A/N: I'm not sure about the pacing of this one? I literally wrote all of the last half of it today so there is a very large possibility that I might be blind to some of it's larger mistakes. Also I'm kiiiinda worried about the characterization but ugh its too soon to tell whatever here it is.
Ultimately, it was Wally's stomach that pulled him out of slumber, hallow inside of him and in dire need of food. He woke to smothered sunshine, glowing through the pale blue curtains of his aunt and uncle's guest room. The blankets had been completely stripped from the bed and Wally's arms and feet suffered from the chill of a night spent mostly uncovered. Dick wasn't even on the bed anymore. For a moment Wally suspected that he might have gotten up early to mingle with Uncle Barry or do some weird morning Bat stretches, but he couldn't hear Dick's tone in the muffled voices of his aunt and uncle chatting in the kitchen down the hall, and the shuffle of paper being flipped along a lengthy sigh alerted Wally to his likely presence in the room.
On the other side of the bed, propped up on his forearms with his back arched in a crescent and his legs dangling above his head, Dick flipped the page of a stray chemistry book and made a bored sounding huff. Wally watched him from the edge of the mattress, lying on his stomach as he peered over it.
"I thought you were in a coma or something." Dick said, and flipped another page. Was he actually even reading it? "This is the worst book I've ever read, by the way. I hope this isn't what Barry reads you before bed, there's like, no plot."
"Dude, that's a chemistry text book." Wally said.
"Yeah I know." Dick flipped another page.
Wally groaned and rolled over on the bed. "Why are you weird?" His stomach rumbled and he groaned again and said, "Hungry."
Dick hummed a laugh and said, "Time to face The Flash."
+o+o+o+
Dick didn't stay very long after that. He told Wally he had to leave because of "urgent bat business" but Wally was pretty sure that Dick left more because breakfast with Barry was "unbarryable", which was fine with Wally because that pun had been a war crime and after Dick made it, Wally didn't want him to stay any longer.
On his way out, Wally kissed each of Dick's knuckles and told him he was his "bitty birdy prince". Dick's face twitched a dozen times in its efforts to keep from grimacing in front of Barry and Wally had to hold his breath to seal in his laughter.
In retaliation, Dick leaned forward and pecked Wally on the lips (pecked him like a freaking bird, if a bird had a tiny, soft mouth for a beak that was warm and a little bit chapped, instead of hard and sharp), then he ran away cackling. Literally.
Nothing had ever happened so fast, and at the same time lasted for so long in Wally's whole life. He stood in the door way for a moment feeling like he was going to barf and wondering if he had just imagined that happening until Barry came up behind him, slung an arm around his shoulder and said, "I'm so happy for you two." That only made Wally want to barf more.
+o+o+o+
Wally worked hard not to feel weird around Dick after that. Things were quiet, and not a lot was going on that needed the team's attention, just big public eye stuff that only the league was allowed to handle, so Dick and Wally spent most of their free time at Wayne Manor playing video games in the home theater and watching bad sci-fi movies and, occasionally for Dick's sake, rom coms.
Dick seemed completely un-phased, but then Dick would. His normalcy helped more than it hurt, honestly, but sometimes Wally would accidentally watch Dick's lips when he was talking and think about the fact that he could legitimately claim to have kissed those lips, and at that point most coherent thought was lost on him, and following a conversation was just an unrealistic expectation. Sometimes they would bump shoulders on the couch, or Dick would lean on him, and it wasn't as though those things hadn't always happened, but Wally was just so aware of them that it almost made him feel sick again.
For a period of about three weeks Wally had no obligations besides school and patrolling with the Flash. Every few days he would be called in to train with Black Canary, but Dick was rarely there and Wally suspected that had to do with the fact that Batman trained Dick enough for three sessions with Black Canary every day.
Most times he paired up with Artemis because his speed gave her a more challenging moving target than anyone else, and because he "needed practice avoiding projectiles". A good portion of her suction tipped arrows missed, but she hit him in the arm or shoulder at least five times, and once in the side of the head. After everyone had finished laughing at Wally's expense, Black Canary told them to hit the showers, and Conner and Kaldur stepped into the ring.
When Wally came into the lounge toweling his still damp hair, he spotted Dick in his civvies, hunched over the couch, typing on the thinnest laptop he had ever seen. He knew it had to be bat tech because the screen had a holographic projector and Dick would occasionally enter code on it.
