A/N: I think I've taken the prompt of 'Roy and Wally share an apartment and this is what happens at 2 am' and pretty much stretched it to 'Roy and Wally live together and this is what happens. Lots of things happen.'
This... is almost three times the length of all the other chapters thus far. I have no idea how it got so out of hand, because this was just supposed to be their first year anniversary. It turned out to be practically a full-length story.
I had way too much fun writing this.
Well. I promised, and if I do humbly say so, I think I delivered. Enjoy, everyone!
I do not own Young Justice. Title is taken in part from the song 505 by the Arctic Monkeys. I love this song. Have it open while reading.
2 AM
VII.
if it's a 7 hour flight or a 45 minute drive
"Hey. Happy anniversary," Roy whispers. Wally opens first one eye, then the other, before he sluggishly rolls over to meet Roy's face.
"Is it that time of year already?" Wally slurs, grinning.
"Yeah. 'M taking the day off." Roy strokes at Wally's hipbone as Wally tucks his head under Roy's chin. "Dinner at that new Thai restaurant tonight sound good?"
"Great," Wally yawns. "Gimme a minute to wake up, kay? …Shit, I didn't have time to get you anythin'."
"You've got the whole day," Roy says dismissively. "Fastest man alive, right?"
"That's the idea." Wally lies there idly, musing. After a comfortable silence, he says slowly, "Say, Roy. What's on your bucket list?"
"Me?" Roy has to give this some thought, knowing where this was leading. He smirks teasingly. "Scuba-diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Motorcycling over the Great Pyramids. Lunch at some side-street in Rome."
"Sex on the Eiffel Tower?"
Silence.
"You can do that?"
"There and back before noon, babe. Dunno about Australia, but we can do the Italy thing along the way."
Okay, so Roy didn't see this coming.
"Wow."
"N'importe quoi pour vous," Wally spouts flippantly.
"I took Spanish in high school."
"So did I." Wally smiles lazily before he kisses him, rolling the words against his jaw. "Cualquier cosa por tí."
The corner of Roy's mouth twitches. "Show off."
"You were serious?" Roy's mouth hangs slack with awe.
"Why would I joke about this?" Wally asks, hauling his backpack over his shoulder. It's relatively light considering their supposed travel plans. "You're lucky Miss Martian lent us the bioship for the day. You were about to get piggybacked over the Atlantic." Wally looks approvingly at Roy over his sunglasses. "You look nice."
Roy still looks incredulous. "All I did for our anniversary was make dinner reservations at Beau Thai."
"We can still make it back in time for that!" Wally beams. "I wanted to make this special. Think of it like a vacation. We never get time off to ourselves, what with school and patrols and work."
"When you put it like that… No, I'm still never going to top this, am I?" Roy states bleakly.
"I don't need anything special, Roy," Wally casually dismisses. "I always wanted to go to Egypt anyway. We just fly right over it on missions. And hey, now you can finally teach me to ride a motorcycle."
"You're making it worse."
"Don't forget the sunscreen," Wally chirps.
"Wally."
"Not listening."
"You're going to literally fly me to Europ—"
"Quit comparing." Wally rolls his eyes. "I told you, I don't need anything special."
"What the hell, Wally."
"I'm serious. I don't know why everyone expects me to be so high maintenance. What's up with that?"
"But—"
"Oh shit, we're burning daylight here," Wally interrupts, glancing at his watch. "Gotta make up for the time differences in Europe. I need to ask Megan how fast the bioship goes, we usually pass Greenland in like an hour tops… Let's see, if it's nine in the morning here…"
"Wally." But he's already out the door, clutching his ridiculously light backpack. Passport, Roy remembers, swiping it up from the nightstand.
"Cut it any closer we might not be able to make it to Australia, Roy!"
Roy fights a smile before sighing.
"What's with this thing?" Wally mutters tapping at his iPhone, trying to figure how much money they had to their name. "That's not the exchange rate for the euro."
"How much are we supposed to tip in Italy?" Roy asks, chewing on the last slice of pizza capricciosa. (He will never look at Papa John's the same from this point on. No pizza will ever compare to this.)
"I don't know." Wally frowns, before polishing off his slice. He pauses to make a face that implies such decadence in a pizza should be illegal. "Oh my god, can we come here all the time?"
"Can we?" Roy grins, laying his hand on Wally's phone before pushing it into the tablecloth. "Relax. We can ask around and see how much." Roy doesn't take his hand away and Wally smiles lazily at him over the table. They take their time, kissing slow and languid.
When they pull away long enough to remember that they were supposed to be leaving, Roy glances over Wally's shoulder to see a waitress smiling demurely at them, before turning back to giggle with her friends in Sicilian. Italians were apparently more tolerant of homosexuality than he expected. Or it could just be the people in the bar.
"We should probably hurry to Paris, then," Wally remarks, smiling as he follows his gaze. "It's almost noon."
"It's eight at night right now," Roy says, checking his watch. It was one of those fancier models Ollie got him that automatically accounted for time zone differences, of which he was grateful. "Rome's eleven hours ahead."
