Reminiscing: to indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events.
This was something Dick had been taught never to do.
Bruce had once talked about reminiscing with Dick. He had gone out as Batman on Christmas Eve, not coming home until the early hours of Christmas Day, and Dick had waited by the tree with a mixture of awe and sadness at the sight of all the presents with his name on them. He refrained from touching even one of them, until Bruce came home, and when his tired guardian sat down with his old butler to watch the excited boy, they were met with a question.
"Do you ever think about your parents, Bruce?" Dick had asked with a curiousness that could only be described as sad. The question hadn't exactly caught him off guard, but he still wasn't sure of how he should respond.
"Well, Dick," he had said with a soft sigh. "I thought about them a lot when I was younger. I still do, sometimes, but I find that it's best not to reminisce too much."
"Reminisce," Dick whispered to himself, idly running his fingers over the wrapped gift that sat in his lap. He took a moment before looking up at Bruce with his nose scrunched up. "Why? Wouldn't thinking about the good times be a good thing?"
"It is," Bruce agreed, "but how long does it take for those good memories to turn into pain? Not nearly as long as it takes to reminisce over them."
Dick watched his new guardian with a fallen expression, allowing his eyes to drift back to the gift in front of him. Thoughts of his parents tried to swarm his brain, but he shot them away as fast as he could.
Dick had decided that Bruce was right. It hadn't taken long, only a few weeks, before all the memories that he tried to lock away came flooding back, and instead of joy, they had brought fresh pain. He had gone to Bruce in one of the rare moments that his guardian was home and he cried. He told him how much it hurt, trying to forget, and how much worse it was when it all came back.
After letting the boy have a moment, Bruce sat him down to talk.
"They're called memories for a reason, Dick. Things that happened in the past, the good and the bad, will be remembered at some point, whether you want them to or not. You don't repress them, you don't try to fight them off, what you do is learn to move on."
"You said not to reminisce."
"You're young, Richard. You need to think about your future, not your past. When you get older, when you've lived a good life and accomplished everything you've wanted, then you can sit back and remember everything that's happened. It won't be as painful."
Dick sniffled, but he straightened up and nodded, pushing back the dark hair hanging over his forehead. "Is that what you do?"
"No," Bruce said, shaking his head. "Not yet."
Not ever, Dick thought, smirking to himself. That was more likely, but he supposed that even the Batman would need to sit back and think about the past at some point. It'd do him some good to remember happy times.
Dick sighed and ran a hand over his face and through his hair. His back rested against his crumpled blue comforter, his head on a thin pillow, and his eyes stared up at the shadowed ceiling. He could hear horns through the window by his bed, curses and laughs echoing through the alleyways near his apartment. He wasn't on duty tonight and he had taken a few torturous days off from the Team to keep up the appearance of his "mourning." He hated being away; he had thought of appointing Tim to lead, but had come to realize how foolish that decision would be. Tim was too young and not ready for leading such a large group. Not yet. So, the Team was left in big hands, ones that he trusted – Conner's.
Still, a whole day and now a night off, he missed it. The streets of Bludhaven reminded him of Gotham, constantly making him remember as he tried to forget. Despite the dangers, there were good times in Gotham, good times at the cave in Happy Harbor, good times everywhere. It made him want to reminisce.
He wanted to laugh at the thought. He could still remember the words Bruce had told him so long ago. Sure, Dick had grown up quite a bit since then; he had become Robin soon after, allowing his mind to be occupied with criminals and outrageous acrobatic stunts instead of his parents, and even now he was too distracted by the solo nights and the title of Team leader that becoming Nightwing brought to really think about the past, but there were these moments – these silent moments of nothingness – that allowed him to just sit and think and reminisce. He wasn't nearly old enough to do so, of course, but he had witnessed enough, had been a part of enough, to make his mind confused.
So, he allowed it, but only sometimes.
He wasn't thinking about the days of the circus or his parents, the two things that had once been the most important to him. He wasn't even thinking about the day he decided to really leave Robin behind for good in favor of becoming Nightwing. It wasn't Batman that plagued his thoughts or the deaths of his friends or the secret of Kaldur, or even the overwhelming need to figure out who this Partner to The Light was. Instead, the simple subject of a red-headed male decided to haunt him.
Wally West was his best friend and he had been for quite some time. They had gone through so much together. They trained together, fought on a team together, acted stupid and immature and nerdy together, and they had even grieved together. But after everything, they couldn't spend time together anymore. They had grown apart, had gotten too different out of nowhere. Dick wanted to believe that such things didn't happen. He wanted to believe that Wally really was just busy with college or with Artemis, or even just walking his dog (that excuse had been used before), but Dick had a unique way of knowing just how untrue all of it was.
Of course, it really didn't happen out of nowhere. He should've seen it coming. Wally and Artemis had done nothing but get closer and more serious over the years. Instead of Dick being his first and obvious choice, he teamed up with the blond archer. Instead of Dick being number two on his speed dial, his Artemis was. Instead of wanting to visit his best friend in Gotham, he came for his girlfriend. Despite all of these things, it never bothered Dick like it should have. He realized that Artemis and Wally had something special, even if they sometimes had a weird way of showing it. He just wanted his best friend to be happy.
New Team members came and went. Zee and Rocket joined the League, Miss M and Conner had broken up, and Tim officially replaced Jason in almost all aspects. Things had still been the same, though, and Dick latched onto that without even knowing. The odd thing was that he couldn't even really remember when Wally and Artemis started talking about living together, maybe because it was happening in the midst of an alien invasion.
