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Dick had a thing for redheads. It wasn’t a secret. Sure, he’d had brief flings with others, but his only two serious relationships had both been with girls who had red hair. Well, Kori’s hair was closer to pink, but the point stood.
Dick had a thing for redheads, but he did not have a thing for his best friend. So why did his pulse start racing every time Wally smiled? Why did he daydream about the taste of Wally’s lips or the feeling of his (red) hair between his fingers?
For a while, Dick was able to ignore it, but then one day, Wally introduced him to his new girlfriend, Linda, and told Dick that he thought she was the one. Dick had smiled and clapped him on the back, and had told his friend that he was happy for him, but Dick… Dick was jealous.
Linda was beautiful and intelligent, and she made Wally smile more than he had since he had become the Flash. Dick didn’t know what to do. He was crushing on his best friend, and he was crushing hard. So, like he always did when he was feeling lost and confused, he went to Barbara.
“Dick,” she said. “Is there no one else you can go to?” They were sitting in the Clocktower, Dick perched on a stool and Barbara in her wheelchair behind her monitors. Cass sat nearby, watching them with her head tilted like a bird’s.
“He’s sad,” Cass said, peering at him with her all-seeing eyes. “He trusts you more than anyone, thinks you can help him. Or distract him.”
“Well, he should know better than to come here for relationship advice. I don’t want to hear about it.” Barbara turned away from Dick and went back to watching her monitors.
“Please, Barbie,” Dick said. “You’re my best friend.”
“First of all,” Barbara said, “don’t call me Barbie.”
“Jason calls you Barbie.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “but that’s Jason.” She side-eyed him. “You’re… you.” Dick sighed.
“Fine, sorry. I won’t call you Barbie.”
“Thank you. Second of all, Wally is your best friend, and even if I were your best friend, you still would not come to me for relationship advice.” She cursed as a notification popped up on her screen and started rapidly tapping away at her keyboard.
“Why not?” Dick asked.
“She’s bitter,” Cass responded when Barbara merely gritted her teeth. She squeezed Barbara’s shoulder comfortingly. “You have many romantic relationships. Barbara does not. She spends most of her time here. Men don’t look past the chair.”
“Oh,” was all Dick said. He didn’t understand people like that. Baraba was gorgeous, quick-witted, and kind. Hell, if they hadn’t agreed years ago they were better as friends, Dick would totally want to date her. But people sucked, and Barbara knew that better than most. “I’m sorry, Babs.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, not looking away from her computer. “Even if I wanted to, it’s almost impossible to date outside the community, and I’m far too busy for that.” Dick nodded.
“Preach,” he said. As far as he knew, the only one in their family who’d been in a significant relationship with a civilian was Tim, who had dated a boy called Bernard. That relationship had been happy, but eventually crashed and burned, as most civilian-hero relationships did. Tim had happily started dating Conner Kent. Dick himself had only ever hooked up with civilians as Richie Grayson: vapid playboy.
It was a while before Baraba leaned back from her computer. When she did, she sighed loudly and tugged her (red) hair out of its messy ponytail. “So let me get this straight,” she said.
Ha straight. If only, thought Dick.
“You’re having a sexuality crisis over your best friend who just got a new girlfriend who he is head over heels for.”
“Yes,” Dick agreed. “But it's not exactly a sexuality crisis. I’ve never been straight. It just… never mattered. Bruce is bi. Jason is gay. Tim and Steph are bi as well. Cass is… Cass.”
“I’m asexual,” Cass supplied.
“Right,” Dick said. “And Kate’s a lesbian. And Duke and Damian are straight, as far as I know, but being not-straight is almost a rite of passage at this point, so I wouldn’t be surprised if either of them came out one day. As far as I know, you, Luke, and Helena are the only ones who are actually confirmed to be heterosexual.”
“What about Alfred? Do you think he’s straight?” Barbara wondered.
“I have no idea,” Dick admitted. “But would you be surprised if he wasn’t?”
“Not at all,” she said with a fond smile for the old butler. “But what’s your point?” She asked.
