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1.
The first time, Dick feels safe.
He trusts Wally, at a faster rate than he thought possible, and he feels safe enough to finally peel the mask from his face.
“You’re really pretty,” is the only thing Wally manages to blurt out.
Dick’s face is on fire, because what? Admittedly, he’s only been on this planet for a solid eleven years, but this is the first time anyone has directed anything but the word ‘cute’ or ‘talented’ in his direction. Pretty was a word only his mom got. His dad got called handsome, so—
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you feel weird. But… your eyes are this awesome shade of blue.” Wally seems to have a realization, because his expression shifts from awe and guilt to confusion. “Wait, I still don’t know your name.”
“You want the way-too-long version or what I want you to call me?”
“If I ask for both is Batman gonna kill me?”
Dick smiles like the sun, shrugging innocently. “Well, you’ll just have to find out. My name’s Dick. You’ll see ‘Richard John Grayson’ on my birth certificate.”
“Dick. Huh.” Wally grins as he wraps his arm around Dick. “I like it.”
2.
The second time, Dick is scared witless.
There’s not enough air in the room to satisfy his lungs, and his mind feels like a tangle of strings, all barely hanging on by a single thread—his parents are falling, the wire is jagged and snapped and Dick—he’s helpless to just watch them hit the ground with the most nauseating crack-snap-splat. His throat is raw from all the screaming—
“Dick…?”
Right. Wally. Wally came to the manor hours ago for a sleep over. He isn’t alone. Not anymore.
“Hey, Dick, are you okay?”
There’s no energy left in Dick’s body to even think of a faked smile, so he shakes his head as he lowers himself back on to his bed. “Nightmare,” he whispers.
“You want a hug… or something? A touch on the shoulder? I don’t know how you Bats deal with affection.”
“’Affection’ isn’t a word this house knows.” Dick gives it a thought. “Does… Barry give you hugs?”
“To keep me from zipping down the street, yeah,” Wally jests. “But he’s also my uncle, so that probably has something to do with it.”
Dick hums in consideration. He shifts slightly so he can lock eyes with Wally, and his shamrock eyes seem to glow in the dark. “I don’t think there’s a rule book for emotionally stunted orphans with similarly orphaned wards.”
“You sound fifty when you talk,” Wally notes. “It’s not bad. Just different. If I had to listen to the thirteen year-olds I know babble as often as you do, I’d lose it.”
“Good to know you have a standard for thirteen year-olds.”
“I’m serious!” Wally covers his mouth instantly. “Sorry. But, Dick?”
Dick grunts, sound laden with exhaustion.
“If you want to talk about it… My ears are really big.”
And what could Dick possibly do to stop the laugh that bubbles up from his throat? It hurts a little; his throat is just this side of sensitive from holding in his sobs, but Wally’s just such a dork that Dick can’t bring himself to mind.
They let several moments pass in silence before Dick is getting up off the bed and joining Wally on the floor.
“Make room, Kid Food.”
“In my sleeping bag? You’re really not thinking this through.”
“Pray tell.”
“One, I’m the human equivalent of a furnace. Two, we could both be much more comfortable on the Wayne Manor bed.”
“Nope, I like my plan better. Now scooch.”
Wally rolls his eyes with a clear abundance of fondness, but unzips the sleeping bag enough for Dick to slip in. “You’re gonna kill me tomorrow for letting you do this.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“This is my life on the line here!” Wally hisses.
“Woe is you, West.”
“You’re a menace. I can’t believe I let myself be friends with you.”
Dick Grayson has been trained for the past three years of his life to be logical and wise beyond his years, but in this moment, when the fear of being rejected claws at his heart like the most fearsome of beasts, it all goes out the window.
“You… don’t mean that, right?”
Wally flinches, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. “Whoa, no, of course not. You’re my best friend, Dick.”
“Right. Yeah. You’re right. Sorry ‘bout that.” Dick fidgets with his hands as his mind reels with potential ways to word his thoughts. “So… the reason Bruce took me in. That Batman took on a Robin.”
“Dude, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. I should. You deserve to know.” Dick trains his gaze on Wally’s semi-exposed collarbone. “I was in a circus. My parents were performers, and when they had me I naturally fell into the pattern. Then, one night, when I was ten, a man cut the wire my parents were using and—” Dick’s throat closes up completely, leaving him fighting to get a proper breath in. “They fell. Died. Bruce took me in. You know the rest.”
Wally doesn’t immediately move to coddle him, but arms do come up around his shoulders and bring him even closer to that comfortable source of heat. “I won’t leave you. No one can force me to leave you like they were.”
Dick sleeps a touch better after that.
3.
The third time, Dick is sore.
“I told you not to go running at that monster, Dick.”
“Oh, Wall-man turns seventeen and suddenly has the wisdom of Solomon.”
“Dude, I’m carrying you because you managed to break at least one bone in each of your legs. You don’t get to make wise cracks right now.”
Yeah, maybe sore doesn’t quite cut it.
Dick huffs petulantly as he leans his head against Wally’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“’Course, man. Can’t leave my best bud out on the field.”
“Conner is stronger.”
“Not half as fast, though.”
