Words: 16,893 (holy shit)
Disclaimer: I don't have the chops to come up with something as great as "Request Spoiler, Comment No," so Greg can keep his job.
Notes: Wow, I have a boat loads to say before y'all can actually start reading this but I'll try to keep it short. Firstly, my hugest, biggest apologies for making everyone wait so long but hey, I'm not perfect, I don't know how to keep track of time, I can't force myself to squeeze out the good stuff at my level of writing, and I do have school to attend. But better late than never? Secondly, as with every single other piece of art and literature, this has its good sides and it has its bad sides. I've learned a lot in the process of writing the entirety of All Nighters and for that, I am so grateful. Thirdly, I wrote this in a span of literally five months, from August all the way down to the last day of December, and in little spurts, so that's probably the best explanation as to why there are good parts and bad parts. Fourthly, I want to thank the enthusiastic reviewers and followers and favorite-ers (haha, I don't know, bear with me) for, well, having faith in this story and for enjoying it so much. I honestly did not expect such fabulous support. This has kind of been like a stupid little side project I worked on whenever I didn't want to deal with real life and I couldn't take it seriously even though it really does mean so much to me. Man, you guys are the greatest fandom.

Finally, a whopping, rocking Happy New Year to everyone! This fandom and show is the greatest thing that happened to me this year, I'm not lying, Young Justice is literally 83.4% of who I am now, so thank you, everyone. The show comes back in only four days and I. am. so. pumped! Now, without further ado, go ahead and please try and enjoy the final installment of All Nighters!

exams.

Mount Justice
June 1, 19:21 EDT

One more.

One more exam, just one more exam until Artemis is finished with math forever.

Well, okay, maybe not forever, but at least she'll be done with any and every kind of advanced mathematics for the rest of high school, and that's pretty much been her goal for the past five months. The only thing in the way of her summer vacation is this exam and if she passes it, then she's a free bird.

Of course, she still has to pass it. And now that she thinks of it, passing an exam with this much information and content might be a problem. She's flipping through the review packet Mr. Norris gave the class last week that's an inch and a half thick. Artemis's anxiety doubles with each page she meets and by the end of it all, she thinks she's damn well ready to explode.

"No. No way can I study for this on my own!" she exclaims out loud, shaking the offending packet in the air infuriatingly.

"KF, Artemis is talking to herself again!" a young voice calls out from the kitchen. Artemis turns to glare at Robin through the kitchen window. The thirteen year old snickers and continues to scrub the next dish gleefully. It's his turn to wash the dishes after today's Team Dinner.

Kaldur has made it a point time and time again that the purpose of Friday Team Dinners are so that the team can work on their "team building" skills. He thinks that socially interacting with each other over M'gann's and Zatanna's admittedly delicious salads and pastas will improve the team's chemistry, ultimately improving their performances while on jobs. She's not going to tell him, but Artemis thinks that Friday Team Dinner is just yet another affair in which she has to constantly berate Wally and make sure he doesn't say something infinitely rude or overly suggestive to any of the other females on the team. Despite its surplus of laughs and fantastic dishes, Team Dinners haven't been anything particularly special other than a chance to eat with the entire team in one place.

In any case, the Cave's resident speedster and the fastest boy alive suddenly zips into the living room and skids to a stop behind the couch that Artemis is occupying. He's greeted with the sight of the archer sitting cross-legged on the couch looking reasonably ragged and piqued. She doesn't have her hair down and holds it up in a messy bun so Wally confirms that she's not yet in her prime studying zone. He's noticed that she keeps her hair down when she's one hundred percent focused and clearly, right now, she's completely out of it. He leans over the back of the couch and peers over Artemis's shoulder.

"What is it now, harpy?" he asks happily, obviously taking some form of satisfaction in Artemis's current haggard condition. She turns her head to face him and since he's basically hovering right next to her shoulder, there are only a few inches that separate the two teens' faces.

"There is no way I can study all of this –" she whips the packet up and shakes it angrily between their faces, "– on my own!"

"Wow, someone needs a serious break," Wally mutters.

"I don't need a break!" Artemis almost shrieks. "I need to ace this test! I need this A! I need - I need a stable mind, or for someone to rewrite my life, or - or a punching bag, or –"

"That's it!"

"What?" Artemis snaps, irked at Wally's interruption.

"You're absolutely right," he says, "you need a punching bag."

"Oh!" Artemis exclaims sarcastically as if she's made the same realisation. She widens her eyes and her mouth and drags out the O but after a split second, transforms her facial expressions so that she's staring at Wally blankly and fixing him an unamused look.

"Are you volunteering?" she asks flatly. Wally rolls his eyes in response.

"You wish," he retorts, "Nope! I'll be your trainer tonight."

Artemis's eyebrows gather in the middle and she throws him this exasperated look but Wally's excited now about whatever it is he's conjured up in his crazy mind.

"No no no, you'll love this idea," he says enthusiastically. He suddenly clambers over the couch, making Artemis yelp a little, and grabs all the study material out of her hands and stuffs it into the shoulder bag at her feet. He slings her bag on his shoulder and stands, holding a hand out to her.

"Well?" he asks impatiently. Artemis looks at his hand and then looks up at Wally.

"You aren't going to get any real studying done like this!" he exclaims, gesturing to all of her. Artemis narrows her eyes and folds her arms.

"C'mon, Artemis," Wally grins confidently, "Just trust me."

Just trust him, the idiot says. Trust is a tricky and touchy subject, especially for Artemis. Barely a year has she known the boy and he expects her to trust him? Her, a trained heroine raised by some of the world's most wanted and deadly ex-cons and villains (though the team knows that now and still accepts her wholeheartedly, thank God)? Really?

She wants to tell him that she doesn't trust just anyone, least of all a clumsy fool of a speedster, but she wonders if that's even true. In a flash, she sees him smiling at her miles above the earth in the Watchtower back in January after the team had relieved the Justice League of the alien tech that had been imprisoning them. She sees their amnesiac selves holding hands as they both dodge a raging and rabid Superboy back in Bialya last September. She sees him during December missions where he'd constantly watch her back and ram into her sister, Cheshire, on countless occasions just so she'd remain unscratched and unharmed.

Finally, Artemis sees Wally standing next to her in the Cave after she's just done the hardest thing she's ever had to do in her life – reveal the truth about her family. She can feel the weight of his arm on her shoulder as a solid and physical representation of the unearthed trust that she thought he'd lost in her and the undying faith that he'd had in her the whole time.

She sees all of this in the blink of an eye and thinks again. Just trust me. Can she do that?

Yes, Artemis thinks as she rolls her eyes and takes Wally's hand. She most certainly can.

So Wally pulls her up and within a minute, the duo's departure is announced by the voiceover. Back in the kitchen, Robin doesn't hide the smirk that's plastered on his face as he finishes up his chore and places the last dish on the rack.

"It's about time," he mutters to himself, congratulating his best friend silently.

The Waffle House, Illinois
June 1, 19:34 EDT

"Where… exactly are we again?" Artemis asks Wally hesitantly as they settle into a booth in the restaurant.

"A little South of Illinois," he replies.

"Illinois?!" Artemis exclaims, "We're halfway across the country?"

"Almost?" Wally confirms uncertainly, smiling lopsidedly. He's used to this kind of travel and has visited just about all of the states in the entire country, save for Hawaii and Alaska.

"Wow," is all Artemis can say before a petite, brunette woman walks up to their table with a small notepad in hand.

"Evening, dollface, what'll it be tonight?" she asks Wally in an over-exaggerated Southern drawl. He smiles cheekily at her as if they're both in on some little ongoing joke and Artemis can't help but watch the two suspiciously as they swap greetings. She clears her throat and the woman turns to her, the crinkle in her eyes disappearing immediately along with the smile on her rosy lips.

"Who's the lucky lady, Wallace?" she sneers. Artemis scrutinises the woman with slitted eyes and Wally covers up a laugh with a few coughs before responding.

"This is my friend, Artemis. She, uh, she goes to my school," Wally says, lying easily through his teeth. Artemis's gaze flickers at him but only for a nanosecond, and she turns back to resume her staring contest with the woman, who purses her lips.

"You didn't tell me you had a new squeeze," she says. Wally's eyes widen and Artemis raises an eyebrow.

"Wh-what, n-no, it's not - we're on the same team - the same track and field team!" he sputters. The brunette grunts and breaks her gaze with Artemis, who gladly turns to make eye contact with the table or her shoes or maybe the dark recesses of a cardboard box.

"I thought track teams didn't recruit just any random broad or is that what athletics are like these days?" the waitress has the nerve to say and Artemis scoffs out loud.

"Who do you think you –" she starts to say but the little lady is just as sharp-tongued and interrupts her coolly with, "I'll bring you the usual, Wallace."

"Make that two," Wally calls from behind his hands, which have smothered his face. When he uncovers his face and places his hands gently on the table, Artemis is thankfully looking away from him, but she is glaring. She's fixated on the spot the waitress was just at, as if staring at it long enough would magically teleport the woman back there so Artemis could give her a piece of her mind. Wally opens his mouth to say something but Artemis beats him to it.

"Who exactly was that?" she says brusquely. Wally laughs almost embarrassedly and sticks a hand behind his neck, a familiar action.

"That's Opal," he says. "She's kind of…" he pauses, looking out the window next to their table, "she's kind of really old-fashioned," he explains.

"Is she always like that?" Artemis growls but Wally's only grins helplessly.

"Yeah, basically. She's great with men and guys and she gives them all the time of the day but when it comes to the next person who doesn't happen to have a Y-chromosome, she's harsh and overly judgemental."

"Hmph. I'll say," Artemis mutters.

"But she makes the best waffles in the country," Wally adds, hoping to placate the archer, "Besides. I think she likes you." Artemis looks at Wally skeptically.

"Please, it felt like she wanted to fry me up to serve with her waffles. Burnt and extra crispy!" Artemis exclaims, wringing her hands in the air to illustrate her distress.

"Hey, be glad she didn't call you a chippy. A broad is pretty good in her books," Wally says. Artemis frowns.