“My point is, there was nothing to have a crisis over. Being not straight was almost a given my whole life. There wasn’t anything for me to panic over when I was a teenager with a crush on a guy, because Bruce was just as likely to have a man over as a woman. For what it’s worth, I think I’m pan, but that’s never really been a question. I know, like, five cis, straight people. It’s the heteronormativity of the rest of the world that leads me to only ever be with women. I hooked up with a guy once when I was super drunk, but that was it.
“So it’s not that Wally’s a guy that’s the problem,” Dick said. “It’s that Wally’s Wally, and this is far more than a passing attraction. Now that I’ve been thinking about it, I think I’ve been a little bit in love with Wally West since I was fifteen.”
“Well,” Barbara said. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, then. So what did you need me for?”
“Barbara,” Dick said seriously, leaning forward. “I’m in love with my best friend, and I didn’t realize it until he was falling in love with somebody else.” He stared Barbara hard in the eyes, and she stared back, stubbornly unblinking.
“That’s rough, buddy,” Cass offered, breaking the silence. Barbara started cackling.
“Did Tim teach you that?” Dick asked, amused.
“Steph,” Cass corrected happily.
“She’s right,” Barbara said once she’d calmed down. “It sucks, it really does, but there’s nothing you can do about it except try to move on.”
“Unless Linda turns into the moon,” Cass offered sagely.
“I guess you’re right,” Dick said reluctantly. “I should try to move on. Maybe find another nice redhead to pine after for a while until I can look Wally in the eye without getting butterflies again.”
“Attaboy,” Barbara said, turning back to her work. Dick stood up to leave. “But whatever you do, don’t you dare bring me into it,” she warned, not looking over her shoulder. “I’ve got enough to deal with.”
“Yeah, alright, Babs,” Dick said fondly. “I’ll see you both at Sunday dinner?” Cass nodded and smiled, and Babs hummed affirmatively. “Ok then. I’m off to look for gingers.”
And look, he did. He spent the whole evening bar-hopping as Richie Grayson, but ended up feeling even more lonely than when he’d started. He watched groups of friends having a good time, and he drank about his solitude. He stumbled home to the Manor hours later to get ready for patrol.
The next morning, he woke up and slunk downstairs for breakfast, having bunked in his old room in a fit of nostalgia. Alfred, who allowed his sugary cereal on Saturday mornings only, poured Dick a bowl of Crockie Crunch.
“Thanks, Alf,” Dick said, and proceeded to stare sadly into his cereal. Tim wandered in half an hour later, still dressed in his work clothes from the prior night, and poured himself a giant cup of coffee. Dick still had not touched his cereal other than to stir it in morose figure-eights. Tim didn’t seem to notice Dick was there until he had inhaled his entire cup of coffee and was filling up another.
“Oh, hey Dick,” he said, exhaustion clear in his voice. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing,” Dick said, sighing loudly. Tim blinked sleepily.
“Right.” They didn’t speak again until Damian and Bruce walked in a little while later, both dressed for a day out. At that point, Dick’s cereal was entirely mush, and he washed it all down the sink with a sad whine.
“Alright, Dick,” Bruce said, pursing his lips and levelling Dick with his best “tired dad” look. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Dick said again, this time more defensively. “I am 100% a-ok.”
“Tt,” Damian said. “Lying is unbecoming of you, Richard. I am disappointed.”
“I’m not lying,” Dick grumbled.
“Yes, you are,” Damian corrected. “You just dumped that awful cereal you enjoy so much down the sink. Something is clearly bothering you.” Dick stayed silent.
“Well, it’s nothing really. I’m just having a bit of a crisis at the moment, but I’ll get over it soon enough and be back to normal,” Dick explained. Bruce frowned.
“Is this about Wally’s new girlfriend?” He asked. Dick’s eyes widened.
“Why would this be about Linda?” Dick responded, panicking slightly.
“Well, you’ve been in love with Wally since you were fifteen, and now Wally’s falling in love with somebody else.” Dick gaped at his father. How did he know that? Dick hadn’t told anyone but Barbara and Cass, and they would never spill his secret to Bruce.
“I- what? You… what?” Dick was speechless. Bruce just gazed calmly at him. Had he no pity for his son?
“Dude. You seem, like, weirdly surprised that Bruce knows that,” Tim observed, having finally woken up enough to participate in their conversation.
