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New Year’s Eve was in the middle of Wally's list of favorite holidays. It didn’t mean much when he didn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, and he stayed up past midnight on a daily basis so it wasn’t special, but it was an excuse to hang out with friends and eat a massive amount of food. So for the most part, it was just a normal day that happened to start the year over. A little better than usual but not much.
This year, however? Had checked off pretty much everything important on his bucket list. Visit the Watchtower, check. Get to fight alongside the Justice League, check. Get to rescue the Justice League, which he thought would happen when he was about forty, check. Kiss a beautiful girl at New Year’s, check.
Get a date with Artemis, check- and if he wasn’t sure when that had made its way onto his bucket list, he wasn’t going to look into it too hard. She wasn’t even ‘next-best’ since Conner and M’gann were dating, she had somehow moved to first. He had started to daydream about what it would be like to sit across from her and watch her eyes sparkle with mirth and roll at one of his jokes while her gorgeous hair fell over her shoulders and they shared a pizza… okay, he had multiple daydreams. In detail.
So kissing her at New Year’s had been awesome, in pretty much every way.
He should have known it would backfire on him somehow.
“So… you and Artemis.” His uncle Barry said, in a voice that was anything but casual.
Wally stopped where he was cleaning up the counter and turned to face him. “Yeah.” He said, a little embarrassed but not enough to hide it. “What about it?”
“Nothing.” He said too quickly, and when Wally raised an eyebrow he sighed and finished. “Okay, yes, I’m a little… concerned.”
“You know Mom and Dad gave me the talk already, right? You don’t have to-”
“Not that.” But he looked no less uncomfortable. “Do you… know her civilian identity?”
Ah. This. He should have expected it, in retrospect, just… not so soon. Not a day after they saved the world and everything seemed awesome and Artemis kept smiling at him in a way she didn’t at anyone else.
Wally crossed his arms. “You mean that her mom’s Huntress and her dad’s Sportsmaster and her sister’s Cheshire? Yeah, I know. She told us. I don’t care.”
Barry looked relieved for the first time, and breathed out heavily. “Oh thank god. I thought this was going to be really awkward.”
Still is, Wally thought, because he felt suspiciously backed against the wall. His uncle wasn’t laughing it off. There was more. “What, that’s it? You just thought I might want to know who she was before I went on a date with her and not before we were on a team together for months?”
Barry looked at him sideways, then shrugged. “When you put it like that, I guess it sounds weird. I just... trusted Bats when he said it was need-to-know.”
“But… you don’t anymore?” Wally said, trying to figure out his angle- and found it abruptly enough he backed up. “Uh-uh. No. You know Roy was the mole, right? Or, clone-Roy. Not Artemis.”
“It doesn’t mean he was alone.” Barry said with odd gentleness. “Don’t get your back up, kid, I’m just concerned about you. I just want to keep you safe.”
“And you did a great job of that when Vandal Savage was in control!” Wally retorted. He was near-spitting, now, and his uncle looked concerned, but he didn’t care.
What he remembered was Artemis sighing in the control room, resignation all over her face and in her body, and how it seemed like it was taking something out of her. Her vibrant, passionate energy, which in its absence he found he had come to rely on because it was the only one that resonated with his own. The bite in her eyes, not angry but signifying a war she was always fighting with herself and the world, and when it disappeared it felt like a crucial piece of her had slipped. He loved the way she walked and talked like she was challenging everything else, he had realized in the heartbeat it had disappeared, because it was how she survived, and he loved that she believed in herself enough to fight for everything she wanted and made her own path through hardship. It was courageous. It was admirable. It was beautiful.
And this family that his uncle was referencing like it defined her was the thing that took a chunk out of her armor. She had told them the truth with a voice that trembled and looking anywhere but them, but she had done it anyways because she was through running. And that was a whole other level of courage, and he had loved her for it right then, before they even kissed, with a ferocity that took his breath away.
“Artemis,” he said with deliberate slowness, facing his uncle down, “is not a traitor.”
Barry looked at him a second, like he was figuring out if he was overreacting or really meant it, and then sighed out heavily and rubbed the back of his neck. “If you’re sure.” He said, but didn’t sound completely convinced. “But just to let you know, the rest of the League isn’t convinced. Part of it’s just… we’re all feeling a little paranoid, after the mind-control. So… I don’t know. If you could keep an eye on her-“
“She’s not a traitor, Uncle Barry-“
“I believe you.” He said, and this time sounded like he actually might. “But if you could make sure she doesn’t do anything suspicious for a little while until they settle down and think straight, I’d feel better. We'd all feel better. Can you do that for me, Wally?”
Wally looked at him, straight in the eyes. “You’re asking me to spy on my girlfriend for you.” He said- and when Barry looked at him in surprise, he realized the word had just slipped out, and it might have been a little presumptive. But it felt so right.
