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The only thing Dick had on his mind that night was getting out of uniform, getting out to Palo Alto, and getting on the couch with his boyfriend. To the point that he was distracted, glancing at the clock, more than a little impatient as he ran training exercises with the Team. Bruce had always been the one to tell him; either your head is in the game, or it isn’t, and if it isn’t then you need to get out. This wasn’t exactly a life or death situation, he wasn’t being distracted from the barrel end of a gun.
The situation with Kaldur was weighing on his mind every hour of every day. He trusted his friend, respected his decision to step down from the team, risking life and reputation to get inside The Light, but that didn’t make it any easier to sleep at night. He was just - antsy. His mind was constantly racing, trying to sort out their next move. He felt like he was forgetting something, he was tired, and more than anything right now he just wanted to spend a few hours not being Nightwing. Even he felt the pressure sometimes.
“Blue!” Dick snapped, a little harsher than he meant to.
On the simulated training deck in front of him, the Team came to an abrupt hault - all but Jaime, who was currently sliding across the floor and into the far wall. Dick’s voice and the sound of grating metal echoed up into the high ceiling of the main cavern of the Cave. Coming to a hard stop, upside down and legs half folded over the rest of his body, the Blue Beetle armour folded away to reveal a humiliated and slightly mortified Jaime staring back at Dick. Surrounding him, Garfield, La’gaan, and Cassie all slipped out of their fighting stances. Gar shifted down from his Gorilla form, just as L’gann’s form shrank back down to his normal size. The four of them were the newer powerhouses on the Team, and Dick had been spending the better part of his evening running drills with them. It was going about as well as Dick had expected.
Dick sighed roughly, walking out into the middle of the holographic field. “Blue, you have got to stay focused,” he said, a little voice in the back of his mind calling him the biggest hypocrite alive. “A mistake like that on a mission could end up getting you or a teammate in serious danger.”
Jaime cringed, slowly rolling over and picking himself up. The projected “Blue Beetle: Fail” stat on the floor disappeared as he brushed himself up and rose to his feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled, gesturing to his back. “This things just got-”
“A mind of its own, I know,” Dick finished. “But you have to learn how to work with it, alright? Don’t focus so much on trying to control the Beetle, learn to understa-” A rhythm of high pitched beeps from the comm link in his ear interrupted Dick before he could finish his thought. It took him only a moment to register it as Green Arrow’s signature ring tone. Dick frowned, clearing his throat. “You get the idea,” he recovered. “Look, don’t get discouraged. I know it’s frustrating, but you’re going to work past this. Alright!” he turned to the rest of the Team assembled for the night. “Maneuver 7, run it again. Cassie, this time I want you to try spotting for Blue, alright?”
Ignoring the round of groans from the Team, Dick stepped off the training deck and resumed his position leaning on the opposite wall. Once he was certain that he was out of earshot, and the Team had resumed their drills, he raised his finger to his ear. “GA,” he kept his voice low as he greeted the other Hero. “What’s up?”
“I’ve found him,” Oliver replied without preamble. Those three words alone had Dick standing up straight. “And it’s worse than we thought.”
“Roy?” Dick asked, knowing full well who Oliver was talking about but not quite ready to believe it. “Where is he?”
“I tailed him to D.C. Caught him pinching a wad of cash from a robbery he stopped. So far as I can tell, he doesn’t know I’m following him.” There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Dick could only imagine was Oliver was feeling at the moment. “He’s in rough shape, Dick. I’m calling in the Cavalry.”
Dick knew exactly what that meant. He’d been waiting for this since Roy had first vanished without a trace - they all had. “We’ll be there,” he said. “I can head out to Washington in the meantime and help you keep track of where he’s headed.”
“You got it. Green Arrow out.”
Dropping his hand from his ear with a sigh, Dick sank further back against the wall, head tilting back against the cold, rugged stone. This really wasn’t what he’d been hoping for to end his night, but the need to help his friend overpowered any disappointment he might have felt. There would be other nights to slow down. Tonight might be the only chance they got to talk some sense into Roy before it was too late.
“Everything alright?”
