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“Hold still, Artemis.”
She’s been squirming since the night claimed the sidewalks outside, shadows casted by the ember glow of the streetlights flickering back into existence. And she keeps checking the clock after that. It was just about 6:16PM, but she’s felt ridiculous since the early morning sun forced her back under her sheets for another five minutes.
“You look amazing,” she hears her mother drawl, and she knows she’s admiring her handy work, head resting thoughtfully on a hand propped up on the armrest of her wheelchair. She’d been humming a tune (something foreign and entrancing, almost like a memory) the entire afternoon as she made herself busy trying to get her prepared for this one night.
The glass stained clip in her hair was the final piece, and when she dares herself to actually look in the mirror, there was only one question she could think of asking herself.
Will he like this?
It’s absolutely stupid. She wants to hit herself for even thinking it, but she refrains for her mother’s sake. She at least wanted to make it to the venue with every single curl still intact.
“Mom, I—“
She has no time to complete a thought because the buzzer is going off and she’s pretty sure her heart stopped working. She’s too young to be having a heart attack. What arm had to go numb? She forgets in her panic as her chest constricts and the breath she’s holding starts to bubble for a release.
She breathes.
And she can hear the creaking of her mother’s wheels as she’s approaching the intercom. She hadn’t even told her she was getting the door. Or maybe her mother did while she was checking to make sure she still had a pulse.
Her heels click as she walks over to the door of her room. She presses her ear to the door just in time to hear knuckles tapping. The click of the knob, the warm exchanges, his warm and familiar vibrato—
This was actually a thing now. When did this become a thing?
“Artemis, your date is here!” And the mirth in her mother’s voice almost makes her consider locking her door and never coming out.
But things were really different now. They were different. They were saving the day. They were meeting each other’s parents for the first time. They were kissing each other way past any curfew his mother tried to set on a school night with no crime to worry about. They were being caught giving each other looks across the living room at the cave and listening to Zatanna squeal at the prospect of having another couple to go on a double date with. And their first summer together was perfectly long and just them. But he was always late and the sun had made it just a tiny bit harder to count the appropriate speckle of freckles that dotted his cheeks and the tip of his nose. But she could only ever do that if he ever let her just stare at him for longer than a second before he decided (and she did too) that making out was definitely a lot more productive.
Then the seasons changed, and his shoulders got a lot broader, stronger. And carrying her, running with her through desserts and jungles and snow and rain was just their thing. It was always their thing. It was becoming a routine. They were having a routine. He would just show up at their door now like it was no big deal. And he would greet her mother the same way every time. He thought tea was weird, but he would never decline a cup because she had told him how important that really was. They were getting comfortab—
“Artemis! Your date is here!”
She peels her ear away from the door, eyes fixating themselves on a poster she would never consider taking down.
“Artemis! You are going to be late!”
She turns her head to the door, grasping for the knob. It turns easily with a click and she’s shuffling her way into the living room. She spots him as easily as she always does with a bright smile and rudely red hair. He looks great in his suit. Really great. He hasn’t even noticed that she’s entered the room. He’s just keeping his mouth busy with a conversation he was having with her mother until she clears her throat.
“Here,” she says finally. She probably could have said a number of more meaningful things, but that was what she settled on. No other words wanted to come out anyway, not with the way she was holding the inside of her cheek with her teeth.
He turns in her direction. He doesn’t say a thing. Well, she thinks he tries to say something because he kind of just stares wide eyed and slack jawed for a second before her mother announces that she’s going to grab the disposable camera she brought from her room.
She makes it to his side just as he decides his arms still work. He’s shoving a plastic box at her with one hand. She looks down at the corsage, a white rose dotted with some baby’s breath. He grabs it back, fumbling it opening with nervous fingers. The elastic band is stretched over his hand as he takes hers in his. He slips it on with no fuss, but he doesn’t dare let go of her hand. His thumb slides over her knuckles once, and a dopey looks draws itself on his face.
“Hi,” he finally says.
“Hi,” she humors him back.
He shakes some sense into himself, allowing his free hand to scratch the back of his head.
“I totally meant to say you look great. You look really great among other things,” he says with a smile.
They don’t say anything for a long minute, but she was okay with not saying much as long as he didn’t let her go.
“We’re not usually this…”
“Ridiculous about these things?” he finishes for her.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
She’s really happy that her mother is taking this long to find the camera, whether that is intentional or not she would worry about later. She was kind of too dumbstruck with the way he was raising her hand to his level, placing a simple kiss over her bare knuckles.