“Just for a little bit.” Barry said. “We’re asking Robin and Aqualad to do the same with Superboy and Miss Martian. Just until we’re sure. Please? You’d be helping her.”
And Wally could see no way out but to agree.
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New Year’s Eve was one of Artemis’ least favorite holidays- right up there with Christmas, which made that entire stretch of time a living nightmare. Christmas and New Year’s were for families, whole families, complete families, and they were a time of celebration and hope and giving. Not exactly things she had in abundance while she was growing up. She hated all the warmth and all the gifts and all the love when her family was so empty of it.
This year, though: not bad. Getting her greatest secret off her chest and not being kicked out of her new family for it, was great. Getting to be an actual hero and save the Justice League, was great.
And kissing Wally... which had also been great. Which was, actually, the icing on the cake, and the thing she couldn't stop thinking about. Somehow, when she wasn’t looking, he had made the transition from annoying to endearing to… important to her. Very, very important to her. And on the Watchtower- overlooking the Earth, the vastness of space all around them, millions of beautiful stars and a breathtaking view of home- he had picked her up at midnight and looked at her and nowhere else. Like there was nowhere else he should have been looking, and it warmed her heart in a way she had forgotten. And he’d said not exactly what she had always daydreamed about before her first kiss with him, just I should have done this a long time ago, and it was the right thing. She had no idea how somebody so dorky and quick to blurt out stupid things could always find the right things to say to her when it counted most. It was endearing.
It- He- made her feel special, and important, maybe more than she ever had.
She had to know her family had one more thing up their sleeve before they let her be happy.
“So I hear you hooked up with Flash Kid.” Jade said in way of greeting when she opened the door to her room, and Artemis resisted the urge to grab for a weapon or brace herself for attack. It was instinct if she did it at all, and a bad one at that. When Jade wanted to hurt her, she didn’t introduce herself. So this was just another way to catch her off guard, establish who was in control, figure out what was going through her head.
Since the conversation was about Wally, though, Artemis felt both a little more in control and a little more cautious.
“I’d ask where you heard that, but I doubt you’d tell me.” She said, shrugging her arrows off onto the floor. It had only been a day; she doubted most of the League knew yet, much less the bad guys. They had much bigger things on their minds. Maybe she should, too, but right now she was still at 'I kissed Wally'. Even now, in front of Jade in the dark of her room, she had to resist the urge to put a hand to her lips and bring the memory back.
“You are simply adorable, baby sis.” Jade stood up from her shadowy spot at the corner of the room; her voice said it was mockery, and so did the look on her face. “Are you going to go all domestic on us? Go on dates with your superhero boyfriend and pretend we don’t exist?”
“’You’ don’t exist.” Artemis snapped, hands on her hips. “’You’, when it refers to you and Dad, don’t matter. So save your breath.”
Jade’s head cocked. “So defensive, Artemis.” She cooed, her voice low like she was working at getting information out of her, and Artemis’ entire body went rigid when she took a step forward and to the side. “How do you know I’m not happy for you and don’t know how to show it?”
“If you were happy for me,” Artemis said, aware her voice had dropped to a whisper, too, “You wouldn’t be here.”
“Ah, but you’re so guarded about him. You’re waiting for something to go wrong.” Jade’s lips lifted into a Cheshire grin. “You said he knows the truth about us, about you, but he doesn’t, does he? He doesn’t know what you’re trained in. What you've done, before you were in the hero game.”
This isn’t working, Artemis told herself, fiercely, but it felt like every nerve ending in her body was firing on overdrive. She knew she wasn’t shaking, not quite, not yet, but inside she was so, so, so scared.
Because her sister was right, the way she always was. Knowing who her family was didn’t compare to knowing who she was and what they had taught her to do. She had never really gotten over that time they had amnesia in Bialya, when there was a moment of calm and Wally had turned to her and said casually, “So what was that part about you killing me?” It had felt like all the breath had left her lungs at once and her brain had short-circuited and it was all she could do to mumble an excuse about a TV show. Wally had clearly barely believed her but she had steered them into an argument and it had dropped.
She was still waiting for him to, maybe on their first date, maybe later, put that off statement and her real family together and realize. She thought of the look on his face. Of his disappointment, so much more vivid and cutting than the rest of the world put together, the one that would kill her.
And then she thought more clearly of how he had looked when he found out the truth about her family: proud. He had been, amazingly, proud, and understanding, a hand on her shoulder just to show that he was there and a smile that said he didn’t care where she came from. Only who she was, and while she had lived in fear of someone finding that out too, there was a lingering hope that maybe, when he did he wouldn't care.
“He knows.” She lied, hoping her voice was strong.
