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high5nerd · 5 years ago

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The Misadventures of Fanty and Loki---Chap. Six

The movie night was a success, as well as a great source of entertainment. Fanty had all the girls over, each of them bringing either their favorite bowl of candy or bag of chips. She even went far enough to serve popcorn and wear a beret to look like she was a director. Even if Loki didn't get the joke, he still had to smile at her silliness. Angel was persistent to bring her own favorite bean bag chair to sit in as well, and happily shared with Drago. That is, until Drago's itty bitty dog decided to crawl onto Angel's lap and fall asleep on her. Angel knew her kitten, Oreo, wouldn't touch her until all the dog hair was off her pants, but she thought it was worth it. Drago's puppy was cute!

Loki's never seen a puppy before, so he couldn't help but touch it's head when it sniffed at his Asgardian leather boots. Drago beamed as her favorite little helper yapped at Loki's unsure gesture, and licked his fingers to show how how friendly it was. Loki couldn't help but grin. He was so used to seeing grown hounds, he's never really gotten to appreciating how endearing they are as little ones.

Loki loved the movie Snow White and the Huntsman. Fanty knew he mostly liked it for its battle scenes and the witch's magical mirror. Mystic was kind enough to lend him the original Grimm story as long as he didn't write or damage it any way, to which Loki promised he wouldn't.

"Why would the witch immediately hate her right before the wedding?" Loki asked that night, watching Fanty drink from a glass of water.

She shrugged, "Maybe because she noticed that the people were watching Snow White rather than her? I'm not entirely sure. She did take over other kingdoms with her beauty as well."

"Hm...I like the book better." Loki said honestly, turning back to the thickly bound book in his hands.

Fanty gave him some time to finish reading the book, sitting down next to him and reading from behind his shoulder. Loki noticed her presence, and hesitantly turned a bit so he could let her see better. She smiled and rested her arm on his shoulder like an armrest , not minding that he stiffened.

"You're leaning on me." he muttered, finding it embarrassing.

"I'm tired. Besides, I'm starting to consider you like a brother." Fanty honestly said, helping him flip the page.

That was a trigger word for him. Brother. He used to love that word, and then he hated it...but maybe he was starting to like it again. Being brothers with Thor was humiliating in his own way, and it certainly was worse enough. But being like the older brother of Fanty? Hm. Sounds amusing but also nice. He's never had a sister before. Not like he ever wanted one, of course.

"That'd be interesting, you being the sister of Thor and I." Loki said, not paying attention to the book at all now.

"Have you ever wanted one?" Fanty asked, looking at him.

Loki smirked, "It never really crossed my mind. My mother wanted a girl, but it never really happened." he sounded a bit sad at the mention of his mother...so Fanty decided to not delve further into the subject of his mom.

"I remember wanting a sister really bad, but I ended up having another brother, too." Fanty nodded, agreeing with Loki.

"You have a brother?" Loki looked surprised.

Fanty held up four fingers, and Loki whistled, shocked she could even survive that much testosterone living under one roof.

"You should see the medical bills. Most of them are concussions and broken bones from football. They talk about football so much I hate it now." Fanty grouched, folding her arms.

"Four brothers...Gees, I cannot even stand my own single brother." Loki said, shutting the book softly.

"Thor? The blond guy with the hammer?" Fanty asked, hoping her answer was indeed correct.

Loki rolled his eyes, silently laughing. "Yes, Fanty. The blond one."

Fanty smiled, glad she was finally able to make him at least chuckle. After a warm silence, she finally smirked to herself, her brain chuckling at her forming mischief. Loki probably doesn't even know that she's buttering him up!

"But really, it'd be fun if you were my brother. We'd pull tricks all the time!" Fanty said happily, and Loki laughed for real this time.

"You're one of the few who enjoys a good joke, at least from the people I know. But you'd have to deal with my talk and obsession with books and battles." Loki said.

