As promised, Dick arrives early morning. Maybe a little too early just because Wally doesn't do mornings so he gets to make as much fun of the redhead as he wants and only get incoherent groanings in reply.

Bart's dying to get started with his plan already, but decides some investigating's in order first. He knew Dick and Wally were best friends before he came to the past, but he's never been around both of them before for long, so he doesn't know much about their relationship. He needs some time to observe and categorize how in denial they are; depending on the answer, he's not going to waste any time on the first steps and jump straight to phase 3.

Thirty minutes in and Bart's bored already, but he forces himself to continue. There's a lot of teasing, joking, and talking over each other until they're fake fighting, but the line from friendly platonic no homo touching to yes, homo touching is never crossed, they always pull away in the right second, the second before it starts getting weird. Their hands are always dangerously close together, and, while their pinkies bump into each other sometimes, they never actually interwine.

There's a lot of staring, though. Bart doesn't really pay any attention to Wally's explanation on why his favorite cartoon character isn't really dead because there's no body, you guys, she just disappeared into thin air, so maybe she could have like skipped dimensions or something, but Dick does, even though it's probably not the first (or even second) time he's hearing it. Dick has such a fond look on his eyes while he watches Wally rant about the science of dimension travelling, there is obviously something there.

And Wally does the same thing when Dick's not looking. It takes some time for Bart to realize whether he's making heart eyes at Dick or at the burgers the former boy wonder's making, but the staring continues after the cooking's over so it's safe to assume Dick's feeling are reciprocated.

But the staring's never happens at the same time, so how can they know the feelings are mutual? Bart checks the pining box in his master plan and decides to start at phase one. He feels suddenly the weight of responsibility on his shoulders because if his plan fails, it might take them days, months, or even years to get together and nothing should take that much time to happen. If Dick and Wally like each other, then they should stop wasting time and just get together now.

Wally yells that lunch is ready and Bart smiles at the paper in his hands; his plan is amazing and his logic is flawless. There's no way this could go wrong.

He watches from his door, and waits until they're by each other sides before yelling: "Coming!" He runs toward the table, making sure to pass right between them and knocks Dick to the side with his superspeed.

"Hey!" Wally yells after him, brows frowned, but rushes over to stop Dick from falling. In less than a minute, he's holding the brunet in his arms. "Hey, you okay, dude?"

Dick raises his head and that's it, they're staring right into each other eyes like all the rom coms he watched the night before as research material dictates they should. He unlocks his phone, searching for the perfect soundtrack because that's the moment a very cheesy love song starts playing out of nowhere, but before he can find it, Dick's already back on his feet.

"Thanks, bro." He says and Wally noncomittally shrugs. It's incredibly awkward and Bart feels like smashing his head against the wall and just giving up because maybe he got carried away with the idea of Dick moving in when there's nothing really there between them, but then Dick smirks. "Nice reflexes. Six months out of the team and you still got it, who knew?"

"Hell yeah, I still got it." Wally laughs, but then bites on his bottom lip. "And by the way, I've been thinking about something all this time and if you ever need my help, maybe I could... I could come back."

Bart can't keep his jaw from falling to the floor because what.

"Not full time, not like before. Bart, Kid Flash's still yours." Wally quickly adds before they can start having ideas. "But, dude, you're overworking yourself way too much being leader of young justice and having your own city to look after. Did you even sleep last night?"

Dick's obviously in shock too, because he has nothing to say to that.

Wally fakes a cough and looks away. "I mean, I know now's not the time to discuss it, but I just want you to know that... Well, I'm here for you. Anytime you need, bro."

Bart's resolve is back to one hundred and fifty percent because, even if there's a few I love you s missing from that love declaration, it's still a love declaration. Grandpa Barry has been trying to get Wally back into crimefighting for a while now, and he always refused. But for Dick, he would go back to it. He knows Dick would never ask it of him. but he would do it, nevertheless. If that's not love, then Bart doesn't want to know what is.

He almost shouts and does a little happy dance when Dick takes Wally's hands on his.

"Thanks, Wally, that means a lot. Truly." He squeezes them, and smiles. They're really close to one another, but he's not staring at Wally's eyes this time, no, he's staring right at Wally's lips and that's even better! "You're the best bro a bro could ask for."

"I know, right?" Wally laughs and takes a step back, glancing at Bart with the corner of his eyes, but Dick doesn't seem disappointed.

"So how does today sound?" He says and shrugs. "I'm doing a drug bust and your help would be appreciated. Especially because I kind of twisted my ankle yesterday."

"Dammit, Dick." Wally curses, shaking his head. "Were you going to tell me about that ankle if I hadn't offered my help first?"

"Nope." Dick's smile is nonchalant, and the moment's gone, they're back to friendly platonic teasing.

The moment's gone, but Bart doesn't let it discourage him. For a moment to be gone, it needs to actually exist first, and it did. Bart saw it. And Bart's going to make it happen again. It's time for phase two.

