A Few (Unwelcome) Neighbours

Dick liked to think he was a pretty easy-going guy, though there were probably some Gotham villains out there suffering from fracture marks that would beg to disagree.

He didn't insult people when they were stupid (which they often were), he didn't break bones unless people deserved it (which they often did), and he hadn't committed any homicide…yet.

All this to say, the detective thought he was a decent human being. Not necessarily on the side of the angels, but he definitely didn't deal in hellfire and brimstone either.

Which is why the sudden and intense urge to claw off his own ears was more than a little jarring. Better yet, to claw Wally's ears off. Or maybe practice some defenestration.

Because the speedster just would not stop talking.

Even though Dick had found himself struggling to keep a straight face at some of the ginger's earlier words, there was something about Wally that put him at ease.

Which is exactly why it had to stop; Nigthwing couldn't afford to be at ease.

But maybe, with Bruce not around…?

He frowned, blanketing over that quiet, hopeful voice in his head with hastily fabricated anger. I didn't matter if Bruce was around or not, Dick still had work to do.

Wally was standing across from him, tangled auburn hair spilling out the top of his cowl. "I'm sensing some real hate and hostility here, maybe we should just—"

Then something happened that had not happened in a long, long time.

Dick was surprised.

A seething rush of glowing blue liquid—water?—snapped out from the shadows behind the speedster, followed up quickly by the familiar whistle of a loosed arrow.

Acting on ingrained instinct alone, he ducked gracelessly under the lashing water and executed a shaky somersault to avoid Artemis' arrow.

Mr. Chatty Speedster must've been stalling for time, and Dick had fallen for it.

The former circus acrobat grimaced as he centred himself again, settling into a defensive position as he surveyed the hodgepodge of junior heroes.

KF was still talking when they flanked him, standing tall while they offered their speedster silent support. It was almost…impressive.

He shook his head, jerking himself out whatever strange mindset he'd just fallen into. Teammates were a weakness, he knew that.

Apparently they were trying to intimidate him, five sets of eyes narrowing as the team stood with their weapons at the ready.

Dick didn't know whether to be encouraged by their bravery or let down by their stupidity. He'd have to manage with both, he supposed

That is, he was feeling encouraged until a foreign coldness pressed up against the edges of his mind.

This darn Martian…

The vigilante pulled his hardest glare into place, one long since perfected in the darkness of the Batcave, and fixed it on M'gann. "Will you stop trying to read my mind already? It's never going to work."

The woman's eyes were glowing green and her mouth was pulled into a tight frown, marks of consternation wrinkling the skin between her brows as she quipped back, "Someday it will."

Dick barely withheld the urge to sigh, slamming down his own mental barriers as he pushed her presence from the borders of his subconsciousness. This whole interaction was really reminding him of why he hated mind-readers.

Smoothing over the tired edges of his face, he pasted a toothy smile in place. "I highly doubt that."

Was it hard being their level of petty all the time? Did it wear on the brain? Dick subtly eyed the grappling gun in his hand, silently calculating the chances of Wally catching up to him with superspeed if the vigilante tried to escape.

Zero. The chances were basically zero. The speedster would probably trip over his own feet before reaching him.

This whole conversation should've ended before it even began. Dick just wanted to go home, huck the vial into one of his safes, and sleep.

Of course, nobody cared what Dick Grayson wanted. Oh no, God forbid.

Which is why the tired vigilante wasn't at all surprised to hear Aqualad speak,

"Stay where you are," The leader shouted across the rooftop, flicking his strange water devices against the concrete.

Absently, Dick wondered what they were made of, what advanced technology was making them tick. Or was it magic?

The Atlantean wasn't finished, however, his dialogue continuing on as he made even more of a fool out of himself. "Under League jurisdiction, I have no choice but to place you under arrest for the—"

Dick couldn't hold back the visceral need to roll his eyes that seized his entire body by storm. He'd been willing to respect these heroes; not like, but at least admire them for their…passion.

Exasperated words were spilling out of Nightwing's mouth before he could stop himself, "Oh mygosh," Aqualad's spiel reminded him of his scant interactions with the boy scout in Robin's early days, back when Batman had still allowed him to work cases the Justice League were involved in. "You're more of a broken record than Superman."

