Work Text:
The last time Dick saw Wally alive, they were sitting on the rooftop of a gas station just outside Central City, legs dangling over the edge like they were still fifteen and not tired men trying to hold back the tides of their own lives.
It was early morning. The sky was still bruised with night, and the city below was only beginning to stir. Wally passed him a bottle of Coke in one of those glass bottles that he loved, old-school and Dick took it, their fingers brushing.
Wally had always insisted things tasted better in glass bottles. Dick had never tasted the difference. But he’d still buy the damn things, every time.
“You ever feel like we missed something?” Wally asked suddenly, not looking at him. His voice was casual, but the kind of casual that came too carefully measured. Like a mask stretched over something cracked underneath.
Dick blinked at him. “Missed what?”
Wally didn’t answer. Just took the bottle back and stared into the distance like the skyline had the words he couldn't find.
They were always almost.
Almost something more. Almost able to say it. Almost brave enough to admit they didn't know what it was, but they felt it in the hollow of their bones. It wasn’t romantic—not really. Not like how Wally was with Linda, or how Dick used to be with Kory. But it wasn’t platonic either, because you don’t look at your best friend the way they looked at each other after near-death experiences. You don’t ache with guilt when you’re on opposite sides of a mission, or stay up at night thinking about their voice, the sound of their laugh, the way they said your name like it mattered.
Dick used to catch himself halfway through dialing Wally’s number with no idea what he was going to say.
Sometimes, Wally would answer anyway. Like he knew.
Wally’s death is loud.
Not the actual moment—not the way he vanished, a blur of red swallowed by lightning. There wasn’t a body. Just Speed Force residue and static, a whisper of ozone and burnt skin. But everything that comes after:
The news bulletins screaming across every channel like somebody hurling a megaphone at your face. The eulogies turning his life into tidy sound-bytes—“hero,” “lightning bolt,” “the fastest man alive”words barreling through you like an avalanche. The reporters swarming Linda’s front porch at dawn, cameras trained on her like sharks circling blood. The angry crack in Barry’s voice when he talks about legacies, a tremor that splits the air every time he says Wally’s name. The sound of Donna’s wine glass shattering against the wall of Titans Tower when she thinks no one’s looking.
But Dick thinks the loudest thing was the silence that came after. The silence when Barry, eyes hollow, swallowed back a sob and whispered into the phone: “It’s over, Dick. He’s gone.”
He remembers exactly where he was: in his Blüdhaven apartment, gloved hands tracing the grooves of a grappling-hook handle. He heard Barry’s voice crack, slow and deliberate, and the world stopped. No clatter of streets below. No hum of neon lights outside his window. Just a vacuum, a vacuum where Wally’s laughter used to live.
Dick lifted the receiver an inch from his ear, waiting for the noise to come back. But the line stayed silent—empty, like whatever had pulled Wally away.
The funeral would be in a week.
Seven days to practice the right nod when a stranger offers condolences. Seven days to find something— anything to wear that looked less like armor, more like respect. Seven days of every clock in the manor ticking too slow, each second cutting deeper than the one before.
There’s something grotesque about how neat Wally’s funeral is.
The grass is trimmed like it’s been vacuumed. The black suits are crisp. The chairs are evenly spaced, lined up like soldiers awaiting orders. A slideshow of smiling photos plays on a loop, a curated version of the man who once raced the sun. Everything is quiet, polite, clean. Sterile.
It doesn’t feel like Wally at all.
No one says a word about the milkshakes he used to sneak into League briefings. Or how he used to fall asleep on Dick’s shoulder during post-mission debriefs, drooling down his uniform and mumbling nonsense in his sleep. No one mentions the way he buzzed with energy unless Dick was around, how his fidgeting slowed when they were together, like Dick grounded him in a way no one else ever did.
Instead, they talk about sacrifice. Legacy. The “spirit of the Flash.” They call him a symbol.
They don’t talk about Wally.
They don’t say what he meant.