“You’re being horribly gross,” she laughs, and she must be dimpling on top of it all.
“I think the proper term is charming,” he corrects with a waggle of his brows.
She pulls her hand away from his, settling it instead on her hip as she rolls her eyes. Her mother comes rolling in, her hands easing the turning wheels to a stop in front of them.
“Just a few, please?” her mother asks eagerly.
“Fine, mom,” she fails to object, “but only a few.”
It was a few and a few extra. Wally had insisted on some with his own camera. He also promised he would share some with M’gann and maybe Zatanna and maybe every other female who visited the cave on a regular basis. But he made no list. He just insisted it was necessary.
The whole session leaves them bleary eyed in the hallway of her apartment complex. They’d said their goodbyes, and she was still seeing spots before her eyes as she carefully pulled up her dress to descend the stairs (she refused to take the elevator).
“So, we’re gonna do this like we practiced right?” he asks almost unsure of himself when they make it to the first floor.
“Wally, it’s just dancing. I think we’ll be fine. We could probably just have a decent time sitting at the table the entire night.” He misses her hand, grabbing at her wrist instead to halt her from leaving through the main door. He pulls her close to him, hands on her hips like they were always meant to be there.
“We are not sitting at any table unless it’s to eat,” he says as her hands settle on his shoulders.
He sways and she lets out a sigh as she lets him lead. “Wally, there’s no music.”
He makes a face at her. “If you keep up with the snarky comments I’m gonna try spinning you when we get there.”
“Anything, but that.”
“Look at me.”
There’s not much that she can do except oblige him. Under that intensity, green eyes looking straight into her and knowing her, there’s really no room for objection when he takes her hand.
They’re already across the floor, eight quick strides right into the center of swelling music and swollen hearts. She’s not sure if it suits them, but there’s little she can do about that when his hand finds her hip.
“You’re a little too comfortable with this,” she murmurs against the wave of strings that are plucked along the chorus.
She moves with his command—laughable really because no one could or would command her—hips rolling in a torturous reminder of who was really leading this evening.
His teeth would probably be poking through, gleaming now with a grin so sure of himself and of what they were doing, but instead he’s forcing her to turn with him. He’s just as straight as her, giving little away of why they were here to begin with. So he makes it easy for the both of them as his feet flow through a legato of steps that weave them through the crowd.
“And you aren’t,” he responds while straining his wrist to pull her flush against him, the deep evergreen layers of her cocktail dress settling softly at the back of her thighs.
She feels the way his hand tightens around hers as they glide to the left, legs matched, eyes still locked. It’s not like he’s perfect at this. He hesitates at times. His footing is just a little off and heavy. But any of these miniscule details mean nothing with his strong posture, the hold he has on her, and the way they melt into the sweet serenade of piano and strings steadily conducting their rhythm.
“If you’re trying to say this is bothering me, that you’re getting under my skin, then you’re wrong,” she responds coolly. She wouldn’t let him get the best of her. She was above that.
His hands weren’t.
He pulls her arm up; his free hand easing into her shoulder blade and pressing her forward into a short spin that forces her back to face him. She turns her head to the side, catching the sight of his hands sliding down the length of her hips.
Lower. Lower.
Her eyes widen and the saxophone cuts at just the right time to muffle the gasp on her lips as she halts his descent with calloused fingers. They clutch at his, familiar and warm over his. And even if she can’t hear the steady tremble of his laughter, it’s moving through her and blending terribly with the band that’s playing.
He dips his head low, his chin barely grazing the top of her shoulder. She can hear him clearly, feel the way he articulates each and every word. “Did I win yet?”
She crosses her legs, spinning tightly until she is facing him directly. She hopes that her eyes are screaming murder, that the tinge of scarlet coloring her cheeks wasn’t mistaken for anything else, but fury. One hand finds his tie, her other settling just at the inside of his neck as her leg hitches up for him to grab. She watches his brows furrow as her thumb and two first fingers find skin, curls of sunset hair at the back of his neck. His hands are still supporting her as she leans in carefully, choreographed.
“This isn’t a game, Wally. It’s a mission. And you’re getting too close,” she whispers as she lets the grip around his tie slacken, the black material sliding past his fingers as the music dulls into some simple melody that chases a few couples off the dance floor.
He’s still holding onto her leg, fingers intentionally hiking her skirt up her thigh until her hands are deft at batting his hands away. “You can’t do that.”
“Technicality,” he says with a roll of his eyes, “Dumb technicality.”