The Martian visibly recoiled at his accusation, hair whipping around her face as she snapped, "Superman is a fantastic hero!"

Nightwing had heard more than enough of Superman's 'fantasticness' to know it was a sham. No one, not even a goodie two-shoes Kansas farm-boy, could be that powerful and not use it for selfish purposes.

At least, that's what Bruce had always said.

"Right," He muttered again, channeling his twenty accumulated years of annoyance into that single word. "Fantastic. I'll be going now—"

"You most certainly will not," Sportsmaster's daughter snorted, stepping forward with her bowstring taut and her fingers twitching towards the quiver. "You're under arrest."

Artemis was the only one that Dick had the smallest molecule of tolerance for, as she wasn't a hero in the traditional sense of the word.

Raised by a bloodthirsty assassin slash hitman, Batman seriously contemplated taking the girl in and indoctrinating her as a bat brat when Dick was fourteen. That is, had seriously contemplated, until Oliver Queen had swept in and brainwashed her to herodom.

Now here she stood, aiming an arrow at his chest. Interesting how small the world was sometimes.

"Right," He shot them that same pasted smile, the one that twisted uncomfortably at the corners of his lips. It wasn't suited to his face, but it was the only one he knew.

He offered them a two-fingered salute, then hopped of the edge of the roof, the surprised horror on their faces giving him no small sense of satisfaction.

And then he was falling, rushing down as the ground came up to meet him.

.oOo.

Robin had been a dramatic little tyke since his first midnight debut; he'd worn the label 'Gotham's Sassiest Sidekick' like a badge of honour in his early days.

And later days. Really just all the time, if Dick was being honest.

Technically, he'd been Gotham's only sidekick (not even that, since he insisted on their 'partner' dynamic), but the devil was in the details. Or whatever the expression was.

That all to say, Dick liked to think the same applied to Nightwing. Which is why he gave the blaringly yellow speedster a two-fingered salute, then stepped off the edge of the BPD building's roof.

The junior heroes gave echoing shouts of surprise—and curses, though Dick suspected it was just Artemis who was doing the cursing—as he seemingly plummeted to his death.

Taking aim with an air of bored practice, the grappling line shot out of the gun and up towards the adjacent building, yanking Dick out of his free fall with a terse jerk.

And then he was defying gravity as he has so many times before, the mechanical whirr of the gun in his hand a familiar sound against his ears.

Landing, he executed a flawless back handspring, bowed towards the speechless heroes, and vanished out of their line of sight.

He had a date with his bed, after all, one that he fully intended on keeping.

Deciding against bothering with his apartment complex's front door, he instead climbed in through his open window and slid to the shabbily decked out tile.

Home sweet home.

The finicky zipper on his suit would one day be the death of him, but that night he managed to wrest it down. It gave, slowly and jerkily, but at least he was finally free of the clingy fabric.

Decked out only in his briefs, as wearing any form of clothes beneath the suit was an uncomfortable impossibility, he tossed the swathe of dark fabric haphazardly over a chair.

Then promptly tripped over a stack of case files and stumbled over to his bedroom.

The apartment was, for lack of a better word, a mess. Papers scattered nearly every available surface, joined by the empty mugs that seemed to multiply daily. The couch was decked out with a blanket and pillow he'd never bothered to put away, rumpled and carrying a stagnant scent.

Dick only crashed in front of the TV when he literally could not walk the extra twelve steps to his bed; when his legs wobbled beneath him and his brain swam with the words of his most recent mystery.

He deposited the vial into one of his hidden safes and smacked the door closed, giving the combination lock a spin for good measure. Then he yanked out a pair of sweatpants and slipped easily into them.

Frowning when the bottom of the pants pooled around his ankles, he snatched one of his old Bludhaven College sweaters and quickly adjusted it over his torso, making sure his various patches of ropey scar tissue weren't obvious through the tie-dyed fabric.

It felt like he was practically swimming in the too-large clothing, but after the skin-tightness of the Nightwing suit, Dick didn't' really mind all that much.

With that out of the way, he strode over to the kitchen and pulled out last night's—or maybe last weeks, time flew when you were in a near-constant state of exhaustion—leftovers and a notably cleaner than the rest fork.

