Hey Guys!

I'm really sorry about just disappearing from fanfiction for pretty much this entire month. But I've been really busy/stressed and havn't had time for writing. We had two Chrsitmas parties at our house, and a family of 14 people over for dinner, my choir was singing in church, and we went to our friend's musical that was 2 hours away, I had a recital where I was singing/playing Mary Did You Know, which is really hard to do and I had to practice that in all my free time until the recital. And we had Christmas parties and performances to go to and Christmas shopping, and I still had school on top of that and I got so stressed out that I had an anxiety attack. (I think. I've had couple before but I haven't been like diagnosed with anxiety or anything like that. But after doing some research I think that's what it was) Sorry. I'm rambling now. Most of you probably just want to get onto the story. Anyway I'm going to try and get the rest of my Christmas fics. One-shot collections posted before the end of December.

Inthenightguest originally gave me this idea for my Thanksgiving chapter but by then I had already planned out the Thanksgiving chapter, but I liked it so much I decided to use it for my Christmas chapter! So Thank so Inthenightguest for this amazing idea! =)

As you all know all the 'Romani' in here is Romanian since Romani is not a written language. And I did some research on Romani/Romanian/Gypsy Christmas traditions so all of the traditions this fic mentions are real. ;)

A/N: I have a time-line on my profile for when all the events in YJ take place that my fics will go off of (no, it is not 100% accurate because in the show Wally isn't abused, but it's just the time-line all my YJ fics will operate on unless stated otherwise)

Shout Outs!:

Jeskifire: Yup! He is.

Inthenightguest: Thanks! Also, I based this chapter off of the idea you gave me for a Thanksgiving one-shot. So thank you so much for the idea!

Sariey: Thanks! This actually gave me a great idea for his birthday fic! (Idk when I'll get around to posting it. I wrote half of it and then I lost the internet connection and it got deleted and I have been too busy to rewrite it. =/)

Ailyn Vel: Thanks!

And without further ado, let's get into the one-shot!


Rating: K+

Time-Line: A little over a month after Wally moves in with Barry and Iris. Wally is 14 and Dick is 12

Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort

Summery: Wally and Dick talk about what Christmas was like back when they lived with their parents.


"Hey Dick?"

"Yeah?"

"What was it like?" Wally asked.

"What was what like?" Dick replied, confused. He turned to face Wally who was sitting on his bed at the manor, looking at a snow globe sitting on his nightstand.

"Christmas. Back at the circus, and in Romania." Wally said, his eyes finally leaving the snow globe and looking at Dick. The Snow globe was one of the few things he had from his old life. He had a few Christmas ornaments that they used to put up, which were currently hanging on the tree down in the living room. Bruce usually hired someone to decorate the entrance way and the room they used for parties, but Bruce Alfred and Dick (And some times Wally, Roy or some other Justice league member) would all decorate the living room, and the other rooms that were off limits to guests that they used frequently.

But the snow globe stayed in Dick's room all year round. It was one that his parents had given him their last Christmas together. It had a tiny Romanian castle in it on top of a hill and everything in it was covered in snow. And like all snow globes it created a blizzard inside it when you shook it or turned it upside down.

Dick crawled over to the side of the bed Wally was sitting on and reached over and picked up the snow globe. He held it up and looked inside it.

...

"Mami! Tati! Pot să-l deschid acum?" ("Mommy! Daddy! Can I open this one now?")

Mary Grayson laughed, throwing her head back. "Dați-i drumul." ("Go ahead.")

Dick ripped into the wrapping paper, and opened the box, pulling out something wrapped up in tissue paper.

"Ai grijă." ("Take care.") His Father warned him. He slowed down, carefully removing the tissue paper wrapped around the item.

"Wow." Dick breathed, looking into the beautifully made snow globe. It was hand made. Carved out of wood and carefully painted, with beautifully rounded glass encasing 'Castelul Corvinilor' (Corvin Castle) in a winter wonderland. He turned it upside down, watching as a flurry of snow flakes danced around the castle.

...

"Woah. Where'd you get this?" Wally asked, picking up the snow globe on Dick's night stand.

Dick quickly snatched it away, gaining him a strange look from Wally. "Sorry." Dick said having the decency to look guilty. "It's just...from my parents."

Wally blushed mentally slapping himself for having not figured that out sooner. It had Romanian writing on it after all.

Dick carefully handed the snow globe back to Wally. "My parents gave it to me on our last Christmas together."

"What castle is that?" Wally asked, feeling awkward for bringing up such a sore topic for his best pal, but Dick didn't seem to mind.

"Castelul Corvinilor."

Wally paused a brief moment while he mentally translated it. (He was still learning Romani.) "That's Castle Corvin right?"

"Yeah." Dick said, his mouth turning upward into a smile. "My parents actually got engaged in front of that castle."

Wally smiled. "Cool."

...

