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I think I like her. No, I don’t think I like her at all. I’m clearly losing my mind. She’s the bane of my existence. She’s Artemis and she’s a little too close for comfort right now. Help!
They’re in a utility closet.
She’d dragged him into the utility closet much to his displeasure, or pleasure. His brain was really drawing a blank on that matter.
She bumps into him in the dark. He thinks it was her arm, or something. And now his palms are sweaty and he thinks he’s probably just as read as his hair now. Thank god it’s dark. He doesn’t need this. He just wants to get out of here because his heart is going to do that dumb thing where it races uncontrollably and he’s not sure how loud it will get or if she’d be able to hear it echoing against his ribcage.
“We can leave once the coast is clear. You couldn’t just be a little stealthier, could you?” she berates him.
He becomes super defensive at that. “Whoa, don’t start pinning this one on me! If you would have been careful and noticed the guy ready to slice your hand off I wouldn’t have even had to run down there in the first place!”
“I should thank you for that, except now the entire facility knows we’re lurking around here somewhere. And M’gann’s out of range too. Perfect,” she mutters, and he can suddenly feel more of her weight on him.
“Um, what are you doing?” he asks, arms going rigid when she’s pressing into his shoulder with one hand, and he can feel her face close to his. And he knows if she just turned enough to face him that he could probably feel her breath whisper on his upper lip.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she reacts suddenly as she sways back and forth against him.
“Um, do you really want to know?” he questions back.
There’s a sudden pause, a deafening silence before a dim light flickers on and a spot on his arm begins to smart, throbbing painfully for a few beats.
“Ew, gross!”
“Ow! Was that necessary?” He can see a cord looped around her hand raised above her head. “Oh!”
“Yeah oh,” she mimics harshly. “God, sometimes I wonder about you,” she said before looking away and pulling something from her side.
He waits patiently, rubbing at the soreness in his arm. His gaze moves from the door to her face without meaning to and he’s kind of struck by her (not physically). Like there was something he couldn’t pin point exactly that made his throat kind of clench pathetically. She was doing something to him with the way her eyelids fell softly, how calm and even her breathing was, the swell of her lips, the way he kind of wondered what it would be like if he leaned a little closer, felt her hair between his fingers…
It’s dark again. His hand is gripping the cord like his life depends on it.
“What the!?”
“Guess the bulb blew! What a shame!” he answers back in a hurry.
His breaths are coming in sharper, faster like he’d just run across the country. And he’s absolutely 100% sure that she’s hearing his unevenness, the flutter of his entire being in this cramped space.
He can feel her edging closer, feel her hand creep itself up the length of his arm until it was settled on his shoulder. He gulped when she finally spoke.
“Look, I know I haven’t exactly acted like a saint towards you, but claustrophobia isn’t a joke. Everything is going to be fine, so just breathe okay?” she says calmly.
He chokes back a laugh, and he can feel her tremble a little against him when he does. He drops his head onto her shoulder in relief.
“Thanks, I think.”
“You shouldn’t be moving.”
“Pfft, when did you become my doctor, Kid…K-Kid Loser!”
“Wow, you must be really out of it if that was all you could come up with. I’ve definitely been called worse, but I’ll give you an A for effort.”
“Oh, shut u-ACHOO!” There’s a weak grumble, a wheeze and she’s gripping the wall for support in an instant.
“You need to go back to bed.”
“You need to lay off! You aren’t my guardian!” she bites back.
“Actually I was appointed as such probably around the same time that M’gann made me in charge of bringing you chicken noodle soup. And I’m pretty sure her orders were to stay in bed? Are you trying to get her upset?” Wally asks while carefully moving forward with the hot bowl in hand. “Seriously, as much as I love to prove you wrong, you really need the rest. You don’t look so good.”
Her breathing is a little labored, and he knows this is the worst of it at least. She was the last of them to catch it and the fact that she was standing (barely) on her own didn’t sit well with him. He makes his way towards her, and nudges his shoulder into hers.
“What are you doing?” she asks pasts her stormy grey eyes.
“Use me as support, I’m gonna bring you back to your room obviously.”
There’s something that he reads momentarily in her face, the way it pinches in annoyance and then again in pain. Whatever defiant comeback she was going to lash out on him with is lost the moment she caves in and falls into his shoulder. The movement almost makes the bowl in his hand tip over, but he moves the bowl and saucer beneath his other hand and away from her so that he can wrap his arm around her back.
“Whoa, there,” he says, waiting patiently for her to right herself against him. “You okay enough to walk forward?”
