A/N: Written as a birthday fic for the awesome JZ. C:
Hopefully I've kept them in character. Mostly. I can't quite write Young Justice yet;;

Disclaimer: Characters and settings do not belong to me; plot and writing do.

WALLACE WEST VS. THE WORLD
( PART ONE )

Wally West did not like Talks. Yeah, he liked talking, but when someone went up to him and said, "we need to have a Talk," he wanted to either scream, groan, cry, or run a lap around the world. Or all of the above at once, depending on how the person said it.

The "we need to have a Talk" one-liner he had received from Robin a.k.a. Dick Grayson that morning seemed to be falling into the all-of-the-above category because they were sorta-kinda-maybe in a relationship, and whenever the words "we need to have a Talk" came up in a relationship, 99.9% of the time, it was a bad sign. Okay, maybe more like 97%. Point: it was bad.

Or maybe he was over-thinking it. He could be over-thinking it. Maybe Dick just wanted to tell him that the big bad Bat disapproved or something. That was serious and needed a Talk, right?

Right. Totally. Silly Wally, over-thinking little things like Talks. But what if he wanted to end their sorta-kinda-maybe relationship because of the big bad Bat? That was also another reason for a Talk, right? Then their sorta-kinda-maybe relationship would be doomed forever and—

"Uhhhhhh. What're you doing?"

Wallly whirled around to see Dick in full Robin regalia standing in the doorway and looking at him skeptically through the white lenses of his mask.

"Nothing!" Wally exclaimed, then cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, nothing. Hey. Sup."

"…sup," Dick responded hesitantly. "Listen, um, think we can go talk now? It's kinda important."

It's kinda important. It's kinda important.

Wally's brain figuratively imploded as all of his fears began racing through his head at the speed of light.

"Hello, Earth to KF?"

Wally blinked and Dick's hand was in his face. "Uhfgmargles."

"…what."

"Nothing," Wally said hastily. "Um, sure, let's go. Talk."

"Kay. Let's go to the roof," Dick said, turning and heading out the door.

The roof? The roof. The roof!

Wasn't the roof where all those super important conversations took place? Where one character confessed his feelings and deepest darkest fears while the wind dramatically tousled his hair? Where—where the dreaded b-word, the b-b-b-b-breakup scenes took place?

"Or we can stay here," Dick stepped back in and closed the door. "You sure you're feeling all right? You're kind of… out of it."

"I'm fine," Wally insisted, "Fine. Totally fine. So, um, what'd you want to talk about?"

"Well," Dick made his way over to the desk and plopped down backwards on the office chair, arms draped over the back. "You know how we're sort of in a relationship?"

Wally nearly exploded with joy as the stress flew from his body at the speed of light. "We're in a relationship?"

Dick rolled his eyes, but his cheeks were tainted a suspicious shade of pink. "I said sort of."

"Sure, right, go on," Wally said, brimming with glee. Nothing was going to bring him down from this high!

"Okay, well, since we're sort of in a relationship," Dick said, placing emphasis on the "sort of" and throwing in a glare which Wally pleasantly ignored, "there's the chance it might become something more and—"

"Something more?" Wally interjected, starry-eyed at the mere thought.

"Would you shut up for a second and let me finish?" Dick snapped.

Wally jumped and clapped both his hands over his mouth. "Right, sorry. No more interrupting. Promise."

Dick sighed. "Okay, so. There's a chance this might become, uh, something more—" Wally made a squeaking noise and Dick paused to glare at him, "—and some people, well… they have things to say about that."

"Mmfafoomee?"

"…you can take your hands off your mouth now."

"Right," Wally lowered his hands. "What do you mean by that?"

Dick shoved off his left foot and let the office chair spin in a couple of circles before stopping it. "I mean that some people won't let you date me without a fight."

Wally exploded with joy again. "Date! You said it! You said date!"

Dick waited patiently for the rest of his sentence to sink in, and he could tell when it did by the way Wally's eyes widened comically and the way he scurried over to the chair.

"Wait, fight? What do you mean by that?"

"What else could I mean?" Dick asked, rolling his eyes.

"B-But," Wally stammered, all previous excitement gone. "Wait. Why. What? You don't have crazy exes, do you? Like in that Scott Pilgrim movie?"

