A/N: I JUST HAD A LOT OF WALLY/BART COUSIN FEELS DON'T JUDGE ME

Chapter 3

The time he spent with Wally was cool, but it only made Bart more keen on following through with his plan to get him together with Dick. And it's mostly because, even though Wally loves Star Wars, he's a trekkie at heart, and Bart doesn't really see what's so special about Star Trek; the thing's old, it takes forever for anything to happen and they don't have lightsabers. Wally liking star trek over star wars is the worst thing everand they're back to hating each other and fighting all the time.

Bart always knew that getting along with Wally would never last. He still doesn't believe it actually happened and that it lasted as long as it did. Now he can definitely go to grandpa and say that he tried.He tried really hard, but he can't get over Wally liking Star Trek.

But, the thing is, Bart is 99.999% sure that Dick is a star wars guy, so, the sooner he gets them together, the sooner Dick can help Wally see the light and everyone's happy; Dick and Wally will be happy, he will be happy, and so will granpa and granma. Everybody wins.

Phase two is actually a hard one because he has to wait for the right moment, and Bart absolutely hateswaiting. But it's for a good cause, so he uses all the strength he possesses and sits through more star trek the next generation episodes and waits. After the third one, Wally turns the TV off and motions his head to Dick, who had fallen asleep midway through it.

"He probably overworked himself on Patrol last night." Wally sighs. "And there's no guarantee he's gonna get some sleep tonight, so we should let him rest for a while, come on."

Yes, Dick's definitely a Star Wars guy. He would never fall asleep during Star Wars, no matter how tired he was, Bart's certain of that.

They leave Dick on the sofa, and Wally decides to go take a shower. Bart tries not to smile too much, but this is actually perfect. Everything's falling into place and this is it. This is the right moment. He leaves a note saying he went to visit Tim, searches the house for all of Wally's spare keys, takes his and Dick's cellphones, locks the two of them inside, and then gives himself a mental high-five for being so brilliant.

He doesn't have to worry about the house phone because it's broken and Wally doesn't have the money to fix it. He refuses to take any help from his family or from his super rich best (boy)friend.

The younger speedster quickly goes around the house and checks the windows to make sure they're locked and that there's no way of them getting out until they resolve their sexual tension and become a couple. Locking people together is actually a trope used in tons of movies and TV shows, sometimes it's an accident, like the boy and the girl get stuck on an elevator, other times it's some kind of an intervention made by the reluctant couple's friends. But it always works. So it's going to work now, they'll start dating, move in together, get married, adopt kids and Bart's going to be the coolest uncle ever, who's gonna get their kids addicted to Star Wars before Wally can corrupt them. Yes, good plan.

Bart watches Wally get out of the bathroom, already dressed. The older redhead takes a good look around, confused by how quiet everything is, and then finds Bart's note. His face does a thing,it's an unhappy thing and Bart can't tell if he's disappointed or upset from the window. Whatever it is, it's probably because he wanted Bart to ask him permission to leave the house or something. Wally's so strict with his boring house rules, it's annoying.

Wally crushes the paper and throws it into the garbage can. He goes to grab a snack, eats it, and it takes ten long, excruciatingminutes for him to glance at where Dick's laying on the sofa.

He walks towards the sofa, sits by his best friend's side and then simply disappears from view. Bart almost yells in frustration when he realizes his view of that one corner in the whole house is blocked. He runs around the house, but the situation doesn't really get any better. He manages to see the sofa from a side point of view, but Wally's back is turned towards him and he can't see what they're doing.

Is Wally lovingly caressing Dick's face and thinking about how sweet and peaceful Dick looks when he's sleeping? Is he going for a stolen kiss? Wally slowly moves to the right and Bart can see Dick's hands moving. Wait. Is Dick awake? When did he woke up? Oh, man, Bart can't believe he missed this.

This is the worst.

Dick looks like he's saying something and Bart grows annoyed. He wants to know what they're saying so bad. Perhaps he should have hidden inside the house, but what if they started making out right after they declare their undying love to each other? Ew. Bart most definitely doesn't want to seethat.

Wally gets up, and moves to the kitchen, while Dick's still talking and wow, Wally, that's rude.That's probably why he can't get a boyfriend on his own, Bart concludes, but then notices Dick's got his hand in his ear.

No!Bart got rid of his cellphones, but forgot to check for communicators. Rookie mistake, Allen. He should have known that Nightwing would have more than one way to contact his team.

Bart ignores his own vibrating phone and inspects his cousin's face, Wally looks as disappointed as Bart feels. It's not what Bart was hoping for, but it is something. For Wally to be this sad over Dick having to leave, it means that he was looking forward to spending some time alone with the former boy wonder, that he has feelingsfor him or maybe that he's just worried over his sleep deprived best friend going on another mission.