"What the hell is a chippy?" she asks exhaustedly.

"A whore," Wally answers and Artemis flinches, "and that's what Opal calls just about every girl she meets. So trust me, Blondie, 'broad' is good."

"I don't need her approval. I didn't ask for it," Artemis glares again at the spot Opal had previously occupied next to their table. Wally shrugs.

"She likes giving it."

"Wait, does that mean you bring other girls here?" Artemis suddenly wonders, squinting at Wally. He recognises the look on her face as the same one back in Bialya when she, still affected by the amnesia, had wondered how Kid Flash and gender-swapped Martian Manhunter knew each other. Wally's first impulse is to protest and assure her that nah, him? Bring girls into restaurants when they'd sooner run away from him? No way, not even in his dreams.

But Wally catches himself at the last moment and instead asks cockily, "Why? You jealous?"

Artemis scoffs, "More like sorry for any poor souls that have to hang out with you!"

"You're hanging out with me," Wally points out, "and willingly, I might add."

"Funny, because I am regretting that decision with every passing second," Artemis tells him through gritted teeth. Wally grins mischievously and leans across the table.

"One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi –" he counts playfully and with flaring eyes, Artemis throws her hands up in the air, slumping in her seat to back away from him.

"You are infuriating!" she cries out, and Wally leans back in his chair, snickering.

"And you're a harpy who needed to get out of a cave," Wally throws back, crossing his arms.

"The only thing I need to do is ace my math exam," Artemis sneers, planting her hands on the table.

"I know," Wally says slowly as if he's waiting for her to catch up to him. That pisses Artemis off a little.

"And I'm going to help you, but exams are different and they're a longer process," he continues.

"I thought you said you were going to trust me," he says nonchalantly, eyes snapping to the walkway next to their table, spotting Opal approaching with their dishes.

"And I thought you were actually going to hold a punching bag for me," Artemis retaliates.

"Good things come to those who wait, Miss Thing," Wally chants happily as Opal sets down in front of them two towers of hot waffles piled one on top of the other, both doused in maple syrup, grunts, and saunters away. Artemis sneers at the woman's retreating form before turning back to her table.

"We'll beat after we eat, alright?" Wally offers jokingly, immediately digging into his syrupy tower of delight. Artemis peers at Wally incredulously over her stacked waffles.

"Am I supposed to finish this?" she asks, gesturing to her impossible dish.

"Well," Wally answers through a mouthful of waffles, "you didn't really eat that much during Team Dinner," he points out.

"I did too eat!" Artemis protests, spearing a waffle with her fork.

"Like what?" Wally retaliates, swallowing his excessive forkful of waffles, "Half a plate of pasta and a glass of water? You call that dinner?"

"I was… busy," Artemis grumbles and she shoves a piece of waffle in her mouth so she won't have a reason to respond. Unfortunately, that little piece of waffle is like a slice of heaven in her mouth and she didn't expect it at all so she coughs a little to try and suppress her surprise. Wally grins at her smugly but doesn't say a thing, choosing to maintain the conversation.

"You pulled a Wally for math, Artemis," he tells her. When she frowns in confusion, he downs his glass of water and explains, "Speedsters eat and run all the time, but between all the speedsters, I'm the best at it. So the other speedsters call it 'pulling a Wally' when someone eats and runs." Artemis rolls her eyes.

"Ask the Flash!" Wally protests.

"I can't believe you're comparing me to you," she says dully between bites of waffle. Wally pretends to look offended.

"You should be honoured! To be a speedster is…" he pauses for effect and looks to the distance like a total idiot, "a noble opportunity all on its own." Artemis tilts an eyebrow upwards, unimpressed.

"Lay off the Game of Thrones, Wally. It does not do you well," she adds mockingly at the end in a clear and perfectly honed English accent. When he gives her this slightly stunned look, she chuckles and flicks a waffle crumb off of her fork towards him.

"Eat your waffles, you monster," she tells him, shaking her head and rolling her eyes simultaneously, "I want to go kick some ass, like you promised."

"As m'lady commands," Wally says with only a dash of sarcasm and a slight bow before digging back into his last few waffles. Artemis eyes him for a brief second, wondering how and why she keeps letting him breach her walls so effortlessly and what his trick is that makes loosening her up as easy as pulling a ribbon apart. No one's ever been able to unwind her so quickly and the thought makes Artemis queasy with a touch of fear as well as the presence of that annoyingly warm flutter in her stomach. She takes a deep breath and returns to her tower of waffles, which remains impossibly tall on her plate.

"Um, Wally?" she says. He looks up, having just finished his last waffle, and raises his eyebrows slightly in question.

"A little help?" she asks reluctantly, motioning to her waffles with her fork. A bright smile grows on Wally's face as he picks up his fork with a renewed hunger in his eyes.

"I thought you'd never ask," he says eagerly before reaching over to swipe some of her waffles.

New York City
June 1, 20:16 EDT

Wally decides that New York City is the best place to kick ass tonight. After inhaling the rest of Artemis's waffles, Wally stuffs some cash he pulls out of his pocket under his plate and motions for her to follow him. They barely make it out of The Waffle House because Wally has to restrain Artemis from attacking Opal when the woman mutters something akin to "good for nothing broad" before they leave.

Now they're on their individual motorcycles speeding through the streets of New York City, under the bedazzling lights of the towering skyscrapers, now clad in their respective hero outfits. Artemis is in the dark – almost black – forest green version of her usual outfit, bare abdomen exposed to the world in all its muscled glory, and Wally's fitted in a casual version of his typical spandex uniform. Like the outfit he wore for that one failed mission with Kaldur, Artemis and Roy against Sportsmaster and Cheshire in December, he wears black pants with red and yellow patched knees that are specialised to support his speed and help him maintain smoothness while he runs. He's got on a loose, normal black shirt under a maroon custom design biker's jacket with stripes of yellow on the cuffs, collar, and hemlines and his Kid Flash insignia on the back. To the average citizen, the normally flashy heroes look like a pair of teenaged vigilantes on their way to one hell of a smack down. And as a matter of fact, they wouldn't be too far off from the truth.

"You still think Opal likes me?" Artemis yells at him as they zoom along the road.

"She's just jealous," Wally yells back over the sound of their roaring motors.

"Of what?" Artemis demands.

"She's like my second-mom, alright? Or like an aunt or a really protective older sister or something," Wally sputters loudly, "She's just not very good with girls, okay?"

"Okay," Artemis replies sarcastically before she reaches over the side of her bike and with immense power, swings her bow towards something, the green furnished wood cracking against the head of a robber that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere.

"Woah!" Wally cries out, laughing at Artemis's eagerness to beat out her frustration.

"Keep up with me," she challenges playfully, already drawing an arrow from the quiver strapped to her back while keeping her bike moving in a straight line.

"Remember who you're talking to," Wally reminds her, sliding his goggles down to cover his eyes, adrenaline pumping through his veins in anticipation of the upcoming brawls.

The two do what they do best systematically and efficiently. Wally and Artemis both hardly utter sounds during their rampage of New York City's vermin except to call out pre-established tactics and exercises to use against their opposers and of course, to release war cries. It's a shame really that Kaldur isn't there to watch their pile of shared accomplishments accumulate in the form of good-for-nothing criminals. Wally thinks that, had Kaldur been here tonight, the Atlantean would have been convinced and impressed enough with him and Artemis that he'd stop worrying about the interaction between the fiery duo once and for all.

Actually, no, Wally thinks that's unlikely. Very unlikely. No matter what the team's leader has tried and will try in the near future, there is nothing on this God-given earth that will ever magically convince Artemis to just calm down and lay off Wally. He's pretty sure of that.

Nevertheless, no one is more surprised than the speedster himself when it's apparent that he and the archer are like the perfect chemical reaction when it comes to fighting. Similarly with her little math blocks during their all nighters, it's as if there was some sort of combat or teamwork block that has suddenly lifted tonight and the two are on fire.

Wally and Artemis are faced with at least one little battle every five blocks but neither has had as much righteous, ass-kicking fun as they're having right now. Wally's tempted to tell her that maybe they should just travel on foot because the bikes are hardly being used to their true potential when they have to stop every seven minutes and dismount anyway. At one point, Wally reluctantly sends his bike careening into a dark alleyway so he can swerve sharply on foot and trip a mugger who had just robbed an innocent lady of her purse. Wally gives the man no time to get back on his feet when he reaches down, grabs the guy's arms and with some effort, swings him in little circles before flinging him towards Artemis, who pretends they're playing baseball or something because she takes her bow and swings at the guy, the wood striking the man across his stomach, sending him flying back towards Wally, completely KO'd. The redhead assesses their work jokingly and nods his consent before they start off again to sniff out their next victim.

During another instance, Wally gets creative and runs around a small duo of burglars fast enough that the little tornado he creates actually levitates them at least eight feet off the ground. Wally throws a knowing grin towards Artemis, who's standing right outside the vortex, and though she can't see it, it's like she knows what he's thinking because he stops circling the burglars abruptly, allowing them to drop back to the earth and right into Artemis's waiting fists.

A little later, Wally yells at a slender masked figure in an alleyway who's just pulled a knife on some poor teenager who hasn't even gotten the chance to take his headphones off. The dark felon turns to Wally and Artemis and banks it, scrambling up the nearest fire escape in the alley. Wally snorts and dashes to the bottom of the fire escape.

"Manoeuvre seven," he tells Artemis casually as she jogs towards him. She nods and breaks into a run, using Wally's hands a springboard to execute a perfect leap towards the fifth floor (the crook climbs fast). At the peak of her jump, Artemis forces her legs into a spiral, sending a kick towards the culprit's head. The masked figure slumps against the stairs to the sixth floor and Artemis, retrieving handcuffs from God knows where, fetters their wrist to the railing of the fire escape. In all this time, Wally has told the petrified teenager with the headphones to scram and go home because his mother's probably worried sick looking for him.

