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Dick was twelve. And on his school’s academic decathlon team, though the spots were only supposed to be open to high schoolers at Gotham Academy, not middle schoolers. Dick was a grade ahead, though, and took primarily AP courses, so he was allowed to be an exception to the rule. It probably helped that Bruce was, like, half the donor budget that GA got every year, but people were generally polite enough not to mention that.
(Dick knew it, anyway, though.)
Wally was fourteen. And a freshman on his own academic decathlon team. Sure, Central City High wasn’t as prestigious as Gotham Academy, but they knew their stuff. Their academic decathlon team made it to Nationals every year, even placing in the top ten schools, more often than not.
--
Generally speaking, at the Nationals level people would watch for Gotham and Metropolis’s notorious rivalry, because it played out – without fail – between Gotham Academy and the Lillian Luthor Community Private Academy, from Metropolis. Two big-name private schools with the works: uniforms, specialized teachers and tutors, advanced student opportunities, higher budgets, nicer utilities, and what-have-you. It was expected that part of the Nationals would be watching the two schools duke it out at some point.
Well.
It was expected up until the point that CC High knocked Luthor Academy out of the running.
Dick had been in the crowd, watching the CC High students, dressed in their mismatched button-downs and jeans, take down the Luthor Academy decathlon team. The kids from Luthor Academy were kitted out and professional to a fault. They had matching varsity jackets over crisp button-downs and pressed slacks or pressed skirts. They looked like they belonged there while the CC High students looked a bit like they’d stumbled in off the street and weren’t sure what they were doing there.
Central City High School wasn’t a bad school, by any means. But it wasn’t a privately funded school full of rich kids. CC High was just a high school. Dress code, but no uniforms, and facilities that weren’t horrible but also weren’t great. Their coach was also their math teacher, which – really – that said a bit about how much of a budget the school had, didn’t it?
But yeah. CC High won.
And Dick had a bit of a crush on his best friend, already, sure. But seeing Wally with his team? That was something else. He always knew Wally was smart, but watching him go up against other decathlon teams, never missing a beat? It was amazing.
He wanted to congratulate Wally on a job well done.
He couldn’t though, actually.
See, while Dick knew that Wally was Kid Flash (and therefore his best friend), Wally didn’t know the same about Dick Grayson and Robin being one and the same. Which was by design. Unless Wally brought up the decathlon, specifically, to Robin, Dick wasn’t supposed to even know that it was a thing.
So, Wally celebrated with his team, exchanging high fives and fist-bumps. And Dick filtered out of the auditorium so that he could go find his own team and get ready for the next round.
--
The next showdown was like a tamer alternate telling of LL Academy and CC High. You had the boujee private school, Gotham Academy (technically the Thomas and Martha Wayne Academy of Gotham), and the public school, which was Queens’ Midtown High School, from New York City.
Dick was definitely the smallest kid up there, by merit of being the only middle-schooler (so, therefore also the youngest) on a high school academic decathlon team. And by merit of just being plain small in the first place. But, up until then, the whole event had been going well.
On the lower levels, before Nationals, Dick had found himself on the receiving-end of heckling and assumptions.
Why was a middle-schooler on the team, right? Why was a twelve-year-old playing with the big kids? How much of daddy’s money did it cost to get him on the team, or was it just that the team didn’t have enough good players in their age bracket, so they poached the grades below?
On the Nationals level, it was more or less assumed that him being there meant that he deserved to be there and had earned his place, which was a nice, refreshing change of pace. There was a lot more respect about the interactions between finalist teams. Not that respect was a hard and fast rule. Not every school who made it to Nationals was filled with academic decathlon members that knew how to act in a sportsmanlike manner, you know? But yeah. Better. It was better than it had been, earlier in the academic decathlon championships.
Dick settled into his seat, ridiculously aware that it had been Wally’s seat in just the match previous.
