Chapter Text
It was a Friday night in Dick’s one bedroom on the south side of Gotham. Close enough to perform his duty as Batman and help give Damian some semblance of a mentor. Far enough from the manor, so he could pretend to have a shred of privacy. A couple bottles of APAs and cans of Dr. Pepper littered the coffee table. The scent of spicy pepperoni and cheese was palpable, and the comfort of sinking into his greased-up sofa with his speedster filled up his senses.
“…and so, I’m still Batman, and now Tim is Red Robin.” Wally did absolutely fuck all to hide his gooey snort. Dick couldn’t contain the giggles he’d been bottling up the moment Tim shared with him his new persona.
“Robbie, we should’ve ordered burgers.”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
“Ugh, I’m starving!”
It’d been a minute since Wally’s been able to come out to visit just to hang-out. For someone who is faster than the speed of light, the commute from Keystone to Gotham was seconds. However, being a father to three kiddos stole away hours even a speedster couldn’t save. What helped was the twins entering middle school, which meant less need for a babysitter and afterschool events that the kiddos found their dad too embarrassing to volunteer at. It was also weekly date night for Linda and their youngest, Wade.
Just the act of memorizing the West parenting schedule and always having to remind Wally of his availability never ceased to highlight to Dick how lonely he’s been. How is it that he can be in the same room as his best friend who understands him better than anyone else and still miss him so much?
When they were teens, life felt easier, because Dick had Wally to bounce his thoughts off of without worrying about taking up too much space. Now these moments Wally gave to him came so sparingly he felt like a needy beggar.
But he would take what he could have, because life was easier to unravel in good hands. Wally’s hands were well adept to Dick’s twisted mind.
“Glad Tim forgave you.”
“Yeah, totally.”
“Because you directly told him that you understood how jarring it was when you handed a major part of his identity over to a kid that tried to chop his head clear off.
“Riiiight.”
“Because you understand better than anyone else how Robin can become a substantial part of everything your personhood is grounded in.”
“Well…not exactly–”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake…” Dick missed Wally’s ability to call him out for all of his buffoonery. The friends you made as an adult were always far too civil compared to the friends you made when licking all of your snacks to claim property was still acceptable.
“You never even apologized! Instead, you just let time pass and assumed that totally erased how you hung him out to dry like clothes on a line. Then, you called him up thinking calling him your ‘equal’ made up for how you definitely did not treat him as an equal when you exerted Batman-level control over his life.”
Not any of his exes nor his brothers could read him to filth with the accuracy Wally could and still leave Dick smiling, “…how could you even know that?”
“Listen, Boy Wonderful. You are as predictable as you ever were since Teen Titans. It’s like textbook Roy Harper level shit. ‘Cept Tim’s your brother, not–“
Wally flopped a slice of pizza in a circular motion at him, before taking a huge chomp and declaring, “whafevuh u’an’ Woy wur.”
“Friends.”
“Then quit verbally edging each other!”
Dick frowned at him, affronted. Wally only made a crude jerking motion with his hand and shrugged, “relax Dick. It’s endearing how bad you are at apologies. And Tim loves you like we all do. We know you always mean well. Anyway–“
“Anyway. Roy and I are still just good buds. And watch what you say…Oracle might be listening in…and I don’t think she’d be happy hearing any implication that Roy and I are anything more than that.” Dick didn’t miss the flinch in Wally’s brow at the haphazard attempt to sound natural with careful words about his news. At least it was better than the text drafts he had been typing and re-typing, and he didn’t want to keep waiting.
Even if he probably could have been more graceful in letting him know (that he was, once again, jumping back into whatever he and Barbara are for an umpteenth attempt) it never got any less embarrassing since Wally has heard every pitiful lament, resentful complaint, and agonizing night he’s ever had over her.
Except…strangely, in this moment, instead of the exasperation, the pat on the back, and unconditional support he was primed to expect, it was replaced with perplexing disapproval, “Oh…Barbara, again. Huh?”
“Yeah. She and that detective guy are done. Kori and I just called it quits. So, it kinda just worked out like this…” Dick tried for nonchalance, all the same he should’ve known better. Wally was one of the few people in existence that could recognize the defensive insecurity he’s carried his whole life.
“Kinda? You two just kinda always get back together and kinda break up?” This heated defensiveness that Wally had? This was new.
“Don’t make it sound like that."