Dick started at the sudden voice to his right. The only thing keeping him from slipping into an automatic fighting stance was the instant recognition. Dick looked over his shoulder to find Professor Carr sauntering toward him from down the corridor, toward the main cavern. Hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket, he was the picture of nonchalance, but the tightness around his eyes betrayed an honest concern. Dick sighed, carding a gloved hand back through his hair as he kicked off the wall. “Yeah, just peachy,” he replied. “Gar’s all yours. I’ve gotta head out early anyway. Taking a... personal night off.”
Carr chuckled. “Don’t worry, I get it. It’s that time of the year. Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Dick raised a brow, the expression not quite translating beneath the mask. He didn’t have time to ask what he meant by that, though. Turning toward the training deck, he brought up the control from his holocomp and dismissed the simulation. The Team stopped in the middle of their drills, turning toward their leader with a raised brow. “Beast Boy! It’s time for your classes. The rest of you, take the night off, we’ll keep working on this next week. Good job tonight.”
Met with (unshockingly) not arguments, Dick left the Team wrap up and hit the showers. He just barely saw Garfield morph down into his normal size, bounding excitedly over to his teacher, before he’d turned down the adjacent hallway.
Dick made his way to the common area - which was blissfully empty. Ever since M’gann and Conner’s split, and the subsequent introduction of M’gann’s relationship with La’gaan, the atmosphere in the Cave had been... a little bit tense, to say the least. The fact that so many other young heroes were taking up residence at Mount Justice nowadays didn’t make it any easier. Dick, as much as he cared about the Team he was now leading, just wanted a few minutes without interruption. Turning into the common room, Dick flopped down into one of the long green couches and sank into the cushion with a long sigh.
This was going to be a long night.
Best to get it going, at least. The best he could hope for at this point was that it wouldn’t be quite as bad as he was predicting it would be - and he was predicting a trainwreck. Reaching into a side pouch on his belt, Dick brought out his personal phone and hit his top contact. Wally’s face beamed back at him from behind the darkened filter of the call screen. He only hoped that Wally was home from class by this time. It was just after 6pm on the West Coast, but he couldn’t remember if Wally had to pick up a shift at work or not. He got his answer on the fourth ring.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Wally said, casual as anything.
Dick, even in spite of the mounting pressure in his head, found himself smiling. “Hey,” he replied as he let his head fall back against the sofa cushion. “You busy?”
“Just a little bit. Why?”
Dick heaved a sigh, eyes tracing the patterns in the stone on the ceiling. “Oliver found Roy.”
“What?” Wally’s voice tightened on the end of the line. The sound of rustling papers suggested he’d knocked a few books over in his surprise. “He found him? Where is he, is he okay?”
“Who found who?” A second voice spoke up, some short distance away from Wally. “What’s going on?”
Dick frowned. “Is that Artemis?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a paper due in Vietnamese Lit tomorrow, so she was helping me out with mine,” Wally answered. “She was already done hers but- hey, knock it off!”
Artemis, her voice a little closer now, jumped in again. “Put him on speaker!”
There was a muffled sound of struggle over the phone, Wally and Artemis’ short bickering unintelligible through the noise, until finally the line went calm again. Dick once again felt a smirk that had no right to be there tugging at the corner of his lip. He didn’t need to guess who’d won that fight.
“Dick, what’s going on?” Artemis repeated.
“We’ve got a location on Roy,” Dick replied. “Oliver found him in D.C. Said he doesn’t look good, from what he’s seen.”
“Is Jade-”
“Not with him,” Dick interrupted before Artemis could get hopes up - she didn’t have much to begin with when it came to her sister. “Oliver would have mentioned her. But he wants us there when he confronts him.”
Wally responded immediately. “I’m on my way, then.”
“We’re on our way,” Artemis corrected with a cutting tone.
Dick grimaced, pushing himself up a little straighter on the couch. “Listen, Artemis, maybe it’s not such a good idea-”
“Like hell I’m missing this, Dick,” Artemis snapped. “Whether Jade’s there or not, he’s still my brother-in-law, my old teammate, and my friend. I’m coming.”
Dick knew better than to argue with Artemis at that point, and from the lack of response from Wally over the line, so did he. “Alright,” Dick gave in. “It’s gonna be a few hours still until we can find a place to... corner Roy. I’m heading out to meet up with Ollie now. I’ll send you the rendezvous point as soon as I’ve got one. And both of you...” Dick trailed off.