He traded pleasantries with a few Midtown students – mostly a girl named Michelle who wore a custom (probably self-drawn) graphic tee under her unbuttoned button-down and a boy named Peter who looked nervous about literally everything – and he wished both Midtown and the GA team luck. Then he took a moment to glance around and—
It probably wasn’t healthy, the way his heart skipped a beat when his eyes landed on Wally in the crowd. Wally didn’t even know Dick’s civilian ID, so if—
Wally glanced up from the conversation he was having with the blond man beside him (Barry Allen, foster dad and uncle to Wally). Wally’s eyes met Dick’s eyes, which widened in response. He meant to glance away and make himself busy (to an inward chorus of “shit, shit, shit”), but only managed to glance away, very briefly, and then back at Wally. Until his schoolmate called his name.
“What?” Dick turned toward her, bashfully.
“You ready, Richie?”
Dick winced a little at the incorrect name, but nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He managed a smile for her, but his face felt hot and red with the force of the embarrassment he’d incurred from getting caught staring. “Definitely.”
“Good,” she gave him a bright thumbs up. On her other side, Barbara rolled her eyes in that fond, exasperated way she reserved specifically for friends and acquaintances that she thought were acting silly. It was almost refreshing not to be on the receiving end of that expression.
--
The Midtown/GA match was close, almost to the point of contention. They were good. They knew their stuff and they actually liked being there! But Gotham Academy managed to come out on top when a few of the more niche topics came up. Niche topics that a weird kid like Dick might have been obsessing over, a bit, a few weeks ago, like the amount of force that Superman would need to exert in order to, not only stop, but reverse a speeding missile that had been shot from point A to point B at a specific speed.
It was multiple choice, but there was a pause as people on either team tried to get through some quick mental math to get a feel of what the most likely answer might be. Dick buzzed in without contest (to the awed shock of the Peter kid, from earlier) and threw out his answer.
It wasn’t the winning question, but it gave Gotham Academy a bit of a leg-up, bolstering them for the questions in the final round.
And then it was over.
Dick stayed around just long enough to congratulate his team and give a sportsmanlike thanks to Midtown for their fierce competition, then slipped out. The adrenaline of what basically amounted to a glorified quiz show wasn’t quite the same as the adrenaline rush of fighting crime, but it still made Dick all jittery, needing to move before he vibrated out of his skin.
And then there was that “caught staring” thing. The embarrassment from that was given the go-ahead to come rushing back as soon as the buzzer wasn’t the main thing Dick was thinking about. Like, how amateur did he have to be to be caught staring like that, anyway? He knew how to shadow people. How to stakeout. How to eavesdrop. He should have been able to keep from getting caught by, ya know, his best friend. Especially when said best friend didn’t even know that Dick Grayson and Robin were the same person.
--
Wally slipped out of the crowds when he saw the Gotham Academy kid slip away.
Look, that look was a connection. Definitely! (He hoped.)
Wally wasn’t one to, like, suddenly develop a crush and act on it, right away – much less because he actually wasn’t out as bi to anyone but Rob – but he knew that anyone he met at the academic decathlon was going to be, like. You know. Someone he wasn’t liable to meet again. Or meet again anytime soon, at least. There wasn’t as much harm or risk to some Midwest kid trying (and possibly failing) to flirt with an East Coast kid. Especially when that East Coast kid was, like, probably rich if he went to GA. Someone like that probably wouldn’t care enough to start up the rumour mill at Wally’s expense, right?
Right?
Yeah, okay. Maybe Wally was a bit nervous about his projected attempts at flirting. That was fine! He didn’t need to flirt. He could just... say hi!
Yeah.
Or give up and head back to Barry and wait for the next day to come, so they could do the next round of eliminations at the academic decathlon and—
Wally turned to head back and ran into a much shorter person. “Oh, shit! Sorry!”
Startled (blue, so very fucking blue) eyes looked up at Wally as the kid stepped back. “No, you’re.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “Sorry, no, you’re fine. I wasn’t looking where I was—”
“Me either!” Wally blurted. Then gave a nervous, apologetic chuckle. “Me neither,” he shrugged.
“Um, good job with the thing,” the kid awkwardly pointed over his shoulder, in the vague direction of the stage they’d been holding the rounds of academic decathlon on. If you squinted and used a little imagination. “You’re team’s really good.”