Jade snickered under her breath and opened the door. “And yet,” she said, tone lilting like this was a great game, “If I were you I’d keep a close eye on him. When he figures it out, you have a matter of days.”
“I don’t do anything for you.” Artemis retorted. “And I definitely don’t spy on my new boyfriend for you.”
“Not for me.” Jade said, putting a hand on her shoulder before she slipped out to see their mother and act like this had never happened. “For you. Believe me, you need it. You can't trust even him to love you that blindly.”
And when she left, even though Artemis wanted to with all her being, she couldn’t really say she was wrong.
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Wally’s secret lasted for about two days.
“The Justice League is still suspicious of you.” He blurted out over pizza in downtown Happy Harbor, and then immediately felt like smacking himself. Yeah, that was subtle. That was what everyone said on a first date with a gorgeous girl, who was currently looking at him with equal parts amusement and annoyance. It was a good look for her. She wore it pretty much the entire time they were together, so he would know.
Her eyebrow arched. “I know.” She said, and it sounded like she actually did. “They’d have to be stupid not to. Roy can’t exactly be trusted to be right when he says he worked alone.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Wally shifted and squeezed his eyes shut. Please don’t let her take this wrong. “My uncle talked to me. When he found out we were… doing this. He wanted me to keep an eye on you for him and Bats.”
There was nothing but silence from the other side of the table, but when he dared open his eyes it was just because she was munching on a piece of pizza. “I’m assuming he wanted you to be more discreet than letting me know before anything’s been decided.” She said. “You kind of suck at this spying thing.”
An out. She was giving him an out, and he took it and laughed and picked up another piece. “Yeah.” He admitted. “It was stupid. I told him as much, but if I didn’t I figured they’d just ask someone else.”
“Pretty sure they did.” Artemis said, and her head tilted. Some of the annoyance faded and was replaced with something softer than amusement. Something warm, and that feeling of God I’m in deep rose inside him again and it was the best thing. “So. What do you think of me?”
“I think you’re freakishly observant and going to be impossible to keep secrets from going forward.” Wally said promptly. “And also that you’re not a mole. Which you already know.”
Artemis’ smile widened, and she took a huge bite of pizza and grabbed for the last piece before he could. “And also not going to let you get away with anything. So mark that on your list. Want to get ice cream after this?”
I love you. Wally thought, but this time he had the presence of mind to cover up the urge to blurt it out by chugging his soda until it passed.
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Artemis’ secret lasted for six months.
“Wally.” She said carefully, quietly, from where she was curled up into his side on the couch in the cave. The credits for the movie were rolling in front of them, giving names for roles like ‘ninja #2’ and ‘shogun’s daughter’, and it was stupid but Bialya and the memory had chafed in her mind for the first time in almost a year and she was done worrying. “Do you remember when you said the Justice League asked you to spy on me?”
Since she had her hand on his arm, she felt when he tensed- just for a second. A reflex. “Yes?” He said just as carefully. “Um, but that was a long time ago, so…”
“So it’s resolved, I know.” Artemis said firmly, and took a deep breath and stared at the names of the people who did the makeup and ran the cameras but didn’t read them. She couldn’t look at him or she would lose her nerve. “I just… there are still things you don’t know about me. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” He repeated, and she felt him shrug. “But I've told you before, I'm fine with that. If you want to talk I’ll listen, but if you don’t, I’ll wait. You know that.”
Artemis bit her lip against a smile that didn’t feel right for the situation. This was why she loved him. Because he understood her so much it felt like he was reading her mind, and he didn’t care about what he found. Sometimes she even thought he liked it. She was still getting used to that. “I’m not a traitor.” She said quietly. “You don’t have to worry about finding that out. But right after we… you know, on New Years, my sister came to see me.”
His muscles tightened again, this time for a bit longer.
“What about?”
“You.” Artemis said, and now there was a lump in her throat. “Said I’d better watch you closely, because eventually you’d figure out that I wasn’t worth it and you’d turn on me.”
“Turn on you?” Wally demanded, and suddenly she was held tight in his arms, his head in the crook of her neck, and she felt both fragile enough to crack and protected from the entire world. "You're kidding. And you... believed her?"
“Yeah." She admitted quietly, taking comfort in his breath on her neck. "Because… I’ve done bad things, Wally, and…”
“And I don’t care.” He said, firmly, in that voice that booked no argument. “Artemis, there is literally nothing that could make me… leave you, or turn on you, or anything like that. Nothing at all.” A pause. “I think, at this point, even being a traitor. Although that’s not a challenge!” He added hastily.
Artemis laughed again, feeling light. Light and so in love with him it was stupid. Suck it, Jade, she thought fiercely, and took a deep breath. I trust him.
“Well, in that case, when I was nine…”
And Wally just listened, just as she had known he would.