"Sound like what? Another flimsy go 'round of cold shoulders and arguments that aren't even mine to fix?" Wally scoffed
Dick knew the speedster might've been annoyed, but he wasn't expecting such scalding criticism. Panic fueled the rising anger low in Dick's belly.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do you know how many times you've come to me over the last decade tryin' to decide whether or not you'an Barbara can make it work? At least Kori had the self-respect to end it for you. Why're you doin' this again if we both know how it always goes? Feelin' weird about being by yourself for a lil' while isn't a good reason to kinda get back together when it’s convenient." Wally shoved the last of the pizza from his plate into his mouth chewing furiously.
It took every bit of resolve Dick had to not punch below the way Wally had, "you know as well as I do, we can never predict who might die or disappear. It’s not a convenience thing. You don't even know what it's like! You're the one that got lucky and married the love of your life. I'm by myself all the time if I don't try. I don't understand why you're being such a jerk about this!”
Unfortunately, he had no resolve leftover to quiet the pearls of hurt that has threaded along his growing loneliness over the years.
Wally winced and let his shoulders slump. He finally realized he was making this a little more personal than either of them expected. Dick didn’t miss the discretion in how the speedster was digging his nails into his wrist – quietly nervous. The worry in Dick’s chest wanted to mend whatever it was that was breaking; unfortunately, his anger yelled that he deserved an apology.
“Yeah no for sure. Sorry, my bad. I hear you. You’ve had a lot of people you love leave you. And you also just got Bruce back. It totally makes sense that you just want to make the most out of life when you still have it. I’m happy that you’re happy.” He was saying all the right things, yet none of it soothed the rising concern slathering Dick’s insides.
“Thanks...Walls.” The thing was: Dick wasn’t happy with his decision. The speedster wasn't all that wrong even if his delivery was piss poor.
Yes, company and intimacy was nice. Regardless, he couldn’t escape that romantic in him that hissed that getting back with Barb was not that different from sipping on flat soda. The problem was: he was in his thirties. Dick was starting to wonder if a part of growing up (the normal non-superhero-ing parts) was accepting that relationships aren’t supposed to be technicolor ‘happily ever after’s. Someday, everything becomes ordinary.
But as a first in their friendship, he wasn’t sure if it was okay for him to admit such a confession. He had never felt so judged by Wally, and the worry that continued to gnaw at his insides screamed this was the beginning to the end.
“Boy Blunder, you just don’t know how to be alone, do yah.” Wally tried for Funny.
“Says the guy who’s been married for forever now.” So did Dick.
Neither of them pulled it off very well.
Wally looked away and beelined to the kitchenette and boxes of pizza. He was never one to shy away from emotional conflict. He just tended to keep himself busy before diving in. Dick estimated that he had about three slices worth of minutes to figure out how to stall the inevitable crash their bond was propelling into.
“Yeah. Good point. Forever. Do you have more soda in the fridge? Can Timmy-boy hook us up with an onion ring tower?”
He knew Wally was doing that thing he does when he tries to water down the tension in the room so that everyone else had the space to untangle their wound-up knots and breathe. It was a gift bestowed to him when he turned 6-years-old and his parents decided they didn’t need to hide their fights from him anymore. Regardless, Dick didn’t want to be another person in his life that abandoned Wally to be the peacemaker, “earth to Walls, you with me?”
“I’m good, I’m good.” His voice was leveled, yet his fingers vibrated with the undercurrent of anxiety Dick kicked himself for not noticing sooner. This was never about him, maybe.
“You don’t need to be good with me. I’m sorry I was short. It’s been a week,” Dick wanted to stitch up whatever was tearing Wally up. Still, he didn’t anticipate the speedster collapsing to his knees, totally devastated.
“Dick, I'm so sorry I-I–“
“I’ve got you. Always will.” Dick was quick to tightly wrap himself around his best friend, forgiveness freely given. Just the physical feeling of Wally’s breathing co-regulating with his soothed his own ache.
The last time Wally cried like this was when Uncle Barry died.
Dick held tighter trying to hug away the hurt.
“This better not be about onion rings.”
“Oh my gawd. Shut up, you dork.” Wally managed to chuckle. When this man smiled, sun always streamed into all of the fissures in Dick’s heart - even now through the speedster's glittering, waterfall tears. Dick gently eased him to his feet and led him back to the sofa. Often, he forgot that Wally needed his help to take his time to unravel.
So that’s what they did – leaned on one another in the hum of the Gotham traffic.