“Anything to fuck with anything even remotely related to Lex Luthor,” Wally scoffed. Then: “Oh shit, sorry, that probably wasn’t... I mean. I don’t want to sound unsportsmanlike or anything! I swear I’m not like that, it’s just—” he cut himself off when he registered that the (cute) kid was laughing, quietly, behind his hand. Wally gave a nervous chuckle of his own.
“You’re fine,” the kid said. He offered a hand, albeit almost hesitantly. “I’m, uh. Dick.”
“Uh?” Wally put his hand in the kid’s hand.
“Dick Grayson,” the kid elaborated.
“Oh, um. Okay,” Wally said. They shook hands. “I’m Wally. West? I’m. Yeah. I’m Wally West.”
“You don’t sound very sure about that,” Dick smirked.
Wally laughed. “I am, I swear! Your name just—threw me off. No offense!”
“None taken,” Dick shrugged.
They still had their hands clasped together, between them, but Wally couldn’t quite bring himself to be the one to pull back.
“Your name’s really... Dick?” Wally asked.
“Well, I mean. It’s Richard. I prefer to go by Dick, though,” Dick shrugged. And still didn’t pull his hand back.
“You... prefer to be called...”
“Dick, yeah,” Dick’s smirk widened a little. “English isn’t my first language, actually.”
“No shit?”
“Um, yeah. No shit,” Dick snickered. “But I was already used to the name, to ‘Dick,’ when I uh—before I was adopted. By, um, Bruce Wayne.”
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wally blinked at Dick, barely comprehending that last bit. But he knew that name, at least. Who didn’t know “Bruce Wayne,” right? “Oh my god,” Wally managed. “You’re Bruce Wayne’s kid?” Wally was pretty sure Bruce Wayne had some kind of top secret relationship with the Justice League. Otherwise, there was no reason for so much of the JL tech stuff to be stamped, anywhere, with the Wayne Industries logo. And a lot, like, a lot of JL electronics seemed to have a Wayne stamp somewhere on it, even if it wasn’t at first obvious.
“Um yeah. He took me in after the... thing.”
Wally was slowly coming to the realization that he was basically holding hands with one of the richest kids he would ever meet, in his life. “I had no idea,” he managed.
“Yeah, I see that,” Dick shrugged.
“Master Richard,” was called from one side, in an elderly, posh English accent.
Dick pulled his hand from Wally’s then. “That’s my cue. See you around, I guess?”
“Yeah, sure,” Wally waved, a bit awkwardly, as Dick left.
Once Dick was gone, Wally felt like he could breathe again. He couldn’t tell if that went better or worse than he had expected, but he knew that it had sent his already crazy, speedster heartrate into a nervous overdrive. Which, honestly, wasn’t that fun.
--
The next day saw a GA versus CC High match.
GA won, though it was very close (But then GA was knocked out in the next, and final, round the next day.)
While the two teams were still on the stage, congratulating each other and shaking hands, Wally crossed paths with the cute younger kid again. He’d become aware that the kid was literally two years younger than him, and thus probably a bit too young for him, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel a spike of adrenaline rush through him when their hands met again.
And then Dick smiled a sly grin at Wally and left a piece of paper behind, in Wally’s hand, before moving to the next person to shake hands.
Wally stockpiled literally all of his self-control to keep from reading the piece of paper then and there, and managed to keep ahold of his self-control until he was definitively off the stage and out of the scrutiny of the wider crowd. Then he pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it.
It was Dick’s number.
“Oh my god,” Wally grinned stupidly down at the piece of paper.
--
“Oh my god,” Dick muttered to himself. He ran his hands over his face. That was... that was beyond done. He shouldn’t have passed his number on to Wally like that. What the hell was he thinking? Wally wasn’t interested in some dumbass twelve-year-old. Wally wasn’t gonna call or anything—why would he?
Dick couldn’t believe how desperate he was to have that little bit more of Wally’s attention. Didn’t he get enough time with his best friend when they were in costume? Weren’t they about to be on the same Team together, in a couple of weeks? There was no reason for Dick’s civilian identity to make any form of contact with Wally’s. Especially when Wally wouldn’t even know—
Stupid. So stupid.