An hour and a half into their vicious patrol, Wally has been demoted from a Fighter to a Preventer, or as Wally likes to think of it, a Good-Citizen-Who-Speeds-Other-Unfortunate-Citizens-Away-From-Danger-While-The-Archer-Does-All-The-Fun-Stuff. The only thing keeping him from saying something crass and butting into the duo's already efficient system is the constant reminder that tonight is not meant for him. Tonight is meant for Artemis to get rid of all her mathematical worries and, instead of taking her frustration out on him, she can multitask and channel all that hormonal rage into doing something useful and good, like drastically decreasing the crime rate in New York City, for one thing. Two birds, one stone. One very blonde, and exceptionally trained killer stone.

So when it just so happens that a pair of naive kids are running at least two blocks ahead of their parents and these two large thugs materialise out of nowhere and obviously mean to threaten the children, Wally doesn't mind that much when Artemis barks at him to "grab the little guys and I'll take care of the big guys!" He rushes in quickly before either creep can grab one of the kids, hoists a kid under each arm and zips them back to their stunned parents.

"Better keep these two close," Wally tells the shocked adults. The mothers gather their children in their arms and start jogging back quickly the way they were coming. The fathers thank Wally quietly, glance at the direction of the thugs and follow their wives briskly. When Wally's sure that the families have made decent time and are reasonably distanced from the scene, he turns towards Artemis and the two thugs. They're both facedown on the ground, groaning in pain and Artemis is sitting on top of one's back, studying one of her pointier arrows.

"Jeez, you didn't even let me do anything," Wally says out loud as he walks towards her. She grins unapologetically and accepts his offered hand to pull herself up.

The clock strikes a quarter to ten o'clock in the evening by the time the duo approach a mostly abandoned parking lot when they spot a couple backed up into the wall by three men dressed in dirty leather jackets and greasy brown pants. The jeering men don't seem to be armed but are all big enough to pose a threat to the couple. Wally and Artemis race each other on their motorcycles to get to the scene before anything severe can occur.

The bald man to the right snatches the woman's purse from her and the man she's with yells at the three men to back off. He ushers the woman behind him, trying to protect him with his own body, but the ruffians laugh again sinisterly and draw in closer to the couple. The tallest man raises his hand and from Artemis's position driving closer to the group, she can see that he's holding a short, thick wooden club, like the kind that belonged to a Neanderthal or someone who was under-evolved. Artemis sneers to herself, absolutely disgusted. Honestly, the kinds of thugs these days.

Before the hooligan can strike the man down, one of Artemis's steel-tipped arrows impales itself deep into the wood of the club, the force ripping the weapon from the man's grasp. All five civilians gasp in surprise and the three thugs whip around to locate the assaulter. When they recognise the arrow on Artemis's chest and catch a glimpse of the lightning bolt on the side of Wally's helmet, all three men blanch at the same time.

"Let's ditch this joint!" the third man, the group's leader, yells and dashes towards the parking lot's exit, his goons right behind him. They cover about six feet before Wally skids to a stop in front of them on his bike, blocking the way to their escape. Wally tilts his motorcycle, its engine still humming, and plants one foot on the ground. He rests an arm casually on his leg and smirks up at the small gang.

"Going somewhere?" he taunts. The man who had yelled to run growls and lunges to grab Wally but is thrown backwards when the speedster, fast as lightning and using his bike as a mount, launches a sweeping kick at the man's chest. Baldy and Caveman stagger backwards, at a loss of what to do now that their group had dwindled down in number, and finally turn around to run the other way. Wally grins and, now standing, leans back lazily on his bike, shutting off the engine. He watches as Baldy and Caveman help their leader back up onto his feet and run straight into Artemis.

"Evening, boys," she greets them almost pleasantly before immediately launching into a flurry of combos, all the while avoiding the thug's own attacks. She ducks under Baldy's sluggish punches and sweeps his feet out from under him. Rolling back onto her feet, she sidesteps an attack from Caveman, grabbing his arm in the process and, with a brutal growl, flips him onto his back. When she turns around, the trio's leader stands slightly curled after Wally's kick to his chest, but he holds a knife tightly in his left hand. Artemis eyes it for a second before letting out a small, amused sound. From the corner of her eye, Baldy has gotten back up on his feet and Caveman is shaking his head slightly to clear his focus. She's surrounded by all three, Knife Point standing just a few feet in front of her, Baldy a little to her left, and Caveman towering to her right. The only thing behind her are a few cars and the wall of the parking lot and she really has nowhere to go but Artemis has always loved a good throw-down.

She catches Wally's eye, and he raises an eyebrow challengingly – expectantly – from his position perched next to his bike. He knows he's in for a good show and she won't fail to deliver.

Notching an arrow in her bow, Artemis waits for the right moment. Knife Point's left hand twitches and he stutters forward, and that's when Artemis chooses to release the arrow, aiming it straight towards the floor. The smoke bomb installed in the arrow's tip explodes upon impact and envelops the atmosphere with a thick, grey fog. The gang yells out loud in indignation and thanks to her hawk-like, trained eyes, Artemis can make out the figures of Caveman and Baldy lunging towards her at the same time. She leaps high into the air and kicks out at the two men, her thick leather boots contacting their heads and sending them both skidding backwards in opposite directions. Baldy lies still, completely knocked out, but Caveman coughs through the smoke as he slides to a stop in front of Wally. Before Artemis drops back to the concrete floor, she spins one more time and knocks the knife out of Knife Point's hand.

While she's locked in fairly simple combat with Knife Point, dodging a few punches here and landing a few blows on him herself, Caveman groans and notices Wally, who looks down at him.

"Man, this chick is crazy," he tells Wally, still in a stunned daze. Wally grins back cheekily.

"It's finals week," he explains. Caveman's face melts into a look of understanding, "Ohh," he says, as if everything makes complete sense now. Wally nods before remembering who he's talking to. He frowns shortly and quickly leans over to kick Caveman across the face before the man can regain total consciousness, knocking him out completely. Wally looks towards Artemis in time to watch her flip the leader onto his back and bend down to deliver one last blow to his jaw, taking him out in the process. Wally whistles lowly and Artemis turns to him, panting slightly after having exerted enough physical energy to take out three grown men.

"Feel better?" Wally asks mischievously. Artemis snorts coolly and places her hands on her hips, eyeing her partner in crime.

"Maybe," she says, walking away from Wally momentarily to mount her motorcycle. As she starts her engine, Wally speaks up again and the playful tone of his voice obviously means to strike one of her chords. It almost works.

"Who would've known that your version of stress relief is literally beating a hundred bad guys late at night?" he teases her, revving his engine as well.

"Ha-ha. Just be glad it worked, Wall-man. We can actually start studying now," she says authoritatively but as she turns away, Wally catches her yawn lightly.

"If you can study in your sleep, you mean," he points out as they both pull out of the parking lot and ride back towards New York's Zeta Beam Transporter at a leisurely pace. She glares at him shortly in response.

"We're studying when we get back to the Cave, Baywatch," she reasserts firmly. "That was the whole point of this, wasn't it?"

"Sure, sure. But don't get mad at me if you fall asleep when we start revising trigonometry," Wally teases back, grinning when she visibly flinches and wrinkles her nose.

"Whatever, Wally. We're studying," she says with a tone of finality, though to Wally it sounds more like her stubbornness speaking. He laughs silently to himself and opens his mouth to make a comment but she beats him to it.

"In fact, I'll race you back to the Zeta Tubes. Last one back has to buy milkshakes after exams are over," she chirps and before Wally can do anything, she twists the handle of her bike, revs the engine and zooms away, quite literally leaving Wally behind to eat her dust. He coughs indignantly and stares at her rapidly departing figure before scoffing to himself.

"What part of Kid Flash doesn't make sense?" he mutters to himself as he makes a detour, parking his bike in an alleyway before getting off. He wastes no time in pulling his goggles over his eyes and, after making sure the coast is clear, harnesses his speed to follow (and inevitably beat) the archer.

Mount Justice
June 1, 22:04 EDT

"Face it, Artemis, I won! Fair and square!" Wally says, happily rubbing his victory into the girl's face. She aims a kick at his shin that he dances away from, laughing.

"You used your freaking powers, I don't see how that's fair!" she cries aggrievedly, stalking towards the locker rooms to change back into pajamas, civvies, or something more comfortable than her sweaty, dirt-ridden costume.

"As I recall, you're the one who had the head-start and didn't even warn me," Wally retaliates as he follows her into the locker room and detours over to the male's area. He can hear her scoff from the other side of the locker room and grins to himself.

"I am not buying you a milkshake when you cheated!" Artemis shouts through the wall of the female's side of the locker room at Wally. She tugs off her mask and throws it into her locker and starts to unstring her bow.

"Then will you just buy me a milkshake, period?" Wally asks playfully. When he gets no response, he stops unlacing his shoes and picks his head up. He's about to call her name curiously but stops when he hears her scoff lightly again. He can just picture her shaking her head, rolling her eyes and muttering under her breath. Grinning widely, Wally pulls off his jacket and stuffs it into his locker. He changes out of his pants and his dry-fit black shirt into a pair of loose jogging pants and a plain white t-shirt. As he places his helmet on top of the clothes piled haphazardly in his locker, he hears Artemis clear her throat from the doorway of the boy's locker room and shuts his locker to walk over to her.

"Make sure I get that A first. Then we'll see," she says, giving him a pointed look before turning on her heel and sauntering out the door.

She does saunter, Wally thinks. Or maybe it's just the way he tilts his head forward, and a little to the side, that makes it look like she's sauntering. Whatever she's doing, that walk of hers has him staring after her retreating figure and his eyes are raking down her ponytail's endless stream of golden hair, all the way down to that fine, pert –

– um.

Math. Right. Math.

Wally shakes his head to clear it of all inappropriate images of Artemis's rear end and follows the archer into the Cave's den. She collapses onto the sofa with a great, heaving sigh, shuts her eyes and scoots upwards so that the length of her body is taking up the entire sofa. Wally comes to stand in front of her and throws the archer a sneer, seeing that he's left with no room to sit. He rolls his eyes and excuses himself to make a well-deserved trip to the kitchen. He tells himself that it's well-deserved because he hasn't burned this many calories in such a short amount of time ever since that one sparring session with Black Canary back when Artemis was still working on logarithms. Except, another part of him – a small but incessantly loud part of him – says that it's well deserved because he didn't once try to make a move on Artemis the entire night, despite the fact that he really wanted to.