Wally tossed his towel on a chair in the kitchen and sped toward the couch, hopping over the back and landing next to Dick. "What's up Rob?" he asked, peering over Dick's shoulder. "You haven't been here in a while."
Dick hummed. "Red Tornado needed me to update the security systems. I'm just stopping by to install the new codes and make sure everything's running smoothly." Dick said.
"Sounds really boring." Wally leaned his arm on top of Dick's shoulder and watched his thin fingers skitter across the keyboard. "Dude you're rock hard." Wally said, and moved his arm to grip Dick's shoulder with his hand.
"Do you always come on to people like that, or am I just allotted special treatment because we're boyfriends?"
Wally was quiet for a moment, the gears in his head franticly whirring while he tried to figure out what Dick had actually meant by that until it finally dawned on him and said, "DUDE! I meant your shoulders! Gross!"
Dick just laughed, and Wally exacted revenge by scooting closer and grabbing both of Dick's shoulders, squeezing them and then vibrating his hands. This resulted in Dick's laughter taking on a suddenly higher pitch as he started squirming away.
"Stop stopstop-!" Dick twisted and fell over on the couch. Wally didn't want to think about the consequences of falling on top of him so he released Dick and let him recover while he heaved out a few more breathless laughs. "Dude you don't know how weird it feels when you do that. It's like a massage chair that's inside my back."
Dick sat up again and Wally leaned into the couch. "You liked it last time."
"Yeah, well last time I was also totally high on Alfred's bat strength pain killers."
Wally snickered and muttered, "Bat strength" under his breath. "What have you been doing, though, dude? I mean you're not usually that tight, are you?"
"No, Batman's been giving me some extra lessons to counter all the sessions I've been missing with Black Canary, and they're sort of killing me, to be honest." Dick let out a mirthless laugh. "But, you know. That's pretty much normal."
"Dude-" Wally paused when his stomach growled loudly, and he zipped into the kitchen and pulled a jumbo bag of Doritos out of the cupboard before speeding back to Dick. "Have you talked to him about it? I mean if you're that worn out by them, that's not good - for missions and stuff, too, not just you know, whatever else."
"Well put." Dick said and rolled his eyes. "What should I say to him, Wally?" Dick raised his voice an octave and it sounded weirdly the same as it had when he was ten and Wally had just met him. "Hey Batman, your war on crime is really tiring for a tiny kid like me, so I was thinking maybe I could just be a casual crime fighter, you know, maybe train part time and then pick up hours at Weenie Hut JR's on the weekends."
Wally pulled his hand out of the Dorito bag to point at Dick. "Ok, that attitude right there is going to run you into the ground dude. Trust me. I know a lot about running into the ground."
Dick laughed. "Yeah, I bet."
"Hey-!" Dick's hand was suddenly on Wally's mouth and Wally ignored the way his heart picked up speed at the touch and the faint, dusty smell of chalk residue on his palm. He had probably been practicing with Bruce right before this.
"Is that Artemis?" Dick whispered, letting his hand fall from Wally's mouth.
"Huh?"
"Listen!"
Wally did, and he could just faintly make out the chatter of Artemis' tone down the hall, but the words were lost on him. He nodded at Dick. "Yeah, I think so, why?" Before Wally could actually react, the bag of Doritos had been shoved out of his lap and replaced with Dick, straddling his legs, with hands on his shoulders.
"We're going to make out, okay?"
The urge to choke on the chip in his mouth was strong, but Wally resisted and swallowed it, hissing, "What?"
"Remember what I said before? We were going to do it the next time we saw Art."
"Oh," Wally remembered Dick saying they were going to kiss, but that was too blasé for Dick Grayson. Wally should have known that what he had really meant was make out.
"I need your consent, dude." Dick said. "Am I okay to start kissing you?"
Wally wanted to say was that maybe they should just do a peck, like they had in front of Barry, or cuddle or something, because this seemed like a lot, but instead he just said, "Ye-ah," and as soon as he did, Dick pressed flush against him, arms around Wally's neck, and mouth brushing against Wally's lips.
Wally had been kissed on several occasions by several girls (and once by Dick) but he'd never had any of them press themselves into him so fiercely that he could feel their heartbeat, and they had never gripped the hair at the base of his neck and tugged to angle his head so they could breathe over his lips before kissing him with disturbing tenderness.
