy closes his window and pulls out into the street to make a U-turn. When he’s out of sight, she unlocks the front door and rushes inside. She makes it about three steps in before her mother looks over from the couch and stops her.

“Artemis,” Paula says, surprised, “you’re home early.”

“I have a lot of homework,” Artemis says quickly, avoiding her mother’s eyes as she slowly walks towards her room. “Super important project. Gotta get it done.”

Paula smiles and nods. “There’s chicken and rice in the kitchen if you’re hungry, but don’t take it to your room.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll eat later,” Artemis says, sending her mother a small smile before booking it to her bedroom.

Artemis closes the door to her room behind her and immediately tosses her bag and backpack to the floor. The thin smile she'd given her mother crumbles into a pained grimace as she balls her fists and mentally screams. A new flood of tears blurs her vision and this time she doesn’t bother trying to stop them from falling.

Why did I do this? What was I thinking? Stupid freaking boys and their stupid freaking stupid heads.

She crouches down, opens her backpack, and pulls out the crumpled up note she never passed during history class. She crumples it up some more for good measure before tossing it into the trash can in the corner of the room. It feels really good.

So why stop there?

Artemis reaches deep underneath her bed and pulls her shoebox full of letters into the light. Just looking at the pile of envelopes sends waves of frustration through her bones. She pulls out a thick stack from the box and nearly tears them all in half, but she stops herself just before the edges can rip.

“Fuck– nope, what am I doing?” she says, huffing before she throws the letters back into the box and runs her hands over her face. “Get a grip.”

Sitting on the floor crying in the middle of her room over a boy. What a way to spend the afternoon. Artemis kicks the shoebox away from her. It topples over, spins out, and sends envelopes sliding across the floor. Perfect.

Her cell phone buzzes from inside the front pocket of her backpack, and she doesn’t have to look to know it’s Megan (the Kim Possible theme song vibration pattern is telling enough).

This doesn’t feel right, Artemis thinks to herself, staring at the mess of envelopes in front of her. Her phone keeps buzzing.

Each envelope holds a letter and each letter contains a mixture of digs, jokes, and the occasional sentiment. It isn’t until she sees them scattered on the ground that Artemis realizes that the reason she can’t just tear them to shreds is because they mean something to her. They mean a summer’s worth of waiting for the mailman, a book of stamps, and a friendship she can’t just throw away, no matter how upset she is. Maybe it’s easy enough for Wally to say he doesn’t want to be her friend, but the pile of letters he wrote make it hard for her to just sit down and accept that.

So she won’t. Not like this, sniffling on her bedroom floor. Nope.

Artemis rises and takes a seat on her bed. She takes a deep breath, wipes away the traces of her tears, and decides to return to Plan A.

In the next minute, she gathers all the envelopes, shoves them into the shoebox, walks towards the door, and ignores her still-buzzing phone.

Sorry, Megan, you’re going to have to wait.

Artemis has her hand on the doorknob when a rapid rapping at her window turns her around.

Or not.

“How’d she get here so fast?” Artemis mutters to herself, moving across the room to the window. “I’m coming.”

She sets the box of letters on her bed before she pulls back the curtain and freezes.

The wrong redhead stands before her, flushed and jumpy, holding a piece of paper against the window. Artemis skims the top line–

Your mom wouldn’t let me in so you’re going to have to read this.

– and immediately drops the curtain closed.

Artemis looks back at her backpack, where her phone is still ringing, and thinks she probably should have answered that.

Wally knocks at the window again.

Oh, fuck it.

Artemis exhales softly, shoves open the curtain, and lifts the window up in one motion.

“The window opens, dumbass.”