“Yeah?” Artemis and Wally replied in unison.
Dick grinned. “Don’t be idiots and forget your coats. It’s still below freezing on the East Coast.”
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
They all heard the rough landing from the other side of the wall. Roy’s grunts as his body rolled against the unforgiving tarmac echoed across the rooftop. Dick couldn’t see much from this hiding spot, but he’d seen enough over the past several hours of tailing Roy with Oliver; how thin, how unkept he was, how he stumbled when he walked and fidgeted anxiously with his police scanner. Standing beside Dick, Wally flinched, faced with the gut-wrenching sight for the first time. Artemis couldn’t even bring her gaze up from where she glared down at the ground after snapping her eyes away from her brother-in-law. He couldn’t blame either of them for their reactions.
“Shit, he’s really gone off the deep-end,” Wally whispered.
Oliver had already taken his pre-planned cue, walking out ahead of the rest of them to confront Roy first - test the waters as it was. Dick peered around the corner, watching as Green Arrow extended his hand down toward his former protegee.
“Hey Roy,” Oliver began easily, as if this were just another run-in. As if they hadn’t spend months trying to find the wayward vigilante. “Need a hand?”
Roy’s rejection wasn’t surprising, but the animosity as he slapped Roy’s hand away was. “No!” he snarled.
Right. Well, no one was under any disillusions that this was going to be easy. Straightening his back, Dick looked to Wally and Artemis with a reaffirming nod. Once they’d both returned the gesture, Dick stepped out from behind the wall, the two of them following close behind. “We think you do.”
And, with yet another cue, Dinah and Jim emerged from behind another stairwell on the opposite side of the rooftop. Between the six of them, including Oliver, they formed a loose circle around Roy - not enough to make him feel caged in, but just enough to let him know that trying to fight his way out of this intervention wasn’t going to be an easy feat.
From the livid expression beneath his mask, Roy understood it well, too. The sharp angles of his gaunt face under the pale city glow made him appear almost skeletal. The dark shadow of his unshaven jaw certainly didn’t help the grim effect. Roy’s lip curled as he regarded his friends and family. “I have nothing to say to any of you,” he hissed as he turned his back and made for the edge of the roof. “Nothing to explain, nothing to justify!”
Artemis was the first to dart forward, stepping around Oliver’s already outstreched arm, as she snatched the wad of cash from the back of Roy’s belt. “Nothing?” she spat.
Roy stopped cold. Glancing back over his shoulder, he regarded the money for a brief moment before tearing his eyes away. “It’s not what it looks like...” he began, stammering over the first words as he finally turned around to face them all. Roy’s tone grew steadily higher, desperation and obsession leaking into the cracks of his voice. “I mean that store owner won't miss it. He offered me a reward anyway. Besides, I deserve it! Guy wouldn't have any of his money back if I hadn't stepped in.”
“Dude! Are you even listening to yourself?” Wally stepped forward.
“Look, I need it!” Roy snapped, making a wild grab for the cash. Artemis, though, was faster, and quickly held it out of his reach. Roy’s fists clenched at his sides, the bow in his left hand creaking under the tension. “I need it to find Speedy,” he continued through gritted teeth. “The real Roy Harper. A search like that is expensive. Especially when the rest of you have all given up!”
Dick’s eyes narrowed under the sting of that parpticular statement, but never got the chance to put a word in before Artemis was rearing up again. “Given up?!” she roared.
Dinah held her hand out in front of the younger woman. With a single look, and not a word, she stopped Artemis in her tracks. The meaning was clear; stand down. When Artemis relaxed, folding her arms over her chest, Dinah continued forward. “Roy, I know you feel lost,” she began calmly as she approached him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But that doesn't mean you are alone.”
“I'm not the one that's lost,” Roy dislodged her hand as he turned his back on her.
That tactic unsuccessful, Dinah’s course changed. “When was the last time you trained? The last time you slept?”
Roy only scoffed. “Don't even start! I'm in the best shape of my life.”