Dick stands in the third row. His suit’s a fraction too tight in the shoulders, tailored before the weight of grief settled across his bones. He’s surrounded by family—Bruce beside him, shoulders like a mountain. Damian in front, too still for a child. Tim and Jason on his other side, flanking him like guards. Cass stands behind, a gentle hand hovering at his back, not quite touching. Stephanie’s already crying. Alfred’s face is unreadable.
Further out: Titans, both new and old. Roy. Donna. Garth. Kory. Vic. Raven. Gar. Star-Spangled Kid. Bumblebee. Argent. Everyone.
Because who didn’t Wally touch?
Linda speaks. Her voice cracks only once. She clutches the hands of her children, barely old enough to understand the concept of forever. Bart sobs into Conner’s shoulder like it’s the end of the world. Maybe it is.
Barry doesn’t cry. That somehow hurts more.
The sun glints off the polished mahogany as it descends. There’s nothing in it, of course. No body. Just the suit Wally wore, pressed and folded, lying in a silk box like it means something. A ghost’s tuxedo. A lie of closure. It's a box of memories and scraps of cloth like it’s enough. Like that could ever be enough.
The ropes are quiet. The wind doesn’t even move. It feels wrong, how still everything is. Like the universe should be weeping. Screaming. Breaking apart.
But it isn’t.
Just Dick is.
Just a little.
Just enough for something in him to crack.
Not shatter. Not explode. Just... crack. Quiet. Like a rib under pressure. A tiny fracture that will spread with time.
And the loudest thing is the silence that follows.
He’s supposed to give a speech.
It wasn’t his idea. He didn’t volunteer. But everyone looked at him like he had to. Bruce asked. Donna pressed his hand and said, “He’d want it from you.”
And maybe he would have.
So Dick walks to the podium. The wind tugs at his suit. His boots crunch against the gravel path. For a second, he feels like he’s walking into battle. Except there’s no fight here. Just surrender.
He scans the crowd. Eyes like pinpricks of memory. So many people. So many versions of the man they’re all mourning.
He places a palm on the lectern. It’s solid. Cold. Like the grave.
His mouth opens.
And at first, he speaks.
Softly. Carefully.
“Wally West was the best person I ever knew.”
His voice doesn’t shake. Yet.
“He was loud. Messy. Always late—unless you didn’t want him to be. Then he was ten minutes early with your favorite drink and a dumb joke you’d pretend not to laugh at.”
A few people smile. Someone sniffles.
“He was good. In this way that wasn’t performative. Not heroic because he had to be. He was heroic because he couldn’t not be. ”
Dick exhales through his nose. Lets his eyes drift upward, just for a second. The sky’s clear. Wally would’ve hated that. He liked his drama with a little thunder.
“I loved him,” Dick says. Then corrects, quickly, “We all did.”
But it’s too late. The words are out. And the moment they hit the air— when he hears himself say loved, past tense—something inside him breaks.
The realization hits like a blow to the chest.
Wally is dead. Not lost in time. Not trapped in the Speed Force. Not off world. Not missing.
Dead.
Gone.
He’s never going to see that red suit blur around a corner again. Never going to feel Wally collapse onto a couch beside him, talking a mile a minute. Never going to hear that soft voice at 3am saying, “Hey. You up?” like they weren’t both terrible at sleeping.
This isn’t another disappearance.
This is the end.
Dick swallows. His hands tighten on the lectern. His throat makes a noise like something choking free, something primal and awful. A sob that doesn’t quite escape.
“I—” he tries, but his voice catches.
Another breath. A deeper tremble.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, hoarse. “I need a moment.”
He walks off before anyone can stop him.
The bathroom in the memorial hall is too bright. The fluorescent lights buzz. The tile is pristine.
Dick makes it to the sink before he throws up.
His knees hit the floor hard. His tie hangs uselessly from his neck like a noose. He braces himself on the porcelain, retching until his stomach is empty, then dry-heaving until even the pain feels like a mercy.
He sobs into his sleeve. Ugly, guttural sounds. He doesn’t try to stop.
Wally is gone. Wally is gone.
Not misplaced. Not misfiled. Not coming back.