"It's almost noon where we are. Flying here at Mach III took two hours, 'lunch' took another hour." Wally regards his phone earnestly. His eyes move with the candles' flames, flickering cat's-eye green. "I don't want to have to miss your dinner reservation."
It takes Roy about twenty milliseconds following that statement to realize he just fell for him again. Hard. "Yeah, okay," he manages instead.
It turns out that one doesn't really have to tip in Italy unless they liked the service. Needless to say, their waiters were going to love them.
Wally gasps softly as Roy bites at his neck, fighting a burst of mad giggles. "It's cold up here."
"What'd you expect?" Roy asks as he undoes the buttons on Wally's shirt. "It's night time at high altitude and you're leaning against metal."
"How… far… does that elevator come, huh?" It's with great effort that Roy tears away long enough to glance down and check the premises.
"Not this high up. I can't believe you ran us almost to the top."
"I'm gifted. Hey, keep your jacket on," Wally says, hands gripping him by the lapels. Roy can feel the individual points of heat his fingers give off through the leather. "It's cold."
"Then maybe you can warm us up," Roy's voice all but purrs.
"Whoa, I like what Paris does to you." Wally is happily occupied with Roy's collarbones for a while, before he peers up at him wickedly. "You know what warms people up really fast?"
"Besides the obvious?"
"Friction."
Found the zipper.
"Gonna show me my favorite speedster trick?"
"Yeah."
Such blatant abuse of the Speed Force would have greatly distressed the Flash, if he ever found out. Then again, uncle Barry was never going to hear about this unless some tourists below possessed some really, really high magnitude lenses on their cameras.
La Ville De L'amour really lived up to its name.
"Okay, hold on tight. You got your goggles?"
"Yeah," Wally says nervously, strapping on the helmet. "Uhm, Roy, have you ever done anything like this before?"
"On ramps, over pyramids. Same difference, really."
"Oh."
"Hey, don't worry." Roy winks at him over his shoulder as he adjusts his gloves. "You're gonna be alright. The Eiffel Tower was twice this high."
"That's not... no."
"I'd be more concerned about sand getting in my eyes if I were you."
The moon lights a straight path up and over the great ruins. The tour guide had looked at them suspiciously, then nervously when they asked to rent a motorcycle as best as they knew how. (It's a good thing for them that the man knew English). The bike's not bad, Roy made sure of that when they rented it. Everything's in tip-top condition, because they were about to return it seriously mangled.
Wally stares apprehensively at the deep, sharp shadows the pyramids cast over the soft, undulating sands. Deceptively cushiony. Enough to break a fall?
"You're not going to fall."
He's been talking out loud. That's how nervous he is. "I'd better not."
"Better hang on then."
"Wai—ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Roy is insane. He's in love with a lunatic. They speed up the slope, higher and higher and holy fuck this was really high. Wally tightens his grip around Roy as the wind tears his hair back and numbs the exposed skin of his face and hands. He can barely look around them to appreciate the insane streaks of color as they rapidly ascend. The needle on the speedometer is straining too far to the right; they're almost vertical. His thighs take a death grip around Roy.
"Hang on!"
Wally's heart stops momentarily because they are suspended in the air holy fuck he is going to die, this is nothing like running—
But then he feels Roy swinging his torso and the bike follows the movement before—
BAM. The wheels crash back onto the solid stone foundations and they're speeding downwards uncontrollably, except they are controlled because the muscles in Roy's back bunch as he somehow maneuvers them straight. Wally thinks of roller coasters breaking loose from their railings and combines it with the terror of that one time Dick threw the both of them off a Gotham skyscraper hanging just by a grappling hook.
This is slightly worse, because there is no grappling hook, and the ground is coming to meet them like, NOW.
"Whooooooooooooooooooohoo! YEAH!" Roy's wheels rip right through the sand like it's nothing, spinning it out on either side of them as he tears up the side of the next pyramid, laughing. Wally's scream of fear sounds suspiciously similar.
I'm enjoying this, Wally realizes, head pounding with the twenty or so gallons of adrenaline surging through his blood. I'm enjoying this and Roy is insane and why am I laughing? I should be crying.
They roar up and down, u p p p p p and d o w n n n n, taking the last two the same way they did the first. When Roy comes to a stop (finally) Wally all but topples over into the dunes.
"You… better… have… enjoyed that," Wally gasps weakly, heart hammering in an extremely unhealthy fashion.
"Hell yeah," Roy grins, hair as wild as his eyes in spite of the helmet. He puts out the kickstand and falls onto the sand next to him. "You were great. Didn't black out at any time?"
"No." Blacking out would've meant letting go, which would've meant dying. "You… howdidyoudothat?"
"Magic. You're not the only talented one."
"Kay." Wally trails off. "I think I lost three years off my life."
"You enjoyed that."
"I don't know. Did I?"
"Mm. I know I did."