No, you don't understand. He really wanted to (still wants to, unfortunately). Especially whenever the golden-headed wonder showed each and every single hooligan in New York just what she was made of. Or when she'd grinned at him helplessly under a stack of waffles because she couldn't have finished half of that tower even if she gave it her best shot. Or after every smirk she'd thrown at him while they literally zoomed through Broadway, arrow after arrow, fist after fist, just the two of them. Kid Flash and Artemis, taking on the streets of New York.

This could be a thing, he thinks. Wally West and Artemis Crock and New York. Or it doesn't even have to be New York. It can be in Bali, Tokyo, Athens, Manila, Johannesburg, heck, he can run them anywhere in the world as long as it's the two of them against whoever has the guts to face them. It could totally be a thing, Wally thinks. And he thinks he wants it to be thing.

But does she?

He wrinkles his nose, and banishes the thoughts away, disappointed that he'd even consider the idea that the two of them could work out. In this universe? Oh, please.

Wally sighs and runs a hand over his face before quickly whipping up two batches of speedster chocolate for himself and for Artemis. He even adds a teaspoon of coffee into each of their cups, seeing as Artemis insists on staying up tonight to study for her math exam.

He's got some witty remark positioned on the tip of his tongue as he walks back to the den but before he gets a chance to use it, he stops in his tracks right next to the sofa that Artemis is occupying. The archer is out cold and snoring softly on the den's sofa. She's curled into herself in the time Wally's been in the kitchen and her head is tucked comfortably within the fluffy pillows M'gann and Zatanna handpicked from IKEA a few months ago. Somehow, she's pulled her ponytail lose before passing out so that layers of yellow blanket her shoulders and tumble down across her back. There's hardly any light in the den but somehow, her hair shimmers, like gold.

Wally feels a soft, lopsided smile quirk its way onto his lips before he can help himself and he places the two mugs of now-unneeded chocolate onto the table in front of the sofa. He rubs the back of his neck with his right hand, genuinely confused as to whether he should bring Artemis to her room or just bring a blanket out here. Would she rather sleep in her own bed and in the privacy of her own room, or would she not mind waking up to the sound of M'gann cooking breakfast in the morning? Is it normal for her to crash on the sofa like this all the time or is it just because it's exam week and she's running low on daily juice? Would she freak out if he carried her to her room and, you know, touched her, even if the action was executed with nothing but her interests in mind? He has no personal interest in touching her - his fingers aren't twitching to just sweep her off the couch - he's just being a gentlemen. …Duh.

In the end, Wally figures that it's probably safer to bring a blanket into the den instead of physically bringing the archer to her bedroom, if only to ensure his own safety. He rushes to her quarters and grabs the blanket off of her bed. When he skids back into the den, she's not moved at all – in fact, she looks twice as cozy the way she's laying on the sofa and Wally has to fight off a yawn himself. He drapes her comforter over the length of her figure and slowly, maybe a bit hesitantly, brushes some of her hair away from her cheek. Artemis lets out a small, unintentional sigh in her sleep and he wonders if she's dreaming. If she is, he hopes it's only about good things – lovely things.

He brings the two mugs of chocolate back into the kitchen, leaves them in the oven, and walks to his room as slowly as possible, musing over this entire situation to the best of his abilities. Images of Artemis come flooding into his head and he can hear her snarky comments, glinting eyes, and that challenging eyebrow that never seems to drop from its position high on her forehead whenever he's around. At the same time, he can see her peering at him uncertainly that one time he told her that she is good at math and it's all just objective; he can hear her sincerely commending his patience and his abilities to teach; but most of all, he sees the smirk - that stupid half-smile, complete with slightly parted lips, that goddamned crooked eyebrow, and a sparkle in the grey of her eyes - that she never gives Dick or Conner or Kaldur. She never pulls it out when Zatanna or M'gann are around and he's noticed that she only directs it at him, as if she saves it for him. He swears his heart swells to thrice its appropriate size at that thought and Wally has to pause in the hallway to get ahold of himself.

Goddamn it, you are falling for her, West.

Ooh, boy.

This can't be good.

Mount Justice
June 3, 15:23 EDT

"Robin, you are positive neither Min Ho or Thomas will die?" Kaldur asks from his position against the wall. Wally looks up from his Spanish homework and notices the book Kaldur holds in his hands. The Scorch Trials, it says on the front, and Wally grins. He knows the book - or the series, since it's the second book in a trilogy - heck, it's landed a spot on his top five favourite books of all time and for once, Dick completely agrees with him. He and Dick have been trying to get Kaldur to read the series but their leader had only succumbed to their prodding and poking (literally, and with the corners of hard-covered books) when he had finished The Hunger Games, which had been Dick's recommendation. (Honestly, though, Wally doesn't understand the appeal of that series.)

When he gets no response, Kaldur looks up from his page and directly at Dick, who's sunk deep into the side of the sofa next to Conner and M'gann, completely enraptured by whatever's on his Batphone. Wally rolls his eyes and snorts quietly. He picks up an eraser from the low table he and Artemis are occupying in front of the sofa and flings it at Dick's head. The eraser hits its mark and almost knocks Birdboy's shades off of his nose but Wally only snickers at his best pal.

"Dude!" Dick yelps, hurriedly fixing his sunglasses back onto his nose. Wally rolls his eyes again exasperatedly.

"If you were listening, bird brain, our leader here was addressing you," he informs Dick casually before returning to his Spanish conjugations.

The whole team's clocking some time inside the cave this Sunday. They've all got something to do for school for the entire day, well, all of them save for Kaldur and Dick, who's kind of a genius at Gotham Academy and doesn't need to study but still does and even when he does study, he finishes everything within two hours.

(But Wally can basically do the same so he's not jealous.)

(…Artemis is the jealous one.)

Kaldur doesn't attend school on the surface world so he keeps busy by trying to familiarise himself with the ways of the land-folk by listening to the radio, watching some TV here and there, and, more recently, reading books. Zatanna and M'gann try to feed him novels from the emotional and romantic genre but that hardly works when Wally and Dick are there to look out for a brother. They try and get him as many real books as possible – books with action and trauma and blood and actual badass main characters, like The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials and maybe Kaldur'll like the series enough to finish it off with The Death Cure. He liked The Book Thief well enough (it had been one of Wally's suggestions) and so far, he's liked everything that both Wally and Dick have been suggesting so at least M'gann and Zatanna aren't getting their paws all over Kaldur's poor, naïve Atlantean brain.

Kaldur and Dick are really the only anomalies in the picture. The rest of the team (excluding Zatanna, who's volunteering at an orphanage for the majority of the day, and Raquel, who's babysitting her cousin) is currently either doing homework or studying for exams. Conner's and M'gann's exams line up perfectly with Artemis's and the three of them will technically be done with school by the end of next week. Wally's exams, however, kick off the following week and he'll be the last one in the team to finish off school for the year. Needless to say, Dick laughed at him about it for a good three days when he found out.

"How're the quadratics going, Blondie?" Wally asks Artemis, leaning over her shoulder to inspect her work.

"Fine," she mutters as she factorizes one of the easier problems. She sounds downright miserable doing mathematics on a Saturday so Wally places his hand on her shoulder. She turns to him with a partially raised eyebrow (he hadn't expected anything less) and an impatient look in her eyes.

"One thing at a time. Alright?" Wally says encouragingly. The challenge in Artemis's eyes softens and she sighs, but she sticks her chin up, nods at him thankfully, and turns back towards her study guide.

Wally leans back onto his elbow and picks up his Spanish homework. He allows himself a proud little smile behind the papers, one that Artemis can't see, but one that Dick can easily spot from where he's sitting. The thirteen-year-old snorts and hurtles the eraser from earlier right back at his best pal. The eraser launches through Wally's Spanish papers before it pings off of his forehead, effectively pissing him off immediately.

"Dude! What's your damage!?" he cries, bringing the back of his hand up to rub his forehead. Dick snickers at Wally and shakes his head at him.

"Nothing really, Mr. West, I was just hoping you could help me with my trigonometry homework," Dick sings out loud mockingly and Wally blushes, eyes flickering to Artemis, whose pencil freezes above her notebook, a tinge of pink gracing her cheeks. Kaldur picks his head up from the contents of his book and allows himself a small, amused smile at Robin's teasing.

"Do you guys always study this loudly?" Conner complains from behind his textbook. Wally catches a smile on M'gann's features from the corner of his eye but the Martian doesn't look up from the chemistry textbook perched on her lap.

"I'm not studying. Don't really have to," Dick says cockily, placing his Batphone on his lap so he could lace his fingers together and rest his hands on the back of his head. He's leaning back against the pillows of the sofa that he, Conner and M'gann are occupying – the same sofa Artemis had slept on just two nights ago, Wally notes – and he looks far too comfortable on an exam weekend.

"Well, Boy Wonder, unlike you, some people still have to spend time re-studying everything they learned in class, so if you don't mind?" Artemis snaps, turning her head to glare at the boy. He beams at her cheekily but raises his hands in surrender and doesn't say anything.

"If I may interrupt," Kaldur suddenly says and everyone turns to the Atlantean expectantly, "I was wondering if, after all of your final exams, we could perhaps spend some time as a team next Friday?"

"Don't we spend enough time together as it is?" Dick jokes. Kaldur smiles and shakes his head.

"I was hoping to perform one of the surface world's customary favours – of which I've recently learned – and… treat you all to dinner." Now he's gotten everyone's attention and even Conner looks up from his textbook to stare at Kaldur with what could be called a questioning look.

"Uh, I don't want to make it seem like I'm complaining about food, of all things," Wally starts, "but… why? And with whose money? I mean, it's not like you have a job or anything." Artemis glares at Wally scoldingly and jabs him in the side with her elbow. He yelps out loud and looks at her reproachfully, rubbing the throbbing skin.

