Woah! I got such a good response from last chapter! Thank you so much, guys. c: But I have to say, if last chapter broke your heart, you're in for a ride.
Also, sorry for posting a day late. I swear I got on my computer last night and just passed out from exhaustion.
I hope you enjoy!
If he were in any other mood, Dick would have said that it was embarrassing to be back in Miss. Frances' office. As it was, though, Dick didn't have the emotional capacity for embarrassment. He only felt numb.
There was no way that Wally wasn't real. Wally had been walking right beside him as Bruce had led the both of them back to the Batcave. Wally was loitering beside Miss. Frances right at that moment, glaring at her with the heat of a thousand suns.
Wally was...only seen by Dick.
"Richard?" Miss. Frances's sickly sweet voice broke into Dick's thoughts. He didn't want to lift his head. He couldn't be bothered. From the corner of his eyes, though, Dick thought that she just looked curious. "Richard, your father told me that you've been seeing Wally?"
She said it so casually that Dick almost forgot that it was wrong. It was supposed to be wrong that he saw Wally. It was supposed to all be wrong. "He's not my father. He's Bruce."
"Bruce, then. Bruce told me that you've been seeing Wally."
Dick shrugged and offered no confirmation, nor denial.
"When did you first start seeing Wally?"
Dick wasn't sure if he should start answering the woman's questions. His eyes flickered to where Wally stood, looking so dejected and rejected that Dick felt more lost than he had before. Did Wally want Dick to answer honestly? Did he want Dick to deny his existence? What did Wally want Dick to do?
What did Dick want to do?
Dick wanted to get answers. If Miss. Frances was convinced that she had them, well, that was the closest thing that Dick had. "A few weeks ago."
"How did he appear to you?"
Dick attempted to push Wally's presence from his mind. He had to ignore Wally. Just for right then. Ignore Wally so that it would make talking about him easier. Wally wouldn't mind. He understood. "Uh, here. First he kind of shouted something, but I don't remember what it was. It sounded like him, but I couldn't see him. I could only hear his jumbled up voice."
"Was that a few of our sessions ago? When you had thought you heard something, and I thought it was the construction workers?"
"Yeah."
She jotted something down. "When did you first see him?"
"English class."
"When Bruce said that you fainted?"
"Yeah."
Dick felt like he was getting nowhere.
"And where is he now?"
Dick automatically moved his eyes to where Wally was. The redhead's fists were tight and his face was all scrunched up. In all honesty, he looked like he was trying hard not to cry. Dick didn't want his best friend to cry. He had never even known that ghosts could cry. Despite not saying anything to the therapist, she acknowledged his glance. "Is he behind my chair?"
A pause. "Yeah."
"What is he doing?"
Dick was about to say something mundane, wanted to say something mundane and uncooperative and monotone. He wanted to only say that Wally was reading Miss. Frances's notes. But there was more to Wally than that, and he wanted to tell Wally that it was going to be alright, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
"He's trying not to cry."
Wally bit his lip at that. His fists uncurled immediately, as if he'd just realised what he had been doing, and one went to rub at the back of his neck. A nervous habit.
"Why do you think he would be crying?" Dick looked pointedly at Wally, waiting for an answer to give to Miss. Frances, waiting for an answer to give to himself, but Miss. Frances spoke before Wally could. "Don't ask him," she said. "Why do you think he's crying?" She looked fascinated.
To Dick's surprise, Wally said nothing. "He's sad," the acrobat blurted.
He felt ridiculous.
"Why is he sad?"
Why was Wally sad? Dick frowned, staring at his best friend, but Wally didn't want to look him in the face. Miss. Frances shifted her body so that Dick's attention switched back to her. "His uncle doesn't know that he's still here. He can't see him."
"Wally's uncle rejected him?" Miss. Frances rephrased. Dick nodded. "Does Bruce reject you?"
How did the subject suddenly turn to him and Bruce? He stiffened and she must have noticed. "Take a deep breath, Richard," she soothed, voice grating in Dick's ears. "You don't have to answer completely if you don't want to. I only ask that whatever you do say is honest." She spoke slowly, as if Dick wouldn't understand if she didn't spell it out for him, and emphasised seemingly random words.
Did Bruce reject him? No. If Bruce rejected him, then he'd be neglected, and Dick was anything but neglected. Bruce made sure that he got good grades, went on patrol with him almost every night, was up to date in training, etc. Sure, that was all physical, never mental, but why should it have been any different? Bruce was his partner, not his father. It didn't matter if Dick longed for it to be the other way around.