"Well, we celebrate it from December 20th to January 7th. On December 20th everyone would make ham and we would have a huge feast. Everyone would decorate their tree on Christmas Eve and after we did, all the kids would go around caroling and dancing and performing for the adults. And on Christmas the adults would go out caroling that night. And, uh, some of them would dress up like goats."

Wally laughed, and Dick laughed along with him. "Why?" Wally said still giggling.

Dick sighed, exasperated. "I think it was to ward off evil spirits or something." Dick said. And when we went caroling people would normally give us some money, or food, or sweets or something. It was kinda like Trick or Treating, but at Christmas time...and the if people dressed up it was the adults...as goats..." Wally giggled again as Dick went on.

"Us kids were always in bed by the time the adults went caroling so we would always try to peer through the window and see if we could see and hear all the adults singing." Dick said his lips tugging upward in a smile.

"We also always had a special Christmas Eve Performance at the circus.. It was amazing they would have "snow" burst from the cannons, and everyone got these special costumes, and it was really cool. Probably my favorite performance of the year."

Wally smiled as he imagined a young Dick Grayson swinging from the trapeze with his parents, all of them decked out in colorful Christmas costumes.

"Almost every country has a Santa Clause, but ours was a little different. We called him 'Mos Nicolea' which pretty much translates to 'Old Man Nicholas'. He wasn't even a part of Christmas. He came on December 6th, which is 'Ziua Sfântului Nicolae' St. Nicholas Day. On December 5th all us kids would clean and polish our shoes and we would leave them outside our door and in the morning we would wake up and they would be filled with treats, and little presents. And People said that if it snowed on St. Nicholas Day then it was Old Man Nicholas shaking his beard, and starting winter."

"Wow." Wally said. Of course both boys knew that that wasn't true, and that it wasn't a St. who lived a long time ago shaking his beard and causing winter to begin, but nevertheless Dick still liked being able to talk about the stories and traditions of his people, and Wally liked learning about the culture his best pal was originally from.

"So, are their any traditions you sill do from there?" Wally asked curiously.

"Sorta. Bruce and I both go caroling on Christmas Eve, normally with Barbra and her dad.-"

"Does Bruce dress up like a goat?" Wally interrupted, laughing.

Dick snorted. "Yeah right. That's be the day!"

Wally lowered his voice an octave trying to make it sound low and gravelly. "I'm Goatman."

Dick burst out laughing, as did Wally, before Dick finally stopped laughing enough to continue.

"There was also that year you came caroling with us. And that really weird year where Catwomen joined us...And the first couple years I lived with Bruce I would put my shoes outside my bedroom door and he would fill them with treats." Dick said, smiling a little at the memory.

"Did you ever...have trouble adjusting? You know to celebrating it so differently?" Wally asked, his body language and facial expression taking on an uncomfortable tone. Dick knew Wally was still having trouble adjusting to living with Barry and Iris. He had only been living with them for about a month and a half and this would be his first Christmas living with them.

"Yeah. Bruce was great and all but it wasn't the same. I was used to waking up in our trailer to the smell of my mom making pancakes, and if it had snowed, going out and playing in the snow for hours, and then getting in and my mom making hot chocolate, and we'd sit around the tree, while my dad told stories of where all the different ornaments were from. Since the circus traveled so much we had ornaments from all over the world. We would open presents and then they would tuck me into bed, and they would go caroling and I would look out the tiny window by my bed ad see if I could see and hear them caroling."

"I wish...my parents had been like that. We didn't really all celebrate it together." Wally said, his eyes refusing to make contact with Dick's.

"It used to be fun and be like any other family's Christmas. Opening stockings and presents, watching Christmas movies, making cookies together. And stuff like that. But...the year my dad lost his job everything changed. That's when he started...uh, being, um, you know..." Wally trailed off awkwardly.

"I woke up Christmas morning, thinking everything would be the same as normal." He said laughing condescendingly. "I woke up and my mom left a note saying that she had taken another shift at the restaurant she worked at. My dad was still at the bar from last night. He came home barely and I asked if we were going to open presents, and he just gave me this, this look. I knew what was coming but-but I was still shocked for some reason. He slapped me. And then, then he just started screaming at me."

...

Wally sat on the couch in the living room, still wearing his worn Flash pajamas that were getting too small from him. But last time he brought it up to his dad, his dad just got mad and told him he didn't have extra money to spend on clothes for him. His mom just sighed, telling him he knew better then to bring up such a sore topic for his Father, and that they would buy him new clothes whenever they got the money for it.

So he continued to sit alone on the couch bouncing his knees, looking at their old tree. (They had an artificial one and they had been using the same one since his parents got married, and it had definitely seen better days.) The tree that sat in the corner of their living room adorned with lights, and ornaments and the three stockings hung in a row on the mantle were the only signs of Christmas in the whole house. His dad didn't even bother putting up Christmas lights on the outside of the house this year. He claimed it was too much work and there was no point, since they'd be taking them down in a month.