Loosening.
Unraveling.
Waiting.
Little sniffles hiccupped in between languid breaths against his side.
Soft, tousled strands of saffron stood out against the navy blue of his shirt. Dick resisted following his deep want as he kept his hands laid out in his lap gripping hard. His eyes were held by aged, freckled thumbs that continued to twiddle nervously watching carefully.
Just as he was about to reach over and apologize for…he wasn’t sure what, Wally whispered, “Y’know, I actually had somethin’ to tell you, tonight.”
With that easy, Robin grin, Dick encouraged, “Let’s hear it.”
He could have sworn a landslide erupted beneath them.
“It’s over.”
The wreckage that knifed opened Wally’s face from such a brief confession wrote a novel Dick didn’t need to read to know the ending. Ghosting, break-ups, and petered out good-byes were one thing. Divorce? That was crawling through an oasis that mollified all your hurt turned into an unrelenting desert. It was relying on fantasy built on what used to be just for pretend relief in the heat of exhausting effort towards nothing.
“How have you been handling it?” Dick breathed out
“Lousy. I have days I think I just wanna die.” Wally spat out without warning
“Oh Wally.”
“Sorry. M’bettin’ you wish this were about onion rings now, dontcha’?” How dare he make Dick laugh through a pain that didn’t even belong to him? Even so, that’s who Wally West was, rendering him impossible to ever leave behind – to ever forget. Dick swallowed down the temptation to ask how Linda ever could.
“You had the marriage of dreams. No one ever signs up for these things thinking it’s going to end....I...I looked at you two and always wished for the kind of love you shared" Dick admitted, before tacking on, "I’m so sorry.”
Wally’s eyes were a forest, and the trees were lost in the fog as he whispered out, “me too…I know it’s the right thing to do. But my head’s still catchin’ up.”
“Overthinking to the max, never pausing to just breathe. Sounds about right. You’ve got the biggest heart I know and the fastest brain too,” Dick soothed. Only, freckled hands returned to digging the tips of his nails into wrists marred by faded adolescent scars. Tanned hands itched to entwine their fingers together so he could squeeze away every dark and lonely thought.
“Callin’ me smart?”
“Calling you more impulsive than Bart.” Dick heard the way Wally needed him to cut away the heaviness, and the speedster ran with it…
“Shuddup, the kid exited from his IEP this year!”
“Because he was graduating!” Guffaws and giggles erupted from the two men, tickling their sides until their abs hurt. So caught up in being emotionally intelligent, well-regulated, responsible adults, it was a release to feel young and bratty – just making fun of their younger brothers all over again. Dick didn’t know he’d miss this part as much.
He was never quite sure that Wally even missed ‘this’ being he had Linda for the last decade. And now Dick felt disgustingly selfish because of the roaring hope that had begun to sprout that he would get these moments back, more often, without her.
“I keep thinking I can change this, but whenever I try to imagine Linda and me 5 years from now, it’s all blurry.” There was predictable frustration in his confession, because Wally West will never give up his belief that he is a fixer; therefore, if he can’t fix it, then he is a failure.
“Come on, Walls. I don’t need to tell you that you can’t always fix everything. Most things, we just have to live. Even when it’s killing us.” As someone that had spent a few decades trying to fix a free fall…Dick learned this lesson more intimately than most people, early on. He, too, was still trying to stop being the fixer.
“Fix. Tch. Y’know. We even opened up the marriage for a while and a fat lot of good that did me. All I got WasABadHandyFromKyleAnd Linda over-apologizing for deciding she would be happier with another woman. Which that isn’t a problem. The problem was seeing Lindy be so miserable to make me happy when all I ever wanted to do was make her happy. I want us both to be happy.” Wally’s word jambles signaled he was feeling lighter, and he was glad to be a listening ear that could carry some of the weight of this painful life transition…however–
“…so that’s why you hate Rayner?” Dick just could not help himself; but, after twenty years of syncopated minds, the speedster figured out how to catch him off guard.
“Well now wait a damn minute. I hate Rayner BecauseMyTwinsOnceHadAnEvilArtTeacherInSecondGradeThatSaidTheirMacaroniWorkDidn’t ‘Meet Expectations’ – they’re obviously classically skilled just so you know – YetThatImbecileRaynerIsCelebratedForHavingALanternRing DESPITE HavingAbsolutelyNOInnovationOrProfoundImagination like Jai and Irey. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, you don’t listen, do you?”