Fanty grinned and shrugged, "Hey, I prefer that than football!" she let Loki chuckle before saying in a heartfelt manner, "Hey...I know you've had rough times, albeit you deserved it. It's not fun being misunderstood. I know the feeling."

"What is that phrase you Midgardians say….Oh, 'it sucks? It sucks." Loki nodded, his smile gone.

"But in all consideration, you'd make a great brother. And you seem like a good leader, too, as long as you're just not causing problems." Fanty honestly said, kindly resting her hand on his shoulder.

Loki smiled at her compliment, and said honestly, "Nowadays...because of you and the others...I'm starting to think there's a different way to life that I just turned a blind eye to."

That made Fanty stop, realizing what he said was in fact true. She knew he what he was saying was the absolute truth, for she was given the gift to see if he lied, and she could see clearly he really meant it. Fanty was so caught up in making him see his problems and help him like the messenger told her to, she didn't see how he really was changing. She only thought about completing her 'mission' rather than opening her eyes and realizing that Loki was in fact seeing his flaws. He was actually close to it! He learned patience, friendship, consideration, compassion, and soon trust was around the corner!

"So...can you teach me magic?" Fanty beamed, thinking that she finally ensnared him in her trap.

"No. I knew you would ask that." Loki smirked at her, ruffling her head with his big and nimble hand.

"Please?" she gave her best puppy eyes, folding her hands in prayer.

"Fanty, I gave you my answer, no-!" Loki was starting to get huffy.

"Just the basics! If you just teach me a few things, I'll kneel to you." Fanty begged, knowing that would get Loki's attention.

Loki stopped when Fanty got on the ground and kneeled, bowing her head with her hand over her heart as if he really was the All Father sitting on his golden throne. Loki was too stunned to say anything. Granted, she wasn't the whole populace of humanity, but someone willingly bowed to him.

Loki finally grinned and held up a strict finger, "Alright, but just the basics! I don't want you abusing powers like mine."

Fanty whooped and jumped into the air, and then did a little dance before sitting cross legged in front of him, just like a student in elementary school. Loki chuckled before clearing his throat.

"Let us begin."

The following day, Angel finished washing the last bit of vegetables for lunch. She was hoping to make a good salad along with her favorite sandwich before heading out to go clothes shopping, and the only thing on her mind was just that. She dropped the remaining baby tomatoes into the large wooden bowl and continued cutting up baby carrots into slices, each perfectly the same thickness.

She hummed a little song to herself before turning around and scraping the carrots into the bowl with the cutting knife, and then put everything down to locate the cabbage.

Wait….where did it go? It was right there! She left it right near the sink!

"HI ANGEL!" Fanty's voice sounded from the ceiling.

Angel screamed at the sight of Fanty on the ceiling, clutching the cabbage like it was a baseball. Fanty was completely upside down, and half her body was going right through the ceiling, a magical green ring encircling her waist that softly glowed. Fanty didn't look bothered at all, but sure was having a blast seeing Angel so terrified.

"What in God's name-?! How did you-?!" Angel stammered, too stunned to form correct sentences.

"Loki taught me magic!" Fanty beamed, and tossed the cabbage into the sink, a perfect 'plunk!' sounding from inside the clean sink. "SCORE!"

And with that, she leaned upwards and was gone, the magical ring disappearing quickly. Angel furrowed her brows and clenched her fist, "Wait until I get my hands on Loki!"

Mystic flipped another page of Artemis Fowl, completely delved into the current chapter she was in. She was so into her book, she wasn't bothered that Fanty unlocked her door and sauntered in, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

"Yo." Fanty greeted.

Mystic made the peace sign with her fingers and said softly, "Yo, Fanty."

"Wanna see a magic trick?" Fanty asked, standing in front of her.

"Hold on," Mystic held up one finger, finishing the last page of the chapter. When she did, she put a black velvet bookmark in between the pages and closed it shut, placing it on the table near her. "You learned a magic trick?"

"Yep! Wanna see?" Fanty asked, desperately hoping for a confirmation.

Mystic shrugged nonchalantly, "Sure, I've got nothing better to do. Show me."

