WELCOME. THIS ONESHOT ISN'T NEAR AS ANGSTTACULAR AS THE LAST FOUR.
So I give you the Robin/Wally oneshot that everyone has been waiting for! :DD I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS. AND THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL THE REVIEWS ON MY OTHER ONESHOTS. YOU KEEP ME MOTIVATED, LOVELIES.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. All are the property of DC comics.
Robin realized it rather suddenly. It was when Wally had gotten far too close to his face when he was gloating about the win he'd made (and, let it be noted that it was one of Wally's only wins against Robin). For someone who was seventeen, Wally hadn't aged a day whatsoever.
Mentally anyway. He'd aged a bit physically. Well. A lot physically. Wally was...
That was what he was concerned about.
He shoved Wally away from him (because they were far, far too close for comfort) and turned away to hide his blush.
"Whoa, dude, you okay?"
"Yeah," Robin said, hoping his voice didn't crack. He'd grown out of that when he'd turned fifteen, he was sure. But he could never tell, especially when he was nervous and right at that moment he most certainly was nervous. "Yeah. Just..." Robin swallowed and took a breath, "Just miffed that I could lose to you. I mean, I must be slipping, or something." He heard Wally huff indignantly behind him.
"Hey now! I won fair and square!"
(Robin wondered if he himself would have won if he hadn't been distracted by Wally's looks. And his best friend's personality. And... everything that was Wally.)
Robin shrugged. "If you say so." He stood, holding out his hand to help the red head up. "Let's got eat something. I think I smell M'gaan making cookies." Wally pulled himself up with fantastic enthusiasm and raced off toward the kitchen. Robin trailed behind more slowly, mulling over his new revelation.
(He was in love with his best friend.)
—
It wasn't difficult to avoid Wally, if he tried. All Robin really had to do was be in the same room as M'gaan and then sneak out while he was flirting with her. And Wally would be none the wiser, because when he was flirting with a girl, there was nothing that could get Wally's attention. (Which, when Robin considered it, really hurt his feelings.)
So, in his many moments of avoiding Wally, he stayed in the training room, or was at home with Alfred and the Bat (but mostly Alfred).
"Why haven't you been with your friends lately, Master Richard?"
"What?" Robin looked up from the bird-a-rang he was messing with. He had been spacing out, flipping the weapon between his fingers. "I've been with my friends. There have been plenty of missions."
"Master Richard," Alfred said, raising an eyebrow. Robin looked away, flipping the bird-a-rang between his fingers once more. (He was deft enough that, even distracted, he didn't cut himself on the blade.) "I'm sure you know what I mean."
"Nope," Robin said, pushing the chair he was sitting in away from the table. "No idea, Alf." He stuck the weapon into his utility belt and walked away, hearing the older man sigh behind him. (Robin had to admit that he'd always been good at exasperating older people. It probably had something to do with his smile. Bruce had called it once, in private, where he thought Robin couldn't hear, "a shit-eating grin.")
But Robin couldn't seem to muster that smile as he walked away, rubbing the back of his neck.
—
Wally had noticed that Robin wasn't around Mount Justice. And Robin noticed that Wally noticed. Though it was kind of hard not to, because he'd dropped by Wayne Manor quite often recently. Robin was (more often than not) working out. And Alfred would (always) pop in and say, "Master Wallace is here to see you."
"I'm working on a case with Batman."
"You and I both know that would be a lie."
"A good one." Robin would pause, drop to the floor, and say, "Please Alf?"
And he would sigh that exasperated sigh, but accommodate anyway.
—
At night, Robin couldn't sleep, because he would see Wally flirting with M'gaan. Now, it wasn't Wally's fault that Robin was lonely; that was his own choice. But it was Wally's fault for tossing Robin aside for M'gaan in the past.
Though he didn't know why he was mulling over it now. There was no real reason to.
"Dude, what the hell?"
Robin popped out of his bed so fast and had a bird-a-rang in his hand even faster that Wally had to blink to register the movements.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?"
"Why have you been avoiding me?"
"I think my question is more important." Robin said, raising an eyebrow.
Wally fidgeted (because he never really stopped moving). "Well. You've been avoiding me. Even when I showed up to see you, or whatever, you had Alfred shoo me away with some stupid bullshit excuse. So. I mean. I don't know. I wanted to show up at a time when you couldn't ditch me, dude." Wally swallowed. "So. My question's turn."
Robin ran a hand through his hair. It was... complex. (It was as if he'd thought that the more he avoided Wally, perhaps his feelings would dissipate or something.) Of course, it hadn't dissipated.
"I'm going through something."
"We're best friends. I can go through it with you." And Wally's face was so open and just so Wally that he almost considered spilling his guts right then and there. But that carried the immense risk of Wally walking out (or running out, whatever). Robin didn't know if he could deal with that. He also wasn't sure he could deal with just staying at best friend status for the rest of his life.
"I... I can't be friends with you. Anymore." Wait a second, he hadn't meant to say that, no Wally, don't take this the wrong way –
"What?" The openness of friendship became hurt.
"I can't..." I can't just be friends with you.
"...oh. Fine. Whatever." Wally's voice gained a harshness Robin didn't like. But he supposed he didn't have a right anymore to point that out to his... ex-best friend. (God, this is was just like it the movies, but in movies it didn't hurt this much). "I guess we're not friends."
And then, Wally was gone.
—
Robin, somewhere after being desperately angry with himself had turned depressed during the night. And then he started feeling just downright ill. By the time he was supposed to leave for school, he was vomiting in his bathroom, Alfred rubbing has back and talking on the phone with Bruce at the same time. He felt awful and now it wasn't just mentally.
