Chapter Text
Artemis is seriously over the sex.
It's not that it's Dick Grayson, the most annoying guy on campus besides the person he's doing it with. Its not that they're all over each other even when they're not fucking, which she has to see every day, with her own two eyes. It's not even that she hasn't got laid in who knows how long or that they blare music as if it'll mask the rhythmic thumping of the bed—it doesn't—or that they do it at ten in the goddamn morning. On a Thursday.
No, the thing that's really pissing her off is the music choice.
ABBA.
ABBA.
If she has to hear one more session of bed-thumping to the tune of Dancing Queen, she's going to make good on her threat and throw Wally West's underwear out the window next time he forgets to collect his laundry.
Which is every fucking week.
Zatanna thinks she's jealous. Artemis is big enough to admit (at least to herself) that she thought West was kind of hot when she saw him for the first time. Not classically handsome, the way Grayson is, but the freckles and the gangly limbs and the hair actually balance each other out—and even West can't spend that much time on the track team without some muscles.
Of course, then he went and opened his mouth and now Artemis has exactly one word for his appearance.
Punchable.
Grayson is, unfortunately, so hot that even his irritating mouth can't make her forget it, but that doesn't mean she wants to fuck him, either. Especially since he thinks upbeat Swedish pop is a mood-setter.
The bed's rhythm kicks up a notch as a faint grunt comes through the wall. Artemis gives up on waiting it out, grabbing her things and heading for the library. The one—and she really does mean one—good thing about the sex is that at least she won't have to see the two knuckleheads anywhere else.
"What's the forecast?"
Artemis shrugs away the arm winding itself around her shoulders. "Read the sign."
"It's so far away," West whines, slumping onto the tray rails next to her like he's been starved for days. "Besides, you're better at it."
"At reading?"
"Yep."
"Every day I wonder how the hell you manage to get up in the morning," she tells him.
He grins at her. "Wow, obsessed much?"
"Oh, shut up," she snaps and jerks her tray along until it hits Zatanna's, a couple of inches away.
"Hey, Wally," Zee says, not looking up from her phone.
"Hey, Zee."
"Good morning?"
"Oh, pretty good," he says. "Saw Roy—you know he's—"
Grayson shoves his way into the line. "How's the show?"
"Only just started," Zee says.
Artemis scowls at her. West, though, just pouts at his boyfriend. "Babe," he says. "What's for lunch?"
"Second Thursday of the month?"
West stares at him expectantly.
He sighs. "Tacos, Walls."
West grins at him, pupils practically heart-shaped—she can't help but mutter, "Get a room."
"Wow," West drawls over Zatanna's snort. "Real mature. Most of us graduated high school already."
"I'm surprised you managed to get your head out your ass for long enough," Artemis shoots back.
"Can't be that surprised, since you managed to get your nose out the air—"
"You hang around with Grayson and you're calling me stuck-up?"
"Hey!" Grayson says. "What did I do?"
"Apart from the six months refusing to tell me your dad's name?" She'd felt awful after that, especially since it was obvious everyone else in the class had known all along.
"You can't still hold that against me," he protests. "That was years ago! I said I was sorry."
West nods. "Plus, if you're looking for things to hold against Dick . . ."
"Ew," she says, ignoring Zee's pointed look. She's not interested in holding anything against Grayson, except the grudge she only brings up to piss him off.
"Anyway," West says, "as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—"
Grayson elbows him playfully, lovesick practically stamped on his forehead.
"—are you going to Roy's party this weekend?"
"I'm invited," she says. "Is that a problem?"
"No," he says quickly. "No problem. See you there."
"Sure." West's stopped complaining about Ollie taking over her training, but she wouldn't put it past him to change his mind. "Whatever."
Grayson sighs, and nudges West again. "Roy wants to know how much stuff he should buy, that's all."
"We're going."
Artemis's head snaps around to stare at Zee, who gives her a drop it look, and then starts talking to Grayson about some difficult translation she's studying.
After, when the line has finally inched through the register and they're heading towards M'gann, she hisses, "I never said I was going," at her.
"I don't care," Zee says. "Everyone else is, and I'm hoping spending time in the same room might get you to sort your shit out.