Beside his mini fridge, there was a large door that the landlord, Mr. Higgins, told him belonged to an attached suite, one that could house potential tenants who would "be like Dick's neighbours".

The night he'd moved in, Dick had broken into the abutting room, smashed one of the windows, and planted local gang insignia on the ledge.

The act of vandalism, according to a distraught Mr. Higgins, had prevented anyone from taking up residence.

Meaning, the next-door room remained empty.

Also meaning, he didn't have to worry about civilians bumbling into his space looking to borrow a 'cup o' sugar', then seeing their 'neighbour' decked out in spandex and chucking birdarangs at the walls.

It was a win-win situation, if you asked Grayson. No neighbours, no interference, no possibly blown secret identities.

Disregarding the table altogether, he hopped up onto the counter with his takeout in hand. It took an embarrassingly large amount of effort to get situated, but at least there was no one around to witness his struggle.

Then it happened.

There was a knock, on the supposed-to-be-empty door.

Cursing, he set his pathetic meal aside and slid down, bare feet slapping against the cheap linoleum as he pattered over.

Hopefully it was just the landlord come to ask for more marital advice, or the old woman in room three trying to ask him out to an orgy. Again.

Needless to say, when the walking senior's discount had rapped on the unused door last week, Dick had declined her offer. Even if he had been into such…festivities, the detective was a busy man.

Fixing his celebrity smile in place, he unlocked the door, coming face to face with none other then—

Wally.

Wally friggin' West.

Dick blinked, took a long minute to process, then recoiled with a sharp, "Oh hell no."

Oblivious as ever to the others obvious disdain, the ginger stuck his hand out as if he actually expected Grayson to shake it. "Hyah, new neighbour! Just thought we'd—"

Dick slammed the door in the man's face without waiting for him to finish, pressing his back against it and closing his eyes.

This had to be some kind of sick nightmare.

But no, apparently he was still awake. The detective could hear the cheery speedster conversing with someone else, on the other side in low, hushed tones.

Then a horrible, horrible thought occurred to him. Wally had said 'we'…

Grayson resisted the urge to knock himself out against the brick wall of his apartment. Instead, he tried to pull himself together with the breathing exercises Bruce had taught him years ago, back when Dick still hadn't learned all his possible triggers and was prone to panic attacks.

"Time to think, Grayson." He pressed his forefingers to his temples, mentally pushing aside the anger surfacing in his gut, "This obviously can't be a coincidence."

Even if Dick hadn't stopped believing in coincidences years ago, this was too extreme of one not to be intentional.

Obviously, the junior Justice League had planned this for some reason. Which probably meant that they didn't trust Grayson, which, based on their suspicions earlier that day, also probably meant they'd arranged this so they could keep on eye on him.

There was no way they'd choose to shack up in the lower end of Bludhaven for kicks and giggles, not unless they had a serious death wish.

The vigilante groaned, balling up his fists and pressing them against his eyelids until little white sparks appeared. He just wanted to sleep.

And, now that he thought about it, his 'Detective Grayson' persona wasn't even supposed to know who Wally was.

He'd only met KF in costume. They were supposed to be complete strangers.

So slamming the door in the speedster's face likely came across as extremely suspicious behaviour. Now they'd be even more determined to spy on him.

"Shucks," He whispered under his breath. The only course of action left was to open the door and pretend he hadn't already met Wally twice; first as Detective Grayson, then later again as Nightwing.

Dick could practically hear his bed crying from the other room as he wrapped his hand around the handle, turning it slowly as possible to avoid the inevitable interaction to come.

The masculine voices on the other side went silent as he yanked the door open, trying his best to muster some semblance of a smile. "Can I help you?"

The speedster's pout lifted into a radiant grin so quickly that Dick was surprised he didn't get whiplash, "Howdy, neighour!"

Dick felt his expression droop into a grimace.

This was going to be a very, very long night.

(A/N): Whew! I apologize for the day late update; I was out in the Canadian wilderness (my backyard, lol) without internet for a few days.

Soooooo, what'd you think? I loved how Nightwing seemed all 'cool' and 'dangerous' from Wally's POV, and then Dick's actual inner monologue is just like bed. sleep. tired.

Anyway, thanks so much for reading! I hoard all your wonderful reviews and read them whenever I lose inspiration to update 333

Stay safe!

~ASL