Without missing a beat, Dick responded back with, “and Rayner will never hold a candle to Hal Jordan.”
“AND that hack will never hold a candle to Hal Jordan. Okay. Good. You do listen.”
It would be remiss to ignore the gleeful relief he felt to have confirmation that Wally still couldn’t stand Kyle Rayner. Only, it did not erase the prickle of ugliness that wiggled its way into his gut knowing the two of them ever did anything sexual. At the moment, he couldn’t name why this felt like disloyalty. He simply knew that this was not the time to act on his insecurity.
Right now, his job was to cheer up his friend, “also, who fails second graders in art? That teacher had it out for them.”
“Right?!...WELL, okay. For some unfathomable reason, when Bart tells the story he always says TheyWereCoveredHead-To-ToeInMarkerAndGlitter. And I guess ThereWasSomethingAboutScissorsThroatsAndFlippingOffOtherStudents’Artwork. But c’mon now! Aren’t all brilliant legends freaky eccentrics? Look at Damian and Tim.”
“Hey, keep their names out of your filthy mouth if you’re not even going to include Jason and Cass. They’re absolute psychopaths.”
“Yet Steph is normal?”
“Yeah, she’s got it together, now. Babs takes all the credit."
Dick wanted to always be drowning in laughter.
They basked in the glow of how easy it was to slip back into being Dick and Wally, Wing and Flash…Rob and KF. Despite all of the complicated grieving, missed phone calls, forgotten plans, “I’m busy” texts, isolation, and obligation that has kept them apart. If only it could be this easy with everyone; nonetheless, it was because it was the two of them that it was simple.
Oh, how Dick’s heart missed this.
But at some point, they needed to walk back into reality together. And with age, Wally has gotten better at facing the world with more careful pacing, “…Barbara is a good woman. You’re lucky.”
“I don’t know that yet…” Dick shamefully admitted, but he wasn’t ready to let Wally know about his hesitation until he knew more about the ‘Kyle Rayner’ mess of it all. So, he threw the responsibility of honesty back to him, “sorry to ask: how come you never told me?”
“Oh my stars! Dick. I’ve told you so many times WhatAnUn-TalentedUsedButtwipeKyleIs. Also, look at this–”
Wally pulled out his phone and swiped photo after photo of all his pride and joy, shoving it into the other man’s face. Dick grinned, unable to conceal his delight in how deeply Wally loved his kids.
“Not a single macaroni made it onto that paper.”
“There’s at least six. Don’t exaggerate.” There were exactly three elbows and one spaghetti strand.
“Said the man with two BAs in Exaggeration.”
Wally sighed wearily with theatrical dramatics, as if the man in front of him was being outrageously unreasonable. Dick could barely fight the warm fondness in his tummy that his sunbeam brought into his orbit – Wally’s light made being happy so uncomplicated.
“Physics theories only sound like an exaggeration because it explains the truths of how everything operates revealing the reality of how intricately magical our world actually is. Engineering only seems to exaggerate because you have to be boldly creative and brave enough to execute what is entirely possible yet rarely attempted because of the grave mistake of never even trying.”
Wally’s light made everything sound scientifically beautiful.
How could anyone ever leave him?
“All of which that Hack Kyle Rayner will never be.”
“ALL of which that sad whack-job Kyle Rayner will never be…I knew you loved me.” He knew Wally was joking, but the heat in Dick’s face revealed secrets he didn’t know he still had. If his best friend of twenty-something years noticed, he didn’t want to know.
He was also too distracted by his urgent need to know what the thing with the Green Lantern meant to this man, “Walls. Focus. And you know that’s not what I meant.”
Wally’s mouth went into a grim line studying him with cautious consideration – forest storming with mystery that Dick couldn’t solve before placating him with: “sure. Truth now. There isn’t really ever a good way to tell people you’re getting divorced.”
Dick was embarrassed that he was more concerned about the other…thing that Wally brought up. He knew this was his speedster reminding him he should be focused on the announcement he had just made, “I know you’ve said you and Linda have been having some struggles, I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“We didn’t have any fights. And neither of us doubt that we love each other, infinitely. I don’t think I’d be the man I am without her. It’s just been…hard, because we love each other.”
The agonizing drawn-out wreckage of letting go because of love was something Dick was too familiar with from his time with Kori…and in non-romantic cases: Donna, Bruce…Jason…Tim. He was harshly reminded how in pain Wally had to be.