In that moment, it seemed everyone on that rooftop but Roy noticed the challenge he’d just offered. Dinah’s head lowered, her body coiling. “Oh, really?” One narrowly missed round-house kick was all it took for Roy to realize his mistake. He stumbled backwards, but still Dinah refused to let up, following through with kick after ruthless punch, each blow just barely missing as Roy attempted to evade. Dinah pushed him all the way to the edge of the roof, where Roy lost his balance and would have gone careening backwards if Dinah hadn’t lashed out and grabbed his uniform by the fist, yanking him upright again. “Best shape of your life? That was me holding back. Way back,” she growled. Dazed still for a moment, Roy struggled to recover, using his bow to swipe weakly at Dinah’s hand. Dinah relented, allowing Roy to trip and fall to his knees on the ground. When she spoke again, the sympathy had returned to her voice. “Roy. You used to treat your body as a temple. But now-”
“My body is no temple!” Roy cut her off. “It's a cheap knockoff. A clone.”
The silence following that statement spoke more than anything any of them had said that night. They all knew intimately how much Roy had struggled with the truth of identity following the incident at the Watchtower. For years, they knew he’d tried to come to terms with it, all the while allowing his all-consuming obsession with finding the original Roy Harper to take over every aspect of his life. Roy had tried to move one, had built a life for himself, got married, but in the end it wasn’t enough. The longer he went with no leads, the deeper his self-loathing sank its teeth in, until one day he’d just - disappeared.
Ahead of them, Oliver approached Roy, once again trying to offer him a literal and metaphoric hand. Dick caught the beginning of his speech, his plea for Roy to go back to Star City with him, but his attention was drawn toward his boyfriend at his side. Wally was watching Roy with an agonized gaze, mouth open and brows furrowed deep. Dick nudged Wally’s hand lightly with his own. “Hey,” he said lowly to avoid interrupting the other. “You doing okay?”
Wally blinked, gaze flickering between Dick and the sight of Roy staggering to his feet to sneer in Oliver’s face. “Yeah, it’s just...” he trailed off, as Jim cut in and approached Roy as the voice of reason. Wally exhaled unsteadily. “It’s a lot worse than I thought it’d be.”
Dick nodded, shifting just close enough that their arms brushed in a small show of comfort. “Tell me about it...” Dick murmured as he focused back on Jim and Roy. Jim was the only other person on that roof who could honestly understand what Roy was going through - because he’d gone through the exact same ordeal as him. Whether it was the aging process that had made the identical clone appear older, or the sense of separated identity from believing he’d been a different man since his creation, Jim had struggled with the knowledge that he too was a clone of the original Roy Harper but had dealt with it leagues better than the other had. If anyone of them could get through to Roy, Dick hoped, it would be Jim.
“Roy, you know we both spent years looking for the original Speedy,” Jim said in earnest, unfazed by Roy’s previous outburst. “And every one else here did the same. We never found him because the Light didn't keep him alive. It was Cadmus policy to delete the source material. He's dead, brother. Which is all the more reason you have to live. To honor the Roy that was.”
Any hope Dick had left of Jim getting through was torn down as Roy stumbled back, gesturing wildly to his own body. “You call this honor?” he shouted. “I stole his life. Just by existing I’m trampling on his name!”
“Roy,” Artemis’ voice cut through the tension, sharp and unyielding, as she stepped forward. Still, there was an softer edge to her slicing tone. She was angry, but more than that, she was angry because she cared so much. “You are not committing a crime for just existing. None of us get to chose who creates us. We only get to chose how we exist, and this?” she gestured to his weakened body. “This is no way to live.”
Roy regarded her with no warmth. “No offense, but you’re the last person I need to hear from right now.”
“Don’t start that with me,” Artemis warned him.
“Why don’t you go preach to your sister about choices?”
Artemis took another stride froward, inches away from Roy’s face as she glared up at him. “You know I haven’t heard from Jade in a year,” she hissed. “She made her choice, but that has nothing to do with me. I’m choosing to be here, for you, right now. I want to help you.”
Refusing to back down, Roy only leered down at her. “Then that’s your mistake.”
“Artemis is right,” Oliver stepped in, unwilling to let things escalate. He settled a hand on Artemis’ shoulder, both a comforting squeeze and a solid anchor to hold her back. “You need serious help Roy.”