"Well, why not?" M'gann speaks up for the first time, "I mean, I know I'll be glad to have a little bit of a night out after a week of exams. I'd love to, Kaldur!" she agrees, beaming pleasantly at the Atlantean. He nods gratefully and opens his mouth again to respond, but Dick beats him to it.

"Yeah, sure, cool, I'm in, too, but what's the occasion, Kal?" he asks, clearly intrigued. Kaldur smiles to himself bashfully for a split second. He doesn't answer immediately and it's almost driving the rest of the team mad with curiosity.

"Next Friday happens to be my date of birth," he reveals to the team, and M'gann gasps.

"Whaaaat!" Wally exclaims, eyes gleaming in excitement.

"Kaldur!" Artemis adds in a slightly scolding tone. She chucks her eraser at the Atlantean, who catches it easily, fully aware that her light abuse is her unhinged way of showering him with love.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Artemis asks in partial disbelief, turning her shoulders to face Kaldur.

"I had not thought it would matter… this much," Kaldur tries to explain, clearly not expecting such a reaction from his teammates.

"Are you kidding me?" Wally cuts in, "Birthdays are huge! I am so in!" The rest of the team nods (Conner shrugs) and Kaldur beams at them, albeit a bit timidly.

"Then… it is settled. Perhaps we could all meet here at the Cave before night falls and we can all choose a restaurant together," he says, breaking into Team Captain mode and discussing their entire plan of attack already.

"Whatever you decide, we'll be okay with it, Birthday Boy," Wally laughs, interrupting their leader. Kaldur nods gratefully at Wally and returns to his book, a content and relaxed aura washing his presence. Everyone falls back into a comfortable silence and returns to what they were all previously doing when Conner picks his head up from his chemistry textbook again.

"So, does this mean I have to get you a present?"

Mount Justice, Seaside
June 3, 18:39 EDT

Wally's editing his English essay on his laptop and sliding his bare feet back and forth on the soft, golden sand that covers the Happy Harbor beach. He hits Save just as Artemis plops down next to him and grabs her math textbook from the sand, flicking her flip flops off to the side.

"So, who's washing the dishes for you?"

"Kaldur, since he's the only one without any real academic obligations," she mutters, cricking her neck and flipping to a marked page in her notebook. "His words, not mine," she adds.

"Speaking of Kaldur, what're you going to get him?" Wally asks.

"Kaldur? For his birthday, you mean?" Artemis replies, not looking up from her notebook.

"Yeah, I mean… he's got enough books to last the entire summer, he has Robin to give him all of the movies or shows he wants to watch, and there is no way in hell I'm getting him a speedo," Wally rants. Artemis looks up and gives Wally a disgusted look.

"Good, because guys don't give their guy friends tight, ball-hugging swimwear," she snarks sarcastically. Wally rolls his eyes.

"So what are you getting him, Blondie?" he retaliates. She shrugs, unfazed.

"I don't know yet. Probably something that'll remind him of the sea, though. Of Atlantis, you know?" Artemis muses.

Wally hums thoughtfully and nods to himself slightly as he shuts his laptop. He leans back on his elbows and just basks for a moment in the gradient of the marble-washed sky. Furthest up above his head is a deep sea of the darkest blue, dotted with careful, twinkling stars, but when Wally rakes his eyes down closer to the ocean, the blue melts into a faded violet, and then into a glowing orange, almost vermillion. The sun doesn't set as early as it did back in January, and he's glad he's caught this sunset. He can still spot the faintest strokes of cotton decorating the sky and the streaks of white smoke that the occasional jet had left behind. Wally tunes his ears into the sounds of his environment and he's met with the constant shhhh of the ocean, that soothing, rocking movement of the tide. The birds are awake but they're quieting down, settling into their homes, like he probably should be doing soon. And he realises that this medley of sounds, the assortment of colours, and the mélange of his surroundings are all telling him that he is content. And he is satisfied.

For some reason, this leads Wally to think about last night: of the revelation that he could possibly, may probably, and most likely have a crush on Artemis. A teeny, weeny, tiny crush. Minuscule. But in the light of June sunsets and the nearby presence of kickass crime-fighting teams, Wally realises that's he a lucky son of a bitch and he doesn't have much to lose.

"So… you studying in the cave for the rest of the evening?" he asks.

"I'm going to be wherever you're going to be, Baywatch," she responds with no hesitation, carefully sketching a small triangle on the corner of a new leaf in her notebook, having moved on to trigonometry in the last hour.

"Oh… but, uh, what -" Wally sits up and clears his throat, "what're you going to do when I have to go home?" Artemis freezes for a split second and stops writing.

"Um," she begins, "I was kind of hoping you were just going to crash here and study with the rest of the team?" Wally kind of laughs because there is no way his dad is going to let him do that, after that fight last week.

"There is no way my dad's going to let me do that after last week," he accidentally lets slip. Artemis finally looks up and Wally catches a mixed look of concern and confusion. He clears his throat again to switch the subject but she narrows her eyes and jumps in before he can say anything.

"What happened last week?" she inquires quietly. She watches carefully as the usual spark in Wally's eyes dies a little and they're not so emerald green anymore, in fact, they look a little pale. The next moment of silence stretches out for just a few seconds but time slows down so that the anticipation is palpitating and the air is choking Artemis. Even the waves aren't doing much to soothe and banish her worries.

"Nothing worth talking about, that's for sure," Wally mutters, mostly to himself. Artemis stutters, having not expected an answer like that, and she gropes for words.

"Oh," she blindly searches for the right thing to say. From all of the hints he's been accidentally dropping in the past year, Artemis is guessing that Wally doesn't have the best relationship with his dad. But what the hell is the right thing to say in a situation like this? Shouldn't she know? She has an asshole dad, too.

"Then," she begins again, turning her body to face him and nudging his arm with her elbow so that he'd look at her. When he looks up, she continues, "When you feel like it's worth talking about, you can talk to me, you know that, right?" Wally looks at her blankly but in a flash, the spark's back.

"Really?"

"Well, of course," Artemis says, as if it's obvious. Wally grins, and she frowns, and the way they react off of each other is so normal, it makes Wally grin a little wider.

"Even if it doesn't involve tutoring you for your next logs quiz?" he teases. Artemis huffs and rolls her eyes at him.

"For your information, I haven't asked you a single question in the past two hours, you bigheaded prick," she snaps, picking up her pencil again. Wally snorts.

"Umm, excuse me, but who needed a review on the sine rule just an hour ago?" he challenges.

"Whatever, just shut up!" Artemis bites back quickly, an embarrassed rosy hue shading her cheeks. Wally chuckles in satisfaction and lies back down in the mattress of soft, warm sand. He lets the archer cool off for a while before speaking up again.

"And for your information, you're welcome to come over at my place and we can keep studying there. You can even crash if you want," he offers in what he hopes is a steady voice. The whisper of Artemis's pencil scratching on her notebook is all the response he gets and he wonders if she even heard him but she replies softly, "Thanks, Wally… I appreciate the offer, but – "

"Then it's done. We'll have dinner here and Zeta home at, like, eleven," Wally says. Artemis glances at him and sighs.

"Your parents won't mind?" Artemis asks hesitantly.

"Are you kidding? My mom's probably going to freak that I'm actually bringing a girl home," Wally muses loudly before she throws a startled (and slightly ticked off) look at him and he realises what that implied. "N-not that we'd be going home l-like that! You know, a-and I mean, it's my home, not yours, so it wouldn't be like we'd be going home together but you –"

"Just shut up, Wallace."

West Residence, Central City
June 3, 23:07 EDT

"Are you sure your parents won't mind?" Artemis asks one more time, shifting her duffel bag on her shoulder and shuffling her feet on the front porch. Wally shakes his head as he fumbles around his pockets for his keys.

"You're not sure, or no, they won't mind?" Artemis pries. Wally lifts one finger to try and silence her. Truth be told, he's a little nervous that he is bringing a girl home because a) his mother will freak out and her ridiculous imagination will devise some sort of weird story that Artemis is his girlfriend (in what universe?!) and b) his dad's going to be suspicious. And definitely not happy when he finds out that Artemis is part of the team.

"Wally. I need to know if I have to run my ass back to the Zeta tubes or –"

"Just, shh!" Wally waves a hand in front of her face, finally fishing his keys out of what turns out to be a pretty deep left jean pocket. "If we're lucky, they're asleep," he tells her quietly, creaking the door open slowly.

"Should I be worried?" Artemis asks in a whispered voice as they step into the West residence.

"What? Of course not! Come on, living room's this way," he says in an equally hushed voice that doesn't ease Artemis's worry at all.

The two teens walk slowly and cautiously down the hallway towards a dimly lit room. Artemis takes a few glances as they tiptoe through the hall. Though there's hardly any light, she can just make out the smatter of photographs decorating the walls. One in particular catches her eye and she lags behind to take a closer look.

It's a photograph from more than a few years ago, that much is obvious. The photo is simple; one of Wally and his mother. He looks like he's about five or six years old, maybe younger, and the wrinkles on Mary's forehead and on the corners of her lips now have vanished in the photograph. Wally's in a graduation gown the same colour as his eyes, clashing with the red of his hair. His mother is holding him close to her chest, her chin resting on his shoulder, and she beams proudly into the camera, helping him hold up his certificate. Wally's smile is shyer and more reluctant but he apparently managed to get both corners turned up before the flash of the camera. Artemis assumes that Wally's father had taken this photo but as she scans the rest of the hallway, she realises that Wally's dad must have had the camera glued to his hands for the past sixteen years or something because he's in hardly any of the photos. She opens her mouth to ask Wally about it but he calls to her first.

"Artemis?" Wally whispers, finally noticing that the blonde was no longer with him. She turns to the doorway of the living room and, glancing back at the hallway of photographs, opts to ask him later. The blonde walks briskly towards the living room where Wally waits but as soon as her bare feet touch the carpeted floor of the room, the previously dark room suddenly lights up in a wave of fluorescent white.

"Woah!" Wally exclaims, throwing his hands up to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness. Artemis does the same but quietly, ducking her chin and turning her head downwards, away from the ceiling lights. Her irises are burning a little and she stumbles forward to grasp Wally's arm for stability. They both know what's coming next.