She plucks his hand away, lowering her leg back down to the ground without losing the neutrality on her face. They were putting on an act after all, and even if she was ready to run as far as humanly possible away from him, she was aware of what they needed to accomplish tonight. Any past, anything they had was being ignored.
His hand makes a move, trying to push back sun soaked locks away from her face, but it stops in his own realization. He can only make a sour face now and narrow his eyes as his hands desperately wish for pockets to shove themselves into. He has no such luck with the tailored suit they stuck him in (thankfully).
“Wally, ending our relationship wasn’t a dumb technicality,” she eagerly corrects, “It was necessary.”
He’s stiff when she makes an effort to loop her arm through his, but she does her best to make them seem as natural and lovingly close as she will allow. She closes the distance between them, shoulders touching, head slightly inclined towards his as they make their way to the main staircase.
She watches the clench in his jaw release and the drawn out look on his face settle into something that she wants to say is alarm. But there was never time to label things, not with him. He releases her, and before she can even question his actions he’s turned to her, hands holding either side of her face and kissing her as fiercely as she remembered a summer ago in Palo Alto. Her eyes snap shut. The thudding of her heart drowning out any lacey bridges being played on the piano or saxophone squeals that kiss the top of her spine to only riddle her body with deserving shivers. But his kiss wasn’t helping her feel any of these things less intensely.
He pulls away first, resting his head on her forehead. And even though she’s on the verge of a vicious growl, he’s stroking her jaw with his thumb.
“I still think it’s dumb,” he says while flicking his gaze back to where it was before he ruined everything forever.
“Wally,” she hisses, “That better have been necessary.”
He’s tense, deep green eyes darting left to right before looking intently back at her. Maybe he wants to apologize about this, or even the millions of things he couldn’t exactly do right to save their relationship to begin with. But he doesn’t. He just offers his arm once more, and the stupid thing about it all was that she took it. She trusted him.
“Dick was trying to pass on a message while there were enough guards posted here to start another World War. Any suspicious looks could have blown our cover,” he finally insists when they are further from the crowd gathered by the entrance.
She quirks a brow at him, loaded with questions and high alerts for dangerous topics. “And kissing me helped make us look less suspicious?”
He scratches idly at his cheek, but she can see the blush creeping up his neck and around his cheeks. He seems to nod furiously in agreement after a moment of thought.
“Yeah, let’s go with that one.”
“Wally!” she warns.
He grabs her by her elbow, dragging her away from a pair of guards at the foot of the stairs. “Honestly, Artemis, you aren’t exactly making this whole thing easy.”
She jerks her arm away, taking quick strides towards their agreed position by the pillar on the north end of the hall. She only throws her head back once to look at him before he decided to finally match her pace.
“What part exactly?” she starts as soon as he’s within range, “This mission or our non-existent relationship?”
He doesn’t say a word as the explosions go off one by one. It was their signal, and she could see it burning and billowing from the window that just shattered on cue. The licking flames from the window illuminate the room, drawing a halo of ending summer days around his head. And in that instant she remembers. She remembers why she was keeping her distance and why her throat suddenly grew so dry. There were things worth not reliving if she could help it.
“Both. Always both.” And he’s blazing away without her.
“Artemis.” There shouldn’t be a tremble in his voice, but there is.
“Fuck you.” Her vulgarity is only getting worse every time they try to reach out to her.
“Artemis.” But this time it’s more soothing, like water heading down stream.
“Don’t you start, Kaldur. Don’t either of you dare say anything because it’s not true,” she declares as the fire continues roaring behind them.
She’s been backing away from them ever since they arrived and she had asked about a familiar smiling boy who went as fast as sound.
“Artemis, he was carrying the bomb. M’gann isn’t picking up anything from the explosion. He’s—“
“Shut up!” she cries, wrenching the material of her mask away from her face without a single care.
Dick has her by the shoulders, trying to bring back some grip of reality that she was refusing to cling on to. “I know this is hard. Do you think I’m taking it we—“
“Wally!!” It’s shrill, but most importantly it drowns him out. It drowns them all out and cleans up the ash from the sky and brings her back to a summer day out on his backyard lying on a hammock. Red hair that was windblown and eye lashes thick with sleep from a nap they both decided was okay to take. They’d earned it. Another wail rips through her as her knees buckle.
“Artemis.” She hates her name more than anything right now. “Oh, Artemis.” But she can’t even bring herself to tell Zatanna to leave her be.
She scrubs at her face, trying hard not to scratch and tear at the skin there.