"There's no shit," she says. "He's just—"
"Hot?"
"No. You think West's hot?"
"He's not my type," Zee says. "Yours, on the other hand—"
"I'm not having this conversation." Artemis speeds up, pushing through the lunch crowd like she can't feel Zee's judgemental stare. It doesn't matter, anyway. Even if Zee insists that there's some deep-rooted desire lurking inside her, Artemis knows—for a fact—that no level of hotness could make up for those personalities.
The light hurts. That's never a good sign.
The briefest flash of the dorms appears before Artemis squeezes her eyes closed again, wincing at the still-bright screen of her eyelids. How much did she drink last night?
This is the last time she listens to Ollie. Talk to Roy, he said. He's a senior. He can show you the ropes. All she's ever got from Roy is advice for courses she's not taking, way too much information about his and Ollie's relationship, and shitty booze. Usually, she appreciates the alcohol, but right now . . .
Someone groans.
It's not Artemis.
Slowly—very slowly—she cracks open an eyelid, and realises several things far too quickly.
First: Wally West is lying next to her, so close his breath puffs against her ear.
Second: his freckles go all the way down. Which she knows, because he is very naked.
Third: Artemis is also naked, and she has a nasty feeling about the ache between her legs.
Fourth: West doesn't have his arm around her waist. Usually, she wouldn't have a problem with that, but if she's not doing it, and he's not doing it, then . . .
Oh no. Oh no.
What the fuck did Roy give her?
She can't not look. Artemis turns, squinting in the dim light—heart sinking when Dick Grayson mumbles and, still asleep, drops his head onto her shoulder.
West groans again. He shifts against her, the crook of his pelvis moving against her hip—and freezes dead. Even in the middle of her own freakout, she can appreciate his face—mouth gaping, eyes blown wide as he stares at his boyfriend. He looks down at himself—naked—and Artemis—naked—and Grayson—naked—and back at her, as if he can make the problem go away by staring at it.
"My eyes are up here," she says.
West's eyes snap to hers. "I—uh—" he stammers. "What—when? How? Why?"
Artemis shrugs. She has blurry memories of last night's party at Roy's, of grinning and downing something when he bet her she wouldn't, of getting into a fight with West about . . . something. And then all she remembers is someone—Grayson, maybe?—pressing her into the mattress, and laughing, not unkindly, and . . .
A brief afterimage of West and Grayson. She was sprawled across the sheets, on the edge of sleep, but just awake enough to see Grayson sit himself in West's lap and kiss him like he belonged there.
West's still talking, hands flailing about more with every breath. "Did we have sex? Shit, did we—are you—did we use a condom? Oh God, Uncle B's going to kill me he told me not to get a girl pregnant in college and now I'm going to have to drop out and—"
With a thump, he loses his balance and topples backwards out of bed. Artemis ruthlessly smothers the impulse to check he's alright.
He pops back up after a couple of seconds, anyway, hair looking even worse that it did before, face the same colour and firmly focussed on his desk chair, as if that'll help. "Never mind," he mumbles. "I'll just—ugh." He drops his boxers and heads for the chest of drawers across the room, so he can grab a clean pair and drag a t-shirt over the blush that's slowly creeping down the toned muscles of his back.
"Here."
She stares at the t-shirt he's holding out. It's red, with a shocked cartoon face in the middle. A speech bubble next to the figure's head says Ah! The Element of Surprise!.
"Don't," he says, before she can tell him to shove it and get her own clothes. He grimaces. "Just—trust me, okay?"
He waves the shirt at her again. This time, she takes it, but Grayson refuses to move when she jostles him, arm only dragging her closer.
West sighs. "Sorry—he gets like this when he hasn't slept," he tells the wall.
She can't believe he's being so awkward about this. This is the guy who called her babe twice in the five minutes after they met, and then kept doing it through a week of increasingly inventive threats. This is the guy who acts like he wants to get in bed with everyone, and does get in bed with his boyfriend, so regularly Artemis almost made herself a sex schedule just so she could get in some uninterrupted study time. And here he is, looking, if anything, even more awkward with Grayson than he is with her.
Fuck—she really hopes this isn't their first threesome. Didn't they talk about this before they—
Did they even make the first move?