And Dick never told him. Not really. Not out loud. Not the way Wally deserved.
He told Wally he cared, in the way he always did, too soft, too sideways, too late.
“I thought I’d have time,” Dick whispers. His voice cracks again. “I thought you’d come back. You always come back, Wally…”
But not this time.
He crumples against the wall. Sits there. Breath hiccuping. Hands shaking.
Minutes pass.
Then longer.
Eventually, the sobs soften into gasps. The gasps into silence.
Dick stands. Fixes his collar. Washes his face.
When he looks in the mirror, he’s still crying, but the tears are quiet now. Manageable. Contained.
He takes one last breath. Leave the bathroom.
And walks back into the world without him.
Dick doesn’t sleep the night after.
Instead, he pulls out the old Titans storage box he keeps buried in his Blüdhaven apartment. His hands tremble as he opens it. Inside: Polaroids faded to sepia, old mission reports scrawled in Donna’s looping handwriting, and one of Wally’s discarded goggles that Dick never returned.
There’s a napkin with a ketchup stain from that diner they went to in Keystone at 2 a.m. after saving a school bus full of kids. A mix CD Wally made him for his 20th birthday with the title “Grayson’s Groove (Do Not Mock Until Listened To).” A photo from the first time they beat Dr. Light, Wally’s arm slung over his shoulder like it belonged there. Like it always had.
Dick’s hands shake as he pulls out everything.
He lays the items out on the floor in a circle around him, like a summoning. Like if he gets the arrangement right, Wally will come back.
"Almost"
There were moments.
That’s the worst part, really. Not the loss—he could stomach the loss. Heroes were built on it. Trained to bear it like armor. But what haunts him, what seeps in around the edges when the city goes quiet and there’s no one left to perform for, are the almosts.
The almosts hurt more than the endings.
Like the blackout in Metropolis. They’d been stranded after a takedown went sideways, stuck on a rooftop with no lights, no backup, just the distant shimmer of stars that the city rarely let them see. Wally had made shadow puppets on the scorched brick wall, laughing softly to himself, and Dick had tried—really tried—not to smile. But he did. Of course he did. He always did, when it came to Wally.
They’d split a granola bar from Donna’s emergency stash and huddled under the fleece blanket she always packed “just in case.” Shoulder-to-shoulder, legs stretched out in front of them, the kind of tired that made you honest without saying a word.
It should’ve been nothing. Just two teammates, just two tired kids. But Dick still remembers the way Wally’s shoulder had pressed into his like it belonged there. Like it knew something he didn’t.
There was another time, in Blüdhaven. Dick had just finished patching up a meth lab explosion when Wally showed up at his door. No warning. No speed-run text. Just appeared, bruised knuckles and all, holding a pizza like it was a white flag.
He never explained the bruises. Dick didn’t ask.
They didn’t talk that night. Wally just collapsed onto the couch, eyes dark with something he wasn’t ready to name. Dick sat on the floor beside him, pretending to focus on case files that blurred every time Wally shifted.
Wally’s hand had draped off the edge of the cushion, fingers dangling loosely. At some point—maybe during a lull in Dick’s breathing or a flicker of courage he didn’t recognize—his own hand crept just close enough that their fingers touched.
He didn’t move.
Neither did Wally.
And then, of course, there was the kiss.
It had been after one of those near-death nights, where adrenaline made everything sharp and unreal. Sixteen, still too young to understand the rules and too old to ignore them. They’d been laughing—something about Bart wiping out during recon—when Wally’s face shifted.
He leaned in. Just a breath. Just a question.
And kissed him.
A press of lips, soft and tentative. Not hungry. Not desperate. Just there.
Dick hadn’t kissed back. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t move. His brain froze, locked between surprise and something that felt suspiciously like hope.
Wally pulled away quickly. A little too quickly.
“Just checking,” he said, and his voice cracked in the middle.
“Checking what?” Dick managed, though his throat felt like sandpaper.
But Wally had only given that smile. That sad one—the one he wore when pretending not to care.