But even partners offered a little comfort every once in awhile, didn't they?
When Dick didn't speak, Miss. Frances jotted something down into her notes. Wally barely grazed over them with his eyes. "Think about how Wally's emotions reflect in your own. Do Wally's emotions match yours? Do his actions express what you wish to do? We're about out of time, but just think about it, alright? Tell me what you come up with in our next session." She smiled brightly.
As Dick went to stand in the empty, echoing hallway outside of the office's waiting room, he thought that he could only be certain of two things:
1. He wasn't crazy.
2. The way that Wally stood there with his head low, silent, reminded Dick exactly of himself.
Tyler Billard, Gotham Academy's only English 1 teacher, had been wary of Dick Grayson before the boy's best friend had died. His job required him to treat the boy as he treated the rest of his students, but the pressure from the school staff to make sure the boy got the best grades that he could was immense, considering Bruce Wayne was the school's main funder. All year, the man had to make excuses in the grade book for any grade less than spectacular: English was his second language, he was absent during a review day, he went to the nurse's, he had a math competition coming up, etc. It was exhausting, to say the least.
So, hearing from Mr. Wayne's butler a few days ago that Dick was undergoing therapy treatment for "mental issues" made Tyler want to follow in the example of 75% of his Freshmen and not show up to class.
Sadly, he only had two personal days throughout the entire year. Tyler made a mental note to go on strike sometime in the future.
"How's Dick been?" Helen Adams asked, a teacher from the nearby science department. She had Dick as a student as well, but in her computer science class, which the boy seemed to have no problem in no matter how many days he was absent. Tyler reasoned that she probably had a dramatically lower stress rate associated with the boy because of it. It was second period, a free hour for the both of them, and Helen had made herself known by wandering into the room to steal Tyler's sandwich. He was fine with the food robbery. His wife seemed to pack him more food every year, despite the fact that he was getting older, not younger.
The aging man ran his fingers through his balding scalp, thinking of something positive and having something else come from his mouth instead. "Strange."
"How so?" pressed Helen. She was a new teacher. Tyler had taught her himself what felt like only a handful of years ago. But, as a new teacher, she was young and utterly convinced that she could help every student that she encountered. Tyler didn't even remember when he had held that same enthusiasm.
"I recently got a note from his psychiatrist, excusing him from the Romeo and Juliet final. I had to have Dick sit in the back of the class while everyone else was taking the test, and I honestly don't think it was for the best. They're trying to put less stress on him, but he makes it look like he has nothing to distract his mind with," the confused English major said. "And I don't think he likes that. He kept coming up to me, asking for some in-class essays to work on, but I don't want to give him To Kill A Mockingbird yet because I haven't even prepared the first week's essay prompts for it."
Helen thought about that, chewing Tyler's sandwich slowly. She swallowed. "He makes computer science look easy, even while kids walk out complaining that I give the most homework out of all of their classes. He doesn't look stressed at all in there. A little bored, if anything."
"No fidgeting? Hell, he looks downright paranoid in here, like something's about to jump him," Tyler exclaimed.
Helen shook her head. "No. He's pretty relaxed. It's gotten to the point that I don't really check his homework anymore, I just know that he always does it and he always does it right."
Tyler snorted in disbelief, leaning heavily against his palm. "What, are his 'mental issues' Shakespeare tragedy-induced trauma?"
The woman hummed lightly. "You're scary, but not that scary. What about PTSD? With what happened to his parents and all."
"Don't you think he would have showed symptoms earlier? That happened when he was nine, Helen. I don't think it would spark him to have a panic attack and suddenly faint in the middle of my lesson five years later."
"Dissociative Identity Disorder?" Helen suggested.
Tyler shrugged. "He's always acted like the same person to me. Maybe it's just anxiety or depression. It would be a problem if Mr. Wayne didn't take into serious account the health of his ward, and I wouldn't be surprised if that caused him to go overboard."
"Anxiety and depression are still serious illnesses, Mr. Billard," Helen warned. "It could be, but I don't really think so. I mean, you don't just turn anxiety or depression on and off."
Tyler sighed. In all honesty, he had no idea. Dick clearly didn't want to talk about it, and the English teacher was no counsellor. Helen would have been a great person to go to for personal problems, but Tyler Billard? No way. "Whatever it is, I don't think it's going away anytime soon. You try talking to him. Maybe you'll get somewhere and I can have some more time with what little hair I have left."
