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Wally watched Dick carefully from the other side of the room, his eyes narrowed, and his arms crossed over his chest. He felt irked despite having no evidence to cause it. Just seeing Dick stand by the platform waiting for his turn to spar had him suspicious. He’d been a bit sniffly lately, but it was flu season and no matter how much he protested, he was still human, and he could definitely still get sick.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t join in on training when he was under the weather, believe Wally; he’d tried to make that a rule, and his neck still had a weird crick to it. He just had to let people know he was sick so they knew to go easy. Obviously, Dick would take that as a personal offence, so his lips would be sealed. Wally wouldn’t call it snitching to tell Canary without his permission; it was just intuitive advocacy. He couldn’t do it without a good bit of evidence, though, mostly so Dick couldn’t talk his way out of it, and right now all he had was a hunch.
He tried to pick out what had set off the hunch in the first place. The sniffle had brought his attention to Dick, but something else would’ve made it stay. Dick rubbed his right ear, wincing away, yet still repeating the motion as if anything would change. He shifted from foot to foot. It sort of looked like he was warming up for his turn, but it didn’t strike Wally right. There’s a moment when it looks like he’s only just catching himself before he topples to either side. Everything desperately screams normal. It’s overacted. A performance, and he knew Dick was a natural-born performer.
Still, that isn’t enough. His warm-up doesn’t look warm-uppy. His ear was probably sore from wearing his comms all the time now that he split up his days between the team and patrolling his own city at night. There’s nothing wrong with being sniffly, not when Dick made a game of contorting himself into tiny spaces nobody bothered to clean. Not to mention he lived in Gotham, whose air was polluted with every known chemical there was and probably a bunch of unknown ones.
Slowly, Wally inches over to Dick and gives him a soft knock on the shoulder. He knew he didn’t put any real weight behind it, so he frowned when it nearly had the younger hero toppling over. It’s a Hail Mary to get him to admit there’s something wrong, but Wally always liked to give him the option so he could lawd it over his head later.
“What?”
“You okay?” Dick made a face. Maybe disgust or irritation, but it’s in that same vein of facial expressions. The lenses of his mask squinted as if daring him to continue his line of questioning. Good thing he could run fast. “You seem a bit off.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped back. “If I weren’t, Bats wouldn’t let me be here.”
“He let you wear biker shorts for two years.” Dick didn’t respond to that. Weird. He usually got a punch for mentioning it, along with the same lengthy explanation for why the shorts were somehow significant. “Since when have you ever needed that guy’s permission to do something stupid?”
“I’m good,” Dick tried again, forcing a casualness that didn’t belong with this persona. That’s Richard Grayson, ward of a billionaire playboy, not Dick, his best friend and (ironically) partner in crime.
His chance to say something slipped through his fingers as Dick’s name was called and he was paired up with Connor of all people, the guy who was just one massive muscle. He tensed up as Dick stepped up onto the platform, his feet landing slightly too far off to either side. The glow of LEDs washed out his skin and made the white lenses he wore transparent enough for Wally to notice his irises gliding in one direction before jerking back to focus on Connor.
It’s a shit show almost immediately.
Connor had gotten better at being more calculated in his fights, but it still takes a minute for him to find the flow, especially when Dick always sat back for him to move first so he could get into some sort of groove. He rushed forward to throw a punch; Dick grabbed his fist and used it as a support to flip over his shoulder. The move was sloppy, his legs flaring out too much, but he just about managed to land it and hold his forehead with a pained expression.
Connor was too eager to keep going and spun around, already throwing a punch. Dick put his arms up to block it, but this isn’t a fairly strong regular guy. This is a clone of Superman. The hit knocks him flat on his back. It’s not a mistake that Dick makes, and he wouldn’t stay down after taking the hit. He would’ve rolled backwards, using the momentum to his advantage and creating some space between him and his opponent.
Instead, he turned to get on his hands and knees, yet even that was laboured and delayed. He drew one knee up so he could stand, but it wobbled dangerously under the mere suggestion of bearing weight. Connor looked to Canary for some support. Her eyes matched Wally’s gaze. Maybe the embarrassment would teach Dick a lesson on hiding things.
“Do I keep going?” Connor asked.
“One sec,” Dick piped up. His fingers dug into his knee as he tried to find his balance again, but he only got an inch off the ground before falling pathetically to his right. He managed to catch himself before he could flop helplessly. His teeth gritted with frustration, and he tried again, but Wally swiftly stepped in. He wrapped an arm around him and kept him steady as he rose to his feet, not letting him break away to fall again inevitably.
“This is you good, is it? This is fine?” Wally chastised.
“I’m off-kilter.”
“You couldn’t get up.”
“Just needed to get my balance.”
“Oh yeah? I think we’ll have to put up some missing flyers for it.”
“I’m just dizzy. Give me a minute.”
“Alright.” Wally let go and, to the acrobat’s credit, he did manage to stay on his feet. For a minute. He got too ambitious and tried to walk, but his boots knocked into each other, and he was tumbling to the ground. Wally caught him with a smug look.
“What happened?” Canary asked, her voice as cutting as her gaze.
“Nothing happened.”
“Something must have. Your balance is impeccable.” She leaned down a little, grabbing his chin and manoeuvring his head back and forth to inspect it. She didn’t find anything there and ran her fingers through his hair to find any bumps. The whole scene was far too maternal, and Wally had to look away to stop himself from laughing. He pinned his bottom lip between his teeth to stop the millions of jokes he could make from slipping out.
“I’m not injured,” Dick pouted.
“Somehow I don’t believe you,” she replied. “Follow my finger.” She moved her pointer finger left to right, then up and down, frowning when his eyes jumped to where it would go, then back to where it actually was. “Nystagmus is fine for you?”
“It’s bearable.”
“Nystagmus, dizziness and balance issues,” she mumbled to herself as she put together the puzzle. “Vertigo hasn’t made another appearance, so it’s not from a fight with him.” She hummed to herself and straightened up. “It’s unlikely you’d be able to go to training with an injury severe enough to impact your balance, so you’re sick?”
“I’m not that sick.”
“But you are sick.”
“Mild case of labyrinthitis,” he answered flippantly.
“That doesn’t sound mild,” Wally stressed.
“It’s just an ear infection. Nothing crazy. Guess it affected my balance more than I thought.”
“And you thought you were perfectly fine to spar with Connor of all people like that?”
“Well, I didn’t come to stand around.”
“You can barely stand!” Dick rolled his eyes, and he was half tempted to remove his support again if it wasn’t the only thing keeping him upright. “You mind if I take him home?”
“I can still watch.”
“Take him home. Make sure Batman knows,” Canary answered, ignoring him.
“We don’t really need to get B involved,” he suggested nervously.
“Actually, you’re right. I think Alfred would be a much better choice,” Wally said with a smirk.
“Do you want me dead?”
“I want you not to fight the Kryptonian clone with an ear infection this bad, or yknow, just any sense of self-preservation,” Wally replied with a long-suffering sigh.