“I don’t need help from anyone!” Roy lashed out. “Much less my replacement!”
It was an old argument. An old insult, a hatchet that they’d both buried years ago - and the one thing Roy knew would get under Artemis’ skin. Artemis tried to yank her shoulder out from under Oliver’s hold. “I am not anyone’s replacement!”
Roy didn’t hear her. He didn’t seem to be hearing anyone anymore. “I can take care of myself,” he insisted. “You two think you’re so high and mighty because you’ve moved on. Well I haven’t given up! I can’t give up. I’m fine, I’m more than fine, I can still out-shoot either of you!” Roy’s voice began to tremble as he ranted, holding his bow in both hands. His eyes darted about the rooftop, wildly searching out a target.
Artemis’ expression dropped, fury giving way to something teetering a dangerous edge between concern and fear. “Roy, stop it.”
Again, Roy didn’t hear her. “That billboard,” he pointed to the distant image of a disaster insurance broker promising full coverage from meta-human attacks. Roy reached into his quiver and knocked an arrow onto his bowstring. “The dot of the I in disaster. I can still hit it, I can-”
Dick saw the outcome before Roy released the arrow, saw the way the man’s arms were struggling to even put tension on the bowstring, the uncoordinated step as he backed up, the metal pipeline running the length of the roof. Roy was too crazed to notice the obstruction in his path, or the fact that Jim was standing just below his target. Dick saw - but Wally did too. A shout on his tongue, Dick tried to Roy to stop, when a burst of light and movement rushed out from beside him. The moment Roy tripped backwards, the arrow was loosed, flying off its intended course and straight for Jim. In the span of half a second, Wally reappeared skidding to a stop in front of Jim, holding the wayward arrow clenched in his fist where he’d stopped it mid-air; right where it would have pierced Jim’s neck, inches away from Wally’s own face.
But the moment Wally stopped, he collapsed. Face tightening in agony, his empty hand flew up to his chest as his legs gave out. Wally dropped to his knees with a pained yelp through gritted teeth.
It had happened so fast, no one had really registered what they just saw until Wally was already on the ground. Dick was running across the roof the second he saw his boyfriend go down. “Wally!” he shouted, cold with fear when he saw Wally clutching at his heart like it was about to explode out his chest. Dick skidded down to his knees, one arm braced around Wally’s back while the other flew to cover Wally’s over his heart. Wally leaned against Dick, forehead pressed hard against his partner’s shoulder. His jaw was clenched so tight the veins in his neck were bulging out. Focus narrowed down to a pinpoint on Wally, Dick barely noticed that the others were moving around them. Jim and Artemis had rushed to the two of them, kneeling down on either side to make sure Wally was okay, while Dinah and Oliver had evidently decided that enough was enough, and were currently disarming Roy. Dick looked away from Wally just long enough to watch as Dinah ripped the bow from his hands and Oliver forced him to sit down on a nearby generator.
“I’m fine,” Wally grunted against Dick’s shoulder, drawing the vigilante’s attention back to his boyfriend.
Dick wasn’t sure how convincing that statement was when Wally’s voice was cracking through it, but he didn’t argue. “Just breathe through it,” he murmured, glancing up at Artemis with a quick nod toward his belt. Artemis mirrored the nod in understanding, shifting behind Dick and reaching into a pouch on the back of his belt. She brought out a small vial of glimmering, silver liquid, popped the cap off the top, and pushed it toward Wally - who regarded the vial like a child would a bottle of cough medicine. Artemis only rolled her eyes, pushing the vial insistently against this chest. Dick always kept an emergency dose on him, just in case he found Wally in a situation where an antacid tab just wouldn’t cut it. Wally, for his part, didn’t protest, though he didn’t look happy about it as he took the vial from Artemis and downed the contents in one gulp. He shivered, looking a little green the moment after he’d swallowed, but graciously didn’t spit it back out again.
Passing the vial to Dick, Wally finally looked back at Roy. He shifted to rise to his feet, Dick going up with him to support his weight until he was stable again. He pulled Wally’s arm over his shoulder, the other holding tight around his waist. Both Jim and Artemis stood up after them, following a step behind as they approached Roy.
“Are you... out of your mind, dude?” Wally grunted, throwing the arrow down at his friend’s feet. “We’re trying to help you!”