“Of course I’m surprised!” Dick shouted, his voice becoming high-pitched in his panic. Damian scoffed.
“Please, Richard,” he said. “I have only known you for five years, a far shorter time period than the others have known you, and it is obvious even to me that you are infatuated with West.”
Dick gaped. He had foolishly believed that his thing for Wally had only been known to him and had planned to keep it that way. But if it had been so obvious to Bruce and Damian, who both had the emotional intelligence of goldfish, who knew who else was aware of it? Oh God, did Kori know? Is that what she had meant when she said, “You have always known love in another place, and hopefully, one day, so will I,” after breaking up with him? It wouldn’t be possible for him to bury the emotions and pretend they never happened if everyone knew he was pining for his best friend.
“I think I need to go now,” he said, his voice strange even to his own ears.
“Dick,” Bruce said carefully.
“Nope, I’m going,” he said, leaving the dining room and going to get his stuff from his bedroom. “And the three of you are going to do me a favor and pretend that this conversation never happened,” he called over his shoulder. Luckily, his family didn’t bother trying to follow.
He spent the next month throwing himself into work, both as the best detective in the Blüdhaven PD and as Nightwing. He avoided going back to Gotham like the plague, and he avoided Wally and the rest of the former Teen Titans like the plague on steroids.
He had run into Jason and his Outlaws two weeks into his self-imposed solitude. They had teamed up, and afterwards Dick found himself staring forlornly at Kori and Roy’s hair. Jason, Roy, and Kori had shared a look and promptly asked him if it was about Linda. Dick had groaned and put his head in his hands. The three shared a laugh at his expense. Dick flipped them off before leaving without bothering to say goodbye.
Things started to go wrong during the fifth week.
Dick was having hallucinations again. And night terrors too. He’d had them since Jason died. They had gotten better after Jason came back, but he had… episodes. The psychologist he talked to once a month said he had Generalized Anxiety Disorder and PTSD. The only person who knew about the official diagnoses was Wally, though Bruce probably suspected. The World’s Greatest Detective didn’t know everything, but he certainly knew most things about Dick.
So HalluciJason was back, giggling at him from out of the corner of his eye, but Tarantula and Mirage were there as well, sneering at him and yelling abuse, and so was Damian’s corpse, his mother’s sword still sticking through his small chest.
“Alright, Catalina, Miriam. I know,” he ground out, glaring at the women.
“Oh, Big Bird. You need help. Lots of it.” HalluciJason said, Crime Alley accent thick in his perpetual youth.
“Believe me, Jason, I’m aware.” He rubbed roughly at his eyes. When he opened them, both Tarantula and Mirage were gone, but Jason and Dami were still there.
“Y’know you can’t get rid of us that easy, Dickiebird.” Jason tutted disapprovingly, showing off his bloody teeth. Dick swore in Romani, putting his face in his hands.
The only person who had ever been able to snap him fully out of it when he got like this was Wally. He was the only one who knew the full extent of Dick’s issues and who had been around while he was dealing with them.
But Dick would not call Wally; he wouldn’t bother him. They texted now and again, and Wally was radiant with joy in every message. If he called Wally now, the older man would ask him what was wrong. He couldn’t tell him. Not now, when Linda’s name was every third word for the speedster.
So Dick continued as he had been for weeks. Any of the (admittedly sparse) efforts he had previously been making towards his mental and physical health fell by the wayside. Dick was regressing into some of the worst habits he had developed in the years directly succeeding Jason’s death: he wasn’t sleeping, he wasn’t eating, he stopped resting the proper amount of time after injuries. He cut out all communication with his friends and family, save for what was absolutely unavoidable.
He started noticing side effects other than the hallucinations. He was losing weight and getting pale, the bags under his eyes becoming all the more pronounced. He was getting hurt worse and more frequently. His bad knee was aching from overuse.
People at the precinct began to notice, and on a Friday afternoon, exactly two months after that fateful evening at the Clocktower, his boss sent him home early and told him not to come back until he could see straight again.
Which was ridiculous. Dick could see straight! It was just that every time he looked at something head-on, HalluciJason would start swimming around in his periphery. Clearly, his SSRIs weren’t working quite right anymore.