"Of course not," Dick scoffed. "They're a lot worse than that."

"What do you mean?" Wally asked frantically. "I'm so confused."

Dick spun the chair around a few more times. "Okay, um. Basically, there are a bunch of parallel universes out there."

Wally nodded. "Parallel universes. Yup. Got it."

"You're… okay with that?" Dick asked hesitantly.

Wally shrugged. "Yeah, sure. I mean, Uncle Barry's seen some crazy stuff and parallel universes have come up once or twice. No biggie."

Dick relaxed fractionally. "Cool. So, um, there are different versions of us in each universe, but we usually have the same groups of friends and stuff. Usually."

"Yeah…"

"And so basically, anyone who wants to date me has to go through all my family from the other universes. They send themselves here using data projections or something and try to beat you up. You win if you beat all of them."

"And if I don't beat all of them?" Wally gulped nervously.

"Then you can't date me."

"Just like that?"

"…just like that."

Wally paced back and forth nervously. "So I'm not even allowed to start dating you until I beat a bunch of… random family?"

"More like the Batfamily. But yeah, that's the gist of it," he shrugged.

"Batfamily," Wally repeated incredulously. "Batfamily?"

"Apparently there's a lot more of us than just me and Batman," Dick shrugged.

Wally clapped his hands onto Dick's shoulders and stared into the younger boy's eyes, a maniacal expression on his face. "You want me to kick the butt of Batman."

"Uh. Yep."

Wally threw his hands up into the air. "You're insane! This is so not happening. Where'd you even hear about this anyway? Batman?"

"Superman," Dick corrected.

"Superman?" Wally exclaimed. "What would Superman know about any of this?"

Dick paused.

"—and that's basically what you're going to have to deal with if you go through with this," Clark Kent explained.

Dick stared at his soda for a while before looking up. "How do you know all of this?" he asked, idly sipping from the straw as he waited for an answer.

Clark smiled wryly. "It's a case of 'been there, done that,' actually."

Dick immediately spewed soda and began choking.

"Are you all right?" Clark asked, panicked, as he swept up the mess with a handful of napkins.

"Oh yeah, fine," Dick said, coughing. "Just fine. Um. Does that mean you and Bruce…?"

Clark patted his head paternally. "One day when you're older, I'll explain it to you. But not now."

"Right. Got it. That's cool," Dick said, but he shuddered at the thought. He didn't really want to know what had transpired between them, and he would never be able to look at their "manly shoulder pats" or Brucie's thought-to-be-fabricated adoration for Clark Kent the same way ever again.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Dick replied with a grimace.

Wally stared at him incredulously. "I'm older than you!"

"Yeah, well, trust me, you don't want to hear this right now," Dick said, shuddering at the recollection. "All you have to know is that it's true. And it's going to happen. I'm just warning you."

"So how many are there?" Wally asked, deciding to let it go for the moment.

Dick shrugged. "I think Superman said there were eight or nine?"

"Helpful," Wally groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead. "Real helpful."

"Relax," Dick reached over and patted his shoulder. "You'll make it."

Wally cracked open an eye. "You're crazy."

"Just optimistic."

Wally sighed. "What happens if I lose to one? Do I just have to beat them more than they beat me or something?"

Dick frowned and shook his head. "If you lose, you lose."

Wally frowned back. "That means…"

"No second chances," Dick confirmed. "You beat them all or you lose it all."

"So if I only lose to old Batsy, the final boss, then all the other fights were for nothing?" Wally asked, voice escalating in pitch until it ended a squeak.

"Pretty much," Dick smiled wryly. "You should know by now that the Batfamily only plays for keeps."

Wally put his hands behind his head and smiled back. "Well then this is going to be a lot of fun, isn't it?"

Robin grinned. "You bet."

"Then I feel like I deserve a little something for my efforts," Wally grinned cheekily before speeding over and pressing his lips against Dick's. He pulled back quickly, still wearing the grin, before saying, "Bye!" and speeding off.

"Hold on a sec," Dick yelled, dashing to the door and poking his head out. "Where are you going?"

Wally sped back. "Training, of course. Can't expect me to beat up old Bats without working out some, can you?" And he was off again.

Dick rolled his eyes up to the ceiling with a smile. "Asterous."