After nearly a year living with the team, Conner Kent was starting to get the hang of acting like a normal teenager. It helped that he had a lot of teenage sitcoms to study, and the Boy of Steel stumbled upon an interesting idea to try with the rest of the team.
"Conner? What are you doing?" Wally asked, zipping up beside him and peering at the Boy of Steel's work.
Superboy looked up at Wally, then back to the tub of Vaseline he was holding. "Greasing Artemis's doorknob," he said.
The speedster's eyes lip up. "Not a bad prank, for a first-timer." He snatched the Vaseline away and then bent down on his knees so he was eye-level with the doorknob. "Did you put it on the whole doorknob, or just the turny part?"
Wiping his hands on his cargo pants, Conner replied, "All of it." The sound of footsteps caught his attention; he looked up and spotted Artemis rounding the corner, coming fresh from archery practice with her bow in her hands and quiver in her arms. Superboy didn't alert Wally to this.
"No, you missed a spot right here." Wally dabbed his fingers in the Vaseline, filled in the spot, and screwed the top back on the tub. "There you go. Nice and professional."
"Wally Freaking West." Artemis's voice was always loud, but especially when she was leaning down behind you and very, very irritated. "What. Are. You. Doing?" The bow poked into Wally's back, and the teenager turned bright red.
The speedster whirled around, getting back to his feet in the process, and came face-to-face with a very irritated Artemis. He immediately took a few steps backward, out of the poking range of Artemis's arrows. "Well, beautiful—"
Artemis looked first at the Vaseline Wally was holding (he hid it behind his back a tad too late) and then at her door. "Did you just grease my doorknob?"
"No! Conner was doing it, I just stopped to talk to him!" Wally protested, looking at Conner for support.
Conner didn't give any support; just glared at him. "Oh, sure. Blame the alien clone." The corners of his mouth twitched up in a grin, but he quickly stopped that. He had never flat-out lied to a teammate before, and didn't expect Artemis to believe it, really. Still, there was no use giving up if he had a chance.
"What—dude!" Wally protested. "Look, Artemis, I swear he did it—"
"Then why did I just see you greasing my doorknob?" Artemis snapped. She actually thought Wally had done it—it was all Conner could do to keep a straight face.
"When?" Wally snapped, spreading his arms out in supplication.
Artemis tightened her grip on her bow and rested one hand on her hip, eyes narrowed. "Just a second ago!"
"But—but—I was just fixing it!" Wally's eyes widened, every freckle standing out on his bright red face. "Conner, man, c'mon. Back me up."
Conner shook his head and turned away, ignoring Wally's protesting sputter. "You're on your own." Do not laugh. Do not laugh.
He had barely gone two steps before he heard the twang of a bowstring, followed by a dull thud—an arrow hitting the wall.
"It is soon," Artemis hissed.
Conner grinned. He had planned on starting a prank war between himself and Artemis, but the Boy of Steel suspected this war would be a lot more entertaining.
"What the hell?"
At first, Conner wasn't sure if only his super hearing let him pick up Wally's voice, but judging by the others' reactions, the exclamation had been loud enough to carry through Mount Justice. Everyone turned in the direction of the cry; everyone, that is, but Artemis. A smug, catlike grin spread over her face, the only reaction she had.
Robin looked at Artemis and then back at the direction of Wally's room. "I'm gonna go see what's wrong…" The thirteen-year-old stood up, and everyone else quickly followed, though M'gann was already giggling.
"What did she do?" Conner asked his girlfriend, but she just shook her head and hid her face behind her hand.
They reached the speedster's room and found Wally outside, a disgusted look on his face. "Wally, what is the matter?" Kaldur asked.
Making a gesture like he was throwing something at his room, Wally said, "Just see for yourself." The Atlantean stepped inside, followed closely by the rest.
There were panties. Everywhere. Threaded through lampshades, stuffed into pillowcases, strewn over the floor, hanging in long chains from the ceiling. Pairs were stretched over the ceiling lights, turning the room different colors. Every character on Wally's posters had a pair taped either over their head or over their pants. The deluxe Kid Flash plushie in one corner had on a pair that was bright blue and featured small red hearts. They were every color of the rainbow, lacey, plain, hipsters, boy shorts, granny panties—basically, it looked like the lingerie section had exploded right in the middle of Wally's room.