As such, Wally had no idea what to do with his hands. He put them first on Dick's ribs, feeling the way his chest expanded after the kiss broke off. When the voices down the hall grew louder and dangerously close, he let them slip lower, following the gentle curve of Dick's side through the thin fabric of his shirt. That was when Dick laughed and squirmed against him, which did nothing to help Wally concentrate, his mouth filled as it was with the buzzing hum of Dick's snickering.
The volume of Artemis' chatting reached a peak and then stopped suddenly. Wally assumed that she had entered the room and was now taking time to regain her composure because for several long seconds all Wally could hear was the sound of Dick's breathing as he exhaled over Wally's cheek and then kissed the corner of his mouth.
"Are you kidding me?" Wally jumped when Artemis' voice rang through the room. "Other people have to sit on that couch, you guys! This is so disre-" A harsh whisper from someone else cut Artemis off and Wally tried to listen in, but Dick was spreading kisses along his neck and it sent a tickle all the way down his shoulder that was hard to think through.
After that there was just silence and Dick moved to Wally's other side, using Wally's head to obstruct Artemis and her plus one's view so he could whisper, "They're still there..."
Wally had no way of responding without Artemis catching on so he just nudged Dick in the side with his hand and hoped the action would be correctly interpreted.
Dick squirmed out of the way and hissed, "Moan or something, dude." Then he began kissing Wally's neck again.
The best Wally could do under the circumstances was a sort of strained sounding "Uuuhh..." and before he had even finished, Dick buried his face against Wally's shoulder and began to shake with poorly concealed laughter. In the background, Wally heard Artemis and her plus one giggling and the shame was sobering beyond belief. Wally sunk into the couch and Dick sunk with him, still trembling with bursts of mirth. "How about you moan, dick," Wally hissed.
"Fine," Dick said, and shifted slightly, kneeing Wally's stomach in the process – probably on purpose, Wally thought. His head was pulled roughly downward, into the crook of Dick's shoulder and as soon as it made contact, Dick expelled a breathy, groan. His voice cracked half way through and Artemis wolf whistled.
"Dude," Wally said, because when had his little baby bird learned to moan like that, and where?
The tail end of Dick's porno moan turned into growl due to its unwanted positive reception, and he said, "Can you go away, Artemis? We're trying to make out."
"Yeah, I know," Wally could hear the smirk on her lips. "Can you stop talking? We're trying to watch."
Someone in the room squeaked and it was definitely not Wally.
Dick groaned again, this time with much less sexual prowess and then dismounted Wally's thighs and sat next to him on the couch, arms crossed. Wally kept his eyes on the coffee table in front of him, too afraid to look back and see who had been witness to this besides Artemis.
There were two separate snorts of dissatisfaction and then, "Come on Artemis. They're just being boring now." Wally spun around, hands on the back of the couch, and caught the retreating figures of Artemis and Zatana as they rounded the corner of the hallway.
"That didn't work at all." Wally said, turning to glare at Dick who was pouting next to him.
Dick glanced at Wally's lap. "It didn't?" He looked back up at Wally with one raised eyebrow and a smirk.
"Dude!" The Wally shielded his crotch from view with both hands. "It's just puberty! It's a natural reaction!"
Dick rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I didn't count on Artemis bringing Zee with..." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then reached for his lap top, administering several key strokes before closing it. When he stood up, his knee brushed Wally's. "I gotta go, dude."
Wally watched Dick slip the computer into a carrying case and then sling it over his shoulder. "Yeah..." Wally didn't even think to ask why Dick had to go. Normally he would, if Dick didn't give an explanation, and when he did, Dick would lower his voice and say something like, "Bat business," or "emergency meeting with the league." And they would laugh and roll their eyes at each other, but this time Wally just said, "See you, Rob."
Dick raised his hand and waved an ILY sign at Wally, and Wally was suddenly unsure of how to interpret it. "Later, Wall-man," he said, and then descended the stairs to the hangar.