"Nice night, kids?" a scolding, motherly voice asks steadily. Artemis looks up looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Wally lowers his hands and blinks a few times to get rid of the swimming blobs of neon green, orange and purple that swarm the corners of his vision. He immediately spots his dear, dear, precious mother standing on the other side of the room, where there is another doorway that leads to the kitchen, and instinctively steps a little closer to Artemis as if doing so would protect her from the inevitable onslaught of intrusive questions.

The movement draws Mary's attention to Artemis and she clasps her chest dramatically and releases a theatrical gasp.

"Wallace West, where are your manners! Who is this lovely lady?" she says in a thick, overdone 60s drawl and Wally rolls his eyes at her antics, at the same time irritatedly muttering something about not calling him by his full name.

"Mom," he begins, gesturing to Artemis, who releases his arm suddenly as if he's on fire, "This is –"

"Darling, you are absolutely stunning, especially your hair!" Mary gushes, dropping the accent and moving forward so quickly, Artemis almost staggers backwards.

"Uhh, thank you?" Artemis replies, throwing a look at Wally that clearly says God, please don't let her eat me, and Wally rolls his eyes again, but it's directed at the red-haired woman gawking at Artemis.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Wally whispers furiously at his mother. She winks at him and turns back to Artemis, "I didn't know my boy could choose so well!"

"Mom!" Wally groans embarrassedly as both he and Artemis flush a bright red. Artemis's eyes widen and she gulps visibly, suddenly deciding that the hem of her shirt needs some serious fiddling. Wally knows that he needs to stop his mother's madness before it really escalates into something he doesn't want to deal with. He decides to use one thing that kills the mood in the house no matter the day or situation.

"Where's dad?" he asks brusquely. The teasing glint in Mary's eyes fades away entirely, the smile melts from her lips, and she turns to address her son directly.

"He's been upstairs for a few hours now," she replies after the shortest second, "looking for you." Wally cringes inwardly, hoping Artemis doesn't notice. (She does, she just doesn't let him know.)

"And shouldn't I be the one to ask questions? Why are you kids coming home so late?" Mary asks, forcing herself to brighten up again, as she ushers the two teenagers to sit with her on the couches around the living room.

"Well, it's finals week next week, and Wally's been helping me restudy all the math I've learned this year," Artemis explains, taking a seat next to Wally on the burgundy couch. "He said it'd be alright for me to crash here? I could take the couch."

"Oh, nonsense, we have a guest bedroom that hardly gets put to use. You can definitely sleep there," Mary says, waving Artemis's previous suggestion off. Wally throws a smug grin at Artemis in an I-told-you-so manner and she elbows him discretely. Mary watches their interaction with feigned disinterest but she can hardly keep the smile from growing on her face.

"I'll just leave you two to it then," Mary declares after a second, "help yourself to whatever's in the fridge, Artemis. We all know Wally will," she jokes, standing up and reaching over to ruffle her son's hair lovingly.

"And I trust that the only things you'll both be doing is either eating or studying. No hanky-panky? None of that business?"

"Mom!"

"I'm kidding. Work hard, kids!" she says, dashing away before Wally can say anything else. He sighs and apologises to Artemis quietly. She waves it off and gives him a relaxed smile.

"Come on, remember my mom? It's fine. You could say we're even now," she says calmly before asking suddenly, "Hey, can I get water or juice or something?"

"Yeah, help yourself," Wally responds, gesturing to the kitchen doorway. She gives him a whispered thanks before walking off. Wally rubs his neck tiredly and gets up to stretch. He's able to stretch out the kinks in his back before he hears his mother calling for him, this time from the foot of the steps in the hallway. When he reaches her, there's only the faintest twinkle in her eye, but also that cloud of fatigue that's been threatening to encompass her entire being for the past few years.

"You okay, mom?" Wally asks her immediately, placing a hand on her shoulder. She shakes her head reassuringly.

"I - I'll be fine. I just told your father that you're home now," she whispers. Wally raises an eyebrow.

"Oh? And?" he squints his eyes ever so slightly when his mother fails to respond immediately. She sighs instead.

"You know how he is," she tries to explain, but Wally huffs and turns his head. "Maybe - maybe he'll understand soon, Wally. You just have to be patient." Wally whips back to look at her straight in the eye, his own flaring brightly.

"I've been patient for a little more than sixteen years, Mom," he says sharply. "What more does he want?" Mary's mouth opens and closes to no avail and she chooses instead to reach forward and place her hands on Wally's shoulders. She's actually standing on the first step of the stairwell so that she almost reaches Wally's height. Sometimes she makes bets with herself on how many steps she'll need just to reach up and give her son a hug when he is no longer a teenaged boy, but a man. Her thin hands, exhausted from years of cleaning, baking, caring, and loving, flatten out the cloth at Wally's shoulders and her fingers catch his chin, forcing him to look into her hazel eyes.

"I know it's hard," she starts, and Wally successfully resists the urge to roll his eyes again, "but he'll come around, he usually does." She offers her son the smallest of hopeful smiles, "Where did you think you got your stubborn streak from?"

"Certainly not from you," he replies, eyes softening. Mary almost deflates with a relieved smile. They'll both let this paternal error pass again. They've done it before, sometimes with more hope than now, other times with none, and almost always with absolutely zero-percent certainty of whether things would ever be okay.

"Go on," Mary says, nudging Wally towards the living room, "you have a guest." Wally nods.

"Night, mom," he leans over to kiss her cheek and walks back to the living room. Mary holds onto the railing of the stairs and watches his retreating back before looking up to the second floor and taking a deep breath. She climbs the rest of the stairs with thoughts of Wally in the back of her mind.

Wally and Artemis spend the next handful of hours studying their asses off. Artemis crams and reviews for her math exam, obviously, and Wally makes the final touches on his English essay, sends it off, and starts his last biology report for the year. He'll study a little for his first exam – Spanish – later.

When Artemis reaches quadratics and functions and her pace starts to slow, Wally drops his notes on translation and transcription and scoots closer to the blonde.

"Do I need to expand this?" Artemis mutters in a puzzled whisper, tapping the clicker of her pen on one of the review problems. Wally leans over until their shoulders touch and squints at the problem.

"No, just plug it into the calculator and then do y = 52 so you can find the point of intersection," he explains, reaching over to the coffee table in front of them to hand Artemis her TI-84 calculator. She thanks him quietly before punching in the right numbers and symbols and makes a little "Ohhh" noise when she gets the answer. She scribbles the answer down below the problem and moves on to the next question, a little more rejuvenated than when she began the page. Wally glances over at the archer and smiles at her fondly. But just to make things clear, he isn't proud or anything.

…Okay, maybe he is a little.

It isn't important though, and what matters is that Artemis finishes all of her review material so she can at least go over her in-class notes before the exam. Wally's glad that she's one of those students who makes a huge effort to try and catch every little detail the teacher explains in class. Her notes are meticulous and precise, and though they're a little overachieving, frankly, Wally thinks they're excellent.

They work efficiently in that familiar, quiet rhythm they learned months ago. Wally occasionally focuses on his biology report, but puts his laptop aside whenever Artemis reaches over to tap his knee when she comes across an unfamiliar question. Artemis channels all of her energy into tackling each and every page of her review packet and though some of the questions need more time for her brain to process than others, she works her way through the material, slowly and steadily. There's a brief moment when she finishes one section that she gets to breathe for a minute. In this time, she looks curiously at her "study buddy," as M'gann has taken to calling them. Normally, Artemis's feelings for the redhead would consist of either irritation, exasperation, gratitude, or something else that she can't quite put her finger on – something that occasionally keeps her up at night and reminds her of pine trees and cinnamon rolls – a scent he always carries around with him – waffles, and walks in Gotham's rain-stained streets. Tonight, however, a new feeling joins the already overflowing armada: worry.

Every now and then, Wally glances at the ceiling as if he's trying to see past the concrete and into the second floor. Sometimes he's typing or clicking around creating diagrams for his report when suddenly the clacks on his computer will pause. From the corner of Artemis's eye, she watches him as he tilts his head slightly, as if he's listening for something in the house. He even swivels his head around occasionally to look at the doorway leading to the hallway.

Wally is clearly uncomfortable in his own household and that makes Artemis uncomfortable, because up until now, she had thought that he of all people should be the family guy. The one whose parents hug tightly every night because they're aware of how lucky and how blessed they are to have him. The one all the neighbours know as the good kid, not because he's actually a hidden superhero, but because he's Wally West, the kid who offers to mow your lawn for you on summer afternoons, or helps you unload your groceries from your car or something, or plays with your kids sometimes when they're getting too rowdy at home. Artemis just always had this image that Wally was the kind of guy who loved his neighbourhood. Or maybe he really does, and there's just one little thing that's stopping him from really considering it as home.

And at this point, Artemis is 94% sure (94.7% if you're looking for three significant digits) that is has something to do with his dad. But she's still 5.3% unsure so she decides to ask him.

"So, I really don't mean to pry," she starts, "but, uh, tell me about your parents. I mean, you've met mine," she says lamely.

What the hell? She thinks to herself angrily immediately after the words come out. She tries to keep a straight face on when Wally gives her a weird look. He laughs uncertainly.

"Umm, talk about understatement of the year. I hope you haven't forgotten that I've fought your father. Alongside you. He's … kind of a supervillain," he reminds her cheekily and she throws him an exasperated look.

"But your mother, I like. Very much, if I should say so myself," Wally adds in quickly. Artemis smiles at him.

"You should tell her that. She likes you too, you know," she says. "But, I mean, like, with your dad. What's he like?" she presses gently, taking note of how Wally's kind eyes instantly solidify into a more solemn, darker green.

"Oh, well," he fumbles for words, "my dad's … a serious guy." Artemis waits for more but he appears to have nothing more to say.

"I'm guessing you get your all your jokes from your mom's side then?" she jokes, trying to keep the painful conversation going but it's obviously not getting anywhere and she isn't learning anything new. Unfortunately for Artemis, Wally has the conversation covered.