She nods her head without a sound before taking her first step with him. They’re slow a majority of the way, and she nearly falls at least three times. But slow is okay. He can do slow for her. He can catch her and lift her up.
“Come on, we’re almost there,” he encourages just as they make it to her room at the cave.
They manage to get the door to slide open, and he’s glad that her desk is just at the entrance. He pushes the warm bowl away from his hands, on to the desk before getting a better grip on her. She groans a little at the movement, and her legs finally give in, hands loosening their hold on him.
“Hey, now. I gotcha.”
He doesn’t ever remember moving this fast for anything else other than his mother or some promise of food, but he does and he’s got her cradled with little effort. He keeps her back nestled in one arm as he lifts under her knees, and he’s carrying her across the room to the bed settled in the furthest corner from the door. Her head goes limp against his shoulder, and the warmth radiating from her forehead onto his skin has him nervous.
He lays her to rest on her mattress, pulling up the comforters to cover her. She only comes to when he drops his weight onto the mattress.
“Wally?”
“Still here,” he answers surely.
“I’m not hungry,” she says simply, moving her head to the side.
“Well, lucky for you, I am what you refer to as a human garbage disposal. And I’m at your service.”
He pats her knee just as he thinks to stand, but he’s caught something unique and thrilling at the corner of his eye. She’s smiling. Freely. Warmly. And it makes her glow. It makes her radiant even with her horribly red nose and chattering skin.
He wants her to get better. And he reasons that it’s because he kind of misses her attention, misses the snide remarks she’d make on missions, misses the way her nostrils would flare when he’d do something dumb. He was noticed. He was acknowledged. He was needed. And she was to blame.
But he can’t just tell her. He can’t just accept this horrible thing that she’s making him feel for her. So he just settles with standing, walking over to the cooled bowl of soup made with love and care.
“Maybe if we were on different terms, I’d try to kiss it all better,” he smirks. But it’s something he honestly wants even if he can’t admit it out loud. “The soup is delicious by the way!”
She smiles and he tries not to lose his grip on his spoon.
The wind is good. The wind makes him feel free. But she makes him feel weightless.
Her head is tucked into his shoulder, and all he can think of doing is just running with her. He doesn’t even care where. He just knows he wants to. He wants to do a lot with her. Wants to shout her name at the top of his lungs and have them burn as hot as the desert.
The feeling has been lingering since he found her in the shack a few hours ago. And it seems that their luck keeps getting worse every time their found out and fired at. But he keeps moving with her, in a tandem that he’s oddly familiar with. It’s comfortable here.
The latest explosion cracks so loud in his ear, and he’s not sure if the hearing loss is permanent or temporary. The ringing in his ears is just about to drive him mad. But then she’s pressing a hand at the back of his neck, holding on to him like her life depended on it. And he forgets.
He can’t remember a complaint. All he can remember is whipping blonde hair and the way he had gotten comfortable racing across a path of soft sand that seemed just about endless.
But for whatever reason it seems like everything he could ever possibly need is here. He’s satisfied. He could be satisfied with just her name alone. He forgets to care about other things like how they got here, how he found her or why her father had an interest in killing him.
Why should petty things like that matter? They certainly don’t. Not with lips so full.
“Wally? What are you doi—“
Wally turns his head sharply, almost stumbling forward into a heap of limbs over the couch into Artemis’ lap. His face screws up into something panic stricken, easing a single finger to his lips to spew out a shhh that knocks Dick into a confused silence.
They stay like that for a few seconds just to be safe, neither moving an inch when Artemis decides to shift into a more comfortable spot on the couch. Her face is set to a remarkable haze of confusion for the third time he’s allowed to witness it in a single day. She scrunches her nose and groans pleasantly—it sounds pleasant to him—as she follows the same pattern of movement. She rocks from one side to the other and nuzzles her chin into her arms to block out as much of the artificial light in the living room as possible. The movement leaves her hair messy, all long with a few flyaways sticking out in every which way on the top of her head. Her hair catches the light and that makes it kind of look like she’s wearing chrysanthemums in her hair. It’s an observation. It’s not a compliment. But he’s decided to keep that thought in a set of notes only meant for himself somewhere in the deep chasm of his mind.
She’s been on the team for little less than two weeks, and she’s the very thorn in his side. A thought that he’s been trying to convince himself of, to lose himself in. It makes the embarrassment of their first meeting more tolerable. If he hated her enough everything would be infinitely better.