Dick groaned to himself and dropped his hands, then climbed into the waiting car.
“Something the matter, chum?” Bruce asked. He lowered his tablet and removed the reading glasses he didn’t always need, but which he had found helped with lowlight reading.
“I’m not fish food,” Dick said, absently. “But no, uh. Nothing’s wrong.”
“You won. I would have thought you’d be happier, knowing your team won, and all,” Bruce had his eyebrow raised. “We could get pizza to celebrate.”
Bruce and Dick sat in the back of the Rolls, with Alfred up front – chauffeur hat and everything. It was companionable, if perhaps a bit gaudier of a ride than Dick would ordinarily be comfortable in. Man, his sense of ordinary had changed in the past few years...
“Dick?” Bruce tilted his head a bit, eyebrow rising a bit higher.
Dick, oddly, did not feel like pizza. But he nodded and forced a grin. A grin that Bruce had taught him to do for the cameras and would, therefore, be able to see right through it, but that was all Dick had, for the moment. “Sounds good. I mean, as long as Alfred doesn’t mind.”
“Oh, my boy, I most certainly do mind,” Alfred scoffed. He glanced briefly at Dick through the rearview mirror. “But far be it for my expectations to dictate the entirety of your meal plan. I suppose every growing child should be allowed some small allotment of junk food, though it pains me to make such a concession.”
Bruce chuckled.
“We don’t have to have pizza,” Dick smiled.
“No, no, Master Richard, far be it for my preferences to dictate your victory meal, hm?” Dick caught the hint of Alfred’s smile, and knowing that Alfred was happy made Dick a bit happier.
It wasn’t a normal family, what he had, but Dick prized it above all.
--
“You got someone’s number?” Barry slung an arm around Wally’s shoulders. “Was it one of the Gotham girls? Not to try’n dissuade you, or anything, but people from Gotham are built different, hand to god.” He smiled, to show he was joking.
Wally, though, flushed bright red and shrugged to himself. “Not a girl, no,” he mumbled.
“Girl from another school, then?” Barry asked. To be fair to him, Wally was mumbling. He didn’t quite catch Wally’s response to him, and Wally’d never come out to him as bi, so he didn’t know to expect anything but an interest in girls.
“Um, no,” Wally felt his ears heating up, but he tossed a grin up at Barry.
“Well, then I’m confused,” Barry smiled and shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, though. Just so you know.”
“It’s a boy,” Wally said, a bit too quickly. His face heated up a bit more, but his grin was wide and giddy. “A boy from the-the Gotham school.”
“Oh!” Barry grinned back at him. “No kidding, huh?”
Wally knew, of course, that Barry wouldn’t judge him for liking more than just one portion of the gender spectrum. Barry, himself, had been talking to Iris about maybe asking Hal out.
(Barry wanted Hal to be part of their family unit, though expressed concern that Iris would feel like she was being replaced – especially since Iris was naturally more demi than anything, and not interested in another partner. Iris, though. Iris was a boss, and she had let Barry know, in every conversation they’d had about Hal – and Barry’s polyamorous nature, in general – that Iris not wanting another partner, in the present, didn’t mean that she didn’t want Barry to limit himself just because he was afraid of hurting her feelings. She’d also said that, if it worked out with Hal, she wouldn’t mind him joining the family, even if it were a platonic joining, for her.)
(Wally loved his Aunt Iris more than anything, honestly. Her openness and openmindedness and just... general badassery? Yeah. Iris was the best. Barry absolutely couldn’t do any better than Iris, in Wally’s opinion... but Wally looked forward to having another member of the family that he could trust with all his heart. It was nice, after everything with his biological mom and dad.)
Barry ruffled Wally’s hair. “Tell me about him?”
“He’s really cute,” Wally laughed, batting at Barry’s hand. “Like, super cute. But, uh, might be a bit young for me. I thought everyone here was. Like. In high school, you know? But he’s actually in middle school. Twelve.” Wally shook his head a bit.