+o+o+o+
A sick sort of chill whistled its way through the streets and alleys of Gotham, lifting Dick's cape in the wind as he sat perched on the head of a gargoyle several stories above the ground. The night had not gone as well as it could have, mostly due to inability on Dick's part. There had been a shooting in Harlow earlier in the patrol and Dick had failed to run down the suspect. The guy didn't even have a car. The chase was all on foot. There was no reason Dick shouldn't have been able to catch up to him, except for the fact that he was so sore from Batman's training sessions and his legs kept cramping because he'd never gotten a chance to really stretch the muscles he'd been building, but that still wasn't an excuse. To say the least, Bruce had not been pleased about it and immediately re-assigned him to patrol Uptown instead.
It was a mighty blow to his ego, and his sense of guilt. This guy, this murderer, had escaped because of him.
For the rest of the night, all Dick had been able to think about was how much he wished Wally had been there. If Wally had been there, catching that guy would have been a breeze. Everything with Wally was a breeze, sometimes literally.
Bruce'sdeep voice shook a shiver out of Dick when it came through the comm link, gritty and somewhat irritated, "Robin, report."
Dick took one last moment to survey the street below him before answering. "Some kid tried to rob a gas station on Harrison. He wasn't too happy when I showed up. Apparently he had been counting on a showdown with you, which I honestly don't understand. You'd think a real fan would know that committing a crime is not exactly the best way to go about getting-"
"Robin."
Dick winced at the added gravel in Bruce's tone. This had to be, what, the fourth time he'd heard it tonight? "Uh, right, besides that, everything has been clear from Granton to North Gainsly."
There was a begrudgingly satisfied grunt and then, "What about Byron Avenue?"
"I haven't had a chance to do a thorough inspection, but I didn't see anything major on my last run through." Dick settled himself down on the head of his gargoyle, letting his legs stretch out over the expanse of open street beneath him.
"Why don't you take the chance, then? Report back when you're finished."
Dick let out a long breath then said, "Right, I'm on it."
In seconds, Dick had scrambled his way around the corner of the building and leapt off the edge. A familiar rush of air fluttered through his stomach for a brief moment and it was a feeling that he had come to find comforting at a very young age. He didn't have time to enjoy it for long before his grappling hook embedded itself into the ledge from which he had just jumped, and slowed his fall down to a less deadly speed, landing him safely next to the R-Cycle shaded from view in the alley below.
Byron Avenue technically ran through all of Gotham city, but since Dick was now only responsible for looking after Uptown this evening, the street was cut much shorter. Unfortunately, it also added Crime Alley to his designated watch spots for the night, which increased the chances of him running into a mugger or drug deal by about one-hundred percent. On the bright side, he could probably rule out having to deal with major crime in the area due to the fact that Crime Alley was the first place Batman targeted when he had begun his war on crime. That, coupled with copious donations from Bruce Wayne and the addition of a new football stadium (also almost entirely funded by Bruce Wayne), successfully turned what the Joker had fondly dubbed "frowntown" into Uptown; the closest Gotham City came to a bustling, crime free urban metropolis. Considering this was Gotham, that still wasn't very close, but it was an area of town to be proud of in the daylight at least.
As predicted, Dick ended up intervening in a drug deal and two muggings - one which he suspected would have ended in sexual assault. Then there was the stupid kid with flaming hair and freckles which stood out starkly against his pale skin and sunken eyes. He tried to offer Dick free cocaine in exchange for not reporting him to the police. He looked uncomfortably similar to Dick's best friend, but he lacked Wally's straight nose and dimpled chin.
The encounter only served to remind Dick of how many times he had caught himself thinking about Wally over the course of the night - over the course of the whole week, honestly. At one point he had been reading a text on modern marketing techniques for one of his horrible business classes, and ended up losing track of three pages, because he had let his thoughts wander to Wally.
Then there was this boy, who looked so much like Wally, except thin and sickly, and it made Dick afraid, despite the fact that he had no reason to be. Wally's life was more or less going great, but anything could happen. What if something went horribly wrong, like something in this boy's life obviously had, and Wally spiraled into some deep depression or god knows what?
It was preposterous to worry about, and Dick never had worried about it before but he couldn't stop himself. The best he could do was push it to the back of his mind and let it itch in the middle of his subconscious like a spider bite that he couldn't quite reach.
Dick ended up tying the Wally look-a-like to a street light on the corner of Farrow -although mercifully not upside down - with his baggies in a neat little pyramid at his feet, and a tiny note resting on the very top. Then he left.
That, Dick decided, was the end of his patrol for the night. He drove back down the length of Byron, scanning the street halfheartedly for anything criminal in nature and, when he reached Billing Avenue, he pulled to a stop and radioed Batman.
