Title: Coloring Hearts

Words: ~1800

Rating: T

Pairing(s): Wally/Artemis

Summary: Wally was six and half when he met the love of his life. He just didn't know it.

iloveyou-iknow asks: Fluffy Valentine's Day spitfire prompt please? Please lord no angst. Being single on valentine's day gives me enough angst already

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or its characters.

A/N:Not my best work but I hope you enjoy it :) Happy Valentine's Day!

Coloring Hearts

Wally was six and half when he met the love of his life. He just didn't know it.

He was sitting in Ms. Appleton's class crudely coloring in a picture of dog when the new girl, Art-Art-i-Art-el, he couldn't be bothered to remember that complicated a name came up to him and looked at his picture.

"Dogs aren't supposed to be red."

"It's Clifford."

"Clifford's not real," the same girl stated pointedly.

"Then it's Flash's dog," grumbled Wally sourly picking up a yellow crayon drawing a lighting bolt through the fur, "See?"

"Flash doesn't have a dog and it would be impossible for a dog to run as fast as Flash," she said crossing her arms. Wally stuck out his tongue. The girl glared in retaliation picking up a brown crayon she began to aggressively color in one of his picture's unfinished legs.

"See that's a dog color."

"Oh yeah," challenged Wally shoving a black crayon in her way stopping her haphazard coloring of the dog's paw. "So is that!"

She grabbed his previously abandoned yellow crayon, ironically the same color as the massive volume of hair sitting atop her head. "So is this!" As their colors dueled on the page.

"So is this!" He responded grabbing a white one to smudge over all her angry scribbles. By the time play break is over his entire coloring page had been reduced to a myriad of rainbow scribbles and squiggles and his dog looked more alien then normal, colors pouring out of the outlines.

Then class was over and his mother came in collecting his things to go home. But the girl chased after him and thrust the ruined picture into his chest. "Here," she spat childishly. "You need to sign it. And it was yours, so," she kicked the ground scuffing her shoe. "You keep it." He can hear the other mothers cooing and awwwwing at their little exchange but the only thing he sees, aside from an entire box of crayons displayed on the page, is her lopsided name at the bottom.

Artemis.

They're eight and Artemis had lost both her front teeth because of her fall off the jungle gym last week. They're trying to see what's the biggest thing that can slide through the gap before it gets stuck.

"Hey Arty."

"I told you not to call me that." Wally just grinned trying to throw a raisin into her mouth before he posed a question that had been bugging him recently.

"Hey."

"What?"

"Do you think it's okay to like a girl?" Artemis sent him a weird look, breaking off the tail of a goldfish cracker so she could shove it through the toothless opening.

"Why?" she asked carefully, the word whistling as she talked. Wally shrugged trying to play it off as nonchalant.

"I don't know. It's almost February -"

"It's September." Artemis deadpanned massacring another goldfish.

"Not the point. I just think Phyllis Spencer is kind of cute."

"Phyllis!" sputtered Artemis nearly falling off the bench they were sitting on. "Nose-picker Phyllis is the girl you like!"

"Shhh," hissed Wally scandalized. "She'll hear you!" Artemis looked a little put out as she fiddled with the broken clasp on her overalls.

"So?"

"So what?" asked Wally shoving a cookie in his mouth.

"Are you going to tell Picky Philly you like her?"

"Don't call her that!"

"She's not my friend," Artemis responded automatically shoving a handful of goldfish into her mouth and chewing them garishly, so he could see their painful demise through the cavity in her teeth.

"Eeewww," laughed Wally at her antics. "That's gross. See Phyllis may or may not pick her nose but at least she wears dresses and smells nice and has soft hair."

Artemis frowned whistling through her teeth as the recess bell rang off in the distance and Wally got up yelling he'd race her to the door.

"At least you like her."

At ten Wally got his first taste of rejection. On Valentine's Day no less.

"Leave me to die," moaned Wally head lying flat against a desk as his stomach churned painfully courtesy of his total gorge fest on every piece of Valentine's Day candy he'd received.

Artemis rolled her eyes poking his shoulder again. "Move. That's my desk."

"So?"

"I don't want your chunks on it." Wally groaned again and Artemis sighed.

"I told you not to do it."

"She read my poem in front of the class," he whimpered.

"Gotta admit rhyming twine with Valentine was pretty creative."

"Then everyone laughed."

"I didn't laugh." Wally sent her a nasty look. "Alright I laughed a little but come on. It's just one girl, there are like billions out there."

"My life is over."

"By tomorrow everyone will have forgotten about it," encouraged Artemis shoving him away so she could get out her books. "It's just a dumb holiday."

"You're just angry because no one but me gave you candy." Artemis gave him a weird look, true it had just been some classless little generic card with a Hershey Kiss on it but it was the only she had received all day. "Sorry. Too far."

Artemis shrugged. "It's okay." Then she blushed a little pulling out a big red heart from behind her back. "Look Mikey Rogers just gave me one in the hall."