Fanty held up her right hand, her five fingers splayed like the bones of a fan. Mystic's face deadpanned, clearly knowing this trick already. Fanty has done this stupid trick before and it was easy to know what she did.

She quickly took her left hand and slid it up her right, and once her left hand was back to her waist, her index finger was 'gone.'

Mystic sighed and rolled her eyes, "Very funny, Fanty. You've done this before. You're just bending your finger forwards."

"Oh, really?" Fanty beamed, turning her hand around to show her.

Mystic screamed, horrified at the sight of Fanty's finger completely gone. "IT'S GONE! HOLY SHIT YOU CUT IT OFF!"

"It ain't bleeding!" Fanty laughed, holding her hand closer to Mystic for her to see. It was true, the finger had no blood or bone showing, just a completely empty space covered in skin and nerves, as if she was born with only four fingers.

"Fanty, that's freakin' scary!" Mystic yelled, staring at her hand still.

In a matter of seconds, her finger was back in a shimmer of green, completing the entire five-finger deal. Mystic stared at her hand, so startled at the sudden and real magic she couldn't form words.

"Loki taught me that little trick! The act of disappearing objects and people. It's really cool!" Fanty excitedly gushed.

Even after Fanty left, Mystic was still shocked into silence, still sitting on her couch staring into space if she saw a ghost.

Fanty showed everyone her new magic skills, and they were all shocked that Loki would even agree to that. They knew Fanty would use that power to her advantage…

No, not take over the world. She knew better than that and Loki knew how much to teach her.

No, they meant that if she needed to go somewhere, she could probably just teleport by herself instead of walking or driving there on her own. If she was hungry she would just conjure up some Doritos or a subway sandwich. Heck, if she wanted to freak people out she could run on the ceiling as if gravity didn't apply to her.

"You're an idiot, a true idiot!" Angel shook a finger at Loki.

"She made one of my research books talk! Do you know how terrifying it is having a book read you facts on ancient tombs?" Drago said seriously. She wasn't the one to yell unless in dire conditions. This wasn't really dire.

"You do know that it was a bad choice, right?" Mystic asked, her eyes still wide from the shock of Fanty's disappearing act.

"No offense of course, Fanty. We love you." Star said, patting her back.

Xion nodded, "But still, that magic may be basic, but it's insane he would give it to you."

Fanty sighed, her shoulders slumping in disappointment. She was having so much fun! And now she had to do the right thing and give it back...get rid of it...however you lose magic.

Loki nodded understandably, "I see. I clearly have misjudged Fanty. Perhaps I should reconsider this predicament."

"Dang it." Fanty sighed, hanging her head down low.

Xion and Angel hesitated, not liking to see Fanty's innocent pout. It was like watching a five year old be reprimanded, even if she was seventeen after all.

"It is done." Loki nodded after a moment's of silence.

"Wait, just like that?" Drago asked, raising her brows.

"Indeed so. Magic is both simple yet complicated." Loki said, giving Fanty a look with a hidden grin.

Fanty was confused for a second at why he looked so sly, but then she grinned. Though the girls thought she could no longer morph through walls and floors, do invisible stunts and make objects appear and talk, Fanty retained some bit of power left that Loki just wanted her to mess with.

"I feel like I just committed a crime letting you have some of that power." Loki said nonchalantly once all the girls left.

Fanty was jumping around the kitchen and happily singing, 'I've Got the Magic in Me', too busy to really hear Loki's comment. Loki merely chuckled and continued reading a Time magazine he found lying near the sofa, knowing there was not really a way to make Fanty calm down and realize that with magic comes responsibility.

Oh, why would he teach her that? He didn't know magical responsibility even if it was explained to him by his own mother.

Maybe magical responsibility should be learned….because the following week was a living nightmare.

#crossover fanfic #crossover fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfics #this gif is me rn

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icanhearyouglaring · 7 years ago

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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.”

#young justice #artemis crock #wally west #spitfire #my writing #titw

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