Or had he stopped taking them?
He couldn’t remember.
It was late Saturday night (or maybe early Sunday morning) when there was a loud knock on his door. He shuffled over to it, leaving his place curled up on the sofa with great reluctance.
He opened the door to reveal Wally.
“Huh?” Dick said.
“I’m coming in,” Wally responded. “I brought Chinese from that place in Star City you like.”
“Huh?” Dick repeated, but he stepped aside to let Wally in. He turned around as he shut the door and watched Wally putter around his barren kitchen.
He looked at home in Dick’s apartment, pulling open drawers and cabinets with comfortable familiarity. It made Dick’s heart ache. Somewhere in the distance, Tarantula laughed.
“Lo mein?” Wally asked, smiling gently. Dick nodded and took the offered carton and a pair of chopsticks. Wally sat down at Dick’s tiny kitchen table, pulled out three cartons of General Tso’s cauliflower and four of kung pao chicken, and began eating, stopping occasionally to mix in some rice or chomp down an egg roll. Dick eventually sat down next to him, slowly pushing his lo mein around the carton in figure-eights.
“Rob, what’s wrong?” Wally said after a long time of silence. Half his food was gone. Dick’s carton was still full.
“Nothing, Walls, I’m fine,” Dick lied. “How’s Linda?”
“Linda’s fine, but we broke up two weeks ago, which you would know if you responded to my texts,” Wally said. Dick blinked slowly.
“But I thought you said that she was ‘the one,’” he mumbled.
“I did say that, and I thought it too. But it won’t work. She wanted me to be something I’m not, and I expected her to be ok with all the disappearing I do. You know how tough it is for people like us to have relationships outside of the community. I thought she would be the Lois to my Clark, but, at the end of the day, she’s not Lois, and I’m definitely not Clark,” Wally explained.
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean,” Dick responded. His mind sluggishly thought of what he’d talked about with Barbara, and he recalled a conversation he’d had with Clark after a party on his and Lois’s fifth anniversary.
“What Lois and I have is something special,” Clark had said. “We understand each other, sometimes better than we understand ourselves. So she can go on her work binges, I can go offworld for weeks on end, and when it’s all over, we’ll sit down together at the dinner table again like we would any other day and not need to talk or explain anything. We're just comfortable together, even after months apart. You can love someone as much with all your heart and still not be able to do that. And for people in our positions, that’s something invaluable.” Clark had smiled then, unnaturally blue eyes sparkling in fading yellow sunlight.
“You’ll find that someday, Dickie,” he’d said. “I know you will. And when you do, you’d better hang onto your person with all your might. Because it still won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.”
“I know, Rob, I’m sorry to lay all of this on you right now,” Wally said regretfully. “You need me right now, and I’m talking about Linda. Again.”
“No, it’s fine,” Dick said honestly. “You liked her a lot. I understand why you would want to tell me about her.”
“Yeah, maybe, but it’s over, and it’s never gonna work. So no matter how much I like her, it’s behind me. Right now, you need me. And I might like Linda, but I love you, Robby.” Dick blinked again, tears coming to his eyes. He knew Wally didn’t mean it the way Dick wished he meant it, but it still meant a lot.
“I love you too,” Dick said. And the tears he’d been holding back for weeks finally started falling. A choked sob escaped his throat, and Wally was around the table faster than a blink, wrapping his arms around Dick’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you, birdie,” Wally apologized. “But I’m here now, ok? And I’m not going anywhere until you’re alright again, even if that means I’m living in Blüd from now on.”
A while later, Dick’s tears slowed and then stopped, and for the first time since the Clocktower, he actually felt like eating. He pulled back from Wally and started stuffing noodles into his face.
“So I guess you were hungry after all,” Wally teased.
“Shut up, Speedy,” Dick shot back, knowing it irked Wally to no end to be called by Roy’s old name.
“I still don’t understand why people called me that!” Wally said predictably. “I mean, I know Speedy was a stupid-ass name for an archer - still is, poor Mia - but Kid Flash is very obviously the Flash’s sidekick!”
Dick sat back in his chair and listened to Wally speed-ramble ad nauseam about hero names, the good and the bad.
