Inspiration comes in the weirdest ways. Scrape your head and check it out in the mirror one second, the next you're making fluff out of it. The sense, am I right? I'm not sure if this is entirely a shipping thing, but I'm going to say that it's not quite the attitude of normal heterosexual guys, so I'll tag it as such.

This close, Wally could see that Dick's hair was actually very dark brown, and not the black it always seemed to be. It was dark brown, and so very soft between his fingers as he carded them through it, trying to keep it parted over the shallow gash that had knocked Dick unconscious to begin with.

It was barely an hour ago that the gunman had thrown the Boy Wonder through the store window, but to the speedster that had picked up his limp body and carried it off to a place safe enough to take his pulse with trembling fingers, it had felt like years. There had been a steady pulse in his throat, one found with a small cry of relief, and then calls were made. The police first, and they rounded up the secured baddies when they came on scene, waiting for a League official to come and confirm what to do with them, who were contacted next. Last to be called were the paramedics, despite Wally's seemingly unheard insisting.

When the paramedics had pulled up, sirens blasting, they had confirmed that Dick was okay. He would have a nasty migraine in the morning, but if the siren kept up, Wally was pretty sure everyone within earshot would, too. Even as the paramedics left though, the team consecutively agreed that they didn't want to leave their youngest member alone in his current state, so after placing a call to Batman, the speedster agreed to keep watch over his friend until the Caped Crusader showed up.

That's how they ended up like this- Wally sitting on the curb with Dick's head in the safest place he could think to put it: his lap. Squad cars were everywhere the eye could see, ambulances scattered within, and a few prison transport trucks backing onto the scene. The police had sectioned off the area with tape, and crowds were gathering behind it and inside it. The overall size of the crowd had Wally leaning over his friend subconsciously, shielding him from the danger, and that's how he had ended up staring in the first place.

He had first noticed the blood licking up the teen's hair shafts almost like his roots were scarlet. When he had brushed the hair back from the wound, Dick had given a contented smile in his sleep, and Wally hadn't stopped playing with his hair since. That's when he had noticed his hair being brown, and the faint ruts in his pale lips from where he was always biting them. That's when he had seen the curve in his nose, the stuck-up pretty boy lift, and the slight breath of freckles beneath where his eyes should've shown. The panes of glass woven into the domino mask he religiously wore hid his eyes, but Wally knew they were shut, and he imagined the eyelashes were a little too long and brushing at the one-sided white panes. Maybe his eyes darted behind the lids in some kind of dream.

"Hang in there, Rob," he murmured, his free hand tracing out the edges of the obscuring mask with a fondness that made it maybe a little too obvious that he wasn't trying to secure it down like he had wanted to make it seem.

He didn't have to look over to know that the media was swarming because he could hear the clicks of their cameras and their frustrated sounds as they bumped into each other, and the flashes were bright in his peripheral. Never did he consider straightening up or taking his hands away. He was watching over his little bird, and he did just that, even when Batman called him specifically.

The Dark Knight sounded anything but as he fretted over his sidekick, and Wally didn't leave out a detail. He told the hero where they were, Dick's pulse, the depth of his head injury-

"He's alright, Batman," the speedster promised, keeping his voice low. "I've got him."

And that was the only thing that mattered right then- he had him, had his fingers going through his hair, had him safe, and then Batman was there to take him home. He lifted his friend up and carried him through the crowds behind Batman, and helped lay him out in the back of the Batmobile. As it took off down the road, a blur that somehow seemed cautious all the same, Wally still had his little bird, even when the car disappeared from sight.

-F.J. III