November 4th, 2011: Failsafe premiered and we all collectively lost our shit. I word-vomited this fic today because I just still have a lot of feelings about everything.

Notes: This is non-linear. The numbers before each section indicate the order of events, but it is intentionally out of order for artistic and pretentious purposes. Also, I know this doesn't cover all of Wally's traumatic experiences during the training exercise, but I wanted to focus on his thoughts on Artemis.

(5)

(She dies in the snow. There is no sun.)

(1)

Wally will never tell her this, but Artemis is everything the sun is. She is hot and bright and glaring. She is constant, she is steady. She is sometimes stilted by clouds. When he stares at her for too long, he can still see her silhouette when he shuts his eyes.

And when she turns her attention to him, she makes him burn.

But, he reminds himself idly as he's lobbying back a cutting comment of his own, the sun makes his skin freckle. She just makes his skin crawl.

(4)

Her costume, worn already at the knees and strained across the muscles of her back as she shoots arrow after arrow, is not the same pristine white as it had looked in the bio ship. It's almost gray, an imperfect blend into the snow. Her hair is pale, desaturated, somehow drained of its usual light and energy in this wasteland, her skin dark and flushed against the endless white.

Her commanding cry through their link sides up against his mind like an electric jolt as she turns her body in a tight arch. He can see three arrows pulled taut before-

Wally doesn't have enough time to count the seconds her skeleton lingers before it, she, disappears forever.

(The last time he sees her he doesn't think of the sun at all.)

(2)

Mid-conversation with M'gann, Artemis puts her hands behind her head and yes, maybe he does stare at what the forward thrust does to her suddenly convex form.

It doesn't matter if he's the fastest boy in the world, she still catches his gaze before he can look away. She chuckles to herself, eyes narrowed and eyebrow arched before socking him in the arm with just enough pressure to make him take a step back.

"Good luck, Kid Mouth," she mocks with a curl of her lips.

He glares as she settles herself down on the table beside M'gann's, ponytail caged under her shoulder blades, the sliver of skin along the small of her back relaxing against the table.

A cough behind him from Batman and a giggle to the side from Robin pulls his attention away before he finally lays down on his own table. His eyes slide shut and almost instantly, the world shifts.

(7)

Batman looms over like a shadow, dark and all-encompassing as they regale in broken parts what happened on their mission.

M'gann is stronger now, voice weak but unwavering as she speaks out to the room. She speaks in quiet, lilting cadence the events leading up to that defining moment.

(Her words are heavy and he wants to run away from them.)

And when she talks about the light that took Artemis away from them, M'gann describes it as a lightning bolt.

Wally starts, too quickly to be noticed, and his hand finds its way to his chest. He feels the starchy cotton of his shirt and reminds himself that is not in his uniform and everyone is alive and he is safe and it was never a lightning bolt at all.

(3)

There is a light (and it is nothing like a sunray). It is cold and sterile, unnaturally white even against the show. It is sharp and hard and aimed right at her.

(8)

Wally never calls her sunshine, never lets on to the simile he's created. He's barely conscious of it all, only brief impressions and images that skirt around the periphery of his mind.

(the glint of her teeth, wisps of golden hair, heated arguments, the residual burn when she finally leaves the room)

But he runs too quickly for his thoughts to ever catch him.

(6)

Artemis is the first one to rise from the cool metal slabs they'd all been laying on. He lays on his own table beside her, watching groggily as she moves in a seamless arch before she's hunched in over on herself. Her hands press white against the smooth surface of the table and her ponytail falls behind her, still settling from her sudden movement even as she holds herself tense and tight.

Motionless, he stares at her. Yellow tangled hair, pink flushed cheeks, red bitten lips, gray narrowed eyes. He stares unblinking until her colors blend before him. And when she finally stands, he thinks haphazardly of a sunrise.

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