Wally would be lying to say he wasn't a little disappointed at the fact that there were no presents under the tree, aside from the ornaments he had made at school for his parents that he had wrapped up and put under the tree. He wasn't even sure if they would like them. he could never tell with them. It seemed like they found something wrong with everything he did.

Wally's mom had left a note on the counter saying she had picked up an extra shift at work, and that she wasn't sure where his dad was and that he better not get into any trouble or make any messes while they were gone. So Wally had spent the whole morning sitting on the couch holding his stuffed bear dressed in a Flash costume. It was one of his birthday presents from Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry. Wally smiled fondly at the memory. They had taken him out for the whole day and he had even gotten to spend the night at their house! His parents didn't even tell him Happy Birthday. His mom had been gone by the time he woke up and his dad had merely grunted in acknowledgment when he had said goodbye, heading out the door to get in Aunt Iris' car.

Wally jumped, startled out of his thoughts, when the front door. rattled. He peered through the window behind the couch and saw his dad's car in the driveway. The front door slammed open, and then shut, and he heard his dad's boots getting kicked off. Wally hugged his stuffed bear tighter as his dad started to stalk off into the kitchen. Something felt off.

"Uh, dad?" Wally asked cautiously.

Rudolph, looked back at him looking startled and annoyed, having just noticed that his son was there.

Wally shrunk under his Father's angry gaze his blood going cold. "I uh, wanted to know when we were going to open presents." Wally said.

Rudolph's face contorted in anger. "YOU THINK I HAVE EXTRA MONEY TO SPEND ON YOU?!" Rudolph yelled, as he stalked towards his son's form. "Money doesn't grow on trees! You're such an ungrateful brat! I spend all my money on you and your mother! You think this house is free?! It costs money to pay bills, and to feed you!" Rudolph said, slapping his son across the face, and shoving him into the kitchen wall. Wally slid down to ground staring up at his dad in shock.

"Go to your room! And don't even think about asking for food! Maybe if you didn't eat today you'd appreciate the hard work I put in to feed you!" Wally nodded, frightened. And hurried to his room, shutting the door.

He hit him.

His dad hit him.

HIS dad HIT him.

Wally couldn't stop the tears racing down his cheeks, as he buried his face in his pillow, hugging his Flash bear. What started out as crying soon reached hysterics and he wondered why he wasn't good enough, or why he had to be so stupid to anger his father. Why couldn't he be good enough? After about 30 minutes of sobbing/crying hysterically he managed to calm himself down. And After that he never questioned why their were no presents under the tree, or why his dad had decided not to put up decorations that year, or why his dad decided to spend Christmas at the bar, or why his mom would rather spend Christmas working, or going to a party with her friends, instead of celebrating with her family. One year his parents had sent him to Uncle Barry's and Aunt Iris' for Christmas, and it was the best Christmas he could remember, but he would be lying if he said he didn't feel hurt about the fact that his parents didn't even want him around or feel upset whatsoever that they wouldn't be with their son on Christmas.

...

"Sorry." Wally said scrubbing his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

"Walls, it's okay. You don't have to apologize. Your parents were jerks. And I know that Barry and Iris would never do something like that to you." Dick said firmly.

"I know, I know." Wally said grimacing. "I just can't help but feel like I don't deserve to live with them or have them love me. I mean-"

Dick's own eyes burned as he heard his best friend talking so lowly of himself. Dick wrapped his arms around Wally in a tight hug. Wally let out a shaky breath, burying his face in Dick's shoulder.

"Walls, I know it's hard. And I know that it will be awhile before you completely believe this, but...You do deserve to be happy. You're allowed to have good things happen to you without you feeling guilty about it. You save lives on a daily basis and you deserve to be with people like Barry and Iris who love you. Just cause you're a hero doesn't mean you don't need saving too." Dick said firmly, pulling away from the hug to make sure he was actually getting through Wally's stubbornness.

Wally cracked a small smile. "Thanks Dick."

"The past is in the past and it took me awhile to learn this, but sometimes you have to let the past go in order to move on. You don't have to forget about it. You can't and it made you who you are today. But you don't have to let it define or control you either. Okay?"

Wally nodded. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments before Wally broke it. "Did you just make a 'Let It Go' reference?"

"I was wondering if you would notice." Dick laughed.

"Come on. Alfred said we could help him make and decorate some Christmas cookies. And I think 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' is coming on later so if we hurry we should be able to watch it while we eat cookies." Dick said grinning.

Wally grinned back following him.

"Last one there is a Grinch!"

"Wallace! Using super speed does not count!" Dick yelled after him.


Thank you again to Inthenightguest for this idea!

Yes. People in Romania do dress up as goats to go caroling.

I hope you all enjoyed this one shot!

Feel Free To Review or PM Me!

Love Y'all To The Moon And Back! Bye!

~SunshineGirk14