This was good. This was comfortable. Dick hardly noticed when he started smiling or when his hallucinations faded away.
“And back to the Arrows,” Wally was saying as Dick started to fall asleep. “Green and Red Arrow are both dumb but fine. Hawk is a good alias, or it would be if it wasn’t also Connor’s last name. I like Black Canary and Arrowette, though I don’t love them. And we’ve already talked about Speedy.”
Dick woke up the next morning in his bed, tangled in sheets that smelled freshly washed, and well-rested for the first time in literal years. He hadn’t had a nightmare.
Dick stumbled out of bed and into his living room, where Wally sat munching on a protein bar and scrolling through the channel list on Dick’s TV.
“Oh, hey, birdie, good morning. It’s almost dinner time, so I ordered some pizza from that place in Central that’s been cooking speedster levels of food since Barry first got his powers. I’ll have to leave and pick it up in a few minutes. I did go grocery shopping this morning, but I mostly got the basics rather than anything you’d need to cook with. You know, bread, milk, that kind of thing.”
And that was it. No mention of the night prior, or how much of a mess Dick was. No mention of anything that had happened the last two months. Just the simple luxury of knowing and being known in return.
This is it for me, Dick realized. This is the Lois to my Clark. Even if Wally never felt the same way as Dick did, Dick decided in that moment that he would be ok with that. He didn’t need Wally to be in love with him. This was enough.
“Alright, I should go get that pizza. Any requests while I’m out?” Wally asked.
“No, Wally. You’ve done more than enough already,” Dick responded. Wally smiled gently.
“Nah, birdie,” he disagreed. “I’d do anything for you. This? This is nothing. This is just me returning the favor for what you do all the time for everyone we know.”
“And what’s that?” Dick wondered.
“Take care of people, Dickie,” Wally answered. Dick’s eyes burned.
“Thanks,” he choked out.
“It’s nothing, Dick. Not for me. Not when it’s you.” Then Wally leaned a bit closer and placed a short, chaste kiss on Dick’s lips.
What?
Dick blinked. Last he checked, bros didn’t kiss their bros on the lips.
Wally was pulling on his Flash boots like nothing had happened. And maybe it was nothing. Maybe Dick was the crazy one.
“Alright, Rob, I’ll be back in a minute,” Wally said.
“Wait, Walls,” Dick tried, but Wally was already gone.
The minute Wally was gone (and it was only a minute) was the longest of Dick’s life. He sat on the couch. Tarantula sat next to him. She said nothing, did nothing. She was just there. Dick felt like he was going to throw up.
Dick knew what he had to do.
When Wally reappeared in Dick’s kitchen, pizza already on the counter and shoes already halfway off, Dick was on him before he could say anything.
“God, Wally. You can’t just kiss me and then leave,” Dick admonished. Then he put his arms around Wally’s neck and pulled him into another kiss.
For a long moment, Wally was stiff against him. It was barely five seconds, but for a speedster, that would be eternity. Dick nearly started to pull back, but held himself steady with every bit of the resolve that had gotten him through nearly 20 years as a vigilante.
C’mon, Robin, he thought to himself. This is the love of your life. Hold the goddamn line. This is not when we give up.
Finally, Wally kissed back. His hands found Dick’s waist and pulled him in closer.
There were no fireworks, no explosion of passion and heat at true love finally realized. Just a feeling like coming home after months away. Pure and good and happy.
God, Dick was so incandescently happy.
“I love you, Wally,” Dick whispered when they pulled apart. “Always have, always will.”
“Yeah, Robby. I love you too,” Wally whispered back, dorky smile splitting his freckled face practically in half. Then they just stood in each other’s arms and soaked themselves in love and warmth.
“C’mon, let’s eat,” Wally said eventually. “The pizza’s getting cold, and we need to get some food into you if you’re going to be calling your dad. Which you should do, by the way. Your family is worried about you. It’s great that you’re all getting along these days. I can still remember when you and Bruce were at each other’s throats, like, all the time. Man, we were so young then.” Wally settled back into the rambling rhythm of speech he only let himself use when he was with friends as easy as anything.
Dick smiled.
He wasn’t ok yet, and they had a lot to talk about, but Wally would be there no matter what. Him and his beautiful red hair.