Dammit.

He watches as Dick gets up from the sofa and goes to the door, only to find it locked. Wally's eyebrows turn into a frown and, when he doesn't find his spare key in its usual spot, he quickly searches the entire house for it. He comes back, his face's red and angry, goes to the garbage can, grabs the note Bart wrote him and shows it to Dick.

This is turning sour really quick. Bart unhigh-fives himself because all he ever got from phase 2 was to make Wally angry at him.

Bart gets his phone out of his pocket in a hurry to text Tim and ask his friend for an alibi, but as soon as he gets it out, he notices the missed calls and one text message, all from Tim. New baddie in town, meet us in the cave."

He sighs, puts the phone away and, when he raises his head back to the window, he sees Dick walking toward him and almost falls on his back. He runs away and hides behind a tree and watches Dick break the glass with just one punch.

He should have thought about this too.

"You're paying for this, right?" Comes Wally's voice from inside the house.

"Yeah, no worries. Being best friends with Dick Grayson does have its perks, who knew?" Dick gets out and helps Wally do the same. "And I'm sure whatever happened wasn't Bart's fault, okay? Go easy on the kid."

See, that's why Bart likes Dick.

"Yeah, yeah, but still. The kid vanishes and so does our keys and phones." Wally doesn't look very convinced.

"Well, I just texted Tim and he said Bart's with him, just like he said he was, so..."

What? Bart's jaw falls to the ground. Tim covered for him and he didn't even need to ask. Best. Friend. Ever.

"Yeah, okay, I'm sure there is another explanation. I'm gonna go ask Jay for help, he's great with tools. You go do your thing, just take care of Bart, and...Well..." Wally looks away, quickly. "Be careful, okay?"

"I always am, dude." Dick answers and holds Wally's hands and steps into Wally's private space and Bart's dying of anticipation because they're going to kiss, they're going to kiss!"

Dick stops midway and takes his hand to his ear. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Just sit tight."

Bart bangs his head against the tree and some leaves fall. Thank god it's almost fall season, so it doesn't look suspicious.

"Come on, fearless leader, your team needs you. I'm taking you to the nearest zeta tube, so you won't waste anymore time."

"You're all work and no fun." Dick replies and Bart suddenly realizes that he needs to get to the cave before Dick does so he won't suspect anything. Disappointed and a little upset, he takes off.

xxx

"Bart, you know I have no trouble covering for you, but I'd like to know what I'm covering for." Tim says, in lieu of greeting, as soon as Bart halts to a stop by his side.

"I have reasons. Very good reasons." Bart hugs him and fast-debates whether to tell him about his super awesome really amazing infallible plan to get Dick and Wally together and reaches the conclusion that HELL YEAH telling Tim is a great idea. Tim's Dick little brother so of course he'd love to see his big bro happy. Plus, he's really really smart and could go over the plan and make it foolproof. "Man, I can't wait to tell you all about it. Just, not now." He can't talk right now because the computer's just introducing Nightwing.

Dick has the biggest, goofiest smile on his face when he turns to the team.

"Alright, guys, let's get to work."

xxx

The mission is tiring and frustrating. The new baddie played them and escaped and now they've got no new orders, but "go home, rest, and wait for more intel." And if there's anything Bart hates more than waiting, it's waiting in vain, which leaves him with all this energyand nothing to do, nowhere to run.

And to top it off Dick makes sure to tell him that Wally wants him to go home straight away when they return to the cave.

Bart would love to take off running, but he knows that if he does, Wally's going to find out and he's going to tell grandpa and Bart's going to be grounded for life.So he forces himself to slow his mind down and resigns himself to another sleepless night. No matter how hard he tries to sleep when he's like this, he just can't.

When he gets home, the lights are out. It would be easy to just not go in,but something's stopping him. Sighing, he does go in and finds Wally asleep on a chair, by the table. That doesn't look comfortable. The idea of simply running away is still tempting him, but the pull isn't half as strong. Wally fell asleep waiting for himand it makes Bart feel guilty.

That's new. Feeling guilty about disappointing Wally. Bart wants to bang his head against the nearest wall because what? When did this happen? But he thinks about Wally asking Dick to look after him, he thinks about Wally carrying him to bed the other night, he thinks about Wally waiting all this time for him to return, he thinks that maybe, maybeWally cares about him and he can't help it.

"Dammit." He curses, as he watches his sleeping cousin. He wishes he could do something to make him more comfortable, but there's no way he can carry Wally to bed without waking him. Then he sees Wally unconsciously shiver and a brilliant idea hits him. He runs back to Wally's room and comes back with a pillow and two blankets.