But damn his foolishly selfish heart for why Dick felt so desperate.
“I’m glad you told me what’s been going on for you and Linda, I want to support you…but honestly…I guess that’s not what I really meant?” Dick confessed sheepishly. Wally rarely, if ever, called him out on the brief moments when he was childishly needy, and simply leaned in.
“Go ahead, Boy Wonder.”
“So…sad handy from Rayner?”
“No, bad, a bad handy. And jeez Louise, that made it sad.”
Dick didn’t have the patience for Wally to suddenly decide to be slow.
“Is this a new thing you just figured out? Is this you coming out to me? Or were you just experime-“
Freckled hands latched onto his forcing Dick to pause as he noticed his shaking fingers relaxing in Wally's hold.
With old - familiar - young hesitance Wally explained “...I’ve known that I’m bi since we were kids.”
That stupid heart of his started beating frantically against Dick's chest.
“You never told me…or anyone, I think?”
“I was scared.” Wally held a watery smile, and it was raining in the forest.
“…scared of what?”
“It’s like this…I’ve known my whole life, like static at the back of my mind. I didn’t even fully get it 'til Teen Titans. And then I got it. But as kids, it just felt like there was too much at risk. So, I guess I got really good at figurin' out who was also…”in reach”, y’know? And then only we knew.” Hearing a ‘we’ that didn’t include him made something ugly stir in Dick’s chest.
“I’m pan. How was I not ‘in reach’?”
“You didn’t figure that out until you were off with the Outsiders. And by then…everything was complicated.” By then, Wallace R. West had been completely mystified by Central City’s beloved, spitfire, reporter – Linda Park. Dick can’t fault even someone capable of messing with the time stream for the bad timing of all their missed connections.
“Too complicated to tell your so-called best friend, right? Because telling me is a risk. Right, right, right.” But Dick was still so childishly petty with want.
He didn’t even know what it was he wanted, he just knew he needed Wally to help him unwound his confusing knots twisting him up.
“Because it was a risk, just not in the way you think.”
“Because you thought I’d what? Cut you off? Walls. Love you, man. You know that.”
Wally held tighter onto his hands, expression brimming with determination, readying him with steady reassurance, “and I love you. That’s why this is a risk.”
“I know, you’re my–”
“No. You don’t get it Dick. I love you. Don’t try to pretend I mean it in any other way than what it means.”
In a thick swallow, Dick shoved down the agonizing longing he thought he contained a decade ago.
Dick was unsure of when Wally became this emotionally mature, patient, grace-filled adult. He was not sure if he, himself, was ready to be grown-up enough to admit that this is exactly what his silly, romantic, needy, heart always yearned for.
He has lost so many people; he couldn’t lose his sunbeam ever.
“How can you say that? Like it’s simple?”
“Because I got tired of waiting.”
Dick wished he could be as brave as Wally, because he didn’t want to keep waiting anymore either. But–
“And being married taught me…no, being married to Linda taught me that that it didn’t matter if you were going to reject me, if you didn’t feel the same, or if you just wanted to stay friends. It doesn’t even matter if you tell me you love me too or tell me something different. I only know one thing for sure: that you care about me, and you’ve always cared about me. So, whatever your reaction was gonna be, it didn’t matter. What matters is that you know, because I know that if you never knew then I would have never forgiven myself. Because I know you. And I know that you won’t take my feelings for granted, because no one else understands better than you how special it is to have someone love you.”
–Dick decided he was not going to make the grave mistake of never trying.
“You’ve got it wrong. I know someone who understands better than I could how special it is when someone loves you.”
“Try me.”
Dick closed his eyes, unable to handle the fire in the forest of Wally’s focus. Overwhelmed with the foreboding dread of what if’s that comes with being too honest; and, in tandem with the impulse to throw out the discipline of always curbing his deepest desires.
Still. His stupid heart was so tired of waiting.
When Dick opened his eyes, he was met with haint blue flooding through the windows from the morning haze. The luminance of reality washed against the bare room pulling Dick from the soft edged memory of ghosts that still haunt his dreams.
Oh, stupid, foolish heart that never stops wanting, will he ever escape the spinning merry-go-round of a storm touching ground?
“It’s you, Walls.”
