"Hey Wally, have you ever noticed how the word 'never' means 'not ever going to happen' and the word ever means 'always'?" Dick Grayson asked his best friend while sitting on his bedroom floor in Wayne Manor. His blue eyes lit up with the question.
Wally laughed and rolled his eyes. "Dick, the 'N' in never is not a prefix. Don't even try to say it is."
"Well, I mean Dis- as in Disaster is," the younger stated, picking up a pair of socks off the floor and throwing them into a box near the door. "But if you take it off you make 'Aster' which, though I'm not too happy about it, is not technically a word in the English language... Wait, where am I going with this?" He questioned in serious confusion.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," Wally responded, raising an eyebrow. He chuckled and rolled over onto his stomach. "Dick, you have a really weird grip on the English Language. I don't know anyone that questions it this much."
Dick shrugged and stood up. "It's a questionable language. Nothing about it makes sense. I mean, the same word is used for having read a book, or I want to read the book. That's so confusing! Or like, I have a wound that needs to wound up in bandages, UGH it gives me a headache." He said in frustration.
Wally stood up. "Dude, you're looking way to far into this. I'm sure Romanian is no walk in the park either," he stated.
"Well I mean, it's completely different, but if you know Spanish or Italian it's not hard to learn because of it's Latin origin," he nodded and back-flipped over to the door.
"I doubt it," Wally said, rolling his eyes. "It's got all those weird symbols over the letters. I took Spanish for 3 years and the only symbols were accents and the little squiggly thing over the N," He said with a nod, walking over to his friend.
Dick shrugged and opened the door, "That's probably true. But still, Romanian is an analytical language which means it's got a set of rules on how to speak it. English just leaves too much room for creativity to be easy. Like, the word dirty means obscene or quiet literally have dirt on your body."
"Or making Aster out of Disaster. Or Whelmed out of over or underwhelmed," Wally pointed out, following his friend down the hall. Dick glared slightly at his friend. "Okay, okay, sorry. Maybe Romanian would be easier to learn than English. But I've been speaking English my whole life, so, I don't know, it just makes sense to me."
"I think you could easily make sense out of Romanian," Dick pondered, almost changing the subject. "In fact, why don't I give you an easy sentence and you figure it out, and tell me what it means?"
Wally nodded. "Well I suppose I could do that. Challenge accepted," he grinned confidently and grabbed his coat off the coat rack.
Dick grinned. "Good, come back here when you've figured it out," he grabbed his friend in a tight hug. "Te iubesc,"the younger stated, letting go of the speedster. "That's the phrase I want you to learn."
Wally nodded and started to head out the door. "You know, when you're Robin, and even when you're in that ridiculous sunglasses disguise, I forget how huggy you are. It's... nice," and with that the Speedster ran off to go home.
Dick blushed slightly and closed the door gently. "Wally, please figure out the phrase soon..." a hand gripped his pants on tugged on them. He looked over and saw his little brother, Jason Todd, standing there, face covered in dirt. "Jason, you're old enough to know not to track dirt in the house,"he laughed and gently wiped some off his cheek. "Let's get you cleaned up before Bruce sees you."
Within the next week, Dick was constantly looking outside the window looking for his fast friend. He went on a mission with him and asked, "Have you figured it out yet?" and to his disappointment, no, Wally hadn't figured it out.
Wally was frustrated with it to say the least. Dick was wrong, Romanian had NOTHING in common with Spanish. Well, the word 'Te' was like 'Tú' which meant 'you'. He figured out 'Te' was pretty much the equivalent of 'you'. After that, he was stuck. Iubesc was a word that the speedster was certain was unique to the Romanian language. Or rather, wasn't easy to figure out with prior knowledge. He needed a hint.
He grabbed the phone and dialed Dick's personal number. After a couple rings he picked up. "Did you figure it out?" The blue-eyed bird asked immediatley.
Wally sighed. "No, and don't ever tell me that Romanian is simple ever again. I want a hint. I have that 'Te' means 'you' but... after that I'm stick.
"I see," Dick responded, taking this into consideration. "Eu Te Iubesc' is the common response to what I told you to figure out. Eu means 'I' and 'Te' means you. Iubesc is the word in between."
"That didn't help at all."
Dick laughed. "I'm sorry, but the phrase is too commonly used for me to give you a big hint. You gotta figure this out for yourself. Listen, I have to go now, stalk around Gotham with Daddybats, but you know, Te Iubesc Wally."
"Well... Eu Te Iubesc," Wally replied with a 'screw you' type tone to his voice. When he hung up, he went straight back to trying to figure out exactly what 'Iubesc' meant.
And then it hit him.
The next day, a snowy Saturday in Gotham, Dick was out in the back yard having a snowball fight with his little brother, who was pelting him with ice balls left and right. "Ow, ow, OW. JASON STOP!" he shouted with a laugh. Jason walked over to him and jammed a snowball in his older brother's face, then walked off to go create a snow man.
Dick sighed but was smiling. He was having a great day.
"Hey Dick!" A voice called out. The Robin turned around and looked at where the voice came from to see none other than his best friend Wally, who was now getting closer to him.
"You figured it out," Dick concluded with a small smile. His heart beat quickly in his chest.
"Yeah, I did." Wally said with a smile. "I love you too."
Dick grinned and wrapped his arms around the older. Wally planted a small kiss on his head and the two stood there for what felt like an eternity.
Yeah, Dick was having a great day.
THE END.