He missed school for the next three days.
—
While he began attending school after three days, he did not return to missioning with Young Justice. Robin assumed the reason Batman hadn't asked about it was because Alfred had told him not to.
But that didn't mean that the team would leave him alone. Alfred didn't really have any contact with them.
So, while he was doing make-up work (that he'd been doing for two days, teachers were so unfair), his commlink to his team kept beeping to the point where he turned it off. Batman, if necessary, could reach him by cell phone.
Then, suddenly, Robin felt restless. And homework was no longer cutting his need to be doing something. He slammed his math book shut and looked at his watch. If he hurried he could...
He practically flew past Alfred (the Flash, he guessed, would be very proud of him) on his way down to the Batcave. But all the old man said was "don't forget to finish your homework later, Master Richard" and Robin was on his way to Central City.
—
Wally shouldn't be home, not yet –
He knocked on the Flash's door, and Barry answered.
The bewildered expression on his face was priceless, in Robin's opinion.
"Rob – ah, Richard. Wally's not –"
"I know. I kind of wanted to talk to you instead. About Wally." Barry blinked, and moved aside, waving the fifteen year old in and Robin couldn't remember ever feeling more grateful to the man (except for maybe the fact that he had made Wally who he was).
They sat at the dining room table, the kitchen visible through another doorway.
"So. I hear you and Wally had a sort of friend break-up?"
"Uhm," Robin fidgeted with the sunglasses in his pocket. "Yeah. It's complicated."
"Things like this always are."
"But, it's not that I don't want to be friends with him." Barry's eyebrow rose. "It sounded like it. But. What I meant was..." He paused, unsure of how to break it to his best friend's (ex-best friend's) uncle that his nephew's ex-best friend was gay. For his nephew.
But, of course, the front door saved him from having to explain.
"Uncle Barry, verdict is that Robin's still being a –"
Or it just threw him into a hotter fire.
"I think you should stay for dinner," Barry said, moving into the kitchen. "I'll call Bruce. Iris! Wally's home! Time to start on dinner!"
And then Wally popped into the dining room.
"...what are you doing here?"
Shit. He knew that Alfred would have given him a look if he had said it out loud, or even if he looked like he'd been thinking it. But he was sure that this situation warranted that word. He was absolutely positive.
—
They just sort of stared for a moment. Then Wally barked out a harsh bout of laughter.
"So you'll socialize with my family, but refuse my friendship. Way to be cold, man."
"I think I should explain."
"Explain what?" Wally's incredulous look made his stomach tighten in despair. "That you don't want to be friends with me anymore? That you're throwing away four years of us?"
When he put it like that, Robin admitted it sounded like there wasn't much to explain. "I meant..." Here it goes. Now or never, Wonder Boy. "I meant that I couldn't be just friends."
"Tch. What?"
"You don't see anything, Wally. It's... right in front of you. I'm right in front of you." Robin felt his shoulders shaking, and felt his eyes start to water. "I can't stand being friends with you and just staying friends. I mean, it should be enough right? But." He took a deep breath. "But I love you. And knowing you don't return that is..."
Robin gestured between them, vaguely.
Wally tilted his head, bit his lip, and then stepped forward. Robin, reflexively, returned the embrace. God, he was so stupid. Crying over something so...
"If you don't let me go," Robin muttered, "I'll get snot all over your shirt."
Wally pushed him back, but held him by the shoulders, looking him up and down. "I think," Wally said quietly, "we should talk about this after dinner."
Robin shrugged. He'd been putting this off for weeks now. A dinner wouldn't hurt.
—
Wally and Robin lay together on the teen speedster's bed, bellies full.
The silence was making Robin nervous, and he didn't like it one bit. As he opened his mouth to tell Wally that perhaps it was better if they forgot about earlier, that he was sure he could just be friends, like they were before, Wally began speaking instead.
"I was afraid you had noticed."
Robin blinked and silence settled again.
"Uhm. What?"
"When you said we couldn't be friends, I was afraid you had noticed I was flirting with you, and that that was why you said we couldn't be friends."
"...you've been flirting with me?"
"Well," Wally turned his head to look at him, "yeah. I mean, our hugs have been lasting longer. And I've been holding doors open for you and stuff, so..." He shrugged, wiggling the mattress beneath them. "I didn't notice that you... liked me. Like I liked you."
"Nah, Wally," Robin said, without thinking, "I kind of realized I was in love with you."
Wally coughed, then grinned. "I didn't notice." He paused. "How come neither of us asked the other out?"
"Fear of rejection? We're not exactly obvious with our not-so-friendly ideas toward one another."
Wally sat up, without warning, and leaned over the younger boy. Robin almost flinched as Wally's lips pressed against his own. But he was glad he didn't, because a wild tingling lit up inside him and he felt suddenly electrified and warm and... alive.
It was quick but wonderful. Robin waited a few moments before speaking. "So. Are we like... together?"
Wally blushed. "Yeah. We are. If you want to be."
"I do. Very much."
They couldn't help but grin at one another.
—
When Barry walked peeked into Wally's room that night, the two were wrapped in an uncomfortable looking hug. Richard's elbow was jammed into Wally's gut, and Wally seemed to be hugging the younger boy a little too-tightly. Wally's left leg was tangled with Richard's right, pulling the acrobat's leg forward in a little bit too much of a stretch.
He was going to wake them up to see if they'd untangle themselves, but they looked far more comfortable than their positions would indicate.
Richard made a small noise and moved closer, while Wally released a sigh in his sleep.
Barry decided that they looked just fine where they were.