"Report," the tone was just as gruff as before but Dick ignored it.
"Two muggings and some kid who tried to sell me cocaine after I caught him shooting up, but that was it. I left him with a note for Gordon, I think he was homeless, so-"
"Head back to the Cave. I'll meet you there later, there's something else I need to take care of first."
"Do you need any help?" Dick leaned on the dashboard of his bike and watched the streetlights ahead of him change from red to green.
"No. You've done enough for tonight." Normally that statement would have carried a satisfied, one could almost say prideful tone to it, but this night, Dick sensed a distinctly mocking edge.
"What's that supposed to-"
"Batman out." The airy buzz of their connection was cut and Robin wanted very badly to hit something very hard, but he honestly didn't have the energy so instead he ripped the comm link out of his ear, stuffed it into his utility belt, and made sure to blow every red light on his way back to the Cave.
+o+o+o+
As usual, Alfred was waiting for him when he drove onto the hydraulic turntable, somewhat unintentionally screeching to a stop. He hadn't meant to leave skid marks but the smell of burnt rubber trailed behind him and Alfred descended the second set of stairs, eyeing the dark marks with a disdainful expression.
"Rough night, Master Dick?"
Dick swung off the bike and just barely resisted the urge to throw his helmet on the ground when he took it off. "It was fine," he said.
Alfred walked towards the line of rubber that had been burned into the floor of the cave and peered down at it. "I'm sure."
"Uh," half way up the stairs, Dick turned around and said, "Sorry about that, Alf..."
Alfred straightened and smiled at Dick. "Oh, don't apologize on my account. After all, you are the one who'll be scrubbing it clean come tomorrow morning."
Dick's face fell, his helmet dangling from the tips of his barely curled fingers. "But-I have school tomorrow!"
"Isn't it the early bird that catches the worm, Robin? I'm sure you'll be able to make time for it before you leave."
"That's not- ... okay, it's fair, but can't it wait until after school?" Dick asked, letting his lip jut out just a bit and slouching on the steps. Pouting didn't go over very well with Bruce most of the time, but sometimes he could get Alfred to cave if he managed to look pathetic enough.
Alfred hummed and donned an expression of deep thought that Dick suspected might have been faked. "Perhaps I could be convinced to allow you to put it off if you could be convinced to speak to me about whatever dilemma it is that you're experiencing this night?"
Dick sighed and shifted his weight to one foot. "Yeah... alright." He said, glancing away from Alfred's approaching form.
A thin but strong hand patted him on the shoulder and Alfred smiled. "Very good, sir. Why don't you clean yourself up and I'll prepare some tea and biscuits. I even managed to purchase some of that strawberry rhubarb jam you're so fond of."
Dick let a small smile slip across his mouth and mumbled, "Thanks, Alfred," before heading off to the showers.
+o+o+o+
When the dining room proved to be dark and thoroughly empty, with only the light of the moon shining in barred strips through the windows and across the table, Dick expanded his search to the living room and found Alfred waiting for him on the green floral patterned couch, already sipping at his tea with a plate of shortbread cookies and scones laid out on the coffee table.
Dick hadn't bothered to change into anything besides his pajamas; an oversized shirt that may or may not have been Wally's - he tried not to think about that - and a pair of personalized Wayne Enterprises silk pajama pants that Bruce had gotten for him last Christmas. They were an extremely ugly shade of brown that Dick felt resembled diarrhea, but they were very comfortable. Still, Dick couldn't help wondering if it would have been too much to ask for a nicer color.
Alfred patted the cushion next to him and said, "What seems to be the matter, Master Dick?"
Dick fell onto the couch with a huff. "It's really stupid, Alf."
"We'll see about that. Master Bruce mentioned something along the lines of an escaped murderer?"
Dick had been about to reach for a scone when Alfred's words stopped him with his hand outstretched and he sunk into the couch. "I-yeah..."
"May I ask what happened?" Alfed leaned forward and slathered a scone with jam, then handed it to Dick.
He took it gingerly, holding it by the tips of his fingers to keep them from becoming sticky. "I just... my leg cramped up." Dick leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I was chasing the guy one second, and the next I was literally falling on my face..." He groaned and hung his head.