“If I could,” he’d said. And that was that.
They never talked about it again.
Now Wally is gone.
And the world, damn it all, keeps turning. People keep smiling. Breathing. Eating cereal. Filing reports.
Dick keeps moving too—because he’s good at that. He leads missions. Trains rookies. Drops jokes at debriefs like confetti. Sometimes he lets Tim hug him for a second too long, and he doesn’t even flinch.
But at night, when the mask is off and no one's watching, his mind returns to that kiss. That blink-and-you-miss-it moment. Not because it meant everything.
But because it could have.
What were they, really?
Not just friends. There was too much electricity in the silences for that. Too many glances that held just a little too long. Too many touches that lingered where they shouldn’t have.
Not lovers. They’d never crossed that line. Not fully. That kiss didn’t count. It was a question without an answer. A door cracked open, never walked through.
Not brothers either. There was no blood between them. No childhood scraped knees or shared bedrooms. What they had was sharper than brotherhood. Stranger. More intimate in ways Dick still doesn’t have language for.
It was something else.
Something deeper.
Something people don’t get to keep.
He tells himself he’s glad Wally met Linda. That she made him laugh in ways Dick couldn’t. That she gave him a family, a home, something real to hold onto.
He was happy for them. He is happy for them.
But sometimes, late at night, when grief loosens its grip just long enough for something older to crawl in, he imagines a different world.
One where he hadn’t been such a coward.
One where he hadn’t let that moment slip between his fingers.
One where he said, “Try again.”
Where he reached out and kissed Wally back.
Where he let himself want.
And maybe it wouldn't have worked. Maybe it would’ve burned out like all the other reckless things in his life.
But maybe… maybe it would’ve been enough.
Maybe he could’ve been Wally’s almost instead of his never.
Now, all he has is silence.
And the echo of what could’ve been.
He’s back in Central City. Again.
Same corner gas station, same rooftop. The kind of place that shouldn’t matter, but does. The Coke machine below is busted now—screen flickering, buttons jammed. The alley behind it is overgrown, weeds clawing up the wall like time’s trying to erase what little is left.
Dick climbs up alone, bottle in hand, the kind of glass drink you don’t bring for celebration. The shingles are colder than he remembers. Maybe they always were.
He sits down slow, legs stretched out, eyes on a sky too dull for stargazing. The stars used to feel brighter here, but maybe that was just Wally—pointing them out, naming them wrong on purpose, grinning as he made up the worst constellation names in the galaxy.
Dick had always groaned. Rolled his eyes. Smiled anyway.
Now, the quiet is too loud.
“I would’ve said it,” Dick murmurs, fingers tightening around the bottle. “If you’d made me.”
He leans back, lets the chill of the rooftop crawl into his spine like it belongs there. The wind tugs at his jacket but says nothing.
“I would’ve told you I loved you,” he says, softer now. “Not like a brother. Not like a partner. Not like anything people write songs about.”
It’s the kind of love that never made sense. The kind that didn't fit any of the boxes. The kind that sat heavy in his chest and never asked to be unpacked.
“But you didn’t ask,” Dick whispers, voice catching somewhere raw and unfinished. “Neither did I.”
And now there’s no one left to ask.
Years slip by like water through cracks.
Teams rise and crumble. Cities rebuild, then break again. The Titans fall apart and come back together more times than anyone can count. New faces wear old costumes. Sidekicks grow up, mentors grow old. The world turns, and Dick Grayson keeps turning with it, going through all of the motions; leading, laughing, patching the pieces of himself no one ever sees.
until one day, he doesn’t.
There’s no blaze of glory. No last stand or flaming wreckage. Just a patrol that ends with the cold press of metal against his temple in the quiet hush of a half-lit rooftop. A moment. A breath. A silence so complete it swallows the rest of him. The kind of ending no one ever expects, even when they should.
He doesn’t leave a note.
If he were still alive to notice, Dick thinks distantly that the air in his apartment must smell like that stairwell. The one where Blockbuster bled out, where Catalina stood behind him, and where something inside him cracked too deep to ever heal. Gunpowder, rust, and old regrets.