Surely. Surely she didn't proposition Wally West.
Oh, she's going to go back in time and kick her own ass so hard.
She shoves Grayson again, but might as well sing him a lullaby for all the good she's doing. West leans over and pokes him in the cheek. "This is why you don't stay up for forty-eight hours straight, genius. Come on, ba—dude."
Grayson lets out a deeply unhappy noise and holds Artemis tighter. She elbows him, hard, ignoring West's look of disapproval; one eye cracks open, before vanishing into screwed-up eyelids.
Yeah. Artemis can relate.
Now, when she tries to move away, he lets her, shrinking against the wall. She pulls the too-big t-shirt on before West can get a hold of himself enough to be interested in her boobs, although admittedly it's a bit late for that.
Ugh. He's going to be absolutely insufferable after this.
Luckily, at the moment West seems more interested in checking in on his relationship. "Dick?"
Grayson lets out a long, slow breath and opens his eyes. "Hi, Walls."
"Uh," he says, articulately. "Hey, dude. Uh."
"Throw me a t-shirt?" Grayson says, slightly strangled.
"Sure," he practically squeaks. He hops over to the nearer set of drawers and starts rummaging through them and—fuck.
They definitely haven't talked about this.
"Artemis," Grayson says.
"Grayson."
He gives her a look, but just because she knows it's ridiculous not to use his first name when they had (great) sex last night and he's in bed with his (very hot) bare chest for anyone to see—well, that doesn't mean she's going to stop. Even if she could be persuaded to do the sex again—which she can't—there's still the matter of—
"Here," West says, holding out one of Grayson's t-shirts across her eyeline. "Is—uh, is this okay?"
"It's fine," Grayson says, soft and meaningful. "Don't worry about it."
West's shoulders relax from where they're practically around his ears as he smiles back. "Okay. Sure thing."
Artemis needs to get out of here. Right now, before they start making out.
West doesn't stop staring at Grayson until she swings her legs across the bed and ducks out of the middle of their little love-fest. "Wait—what—?"
"I'll get out of your way," she mutters distractedly. She's not wearing underwear, which she can live with in here—West's t-shirt covers most of the important stuff—but isn't going to fly out in the hall. Or with Zatanna.
Who knows, maybe Zee found a hot, normal, not-trying-out-threesomes-for-the-first-time date to spend the night with. Maybe they went back to their place. Maybe she's not even noticed Artemis's gone.
"Artie?"
"Don't call me that," she snaps at West, who holds up his hands; he actually looks a little hurt—
And she is not thinking about that. She's trying to find her underwear, which is . . . somewhere in the pile of clothes by the foot of the bed.
Okay, West might have had a point earlier.
It's fine. She's just going to pretend all the stickiness is Roy's cheap alcohol, and then she's going to wash it. Twice.
"You can borrow my pants," Grayson offers. "They're shorter."
"Fine," Artemis says, then, between gritted teeth, "thanks."
Grayson gets up with his usual elegance—a second too late, she remembers he's only wearing a t-shirt, too. Her eyes snap up, accidentally crossing paths with West's.
(He has got to be redder than her. Who cares if her face is on fire?)
There's a flash of blue in the corner of her eye. Artemis plucks it out of the air and tugs Grayson's pants on, ignoring his smirk. She picks up her stuff from the floor—very gingerly—and heads for the door.
"You really don't want breakfast or anything?"
"What?" she says, half-turning, to see both of them staring at her.
West shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. "I mean. Isn't that, like, what you do with girls? Afterwards?"
"I'm fine," Artemis snaps. She whirls around and stomps out the door.
Grayson gets out, "You are such an idiot—" before the door cuts him off, banging shut into the empty Sunday morning corridor.
She hopes they get noise complaints. The nerve of him, acting like—like—
Ugh.
Artemis stomps down the hall, fully prepared to tiptoe into her own bed as she inches the door to the room open—and comes face to face with Zatanna, fully dressed and typing away at her desk.
"Good night?" Zee says, before, as she turns and catches sight of Artemis, her mouth twists into the most self-satisfied smirk she's ever seen.
"Not a word," Artemis hisses at her.
"Is that Wally's—"
"Not one."
Yeah. She's never known that to work yet.