"Then that's all that counts," Wally says sarcastically. Roy shoulders him affectionately and Wally concentrates on slowing his pulse.
The flight back is quiet as Wally sleeps with his head in Roy's lap. Roy is technically doing the flying, though mostly he just watches to make sure they don't veer off course. The ship takes care of the rest. It was even accommodating enough to fashion the usual seats into a long chaise lounge.
Wally shuffles a little in his sleep and one hand curls toward the floor. It's technically five in the afternoon, but where they just came back from it was three in the morning. Roy runs his hand through Wally's hair, watching as the sky lightens in slight increments over the black sea before setting again. The waters turn inky blue, then cerulean. The sun touches down on a watery horizon. He settles Wally's hand back onto the couch.
"Table for two," Roy says to the maître d'. "Harper."
Wally is still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as they sit down. They'd had just enough time to change into their formal clothes before rushing out; they'll have the bioship back to Mgann by tomorrow. Roy can hardly believe that they had just been on the other side of the globe a few hours ago.
"Sorry we couldn't make it to Australia," Wally says, leaning his cheek into the heel of his hand. He yawns, before smiling sheepishly up at him.
"Shut up, Wally," Roy deadpans.
Wally smirks. "That's not nice."
Roy ignores him. "You literally borrowed the Martian equivalent of a private jet to fly me across the world today. You fulfilled two thirds of my bucket list, and then some, before I reached the age of twenty two. I don't even have words for this."
"How about 'I love you, Wally, you're the best thing that ever happened to me and I'm going to treat you so good from this moment on?'"
"That's a given." Roy hesitates. "Look, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, because this… God, this was the best day of my life. But, why'd you do all this?"
"Why do you think?" Wally laughs. "Or do I have to remind you what day it is?"
"No…You could've just stayed in, or bought me roses or something for our anniversary."
"Roy, cmon, this didn't even make that much of a dent in my wallet—"
"Wally." Roy looks at him seriously. Wally shuts up. "Why did you go through all this trouble? Not that I'm comparing gifts with you or whatever. Just… I want to know."
Wally looks at him unabashedly before sobering up.
"I… guess I just really care about you, Roy." He hesitates, as if to come up with more reasons. "…Yeah, no, that's pretty much it."
"You do this for everyone you care about?"
"Well, no, because normally I just fly total strangers to Italy and then ride up the side of a pyramid for the kicks."
"Without sarcasm," Roy reproves, before his face softens in that way it does only around him.
Wally looks at him impassively. "If you want, you can watch the ending of a chick flick and save me the trouble of elaborating."
"Wally."
"I mean it. Look, I put this much effort in because I could." Wally looks at him firmly. "It's not like you don't meet me halfway. I'm not crazy, and you're not taking advantage of me, so quit thinking that. You… do a lot for me, and you'd do more. That's all there is to it."
"I…" How is he supposed to follow that? "I think I love you," he finishes numbly.
"I know." Wally smiles, before taking in the stricken look on Roy's face. He adds on a little hesitantly, "If it helps, you can think of this as a kind of thank-you for taking me in, and feeding me, and saving my ass on numerable accounts..."
Roy stares at him for a long time before sighing, when the waiter comes by to take their orders. (Tom Yam Goong for two, please. Just tea. No, that'll be all.)
"Tell you what," Wally suggests over their food. "Next year, we can just stay in and watch shitty B-horrors all night long. We'll eat Nutella strawberries and drink our weight in ten-dollar champagne."
"Don't even try that with me." Roy smiles at him ruefully. "Next year I'm strong-arming Ollie into a private cruise ship bound for Bora-Bora."
Wally looks momentarily delighted before his face scrunches up in realization. "... Wait, you don't have to—"
"Yeah. I do." Roy swigs down his drink and sets the glass decisively onto the table. "Your birthday's coming up too."
"I think you've already got that covered."
"Don't be a sap."
"Shitty movies in our apartment?" Wally tries.
"Bucket list. Now."
A/N: Hmm, I feel kind of like Roy at the moment. I don't know how I'm going to top this chapter.
Dammit Wally, why. Why are you cute and crazy and why do you make me suffer willing lapses of judgment? This is like the climax in a story that wasn't suppose to have a plot.
(Who does this for a one-year anniversary, anyway?)
Fret not, this story will continue. Just don't expect any exotic escapades later on ;)
If anyone is curious, Wally actually wasn't lying. The costs of this, taking into account foreign exchange rates, would probably add up to... under $60, believe it or not. All Wally really paid for were the pizzas and renting the motorcycle; which is cheaper renting by the day in Egypt, I imagine, than it would be in the US. He probably came back and gave a giant, bone-shattering hug to Mgann for the bioship, though.
Mach III is how fast the fastest planes go (three times the speed of sound, or 2220 mph) and Martian planes probably kick Earth planes' asses. With it, it was possible to fly over 4000 miles to Europe and back within a day. Roy's right. That's like casually lending someone your private, state-of-the-art jet.
Aaand Mgann is forever lovable.
Read and review!
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