A plan was beginning not soon after. Dick had Batman's permission to do what was necessary to stop these attacks, to stop The Light. He wasn't sure he liked the thought of "what was necessary," but he proceeded with the thought of getting help from his friends. He was finally leader, after all these years, after all the doubts he had previously had. Nightwing hadn't anticipated the death of Tula, though, and how it broke everyone apart even further than Jason's had. When he looked at Kaldur, he saw pain and regret, but he also saw a willingness to do whatever it took to continue on. When he looked at Wally, he saw the opposite. The drive that was once in those green eyes was nowhere to be seen. The brightness had vanished, replaced with a darker outlook, one that told Dick what he never wanted – never expected – to hear.
"I can't do this anymore," the Speedster told him one day, pacing in an unusually slow way – slow by his standards, anyway.
Nightwing's eyes shut tightly behind his mask, but his face stayed otherwise neutral. "What do you mean, Wally?" he asked.
He knew. He hated that he knew.
"It's getting too dangerous," he had said in a hushed voice. He wasn't careful to keep the sting out of it.
Dick stayed calm. "There's a lot of stuff going on right now. Kaldur's just decided to –"
"And what happens if it works?" he interrupted, stopping his movements to face his best friend.
"Then we'll move on from there."
"And what if it doesn't work?"
Wally knew the answer before Dick could even say it. They had stayed the same in that way, but changed in another. No matter how many times Dick had said that he didn't want to become like Batman, he had in various ways. The missions were important now, more important than they had ever been, more important than Wally wanted them to be. The Team – Nightwing – would have to make sacrifices that Kid Flash just wasn't ready for.
So he would leave KF behind.
"Artemis and I are starting college," he said after a few moments of staring and silence. He swallowed when Dick didn't move. "It's in California. We're moving in together, maybe we'll get a dog…"
"Why are you telling me this?" Dick didn't mean for his voice to crack the way it did.
Wally sighed. "Both of us are done. We're leaving this life behind."
Yes, Dick didn't know when Wally had changed so much, and from the way things had been lately, he wasn't sure if he ever would.
He hadn't seen Wally in a while, before all the recent events brought him (unwillingly) back. He had called him when the situation known as Bart ran in out of nowhere. That brought Wally to Central City to investigate. He had ended up putting his suit on, something that shouldn't have surprised Nightwing, but did anyway. He came to the cave with the rest of the Speedsters, but they didn't get a chance to talk. Then, when it was time to put their plan into action, Dick knew that Wally was not happy with him. Wally, Artemis, Kaldur, and Dick met and, for a moment, the old Wally shone through again. And then it was gone, just like Artemis and Kaldur.
A short argument ensued, followed by a makeup of sorts, but then Wally left and it was as if nothing had happened.
Dick was once again reminded why it was bad to reminisce; these memories were making his chest hurt.
His body flopped over on his bed and he buried his face into his pillow, taking a deep breath as he shut his eyes. Why did they have to grow up? Why did things have to change? Why did he have to feel so alone right now?
His eyes slowly opened, his gaze landing on the cell phone that sat silently on his nightstand. He had a relentless urge to call Wally.
Would his best friend pick up? He doubted it, but still, his hand reached out and grasped the phone as he turned back over. He brought the phone to his face and stared at the lighted screen. The wallpaper was a picture to fit his reminiscing mood. He remembered the day it was taken, a long, long time ago. Robin and Kid Flash, smirking at M'gann's camera in a way that showed they shared a secret. With a sigh, Dick tapped the number three on his screen. His phone registered the first ring, and then the second and third and fourth, and then the machine picked up.
"It's Wally. I'll try to call you back if you leave a message."
"Hey, Wally. It's me…" He shifted on his bed until he was sitting up properly, staring up at the moon through his window. "I thought I'd check up on you. I told the Team to leave you alone for a while, but I don't doubt that at least some of them ignored me. I'm betting that M'gann called you. She tried me on my com. She was crying… I told her to make sure everyone was holding up alright. It's funny –" He paused for a moment, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. "No, I guess it's not."
Nothing's really funny to you anymore, he thought.
"Look, I'm sure – I know they'll be alright. He won't let anything happen. I won't, either. I know I'm not your favorite person still, but I thought we'd come to an understanding last night. I guess you could be sleeping, maybe that's why you didn't pick up, but if you're mad at me…" Dick went silent for a few moments. He wasn't sure if the message clicked off yet or if it was still recording, but he didn't care; he still had stuff to say.
"Wally, I'm sorry. I know I've said that a lot, but I really am. A lot of things have changed – we've changed. I'm not really sure when things got so bad and I don't know if I'll ever get over you not being there, but you'll always be my best pal, okay? I'm here. You can talk to me, like we used to. I'm kind of reminiscing right now, dude, so call me back. And I know you're home; I put a tracker on your coat, right in plain sight. We obviously need to catch up if you didn't see that coming."
He hit the end button before is ramblings continued. He wasn't sure if Wally would call him back, but whatever hope he had, it began to die when 3 am rolled around and his phone was just as silent as it was before. Dick fell asleep with the familiar pain that came with reminiscing.
I just cannot write. I'm sorry!
I have too many Dick/Wally feels. I need my bros back. This will most likely be a two-shot since this chapter is pretty much a pile of boring nothingness. I'll try to start the second part soon. But, for now, mind telling me what you think?