Alfred's hand came to rest on his back but Dick didn't bother looking up. He knew Alfred's expressions of condolence well enough by now to imagine them in his head. "That doesn't sound very stupid to me at all. Unfortunate and poorly timed, perhaps, but certainly not something that you had any amount of control over." Alfred took a deep breath and then reached for his tea. "It seems unusual though. You've never experienced difficulty with cramping before, have you?"
Dick hunched his shoulders in a prolonged shrug and shook his head. "Not really, I mean not unless I didn't stretch right, or well enough after or before training. I just... I think it's Bruce's new regime? I'm still getting used to it, I guess. It's just," A long sigh escaped him and he sat back against the couch, crossing his legs over the large cushions. "He basically kicked me into Uptown tonight, which, okay, yeah, Uptown needs to be patrolled too, but that's like the area I patrolled when I was just starting out. And when I asked him if he needed help after I did my rounds he just told me to go home because I had 'done enough already'. What does that even mean? I understand that he's upset, I messed up, I get it, but how can he expect me to operate at one-hundred percent when he keeps wearing me down in every single training session?" Dick expelled a loud groan bolted upright, still cradling his scone carefully between his fingers. "I haven't had time to do anything besides training, homework or missions since it started! I've only seen Wally like once in the past four weeks!" Dick cut himself off and took a large bite of scone before he could say anything else. He just had to bring Wally into this.
Alfred stayed silent for a moment, watching Dick breath heavily through his nose while he chewed. "Perhaps you should inform Master Bruce about this," he finally said. "You can't expect him to be aware of your physical limitations on his own. It's up to you to let him know that you're struggling."
Dick huffed through his mouthful of dry scone and locked eyes with the fire blazing across the room.
Alfred cleared his throat. "Speaking of Master Wally, I seem to have overheard something along the lines of your being in romantic relations with him? How is that coming along?"
Dick swallowed and tried not to frown. He had made his bed; he might as well lie in it. "It's... not really."
Next to him, Alfred shifted. "Are you two fighting?"
"No... We're not-" Dick made a frustrated noise and then turned on the couch to face Alfred fully. "Alfred,"
"Oh my," Alfred set down his tea and angled himself towards Dick. "This is serious, do go on."
"You can't tell Bruce, no matter what."
Alfred raised his right hand the corner of his lips raised with it. "Not a word, Master Dick."
Dick nodded and held his breath briefly, then blurted out, "We're not actually dating."
Alfred's smile fell with his hand. "Aren't you?"
"No." Dick said. "It was supposed to be a prank on the team, but then Bruce found out and - remember Nic Cage?"
Alfred's smirk returned. "How could I forget dear old Nicolas?"
"It would be so much worse than that if Bruce found out I was fake-dating Wally."
"The fallout would be dreadful, I agree." Alfred nodded. "What do you propose to do?"
"The-" Dick broke eye contact with Alfred and stared at his lap, twirling his scone between his fingers. "Well, the thing is, Alf... I-" he took a deep breath and looked back at Alfred. "Okay, so we sort of kissed, f-for the prank, right?"
Alfred raised an eyebrow and nodded.
"And it wasn't even really a kiss. I mean we did it for Artemis - n-not for Artemis!" Dick exclaimed holding his hand out as though Alfred were about to burst into flaming rage at the mere notion of Dick involved in voyeurism. "B-but to freak her out, um..." his hand lowered, and he took a moment to remember how he was even going to say this. "Anyway, now I sort of keep thinking about it and just, Wally in general like, all the time, and it's so stupid because I don't know if I actually like him that way a-all of a sudden, or if it's just because, I mean, we're best friends and we haven't really been seeing each other a lot lately or - I don't know b-but what really freaks me out is; what if I do like him and he doesn't feel that way back? Or what if I think I do, and I'm wrong and I do something stupid and ruin our whole friendship over it?" Dick had to take a deep breath at the end of his speech. He wondered vaguely if this was how Wally felt whenever he talked super-speed with Barry.
"Oh dear," Alfred's easy smile had morphed into a much more serious, thin line, but there was kindness in his eyes when he reached for Dick's hand - the one that wasn't sticky with jam despite Dick's best efforts to keep his fingers away from the rhubarb jelly. "Now Master Dick, you listen here."
Alfred's fingers were thin and boney between Dick's, and just a little bit cold, but he squeezed them and nodded.