He's going to start working on it right now.

"Maybe we should take Bart with us." Dick says and wait. What.

"I don't think..." Wally doesn't seem to like the idea.

"Come on, dude, two speedsters is better than one." Dick throws one arm around him. "Plus, if I'm not mistaken, this will be the first time you two team up. He can learn a lot from you."

Ha. Bart really doubts Wally has something to teach him, but he's not about to ruin his chances by laughing out loud.

"Yes, yes, come on, it's going to be so fun!" He goes to Wally and pulls at his sleeve, bouncing up and down with excitement. To be completely honest, he's a bit curious to fight by Wally's side. He's heard stories from everyone, but Wally. They haven't gone in any missions before Wally quit superheroing and then he quit superheroing and Bart never thought he'd have a chance to see his cousin in action with his own eyes.

"Yeah, okay." Wally sighs and gives in, earning him a quick hug from the other speedster. "But you're gonna behave, and do everything me and Dick tell you to do, okay?"

Bart nods enthusiastically. Phase two's not going anywhere, it can wait until tomorrow.

xxx

Bart's so excited after the drug bust, he can't fall asleep. He can't believe Wally even let him go, and that it went so smoothly. But the most unbelievable part of the night is that he actually had a lot of fun working with Dick and Wally; he and Dick made fun of Wally's improvised black costume, they all took a selfie with the drug dealer tied up behind them to send Tim and then he and Wally raced back home. The race ended up being a tie, but Bart doesn't really care. Speedster races aren't about winning or losing, but sharing with someone the amazingly awesome feeling of running in superspeed. It's about looking to the side and seeing someone keep up and smile back at you, it's about having someone understand.

He gets up, deciding to go for a snack and finds Wally at the kitchen, doing the exact same thing. The entire second it takes to Wally to turn around makes him worried because Dick's not there anymore. What if Wally's back to insufferable overprotective cousin and the whole day's ruined? Maybe he should run away back to his room and hide so they'll end the day on a good note.

Then Wally looks over to him and smiles.

"Couldn't sleep either, yeah?

Bart nods, instead of answering with words because he doesn't want to mess it up.

"Here." Wally hands him a bag of Chicken Whizees. "This stuff's amazing and you'll love it."

Bart accepts it and takes a mouthful. "Oh, my god!" He exclaims and then shoves a lot more into his mouth.

Wally wholeheartedly laughs and pets him in the head. "Guess I still got some stuff to teach you, huh, kid?"

Bart just nods again, instead of answering out loud, but this time it's because his mouth is filled with all the chicken whizees.

"And, since we're still up, maybe we could play some video games and pass some time? We're on vacation so it's not like we need to wake up early tomorrow, right?"

"Video games?" Bart asks, confused.

"What? Don't tell me you don't have video games in the invasion apocalyptic future?" He realizes before finishing the sentence and facepalms. "Well, okay, come with me."

Bart follows him to his bedroom.

"I've lent some games to Dick, but I still got my Star Wars's. Force unleashed?"

"What's Star Wars? Did you fight in it? Did Nightwing and young justice?"

"Oh, kid. I had no idea uncle Barry was neglecting your education." Wally bites on his bottom lip and goes from his games to the DVDs on his shelf. "Prepare to learn, young padawan."

Bart has no idea what's going on, but Wally's smiling, he seems excited and, when he sits on the couch next to him, their shoulders bump and he doesn't move away.

xxx

Bart wakes up with a blanket up to his neck and realizes he's not in Wally's room anymore, he's in his own. There are two options to what happened; whether he dreamed the whole star wars thing and he could have because the plot is crazy, or it was all true and he felt asleep on top of Wally so his cousin carried him back to his room.

He doesn't know each option is better, so he decides to let it go and gets up for breakfast. He stops by his door because he hears Wally's voice on the phone and Wally's talking about him.

"Yeah, dude, can you believe he didn't know what star wars was?" Then a pause. "Yes, Dick, of course I started with episode IV, who do you think I am? Yes, you should be sorry, oh my god." Then a very, very long pause. "Yeah, it was... Nice. Really nice." Another pause. "I don't know, he fell asleep in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back and what if it was because he though it was boring? What if he hates it? Dick, I won't be able to bear it if he hates it, I swear to god, I'm gonna..."

"I like it." Bart yells from the door and goes to the living room.

"Oops, have to go, dude. Talk to you later." Wally hangs up and turns to his little cousin. "Really?"

"Yes. Is Dick coming over today?"

"No, he has stuff to do. But do you really like it?" He waits for Bart to nod and then lets out a relieved sigh. "Then we have four and a half movies to watch now. Then, there's star trek, which is also about space, and then we need to sit down and have a serious discussion over which one is better."

Bart's plan was to start phase two today, but Dick's not coming. He thinks he should be more disappointed, but somehow, he's not. He's excited. He's excited to spend an entire day watching movies with Wally alone. Wow. That's weird. But, at the same, time it's kind of... Nice. Really nice.