"Look," he says to her sharply, "if this is about, I don't know, how weird I am with my dad or something, could we not talk about it?" Artemis turns away, ashamed, and looks at her hands.

"Sorry, I – "

"I know you mean well," Wally continues in a strained voice, "but it really just isn't one of my favourite topics." Artemis turns her head to face him.

"Wally…" He's facing her, too, but he doesn't quite meet her gaze. Instead his eyes meet the burgundy arm of the couch next to her, where some of her notes sit, and then they zip over to the wall behind her, and then they land on her hands, but they flitter everywhere except at her eyes.

"I mean, what do you want me to say?" Wally stammers, and he can feel his heart start to speed up in distress, "That my dad practically hates me? Th-that he hates the life I'm living? How I'm trying to be a superhero while pretending to be a normal kid at the same time? That he hates trying to keep up with me or dealing with the stress of it all?" he spits it all out in a rush and Artemis is wide-eyed and taken aback by the flurry of emotion on his features. Wally freezes, realising that his little secret's out and he sighs at her in frustration, burrowing his face in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

Suddenly all the tension is building up in Wally's chest and though he tries his best to keep his mind clear, the only thing he can hear replaying in his head is the big, fat, "I don't care anymore," that his dad had thrown at him last week with the thickest tone of finality Wally had ever heard in his life. Kaldur couldn't compete and not even Batman could have matched it.

"Fine. It's your life. I don't care anymore," his dad had snarled, before stomping up the stairs to his and Mary's bedroom. Wally had stood there at the doorway, chest heaving after shouting at his father, stunned at the response. He remembers having looked down the hallway at his poor mother, leaning against the doorway, hands covering her mouth, tears gathering in her eyes. Wally had looked at his sneakers – yellow and red – in shame, turned around, grabbed his bag and headed for the cave. He hadn't returned home that night.

The book bags against the couch, the notebooks and papers strewn on top of the coffee table, Artemis's review material lying on the arm of the couch and Wally's glowing laptop with blinking the words Warning: less than 20% battery; they all sit forgotten. In the farthest recesses of her mind, Artemis is glad that she's finished most of her review material, despite it now being almost four in the morning. She's pushes those thoughts even further away as she watches Wally fume in silence. Artemis feels a pang of sympathy go out to him and she reaches out hesitantly. She touches his hand gently and though he flinches, he doesn't move away.

"Wally, I – "

"I'm sorry about that," he sputters suddenly, "I didn't mean to freak out o-or – "

"No, Wally, I'm sorry," Artemis says, leaning forward now and grabbing his hand. He looks at her.

"I'm sorry for asking," she says embarrassedly at first, "but I'm sorry… about your dad."

Wally gulps and Artemis feels a weird sense of déjà vu crawl on the back of her neck except they've both swapped places and this time, he is the vulnerable one with a secret he's not proud of, and she is the hand he's longing will lay on his shoulder. This is not unlike when Artemis needed that pressure on her own shoulder late last December, letting her know that everything was okay and no one was judging her, especially not him. He needs to know the same thing now.

"I have no idea how things are going to turn out with your dad, and I have no way of knowing, but I think he's a little blinded right now if he doesn't realise how lucky he is," Artemis says in a sincere, steady voice. Wally has the nerve to look at her curiously.

"Maybe he can't keep up with you right now," Artemis continues, making sure he's still looking at her straight in the eye (anything related to math is just fading away in the distance), "but you will find a way to make things work out with him," she says earnestly.

"I mean, I always go on about how I'm one of a kind, but you…" Artemis squeezes his hand, "you saved a little girl and her entire country in one night, you've never let your best friend down, and you keep this team together." Wally tilts his chin down slightly but she doesn't let him look any further away from her. With one hand, she reaches up and grasps his chin, forcing him to look back at her. She's way too into the moment to let any of this escape that empty, air-filled head of his.

"Even if your dad doesn't see it right now," Artemis flattens her palm on his cheek, "I think you're something else." Their gazes stay locked for a moment longer and though his eyes aren't yet the twinkling stars they usually resemble, there's a touch of gratefulness and relief in them. She's close enough to see the corner of his lips tremble upwards in a ghost of a smile, a real smile.

"Thanks, Artemis," he whispers, and his breath washes over her and he smells like pine and mint and the last of the spring winds. Artemis is suddenly aware of the callouses on her bow-worn fingers pressing into his smooth, freckled cheek. Her stomach clenches and her breaths are catching in her throat with every second that passes. She isn't alone; her eyes flicker to his lips when his tongue darts out to wet them, and her brain processes what could very likely happen in the next few seconds.

Math is the last thing on her mind.

"I feel like this is when I'm supposed to kiss you or something," she breathes out nervously. The part of her mind that's still sober and not intoxicated with all things Wally West berates her for blurting out something so stupid but the rest of her mind is pressing her forwards, just a few inches closer.

"It feels like that, huh?" he whispers. His eyes are darting all over her face and he can hardly remember what they were talking about – something about saving a little girl, his dad being blindsided, and making something work out. Honestly, the only thing he wants to work out is this. Lucky for Wally, his brain catches up before his hormones do something else and he places his palm over the hand on his cheek.

"But if we're going to have a first kiss," he says, pulling her hand down to his lap, "I don't want you to feel like you did it only because you had to."

"What?" Artemis mumbles, and almost immediately, the love-struck haze clouding her mind is blown away by humiliation, confusion, and something that feels terribly similar to disappointment.

"Wally, I am the kind of girl who does things because she wants to do them, I thought you'd know that by now," Artemis says with a slight frown lining her brow. Wally almost panics when he notices the frown but he also notices that she doesn't back away from him. He laughs shortly with this realisation and snakes his hands up her arms, just to make sure she really doesn't move away from him.

"No, I know that, believe me I do!" he insists and he takes so much pleasure in the fact that Artemis Crock is halfway in his arms, flustered, and blushing.

"A-and, I just – " he sighs and shakes his head slightly, red hair flicking around gently, "I can hardly believe that you - you'd want to - and with me!"

Artemis gives him this confused look like he isn't making any sense but it's got a touch of adoration in it, too, so Wally doesn't completely falter, "It just… doesn't feel…" he pauses, and it sounds kind of lame, but he really does look into her eyes searching for the right word, "perfect right now. And I want it to be perfect for you."

Whereas Wally usually ruins sweeter moments between the two of them, Artemis is starting to melt inside and she can't afford anyone finding her as a puddle of goo in his hands. So she rolls her eyes. And he can feel the corners of his lips turning up in a smile.

"You better make it count, Baywatch," she threatens him through gritted teeth, only gritted because she knows no other way to reel her hormones back in. Before she knows it, though, he's leaning over and she can feel his lips pressed lightly on her jaw. Artemis can't help the gasp that escapes her own lips and she looks at him with a slightly wide-eyed look when he pulls away. Wally licks his lips again nervously and she wants to simultaneously ravish them and punch him just so he'd stop doing that.

He doesn't give her a response, which is infuriating, and instead gives her this really genuine and apologetic half-grin, and his eyes are finally twinkling again, and all the hormonal turmoil she thought she'd gotten rid of comes hurling back at her.

Maybe she shouldn't stay over after all.

Nguyen-Crock's Apartment, Gotham City
June 4, 04:28 EDT

He places her down gently on her feet in front of the door to her apartment and steps back as she dusts herself off. He'd run her all the way from his house at Central City to Gotham and he isn't even panting. Clearly all traces of previous teenaged angst had been swept away when he was running.

"Thanks for running me home," Artemis tells him, making a face along with Wally when they both realise how weird that sentence sounded. He grins at her.

"Yeah, don't mention it," he reaches up and rubs the back of his neck bashfully and it's so endearing and familiar that in a span of a split second, Artemis leans up, steadies herself on his shoulders and plants a kiss on his jaw, right where he'd kissed her earlier. She steps away and bites her lip and she knows that there's probably a really special glint in her eye and she doesn't care because this is all weird and exciting but she's trying her best to take things step by step, kind of like a math problem.

"Night, Wally," she whispers breathlessly before turning around to reach for the doorknob. She doesn't make it far when he grabs her wrist.

"Hey," she turns her head to look at the hand holding onto her wrist loosely, "thanks for tonight. It meant a lot," he tells her. The pad of his thumb slides across the vein of her wrist and into her palm and she gives him an easy smile.

"It's the least I can do. I mean, I'm guaranteed an A for this math exam, right?" she teases, and Wally blinks, as if he's suddenly remembering the purpose of all the late nights and runs between cities.

"Aw, man, I can't believe I forgot the point of all this," he murmurs, smacking himself on the forehead gently akin to whenever M'gann would have a Hello, Megan! moment. "If you still need any help studying, just call and I'll be there in a flash."

The statement rests in the air for a few seconds before Artemis dares to address it.

"Really, Wally? 'There in a flash'? Do you realise how lame that is?" she gives him this unamused look with a slight shake of her head.

"Hey, it works for Uncle Barry!" he replies indignantly.

"You're not your Uncle Barry," she reminds him. As if he needs any more reminders. Wally rolls his eyes good-naturedly and reaches into the back pocket of his jeans. He fishes out a small pad of multicoloured sticky notes, as if he'd scribbled things onto the nearest ones he could find at the most random instances and then slapped them all together. He hands them to Artemis, who looks at them warily.

"And these are?"

"Last minute exam tips. Test is in two days, you have one more full day tomorrow to study," he shrugs and rocks back and forth on his feet, "I mean, I really don't think you need them but, you know, just in case you freak out or something." Artemis scoffs at him half-heartedly and he beams at her. There's a pause, and they both know they have to go opposite directions now because it's late and Artemis still needs to study as much as she can later this afternoon and Wally has a father to talk to, but in the dark of Gotham, under the faltering light bulb that illuminates the sidewalk in front of Artemis's apartment, with the early summer fireflies shimmering in spontaneous blinks of orange and white, there's a mutual agreement between the blonde and the redhead. They share one last look and they're aware of the promise that something great is going to happen, something absolutely, infuriatingly spectacular, and neither of them can wait for it to start.