"Wallace Rudolph West cares very, very deeply for you, as I'm sure you already know. Now, whether or not his care is romantically inclined, I would never presume to say, but he is not the sort of friend to simply dismiss your feelings because they may or may not make him uncomfortable. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Dick said and sighed through his nose. "But-"
"There are no buts about it."
Dick wrinkled his nose and held back what would have been a weak laugh. "Don't say that, Alf."
"I will not let the likes of you tell me when I may or may not use the term buts, Master Richard. You know was not referencing anyone's rear end."
This time Dick did laugh and he swore he saw Alfred roll his eyes.
"Forgetting your brief affair with immaturity, if it is indeed possible to forget, what you must do is tell Dear Wally everything that you have told me tonight about your feelings for him. If you are completely honest, there is no way that he can interpret them as anything other than what they are."
Dick grimaced. "Why did I know that's what you were going to say?"
Alfred leaned in close and said, "Because you're a very smart young man who is very good at not doing the very things he knows he must."
"Was that a compliment or an insult?" Dick asked.
Alfred simply smiled at him and patted his hand. "Why don't you finish that scone you've been nursing and then get to bed before Master Bruce returns home and forces you into a heart-to-heart with him tonight as well."
"Yeah..." Dick scooted slowly off the couch. "Um, can I take the scone to my room?"
Alfred's eyes narrowed and he looked to be in deep thought, another ruse, Dick suspected. "I suppose you may, on this one occasion. But mark my word Richard Grayson, if you get rhubarb jam on your bed sheets..."
Dick laughed. "I won't Alf, I promise." He meandered around the couch at a leisurely pace, the soreness from patrol was already starting to kick in and Dick didn't want to think about how he'd feel tomorrow morning. When he reached the door to the living room he stopped and said, "You know you're the best, right Alf?"
"I'm well aware, yes." Alfred smiled at him over the back of the couch and then shooed him off with a little wave.
+o+o+o+
It was almost four in the morning by the time Dick made it up to his room. For lack of tiredness, he decided to sit in his squeaky leather desk chair in the dark and eat the scone that had, at this point, lost most of its jelly to Dick's fingers, which he kept licking to keep from getting sticky. Every few seconds he would push off from the desk and spin a bit to keep things interesting, trying his damnedest not to notice the green dot flashing every ten or so seconds on his phone.
Dick swore he never gave his hand explicit permission to pick up the phone after he'd finished his scone, and he definitely hadn't told it that it could open up his message center and find a new voice mail accompanied by a missed call from Wally. At that point, Dick didn't even bother trying to stop himself. He had typed in his password and was listening to the message before he even realized what he had done.
It wasn't anything special, just Wally complaining that they hadn't done anything recently and asking if Dick had talked to Bruce about his "madly intense" training, but Wally's voice put an itch in the back of Dick's throat that he had thought had faded after his talk with Alfred. He didn't want to just listen to Wally's voice. He wanted to talk to Wally himself. He wanted to tell Wally that they should break up and laugh about all of the different ways they could go about doing it. He wanted things to stop feeling weird and start feeling normal. He wanted to tell Wally about the guy who he'd let get away today, and he wanted to hear Wally tell him what he already knew; that it wasn't his fault and that he had tried his best. He wanted that so badly it scared him but what scared him even more was the gurgled mumble that sounded vaguely like his own name which had just come out of his phone's speaker.
Dick glanced at the screen in horror and came face to face with a picture of Wally stuffing his stupid mouth at his favorite pizza place in Central and the words Active Call underneath him. When had Dick called Wally? Dick hadn't called Wally. There was no way, that in the midst of his musing about Wally, he had actually managed to call Wally without even realizing it, even if there was a much too conveniently placed call back button right next to Wally's missed call notification.
"W-Wally?" Dick asked because maybe he was just hallucinating this. He had been up for almost twenty-two hours, it wasn't impossible.
"M'yeah, dude. That's my name. Gold Star." Wally's voice was low and gritty with sleep and Dick could almost perfectly imagine him, hanging over the edge of his bed after having fished his phone out of the pants pocket of a pair of jeans he'd left on the floor earlier that day.
"Uh... sorry, I woke you up, huh?" Dick bent over, resting his chin on the edge of the desk and peering at Wally's freckled face on his phone.
Wally laughed quietly. "Noooo, dude it's not like it's three in the morning or something, why would you think that, Dick?"