When he tries to move Wally's head to place the pillow, Wally jerks awake and blinks at him. Bart's knows he could and should have run, but he freezes on the spot, instead, and now he's been caught caring.

Wally gapes at him and he gapes back at Wally because that was never supposed to happen.

"Thanks." Wally takes the pillow from him, surprised and a little embarrassed at what just happened. "But, hey, how was the mission?"

"Horrible." Bart answers, eager to change the subject. "We had a stakeout but, as it turns out, we were watching the wrong guy the whole time. He playedusandIwassomadbutwhatcouldwedoabout..."

"Hey." Wally stops his speed rant with a hand to his shoulder. Now that's he's more awake, he can see how bursting with energy his little cousin is, he's practically bouncing up and down. Bart's whole body's aching to run and burn all the energy and Wally still remembers how it feels. It's not a good feeling. "How about we go camping at the backyard?"

"What?" Bart blinks at him.

"Well, I'm rested, and you don't look like you are tired, so... Why not? I think I've got some camping equipment in the..." He doesn't even finishes the sentence because Bart's gone and then he's back, with the equipment at his feet. "Okay, you've already found it. Look, Kid, I know running is amazing, but sometimes we gotta put the speed to other uses and learn new things, so, what do you say?" He waits for Bart to nod. "Wait, do we have..." There's another rush of wind and Bart's back with marshmallows. "Good, let's go."

Bart reads the whole manual in five seconds, but putting the tent together takes longer than he imagined because, in his rush, he neglected a lot of details and details are important, Bart, pay attention to them.Wally makes him go through it all over again, a lot slower, so they can double-check everything. By the end of it, they have everything ready, a small fire burning and Bart's tired and a little bit sleepy, but he refuses to acknowledge it only because he doesn't really want the night to end.

Wally looks at his little cousin yawn, and feels both proud and nostalgic. Uncle Barry used to take him camping and let him do all the hard work so he could burn the energy when he got like this. It's a speedster thing and it always works.

"What're you thinking about? Is it a story? We have a fire, we should tell each other's horror stories, or, you know, just... normal stories... Or whatever." Bart stuffs some marshmallows into his mouth to stop himself from talking.

"Dude, you're from the future. Don't you, like, know everything already?" Wally raises an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, I mean, I've heard stories, but I don't really know the details, you know? And details are important, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Okay, fine. What do you wanna hear?"

"Just start with how you got your powers." Bart's reply is quick and Wally's taken aback. He figured Bart would like to know more about his grandfather, he never thought that Bart would be interested in himso it's surprising, to say the least.

And it's kind of nice, too. It's nice and Wally starts the tale. He realizes he may have gotten a little too excited when he notices he's spent a whole hour just describing his first meeting with the Flash.

"Dude, we should sleep." He stops when he sees Bart trying to hide another yawn. "We can continue tomorrow, I promise."

"What? No, I'm not tired!" Bart's stubborn.

"Yeah, I know, but I am, so, let's go. Come on." He gestures to the tent, and Bart groans.

"But you slept while waiting for me, you shouldn't be tired!" He finds strength to complain, but not enough to hide another yawn.

"Yeah, but I'm old, so I'm allowed." Wally smiles when he hears Bart laugh at his joke, and crawls inside the tent, after his cousin. "Just shut up." He hits Bart's shoulder, pushing him away because the kid's still laughing and hey, the joke's not really that funny. He's not thatold.

Bart's laugh turns into another yawn. "Can you keep a secret, Wally?" He lays down and shifts to a comfortable position, closing his eyes.

"Yep." Wally lays down close to him and tries not to freak out because Bart's trusting him with a secret."I've kept Dick's ID a secret for years, remember? Whatever your secret is, I'm your guy." His nervous rant causes him to mentally facepalm. He needs to stop being stupid and freaking out before he ruins the moment and Bart's back to hating him, so he shuts up and waits.

Bart's eyes are closed and he takes so long to answer Wally believes he feel asleep on him, but then the kid's mumbling "you're my Flash," before turning away from him.

Wally freezes on the spot because what?What does it mean? Was he The Flash in the future? Was Bart his Kid Flash? What made him change his mind about retiring? Did something happen to uncle Barry? Oh, god. Wally doesn't like where this train of thought's going, so he just stops. There's no reason to dwell in the future, especially in a future they stopped from happening.

He takes a deep breath, looks at Bart's back and can't stop himself from thinking about being hisFlash. Did they get along? He remembers how he felt annoyed, angry and jealouswhen Bart first showed up, and maybe things were different in that future, but maybe they weren't and future!Wally never actually had the time to say:

"You know what, Kid? You're alright." He pets Bart's head, sighs, turns around to sleep and makes a mental note to tell him again when Bart's awake before closing his eyes.

Unbeknownst to him, Bart's awake and smiling.