It was almost a minute of unyielding silence, made that much louder by the passing cars and ambient noise of the city blow, before Roy finally had the nerve to look up at him. His eyes may had been hidden behind his mask, but there was no mistaking his regret in the slump of his bony shoulders. “What're you even doing here, West?” he grumbled. “I thought you ditched the hero game.”
Wally tensed in Dick’s hold, but didn’t react to Roy’s poor attempt at getting under his skin. “Ditching the game doesn't mean ditching my friends,” he said. “And before you round back to the original Roy again, let's face the facts. He was never our friend.”
Roy reered back, poised to lash out at that statement with a vicious snarl, but Oliver overpowered him, keeping his hand on his shoulder with a tight grip.
Dick flinched, ready to step in between Roy and Wally if need be, but relaxed when Oliver beat him to it. He sighed, looking up at Wally, the harsh angles the light was cutting into his face, and back down at Roy. “We've all done the math,” he began. “Speedy was abducted before any of us met.”
Wally nodded, the pain gradually ebbing from his voice. “You're the guy we trained beside. Fought beside. You're the only you we know.”
“You're our friend,” Dick concluded. “Just 'cause you're a clone with anger management issues doesn't change that.”
“Seriously,” Wally added with a grin, shifting to take on his own weight again as he straightened up, “have you met Superboy?”
It was an honest attempt at lightening the atmosphere, even in spite of the pain he’d just felt, and it was so essentially Wally that Dick couldn’t help but feel his chest swell. As Wally stood up straight again, Dick let go of the hand he’d been holding to support Wally over his shoulder, but Wally didn’t let go. Instead, his arm had settled comfortably over Dick’s shoulder, while Dick’s arm didn’t stray from his waist.
Still, though, the joke didn’t land. A thick, choking silence enveloped the group of them, before finally, Roy lifted his head. There was no anger in his expression any longer. It was much worse than that. There was only indifference. “All done?” he asked, voice low and cold as he shrugged off Oliver’s hand and rose to his feet. “You want to salvage someone's soul? Go get Kaldur to see the light. From what I hear, he needs course-correcting. But leave me out,” Roy approached Dinah, holding out his hand to take his bow back. Dinah hesitated, eyes sharp. She knew, in the end, that she had no right to keep it from him. Roy took his bow with a harsh yank from Dinah’s hands, stalking toward the far edge of the rooftop. “Write me off. Or don't. Either way... blow.”
With nothing more to say, Roy jumped. The clatter of his rough landing on a fire escape echoed up from the alley below. Realistically, they could have stopped him. They could have disarmed him, knocked him out, dragged him away and tried to force him to see reason - but this didn’t work like that. Strong and skilled as any of them were, they couldn’t make a person change when they didn’t want to.
The six of them were left on the rooftop, staring after Roy in shock and disappointment, with a collective feeling that they’d ended that confrontation worse than when they’d started. Oliver sighed, pushing back his hood shaking his head. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “I really thought he’d listen this time.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologise for, Ollie,” Artemis insisted, sending one last glare at the empty spot where her brother-in-law had turned his back on them. Approaching her former mentor, she hooked an arm around him in a side hug with a light squeeze. “We tried our best to get through to him.”
There was no masking the fact that Oliver wasn’t quite ready to take her words at face value, but he offered her a smile and slung an arm around her in return. “Well, let’s call it a night.”
Oliver, Dinah, and Jim left immediately after. There wasn’t much they could do standing around dejected on the roof of some commercial building in the middle of the District. It’d been hours since this began, between finding Roy, tailing him to the rooftop, and the failed intervention. Everyone was tired. Dick, for all he tried to keep up the facade otherwise, was exhausted. With the other heroes retired for the night, Dick turned back toward Wally, smoothing his hand up his back. “I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” he murmured. “Arty, can you make sure he gets home alright?”
“I told you,” Wally rolled his eyes. “I’m alright.”
“Well,” Artemis ignored Wally’s protest, stuffing her hands into the pocket of her jacket. “That was...”
Wally finished for her. “A disaster,” he groaned, scrubbing both hands down his face in defeat. “And on top of that, I’ve still got my paper due at 8am...” Wally trailed off, bringing his hands down from his face to peer down at his friend. “I don’t suppose you’d let me copy off of yours?”