Dick winced and his head lolled to the side, squishing his cheek against the desk. "Sorry... you can go back to sleep, I didn't really have anything to say anyway-"
"Wow!" Wally's voice was loud and Dick fumbled to pick up his phone and lower the volume of its speakers incase Bruce was anywhere nearby. "I might be mad if you called me at three in the morning for absolutely no reason, but if you actually had something you wanted to talk about, I would probably be okay with it, is that weird or what."
Dick let out a gust of air. "Okay..." He sat up in the chair and pushed off from the desk with his feet until he hit the bed. "Um."
"Wow, spill dude."
Telling Wally about the shooter was a heavier conversation than Dick wanted to have at that moment, so instead he said, "I was thinking that maybe we should fake break up."
There was a disturbing silence on the other line and Dick didn't know if it was a product of his own imagination or if Wally was actually taking a moment to pause. Eventually he heard the rustling of what Dick presumed to be bed sheets. "For real?"
"Yeah... I don't know. Yeah."
Wally's breath came in as static over the phone. "I was that bad a kisser, huh?"
A string of gross and nervous giggles escaped Dick and it was too many seconds before he managed to stop them and say, "Well you did eat like half a bag of Doritos right before we made out. That didn't exactly help."
"Oh," Wally said, and the mock hurt in his tone made Dick's lips curl upwards. "I see how it is. You're going to dump me because of my serious metabolism. That's pretty low."
"No." Dick crawled over the back of his chair and onto his bed. "I mean, I maybe talked to Alfred about it, and he maybe said we should stop..."
Wally laughed. "Okay goodie-two-shoes, whatever you say." There was a short silence and then Wally said, "Wait, he's not going to tell Bats is he?" The quivering panic in Wally's tone was laughable, but Dick restrained himself.
"No," he set his phone on the bed next to him and laid down on his side, curling around it and tucking his arms into his chest. "I made him promise not to."
"Good," Wally said, "Because I don't feel like being killed by the fiery wrath of justice, ever."
"Mmhmm," Dick said. Wally's face on his phone was starting to blur and he blinked to refocus his eyes.
"So did you literally call just to tell me this?" Wally asked.
Dick yawned. "I told you it wasn't that important..."
"So you really just called so you could talk to me." Dick could hear the humor in Wally's tone but the truth of his statement was so distressing that the snarky reply Dick had originally planned on giving got stuck in his throat. When he didn't answer Wally just laughed and said, "Aww."
"No I didn't," Dick said and Wally laughed louder. Dick groaned and buried his head in his pillow. He was officially too tired to dish out appropriate comebacks, even though he could understand Wally's words perfectly fine.
"This is so rude, you literally woke me up and now you're falling asleep on me." Wally's tone suggested that he was much less offended by this than he was endlessly amused by it.
"No m'not." Dick said and blinked hard to keep his vision from clouding with sleep.
"Hey, listen," Wally said and Dick blinked again and wiggled against his bed sheets in an attempt to wake himself. "I was at my cousins house over the summer and they have this cockatiel and when it falls asleep it blinks its dumb little eyelids over and over again and then it just squints for a while, and then it keeps blinking, and then eventually it just closes them and is asleep and I kept laughing at it because that is exactly what you do, dude."
Dick blinked and then growled, but he had a feeling it didn't sound very threatening. "No s'not." he said and growled again when Wally laughed.
"You're doing it right now aren't you? You're doing the blinking thing."
"No m'not."
Wally's laughter took an obscene turn for the worst and Dick sighed.
"M'gonna hang up on you." Dick said
At that Wally quieted. "Sorry Sleepy Bird, I have to get you when I can. You're too sharp when you're awake."
Dick grunted to express his dislike of such poor sportsmanship.
"I'm going to go 'kay, dude? It's time for my midnight snack anyway."
"M'kay..." He tried not to let disappointment slip into his tone but Dick wasn't sure he'd successfully withheld it.
"Call me tomorrow alright? But like, at a normal hour."
"M'kay."
Wally laughed one last time and sang off-key, "Goodnight, Dick!"
Dick meant to sing it back to him but instead he just yawned, "G'dniiiigh Waaawwy..." This was met with more uproarious laughter and eventually the click of a cut call. Dick didn't even bother crawling under his sheets to go to sleep, he was already practically dreaming by the time Wally had hung up.