It’s almost like Dick had never even entered the living room at all. At least Wally makes him feel that way as he returns his intense stare on Artemis’ unprotected form that stops moving, fingers loosening from the locked fist she sported only a few minutes ago. Wally only truly acknowledges him again when he feels a sharp elbow in his side. And there’s probably a glare thrown at him too for good measure, hidden behind clean lenses that reflect his image back at him. All he sees is a knowing smirk though, and that could mean anything from a Dick Grayson point of view.
“Dude!” Wally hisses quietly.
“Sorry that I’m not sorry, but it was necessary. Had to try and unearth you from that quicksand of a romantic stare you’ve been giving to sleeping beauty over here,” Dick says quietly with a hike of his thumb in Artemis’ direction.
“Romantic stare? You’re joking right?” The look on Dick’s face doesn’t falter. “Absolutely not! No way, no how!”
Wally then remembers to use his inside voice, clapping his hand over his mouth after letting Dick rile him up like that. The cackle he hears is low enough not to cause a disturbance, but it still has all the annoying weight it usually carries with it.
“Not cool, dude,” Wally warns as he pulls his hand away. “I am totally not checking her out. I’m gathering information.”
Dick folds his arms, head tilting to the side. “Riiiight. And gathering information involves staring at her while she’s sleeping? Sounds more creepy than anything else if you ask me.”
“Shut up! It’s not like that. I’ve been observing for any evil characteristics,” he blurts out.
“And what have you concluded so far?” Dick questions smugly.
Wally narrows his eyes, hand finding Dick’s shoulder and effectively encouraging his swift departure with a few nudges forward. “How about you leave now, so I can figure that out?”
He’s gone. With a tumultuous cackle, he’s gone and left Wally to his own devices. He swipes through his bright hair once, dropping his hand to his side when he’s effectively gotten past that point of frustration. Not taking any more of his time, he turns his head back to the couch and allows himself to come a little bit closer than he had allowed himself previously. He’s directly in front of her, the back of the couch no longer a barrier between them. And somehow between the time Dick barged in and left she’d moved. Her back was to the couch, face towards him and hair just about everywhere. She didn’t look as hard as she did when he first shook hands with her a few nights ago, and he gathers that she must be constantly tense because the crinkle around her eyes is dissolved into soft skin. He imagines it’s soft at least (Okay, maybe this was a little creepy).
Her face looks different, almost at ease like sleep was her only escape from whatever it was that made her so unforgiving in her wake. No walls are up. Her defenses were completely down. She seemed human. And that was probably the point where he realized this was a bad idea. That he should just back away and leave her here to slumber.
He makes the mistake of sighing, of lingering a little longer to note the way her hair spills over the armrest and how it would probably ripple and pile up neatly if it made it that far down to the floor. He tries to leave then, but she doesn’t let him. Her hand catches his, fingers fumbling over his own at his side. And he thinks he’s about to die. He’ll die from shock first, which didn’t really give her enough time to do her worst. He shuts his eyes tight, and listens to the pounding lump of an organ in his chest. All the while he’s in a panic, thinks he’s been caught, and thinks it’s been a really swell time being a part of this team, but she’s just finding a firmer grip on his hand, making the hold firmer. And she’s mumbling something that he can’t readily understand. It sounds like lemonade, but who was he to say.
He looks down instantly, and he’s met with a look so frightened, brows knotted together. Was her hand trembling?But she’s a sleep and gripping on to some type of reality wherever her mind had wondered. Reality of course being his hand, and the panic sets in again. All he can think about is making her let go because as soon as she wakes up…
He focuses his eyes on her fingers and how they wrap around his. And it kind of feels right? He’s not even entirely sure what he’s thinking. He shouldn’t be thinking anything of this level about her. His free hand hovers over the lock of her own on his. Delicate. Be delicate, Wall-man. Pretend this is one of those electrophoresis gels, buddy. Steady.
“Will you stay?” He freezes just as he was about to pluck a single finger of hers free. Okay, so she didn’t say lemonade.
He freezes uncomfortably. And he feels like just about the worst kind of jerk in the world for being here, for listening, for wanting to leave her question unaddressed.
“Please?” she mutters softly, tugging shamelessly on his hand.
He gulps down any uncertainty and awkwardness, fingers back to work at loosening her hold on him. He’s not really making any progress, and the more he looks at her the more he’s ready to budge and just give her this simple request. He was doomed anyway.
He licks his lips, closing his eyes before breathing evenly. “Sure. I’ll stay.”
She doesn’t say a word as her hand falls away from his. And he kind of regrets saying anything at all.