Artemis responded with a light punch to his bicep, before she hooked her arm around his. “Not a chance,” she laughed. “I’ve got him covered, Dick.”
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
It was another hour before Dick was walking up the steps to the apartment in Palo Alto. He headed back at the Cave to change out of his suit and back into his civvies first. The Cave was dead quiet when he arrived, dark save for the sparse glow of computers and dim lights. It was about 3am, every inhabitant of the Cave asleep for the night. Dick had thought he’d been thankful just to find a single empty room earlier that same night - he was almost overwhelmed with how grateful he was not to run into anyone at that hour. He needed the quiet more than anything at the moment. Stopping for a quick shower, Dick got dressed and left through the Zetatube port. Even the mechanic voice of the computer was quieter at the late hour as it identified him and announced his target port - Palo Alto, California. Leaving the frigid winter night behind on the East Coast, Dick emerged on the other side in the cool rain of the West.
By the time he made it to the apartment he shared with Wally, Dick was dead on his feet. He fumbled in his pocket for his key once he’d made it to the top of the stairs, but didn’t have the need to use it before the door was opening. Wally stood on the other side, silhouetted from the light inside
“I was wondering when you were gonna turn up,” Wally greeted with a tired smile, palm resting on Dick’s side as he leaned in for a quick kiss.
Dick returned with a light peck. “Sorry, left all my stuff back at the Cave,” he muffled a yawn with his fist as he slipped inside and kicked his shoes off. Wally closed the door behind him. “You got back fine?”
“Yeah,” Wally shrugged. “Going so fast only knocked me off my feet for a minute there, it wore off. Artemis and I grabbed some coffee on the way home, but she headed back to her place after.” Dick hummed, stifling another yawn as he hung his jacket up on the coat rack. He stepped back, turning around onto to be met with the solid wall of his boyfriend standing, waiting behind him. Wally grinned, slipping his arms around Dicks’ waist. “Hey,” he whispered. “It’s after midnight... Happy Valentine’s Day, Dick.”
Now, let it be said that Dick knew what Valentine’s Day was - obviously. And he knew that Valentine’s day was February 14th. But let it also be said that it took him until that moment for the connection to click, and it showed on his face.
Wally’s eyebrows shot up, reading Dick’s expression without need for words. His grin only widened. “Four years.”
Dick groaned, shoulders deflating as he slumped forward against his boyfriend. “Don’t.”
“Four years.”
“Stoooop.”
“Four years, and you’re finally the one that forgot!” Wally laughed.
Dick unleashed another long, tortured groan against his boyfriend, the sound inevitably stuttering in his chest and dissolving into a laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said as he wound his arms around Wally’s shoulders and brought his head back. “We’ll do something tomorrow - I mean today.”
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” Wally chuckled. “I’m gonna be pulling an all nighter to get this paper finished by 8am. We can celebrate tonight.”
“Not too late to make dinner plans,” Dick agreed. “I think we can still salvage a decent Valentine’s Day. Did you need company to keep you awake while you work?”
Wally shook his head. “You look exhausted, Dick. I’m good, anyway. Got enough caffeine to keep me going... unless you want to start salvaging right now,” he smirked, hands smoothing down Dick’s waist to his hips.
“Oh no, you’re not using me to procrastinate.”
“Damn.”
The two of them laughed, Dick pressing their foreheads together until long after they’d faded off. Neither of them were willing to move. The weight of the night was still heavy on them both, the confrontation on the roof feeling at the same time like it’d happened five minutes and a month ago. In the following silence of the apartment, Dick couldn’t help but replay it all in his head, every cutting word playing over top the other. “I’m still worried about Roy...” he confessed.
Wally just held him tighter. “He’s lost, babe,” he sighed. “Alone. Guy just... won’t let anyone in.” Again, neither of them spoke. Neither of them could really add anything to that. Hard as it was to accept, Wally was right. What mattered was, if Roy did let them in, they’d still be there to help him pick up the pieces. As Dick covered yet another yawn with his hand, Wally exhaled and kissed his forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll crawl into bed with you at some point in the morning.”