“I hate him. I hate him so much,” she finally says when his green eyes aren’t so clear anymore with closed eyes, when the rage of black clouds and ripping flames don’t look anything like the way he would run and love it.
“I guess I love you too…” It sounds strained. It sounds like the cruelest joke in the world.
The soothing rock of Zatanna’s hand rubbing back and forth along her spine stops. “Oh, God…”
Looking up could do a lot. It could mess her up beyond repair. It could disappoint. But everyone is moving except for her now. She can hear boots shifting through the gravel as they pick up into a run. And it doesn’t feel like the sky is falling anymore, even when she swipes at her face with soot stained arms.
It’s clear. The moon is still prominent in the sky, but she can see clearly. She can see the team gathered around a bewildered boy with tufts of singed scarlet hair, and boots as bold as the sun. She picks herself up, the palms of her hands supporting her, lifting her up from the ground. It takes her a minute to find her legs; they stumble a bit when she tries to move forward. Steady. No rush. There’s a purpose though.
She’s pushing past some of them while others move away. And he looks like absolute crap once she’s really gotten a good look at him. He might have broken a rib or something. And he’ll need a new suit if he ever wants to try anything so stupid again.
“Babe! I’m—“ Her fist finds his cheek with a snap so loud that it echoes painfully throughout the clearing. “Ow! What the hell!?”
“You know exactly what that was for,” she spits out, “You better be happy I don’t do anything worse.”
He’s rubbing at his jaw with his good hand and he softens immediately. He pulls his hand away, throwing his arm out like a beckon call, fingers wriggling with encouragement.
“Come ‘ere,” he says easily.
She doesn’t move at first. She just stares at him like the blast had scrambled his brain. And without meaning to she chokes on a sob, launches herself until he’s steadying her on her feet. She’s not crying. She’s relieved. Her senses are alert and she’s holding onto him past every wince. Her hands sink into his hair even though it’s much more difficult now to comb through with her fingers. And they stumble back and forth uninterrupted until they’ve weaved a figure eight into the dirt twice.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he keeps repeating against her temple.
She didn’t like what he did to her. She didn’t like how dangerous it was to love him and how fast she’d allowed herself to be overwhelmed by him.
She has the decency to break up with him a week after.
“And you ran all the way here.”
She rolls her shoulders forward, and the wall is up between them immediately. “Yeah, I did.”
He settles a gloved hand on the back of the bench she’s occupying, the lightest of chuckles escaping him and painting the rest of the horizon in front of them a deeper shade of red and dewy pink. In an instant he sounds closer, he sounds like he’s just a breath away from her ear, from her.
“It wasn’t a question, more of a ‘you ran all the way here even though you know I can outrun you in your sleep’. Honestly, Artemis, what gives?”
“I don’t like any of this. I don’t like us.” She thinks he should be offended by that, but he just walks around until he’s sitting beside her.
“You’re pretty despicable, so I can see where you’re coming from,” he jests.
She thrusts her elbow straight into his ribs until he’s laughing through a surprised gasp.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“I think you earned it though.”
She turns to him, rattled with confusion.
“I’m not sure why you always want to make things harder than they need to be. We’re good you know. Whatever weird force is out there in this crazy universe, it’s keeping us together. And I can’t tell it to stop. I don’t think there’s enough physics here to stop it.”
His flannel shirt catches the wind, and his eyes somehow look richer even when the sky was being selfish and making the green harder to see. He rests a hand on her bare shoulder, and when he’s not shot down he etches something with dancing fingers into her skin. It could have been a number or forever.
She liked forever.
She didn’t think pancakes could get her back into his bed or wrapped up in his sheets in nothing but her underwear. Wally was kind of a miracle worker in that way.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and they have to open the window to his apartment because it’s not theirs yet or rather it was too warm. It was too soon for anything else.
He rolls over and he’s nuzzling and he’s whispering the same kind of things he did back when they were sixteen and way too dumb for her liking.
They’ve been together and apart and then she almost lost him and they were apart again and they would come back together so easily without a single apology and then he was gone. He was really gone and it was cold for months.
He comes back. He says something so corny, something about always running back to her wherever he was, and she wanted to gag. And maybe it wasn’t so easy picking up the pieces that time around. Maybe his dumb theory of forever was finally going to be disproven. But their hands come together and they’re swaying the same way that they always did.
Except now he’s pressing a kiss to her shoulder blade. All those deep thoughts and mumbled memories that sneak into her head after hours are washing away in favor of his careful ministrations, the tickle he leaves across her navel.
If you leave again I’m going to kill you.
Then I guess I’ll have to borrow another one of your lives.