“Well, it’s only two years,” Barry mused, but he was making a bit of a face. “But twelve, huh?”
“Probably a bit too young,” Wally shrugged. “But I’m-I’m-I’m gonna text him,” he giggled, a bit nervously. “I’m gonna text him and maybe try for-for friends or something. Because, I mean. Yeah.”
“Okay,” Barry squeezed his arm around Wally’s shoulders, once more, then let him go. “Sounds good to me. Friends in the academic decathlon business? Sure. You deserve friends that you can talk to about things that interest you.”
Wally winced a bit. Yeah, he was picked on a bit, at school, maybe. But that happened when you got excited about science, right?
“I mean it, sport,” Barry said.
“I know. But, um, you’re okay with the whole—” Wally already knew it, already went through the whole thing, mentally, a few minutes before. But, still, he looked bashfully up at Barry, and hoped for approval. (His time with his bio parents did a bit of a number on him, particularly in terms of self-confidence and approval-seeking. It was a whole thing.)
“Of course, kid,” Barry said.
“Cool,” Wally laughed nervously. “Yeah, um. Cool. I’m just gonna...” he motioned to his phone. “I’m gonna put his number in my phone and maybe text?”
“Go for it. I’ll order some pizzas.” Barry gave him a thumbs-up.
--
Dick almost fucking threw his phone across the pizza parlor when the text came through from the Unknown Number. Except that it wasn’t actually an unknown number at all. Wally texted Robin from the same number and Dick had it memorized. But he still almost threw his phone.
Bruce, standing with him and waiting for their pizza, raised an eyebrow, as he had in the car. “What’s up, chum?”
“Nothing!” Dick hugged the phone close and looked up at Bruce in the least innocent shade of “alarmed” that he could have possibly managed. “Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s fine! How’re you?”
Bruce looked at him for a long moment, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth, then he shook his head and looked back down at his tablet, to continue reading WE emails that he’d fallen behind on while watching Dick’s academic decathlon matches. “All right, then. You don’t have to tell me, kid. But if you feel like talking to me, I’m here. Literally.”
“Yeah. Right. I know that,” Dick mumbled.
He turned to look down at his phone, sighing shakily. The text from Wally didn’t disappear though.
Unknown: [Hey! It’s Wally, from the Decathlon thing!]
That was it. Short, simple, sweet.
It really shouldn’t have been enough to drive Dick’s heartbeat up to a doubletime. But that was the unfortunate side effect of having a crush on one’s best friend... then attempting to make contact with said best friend, on the sly, in an identity he wouldn’t know you by.
Okay, it was a pretty niche set of events that built up to that side effect, sure. But still.
Dick didn’t know what to respond to the text, but he knew that the stupid digital letters on the stupid LCD screen were making his heart feel all warm in happy in the absolute stupidest way. His whole “crush” thing was obviously getting wildly out of control.
And what was he supposed to write back? Why didn’t he think that far ahead?
“That’s Wally’s number, right?” Bruce asked.
Dick squeaked and crushed his phone screen back to his chest, then looked up at Bruce with a scowl of betrayal firmly in place. “Don’t read my texts,” he said. “It’s rude and creepy!”
Bruce snorted, probably at the expression on Dick’s face.
Yeah, yeah, Dick knew that his face was still too little-kid round to effectively give off the annoyed or betrayed looks. They usually came off looking more “kicked puppy” than anything else. He couldn’t wait for the baby fat to give way to some actual bone structure, one of those days. Then maybe he’d be able to actually glare someone down, instead of accidentally give off “kicked puppy” vibes when he absolutely did not intend to do so.
“Is it?”
“Yeah,” Dick sighed.
“He was with Central City’s team,” Bruce observed.
“Yeah,” Dick mumbled, a bit quieter. And maybe a bit sadder. “I just... I thought maybe...”
Bruce waved him off. “I get it. You want a civilian connection.”
“Yeah,” Dick sighed.
“Just be careful, kid,” Bruce ruffled his hair.
“I’m always careful,” Dick scoffed and pushed Bruce’s hand away.