Dick hated the way that his teachers looked at him. His peers were bad enough, but his teachers? Their looks combined with his abnormal lack of homework let him know exactly what they knew, and it made him want to scream.
He wasn't sick. He was in perfect health. Why could no one see that? Yet, from one act of being a good friend, Dick had gone from well-respected both day and night to babied day and put on cave arrest at night. Bruce hadn't let him go on patrol since the episode at the Allen residence two weeks ago. He didn't even have enough homework to occupy him. He felt bored and trapped.
At least Wally felt the same way.
"Well, they don't know that you aren't actually grounded from all of your friends. Guess who's stuck to you for all time?" Wally said as Dick laid upside down on his bed, counting the seconds until he got too lightheaded to get back up.
"Alfred?" Dick suggested.
Wally huffed. "I'm so unappreciated," he whined, causing the acrobat to roll his eyes.
"Well, even if you're here, it's not like you can play videogames with me or anything," Dick said, arching his back so that he could scoot his palms as far as possible underneath his bed before he fell.
"I can talk," Wally protested. "Whadda 'bout gossip? Let's be the new Gossip Boys. I can be your hoarder of secrets."
"I'm not a gossiper, though."
"Then let's go explore somewhere! Do something!" Wally groaned. "Stop wasting your life away."
"What can I do? I'm grounded," deadpanned Dick.
Wally looked at him oddly. "You're being weirdly monotone and I don't like it."
Dick only shrugged as he rolled back into a cross legged position on his bed sheets.
Wally sighed. "Look, being grounded has never stopped you before. Maybe we can go visit Commissioner Gordon and see if he has any easy cases for you to crack. Something you can do that won't upset Batman too much. Or we can check out where the Batcave goes. Isn't it connected to the-"
"Abandoned underground Gotham subway station. That is, until we built a wall between there and the cave after Two-Face and his little band of misfits found the place on accident," responded Dick emotionlessly.
Running a hand down his face, Wally gave an exasperated noise and laid on the ground. When Wally first discovered that he could actually lay down in Dick's room, he had been ecstatic. That was, until Dick pointed out that the manor was made of stone and all it proved was that Wally still couldn't move through raw, unprocessed materials that weren't living. "I don't get it. Why aren't you more upset?" Dick asked.
"What?"
"You're supposed to be the emotional one who can't hide his feelings to save his life. Why aren't you still upset over what happened with Barry?" pressed Dick. Maybe he was being insensitive. He really didn't care at that point.
Wally narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, and Dick absently wondered if maybe he'd pushed too hard. "That's why I want to do something," said Wally. "I'm sick of grieving. I'm still upset over being dead, I don't want to add to the list. Seeing you moping around like life doesn't matter is only making me depressed again."
Dick let the silence fall heavily for a while after that, much to Wally's apparent disappointment. In Dick's opinion, though, the silence was a necessity. It was also the only thing he could ever be certain of in his life. With a sigh, he lifted his legs and dropped head first from the bed, his palms already on the ground and landing him on his feet. Wally stared at him with interest.
"Fine," Dick said quietly, tugging the legs of his jeans down from where they'd ridden up and bunched on his upper thighs. "Just let me get Robin."
Considering how long it took to sneak out of the manor in uniform (there were too many cameras around the base of the Batcave to sneak from there) and the sheer amount of stealth Dick had to employ while Wally skipped along beside him, Dick thought it unfair that Commissioner Gordon still had the audacity to look behind him for Batman thirty minutes later. Aware of who could be listening in, Dick said nothing about Batman not being present. "Robin?" Gordon asked in surprise. "Where's Batman?"
"What's going on here?" Dick redirected.
Wally went cross-eyed with how close he was to Gordon's face. "Advantages of being a ghost, number 1: You can be creepy without being creepy."
"I thought number 1 was being able to float through walls?" Dick whispered as Gordon sighed and turned to face the Bank of America's Gotham branch as it was barricaded by police forces. "Or maybe teleportation?"
"Being able to float through walls wore off when I found out that I can still crash face first into mountains," Wally grumbled back.
"Huh?" Gordon hummed absentmindedly at Dick's whispered tones. Dick didn't answer and Gordon didn't press. The man puffed his cigarette anxiously. "Robbery in progress. Nothing we can do. It started an hour ago. Seven hostages; one child, a teenager, three women and two men."
"Pro robbers?" Wally asked.
"Do you know of them? Are they frequent thieves?" Dick rephrased.
"No," Gordon said with a frown. "I wouldn't be so worried if they were professionals. They're amateurs."