Jason punches a hole in the cave’s reinforced walls. Blood stains the plaster. Tim reads the autopsy report until the words blur, and he keeps reading anyway. eyes red, mouth silent. Bruce doesn’t say anything, not to them, not to himself. He doesn't yell and just disappears for a while. Quiet like a grave. His grief is a monolith, impossible to climb or crack open.
It’s Donna who tells Linda.
Linda doesn’t cry at first.
She listens, nods, presses her lips together like the grief might spill out if she moves too suddenly. At the funeral, she stands still while the world spins around her masked heroes, civilians, press, all trying to find meaning in the space Dick left behind.
It’s later, after the flowers have wilted and the capes have flown off— that she finds it.
She’s at Dick’s apartment. Helping Donna and Roy box up the few things he kept locked away. Dick didn’t hold onto much. A handful of letters. Legal documents. Faded Titans mission logs. One of Wally’s spare communicator earpieces, tossed in a drawer like he always meant to return it but never got around to it.
And then, tucked behind all that, there’s a photograph. Folded once, creased through the middle.
She almost misses it.
Two boys grin up at her from the faded paper. Dick and Wally, maybe sixteen? seventeen? Filthy with soot and smears of blood, uniforms torn, their masks discarded. But they’re smiling like idiots, glowing like they’d just pulled off the impossible and didn’t even realize how close they’d come to not making it out. Their faces are raw with joy. Their eyes gleam with something Linda can’t name but feels anyway. Like they knew a secret the world never earned.
She flips it over.
On the back, in Wally’s unmistakable scrawl, cocky and quick like always, curls across the backl:
"Grayson is the gravity to my speed.
We never say it. But we know."
Below that, in newer ink— shakier, darker, like it had been written with too much feeling and not enough air, are Dick’s words:
"You knew. I hoped you did.
I knew too. But I waited too long."
Linda sits on the edge of the bed and holds the photo gently in her lap.
She didn’t know Dick the way the Titans did, or the Bat Family, or even half the people packed shoulder-to-shoulder at the wake. Their conversations had been short. Witty. Polite. She liked him. Trusted him. But they never had the kind of bond that makes a person unravel in public when the other is gone.
Still, she knew him. Not just from those rare glimpses—quiet chats at birthday parties, the way he always looked over his shoulder before leaving a room, just to be sure everyone was okay. But from the stories. The endless, affectionate stories her husband told when he thought she wasn’t really listening.
Through every ridiculous story. Every time Wally had started with ‘Did I ever tell you about the time Dick and I…’ and she’d roll her eyes, and he’d pretend not to notice. She knew him through the way he looked at his phone when it buzzed and said 'Nightwing.' Through the way he laughed when he talked about Dick. Through the way he didn’t laugh sometimes.
Wally had loved Dick Grayson. Fiercely. Quietly. In a hundred unspoken ways.
And Linda had loved Wally enough to see it.
It hits her then— not jealousy. Not grief for something that was hers.
But mourning for the kind of love that never got the air it needed to breathe. The kind that never found its shape.
She doesn’t cry because she loved— loves Wally less, she doesn’t. She never did. But there’s a kind of ache in discovering something so delicate and unfinished. Something caught in the space between friendship and something deeper, something brighter.
She mourns it not because it was hers to mourn, but because no one else ever will.
Wally is buried in Central City, among wildflowers that sway in the warm breeze. Dick rests beneath an old oak in Gotham. Its branches stretching long and low, sunlight filtering through in thin, golden slivers, as the dappled beams warm his gravestone.
They’re miles apart.
They should be next to each other, laid to rest side by side. Everyone thinks that.
But maybe they are.
Not in stone or dirt, but in the sky, where the stars thread their stories together.
Remembering what never found words.
All the almosts.
Because on clear nights, when the sky opens wide and the constellations dare to shine, you can almost feel it— that invisible line stretched between them.
Not seen.
Not named.
But there.
Tugging gently.
Buzzing faintly.
Still humming.
Still real.