But of course, after all the exams.

With one last goodbye, Wally zips away, carrying a few lost leaves in his tracks, and leaving Artemis to step into her apartment finally, tucking the sticky notes into a pocket in her backpack. Unsurprisingly, her mother is still wide awake when she reaches the dimly lit living room.

"How was studying?" Paula asks before Artemis can even lean over to kiss her cheek. Artemis hums thoughtfully for a second, contemplating the question.

"I got more than I bargained for," she finally says, dropping her bag on the floor and walking around the couch to sit in front of her mother, who's perched comfortably on her wheelchair.

"Oh?" Paula looks up from the book she's reading to fix a curious look on her daughter, "is that a good thing?" Artemis plays with her hands and examines her fingers for a second as her mother studies her and waits patiently.

"Yeah," she answers confidently, in a quiet voice, "yeah, I think so."

Gotham
June 4, Last Full Day Before Math Exam Day

On Monday, while Wally attends his final full week of real school, Artemis stays in Gotham and studies for that wretched math exam. Her mother has a book club meeting to attend in downtown Gotham for the most of the afternoon and since there's a Starbucks there, Artemis takes the local bus with Paula and ends up studying in one of the more secluded corners of the café for the entire afternoon. In a miraculous turn of events, she comes across no less than three issues with the rest of her studying and she only really has to text Wally once to confirm that she's converting the standard form of a parabola into the vertex form properly and if she's completing the square the right way and not just butchering it. The sticky notes Wally gave her last night are helping a lot, though. They're stuck to the window next to her and on the coffee table she's occupying, leaving only a little bit of space for her coffee mug and making her workplace unexpectedly colourful with bright squares of yellow, blue, purple and green. Artemis keeps her hair down for the entire afternoon.

At some point, Artemis notices that the sun is setting. When she looks out the window in the areas that aren't being covered up by Wally's sticky notes, she's greeted with a sky that's a rare hue of deep blue for the beginning of summer in Gotham. Sometimes the air is blessed with a breeze that carries a swirl of dancing leaves, still green from spring. Artemis smiles when she spots children running ahead of their mothers, chasing the trail of leaves until they can no longer be reached. The sun-kissed streets are glowing a deep orange in the light of the sinking sun, and the bravest stars are starting to peek into the top floors of Gotham's towering skyscrapers.

The golden sun bleeds into the horizon, the daylight fades and Gotham is blanketed in a familiar coat of indigo. The stars blink on and off in a dazzling light show, and the sparkles remind Artemis of green eyes.

Central City
June 4, Last Monday Before Exam Week

The only way Wally wakes up on Monday is when his alarm clock beeps at an obnoxiously deafening volume right in his ear. He flails and jerks away from the alarm clock, far enough that he falls off of the bed and lands on the carpeted floor with a heavy thud, rattling his bedside drawer. When he finally cares enough to pick himself up off the floor, his eyes glance at the clock (08:43, he is so late) and the only thing he remembers is that he had decided to confront his dad this morning.

He greets his mom hopping into the kitchen on one foot, tying the shoelaces of his sneakers with a toothbrush in his mouth, his backpack hanging off one shoulder, and his t-shirt still only partially on, exposing the pale, freckled strip of his toned stomach. His mother rolls her eyes and reaches over to grab his shirt just as he tries to hop to his seat at the table. She tugs his shirt down and he grins a frothy, pearly white grin at her.

He doesn't quite tell her that he plans to talk to his father – really talk to him and dig up all the answers he's deserved for the past sixteen years. It's better if she just finds out later.

Wally speeds through the rest of the day with high anticipation of Tuesday morning resting in his chest, feeding his heart with energy. The talk with his dad could go very right or very wrong, or a little bit of both with heavy amounts of stress for both individuals. Wally falls asleep that night sending good luck texts to Artemis, who is pumped and ready for her exam.

And when Tuesday morning comes, Rudy thinks he can just walk out the door and drive to work but Wally literally speeds down the stairs and stops him right when he's finished slipping into his left loafer.

"Dad," Wally says in a clear voice, a serious look on his face. Rudy purses his lips but holds his patience.

"Wally, what is it? I have to be at work in half an hour."

"Work can wait. This can't," Wally says slowly and he stands up straighter, rising to his father's height.

"We need to talk."

West Residence, Central City
June 6, 17:20 EDT

"Okay, okay, okay, okay," Artemis mutters to herself repeatedly as she walks up Wally's porch. She's practically vibrating with all her perturbation and anxiety and she can't believe her molecules haven't sunken towards the core of the earth yet. She's sweating all the way to the finger-pads that are holding the stapled set of papers that she has yet to unfold and the sweat has nothing to do with the June sun. When she reaches up to knock on the front door, it swings backwards to reveal Wally's parents.

"Oh, hi dear!" Mary greets her cheerfully, stepping back to let her in.

"Hi Mrs. West, err, hi Mr. West – " Artemis nods to each parent when Wally skids into view on sock-covered feet.

"Artemis! What's up?" he chirps in a bright voice and the atmosphere of the house is suddenly so vibrant and loud, definitely far less melancholy than when Artemis had visited on Sunday, but she holds her tongue before asking what the hell is going on.

"So this is the girl you like," Rudy states nonchalantly out of nowhere and Wally squeaks. Artemis laughs weakly and starts to reconsider her decision in coming down to Central City in the first place. She holds her breath when Rudy puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Thank you, for being there for him," he says gently, a warm look in his brown eyes.

"It was nothing, sir," Artemis replies with no hesitation, the words tumbling out of her mouth automatically. Rudy smiles slightly.

"It was a little more than something," he says, but drops the topic and gives his son a look before stepping into the cool summer air.

"We're going to the grocery store for a while, we'll be back in an hour. Why don't you stay for dinner, Artemis?" Mary offers and before Artemis can refuse, Rudy agrees, "Absolutely! Let us get to know the newest expert in keeping our son's head on straight," he jokes. Wally sends him an unamused look.

"Thanks, Dad," he says, but he's smiling ever so slightly. He looks at Artemis and waits for a response. She sighs helplessly.

"Sure," she agrees wholeheartedly, "Why not!"

"Fantastic! We'll see you in an hour then," Mary says, waggling her fingers in a goodbye as both she and Rudy pile into the car and drive away. Wally shakes his head at his parents and invites Artemis in. She throws him a curious glance when they get to the living room.

"So I'm guessing you talked to your dad?" she says, sitting down gracefully on the couch. Wally leans on the doorway and crosses his arms, tilting his head to the side a little.

"Ehh, more like… yelled at him." Artemis raises her eyebrows.

"And?"

"And he yelled back."

"…Oh," Artemis frowns, nodding to the direction of their front door, "then, what was that back there? What now?"

"Now… I guess we wait?" he shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, "Like, we talked and yelled a lot. I mean, I missed first period yesterday talking to my dad. But," he crosses his arms again, "I - I think he's starting to understand. And me, too. I understand a little bit more now." Artemis nods, sincerely relieved that Wally wouldn't have to be living in a broken home anymore.

"So, what're you doing here? How was the exam!" Wally exclaims, and in the blink of an eye, he's sitting next to her on the couch, bouncing slightly, eager to hear her results.

"I - uh, they're here," she says, holding up the folded papers. Wally frowns at the papers.

"It's a stack of papers, are you telling me you haven't unfolded them yet?" he asks incredulously. Artemis scoffs at him, affronted, and whacks his shoulder with the papers but Wally only snickers sounding awfully like Robin on a particularly good day.

"I'm pissing my pants here, Wally, this thing'll determine my life next year so forgive me if – "

"Alright, alright. Keep your pants on, princess!" he takes the papers from her, "We'll open it together. Jeez." Artemis snatches the papers from him, "That's what I had in mind, Kid. But I'll open it." Wally mutters something akin to "rude" and "whatever" but leans in close. Artemis takes a deep breath and finally allows her fingers to open up the folded A4 papers. After an entire first semester of pure torture and no help, and then a second semester of equally as difficult units and unending all nighters, all of her work adds up here and now. She won't lie and say that she isn't nervous as hell because her fingers are shaking and the papers rustle along with her slight tremors. Wally finally whispers harshly for her to just open the damn thing and she quickly flips the sheets open. There, on the top right corner of her math exam lies the circled mark in red ink: 98.

98.

Ninety-freaking-eight.

Artemis lets out the breath she'd been holding in an astonished, "Oh, my god," barely registering Wally whooping next to her.

"Ninety-eight!" he laughs out loud, scrambling to his feet and pulling her up with him. He's overflowing with so much relief and joy and pride that he grabs her by the waist and sweeps her around the living room ecstatically. Artemis is so stunned by both his congratulatory actions and the grade itself that she just throws her head back and laughs with him.

"Ninety-eight percent!" he screams and they're kind of jumping around together and screaming in each other's faces.

"Ninety-eight percent!" she screams back at him, laughing hysterically, fisting the exam papers in her hands and shaking them at him triumphantly. A whole semester of all nighters and hard, hard work. So worth it.

Then, all at once, Artemis's arms are encircled around his neck, Wally's still got a firm but gentle hold on her waist, and the crumpled papers she'd previously flung into the air while they were dancing are drifting back down to the floor. Wally's smiling down at her and his eyes are shining so proudly. Artemis beams at him with a thrilled look upon her features. She leans up a little closer so that their noses are almost touching and her breath washes over his lips.

"Would it be perfect to kiss me now?" she asks him teasingly. He lets out a half-laugh, half-scoff but tilts his head so that their foreheads touch.

"I'd say so," he answers, and she grins mischievously.

"Then what're you waiting for?" she whispers, and no other words are needed. Wally closes the small distance between their lips and Artemis's fingers curl around the nape of his neck. He pulls her body closer to his and they are melting against each other, in Wally's living room, under the watchful light of the setting, orange sun. Artemis drops the exams, already forgotten, as she lets her hands slide from the back of Wally's neck to his jaw, then his cheeks, then his hair, and everywhere else. She smells like the rain, he breathes like the wind; she tastes like the sun, and he – he feels just like summer.