He feels himself smile a little. “Touché.” He looks up at Wally with a smile that’s probably loopy-looking. “My knight in yellow armor.”
“It’s going to be so fun seeing you hopped up on pain meds.”
“You’re the worst best friend ever.”
“I’ll just drop you on the floor, Boy Wonder.”
Dick scrambles immediately, pressing his face harder into Wally’s warmwarm neck. “No!”
Wally laughs heartily as they round the corner towards the med bay. “I’d never.”
God, Wally is going to kill him one day. The thought is quickly dissipating form his mind as the pan overtakes and the security of Wally’s arms around him lulls him to sleep.
4.
The fourth time, Dick is shattered.
The cave is empty, thank goodness, but Dick is barely staying upright as he makes his way for his room.
Dead, he’s dead, there’s no coming back from an explosion like that—he didn’t deserve that—he didn’t do anything wrong—
“Nightwing!”
Dick doesn’t stop walking—staggering—until Wally is physically holding him in place. The redhead’s presence is barely being registered in Dick’s mind, the cloud of shock and pain and whywhywhy making it hard to process anything else but the anguish in his chest.
“Dick, man, talk to me.”
Still, words are impossible. How can he think to speak when Jason is dead?
“Alright, come on, we’ll go to your room.”
Room. Bed. Sleep. Wally. All good things, Dick reasons, so he lets himself get dragged the few more feet to his room. Wally types in the code easily—why? Oh, that’s right, Dick gave it to him as soon as he was given the room.
They walk through the threshold, and—Dick starts heaving again, tears running on empty when he sees a mask left behind by Jason on accident.
“Oh, Dick…” Wally sounds so sad for him, though Dick can’t figure out why. He wasn’t the one who had been attacked—killed by the Joker, helpless to a horrid fate.
“Wally, he’s—gone—Jason’s not—he’s dead.”
Wally brings his friend down onto the bed, wrapping all of his limbs around the younger as he tries to get Dick to listen to his heartbeat. “I know, Dick, I know.”
They both know he doesn’t, can’t fully comprehend the agony filling up every cavity of his chest, drowning him, but the very fact that he’s here, to absorb the broken cries Dick lets out… It’s just enough. It’s what Dick needs. It’s what Dick will never be able to voice his appreciation for.
5.
The fifth time, Dick is awestruck.
Because Wally is trying on a new uniform, completely red in contrast to his old yellow-red one, with his hair exposed, and Dick—
Well, he’s just full realizing the extent of his bisexuality, isn’t he?
He tries to get out some peanut gallery comment about how he’s clearly going for Barry’s iconic look, but he stops himself when he realizes that nothing he could possibly say in this situation is anything a friend would.
So, he stares.
And stares a bit more.
Until Wally finally sighs and zips over to him with a raised brow.
“Does it look that bad?”
Dick blinks. “What? God, no.”
“Because you look like you’re debating all the ways to tell me I look like shit.”
“Quite the opposite, Kid Mouth.”
“You’re never letting that nickname go, are you?”
He gives Wally a shit-eating grin. “Not as I live and breathe.’
“A less-than-ideal consequence, I suppose.” Wally looks doubtful as he looks down at his new uniform. “Do I look bad…?”
“You would be the first guy I go for after a few shots.”
“You’d go to a guy with zero alcohol in your system, Dick.”
“Aw, you know me so well.” Dick steps forward a little, staring at the lightning bolt emblem and smiles fondly. “You look awesome, Wally.”
Wally smiles widely, hugging Dick with an impressive amount of strength, before speed-talking and running off.
“Alright then.”
+1
That one other, special time? Dick is fed up.
Wally has been going on and on for the past half an hour about why the Team should move locations, and while Dick is sure it started as something else, that’s where his rambling has ended up.
“Wally,” he tries, with no success. He debated waiting it out, seeing if Wally just gets tired before Dick snaps—but then he sees the several boxes of empty takeout on Wally’s coffee table, and he knows that won’t be the case. “Wally!”
His friend freezes, staring at Dick as if he was the one spewing nonsense. “Yeah?”
Dick lets his head fall back against the arm rest of the couch. “What are you even talking about anymore?”
“Were you not listening?” Wally only looks slightly hurt, exaggerated pout doing nothing to prove his point.
“I tried, believe me, but you slipped into superspeed a lot and I stopped trying.”
The ginger smiles sheepishly. He walks over to Dick, eyes unsure yet determined all the same, and places one knee on the sliver of couch space left. His hands trace up form Dick’s knees, gliding across his thighs until they settle and grip on his hips. He’s stronger than Dick last remembered—that’s a lie; it isn’t easy to forget when he stared more than he should on the battlefield—but it’s every kind of pleasant and Dick finds himself gazing at Wally’s lips distractedly.
“Throw me off if this isn’t what you wanted.”
“If I wanted you off, Wally,” Dick whispers, “you’d be off.” He tilts his head almost seductively. His lip bite, though, is absolutely so. “You gonna kiss me, or are you going to ramble on abo—mmph!”
Wally smiles against Dick’s lips; out of all the touches they’ve shared over the years, regardless of intention or hidden feelings, this has to be his favourite one.