Wally suddenly felt his stomach take a horrible drop as he stared at the obviously handmade article of endearment. His temper flared and he suddenly had the uncontrollable urge to rip that "pretty" Valentine in two.

"I feel terrible," stated Wally quickly blaming his emotions on a possible stomach flu he had received from the candy. "Let's go home."

"You are such a wuss, Wallace West," crowed his fifteen year old best friend Artemis Crock. "You're always saying you're this dangerous ladykiller and you won't even ask this girl out."

Wally frowned pulling his biology textbook out of his locker. "I just don't feel like it okay?" Artemis raised an eyebrow crossing her arms beneath her chest – which should be totally illegal because every boy in the hallway was staring at the way it "rearranged" some of her anatomy.

Artemis scrutinized him for a moment before exclaiming, "You're not still angry about that, are you?"

"Angry about what?" asked Wally tersely slamming his locker closed loudly disturbing the gawking, brain-dead onlookers who seemed to have never seen an intelligent, albeit attractive, woman before.

"It was just seven minutes in heaven," sighed Artemis. "A stupid game. We didn't even do anything. It was just us in a smelly closet for seven minutes."

"It was Mikey," stated Wally as if that explained everything. "Mikey."

"Yeah," articulated Artemis slowly. "Mik-ey. Use your words. We've known him since grade school." Artemis's hand brushed against the back of his as they walked down the hallway. He ignored it.

"I just don't like it."

"It was harmless fun," then her expression darkened. "I don't know what you have to complain about you were in there with Tammy Carmine, head cheerleader." She swooned mockingly at the last part.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Fine," said Artemis sourly. "But Mikey did ask me to the Valentine's Day dance."

"Super," responded Wally sarcastically. "How romantic."

"I haven't said yes." Wally gulped processing this information. He didn't care. He shouldn't care. This was his best friend. But he cared, he cared a lot – on a purely platonic level.

"Gee, what's stopping you?"

"He's not the person I want to go with."

"Well you just might have to settle," he snapped.

Within moments she had angrily shoved him up against the lockers hand pressed against his thundering heart. He could only pray that she couldn't feel the rapidly pulsating muscle beneath her fingers as she glared at him. "Quit being a jerk, Wallace." She uttered icily pulling her hand away and beginning to walk down the hall before adding, "The person I wanted to spend it with was you. You ass."

In the end neither of them went to the dance. They instead spent the entire time vegged out on his couch after Artemis came over on the 14th intent on murdering the redhead who had been spamming her email non-stop for days with apologies. Both had been pleasantly surprised when her lips were put to more fruitful endeavors.

Twenty year old Wally sighed as he stood outside the girl's dorm, a massive bag of cinnamon hearts in hand – although he has already eaten half because he was freezing and so long as his tongue was on fire he knew that at least he was still alive as the quickly escalating blizzard nearly knocked him over. Whenever they had a fight she tended to retreat to the sanctuary of the sisterhood holing herself up in one of her friend's dorm rooms till things blew over. It wasn't that he minded that but it was their anniversary and he felt kind of obligated to play the "I'm an awesome boyfriend" card.

"Wally?" There she stood behind him wearing one of his coats and this huge pair of sheepskin mittens she'd bought at a yard sale. "What are you doing here?"

He just kind of mouthed silent syllables for a few moments before blurting, "You weren't inside?!"

"No," she began carefully a smile already quirking her lips as she pressed the massive mittens to her frozen cheeks. "I went back to the apartment to celebrate our anniversary, idiot."

"Argh! You did it on purpose!" he laughed holding the bag of cinnamon hearts towards her. "Evil woman."

"They're half gone," she commented taking the bag anyways.

"Recompense." She shook her head pulling off one of the huge gloves and handed it to him wiggling her fingers before clasping his uncovered hand.

"We'll share," she emphasized and Wally gripped her warm hand with relish. "I'll be angry tomorrow."

"We'll see," said Wally grinning wickedly. "I'll change your mind for sure."

Twenty-five year old Wallace Rudolph West looked up nervously at his girlfriend, fidgeting at her apparent lack of response to his rather gutsy move – it wasn't everyday that you got proposed to after all, even if Valentine's Day was a bit cliché.

Artemis was just standing there, numb and quiet, staring at him and the closed ring box he was holding out towards her. Until she tentatively reached forward opening the small box.

The look on her face was priceless when all she was greeted with was a folded piece of paper. Sending him a perturbed look Wally simply nodded gesturing for her to open the document.

Tentatively she unfolded the musty letter sized sheet, complete with yellowing edges and crinkling cracks, gawking in shock at the multicolored drawing of dog that slowly revealed itself. It was the same picture of "Clifford" she had helped color back in Kindergarten. She just gaped at it.

"I didn't know," he stated empathetically. "I had no idea." He had never seen Artemis cry – well he had – but this was a completely different type of crying as she rubbed desperately at her eyes and cursed him simultaneously.

"Yes. A million times yes." Then she crossed her arms and put on that dastardly smirk he loved so much. "The drawing's nice and all but I hope there's a ring in there."

The end?