Alone
Again
It’s been months of graphic nights – that he now knows are flickers of a life that still shaped his automatic responses – ever since the talk he had with his little brother about Superboy. Dick had always known that something was off about reality. Dick suspected Tim had to have known, too, because of how scripted everything always seemed to be with Red Robin, and no one else. That...and the ease in which Tim had grace for Damian’s greatest mistakes and sharp verdict for Dick’s smaller ones – just like the Timothy Jackson-Drake from all of those late-night glimpses.
All the same, he could have never imagined that the root of all his empty wishing was because his best friend stopped existing – his speedster, his Flash, his sunbeam.
Richard Grayson had always been everyone’s reason for hope – including Big Blue, the world’s beacon of hope, himself. Because Dick understood, ever since that awful trapeze accident that destroyed his whole world, what it means to scrap for a better tomorrow and the power of a kind smile. Still. Even Richard Grayson needed someone that could help him let go in the eye of his worst tornados, hold his hand, and bravely run wherever the wind carried him.
Wally was the reason he learned as a hurt pre-teen on a team of deeply severe sidekicks that there was promise in the morning sun. Because who else was going to make a chase into a race; hand-to-hand combat into a dance; an investigation into a mystery; evidence into souvenirs; arguments into a funny memory; a freefall into soaring?
How he ever found light in this new universe without his sunbeam was beyond him.
Now he was forced to wonder to himself if it would have been better to never know happy technicolor endings were always out of reach or to forever be cursed to live in muted tones under the belief this is as good as it gets. Bitterly, Dick thought that was exactly how it felt masquerading as a boy who only liked girls, before he could trust Bruce and Alfie to love him anyway; and wasn’t that just shitty?
With listless momentum, his legs carried him to the kitchen sink. The basin was filled to the brim with half-finished glasses. The weight of wretched resignation lumped in his stomach as he swallowed down mouthfuls of stale water. Another day, another performance.
Only the rustle of rumbling tracks of the light rail and the faint, unfettered yelling at the downstairs bodega whispered into the air.
Just as he was prepared to waffle his brain into sections for the sake of everyone else, the fluorescent, green glow of his communicator blinked on the counter. Nightwing emptied his mind, prepared for combat.
“Red Robin to Nightwing.”
“Go for Nightwing.”
“Superboy and I need to meet with you. 3 klicks out. Can we know your location?”
“Copy, Blüdhaven. Eastside bank rooftop, sufficient?”
“Copy, In route.”
“Copy, Mission?”
“Copy, this is…off the books. We have a plan.”
Dick tried to rub the crusting tiredness from his eyes. He could hear the hesitancy in Tim’s always impossible to ignore embarrassment.
“Off the books because?”
“…personal business.” This ridiculous dweeb.
“You ridiculous dweeb. Could this have been a normal phone call type of ‘personal’ business? Learn how to socialize and ask for support without making it vigilante official.”
Dick could hear the weary sigh on the other end of the call. It took all the self-restraint he spent years cultivating as Officer Richard Grayson to not lecture Tim like Alfie at Sunday Brunch. If he were a pettier man, he would’ve initiated a 504 plan with the social worker at Gotham Academy (“Yes ma’am, I just really think Timothy could use accommodations from his teachers to support his emotional disability in class. You know how he can be when he’s had too much purple Zesty. I’m thinking daily check-ins with his safe adult on his feelings, and a sticker chart for his behavior”). Although, let’s be honest, Jason already pointed out that Tim probably would benefit. Unfortunately, Dick knew the kid would use his talent in malicious compliance to absolutely get the whole Wayne family banned from the district. Dick couldn’t risk that – Duke was on the Dean’s list, and Damian was developing pretty okay social skills thanks to the variety of electives they provided.
“This isn’t the type of business that can be communicated on anything that could be compromised.”
“Little Robin, what’s on your short list of things that CAN be communicated on a normal phone? Your grocery list? Or is that still too personal, because you think they’re going to track the amount of nutrients you get and measure that to how well you take a punch? You really need to do a b– breathing exercises.”
“…You were going to say body scan.”
“No. No I wasn’t. Please don’t say anything that will trigger Hood over here, he’ll just be meaner than me.” Dick jotted down onto the legal pad laid out onto the counter, underlined in red: Jason is always right, pattern of suicidal threats, 504, call academy.
“Wing. This is serious.”
“Why? Does this plan involve a courthouse and witnesses? Because your plan isn’t gonna work if you’re still under the age of eighteen in the City of Gotham and San Francisco...now maybe in the BFE of Smallville we could–”
“I spoke with Zatara, we’re going to bring Wally back.”