Wally's eyebrows shot up. "Then just race in there and kick their butts. How hard can that be if they don't even see you coming?"
Dick just shook his head and examined Gordon's face as the man walked back to the mouth of the alley, leaning against the brick of the closest building and letting the smoke of his cigarette dissipate through the air. Seconds later, Dick was back on a nearby roof, watching as Gordon walked slowly back to the commotion with a sluggishness to him that Dick didn't remember him having before. He didn't even glance back, already having known that the infamous Robin had disappeared.
"Amateurs are the most dangerous. You can't predict them because they're driven by adrenaline and fear. They make mistakes, and more often than not, those mistakes kill. They don't have to intend to kill their hostages for their hostages to be dead before the night ends," Dick explained, already judging the best ways of entrance into the building. He didn't need a blueprint to figure it out. Banks in Gotham tended to be similarly built.
Wally didn't have a quip for that, but it must have been because of how similar the situation sounded. The redhead cleared his throat and spoke. "Then let's go," he demanded. "I don't want another ghost around. This is my goddamn alternate physical plane and I don't like sharing."
Entering was relatively easy. Almost too easy, but Dick wasn't about to jinx his luck by repeating cheesy Hollywood lines. "In and out as quick as possible. I want to be gone before Batman hears about this."
"Isn't he at some party?" Wally whispered, though it was entirely unnecessary for him to do so.
"He has a police communication link."
Wally didn't question the matter further, but he coughed obnoxiously before Dick could crawl onto the exposed rafters above the main room of the bank. Below, the hostages had their backs against the front desk, with a blonde teenage girl clutching the head of a baby close to her. Beside her were three women, two brunette and one redhead, and two men, one of African American descent and the other a lanky blonde in a business suit. In front of them, two men in makeshift tattered black clothing had their shaky guns trained on them. Behind those two men were three others, talking to each other frantically and intensely gesturing with their weapons. Dick shot Wally a sharp look.
"Let me go below and look around. See if they have any hidden weapons," Wally said.
Dick felt an uneasy feeling swirl through the pit of his stomach as he looked at the hostages below. He wanted to say no, thought something would go wrong, yet wanted to say yes, thought that being uneasy was probably due to busting a robbery without a physical partner and blatantly disobeying his mentor. But all the while, there was the redheaded woman at the end of the line attempting to scoot behind the desk, no doubt to pull the silent alarm. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, giving a curt nod.
When he opened his eyes again, Wally was walking out from behind the desk. A weight slowly lifted from Dick's chest as the boy passed by the redhead woman and she remained unfazed. Wally, as quickly as a human could, began scanning the surrounding area, one eye on the woman. When Dick caught his gaze, he motioned that he was going to jump down because the woman had scraped the button on the bottom of her pants against the wood of the front desk and grabbed the attention of one of the men holding out his gun. The man began marching over to her and the teenager beside her as Wally pointed behind the desk with two fingers up. Two guns. As Dick landed softly behind the two men with guns and in front of the group arguing, concealed between their distracted attentions and the shadows, Wally pointed to the opposite end of the room behind a cushioned chair with one finger up. One gun.
When Dick appeared, the redheaded woman tensed, and her eyes darted to the other man who had yet to approach her, probably to see Dick better from the corner of her eyes without giving him away. Dick had to give a small smile to that. Smart woman. Recklessly somewhat clever woman. She reminded him of Wally.
Speaking of Wally, Dick wasn't sure what the boy intended to do after that. He couldn't touch anyone. Maybe he was planning on watching Dick's back as he fought, to warn the Boy Wonder about any sneak attacks. Whatever it was, th boy abandoned his post behind the front desk and raced to Dick's side.
That was also when the baby hiccupped.
Dick was impressed with the teenager's ability to keep the kid silent for so long, but it wasn't unusual for baby's to make obnoxious noises in precarious situations. Dick really shouldn't have been surprised. Yet, somehow, for some reason, he felt his heart spike to an all time high. Wally didn't look as concerned, only looking at Dick in worry when Dick hesitated at the split second that he was supposed to tackle the walking man in black. The baby started to softly cry as Dick's heart rate slowed and he opened his mouth to speak-
The baby screamed.
Wally froze in bewilderment as the teenage girl shuffled the baby in panic, confused and scared as to why the kid was suddenly erupting into a fit. Dick slid deeper into the shadows as one men from the arguing group groaned. "Shut that thing up!"
But the baby wouldn't be stopped, didn't even react as the man in black pointed his rifle at it and tears silently streamed down the girl's face. Instead, the baby kicked its feet and pointed its chubby arms at the- past the man in black.