"Hey, look!" Robin said, grinning broadly. "Wanna play hopscotch?" He demonstrated, too, leaping neatly from one pair to the next. This was entirely too much for M'gann, and she collapsed on the floor, cracking up, her laughter affecting everyone else. Kaldur chuckled; Conner laughed; Robin did a handstand and landed on his back on purpose, laughing.
Artemis just leaned against the wall, grinning.
"I will get you back for this!" Wally called, his face bright red.
Artemis winked. "You can try."
It had been three days since the Panty Invasion, and Wally still hadn't tried anything. Three days was a while for the speedster to wait, and Conner wasn't exactly patient himself; he was thinking about pulling another prank, just to help it along. Artemis was getting antsy, too, running off to check her room every five minutes and tracking Wally whenever he was in the same space as her.
Probably this was exactly Wally's intention: to throw the archer into a panic. Whatever the motivation, the prank was, in Conner's opinion, well worth the wait.
It was the middle of the day, just after school usually ended. M'gann and Conner arrived first, since they went to Happy Harbor High; Robin and Artemis were the third to show up, right after Kaldur. "Is Wally here?" the archer demanded nearly as soon as she materialized from the zeta beam tube.
M'gann assured her that he wasn't, and Artemis relaxed. "Thank goodness."
The thing was, Wally didn't show up for a while. Not by three-thirty. Not by four. By five, Robin had called Wally's mom, but she said he was headed back to Mount Justice the last time she heard. Wally didn't answer any of Robin's five texts, either. Finally, Wally waltzed into the living room from the direction of everyone's bedrooms, completely unannounced and with feathers stuck to his clothes, around five-thirty.
"Where have you been?" Robin asked, standing up to give his friend a high-five.
Wally grinned. "I had to take care of some business. Couldn't go through the zeta tubes without giving it all away."
Artemis's eyes abruptly widened, and she dashed out of the room; a few minutes later, a loud shriek echoed throughout Mount Justice. "Wally!"
Superboy wasn't sure—he had never heard an actual chicken before—but he was pretty sure that was clucking he heard from the direction of the girl's voice.
Wally snickered and walked with the team to the archer's room, although he noticeably fell back the closer they got. When the team was a few feet away, a brown chicken was booted out of the door, kicked by the sound of it. The bird hit the opposite wall with a squawk, then quickly righted itself as if trying to preserve its dignity. A moment later, Artemis followed it, feathers stuck to her jeans and combat boots. "Wally West, why are there ten—" she glanced at the one she had just kicked—"nine live chickens in my room?"
The speedster shrugged. "I guess they think it smells like home." With that, he pulled a pair of panties out of his pocket—bright blue with small red hearts—and flicked it, rubber-band style, at her face. "Good luck topping that one." He flashed her a grin and zipped away in a blur.
Artemis stared after him, livid. "Does anyone," she said from between clenched teeth, "know how to get chicken pee off of a bedspread?"
From there, everything only got worse.
First, there was the garbage in Wally's closet, a pile that collapsed on him when he tried to get out an extra suit. Then there were the laxatives in Artemis's sandwich. Then there was the itchy powder in Wally's underwear drawer. Then there was the dead fish in Artemis's locker. It went on for a month, and Conner, along with the rest of the team, was thoroughly entertained.
But all good things had to come to an end. This one did when Wally began yelling at Artemis for something (dyeing all his undershirts, socks, and underwear pink, Conner thought it was), and she yelled back, and all of a sudden they were making out on the couch.
Ah, great, Conner thought. They're going to do this slap-slap-kiss thing again.
He cleared his throat, and the two broke apart self-consciously. "Ah. I just thought I should say—I was the one who greased your doorknob." He grinned broadly at Artemis's dumbfounded look, waved a little, and turned around.
Wally grumbled, "I told you so."
Let me say one more time unless you didn't get it in the summary: this is complete crack, not to be taken seriously. I know Conner was OOC, but I think I didn't make him too OOC? I hope?
Anyway, the little bit of shipping at the end was thrown in for the hell of it. Also not to be taken seriously (although I do ship them).
Hope ya liked it, please R&R.