Right at Dick.
Dick frowned. No, not quite. Not at Dick. Just a little to his right, the baby's eyes weren't on Dick at all. But as the baby blubbered uselessly, it wasn't the baby's eyes that Dick was worried about.
It was the two men with guns and all of the hostages.
"What the hell-!" the man shouted, eyes widened in panic as he raised his gun and began rapidly firing. Dick dodged, cursed that the man was amateur enough to fire aimlessly but not amateur enough to not know where to get an automatic rifle, and dropped a smoke bomb.
"Stop firing, you fucking piece of-"
"-the hell's goin' on-?"
"Stop! You're gonna make swiss cheese outta me!"
"Why are you firing at us?"
"Motherfucking Batman, that's what! Get'cher-"
"Calm the fuck down, it's just the kid!"
"Where'd he go?"
Meanwhile, the baby continued to scream, and Wally yelled with it. "The kid!" Wally exclaimed. "Dick, it can-"
"Wally!" Dick shouted. "Wally, direct me!" Screw the fact that everyone could hear him, it wasn't as if Wally was toting around a communication link.
"Where-oh, found you!" The resonating effect of Wally's dead voice prevented Dick from being able to pinpoint where he was, but by Wally's apparent view of him, Dick felt it safe to say that Wally had found a vantage point above. "Eight o'clock!"
Dick felt the satisfying contact of the heel of his foot impacting something hard. Noting that the object felt more like a rifle than it did a skull, Dick let his foot fall and swung with his other leg, sending the man carrying the rifle spinning onto the ground.
And so it continued, as the fog dissipated and Dick fought desperately to keep his attackers at bay without a team to help him, still with one eye on the hostages huddled beneath the front desk.
Wally continued to shout directions. "Behind you! Upper kick might be easier- he's trying to fake a- yup," and, "A guy's grabbing for the teenager!" and, "Four o'clock, with back up!"
When Dick's fist connected with the last man's face, that final blow leaving them groaning on the ground, Dick didn't let down his guard. He panted, fists positioned appropriately, feet perfectly spaced apart, staring with wild eyes at the circle of men around him.
The six hostages stared with wild eyes right back. "Uh, Robin…?" the African American man, who had yet to make a move or say a word, prodded hesitantly.
"They're done for," Wally reassured at the same time, and Dick glanced over his shoulder to see the ghost walking toward him with a nervous smile and zero eye contact.
"Yeah?" Dick said in reply to the man, but he kept his eyes trained on Wally. The man, uncertain if he should continue, remained awkwardly silent, and Dick didn't mind in the slightest.
"You done well, grasshopper," Wally said in a soft breath, puffing out his chest as if that would make the situation any less uncomfortable for himself.
"What was that?" Dick demanded. The hostages stilled quizzically. "Wally, answer me," commanded the Boy Wonder when Wally only ran his fingers nervously over the nape of his neck.
"That, that baby," Wally croaked. "It could, can, see me."
The hostages were keen in making sure that Dick made the first move, and he did. He fixed his gaze on the baby hiccuping from all the crying it had done and motioned for Wally to stay out of view. He crouched in front of the child and the teenager that held it. "Hey," Dick said to the baby. It hardly responded, only stared sleepily and miserably at the vigilante. The adults were shaking while the baby remained as cool as a cucumber. "Can you see him?"
The baby didn't answer, but it did shift its weight restlessly in its holder's arms, watching Wally with open eyes.
So Dick left.
He didn't know if Wally immediately followed. He didn't care. He didn't register Bruce's yelling when he entered the cave again in the traditional way, didn't register Bruce's silence afterwards that was louder than any yelling ever could be, because he didn't know what to feel. He wanted to feel happy. Someone else could finally see Wally. Though a baby, it proved at least somewhat that he wasn't crazy.
But then he turned on the news again and a rock settled into his gut once more as he watched as the stories were collected from the former victims, blankets draped around their shoulders. "-ally?" a blonde woman was saying with a concentrated look on her face. "Something like that. Wally. He-he kept saying Wally, even after the... men were down. I think he was talking on a bluetooth, or something like that." Bluetooth? Who used bluetooths anymore?
"Do you think that he could have been talking to Batman? Do you think that Batman's name is Wally?"
"I-I don't know, oh god, I don't-"
Dick was no longer paying attention, though. The only thing he was paying attention to was that Gordon had said there were seven hostages when Dick had gone in, but on that screen, Dick only counted six.
